tv Squawk Box CNBC April 2, 2024 6:00am-9:00am EDT
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big it's tuesday, april 2nd, 2024. "squawk box" begins right now. good morning. welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc. we are live from the nasdaq market site in times square. i'm becky quick along with joe kernen and andrew ross sorkin. as joe mentioned, yesterday was a little bit of a difficult day for the markets. you saw red arrows across the board. nasdaq ended slightly higher. s&p and dow were down. those red arrows are carrying over. here is how the major averages kicked off the second quarter. dow off 240 points.
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the s&p down .20%. the nasdaq up slightly up .1%. the treasury market was having. ism manufacturing numbers came out that were showing growth for the first time in a year and a half. you would think that is good news. it pushed back expectations for rate cuts. you can see the ten-year note at 4.33. the two h-year note at 4.71. yields moved up to the highest level in a couple of weeks. that manufacturing data was a surprise. >> that was 4.34. >> yeah. >> 1.9. it was 4.20 yesterday. >> 14 basis points. it was on the stronger than expected ism. you add that together with the higher inflation data with the pce numbers on friday and the comments from jay powell and
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christopher waller last week and all of it has people thinking that june rate cut may not happen. the fed futures fell below -- >> roger ferguson said it over and over again. he has been our accurate barometer overall of it. >> we were at six and settle for five. okay. four would be good. we decided we're going to do three. it could be one or two. now three is suspect. one is like kissing your sister. >> we're in jamie dimon camp. he said this. everyone said he was crazy. >> the crazy thing is it will cause the fed to stay higher for longer to cause a recession. >> right. because of stronger than anticipated inflation. >> the reverse call. economy is so strong that we have a recession. >> i think jamie dimon's point is inflation is running strong. >> that's what it will be.
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can't cover inflation. >> it is not transitory. you have to stay high. maybe raise again. i'm thinking we can't guarantee. we argue with analysts. up 5% or 10%? what if it was down 5%? we sometimes think they will raise rates. >> it is possible. you are talking about the s&p performing up 10% in the first quarter. >> that's our attitude. up 5%, up 10%? we never talk about down. >> talk about up/down. talk about the vote happening as we speak. disney pulling ahead now in the proxy battle against nelson peltz with more than half of all shares voted on according to the wall street journal. people familiar with the matter
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said blackrock is backing disney. and t. rowe price will support disney as well. there are still votes which need to be cast and that can change through the annual meeting which takes place tomorrow. of course, you have a certain count now. it is possible and there are folks out there who have been with us who think that like some of the presidential elections, you might not actually get an answer tomorrow night. this could go on for weeks. there could be efforts to recount. we could be into that -- >> hanging chads? >> that snoer. >> a couple of the big institutional investors yesterday. that's what they were hanging their hat on yesterday. all of these votes could be changed after tomorrow's meeting. that adds to the uncertainty. >> i don't think the big guys will be changing their views quickly. joe. >> it is interesting.
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you think about wage gains and you have to measure wage gains with inflation. what about when the cms gives you an increase in medicare and medimmemedicaid services and itt go up muchin the inflationary environment? you don't have as much. shares are tumbling across the board. centers for medicare and medicaid services finalized the next year's 2025 rate announcement for medicare advantage and prescription drug coverage in the final rate of 3.9% increase. 3.7% increase. it is unchanged from the earlier proposal in january. analysts were expecting a bump up from that. the rate increase is a de facto cut after you account for the rising costs of labor, drugs and medical services and all of the stuff we talked about with inflation. new price caps on out of pocket
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spending on prescription drugs that was introduced in the inflation reduction act. when we first saw it yesterday, it was up 100 points on the dow and then suddenly down by the end of "squawk box." united health was really down. >> really interesting to think about this and implications because the bad news on this is if you think it is good news for you on the insurance front, what i will say is insurance plans have a way of getting the money back. they work in the benefits and they find other ways of coming at it. >> to keep the medical loss ratio up. we need to probably cut down on healthcare inflation. that's the biggest provider. >> the tapeworm eating up more
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of the budget. >> usa today. we all want to live to 100. >> yeah. >> what will it cost? what's the cost of everyone living to 100? that's a minimum for what i'm thinking. especially with the cyborg capabilities. we have some of them already. i'm going to be part machine. >> terminator? >> hoping. your worst nightmare. i'm over here at 100. you'll be a geezer by then. >> not a thought i want to conte contemplate. >> we are contemporaries. you know, years ago with two great giants in literature. they can be 30 years apart and one can feel young and i'll live forever. they are contemporaries, andrew. think that way. not boomer versus hip gen zer.
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shares of pvh is plunging this morning. they anticipate tougher sales this year in europe. pvh expects first quarter to fall 11% to $1.1 billion and a drop of revenue of 6% missing the street expectations. that weak guidance is overshadowing fourth quarter earnings and expectations. the stock down 23%. that shows you how punishing the street can be if you are giving bad guidance if you are even meeting expectations. shares of trump media falling 21% yesterday after the company reported a net loss of $58 million in 2023. we are getting the numbers on revenue of $4.1 million. think about that.
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think about what is underneath the company. the company disclosed it nearly ran out of cash last year and would have struggled to survive without the recent deal to take it public. it would not have existed. in the filing, the company expects operating losses for the foreseeable future and former president trump's involvement could harm the company. the stake of shares worth $3.81 billion after yesterday's close. the stock hit a high of $79 last week after going public via spac. he still has to get permission from the board of the company to sell his shares in the next six months or take a loan out against them. otherwise, all of this is paper money and irrelevant. there is the meme of the stock
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which there is no way or justification to get there. >> pick your spac. a lot of them are down 90%. >> you think in this case like the dimon hands folks who said they were in forever and they were trying to stick it to the man. do these people -- >> this is a different type of meme stock. >> sure. whoever is doing this, do they understand they are likely to lose their shirt and is that okay for them? they are funneling money from one -- you are basically funneling money from one person to another to exacta elecxact a election outcome. >> it is a bet on the election. if he were to win and use his truth social as a main social
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media platform, think what used to happen with twitter or media coverage in general. there are cable news networks that exist because of trump. not exist, but the ratings are so much higher. it is a bet on the election. who knows at this point? >> if he is the president, there is a better underlining business? >> yes. >> i'll take the other side of that. >> all right. once again, they warn when you read the risk profile of the company. >> it is not a loan in that regard in the spac world. remember the meme? >> this is in a different league than the spacs. given how terrible the under lining business the spacs were. this is a meaningfully bad
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business. >> it was a shocker when it came out and went to $79. it was a shock. >> it is a shock at $46. >> what is the revenue? >> $4 million. >> $4 million and they won't release their monthly average users. >> $4 million. the company is worth? >> that's 100 times -- probably 1,000 times sales. >> that's w what's i'm saying. if people got this, the outcome they wanted -- >> if he was elected president? >> correct. >> probably still not going to be there. >> you will not get $46.90 ever. >> i don't see it replacing x any time soon.
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i've never been on it. >> what strikes me about this is -- when people talk about the credibility of the markets and manipulation, and what the s.e.c. is trying to look for here. this is the ultimate manipulated stock. >> who is manipulating it? >> i don't know. i don't know who decided they are betting on this. >> i think there is a lot of situations in the market where it is like save them from themselves and is a bat d bet. that is what the market is for. >> you don't need to look far to find spacs down 90%. you can say there was no underlining business from the beginning. when was gme really worth it? >> you look at the bubble with the stupid companies that went out? >> right. >> pet socks. i'm not defending it. >> some people think tesla is --
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>> it has an underlining business. >> great. you can have people come on and say it is a giant government subsidized ponzi scheme. that's is set to report any time now. analysts are scaling back expectations. we will talk to one next. you see that stock was $300 and now $172. "squawk box" is coming right back. one of the millions suffering from pain caused by migraine, nurtec odt may help. it's the only medication that can treat a migraine when it strikes and prevent migraine attacks. treat and prevent, all in one. don't take if allergic to nurtec. allergic reactions can occur, even days after using. most common side effects were nausea, indigestion, and stomach pain. relief is possible. talk to a doctor about nurtec odt. stevens dribbles up the court... he stops! ...for the championship!
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we're waiting the latest delivery numbers from tesla. let's bring in colin rush from centennial. colin, they are reflecting different delivery numbers than six months ago. is it already in the stock and e e e e e ex-pectations? >> it is interesting with how well the company is mpivoting ad embracing the a.i. platform. this will be stinstructive how e stock performs in the next 12-to-18 months. >> how many articles have been
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written about china and the demand in china? we are awaiting the delivery numbers and instead offing thinking about the things elon musk could do in the future with tesla. what we are expecting to hear todayand what were the -- what are the highlights in terms of demand pin china and europe and u.s.? >> we have seen that things are soft. we have seen the company working with the sales team to look at tactics around driving sales with the price increase around the start of the quarter to drive volumes. we think they are in the middle of being fully cleared out of inventory as they work to the model 3 as the percentage of production. we are also looking at the soft start to the year across the u.s. and in china. as the company starts to pivot
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away from china and other parts of asia or a lot of the demand and sell through on the vehicles coming from the china factory means the first quarter will be soft. to put real numbers on it, the street is at 485,000 vehicles. we're at 468. where the street is much closer to 450. if we are in that mid 460 range, the stock will hold up today. >> a lot of things swirling around tesla. we heard again that maybe consumers that want an ev, they just don't want an ev, they want a tesla. that's always been the case. dominant. maybe a couple of others that can make some inroads. tesla is it. we also hear about elon musk's mercurial personality. sometimes he seems to be tweeting or focused on x or
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whatever you want to do. we hear about reputational damage with people saying i'm not buying a tesla now. is that ever going to actually be more than a side show, but something that terms the stock price? >> i think we have already seen it. we have seen substantial price declines north of 20% over the last year or so on pricing for the company. a big part of that is the incremental buyer. the issue around twitter and elon's personal views on politics and other things in the world have turned off a lot of potential buyers. you see it on the liberal side of the spectrum with people buying evs and teslas specifically around climate issues and have backed off tesla and wanting to spend elsewhere.
