say pocks on both houses? >> let me tell you what i think. i'll give you the bottom line. i think the things that we need in this country going forward we're more apt to get with trump than we are with her. let's forget about politics, let's forget about philosophy, girls, boys. i'm saying to you we've got serious issues in america and my bet is that he'll give us more of what we need than she will. >> when you say character issues -- >> i recognize people have questions on both sides. i know they're different. >> they are different. >> the get out of jail free card, we've got to go. great to see you. >> are you going to be here tomorrow? make sure you join us tomorrow, someone will be here. "squawk on the street" is next. ♪ good tuesday morning, welcome to "squawk on the street." it is an earnings parade this morning. gm, under armour, caterpillar,

proctor, utx, merck and more. nikkei had a six-month high of a weaker yen. oil inventories after the bell. case schiller home prices up 5.3. out of road map begins with major blue chips reporting earnings from cat to gm, due paupt and visa. >> under armour shares are down double digits, despite a better-than-expected number. >> and the latest regulatory issues surrounding at&t's merger with time warner. netflix's reed hastings weighing in on the deal. first up, among the dow components out with results this morning, caterpillar beats on the bottom line, misses on revenue, cuts their full-year guidance saying most of its end markets remaining challenged. and then proctor's results are above consensus. thursday on "squawk on the street" sara eisen will have an exclusive with p & g ceo david

taylor coming into the job. says that this quarter marks what he called a good start for the fiscal year, jim. >> this is a remarkable morning because you see two companies like procter & gamble and dupont putting up 3% organic growth in this environment, which is extraordinary, especially when you look at kimberly clark predicted no growth, ge, slowing growth. united technologietechnologies,d to see what he's able to do. there's some challenges. 3m on the other side, consumer electronics. under armour, the spend, the spend that he's talking about in order to stay in place is really worrying people. the conference call is a very grim conference call. from the 50 people that got on it are saying what the heck is going on because they have to spend more money on their retail store and infrastructure. so united technologies which is better than expected. we've got proctor and gamble putting up unbelievable numbers,

including grooming. and then dupont with a remarkable cash flow. $1.3 billion improvement. brazil actually positive because of real. ye, it's pushed back. businesses push back on the dow dupont. but ed greene told you that there was fat at that company. nelson pelz told you there was fat at that company. it wasn't fat, it was obese. it was obese. >> as you say, of course, the big future event is the merger with dow. there continues to be concern on the regulatory front. i know we'll be talking about that when it comes to at&t and time warner and their potential deal, but here we're talking about a deal that was announced quite some time ago but continues to try to move ahead but concerned. >> it's really interesting. dow and dupont have committed to maintaining their r & d. the big worry with europe was that if these two companies stopped innovating, it's going to let monsanto have the run of

the table. so they're saying we're not going to collapse r & d. but there is a feeling among the europeans, they're looking at all acquisitions and mergers as ways to hurt the client. a customer that is hoping for a seed that does great things for corn and a seed that does great thing for wheat may say we're not going the to get that development unless you let dow compete with dupont. >> monsanto bayer and dow dupont. >> the farmers are a protected class. if a farmer squawks, the deal doesn't get done. these guys are a little too rosy. i know this is far along in the process. i do think dow and dupont with that commitment to keeping the research is good. but then i look at things like t-mobile and at&t. how smart was it to kill that deal? >> that was a smart deal to have killed and to have given at&t mobile $6 billion of spectrum in

cash to enable them to be really competitive. >> i look at the baker hughes halliburton and think how great was that to kill. look at those companies doing really well and competing against each other and trying to get in against a lot of different businesses. so i think the propensity of these regulators to want to kill deals is showing up 'em peer kael as being positive. >> take a look at the performance of dupont and dow later this week. >> and i read these things and field more bearish about time warner, i just do. in the end -- did you ever deep, deep dive and look at the at&t earnings? >> i did get a chance to look at them. they were not particularly strong. we talked about the sub loss but they weren't great numbers. many believe the deal is being done from a defensive posture. randall stevenson will argue differently but i think that's an argument that can be made. >> i think you have to push back on a guy like randall. i'm looking at the wire line business being bad.

i'm looking at directv peaking. you know, another game last night, i hate to be so granular to talk about football on a daily basis. but we're just not seeing games that are i think going to bring people into -- what are you laughing about? have you tried to watch -- fanduel and draftkings, they peaked. they were your viewership. i've got to tell you, fourth quarter viewership down big. advertisers are not going to get what they need. >> let's get to under armour. as you said, down 16%, premarket is getting a lot of people's attention. the growth rate going forward will be less than expected from its investor day last year and that news overshadowing better than expected quarterly results. kevin plank will be a guest on "halftime" tomorrow at 12:15 eastern time. north america up 15.6 is below the 20% that has really been their benchmark for years. >> but i think they're really

saying a lot of things about needing to be able to -- the footwear, let's just call a spade a spade. everyone has always said if you get a revitalized adidas, if you get nike on the ropes, which they tend not to stay on the ropes too much, then you're going to get a figure that is squeezed. people are saying that the footwear, ua is being squeezed. the footwear category is the most competitive category in the business, that's why i like foot locker as opposed to under armour. lulu, i was hoping they would have a better quarter. north face doing quite terribly. the only people making money in sports apparel is the people that make the fabric. if you were involved in a dogfight with nike over footwear, buck knight -- that's what they call him, they call him buck. >> understood. >> shoe dog, best competitive

biography. bill walton recommended. a dogfight with nike, nike can take a lot of pain. they can absorb a lot of pain. i don't like mcdonald's bowing able to absorb a lot of pain in burgers. not unlike proctor did absorb a lot of pain in grooming and in, yes, razor blades. and they have come out on top. >> hasn't under armour already paid a price going into today? it was $43 in august. >> sometimes there is no price to pay if you're going to go up against nike. nike can -- you think that nike doesn't sit here and say i'm not going to let adidas and under armour come back like this. under armour will have to spend more money on the retail stores, more money on footwear infrastructure. need to get more sponsors. i thought stephen curry was the greatest thing. we've got to be careful. >> we do? >> yes. a wounded nike is like a wounded tiger. you know tigers don't normally eat humans, it's only when

they're wounded. only when they have a thorn in their paw. >> fortunately there's so few tigers right now. only a couple thousand left. >> that's a good point. i hadn't even thought about that. how's the elephants doing? >> not doing well either. the elephants are not doing well, frogs are not doing well. bats, dolphins. >> who's doing well, mosquitos. >> honeybees turned out to be as smart as humans. did you see that video? i know that's a little off topic. >> so at $32 on under armour as we look at the stock, and to carl's point well below the highs of this year. >> they just dropped the sales of apparel outlook, just now. >> i think kevin plank might want to move up his appearance. >> kevin is a nice guy. >> maybe he wants to be on today, not tomorrow. >> it may be the wrong time to start a new whiskey. >> whiskey? >> he's got a whiskey. >> that's a separate personal venture? >> i don't know. i've got too many other things

to do. >> real quickly, let's do gm before we go to break. $1.72 beats $1.45. earnings more than double. our break-even in europe looks a little it's going to be a little harder to do with brexit. >> but the china story is starting to come out. i know caterpillar is down. i don't know if it's going to stay down, frankly. caterpillar is the story of china turning. gm is the story of china. gm is run versus ford. i still gm the cash flow is so gigantic they deploy that. up against gm is david driverless car favor. you always have to deal with the future. the future is ahead. >> it's coming. i mean it's coming. he's thinking five to seven years, as its as that, you're going to see these things all over the place. i don't know where the timeline is. you get 10 years, 15 years, 5 years, but it's coming. >> it's coming and happening faster than we think.

