s&p, if you haven't seen it by now, did crack the 2,000 mark for the first time in history. currently sitting at 2,001. joining us on the phone is cnbc contributor rich bernstein. rich, good morning to you. >> hey, carl. how you doing? >> good. we love to talk about these round numbers. and the lesson this year, rich, has been that these mini-corrections that we have seen deserve to get bought time and time again. what do you make of this threshold, and how long is that dynamic going to stay in place? >> well, carl, you know, as i've mentioned, as you and i have spoken several times about this, that the underlying long-term sentiment is still very cautious. people are much more worried about protecting the downside than accentuating the upside. and as long as that's the case, it's likely that the buy-on dips will continue to work. eventually that will change, but clearly that's not the case right now. >> what is your game plan here as we go into a week where we're going to get a revised gdp

number? we'll see if that 4% handle stands. and do the shorts get nervous here, or do people who have had a nice ride say i'll kpa take m exit now? >> no. the things you want to look for for a real serious correction are a significant reduction in liquidity and significant deterioration in fundamentals. and neither of those is happening right now. regardless of whether gdp is 4% or 4.1% or 4.2%. i don't think the decimal point really matters. but you know, as long as that's not the case, as long as fundamentals are not deteriorating, liquidity is still available, i think eventually the shorts cave in. >> rich, we got a very nuanced tone from janet yellen in her speech on friday. it didn't really move the market, but skeptics say if the economy were really strengthening to the point where the fed could raise interest rates sooner, you'd see financials moving. you'd see consumer staples moving. and we don't really have that. those are some of the worst performing sectors in this

rally. what do you take away from some of these subsector moves and what that says about the strength of the recovery? >> there's a good point. i think you might have meant consumer discretionary, not necessarily consumer staples because staples are really more defensive. and i think that is a fair point. you know, year to date industrials which was a lot of people's favorites, i have to admit including ours. it hasn't really performed as well as many people have thought. and that's a very traditional midcycle-type sector. so kayla, i think you're right that there is a little bit of disconnect going on right now between what the market sees in terms of sectors and what's going on in the overall macro economy. that's kind of interesting. i don't have an explanation for you as to why that's actually happening. i know i should, but i actually have to admit i don't. but i think part of it has to do with the lower long-term interest rates despite the fact the economy is getting stronger. i think that's a conundrum for

the equity market because some sectors like utilities are very interest rate sensitive. and you know, in a normal environment, we'd probably see rates going up. >> rich, this recovery hasn't exactly been broad based. it seems like eventually that should become a problem. either this slows down because the recovery isn't broad based or if it becomes broader based, the markets maybe kick up another notch. what do you think about that idea? >> yeah, i mean, we're very big -- you know, we're kind of the anti-new normal group. we believe in a very elongated cycle. and the reason we believe in an elongated cycle is exactly, jon, because of what you just said, that you're not seeing the economy hitting on all eight cylinders. because what happens is when the economy hits on all eight cylinders, not only do investors do silly things but corporations do silly things because they think that their business is going on forever. and they use too much leverage. they build too much planned equipment. they start investing in inventory, and they start

raising the operating leverage of the company. and so what that does is that accentuates the subsequent downturn. as i'm sure everybody knows, all you hear about is corporate uncertainty. and that's the reason why we think we'll see this elongated cycle. i think while most people would argue it's terrible, we actually think it's quite good because it says it's preventing these kind of end-of-cycle events from occurring. >> rich, we'll see what the afternoon brings us and certainly the weeks to come. good talking to you again. >> thanks, guys. let's move to some of the top stories in tech. another good look at what could be the iphone 6 ahead of apple's official unveil on september 9th. it appears an official image of the new smartphone was leaked by carrier china telecom on chinese social network. chinese site cina has the news which was quickly taken down. as you can see, the ad looks fairly official. shares have been climbing higher in anticipation of the new phone. stocks up 35% in the last six months. pretty nice performance, jon, since the split.

