tv Squawk Alley CNBC May 13, 2016 11:00am-12:01pm EDT
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welcome back. bob pisani on the floor of the new york stock exchange. u.s. foods are announcing the long awaited ipo. the shares are $22 to $24 and the largest food distributor out of cisco, and the distribution to begin may 26th here at the new york stock exchange and why is this important? size. $1 million, and most are only $1
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million and this is a $1 billion ipo. and a sign of confidence inty, po market, and more important news with the ipo trading, opening up moments ago, acacia communications opening after meeting the highest range. this is the second ipo priced well in the last two days. and yesterday we had the landscape supply which is the biggest distributor of landscape products, and they finished at $30 at the close after pricing at $21, and so two successful ipos and a big one just announced. carl, the market is starting to open up for ipos. >> a good thought. thank you, bob pisani. it is 11:00 in cupertino and we
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are live with "squawk alley." ♪ i'm going home when i want to go home ♪ ♪ i'm going mobile ♪ keep me moving ♪ i'm going mobile good to have you with us on this friday. kayla tausche and jon fortt and myself and also joined by our guest, and good to see you. and this is what trump had to say last night on hannity. >> this is a toy owned by jeff bezos who controls amazon amazon is getting away with murder tax-wise, and he is using the
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p power so that the politicians in washington don't tax amazon like they should, and he is absolutely worry and he said it about me, and he said it in some article that he thinks that i would go after him for anti-trust, because he has a huge anti-trust problem, because he is controlling so much, and amazon is controlling so much of what they are doing, and so he bought the paper for practically nothing, and he is using it as a tool for political power against me and other people, and i will tell you what, we can't let him get away with it. >> and of course, with should mention that bezos is a investor in business insider, and henry, unpackage this little by little. the anti-trust element, and we spoke about amazon's trending, and does trump have a point? >> no, it is ridiculous. i am owning the shares and i am a shareholder, and know and like jeff and i find trump charming, and i'm appalled with what he
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stands for, but support others and so a lot of the dogs in the hunt, but anti-trust? give me a break. because retailing is incredibly fragmented and amazon has a tiny piece of it and even in the digital where they have a small piece of it, and you can't control the minority market for controlling stuff. yes, that i are powerful and rich, and anti-trust with walmart? come on. >> they are about to the outpace walmart as the number one apparel seller in the country. >> and think about how big walmart is in general, and who is saying that they have an tie trust problem in retail. there is no anti-trust problem in are retail. >> one area where one could make a argument for the anti-trust is in ebooks because the author's gild has been pressing the justice department to get on amazon's case for anti-trust, and the justice department has not done it, but they have gotten on apple's case more than amaz amazon's, and so how he is allowed to say this as fact-free
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and if a democrat came after apple, and amazon over anti-trust saying they control so much stuff in a vague way, the business community would be like who are you and why do you know nothing about business? i don't understand why donald trump gets a pass on the maligning -- >> and businessman, too. >> and i think that should be paying more taxes? is this a republican? >> well, it is startling, i have to say, and clearly what is going on here is that the washington post is asking questions that trump does not want to be asked. and he told abc this morning that it is none of your business on the taxes, and he has a hostile pugnacious response to any question s ths that he does like, and that is what is happening here. and he is taking a big shot at the "washington post" and jeff bezos, and people seem to like it. >> and how is this on trump and media generally, because he said in a earlier speech that he
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would open up the libel laws and it is the news paper's job to take politicians to task, and people would not argue that a quarter of a billion is next to knotting for that company. >> and this is ludicrous, because people are blaming the pedia for the nominee, and if you would not give him the air time he would not be the nominee, and first, that is is a crock, and here, you have media asking questions, and meanwhile, trump supporters erupt in rage, and it is not your business what his taxes are, and he is a genius, and we need change. >> and are you arguing that if he is president, there is no regulatory risk to amazon? in other words, whether or not you agree with him, could this eventually weigh on the shares? >> stepping back, i think that one of the issues that anybody who votes for donald trump has to think about is, is his thin skin and refusal to be attacked without punching back going to cause him to do things that would in fact be terrible for
