>> they would not overreact to them. >> indications moving north for reddit, an indication of $50 to $52. >> a pretty good day to go public actually. people are willing to believe again. >> reddit has jay powell for extending out the rally. thank you, mike. that does it for us here on "money movers." over to frank holland and "the halftime report." sara and mike, thank you very much. i am frank holland in for the judge, scott wapner. new tech titans front and center this hour. we have a new a.i. announcement from microsoft just hitting the tape, and we're following the department of justice and its antitrust lawsuit against apple. joining me for the hour to discuss this and much more josh brown, kari firestone, bill baruch and kevin. our steve kovach is at cnbc headquarters with the headlines. steve? microsoft right now

launching its first artificial intelligence pcs. these are the surface pro 10 and the surface laptop 6. what makes them different and what isn't a term you can expect to hear a lot this year. they have a special chip inside called a npu that can provide a.i. tasks faster and more efficiently. in icrosoft's case that means co-pilot, of course, the digital assistant, built into windows 11 for business users and microsoft sells the copilot service for $30 per month. with the new a.i. pcs, they claim copilot has better battery life and if you've ever used copilot or another chatbot it can take several seconds or more to spit out the result after you give it a command and this is likely the first of many a.i.

pcs we'll see. while they use intel chips. the bottom line, though, this is microsoft's attempt to get more businesses to pay for copilot promising better performances plus time-saving productivity gains for employees. "the wall street journal" earlier this year said some copilot customers who tried it early have found problems with it. it's still yet to be determined if it's worth that hefty cost microsoft's asking for. as for the new surface computers, they're on sale now and will start shipping april 9th, frank. >> microsoft shares up just about 1%. rising about a quarter of a percent since this news crossed. steve, stick around. i know you have more on the apple antitrust news. kari, i saw you looking over at me when steve was talking. a.i. pcs, clearly struck a chord with you. >> it's interesting. all we've been hearing about is

a.i. chips, and nobody has been making any money off a.i., really, except nvidia. it's interesting to think microsoft is finally coming up with something other than copilot from which they can boost their revenue based on everything they have in their pocket on a.i. remember, they own a big share of openai's profitable arm and they're a connector to the whole artificial intelligence world, but we haven't heard a lot more than copilot, and using it in a pc, embedded in your pc, i think that's ingenious. we really haven't considered this aspect of it. i thought, wow, maybe bad on me not to have done so, but it's not just about the chip, it's the different ways we can use it. that's an applause to microsoft. >> kari, you own microsoft. gardner said gena.i.

capabilities, it will be challenging for companies to differentiate and make money on it. kevin, i will start with you. microsoft shares did move higher on this news. but are you concerned it's a lot of hype, but the monetization may be more difficult? >> i think that's the reason to own moffitt because here is, to kari's point, within co-pilot with the computers as well. if you look at their cloud business up 23% last quarter, revenues in general up double digits. if you're going to be first to market and you want to monetize something, owning companies like microsoft that make money is absolutely the way to do it. love the stock here. >> bill? >> this is just the start. the expectation was they're going to be one of the first to bring nvidia's technology and networking surface here. it's a great machine. i think it's just the start of the monetization of what we're seeing here moving away from nvidia and the chips.

>> josh? >> i think the edge is where the money will be made. the immediate beneficiaries of increased usage of a.i. followed by the folks like snowflake, et cetera. when you think about the really, really big consumer facing and/or enterprise facing opportunity, it's probably going to be at a layer in which regular people on an everyday basis are interacting with these tools and paying subscription fees to somebody for the right to do so. i really don't think this is any surprise that we're starting to see announcements of this flavor. there will be a lot more. it's really early still. what you want to phone cuss on, though, is the software opportunity more than just the hardware opportunity. the hardware will be exciting first and then eventually will become table stakes, commoditized. everyone will have the hardware cap

capability. then who has the best app, the best consumer or employee facing app, and what are the stickiest services people get to a point where they can't live without? maybe 6 months to 12 months april way from me being able to definitively say anything. for now we should all just continue to monitor these developments. >> intel will provide the chips or the cpus for these devices. intel shares up 2% as well. steve, before we switch gears, microsoft copilot will be built into the pcs, right? >> not just built-in, there's a dedicated button for copilot to launch the service. that tells you how important microsoft thinks the product is to its future. you might remember the windows key on keyboards forever to launch the start menu. this tells you how important they think it is baked into windows 11, baked into the hardware itself, frank.

