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The private investment firms of Leon Cooperman and other finance billionaires made major market moves in the second quarter of 2025, according to recent SEC disclosures.
Family offices that manage more than $100 million in certain equities, particularly ones listed in the U.S., are required to disclose quarterly stock transactions.
While many trades were clearly spurred by tariff fears and recession anxiety, some family offices made surprising bets on struggling stocks.

Leon Cooperman on CNBC’s “Halftime Report.”
Scott Mlyn | CNBC

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.
Family offices are known to invest for the long haul, sometimes for generations. But after President Donald Trump’s tariff announcements in April, the family offices of billionaire investors were quick to make significant changes to their portfolios, according to second-quarter securities filings analyzed by CNBC.

Some moves were clearly connected to tariff and recession fears. In the three months ending June 30, the family offices of David Tepper, Leon Cooperman and George Soros exited their positions in casino stock Las Vegas Sands Corp. Casino operator shares tumbled on fears that a U.S.-China trade war would endanger their Macau operations.
However, some firms dialed back their exposure to stalwart tech stocks, with Cooperman’s Omega Advisors exiting its Microsoft position and reducing its Alphabet stock by nearly 90%. Stanley Druckenmiller’s Duquesne Family Office sold down 37 positions, including Amazon and about a half dozen pharmaceutical stocks.
Cooperman told CNBC in June that he thought the stock market was too confident given uncertainties with tariffs and conflicts in the Middle East.
“I’m not a big bear, but I’m not a big bull either,” he said on “Squawk Box.”
Institutional investment managers — including family offices and hedge funds — that manage at least $100 million in certain securities, especially U.S.-listed equities, are required to disclose trades on a quarterly basis. While many family offices have stock portfolios worth well over $100 million, they do not have to file these 13F forms if they outsource investment decisions to a third party like JP Morgan or Bessemer Trust, according to lawyer David Guin, a partner at Withers who leads its U.S. corporate practice.

Not all the moves were related to bigger geopolitical concerns. Despite concerns about tariffs on semiconductors, family offices boosted their Nvidia holdings. Tepper’s Appaloosa Management increased its Nvidia holdings by nearly 500%. Soros Fund Management purchased about 932,000 share-equivalents in Nvidia, including options.

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In another artificial intelligence play, several firms boosted their bets on other chipmakers, with Appaloosa buying 8 million shares of Intel and 755,000 shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Duquesne and Soros also increased their positions in TSMC.
Omega Advisors doubled down on energy providers, which are poised to benefit from AI’s energy demands, including Atlas Energy Solutions, Sunoco and Energy Transfer LP.
As family offices have long investment horizons, they can afford to be opportunistic and wait for stocks to rebound. Appaloosa bought 2.3 million shares in UnitedHealth Group, which suffered a 19% selloff in April after the insurer cut its annual profit forecast. Tepper’s hedge-fund-turned-family-office also bought new stakes in United Airlines and Delta Air Lines even as recession fears threw airline stocks for a loop.
Some of Appaloosa’s peers made similar bold bets, with Soros Fund Management and BlueCrest Capital Management, the family office of British hedge fund billionaire Michael Platt, also increasing their exposure to UnitedHealth. BlueCrest also started new positions in Delta and United.
— CNBC’s Nick Wells contributed to this report. More

Spirit Airlines last week warned that it might not be able to survive a year without additional cash.
Signs of strain are showing, and some aircraft lessors have reached out to competitors to gauge interest in some of Spirit’s aircraft, according to people familiar with the matter.
The carrier emerged from bankruptcy in March after almost four months and was met with a drop in domestic demand.

Spirit Airlines baggage tags are seen near a check-in counter at the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport on April 10, 2024 in Austin, Texas. 
Brandon Bell | Getty Images

In March, Spirit Airlines came out of bankruptcy protection in less than four months and entered a worsening landscape. Consumers were holding off booking flights and U.S. planes were awash in empty seats. Even the most profitable airlines cut the rosy financial forecasts they had issued at the start of the year.
But Spirit, an airline with bright yellow planes that has become synonymous with budget travel in the U.S., now appears on even shakier ground. Last week, five months after getting out of bankruptcy, Spirit warned it might not be able to survive a year without more cash and that its credit card processor is seeking more collateral.

