Alexander acosta, the dean at the Florida InternationalUniversity Law school. He was also an assistant attorney general under george w. Bush. Well hear more about that, the president without naming his candidate earlier in a meeting with members of congress, said that he is a great man, hes excited about this pick. So well wait and see what happens there. But to give you a sense of just how quickly this press conference has been arranged, i want to talk to some of the press aides just after the president announced it. They didnt know there was a press conference Just Announced by the president. In fact, were still not told definitively the question will take questions. Well see what format here at the white house. We expect the Alexander Acosta nomination to be made formally there, and wait and see if reporters get a chance to ask questions on a whole host of other subjects that have been swirling around this white house in recent days, scott. Eamon, thanks. Well be back to you then. In the meantime, we mentioned the mainly averages rangebound today but going for these new records, at least out of the gates. Yeah. And i think there is an important dynamic. David faber put a report out earlier today, talking about a big trader out there who put on this short gumballs, whatever the option strategy was. Basically, getting very short the market on an institutional side, and we have seen the s p rally significantly from 2300 to 2340. The question becomes, how many others out there, this rally is built on skepticism. How many big institutional players out there have put on these type of larger wagers, okay, that have to be as you go through strikes unwound and you see a short squeeze in the market. And i really believe yesterday that was a significant short squeeze. Are there others that will accelerate the market to go further . Thats a big question out there right now. Has this rally, steve, gotten to the point where its become the trump bubble . Or no. We have to start thinking of this in those terms . I dont think its a bubble. I think that the seeds of the rally were really planted before trump took office. Hes i get it. But, look, weve rallied the way we have for a variety of reasons. Clearly, were closer his agenda is certainly one of them, okay . Ill tell you, we will find out in one or two weeks when the the tax bill or tax proposal or tax plan, whatever hes calling it, is going to come to light, right . He guaranteed last week, well see it in two or three weeks. So that point, when we see whats there, and when we get a sense of how long it will take to come to fruition because part of that is already baked in the market. So your point, yes, thats what has created the bubble. Im saying, is there a bubble . I dont think is there a bubble. I dont think its a bubble at all. There is no bubble. Bubbles are 23 times, 24 times. Right now where you are is not a bubble. Youve got optimistic companies, through the quarter in terms of overall earnings. Wasnt phenomenal, but we saw growth so there are things in place. Were seeing inflation and youve still got historically low rates. With the fed, three times this year. And youll still have very low rates and the rest of the Global Economy is participating, as well. So, josh, at what point in this cycle of this rally do you start to get concerned . Do you start to legitimately question as to whether its a bubble or not . So i mean, to be honest, the whole premise of this doesnt really jive with what we do. We dont get concerned. What we do is, we manage money in a diversified way. Were never all stocks, no matter how good it looks or feels. And whenever all u. S. Stocks, when were in stocks, is number one. Number two, we do rulesbased tactical. So when the market is no longer in an up trend, our posture will change, but it wont be because im stroking my chin. I think the big picture here, were looking at a sevenday s p rally. Rsi is through the roof, probably. It will blow off and pullback makes sense. Youve got to go back to july 2013. But we had a great finish to the year. It doesnt mean if this shorterterm rally ends that its somehow deconstructed for the whole market. By the way, the last nineday rally straight is back in 04 and the bull market continued on for another twoandahalf years. Lets not get overly concerned how many days straight its up or when there will be a pause or pullback. Other things are happening, scott, internationally that provide an underpinning for this rally. Emerging markets look phenomenal. Look at onemonth t bills. Cash now yields. 53 on a 30day treasury. Scott, that is a nineyear high. So there are a lot of other things happening beyond just how many days is the s p up. The Global Economy, obviously, what josh is referencing right now, when you look at that, and you look at the earnings that we actually concrete numbers that we have been able to actually look at and the consolidation of certain areas that all of a sudden get reaccelerating to the up side. And i think specifically, yesterday, that big move in the last couple of days. But the financials and the fact that people have gotten a little bit more comfortable with that, scott. I think when you look across, we have been rotating, rotating, rotating now for over a year in the marketplace. And that rotation has provided a great opportunity. Is there bubbles . I think there are still some bubbles. But the bubbles arent in the financials. Where . When you look at whats on the bottom end right now, im still not a big fan of these utilities and some others that had the big run and then you suddenly look at pes that are in the lower 20s and people are talking about high volatility and talking about high pe levels and certain tech names. Not even close. When you look across cisco, that stock, as its going through this process of transforming itself from being a Hardware Company into a Software Company and a security, and internet of things and all of those things that Earnings Call last night sort of set it off. Thats why that stock is breaking out today. I think the firm that faber had been talking about, they said trump bubble. Yeah, they said trump bubble. They did. And its funny in the last couple days ive spoken to a lot of people who like josh say were in the marketplace, so were looking for warning signs. We see warning signs everywhere. And my