Raphael Stevens

Kevin O’Leary revealed on CNBC on Monday that he was one of three buyers to snap up the record-breaking Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan sports card at auction over the weekend.
The card was a signed collectible and went for $13 million, surpassing the previous record for a sports trading card sold at auction, according to Heritage.
O’Leary said he doesn’t believe the card will go back on the market in his lifetime.

Canadian investor Kevin O’Leary revealed on CNBC on Monday that he was one of three buyers to snap up the record-breaking Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan sports card at auction over the weekend.
The card, a signed collectible featuring both NBA legends, sold for nearly $13 million, surpassing the previous record for the most-expensive trading card sold at auction, a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle #311, which went for $12.6 million in August 2022, according to auction house Heritage, which sold both cards.

As of the completion of the Bryant-Jordan sale, the buyers remained anonymous. O’Leary told CNBC he bought the card along with two other investors, Matt Allen and Paul Warshaw, to form a syndicate and avoid competing.
“We bought it together, yes we did,” O’Leary said on “Squawk Box” on Monday, adding the three got together on a 3 a.m. Zoom call to buy the card. “I’m very proud to own it.”

The 2007-08 Upper Deck Exquisite Collection Dual Logoman Autographs, Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant.
Courtesy: Heritage Auctions | HA.com

Sports collectibles have been gaining steam in recent years, with notable jerseys and even personal watches of athletes coming up on the block and fetching millions. The Bryant-Jordan card featured the NBA uniform logos and signatures of both players and came up for sale on the late Bryant’s birthday.
O’Leary said he doesn’t believe the card will come to the market again in his lifetime.
“It’s going to be a part of an index that I’m going to continue to grow along with my partners,” he said. “We look at it no different than our bitcoin holdings, our ethereum holdings, our gold holdings.”

He added that he doesn’t believe sports card trading is only driven by the growing 1% of wealth, like art trading might be, saying that it is getting “institutional in nature.”
“It’s no different than collectible watches, in some way,” he said. “It’s so rare that the prices continue to appreciate, and they seem to defy recessions.”
O’Leary said he’s been looking into owning this asset class for a few years and that he’s adding Saturday’s card to a host of other basketball cards he already owns.

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Some analysts say Eli Lilly’s daily obesity pill, if approved, could still be a viable competitor in the weight loss drug market despite late-stage trial data that disappointed investors.
In the trial, orforglipron caused weight loss that missed Wall Street’s expectations and came below what Novo Nordisk reported for its oral drug in a separate study.
But Eli Lilly’s drug could have a few advantages over Novo Nordisk’s pill, including a lack of dietary restrictions, easier manufacturing and a potentially lower price, according to some analysts.

A sign with the company logo sits outside of the headquarters of Eli Lilly in Indianapolis, Indiana, on March 17, 2024.
Scott Olson | Getty Images

Eli Lilly’s stock is still recovering after the drugmaker released trial data earlier this month on its closely watched obesity pill that underwhelmed Wall Street.
In a key late-stage trial, Eli Lilly’s pill, orforglipron, caused less weight loss and had higher side effects than what analysts were expecting. The pill’s efficacy also appeared to come in slightly below that of Novo Nordisk’s oral semaglutide for obesity, which showed strong data in a separate study.

Shares of Eli Lilly fell about 13% on the day the trial results were released, although they’re up about 12% since then.
But some analysts say Eli Lilly’s daily pill, if approved, could still be a viable competitor in the weight loss drug space — even if it will likely be second to enter the market. It’s a highly lucrative area that is eager for more convenient options that could ease the supply shortfalls and access hurdles created by the pricey weekly injections currently dominating it.
Analysts note that Eli Lilly’s pill could have a few advantages over the daily oral version of Novo Nordisk’s weight loss drug semaglutide, which is on track to become the first needle-free alternative for obesity to win approval in the U.S. later this year. Eli Lilly hopes to launch its pill globally “this time next year,” CEO David Ricks told CNBC in early August.
Both drugs work by mimicking a gut hormone called GLP-1 to suppress appetite and regulate blood sugar. But while Novo Nordisk’s pill is a peptide medication, orforglipron is a small-molecule drug.
That means Eli Lilly’s pill is absorbed more easily in the body and doesn’t require dietary restrictions like Novo Nordisk’s does. Orforglipron will also be easier to manufacture at scale, which is crucial as demand for obesity and diabetes injections outpaces supply.

