Its the xpi, the ibb, the ones were talking about, and theyre down 4. 13 . Many of them rebound the maybe 25 , 30 off of the bottom that is they put in right when that tweet came out. Of course, the stocks were under pressure. They have bounced a little bit. Lily is, like i say, about 50 cents or so off the bottom that it put in, and still well above where it was in the after hours the other day. I think this is a lot to do about nothing. We would all like to see many of the Health Care Costs come down. I dont know that he can just wave a magic wand and have that happen. Sure, but weve seen, steve, the power of of the bully pulpit. Yes. Especially on this issue. We had this debate on monday. You were here. I was. I think. Yes. I was. And i led it, if you recall. Yes. You were here, jim. And, you know, its like confucious says. You give a man a fish, he eats a meal. You know, you teach a man to fish, and he can eat for the rest of his life. Steve, the tweets dont matter. The tweets dont matter. Were going to get right into, it okay . The drug stocks are off 2 . Thats nothing. This will, just like boeing yesterday, you get to the end of the week, ill bet you the pharmaceutical stocks are up on the week. You cant govern by tweets. It doesnt matter. Okay. Its irrelevant. I guess the only explanation is you ran out of sick days. Otherwise, you may not have shown up. Have you used that line before. I want originality from you. This has the hallmark of everything that donald trump hates, right . He hates lobbyists. Each one of his team has to sign a no lobby pledge. They wont go against the government. Its the largest lobby in washington by a factor of 50 . Over 180 million they spent in a year, number one. Number two, as i mentioned before, medicare cannot negotiate drug prices. Largest buyer of drugs. Thats obama care. One word, if if you buy savaldi, the hep c cure, you pay 90,000 a year. He will go after it. Now, its a tweet. He is not president yet. When he becomes president he wasnt even a tweet. It was an article in Time Magazine. Person of the year issue. Whether you want to say its a bully pulpit, if you want to die le dilude yourself and say its only a tweet. Im making money at pfizer and im going to continue to ill tell you whats going to matter. You go too long. Next week youre going to get a Dividend Increase from pfizer. Thats whats going to matter. Follow the cash flow. You know that about investing. Follow the cash flow. I also know how to take a profit. If i had a profit in those stocks, i would take it. Hillarys one tweet why . Because its down 2 today . Hillarys tweet last from midjune from the end of the year and through january, and guess what, january the Biotech Sector was down another 30 and still hasnt recovered. Is this space investable . Until this happened. I would have said i love it. I am pausing because im looking at my pfizer and merck positions right now and to steves point, i do have some concerns. It is about enacting, though. Its one thing to talk about a tweet, about do an interview and talk about what you are going to do and who you are going to go after, and what can really be enacted right now from the president s position . That i think will be the interesting point. Let me jump away. Dom has a news alert. That can be enacted. Well come back to this conversation, but dom, what do you have for us . Speaking of trump, heres what we have. Again, the optics right now are that business is going to be a very, very big portion of how trump deals with the first 100 days of his administration. To that effect one of the biggest Business Associations in america, the Business Roundtable, 192 ceos of americas Biggest Companies have now named today Jp Morgan Chase ceo and chairman jamie dimon as their incoming head. He is going to head up the Business Roundtable. He takes over for current chairman ceo of caterpillar doug oberhelman. An Interesting Development here. Jamie dimons name was floated around earlier as a possible candidate to be treasury secretary. This comes a week after dimon has been named to part of the group. This is the president s strategic and policy forum. A group thats going to advise president elect donald trump on business and economic matters. He sits on that group here with blackstones Steve Schwartzman and laura sfink. Jamie dimon increasing his scope as far as the Business Advisory side. Back over to you. Interesting. Giving his opinion. Certainly in the months and who knows, maybe years ahead on whats best for business under a trump administration. Dom, thank you so much. Dom with the latest. Lets get back to this conversation, and this in and of itself is interesting news. Im not sure how you can make the argument that, oh, its nothing but a tweet, its nothing but a comment during an interview. The market itself has moved higher, sharp i will higher since the election, based on what it thinks could happen without anything having happened yet. I agree with you on that. The Health Care Stock moved lower based on a Hillary Clinton tweet, and they moved lower for a long period of time. Its almost irrelevant whether anything happens or not. The stock move is a stock move. It will be relevant in the long run. I mean, in the long run we know this. Im not being