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this country? amazon is a great business. you get a personal feud going, and you are going to go after him? this is an issue that people have to grapple with. >> and people do feel that amazon should be paying more in taxes, and the european union specifically, but why mix that with anti-are trust in a conversation like this? >> look, i think that trump is very astute, and first of all, he is a genius with the media, and let's say that the media bashing is part of theene genius in media overall, but saying that amazon is getting over with not paying your fair sar, and that, and it is an odd argument for a republican. >> and i would like for him to elaborate on that, and is he talking about the local taxes here or the federal taxes? i am unclear what taxes he is talking about and the individuals ought to be paying taxes on what they are buying from amazon? it is very unclear. >> which is what they are supposed to be doing, and voluntary, and you can talk about, that and amazon completely untaxed with congress' full support for 15
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years, and now they are starting to look at the law, and going forward, but no one is suggesting that amazon is not paying taxes it is supposed to pay. >> this is a conversation to go on olong after this show is over, and next up mark zuckerberg is taking to facebook saying that we have found no evidence ta this report is true, and if we find anything against our principles, you have my commitment that we will take additional steps to address it. and zuckerberg saying he is going to be inviting leading con s conser vatives in the coming weeks to talk about it. and he is having to respond to china, brazil, and on all sorts of platforms in the country, and how is he going to do it? >> well, this is a classic example of silicon valley's really love/hate relationship with the media, and not embracing it. and lots of media companies, and they love to have their view of the world and impose it on everybody, and have everybody celebrate it, but in this case,
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facebook wants to be a neutral platform, and we have no bias of any sort, and what happened is that you had a few news editors who do think in fact that this is a more credible publication than that, and go with this and bias and it is hard to know for people to know their own biases, >> but i do like how mark zuckerberg does it with transparency, and this is a classic facebook conspiracy, facebook is going to start charging, they are snooping on you, and they are manipulating the news feed so you will see not what you want to see, and the fact that facebook is most concerned to see you engaged and if you are conservative, that is c conservative news, and liberal, more liberal news, and throwing it to the wind because they want to shove the news down your throat. >> and this is the cover of the
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""new york posnosh "new york post." and they know what they will get, but it does not deliver news on the scale of facebook. >> yes, and the guess again is mark zuckerberg is saying that we don't have are any policies in place to put the thumb on the scale in this direction or the other, and always in the eye of the beholder, and some are leaning one way or another. >> and he is not going to be changing their mind if they believe that facebook is doing something nefarious, but by meeting with certain key conservatives is to prevent long range damage to the company and stock. >> and prevent an investigation instantly. >> and you have not heard anybody say, boycott facebook, and stop going on the facebook because of the issue, and people love the platform and they are engaged with it. >> and 50 minutes aday as we have said before. >> and apple is investing 50 billion in the uber's biggest rival owned by didi chuxing.
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we welcome back the capital manager hans tung, and they have previously supported didi chuxing. and what is it about apple that people are unpack ablg iing it be buying goodwill in that country or what are the thoughts? sorry to have you back to soon. >> well, it is killing multiple birds with one stone. politically being support of the chinese ip novation system is a plus for apple. seco secondly, apple has plans for cars, and didi has millions and mi millions of rides a day, and works with a lot of cars directly or indirectly, and so that is another plus for apple with the kcar strategy, and thirdly, apple does have the short reissues from china and too expensive and so working with someone like that would help to penetrate the chinese market further. >> and hans, what does this mean
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for uber who has made a big bet on china, and losing money there, and financial backers who have an obligation to turn a profit, and get a return for the investors, and for didi, if apple loses $1 billion on this, people would not notice, because it is so massive and this is barely moving the needle on this. >> well, both of the companies are private and they want to get to profitability at some point when they have the market share, so not much difference between the two. but for uber, they are having multiple battles in asia, and also in the india taxi as well. so we have a world wide battle going on, and at some point uber has to desud on whether to do that or expanding into other things like uber eats. >> and hans, who is going to be winning china? is uber going to prevail or will didi and others prevail?
