>> phenomenally well. >> carrie? >> thermo fisher, it's retraced a big move, so you have a good buying opportunity. health care, services technology. >> josh brown? >> dqa. held up really well. >> all right, guys. "the exchange" is now. see you in a little bit. ♪ ♪ >> thank you, scott. welcome to "the exchange." i'm deidre bosa. we have a very big hour on deck for you. there's disney shareholder meetings just kicking off. the battle over the board room, that's about to be decided. we'll bring you all of the twists, the turns, the final tally when sit in, and what the results mean for disney's future. and alphabet's ceo is speaking this hour. we are monitoring that for any stock-moving headlines, and then david einhorn takes the stage.

you just heard scott talk about that. you'll see it right here. we begin with the markets. dom chu has those markets. dom, good news. >> maybe some good news over here, deidre. take a look at this. the markets are green across the board for all the major indexes. the dow up about 0.2 of 1%, 39,229. the s&p 500 up about 18 points, 1/3 of 1% gains there. tilting towards the higher levels of the session. we were up 23 points at the intraday points and down 11 at the lows. so there's your range in context for the s&p. the nasdaq composite, the tech heavier index, up one half of 1%, 16,322 for the nasdaq. up about 82 points. one of the key stocks helping is a bounceback we're seeing in tesla stock. up about 2/3 of 1% right now, $168 and change. remember, trying to bounce back from those disappointing delivery and product production

numbers from yesterday. a number of analysts with some price target cuts. but shrugging that off. the shares trying to get some kind of footing above that $165 market. the other thing to watch is another day, another record in gold prices. $2313, we hit $2316 earlier in the session, so another record high. this is going to be, if it finishes positive, the seventh straight day worth of gains for gomex gold. so watch the precious metals. it seems to be the big momentum trade for right now. speaking of momentum, we have lost a little bit in terms of yields right now. but the ten-year at 4.36%. we got as high as 4.43%, that would put you at the highest levels going back to roughly november 27th of the past year. so interest rates a big focus there, as well. we'll see whether or not there's stabilization there, and whether or not equity valuations might

find solid footing, as well. >> and equity is a little more resilient today. the other big speaker today, fed chair powell just wrapped up his speech at a stanford event. he emphasized the need for more evidence inflation is easing before cutting rates, but what will higher for longer mean for the economy? we'll talk about it with mark xandy, and we have ted rossman from bank rate onset with me. let's talk with cnbc reporter steve liesman. steve, what did we hear? markets largely unchanged. >> yeah, they seem to be. powell is saying in a speech today that if the economy evolves as expected, it will be appropriate to lower rates at some point this year, but he did embue some bout as to the timing, saying inflation has come down significantly but still above target. the job of reducing inflation is not yet done, and he still needs

greater confidence in the inflation numbers and the trajectory in order to cut interest rates. speaking at the stanford business school of business, he said reports have come in higher than expected but have not materially changed the overall picture of declining inflation. he says he wasn't clear if the reports were just bumps along the road towards the 2% inflation or the start of something a little more worrisome. so what happened? it drifted a bit higher with more of a chance of a cut. a few points higher than it's been with greater confidence of a cut in the market, though. you can see there for the july and the september meetings. powell said there could still be inflation reduction coming from improved supply chains. and he said immigration helped the economy grow, and he said on the big question of the economy, the jury is still out on whether the productivity surge is part

of a longer term trend or a temporary spike. as you know, nothing matters more than the answer to that question, and nothing is more uncertain than the answer to that question. >> steve, well laid out. thank you very much. stick around. let's bring in mark and ted. mark, let's start with you. anything new that sticks out to you and what powell said? steve noted expectations for a june hike have ticked slightly higher. >> he stuck to script. he's still beating the drum that he's got time because the economy is strong and inflation is above target. i think the key words for me in the speech was, they're looking at this meeting by meeting. so it feels like he's saying look, every meeting is live. we could make a change at the next meeting or the one after that. so it feels, you know, like a rate cut is coming. he did mention january, february inflation data. the inflation data is really critical. the jobs are less important,

it's all about inflation, and we have to make sure the bump in january, february inflation was just measurement, seasonal adjustment, which i think it is. but we have to see the better numbers, and once they see it, i think we'll get a cut. >> ted, what matters more for the consumer, a looser policy or stronger economy? >> people right now are looking for a stronger economy and actually feeling that in the form of lower inflation basically. because right now, by many measures, we have a strong economy. we have strong gdp growth, we have the lowest stretch below 4% unemployment since the '60s. but you say a lot of this to people and they say well, i don't feel it. i don't feel that secure in my job or my costs are up, or i'm not getting ahead. i think that whole sentiment versus reality is really important. the country are on the spectrum. if you have credit card rate, the rates and balances have never been higher. if you're a homeowner, that's good, but you're probably not in the mood to move.

