>> tomorrow we have the big jobs report and that will be key because, in a way, powell kind of told investors and economists what they expected to hear on jobs. we want to look for average hourly earnings. is 0.3 okay? will it be blamed on california because the wage debate is raging as inflation is the key thing holding the fed back from cuts let's get to post 9 and the judge. all right, welcome to "the halftime report. i'm scott wapner front and center this hour, the post fed playbook as stocks rise following the fed meeting. apple, of course, set to report tonight as well. the investment committee at the ready. joining me for the hour today here at post 9, josh brown, liz young, and brian belski. we checked the markets we are green across the board. what an interesting session finish we had yesterday and the beginning we have today. josh, i'll turn to you i mean, i guess the big question is, did a more dovish fed chair just settle the market for another leg up

he took a hike off the table, right? here is what he did. he took a hike off the table he said inflation will continue to come down as the year progresses he said demand is still strong but cooling. and he shut down the stagflation narrative. i don't see the stagg or the flation. >> take that that's all the stuff you start the year with this expectation that the debate is between six or seven rate cuts, that, over the course of the next few months, changes to, okay, maybe it's five. maybe it's four, three, two. is that going to go to zero? is that expectation going to go to zero? it's one or zero at this point or one or two. those are the two last lingering debates. the fed doubled down on that i think it's really that simple. we're not talking about hikes. we're not getting spooked by the last few inflation reads we're still focused on the fact that shelter had been the most problematic, and, by the way, i

know it's bad news for the individual stocks in question, but when starbucks blows up because the consumer is saying, no thanks, to the $9 coffee, that's good for sentiment overall toward how the fed thinks it needs to behave. and you'll see that stuff in coming beige books, et cetera. i think we're in a weird situation now where actually the headline data recent is hotter than the commentary coming from corporate america, and that is a flip-flop from what things were two quarters ago you had companies saying, oh, my god, the demand is off the charts, and you had economic data that was telling you, uh-oh, we might be in trouble in 2024 now we have a flip-flop, and i think the market likes that combination of things, and that's where we are right at this moment. >> is that, liz, an accurate way to describe what happened yesterday, as i said, that powell really hit at most, if not all, of the bear arguments, right?

well, inflation will be sticky my gosh, they might have to raise rates. powell said, that's unlikely that's the word that he used oh, my gosh, we have sticky inflation and look at the gdp report last time, 1.6. we have stagflation. i don't see the stag or the inflation he said. he kind of went down the list. >> he did. he gave us hypothetical scenarios, and none of them involved a hike. we had a hypothetical scenario if things stay how they are, we have strong jobs data, that means we hold. we have another scenario we get more confident we're getting towards 2% that means we cut. the markets like both options right now. the last, what seems more of an outside scenario, there's unexpected weakness they didn't see coming, in which case they still see cuts we're either getting a hold or a cut. the other thing the market tried to digest yesterday was the idea that them being less confident doesn't mean that they're scared, right? >> oh, he came off -- wouldn't you agree, you know, as we were

sitting together watching powell, he had a confidence about him that he believes the story is intact. what is that story that he's going to get inflation down it's going to continue to fall and growth will remain good enough they think they can pull it off >> the data he's looking at that's telling him that are things like gdp. they said over and over again all the way through 2023, we need a period of below trend growth in order to achieve our goals. here we are at below trend growth, still positive, but below trend. the expectation for the following three quarters are below trend but still positive that's what they want. and the consumer is softening, trading down, pulling back a little bit they also don't want the consumer to overspend and keep driving demand and inflation higher so that's good news as well. yes, it's putting pressure on company margins, but that's how the math works margins, i think, are fat enough right now that we can absorb some of that >> brian, you get the idea they want to cut, they want to, just

not yet. and they're eventually going to get there. check out some of the post-powell predictions on rate cuts citi says their base case is four cuts starting in july i know that's the outlier call, obviously. morgan stanley, a bit of an outlier, too, three cuts starting in july here is where you get the two from goldman and the one from barclays, deutsche and bofa. chris harvey says status quo is a positive for momentum in this market >> trying to explain the schizophrenic market with four to six cuts in the beginning of the year and now raising, i'm completely confused on where the raising interest rates heading into this meeting was. i simply do not understand it. i think what will happen is we are transitioning to normality and normality is the inflation numbers that are very strong -- very decent, i'm sorry, high single digit to low double digit earnings growth, double digit

