CNBC Halftime Report — The State of the Tech Trade as SK Hynix Opens for Trading

Meta owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, and for two years investors punished it for spending enormous sums on AI without a clear way to make money from it. The turning point this week: Zuckerberg said the giant pile of computing power Meta is building is a "backstop" it can rent out to other companies — the same business Amazon (AWS), Microsoft (Azure) and Google run. So the spending that looked like a black hole is being reframed as an asset Meta can resell at a profit, and Meta bought that compute cheaply.

The whole committee moved in on that idea. Kevin Simpson opened a brand-new position; Steve Weiss bought aggressively on a down day into his biggest position ever (and plans to trim the newest adds); Jenny Harrington, who added two weeks ago, calls it "the only Mag-7 we still invest in" — 20× earnings with a social-media business still throwing off $200 billion a year growing 28%; Bill Baruch calls it a "bottom-of-the-ninth comeback" at the cheapest valuation since late 2022.

Micron makes memory chips that AI servers need in bulk. After a huge run the committee openly disagrees on it. Bill Baruch's largest position — he argues the company is "sold out" of capacity through 2026 (and its high-end AI memory likely into 2027), so earnings are locked in; he'd only call a top if the stock re-rates to 20× earnings (it usually trades far cheaper). Steve Weiss made a fortune on it but sold Monday to bank the gain ("didn't want to be piggish") and would only buy back around $925.

Jenny Harrington is the skeptic: a stock that has already doubled is "pricing in" the best case for 2027–2028, competition is intense, and a single software breakthrough could cut how much memory AI needs — so the future cash flows are "too ambiguous." Her verdict: "you trade it, it's not investable." Net: a name to rent, not marry — hence the Neutral.

SK Hynix is the Korean memory-chip giant that dominates "high-bandwidth memory" (HBM) — the specialized memory stacked next to NVIDIA's AI chips. It just started trading in the US as an ADR (a US-listed receipt that lets Americans buy a foreign company's shares), and it was the largest such listing ever: $26.5 billion raised, opening 16% above its $149 offer price at about $173.

The bull framing (from CNBC's Christina Partsinevelos) is that it's a bigger, cheaper, more direct bet on NVIDIA's supply chain than Micron — SK Hynix holds 56–58% of the HBM market vs about 21% each for Samsung and Micron, and is NVIDIA's number-one supplier. But it's market color, not a recommendation: no one on the committee bought it, and Weiss only noted it's slightly cheaper than Micron. An open question is where all the buying money is coming from (possibly rotated out of Micron and other chips).

Nvidia makes the chips that train and run AI. After going nowhere for a month (flat/slightly up on the year), Bill Baruch likes that it's "waking up" while holding a key trend line, and is putting new client money to work in it (alongside Broadcom). Kevin Simpson made it his final-trade pick, noting demand for the new Blackwell chips is "unbelievable" and the company is finally approaching $100 billion of revenue per quarter.

Broadcom makes networking chips and custom AI silicon for the big cloud companies. Bill Baruch is buying it right alongside Nvidia as he deploys new cash — "these are buys right here and it's going to run" — treating the pair as his way to re-enter the AI-chip trade after its recent pause.

Taiwan Semiconductor is the factory that actually manufactures the advanced chips designed by Nvidia, Apple, Meta and others — nobody can make leading-edge chips without it. Steve Weiss's point is that however messy the memory debate gets, "all roads lead to Taiwan Semi": everyone needs its capacity, so it captures value no matter which chip designer wins.

He also likes that it's more predictable than most chip stocks: it doesn't price its output off volatile spot-market prices — you reserve its capacity and pay a set price — which makes its earnings steadier and, in his view, makes it the cheapest and most reliable semiconductor to own.

FTAI used to be a fairly boring business — leasing and maintaining aircraft engines. Steve Weiss re-bought it because it has quietly transformed into a power-generation company: it turns out jet engines can be repurposed to generate electricity, and that electricity is in huge demand to power AI data centers. So an old aviation name is now part of the AI-power story.

His case is that it's cheap and overlooked: it trades around 17× EBITDA (a measure of cash earnings) — much cheaper than a comparable power name like GE Vernova — and would be in the teens on a normal earnings basis using 2027 estimates. He calls it an "orphan stock" because few analysts follow it. He's down on his recent purchase but sees good upside and won't panic-sell it lower.

GDX is a basket of gold-mining stocks. Bill Baruch bought more after gold's worst quarter since 2013, for two reasons: gold tends to do well seasonally in July, and — his bigger bet — he thinks the Fed under Kevin Warsh only sounds hawkish (markets price a 30% chance of a July rate hike, 50% by year-end). Baruch expects that tough talk to be "walked back" to boost the economy and stock market ahead of the midterm elections, which would be bullish for gold.

Jenny Harrington flatly disagrees on gold itself — she says there's no way to value it and "it's not an investment," just a bet on other people's behavior. So this is a split-desk call: bullish from the buyer, dismissive from the fundamental investor.

OUNZ is a fund that holds physical gold (it even lets holders redeem for real coins/bars). Bill Baruch uses it as his gold vehicle — back in January he swapped out of a different fund (CEF) into OUNZ specifically to drop the silver exposure, and he's now adding on the same seasonal + "Fed hawkishness gets walked back" thesis.

