tv Squawk on the Street CNBC February 19, 2015 9:00am-11:01am EST
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>> just got back -- >> why so many cupcakes? >> you didn't mean me. >> i meant the guy in d.c. >> all right. >> guys thank you so much. >> a lot of chocolate cupcakes. >> ties both ties? she had to tie both. >> a clip-on. >> you both have clip-ones. that's nice. >> happy birthday. thanks for being here. that does it for us today. join us tomorrow. now it's time for "squawk on the street." good morning. welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm david faber along with jim cramer, live from the new york stock exchange. yes, we are. carl quintanilla is at walmart's headquarters in bentonville, arkansas. the retail giant out with better than expected earnings and announcing a wage hike for workers. this morning, carl will have a live and exclusive interview with walmart ceo, doug mcmillon in the top job for ruffleoughly a year now. futures, as we start the program, you can see we're
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looking for a bit of a down open, perhaps. crude oil, where is it? where is it? i want to talk about the cushion and things i heard yesterday about the -- >> i'm there. >> below 50 again on the all-important wti. and the ten-year, after yesterday, of course fed minutes, we saw prices up yields down. and we are still lower certainly than we were yesterday at least because i remember we were at least 2.1, if not almost 2.2 on the day. our road map starts with walmart, earnings beat on the bottom line. and this very important announcement, it's going to raise the pay for roughly 500,000 employees. the markets, well volatile. yes, they are. premarket germany rejecting greece's debt plan. oil is sliding. earnings beats from t-mobile marriott priceline. those stocks moving higher. first, let's get to carl. he's in arkansas. he's got more on today's news from walmart.
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carl? >> yeah interesting, david. the quarter looked pretty good 1.61 beats 1.54 estimate. u.s. comps up 1.5, better than expected. recall that back in the third quarter of last year was the first time u.s. comps went positive in about seven quarters. talk to doug mcmillon about that later. the big news is this news on wages, giving 500,000 workers a pay raise, starting minimum wage to $9 an hour in april. as of next february current employees graduate to ten. and if you're a new hire, you start at 9, at six months of training you go to 10 but that's 1.75 at least above the current minimum federal minimum wage. all done looking how to retain employees, improve the shopping experience. doug mcmillon posted a video to employees. take a listen to this. >> we're making changes to our pay, strengthening the opportunity to progress within the company, and offering more
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choice in scheduling. one of the most immediate changes is that we'll raise our starting pay and provide opportunities for further raises based on performance. for our current associates, we'll start by raising our entry wage at least $9 an hour in april. and by february of next year all current associates will earn at least $10 an hour. >> reporter: obviously, guys this is going to feed the political discussion of what a living wage is in this country. walmart is the biggest private employer. 1.3 million employees in the united states alone. we're find out whether or not they'll make a stand on what federal legislation should say, if anything. my sense is they are going to say one size does not fit all, this works for us. it's up to other companies to do what they want to done the wage component, very interesting this morning jim, you probably know the guidance here downbeat. looking for a 4.70 to 5.05.
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street anywhere from 5.19 that was consensus. strong dollars at work. talk about competitive threats from amazon, china. the stock's had a nice run, trading at its highest multiple since '08, slight premium to the s&p. a lot to get to with doug mcmillon later on. >> look x out the fuel you've got a plus 1.6 comp that is nice. it's obvious, as you said carl, taking some serious actions in terms, i think, upgrading the workforce, which has been a primarily problem at walmart. the service. i like what mcmillan's doing. a big reset. a gigantic battleship to turn. maybe this reset sets stage for 2016 where he's cut estimates to point they could be beaten. an important move, no doubt. list. walmart our country's largest private employer of course many would say had the focus on it for many years, well over a decade, in terms of its wages.
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many would argue, perhaps correctly, it's reflective of the u.s. economy as it exists yes, 50 years ago the largest employer in the country was gm and paid employees well. one would hope the decision to do this is in part they need to get better people and they can't get them without paying them more. i don't know if that's the case or if there's more of a political side to this than a market base side to it. >> reporter: yeah, there's going to be i think, probably a slight period here where they're given some credit and then the pushback, were they reading the political tea leaves? four states last fall voted to hike the minimum wage. arkansas was one of them. 6 in 10 americans think the federal minimum wage should be raised. did they see this coming and wanted to do it on their own terms? get a little bit of a good guy credit? we'll have to see. clearly they do believe rivals like a costco but more so like a
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kroger publix safeway haven't budgeted for this and there might be first-strike advantage in retaining the best workers in a competitive retail environment. >> carl, i hope you can find some heat on affordable care act, rival service said it's not impacting bottom line. a yearing awe thought it would paralyze walmart. they're raising what they pay workers. and i know they've got to do more for health care. if just seems like put together, it's a better place to work and it's going to be a lot more like a costco. obviously costco has the best benefit plan in the world. to me this is going to attract better people. and i don't mean anything dispersions of people who work there now, but you know as well as i do and david, walmart has a reputation now as not being a fun place to shop. it's being a tough place to shop, let's put it that way. >> reporter: i agree. management has admitted a few
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things. one, gap, the price gap between them and competitors, has narrowed in some markets and some markets they may not have the lowest prices. they've admitted they're worried about produce, worried about the vegetables. acknowledge check-out times can be too long sometimes you walk in and there's empty shelves everywhere. there's a bit of reset in terms of psychology. whether or not the u.s. comp number this quarter reflects the fix to that or whether it's gas prices, we'll have to find out more from mcmillan. i think at the very least they have acknowledged shopping at walmart is maybe not what consumers thought it used to be and trying to get on that case. >> yeah. i mean you went to walmart because you thought you'd find the best prices. >> right. >> you didn't necessarily go in for the store experience as you might in other stores. >> i can get great prices and have good experience at costco home depot. these places are terrific and i get great bargains and i like going there.
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that's what walmart has to do. they have to make me like. i go to walmart to see whether it's improved. i often find i'm lost in the stores. i go into super center like you, people at -- i'll ask, where are the cargo pants? they'll send me to the dishwashers. right now in a crisis mode. this guy may be the right guy. this is an admittance, we're not doing it right maybe that's what has to happen. >> a union component. they have faced attempts amongst a handful of workers, i don't want to overstate it but certainly the -- i think sciu trying to get things going in terms of unions as well. another way that they can at least, perhaps fight any attempts on that front, which is a threat to them and has been for years, the idea you might end up with a unionized workforce at least at a number of stores. >> one interesting component to this is walmart has gone back and looked at okay why are new
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employees that we hire leaving? they tend to leave within a time frame of six to nine months. one big reason relationship with the department chief, right? if you work in the pharmacy get along with the guy who runs pharmacy. if you work in produce, you've got to get along with the guy who runs produce. they are raising wages as well of department heads. i think there's a few layers go on trying to resolve various conflicts in the workforce in terms of working for walmart, making sure that they're -- they feel like they're being treated well. they're ramping up training rams making adjustments to have a more fixed schedule so you will know what days you're working what days you're not, better in advance. goes beyond the wage component. >> great stuff carl's doing. carl does a lot of work on costco on all retailers, include including walmart. the reason they have no turnover, they spend nothing on training. walmart the highest turnover.