trite. What matters is cash flows, earnings, and those sort of things. This has definitely, to your point, been a bad year for biotech. Pharma a lot less so. What im saying is in it the long run a tweet from hillary or a comment in in Time Magazine from trump doesnt matter. What matters is things like next week when pfizer will do its traditional announcement of a dividend every year for the past umpteen years. Theyve hiked the dividend. Being a longterm investor is a great place to be when its convenient, right . I would point out that what dom just referred to is that counsel that trump appointed, the only health care person on there is from the cleveland clinic, and if you asked each one of those ceos thats on there, you asked them what their biggest cost is away from the financial guys, say regulatory, theyll tell you health care, its out of control. What do you think theyre going to bring to trump and say attack . Theyre going to say Health Care Costs because theyre rising. You can be whistling by the graveyard for the next week or two weeks and say its just a tweet, but guess what, get in front of it and take your profits and move on. Its not investable right now. Lets bring in meg terrell. She, of course, our pharma reporter. For a reminder on how bad the sector did get hit following the clinton tweets last year and who suffered the most. Which names should we be looking out for. I think a lot of people in the drug industry today may be feeling a sense of deja vu back to september 2015. If you look at the performance of the ibb today, very similar to what happened when Hillary Clinton tweeted. She, of course, was referring to martin sherelli and touring pharmaceuticals when the news came out about that 5,000 overnight price hike saying that the price gouging in the sper specialty market is outrageous. That, of course, hammering biotech over the course of the year, and really we didnt see a lot of relief until after the election when biotech stocks did spike. What im hearing from ceos is that really it was the lack of rhetoric from trump on drug prices that made them feel some relief there. Of course, people didnt know exactly what was going to happen. Throughout the last year the focus on drug pricing pressure really has been on Companies Like valeant where they took a hit not just from pricing pressure. Mylan with the epi pen. Then you saw Companies Like ariad being targeted by Bernie Sanders where, thats a Biotech Company that it makes leukemia drugs. Theyre getting a lot of attention. You can see arr ariad getting hammered too. People worried that those companies will get more into the crosshairs. How do pharmaceutical Companies Respond to this . Were seeing allergans ceo come out with a pledge, among other things, not to raise drug prices by more than 10 a year. N nortis has come out with a pledge make sure the government doesnt come in and say well selfregulate. We promise not to raise drug prices by more than 10 a year. Whether this will be enough is what the whole industry is trying to figure out right now, guys. Watching the stocks. Meg terrell with the latest for us there. Thanks, meg. Lets bring in chris meekans, covering health care policy. Welcome him in from virginia today. Chris, welcome. People were digesting these words from mr. Trump, you said to ignore them. Why . There are really three reasons. One, personnel is policy. His appointments, the key positions matter way more than what he might tweet about or what he might say in some interview to a loaded question. Ill get to that in a sec. You know, if you look at who he appointed, congressman tom kreiss is a free market traditional republican. He is opposed medicare negotiating drug prices. He has opposed Medicare Part b drug demo. This is a guy who believes in free markets. As a result, he is going to put people in place that are making decisions about these policies that promote free markets. Second, Congress Actually has to act. Congress does matter. The reality is congress would have to change law to negotiate drug prices, would have to change law to allow into a handful of Different Things that are the real threats. Do you think investors are thinking about that today . No. Theyre selling the stocks because they have deemed these comments alone along with the clinton comments from september of 2015 or whatever the comment or the tweet was first put out, of questioning as to whether these stocks are even investable in that sort of rhetorical environment that we find ourselves in. Well, i would argue that if you look from a policy perspective, the real reality is these stocks have been hit because people have been afraid about what could happen from a policy perspective, not because what has happened from a policy perspective. The reality is donald trump is not going to implement changes that dramatically change the way the pharmaceutical industry in the United States works. If people want to say, you know what, there are other areas, energy, financials that may be better, let them make those decisions. Our policy guys here can lay the case for why theres maybe better positions to be in. The reality is from a sheer from a point of what is actually going to be done, theres not going to be any changes. This is a lot of headline