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>> well, we think that uber deserves the credit for being the most ki these company out of silicon valley that is competing in china, and we admire what they have done as well. >> hans, it is interesting that qualcomm put $280 million in china and announced that they would at the beginning of the year after trouble with the government over time. intel says it will invest $5.5 billion in manufacturing there, in the joint venture over the years, and cisco, $10 billion, and this is the pattern of the u.s. companies having trouble over in ki na and maybe when they get too big, the government says, hey, we don't want you to just extracting the value from the huge population, but you have to invest as well, and curious thoughts there, and also the thoughts on why this particular company? it seems that didi in particular is driving a lot of the mobile usage, and there is a potential for the apple particularly in the mid-range of the smartphone market to perhaps gain an important developer partner if it is the de facto phone of use inside of the cars.
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what are your thoughts will there? >> well, i think that chinese strategy from the 1978, why na deregulated and opened up through the western world, and it is welcoming the phone investments, and starting with the chinese in hong kong and taiwan and led to japan and korea and now u.s. and europe, and that has not changed over the last 30-plus years, and secondly with regards to apple, something that is not talked about a lot, through the didi taxi and the millions and millions of rides a day, and the consumers are used to using the mobile payment whether it is what kind of pay for those transactions, and it is to make apple more popular in china and one step towards that is something that nobody has talked about, and we believe it is interesting to watch. >> yes, and a lot of people were trying to draw parallels between this move and what yahoo did with $1 billion as the core business was starting to top out in the united states. can you draw any parallels
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anywhere with what apple is doing? >> oh, absolutely. what yahoo did was ingenious to come up with a way to have the best of both worlds. you have the stake in the growing company alibaba, and at the same time direct beneficiary of the growth in china. a l a lot of the silicon companies should ti about that strategy, because it is a win-win on both parts. >> thank you, hans. it is out of the wheelhouse, but we are learning quickly. thank you, henry blodget and we are over to you, kayla. >> the april retail sales headline number up 1.8% for that month, and despite that apple has been green throughout the morning, and but, you can see that the dow is down by 39 point, and the s&p is down by three points, and the nasdaq is positive and largely helped by apple, and surprise retail sales
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are not helping the individual retailers and jcpenney is in the green after the sales estimates and they are lowering the guidance of the profit margins and the stock is up 1%, and nordstrom is falling sharply after the earnings, profit, revenue, and all missed the expectations, and the full-year outcome is like many names, and it is a stock down and st staggering 10%. >> and the future of digital video on display as the digital advertising is set to top tv spending for the first time in history, and what name should you watch, and plus, rallying a few moments ago by the nasdaq, and ceo is going to be joining us live, and speaking of the ipo market, and the headquarters at deutsche is having some answering when we come back. ♪ there's a lot of places you never want to see "$7.95." [ beep ]
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expected to top tv spending for the first time this year, and something that has a big impact on the digital new fronts where nearly 40 companies have pitched to ad buyers over the last few weeks. julia boortin is live in l.a., and she as her eye on those. julia? >> well, hey, kayla. the premium video kcontent is te focus of the new front presentations from the range of companies from youtube and hulu and buzzfeed and vice, and all showing the similarity to the
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traditional media giants. and digital advertising is projected to hit $68 billion topping tv spending for the first time according to magnum global, but some companies are better positioned. googlele is offering premium sales ad through preferred which sold out last year. and facebook says that klm analysts says that it is sift hing budgets, and hulu with the mix of originals and tv shows burk there are growing questions about the audiences for the short form web series like those on yahoo and verizon's aol. a wnd the mashable vice and buzzfeed, and shifting towards the longer style content, and the tv style content for the market of digital ads becoming increasingly crowded. >> the digital ecosystem is ripe for some darwinian, you know, survival of the fittest. there are lots and lots of companies that are creating lots and lots of content, and i would not be surprised if some of
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those companies are not successful. >> cohen's magna global is shifting $250 million intoing google preferred over the next three years from the tv budgets as the digital content is more like tv, madison avenue is getting more comfortable shifting over to the dollars. jon? >> thank you, julia. the shares of communications are up big, 35% and above $31 a share, and the ceo is going to join us when we come right back.
