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tv   Power Lunch  CNBC  April 22, 2014 1:00pm-2:01pm EDT

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stephen won the bear. we'll see you at "street signs" at 2:00 p.m. "power lunch" begins right now. "power lunch" and the second half of the trading day start right now. big day for earns, deals, activists. we're close to report territory, don't want to overlook it and we won't. the s&p on track for a six-day winning streak. an explosion of ma in pharma. we have every angle covered. bill ackman teaming up with valiant to bid for the botox maker.
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novartis, lily in a strings of multibillion dar deals. we call it pharma palooza. what does it mean for you? this, folks, is "power lunch." this, sue, is your "power lunch" on drugs. >> indeed it is, certainly today. we have it all covered with a fantastic team. pershing square's big ackman and valiant's ceo presenting their idea before investors and the media in new york a bit earlier. kate kellie has the takeaway. high, kate. >> we're well into hour number two of this investor presentation when we heard from both. big ackman taking the stage for the second time since i've been here just as i walked out. he'll be taking q&a in just a few minutes. a quick reminder on what this deal entails. it's essentially a proposes cash
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and stock transaction in which every share of allergan would be received for cash as well as a large majority of a valeant shares, a lot of talk from michael pearson today who's been successful in dlirg shareholder returns about the durability of his assets, the products, the fact there's less of a patent cliff that this there is for many other similar companies. the emphasis on sales as opposed to more traditional areas like r & d. then we heard from big ackman. he made interesting points about why he stayed away from pharmaceuticals in the past, but why this deal was attractive to him. let's take a quick listen. >> in pharmaceuticals before. why is that? because the typical pharmaceutical business, you have products constantly coming off patent, investing huge amounts of money on speculative
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r&d. price pressure, but then i learned about valeant. what we like is it fits our paradigm. a business with durable products and brands. the persistent cash flow we look for. >> reporter: so a lot of attractive points for bill ackman. he's betting very big on this. 30% tied up in the combination of his investment in valeant, and also in all elergaallergan. >> and we know you'll keep covering it for us all day long. let's look at this and all the deals. meg tirrell, thanks for being with us. why do they have it? >> two billion product -- botox. half of its sales come from therapeutic uses, in migraines, testing it for things like depression and pain. it fits right squarely in with
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what valeant looks for in what they call durable products. products that don't have patent cliffs. >> think of the christmas gifts he would give to people with botox if he owns it. bottom line me here. is this deal going to get done? >> that's the question. this is a big deal for valeant. a lot of people are saying potentially in for a long haul. valeant has been traditionally a very disciplined buyer. white knight came in, testifia bid a billion more, they backed off. they've made it clear they don't chase for the sake of chasing. also involve eli lilly, glaxosmithkline in sort of an asset wall with novartis. what are they doing and why? >> you called it pharma pa leases that, and that's such a great name. bulking up where these companies are strongest. grab obrought novartis' vaccine
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business. both of those companies getting stronger with these purchases. eli lilly bucking the number two health xeer with the purchase of novartis' unit. >> why is all of this deal-making in pharmaceuticals happen now? >> they all have a lot of money to spend, but they have gone through the patent cliffs, and a few years ago they were all getting better, all becoming conglomerates. now a few years later maybe they're figuring out maybe they'll specialize in the areas they are best in. >> slimming down where they don't want to be and bulking up where they do. meg, thank you very much. sue, down to you. back in 201, valeant planted a foreign flag as a way to skip paying taxes. so what are the chances that congress will clamp down on this so-called tax arbitrage? eamon javers has been dugging for some answers.
