tv Squawk Alley CNBC August 16, 2016 11:00am-12:01pm EDT
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satisfaction in me ♪ welcome to "squawk alley." i'm here with jon fortt, mike san tolli, and scale ventures cofound, and ed, welcome to post 9. to our top story, the major averaging coming off a record day of record highs, the nasdaq -- its third positive close in a row, the dow is down about 50 points or so on the heels of another bullish -- by warren buffett's berkshire hathaway. >> hey there, carl, berkshire has made news again by an apple position. to a total of 9.8 million shares at this point. >> it's a vote of confidence, but also a reflection of the new generation of managing money at berkshire, where warren buffett
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for the most part has avoided tech stocks. now some appear to be wading into that territory. at the same time, and i'll make a caveat that these are dated june 30th, and things may have changed, other big investors appear to be more bearish. george soros dissolving a fund, and moore sold out of the name entirely as well. -- changing the position by about 75%, while greenlight shaved its by 17%. elliott management, which is actively long technology, took on a sizable position in puts, which is the right to sell apple in the future, but sounds like that may be more of a hedge. it's hard to see this as profit-taking as david einhorn put it in a shareholder note recently dated july 26th.
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in the long book apple was one of our material losers. the estimates continue to fall. we mitt gaited our losses by trading apple well, though it's down about 9% for the year, we are nearly break-even on the position so far, so an interesting take, carl that perhaps sums up what others might be thinking. >> really interesting wrinkle. thank you so much, our kate kelly in no. edmund lee, your thoughts on all of this? >> warren buffett that is never been a tech advocate in the first place. it still feels a little late to the boat. i think apple is a great stock still, probably more of a value stock these days. we haven't seen going forward what to expect. what are the big, big pushes they're going to make. that i think is weighing on the stock. >> i guess i wonder, to that point, you know, is apple now a core holding among institutional
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investors because it's just sort of less a quint essentially tech stock? it's a huge financial behemoth, and a platform, and something that could be held for a very long time. not about the cycle and the next product. >> i think it's very much a tech stock, but the question is, is it an iphone stock first and foremost? they have lots of potential in rolling out services, but has this turned into the sort of stock where the lack of growth, perhaps even a gradual decline in a core product ends up affecting the stock more than success, as we've seen with cisco, intel and so many others that have struggled? >> i think that's a good point. i think the expectations are higher and harder for apple in that way. if you don't hit it out of the park you're not doing as well as you should have. it's still a big company, gots lots of cash, still making great products. i don't think it deserving quite the harsh treatment it gets on the markets, but again, i think because it'sal been a
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game-changing -- it's trying to make a media play. it hasn't figured out the media business, i think that's hurting it, too. >> kate wharks does it look like? how does the valley welcome a player like buffett? >> well, it's interesting, because buffett, i think this fits his value investing perfectly. the thing he doesn't have is -- he always invested in companies with good management, good financials, and understands the business, now there's two something managers, i think he's comfortable. apple remains a winner, thinking about this as a place that people want to work, they want to be associated with. if i'm looking as a resume and somebody's work at apple, that's interesting to me. it's still considered top notch, but it's a long play. they moved, unline intel, unlike cisco into that whole mobile space. they do have an iphone in
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september, we'll see how groundbreaking, but you know there's so much stirring in apple. they're being more responsible big corporate player in their buybacks, dividends and other things, so they're appealing to a broader group of investors. buffett is a value investors, i think he in it at the right time. >> interesting that cook celebrated five years in that five-years chart. >> amazing. paypal peter thiel defending his campaign against gawker, saying it's wrong to expos people as intimate moments for no reason. he but they can't do it if we don't let them. gawker e. of course filed for bankruptcy in june after losing a lawsuit to former wrestler -- gawker holding an auction for its assets. kate, we have talked a lot about
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thiel, his relative isolation in the valley, but i wonder if this editorial moved you today. >> i was just surprised to see him do it. he's so respected as a founder and investor, i think for a lot of us, when you take that prowess and move it into other areas, i think it gets tougher. i think that bezos, another icon in our business put it well when he said, you know, free speech and the protections of it protects ugly speech as much as it is to protect beautiful speech. i think you have to be really careful when you're walking that line. you know, silicon valley is libertarian in its views, and i think that runs contrary to the way most people in the valley would likely feel. we are surprised. >> it prediction me publishers like it have sought to clear a moral line that publishers are trying to -- >> who is the we?
