farmers, crushed the farmers so look at what we learned today. prices have hurt the consumer, they are opting for lower alternatives. it's a phenomenon right? they call it moving down in value. so here is what i'm thinking and at least i'm hoping. that appears that maybe she would consider turning off the government spigot ditching modern monetary theory. she and president biden, they tried it. it has failed miserably, destroyed the hopes and dreams of so many americans. just don't do it, right? let capitalism flourish. they keep bragging that we've got the strongest economy in the world. they keep in sin you ating that it's because of them. we've had the strongest economy in the world since the mid-1800s, but let's not become europe because europe is not where we want to be. it's not in our ethos. well, let's just hope it doesn't happen, liz. liz: yeah, although europe has great chocolate. charles: [laughter] liz: that will take -- charles: it's a great place to

visit. you just don't want to start a business there. liz: i so agree with you charles. what a solid economy. i mean, this is all coming together today. stocks are cruising at high altitude as we kickoff the final hour of trade. thanks to not one, not two, but multiple fuel injections in the form of strong earnings and economic data. so, the earnings story most evident on the dow heat map. look over there. look whose near the very top. network software services and equipment maker cisco. it is up about 6.5% on an earnings beat. they had a very positive current quarter revenue forecast and they also announced a 7% cut in the employee headcount, but then you go to the number one poll position on the blue chips. investors are piling into walmart. shares are surging just a second ago up 7% after the big box retailer outperformed earnings and revenue estimates, said its customer base is holding up well and that they have seen one segment of shoppers growing.

those who make six figures. i mean, isn't that a sign, even consumers at the high end are starting to feel some type of pinch? coming up in a fox business exclusive, walmart chief chief financial officer john david rainy is here to analyze that and tell us the shifts he's seen when it comes to items, specific items in customer's shopping baskets, and as the stock hits a record high, what's walmart's plan to keep it there? all right it's not just the dow. the bulls are firmly in control of the broader markets. cockpit instruments right now, the s&p nice move here at the moment up 84 points 1.5% gain but you'll note both the nasdaq and the russel are up two-plus percent a piece. s&p and nasdaq on pace for six day winning streaks the longest in a month and dow, s&p and nasal having their best day of the year. fresh economic numbers fueling a good part of the action, beyond earnings. july retail sales look absolutely vend it. month-over-month, jumping 1%

compared to three-tenths of a percent anticipated, and then up 2.7% year-over-year, compared to june's 2.3%. so, with that, plus fewer people joining the unemployment lines last week. no wonder people are buying stocks, and apparently, they are using online brokerage robinhood to do it. shares are popping 6% on a major upgrade, and there's something ceo wants shareholders to know about the growing power of robinhood clients. coming up on the "clayman countdown" in a fox business exclusive. all right, with all this good news and strong data, can federal reserve really justify a 50 basis point interest rate cut in september? let's get right to the floor show. we've got strategic wealth partners tony zavigala, and with 75 billion in assets under management richard burn, president of benefits street partners which focuses on high yield bonds, structured credit and commercial real estate which as we know is facing a mass resetting of loans at much

higher rates. i want to start with tony. the jenga pieces for a soft economic landing appear to be stacking up. what do you see? >> well, we're pretty positive with the market right now. our base case is a soft landing with no recession, because the consumer is strong. we saw that today with the numbers that came out. unemployment is still historically low. the bond market is showing signs of a soft landing. the spreads between high yield bonds and treasuries is still historically tight, but i can not promise no bumps or volatility because we do still have middle east and geopolitical tensions heating up. there's an election. there's uncertainty who the winners going to be and then we have the fed coming up in a few weeks. are they going to cut or not cut? because if they cut, does that create more volatility in that carry trade way? i'm a little concerned about that but if they don't cut, markets going to sell-off because i feel that the cut is baked in. liz: look at the bond yields. they are popping, two year up 15

basis points. that means, richard, that we are looking at the potential, maybe for a quarter point cut, if that's even justified. i don't know, but not a 50 basis point cut if you're looking at the markets bet on that. what does that mean to different sector of the market that have you excited and/or worried? >> absolutely, so thanks, liz. so we're a credit manager so we don't look at the world from an equity upside, hockey stick perspective. we're looking to get our coupons, make our good returns, and move on with hopefully minimal damage and what things move that? fundamentals of course. it's the specifics of the company, or certainly the overall economy which seems relatively good, and the other is interest rates. so we just went through a period starting in 2,022, not a news flash, where rates went up so dramatically and so quickly, that it affected valuations. it increased the interest service that companies had to

