tv Squawk on the Street CNBC April 29, 2016 9:00am-11:01am EDT
9:00 am
>> we are. >> it is going to be a busy weekend here in omaha. andrew will join us later today. but on monday morning you can join us right here on "squawk box" for the highlights. and three hours live with warren buffett starting at 6:00 a.m. charlie munger will be here, bill gates will be here, they'll join the conversation at 8:00. we'll see you then. have a great weekend everybody. good friday morning. welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm carl quintanilla joined with david faber. we have a lot to look at this morning. europe red although q1 gdp was a shade better than expected. back home personal spending weak but roughly in line. and oil got within 50 cents of 47. that is a new high for the year.
9:01 am
our roadmap begins with shares of amazon soaring in the premarket after a solid earnings report. we'll dig into that report plus how amazon's game plan is going after netflix. >> and becky catches up with warren buffett in omaha. and more on apple's rough month. what does it need to recover? >> exxon and chevron out with earnings. what you need to know about big oil and all the energy names leading the way isn't the s&p this month. first up, amazon up sharply after posting its most profitable quarter ever. revenue growth the highest in almost four years. the sales in the company's cloud computing business up 64%. and then there's the upbeat guidance, the margins story, the operating net out of web services bigger than their north american business. >> i have to tell you, you know, on the conference call, the conference call is very flat. people understand amazon conference call it's almost like it's being spit out by amazon itself. it's just a very without any emotion. when you're seeing numbers and
9:02 am
margins and the improvement, you feel like what do they do? the whole time they've been doing this we've been waiting to see this conference call. amazon web service, david, you were the first to flag. i mean, this is a business that i think could scale -- i think bob did a piece two weeks ago -- >> he said that on air. >> it was widely -- >> when he said that number, i said what? $100 billion business in terms of its value he believes. >> we were both doing the conference call at the same time and i said, listen, i think you're wrong. might be conservative with the amount of money this could make over a five-year period. >> the margins in that business opposed to what we know amazon for are quite different. they are much, much larger than the business of selling people things and getting it to them. >> right. and telling me about international, how you can have it at home. this is one of the -- they keep using the term flywheel, which
9:03 am
is something starbucks first talked about, that's the energy. kind of a thing you can't, but they are. they have this ecosystem that is amazing. then you have things like the ek co -- echo doing well, kindle digital, people love prime. >> to your point they would basically break even internationally. >> yes. >> speaking to a couple of people this morning was a surprise and seen as a real sign of strength for the overall company. >> stock has a good shot at reversing its year-to-date losses, which we know were notable with the exception of facebook had a tough year. >> well, it's fa. what is that a note that follows do? it follows do. >> a long, long, way to run. >> right. i've got to tell you i look at this quarter and i say the bears who got short this perhaps say at 2:00 there might have been an interview with someone saying the world's coming to an end.
9:04 am
they're not even in china yet, so they don't have to worry about china. india, india, i mean, like india discovers amazon and they love amazon. >> yes. >> so this is a defining quarter. i went back and looked at the last quarter. i spent this morning looking at the previous quarter. it was just -- there was a little bit of like are you ever going to make any money and what are you doing and give us time. there's one moment in the previous quarter in the conference call where literally there's just kind of a, hey, guys, is this amazon web services is this ever going to come to fruition? well, it was three months. it was an astonishing conference call. >> yeah. >> by the way, there was only one congratulations. i mean, there should have been a million congratulations. last quarter they had an amazon prime day and they talked about pricing pressure. and no one believed them. one-time only, they were a lot in the one-time previous, everyone figured it was like a
9:05 am
secular problem. wrong. the one-time only was right. >> right. sorry, go ahead. >> meanwhile people have been talking a lot about bezos' paper profits in 20 minutes last night he made $6 billion on paper. >> who cares? >> that's enough to buy 24 "the washington post.." >> in 20 minutes i didn't have to go to the store, they brought it to my house. there's a rite aid across the street from me. >> really? >> no. >> i go to ti have it ordered. i go to amazon, they bring it to my house. i'm never carrying the toilet paper again. >> i wonder if you're paying more though. >> embarrassment factor is so big. >> really? >> have you ever carried -- you don't go to the store. your wife goes. my wife sends me to rite aid. go bring those bulky products -- no more. i go to amazon prime. >> try not to use plastic bags. >> oh, god, it's an ecological thing with you. >> yeah, get stuck in the trees.
9:06 am
>> you don't know what i'm talking about. >> no, to your point international 27%, fx neutral growth. strongest in three years incredible what you said, jimg, the cfo saying we attribute it to the prime flywheel. bringing more people in and that thing just keeps going faster. >> you thought it was a competitor to sole cycle. what it is an earning machine. >> meanwhile the dow and s&p in the green, nasdaq in the red as we go into the final trading session of the month after the blue chips did suffer their biggest one-day loss since february. becky in omaha asked warren buffett about carl icahn, who was on our air predicting a day of reckoning for the markets. here's buffett's response. >> well, there were probably -- this is the most wild -- there were probably 50,000 or people more that bought stocks today and 50,000 people that sold. so i don't know that i would pick out any one of them and put too much weight in what they
9:07 am
did. >> icahn said a lot of things about the need for fiscal stimulus, about his support for donald trump, obviously exiting apple. >> yeah. well, it certainly hurt the market. wapner did it -- our friend scott wapner did an incredible job. but i will point out for the aficionados of warren buffett, seven out of the last ten years the s&p has closed up half a percent after buffett. so monday. so monday you're going to get half a percent bump, typically, from what buffett has to say. be aware of that. it gives it up more than half of the time by the end of the week. so you're going to come in with that rosy hue, traders decided to sell off of buffett, maybe you buy today -- i mean sell off of icahn, buy today, you're going to get the same gain typically that carl icahn took away. so this is a, you know, when worlds collide icahn, wapner
9:08 am
takes the market down, buffett with becky takes the market up. only one is going to be treasury secretary. >> probably -- >> i guess in a clinton administration buffett wouldn't take the job. >> i don't see that happening. >> i don't either. >> good point. be on the $32 bill, icahn. >> icahn did warn on markets since september and since then s&p up 11%. >> i was going to point that out, but you did. yesterday kind of chided me for not calling him on an interview that was like going the guy suke dropped a bomb that said icahn fired me and said to scott why didn't cramer called me, well, because i didn't know, the interview going on, i could have said we have to hold off, cancel tonight's show. let's get ahold of icahn, let's run a rerun, but i was mid show. it was a bomb. >> i called carl on wednesday and he didn't call me back when i heard that he was -- he had
9:09 am
exited all of apple. we're even. i'm still waiting for that call back. >> well, i tweeted i'm sorry. he thought i read tweets, wapner did not have his pc ob on so he was not reading my tweets and i felt very hurt. but i know jack was watching. and jack knows this weekend i'm taking over the company. >> that's right. >> i'm being facetious. i can't do it because i'm at the white house correspondents dinner. so i'm delayed a week in taking over twitter. what's the matter? >> okay. when we come back, it's been a rough year for shares of linkedin, as you know, but the stock getting a lift on better than expected numbers and guidance. we'll have a live and first on cnbc interview with jeff weiner when we come back. stocks at the highest since that debacle in february. look at the premarket, nasdaq's down six straight and remains the only major index in the red for the month. we're back after a break.
