Transcripts For CNBC TechCheck 20220808

To impress investors and for palantir pa palantir down 12 . Allovir is going for a deal valued at 8 billion what that means for the rest of the space and start with breaking news. Steve liesman has that. New york fed out with its Consumer Expectation survey and finds Inflation Expectations registered their biggest drop on record this series goes back to 2013 Inflation Expectations for gasoline, for food and for home prices, here are the numbers down 0. 6 on the oneyear at 6. 2 the one year ahead of Inflation Expectations, thats still too high but its come down. Threeyear, 3. 2 down 0. 4 and five here year down by 0. 5 . The one the fed focuses most on and will be heartened to see it move toward its 2 target and Household Income expectations up but declined for spending. Jon, this is something the market wants to see the fed give a breather and shows how tied these expectations are to gasoline jon. For sure. Lots of different data to consider to start a new week, steve, thank you lets turn now to chips, nvidia sharply lower this morning as i mentioned after releasing preliminary q2 results posing a big top line miss laying the blame on macro head winds hitting the gaming business. Our next guest calls thestock one of his top picks predicting theyll see a more balanced revenue mix in the years ahead joining us now new street Advisers Group founder and ceo delano sapporo welcome. This Early Release out of nvidia reflects some of the same headwinds we saw certainly from intel but from amd but overall nvidia still doing better certainly than others in this space hey, jon, thanks for having me on. I would agree. It was a rough go on the quarter if youre looking at the short ball and drop in revenue which is like primarily their biggest organization of the revenue mix but as you mentioned longterm investors still an opportunity when you look at how they can diversify revenue. A more favorable mix Going Forward and increase and push more to the higher margin and if you look at 2 of the companys top line is only attributed to automotive, you know, last year so i think that is opportunity for them to increase that revenue mix and not be so reliant on the gaming portion. So do you know cuss more on the consumer end and potential rebound eventually do you know cuss more on data center and their position in the cloud . I think, you know, the focus could be data center in the position of the cloud. The consumer is going to have a rough go at it for a little longer were seeing, you know ive seen the points and data to point to potentially coming down but i dont believe were there yet so rate hikes will continue to go so i think, you know, youre focused on that side of the business and b2b side and corporations and companies slowing down still cash on Balance Sheets and build out and contract so i think theres opportunity on that side. Delano, i think youre focused on the potential to diversify Revenue Streams further, but right now, the reliance or the focus on the garamendiing space has clearly had such an impact on the stock right now see it down trading down 7 . Tell us what you make of that blaming of these this outlook on the Gaming Sector and how you can extrapolate from there yeah, i think it has a lot to do with cycle and whats going on right now obviously on the consumer side whats going on. I think its fair to make that point that they made, right, but, you know, investors are not going to care about that much Going Forward when you have to look at the fact they have secular Growth Trends and have expanding margins so i think we will see a rebound at some point, you know, from the consumer but its just not there right now. Yeah, and what is your longer term outlook here for how nvidia is going to be positioned in the broader ecosystem here i mean, you said earlier they are still doing better than most but how do you see the differential playing out i think theyre Still Holding on to the share, the graphics and gaming side but, you know, i think over time, that mix will be, you know, more favorable and diversified. Something they pointed to, as well you have expanding margins there in a solid situation where they could put cash to work in the future and obviously still continuing the Buyback Program and hasnt gone away, so i think long term, you know, investors will be fine there will be volatility but long term investors can hold on. Now, we want to check in on another name moving lower this morning. Palantir beating on the top line but reporting a deeper loss per share than the street expected and guidance for q3 and year ahead also coming in under the consensus. That stock now down over 11 lets bring back in Delano Saporu im wondering how for this company, for palantir, the fact that government contracts are, you know, responsible for so much of this companys revenue, is that going to be problematic Going Forward . Yeah, obviously the wins of those contracts and timing of those, obviously prewarned investors it may be coming and here it is timing