Title: Trading the Tech Wreck — NASDAQ's Rough Week and Tech Stock Performance
Show:  CNBC Halftime Report (audio edition / podcast)
Guest: Host Scott Wapner; investment committee Steve Weiss, Jenny Harrington, Kevin Simpson, Bryn Talkington.
       CNBC reporters: Eamon Javers (Washington), Kate Rooney (San Francisco), Mike Santoli (markets),
       Seema Modi (news update), Michael Ozanian (sports valuations).
Date:  2026-06-26 (Friday)
URL:   https://open.spotify.com/episode/1BrrgxW2I6TSObeDOlokyx
Length: ~44 min (audio; no on-screen video)
Note:  Audio podcast — there are NO (mm:ss) timestamps in the source, so the consolidated ticker pages carry
       the thesis via the "In plain English" callouts rather than a timestamped excerpt, and each "At" cell
       opens the Spotify episode. Speaker labels were mapped from the raw "Speaker N" transcript to the named
       panelists. Fillers (um/uh/"you know" as a tic) and stutters removed; wording otherwise verbatim. Obvious
       speech-to-text garbles fixed to the correct entity (Bren/Brent -> Bryn Talkington; "Melrose MRP" ->
       Millrose Properties (MRP); "ARCP" -> ARCC; "Med" -> Meta where clearly Meta; "Reitz" -> REITs).

=====

[Intro] 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.

Scott Wapner: Carl, thank you very much. Welcome to the Halftime Report. I'm Scott Wapner, front and center.
This hour, the tech rollover — NASDAQ heading for a rough week. As you know, we are trading that and everything
else in these markets with the committee joining me for the hour this Friday: Steve Weiss, Jenny Harrington,
Kevin Simpson, Bryn Talkington. Show you the markets here — we've taken a turn certainly for the better, we're
green across the board. Tech though remains a bit dicey. At one point within the last hour, NASDAQ was on track
for its worst week since April of '25. Come a little bit above that now, as you see the market has tried to turn.
You do though have every mega cap tech-wise at least in a correction. Some are in a downright bear market. If you
look at Microsoft, it's more than 30% off of its most recent high. Meta is 30% off of its most recent high, and
these others are mid- to high-teens off of their own best levels in the last 52 weeks.

Steve Weiss: And so I think about that in Microsoft every day because I own it, and most of the time I'm saying,
why am I there? Not because the stock price has gone down alone — obviously it's a factor. It's: are these now
just regular old companies that have huge CapEx currently and in front of them, and what are the returns going to
be? That's what the market's asking.

Scott Wapner: Sure, and I don't think you can answer the question yet, which is therein lies the problem. Not that
these are bad stocks, not that there's anything wrong with the story, but at least in the near term the juice has
been squeezed.

Steve Weiss: Been completely squeezed. Meta — the stock was over $800 a share, and look where it is now, and it
shows no relief. Today we see it's up .44%. Who knows if that'll stay, and it could be down 3% tomorrow. So where
else can I put my money? It just shows — if you go through the list of stocks here, the AI trade dominates
everything. Everything. Goldman Sachs — because we have OpenAI delaying their IPO, that stock's taking a hit. So
it's all related. I've been raising cash. I'm happy to have the cash most days, and I want to let some of the
volatility step aside, because I don't find opportunity in the volatility just yet.

Scott Wapner: The source of funds is persistent, according to Wolfe at least, related to the MAG 7. Michael
Hartnett does the Flow Show at Bank of America — we cite it often. You've had a $9.3 billion record outflow from
tech. That follows a lot of money coming in; now you've got a lot of money coming out. He's looking at the MAGS
ETF — we can show that on your screen — and he's looking at the $60 level. We're at 62, we were at 61. You go
below 60, he says, and then it's risk-off for the summer, at least for the MAG 7. What's your take as we watch
all of this percolate through the market?

Bryn Talkington: I think maybe they should rename it Lags, not Mags. These stocks — Meta is down 15% for the
year, Microsoft's down 25. What's interesting though is the Qs are up 15% for the year, because the Microns, the
AMDs and the Intels have become a bigger and bigger weighting. So you've done very, very well if you just bought
the index, the Qs. That's why a lot of active growth managers are getting their faces ripped off this year,
because I doubt they have those big exposures to the memory names and the semi names. What's happening right now
specifically with Meta and Microsoft is they are not executing on their strategy. They're literally pivoting on a
daily basis. Copilot has gone from OpenAI to Anthropic, and now you're hearing they're going to go to DeepSeek.
So Microsoft is still figuring it out, and Copilot still is not great. And Meta is just burning money trying to
figure out what they want to be, when really Meta should just be focusing on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp and
their glasses — those three areas are doing great. But I don't know anyone that wants open-source Meta's LLM. So
until these companies start executing and have a vision of what they're spending all these billions on, you want
to stay in the Qs versus trying to bottom-tick Mark Zuckerberg and Satya trying to execute, which they're just
not doing.

