tv Squawk Box CNBC November 28, 2014 6:00am-9:01am EST
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good morning, everybody. i'm becky quick along with andrew ross sorkin and michelle caruso cabrera. joe is xoining an extended thanksgiving holiday. in the meantime, it is plaque friday. here we go. guys, it is black friday. in fact, take a look at a picture of toys r us in new york's times square in the city that never sleeps. shoppers have been looking for deals for hours now. yeah, there it is. they're walking in the doors right now. we're going to speak with the retailer's ceo in just a few memberships. veteran retail analyst dana telsey. i know you've been out checking the stores. >> i certainly have. >> we're going to get the update with dana in just a few moments. first, though, the other big
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story that we're following. wti falling. you have to go back to may 2010 to see prices like this. the number to watch is $67.15. right now, down by about 6% to $69.32. well below what we've seen at this point. if it fell down to $67.15 that would be the lowest price since september 2009. the cartel deciding against cutting prices. first, check out some of the fallout to this route in oil prices. you'll see exxon, chevron, bp all trading sharply lower this morning. bp down by more than 6%. the global equity market taking note of this dramatic fall in oil. lty at this point, dow futures
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would open by 35 points, s&p down by 4 points and nasdaq is up by just over 5 points. in asia within up by 2.3%. shanghai composite closing up by 2%. hang seng is relatively flat. trade in europe, maybe some of the oil taking its toll there, as well. the cac down by more than 0.5%. the ftse in london down by 0.7%. steve sedgwick is standing by in london. he is just back from that opec meeting. steve, this caught the markets by surprise. >> yeah, becky, we were talking about it in the hours beforehand, as well. we started getting the feeling tuesday evening when the russians came in and then out. the russians delivered nothing in terms of adding to the cart which were hoeg hopeful. then it came to the meeting on thursday. there were some pretty tense talks between venezuelans, israelis and saudis beforehand.
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the venezuelans thought they would have a production cut, i'm pretty sure of that. basically, what it came down to in the end, he ever producer wants less oversupply on the market. they want the price back up again. they want $100 a barrel. but nobody was prepared to do it, so it fell firmly on the shoulders of mr. naimi and saudi arabia. he said no, we did not create this problem. the nigerian minister spoke to me. she's the new president and she said it's not just opec who have got to share the burden. listen in. >> very clear. we are all in this together. it's not just opec. opec will not necessarily change
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the picture if the nonopec countries do not share the burden. >> becky, we talked beforehand about whether there was dissengz. of course they came up with what they said was a consensus decision. what i thought was absolutely we haven't got an emergency meeting in the spring. and you think the price action we've seen over the last this 24 hours, they would want some form of emergency hour, as well. bet your bottom dollar if we stay below $70 a barrel, they will is a meeting and it will be in february and it will be in march, as well. but the same question remains, call it what you like, the fact remains is every producer globally from russia to shale to opec, they need higher prices. they've got problems on their budget because they can't atrad tract new investment at these low levels. the saudis play along the game. saudi can afford to do that. they've got the bulk of the global reserves and they've got the cheapest production on this
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planet. nobody, including saudi, was happier about yesterday's position, i think, but they're playing a game now saying we didn't create this overfly, it's up to someone else to say that. back to you, becky. >> steve, we knew that the iranians wanted other people to agree to cut. they didn't necessarily want to do it themselves. but we also know they're in a position where they have to look like a better mrarg on the global markets because of what's happening with the nuclear talks concerning that country right now. >> great point. >> is it weren't for that, would we have heard a much more vocal iranian minutester? >> he's very eloquent. i had a tough time getting on the same page as many of the iranian oil minutester minutes years.
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if they had, a green light for more iranian oil on the table, at the same time the iranians are calling to for the saudis to give up the market share that they lost. it could have been even worse because the iranians would have been putting even more on the table. so if you've got 30 million barrels of oil a day coming out at the moment. the world consumes 88 to 91 million barrels a day. so the spare capacity is growing. the inventories are growing, as well. and nobody is prepared to pull the trigger on cutting back, as well. if the iranians have put more on the table over the next six months, as well, can you imagine? i think the price action could have been even more vicious, becky. >> all right. steve, thank you very much. you know, we saw the -- thinking about that over the weekend,
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there were hedge funds. potentially a price spike of 15 bucks. >> if there was a deal. >> there was the possibility of talking about a decline because this is really amazing. oil analysts were absolutely convinced there would be no deal. general market analysts, of course there's going to be a deal, right? there's a big division about what happened. >> this hits a number of global markets particularly hard. russian asset res sinking. the ruble is now at an all-time low and the russian stock market is getting hit very hard. what we're showing you is the dollar at the bottom and you get 49.5 rubles to every dollar. venezuelan bonds, expect them to get hammered again today. this is -- a lot of people actually own these because look at that yield.
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15%. where else can you get that? nowhere. you look to the right of the chart, you can see the dollar skyrocketing against that, as well. . carl larry is director of oil and gas at frost and sullivan. good to see you here. >> good morning. how are you? >> good. how long before venezuela leads opec? >> weeks. months. i'm right there with you. i agree. i think that's a really big thing here. a lot of the other countries in opec can't survive with oil this low for this long. i know the saudis can. i'm sure they can for at least a year. but countries like libya or venezuela or nigeria for that matter. >> why bother to stay with opec right now if you're venezuela or nigeria? >> i think that, you know, this
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is what has worked for years. and they're thinking eventually they'll come around. but there's a lot more competition and that's really hurting everybody. >> bottom line, it seems to me the saudis are playing the smartest game here, right? if you want capacity to many coout of the market, you'll let the price fall on the western half of the united states, canada and bra z ill. they all get punished. they don't have to do anything. the lack of profitability in all of those wells means that they come off line. >> yes. and i think there's something more going on here in opec. especially with the saudis. right here in the u.s., what we can do with unconventional oil with fracking, we can turn it off, come back in a few days, turn it back on and production will be back at the same level. >> is that true? that's different than regular wells, right? >> yeah. regular wells, you're looking at maybe three weeks and maybe getting the same production wells. so what's unconventional right now with shale oil, i think you get a lot more flexibility. but i think what's going on with
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the saudis is that they don't want give up their position in line in front of china and that's why they don't want to cut. black friday, they don't want to do it. no matter how much better of a deal i think you're going to get, i'm not going to get out of line trying to get in front of china. >> how low does the price of oil go? >> we could see it down to 65 at these levels. it's a point where other countries say we can't handle this any more. >> carl, we had harold from continental resources on with us about two or three weeks ago. he was talking about how shutting in oil isn't what they do when it comes to these new fracking things, but he did say it would definitely hurt new production down the road. it would keep companies from investing as much to open new wells.
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>> i think like what michelle mentioned earlier is what really gets hurt is conventional wells. at 65, there's no investment in new production in saudi arabia or wherever it may be. conventional wells are a lot more expensive and a lot more risky. you should have price point at 65. i guess what i mean is if we don't see new wells, if companies are at 69 stopping some of their plants from production, is that a new two-year cycle, a one-year cycle? when do we see that? >> i think in the u.s., we don't see less production. i think we see stable production. maybe a little drop off within the next six months. but i think -- >> growth, so when -- >> right. we'll be expecting growth. we will see that growth pretty much. that's the way that works. we'll save on 9 million here, maybe going at 8-5, 8-6. >> you just saw steve sedgwick with his interview of the new president from nigeria, the
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first woman president of "peck. what do you make of her? >> nigeria is having a hard time making oil prices. it's ironic that they made her president at this time when tier trying to keep oil at $70. the u.s. is not getting oil from nigeria. if anybody, they're lost in the world right now looking for buyers. if they can't find anybody, they'll lose even more money. to make her a figure head at this point, it seems ironic. >> ironic is one way to think about it. okay. carl, great to have ow this morning. >> thank you. friday friday, the super bowl for shoppers. our first stop, toys r us. shoppers lining up for hours waiting for the doors to open. they did that at 5 ook p.m. on thanksgiving for the first toy rush.
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we're joined with the latest on sales so far. so we're just a little over 12 hours and 13 hours in, hank, how is it looking? >> things are doing great. welcome to our store in times square, the center of the toy universe. >> tell us directionally what you've seen this year relative to last year. last year was the first year you opened at 5:00 p.m., right? >> yeah. last year we opened at 5:00 p.m. the consumer response was overwhelmingly positive. we opened at 5:00 p.m. again last night. at times we had close to 2,000 people lined up to come in and shop. very exciting. we had hundreds of people lined up at our stores. most of the consumer shopping were shopping with their families. it's a great consumer event, very fun. >> how does it work in terms of hours? people open at 5:00 p.m., i assume there's a are prush from
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5:00 to what time, 9:00, 10:00? >> yes. >> then what happens overnight? >> we had people lining up outside of our stores as early as 2:00 or 3:00 in the afternoon. we opened at 5:00. big crowds from like 5:00 through 9:00 p.m. then it slows down a little bit. we keep our stores open from 5:00 p.m. thursday all the way through 11:00 p.m. on black friday, tonight. we have another round and we've got about 200 door busters that will launch at 7:00 p.m. this morning. and we'll have another rush from probably 7:00 to 11:00 and then steady all day and into the weekend. >> hank b, try to put this in number terms. there's always a debate about whether to open on thanksgiving and how early. how much additional business do you think you get by opening up at 5:00 relative to opening up today? >> truly, we've heard from our cob assumers that they like to open early, some like to come in
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on thanksgiving day as a family to shop. for those who don't want to come in on thanksgiving, we have great deals starting at 7:00 a.m. on friday. we think it helps business. this is the official kickoff of the holiday season for us. over the next few weeks, our sales will grow every single week, right up through the week before christmas. >> the former ceo of toys r us on wednesday spoke to us and he suggested it's almost immoral to open a retail store on thanksgiving, that people should be able to stay home with their families. what would you say to him? >> well, again, for us, it's about respond to go what our consumers want. and overwhelmingly we've had positive response. as i was talking to customers last night, they were thankful that we were open. >> in telephones of our employees -- >> yes. >> i'm sorry. go ahead and finish your sentence. >> i was going to say in terms of our employees at our times
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square store, we had more volunteers volunteer to work than shifts we had available. we have a nice dinner for our team members and they love it. this is our time to shine and -- >> what's the pay differential, by the way? what kind of overtime do you get on a holiday like this? we give them time and a half on thanksgiving. >> and the other argument john made was not just the moral argument about being closed so people stay home with their families. the other thing he said was from an economic perspective, he didn't think it made sense. he thinks it just spreads the number of shoppers who come in over a longer period of time. is it profitability to be open for more hours? >> yeah. without question. we pay a premium. however, for the consumers that we get that come in and love it, it's about giving them what they want and we think it's good for business and also good for what consumers want. >> so you think you get more sales as a result of being open. can you quantify that at all?