differentiation that hurt revenue and obviously that unexpected, you know, loss was something that investors were not expecting so risk and more turbulence here when you have more concentration Going Forward, theyll have more concentration and do have the commercial side, which is interesting because weve seen different companies, big tech freeze and do different things, palantir feeted their biggest competitor is i. T. Departments that want to build out f infrastructures. Thats yet to be seen. I think theres been turbulence in the stock for awhile, and i think theres more to come. Yeah, interesting looking at the Revenue Growth of palantir, what would it take for you to be bullish on that stock considering the macro factors, Enterprise Spending pausing and reliance on Big Government contracts . I think, you know, one thing to point to for upside is to have 2 billion in cash and very little debt. So the flexibility in this environment with Interest Rates going up, theres more flexibility for the company, so theyre able to use that to do some things their resources and expand a little on the commercial side. The government contracts will come back, obviously weve been spending, maybe not in certain areas and the timing is different but that will come back but the flexibility that they have with their Balance Sheet is something that, you know, investors can point to also they were at 30, now at 10 i feel like a hypocrite, i hate looking back at what the price used to be theres often especially in this market no guarantee that that price mattered at all but, you know, theyre doing, what, like nearly a half a billion dollars in revenue on now a 20 billion market cap and that half a billion in revenue is for the quarter. So, i mean theyre not exactly expensive and there arent a lot of Public Companies in this space for, you know, data that governments need 100 , yeah. You know, theyve been rerated and in this environment, to have prior Insider Selling and different things, i think theyve been rerated so investors looking for long term and looking at a company that has a very strong tie into a recurring revenue that is very, very solid from the government this could potentially be an opportunity for people to buy because thats something you wont see all over the Public Market, so i think that with this hard environment, investors should be looking at those opportunities but they have to know it comes with a longer investment horizon. Speaking of opportunities to buy, lets turn to the recent buyout frenzy, Vista Equity Partners announcing it will take avalar private valuing at more than 8 billion including debt vistas latest move comes with reports that the firm raised more than 10 billion for its eighth buyout fund as of july i spoke with avalara and how the current macro environment makes the b2b fintech firms valuable inflation probably doesnt affect what were doing as much because, you know, transactional taxes is a passthrough tax. As theyre upgrading all of their as theyre upgrading all of their pricing, you know, being age to do taxes automatically, i mean, is a big advantage for them it just makes life simpler they dont have to research what the tax rate is and change it every time theyre doing it. Julia, part of what hes talking about there is tax and Compliance Software automating that doing it in a low code way and making it available to other types of financial software. Thats what avalara is about and no matter what happens with inflation, people need to buy stuff. People need to transact. Were seeing similar stuff out of visa so interesting to me that private equity would be moving on this right now because its something that people are going to need long term. Yeah, what do they say . This is death and taxes, two things you cant escape. Youve been focused on not just this but this space for awhile smaller Enterprise Software companies and i have to ask whether you think theres going to be a rash of more deals like this one as the likes of vista try to find these longterm opportunities. Yes i do i think its not just private equity, weve got vcs trying to put more money into these companies, often some of them they finance early on and now trading at a discount where they went public and i think these companies are going to be either being bought out by existing Public Companies or rolling together, you know, in a scaled way because thats important and delano, its dangerous to, i think, try to predict who is going to get bought out next but if you look at what happened with annalann and ping identity, this one, these are focused names that have a best of breed type approach to a niche that people really do tend to need. I mean, you can make some guesses, cant you you can make some guesses just circle back to vista, i like this deal youre looking at a company as you guys mentioned, tax tr transactions and becoming more top of mind domestically with different tax code changes, so i really like that deal and reported future earnings it had, year over year revenue jump of 23 but could