disney taking issue with nelson peltz and his slate of board nominations as the proxy battle escalates yet again. >>> and a rough day for aerospace after another bad day for boeing and even worse day for spirit airlines. >>> plus, troubling sips out of china as its economy does something for the first time in more than two decades. we're live in beijing. >>> also energy's wall of worry. it only increases as strikes continue against the houthi rebels and iran denies any involvement with the attacks it's wednesday, january 17th, 2024 you're watching "worldwide exchange" right here on cnbc >>> good morning and welcome to "worldwide exchange. i am frank holland let's get you ready to start your day as always we get a check on the u.s. futures with the nasdaq seeing its first down day in six. you can see right here, red across the board the dow looks like it would open about 140 points lower the nasdaq town more than a half a percent. the s&p down just about half a percent. but the big story for the dow, that remains boeing. under a bit of pressure again after another 8% slide yesterday tha

nelson peltz nominated himself and a second person to the board. nelson peltz telling jim crammer it doesn't change the view on disney. as disney's largest shareholder with an approximate $3 billion ownership, try ann welcomes to try to help fix this iconic but wayward company end quote. for more on this let's bring in julia boorstin. for more on the disney side of things. julia? >> reporter: just really interesting, leaseslie to see t agreement between value act and disney. the way i see it disney is shoring up the defenses with the proxy battle with nelson peltz. so nelson peltz, triann itself owned 7 million shares but add the shares by perlmutter that brings the number to 33 million. value act has 5 million shares, which is meaningful but smaller than the full number if you include the perlmutter stake. but i think the question is how the various alliances in the battle with peltz is going to play out with other shareholders. i think value act sends a message that disney has the support of this institution that has helped other companies throug

three candidates for disney's board to rival peltz candidates.eo bob iger's work. trion including proxy battle with wendy's. including a former warner brothers executive. founder of taskrabbit and co-founder of the tribeca film festival. blackwells owns a disney stake worth only $5 million. that's right. m, million, not billion there. that's compared to trian stake of about $3 billion and disney the overall market cap of $166 billion. this is an interesting move and seeing how things will shape up, you can bet, mike, getting a lot of back and forth. people taking sides on this battle we've been watching so closely. >> no doubt about it. >>> look at what the market context is for all of that, becky. two-year anniversary of all-time high in s&p 500 around 4800. january 3, 2022. here is the two-year chart. kind of this hammock effect right there. suspended around the 4,800 mark. a little payback for the very, very strong final couple months last year. nine straight up weeks. everybody in every statistical measure saying overbought. crowded stocks me

we know that triom and nelsonn -- trion and nelson peltz has a $3 billion taken disney.ggested is getting increasingly larger. is it enough to appease shareholders outside of those three if a compromise is reached? the stock is flat. we are completely flat on disney. the market reaction tells you it's a stalemate, i guess. katie: if you think the market is always right, apparently this is just a lot of a stalemate. what should we be watching next? we have been in this battle for quite a long time now. what are the next points on this timeline? ed: i think it is the idea that when the shareholders meet for their vote, if the board composition can be reached. at the same time, iger is going about his business targeting $7.5 billion in savings. like everyone else in that world try to work out the formula for profitable streaming. a combination of subscription and ad supported tiers. without content you cannot bring a new eyeballs. it is proving to be tricky. i think that will be the story in 2024. who cracks the streaming profitability issue. guy: in terms of where disney h

i asked the question earlier and i put it back to you guys -- is this kind of enough to appease peltzdoesn't seem like it based on the response. sonali: he tried to say i have not joined the board yet. is there anything that can be done more imminently to appease the activists? ed: he has embarked on this cost-cutting exercise, targeting $7.5 billion of savings. the criticism of the bob chapek era which preceded iger returning is that they were losing billions of dollars. they had gone all in too hard on streaming. iger is doing this cost-cutting plan. the board governance and members of the board seems to be the central battlegrounds. disney has nominated james gorman along with your me derek and value act backs them on that. blackwell has three completely different board nominees that they have put forward in disney's committee is reviewing those. it goes back to the same idea. peltz still doesn't see any of the ideas he wants addressed addressed and wants to see himself on the board. jon: we will watch the next chapter on that one cannot ed ludlow joining us on the disney story. co

