good morning. it is 8:00 a.m. at disney headquarters in burbank, california. it is 11:00 a.m. on wall street, and "squawk alley" is live. ♪ good wednesday morning. welcome to "squawk alley." sara eisen, jon fortt and myself at post 9. joining us this morning, zillow group ceo spencer rascoff, talking about earnings and a whole lot more on a day where we're seeing oil go positive. we'll see if equities follow suit. first up, the president singling out another american business on twitter. this time, it's retailer nordstrom. our courtney reagan has the latest on that. happened minutes ago back at hq.

>> that's right, carl. president trump tweeting from his handle @realdonaldtrump" -- "my daughter, ivanka, has been treated so unfairly by nordstrom. she is a great person, always pushing me to do the right thing. terrible!" this is in response to nordstrom saying that they have pulled their merchandise, as every year, at 10% of the goods they sell and make decisions based on what is selling and what is not. some read that as the impact of the boycott on donald trump and trump merchandise at a variety of retailers. that news came in the middle of last week. so, in some ways, it's a bit surprising it's taken the president this long to say anything, if he has at least chosen to say something at this point. shares of nordstrom did fall initially and they have responded, sitting right about unchanged at this point. carl? >> courtney, we're going to watch that, see if it hangs in there. thank you very much. spencer rascoff, i know we want to get to immigration and certainly your earnings, but how

do you think nordstrom should respond? how much fear do ceos live in regarding these tweets? >> i can tell you people are scrambling at nordstrom headquarters in seattle right now. i mean, this is every management team's worst nightmare, to be singled out on a platform like twitter by the president. so i'm not quite sure what i would do, actually, if i were the ceo of twitter or the person running social media twitter. i guess you issue a statement that says we made this decision for business reasons, which is what they said last week when they announced they were going to discontinue the line, and you stick with that statement and you just hope that it passes within a couple of hours, which it probably will. >> spencer, on zillow, some people disappointed with the guidance, and particularly with the fundamentals of the business, how just momentum in terms of usage was going. are they overly concerned? the stock's down. your stock's down, zillow group,

about 7% this morning. >> well, we recorded a great q-4 in terms of revenue and profit ahead of expectation, but the stock reacts to forward-looking guidance and the guidance we gave in 2017 was a strong number, over $1 billion in revenue, which for a company only 10 years old is impressive. but we said we'd do around $200 million of ebitda this year and some short-term investors would like us to be more profitable in the near term. our perspective, of course, is that we're making investments we think will pay off down the road. we're spending tens of millions buying software tools for real estate agents that makes them more effective and efficient. the reason is, if they're more efficient, we think they'll buy more ads from us. and we're spending over $100 million advertising our brands, but those two investments have the effect of making 2017 profit lower than some would like. we think they're the right decisions for the long term. >> how correlated is your business going to be with the housing market here, especially as we see mortgage rates start to tick up on the back of higher interest rates since the election, spencer? >> so, housing is slowing a little bit.

last year home values were up around 7%. this year we expect 3% to 4% appreciation and rents up 2% last year, this year about 1%. what tends to happen, though, when housing slows is there's a flight to quality in terms of selecting great agents and also a flight to quality in terms of how agents advertise. and because online advertising for real estate is measurable and it's efficient, effective and scaleable and leads go into software, we do very, very well, actually. and you see this in our data from 2008 during the last housing recession. we do very well when housing actually slows down, because offline advertising tends to migrate online. all that having been said, we're not actually forecasting any type of housing recession. in fact, we think that mortgage rates have a long way to go on the up side before it really impacts housing at all. we just think the rate of appreciation this year will be a little slower than it was last year. >> interesting. "journal" has a big piece this morning on commercial real estate. some metrics declining for the first time since '09. any worries that what we're seeing in commercial might start