make guesses about companies that could potentially be snapped up by different private equity firms or venture firms during the time and i think i cant speculate on the names but i think theres valuations that look pretty appetizing to people that had a lot of capital and willing to spend when they see opportunities in markets that have longterm Growth Trends so i think theres a lot to go forward in that area and i think well have to watch for that. I also have to wonder, though, obviously certain things like tax software, if youre best in breed, theres clear value there but have to wonder if theres ones of enterprise names that will suffer as we see companies trying to pull back on spending looking where they could cut costs if they are facing pressures from all these Macro Economic issues, as well as inflation yeah, i think we look at different sectors in b2b that will suffer and companies that dont have something that is as needed as tax software, something not going away if they dont have a diversified revenue mix plenty of companies have valuations that have suffered and points to the opportunities that larger equity firms can take when looking at valuations, vista, the premium for the transaction was right now its trading around that time they got in at i think a good deal, was a month ago they made that, but guot it at a good pric and a lot of others are looking at this and scoping out and looking at their opportunities there. Delano, the type of company i got my eye on, ap loving, up more than 10 . 15 billion market cap roughly its down about 57 year to date and you might not think of this as a fintech play but in a way it is because these app ecosystems and smaller businesses and developers balance between advertising and, you know, discovery appearing in app stores, those are Financial Issues and perhaps investors can think more broadly about the types of companies that are available out there. Also worth noting iron source is looking to be taken out by unity with some help from what was it, its slipping my mind but private equity is helping out there too. Yeah, 100 . You know, you just mentioned that ecosystem, theres still opportunity for growth in those areas, i think, you know, roughly speaking the volatility is fine especially for me and some of the other young investors but those are opportunities and they have to look at all the scope of opportunities for them right now. All right delano sapuro, thank you from new street. Thank you, jon and julia. After the break, downgrade of Western Digital plus, wall street likes Growth Stocks again weve got top picks. Techcheck just getting started. Gut check on crypto. Off to a fast start bitcoin and ether up more than 5 and lifting some of the smaller cryptocurrencies and crypto exposed stocks with it dont look now but coinbase, microstrategy, Riot Blockchain and others up more than 50 in just the last month with bitcoin back above 4,000, ether flirting with 1800. Crypto is making a comeback. Jpmorgan jpmorgan saying theyve found a floor. If so, that was a quick cold snap. Indeed, indeed. Look at ether down 44 im sorry, up 44 up 44 there. As stock prices and valuations crater some wall street firms calling the bottom on Growth Stocks, dom chiu is with us. Hi valuations are at the heart of this discussion as to whether or not they make a comeback which tend to preguess the multiples or valuations of some of these analysts at Goldman Sachs are starting to look at them and say maybe they can make a comeback, but certain kinds. They say, consistent with history we expect investors will reward Higher Quality Growth Stocks but continue to avoid unprofitable Growth Stocks that would be required to tap into the Financial Markets at a time when the cost of capital is on the rise now, with that in mind, if you look at those Growth Stocks that have profitability right now or at some point in the very near future, goldmans team put together a list of some of those names. Now, go to cnbc. Com pro and subscribers will get a look at the full story around it among some of the names that are on goldmans screen for profitable or close to Profitable Companies that are growth oriented and could make a comeback they have lift in that mix which is already down 52 this year. Ring central and then car gurus, all have seen outsized losses but could be well positioned from a profitability standpoint or near profitability standpoint to outperform. Now, the team at wells fargo has taken a similar approach looking at some of the names they like in growth oriented spaces. They looked at some other different types of names, namely Meta Platforms known as facebook formerly and holding some megacapish type ones they favor and Jpmorgan Securities is looking at their own screens and like zoom video, snap, the Parent Company of snap inc. And match group as well. If you look at the growth story it is about whether or not that growth story can be intact but not growth everywhere but with profitable intable and some names are at least some of those that wall street