welcome to "worldwide exchange." i'm carolin roth. >> i'm wilfred frost. here are your headlines from around the world. the big stock exchange reopening after a five-week shutdown. banking stocks lead the declines. meanwhile pmi data for july plummets, a 16-year low. off to a good start, investors cheer hsbc's plans starting with the sale of its brazilian units for over 5 billion pounds. meanwhile commerzbank announces its first dividend since 2007 after profits double. >> ready set, go.

u.s. auto sales are expected to past $17 million for the third month as suvs and pickup trucks remain strong in july. and you're fired. donald trump slumped because of racist comments but now first in the polls. meanwhile, joe biden is reportedly thinking about dipping his toe into the race. all right. welcome back. let's have a quick look at the athens stock exchange. it opened for the first time in five weeks today. and it is down quite heavily as expected. it was off by roughly 20%. this is what we were expecting. based on u.s. traded etf of good stocks, this big decline is by no means a big surprise. but as you can see, the banking stocks are the hardest hit. national bank of greece off by 30%. and we're seeing those declines across the banking sector. the banking sector's got a 20%

rating for the index. and there's still a lot of question marks about the health of these bank given that 93 need to be recapitalized. >> it's not just the market that is suffering this morning, the economy as well. greece's economic sentiment hit its lowest levels in almost three years, in july according to a report by the iobe think tank. the index felt from 81.3 down from 90.7 in june which is already a low reading. the director of foundation is joining us nikkos good morning to you. thank you very much for joining us markets open for the first time in five weeks. they're sharply down as expected. how, poor though is this economic survey that you've released this morning? and what does it mean for the fundamental economy in greece? >> well these are surveys that

look at the economic sentiment, the economic climate, in athens on behalf of the european commission. this is a standardized methodology of the e.u. they're important because they can serve as an early indicator for activity in the next few months. they feel confident when they're not going to spend any money. and more importantly, for businesses they're not going to invest. so what we see in the index for july which was really abnormal and very poor month for the greek economy. very much argues that the economic indicator is very slow. as you mentioned, we're going back almost three years before the 2012 elections when everything was very fluent. in july we saw basically a lot of turbulence.

we had the bank holiday in the top of their controls. and even though now it appears that there will be an agreement between greece and creditors and partners and this is what everybody appears to be working towards, there say lot ofis a lot of uncertainty about the level of activity. how soon the economy is going to recover. this is up in the air. the first half of the year the world was basically flat. we expect a very steep decline the second half of the year. overall, it will decline significantly by 2016. i'd say about 2.5%. that's the forecast. and this should be contrasted with the plan. the plan was that the greek economy would grow by about 2.5%. it was the plan that was the forecast of about a year ago. >> nikkos as you said a very

abnormal month, july. so unsurprising the sentiment reading has falling significantly. do you expect it to bounce back? because the issues of july at least partly behind us now, can the economy recover in the second half of the year? or will this have a prolonged lasting effect on greece? >> well certainly, there will be a long lasting effect for at least about a year. we expect we're going to seed adverse effect on growth. but there are certain steps that one expects are going to be taken right now. so that by sometime the midof 2016 we can see the economy going back into positive growth. and these steps are basically two. one has to do with political establishment. so one way or the other, with or wout without elections. the governing party has to clear

up how it's going to implement this agreement. which is not an easy one to implement. the second one has do do with banks. so there has to be clarity on how capitalization of the bank is going to happen. and with these two things if we put these two things in some order, by mid -- or autumn. then one expects that we're going to start climbing up towards an end to this really long lasting crisis. >> nikk ochltos, thank you for joining us. >> thank you. let's get back to the u.s. markets, i want to show you what u.s. futures look like early on this morning. the s&p 500 seemed fractionally higher. the dow up by 2 points the nasdaq set to gain 3.5 points. the s&p fell by 2%.