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>> it is funny to watch. ironic because you just pointed out the liberal people with climate issues and they're horrified at elon musk's politics. he went from hero to goat pretty quickly. what would they buy if they want an ev? who would be the beneficiary? maybe you can't pick. i can't figure out who it would be. >> we have seen hybrids making a comeback. toyota has done well with the prius. it is a different vehicle from what we see from the tesla cars. that's been a real beneficiary. you have seen bmw and rivian do well with the interest level on the vehicles and hyundai is a company which has a good vehicle out on the road. consumers are saying why not wait at this point. if you are going through a
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change from gen 2 to gen 3 and we are expecting that to happen in latter half of 2025, consumers can wait for what else comes to market. >> and the ev charging stations. that rollout is stuck in reverse. you are right. people are going hybrid instead. colin, you are at 460 something? >> ha468. the street is 485. if the number holds up in the 4646 460s it will support the stock. >> those are things we can watch. thanks. >> thank you. when we come back, the california minimum wage hike for fast food workers is now in effect. we will show you what the cfo of chipotle said about the increase last night on "mad money." later, news you can use.
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to be brilliantly boring with your money so you can be happily fulfilled with your life... which is pretty un-boring if you think about it. thank you, boring. california's fast food wage hike took effect yesterday raising the minimum wage to $20 an hour for some workers. that included chipotle restaurants. last night on "mad money," jim cramer asked the cfo about the hikes. >> we didn't want to raise on april fools.
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we wanted to break even to offset the impact. it is a significant increase in wages, although the wages are above others, but it will be a high teen to 20% increase. we will fare well in this. we offer a great value. >>the minimum wage increase is an increase of 25% overnight as he mentioned where they were above that. their increases are mid teens to 20%. shares of chipotle are up 68% over the last year. google planning to destroy a trove of data as millions of web browsing history. this is part of the settlement which accused google of misleading the browser tracking activities of anyone who used the private i ncognito mode. the marketing did not inform folks properly that data was
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collected and include details which web sites they viewed. >> great. >> right here. >> great. >> a spokesman said the company is happy to delete old technical data. the tracked data was never associated with an individual or used for any personalization or any wives, a joke, nobody laughed. >> you are on your own on that one. sorry. >> i'm trying to stay away from that. there's a german psychiatry called transfer espeance. >> it does allow for individuals to file claims. plaintiffs were seeking $5,000 in damages per user. >> here is my question. they destroyed the data because they weren't appropriately and properly advising you they were doing this tracking. do they change what they say in the crazy long statements? >> i don't know. >> are they tracking it from here on out? >> i think they don't track it
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from here on out is what i recall reading. i could be wrong about this. >> while you were out, we got into a bit of the idea of what car companies are tracking in terms of the data they follow. a great piece in "the new york times." we spoke with the writer of the piece and journalist behind it. the car company keeps flashing we are tracking your information. there is no way to turn it off in the car. we had a lot of people who weighed in. >> the information is shared with the insurance conditions. >> shared with third parties who share with insurance companies who know, potentially, or it has happened. she tracked down a lot of people who were burned by this and insurance rates went up. >> it would be a higher than average speed. it doesn't measure if you roll through the stop sign? >> it knows if you brake sharply or exaccelerate quickly. that was the level of detail. >> is it out of the ordinary acceleration? what if you always accelerate
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quickly? >> the. >> i said i don't accelerate quickly. i do it all the time. >> it is never out of ordinary. no one has ever said anything. >> maybe your car is not tracking me. >> my car says something about a report. >> just so you know, we're tracking you. >> i hit the x. >> i tried to turn it off. you can't turn it off easily. you can turn it off, but it will then disable your gps and the ability to connect with the thing. i'm not sure if it disconnects the satellite radio. >> i'm back on the incognito. the entire time -- that is total bs. >> it was never incognito. >> they were tracking it to individual people. >> it wasn't tracked to you and showing up in your search history. in case companies were looking for your search history. >> the question is did you ever keep that data separate? at&t is in hot water over the idea their files were stolen with social security numbers. i don't know why a phone company
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would need that. >> the cookies. no cookies. if you go from one site. >> what are those things? >> if you were in your incognito mode or regular mode and you go from the dredge report to another web site and go from that web site to the wall street journal and the wall the street journal back to another site, they know all of the different sites you have gone to. i don't know how you feel about that. >> i think dredge is some of the most damaging porn on the internet right now. i do. >> it is all over your home page? >> i'm sorry? no, no, no. dredge is political porn. insuf insufferable. i try not to look at it, but then i don't see the florida man stuff. i want to see florida man stuff. i saw one yesterday. did you see that?
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>> no. >> emergency landing. poop was oozing out of the bathroom on the plane into the aisles. they had an emergency. you didn't see that? >> i missed it. >> i was on dredge. i'll send it to you. >> what is it? >> babylon could be the home page. babylon b i thought about reposting. i thought i could get canceled for some of those. they are out there now. they are saying stuff. >> i would hold your fingers back. coming up when we come back, the latest on the proxy fight with disney and nelson peltz. wall street journal saying disney pulled ahead with more than half the shares voted so ytngan anhi c happen and we have 24 hours more to go. we're back right after this. >> announcer: executive edge is sponsored by at&t business. next level moments need the next level network. [due at target in 5!] copy that. make a hard left down the alley.
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before i started playing basketball, i was kind of quiet. i wasn't really that confident or outgoing. but now, with basketball, i feel like a leader. yo, cayden! sport for good means to me that i'll be able to give back to my family and my community. goals can be accomplished, dreams can be accomplished, but dreams are just dreams if you don't go out and try to achieve them. learn more about sport for good at laureususa.com. welcome back to "squawk box." live from the nasdaq market site in times square. look at futures right now. we have red to tell you about. the dow looks to open down 172 points.
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nasdaq off 51. the s&p 500 off 15 points as we get said to talk about disney. >> again. >> the final countdown. theannual meeting is here. we could be finished soon. tomorrow, deisney's battle with nelson peltz is coming to a head. the board at the shareholder meeting is facing a tough fight for support for peltz grows. we have doug chai as a senior fellow and he also happens to be a disney shareholder. doug, thank you for being with us today. you have a pretty interesting story and unique perspective on all of this. why don't you tell us about this. you happen to be a retail investor in disney and teach a
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corporate governance class and you got an early call from trian. what did they say to you in that phone call? doug, hold on. we're not hearing you. i think that is an issue with the audio. maybe we can get that worked out. guys, can you check on that and see if doug can get that worked out? >> there we are. >> we are picking you up now. what happened? >> the trian and disney and blackrock has solicitors making calls and they are going deep into the shareholder base. they got to someone like me who owns a couple hundred shares. i'm a mom and pop and they called me on the home phone and reached me on the cell phone. this is trian. i called them back and talked to the call center operator and asked a couple of questions. if you want me to vote for peltz
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instead of the disney directors, what is the case here and i got a surface level argument which is what you would expect from one of these calls to a retail shareholder who teaches a law school class and knows what questions to ask. >> so, you said you were not super impressed with that first call, which it sounds as you describe it right now and you posted about it on linkedin and then got another call? >> yeah. i posted about it on linkedin and apparently the folks at trian picked up on that. they decided to give me a call. we set up a phone call and i spoke with one of their partners and one of their analysts. we had a really good chat for 45
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minutes. it was substantive and civil. they just wanted to make sure i had all of the answers that i needed because they knew that from the first call i had with the call center operator, i wasn't getting satisfactory answers. >> were you satisfied with the 45-minute conversation? what did they say? were you swayed? >> i can't say i was swayed. i read through all of the materials. i tried to pick apart some of the arguments and asked why they weren't emphasizing one thing or the other. it seemed like it was more of a case of we just need change for change sake. we're just the people to shake this place up. to me, i'm not sure that's good enough to unseat incumbent directors if the people you are replacing them with don't seem like exactly the right people for what i think are the biggest priorities there.
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>> what do you think are the biggest priorities? would you consider yourself a disney loyalist? >> i guess i am a disney loyalist. i enjoy the parks. i enjoy the content. i held the shares for decades now. the biggest issue there is succession. this is something that disney has not been able to get right. it goes back to the early 1980s. this is not a bob iger thing. you know, it almost seems like there is some cultural or systemic issue going on at disney. there is a case for change, but the question is do peltz or ruzullo or the blackwell nominees the right people for that task? the argument they are making in the materials address it a little bit, but they're mostly trying to make the case that
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disney's performance is poor and the board is bad. here are the two directors that are the weak links and we want to pick off. it is mostly this negative advertising campaign and very little on the substance for it. they say we want to restore the magic. it's not clear how they will do that. on the phone call, i wasn't able to get a sense of specifics. i asked them about the case of dupont and other fights, you had specific strategic initiatives, but in this case, you really don't. what i heard was more of the same of we want them to have more accountability and more of an ownership mentality. almost stock phrases, if you wilt will, that could an applied to many proxy fights. that is not good enough for what i think is moves that disney has
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already made that seem to be paying off and i'm willing to give them more time. >> they may not have realized what they were getting into when they reached out to you. doug, thank you. >> thanks for having me. >> this is what the big question is here. what will retail investors do? it sounds like it is reaching out to retail investors for proxy battles. doug mentioned he ownis a few hundred shares. >> they picked up his cell phone. i think i filled out a poll the other day. >> did you really? >> i did. i wanted to make a statement. >> okay. >> i wanted to make a statement. >> i have the power. >> i have the power. i'm going to register my dissati dissatisfaction, sorkin. coming up, tips to aid tvoax scams. sharon epperson joins us next.
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information. we hhave sharon epperson here with more. i just finished. >> that's good. >> the previous year. did you? sorry. >> april 15th meansing n nothin you. for most people, who scramble by april 15th, it is important to be aware of ghost preparers. ghost preparers are common. they often promise a big refund and charge a fee for the return and don't sign it or fill out the portion of the return and it is blank and they get your personal information and count on you not bothering to read the return and they figure you will sign it and submit it. what should you do? always review your tax returns thoroughly before signing and if you are using a tax preparer, check out the credentials on the directory on the irs web site. remember this to prevent from falling prey from other scams.