that mobile eye test dispute really threw me off because the driverless cars require so much technology. but you know what, i saw a driverless 16-wheeler they got coming out. >> it's all about amassing the data. each mile they drive, each experience they have helps them. >> there's a great interview with bill ford today about how silicon valley thought they would be able to do this all by themselves. creating a car is a hard thing to do at scale. >> yes. that's why you have to give tesla a hand. just to circle back to under armour. under armour is saying don't give up the ship here, business a little better than people expected. you know what's happening, dogfights, gm, ford, fiat. dogfights with the shoe business. you're looking for nondogfight situations. who's nondogfight, alphabet, amazon, facebook. nondogfight. they are like, hey -- >> they're just cruising. >> it's like the sagamore spirit

is the whiskey. >> talk about market power, i know that's a focus of regulators when it comes to at&t and time warner. come on, man, market power. >> when facebook decided to build dorms to get the stanford guys with computer science, that was game, set, match. how do you compete with a guy building a four season dorm. >> i don't know how you do. >> you can't. you can't. let's say you're like clorox, which should be doing a little better because they have probiotics numbers that were great. >> do they have room service? >> you get out of stanford and your bill is $250,000 in tuition, they make it up the next day. one they're starting at $270,000. you can't afford the bay area because the average starter home is $1.3 million. now, you have to be in the four seasons dorms. i'm more of a hotel 6 guy or 8. >> you are not a hotel 6 guy.

you say a lot of things that are true. i don't believe that was one of them. >> that was a complete fabrication. thank you for nailing me. >> you're welcome. >> at least we got one of them in the "a" block. when we come back, we'll hear what netflix reed hastings had to say about the at&t/time warner deal. marcell oo claure making news. we'll get to whirlpool, merck, visa. take one more look at the premarket. we're "squawk on the street" after the break. hey gary, what are you doing? oh hey john, i'm connecting our brains so we can share our amazing trading knowledge. that's a great idea, but why don't you just go to thinkorswim's chat rooms where you can share strategies, ideas, even actual trades

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a lot of buzz surrounding at&t's $85 billion acquisition of time warner. last night at the wjsd conference, we asked reed hastings what it means for his company. >> it's hard to tell. it's very early. we didn't know anything about it or are just sorting through it. for sure we want to make it so that we require for at&t customers that hbo and netflix are treated the same. now this they're going to own hbo, we think that any special treatment for hbo data would be inappropriate. but i think that's pretty basic. >> but is this going to be a negative for netflix in terms of

more competition, at&t having more ammunition for its over-the-top services? >> could be a lot of that. there's a lot of at&t investment in content, so that could make things tougher. on the other hand, it's probably going to get easier for us to recruit time warner executives, which are a very talented bunch. so you've got some puts and calls. >> do you find it curious that the populism against the deal doesn't extend to executives, rival executives? >> you know, that's a very good point, it really doesn't. i do think that we are in a world where if you're an upstart, you just are living large. it's just the greatest thing in the world. if you've just been hanging out, fat cat -- >> if you're a legacy business, you've got a tougher road. >> yes. >> reed hastings and netflix have been on the right side of a number of things. comcast, time warner cable, they weren't a fan of that deal. charter time warner cable, it lived. they got those great rules from

the fcc. i'm just saying what reed wants -- i wasn't referring to brazil 37. but reed seems to get what he wants to a certain extent. >> when you listen to him, don't you feel like he just kind of sits back, he's kind of einstein. >> i thought the point about time warner executives was an interesting one. the creation of content to the extent randall stevenson believes that is a key thing, it's the people doing it. if you can get them and netflix is going to spend $7 billion on content next year, i think, that doesn't hurt. >> when you think about the culture, randall stevenson, does he strike you as a guy that could necessarily be more coming up with narcos 2? >> no, i don't think so. he knows his limitations. >> do you think he could come up -- >> no, i think he's hoping that

time warner will continue to. >> do you think that cinemax would have that incredible product if randall stephenson were the final judge? what do you think he watches? maybe other than the cowboys or something. >> i don't know mr. stephenson's viewing habits. you can ask him. >> we talk to reed hastings, reed hastings is a machine that has learned. >> he's more of a technologist than he is a programmer, reed hastings. >> you said this thing about bezos ten years ago. a lot of these guys who were involved in data make it creative. >> they hire the right people to make sure they have the content they want. >> they know what you want. so that they have an edge. now, maybe randall stephenson is looking at what people want. >> he is and is looking at practicalmatic -- programatic ad solution and deliver better

solutions to advertisers. i don't understand the thing about this deal other than we're not growing, maybe this gives us a shot and our dividends in better shape. >> let's say you can work for reed for a lot more money and a beautiful lifestyle in california versus working for randall stephenson. what's the matter? >> i'm listening. los gatos is a nice place to be. >> i did like the filing yesterday reminding people it's not time warner cable. did you see that? >> how many people got that wrong. can peep like read? that's asking for too much. >> that name is being retired, time warner cable. it is complete lly owned by charter, which is becoming spectrum. the offering is becoming spectrum. there was a time when time warner was time warner, aol, time warner cable and time. it got taken apart. now it's just hbo, the cable networks and the movie studio. that's what you get.

>> you know, did you hear anyone joke around at all about what verizon is putting together there with the aol and yahoo!? what do you think there? do you think that's the powerhouse that you've been waiting for? >> there's a word for it but we don't say it on tv. it goes before sandwich. >> i was thinking don't crowd my space, david. >> when we come back, we'll get cramer's mad dash, count down to the opening bell and take one more look at the premarket. relatively weak, although there's a lot of earnings we haven't gotten to. "squawk on the street" continues straight ahead. end synthetic over cedar? "super food"? is that a real thing? it's a great school, but is it the right the one for her? is this really any better than the one you got last year? if we consolidate suppliers what's the savings there? so should we go with the 467 horsepower? or is a 423 enough? good question. you ask a lot of good questions... i think we should move you into our new fund. ok. sure. but are you asking enough about how your wealth is managed?

wealth management, at charles schwab. hey lmaybe let's play upl our the digital part.r job, but it's a manufacturing job. yeah, well ge is doing a lot of cool things digitally to help machines communicate, might want to at least mention that. i'm building world-changing machines. with my two hands. does that threaten you? no! don't be silly. i'm just, uh, going to go to chop some wood. with that? yeah we don't have an ax. or a fireplace. good to be prepared. could you cut the bread?

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let's get to a mad dash with about six minutes or so before we get to the opening bell, jim. merck reported earnings. looks like they weren't bad. what's your take? >> in my next life i want to be a pr person for merck. they should be up and down cheering. i think there's a lot to like, obviously with their anti-cancer franchise. it is surprising to me that stock is down. eli lilly was a first class miss. i don't know what to do with that one. david, i've got to tell you that when i look at alergen yesterday and see how much that was down, when i look at valeant that got crushed yesterday, i still say that this is an election year and these are very tough stocks to owner in an election year. >> merck, i believe, raised both top and bottom line guidance for fiscal year 2016.

>> if this was november 10th, the stock would be up 62, 3. merck is an incredibly humble company that simply refuses to make any statements that would be considered puffery. that has been their style. it has always been their style. it's one of the reasons i like them. in a promotional environment, i've got to tell you, eli lilly has become a little more promotional than i like. this is the standout that doesn't tell the story. they should be pounding their chest. pfizer pounds its chest, david, but not merck. have a little -- just have a little bit more game, guys. it's like they go in and say, oh, boy, it's not going to be this good again. we're underdogs by three. okay, we'll take the over. no, i like that merck does not promote. this was a good quarter for merck. i'm saying that merck is a buy,

but you've got an election where both teams just don't like big pharma or else alergen wouldn't go down every day and valeant, we have to talk about that balance sheet. i'm hearing no sales and possible price cuts. we have got to focus on valeant. >> let's do that after the bill and take a look at lilly and merck. >> this group is heavy. >> so many earnings to get to and focus on as we get to the opening bell and see how the stocks react. "squawk on the street" back after this. woman: how do we protect them from $4 billion in new cuts to california schools? man: vote yes on proposition 55. woman: prop 55 doesn't raise taxes on anyone. man: not on working californians, not small businesses. no one. woman: instead, prop 55 simply maintains the current tax rate

