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tv   Squawk Alley  CNBC  February 17, 2017 11:00am-12:01pm EST

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colgate-palmolive, kimberly-clark, clorox up 5% to 6%. also a good week for biotech. nasdaq biotech on track for a fourth straight week of gains for the first time since august. amgen, celgene, gilead and biogen all up for the week. xbi also tracking for a fourth straight week of gains for the first time since july, guys. send it back over to carl for the start of "squawk alley," guys. back over to you. >> all right. thanks, dom. good morning. it is 8:00 a.m. at facebook headquarters in menlo park, 11:00 a.m. on wall street, and "squawk alley" is live. ♪ ♪
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good friday morning. welcome to "squawk alley." jon fortt, sara eisen and me at post 9 on a very busy friday as the market stumbles a bit for the first time in about a week, taking a pause in their historic rally as the president goes to south carolina for that meeting with boeing. investors seemingly undeterred this week through headlines and fake news and cabinet changes. the question is, will that confidence continue as the president's policies move closer to implementation? we're joined by richard clarendon at pimco and mike ryans, global strategist at ubs. good to see both of you. what a week we've had. it's not just been potus. it's been yellen, philly fed, cpi. what can we say this after week we've had? >> we've had strong data for several weeks. we had yellen on the hill for humphrey/hawkins stem. she leaves her options open, didn't show her hand for the march meeting, but strong data. >> one question, mike, is do you
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sense there is any rise in complacency, underestimation of the risks, you know, as we look out to see how exuberant this market really is? >> i'm not sure that there's a sense of exuberance, but i do think what you're likely to see is there will probably be a resetting of expectations as we focus less exclusively on the likely virtues that the policy makes and focus on potential execution risks. one of the things you have to do is while you certainly see the pro-growth aspects of tax reform, regulatory relief and infrastructure spending program, remember that one of the things you have to focus on is how much political capital you have left to get those programs accomplished. we do know that early in this administration there's been some missteps and certainly some challenges of getting cabinet appointees through. to the extent you expend political capital then, it means you have less ability to push those programs through going forward. so, while i still think markets will likely trend higher, i expect some volatility as we focus more on the execution risks. >> richard, if we were just looking at the vix, we would think the markets had just fallen asleep pretty much all year. i mean, it doesn't suggest at
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all the kinds of headlines that we've seen coming out of the new administration. market's been climbing higher. what do you make of that? should we expect that there's something that's going to trigger some volatility? and is that tradingwise a good thing or a bad thing? >> well, i think it is. you know, in fact, vix has been unusually low. we had some 10 handles on the vix, which is very rare. i think four or five of them in the last several weeks. so, volatility is a little bit low and i think your previous speaker's exactly right, there is execution risk. there's an opportunity here. having served in washington at the treasury, i can tell you, tax reform is incredibly complicated and time-consuming, and they're trying to do obamacare reform and infrastructure. this typically takes a couple of years, not a couple weeks. so, i think as we move from the promises to the legislative phase, there's a lot of uncertainty still to come on this. >> so, characterize your confidence, then. we get something done in '17, just to put an end date on it? >> i would have said two weeks ago that we would have gotten tax reform done in '17. that could slip into 2018 because the patient protection
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act, obamacare's taking a lot of time. there's also a lot of unfinished business, so there is an outside chance we could get it in 2017, but perhaps 2018. >> and does it make sense the emphasis they've put into doing aca first in order to establish a new score, to make tax possible? >> exactly. there's a technical issue. they're using last year's budget window to do the aca. until they do that, they can't even start on tax reform. >> mike, what are the other uncertainties for investors has to be the federal reserve and not what they're going to do on policy necessarily but who's going to be on the fed. two open spots now, three open spots in april, potential change in chairman in 2018. president trump's going to reshape this fed, which we know has implications for markets. is that a big risk? and what do you see happening there? >> a couple thoughts here. first of all, i don't think it's something that markets will be fixated on in the near term because i do think it's the direction of policy changes and our expectations is that the fed is likely to raise rates twice, perhaps three times this year. i still think that janet yellen
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is a person who's setting the policy path for the federal reserve. i still think the fed is largely in a majority of one and she'll likely build a consensus around this pragmatic change in policy. as we go into 2018, we focus on more leadership changes. remember, when you're a candidate for president versus when you're president, your views and perspectives on the independence and also what you expect out of the federal reserve begins to change. so i wouldn't necessarily expect a radical departure in terms of the fed's policy approach. but let me follow up on something rich said, where the market's focus needs to be. while we're focusing a lot on politics and certainly on policy here, let's not lose sight of the fundamentals, because one of the things that's certainly been driving this market is we are seeing more and more evidence of the more broad-based cyclical recovery, we're seeing more regions across the globe seeing more evidence of better activity and certainly a better earnings cycle. we're coming through fourth-quarter earnings right now looks to be up 7.5% to 8%. and our expectation is that we have earnings acceleration in 2018 of 11% for the s&p 500.
