Apple Potential Blacklisted China Chipmaker Deal …And Optimism In The Second Half 6/29/26

21:43On pace to close out its worst month in more than 25 years. Where traders see this stock heading next, do not go anywhere. Fast Money's back in two.

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22:56Melissa Lee:Every day brings somewhere to be and everyone counting on you to get them there. With seating for up to seven, the 2026 Jeep Grand Cherokee L keeps busy schedules moving from early practices to late night games and the triumphant ride home. Available 4x4 capability helps you drive safely and confidently when weather shifts or plans change. The laughter, high fives, and shared wins become the memories you cherish in the 2026 Jeep Grand Cherokee L. Jeep and the Jeep Gorilla registered trademarks of FCA US LLC. Welcome back to Fast Money. Shares of Microsoft continuing to drop down 1 % today, falling more than 18 % in June.

23:34That is on track for its worst month and worst start to the year since 2000. The tech giant, the worst performing MAG 7 stock so far this year, down nearly 25%. with a company planning to spend$190 billion on CapEx this year. We got to go straight to the chart master on this one. Carter, what do you see?

23:54Melissa Lee:Well, I mean, first of all, it's not unique to Microsoft in the sense that software as a space, right, is under incredible pressure. The one thing about the Microsoft chart, which is, of course, very important, is that it is down some 35 percent from its peak and not to a random level. It is exactly to the penny at its tariff low, meaning in March of 2025, the stock breached$350. It was trading around$345. And last week, we got around$349. We're sitting here a little bit above that low. I think those lows are good lows. And so my hunch is to add to Microsoft here on this very severe instance of no love, right?

24:31Melissa Lee:I mean, it's all about trying to find things before they're embraced. and then when they're over embraced, quietly backing away while others are perhaps buying at the top. Would you concur? First of all, I love to hear Carter getting bullish on it. It's not a simple call. And the work he just said, you could have bought Microsoft at$450 back in November of 21, basically made no money. I think the big story here is what's going on with gross margins. And I think it's a question of is the street too high? Is the buy side too high? You have an Azure business, which is the fastest growing business they have, and that's bringing down margins, and margins are down 450 bips year over year.

25:13So I think the company's cheap. I like it. I have been nibbling. Not huge bites, but I think Microsoft will rise again.

25:21Melissa Lee:Yeah, the silver lining here is that 450 million installed base, right, if you think about Office 365. And last quarter they added 5 million users, and they're getting some big customers. I think it was, you know, 750 ,000. and that sort of thing. And, you know, investors kind of like that. But there were some things about the spend that they didn't like after the quarter. And that's why the stock sold off. So at 20 million co-pilot users, you know, right now, you have an opportunity here if you start to see an acceleration. So to me, they got to find the right solution. I think it was a couple weeks ago they said they're considering putting DeepSeq's R4 model on there.

25:57Melissa Lee:And if you think about how much cheaper that might be and on the consumption-based bottle, if you do see more uptake of that relative to, let's say, Claude or GBT, that could be a nice tailwind for Microsoft. I think, to Carter's point, if you look back on a three-year chart, you could see those levels pretty substantially as support. They're looking at this as CapEx is a perpetual impairment. They could turn that switch whenever they want. That makes it a buy. I think it's a buy. I think it's a buy right here. Coming up, a media split, the spinoff pushing shares of Comcast higher and what it means for the future of M &A in the media space.

26:30You're watching Fast Money Live from the NASDAQ MarketSide in Times Square. Back right after this.

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27:41Soccer teaches us lessons we can take with us long after we leave the field. That's why Bank of America and U.S. Soccer are committed to helping bring soccer to every school. Raise your hand to help at bofa.com slash soccer at schools. Welcome back to Fast Money. Comcast shares jumping more than 4 % after announcing plans to spin off its remaining media businesses, including Sky and NBCUniversal, into a new publicly traded company. The stock surging as much as 17 % before losing steam throughout the day. CNBC's Julia Borson's got the details here. Julia. Well, investors are welcoming Comcast's split for unlocking value.