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it seems like this is something congress would embrace, but is there appetite on the hill for it? >> that's the big question. when you look at a company like valeant, you have to keep an eye on political risk, the risk they'll change tax policy to prevent what valeant did in 2010, when they acquired a canadian company and did a tax inversion and moving the head qua respect to canada. they've long are targeted by congress. i've covered efforts to clamp down on them since 2001. but it was affected arier this year when the obama administration included an anti-inversion measure within the budget proposal. i've been talking to folks on capitol hill today, experts in this. they say there's no real clarity here on what the hill will actually do what it comes to these kind of tax inversions. there's a way to do a reform on inversions that doesn't impact companies that have already
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inverted. there's a lot of wiggle room and no real likelihood politically that anything is coming anytime soon, tyler. >> but eamon, valeant is an interesting situation. we have a lot of pharmaceutical company that is do have stakes in other countries. that's different from what valeant did, correct? >> that's right. >> when you look at the complexity, there's one move in tax law that's referred to lovingingly as the double irish. another one is called the dutch sandwich. there's a lot of moves that company cuss do that get a lot of criticism on capitol hill, but are legal within the tax system. it's just that they have to really go through convoluted twists and turns to make them happen. but they save money. >> but there's a lot of headline risk potentially. thanks, eamon. ty, up to you. big picture on biotech. some of the biggest players driving performance in that industry, the ibbetf, and we
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have the drilldown on this popular fund. >> it's very, very big in terms of the numbers of stocks that make up the etf, but the top five holdings is about half of the exposure. so it bays to look into it. this is a stock that's up about 3.5% year to date, but it's gone through some crazy ups and downs. the top five stocks, if you look rat what's happening with this particular etf, amgen, celgene, bioguinn, id kreismt, gilead, that's the weighting, but not necessarily by market value. gilead is only the fourth most watted stock in this particular etf. if you look at they stocks, it is massive and the big part of
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the etf. if you look at a few in particular that make up the top ten, we'll broaden the scope, a stock like gilead sciences is still down about 12.5%, and still off 25 or 2% away from the 52-week high, a stock that's been on sale because of the recent sell offin biotechs. does that mean it becomes a possibility attractive buying opportunities for some investorses? maybe, maybe not. illumina, it's down about 26% from its 52-week high. another big sale for investors if they want to get into some big names. of course another one as well. this company here is down about 24% year to date and lost about 26% of its value since we've seen its 52-week. when investors look at this name, they say we can look at the etf or some names that make
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up part of it. you wonder whether or not, sue, that these sell-offs create buying opportunities for people or company that is want to buy up our invest. back over to you. >> i think you're absolutely right. dom. we haven't even really scratched the surface of what's happening. drug giants novartis and dplax osmith klein struck a $20 billion dial to trade their assets. gsk gets the majority of novartis' vaccine business. big plays that could ultimately reshape the entire industry. barbara ryan has ways to profit from some of those changes. nice to see you again >> nice to see you, too. >> mr. ackman teaming up with valeant kind of changes the deal landscape. is this an indication that the m
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av & a may change? >> we have seen a trend of active investors being more broadly involved in long-term transactions and strategic investments. certainly this, you know, is a compelling and striking example of that. i think the other is last year we saw $77 billion in m & a transactions in life sciences. the average deal size was up 49%. we're clearly going to blow through those numbers against this year. >> so talk to me about the consolidatation that's going on in the industry. you know, it seems to me that it's all about scale. >> yes. >> and the fact that they all have patents that are going to expire. so if they have to deal with that and don't have a great pipeline, they can buy the pipeline, correct? >> absolutely. i think you're absolutely right. it's about scale, about being a
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dominant global leader by market share. it's about maximizing efficiency. this industry is growing locally globally around the world, so these synergies are required to drive accelerated earnings growth. we're seeing that play out. we also have rumors that pfizer was going to step in and buy astrazeneca. i think there is a glaring point to be made here about our tax policy in this country. when you see the flood of money that is leaving because we are not competitive from a tax perspective, and certainly companies are looking to get while the getting is good to eamon's earlier comments about the potential for these loopholes to be changed. >> what companies do you think still have to do deals? >> i think there are a bunch of companies that are likely to continue to do significant deals. para go last year acquired elan.
