Quh chair and keep acts as a chil. The question is, what happens now . With us for the hour today josh brown, jim, courtney gibson, Carrie Firestone is here as well, ceo of arius asset management. From toronto, kevin oleary. Josh, i go to you. While some are calling this first week chaotic. S p is up 1 . Dow is up better than that. Closed over 20,000 for the first time ever. Yeah. Investors seem to like what theyre getting. Its so much more than the u. S. Market story. Youve got just incredible performance around the world. You have global pmis, surprising routinely to the upside. The best ratio of positive to negive the surprises. You have to go whack to before the financial crisis. All of this is happening in concert. And so i think when you look beyond just u. S. Stocks and you say is there optimism around the world about the economy . Even if were not all thrilled with evenry political headline, i think you would have to conclude that, yes, people feel like there are some things that are going to go right now that no one was counting on and that is reflecting in share prices. Courtney, first chance to speak with you since the election or since the oath of office by the president. What do you think of the first week and what do you think its going to mean for the market . Im not quite sure if the market is saying, oh, were loving what were seeing other than the fact that the market likes consistency and they like to know where youre going directionally. And trump said he was going to do certain things and hes been in the office a week and i dont know if its six or seven executive orders that have come down. Hes doing exactly what he told the public he was going to do. Like it or not. Well, the market seems to like it. They like consistency. They like to know what someone is doing. And i think thats very key. He said exactly what he was going to do before he got elected and hes executing on it as much as we can see. I think thats exactly right. There was so much uncertainty for so long, going into the election, and then there was even a lot of stuff going on between the election and if t. Inauguration. Now weve got a week of the new president. You dont have to like his policies or agree with them but hes absolutely doing what he said he would do and i think to courtneys point investors, a lot of uncertainty. But its the agenda that the market is happy with or seems to be as well. Is that what they told you . You dont think that . Well, we comp a lot of Institutional Investors and right now everyone is kind of i dont know if if this rally is a he retail rally but the institutional clients that we have are not moving based on these policies. Not the long only active investors. We have some quaunts that are moving based on technical signals and i know shs josh, thats right up your alley. Were seeing folks waiting to make sure that the positions and the movements theyre making in their portfolios are for the long term, not based on one tweet here or one tweet there or what they think might happen. My point of this conversation though is that the tweets and all the other stuff are not so relevant. Its the tax cuts. Yeah. Its the infrastructure, its the regulation. If they get implement sxwled i was on a plane the other day, from San Francisco to boston. I watched Halftime Report. And the crowd here was it good . You were not. No worries. Everyone was so euphoric and high on the market i thought that you were going to be leaving on winks. So we need to have a little bit of sensitivity to the fact that there hasnt yet been a tax cut. We dont have deregular lagtion everything yet. We dont have an environment of grks dp at 4 . It was less than expected. Im worried that people who are pundits, not just retail investor, too optimistic right now in the market today and the market yesterday is not following through. You cant argue with the optics though. First full weekday, business day in office he sat there in the morning around a boardroom table surrounded by some of the most influential ceos in the this country. Absolutely. But weve had a runup. Remember, on november 8th to today the market has moved up 8 1 2 . Financials have moved up must have more than that. Its not as if its been ignored. And i think that we have to be careful that buying here into the names that have moved the highest and those sectors may be a little premature. We may need to pull out. I think what youre saying is the distinction between the optic which you call it which are valid in saying they are positive for the market and the fundamentals. The fundamentals may be temporary. Gdp was light. A lot of that was expected because of the trade deficit which in my opinion is exporting growth over seas. Lets see how the first half of this year comes in. The other item that sense august has been propelling the market is the belief the earnings recession is over. So far you know really this is the first full week of earnings. Im unimpressed. Im not depressed but im unimpressed by the earnings so far. Yes, theyre growing but not rapidly enough to propel the market higher from here. Next week will be a bigger week for earnings. Im hoping to get more impetus from the market as well. Growing from what they were doing last year. Which supports the market, scott. Which supports it. But it doesnt propel it higher. Youre right, they are growing better than last year. But that just gives a floor to the market. Recession before. The earning recession was a misnomer. S p 500 was flat for two years. Solidly flat. You could call that a recession. Maybe im quibbling with the word choice. Were seeing growth, just not the growth thats going to propel the market higher. Kevin oleary, why dont you weigh in . You know what i think . This is all p expansion. When you talk about animal spirits, trump has unleashed them. The risk in the market is i argue 25 higher than it was december 8th because no earning estimates in any