look, you've shhad chevron and exxon. up 20%. but futures looking a little brighter despite the negative news that we got out of the china. and the fact that greece has reopened its markets for the first time in five weeks. let's see how steady those futures are. also i want to show you the european markets this morning. the ftse 100 just around 500. xetra dax, up by a quarter of 1%. i mentioned china, i mentioned greece, those are two factors. we still have earnings that are better than expected. >> indeed the earnings over the last two weeks haven't been too poor. overridingly for the month of july it was a positive risk-on month for equities. europe sharply higher particularly the peripheral countries, excluding greece. of course yet, it wasn't a risk-on month for bonds. the safe havens the likes of

germany and the u.s. have seen bond buying. despite the fact of a rate hike in the u.s. we've seen yields from 2.4 to 2.2. in germany, we're down to 0.6 levels. it has been risk aversion for bond markets across the last month. the rates in general pretty muted for the markets. the euro shedding a little bit. of course it remains below 110. pretty weak. the yen which peaked during the second half of last month at 124.17. and sterling in folk can you bank of england and decisions coming out thursday. 1.62 flat today. and during the course of july 46.4 for wti, 51.10 for brent crude. let's get an update on asian

markets. sri is standing by. >> pmi disappointed just a shade over 47. well below the boom busting of 50. so it tells you a couple of things. perhaps the number was distorted by the stock market volatility that we saw in the month of july. it also tells you that stabilization hopes, they've been dashed underlying demand both at home and abroad still remains quite anemic. still work to do for the pboc. perhaps the investor psychology is changing every time you see weak data it builds the stimulus. that market hasn't changed. perhaps this is an excuse or catalyst for further deleveraging. so weakness in the greater china markets really one of the big schematics today. in southeast asia this is interesting i've been talking about malaysia the malaysia

ringgit was down by 1%. so it brings its losses to a new 17-year low pop for the year we're down around 9:00%. but curiously, the kl composite, the benchmark in malaysia the stock index, it was flat lining for most of the day then it shot up to more than 1.2%. wilf, you were walking about how weak oil prices are, that's dashed the malaysian economy. currency wins now. and a strong performance towards the end of the closing day. a late session rally in the afternoon. up by 1.2%. it's curious, very much at odds on what is going on in currency space. i'm doing more reporting on this and trying figure out what happened. that's where we stand. back to you. now, hsbc shares in the green after europe's largest bank beat on the bottom line.

the company posting a 10% rise in first half profits helped by a spike in trading in china. hsbc announced the sale of its brazilian unit for more than $5 billion as the firm looks to shed some of its left profitable assets. germany's second largest learned reported profits almost three times higher than the previous years, thanks in large part to its retail business. the company's chief executive hailed the bank's turn around strategy and rewarded shareholders with the first dividends in eight years. let's have a look at other top stories. president obama is set to unveil tougher climate change rules today, tackling greenhouse gases from coal-fired plants. the plan seeks to slash by nearly a third by 2020. industry groups and lawmakers in states that rely on coal-based energy intend to fight the proposal in court or congressional moves. and we're talking about

puerto rico again, the company is set for a debt default today after the government said it would miss a $58 million payment on saturday. the government's chief of staff told reporters we have no money. this would be the highest debt to fault since detroit with a $1.5 billion payment on insured pension bonds before file for bankruptcy in 2013. firefighters trying to contain dozens of wildfires burning in northern california. the largest of the fires in the lower lake other north of san francisco. the base has charred at least 21 square miles. still to come on the show citadel under attack. citadel has fallen foul of chinese regulators. we'll explain why after a short break. we'll be back in two. can a business have a mind? a subconscious. a knack for predicting the future. reflexes faster than the speed of

thought. can a business have a spirit? can a business have a soul? can a business be...alive?

