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tv   The Exchange  CNBC  July 5, 2024 1:00pm-2:00pm EDT

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>> amazon.com, player. >> all right. another new high. pushing $200. thank you. jenny harrington? >> ardagh. if there is price competition at the bench makers, this could be a maker. >> farmer jim? >> qualcomm. >> good stuff. "the exchange" is now. ♪ ♪ >> thank you, scott. welcome to "the exchange." i'm kelly evans. here's what's ahead. the june jobs report painting a muddy picture. down from the previous month. revisions were lower, and goldman posting another surprise gain, with yet another slowdown signal and the all-important labor market no less. could the fed be ready to signal its cut? we'll discuss. the uk has a new leader. the labor party winning the country's election by a
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landslide, unseating the conservatives after 14 years. that could be good for business according to citi. where their strategist says you should be putting your money to work. and the new going out, staying in with a book. we'll talk with the ceo of barnes and nobles. a real trend. and why they can't keep e-readers in stock. let's dig into today's market action and see where the markets stand this afternoon. the stocks are mixed as investors digest the data with the s&p and nasdaq hitting intraday highs. the nasdaq up three quarters of 1%. the s&p up to 5555 nearly, and the dow down 45 points. that's as yields across the board are down after that employment report. the ten-year just below 4.3%. we talked about whether that's putting pressure on the banks today. and crypto still down as investors watch the payout of $9 billion in bitcoin to defunct
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users. we're back to $56-k, believe it or not. bitcoin is down 6%, lowest level since february. ether down 12%. tesla shares are higher yet again today, the eighth positive day in a row -- it would be the eighth if we go back positive. the shares are up 24% in the past week. it's turned positive. tesla had been the only mag seven stock lower in 2024. we could go back in the green. the economy adding more jobs than expected last month, but there were some red flags in that report. for those flags, let's get to steve liesman. >> it was a strong jobs report. if these trends continue, though, it's going to give fed officials something to think about when it comes to monetary policy. the numbers now, 206,000,
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revisions were down by 111,000 the prior two months combined, and that 4.1% unemployment rate, a tick up. average hourly 3.9%. pretty good news, heading back to a level the fed might consider to be congruent with 2% inflation. where the jobs were, government, 70,000. that was government. federal and local. most of that in local. health care, a perennial supplier of jobs to the economy these days. goods producing all of that was production. but leisure and hospitality, up just 7,000. that's a place we have gotten a lot of jobs from. maybe they have topped out there. and temporary help, sometimes a harbinger of things to come, minus 49,000. slowing private sector, down 146,000. it's been weak two of the past three months. perhaps more weakness in government spending and hiring
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drops as expected. the feds fund market continued to put a low probability in july, but are more confident when it comes to september. and the december cut probability up to 72% for a second cut while job growth and indeed especially the private sector job growth has taken a step down. what we're looking for here is it's not weakness necessarily, but it bolsters the members of the fed who have said in recent weeks it might be time to keep a closer eye on the employment side of the mandate. they're just saying we have a dual mandate. we have been focused on inflation, let's look at the other side, too. >> but 5% is the current chance of a july cut? >> hold on. 6.5% at this moment. and the second cut is a little higher at 78%. so this was a day that bolstered the doves a bit. >> steve, stay right there. but for more on whether today's data will move the needle for
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the fed, we turn to andrew shrillens, and also here is stephanie roth. welcome. andrew, real quickly, last time we spoke you were optimistic about markets and the economy. do you remain that way? >> yeah, and i think if you look at the undertones of what's happening in the market is consistent with economy slowing but not breaking. you're seeing a rotation from the cyclical stocks to the growth stocks. but if the market thought the economy was breaking, you would see a rotation more to the safe stocks, the staples, utilities and so forth. but we're not seeing that. so i think it is a -- the market is more or less validating what the fed has tried to pursue, which is inflation down, economy slowing but not breaking. >> let me throw this out for all of you. i like to try some thoughts out here. i think this is the right group
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to do so. andrew, is it possible that ai is the business cycle? do we look at things excluding the mag seven or from a trading point of view, do you stick with the mag seven and all the stocks that have been doing well? is it just possible that innovation cycle is so powerful and the companies are so large, that is prolonging or more or less becoming the business cycle right now? >> yes, but i think there's other things going on that have not gotten focused recently. like fiscal policy. we're spending a lot of money, and that's going to help industrial companies that are benefiting from that. the semiconductor equipment by the buildout of the chip sector, which is ai. so i think there's other things going on, it's just really in the last month or so, ai sucked all the oxygen out of everything. but i would argue that's a great setup going into earnings season, because i think a lot of companies can highlight how