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>> richard, we were just talking about all of the things on congress' plate. it's a huge buffet of things. give me one thing that either they need to get done by june that you expect to get done, or if it doesn't get done, it's going to be a problem. >> i think by june, we need to know what the likely tax package is going to look like. we need to know the size. we need to know if it's going to have the border adjustment tax. we need to know what the repaiderationrepai repatriation ooz's going to look like, the tax rate. if by june we don't know where this is going, that's a problem. >> we need tonow what's in the sausage. the sausage doesn't need to be made, though. >> exactly. you need to know the parameters of the package. >> more tactically, mike, very near term, where's your head on what some called dwindling breadth, right, low volume on some things like the triple qs. is that concerning at all? >> look, we're going to have periods in this market where we're going to be dusted. i think there will be periods of higher volatility ahead, so i
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wouldn't expect to see the markets continue to move in a straight line, but the areas we'll focus on is the sectors where we think it's been supported by the current cyclical environment, where we think valuation's more attractive or the financial services, technology, and also certain elements of health care as well. >> and we also have some potential mega deals brewing. that was the big news of the day. draft heinz approaching unilever, a rejection, but potentially still in the works here. mike, what do you think about -- we've got a dealmaker as president. are companies going to try to get more deals done? where is that going to happen? what's your forecast here? and how will that ultimately affect the market? >> well, first of all, i do think there's a potential for more deals. certainly what you'll see is if you have a more pro-business environment, if you get the operating environment where the regulatory constraints are being eased a bit, i think that encourages businesses. i think what also helps businesses is if you have a better outlook in the environment. one of the things that's been a challenge for corporations is if you haven't had a lot of visibility about the future, you're a little bit more
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concerned about whether you take on new partners. but i want to be careful not to overstate this, because we're not expecting to see a sudden m&a surge, because remember, we still have a president who largely drove on a populist agenda, and if the view here is that you're going to exclusively go to kind of the corporate boardroom approach, how well that plays with his own constituency's going to be concerning. so, i think you could expect to see an increase in activity, but don't expect to seat markets being led higher exclusively by an m&a boom. >> well, he also ran, richard, on antiregulation and he's already shown a sign that he's following up on that deregulation theme. >> yeah. >> how much of a boost, how much of a stimulus is that for the economy? in other words, are we weighing tax reform maybe too much? the deregulation could also potentially have -- >> that's a great point, because there are certain sectors that will clearly benefit. energy is one of them, for certain, where there will be a change in a focus. and that, obviously -- the stabilization of oil prices will also support that. i think in terms of financial deregulation, i think the focus is perhaps lifting the burden on
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small or medium-sized banks. i think that makes a lot of sense. i think it will be a much heavier lift to try to actually redo the regulation of the major banks, but certainly on the smaller, medium-sized banks, there's a positive there as well. >> nice to have some time with both of you. richard clarida of pimco, mike ryan of ubs. >> thanks. mark zuckerberg crafting a 6,000-word open letter addressing fake news, isolationism and more on his facebook page, of course. recode's kara swisher and "the new york times" tech reporter mike isaac spoke with the facebook founder and ceo. we'll talk to them next. fidelity investments, innovative ideas for serious investo investors. you realize the smartest investing idea isn't just what you invest in, but who you invest with. ♪ isn't just what you invest in, but who you invest with. if only the signs were as obvious when you trade.