to bleed into residential? >> well, the dynamics in commercial and residential are the same in that it's just simple supply and demand. what we've seen in residential is there just hasn't been enough supply. so new construction housing starts are finally picking up off the bottom, but we're still a couple hundred thousand units per year light on new construction, and particularly on multifamily. so finally, we're seeing apartment buildings come online that were permanent two or three years ago and that's why rents are moderating. the same dynamic's in commercial -- it's all about the rate of development, once shovels are in the ground. two or three years later, the supply comes online and tends to moderate rents, or in the case of commercial, lease terms. >> before we move on to immigration, spencer, i wanted to ask how you feel about ben carson leaving the department of housing and urban development. what do you think of that pick and what else do you think we'll get from the trump administration as far as it relates to housing? >> i don't know dr. carson personally, although we look forward to working with him. we've always had a very close

working relationship at zillow group with hud, fha, fannie, freddie, the treasury and the white house, so we'll certainly be working with the hud staff, and hopefully, the secretary, once he gets confirmed. you know, the partnership between zillow group and housing experts in d.c. and in state capitols has always been important. we're an important voice on housing because of the size of our consumer audience, so it's important for us to work with government to shape housing policy. >> spencer, moving on to the immigration ban, temporary ban that the president has tried to put in place by executive order, is going through the courts right now. i know that seattle is a very diverse tech hub. a lot of the companies there have come out against this. what exactly is the objection from your perspective? i mean, i know lots of people say the rollout of this executive order was basically botched, but there's also an

argument that congress has delegated this power to the executive to control who comes into and out of the country. how does this get fixed in your view? forget about how it was executed in the first place. >> well, zillow group has come out against this ban. we think it's bad for business. we think it's bad for the country. and frankly, i don't think it makes america safer. i think it makes us less safe. our objection to it is it cuts at the very center of the culture of the country, which welcomes refugees, including my great grandparents, and it welcomes immigrants from all countries. so, i hope that our immigration policy can find a better way to balance the importance of keeping the country safe but also the importance of keeping this country one that welcomes immigrants. and the reason that you see tech leaders speaking out so passionately about this is because tech and immigration are inextricably intertwined. i mean, the innovation that immigrants bring to this country, the ingenuity, the entrepreneurialism, a lot of that is the lifeblood of the

tech industry, and that's why people are so passionate about this within my tech community. >> although, spencer, i'm sure you've heard, though, supporters of the president -- this is not a ban, this is a pause. why do you not believe it's worth taking a moment, 120 days or whatever, to reassess our protocol? >> well, i mean, i don't think that you can single out individual countries, for starters. i think that's problematic. i think the other problem here is that the way the rest of the world is reporting this is the u.s. has banned muslims from entering america, right? so, for better or for worse, that's what people in europe, that's what people in the middle east are hearing. that makes america less safe. so i think from a practical standpoint, it's really endangered america by creating this propaganda bonanza for people outside of this country that would do us harm by giving them the opportunity to say that we've banned muslims from entering the united states. so, i wish that it had been done in a different way. and i know that we're going to

be working to create a more comprehensive immigration policy, potentially including h1b visas, which are also the lifeblood of the technology industry. and as i say, i hope we can do it in a way that balances the important needs of public safety with the importance of making america continue to be a place that immigrants feel welcome. >> but spencer, how, then, do you balance that? how do you make that calculation as an executive, to come out within two weeks of a new president to object to his new executive order? if we started off the segment talking about the tweet risk, the fact that nordstrom shares are down, without getting in his crosshairs? >> well, i've decided that my litmus test, our company's litmus test will be that we only speak out on issues that directly affect our employees or our industry. that's tech and housing. so you're not going to hear me speaking out around issues of abortion or gun control or other things that don't directly affect housing or tech. immigration i believe directly

affects tech, so that's why on this issue we've decided to speak out and make our opinion known. but there are other executives that have a different litmus test that are using their pulpit as an executive running a public company to express their views on all matters of things. for us, we're going to focus on tech and housing and immigration is one of those issues that does affect us. >> at the beginning of this segment, spencer, you said wait a couple hours, maybe it will pass. nordstrom shares are essentially flat, moments after that presidential tweet. we'll see what happens later today. it's good to see you. thanks. >> thank you for having me. >> spencer rascoff. and we want to check in on the broader market here because stocks have made a little bit of a comeback from some earlier declines. right now the s&p has just gone positive. so is the nasdaq. the dow is still off, way off the lows, down about 30 points. some individual movers we're keeping track of today -- btig upgrading twitter to buy from neutral, citing acceleration in daily active users in the u.s. as a catalyst. notable call. twitter up a bit.