>> let's switch gears. keeping our eye on apple. shares down more than 3.5% after the doj followed an antitrust suit against the company within the last hour. that press conference got pretty granular hitting on the green bubbles when you text from a non-apple phone. what do we know about this? >> i've been digesting this 80-page lawsuit here since it came out last hour and, look, this is a kitchen sink case against apple. i'm struggling to find an apple product that is not named in here. it goes through siri, icloud, apple music. it's trying to make these -- this case against apple that its dominance with the iphone is the centerpiece for all these things that keep people wrapped in and the one thing that really stuck out to me was how often merrick garland said in his press conference about exclusionary practices, meaning if you're a third party smart watch maker like a garmin, for example, you

don't get the full features of what ios can offer that you might get with an apple watch. also making that scenario also means people are less able to switch over to android. and on top of that, all these features and services that are packing in, the allegations say it makes people need to upgrade to a new iphone. oh, and, by the way, they keep increasing the price of the iphone. merrick garland pointed out the most expensive is about $1,600. back in the day, we were used to spending a couple hundred bucks on phones. his point being, this is harming consumers as well not just developers who have been complaining. consumers are paying the price, the allegations say, because they get wrapped into the ecosystem because of these exclusionary practices. of course apple is denying all of this, they will vigorously defend themselves, and they also say if the doj succeeds in this, it will hurt their ability to

innovate. we're going to hear a little bit more from apple any minute now. they're holding a press briefing, which i will jump on soon, so maybe more from that side of the argument, too. >> apple shares ahead of that press briefing down 3.5%. former assistant an g for antitrust on our air saying th these kind of cases take a while to unfold. how big of a deal for apple, the stock and the ecosystem going forward? >> i think this is something that the biden administration on the way in told everyone that they were going to focus on. they felt large technology platforms had too much power, and we were in an economy where you have a handful of companies really dominating and really determining the future for all of the other businesses that exist out there. the trouble, as always, and the same thing goes with amazon and alphabet, it's really tough to prove true consumer harm. the consumers are voting with their wallets and they love these products and they can't buy enough of them, and you can raise the price every year and

they keep buying them. nobody has a gun to their head to choose apple over android. it's consumer preference and they continually signal that they're happy and they want more. so what you really have to do is prove harm to other businesses not to other consumers. and maybe that's a lower hurdle. maybe they'll be able to do that. my sense is this drags on for two or three years. we have a political change coming in november anyway. i wouldn't get too worked up about it. certainly not a seller of apple as a result. >> shares down over 3.5%. to josh's point, he says it's hard to prove harm. the government even leaning on feelings, saying you get that green text bubble, your messages aren't encrypted, which is somewhat serious -- >> get a different found. >> you can't edit your text messages. videos you send are grainy. how seriously are you taking this as far as being an apple in investor? >> they're trying to level the

playing field, but if you are an apple user or a developer, is it a right to be on there and have a phone and put your product out through their apps, or is it a privilege? i think it's a privilege. i'm a big believer in capitalism. i can see what they're talking about here from leveling some of the text messaging and some of the tracking and what not, but as josh said, the white house promised -- the biden administration -- they will be moving forward with this. it's not a surprise. it's going to drag out. apple is a huge, huge portion of this market, but it hasn't performed in the last month or two. and so that's the question. can this market continue to move higher without apple in it and will apple be a smaller piece? >> you mentioned it hasn't performed last month. a lot has been pressure from in china. a lot of competition in china, also possibly regulation in china for very different reasons. the chinese government possibly trying to protect their domestic smartphone industry.