peltz again.isney making part of its case yesterday as why they are not interested in having him or mr. ra sue lo on the board. >> does the universal proxy change the dynamic >> allows the likes of blackwells to do what they're doing. makes it easier for the randos to mount proxy fights. >> gives people the choice you can choose one, three. >> peltz is definitely not a rando. he's, obviously, maybe one of the best -- he'll come back to it numerous times his track record, and the fact that he believes he can add a great deal of value in terms of actual execution on that board of directors. >> right it's interesting to see if that kind of encourages him to settle because of the nature of the universal proxy or if given that you're dealing with two people who kind of have seen that settlement take place before, not going to -- doesn't feel like - >> doesn't look like it's going to happen here. >> the news of yesterday and today doesn't feel like a settlement either. something to watch. >> yeah. meant

ceo bob iger doesn't want peltz to have board seats but nelson peltz pointing out no one on the board including bob iger holds more than $15 million of disney stock. may sound like a lot to retail investors. it is not. these board members are very wealthy. iger is worth a lot of money. they should be more invested in disney stock. disney is up 2%. humana need to defibrillator, it is down 8. 5% off a 52-week lows after the company lowered its adjusted earnings and warned about higher medical costs. the news has had a ripple effect on the rest of the healthcare sector. they are down 2%, sigma down half of one%, unitedhealth group taking it as well, down 2%. joining me to talk -- the question why president biden didn't mention bidenomics in the speech he gave in the last hour. you worked in front of the camera, there were strong economic news that showed jobless claims unexpectedly fell. we are not here to weigh this either way but why didn't he mention bidenomics in the speech today? >> thanks for inviting me. glad you highlighted these numbers. yesterday we had an equally nice upside o

. >>> straight ahead, trian's nelson peltz speaks out. what he said earlier on the disney proxy battle. "halftime" is back in two minutes. we need to scale with customer demand... in real time. (jen) so we partner with verizon. their solution for us? a private 5g network. (ella) we now get more control of production, efficiencies, and greater agility. (marquis) with a custom private 5g network. our customers get what they want, when they want it. (jen) now we're even smarter and ready for what's next. (vo) achieve enterprise intelligence. it's your vision, it's your verizon. this thing, it's making me get an ice bath again. what do you mean? these straps are mind-blowing! they collect hundreds of data points like hrv and rem sleep, so you know all you need for recovery. and you are? i'm an investor...in invesco qqq, a fund that gives me access to... nasdaq 100 innovations like... wearable training optimization tech. uh, how long are you... i'm done. i'm okay. >>> the proxy fight between nelson peltz and disney is heating up. here is what

caroline: nelson peltz once himself on the board. dizzy once who, exactly? lucas: want the cfo under bob iger a long time ago. he was once thought to be a potential successor but bob iger ended up anointing tom staggs as a successor instead. he did not end up succeeding him because bob iger did not want to go anywhere. staggs and his counterpart have been -- at one point time he thought he would be succeeding him. bob is basically saying, let me do what i am doing because we have a plan and have already added recently. proposing board members that he thinks would join. he things his candidate are fine. caroline: we'll keep an eye on the comings and goings. meanwhile, looking at the intricacies of what this means for a business case and how it fits into the consolidation that we anticipate for 2024. lucas made that point that a lot of the work that bob iger has been doing seems to be in-line with what activists are wanting. eliminating costs. what more could investors want right now? >> he has done a lot of things that the investors wanted. as far as expenses