you don't want to trade your 3% rate for a 7% rate, plus the house costs more. it's especially hard for the young people looking to pay down debt. >> steve, back to you on this matter of inflation. you mentioned that powell said that there was not a material change, but what about the move we've been talking about, especially this week in commodities? price of oil, back near $90. is that going to trickle through and make those numbers especially stickier? >> deidre, that's a great point. i'm becoming a little concerned about what the march inflation report is going to say when we get it later this month. you've had oil prices higher, commodity prices higher. and you've had -- i would follow on this cleveland fed now forecasting on inflation, it remains kind of sticky. so i don't know that i'm confident we're going to get the relief everybody wants from those january/february numbers. we talked to bostic this

morning. he said he's settling in for a slower progress. i was looking earlier at the movement in inflation over the past three months. it's only come down 16 basis points since december, and in the months before that, it came down 44 basis points. so it has slowed. loretta mister said she's not surprised by the slowing of inflation progress because she forecast it. so we're all going to have to take a deep breath and be a little more patient and hope that inflation is moving in the right direction and not be frustrated that it's not moving faster. it might mean that the easy part has been done and now we have to battle a few headwinds in commodities and other things, and it will be just basis points now, not say tenths of a point as it was before. >> stick around, everyone. we have more data how higher rates are impacting home buyers. diana, maybe you could pick up on what ted was saying,

especially for first-time home buyers. >> it's definitely rough out. there we see it in the mortgage applications to purchase a home. they're now 13% than a year ago, and 47% below where they were prepandemic in 2019. much of that is due to today's higher interest rates. but it's also because a larger share of buyers are choosing not to use a mortgage. all cash made up 33% of existing home sales, up from 28% in february last year, the highest level in a decade. not only does cash make buyers more competitive, but it saves them money over mortgage dependent buyers. if the convenience and certainty appeals to sellers so much that they're willing to take 10% less money if that money comes in cash. this is according to a new study just released from uc san diego. the study found that about 10% of sales transactions fail when the buyer is paying with a mortgage. that's because the lender needs to approve the loan based on a

preloan, inspection, either of which both can fall through. sellers don't want to take that risk. it's hard enough to get enough cash to buy a home, so some are borrowing money from family and friends for the initial purchase, and then taking out a mortgage to pay them back once the deal is done. some are doing proof of cash, where they reserve the right to get financing prior to closing but show the seller that they do have the cash if it ends up being necessary. so it's a rough market out there. >> you just made it a rough picture. ted, what is your reaction to this? all cashcould be nice, leaning on family and friends would be nice, but what if those are not option? >> 80% of current homeowners have a rate below 5%. we are not going down there any time soon. last year, the 30-year fixed hit 8% for the first time in 20 years. now we are at about 7%. by the end of the year, we think

around 6%. i think a medium or longer term goal is more 5%, 5.5%. we're not going back to 3%, 4% any time soon, but 5%, 6% gets people talking a little bit more about selling or buying than right now in the 7s. >> diana, does that line up with what you're seeing? >> it's actual ly 90% of mortgae holders have rates below 6%. so you have to really give them incentive to sell. that's actually 60% more to buy the home you're in right now, and it's well over 130% to buy a home that's just 25% more expensive. so in order to get buyers to move up, which traditionally is what frees up the market and gets more supply out there, you're going to have to have rates more in the 5% range. i don't think 6% will get you there. but we need more supply and we

need the builders to do that. >> jump in, steve. >> diane, i have a question, which is, are there more buyers or sellers on the sidelines because of these high rates? ted was talking earlier about the idea not everybody wants to sell their home right now. let's say they could move. would that bring enough supply on the market? and i'll just add as a footnote, i would love to see the nation address this housing shortage problem in a way that essentially takes the onus off of monetary policy so we could fix housing and you could have monetary policy doing what it needs to do. >> but you can't separate those two. you can't separate monetary policy when that's how we finance homes. >> i know, but we have a secular -- >> to your question, are there more buyers or more sellers, potential on eitherside? we have no way of knowing how many people are thinking about selling their homes, butky tell you right now, i probably would have sold my home if rates were back where they were.

