Panel = CNBC's investment committee; "View" is the panel's net take this episode and the cell names which member(s) held it. This is an audio podcast and the Spotify transcript carried no (mm:ss) cues and no named speaker labels (only numeric "Speaker N" markers, mapped from context) — so each "At" cell simply opens the episode and the talking points below are plain segment headings rather than timestamps. Order: Positive → Neutral → Negative. Research: QT Qualtrim · SA Seeking Alpha · STK Stock Analysis.
| Ticker | Name | Research | View | What the committee said | At |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CRWD | CrowdStrike | QT · SA · STK · FA | Positive | Brown's answer to "is it harder to pick AI winners now?" — "I think it couldn't be easier." "The market has spoken. We have the verdict already… CrowdStrike. Stock's up 104% year to date. It is the 12th best stock in the NASDAQ 100, the 15th best stock in the S&P 500. I don't care what model you're rooting for… what I can promise you is there is no AI without the appropriate amount of cybersecurity. And what the appropriate amount of cybersecurity seems to be is only going in one direction. Tell me one government or one board of directors at a public company that's having a meeting, even considering lowering the amount that they're spending on cybersecurity in the age of AI… I think CrowdStrike is the winner here. This is a long term holding of mine. I'm in the stock for 600 plus percent." | listen↗ |
| FTNT | Fortinet | QT · SA · STK · FA | Positive | Brown's second exhibit in the cyber verdict. "Look at Fortinet, FTNT, and by all means, let's throw up Palo Alto. All three of these stocks have doubled this year. The market has spoken. These are the built in winners. Can you make money in chips? Sure. Can you make money in hyperscalers, power? Yes, absolutely. But we know you cannot bank on any spending not being accompanied by the right amount of cybersecurity." Thomas made the same call on the committee a day earlier. | listen↗ |
| PANW | Palo Alto Networks | QT · SA · STK · FA | Positive | The third doubled cyber name in Brown's "built in winners." Named with CrowdStrike and Fortinet: "all three of these stocks have doubled this year." Wapner notes Link also "really doesn't stop talking about the need for cyber." | listen↗ |
| MPC | Marathon Petroleum | QT · SA · STK · FA | Positive | Brown's lead refiner in a 15-name energy block on his best-stocks list. "We say on this show all the time you never sell your energy stocks. I don't care how bad the outlook for crude is… you do not get rid of your hedge… on my best stocks in the market list, I now have 15 oil stocks. Keep in mind this sector is like 2% of the S&P; I have 15 names… the refiners, Marathon, Phillips 66, they look incredible… These stocks are breaking out. Almost no one owns them. They're not expensive. The outlooks are going higher." (Brown says "Marathon" twice; Marathon Oil was absorbed by ConocoPhillips in 2024, so both read as the refiner.) Link's caveat: it is "only 3% of the S&P 500… technology… that's 35%. So you got to get both of them right." | listen↗ |
| PSX | Phillips 66 | QT · SA · STK · FA | Positive | Brown best-stocks energy name (refiner). "The refiners, Marathon, Phillips 66, they look incredible." Part of his case that energy is the one hedge against an oil spike that also has earnings momentum: "very easy for an active manager to outperform by overweighting this group relative to tech." | listen↗ |
| SLB | SLB (Schlumberger) | QT · SA · STK · FA | Positive | Brown best-stocks energy name (oil services). "Schlumberger's on the list" — one of 15 energy names "breaking out… almost no one owns them." | listen↗ |
| COP | ConocoPhillips | QT · SA · STK · FA | Positive | Brown best-stocks energy name (E&P). "ConocoPhillips, Chevron's on the list" — with WTI back above $100 and inflation expectations rising, "this is your only hedge against an oil price spike." | listen↗ |
| CVX | Chevron | QT · SA · STK · FA | Positive | Brown best-stocks energy name (integrated major). "Chevron's on the list" — part of the energy block Brown calls "probably the most untold story" of the market over three to five years. | listen↗ |
| LNG | Cheniere Energy | QT · SA · STK · FA | Positive | Brown best-stocks energy name (LNG exporter). Read off his list: "Marathon, of course, LNG, FTI, FANG. These stocks are breaking out." | listen↗ |
| FTI | TechnipFMC | QT · SA · STK · FA | Positive | Brown best-stocks energy name (subsea/offshore equipment). Named by ticker in the same list — "LNG, FTI, FANG" — among the 15 breaking-out energy names that are "not expensive" with outlooks "going higher." | listen↗ |
| FANG | Diamondback Energy | QT · SA · STK · FA | Positive | Brown best-stocks energy name (Permian E&P). The last ticker on his read-out; "these are smaller companies and these charts look unbelievable." Saccocia endorses the construction: "this idea of a barbell hedge is incredibly important. Energy, healthcare… a great way to just take a little bit off the table in tech." | listen↗ |
| MSFT | Microsoft | QT · SA · STK · FA | Positive | Link: the hyperscalers should be green because the ROI is showing up. On Fundstrat's Mark Newton calling an imminent Mag-7 breakout, and Alphabet/Meta/Microsoft green through the weekend's negativity: "They should be green because you're starting to see monetization… when you saw Microsoft and you saw Google Cloud and you saw Amazon AWS all see these numbers in their cloud businesses accelerate last quarter substantially. That was real confirmation that you are starting to see the ROI… as long as they're going to spend and then they start to see the ROIs, that does benefit the entire food chain." Saccocia: "the hyperscalers are going to outperform… these frontier AI names over the course of the next couple of months." | listen↗ |