nelson peltz can say put more money into the parks.to prove that streaming scales or you can get the costs right it is fascinating that -- i thought during the strike shutdowns, maybe everyone has a chance to step back and say what is the right amount to spend on new content here? can we possibly just navigate toward spending less and now you see that maybe subgrowth doesn't happen without a constant flow of new stuff. so that's a tough fix. >> interesting. >> it is very -- we had ourselves, our clients, disney plus needs a stand alone service or they integrate with hulu? because netflix has this constant vibrancy of content, refresh cycle every week. that's something we want to hear more about, right? how do they integrate the two? how does that change their content spend? their global footprint, their scale internationally. these are all questions that really need to be answered in 2024. >> michael, one thing that needs to be answered, nelson peltz complaining about iger's pay package. $31.5 million was the number used. is iger overp

rasulo's ability to work constructively with bob iger. >> i wonder if nelson peltz is happy with that bob iger. >> he got a raise. mostly stock >> that's true he gets the stock up, he would be very happy. >> you have to account for it now, but it's on the come. but it was twice what he had last year. $31.5 million is what it's valued at. >> probably working harder >> he's working hard maybe harder than he thought he would have to. >> yeah. >> he's got a couple of years to go we'll see. >> remember, this is -- a pprops of the maple bear merging with doordash and uber, this nfl story, keep it alive, david, that disney may be doing some deal with the nfl? or is that just fatuous? >> there are those who try to understand it from the perspective of why the nfl as a league would want to own part of one of its distributors, does that impact its ability to negotiate with other distributors for its product that said, if you can contribute the nfl network instead of cash and get some sort of value in it and then own something there, maybe it makes some sense. these talks overall for a strategic

and last year that peltz nominated himself and former ceo to the board citing lack of stock performancer the past year after 1.5 billion loss in the streaming division and underperformance in the movie division. today disney is up just under 1%. a choppy session after the stake steak house parent added two new members for the board. change comes as far of agreement between blumen and star board and boosting the price target from $30 to $28. barclay is lifting from $31 to $27 and they may be encouraged but investors are not and stock is down 2.5%. house speaker mike johnson getting a bird's eye view on the border crisis from eagle pass, texas, in the last few minutes. we're going to take you there and show you the at the president asks for more money to fix the issue. the national debt tops $34 trillion and the president asks for more money. sheila bai ran the government's agency that backstops the government agency for your money and we're going to ask the former chair what might might be the hidden timolol of the exploding debt. look at positives here. s&p 500 leaders at this hour. mar

and the fact that activist investors like nelson peltz are going in there and say let's focus on cashn dollar loss, actually $1.8 billion in the second quarter loss on streaming. guess what? now it's only a couple hundred million, so we may actually see that thing start to go positive again. i'm very good with owning disney right here. it is when you buy it, stuart. stuart: whatever you say, firm on disney. >> i actually liked oppenheimer. stuart stouter i thought it was brilliant. >> yeah. and what that guy did and what he went through, it's staggering. but he had this guilty complex, and that's why he went through what he did. stuart: great movie. coming up, critical race theory, even kinder kindergarteners develop racial biases. guarantee we're all over that one. >>> the epstein documents are out. the full report next. ♪ you know what's interesting these days? bitcoin. look for bitwise, my friends. your best defense against erosion and cavities is strong enamel- nothing beats it. new pronamel active shield actively shields the enamel to defend against erosion and cavities. i think

what the backing means for nelson peltz. the details next. >>> plus, cannabis cruising higher today. pot stocks getting a jump after records that marijuana classification may be under review. what it could mean for the budding industry. >> wow. >> straight ahead. >> so funny. >>> this is "fast money" with melissa lee. right here on cnbc. at morgan stanley, old school hard work meets bold new thinking. to help you see untapped possibilities and relentlessly work with you to make them real. in the u.s. we see millions of cyber threats each year. that rate is increasing as more and more businesses work with you move to the cloud. - so, the question is... - cyber attack! as cyber criminals expand their toolkit, we must expand as well. we need to rethink... next level moments, need the next level network. [speaker continues in the background] the network with 24/7 built-in security. chip? at&t business. i think he's having a midlife crisis i'm not. you got us t-mobile home internet lite. after a week of streaming they knocked us

