Good morning, carl has the morning off. We want to focus on the state of mna in tech. There has been swings and others that were formally the prey have skyrocketed to valuation thats now give them currency to join the hunters. Between tiktoks impending sale, were seeing now in the second half of the year there is plenty of action still to come. Listen to what bob peck told us yesterday on that front. If you go back to march, it was about two billion. So really it ground to a halt. You saw in june, and it has been a tale of two cities a big acceleration and 3 q over 2q so you have seen a ramping here. People are getting more of a feel on valuation, liquidity concerns, their portfolios, s a strategic rationale and more mna continuing to take place through the rest of the year tiktok is the most talked about target President Trump saying he will not extend the deadline. Oracle is on the hunt to buy it, they didnt talk about it at all on last nights earnings call. We have more on what all
Washington and the world talking, microsoft eyeing an acquisition of tiktok and is this comes after President Trump threatened to ban the app in the u. S. Over security concerns. The president made an about face and gave microsoft the go ahead to proceed with the deal josh lipton has the very latest. So, melissa, President Trump also weighing in here. Take a listen to what he had to say today. It will close down on september 15th unless microsoft or somebody else is able to buy it and work out a deal, an appropriate deal, so the treasury of the, really, the treasury, i guess you would say, of the United States gets a lot of money so, why is microsoft interested in tiktok well, its a wildly popular app with 100 million users already here in the u. S. Engagement trends are strong analysts note that users already spend over an hour a day on the app. Patrick moorhead emphasizes two broad reasons why this could make strategic sense one, he argues microsoft is relatively week in Consumer Ser
Expenses. Regulatory and privacy pressures mount. Dar p china spoke on alphabets ceo spoke about this. The momentum has been great. Ever since thomas has come in, he has continued to invest across the board. Focused a lot on operational teams. It is playing out well in this business. To be inortant for you as many situations as possible. Nejra joining us now is bloombergs opinion tech columnist and Marija Veitmane from state street is still with us. Before this release, alphabet shares had hit a record. How concerned are investors going to be about this latest news . People are fundamentally investing for growth. There was a bit of dip in aftermarket trading. The cloud is becoming a very contested space. We saw pretty much the same from amazon last week, that they are also investing to defend their market share. Investing tole is secure their market share. They do Something Like 8 billion per your revenue from the cloud. Amazon doesnt 9 billion per quarter. Doesan see that amazon 9 bil
The Halftime Report begins right now. Welcome good to have you with us on this thursday our Investment Committee at our table, joe terranova, jim lebben thal, John Najarian, Jenny Harrington harringt harrington ceo and portfolio manager. Lets begin on the markets stocks higher on reports of a possible detente in osaka. Kayla tausche on the ground in japan with her own reporting on exactly where things stand right now. Kayla . Scott, both the u. S. And china are trying to manage the narrative of exactly who would stand to get what if there were a truce or a potential deal that emerges from a meeting between President Trump and president xi this week. In a call held earlier this week on monday, between the u. S. Trade representative Bob Lighthizer and the vice premier of china, china was said to ask for a balanced deal, something it has asked for in the past and im told by two sources that ambassador lighthizer responded a balanced deal is not possible because of all of chinas past trans
Disney also in focus this ahead, of course, that will be an after the bell Earnings Report but the companys espn unit striking that deal with ten entertainment. We will keep an eye on eli lillys record run sparked by not just its diabetes drug but also that very encouraging study in terms of the broader impact of those weight loss reduction drugs. Also an upgrade this morning jeffries. Thank you start with disney and that espn Sports Betting deal sounds like this morning that you wonder why markets not making a bigger deal of it on the disney side. Yeah, because i think one aft things theres 55 Million People who play fantasy. What people usually do is they have their lineup, they put their team on the espn site, but then they go to draftkings to play daily fantasy and daily fantasy is huge in this country now, i think Jason Roberts has done a fantastic job at draftkings, and disney had a stake, but now i think youll stay on the disney espn site to do your gambling and that is very pow