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the irs will contact you through regular mail, not by phone and never initiate by text or email or social media. you can set up an online act on your own on irs.gov. never pay someone to do it for you. if you see an offer to get a big refund or help you pay pennies on the dollar on the next tax bill, those are red flags. here is a legitimate way to get more money that many taxpayers may be overlooking. the irs estimates more than $1 billion of refunds remaining unclaimed because people haven't filed their 2020 tax returns yet. there is an unusual extension on the regular three-year return filing window that is happening due to the pandemic. you now have until may 17th to submit a 2020 return. >> okay. it's not that bad. not that bad. not 2020. literally, last year -- it was
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2022. >> okay. >> three or four months ago. recently. >> it's anxiety. >> it all gives me anxiety. it's a pain, andrew. expensive. >> you can have someone helping you. >> you have to send everything. >> true. >> to the person. >> you have to look over everything and make sure it is right and make sure they have all of the documents so you can get all of the credits and deductions. >> there are no deductions. >> well -- >> are there? >> i don't know. not enough. coming up, when we return, we will talk to the ceo of the company that switched to a four-day workweek a year ago. and tomorrow, i'm reporting live from the sports leadership conference. we have a big interview. the first time this gentleman
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has been on cnbc, we believe, ever. steve cohen. chairman and ceo of point 72. the veteran of wall street. x. you have to ask him about >>ha tt is tomorrow in the 8:00 a.m. hour. we're coming right back. >> you have to ask him about fox. >> that's tomorrow in the 8:00 a.m. hour. we're coming right back. hi, i'm janice, and i lost 172 pounds on golo. when i was a teenager i had some severe trauma in my life and i turned to food for comfort. i had a doctor tell me that if i didn't change my life,
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you are working four days a week, and what will happen later this week. >> you do you friday. it's called you do you for a reason, and 70% of the employees did work, and they were able to clear the decks and have a great weekend and come back refreshed on monday. >> you have found any down side to the whole situation? how much of this is four days in office versus out of the office? >> great question. we did a whole study on this. we have real data to back it up. the business performed better, and the manager says the employees held -- 70% experienced burnout before, and now it's 35. people are feeling better and i don't see a down side. >> you get to work out of the
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office? >> yeah, we have employees who -- we have 25% of the for fortune 1,000 clients, and people structure what we call their readiness week. we are strict on you have to have breaks throughout the day and you are not allowed to be on a zoom for an hour and a half -- >> how applicable is this for every company. you are on the board of jetblue. can you run a company like that in this kind of way? >> that's a great question. we get that from a lot of clients. honestly, it's how you structure overall recovery for that particular insraoeurment. >> what about us? we have to be on for five days a week? >> you do, unless you said what about if we rotated? >> well, you can do -- what would you settle -- you one them
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here at least one day, right? >> it does raise the question of have and have knots, and there's a lot of restaurants you can't do, and you could be a restaurant worker and higher pay, and the equality measures -- >> yeah, totally agree with that. if you think about restaurant work as an example, like, you could stagger schedules and everybody can't take the same day off, but we can build a recovery into the day. >> what do you say to the ceos that run wall street banks in america that say part of the ethos of their business is a culprit of apprenticeship and a relationship culture, so if you have people traveling anyway two or three days a week you need everybody to be there so when folks are actually there there are folks for people to mingle with, for lack of a better word,
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and when they are not there, you can't build that culture? >> totally agree with that. we are talking about the i feel great, and young people are struggling. how about not every week, or quarterly, bringing teams together for distinct ru.scms you have to have that in-person connection. we believe in that. >> great to see you. thank you. "squawk box" will be right back. boring does. great job astro-persons. over. boring is the jumping off point for all the un-boring things we do. boring makes vacations happen, early retirements possible, and startups start up. because it's smart, dependable, and steady. all words you want from your bank. taking chances is for skateboarding... and gas station sushi. not banking. that's why pnc bank strives to be boring with your money.
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it's time for a wealth management experience as sophisticated as you are. it's time for corient. futures slipping this morning after the s&p falls at the second of the quarter. disney entering the final days of a bitter proxy fight. that stock and other names on the move this morning, including some of the health insurers.
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and president xi's message, and will that resonate with some of america's biggest companies. we will talk to commerce secretary, carlos gutierrez. the second hour of "squawk box" begins right now. ♪ ♪ good morning, and welcome back to "squawk box" here on cnbc. i am andrew ross sorkin along with becky quick and joe kernen. take a look at the futures at this hour, and two hours before the market is set to open but we would open down. nasdaq off about 68 points. the s&p 500 looking to open down about 18 points. treasuries, which moved around a little bit and maybe led to some of this, but the ten-year note
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here. and crude moved up, and that may be impacting things here. meanwhile, crypto -- >> crushed. >> crushed? >> crushed. you have looked at it? >> yeah. down 6%. how do you look at this? i will tell you both. risk off. number two, no rate cuts. that's why we are 4.35 on the ten-year, and suddenly the whole narrative of another easing cycle and printing cycle from the fed, that's when it goes down. >> but it's on a strong economy. -- >> it's a category -- you get to choose your own -- >> it's both! >> i don't know if it's both. >> of course it's both.
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it's risk off, risk off. you look at the nasdaq -- >> gold is doing the same thing. >> gold is not up today, right? >> 281. >> gold, man, i don't know what that means. >> gold. >> i love gold -- >> it's the meme we used to use. >> well, it's one number that is a minor part of the economy and it doesn't make up the sector in services -- >> 190 plus yesterday was what? 240. >> that's a 6% drop at 240. the numbers are big when you get up this high. >> what do you mean? >> 240 points was a 0.6% drop,
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which is minor. >> we have not had a 2%. >> that's a lot of points. >> if we go to zero rate cuts, where that gets baked in -- >> our next guest has thoughts about this. he says the s&p 500 is getting increasingly vulnerable to a selloff. sam, what do you mean? what comes up, must come down? >> we had a strong quarter, actually, ranked number 11 going back to world war ii. essentially what we find is it does offer a running start into april as well as into the second quarter where we have had an average increase that is better than the average for all years, but what it does imply, though, of the top 15, 13 of them experienced declines of 5% or more along the way, so an intra year decline, with the average
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being minus 11%, and eight of the 13 had a second intra year decline, so it could be a volatile year even though 14 of them ended with the double digit year. >> buckle your seat belt because you are in for a potential roller coaster ride. >> exactly. >> can we say what was taking place at the time? >> you go back to 1975, so right after the 48% bear market triggered by opec, and 1987 was the only observation in which we had a single digit advance. 1991, so right after the gulf war, and then also 1998, and these are the top ones i am reading off. that was during the height of
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the dot.com bubble. you know, i would tend to state real question is what is likely to be happening based on interest rates, economic growth and et cetera. >> sam, we were just talking gold. you have thoughts on why gold is behaving this way hitting record highs. what is up? >> i think hitting record highs, first off, because of the prospect of lower interest rates, and i hate to admit this, but i might agree with joe in that maybe if we have the possibility that the fed will be slower to lower interest rates, and that we do end up with two or even one rate cut after the election, then i think that could cause investors -- that would be the trigger or a catalyst for a correction. i think gold has been benefiting
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from interest rates, and increased tensions in the middle east, and central banks increasing their purchases and i also think that we are seeing a slight improvement in the chinese economy, and that has been propelling gold prices. i think we could have a target of about 2,600 an ounce. >> i am with you, andrew, with sam's record, if he agrees -- if he -- yeah, i am with you. i don't want him agreeing with me. >> you are coming to me? >> yeah. >> oh, my goodness. >> you lost me now, sam. >> sorry, joe. >> that's okay. the tech trade, big questions about whether it's a tired trade at this point or whether it could continue and if ai pushed that forward. what do you think? >> i think we are going through a digestive phase in tech because tech has done so well, and along with communication services, financials, and you
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want to let your winners ride, so while we could end up seeing a correction in time, and even a slight noise, if you will, meaning a sub 5% decline in this area, i would tend to think tech is likely to be an outperformer when 2024 comes to a close. >> you are still looking for three rate cuts from the fed? >> right now that's what we are looking at, sure. it's starting in the june timeframe. obviously everything is data dependent, even our own forecast. >> yesterday, the market kind of bet with its feet and is pushing that off with a less likely scenario? >> yes, but if you look today, we are looking at a 58% chance that the fed will actually start in june. right now i think it's a toss up between the first rate cut occurring in june or july. certainly the closer we get to
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the election could be a question as to whether they want to start it in september just before the election. every election year since 1992 has had a change in fed policy except for 2012, so it's not unusual to have the fed make monetary moves in an election year. >> okay. sam, thank you for being with us today. >> my pleasure. thanks, becky. coming up, world autism awareness day. we will speak with the cofounder of the autism impact fund which invests in companies with the aim of changing how we diagnose, treat and support those with autism. later, china's xi jinping trying to reassure that doing business in china is good, and
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that's when "squawk box" comes right back. (grunting) at morgan stanley, old school hard work meets bold new thinking. (laughter) at 88 years old, we still see the world with the wonder of new eyes, helping you discover untapped possibilities and relentlessly working with you to make them real. old school grit. new world ideas. morgan stanley.
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her uncle's unhappy. i'm sensing an. underlying issue. it's t-mobile. it started when we tried to get him under a new plan. but they they unexpectedly unraveled their “price lock” guarantee. which has made him, a bit... unruly. you called yourself the “un-carrier”. you sing about “price lock” on those commercials. “the price lock, the price lock...” so, if you could change the price, change the name! it's not a lock, i know a lock. so how can we undo the damage? we could all unsubscribe and switch to xfinity. their connection is unreal. and we could all un-experience this whole session. okay, that's uncalled for.
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not all about money, and somebody close to you, as most of us do, has autism. we will try and make progress and do it in maybe this is the best way to raise money in a for-profit vehicle. >> that's our belief. it's great to be back on "squawk box." thank you for having me. especially on this day, world autism awareness day. we are excited to say over the last couple of years fast-forward to now, we have created an ecosystem within autism that never existed before, and we are now able to validate that in the market. i think one of the greatest and most exciting things we are able to say is autism is investable and we have been demonstrating that in the last few years. >> there's detection and maybe
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some therapeutics and early intervention and maybe support for that -- do you have a number? there has to be tens of millions of young adults or adults -- they have to figure something out for where these people live with support and jobs, and they are incredibly talented, and 90% of them are incredibly talented. >> millions in the u.s. and millions around the world, and we wanted to revolutionize the status quo for diagnosing, treating and living with autism. >> i can't imagine trying to develop therapeutics because the spectrum is so wide. there are some -- you are using drugs for other mental diseases, i think, for autism and it's not
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a good fit. do anti-spsychotics help people with autism? >> well, we build out the thesis that we wanted to be at the forefront of innovation across the entire spectrum, and we are looking at therapeutics and tech-enables services and housing and what can address all those areas. >> ai can help diagnose -- if you detect something in a one or 2-year-old, you can do certain language training and other things that can help them be able to live their best live, and exceed or at least meet their owepotential, and early prevention won't kcure autism?