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they are certainly armed to do much more substantial transactions. another company we're mylan. a lot of these are taking place in the special markets, where valeant competes. all of those companies you mentioned are being bought today, probably in -- david faber will join us later, lives at the active/passive summit with barry rosenstein. that's coming up in the next half hour of a very busy and big "power lunch." thank you, sue. another massive day for earnings. about 70 points away from a record high at 16,554, the s&p up 11 points at 1883. 43 points higher no the nasdaq. we'll here about best bets from market veterans at usaa and
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atlantic trust, when "power lunch" returns after this. plus the legal battle between aereo and the nation's most powerful networks has gone to the supreme court, in a case that could change the way you watch tv. that's next on "power lunch." ♪ [ banker ] sydney needed some financial guidance so she could take her dream to the next level. so we talked about her options. her valuable assets were staying. and selling her car wouldn't fly. we helped sydney manage her debt and prioritize her goals, so she could really turn up the volume on her dreams today...and tomorrow. so let's see what we can do about that... remodel. motorcycle. [ female announcer ] some questions take more than a bank. they take a banker. make a my financial priorities appointment today. because when people talk, great things happen. [ dog barks ] ♪ [ male announcer ] imagine the cars we drive... being able to see so clearly... to respond so intelligently and so quickly,
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complicated case today that could impact the way you watch tv. at issue, a company called aereo
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that captures programs using antennas and then streams them to you the online subscriber. our hampton pearson is in d.c. with the key takeaways. >> the supreme court justices were basically conflicted and skeptical about that area of technology which carry i don't claims is for the benefit of the consumer in terms of being ability to stream free over the air broadcasts reported for later playback, if you will. the justices skeptical in the sense of saying at one point justice roberts among others, how are we to be convinced that all of your technology is simply designed to get around the copyright laws, which was at the heart of the case, and the chal ink made by the major networks. aereo kept come coming back that they're enabling the consumer. on the flip side, the chief lawyer for the broadcasters
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arguing, wait a minute, no, this is -- they're doing something other folks, including cable and satellite folks don't get to do. that's take the content, put it out there, and not pay some sort of royalty or licensing feel, if you will. the other piece, as far as the argument from aereo was the court should be careful in this case, not just keep it focused on the aereo technology, but worry about the possible impact of any ruling on cloud computing in the future. the justices, even the lawyers for the broadcasters said just deal with the aereo technology question and leave the nothing of cloud computing for another legal day. all in all, interesting. the gloves did come out, the broadcasters saying if aereo goes out of business, nobody should shed a tear. tyler? >> hampton piercing out front of of the supreme court. what's the likely outcome?
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always great to see you. you liken this case to prior supreme court decisions involving the sony bet amax ability to record things, and also dvr technology. on the face of it, it doesn't seem like it has anything to do with those. >> no, on the face of it, it really does. i don't mean to be rude, but all aereo is doing is teak over the air signals, putting them in the cloud and provides a technology that allows individual consumers to draw that content down when and if they want it. it is really not as the lawyers for big media against aereo have claimed in court today. it's not really the technology at all, because there will be more and more innovations in technology like aereos and others that will continue the march towards over the top television away from cable and away from over the air direct
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live broadcasting, no matter what. it's really a question of public or private. aereo's position is that they are providing private content, just as the sony beta max case was decided on, public versus private. so it was the cable vision/dvrs case. barry diller i gather is a big player, and boy did he make his bone at absence and fox. >> he sure did. >> but answer me two quick questions. number one, can i watch the content in live? if i want to watch the nfl on fox, can i watch it via aereo as it's happening? >> if it's on fox, it's not exactly live. there is a few seconds delay while technology is sending that signal to the cloud, and then the individual viewer can draw it down from the cloud using the antenna that aereo provides, but
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most of the live sports are going to be on cable only because of the dollars involved. >> eventually. we'll get to that. >> the idea that aereo is going to destroy television as it exists today is really not very convincing, because aereo's -- even if they win, which i think they will at the supreme court level, there's still a tiny fraction of the total audience. netflix has nearly 40 million subscribers. >> if aereo wins, who loses? do the networks lose? the station's operators? >> the networks are never going to lose, because they control the content and can do what they want with that content. the people who may lose are the independent local television stations and the small independent groups. sinclair, tribune broadcasting. they exist primarily on the
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retrans fees they get right now. if you can watch your local news and weather on aereo, you will not buy cable, and cable will not pay these guys. >> porter, thank you very much. we'll rely on you to explain it for us. >> all right. it will be an interesting challenge. it's really -- the cause of all of this is the flawed copyright law that is congress has passed the last 40 years. they have to be readjusted refocused for new technology. >> themes, thank you, porter. sue, down to you. we have a big market day on our hands. a triple-digit rally. the s&p is up almost 12, and the nasdaq composite on track for the sixth straight day of gains. keep in mind the last 14 tuesdays in a row have been very positive for the market. in addition to that, the transportation average is