Industry experts said the airline avoided making hard decisions before or during bankruptcy protection, such as renegotiating aircraft leases or shrinking the carrier altogether. Instead, the airline in bankruptcy reached a deal with bondholders, who exchanged debt for equity.
“It made it that much more unlikely for them to succeed without having tackled some of those issues,” said Joe Rohlena, airline analyst at Fitch Ratings, which downgraded Spirit last Friday, saying the company might be unable to avoid a default because of its cash burn.
Bankruptcy attorney Brett Miller, U.S. co-chair of the restructuring department at Willkie Farr & Gallagher who represented the creditors’ committee, said Spirit “didn’t use the tools available to them in Chapter 11” for bigger changes.
Spirit had forecast a net profit of $252 million this year, according to a court filing from December. But its report last week said it instead lost nearly $257 million since March 13, after it exited Chapter 11 through the end of June.
Shares of Spirit Aviation Holdings have dropped close to 58% since its “going concern” warning earlier this month. The stock of other airlines rallied after the cautionary statement. About 10% of Spirit’s seats are on routes with no competition, according to Courtney Miller of Visual Approach Analytics, an aviation research firm.

Signs of strain are showing. Aircraft lessors have reached out to competitor airline executives in recent weeks asking if they would take any of Spirit’s roughly 200 Airbus aircraft, according to people familiar with the matter.
Aviation analytics firm IBA’s chief economist, Stuart Hatcher, said he would have expected Spirit to be more proactive on dealing with aircraft leases during bankruptcy.
“If they’re able to strip 10% of all of their lease rates, that would have had a huge impact on cash flow,” he said.
This doesn’t mean the end of the line for Spirit.
“There’s a lot of incentive to keep airlines alive because there’s a lot of constituencies that would be hurt badly” like employees, consumers and others, said James Sprayregen, vice chairman of financial services company Hilco Global who represented United Airlines and TWA airlines in their respective bankruptcies.

Read more CNBC airline news

Selling assets

Even before bankruptcy, Spirit had embarked on a project to sell more upmarket products like roomier seats or bundled fares that include seat assignments and baggage, to better compete with larger rivals that have enjoyed a windfall from big-spending customers post-pandemic.
More recently, the carrier has said it is seeking to sell assets like planes, leases and real estate to raise cash. It has also reduced some of its unprofitable flying and last year had announced job cuts and aircraft sales last year to cut costs and raise cash. 
Spirit CEO Dave Davis told employees in a memo last week that the changes the Dania Beach, Florida-based company is making “will continue to provide consumers the unmatched value that they have come to expect for many years to come.”
Spirit declined to comment on whether it would file for bankruptcy again or whether lessors are trying to remarket its planes.
“We will not comment on market rumors and speculation,” Spirit said in an emailed statement. “Spirit Airlines is a critical part of the U.S. aviation industry, and we provide high-value travel options to the communities we serve. We have saved consumers hundreds of millions of dollars, whether they fly with us or not. Our focus is on making the necessary changes to better position the company and build a stronger airline. We remain hard at work on many initiatives to protect our business, valued Team Members, partners and Guests.”

Travelers wheel luggage toward Spirit Airlines check-in desk at George Bush Intercontinental Airport, Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2023, in Houston.
Jason Fochtman | Houston Chronicle | Hearst Newspapers | Getty Images

IBA’s Hatcher said it’s getting to be the wrong time of year — the low season, after the peak summer and before the winter holidays — to place aircraft with other airlines, though pricing has been firm. It’s been even stronger for spare Pratt & Whitney engines. The engines for Airbus A321neos that Spirit uses are renting for $15.8 million a month, up about 50% from 2019, according to IBA data.
But some warn that even deep cuts can’t always turn an airline around.
“You have no place to sleep if you burn your bed,” said Brett Snyder, founder of the Cranky Flier travel website, author of a weekly airline industry network analysis and a former airline manager.
Meanwhile, the carrier already plans to furlough hundreds of more pilots, and both aviators’ and flight attendant unions are bracing employees for worse news ahead.
“Spirit is in a fragile financial position, likely more so than at any point in the previous 24 months,” the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, which represents Spirit’s roughly 5,400 cabin crew members, said in a note to the members on Aug. 12, after Spirit’s warning. “Use this time to assess your financial situation and begin strategizing how best to weather the financial impact that flying cutbacks may have on your household.”
Hundreds of its flight attendants have already taken temporary leaves of absence, which allowed them to keep medical benefits.