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>> well, we met our goal and it had to be done and we were the first ones to do it, and there's lot of work to be done and capital, and we look at the investors we have as well as advisers, and these are individuals that can help us bring in extra capital and expertise into the areas you mentioned. >> there's hard core genetic science. how many genes have we identified now that are involved? >> there are a lot. >> hundreds? >>thousands. we look into the environment, genetics, the biology and the whole approach, and they look at the entire child ads well as th family, not focusing on genes or one aspect of it and we need to take a holistic approach, and ai
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is a buzzword, but that's where we are seeing a lot of innovation and excitement. >> there are thousands of genetic markers that develop in a therapeutic -- >> seems like it would have to be a bottoms up approach, to look at every gene along the way. >> it's head row genious for sure. we hope now we will bring additional capital, significant capital to bring more change. >> companies need to know how productive and how great people with autism can be as employees, and in terms of living with autism, that's the third component of companies you are investing in. you would need living facilities, and you would need a
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place where people can work and are welcomed. what does that look like? do you have a company that looks like? >> under the 12 we invested in, we would put that in the bucket of independence, and that's housing, and the global leader in employing individuals with autism and other x conditions. >> how long ago were you on? >> two years ago. >> that's when you had the idea to start? >> yeah. we are just getting started. moving forward we are seeing that it's not just autism. there's other genetic components to this, and other comorbidities, and other complex conditions that fall into what we are doing, and in the near
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term, the demand, the size and scale of the societal issue is not far off. >> 1 out of 36 male children, and in california it's higher. if it continues at this rate we will add another $4 trillion in the next ten years, and then the rate of incidents -- >> there are solutions, too. it doesn't have to be a drag on society. it could be an additive to society if you do it correctly with these people, and we have seen it, people with autism. thank you. >> thank you for having me again. >> you are welcome. and then shares of pvh are plunging. the company forecasting falling sales because of a suffer ecoeconomic backdrop.
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the guidance overshadowing fourth quarter revenue and earnings that beat expectations. we will have dom chu after the break. take a look at the futures in the red this morning, 210 points down on the dow. we're coming right back. so you can rise from pain. icy hot. what is cirkul? cirkul is the fuel you need to take flight. cirkul is the energy that gets you to the next level. cirkul is what you hope for when life tosses lemons your way. cirkul, available at walmart and drinkcirkul.com.
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everybody, welcome back. let's get over to dom chu. he has been taking a look at this morning's premarket movers. what are you checking out today? >> becky, we will start with the news on health care and insurance kind of thing and exposure to government insurance programs, they are all on the decline. united health, humana, cvs, down 3 to 9%. this is how cms announced how much things would increase for prescription drug coverage, and it's the 3% hike is the same proposed back in january. that's the reason why you are seeing shares of the big health
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insurance companies with the big down side, and so watch united health, humana, cvs and others. disney down three quarters of 1%. it lacks like it has a slight edge in the proxy fight among investors, and the disney board has gotten support from tee row price. this is all happening ahead of disney's big shareholder meeting which is slated for tomorrow. let's end with what has been the most searched ticker, and it's the ten-year treasury field, and that's trump media
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and technology, and it's former president trump truth social platform. it's down around 45 shares of volume. closed down 21% yesterday. the company disclosed it generated a net loss, and shares hit a high of $79 plus on its debut. it was still worth roughly $6.6 billion, so watch that ticker, and it's down 2.5%. >> i was trying to figure out why humana shares are down so much more? the reason is the cfo told investors last month they would
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miss the target, and they been up front about what this would mean. >> yeah, and you would think others would try to trade off trying to mirror that. when we come back, a look at how monthly mortgage payments have grown over the last year and why home pces riare not coming down. former commerce secretary, carlos gutierrez, will talk to us. does the work. so if i spot an opportunity, in robotics or pets, i can buy those stocks ina few clicks. can't be that easy. it is with schwab! schwaaab! schwab investing themes. 40 customizable themes. up to 25 stocks in justa few clicks.
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home prices continuing to rise even as mortgage rates settle at more than twice what they were during the first years of the pandemic. higher rates usually bring prices down, but this market is unlike any other, and diane olic joins us to explain. >> home prices in february were higher than last year, and while the annual comparison is shrinking the price gain from january to february is twice what it was historically prepandemic, suggesting this spring's market started out strong despite another round in mortgage rate.
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the problem continues to be lack of supply, and there are more new listings than last spring, and supply is40% lower than what it initially is. the cost of moving up is so high. how high? new numbers from ice mortgage technology paint a pricey picture. in the 22 years before the fed started raising rates, forthe average homeowner upgrading to a 25% more expensive home would have increased their mortgage about 40%, or about $400 moving to a similar home across the street would not change the price at all. but trading up to a 25% more expensive home would result in a 132% increase in the monthly payment or $1,800 more, and they would have to increase their monthly payment by 60% just to buy their own home in the market
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across the street. this is an average for the nation, so it will vary market to market depending on how pricey your market is, joe. >> anything else, when prices hold up you get more supply. is that happening finally? >> we are getting a little more supply in the spring market, but we are well below where the normal market should be for spring and demand is very strong. you have a lot of people shopping around and a lot of people looking for homes and a lot of people in the new home market for new home construction, but supply is very low because you are not getting enough people putting their homes on the market because of the move-up affect. >> very good. thanks. carlos tkpwagutierrez joini, and tomorrow i will be reporting live from south carolina at the annual sports leadership
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conference, and we have a big exclusive interview with steve cohen, the owner of the new york mets and long time veteran of wall street. that's tomorrow in the 8:00 a.m. hour. so much to talk to him about. we're coming right back. don't overthink it. let's go shopping. actually what i need are some cleats. how about one of these? great. done. anything else? no. golf clubs? not for me, for a friend... yeah, yeah, of course... anyone impressed with how fast that was? yeah, totally! i know, i went to dicks... my cleats! thank you! i love you! wha... i-i went to dicks.com. ever heard of it? girl 2: yeah, i told you about that. ( ♪♪ )
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welcome back to "squawk box." two independent directors resigned from the warner brother discovery, and there was a competing media company, charter communications. they are investigating whether their service on both boards violated an act, and neither admitted to any violation. in a statement, they said they were disappointed to leave the board but wished to do the right thing for warner brothers discovery, and it raises the discussion on interlocking board members -- >> is this the department of justice in the definition of how they look at that? >> that was the read -- i don't know if you read matt
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bellamy's -- >> i didn't see matt's take on it. >> yeah, and the question next is if you are a wall street lawyer, how many boards are you calling today to say, look, you can't be on this board and that board at the same time. >> if they are going to look at antitrust and say they both sell video, that gets to broad definitions of what a competitor is. >> the warner brothers discovery issues, i would argue slightly is more complicated, because warner brothers is selling their content -- >> are they putting their best foot forward from that and is it going to spread from there? how does it get to that point, i guess? >> i don't know. >> i don't either, but we will see. president xi pledged further
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reforms to open the world's second large economy to foreign companies. joining us right now, following his trip to the forum, former commerce secretary and kellogg's carlos gutierrez. there were a lot of takes we got back from the meeting last week, and some things were said in the media and other things were whispered behind closed doors or in private, and the opening line we heard from most was this was a way of opening up, but the back room discussion taking place is these business leaders were being preached at and to and being told what they can and cannot do. how did you see things going? >> i heard about the economic forum, and i was at the blo
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forum, and xi jinping laid out this is what we are going to do and not going to do and this is what china's system is and that won't change that much, however -- you know, to your point, the speeches at blou, we had the chairman who is the head of the legislative branch, and his speech would have been something that we gave ten years ago. opening up, coupling is very unrealistic, and very positive towards trade. no question, there are frictions, but what i found in china is a vibrancy that has
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been there since i have been going to china. there are tractors and heavy machine raez, and i didn't see one person in the plant. the most advanced manufacturing facility i have seen in my life. what comes to mind is we're not going to out compete china with sanctions, we are going to out compete china with innovation and better management and getting ahead of the technology curve, but not through sanctions. it's not working. >> carlos, you were quoted in the media last week as saying i believe the u.s. is at fault, and it's not only the u.s. but the u.s. has a lot of responsibility for it. i understand your perspective, and i also feel like much of this was china's doing.
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for decades, china has been held to one set of rules and the united states has been held to another. w it's tit for tat. the u.s. is going along with it, and it seems to me that they are the ones that have been expected to be the more mature and more giving partner for decades and decades. >> i am glad you brought that up. the second half of the quote is, it's not only the u.s. i do believe that the step change that was made in the tension, the friction and the trade relations was when we took on tariffs and started the tariff war, and that's something we started. >> we started in a way to try and push for a more fair and equitable relationship. >> that's correct. that's correct. and i don't think the tariffs did a lot.