stock has not done well, and now nelson peltz is rattling the sabers. >> yes, this week has been a bigisney. we had some activist interaction. nelson went off and wanted those e two board seats. we'll see what happens there. but as my colleague howe points out -- jack p.o.w. hoints out, there's a number of challenges facing the companiful it's not only the thing like the marvels movie which was really quite terrible, but, you know, we also have dreaming -- streaming in the background going on. the bright point, of course, is the parks. those are always a nice boost for investors and for, you know, folks that do actually enjoy the disney parks. but, you know, when it comes to some of the fundamentals, i mean, streaming is obviously a big one. we need to keep looking at how that works out. i love the loki show that was on disney+, but it's a tough game, and i don't know their subscriber numbers are exactly where we want to see them. jack: they're way below their target for 2024, right? >> absolutely. they had wanted to have about 260 million by 2024, so this year, and they got to about 1

someone asked me, why is nelson peltz so upset?ck does nothing but go down. >> there are some external factors. i know goldman trimmed their domestic box office estimate for the year in part because of the production strike issues. >> but also, i think that there's a sense that disney used to make so-called wholesome movies. those of us who are in the -- like i like the rainbow, i mean, it's more of a rainbow approach now, but there also is a recognition that there are places that don't want what so-called "woke" movies are. i'm not in the generation that says "woke." >> even desantis last night in the debate talked about a so-called woke disney. jim, netflix, i think this is the first peak above 500 -- is it ever? $485? july. above $500 this morning. >> they have a huge number of people in the ad tier, more than we thought. talking about, what, 23 million? one of the things i would tell you about the ad tier is that if you like netflix, remember, amazon is going to make you pay more to not see ads. that's another reason why raisin

activist investor nelson peltz is pushing for the nominee to the disney board of directors.gement calls for a fresh perspective. he slammed the job done by the current board as well as the c, ceo bob iger. >> last year, he got paid $31.5 million. earnings were down. they missed everything. the stock was down. everything went bad and he got $31.5 million. you know, i don't understand what this board is doing. i don't know what they're there for other than friends of bob. that's what this is all about. just friends of bob. it's a hand-picked group of directors who are not doing their job. >>> apple shares rose 3% on thursday after a bank of america upgraded the stock to buy from neutral. the wall street giant says the a.i. features will drive demand giving the stock target price of 22 $225. >>> youtube has joined netflix in not planning an ad for the apple for the vision pro headset. bloomberg is reporting that spotify is not planning a new apple for the vision pro ahead. february launch. they will have to use a web browser. that is not a massive vote of confidence. i fail to

disney is -- look, i think nelson peltz gets ammo every day.lt marvel, has to be unhappy given the fact he's a huge shareholder, and the stock does nothing. that is not going to endear -- i know they have new people, and i respect the new people. but i do think that when you have a stock with the total shareholder return that is so bad, it does invite people who want to get on the board who have shaken up other companies, and it tends to work. i know that's very contrary to what people think. >> yeah. software, a couple of moves. jeffries -- i'm sorry, no. it's snow. rbc, initiate outperform, 230. and then this downgrade at palantir over at jeffries, underperform, down to 13. >> i know. last quarter wasn't bad. but that was their only negative. they love all that high-multiple stuff. they love monday.com hub spot. i saw an ad. build.com. it's incredibly expensive. they want those enterprise software stocks. they never stop. service now, $650, goes to $775. these are the stocks that get sold when interest rates go higher. they get sold until the

disney taking issue with nelson peltz and his slate of board nominations as the proxy battle escalatesh day for aerospace after another bad day for boeing and even worse day for spirit airlines. >>> plus, troubling sips out of china as its economy does something for the first time in

