Three market experts weighed in with their favorite stock picks on CNBC's "Halftime Report Final Trades," spotlighting opportunities in software, financial exchanges, and alternative asset management.

ServiceNow Breaks From the Pack

Malcolm Ethridge, managing partner at Capital Area Planning Group, highlighted ServiceNow, Inc. (NOW) as a standout performer separating itself from the broader software crowd. The timing is interesting given that authID Inc announced a fresh identity verification integration with ServiceNow on Thursday, designed to bolster security for contact centers as fraud risks continue climbing.

Intercontinental Exchange Gets an Upgrade

Bill Baruch, founder and president of Blue Line Capital, expressed confidence in Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (ICE). His optimism finds support from TD Cowen analyst Bill Katz, who on Wednesday maintained a Buy rating and bumped the price target from $175 to $193. That's a meaningful vote of confidence for the exchange operator.

Apollo's Private Market Leadership

Jim Lebenthal, partner at Cerity Partners, pointed to Apollo Global Management, Inc. (APO) as the dominant player in private markets. Apollo just demonstrated that leadership by leading a $3.5 billion financing package for Valor Compute Infrastructure, a fund managed by Valor Equity Partners. The capital will support a $5.4 billion acquisition and lease of data-center infrastructure, including Nvidia Corp's (NVDA) GB200 GPUs, to a subsidiary of Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company, xAI.

The arrangement is structured as a triple-net lease and will support xAI's ongoing model training and development of Grok, its AI chatbot, according to Apollo's statement.

How the Stocks Traded

ServiceNow shares dropped 2.6% to close at $131.17 on Thursday. Intercontinental Exchange climbed 0.2% to settle at $173.28 during the session. Apollo Global Management shares edged up 0.1% to close at $144.15 on Thursday.