empty nestors, people in their 50s plus on up would be move-down buyers or sellers. there is strong demand. the millennials just took over as the biggest home buyers out there from the baby boomers who had been number one. now millennials have taken over as the number one home buyers, so there are a lot of buyers out there. how many sellers? hard to say. >> i wonder if you could talk about the tradeoff between buying and renting in this moment? >> people give renting a bad name, right? everybody says renting is throwing your money away. i don't necessarily subscribe to that. there are advantages like being able to move for another job opportunity or lifestyle reasons, you're not on the hook directly for payers and maintenance and things like that. i guess some of that is baked in. my advice to younger people would be, yeah, if you want to buy, that's a good goal, but

don't rush into it. you don't want to do it before you're ready and then you put so much money into this house and it becomes something that holds you back financially. >> mark, i want to ask you about powell's comments on productivity, shifting a little bit. he said i should increase productivity. does that mean that this is more sustainable? how does that change the economics of it in the job market that we could see going forward? >> yeah, i don't think we have seen a boost in productivity growth over the past year. prior to this past year, going back prior to the pandemic, underlying productivity growth is 1.5%. in the last year, it's over 2%. i don't think that's ai. that's not going to really show up on the scene until probably the second half of this decade, because it takes a long time for technologies like that to become imbued in business practices, and it's only when new businesses form and optimize around new technology -- this is

going to take time. my sense is this boost in productivity might be more temporary, related to all the quitting people did a couple, three years ago. remember the high rates of quits. those folks moved to jobs better suited to their talents and education. it took them a little time to get to the learning curve, but that gives you a nice pop in productivity growth. i'm speculating here, but it's typical. i sense what we're seeing now is more temporary than fundamental. the fundamental gains are coming later in the decade. >> steve, where i sit in silicon valley, usually there's a lot of talk about productivity. you're seeing hiring of the workforce is reflecting that. is it possible some of those productivity gains are not showing up in the economic data we looked at? >> deidre, first of all, good to get you out of silicon valley, where those guys are going to change the world every day for the better, until they cash in

with their level b financing. so good to get you out of there and get a reality check. i'm a little more optimistic than mark is on the productivity story. i think there were changes that were foisted on us, i guess, as a result of the pandemic. that when we find a productivity change that's positive, we don't lose it. it doesn't necessarily increase productivity all the time, but this ai stuff is yet to come. it may be dragging on productivity right now. i think some of the work from home stuff could be athdadding productivity. so i'm a little more optimistic about that, and i don't think powell has the luxury of always being ago agnostic about it. greenspan back in the '80s made a call about the uncertainty of productivity. he was right about that and kept the economy of having to suffer through higher interest rates. at some point, powell or the next fed chair will have to make

a call on productivity and it will impact monetary policy. >> deidre, really quick. what matters now suspect productivity, it's labor force growth. that's extraordinary. that goes back to powell mentioned in his speech, much more important is the surge in foreign immigration. that's why we've been able to grow so fast and generate so many jobs and still wage growth is moderating, inflation is coming in. so the real story here, maybe steve is right, but it's really about labor force growth. that has more -- >> on that note, that better than expected adp number led goldman to up its forecast for this friday's jobs report. steve, do you see that in line with what you're thinking? >> yeah, let me just point out this labor report is great, but diana better figure out a place for these people to live. >> apartments, lots of supply. >> i do think that we're going to have stronger payroll growth,

it will remain strong. great story today about immigration. something we've been talking about for a while here. and that does seem to have created an upward shift. you cannot have 100,000 ghosts filling jobs, there has to be actual bodies, and we're finding actual people for the payroll jobs that are out there. it's been too high for too long, and it doesn't appear to be inflationary at this point. what's really interesting, deidre, and again, from your neck of the woods, still lots of talk about the inability to find workers, even at the higher rates out there. i am not sure, and i'll get some hate mail from small business owners who i know it does affect, but i'm not sure these minimum wage increases have these huge effects. i think so much of the working population is above that minimum wage that it only has a minimus

impact. >> a lot of the jobs are been outsourced to ai. last word, mark. >> we ignored the second part of powell's speech, which is really important. he was saying look, the fed is independent. this is really critical. he's speaking to the election process. so he felt it necessary to have this talk with us about fed independence. i think that's really something we should take to heart. >> great point to end on. thank you very much. good discussion. coming up, we are just moments away from david einhorn's presentation. we will bring that to you live when it happens. plus, disney's board room battle as we are talking. today, the shareholder meeting is kicking off. we'll bring you that and what it means for the future of disney. here's a look at markets as we head to break, rebounding after the dow and s&p posted their worst day in a month yesterday. today, the ten-year touching its

