Title: Debate: Is a Hike Coming? 9/16/26 Show: CNBC Halftime Report (podcast of the live noon ET show) -- Scott Wapner on the West Coast; the day of the FOMC decision Host: Scott Wapner + Investment Committee -- Joe Terranova, Jenny Harrington, Jim Lebenthal, Steve Weiss Guest: Steve Liesman (CNBC senior economics reporter, pre-decision); Rick Rieder (BlackRock, replayed clip from 9/15); Julia Boorstin (CNBC, Zuckerberg on AI safety); Al Michaels (Amazon Prime Thursday Night Football); Dominic Chu (CNBC News Update); Mike Santoli (Market Memo); Oliver Renick (Options Action, Cboe) Date: 2026-09-16 (Wednesday) URL: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6ZEJLo0FtECWeWsKs6JZVA Length: 44:20 Note: Spotify auto-generated transcript (accuracy may vary); this is an AUDIO podcast -- the Spotify panel carries NO (mm:ss) cues, so there are no timestamps anywhere in this file and the analysis page's "At" cells are plain "listen" links to the episode. CAPTURE METHOD: the transcript tab panel holds the COMPLETE episode in the DOM (720 child rows) but Spotify virtualizes it with CSS content-visibility, so innerText only showed the visible rows; the rows' textContent was joined (45,598 characters) and read back in ONE get_page_text call -- from the cold open ("I'm Scott Wapner, and you're listening to CNBC's Halftime Report") through the closing disclaimer. One pull, no slice joins; the page URL and title were confirmed against the assignment. Coverage is CONTINUOUS; there are NO GAPS; NOTHING WAS INVENTED. Spotify's chapter headings appear inline in the panel and are kept below as "## Chapter:" lines. Speaker diarization was numeric only ("Speaker N") and is left as-is below; from context the mapping is: 1 = Scott Wapner (also carries Dominic Chu's News Update, which is untagged), 2 = Joe Terranova (also tags Oliver Renick's Options Action read and the podcast promo), 3 = Steve Weiss, 4 = Jim Lebenthal ("Farmer Jim"), 5 = Jenny Harrington, 6 = Al Michaels, 7 = Steve Liesman, 8 = Julia Boorstin, 9 = Mike Santoli. The replayed Rick Rieder clip is split across Speaker 6 and Speaker 4 (diarization noise, not new speakers). Auto-caption garbles left verbatim here and corrected only in the analysis: "wars/Chair Wars/wash/Worsh" = Kevin Warsh, "Rick Reader" = Rick Rieder, "Jeffrey Gunlock" = Jeffrey Gundlach, "anthropics" = Anthropic's, "Anthropic Stario, Amo Day" = Anthropic's Dario Amodei, "Jensen Wong" = Jensen Huang, "Julia Borst" = Julia Boorstin, "SIBO/CIBO" = Cboe, "shiniers" = Cheniere (LNG), "Fangs" = Diamondback (FANG), "crime video" = Prime Video, "radios nation" = rationalization (as heard), "Eiger" = Iger (as heard, Lakers context), "Washington International" = an unidentified trucking/logistics name (not resolved), "IP OS" = IPOs, "Ralph" = (unclear, as heard), "January of 2593%" = a run-on of "January of 25" and "93%". "Tom Chu" = Dom Chu. Wording otherwise verbatim (Spotify transcript text as captured). This transcript was generated automatically. Its accuracy may vary. ## Chapter: Investment Committee Debates the Federal Reserve's Rate Hike Decision I'm Scott Wapner, and you're listening to CNBC's Halftime Report, the podcast the most profitable hour of the trading day. We report this live weekdays at 12 Eastern. Listen in. Carl, thank you very much. Welcome to the halftime report. I'm Scott Wapner front and center. This hour, the markets and the Fed decision as stocks price in a rate hike. We will discuss and debate with the committee, see how they're playing things right now, no matter what happens. Joining me for the hour, Joe Terranova, Jenny Harrington, Jim Lebenthal and Steve Weiss, we'll take you to the market, show you what we're doing. We're 12 noon in the East today and we are wait and see. I think it's fair to say Nasdaq's leading. There's the ten year note it is the yield is down below 5%, but it is right about there. We'll go to the group. Joe, I'll start with you first. The last hike was July 26th of 23. We got the 10 year where it is. Mortgage rates are above 7.2, the highest since January of 2593%. Chance of a hike they're going to. Speaker 2 Go. Oh, yeah. I think they are going to go and I think the market's clearly positioned for it. If you look at the bond market, there's been extensive short positioning that's been established here over the last several weeks. JP Morgan put a report out to that effect. CFTC commitment of traders report shows that as well. And then the consumer discretionary, Scott, they are really trading awful right now. You have 38 out of the 47 consumer discretionary S&P stocks that are actually underperforming. The S&P 25% of that entire sector is near a 52 week low. So I think without question they're going today. And my point on the bond market and consumer discretionary is, I think the market's position for it and therefore, I think it'll accept rather comfortably the rate hike. Speaker 1 What if twice the market's wrong? What? What happens if they don't go? Speaker 3 You know, it's not funny you ask that. I'm not surprised with the question. I've been thinking about that a lot since yesterday where everybody thinks it's a faded complete me too. And I don't know what happens. What I expect happens is, is the market always tends to be optimistic or usually does. The market rips and they say, you know what, what the Fed does doesn't really matter. Look, we talked about in the show the other day and said it's a supply shock that's driving inflation. I wouldn't say entirely due to oil, but that's a big part of it. And the Fed just can't counter supply shocks, not with 25 basis points anyway. So I would think the market takes off and takes comfort in the fact that wars. And I don't believe this will damage or kill his credibility because it depends what happens in the press conference 30, but I believe that's what will happen. I don't see the mark going down. I also see the 10 year declining in yield. So that's a low probability. I actually took off a little bit of my hedges just because in