risk, but not a lot of real changes from a policy perspective. You also make the point, and you use the word loaded in describing the reporters question. You use in your note, a leading question. Mr. President elect, whats your position on drug prices . I mean, im a reporter myself. That doesnt sound like a leading question to me. Well, if you look at his if you look at the context in the paragraph that he actually wrote, he talked about, you know, stock analysts and the stock prices have jumped 9 after that, and biotech sees huge profit margins, and then you see trumps response to that. If you look at what he responded, it was an interview where he was asked do you support medicare negotiating drug prices . Donald trump, the author of the art of the deal, who loves negotiating everything, whether its with boeing or any other company out there, is someone who likes to negotiate. Not because he understands the Health Care Industry or is that interested in it. Remember, his businesses werent really involved in health care. I went back before the election and looked at any connection that anyone in trumps space has in the health care arena, and the reality is eric trump gave some money to st. Jude. Thats about it that you see from a health care perspective. He has put personnel in place and congressman tom prierksce, physician, who developed his own Health Care Reform package, that has very clear views, and personnel in d. C. Is policy because the president will have a ton of things on his plate on a day to day basis. He is not going to be able to, you know, constantly say, okay, where are we on drug pricing . What are we going to do . How are we going to do it . This has been a reaction by the market to headline risks, not based on changes that occur. It is headline risk. The next time some story comes out about whatever x, y, z drug company is charging whatever for their drug and a tweet hits from mr. Trump justoutrageous. We got to bring down drug prices. Watch what happens with the stock, and well have you back. Chris, i appreciate your time. Appreciate it. Thanks so much. From fbr. As an investor, how do you know whats a trump negotiation and what could be an actual attack on a company when it comes to the president elect . Lets bring in jeff, the senior associate dean of executive programs at the yale school of management, a cnbc contributor live as he normally is for us from new haven. Welcome back. Its good to talk to you today. I wonder what you make of the conversation we have and whether how ceos should know what a trump negotiation is versus a trump smackdown. You know, scott, thanks. Thoroughly i enjoyed the frustrating at times, and i felt like the proverbial mosquito in a nudist colony. Your last expert, as brilliant as he is from fbr, i think he was giving wellintended but will be sadly unsuccessful reassurances. When he points back at where Donald Trumps past career focus has been and saying he is not interested in health care as an industry, donald trump hasnt spent his time making air conditioning compressors either, and, yet, greg hayes at carrier utc, wound up finding that donald trump cares a lot about that. Bill ford and mark fuels has learned that donald trump cares a lot more about suvs today than maybe he did a month ago. Similarly, as you take a look at the areas that trump has been focussing on, you know, the folks at boeing. Making government airplanes. Suddenly trump does care, and for those and i hate to challenge my great friend mr. Weiss, i think it was he who said you cant manage a government by tweets. There is something im on your side. Oh, good. Its my friend over here sitting here. I actually challenge najarians and thats just as dangerous. It was jim levinthal. Its right in your wheelhouse. You all get blamed when its my blank screen. The Business Community the fortune 500 Business Community, many of our friends, they dont understand this man. He is a blank slate. Most of them didnt support him. Most of them think he was a major threat to the economy. Weve done a lot of survey work on this, recent survey work. Just before the election. Most of them thought that he is a great threat to our trading partners and to our diplomatic allies. They dont understand, and he is not one of them, which is a lot of voters think, well, bigtime Business Leader. Trump is a very successful big Business Leader, but he is not part of that club of the fortune 500 leaders. When i would bring him into our ceo summits a decade ago, an awful lot of these people, in fact, several people now on this Business Advisory group that was put together on friday, told me with a lot of brovado, when trump walks in, were walking out of the waldorf, and a lot of them did. Now theyre all chasing after him occcurrying favor. The Washington Post runs a story today talking about business and ceos being unnerved by the trump by the president elect thus far and some of the things that have happened. You say you think thats true . I think its completely true, and the traditional tools of dealing with government leaders of either party sht going are no work with this guy. They cant threaten back. This is somebody who loves a great threat. He loves a food fight. Loves a mud fight. You watch the apprentice. You take a