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>> i don't want to share any financial numbers for competitive purposes, but we think it helps our business. >> are consumers walking in buying one toy or ten toys? what's going on? >> they're walking out with baskets full of toys and a big toy trend is lights, camera toys. so where we've had movies, like the lego movie webs that's selling well. frozen is selling well. i've got a hot toy here. this is -- this is a toys r us exclusive, by the way. singing and talking ana and elsa from the frozen movie. so this is a great toy. this is a hot item for us and consumers really love the product. >> why do you think there were so many employees who volunteered to work on thanksgiving, besides the fact that i'm sure they love their yobs .they want to be there. but is that a sign of the economy, that they need the
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money? what was the biggest reason that they wanted to work? >> at toys r us, this is our time to shine. we get pumped up for this. this is the super bowl for retail. i think they just want to be part of the fun and also they want to be there to serve our customers. >> hank, what about online? what are you seeing online being popular versus what's selling in the stores? >> i'll tell you, online business continues to grow. we also see consumers shopping more and more with mobile devices. so we have implemented improvements to our mobile app. we've got a faster, it's an easier checkout experience and also the site is faster. really, the same things are selling online as in stores. so very, very similar items. >> hank, one of the things that john iller mentioned is he thinks toys r us and some other stores, as well, has gotten away from some of the core message in the past. he said part of that is making sure you have a message for the
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shoppers and the other is exclusive items. you just held up the ana and elsa exclusive items. what other things do you have? >> we have many exclusive toys. another hot item is charmazing. these are bracelets for kids that are expandable, they're stackable. we have about a hundred unique charms. this is a toys r us scloout exclusive. we're a toy specialty reseller. so we're in the toy business 365 days a year. we are the toy authority and we've got team members who are experts in what they do. so it's all about making it easy for the customer during the busy holiday season. >> okay. we're going to leave it there. hank, happy thanksgiving. good luck to you on this black friday. get some sleep. i don't know, have you been there all day and all night? >> i've been here late last night and again early this morning, but our team members are here and it's very exciting. thanks for having me on this morning. >> absolutely. talk to you soon.
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thanks. >> i want to be a toy authority. >> we had our guest on, the goldyblox. >> did you see her in the macy's day parade? >> i did. >> it was pretty cool. >> dana telsey is here, as i mentioned. dana, i know you were out last night. and i just wonder what you think about the crowds, what you think about the sales so far. >> it feels better this year than last year. >> does it? >> for some reason, the tone feels better, the retailers are better prepared. the consumers, we all know the macro numbers where the lower gas prices help. compelling merchandise presentations, better than in years' past. retailers have invested in them. we're seeing better trained sales associates. it used to be that retailers were giving lip service and training with sales associates. now go into stores like victoria's secret. they know what they're talking about and they're upselling an
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increase in the average transaction. think about omni channel. now it's coming to life, whether it's mobile, whether it's order online, pick up in store, the omni channel and bricks and mortar are coming together. >> you know, i drove several hours this morning because i got up early, came from my parents' house. the whole way up from philadelphia all the way up to the turnpike, all the way here, all the stations i was listening was saying, hey, when it comes to traffic, don't worry about it. is that because they are all opening earlier, you had a bunch of traffic there last night? and i wonder if john is right about her theory that by opening longer, you just spread out the same number of customers and don't get additional traffic? >> i think that's happening. i feel like we've had black friday week since october. more of these deals are getting more competitive. i'm seeing things like take 20% off from 9 the o'clock to noon. with more stores opening on thanksgiving day itself, its
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makes thursday and friday bigger, but the drop off is also bigger. >> where you have this in the margin is next to nothing if not nothing if not worse than that. are you happy or unhappy that they're doing this? >> you've got to talk to the companies and say what are you buying that's supposed to be promoted? there's so many goods that companies are doing. buying at a specific margin to promote. so there's this special deal out there and then there's the deals company make money on. >> who is doing it right and who is doing it wrong? >> i think we're seeing companies like macy's doing it right. i think michael kors continues tow to see the big increases out there. we're seeing nordstrom, it's working. look at the tiffany tea collection. it's getting fanfare out there. so accessories and under armour, nike, double digit increases. >> so the whole question of whether or not to open on thanksgiving, if you're the one retailer who doesn't do it -- >> right.
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>> that's why they're open on thanksgiving. >> they're all looking at the earlier times. is it more and more costly for the stores to get those sales and is it harder and harder to turn a profit on any of this stuff or does it even matter? get them in there. you need the traffic. the traffic is what counts. you need to get them in there early to build a rapport. a lot of these earlier buying is buying for themselves instead of just gifts. >> thanks. dana will be here throughout the show. >> last night, a guy said he spent most of his afternoon driving people from new york city to the big box retailers in new jersey and back again. in corporate news this morning, european union lawyermakers are urging regulators to break up google. seema mody joins us with london from this unbelievable story.
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seema. >> yeah. this is basically highlights europe's concern with the dominant role that u.s. tech firms are playing here in europe. here is a vote, 384 lawmakers voting in favor to break up google. this vote does not carry any weight, but it is being seen a political opinion to break down companies. this vote is coming as europe faces challenges with slowing growth, ramping up competition for companies based here in europe. analysts say that another reduction is the reason lawmakers are looking to push for the break-up of google. >> that leads up to the eu competition commissioner. also, guys, u.s. politicians have been voicing their dismay saying google is playing by the rules.
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>> unbelievable. >> it's up to the eu commissioner, as she says. and if they decide to do something. do they vote and go along with it? yn what the historical -- >> so the politicians in the european parliament have voted in favor of this break-up of google. now, as michelle was saying, the onus is on the competitive commission. she really wants to push this powered. >> is there a pattern as to whether or not the competition has to follow this kind of vote? >> that's a good question. i'm not sure about that. this is the first time we've seen the european parliament push for a break up. >> thank you, seema. >> that's going to be something to follow. when we come back this morning, why nevada is putting uber on the naughty list this black friday. and then squawk goes shopping. we'll take the poll to the consumer at a major mall in
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a judge has banned the usage of uber in las vegas. nevada says the company deliberately broke the law to maximize profits as long as it could. and, michelle, one note, i don't know if you saw this piece, taxi cab medallion prices are now plummeting in new york city and elsewhere around the country for the very first time as a result in large part because of uber. >> they used to go for a quarter million. >> it can gone up to about $1.3 million. and now it's coming down to about 850$850, $900,000 in new york. and there's a guy in chicago who owns a lot of them. he had mortgaged, you know, his future with these things. he says he's going to go bankrupt because he owns like 98 medallion and the medallion came down so sharply. >> it's a much more efficient system. consumers like it. it's great. >> you know me. i was in one yesterday.
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pear: uh-oh. heart: i maximize good stuff like my potassium... and phytosterols, which may help lower cholesterol. major: i'm feeling energized already. avo: new delicious ensure active heart health supports your heart and body, so you stay active and strong. ensure. take life in. americans didn't way long after thanksgiving before ushering inside black friday. courtney reagan joins us now
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from dayton, ohio. courtney, saw all your tweets last night. it was busy. >> right now, the mall has been open six 6:00 p.m. the shoppers that are here, that key millennial demographic. it looks like online sales are promising so far. ibm says up 12.2% year over year compared to thanksgiving day last year. those earlier openings for thanksgiving day really did seem to draw shoppers into the store, too. >> put the turkey in the oven and we had nothing better to do, so we came to pick out a few toys on sale. >> i got a fridge, i got toys, i got storage binnes. >> and i did go to a walmart and a target here in dayton last night. i will say walmart was considerably more crowded than target, but they had a lot more folks in both of those stores than at the same time last year when i went to those same stores.
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both about getting distance away, i would say. but the lines wrapped around both stores. shoppers are much fuller carts at walmart and seemed a lot more targeted than what they were doing at walmart. target seems to be more casual shopping. walmart says, in fact, 22 million shoppers were in stores on thanksgiving day as far as online sales. walmart had its second best day ever after cyber monday last year. top selling items include tvs, tablets, chirp's apparel and video games. the national retail federation says 96 million people are expected to visit stores today. so we're only just beginning. it's the super bowl of retail. >> 96 million people. you unbelieverble. >> that's why i don't go to the malls today. >> thank you. >> and while many mall developers had their doors open on thanksgiving, our next guest location closed nationwide to spend the day with family and
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friends. and now the 3458s are open on black friday. from one of his main locations in troy, michigan, good morning to you. >> let's settle one debate before we get to what's going on in your mall at this minute. you stay closed. we talked to other who stay open. clearly they have a view that there is more money to be made staying open than closing. putting aside the moral argument about family, where do you come out on the economic argument? >> you can't argue the economic argument. the more hours you can fit in during the shopping selling season, it could argue that you would do more volume and more business. and i think a lot of retailers have tried to not resist that temptation and stayed away from the moral argument and just looked at the business side of things. >> from your tenants, do they call you up and say look, we
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should open, we want to open, can we open? >> the only ones that are open in our shopping center is really macy's. they'll open up at 6:00 p.m. on thanksgiving evening. 25 million americans went shopping yesterday. so they're expecting foot traffic today to be down about 4% because of that. >> and you think that the early bird gets the worm and gets to keep the worm through the entire holiday shopping season? do you think stores can makes up for that? >> i think stores can make up for it on a case-by-case basis. you think he'll see sales are driving business. every year it's earlier and earlier, they're going deeper and deeper on the discounts, moving a lot of inventory. >> nate, you have a lot of luxury goods in your sectors.