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i'm ricardo, a sales and service consultant here at the xfinity store in bellevue, washington. here at the store, we offer internet, tv, phone, customer service, home security. every situation is a little different. it could be about billing, simple questions like changing the phone number. sometimes, they want to upgrade, downgrade, but at the end of the day,
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you want to take care of the customer. one of the great things about comcast, there's always room to move up. of course, it depends on you, how hard you work. ♪ ♪ facebook co-founder and ceo mark zuckerberg posting a near-6,000-word open letter on his facebook page last night. among the topics, building community, fake news, globalization versus polarization. for more, we're joined by "the new york times" tech reporter mike isaac and recode executive editor kara swisher here at post 9. both of them talked to the facebook ceo about this essay. mike, i'll start with you. so, i was trying to sort of parse out a theme from all of this, and the closest thing i could get is the humans are letting us down in terms of
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being good when it comes to building, health and safety, tools and software, flagging content for review on facebook, sharing misleading content and actually supporting good news organizations, and facebook's going to have to do some things to pick up the slack. what did he say the main message was here? >> you know, i think the letter was probably the harvard dissertation that he never got to write and maybe stayed up and forgot to get a big editing job on it. but the upshot for me, at least when we were talking, is this is as close to a political statement as you're probably going to get from zuckerberg, especially in this sort of climate right now, where you know, he's talking about isolati isolationism in countries is more the rule now than the exception, where you have, you know, the travel ban in the united states, you have brexit happening, you know, over the past two years, so it's this idea that connecting the world, which has always been facebook's
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mission statement, is now a political concept. and they don't want to go out and say, you know, we're stepping into the political ring, but they basically are. >> is that how you saw it, kara? how is this going to change facebook as a product and as a business, the talk of getting more deeply into positive community? >> you know, i don't think it's that much a political statement, actually. i think what it is is this is a company that's been around for 13 years. there's been enormous changes in the past year. they've been under fire about fake news, and it's a real moment for facebook, and i think mark has decided to sort of clarify some things and start to move in the direction that he thinks is the next facebook, essentially. and so, you know, i think one of the best headlines i saw is zuckerberg's solution for facebook is more facebook. so, i thought that was kind of funny. i think he's just stating some things he's been thinking about in the backdrop of a really ugly social media environment led by facebook, you know. the problems have been around twitter and facebook, and i think it was time to sort of
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stake his claim, i guess, in a very long, long, long, long piece. >> mike, he goes into the degree to which ai is a potential solution to fixing fake news, but a lot needs to be done, he says, before we can get there. so, what inning do we think we are in that game? >> so, yeah, so we actually talked about this, too. and it seems super early just on -- the problem with ai right now is it just can't detect nuance like a human can. so if i'm going to sarcastically say something online to a friend that may resonate with a robot as abuse, it's not something that, you know, they can really tease out right now. so, that is probably like five, ten-year sort of horizon, but there are some pretty clear thin things. we mentioned something they could probably take down or in certain countries nudity, if it's okay with people, you know.
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he also talked a lot about sort of a mode of self-governance around what community terms of service should be around the world, and that's a really significant change for how facebook sees essentially rules on how to be on facebook. >> i also thought it wasn't really cut and dry, kara, on this point. he defended facebook as an incubator of ideas. >> yes. >> and much more broad than the traditional forms of media that we get in tv news, for instance, and needs to include satire. are they doing enough on fake news? >> well, what's he going to say, it's a hell's tape over here? that's twitter, i'm sorry, i forgot. >> laid out more stringent policies to fight it. >> i think what he's inching towards is taking responsibility, you know what i mean? at first he's like, it's just a platform, hey, we don't know what goes on here. and now he's more like, hey, maybe we do have a role, and they do have a role, something i've been saying a lot i know here, that they have a responsibility. they are a media company of the modern age, and so they have to start behaving a little bit more like that.