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they're doing even if they're not in ai. a lot of the parts to have economy are doing well. >> stephanie, i saw you nodding there. how does that play into everything? >> fiscal is a lot of the strength we've seen so far. especially what we just talked about. when we think about ai, it's only driving about 0.7% of gdp, compared to housing which is 3% to 4%. >> right. we used to say housing is the business cycle, so that is still the overarching force in many ways? >> housing was significantly larger than it was today before the crisis. but ai is super important for the market and economy, but perhaps a little less, though. we still have to pay attention to the cyclical parts of the economy. the immigration trends are super important today, as well. >> this is where i'm going with this, as well. the isms, the manufacturing one, bad. third month straight still in contraction. then the services one comes out
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wednesday, in contraction territory. so what is that telling us about what's going on with the economy? it doesn't sound like a picture of strength right now. >> i would say we're losing momentum. but some of the survey type measures tend to capture momentum. they're not measures of absolute activity. so things are slowing down, and we saw that in a lot of the data. >> so the mid cycle supportive cut -- nothing is a disaster yet. steve, what would you say? >> i think i'm more subjectively optimistic on friday afternoons. >> especially in the summer? >> especially in the summer. here's the deal. if ai is the business cycle, and warning, i don't cover stocks either, but i think about macro things. if ai is the business cycle, these are very early days in the ai business cycle. i have been fascinated by the
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focus of the market on the inventors of the stuff, and very little focus on the users of the stuff. if wall street has this entirely wrong, that's one scenario, which is possible. maybe the tech ends up being a bust. if it's not a bust, they're putting a lot of capital into companies that are going to be providing a whole new technology to, let's say the entire economy. and as far as i can tell, they haven't given a dollar to somebody who is going to benefit from this technology. and i don't think we've thought this through down the road. it may be only those companies benefit. there are stories of technological progress that do happen. for example, in the industrial revolution in england, only the real estate guys made any money. you can't think of a single company that came out of the tech stock revolution of england. san francisco too, by the way. in any event, maybe just nvidia does well. but maybe there's a whole story
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of people using nvidia chips that are going to change the economy. so i just say if ai is the business cycle, and that's right, these are early days. >> we're all going to be a little more productive. i really believe that. i look at the ways i'm using chatgbt, and it's freeing up my time just a little bit. andrew, the employment report. what is the more important signal? you think the fed needs to cut in july? >> well, i'm not an economist, i'm an equity manager, but i think the point is, focusing on inflation, but powell's mindful of the economy slowing, so i think the focus is going to move to labor and unemployment. if that's the case, as steve said, it's the september number. and let's face it, for equities, at least early in cuts, that's perceived as positive. so i think it's a positive sign
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if the fed were to cut in september, at least temporarily. the one thing i would like to add, kelly, is at least you start with ai, you know, because i think to steve's point, there's some real secular changes going on in our economy. i would throw glp-1 drugs in as another major chiange. when i talk to investors, they're missing these major secular changes that are occurring in our economy. i think these will be the drivers. >> can i throw an election question in there? going back many months, some said they're not going to cut in september right before an election. i don't know what there is to say about the election, but is there any fed ramification to be thinking about? >> from the election if >> yeah. >> i think the story all year is that we know the market doesn't like uncertainty. so we have two people running
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for president that we know, for good or bad, we know. i think that is why we've seen the market -- one of the reasons the market has done very well with little volatility. if that changes, i would expect more volatility because of that uncertainty. >> i see. if it's not biden, there is -- that's an interesting point. stephanie, last word. >> sure. we're thinking about the election and next year, i think the economy might look fairly similar under both candidates for a period of time. they both like to spend and to spend on fiscal ways that are sort of boosting the manufacturing sector of the economy. where they tend to diverge is around tariff policy, and that's likely going to be tied to tcga toward the end of the year. >> do they even diverge on tariff policy? >> i think trump wants to go much further. i don't know that businesses are taking that as seriously as they ought to. businesses looking at the
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tradeoff that the trump administration is unlikely to go for higher corporate taxes. at the same time, you have this potential what would amount to a further disruption of supply chains compared to the prepandemic era that i think is troubling, and i think what i would like to do is start a free trade party in this country, because there's no party to belong to if you support free trade. >> i'm not seeing a lot of momentum on that. >> if you grew up reading milton friedman, you have nowhere to go home. >> i'll join your party. >> all right. i wish you all the best. steve liesman, stephanie, andrew, appreciate your time today. speaking of the election, a growing number of democratic donors say they'll withheld support for the party until joe biden drops out. megan is here with the names and numbers to know ahead of the president's tv interview tonight.