what do you make of these new photos? >> the photos look pretty official. the tagline is pretty weak, though. "even better." it's always even better, but can't you come up with something even better than that? that said, that's what everybody expects the phones to look like and the colors look lemgit ileg. >> iphone 5's tagline was the biggest thing to happen to the iphone since the iphone. there was a wink to the fact that the iphone 5 was bigger than the iphone 4. right? so they typically put a little teaser in there. there's no teaser in there. the text on that iphone doesn't look quite right to me as well. i think the device comes in line with a curved back like the iphone air. i don't think that's a real ad. >> jon steinberg is the new snopes.com. >> the tagline's not real. >> i would agree on the text. it's not quite their brand. >> it's not quite right. and also the tagline is totally -- even better. it's almost like they're trolling us. it's a joke. >> last week there were some pictures up on tmz. do you think that apple iphone leaks have officially jumped the

shark when tmz gets into the game? >> i think they haven't jumped the shark because there's always a few pieces missing. i think in this case they kept under wraps what's going to be special with it other than thinner. and they've kept the big one under wraps pretty well, too. >> although this sapphire, that seems to get a lot of buzz. >> it gets a lot of buzz but production doesn't seem to be super high. and you've got to remember, they're making tens of millions of these phones. they've really got to be able to pump out a lot of this glass in order to make it consistently across all the phones. so until i see apple saying sapphire glass will be in everything, i'm going to be skeptical that that's actually happening. but with these leaks now, i mean, some of them aren't really leaks like the one on tmz, the software wasn't quite right, the icons weren't quite right. it's gotten to the point where there's an economy in fake leaks where people can get page views and ad dollars even if they don't have anything at all. >> and ipos will frequently tell bankers and lawyers a tiny bit

of inaccurate information, and they know if that information makes it to the market, then they can figure out who's leaking that. you have to wonder if apple has gotten into doing the same thing. >> you read about all the counterintelligence, those secret classes that they hold for new employees, i wouldn't be surprised if they did something along those lines. it seems kind of in line with their style, you know? >> yeah. next up, sony targeted over the weekend in both a bomb scare and a major cyber attack. first a twitter user claims bombs were on board carrying a sony executive. at the same time hackers took down the playstation network. everything did turn out okay. the plane landed safely. sony's network is back online. the group claiming responsibility says it was trying to pressure sony to spend more of its profits on customers. i think the group, jon, called square lizard. lizard square, something like that? >> it's got something to do with lizard. but the name's all of a sudden is escaping me.

>> lizard squad. >> yeah, lizard squad. the thing about this is i think it's a win for sony. they look like the grown-ups here. denial of service attack is like a brute force attack. you're banging on the doors hoping that something in the digital hinges shakes loose and you can get information out of the company whose service you're attacking. it seems like they didn't get anything out of sony in this attack unlike the previous playstation network attack. so though they took down the network, if you've got enough computers attacking and a distributed denial of service attack, you're likely to take down your target at least for some period of time. so far for sony, this looks like a win. >> the thing that struck me, there were probably a lot of gamers upset, but ultimately this is not going to move the needle. a lot of company, this could have been more critical to. more of a web media-type company. i don't want to name any because i don't want to suggest to hackers, companies where their business is keeping that site online, running ad, running subscription services. an attack like this where you

get taken down for six hours or a day like the storm that we had, impact revenue. you can't run ads for 1/30th of the month. that's a big deal. >> in 2011, it was down for nearly a month? >> that's right. >> that had a material effect on business but now these companies have gotten so adept at responding on these and the technology on the back end is so good that they can respond in a matter of hours which may not seem like that much of a difference but it really is. >> you know what's funny, i thought about it the opposite way. it's amazing how they can't win at this stuff and trying to evolve their technology but the hackers still keep staying ahead of it. to me it seems like this many years into this stuff, we need more innovation in the space and more start-ups to fix this stuff. >> targeting one executive, john smedley, makes it a little more malicious and nerve-racking. >> it does. smedley tweeted he was going from one place to another.

apparently folks were able to figure out what flight he was on and thus send a tweet and maybe ear me other messages. this is kind of like graffiti. denial of service attacks. you can't exactly stop them. if somebody's got control of a g botnet or the resources to direct internet traffic and flood your servers, there's not that much you can do, while some companies have figured out how to blunt it somewhat. this is kind of a nuisance thing especially if you're sony and you're the leader right now when it comes to console video games. >> nuisance has happens to a lot of companies in different sectors, but rarely do you see a hacker individually targeting and communicating with a single executive. >> i agree. >> on a medium like twitter. >> i think it's so much worse. to literally be threatening someone in an aircraft is a whole another level. tweet time this morning. two tesla owners took out an ad