performance in the stock market, 80s and 90s. we don't think we're going to see a cut all year if they're going to cut, it's going to be after the election and i think in between there we have to now recalibrate investing. think about this, scott. since 2007, an entire generation of nvestors who think we cut interest rates inflation is in check and earnings growth is good, come on, that's going to cause recalibration. i don't think the correction is over, by the way i think we have a little bit more to go i think people are trying to be too cute and say 5%. if it's 5% correction, it would be the shallowest correction in a bull market in history, so i don't mean to be johnny rain cloud here, i want to buy stocks cheaper. >> no, because if anything, you've been johnny sunshine. >> exactly >> you've been bright skies for as long as the forecast will go. you're beyond the ten-day forecast >> the skies are blue and the screens are green today, and i think the 25-year bull market is

very much in place we just need to recalibrate how we invest. you are shaking your head yes -- nodding your head yes. >> i love that it's like a mental illness oh, i wish the data would be worse so we can get the medicine i don't understand the mentality at all maybe some of us just come from a different time, but rates were high in the '90s, and so was earnings growth. the economy was good and pretty much if you wanted a job, you could have one what's wrong with that why do we need lower rates for any reason other than, hey, i want to raise a billion dollar vc fund and start raising rates again? >> we thought we did because we're not used to going zero to 5. >> you're right about that but we did that already. that part -- we're not going from 5 to 10 so we did that part already, and it was jarring and, guess what, we had the earnings recession, statistically -- not my feelings -- we had it.

and we had the bear market that accompanied that hike in rates now you could argue it should have been worse. there should have been more collateral damage. wrr were the bankruptcies, why didn't spreads blow out? sorry, be sometimes the meteor misses earth apologies. >> i spoke with jeffrey gundlach, as all of you know, on "closing bell" yesterday he, like everybody, thought powell was less hawkish than expected and was pretty positive on the market environment overall. listen >> so this seems like a pretty good environment for moderate risk assets, and it seems like we should probably not have a terribly volatile environment before the next fed meeting. i don't like really risky stuff, because i think higher for longer is going to start taking some of the bodies out i do think in the medium risk assets, i am positive for at least into the next meeting. >> he qualified it, too, brian,

neutral on stocks is where he went he made his living being a really smart bond investor he's been shortening his duration a little bit. >> smart >> said you can get attractive yields in credit >> smart >> doesn't like the long end the ten-year, the belly of the curve, bullish gold. wouldn't be a seller but would wait for a dip to be a buyer it's gone up a lot, and he acknowledged that, too >> we're in line with that we're so focused on this great period in the stock market i think we're entering another great period to think about being a 60/40 investor in bonds. if you think this peak is somewhere between 4.50 on the ten-year treasury and are looking at cuts into 20 25, the bond market will be rallying can you have a total return with respect to owning bonds and stocks in here >> liz, do you agree, if you want to call it the gundlach playbook post powell >> i do. i think powell gave us a few

more weeks of nothing to see here, and when you look at the date of the next meeting is june 12th, we get cpi that same day we don't even have an inflation report in between now and then that will scare everybody. and they'll get a heads-up on that before they make their statement, in this period earnings have been good enough i don't think there will be anything left over save for maybe nvidia that will completely rock the boat and ruin it. they've been good enough, better than expected in the companies we needed to carry this season >> the mega caps, is that what you mean >> yep and we needed that to happen in order to remain positive now we're looking forward to the rest of the year and people are extrapolating that out if it stays as strong as it is and even increases, we're in a good place and can justify the valuations because they're not going to hike. that's not me saying i'm confident that's how it's going to play out. i am cautious on the medium to

longer term because i think this ends more painfully than the meteor missing earth i don't think it's landed yet. i think it's out there not yet. we've bought more time >> the wild card, of course, out of the mega caps comes this afternoon when apple reports the biggest dow gainer today it is the biggest mag seven decliner on the year out of the tech-related companies it is down 10% you own this, you and brian do, josh how do we think about apple ahead of "overtime" tonight? >> i thought about this a lot because this is an amazing long-term investment, but it's had a tough time, especially when you look at it relative to the stocks we usually compare it to you look at it relative to microsoft, for example, amazon, alphabet it really seems like there's something wrong, but in reality, there's nothing wrong. it's just that $3 trillion businesses don't grow as fast as