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what are you expecting from luxury goods? >> handbags, accessories, shoes, timeless pieces from luxury goods, we're going to get a fifth straight year of double digit growth. >> nate, thank you for joining us this morning. happy thanksgiving and good luck with plaque friday. >> thank you and to you all. coming up when we return, it is as much of a tradition as football on thanksgiving. coming up, don't mystery lundgren. he'll be joining us. also the toy insider and former staff
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woeb. the big story this morning, the price of oil. lower by more than $4, almost $5. a decline of 6.5%. brent is slightly positive. gasoline is lower by 1 1 cents here in the united states. big move. let's see how it's affecting the u.s. futures market at this point. negative open for the dow jones industrial average. 27 points. the s&p 500 would open lower by more than 3 but the nasdaq would open higher by nearly 8. today, a shopping bonanza is now under way following yesterday's early thanksgiving
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sales. joining us right now with his thoughts on how retailers will do today is jerry. he's currently the ceo of storch advisers. great to see you. >> good morning. >> how do you think things are going so far? >> i think pretty well. the feels like a good environment out there. retailers started earlier on thanksgiving and the traffic continued until you got to bedtime. so it feels pretty good. having said that, in the old days, shores would just be opening now. so we have all the of plaque friday ahead of us yet. >> is that a good thick when stores open longer hours? do they get more sales out of it or does it just cost them more to keep the stores open longer, keep them staffed and get relatively close in terms of sales? what does it mean profitability wise? >> i am so glad you asked me that question. here i am now as an independent free agent, i can tell you exactly what's going pop. >> are you suggesting the guys that is have the jobs don't tell
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you the truth? >> i am not suggesting that. this is the classic prisoner's dilemma. the stores that open earlier are capturing a bigger share of the traffic and they're going to keep doing it as long as hordes of traffic keep showing up. it's the market at work. if you want to change that, you're going to have to pass a law or something. meanwhile, the pressure is going to keep happening about opening earlier and earlier and earlier. as for your economic question, the marginal costs of that additional labor is actually single digits. think of it that way. even the electronics dealer, you're dealing with low double digits. compared to the cost of actual labor which, you know, the margin is vastly more important. that's where the focus is on the part of the retailer. as for the moral issue -- >> it's worth it, but do you think the retailers secretly wish that somebody would pass a law preventing this so they don't have to keep up with the joness constantly? >> well, you know, i'm pretty
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much an advocate of free mekts, but this is the case where you see sometimes regulation coming into play. having said that, you have to be careful trying to find out what it is people want. because for every person that says it's terrible and ruins thanksgiving, you have someone like my wife. you might have to fight with her because she's saying, you guys get to watch football, people have to go to a football stadium. how come i can't go shopping onning this? >> they shas a point. how do you compete with cyberspace? >> black friday, counting thursday, has become one of the biggest cyber days of the year. it's a huge day and some retailers, it's even bigger than cyber monday. >> we just looked at oil prices. they are down sharply after opec said forget it, we're not cutting production or doing anything at this point. that caught the market by surprise. even before this happened, $2.61. this means prices are coming down even from here.
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what does that mean for the consumer? >> can't help but be great for the consumer to have oil prices sliding. there are a lot of other factors taxing the economy right now. wages and real terms are not up. a lot of peep don't have the job that they want, there is some inflation in some other important areas like food prices. you've got to eat before you can watch tv. so there are some other pressures on the consumer, but having said that, there is no doubt whatsoever that a drop in oil price is fantastic for the consumer environment. >> let's talk a little trash about who is doing well, who is not in particular. we had john eiler on the show on wednesday. he's a former toys r us ceo, as well. he thinks toys r us has lost its way a little bit. he's concerned they don't have as many exclusive toys that they used to have wab concerned that they don't have a single message to get to the consume perpendicular we talked to hank, the current ceo earlier, showed
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us some of the exclusive toys that they have. what do you think about the state of toys r us, your former store, right now? >> i think they're doing a great job. what i do see as the winners in retail right now are people that are playing into the value trend right now. someone like costco, a retailer's retailer, they're doing awesome. tj maxx, here doing great. high employers doing well like michael kors. then they have the guys who have mastered the online retail. then you have to think of people like nordstroms or macy paeps. >> and, jerry, when you think about the rest of holiday season coming up, what do you think is going to be different than last year? will it be a greater rate of increase this year than last year? >> traffic at malls, make no mistake about it, whatever is happening today, traffic to physical stores to malls to trip center sess dropping precipitously. you know, people are shopping at
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home. when they do go to the store, they are shopping very surgically. so sales aren't following as much as the traffic. traffic is up very, very sharply. that will accelerate this year. meanwhi meanwhile, many of those very same names are doing very well on the internet and where you buy it diop line and go to the store and pick it up, it doesn't mean that the company as a whole have to do badly. it just means a huge amount of business is shifting from the consumer store to zon line. >> does that mean you have to be a giant, an omni channel player in order to survive? >> i think all retailers will be omni giant retailers or they'll be out of business. even the dedicated internet only guys are starting to add stores. i think these only going to happen more and more and more because the consumer is in charge. she will decide how she wants to buy something. if she orders on her mobile
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phone, great. she might want to go to the store and pick it up right away. consumers do not view this as a choice between st store and going online. they view it as choosing a brand. they want to interrelate with that brand any way they can where they want to buy whatever they want, they want to get it delivered and it's up to all of us as retailers to deliver on that promise. we don't even look at the growth on the internet. the biggest growth is in the omni channel paradigm. that's where the biggest double digit growth is coming from. the secret behind all that is they are actually growing in the traditional online model. that's where you buy it from home and it gets shipped on your growth. buy it from your mobile phone or go to the store and pick it up. >> jerry, thank you very much for joining us today, getting up early. i hope you enjoy the rest of your holiday weekend. >> my pleasure. >> great to see you. coming up, we're going to
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have a live report from tyson's corner just outside of washington, d.c. we have more than 2 million square feet of shopping space in total. some of the stores have been open since yesterday afternoon. others macy's, gap, to michael kors. find out which of the retailers are seeing most of the traffic. we've got that next. but first, oil prices falling to four-year lows. the biggest oil companies are getting slammed. check out shares of exxon, chevron, and bp. "squawk box" returns in just a moment. . get to the terminal across town. are all the green lights you? no. it's called grid iq. the 4:51 is leaving at 4:51. ♪ they cut the power. it'll fix itself. power's back on. quick thinking traffic lights and self correcting power grids make the world predictable. thrillingly predictable.
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time now to get an early check of how the retailers are doing. one hot spot, the tysons corner outside of washington, d.c. joining us is cory scott. thank you for joining us. this is the first time you had a thanksgiving day opening opposed to opening friday at midnight, right? >> we did. the official mall hours opened up at midnight. but we had a number of retailers opening up at 4:00 p.m., one that came on at 6:00, and one that came on at 10:00. the same results. the tenants had good lines outside their store early on. people getting in line to take advantage of those early door buster deals. and that continued all
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throughout the evening. then another good rush. we had great crowds throughout the evening. >> i always find it amazing that people line up at midnight. tell me what you're seeing now this morning. the traffic is the same compared to the last year, the year before, more or less? or did that thursday opening actually pull some traffic forward? >> we definitely saw good crowds from the openings last night. through this morning. this time is the changing of the guard. the kind that came in and did the overnight shopping, started to go home and get some breakfast. but shopping is good. the traffic is good. and the numbers of shopping bags in all the shoppers' hands is very strong. >> more so than last year, you think? >> looking around, i'm seeing lots of people with groups of bags from lots of different stores talking to some of the store managers. i heard of them going beyond the
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door busters this year. which is an encouraging sign this season. >> thanks for getting up early. i guess you had to anyways, but thanks for joining us. when we come back, this was the scene at macy's herald square yesterday. a swarm of shoppers skipping the turkey to hit the sales early. we will ask terri lundgren if it's paying off for that retailer. and then later, barbie being dethroned by elsa. the hottest gift of the year. snow glow elsa dolls were one of the top sellers last night. our toy insider giving us her winners and losers of the season. "squawk box" returns in a moment.
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oil shock. opec leaves production levels alone an the price of crude tumbles hard. ready, set, shop. black friday has arrived, but the holiday deals started on thursday or even earlier. macy's ceo tells us if the early start times are paying off. and what is black friday without toys? the hottest gifts that could send shoppers scrambling this holiday season. the second hour of "squawk box" begins right now. welcome back to "squawk box," everybody. this is cnbc, first in business worldwide. i'm becky quick along with andrew ross sorkin and michelle caruso-cabrera. joe is off today. you're looking at a live shot of the mall of america in minnesota. as you can see a few shoppers are out here and there.
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the full force, though, started thanksgiving evening. i'm actually surprised there aren't more people in the mall right now. our guest host this morning is dana telsi. and joining us for the rest of the snow is jan niffen. the two of them are here this morning to talk about the shopping frenzy at least in some areas of the country, some malls it started earlier and earlier. the scene here is what happened at macy's flagship store last night. macy's opened at 6:00 p.m. the department store is among many other retailers across the country that is opening on thanksgiving day. also one of the big questions for macy's ceo terry lundgren will be if the strategy is paying off. he'll join us in a few minutes. the other big story, sale on oil and oil stocks today. look at wti crude sliding. lowest price in four years. right now it's at $68.84.
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a decline of $4.85. if it dips below it will be the lowest price since september of 2009. that of course wiin the deep financial crisis. cutting output in order to support prices. check out some of the fallout from this. exxon, chevron, conoco phillips and bp all trading sharply lower. bp lower by more than 6%. probably already trading. and on the flip side, airline stocks taking off. jetblue in particular higher by more than 8% in the premarket. look at the futures as well. the overall stock market responding mixed to this news. the industrial average lower by 24 points. you have major companies in the dow and s&p 500. they drag it down. nasdaq, less exposure to the oil companies. 6% up. let's get to the man in the midst of all this.