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the bitter battle over disney's board room is about to be decided, as shareholders vote whether they deserve another year together or whether candidates nominated should replace their directors. the meeting is underway right now. while we wait for the results. let's take a quick look at this bitter back and forth. >> if there is a shareholder of disney that's happy with what's going on, that guy's going to short the stock. >> i feel great about where the company is today and where i believe we'll be able to take it. >> we will be watching, we will be rooting, and the proxy fight is over. >> in some cases, the challenges are greater than i had

anticipated. >> they promised they were going to improve things. i took them at their word. things got worse. >> a lot of this fight seems to be looking backwards. i'm more interesting in looking forwards. >> by every conceivable financial measure, the company is down. i don't know how a board can allow that to happen. >> i have not spoke on the mr. peltz in a while. i have no plans to speak to him. >> i am not betting putting somebody in the board room that could be disruptive and change the course of the disney company. >> we're not going to lose, let's get that straight. >> and we have some breaking news from our own reporter. david? >> yeah, they lost. sorry, nelson. in fact, the entire board of disney has been re-elected by what they're calling a substantial margin, that just called out by the general council at the annual meeting of the company. so all 12 disney directors have

been re-elected. obviously, it is a victory for disney, a defeat for trien, which has been seeking two seats on the board. they haven't gone through the numbers, but some i can provide, via sources in terms of, deidre, overall votes and how many were allocated to various directors. first of all, roughly i'm told 70 or so percent, perhaps a bit more than that, voted. so roughly 70% of the outstanding shares were voted. of those, for example, 94% of the votes or those shares voted were voting in favor of bob iger, the company's ceo. the universal proxy, it's different than what what we are used to. basically, it's just the top 12 vote getters are on the board. in this case, they were all disney directors.

peltz was targeting mel. sources tell me she received 63% of the votes that were -- of the shares that were voted. and peltz received 31%. so she more than doubled his total. obviously, defeat is not something that they have seen that often in the proxy fights. the last one is when they lost in dupont. they came back not long after and declared victory. but in that case, the margin of victory was far, far closer for dupont than is the case here. again, iger gets 94%, and there's the important one. peltz was challenging for that particular seat, saying vote the first ten, and then vote me and jay rasullo. he didn't win. shes go 63%, 31% for peltz. and retail, we talked about because they comprise a fairly

substantial number of the overall shares. but they didn't show up that much. 7% of the total vote was restale share holders. of those that voted, as many as 75% went with management or with all the disney directors. so a significant victory for disney. >> it sounds like a landslide, david. 94% of votes in favor of iger. did we expect it to be that big of a gap? >> it wasn't like peltz was challenging iger saying it's him or me. so the votes he didn't get were withheld, but that's a significant number saying yes, hello. we're happy with your performance. i think, you know, the key one is the lady at the bottom there, goes by mel. the fact that she more than doubled peltz's number, at least

in these numbers that i'm getting right now. so, again, that -- you know, it's over. over and done with, and they move on. i move on to go to los angeles so i can sit down with bob iger tomorrow morning. >> can't wait for that. that will be a good one. you know, david, you say we all get to move on. but you also said that nelson peltz isn't used to this kind of defeat. i remember when he called into your show live and spoke to you and jim and carl and said that, you know, he was in favor, that bob iger was successfully in turning the company around. is there more peltz could do here? >> it's hard to imagine he could come back after losing a proxy fight and losing it definitively. we have a statement from trian saying they're disappointed in the outcome. they greatly appreciate all the dialogue they have had and proud of the impact they have had, and refocusing the company on value creation and good governance.