$300 billion businesses. the emphasis has to start to shift on where they're making their money, and so that's why we talk more about services, we talk about handsets or we talk about phones or units. okay, fine they have successfully migrated us mentally more toward services and profits. i think that's great >> still half the business >> hugely important. $200 billion out of $400 billion. we can't ignore it everyone that wants an iphone has one. it's a replacement cycle business yes, they can go into latin america and india. they are not going to get the same price points when they sell in western europe and the united states, period, end of story it's not going to do what the apple of the last ten years have done that being said, and this is really important, analysts are looking for $1.51 per share. that's down 4.5% year over year. that would be the fifth

consecutive quarter over quarter revenue drop out of six quarters by which i want to say no one is looking for fireworks here no one is expecting any sort of, like, magical growth it's not amazon. >> the reason why -- let's -- we built a couple walls for you to show you -- to josh's point -- the headwinds versus the tailwinds for the stock itself josh hits on them. the head winds, there are a lot, to decline 4.5% year on year you have the justice department antitrust suit you have china concerns. china revenues expected to be down 14% weaker iphone sales down 10% from a year ago. you have the possibility and some analysts are talking about a weaker june guide as well. what are the pluses? some of them are unknown are we going to get a.i. at wwdc will it be meaningful? a stock mover? a dividend boost today

more buybacks announced today? that's almost a given. and maybe the worst is behind you. tony tried to say in his upgrade, the first time in six years, he said buy the fear. steve kovach is outside hq in cupertino, california. we set it up, the headwinds versus the tailwinds we'll find out what wins the day. >> reporter: that's exactly it, scott. especially i want to zero in on that china issue you guys were mentioning earlier, and that's, look, we saw the quarter, last quarter, down 13%. expecting it to look similar today. again, it's more than just people not necessarily anyone who wants to buy an iphone buys an iphone. competition is heating up, too you have samsung coming out with a.i. devices you have huawei, showing you the chart here this is showing a 19% drop in iphone sales in the first quarter of this year in china

and then look at huawei, up 69%. that is showing us this return of huawei is really having a negative impact on apple and china putting more pressure on them to come up with something with artificial intelligence to tell an a.i. story that they haven't been telling the same way that their peers like google and amazon and meta have been telling. we still don't really know where apple fits in the artificial intelligence picture of course, like you said, we're expecting that next month in june to get more clarity on that, but right now we're going to be really hanging on every word tim cook says about artificial intelligence to get some hint or clue where he, at least, thinks apple plays into that landscape and then on top of that on the positive side at least, you were talking about services that is going to grow. that has returned double digit growth very healthy after a post-pandemic slump. so we're seeing some good, strong tail winds there

especially with the app store. some concerns there, the doj case against google. they're doing closing arguments today and tomorrow that puts the threat to search deal the two companies have, that's $20 billion per year from google to apple and effectively free money that is at risk now forcing apple to kind of rethink that kind of dynamic as far as search goes. look, we're going to have to get through this quarter, get through the june quarter, and then everyone is looking for the back half of the year to kind of get over this slump, have a new iphone psych that will can reinvigorate sales around artificial intelligence, guys. >> we look forward to seeing you for certain, steve kovach, around these earnings when they're released in "overtime. belski, i said you own the stock, too headwinds, tailwinds, which do you want to focus on >> tailwinds, of course. >> johnny sunshine. >> why are you giggling? johnny sunshine. here is why, follow the cash

never bet against anybody that has a boatload of cash that has not really come out and talked about what their a.i. plans are. we know meta is way behind on the a.i. thing that's a completely different story. i think apple has been there and they're much more humble what they've been doing with a.i. i think they will crush it it's really difficult to be massively overweight apple we treat apple in our portfolio as a core holding for us when it goes down, we rebalance. that's a stock we will own. >> when you look at, liz, the total story of the mega caps, why it's hard to be negative and people like tony pasquariello at sachs urge investors to, quote, keep your eye on the ball, and stay large and in the areas of the stock market is because of what brian said, buybacks, now dividends on top of that, too. we have two dividend announcements from mega caps