to ask for changes to their car. and elon musk took notice, responding on twitter that the questions raised in the ad are being addressed. it brings us to this morning's "squawk on the tweet." you have 140 characters. dear tim, dear larry, dear reed, to which ceo would you pen an open letter, and what would it say? tweet us @squawkalley. jon, any nominations? >> on the spot all of a sudden. >> too many to count. i mean, that's the whole point of the open forum, right? >> it's amazing how many of them are actually good at it and really do get the complaints. i think we have to think of someone who's been unresponsive online, and that would be a good one to nominate. >> you know ledger's going to knock you down no matter what you say. >> he'll call the store and fix it for you. >> he's writing his own open letters to us to other ceos. >> jon, good to see you. the "usa today" piece, nicely done. after a 6.0 magnitude earthquake rocking northern

california's idyllic napa valley. our reporter is live with the latest. josh, what can you tell us? >> reporter: well, i'm standing right next to a building i want to show you. this was the oldest commercial building in napa, dates back to 1875 where it was used as a brewery. now, what i want to show you is during events like this, some of the most powerful footage actually comes from surveillance cameras. during moments like this, check out this scene from inside a 7-eleven. and imagine how scary that must have been for customers inside that 7-eleven around 3:00 a.m. one of the bigger questions, though, that's come up is if you had an earthquake early washing system, how would that have changed events? it could have actually given people to time to get out of the way. in fact, some of those early warning systems do exist in some parts of the world. and they're working on one here in california at uc-berkeley. take a listen to what that system sounded like just ten seconds before that earthquake hit napa.

>> earthquake, earthquake, light shaking expected in three seconds. >> reporter: for you, the hope is that you would extend obviously that window ten seconds to a lot longer if you could. you can imagine all kinds of applications from surgeons to train conductors to maybe even preventing some of the injuries we saw right here in napa. guys, back to you. >> that is chilling audio, josh. and for -- i've never lived in california, jon, but you have. i imagine you've lived through a few of these. >> a few of them. granted they were a lot smaller than that. it can still be scary especially if it goes on for a few seconds. thankfully this struck nearly one of the relatively low-populated areas in the bay area, north of the golden gate bridge. a lot of broken wine bottles. i understand there was a child injured when parts of a chimney fell. it would be nice to have at least 10 to 15 seconds' warning

because by the time that you hear something and figure out what to do, three to five seconds have passed already. >> and still thousands without power. it's a fascinating story out west today. when we come back, swiss drugmaker roche. a major deal worth $8.3 billion. the ceos of both companies will join us next in a cnbc exclusive. shares of apple have been climbing steadily. should you sell before the big reveal? dan niles is here to weigh in. and then, of course, netflix on the red carpet tonight. what a strong showing at the emmys means for your port foal when "squawk alley" continues. ec summer collection is here. ♪

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welcome back to "squawk alley." tesla shares are motoring higher. baron's is reporting that they're making positive comments about the electric carmaker saying suppliers are eager to work with tesla and are agreeing to its strict quality requirements. its analysts think it can hit 385 bucks a share within 12 to 18 months. those shares gaining steam, up 1.9%, kayla, in today's trade. back to you. >> $385 would be a big move, dom. thanks. switzerland's roche agreeing to buy intermune for $8.3 billion in cash.

it's sending shares of intermune soaring up nearly 36%. our meg terrell has two very special guests on the deal. we'll send it over to you, meg. >> kayla, thanks. let's bring our guests in, the ceos of both companies. both of you, thank you so much for joining us. >> thanks for having us. >> thank you. >> so dr. schwan, let's start with you. this is the biggest deal for roche since genentech in 2009. why does the deal make sense buying roche? >> i think the starting point is really the medicine which intermune has developed over the last years. it helps patients who suffer from a devastating disease. it's called i h ee eed ideaopat fibrosis. it's a devastating fatal disease. patients typically will die two to three years after diagnosis.