they had engaged with the company to your point, right after iger had come back. it was brief in terms of how long that fight lasted, because to your point, it was when i interviewed iger last february, i believe it was, and then peltz followed up minutes later by saying, we're done, but we're going to hang around and watch and only to come back, of course. this was a much more bitter and long, hard-fought struggle as you well know, d. but disney ends up victorious. >> hard fought and dramatic. david, thank you very much. we'll be watching very closely tomorrow. so david will be talking exclusively withdisney ceo bob iger at 9:00 a.m. eastern. joining me now to discuss, the cnbc.com reporter alex sherman and disney shareholder nancy pengler. nancy, you said it didn't matter because peltz was an accelerant. are you satisfied with the

results? >> i think, deidre, that the shareholders won in this whole transaction. i mean, you couldn't have picked a better central casting villain versus, you know, ceo with bob iger, very measured and always calm and presentable, and nelson throwing darts. but the stock is up 35% year-to-date, as many pointed out. and 50% since trian got involved. so they control $3.5 billion. they spent $25 million. i think it was a victory for them and a victory for disney shareholders. so let's move forward with the succession planning. because i think that is what is bothering shareholders at the core. >> alex sherman, let me turn to you. does bob iger and his team get to breathe a little now or is the pressure still on to perform? nelson peltz wasn't the only activist circling. >> yeah, what fun we all had, right? the disney board wins, and this

was just a laugh for everybody. no, look, there's some real concerns with disney. the main argument that nelson peltz had to join the board is that disney has moved succession for years now. and disney has retooled its board a little bit. james corman is on now. they have a couple new board members. more than anything, they have an eyes wide open approach that they need to get succession right. in fact, that's why bob iger came back in many ways. not only to sort of get to disney's strategy and culture, but to make up for the fact that he picked bob as the ceo, that didn't work. and now they have to get back to work. so that should be where the focus is, and we heard it that disney is doing a robust succession process.

they just reported on monday. there are several others vying for that job, maybe some external candidates we don't know about. but over the next few months here, certainly the investment world is going to be focused on, okay, who is going to be taking over for bob iger, and what is that transition process going to look like? >> nancy, talk about the succession plans. are you pleased with how they're progressing? alex just named a bunch of internal names? i know that disney put out a statement that they're going through a rigorous preparation process. nancy, hold that thought. let's get over to david einhorn at the sohn conference. >> however, value investing and the value investing industry are two different things. the value investing industry is the thousands of people that used to be employed to analyze and pick stocks by trying to

figure out which ones were undervalued. trillions moving from active management to passive have caused these people to be fired and they're now coming back. this is what i mean by the value investing industry is dead. the cartoon says, good news, remember all those growth stocks i sold you? they are now value stocks. with all these unemployed people and their aum gone, it's a great time to be a value investor. there's much less competition. there are cheap stocks that are just much cheaper than they would otherwise be if there were lots of professionals with capital to deploy, trying to identify them. i will talk about one of those in a couple of minutes. when i started in this business, everyone said warren buffett benefited by starting his business when few people even read annual reports, and few were good at valuing stocks. it was a shame that there was so much competition from me. there were thousands of

experienced professionals trying to do the same thing. well, guess what? that's how it feels right now. the few of us left, it's a great time to be a value investor. there's so little competition, that the opportunities to buy fine companies with double dibble it cash on cash returns are more abundant than at any time in mitt career other than at the bottom of a bear market. this may be how mr. buffet felt in the 1950s. so here's an example i'll share with you today. the cartoon says, mrs. rothman will any of this be relevant once ai takes over? we find ourselves asking the same thing. i know everyone is talking about ai, and the title of my talk today is, solve ai. a green light, we have always thought of ourselves being flexible investors, willing to learn new things. ai has been the rage for the last year and we have found a great idea. our idea today is solve ai.

