new york city's times square, this is "fast money." america's post market show. i'm melissa lee. tonight's lineup. we're all about the action tonight. afterhours action. amazon microsoft, zynga. there's huge earnings movers to trade tonight. stay tuned for updates from the big conference calls starting right now. look out below. could now be the time to take some chips off the table? top equity strajtegists say the s&p is headed for a triple digit drop before year's end. getting active. should you be investing along

with big players like carl icahn or is it better to sell the news? tim seymour, dan nathan. >> dan nathan? >> jim seymour. brian kelly. karen finerman. mike coe. >> i'm here, too. >> i always live you out. amazon and microsoft. both surging in the afterhour session. microsoft reporting earnings. 62 cents a share, topping estimates. let's start off with the big surge in shares of amazon. guy, interestingly, you did a bull/bear debate with stephanie link yesterday. you were the bear. you won. >> the market still continues to cut them -- you just said it. continue to have an operating loss. i think courtney reagan posted since they became a public company they've only made about $2 billion or so. which is staggering when you think of the stock move. they continually give these guys a break. and margins continue to improve. good for them. they're still doing everything right. at a certain point it will catch up to them.

i thought it was going to be this quarter. i was wrong. much like google the other day, and much like one of the other names we spoke about, i think it was netflix, two or three days ago, i don't think if you want to -- i think that's -- >> they're making some interesting tweaks, also, to shipping policies. they're raising minimum for free shipping and maybe that will move people into being more prime customers or they will make extra ten bucks. >> it means they are not necessarily increasing their efficiency on that front. their fulfillment center costs are what is driving this thing. there is no one close to the competitive advantage. i'm not someone who would jump in and buy. this valuation is absurd. but i have to tell you that i am a convert in terms of amazon's business model. if they breakthrough a low

commerce. this stock. >> i think tim makes a point where you don't chase this. there will be some day that revenues don't matter but today they do. how do you stradtrade it? if you're long it be happy. if you want to get into it. you wait two or three days hopefully it retraces this move. then you can get in at that point. >> what is the read through to retailers based on amazon's results? >> i don't know that there is any, necessarily. amazon is its own entity. i can't understand owning it is the greater fool theory. it has worked for a really long time. if you look at a name like microsoft that could do no wrong. and eventually the stock just stopped going up.

finally grew into something close to its valuation. amazon is almost mathematically impossible. >> it's a point where they stop spending their profit. i think that's where you get interesting. that was a surprise here. >> a surprise debate. i thought that they have -- it's a ship without a rudder. they don't have any product innovation. but top line in this case was fantastic. you will probably not get killed on it. but they beat it and they did great. the operating margins came in at close to 35%. the street was looking for 31%. that's a major beat on operating margins side. think about the move in mike

softd that microsoft that we're seeing. >> it has to be great. >> i take the net beat. when their net is up 17% and we fwhoe what happened to windows it means they are making a move into the enterprise software space. these guys are making money. they are growing their profit base at a time their core product is shrinking. >> let's get more. joining us on the fast line is senior technology analyst. do we finally break above? is this the quarter that does it? >> it's a nice quarter. if you look out over the next few quarters this one has the lowest bar. microsoft owns the enterprise. consumer growth just plus four right? total revenue growth around 7%. when you go into the december

quarter, expectations start to ratchet up materially. in order to prepare how the business is doing prior, it's not -- it is not an even compare any more. you poz on results? you have to be worried about what is coming up. >> so you're saying that we're seeing the big spike in the stock because investor ss don't really understand and get the fact that the comparisons will be tougher next quarter? >> i think the expectations are that microsoft would have a much more difficult quarter than it did because the enterprise business is very resilient. changes in microsoft will be slower plus karen's comments about the margins coming in better than expected. there was concern that this push towards devices was going to be pulling down margins. if it didn't happen this

quarter, itd's likely going to happen in the march quarter. these margins are likely to decline. >> who would your number one choice be for new ceo? >> they have some interesting choices, right? whether it's tony bates. it would be someone who wants to bring in energy into the mobile space, right? we know it's a mobile first world. he has been an insider in microsoft. he did a decent job. now he can come back and bring the mobile first perspective. >> when did these guys stop spending all of their profit? and down the road in terms of holiday spending why are these guys hiring 40% more staff? >> if you look at the revenue per employee it has been