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i think what we tried to do was do it to reduce our deficit. in all fairness, our deficit has declined $20 billion or so and that's important, but we still have a huge deficit and i don't think we will ever get that to zero. we are both on the tit for tat. i think one of the problems that we have is just the rhetoric that comes out of our country. grant it, we have freedom of speech and anybody can say whatever they want and -- >> but it's not just rhetoric or nationalism that comes from this, carlos. it's decades of chinese companies ripping off and stealing protected property from american companies. can you look at microsoft with what they had to deal with in their software getting stolen, and nationals have been working in the united states and
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stealing intellectual property and sending it back to the chinese to compete with us, and we got tired of it not being a completely fair game on the trade front. there are lots of problems that led to this. it was the realization during covid that we were far too reliant on china as a nation, and then it goes to national security, what xi was saying, woe don't interfere in your border wars and you should not interfere in ours, and they are saying taiwan is their property and geography? >> yes, i think taiwan is a red line and we should understand that, and i think we should understand the historical role of taiwan. i think what we need to do, becky, is sit down with the chinese and define national security, define how it is that we are going to manage
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technology. if we find that tiktok -- and i don't have the information. if tiktok is a national security problem, then we have to act. i just hope that we are not using national security as a trade tool. >> i think it's much broader than just tiktok. >> let's talk about evs. let's talk about evs, and so now there's an idea that we have to stop importing evs because they will be able to track where u.s. citizens are traveling. if that's the case, then, yes, we have to act. it would seem to me that we can inspect a representative sample of evs coming into the country to see if there's some connection. i am sure we can find a nano chip or something to that
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affect. i believe just putting a ban on evs from china -- >> what about telecom? we said this with telecom and chips, and do you think those are over stretches with national security? >> if it's national security, yes, but i don't want to use national security for trade, and that's not our system, it's theirs. ours is private enterprise and tech and innovation, and not industrial policy. we are shifting to the point where our competitive stance is relying on lot on the sanctions. by the way, these sanctions hurt u.s. companies and china. i don't think we are helping u.s. companies. you know, acquisitions seem to be off the table. that hurts u.s. companies. yes, becky, i am not going to
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say the chinese are free from any fault here, but we have been behaving a bit like china over the last, say, eight years. i don't think the biden administration's policies have been much different than the trump administration policies. >> right. it does seem to be the one area where you get bipartisanship in washington. >> it's interesting. i don't know if it's going to pass the senate. fascinating, i heard donald trump is against banning tiktok. yes, look, everyone -- it's highly unpopular to have something positive to say about china. but we need to compete when we -- when they are, as you say, ripping us off, and we need to call them on it and take action.
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i believe -- you know, the biggest thing we can sit down with them is say let's define what we are going to do together, and let's define national security, and let's define data, localization, and we are beginning to talk about data localization, and frankly we have a right to do that because, you know, they are talking about data localization as well. yes, we can deal with this, but i think we need to sit down -- you know, not that it's an analogous, becky, but we negotiated an arms control treaty with the soviet union and that's a very complicated thing to do. i think we can negotiate a technology treaty, a data transfer treaty, a national security treaty with china which will make things certain -- at least a bit more certain today.
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it will be clear, and we will know where we stand and they tall know where they snd. >> thank you. coming up, what drives the modern day sports business with boardroom cofounder and ceo, rich klineman. he will join us after the break. we're coming right back. unlock support from the schwab trade desk, our team of passionate traders who live and breathe trading. and sharpen your skills with an immersive online education crafted just for traders. all so you can trade brilliantly.
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welcome back to "squawk box." new this morning, we are announcing the date of cnbc's game plan event in partnership with boardroom. the event explores, of course, the intersection of business, sports, music, and entertainment, and this year, it is happening on september 10th. mark your calendar, in l.a. joining us right now on set to talk about this and so much more in the world of sports, rich climan, the cofounder and ceo of boardroom. >> we'll see you in l.a. >> we will see you in l.a., september 10th. >> this is the second time you're doing this with cnbc. >> this is the second time. we just renewed a multi-year deal, so we'll be doing this for the next two years.
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this year will be september 10th in l.a. and as you can attest to, last year was a huge success. and we're looking to kind of recreate that magic again. >> do we know anything yet, or will it be a surprise? >> you'll be there. >> toulhat's true. >> hopefully joe and becky will be there. as we saw last year, we'll bring out the best and brightest minds, owners of sports teams, commissioners, athletes, and tons of other people sitting at the intersection of sports, business, and entertainment. >> let's talk sports. march madness, you're headed to arizona. z >> i am. >> what do you think is going to happen here. >> he's got his draft kings account going. >> who do you have? >> perdue. >> what about you, becky? >> uconn. >> on cbs, out of 2.89 million, i was 33,000th. >> that's good! >> that's very impressive. >> 33,000th place usually isn't that good. >> participation. >> i only got one of my final
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four teams right. >> i have three. >> stop! >> i do. i have alabama, perdue, and connecticut. >> i want to talk sports while you guys figure out. >> that's him. >> oh, by the way, because we're talking about betting, do you have a view on ohtani? >> do i have a view on ohtani? >> he's really good. >> he's an incredible baseball player. >> a view on what should happen? >> should he be playing baseball? >> yes, let him play baseball. i don't know. i don't know what happened. i'll take him on his word. >> you'll take him on his word. >> and on his translator's word. >> let me ask you about a different issue, which is, there is a major skirmish going on right now with the timberwolves. have you been following this? i imagine you must -- >> with glenn taylor -- >> and a-rod. this is a fascinating situation, where they were supposed to be the owners of the timberwolves. they had bought in 20% and were going to go to 40%, and majority
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owners, and now, the owner is saying, talk to the hand. you didn't pay on time, and we're not doing the deal with you anymore. what do you think is really going to happen here. and they would say they're all going to court. it's going to be a massive sort of food fight. >> i honestly believe they will ultimately do a deal. i don't know the intricacies of what the holdup was. i don't believe that it has to do with the success of the timberwolves this year. >> part of it is that they bought in at a time when the team was probably worth about 1.5 billion, and now it's probably double? >> yeah. >> so you don't think that taylor sitting around there saying, i sold at too low a price? >> well, i said the success of the team. i think the value of the team is obviously coming into play, but i think, ultimately, this is a bit of a standoff and that a-rod, and mark lorio will end up owning the team. that's my gut. >> will they have to pay more? >> i imagine that there will be some compromise. i think that's ultimately what
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this whole thing is about. i would imagine so. the team has gone up in value. >> talking about teams going up in value, where are you now in terms of -- we keep talking about how we reached peak sports valuations and we're looking at the cable on bundling and questions about espn and all of this. do you imagine that teams dpsh we had this conversation five years from now, are nba teams, are baseball teams and nfl teams worth more in five years than they are today? or do you separate them out as different -- >> no, i -- well, i think the nfl and the nba will continue to increase in value. these are multi-media platforms. these are brands with opportunities to generate revenue in all different types. >> i notice you did not say america's game, baseball in that group. >> no, i believe baseball will go up in value, but i don't know if it will go up in the same degree clearly. >> why is baseball not capturing the hearts and minds of america the way it did? >> well, first of all,
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everything is in constant. so i think it has slowed quite a bit from when we werekids, but i do believe in baseball still long-term. i think that the pitch clock has done wonders for the game, wonders. i was at opening day at citi field, and the entire experience has changed. and i didn't realize it until i was there, present, but i think that it's -- >> local markets, it's still huge. local, it's still huge. >> yeah. >> and i haven't bought anything out. i haven't bought the other services, but i have mlb. >> why haven't you bought the other services? >> i just haven't. i watched the reds during the day. i think the reds -- >> aren't you betting on everything. >> yeah, i'm like pete rose. >> oh, my goodness. >> you can be on cnbc and say you're like pete rose. i believe in baseball long-term, honestly. >> in my amount of betting on the reds. >> got it. can we do this separately. >> you just also got backn fro miami. >> how do you know? >> i'm following!
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i'm following. pickleball, is that going to be a sport the way we watch tennis? >> i don't know if you watch tennis, but i believe in pickleball, obviously. we just finally got through with the merger. the leagues have combined forces. everyone around this league is excited. they've been recapitalized y-- you're going to see a lot of changes, a lot of new announcements. i was at the miami open where they had a pop up and you could feel the excitement on the ground. i think the sports are meant to work hand in hand. this idea that they're battling is silly and the experience of these sports together was exciting. and yes, i think you'll -- there's a lot of new tournaments being announced. you should get on a court, andrew. >> the battling is between the people who want to use these things in their residential neighborhoods. and there's limited space amount. that's the battle. >> that's crazy. >> i want to know when the saudis will invest in pickleball. that will be the high sign. >> i'm sure soon.
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i saw sponsorships. >> we will all in paris at the olympics and mr. durant will be playing, i imagine you will be there. >> i will be there, mr. durant will be there, the leading score in basketball currently. >> come join us. >> oh, my god, please have me. and in paris, we can tease game "game plan" september 10th in los angeles, california. >> we're going to tease it with a flow code to give it a little credit -- maybe we're not going to -- >> but there's the address. >> nonetheless, you can check it out right there, cnbc. just put your phone up to it, cnbc.com events/game plan happening september 10th in l.a. you do not want to miss it. we'll be right back after this.
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good morning. futures pointing to a lower open on wall street as yields rise and the dow gets dragged down by a big-name health insurer. and disney's fight against nelson peltz approaching the finish line. it all ends tomorrow when disney ends its shareholder meeting. ahead of that, we'll speak with a top stock analyst. and it's been a week since the francis scott key bridge collapsed in baltimore. the city already dealing with economic repercussions. we'll talk about that with acting labor secretary. the final hour of "squawk box" begins right now.
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good morning and welcome back to "squawk box" here on the nasdaq market site in times square, i'm joe kernan along with becky quick and andrew ross sorkin. u.s. equities futures, maybe it's the beginning of the first pullback that we've seen in quite a while. 240 points down on the dow yesterday, even though the nasdaq was up. down another 240 -- >> 1.2%. >> it's not a lot, but 2%, we haven't seen on the s&p in quite a while. a lot of it has to do with continuing strong economic data. yesterday, it was the -ism manufacturing, which now has the ten-year at 4.36. it was 4.2 yesterday. crude oil is surging and rallying this morning. it's up about 85 or so.