also, facebook within striking distance of fresh all-time high. bank of america this morning adding the stock to its us-1 buy list, saying in the wake of snapchat's ipo filing, facebook will face less "competitive pressure" than expected. facebook also announcing it's doubling its bereavement leave for employees, on an unrelated note, but obviously a personal one for coo sheryl sandberg. the stock is getting a boost after earnings and after this call from b of a. i also think, you know, on the bereavement lot calls, it's interesting to watch these policies come from silicon valley in the absence of government policies. it's not a law, for instance, that they have to pay their employees to take time off after an immediate family member has deceased. but we'll continue to watch for that. >> it does speak to the tight job market, the tight labor market in tech. they've got to compete for engineers especially, but talent across the board, across any number of different -- >> not just immigrants. >> yeah. that's part of the reason why

they argue so much for h1b visas, is because they have that tightness. interesting to see twitter pop so much on a lot of people attributing it to these antiharassment policies that they are putting in place. it speaks a lot to the need for retention in social media right now. facebook has clearly demonstrated that. we're going to see more from snap. we've got their s-1, finally, but they're making a strong argument for not just overall retention, but retaining users in developed markets who actually pull in the advertising dollars. >> certainly for twitter, it is about north america that moves the needle more than anything else. when we come back, steve forbes this morning calling the house border tax proposal insane, but what are investors thinking? the answer's next. bob iger of disney talks to julia boorstin on everything from espn to immigration. later, why jeff bezos says someone's source at "the new york post" "mixed up their meds." dow is in the red as oil has

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a new market risk unfolding before our eyes this morning. the president of the united states targeting individual companies on his social media account and in rhetoric. nordstrom just the latest example, as the president just tweeted out, "my daughter, ivanka, has been treated so unfairly from nordstrom. terrible." let's bring in the chief investment strategist at

wisdomtree investments and kim wallace, managing director and ahead of washington policy research at renaissance macro research. thanks for joining us. luciano, it does speak to the fact that there is a lot of headline risk right now, whether it's coming from twitter. i just wonder how much of it is algorithms looking to pick up this stuff affecting the broader market right now? >> well, the president, donald trump has shown this last 18 months, if you hit him or you hit his brand, he's going to hit back twice as hard. we're going to need to get used to this. this is a new style of governing. it's a combination of a affirmative campaign and a calculated way about how you create incent and an ability to get your agenda done, targeting a relatively small part of the population. the president won. he won the electoral mandate, and he has a congress that's there willing to work with him, so we're going to have to see, you know, how do we adjust in a world where he has a great deal of power and different levers he can use to push through his

agenda, and tweeting is one of them. >> kim, how do you tell investors to adjust to this new reality, from the twitter targets to the fact that the ceos are more engaged than we've seen in a very long time at white house with all those photo ops and policy advice? >> ceos are usually engaged in the white house. it's a more public exercise than it has been in the past, and i don't expect that to change the outcomes very much. but in terms of the president's style of communication -- over the last two months, people have grown accustomed to it, and i think discounting those temporary hits to stock prices because it has become very customary. >> luciano, let's talk about the tpp. i know you've put a lot of thought into this. when it comes to how it affects u.s. trade in asia, which is clearly an area where there's a lot of growth, companies are very interested in doing better there, and even when it comes to how it's going to affect relationships and the trade balance with mexico, which is now perhaps looking more toward

china with its trade relationship with the u.s. more uncertain. which of those relationships -- or maybe another one -- do you view as most interesting as we track the progress from here? luciano. >> oh, it's addressed to me. well, i would say the market i think is starting to take a look at what's going to happen with trade. you know, the market has swelled up about $2 trillion in market value since the election, and a lot of that was discounting the potential for tax cuts, tax reform, some type of infrastructure spend and regulatory relief. all of those things could be good for the economy and could justify how our stock price is. i think what the market is looking at now is what happens if you actually start to get some tariffs, particularly if you start with china, because there's a $500 billion trade deficit. china's about $350 billion of it. and the president's been very outspoken about that economic threat coming from china.