welcome back. let's give you some headlines. asian markets well at its lowest levels in a year after factory in china shrinks to levels. thousands of people evacuated after raging wildfires rip through northern california. and uber is now worth more than facebook. microsoft helps the car sharing app reach the $50 billion mark. all right. let's give you a rundown of what

to watch this trading day. july, personal income in spending is out in 8:30. the july manufacturing index is due at 10:00 a.m. we've got june construction spending at 10:00. clorox and tyson foods reports results with aig, allstate out at the close. towards the euro exchange we've been referencing the fact that it's the first trading day of august july was positive for all three major indices, and most european markets as well. but are investors a little who complacent? get in touch by e-mail worldwide @cnbc, and we'll get straight to "squawk box." at barrett, the adviser, here marty, thank you for joining us. seven years of extraordinarily

loose policy. in fact, 14 or 15 years of pretty loose policy. are we seeing growth rates high enough to justify what equity markets have done in the face of that? >> well certainly here in the u.s., there's great to the stock market that are quite expensive. but with the u.s. economy continuing to grow, we're probably going to see something like 2, 2.5% this year. and interest rates, obviously are exceedingly low. they're historically low, as in like forever. pes can be as a general rule justified at these levels. the interesting thing that we find, right now, six years into a bull market the level of bullishness is amazingly low, compared to what one would think we would be at this point in cycle. >> so you're saying the level of bullishness is amazingly low. surely at the end of a six-year bull market you wouldn't expect

it to be very high? >> well usually, bull markets end in a phase of euphoria. and we're certainly not at that level yet, in our opinion. so we see the lack of bullishness of being a positive thing. >> everyone's best friend these days, there is simply no other alternative is what this acronym stands for. and that's equity these days. and i find it hard to believe that we should be buying equities because there's nothing better out there. equities so far this year for the dow, for example, haven't delivered very much. >> well we're at the stage of a cycle where i believe that you can look at equities as being -- look to the cash flows. and there are areas of the stock market where cash flows, as a percentage of where the stocks are selling are quite high.

precash flow yields in some of the big i.t. companies 10%, 12%. globally, you have holding companies which own -- these are businesses that own other businesses -- which typically undervalue business us and the holding companies themselves are undervalued. and many of these companies are in at free cash flow yield of 12%. so if you look you can certainly find areas of opportunity that i think give an investor an upside as well as a margin of safety if things don't turn bullish. >> marty, it's interesting, you also like pipeline stocks. though at the same time you say the oil. how do you reconcile that? >> so in the oil complex, you have a lot of companies which are exposed directly to the commodity. and having lived through it in

the 1980s, my view is i have no special insight as to where oil prices are going. but just like in the 1980s, everyone sthumd we'reassumed that we're going back off to the race. and i don't think that's a valid assumption. however, particularly in the united states, with the buildup of the infrastructure to support the boon in national gas explosion, you have a number of pipeline companies have have been hit hard. they're in a bear market right now, pricewise. but many of these companies don't have any exposure to the underlying price of the commodity. they are business models. so whether the price of a commodity goes up or down it didn't matter to these toll takers. so there are great opportunities in the sector which are basically price agnostic with

respect to the rate. that's a great area. >> thank you for the insight. chief investment officer and portfolio manager at baracks advisers. don't expect a rumble in the jungle. donald trump says he won't be throw anything punches in this week's republican debate as he continues to top the polls. more on that after the break. roomy new jansport backpack, a powerful new dell 2-in-1 laptop and durable new stellar notebooks, so you're walking the halls with varsity level swagger. that's what we call that new gear feeling. you left this on the bus... get it at the place with the experts to get you the right gear. office depot officemax. gear up for school. gear up for great.

welcome back. iran is planning to buy up to 90 billion airbus planes once sanctions are lifted on the company. tehran purchases the planes from airbus and boeing in equal numbers totaling 300 planes in five years. iran intends to use the planes for state funds. the united states has give the go ahead to air strikes in syria to defend against attacks from isis as well. hadley joins you around the set with more on this significant increase. will it continue to increase from here? >> i don't think anybody would ever give you a straight answer on that, judging from what we've seen i would say that that would probably be the case. the united states is spending something like $9 million a day in this fight against the

islamic state. and they're not getting visible results, are they? and now they've made it visibly to keep the united states safe. with service men getting captured in terms of a terror abduction scenario but this plays into the hands of what president erdogan in turkey is trying to make this for a long time, a fight against assad, a fight that united states doesn't want to do so far. now they've essentially gotten in bed with them. so the door is open now. donald trump is still leader of the pack. the latest nbc news/"wall street journal" poll shows 90% have picked trump as their president. meantime, vice president joe biden may be thinking about throwing his hat into the presidential race. "the new york times" reports