kind of response and reaction to that is, well, have you not participated in the rally higher, and the antibiotics answer is, no, we have actually bet against that. How long do you stay in on a tactical basis . Betting against a market that continues to move so significantly . Any day of any week, over the last eight years. Any market. Guys who find warning signs, look for warning signs. There is always a warning sign. The unanswerable question, when will it matter. Its unanswerable, because youre talking about the mass activities of billions of people in the business community, in global markets, in currencies. There is absolutely no way to determine pu ratios are going to matter now. It doesnt work that way. Its interesting your perspective. Because the people i talk to, they may not like whats going on. I mean, for example, if you saw the headline in the journal today and you didnt know it was the u. S. , you would see next step is a coup. And theyre going to fall. What do you mean the Intelligence Agency is withholding information. George soros got run over, because he fell into his political beliefs in making a marked decision. If you look at the market rationally and you remove your political beliefs and leave that for the social aspects of it, youve got to be invested in the market. You also know that at a point in time, there is going to be a correction. So we start moving away from the market last year, because of where levels were. The bubble to me is in some of the credit products. Direct lending is a pure bubble. They havent vintaged yet. And by the way, does it sound familiar . Im getting 8 to 10 like clockwork every year. Without any variation. Thats the bubble. We can debate the fundamentals of the rally, the trumpness of the rally, if you will. The technicals may be signalling an acceleration in the rally, as well. Jason hunter is the head of Global Fixed Income and u. S. Equity strategy. Jason, welcome. Good to talk to you. Thank you for having me. You have a note today that suggests were entering the acceleration phase of the rally, as you put it. Yeah, the headline is sensational. Really confirmation, basically the market consolidated over the last couple years that is typical of what you saw around the initial fed hikes within a cycle. Especially the ones that came off when the fed had made it very easy policy and were moving back. You saw that in 1983, 1994 and 2004. That was the basis of the call, the market would consolidate in a broad and violent range that could see a pullback from the 2100 area. Once that was behind us and you look back at the past periods, what you tend to see is the rally starts to get going and it starts off as a very choppy affair but then becomes more linear. That was the basis of our call moving into 2017, what we saw just over the past couple of weeks is confirmation of that. Not just a linear price action that you see in the s p 500, but from a Sector Performance perspective, as well. Where weve had over the past several months, particularly with the initial leg of the rally in the second half of last year, or certain sectors or styles rallying, but you basically other sectors getting hit he it same time. So what we have seen now is value in growth, both rallying together over the past couple of weeks. And for us, thats a very good sign we have. The top end of your technical range looks to me to be 2486. About 140 s ps from now. Is that correct . Thats correct. Yes. So we have roughly, you know, base case of 2450 target that we think is reasonable for 2017. That comes with one caveat. And if you look at latecycle rallies of the past, 1986 into 87, 1998 to 2000, you mention this is a macro call, how the economics shape up as the late cycle rally progresses and now even more important than ever, southe certain political aspects as well. Manage our risks with the trailing stop loss, try to be there as the rally develops. And just try and be there. Do we see technical rotations out of certain sectors into others . Like financials have obviously been one if not the Leadership Group of what we have seen, of late, does that morph into Something Else . Yes, so that really started in the summer of last year. And a large basis of our long financials call that we made in the summer was predicated on our rates view. The rates would start to move higher and as everyone knows, thats a highly core ratelated trade. Versus the s p, overlay a chart on top, its more or less the same thing. So that correlation is still there. I think it will stick around for a bit more. And as rates consolidated and in the only weeks of this year and as you saw over the last week or so, moved back toward the cheap end of the range, financials went with that. I think that will persist. Like you said, you saw that as rotation initially. But the thing we find exciting, for the first time in a while, you saw value, which is really the financials, there is some energy in there, and growth. Accelerate together over the past two weeks. So its less of a rotation trade that we saw over the last two weeks and more of a pure rally unfold in equities. How do you see doing both major assets. Fixed income bond, are they finally going into equities, on your Technical Work . We think the bear market extends in the fixed market this year. Our base case view is that the tenyear note could extend as farce 3 and oscillate around the 285 area, given the fed soik he will. Everyone looks at the tenyear note as the proxy. But you should see the Interest Rate volatility make its way in on the curve through the fiveyear note and eventually the two and threeyear notes. If you look at our rates call, we think rates will extend higher. Ten should start to get sticky at some point as we work away through the year and thats where you see the more traditional flattening on the treasury curve. Jason, appreciate the time very much. Well talk to you again soon. My pleasure. Jason looked like a young ben bernanke. With jpmorgan. So josh, you look at the technicals more than anybody on the show. Yeah. Does this sort of make sense to the way you look at things . Well, so a couple things. The first is rotations are positive, not negative. Specifically when youre in range of new highs or at new highs. In other words, what you dont want to see is a narrowing Leadership Group. You dont want to see fang