Neither company has released prices for its respective pill, but some analysts said Eli Lilly’s drug could potentially have a lower price than Novo Nordisk’s pill. That would be a notable edge, as many health plans in the U.S. still don’t cover obesity treatments.
“It’s a little bit of an apples and oranges comparison because Novo Nordisk could have difficulty manufacturing enough of the product, given the high cost and requirements to manufacture oral semaglutide,” Leerink Partners analyst David Risinger said in an interview. 
“Whereas Lilly plans to blanket the world with orforglipron, and very quickly it will generate dramatically more sales,” he continued. “It can launch globally in an extraordinary manner with lower prices and with no food intake consideration.”
Goldman Sachs analysts seem to agree, based on a note in August. They forecast daily oral pills will capture 24% share — or around $22 billion — of the 2030 global weight loss drug market, which they expect to be worth $95 billion. 
The Goldman analysts said they expect Eli Lilly’s pill to have a 60% share — or roughly $13.6 billion — of the daily oral segment of the market in 2030. They expect Novo Nordisk’s oral semaglutide to have a 21% share — or around $4 billion — of that segment. The remaining 19% slice will go to other emerging pills, the analysts said.
The race to develop a more convenient obesity pill has been fraught, as companies such as Pfizer have had to scrap previous contenders and bring forward new ones. Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly are also exploring other experimental oral drugs, along with a slate of other companies such as Viking Therapeutics, Structure Therapeutics, AstraZeneca and Roche. 
In a statement, Novo Nordisk CEO Mike Doustar said “we strongly believe in the efficacy” of the oral drug. The Danish company added it will be “laser-focused on getting this product to patients without supply constraints” in the U.S. 
Dr. Mihail “Misha” Zilbermint, director of endocrine hospitalists at Johns Hopkins Community Physicians, said it’s hard to crown a winner between Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk without knowing how their respective pills will be priced and whether insurance will cover them. 
“I think both of the drugs are going to be gamechangers,” he said. “When it comes to which company is going to win the game — cost is the biggest issue.”

Weight loss, side effect comparisons

It’s difficult to directly compare the results of separate clinical trials, especially as investors wait for Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk to release the full data from their phase three studies.
Eli Lilly’s ATTAIN-1 trial also followed 3,000 patients, while Novo Nordisk’s OASIS 4 study evaluated a much smaller group of roughly 300. There are currently no studies directly comparing the two drugs, a Novo Nordisk spokesperson said.
But Novo Nordisk’s oral semaglutide appears to cause a greater level of weight loss than Eli Lilly’s pill based on the available data, said BMO Capital Markets analyst Evan Seigerman. 
In the trial, the highest dose of Eli Lilly’s pill helped patients lose 12.4% of their body weight on average at 72 weeks. The pill’s weight loss was 11.2% when analyzing all patients regardless of discontinuations.
Wall Street had hoped Eli Lilly’s pill would generate weight loss of around 15%, the same level as Novo Nordisk’s blockbuster weight loss injection Wegovy. Semaglutide is the active ingredient in Wegovy and its diabetes counterpart Ozempic. 

Novo Nordisk flags flutter outside its office in Bagsvaerd, on the outskirts of Copenhagen, Denmark, on July 14, 2025.
Tom Little | Reuters

Meanwhile, the 25-milligram dose of Novo Nordisk’s oral semaglutide helped patients lose up to 16.6% of their weight on average at 64 weeks, according to results from the trial presented at a medical conference in 2024. That weight loss was 13.6% when the company analyzed all patients regardless of whether they stopped the drug. 
A Novo Nordisk spokesperson added that 20% of weight loss was observed in nearly one-third of patients in the trial.
Still, the slightly lower efficacy of Eli Lilly’s pill may not be significant enough to deter patients from taking it. 
“For many patients, 12% is a really great number,” said Seigerman. “There’s definitely a market there” for orforglipron.
In a note earlier this month, Bank of America analysts shared a similar sentiment. 
“Yes, weight loss fell a bit short, but ask 100 prescribers whether this new data will really make a difference in who they’d put on orforglipron, and our belief is the vast majority would say, ‘not really,'” they wrote, referring to Eli Lilly’s trial data. 
Some investors raised concerns about the side effects and discontinuation rates in the trial of Eli Lilly’s pill. But Seigerman said the drug’s tolerability data — how well patients tolerate it — appears to be relatively in line with that of Novo Nordisk’s oral semaglutide. 
About 10.3% of patients who took the highest dose of Eli Lilly’s pill — 36 milligrams — discontinued treatment due to side effects, compared with around 2.6% of those who took a placebo.
Those side effects were mainly gastrointestinal, such as nausea and vomiting, and mild to moderate in severity. An estimated 24% of those who took the highest dose of Eli Lilly’s pill reported vomiting, while 33.7% had nausea. 
Leerink’s Risinger said he is watching to see how persistent those gastrointestinal issues are once Eli Lilly presents the full data. 
The side effects in the trial on Novo Nordisk’s pill were mostly gastrointestinal-related: 30.9% of those who took oral semaglutide reported vomiting and 46.6% reported nausea, according to the trial results. 
Johns Hopkins’ Zilbermint said it’s difficult for him to decide which one has a better safety and tolerability profile based on the available data. 
Meanwhile, Seigerman pointed to a different factor “that will also matter a lot”: dietary requirements. 