9:10 am
why do we have aflac... aflac... and major medical? major medical boyyy, yeah! berr, der berrp... i help pay the doctor, ain't that enough for you? there's things major medical doesn't do. aflac! pays cash so we don't have to fret. something families should get! like a safety net! even helps pay deductibles, so cover your back, with... a-a-a-a-a-a-a-aflac! learn about one day pay at aflac.com/rap ♪
9:12 am
9:13 am
worries about enterprise spending that came out of your prior quarter, were they misguided? >> yeah, i don't know that there were any significant concerns on our end. the core of our recruiter business has remained solid. and we saw continuation of that in the first quarter. >> but, jeff, looking at what's changed over the past three months, your outlook is so much rosier than it was last quarter when your comments and your outlook sent the stock down 34% in one day. what has really changed in the past quarter? >> well, i think we've seen stronger than expected performance relative to our own plan internally. and as the year progresses we get better visibility into how we're performing. so i think in addition to that some of the bets that we place ed in the latter part of last
9:14 am
year for example, we've seen accelerating growth in terms of consumer engagement. and by virtue of the way the ecosystem works that has also had a chance to lift a few of our business lines as well. >> what has been -- go ahead. >> i'm sorry. it's jim. i was just going over the last quarter. and i know that you said maybe the perception, but your cfo said at one point that there was continued pressure in europe. continued pressure in asia pacific. before that this is right from the conference call, so i'm not -- it's not just the gies of the situation, in previous said headwinds prior periods displaced -- it wasn't -- there were things that basically said you had secular decline. are you saying it wasn't secular it was one off? >> i don't know that it was secular, jim. with regard to the regionals in
9:15 am
what we're seeing, interestingly enough we saw strong performance across all lines that may be more about execution than it was about a secular trend one way or another. with regard to the display dynamic, you know, we've been able to stabilize that. and we've seen stronger growth coming from our sponsored content business. >> tell us about your sponsored content business. it's been growing very fast. and my question here is these are basically ads. who are you competing with? is it facebook? and is facebook moves more into the work space, is that going to be a big problem in terms of competition? >> yeah, we're very focused on b-to-b, it's a large addressable opportunity. we think we have opportunity there by virtue of our members and the context in which we serve those members. we've got a wonderful opportunity for marketers to be
9:16 am
able to target influencers and decision makers within organizations. and the growth of that business is not only a by-product of the accelerating engagement trends that we saw, but also increasing focus on sponsored content. we really doubled down on that this year. and we're seeing the benefits in the by-product of that. >> jeff, it's david faber. i mean, to be clear, the stock collapsed last quarter in part because you lowered guidance and you did so because of talent solutions which still represents 65% of revenue. it grew 46% in 2014, 41% in 2015. i think the street's modeling 27% growth for talent solutions this year. the question, i guess, from a lot of your investors is, when will that stabilize? it was down 700 basis points year over year, are we at a stabilization point, or does it still have more declines ahead? >> the core of the business, which st north american recruiter sales, our enterprise
9:17 am
sales, is ab shuts lyabsolutely. it's been stable the past four years. that's where we're going to continue to focus. growth catalysts for the overall towns solutions includes launching next generation of recruiters, first overhaul to that product that we've had in roughly seven years and we're already seeing strong lifts in exactly the right areas there, far greater efficiencies and effectiveness for our recruiter customers. we've launched two new skews. we've acquired a company, we just launched referrals business, we see upside in our career pages area, which is an area that's been fast growing part of our business, talent, branding talent media. and we haven't necessarily had a chance to innovate there. that's going to be an area of focus going forward. the core of the business remains stable and we think we can continue to add growth drivers and catalyst going forward. >> another issue raised by some investors is stock raised comp been as much as 16% to 17% of
9:18 am
revenues. given the decline in the stock and your ability to need to attract talent, how are you going to get that down to a lower number, which i know a lot of people who own your stock or think about it want to see given how large a percentage revenues it has been. >> yeah, we want to remain and strike the right balance exactly to your point. we want to continue to be in a position where we continue to attract world class talent and at the same time we're cognizant of stock based comp percentage of revenue. as we talked a little on the earnings call we saw 100 basis points of improvement with regard to that expense. and going forward we think we can find our way towards far greater leverage in that area. we're going to start to see ongoing improvements in terms of stock based comp as percentage of revenue. >> do you think cash based comp has to go up though? if so isn't that going to hurt operating margins? >> no. i think cash based comp will remain largely stable.
9:19 am
it's just a question of managing stock based comp. and i think we're already starting to see the right trajectory there. and we're going to continue down that path going forward. >> jeff, how is that position with linda.com going? can you give us any expectations now as you've had the company for a couple quarters and what it's going to do for your earnings and revenue down the line? >> yeah. so we're largely through the integration of the team. and that's gone better than we expected. it happened faster than we expected. right now we're largely focused on the consumer elements of that business and the enterprise elements of that business. with regard to the consumer part of the business, deeper integration of linda content throughout linkedin.com, which we're excited about. we can ago gregate content not just course work. we seep deeper integration with our general subscription package, which we're already seeing the benefits of.
9:20 am
and we've seen very strong improvements in the user feedback that we're seeing for people that have had a chance to see the benefits of that integration into their existing general subscription package on linkedin. going forward the second half of this year we believe there's meaningful enterprise opportunity for linda and our learning development efforts as we continue to build out course work that's in high demand from the enterprise. and we're going to continue to develop the enterprise product suite. so we're looking forward to launching that in the second half of the year. >> and, jeff, finally from me, i mean, you mentioned the mobile app of course. you've seen real success there it seems in terms of marketing solutions. are you expecting that is going to continue to ramp in terms of your ability for example serve as successfully? and have that become a more robust part of your business? >> yeah, that's absolutely the objective there. with regard to marketing solutions and sponsored content, we're not only benefitting from
9:21 am
the launch of that mobile app, which is accelerating unique user sessions, page views, engaged feed sections where the inventory is generated for our sponsored content, that is happening on mobile and desktop. the desktop acceleration was a bit unkpmted. so looks like the rising tide is lifting both of those boats in terms of the channel mobile and desktop. we're also seeing increasing online for marketers there. we've improved our targeting capabilities. and we've just now started to pilot a program where we can sell sponsored content off of our network. so we're looking forward to seeing results from that. still early days. >> finally, jeff, we've been through a week where we saw twitter raise questions about the stickiness of social overall and arguably those were canceled out by facebook. but i just wonder where you think we are in the overall narrative of people wanting to be on social networks, at least this this country? >> yeah, i think people wanting to be connected with one
9:22 am
another, wanting to feel like they're heard, wanting to grow closer with people depending on the context, whether that's their personal lives, whether that's within a work environment, i think social is clearly here to stay. i think the means through which people are connecting whether that be traditional social platforms or this evolution and increasingly towards messaging, i think that's always going to be evolving. but i think these social platforms are very much here to stay. >> jeff, it's good to see you. congratulations on this quarter. jeff weiner of linkedin and our own julia boorstin joining us in l.a. we'll get the mad dash and opening bell after a break. they work all the time. sup jj, working hard? working 24/7 on mobile trader, rated #1 trading app on the app store. it lets you trade stocks, options, futures... even advanced orders. and it offers more charts than a lot of other competitors do on desktop. you work so late. i guess you don't see your family very much? i see them all the time.
9:23 am
did you finish your derivatives pricing model, honey? td ameritrade. everhas a number.olicy but not every insurance company understands the life behind it. for those who've served and the families that have supported them, we offer our best service in return. usaa. we know what it means to serve. get an insurance quote and see why 92% of our members plan to stay for life.
9:24 am
mary buys a little lamb. one of millions of orders on this company's servers. accessible by thousands of suppliers and employees globally. but with cyber threats on the rise, mary's data could be under attack. with the help of the at&t network, a network that senses and mitigates cyber threats, their critical data is safer than ever. giving them the agility to be open & secure. because no one knows & like at&t.
9:25 am
given you have hardly slept i want to let you know it's friday. and we're doing a mad dash now. and because you're ahead of all of us you actually have news on monster. >> i want to say the reason i'm able to do that because of this monster thing which is just incredible. okay. look at this. monster, which a lot of people have been saying had lost its edge, not unlike linkedin before you straightened that situation out. >> yeah. >> they are announcing, monster and coke -- remember, coca-cola it was incredible that mutar took that position, a lot of people say it's not working well enough. i say you're wrong. that's in your wheelhouse. >> it is. right. >> the numbers -- >> people tender and then they figure it out but the stock is acting quite positive. >> 680 million versus 650.
9:26 am
i think -- i thought i was wrong because the press has been so bad that this monster transfer to the coca-cola distribution system, which is so fabulous in europe, would begin to pick up monster -- would begin to pick up sales. i'm beginning to think what happened is it was a difficult transition because now it's starting to burst through. this stock can go back to these levels without a problem. now, i know you may think monster is not necessarily good for you but i have to given -- do you really care? >> got it. there's a man who's had a little monster. we have valeant halted for news pending. >> vault holeant holding? >> yeah, but they put out the -- it may be we're going to get news on the board adjustments that have been reported but not confirmed by the company. so we'll keep you posted -- updated on that. >> does keep you going, right? >> it does. >> listen, let's do the valeant share between 12 and 1. oh, i'm sorry, scott. >> we got to hit the bell. we have a lot more coming up.
9:28 am
images, videos, social updates. we call it dark data. 80% is invisible to most businesses. the ibm cloud has tools that can help see dark data and put it to work. hello, my name is watson. working with watson in the ibm cloud, we can help an energy company predict pipeline corrosion. and help a start-up to use social data to predict market trends. now businesses can get more out of their data. that's what the ibm cloud is built for.