a european company that most of you have never heard of. i'm very excited to tell you ab about it. it's commonly sewn as solvay, which is an essential chemical company that holds the number one position across all of its markets. everyone wants a lesson in computer science. instead, today, we will study chemistry. i'm sure that excites all of you. who besides my dad had chemistry as their favorite class? first chemistry joke of the day. you know why you can never trust an atom? they make up literally everything. solvay is a 160-year-old belgian enterprise that trades in belgian under solv. the old company was a chemical conglomerate that in december spun off its specialty chemicals

business into a new company. the remaining essential chemicals business became the new solvay, which has 9,000 employees in over 40 countries globally. it has seven major research and innovation centers, and over 90 different branded products across five different business segments. in 2023, revenues were 4.9 billion euros. it's best known for soda ash, which makes up around 40% of sales. it has four other business segments, all of which have number one positions in the market. while these are all thought of as commodity businesses, they are higher margin and much more stable than most commodity chemical companies. next chemistry joke. i know you love compound interests. today, we are interested in compounds. there are a few basic facts as soda ash that i will share with you. the soda ash and derivatives

business segment is diversified. 20% is used for flat glass applications. 15% is used in container glass. 10% is used in detergents and cleaning agents. 30% is used in industrial applications to produce sodium sill kates and lithium carbonate for ev batteries. a quarter of this segment is a derivative called sodium bicarbonate, used in food applications. it can sell much more than soda ash, and themarket is growing twice as fast. soda ash is an company and versatile commodity chemical. soda ash can be produced naturally or synthetically. natural production comes from mining and pureifying trona ore

which is found in turkey, mongolia and wyoming. like most of us, i thought wyoming was mostly for skiing and rodeos. who knew? synthetic production, which is around 70% of the market, is more expensive. it uses ammonia and consumes two to three times more energy. solvay is 57% synthetic production. next chemistry cartoon. to make sure you haven't fallen asleep, although there's no shame if you are fighting it. it says, wait, wait -- >> that was david einhorn at the sohn conference. we'll hear much more from david einhorn when he sits down at 2:15 p.m. don't miss it. let's bring back nancy on the markets. i'm not going to ask you about

his pick in particular, but he was poking fun here at growth investment and all the hype that we're seeing around artificial intelligence. valuations that got out of hand and essentially talking about commodities. where are you in the markets this week? we have seen the tech trade take a breather, and things like commodities continue to move higher. >> yeah. hopefully we're continued well for all of that. we are value investors. i would say we're relative value investors, which has kept us alive and allowed us outperform relative to the peer group. so you have to be nimble in this business, but we have a clean energy infrastructure strategy that is long on many of the commodities that have perked up this year. so as investors, you have to look at the secular environment that you have been given and the narrative behind that. so i don't necessarily disagree that there is some ai hype, but i do believe it's real and driving productivity faster than

many thought. so we're focused on old economy companies that are embracing generative ai and digitization. >> what are some of the old economy companies? this morning, i was talking about at&t using generative ai to upgrade legacy software code. is that the kind of thing you're looking at? >> yeah, like american express uses it for fraud detection. medtronnic using generative ai. walmart is a classic example. a company that's embracing all the technology. they just raised the dividend 9%. we haven't seen that in a very long time. it reflecting their confidence in the company's future earnings growth prospects. so those are some of the things you're looking at. a water treatment company that controls much of the manufacturing and repair work on water systems digitally.

so there's a lot of opportunity. >> the on the flipside of that, i know you're an investor in tesla. it's been a very rough few months for the company. where are you on that name? >> yeah, i think some of it -- disappointed to some extend, but i think we're very optimistic for the long-term. it matters where you got in. we bought in around $104, sold some at $250, and then bought again at $180. we will add to it if it continues to decline. our focus is on the other businesses, as well. the stock does not trade on that at the moment. look at the mega battery business. it's probably going to dwarf evs in the future, and they are -- the low-cost producer, with 15% market share in a market of $600 billion. so we think that's a really interesting part of the

business. it's the fastest growing business at tesla. >> tesla getting a little respect today. nancy, thank you. still ahead on the show, we have the trade on levi's and blackberry, up next. can make th. it can help you reach them with confidence. no wonder more than 9 out of 10 of our clients are likely to recommend us. ameriprise financial. advice worth talking about.

welcome back. believe it or not, it's that time. earnings season is ramping up yet again with results on deck. let's get to the trades ahead of the earnings exchange and bring in our next guest. starting off with levi, shares hitting a 52-week high on monday. consumer demand in focus, as the company has taken the top market share spot in men and women's jeans. delano, you don't love levi here, do you? >> i don't. i'm looking at the trends, and the trends as the company mentioned last year, weren't great. a lot of that is the consumer that did a little to combat offsetting with the price