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sharply higher. and we're in earnings season, how are earnings contributing to the move. thanks, gentlemen, for joining me today. i appreciate it very much. dave, i'm going to start with you. we are in earnings season. so far so good, though we should note that a lot of these companies had ratcheted down expectations of earnings before we started the season. how do you feel about the market at this juncture? >> reasonably positive. we came into the year with reduced expectations, after a huge 2013. i think that's a high single-digit year, is what we expect for the s&p 500. earnings, as you said, have come in okay in the first quarter, but only because they were expected to be on the weak side. the good news is we do think earnings in the second, third and fourth quarters will pick up and be positive comparisons, mostly because we think we're on the cusp of better economic
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activity. >> how are you allocating cash for your different members. i know you're cautiously optimistics, but you favor more european, more developed markets and the united states. >> yeah, we do, sue. you know, to dave's point we are cautiously optimistic on u.s. equities as well, but we're mindful of the valuations. when you just talked about it, when you ratchet down earnings and the expectations of earnings, yet the mark continues to go higher, the valuations just are going to get stretched and stretched. from a relative value perspective to us, there's more opportunity outside of the u.s., in europe in particular, given their increasing margins and improving economy. then the valuations are very effective on the em space as well, as long and we're sticking with a more defensive side, focusing more on sectors that are not as expensive, we think
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there's money to be made within the u.s. market as well. however on a relative value basis, outside the u.s. there's more attractiveness. >> dave, tell me what you make of what the bond market is telling us versus what the stock market is telling us. is the economy strong enough to justify the levels we are seeing in stocks? yetted bond market seems to be telling us the bond is not. maybe that's distorted by the fed, but what do you think? >> i think they are somewhat distorted by the fed, but it's a good point. if you look at the levels, say, on the ten-year treasury, it is forecasting mediocre economic growth well into the future. we think that in fact that's probably going to be wrong and that the economy is getting ready to be more like 3% real gdp growth this year after, of course, a weak period due to weather. so we're focusing now on things like payroll jobs. if el with finally get to that elullsive 200,000 a month pace, which we think is in the cards,
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hourly earnings, i think this is an indicator that jan et yellen has elevated in terms of its importance. in that trends towards 3, 3.5%, that's a good sign about consumer health. finally we have begun to see some good news on the big long growth. that's a good sign for capital spending, and a good sort of general barometer of risk-taking in the economy. so those things look better, making us cautiously optimistic. >> waseef, do you want to weigh in on the bond market/stock market debate? >> yeah, i think there's a big debate going on. every time qe has ended the last two times we've had qe, the bond market has said the economy is still too weak, and we need more of qe. i think that's what the bond market is indicating right now with tapering and the imminent end.
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the stock market is saying we'll be okay, and that debate is unfolding. we are taking a cautionary tone on overall stocks in the u.s. >> thank you both. appreciate it very much. a quick programming note. warren buffett, first on cnbc tomorrow 12:00 p.m. eastern on "street signs" right after the lunch he has with the anonymous winning bidder of the annual glide foundation, the million dollars goes to providing services to the poor and the homeless in san francisco and the lunch itself as well as another $20,000 is being donated. so tune in tomorrow. it sounds like quite a lunchtime. >> sue, thank you very much. up next, the el nino index. jane wells on a varies of commodities that might be impacted by in abnormal weather pattern.
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>> reporter: they call it an umbrella. i'm supposed to maybe learn how to use it again. we're going to talk about the ilnino economy next, and go in the way-back machine to give you some hollywood reaction when "power lunch" returns. unch" ret. i don't want to think about the alternative. i don't even know how to answer that. i mean, no one knows how long their money is going to last. i try not to worry, but you worry. what happens when your paychecks stop? because everyone has retirement questions. ameriprise created the exclusive confident retirement approach. to get the real answers you need. start building your confident retirement today. but with so much health care noise, i didn't always watch out for myself. with unitedhealthcare, i get personalized information and rewards for addressing my health risks. but she's still gonna give me a heart attack. that's health in numbers. unitedhealthcare.
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oy. forecasters are on el nino watch. the phenomenon could bring much-needed drought relief to california. jane wells has a look at what this could mean for commodities. jane? >> reporter: hey, tyler, right now the usda is saying nearly
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the entire state of california is in a severe to exceptional drought, but it's not putting the chances of an ilanyone i don't later this summer or fall to between 50 as much as 70%. if it's a big one, it could eradicate the drought in just one season. >> some of the historically strong el ninos, 1982-83, 1987-88, the hallmark were flooding rains, heavy mountain snowfall across much of california. >> reporter: this is the el nino of 1982 which pummelled the west coast with rain and snow, causing billions. we found some great file tape. even stars in malibu were impacted. >> that was scary, i have to say that i did get scared. i panicked. >> by the way, your boat went by here the other day. >> i was going to bring it down here and leave it in front of your place itches the late great
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larry hagman. what happens if we get an el nino. should be good for corn, soy beans, berries and nuts, but drought in australia across could create wheat shortages and flooding in south america could impact metal prices if mines get flooded. >> famous will you in 1978, i believe it was peru and ecuador had seven years of rainfall in four months' period. so mines were flooded and production was cut off. >> reporter: if soy bean and corn prices come down, maybe the price of there will come down. this is a ribeye, natural, to antibiotics. how much do you think it costs per pound? >> $7 per pound? >> $16 a pound. >> oh, my god, really? >> at retail. >> it's not that much back here.