9:30 am
[ applause ] you're watching cnbc "squawk on the street" opening bell in a few seconds here. at the big board today, the governor of utah, gary herbert ringing the bell with representatives from the state of utah, the utah symphony at the manasdaq medical device company pav med celebrating ipo from yesterday. a lot we haven't gotten to, the yen at an 18-month high, oil at a new year high. savings rate up to 54. >> i'm so glad you mentioned that because i've had a lot of consumer goods companies on "mad money," restaurants, anybody involved with going out. and you see the consumer was very strange in march. just didn't spend a lot of money. on that yen issue i was quite let down by a piece bank of america/merrill lynch
9:31 am
downgrading ford motor. i just felt that doesn't seem right given the fact the yen has subsidized toyota and subsidized honda, okay. and this has been something mark fields has been calling for as a level playing field. you're getting level playing field. do not leave ford right hire. it is too early to leave ford. i know that research is going to hit the stock. it's a mistake. don't leave it on that downgrade. >> meanwhile, valeant david mentioned before the break, halted for news pending. the annual report is out, which resolves some of the default risk, but it is chock full of headlines about changes, potential changes to the business practices, material, things they've found. and not to mention what we might hear after it's resumed for trading. >> you know, carl, i don't know if this is related simply to people digesting more of the -- although it wasn't halted earlier. or whether it's related to new news.
9:32 am
i don't believe we've gotten this -- the actual news on reports of a board shakeup, number of directors coming off and others going on the board of valeant. in terms of the 10k that carl just referenced, of course an important moment for valeant in terms of being in compliance with its various debt kcovenant and agreements with bondholders and banks. the 2014 statement seems to be in line with what the ad hoc committee communicated previously. there were revisions in the fourth quarter '15 results versus what had been unaudited press releases we got from the company. this also i'm getting from one of the analysts that the slides that are posted today are with the 10k suggest change in the revenues and change in valuation of certain deferred tax assets and liabilities. we are getting the news now and there you see it not guilty nignig -- nominees to the board of
9:33 am
directors. i think it's three. five independent directors will not stand for reelection. this is along the lines what was reported yesterday or perhaps the day previous. but a big board change there. bill ackman stays on the board, would have more influence it would seem at this company. the auditors while they did move revenue and profit amongst the years, positive seems to be that there's not a big black hole there anymore. there's no criminality that we're aware of at this point. so we'll see how people go through all this, jim, and try to figure out what valeant is really worth. with jeff papa taking over in a few days having exited perrigo under less than great circumstances. >> i believe ackman on the halftime one day, if i'm not mistaken. >> scott wapner has ackman on monday? that's going to be fabulous. i do think that you could argue that we've seen the worst after pearson apologized and papa as much as i wasn't happy the way
9:34 am
he left perrigo, i do think that he is grown-up in the room. so i can understand that. people might think it's now a cash flow story. let's look a cash flow. the debt, david, they haven't turned the debt issue. >> they have $30 billion in debt. that's a big issue for them. the question is will he move to sell some assets and sort of put that concern aside? or do they feel that they can run the company as is with the that they have with the ever raising drug prices and till be able to meet obligations in terms of growth. >> or is the heat going to die down? hillary has been pretty heavy about this, but she couldn't -- look at her as a person who maybe the bark is worse than the bite. maybe we've hit the 52-week low.
9:35 am
i don't know. >> we did get numbers out of amgen, beating but a 9.3 hike. >> gilead has issues. revenue per payment declined because of higher rebates, higher volume discounts -- you need pipeline visibility here. while they generate at 3.9 billion, they have 21.3 billion in cash. can i say right now they have to buy someone? and the fact that they bought back $8 billion in stock 46 million shares with 1.3 billio shares outstanding, doesn't cut it. they have to buy someone. and they have to do it now. because people have decided that this -- there's competitions coming in even though they have 90% of the market.
9:36 am
people just -- the hmos are not going to let them get away with it. this is a very troubled rich company. >> they have -- to your point, rich, huge balance sheet capacity. an enormous amount to have debt to buy something big if they wanted to. >> right. but i think they're looking at what happened to their stock today and making a judgment is our buyback really doing anything. and the answer is no. it's not. >> speaking of buybacks, we got exxon and chevron. exxon well ahead although it is the smallest profit since 1999 for xom. chevron a little bit wider loss than expected 39 cents versus 20 cent loss estimate. although chevron is the third best dow stock of the month behind pfizer and jpm. >> chevron has been a growth stock. they had a lot of oil come on the gulf of mexico. but i think the key thing -- actually a couple things. we heard they put the 33 capital expenditure cut. we know how big that is. this is a very tough situation. exxon is really showing absolutely that they knew what
9:37 am
they were doing. and i got to hand it to them. i've been critical sometimes because they don't have the growth, but here's an amazing statistic. they upstream down 2.9, be ware the actual oil patch 2.9, but chemicals plus 1.4 billion. that's 373 million more than -- that's a huge margin. so they're taking the oil, but they kept their downstream. remember they kept their refining and marketing, and they have the fabulous chemical business. exxon is so good. i feel bad that i've been so critical of them because this is -- they show what they're really like. they're like warren buffett when the tide goes out they have a sw swimsuit on. other guys like, man, that's awful. >> nobody wants to see that. >> no. there's no shrinkage to the quarter though. >> let me quickly mention deal we covered closely yesterday, that is unsolicited bid to acquire medivation. they were swla slow yesterday to
9:38 am
even really communicate with the market and try to get the upper hand, but this morning they reject as we might have expected they would the board unanimously determining that the unsolicited proposal is in their words substantially undervaluing medivation. they didn't use the words grossly inadequate. perhaps on the sanofi side they'll take some comfort in that. we'll see where this goes. they say medivation has value as one of the few companies with key therapies for prostate cancer and key for label expansion for that same prostate cancer drug, jim. this is going to go on as i reported and is most important perhaps you can act by written consent. this company is likely to be sold. the question is simply at what price and to whom. >> you know, look, i've got to tell you, we are seeing a level of deals which tells me to whom
9:39 am
could be anybody. sanofi great relationship with general doesn't really seem to matter. deals have been working though. we've seen deals work. look at that deal with rubbermaid with darden, martin frankly combining with mike polk, that is the kind of thing that happens when you do m&a here and there's a shortage of growth. so let's point out m&a has to come back for these companies. has to. you're in the sweet spot, david. >> on a day where we got row v.v. v v. tee tivo. >> yeah. billion dollar deal. tom rogers. >> there you go. oechbtly going to happen. david, what are you hearing about national -- >> nothing. it's up every day. >> is it? ge -- i know i was looking at
9:40 am
this is the chatter. not so big versus baker hughes that ge couldn't afford it. they could use their digitization, i think the deal makes sense. i know there are a lot of people to say where are they to double down on the oil patch. i'm looking at oil every day and thinking when will someone buy -- when is someone going to make a move? look at this freeport. oil is doing well, copper's doing well. nobody bought anybody in the oil patch. it's time before it gets away. >> exxon and cat the two dow leaders today. let's get to bob pisani on the floor. bob. >> hi, i'm just checking on valeant here. we're waiting for it to open. we still have indications 35.50 to 37.50. just a small crowd there. might open in the next couple minutes. i'll keep an eye on that one for
9:41 am
you. the important thing is we went through a very rough patch on earnings for the early part of the week and the middle part of the week. a lot of disappointments. at least in the new tech in the last 24 hours or so numbers have been notably better. so we saw this with linkedin, with amazon, with paypal, with pandora, put up numbers here, expedia, facebook of course we got earlier. all numbers excellent, expedia up 8% here, freeport slightly smaller than expected in advance of sales of mining and equipment operations here, that is going to accelerate debt reduction. debt reduction is a big theme. look at what happened to a.k. steel. they floated 52 million shares in a secondary. that's one-third of the float of the whole company at 4.40, that's a discount of 10%. that's pretty amazing here. they're going to use that to pay down debt. this is energizing the market. exxon mobil, oil and gas,
9:42 am
upstream, downstream big in chemicals here, smaller loss in downstream than earnings expected. jimmy's right about the chemicals business. it's at the highest levels since may right now. finally just want to note chevron had a loss bigger than expected. the problem with chevron is more than any big oil company. it's leverage directly to the price of oil. still waiting for valeant to open. guys, back to you. >> thanks very much, bob pisani. want to get to some news we were sort of hitting a bit yesterday. when we talk to miles white, ceo of abbott, but overnight an interesting press release. a deal some time back between abbott and a company called aleer, make tests for point in your doctors office to check for things like tuberculosis, malaria, dengue, it was a $5.8
