perspective it doesn't mean that the fed should cut rates or that they're easing, just that they're less restrictive and to a more normalized state. >> seema shah, thank you. almost out of time. just take a quick look where we're indicated this morning. off on the session after nine straight up days. i'll see you, becky. join us tomorrow. >> see you guys tomorrow. >> we'll see you from sowhere, anew. "squawk on the street" is next. good wednesday morning. welcome to "squawk on the street i'm carl quintanilla with jim cramer and david faber. futures are soft here despite more signs op cf crumbling inflatn. german bond yielbelo2, our n 30-yr with a 3 handle for

the first time since january. fedex,he quarterly fumble. shares tuming after weaker demand. >> year-end rally pause. stock futures are pointing to a lower open. the s&p 500 is still within striking distance of what would be a record high. and tesla reportedly blaming bad drivers for some flaws. fedex down in the pre-market on the latest results. they cut their revenue forecast as weaker demand hit sales in express. here's raj subramaniam on the call last night. >> we step back and review how our businesses performed in environments with suppressed demand, we're delivering much better profitability today than we havequarter, we reduced costs by $200 million in our surface network, including u.s. express operations.

this was driven by shifting to a single daily dispatch, applying productivity initiates, consolidating underized sorts and maximizing rail. >> they say pretty good things about freight and ground. >> really it's about freight. absolutely. you know what? i think you have to say it like i think that raj did a great job in the previous quarter. evyone got bulled up. the one thini would point out -- i would be a buyer of this stock. it will probably settle in the 240s -- this company used to lose a ftune on a quarter like this. you would have revenues not that good and we would be starting to think that activists would come in because they're losing so much money. they're making a huge amount of money. with these revenue numbers? what will they make when they get it right. >> if they get it right is the question. that's going on with express.

>> post office issues. >> i mean, it's hard to understand whether there's a margin at all in that business. if there's one, it is awfully small. it used to contribute -- in 2022, ebit from express was 43.5% of overall ebit at the company. it's 18.9% this year. it may fall to as low as 12% next year. the other parts are doing well. >> yeah. >> what's going on here? >> you know, tim hexter knows more than i do, he's an analyst, that was his first question, what's going on here? my take is if the pros don't know, that we need to know more. you're right. i believe there's just these -- a couple of different reasons why, none of them sound cogent independently, together they hurt things, but i want to reiterate that he's doing a lot

of reorg. raj is taking the drive program, still taking out the total -- >> express had better quarters. remember, there was an activist in the stock, it was d.e. shaw, there were board member changes, agreed-upon board members, that was started in april of '22. they're still there, by the way. but there's been much better quarters for express. >> are you thinking this is a really bad quarter? >> what i got here written is one holder saying this is a shocking result. they're blaming transit tore actors without quantifying actions, what they were. it wasn't volume. it wasn't price. clearly there's something still wrong with the cost structure. the margins last quarter, it improved substantially, so this is puzzling. that's where i am. it doesn't imply that the express business is not earning

a sufficient margin at all, jim. >> it has to be fixed. i think it will be fixed. i think that's next. by the way, look, they have done some good things. they took significant share from u.p.s. i don't think that will go back to u.p.s. i think there were some issues involving -- i contrasted jp hunt, they said we're coming out of recession. that was a good quarter from jb hunt. i won't go against you. >> yields were fine. seasonality was fine. it's not volume or price. what is the problem? they're not getting the answers that they need to understand it. >> did you get the problem with the u.s. postal service, the contract that they had to abide by that was not a good contract?

>> no, i didn't. >> i think that's significant. >> okay. >> it's something that was -- apparently it was legacy. but they're not getting their due in this postal service contract, it's hurting them. that could also be a problem. >> operating margins in express below 2. not a lot of ratings changes today. jpmorgan trims to 305, barclays cuts to 310, but reiterates an overweight. >> if he gets it right and we get back to the levels of this one division that david said, then i think you have a $400 stock. you have 40 down, 100 up. i was surprised. i thought it would be blowout, okay? i also thought that in the end there were issues, again individual issues, that did not work. i think what we're all worried about is this was the course of fedex, there was always

something going wrong. >> we'll watch transports today. ed last night suggested that he thinks transports will confirm the industrials record high early next year. >> look, i think the rails are doing quite well. csx is doing okay. union pacific is doing quite well. >> i think about the time that raj told you more than a year ago that the world was going into worldwide recession. >> that was a tough day to start things. >> markets were down on those comments. >> he's not saying that now. when i talked to him about the truckers seeing things better, he said, yeah, there's a lot of stuff that are better. truckers are bullish. >> again, investors seem to come away from the call without answers in terms of the performance at express, which was well below expectations.

that's why the stock is down. even with cost savings. without those cost savings, they would have been lost making it. >> cost savings make it -- >> they had a margin of some kind, but it wasn't much. look at lynndie, industrial gas. their business has been flat for years. because the margins are good, they've been blowing out the numbers. there's a belief that when they get relief on growth, it could be gigantic. linde is incredibly well run. their revenues are not anything special, but they make so much money. the reason i mention linde is because they're inventive. not nearly enough is talked about with the most important deal in this country right now, david, which is the linde exxon deal for carbon capture. again, they're not making a lot of money yet. >> no. >> but this is what you want.

you want these companies with these great revenue ramps, which fedex does, they figure out how to handle cost control. >> you're right to point at that. exxon has done a number of these commercial arrangements in at least ing in a position to capture carbon from these companies. >> do you agree with me, by the way -- i didn't mean to switch direction -- >> that's okay. >> we'll have certain themes for 2024. what you did with exxon is one of my biggest themes for 2024. >> great. darren woods was with me a couple weeks back. we were continuing to talk about low-carbon solutions. they have increased their capital outlay, there's still question in terms of ultimate return that they can generate from that business at this point. >> true. >> that will continue to be a question. dow and nasdaq riding nine-day win streaks. s&p within striking distance of a new record those.

jim, i mentioned uk and german inflation at the top. german ppi year-on-year down almost 8. we mentioned the 10-year there, below 2. >> look, you would think that if we did a big auction, german trust money would move here. that is what we used to see. we used to see a lot of foreign flows. right now they don't go anywhere. theye willing to accept that return. i don't get it. i guess it's in the trust agreements that they can't do it. it makes no sense to buyheir ten-year. >> if you can buy ours. >> right? >> i would think so. >> or they listen to the various people who comon from the fed whose goal is to confuse, they're astoundingly good at it and they're gas bags. >> so they're gas bags whose role it is to confuse? is that what you said?