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it sounds like billionaires. he's doing it through lawsuits. my question is, are we entering this era where billionaires become the source of free speech and even scientific superheroes because of the resources that they have, and in our society what happens to everybody else, what happens to everybody else's speech rights? what sort of fears do we have to shoulder? >> i think what thiel is effectively doing, he's becoming the gatekeeper of what journalism is and shouldn't be. i think it's perfectly fine and fair for him to file hits own lawsuit saying this is unfair,sh but he didn't do that. he's funding other lawsuits. he has the money to do so, and i think that's the bick danger. why does he get to choose -- i'm not defending gawker. i'm saying why is he the one who gets to decide that? >> well, he's also saying in a
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sense congress ought to write down the statistics, and that probably would not be the way to go, either. >> you want to license journalists? i think that's a bad move. >> he brings up the revenge porn privacy act, but he says that's a step in the right direction. where is the end of that direction? is it outlawing the sort of speech that peter thiel didn't like? is that raleigh the sort of speech we ought to outlaud? >> saying something true that they might not want said? >> i think that's an interesting point. i think the intent of that bill is pretty clear-cut. i think he's turning into something else, saying it's the gawker bill, the thing we don't want gawker to do or gawker-like sites to do. i think that gets dangerous. >> instead, but we're not done talking about that one by a long shot. >> google take on apple's face
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tithe, launching duo. it includes the ability to call any device no matter what o.s. it's running. we're watching the shares ahead of the anniversary of the ipo, if you bought tess on offer price and you're up 1700%, does facetime need to worry? >> i don't think so. but google very smartly solved the problem that facetime always had, which is i have an apple phone, whenever i'm texting or trying to facetime, do they have an apple phone? you can see if it's blue or green. google set forget that. just get a smartphone, you can connect to them. i think that was a smart move on their part. >> kate mitchell, does it matter? yes, apple is a wall garden, but we have what's app, facebook messenger, skype, all these difficult -- google has had a
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few of them in the past. why make a whole new one? >> and not to mention snapchat, which is probably the biggest growing app with youth on top of all those. that's one of the questions that's cross-device. i love their features, easy setup. this idea of knock knock, i can be seen by the person calling me before they decide to pick it up, has interesting features. a lot like google groups did. by that time everybody was invested in facebook. it was a beautifully designed site, but it was too late to the game. i question, with poach headway with others, are they going to be able to catch up with these new features. it remains to be seen. never count google out. they have products that compete about it. the idea that i use something different at work thachb at home is not how most of us live. they always bring something fresh to the table. it was exciting to try.
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it depends on all my friends. right now they're on all the other services. >> after the glass experience, you know, the debate of whether or not they're over their skis never goes away. >> with all of these companies. amazon messes up on the phone. i know for me, i used facetime with family that have ios devices. i use every other service for work, it turns out. >> we'll get to that. >> but pretty much not facetime. ecosystem is householdwide. we know that. >> and good to see you both. >> when we come back, highlights from a busy day in rio. andrew ross sorkin will join us live. announcing plans to possibly expand to the middle east. details are coming up next. then carl icahn and mark cuban in this twitter battle over trump. more "squawk alley" continues in just a moment.