and intermune has developed this important medicine, give new hope to patients and that's why we are so excited about this opportunity. it really fits into what we are doing, focusing on innovation, true medical differentiation for patients. >> and maybe you can tell us a little bit about the drug in the eu and canada and its approval pathway in the u.s. now approval is expected in the u.s. maybe you can tell us about the opportunity here. >> yeah, the opportunity is very important, as he said. this is a terrible disease. it affects at least 100,000 patients, probably more. the patients die very quickly. they have very bad time breathing. and today there's not one drug approved at all. so it's as if a cancer patient would be told today. you have cancer, and you have no

therapy. very soon in america, we hope to change that answer to say you have ipf, but now you have a new medicine that can really help you. so we're very, very excited about this. we've been working in this field for ten years. always with the patient in mind. and we just can't wait to bring them the first new medicine for their terrible disease. >> and i understand that intermune has started a program which gives patients access to the therapy before it gets approved. how does that bode for once it's introduced here? >> yeah, we're very, very excited about the enthusiasm with which both doctors and patients have embraced this expanded access program which provides it free of charge in the context of a clinical study. and based upon the rate at which the new study centers are enrolling and putting patients into those studies, i think it's very indicative that the potential for this product to help patients and the economic potential is going to be very important.

>> and dr. schwan, let's talk a little about the deal environment. you said before you're a bit skeptical of some of the valuations in biotech. how are you looking at that now? why does intermune make sense now in terms of a valuation standpoint? >> right. it's now that i have made skeptical remarks about the valuations in the industry. i think valuations in general in the biotech industry are high, and i keep scratching my head, but joining forces with intermune is really something special. it's a unique opportunity where i believe we can really generate value for all stakeholders including shareholders. it's, of course, the perfect strategic fit. it's a focus on medical differentiation. it fits very well to our pulmonary portfolio. but also very important here, i feel that our two companies are so aligned in terms of the

culture, in terms of the values. and this is incredibly important because we depend on the people in intermune. we want to create an environment where they feel comfortable, where they can, you know, where they can really make a difference. and it all comes back to value as it comes back to a common mission about helping patients. and i really can feel it in my stoma stomach. when we come back, we will make a difference, and eventually, you know, this is also reflected in the value we put forward from a financial point of view. >> dan, this is kayla tausche back at the stock exchange. you have said that acquisition speculation over your company was like a cloud that hovered over you. but there was quite a run-up in the last two weeks in the stock. some have said very peculiar activity. i'm wondering what, if anything, you noticed in the stock over the last two weeks and what you attribute that to. >> well, about two weeks ago, there were two news reports,

newswires reported. they speculated that the company was being looked at very seriously by several companies, that intermune could be acqui acquired. that directly led to an increase in the share price by 20% or 25% in a few days. that was pretty clear what caused that. in terms of the cloud, you know, our company has been speculated to be acquired for years. and i think this has been now with roche coming and making an offer to buy the company in a merger agreement, i think this is great for employees of intermune because that cloud now moves away, and we have clarity and not only clarity but clarity with a great company. roche and genentech is a fantastic company. and so that uncertainty now is gone for us. we can now really focus 100% on bringing it to as many ipf patients as possible. >> great. well, dan welch and severin schwan, thank you so much for joining us. kayla, back to you.

>> thanks so much. good stuff from you, meg, as always. when we come back, investor dan niles said apple is by far the biggest position in his portfolio, so is he buying or selling ahead of the launch of the new iphone? dan will tell us. that's coming up next. toffee in the world. r made tht it's delicious. so now we've turned her toffee into a business. my goal was to take an idea and make it happen. i'm janet long and i formed my toffee company through legalzoom. i never really thought i would make money doing what i love. we created legalzoom to help people start their business and launch their dreams. go to legalzoom.com today and make your business dream a reality. at legalzoom.com we put the law on your side.

appele hitting a new all-tie high. does it signal greater investor confidence? ceo tim cook? joining us, legendary founding partner dan niles. dan, good morning to you. >> good morning, carl. >> it's your biggest position. you've said it's probably the best product cycle in the last three years. your expectations for the stock leading into the 9th and then what happens after that? >> well, i think if you look at apple, it has a pretty consistent trading pattern. it outperforms the overall market by about 10% to 20% over

the two-month period leading up to new product launches. and then unfortunately, it actually underperforms for the next month or two. this, in my opinion, is the best product that they've had had since really the 4 or the 4s which is when they introduced the two cameras on the phone, the front and rear facing back in the 4 generation in 2010. i think that will drive a big upgrade cycle because you're going to get a badder, wider phone. i haven't upgraded for three years. and i think there's a lot of other people who have been waiting for a compelling reason to move. i think this will give it. and the second piece is i think they're going to introduce new services which is really powerful for the future. >> yeah. that's what a lot of smart apple watchers are saying. you say the stock hasn't performed because of the products, though, because of the company. what do you mean by that? >> well, i mean, if you look at this, steve jobs unfortunately passed away in december of 2011. and the stock, you know, peaked in september of 2012.

