Navigating a Stock Market at Record Highs 8/4/26

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**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.

**Carl Quintanilla** (1:15)
Carl, thanks very much.

**Scott Wapner** (1:16)
Welcome to the Halftime Report.

**Carl Quintanilla** (1:17)
I'm Scott Wapner. Front and center this hour, Best Stocks at Record Highs.

**Scott Wapner** (1:20)
That's some key earnings reports, boosting the markets today. We're trading all of it with the Investment Committee, as always. Joining me for the hour, Joe Ternow, Jim Labanthold, Rob Seachen, Josh Brown. We'll take you to the markets, highs of the day across the board. Nasdaq's good now for 2%.
Had a near 900 point gain for the Dow. That's one and two thirds percent above 54,000. So we've been at record highs. The Russell's ripping. Carl was telling you, again, oil is lower today, getting some relief there. Yields as well. The Treasury Secretary telling Squawk Hortmose Deal is near. Caterpillar palantir their earnings.

**Carl Quintanilla** (1:56)
The chips are ripping.

**Scott Wapner** (1:57)
I mean, you can pick your catalysts because there are many today.

**Joe Terranova** (1:59)
And what's the common denominator for palantir, for Caterpillar, last week for Alphabet? It is just the staggering earnings. They continue to exceed expectations. I believe we came into the year with earnings, into the quarter round with earnings expectations somewhere for growth around 24%.
What are we running? Close to 50% right now. It's 60% of the S&P reporting. So it's earnings above all else. And it really is broad-based. We have 10 of 11 S&P sectors that are now running with double-digit earnings gains. That is absolutely remarkable. And what it's doing is it's kind of restoring the confidence once again, as it relates to the spending on AI and the belief that you continue to invest in that direction because you will be rewarded for it.

**Scott Wapner** (2:44)
Josh, what's your read here? Because this market looks like it's primed for something now that we got tech earnings at a clearing event.
If you get a resolution in Iran, you've got some other critical earnings that seem to be meeting the moment. And then this momentum trades back.

**Josh Brown** (3:03)
Yeah, we have a lot of the stocks that had gotten us here in the first half, stumbled in July.
We're coming here into early August with a lot of those pieces back on the board to help support this bull market. I think it's one of the healthiest tapes I've ever been in, quite frankly. I'm doing this now 29 years professionally. And it's just like, it's textbook. If you were able to write it up and submit it, this is what I want the bull market to look and feel like and act like, that's what we have in front of us. We have this unbelievable sector by sector, industry group by industry group rotation that's happening. When we lose one group, another group steps up to take its place. That keeps us right at all time record highs. Even when we have some really notable, important, index moving blue chips like Microsoft, like Metta, that temporarily go down for the count, it does not sink this market. I think the price behavior itself is probably the second most important thing. To double click on what Joe said, the actual earnings are the most important thing. And very important here, this is a bull market that's being driven by the actual results, not a PE multiple expansion. You got 64% of company reports in the can. We're talking about a blended plus actual rate of 29% earnings growth. This is corporate America once again continuing to defy the odds, just as it has in each of the last four quarters. We got 137 reports this week.