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social media obviously a big star at the olympic games in rio. our andrew ross sorkin is there live having shown us some table tennis. great discussion about the financial viability of future olympics. what do you have now? >> we're going to talk about social media. instagram just came out with olympic stats. since the opening ceremony. 90 million people have had 494
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million interactions, including posts, likes and comments. you mipt wonder which athlete gained the most followers? michael phelps, of course. simone biles is up 651,000, aly raisman is up 494,000. it is the leaders in the emeteorologyis used on olympic-related instagram. the brazil flag taking the top spot. lots of athletes using the instagram here in rio, kind of like the internet, perhaps posting a picture is part of their pregame ritual. this is -- what they do before competition, we decided to "ask the athlete." >> first thing i do is i walk out, put my coffee cup under my
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machine an push two shots. >> i might do yoga. i keep the mind focused. >> ever since i was little, i thought shaving like all my legs, just like the swimmers do, even though we wear clothes, it doesn't matter for us. >> i always sit in the same seat. >> before my race, i always pray, but for this meet, i listened to music before my races, and that's something i never, ever do, but i think it helped me stay calm when i was in the ready room. maybe i'll try that more often. >> ladybugs are my superstition, so i usually have ladybug earrings. >> i drink a coke. i don't know why. >> always one of my lucky golf balls with me, and of course i grab it always before the competition, but yesterday it didn't help me that much.
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>> reporter: i'm going to put it back to you, carl. what do you do before the show? >> first thing i do is drink a large glass of water. it's an old trick that actually djokovic talks about, hydration. we talk a lot, which is a dehydrating process. >> i like to shave my legs, to give you that extra couple seconds. even though we're wearing clothes. yeah. >> usually i see what damage the cats did. these days that's what i do. >> reporter: none of you -- i thought your premorning ritual was watching "squawk box" in the morning? >> oh, right, right, "squawk box." >> i sometimes listen to it on the train. i know that ritual. by the way, one social media thing to tell you about. cody miller, two-time medal winner, part of the last final swim with michael phelps, he has an awesome social post think on
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imgur. check it out. it's almost an online diary of sorts. it's just a really cool thing if you have the time to check it out. >> all right. andrew, great stuff. a beautiful day it look like in rio. still to scum, big news for hyper-loop, the speed of sound transportation company could be coming to one of the world's biggest seaports, and we're counting down to the european close. keep it here. we'll be right back. the hyp
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>> this is the latest agreement that hyper loop has signed with an entity somewhere else in the world. there's a couple in the united states as well, looking to build a hyper loop run, the latest in dubai. they signed a deal with dp world. this is the port of dubai. what they're looking to do is whether or not it makes sense to build a hyper loop run that will carry cargo further inland. the size of the test run, it remains to be seen what will happen over the next couple years, but they plan a test run in the first quarter of 2017. this is video from when they gave you us that sneak peek into the work out in nevada. this is going on at the same time we're seeing the company come off a month of legal battle involving the gentleman on the microphone, broguen van broguen. they have filed a countersuit. the chairman sherman pershavar
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says it's not slowing down the work. >> we're on focused on hitsing our milestones. we're not going to let anything get in the way of making historic, showing the world that hyperloop works. here is the timeline. full-size test run by the first quarter of next year. 2020 is the target date for the first cargo hyperloop run, but those are targets in the future. let's see if they get there. the test, that will be the key thing to watch in the first quarter of next year. looking for the first passenger test, i know one reporter who will be there, our phil lebeau. in about seema mody is back at hq.
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>> interesting dynamics, german business sentiment rebounding in august to 0.5 from a negative 6.5. that's suggesting the economy is recovering from the brexit shock, but the head of the survey pounding out that the eu political risks and resilience continues to weigh on confidence. in the uk, we're looking at the pound, rebounding after nine down days, a rise in july inflation, suggesting that the plunge is driving consumer prices higher. the trick, of course for the bank of england will be to control the up tick in inflation and make sure it doesn't rise too fast from here. stocks on the move in europe, including lind, germany's largest gas supplier, confirming it is in preliminary talks with a potential merges with a u.s. gas company. shares are higher. that's linde up, following a wave the consolidation in the gas industrial space.