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the ai stuff is interesting, though, because it was a stronger -- i think they were going to move stronger into the ai area, but it's also scary, the idea of them fighting terrorists? that was a new -- i talked to him about this quite a bit. i was like, are you a government agency? do we want you in our homes? do we feel like you should be monitoring us so much? i think it was born out of a good thing. he was worried about the suicide that took place and he was upset by it. >> right. >> and so, i think one of the issues is, okay, that's great to be caring and wanting to stop that but at the same time, where does it stop? i think that's a big issue. >> kara, it seemed to me that maybe lassie fair facebook is dead, we'll let people be people, connect yourselves and it will all work out. maybe he's disillusioned on that idea, but he doesn't want to be big brother facebook, and this was sort of groping through trying not to be too hands-off, but not have a hand around your throat. >> he's a young adult now, how about that? maybe he's a little older, maybe he has children, maybe he thinks a little harder, you know, he does have children, so. >> let's move on and talk
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snapchat, which is not claiming to be a media company. founder and ceo evan spiegel calling it a camera company on its ipo roadshow. >> snap is a camera company. we feel like we're really at the beginning of what cameras can do. cameras have evolved from being just a piece of hardware, like a chip, to software that's connected to the internet. before, cameras were the best way to perfectly save or record something that you saw, and they sort of helped augment memory. but now, you know, camera use augment the way that we talk. >> mike, gopro is a camera company that kind of claimed to be a immediate kra company. is snap a media company claiming to be a camera company? >> i think snapchat's kind of in a weird position. like, they're their closest comparable company when they were private was twitter, right? and they have -- you can say, like, they have a similar sort of use case or even, you know, in the ballpark, you know, in the hundreds of millions of
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users. but snapchat's big problem is they don't want to be stacked up, at least in terms of user numbers to facebook, and that's why they keep pushing this sort of engagement story, the whole we're a camera company story and not we're the next giant social network. so, i think they have a problem just in terms of, like, positioning, you know? are we the next facebook? are we the next twitter? are we the next gopro? which i think only one of those sound desirable, but i think it's pretty clear that they're not going to be the next facebook. >> yeah, yeah, i'd agree with that. >> no chance? >> well, you don't know. it's a super innovative company and boy, a lot of great ideas are coming out of evan spiegel, some of the greatest ideas in social media. i have young teens, kids, and they love snapchat and they don't use facebook. they use instagram and snapchat, but not using the anecdotal thing. i think they're a communications company to them. they talk to friends, trade ideas, make jokes. so, i see it more using a camera, i guess. so, it's a communications company using a camera, which is
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a little too hard to say. >> but this is a really important point, and it's going to be once they start trading. will the street accept that they're not a company that depends on massive user growth? because that's what they will probably argue. >> they're going to have to, because where do they get it? how do they keep people there? you wonder if people after a certain age stop using things? although people get into habits. facebook has become a habit, the utili utility. so, the question is if people will stick with it and they keep innovating. but they remind me of wechat, which has all kinds of things hanging off of it. the camera thing is odd to me. whenever, he can say whatever he wants. >> what are you hearing about demand? what is your latest reporting indicating on the appetite from investors and how that's gone down inside snap? >> so, i think it's interesting. i actually think the ipo's going to go well. i think they're playing this story to the street pretty well as far as, you know, the metrics of, like, engagement and time
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spent. but i think, you know, it's really going to be tricky for them because facebook has trained everyone on the street to look for user growth for the past five years, right? and so, twitter has really suffered as a result of that. snapchat got to see that whole scenario, that whole nightmare scenario play out, so they're like, all right, how are we going to avoid this? and it seems like they're doing pretty well and that's why i think the ipo will go pretty smoothly. i just think first, second, third quarter is a little bit more tenuous. >> kara, it seems like facebook trained the street, as mike was saying, to think in terms of scale, but they still bought oculus, they still bought instagram, which kind of play to this premium segment that snap is really attacking. >> absolutely. >> they're not talking about the rest of the world. they're focused on developed markets. is that what this camera thing is really about? >> i'm not clear what it's about, honestly. i think they just say, they're in a room and they say this sounds good and then mike and i go, what the hell is that kind