part two. Youre not seeing that. And youre even seeing some days where staples and utilities absent any kind of rally in bonds, youre seeing those names have their day in the sun. This is exactly what you want when youre at these levels. And then the second thing that i think is worth pointing out, its not all perfect underneath the hood, scott. Were not a perfect conditions. You have in highs versus new lows starting to drop off a little bit. Or at least not confirming new price highs. Thats something that technicians are watching. So you know, i dont think were talking goldilocks here. Were just talking about an advance in the market, part of which is being built on the earnings reports were seeing. Part of which is being built on optimism surrounding things like repatriation and tax breaks. We dont know whats actually going to happen with any of that stuff. But at the end of the day, youre not selling 30 times earnings like you were in 1999. Youre selling at 16. 5, 17. 5, in that range. If you only get up a small percentage of what trumps promising by 2018, its not the most insane multiple. Its not the biggest bubble or whatever some of the superlatives have been saying. Whats the biggest risk, then . Thats out there to what we have done . Maybe take the trump side out of it. If you say it depends some characterize whats happening at the white house as turmoil. Others characterize it this is exactly what the president said he was going to do. Hes doing it. We havent discussed the fed. A lot of commentary is saying no, the market is ready for it, being done for the right reasons, the economy is strong enough. You have an 11 correction last year, because china did something with the yuan overnight. That only 20 of the people in the market expected. So nobody was talking about in advance came right back. Whats going to cause that next 11 whoosh . Very hard to see. So were talking about a lot of fundamentals. You know, you asked josh originally, what are the technicals in the market. Its very hard to examine the current technical picture and say this is going to be what is going to identify what a correction is going to be. Steven mentioned something before about people participating in the market. What generally tends to happen is when ranges expand as they currently are and the price begins to accelerate to the up side, what jason just talked about, most people have a tendency to kind of bet against that, which is the wrong move. If you think back gal assy. If you think about 2007, the price of oil went from 50 in crude oil to 147. You have a very combustible situation right now. You have computers that are following this momentum. If ranges are expanding and people are betting against it, getting short, that is going to create one hell of a move to the up side that could be parabolic. And thats how technically you know this thing ends. So speaking of sort of momentum and where the money has been going into, you know, some are questioning today whether the financial run is getting a little bit out of hand. I mean after the consolidation phase . Credit suite suisse took down wells fargo today. I think that actually made a lot of sense. What they did was, they had a great call. We sat on call of the day. How many people were scoffing when john was sitting there, buying that stock and everybody is like, ooh i dont want to get in front of that thing. Whats going on. 43, 44 share. Now the stock has pushed up to the up side, scott, and you continue to look. The interesting part of this, it still has a 56 price target. The idea is, hey, look, this is a guy who was right and hes taken some of the chips off the board and thinks theres other places that i think react to the up side. And if you look at the financials right now, and we all talk about pe all of the time. But with financials, youre talking about price to book whether to pe oftentimes. You look at citi right now, as much as i like bank of america, i own bank of america stock, i have citi calls. I think citi has the most up side. Citi is the last one trading below. Well below. Ive been buying citi and over the last week. Citi i think is my biggest lieu kady is still my biggest financial position. Lots of up side there. You need a positive view in terms of bonds. That will be the top tangible book. Well, you dont need it to get there, though. Tangible book of 28. And now its 25. A lot of up side there too. Youre talking to a group, that dont keep static positions. If you ask pete, your bank of america position three months, what was it. I believe its always going to be different. I know positions are going to be different. My Goldman Sachs is going to look different than at 250. Youre always going to be managing around where the current price is adding. Pairing back as the market extends. Bank of america is a stock ive liked for so long and have actually held it and had absolutely no changes. The changes that do happen there is buying call options because i get even more bullish about it and try to get those bumps along the way. Its one of those stocks like an apple i just want to hold on to. Now that its youre using options im trading around but its a stock hold. Were doing the same thing. Were saying, okay, we believe Goldman Sachs and financials, since november, thats the place to be. Okay, maybe we dont own hypothetically 100 shares. Now we own 500 shares. And then we take it back to 100 shares. Youre managing the position youre always saying long ill give two names i think high 80s right now. These are 100 stocks disguised as 8 oh 0 something. The first is jpmorgan, doesnt have as much up side percentagewise as Something Like a citi if thingsing it to go well for the space because the stock sells at a premium multiple and everyone already likes it. I think its going to claw its way up into that triple digit area. The other one is visa. Visa continues to be under accumulation by berkshire. They have even trimmed some master card to buy more visa. This is a name at 88, 86, 87 in that range. I think you can buy it. And i think this will be a triple digit name, close your eyes for a few months, youll get there. Steve, give me the last stock, quick. A brilliant market prognosticator once said, its not where stocks have come from. Its where theyre going to. And thats one of your favorite people, too. Stephen weiss. Thank