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. for around $10 billion that happened earlier this year. he resurgence in oil and copper, in the uk, and also across europe we're looking, higher, and glen ko higher, but keep in mind that glen core is now up 74% over the past six months, a big rebound for the uk mining giant. speaking of oil, check out the russian stock market with just hit a new one-year high. remember russia receives 60% of incan um from exporting oil, so the rebound in oil a big factor, a big positive boon for its economy. back over to you guys, carl. >> thank you so much for that, seema. when we come back why carl icahn is in a twitter war with mark cuban over trump, and then what happens now at gawker media? julia boorstin has the latest, with oil spiking up almost 70%. back in a minute.
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a german man attacked passengers seriously wounding two people. the 60-year-old used a long knife. he was apprehended by police officer who used pepper spray to subdue him. turkish police launching simultaneous raids on 44 companies suspected of providing financial support to u.s.-based muslim cleric fa tula guillen's movement. turkey has accused him of being behind the failed coup last month. and the new dig into a closed mountain tunnel believed to house the train began today in poland. the research team has about ten days to complete the dig. we'll keep you posted. that's the news update. back downtown to "squawk alley." carl, back to you. >> sue, thank you so much. donald trump as you probably know by now, calling for an extremity vetting of immigrants. john harwood has the latest.
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>> we have fresh evidence from the nbc survey among,poll of the difficulty donald trump is in. hillary clinton leads this 50 to 41, a nine-point edge, virtually unchanged from last week. donald trump tried to reset his campaign, get on a different issue in his campaign yesterday with a speech on terrorism, and he said he needed an entirely new approach to screening who comes into this country. >> in the cold war, we had an ideological screening test. the time is overdue to develop a new screening test for the threats we face today. i call it extreme vetting. >> now, democrats kept up the offensive. yesterday joe biden appeared with hillary clinton and went after donald trump on this very issue, saying the comments he's made about muslim and muslim
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immigration make the job of u.s. troops in iraq like his late son bo -- who served in iraq -- more dangerous. >> if my son were still in iraq and i say to all those who are there, the threat to their life has gone up a couple clicks. >> now, hillary clinton's current vice presidential running mate, tim kaine has given her a boost in the state of virginia. we have a new poll out from worst this morning, showing hillary clinton up 14 percentage points in that critical battleground state, carl. >> john harwood in washington, thank you for that. from the campaign trail to social media, trump supporter and billionaire investor carl icahn getting into a twitter feud with outphone dallas mavericks owner mark cuban. here's a peek at some of those tweets.
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cuban responds -- you know you wouldn't hire donald trump unless you were short the company. joining us this morning rick lazio, as well as park street strategy ceo chris cofinis. good morning to you both. silly season is coming to an end, i think we can agree. >> gosh, i don't know, maybe the lazy days. >> maybe the final innings. how much did trump's speech reset? >> i'm not sure it was a significant reset. he was certainly on message for the first time in a long time. he was more substantive. his struggle is to appear presidential. that's one of the things that's playing in the background. when he projects a speech on foreign policy, people are thinking about his controversy with the khan family, thinking about the religious ban, some of his comments in terms of use the torture and execution of the
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family members of terrorists, and those things i think create some issue for him. going forward, though, he's got a great narrative against hillary clinton. if he looks at four years of continuation, two thirds of americans think we're on the wrong track. we've had three straight quarters of subpar growth, none below 1.2%. the quality of jobs, though the amount of jobs have increased, the quality of jobs have deteriorated. more paul businesses have closed up that have been created. 51-year low in terms of home ownership rate. he needs to outline that's where we are, that's why americans are unhappy, here's my solutions and stay on that message. >> chris, do they cold war corollaries make sense in an era where we're dealing with nonstate actors? >> it's his attempt to try to establish some foreign policy bona fides, but if you listen to his speech, and you had to ignore the series of contradictions, whether the fact, you know, that he professes he opposed the iraq