Scott Wapner: I just want to take a look quickly at oil, as I go to Eamon Javers, who's got breaking news for us
out of Washington. Eamon, your reporting is related to the war. Oil is at 69 bucks — we're basically back to
where we started before this whole thing began. And you have some new developments for us.

Eamon Javers: That's right, Scott. A new social-media post from the president of the United States acknowledging
Iranian strikes on cargo shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, but not necessarily saying what, if anything, he plans
to do about it. Here's the president's post. He says the Islamic Republic of Iran shot at least four one-way
attack drones at ships traversing the Strait of Hormuz. One of the drones solidly hit the upper deck of a large
and very expensive cargo-carrying ship. Damage was done, but the ship was able to proceed on its way. We knocked
down the other three drones. Obviously this is a foolish violation of our ceasefire agreement. That's from the
president just a couple of moments ago. Clearly he's saying this is a violation of the ceasefire agreement that
had been in some doubt. These strikes happened yesterday; we now see the president responding today. It was not
clear whether he would say this is a violation of the ceasefire — he does say that. Left unsaid, of course, is
what, if anything, the US military is going to do in response. And that could heat up things in the strait that
have been relatively cool over the past week or so.

Scott Wapner: And what it means for the future of the MOU advancing into something more permanent, correct?

Eamon Javers: Yeah. We're at a point now where the negotiations have kind of gone full circle since the MOU was
signed. We had this meeting in Switzerland; the Iranians came out and rejected just about everything the American
side said had been agreed to. You could see a scenario where we basically just don't move forward from here at
all — the strait remains de facto under some kind of Iranian control, there's some kind of tolling in the strait,
and negotiations just peter out. What we end up with is kind of status-quo-plus — Iranian tolling in the strait.
That's one way this ends.

Scott Wapner: Status quo now, right?

Eamon Javers: Status quo now — not status quo from before the war.

Scott Wapner: Sure. And important to point out that that would be a material change and potentially change at
least a bit the dynamic of commodity movement, especially oil and what prices may do. However, even as you're
reporting this out, we were looking at the price of crude oil — it's not getting a material increase from where
it was. As we said, down 4%, barely above 69 bucks. I still think the overall market seems to view this, Eamon,
as: we're going to get to some place where this is going to either peter out or wind down, but move into a level
that potentially would be just less hostile.

Eamon Javers: Yeah. If you're the oil market, you look at Iranian tolling in the Strait of Hormuz and you say,
well, maybe we can just afford that — that's now the cost of doing business. We're going to have to pay the
Iranians some number of billions of dollars per year, but against the scale of the overall oil exports out of the
strait, that's not very much. It's a marginal increase; we can pass whatever that is on to the customer anyway.
So we're back to business. From a pure dollars-and-cents standpoint this might not be an enormous cost for the
market to bear, but it might be a geopolitical reversal for the US government in terms of its influence in the
region. The oil market doesn't really care about the hopes and dreams of the US government.

Scott Wapner: And certainly the dynamic of the leverage that Iran thinks it now has, given the strait and its
importance and their control of it. Eamon, thank you very much for the latest from our bureau in Washington. As
we said, crude's barely moving on this — it's still low. Kev, the market has been looking past this. It's been
fixated on tech. Back to our discussion: did you know that the MAG 7 names have shed nearly $3 trillion this
month? It's the largest monthly decline on record. It would be a mistake, however, to view what's happening with
tech as a referendum on the market at large, because it is not. The market looks pretty good, and it's been
pretty resilient even as parts of tech have rolled.

Kevin Simpson: I don't think any of us a month, two months, three months ago would have expected to see the
S&P 500 at all-time record highs when you look at the devastation within these MAG 7 names. What I'm comfortable
with is that there's some validation taking place. It's not that the AI trade is gone or the MAG 7 is yesterday's
news — it's more a question of how much have we paid for it, and what will this look like from a fundamental
standpoint moving forward? We're going from a momentum trade to a fundamental trade within tech, and I think
that's really healthy. So what does that mean? It means we need to see return on investment, we need to see
margins staying the way they are, we need to see the hyperscalers continuing to spend — and we got that news from
Micron this week. The numbers were important, not just if you're a shareholder, because they blew it out of the
water — top line, bottom line, guides. They validated the whole trade: the spend's still there. So AI is intact;
it's just a question of what are we going to pay for it and which stocks will be the beneficiary.

Scott Wapner: Part of our point is that there's a lot of other things that are working. You can't come at me and
say the market looks like garbage — no, it doesn't. The equal-weight hit a record high yesterday, the Russell's
been hitting record highs, it rebalances today, which is a big story in and of itself. But there's a lot to do
constructively in this market.