you. Leave it to weise. The namedropper to drop his own name. The ultimate drop name twitters chief operating officer talks scleefl to us about the company and the stock and its future. That is next. And would you invest in something that makes this their Business Model . Is this 20 billion Company Worth investing in . See if the traders are lining up to get a piece of snap. Halftime report is back after this. [pony ig] wh y gary oh. Whatsith thzehoe . Ied tryinfigu out ts mptrade bught iomrt pony, th lpersonightmthe y scre dirtly rr, hp me deaisnt igwellca so ytition mee . Po so whahat app c torim on at tdmeritre. So ytition mee . Po so whahat ross new yk st om lg isffal univsityartnshs,on vaeyfromlbantoti, anthe lowest taxes idecadearcrny r ss to ve. Hennmt in new rk ste were back on the Halftime Report, shares of twitter down slightly today, down almost 30 since october. This morning mad moneys jim cramer spoke with anthony noto asking why the Company Keeps addition pointing on revenue. The biggest factor we face is that advertiser using are already in size from six to twelve months ago. We have to get allocations in the future budgets and they allocate six to 12 months ahead of time. Josh, im going to you. Youre the shareholder and you never hear from noto. This was a big deal. I like noto. I dont think what he is saying is the truth. I talk to people at facebook, and i talked to advertising people at fortune 500 companies that use facebook. And i dont think it has to do with the size of the audience, as much as it has to do with efficacy, number one. Are the ads doing what you want the ads to do if youre spending the money. I dont think theyre there yet. And the second problem is, quite frankly, you dont know as much about your customer as if youre twitter, as you do if youre facebook. If youre facebook, your customer voluntarily is vomiting up every detail of their life to you 24 7. You twitter is anonymous accounts. They are just starting to learn peoples birthdays. They dont know their shopping history. Their web browsing history. Facebook is drowning in that data. They have many, be many more employees who are gifted at slicing and dicing. So it works better for both the user, im going to see more relevant stuff and for the advertiser, im only going to spend money getting this in front of people who might actually take an action. So i am not saying twitter cant get there. But i think noto understates the problem. Let me ask this. What does it say in and of itself that noto did an interview today with jim and as i said, you never hear from this guy. Publicly. And the stock is down 1 . So they put out their the biggest horse they have, right . I mean, dorsey clk, not to be disrespectful at all, but on wall street, noto is the biggest horse they have. And the stock is still down 1 . I think there are two things that if youre going to be on twitter, youre relying on. Youre relying on that theyll actually have people paying for the product, with jim asking the question, dismissive of that, anthony noto. That doesnt seem like a reality. And secondarily, you know, i get jack dorsey bought 7 million of i actually think thats the wrong move. Youre telling the market that theres not a buyer out there by doing that. Sit back, dont buy the stock. Keep the market i disagree. I disagree, as well. We already know there was no buyer. We already know where the buyers are. The buyers were out there and they apparently all walked away. But you guys dont know that. We pretty much do. Now you know with certainty. I think we do know. The stock went up to 24 and then dropped like a sack when everybody was like no touch that was an easy look. Shot everyone on earth, joe, publicly. He was out there, man. You dont have confirmation of it, though. There is no confirmation until he actually goes out and buys the shares. Now you know there is confirmation theres no buyer. Ill tell you what the problem is. Jack when he stepped up to the plate bought 7 million worth. He should have bought 7 million shares, not 7 million. That was the problem. Because if you go back and you look at jamie dimon, you look at steve wynn, the guys who buy their own stock, they do it in a meaningful way that tells everybody they really do mean 7 million is not a conviction. Youre looking for conviction from somebody who is half a ceo. Right. You know half ceo. There are differences, also in the metrics of the companies. With jpmorgan, there is nothing wrong with it. Its a question of market timing. Show people there is nothing wrong with it. You clearly get the point, though. I get the point in spades. That these guys are making. Right . Theres another ceo out there who might need 7 million doesnt do anything to instill confidence in anybody. Heres the problem. They have got to monetize. So maybe the rank and file. Theyve got to mondetizmonet number one, and number two, figure out what they do with fake news. Quote, unquote, these fake twitter accounts out there. Thats the issue right now. Heres the other issue. Okay . Noto comes out, and i dont think its an accident that he comes out on the day that you see snap fix their price range. So now youve got institutions that are knowing what theyre going to allocate. Theyve got a better sense, because youve got some valuation there to snap. So maybe they want to free up some dollars if theyre left in twitter to put to snap. The lack of conviction runs very deep in this company. Theyve spent a lot of money to incent people to stay or come. It hasnt worked out. The compensation we talked about last time is just off the charts. Stockbased compensation. And still not working. They have had a ton of turnover. You have Board Members of this company that dont tweet. Right. Its unbelievable. They dont use could you imagine, like, Board Members at cocacola just never, ever having a like, it just its mindboggling. I dont understand who is on the board and why. If theyre not even users of the product, they cant report back and say, hey, guys, thanks for putting me on the board six months ago. I started a twitter account, im out there in the mix. I have an understanding heres the other issue. Snap. The headlines in terms of the fundamentals coming out of their docks, right, are not good. Right . That user youre suggesting its more twitter than it is facebook. Exactly right. Exactly