Debating the Road to S&P 8,000 8/6/26

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
At Edward Jones, we believe rich is more than caring about the latest and greatest. It's also taking care of what gives your life meaning. That's why your dedicated financial advisor meets you where you are with personalized financial strategies that help protect what matters, so you can preserve your progress while creating a path forward.
The key to being rich is knowing what counts. Let's find your rich together. Edward Jones, member SIPC.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:31)
Something amazing is happening when power outages strike. Teams are powering through them. That's because CDW Solutions architects are building more resilient IT and electrical infrastructures with Schneider Electric. With EcoCare Remote Monitoring Services and 24-7 support, your organization can do more than keep the lights on. Schneider Electric and CDW make amazing happen.
Learn more at cdw.com/schneiderelectric.

**Scott Wapner** (1:00)
I'm Scott Wapner and you're listening to CNBC's Halftime Report, the podcast, the most profitable hour of the trading day. We record this live weekdays at 12 Eastern. Listen in.
All right, guys, thanks so much. Welcome to the Halftime Report. I'm Scott Wapner, front and center of this hour debating the road to S&P 8000 We will do that today with the Investment Committee. We'll trade the day's biggest movers in joining me for the hour. Josh Brown, Malcolm Ethbridge, Bill Baruch. Show you what we're doing here. We do have some red on the screen today and it is across the board. Tech is weak for YCMO was talking about. SanDisk and Western Ditch are certainly a drag there. We're about 54,000 on the Dow. We're still pacing on the S&P for the best week since April. We've had a lot of calls. Josh, lately about 8,000 on the S&P.
Yardeni's at 82.50, says that could be conservative. You've called it one of the healthiest, if not the healthiest tapes that you've seen in an awfully long time. Tom Lee says you could hit 8,000 this month. And earnings are the story. They're the story in all caps. Because the growth has been pretty remarkable. About 50% in the second quarter, if you strip out Google and Amazon and their investment gains, it's at 31%.
July 1st, it was 24.4. So estimates continue and growth continues to go up. And that's driving the market.

**Josh Brown** (2:24)
So I have my contras. So you guys have contras, like people that you know are always wrong, but you listen to them anyway, because they make you feel better. You have like one or two? I know you do. Sneaky, but like everyone. So I have my contras and they have, it's really helpful, actually. They have podcasts, so it's super convenient. I don't have to track down their comments on social media.
I can just listen to a steady stream of it. And the people in 2024 that were lamenting the fact that it was a hyper concentrated bull market, just Mag-7, it's all hyperscaler, right? Those people, and they didn't like the fact that the market was being driven at that phase of the rally by PE. Multiple Expansion. Well, they changed their tune, because now it's not. We actually have multiples compressing. What we have is massive earnings expansion all over the market. And so, what they're saying instead now is earnings bubble. It's hope you can't win with these people. But again, I find that to be a helpful exercise. Let me listen to this guy. Everything he says is backwards. That's what they're saying now. If that's the problem, that there's too much earnings, I'll take it. And I want to be really specific here about what's going on.
Let's take out Google and Amazon earnings, because we know they wrote up their stakes in Anthropic and other startups, and that's not obviously repeatable or something that we want to get too excited about. Even if you pull those out, the S&P 500's earnings growth is still 28.8%.
For next quarter, the analysts are already increasing estimates. Normally, analysts reduce estimates during the quarter. They lower the hurdle, make it easier for their coverage universe to jump over. They're not doing that now. For Q2 and for Q3, analysts spent the quarter revising estimates upward. They have to. They're listening to management. In the last 80 quarters, that's 20 years' worth of data, the average change in estimates for the first month of the quarter has been negative 1.9 percent. That's the average. Right now, it's up 2.1 percent in this quarter for next quarter's numbers. These are unheard of times. So I understand the impulse. Oh, well, I can't be wrong. So therefore, it's an earnings bubble. I understand.
I just caution people who are listening to that. I'm rhetoric from actually acting on it because it's been wrong all year so far. I think it'll stay wrong throughout the balance of this year. We have an earnings driven market. All 11 sectors are reporting year over year sales growth, revenue growth. We're not talking about games, tricking people, stock-based compensation, buybacks. We're talking about sales growth of plus 14 percent in the quarter. You can't fake revenue. You could fake earnings, but that's not what's happening.