capex, free cash flow. you really want to run against that >> no, especially not if we're late cycle you want to be in large cap,quality businesses you want to be in businesses that can generate enough cash to internally finance their own growth i think one of the things somebody like apple is dealing with right now, it's tough to compete with the growth prospects of a.i. that every other company has been able to benefit from they haven't yet gotten onto that bandwagon >> maybe they have but it's been a narrative -- if, anything, it's been a narrative thing, right? >> yeah. >> and that's by the virtue of a calendar and timing, and they'll talk about it when they're ready to talk about it >> and i think that's okay i have continued to believe we've pulled this a.i. theme so far forward almost as if investors are expecting to get gratification by the end of the year in multiples and it's not going to happen, it's not how a theme works. it has to go through cycles,

through maturing, so we understand how we make money off of it. maybe not being the first mover, is a good idea we're going to find out and see how investors are rewarded i would agree with belski this is a company -- maybe it does fall more into that staples category in that broader group of the mag seven because they have the sticky iphone business. >> i'm sorry, they've never cared about being a first mover, it's just being the best mover, and maybe that's what we get with a.i who knows? >> why do we think they need to be a player with their own large language model that's probably the commodity piece. meta is giving away for free why do we think the race to build the llm is the thing that matters? maybe that's the thing that sparked -- nobody owned http it's free. it's what you built on top of it so, look, if this guy even whispers a.i. siri, stock probably goes up ten times is he going to do it on an

earnings call or will he do it in june at the developers' conference >> do we need to wait until wwdc the stock has been in a range, the chart has been terrible. everybody knows the story. >> you hit on it before. it's the iphone. we need a reason to get another iphone don't do iphone 17, iphone 18 and tell me it has a faster apple chip in it because nobody thinks the current apple chip is slow i need a fifth lens like a third nipple what i really want -- am i in trouble now? what i really want to see, honestly, is a reason to get the next iphone, and it will be a.i. can you recover from that? >> i was trying to figure out how to respond, and i chose -- >> what's up >> not even worth it >> iphones down 9.6% >> my mortgage is more important than your mortgage. >> what is the thing that makes people say i needanother

iphone if you tell me we're going to hear that this summer, and the answer is going to involve a.i., generative a.i., whatever, for me, that's the thing that can get the stock out of the range, to answer your question. >> another stock, before we take our first break, courtesy of josh pfizer you said was the most attractive in the market and you've doubled down. >> what did i say? the most attractive stock? i said that? >> yeah. >> i want to up the rhetoric one of the most mispriced securities i will tell you why. we're now in a situation with pfizer where there is nobody left who owns the stock that is like, in my view, that is, ooh, should we really stick with it this has been so utterly and totally washed out, trading at an 11-year low, it's been one of the worst performers in the market, and everyone on earth is aware of the reason why. they made a huge bet on covid

between paxlovid and the vaccines, and that bet proved to have been not something that was going to sustain growth past 2022 okay so that's out of the way they are now reporting, if you listen to the report, ex-covid they're almost categorizing that as a legacy product line hundreds of millions coming in what's the future? the future is the c-gen acquisition, and i don't think there's enough enthusiasm for how many patents them acquired and how many fda approvals they have or will continue to get and that, for me, if you are a shareholder of pfizer now, what you want to focus on the stock is up 10% over the last week, down 4% year to date. down 30% over the last 12 months it is the eighth worst performer out of the 64 holdings in the xlv. meanwhile, you have a stock that's now above its 50 day, courtesy of a better than expected earnings report, and i say it's one of the most mispriced securities in the market right now because it is

it's a ten forward p/e on analyst expectations for earnings growth in 2024 of 45% and then another 20% in 2025 i don't think the stock should sell where it sells. i don't think it will for much longer so i added to my position with the stock higher after the earnings, and i'm growing increasingly confident that the 20s will soon be a memory. >> how do you like them apples, belski >> josh, breathe a little bit. come on. >> your notes to our producer says, quote, i think it's dead money. >> it has been i agree. >> you always want to buy -- >> has been versus no longer >> think about this, okay. health care is now the second largest sector in the market you have a bunch of great ideas with great cash flow, great dividends, great earnings, with great pipelines like lilly and gilead and johnson and johnson and thermal fisher