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bitcoin really taking it on the chin, significantly, this morning. down 5.5%, all the way to 65,000. and then gold is at another high, another high. and what's funny is, we have mentioned gold breaking out to new highs when it got above 2,100, every single day. every single day, we mentioned gold and have pointed it out. i guess i won't go beyond that. there are just certain people, their calls have been so bad across a lot of different assets, they're so butt-hurt on how bad their calls have been, that now they're saying we've never mentioned gold. but we've been mentioning gold again and again and again and again since, as you can see -- are you allowed to say butt-hurt. that's like you get spanked, right? >> sure. i'll leave you -- you have each taken your own islands today. >> among today's top business
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stories, the worst market performer in the dow. that stock and another stock is getting hit on the announcements from medicaid and medicare services that government payments to medicaid advantage plans thex year are expected to increase by 7.3%, and that was below what some investors are anticipating. "the wall street journal" reporting that disney has pulled of activist investor nelson peltz in a bitterly fought proxy battle for board seats. the vote comes to a head at tomorrow's disney shareholder meeting. we'll speak with a disney analyst later this hour. and one more stock to watch. calvin klein and tommy hilfiger parent pvh, despite new results that beat analyst forecasts, companies forecasting a much larger than expected drop in revenue for its current quarter and full year, and that stock is down 22%, which if you're just waking up and happen to own pvh, you feel like going back to bed, probably. >> let's get an update on the
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fed. investors may be looking for less easing from the central bank this year. steve liesman joins us right now with the latest number. hey, steve. >> good morning, becky. the combination of stronger data, fed speak, and some technicals inside the bond market raising new doubts about a june federate cut. take a look at the probabilities for the june cut, now trading at 58%, just up from the lowest levels weefr seen. it was down near 50 yesterday. it traded near 75% two weeks ago and 62% last week. so you have this sinking sense of a june cut. the futures market has now grown somewhat more hawkish than the fed itself. the january fed contract for 25 now trading at 466. that's actually above fed officials' own median forecast of 4.60 for the year, just a little bit above, but it shows you the direction of things. all of this happening along with a surge in yields of both two-year and ten-year. the two-year is up 13 basis points from monday morning. initially as a first reaction to
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fed chair powell's comments on friday and the inflation report that we got, the ten-year playing catch-up this morning, up another six pips 4.36, it's the highest since november. while yields started the morning higher, they got an extra boost from stronger than expected manufacturing data. the atlanta fed boosting its first quarter gdp model, that was up half a point on the stronger data. later this week, we get the jobs report, it will help set the tone with payrolls. expect to come in below last month's real surprise of 275. a little strong at 200,000, the unemployment rate seen declining amid a higher wage growth month-to-month, even though it comes down. tomorrow, 8:30, right here on "squawk," we get to talk about all of these issues with atlanta fed president, raphael bostic. becky, back to you. >> it kind of feels like a role for the last couple of months, it's what we've been hearing from, i don't know, former vice
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chair of the fed, roger ferguson. >> well, a couple of things. first of all, i had been surprised at the resilience of equities in the face of this. now it looks like equities yesterday were bothered by the bond situation. i think that they looked at what was happening over there, i think they were confused or whatever. and they're like, wait a second, is the fed cutting or not? what i'm confused about, becky, more than anything is whether or not it's fed policy to cut, or is it just one of those things they would do if it seems right? in the sense that when i hear powell talk, i'm interested, it sounds like the june rate cuts' a done deal. i hear waller and some other members of the committee -- >> like they were walking it back. >> it seems like they're willing to wait. sorry, beck? >> it felt like they were walking it back, first with waller's commentary and even with what powell said on friday. >> yeah, you could have gone either way with powell, but i thought he was more sort of pointing towards that cut was going to happen.
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so i'm not precisely sure which way this is going, if it's policy or something that they would do if it's convenient or makes sense. in other words -- >> if you're data dependent and the data keeps getting worse, that's the -- >> right, what do you mean by "worse"? >> worse perspective -- >> better growth numbers, but higher inflation. worse from thor perspective that a rate cut makes sense. zb >> just to be clear and a little nuanced about the inflation numbers, they're not necessarily getting worse, they're not getting better -- >> it revised them higher for the last several months. >> at the clip they improved. >> they revised numbers up -- >> yeah, in terms of the year over year remained, i believe, constant, one of them came down a little bit. they're just not improving at the pace they had been improving. but here's the thing we remember, becky, the fed kind of raised the bar or a better way to put it is they lowered the bar for rate cuts in the sense that they raised their outlook
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for inflation this year to 2.6%. so ostensibly, they would be okay with that, and the three cuts. anyway, i'mhoping raphael could make some sense out of this tomorrow. >> thanks, steve, see you later. >> joining us now with a view on the fed, steve iseman. and we've had you on enough that i'm always a little bit hesitant to try ask you for big-picture, top-down analysis. a lot of times you don't really want to go there. >> actually, i have an opinion on this one. >> good, you have an opinion, just start by saying, we're in kind of an interesting environment where we're definitely worried that the economy, for fed reasons and for fed cut reasons, we're worried that the economy is staying strong. and that inflation -- >> i think it's more than staying strong. i think there's been a reacceleration. >> but we're also worried that there's going to be a recession, because the fed is going to have to engender one. so we're worried about the economy is too strong, and there might be a recession.
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so it's -- >> everybody is hoping for a little bear's porridge. >> exactly, something just right. has that ever happened? can we really orchestrate that? >> yeah, we have it right now, everybody should just relax. >> is that your view? >> my view is, i feel ever since greenspan was in charge of the fed, the fed has always been extremely insensitive to its own impact on markets. and when powell said -- i think it was last week, it feels like an eternity ago, that financial conditions are tight, i was like, what planet are you on? >> so, i mean, my view is the economy is fine, i think there should be no fed cuts this year, and the market will do whatever the market does, but the economy is fine and why would you cut -- my actual fear is that if the fed were actually to cut rates,
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the market goes into -- it becomes i guess bubblicious. and then we have a real problem. the fed should do nothing and because there's no weak data. >> we still argue, we look at rates in absolute terms or do you look at them -- >> that's a big -- >> but in absolute terms, they're not -- in absolute terms -- they're high. but they're up 500 basis points. >> has anything bad happened? nothing bad happened. >> i remember 7 and 8% in businesses that did just fine. >> the economy is good. it's reaccelerated somewhat. why would you -- on what basis would you cut rates? >> some people think that the shock of 500 basis points has dislocated -- >> but they've been talking about that shot for the last two years and the economy stays fine. >> what's causing the fed to talk about six rate cuts six months ago? >> my personal opinion is that i
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think powell deep down is just a dove. he's always been a dove. you know, raising rates was out of character for him. he had to do it. and he wants to cut rates, but at this point, you know, not that anybody ever calls me, was i would just do nothing. why would you do something when the economy is fine. >> you don't think we need to raise? >> no, i don't. but my fear is that if we cut, then eventually we will have to raise. that would be the worst possible thing that could possibly have. >> one of the things i've learned as a portfolio manager, maybe the hardest thing to do as a p.m. stood nothing. because it's so easy to actually do something. and it's the same thing with the fed. it's so easy to do something. they could cut whenever they want to cut. the hardest thing to do is sit back and say, everything's fine, let's sit and wait. if things get a little weak, we can cut. you said bubblicious. are we pre-bubblicious yet? >> look, the market -- but the
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fundamentals really good. one thing i always think about is, you know, 1999, 2000, when the market definitely was in a bubble. but what killed the bubble was not that it was a bubble. what killed the bubble was that the fed raised rates a lot and put the economy into a recession. it was the recession that killed the bubble. >> what do you think is driving this economy, though? new productivity gains that somehow ai is coming that -- >> i think the two big things that are happening right now -- >> i don't think it's the liquidity, per se. it's real fundamentals, real ai, real investing, and a tremendous amount of money being spent on infrastructure. and there's still a shortage of jobs, so the consumer is fine. it's a nice, you know -- it is, it is a little bear's porridge in a way. why would you spoil it by lowering rates. >> going back to 2000, the idea of a bubblicious situation at that point, you said it was the fed raising rates that made --
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the fed raised rates and made business models where you were making no profits. >> today, the companies that people talk about are real companies that have real revenue, that have real earnings. look, nvidia's earnings have tripled. >> i was saying, it wasn't necessarily the fed just raising rates. the fed raised rates. >> but then the economy actually went into session and speculation went out of the market. >> may i ask a question that may seem political. we're in an election year, and depending on the political channel you watch, you might be told that the economy is terrible. and that folks are spending, you know, inflation has run away, costs of everything are up, everything is, you know, the sky's falling. >> right. >> then i'm hearing you, as someone who's in the markets say the economy is great. and that this is actually like a goldilocks moment. >> please don't say that word "goldilocks," i'm very sensitive to that. kudlow used to talk about that and it drove me nuts. >> whatever you think this sort of moment is. i'm hoping that you can square the circle, if you will, of how
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these two ideas could exist -- >> -- say the biden economy is great and not getting credit, which we had with many guests. >> it's fair, it doesn't get credit. look, the unemployment is really low, wages are still going up. >> wages are just finally going up. >> for the last few years. >> they're below -- people's spending income is still below where it was when he took office. >> that's fair, but -- >> well, it's not fair -- >> the trend is -- but the trend is up? people still have savings. the only thing negative you could say that there's been inflation, so some things are harder to buy. >> a little bit. 30%. >> that's fair, but inflation is starting to come down. >> the grade of increase is coming down. >> right, okay. >> so we're stuck with 30% -- >> all i can tell you -- >> all i hear is calling for deflation. >> no, nobody wants that.
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>> but the price increases are in. for everything. >> the only thing i would just say is that there's no sign that the economy is weakening. flr there are signs that the economy -- >> if you're not lucky and not like us, you go to the grocery store and you're buying less than three years ago. >> okay, maybe. >> that's a problem. >> but things are still pretty good overall. >> for us. >> for most of the people in the country, things are pretty good. >> why would it be good for most of the people in the country if they could buy less than they could three years ago. >> it depends on what you're talking about. people's wages are still going up,mployed. >> still going up, but not back to where they were three years ago in real dollars. >> you can't have everything. >> let 'em eat cake. >> when we come back, a lot more ahead on "squawk." fallout from the baltimore bridge collapse. we'll ask julie su about the impact on jobs in the region and around the country. you are watching "squawk box" and this is cnbc.