look at the 17 people who are in these primaries. Theyre not going to be able to take him on with either counter insults or any bravado. He loves that fight. The second relying on collective action is republican democrat ceos commanders in chief generally held in place by Business Roundtable, meeting today, of course, in washington or the council of independent business owners, chamber of commerce. Trump doesnt care about those. He doesnt like lobbyist groups, and the dirty little secret is our surveys of major ceos find they dont like him either. Theyre paying roughly a sevenfold increase over the last decade on lobbying activities and 75 , 80 of them tell us they dont know why theyre spending the money. Its not working for them. You also have, jeff, maybe a situation where some of these ceos who claim to not like him or be unnerved just need to understand more what the art of the trump deal really is and just understand the fact of how this man negotiates. You are absolutely right. I reported just a few moments ago that paul singer, the hedge fund manager, is making up with the president elect, so to speak. He was at the breakfast this morning. That he is going to give money to the inaugural. Heres a man who said that Donald Trumps policies, if kept to, would lead to a global depression and, yet, he walked in and ate breakfast with the president elect this morning and is going to give him money. You are exactly right, scott. Thats excellent reporting. What it tells us is some of this is driven by fear and selfinterest. They recognize he is identifying individual companies and ceos by name. They get they get worried that way. Others, theyre excited by the possibilities of what he has unleashed. Truly excited about the kind of a world that donald trump is talking about. A lot of them didnt see that he had this view. The cliche is he is not somebody who is running around touting Milton Friedman or ann rand, adam smith cliches. He is not a theoryist, if anybody hasnt realized. He is a praying mgmatist. On a deal by deal and company by company, he will noodle through it and may well do the right thing. On issues of taxes and on issues of health care, he has a great thirst. Over the course of the fall of 2015 i was bringing in some pretty left of center just between us left of Center Academics to meet with trump in trump tower, and i thought that they would horrify him, and i would look pretty reasonable compared to these guys. He liked them more than me. He was very interested in a different point of view. You cant come back at him with insults because then youre dead. He does like a different idea, and he is looking at pretty revolutionary things. Medicare part d, as your analyst just on before, chris, was saying, well, this will take an act of congress. This is the first time Ronald Reagan didnt have both houses of congress behind him. This guy can make an act of congress happen. Medicare part d, negotiating drug prices. It will probably happen. Those outliars like skerelli and mylan. Mylan, he is not going to deal with this woman thats put out there as the ceo and, of course, is not the ceo. He will go directly to the person calling the shots, the chairman robert cory and take mylan on head on. Let me get your comment to this news that we just reported that jamie dimon has been named to chair the Business Roundtable and what you think his appointment to that or his doing that job will mean. This is the most important thing thats happened to the Business Roundtable since its founding generation. Jim mcnerney led it for a while, and jamie is obviously the most feared and reveered person in the world of finance. He is unbelievably articulate. While some think he comes off as pugnacious, but he is quite centrist in his positions. This is the best thing the Business Roundtable has going for them. They lost their way in the Sarbanes Oxley days of 2000. They became cynical. They were not at the table. Frankly, they were headed up from people who had troublesome problems themselves. Phil condit of boeing was chairman at that time. I think jamie dimon, despite getting caught up in some flack, undeserved along the way, is about as honest and brilliant a Business Leader as we have. I cant think of a more honest, brilliant leader, and everybody in the Business Community respects him, and i do think that theyre going to have meeting of the minds. Its really the best in the Business Roundtable has done in a very long while is put him there, and im glad he took the position. Well leave it there. F fo fortuitous to have you. Heres what else is coming up on the Halftime Report. Despite the new attack on drug prices, bank of americas chief u. S. Equity strategist says go overweight on Health Care Stocks. She defends her call coming up on halftime. Plus, a big bet on red heads who like square burgers. Should you get in on the wendys trade . More halftime with scott wapner and the gang coming right up. Sixty to seventy Million People are moving to cities every year. At pgim we help investors see the implications of long term megatrends like the prime time of urban expansion, pinpointing opportunities to capture alpha in real estate, infrastructure and emerging markets. Partner with pgim the Global Investment management