endure and it really affected m&a volumes. it affected the valuations of companies, you know, pure and simple. to the extent rates are coming down now, boy, that's great. just remember one thing though. it's a double edge sword. when rates are higher, almost all the loans that we and lenders like us make, are floating rate loans, so we get a great benefit. it's like, you know, my mother at least used to tell me, you can always have too much of a good thing. i couldn't imagine you could have too much candy or anything but you get too much you get a stomach ache and stuff. interest rates went up just what everybody wanted. all anybody ever complained about is how low rates are. we got all this added interest that we're earning as credit managers but what's the flip side? it made the credits worse. liz: right. it does in a way, and tony, what about the stock picture. if you're looking at equities and you see that they might not get the 50 basis point cut that they wanted, and instead in september, they get a 25 basis

point or i don't know, i mean, you see this retail sales number today and it makes you wonder, i mean, i don't know jay powell probably wouldn't backtrack but just do a 25 basis point cut? >> i think 25 basis points is where they are going to land. i think 50 be too aggressive, based on again, there's a good base with the consumer unemployment and bonds right now. i find it hard for them to go jump right in at a 50 basis point, but you know, when we take a look, just we're adding positions to things like big tech and we're trying to find election proof and rate hike proof kind of stocks right now too. liz: where do you see the opportunity right now, richard? no matter what rates do. >> so we look across the credit spectrum. as you mentioned in your intro, we do corporate lending, private debt, public debt, and we do real estate lending as well. interestingly enough, the market has figured out that corporate

lending is a great spot to be right now. the economy is good. companies are good. rates will probably raise default rates but things are still relatively safe and comfortable. not so much in commercial real estate. so this will hopefully not shock you but with that much more concerning outlook, especially around office, we think it's actually the best place to invest right now. liz: why? >> well because sometimes you need that fire. you want to be the concern running up the fire stairs, not running and with fresh capital right now. almost all of the traditional lenders, commercial real estate are on the sidelines. 50% of the market is banks have been historically the lenders. they're out. 70% of that 50% is regional, community-type banks. they don't have the business models to bail themself out of this office problem, so if you were a commercial real estate lender, it was almost impossible

to avoid the office sector. it's on average 20 maybe as high as 25% of the balance sheets on average of these companies. offices, i mean, i don't have to tell you. we're over-capacity in office to a degree that we think it's going to take three-to-five years to fix so while all these people are fixing those problems they aren't lending. liz: i see what you're saying so as we look at the treasury market popping at the moment when it comes to the yields, the stock market is moving in the same direction, tony. quick final comment here on that. >> yeah, again, as i mentioned, we're looking for stocks that are going to be all-weather right now because portfolio managers are really going to position their portfolios for either a trump win or a harris win. we're looking at interest rates, if they are going to cut, not going to cut, but at the end of the day, you know, the election is going to be the biggest thing that's going to be coming down the pike and a lot of portfolio managers need to be gearing up for that.

it's time to start looking for stocks that are election-proof. so we like a stock like general dynamics, for example, because they are going to be an all weather type of stock. liz: general dynamics of course and we've got the tensions in the middle east. we are going to take our viewers live to tel aviv. there's major developments in the middle east that we want to talk about too, so we'll be continuing to watch that and of course defense stocks too. richard byrne, tony, great to have you thank you so much. it's 13f day, the day where we find out which stocks the smart money is dumping, and which ones they are buying. up next, we'll tell you the latest makeup of billionaire warren buffett's portfolio and a powerful exclusive double header coming up. walmart, chief financial officer john david rainy is just a few minutes away followed by vlad tenev, ceo of trading and financial platform robinhood. both companies, stocks are speaking right now. you'll hear from both only on the "clayman countdown."