case I'm wrong, because I do believe like Joe that the market already absorbed the 25 base point cut and probably another 25 hike because they don't do sorry hike. Thanks you. Because they just don't do one hike or one cut at a time. So it'll be very interesting to hear what he has to say, but it's all going to come down to the language in the press conference afterwards. Speaker 1 Yeah. You know, Jim, I know the market is where it is. And I didn't ask that question of why it's by accident because part of me says why, why would they hike the things that are causing the biggest part of the inflation issue right now they can't do anything about? And who's decided that they have a credibility problem other than the pundits who listen to what Warsh has said and said? Well, how can he say that without hiking? He has to hike to save his own credibility? I don't know whether he believes that. I don't know whether the the Open Market Committee believes that. I don't know if they really think they need to before they hear from the task forces. So I'm not sure that it's so much a foregone conclusion. I think our viewers want to know what's the market going to do either way. Speaker 4 Yeah. OK. So I do think they're going to hike. And the reason I think that two reasons. One, I listen to the full Jackson Hole speech. And if you just take those words at face value, there was a very distinct logic that he flowed through. Inflation is too high. the Fed is responsible for inflation. The Fed's main tool is interest rates. I mean, there was more to it than that. But the logic to me clearly indicates that based on last week's inflation numbers, they have to go. There's another reason why, and I think you and Steve, what you just said about supply shocks, totally agree we should not be hiking to cure a supply shock. But there's another reason that the that interest rates have gone higher and that the Fed may hike. And that's simply that economic activity is pretty strong. And that could be an indication of why inflation is up or at least a contributor. And yes, I'm speaking thinking about the data center build outs. That's a reason why copper and steel prices are high. So that's a radios nation of why they may hike. I will tell you my belief is that if they do the 25 basis point hike that you will see downward pressure on 10 year yields. By extension, if they don't hike, I think yields are going to spike and crater the equity markets with it. Obviously I'm predicting the future and I cannot guarantee those are the outcomes, but I feel pretty strongly in those opinions I just gave. Speaker 1 I don't remember a time, Jenny, where we feel so uncertain about even with a probability over 90, really what's going to happen And then really how the markets are going to react, whether bond yields go up, if they hike, whether they come down in relief. The bond vigilantes get off the hot seat. How do you see things transpiring no matter what they do in a couple hours? Speaker 5 I think it's I'm actually a combination of Jim and Steve. I think that if they don't hike, I'm in the gym camp of what the market reacts by because I think to me at least as an investor, that would be a message saying like, holy smokes, the Fed knows something. The government knows something really bad that the rest of us don't know. I would not take it as a positive. Where I'm in the Steve camp is I think that absolutely the thing that matters most is the language following. So, you know, so I put those two together. And then and then to your point earlier, Scott, you know you can easily ask the question, does it really matter? Does it even influence yields? And the answer to that's no. And something that I've really been fixated on and struck by right now is thinking back to when the cuts started. So the cuts started two years ago almost on the nose. We've had seven cuts, 1.75% and in that time the 10 year has gone from the 10 year U.S. Treasury has gone from 3.73% to 5%. So that brings up the do you really need to hike? Do you need to cut? Does it make any real difference on the interest rates that do matter? But then there is the credibility thing and there is a statement that it makes. And I think when you're looking at the US market pricing in a 93% chance of a hike, you just kind of have to do that and and worse, has to show us all that he is not a muppet and that he's looking at economic data and trying his best. So I think he's in a corner with needing to hike. I think if he doesn't, the market cracks up. Speaker 1 I was down the coast a little bit in Huntington Beach yesterday, obviously at Future Proof, and we interviewed Rick Reader on this program 24 hours ago and he, like all of you, said, yeah, they're probably going to hype. He said he wouldn't listen. Speaker 6 I wouldn't because I think there's you're not going to really do much. I mean, talk about moving the funds rate 25 basis points, are you really going to do anything? Speaker 4 For inflation, what's driving inflation? Is interest rate insensitive? Obviously got war, you've got energy price, you've got education, insurance cost, healthcare. It doesn't really do much. So would I do it? But it does adversely impact if you look at the housing market that's frozen. Speaker 1 OK, so that's Rick Reader. ## Chapter: Steve Liesman Analyzes Fed's Hike Rationale and Market Signals Now let's bring in our senior economics reporter, Steve Liesman. It's going to be in the room asking the chair a question. That's a man who might have been Fed chair. He was close. Obviously he said he wouldn't. Why should wash? Speaker 7 Well, there's a lot of reasons. I think a lot of them were were set at the table there. You look at the, the inflation rate, it's been over three, 2% for quite a while and and the Fed Chair has talked tough about inflation and needs to put his, his action where his words are. The other reasons are that you have the surging oil prices now including diesel prices, Scott, and it may end up, it may already not be just an energy