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and tapines for the week overall, it is a broad gain and 6 # 00 of almost 0.8%, and carl mentioned of course the german gdp is all across the eurozone is a slight revision from what we thought that we had for the first quarter. it is a gain of 2.1% at an annuallized rate, and remember that you got half of one percent here, a san diego so in the relative sense, they are doing well, and building the momentum. and the central banks are giving more detail on the corporate bond buying as part of the qe, and it seems that most of the auto makers will be having their bonds bought with a bank within them. and the satellite companies took a hit after euro satellite came through with a profit warning. and then also, we have the vote of the june 23rd whether uk are will leave the european union.
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and today, christine lagarde said it is not a good idea overal overall, and you see that the sterling is in negative territory, and the big thing, and this is a message from the uk em bbassy in d.c., if you ara briton in the united states or elsewhere, you can still vote, and register by monday to vote in the mail vote for the brexit. it is a quick process online, and you can see the delated dead -- delated deadline for those who can vote for proxy. we think 800,000 britains in the united states, and many of those people will be eligible to vote, and they could actually swing this referendum, because the opinion polls are so huge. >> and yourself included, simon. >> i will be registered to vote, and you have to have been on the electoral register in the last
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15 years. >> thank you, simon. it is a tough year for the companies to go public, but the next guest says it will turn around by next year by the earliest. and now, joining us is the global managing editor mark from deutsche bank. normally, it takes three to make a trend, but can we safely say that the drought is over? >> by a reaction of the market, you are seeing a calmer feeling of investing, and that is coming through on the deals. i can't speak to them specifically, because we led them both, but i am pleased to say that the reaction has been absolutely great. >> and simon was talking about the brexit, and the vote in late june and fed meeting in june, and we have political events on the horizon, and could any of those throw volatility up in the a air? >> absolutely. what we are finding in europe is twice the volume of the u.s. this year, and we are seeing that starting to slow down. it is obvious with the uncertainties that the people are waiting for the certainty to come, and then go on. and so that is going to be slowing things down.
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>> and conversations with the unicorns and expecting a stampedef of them at some point, and when does that happen? >> well, it is coming. other people have been on the interview panel talking about how the private markets have been able to keep companies private longer, and i do believe they will see it adds an opportunity, and accelerate the plans. >> you think that this inves investment, this billion dollar investment of apple into didi makes the likes of uber wait longer to ipo? because if they are standing firm in their insistence on investing in china with the $1 bi billion losing there, and the competitor can stand to pour resource into fighting them longer? >> well, uber has been fortunate to raise the capital, and we have not been involved, but they have been able to raise a lot of capital to build a long term model, and i don't know about china, but they will go public at some point when they feel it is night. but as you mentioned earlier, it is a private market that is g
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getting tougher, and the public markets are there for the waiting markets. >> and looking the list of the ipos and 38 and 56 and 39 and 21, and this year, one. >> two. two. >> you have more fresher data than i have, and what -- because we can't make that up? >> no, you can't. it is the 2017 aspect to the mark market. most people will look at the market, and they may look at the fourth quarter, but we have an election coming, and that may push people back a little bit, but the market is poised to accept a lott more activity, and i believe it is coming. >> and the structure of the pop eurasian change away from california, tech, silicon valley? >> well, the companies in the software area, sas, west coast and east coast will be coming to the markets, and also companies in europe looking at the market and asia. so you will have a lot more activity going on in 2017, and maybe q4, but i am not counting
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on it. >> and meantime, how much liquidity there? who is lining up to make these deals even though they may have to mark it down? >> on the activity of in deal activity is to invest. and the best way is to play the calendar, because it is light, and down 50% this year. and the other thing i would make the same point on is that they have been active in the private markets, and so active in the private markets is a way for them to participate. and another thing which is actually important to understand is the lack of issuance has constricted the market. the buyback market is extremely active. last year $750 billion was bought back, and the issuance was $200 billion and we have had it for successful years, so there is a need for more equity and activity and that is my business, and i hope it is coming. >> there a worry to get the massive deals like saudi aramco
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which is a $50 billion ipo or the ali pay, it would take the oxygen out of the room, because there is no demand for the small sha share? >> well, there is a lot of the strategic participation in the large deals that take place, and while they may look like large deals coming, there is a lot of preparation in advance to the make them acceptable by the markets. >> this place is going to be crazy on saudi day. >> yes, it will be. >> and it is going to be making bau ba look like child's play. >> i can't tell you the size of it, but obviously, anything that is going to be large creates commotion, but i can tell you back to the baba days that is a great day, and i see more coming. >> mark, always great to see you. mark hantho of the deutsche bank. and we will talk to the ceo of acacia after the break.