you have a lot of great ideas. you don't need to own pfizer full disclosure, it's a total return story now so, no, i'm not going to sell it i've owned it for ten years in that portfolio if you want to earn money, i would rather be elsewhere. >> how many companies can you think of that are expected to grow earnings, double digits, have a 6% dividend yield, are blue chip stocks that have been around since the civil war and sell at ten times forward earnings >> not many. >> i think zero. >> they've been talking the talk now they have to walk the walk >> agree >> i'd rather be late. it's a show-me stock >> one more earnings quarter where they're ahead of expectations, three more, what would be the thing that gets you onto my side >> the entire year, josh, to clean up covid, stop talking about ex-covid, because you're talking more defeated. let's be a winner. >> i don't hate that >> you also sold netflix you got stomped out.

you bought it in late april. >> a couple points still like it. the market told me to trade, that's all i'm not race to go buy it back nothing has fundamentally changed. >> you own that one. >> i love netflix. >> i think you'll do well there. >> it's going to be great. >> okay. we'll take a break we do have another committee move to tell you about, josh selling a big e-commerce name as well we have those details straight ahead. >> announcer: are you following "the halftime report" podcast? what are you waiting for look for us in your favorite podcasting app follow "the halftime" podcast now. tailor-made for trader minds. go deeper with thinkorswim: our award-wining trading platforms. unlock support from the schwab trade desk,

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all right. welcome back josh has another move to document you sold ebay. tell us why. >> earnings were weak. the stock is basically sitting on support, and really fell out of some of the metrics we look at it's basically flat where i got into it. the stock had been in an up trend, had an rsi approaching 70, a momentum name. it's just out of consideration

and not everything you put on works out. i think it's making sure you are maintaining a portfolio that's in accordance with what you're trying to accomplish. >> down about 3% keep our eye there we have other stocks on the move the committee owns including qualcomm after an earnings beat. it's a 52-week high. price target bumped to morgan stanley. brian belski, you own the stock. >> scott wapner, we've used it as a bar bell with nvidia all year long. we think as the year progresses, after may 22nd when nvidia reports earnings, we'll start to see the second half of the year even more emphasis on the other tech stocks this is still an amazingly large company. i think you'll see much more fundamental performance and strength from a technical perspective of the other tech leaders. >> let's take a look at regeneron. they had an earnings miss.

stock is still up 4% eps missed top and bottom. guidance, though, is that why the stock is up? >> liz touched on it earlier about companies coming out with great earnings it's green light, go we love the growth prospects of this company it's not one of the steady eddies in health care. >> take a look at shack. they raised full-year outlook and the stock is up 2 1/3 percent. mr. josh brown, comp is up. >> this has turned into one of my biggest winners ever personally the stock is up 93% in the past year, up 42% year to date. it's, frankly, blowing the doors off most companies in the space. the reason why is clear. they spent the post pandemic period tooling up for just

becoming faster, more efficient, having the app more useful, and, more important than any of that, is getting into the right locations and broadening out that geographic footprint. they've done all those things successfully the revenue was $290 million up from $253 million the year prior. this is a $1.2 billion avenue run rate and climbing but more importantly, randy, who had done the beginning since it was a hot dog stand in the park, has stepped away, a new ceo announced. the gentleman is named rob lynch. this news hit during the course of the quarter we haven't had a lot of time with him there this is the man who ran papa john's from 2019 through now huge successful advertising campaign rob lynch has experience running

thousands of units they have the right leadership in place that supersedes anything that took place to the news headlines with silvana henao. >> good afternoon to you testimony at the donald trump hush money trial has resumed with keith davidson. davidson refused to call the stormy daniels payment hush money, instead calling it a consideration in a civil settlement he acknowledged that the former president would benefit from the agreement to keep daniels quiet. a bipartisan group of senators is pushing for limits on facial recognition technology for airport screening. arguing that it could threaten people's privacy and civil liberties. currently 84 airports nationwide use facial recognition with plans to expand to the 430

covered by tsa and drake, taylor swift and olivia rod rrigo returned to tiktok a new licensing agreement was reached, restoring the label's songs and performers to the app. tiktok removed universal content after their previous deal expired in january when they failed to agree on royalty payments, a.i. protections, and online safety for tiktok users, scott. back to you. >> silvana, appreciate that. silvana henao. coming up, josh's contrarian pick for this year on a big winning streak now hitting the highest levels of the year we'll debate where it's going next we'll tell you what it is, too, when we come back.