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steve sedgwick. he was in vienna just yesterday. he's now back in london. he's got more on that meeting. >> i want to show you what has happened. we talked about a deep rift going through the organization. i want to show you hoe two on either side of the rift. one is the eau, close to saudi. listen to what he had to say. we'll digest that and then move on to the other side. >> we care about the long-term stan stability of the market. the over supply is not something that opec did. the oversupply, it's not something opec had done. therefore it's not fair to ask only opec to fix or to do it. >> there is so much in what he
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just said there. ie, we are not interested in quick fixes. they are playing a longer term game. but the other comment, they were a message to russia and dakota and texas. they were a message to the other people putting supply on the market. the over supply is not what opec did. it is not fair to ask only opec to fix pipt and only opec. the other side of this is there were people -- the hawks within opec who were desperate to get a production cut despite they weren't prepared to do it themselves. many times in the last three days, the iranian oil minister said he will do something. listen. >> we think it's a necessity to do something which has a short effect on the market. and in my understanding it's not a good way to leave the market. and to go home and to wait based
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on its nature. react in this situation. >> so look. we want a long-term stability of the market. we don't want quick fixes. we want to do something that has a short-term effect on the market. we don't want to go away and leave the market as it is. i spoke to another where -- i said did you personally go for a cut? he said, i did. itted a cut. you can see their ham strung as are every producer around the world. they're terrified you're not going to get the investment at this level. whether you're looking at shale, siberia. they are worried about investment. longer term, we all know that we're expecting oil demand to go through the roof. not because of the united states or europe, but because of asia. back to you guys. >> thank you, steve. appreciate it. back here in the united states, macy's opened its doors at its famous herald square location at 6:00 p.m. on
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thanksgiving. take a look at the crowds at that point. people rushing in the doors. terry lundgren is the chairman and ceo of macy's. he joins us right now. you were there for the opening, correct? >> i never missed one yet. i wasn't about to miss last night. i was definitely there. >> so what's the mood? what's it feel like? how does it compare to years past? >> well, i was here of course last year as well. atmy sis herald square. you know, it's always quite a spectacle as you can see from the video. last year we counted about 15,000 people here outside of our store ready for us to open at 8:00 p.m. we opened at 6:00 p.m. last night. and all i know is that there was definitely more than 15,000 because we stood at the front door -- i stood at the front door for 20 minutes and the line just never stopped. it just never stopped. those revolving doors just pushed through. people are filming this thing
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with their video cameras. they're just having a good time themselves. so it was a very festive evening with lots and lots of people. >> you think the bigger crowds are reflection of the consumer that feels better because of so many things that are happening? better job market, lower oil prices. or do you think they're out in fuller force because of the earlier hours? >> you know, it's hard to say. we've been saying for some time that, you know, the fundamentals are in place, right? i mean, there's more people working in the workforce today than there were pre-2008 finally. the unemployment rates have been down as a prt of total. the number of people employed is up. that's the newer news. gas prices are down as you've already reported this morning. not so good for certain companies but certainly good for the consumer. and that should be positive.
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to me there should be an opportunity to spend a little bit more. i just want them to spend more money with us and hope we're giving them the values that they're looking for. like i said, the store was very, very busy last night. certainly had had a continuous, steady flow. i was out last night to a couple of our stores in the bronx and then i ended up coming back here around midnight. it was interesting because the customer who was here at first which was a very international crowd. and then the customer when i came back at midnight, it was very different. in their 20s, the millennial crowds. that was who was shopping with us late into the evening last night. very interesting how the customer changes from hour to hour. >> terry, in some places in the country there's a movement of almost a quest for renewal of blue laws because some legislators are upset stores are opening on thanksgiving. they want to raise the minimum
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wage, things like that. what would you say to them? >> you know, for me, i have to say like i always do, i put the customer at the center of our decisions. that's what it says outside my door. it doesn't say ceo. it says chief customer officer. i try to keep the customer in mind making decisions. we did that for last night's opening. clearly based on the traffic we had here, that's what customers want. they want us to be open so that they can shop on thanksgiving evening. so that's what we did. in our case, we hire 85,000 additional employees just for november and december. so in our case, it was a volunteer opportunity for our employees. our core 176,000 employees had the opportunity to work and get paid time and a half if they chose to work on thanksgiving or they could stay home if they chose. but 85% of the jobs ended up being filled by our core employees. >> there was a politician in
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ohio who said the time should be three times and a half. >> if it was three times they'd say five times. >> how much of your employees make minimum wage? >> pardon me? >> how many of your employees even make minimum wage? >> well above that. very small percentage in our case. by the way, retailing is the number one employer in america. so this is the biggest employer in america, the retail jobs. and so it's really critical to our economy that retail does well. that we can continue to employ. >> in terms of omni channel, are you seeing customers come in for certain types of products in store, are they buying others online? are they coming in to pick up products? what have you seen even the last 24 hours? >> it's all those things. you know, the customer is clearly beginning the shopping journey on her phone. they start there. they decide what they're going to be looking for, where they're going to shop, how much they want to pay.
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then they make their journey into the store. and what we found -- cashmere sweater has worked well online and in our stores. that's been a hot item. i mean $39.99, basically giving the product away and it's a high quality cashmere. and then these boots. we're selling boots at $19.99. people are walking out with four and five pair. i can't imagine they need all that for themselves. that's got to be a big gift item for people. and at home, it's very value driven whether it be a $10 toaster or a $20 sheet set. that's what people are gravitating towards. they're gravitating towards the values. >> does that mean we should expect -- you mentioned the traffic was up. should we assume the sales are up and what does that mean in terms of profitability in terms of items you're practically giving away? >> we're the largest customer
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for every major brand that we do business with whether it be ralph lauren or calvin kline. we work with them all year round for this weekend. this weekend is very, very important. and we know we have to craft great values. and so we've done that. we call them star gifts with all of our designers and created unique offerings that are only available at macy's at very good values. so we've got a combination of all price points for all of our consumers. but overall i think so we'll do just fine. >> do you have to go into the store to get those star items or online? >> there's both. there are certain items only available online. there are certain items only available in store. but for the large majority like 90% of the items are available both in store and online. one of the biggest trends that's happened in our stores this year is that you can shop online, reserve that product, buy that product, but come to the store and pick it up. when that happens, they're often finding something else to buy
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when they come in to pick up the item they selected. >> we want to thank you for the thanksgiving parade yesterday. i know it was on in our house. it was on in houses around the country. how long have you guys been doing that? >> 88 years, becky. it's just been an extraordinary transition. something my family loves and enjoys to experience every single year. we got a little cold yesterday. we had a little snow flurries coming down while we were there, but we braved it. and the balloons flew beautifully and the stars were aligned. it turned out to be a magnificent parade. 50 million-plus people watched it on television yesterday. another record. and we had 3.5 million people on the streets of new york in spite of the cold weather. it's an amazing experience for america and around the world now. >> it's a tradition in our household. we can't thank you enough for keeping spider-man in it this year. we were waiting for that. >> we understand how that works. >> favorite one.
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>> thank you so much, terry. have a great rest of the weekend and we will check in with you throughout the holiday shopping season. >> he was wearing a fabulous suit. i should have asked if they were one of the ryan seacrest suits they sell now. one of the things i haven't figured out is all this omni channel talk. and all this investment that's gone into this omni channel. is it actually increased margin or take down margin? i assume there has to be a lot of sort of back end costs to making all of this work even though it sounds good. >> retailers are still learning how to work with it. they're still early on in technology workers. but you need to have both in order to compete if the future. this order online, pick up in the store, reserve in store, it's starting to draw more traffic but we're still in the early innings. and it is expensive.
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>> you gave us a great stat during the break. if you have only an online store or only a brick and if you have both, what's the difference in sales? >> up to 15% if you have both. if you lose one, you could have 15% less. you need both to capture that purchase. >> but the follow on to that question is it's definitely hitting margins. we'll see some benefits. one of the things terry's doing is picking and packing from the stores now. if you've got the lime green sweater that you're marking down 80% but somebody in florida wants it, you can sell it to them at a better number. so you're going to get some of that back, but in general it's pushing down margins. >> is macy's clearly the winner in the omni channel world at this point? >> nordstroms and macy's are the two best in the country right now. >> i agree. >> walmart is moving as fast as it can to be the third one. >> and investing a lot. you have to say william sonoma
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does a great job also. then gap's investing on the reserve online. >> twe had a conversation with the ceo who said counterintuitively, companies that used to have big catalogs, they had a lot of infrastructure in place and it's like a natural segue to distribution. >> it makes sense. but penny's was an enormous player on catalogs. then they went through a hard time getting to where they wanted to be on omni channel. and they're not quite there yet. >> ll bean or something. >> or j. crew. >> ll bean was almost exclusively a catalog. sears was this best and biggest. and they can't get out of their own way now. but they are moving very quickly online. they're probably better online now than in the stores by a lot. >> the catalog is what's been
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impacted by online sales. that's what was really seeing the change. if you look at the malls out there, the malls overall are taking and advertising and putting in more experiences in their malls in order to become a destination. restaurants, what you're seeing with fashion shows. the "a" malls are continuing to move higher. >> let me read one line from walmart's release they put out early this morning. they said throughout the day -- talked about yesterday on thanksgiving -- we welcomed 22 million customers to our stores. that's the number of people who visit disney land in an entire year. big numbers. you've got to recognize what that means. >> we will have more from jan and dana throughout the program. coming up next, the oil fallout. the tumble in crude putting pressure on the market today. and at the bottom of the hour, hitting the outlet mall. this sector is expected to generate $42 billion in sales.
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michigan, and there's santa waving to us especially for "squawk box." good morning, santa. you know what santa's bringing this year? really cheap gasoline. that's his gift. let's take a look at the price of crude this morning. really under pressure after opec decided to leave production levels unchanged. look at that. $69.15 for wti. a decline of $4.50 per barrel. it's actually off the lows. it's gotten pummelled as a result of opec's indecision. the opec decision putting pressure on the futures. nasdaq is less affected. it's the only one looking like it's going to open positive this morning. jim yooiuorio joins us from chicago. he's also a cnbc contributor. what do you make of this? when was the last time you saw something like this? >> i don't think i've ever seen
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something like this. it's just an amazing huge move. keep in mind this is -- we can say that the oil companies might do badly and that's dragging down the stock market a little bit too. but on balance after this is digested, this is without argument good for the economy and good for the stock market. when it happens so quickly, i think the markets might find it a little unsettling. so you have to take a step back and say to yourself am i missing something. but i don't think we are. there are still a lot of things that are forcing oil down. yes, there's a component of a global slowdown, but the reality of it is opec is fine with pushing prices down. whatever their reasoning is. maybe they want to put pressure on russia. i don't really care. i just want to see what the effect of that oil is going to be. i think it's going to be positive. >> to put a finer point on it, i think they're fine with pushing it down. but the rest are clearly unhappy about it. they were obvious about it yesterday with steve sedgwick who was there. the ripple effects around the
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world could set off crises in different parts where the countries are just so desperate for that revenue. >> that's what i'm amazed by too. but i think the broader picture says we're still the engine of the world. what's it's going to be to our economy? it's going to be great to our economy. it's the best christmas gift. this is probably going to be one of the key things that fuels a strong christmas buying season. the rest of the world may suffer a bit more over it, but it's going to push the stock market up here. it's going to really boost our holiday numbers huge. >> jim, good to have you on. happy thanksgiving. >> you too. >> i was just looking at some of the stocks this morning. you mentioned how oil prices is going to put pressure on the dow in familiar. both stocks look like they're going to open sharply lower as a result of the lower oil prices. chevron right now somewhere between probably around $110.75 after closing on wednesday at
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$115 and change. exxonmobil down by almost 4%. take a look at some of those. both chevron and exxonmobil are in the dow. that's a reflection of why you're seeing the dow so much weaker. when we come back this morning, we'll have much more on the crack in crude. steven schork will join us. more "squawk box" after this. i'm starting to sweat. i'll just do it myself. useless. that's nice. set's the mood. have your entire house within reach, even when your devices aren't. introducing relay by wink it's like a robot butler, but not as awkward. and cialis for daily use helps you be ready anytime the moment is right. cialis is also the only daily ed tablet approved to treat symptoms of bph, like needing to go frequently. tell your doctor about all your medical conditions and medicines,
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ask your doctor about cialis for daily use get to the terminal across town. are all the green lights you? no. it's called grid iq. the 4:51 is leaving at 4:51. ♪ they cut the power. it'll fix itself. power's back on. quick thinking traffic lights and self correcting power grids make the world predictable. thrillingly predictable.