right. So the model is suspect. So youve got that issue going against it. So i just dont really see well, thats a sentiment. So i dont really and valuation the valuation range for the upcoming ipo suggests that a little bit, too. Its at the lower end of whats the worst that can happen, i think, actually for an ipo. To do a downround as ipo. And people are saying, oh, it shows maturity. Theyre leaving some room for a pop. All right, thats cute. But the reality is, all this stuff is a big conference game. You dont know how its going to work out. The details in the s1 were somewhat surprising. Surprisingly negative. Right . They were. Yeah. Thats my point. Fair characterization. Positive they wouldnt become public. Its killing them. How about that . Who is their biggest competition . Its not twitter. Its whats app and whats app going headtohead with snapchat. Or instagram stories. Thats i meant instagram, yeah, yeah. 400 million on there. Because we have taken the conversation to snap, are you guys going to be buyers on the ipo . Looking to get a piece . Yes. I figured you might. Yeah. Just because i think it will be an unrealistic pop. You could be out in an hour. Absolutely. Yeah. That is not an investment. I would skip this one and i would be glad look. I would like to see it work. I think its a cool service. I use it. I have friends that are on it all day. You know, i think its cool. I would like to see it work. I dont know if i want to be its a free put. Hold a bid so youll take it. A small float. If it doesnt work. I just want to remind people of why were showing the east room of the white house. Were expecting the president of the United States momentarily in the room where we expect him to announce his new nominee for labor secretary. Nbc news confirming it will be Alexander Acosta, the Law School Dean at Florida International university. We should see the president and mr. Acosta in a matter of moments. Well take you to the white house when that event begins. Lets talk about apple, though, while we wait for this news event. Made history twice this week. New record intraday. New record high. My favorite stock. What do we do here . Yeah. Suddenly, your favorite. Exactly. He was the biggest hater in the world. Hated this thing at 95 up to 115. He emails us every day now. Hey, apple. I got into apple. If you mock people for flipflopping, though, i think its funny. I havent flipflopped. The truth is, the best investors are flexible. You have to say, all right, i had an opinion about this, it turns out not to have been true. It has been true. It has been true. No, you were wrong. But its good hold on, hold on. Hold on. The fundamentals something every day. Let it go. The fun bells one thing youre wrong about the fundamental is not rolling, whatever you do. The ceo got paid down, they have not innovated. The stock has done well in the bear market early on. I get paid on where the how about when you set records across just about every single let me ask a question. Im just curious. If a company did 1,000 in revenue last year, any company, right, and their target was 1,020 but instead did 1,001, thats a record, isnt . Sure. Jim just giving an example. It depends on what targets youre talking about. The point is, the share in china, in india, theyre growth markets. If you look two years ago, the growth markets, theyve lost share. So youre just saying youre a bandwagon guy who got on jumped on. Momentum player. Right . Thats thats what youre saying, right . I recognize im not saying there is anything wrong with it. A trend in the stock. Im just saying i recognized a trend in a trade and a flexible Great Investors are, as you pointed out. I tried to give you a compliment. Five years to realize theres you know, not always ive been out before. Right. He has an apple phone. I have an ipad. Every apple product, he just doesnt like the stock. Are we spending too much time on apple, and not enough time on those in system . I think steve wants trump to come out. What about the companies that are feeding into so i always hate those stories. Ill tell you why. Theyre like in the caboose. So they dont ever see when the train is about to, you know, hit smack into a wall. And so their earnings warning comes a quarter after the oem that theyre supplying. So i never, ever play those. Im not saying you cant make money. There are people that are experts in that. But if youre a casual investor, trying to get a second or third derivative play of apple, i think youre kidding yourself. There are people with boots on the ground in taiwan that will school you on whats going on in factories. Thats not for you to try to do. So i skip those thats partially true. But i think you can also go back dont you own some of this . Yes. And i would say this. When the suppliers are giving you earnings before apples earnings and you see some of those numbers and theyre off the charts, thats a great read, at least going into the apple quarter. Which ones do you own . Well, right now i own intel and ive got one other one thats an exposure towards apple. The one ive been watching closely is sears logic. Which has fallen off. Now i think the best opportunity if you look at a chart going into joshs world, somewhere around 50 is going to be the opportunity for a buyer. Yeah. Joe . Corning youre silent on apple. I dont own it. Ive said for many, many weeks now, im trying to help these guys out by staying out of the stock this week and continue to move higher. I mean, its a great fundamental story. It is what it is. Its going to continue to move higher. Its americas favorite stock. But at a certain point, you have to kind of look at other stocks for different opportunities, and similar to what pete is doing, you just hold it in the portfolio. I do believe there have been cheaper shepard, right . I believe there are benefactors, if you look at a company like corning, the company was saved and resurrected the stock price over the last five years. So there has been an impact on wonder active one thing on apple and we have talked about this for years, one day it will be a services powerhouse, one day well stop look at Consumer Electronics and thats exactly whats happened. Last year, 24 billion in services to a 20 jump over the prior year. Just to put that number in perspective, 24 billion is what mcdonalds globally does in revenue