His explanation for why gold fell in 2026 despite all this: a rule change (Basel III) made gold a top-tier bank asset, and cash-strapped oil-exporting nations have been selling their gold reserves to raise money — a mechanical, temporary source of selling, not a sign the long-term case is broken.

Freeport is one of the world's biggest copper miners. Jenny Harrington draws a sharp line between copper and gold: unlike gold, copper has a "clear-cut" cash-flow case because demand is relentless — every data center and every electric car needs a lot of it — so the miners are highly profitable and that's easy to model. She'd even rather own a copper miner than gold outright.

Bill Baruch agrees on copper specifically: he sees a supply deficit that widens over time, which sets the miners up well. So copper is the one part of the metals trade both the fundamentalist and the trader like.

AbbVie is a big pharmaceutical company. The worry for years was that its blockbuster drug Humira would lose patent protection and crater revenue — but Bill Baruch (it's his #15 position, and HSBC just named it a top pick) says two newer drugs, Skyrizi and Rinvoq, have already replaced that lost revenue, with ~24% revenue growth expected. The stock is trying to break out, and he likes healthcare (and Eli Lilly) as a place to be outside of tech.

Faced with a choice between the two beverage giants, Kevin Simpson's conviction is firmly with Coca-Cola over Pepsi. It's a large position in his dividend portfolio and is up 20% this year. The contrast is the point: while Pepsi's North American demand is weak and it's being downgraded, Coke is executing — so he's happy to hold the winner and avoid the laggard.

Caterpillar makes heavy machinery and, increasingly, power-generation and mining equipment tied to the data-center buildout. HSBC named it a top pick, but the committee is split, which nets out to Neutral. Kevin Simpson holds it as a multi-year story and won't sell — but he's at his 5% position limit and wouldn't add, calling it "up against the threshold to perfection" (priced for everything going right). Steve Weiss went the other way and sold half, calling it "way overvalued" after a 65% run this year. Simpson would still add on any real weakness.

Marriott is the global hotel operator. Jenny Harrington has owned it since 2013 and calls it a "permanent compounder" — the kind of predictable business (reliable mid-teens earnings growth expected for the next three years) you can hold for a decade or more, which she contrasts with the "ambiguous" memory stocks. HSBC also named it a top pick.

Her one caveat is price: it's expensive at 30× earnings with only a 3.5% free-cash-flow yield and is up 22% this year, so she'd "wait for a blip" rather than chase it here. A high-quality long-term hold, just not an add at today's level.

Clorox is the consumer-products maker (bleach, cleaning supplies). Jenny Harrington's final-trade pick: it's a "dividend aristocrat" (a company with a long record of raising its dividend) yielding 5% at a reasonable 17× earnings. Her catalyst is costs — petrochemicals are its biggest input, and as those prices fall back toward pre-war levels and supply chains normalize, margins should improve and "this stock should get a pop."

Nebius is a fast-growing AI-infrastructure company (it rents out AI computing capacity). Bill Baruch's final-trade pick: it's an "ultra-growth" story that has sold off 40% from its recent high into what he sees as strong technical support, and he expects it to "snap back quickly." He flags it's a very volatile part of the market.

SpaceX, Elon Musk's rocket-and-satellite company, recently went public and is already trading below its very first trade (around $148). Kevin Simpson owns a small, losing position and would "double down" only if it fell closer to $100 — the bull case being the near-monopoly of its Falcon rockets and Starlink internet, plus a premium for Musk himself. He deliberately also owns Tesla, betting the two effectively merge "under the surface" through shared AI even without a formal deal.

Bill Baruch doesn't own it (he avoids just-public stocks in his model portfolios) but is excited by the technology — its Colossus supercomputer and a "Cursor" acquisition are training its AI models, with room to scale enormously. His caution: newly public high-flyers routinely fall 50–70%, so he'd wait a few months. Net: an interesting story, but nobody's a confident buyer at today's price — hence Neutral.

Lamar owns billboards and is structured as a REIT (a real-estate company that pays out most income as dividends). Citi just downgraded it to neutral. Jenny Harrington owns it and is genuinely torn: it's up over 30% this year (leaving her a big taxable gain), the dividend yield has fallen to 4%, and both she and the analyst see limited upside left because it's gotten expensive.

But she loves the business — billboards are the one ad medium people can't skip — with excellent management. So she's stuck between banking the gain (and swapping into a higher 5% yield) and holding a great company: "I'm not selling it yet, but I'm not too far off."

Pepsi was downgraded by Citi, and the committee agrees it's one to avoid for now. Kevin Simpson only holds a tiny sliver because it's part of an index he tracks — North American demand has been "atrocious," and his real conviction is in Coca-Cola instead. Jenny Harrington was tempted by the rising 4.4% dividend yield but kept "hitting roadblocks" in her research.

The two big worries: GLP-1 weight-loss drugs (which threaten Pepsi's huge snack business, not just its drinks) and a weakening US consumer, with North American results faltering again in the latest quarter. She thinks the stock needs to fall another 20–30% before its valuation is compelling. It reminded Simpson of Nike — a quality brand whose stock still had further to fall.