9:43 am
billion deal when it was announced back in february. but since then we've gotten some strange comments from abbott in which they don't seem to be willing to affirm their willingness to follow through with the deal, at least in the way that aleer shareholders would like and the stock has suffered. last night a very interesting press release from alere where it said we got lender approvals for extension file for our 10k, kind of similar issues valeant was facing not long ago. this in part because of investigations that are underway in terms of revenue recognition from latin america and china, this was all disclosed by the way some time back, all disclosed to abbott prior to them doing the deal. it involves fcpa investigation at least at this point that is an fcpa investigation, foreign corrupt practices act. abbott though apparently wanted to get out of the deal. and yesterday we asked miles
9:44 am
white this very question as to why they would not confidently reaffirm their support for the transaction. here's what he had to say. >> alere is working for its issues. it's not appropriate for me to comment on that while they're working through their issues. and i've said, you know, not appropriate to comment and i've got to maintain that position. now, at the same time i've said, look, we have contemplated in our financing the ability to close both deals. you know, murphy's law, same time. >> abbott -- excuse me, alere says in press release that abbott expresses concerns it tried to get out of the deal by paying them between $30 million and $50 million in terms of covering their expenses and abbott -- and alere said absolutely not. what i can tell you is it's a very tight merger agreement that does not allow for material adverse change being considered as an fcpa investigation, such a thing is not allowed for under the mack. so given that tight merger agreement, if in fact this
9:45 am
company is able to produce financials, that 10k, let's call the next four to six weeks as they have made it clear that they expect to, one would expect that this will be a very tight deal and a hard one for abbott to get out of. but we're going to have more on that. right now let's head to the bond pits and rick santelli at the cme group in chicago. >> david, your timing's impeccab impeccable, the buzzer rang, data is out. 50.4, 50.4 we were expecting a number closer to 53 last month unrevised at 53.6. when was the last time we had a number as weak as 50.4, look at february. that read was 47.6. let's get to the markets at hand, shall we? i have to start in europe, okay. let's look at a one-day and one-week of bund yields. they're right back on top of a big range. if you look at a one-week of
9:46 am
tens, we are not necessarily on top or close to the top of our recent range even though we're not far from it, which means the next chart has to be let's look at the history of ten-year yields minus bunds. notice that dropped us from march 1st dropped under the 160 which seems to holtd us, 170 always seems to stop us, what that 157 differential tells me is either bund deals are going to come down quick or ten-year note yields are going to rise. i think europe's leading. could be a trade there, what do you think? foreign exchange, dollar index, let's not look at day or week, let's look at 20-year chart, why? we've been talking about we're in some big areas in the marketplace. look at that 20-year chart, look at 100, look at the way it's coming off, significant. let's look at a one-year chart of the euro versus dollar, it's rather significant level although there's a lot of areas right around here at 114 up to 116 but we are virtually at the best since around halloween last year.
9:47 am
year-to-date of dollar/yen, there's where all the action is, weakest level on the dollar since october 14. carl, back to you. >> all right. i'll take it, rick. we're going to update people on valeant which has now opened for trading. the company has said it will add three new independent directors nominating them to its board. five independent directors not standing for re-election. the company also releasing its long-delayed 10k filing this morning. and you can see the reaction is positive right now. joe papa will soon take over as the company's ceo. michael pearson of course stepping down as ceo and as a director upon his arrival. also howard shiller who stepped in for mr.n part when he was ill and was long-time cfo will be not standing for re-election to that board of directors. guys. back to abbott for a second, they by the way say they are awaiting access to the information they've requested from alere relating to filing delays in that 10k, and
9:48 am
circumstances surrounding criminal grand jury subpoenas about the foreign corrupt practices action, jim. it's very rare to see this kind of fight. and people simply think once the st. jude deal came along for abbott they decided maybe we don't want to do the other deal. >> something, i can't wait to see bill ackman on for a full hour on monday with scott wapner because i still think there are issues. but you know what, i see a trend going on here in terms of the company coming forward to get some of the new board members. >> yeah. maybe some people think the worst is behind them. >> i'm starting to head that way. but i did have this fondness for joe papa, i just didn't like the way he left perrigo. i used to live next door. >> perrigo shareholders. >> then i got -- i don't know, stay at 10, 15? >> as long as you like. when we come back taking a pulse of the travel industry. we'll talk with the ceo of expedia. big gainer today on the surprise profit and some decent guidance. the ceo of the cruise ship
9:49 am
operator royal caribbean is up, although the dow is taken a bit of a spill on that weak chicago pmi. 50.4. back in a minute. there's a lot of places you never want to see "$7.95." [ beep ] but you'll be glad to see it here. fidelity -- where smarter investors will always be. if only the signs were as obvious when you trade. fidelity's active trader pro can help you find smarter entry and exit points and can help protect your potential profits. fidelity -- where smarter investors will always be.
9:50 am
9:51 am
no, i'm actually over at the ge booth. we're creating the operating system for industry. it's called predix. it's gonna change the way the world works. ok, i'm telling my brain to tell the drone to get you a copy of my resume. umm, maybe keep your hands on the controller. look out!! ohhhhhhhhhh... you know what, i'm just gonna email it to you. yeah that's probably safer. ok, cool.
9:52 am
amazon awful close to getting positive for the year with a 9% gain today on back of results that crushed estimates last night. we'll talk about that and get stop trading with jim after a break. so i trade with e*trade, where true traders trade on a trademarked trade platform that has all the... get off the computer traitor! i won't. (cannon sound) mobility is very important to me. that's why i use e*trade mobile. it's on all my mobile devices, so it suits my mobile lifestyle. and it keeps my investments fully mobile... even when i'm on the move... ahhh.
9:53 am
9:54 am
i'd have driven the length of a football field blindly. not funny at all. don't text and drive. the more you know. not funny at all. man 1:man 2: i am.ive. woman: ex-military? man 2: four tours. woman: you worked with computers? man 2: that's classified, ma'am. man 1: but you're job was network security? man 2: that's classified, sir. woman: let's cut to the chase, here... man 1: what's you're assessment of our security? man 2: [ gasps ] porous. woman: porous? man 2: the old solutions aren't working. man 2: the world has changed. man 1: meaning? man 2: it's not just security. it's defense. it's not just security. it's defense. bae systems.
9:55 am
time for cramer and stop trading. >> that controversial interview scott wapner had with carl icahn last night. basically say iing feeling less certain about china. my hat's off to carl icahn who i love, love, love. today suke missed his reaction. he didn't realize why i called him fe sees facetious but -- ca in 1919 the company going to pay bigger dividend. disagreement was over return of capital. and suke questions whether a
9:56 am
$5.19 what's it worth today and he says it's not worth 70 and that carl icahn, well, he's basically saying there was a real disagreement about reinvesting the capital versus dividend. i wanted to follow-up because i know carl felt i didn't call him. well, at least i went back after scott wapner, trying to be following up on carl. love carl, disagreement between these two. but no disagreement that he fired suke. >> indeed. >> yeah. >> look forward to carl talking with -- we got ackman on monday. >> i know. >> where's wapner? >> on squawk monday. >> will you see him tonight, wapner? >> tried to put in that plan that was outrageous. >> i never felt bad. suke made a lot of money. not an issue. he made a lot of money. but he also made people a lot of money for people who used to watch the show. it's controversial. >> yes, it is. that's fine with us. what's on mad tonight? >> you know, this deal broke
9:57 am
down with first energy just to get a sense of where things are going, tim boyle, they got hurt by bankers in bankruptcy, they make columbia, and greg silver is one of the best performing stocks i've had on "mad money." the stock's been fantastic. you can make money doing boring. you don't have to necessarily be in the crosshairs. you don't have to apple, bulls and bears at it again or linkedin. >> jim, long week. we'll see you tonight. >> and this weekend i hope. >> you always lean back when the show -- >> because i got to get oxygen. i need oxygen for the show. you have to provide oxygen. >> you do. >> we'll get consumer sentiment after the break. >> under your seat cushion. before earning enough cash back from bank of america to buy a new gym bag. before earning 1% cash back everywhere, every time
9:58 am
and 2% back at the grocery store. even before he got 3% back on gas. kenny used his bankamericard cash rewards credit card to join the wednesday night league. because he loves to play hoops. not jump through them. that's the excitement of rewarding connections. apply online or at a bank of america near you.
9:59 am
looktry align probiotic.our digestive system? for a non-stop, sweet treat goodness, hold on to your tiara kind of day. live 24/7. with 24/7 digestive support. try align, the #1 ge recommended probiotic. the call just came in. she's about to arrive. and with her, a flood of potential patients. a deluge of digital records. x-rays, mris.