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>> reporter: this cow is made of gold. it's ridiculous. >> yes, it is. that is ridiculous. o. my god, janie, thank you very much. you need to move back to the east coast where things are cheaper. >> reporter: no! >> thanks, jane. following the big movers, hi, sheila. we're on track for six straight days of gains here. it's really a 1, 2, 3 punch. good earnings report, positive corporate news and of course merger mania. let's start off with the earnings, because comcast, the parent company of cnbc had an up -- as of earnings and sales did beat expectations. netflix also one of the big winners. moving on to the corporate news, tesla giving a big boost today after its launch in china, and also wynne and several other gaming stocks off macaw data came in better than expensed.
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a bad boy tech index up forman 3.5% today, sue. thank you very much. appreciate it. interest rates, we did have a two-year note acts. holding a 23.72%, basically the in two weeks, the treasury department sold -- in terms of where they came in, we've had the average yield coming in at 0.447%, the bid to cover ratio was 3.35%. this was only average demand. there has been strong demand for the two-year after the past year or so, given the quaint at a timive easing. it was not quite the same type of demands, but the first auction of the week. we'll see how the rest of it goes, ty. david faber and his exclusive live interviews with barry rosinstein. we'll have that and more on "power lunch", coming up. ", com. [ grunting ]
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i'm taking off, but, uh, don't worry. i'm gonna leave the tv on for you. and if anything happens, don't forget about the new xfinity my account app. you can troubleshoot technical issues here. if you make an appointment, you can check out the status here. you can pay the bill, too. but don't worry about that right now. okay. how do i look? ♪ thanks. [ male announcer ] troubleshoot, manage appointments, and bill pay from your phone. introducing the xfinity my account app. welcome back to "power lunch." i'm mary thompson on the floor of the new york stock exchange. we're seeing a different session
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today. today volumes render to normal thanks to the mergers and acquisitions news we received, and better than expected results. the result today, s&p 500 is on track for its sixth straight gain. a bit of a stutter step for the s&p at the open of today's session, but the gains started to accelerate thanks to existing home sales numbers which were a bit weaker but not as weak as expected. home depot as well as some of the building materials and the builders themselves. the sectors leading the broader markets hire, discretionary, financials as well as industrials. take a look at the industrials. of course, transports hit an intraday high earlier today led by airlines, delta one of them, of course, benefiting from the decline we are seeing. also seeing strength in the builder.
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masco, robert havel oddly in the industrial group, but keep a watch on it, reporting tomorrow. the dow is up 115 points. sue, back to you. >> thank you very much, mary. given that, what mary so expertly laid out for us, how should you position yourself really in the markets? abigail doolittle is back with us, counter. nbc contributor and founder of peak theories. and kenny policy carri. the transports is one of my favorite indicators. mayy mentioned they are at very lofty levels again. it doesn't make sense. >> kenny and i were talking about this before we came on, talking about how we had the market steadily going higher, but it also feels like a calm before the storm. we also have the bond rallying this year, so long as the ten-year remains under 280, i think we're going to see all this sideways volatility resolve
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to the down side, probably led by the emerging markets, maybe in particular russia. i think investors can play this by short-sells eem, a brought emerging etf, and even rsx, as a point of disclosure, i do recommend a report, a short on eem. the charges look barrish. i think the u.s. follows. >> the dispart between the bond market and stock market is something i watch closely, yet we keep pushing the s&p up towards that resistance level and now right at the highs. so it's going to resolve one way or the other. again, listen, don't forget, the nasdaq is nowhere near, not even back to its 50-day high yet. >> that's true. >> it could really represent resistance, right? i keep saying this, and it goes higher, i suspect we'll hit resistance. what has changed right? earnings are weak, but better
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than expected, but -- >> they've been managed. >> lower expectations, absolutely. >> but no follow-through. you would think with this exciting you would expect more volume, and i don't feel it. i don't feel it in my gut. >> the bond market, as you were saying, you watch avidly. something is amiss. they're taking money away, the bonds should be falling off the rally. >> and in ten days or eight days, we'll get another fed announcement where jan the yellen is supposedly going to stay i'm taking another 10 billion off the table. >> make russia and syria are the wild cards. thank you so much. appreciate it. ty up to you. thank you, activist investors continuing to grab headlines. david faber at the fifth annual active/passive investing conference, and he'll be speaker with barry rosenstein after "power lunch" returns, after this. this. [ man #1 ] we're now in the approach phase,