biden is actively exploring a run. let's get more with nbc's tracie potts in washington. tracie. >> good morning. by actively we're hearing about quiet phone calls inquiring about whether or not he would get enough support against hillary clinton. her numbers are still very strong. but some democrats and some donors are concerned about a clinton campaign. she does bring baggage from previous experience in the government as secretary of state. the e-mail scandal. a number of things that some democrats are worried about. so they're looking at possibly biden as a second choice. also that "times" report that it was his son beau's wish that he wanted his father that he'd been encouraging him for some time. he is now seriously thinking about that. in the meantime they're looking at the polls that will cut off at 5:00 tomorrow afternoon to determine which top ten republican candidates will be on the debate stage thursday night.

donald trump in our latest poll is at the top of the list. when you average the latest big polls, the top seven or eight pretty much set with bush and walker also near the top. but the last few spots, there could be some movement. we're looking at ohio's governor john kasich trying to make sure that he had actually makes it into the debate in his own state. former texas governor rick perry and governor chris christie of new jersey also vying for those number nine and number ten spots on the debate stage on thursday. >> tracie thank you so much for that. let's stick with politics but this time let's talk about germany. german chancellor angela merkel has been encouraged to stay for a fourth term. this after an opinion poll showed they could win an absolute majority if an election were held next week. secondly germany's der spiegel magazine has claimed that merkel has already decided to run for a

fourth term. however, the chancellor's chief of staff said that idea of merkel running for a fourth term remains speculation. meantime she's hiking in the alps. i don't know if she's aware of that speculation. >> i'm sure she's aware and considering it. i imagine that she still thinks there's work to be done. >> she worked pretty hard during the greece crisis that's what people think. still coming up on the show still raising ahead. u.s. car data sales is due today. are the bullish predictions justified? we'll discuss. ♪ ♪ no student's ever been the king of the campus on day one. but you're armed with a roomy new jansport backpack, a powerful new dell 2-in-1 laptop and durable new stellar notebooks, so you're walking the halls with varsity level swagger. that's what we call that new gear feeling. you left this on the bus...

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welcome to wx wgs. i'm carolin roth. >> and i'm wilfred frost. here are your headlines. >> the greek stock exchange after a five-week shutdown reopens. ready, set, go. u.s. auto sales expected to zoom past 7 million for the third straight month as sales for pickup trucks and suvs hold strong in july. and uber gets a $30 billion valuation. after microsoft invests $100 million in the ride sharing app.

and firefighters trying to contain a blaze spanning more than 80 square miles. good morning, everyone. all eyes are on the greek stock exchange. it has reopened for the first time in five weeks. and the picture that we're seeing today that is pretty ugly. the midindix is down 18%. we saw it opening down by more than 20%. but that was to be expected after all the volatility. all the back and forth over the last five weeks. let's have a look at the banking stocks bauer they're bearing the brunt of the losses. alpha bank down 30%. nbg off by 30%. and these banks have a 20% rating on the stock exchange, so that's what's driving this lower. meantime, let's check in on the european marks because it seems, by and large, they're shrugging off that weakness that we're

seeing coming from greece. we also have pretty good china date in the form of pmis. that's not dentsing sentiment too much. the xetra dax higher. the ftse 100 down by 0.2%. we had mixed earnings reports once again. in terms of u.s. futures, here's how we're looking. actually we have turned around quite a bit. the s&p 500 now off by 1.4 points. dow jones is seen off by 8, and nasdaq is seen off by more than 4 points. and a record in june according to a report by paynet for the second straight month when data is released later today, expectations offer a 0.6% increase in june compared to 0.8% growth in may. patrick, a very good morning to you. thanks for joining us. let's kick off with the property