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liz: fox business alert. we've got competition brewing in the bid for paramount global. shares are jumping 8%. this goes under the category of it ain't over until it's over. former warner music ceo and chairman edgar bronfman jr. , we had heard rumors he was interested in putting in a bid but now there is word from the "wall street journal" he is reportedly preparing a very solid bid for national amusements, the holding company that controls paramount global. the "wall street journal" reports potential the bid could be made in the next few days, a

head of the go-shop period ending on august 21. that go-shop ending came about, or is coming about because controlling shareholder shari redstone already agreed to sell the media conglomerate to david ellison, skydance media, but if she accepts a competing bid by that end of the go-shop timing well they're out. paramount will owe skydance either way if skydance doesn't get the bid a breakup fee of $400 million. let's look at shares of ulta. they are jumping to the very top of the s&p up nearly 12% after legendary investor warren buffett said we're going to slap some lipstick on our portfolio here. he took a stake in the beauty retailer. according to the regulatory filing the berkshire hathaway ceo reportedly bought more than 690,000 shares of ulta for the company, which is worth about $227 million. the cosmetics store chain is looking to turnaround a rocky

year. the stock has fallen 24% year-to-date. classic buffett move seeing a great company going through a difficult time and says time to buy. shares plunging right now about 38.5% after aerospace and defense company lockheed martin announced plans to take the satellite maker private in a $450 million deal. with the acquisition, lockheed will pay off taron's debt and setup a $30 million capital facility to keep the company running, reporting less than 15 million in cash reserves at the end of july with a $300 million mountain of debt, the deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of this year for its part lockheed martin is down half a percent. let's look at tapestry. this is a luxury retailer reported a fourth quarter beat thanks to robust demand in europe. tapestry up 4%. the parent company of coach and kate spade saw european sales really perking up climbing 26%

year-over-year. tapestry also said it's confident the $8.5 billion purchase of competitor capri holdings will go through after the federal trade commission filed a lawsuit to block the merger, which they're doing a lot lately. tapestry says the rival acquisition is pro-consumer and hopes to close by the end of this year. we knew from robinhood the story of robinhood that he stole from the rich and gave to the poor but did you know the commission-free-trading app robinhood is stealing an entire key demographic from the biggest of big name brokerages? but the stock is rallying perhaps for another reason. robinhood couva ceo vlad tenev e next with the dow, nasdaq and s&p all on track for the best day of 2024 we are coming right back. maybe rich is less about reaching a magic number...

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liz: fox business alert. shares of trading and investing app robinhood breaking out at this hour after deutsche bank upgraded the stock to a buy and raised its price target to $24 a share. right now, we've got shares popping about 5% to $19.59. the stock, while down about 12% over the last month, has actually begun to move ticking up after the brokerage reported record financial results last week with revenues surging 40%

year-over-year, and deutsche analysts basically said buy this stock, because they see the company's diversification into crypto and retirement funds along with growth initiatives paired with cost control, teeing up long-term earnings power but forget the teeing up for a minute. there's one area where robinhood has already hit a home run. it's now the number one brokerage used by millenials on mobile so listen to this. more millenials use robinhood's app than they do fidelity, schwab, vanguard and etrade so we have robinhood ceo vlad tenev and this upgrade. when you get an upgrade to a buy it's a good feeling especially when you see the stock respond. >> thanks for having me. it seems like every time i'm on the show the stock is moving so i don't plan for it but it's nice to see. i try as much as i can, you know, i'm an old hat at this now running the company for 10 years, to keep focused on

the long-term and the long-term for us as you mentioned is millenials are going to inherit a lot of wealth. there's over 70 trillion in wealth that's going to be pass down from baby boomers to gen x and millenials and subsequent generations and we're putting robinhood in a place to be the primary beneficiary of what's the largest wealth transfer. liz: somehow the word spreads like wildfire and now with these old from fidelity to schwab to e-trade, somehow people like those very people who stand to benefit from the wealth transfer, what is it that you feel has been the big magnetic draw? >> i think it's two things. it's the interface and the user experience, particularly on mobile, and it's the value. across all of our products we try to hit the experience and the value and make it clear to our customers that they be at a disadvantage financially if they are using other products. you can see that in retirement

where we have a 3% match on contributions for our gold members. you can see it in our high yield offering which offers the most competitive rate on your cash in the market and on our active trader products where we have product innovations you can't find elsewhere like 24 hour market which allows stocks to trade 24/5, five days a week, and with our new credit card where you get 3% cash back on all categories so across all the products, using technology, we're able to cut out the fat that would go to brick-and-mortar, to hiring large teams and instead pass the savings on to our customers. liz: i was thinking about your technology on august 5, because august 5 we had this massive flash dip in the markets. volatility spiked. >> that's right. liz: equities started dumping out. people were selling stocks right and left. some of it was algorithmic selling. there was other brokerages that suffered a few problems. you guys didn't seem to have problems. you did suspend for i believe a