28:18Now, within the next year, Comcast expects to spin off Sky along with Bravo, Peacock, Universal Studios and Parks, as well as Telemundo, with Comcast retaining a stake of 19.9 percent for as much as a year after the deal is completed. Now, this split admits the lack of synergies from the vertical integration of Comcast's acquisition of NBCUniversal back in 2011. But Wolf Research predicts that the breakup won't actually occur, saying this split strengthens the ability of one or both units to merge with peers or competitors. Wolf projecting that Charter Cox will engage with Comcast about creating a national cable company and that Netflix will make an offer for NBC and possibly for Sky as well.

29:02Comcast executives, though, shooting down the idea that this split is designed for M &A, saying it's the right move for each company to create value and better monetize its assets. Mike Cavanaugh is set to run the media business, saying that the separation today gives each team a clearer mandate, a more focused capital allocation framework and the ability to move faster with partners who are specific to their respective businesses. Melissa? I mean, this happened so quickly after the Versin spinoff, Julia, you have to wonder. I mean, things haven't changed that much in terms of, you know, the lack of synergies between a media business and a cable broadband company.

29:40I mean, that existed back then, too. Yes. The Versin business is such a small business compared to this NBC Universal asset. Versin, which is, of course, CNBC's parent company, is really just a handful of cable companies which are developing other ways of monetizing, such as the Golf Channel, which now derives 50 % of its revenue from booking golf courses in addition to the 50 % of the revenue that's from the cable business. So my understanding is that the Verson assets were seen as not contributing synergies to the rest of NBCUniversal, and from a valuation standpoint, maybe dragging down the value of those assets, whereas the remaining NBCUniversal is really about the media business and the entertainment business plus NBC.

30:27And there are specific strengths here, right? There is a great library, a great studio in Universal. You have the theme parks, really one of two theme park businesses, second only to Disney. And then Sky has the international distribution, which is really rare for a U.S.-based media company to have that type of international strength. Julia, thank you. Julia Borsten, this NBCUniversal plus Sky business, whatever you want to call it, I mean, should it be like Disney, I mean, in terms of valuation? Well, that's the question. And the sum of the parts, I mean, going all the way back to the spinoff of Versant, our parent company, which I think was a good deal.

31:06But, I mean, bottom line is you have a dynamic where a lot of the analyst community wanted to see more of that. And so a lot of people were asking, well, what, you know, why did this happen now? And, you know, Wolf wrote about it. A lot of people, and I think they're looking at the merger kind of landscape right now out there. I think ultimately valuation is something that has a chance to be pushed higher, especially as you get into the media assets. Yeah. Moffitt Nathanson, we had Craig Moffitt on in the last hour, and he basically said he doesn't think M &A is going to come of this.

31:34Melissa Lee:Yeah. Well, when you look at all the charts, they're thrown out for dead. And when you think about what they're paying for, it's parks and connectivity. So there's a lot of things that can die off before we get to the crown jewels in those. and we see how quick they pivoted after the Versant deal. So it doesn't seem like there's a clear-cut strategy in the entire sector. Yeah, you know, one of the things that just strikes me, and we talk about this a lot, you know, like you've got to separate companies and their performance from the stock market. Make no mistake about it. When you have a stock like this down 65 % over the last, you know, sort of five years or something, like you have to do something.

32:07Melissa Lee:You have to make changes. You can't keep going to shareholder meetings and telling the same story and having, you know, the businesses that, let's say, are slow-moving or deteriorating and keep talking them up and have these other businesses that are just being overshadowed. And, you know, investors don't care. So, you know, stock market performance does have an effect on a lot of corporate action. Coming up, all the fast movers from today's session, the Bitcoin sale actually boosting strategy. Tesla's charge higher in a deal in the satellite space, plus the next move from markets after today's jump higher.

32:36All that with Fast Money Returns.

32:46Welcome back to Fast Money. Stocks starting the shortened holiday week in the green. The Dow jumping 300 points, the S &P climbing more than a percent, tech-heavy Nasdaq leading the gains surging more than 2 percent. Shares of strategy surging nearly 13 percent today after its rough sell-off this month. The company is saying it will buy as much as$1 billion of its preferred shares and up to$1 billion of its Class A common stock, adding it may sell over a billion dollars of Bitcoin to raise some cash. Shares of strategy is still down more than 40 % in the month of June. Tesla also jumping today more than 8%.