a year. So apples ancillary services business, itunes, cloud, media, et cetera, is now bigger than mcdonalds. So i think we have to say that the services bet was the right bet in hindsight, even if you have to wait a few years to actually see that come to fruition. You sort of dumped on the thesis a little bit of playing the suppliers, but yet the one that youve championed the most is the one thats done the best. And thats inindividuvidiinvidi not necessarily a supplier to telephones. Im not talking about iphone suppliers. Were talking about apple. Okay. I think my point might settle gotten lost. I dont like this idea where you say, like, oh, apple is doing great. The new iphone is a hit. So im going to buy the company that makes the tran sister chip for it. Thats the kind of thing i dont personally is it one of the parts of your thesis on nvidia, the kinds of chips it makes . Inindividualia it is not beholden to Something Like an iphone. Server chips, cloud computing. Vr. Ai. Closest one when you look from a percentagebasis, over revenue, thats probably the closest one for apple. Look at qualcomm, why its been such a dog. A company that basically is supplying cell phone chips at the end of the day. Skyworks has far outperformed apple early on. And that stock is up, you know, mega. Yuge. Yuge. Lets do this. Let me jump back down to the white house where we are obviously waiting for the president and his new nominee for the secretary of labor. Eamon javers, as we wait for this event, do we think because its in the east room there is such a large gathering of press that mr. Trump, the president , is going to take some questions or a number of questions from the gathered press today . Well, we think so, scott. Were not sure. This was put together very much at the last minute, lower told that Alexander Acosta is expected to be in the room for his announcement as the pick. Now, for secretary of labor. In the wake of andy pudsners withdrawal. We expect the president will take some questions, but this white house has been very careful in recent president ial appearances to make sure that he only calls on conservative or friendly media outlets. So well see whether he breaks from that today. This is coming together very much at the last minute. We just dont know. Doesnt sound like weve gotten the twominute warning. Well take a quick break and come back. Well have that News Conference with the president of the United States. Well talk about more stocks ahead, too. Nt it h thave thatolge expieth the classe e ne indepeand nc for i tncl adr,e can bet o ebrane,m gladll ms en y have t se another big day for the stocks in the cnbc 100 index. Eight members hitting alltime or multilevel times. Jpmorgan, progressive, prudential, united health, 3 m and visa. Ibm trading at levels not seen since october of 2014. The cnbc iq index is now up 40 to the year. For more on that, go to cnbc. Com i q1 hundred. Now, once again, here is scott wapner and the halftime team. We are back with our blitz. Joe, you kick us off and we look at trip adviser. They missed top and bottom. Drop in both subscription revenue and in display ad spending. Not good. Well, change in the Business Model has not been the right strategy for them, trying to move away from an ad revenue review site to a Hotel Booking site has not worked well. The shares continue to decline and the place to be in the Business Models that are working are expedia and price line. Josh, wendys missed but they have a new buyback and they also raised their dividend. I cant believe you guys assigned me this stock for the blitz. Wendys would you have rather kate spade . Ill be honest. If you gave this stock to someone else, i would jump all over it. So wendys, 20 times earnings for a business that if theyre lucky, will have two or three percent revenue growth. Its no wonder this stock is falling. This has already had a huge run. The problem is, slow growth, theyre doing this big refranchising thing, where theyre selling companyrun stores. Its a smart move longterm. Shortterm, there are a lot of costs asofted with it. I would stick this one. Dnkn is the way that wendys wants to look at itself years from now. They were already there. And crushing. All right. The aforementioned mr. Man bag, kate spade is yours. I dont own the bags, i own the stock. Look, i bought it. The theres lots of chatter about them selling themselves. As a matter of fact, they said they are looking at strategic moves. And they didnt give guidance Going Forward. Thats why were up 12 . Thats why were up 12 today. So its its a good brand in terms of recognition. I think it will do well. The street analysts say its worth about 22 to 24. I think it looks attractive. Private equity has tons of dough but a synergistic acquisition most likely. Pete, give us the lowdown on cisco. Chuck robbins has done a great job in this whole transition. Trying to get away from hardware and software at a very rapid pace. Those that were focusing on the switching of routers and all of that, that is starting to come down. When you look at the software as a service, thats where the growth is. People are finally focused on that. Thats why its at new highs. I think this stock is going toward 35. Give me some unusual activity, to some folks on twitter are asking before that before we get to the president. Big buyers in ak steel. That is a sector we have been talking about time and time again on this desk. Had a little bit of relief here and there. Aks, if you look, the week out this is next fridays calls. They are buying the ninestrike calls. 12,000 of these on the day, scott. Its very, very aggressively being accumulated. Maybe this stock can break up through nine. Obviously, u. S. Steel and some of the others have outperformed. Cliffs, as well. But ak steel maybe has a little bit of leg. To show how flexible i truly am, i actually owned this stock for about a week or so, najarian time. Longterm. Let us take a quick break. We are still waiting on President Trump in the east room of the white house. Were back in two minutes. Yinsp s onard cameand radeerllround yo ivssist systems you ba intyoe driing. D ll eheou brake,by. Necsary ase the gle3or 9 a h producon. Mercesenz. The besornoinr. Youave dedited r and team o dersnd you from an c annvent plan with theuieand suort of yr u caestablish a ingful ley knowhagethers cated c weal manament tm. Yesterday, the volatility index spiked more than 10 . Our partners say thats happened 20 other times since the start of 2016. In the week after, the vix has then dropped 74 of the time within a week with an average drop of 8 . Now back to scott wapner and the Halftime Report team. Lets run through more stocks while we wait for the president of the United States in the east room of the white house. Ubs reiterates their sell call on tesla. They say, quote, no fundamental reach for the runup that we have seen. That was the original, though. 