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so we talked about her options. her valuable assets were staying. and selling her car wouldn't fly. we helped sydney manage her debt and prioritize her goals, so she could really turn up the volume on her dreams today...and tomorrow. so let's see what we can do about that... remodel. motorcycle. [ female announcer ] some questions take more than a bank. they take a banker. make a my financial priorities appointment today. because when people talk, great things happen. the active/passive investor
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summit is under way. top activists have gathered to discussing their best investment ideas. dachd faber is there, joined by jana partners david rosenstein. >> that's right we are here at active/passive. barry rosenstein is my guest, and a lot of battles behind you, but interesting you haven't been battling very much. since then seven in a row where you've taken a position and more or less it's gone the way you wanted it to. is it that you're such a tough guy and nobody wants to fight with you? >> that must be it. actually, we've had a good run. i would like to say it's gotten easy or we've gotten better, but the reality is companies are fighting smarter. i wrote an op-ed piece a couple months ago on this topic. today the battles are not the companies versus the activist.
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the companies have realized they're just alienating the base if they fight. instead they're doing the right thing, trying to figure out the right solution and do what's best for the company. it's no longer company loses/activist wins, everybody wins. >> except if the board and manage, for example, ebay, where there was a recent fight, if they disagree with the strategy being proposed, don't they have a right to do that and make their case? >> yes, the ones we have been involved in, we don't get involved unless we have concrete ideas that make sense on a long term and short-term basis. and we know we have shareholder support, and they're the right solutions for the companies, and that's why, you know, we really haven't had fights. >> you say long term. of course, you know, activism has only gotten more and more
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pronounced, if you will over the last few years, i've been doing it for a while, you have a lot of companies, asset sizes of many of the competitors, so to speak, are growing, and so has the criticism. you say long term and i say, c'mon, what is long term to you? 20 minutes? >> of the seven companies we own, all of them save safeway, because that got taken out, but we're still shareholders in every one of them. look, we don't propose short-term fixes. we're not proposing that companies lever up and strip out the cash and buy back stock. you know, if you look at our track record, everything we appropriate is much more fundamental and has more of a long-lasting impact. you can see from the stock price performances, too. >> and obviously you had a good year as a result of that. i'm curious, a lot of talk today about bill ackman, but a watershed moment, now valeant is
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an interesting company in and of itself, so it might make sense in a way that it doesn't for others. but is it something, could you conceivably see having similar conversations about these kinds of bids in the future? >> we've had conversations similar to this, you know, not exactly structured like bill did. i think -- i think from the company's standpoint, from valeant's standpoint, they get bill's expertise, which is considerable, and they get a 10% shareholder who's in their corner, and -- but at the end of the day they're still going to have to pay a fair price, a price that the board approves. so, you know, i think there's a marginal benefit to the partnership, but i don't think it's dispositive. >> so it's not necessarily something you can see pursuing actively? >> would we do it in the right situation? absolutely. >> in a short time scott asfeld
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is going to present an idea. wall grin, it's been in the news, and jana has been part of the coverage, some shareholders urging the company to reconsider reincorporating given the deal, and lower the tax rate. is that something you said to see? >> walgreens we own a billion in wall groans, our largest position. it's a company that, you know, it's an iconic brand, but it's a company that's underperformed on an operating basis and shareholder run base on almost -- one year, five years, ten years. it's underperformed its peers and the potential. there's a lot of opportunities. they just did a they have a pending acquisition of alliance boots, the rest of it -- >> and that's transformative it's run by stephano, one of the great value creators, will end
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up owning 17%, the personal stake will be over $10 billion, so this is a serious player. and his -- you know, his margins of the alliance boots are almost double walgreens. i think the company has an opportunity to basically work with stefano and his management team, implement a lot of the same play book. improve stores, cut costs, and they also have an opportunity to articulate a capital structure strategy and capital allocation strategy. they could add a turn of leverage and buy back 15, 20% of their stock. so there's a lot of levers to pull. and then of course, there's the potential for tax conversion. you know, no different than iconic companies like an hauser busch. >> applied materials most