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>> it's a small but growing group of democratic donors calling on biden to step aside. netflix founder is one of the first to come out and say biden needs to resign. no checks for any democrats until biden is gone. whitney tilson is warning that biden will lose to trump, possibly in a landslide. just before i came out here, "the new york times" is reporting that a coalition of 168 business leaders are calling on bide on the step aside, as well. so it's drip, drip, drip and we're see thing grow. these are the folks who were speaking publicly. but i'm hearing donors who are worried, frustrated, a little angry. the feeling is how did we get here and how do we get past this? it's not a unanimous call, though. reed hoffman of linkedin and his adviser have been leading the charge in support of biden. he laid out an eight-point
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argument on why biden is the only one that can beat trump. the biden campaign are launching a $50 million ad buy in july. and they're pledging to make biden available for more interviews. at this point, all eyes are on that interview with abc news tonight. there's just no overstating how pivotal that could be for the future of this campaign. kelly? >> it's interesting they're going to make him more available not less so, as being less available has been the strategy. >> that's the only thing that could change anything, from one elected official after the next, elected democrat after the next, everybody feels or hoping we're gas lit a lot. why is the white house being so insular about this? why are we not hearing from the president himself s? even if those go as well as they could, there's still going to be a lot of outstanding questions about is the president up for the job every day and not just
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in please moments that we're starting to see him? so he recognizes the white house and the campaign recognize they have to do a whole lot more of that if they win back some confidence. >> megan, i didn't know if it was a confirmed story, this narrative about the president not being available after 8:00 p.m., was that a real thing the campaign was putting forth? >> nbc news confirmed in that meeting with democratic governors wednesday evening, he acknowledged he needs more rest and maybe he should cut back on events after 8:00 p.m. some of the governors took that seriously and were worried about it. governor newsom of california, he's been a big sur gsurrogate f biden. he is acknowledging that he needs to get more sleep. >> i'm no longer available after 8:00 p.m. megan, thank you very much. while joe biden tries to reassure voters, democratic fund-raisers are turning their attention to down ballot races and they're turning out in
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record numbers, hoping to take control of the house and retain control in the senate. >> they're amping up their giving to down ballot candidates to ensure that democrats can hold at least one of the congressional chambers next year. this comes after the debate and the supreme court's ruling on presidential immunity. democrats are seeing a surge of support from grassroots as well as major donors. this past week, the senate democrats broke multiple fund raising records on digital and grassroots support and marked the best day of fund raising for 2024. according to a national democrat, major donors are increasing their commitments to these races and to these candidates, including six-figure donations. house democrats are seeing a bump between the debate and the end of the month as the end of june. digital fund-raising brought in
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$1.3 million. and barack obama raised $3 million at an event last friday. lawmakers are voicing concerns about biden continuing as the nominee. biden is in wisconsin today but he will not be appearing with senator baldwin. she faces a difficult race, but is planning to be in a different part of the state today. only two democrats have called on biden to withdraw in congress, but they're just the tip of the iceberg. there are lots of members who have been voicing concerns in private. we'll be keeping an eye on lawmakers when they return to d.c. on tuesday. a number of members and staffers that i've spoken with say once everyone is back in the same room, they're expecting to see a little more movement on whether or not democrats will be behind biden or more calls for him to withdraw. >> how do the odds at this point look that democrats gain the house majority or retain control
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of the senate? >> the house feels like a toss-up, but the senate is going to be really difficult. right now, if democrats can win a number of very tough senate races, tough races in ohio, in montana, in nevada, in pennsylvania, in michigan, assuming that they're able to pull all of those off, the best that they're looking at right now is a 50-50 split senate. and if you have a democrat in the white house, then you have that tiebreaker vote in the party's favor. but if you have a president trump, then the senate can't be a firewall, because there's going to be no one to break any ties, and then it really falls to the house. that's a huge question right now. right now, you hear a lot of confidence fromthe house members saying we are not running with joe biden, we're running our own campaigns, focused on our own constituencies. they're up in the polls, but we don't have a lot of polls yet since that debate. that's something a lot of folks are telling us they're keeping a
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close eye on. so you could see a big ripple when it comes to how many lawmakers think that biden needs to remove himself from the ticket or whether it's possible to stay. >> so perhaps we're seeing swing state polling. we'll see if we get that in the days to come. emily, thank you. coming up, home prices are going through the roof, but the floor is falling in lumber futures and related stocks. we'll look at what's driving those prices to new post pandemic lows and what can turn it around. and from lumber to london, kier st starmer is the new prime minister. we'll look at what is on his agenda and what it could signal for the french election runoff this weekend. and another check on markets with the s&p and nasdaq reaching new intraday all-time highs. the dow 2% its own record high.