story. If you look at down into the, the guts of these reports, it's not just energy that's driving inflation now there are other factors. And when diesel starts working its way into the economy, it could be more inflation to come. I think that's one of the things the Fed is looking at. And I think finally, the issue of the Fed does have a role to play here in supply shocks. And if you look at the way the Fed responded in the 70s, this is from Neel Kashkari's descent. When he wanted to raise 1/4, he said, look back, the Fed had surging oil price at a series of supply shocks. And Scott, we've had a series of supply shocks and you can look through 1, you can look through both. But honestly, when you look at the policies of the Trump administration, can you say that any of these things are truly one off? And that's the problem is you can't. Speaker 1 Are you sympathetic at all to the view of of Rick Reader, who, as we both know, might have been sitting in that chair making the same kinds of decisions that Chair Wars and the committee are making today? Speaker 7 I am. And I think that what Rick might have said in his next sentence, there was a quarter point hike won't do any good, but several quarter point hikes, or at least the suggestion that there's more to come might. And that's sort of I think getting into what Jenny and Steve were both talking about, which is this idea, 1/4 point hike ain't nothing. And if we're really going to have an effect on the long end of the bond market, I'm listening for the word series campaign, some kind of sense that it's more than just a one off. A one off is it's probably it's probably going to be what I'm calling Scott one and mum, because we're not going to get the guidance from the Fed chair that the market wants. But I think he's going to need the market to be higher and to curtail what aggregate demand it can in the face of this supply shock to get inflation down. I think the more he deals with this now, the easier it's going to be compared to dealing with it later. Speaker 1 The one and mum that, that's clever. I like that. We'll see if it it turns out to be just that. I just wonder why would you hike more than one time, irrespective of what central banks normally do, If they simply need to preserve their credibility, they can do that theoretically by at least hiking once. But we don't really have an overheating economy that needs to be slowed. The things that are hot are not affected really by what the Fed can do at this point. Speaker 7 Well, first of all, Scott, I wouldn't overstate the credibility issue. I don't think Kevin Warsh and the Fed are going to hike today simply because of credibility. I think credibility is a marginal issue that if it's a close call, I think that plays a role. But I don't think it's the central reason why you hike. I think the Fed has an awful lot of credibility. You can see that in reasonably contained inflation expectations when you look at the five year, five year forwards in the TIPS market. That's acute to the guys in the back. I have a chart on that. It is elevated. Look how good they are. It's elevated relative to where it's been say since July, but it has been higher. It's been a feature of say this year to date period we've had and since December it has been higher. But but look, the reason why that's contained is because the Fed has credibility and Kevin Warsh is able to draw on the credibility of the Powell Fed, and now he's got to establish his own credibility and that will keep inflation expectations contained. Speaker 1 Yeah, it's going to be so interesting. I just don't remember a time where I feel like it's still reasonably uncertain even though the market's at 90 plus percent. And we look forward to your question. I. Speaker 7 Just had one thing, Scott, which is this is a chair who has told us he's looking to the market for signals. I don't believe the market signal could be any more clear, not in the 90%. But also look at the two year running over 100 basis points higher than the Fed funds. The market's telling the Fed chair something. Speaker 1 We'll see you we'll see you later and I look forward to speaking with you after the news conference ends. That's our Steve Liesman. All right, guys, Joe, you know, what do you make of of the Liesman logic? Let's say we get a one in Mom. I love the way he he put that. What what do you think the market takes from it? Speaker 2 So in 2015, December of 2015, that's exactly what Janet Yellen embarked upon. She had a rate hike in December of 2015 and then over the next 12 months just kind of sat on the sideline to see what the data would do. I think the best thing that could happen today is that Steve's thesis plays out. I agree with Rick Reader and what was stated previously. I don't understand why we're raising rates, but the market's saying we're going to go do it, let's go do it. And if yields fall, they raise rates and yields fall. Well, if we're listening to the market, then the market is telling the Federal Reserve and speculators they are comfortable with one rate hike and it's not necessary to embark on a rate hiking cycle. Speaker 1 Jenny Jeremy Siegel says market will shudder. This is if they hike, market will shudder, then recover. City says wobble, then climb. We got Ed Yardeni out cutting his S&P target, not necessarily directly related to the Fed, although it is a bit related to the backup and bond yields. He cuts his estimates for the forward PE of the S&P. So he's looking at a, you know, a multiple contraction in in some respects. He says 7900 from 8400 is his new number. That makes sense. Speaker 5 OK. The shutter and recover doesn't we've also heard wobble and climb. OK. So here's how I've been thinking about it. I've been thinking about it that it's going to yawn and wander and that does sync up a bit with with Yardeni where he's cut his estimate. And if we think about what the market's done for the past three months, it's just wandered, it's was at 7600 on June 2nd. We're right about at 7600 on the