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coming up, "squawk" goes shopping at the mall. you're looking at michigan. there's a line that em sseems t forming. we'll see what you can get on black friday. >> they saw offering on the itunes store today. itunes store online. you can get discounts on music. >> when we come back, we're going to see who's getting the head start with stores opening on thanksgiving. coming u. after the break.
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hey. have fun, make some friends. alright. did i mention his neck pillow? (sniffs pillow) watch your personal dvr library where ever you go. with the x1 entertainment operating system. welcome back to "squawk box." it is the day after thanksgiving. typically that is a sleepy shopping kind of day. not so on this black friday. we have a lot going on. let's get to some of those headlines this morning. wake up and take notice. oil prices hitting a 4.5 year low this morning. this comes after opec decided to leave production quotas unchanged.
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it's been down by over $5. that news in turn pressuring shares of energy related companies. take a look at everything happening. exxon mobile, conoco phillips. if you look at any energy company this morning, you'll see they've been under pressure. the airline stocks have been doing better. they've been soaring on this same news. the other airline stocks following suit. u.s. stock markets close three hours early today. they close at 1:00 p.m. eastern time. this is the final trading day of november. here's a story that's getting people a little nutso. urging regulators to break up google. that's right. they want to break up google. the tech company has been fighting with eu over privacy issues. non-binding. it's not happening right now, but one of the strongest signals yet of the eu's concern about
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the tech giants. we will see what they ultimately do. >> i think google says, all right, europe, we'll leave for a week. just shut it down. see how their european consumer reacts. >> although the europeans have done damage in the past. look at microsoft. bill gates had to tango with them before. >> it's ridiculous. let's get back to -- i mean, a long list the europeans have made when it comes to regulations. shelves. let's get back to courtney reagan from the small of course. >> of course. where else would i be today? it's like the super bowl of retail. and jingle bells and cash registers is really ringing up all day today. but this started hours ago with shoppers lining up, camping out and strategizing, doing whatever it takes to get the best deals. if you spend time out on your elements that's a substantial
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savings for me. i don't know how most people look at it. >> according to a shopping app that tracks consumer interactions at 40,000 retail locations, shoppers spending the most time in macy's. followed by old navy, sports authority, bay byes r us, toys r us. when it comes to online sales, target seeing a record day with online sales and orders. both up sharply more than 40%. last year ibm updating total online sales, up 14.3% for thanksgiving day. so so far so good for a lot of these retailers. seeing a bit of a lull here with shoppers. a lot of the millennial age kids out tonight. back to you guys.
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>> one of the biggest trends, changes has been -- what do you call this? athletic wear? the fastest growing with what lululemon? >> under armour. >> give me stats on where the growth is in that. >> when you think of what's happening, typically women buy clothing for four reasons. it has been in the past to goo to a party, to go to work, to wear on the weekends, to wear to the gym. you can wear active wear every day. >> to the office? >> some people are. you can wear the leggings, put a sweater and scarf on. but on average, active wear is growing three times greater than regular apparel. it's fast growing and continues. >> all the growth in apparel
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this year will come in active wear. there'll be know growth outside of that. i personally hate the trend, but that's the trend we're seeing. >> was this started by lululemon? >> it's all their fault. >> so they started this trend. >> they created this monster. >> but they're not the beneficiary of it. >> not anymore. they were for a long time. but they shot themselves in the foot a couple of times. and they've got more competition now than they've ever had in the history of lululemon. and it's just going to get worse. there's a lot of product at nordstrom's now. we've got nike going hard. under armour is coming into womens. if you're playing in the -- that side of the business, you're building the product now for women. because if you can do it, they will come. >> you see these high end brands now putting out sneakers. >> yes. ralph lauren, chanel, they're
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all doing it. it's still going to have benefit. you'll see a new product come in. and perhaps last thing some will help them. there's room for a lot of players in this space. >> the pocketbook trend. women used to buy how many pocketbooks? >> up to four a year in terms of handbags. >> and that's a big increase? >> yes. not buying as much apparel, so how do you make an outfit new again? handbags, jewelries. >> still i remember the pocketbook was the hot thing just five years ago. they were talking about this is where all the margin was. >> it's still working. and watch for the next generation. whether it's diane vonn furstenburg or mark jacobs. >> do you know anything about pocketbooks? >> coach slowed down dramatical dramatically.
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actually reversed. i'm a fan of kate spade. i think that's going to be the new great lifestyle brand. i think you'll see people taking torrey birch for example in that and growing their business dramatically because they're starting at a small base and there's this enormous piece and i also think michael kors has rolled over as far as the growth rate goes. if that's the case, then there's lots of room for these small players. >> look at active wear and handbags. handbags are growing on the premium side. much faster than overall apparel. it's active wear, accessorieacc and apple. >> three three a's. >> that's right. >> one apple question. does it just work this christmas? or does it continue to work? the only reason i say is this year they have real new phones that are substantially different phones. will everybody buy those phones and a year from now when they come out with the new phones but the new phones won't look different. they'll just be faster.
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do they sell in the intermediate year? do they sell the same amount? >> last year 100% of the growth in retail can be explained by samsung and apple. >> who was it? >> samsung, apple, and amazon. last year. so will that happen this year? i don't know. >> maybe you'll get a new tablet. coming up, it will be a blue christmas for uber in vegas. that story next. how can power consumption in china, impact wool exports from new zealand, textile production in spain, and the use of medical technology in the u.s.? at t. rowe price, we understand the connections of a complex, global economy. it's just one reason over 70% of our mutual funds beat their 10-year lipper average. t. rowe price. invest with confidence. request a prospectus or summary prospectus with investment information, risks, fees and expenses to read and consider
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maximize profits as long as it could. >> i saw this earlier. i'll say it again. prostitution is legal in nevada, but uber is not. come on. it's ridiculouridiculous. >> you got to protect the taxi drivers. you've got to protect the prostitutes. it's like if somebody came in to upend the prostitution business. >> with an on demand? >> i don't know. >> you would know. >> i don't know. >> this is a big story. if you haven't heard this yet, check it out. we've been talking about google this morning because european union lawmakers are urging regulators to break up the technology giant. that seems crazy especially from somebody who has been here in the united states watching things and all those technology guys on the west coast, obviously it's very early there. but fortunately for us some of them don't go to sleep until very late into the wee hours of the night. i saw that mark andreessen was still up so i e-mailed him. he e-mailed back. here's what he said.
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european governments' stance on tech increasingly a primal scream. unlikely to lead to good outcomes for european consumers. that's what you might expect. he is the cofounder of netscape and now at andreessen horowitz. this is what you would expect to hear from technology giants here. just the situation itself, i know we're writing it off at this point. the stock market is writing it off. although the eu when it decides to can get very involved in things. they've already taken google to task for their privacy stance. if google is forced to comply with those privacy issues, that in itself is going to be a huge technological challenge. >> you know, historically the european union lawmakers and back before the european union when it was just french lawmakers. the reaction is always no, no, no to stop -- try to stop technology at the doorsteps of the country. it's one of the reasons why they
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don't grow. and why they're still mired in all this. something so fundamentally different in the united states. in the united states, everything is permitted until it's prohibited. in europe everything is prohibited until it's permitted. why do you think we have so much more technology in the united states and much more advancement? it's just the way they are set up from top to bottom prevents entrepreneurs. they all want to leave. >> and the stock market is kund of writing this off this morning looking at google shares. and they're very likely going to open right around where they were. there's potential for it to open do down. it's worth watching to continue watching the privacy argument as well. >> there are some buses in france that drive around empty even though people want to buy tickets for them because it's prohibited to mix because they have to protect the trains. right? so think about that. right? so that's what -- this is the kind of place that comes up with regulations on google. >> what's dumber, right?
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no uber in las vegas or no google in europe. >> there you go. we're going to talk more shopping today on this black friday. outlet malls are getting their share of business. shoppers will spend upwards of $42 billion this season. joining us is jim hanson. he's senior manager of property management at the fashion outlets of chicago. good morning to you, jim. >> good morning. >> so one of the questions we've been talking about all morning is this whole omni channel push and what's happening digitally. how does that really impact the outlet malls? >> are you referring to the online shopping? >> yes, sir. >> yes. honestly it's difficult to determine if there's any impact at all. it almost feels more additive. and the reality is that's what customers demand these days. they have to have both the online and the in-store purchases. and i think it's, like, 90%
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still is bricks and mortar purchases. >> as a small operator, do you have to do anything differently? >> no, not really. we operate the way we always have. it's been a bit of a surprise. we had a grand opening last year. and we didn't think we could duplicate it. >> which is right next to o'hare which looks trusk. will you doing in terms of getting consumers? are you having them hold their shopping packages and you're having it to the plane for them? is that what makes it easy for your center there? is that driving sales? >> really it's kind of the old real estate thought of location, location, location. we're in such a great spot that it's -- it kind of speaks for itself. we're literally five minutes
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from the airport so we get a ton of traffic. there's international visitors. because we're tied to the city, we're getting an amazing amount of traffic from the city itself. >> i've never been to this mall. if it's five minutes from the airport, do i have to take a cab to the mall and then go from the mall to the airport? >> yes. >> and i would do that? would i do that in between flights? >> you could have such a long time between flights, you certainly would. well, jim, you tell us. >> that's absolutely true. in fact, we also have an offer here at the guest services, something that's kind of unique in the shopping center business. if you decide that you want to do a little shopping and not bring your bags with you, you can check them here for awhile or if you prefer, you can check them through to your destination at our services. >> i love that. thank you for telling us. now we know what to do in chicago on a long layover. thank you for joining us this morning. happy thanksgiving and happy black friday.