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you're watching cnbc's "squawk on the street" live from the financial capital of the world. the opening bell in just under a minute. earnings season truly under way today. a bunch of dow components. we've gotten through gm, caterpill caterpillar, 3m, dupont. >> i was surprised with gm. consumer products. >> we've got the election two weeks from today.

business confidence at a ten-year high but the tenure there -- >> i think europe is dramatically undervalued. i think that the dollar is not going to continue to have this run. i think that europe is making a comeback. [ bell ringing ] >> there's the opening bell and the s&p at the bottom of your screen. the big board, over at the nasdaq, a farm suit yal company focused on dermatology. sherwin williams and whirlpool used to be the superstars of the market and both of them today have disappointing news. >> i thought that whirlpool would have a little secret weapon there with the real getting so strong because they have such a big brazilian input. but talking about demand, demand. we don't want to hear demand. sherwin williams is a big miss.

housing spending has not been a great story this quarter, and that's a little surprising. housing spending has been -- that had been one of the bright spots in the economy. people really struggling to figure out what is going on with housing spend. home depot went up yesterday. ken langone spoke very well about home depot. i'm really getting concerned that housing spending may be somehow cut back. i don't know. it's not -- it's not anything that anyone thought that would happen. i mean vf corp, okay, we know apparel spending has been weak. but housing spending, this is rather incredible, the switch. when ppg announced i thought they were in an inferior position to sherwin-williams, but no. whirlpool. >> whirlpool missed on the tom and bottom line by a wide

margin. the guide to 14 to 14.25. street is at 14.61. >> they are a serial underperformer. holy cow. yeah, this shu beould have been their time. there's been great consolidation in the appliance business, but there's still a demand side. something happened in the last three months in this country. when you get off the desk with people, the one thing they never want to mention is politics. fear, negativity, politics. this is the -- i dug up the old speech, the crisis and confidence jimmy carter speech. resonated. resonated. i don't have a card begigan swe so i can't go all in. but i think the election is putting a damper on everything. i am very surprised at how weak the consumer suddenly has turned out to be, very surprised. it's not what's in the cards. no one can figure it out. >> caterpillar does cut their f ul year guide.

they say most markets remain challenged. once they account for this change in the way they look at pensions, they could post a net loss for the first time since '04. >> i'm going to give the brief for a very positive caterpillar. i look at that release and you've got two things. they said, yes, 2016 goes into 2017 the same way it has, it won't be good. but 2017 there's a commodity pickup in the second half and china has turned. i don't really care about anywhere else other than china. i think caterpillar was a good quarter. i think caterpillar -- i know jim will be on scott wapner. remember, they kept cutting numbers cat, the 12 dollar turned into 3.4. but when you see commodity pricing bottoming and then you start being able to build a thesis why capital goods,

particularly cat, may not be a bad place to be, versus the consumer where i'm looking at the sonic. i mean sonic? they preannounce bad and then did worse. typically you preannounce bad and then do better. what is going on here, lululemon, sherwin-williams, whirlpool. this is beginning to make me think people are just staying home. mccormick up today. blue apron, i don't know. i do think there's absolutely something going on with the consumer. maybe they're playing -- remember, 11% of american time is spent doing video games. >> maybe more now. >> maybe more. >> maybe more. do you know the video game franchise is continually underestimated? >> time warner's video game franchise -- >> it is strong because we think of acti vision. take two has been incredible. i wouldn't let my kids play

grand theft auto. i just wanted them to own the stocks. >> you mentioned time warner and at&t. both of which are up fractionally this morning after what was -- it was not a great day yesterday, the debut of the deal, of course. you can see time warner shares a little above 87. at&t is still below the bottom of the collar, not too far below it. so that does actually impinge on the overall value of the transaction. it's not quite worth 107.50. but the real question as we talked about is antitrust. the fcc may not even figure prominently here. they could jettison their broadcasting licenses and make an argument they shouldn't have a review by the fcc. the doj versus vertical integration. this should not be something that is considered anticompetitive. but i suppose they'll bow looking at a lot of things. market power. it is amazing how many people want to bring politics into it. >> i'm coming at it the other

way. 1984, the great dean of antitrust law told me when gulf got a bid -- this is back in law school. when gulf got a bid from chevron, it seemed the most anticompetitive possible deal. seven sisters taking out the six sisters, you get the analogy. he said that deal will sail through but the reagan antitrust department favors combinations. when trump came out and said this deal will not be done. do you think the antitrust department under hillary clinton will be more for giving than under obama? the republicans used to be big champions. reagan would be like he'd stamp it. >> it's interesting because given the year we've had in terms of antitrust really coming to the fore as a break on m & a

activity, we have one of the most historic deals just announced saturday night and other huge deals that are being worked on potentially, at least big ones that we may know, but it doesn't seem to have stopped the deal-making. >> at the same time, who's the winner in humana, aetna, cigna. anthem? who's the winner in -- >> if apple were to come over the top and buy time warner, which i'm not saying in any way, shape or form is going to happen. if they wanted to, they could even bid less than 107 and get it because they could bid all cash. but would there be a lack of antitrust there? that doesn't make sense. the most powerful company in the world would attract less interest than at&t buying time warner? >> no. the government is interested in trying to stop big companies from being big companies. >> that seems to be the general thinking, that apple would have

an easier time. >> i wish they bought spotify and pandora. >> netflix too. >> i asked them to buy netflix when it was 25. i pleaded. it was deaf ears. it was all deaf ears. >> it's not what they seem to be interested in. >> they like the home kit. >> and health care. >> health care is going to be huge for them. if they crack the holy grail. if i can get my blood pressure on this watch -- by the way, the bright ling has no blood pressure. >> have you seen the estimates of watch shipments? >> they were not good. >> down 72% year on year. >> it's pretty brutal. i love mine. geez. i do. i was talking on the way back from the eagles game. i was like how you doing? i feel like it's a lot like get smart. >> what are you expecting for tonight? you look at china, the watch, luxury, iphone 7. >> the stock has moved so much.

remember, i say own it, don't trade it. it's a pretty good analysis, 92, 93, but i just care about service revenue. remember, pokemon go came in this app store. the money that i pay -- i pay now like i pay verizon. i look at it. apple could make me pay for anything. i'm happy. i'm happy. and let's not forget the fiery phone. that's going to be for the future. >> it is. but what about their other efforts. the car doesn't seem to have gone that well. the watch. >> need to refresh. >> i don't hear about them in ai, i don't hear about them in cloud. they are definitely focused, as you say, the home. >> right, but that's -- well, that's an app. >> health care and the importance of data there and all those services. that was an interesting note we got a couple of weeks back from that goldman analyst talking about what apple conceivably could do. >> i think apple is at a great

juncture in that they can sit back and do what they want. in the interim they got very lucky. i think we forgot, samsung was killing them. >> yeah. >> they had switching from samsung that was better than people expected. but samsung had been on a roll. that ten days ahead, those fated ten days where they had to get ahead of the launch, ill-fated. it's a suboptimal situation at samsung. we don't know what the charge is. >> it had an effect on korean gdp. >> really? >> they cited it in their report today. >> the communist party, which i think people forget is incredibly powerful, i probably didn't like that whole, hey listen, guys, it's the battery. the communist party is uniquely powerful. the people who run the banks -- >> you're talking about china now. >> are communist party members. the people who run the factories -- there's 88 million communist party guys. they all talk. what are you going to do?

if you go and your bank is about to fail, you call another member of the party. i mean these guys are the life of the party. they are not going to stop. and if they think that samsung did the wrong thing -- remember, they were threatening apple moving. if they think samsung did the wrong thing, forget about samsung. >> samsung was already at the bottom tier of suppliers in china. >> china is a pretty big market. it's a huge market. >> so the volumes are still big. but they were fifth in the marketplace already. >> the whole galaxy note 7, it just doesn't smell good. you know what i mean. >> i do. around a christmas fire it might smell nice. chest nuts. >> do you think it's going to be a christmas seller like the yule log? it could be like channel 11. hot samsung roasting on an open fire. >> wait for it to catch. that could be a game, a parlor game, when will it go up? >> it's true.

mel to yourme. >> home depot, jim, and 3m offsetting. >> this is consumer products. i think home depot will have a better quarter. they may be pitting these guys. for all you know they're pitting each other. ken langone with fabulous comments about home depot. everybody decided that people will spend more money to make their home better and that just ended. i don't know why. i don't know why it ended. something occurred in this country that made people feel not so hot about themselves. >> maybe it's insurance premiums going up 25% next year. >> i think that's underestimated. as soon as you say that, people will say that's political, no. we all know that your co-pay -- >> you're right. we talk about it all the time. we've been dealing with that for a while, which is 100% on us.