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the secretary joins us now to talk about the economic impact of the disaster for baltimore's port and beyond. good morning. thank you for joining us. what did you see and what is the true state of play at this moment? >> well, thank you so much for having me. so president biden has been very clear that we are going to move heaven and earth to help respond to this catastrophic accident. something like this has a very profound impact on workers. first, you have, obviously, the families of the workers who tragically lost their lives. you know, they were working overnight, doing the often invisible work of trying to keep our country going. the second is the workers who are there now and were going to be there to help make sure the cleanup gets done, and then to do the rebuild, as necessary. we want to make sure to do that in a way that is efficient and that is responsible. and then the third, the workers that i met with, workers who are impacted by temporary closures
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in their workplace. there's a lot of anxiety, a lot of fear, about how long is this going to take to rebuild, and when am i going to go back to work? we want to make sure they have as many supports as they need, all the federal funds that are available to them, and making sure they feel some source of economic security during this time. >> let's talk about that and the cost in the federal funds. there's a big debate about that, at least that's being whispered about in washington, if not more loudly about frankly how much federal funds should be spent on t this. whether the public and the taxpayers should be on the hook for this. whether you think the insurance companies that insure some of this and industry should be paying. it appears at the moment that president biden has said that he almost that there's a blank check to fix this. some of the estimates could be $2 billion, $4 billion, more. >> so we have to understand the importance of what we're talking about here. the port in baltimore is an entryway, right, for our economy. there's, you know, i think before the last few years, most
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people didn't think very much about supply chains and the ports, frankly. but they're an incredibly important economic driver. not just for maryland, but for the country as a whole, and its impact on working people and businesses. there's about 15,000 workers directly employed at the port, and another 140,000 indirect. and that doesn't count the number of businesses, small businesses included that get affected by everything that comes in and out. so this is an all hands on deck moment. and the president has been very clear. we are going to stand with maryland, stand with the working people there, and make sure that we are there every step of the way, both for the cleanup and for the important work of rebuilding. >> i know it's maybe early to ask this question, but what are the lessons of this disaster? and perhaps what needs to happen in other parts of the country as well to prevent these kind of things from happening in the future and/or to set up both accountability and insure the cost against these types of
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events? >> right, that's such an important question. so, without getting ahead of the national transportation safety board that is still doings its investigation, the president set up a unified command structure from the beginning, between the army corps of engineers, the coast guard, the state of maryland. and part of that assessment is still going on. one of the things that i'm concerned about, that we're looking at is how do you make sure that there is a safety net for workers during times like this, who are going to be out of work, temporarily, through no fault of their own. the small business administration issued a federal disaster and there will be smil l small business loans that go out. we want to make sure that working people also have that sense of security. the other thing is making sure that, you know, six workers lost their lives. and we want to make sure that workers who are doing the often invisible work, that they have notice of these kinds of things, so we can keep them safe. these were latina workers. in 2021, 8.2% of the entire
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workforce in california was latina. 14% was the number that were involved in a work-related death. and so, we have to make sure that we keep working people healthy and safe. and that everybody comes home at the end of the work shift. >> madame secretary, the owner and manager of that cargo ship that ranmmed into the bridge filed in court yesterday to try to limit their liability on all of this. they're saying that they don't think it should be anymore than 43.6 million that they're responsible for. any thoughts on that? >> again, the investigation is ongoing, and i'm going to defer what comes out of that. we are really focused right now on getting people, obviously, getting things back to normal, and getting that channel cleared. the weather will not be our friend on this. so we know the faster that happens, the better it is for everybody involved, including for the important role that, for the movement of goods. that port is literally one of
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our connecting points to the rest of the world. >> so finally, for those that are watching who are either moving those goods or trying to move around this problem, what is the timeline like to you at this point? >> we don't have a timeline yet, but, you know, obviously, the effort has been mobilized very quickly. this is a massive, massive effort. i was there yesterday, as you noted. and it's just -- you know, there's what we can see, what we can't yet see. so all of that work has to be done in a way that is coordinated and responsible, and makes sure that the workers who are involved in that effort are also kept safe during it. so we will continue to be transparent about the efforts, but we also are very committed to getting that port reopened as quickly as possible. >> julie su, acting labor secretary. thank you for joining us this morning. >> thank you. when we come back, it is down to the wire for disney. we'll bring you the latest on the company's proxy fight against nelson peltz, and speak
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with a top analyst. stay tuned. you're watching "squawk box," and this is cnbc. encore energy, america's clean energy company, now in production in south texas. energizing america with reliable and affordable uranium for nuclear energy fuel from our environmentally friendly extraction process. encore energy, america's clean energy company, now in production in south texas. energizing america with reliable and affordable uranium for nuclear energy fuel from our environmentally friendly extraction process. encore energy. (vo) what does it mean to be rich? maybe rich is less about reaching a magic number... and more about discovering magic.
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coming up next, we'll talk about the fallout from boeing's latest set of challenges, including one airline telling pilots to stay home because of delayed aircraft deliveries. former united airline ceo oscar munoz will join us. and tomorrow, i'll be reporting live from kiawah, south carolina, at the animal globally sports leadership conference hosted by bruin capital and sportico, and we have a very big exclusive interview coming up on "squawk box" that morning with steve cohen, owner of the new york mets and chairman and ceo of point 72. that's tomorrow in the 8:00 m.a. hour. you don't want to miss it. we're coming right back after this. unlocking th e power of thinkorswim, the award-winning trading platforms. bring your trades into focus on thinkorswim desktop with robust charting and analysis tools,
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that's because of concerns that the medicare payments are not going to be higher than they had been hoping, and that's affecting insurers across the board. s&p futures down by 27. the nasdaq off by 97 parent of that because of what's happening in the treasury curve. right now, you're going to see the ten-year yield creeping higher just in the last few hours. higher interest rates, expectations of a fed cut, perhaps getting pushed back a little bit. that's right now got the ten-year at its highest level. the ten-year yield at the highest level since late november. >> and some breaking news since ev maker, rivian. phil lebeau joins us now. hey, phil. >> hey, joe. we've got the q1 delivery numbers for rivian, roughly in line with expectations, with deliveries coming in at 13,588 vehicles. production just under 14,000 vehicles. as you take a look at shares of rivian, i don't think we'll see a big reaction to these numbers, because again, they're mostly in line with expectations. the company reaffirming its production plan for the full
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year. that's 57,000 vehicles that have plans to build. the big focus on wall street is going to be over the next few weeks, as the company begins to shut down some of its assembly lines, as it retools and gets things ready as they shift production in the third and the fourth quarter. and the electric delivery van, as they continue to increase production of those vans, most notably, those are the vans that go to amazon. may 7th is when they report their q1 results. again, rivian reporting q1 deliveries of 13,588 vehicles, roughly in line with expectations on wall street. guys, back to you. >> all right, phil. we're going to talk about united. it sounds like a good deal. take the month off, as long as you've got some savings. is that how it works? >> if you're taking an entire month off if you've got savings, i guess, if that's okay with you. you would rather be working.
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that's part of the whole idea of having the job, is you want to work. >> that's what i mean. but it would be nice if you could get -- >> he's being sarcastic. >> it would be nice, if you don't need someone and could get paid for the month, they're basically saying, you don't have to come in, but don't look for a paycheck? is that how it works? >> i'm not sure it's going to be the entire month. i think it's going to be sporadic here and there depending on what planes are being flown and the qualifications of the pilots and how it works with the union, et cetera. >> that's much tougher, if they were to ask us, what do you think? >> no, i need to make dh-- that why i'm here. >> again, phil, it's an issue we're going to talk about. i'm guessing you've heard pushback from the pilots' union? >> they would rather do this, but if you're united, you have to do this, becky.
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you're not going to sit there and say, well, you know what, we're going to pay you even though we have a flight for you. you have to do this. >> that's kind of like, you put me on hold -- it's the same thing as if you put me on hold and tell me that i'm supposed to cover this weekend. i'll cover this weekend, but if things turns out that you don't need me, it's kind of your fault for scheduling me. >> i understand that, becky, but you also have to understand -- and i know you'll have oscar on in a second and eck explain this. they're setting their schedule months and quarters in advance. and they set it, expecting "x" number of planes to be delivered from boeing. >> so they screwed up. >> those planes aren't here. >> why does that come down to the workers on that? especially when you've got people who are making $16 million to make these decisions? and i understand that it's not united's fault, it's boeing's fault, but why does the pain point then become the pilots who are on the line, particularly when you had such a great year of earnings last year? >> well, i mean, ask oscar! >> that's what we're going to
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do. >> i think he can give you the perspective of the company. >> i wasn't going to jump into it with you, phil. i get, you're a reporter covering what's happening on both sides of this. we are going to speak to just that point right now with oscar munoz. he is the former ceo of united airlines. he understands how these things work, oscar, good luck with this. this was boeing's fault, this was boeing not delivering on those planes, but why does this come down to the pilots who were scheduled and employed to work those times and put on the shift for this? why are they going to be the ones who have to say, okay, i won't get paid? i mean, paid vacation would be one thing. maybe even partially paid vacation another, but you're not going to lay me off and you're not going to pay me for that time. >> ah, yes, well, boeing, the gift that just keeps on giving, right? just the domino effects across such a wide swath of impact. so both of you make a good point. i think if you will has it correct. these colas, you know, company
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offered leave of absence, we always have cute phrases for these things. becky, you're right, it's not optimal, but these are offered generally all the time. not to the degree they're going to be offered -- >> is it offered meaning that you can choose to take it or not take it? that's a different story? >> yeah, i mean, i think there's a degree of junior people being offered it more definitively, i guess. >> offered -- meaning, told, this is the deal? >> let's put it into perspective. the other option -- this is important. the other option is this f-word called furloughs. >> oh! >> historically, when an airline gets into this problem, they just cut everyone off completely. these colas are offered. flight attendants use them all the time for flexibility. they are offered to pilots, by fleet type, by domicile, by seniority. it's always offered. you have a mismatch between a number of pilots ready for the
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flying that united expected and of course, the trickling or slowing down of aircraft from boeing. it is from what i hear very much a short-term issue. boeing is delivering aircraft, not exactly the ones that we do. so, now, so if you talk to pilots, and i spent the last couple of days tug pilots as i fly, the more senior ones understand this. everybody is helping the company, it's a good culture, everybody is talking, the unions, nobody is going to be in support of this, but it's a gentle, nice way of sort of balancing the cost aspect, along with offering these leave of absences, that offer flexibility. people want to take vacation, all of those things come into play. >> i can see that some people might be in a position of wanting to take that. that's a great thing, to be able to take that and it helps the company out at the same time. >> just real quickly, the way it works, it's offered, and then some people take it and some people done. so the more people that take it, the less people -- the people that don't want to take it will stay. it is meant to be somewhat, you