10:00 am
all on account...of penelope. but with the help of at&t, and a network that scales up and down on-demand, this hospital can be ready. giving them the agility to be flexible & reliable. because no one knows & like at&t. good friday morning. welcome back to "squawk on the street." i'm carl quintanilla, sarah, simon.
10:01 am
that drop yesterday being met with biggest in two months. dow down 118, chicago pmi comes in light that despite the fact crude is managing a very slight gain. we got some data on the way too. >> yes, we've got consumer sentiment data at this hour. with that let's send it over to rick santelli for the numbers. rick. >> thanks, sarah. well, first of all 89.7 mid-month read toss that out. the final read for april, 89.0. and even though 89.0 is a bit smaller than the 89.7 as i said, that's the mid-month, you have to go all the way back now to september of last year 87.2 is the read we comped at since the last time we'd been this week if you look at current conditions they did improve to 106.7. so of course we want to continue to monitor this. and in about 20 minutes we'll dig down on the chicago purchasing number which was also a bit weaker than expected. carl, back to you. >> rick santelli, thank you very much. amazon is the big mover of the
10:02 am
day. sales are surging after company crushed earnings last night. the cfo addressed the company's relationship with u.p.s. on the call. take a listen. >> logistics question, the reason is so we can serve our customers faster and faster delivery speeds. and we've need to add more of our own capacity to supplement our carriers and pafrtners. they're still great partners, have been and will continue to be for the future, but we see opportunities where we need to add additional capacity. and we're filling those voids. >> joining us this morning mark may, senior internet analyst at citi. mark, good morning to you. >> hey, guys. good morning. thanks for having me on. >> there was some trepidation going into the print on that margin story. did they answer anybody who had any questions about that? >> yeah, that's right. a few weeks ago we wrote a deep
10:03 am
dive on this with our transportation analyst here. and we thought the concerns were unfounded. i think when amazon is doing is actually like brian said, bringing on new partners, new capacity. and it intends to both continue to improve their service delivery, but importantly actually lower costs for them. and that's what we've seen historically, and that's what we saw in q1. they're actually continuing to manage down the cost of fulfillment and shipping at the same time improving the service levels. >> the revenues are not even close yet, but when you look at web services versus the retail business, people are trying to draw the argument now that they're increasingly relying on aws, in a good way. do you agree? >> no, not at all. look, retail is still 91% of the company's revenue. retail grew in the high 20% year on year in the quarter. so absolutely not. but that being said, look, aws
10:04 am
is growing twice as fast as the retail business. it has five to six times greater profitability than the retail business. and like i said it's only 9% of revenue. so as that mix continues to shift, you know, i think the biggest impact here is that the company on a consolidated basis is just becoming more and more profitable. and i don't think we're not that long from now when amazon is going to be generating $20, $30 a share in earnings. and to the surprise of some of the skeptics out there, you can actually value more on earnings. >> that's just what i was going to ask you this idea that this is the fourth quarter in a row of profits, how reliable are those profits going to be, i guess, going forward? and just walk us through quickly what that does when it comes to changing the multiple? >> yeah, well, the good thing here is the retail business is actually improving profits as well. we saw the international segment turn profitable in the quarter.
10:05 am
north american retail business is trending towards 5%, 6% operating margins. so that is definitely a tailwind. but, yeah, as the cloud business is still in the early days here 60% growth doing, you know, significant profit margins. and as that mix continues to shift toward faster growth, higher margin cloud, we think the multiple goes higher. and that's why we have a buy in our price target close to $800 a share. >> hey, mark, what happens to the relationship with u.p.s. over time? and the other delivery companies, but i guess u.p.s. ased main logistics provider. are they able to essentially take the value from that relationship, do they beat them down to really low marginmargin? doi they expand their own delivery options so they can take on other customers as well? how do you think it plays out longer term? >> so actually this has been going on for two years. i think people don't fully appreciate that they've moved a lot of the capacity already to
10:06 am
other channels for less miles. but they're creating a federation of partners, right? not just relying on u.p.s. and fed ex which delivered 70% something package volumes two or three years ago, now only 30% something. and it brought on local regional partners, the u.s. postal service they're acting more like a freight forwarder where they're working with a much broader array. we don't see them building a big logistics business to go head-to-head with u.p.s. this is in delivering packages for say citi group or cnbc, this is about trying to improve logistics for the amazon business. >> mark, we're dealing with a company where, i mean maybe you disagree, but quarter-to-quarter the results are lumpy. we never know exactly how the margin story's going to come in. you see big swings after the bell, bezos either makes or loses billions of dollars. so how do you best advise
10:07 am
investors to know which quarter is going to be which? >> i would advise investors that are focused on quarter-to-quarter, you know, profit to maybe look somewhere else and for investors that have a view that's more consistent with bezos' or with warren buffett's. i know you had him on earlier. you know, to take a longer term view and are believers in the long-term vision of bezos and of the amazon story. you know, more appropriate for them. and i think investors that are focused on quarter-to-quarter have had too many sleepless nights for amazon probably time to get some sleep. >> mark, thanks so much for the insight today. mark may talking at amazon. ahead of the best of my recollection -- berk shire hathaway -- our own becky talks
10:08 am
with warren buffett. >> let's talk about gdp because first quarter numbers that came in today stunk. 0.5%, that was the weakest growth in two years. does this feel like a 0.5% gdp economy to you? >> something like that. yeah. it's certainly not accelerating. and it isn't declining. but it's very slow growth. and of course as you would expect when the number's very low it's irregular in various parts of the economy. the economy is not booming. on the other hand it's not falling apart in any way, shape or form either. >> so economists say that the quarter we're in right now already feels like it's better 1.5% to 2%, you don't think so from where you stand? >> i don't know, but i don't see them accelerating. >> one thing that struck me from the gdp numbers was that the consumer really hung in there. consumer spending was very strong. you think about that in the context of lower prices at the gas pump. >> sure. >> as we're watching oil prices pick up, should we worry that that is going to hurt the
10:09 am
consumer that maybe we've taken for granted all of this extra spending they've been doing because of low gas prices? >> yeah, but they're still low. i mean, sure if it goes back to $100 a barrel that's different. but not only are gas prices low, but interest rates are low. so people borrowing money on cars have a lower payment than they would have to make if rates were quite a bit higher. and certainly on homes mortgage payments have dropped dramatically. so people have more money to spend on other things. and employment is not bad. >> what do you see just in terms of the economy through a lot of different sectors? you have so many businesses and so many reads that you get on this, how do you think the consumer's doing right now? >> i think consumer's doing pretty well. but i can tell you railroads are also doing very well. >> big part of it is coal. way more than people anticipated. coal stockpiles were already very large at utilities going
10:10 am
into the winter. and then having a very mild winter, there was no more electricity produced last year than the year before. so the coal stockpiles remain high. so the falloff in coal production has been a lot more than any of the railroads anticipated including ours. >> if you stripped out coal, would you be thinking railroad shipments are doing well? or is there weakness across the board? >> no. i think when i get the figures every week there's about 25 categories or something of the sort. and a very significant percentage of those are disappointing. >> when you think about the industrial economy, that was what we were so worried about at the beginning of the year. you have a lot of industrial businesses too, how does it look from that perspective? >> they do okay, but they're not accelerating. the economy is not -- but it's not getting worst. i don't want to give that impression in the least. and as you pointed out the consumer is in better shape than before, so the world's not falling apart. but we're not seeing a lot of
10:11 am
buoyancy either. >> warren buffett ahead of course of a huge weekend and as usual a bonanza on monday morning. i didn't realize the extent of the international attraction here. apparently there are hundreds of chinese for example they're actually set up in a room at the meeting and watch with simultaneous translation. it's really a world event. >> for the first time they can stream it on yahoo finance, the berk shire hathaway meeting, so i wonder if attendance will be as great. he also made other comments i thought was interesting, becky asked him about new interest rates phenomenons out of japan and europe, he said the idea is uncharted territory says he, quote, hopes to live to find out how the story ends, but do not believe they signal the end of the world. which is a view that is out there right now, all the doom and gloom has to do with special negative interest rates watch the yen strengen in opposition of the bank of japan --
10:12 am
>> only you can take a warren buffett discussion to the end. >> he talked about negative rates. >> we'll sit down with warren buffett, charlie munger and bill gates a three-hour special starts at 6:00 a.m. expedia is one of the top gainers today as results homeaway acquisition really starts to charge big bucks to list a holiday home on its site. expedia's ceo dara khosrowshahi will join us next. i could get used to this. now you can, with the luxuriously transformed 2016 lexus es and es hybrid. ♪ ♪jake reese, "day to feel alive"♪
10:15 am
welcome back to "squawk on the street." we have a market flash for you here on shares of mdc partners. this is a marketing and communications company. the shares are down 14% right now on heavier than average volume. they were down as much as around 23% triggering a downside trading curve at one point. this after noted short selling research firm gotham city targets mdc partners in one of their research reports. in it daniel yu, the principle there says that, quote, mdc shares are now worth less than $1 per share implying 96% downside. it said mdca will restate several hundred historical -- title of the report mdc partners like valeant pharmaceuticals but with understated debts. nbc we should point out, simon, did not immediately return a call for us. we wanted to bring it to your attention, simon. more details to come.