>> yeah. >> i reversed it. i got it. >> i listen to these people, it's like they're calling a different game. it's like the mannings calling it vers troy aikman. there's one game. there's e game. the game is that powell wants to see so cuts. he's worried about the economy doesn't want germany. >> how much do you think he's worried about the economy slowing? i had this conversation recently with executives and the like. i see it right here, ai. they're starting to talk about the productivity increases. especially forarge compani that can spend theoney in terms of what ai will mean for their business. it may super charge certain things in terms of how they price, for example, >> i don't want to be a -- >> not just generative ai, but advances in good-old-fashioned

ai. the ability to analyze quickly and do things they couldn't do prior. >> was looking at some companies. i said could you please put your description of these companies in words that sound like jim cramer? one of the companiesas like mongodb. it said, hey mucus head. >> you really think this is funny. >> i haven't called ybody mucus head. >> it gave you a good id now. >> hey, mucus head. i would never do that. i'm sayingt's not there yet. i never called aone a mucus head. >> generative ai may not be there inertain ways, but the tools these companies need to help them in terms of understanding and pricing products by zip code, that's there. >> that's there. >> that helps. that helps margin and that could be a tailwind to the econo in

2024. >> let's say i want to send out 100 mortgage documents, would say i have to look at each one that would take a week. here, 100 mortgage documents done in six minutes? mucus head. >> thankfully i'm not. there's a lot of flu and cold stuff going around, but i'm no-- >> how did it choose that? >> doing better an humans on that. >> the fda says none of those things work any way to get rid of the mucus. when we come back, a new report on tesla suggesting that faulty vehicle parts are being blamed on consumers not the company. look at the premarket. a bunch of cal to get to, we'll get to general mls and downgrades of companies like costco when we return.

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new piece out of reuters today claiming that tesla blamed drivers over the failure of parts that the company knew were defective. internal documents saying it tracked the chronic flaws and failures for years. reuters claims they surveyed thousands of tesla documents on this one. >> we know that hertz, steven talked about that the rental car

company, that there had been far more accidents and things going wrong but he blamed it on the fact that they didn't know -- that teslas are harder to drive. they get in and make mistakes. didn't say the tesla was a flawed vehicle. he continues to buy them because people wanted biggest car sold in america but people don't know how to drive it. >> this is not involving software or autopilot. this is about suspension, steering parts which reuters claims have been talked about online for years. >> i think there's questions about how to fix what's going wrong, but it's not a recall issue. what i thought was interesting about hertz was that when -- that musk has always said they hold their failure. one of the reasons they don't is because of what you just said. >> hard to fix. >> yeah. >> there was supposed to be very

few repairs ever needed, right? >> that's not true. >> because there's so fewer parts. >> that's the thing that hertz exploded. >> i know. they said i thought maintenance was supposed to be lower. >> it's a hertz problem, i thought, no, it's a tesla problem according to hertz. a tesla problem. it's like he said/she said to some degree. i think the tesla problems are so large at hertz, it can't be hertz. people don't know how to drive them. it's just true. people have never been in one -- it's not like they're putting gas line in an electric tank or anything. but they get confused. >> right. panasonic is dropping plans to build an ev battery plant in oklahoma. that just adds to the theory that we're seeing a slowdown in ev growth.

>> the slowdown is real. slowdown, but you are the brida company. everyone keeps saying hybrids are where people want to be. i thought the f150 lightning was going to sell out because that was the inclination, that's what we were betting. that's not the case. >> you know, when it comes to tesla, i tnk the focus on china, not their manufacturing, the shanghai plant is the most important, but selling there. the competition from what i hear in china terms of evs is very, very strong now. there's got to be a focus on their ability to maintain if not increase market share or somehow maintain to some level you are talking about 34% china on par with california at this point. far above those in the united states.

many manufacturers including those i'm told that are making automobiles now atrice points that are quite low but a quality that is far higher than anticipate >> if they let them in -- >> they won't let them in the united states. >> they'd destroour industry. just destroy it. look, we have a steel business, and nippon steel paying a lot foletter x. we'll talk about whiskey and the tariffs there versus what we put on. we're long smuch whiskey here, so many barrels, there's a lot of loans out there. everyone wanted pappy van winkle, instead ey got kentuckyentleman. >> we'll get to the countdown to the opening bell. we'll get conference board, existing homes, goolee, a 20-year bond auction.

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seven minutes until the opening bell at the stock exchange. we talked about affirm yesterday. when you check out at a walmart, you can still do buy now pay letter. at the self-chself-check-outs, to say steal now pay later. you want to come back to this name?

why? >> this is this company with profits. >> it's memified because of a short position? >> he was supposed to be the guy that was hurt the most when jamie dimon's 6% number occurred. rates were supposed to go to 6. they didn't. then they're cutting rates. they have very fewbad loans. walmart there had a deal. it's like, wow, they allowed -- >> what did the stock go up yesterday? at one point it was 12%, 13%. >> you can buy an icee with affirm. boom. you can go to target and buy cap and jack. boom. today, you are hear being an affirm card, rapid production,

sounds like block, formerly square, affirm money, plastic into gold. >> i don't understand what you told me. direct deposit -- what's getting direct deposit? >> let's cut to the chase. $30 price tag goes to 65. can you get me someone who is really tall here, please? who is really tall? >> carl is taller than both of us. >> i got it. >> it's called a squeeze. >> a lot of hedge funds. >> like -- are you playing hangman? >> the house of pain. >> the h.o.p. >> yeah. >> so they contributed to the h.o.p. big-time. >> we ve opening bell 4:30 away. imagine that. catch us any time anywhere by stening to and following the "squawk on the street" opening be pca. ckn a minute.

welcome back. tomorrow morning, n't miss it. we'll have an exclusive with morgan stanley's outgoing ceo ja james goan. >> why is it 10:30? >> i'll be with him in person at the headquarters in midtown. >> ifb? >> not for h. it's a solo interview. are you kidding? >> nuts. >> did y have questions, jim? >> do you have any questions you would like me to relay? >> yeah. >> or just your warm regards? >> i have some things. >> years ago, i think you introduced you to mr. gorman. >> then i took him and he became my guest. >> as you always do. >> we'll take this, as we call it, offline. >> okay. carl, lookinforward to that opportunity to speak to him, much more about the arc of his career, of his 14 years running morgan stanley and the changes that have taken place. >> the reinvenon of the

business model, work frohome, m&a. i hope they give you some good time. >> i hope our executive producer gives us a good amount of time. let's get to the opening bell. at the big board, woman time. i wonder if the red arrows are about the red sea, or wti the highest in a while. >> the inflation numbers are not done being -- thercould be some that arhup. fedex did not give you the right tone. a lot of people felt fedex would be the continuation of the