sector in the u.s. of all the factors that janet yellen is looking at as to when to hike rates is probably one that she's not too concerned about at the moment? >> i think it will have a slight influence. and probably a positive influence. actually, the construction sector has doing pretty well lately. it has its strongest growth quarter in the second quarter in over ten years. it's one that is going to influence it because the fed is looking for stronger growth. and growth is coming midsector. >> but is the main focus still going to be on the labor market and particularly wage growth which last week was a little disappointing? so what are you looking at for this week when we get to friday's jobs report? >> we're looking for 200,000 jobs created. and for wage growth i think for wage growth what we're seeing is wages growing at about 2%. that's with the employment cost average is telling us after

friday's release. that's probably what we'll see after friday's employment report. wages are going slightly faster than inflation. and i think that's probably not going to matter much for the fed. i think that's sort of what they were thinking to begin with. >> patrick, i always just wonder whether the fed now is on cruise control. whether they really want to hike at some point this year. and whether they're disregarding some of the slightly weaker than expected data points that we're seeing in the last few days. the eci, 0.2% the slowest pace of growth since recordings began. do you agree with my viewy. >> the fed is saying a few things, one, we're going to raise rates this year. the question is whether the eci is going to influence their thinking. i think lowering the probability of a september increase but i think the odds are still very high that they're going to raise them this year and probably in

september. >> all right what is it patrick that could derail a fed hike this year in september or december, what do throw that into the works here? >> lousy employment numbers over the next two or three months. that would derail it. would definitely have an impact. i think that that -- i think that would probably be the most likely cause for them to delay. >> patrick, we're going to have to leave it here. thank you for the time. patrick newport. talking about car sales data due today, analysts are calling for a strong figure of between 17.1 and 17.3 million suvs and pickup trucks. that would be the third reading in a low above 17 something not seen since the summer of 2000.

chrysler, ford all will release numbers at 10:00 a.m. eastern time. let's join phil lebeau on what to expect. >> these are going to be strong numbers for the month of july when you look at what's driving it right now, this is truly a market -- i know we've talked about this about a market being in the sweet spot. but it really is an auto market in the sweet spot in north america. look at all the markets coming together to make it not only strong sales but profitable sales for automakers. you've got a very healthy economy. you've got a relatively low employment. and you've got low gas prices which is encouraging a lot of people when they're going in to buy a new vehicle, to not buy a small car. or even a car at all but to drive an suv. as you drive home that point listen to the stat that truecar is putting together. they have run the data for the month of july and for the first

time ever in north america, trucar says that bmw sold more x-5 suvs than the 3 series. think about that the 3 series has long been the bread and butter in the u.s. they're saying in the month of july the x-5 has sold more. if that happens and most expect that to. what, this will be the first time we've seen that since the summer of 2000. guys, back to you. >> thanks for it that. and a very interesting fact there. the x-5 potentially outselling the series 3 for bmw. former italian prime minister berlusconi is agreed to sell his take for 485 million euros. the sale comes where milan is

suffering difficulties. and a loss of 91 million euros last year. and they're the top, actually still doing better than others. >> what team is that -- >> florentyna. >> oh i see. >> speaking of soccer or football your club won, huh? >> we won yesterday. in a preseason kickoff match. it doesn't actually account. arsenal beating chelsea 1-nil. if you're watching good luck. we'll tell you why one investor will be happy to put the month of july in his rear view mirror pip. that's coming up. laptop and durable new stellar notebooks, so you're walking the halls with varsity level swagger.

that's what we call that new gear feeling. you left this on the bus... get it at the place with the experts to get you the right gear. office depot officemax. gear up for school. gear up for great.

july may have been one of the coolest months for one big name hedge fund manager. while another flush with cash is using trading measures used by him and other investors. for the details on the story, let's get out live to landon. >> they've, david einhorn that runs green capital is one of the biggest investors. the performance leaves the fund

down 9% for the year. it's not entirely clear why the fund has suffered given the recent rally in the market but one could be gold with five-year lows last week. and einhorn warned of his biggest bets last month. and filings also show a drop sharply. consol and sun edison last month. the modest rally a good shell driller, time warner chicago bridge and iron of which two or three rose last month. and it has made several bearish comments. the company's flagship fund is up 6% this year.