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hottest gifts this year for the holidays? you need to know this if you have kids at home. listen up. joining us is the toy insider. thanks for being here. >> thanks for having me. >> we were talking about this elsa doll you have. she's beautiful. which is this? >> this is snow glow elsa. she is driving everything this holiday season. everything "frozen" is. she speaks and her dress lights up. but most important -- ♪ let it go ♪ let it go >> that is her voice right inside. so the kids are going crazy. it's a "frozen" christmas. >> i think that stuff has to be the hottest stuff around this year. >> it is. >> she beats barbie? >> she did. she toppled barbie this year. but please don't take that the wrong way. barbie is still the number two doll that girls are asking for. but "frozen" for the first time has become the number one doll.
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>> what about olaf? is he getting love? >> he is. >> i want to make sure. >> the boys also love turtles. teenager mutant ninja turtles are back and huge this year. >> when you showed me that and she was the one who talked, i assumed it was the doll we saw from the ceo of toys r us saying here's an exclusive talking elsa doll. where does this one come from? >> she's all over. she's everywhere if you can find her on store shelves. >> walmart has an kploou? >> walmart had an exclusive. there's a company just play. they put out a beautiful soft, sort of like a rag doll anna and elsa. in fact, $9.99 for black friday from $29.99. there are exclusives. retailers are trying to do everything they can to bring customers in. >> it sounds like exclusivity is a scam with this.
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>> sometimes it's just as simple as coalready. like a color change on a -- >> like a dark blue dress instead of a turquoise dress. >> well, not in this case. but it is something similar like that. so sometimes -- none of the toys i really have here. but they will just make little changes whether it's the color or the size or an extra something. so that they can have something exclusive and something that nobody else has so they can bring the parents right into the store. >> do the parents buy this? does this work? >> it does. it does. >> i will say my kids notice the slightly differen ll lly differ. >> what does that cost? >> this is $34.99. >> what is this thing? >> it's like a nerf thing. >> it's going to break the camera? >> it shoots 135 feet. you may as well have fun with
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these and turn them on. >> oh, turn them on. they light up. >> there are a couple of things driving the industry. we have entertainment sttoys. >> it made noise. >> they make noise too. >> they do. so these are a lot of funs for kids eight and up. >> not happy with the guests. >> you actually pull from the back tab. >> how do i turn this on? >> like this. >> okay. >> i get the fun job. >> do they want toys or ipads and technology? >> they want everything. but when you put the right toys into a child's hands, even my kids who are older. if i give them board games they love, they will sit and play. so, you know, there's a lot of great tech out there these days. there's a lot of wow technology in toys. you see a mix of toys in the market. you see the toys with the market -- >> if you're going to spend 100
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bucks or whatever it is on some technology piece or more for tablet. if you were going to buy eight toys, now you're going to buy four toys. because you spent more on the technology pieces. is that being seen in the tickets? >> it is. but there are things like tablets and smart watches. you know, vtech has watches out for the children. are you really going to get your 3-year-old an ipad? probably not when you have great tablets. >> you know what? >> if you don't want to share, you are. >> but there are devices that are made for little kids with content that they'll learn from, that will keep them engaged, and that's not quite at those prices. you know? you're paying somewhere between $79 and $129, $149 for devices made for kids. >> will this be a better toy this year than last year? >> yes. i think the whole industry is optimistic. we're calling it a black friday
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weekend or month of november. because the retailer started very early cutting the prices, giving consumers incentive to come in and buy early. yes, you're going to buy a doll like elsa early. >> can't elsa alone make that statement that it's going to be one of the best years? >> she could. "frozen" hands down is beating it this holiday season. but it's all of the toys. there are so many great affordable toys. >> thank you for coming in. appreciate it. >> thank you. coming up, opec making sure today is not just a sleepy post-thanksgiving session for the markets. excuse me. crude sliding below $70 a barrel. oil giants are under pressure as a result and the futures are lower. at least the s&p and the dow. but there are also big winners as well. all that next. and then lower crude will also mean lower prices at the pump. that means more money for
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consumers to spend. so "squawk box" goes shopping on black friday next. (vo) rush hour around here starts at 6:30 a.m. - on the nose. but for me, it starts with the opening bell. and the rush i get, lasts way more than an hour. (announcer) at scottrade, we share your passion for trading. that's why we've built powerful technology to alert you to your next opportunity. because at scottrade, our passion is to power yours. two weeks later. look, credit karma-- are you talking to websites again? this website says "free credit scores." oh, credit karma! yeah it's actually free.
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same hitting big names in the sector. an outlook just ahead. friday's big trade. a chief market strategist is here to put things in perspective. get ready, get set, shop. black friday is here. we check the pulse of the consumer and talk holiday deals. the final hour of "squawk box" begins right now. ♪ welcome back to "squawk box." i'm andrew ross sorkin. you are looking at a live shot right now out at the mall of america. shoppers there have been at it since yesterday. they hit toys r us in search of that perfect gift of elsa and much more. busy day.
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and consumers are out in force trying to get bargains this morning. >> the drop in oil prices sending shock waves through a number of sectors. no surprise the oil majors are trading lower across the board. exxonmobil is lower by 3%. chevron nearly 4% as well. bp off by more than 5%. oil service players are really getting hammered. actually, they're all their lows. transoceegcean lower by 7%. halliburton as well. no surprise, though, there are also some winners. namely the companies that do have huge energy costs. so the airline stocks are ripping higher. they've had a big run. you nieted higher by 5%. american airlines higher by 4% as well. shippers also looking to benefit. fedex and u.p.s. are both higher. a little more than 1%. the biggest cruise lines also getting a boost.
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remember they're big consumers of oil. all right. let's get to steve sedgwick from london. he joins us with more. he was at the opec meeting that caused this fallout. steve? >> yes. we talked a lot about the dissension in the ranks and why opec did not feel able to go with cuts on its own. had an unproductive meeting. with the mrussians storming in and storling out. they offered nothing to opec. that would have been 50% of the world's producers actually having some form. and that certainly would have put an awkward pressure on the price. they didn't. and opec is pretty upset that it's being asked to do all the heavy lifting on its own. now, there's a new president in opec and that is a nigerian.
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a great case in point as of what's happened of late. it now exports zero. like a big zero beside me here. the point is, they were pointing out opec can't do all this on her own. listen in. >> going forward, that's very clear. we are all in this together. and it is not just opec. in fact, opec reducing costs at any point will not necessarily change the picture if the non. opec countries don't share the burden. >> so the question is has opec inadvertently created the problem? over the last three years, we've had before this decline here which is what we're seeing now, we've seen three years of unprecedented stability. what has that done? given the revenues to the opec grouping. but it also laid a firm town daugs for shale. and shale is the point here,
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isn't it? they are the ones they're blaming for creating the over supply. if you talk to opec ministers candidly, they'll say we misunderstood how kwquickly sha would come to the table. i want to show you the left-hand side of this screen as well. what we have here, we'll remember that $149 price spike. the one i really want to show. because this is where we had enormous oversupply at the start of the financial crisis. great reserve from bernstein saying what we're about to see a a knife to opec's industry cap. and i think what we might be seeing here is a lot of capacity, investment coming off the table. and that is going to create one thing for all of us. and it's going to be volatility. we could be in for huge volatility in the oil price as it was before those three years
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of stability. back to you. >> good rundown. thanks so much. we'll be speaking to an oil analyst about all the ripple effects we're seeing as part of this non-decision. you know, a cartel is supposed to control prices. but they're not doing well. >> these countries saying we're not going to cut anything but we want the rest of you to cut your production to help us. >> everybody saying you do it, you do it, not me. >> welcome to the world oil market. it's not just you guys anymore. everybody's got oil. >> and for many, many years people said the cartel wasn't real. that saudi arabia could accordion their amount. and when prices fall you see it's true. a cartel in name only. but they can't actually manage it. >> this is what happens. well, it is black friday. the holiday shopping season is officially underway with many
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retailers opening on thanksgiving day itself to ring in the sales. but do those black friday sales figures represent truly how it will look overall? steve sadoff is chairman of the national retail federation. and matt shay also joining us. good morning. it is great to see you both. >> good morning. >> thank you. good morning. happy black friday. >> thank you. same to you. steve, what do you think? we have seen some retailers talking about stronger traffic numbers. they've got hours that didn't exist last year in some of these cases. what do you think about the kickoff so far? >> i feel good about the kickoff. i think we're on a marathon though. the early indications are very positive. the online sales i think are dramatic. you've seen early numbers already. i think the traffic in the stores is very healthy. i was out in the stores last evening. and i saw very robust traffic in the malls. terry lundgren was talking
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earlier this morning about very good trends as well. so i'm encouraged by what i'm seeing. >> i will give you that last night it looked like there were some strong sales. but matt, answer me this. when we've been looking at opening this season, every shot we take of a mall this morning there are one or two random people wandering around. it seems to me you pulled all those sales earlier and got big rushes last night and maybe things will be a lot slower. case in point, this is a live shot of the mall of america. at this point after 8:00 a.m. our time. granted it's 7:00 a.m. their time, but there aren't a lot of people there. >> you know, we saw and you heard terry say this morning i was with him last night and then this morning when he was on with you, you know, that hour-by-hour the customer changes. i think that's true everywhere. steve eluded to good numbers coming in. couple thimgs are happening. one, the consumer feels better. 60 days in a row, gas prices
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decrease. that helps a lot. we spread the season out over a greater number of days. not just thanksgiving. so that's giving people the opportunity to shop differently. today and yesterday continued to evolve as we began to see smartphone use and tablet use tracking up. so customers are savvy, they're smart, but they're acutely aware that value is not only price, but it's about experience and convenience and exclusivity. >> you're somebody who used to run big stores too. is it profitable to be open longer hours to staff the store all those hours and have times you see more of a lull in terms of traffic? >> well, you're going to see a lull in the traffic. but you've got to meet the consumer demand. it's always customer first app and having the extent t hours is what the customer wants. >> i do believe as we talked
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about earlier in the show that the winner is going to be the ones that can play effectively because the consumer wants the product and the retailers that v to lean against that demand. >> and jan told us earlier you have to be open in those hours because the internet never closes. >> the internet is changing the game and the black friday game. 90% of the items overlap online and in stores. and it's because the items are available online, you're going to see some traffic impact in terms of that mad rush doing into the stores. because people could pick them up online. >> hi, steve, it's dana. >> hi, dana. >> hi. who do you think is doing omni-channel well and how do you think it's going to pick up in stores this year? >> i think macy's and nordstrom have done a wonderful job over the last year in terms of the
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online and store. i've seen other retailers dramatically improving. i think we're doing a good job at saks. i think you're going to see a lot of retailers mimicking some of the activity you've seen from nordstrom and macy's. >> hi, steve. do you think the penetration from the fourth quarter online is going to be higher thatten the 10% we've been seeing so far in the last year or so? >> well, it's going ton continue to increase. you're looking at double digit, let's call it 10% to 20% growth online. and flat performance in the stores. but the math is going to tell you that it's going to continue to increase. and that's going to be very important. but i think the important point is we shouldn't be looking at internet sales versus store sales. they're intertwined. that's why nobody is reporting their internet comps anymore because of buy online.