blow-out quarters. let's throw in general mills. general mills was a quarter. they've been one of the highest quality players in this food business. i came away thinking that both their human food and pet food business, they're not doing that well. then there's a couple of pieces at say it's time to take profits. costco, someone said take profits. costco. >> north coast. >> north coast, south coast, east coast, west coast. >> it reads almost le an upgrade. >> i thought so, too. i thought it was one of those things, let'get a splash. >> you were saying that same thing yesterday, to be fair, about certain stocks. you were saying don't be greedy. things are up a lot. broadcom, for example. >> last night, my lead on "mad money" was okay, it's time -- when you have parabolic moves, you have to take something off the table. when i see a parabolic move, i

do sell. you want to sell something, i won't fight you. it's a good idea. >> wells cuts crm and zoom. they do a survey of i.t. managers. 90% of i.t. managers see spend going higher next year. the name most often mentioned is microsoft and that's their top name. >> that was a big win in that piece. microsoft taking share with azure, which is important. look, wells fargo has crowdstrike and c-scale, enough of them, please, though i like them both. we have parabolic moves, don't trust them. >> can we come back to general mills for a second? >> the mills? >> we hit it quickly. >> this is a quote. while we saw a slower than expected volume recovery in the second quarter amid a continued challenging consumer landscape, they go on to say we generated

bottom line growth thanks primarily to strong hhm cost savings. that was the chairman and ceo jeff harmony. not a great quarter, though. >> no. they raised prices. it's not working. >> net sales down 2%. >> we're at the end of the raised price cycle. >> gross margin was up 170 basis points. 34.4% up net sales. >> you see north american retail, minus 5. pet minus 11. north american food service, minus 1. i n't know. these are things that i -- >> read through it all, ything else stand out? >> i think this industry is still challenged. though smucker reported and then the stock went up. even though they did hostess. we through a period where everything would not be eaten.

th a comeback where everything would be eaten, and you ought to get into solar grid and out of food. did you not get that joke? >> i didn't. >> you were putting your mic on. you got tripped up there. >> that was at the beginning of the show. >> these numbers are not good. >> nestle's ceo, i was thinking let me reference this. >> he says there's no impact. >> yeah. ozempic, wegovy, and what did he say? he had this linkedin thing. he's kind of saying it's much -- muchf the opportunity comes from the understanding of the needs of the consumer, the science, and therapy can result in a loss of lean muscle mass. one of the best ways to build and maintain lean muscle mass is

protein intake and exercise. we're seeing demand for protein powders, bars, drinks are increasing. >> that's true. i think tyson, because they got the protein, but tyson has not cooperated. they're one of the most poorly run companies i've come across. >> he's talking about products that provide nutritional benefits to those using glp1s, main folks in north america where the adoption is highest right now. he says we'll build on this broader geographic rollout as well as additional come pan con products and offerings. it is interesting to see him responding to it and a number other companies coming in with thisdea that -- you do lose muscle mass, particularly for those who are older. that can be a concern. you may see products based on how you add mule mass while you're on or maintain whe you're on. >> why don't the tyson food people talk about ? i'm sure they will say they

talked about it in a release. it's such a natural. it's their sweet spot. >> protein. >> that's who they are. a protein company. >> i know. >> they should change their name. because the tyson family itself, not a -- let'sust say they've done a suboptimal job. give me a ten-year chart of tyson food. >> okay. >> see how they've done. >> i don't know how they've done. >> they should merge wh pfizer. >> that's been a tough run. >> pfizer over 25 and tyson -- there it is. >> they're a little down. >> not that bad. 56%. >> it ends where it started. >> no. it's up 56%. not great. >>o, it's not great. it just hasn't- >> that's not the market -- it's no pfizer. >> pfizer is the benchmarkf -- >> of what? >> right. >> poor performance.

>> yeah. >> apeople who want to defend it will tell you -- it doesn't look much bett. it has paid a dividend over that time. need to be fair. >> could you put up a 30-year? >> i don't know if we have a 30 year. put up a ten-year. it was up 1.9%. 20 years is even worse. remember lipit, they bought warner-lambert, viagra. they were dominating. >> that was then, this is now. >> loved that book. >> i imagine you remembethe day that they announced their vaccine, their covid vaccine results. that was a historic day for stocks. >> it was. it was. this is a go -- i ve giving dad the quizzes, he always says he has no idea. he did it with "jeopardy!." was was releas at the bottom,

the exact bottom day in the year of the cov decline? >> what was released? >> yes. what was announced. >> i don't even undersnd the question. >> okay. the market is gog down, down, down. if you look at the bottom, something happened that day. >> oh. boeing did its debt deal. >> no, that was a weekend day. >> oh. >> annouement of the moderna vaccine. >> they announced something positive. it wasn't that they had the vaccine. >> i think it's symmetric there. >> yeah. >> if we put up charts -- i like this putting up charts. if wput up the chart of zoom, moderna and docusi and pell

peloton. >> now wells cutting docusign. >> was a lot of takeover chatter last week. >> they allegedly put themselves up for sale. >> allegedly. >> there's some real stuff goi on. >> tell me. >> i want to do this, here's my opinion on a moment. every morning, susquehanna, morgan stanley both say buy boeing. >> we're coming back to that again? >> it's the most reiterated buy stock in istory. >> also among the top, say, five most overbought s&p names at the moment. >> overbought sometimes, the s&p is plus 7 on the oscillator. >> since november -- that's like one side of a christmas tree. are we going to get the other side? >> that's a parabolic move. that's the kind of thing i keep saying you must sell. you cannot own a parabolic move.

they never sustain. that's something you learn from day one. when you're at goldmans, after you look at how you should look at bonds first. >> wow. >> it's up 46% in two months, jim. wow. >> i want to do at&t, bank of america says it is a show-me story that is being showed. >> there's been a couple of named as a best idea of '24. >> good luck with that. >> it's hard not to be skeptical. only down 10% this year. >> how do you like the way david totally avoided the paramount call. >> what would you like me to say? would you like me to reiterate my report of a week ago. >> upgrade to hold. david, as a sum of the parts, you like those. talks about red bird and sky dance being very interested. >> rig. together.

i think that is true. i can tell you they've been talking to shari redstone through national amusements for quite some tim the talks have been going on, then off. i think if there is going to b any sort of a deal iolving paramount, it will involve a sale of the control stake at a premium as oppos to a whole company sale for any number of reasons. i reported on this. our parent company comcast, if you asked people a couple years ago if there wu interest, there might have been. warner brothers would have to think long and hard about it. you're increasing your footprint in linear cable networkswhich is something you don't want to there's always going to be regulatory questionsround that. yeah. it is possible that you do see this kind of a deal if there is a deal to be had. the question, of course, still is onef price.