Food requirements, manufacturing, price 

Unlike Eli Lilly’s pill, patients need to take Novo Nordisk’s oral semaglutide in the morning on an empty stomach with no more than four ounces of plain water. They’re instructed to wait 30 minutes before eating, drinking or taking other oral medicines.
Seigerman said that could be a hurdle for some patients. 
For example, “if you’re a parent with kids and you have to take this drug and wait half an hour before you can drink your coffee, you’re going to drive yourself crazy, especially if you have to take this every day,” he said. “I try to think about the real-world use of these drugs in a market like this. It’s going to matter.” 
Leerink’s Risinger said oral semaglutide will also be “extremely expensive to manufacture” since it is a peptide medication, and “is likely going to have to be priced higher than orforlipgron.”
A Novo Nordisk spokesperson said the pill will be made mostly in the U.S., and the company is excited about the potential the pill “provides millions of Americans living with obesity.”
“Currently, all typical launch readiness activities [for the pill] are fully underway and building momentum,” the spokesperson said. They added that over the past decade, the company has invested $24 billion in the U.S. to expand manufacturing capacity and fuel research and development. That includes investments aimed at increasing manufacturing of active pharmaceutical ingredients and capacity for the final stages of production for both current and future injectable and oral products. 
Small molecules are chemically simpler and easier to produce at scale, making them generally cheaper for companies to formulate. But it is still unclear how Eli Lilly will price orforglipron. 
During an earnings call in August, Eli Lilly’s Ricks said the pricing will be based on the value orforglipron brings, considering health-care savings and the comorbidities it can address.
In the note earlier this month, Goldman Sachs analysts said they expect the pill to be “priced at parity” to Eli Lilly’s tirzepatide, the active ingredient in the company’s obesity injection Zepbound and diabetes counterpart Mounjaro, which list for just over $1,000 for a month’s supply. 
“They should be cheaper than injections because they are easier to produce. But it does not mean they will be cheaper,” Johns Hopkins’ Zilbermint said. “We just don’t know — for example, we don’t know how much went into research and development.”
Seigerman said commercialization strategies will also be key when the pills compete on the market. 
He questioned whether Novo Nordisk will lean into the deal it recently struck with CVS’s pharmacy benefit manager, Caremark. Under the deal, Caremark started to prioritize Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy on its standard formularies on July 1, making that weekly injection the preferred GLP-1 drug for obesity over Zepbound. 
But it is unclear whether oral semaglutide could receive a similar preferential status.
Seigerman also questioned whether Eli Lilly will offer orforglipron through its direct-to-consumer pharmacy, LillyDirect. That offering bypasses insurers and pharmacy benefit managers, allowing patients to directly purchase Zepbound and some of Eli Lilly’s other drugs from the company. 
Seigerman said he expects “a lot of nuances in the go-to-market campaign for these drugs,” adding “that’s going to matter.”

Other competitors trail behind

Other obesity pills are in earlier stages of development, making it difficult to directly compare them to the drugs from Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk without longer and larger trials. 
But so far, some experts think they pale in comparison.

Cheng Xin | Getty Images

For example, Viking Therapeutics on Tuesday released mid-stage trial data that disappointed investors, sending its stock down as much as 40%. 
Jared Holz, Mizuho health care equity strategist, said in an email Tuesday that the results on Viking’s drug “look inferior” to those of Eli Lilly’s pill “on almost all metrics.” 
Viking’s once-daily pill helped patients lose up to 12.2% of their weight at around three months, with no plateau, which means patients could lose even more in a longer-term study.
Holz pointed to the high rate of patients who discontinued Viking’s drug for any reason over 13 weeks, which was around 28%. Meanwhile, around a quarter of people discontinued Eli Lilly’s pill, orforglipron, for any reason over 72 weeks.
That’s “a much longer trial and therefore [Lilly] looks far better head-to-head,” Holz said. More

Baby boomers and the silent generation own nearly $25 trillion in real estate combined.
Inheriting real estate, especially luxury vacation homes, can trigger family feuds over a slew of issues from upkeep costs to redecorating rights.
Lawyers to the rich share tips on how to pass down homes without sibling drama and a massive tax bill.