S&P now. And I really believe that this is all about earnings. And I think until we hear earnings that start to come out in a month and change from now, it's just going to wander. So even with one rate hike, that doesn't really matter. And to the, you know, conversation we've all been having, it's digested, it's in there. So why should we shutter? Why should we wobble? I don't think we're going to. I think we're just going to wander around until those earnings releases come. And even the numbers on earnings, I don't think that's going to be what's so important. It's going to be the projections and the outlooks and what people say. And I think that's when we start to get real movement and that's when we move out of this kind of 7600 band on the S&P that we've been stuck in. So yawn and wander. What about that? I came up with my own. Speaker 1 All right, I'll put that on the list with with Liesman's that that's pretty good too. You, you make it towards the high, the top of the list, maybe not at the very top because I like Liesman's a little bit better. No disrespect, but we'll, we'll keep you right there. I promise. In terms of what Steve sectors could, could move the most on a hike, if in fact that is what happens. B of A says banks are going to get a boost. EPS and margin outlook should receive a modest boost, they say, from rate hikes. Given that most banks remain asset sensitive, a flattening yield curve could challenge bank stock performance. So, you know, maybe they get a steeper yield curve that's good for the banks. They liked what JP Morgan had to say at the conferences this week, Citigroup as well. What do you what do you think? Here is you have some ownership in the space. Speaker 3 You know, I do have ownership, my ownership's in Goldman if you take a look, Goldman just hasn't performed that well. And I attribute that really to talk of delaying IP OS and a slow down in the AI spending. But yes, as you get a steepening yield curve, you will see the the bank's benefit as well as the insurance companies that make a lot of their money off of their assets, policyholders, deposits and payments. But here's the thing, if I'm right that that you get the hike yet yields come down, I don't think they're going to go higher on the hike. Again, depending on what's said, then you just don't know what's going to happen to buy with the bank. So the real money, the real yields, the real rates, which are the yield, the treasury curve, yes, that'll benefit. But overall, and again, I think this is day-to-day, you can't count on a long term impact into the market from what the Fed says or does because we've got so many other data points. You've got what's happening in the Middle East primarily there. So and then earnings, I think rate hikes will hit earnings because the earnings right now are mostly in financials that'll be good and in the AI names, but that's going to be it. The rest of the companies that's generalization will suffer from it. So and that may affect their appetite for lending from the banks. So it's really a mixed bag. And as you pointed out multiple times, this is the most confusing set hike that I recall living through. Speaker 1 Yeah, because I don't, I don't think anything is going to surprise me later this afternoon, no matter sort of what they do. I could see both sides of the debate. We'll just have to wait and see. We're watching tech obviously today, long duration assets are going to be watched closely depending on what yields do as a result of whatever the Fed does. ## Chapter: Mark Zuckerberg's AI Safety Stance and Its Market Implications Interesting. In the last 24 hours, Jensen Wong of NVIDIA was with Jim Cramer. He said anthropics proposal for AI safety, antitrust waiver completely unnecessary. Don't need any new laws, have plenty of laws, have plenty of regulations. Then Mark Zuckerberg, he weighed in on the safety debate as well. And Julia Boorstin is here on set with me with a little bit more on that. It's nice to be in your neighborhood. Speaker 8 It's great to have you on set here in Los Angeles. Speaker 1 Zuckerberg's now weighed in. Tell us more. Speaker 8 Now shares of Meta are higher after Zuckerberg came out in opposition to Anthropic Stario, Amo Day, and Open AI. Sam Altman's call for a slowdown of frontier models as well as regulation. Instead, Zuckerberg says companies should effectively self regulate, saying they're incentivized to prevent AI problems do their legal liabilities, and that aligning models with people's needs is a competitive advantage. Zuckerberg writing quote. My view is that trust and alignment are quickly becoming the most important capabilities that will differentiate agents and models. Now Meta shares are outpacing the market today and they're up about 18% just in September. This morning, Citi reiterating its buy rating on the stock, citing the company's product cadence ramping and saying it's AI road map is becoming clear. Part of that, yesterday Meta launched AI subscription tools and next week at Meta's annual development conference, we'll hear more about Mark Zuckerberg ambitious strategy to own the mass market AI experience. Scott. Speaker 1 This stocks had a nice rebirth if you will. It's up 15% by the way in in the last 30 days. Are you surprised at all by Zuckerberg? Take care. Speaker 8 I think it very much aligns to use that word that we've heard so much about with his strategy to really own his ecosystem. What we saw with the mobile experience is that Zuckerberg and all of his apps were at the whim of the App Store owners and and the product makers. And here he says we want to we want to own everything. Part of that is he's saying we're going to open source open weight. Some of our models, and he has always argued that it's not that AI you have to be afraid of, it's that you have to be afraid of AI's concentration in just a couple players. So what he said very much flows from his strategy of trying to do everything for everyone when it comes to the AI consumer experience. And