and then, disney, we need nelson peltz to get omething is going there.y need to do something because right now, they are not. entertainment, oil and gas, bad chinese stock, drug and tech. we are going to replace alibaba, take alibaba out of this, and what we are going to do, is we are going to put in eli -- no, we have pfizer. we can't do that. why don't we just put in apple? i already blessed apple. let's go to mandy in maryland. mandy? >> hi, jim. how are you? >> how are you? i'm doing good. it's friday, you know, like it like everybody else. >> yeah. tough day. >> okay. say more. >> thank you so much for taking my call. >> you're quite welcome. >> yeah, i appreciate it. >> okay. >> my five picks are a pt, jta m, hban, onan, and at&t. am i diversified? >> again, we have a bit of a challenge here, but that is okay, that is why we call. j.p. morgan, one of the best banks in show. i do prefer wells fargo. at 11, looking at applications for enterprise software. huntington was on today, they came on earlier in the show. they are dynamite. that is the shoe s

all of this comes as trian nominated peltz and rasulo to the board.med former morgan ceo james gorman, who has had experience with proxy fights and succession planning, as well as sir jeremy darroch. there's another activist firm which says it supports iger. blackwell, which owns about 55,000 shares, nominated three of its own directors to the board, saying it welcomes other shareholders attempting to fix this iconic but wayward company. kelly, certainly very strategic here for disney to align with valueact. >> again, i'm just thinking about it, thinking about some of the success they have had there in the past. i wanted to ask you about kind of -- to the point about which way disney should go. we got this data point about how universal overtook disney as the highest grossing studio in the box office, and it speaks of the decline of disney at the box office. they didn't have one of the top three movies for the first time in a long time. the first time since 2014 none of disney's movies crossed the billion dollar benchmark. so there are real challenges

but so is change agent nelson peltz, the billionaire activist environment from tryon who wants to be on disney's board and is launching a proxy fight to get in that boardroom. jay rasul former disney cfo while his firm would have little chance to get on the board alone pelts has also stewarded the shares from perlmutter who sold marvel to disney for $4 billion 15 years ago. why does this matter? a proxy fight will concentrate the minds of disney's directors. either they create more value or try to at least help or some of them get the boot. these guys do act as if they are in the playoffs going deep when they ain't even in the second division. finally one of the best calls we've ever made for the charitable trust, taking a sizable position in meta. when founder and ceo mark zuckerberg nounsed the year of efficiency that was a clarion call to get on board because the company had way too many employees. it worked. now we're seeing a similar albeit less strident firings at alphabet. the stock could be much more profitable now that they're right sizing things or saying ai's helping them

and i also think, by the way, that nelson peltz has to be in there getting things hotter. hey, a hot inflation number today was strike 1 for the bulls, and we don't want a swing and a miss tomorrow when the banks report because i don't think the averages will be able to hold up like they did today if we get that. on "mad money" tonight the price of crude roared today so i'm going off the charts with the help of carly garner to see where oil could be headed over the next few months. then between a jpmorgan health care conference and ces it's a big week for conferences but there's one under the radar meeting the icr conference that gives us a sense of a host of consumer facing industries. i'll give you my top five takeaways. and sometimes there's more to the story than just the stock price. i sit down for a second part interview with the ceo of b beckman dickinson, hear a little more to his fascinating path to becoming a visionary in the health care space. you won't want to miss it. so stay with cramer. >> announcer: don't miss a second of "mad money." follow @jimcramer on x

none of them were nelson peltz or an activist investor. stuart: okay. a liberal democrat. i wonder if he agrees with raising taxes on the rich. [laughter] i'm moving on. i'm not touching that with a 10-foot pole. spirit's stock is off, what's the percentage terms? down another 18%. this has to be because the her ier is with gent blue is dead can. lauren: the best case scenario for spirit is filing for chapter 11. stuart: okay. lauren: exactly. a federal judge says it would harm pages by taking out the cheaper competitor, which is spirit. it was a $3.8 billion deal. it would have made a combined company, the fifth largest carrier in the u.s. the airlines were saying, well, we need to compete with the big four, delta, american, united and southwest. they control two-thirds of air traffic. we need to compete. and the biden doj was saying, absolutely not. and i find it funny because this is a win for the biden department of justice. they're not doing well with big tech, but they're doing well with the airlines because hawaiian and alaska are stet to -- set