welcome back i want to highlight the k-web, the china etf, 14% this quarter. it was your contrarian play to start the year when we asked our contributors to the committee to give us one, you said at the time you don't own it. but you liked it

why did you like it? why did you like it? why didn't you buy it? and is there enough momentum to get you into it now? >> so something i actually learned from jim grant ten years ago, good things happen to cheap assets why was it a contrarian play an 80% drawdown and nobody could come up with the reason for why these stocks should go up and not all the time the stock doesn't always work this way but it often sometimes does work this way where when nobody could even fabricate in their wildest imagination why you would buy an entire asset class, those are the types of situations where you don't need much to turn in the way of news to get a huge turn in the prices of the stocks. these are the best of the chinese equities, these are the technology and internet companies, many of which also trade here in the united states.

the stocks are on fire everyone hated them in november/december. maybe a few people like them now. i still think it's a contrarian play and what china has figured out is they actually need their stock market to work so it's not fundamentally important to their economy but spiritually and emotionally it is, and so that's happening around the world as countries say what did the united states do differently from the rest of us for starters, they didn't lock up the ceos of their tech companies. i think you're seeing a softening in regulation and rhetoric and that's why this is on fire and, again, it's not a big fundamentally change but was good enough. >> jeff degrath -- >> my boy, jeff. >> on china and the technicals, quote, we're convinced the bullish tactical call we made in early february on china is turning into a strategic bullish call on the index. it's not a lock, but risk/reward is favorable >> i think jeff has been right

i just talked. not so great for e >> you do that well. >> i agree with jeff >> a month ago i was thinking maybe china is a good contrarian stock to be. it had bottomed, so it was ready to jump. the concern is not that it will go lower but it goes nowhere and we have the sort of currency crisis continuing to heat up in asia, japan not out of the woods intervening over and over again, that's why i stopped and decided not to do it how do you square the exogenous stuff? >> one of the things with china is that everyone has an opinion on it, myself included, but a lot of times that economy or that market zigs when most people expect it to zag. i think there are some really good reasons for that.

most in the west don't necessarily square with the reality on the ground. i want to give a shoutout to brendan hern of course he's biased, is bullish on china i writes china last night, it's western news but from the perspective of being a bull on china. we'll hear this horrible thing happened but in reality when you think from a viewpoint of an investor it's the opposite of that they put out a lot of great information and that is the sponsor of the crane shares kweb etf. up next, the ftc clearing the way for exxon's mega merger with pioneer oil now tracking its worst week in three mth hons,ow the committee is playing all of that next old school hard work meets bold new thinking. to help you see untapped possibilities

and relentlessly work with you to make them real. (torstein hagen) in my simple world, there are only three things that matter in human beings. and relentlessly work with you first, they have to be kind. kind. second, they have to be honest. and third, they have to be hard-working. it's very simple. wherever you are in the world, when you come to a different culture, you meet people of very different backgrounds, but you find out that they have the same ambitions and the same fears just like yourself. i'm so sure that travel is good for the world. it's really the best to engage with the locals and the destination. and i think travel helps broaden the human mind and makes us kinder. and that's fantastically valuable.

♪ we are back with exxon poised now to close at $60 billion deal to buy pioneer after reaching an agreement with the ftc. that's one aspect to our story today. crude, well, that's basically flat energy has done pretty well of late, as you know. you own exxon. >> i do. >> mr. belski. did you expect this to happen, this deal to go through? are you glad it's going to >> we like exxon, and we've owned exxon and chevron for a long time mostly because of cash flow and dividends we think given the fact of this overcapacity, i think, still in the u.s. energy base, it's good we're seeing m&a this is a big positive. >> what about energy stocks in general? i feel like there's a good debate about whether that momentum is sort of waning or if it's still a place to be >> we still think it's waning. we would rather buy more apple