the fact that he's aligning with Jensen Wong and not with these other guys who are his rivals says a lot about his ambitions right now. Speaker 1 Yeah. All right. Good stuff, Julia. Thanks. Thanks for joining us. That's Julia Borst. And Jenny, you own the stock. What's your take? As I said, stock speaks for itself. It's up 15% in the last 30 days. Now Zucks weighed in as well. In this, in this debate that we've been having. Speaker 5 Yeah. So with respect to Zuckerberg weighing in on the on the safety debate, like that part doesn't have any impact on my investment thesis. The investment thesis part is still the same, which is it's huge free cash flow generative. The earnings growth is significant and the and you know, they've gotten out of out from under things like there was the youth safety issue that that put kind of maybe wet rag on them for a while. So they're out from these, I think. I think Zuck weighing in a is interesting in the bigger context. Yesterday I read an article by Shyam Sankar, who's the CTO of Palantir, and he's weighing in on on the ideology behind these AI warnings. So I'm trying to think of it, you know, where do I come out on it? And where I come out on it, both a human and an investor, is I don't know, you know, I don't know yet where it ends up. Is it amazing for humanity? Is it terrible for humanity? And, and the big question needs to keep being from all of us. Why? Like, why are you telling us it's dangerous, but you're still building hand over fist. Why are you moving so fast? I don't know that there's an actual answer that can be that can be attained right now because we're in this wild period in time where everything's unprecedented and it's changing and it's changing on a daily basis and it's moving faster than even even those who are building it, Dario and Sam and Elon, even faster than they ever anticipated. So I don't know. But the bottom line is, from an investment perspective, Mark Zuckerberg coming in on this, it's like, of course he has to. Speaker 3 You know, Mark Zuckerberg is the only one that still has the founders mentality. So founders typically are great at seeing the future and building to accommodate that versus the others that are running these. And I'm only talking about the public companies. I'm talking about Amazon, I'm talking about Alphabet and Microsoft. They're the second generation. They're professional managers that came in. So that's why I've said Zuckerberg will be the best at navigating the AI trends. Now in terms of, of the safety implications of slowing down, keep in mind everybody's got a bias in this. So you've got Jensen Wong, who makes, you know, the leading manufacturer of, of chips, right? So he's obviously got a bias. I'm not saying it's a dishonest bias, but you got to take all that with a grain of salt. But guess what? Just like we don't want to slow down the US from developing from loose competitive edge versus China, none of the AI companies spending public or private, want to slow down and lose the edge. So disregard what they're saying. They're all advancing. Speaker 1 Yeah. All right, we'll take a break. Coming up next, sports broadcasting icon Al Michaels. He joins us live ahead of Amazon Prime's fifth season of Thursday Night Football kicks off tomorrow evening. We're back in 2 minutes. ## Chapter: Al Michaels Previews Amazon Prime's Thursday Night Football Season Tomorrow kicks off Amazon Prime's fifth season of Thursday Night Football. Should be a great game too, as the Bills open their new stadium against the Detroit Lions. Al Michaels will be on the call. Joins us now live. Good to have you. As always, though, it feels weird. I'm, I'm on your coast and you're on mine. What's up with that? Speaker 6 You're telling me, but this is a treat for me because we've done this every year. I can't believe it's been five years now since we started this package and and a beauty to start with tomorrow night. As you know, Scott brand new stadium 2 teams that escaped last week with with victories. The last time they met it was 4844. So I anticipate we're going to have that same type of a game tomorrow night at the over. Speaker 1 We're coming off the most watched Thursday Night Football season ever and it feels like forever ago when people were saying that the Thursday night slate of games wasn't all that good. Now it's like every game is good. Somebody got the message and now it truly has become must see. As I said, the ratings speak for themselves, Al. Speaker 6 Yeah, I mean, the league did US are solid after that first year kind of, you know, testing the waters. But you go back to last year and look, you don't know the way these games are going to play out. But probably the most exciting game of the regular season was the Rams against Seattle toward the end of the year that wound up in overtime that got I think ranked by most people as the number one game. And then in the playoffs, we wound up with Chicago against Green Bay, with Chicago affecting that tremendous comeback and knocking off the Packers. So you look at our schedule this year. I mean, tomorrow night's going to be terrific. A little later on this season, we've got the New England going into Chicago on December the 3rd, Kansas City at the Rams. San Francisco will meet the charges later on. So we're very happy. I mean, the league has a tough decision to make because you've got all of these partners and you got to try to give them, you know, some very good games and they've given us our share. We're very happy and very proud of it. Speaker 1 You've got some elite quarterback showdowns. You alluded to 1 Mahomes against Stafford, golf versus Allen is coming as we know this week. Drake May, Caleb Williams, you alluded to that Lamar Jackson Burrow on on New Year's Eve. The holiday slate looks looks like can't miss as well. Speaker 6 Yeah. And you know, last year we I think we averaged about 1516 million people. So every year it has grown. And you know, we've got a great, a great group of people. I think on our our