Jenny Harrington: Right. And for my perspective, where there is the move from momentum to fundamentals — it's
been a great year, a great market for me, what, not at me so much in 2025. What made me crazy was that all the AI,
all the money, all the investor dollars were going to the stocks where it's like "AI is going to change the
world" — it was just into the direct AI stocks and the obvious AI stocks. The lack of creativity last year made
me nuts. This year people are getting creative, saying: what's the second-derivative beneficiary? What's the
third derivative? I spent two days this week at the JP Morgan Energy Conference, and it was amazing, because that
idea I had last year — that there's capital misallocation, an under- and over-allocation — that point was nailed
home in the opening session on the first day. Chevron said, hey, we just announced that we are partnering with
Microsoft to bring energy directly to their data-center belts, and we can do this because we have access to the
fossil fuels and we have the partnerships already in place with GE Vernova and Caterpillar to bring the turbines
there. That was really amazing to me. And then you look at what's gone on: you've got Microsoft down 26% this
year, you've got Chevron up 12. Well, that makes sense. So now we're getting into this broadening — who can
benefit from AI, not just the obvious players. And as the conference went on it got more and more interesting.
There was one company — I can't remember who — talking about the way they're using AI to identify where to drill
and how to drill. They said that used to be a 20-month process; it's down to 15 days, and our accuracy is up to
90%, and it takes a fraction of the engineers it used to. Another company was talking about how they pay out
royalties — used to be a multi-month, 15-person process, now it's three to four days with three to four
employees. So you see the energy space being wildly transformed, not just by the ability to bring energy to the
data centers, but throughout the entire ecosystem. So I love this move that we're seeing.

Scott Wapner: You had a number of milestones — not the kind you want to make. Microsoft: worst month since
December of 2000. Apple: worst day since April '25, yesterday. Nvidia: worst week since April of '25.

Steve Weiss: Apple's kind of interesting, because you have to wonder — as they keep raising prices, are the
telcos, the wireless companies, going to be willing to subsidize as much of the purchase price as they are? And
if Starlink does come in — which is going to take a while — well, they subsidize. So it's not a good story for
the wireless companies. In terms of Microsoft, for what you talked about, all the benefits of AI for the oil
industry — there's also negatives, which is, if you can find oil easier, you can lower the commodity price.

Jenny Harrington: Right, but that's great for society.

Steve Weiss: Right. But in terms of Microsoft, we don't know how it's going to turn out. We don't even know what
their AI strategy is at this point, and will they be disrupted. So the embedded market means: yes, it will be.
Now in terms of AI itself, don't forget — pricing always calls the end of something. When DeepSeek can do it so
much cheaper than all the others, and robust — so while they'll keep spending, who are they going to spend on?
Are they going to spend on OpenAI and Anthropic, who are both arguably arrogant, or the Chinese, who have their
own issues? It's wide open. The government can't stop companies from using DeepSeek. So that's a real threat, and
that's pricing. And we don't always have a Chinese company and a Chinese government that are concerned with
profitability — they just want the lead. And guess what? We don't have to outsource to China to get cheaper
pricing; they can just use the software here.

Scott Wapner: Microsoft's got a nice move today, almost 5%, a nice snap-back in an otherwise down week. You knew
to some degree the buyers were not going to take that long to come in to these names. It's not like people are
suggesting give up the ship — it's just maybe don't be as overweight as you had been in the past. Kev, this plays
right into you. You bought more Nvidia yesterday at 194, right? We're a touch below that now. Why'd you do that?

Kevin Simpson: It comes back to that thesis of the haves and the have-nots. This is not the Nvidia from two or
three years ago where it would double every five minutes — Micron's taken that lead. But this is a stock that
just becomes less expensive on a valuation basis because of all of the things they're doing to generate revenue,
to generate free cash flow. This isn't our dividend play, which is interesting because it's a stock we've wanted
to own for so long. This is the second time we've been able to add to it. It really came down to that dividend
bump — they took the one penny per quarter up to $0.25 a quarter, initiated an $85 billion share buyback. When
you look at the numbers, to me it has more of an investable appetite for me than a trading appetite. So under
200, I like the stock, and I'm comfortable adding to it here.

Scott Wapner: The other thing that may be weighing on the space — again, tech turned around a bit, NASDAQ has
gone green — what looked like a pretty ugly start of the day: OpenAI, according to the New York Times, is pushing
its IPO to next year. Is that weighing on sentiment? Kate Rooney has more for us from San Francisco.