33:18It's best day in over a year. CEO Elon Musk posting on social media that Tesla is rolling out a new version of its full self-driving driver assistance hardware to Tesla owners with A13's hardware. And more news in the space sector, Rocket Lab jumping nearly 16 % after agreeing to buy satellite communications firm Iridium And a cash and stock deal worth$8 billion, Iridium surging more than 25 percent. This is one that you mentioned, Grasso, on the call earlier.

33:44Melissa Lee:Yeah, so Rocket Labs doesn't earn any money. They're just spending every which way and loose. And when you look at Iridium, they actually have the cash that's coming to it. So they could launch rockets, they could put satellites up, but Iridium actually has their satellites and they have spectrum. So this is the moneymaker for Rocket Lab. Very rare to see both in an M &A. Both stocks do well. One usually sells off. One rallies. They both rallied here. The street likes the deal. I think Rocket Lab needed to do the deal. Now to a developing story. Out of Washington, the Supreme Court ruling President Donald Trump does not have the authority to fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook for now.

34:21But the opinion leaves a future dismissal of possibility. Eamon Javis has got the details on this. Eamon.

34:27Melissa Lee:Yeah, that's right, Melissa. of the Supreme Court ruled this morning that President Trump cannot fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, at least for now. But the ruling came on narrow procedural ground, and the court said that the ultimate decision will depend on the facts of the case. Now, the president argued that he sought to fire Cook because of allegations that she committed mortgage fraud, which she denied. But Cook argued in part that her firing was invalid because she wasn't given due process, which was an argument that the court was receptive to. But in one of the big questions on this, the court said it would take a pass.

35:00Melissa Lee:The issue of what for-cause firing actually means. The court said it's not going to define what a for-cause firing is, but set a couple of criteria, writing, whether cause for removal exists in any given situation will depend, at least in part, on the seriousness of the alleged misconduct and the extent of any nexus that may exist to the governor's professional duties. Now, that sets two tests that the current mortgage fraud allegations don't quite seem to meet relative seriousness and a nexus to Cook's professional duties. Now, as for what due process would look like, the court didn't spell that out specifically either, but suggested that at a minimum, Cook was entitled to some explanation of the evidence at issue, some avenue for a response, and a deadline by which the response would be due.

35:50Melissa Lee:Still, all of that doesn't mean the president will be unable to fire her in the end. The court also said the president's ability to do that will depend on the facts of the case once they've been adjudicated. And President Trump signaled on social media today that he's going to press ahead, writing, we will take appropriate action immediately. Melissa, back to you. The language of the court, Eamon, was very interesting. I mean, it really sounded like maybe a win for Fed independence when when the court says things like the fact of independence and the appearance of independence are key to the Fed's design.

36:24But it was only five to four, which tells you that, you know, at any time you can have one voter move over and then that's it. Yeah.

36:32Melissa Lee:And the circumstances will dictate, you know, whether you get that kind of a split. You know, look, I think that what the Supreme Court said is the Fed is different. Right. I mean, in the other case today, in the slaughter case, they said the president can fire, you know, effectively whoever he wants from independent regulatory agencies. But the Fed, because of its history, and the court went into this long preamble about the early American national banks and the whole history, going back to the founding fathers of how we got to the Federal Reserve Act in 1913, that all that history makes the Fed a different thing.

37:07Melissa Lee:And because of what the Fed does, it is different. And so I think they set a higher bar. And you just heard some of the criteria they set. So they are sort of putting a little bit of a ring fence around some of these members of the Fed board and saying, you know, you can fire them, but you're going to have to do X, Y and Z. And I think that X, Y and Z is a relatively high hurdle. Eamon, thank you. Eamon Jabbers in Washington. For more, the Supreme Court's ruling on Lisa Cook. Let's bring in CNBC contributor David Zervos, chief market strategist at Jefferies. He did work at the Fed once upon a time.

37:41David, it's always great to get your perspective on things. Does this change anything? Does this change your view or does this, you know, inform you about the independence of the Fed and maintaining that independence, even despite various political pressures that may be brewing?