and it's kind of gotten back to those levels. and it's taken a couple of years to do that. if you look at the stock market, it's up about 35%. since that september of 2012 time period. so, you know, it's done well recently. but you kind of expect that in front of a new product cycle. >> dan, let me push back a little better. in the 4 and 4s cycles, apple had expanding distribution. it was going to verizon which helped them quite a bit. there were a number of international markets they weren't in. it seems there are three rough possibilities here with this cycle. either they say high-end share from samsung, which would be great. they maintain their share but do it at a pretty high margin, or maybe they just maintain share and actually margins go down because they've redesigned. that would be bad. which one do you really think is going to happen here? >> well, i think what you're -- it's a great point. i think what you're going to see it them start to retake market share. so if you kind of go back to the 4s, they were growing revenues in the quarter steve jobs passed

away 73% year over year. the most recent december quarter, they grew revenues at 6%. and this year, you know, forecasted at 9%. you know, again, really not really compelling reasons to get new products. the phones haven't done a whole lot different. they're faster, obviously, more memory, et cetera. but in terms of new features, nothing different. i think what you'll see is them starting to take market share from samsung because you're going to get a lot of people in the installed base because over 50% of the installed base of phones out there is a 4s or older. so there's a lot of people waiting for a bigger phone. myself included. and i think that will get people to move. i think also they're going to price to value. so the margins unlike on the 5 cycle were margins dropped from 47% at their peak all the way down to 39%. i think you'll see margins actually go up. and then i think you're going to get some services hopefully sitting on top of it, whether it's beats or something else, which i think is good. i think it will make it go up. >> dan, quickly before we go, much of the stock's gain in the

last year has come since may when they upped their capital program. to what -- what part of this rally do you think is apple in the market buying back its own stock? >> well, i think a lot of it is related to this capital return. and that's the one thing tim cook has done much better than steve jobs. if you look at it, they've got almost a 2% dividend yield. they're going to buy back over $40 billion in stock. so that's -- you know, you add those two together, it's over a 7% return on the $600 billion in market cap. and i think in this space where you've got ten-year treasuries sitting down at 2.5%, roughly, you know, a 7% return, that looks pretty darn good. and it's still got a cheaper multiple than the market. so all of those things combined makes apple a pretty easy one to own when you're going into a new product cycle and some services. >> we'll see what happens on the other side. dan, always good to talk to you. thanks. >> thank you very much, carl. take care. >> dan niles on apple. we want to bring in simon hobbs, european markets closed just moments ago.

he's here to tell us what's moving. simon? >> this is a very strong move in western europe here. for the record, the uk is closed today for a public holiday. and the german business confidence, the survey of 7,000 executives, fell in confidence terms for a fourth month. but this is a strong rally. and it's really all about mario draghi and the comments he made in the united states on friday. the main comment that he made and what's really moving markets, as he said, that inflation expectations were falling in the eurozone. for the ecb, for the central bankers, that's absolutely key because he can no longer stand up in front of people and say that inflation expectations are firmly anchored at the target 2%. they have dipped below. and it opens up possibility of further action, whatever that may be. and of course, that's a very big discussion to be having. if you looked across the board, it is the spanish, the french and the german stocks that have risen today. but the italians just at the margin are at the helm of the move as can you see. and it's relatively broad base add cross sectk across.