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training is dead weight lost. kills earnings. starbucks, sending people to college because they know they'll lose workers. whole foods, dramatic good pay and thousands of people for 300 jobs. this was long overdue at walmart. long overdue. >> we should state, of course mcmillon loading and unloading trucks in college, but certainly came up through the ranks that the company looking forward to your sit-down with him, of course not long from now. which supercenter are you? >> reporter: store number 100, which i am told is new, bentonville, across from corporate headquarters i'm done think we've shot in this supercenter. but the nice thing is when we go on the road oftentimes you don't have everything you need. we have everything we could possibly need right here. >> you do. i remember being in a handful but i don't think i was in store 100. spent a lot of time in bentonville. we'll be back at you soon and often, of course looking
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forward to that interview with doug mcmillon. as for the stock, jim, looking down about a buck on guidance. >> look -- >> you cut guidance at a time when every retailer raising numbers because of gasoline. it's a slap in the face. this company had to adjust. look, the company -- the company, they're spending fortunes on omni channels, spending fortunes on upgrading, making the experience great. walmart hadn't spent anything. they'll tell you they have. but nordstrom reports and they spent a fortune trying to upgrade omni channel. >> all right. more on walmart. coming up t-mobile's ceo john legere visits us at post 9. he doesn't pull punches when talking about anything. sara eisen, an interview with hershey's ceo john bilbrey on chocolate and the strategy for
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overcoming currency headwinds. another look at futures. we are looks like set up for a bit of a down open more "squawk on the street" live from post 9 when we come back. ♪ ♪ ♪ first impressions are important. you've got to make every second count. banking designed for the way you live your life. so you can welcome your family home... for the first time. chase. so you can. anything? no. you? no. aflac! what are you guys looking for? claims! legend has it these hills are full of 'em. it can take months for an insurance claim to surface. claimin' takes patience. aflac paid my claim in one day. they got some new-fangled kinda one day payin' machine?
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we've come back to this name many times. and often the words preceding our mention of cat are not necessarily positive. >> no and i have been trying to be diplomatic but i can. >> why now? suddenly a new leaf? >> you know periodically -- >> when are you working on that? >> presidents' day, charity toward nunone -- >> you lost your mind on tesla last week. >> morgan stanley cut numbers big but loves it more. imagine, he cuts numbers gigantically, he's going to been morgan tesla. >> since we've diverted to tesla, briefly, tell people. those guy had them earning over a buck a share -- >> he had them thinking they're going to make 1.58 now going to lose $2.28. this is fabulous. it's an interesting -- >> jonas at morgan stanley. he wrote about them being electric supplier changing the grid. >> he basically has said that this is steve jobs.
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what's interesting, most analysts cannot get away with estimate cuts and make a strong buy. usually -- you see a guy at the top of research says, are you out of your mind? not happening. >> done seem to be. is their banking business coming around the bend? >> i would never even -- >> never imagine. doesn't exist anymore. >> shocking. look, a lot of news oil's down which historically hurts the tesla stock. tesla itself david, if you listened to elon musk you know that everyone in the end is going to drive a tesla and it's going to cost very little and they're going to make a ton of money. >> speaking of oil, as we move on from cat, did you have anything you wanted to offer on cat beyond those numbers? the stock's looking down about a buck now. >> caterpillar's a challenged company, a commodity play. oil done a lot will influence cat's numbers. china not growing. at the pace that it was. going to influence cat numbers. cat, focus on united reynolds
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they have an oil component, only six. that's a good way to play cat. i've been disillusions by cat for a long time. >> will there be a dead cat bounce. >> warren buffett bought it they report friday. deere's diverged from cat. >> you mentioned oil. >> yeah. >> we don't -- we talk a lot but i spring these questions on you unannounced and i'm going to do that. yesterday on the phone with somebody focused on oil, starts talking about curbing, by april they're not going to have anywhere to put any of it. outer room. what is that? >> new pipeline that came from canada 200,000 barrels per day, more than you had three months ago. no place to put that. refineries operating at levels -- you saw the -- we don't know what caused the torrance explosion. >> yes. >> but when you run a refinery 24/7 what they do is well say things go wrong. not supposed to run those 24/7. should run them 93 94. that was the old rule i felt for
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safety. eog, the great growth oil, said listen, we're cutting back. we're not going it produce oil. we're not -- >> we never had a situation where they ran out of room. what happens? what actually would happen were that the case? >> what happens you discount oil dramatically. >> dramatically right? you get some huge difference in spread. >> places where you're getting 7 on maybe you'll get 60. this is going to put tremendous pressure on oil. refineries, you can't export the stuff. >> jones act, right. >> well just you know federal government doesn't want you to do. >> you can't. >> refineries are operating every single minute because you -- there's no place to put the stuff. oil's going to test the 43 a barrel level when it did january 28th. amazing story. amazing story. eog saying listen this is -- we don't know if it's a "u." "v," had in in fashion, coming
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back. eog said we're not going to pull it out now. we're not going to give it away at these prices. there's a great priestiece by rpm, held by production numbers, so many deals made a lot of guys have to produce. eog doesn't have to produce. eog considered to be the smartest operator at the lowest cost. they're saying we're not going to take the prices anymore and that's causing people to have trepidation about all oil stocks. eog, conference call going on now. i think eog's a smart company. they're saying we're not going to give it away but other guys have to give it away because they're out of cash flow. they have no choice. >> got to keep doing it. >> eog will say -- >> a lot of bonds to keep paying interest on but bonds may be trading at significant discounts. >> eog saying we'll conserve -- we're not going -- we don't need to blowout the oil. we'll buy companies that go zblund what.
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>> what you heard from the eog changed your opinion? >> they're saying it ain't coming back anytime soon. i have been saying in nigh game plan, hear what they have to say. >> you've been talking positively anticipation we make our way back. not to 50s and have that lack of volatility that at least would calm everything rich kinder from kinder morgan made me feel that the low 40s was too low. eog makes me feel like we have to test it again. jim, breezing in the wind here. eog, when they speak, when they speak, we will know where oil's going. they are speaking. marathon, by the way, cut cap x. eog, it's going to be a while. that's great for the airlines, so great for the consumer stock. so great for the restaurants. so great for the -- they're close to 70% of the market that benefit immediately from what
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eog is saying. >> important story. the stock down. >> no growth for the biggest oil growth stock. >> 95.31 yesterday. jim's "mad dash," count down to opening bell. carl's interview with walmart ceo doug mcmillon in arkansas bentonville. futures one more time more "squawk on the street" right after this.
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♪ sing♪ >> all right. always getting me going with that music. thanks to our fabulous producer in all ways. >> right. >> "mad dash." apple, a piece that caught your eye, research on apple. >> you and i both know as the stock goes up analysts have to update, they can't just say my price target is 100. citi compelling piece, five reasons to own apple. main one attractive valuation. a stock, up 15% versus 2% for the s&p. but get this sells at 15 times earnings. not going to back away. >> 3/4 of a trillion. just a number. doesn't mean anything. >> talking about apple i pay. the co-ceo said the customer's demanding ipay. >> do these guys like it here. >> longstanding. >> like it there? >> don't trade it. >> here. >> not going to -- this is
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updating long thesis. people were trying to figure out why they're still in it. read it that's the kind of thing. now, airlines. >> tell me. >> we've been -- the airlines have been stalled you've got that combination today. >> how do i turn this off? >> well you -- clear it here. >> thank you. >> it's not clearing. this is great. >> no here clear. >> allison, how do i fix this? >> cleared it. >> what's really interesting, this is a merrill lynch rollout and they like southwest, delta is their favorite. they like spirit. they like american air. it is so well-timed, the stocks have been stalled. a lot of people felt charters, going with the head and shoulders nonsense. everybody has a way to make money. well-timed rollout and the stocks will go higher given the fact that oil's plummeting. >> in the midst of -- i would -- actual developing story this morning with eog and the conference call and unwillingness to perhaps, as you have been telling us more oil,
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watching the price go down not just that stock but the commodity itself. hence we come back to likes of airlines. >> this is important. gasoline going down. look walmart raising wages. maybe that impacts the wage number that we've been looking for that has been under control. i can throw in if i wanted to federal reserve mumbo jumbo. >> give me mumbo jumbo. >> federal reserve they may not raise off of that walmart. >> patience in march? >> we did a weaker fed. now we don't have to adpres it until march 3rd. remarkable movement with oil going down and stocks, after good numbers, spirit my favorite. i mean listen ben -- when you mention spirit pay a dollar. that's their fee structure. >> you like to say his name. you like to say it over and over. we've got t-mobile we've got discovery, priceline, a lot more to talk about, opening bell coming up after this.