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>> watching what happens in terms of the retailers who say we know we have to offer steep discounting. when it comes to things you're selling, you can do that if you're a big retailer. you can also have a strong online operation if you're a strong retailer. is there a place for that. >> we're happy to be partnering with kprez on small business saturday. 3.2 million. 98.5% of those businesses are small businesses. 50% of them have only a single location. and those are the retailers that really drive employment and serve those communities every day. we're proud to be part of that and we think people will come out and shop.
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72% said they would specifically shop tomorrow for small business saturday. i think there is an important role to play. let's face it. those are the people that in those communities create those compelling opportunities for people. they can't get to other places or have access to other retailers. you can't get everywhere. >> i think one of the things you're seeing is the technology evolving so that some of those technologies that have been available only to the big players are now becoming available to the smaller players as well. >> hi, matt. what are you seeing? so far are we meeting? beating? how does it look? >> certainly we think we're meeting. this is the biggest day we've all talked about. you heard everyone say the super bowl. so 95 million. people are going to shop today. that's a staggering number when you think about it.
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we predicted 4.1%. $600 billion. so we are seeing that. that's what the reports are validating. that we've gotten the execs we talked to. i talked to one last night that said there are crazy low prices here to the point becky made a minute ago. in terms of the opening or not opening, you talk to ceos and they make these based on the numbers. there are some very passionate that says it's not additive. and there are others that say it's inskremtal. it's clear people are out. >> thank you for joining us.
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when we come back this morning, opec's decision sending oil prices off a cliff. is it an energy glut? what does it mean for producers in the united states? what does it mean for the markets today? we're going to find out after this. as we head to a break, look at oil this morning. as you can see this morning, wti crude down more than $4.50. all the way down to $67.75 this morning. "squawk box" will be right back. for practically just your signature, you could drive home for the holidays in a german-engineered volkswagen. like the sporty, advanced new jetta... and the 2015 motor trend car of the year all-new golf. if you're wishing for a new volkswagen this season... just about all you need is a finely tuned... pen. hurry into the sign-then- drive event and get a five-hundred- dollar black friday bonus on select new volkswagen models. black friday bonus offer ends december 1st.
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♪ that mall looks busy. let's talk more about the other big story of the day. selloff in oil. we've seen a big decline in the price this morning. this is two days in a row now the oil is selling off after the opec decision to leave production unchanged. kevin book, good to have you here. >> good morning. how are you? >> good. why the decision -- what's the end game here for opec or should we say for the saudis?
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why are they doing this? >> there's two different questions. the first is whether or not america will balance the market. in general the gulf is willing to test that. they went in representing 52% of production. so yesterday's outcome, not so much a surprise. second question is more about the saudis. it's whether or not the other pruers in the world will join them in a cut. early second quarter next year after the pain has had a chance to come home. >> is it basically they are trying to slow down growth in u.s. shale pr oduction? >> i think it's more figuring out if it's there. it's price dependent and they don't know how much. if you look at the four big regions -- >> in the u.s. >> that's about 980,000 barrels
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if you extrapolate compound growth through october. if what if you have a $75 barrel? our projections say that falls to 450. that's enough to balance the market. it's this year's parlor game. remember 2004? everyone asked at what gasoline price will u.s. economy slow down? a decade later, the game is at what oil price will u.s. drilling slow down? nobody knows for sure and it seems like opec wants to find out. >> do we see members of opec leave, some of them, out of frustration because a cartel is supposed to work together and they haven't done that. >> where are they going to go that they're going to get more collusion opportunity than they're getting right now? >> they've got zero collusion right now is the point. >> that's right. the term cartel is a bad way to describe it. opec themselves would call themselves a producers organization. >> not even this doj i think could prosecute them. they couldn't find a way to do it.
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>> that's right. they are not particularly well coherent at anything less than the best of times. that's what you're seeing now. defection isn't likely. but another thing that's not likely is something we call the myth of ropec. which is russia joining in. >> i love that. ropec. where does oil go from here in terms of price? >> these are my bear whiskers. it's supposed to be fashionable. you've got a weak demand month in february. you've got another weak one in march and april too. if you look historically where things could go, the answer is probably down from here. on the other hand that balancing i'm talking about is a real thing. it's fashionable to talk about the resilience of american production. but it isn't intuitive. i think what you will probably see a supply start to balance as soon as perhaps january. if you look at the historical
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relationship between rig counts and wti, you'll see a response in four to seven months. we're about five months after the first price break. $80 a barrel for q average. that's not a lot to look forward to for these producers. >> so right now we consume in the world roughly 89 million barrels per day but we're producing roughly 90 million barrels per day? >> depends whose numbers you use. you have a slightly different number. but it's more like 92.5 relative to say 91.5 of consumption give or take. and even then you could add more numbers in. the problem is it's a gap of about a million. right now projected growth is about 1.5 million in non-opec growth. >> is that including prices at these levels? we know with prices below $70, that stops some production in
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the united states. >> that is inclusive of everything happening now. that still is again the projected demand growth of 1.1 million which is obviously everybody likes to think happy things looking ahead at the next year. so demand projections tend to be optimistic. realistically it's closer to 800,000. half the balance could come from north america. we're a high-cost producer. >> good to see you this morning. lots of good data there. >> thanks. >> russia plus opec is ropec. which is better than opecer. >> even that made me blush. >> that was the first thing i thought when he said that. oh, i get it. protests at walmart coming up on the biggest day of the shopping year. employees in at least six states looking for higher wages.
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what you can expect if you're headed to your local stores today. and still to come on this black friday, will santa claus be coming to wall street? what does this fallout mean for investors? plus the pulse of the consumer at patriot place in foxboro. and then toys go to hollywood. how entertainment brands like "frozen" are making it big in t toyland. we've got all of that when "squawk box" returns. new santa ♪(the music builds to a climax.) more people are coming to audi than ever before. see why now is the best time. audi will cover your first month's payment on select models at the season of audi sales event. visit audioffers.com today.
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up next, protests at walmart in six states today. and speaking of walmart, disney's "frozen" snow glow elsa, those dolls the top seller last night. how it's taking entertainment toy making to a whole new level. and car deals on black friday. what some of the leaders are doing if you're looking far new ride. today might be the day to do it. we've got the names and deals ahead. right now as we head to a break, though, take a look at the equity futures. dow futures turning positive despite the pressure on crude this morning. nasdaq indicated higher as well. s&p down slightly. biel right back.
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julia boorstin joins us now from california with a look at the toy industry's biggest winners. julia? >> it seems like the hottest toy in this target is definitely elsa. in fact, there is a life size $60 elsa toy that is totally sold out both in stores and online. no question, queen of the toys, queen of the holiday season toys is elsa from "frozen" beating out barbie for the first time in the 11-year-old survey. 3 million elsa dresses were sold after the movie came out. >> elsa hair. >> ooh. elsa hair? do you want an elsa dress? what else elsa? >> elsa tiara. >> "frozen" is going to wind up being the number one movie property for the industry this year even though it's more than a year after it came out.
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that's very unusual. >> according to toy industry expert jim silver "frozen" will generate half a billion dollars this holiday season. including mattel and hasbro which secured the licensing rights to "frozen" and disney princesses starting in 2016. a slew of entertainment brands including disney's marvel and star wars. >> the boys action category, licensed brands account for 99% of that aisle. it is teenage mutant ninja turtles, transformers, batman. it's all licensed. >> by some estimates, licensed characters can account for as much as 40% of all toy sales. becky, it's very clear walking through these aisles that it's dominated by entertainment. >> you bet. >> question for you.
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it's about hasbro given the ill-fated deal with dreamworks animation. do we now think that hasbro's in the market to buy other things. usually when somebody's looking at a big acquisition like that, it means there's other stuff going on in their heads. >> i think the reasons why the hasbro fell threw, they want to license a lot of things from a will the different people. it might benefit them not to have a studio in-house. so they might be better off being able to pick and choose which products they want to license. i think the motivated party here is dreamworks more than hasbro. >> i always thought they were the ones that anybodiuated. >> well, dreamworks was up for
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sale because they had talks. they were shopping. but hasbro for a long time has made increasing plays to get into the hollywood business and have their own studio and all sorts of other things. >> yeah. they're investing more in their own internal content deals, but they're already partnered with so many different studios. they made "ouija" with universal. they have some with paramount. >> disney, you can't tick them off. >> do not tick them off. >> a huge customer. >> given that "frozen" is the hottest toy of the season. absolutely. >> julia, thank you for getting up early. great seeing you. >> thanks. back here it is black friday and a shortened trading day for the markets as well. let's look at where the futures are this morning. the dow futures have picked up ground. nasdaq up by about 11 points. s&p down only a little over a point at this moment.
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joining us now with more on where it's going to head is jonathan gollub. i am glad to have you here today. what do you make of oil prices? this is crazy. >> you know, everybody talks about how lower oil is this tax break for the consumer and that it lowers production cost. but when you see interest rates around the world falling and weak growth, that doesn't portend something good for the markets by itself. now, i'm bullish on the market. >> i don't think oil prices being weaker are an indication of any decline in demand. i think this is a supply issue. you have a lot more supply because of what happened in north america. and maybe oil prices were just falsely inflated for the last three years being between $100 and $110. >> there's a futures market. the market actually tells you where it thinks it's going over the next couple years. the market says it's not staying
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down here, it's going higher. and if you went back nine months ago, they thought it was going to collapse because of the supply coming online. you're right. there's a big supply component of this. but if you look at in general how the market does it on days where oil falls versus days where oil rises, the market is better on days where oil rises because it generally indicates that there's greater health. even though people think of that. >> we know it's the holiday shopping season. maybe they're going to take this as great news. >> if you look at the luxury goods index, which has been crushing the stock market for the last five years, it's lagged recently with oils lower. because who's the guy who benefits most from low oil? it's someone who low income who makes a bigger dent on their discretionary spending. that person is really important to walmart or target or places like that. >> what's been the most confounding thing this year? has it been oil prices declining
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and dropping steadily like this? has it been the 10-year note? what surprised you the most this year? >> you know, there's a couple of really non-consensus costs that we had that we just got a ton of pushback in the beginning of the year. one is that margins was going to continue to go up and people said they can't do that. and margins continue to expand. everybody thought that pe mults pl is the value you pay for earnings that they couldn't go up any further. but i think the thing everybody got on the wrong side of was the 10-year bond going from 3% to under 2.3% right now. i don't think anyone predicted that you'd see such a move in interest rates. >> so what's your biggest contrarian call at this point? >> first of all, i think we're going to see a bit of the same. market probably up 10% to 15% higher.