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"the exchange" is back after this. >> this is "the exchange" on cnbc. dn't have done it without you. honestly, i don't do a whole lot here. i'm really just here for the at&t internet, it's super-fast so, any pre-launch concerns? what if nobody buys them? that's mean or, what if everybody buys them? oh, i hadn't thought of that that's probably not gonna happen can we handle that kind of traffic? the network can handle it! i downloaded eight hours of true crime stories just during our last video call i'm learning a lot ♪ (alarm sound) ♪ amelia, turn off alarm. amelia, weather. 70 degrees and sunny today. amelia, unlock the door. i'm afraid i can't do that, jen. ♪ (suspenseful music) ♪ why not? did you forget something? ♪ (suspenseful music) ♪ my protein shake. the future isn't scary. not investing in it is. you're so dramatic amelia. bye jen. nasdaq-100 innovators. one etf. before investing, carefully read and consider fund investment objectives, risks, charges,
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welcome back to "the exchange." we've discussed hot areas of inflation like rent or even potato chips. but what about areas of deflation? we're increasingly seeing them and lumber is one of them, with futures dropping 18% since march to post pandemic lows. a slowdown in home building may be to blame.
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my next guest suspects a bear market rally. joining me is kyle little. kyle, it's been a while. welcome. >> yeah, thank you for having me. nice to see you again. >> those of us who haven't followed lumber closely, bring us up to seed with what's been happening here. >> let's go back to a couple of years. 2021, when we first talked, really was the peak consumption of softwood lumber, and we saw housing starts push at that time north of 1.8 million. in 2022, we talked about the reset, or what we would talk about was the great reset, which essentially was a reversion back to the total long-term mean, and ultimately, you would break through that and build a case for a bear market move and setting new lows. and then 2023, we started building a real foundation in the pricing of lumber where we
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saw a cyclical low at the end of 2022, early 2023. the market really traded in a very narrow range, essentially really bottoming out and creating a good, solid foundation for the marketplace. i think what changed as we went into 2024 is that i think people were very optimistic, and we didn't recognize -- i think the industry did not recognize how fast demand would continue to decline during that period of time. that's so fascinating. ma so where does the lumber price today stack up against where we were prepandemic, if we're at 495 now. >> you look at the last 25 years, lumber today, inflation adjusted, is approaching it's all-time low. so we are extremely, extremely
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cheap relative to the past. there is room to go lower, no doubt about it. however, we think what happened, you know, with the bottoming out in late 2022, early '23 and the retest or breaking through that bottom earlier this week, and now trading about 3%, 4% above that, maybe we've started to recognize that this is finally capitulated and prices are about ready to do something else. >> it's crazy. a designer friend i was talking to, at the fourth of july party yesterday, said they're watching these prices actively, and there are people on the sidelines for certain projects because they were priced out and they're starting to come back in. but labor and other materials still remain pretty high. maybe it's lumber specific? >> i think lumber -- typically, it was the first to go up, the first to go down and it will be the first to recover in the next move.