10:16 am
the rest of that story by the way on cnbc.com right now, simon. back to you guys. >> thank you, dom. expedia is one of the top gainers underlying profits 9 cents a share not 6 cent losses expected. of course expedia integrates $6 billion worth of acquisitions from last year, the orbitz brand and vacation site homeaway. together they've helped boost growth in room night sold to a gain of 37% last year. the ceo of expedia dara khosrowshahi joins us now exclusively from l.a. dara, good morning to you. >> good morning, thanks for having me. >> it's nice to see you. i guess the swing factor here is the fact that you've started to charge the homeaway customers $349 for listing online, $409 if they choose not to go online. how does that stack up for that business? and i guess the ultimate question is against air bnb. >> homeaway has been a listings
10:17 am
model for some time and a number of different tier which is made the business complex as to what kind of listings you should buy. we wanted to simplify the program, have one price. obviously a discount if you're on like bookable because consumers really want to see that online bookable inventory. we've taken average listing price down and really encouraging our owners and managers to make their listings online bookable so they can get as much demand as they can on homeaway and eventually on expedia and other sites. >> do you look at air bnb for comparisons? >> oh, yeah, we look at air bnb all the time. terrific competitor. obviously they have brought a lot of sharing type of inventory online and clearly consumers want to book that inventory. they're very attracted to that inventory. homeaway has whole home inventory in resort destinations, florida, et cetera. so we want to take that inventory online.
10:18 am
and as you know we know how to bring properties online and we know how to market those properties to travelers to book. >> of course the outgoing ceo of your bigger rival priceline posted he passed on buying homeaway because he felt it was too expensive. you've been a serial acquirer and they've broadly focused on organic growth. how did you feel yesterday when you learned that daryn had resigned as a rival because of an inappropriate relationship? >> you know, it was real surprise. daryn was an incredible competitor, really, really strong ceo and just very unfortunate that he made a mistake. and i think the priceline board did what they had to do. they're really lucky to have jeff boyd as their chairman because he was running that company, you know, for years and years and years. i don't think they're going to miss a step. we're going to focus on running our business and growing our business. woe had a good start to the year with q1.
10:19 am
>> right. >> and we hope to continue that momentum. >> i mean, how do you respond as a business now to not knowing whether the strategy will be maintained? do you buy up properties just in case there's a new ceo who changes strategy? i mean, have you locked down -- have you super locked down the management team so that nobody takes its place? because they're looking for a new person. >> yeah, i'm sure they're looking for a new person. you know, our senior management team has been together on average i'd say between seven and ten years. it's a group of individuals who are very passionate about expedia. i'll tell you the last thing they would do is go work for a competitor. i'm pretty confident of that even though priceline is an amazing competitor. i think we just have to focus on our jobs and our meetings. we have a big job ahead of us as far as integrating orbitz, bringing homeaway online and transactional. continuing to grow our core brands, hotels.com and expedia, and if we stick to our knitting, we keep pushing more strategy i think we'll be more than fine. >> dara, i know so many people
10:20 am
that have canceled vacations because of the zika outbreak in the caribbean and south america, i'm just wondering what your overall sense of it is in terms of economic impact to some of these hotels and airlines and countries involved. >> it's really unfortunate. you can add paris to the list there as well. bookings to paris are still down year on year. a lot of hotels are hurting and we do everything we can to promote these destinations when they're safe. obviously we tell our consumers to do the right research, et cetera. we're doing everything that we can to help the hoteliers on the ground as far as promotions go. what we do find is consumers still want to travel. they still want to go on that summer vacation, et cetera. so we see demand patterns around some of these events. so for example southern europe, portugal and spain are really, really strong. mexico for us as a destination is really, really strong. so consumers still want to go. they still want to travel. the u.s. is a destination that's
10:21 am
a great destination. it's really strong. they will go travel. we'll be there to serve them wherever they want to go. >> dara, it's an open question still more broadly as to whether you're going to be a victim of your own success. arguably you ate the hotel brand's lunch for many years and they're clearly very angry about that. and people have seen marriott and hilton with more direct advertising to consumers trying to get book directly not through an online travel agency and arguably for lower prices on their own website perhaps within the loyalty programs. are you seeing that show up in your figures already? and when you see marriott rates itself partly because it now sees greater value in its 75 million loyalty subscribers, are you concerned that they could create an online travel agency effectively out of that? >> we're not concerned about that. with marriott, with starwood, what they do is very different from what we do.
10:22 am
as many as ten times on a global basis as they do. we've been partners for a long time and we really respect them and they're a terrific company. and they are to some extent doing what anyone would do, which is you want a balance of direct business and you want a balance of indirect business. we're going to be there for them on the indirect side. that channel has been growing for years and years. as you know we've been growing substantially faster than the industry. and the hoteliers that give us that pricing, hoteliers that give customers the best experience are the ones that are going to gain share in the marketplace. and there are hundreds of thousands of hotels that are doing just that right now. >> it's good to see you, sir. thank you for spending the time. dara khosrowshahi joining us there. ceo of expedia from l.a. also in travel news, on monday of course we have the first ship really for 50 years that's going to head from the u.s. mainland to cuba. it's with carnival. carnival cruise lines. since the embargo was lifted, and i'll be on it.
10:23 am
>> onboard. >> onboard reporting live into this show, satellites permitting. >> but you can't go to the beaches, right? in cuba. because it's not one of the tourist -- >> no. the rules haven't changed so it's still an exchange type of voyage. you have to meet people, you have to do good works although there are changes. >> i'm excited. >> so i will go to the beach. when we come back, more headaches for google a week after the eu filed those former charges on using its dominance with android operating system. getting images is lodging an official complaint in europe, what that means for the tech giant. that's the latest column from james stewart of the "new york times." we'll talk to him. meanwhile, s&p within a point or two of going negative for the month. back after a break. [ soft music ]
10:26 am
e.t. phone home. when you find something you love, you can never get enough of it. change the way you experience tv with xfinity x1. the european commission launching a formal antitrust case against google and parent company alphabet this month. regulators accusing the company of abuse iing its dominant position. our next guest says the eu's efforts might actually be
10:27 am
helping the company's rivals more than customers. joining us at post nine to explain cnbc contributor pulitzer prize winning "new york times" columnist jim stewart. jim, there are a lot of politics at play here googleersus the eu. >> yeah. >> what kind of case are you making in this column? >> well, let's be clear here about what this is really about. everybody is claiming, oh, we want to protect consumers. this is not about consumers. consumers in europe apparently love google. they have a bigger market share of search in europe than they do in the u.s. no consumer in europe is complaining because google is on their phone. and by the way, if they don't want to use google search, all you do is go in the google play store, tap and you get a different one. i wenlt on my phone there are like scores of these things i'd never heard of. so who is really behind this? number one microsoft is pushing for this. they're obviously trying to get their bing browser on things, but they have now supposedly buried the hatchet. and this russian company yandex has been really pushing for this. they have the dominant share in
10:28 am
russia, but they've been losing ground to google. ironically here's the european union going to bat against google for yandex? the europeans really want to send their shopping, search data to a company that impugns russia which invaded crimea and last i knew was being sanctioned by the european union? this is crazy. >> one thing i can say we've interviewed the eu commissioner on this program so many times. she's in charge of these investigations and antitrust, and she would say to the political accusations that she loves google. she's an avid user of google, but if you're going to do business in the eu, you have to be fair. they are dominant. and they've abused that dominance. and that does hurt the customer no matter who's helping them build that case for them. >> there was a very similar case filed in the u.s. plaintiffs went in and said we didn't know google was on there. and we don't like that. so the judge said, okay, i'll accept that, i'll accept those facts. but how are you hurt? how are you harmed?