| GOOGL | Alphabet | QT · SA · STK · FA | Positive | Google Cloud acceleration as ROI evidence (Link). Green on Monday despite the AI-safety headlines; Link cites Google Cloud's acceleration as "real confirmation" of return on the capex. Rooney: OpenAI says it is working with Anthropic and Google on how to police frontier models. | listen↗ |
| AMZN | Amazon | QT · SA · STK · FA | Positive | AWS acceleration as ROI evidence (Link). Link's third cloud data point: "Amazon AWS… accelerate last quarter substantially." Her sizing of the build the ROI has to cover: "$7.1 trillion on data centers between now and 2031, $1.4 trillion on the grid… power, 1.7 trillion… we just don't have enough of it." | listen↗ |
| WFC | Wells Fargo | QT · SA · STK · FA | Positive | Link's new buy — back into her former largest position. "I think the turnaround is starting to become evident. The asset cap was lifted a year ago. It has taken them this long to really build a momentum in their business… at Barclays this week… gaining market share in investment banking in M&A, fee growth is accelerating. Most importantly, NIM, net interest margins, have bottomed and net interest income is growing and that is by definition positive operating leverage… this stock has actually lagged the Big 5 by 14% year to date. It's down 2% on the year, trading at 1.4 times book, 11 times earnings. I think they're back." (On Jul 13 it was only "back on her radar.") | listen↗ |
| BAC | Bank of America | QT · SA · STK · FA | Positive | Link holds through its worst day since April 2025. BofA guided Q3 investment-banking fees down more than 10%; Morgan Stanley called the reaction "way overdone" and reiterated overweight. Link: "I do own the name and I was surprised that the stock was down that much because they did have a lot of positive things to say… positive operating leverage this year instead of 500 basis points will be 200 to 300 basis points. That's a yield curve thing. I don't think it's really in their control… loan growth and demand growth… deposit growth… I'm not concerned at all, not at this valuation." Saccocia likes the group: even with lower IB fees, "trading is still going to be a huge driver." | listen↗ |
| NFLX | Netflix | QT · SA · STK · FA | Positive | Brown bought more — "just too cheap." "Netflix is 38% below its 52 week, its all time highs. I think the stock is just too cheap. Mark Mahaney came out yesterday, $110 price target, says the market is missing all of the positives. I agree." A second committee buyer in two sessions (Weiss bought it back on Sep 14). | listen↗ |
| DAL | Delta Air Lines | QT · SA · STK · FA | Positive | Brown adds on the oil-driven dip — "anywhere under 80 is a steal." "Also added to Delta on this dip. Delta is being depressed with the other airlines because of crude oil back above 100. You wait and see how fast that reverses. One or two weak days for oil, the airlines will rip, and Delta probably more than the others because it is the best player in the group. I think anywhere under 80 is a steal." The explicit bet is that the oil headwind Lebenthal flagged a day earlier is temporary. | listen↗ |
| TGT | Target | QT · SA · STK · FA | Positive | Brown's final trade — freshly bought into his firm's concentrated momentum strategy; Link a long-time holder. "We did a segment a couple of weeks ago about Target hitting my list of the best stocks in the market. We have just put the stock in client portfolios for our concentrated momentum strategy — basically 16 times earnings with 33% growth expected over the next year. I think it'll keep running." Wapner: Telsey reiterates Outperform, $182 target. Link: "Welcome to the party… for a long time… it is not a fun party, but it is this year. It's up 61% year to date and they have a lot of momentum." | listen↗ |
| TFC | Truist Financial | QT · SA · STK · FA | Positive | Link's final trade — the second new-CEO bank turnaround of her show. "Truist Financial, another new CEO doing it." Wapner: "So we're going a little more regional. They're super regional, if you will." Same template as her Wells Fargo buy: management change plus operating leverage in a bank the market has not re-rated. | listen↗ |
| Anthropic | Anthropic (private) | — | Positive | The Future Proof announcement: Claude tools for financial advisors, with Brown's Ritholtz Wealth a design partner. Brown: "a landmark situation for the wealth management industry… we have spent the last 10 years basically cobbling together hundreds, if not thousands of different point solutions… nobody has come up with an intelligence layer that can pull all of those things together… now, for the first time, having Claude in our ecosystem, pulling together all of our systems, reporting to both us and our client in real time… this is, in my opinion, the Holy Grail… I think everything is about to change." "There are 12 logos on there from companies like Schwab and BlackRock" on the provider side. Separately, Rooney: Amodei's essay "kicked all of this off," and OpenAI says it is working with Anthropic and Google on oversight. (Brown's firm is a partner — an interested party.) | listen↗ |
| META | Meta Platforms | QT · SA · STK · FA | Neutral | Green with the hyperscalers, but Link carves it out of the ROI argument. Wapner lists "Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, they were green" through the weekend's AI negativity; Link: "They should be green because you're starting to see monetization. Maybe not Meta, because that's where I will differ." Her evidence set is cloud revenue (Azure, Google Cloud, AWS), which Meta does not report. | listen↗ |
CrowdStrike sells software that protects companies' computers and cloud systems from hackers. Brown's argument sidesteps the question everyone is fighting about — which AI lab or chipmaker wins — and asks what every winner has to buy regardless.