pregame and halftime with Carissa Thompson leading, leading the way. So we're happy with the way things have evolved and, and where they've come. And I think the league is, they've shown us that they're pretty happy with the way Amazon's been telecasting and and producing these games by the type of schedule that we been given over the past couple of years. Speaker 1 Let's let's talk some business of the of the league. ## Chapter: Al Michaels on Soaring NFL Team Valuations and AI in Sports Are you like all of us, just shocked. I guess is shocked the right word when you see what valuations have done Al and it's not just in the NFL, but it's really all of sports. You know, obviously in your, your hometown here with the Lakers just went for to to Eiger and company, but the NFL valuations have just searched. We need to keep updating our CNBC official team valuations list every year because the numbers keep climbing beyond our wildest imagination. Speaker 6 Yeah, I watched very religiously and it seems as if every time somebody comes in, it's another billion dollars. And I saw there where Dallas was 16 billion. So we had Jerry Jones at our seminar earlier this year and I mentioned to him that he bought the team for 140 million back in 1989. And if they were worth, let's say 15 billion, that's 107 times rate of return. And I happen to think that if the Cowboys were sold, they might go for closer to 20. I don't know where it stops, Scott. It's been crazy, but it's in all sports now too. I mean, you've got the, the Angels just went for four $4 billion and you had the San Diego Padres going for 3.9. It's up all over the place. Of course, the Lakers situation, we know what that is. It won't stop. It won't stop. It's a great thing to have gotten into before, before this big jump evaluation. And you know, you wonder where it will stop. I don't know. But you remember now you've got 2 universal languages as far as I'm concerned, music and sports, and you're seeing it now in spades in sports. Speaker 1 Yeah, there's no question about that. I wanted to ask you about all that's been going on with AI and we all remember from the Paris games in in 2024. I mean, you're the AIOG, right? AI Al they they they use. Speaker 6 Or the OR the DOG. Speaker 1 They use your, you know, an AI generated voice of of course. I'm just wondering, you know, as as you sit as an observer, as somebody who has literally had part of them used through AI, what you're thinking about this revolution we're watching and we talk about it playing out in the markets of course, as as you think about that angle of it as well. Speaker 6 It's a day-to-day thing. I mean, we all know what's going on right now with AI. Do you do you slow it down? What do you do? Do you stay ahead of China? Of course, this is this is what's the the number One Financial story of of this particular time. I don't know. In a in a way, I think it's good. It can be good. But Scott, it's also pretty scary. But I was amazed when I wound up doing that for the Paris Olympics. The fact that I'm listening to myself going, wait a minute, I didn't do any of this, but that's me. That's crazy. So where this goes is anybody's guess. Speaker 1 Lastly, I know you got to run, but your what's your take on the market? ## Chapter: Al Michaels Asks About Cleveland Cliffs; Panel Responds The one thing I have to do, you know, this is a, this is part of our annual thing here. Farmer John is back there, Farmer John is back there eating Farmer John, but it's Farmer Jim. I want to know if Farmer Jim, I'm looking at Cleveland Cliffs is now up. It's up $0.60 today. Farmer Are we getting back into this thing or what? Speaker 4 All right, Al, thanks for. Speaker 5 Thanks for the. Speaker 4 Correction, you know I can't. Speaker 6 I can't avoid. Speaker 4 This you know, I, I'm always honored when you call me out and it's my fervent hope that at some point it will be on a discussion topic other than Cleveland Cliffs. But I do do think they're turning it around here. They've made a prediction that next year they're going to be over 3 billion in EBITDA. They had a very good quarter last quarter and if they have a good quarter this quarter, which will be end of October, I think they come out of the penalty box. I really, they really do. They've been in the penalty box for a long time. One good quarter isn't enough. You get 2 good quarters, it should be enough. Look where hot rolled coil steel prices are well over 1200. They make a lot of money at that. Speaker 2 Where the Cleveland. Speaker 3 Browns, let me let me translate that to for you. It was on the 1 yard line with 99 yards to go. Now it's on the 10 yard line with 90 to go. Speaker 4 That's Steve Weiss, in case anybody didn't know who it was. Steve Weiss, everybody. Speaker 6 Farmer Jim. Farmer Jim, you. You've convinced me not to short it. That's what you've done. Speaker 4 Apparently you're listening to Steve Weiss. Speaker 1 Al, you're stealing my Thunder, but I appreciate it anyway. You. You'll be well. Speaker 6 You too, guys. Speaker 1 Thanks. All right. You have a great. You have a great call tomorrow night. We'll see you soon. That's Al Michaels. Of course, you can catch all the kickoff. You can catch the kickoff Thursday Night Football tomorrow, 6:30 PM. Of course, on crime video. Up next to check on the crypto trade. That key Senate vote failing yesterday. Plus, we'll debate our top calls of the day. Joe's got to move as well. Hit that as well. ## Chapter: Dominic Chu Delivers CNBC's Latest News Update Welcome back to the halftime report. I'm Dominic Chu with the CNBC NEWS UPDATE. An apartment building in Gaza City collapsed overnight, killing more than 20 people, including nearly a dozen children. The seven story building was unstable because of damage from previous Israeli strikes. Nearly 100 more people were believed to still be under the rubble. Rescuers say people sheltered there despite the dangerous conditions because they had nowhere else to go. President Trump's pick for surgeon