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watching cnbc "squawk on the street," live from the financial capital of the world. the opening bell will be ringing, actually, right now if they get started up there. usually time. ten seconds before the open here at the big board, by the way, we've got the opening bell being rung right there by eversource energy. highlights recent name and ticker symbol change from nu to es. at the nasdaq barclays bank doing the honors.
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as you can see, realtime exchange at hq more red on the board than green for the s&p, jim. >> people don't want to see oil down this much. always worries people. i don't think anyone's relaying the germany/greece debacle again today. i think this is about, wait a second, we're not in position. $200 billion of high yield debt. you're not thinking about the benefit of lower oil. it's huge. so don't freak out. let them sell it. walmart people are probably selling off of walmart. market is up huge. let it come in. it's fine. it's fine. there's so many good stories. >> right. we obviously have had the market, as you say, up huge in part because people seemed less focused on oil, hanging around moving up from its lows. >> that's an algorithm. >> but does this talk from ooeg change the overall equation in a way that investors are going to
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react to or not. >> ooegeog saying a lot of companies will go under. >> we don't know. >> the first time the oil company said our brethren are going under. >> restructuring guys, bankers, all over this. consolidation coming to the energy cop plexmplex, from weakness, not strength. >> eog say, whoa we're not going to take this oil out of the ground. what does that say? what it says is those of you who expect a quick comeback you're dreaming. and this is from the smartest operator in the whole league. it's very important. it's really impacting -- it's going to impact chevron, exxon, that's how smart they are. eog is the renaissance leader. they're everywhere. they've got the big four. and they're brilliant. >> let's move on from oil right now to priceline.
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shares of which up over 7% after the company reported earnings. big buyback in there as well which seems to be graded positively and also wondering, i had a couple of calls does it mean they're not going to pursue m&a opportunities? chatter would they go after trip tripadvisor tripadvisor. >> i love this, priceline did it again. this time they didn't do it at night. they put out blowout, 27% growth in bookings, the company's smoke'ing. they give you the tease, but the buyback made people say, wait a second, i'm not selling priceline to them. and then you've got a stock that's a thing of beauty today, going with how great expedia's been tripadvisor, the travel business, throw in marriott, incredibly strong. people department think because of visa, what sharchar hilie scharf
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said. no americans are taking the gasoline and going on the road. six flags last night what a quarter. >> on "mad money." blowout. this country's spending. there's some article today about subprime loans. >> yeah. >> you know what? sometimes you have to give people loans leak ss like they did in "it's a wonderful life" not everybody who is rich -- >> you don't have to be mr. potter? >> look i think that those stories make people scared and maybe that's good. maybe we need to have people -- >> you need to be aware of it. you need to be aware of it in particular when the market's growing. i argue, of course when it came to mortgages and not fully appreciating back in '05, '06, '07, how large the market had grown for so-called subprime and how it was secure advertised over and over that's not occurring now but it's something to keep in mind. >> you always want to. >> standards are much higher
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than they were then, of course, for subprime they're higher. >> talk to stu miller tell you, you can't get a loan. >> back in the day. >> 3% go try to get that loan. i'm trying to get a loan for a property, okay and i've got to tell you, it's not easy. it's not easy. i've got a good balance sheet. >> it's not like back in the day in irvine california a lot of companies willing to give a mortgage to anybody as long as they could pay it back in three months. >> saying over and over it was crooked loans. crooked. my hero. >> turning from priceline to marriott, you mentioned it up another 3%. what an operator. you know i think that marriott costs fritz van paaschen his job. >> may have. the. >> peer group what the board was looking at and saying we don't seem to be executing as competitors. >> talking about starwood look
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at numbers that windham put up steve holmes know him from charity work put up some fantastic numbers. remember that's the old henry summerman group. i didn't mean that disparity. that man trained a lot of people to be great operators and steve's a great operate somewhere starwood felt left behind. an activist board. adam aron a growth ceo. hospitality industry's on fire. stay on this whether cruises, planes internet travel. it just doesn't matter david. people are spending and going away again, the way they used to before the great recession. >> when you say send it henry, fraud by its nature hard to detect. that's what they said on the conference call for the acquisition. >> feel bad for the u.s. government. u.s. attorney christie, it was
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frightening to testify on behalf of the people the people of the united states, i asked for 20 year for the cfo. >> right. >> and it was a very big sentence passed down. you're up there with the family members, up there with people -- this is real-life person who committed white collar crime and chris christie saying go for the max, you're speaking for people and it's frightening. the most petrified i've ever been public speaking give the sentencing as the people would like it the people of the united states. you speak for the people of the united states, it's an honor, even when it's that. >> t-mobile is up sharply. the company had very good growth in subscribers. it guided to what some are saying somewhat conservative subscriber addition target if you will they likely will be able to be.
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churned across the board. that's the nature of the new business, which is more price competitive than it had been with the big boys verizon and at&t having to get into the act. ank rev average revenue user did come down due to promotions. inflection point here, jim, free cash flow positive what they're all going to be about over t-mobile. we'll speak to john legere. >> where are they getting customers? from sprint, at&t. where are they getting customers? or is it just new people coming on? >> it's not new people. i mean you've gotten more or less saturation. yeah you've got some -- >> giving good deals. >> my kids will have phones. your kids do. they're on their fifth generation phone. we're still -- >> right. >> i won't give my 9-year-old kid a phone, no way. >> safety issues. but i think it's impressive effort. he's a gorilla fighter. we're not used to ceos --
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>> he is. >> you go twitter, you get the whole story. he's like a twitter phenomenon. >> on social immediate yap a blog yesterday he posted about coming auctions. >> reminding us don't forget to check spectrum. >> again, nothing short of extraordinary. the stock, backing off a bit but up over 4%. >> walmart is jarring people. jarring to see people taking that guidance and running with it. mcmillon, so glad carl's there that and gasoline the stories of the day and they're counter to each other. if walmart had done a great number believe me the market would be flying given the fact that oil's down. >> walmart's down sharply, as you see right there. of course, almost 3%. >> actavis is back. >> reported yesterday. >> it's now allergan. that was one i felt a great opportunity for people at home because that man is a -- that
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combination's a very good one, allergan. they'll be renamed allergan. a great opportunity. stock was down seven. >> nothing but straight up for quite some time. >> david, the guys using numbers that make the stock somewhat inexpensive. >> really? >> yes. >> interesting. rollout ups. i'm looking at valeant. pushing 170 bucks, jim. erx. >> growth drug stocks how is regender on doing? a very good story how their drug is superior and more money and meg interviewed him. i thought that stock should be up more than it is right now. the market has a bit of a gloom over it. >> let me get to discovery and then bob pisani. discovery didn't have a great quarter. of course, huge multiple compression in that name. but they didn't give us guidance in the press release. it appears to come out on the conference call. we anticipated reporting free
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cash flow growth low digitsing growth in cash operating business, offset by higher cash taxes due to prior year timing benefits. they also are talking about foreign exchange impact remember discovery, huge international presence one of its great strengths. reducing constant currency guided revenue by 350 million, 6%. adjusted ebitda by 150 million. also 6% versus 2014 results. they do say they have 1.5 billion of available capital for full year 2015 to fund both share repurchases and m&a investment, potential buying remaining stake in euro sport. concern about the ad market as well. david, a good friend said you can get the ratings but fill up the bucket. >> right. >> sometimes people aren't dropping enough in the bucket. >> anything in europe? >> nothing that i've seen from the call at least in notes i've had at this point.