how concerned are you about this long term? >> the question is, how do we feel about apple and whether it can both perform the market, continue to go higher, does the market need apple? and i would say the market doesn't seem to need apple if it has other stocks to buy, which it has. china is huge. if apple were to say business has turned around in china, that would make a huge difference to apple shareholders. they would be relieved and probably would price the stock higher. i think this suit has some importance to shareholders because of all the companies, big companies that are involved in it and want to take apple down. they want to pay apple less. they want to receive more of the revenue that they feel apple is getting unfairly. and that, to me, does have some merit and importance to other parts of the market. and it will drag on and, therefore, i think apple shares will be under some pressure, and

any signals there is some negotiations that's moving toward -- spotify even. we don't own spotify, but that would be positive. >> apple won in court against fortnite. players of the game could pay them directly and operate around ios, and apple said no. went to court and apple won. number two, look, this is going to be a permanent feature of the landscape now that we have multitrillion dollar companies with billions of users. they will never not be under scrutiny from one authority or another. >> correct. >> they're in battles with the eu. get used to that. it will never end. now they'll be in battles here on and off. we've seen it before. we've seen microsoftgo through it. i don't think anyone really has an edge on the courtroom stuff or the litigation stuff as a trader or an investor. might be happy with an outcome. i don't think it's the thing we

want to be focused on. >> steve, you have to get to that presser. i want to ask you, are we looking at antitrust regulatio in the u.s.? also pressure in the eu along with other mega cap tech companies. do you believe apple will discuss the regulation in the u.s. but what's going on in the eu and their general strategy? >> they've been talking about their eu compliance for several months now, since january, when they announced it. but i think more importantly, frank, that could be a template for if apple loses this case against the department of justice of how they would make changes here in the united states as well. that includes, you know, allowing other third-party app stores on the phone, those nfc payments, your american express app and so forth. that is one idea, but, by the way, they are also under scrutiny whether apple is actually in compliance with the

law. i will make one more political point here. josh was talking we might have a trump administration next year and what happens here. i will note the trump administration doj started this investigation into apple. so there's a decent chance that it will continue under a different administration. i will also note, though, tim cook was really good at codeying up to donald trump during his first term and got a lot of concessions especially with china tariffs. maybe that relationship can get leverage. >> our steve kovach back at headquarters. thanks for your reporting as always. kevin, we have a committee move. you bought more apple last week. >> we sold out of apple at the end of november. the stock had made a tremendous run. the earnings growth was slowing down. we pivoted into broadcom at the time. with the recent news we're seeing here with apple today, last week, 10%, 15% off the highs from december, we're willing to look at a company that's best in breed. cash flow machine, maybe look at

this news as something that will hurt revenues. i think it will have to. it's depressing to watch a company that's such an innovator that to josh's point we're investing in because we want to and they're going to be penalized for being about best in breed. >> tim cook's in china right now. they're opening the second largest apple store in the world after the one on 5th avenue in new york. it will be in shanghai. i think they have multiple stores in shanghai already. if you think tim cook is good at cod cozying up to donald trump, that goes from being a negative catalyst to a potential positive catalyst if there's anything good to say to kari's point about maybe we're bottoming out there, in terms of market share, maybe it's in terms of positive signals from a government official. but i feel the risk is to the upside on the china story. >> we discounted the china play

completely. anything that happens now is going to be revenue we weren't counting for moving forward. >> a guest on "worldwide exchange" saying that tim cook's half ceo/half diplomat in these other countries, is able to navigate very skillfully, and steve kovach pointed out, his ability to work with the trump administration. you actually trimmed apple on the other side of this coin. >> i did yesterday into the close. wanted to monetize it somewhere. we didn't have much cash. and i've been talking about it the last month. a little bit of rotating. it's still number six and we're underweight the s&p, a 4% weighting. for me, it broke down an up trend, going back to december and from a momentum standpoint has stalled. i want to see the momentum. this was a top holding. i want to see the momentum turn back north here.