Rough few years

Spirit has faced other challenges leading up to its bankruptcy filing last year.
A Pratt & Whitney engine recall grounded many of its aircraft starting in 2023. That same year it reached a deal to merge with fellow budget carrier Frontier Airlines, but shareholders rejected the deal in favor of an all-cash takeover by JetBlue Airways that was ultimately shot down in a federal antitrust case, leaving both carriers on their own.
Frontier was in merger discussions with Spirit last year just before Spirit’s bankruptcy filing, but those talks fell apart.
“They’ve squandered every opportunity to make everything work,” Snyder said.
An oversupply of domestic flights also drove down airfare in recent years, prompting the industry to cut back capacity, and the trend was especially punishing for U.S.-focused carriers. Those low-fare carriers had another problem when wages went up in the wake of the pandemic, upending their low-cost model.
“I think there may have been a bit of optimism on their part in terms of kind of the strategic reset that they had planned,” said Fitch’s Rohlena. “That then came face-to-face with a harder, harsher aviation environment.”

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Higher interest rates and a fast-shrinking labor market are taking their toll on the fix-and-flip housing market.
The fix-and-flip market contracted slightly in the second quarter of this year from the first quarter and even more sharply from the second quarter of last year, according to an index from John Burns Research and Consulting and Kiavi.
Just 30% of flippers reported “good” sales in the second quarter of this year compared to the seasonal norm, down from 38% in the same quarter of 2024.

Marioguti | E+ | Getty Images

A version of this article first appeared in the CNBC Property Play newsletter with Diana Olick. Property Play covers new and evolving opportunities for the real estate investor, from individuals to venture capitalists, private equity funds, family offices, institutional investors and large public companies. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox.
Higher interest rates and a fast-shrinking labor market are taking their toll on the fix-and-flip housing market. Investors are starting to pull back, as costs rise and the time it takes to sell their renovated homes lengthens. 

The fix-and-flip market contracted slightly in the second quarter of this year from the first quarter and even more sharply from the second quarter of last year, according to an index from John Burns Research and Consulting and Kiavi, a lender focused on the real estate investor.
“Sentiment remains muted, as economic uncertainty, elevated mortgage rates and rising resale inventory weigh on demand for flipped homes,” wrote Alex Thomas of John Burns Research and Consulting, the primary author of the report. 
The index surveys roughly 400 flippers and measures current sales, expected sales and flipper competition for deals. All of those sub-indices fell last quarter. Days-on-market for flipped homes increased as the supply of both new and existing homes for sale rose. 
Just 30% of flippers reported “good” sales in the second quarter of this year compared to the seasonal norm, down from 38% in the same quarter of 2024.

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“I think what our customers are really experiencing, it really comes down to housing velocity and turnover timelines,” said Arvind Mohan, CEO of Kiavi. “They are definitely in the velocity business, and so if it takes them an extra month to complete a transaction, that’s capital that’s tied up in that property that can’t necessarily be freed up for the next investment.”