businesses of prudential. Transportation stocks airlines leading the way today. You got american airlines, jetblue, Alaska Airlines all up around 2 or so. Still, transportation stocks perhaps providing some of those goals. A little ammunition about confirming the recent highs. Back over to you. Dom, thanks. Nice suit, dom. Thank you. You got a Holiday Party tonight or something . I dont. I am going to the city, but not for a Holiday Party. You look like youre going to the city. All right, dom. Speaking of the what do you guys think . The transports. Unbelievable. You still look at the valuation. Yeltd i talked about the airlines because you gave that to me in the blitz, and we were talking about this huge run that theyve had and will they start to pull back . I would expect that they would. You still look at the val waugs levels. Most are in single digits. Take a look at hawaiian air. Another 52week high. Those that really have control and price management that they can use and implement, those are the ones that i talked to you about this one. This one is up another 3. 5 today. Xpo. Anybody including me who has ever sold this thing has had to scramble back in and get it because this thing just keeps going like this, and i love this stock. All right. Lets talk about starbucks. Were focussing on their shares today as the Company Outlines its ambitious fiveyear growth plan at its investor day. This comes less than a week after hourld schultz announced he would step down as ceo. What do we think . Theyre going to open these 12,000 stores globally by 2021. 5,000 in china. Theyve got this highend coffee things theyre doing. Its 10 reserve coffee. Next thing there will be a tweet about high coffee prices, and starbucks will go down. You joke, but who knows . Tomorrow will be another tweet. Who is on the hot seat tomorrow . Well see. We talk about it all the time. Prices of coffee go up jimmy is finally coming around. I tried to tell him on monday. I tried to salt and vinegar for sure today. You got it going on. I like starbucks. The reserve thing is very, very interesting, and thats what schultz will be heading up. Were going to be talking about tear going to be using all kinds of fancy ways of actually searching the coffee. The costs are going to be extre extreme. You just wonder who is really the buyer of this . Its like going to a you got coffee by the flights on the very, very expensive coffee. Its interesting. Ill tell you what, it will be interesting to see, does this have any i go 5 on a good this is ten. Crafted thing. This is 10. 10. The best thing i heard out of the pete had unusual activity in it yesterday, and i made my position bigger yesterday. I was already in starbucks. Made it bigger yesterday because of it. When he says were going to have 25 of our business is going to be lunch. Theyre expanding that offering in these starbucks. Maybe you buy the 10 coffee and you get an exile sandwich. 25 of sales by 2021, which is what they were talking about. Thats huge for these guys. Now, thats way out there. 2021. Nonetheless is this true, though . This is really true . Exotic coffees. Oh, yeah. Reserve. 50 a pop. The reason to own the stock, with the multiple it has is international expanning, and thats a legitimate region. If you think youre going to open 5,000 stores in china, that justifies. Theyve given you the growth rate. Its 10 Revenue Growth and a wide band of 15 to 20 earnings growth. If its 20 , i think the stock has upside. If its 15 , i think its sort of fairly valued here. Maybe sort of the brand in, then you have up side in it, but to go to a 10 cup of coffee, i just dont see the market for it. Youll have to say this is 10. People that like labels and all that kind of stuff, willing to carry it around and have to hold it like this so you can see. I just think that prices have the most important part to me is this is who is going to be directing this entire thing . Schultz. Absolutely. That shows in my view that the other issues theyve had havent really caught fire, as you see them, right . Theyre okay, but they brought in the bakery. Really hasnt caught fire. They got to do something big, and what that says to me theyre worried about the growth as it is right now. Lets jump over to sue herrera who has the latest headlines for us. Sue, youre dropping a ten spot for a cup of coffee . Maybe if its a Pumpkin Spice latte. I dont know. Its going to have to be pretty special. Thats a lot of money. I always have kids with me, so thats actually not 10. Its 30. There you go. Anyway, well see. Ill let you know. What else is going on . Theres a lot happening this hour, scotty. The European Union regulators have fined jp morgan, hsbc, and credit agricol a combined 520 million for colluding to manipulate the price of interest rates. A special goodbye for longtime california senator barbara boxer. After 24 years in the senate and 33 in congress, she gave her fair we Farewell Speech on the senate floor. I certainly dont plan to stop. I am not only fortunate to have had this extraordinary career, but im also so fortunate to be going home to a state that stands for everything i believe in. Zbloor and prince harry joining london brokers for a charity event. He hit the foenlz on the Trading Floor to hit the select