declining pretty consistently. that's definitely not a great metric. amazon is the deep end of the pool. the bull case is you take the market caps of walmart, netflix and sales force and boom that's what you're going to to get. the bear case is these are a commodity retailer. if you look at their shipping losses, that's the margin they should be making. they will have to grow into this valuation over a period of many years. >> did they have that kind of read through, or are they just hoping. >> it has yet to crack. people who want to play this

downside. >> the stock continues to move that way. everyone keeps waiter for when is that quarter going to happen when it falls out of favor. but it's not this quarter. and you know they are guiding from a loss of 500 million to positive 500 million. there's still a potential for them to lose money in the holiday quarter. >> thanks for your time and analysis. we of course will continue to hit those headlines out of microsoft and amazon as we monitor the conference call. hey, dom. >> that's right. dupont to execute a full separation of its performance chemical segment.

dupont tends to execute through a tax free spin off. upon completion of this separation in about a year and a half 100% of this new public company will be owned by the dupont shareholders and expected to enable both companies to pay equal to dupont's dividend at the time of separation. >> and of course titanium technologies include titanium dioxide. >> it is also a place where a lot of people are very concerned about enormous supply and heavy margin compression. and people with electronics, people are staying away from there. >> i think maybe we saw it

behind this. not totally behind this. bought a fair amownunt of stock. all he said was paint and that was it. >> this might be it. >> all right. >> a man of few words. >> as you see there, don't miss jim cramer's -- that is tonight on "mad money." should be interesting to see what he has to say. let's get to two other names. julia got the latest for us. >> it is just skyrocketing. the company lost two cents per share. that was about half of the loss that was expected and revenue came in at about $152 million. the results were definitely above the high end of the guidance range and i think that's why we're seeing that spike there.

they say revenues expected in the midpoint of the range at $180 million. that's higher than the range that wall street analysts had been expected. bottom line is that the company is still seeing declines. he is kicking things off by talking about the hiring of a new ceo that the company just announced. they say significant operational and mobile expertise and the focus on growing their core franchises like farmville and make sure any new games are really high quality. >> we apologize for that audio issue but zynga moving sharply in the aftershowers session. and coin star also a big mover on a huge earnings beat. a lot of people are wondering what's the deal.

>> you're seeing the activist in all of these that are actually changing these companies. perhaps its not. a great beat for them. shocked me on this one. don't buy it tomorrow morning. you need to wait for some kind of a pull back on these things. >> we actually have some outer wall. this is sort of -- there are a couple of parts of the business. it sets up very nicely for really it is much more of a financial engineering. and then wanting them to not spend the money unwisely elsewhere but return it to shareholders. >> it is also not a huge valuation. the short interest is close to 40%, though. you could see this thing lasts for a couple of days. >> coming up neck billionaire

investor carl icahn taking hit from the likes of bill gross, skully and warren buffet for his activism. >> i think we would test and see how the shareholders feel and if we should do a approximate fight. we would judge that at that time. >> up next find out how this could impack thet the apple trade.

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lease this cadillac ats for around $299 per month with premium care maintenance included. >> some pretty big moves on sizable earnings. that could set us up nicely for the pop in qs. microsoft up 5.6% and amazon also up sharply last check. let's go in for a quick earnings

alert. >> deckers is reporting third quarter earnings of 95 cents a share easily beating street estimates of 71 cents. a bit better than the $386 million. the company also expects its 2013 earnings to increase about 10% over the 2012 levels. >> thanks a lot for that. what guy you are saying. costs are going to come down. third in the fourth quarter. >> you know something? i'm a croc guy. kudos to steve and pete. domonic just mentioned not a big revenue beat. to your point costs are going down margins are improving.