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of thing? >> i think when you think camera company, you go to gopro. >> is cnbc a camera company? are you a camera person? i think that's the issue. if it makes a lot of money, who cares how many people are using it? if you can turn that into advertising dollars or whatever products they happen to have, i think that's going to be the focus. and facebook makes a lot of money. that's i think more important than user growth. it's the money they make with that user base, and the numbers don't matter as much as the money they're going to make. >> really quick. before kara sat down, i took a picture of your aviators and i tweeted "guess who's here." the guesses were you, hunter thompson, joe biden, lenny kravitz, don johnson, goose from "top gun," and "magnum p.i." >> it's goose. and mike's nickname is charmin bear. i don't know if you knew that, but i'm going to tell the people. sorry. >> and i used to call kara goose all the time. >> it's not twitter avatar. mike, kara, thanks for joining us. have a great long weekend. >> thank you. as we go to break, unilever
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declining the proposal by kraft heinz to merge and what would bring together some of the more popular consumer brands. shares of unilever popped earlier, a nice gain. we'll get the european close in about seven minutes. go to protect yourehicle? m on it. ♪
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take a look at stocks at this hour, declining. dow's down about 71 points. a big part of that, though, is united health. unh shaving 40 points off the dow by itself. s&p down seven. that's about 0.3%. the only group in the s&p that's positive right now is consumer staples. that is led by kraft heinz, of course, after news this morning that it made a bid, a proposal to merge with unilever, rejected, but talks ongoing. financials, energy and telecom are the worst-performing sectors. nasdaq for its part going positive at one point, out-performing some of the other groups, and kraft heinz is in the nasdaq. still, stocks are positive for the week at large, even though,
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jon, these are the worst declines of the month. >> yes. and when we return, president trump headed to south carolina today for the unveiling of boeing's newest jet. this coming, of course, after he called on the company to lower the cost of the new air force one in development. we're going to speak to the former omb director on what he expects to come out of trump's visit, next. more "squawk alley" after this break. o] qckbookintrodes jeante and her new bile wedding business at first, getting paid was toug.. untishe got quickboo. now she nds invoices, se when they've beeewed
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good morning once again, everybody. i'm sue herera. here is your "cnbc news update" at this hour. defense secretary jim mattis arriving at the munich security conference. vice president pence and homeland security secretary kelly also part of the u.s. delegation. mattis called on nato allies to carry their proportionate share of the defense burden. >> it is a fair demand that all who benefit from the best alliance in the world carry their proportionate share of the necessary costs to defend our freedoms, and we are committed to passing those freedoms intact to the next generation. secretary of state rex tillerson meeting with the chinese foreign minister on the sidelines of the g-20 summit meeting in germany. he was told by his counter part that common interests between beijing and washington far outweigh the differences. the intense competition for customers continues in the wireless space. today it is sprint. the company announcing a new deal to win over customers. beginning today its unlimited
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plan will now include high-definition video-streaming and 10 gigabytes of mobile hotspot data. the data also includes a free iphone 7 for the next 18 months with a trade-in. yesterday it was verizon. today it's sprint. that's the "news update" this hour. back downtown, sara, to you. >> the promos keep coming. thank you. markets have just closed in the uk and across europe. let's show you what happened there. stocks mostly in the red today but finishing up the week like the u.s. with a gain. big story, of course, and the big mover of the day is unilever. the consumer giant receiving and rejecting kraft heinz's $143 billion takeover offer, saying it undervalues the company. just like in the u.s., unilever surging in london trading, up more than 13%. and it's carried over to some of its european rivals. other consumer companies on the move -- nestle recouping its losses from thursday when the company announced it missed its full-year growth target, hurt in part by weaker demand in
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emerging markets. a boost today. reck reckitt benckiser up. also danone. the euro is weaker, though, and french bonds are declining. political risk continuing to weigh on sentiment there ahead of the french election starting in april. >> cross-border m&a's a huge story so far this year. >> strong dollar. you might see more of that. the companies putting that to work. meanwhile, the president is set to arrive at the boeing charleston plant in south carolina shortly. our own phil lebeau is there with the latest. good morning again, phil. >> reporter: good morning, carl. we're about 45 minutes away from president trump touching down in air force one, and once he gets here, he will be touring this facility. there are 7,500 workers. it's a little hard to see them because you've got the camera focused up here on me and we're blocked a little bit, but they're all here waiting to hear from president trump. what is he likely to talk about? no surprise here -- manufacturing in america and