daniel loeb is defending it saying detractors such as unions and activists are simply wrong. with inspiring figures such as japanese prime minister shinzo abe to encourage better government practices. as it practices the allergen sale of generics to teva. as reveals suzuki motors the chicago automaker undervalued. >> landon thank you very much. the u.s. hedge fudge is putting its look on rolls royce. on friday reportedly after searching the career of the former arms boss. it wants rolls royce to speetd up cost cutting.

shares are down nearly 13% over the last three months. uber closed a new round of funding, the popular ride sharing service at $51 billion. the "wall street journal" says uber raised nearly $1 billion in the round, bringing its total funding to more than $5 billion. investors reportedly include microsoft and times enterinternet which is part of bennett coleman. another massive milestone for uber including in the likes of microsoft are including, it's highly credible. valuations extraordinarily high in this sector but uber just continues to break on the barriers. and it can transform how people travel around cities. i suppose the next step is to stop people from earning a car because ride sharing is so cheap. >> maybe the vendors have such regulatory backlash. how can they deal with that?

we know that they want to investment $1 billion in the next months. that's a big target tackling india and china. but i want to come back to valuation, when facebook made it past the $50 billion, according to "the wall street journal" piece, they had annual revenues of $2 billion. the revenue number for uber is only 400 million. so is that justified? is it something that could be sustained in the private markets? or are they really going to be the champion, sustained in the public markets or is it going to be the trademark of the public markets? >> because it's such a well-known name and everyone wants exposure to it. as you say, they don't have to list them or go for the recruitscrutiny of the public markets. so i agree it's a subsector that people should be concerned about but just going back to that regulation point. i think clearly that is what people focus on at the moment. but down the line if they can convince governments that we're actually going to enhance the

efficiency and economic performance of your cities because we can reduce congestion. we can reduce environmental pollution -- >> in new york city they're not reducing congestion. they're not. they're causing congestion. >> that's because traditional cars and taxis are still there. maybe in due course that will change. we'll see. meantime shares in nokia are trading lower despite news that german automakers are reportedly navigating a deal to buy its map business. they're set to pay up 2.9 billion euros for its mapping system that would tie into the e dw of self-driving markets. edheadlines, asian markets at lowest levels in year. investors cheer hsbc's turn around plans starting with the sale of its brazilian unit for over $5 billion. and donald trump still leading

the gop field just days before the first republican debate. "worldwide exchange" is back in two. ♪ ♪ no student's ever been the king of the campus on day one. but you're armed with a roomy new jansport backpack, a powerful new dell 2-in-1 laptop and durable new stellar notebooks, so you're walking the halls with varsity level swagger. that's what we call that new gear feeling. you left this on the bus... get it at the place with the experts to get you the right gear. office depot officemax. gear up for school. gear up for great. shopping online is as easy as it gets. wouldn't it be great if hiring plumbers carpenters and piano tuners were just as simple? thanks to angie's list now it is. we're making hiring anyone from a handyman to a dog walker as simple as a few clicks. you don't have to be a member to buy their services directly at angieslist.com but members save more on special offers. angie's list is revolutionizing local service again.

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welcome back. hsbc's turn around plan announced. we've had reports from gulliver throughout the day. the future decision depends on the structure of the bank of course, that's something they're considering. uk headquarters. he's also talking about china, the ceo of hsbc gulliver saying the selloff in china is not alarming. he said it's likely to be broadly mutual to 2020. so that's the latest from stewart gulliver. >> equity trading was the best on record.

that's helped a lot of these banks, ubs and hsbc too. let's talk about commerzbank in germany. germany's second largest lender reported profits three times higher in large part since retail business. the company's chief executive hailed the bank's turn around strategy and warned of the worst in eight years. let's have a look at european markets across the board, carolin. which we're looking at slight increases across continental europe. slight decline on the ftse. july as a whole, very positive for europe. germany up 3%. the likes of italy and france up around 5%. do bear that in mind today. we'll add to that what athens is doing, quite the opposite of continental europe. it's now down 17.7%.