and you can just look at peter navarro and the work that he's done, "death by china." there's definitely an agenda there that will look to be very aggressive and view china through an economic lens going forward. >> one of those could come in the form of corporate tax reform that border adjustment tax being hotly debated by republicans right now. steve forbes was on "squawk box" earlier this morning. he came out swinging against it. listen. >> the republicans are now proposing this crazy tax. they're going to punish american consumers over $100 billion a year, give subsidies to boeing and ge, so we're going to help foreign consumers in china and iran, punish american consumers. it's insane! >> that's one viewpoint on it, kim. what are you telling your clients about how likely this border adjustment tax is to pass? >> well, we're telling clients it's unlikely to pass in its current form, and the current form is really a concept. the earlier piece you ran

demonstrates some of the pushback against it. my view is that both sides, proponents and opponents, have overplayed their hand in terms of the rhetoric. we'll wait until a draft comes out. chairman brady says that will be in june. we'll take a look at it. but in terms of how you frame this discussion, i do think the previous speaker had a point -- it will come down to whether or not, in rhetoric, at least, whether you support ge or whether you support walmart, and that will have an effect politically. on your earlier point on trade, the trans-pacific partnership, and a lot of trade deals, have a lot more to do with geopolitical relationship than economics with the u.s. that's the loss of walking away from tpp, in my judgment. >> luciano, really broadly before we go, on the markets. we talk about these policy complications. we've got bullish sentiment at a 12-year high. we've seen some anecdotal insider selling. are you still looking out for a sort of january-february dip, even one that can be bought? >> yeah, there might be a buying opportunity coming up.

this can be typically a period of seasonal weakness in the dollar the next six to eight weeks, but i would say big picture, the market needs to get not just earnings growth, but lower corporate rates that start to feel like they're going to happen, either later this year or next year. if you get focus on trade and immigration, those are the type of things that can spook the markets, particularly the multinationals that depend much more on multinational agreements all around the world, and the framework, frankly, that the u.s. has built over the last 70 years. >> we'll leave it there, gentlemen. thank you so much for joining us. luciano s yoo siracusano, and k wallace. as we head to break it appears intel ceo brian krzanich is going to meet with the president, donald trump, at the white house later today. we know that krzanich has talked to us about the importance of immigration to intel. it's a big part of their story,

so we'll see what, if anything, he has to say after that meeting. and still to come on "squawk alley," a lot of investors might have left apple for dead months ago, but it's been creeping back toward an all-time high. policy risks, though, from washington could put the rally on hold. but first, disney's ceo, bob iger, goes on the record with cnbc, weighing in on everything from espn to china. >> an all-out trade war with china would be damaging i think to our business, to disney's business and to business in general, and something i think we have to be careful about.

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disney, as you probably know by now, had mixed results after the close, sales coming in below estimates. julia boorstin caught up with bob iger and asked him about everything from espn to immigration. good morning, julia. >> reporter: good morning, carl. disney shares turned around, trading at over 1% after bob iger said he's open to extending its contract and is open to espn

benefiting from digital tv packages. >> i think there's way too much pessimism about espn, because espn is still in demand from three constituents you want to be in demand the most from -- one, distributors, two, consumers, and three, advertisers. and the reason it's in demand is the brand is still strong, the product is still good. >> reporter: with disney's new shanghai park lifting the theme park division's results, iger says he's focused on policies that will benefit disney and other companies. >> the relationship this company has with china is certainly important, both from a movie perspective, from a parks perspective, from a consumer products perspective. an all-out trade war with china i think would be damaging to our business, disney's business, and to business in general. >> reporter: iger also saying he opposes the president's ban on immigrants and he believes serving on the president's advisory council is a great opportunity to be the sole representative of the media industry. >> this nation was founded by

immigrants, and i think where we are as a nation is due to having an openness to the people of the world. it's incredibly important. and i happen to firmly believe that we cannot shut our borders to immigrants. >> reporter: you can find more from my interview with disney ceo bob iger on cnbc.com. carl? >> i'll take it, julia, thank you. and we will look for that. up next on "squawk alley," walt mossberg weighing in on the debate between president trump and big tech over immigration. plus, is the apple rally at risk of slowing down? details next. dow's down about 30 points.