we would have to see apple above 185. >> the doj in several states filing an antitrust lawsuit against the company, basically accusing it of monopolistic practices. micron hitting a record high after beating quarterly estimates and giving strong guidance. bill, you're in this one as well. >> this is a top five name of ours. it's in the center of our portfolio for quite a while. this isn't a story of where -- it didn't come out of nowhere today. really this goes back to 2022 and the end of 2022, talking about this many times over, the ceo of micron wanted to flesh out the supply. the demand will come back around. last year talked about a trough in memory demand. what they hit on yesterday, the new acronym high bandwidth

memory, hbm. nvidia, jensen huang, the ceo there, talked about their new technology. it will need more hbm and micron's technology increases that hbm by more than 20 times memory bandwidth, so i think what you're going to see here, demand throughout the tech landscape and where the chips as they evolve and it's not just the picks and shovels anymore with nvidia will lift all boats around them. micron, synopsys, these are performing names. >> micron in the memory and storage space. shares are up over 16%. td cowen raised to 1,100 from 900. josh, what do you think? a little late to the party? surprised at all to see this price target increase? >> most of the analysts at this point have been bullish on the stock for a long time. not a lot of opinion changes happening. nvidia basically has become a

universal buy. 40 different analysts covering it with an accumulated overweight buy, a strong buy, a like, a love. so, at this point, when we're talking about adjusting price targets, a lot of stuff just becomes positioning and trying to make sure that your investment bank is getting their share of the trading volume that's supposed to cross your desk. i hate to say these things out loud, i know it's not popular, but this is the business. that's why we changed price targets from 1050 to 1100. nobody actually believes that trade difference has any real meaning to the people transacting in the stock. the thing i like to do with the $900 stock is pretend it's $92. if i tell you this stock is trading at 92 and i think it will go to 110, you'd probably shrug and say, yeah, that sounds right. a lot of $92 stocks go to $110. if you do that mentally, you can get past this whole thing where

you say, $1,000 target? stocks don't split anymore or for the most part. this is the way we trade these days and these moves should not trick you as to what's going on. it's a strong stock getting stronger. still bullish long nvidia until i die. >> probably not. >> wow, until you die. our kari firestone has more on cnbc pro, her latest write-up on if nvidia can continue its parabolic gain. i will be reading it later, kari. looking forward to it. >> thank you. so, kari, your article, again, the question now is, should investors start taking profits in some of the market's a.i. winners? bill, we're doing a lot of moves with you today. you took profits when it came to

amd. >> amd has not performed well the past week or so. hit over $200 and it's given that entire gain back. it's underperfect forming in relation to the nasdaq. we're still overweight amd, now about a 3% weighting in ours. you can't do it all at once. we were 55% tech. trying to find places to move the needle. >> was valuation an issue? i'm looking at amd, micron 53 times forward earnings and nvidia 27 times forward earnings. >> i'm not extremely focused to have such heavyweight in tech for this move, but momentum the centerpiece of exactly why is this turning down, it hit 200, it's rejected 200.

i'm going to take a step back and re-evaluate what the next move is. >> amd shares up right now. our julia boorstin is standing by with the latest on reddit pricing. >> an indication between $50 and $52. $52 would be a 47% premium over where it was priced at $34 a share. we're awaiting that first trade. steve huffman, the ceo, we interviewed this morning, is here and everyone is standing here by the post awaiting that first trade. guys? >> julia boorstin, we'll be waiting for that first trade. it's looking like it will open $50 or $52. the names and the trades from bill, kari and kevin next. much more "halftime" in two minutes. >> announcer: are you following "the halftime report" podcast? what are you waiting for? look for us in your favorite

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welcome back to "the halftime report." let's hit some committee moves. kevin, you bought more united health. >> yeah, now this doesn't come without risk, frank, like we talked about with apple.

they have the doj coming after them with respect to an acquisition they made in 2011. so maybe a little late to the party, i'm not sure. the other problem is there's been a massive cyber attack against you nipted health care. so definitely more risk with this trade. if they come out of it, we'll be pleased with the performance. the past eight quarters they've increased earnings by 10%. each of the last eight quarters in a row, you're talking about a company that's standing by this trying to help mom and pop pharmacies, those that still remain, and, most importantly, the people that need to get medicines. it's not working perfectly, they're going to take a big loss as a result of this but they're not running away from it and are running up to this problem. we're excited about that opportunity. if it doesn't work, we'll keep a tight stock loss. >> united health down about 5% over the last month since that cyber attack and the opening of that doj investigation. kari, either one of those concern but this company in the short term or the long term? >> we own it, also, have owned

it for a long time. we think the potential for united health is solve the problem with cyber. start to get the costs under control particularly with the obesity drugs, which is going to happen. there are going to be many more drugs on the market and those costs are killing every employee is going to start to moderate. >> bill, you own it as well. >> i think it's really taken a lot of the bad news very well this year. it's not a stock that moves a ton, so it's held up well and building on a little bit of a floor. they're mitigating risks with the cyber attack, the breach, and is moving forward. i would like to see the stock have a better performance the second hatlf of the year, thoug. >> why not wait until the technicals at least show a sign of a bottom, i guess, would be the question? the stock has been hammered already and fundamentally there's probably a lot of value here. we all know things go way further than they should to the down side and the upside.