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hello, everybody. i'm sue herera and this is the cnbc news update. mnt bank is agreeing to pay $64 million on the charges that it knowingly misled the government to take on risky loans that did not qualify for insurance. and they say that the buffalo bank falsified forms are from 2006 to 2011. two police officers were shot in new hampshire and both
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officers are at the hospital, and expect ed ed to be okay, ane schools in the area have been closed. and subaru is recalling vee vehicles in the u.s. because steering could fail it is the 2016 and the 2017 subaru legacy and the outback models from the years 2015 through 2017. and the world's oldest woman has died. 116-year-old susanna jones passed away last night at a public housing facility in brooklyn, new york. she was born in montgomery, alabama, in 1899, and the family members credit ed her long life to love of family and generosity of others. that is the cnbc news update at this hour, and back downtown to "squawk alley." jon? >> thank you, sue. the acacia communications just opened for trading and let's take a look at the stock. still up 32%, and little bit off of the highs, and still a very, very nice open, and pricing at
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the high end of the range, and it is up again between 30, 35% right now sh, and raj is the cef acacia communication, and joining us now. raj, you can't help but notice first of all, congratulations on the start of the first day of trading. profits. you have got them. how much do you think that plays into the way investors are receiving your ipo today? >> yeah, that is a great question. the profitability is a big piece of why the unvestors like our company. we have gone into the siliconizing the optical interconnected and once you get into the optics of silicon, some of the profitability, and the expenses get under control to make us a profitable company sooner. >> raj, you are in the area that is consolidating for quite a while, and there you are looking ate are from the networking side of thing, and pressure, and software to find the networking
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to the scale of cisco and juniper or looking at the silicon end that intel is making. what is the longer term pitch for why you can thrive independently in that kind of an environment? >> so, the microprocessor as what it did to the computing industry is exactly what we face right now. we are taking the same level of silicon optics into the optics business, and it is a wide open space, and we have fundamental breakthrough technology, and very well positioned for the company long term. we want to take it the long h l hall. >> and tell me about the ipo timing. at what point did you think, well, okay, it might be a good time to go out. how long did you wait? how did you feel about the timing of coming out today, and the weather and the ipo market isingi certainly day by day if not week by week, and if you
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had told me a couple of weeks ago that you had the open that we had today, i might not have believed it. >> yes, as you know, the ipo market has been pretty much pretty bad for the past several months, and so we have been ready and working adds a public company for the past several quarters. to us, it is like we were building the company for the long term, it is not as much a problem, and we have the top line group, and the bottom line growth, and we are continuing to grow quite rapidly, and for us, the timing is a blip in the timing, and we are building the company for the long term. >> and raj, a lot of the startup ceos or the private company ceos who say i want to be worth a billion dollars, and want the badge of honor, and today, the valuation is just over 1 billion, and is that a line in the sand that is important through the process? >> again, it is a step in the journey, and i think that if we are, and this is a lot of the market in front of us, and
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getting into the silicon, and we can grow into being a larger company, and we look at this, and say, it is a good job to get here, but we have more work to do come monday. >> and raj, a lot of the companies are again waiting to go public, some vcs who would like to cash out, and argue that waiting too long. what factored in your decision to go public now versus maybe trying to raise more in private markets, and what benefits in this environment do you think that being public will give you? >> so, we were nongaup profitable, but we have been profitable for a long time, and so we did not exactly need the money, but again, as we are building the company for the long term, it is something that we decided that we are going to go after and get the ipo done, and the public markets reward you for performance, and we have executed so far well, and we
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will continue do so. >> and although, some will say they the unfairly punish you for the lack of performance, because ta f they focus on the short term. so in the pros and cons of the decision, what was in the concolumn, and how did you work past it now that you have tone the deed? >> well, it is not a concategory, but it is more maintenance as a company, and we have the discipline transition ing from the private to the public for the last several quarters at this point, and so it is a conthat we had to take into consideration, but the pros which is being rewarded and having the big opportunity in front of us outweighed the cons for us. >> and tell me about the technology environment right now where you are in massachusetts. kind of the part of the boston area, and west of boston, and we talk about silicon valley, a lot and new york somewhat and used to be for the communications technology, and boston was it,
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and how is that faring now? >> well, boston, going back a few years, there was talent and there is a lot of talent there, and there are fewer companies than you will see in the west coast which puts us in a good position to get the talent that we want, and also, the offices outside of new york here, and in new jersey, and so we have built the talent between massachusetts and new jersey, and the environment is pretty good. we don't have the same level of competition for talent, so we can scale to the level that we need to. >> all right. well, raj, ceo of acacia xuncations, on the ipo day, the stock is up close to 35%. thank you so much for joining us. >> tau, jon. >> and now, up next, the shares of shake shack rallying up 4% after the profits and the revenue estimates of same-store sales jumped close to 10%. before we talk about that, rick santelli, what are you watching today? >> well, kayla, i am watching the markets, because we had
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positive data for a change, and the markets took the information to task. we will do some look at the numbers, and a special treat. i will give you my theory of negativity on rates. all after the break. 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.