>> teledocs not making up for it. yes, the insurance premiums are up. i also think that home valuation in a lot of areas has peaked. i know the data hasn't shown that yet but the data is old. i've got to tell you that this is -- whether it's competing with your phone bill or health care, spending on the house has declined on a relative basis versus what had been one of the great -- i mean that was the best one. it had not peaked. i've got a negative feeling about it. >> you're going to do more work, i know that. >> i have to. i have to go right to the source. ppg, whirlpool, sherwin-williams, they are integral to the thesis. you can't get more integral than that. and in footwear, i tell you, people are watching a lot of tv and they're fearful. they don't go to the mall, they don't leave their house. >> that's not true, they're walking around like this all the time. >> let's get to someone who used to cover real estate, and that's our own bob pisani on the floor.

welcome back. >> thank you, sir. long time ago but i still love real estate. we've got a mixed open here. a lot of beats but mixed guidance. but more positives than negatives. let's take a look at some of the earnings beats that we've had this morning. united tech beat by 10 cents. top line as well, raised the lower end of its guidance and raised its organic sales growth. dupont raised its forecast as well. lockheed martin, earnings beeat merck had a beat, they had raised their 2016 outlook. they had a big runup this year. they're up 15%, 16%. gm, 27 cents beat. that's a remarkable number here. beating the street. but down 2% as you can see there. so mixed responses to some of these. procter & gamble, just amazing. organic sales growth 3%. $16 billion in sales and they still get organic sales growth of 3%. that's just remarkable. all five of their business segments had an increase in organic sales growth and they

reaffirmed their full-year guidance. this was their first quarter so they're talking about the rest of the year overall. baker hughes echoing what halliburton said last week overall. narrower loss than expected. they talked been an uptick in the united states. of course declines abroad, they're still having troubles over there but another very positive report from another big service group out today here. loss of 15 cents, we were anticipating a loss of 44 for them. caterpillar, yes, on the surface is disappointing. the guidance overall is disappointing. remember, they did beat 2016 guidance is below expectation and 2017 sales revenues not significantly different. that doesn't sound very good, but here is the key. most commodity prices seems to have stabilized. he went on to say if we can get stabilization and a modest move

up this will have a material impact on our 2017 numbers. he left the door open so clearly things will be better in 2017 than we're painting for you as a picture now. i think that's why caterpillar is moving a bit to the upside. where are we in this whole process with the earnings? overall, more positives than negative right now. so yesterday we're at 1.1%. i anticipate these numbers are not in it. i anticipate that number will go up today to 1.2%, 1.3%. we are on our way to ending these four consecutive quarters of downside earnings growth, that earnings recession. i think today will help that. two ipos coming. tomorrow night the biggest pricing, eto express. this is a china delivery service sometimes described as the u.p.s. of china. it's about $1.3 billion raised. that will be bigger than the line i.p.o., the japanese messaging service we had.

72.1 million shares. $16.50 to $18.50. then golf enthusiasts, this is titlest essentially, manufacturers golf products, 19 million shares, $21 to $24. that is pricing thursday night for trade down here on friday. finally a quick stat from our friends, two weeks away from the presidential elections here, since 1992, i thought this was an interesting stat, the s&p is up 100% of the time in the prior two weeks to the election. 2.2% is the average and gold in that period is a loser. i always want to point out when something is a 100% probability of happening. it happened 100% of the time in the past. right now let's call it flat on the dow. guys, back to you. >> thank you very much, bob pisani. we're watching oil prices. also relatively flat. bertha coombs. >> relatively flat considering that we do have that strength in the dollar today.

one of the things that folks are watching is how that meeting might go today in baghdad. opec's minister going to meet with the minister in iraq. iraq saying they should be except to the production cut because of their problems fighting islamic rebels in that country. they're going to have those discussions. but of course if you give opec -- iraq an exception, other people may want an exception and they're trying to convince russia to come in with them to try to cut production or at least maintain levels at the levels we are seeing now, which has really given oil a boost over the last month. we've got oil up about 4% month to date here in the u.s. as well as for brent crude and for gasoline, but we could see some pressure because we do have a key pipeline, the seaway pipeline between the cushing wti oklahoma hub and the gulf coast, shut down because of a spill. no clear word on when that will resume opening, so that could lead to some cushing reserves

being higher. we are expecting to see as we get those inventory numbers tonight from the industry and tomorrow from the government an increase of more than a million barrels of crude from last week. gasoline has been holding up fairly well notwithstanding. metals today are higher, bit of a bounce up according to analysts after a big decline over the last couple of days. back to you. >> bertha, thank you very much. when we come back, an exclusive with sprint's marcelo claure on everything from the at&t/time warner mega deal to his own company's latest results. a bit of a tug of war between utx and proctor on the upside. home depot and 3m on the downside. dow is down nine points.

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this morning, domestic shale has lowered the basis to the point where you're able to make a ton of money in shale, eagleford and also in scoop in oklahoma. that's what's driving this, which is my go-to for energy. saying the u.s. shale producers are doing great. the international drilling is still weak because they need much higher break-even. but the shale guys because of technology, american technology have created so much wealth that people are drilling again and making fortunes. that's why baker hughes and halliburton have turned. they are very good stocks to own. >> you made that call a nice one a while ago. >> thank you, thank you. >> what's on "mad" tonight? >> other than oil and some of the very big industrials, the -- you've got to love these regional banks. and daymond john, when you're trying to figure out netflix versus time warner versus take two versus what people are doing

with apple, samsung, i mean no one -- he told me to buy apple. it had to have been 100 points ago. the guy's amazing. i'm having him on tonight because i need realtime analysis, not unlike what they have on some of the sportsnet works. >> jim, we will see you tonight. "mad money," 6:00 p.m. eastern time. when we come back, an exclusive with sprint ceo marcelo claure. the dow is up one point. don't go away. ♪ we're drowning in information. where, in all of this, is the stuff that matters? the stakes are so high, your finances, your future.

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30 points higher. >> that is where our road map for the hour begins, with a flood of earnings out this morning. we've got the highlights, biggest movers and analysis for you straight ahead. plus sprint posting its first year-on-year revenue gain in two years. we'll talk to marcelo claure. >> and cnbc unveilings the cnbc 100 powered by mcam. it launches today and we've got the details. but we start with a ton of earnings out this morning. let's get started with the three we are keeping a very close eye on this morning. caterpillar beating estimates by nine cents, but revenue missing forecasts. the heavy equipment maker also cutting its full-year guidance saying most of its end markets remain, quote, challenged. the stock actually jumping a bit here, about half a percent. procter & gamble reporting better-than-expected quarterly sales helped by strong demand for feminine, baby and home care products. net income rose $2.71 billion up

from $2.60 billion a year earlier. under armour getting crushed. reporting a drop in margin for the quarter, modifying its growth expectations going forward. the company saying on its earnings call, quote, while we continue to expect to significantly outpace the apparel industry, the growth rate going forward will be less than expected from our investor day in 2015. under armour did report better-than-expected sales and demand for apparel, shoes and accessories grew. we've got mike santoli to break them all down. under armour adjusting expectations there. they're still looking for 20% annual growth, but i guess the street was more like 25% to 30% growth so it was a little bit of a reality check. >> yeah, exactly. between moderating that long term or at least year or two-year growth path as well as

