Stocks Extend Record Highs: The Investment Committee's Strategy 8/5/26

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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, thanks. Welcome to the Halftime Report of Scott Wapner. Front and center this hour, the record run for stocks. Whether 8,000 is the next stop for the S&P.
We'll debate that with the Investment Committee joining me for the hour today. Joe Terranova, Liz Thomas, Jason Snife, Farmer Jim Labanthal. Let's check the markets here. We are losing a little bit of steam. Dow is still green though. We're red otherwise. We are extending record highs for the most part. And there's a fair amount of bullish commentary that I want to lead our show off with today. Not just from our very own Josh Brown yesterday on Halftime who said this was one of the healthiest tapes that we've ever had.
Wolf Research today is the next stop 8,000. Ed Yardeny yesterday on Closing Bell with me, 8250 He said that might look too conservative thanks to strong earnings. And here's Goldman's president John Waldron with Andrew Ross Sorkin today in Aspen. Pretty positive as well.

**John Waldron** (2:12)
I would say the most important factor right now is earnings. Earnings growth. You know, earnings growth continues to be really strong. We're going to have the second quarter was the seventh consecutive quarter.
And the S&P of double-digit earnings growth. So we've had very consistent and significant earnings growth, which is propelling markets. That's ultimately the most important fundamental driver. And I would say recently it's broadening.
Okay.

**Scott Wapner** (2:36)
So it's strong, it's broadening, and until that changes, you want to get negative?

**Joe Terranova** (2:42)
No, I don't think you want to get negative at all. I think you want to understand where capital is flowing to, and then understand what the potential risk is accordingly. We've seen in the last several days a return of the momentum factor in particular, isolating memory, semiconductor, and even the Mag-7 itself, a really strong day today from Nvidia kind of coming out of nowhere. So where is the risk in all of that? Over the last several days, you are seeing the S&P market cap weighted outperform the S&P equal weight by 4%.
So I would believe the risk as you move through the entirety of the summer is you lose the broadening narrative if the market, Scott, gets concentrated again. You do not want a concentrated market. That's a marketplace where portfolio managers like myself will underperform. It's a very challenging marketplace and it pushes all the chips in a very isolated direction. That's the risk in the market.

**Scott Wapner** (3:36)
Yeah, but what's the realistic risk? Because if you listen to Waldron and others, if the earnings story itself is broadening, and it's strong outside of tech, there's not an indication that your biggest risk is gonna happen. So, no, no, no, no, no.

**Joe Terranova** (3:55)
So, you're always sitting there saying to yourself what can go wrong.

**Scott Wapner** (3:58)
I hear you.

**Joe Terranova** (3:59)
So, I'm sitting here today, my strategy, Joe T. ETF, all time high. I'm sitting here saying to myself, okay, what can possibly go wrong? Where does that begin to reverse itself?

**Scott Wapner** (4:09)
What if we're, though, entering a market where you need to start thinking about what else can go right? In terms of if you're getting a broadening earnings, Jimmy's shaking his head, he's smiling. If you're getting broadening earnings growth, like Waldron's talking about, and others are obviously focused on to why stocks can continue to go up from here, maybe that's the more apropos question today.

**Jim Labanthal** (4:30)
I feel like you and I had this conversation maybe two weeks ago. Remember, the other 493 versus Mag-7s on earnings growth? And as we look in the second half, we're gonna see that other 493 companies, their earnings growth probably surpassed that of the Mag-7.