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i don't want to say there hasn't been. >> a great model. >> the call's going on. >> viacom. cbs, we didn't get to talk about how good the quarter was and how much stock they bought. fox, yesterday, buffett. a lot of reshuffling in the deck here. and it's jeff bewkes who came out on top. >> so far. so far. more to come. >> there? >> not right away. >> can you share? >> no. bob pisani's got more on what's moving this morning. >> mostly on the down side today. the culprit, again, energy. i want to show you europe still not responding much. of course, greece has got a can request for a loan extension out. germany's rejected the loan extension request because greece wants relaxation of the reform commitments. a meeting of eurozone finance ministers friday. see how that plays out. either side a positive or negative here. as i mentioned, oil's the weak link here. talking about eog.
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put up the key comment the company made that's getting the comments. they're going to complete 45% fewer wells in 2015. they said the company's not interested in accelerating crude oil production in a low-price environment. of course a significant miss on earnings eog. remember, these companies down 30%, 40%, eog, 115, 118 or something in september, october. dropped as low, put up eog, dropped as low as 82. it's been a tough time recovering. now back down there below $90. the midpoint they mentioned -- by the way, interesting, for production in 2015 midpoint guidance is flat year-over-year. they're not dropping their production. it's essentially flat. people need to realize that. a number of other e&p companies commented. noble energy modest beat. they had an interesting comment, noble, 70% of crude production 48% of their natural gas production is hedged in 2015.
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70%. that's going to mitigate a lot of the impact of lower prices here. but down with the other stocks in the energy group. denbury reported they reiterated 2015 capital spending cut 50%. but again, they are plainmaintaining a dividend denver holding around 3% dividend yield here. let's move on talk about marriott. marriott, another great report all these companies are reporting revenue per available room 6% 7% 8% gains, terrific numbers. corporate room rates marriott talking about up 5% 6% in 2015. those numbers are excellent. room rates are going up this year. anybody looking for a cheap hotel room is on the outs on that. piper jaffray had a very interesting report on the l.a. port slowdown comprehensive. best within i've seen in a while. they said even if we're resolving this problem in a week, it's going to take six to eight weeks to smooth out the
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supply. for a lot of companies, easter deliveries will be disrupted. impact the first half margins. specific emphasis on footwear toys households. put up the footwear companies, the problem is the spring offerings move from boots to spring goods, that's going to impact a lot of the companies overall. for toys and households like mattel hasbro rubbermaid, 50% of all products go through l.a. ports and some companies with a larger order commitment, like easter, are going to use air freight, others not able to do that. by wait, david, one company doing well is target. they have already increased their inventories proactively in an effort to deal with this issue. they singled them out as a company addressing this issue. back to you. >> thank you very much bob pisani. head to the bond pits now. rick santelli joins us from the cme group in chicago. rick? >> thank you david. whether it's days like october 15th or yesterday's minutes,
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sometimes you get a glimpse of the market kind of in the raw. and that united states and the case yesterday. we garnered knowledge. if you look at two-day charts two days best considering volatility around the minutes in treasuries, look at a two-day of fives. though the dynamic flattening given the way we dropped off in five-year note rates, it was a steepening trade and the motivation was the short end, not so much the long end because as you move down the curve, look at two day of tens, it's demonstrating part of the dynamics of the downdraft. by the time you get to 30s, you can see a nonevent. remember, we settle a 2.75 last year on 30s and here we sit, close to three basis point where the 2.17 is well above the 2.08 in tens and 1.65 well above on the 5s. look at year-to-date of 5s to 30s, and this is very significant, what you see is on a year-to-date we flattened -- excuse me, steepened a lot. you can see yesterday's steepening on there, basically
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towards the steepest of the year. let's not lose sight over the fact it's just the 6th of january, last month, that we reached an eight-year flat around 1.02. currently around 1.17 just to give you a perspective on that. switch gears, move over the ocean here. two day of bunds. dynamic is 40 we keep bucking up against 40. why is 40 significant? year-to-date chart, not a year-to-date, go back to the day before the ecb meeting, you can see 40's the defineing line. haven't been above it on a closing basis since that meeting. look at foreign exchange two day of the dollar index, big headlines were the dollar currency wars fed is entering in dovish statement that might have looked true yesterday. but we did come back a good clunk of that if you look at a year-to-date of the dollar index, it is in a range, granted, at a lofty level. david, all yours. >> thanks very much. talking about oil prices.
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let's now get through -- get the crude inventory data. >> david, what's pushing the price down today is the api data that we got last night, ahead of the doe report. epic build, 14 plus million barrels in crude stocks sent us down more than 4% today. wti trading at $50.43. 50 bucks under that that key psychological and technical level. looking for bill of 3 million barrels. interesting to see what the from department says. what also is interesting, what is contributing to this build. you had bob talking about some of the companies cutting back on production, cap x, we know plans are all in the works, but the question is, when that actually takes effect. right now it's not. the building curbing of 3 million barrels the drop-off point, shows that is we've got a sir plus surplus, importing more, and demand dropping off. we'll hear about nat gas, trading flat that's at 10:30.
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back over to you. >> thank you. coming up more on walmart, from carl who is in ben bernanke,bentonville, arkansas. >> talk to doug mcmillon why walmart's giving a pay raise to 500,000 employees. wages in this country on the move? we'll talk about that the dollar, and why the guidance today so downbeat when we come back. automotive innovation starts... right here. with a control pad that can read your handwriting, a wide-screen multimedia center,
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welcome back there's a story of the morning, probably that right there, oil down almost 5%. we've been hearing a lot of different things. >> eog. >> important conference call. we'll get more on that. "stop trading" coming up with jim. there's nothing more romantic than a spontaneous moment. so why pause to take a pill? and why stop what you're doing to find a bathroom?
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cramer and "stop trading." what do you got? >> new critic of the food industry of the package food the pantry. seymour rismorrison, mounting distrust of big food cutting costs. you can't cut your way to growth. got to do white way, campbell soup has to find the way to be able to say we're -- >> can't shrink to grow but not cut to grow. >> can't cut to grow. >> two different things. >> emblematic of an industry converging on being dinosaurs. people do not want canned foods. they want fresh. >> a lot of salt in there. talk about the cans. the rexum deal, a monopoly on cans. >> this is one of these consolidations that we talk about, if i -- if i were bud, if i were not an american company
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anymore if i were tap, i would say, no you can let them do this. this is where -- you're not allowed to call and say we can't do this anymore but it's huge for them. >> antitrust and m&a, a big component. ball up huge ahead of this. >> ball's down today but up in anticipation of the deal. >> one of my themes the frugal consumer. parago, inversion play, too. are they going to make that? >> you're coming back. >> 45 minutes. >> i like a bomb thrower. always going to be there with a bomb thrower. >> john legere coming up and more on "squawk on the street." stay tuned. carl's exclusive with walmart ceo doug mcmillon live from arkansas. the lightest or nothing. the smartest or nothing. the quietest or nothing. the sleekest...