good morning, everybody. i'm sue herera. here is your "cnbc news update" at this hour. thousands of families in louisiana are picking up the pieces of their lives after several tornadoes touched down late yesterday. some in east new orleans say the destruction they suffered is worse than hurricane katrina. no deaths reported, but about 40 people were injured. voting started in somalia's groundbreaking presidential election amid a security lockdown that has closed the capital's international airport and cleared major streets. and reuters just reporting that the former prime minister, mohammed abdullah pharfarmajao

won. there were threats of attacks by al shabaab that limited the elections of legislators. pope francis appealing to the word to build bridges and not walls during his weekly audience with the faithful. the pope has been critical in the past of president trump's plan to build a wall on the mexican border. and a survey by creditcards.com reveals about 12 million americans have concealed a bank or a credit card account from their spouse or partner. baby boomers were found to be nearly four times as likely than millennials to have that secret account. that is the "news update" at this hour. let's get back downtown to "squawk alley." that's not very good news, i don't think. >> i don't know. a lot of raised eyebrows on that one, sue. >> yes, indeed. >> thank you. sue herera back at hq. another mixed close in europe. seema mody is at hq as well. >> the conversation continues around the upcoming french election. intelligence today put out a note saying there's a 20% chance populist leader marine le pen

wins the presidency. a mix of red and green here after the close, but it is the political risk in europe that continues to push investors into german bonds and yields creeping up in italy and france. so, that divergence in the bond market is a story that continues into wednesday as well. meantime, a lot of stocks are on the move, particularly in the auto sector. europe's carmaker association today forecasting that eu car sales will only increase by around 1% this year. that's a sharp slowdown from what we saw last year when we saw growth of around 6%. the association citing uncertainty around macroeconomic conditions and political developments. auto stocks are down in today's trade. cardinalsbe carlsberg declining. and if we look at shares, a sizable quarterly net loss. it had its dividend. this is the danish shipping

giant. they are in the process of breaking its business, one into shipping and the other on oil-related entities. and the uk oil exporter, quarterly earnings disappointed, saying cost-cutting will be a focus in 2018. so, while oil numbers have rebounded from last year, many of the shipping players have yet to recover. >> thank you, seema. >> seema, thank you very much. we've got the s&p going positive to flat. oil has gone positive, but the dow remains in the red, tune of about 34 points. jpmorgan and goldman are the laggards, as the 10-year remains close to two, three, four.

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imagine loving your numbers. there's only one invokana®. ask your doctor about it by name. i'm scott wapner. today on "the halftime report" from the new york stock exchange, with apple closing in on an all-time high, one of our traders who's been dead set against the stock starts to change his mind. plus, analyst rich greenfield says it's time to give twitter another chance. he's going to be with us live. and a value investor with an incredible track record is here as well. "halftime report," noon eastern. see you in a few. >> good to have you in the house again, scott. thank you very much. let's get to rick santelli earlier than usual for "the santelli exchange." hey, rick. >> oh, early, late, it's all fine with me. let's see, what do we want to talk about? i know what we can talk about today, one of the big threads as of late, very late, is the notion, can stocks survive -- and survive meaning to the up

side -- when rates are moving lower, and can they survive supermodels? i'm not talking about the type of supermodel, of course, that's married to the quarterback that won the super bowl. i'm talking more about trading models. and we'll get to all of that in a second. let's take it in order. there have been plenty of times in history where we've seen both correlation and anti or noncorrelated activity between stock market pricing and interest rates. just to take a walk through history, the biggest and one of my most vivid memories being a trader in the fixed income treasury futures and options arena in the '80s was the 1987 crash. we all know how that played out. it was the stock market's down side that ultimately put so much buying in the treasuries as the only true hedge at that time during all the confusion and emotion, that even options markets that were out of the money in three or four trading sessions were many, many, many