272 and change. Stocks down 2. 5 . Lows of the day. Maybe drop coverage. The stock is trading 272. Everyone has been bet against it at 272, 242, 222. At 202. Pete talked about that, six months ago. The stock doesnt go down. Whatever negative news bad news gets absorbed into the price of the stock. The market tells you the ultimate direction. Six to nine months. This is all technicals. This is all sentiment. Nothing to do with fundamentals. Joe is 100 . So the only way to trap this thing is technically, are the buyers buying more, are they coming in with higher volume. As levels expand. And the owner making things up. Its just a cult stock, pure and simple. So either you decide that when you go into it, they can do no wrong im sure at times throughout your trading and investing histories, youve invested or bought cult stocks. I mean, what no, but the point is, to look at this through the prism of dcf, is laughable. Charlie monger calls it the two hard pile. Some stocks go into two hard pile. Very difficult to figure out. This isnt too hard to figure out. You can figure it out very easily, okay . And if you figure it out on the financial so going to 300 or 200 first . No. Its not too hard to figure out. You figure out that its not worth anywhere near what it is. Right . Thats easy. Hes cutting you off. I am. Because we are still trying to figure out exactly what is going to take place in the east room of the white house. Other than the expected nomination of a new labor secretary. Our eamon javers is there, as we wait for the countdown to the president. And the expectation, at least somewhat, eamon, that the president is going to take some questions from the gathered media. But this build as the replacement for Andrew Pudzer who took himself out of the running as labor secretary. Were expecting that Alexander Acosta will be the pick, a much more traditional pick than pudzer was in terms of government and washington experience. Acosta is a person who has been an assistant attorney general. He is now the dean of the law school at Florida International university. But hes also served on the National Labor relations board. Hes been a u. S. Attorney, so this is somebody who has been appointed by president s in the past and confirmed by the senate in the past, which is important in light of what the Trump Administration is trying to accomplish here. Were told were just two minutes away now from this press conference. Well see what the president has to say. Earlier, without naming his pick, he said that acosta was a great person and a star. So we can expect more of that kind of praise here, as well. But then there will be a lot of questions from the assem bleled press corps if they have the opportunity to ask today. Steven feinberg has been floated as somebody who is going to be appointed by appointed by the president to oversee a review of the u. S. Intelligence committee, and were told the mandate will be broader than that. What exactly that mandate will be, what else he will be reviewing will be something that a lot of reporters want answers to. Thats something that the Intelligence Community in particular will be watching with great interest today, scott, so much tension now between this white house and the u. S. Intelligence community over the past weeks and months, so a lot at play here, but well start, we believe, with this announcement on new pick for labor secretary. Theres questions, which, largely, have gone unanswered, certainly from the president , not asked directly about it yet, but stories that continue to go around about the relationship between senior members of his campaign and the contacts that they had with russian intelligence during the election campaign. Reporter thats going to be an important topic as well. Interesting to see how the president spopds to the question if he takes a question from a questioner, he said this week that michael flynn, whose resignation he asked for early in the week, was simply badly treated by the press, that there was fake news about michael flynn, his National Security adviser, nonetheless, the president asked flooin to resign and flynn did do that. You can expect reporters will ask if this was all fake news, why did you ask him to resign . What was the substance there . A lot of questions surrounding the timing of what the president knew, when he knew it, whether flynn was honest with him, the Vice President , others in the white house in terms of contact with the russian ambassador, u. S. Sanctions before the Trump Administration took office. You could expect that reporters could go for an hour here if the president lets them. Well see how long it lasts. Interesting earlier when the president was in the meeting earlier with members of the congressional delegation that he mentioned the stock market and the new highs that they reached on an almost daily basis. The camera is moving there as we await the president. It was interesting to hear the president speak about the market has nobody having talked about these records that was said on an almost daily basis. There was all the focus on Everything Else. Reporter he said he didnt think there was enough coverage of the stock market. I dont know what networks hes watching, but well have to look at the tv and see what channel its tuned to, but, obviously, this is a president who very much wants to take credit for this e enormous stock market boom that weve seen since his election. This is something we have not seen previous white houses do. Typically, a white house will simply say, look, markets go up, markets go down. They dont take credit for market rises early on in the term because they dont want to be saddle with a blame of a correction or setback later. They want to say thats something thats outside of our control, and we