sectors have been bumped up for any reason at all. And as noted earlier, no change in the Regulatory Environment for Financial Services which was a big part of the move in the s p. I spoke with some Institutional Investors and sovereign investors this morning in europe, what they were doing for allocation in u. S. Holdings. These are very large sovereign funds. Theyre moving more into the russell 2,000 with the theory being they dont know the outcome of the protectionist taxation in theern many borders are concerned about whats going to happen on our policies in nafta and they say that if you buy straight domestic russell 2,000 revenue you have no risk of taxation result of that. So theres a new tonality, the concern is you dont know whats going to happen with mexico and canada and britain and other g7 countries as trump goes through this. So to derisk the portfolio theyre going smaller cap which is the first time ive ever seen that happen. Yeah. You want to make a point . Well, theyre derisking the portfolio by buying the russell now at 23 times earnings. Our clients moved into that much a little while ago. As soon as trump came into office. If you werent focused on those u. S. Focused companies. Let me finish my thought. Ive been buying small cap stocks the entire time, since they were 12 times earnings and couldnt get arrested. Look, we run an Asset Allocation model, various different types. At the end of the day i think diversification is starting to help investors global, small versus large, value versus growth. Having exposure to factors and different geographies is no longer a drag. It is becoming additive to performance. Thats the first time ive been able to look into the camera and say that maybe in three or four years. So, yes, we can have concerns about s p, about valuation, et cetera. But there are a lot of places where you can make money right now as an investor. Hasnt been the case in a while. Thats exciting. One of the things, scott, this is really important i hope so. No. Gallop poll just put out fernl financial Assessments Survey for right now 66 of the americans think theyre going to be better off a year from now than they are today. 49 think theyre better off now than they were a year ago. This is a huge uptick in terms of just the way people feel about t this not personal, footba financial situation. When you say animal spirit and too much optimism, its not just about optimism on wall street. Theres a lot of optimism. For whatever reason, this is going to have a read through effect to the way people allocate their portfolios for the balance of the year. This is not the type of data that turns on a dime or a week or a month. I think as a backdrop we should understand people are feeling better about their own personal financial situations. Millions and millions of people, not a handful of us on a desk in new jersey. Moments ago british Prime Minister theresa may arrived at the white house. First foreign leader to visit President Trump since he took that office. Johnarwood is there with what we canxpect today. John . Scott, i think what youre going to see is President Trump and theresa may trying to lay the groundwork for a bilateral trade deal between the two countries. Theyre people who feel a kinship with each other because of the nationalist sentiments that propelled both of them to power. Theresa may following the brexit vote. Donald trump in novembers election, the u. S. uk special relationship is one that they are underscoring with this first visit. But it also comes against the backdrop of the heightened tensions with mexico, possibility of a trade war, that i think is worrisome to many people in economies around the world. And so all of that is going to be on the table. You had theresa may yesterday when she was at the republican retreat cautioning about the security obligations to of nato countries to protect places like the baltics, to threats from russia. Of course President Trump is going to talk by phone with Vladimir Putin tomorrow. All of that is i think going to be on the table for this meeting. Yeah, you mentioned, john, the relationship between the United States and mexico and how it certainly is strained and how the tensions between the two countries are we main high over President Trumps plans for a border wall and who will pay for it. Mexicos president as you know by now cancelinglans for a visit next week. Heres the former mexican pres ent, vicente fox, this morning on squawk. We get this ceo trump coming on, coming in to sit in the president ial chair and keep acting as a child, as a ceo of his corporations, making deals, he says, but he in reality is making mad everybody, like it happened with mexico. For fatally president pena stood up, faced him, and con sell can the visit. Michelle Caruso Cabrera also for us today on the white house lawn. The comments from vicente fox not a surprise. You noted in the last hour the difference in optics you expect today from the british Prime Minister and what we had in the last many days regarding mexico. A deep contract. Honor guard, arrival for the british Prime Minister. Very, very warm welcome. In the meantime, the Mexican Foreign minister was here for the last two days. They held a News Conference last night after the meetings here at the white house. They were at their embassy. And this was a somber, angry at times News Conference, explaining here they were in the white house planning the protocol for president enrique penas visit on tuesday when President Trumps tweet went out saying if they dont want to pay for the wall maybe we should cancel the visit. They stopped the meeting right away. They were very angry. They called the president back in mexico. And it set off what has now, this discussion look at what were talking about right there. On the screen. Trumps trade war. I can tell you the mood in mexico is very angry. And its gotten to the point where carlos slen who normally