His answer is security: the more AI gets deployed, the more there is to attack, and no government or corporate board is going to vote to spend less on protection. The stock has roughly doubled this year, and he has held it for a 600%+ gain. It is a "toll road" argument: you don't need to predict the traffic, only that it keeps growing.
Marathon Petroleum is a refiner: it buys crude oil and turns it into gasoline and diesel. Brown uses it to head a list of 15 energy stocks — refiners, drillers, oil-service and gas-export companies — now on his "best stocks in the market" list.
The idea is insurance with a return. When oil spikes, almost everything else in a portfolio suffers; energy companies are the one thing that makes more money. Energy is only a few percent of the S&P 500, so most funds barely own it, which is why Brown says the charts are breaking out while "almost no one owns them." Link's caution is about size: it is too small a sector to replace getting technology right.
The worry about AI has been that the big tech companies are spending hundreds of billions on data centres without proof it pays off. Link's evidence that it does: the cloud businesses that rent out that computing power — Microsoft's Azure, Google Cloud and Amazon's AWS — all grew faster last quarter.
That is the return showing up in revenue. So when AI-safety headlines hit, she thinks these companies should hold up better than the chipmakers and the private AI labs, and Saccocia agrees for the next couple of months. She makes an exception for Meta, which spends heavily but doesn't rent out cloud capacity the same way.
For years regulators capped how large Wells Fargo's balance sheet could grow, as punishment for its fake-accounts scandal. That cap was lifted a year ago, and Link says the benefits are finally visible: it is winning investment-banking business, fees are growing faster, and its net interest margin — the gap between what it earns on loans and pays on deposits — has stopped shrinking.
When revenue grows faster than costs, profits grow faster still ("positive operating leverage"). Yet the stock has trailed the other big banks by 14% this year and trades at about 11 times earnings. She sold it after two bad quarters when it was her largest holding; now she is buying it back.
Bank of America had its worst day in over a year after saying investment-banking fees would fall more than 10% this quarter and profit growth would be somewhat smaller than planned.
Link owns it and isn't worried. The smaller profit boost comes from the shape of interest rates (the difference between short and long rates), which the bank doesn't control, while loans and deposits are still growing. Saccocia adds that trading revenue should stay strong even if deal fees dip.
Airline stocks fall when oil rises, because jet fuel is one of their biggest costs. With crude above $100, Delta has dropped along with every other airline.
Brown thinks that is temporary and bought more. His bet is that oil prices swing fast, and a couple of weak days for crude would send airline shares sharply higher — Delta most, because it is the strongest airline. He calls anything under $80 a steal.
Target is the discount department-store chain. After a few rough years it is up about 61% this year, and it recently landed on Brown's list of the market's best-performing stocks.
His firm just bought it for a strategy that owns a small number of stocks with strong price momentum. What makes it unusual for a momentum pick is the price: about 16 times earnings, with profits expected to grow around 33% next year. Link, who has owned it through the lean years, jokes "welcome to the party."
Truist is a large regional bank in the US Southeast. Link's pick follows the same pattern as her Wells Fargo buy: a bank with a new chief executive who is fixing the business, in a stock the market hasn't yet re-priced for the improvement.
Anthropic, the private AI company behind the Claude chatbot, used the Future Proof conference to launch tools for financial advisors. Brown's firm helped design them, so he is not a neutral voice — but his description of the problem is useful.
Advisory firms run dozens of separate software systems for accounting, trading, rebalancing and client reporting, and staff spend hours moving data between them. An AI layer that connects them all and briefs the advisor before each client call would free up time for the human part of the job. If it works, it is a sign that AI's first big payoff in finance is in back-office plumbing rather than in picking stocks.
Summary derived from the public CNBC Halftime Report audio episode (transcript in transcript.txt, read from the Spotify transcript panel in a single pull after disabling its content-visibility virtualization) for personal study. Not investment advice. © CNBC for source material.