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war when he actually didn't. when he talks about he opposed the libyan intervention when he actually didn't. when he talk about nation building as being wrong when he actually supports it. part of the problem is because he doesn't have any significant policy background. he hasn't done what a good candidate does, who lacks that kind of experience or knowledge, which is go out there and talk to experts and learn and study. you're kind of in this box, where you're trying to establish credibility with voters literally with 80-plus days to go. that's really difficult. when you multiply that with the fact that a lot of voters see him as erratic, are not sure he has the temperament to be the president of the united states, that you have major foreign policy experts from the republican party questioning his ability to be commander in chief. he's in a tough spot. it is a very bad place to be when we're this close to an election trying to establish
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that you have the foreign policy chops to be president of the united states. >> congressman, you're in a blue state, you're still politically active. how do you thread the needle of supporting the republican nominee but still retaining your message, your base of supporters in this state should you choose to run for office again, which i think many of you expect? how do you do that? i think a lot of people in the republican party are -- >> i look at someone like rob portman -- he's been surging while trump has been sliding in ohio. how has he do it? he's appealing to a broader subsection, talking about issues like opiate and heroin abuse, issues that are connecting with im, with nontraditional blocs of republican voters. if you're here in new york, you know, you might be for gun control, for protecting the
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environment, for balancing budgets and fiscal sanity. that's not incongruous in new york, about you in other parts of the country it might be. it might be with certain parts of the republican base, so i think what you've got to do is you don't necessarily disown him if you're on the ticket at the same time, because you're worried about people just not showing up, but you're distancing yourself to the extent you want to minimize your appearances, you're running your own campaign. >> chris, we joke about the silly season and volleying these charges band acforth, trump saying i'm too close. clinton is too close to russia. is there a risk if you are the clinton camp that basically it all kind of blurs, and we just get caught up in the back and forth, and nobody is exactly sure what is fact based, what's not, what's a legitimate charge. >> i would say that's probably a bigger concern if this was a closer race. i think what's happening right
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now, when you're seeing both the campaigns and outside groups pull money from critical or should be critical battle grounds like virginia and colorado, that is a -- that is a pretty important signal as to the depths of trouble that donald trump is in. this election is becoming -- and listen, it's so-called early, but we're at that point where voters are starting to lock in, and the reality is, you know, for him and his candidacy, you know, when you're starting to fall behind in critical states that you need to win, like pennsylvania, like florida, that you're now behind in states like georgia, you have to make a dramatic shift in your strategy, and he hasn't seemed capable of doing that. the part that i think that the challenge for the clinton campaign is, this is becoming a referendum on trump, and trump is going to decide his destiny on his own, but the reality i think for the clinton campaign is at some point in the coming weeks, ear better off shifting
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to a positive-focused message. if it's clear that donald trump is going to lose, there's no use attacking him for the next 8, 12 weeks, you're better off trying to unify trying to bring the country together and establish your base. >> still a lifetime ahead for this cycle. anybody knows nowhere near -- >> and volatility, one thing to look out for here. things shifted very quickly. trump shifted ten points before the republican convention, so when you have two candidates that both have unfavorable levels, two of the most unpopular people who, and with hillary clinton, somebody over half of americans think. there's a lot of volatility. it's whether trump can exploit it is another question. >> i wish we had time. thank you, guys. good to see you. when we come back this morning, the bids are in for gawker. how much will the bankrupt media company fetch at this auction? we'll get a sneak peek, but rick
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santelli, what are you watching? >> i'm watching the markets. i'm watching whether they're prepared or not for policy changes. i'm thinking about tax subsidies, and avoiding realities, but most of all, what does all those things have in column? investors and shades of gray, all after the break. what i love most about tempur-pedic mattresses is that they contour to your body. i just have to lay back in my tempur-pedic and it just kind of forms to my body. it comes up to you like, "hey, there you are!" "hey, there you are!" "i'm going to put you to sleep now." it keeps us comfortable and asleep at night. can i take a nap now? change your sleep, change your life, change to tempur-pedic. learn how you can change your sleep by requesting a free sample of tempur material. call or click today. i've got a nice long life ahead. big plans. so when i found out medicare doesn't pay all my medical expenses, i looked at my options.