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going to stick with jcpenney. and we will talk about the shake shack's breakout. we will have that in about 15 minutes or so. >> thank you, scott. over to is chicago with the s santelli exchange with rick. >> thanks, carl. you nknow, it is really refreshing to see a day with database cli, you n database -- data basically, where all of the sales are solid, and i know that control number of 9 is not the best we have ever seen, but it is the best we have seen in a year and almost two years sequentially on the tata points. and the best way to assess, does it have anything meaningful to throw h into the psyche of the investors or change the strategy? it is easy, because if it is about the fed, data, and global, aspects of the economy, and it always shows up in the dollar index. if you are looking at the intraday of the index, and maybe a couple of months you could totally see how the dollar index
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has righted itself, and granted a long way from 100, but it also getting to be a bit of a ways from the 92 handle that was really the low point in the last cycle. and so, an easy way to the handicap the data, and the big story in my opinion is that the theory of negativity on rates, and we are in this area where the relative value trade has now gone to the second derivative in my opinion, and wa does that mean in english? the relative value trade at one point is the effects of europe as they started to go down the road of stimulus, and quantitative easing and doing the experiments on the economy, because their rates started to come down hard, and everybody was arm and arm, and we move together with the relative value trade, and now add in the pervasive amount of sovereigns around the globe, and short term, and long term in negative rate mode, and that is compel ing to the investors because there is a mad rush, okay. how you make something a foot,
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in height look tall? put it next to something that is an inch in height. it is all relative, and this is the point. negative rates make anything positive look good. dell computer, and not saying it is not a good company, or that computers are going to be dis disappearing any time soon, but the public company did change things to try to interact with the new times and the outlook of the computer, and now the pick of the litter in terms off trying to put out the securities, because the demand is solid. we have seen some significant corporate issuance, and all of this may appear to be a good thing, but there is a dark side to this kind of the goldilocks issuance moment, and that is what a i and peter boockvar and others have been talking about for a long time, the misallocation of capital and not the mention that buying anything in sight is going to be throwing everybody on one side into the securities sector. is that good? all of these are important questions, and i don't know the answering but i know that one thing, that you want to be
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paying close attention to the spreads should they start to wi widen up against the treasuries. jon fortt, and back to you and have a good weekend. >> all right. you too, rick. thank you so much. up next, the art market is struggling this year down $1 billion and actually more of that in sales year over year, and we will look at the state market with a top executive from southby's in a moment. don't go away.
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off the spring art actions this week, and what does the art market tell us about the overall economy. robert frank is joining us at post 9 along with amy, the chairman of fine arts at sothebys. >> thank you for join g ing us. >> happily. >> and put this week in context, because it is the biggest test for the art market since we had all of the financial turmoil in the first quarter sh, and last year, the sales were 2.1 billion, and so this year, it is about $1.1 or about half. and where are we? >> well, with the sales, we are in a good place, because the market has serp ti, and definitely robust, and tremendous depth of bidding and particularly for the pastor pieces for the outstanding things around and the contemporary works of art, and we are seeing the robustness. >> in stock market terms, we had a decline, but now a floor. >> and now that people know the market, and where it is, there is a lot more certainty.