having that margin pressure that people were not too comfortable with, the growth is coming from areas that might be lower margin, whether it is shoes or international. i also think just the context for the stock is you weren't necessarily buying this because it was relatively well valued compared to the competition and the street has been stubbornly bullish on it. one sell rating. people have not giving up and that's what today's adjustment is telling you. >> when you look across the consumer space, where are you seeing apparel sales growing 18%, footwear sales increasing 42%, guys. direct to consumer, 29%. piper jaffray saying the sell-off is over done. that was z t the question is, is it fast enough to meet the lofty

expectations. >> if i own the stock or wanted to look for a chance to own the stock, i don't want the analysts defending it today. i want to see some analysts capitulate on this. it trades at twice the multiple of nike. it still has a very high bar to justify that. over time it probably will. the question is right now exactly what the path is between now and then. i think that's what the market is dealing with. >> we tossed the ball around with jim on what's happening regarding housing spend. whirlpool a disappointment. sherwin-williams a disappointment. home depot among the weakest dow components right now. whether it's rising insurance premiums or rising streaming phone bill or just election uncertainty, are we beginning to look at a peak housing thesis that looks sense? >> there seems like some kind of a squeeze going on. i don't know if all of those is about new construction or housing turnover, but definitely on the renovation side. essentially people being a little more careful. whirlpool, people are concerned about steel prices going up so there's two sides of it. whirlpool is one of those

dangerous situations. a very cheap-looking cyclical stock. you had in the last consumer confidence numbers one of these metrics that says consumers' intentions to buy appliances was actually looking to be at a historic high and yet it's not really manifest there. i do think people are trying to puzzle out exactly what the mindset and the condition of really consumer spending intentions are right now. all that in the mix for the whole sector. >> i mean certainly not such a hot forecast from caterpillar, revenue down 16% from a year earlier. economic weakness throughout much of the world persists. yet we mentioned, mike, that the stock is doing a little bit better. i guess a lot of that has been priced in. >> stock is hanging in there which is modestly encouraging. the stock virtually got cut in half from 2014 to january of this year. it's regained about half of that loss, so it's kind of stuck there in the middle between the good times and really the depressed times of early '16. really the numbers don't give you a lot to believe in there.

one year ago, 2017 earnings were expected to be 423. now the estimate is 363. today's report implies maybe there's risk to the downside for that 363 but people like the sector, they like the international side of the story. also you know what i was talking about with under armour with analysts' sentiment, it's the flip side for caterpillar. you only have four buy ratings out of 23 so maybe some of that bad news was top of mind for people. >> finally, if we're looking for a theme on the consumer that carl was mentioning, p & g with 3% organic revenue growth and that doesn't include the hit they are taking from the strong dollar in foreign exchange is an improvement. they saw organic growth in all of their segments led by health care. those power toothbrushes from oral b got a specific shoutout. mike, you've been looking at general motors and others, is it just sort of p & g getting leaner, their strategy finally coming together and starting to work and they're starting to take back some share and get their higher what they call the

premium pricing and the premium products out on the shelves and consumers are going for that rather than a broader sort of consumer strength story. >> it does seem like a takeaway for a p & g specific story. maybe it's some of the categories that p & g is in. one of the interesting things to think about, we talked about food deflation, grocery deflation, you actually have other parts of the supermarket that don't sell food. that's a hypothesis you don't hear that much about. basically the consumer is not in bad place. i think some of the international exposures are doing okay for it. >> mike, thank you. and a quick programming note on that, make sure to catch under armour ceo kevin plank tomorrow. he'll be on the "halftime" report at noon. that should be interesting. thursday, 10:00 a.m. eastern, we'll speak with procter & gamble's ceo, david taylor. it is one year into his role as

ceo of this company. it's his first television interview ever. the stock has made a real comeback so far this year and we'll talk about some of the results he has to post behind that. >> that's a great get. looking forward to hearing from mr. taylor. >> at his home in cincinnati. >> very exciting. let's turn our attention back to at&t and time warner, of course, that huge deal announced saturday night. the companies are going to be facing regulators in the not too distant future, beginning a process that will go on quite some time. joining us now, christine varney, head of the antitrust division of the department of justice and a former ftc commissioner and now a partner at covart swainer. nice to have you back and see you again. over the last couple of days we've got donald trump saying this is a deal we won't approve in my administration because it's too much concentration of power in the hands of too few. bernie sanders says the administration should kill the deal because it would mean

higher prices and fewer choices for the american people. perhaps more importantly, charles grassley, chuck grassley, the senator judiciary committee chair, says we're going to hold hearings and we're going to ask the important questions about the impact on competition and consumers. what is he going to hear and what are you guys going to say to rebut these arguments that have already come power fully in the realm of politics? >> this is a big, transformative deal and rightly the government and regulators will look at the deal and make sure there's no harm to competition. i think we welcome the government review, we welcome talking to those on the hill about the deal. i think it's important to remember at the end of the day these are not two competitors merging, these are two complementary companies. the day before the deal closes there will be the same number of mobile competitors as there are the day after and the same is true with content producers. the same number the day before as the same number the day after. this allows a great new company to bring innovative new content

to consumers, quicker, faster, cheaper. >> so is the law on your side? we've talked often about vertical integration, which is what you've talked about, not horizontal, being something that typically is approved, although sometimes with conditions. >> as lawyers, we love when the law and the facts are on your side. in this case both the law and the facts support this merger. what the government is generally concerned about and as you've seen in the last eight years is when two competitors, head-on competitors go to combine. that's when the government has serious concerns, so that's what you saw in the cisco food merger, that's what you saw in halliburton, that's what you saw in h & r tax act, so any time you've got head-to-head competition that's lessening the playing field, that's what we worry about. this isn't the case here. the government is as concerned about the ability to innovate as they are about the competitive playing field remaining stable. so in this deal not only does the competitive playing field remain stable, it opens the door to all kinds of innovation we

wouldn't see otherwise. >> there is this argument about market power, generally speaking, and the idea that this company simply as constructed would be too powerful. is that an argument that the government can make outside the realm of what might be the typical antitrust law? >> well, the government regulators who are going to review this transaction are going to stick to the law and stick to the facts. and the law and the facts here really dictate that you look at the market power of the company before the transaction and the market power after the transaction. before the transaction, you know, at&t is not producing world class content and before the transaction time warner is not selling mobile service. so post transaction what you have are two complements coming together. in the history of antitrust enforcement, there's been very few instances where the government has looked at two complements coming together and found anything other than a benefit to consumers. >> so how do they tune out the political noise? and what if it continues after the election, does that play a part at all? >> well, it's interesting that

you term it noise, because as somebody that's been doing this for 30 years, both inside government and outside government, the people inside government who review these mergers, they're pros. they are there day in, day out, and they really do a serious examination based on the facts and the law. they'll reach a conclusion based on those facts, not others. >> does comcast/nbc work in your favor because it was done and works or is it not in your favor because it was done and that was enough? >> well, i think that what you learn when you look back, you see that the government really can distinguish between horizontal mergers and vertical integrations that are complementary. i expect the government will come out in exactly the same place here. this is a vertical integration and there's really no competition concern. >> comcast, our parent company, did accept conditions on its deal to acquire nbc and a consent degree which will expire in the not too distant future. is that something you think at&t would be willing to do? >> i think at&t's ceo and the time warner ceo were out talking

sunday and monday. i think they both signalled that they're going to be working very closely with the government and accommodating those concerns. >> and time warner cable and comcast, it was the fcc that actually really forced comcast to abandon the deal, not the doj. in this case it would seem you don't have to necessarily even put yourself up in front of the fcc. there are broadcast licenses, but many people think they can simply be sent packing, so to speak. is that a responsibilitpossibil? >> the company is looking at what licenses, if any, will transfer and when we have the answer, we'll know. we are very committed to the regulatory review process. the deal you mentioned was two horizontal competitors trying to combine. >> it was. >> this isn't the case here. >> but to sara's point, christine, politics does play an important role here even after the election, certainly prior to it in these couple of weeks still. you have confidence that the process will act purely on the law as opposed to influence that typically can be brought to bear as a result of consumer concern?