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>> it's huge. >> not only that, but i think it calls for the next three to four years. this cycle is so much slower in terms of recovery. i think we're talking about a 9 to 12 year economic cycle. and that means that this thing keeps -- all these people say how much higher could it go? stocks are expensive. and i think the answer is further and further. one of the drivers is that corporate ceos because they're seeing a weaker economy are just running their businesses tight and that's good for profit margins which means that a modest economy is giving you really good profits even though people think you can't get more out of it. >> jonathan, from your lips to god's ears, we hope. thank you. we got to developing story. union-backed protesters marching at walmarts in six states. they were higher wages. while these are becoming a black friday tradition, few marching are walmart employees.
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usually made up in part of union protesters and paid protesters. eamon? >> good morning. you're right. this has become a bit of another black friday tradition here. these union-backed protesters are marching from here to a new walmart blocks from here. they are protesting the wages and conditions at walmart. those jobs pay about $20 an hour and the protesters here say they want $15 an hour for walmart employees. and they also say they want better conditions and flexibility for those workers. the subtext of all this, of course, is that these protesters who are from a variety of union groups here in washington would like to see unions inside walmart, that's something that walmart has been testing but they say they're going to march from here all the way over to the walmart. interesting subtext here, a lot of the speakers who have been talking this morning also been talking about ferguson, missouri. so we're going to walk with the protesters, with the marchers
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and see what they have to say throughout the morning. we'll bring more to you as we go along. but this is about wages and conditions and flexibility and getting enough hours in your week as a walmart employee, andrew. >> this is not about minimum wage, right? this is about just higher wages than what they're getting now. >> no, absolutely. in fact, walmart says these jobs here, they created about 300 jobs at the walmart here. they say the jobs here pay about $12 an hour. and the union protesters would like to see $15 an hour at a minimum. that's well above the minimum here in washington, d.c. they say they're going to organize protests in the cities akrss the country. they say they'll have different actions from an individual person taking a selfie in front of a walmart to big protests. >> thank you, eamon, good to see you this morning. coming up next, foxboro isn't just a place to play football. we look at one of the biggest shopping centers as well. patriot place.
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santa was in detroit, michigan, this morning. he can't be there. >> i think this was shot last night. >> oh. later today may be the day to get that deal on a new car as well. we're talking about how car companies are playing the black friday shop-a-thon as well. "squawk box" is coming right back. friday night, buddy.
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toys r us in times square on this black friday. when you hear the term, blue laws, many associate it with state laws prohibiting the sale of alcohol on sundays. but there are other so-called blue laws in massachusetts, maine, and rhode island which prohibit shopping on thanksgiving. joining us now from one of those shopping centers in massachusetts is brian earling. the owner and operate of patriot place. good to have you here. >> good to be with you. thank you. >> what's your position on the fact you can't open on thanksgiving? is that good or bad? >> i think what it does is provide us with a more traditional black friday here because we can't open stores on thanksgiving. you know, there's a lot of controversy back and forth. but we're just as happy to consolidate our black friday operation to truly on black friday. so we're having a great day here. >> are you one of the frontiers so to speak? >> we're not too far from
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providence. we're not too far from the rhode island border. but that has not affected us in terms of people going over the border. we've had great traffic here through the night. they've had almost 10 thoukz people go through the doors this morning. >> i grew up in new hampshire. we built a mall on the border of massachusetts, the parking lot was in massachusetts. and we purposely did it because of taxes, because of blue laws, and it does phenomenally well as a result of that. >> yeah. that mall has done very well. unfortunately if you've had some family members there, they've been without power since wednesday night. >> that would be my dad, yes, you're right. so you're really sticking with this. you don't mind the fact you can't open on thanksgiving? >> no, not at all. because, you know, way i look at it is that's just spreading out sales. i think it would happen anyway. we did a great promotion at
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midnight. it's been a fantastic day. we had a lot of pent up energy. i think the -- you know, the families and the shoppers here got a chance to be with their families on thanksgiving and then they're out here with us today. to me that feels better than spreading it out over the thanksgiving holiday as well. >> and brian, what stores are you seeing where there's the most crowds lately? what's the best deal out there? >> well, i'd say the 997 jeans here at bass pro shop are tremendous. the entire old navy store here is 50% off. and they were up 80% over last year this one store here in patriot place. tremendous traffic since they opened at midnight as well. >> 80% increase. wow. okay. brian, thanks for joining us this morning. >> great. thanks. happy holidays. okay.
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let's get more from our guest hosts. gap or old navy in this case up 80%. >> big number. 50% off though. >> huge number. so the question is how do you as an analyst calculate that? >> i think that's a good number. sounds like it should be higher than expected, but they built in margin to be able to promote like that. and it's only one day. >> right. where are you on gap right now? >> nervous about gap. you have a ceo change going on. you have great under the hood with improvements. management change means time over the next year. >> when you say you've built in margin knowing they're going to have to provide for this, does that mean they mark up prices to offer a bigger discount? >> sometimes it's a lower type of cotton they're manufacturing. >> cheaper stuff. >> and it's already cheap to begin with. >> old navy, how much lower can you go with? >> we all know what the stuff's worth. we all put it on the floor at
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some level. we know we have to average a 40% growth margin if you're may cy'. as long as you average a 40% gross margin, it all works. it's not like you mark it up to mark it down. you know what you're going to sell, how many percentages at each price and you know where you have to come out. when it doesn't work is when the consumer doesn't show up or the traffic's low and suddenly you go, wow, i got a lot of this stuff i need to sell at 80% off instead of 40%. >> we're going to break, but who do you think is going to have the worst holiday? >> the worst holiday? >> we keep talking about who's going to do great. i'm trying to figure out if you want to own the stock or rather not own the stock. who should you avoid? >> look where you're seeing the biggest discounts. my team's out there.
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abercrombie is more promotional than last year. coach is a bit slow. >> and it's pretty clear if you're playing against h & m. and forever 21 and where everything is so cheap, you're going to lose. those people she named are the ones playing against those people. >> it's going to be very exciting taking those sears locations they're doing now. >> very scary. >> thank you, guys. jan and dana, we'll look to talk to you throughout the show. let's get a check on the futures. right now it looks like the futures are indicated higher across the board. first time we've seen this this morning. not major gains at this point, but they have shaken off losses. the s&p futures look like they're up by less than half a point. dow futures up by about 24 points. nasdaq up by 12 points. we're also keeping a very close eye on oil prices this morning. wti down by more than $4 this morning.
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believe it or not, this is also off the lows. right now wti sitting at $69.31 a barrel. it went as low as $67.76 a barrel. lowest in four years at this point. but what's to come as we get close tore trading day and of course this came after opec surprised the market by saying it would not change production levels. when we come back, we're going to ask you if you're in the market for a new car. if you are, today might be a good time to make that purchase. we'll look at how the automakers are jumping into black friday parades. before we go to a break, though, check this out. starbucks has unveiled a $200 gift card. it's made with sterling silver and engraved with the starbucks logo on it. like a normal gift card, it comes loaded. in this case only with $50. in other words, $150 is for the price of the physical card itself. so far the card appears to be a
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welcome back. black friday is expected to be a start of a huge weekend for auto dealers. they are all running ad campaigns steering buyers to potential deals. phil lebeau joins us with more. why did it take so long to realize there are a lot of shoppers out there on a day like today? >> good question. i asked a number of dealers that over the last three, four days. almost everybody said the same thing. i'm not sure why we didn't think about this sooner. black friday is becoming the hottest day for the auto segment. especially when they look at what this weekend means for the month of november. this is the beginning of a three-day weekend in terms of auto sales. it is estimated this weekend will generate between 20%, 25% of the entire sales for the month of november for the auto industry. they are going to be clearing out older models.
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the key here is they are specifically running ads geared toward black friday. >> what happened to you? >> black friday. crazy. saved hundreds. how did you make out? >> i slept in and saved thousands. >> if you have not seen this commercial or many others, i'm not sure where you've been. we've seen a ton of ads from auto dealers and automakers specifically telling people, come on in. friday, black friday is a great day to buy a car. look at the auto sales for last year, this year and the month of november. this tells you how much things changed. last year 15.6 wars the sales rate for the entire industry. this year we are on pace at about 16.5. november is expected to come in between 16. million and 17 million. that's the pace. bottom line is this, guys, autonation, ordealership groups are expecting a huge day today, a huge weekend.
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black friday is now considered one of the top five sales weekends for the auto industry in the u.s. >> we have dana and jan here. they admitted retailers will mark things up to mark them down. is this really a good time to get a great deal? >> i don't think you are going to get anything special unless you are really looking for an older model. otherwise you are not looking for anything particularly great. >> the great secrets come out. phil, thank you. >> you bet. next, we'll wrap up our special black friday coverage. we'll look at retail winners and losers next. stick with cnbc all day today. we are following retail and the opec fallout. check out where some of the biggest names in the oil business are trading this morning. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 [ male announcer ] your love for trading never stops,
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>> early open means they are not there this morning. >> black friday morning coming to a close here on "squawk on the street". cyber monday coming up next. let's get final thoughts. what are we going to see on monday? cyber monday, is that even real? everyone is doing black friday online. >> it's still going to be the biggest online shopping day. my biggest concern is they are all going to be out buying a car now that i heard that last seg miami. if they are buying a car, they are not buying sweaters. that worries me. i think we are having a strong weekend. we will see a fall-off and slower pace as this goes on. >> does cyber monday exist? it was driven by the fact people didn't have high-speed internet at home so they shopped online on monday at the office. >> it still exists and the deals you'll see on cyber monday, they will talk about it all weekend long. the deals will be out there.
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>> you have the distractions at home. you have the focus. i'm at work, leave me alone. thank you so much. see you guys. happy thanksgiving. have a great weekend. we will see you on monday. now it's time for "squawk on the street." ♪ wrap it up ♪ i'll take it >> black friday is here and the shopping rush is on. retailers opened for an upbeat holiday season. we'll cover all the basis including an interview with target's ceo. good morning and welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm david faber with simon hobbs and kayla tausche. carl and jim have the day off. stock markets closed today at 1:00 p.m. eastern. you see a mixed bag with the s&p perhaps set for a bit of a lower open.
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