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investors are watching to see how much this kind of digit at asset sells for as publishers push to grow. julia boorstin joins us with a look from los angeles. julia? >> hey, jon, other digit at media brands are trying to boost their value, which is determined not just by advertising been revenue, but also by traffic. that means facebook has a huge amount of power. at the end of june, it announced changes to the algorithms, so it sees fewer posts by publishers and brands and more from family and friends. the organic reach rather than paid reach through ads dropped by half from january to mid july this jeer according to social flow. huffington post says the traffic varies month to month. while its traffic from search is
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relatively stable. buzzfeed received half of its desktop traffic from social media in the second quarter, and 86% of that was from facebook. the company saw a 6% decrease in facebook visits from q1 to q2. many now, "the daily beast" has been looking to reduce its growing -- growing traffic from -- over 40%, that's more than double the percentage from three years ago. publisher mike dier warning of facebook's power over publishers, telling me you don't own your audience, you're renting. we'll have to see if the results of gawker's auction sheds more like on the value of these other
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companies. >> facebook train giveth and taketh away. thank you so much, julia. let's check in with rick for the santelli exchange. >> hi, carl. you know, when i'm wearing these i can't see nearly as well, especially in a rook like exchanges, which is why investors are better off wearing gray shades. no matter where you look, historically the fundamentals don't add up, but you needed to be invested, whether it's in stocks or -- look at treasuries, so basically seeing less garnering you more. now we have beneficials asking questions like are the markets prepared for policy change. are they kidding? of course not. of course not. they've been rewarded for this, and maybe their investment happiness turns into blues pretty quick. it's hard to say. japan hayes seem to have garnered decades dealing or not
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dealing with issues, and their investors seemingly looking past huge debt issues. there's other things. today we learned from our great reporting that we have the first u.s. offshore wind farm. hurray, except for without a tax subsidy, which probably gets embedded forever, why does tesla get a tax subsidy. the company is worth $34 billion. please! last but certainly not least, when you build fences around things, it never works out well, but once again, maybe this is the one time investors took the shades over for a second. of course i'm referring to money markets. to make it simple, mid october we have reforming hurray. we love reforming. government should be a safety net for investors. haven't we learned or lesson? think stay tuned loans. we'll be learning another lesson, but the points is these fusion at prime money market
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funds investing in corporate paper. soirp, it's government paper that's in vogue. i wonder why they need new buyers for government paper. that's a story for another day, but the short of it is that some of those funds, 800 billion, and in three months down 30%. that's okay, but the problem is building fences aaron investors trying to competent from mob mattic issues after reform, that's probably the reason they're fleeing now. once again, building fences is not good, whether to keep companies in or keep people from getting out. jon fortt, back to you. thank you, rick. when we come back, the start-up with a big valuation and celebrity backers, it's now rebranding as textiles, are the company's business practices sustainable? more coming back.