why not pick an entry point once it can hold the previous low or we see selling drying up on another sell-off? >> we own it already, so we have a big gain in the stock. >> you're not adding to it. >> not adding to it. >> i've owned it already, i have not made any moves on it. we had a big low that came out middle of the year. we came off the recent low that could be building head and shoulders to your technical point. >> 475. >> if that doesn't hold, get out of the way. >> going to 474. one more committee move, nextera energy. kari, you own this one. >> this got hit very hard. interest rates were going up, there was a fear they weren't going to be able to get financing for some of their projects. so interest rates haven't come down yet, but we've heard that they will be coming down and they've certainly plateaued. they had a positive judge ruling -- judgment ruling in

florida, and that's a good thing. on the rate side things are moving positively and sustainable energy has been a big part of their portfolio. no one has wanted that over the last year. we think that's overdone. they have a lot of projects that over time will be very profitable for them. it's 15 1/2 times earnings, and so we like this. >> shares down about a quarter of a percent. bill, back over to you, a new position for you. you bought newport. >> yes. as you heard, i trimmed apple, trimmed amazon -- not amazon -- trimmed amd, and that cash went into nucor. there is tremendous flows from a money standpoint into materials right now. i was on last week talking about adding to southern copper. looking for additional exposure and materials, nucor is breaking out. one concern is they do have a billion dollars in debt coming due in quarter two of 2025. that could come into the news later this year. from an infrastructure standpoint whether it's a.i. data centers or cable

infrastructure being built out, steel prices are on the rise, and nucor continues to rise with that. >> a new high today, steel dynamics as well. i do want to ask you, though, about a month ago they released some guidance ahead of their earnings coming up next month. it was kind of mixed. eps guidance was below estimates. they said one segment, when it comes to steel mill, that's going to be strong in q1. what gave you the confidence? is it the material sector rally we've been seeing or some other factor? >> flows are playing a big part, and want more material money in the space. it's a top ten in the xlb. you will see more flows into that. but as a futures trader and growing up trading as a futures trader, when you have poor to mixed fundamental news and the market doesn't trade poorly off that, that's usually a very good sign. i like that, the mixed news there. the market has been mixed guidance and being able to shake

that off is a positive. >> nucor shares up over 1%. time for headlines with contessa brewer. good afternoon. good to see you. hi there. congress unveiled a $1.2 trillion bipartisan spending bill. these are the final spending bills for the fiscal year. they need to pass thehouse and the senate by midnight friday to avoid a partial government shutdown. boston surgeons transplanted a kidney from a genetically modified pig into a 62-year-old man. his doctors say his body shows no signs so far of rejecting the kidney. this is an operation that could off hope to hundreds of thousands of americans suffering from kidney failure. for now the surgery is not fda approved. a $1.8 billion movie studio backed by actor mark wahlberg has been approved to build in las vegas, the clark county zoning commission that green lighted the joint venture between sony entertainment and howard hughes holdings yesterday. that could bring in 10,000 jobs

to las vegas. and, of course, we talked to mark wahlberg last year in nevada where he was lobbying lawmakers for those film production tax breaks. they're looking forward, frank, to diversifying nevada's economy beyond gambling and beyond travel and tourism. >> all right. our contessa brewer live. more ideas for your portfolio. josh gives you a sneak peek. the best stocks, the desk will discuss those nas xtomg .pmene cin much more "halftime" after this.