general was confronted on Capitol Hill this morning about her stance on vaccines. Doctor Nicole Sapphire said she has not seen reputable evidence that would suggest vaccines cause autism and that she believes the measles, mumps, rubella vaccine is our greatest tool for combating measles. Trump's latest pick stalled less during the confirmation process because of her controversial vaccine stances. The previous pick did, and the US House passed a bill that would require all new vehicles be equipped with AM radio. Lawmakers say it's needed to push out emergency broadcast and other local programming. The bill requires the transportation secretary to come up with a rule within a year, which would then take effect two years later. So, Scott, what's new? And the old ways maybe can make coexist every once in a while. Yeah. All right, Tom. Thanks, Tom Chu. ## Chapter: Analyzing Apple's Momentum, Crypto's Outlook, and AstraZeneca's Value All right, Joe, let's talk about this move because Morgan Stanley's Eric Woodring looks at the iPhone The the 18 lead times and says flat year over year is actually a good start. We're what, a week from the introduction of the new phones? You you bought more of the stock. Yeah, which is interesting. You've been consistently buying this name. But why more right now? Speaker 2 This is the 6th consecutive purchase since late March that I have made. Let's take the viewers back to July. The last purchase I made was on July 7th. Subsequent to that they reported earnings got a big sell off from the $330 level. What has happened since then is a series of higher lows. In fact, after the Worldwide Developer Conference on the 9th of September, it challenged the 100 day moving average at three O 9. It held exactly there. It is now recovered everything that it lost post earnings in July and I am playing the very strong momentum that exists in this name right now. Looking for it to break out to an all time high above 345. This is a technically oriented purchase. This is the 6th purchase, as I said, and I think the stock continues to move higher and thankfully it is showing resilience in helping out the overall market while we go through this period of elevated volatility. Speaker 1 OK, thank you very much for that. Let's hit some stocks on the move and some things that are in the news for certain crypto we're watching obviously given the cloture vote that failed in the Senate yesterday. Why is, I mean, you, you've been in and out of of Bitcoin at times. I'm wondering what you you think this means now for not only the currency itself, but for the names that are around it, whether it's the coin bases, the Robin Hood's, the strategies and and others. Speaker 3 Look, this is surrounded by true believers. You've seen major outflows since yesterday when the bill stalled and looks like it's not going to pass, at least it's not going to pass for a while, this path back. But it's unlikely. Look, there's no there there in my view. I'm yet to see a business case, business use case that makes sense and has come to reality despite the decade they've been talking about them. I think there's no utility to it. The banks are coming after them from market share with tokens and and with stable coins. So it's going to remain a trading vehicle. And I think the bias is lower and that as long as Trump's in the White House because of how much he said he made last year, 1.4 billion on the crypto assets that people don't want to, that people that are running in the midterms and then we'll be running again later. Don't want to answer to, OK, why do we support him with this immense Ralph? Well, so I just don't think there's anything there. Speaker 1 OK, we'll, we'll do one more AstraZeneca reiterated by by UBS. Jimmy, pull backs over. Done, they say. What do you think? Speaker 4 Yeah. The pullback was on a failed drug trial for a heart treatment that they were working on. That was about two months ago. And when that happens with a quality pharmaceutical company like this that has a lot of different strategies that they're working on, a very full pipeline, it's a time to buy. So I agree with the call, very attractively priced, good dividend yield and I like the space. I think this is a space that does well regardless of what rates do. Speaker 1 All right, We'll take a quick break. We'll come back with Mike Santoli. His market memo is next. ## Chapter: Mike Santoli's Market Memo on Fed Policy and Investor Reaction We're back with our senior markets commentator in the Overtime Co anchor, Mike Santoli is market memo. OK? How are you thinking about this market right now? Speaker 9 I mean, I think it's, it's pretty well set up to to kind of pivot in either direction on on the Fed. I think it's mostly priced. Yeah. Look, look, we, we have to look at the whole mosaic of, of evidence. I don't think the the economy and the markets are screaming out for aggressive change in, in monetary policy, but the the whole weight of the evidence does point in that direction. Keep in mind they're going to raise most likely by 25 basis points to a level that will be 50 basis points lower than we were a year ago. A year ago, core PCE had been running under 3% for several months. It's now running comfortably above 3%. The unemployment rate in 2025 had gone from a low of 3.7 up to 4.4 when they started cutting those three cuts last year. Now it's back down to 4.1. It's kind of central banking one O 1 that if you're going to turn the dial on policy a little bit in reaction to all of that, you would snug it up just a little bit. I do think it's interesting we have all these asset markets at these kind of fight or flight thresholds. You have the five percent 10s. You got the S&P 500 right on top of its summertime range high. You going back to June 1st levels obviously oil at at 100. So I think there's room for relief in the markets because internally the stock market's got a little over. So I'm fascinated to see how the long end of the Treasury curve reacts to this because that's going