Kate Rooney: Hey, Scott. So from what we're hearing, OpenAI is very much leaving the door open on IPO timing. The
AI giant has not set an official timeline for that listing according to sources, and has not yet held those
important pre-IPO meetings to talk about pricing or demand — Leslie Picker confirming that one for us. I've also
spoken to sources who say a lot of this is going to depend on market conditions. The New York Times kicked this
discussion off with reporting last night that OpenAI is now leaning towards a 2027 listing, and that SpaceX
volatility is weighing on that decision. Also some details that CEO Sam Altman was very focused on a
trillion-dollar-plus valuation for that listing. OpenAI didn't reiterate a prior statement when we spoke to them;
they said we have not decided on timing yet. There are, of course, ripple effects here — questions now about what
it all means for Anthropic's IPO. That company has also filed confidentially. We haven't seen the financials, but
we do know this company is unprofitable — it is losing about $2.50 for every $1.00 earned, according to PitchBook
at least. It is a private company, but OpenAI is very much tied to a lot of other companies in this whole AI
ecosystem. Shares of SoftBank, a major OpenAI backer, dropped double digits on this report. Back over to you.

Scott Wapner: Thank you. It is interesting that SpaceX gets partially mentioned in this reporting — it's coming
off its lowest close since going public. Bryn, what are you doing with the position that you, I think, still have?

Bryn Talkington: Well, we had a position that was in a fund that we were able to sell, so we sold that because it
was a liquid fund. Obviously I'm a huge fan of Elon, the team at SpaceX, at Tesla. What investors need to
understand is that since December of 2024 they've had multiple tender offers in the private market — in December
2024 there was a tender offer at 350 billion. So this company has now basically succeeded mostly in the private
market and now is here for us in the public market to buy, while the revenues have grown about 33%. Investors
need to understand the first year of an IPO can be really dicey — a lot of companies (Facebook, Uber, Airbnb,
etc.) had like 50% drawdowns. So I want to see over the next few quarters how the stock trades. I think the stock
could go to 500 billion before it goes to a trillion. They need to execute on really hard stuff. And the VCs —
there's been such a lack of monetization within the venture-capital world over the last five years — I do believe
when the lockups are up and the stock is able to be sold by these VC firms, they will definitely take some off
the table because investors want liquidity. It's been a great run, but understand, investors: it's up 6x since
December of 2024 while earnings have grown 33%. So to me, I'm just going to sit and watch it. I'll come back in a
few quarters once I get a better understanding of how the stock trades and what actually happens with Starlink
over the next year or so.

Scott Wapner: You mentioned Goldman being down today. Hard to say definitively — is it down because of the OpenAI
reporting? The stock's been on a tear; it's still above 1,000 bucks and it's had a great move, like most of the
space, over the last month or so. Let's show it a month, guys — like a lot of these stocks. Citi's up 13 in a
month, Bank of America 12.5, JPM 11, Goldman's more or less flat. But the stock's had a nice move — getting above
$1,000.

Steve Weiss: Yeah. And since I shaved back Micron until the third before the earnings, this is now my largest
position. The two is uncomfortably large, but I do think part of it today is OpenAI. I also think — and we can go
back to other cycles — Goldman trades in line with IPO cycles, particularly in technology, because they are the
leader. So that's a downside to being the leader — but it's minor, it's noise day-to-day, because those companies
will come public. OpenAI will come public at some point, because they're going to need the public markets. So
I've got no problems with Goldman here. I like it. I still think they have the best tone in all the financials.

Kevin Simpson: Let me just give one footnote on Goldman, Scott, something we don't talk about all the time. Jenny
and I are dividend investors, and yesterday, after the stress test, you saw both JP Morgan and Goldman increase
their dividends. So as Steve and I sit here as shareholders and watch Goldman do incredibly well, don't forget
the dividend just went from $4.50 a share to $5 — that's an 11% raise.

Scott Wapner: Maybe Jenny will start buying some of the big banks now. Why not?

Jenny Harrington: Why? Because the yields aren't high enough for the dividend-income strategy that I manage —
we've got a 5% average dividend yield. They're great, and it goes to your point on Nvidia: they've got a nice
growing dividend. The yields just aren't high enough yet. They're more likely to make sense for our disciplined
growth strategy, where there's a free-cash-flow hurdle and the dividend is reflective of that. But it's the
downside to having this super-tight discipline. Trust me, I want to own them — I just need the market to crap out
on me really badly for like two weeks, put them on sale, and then I can jump in.

Steve Weiss: I never want you to own gold.

Jenny Harrington: That's why I say just two weeks. Crap out for two weeks, let me buy it.

Scott Wapner: I'm looking over your guys' shoulder — you may hear this bell ring in a matter of moments. There's
an IPO that's going to go out literally right next to Post 9. I only bring it up because it's Cinda — they're a
silver miner. It's a perfect segue, Weiss, to you, because you're out of the GLDI now. There was some — I think
Hartnett, as part of his note today, said gold was at a good entry point now because it's come down a bunch. I
still think there's a fair amount of bulls around. The gold story — you were in this for like a minute, right?

Steve Weiss: It was like six months or so, which is a minute, you know, because I've owned stocks for a decade or
so. But gold didn't do what I thought it was supposed to do. When you have inflation running away, gold was
trading down, and now you have rates coming down and gold is trading up.