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we're back here on "halftime." time for trade school. josh, your firm has a proprietary list of, quote, the best stocks in the market and you have some new names being added. >> in a bull market what you don't want to be doing is looking at the 52-week low list or trying to find difficult, complicated situations that you think you have an edge versus everyone else who has dumped the stock. it's a low probability game and only the best, sharpest people can play it. for most people, a much better route to go would be to focus on the best stocks in the market. in bull markets, trends continue

to trend for a very long time, and they tell you definitively when the trend is at an end and when you want to get out. so let's take a look at some of those best stocks. those are the winds i would consider to be the best setups amongst large cap companies that are currently profitable. take a look at dow chemical, broke resistance around 56. i don't think it will have a problem there. this is the first higher high for dow since last summer. so it's really spent nine months consolidating. rsi is only 63. therefore, it's not terribly overbought. you're not late to the trade. i like a few names in the group. i want to throw in 3m. this is an industrial, lawsuits, settlements, et cetera. this is a defined breaking of the down trend as you can see right before your very eyes. now you have a stock that's 50%

off all-time highs, but within 2% of a new 52-week high. it has not traded around the $112 level since january of last year, so about 15 months fighting through this level of resistance, and now she looks like she wants to go this is a name that should be on your list. this one is a little bit higher of an rsi. stocks could be overbought and still work. how many more do we want to do? >> kevin, i want to go over to you. you own dow. what do you make of josh's thesis in trade school? >> for obvious reasons, we've been out for some time. i like the dow, 5% dividend. doesn't have the dividend growth, but these are stocks that are breaking out. i think both should be on the watch list. >> how do i get you back in, kevin? can i throw in a set of steak

knives? >> a stock split. >> royal caribbean is actually hitting a new all-time high, and that is the first time since pre-covid you've been able to say that. this is not just a 52-week high. it's a monster performer off the 2022 lows from july 2022 until today, basically we've seen two years of higher lows and then higher highs and then higher lows again. that stair step pattern is what you're looking for for an intermediate to long-term hold if you're looking at the technicals. the stock is just a beast. it's behind really only smci and nvidia when you look at what it's been able to do. marriott is another all-time high. same theme, the travel boom is not a fad. it's now an ingrained part of our culture so long as people have money, they're going to want to have experiences with it. they did the new flat screen tv.

they don't need another one. they're traveling instead. we continually hear from airline ceos. they are notching the best weeks of ticket sales one after another after another. mar is where they land and drive to. it's not that complex. the last one, financials. new 52-week high. citigroup, bank of america, goldman sachs, jpmorgan -- not only are the stocks making 52-week highs, technically they really look flawless. there are no sellers, there's no resistance right you in. i think these can continue to rock out, and i want to be in these names as long as i can. >> we're going to back up. kari, your old wheelhouse, you used to cover travel and leisure for fidelity. do you want to take on the funneled amountals or technicals? >> i think marriott makes a lot of sense. i think royal caribbean, those two look great. we own booking. a hiccup but those two are different, in my opinion, than

dow and 3m. both of whom had massive downturns for multiyear trends. both fundamentally and technically, and those are turnarounds in both cases. those are turnaround stories and the charts look good. the other stocks, royal caribbean and marriott, and booking, are sites that have been in up trends. travel is, of course, the place where consumers are spending more time and more money and more interest and the infrastructure are beginning to dominate the whole leisure space. >> marriott a new all-time high. up next, mike santoli with his "midday word" as stocks rally. again, we're continuing to watch stocks right now. we're kind of, sort of, on 40,000 watch when it comes to the dow. the s&p and nasdaq on pace for new record closes. stay with us. much more coming up. coming up at the top of the hour join the virtual cnbc equity in opportunity forum. i'll be speaking with corporate

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my advice for everyone is to go with golo. it will release your fat and it will release you. welcome back to "halftime." the dow, the s&p and the nasdaq all hitting fresh record highs. the dow up just about 300 points right now. the s&p up over half a percent. the nasdaq the best performer, kind of tied with the dow. for more, senior markets commentator mike santoli who joins us with his "midday word." mike, yesterday was the fed. i have to ask, what's the word today? >> well, it's actually the afterglow of the fed, frank. the market is seeing this sequence of lights turn green down the avenue. you had the nvidia event, which didn't really recharge nvidia instantly but it kept the story intact big picture. bank of japan, we absorbed a little rate hike. it was dovish. powell yesterday more or less