huge short interest. the stock is going to probably continue. i don't get the story. when costs are coming down margin improvement, that's what happens. >> their line of running shoes, which i know crow have several of they actually took off. >> you just google that? it's right there. you had no idea. >> the one one? you all know them. everybody out there knows them. >> it is part of -- it is one that did very well. >> billionaire investor pushing his case for activism. drawing criticism for bill gross. here is the reaction earlier on the halftime report. >> he certainly has a right to his opinion. a lot of people hated washington and adams for going after the english. so the fact that these men say that, i have to say that i respect everybody you just mentioned. but that doesn't mean that

they're right. >> all right. there are two issues here. the first issue is is bill gross right in saying that carl icahn should use his time and money like bill gates does. >> i think it's absurd. it's a non-sec wi tore. bill gates is is a fantastic fill p lan troe miss. for a guy who spends so much time i think it's funny that he is out there making fun of carl. >> i don't see they are mutually exclusive in anyway. carl has made big charitable gifts. if this is what he is good at i don't get it at all. >> i don't get where that came

from. >> it doesn't seem like any of bill gross's business. >> i'm actually shocked that he would say something like that. it's interesting. carl was mentioning washington and adams? he was actually having dinner with paul revere. that's an age joke. >> yeah yeah. >> mike your thought on this? >> he is helping people. he is helping the shareholders of these companies. he helped them in cvr energy and he helped them innetflix. this is what the guy does. does anybody ask a professional athlete and say you're really good but what you really should be doing is helping people? this is the most absurd thing i have ever heard. >> well put. we did see him make an attempt years ago in time warner which was ma moth. he had a very stallellar board that

he put together. i think he lost. but he made a credible case and i think that's possible for him to do here. i don't know if that changes the strategy. >> there are two ways that investors could possibly benefit. one is invest alongside of icahn. the other is do you invest in icahn enterprises? >> finally is the right ward. in the middle of the year it was just flat lining. carl was on fire and this stock was not going. other people just woke up to the fact. i think it's pretty hard to jump in here which is a phenomenal return. the stock is up at 98 it does not reflect the fundamentals. >> digging into this a lot of

what drives this company is his private ownership or his ownership of majority stakes. american railcar. a smaller part is icahn is a hedge fund that you would be getting. you're not getting the activism in a pure play. >> you get the catalyst. i'm a big believer in what he's doing. he's looking for deep value and he is looking for a catalyst. he happens to be his own self-fulfilling catalyst. i'm an investor looking for value quite often. he forces the change so you are getting that all in one shot. this is a very expensive company at this point. i think it's a very good

strategy and you have to admire the way he has added value to his investors. >> you're not getting lon the netflix game by buying iep. >> never a better time for active investing. >> make fun of your shoes. >> in the meantime, let's move on. >> calling for the auction house to sell its flagship new york location and properties in london in order to boost cash. this after publishing a letter to an old master painting in desperate need of restoration. karen? what's the fine print here?

>> i own the stock because at the bottom line i believe this is is a trophy property. what's it worth? who knows. but the thing that is fascinate something you have two activists which is not that uncommon. so you have a financial engineering play. that's what they want. something to unlock the aspects. look at the cash back to the shareholders. . dan wants to be in there himself. >> i don't know we will see that from him for sometime. the company is clearly under fire. they have made some of the changes already. i like it. i think you have some catalysts here today. >> it's going to go to 68 or

should? >> that is key here in terms of the story. >> coming up next it's a street fight adding to its 75% gain over the past year but is the company still too much of a wreck? and the news just this afternoon, twitter expecting a price of 17 to 20 buc share. will they get stuck in the same trap facebook did? and we are watching shares of microsoft, of course. company reporting better than expected earnings. we will bring you all the headlines stoons we come back.

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and take a look at another afterhours mover. also surging on a better than expected quarter. let's send it over to courtney on the amazon conference call. >> it's the cfo that is answering questions. so far not saying a lot. sort of that vague nature that amazon usually sides on with these conference calls. we are getting a mix eded report on what wall street had. amazon turning in a better than expected revenue up 24% yooefr. the company issues fourth quarter revenue guidance. no direct comments about holiday

yet so far on the call. i have had to step away for a couple of minutes. so far as you can see the shares are up strongly afterhours. as long as that top line is growing. >> thanks for that. keep us posted. >> about $150 million. they missed eps by about a dime. the ceo commenting that some of the structural changes he was making to sales was not helping as much as he thought it might. >> canada came up with a big beat. this is coal this is copper. this is a big play on what's going on in china. there was also a great read through to u.s. coal names.