moment the 24 hour non-market hour trading, but tell me why you did that and what you're doing to insure that maybe the next time you won't have to do that. >> yeah, so we were up that day. a lot of our competitors were down and as a matter of fact we saw the impact of that. you know, it's hard to see all the investments that we make in our infrastructure a liability until everyone else has issues and we don't. we had over half a billion of deposits in that single day which is a huge amount for us, and 24 hour market -- liz: a half a billion on august 5? >> and 1 billion that first week and just, july which was a big deposit month and all of july we had 4 billion in deposits so that was a lot for a day. liz: how does that compare month-over-month to any month this year? >> so q2 was our record in deposits. we did about 13.2 billion in

deposits in that quarter. july was 4 billion, so exceeding that average pace, and that's 40% year-over-year growth. far in excess of other peers, and moreover, the net flows, so people moving assets and this goes into the millenial asset transfer point, so we're net positive in asset transfers from all of our major incumbent competitors. three quarters in a row so more people are moving assets to robinhood than away from robinhood which i think bodes well because we're still pretty early in our journey. there's a lot of work we've yet to do on the products and supporting more assets. supporting bonds and mutual funds, but we've got a great start. liz: i would say that the interface is a very key portion of this and this is anecdotal but my son had an internship at a wealth management firm and all the kids in the internship were on robinhood so he said mom, i'm

switching from the one i put him on and i'm thinking because i think that i looked at it. it's so much more user friendly. >> he's got to get you on it too. liz: well, crypto, will be interesting. your cryptocurrency offerings are very interesting, and the last time you were on, you just referenced at the top of this segment where you said there was news. the news was that you were acquiring bitstamp. how is that going? it is a long process i know but tell me about your crypto trading and the moves you've seen and how much of a draw it is. >> yeah, bitstamp allows us to do two things. it accelerates international and it gets robinhood into an institutional business, which is very important for us, and it gives us diversification and gives us institutional customers, and also the better we make our customer, our institutional experience, the more it helps our retail offerings, which we've been gaining market share in in the us, and the more liquidity the tighter spreads, the better

the offering for our retail customers as well so we think it'll really help accelerate that. liz: so you're grabbing all of these gen xyz and millenial traders or investors certainly. what would you say as we head into an election to perhaps the harris camp? the kamala harris camp, because joe biden and his administration have really been tough on cryptocurrency. what would you say from what you have learned about crypto, about bitcoin, what would you say to them if you had their ear? >> we have a unique position of being a very large player across both cryptocurrencies and traditional financial services, and the way that i look at crypto is it's the next stage of technology in financial services. we started off going from pen and paper to mainframes to on-premise to cloud. liz: evolution. >> and blockchain is just the next stage of that, and we have to embrace it, because the efficiency improvements are so strong. crypto allows 24/7 trading by

default, fractionalization by default and we've seen how challenging it is to implement that using traditional financial services so we have to embrace the and make sure the us is a leader globally in that and not just export those innovations so they are used internationally. liz: i mean for what you've seen in the interest in crypto, would you say that's an important voting block? >> i think it's a huge voting block, and there's a lot of single issue voters that primarily care about what the us stands on, on crypto, and i think that you're going to see that continue to become a more powerful constituency and it's young people that are savvy to technology. they want to adopt this thing, these things. they don't want to have it be relegated to outside of the us and offshore where it's less safe and i think the us will get there. we'll push and make sure the us is a leader and hopefully it'll happen sooner rather than later but i do think that the us will

get there. liz: vlad, it's good to see you and come here because there's always news moving your stock when you show up on the "clayman countdown." >> thanks for having me, liz. liz: you've got it. vlad tenev. folks we've got this breaking news. egyptian news tv is reporting the parties involved in the gaza cease-fire negotiations are still facing significant disagreements. we are going to have a live report in just a moment but first another ivy league president is out after the october 7 terrorist attack on israel sparked uncontrollable pro-palestinian protests on campus. columbia university president has resigned months after protesters flooded the new york stimulus campus, smashed windows and illegally seized control of an academic building, growing a list of ivy league presidents forced out of their positions after allowing acts to fester on their campus amid pro-palestine demonstrations. after a disastrous appearance at a congressional hearing about