are here focusing on core elements of the overall economy, not focusing on daytoday movement of the stock market. This president and White House Team decided to take a very different course on that. So far, its working for them, but at the point where if we get a market correction, that changes the political dynamic, and then the president is faced with questions about whether he is to blame for any correction that comes as well as for any stock market increases. You mentioned the president s team, as we watch what looks like Kellyanne Conway coming into the room. We have the two minute warning. We should expect to see the president at any moment as real he tries to get back on message, if you will, or at least try to fill out this cabinet and keep the conversation there rather than some of these ancillary things that have been happening, and, perhaps, some of the reasons why, you know, we obviously have, but others are not talking about the direct reaction to what stocks have done since mr. Trump took office. Sure. A lot of distractions for the white house, and as they focus on the russia issue, the flynn issue, all of these things that have come up, the question is, how much mind share in the white house among the senior staff is going towards focusing on the agenda, the tax cuts that the president talked about. The Obamacare Repeal and replace the president talked about. All these things are things the white house wants to focus on, but with all the reports of infighting, tension among the staff, questions about whether some of these top trump staffers will be able to remain in office, all of that takes an enormous toll on the staff, just in terms of how they spend their day, what they are thinking about minute to minute, whether they can focus on the big legislative fights. All of these legislative pieces of the agenda the Trump Administration said it wants to do are enormous projects. These are things that would take the total focus and concentration of a white house. The question that maybe asked of the president s is whether the staff can focus on that now begin Everything Else going on. Well see what he says. Well do that momentarily. Theres the Vice President coming into the room, chief of staff, theres steve, jared, and we should expect to hear from the president in a matter of moments. To get you up to date on the market, the s p 500 is down now about three points. Dow jones industrial average is flat. Markets have been setting records and set another record off the open before drifting lower. Financials, leading a large part of the rally taking a break today, but heres the president of the United States coming into the east room of the white house. Lets listen in to the president. Thank you very much. I just wanted to begin by mentioning that the nominee for secretary of the department of labor will be mr. Alex acosta, a degree from harvard law school, great student, former justice for justice alito, and hes had a tremendous career. Hes a member and has been a member of the National Labor relations board, and hes been through Senate Confirmation three times, confirmed, did very, very well, and so alex, i wished him the best. We just spoke. Hes going to be i think hell be a tremendous secretary of labor. And, also, as you probably heard just a little while ago, former congressman has just been approved, weeks late, i have to say that, weeks, weeks late, office of management and budget and he will be, i think, a fantastic addition. Paul singer just left. He was very much involved with the antitrump or as they say, never trump, and paul left and gave us total support. Its all about unification. Were unifying the party and hopefully well unify the country. Its important to me. Ive talked about it for a long time, but its very, very important to me. I thank paul for being here, coming up to the office, he was very strong opponet, and now hes a very strong ally, and i appreciate that. I think ill say a few words and take some questions. I had this time, weve been negotiating a lot of different transactions to save money on contracts that were terrible, including airplane contracts out of control and late and terrible. Just absolutely catastrophic in terms of what was happening. We have done some really good work that were proud of that. Right after that, you prepare yourselves for questions, unless you have no questions, thats a responsibility. Im here today to update the American People on the incredible progress that has been made in the last four weeks since my inauguration. We have made incredible progress, and i dont think theres ever been a president elected who in this short period of time has done what weve done. A new rassmussen poll, the media gets it, but they dont write it, but a poll came out a short while ago, and it has our Approval Rating at 55 and going up. The stock market hit record numbers, as you know, and theres been a surge in the business world, which means Something Different than it used to. Now it means its good for jobs. Very different. Plants and factories are moving back into the United States, big league, ford, general motors. Im making this presentation directly to the American People with the media present, which its an honor to have you. This morning because many of our nations reporters and folks will not tell you the truth and will not treat the wonderful people of our country with the respect they deserve. I hope Going Forward we can be a little bit different, and maybe get along a little bit better, if thats possible. Maybe its not. Thats okay too. Unfortunately, much of the media in washington, d. C. Along with new york, los angeles, in particular, speaks not for the people, but for the special interests and for those profiting off a very, very obviously broken system. The press has become so dishonest that if we dont talk about it, we are doing a tremendous disservice to the American People. Tremendous disservice. We have to talk about it. We have to find out whats going on because the press, honestly, is out of control. The level of dishonesty is out of control. I ran for president to represent the citizens of our country. Im here to change the broken system so it serves their families and their communities well. Im talking and really talking on this very entrenched power structure and what were doing is were talking about the