>> a monster move here. their orders were down because of rising rates but everybody is saying rates aren't rising any more. like the name can't buy it. >> drop for kim, down 13%. >> very big move. the earnings were not bad. the forecast was horrible. i think down 12 is not so bad off of what they reported. >> guy this could have been a victory lap because this was your final trade. what happened? >> tim?ep on. >> fantastic event last night. and we ran out of time. ran out of time. >> rocked it last night. no shirt on singing. >> that's what i do. >> a great quarter. it was a spoking quarter.

they raised full year guidance by far more than they beat. hard to buy it up. >> and a drop for fish heads. clean up crews raised a stink after a truck dumped hundreds of fish heads into a busy street. >> oh boy. the tale turned fishier when the driver of the truck was on the hook for a host of offenses. >> did you write that? >> i believe it was young mike newburg. >> that is fantastic. >> what do they use fish heads for? dog food? >> chum. >> fishing. >> vancouver. >> it makes sense. >> what happened over there? same judgment education? >> we didn't have fish class when i was over there. >> they are at the same time.

anyway. find out which dough component was calling a ship with no rudder. the s&p 500 is poised for a 1500 point drop by the end of the drop and that's only 68 days away.

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>> all right. market flash rsh let's take a look at what's happening. they are taking a hit in the aftermarket session after the helene care devices. ed earnings in sale ss the stock is down. you can see in the aftermark. this is a stock that was up cloess to 15% head ded. >> thanks. what's the trade here? >> they needed to smoke it. they didn't. i still think this has happened before in the stock where you have seen pull backs every single time. it has been an opportunity to get long. these guys basically operate.

i think a week from now it's going to be higher. >> despite new record highs this week our next guest says chief equity strategy to explain. >> this goes against all of the patterns we have seen and against the argument that hedge funds are at the highest short positions since the beginning of the year. why say a decline of 100 points? >> you know, i sound like a terrible person. i do think markets are going up. sounds like a terribly short period of time, two months. we will's take it apart piece by piece. the idea that we should look at seasonal trading patterns. september is supposed to be a garbage month but it was a

really good month. the trade in september is different. there is no guarantee november december will trade. this idea tapers off the books for now and we will deal with it sometime next year. but earnings are the issue. the way that they are getting there is actually in many cases through lower than expected tax rates. and this idea that companies are really being efficient, are actually been down for the past four or six quarters? it's not operating efficiency. it's balance sheet management and tax planning. >> you mentioned that qe were tapering off the table. there was some discussion that the fed may come out and say we're going taper for technical reasons, for financial stability. what happens to your call on

that case? do you go more than 100? >> it's an interesting question. if you had talked about a poor jobs number two months ago. this is another reason to believe you will have liquidity for a while. and i actually think the fed comes in it's an interesting question if they even do. if they do it will be further sense that there is inherent economic weakness. the one thing that i did mention before is i don't care if you look at the g-10 the u.s. japan, they are all rolling over. they are sending the wrong signal. there is issues of how you interpret them. >> let me ask you, we have just -- i don't know through earnings season, we have had the government issues off the table

for the moment. what would the catalyst be in such a short window to move the index as much as you think? >> i think 2014 earnings estimates. if you look at the one thing that has been the most correlated market it's earnings. it's more important than the fed or interest rates. suggesting 11 to 12% earnings growth. we think it's more in the 6% area. you will get some benefit but you will lose something on interest expense that you have been enjoying, too. >> should people be leaning on the ult tra cyclicals? some false starts. this seems like it would be part and parcel with how you would play this until year end. then you have seen mining companies really getting hammered and there is nothing to

suggest that this business is going to turn in the next three to six months. so that's not going to get better. i think you have got to be more careful of that and how you put on those positions. you have got some in the tech companies. will fwen fit those stocks generally speaking. >> good to see you. consumer confidence eight month low. traders are betting that there could be more pain. >> gap stores was one of these that saw over two times its average daily put volume. and also target traded almost three times its average put volume which was kind of interesting as well.

gap stores and target are not reporting earnings. >> what trade was the most interesting? >> i think specifically the one in target. the most active trades in target were actually the 63.5 weekry puts. they expire a week from tomorrow. they are making bearish bets that the target is going to be lower. when you see those types of bets when people are expecting near term moves those are usually the ones that i think are most intriguing. >> let. let's take another look. we're ability ten minutes into the conference call so we will go out to josh for the latest on that. that conference call is about 43 minutes underway.

drum roll please? after the break, tim seymour has the trade of the day. it's a gutsy buy considering the beating. and not so fast. someone at this desk was not feeling the love for best buy. and 260% year to date. so what does he say now? that and much more fast straight ahead.