charities around the world. The event is put on by icap which is a markets operator and provider of information services. Thats the news update this hour. Ill send it back to you, scotty. Sue, thanks so much. Want to welcome you back to the Halftime Report. Just 16 trading diz left in this year, if you believe it. Were looking ahead now to 2017. The top equity strategist over at bank of america, merrill lynch. She joins us now with her outlook for the new year. Just published this morning. It is a first on cnbc interview. Welcome back. Thanks. Great to be here. Cant believe its been a whole year. I know, right . You know i feel like were having a bit of an audio issue. Let me let me see if we can figure that out for a moment, and im going to chat with these guys. Maybe they can take care. There you go. I think it was that. Can you hear me now . Sure, i can hear you. I think we can better hear you as well. I want to get your outlook for 2017. Great. Given what the market has done since the election, what is your take on that, and how, if anything, does that impact the way you looked into next year . Yeah. I mean, i think the market right now is focussing on the positive, and, you know, there is a lot to be positive about. You know, our target or our yearend target for next year is 2,300 on the s p, which is not that far from where we are today. You know, not really forecasting a great year, but ill tell you that target is a little misleading. I think that what the market is focused on right now and what could prove to be a great year could turn the market into maybe one of the greatest years weve seen in this bull market. In our bull Case Scenario we think the market could go as high as 2700 on the idea that policy makers deliver. We get stimulus. We get tax cuts. We get, you know, slowly rising interest rates. We get, you know, kind of healthy inflation and, you know, everything kind of comes in just right. That, i think, could put the market in a great in great territory. 2700 is our bull Case Scenario. Thats really predicated on the idea that what has been missing over the bull market is the real push out of fixed income into equities. Were sitting at tepid allocations, and we could finally see this great rotation weve all been talking about from fixed income into equities. Were getting it. I mean, remember, your average allocation to equities at wgs strategist are recommending is just about a little over 50 , which is very low relative to the benchmark of 60 , 65 . There is this wall of money sitting in fixed income thats still with room to go into equities. Thats the good side of things. 2,700 on the s p. I know youll then say here are the risks. What are they . Theres a big exactly. The risks are that policy makers failed to deliver, and i think watching the Market Reaction over the last month or two suggests that, you know, were focused on the good, but what if we dont get it . A lot of these policy moves take a lot of time. Fiscal stimulus will take time. Weve got 1 trillion for the next ten years in trumps proposal, but do we get that much . How long does it take to ratify that . You know, whats the timing on actually seeing that money throw through the system . I think a lot of the fiscal stimulus beneficiaries like materials and industrial stocks have ripped on expectations. Weve seen massive multiple expansion in that area of the market, but the question is do we get that delivered to us . In our bear Case Scenario this is where it gets less exciting. You know, we get disappointing policy. We actually get the negative side of the policy proposals that weve all been talking about, which is trade wars, protectionism, stagflation rather than inflation, and i think all of that could turn the market in to our turn the economy into instead of a boon, we could hit a recession sometime next year. Obviously not our base case, but its not off the table. Right. In that scenario we see the market going as low as 1,600. Really kind of a binary year. We could have a great last year of a bull market. 2,700. We could healed into a recession. Okay. Thanks for your time. Well talk to you soon. Up next, the large cap tech names that options traders think are heading higher. More halftime up next. When a moment spontaneously turns romantic, why pause to take a pill . Or stop to find a bathroom . Cialis for daily use is approved to treat both erectile dysfunction and the urinary symptoms of bph, like needing to go frequently, day or night. Tell your doctor about all your medical conditions and medicines, and ask if your heart is healthy enough for sex. Do not take cialis if you take nitrates for chest pain, or adempas for pulmonary hypertension, as it may cause an unsafe drop in blood pressure. Do not drink alcohol in excess. Side effects may include headache, upset stomach, delayed backache or muscle ache. To avoid longterm injury, get medical help right away for an erection lasting more than four hours. If you have any sudden decrease or loss in hearing or vision, or any symptoms of an allergic reaction, stop taking cialis and get medical help right away. Ask your doctor about cialis and a 200 savings card. Halftime report is back after this. One firm is calling for another 50 gain. Citi initiating a buy rating. A 