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now every little "thing" can provide even greater value. ok, so can it tell the doctor how long you have to wear this thing? the answer is yes, it can. so, the question your customers are really asking is can your business deliver? ♪ we're beautiful like diamonds in the sky ♪ ♪ shine bright♪ >> good morning, welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm david faber along with sara eisen and simon hobbs. carl quintanilla live in arkansas at a walmart
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supercenter. we'll hear from him in a few minutes. later on a live exclusive interview with walmart ceo doug mcmillon. important news today from walmart involving wages for u.s. workers. take a look at markets. you can see, we are down on well, two of the three major indices, if you will. nasdaq up. oil very important here of course, and that has been the story, let's argue, of the morning thus far, down almost 5% on wti. let's get to the road map. former news corp. president speaking out about his new video streaming venture with at&t. plus his news on twitter and american express. >> the ceo of hershey sitting down with sara for an exclusive interview. how he plans to battle a health conscious consumer. >> first cnbc interview with john legere ceo of t-mobile. company's quarterly results and how their faring against
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competitors. first, rick santelli breaking news on philly fed and leading indicators. rick? >> yes. lei leading economic indicators a january number up .2. last month lost a tenth. how does .2 figure? it's the weakest level sense we had an unchanged read in august. let's move to a more current read, let's move to february philly fed economic index. of course activity in the philadelphia region. 5.2 is the number. interesting, november last year, reached a high for the series at 40.20. being up at 5.2 is the weakest read that we've had, actually in a while. go back to february of last year on a minus 2 read and minus numbers unusual last couple of years. so, some slight misses there, adding to slight misses yesterday. but the reason yields are down most likely still residual
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effects from yesterday's dovish minutes. >> slight reaction in u.s. stocks. the dow's down 95 points. as we mentioned, carl's live at a walmart supercenter in bentonville, arkansas with an interview with the ceo. a lot of news out of walmart, wages. they want to make a statement. the question is how much of a statement is it given that a lot of retailers have been moving to do this in states as well? >> reporter: absolutely. not to mention the states that have made it the law in various states. some calling it the biggest, boldest decision doug mcmillon has made. they are raising, starting minimum wage to $9 in april. come next february, current employees will have a minimum wage of $10. obviously the companies we've seen raise wages in the past few months gap, ikea it does raise the question are wages on the move in the country in an
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era where we're seeing jolt surveys show that workers are more willing to make a leap leave a company, try to get a higher-paying job somewhere else. doug mcmillon did agres this topic with employees in a short video. take a listen to this. >> we're making changes to our pay, strengthing the opportunity to progress within the company, and offering more choice in scheduling. one of the most immediate changes is that we'll raise our starting pay and we'll provide opportunities for further raises based on performance. for our current associates we'll start by raising our entry wage to at least $9 an hour in april. and by february of next year all current associates will earn at least $10 an hour. >> reporter: remind yourself who is on the board of walmart. marissa mayer, who tweeted, so happy for walmart associates proud of walmart management. a great leadership decision by doug mcmillon. so we'll talk to doug about all
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of that. u.s. comps, guys positive once again, up 1.5% how much of an impact did gas prices have? for the sales guidance for 2061 simon, looking for 1 to 2, back in october they were saying 2 to 4. is that the strong dollar at work? that's probably the likely culprit. if they keep making investments like they are with training with neighborhood centers, we'll see what kind of impact that has on sales down the road. >> i'm really looking forward to your interview in an hour's time partly because all of this chatter about $9 an hour i read that the labor unions already think the average wage in walmart is $8.81. from what they're saying it's a 19 cents difference. but i guess a leveling out process and $10 becomes more important, i think, next february. >> reporter: it's the lowest wage you would make would be $9. the average wage of a full-time worker at walmart is $13. average wage of a part-time worker is $10. so we're talking about the least
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you could possibly make at walmart. that's the numbers we're talking about. >> i'm just interested in as to whether they are touched, i don't know whether it's relevant, by the inequality debate that some people in the country are very anxious to wage. in the fact that the walton family are as wealthy as they are, board members, more than 50% of vote even a move to make more independents on the board and when they have protests outside their houses whether they feel with marissa mayer making the statements she is this is their contribution in some form to the wealth debate. i saw a figure the waleton family has a combined wealth equal to 42% of american families astounding within that debate, carl. >> reporter: it's -- i'm not sure if it's true. fascinateing if it was. they've got to balance that in many markets walmart does not offer the lowest price, always their business model. how do you balance compensation
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andwell of management and directors and how much do you have to lower your expenses to make sure you're giving people the lowest priced goods. >> curious about his thoughts on the u.s. consumer coming out of this conference in boca hearing a lot of caution. yes, u.s. comps were good they were positive for the second month in a row and traffic was better. i wonder if walmart is in the clear when it comes to u.s. sales, given disappointing guidance. >> reporter: yeah, you know interesting. last quarter they say consumer and saving money on gas, but not spending it on discretionary items. a key question is whether or not that changed. goldman ran interesting numbers looking at correlation between gas prices and u.s. comps at walmart, virtually zero correlation. to the layman makes no sense at all. it works better with a two-month lag. but we'll see whether or not people did start to spend gas
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money. >> carl a lot of the talk about wages does come back to the customer experience. jim made this point earlier, it's a salient one, turnover there is significant, constantly having to retrain workers is a cost as well. one wonders whether this will help at all with retention. >> reporter: that's -- i think one question is did you think this was the right thing to do? did you see the inev vittibility of it from a political standpoint or, three, was retention falling through the floor. >> were workers leaving in droves and walmart found themselves uncompetitive on wages? the answer to that question, i think, among the most interesting he can offer. >> yeah. carl, we'll look forward to that interview, of course. a lot of great questions to ask. looking forward to the answer. >> the man himself who started out at walmart, loading trucks in college in an hourly wage position. >> moved up through the ranks.