and google with any kind of shares with respect to buying in energy think about this, the whole energy sector is 3% of the s&p that's half of the size of apple. that's some perspective. now if you're a true stock picker and want to go downstream and not own exxon and chevron and own some of the more sensitive wti players, that's great, but we do think wti actually is going to pull back a little bit toward the end of the year >> what do you think, josh, about the energy trade, which i think you still have a piece in, right? >> pull up a long-term chart of ieo. this part of the market where exxon is fishing for acquisitions, these are the stocks that are right now at all-time record highs. they're not chevron, exxon, but they're like conoco phillips and on down. they comprise a large portion of it and then you have all of the, let's call them large cap not mega cap, oil and gas companies

in the united states i still think this is a bull market right now testing support where they broke out from earlier this year they're not giving much back on the down days. i don't think you need $100 oil for the stocks to make sense they are generating tons of cash flow they have great balance sheets i think they will be chased until the end of the year. >> liz >> i like energy a lot there's a lot of reasons for it. the price of oil right now, right under $79 a barrel, that's right where the biden administration said they would refill the spr, that creates a floor on that price. energy stocks are dividend pairs. investors do want dividends. i always look at the broad market conditions. i think we are set to see a steepening in the yield curve. it doesn't matter if it's a bull steepener, energy tends to do well still ahead, the setup on key earnings coming out this week trades on live nation, amgen, and, of course, berkshire. a big meeting happening this weekend.

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investment objectives, risks, charges, expenses and more in prospectus at invesco.com ♪ let's set you up for some key earnings coming. it's more than apple it's berkshire on saturday around the annual meeting, swelt. >> look, this has been a stellar performer this year. the whole insurance group has this tailwind with rising premiums, especially property casualty so berkshire has the benefit of that but i think it's got tailwinds from the industrial economy and a lot of the things we talk about with utility energy products and the stimulus package. so a lot of things are happening that have benefitted this

company. and i don't see that changing in the second half of the year. so i'm long, remain bullish. >> you own it, too >> we own it in three portfolios they're the largest financial position it's sneakily become the mag seven, seventh largest stock i'm really interested in the comments on saturday i'm going to be listening closely. >> you'll watch them live, by the way, on cnbc on 9:00 a.m >> i know i will >> check that out this saturday. you'll catch that. live nation, that's today after the bell, josh >> well, the fundamentals of the business are on fire, so that's not the issue. people will be listening to color on how they plan to deal with some of the regulatory stuff. i don't know how much they'll give you on the call, but that seems to be the only cloud hanging over the stock everything else is aces. this is a company that's extremely well positioned for what the consumer wants to do with their capital and that's not changing any time soon either.

>> ryan, amgen is after the bell today. >> we've owned it for ten years. this used to be the go-to biotech stock. it's done an amazing job moving from just a pipeline stock to a pure driven in terms of what they're putting out. >> we'll take a break, come back and do "finals" next trading at schwab is now powered by ameritrade, unlocking the power of thinkorswim, the award-winning trading platforms. bring your trades into focus on thinkorswim desktop with robust charting and analysis tools, including over 400 technical studies. tailor the platforms to your unique needs with nearly endless customization. and track market trends with up-to-the-minute news and insights. trade brilliantly with schwab.

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let's do "final trades." brian, happy birthday. >> thank you very much appreciate that. we're going to go deep contrarian, prologis we think reits are coming back strong >> liz young >> i spoiled my make on this one already, but energy. i do like it i think there's support. >> josh brown? >> all the stuff in the prologis warehouse needs to be connected to the cloud, that's what it does that's what this business is about. almost nobody knows this company. i'm very excited >> lastly, about apple, just one last thought before we go. i guess this is the time where this stock doesn't hold as much importance as it once did to the broader market picture, does it? >> right >> at least right now. >> so does the market quote unquote need apple no, because the market cap that comes out of apple goes into

nvidia, and we're fine >> a lot of investors need apple. it's the second largest stock now in the market. so it's still obviously important. we'll take you right up to it $172 is where that stock is trading. i'll see you on "closing bell. i'mdomdo dom i'll see you on "closing bell. i'mdom dominic chu the fed was less hawkish than feared, so what does that mean our guest says you don't want to get caught with fomo she's here with what she means and what she's buying. shares of freelance job platform upward on higher earnings and stronger guidance the ceo joins us with the trends she's seeing and the clues that bsy provide for tomorrow's big