activist investor nelson peltz has a plan to fix disney's profitability and streaming.ill recommend the company seek to bundle its espn plus service with a larger player interested in sports, such as netflix. he controls close to $3 billion in disney shares and is seeking two seats on disney's board. lamborghini has sold out of it supercars until 2026. it is an indication the world's wealthiest consumers are showing few signs of being affected by a broader global slowdown. the italian luxury car brand posted record sales of more than 10,000 vehicles last year. driven in part by the introduction of its first plug-in hybrid model. that is your bloomberg brief. jonathan: thank you. up next, looking ahead to a fed rate decision. >> what the fed is going to do today is open a door, but basically tell us it has not decided when it is going to walk through it. i think there is a story here about inflation coming down that is encouraging. jonathan: that is coming up next. live from new york city, you are watching bloomberg tv. ♪ jonathan: live from new york, counting down to th

ceo is learning up allies as he seeks to stave off pressure from billionaire activist investor nelson peltzcompany will consult with disney on strategy. another hedge fund is also proposing three nominees to the disney board who will champion bob iger's strategy. bloomberg has learned that very gold spoke with investors to consider a possible takeover of the canadian copper producer. first quantum shares surged as much as 15% on the news. the company has lost half its value after the sudden closure of its mine in panama. the ceo mike bristow approached investors late last year. haidi: take a look at currencies . we are seeing upside in the bloomberg dollar index. 0.25%, inching higher against its g10 fears after the biggest daily jump since march in the tuesday session. we did see that on account of treasuries steepening, the release of minutes from the federal reserve's december meeting adjusting that the narrative could be higher rates for longer. that is adding to more of that persistence of dollar strength. to that end, we are seeing the decline in the aussie dollar at 67.32. a bit of p

. >> i want disney stock, my travel trust owns it f it goes to 110, not because of nelson peltz, butdwyane. you represent something about our country that everybody wants to win and you win in a way, look, it's not like a shoot em up. a lot of things i can't watch with my kids and my wife. when you're on, everybody watches. i want to compliment you. that doesn't happen. i know you must demand that it cannot be just -- you're not going to be in "scarface 2". >> no. but thank you for that. i really appreciate that. in a great position where we can in many ways call the shots but what a responsibility it is for us, people will pay their hard earned dollars to get to theaters, you want to send them home happy. that is truly the bottom line. send them home happy. >> another responsibility is being a fiduciary on a public board. your first time on a public board? >> first time. >> you have to hold him accountable, right? >> i do. yes. i have been. >> so are you ready for it? >> i have been holding him accountable for 20 years. he's been holding me accountable. >> any expectations in terms

disney rejected the nominations by nelson petsknnelson peltz an. >>> did you see where -- did i -- >>ay that again. >> bob chapek who used to run disney is suing the company on the blood oxygen monitor we were talking about yesterday with the phone and the watch. >> it's like ke kevyn kevin bacn you say massimo, i'm thinking of the guy with the two olympian champion rowers. do you remember? >> who got in trouble? >> yes. >> now i know, yes >> that was a good one news with water -- they had never -- >> never been in rowing. >>> in the meantime axios is reporting that uber is working with tesla to get its drivers to go electric. the company is sharing data with tesla to figure o it where drivers make the most trips to develop better charging infrastructure and better evs. tesla is offering better incentives uber's ceo will be joining us later this morning we've got a lot to discuss with him. >> madison square garden's c o james dolan slapped with a lawsuit, this time for sexually assaulting a massage therapist he assaulted her and set a meeting up with harvey weinstein. that led to her