what redstone is asking potentially for that control stake. we'll see. and it matters where paramount stock price is if you want t take control of it. you want to do certain things to increase the value. if it's trading higher than you want, forget the premium, you're still not going to move unless the overall company is trading which you think you can add value by doing any nber of things. >> you added valuey reading the piece. >> thank you. >> you did really good. much better. this piece is called "deal feel." >>hat's about all they got. they don't have a feel. >> be nice to walk into the office and read faber cuts draftkings to hold. >> yeah. you're this guy -- >> he's fine. we bring him on. perfectly good analyst. >> he walks into his boss, his boss said i listened to david faber eviscerate your research. >> no.

no. >> i tnk on christmas eve, this is a nice time to let you go. >> i have a very specific set of skills, it falls right into it. >> a nightmare for him. >> winnebago up 27 over two months. revee ahead, but profit miss. >> i always like to look at company, and thor is doing incredib well. another parabolic move. bob martin is very, very good. thor makes airstreams, which are really cool. >> they are cool. look at those moves, though. >>hese are amazing moves because gasoline is going lower because these are russell names that have done nothing for years and years. they're just rocket. we don't talk enough about them. >> well -- >> we spend too much time

talking about some fed person who is trying to offset anher fed person i don't care what they have to say. i want to own winnebago. >> you also wanted to own nvidia. talk about a parabolic move. it will end the year uabout 240% or so. a few more sessions go. >> you can't have generative ai without nvidia. that's one move you don't >> you want to own it, not trade it. >> okay. >> that's the rule. >> yep. >> because jensen wong will introduce a series of new products that will blow your mind. he has the key to how when you offer you mucus head.it won't >> he will blow our minds with what's coming? i read the "new yorker" piece, it's great. >> i'm just sang this man, who does not carry hself as if of which he is, he would easy t

be -- he'll tell you, you'll have machines that are so much smarter than you, this is the product, david, though he joked in t "w yorker" piece. he's making machines that -- >> that ll be way smarter than you. i talk about this often. agi will happen. then it will be infused in one of elon musk's optimist robots, they'll be moving around like crazy. >> will he replace lynndie? she could be replaced by a machine, then her son. she got her son there. >> did she? >> you were going to say nepotism. i'm just saying nvidia should not be sold because they have

the -- when you listen to what he's got in store -- remember, his burn less hot than amd did. people care about heat. >> power consumption. >> yes. power consumption. >> yeah. keeping things cool, that's one of the things you have to do in a data center. >> rock?k. >> you rock. >> you're in a good mood. what did you take this morning? >> i am. a lot of news in the theme some hits from zootopia land. this piece looking at our parent, considerina theme park in the uk where we will bring the fight to disney in europe. >> theme parks are something that very few people know how to do them. when they know how to do the they can put them anywhere, and

they work. that is a way to diversify away from cord cutting. >> yep parks for disney is it's credibly important. we talk about it often. it's the cash-producing asset by far at that company. the real question, i2024, will it continue to be the same when it comes to disney? what's direct to consumer going to do for me and what will it look like in terms of ability to produce profits in a significant way? we still don't know the answer. >> he's prepping for the gorn interview. >> you wanted to ask gorman about disney? >> yeah. >> why yeah, he's going on the board. he's n going to answer. he'll say m not on the board yet. i can't tell you. >> you just say, listen, jim cramer told me. >> then i'll get an answer. >> oh, yeah. >> pull out the cramer card. >> yeah. that's like, oh, cramer.

>> carl, i should have been doing these interviews differently all these years. jim cramer told me. just say hey, listen, i'm sorry to do this to you, but cramer told me. he's like, all right, i want this. >> disney has not bought back the theme parks, your new mexico idea. maybe i'll ask about that. as we go to break, let's watch bonds, active day with the conference on deck, existing homes, and goolsbee at 12:30 for the fourth time this week along. the long bond with a 3 handle and the ten-year below 3.90.

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our exclusive with the ceo of micron set to report after the

bell. he's going to join us at 9:00 a.m. eastern time. stock as you can see up more than 60% for the year. dow trying to narrow some opening losses, down 74. we get stop trading with jimn st mute. i

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it's time with jim and stop trading. >> dan ives coming out this morning from webb bush saying apple will be the first $4 trillion market cap company by the end of 2024. talking about there's nothing wrong with the iphone 15, things look good. but mainly the stories out of china that there are chinese problems basically says, no. forget it, they're just not happening. which is good news for cook and company, consumer demand good. and i just -- i read this piece and said, this is kind of like what i think this is reasonable research at this point with a stock that's not parabolic. that i think is fairly valued if you include the service business which he says is going to be worth 1.5 to 1.6 trillion, and i think that's low. it's low.

>> it reminds me of the piece our colleagues at nbc did this morning ability president xi citing three sources saying he told the president in san francisco that beijing will reunify with taiwan, just hasn't been decided on timing. which would have implications for apple supply chain obviously. >> definitely. >> they're going to do it one day. >> don't say that. >> it's 37 seconds away by air. >> this is not ukraine. don't say that. >> i'm not saying anything. it's going to happen one day. but it could be one year now. >> why do you see that? >> because i think everybody -- it seems to be the expectation in china. >> how about putting some foot to the 101st there. >> we're going to do that? defend taiwan, 10,000 miles away? >> yes. >> really? >> a great ally and democracy.

god, david. >> near term -- >> youost china for us. >> a lot more issues. >> even service, john patton daes, david faber. name me three people who lost china. >> what's on "mamoney" tonight jim? >> wl, i'll tell you, a lot. >> yeah? you got a lot. >>? >> a lot. >> how about president xi bringing him on. >> i bri him up every night. >>aybe he'll come on as a guest. >> i'm going to china. i'm doing my show from china. they don't know it yet but i'm coming. >> that's gog to be an interesting show. >> i'm going to do it from is it your -- starbucks. >> awesome. ow down here at 671 backn a couple of minutes. move to the cloud.