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ran international before taking over for mike duke. >> let's circle back to the markets and see where we are. down 71 points on the dow. it's about 150 points off the record high. the s&p about 7 or 8 points. oil a focus this morning. oil has continued to slide. there you go $49.83 where we are at the moment. let's introduce kamal, and dan heckman, strategist at u.s. bank wealth management. what you say to investors, what do you feel? >> i think in terms of the united states here simon, we are moving toward what appears to be a slowing economy. you just had the philadelphia fed numbers which are segive. the fed yesterday in the minutes clearly indicated they're going to postpone the rate hike and the most important thing of all, where it differ from consensus,
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the double up in greece is more important than the market makes it out to be the germans rejected the greek proposal and the eurozone supposed to be waiting without divorce. once you're married you don't leave leave. you may have the first departure. what prevents the second third, final and the collapse of the eurozone. >> let me steer it back to what we know here and that is that this economy's slowing. the fed minutes that we had yesterday are for a meeting that happened before the last blowout employment report. and we are coming off -- coming off a piece where we've been talking about walmart raising wages in this country. now it would indicate the economy's strong no? >> well it is great that walmart is doing it for its employees, simon. but if you look at the overall growth in wages, they have not been significant. yes, walmart is a big part of the corporate structure, but the
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u.s. economic numbers, wages have still been weak over the last six years of economic recovery. and i'm not going to hang my hat on one month of strong job reports to say the u.s. economy's growing faster or the wages are increasing. if that's the case why not have the fed increase the interest rates right away? and second the interest rates have been at zero level, simon, for more than six years. it's like a patient being in an oxygen tent and you say that the person is in very good health. simply doesn't make sense to me. >> dan is he correct when he says the fed still wants to delay interest rate rises, because many people think that actually when we get yellen speaking tuesday and wednesday it will still be june that will emerge as the most likely time to tart the process? >> yes, simon, we would respectfully disagree with your guest. we believe that the fed is still
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targeting june time frame. we think they are on a path to raise rates. as a counterpoint to the jobs issue, look what jobless claims did this morning, dropped 21,000. we're still well below the 300,000 level and have been for quite some time. we think it just takes some time for wage pressures to build up. we think we're on that path. so, i think the economy's in a lot better shape than many people indicate. >> if i can give a different point of view on that. you look at what's happening to the dollar, it's strengtheningen the fed minutes indicated that they are concerned about international double upments which are going to get worse between now and middle of the year. and do you increase interest rates in june and make the dollar even stronger and slow the economy, increasing the dollar values like a monetary tightening. and i don't see the fed doing it. >> that's exactly where i was going to go. to add color to that point, the cf of of proctor & gamble
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speaking now to consumer conference saying it's the largest foreign exchange imknack 2015 in p&g's history. corporate america's feeling this dan. don't you think that buys the federal reserve some time beyond the mini talking down the dollar they did in the fed minutes to wait on interest rate rises? >> well let's keep the dollar in perspective from a longer-term historical point of view. the dollar has been depreciating up until the last year year and a half and you know i don't really believe that the dollar at this level is going to cause the fed to wait here. i think a lot of that is built into the market. i think the market's built that into the level of the dollar already. i think actually there could be some relief on the dollar trade once the fed does make its initial move. and let's take it again to proper context. it's going to be 25 basis point. and there's never going to be a
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perfect time for the fed to raise rates. i would beg to differ that it's a very good time to raise and get off the zero level. we've got tightening labor markets and what point do you wait for that unemployment rate to go what below 5%? i don't think so. >> okay. we're out of time. both of you briefly within your areas of expertise, with the equities down with fixed income where do you see value? >> i see value continuing to be in fixed income. last year i was out of consensus looking for ten year treasury to go below 2%. >> right. >> i think it's going to go below 1. 50. i see high grade fixed income where the value is. >> dan? >> we think with the rise in rates, municipal bonds look very good here. also i would say selectively, high grade investment grade energy names. i think the spreads have widened out to the point where those are attractive as well. >> two big calls.
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hershey this week raising buyback reaffirming 2015 outlook. ceo jp bilbrey in bow ka this week. i had a chance to talk about the big challenge that old school snack makers are facing increased awareness of sugar and health and well-being and whether that would show hershey's steady growth. >> we talk about something natural, is it organic and all of the different things. but what we really understand is consumers are saying i want to understand what's in the product. is it something? something i can pronounce? we have products that offer that. in our category first, less than 2% of the total caloric intake in the american diet and the total confectionery category. people come to our category knowing its indulgent. we want to make sure they get great tasting, high quality products and when they make the decision to reward themselves,
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we want to give them a product that they can really enjoy. and we think that we do that we think that it's going to be continued opportunity for growth on our brands. >> transparency of ingredients, simple that is what led you beef jerky? when i think hershey, i do not think beef jerky but you're getting into the business. >> you know we think about our business as a snacking continuum. so if you think about you know indulgent items, we do a great job with indulgent items, chocolate, these kinds of products, but then consumers are reaching for other kinds of products proteins in particular. beef jerky's a protein-type product. we talk a lot about portable snacking portable nutrition, on the go consumption. and that fits perfectly with the kinds of things that we know how to do. so, we've -- we see that meat snacks are a great growing category over the last several years. >> sure. >> we want to participate with that. great synergies to the business we have so we're excellent in
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instant consumable in the perimeter of the store. we have an organization that this brand can fit in and i believe accelerate the growth. >> the question is where's the next acquisition going to come from? is it in proteins snacks emerging markets? >> the way we think if it is, does a brand or company give us cape abilities we don't have today? if a company had a great brand we throughout would fit with our portfolio we'd be interested. they have great manufacture organize distribution capability, we'd be interested if that as well or takes us in a category. soing you inging you know we'd love to do a big acquisition that's acreedive and those kinds of things but those don't happen every day. it's hard to plan for those but we obviously look at those all the time. in the meantime look for bolt-ones that make sense, krave is one of those, fits nicely and helps us across the overall
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snacking continuum. >> did you have a great valentine's day? >> i had a great valentine's day. >> did hershey? >> our seasonal business in 2014 was really good. we sell those in with some good visibility. we have good seasonal business coming this year. if we look at our seasons across all of the businesses up 4% that's about how we planned it. >> and the international chief of hershey made news over at that conference, saying he expects china sales to increase 60% by 2019. brought you guys both something back interest that interview. david, hershey kisses. simon, i brought you the beef jerky. >> i got the kisses. >> thank you very much. >> not sure that's saying anything. >> lactose artificial flavor but going to remove those. >> yes. >> an interesting answer we'd love to do a transformational acquisition.
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>> what's that about in. >> not sure. when you look at landscape, cadbury's gone it's mondelez. >> correct. >> nestle is enormous. hershey is hindered -- the trust is still -- the hershey trust is still there when all of that consolidation taking place, there was talk would hershey participate. it didn't. vie no idea. do you? >> i don't have any idea except i can tell you that with this entrance into beef jerky, a bolt-on, which he talked about, part of the strategy but they are looking toward a broader snacking category perhaps not just in sweets and in chocolates. >> that would be larger still -- a 23 billion -- >> the conversations that we're having, so much m&a, who's going to get together with who. some of the big companies are struggling to find growth. the white waves are speeding ahead. >> down 62 on the dow. breaking news with mary thompson at hq. >> one of the reasons the dow's
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off 62 is weakness in american express. the stock coming off its lows. impacted by legal decision that was just issued. this from u.s. district court judge, basically in this he is showing that this is a ruling a longrunning suit filed by doj against american esxpress and found the company violated antitrust laws and is guilty or libel of anti-competitive practices in the ruling. this concerns the fact that american express will not allow merchants that accept its credit card to incentivize -- not allow merchants to incentivize clients or customers to use other charge cards. as far as remedy or any kind of penalty, judge in this 150-page ruling says rendering american express's merchant regulations client with the sherman act, antitrust act, of course may not require wholesale
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abandonment. american express has a period of time to come back with a proposal we don't know what the financial implications are as of yet. but again, the company was found liable like libel -- guilty, i guess of anti-competitive practice and libel of violating antitrust laws, again, for refusing to allow merchants that accept its cards to insin estee advise clients to use theirs instead. back to you. >> thank you. coming up on the program, former news corp. president peter chernin speak out about mobile video also on the bore of twitter. what he has to say about dick costolo and challenges when it comes to user growth. back after a quick break. the job jugglers. the up all-nighters. and the ones who turn ideas into action. we've made our passions our life's work. we strive for the moments where we can say, "i did it!" ♪ ♪ we are entrepreneurs
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investors and says you should be buying now. rbc's analyst on apple joins us when we come back. we live in a pick and choose world. choose choose choose. but at bedtime? ...why settle for this? enter sleep number. and the ultimate sleep number event going on now. sleepiq technology tells you how well you slept and what adjustments you can make. you like the bed soft. he's more hardcore. so your sleep goes from good to great to wow! now we can all choose amazing sleep, only at a sleep number store. right now save 50% on the
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the stock down today. walmart ceo doug mcmillon will be on live in the next half hour. the number of americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell more than expected last week. fresh evidence that the labor market was gaining steam. you can go to cnbc.com for more on that. the stand-off between greece and germany continues. the germans rejecting new proposal from athens for extension of the bailout program. new warning issued over a potentially deadly superbug. it's linked to at least two deaths in southern california. it's being called a nightmare bacteria by federal health officials. that's the cnbc news update at this hour. back over to you guys. welcome back to "squawk on the street." i'm jackie deangelis. we are waiting for natural gas inventory report. interesting action here in the pits this morning. actually, we were trading slightly lower. now we're trading slightly higher, 2.84.