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know, somewhat balanced, in that regard. but it's not optimal. >> it's not. and the voluntary aspect of it, we had pay cuts that we were offered to take voluntarily during the pandemic here, and i think a big question was, if you don't take them, what is your future here? look, i think the question comes back to, how realistic was it to expect that these flights were all going to be delivered, because boeing has not been living up to its end of its expectations for quite a while. and that's where you can potentially put some problem -- some of the point to some of the problems being with united's management for believing them, i guess. >> no, listen, we all take blame for everything. but as phil mentioned, these are very long-tailed investment decisions. you don't hire a pilot and he's flying -- he or she is flying the next day. it takes a long time to get the number of pilots that you need certified on a particular aircraft that you require, and then of course, aircraft deliveries have to match up to
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that. assist dance, of sort, of trying to match all of those things. >> and it's hard to meet really aggressive earnings expectations if you don't have everything that's delivered just in time. that's part of it, too. united met some very aggressive earnings targets last year for the full year. they said $10 to $12. scott kirby himself said that was very aggressive. they managed to hit it. their diluted adjusted numbers was $10.05 a share. so this also goes back to like manufacturing. just in time delivery on these things. it's the most profitable, but it's also the trickiest line to walk. and when you don't hit those metrics, it's pretty troough th to say, we'll take it out on the employees, because they're the ones that will have to suffer for it. yeah, again, i would differ on the taking it out on the employees, it is something that's offered to many. and the company has done a nice job over the years of not only setting aggressive targets, but making them. that goes back to the time that scott and i were running together. i have great faith in them to be able to make it work, but at the
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same time, these things have to be balanced. and again, the root of the issue continues to be boeing and the domino effect of having it across the industry. and, you know, we talk a lot about all of the issues that happened, because boeing's in the headlines. and it's unfortunate in that regard. >> no question, this is a boeing issue. it's just, those ripple effects and watching who takes it on the chin is tough to watch, too. but you're right. this is boeing, a boeing issue, and we'll see what comes up. >> oscar, real quick, before we go, on the boeing issue, is there a person that you think should be the ceo of boeing? is there a person you would like? seriously, that you think that the airline -- part of it is, you need the regulators, you need the public, you need the other airline ceos who are the customers, who all get behind whoever this person is, and genuinely believe in them. they need to have credibility with the employees inside boeing, they need to have credibility outside of boeing. this is a bit of a unicorn-style
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person. and i'm curious of the people you know in the industry or others, what kind of person you would like to see in this role? >> i think that's the proper question. what type of person do we want? you outline all of the different variables. again, we all have viewpoints and opinions. this is getting played out in the press. many people's names are being -- i know several of them who don't necessarily have an interest, because they have really meaningful roles today. i think, again, from my perspective, and the board will make the selection, and the board is not always as close to what's happening in the company. i would go out and listen to ooa lot of the alumni. the concept of anering person is probably worthwhile over the longer term. but as you outline, there's a boat load of issues that encompass something more than an engineering mind-set. you need someone to fix the perceived lack of safety and culture. you need someone to fix all the constituents across that broad base. so you need a real strong human being. i've suggested the possibility
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of a female -- >> oscar? >> go ahead, finish your thought. i'm sorry. >> no, the possibility of a female with all of those attributes that you have and it might be a two-step function where you bring someone in to sort of balance and create a level playing field. and then build for the future with the right long-term, possibly engineering manufacturing mind-set. it might be a two-step function, but it's a big role for one person to take at this juncture. >> oscar, very quick question. if united airlines gets compensated for the boeing delays, will some of that be given to the employees to make good on what they're being asked to give up right now? who gets compensated -- >> again, the negotiations, i'm not familiar with, but historically those compensations comes in the forms of credits with regards to future purchases, so it's not a direct cash influx. if it was a cash influx -- >> asw -- >> i don't think it's meant to exclude anyone, but it's just the mechanism that's best --
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>> not great for the people who are now being asked to bear the brunt of it. >> no, they're get -- >> oscar, thanks. >> thank you. >> take care, everybody. coming up on the other side of this, the home stretch for the disney proxy saga, one day left in nelson peltz' fight againsta a pair of company boa members, trying to get himself and another one on. we'll talk about to a disney stock analyst. and don't miss an an exclusive interview with the ceo of ge ver nova and larry culp later on "squawk on the street." we're coming right back.
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the network more businesses choose. transplant received. at&t business. nelson's peltz current fight against disney for two spots on the company's board concludes tomorrow. becky's sad about that. when disney holds its annual shareholder meeting, right? >> we've talked about this too much. >> "the wall street journal"
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reports that disney has pulled ahead of peltz' firm with more than half of all of the shares voted. another headline, t. rowe price says it's voting in disney's favor. joining us now, luke capital managing director, alan gould. i don't know, they might be heading out, but there's a lot of mail-in votes that still need to be counted, are there not? >> good morning, joe. >> good morning -- is it a done deal? >> i don't know if it's a done deal. this one has a lot of retail ownership. no one knows how much of retail is going to vote, which way they're going to vote. i think the big question i've been getting from clients is, you know, what's going to happen to disney stock if peltz wins or if peltz doesn't get on the board? and frankly, i don't think it's going to make a huge difference to the stock price. you know, it will probably be a bigger distraction for iger on the board, but -- and it's going to probably -- the biggest issue is going to be the succession planning on ger.
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>> does it ever work that an activist actually does know what he's doing? strategically, or does it shake -- sometimes just shaking things up might help. does it? >> by the way, peltz will be shaking things up whether he's on the board or just watching from the sidelines. >> even if he doesn't win, don't you think he'll be hovering around waiting for the next election and won't that pressure bob iger and the board be a pressure point to do things that maybe they would otherwise do or not do? >> depends where the stock price is. the stock went up after peltz first came in. if the direct-to-consumer business turns profitable, which i assume it will in the fourth quarter and starts getting trajectory up from there, the stewed know produces film that produce, peltz will be happy on the sidelines. the reason this company has
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three activists is because it was undervalued. >> is it fairly valued now? >> we have a buy rating on disney, but it's had a heck of a run recently. if they can execute and turn dtc profitable, netflix is on the path to a 30% profit margin. disney said we expect double digits. no reason disney's dtc business can't get to a 20% profit margin. >> then you're back to hits. that's tough. >> you've got the theme park business which is -- it's economically cyclical but not content cyclical. that's a growing business. >> when ge bought universal, they came in and said -- >> when comcast bought it. >> initially when ge bought it. >> the plan was to get rid of it. >> all of a sudden you've got ge, they've got these numbers. wait a minute, you're spending a
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hundred million and you might have a mega hit or make zero money. it's a tough business. if iger's stake depends on disney studios producing hits, that's a tough way to make a living. >> doesn't have to depend on producing hits. a few years ago, 2018 disney was generating almost $3 billion at the studio. it's now zero. no one is expecting they get back to $3 billion of profit again. but can they get halfway back? that would be a huge difference on the valuation. >> why couldn't they? >> there's no reason they can't. >> why haven't they? >> why haven't they? i think there was an overdependence on the marvell films. between the number of marvell films in the studio and on dtc, it almost became a chore as a fan to follow the story line because you had to be watching four series a year and three movies a year. >> and then the actors' strike.
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>> under iger, they've done a great job in the past turning around the studio. think of when he joined. when he joined it was when disney was losing its hold on animation, sort of what's happening again today. and then between the acquisitions that are well documented, marvel, star wars, pixar, they've had the most successful run at the box office than they ever had. they just have to get halfway back. >> the etf guys get the vote -- >> it's interesting. normally they follow iss. but we saw blackstone is going with disney according to the news yesterday. >> all right. thank you. >> thank you. up next, we're going to check on the markets and get you ready for the trading day ahd wall street.
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heightest level. dow looks like it will open off about 350 points this morning, liz. what's happening here? investors just waking up to the reality of the fed in the last 24 hours? >> it's interesting what happened yesterday. a ten-basis point move in treasuries on very little news. there wasn't anything convincingly concerning. i think what's happening is we're looking at obviously in the last three months we've had this huge move in fed funds futures. the market trying to get comfortable with the idea that cuts continue to get pushed further and further out into the future. and now even floating by some commentators the idea of what if we don't have any cuts this year. so digesting that at this level of valuations, plus coming off a really strong rally that had broadened out, and a lot of sectors started praepg. now some of the news on the periphery about currency
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volatility around the globe i think is giving investors jitters at a time when the rally has paused? >> a, what do you do about it? b, what is your perspective? we had roger ferguson on the broadcast yesterday. he's been right pretty much across the board. he said, look, there's a decent chance there are no cuts in 2024 at all. >> everything held constant, if the economic data continues to behave and we see stronger than expected growth, stronger than expected earnings and you have inflation that has plateaued, there isn't a good reason for the fed to cut at this point. in fact, a cut or at least beginning a cutting cycle would present the risk of overheating. what we're seeing from the commodity sectors, they're catching a bid. you've got oil up, copper really hanging in there, which tells me investors are still looking at inflation as unsolved and something that could heat back up very quickly if global demand
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picks back up. i think you do have to be careful here and watch your valuations and make sure you're balancing out the risks of not only inflation reheating, but the risks of there being a pullback in equities. a lot of this risk appetite that's been healthy, which is good -- it's definitely good to see healthy risk appetite in the market, but a lot of the risk appetite can start to feel complacent. you don't want to get sucked into that at a time when things are getting more uncertain. >> you guys still run your crypto hub or did you shut that down? >> we shut that down. >> i was going to ask if you thought business coin being off as much as it is, if that's a play on the fed. >> i think at this point on the cycle and what has happened with bitcoin and crypto, it's more a trepidation of risk-off and a liquidity signal. i think investors are concerned about what's going on in currency markets, as we should be. we should be paying attention to that.
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there's been so much focus on the fed and the way that treasury yields are moving, now we we've got central banks moving in direct direction. >> liz, thank you. a quick check of the market before he hand it over to our friends at "squawk on the street." s&p 500 off by 41 points. i'll see you from kiawah island with steve cohen. be sure to join us. "squawk on the street" begins right now. good tuesday morning. welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm carl quintanilla with jim f cramer and david faber. ten-year 4.38, oil eclipses 85 for the first time since october. our roadmap begins with these market worries about dates. the fed might hold off on a june
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