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growing manufacturing. this is a plant here that they delivered the first dreamliner five years ago. they've continued to grow and add jobs since then. job-creation is another part of the themes we expect to hear from president trump, and also there's some speculation he may talk about the future of funding the export/import bank. remember, during -- there you go, they're starting their chants. during the campaign, he was kind of luke-warm about whether or not funding should continue for it. now he is saying it should continue, and that's crucial for boeing for about 10% of their orders. speaking of boeing's orders and deliveries, this year the company is forecasting record deliveries, including at least 120 dream liners. they don't break out dreamliner production between seattle and down here, but a growing proportion of them are coming from this plant. as you look at shares to boeing now at an all-time high. so, again, guys, president trump gets here in about 45 minutes. he is going to be meeting with boeing ceo dennis muilenburg, touring the plant, and then eventually we expect to hear
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from him as they unveil or roll out the first 787-10 dreamliner, the largest dreamliner. guys, back to you. >> yeah, exciting day down there at boeing in south carolina. phil, thank you. for more on some of these policies that phil mentioned, we're joined by former omb director under george w. bush, jim nussle, and seth harris, former deputy labor secretary under president obama. gentlemen, welcome to you both. >> thank you. >> thanks for having us. >> good to be here. >> seth, maybe on this topic of labor, now that president trump has named his new designee for labor secretary, there was some talk going into this visit on boeing having just shot down a proposal, the workers there for organized labor. what is going to be president trump's policies on labor and unions? >> well, president trump ran as a sort of fire-breathing populist, a tribune of the working class. the question is whether his policies are going to follow through on that rhetoric.
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the pick of alex acosta to be the labor secretary suggests that, actually, we're going to see labor policies settle into the traditional conservative republican, small government, very little intervention in markets and workplaces, rather than the kind of really aggressive effort to raise wages and create middle-wage, middle-skilled jobs that the president talked about on the campaign trail. >> yeah, you marry that with some of the promises, jim, of creating manufacturing jobs, bringing them back from overseas, getting wages up, the forgotten man and woman that president trump talked about so much on the campaign trail. how do you see it shaping up? >> so, obviously, seth has an important perspective, having worked there. and i thought the interesting thing that came out of this particular pick is that the afl-cio president trumka came out with a virtual endorsement. i mean, obviously, it was not a
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full endorsement, but having said that in comparison, certainly, they're much happier with this pick i thought bodes well not only for the pick itself but for the working relationship going forward so that not only the president can help, you know, get the country going again with infrastructure, creating jobs, but also that there can be maybe a standing down of the fight, the warfare between labor and management, possibly as a result of this maybe better consensus pick. >> jim, it's been more than a decade since you said somewhat famously, talking about these budget issues, "everyone wants to get to heaven, but no one wants to die." we're hearing a lot about heaven these days in terms of what's going to happen for jobs and the economy and how health care policy is going to be better, but what's going to have to die in the process? >> not much has changed, i'll tell you, in even those ten years. i was just reflecting on those
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numbers on my ride over to the studio today, and we still have -- we're about 67% -- or excuse me, 64% of the budget is medicare and social security. the president said that's off the table, can't touch that. you've got military spending at about 15%. he wants to increase that, so that's not on the table for any changes. you've got interest on the debt, which is 7%. so, you add all that up, and we're down to only a window of 15% that is eligible to make any kind of changes in, according to the president. that's going to be a challenge, not only for the president, but for his new omb director, who was just chosen yesterday, to go through now with the professionals at omb and actually look through all the nooks and crannies and say where can we find enough savings to bring down the now close to $600 billion deficit and growing at a time when we're about ready to
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crest $20 trillion in national debt? that's going to be a pretty tough bill to deal with. >> and believe me, jim, we've been tracking the race between s&p market cap at $20 trillion and the national debt. your point is that cutting funding for the nea is not going to do it. >> well, and at the same time, he wants to put on a tax reform bill to the floor that he says he's now, as of yesterday, going to be sending up some time in march. we're all interested in obviously looking at that. there are some ways that we can grow the economy, hopefully through that kind of tax reform, if they're not just out taxing new entities but actually trying to change the way the foreign taxes are dealt with. so, there are some ways that they can grow the economy through the tax code, no question. but the spending side is still going to have to be dealt with. and when you take that much off the table, it becomes pretty difficult for the professionals who actually have to do this on a day-to-day basis to make it all add up in any kind of sane sort of way.