the issues, harvard claud even gay and university of pennsylvania liz mcgill stepped down and cornell president martha pollach resigned in the wake of the school's inability to tamp down acts that led to class shutdowns leading to the middle east where its just been announced high level talks involving the us and israel to free the october 7 hostages will continue tomorrow in qatar with one crucial side missing. fox news correspondent alex hogan is live in tel aviv. alex? reporter: hi, liz. as you just mentioned egyptian tv saying that there's some big hurdles to overcome but this also comes as the white house says today progress is being made. we heard from president joe biden just in the last couple hours who confirmed that the egyptian and qatari mediators are going to be representing hamas in these talks, despite the fact that the militant group is not officially appearing within these conversations. we're also hearing from the israeli government tonight, confirming that their delegates

will remain in qatar tomorrow as these talks continue. >> the focus now is working on the details of the implementation and details of execution and specific implementing measures. there are of course still gaps in things that need to be bridged in that space but when we're talking about the overall framework, that has been generally accepted and that continues to be the case. reporter: ci director bill byrne and brett mcgirk are in qatar representing washington talks. gaza's health ministry run by hamas says 40,000 people have been killed since the start of the war and 85% of the population in gaza had been displaced. tonight the idf claims it eliminated and killed 17,000 hamas militants so there's been a tremendous amount of international pressure and hope leading up to today that these talks would prevent iran from attacking israel and avoiding a broader war. well, explosions also took place

and sirens blaring tonight on the border of israel and lebanon during the cross-border attacks and residents in northern israel have been told to stay near shelters. today in counter measures against iranian proxies and iran specifically, the us announced sanctions specifically against trade networks involving the houthis, and hezbollah and the leader tonight from yemen issued a warning saying that they as well promise retaliation against israel, which liz, really only goes to exemplify the fact even though there was this broad ambition the cease-fire talks would bring down the tension in the region, those words clearly tonight indicating that has not happened at least not yet. liz? liz: and the hostages remain stuck. it's just a nightmare. alex hogan, live from tel aviv. thank you very much. let's make a shift here. trading volume in walmart stock is double the one-month average right now as investors hoover up

shares. the nations largest retailer which just crushed quarterly earnings is considered a bell weather for the consumer because its got its finger on the pulse of where americans are saving and splurging. walmart chief financial officer john david rainy is going to point out to the exact purchases driving sales. whose now making them and what it all bodes for the future. that's next. and just as walmart began as a single store front, so did one of the world's top outdoor apparel retailers, columbia sportswear started as a tiny little hat business, and as he expanded the early offerings to include fishing vests the company became a family affair when the founder's son-in-law took over the reigns but neil's sudden death left his son and his wife gert, neither of whom had any business experience, wondering if they could even save the small business from bankruptcy. oh, yeah, they saved it. tim quit college and he

and gert set out to make columbia a top winner. how did they take it from the brink of disaster to the globally outdoor publicly traded clothing brand it is today? tim boil is my guest on this week's brand new episode of the everyone talks to liz podcast. he tells how he did it. there were really tough times but you can fight through tough times, listen on apple, google, spotify, i heart radio. the dow continues to climate 567 points very close to session highs. walmart cf o. and jen z. each planning their future through the chase mobile app. jen x is planning a summer in portugal with some help from j.p. morgan wealth plan. let's go whiskers. jen y is working with a banker to budget for her birthday. you only turn 30 once. and jen z? her credit's golden. hello new apartment. three jens getting ahead with chase.

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liz: so, a huge chunk of the rally you see , i mean the dow is up 577. much of this and the entire market rally is being powered by walmart. the nation's largest big box retailer seen by many as a bell weather of consumer health soaring to the top of the dow. it is up about 6.7%.