points deep in the money. i remember some calls that i bought for 12 or 13, the 60 force, and ended up getting out of them for many full points. all right, the most probably familiar model as of late is post crisis, of course, when the federal reserve, their strategy was to keep interest rates low and buy the interest rate products that they couldn't keep low, meaning on the short end overnight rate and buying various points on the curve, especially long maturities, to keep rates low. we all know how that turned out, of course. it did put a bottom in stocks and put a bottom in many financial assets as well. now it comes to the current time, post election. we all know what has occurred. we've seen big moves up in rates, big moves up in stocks. and here's where the supermodels come in. since that's the most recent memory the market has, it takes a while to extinguish. my own personal feeling is there's more pushing rates down

via culprits overseas that i do think that this chapter is not going to only afford potentially better ins on a long stock position, but i think it opens the door for a bit of a correction on interest rates that may have nothing to do with the potential for future growth under some of the policies current administration promises to put into legislation. jon fortt, back to you. >> thank you, rick santelli. now, if you got apple in your christmas stocking, congratulations. it's up about 14% year to date, very strong start in 2017. the stock's now approaching all-time highs, but as always, skeptics are raising red flags. josh lipton's in san francisco with that story. josh. >> reporter: well, jon, apple's stock just a few bucks shy of reaching its all-time intraday high of $134.54, which remember it hit back in april of 2015. when i recently spoke to tim cook, the ceo sounding a bullish

tone the health and future of his flagship product, the iphone. he pointed to strong demand for the 7 and 7 plus as well as success in emerging markets like brazil and russia. investors appear equally optimistic. apple is now up some 13% this year in 2017, and it's up about 8% since reporting earnings just last week. that run since that earnings report can be traced back in part to the iphone's performance. we had that surprise, and the stock has continued moving higher. cook telling me that apple saw the highest number of android switchers ever in the quarter. and analysts say that q-2 guide does look conservative. now investors are looking ahead to the march quarter, and details on a new capital return program. bernstein's tony sack naggie says repatriation tax return could trigger a share repurchase, noting a $75 billion accelerated buyback would boost forward earnings by 13%.

sakinagi also points out that apple stock usually outperforms before introductions. but there are skeptics. barclays points to nixing down by iphone users and longer cycles. and tariffs would prove a headache for cook's company. right now the street is focused on the good news. nearly 80% of analysts rate apple a buy. jon, back to you. >> all right. thank you, josh. and with more on tech's recent run and apple, let's bring in walt mossberg, executive editor at "the verge," and megan quinn, general partner with smart capital. good morning to you both. >> good morning, jon. >> walter, i want to start with you. it seems emotions are running higher than usual on apple in the investor community. people hated it, now they love it, it seems to follow the stock. but when i look at apple right now and what people expect for the next iphone, the bar is set higher than i've ever seen it set. are you comfortable with that in

terms of the pacing and what you're expecting to see from apple this year? >> well, i couldn't agree with you more. i mean, they need a spectacular iphone release this year. i think the iphone 7 and 7 plus, you know, certainly sold remarkably well in the fourth quarter in a market where it's very hard to eke out the kind of growth they used to have, and they certainly didn't. they have less growth. still, it's an amazing number, 78 million phones in 90 days or so. but people are anticipating something special, something really special, for the ten-year anniversary of the iphone, which is later this year. and as we just heard, the replacement cycle seems to be stretching out. so, i think there are people waiting. there are people sitting and

waiting to see what they can do with this now pretty mature device. >> right. and megan, what are vcs doing in terms of investment? the smartphone has gotten pretty mature on growth has tapered off. but often when that happens in a product cycle, there's opportunity for the application-makers, for others who want to capitalize on that. where are you seeing opportunity? >> absolutely. we continue to think that the iphone and the app platform will generate meaningful revenue for developers, start-ups, and apple itself. i think there's an important point to look at with their earnings last quarter. they did $7.3 billion in services revenue, which is up significantly year over year, and yet, still only represents 9% of their overall revenue. so, as they continue to potentially invest in things like content, as has been more frequent in recent days, there's a lot of head room for apple within the services part of their business. >> walt, josh mentioned some of

