Is it time to buy?
As stocks are rebounding after massive sell-offs earlier in the week, traders are seeing new opportunities. On Thursday's "Halftime Report," the traders discussed their recent buys, even as they acknowledged how much uncertainty still surrounds the markets.
Go back to "finding quality names and taking opportunities when they miss," advises Steve Weiss of Short Hills Capital Partners. Disney is one example: though it fell Wednesday after disappointing on earnings, Weiss just bought the stock, saying, "A quarter is not going to define Disney going forward."
Weiss also added to existing positions in Apple, Boeing, Target and Skyworks — names that have fallen this week as the trade war with China has escalated. In addition he bought back some of United Airlines, which he trimmed earlier. "You have to be flexible," Weiss says. "You have to maintain your price targets, which I was on UAL, and come back in when the market gives you that opportunity. And you will get more opportunities without a doubt."
Weiss still has space in his portfolio for riskier plays like Cloudera, which he bought on today's show as billionaire investor Carl Icahn discussed his 12.6% stake in the data cloud company in an exclusive interview. Icahn called Cloudera, which is down 36% so far this year and has gotten a new interim CEO, "very undervalued." Weiss explains, "I'm just going along for the ride. It's a speculative position…and who would I rather speculate with than Carl Icahn in an activist situation?"
Streaming platform Roku is another name in the news this week, surging 20% on strong earnings on Thursday. Jim Lebenthal of Cerity Partners, who has already traded Roku at a profit twice in the last 18 months, is now back in — for the long term, he hopes. "This may sound crazy, for a value guy to be buying a stock like this. But here's the thing — you can actually start to value this thing. It may not be on the traditional metrics of price/earnings or price to book, but price to sales is what this thing is going to get measured on. They're growing their sales at 60% year over year, and that doesn't even take into account the opportunity that they've got internationally." Jon Najarian, co-founder of Najarian Family Office, also bought Roku calls today.
Trading less on names in the news, Virtus Investment Partners' Joe Terranova bought Ulta Beauty and Intuit, two seemingly unrelated companies, because they both have "100% exposure to the U.S." Though Terranova admits he has "no clue" if the worst of the market sell-off is over, he believes there is still opportunity in "two themes: U.S. revenue derivation and the U.S. consumer… The U.S. itself stands out so singularly versus the rest of the world."
Disclosure: Jim Lebenthal owns shares of Roku. Jon Najarian owns Roku calls. Joe Terranova owns shares of Intuit and Ulta Beauty. Steve Weiss owns shares of Apple, Boeing, Cloudera, Disney, Skyworks, Target and United Airlines.