shares hitting a record high after posting a blockbuster second quarter report that beat on both the top and bottom line and they raised their full year outlook. walmart said its strong results reflect a robust first half of this year, but also said it's more cautious perhaps about the second half noting that customers have become more selective and are seeking value with purchases. here to dig into how the customer behavior is shifting is walmart's chief financial officer john david rainy, who joins us in a fox business exclusive from bentonville, arkansas. john david, welcome to the "clayman countdown." >> thanks for having me good to be on the show. liz: what within this report, because wall street has seen it all. its been out for several hours but what within this report made the biggest impression on you? in other words, over which metric were you and the team in the hallways of bents onville high-fiving each other? >> it's hard to pick one because interests so many good things about the quarter. drawing the top line at 5% and then once again growing ouropern

that at 7.5% but the e-commerce growth again for another quarter of growing more than 20%, i think really demonstrates that our value proposition right now with our customers and members is broader and deeper than its ever been before. we're not just known for value. we're now equally known for convenience and you see that with our e-commerce statistics and so its been a good quarter. i think across-the-board, not a lot to poke at. liz: not a lot to poke at but we no one thing. we know that high interest rates have been in place for quite some time. where are you seeing perhaps high interest rates taking a toll, or maybe helping the walmart bottom line? >> well, when we look at the health of the consumer overall, i think a lot of people with some of the economic data, its been out there recently, they're looking for signs of weaknesses. is there something of concern that should be out there? and we've actually seen the consumer, our customers and

members, be very connell. consistent.if you look at the qh by month there's not a lot of variation between the trend so there certainly wasn't a step-off in july but they are showing the same behaviors they have in prior quarters. they are choiceful, discerning, looking for value and focusing on those essentials versus the discretionary items so prices are still high relative to where they were a few years ago. they have come down on a year-over-year basis and wallets are still stretched but we did not see , importantly, we did not see any incremental fraying of consumer health during the quarter. liz: okay that is a great sign, but surely, you saw some shifting in what consumers are putting in their carts, because you also finally after 11 quarters of not seeing gains, there's merchandise beyond grocery that is starting to show some pickup. >> well it's a really important point, liz. for about three-years now, we've seen a shift in the basket with higher prices to focus on those essentials. so we've seen a shift from

general merchandise to food, and that's persisted for about 11 quarters. this is the first quarter in some time that we've actually seen general merchandise begin to rebound a little bit and perhaps it's a little bit of an indication of what's going on with the consumer. i think it's also though a reflection of what we're doing in our business. we're providing a broader assortment through our marketplace offering. we have many categories that are growing in excess of 20% year-on-year because of that broader assortment where we're providing the things that our customers and members want to buy. liz: john david, i know that you said on the conference call and in the note that you don't see a hard landing, and you don't really see a recession, but smart people model for something like that. how has walmart modeled for a potential recession, even a shallow one? what have you put into place, if in case that does come to pass? >> well i think it's worth noting, liz. we raised our full year guidance based largely on

the outperformance in the first half of the year but in doing so we also called out we thought was responsible and prudent to be measured with our outlook in the back half of the year. we've got global unrest in the middle east. we've got an election coming up in the us and so there is room for uncertainty. it's far from normal times, in terms of forecasting, but i think very importantly, we all walmart are a company that stand to do very well when pocket books are stretched and we're in more recessionary-tight periods but as we've demonstrated recently, we're also doing well when the economy is growing, and it's more expansionary. given the offering that we have today, we think that we can appeal to customers in both types of economic environments. liz: you mentioned the election both former president trump and kamala harris as the vice president now and as a candidate on the democratic side have said, have promised, we're going to bring prices down. there hasn't been much explanation of how they do it, although the harris campaign has actually said she's proposed a

federal ban on corporate what she called price gouging for food and groceries. consumers come to walmart for great deals on this. i mean, your margins are very thin i would imagine on groceries. what do you make of that kind of proposal? >> well, look. our business model is everyday low prices. we constantly advocate for lower prices on behalf of our customers and members, and so we want to have low prices. that's what we're trying to do. if you look at our revenue growth in the last quarter, it was entirely driven by traffic and units so not passing on higher prices, prices for us in the quarter were flat and they've been that way for a couple periods now so we're driving this growth through units trying to pass along value and lower prices to our customers. liz: i want to just quickly ask about the vizio acquisition, the television company acquisition, which you acquired, and for a couple billion dollars. i'm really interested to know where that stands because i know the ftc has reached out

with a letter. they want to know more about how you plan to use smart televisions when it comes to the , i don't know, they would think that the platform will help you scrape information, as amazon is able to, in its own way. where do you think this goes? do you have faith that this vizio acquisition is going to come through? >> i do. i think this is absolutely good for our customers. this is as you mentioned undergoing a standard review from the ftc. we've been working with them and we're looking forward to being able to close this acquisition and provide this benefit to our customers. liz: how would you use it, when it comes to maybe advertising and gaining more customers? >> yeah, well it gives us other connective point with our customers to be able to provide offers to them through advertising or things that maybe tailored to their specific needs, to allow them to shop walmart in many different ways. we've seen a big channel shift in our business over the last few years, as you've seen going