>> 100% confident that this analysis will be done on the law and the facts. >> even if the president themselves comes out opposing it? >> well, it's interesting. there was a case in the 1970s where somebody in the white house tried to interfere in a department of justice evaluation of a merger and somebody ended up going to jail. so i can assure you that any reasonable white house is absolutely going to understand the limits between what they can do in the white house and what the doj does as part of a civil enforcement investigation. those lines are very clear and doj will stick to the facts and stick to the law. i'm sure that a president hillary clinton will want them to do precisely that. >> and finally, end of next year, is that a reasonable timeline to expect that this will take place? >> if not sooner. >> christine varney, thank you. when we come back, shares of

sprint sliding despite beating estimates and raising their guidance. we'll talk to marcelo claure after a short break. don't go away. life and death. 600 dollars. of abuse.

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company's headquarters and gives us a bit more insight on the quarter. marcelo, you've had a nice run and that stock price today is not a big run. it's down. the only thing i can pick up at this point is post paid phone, average revenue per user did fall about 6%, which may not be well received by the marketplace. why was that? >> so i mean i think we'll go crazy if we look at the stock on a day-to-day basis. the stock was up yesterday 6%, today it's down 6%. we try to look at it on an aggregate basis. if you go back in time where stock was $2.18, today is $6.50, $6.60 so i think we've generated great returns for investors. we feel very good where our stock sits today. you've got to look at revenue and look at the net operating revenue of sprint. it went up for the first time in two years and i think that's a reflection and then once you can turn around the revenue. as it relates to average billing per user, it grew sequentially

year over year so pretty much we're hitting on all cylinders. revenue is up. 2.35 billion. we generated adjusted free cash flow of $700 minneapolis/st. paul -- $700 million. we did one of our most successful issuance of debt at 3.6% which is less than half of the average cost per capital. so we're in the midst of a turn-around and feel very good where the company is today. >> you're obviously taking share from conceivably it looks like at&t and verizon. you've done a lot of financing to sort of push out for some time any concern about your debt load, although there are still those who say you will eventually face a cliff a few years out where you're going to have to deal with that and they still wonder -- forget the adjusting on free cash flow, when you're going to have pure unadulterated free cash flow in abundance. ever? >> no, no, of course. we call it adjusted free cash

flow because that is the way you account for it. any time you do secularization of your devices, but we are generating positive free cash flow and that's unadulterated as you call it. we feel very good where we are. we beat at&t by 700,000. that's a lot of customers. we beat verizon by over 350,000. we've had our best, five times better than last year, so revenue is up. as i said, we're bringing customers. lowest churn in company history, down to 1.73%. i can tell you, i'm very, very happy with where this quarter has ended. as you can see by the price of the stock, not today but yesterday, but overall the price of the stock over the last few weeks and months, they have been showing the progress that we're making in turning around sprint. >> since we're talking deep dive

in the numbers, marcelo, what about that abnormally low cap ex, what's going on in the spending side of things? >> we said it over and over, you don't necessarily need to spend the time of money to provide an awesome product. let's talk about j.d. power, which is the benchmark that consumers trust, ranked sprint's network number two ahead of at&t and ahead of t-mobile and very close to verizon. that's why our commercials say it loud and enclosure. -- clear. so overall, the network is performing better than ever, our churn is better than ever and we're real smart on how we're spending our money. there's no need to basically spend the time of money that we spent in the past. we're a loft more cautious, like i said it's a turn-around, and we're going to get back to spending the latter part of this yore and next year as we get more permits all over the u.s. >> my other question to you has to do with iphones and what

you're seeing on the sale side of things, ever since your disclosure initially that they were very strong in the first weekend. have they kept that pace of growth? >> absolutely. i mean we still have hundreds of thousands of back orders from customers that are waiting for their iphone to ship. we're still on allocation from apple and we are hoping that apple will manufacture more iphones so we can fulfill the demand that we have from our customers. so apple demand is very strong. we have -- we allow you to upgrade your iphone every year and we're surprised how many customers are coming to upgrade from iphone 6 s to iphone 7. >> we got the announcement that at&t is buying time warner. as somebody who operates a wireless carrier, do you understand those strategic rationale as to why at&t would want to own a content company?

>> let's start by, you know, their right. there's a dramatic shift in the way consumers consume content today. i mean there's so many people who don't even watch tv anymore, they actually consume their content on a mobile phone. so from that end there's so much strategic rationale. the way we look at it, it's a bold move for at&t. i applaud them for taking that risk. content providers and wireless carriers can go hand in hand. i'm very confident on the u.s. regulatory system that they will not allow to give them exclusive content or one of content to only be viewed on at&t or to allow them to use discriminatory pricing, but apart from that i see at&t as trying to diversify away from wireless. wireless is very competitive, as you can see both t mobile and ourselves, we took a lot of customers away from them and it's basically a way to find additional sources of revenue. now, what i can tell you is we certainly become a lot more

strategic to a lot of people. if they want to enter the wireless space, we have over 200 megahertz of spectrum and we are building that network that is data reach and perfect to transport content because we have more capacity and we will have more capacity than any other u.s. carrier. so we see this as a positive move as long as it's properly regulated to make sure that content is available to all consumers regardless of which carrier they're in. >> right. they talked about it being unique but not exclusive, to your point. of course video, as it proliferates on wireless carriers, certainly will use up some of that spectrum. will the price competition that you referenced earlier and that we see happening, one of the reasons why you're able to take customers from at&t and verizon, is that just going to continue? >> i mean i think it's a competitive industry. we are adding hundreds of thousands of consumers that are coming to sprint. but what's more important is they're coming to sprint, they're loving the experience and they're staying, low record churn. so this will continue to be

competitive. we plan to continue to take customers away. we were net poor positive against all three carriers. so when you only have less than 16% market share, there's another 84% of consumers that you can go after and we're going to be very aggressive to continue to bring them onto the sprint network. >> marcelo, as always, appreciate the update on the company. thank you. >> thank you, david. >> marcelo claure, the ceo of sprint. coming up on the show, the nba season kicking off tonight. will the league ever surpass the nfl in popularity and viewership? we'll ask the nba deputy commissioner next. the dow down almost five points. we'll be right back. or the freedom to choose what doctor you want to see. so if you have medicare parts a and b, consider an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company. like all standardized medicare supplement insurance plans, these let you choose any doctor who accepts medicare patients. you're not stuck in a network, because there aren't any.

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the nba season tipping off tonight with the knicks traveling to cleveland to take on the defending champs. joining us now to talk about the season, the deputy commissioner and chief operating officer of the nba, mark tatum. mark, welcome to you. >> thank you, sara, it's great to be here. >> so the cavaliers played the warriors in the last two finals. everyone expects that to happen again. how do you get fans interested in the season with such two overwhelming favorites? >> first of all, fans are

interested in seeing the best players in the world play the game of basketball. and we certainly have that in the cavaliers and the golden state warriors. but there's been a lot of player movement this year as well so there's new faces and new places. people like dwyane wade, who are now playing in chicago, pau gasol who's playing in san antonio, al horford who went for the boston celtics, so there's you n renewed hope in those places with terrific players playing for those teams. >> we mentioned the nfl. this season has been defined in part by some of the protests with the national anthem started with colin kaepernick. you guys in the league have a very strict rule that players must stand for the national anthem. so i'm wondering how you would react if you saw similar-type protests. >> we encourage our players to take a stand on social issues and issues that are important to them. our players have demonstrated that they have done that over time. and so one of the things that we've been doing with our players is working collectively with them on things that we can