10:29 am
well, are you paying more for your phone? no, can you get another one by tapping on it? yes. she threw the case out said nobody's been hurt. >> you've become much more tabloid in your approach to these things, jim. you know the system in europe that they are competitors antitrust are built around what competitors say. the accusation here is you're restricting competition and therefore innovation and therefore consumers further down the line. it's a much more theoretical approach. it may be wrong, but that's the direction in which they're heading. it's not to favor the russians. it's say if you didn't bundle this in there would be more search innovation, more players and longer term that would help consumers. >> but there is not a shred of evidence to support that. >> they're asking the question, aren't they? they're charging and say you respond. >> yes, that's true. they have an opportunity to respond. where are those responses going to go? years ago that was a little more serious because it was harder to switch, you know, with the explorer on your desktop. but anyway they made microsoft give a choice.
10:30 am
guess what, technology went by, nobody cares about that, europeans don't even care about that. microsoft is expired now, microsoft can put it back on there. it had no real effect. >> is your advice this is the cost of doing business? what do you do? >> well, if i do what google is doing, they're going to fight it, argue about it. i suspect ultimately they're going to have to take it off in europe. and guess what, the europeans 90% of them will probably just download it back on. so i don't think it's a serious threat to google even if they lose this case. but i am calling out europe on this. sort of like saying what's the theory here. some abstract philosophy about competition, why spend all the money? why attack u.s. technology companies? and by the way, how about the giant cement merger between a swiss company and french company the two biggest cement countries in the world that merge direct horizontal competitors. did the eu have problems with that? no. >> it's harder to switch cement than it is your search engine.
10:31 am
>> exactly. >> well, i would just say to fwo farther in your point the conspiracy theory here is that the american technology firms are dominant. and european technology firms can't compete. and they've just been left behind. and that the europeans what they're actually doing is trying to make it easier for their own countries and continents to have successful companies. >> i've been -- i've written a column this isn't the way to compete. go out there and really compete and invent something. do something. you've got the skill. you've got the technology, you've got the universities. incubate something. create something. don't waste your time on these regulatory actions. >> they've all moved here. >> they actually have. the german sent that group to a parachute into palo alto for a few months to try to pick up the atmosphere or something. maybe it will work. >> jim, we love it when you get worked up. jim stewart of the "new york times." >> let's get to sue herera and get a news update. morning, sue. >> good morning, carl. jim is one of my favorite
10:32 am
people. i love to hear him talk. here's what's happening at this hour, 20 people were arrested after donald trump supporters and protesters clashed in costa mesa, california. the mayhem erupted following a trump event. dozens of cars were trapped as demonstrators blocked the road. police in riot gear and horseback were called in to control the crowd. north korea reportedly attempted to launch two more ballistic missiles. neighboring south korea reports that they were powerful intermediate range missiles and both launches were unsuccessful. that makes three apparent failed launch attempts by north korea in recent weeks. vice president biden brought his crusade against cancer to the vatican. biden who lost his son to cancer received a blessing from pope francis at a vatican medical conference. the pope called for an economic paradigm shift in medical research. and the olympic flame for the rio 2016 games made a stop at the u.n. in geneva. it's an honor of the olympic committee's decision to create a team of refugee athletes who
10:33 am
will compete under the olympic flag. next the flame heads to brazil for a nationwide relay ahead of the august games. and that's your news update this hour. simon, i'll send it back down to you. >> the excitement builds. 98 days. sue, thank you. take a look where we are on chevron and exxon. one higher and one lower as both companies clearly reporting declining oil prices central to where we are m some still able to beat though. more on that after this. to warn of danger ligent h from virtually anywhere. it's been smashed and driven. it's perceptive enough to detect other vehicles on the road. it's been shaken and pummeled. it's innovative enough to brake by itself, park itself and help you steer. it's been in the rain... and dragged through the mud. the 2016 gle. it's where brains meet brawn. lease the gle350 for $599 a month at your local mercedes-benz dealer.
10:36 am
country tries to regain market share it lost under nuclear sanctions. our very own michelle caruso-cabrera has been in tehran this week. she has a look now on who is buying. all of that new iranian crude that's hitting the market. michelle. >> reporter: hey, sarah. when the sanctions were at their toughest, iran's exports fell to only 700,000 barrels per day. now we know this month they're up to 1.8 billion barrels a day. tankers pick it up. what kind of tankers are coming in? we saw the list and we know various data centers. china, japan, india and greece are all big buyers. china is the biggest nearly 600,000 barrels per day. they've been a steady buyer of that amount for the last several
10:37 am
months. india in march bought half a million. that's way up from january. they've doubled their consumption. japan is up sharply as well from less than 10,000 to more than 46,000 barrels per day. and greece stepped in right away the second sanctions were lifted. you can look at different tanker data sets. spanish refiner, lukoil, they used to have a lot of market share in asia, they're trying to get it back. and also trying to get increased market share in europe, guys. back to you. >> michelle, thank you very much. oil in focus as well in the u.s. with exxon and chevron reporting. pavel, everyone seems to be paying attention to the money exxon made in chemicals and their margins there. what do you think the story of the quarter was? >> you know, this doesn't look very much like an oil company anymore, does it? 75% of the earnings came from the chemical segment, which is
10:38 am
by far the highest level ever. and in upstream in p/e they actually lost money. so with oil $35 a barrel, this was a tough quarter. the reason i'm so negative on the stock is this company is fundamentally poorly positioned to benefit from an oil recovery. with 75% of the earnings in chems, this is not a business that benefits from higher oil prices. neither does downstream. the emt business will benefit but even there a ton of natural gas exposure with exxon that's not looking nearly as bright. >> the inverse being said in the depths of the oil crisis, right, that they had a more defensive posture. but what you're saying is the upside is less marked as well. >> exactly. look, this is a stock that held up extremely well during the meltdown period all the way
10:39 am
through february of this year. the stock it's actually starting to already be a source of funds for investors turning more aggressive on energy. this by the way happened in 2009 as well. so, you know, it's very hard to see this thing outperforming. by the way, on its valuation it's already pricing in oil at about 75 bucks a barrel. so, you know, plenty of oil stocks are pricing in oil in the 60s a lot lower than what exxon's pricing in. >> pavel, on the flipside you have liked chevron. do you continue to like it? and is it too early to say earnings have troughed this quarter? >> well, q1 should be a trough quarter for almost everybody in the industry. so in that sense they're pretty common. chevron is a more oily story than exxon, absolutely. it's more upstream centric, it has much less of a chemical footprint. but about a month ago i did actually downgrade chevron on
10:40 am
valuation. that stock is also pricing in oil in the 70s. so, you know, of course we're anticipating a continuation of an oil recovery into the 60s by the end of the year, probably 70s next year. but in the case of these two names because of how well they held up during the meltdown they're already pricing in essentially all of the recovery in the commodity that we can envision. >> finally, pavel, speaking of recovery, the narrative's been well written that when it gets to 50, when west texas gets to 50 that production responds and snuffs out the rally we got. is that going to happen? >> probably not. so we are asking all the operators this earning season at what oil price do you begin to add more ricks to work and 50 is actually at the low end of what companies are saying. a lot of them are saying they're not going to add rigs until oil is close to 60 bucks a barrel. so capital discipline, i know
10:41 am
it's, you know, not always easy to come by in this industry. but the companies are at least being lip serviced to it. >> pavel, appreciate your time as always. pavel molchanov talking energy from raymond james. groupon has had quite a run looking at this chart. when we come back, the ceo rich williams will talk about its earnings. dow now down 53. i invest with e*trade, where investors can investigate and invest in vests... or not in vests. this is my retirement. retiring retired tires. and i never get tired of it. are you entirely prepared to retire? plan your never tiring retiring retired tires retirement with e*trade.
10:43 am
does the market bounce have any real legs? one technician says yes. and he has three charts to make his case. we'll check out all three at tradingnation.cnbc.com. more "squawk on the street" coming up. there's a lot of places you never want to see "$7.95." [ beep ] but you'll be glad to see it here. fidelity -- where smarter investors will always be. if only the signs were as obvious when you trade.