Scott Wapner: There you go. Thank you for the timing on that — I knew it was getting close, you could tell.

Steve Weiss: Your timing is incredible. But gold is always tough to value — it's more of a sentiment and
emotional play, because it hasn't proven itself consistently to be a hedge or anything like that. So I looked at
it and I thought: gold, if you come below 4000, stays below 4000, because of all the momentum money that went
into it — it's coming out of it. So I'm out of it again. I've been raising cash, looking for opportunities.

Scott Wapner: All right, Bryn, let's do one more thing before we take a break. There have been a fair amount of
redemption headlines related to private credit this week — Apollo, Morgan Stanley, Ares, all in the news for one
reason or another around private-credit redemptions. You sold Apollo — why did you do that?

Bryn Talkington: Apollo's fee-related earnings are great — I think they're still going to grow around 20%. But
the sentiment around these names — and I do really respect the charts and the sentiment — around Apollo, all of
them really, is just so negative. So I still am keeping my BDCs, like OTF and ARCC, getting around a 13% yield,
and I feel like the underlying portfolios are money-good. But in terms of Apollo, I just think capital is not
flowing there. At the end of the day, why do stocks go higher? More buyers than sellers. I just think people in
the financial market right now are going to go to the Goldmans, the Bank of Americas, the JP Morgans. The
sentiment and the story around these names are too questionable. So I took Apollo off and just sold it — I think
I was flat on the name.

Scott Wapner: We'll take a quick break. When we come back, we've got a big call today on one of Jenny's favorite
conference subjects. I told you how much she loved the energy conference — she's said in the past how much she
loves this other area of the market too, when she gets invited to one of their conferences. We'll tell you about
the call next and what the trades are.

[Break]

Scott Wapner: This is some calls of the day — Caterpillar. This stock's been just a great stock. Price target
goes to 1200, was 1165 — that's Baird, near 20% upside, record high yesterday, up 77% year to date. Both of you
guys are in this.

Steve Weiss: It's been great. I cut again a third of my position as soon as it went long-term. I don't think the
shares are cheap at all — I'm used to this being in the mid-teens, not 36 times. So valuation is an issue. And
again, this is an AI trade, pure and simple. That's what it is. I have all this increased exposure — every stock
I own, well, not every, but a lot, are based on AI. So I've got to cut it back. Now's not the time to.

Scott Wapner: It's an AI stock until it isn't.

Steve Weiss: Exactly. And that's my point. I don't know when — you don't know when the —

Scott Wapner: When the "isn't" is.

Jenny Harrington: I think on this one there's a lot —

Steve Weiss: I think we're closer to the "isn't" than further away.

Jenny Harrington: Coming off of that energy conference — I think Cat and GE Vernova, there's a long, long, long
runway. One of the things that they talked about constantly were queues — how long and how robust the queues are
just to get their product.

Steve Weiss: Can I ask you a question about the conference? How many companies got off and had any words of
caution about their stock, had any negative comments from the fundamentals — when have you ever seen that?

Jenny Harrington: That has nothing to do with Cat.

Steve Weiss: It's what I'm asking.

Jenny Harrington: That's not unique to energy. That's any conference you ever go to, on any subject in any
industry — the CEO —

Steve Weiss: That's exactly my point.

Jenny Harrington: I'm telling you the theme that I heard was: the queues are long, the queues are long, it's hard
to get the turbines.

Steve Weiss: That's exactly my point. You come back and keep talking about all this positive stuff. That's all
they ever say. So that's only one data point — you can't rely on companies.

Scott Wapner: I'm not — it's not like their bullishness is unfounded. We're tripping over ourselves to build data
centers.

Steve Weiss: Absolutely right. But no CEO I know has ever gotten up and called the end of the cycle. When you
listen to them, you keep thinking it's going to last forever. What I'm telling you is I think it's going to end
sooner. And the market's telling you this month that they think the spending may end sooner than everybody
thinks. So when the base case — that it's going to go on forever for another five years — is in everybody's
thinking, every conversation, you've got to realize: who's the marginal buyer for that theme? And since everybody
knows it, that adds to the risk substantially.

Kevin Simpson: Caterpillar gets paid on the way, so when it does end they're not stuck with IOUs. That's what
happened in the late '90s — there were all these companies extending credit. Caterpillar gets paid along the way.
So to Steve's point, someday it does end, and whether it's two years, three years or four years, there's still a
runway higher. But I like how you trimmed it, and that's how we manage it also, Scott — we keep a 5% max in
Caterpillar; as it appreciates and we love seeing it go higher, we're trimming into strength, and it creates dry
powder for other opportunities.

Steve Weiss: More acutely, it's not when it ends — it's how far in advance of the end the market discounts it.
And that we don't know for this cycle.