A local house with a porch in Edgartown on Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, USA.
Wolfgang Kaehler | Lightrocket | Getty Images

A version of this article first appeared in CNBC’s Inside Wealth newsletter with Robert Frank, a weekly guide to the high-net-worth investor and consumer. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox.
The great wealth transfer is leading to a great real estate transfer, with up to $25 trillion in real estate owned by older generations that could get passed down — and fought over — in their families.

According to Cerulli Associates, $105 trillion is expected to be passed down by baby boomers and older generations by 2048. Real estate, including primary and vacation homes, as well as investment properties, is expected to be a large component. The silent generation and baby boomers own nearly $25 trillion in real estate combined, according to the Federal Reserve.
Yet with property comes conflict. Wealth advisors say handing down real estate is increasingly filled with both financial and emotional pitfalls for families, ranging from taxes and maintenance costs to disputes over ownership and usage. The straightforward solution is just to sell it and divide the proceeds.
“Some people want to retain the house and other children don’t,” said BNY Wealth’s Jere Doyle. “I can tell you, as a practical matter, there’s going to be fights. There’s going to be disagreements. You’re not going to have the perfect situation.”
But lawyers and wealth planners say there are measures families can take to more effectively pass down real estate to minimize taxes, costs and family battles. Here are five secrets to successful real estate inheritances, whether it’s an apartment on Park Avenue, a beach house on the Vineyard or a ranch in Montana. 

1. Transfer real estate in your will or through a trust to avoid a major tax bill.

Passing down vacation homes is the most fraught, said Elisa Rizzo of J.P. Morgan Private Bank. Her clients often downsize their primary residences later in life, but families stay attached to their second homes.

“That vacation home, often for our families that are very mobile, becomes the centering place,” said Rizzo, head of family office advisory at JP Morgan. “The vacation homes are where people go, and they make really special memories with one another, whether it’s a ski house up in Vermont or a vacation home on Nantucket.” 
Doyle advises against gifting long-held real estate before you die. If your heirs choose to sell the property, they have to pay capital gains taxes on the property’s appreciation since the parents originally bought the property.
“If you give during your lifetime, the kids take your cost basis,” said Doyle, senior estate planning strategist for BNY Wealth. “One of the things that people have to bear in mind is that the senior generation probably didn’t pay an awful lot for the property.”
There are ways to minimize the tax burden, such as using a qualified personal residence trust. However, if you can afford to wait, it is best to leave real estate to your heirs in your will or in a trust at death, according to Doyle. If the heirs later sell the property, they only have to pay capital gains taxes on how much the home has appreciated since they inherited it.

2. Use LLCs and trusts to shield the home from lawsuits.

Rather than having the heirs own the property directly, lawyers recommend placing homes in a limited liability company and setting up a trust for the kids’ benefit that holds interest in the LLC. 
These legal maneuvers protect assets in several ways. For instance, if a vacation home is rented and a tenant slips and falls, the heirs are not held personally liable for any damages. 
“Your other assets, stocks, bonds, are not subject to any creditors’ claims,” Doyle said.
It also shields heirs from the liabilities of their siblings, according to Dan Griffith, director of wealth strategy at Huntington Private Bank. For instance, if one heir files for bankruptcy, the LLC structure prevents the creditors from putting a lien on the shared home, he said. 
You can also save on transfer taxes by gifting interest in an LLC that owns the property rather than putting heirs’ names on the deed, Griffith said. Since these fractional interests are illiquid, parents can claim a discount on the taxable value.

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3. Outline who gets to use the home and how. 

Parents can put rules in place with an operating agreement for the LLC. Clients can use the document to make sure the home doesn’t end up in the hands of their children’s spouses, which is a common concern, according to Northern Trust’s Laura Mandel.
“Typically families want to retain these properties along the bloodline,” said the chief fiduciary officer.
Parents can restrict an LLC interest from transferring to surviving or former spouses of their children. With a well-drawn trust, it would be difficult for the spouse to contest it in court, Mandel said. These operating agreements often include buyout provisions that allow the heirs to buy out the spouse.
Parents can also use the document to guide how the property is used, such as laying out how many holiday weekends each child gets, who has the right to redecorate or whether the home can be rented out or used for weddings.
Leaving these issues unaddressed can cause fights among siblings. Mandel recalled a set of four siblings with a large ranch out west that they rented out frequently. After complaints that the ranch felt like a “VRBO,” Mandel helped the siblings reach an agreement on how the property could be used.