Roughly one third of flippers pointed to reduced labor availability due to immigration enforcement and fear-driven absences from jobsites. Labor and material costs for flips hit a record high, but costs as a percentage of sales price were flat.
“From an ROI perspective, we’re not seeing much change there, right? People are still getting that kind of 30% to 31%,” said Mohan. 
“We’re definitely seeing the more professional cohorts take a step back, be more conservative, be more choosy, right?,” Mohan said. “If they were going to buy four out of six opportunities a year ago now, they may be buying like two or three out of six just to make sure that they are prepared. As the market resets, they can reset their purchase price and keep the ROI metrics constant.”
Regionally, flippers in Florida, Northern California and the Southwest rated sales more poorly than flippers elsewhere. 
“Flippers in these regions face increasing resale supply, significant competition from homebuilders, and rising costs (particularly insurance),” wrote Thomas in the report.
Flippers are also facing the potential of declining prices, depending on where they’re working. While home prices are still slightly higher nationally than they were a year ago, the gains are shrinking fast, and some markets are solidly negative, especially those that overheated in the first years of the pandemic. 
Prices in June were just 1.7% higher than June 2024, according to Cotality, which noted that is well below the rate of inflation. Prices were up just 0.1% month to month, which is the slowest monthly gain since 2008.
As a result, Mohan said lenders like Kiavi are being more careful. 
“I’ll say definitely, over the last 12 months, we have gotten tighter in our credit box and a little bit more choosier on what types of customers we want to work with in this environment. Things could remain relatively volatile,” he said. More

The new Disney ESPN streaming app is launching Thursday, just in time for the football season.
The app will offer two subscription plans and grant access to ESPN’s full content slate outside the traditional TV bundle for the first time.
Plans start at $11.99 per month.

Disney is launching its new ESPN flagship streaming app Thursday, just in time for the football season, bringing customers the full ESPN suite in one place.
The entertainment company has been working on the launch of the direct-to-consumer app — which is also named ESPN — for some time. It’s designed to expand access for existing cable subscribers and give sports fans outside the traditional pay TV bundle access to all of ESPN’s content.

Tune in at 10 a.m. ET: CNBC’s David Faber interviews Disney CEO Bob Iger and ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro about the launch of the new ESPN streaming app. Watch in real time on CNBC+ or the CNBC Pro stream.

It’s the first time the company is offering all of its linear TV content to customers via streaming.
Here’s what we know about what the app will look like and how it will work for consumers.

Plan playbook

Anyone who currently pays for ESPN through their cable service will have access to the ESPN streaming app.
For everyone else, the app will come in a variety of options at sign-up.
Subscribers can buy into the unlimited plan, which grants access to all of ESPN’s networks, for $29.99 per month or $299.99 annually.

ESPN says this plan will cover more than 47,000 live events annually, including the NCAA championships, the Australian Open, the PGA Championship and more.
Users can also bundle the ESPN unlimited plan with Disney+ and Hulu for $35.99 a month, including ads, or $44.99 a month without ads.
At launch, Disney will offer that same bundle at a promotional price of $29.99 per month, with ads, for the first year.
There’s also another bundle on the way, in October. ESPN and Fox Corp. are teaming up to offer their direct-to-consumer streaming services as a combined offering.
Fox’s service, called Fox One, also debuts Thursday and includes all Fox content including news and sports. It costs $19.99 a month on its own.
The ESPN and Fox One bundle will be available on Oct. 2 for $39.99 per month. However, customers of the pay TV bundle will receive access to each of the streaming apps at no additional cost.

What’s next for ESPN+

Short of the ESPN unlimited offering, the company is also debuting its ESPN select tier.
This plan features access to all content available on the existing ESPN+ service, including live sports streaming, a library of exclusive studio shows and original content and on-demand game replays.
ESPN says this plan will cover more than 32,000 live events annually.
It will cost $11.99 per month or $119.99 annually.
Customers can also purchase the Disney+, Hulu and ESPN select bundle, which includes ads, for $16.99 per month, or a no-ads option for $26.99 per month.
ESPN+ was the sports network’s first foray into streaming, launching in 2018 as a separate app that has exclusive content outside the TV network. While it has some live game simulcasts, it’s never housed the bulk of ESPN’s content.
ESPN+ had 24 million subscribers as of Disney’s most recent earnings report.
Existing ESPN+ customers will automatically become subscribers of the ESPN select plan under the new service, the company has said.
Customers with existing subscriptions to the streaming bundles will be able to watch ESPN content on Disney+ alongside the other programming.