the pros and cons that could come from a trump administration for an apple, the pros being a cash repatriation of foreign earnings, tax reform. the cons, obviously, on trade tariffs and on opposition to some policies like immigration. how do you weigh those, and which one do you think will end up helping or hurting apple during trump? >> well, you know, i think apple has, even before president trump took office, we all know that apple planted a very strong flag in the ground over privacy and security of the iphone, and actually, all of its products, but particularly the iphone, and had that big public fight with the fbi. i think that fight is much harder under president trump. and to the extent customers here and abroad actually see it as less of a privacy-protecting

product, that's going to hurt them. i also think the immigration thing is a huge issue for not just apple but everyone in tech. and you can see that by the way they've begun to come together in a very strong way on these legal briefs and letters and things like that. and it's not because of the very limited h1b visa program we hear about, which certainly could be reformed and certainly could be tied to better education and training for domestic workers -- it's because it's just in the culture. so many tech companies are run by immigrants. i mean, at apple, tim cook is not an immigrant, but johnny eid is a brit, and he designs everything. but it's just google, microsoft, tesla. it's just on and on through tech. so, yeah, i think to the -- if we watch how this immigration thing goes, not just this

executive order, but particularly if it broadens out, that's a big problem for tech. >> yeah. you know, megan, people who are not in silicon valley, they have some signposts as to how the valley is responding. it seems like on one poll you have uber who leads the tech altogether, ibm perhaps on the other pole and somewhere in the middle there is a muskian compromise where you stay on the council, try to change it to any degree you can. is there a consensus anywhere on the spectrum? >> i don't think so, but i think the ceos of the tech companies have to walk a very fine line. on one part, they have to work with the government, either for compliance reasons, regulatory reasons, or in some cases, the government's even a customer. but at the same time, they have to work for their employees. they have to work for their shareholders, and they have to work for their other companies. and so, there's a fine line that they're seeing here. if you're a ceo at one of these companies and you're looking

around at your team, in silicon valley, nearly 40% of all workers are foreign-born. so you're seeing that your innovation, that your company is being driven by immigrants, and this is a critical matter for your business. and so, we've seen ceos take different positions and different paths to influence, but it's certainly top of mind for everyone here these days. >> walt, just as quickly as you can, you say in your column that the trump action carries with it "the unmistakable scent of nativism, the idea that immigration is a bad idea, and that is just un-american and bad for innovation to boot." supporters of the president say, well, that's not what he's saying. how much of this is about the details of the executive order, and how much of it is just about the very idea that silicon valley is reacting to here? >> well, i think the very idea is -- they're both important, but i think the very idea is the much bigger deal here. the administration's only a couple of weeks old, but this

america first rhetoric and some of the historical rhetoric from people like steve bannon is not friendly to immigration. and of course, the united states has always been open to immigration, but sometimes more and sometimes less historically, and it feels like we might be heading toward a period where there's a sort of negative feeling or a clampdown on immigration, beyond just this temporary stuff, and i expect the tech industry to be very disturbed by that. >> well, we'll leave it there. the courts have some work to do on this. walt, megan, thanks for joining us today. "squawk alley's" back right after this.

alley." check out shares of tesaro. they received interest from several potential inquires. they are a maker of cancer drugs and a promising one for ovarian cancer. up more than 10%. check out shares of clovis oncology, working in the same space. rising in sympathy on this reuters report. all of these takeover rumors and speculation has been fueled by pfizer's $14 billion takeout last year which had one of the similar drugs in the pipeline. both clovis and tesaro up. >> thank you, meg. president trump taking to twitter again this morning to criticize yet another u.s.