likes are interesting because theyve found so much over the course of the last 12 months. Not all Growth Stocks are created equal, dom, thanks so much and now lets take a closer look at your storage Western Digital still slipping following fridays disappointing fiscal Fourth Quarter results. The hard drivemaker reported big misses for its guidance and our next guest downgrades it to hold expecting macro head winds to slow down, and joining us is benchmarks mark miller. Lets talk about your perspective here why hold it seems like youre pretty concerned about the outlook. Why not just sell . What are you watching . Well, there were some positives, julia, in the report. We do sells win this segment bu there were positives we think the extent of the drilldown will be more than one quarter and concerns about cash flow, talking about spending 3. 2 billion on capex cash flow last quarter from operations was only 295 and had a substantial increase in their Corporate Tax rate up 12 . So it was all these factors, again, its more we just think this wont be more than a onequarter event. Now, there are three areas where theres been an inventory issue. First was in the retail flash and hard drive business, in fact, theyre expecting the biggest decrease in revenues next quarter expected to be around 18 the biggest coming in flash, this could be down, flash sales could be down 20 , 30 but also an issue in china on basically the cloud, theres some inventory issues there and a company feels that will be cleared up in a quarter. And also in terms of the inventory reset, in terms of mobile space, they had one mobile client reduce their forecast by 115 million so net net now the company feels that will be over within a quarter but net net we think this is going to be, you know, a head wind for more than just one quarter plus were concerned about cash flow. Yeah, i mean especially as you look at the Macro Economic factors hurting demand and industry factors that are hurting supply, how do you see Western Digital as being able to outperform or perform relative to its peers well, i mean, they have some new products like i said, theyve done last quarter in the enterprise ssp. But still the magnitude youre talking longterm 1. 78 to 58 cents midpoint is a deep hole to climb out of they do have some good things going on in terms of new products coming to market. Mark, what if this really does get targeted by an activist and, you know, are there good ways that this company could, not saying that it should, but could get broken up . Its rolled up quite a few things with exposure to consumer, exposure to enterprise, different technologies weve been beating that drum for some time. Elliott, theyre in discussion with elliott management, if you just look separately, i mean, Western Digitals enterprise value is below that of seagate only 15 higher sales than Western Digital and did analysis previously, were indicating that individually, the hard drive business and the flash business could be worth 35 to 40 more one of the things we base that on is intel sold their flash business to highnex for 9 billion. Western digital running around 9 billion so could be a substantial improvement if the right strategy is taken. Yeah. As we look at this question that elliott is pushing of whether the pieces are worth more than the sum of the parts, when management was asked about this in the Earnings Call they said the Strategic Review was ongoing and evaluating a range of alternatives what do you think is going to happen here and what do you think the chances are they do split up the company well, there might be more pressure on that now given the outlook over the next six months they could spin out the hard drive Division Look at the valuation seagate is getting. I dont know if they could sell the hard drive division. Im not sure somebody would be willing to buy it, but certainly a spinout, an ipo of the hard drive division would make some sense to me. Well, mark, thank you so much for joining us to talk about these. Interesting earnings and concerning outlook and coming up after the break, a look at the stocks wall street likes best to weather an advertising recession. Those names are on the other side were back in two. If you have this. And you get this. You could end up with this. Unexpected outofpocket costs. So if youre on medicare, or soon to be, consider this. An aarp Medicare Supplement Insurance Plan from unitedhealthcare. Medicare alone doesnt pay for everything. And what it doesnt pay for, like deductibles and copays, could add up to thousands of dollars. Medicare supplement plans help by paying some of what medicare doesnt. And making your outofpocket costs a lot more predictable. Call unitedhealthcare now and ask for your free decision guide. Medicare supplement plans also let you see any doctor. Any specialist. Anywhere in the u. S. Who accepts medicare patients. Take charge of your health care today. Consider adding this. Call unitedhealthcare today about an aarp Medicare Supplement plan. Welcome back to techcheck. We