doesnt hold News Conference, doesnt like to, doesnt talk to the press that often late last night announced he was going to host a News Conference today. We presume its because hes angry about whats happened here over the last 48 hours. Yeah. Michel michelle, thank you. John harwood there as well, thanks so you. My point kind of earlier is the market doesnt seem to care all that much. Yet. Yet. Yeah. It has to. But you could easily, if you thought there was going to be some kind of trade war with mexico, you could easily say a substantial pullback yesterday when this meeting was canceled. You didnt get anything. Think about this first week. Hes taking a lot of executive action. Hes not consulting with congress about what hes doing with mexico or what hes doing with the pipelines. Hes taking executive action. Now, that works up until a point. I think the point at which it fails is if he unilaterally gets into any sort of conflict that involves armed forces overseas. I hope he wont. I think hes smart enough not to do that. The texas economy cannot sustain another hit like it had from the price of oil crashing in half. That was brutal for a lot of areas in texas. They cant go through this again. And youll notice when you look at the comments from the house of reps people in that state, there are no fullthroated endorsements of what trump is talking about. There are finished goods where things get done on both sides of the border. About a million jobs in texas are related to logistics and shipping across the border. This is not a slam dunk that this is going to happen in the way that sean spicer casually mentions. Qul yeah, maybe well do a 20 tax on imports, on a helicopter to a handful of reporters. Thats not law. Thats not how we create rules in this country. To your point, the market doesnt seem phased because the market doesnt think these things are just going to happen the way theyre being tweeted. The market is giving him time. The market is giving them the benefit of the doubt and saying, we are hearing things that we like, these are policies that we as a market, buyers want to see. The economy we have a sense may be getting better. But the market isnt falling. The market is sort of holding. And if there were some cases where we have real action, whereas he puts on a trade barrier and then someone else does and sudden we see them in other countries, thats when the market may take the hit. Or where vicente said this morning, look, we have china. Do we really want to play that game . I dont think we do at the end of the day. Weve never had conflict with that country. I mean, you know the saying you get more flies with honey than you know what, right . Why is it that we cant just have a civil discussion with the partner that weve had, with so many years to talk about how we renegotiate. Because weve done that for 12 years and hes basically saying no more. He has campaigned and won on saying the old way im not doing it. Regardle of whethe honey or vinegar works, hes saying im going with vinegar. To the poi that you made, i think some of these actions do actually have teeth right now. Josh, you make a good point ability taxation requires congress. But the pipeline executive order, saying were going to go ahead and build these pipelines. Hes done that. We saw the day it happened, the market crescendoed after that news and the materials and Pipeline Companies went up with it. Thats a case where the market responds to the actual action that is going to take place. Kevin oleary, former president of mexico going after canada this morning. Lets listen to that. Well react on the other side. Why he does not speak about canada, canada exports more cars to United States than mexico. He doesnt say that word there. All right. So potentially the leader of the conservative party in canada in the future. What do you think about those comments . Hold on, let me tell you the story about canada. 38 states, we the number one trading partner. Canadians are responsible for 9 million u. S. Jobs. So this is a relationship that i dont think were going to be messing around with too much. Its too big. This border is the largest peaceful border on earth. Canada bias lot of procurement in military goods from the United States. Were a nato partner. Probably the longest ally. So the way i look at it getting down to business is the most optimism ive seen out of this Trump Administration is getting excel pipeline back on track. But let me give you those numbers, too. Weve spent im a huge investor in canada and trans canada pipeline. Big position for me. So i know that we spent 3. 2 billion getting screwed around by the Obama Administration for 8 1 2 years. I want my dough back. Im not happy about it. Weve got pipeline all over canada and the United States sitting on the ground waiting to go back to work. Listen, im interested in negotiating nafta. No question about it. Im ready to go. Lets dance. We may. We may. Heres what else is coming up on the Halftime Report. Next up, a call of the day that may have come two years too late. Plus, debating three big caps after earnings. Chevron, alphabet, starbucks. All pulling back. Is this your opportunity . More Halftime Report with scott wapner and Halftime Report team coming up. Theres a lot of places you never want to see 7. 95. [ beep ] but youll be glad to see it here. Fidelity where smarter investors will always be. If only the signs were as obvious when you trade. Fidelitys active trader pro can help you find smarter entry and exit points and can help protect your potential profits. Fidelity where smarter investors will always be. All right. Were back on the Halftime Report. Microsoft shares hitting all time high after reporting strong quarterly results. Its Cloud Business doing well. Today, citigroup upgrades stock to neutral after two years with a sell rating. Weve made it our call of the day as a result. What do you think . Theyve missed 40 o