Scott Wapner: We just got some more breaking news out of Washington. Eamon Javers, we'll go back to him.

Eamon Javers: Scott, that's right. The president pushing back on a possible European digital-services tax — taking
to social media just a short time ago to threaten tariffs. Here's what the president says: numerous European
countries have been discussing the imminent implementation of a digital-services tax on American companies. Some
of these countries are close to actually doing this. Please let this statement serve to represent that any
country that imposes such a tax will immediately be met with a 100% tariff on any and all goods sent to the
United States of America. This tariff will supersede trade deals made with the country, whether implemented,
signed or not. Additionally, the 100% tariff will be immediately imposed if they proceed. So how should we read
this, Scott? I think this is a flare-up of diplomatic tension between the United States and some of these European
countries over this digital-services tax. But the president doesn't necessarily have the authority, after the
Supreme Court ruling on tariffs, to impose 100% tariffs — and particularly with the EU, which has its own rules
and regulations in terms of trade, his authority to do something that's sweeping might not be as clear as it's
suggested by this tweet. Nonetheless, it does signify some diplomatic feathers being ruffled here over the
possibility of this tax and that pushback. We'll see if it has any impact on the European decision-making.

Scott Wapner: OK, Eamon, thank you. That's Eamon Javers with the latest. Do we have time for another? Sure —
REITs. REITs, your favorite conference, Jenny. Wolfe Research says we're going for a breakout in this space, and
you have a lot of these.

Steve Weiss: Every management was very positive, I bet.

Scott Wapner: Yeah — and maybe they should, because it's poised for a breakout.

Jenny Harrington: I think, you know as well as I do, it's our job to read between the lines and see what's going
on. So interestingly, the global REIT is up 30% in the last two years — so to some degree it's already broken
out. But when you think about REITs today, they're the perfect halo trade, right? Heavy asset, light
obsolescence. When I mentioned before that I've been thinking about capital misallocation, over and under —
there has been no capital allocation to this area for a long time. They've been starved of capital. So company
after company was saying there are no new builds coming — whether it was healthcare or apartments or shopping
centers, no new builds coming. And four and five years ago they were timing out cap rates of 4%; today they're
timing out cap rates of 6 to 8%. Then you take the AI thing and layer it on, and there were companies like
Mid-America or American Homes 4 Rent where there's just enormous documentation that's incredibly burdensome to
their operations — AI is revolutionizing that. So I think it's a great place to be. I think it has the wind at
its back, but I don't think you get a huge pop, because there has been a move.

Scott Wapner: What's your favorite REIT right now? Putting you on the spot.

Jenny Harrington: My favorite REIT is Millrose — MRP — which is the land-bank spin-off from Lennar. It's got like
a 10% yield. It's a great company, really well managed.

Scott Wapner: All right, we'll watch MRP. Thanks. We'll get Mike Santoli's insights next.

[News update] Seema Modi: Welcome back to the Halftime Report. I'm Seema Modi with your CNBC News Update.
Russian authorities in control of the Crimean Peninsula declared a state of emergency today after weeks of air
attacks from Ukraine, including overnight strikes that were one of the largest since the war began. The Russian
military says it intercepted 660 Ukrainian drones in the attack but said nothing about any casualties or damage.
Utah Governor Spencer Cox restricted fireworks ahead of July 4th and declared a state of emergency today as the
largest wildfire in the country explodes in size — the Cottonwood Fire in the southern part of the state,
covering more than 100 square miles and prompting mandatory evacuations, is just one of six fires burning across
the state, 0% contained. And SpaceX is reportedly telling investors it plans to launch a Starlink mobile service
for consumers. The Financial Times reports the company was considering a Starlink retail product and could build
its own US mobile network. Starlink currently has more than 10 million subscribers; the company has yet to
comment on the report. Scott, back to you.

Scott Wapner: All right, Seema, thank you. Senior markets commentator and Overtime co-anchor Mike Santoli is here
at Post 9 for his midday words. Nice to see you. Big observation from this week is what?

Mike Santoli: We've gapped out to extremes when it comes to the narrowness of the strength in memory and the
attempts to rebalance away from it. That is really the story. Even on a month-to-date basis, you're looking at a
few percentage points of outperformance of the median S&P stock over the S&P. Today it seems like it's a little
bit of an unwind of that — things are relaxing in the other direction. These software bounces have always been
suspect; they always seem like it's just a little bit of short-covering and taking some exposure off, because you
get some big moves to your point.

Scott Wapner: I'm glad you mentioned that. ServiceNow is up 8.5%, Snowflake almost 5, Salesforce almost 5.

Mike Santoli: That's why I say it feels unwound. Doesn't mean at some point the ball's going to stop rolling down
the hill and you can maybe pick it up. But right now I do think the market kind of wants to go into the end of
the month having done some of this work — to broaden out a little bit and rebalance. I'm always a little bit
suspect as to whether that means that's the new engine of the next bit of upside, because I really do think you
have to have some of the MAG 7 wake up to help carry the index.