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and all the other subsidiary building materials will ultimately follow it. just going through a home remodel myself recently, things are much more negotiable than they were before, albeit not coming off as much as the lumber, the input to housing starts or repair and remodel. but things are much more negotiable as we go forward, which is bringing f ing afforda back into play. >> just a fascinating turn of events. the shortages becoming gluts and lumber just the latest example. kyle, thanks for your time. >> thank you, kelly. still to come, barnes and noble has been a household name for more than a century, but you can't buy a book with how to keep up with today's real estate. we're back after this. ignored , and mocked your ambition. but it's not the critic who counts.
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now, five of the so-called mag seven stocks are hitting new all-time highs today and some call these the fab five, micr microsoft, apple, amazon, alphabet and meta. elsewhere, in the old world, macy's surging on a report that the investor group is raising their buyout offer for a second time. this time they're proposed to buy the stock they don't already known for $24.80 a share. and macy's is currently trading just below $20. it's still up 19% this year, and getting about 9% pop today. the group is offering $300 million more than their recent offer on a 40% premium to wednesday's closing price. over to tyler mathisen for the cnbc news update. >> i thought it was just the fireworks display moving the stock. meantime, a tennessee judge
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ruled late thursday that the writings of a national school shooter won't be made public. in her ruling, the judge said the release would do more harm than good. police offered to make the writings public once their investigation into the shooting had ended, but the release prompted a court battle. between media companies and members of the shooter's family. the judge did not rule out that records could be released one day. ford to recall 300 -- more than 30,000 mustangs over an issue with the steering wheel. there is an issue with the sensor that can cause the wheel to unintentionally turn. that's not a good thing. the recall affects vehicles from the 2022 and '23 model years. and mt. etna erupted on friday, spewing hot ash and lava.
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etna is one of the most active volcanos in the world. most recent eruptions have forced the shutdown of the airport there. it is quite a sight to see. kelly, back to you. >> wow, amazing. tyler, thank you. coming up, uk voters delivering the left of center labor party a victory over the weekend. citi tells us why that could be good for business. and check out the big banks, getting hit pretty hard, just a week away from the start of earnings. wells fargo, down 2%. there is some flattening in the immediate curve. we'll be right back. stay with us.
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for your full financial picture and personalized money management with the right balance of risk and reward. doors were meant to be opened. welcome back to "the exchange." investors cheering the labor party's land slide victory in the uk election. the ftse 250 ending the week up more than 2%, while the pound is at the highest level against the dollar in more than a month. in france, it seems unlikely that the far-right will clench a majority. joining me to discuss what this
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means for the market are my two guests. welcome to you both. it's been a while. i'm so glad that you could stay on. your knee jerk reaction, where should we focus our attention on the reaction to these changes and what could come next? >> this is the most powerful prime minister now for a generation, since tony blair came to power in 1997. a majority of the size of about 175 seats, basically means keir starmer can do as he pleases, certainly in the early years of government. the biggest takeaway on a business sense from the campaign trail is that labor promises to balance the books. in their words, there will be no unfunded commitments. so yes, some reallocation of who pays some of the taxes and how exactly they're raised, but we're not expecting a big expansion of the balance cheat, the government balance sheet from here, as we saw with an
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experiment that didn't work with liz truss with some unfunded tax cuts that led to bond yields rising. in that sense, you're seeing that sense of stability. the ftse rose but didn't move significantly, nor did the bull market. >> and one of the analysis i was listening to, to achieve this win he had to move away from the corbin progressive era and more into some typically -- i don't want to say conservative, but kind of centrist in terms of the policies, is that right? >> absolutely right. of course, that comes from a fact that keir starmer, who only became an mp late in life in 2015, did serve in jeremy corbyn's shadow cabinet, which raised a question where his true idealogical heart was. but since he became the leader of the labor party in 2020, not
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only has he banished corbin from the party, he's watered down every policy he announced. a good example was a pledge to deliver a net zero economy by 2030. it's now an aim, rather than a pledge. it used to be 28 billion pounds a year in spending and now just 8 billion to reach them. absolutely right. he went from pragmatism to make sure he won and it worked, played it safe. in light of what he faced, which was desperately unpopular prime minister and unpopular party, playing it safe was the right tactic, and that was born out by the results today. >> i ask because i think there might be lessons for what's happening on our side of the pond, as well, where we see a democratic party trying to figure out whether to lean into its more progressive policy initiatives or dial back and simply be a more center left version of what's on offer from the other side. i thought it was interesting,
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because it goes against the narrative, but nigel's party did win a couple of seats, and in france, that narrative is not yet over, this idea that we're giving up on these more anti-immigration parties. i'm not sure this puts that to rest. i'm curious for your thoughts. >> absolutely. so in europe, we have had our fair share of political uncertainty in elections over the past few weeks. one of the surprises that you mentioned are the smaller parties getting a bit more receipts than expected. as far as the anticipated outdo outcome in the uk, what you need to know this labor government is more business friendly, and that matters for what i focus on
