Spotify, Sabra Health Care, Apollo Global Management, and Others Featured in CNBC's 'Final Trades'
Investment Insights: Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington highlighted Sabra Health Care REIT's 6.3% dividend yield, supported by Wells Fargo's Overweight rating and a price target increase from $20 to $21.
Apollo Global Management: Kari Firestone selected Apollo Global Management as her final trade, with Morgan Stanley upgrading the stock from Equal-Weight to Overweight and raising the price target from $151 to $180.
ETF and Spotify Picks: Liz Thomas chose the iShares Russell 1000 Value ETF, while Joseph M. Terranova expressed interest in buying Spotify, which reported strong Q3 earnings exceeding expectations.
Market Performance: On the trading day, Sabra Health Care shares fell 1.6%, Apollo Global Management rose 3.6%, the iShares Russell 1000 Value ETF gained 1.4%, and Spotify jumped 3.4%.
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- Streaming Manipulation Concerns: Spotify removed over 500,000 streams of Malcolm Todd's 'Earrings' due to suspected manipulation, highlighting the vulnerability of streaming platforms to such risks.
- Surge in Streams and Scrutiny: The track's U.S. streams surged nearly 70% from Sunday to Monday, propelling it from No. 4 to No. 1, yet the suspicious trading activity raised alarms among Kalshi traders.
- Platform Response Measures: Spotify stated that all streaming platforms face challenges from manipulation attempts and emphasized that it does not pay royalties on fake streams, demonstrating its commitment to maintaining platform integrity.
- Market Pressure Points: This incident underscores how prediction markets can create new pressure points for digital platforms, particularly when charts, payouts, and bot activity intersect, leading Spotify to request Kalshi and Polymarket to remove its logo to clarify the absence of a partnership.
- Streaming Manipulation Incident: Spotify has removed over 500,000 streams of the indie-pop song 'Earrings' after suspicious betting activity caused its rise from No. 4 to No. 1 on the platform, highlighting potential risks of streaming manipulation.
- Betting Activity Raises Concerns: Traders on Kalshi flagged the suspicious betting, leading Spotify to confirm that the streams were generated by bots programmed to play songs repeatedly, aimed at manipulating streaming data and affecting song rankings.
- Kalshi's Response: Despite Spotify's removal of these streams, Kalshi has already paid out to bettors associated with 'Earrings', indicating the complexity of the streaming manipulation issue, with no evidence found linking Todd or his team to the activity.
- Spotify's Preventive Measures: Spotify stated it has 'best-in-class detection and mitigation practices for manipulated streams' and requested Kalshi and Polymarket to remove its logo, emphasizing its commitment to brand integrity and distancing itself from these platforms.
- Vertiv Stock Surge: Vertiv's stock has surged 92% this year, establishing itself as a favored AI infrastructure play, with UBS analysts noting its strong cash flow return on investment and high asset growth rates, suggesting that its upward value creation trajectory remains intact.
- Nvidia Economic Profit: Although Nvidia's stock is only up 6% in 2026, UBS still regards it as an exemplary wealth compounder, forecasting a doubling of its economic profit by 2027, with analysts' consensus indicating over 50% upside potential from current levels.
- Ralph Lauren Recovery: Ralph Lauren's stock has rallied 13% this year, with UBS highlighting a sharp rebound in cash flow return on investment from pandemic lows, projecting a decade-high of 15%, while the market remains optimistic about its long-term growth potential with a target price suggesting an additional 7% upside.
- Diverse Stock Picks: UBS's list also includes Spotify, Boston Scientific, Target, and Coca-Cola, reflecting confidence in a diversified investment strategy aimed at capitalizing on opportunities arising from market recovery.
- Performance Decline: Adyen revised its 2026 revenue growth outlook to 20%-22%, below analyst expectations, leading to a sharp stock price drop, with a 42% decline year-to-date, reflecting investor pessimism about its future.
- Executive Turnover Impact: The unexpected resignation of the CFO raised market concerns, as key leadership departures typically unsettle investors, further exacerbating negative sentiment towards Adyen.
- Product Portfolio Expansion: Adyen is enhancing its payment processing capabilities through acquisitions of Talon One and Orb, with the former providing real-time incentives to boost checkout volume and the latter optimizing pricing and billing management, which are expected to drive revenue growth.
- Long-Term Growth Potential: Despite short-term revenue growth deceleration, Adyen has maintained a 37% annual growth rate since 2016, and it anticipates EBITDA to reach 55% of revenue by 2028, demonstrating its strong competitive position and long-term growth potential in the global payments market.
- Revenue Growth Outlook Downgrade: In early 2026, Adyen revised its revenue growth forecast to 20%-22%, below analyst expectations, leading to a sharp stock price drop that reflects investor concerns about the company's future performance.
- Unexpected Executive Departure: The CFO announced a surprise resignation in May, and while there were no performance-related issues indicated, the sudden departure of a key leader typically unsettles the market, exacerbating investor pessimism.
- Poor Market Performance: Year-to-date, Adyen's stock has fallen 42%, underperforming amid the AI boom, indicating challenges to its competitiveness in the payments sector and a significant decline in investor confidence.
- Acquisitions to Drive Growth: Adyen's acquisitions of Talon One and Orb this year aim to enhance client revenue growth through real-time incentives and pricing optimization, and if successfully integrated, these moves could accelerate the recovery and growth of the company's revenue.
- Open Source Breakthrough: Zhipu's GLM 5.2 has achieved performance close to Anthropic's Opus 4.8 on a key intelligence benchmark, while costing only a fifth of its price, showcasing its strong competitiveness in the AI market.
- Developer Surge: The rapid increase in OpenRouter token traffic indicates that GLM 5.2 is attracting a significant number of developers, surpassing the growth seen after the launch of DeepSeek V4, reflecting market recognition of its potential.
- Enterprise Automation Demand: GLM 5.2 excels in agentic tasks such as planning, coding, and testing, addressing the urgent need for efficient AI solutions among enterprises, particularly in the context of unexpectedly high AI spending.
- Future of Open Source AI: The free availability and self-hosting capabilities of GLM 5.2 exert pricing pressure on closed-source models, while providing a safer alternative amid increasing government regulation.