Scott Wapner: Microsoft's up 5% today. It's been a really bad run for that name, but it just shows you, I think
at least to some degree, investors — the bulls in these names — are just not going to let them fall all that far,
even if they think a lot of juice has been squeezed. How far are these things going to fall?

Mike Santoli: How cheap does Microsoft have to get relative to its history? 18 times. I also think the lower
these stocks go, the more the incentives build toward the companies modulating on spend or doing something that
says, hey, we get it — you're not confident that we're investing profitably.

Scott Wapner: All right, I'll see you on Closing Bell. Good stuff, Mike, thank you. In some other news: Leon
Black has just left Capitol Hill. His voluntary deposition in front of the House Oversight Committee about his
ties to Jeffrey Epstein was cut short this morning, and lawmakers have now subpoenaed him to appear under oath on
July 16th. The ranking members on that committee accuse the former CEO of Apollo Global Management of avoiding
critical questions and not being forthcoming after refusing to answer specific questions about non-disclosure
agreements he had signed. Halftime Report after this.

[Headlines round — committee names hitting highs and lows]

Scott Wapner: Wanted to hit a number of committee names hitting highs and lows this week. McDonald's, Kev —
lowest level since August of '24, that was yesterday.

Kevin Simpson: I feel like if you look at a five-year chart of this, the Mendoza line of $300 is where it just
likes to hover. So if you get in here, you can expect that it'll probably go to 300, and then that's about it.

Scott Wapner: Why? What's the issue with the stock? Why is it the lowest level since '24?

Kevin Simpson: I think a lot of it had to do with the profit margins they were hoping to generate. When they
went back to the $5 meal, it brought a lot of people into the store, so when you look at the numbers they look
very good — but the guides aren't there. Inflation has taken a toll on the profitability at McDonald's. It's
still operating amazingly well — they have the real-estate model — we own the stock. I'm being a little bit
sarcastic about that $300, but there's a good reason it's stalled, and I don't know that you need to rush into
it.

Scott Wapner: A good segue to United Healthcare — highest level since April of '25 today.

Steve Weiss: Yeah, and thank you for pointing that out, and thank you for staying away from my wardrobe.

Scott Wapner: I was going to go there, but you can only call it the Caddyshack outfit so many times — the joke
gets stale.

Jenny Harrington: I think it looks nice today.

Scott Wapner: United Health.

Steve Weiss: The two things going for it: you made some headway in fundamentals last quarter, and I think it's
anticipated you'll continue to do that with Hemsley coming back. And healthcare is also defensive — so on a
number of red days broadly for AI, you see United Health being positive. I think that's what it is — it's
balancing the portfolio. So I'm staying there right now. It's been a great stock for me. But at some point you'll
still have healthcare, which is a major headwind.

Scott Wapner: Stanley Black & Decker, Jenny — highest since November of '24 this week.

Jenny Harrington: I bought this a few years ago — I think I paid 68 for it. So it's been a long road of sitting
and doing nothing, and then finally it moves up. But it's basically over its pandemic hangover, where it shot
straight up during the pandemic, then crashed down to earth, then it took longer than I realized for inventories
and all that to normalize. But where they are is they're normalizing — they're targeting 35% gross margins, and
they're actually executing on that. It's unfortunately down to a 3.6% dividend yield, it's only 16 times
earnings. But that gives me a tough spot, where I'm like, for the dividend-income portfolio I needed a juicier
yield. It's had a big move, so I don't know if it'll still be in the portfolio at year-end. But they're doing
everything right, and it's a great, well-managed company — a dividend aristocrat.

Scott Wapner: Lastly, Bryn, quickly — Palantir, lowest level since May of '25, so in more than a year now.

Bryn Talkington: This is a good example of when sentiment changes on a stock — then all of a sudden it comes back
down to earth. It's obviously getting a rally today with the software names, so I think it's settling in here,
but it does continue to make lower highs. So I've sold a bunch — well, lower than this and higher than this. I'm
just keeping what I have left long-term. I do love what they're doing — they're the ultimate original AI software
company that's executing, and I think what Alex Karp and team are doing is great. So I'm going to continue to
hold the position that I have.

Scott Wapner: Let's take a quick break. Coming up, the world's most valuable sports empire — CNBC is out with a
new list today. We'll tell you who's leading the pack and why. Michael Ozanian joins us right here at Post 9
next.

[Break]

Scott Wapner: Welcome back. CNBC is out today with a list of the most valuable sports empires. Here to break down
the numbers and the names is our senior sports reporter, Michael Ozanian. Good to see you. Tell us more.