we've broken through, for example, on the euro stocks 50, the dow jones, if you like. we've actually broken through the 50-day moving average which sat just above 3,000. so that's good from a technical perspective. the other thing that's happening is that the euro continues to break down. the euro fell on draghi's comments on friday after europe was shut. and you can see that the euro took another leg down when europe opened for trade or asia opened for trade again today. so $1.32 is where we're trading there. all this is not playing the same in france, needless to say. you may recall that mario draghi also opened up the idea that there should be less of an emphasis on austerity within the eurozone. however, when one of the french economy ministers repeated that in interviews over the weekend, monsieur hollande was so furious that he ordered a dissolution of the french cabinet. they will re-form under the prime minister tomorrow, guys. back to you. >> no shortage of activity over

there, simon. we'll see you again tomorrow. >> always something going on. >> oh, yes, simon hobbs. thanks, as always. when we come back, when any actor gets an emmy nod, it usually means a major boost for their career. but what does 31 nominations at the emmys bring netflix investors? more on that in a moment. plus, two tesla owners took out an ad to ask for some changes to their cars. and elon musk took notice, responding on twitter that the questions raised in the ad are being addressed. so this morning "squawk on the tweet" to which ceo would you pen an open letter, and what would it say? tweet us @squawkalley. we'll get your answers later on this hour. we'll be back in a few. but what if you could see more of what you wanted to know? with fidelity's new active trader pro investing platform, the information that's important to you is all in one place, so finding more insight is easier. it's your idea

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the emmys are coming up tonight on nbc. and it's not just actors vying for the gold. the stakes are high for a number of players this year. cnbc's julia boorstin joins us with a look at all of those hoping to win tonight. julia. >> kayla, tonight's emmys could be one of the biggest live tv events other than sports all year. seth meyers has big shoes to feel after last year neil patrick harris drew the show's highest ratings in eight years. now nbc is hoping to win big from the surge in audiences for live events thanks to conversations on facebook and twitter which will be more sbe separa integrated than ever.

pushing up-front ad sales, they're hungry to reach viewers when people watch at home in realtime. betting big on tonight's show, " "avi" is doubling down with spots featuring bryan cranston, aaron paul and julia louis-dreyfus. as for who brings home the gold, the spotlight is on netflix with a record 31 nominations. that's more than double last year. "orange is the new black," "house of cards" and others netflix shares hitting an all-time high today. the reigning emmy king is hbo when dominated with 99, the most of any network for the 14th consecutive year. amt also in the running for a couple key categories. the awards serve as free advertising. they can help lure top actors and directors to different networks and for services like

netflix also new subscribers. carl? >> julia, thank you very much. let's get more on netflix and the emmys. tuna, good morning to you. >> good morning, carl. >> have you ever tried to model how much an emmy or nomination is worth either to revenue or market cap? >> no, i haven't is the direct answer, but there's no question that it has potentially significant promotional benefits. you know, the company would, you know, benefit from lower marketing, you know, costs. and these are all intangibles at the end of the day. you know, if you talk to any network, they would rather have an emmy than not because they can now go out and try to, you know, fashion, you know, marketing campaigns around that. and beyond that also there is a very direct impact in terms of the sales of the shows, whether, you know, the dvds or the viewing platforms. >> tuna, you mention that. i wonder, we could look at itunes where you can often buy a tv series one-off. you can look at hbo which

clearly has had a benefit from the emmys in the past. can you kpextrapolate what kindf user growth benefit netflix might get maybe even from just these nominations even if they don't win them all? >> we know that since "house of cards" and "orange is the new black" came out, seasons 1 and 2 respectively, i think that clearly has had a very solid impact on the trajectory for viewership. netflix is very, you know, coy about releasing those kind of stats. but, you know, if you look at the subscriber growth, you can make a pretty direct correlation between the release of some of these original series and the trajectory of growth. as an analyst, i have to look at that and believe that, you know, with these nominations and the publicity around them, there's no reason that that can't be extrapolated. >> tuna, when you think about all of the other companies trying to get into original content, yahoo! microsoft,

verizon, amazon, and you think about netflix and where it was two years ago and now having 31 emmy nominations, how far does this put it ahead of the pack in terms of competition? >> kayla, i think it's pretty astounding what netflix has been able to do since it made this entry into original programming. this nomination for "orange is the new black" is yet another compelling validation that we think establish netflix as kind of a bona fide competitor to the traditional linear networks. and investors have been concerned, as you know, about the spending on content. so this should help to kind of ease, you know, concerns. even as the company has north of $8 billion in content obligations. so talking about some of the other competitors, obviously hulu, amazon, all these guys are, you know, they're all, you know, kind of struggling to kind of be, you know, get a slice of this kind of pie. but as the first mover, if you