from brick-and-mortar to e-commerce. this is yet another way of going through media to allow them to shop for something in the moment when they're watching streaming tv. liz: john david, it's great to have you on the show. thank you so much on a very positive day for walmart. we're looking at the stock up 6.5% right now. thank you. >> thank you, liz. liz: make sure to tune into fox business because of course, as all our guests have brought up the election, and possibilities of what happens here in the proposals, fox business' coverage of the democratic national convention begins on monday. our countdown closer is lotting walmart but keeping an eye on a competitor for her portfolio is a smart thing to do. find out, next.

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liz: closing bell, six minutes away. we got to look at bitcoin. we were just talking about bitcoin with bitcoin took a leg down after wolf research put out a report saying the digital token is path of least resistance to move to the downside. it is moving down 3%. we'll keep an eye on that.

meantime we told you how berkshire hathaway has taken up a pretty good position in beauty store ulta, the company's 13f filing where they revealed what they added and what they dumped. berkshire jettisoned snowflake, trimmed investments in bank america, capital one, t-mobile and chevron. that energy name happens to be one pick our "countdown" closer says do not toss away. joining us with 85.7 billion in assets under management, wealth enhancement green senior portfolio manager. great to see you. you like chevron. let me hear your case. people think oh, buffett is trimming. forget it. let's hear what you have to say? >> thanks so much for having me. with chevron we still think we're getting a discounted high energy company and solid balance sheet that still yields over 4%.

i think over the long term energy will be in high demand, oil will be in high demand so we like having a stable company like chevron in the portfolio mixed other energy companies. liz: they do have a good yield. they do have a very solid management team and you look what they're doing, they're also expanding into other areas, correct? >> absolutely. i know it gets caught up in the acquisition of hess they are trying to do. however i think they have got long term positive growth opportunities. they have got assets throughout the u.s. and globally and oil production will continue to be a positive revenue driver for them. liz: let's, let's talk about what we, went into the commercial break saying, and that is while walmart is just doing incredibly w with the second best performer year-to-date on the dow. today it is the number one -- it got shifted aside by cisco, but

it is up there, up 6 1/2%. we said, our "countdown" closer like as different name in that space. who is it and why do you like it better perhaps than a walmart? >> sure. mere here at wealth enhancement we like walmart and my pick amazon. amazon is down 15% from its highs. you can have room for both they're both in the e-commerce space in different ways and amazon has the kicker of aws which allows them to profrom the a.i. perspective which attracts a lot of investors these days. liz: we have about 2 1/2 minutes left and i'm very interested in your perspective especially after we got a very robust retail sales number for july. cpi came in line with estimates, ppi manufacturing part of the

inflation looked pretty darn benign too. so what do you see for the future when it comes to any consumer name, any name that provides services ahead of the september federal reserve meeting? >> sure. so, you know, in terms of inflation, we've seen the trend sort of start to come down. we have a little bit of a scare in the first quarter where inflation was a little bit hotter than everybody wanted it to be but we finally have seen four months of cpi numbers, sort of trend are towards that 2 1/2% number at least. and i think it is setting us up so that you know, we are at a point where the fed can cut-rates, at least from and inflation standpoint, and you know, when we look at labor and economic growth, it is why retail sales were so important today, seeing that number really contributes to the fact that the economy is not slowing down as quickly as many people feared. so i think it allows the fed to

cut-rates sometime in september. liz: i know it is not one of your picks but you know what is evidence of that? lululemon's stock. i'm looking at it, up 6.6% on pace for the largest percent increase in 2023 and those yoga pants are not cheap. thank you very much for being here. >> thank you. liz: the dow, s&p, and nasdaq having the best week of 2024. markets are closing higher with the dow surging 534 points right now to 40,542. [closing bell rings] s&p up 82, 1 1/2% and the nasdaq 2.25%. let's not ignore the small and mid-caps up 2 1/2%. transports up 2%. that will do it for "the claman countdown." "kudlow" is next. larry: welcome to kudlow, i'm larry kudlow. president trumve