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>> and this sale, it is backward lookingk because when people decided what to sell this week were deciding in january or february when things were really bad. >> exactly. >> so there was not a -- there were great pieces, but not a lot of the $179 million picasso's. >> yes. >> and when we are looking forward to the fall or june in london, are you getting the good stuff to sell? >> yes, and we are seeing the wonderful things, and the june sales in london are going to be quite strong, and little by little, the market is more confident, and definitely master piece prices paid this season. >> i want to ask you about the man who saved art wo week, and this is a man who is yusaku mazeawa who bought pieces from christie's, and you, and $1,100 million he spent on pay jor pieces, and what about the market to have an unknown billionaire from overseas buying
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this art? >> well, he just te sided to be more public in the purchases, and you will see more and more of that. this is an attractive asset class. and a pleasure to live with wonderful works of art. >> you see the collectors coming in, in their 30s and 40s? >> yes, you are seeing it more and more and that is a generation who grew one different is set of icons than the parents, and inherently more contemporary tastes, and you will see them proceed ing ing i art market with a confidence, because the art market has always been with them or somesomething of the public consciousness. >> and it helps to be a billionaire? >> yes. it helps. >> and a china effect that the sales in china dropped 33% last year, and there is still questions of how that market is doing, and is it coming back at all or continuing to drop or what are you seeing in 2015? >> well, in the contemporary
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sale, we had the highest numbers of asia from any sale ever since we have been going back for 2004 for a contemporary sale. while there is an appearance that the market is thinned, we are seeing those players coming on strong, and that is pan asian and china as well as other parts of asia. >> does the appetite for an era vary by geography? are the chinese less or more interested in the contemporary or vice versa? >> well, the chinese are more interestingly interested in contemporary, and jeeg geograph some effect on the taste for sure, but what we are starting to feel that everywhere from all over the world, people are sticking with the 20th century works and modern impressionist and moving into contemporary. >> and for people who are not the billionaires, are they still willing to borrow to fund the purchases? we have seen the chinese buyers put a 100$100 million on the am
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>> well, it is about value, et cetera. >> was there a breakout artist this week? we know that the buyer who made headlines was mazeos, and was there ta breakout segment or artist? >> well, we saw it in a couple of places. sothebys had the top call for calder, and there were more than 20 calders on the market, and main stay for decades burk to see him carry that much volume of the market, and stunning example of formerly owned by the museum of art. >> and calder has been around a while. >> yes. >> exactly. and looking at adrian guinea, a young artist from eastern europe and beautiful painter, and beautiful self-portrait as
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vincent van gogh, and enormous price. so you are starting to see the artists with little depth of trading and traction selling for enormous prices if there is confidence in the artist's work. >> thank you. thank you for having me. >> and robert, thank you for bringing it to us. and when we come back, a big change could be coming on the way to mcdonald's. details in a moment.
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mcdonald's could be in for a big change, the restaurant chain is testing out fresh beef patties in a handful of dallas restaurant restaurants instead of the frozen ones. no word if it is extended to more locations. and in other news, shake shack estimates were raising the forecasts and the comps coming in double the estimate. wendy's is making news saying that they will make kiosks available system wide in the second half of the year. and so a lot of the menu items and the way that you pay for the menu items are not sacrosanct anymore. >> and the investment is shifting from people to ingredients, and there is a cautionary area once you get into the ingredients that are so fresh that you end up with the chipotle-type issue, and you are
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to thread the needle there. >> and the patties made out of the same material, just not frozen. >> still cow. and probably the biggest operational change they would ever make if they take it system-wide, and time will tell. good weekend, everybody. busy week next week, and over to the head quarters with "wapner and the half." ♪ >> welcome, everybody. destruction at the department store. macy's, and nordstroms disappoint i disappointing. and with us stephen weiss, jim lebenthal, and josh brown and courtney reagan who is going to start us off with the carnage. >> few thought that department stores results would be good, but yikes, they have shed $5 billion in market cap
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