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recently. >> more than half a dozen pharmaceuticals. we could go on and on with the american company that is have pursued this. >> barry, we've got to leave it there. i know you'll be joining us in the not too distance future, but thank you for your time. >> a pleasure. of course, on this topic of tax inversions we could keep talking all day long. send it back to you guys. >> clearly affecting lots of businesses in lots of different industries. david, thank you. later today, dave will sit down with carl icahn. you can catch it on cnbc.com. that's at 6:00 p.m. eastern time. sue? look forward to that very much, ty. coming up, americans can't get no satisfaction with one essential industry. the latest index showing this sector is right at the bottom of the barrel, right along with the i.r.s. and activist investor big ackman, you know the story, big interest in botox. what's behind his move to buy
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allergan. that's up in the power rundown. we're back in two minutes. n two. just take a closer look. it works how you want to work. with a fidelity investment professional... or managing your investments on your own. helping you find new ways to plan for retirement. and save on taxes where you can. so you can invest in the life that you want today. tap into the full power of your fidelity greenline. call or come in today for a free one-on-one review. predibut, manufacturings a prettin the united states do. means advanced technology. we learned that technology allows us to be craft oriented. no one's losing their job. there's no beer robot that has suddenly chased them out. the technology is actually creating new jobs. siemens designed and built the right tools and resources to get the job done.
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power rundown time. dom is here, seema as well.
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activist, aereo and airlines. bill ackman teaming up with valeant, making a run at botox. what is the end game? >> access to botox. >> that's hi end game. why not? >> jokes aside -- >> stocking stuffers. >> he clearly sees value in allergan's botox line as well as the eye care vertical. of course, valeant perhaps sees value in having ackman as a teammate, because ackman has experience in hostile takeover. >> it's a growth business and act viss do tend to do well. >> and let's go to aereo. the supreme court to decide whether or not aereo is any different from other capable or satellite phones or if they are entitled to draw freely from programs transmitted, whichever way the court rules will dictate in some ways the future of television. what do you think here? >> i get both sides of the act. i get the fact that i still know
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people who have rabbit ears and collect the broadcast networks. at the same time i know why you want to pay for it. those fees are key for content providers. >> it's a close call. basically they're downloading the signal to an antenna. >> and sending it -- >> and using it for. that feels like rye transmission to me. >> it will be interesting to see what happens. >> you think any of those supreme court justice know what aereo is? they think it's a cookie, believe me. airlines, according to the latest satisfaction index, airlines received the lowest ratings. they barely rank above the -- you don't dislike the i.r.s., do you? >> who would ever say that? >> not publicly. >> i got my refund in five days. >> i did. >> that's quicker than getting a seat. >> on maybe one of the other carriers. >> i won't name any of the airlines. >> paepgs, they were okay with
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luggage fees. they were okay with the check-in process. it was the actual flying experience that they had an issue with, beverages in-flies services. >> it's a commoditized business. i'll bet the airline that stands out just has one notch above. >> get any on and off the plane fast, the rest doesn't matter. >> i carry on. traveling has ceased being fun. we've got to go. thanks, guys. a big market day. when we come back, the top stock winners, but first what's coming up with "street signs" with brian sullivan. >> ikenic investor, with what he says with unfortunate businessing accounting abuses and who may be guilty of it. it owns a home one of the worst financial decisions you can make? a hot debate, i'm sure. we're going to do it coming up on "street signs." "power lunch" returns after this short commercial break. at delta we're investing billions of dollars,
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12.3 points on the trading session. the nasdaq also some big advances. not surprising, the bid for allergan haz moved the stock up 15%. harley-davidson, that move, that stock up higher as well. >> learned a new phrase, tax inversion up there with polar vortex. that will do it. >> "street signs" begins right now about brian sullivan. is owning a home one of the dumbest financial moves you can make? hi, everybody. welcome to "street signs." how is that for an open. realtors save your nasty-grams until it's over. but who might be the next biotech to get bought? iconic investor bobs on steen is here with what he's calling one of the biggest accounting

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