to be the tell. I don't expect a major rally that drops yields significantly and, and, and have them stay down there. I'm not even sure you'd want that, because that's how the market might react if they thought the hike was a policy mistake. Speaker 1 What happens if they don't hike, do you think? Speaker 9 I think mass confusion, right. I think there'll be like a a very gyrating market. I don't know. I don't think 5% tens is really mostly about inflation getting deanchored. You know, it's just not. So I don't know that we would get the market selling off even more because of that. I think it's probably mood. I think it would basically be seen as an act of hostility by the chairman on the markets, once your price for 90% of one thing and you give them another. Speaker 1 Yeah, It's going to be so, so, so interesting, Mike. Thank you. That's Mike Santoli. Coming up next, options action, Oliver Renick, he's following some notable activity in the energy trade today. ## Chapter: Oliver Renick Reports on Bearish Options Activity in Energy Markets We're back right after this time for options action Oliver Renick joining us live from the CIBO Global Markets in Chicago. What are we looking at today? Speaker 2 Hey Scott, it's pretty amazing how consistently we see options traders fading. Big moves in oil trading in both USO and XLE lean bearish today, with notably bearish trading happening in the energy stocks in particular. Volume 70% above the usual and more than twice as many puts traded in XLE then calls. Nine of the top 10 contracts traded were puts. There were also a lot of puts sold, but perhaps that just means traders are edging bearish bets. We saw a lot of put buying in the 57 strike expiring one month from today which needs XLE to drop 12% to pay off. And the exception to the action was some heavy call buying activity in the 65 strike call expiring today, which is just out of the money. So perhaps some are saying that today's sell off in oil is overdone, but the activity does lean bearish long term, Scott. Speaker 1 OK, Oliver, thank you for that. That's Oliver Renick, SIBO Global Markets in Chicago. ## Chapter: Rising Fuel Costs Impact Earnings and Energy Stock Opportunities Of course, Joe, you've got JB Hunt. And we know they're told that these record high fuel prices, diesel and everything else are taking. Speaker 2 $6 diesel we need to bookmark today and revisit it. Is this the beginning of hearing the story about earnings degradation across the board attributable to rising energy costs? We purchased this at the end of July for the ETF at $271.00. So we're basically down on what we've lost today. I don't advocate stepping in here and buying it. I think you need stability. There's something about this that is troubling to me to hear the CFO come on and say earnings going to be down 5 to 10% because of those high diesel costs and because of driver costs. So this is problematic. We also have Washington International and we have Old Dominion Freight. Stocks are down across the board, but do not dismiss this. Pay attention what's going on here. Maybe this is the beginning of something. Hopefully it's not. Speaker 1 Jimmy, how are you thinking about this space right now, given the holdings that you have? Speaker 4 I think energy stocks are going to make a lot of money for the rest of this year. We're going to be refilling inventories across the globe for months and quarters to come. When this, when this conflict ends, which is very much unknown, These stocks, these Exxonmobil's of the world, these shiniers, these Fangs, these Transocean, these stocks are going to be making a lot of money for a long time. And if I look at ExxonMobil, it still is not at the peak that it was at back in March. It's attractively priced. Say the same thing about Chevron. This this is just obvious here. ## Chapter: Panel's Final Stock Picks and Halftime Report Conclusion OK, when we come back, we'll do finals. Speaker 2 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. Speaker 1 We'll be back in a couple hours. Jeffrey Gunlock, double line CEO and CIO joining us right after Chair Wars finishes his news conference. Will they or won't they? We shall find out. We will do final trades though. Right now, Jenny Harrington, you can start us off. Speaker 5 All right, Schwab trades at 14 times earnings, has 20% plus earnings growth ahead. It's the kind of stock that you can literally hold forever in your portfolio. Speaker 1 Oh, Farmer Jim, Farmer Jim, you just had to do. I knew you were going to do. Speaker 4 This. You know what? Yeah. I mean, I don't care if it's Farmer John or Farmer Jim, just as long as Al Michaels isn't short in Cleveland Cliffs. Speaker 1 I love it. OK, this time's up. 5% touché. All right. Good for you. Steve Weiss. What do you got? Speaker 3 Yeah, United Health, it's been a rough time lately, but I think it's on its way to recovery. And Scott, I'm feeling very generous. So let me give you FTAI also, which announced a large buy back. The stock has been trashed. I think it brings back. Speaker 2 Joe inside Corp and get back to New York. Safe, Scott. Speaker 1 All right, thanks, guys. The exchanges. Now I'll see you in a bit. You've been listening to CNBC's Halftime Report, the podcast. You can always catch us live weekdays at 12 Eastern only on CNBC. All opinions expressed by the Halftime Report participants are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of CNBC or its parent company or affiliates and may have been previously disseminated by them on television, radio, Internet or another medium. You should not treat any opinion expressed on this podcast as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of opinion. Such opinions are based upon information the Halftime Report participants consider reliable, but neither CNBC nor its affiliates and or subsidiaries warrant its completeness or accuracy, and it should not be reliable upon as such. To view the full Halftime Report disclaimer, please visit cnbc.com/halftime Report Disclaimer.