10:44 am
fidelity's active trader pro can help you find smarter entry and exit points and can help protect your potential profits. fidelity -- where smarter investors will always be. welcome back to "squawk on the street." stocks mostly lower today with the s&p 500 health care sector you can see there lagging the most and trading today down by over a percent. among the big names dragging the sector down are gilead. gilead leading declines down 7% on an earnings report. healthcare also, remember, one of this year's underperforming sectors down by about 3%. certain ll lly one to keep an e. thank you, dom chu. let's go to the cme and check in with rick santelli. >> hi, thanks, carl. chicago pmi means alice. headline for april read was down
10:45 am
3.2 to 50.4, weakest since well just february this year. let's go to it. go through each one. >> rick, this headline number is pretty much what we've seen for the last year. we have been averaging 50.3 in 2015. our six-month moving average is 49.6. the three-month leading average 50.5 all lining up right here with us. what this means, rick, is companies are just reacting not growing. >> you told me this off air. i'm so fascinated. they're actually saying they're in reactive mode. i think that's very important. >> right. it is important because that's why we've seen some of those big stops and starts that we've seen in the information that we've been getting out of the purchasers. >> so they don't have enough clarity, enough visibility to be proactive. that means a lot. >> right. so what we have here is your ordering components down. backlogs were down pretty good. this is the 15th month in a row in contraction. >> so even though it's in red because it's lower, less backlog time if i was looking to get something i would think that
10:46 am
that's really a good thing, right? >> well, no, because that really means you have limited future ofrders. hey've been working this off and this is why ,productios high. as you've noticed production is still higher than orders and that's been a tre we've seen through 2015. the other big thing here, rick, is if you have your ordering components down, you've got to take in your employment levels, and that's down. and this again is in contraction. this is the tenth contraction in the last 12 months. >> tenth. there's my asterisk. tenth contraction in the last 12 months meaning uer 50. >> right. so the big story here, rick, is we see a couple of numbers that are moving higher. your supplier deliveries are lengthing out. this is the longest time to get your goods that you need since october of 14. this is usually a sign that buness is booming and it's taking longer to get your stuff. >> not this time? >> notn th i case. the situation is something that is normally like a shelf order e you wouljust t it right off, no longer.
10:47 am
it's becoming a special order. purchasers are telling us it is taking a very long timeo get stock. there's been strikes, there's some transportation issues. it's all lengthening out. but the big thing is that the suppliers are under inventory. so what's happening is that companies are starting to build a little inventory because they're having a really hard time getting their widgets, okay. so this doesn't necessarily mean that inventories, which is a number that we like because that's the gdp maker. >> right. in and out of gdp. >> it's not that this is a good thing. it's going to help our gdp numbers because it's still in contraction. it's in contraction for the sixth month. purchasers are telling me they're building a little bit but still staying lean. >> sometimes numbers don't give you the real truth. prices pay jumping 11.8. >> right. >> but you add a couple asterisks to this. >> right. this is a big move. this is over a 20% move in this component. but the deal is is that a rookie purchasers would say, oh, well, oil and commodity prices are popping, the prices paid are going up.
10:48 am
but the real truth is a savvy purchaser, a guy long-term will say, all right, oil's maybe $14 off of the low, but where is it compared to a year ago? it's still in half so prices are still low. so this might be a very short-term thing here. >> so it doesn't look as though we're on the brink of recession, but it also doesn't look like we're on the brink of an explosive recovery. >> right. i think that what we said earlier is that companies are just reacting and not growing is consistent with what we've seen since february 2015. >> alyce, you're the best. thank you for that insight. sara, back to you. thanks for the conversation, rick. when we come back, a bizarre starto the nfl draft. a social media -- more with famed agent lee steinberg next.
10:49 am
mary buys a little lamb. one of millions of orders on this company's servers. accessible by thousands of suppliers and employees globally. but with cyber threats on the rise, mary's data could be under attack. with the help of the at&t network, a network that senses and mitigates cyber threats, their critical data is safer than ever. giving them the agility to be open & secure. because no one knows & like at&t. steve, other than making i'm here atme move stuff,rade trader offices. what are you working on? let me show you.
10:50 am
okay. our thinkorswim trading platform aggregates all the options data you need in one place and lets you visualize that information for any options series. okay, cool. hang on a second. you can even see the anticipated range of a stock expecting earnings. impressive... what's up, tim. td ameritrade.
10:51 am
10:52 am
dream has come true, and he is is in tears. >> with that the denver broncos have chosen a presumed successor to peyton manning, and so has paxton lynch ready to step into the shadows of the likes of john elway and mr. manning? joining us on the phone is paxton's agent, and also the inspiration for jerry mcguire the founder of steinberg associate, and so as the agent for the draft quarterback, and everybody seems to think that he is a raw talent. >> he is as ready as any other quarterback is which is not very ready. the adjustment to the pro game with the more sophisticated defenses and the faster speed is not easy for anybody to take, but it tain takes time on the field, and they have mark sanchez, there and hopefully he will get a little bit of the learning curve behind him, but he is very excited.
10:53 am
and can you imagine going to the super bowl winning team with the great organization, great coaching, and it is a dream come true. >> yeah, quite a quest. he is 6'7" and can run extraordinarily fast, and we were watching the videos in there, and he has a strong arm, but your guess is that sanchez is going to be starting this the yea year? >> i think that he starts and you see how it goes, and then a quarterback who can have a long 10, 15-year career, and not how fast you start. aaron rodgers was a 24th pick, and had a year behind brett favre, and dan marino started out quickly at 22, so he is going to have the best teaching that you could have and the exquarterback kubiak and exquarterback elway and sanchez can mentor him >> and you know, with the draft
10:54 am
last night, and starting with laramie tuncil, but somebody hijacked his account, but a bong mask there, and what is your takeaway on this? >> well, what happens is that there is an anxiety and fear in the wake of aaron hernandez and ray rice that a team will end up with a player who might be behaviorally suspect, and they go ahead and give him a massive signing bow nushgs and then player becomes disqualified, and then the team is left with no player and not the cap space to replace him. so this is a draft with a enormous scrutiny into the character issues. what happens on the draft night,
10:55 am
they are in different cities, and they see that a player ist not picked and they start to n wonder is will there something else that we don't know that everybody else know, and it can be totally unsubstantiated rumor, but under the heat and the hot lights of the draft war room decision-making tends to become anxiety prone. >> and the guy i felt worse for is miles jack who is still out there, and he went into the draft as seen as the number one linebacker, and he is an incredible athlete out of ucla and he admits that he may need micrograph surgery. and i felt bad for him. >> well, i watched him at ucla, and the issue of a microfracture, some of them can come back, but some of them end up being career-ending, so, again, you have a series of
10:56 am
teams that didn't have a chance to totally get a prospective on it, and on draft night the fastest way for a general manager to get fired is to be using a first-round draft pick that ends up being a bust. >> leigh, back to the bong gas mask story, and doesn't it offer a lesson for you, the agents when it comes to helping the clients and the players to manage risk in 2016 on digital media? >> absolutely. so the truth is that the players believe that when they tweet or do anything else, that anything that goes up on the ether can be universal universally seen. in a situation like this, you sit the client down and say, look, i am not judging you sh, is there anything on the background, and we don't throw anybody on the trash heap of history because you did anything in college, and is there anything that we need to know. and if there is, you bring it up with the teams, and talk about
10:57 am
the fact that it was five years ago and you are transparent. >> right. leigh, we have to leave it there. as always, appreciate your joining us. leigh steinberg sports agent and founder of steinberg sports and entertainment. and it is time for "squawk alley" and jon fortt and what to expect in the next hour. good morning, jon. >> happen pu -- happy friday, simon. and last night, amazon had a better than expected call, and not so much for groupon because it is down 15%, so what does that say about growth and if you don't have it, and also, the social media and the nfl, and certainly some lessons're out of this year's draft, and what it mean s f means for the future of social media and the players on it. and jon gruden believe tas players should stay off, but does that make sense? all of that and more coming up on "squawk alley."
10:58 am
warns you about incoming cross-traffic. cameras and radar detect dangers you don't. and it can even stop by itself. so in this crash test, one thing's missing: a crash. the 2016 e-class. now receive up to a $3,000 spring bonus on the e350 sport sedan. the first stock index ♪ (musicwas createdughout) over 100 years ago as a benchmark for average. yet many people still build portfolios with strategies that just track the benchmarks. but investing isn't about achieving average. it's about achieving goals. and invesco believes doing that today requires the art and expertise of high-conviction investing. translation? it's time to bench the benchmarks. so what else is new? humm..she's doing good. she needs more care though. she wants to stay in her house. i don't know even where to start with that. first, let's take a look at your financial plan
10:59 am
and see what we can do. ok, so we've got... we'll listen. we'll talk. we'll plan. baird. hello?!n presents the yardley's. -oh, pizza is here! -oh! yeah, come on in! [claps] woah! lose the sneakers pal. kind of a thing. spring is on. start your trugreen lawn plan today. trugreen. live life outside. you can fly across welcome town in minutes16, or across the globe in under an hour. whole communities are living on mars and solar satellites provide earth with unlimited clean power. in less than a century, boeing took the world from seaplanes to space planes, across the universe and beyond. and if you thought that was amazing, you just wait. ♪ real is touching a ray. amazing is moving like one. real is making new friends.
11:00 am
232 Views
IN COLLECTIONS
CNBC Television Archive Television Archive News Search ServiceUploaded by TV Archive on