continue to watch nvidia. More on that name in a minute down 8 but first lets get a news update with seema mody. Good morning. As he left delaware this morning to see flooding damage in eastern kentucky, President Biden told reporters hes not worried about taiwan and while he doesnt think china will expand on its military moves in the area, he is concerned they are doing as much as they can. On ukraines black sea coast, two more ships loaded with grain are on their way to turkey for inspection after a third port opened. The grain is flowing under an International Agreement to guarantee the shipments safe passage in hopes of easing a growing global food shortage. And cuban and Government Television showing video of a fuel tank exploding at the countrys main Oil Storage Facility it had been burning since lightning struck on friday a fire at another tank has been brought under control. The country had already been suffering through a fuel shortage that is responsible for daily electricity blackouts. Jewel yashgs ill send it back to you. Terrifying video there. Yeah. Meanwhile, nasdaq is rallying to start the week up more than 1 lets get to our christina for a look at whats moving including shares of nvidia well, weve got strong Economic Data and earnings reports driving that strength pushing growth names higher. The nasdaq is up over 7 in just the past two weeks alone the nasdaqs biggest winners to date are ev maker lucid driven by the ev tax credits and pushing the entire electric vehicle sector higher including nikola, rivian, nio and tesla and zscaler and docusign up over 5 today and thats despite the preannouncement, talking about the nasdaq as a whole is up despite that from chipmaker nvidia in Second Quarter revenue would come out to 6. 7 billion and fall short of the 8 billion outlook. Why . Weaker gaming revenue according to the company, Data Center Sales are weaker than expected point. The Company Previously expected to be a little higher and thats because of supply chain issues early announcement could be nvidias way to derisk its graphics business and shift investors focus away toward more data centered businesses like automotive and data centers and part of a growing trend were seeing among chimpmakers move away from the weaker, slower demand in pc and handsets and gaming included there and towards higher growth segments like a. I. , Artificial Intelligence or the cloud and qualcomm and intel suggested that and moving forward just looking, weaker outlooks, qualcomm, micron, amd and Western Digital across the board for a lot of chipmakers driving some of the chipmakers today lower. Those with exposure to gaming like amd is turning lower and marvel, some of the weakest players on the nasdaq today, jon. Christina, thank you. Now lets get to cnbcs commentator mike santoli joining us mike, the Growth Stocks, some tech stocks, nasdaq continuing to perform pretty well i mean you look at whats happened in the past month or three months, i mean, does this seem to have legs . Honestly, jon, probably had more legs than most expected which i think tells you why it continues to have legs because there was a lot of folks positioned against this type of move and, you know, this reaction so far taking this nvidia warning in stride really does seem consistent with how the markets behavior. The micron downward guidance for revenue was june 30th. The nasdaq 100 is up a lot like 14 from there in the very short term it seems like weve tagged a couple of targets, the nasdaq 100 up 20 from its lows, a little more than that, the s p 500 just this morning kind of peaked above a level everyone watching, the early geunhyes which maybe will tell you if were breaking to a new up trend or petering out at this point i think its definitely impressive, the market has been able to tri to sequester some of the worst actors or the ones that have the most fundamental erosion in the short term like an nvidia or a micron but holdup in general, Inflation Expectations coming down i think its much more of a macro move people feeling as if maybe theres the opportunity for the fed not to actually overtighten and the fed to not necessarily doom the economy to a recession. All that remains to be seen, of course. Yeah, mike. Looking at the s p, june, all of the horrific action that was june has pretty much been erased, june and july, so whats the case to be made still that this is just an amazing bear market bounce . Well, the case is essentially that were still kind of in a downtrend longer term and the fundamental case is simply that youve gotten a reprieve but not a pardon from earnings eroding more you know, its lard to say if that will be the case, definitely weve seen downward revisions to third and Fourth Quarter earnings estimates a lot of folks are looking at the basic mechanics of the lagged impact of all the fed tightening thats happened, the fact youve had manufacturing gauges really turn south and that seems to perhaps lead earnings and markets, thats really the case for the fundamental continuation of the