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expect tigstation to see withdrawal. the withdrawal 111, more than expected. what's happening with natural gas now. trades on the weather. while it's very cold on the northeast, it's just not as cold across the country as it was last year at this time. last year we had a 250 billion cubic feet withdrawal this week. you get a sense of the difference this year. prices under $3 for quite some time now, 2.84 where we're trading at this point. thank you. peter chernin a traditional media mogul, president of news corp. before he made a failed bid for hulu. now a streaming video empire and sits on the board of twitter and american express. julia boorstin sat down with chernin for an exclusive interview. over to you. good morning. >> good morning to you, simon. peter chernin continues to produce tv shows and movies his big bet now is on premium digital video.
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he's partnering with at&t to tacking future of content distribution saying that the fact that everyone from facebook to twitter to vessel are now competing with youtube, provides a great opportunity. >> i think it's a great thing for distribution. you know i think if you look historically at the media business where contend owners have thrived, is where there are multiple distribution competitors. and i think you're going to -- we're on the verge of seeing that in the digital space. i think it's the fastest growing area of the media business. we are trying to build a digital television player of scale, i think something of great interest to at&t who has so many customers. think about the huge amounts of video that are being consumed. >> in his first public comments on twitter since joining the board, he weighed in on the job that dick costolo is doing. so does he have chernin's full support? >> yes.
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un unequivocally. i think dick is really gifted ceo. i think it's a highly complicated company and i have enormous/full confidence in dick. >> chernin says it does not make sense for investors to focus on twitter's slow-growing logged in user numbers. >> i think it's a misconception. i think it's one measurement of users. i think if you look at many other measurements of users how widely tweets are distributed, what platforms, use has been growing significantly. >> also on the board of american express. he talked about costco dropping amex as its exclusive credit card. >> a negotiation which amex declined to go further in the bid. people saying you go to your kid's school and people say i won the auction. you didn't win, you spent more than anybody else. and i think management made a very very smart decision vis-a-vis the costco.
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>> you can find more from our exclusive coverage at cnbc.com. back over to you. >> enjoyed slot, proven many colleagues are only seven. dick costolo, you -- important support there? >> i'm glad julia asked him and got the answer. he's important in that boardroom, no doubt. chernin is a serious player and i think he's very influential on the twitter board, based on conversations i've had with a number of people. his endorsement is an important one. >> was there doubt the board was fully backing him. >> how long this guys stays on the job is an open question. but yes, i think the answer is yes to your question. >> julia? >> it's worth noting we also yesterday, heard from ev williams not only on twitter's board, but twitter's largest shareholder, he was previously ceo of twitter. he was on stage at code media yesterday and he said he absolutely gives full support to costello and thinks he's doing a
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great job. recently that jack dorsi another one of twitter's co-founders had a tweet storm in support of costello and the job he's doing on the board. i think after this most recent earnings report and the movement in the stock, it seems like the conversation whether or not costello should be running the company will start to die down. >> julia boorstin on the west coast. coming up on the program -- marriott in the green today, check out the chart, doubled in value over the last two years. today it beat expectations. came through with guidance for this quarter and the year that was above what the street was expecting. arne sorenson ceo of marriott international, will join us live on "squawk alley" to talk about the results and the buyback of stock. we'll be back after this.
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performing sector. >> as of right now, you can see there, it's probably doubled the prormance on the upside of health care the second best performing sector in positive territory thanks to earnings related movers in travel and leisure. sites like priceline.com, reported better profits in sales and expectations earlier today and added $3 billion to its buyback program. that seemed to outweigh less than rebust current quarter outlook. the second best performer, marriott international after the hotel giant reported better than expected quarterly results. royal caribbean and coach round out the top four. back over to you. buybacks shares of apple nearing all-time highs as the company's keeps commitment of returning cash to shareholder. thus far returned more than $100 billion to investors. how much money could be on deck for apple's next capital allocation program? here with more hardware analyst
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at rbc capital markets putting out a mind boggling figure when it comings to cash return. what are you expecting? >> thanks a lot. so our assessment is if it continues the three-year road map they've had in the past, they can return $150 billion to $200 billion of cash back to shareholders. it equates 25% of the market cap back to investors over three years. what's interesting, essentially aapproximate the amount of free cash flow apple will generate. it reflects the fact that apple's generating a ton of cash and already have a big ton of cash on the balance sheet. >> tim cook made comment we don't want to beat cash orders speaking to gary cone talking about hinting something's coming in april what happen changed? was it the activist pressure from carl icahn and others? >> you know so to those comment his made at a conference, right,
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his statement we don't want to have excess cash on the books, i think it means to give all of the cash it generates back to shareholders, if not more. you know what changed, i think tim cook started to do this soon after he became the ceo in march 2012, when they initialled the first buyback, right? it's just a philosophy change from a new ceo that started three years ago and you see it go forward. >> double back and give us some flavor on how you got to that figure of 150 billion. if that were to happen what would that do for the level of the stock, do you think? >> yeah. so let's look at the way we came up with the numbers, step one, tim cook made statements wanting to return excess cash to shareholders apple will generate $65 billion of free cash flow this year. 75 to 100% of that back to shareholders, that's kind of how you get 50 billion to 65 billion
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commitment to buybacks. >> how do you know what's excess cash? how do you know what plans they have? say with the automotive sector say it's a dashboard, maybe they'd like to be a tesla, some reports say that the funding for that project would not be considered excess cash they'd be wanting to hold that. >> absolutely. i would imagine the $178 billion of cash on the balance sheet would fund all of that and more as you go forward, right. >> since talking about cash what happens to the 58 billion over -- 158 billion overseas tax? a holiday of a lower tax rate where apple and others can repatriate that. do you see that happening this year? >> that's way above my pay grade, does that happen or not. what you've seen apple do is you know leverage international bond markets, raise money in switzerland and germany and i think it will keep doing that as
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a way to funnel back money in the u.s. for capital allocation. some of the things you mentioned happens it's a massive positive for apple stock. >> how much? what's your target? investors have been anticipating a big return. >> you know we think near term into the april event when the update stock would work and the 140, 150 range. beyond that you need a successful apple watch launch with the 66 plus. 140, 150 over the next six months fees iblg. >> >> thanks very much. t-mobile ceo john legere after the earnings beat is here at post 9, that's next.
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john, you add too many people. where are they coming from? doesn't everybody have a phone? >> they're coming from everybody. i was telling you on the break, there wasn't a single week in the entire year of 2014 where on a post paid basis we didn't port positively with any carrier. so verizon, at&t and sprint you know coming to us. we added 8.3 million customers last year up from you know, 4 point something. 13 million customers in two years not counting 9 million when we acquires metro pcs. growth continues. in the first part of 2015 you know, where the porting ratios improved even more. >> let's deal with this. i'm thinking you're the ceo -- look, when dan hessy was the ceo and did ads, wow, sprint's got game. >> you're the only person that thought that meant they had game. it's still a joke. >> i liked that. >> very good friend of mine. >> i know he is.