>> welcome back to fast money. i'm josh lipton. the microsoft conference call started about 15 minutes ago. the cfo talking about the pc market where they saw signs of stablization. revenue is 400 million but they acknowledge that they have more to do on the commercial cloud

side with offers year-over-year gross margins. would you bike microsoft? >> i guess in california they don't wear ties. >> you go to california and there are no ties to be found. >> and we talked about it the other day. you probably get a bounce. i didn't think it is going to bounce like this. that's correct. >> all right. let's switch gears here. in case you missed some of today's top moments. >> consumers were out there buying and flying. we were having a grand time until the government shut down in october. we're still looking at a very good fourth quarter. >> is this going to be a sweep? >> i don't think so. i think the cardinals are an outstanding team.

we did get off to a good start. john lester pitched a brilliant game. this series is going to go very deep. >> that's the period of time during which employers were looking forward to obama care taking effect. >> mr. icahn wants to buy apple for $150 billion? that is choking up jim over here. >> right now? >> after 525. at the current price. >> the company sells for $450 billion. obviously everything is related to the size of the situation. and in this case they certainly could do it. >> stop go stop go. not very good we think there has

to be some kind of resolution. something like. >> find out if anyone on this desk was interested at buying at that spris. more fast straight ahead.

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>> welcome back to fast. twitter gave a range. the company intends to sell 70 million shares. is twitter worth it? should you buy it? he joins us on the fast line. sam, great to see you. great to hear from you. what do you think of the pricing here? is this a fair valuation? would have place edd at 30 to 33 a share. it's a very attractive price. does not anticipate that the final price will be that low. we think it's a very attractive and conservative valuation.

>> you still only anticipate it to rise to a range that would be below your valuation? >> it does. if they raise in more than 20% they have to do a completely different amendment. we think there is no question that twitter is playing a scarcity play book there is no yes that it is haunting. >> and last quick question. it sounds like you would recommend to investors to buy this if you were lucky enough. >> will is no question that if someone were to get al vags in the ipo that this is a conservative price. taking the facebook play book

and doing the opposite. but wens this thing opens it probably will pop fifen the small float. >> thanks for your time. all right. question to you. buyer of twitter on the ipo? >> yes. >> even if it goes up to 23? >> listen it's like linked in where the users can monetize their experience. >> karen? >> i actually would buy it. what they are selling is not that much stock. >> but the scarcity value people who are wanted to buy the valuation of twitter is that no one can buy it. and the other problem i have is what bankers and company will leave value on the table? i don't buy it. there is no way they would be

coming. >> mike? >> i think you definitely do it. i think there is a great deal of potential there. probably the scheepest way to play it. >> i mean yes. >> what's the reasoning for that? >> i play too. >> that's it. >> what's the valuation? what have you got? >> expensive. no doubt. >> right. >> stay tuned.

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your ford dealer. >> time for the final trade. let's go around the horn. >> 16.5 times earnings. getting to pay a market multiple for a stock that has growth. >> the move yesterday takes you down to very good support. this is a valuation call. their business is not turning around but the stock is well priced and endured negative sentiment. >> i think you go short down south with brazil. >> karen? >> a new name for us.

liberty interactive. not surprisingly, spinning a number of their assets to high light the value of hsn. >> should have worn the classes with that gun show going on there. >> "mad money" is up next. my mission is simple. to make you money. i'm here to level the playing field for all investors. there's always a bull market somewhere. i promise to help you find it. "mad money" starts now. hey, i'm cramer. welcome to "mad money." welcome to cry mare ka. my job is to educate you. call me, 1-800-743-cnbc. s&p gained .33%. nasdaq climbed. this market can't seem to get its story straight. one minute tech is bad. the next minute