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good wednesday morning welcome to another hour of "squawk on the street" i'm carl quintanilla with david faber and leslie picker.

sara eisen has the day off. is the dow finally taking a break today after nine days up. s&p has gone green as yields are giving some relief around the globe today. >> 30 minutes into the trading session. three movers we are watching. next, shares tumbling on the profit miss. we'll have much more on where this stock goes from here. but in the meantime, down about 10.6%. general mills also in the red falling after revenue for the fiscal second quarter came in light. organic net sales down 2% year over year despite stronger pricing. and watch salesforce, wells fargo downgrading to equal weight as looking at what it expects is a steady shift towards growth in 2024. let's get to rick santelli. morning, rick. >> yes. confidence from the conference board for the month of december.

headline number expected to be up 104 to 105. blew that away. 110.7. 110.7, that looks to be the best level since july of this year. and if you look at the present situation at 148.5, also a nice pop. best since july. finally, what expectations we have, what may lie ahead, 85.6, significant jump, over 77.4. guess what, best since july. let's move towards november, existing home sales. remember, rates have come down a lot but in november, if you looked at bank rate average 30 year fixed never traded below 760 until the last day of november wn it was at 757. didn't get the bulk of the drop we're experiencing in december. reversing five months of decline on existing home sales for a rate of 3.82 million seasonably

adjusted annualized units. and what happens interesting about this, breaks the five month streak and in e rear view mirror 3.79 millions was the worst in 13 years in terms of a pace and comp 13 years ago was 3.45 million. which happens to be the lowest since recordkeeping. and, a couple otr things to pay attention to. if you looked at the median home price, it was up 4%. looked at it year over year? it's the highest november ever at $387,600, and one other issue we'd like to point out on a year overear basis, existing home sales down 7.3%. carl back to you. >> appreciate that, rick santelli. s&p is the highest level since januy of last year and trading close to all-time highs w much more room does the rally have to run?

joining us is adam parker. dr. p. good to have you back. >> good to be here. >> i was wondering how you characterize the recent run we had around a fed pivot. >> i think the distribution is still skewed to the positive the next 12 months. if the average stocks gross margin go up and you get the central banks europe, maybe japan, history dig at a times that's a good combo. if i learned anything in the last 30 years is fighting the fed is not an intelligent idea i don't know what the second thing i learned after the first thing is, but i could try to find one. if you're going to get some accomm accommodation, there's some wood to chop on the details, but they're going to -- higher obability they cut than hike and i think the median stock can argue maybe the logistics costs are coming down, less labor

pressure, maybe they can have some employee basis, maybe that's the bl case that has the higher probability than the price for some companies. >> and there's a narrative that the market could be overbought. do you think it's discounting enough of the risk at the levels? >> i think overbought is a technical term with a shorter horizon than i meant. there are stocks that are overbought and the number one conversation i have with clients is will we get a nasty rotation underneath starting in january? i think last year's lesson was, you know, you had to cover your shorts in late december of 2022, and get long ojanuary 3rd and that was -- you're a god if you dithat. i think people are saying thers a lot of growth cyclicals, whether housing related asick just talked about or wheth they're electrification industrials, select nasdaq names are up a ton. so i think people are expecting maybe they're ovbought.

i can find lows and find something with a better risk reward. there could be a lot moving on in january, maybe it's payment left for dead, self-care services achieving estimates above average. a lot of metals and energyook like a recession but none of the nasdaq looks like discounted a recession. >> do you think the market is behaving in a way that it feels like mission accomplished essentially for inflation? i ask that because theyou see news headlines from the red sea which we'll get to in a bit which is creating muchore cost pressures for that very critical passage way for shipping. do you think that e inflation picture is still a bit vuerable at this stage? >> i personally don't think they're going to cut six to seven times tween now and the end of january '25, or whatever i think it'll be less than that. the eam of accommodation is what's bullish.

once they start doing it, it depends on if they do it because unemployment is rocketing up and the economy is falling sharply. you can dream there's more accommodation coming and the average company can show expansion that's bullish. i think people think that's a 20% chance and i think it's more like 40 or 50 buthere's a lot of different paths that could be taken at this point. it's hard to see through. i think also, maybe earnings can just grow a little bit every year for five, six, seven years in a row. like 22 everyone was negative but if i told you in 2012 everything was going to grow to 19 you wouldn't be so negative. so ather scenario is generally s&p is a differe set of assets, better than the economy and can grow into itself a little bit. >> havyou changed your outlook? >> we do our outlook january 8th. all the big firms do it in november and they have to revise

in december because they want to have the 7% upside and have 5% and beish at 2% so they change it. i don't see any reason to have to change my mind before the year starts. and i li to see where the consensus is. i think generally my view is more optimistic at this moment than this distribution. >> what about the recent note, adam, on growth cyclicals that yoput out in terms of housing related securities, semiconductors and electrificion focused industrial what's the positives there? >> a lot of cyclical industries this yr, those three, acted differently than the past. if i told you years ago the 30 year fixed was going to go up a ton housing stocks would not have worked. they worked this year because everyone knows we need one and a half to two million more structures depending on what you look at. people are wling to look through current conditions for that dream. semiconductors every paper i

re this year, the answer at the end is we need more compute or storage. lots of companies don't benefit but the stocks act gre because i knew it was gdp plus aouple percent now gdp plus five or six. so i'll buy for long term. look at stocks like eatton, high inventory, but people think it's a beneficiary years five through ten. if i told you in the past, high expeations, valuation, inventory, that's a short idea. i think this year pele look through. a cyclical with no long-term dream, airlines,hatever, people sell it on good numbers they know it's cyclical and no better news is coming. it's growth dependent. and some are overbought right now. coulbe candidates for a bit of a rotation, even if they work in years one, three, five, ten,

that was the point of the setup. look forward to talking to you after january 8th. >> i think i'm coming on that >> we'll get fresh earnings numbers. >> absolutely. happy healthy. >> good toee you. the u.s. is announcing a multi-national task force to prect commercial traffic runninthrougthe red sea om inemenby the ho tot tee rebels a gistics exrt tling cc 57 vessels were sailing around africa to avoid the threat in the red sea that was last night. let's bring it up to date on the latest. ali? >> reporter: david, so this u.s. led coalition of a national force to protect raid in the red sea taking shape after assaults

by iranian backed houthi rebels that have turned the red sea into a firework displays of houthi strikes and naval missiles to shoothem down. you're seeing different navys join operation prosperity guardian, nada, france, italy, the seychelles, great britain but absent are any regional countries her than bahrain, who host the fifth fleet. no regional power greed its navy would participate even though middle eastern countries depend on the red sea, because they don't want to be associated with the u.s. military adventure due to their unwavering support for israel. they don't want a domestic upheavel in their country if they're seen siding with the

u.s. but the main point is maintaining freedom of navigation in a strait at the southern end of the red sea which normal times carries a sixth of the world trade. the area is so risky major shipping companies have decided to avoid it or reroute the ships the long way around, around the cape of good hope in south africa, which adds about a million dollars to it, adding time, cost, or pausing and sitting there. what's of importance right now is the houthis stop disrupting shipping. the longer this goes on for, the risk of striking by the houthis goes up which could trigger a bigger war in the region and draw in iran. so not only has the current situation made shipping costs go up, but the price to ship a

container from china to the mediterranean has gone up 44% in december but also driven up the cost of brent crude which has risen about 5% from early december partly reversing the month long slide in emergency prices. back to you. >> ali well said. as we were told yesterday we were not done worrying about supply chain issues around the world. fedex shares tumbling. one stock in the magnificent seven getting a lot of bullish calls for next year. and no, it's not nvidia. we'll reveal the name and discuss the calls. a stock market hitting all new times and other milestones as well. we'll reveal it and find out why inveors arso bullish. "squawk on the street" is back after this.

