‘Buy the verdict’: Josh Brown shares why he’s all in on Live Nation, and two other stocks he likes

A Manhattan federal jury ruled that Live Nation/Ticketmaster held an anticompetitive monopoly over big concert venues, but Josh Brown argued investors should "buy the verdict" and said he remains long the stock. He also reiterated a positive view on Exxon Mobil after Barclays kept an overweight rating, and said eBay is breaking out above $100 on convincing volume. The piece is largely commentary rather than a fundamental catalyst, though it may modestly affect sentiment in Live Nation, Exxon, and eBay.

Analysis

The market is likely misreading the antitrust verdict as a binary “guilty = sell” event when the more relevant question is remedy severity and timing. For a platform business with high operating leverage, the first-order damage is usually small relative to the second-order effect: competitors become emboldened, but venue and artist switching costs remain high, so any share loss should bleed out slowly rather than collapse instantly. That favors patience for existing holders, but it also means the stock can stay capped until investors get clarity on structural concessions versus punitive behavioral restrictions.

The better trade in Live Nation may not be the common-stock direction but volatility around the remedy phase. If regulators push for forced unbundling or venue/ticketing flexibility, the real risk is margin compression, not revenue dislocation, because the company’s pricing power is embedded in distribution and demand concentration rather than explicit per-ticket economics. Conversely, if the remedy is modest, the verdict becomes a one-time headline overhang that can be faded, especially on any post-ruling de-risking by generalists.

On XOM, the more important signal is not the stock itself but the market’s tendency to underwrite upstream cash flows as durable while ignoring refining resilience. In a higher-spread environment, integrated names can decompose into two trades: commodity beta on the upstream and structurally sticky earnings in downstream, which supports valuation even if crude retraces. The catalyst to watch is not spot oil, but whether crack spreads and pump prices stay elevated long enough to keep buybacks and dividend narratives intact through the next quarter.

EBAY looks like the cleanest technical setup in the group because the catalyst is self-contained and less dependent on macro or legal outcomes. A multi-month base near a round-number breakout often attracts systematic and retail momentum flows once volume confirms, and that can create a fast re-rating before fundamentals fully catch up. The risk is a failed breakout that traps late longs, so this is a trade where confirmation matters more than conviction.

Key Decisions for Investors

• LYV: hold existing longs; do not add aggressively until remedy language is visible. Use any 3-5% post-verdict rally to write covered calls or trim into strength; if the stock sells off on headlines without new legal escalation, treat that as a better entry than chasing here.
• LYV: consider a 3-6 month call spread only if implied volatility remains elevated after the ruling. The thesis is mean reversion once remedy risk is quantified, but the payoff is asymmetric only if headlines fade rather than intensify.
• XOM: stay long through the next earnings cycle, with a 1-2 quarter horizon. The risk/reward remains favorable as long as crack spreads hold; tighten risk if downstream margins roll over or crude spikes enough to trigger demand destruction pressure.
• EBAY: initiate or add on confirmed volume above the breakout level; target a 10-15% move over the next 1-3 months if the technical breakout holds. Cut quickly on a failed breakout back into the prior range, since momentum names can unwind rapidly.
• Pair trade: long XOM / short a lower-quality downstream/consumer discretionary basket as a hedge against sticky energy input costs. The edge comes from XOM’s cash-flow durability versus sectors that absorb higher fuel costs with slower price pass-through.