Bulking up content

ESPN’s streaming service will include all of the network’s live games, along with programming from ESPN2, the SEC Network and ESPN on ABC. In addition, it will feature fantasy products, new betting tie-ins, studio programming and documentaries, among other kinds of content.
The network recently signed two deals to bolster its sports offerings.
In early August, ESPN said it was entering a partnership with the WWE for the U.S. rights to the wrestling league’s biggest events, including WrestleMania, the Royal Rumble and SummerSlam. CNBC reported ESPN will pay an average of $325 million per year for five years of rights. On Wednesday, ESPN and WWE said that deal starts immediately, earlier than previously announced.
ESPN also reached a deal this month with the National Football League to acquire the NFL Network in exchange for the pro football league taking an equity stake in ESPN.
— CNBC’s Alex Sherman and Lillian Rizzo contributed to this report. More

Chipotle is teaming up with drone delivery leader Zipline for a pilot of autonomous food delivery.
Starting Thursday, select customers in the greater Dallas area will have the option to use so-called Zipotle delivery through its early access program in the Zipline app. 
The move could resonate with younger consumers, who lean more heavily on delivery, as Chipotle tries to kickstart sales following a slow quarter for fast-casual chains.

Chipotle is teaming up with drone delivery leader Zipline to test autonomous food delivery.
Beginning Thursday, select customers in the greater Dallas area will have the option to use the so-called Zipotle delivery through an early access program in the Zipline app. Zipline’s autonomous aircraft will deliver orders to customers’ homes from a Rowlett, Texas Chipotle location.

A small number of Zipline users will be able to order the full Chipotle menu to start, with a broader service launch in the weeks to come for more users. Any potential expansions in the future would be based on learnings from the test.
Employees will place the order into a Zipping Point, which allows aircraft to autonomously pick up the order for delivery. After flying to its destination, the aircraft will hover about 300 feet in the air, while the Zip, a droid, lowers to the ground.
“The exciting thing about drone delivery is we don’t need to have specific drone locations at every restaurant to make this effective,” Curt Garner, president and chief strategy and technology officer at Chipotle, told CNBC in an interview. “Because of the coverage radius of drones, it might only be one restaurant in a particular neighborhood that can service the entire neighborhood. So that makes national expansion easier, finding those locations and then equipping them with Zipline.”

Zipline delivering a Chipotle meal.
Courtesy: Zipline

The drone delivery option could resonate with a younger consumer base, which is already key for Chipotle and its future growth.
“I think the younger consumer remains an enormous market opportunity for us. They’re the biggest fans of Chipotle already,” Garner said. “They do skew higher to delivery than older consumers, and they’re a curious group of people that want to try new things. And based upon how many younger people live together in apartments or in shared housing, drone delivery is a really good option.”

The move comes as Chipotle and other fast-casual restaurants hit a sales slowdown. Chipotle reported that same store sales fell 4% in its most recent quarter as traffic declined. Its slow quarter came as the broader restaurant industry faced a pullback.
But Chipotle executives told analysts the chain’s sales trends are turning around. Starting in June, customers had been returning to Chipotle restaurants, thanks to its summer promotions and the launch of its Adobo Ranch dip, CEO Scott Boatwright said.
Zipline is launching Chipotle deliveries with its Platform 2 models, which are insulated to withstand rain, cold and heat. The company has said they are also fast and quiet.
Initially, the “Zipotle” delivery service will carry orders up to 5.5 pounds, which will increase to eight pounds over time. The delivery is a $2.99 flat cost, plus a 15% service fee capped at $6, Garner said. “Zipotle” will operate seven days a week from 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. CT, with plans to expand to 10 p.m. CT.
Zipline, a CNBC Disruptor 50 company, says it operates on four continents, makes a delivery somewhere in the world every 60 seconds, and serves more than 5,000 hospitals and health facilities. It says it has flown more than 100 million commercial autonomous miles.  
“It’s a better product experience. It’s better for the environment, it’s less expensive, and importantly, it also increases access,” Zipline CEO Keller Rinaudo Cliffton told CNBC.
Food delivery by drone may expand further soon. Zipline said it will be working with Sweetgreen to determine timing and locations for a future launch.  More

IF INVESTORS IN America’s technology industry had a single mind, it would be in the midst of a dissociative episode. The logical left brain is beginning to wonder if the artificial-intelligence (AI) revolution is all it is cracked up to be. Nuh-uh, retorts the emotional right brain. More

