Snowflake Surges on Q2 Earnings: The Investment Committee's Software Strategy 9/3/26

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**Scott Wapner** (1:00)
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Welcome to the Halftime Report. I'm Scott Wapner, front and center this hour. Rates down, stocks up. The Fed's Waller says he's likely a hold at this month's meeting. Snowflake, Broadcom, they're moving in opposite directions. We're trading everything. With the committee today, joining me for the hour, Josh Brown, Jim Labanthal, Jason Snipe, Brent Talkington. Let's check the markets. Highest of the day, Dow. Look at that. One and a quarter percent better than 650
Tech is doing quite well. So Governor Waller, not as hawkish as feared. Yields down, rate hike, expectations down, stocks up. I mean, it's pretty simple and we needed this rate relief, didn't we?

**Josh Brown** (1:53)
Yeah, I guess it helps, Scott. I think that's a fair assessment of what stocks are keying off of today.
I really never thought that there was a heavy appetite for a rate hike from anyone at the Fed. And I think just keeping it on the table maybe is important, just to keep the markets a little bit in line. But this idea that there's some emergency need or something where it's going to impact the price of oil, which obviously is up for a very specific geopolitical reason, I just don't get what is the rate hike meant to accomplish. And if it's just one, then what is the signaling value in that? I think if and when there is a time where they look at services inflation, they look at goods inflation, they say, we got to go right this minute. They're not going to be talking about one. They're going to be talking about a new cycle. Well, I don't know what 125 basis point rate hike means, whether they do it or don't do it. So this was always the sideshow. The main attraction has been the earnings. This is what's kept the market where it is. It's what's been feeding the rotation.
And this talk about the 30 year, the 10 year, it's really just sort of in its own lane. And I think not the main thing for investors to be focused on.

**Scott Wapner** (3:04)
You know what is? Snowflake. Let's look at that chart.

**Frank Holland** (3:06)
Yeah, let's just do it right now.

**Scott Wapner** (3:08)
We will do it right now because it deserves to be done right now. Look at that. 21% that stock is up. Blowout earnings. That's a new 52 week high. I'll stay with you Josh for a moment because you flagged this in late May when it was 205 Okay, in Best Stocks in the Market in late May, the stock was trading at $205.
UBS today goes to 500 Was the highest one that we saw out of the group of target increases today. This is exactly what you're talking about. And this is also playing a big role in why you see green all over the place today, especially in software, especially in the NASDAQ and tech.

**Josh Brown** (3:46)
That's right, Scott. And I don't want to downplay the magnitude of this call that I made. Because...
Allow me. Full disclosure, I'm loaning the stock, obviously. We've been talking about it. But in late May, when it came on to the Best Stocks in the Market list, it's a very difficult thing to come on and talk about a stock that has just reported earnings and has gone up 36% in one day, which is what Snowflake did. I came to it a week or two later, and I'm talking about the name as this idea. We have all these software stocks that have been blown to smithereens, and a lot of them didn't deserve it, and this was one of them.