downtrend. I do think, though, were at a point where that case becomes a little bit harder to make or maybe its going to fall on more deaf ears if the stock market can continue to ignore this and essentially say weve already priced in a relatively tough scenario with that 24 drop in the s p from peak to trough. Yeah, its interesting, thinking about the commentary we got from Steve Liesman earlier in the hour about the outlook on inflation and we heard from the ceo of whirlpool everyone saying today at least it seems like were through the worst of it with inflation, wondering how you see that impacting this question of what kind of a bear market rally were really looking at here yeah, julia, i mean it really does come down to whether you do have people believing that just of its own kind of, you know, rolling over effect, inflation is going to all of a sudden become a tailwind and not a head wind and seems a lot of elements pointing in that direction the big question is, you know, fed officials are saying what you would expect them to say which is the job isnt done. We have to see the data come through, a lot of focus on wednesdays cpi, even though the cpi index is not really whats being targeted gasoline prices are down so much in such a short period of time and just a couple of months ago the fed effectively anchored its policy outlook to gasoline prices because it was focused on the kind of Consumer Sentiment Inflation Expectations that are almost just a proxy for gasoline prices i think thats why the market has been able to get up to this point, you do need to see the confirmation in the data, though, another piece of it is its such a strange cycle. Its very compressed rare inflation got to was unexpected by most people and how fast it can come down is absolutely an open question and really to what level its going to come down to. All right mike santoli with that helpful perspective. Thank you. Still to come, the tumble in the high growth tech earlier this year leading to one of the biggest losses ever for softbanks vision. Softbanks vision. The takeaway fory right now. Techcheck. Your record label is taking off. But so is your sound engineer. You need to hire. I need indeed. Indeed you do. Indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. Visit indeed. Com hire lets turn to softbank reporting a 21 million loss on visionfund that fund invests in high growth tech hammered by a drop in valuations interestingly, Warren Buffetts Berkshire Hathaway earnings came out and hit by losses in its stock portfolio. Masa son saying softbank needs to go into defense mode. Layoffs could be ahead to raise cash the fund sold uber and open door. Here is a quote from masa son. When we were turning out big profits i became somewhat delirious. Looking back at myself im quite embarrassed and remorseful julia, before we had cathie wood there was masa son who believed in these high growth names betting on innovation and that bet, at least up through june, july, july, june through june through june was not a great one. Yeah, i mean its just so interesting, jon, thinking about how softbank and masa sons approach to startups and investing in some of these Companies Growth at any cost flooding the market with cash really impacted so many different pieces of the ecosystem and now as you see him sell his shares at a discount last week, well start to see more of the pieces of the puzzle sort of fall apart here. But i really think that he played this crucial role in pumping up parts of the tech sector that maybe shouldnt have been. And private equity on the other side of this bet right now, this is the interesting book end, important book end to what were talking about at the beginning of the show, avalara getting taken private by vista and certainly not the first in that number. You know, equity investors, Public Market investors also have to make these shifts and care about valuation and decide, are you more on one side or on the other based on the way the market is turning. Yeah, the air of growth at any cost is over and so interesting to hear him express remorse, not something weve heard a lot of from people in his position certainly, but fascinating times there. End offen aaa after the break what to do witneeded a way to whsupplement our income. If you have 100,000 or more of life insurance, you may qualify to sell your policy. Dont cancel or let your policy lapse without finding out what its worth. H visit coventrydirect. Com to find out if your policy qualifies. Or call the number on your screen. Coventry direct, redefining insurance. Carvana stay with us lets get a gut check on carvana. Jpmorgan cut it to underweight saying its trading at an expensive level in comparison to peers with murky Growth Prospects ahead. But the firm is still upping its price target to 35 this morning and thats on the heels of a 40 surge friday for carvana after the company said it would aggressively cut costs post earnings thats about a 25 slide from todays price. Coming up next, the ad slowdown and what to expect from disney