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which is the equity markets. so in terms of implications, really what we are watching the most is the direction of the pound, strengthening pound tends to be beneficial for ftse 250, as you mentioned in the beginning, the market has been doing better. so this is our preferred way of playing the post uk election. so -- >> interesting. in sheer numbers, the support for the labor party was not as great this year as it might have been ten years ago, i forget the comparison, or if was not an election that had a mass popular vote behind it, but they won a third of the vote or something to that effect. so in terms of brexit especially, is there a mandate here to undo that or to change it somehow? do you think -- is that part of what drew people to the outcome, or is that not really the story
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right now? >> well, kelly, the interesting thing on brexit, is it was not mentioned at all by any party during the campaign trail. by those that formally wanted to remain, because they saw what a majority boris johnson got in 2019 by saying was getting brexit done. and by those that have delivered brexit, because it hasn't really been a success. so no side mentioned it whatsoever. so interestingly, looking ahead is the renegotiation scheduled for next year. and whether there's a mandate or not doesn't really matter, because keir starmer has a very big majority. it comes early in his term, so he'll feel safe from whatever he does towards the eu, but he's not going to be tested on it for three or four years to come. there's definitely the prospect and clearly something that business also be focused on to take the uk back closer to the eu on trade terms at least, if he wanted to do much more than that politically, you would
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probably have to revisit a referendum that they won't want to do. on the point you mentioned before and the comparison to france. really, the key comparison is not about who did well, left or right. it's that the incumbent in both countries got absolutely smashed. macron came third in the first round of the elections last week, and yes, the far right came top. but the far left also did better than macron's party. i think the similarity, you have two leaders, macron and sunak, that gambled by taking elections early and they gambled wrong. so whoever has been the winner, the incumbent has been hit very hard. >> you're still underweight on the uk, looking at the whole world. for now, thank you both. appreciate your time today. coming up, "the new york times" reporting openai was hacked last year. what was compromised and who
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could be behind it? we'll have those details next. and check out today's top performing sector, communication services, up more than 2%. while energy is the laggard with a 1.5% decline. "the exchange" will be right back after this. switch to shopify so you can build it better, scale it faster and sell more. much more. take your business to the next stage when you switch to shopify.
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openai was hacked in april of last year, and never disclosed it to the public. first reported by "the new york times," and now confirmed by cnbc, details how hackers broke into the startup's internal messaging system and accessed streets. deidre bosa has more. deidre? >> hey, kelly. so this raises questions as to how much generative ai companies should be sharing about security incidents, and how transparent openai particularly is as its influence grows. they decided not to share with law enforcement or the public because no information about
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customers or partners had been stolen and they didn't consider it a national security threat because the hacker was a private individual with no known ties to a foreign government. but in cybersecurity that be be difficult to determine and impacts are not immediately known. experts say reporting attacks can mitigate broader threats. in this case, the hacker gave access to internal communications channels, used for discussions among employees. so not the more important systems where openai actually keeps and builds its technology. an openai spokesperson says, as we shared with our board and employees last year, we identified and fixed the security issue and continue to invest in strengthening security. for now, studies by gen ai companies have shown that chat bots are not significantly more dangerous than search engines, but the potential use cases of deep fakes, hacks of critical
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infrastructure, those are more worrying. so you are seeing companies and government agencies try to figure out the right way to protect this technology, which as we always say, is only getting started. >> for everything put into openai, the stuff could be hacked, that's why companies are concerned about trade secret. it's also the one-year anniversary of threads, and it's doing better than i thought it would. i need to go back on the platform. >> i did, for the first time in a long time. a lot of people are like me. we've seen the monthly active users increase. meta shares daily active users on instagram, whatsapp and facebook, you can see after that big initial burst of activity, now up to about 175 million monthly active users, which tells us that people are dropping in probably, less using it habitually day-to-bay, like
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you and i, kelly, but proving that zuck continues to be very good at social media. >> i thought it was some kind of ai generated -- i didn't think this was real. and way. >> doesn't get old. >> it doesn't. now people are trying to analyze whether based on the wake boarding video how the stack did. >> there's been a few. the hydro foiling, i go back to the one where he had sunscreen all over his face. what a reinvention this guy. >> i appreciate people, him, taylor swift, being who they are, sharing it with the rest of us. deirdre, thank you very much. coming up, the beach read season is upon us, we will talk to the ceo of barnes and noble about the summer's hottest titles and how book talk continues to shake up the industry.