30 price target. Weve made it our call of the day. Im going to you. They say happy days are here again. Yep. Theyre talking about lower supply and about the demand being high. Demand better. Supply improving. Dram 60 of their revenue. Its a huge portion of what these guys are after. You can understand why theyre so excited about this one. You look at valuation. You could always say that in micron. The valuation always seems you have to look at these numbers. If this analyst is right, i think there are other names in the space, other chip names, that i would rather be in. I understand the call here based upon what theyre talking about in terms of the supply. You mean the 40 gain makes you want to look elsewhere . Yes, exactly right. I think that i would rather be involved. They have some affiliation obviously with apple, but there are other names that i think are much more affiliated with apple. I think the apple numbers are going to be really impressive Going Forward the next couple of quarters and because of that i would rather be with someone who is very connected to that supply. I agree with that. I mean, this Economic Cycle is still continuing. There is wind in the sails as far as this analyst call goes. I would rather be in intel or qualcomm. Something thats more specialized. Still, i think youll make money. Up next, john is tracking a usual options tooit in a tech stock that is down nearly 20 this year. More halftime up next. [engine revving] is it a force of nature . Or a sales event . The season of audi sales event is here. Audi will cover your first months lease payment on select models during the season of audi sales event. Two najarians on the desk today means a double dose of unusual options activity. John, youre up first. What do you see . Twitter, judge. Yesterday dorsey was talking about, yeah, i dont have a time frame for stepping away from square and twitter. Today we see somebody that thinks that there is a time frame for twitter to be sold. Out in march of next year theyre aggressively buying calls at the 21 strike. Thats 11 out of the money, judge. Take a look at these march 21 calls. As you can see, theyve moved up pretty dramatically from, like, i think 85 cents to 1. 30 almost. So far today. 1. 25. Theyre also piling into other march options. Twha did i do . I bought some calls, and i hope to sell some others against it. This is a slow time decay situation, but i would rather carve out a spot rather than just betting on a takeover, judge. Pete . Microsoft, you know, i have come at you about three or four days in a row now talking about unusual activity, and a lot of big cap names. Microsoft is the most recent one weve had. Disney and home depot. All kinds of names. You can see the stock. Its virtually trading right towards those 52week highs, scott. Its a little over 61. Whats interesting today is some very, very aggressive buying coming out and going to february and theyre buying the february 60s. Basically right at the money. Theyre trying to get extra torque. This is going to move much more closely with the stock now because theyre at the money. Not so far out of the money. 2. 40. 11,000 of these traded today, scott. I already owned the stock. I continued to add to it today because of this call buying. By the way, earnings, january 26th. These would fit into that. They got the red turf. Wait until you see that. This blue turf is i got to break away. To d. C. Right away. Our ayman is with Randall Stevenson at at t. What did you make of that question and your answer . Look, the purpose in a news agency is to regardless of who is president or owns cnn. You said earlier that you havent talked to the trump team, but ultimately, though, whats your sense of where theyre going to come down on this . Trump on the campaign trail said he was a skeptic. I really dont know. Were anxious to put it in front of the department of justice and let the department of justice use the facts. Thank you, sir. That was Randall Stevenson, the ceo of at t on his way out of that hearing today. Lawmakers discussing his companys merger with time warner. Hoped merger with time warner. More ahead on that. Also, traders take their positions on lulu lemon. Shares are popping today. They are up for the year as well. More Halftime Report is back after this. Were drowning in information. Where, in all of this, is the stuff that matters . The stakes are so high, your finances, your future. How do you solve this . You dont. You partner with a firm that advises governments and the fortune 500, and, can deliver insight person to person, on what matters to you. 