welcome back to "squawk on the street." fedex sliding as the delivery giant lowers the revenue forecast in right light of weak demands hitting sales. let's bring in citi groups chris weatherby with a buy rating and a $300 price target on the stock. are you keeping that buy rating

as the shares slip further from the $300 price target? >> yeah. we continue to be fairly constructive on fedex. no question the results last night were disappointing and not what we were expecting particularly in the express segment, which is different from any other normal seasonality for their fiscal second quarter what we think the underlying businesses in freight were doing well. where we are in the freight cycle, the express business is at a trough volume standpoint with margins at the next 12 to 18 months we expect the margin to get stronger so buying today results in the better earnings as we think out over the next year or two. >> express a peakweak spot here. driven by market contraction, lower fuel and surcharges. the ceo on the call, many of the headwinds are, quote, transitory.

do you think they'll be able to resolve these next quarter? >> next quarter will be challenging we don't want to get too far ahead of our skis this is cyclical so it'll take time to improve. but into the next fiscal year we think the demand environment will be firmer for them and see comps getting easier, and they have a contract with the postal service causing a meaningful profit headwind for them. so while we're not necessarily overly expecting a significant improvement in the fiscal third quarter we see a path to profitability that segment specifically. >> on that, though, with express, i talked to a couple of shareholders,like you they say yields seem fine and the seasonality didn't seem to be a factor. they felt frustrated undersunde understanding what the issues were. and i guess my question to you

is, how confident cub given what you do understand or perhaps what you don't? >> i think that's a great point. as we noted, it felt more like the old fedex and they haven't always done a greet job explaining volatility in the express business. the underlying cause seems to be the fact they expected volume to be better than it was and ultimately came in short. it speaks to a broader issue the company is undergoing a significant cost improvement initiative. we departmidn't see that show u the numbers. part of the problems with express specifically one of the things they're doing to improve profitability ais adjusting how many planes fly any given day, that will take hold next year. so there's some expectations we see more immediate cost out drive initiatives. we probably have to wait for

that. our estimates are moving down 4 to 5% this year and next fiscal year, the stock is down 10 or 11, i think that speaks to the credibility issue coming out of the multiple as much as the earnings. we think they can win it back but we understand why the stock is down. >> down today although up until today 62% this year. as we were talking about earlier this hour, perhaps some profit taking on lower than expected numbers there. thank you. >> thank you. cargo theft isurning into a major problem for retailers. courtney reagan is here and will explain why. >> there's a debate whether organized retail crime is getting worse or just getting more attention. in 2023, total cargo theft as topped 144 million in 2023. already above last year, and well up from 55 million in 2018.

according to cargo net. the average value of cargo stolen is $143,000 per instance. the criminals are exploiting the supply chain and internet. they're stealing often entire trailers full of goods by using digital job boards, creating fictitious pickups invoices and more. this shows a thief cutting off the bolted lock from the back of a trailer. going inside, putting large electronic boxes into a car. here's a thief cutting a lock from the back of a different trailer. looks over his shoulder, climbs inside and opens the boxes to see what happens inside. number one stolen item this year, food and beverage. >> you can go to the online e taylors and stock your refrigerator and they may or may not be stolen. once it's off that original trailer it's lost its identy

and it's difficult to prove the product is stolen. >> while it do end up in legitimate stores, scott cornell said the majority is now going overseas. that wasn't the case six or even years ago. who books the lost theft? depends on where in the supply chain is slen babysically who owns it at the time they're stolen. >> we've talked and you've been at the forefront a lot about shrinkag how does it fair with other areas within the retailer's headwinds creating issues for them. >> when all these numbers started percoling and talking about organized retail crime and theft, whethert's internal, exrnal, where it happens, is it in the stores, distribution centers, that led me to ll the thread on cargo theft. it's not booked by retailers

oftentimes as a loss because it's not taken by em by the so it's the logistics companies or the trucker that have to file. these crimes are not also osecuted once the cases are turned necessarily oveto the police or they're hard to find. we believe that most cargo theft is reported because e value is so high. if you steal an entire tractor trailer wortof goods its m's noticeable when it's gone. there are some companies that won't wa to book the loss because of iurance rates but this is an area of theft in the total supply chain that is increasing over time and largely because of technology and how it's so easy, frankly, for the bad guys to get in and post as legitimate good guys, sang i'll pick up that cargo. carl. >> we have seen tes lately

arguing long pitions on shrink normalizing at some retailers. see if that happens in '24 as well. stilahead, hasn't been a investing but one overseas name is becoming a favorite, hitting new highs, what it is and why investors are piling into it when we come back.

tomorrow morning, don't miss it. we have an exclusive with morgan stanley's outcoming ceo james gorman. looking forward to the conversation. perhaps differently than the one we have you had one with ted pick, his predecessor a few weeks ago when they were announced. >> i believe it was october. but gorman has the legacy to talk about. i'm looking forward to that interview and he should be candid and reflecting on his 14 years at the helm. he'll be chairman foabout a year i believe. >> that's right. still be chairman but stepping back from the day-to-day duties. what are your expectations to the extent you have any in terms of what the pick will look like if it'll be different or the same? >> i think the near term, the mo is it will be more of the sa and he plans to continue executing that barbell strategy they have, focused owealth management and securities and investment banking and driving

the pillars throughout the various economic cycles. don't see that changing in the near term, that's been well telegraphed in the way they conducted their planning. as far as wall street goes and you know this, morgan stanley, too, there have been some nasty succession battles in the past this is en as the antidoteo that, given how smooth it appeared. next year it remains to be seen but in the 2023 succession story it was prettseamless by conventional standards. another topic in the banking world as we reach the end of year is bonus season. >> i had lunch with a ceo yesterday rushing off to deal with that time when you disappoint people -- they never seem happy. >> as you say deal with people's bonuses as opposed to freely giving out money people enjoy

and are happy about. but it is a weird year because you've seen, once again, a decline in m&a if you're a executive you have to thread the needle do we pay people for the pent up demand we expect next year that banks say is out there or maintain a more conservative posture in case things don't pick up because we are looking into year 3 of activity. >> what are the expectations when it comes to the bonus pool. >> johnson associates said overall looking at negative 25% for bankers, equities and fixed income traders looking at smaller declines. goldman, the ft has an article today saying they are looking to pay their traders specifically more just kind of in advance of what they hope to be a pick up next year. there's also a note out of wells fargo where he describes the dynamic right now as being a

call option on future revenue despite lower revenue in 2023, banks likely to maintain head count and bump comp to preserve capacity for still good back logs and to compete against boutiques, alts and each other. i sat down with a boutique m firm yesterday, they said it was e best environment they've seen. so when you think about the competition for talent, the retreat of the european banks, the growing boutique banks. kind of environment make sure they don't jump ship. >> right. >> carl? >> it's going to be good tomorrow with gorman. look forward to that. when we come back shares of amazon soaring more than 80% this year. and analysts still bullish on the name next year. we'll tell you why and how to play it from here when we're back after this break.