do to build safer and stronger communities. and so our players have said that that's what they want to focus on rather than symbolic gestures, and so we've created specific programs that include elected officials, that include local law enforcement, youth from the communities and we're having these conversations and discussions around what we can do to build safer and stronger communities. >> which players have been out front on this? >> dwyane wade, chris paul, lebron james, carmelo anthony, james jones. the leaders in our league have been right there standing side by side with us in creating these programs to build safer and stronger communities. >> i don't want to ask about father on mother's day, but i do want to get your take on nfl ratings and the reasons why it could be down. some say it could be the election, some say it's kaepernick, officiating, cord cutting. do you have theories of your own? >> i'm not going to speculate on why the nfl ratings are down. we're focused on our business

and the game of basketball. i will tell you that last year our ratings were up across every single one of our networks. our nba finals last year, the record seven game finals was our most viewed finals in abc history. and so we're -- we know that the landscape is changing, but it would be unfair for me to speculate on why the nfl ratings are down. >> i guess would you expect to be immune from whatever is ailing them in the early part of their season? >> i think the way that consumers are consuming content is very different. so one of the things that we're looking to do is make sure that however consumers consume content, that we're there. this year we are creating more than three times the amount of contest on snapchat and launching a snapchat discover channel. we've created live programming for twitter where we're going to have an exclusive pregame show now on twitter for the first time ever, the first league to do this. we're going to have weekly games that are broadcast in virtual reality live, starting with this thursday night, san antonio at

sacramento. so those are the kinds of things to ensure that however consumers are consuming nba content, we're there with them. >> you know, tnt is a time warner property and they have a very large contract with the nba. >> they do. >> do you think at all differently if and when it becomes part of at&t? you mentioned different ways people consume. is that an opportunity or a threat? >> again, i think it's a little too early to speculate on what's going to happen there but we're following it very, very closely. turner has been one of our longest standing partners. we have great relationships at the very highest levels of at&t as well. i think as the landscape shifts in terms of content creation and distribution of that content, it will be very interesting and something we're obviously following very closely. >> i did want to ask you about the international growth. i saw firsthand when i traveled with steph curry and under armour a few months ago the international appeal of the nba

versu versus, say, the nfl. could you see any other franchises based outside the u.s.? >> for the first time ever we're playing two regular season games in mexico city in january. the phoenix suns are hosting the dallas mavericks as well as the san antonio spurs. basketball is a global sport. our games are broadcast in 215 countries in 49 different languages. as a matter of fact, starting this season, we're going to have a record 113 players born outside the united states from 41 different countries. and so for us, the growth of the global game is incredible. we have 300 million people who play the game of basketball in china. we've just launched our, for the first time ever, a league pass product with our partner in china to make every single game available in the nba. so we see international as a huge opportunity for us. >> mark, thank you for stopping by. mark tatum is the deputy commissioner at the nba. let's get over to sue herera

and get a cnbc news update. >> thank you very much. here's what's happening at this hour, everyone. investigators are trying to figure out what caused a river ride at australia's largest theme park to malfunction, killing four people. the accident happened on dream world's thunder river rapids, which is billed as a family attraction. a terror attack on a police training facility in pakistan has killed 61 people and injured over 100 more. several gunmen stormed the center late last night, detonating explosive vests. a taliban-associated group has claimed responsibility. the cost of some obamacare plans is about to soar. the government says premiums from midlevel plans will rise by 25% in 39 states next year. and president obama using a guest appearance on jimmy kimmel live to respond to donald trump. >> president obama will go down as perhaps the worst president in the history of the united

states! @realdonaldtrump. well, @realdonaldtrump, at least i will go down as a president. >> all right. that's the news update at this hour. carl, back to you. >> thank you so much, sue. >> he was really good last night. >> he is good at that. >> did he drop the mike there? >> yeah, he did. when we come back, just two weeks until the election. poems continue to show hillary clinton holding on to the lead. what can trump do to turn it around? we'll talk about that, straight ahead. ♪ guyhey nicole, happening here? this is my new alert system for whenever anything happens in the market. kid's a natural. but thinkorswim already lets you create custom alerts for all the things that are important to you. shhh. alerts on anything at all? not only that, you can act on that opportunity with just one tap right from the alert. wow, i guess we don't need the kid anymore.

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back. good morning. >> thanks for having me. >> we talked a lot about his closing arguments in these last two weeks. what needs to change and how likely is it to narrow this gap this late in the game? >> well, a lot needs to change. i think the first thing is instead of having the closing argument be about the message that he wants to sell, which is change in washington, he keeps stepping on his own message with, you know, interjecting 10 or 15 minutes in the gettysburg speech, for example, about these women who are coming forward with allegations and his intent to sue them in the first 100 days. so it's been a proper of discipline throughout the campaign for donald trump and it seems like it's not changing. what we're seeing now is instead of playing the game between the 40 yard lines which is what we usually see at the close of the election, hillary clinton is really playing in our red zone. states like arizona, utah, georgia, that should be safely put away by now look like they are still in play so that's going to make it very tough for him to get back on offense and start winning enough states to

get to 270. >> i see pence in utah today, a state which has gone gop since 1964. if you were strategizing their state strategy, where would you be focusing both surrogates and trump himself? >> well, i'd be in florida, which they're spending a lot of time in florida. i think trump has been there three days this week. i'd also be spending some time in either colorado, nevada, maybe pennsylvania, ohio, of course. it looks like some of these states are coming off the board, though, so the path to 270 is so narrow right now that there really aren't that many places he can go to try to find enough electoral votes to win it all. florida certainly is the key. i think they're in good shape in ohio and in iowa, so those are two takeaway states from the obama elections. but i think they have got to still find another 12 or 15 electoral votes and i'm not sure where they go to get them right now. certainly spending time in utah is a complete waste of time. i don't think that they're going to lose utah.

i don't know that sending mike pence there is going to make a difference anyway. if you've lost utah, the game is over. >> they're both in florida today, hillary clinton and donald trump. is there any path for trump without florida's 29 electoral votes? >> there's no path without florida. if he doesn't win florida, the election is over. you can call it right now. in the case of winning florida, he still has almost -- he has to run the table every place else. he's got to win ohio, iowa, nevada, arizona, he's got to win georgia, he's got to win north carolina. i think that's the real big next battleground. we saw a poll out this morning showing her up seven in north carolina. the early vote totals in north carolina are not encouraging to the trump campaign. so i think what you're seeing right now -- the bottom hasn't completely dropped out nationally in the polling. i think trump has stabilized somewhat. it's probably a five or six-point race.

what's really happening is some of these states are moving into territory where it looks almost impossible for him to get them back. so he's got a path. it is so narrow, it looks like pennsylvania will not happen. but there's still a way to do it. you've just got to run the table any place where there's an opportunity, and he's got no margin for error left. >> msnbc ran a report this morning, they went to, i believe it was pennsylvania, and they talked to some trump supporters who were vocal about their support for trump but because they believed the election was rigged had little incentive to go out and vote. is that message working against him? >> absolutely it's working against him. why would you tell your supporters that the deck is stacked against them and the game is already up? i mean it is a crazy closing message in a long line of mistakes that they have made. this is perhaps one of the biggest. i think you've got to give people incentive, encouragement and hope for something if they're going to get out and vote for you.