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let me ask you something, are we not in some year where you're kind of revolutionary approach some call viet cong but i don't want that orientations a working. my kids think you're a rebel. like from like suburban guy but think you're a rebel. >> damn smart kid what i would say. a couple of things, jim, important to know. in 2014 post paid voice customers, phone customers, what percent of the industry's ad dozen you think we took? quick guess? it's easy. 100. >> what? >> 100% of the industry's phone voice. and that's for a number of reasons, right? one is sprint's still having a little difficulty. at&t is off doing a lot of other things. they've forgotten their customer base. what your kids are seeing is what we launched the uncarry revolution. >> they love that. they love that thing. even more than the chain saw sprint thing. >> today's very important.
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i was accused in the second half of last year thinking more about customers than shareholders which by the way, you know is you can judge from the ballot profitability will fol lope we gave huge guidance. one by one taking all of the things that everybody hates about wireless and eliminating them structurally forever. i hinted today it more coming and that's what -- i think right now, at&t and verizon would like to take a breath maybe go back to historical strategy 101, oh my god this hurts, maybe we give them a few share points they'll go away. >> wasn't kim kardashian -- >> you didn't like it? no? >> i think it got mixed reviews. wasn't mentions in the top super bowl ads. we've already seen her rear end before. >> you have? >> we had on the cover of the magazine. >> listen i'll comment on the super bowl. what i told my team i want to be
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in the top five or the bottom five, not the middle. i want to break through the clutter. three sets of ads. one with kim kardashian she made fun of herself, 28 million twitter followers, 25 million instagram, 25 million facebook. it was a split vote. sara silverman, people tookfun. not a spokesperson. >> plenty of people have taken notice over the last couple years and the great success you've had. the way you sort of say at&t is focused on other things. perhaps a fair point, but they've noticed and they've got, you know, the ability to compete on price. they're reprising their entire subscriber base to a certain extent, even verizon, gotten their attention as well. marchelo at sprint is a big guy and he's getting more competitive as he fixes his network and tries to come in with competitive prices. churn is going up. i wonder whether it can be as
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easy as it's been the last couple years when nobody expected much from you. >> doesn't that sound like the exact xfrgs we had one year ago, at&t and verizon will respond, sprint will it fix their network and come back at you. it's 2015. at&t and verizon did try to come back, margins were down, churn was up 14 and 23% in q4. ours was up seasonally 5%. >> your guidance some people are pointing to on sub ads seems somewhat modest. >> we announced post-paid ads of 2.2 to 3.2. we did 4.9 last year. our guidance last year was 2 to 3 million, okay. there's a tradeoff here and we're conservatively respecting the competitive environment and actually we like what sprint's doing. sprint is causing industry churn to go up for the big guys. industry churn is good for us. and to make it simply what may be happening is sprint might be
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temporarily taking customers in from verizon who text their network and churn out the quality is still low and ult ultimately that's good for t mobile. >> are you [ inaudible ] if you're not do you -- are you in danger of being locked out of the volume? >> you are bidding in the spectrum. the low band spectrum option coming in early 2016 pinnacle for the american consumer and i put a blog out yesterday that is helping all american consumers look, what happened in aws three actions were of the carriers participating they won 93% of the mid band spectrum, 72% if you add dish on the side and they proved they will use one of their biggest competitive weapons economic prowess to sweep the table. we had the best mid band spectrum, we spent $1.77 billion and won 151 licenses it was a got portfolio addition for us but now, the government got $45 billion worth of cash from that auction, solved the public safety issues in auction number
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two, the most important item is to ensure competitiveness in the future. >> seem to be arguing you want to be treated differently than verizon and at&t by the way this thing may get pushed out. you know it. i mean their balance sheets may be a little more contrained and push it out until '17. >> it will get pushed out over wheeler's dead body. why would the big guys want to push it out? two reasons. we want a different administration and just spent a boatload of money and want to reload. bad reasons. >> okay. >> for us we want it to be now, we want it to be soon and again, this is a broad set of topics in washington. you want four carriers? got to help us survive. you like this competition. i'm causing this competition with my team. verizon's xlte or whatever that fake name is that means they invested in the network, they did -- >> wait a second. >> we were -- >> no such thing. >> come on. >> no such thing as xlte.
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it's a brand. it means we invested in capacity and we have speeds because t-mobile is cleaning the clocks i announced on this network, right? if you want that competition to compete, you got to make sure we get low band spectrum or what will they do? at&t spent $18 billion on mid band spectrum it's about $6 per u.s. consumer. >> although verizon spent less than many people anticipated and then you had dish coming in spending an enormous amount of money. >> which is a great question. >> what will they do with all that spectrum? >> why don't you buy -- just announce it here. >> buy them? >> the germans conceivably. >> why don't you buy out the germans? sweet guys. >> why don't i buy out the germans? >> good. stock is going up you can do it. >> biggest question of all, he's got a great portfolio. he -- you got to like watching him in the auctions though right? >> you do. >> he was the patriots right. he didn't make the rules, you
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made the rules, he just played them extremely well. he has a great portfolio. he has to do something with it. even if he wants to sell it wholesale he has to build it. >> he's not going to build it. costs too much money to build a network. google has that money. >> google has that money. >> and you say google you say dish, and what i say at all of these, one part of the industry is fear based is my opportunity. i keep going the way we're going or if google wants to do something in the wireless space, come on. brand retail people team innovation. >> buy you is what you're saying? did you just put yourself up for sale? >> no. i play this game all the time. play from position of strength and charlie ergen's portfolio, would that go great with t-mobile? in a minute. mobile distribution content, lt, data device. >> all right. back to the network, though, are you -- do you have enough capital to make sure your network is going to compete as much as you needed it to?
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>> i'm investing like crazy. >> he is doing capex. >> right now we -- end of the year, 265 million pops and i said we're going to have 300 million by the end of the year. we bought 700 band from verizon. we're rolling out as fast as we can. we're migrating all 2 g to 4g. here's the big trick. when i -- i've now set a vision out i want to have a superior network to verizon. nobody said that before. it's not going to happen in one year. if you go out three or four years with the capital deploying and look the at low band spectrum that's what the world can look like. >> they're giving us the hook i hate. you make business fun. can't more ceos be like this guy. >> i wish more of the consumer ceos would tweet out their thoughts like you did. >> the germans -- >> this is the product of being owned by germans. >> the ceos tweet that's like some guy saying hey, tweet me something funny. you know you know you got to be in it. >> there's no ghost writer for
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him. >> doesn't tweet late at night after he's been at -- >> two drink rule. you know it and i know. >> it smart. >> we got to wrap it. john legere, congratulations, good quarter, what can i say. i like the combative attitude. the other guys they're not all that combative. maybe that can change. >> could change. >> we're not afraid. >> no. you're not afraid. >> i hope it means lower bills for our cell phones. >> all i can tell is you have the wrong provider. >> we got to go. up next on the program carl is gearing up for his interview with walmart's ceo in arkansas. take it away. >> when we come back moments away, another interview, doug mcmillon the president and ceo of walmart stores on guidance the quarter, gas prices the consumer and, of course that news about raising their minimum starting wage. we tried to get some reaction from some employees. this is katie mcnabb as we go to break, department manager and six-year employee. >> we get good people and they really do like working with the
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