reductions. but one thing the company is going direct-to-consumer channel to improve margin. if you look at what's going on with sales now and how the price reductions could hamper margins, that could be a negative effect. so those are things that are interesting, and looking at the consumer last year. the value-based brands weren't doing as well. so that speaks highly to what's going on with the consumer and affecting the company more. >> don't miss courtney reagan's interview with michelle gass, ceo of levi. that's tonight on "last call." next up, conagra brands, they're expecting growth margin declines as inflation lingers. you see some opportunity here? >> it would be a buy or hold for me. they are a big company that's struggling. one thing that's strong for

company, you look at the benefit for their brand that was consistent. those projections for earnings have been pretty tough. on the flip side, you have inflation continuing, and you do have a consume they are is struggling. so i think if you look at the groceries and snacks, that brand has done consistently well. i think that holds here. i think geographically, they have some things that will benefit for them. international sales are strong. we talk about value, i think there's strong value for investors here. >> blackberry, the phone turned software company down 40% in a year. are we attributing this to the ev slowdown where backberry provides software. how would you trade this name? >> this is an interesting business. it has a lot of room for improvement, and they know that. they're separating businesses,

cybersecurity, and so i think it's also a growth story, and a story where they have relative value here. so if you look at what they're doing, that could potentially lead to profitability in a year or so, which is what they're projecting. i also think this is a company that's trading at a little over three times price-to-sales that has growth prospects. so it's one that people can keep on their watch and take an opportunity on. >> thank you very much. the markets pricing in three fed rate cuts this year. one stock picker says that will be just fine to achieve a soft landing. the names that he's buying n une.tow

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breaking news on paramount, alex sherman is back with the latest. the wall street journal is advancing the reporting from the new york times one day ago saying that paramount global has entered exclusive talks with

guidance media. this is david ellison's media and entertainment company. the two parties have been reported for almost 6 months as dancing around each other. no surprise that there is interest from sky dance in doing a potential merger with paramount. the advancement is the exclusivity of the talks, suggesting that paramount has lasered in on a potential partner. we know apollo bit of bid $11 million. warner bros. talked to them. i reported about a month ago that the talks broke down. this has always been the most interested, logical buyer. the question is, how will the deal be structured? i dance media has wanted to do a two step deal where first they acquired national amusements and merged in the film studio with the paramount studio.

the paramount board has always pushed back on that thing, we are only interested if you get the whole thing, come up with excess capital if you want to do this deal for all of us. that is what we don't know. what is the structure of the deal going to look like? will there be enough of the premium paid so shareholders are okay with it? >> that was the deciding factor? they would rather's cell the company as a whole. apollo was looking for the movie studio. we did reach out to paramount, they issued a no comment. >> look, i think we have known that there was heavy interest from sky dance. they are backed by several private equity firms. redbird has old media executives that work for, like jeff shell that used to run our parent company. theoretically, those guys got involved, maybe even one of them could take on some sort of leadership role, operationally within paramount. at least

those things have been floated out there as people have speculated about what a deal like this could look like. we are still not to the finish line yet. at least with exclusive talks, we can say, okay, this could be the buyer of choice for paramount. now let's see the structure of the deal and that the shareholders will be happy. is >> what about the price? we know apollo submitted an $11 billion offer for the movie studio alone. what are we looking at here? >> no indication on what the price is. i think that will be the determining factor here. paramount global has said, we have great assets. they are undervalued in the public market. investors have turned away from the broader legacy media space due to all of the losses associated with streaming. paramount pictures is valuable. apollo just a price paramount pictures at $11 billion. that does not count the value of cbs or the streaming assets, or anything else hat paramount owns. price will be a major factor. it will be a big enough number

of the shareholders say, you know what? this is the bid we want to go with. we will not look at anything else on the road. >> i know there is a lot that has to happen. let's say it moves forward and i dance acquires paramount. what do they do with the company? >> great question. you would have to think that they probably don't run the company as it is being run for the past several years. the next step would be looking for divestitures. one thing i have reported in the past is that when stars and lions gate, when that transaction happens and they trade separately, they would be looking for linear cable networks to bulk up. maybe they become a buyer and start picking off some of the global networks. private equity firms might be interested in doing it. the interesting thing with this transaction, if that does happen, it could finally be the gateway that the media industry has been looking for for years

to -- >> these a grereat points, we are hitting at the end of the show. we will do it for the exchange now. i will join tyler matheson on the other side of this break.

good afternoon everybody, welcome to power lunch. i am tyler mathis, i am glad you joined us.