welcome back i'm sylvan na-hanoe with your cnbc update. hamas' leader arrived in egypt today. egypt helped mediate a week long truce in november in which hamas released 100 hostages in exchange for israel releasing 240 palestinian prisoners. the israeli leader said yesterday the country was willing to consider a pause. a philadelphia news

helicopt crashed in new jersey last night, killing the photographer and pilot on board. the cause of the crash still isn't known. and officials say the volcanic eruption in island is continuing to get weaker. the lava appears to be flowing away from a nearby town that was evacuated last month over fears of an eruption folwing weeks of earthquakes and tremo in the region. about an hour into trading, dow is trying to get to positive territory, needs about 27 more pots. s&p has gone green. got help in consumer confidence data. yields helping out, lowest since ju as well. the tech heavy nasdaq getting help outperformi on the day. from a sector perspective, some of the outperformers that you are seeing come from the likes

of the tech heavy or nasdaq type of names sectors like communication services, energy, consumer discretionary on the upside. on theown side, consumer staples and industrials kind of lagging so far today. thin the communication services trade, we are tking about the second best sector in the s&p this year, by a healthy amount. technology is still the best performing one on an intraday basis,ome of the media names are doing the heavy lifting although alphabet parent company of google is far and away the best influence. to that point you can see match oup, meta platforms, news corp., disney among the outperformers. analphabet, getting help from the report saying that alpbet may be looking to restcture the 30,000 person ad sales team not clear what the restructure will be but that's providing some of the bid.

keep an eye on com services back to you. i was wondering what was behind the move up in alphabet and future cost cutting is something encouraged by investors will. dom chu back at hq. wall street firms are rolling out the top picks for 2024 and amazon is on a list of choice for number one. both of our next guests have chosen amazon. mark malani and john blackledge. i guess we're not going to get a lot of debate here between the two of you on amazon. mark, let's start with you in terms of what it is that you believe is going to drive the stock higher in 2024. >> two things, david. first is aws growth has to reaccelerate. if you knew a year and a half ago it was going to go from 30% year over year to 12% it was

under performing. it didn't but it did for periods of times. we think there's data points out there it will. if it doesn't reaccelerate, amazon's stock is capped right here. you have to get the margin expansion for the free flow cash margins overall. we'll get record high margins for a a variety of reasons. they kind of regionalized the distribution center networks in north america i think that led to a lot of cost efficiencies and saving. and there are other things they can optimize like shipping costs. but that leads to higher and recorder and recorder business margins. and leads to record high pre tax margins too. aws growth has to reaccelerate we think it will. you, of the reasons it's our top

pick. >> john, i imagine you make the similar arguments. focus on aws, do you believe they need to and it will accelerate in terms of the growth rate? >> we do. we have a revenue at 13% growth and 4q from 12% in 3q and revenue growing 16% in 2024. we believe it will accelerate because we found, in a sur ray of 700 companies we did in july, 75% of those said the cost optimizations that have been plaguing aws and the rest of the cloud players will be over by the end of the 2023. that gave us support for the argument that revenue will reaccelerate and the second thing is i think management has been more bullish at 3q on your term booking trends, which is a positive signal for future revenue growth. >> yeah. you know, john i'm curious what, if anything, would give you pause? i think about amazon, i can

think of a few quarters in there that analysts, like the two of you would have anticipated. is that a fear or have they gotten religion when it comes to that? >> i think they have. to mark's point, the reason that amazon is our top pick. our income for next year, we're at 58 billion. it's 25% above sell consensus and record margins. and it's driven by further scaling of aws and advertising. both high margin businesses. but the rest of biz, if you subtract those two we have at about $4 billion of op income. 21, 22, 23, that business was minus 38 billion on our math and there's a lot of things, you know, that kind of went into that negative that have reverted. and i think i think we're going to be a positive territory, obviously for 2024, and then, you know, kind of going forward. the one thing i would call out, obviously with this a.i. kind of

technology would be investment spend, cap x spend on aws. we're at about 39 billion in cap x next year for aws versus the estimate for 35 billion this year. so that's something we're looking at for amazon as well as alphabet and other players. >> i wanted to ask, mark, about the reporting we talked about with regard to alphabet and google, the information citing a person familiar with the matter, google plans to reorganize the 30,000 person ad sales unit and as it relies on machine learning for customers to buy more ads. how big of a deal is that and does that change the dynamic of the picture in 2024? >> if there's one megacap tech stop that hasn't gotten the memo, it's google. i know they had a riff but in what other companies have done, it seems to have been small and i think that's a bit of -- a

small overhang on google shares. they never got down like meta did last year. but the reason that this jumps up on this news is that there's a sentiment out there that google could do a lot with the cost structure. i think it's a permanent change in tech -- famous last words -- it is. i think there's a focus on cost. i think the meta drama from '22 to this year and how the market positivity supported or encouraged them or rewarded them for taking costs more seriously, i think it played out and other companies have noticed it. that's why you see the broad levels of rifts and it's painful. they were in tech for the last 12 months. i think there's a much greater awareness of a need to be more cognizant. these industries are more mature than they were, they have to handle expenses more maturely.

they do it so they get rewarded by the market. if google does it, google can nicely outperform next year. the question is where they change their tune on costs. i think it's debatable. >> we always seem to think it's going to happen and you hear ruth is cracking down and then it never gets there. guys we'll be watching all of those stocks. amazon and alphabet amongst the key ones. appreciate you taking time. thank you. >> thank you. >> happy holidays. >> as we go to break, the biggest laggards, a couple related to earnings fedex and general mills both in the top five. meantime, eunice jung is in shanghai. what's ahead? >> reporter: disney's only z zootopia themed attraction in the world. more on disneyland shanghai in a few minutes.