stay with us finding the perfect designer isnt easy. But, at upwork, we found her. Shes in austin between a fresh bowl of matcha and a fresh batch of wireframes. And you can find her, and millions of other talented pros, right now on upwork. Com wanna help kids get their homework done . Talented pros, right now well, an Internet Connections a good start. But kids also need computers. And sometimes the hardest thing about homework is finding a place to do it. So why not Hook Community centers up with wifi . For kids like us, and all the Amazing Things were gonna learn. Through projectup, comcast is committing 1 billion so millions more students can continue to get the tools they need to build a future of unlimited possibilities. Welcome back for a moment take a look at the s p, well off the highs of the session, down right near break even and its not alone. The nasdaq down near break even as well, the dow only up by about 67 points. And lets turn now to media and the ad market slowdown Warner Brothers ended nearly 17 for discovery and disney, thats coming up this week on wednesday. Cnbc is out highlighting which are best positioned as an advertising recession looms. The criteria to focus on, companies that can directly measure consumer intent such as with search and those that arent as constrained in me measurement anding itting by apples privacy policies alphabet and amazon, two names expected to remain resilient and analysts recommend Doubleverify Holdings and trade desk. Jon, awe and a were talking about this earlier in the show dom said not all Growth Stocks are created equal and now were seeing sort of a big diverse and sort of dispersion of where the value is in these ad supported names. But is it temporary, im wondering. Youre seeing attention to these companies where you can get either because of what people are searching for or because in amazons case, people are in the context of buying already and then seeing an ad thats directing them just to the aisle, right, when you want to direct them. So theres that sort of quick solution, but this isnt necessarily to say that ad targeting is dead, right, or that no. So at what point do the stocks that rely on that model get cheap enough that people should think about the fact that because this model isnt dead, theres value there . Well, theres that question of valuation but also this question of whats going on in the economy, because, you know, we heard from snap and a number of other players including meta, because its so easy to turn on advertising to say, okay, well start spending on snap as you just literally flip a switch, if you could turn it on easily you could flip it off easily how much these names are going to be easily i wonder how much these programmatics are going to be more at the whim of the economy. Thats so backwards looking it feels like. Av aveelara is above 0i9d if you could have gotten it down where it was in the 70s not totoo long ago, that would have been nice i wonder about the e givquivaley there as others look for smarter ads, some of these companies probably are being discounted too much. Yeah, and netflix is moving to the ad space as is disney dont forget theyre going to be launching an adsupported version as well. Lets bring in ncnbc contributor alex, whats your perspective on all of these ad questions . Is it the haves and have nots in the ad space what is quality in advertising right now . Right, i dont think it necessarily is the haves or have nots, weve had a long discussion about how the platforms are the ones that control this business. You look at the stock of Companies Like snap down 77 yeartodate you compare that to the trade desk still down 38 . Trade desk is helping independent internet monetize. You would much rather be in the trade desk rather than snap. I think were dealing with the reset, customers trying to come and investors trying to come to terms with the fact we had an explosion in Digital Advertising during the pandemic, and now were having this moment, were having a pullback in the entire economy. Not only is it, you know, harder to make the Growth Numbers that you had before, but theres an actual pullback going on, you know, side by side, and theyre getting hit by that on both ends, and so its going to be a tough moment for all these companies in the meantime. I dont think one necessarily gets hurt more than the other, but across the board youre seeing issues. Yeah, those trade desk shares up 5 . I want to ask you, though, about this question of intent. This is why search ads are so valuable, and its why elliott is so interested in pinterest because pinterest can tap into that as well how much do you think well see all of these companies try to lean into that and frankly see more advertisers, especially the ones that are not brand advertisers but are really trying to do direct response are going to be leaning into those platforms. Yeah, look, i think intent has been part of the promised visual advertising from the very beginning. Its not just google serarch if you visit an automakers