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with fidelity income planning, a dedicated advisor can help you grow and protect your wealth. they'll help you create a flexible strategy designed to balance growth and guaranteed income so you can enjoy the life you've created. that's the planning effect. ♪ welcome back. it's not just authors like coal loon hoover getting the booing talk treatment, the "wall street journal" reports sales of e readers like kindle and nook have climbed over the past two
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to three years as gen z makes it a must have access is i, akin to the stanley tumbler. barnes & noble is also experiencing brick and mortgagor growth. opening 27 stores this year with another 37 planned. let's check back in with james daunt, the ceo of barnes & noble. >> thank you. >> it is a place that my kids love and i apologize for the mess in their wake. they look great, the new ones. >> thank you very much. they're being very successful so we're very pleased. >> almost like a substitute downtown for people, you can bring people there and get together and so forth. how are sales of actual physical books doing? in volume growth maybe inflation is a little bit of that. >> i think it is fine. we came out of covid with a new customer base, which was a happy and slightly unexpected outcome, but better than that it's kept on growing since then. our stores are full of people of
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all ages. it is driven by young adults to a considerable degree, but every week we're a little bit better than the week before and every month certainly so. so we're still feeling very good. you had somebody surfing a wave and we certainly feel we are doing that ourselves at the moment. >> we will let you borrow mark zuckerberg's meme. have young adults always been reading romance novels or is this something new and different and how is tiktok playing into that? i find this all so fascinating. >> to be honest and you can see from what i look like that i've been book selling a very long time indeed. young adults have always been the heart of good book stores. we've always had them in our stores and obviously harry potter and you keep having wave after wave of things that excite them. book talk has been extraordinary because it's changed its focus. it's been on classics, we were selling lots of jane austin then it moved on to more popular
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books. now very much in a romancy type era. that sort of market. but blink and they will start reading something else. at the moment it's quite diffuse, they're reading lots and lots of different things. >> fantasy is also a big one of interest. do you -- i know it's not as if you're doing this directly yourself but those running each location, are they scouring book talk and trying to adapt quickly? how quick do the book stores have to be? >> book stores have to be extremely quick. i think one of the great advantages that we have had over the last few years is that we've sort of left the book stores to do they think is most sensible. it's allowing us to adapt and adjust our stores very locally, one store becomes quite different to another as you walk in what you find on the table is what they're promoting. it's the book sellers in there that are able to do that because they're talking to their customers every day as well. >> i remember reading that that was going to be part of the strategy. that's always been the fun, the
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discovery aspect of when you go into a new bookstore. so what's going on with e readers? >> e readers are sort of the cousin as also audio books in which -- how people choose to read and consume books and it's exciting for us that people are actually engaged not just with physical books. i mean, they are primarily with physical books but more e reading going on and a lot more listening to books as well. we can even engage as readers as they go for their morning jog. >> we've been leaning into the local library ourselves, my book buying is way down but consumption is higher than ever. i figure it's all good for the ecosystem. >> exactly. the more people are engaged with books, the more people are thinking in that way the better it is for us. i think it's not so much to say it's better for society. >> amen. we will leave it there. james daunt, pleasure to check in with you. thanks for your time. >> thank you. >> ceo of barnes & noble.
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we want to take it public again. that does it for "the exchange." tyler mathisen is getting ready for "power lunch."
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welcome to "power lunch," everybody, alongside kelly evans i'm tyler mathisen. glad you could join us. stocks are higher today after a strong gain in jobs, 206,000, but another tick higher in the unemployment rate to 4.1%. bond yields turning a little lower on the news. so i

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