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subscription model these days. maybe even cost co-life when it comes to retail. does it work when you buy something from just fab the first time, make the purchase and get charged $39 and change once a month, unless you say i want to skip a month or cancel? >> mostly so. we give customer as choice to buy at regular retail or through our v.i.p. membership model. it's a flexible membership program. customers can decide to buy that month or skip. on average customers buy about three to four time as year. >> the more you buy, the more worth it is, i suppose. you've gotten criticism for this model. people charged and didn't understand what they were signing up for. why not make it more opt in instead of opt out? at least on the v.i.p. program overall? >> we've made a lot of improvements to our membership model since we launched the
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business. anytime you chart new territory and build a company from zero, you need to make modifications. the program is an opt-in program. when you sign up you do need the join the v.i.p. membership program. we're transparent reminding to visit every single month and we want customers to be happy and understand the program, which the vast majority of our members do, really almost all members. >> what do you think distinguishes what allowed you to succeed from so many others in retail who have fallen by the wayside for one reason or another? look at guilt, flash sales, trends petered out, sold at a huge discount. jet.com, argue whether that $3 billion exit is a success or not, given their lofty talk and ambitions ahead of time. what will happen to you guys? what will distinguish whether you become the next really huge thing? >> what we're doing is different. we're building brands.
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brands from lou lululemon. the fangs landscape is changes and the way fashion brands in the future will be built will be differ and textile is all about using technology, being vertically integrated from start to finish, having a direct relationship with the consumer, and building brands online first. and what's going to make us different is we have great, great brands. delivering amazing value for the price and amazing fashion, and customers love it. and to me, the most important part about building any brand is you need passionate, passionate customers. for us, over 1 maillion and a half referred to us and a testament to the type of business we're building. >> given trouble apparel has been through, i wonder when it comes time for fund-raising if that's a head wind, interested in, by the way, talking apparel.
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more skepticism enters? >> we're done fund-raising. the business is fully funded, we're cash flow positive and great to be in control of your own destiny. certainly a challenge doing fund-raising. fashion, you have to catch the trends and there is risks. we've focused on, how can we use data and technology to derisk the fashion space? for us, one of the big gest challenges, we can forecast inventory demand to about 95% a accuracy, allowing no inventory and efficiency is pass forward to customers in the form of savings. >> was it a make and break decision to shift more to an opt-in model? a moment somebody said, look, we've heard enough from customers. we need to clarify their, or else? >> that was not the case at all. it's really important to put
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numbers in perspective. over 4 million v.i.p. members since we started the company, sold over 50 million shoes, bags, athletic items. the complaints, a very, very small number. that said, ten complaints is ten complaints too many. as we've evolved we've improved explaining the program, expanded service to 24/7, to me part of the evolution of growing up as a company and always making your service better. >> sounds a bit like the uber surge pricing controversy explanation, perhaps, has benefited you in that situation. cash full positive. congratulations. that's a big, important milestone. >> thank you. >> thank you for being with us. >> thank you for having me. when we come back, under pressure for the first time in about four days after closing in record territory yesterday. we'll talk about what the afternoon may bring in just a moment. ♪
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down about 42 points now. s&p 20,183. not a horizon kind of market day, mike santoli. >> it's not. energy materials up. a lot might be the dollar down. down almost 1%. flip side declining prices up, might be rye oil prices are hanging in firmly at this point. >> yeah. tech's not doing that much. look overall who's up. fort net up 4%. palo alto networks up, doing okay. outside of that, not a lot going on. amd down a bit at the start of inteling big developer conference. not sure what that's about. a little more bullishness towards intel in the rivalry than you might normally get. >> speaking of conferences, about a week away from jackson hole. we've been now 26 sessions without an train day range of 1%, on the s&p. are we destined to be range bound until we hear from yellen? >> might nos take that long. inviting more volatility.
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fed speak adding uncertainty into the equation on both sides now might get a shake-up before that. >> certainly the lesson today on the ten year trying to work its way back to 16 for the first time in a while. see what the afternoon does bring. for now over to headquarters, wapner and "the half." carl, thanks. welcome to the "halftime report." i'm scott wapner. today's top trade, the activist and morgan stanley. shares on the move this hour on news that value act has taken a billion dollar stake in the bank. the fund's ceo telling me last night she supportive of ceo james gorman and the bank is being misunderstood by investors. all comes with morgan stanley shares down more than 20% over the past year. he tells me investors are too focused on trading and lending businesses and not given credit to higher growth segments like wealth and investment management. with u
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