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Silver shifted into a completely different gear once it got above 1695, yesterdays triple top. And so now we see it up nearly 3 . Little longer term view, brian suttland. Buyer or seller of silver as we head into the new year . Im a little cautious. We have the Unemployment Rate ticked down. Thats been a little bit of a head wind or so behind silver and pushing it higher. But i would just say, as the fed funds future, looking out here, youre talking about the potential for two rate hikes next year in 2017. Look at the fed governors, there is only three that were seeing a dropoff in the amount of tv watched, particularly among younger demographics. There is something that came out from flurry that said for nontelevision content, it is 133 minutes per day for the average consumer. And obviously if you look at younger consumers, it is going to be far, far higher. You and i grew up sitting down and watching television, watching sports, whatever it may be. Now kids, all of us look at our phones and whether it is snapchat, instagram, facebook, whatever it may be, thats how we kill time. Regardless of the size, just in terms of content, opportunity, disruption, these guys are at a disadvantage. I dont see this as being a negative consumers, i think a big positive. So in the world that you laid out, ultimately, how do you see these two companies, if merged, competing with the fude ining wd googles of the world . I dont know. Thats up to them to prove out something. If they just do if it is just business as usual, trends are going to continue. Mark, were live on cnbc now. Scott wapner in the studio has a question. If you give me the question, ill give it to mark here. I appreciate it. I wonder if you can ask mark, people were curious by a photo that was circulating around over the last couple of weeks that showed mark having what appeared to be a coffee with steve bannon. Obviously of the trump transition. And im curious what they were discussing at that time since mr. Cuban was an openly harsh critic of donald trump during the election. Yeah, good question, scott. Mark, hes asking about the photo that circulated of you having coffee with steve bannon, donald trump adviser. What did you talk about in that thats not a topic for now. What was that all about . Coffee. Did you call him or did he call you . You know, i think time warner, at t merger will be good for consumers. I think it will be well thought out. Let me ask you one more, then, if mark doesnt want to scotts going to try one more time. Just ask him then, just as Business Executives and ceos are assessing what president elect trump is going to mean for their businesses, with the carrier issue that happened, with the comments on boeing, how mark thinks that that trump is going to be with business if he thinks that they are unnerved, so to speak, as the Washington Post said, or not. Yeah. Yeah, good question. So talking about donald trump, we saw this carrier deal, we saw the boeing comments yesterday, this is a new way for a president to interact with specific individual businesses. How do you think ceos are going to handle that . How do you think they should handle it Going Forward . You campaigned for the other candidate. Right. Heres what ill say about it, just in generalities. Donald trump is our number one draft pick. You know. Ill analyze analogize to the nba draft. Our number one picks, hes who we put our hopes and dreams with. Now it is easier because we havent played a game yet. No reason to rush to judgment. Or to come to any conclusions now. Lets see what happens starting january 21st and well go from there. I hope hes a superstar. I hope everything turns out the way we all hope it will. But until january 21st, you know, there is no real point in getting going into detail. As much as ceos do, they find themselves in twitter cross hairs of donald trump. How do they handle that. This is a new world. I think you first have to ask yourself what is twitter . Right . Twitter as much as we like to think it is a social media that reaches everybody, it doesnt. There are in actual real people in the United States, you know, if i have 6 million followers, probably 40 of those are bots, probably another 20 are overseas, and another 80 arent going to see any given tweet anyways. The reality that whether it is me tweeting or the president elect or anybody tweeting, it is a way to reach other celebs, other verified users, and reach the media. So the question isnt what the president elect tweets or what anybody tweets that is high profile, it is how the media handles that. We kind have fallen into the literals and the serious nerves. And the literals will, you know, read about the tweets and the times and elsewhere. And others will read about it, breitbart and other places, and it is how they deal with the tweets that what it comes down to. Thank you. Back to you guys. Thanks for bearing with our questions as well. Thank you, mark, as well, for sticking around. Halftime report back right after this. [pony neighing] what . Hey gary. Oh. Whats with the dogsized horse . Im crazy stressed trying to figure out this complex trade so i brought in my comfort pony, warren, to help me deal. Isnt that right warren . Well, you could get support from thinkorswims inapp chat. It lets you chat and share your screen directly with a live person right from the app, so you dont need a comfort pony. Oh, so what about my motivational meerkat . Inapp chat on thinkorswim. Only at td ameritrade. They are the natural borns enemy of the way things are. Yes, ideas are scary, and messy and fragile. But under the proper care, they become something beautiful. 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Biotech taking a beating on some drug pricing comments from the president elect. More on that ahead. We begin with Time Magazine naming mr. Trump person of the year. Hes the man of the