decided that the fed is going to stand aside, steady as she goes, not going to overreact to slightly warmer inflation numbers. i think the question now is, you know, what can the market feed on next if it's not just more of the same, more of the same kind of celebration of a soft economic landing and a fed that's going to at some point be more accommodative. up 10% year to date on the s&p 500, the first quarter is not done yet. >> right now we're showing a banner right below you, treasury yields mostly higher. how do treasury yields play into the market story going forward at least until the next fed decision? >> interesting. yesterday the yields did come in a little bit on, i guess what was perceived as a net dovish message from powell. globally, too, yields have been coming in. now they've leaped higher a little bit. i've been viewing the ten year under 4.35, 4.40 as being within the range. it's a no change, no signal. we can live with this. we can absorb that kind of rate

especially when credit spreads are so, so tight that the corporate borrowing costs are staying very tame. for now i feel as if the bond market still has to metabolize this idea that maybe there's a little more tolerance, slightly higher inflation or a longer path to get to the 2% fed target. that's down the road in the here and now. it feels as if risk rally mode, everything pretty much up, low quality, high quality, big/small. >> we're on pace for a record close. mike santoli with the "midday word." mike, thank you very much. coming up next our "call of the day" on adobe. bearish analyst activity on that stock. much more "halftime" coming up after this. what others can learn from my journey as a female leader is really resilience and perseverance. many steps along the way i've experienced challenges and roadblocks, and having the

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♪ ♪ welcome back to the "halftime report." let's get to our call on adobe. key bank initiating it at underweight, saying it's no longer the grower that it was. shares down 2%. bill, you shoold this one. >> we sold it today. guidance was a bit soft, but i think the market overreacted to the guidance. the problem is, the deal did not go through, that was going to be a $20 billion deal. they took that money with a $25 billion buyback. i think in the middle of an ai

arms race, with sora releasing the technology from openai, that they're going to keep with adobe here, they have to invest this money back into the business. the market is punishing them. adobe is lower today, so i'm stepping away. >> so to your point, adobe shares down about 12%. the qqq up about 10%. you like adobe and their ai story, as well. >> i think the market overreacted to the earnings. i think to put out a new report and say, sell here, it's a little after the fact. adobe is still dominant in its space, and they actually have products that they have integrated into some of their platform. if you just use photo shop, you can tell that there are many new features than there ever have been. it's a stock that's growing. i don't know, low double digits on the top line, that can expand over the next couple of years, and be a mid teen grower on earnings. the stock multiple has come down, and we think right here is

an attractive entry point. >> what do you think they're going to figure out with ai? the most logical application of ai is in photo shop. >> if you use photo shop right now, you can see that there are applications that did not exist in the last year. >> adobe shares down 2% on that downgrade. stay with us. "final trades" is coming up right here. [alarm beeping] amelia, turn off alarm. amelia, weather. 70 degrees and sunny today. amelia, unlock the door. i'm afraid i can't do that, jen. why not? did you forget something? my protein shake. the future isn't scary, not investing in it is. you're so dramatic amelia. bye jen. 100 innovative companies, one etf. before investing, carefully read and consider fund investment objectives, risks, charges expenses and more in prospectus at invesco.com. billy's not just running a small goat grazing business he's also the chief marketing officer.

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welcome back. let's get to julia on the floor with the latest on reddit. >> we're awaiting the first trade. this was priced at $34, which was the high end of the range. now there is an indication between $39.50 and $50.50 at the mid point, $50 is a 50% premium over where the stock was priced. seems to be heating up. we're getting ready for it to start trading any minute now. back to you. >> waiting for reddit's first trade. "final trades" now. >> free port mcmoran. >> bill? >> uber consolidated, now it goes up. >> kerry? >> blackstone. realizations are starting to pick up. we think the pe market will improve. >> josh? >> samsara. >> one more quick check of the markets.

markets hitting an intraday high. reremain on 40,000 watch for the dow. ne.mi uchange" is congp xt thanks for watching. ♪♪ ♪♪ investment opportunities ♪♪ are everywhere you turn. do you charge forward? freeze in your tracks? or, let curiosity light the way. at t. rowe price, we ask smart questions about opportunities like advances in healthcare and how these innovations will create a healthier world tomorrow. better questions. better outcomes.

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