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are you sure no one is watching? gwen mallard! do it now, or we leave without you. ok. animated movie premiered in 2016 but it has had staying power in one of the most importt markets that being china. and it is making a big splash today. eu eunice joong joins us fr shanghai disney. >> it's cold here, david but that did not stop hordes of people from coming into zootopia land. this is the first zootopia themed attraction for disney, ecifico chinand based on conversations with people here, that was a big draw and part of the appeal. in fact, people were dressing up as their favorite characters

from the movie. sney told us it's china's highest grossing imported animated feature. it's the park's second expansion and 's really important to the company and it's obvious becse some of the top brass me in for the grand ceremony including josh demaro saying the course is it's part of the company's $60 billion ten year expansion plan for the parks. disney intends to open a third hotel here in shanghai. the investment runs counter to a lot of the conversations that we've been hearing from other erican companies. a lot of concern about investment coming into china and this overall uncertainty in the environment.

i asked about opening the pa at a time when u.s./china tensions are so high and he said the company just really focussing on the business. and i have to say based on a lot of the conversatio we're having today with a lot of the visitors that they were very excited about the new detail for this zootopia land. some peoplwere saying they were disappointed that there's only o ride here but most of us, what was interesting is how much people are spend. some people sa they're spending $430 just today. so there's still a lot of excitement. i think what it really was telling me, and i think should tell investors is that despite a lot of the geopolitical tensions that we see between the u.s. and china there's still a lot of interest by average chinese in american companies and what they have to offer. >> yeah. i think eunice, through the years, bob iger has made

countless trips to china -- >> reporter: he said 49. this is his 49th trip! >> wow, i didn't think it was that high. that's amazing. >> reporter: 49. >> and the movies are widely available in china typically as well. disney's output, correct? >> reporter: yeah. yeah. there were -- there are some hiccups, i think, for some of the disney titles. i think that's true for a lot of the foreign titles. but on the whole, the movies get a very good reception. and i think what was interesting to is just how we're seeing disney kind of fit into the overall consumption picture because on t whole consumption has been weakening. people are worried about their jobs, worried about just the overall level of income that they have. but at the same me, one breakout area has been domestic tourism. so disney really fits right into

that. the reon for this breakout in domestic trism is partially because of this constrained the constrained travel that we saw due to the pandemic as well as just changing lifestyles. so people are really getting out there, and that's benefitting places like disney. >> all about that's benefiting like disney. >> all about experiences. $400 for one ride. it's pretty remarkable. >> absolutely. >> eunice, thank you so much. still to come, the s&p outpacing emerging markets in 2023, but one country would be poised to break out in the new year. a quk breaou which one, after (sfx: stone wheel crafting) ♪ the biggest ideas inspire new ones. 30 years ago, state street created an etf that inspired the world to invest differently. it still does. what can you do with spy?

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2023 has not been a stellar year for international investing. bob pisani joins us looking at one country outperforming its peers. >> europe has done okay, but not a lot of enthusiastic flows. china has been a mess, and it's really pulling down emerging markets. as carl said, it's not been a stellar year, particularly emerging markets, due to that very poor performance from china. the big exception here is india. the i-shares india etf is up 15% this year. there was a new high yesterday. there have been significant inflows into larger etfs to

track india this year, for international investors, india hits many of the buttons for an ideal emerging markeeconomy. first, it's got a lot of people, 1.4 billio the population is very young. one third urnder 30. the fastest growing gdp of any economy, about 7% annual. the fourth is government. india is the world's largest democracy. fifth, india has a talent pool almost unmatched. their s&p 0 has 25 ceos of indian origin, including alphabet and microsoft. finally, it's very tech-focused. in 2009, india rolled out a digital identification system, which has now enrolled almost the entire country. every citizen gets a unie 120-digit identity number and waenrolled in a digital biometric database using fingerprints and eyeball scans. this enabled very easy access to financial and social services. 1.3 billion people have registered in the database, almost everybody.

780 million have opened a digital bank account, 500 million have used it to get a mobile phone, which you can get for $12. a mobi phone. there's also a payment layer here. there's an instant and free transfer of money, inclung the system. so the indian economy has gone, essentially, from paper to completely digital in about seven years. in 2016, less than 5% ofhe economy was digital. today, 80% is digital. it's quite remarkable. we've hed this kind of enthusiasm for other emerging markets in the past. david will remember, the asian tigers of the 1990s, we were waxing rhapsodic about them and it all blew up. and remember china? a lot of people were enthusiastic about china in the past 15 years and are not anymore. bulls say the big difference is unlike china, india is not a communist country. the indian stock market has, indeed, performed very close to the united states in the last ten years, remarkably similar, but the pain china etf is down about 36%. so it does hit all the right but the tons for the perfect

emerging market economy. the question is, how long can they keep executing so perfectly? that digital identification system is remaable. absolutely remarkable. and people -- the fellow who did that, they brought him in and saidyou let me run this thing, and i willring india into the 21st century, and he really did. the man deserves a lot of accolades for wh he was able to do. what we don't knows can they keep executing? it's a big, big difficult-to-govern country. so who knows? >> it's an enormous country. >> we'll be talking more about investing in india today. we'll have butter maliki on, the legendary author of "a random walk down wall street." he's been a big indian bull. kevin carter, head of strategas, and we'll talk about international investing and where to go from here. >> a random walk in india, maybe. >> "a random walk down wall street", was he's been very big on india for a number of years.

hits all the right buttons and they seem to be able to execute on the growth. >> do you buy some of the anecdotal input that regulatory friction is there is pretty intense? >> it's very, very difficult. and i think that's been a problem with expanding, look, apple is obviously trying to expand into china -- excuse me, into india now. and the regulatory hurdles have been very significant. it's one of the things i want to talk to kevin carter about. haas an issue for them. think about the, 1.4 billion people, almost no one had access to the internet ten years ago and now everyone does. everyone has a flip phone. everyone has a bank account. it's remarkable. >> bob, thanks. >> oy. >> bob pisani. our live market coverage continues after this. then developers will have to write code. a lot of code. if an application needs to be modernized then you'll need time, resources... and caffeine. if this sounds daunting then use watsonx code assistant ai designed to multiply developer productivity

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and sharpen your skills with an immersive online education crafted just for traders. all so you can trade brilliantly. good wednesday morning. welcome to "money movers." i'm carl quintanilla with leslie picker live at post nine of the new york stock exchange. sara eisen is off today. ahead, will 2024 bring a rebound in m&a in the sector or will the regulatory environment keep some buyers at bay? we'll talk about it. >> plus, the ceo of fifth third on the rebound in regional