at the open it's down 20%. so it's pared those losses a little bit. the bank is announcing 22% of the athens stock exchange, and they are across the board, down some 30%. let's get back to julia chatterley, now you've been following this for months years, you've been following the bank closures. you've been following the stock exchange closure. what we're seeing today is that largely in line with expectations? >> i think it's symbolic to get the stock market open. but what we've seen in some of the stocks that trade in theis hours and the u.s. sessions the banks in particular have been down around 20%. so it's interesting to see now with the an then those stock exchange that the banks actually a fifth of the overall index or 30%. so there is a bit of a divergence there. i think a lot of that comes down to the restrictions by domestic investors. they can only buy the cash that they hold or cash that they have somewhere else already in

greece. but they can't take deposited money and move it out and push it into stocks. again, it's these capital control restrictions. whereas, international investors they can do at will. i think probably that's what we're seeing today. >> we also have the economic confidence numbers at a three-year low so that's also impacting the economy. julia, thank you for that. meantime let's show what you u.s. future doing, they were positive earlier this morning. the s&p 500 seen off disfractionally. the dow jones seen off by roughly 4 points. the nasdaq 2 points. friday we closed near the session lows chevron and exxon weighing on the markets. let's give you a rundown of what to watch this trading day. the july personal income and spending at 9:30. manufacturing index due at 10:00 a.m. we also got june construction spending at 10:00 a.m.

clorox and tyson foods before the opening bell. with aig and allstate and avis budget at the close. ben, good to see you, all three u.s. indices were positive for the month of july. is that really justified? >> well i think some of that has to do with the fact that we started off very negative. if you remember, we saw a nice two or three-week rally off that low in the s&p right around the 30-24 level. we can down yes, we closed off the month for the most part of the month, very much bid activity but we've been very much range bond. if you look at volatility volatility is light right now. with a lot of european holidays and europeans taking time off. we do have key economic data. we're closing watching greece not a lot of activity, one way or the other.

we're basically range bound right now. the market has been sideways, we saw a nice surge in the nasdaq earlier last month unfortunately, we were unable to sustain that. the s&p and the wrestle on the dow didn't participate in the enthusiasm. between the virgin-type activity, uncertainty in greece uncertainty in china, yeah just a lot of sideways action for the most part. >> ben, let's touch on the nasdaq. the dow is down for the year to date slightly. as you said the nasdaq has surged nearly 8%. for the rest of the year does that unwind do we see a reversal? or do you continue to buy tech? >> well that's anyone's guess really what's going to happen for the rest of the year. i think that the tech sector is very strong right now. luke at some of the names. you look at apple, for example, again recently trading at 120 level. saw some trade below 119.25.

and for the most part holding ton that support level if we were to trade blow that that would weigh on the nasdaq the tech sector as a whole, it's very strong. >> ben, it's interesting to see utilities did incredibly well in the month of july. they're one of the best investors up 6%. is there a future for bonds? >> i think we need to watch for inflationary concerns and we have to watch the dollar. that will spill over and weigh on that a little bit. right now the dollar as we mentioned very sideways and very low volatility right now. we've seen some movement in the europe currency over the last couple days. and even in the bonds, starting to resume that wide range momentum. >> ben, thank you for that. ben lichtenstein, president of

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good morning, bringing the heat. the first week of august means more key economic data a fresh jobs report and another round of earnings. and open for business the greek stock market reopens for the first time in more than a month. so far it's not pretty but not unexpected. and disney dollars, the magic kingdom. ready to roll out results. one firm is already betting on a giant payday on the force awakens. it's monday on this 3rd of august 2015 and "squawk box" begins right now.

>> announcer: live from new york where business never sleeps this is "squawk box." good morning, welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc. we are first in business in the entire universe. i'm michelle caruso-cabrera, along with joe kernin and scott walker. becky and andrew are off today. american pharoah raced against on sunday. the 3-year-old could be returning to the haskell estates in new jersey. earning another $1.5 million. that brings his career winnings for $5.5 million. 65,000 fans were there including new jersey governor chris christie. turning -- are we supposed to wait until after he crosses -- >> he did. we won, trust me. >> personal income and spending