he's got enough energy in some of these states where he could come close and maybe put the state back into play, but when you're telling your own supporters that the election is rigged against you, what is the incentive to go out and vote? i've never been able to understand that message. it is -- it's just another in kind of a long line of things that that campaign has done to get in its own way and to really block any path that they have. so i don't see how that message has ever been helpful. i understand the nature of the establishment versus anti-establishment message, but when you tell your voters that they don't have any hope and their vote isn't going to make a difference, i just don't see where that is leading them except on the road to ruin. >> finally, on the clinton side, there's a piece in "the times" about pressure on democrats to start filling in some of their ranks perhaps in a transition on the hill with democrats, with progressives. elizabeth warren, bernie sanders, where's schumer going to fit. is that in any way a turn-off to

those, and i know it's a narrow slice of people, who are undecided, would lean democrat but don't want to see the left go too far left? >> yeah, i'm not sure that that's a helpful message either. she had avoided all of this down-ballot talk for quite a while. i think it's maybe a bit of evidence of overconfidence on the part of the clinton campaign. i do think that voters maybe unconsciously often make a choice to put a check on the system and that's why you're seeing these senate candidates in particular in pennsylvania, new hampshire, in ohio, in nevada, in arizona and marco rubio in florida, where you have all of these republican senate candidates running well ahead of where mr. trump is running. so i think voters make a conscious choice to put a check on unlimited power in washington. i don't think it's a message that helps very much. but i do think there is something about motivating their base that they're probably seeing in the numbers so they

send out people like elizabeth warren to gin up the base and get people excited. so there is some strategic rationale to it. i think it's not something that will help them in the long run and the numbers bear out that the better she does, the more the senate races still kind of sit right in play, you know, at toss-up -- in a toss-up category across the board and around the country. >> we had planned to be joined by al motter, democratic strategist at the top of this segment. al, it's good to have you at least for a brief moment, one of the top bundlers for the clinton campaign. i'm curious, al, we've been talking with david about how polls have been tracking. when you're this close to the end and you've got early voting already with several million votes in the can, where does money most efficiently get spent now? >> well, you can see the clinton campaign focusing on down-ballot races now. you can also see as i think david mentioned earlier in the segment expenditures in states

that are traditionally on the republican side of the ledger, states like arizona, georgia. they're putting money into indiana now. and if you look at those states, particularly arizona, indiana, the down-ballot efforts in new hampshire, pennsylvania, north carolina, nevada, the campaign is working hard to bring along with a clinton victory a democratic senate. then if you look at the president's actions, where he's going and what he's doing, president obama quite unusually is endorsing 150 state legislators, he's personally going out and endorsing 30 house democratic candidates, so it's a very coordinated effort by the entire democratic apparatus to bring along as many democrats as possible to help secretary clinton when she's president. >> i see charlie cook today increasing the range of expected dem pickups from -- to five to seven in the senate. is the house a bridge too far?

>> probably today it's a bridge too far but there's going to be significant pickups, between 10 and 20 seats. the floor could still fall out beneath donald trump. he's just one more alicia machado meltdown away from stepping on his message so effectively that no one knows why he's even running for president, as david mentioned in his segment. so if he continues to lose support, there is a small chance that the democrats could win the house, but secretary clinton would probably need to win by seven or eight points nationally for that to happen. >> al, we apologize for the camera trouble, but i'm glad we got you on. >> great to be here. >> al mottur and david kochel talking politics of the election, two weeks from today. as we head to break here, take a look at where we are. the dow is down about 54 points. 3m taking 34 points away while p & g adds 22. a lot of earnings movers to get to when we come right back.

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particular, so what can you expect from some of the biggest names out there? find out at tradingnation.cnbc.com. more "squawk on the street" coming up.

welcome back to "squawk on the street." 9 of the 11 sectors in the s&p sectors are lower here. shares of under armor weighing the most, down double digits falling to a new 52-week low on slow quarterly growth outlook. tracking since the worst day since 2011. this sector is down almost 1%, guys. back over to you, sarah. >> nike in sympathy with under armor. kayla tausche is sitting down with a special guest. good morning, kayla.

>> good morning, sarah. we are joined by margaret keen, ceo of siyncrony financial. thank you for joining us. >> thank you. >> the first one, i think, we believe there's going to be a transformation of payments and we joined black chain to be part of that transformation. it's still early days but we're going to be part of it right from the beginning. big learning there. we have the opportunity to partner with google, financing of google store, google products. we launched our program when they launched the new pixel phone. it was a fantastic launch. we're doing mostly google products. we think this is an opportunity for us to grow further. it's an area where we're very big in promotional financing and really took our expertise and are working with google to now to grow the program. >> helping your clients build end-to-end programs. people expected them to be a

little better than they've been. how with digital help sales get better? >> the frictionless process that we're working on with our products. we announced and launched yesterday a plug-in that's the retailers app we plug in and you have this seamless experience where you can apply by pay through all your service and get your rewards and the customer can enjoy that experience. i think what really ties that is data and analytics. really being able to understand -- we run our cards on our rails. we have a lot of information about what the customer is purchasing, where they're purchasing, in store, out of store. we think there's an opportunity for us to bring those two things together. digital and data, to really help our retailers create more loyalty, have bigger baskets, get them to make the next purchase. >> what information are you looking at about credit quality and potential deterioration? we saw loan loss for synchrony

and banana republic sharply slowing. where is credit falling off? >> i think it's normalizing. earnings last week. credit came in where we thought it would come n we've hit the bottom in terms of how great losses were. now i think we're hitting a normalization. we've had great earnings and we felt credit came in line with where we expected. we had strong growth and strong receivables growth. strong sales growth. we actually feel pretty decent about where credit is right now. >> the election is being invoked as one source of uncertainty for consumer spending. what happens for spending leading up to november 8th and do you expect a hangover on november 9th? >> it's hard to tell. i think there is a little bit of uncertainty around the election. i think if you look at -- holidays are going to be starting. most of the retailers are really -- because online starts soon, the day after halloween you'll start getting your messages about what to buy for this holiday season. the good news is that holiday

will be right behind. people shop for the holiday. i think people will show up. i do think people are waiting to see what happens in the election. either candidate, for us, is really not going to make a difference. we just need to make sure we get a candidate who will work on the economy, create jobs and move the country forward. >> do you have a view on which candidate that would be? >> i'm not saying. >> nrf has said retail sales should be up 6.3%. do you see anything different from that? >> last year was 3.2%. they're being a little more bullish with the 3.4. online for us -- we call it digital. it's either online or mobile phone. we were up 3% this last quarter. it continues to grow and continues to be a bigger part of how consumers are shopping. we just did a digital study that's very interesting. about 70% of the people we surveyed said they approximate purchased something on their mobile phone or online. sometimes we think of it only a millennial thing. the reality is that baby boomers

are shopping and even the silent generation are shopping, using mobile and online. i think there's been a big shift. they're looking at product first and buying either online or going in store. >> we'll see those messages pop up very soon. margaret keane, ceo of synchrony, thank you very much. back to you. >> thank you, kayla. powered by mcam, to explain just what this does, bob is joining us. hi, bob. >> index of 100 companies chosen from the russell 1000. they want companies that control price through rights to original ideas or intellectual profits. patents, trademarks, could be trade secret right. who are the invasion leaders? you'll be surprise. johnson & johnson. band-aids, tylenol. doesn't make a lot of sense. they compete at cost.

very broad range of businesses. leader in each. they develop new products, reinvent existing ones and get their revenue from those innovations. another is amazon. not a retail company. i know you think they are. they control all the supply chain costs so robots, logistics, back-office tech enables movement of more goods and services. who is innovative and who is not? visa is on the list but target is not on the list. the problems that target had a little while ago. visa is on the list. they're a consumer analytics company considered very analytic. founder of m-cam, google not an innovator. wrapped in a search engine, almost all their revenue entirely from ads. facebook? they have the potential to be an innovator somewhere down the road. more on this cnbc.com/iq100.

very interesting. >> we expect you to track it for us, bob, and bring you updates. thank you. let's send it over to john with a look at what's coming up on "squawk alley." >> apple earnings. we'll dig into the numbers that sxwou count. and reed hastings weighs in. you don't want to miss it.

what's critical thinking like? a basketball costs $14. what's team spirit worth? (cheers) what's it worth to talk to your mom? what's the value of a walk in the woods? the value of capital is to create, not just wealth, but things that matter. morgan stanley

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sounds like my ride's ready. don't get stuck on hold. reach an expert fast. comcast business. built for business. good morning. it's 8:00 am at netflix headquarters in los gatos, california. it's 11:00 am on wall street and "squawk alley" is live. ♪ welcome to "squawk alley." john