or a car sales website, youre classified rightly so, those pinterest has always been a Strange Company to me. It always seems to get more buzz than use, and i think the companys struggles recently, you know, really pushed that home but look, i think that entire Digital World has tried to sell its intent to advertisers. I think its actually going to become more important, you know, its been out there, but its going to become more important because right now advertisers are looking strictly at roi. They want to make sure that that money that theyre spending is leading to sales now more than ever because across the economy, theyre being asked to show results. Marketers need to show results to the top of the company because when spending is less free flowing than its been in the past, you have to show that youre changing the bottom line in a positive way in order to be able to continue spending that money. Yes, alex, but people who are putting money into the market now probably shouldnt be putting it in based on whats happening right now but whats going to happen or whats most likely to happen a year from now, right i wonder, im thinking about this threepronged test in a way for these companies in advertising. One is your user base growing. Two, how well do you know your user, and three, is your user willing, do they want to tell you more about themselves . Some companies, their user base sbt g isnt growing. They dont know their user base that well. People are like you know enough about me already im thinking about the likes of twitter there. There are some others that seem to be headed in the other direction. Yeah, and look, not only that, theyre going to have to convince their advertisers its time to spend money. I think that advertisers right now are standing on two sides of the fence. On one hand theyre saying we shouldnt spend money. We should tighten up on the other hand they see opportunity in the market, and they know if they spend, they can capture that opportunity while all their competitors are sitting there doing nothing. Its the platforms and the companies and the publications that tell the most compelling stories to advertisers to help them see that vision, that that money spent is going to help, you know, help them capture the market as opposed to sit outside of it and lose to their competitors. You know, theyre going to theres been this moment of uncertainty, and the second that uncertainty goes away, like you were talking about right before i came on, its going to be gang busters in advertising the platforms that tell the best story about that are going to be the ones that pull out of this the best. It will be interesting to see what we hear from disney in terms of their outlook for spending we know that we had record upfront ad spending but the scatter market does seem to be weaker alex, thank you so much for joining us to talk about this today. Thank you listen, people, no, seriously, listen. Weve got a podcast. Follow and subscribe you can listen anytime, anywhere wherever y dnlouowoad podcasts tech check is back in a moment lets check in on nvidia and palantir, two movers this hour nvidia still town quite a bit, more than 9 palantir off the lows even though its still down more than about 11 . It had been down below 10 bucks a share, now above that level, julia. And one more thing, jon, thats elon musk challenging twitters ceo to a debate on bots the tesla ceo taking to twitter and writing, quote, i hereby challenge paraga to a public debate about the twitter bot percentage let him prove to the public that twitter has less than 5 fake or spam daily use e musk writing of twitter provides their method of sampling 100 accounts and theyre confirmed to be real twitter said they sampled thousands of accounts. With all of this going on, we really have to stress here that the deals should proceed on original terms depending on what happens with the lawsuit its one thing to challenge someone to a debate or a dual that seems more like challenging someone to a dual, but there is actually a trial thats scheduled for october here. Thats what the lawsuit is for it seems like. Its kind of like a public debate with actual consequences with a judge deciding, a judge who is not a bot, by the way if you have a public debate on twitter if youre ylanelon, you should be careful. So much in here twitter shares up 1. 5 today indeed. Ask with that, lets get to Frank Holland and the half thanks a lot, jon, welcome to the halftime report, i am Frank Holland in for scott wapner stocks coming off a Third Straight week of gains are we in a new bull market, or is it just too early to call the bottom were going to debate that with the historic inflation reduction bill passed in the senate will mean for buybacks and shareholders we are joined by our Investment Committee today, steve weiss, kevin oleary, Joe Terranova and right here with me on set liz young. But first, lets get a check on the markets. The major averages edging higher again. The nasdaq on its longest winning streak since april, getting pu