4. Set aside liquid assets for the house’s upkeep and insurance.

Money is the most common trigger for family feuds, Griffith said. An inherited home can quickly become a financial burden unless the parents also set aside cash to pay for the upkeep. 
“What ends up inevitably happening there is that one person pays the bills, and then enormous resentment grows, because either that person has to ask their siblings or cousins for money and sometimes those people don’t pay,” he said. “Or they say, ‘Hey, I’m the one paying all the bills. How come I don’t get to use this more often than any of the rest of you?'” 
Doyle recommends that parents use liquid assets like marketable securities or take out a life insurance policy in order to endow the trust. This outlay makes it possible for siblings to hold onto the home even if they can’t afford to share the expenses.
“In a lot of cases, you may have some kids that can afford to pay the maintenance expenses, and others can’t, so how do you treat them equally?” he said.
However, the operating agreement should still include a contingency plan for dividing expenses if the trust runs dry. This is especially important for waterfront homes that are expensive to insure or susceptible to erosion. 

5. Prepare for the likelihood that some heirs may want to cash out.

Parents often assume that their children will want to keep the home, according to Mandel. However, even if heirs initially agree to, they may change their minds later. Perhaps they grow tired of sharing a home with their cousins or a death in the family changes the equation, she said. For instance, Mandel worked with a ranch-owning family where the only sibling with working knowledge of the property passed away unexpectedly, which upended the living siblings’ plan to run the ranch. 
It’s important to plan for the likelihood that some or all of the heirs will want to cash out. Doyle suggests creating buyout provisions that allow heirs to buy their siblings’ LLC interest even if they don’t have the liquidity, such as taking out a promissory note. The assets in the trust can also be used to buy siblings’ interests in the LLC.
“What you’ve got to build into any plan is an understanding that people’s circumstances and situations can and will definitely change,” he said. “Maybe they’re going to have kids, or their job changes, or their health changes. Things change.”
This can be hard for parents to reconcile, but keeping heirs’ hands tied defeats the purpose of a vacation home, Griffith said.
“If your grandchildren don’t have any ties to this place, no one lives here, no one grew up here, nobody cares, then do you really care if they sell the place?” he said. “If somebody else who really does care about it gets to enjoy it, is that such a bad thing?” More

President Donald Trump threatened Friday to impose tariffs on furniture, adding to his levies on specific products and commodities.
Stocks for some furniture and home goods companies, including Wayfair, RH and Williams-Sonoma, tumbled after the market close, following Trump’s post.

A shopper looks at chairs for sale at an At Home store in Queens, New York City, U.S., July 15, 2025.
Kylie Cooper | Reuters

The Trump administration has launched an investigation into imported furniture, President Donald Trump said Friday, setting the stage for new tariffs on a wide range of products.
“Within the next 50 days, that Investigation will be completed, and Furniture coming from other Countries into the United States will be Tariffed at a Rate yet to be determined,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. “This will bring the Furniture Business back to North Carolina, South Carolina, Michigan, and States all across the Union.”

Following Trump’s post, shares of top furniture and home goods companies, including Wayfair, RH and Williams-Sonoma, tumbled in after-hours trading.
Wayfair imports much of its furniture. RH, formerly Restoration Hardware and Williams-Sonoma have been working to diversify their supply chains.
New tariffs could drive up costs for many of these major furniture brands. But not for all of them.
Shares of La-Z-Boy, which has most of its manufacturing in the U.S., rose on the news of Trump’s tariff plans.
Trump has already put steep tariffs on cars, steel and aluminum and he has floated similar customs duties for imported copper, pharmaceuticals and semiconductors.

It was unclear Friday whether new, sectoral tariffs on furniture would be applied on top of country specific tariff rates.
The Trump administration has spent months holding bilateral negotiations with U.S. trade partners in an effort to reset the balance of global trade. Recent framework agreements with the European Union and China have helped to calm markets, but leave many longer-term issues unresolved.
Any new tariffs would come at a difficult moment for the U.S. furniture industry, which faces a range of challenges.
Companies like Wayfair have seen demand fall for more than a year on items like new couches and dining sets, a drop caused in part by a slower overall housing market as buyers wait for interest rates to come down.
With fewer new homes being bought, consumers have fewer reasons to buy new furniture.
Plus, with stubborn inflation, they have been more choosy on where they are spending their discretionary income. Restaurants, new clothes, trips and home decor have all taken a hit.
— CNBC’s Gabrielle Fonrouge contributed to this report. More