will, in this space, i think netflix should continue to kind of distance itself from the competition. >> finally, tuna, you do see it as fairly valued, right? we're running well above your target. >> well, we actually have 450 target price now. our main issue is with the valuation, and at some point i think with the way international launches, starting in europe this fall, i think we'll get a better sense as to the potential upside of the international market. >> yeah, which is a much different picture than north america to be sure. tuna, always good to see you. we'll see you next time. >> thanks, carl. when we come back, what a difference 16 years makes. that's how long it took the s&p to get from 1,000 to 2,000. but the stock leadership that got it there dramatically different than it was when it first crossed that milestone. we'll explain. but first, rick santelli, what are you watching today? >> you know, of course, we're watching all the weird news going on today. so the bank of israel, surprise rate cut of 25 basis points.

of course, dissolving of the french government. when all of this happens after jackson hole and the s&p making a pass at 2,000. we're going to talk about the funnel effects and why if you're a technician forget why stocks are up. they look like they're going to keep going. while the interest rates do all they do. come back after the break. that's what we'll be talking about. a brand new start. your chance to rise and shine. with centurylink as your trusted technology partner, you can do just that. with our visionary cloud infrastructure, global broadband network and custom communications solutions, your business is more reliable - secure - agile. and with responsive, dedicated support, we help you shine every day of the week. centurylink your link to what's next.

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new milestone crossing 2,000 for the first time ever, where are the values left in this market? well, we found some and we're going to tell you exactly where they are. then, ralph lauren jumping into wearable tech with a new smart polo. senior vice president david lauren joins us live. and is the big king about to change his passport? news that burger king is in talks to buy tim horton's and move to canada has the traders up in arms. a whopper of a debate on that stock is up at noon. carl, see you in a bit. >> scott, see you in a few. let's get to the cme group here, rick santelli is with the santelli exchange. rick. >> reporter: well, thanks, carl. you know, i talked about the funnel. and i do see that there's going to be a quickened pace. many markets moving in extreme fashion. and i do think that the one to pay closest attention to, no surprise, is the u.s. if you look at that s&p chart, the fact that we're clearing 2,000 with the type of momentum we have is hugely significant. so let's forget about whether it should be here.

let's forget debate how it got here. let's just stick with the charts a minute and while i'm talking, i want you to see a one-year chart of that s&p and then look at the dow and realize that the dow is pretty much the same pattern. a little less developed, and it hasn't really kind of had that final wave. but now look at the dax. okay? the dax is coming at us from a much lower level as is the cac. we understand the dynamics between the german and the french economy and actually everybody else in eurozone is huge. but yet the markets in all equities share the same dynamic. it's the funnel. where's all the money going to go? how many conversations have we had over the years? if you don't think equities are going to go higher, just ask anybody who hasek w equities th wants to sell them what their next trade is. now, sometimes it's the money markets. of late it's been the treasuries as we see the total year-to-date returns of 10s and 30s are whoppers, close to 18% on a 30. and that last chart, let's look at that 30. so what, as an investor, is one

to do? well, i think some weird things happen today. i think whether it's bank of israel lowering a quarter point on the rate to a quarter, of course the dissolving of the french government, everything is somehow interrated. the fact that hollande had to dissolve over that word, "austerity." it's a loaded term because beneath the surface of it, they need austerity. but austerity really needed to be paired with, you know, reforms that we haven't done, tax reform, reform on how businesses can come to the marketplace faster, because austerity, without all that, is a rough ride. and you end up no better off in the journey. but all of that aside, here's what the charts look like. looks like we're going to give a 2 to 2.25 points in 10s and a lot more in equities. remember, five months before the nasdaq peaked at 5,000, we haven't been really very close since and almost doubled from 2600. that may be the part of the curve of buying we're on now with equities. so hold on for the ride. back to you.

>> all right, thanks so much for that, rick. the emmys tonight follow a big night in event television. the mtv video music awards last night handing out those famous moon men in los angeles. remember, it's where miley cyrus shocked with that risky performance. but this year did not disappoint. something of a wardrobe malfunction from nicki minaj. and ariana grande's zipper didn't zip or perhaps she was looking for free publicity. we'll give it to her. ivy carter also made an appearance on stage with parents jay-z and beyonce as "usa today" called it just a two-hour warm-up for a beyonce concert. look at that family, shutting down rumors of divorce which many had been talking about. they say they single-handedly owned that story. >> #bliss. >> they made that look very good. zploo nicki minaj showing moderate city. how does that happen? and did you catch miley cyrus channeling marlon brando?

it's like one year she has the foam finger and the next year she's doing brando. this is like amazing transformation. >> one didn't have to watch the vmas. they just needed to follow you on twitter. interesting night. >> retweets are not endorsements, by the way. >> all right. next up as we mentioned, the s&p crossing that seminal 2,000 mark. it's been a long, slow climb. we'll break down what exactly got us over that line today. "squawk alley's" back in two minutes.