37:56Melissa Lee:Melissa, I don't think it changes much. I think we've we've largely expected this decision to not go the president's way in terms of an immediate firing. And so the market was probably set up for this. I didn't think the market reacted much to it, to be honest with you. Didn't see much in the yield curve or in stocks that you could point to was related to this. So I don't think that's the story. Whether it sets up some precedence, whether it sets up a sort of a more independent or a less independent Fed, I'm not really sure that I can buy into that story. I think the Fed, I've argued, has always been a political institution.

38:30Melissa Lee:It just depends on which side you're looking at and where the entrenched politics are. The entrenched politics have been outside the Republican Party, and now they're slowly moving toward the Republican Party. And there's a tussle. There's a fight. There's a desire not to see that happen from the vested interests. And that's largely why J-PAL stayed. And I think this may allow the president to come in and do something with a court case against Lisa Cook if they prove that these allegations of mortgage fraud are real and substantial and do affect Bernie's. But, you know, I think that'll be a long way down the road.

39:04Melissa Lee:It's something the markets spend an enormous amount talking about. Hey, David, Tim. Yeah, I mean, I think the how serious for cause is something that leaves open interpretation in the future. And, you know, frankly, I believe that should be there. Let's go to the Fed, though, as it is right now. Kevin Warsh, you know, where we are in a world of lower oil. You've been pretty outspoken over the times you've been on our show that you think there's there's an environment where we aren't overrun by inflation. Just refresh for us where you believe the Fed should be. We see where Fed fund futures are.

39:36We know where the market is.

39:37Melissa Lee:I mean, Tim, I'm not a big should guy. I'm a big, you know, what they're really to do guy. And I think Kevin is likely to be quite opaque. We've made that clear in many of our comments. He's kind of come out with guns blazing and Greenspan-esque opaqueness, which I quite enjoy, to be honest with you. I think it's quite refreshing. And I think we'll get a healthy debate. We'll get a lot less forward guidance. We'll get a committee that I think will look at this inflation and sort of come to the conclusion that many investors are coming to, which is oil prices are down. They're likely to keep heading down.

40:15Melissa Lee:This Iran conflict is finding a way toward an end. The president wants it to end. He certainly wants energy prices lower by the end of the year. I think there's a lot of reasons to be optimistic on that. And I think it'll be very hard for these relatively rogue members of the FOMC to come out with an inflation scare idea like they did in the last set of dots. You know, we had nine people on this committee who basically back in March when we knew about oil and we knew about the conflict were saying there were going to be no rate hikes. And now we've got one of them saying three rate hikes by the end of the year, five, I think, saying two, and then the rest, three others saying one.

41:00Melissa Lee:That's an amazing switch. I mean, almost, frankly, astounding switch, given that oil and energy prices have come back as much as they have. So I think it's going to be a really hard argument to push for rate hikes. The market is a little scared of rebellion at the Fed. And that was what that was back on Wednesday a week ago, not this Wednesday before, but when the FOMC first came out. And I think that rebellion risk is there. That's really Kevin's biggest problem is he's got a raucous and somewhat rebellious, maybe politically motivated crew inside that he's going to have to fight against because politics does run rampant in Washington, even if people don't like to talk about it inside the Federal Reserve.

41:44David, always good to see you. Thank you.

41:47Melissa Lee:My pleasure, Melissa. David Zervos. Interesting that when oil prices were going up, some people were saying, oh, it's such a small part of consumer spending, a small part of the economy in terms of energy prices. We use much less fuel, et cetera. And when they're coming down, then it's, OK, now inflation's up. But we have AI inflation at the same time in other areas of inflation to contend with. Yeah, I think we could quantify the CPI and PPI to energy, and energy is 60 percent of the rise. I think the other thing was the straight of her moves, we only took 2 percent of our oil from there. So that was a very small thing.

42:24Melissa Lee:So we should never run to the same extent. But to David's point, in the next two months, when you see PPI and CPI come in drastically, probably a month out, it's going to be very hard to high rates. rates. Yeah, I guess the other way to think about it is that we had, what, 25 % earnings growth year over year. So companies seem to be doing just fine right now. We have jobs. The labor market has kind of firmed up a little bit. And if we have we have the all important jobs number this Thursday morning, if that thing runs hot and, you know, like it's not a there's not a strong argument for rate cuts, I guess.