Intel once set the pace of technological progress. Gordon Moore, one of its founders, predicted in 1965 that chips would get faster and cheaper with metronomic consistency. Over the decades Intel brought Moore’s Law to life, designing and building the processors that powered servers and, later, personal computers. Today it makes headlines for its turmoil more than its technology. On August 7th President Donald Trump demanded the resignation of Lip-Bu Tan, Intel’s boss, citing his links to China, only to praise Mr Tan four days later after meeting him. Reports soon surfaced that the government was pursuing a 10% stake in the company, which would make it Intel’s largest shareholder. On August 18th SoftBank, a Japanese tech conglomerate, announced that it would invest $2bn in the company. More

Starbucks is pushing further into the health and wellness space with an expanded test of coconut water beverages in additional stores.
The coffee giant will be testing its Coco Matcha and Coco Cold Brew drinks in more than 400 stores across major cities including New York, Los Angeles and the greater Chicago area, along with select cities in the Midwest beginning Aug. 21.
The drinks layer matcha foam or cold brew foam over coconut water. 
The drinks were first tested in New York City as a part of Starbucks’ “Starting Five” innovation program, testing out new ideas in five coffeehouses and seeking feedback from its baristas and customers before pushing ahead into additional stores.

Starbucks’ Coco Matcha and Coco Cold Brew drinks.
Courtesy: Starbucks

Starbucks will expand its test of coconut water beverages to hundreds of more stores, as it leans further into health and wellness.
Starting Thursday, the coffee giant will test its Coco Matcha and Coco Cold Brew drinks in more than 400 stores across major cities including New York, Los Angeles and the greater Chicago area. The drinks layer matcha foam or cold brew foam over coconut water.

Starbucks first tested the coconut beverages in New York City as a part of its “Starting Five” innovation program, in which it tests out new ideas in five coffeehouses and seeks feedback from its baristas and customers before pushing those ideas into additional stores. Starbucks did not share plans for further expansion beyond the regional test this month.
“Health and wellness at Starbucks isn’t a trend — it’s a long-standing commitment.  Expanding the test of our Coco Matcha and Coco Cold Brew beverages is the next step to accelerate our health and wellness beverage innovation plan,” Dana Pellicano, senior vice president of Starbucks global product experience, said in a statement to CNBC. “We are incorporating real-time feedback with a focus on transparency, functionality, and evolving consumer needs.”
Cold foam has become one of the chain’s most popular modifiers, as it grew 23% year over year, CEO Brian Niccol told analysts on its most recent earnings call. Starbucks will launch protein cold foam late in the fourth quarter, part of its push to kick-start sales after a stretch of financial results that has disappointed Wall Street.
“Protein cold foam with no added sugar is an easy way to add 15 grams of protein to virtually any cold beverage. And customers can also add the flavor of their choice,” Niccol told analysts.

The expanded Starbucks test is part of a larger trend of top restaurant chains increasing beverage options, driven in part by younger consumers who crave customized cold drinks and healthier options.

The number of beverages offered by the top 500 chains has increased more than 9% over the past year, according to Technomic’s 2025 Away-From-Home Beverage Navigator Report released in July. Companies have leaned even more into cold drinks. Offerings such as specialty coffees and energy drinks have seen the most growth on menus over the past two years, as hot coffee and tea beverages on menus decline, the market researcher reported.
Starbucks is in the middle of its “Back to Starbucks” turnaround plans under Niccol, featuring more cafe renovations and menu changes. As the strategy takes shape, Starbucks executives have said the company has seen increases in satisfaction among younger consumers. Niccol told analysts customer value perceptions were near two-year highs in its most recent quarter, driven by gains among Gen Z and millennials, who make up over half its customer base.
Starbucks is betting that innovation, coupled with better experiences under its new “Green Apron Service” strategy, will help to boost business. While Starbucks also posted better-than-expected U.S. sales last quarter, they still fell 2% from the prior-year period.
Starbucks shares have fallen just more than 1% this year.
In addition to the New York, Los Angeles and Chicago areas, Starbucks will also test the coconut water drinks in select cities in the Midwest including Cedar Rapids, Iowa; St. Louis, Missouri; Springfield, Illinois; South Bend, Indiana; and Madison and Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

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