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welcome back. take a look at shares of directv, up just shy of 1% for that company. the stock is rising from a headline from the "new york post" that at&t, which is in the process of buying directv for $48.5 billion, has reached an agreement with the doj on conditions that would be imposed on the merger. we should note this is a single-source story. it doesn't say what those conditions would be. but if that does prove to be correct, that could be a big development for a deal that is currently in the crosshairs of regulators in washington. of course, those regulators have had a busy few months. today we should note is the final day for public comments to be submitted on another proposed deal. that between our parent company, comcast, and time warner cable as well. so a busy fall shaping up. but carl and john, if this is accurate, then that would be a

big milestone for this deal as it nears completion. >> yes. got to get that sunday ticket. that's a big key. >> oh, yes. that's the big key for this deal. in the meantime, let's get back to the markets which are in the middle of a broad rally today. bob pisani looking at some of the biggest movers for us. bob? >> well, the important thing, there's two reasons we're hitting new highs on the s&p 500. number one is low interest rates. when you keep having rates as low as they are and they're continuing to drop certainly over in europe, look at the ten ha ten-year here in the united states. that's supporting stock prices. the second is lower commodity prices. brent crude, even west texas setting new lows. that's keeping oil prices down. gasoline prices down. yes, it's hurting energy stocks but everybody will take that. that's helping, by itself, put up how we're doing for the month in the major sectors. those two factors would help propel the stock market. we have a broad rally. even more consumer-oriented stocks are doing well right now. remember there's a theory out there no better alternatives,

even if europe is weak, the money will come out of europe into the united states. that's not happening either braz draghi is acting to support europe with comments saying with he know inflation is low. we're going to act on that. that means low rates for a while. finally, be very careful about making broad pronouncements about the state of the stock market on a slow summer day in august because it's slow. it is deadly quiet right now. volume and volatility are very much on the light side. s&p 500, well, 3% for the month, that's pretty good overall. but i want to see what happens when people come back in september. remember, there's not a lot of people right now out there to sell any kind of rally. not a lot of conviction on that end. let's see what happens in the second or third week of september. guys, back to you. >> bob, thanks. tweet time. two tesla owners took out an ad addressed to elon musk. musk tweeted he was already on it. to which ceo would you pen an open letter and what would it say? tweet us your responses. we'll give them next.

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some changes to their car. and elon musk took notice, responding on twitter that the questions raised in the ad are being addressed. that brings us to this morning's "squawk on the tweet." to which ceo would you pen an open letter, and what would it say? fred writes, "dear tim. please make my iphone battery last and last." mary beth writes, "please let it go." "yes, i know guac is extra. just throw it on the darn burrito." >> not what we were expecting. >> meantime, you're watching something out of what's app, right? >> yeah, they tweeted overnight that they had hit 600 million monthly active users. he pointed out that's different from just users, what twitter quotes. and this is every four months what's app has added 100 million monthly active users. that's absolutely huge. and kind of validates this big price tag that facebook paid months ago. >> even as it gets better, still 20% growth. interesting that he decided to tweet out the news and not post

it on facebook. no? >> maybe he posted it on facebook, too. i'm not friends with him. i don't know. >> that's a heck of a number. meantime, 2001. we've been stuck here for about half an hour. we'll see if we manage to close above that. s&p hitting 2,000 intraday for the first time ever. that does it for "squawk alley." back to post 9 and get the judge and the "half." hey, scott. >> welcome to "the halftime show." today from the new york stock exchange, josh brown is the ceo of rithedge. pete, jon najarian and chief investment officer for u.s. trust. and we do begin with stocks hitting that major milestone today. the s&p 500 topping 2,000 for the first time ever. as ecb president mario draghi hints at more stimulus over in europe. but as stocks keep rising, are investors facing a growing