42:56Melissa Lee:And so, you know, at the end of the day, I look at this and I say to myself, you know what, with rate hikes, stock markets should just fine if you go back to 2023. Right. And we kind of stayed elevated for a bit. And even with expectations for rate hikes, the market still doing just fine. Coming up with the chart master season store for Alphabet as the stocks look to climb back after its soon drop and a beaten down cybersecurity name that may be ready to bounce. Fast Money is back in two.

43:28Welcome back to Fast Money. Shares of Alphabet popping nearly 5 percent after joining the Dow Industrial Average today. The stock looking to bounce back after a rough month, still down 7 percent in June. But the chart master says the bounce may just be starting. Carter Worth, what does the chart say?

43:43Melissa Lee:Well, it is only day one, so unless it's just a one-day bounce, I think it's got more to it. But let's look at a chart. The circumstance, to my eye, is what GARP looks like pictorially, definitionally, right? GARP is a growth stock at a reasonable price. The only way this could be reasonable or implied to be more reasonable than it was is that it sold off. So this is a 19 percent sell-off over a five-week period. And it touched the 150-day moving average to the penny and bounced smartly. And I think, again, one day is probably not all there is going to be. And I like it here for a second day or a third day, so forth and so on.

44:22And then you also put out a bullish note this weekend on Akamai.

44:27Melissa Lee:Yeah, you know, this is a similar circumstance. It, too, has sold off. A lot more beta involved here. In this instance, a 34 percent sell-off. After breaking out with the big sort of news-related thing about a month, two months ago, it's given all of that back and then some. So a major level of support here, too, playing for a bounce as a trade. Here, too, is really an underutilized word on television. Do you like Echo? Well, I know you like Alphabet, Tim, but. Yeah, I don't have a strong opinion on Akamai. I mean, I really think that in the case of Google, it's a 20, almost 23 times so multiple.

45:08And in fact, you didn't ask this, but I mean, we talked about Microsoft, which has got the same forward multiple. And I'd rather own Google. All right.

45:16Melissa Lee:Yeah, it's worth noting with Akamai, this is a name that until Carter put a note out today, I hadn't thought about in like maybe 20 years. This was like a poster child for the Internet bubble. It's one of the last big IPOs back in 1999. The only thing I'll say here is like, this is a great example. That gap that we saw a few weeks ago was on an anthropic deal, right? It shows how much they are looking for compute. And it's not just compute, but it's also the services that Akamai provides. You know, I like his technical call. The fundamental thing is just really interesting to me how quickly it came back after that announcement.

45:46Melissa Lee:If you get any type of momentum, it's easier to push Akamai around versus Alphabet. So if I had to pick, would you rather you didn't ask once again? Like Tim said, great ass, but Akamai. Join the party. Up next, final trades. Missed a moment of fast? Catch us anytime on the go. Follow the Fast Money Podcast. We're back right after this.

46:16Time for the final trade. Carter.

46:19Melissa Lee:I'm an S &P 400 mid-tech biotech name, up and out. We're buyers. Tim? This has been a brutal run for Alibaba. Valuation, the charts say stay away. The valuation and the story says bye. Dan? Yeah, I like Carter's Google call. I think it runs into earnings. I wouldn't own it into earnings. Steven? I love the SpaceX story with the squeeze, and we have a shortened week. We have light volume, so that squeeze could be pretty intense being with the ads to the index. Thanks for watching Fast Money. See you back here tomorrow at 5. Mad Money with Jim Cramer starts right now.

46:56All opinions expressed by the Fast Money participants are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of CNBC or its parent company or affiliates and may have been previously disseminated by them on television, radio, internet, or another medium. You should not treat any opinion expressed on this podcast as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of an opinion. Such opinions are based upon information the Fast Money participants consider reliable, but neither CNBC nor its affiliates and or subsidiaries warrant its completeness or accuracy, and it should not be relied upon as such.

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