Michael Ozanian: These are the people and entities that own the most valuable portfolio of sports assets. And by
sports assets we're not just talking about teams — we're talking about people that invented, invested in things
like golf, invested in networks, invested in auto racing, anything sports-related.

Scott Wapner: Properties — like tourist attractions. I look at the Star on this and I'm like, that's not a team,
that's a destination.

Michael Ozanian: A lot of sponsorships, though, directly related to the Cowboys — they generate from that.

Scott Wapner: But number one is Kroenke Sports and Entertainment. They've become a juggernaut on and off the
field.

Michael Ozanian: Exactly. The knock against Kroenke for years was that his assets were valuable but his teams
weren't any good. That's not the case anymore, that's for sure.

Scott Wapner: Arsenal just won the Premier League, the Rams are good, the Avs are good, the Nuggets are good. It
seems like whatever this gentleman touches these days, and his team, they've been running it the right way — both
from a business standpoint and on the fields of play.

Michael Ozanian: Yeah. And Scott, you and I have talked about this many times — the value of operating your
building or owning the land around it. He does both with all of his teams, so that's a big plus for him.

Scott Wapner: Is it harder to build now? These are teams that have been owned by their respective groups for a
long time, except for the Commanders, relatively new for Josh Harris and company. Is it harder to build empires
from the ground up today because valuations have gotten so large?

Michael Ozanian: No — we're seeing people like Mark Walter. He's new this year.

Scott Wapner: Dodgers, right?

Michael Ozanian: And he bought the Lakers recently. So often it's people that own an NFL team and an NBA team
that are up near the top, because those are the two leagues with the most valuable teams.

Scott Wapner: Where is Walter? They're 8th. How come only 8th?

Michael Ozanian: We only count the value the person owns. So if you own 20% of a team, that much of it is
attributed to you. He doesn't own 100% of the Lakers. Whereas somebody like Stan Kroenke owns 100% or very close
to it of his teams, so all of that value goes to his enterprise. Mark generally owns — even though he's the
controlling owner — generally less than 80%.

Scott Wapner: I love the insight, thanks for being here. That's Michael Ozanian. A reminder: 3:00 today on
Closing Bell, the Rams president, Kevin Demoff, is going to join us. We'll do finals next.

[Finals]

Scott Wapner: Welcome back. Netflix — I'm going to give this to you, Weiss. Lowest level since October of '24.
What do you do with that?

Steve Weiss: I was just saying to Kevin, the stock's up today. The stock's been under some pressure — traded down
in the 80s on rumors that they're going to acquire Lions Gate. Don't forget they went after Warner. So this looks
like, OK, we're now dipping down, but we definitely feel we need more content — and that's not a good look for
the company. This trades quarter to quarter. When I look at it — I had cut back on it — down here it's too cheap
to sell. So let's wait for the quarter, see what happens.

Scott Wapner: OK. Fiserv — lowest level since October of 2016. Wow.

Jenny Harrington: We've owned this for a long time. There's new management that came in about a year ago, and
they've actually been executing well and meeting their numbers. It's a huge free-cash-flow story, trades at six
times earnings, has a 16% free-cash-flow yield. We actually added to it about a month ago, when it was at $56, so
we're down on that. We might add to it again. But the bottom line is everybody hates this, and the numbers are
there, the math is there, the cash flow's there, and it's a necessary product. So it got caught up in the
software apocalypse, but this isn't one where you can go and replicate it on your own using Claude — banks depend
on everything they do.

Scott Wapner: OK. Dick's Sporting Goods — highest level since February of 2025, earlier this week.

Steve Weiss: They're distinguished. They're not quite the only sporting-goods retailer out there, but they're
the largest, the most national, and they keep refreshing their stores. So I think you're in season for it. I
still like the stock — I think it trades at a premium multiple.

Scott Wapner: OK — again, February 2025 highs. Professor Jeremy Siegel, the Wharton School, will join me at 3:00
today on Closing Bell, so we'll close out the week with a conversation with him. Bren — Bryn — what is your final
trade?

Bryn Talkington: Uber. Nice bounce off of 70 — I think 87 is the next stop for the stock.

Scott Wapner: All right, Kevin Simpson.

Kevin Simpson: I think Nvidia is cheap down here. Demand continues to outpace supply, and the Blackwell is
ramping up faster than any product in company history.

Scott Wapner: Which is why you bought more. Jenny Harrington.

Jenny Harrington: All right, from the energy conference — Enbridge. 5% yield. It's an enormous midstream energy
company; as long as fossil fuels are flowing, they make money.

Scott Wapner: Steve Weiss?

Steve Weiss: From the REIT conference — no, I'm only kidding. I'm going with Meta. I think it'll continue to
bounce here. The multiple is pretty low, in the teens, so why not buy it?

Scott Wapner: You've been listening to CNBC's Halftime Report, the podcast. You can always catch us live weekdays
at 12 Eastern, only on CNBC.

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