company, this time it's about his daughter ivanka. robert frank, this is the first time since the inauguration i can remember president trump taking on a company. it's not about politics. it's not about made in the usa or government contract. this is personal. >> exactly right, john. it's not about jobs. it's about the trump organization, his private company, his daughter ivanka. check this out. donald trump just tweeting this hour, quote, my daughter ivanka has been treated so unfairly by nordstrom. she is a great person, always pushing me to do the right thing. terrible. now, why is this happening? this follows nordstrom's announcement last week that they were dropping ivanka trump's namesake clothing label. the company saying they make buying decisions based on performance and that based on the brands performance they decided not to buy or this season. we don't have a response yet from nordstrom from trump's tweet but an online protest against donald trump and ivanka called grab your wallet has been boycotting her products and targeting retailers.

neiman-marcus also dropped the brand recently. her clothing and jewelry brand still sells at lots of other outlets including case si's, zappos, saks off fifth and bon ton. she stepped down in january to advise her fat there in the white house. her brand does not release financials. in 2015, the brand did one $00 million. that's a company who makes the clothing line in asia. that is not the first time he has criticized the company but, john, as you mentioned, it's the first time he's used the presidency to support his daughter's companies and companies that don't do what the trump organization may want them to do. guys, back to you. >> yeah, which raises all sorts of questions. robert frank, thank you. joining us now on the phone to react to this is analyst richard jaffe. we're not going to ask you to speak on potential conflict of

interest. is he right that he spoke unfairly? >> i can't speak to the president. i know nordstrom well and they make very cool and rational decisions. it's about product and about sales through and about profitability. it's not personal. it's product. >> is that a function of what some have tried to put together as boycott or is this just part of normal turn? >> this is normal turn. nordstrom changes their product seasonally. they change their brand seasonally. it makes it a more exciting place to shop and more profitable business for shareholders. as an investor and analyst i wouldn't have it any other way. they need to call the lesser brands and bring in new fresh brands. >> richard, hard to look at tweet from the president that's negative as being potentially positive for a company. but based on who nordstrom's core customer is and political atmosphere here, is there much risk for nordstrom or might it work the other way?

if the president is seen as being somehow against nordstrom could that help them with certain segments of their customer base? >> i will turn that over to your political analyst. i do know as a retail analyst the consumer is in the store to be inspired, to find exciting new fashions. that's nordstrom's job, to provide that. and if they're doing it by switching ivanka out for something new and more exciting, then they'll win. >> but, richard, haven't we seen an impact? remember when michelle obama was wearing j. crew and outfits sold out. isn't it usually a positive impact when someone on the world stage like that in the white house is promoting their own line? why hasn't it been a hot seller? >> to cite the specific example you used, michelle obama and twin set which she called out on national tv that color, that twin set did sell out but the

affect lasted about a week. that is to say michelle obama excitement didn't carry the brand for the season or even for the month. and, you know, that's been publicly cited by crew management. the presidential effect is less powerful than it appears. >> we'll see what happens. this is double presidential effect here on the ivanka line. richard, thank you for jumping on the phone. he's got a hold rating on nordstrom. when we come back, more on bezos versus the nrk post.

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amazon's ceo jeff bezos taking on twitter saying detailing their plans to build supermarkets run by robots. new york post, whoever your anonymous sources are on the story they mixed up their meds and on the new york post article, if anybody knows how to get 20% margins in groceries, call me. i don't even know if bezos could do that. >> no. notoriously operating margins on groceries are very low. 1%, 2% maybe, 3% for kroger. whole foods is out with earnings after the bell. organic grocers get a little bit

higher, 5 hrs, 6% margins but they're all competing on price now so those have been coming down. yes. 20% would be very hard. >> speaks to the myth of bezos growing so big that people think he can break the laws of economics. >> although it's cool he's tweeting. >> another big high profile user. let's get over to the judge and "the half." ♪ >> guy, thanks so much. welcome to the "halftime report." i'm scott wapner. top trade this hour, apple's all-time high. shares getting close to that major milestone. one recent critic of the company may be about to buy the stock. with us for the hour today, stevenwise, josh brown, jon najarian. let's get with apple. let's go right to the sound. i want you to hear this and then talk about it on the other side. >> it's a hardware company. and -- >> you just said it's a services company now. >> it's not. money comes from hardware. >> yes, it