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>> seth, i wanted to ask you about the promise to grow jobs, which is very much in focus at the boeing plant today. this president has promised to be the best jobs creator in the history, and a big part of that is manufacturing jobs. but with manufacturing at what, 12% of our total economy, how much is realistic on that front? >> i think it's actually going to be extremely difficult to bring back manufacturing jobs for a number of reasons. one is that most of the jobs that we have lost are the consequence of automation and technology, not the consequence of offshoring of these jobs. and you know, with a very strong u.s. dollar, it's going to be hard for american manufacturers to compete. the strategy that president obama took was to look at smaller solutions, advanced manufacturing, smaller facilities, and a direct government involvement in trying to help people to start up manufacturing efforts. one thing we know for sure, and that is tweeting angry messages at individual companies that say they're going to move jobs
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offshore is not a sustainable strategy for creating or saving manufacturing jobs in the united states. we're going to need a much broader fiscal and monetary policy that's aimed at trying to grow good, middle class, middle-wage jobs. >> one last point here, jim. cornyn is now on the tape on border adjustment, saying "the hard reality is the border tax is on life support." given what we've heard from brady in the past few days and then cotton, jim, how does this settle out? >> there's going to be -- it's going to be a real knife fight, i think, in this regard, and i think paul ryan's going to be at the center of leading this. i thought his news conference yesterday, where he explained the difference between the border adjustment and how that affects american manufacturing and foreign manufacturing and the relationship between the tax and what they're trying to accomplish made a lot of sense. i think that message, if they want to have any chance at all, they're going to have to explain this in the kind of way that paul ryan did yesterday from the
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podium during his news conference, explaining how it puts american manufacturing and small business at a competitive disadvantage. but until then, it's going to look like to many people that it's just an increase in the cost of goods sold at walmart, and that's going to be a hard pill to swallow. >> yeah, that it's not a consumer tax. thank you very much for joining us, jim nussle and seth harris. and coming up, a $64 million acquisition. small potatoes by silicon valley standards, made one year ago. what it tells bus snapchat. but first, rick santelli, what's on your mind this friday? >> you know, there was a time in december where the markets were consolidating, think equities. but yet, many people used the term flatlining. i had a problem with that, and there's a reason. i'm going to show you the reason. and i'm also going to tell you the big number today. the big number today is 21,576. i'll tell you why after this. n..
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what's going on here? you knowow ge techlogy allowus to fix problems before they... they slow pruction, yeah. well, no more catchy business acronyms. twait d't need to smooch? m su wsmch a luon! we just ed to "hover" over t candice, prlem until... st let it go... sorry i'm late r teamcandice, prlembuith felt right.ooch! what's wrong with you!? he'so trusting... aknows how it feelso e your nbe go up, despite your best effortrt but what if you uld turn things arod? what if you could love you numbs? discovernce-dainvokana®. it the #1 prescrib lt2 inhibitor that works to wea1c. a pill taken just once in the morning, invona® is ed alg withiet ane sigficantly lower blood sugar in adults with
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type 2 diabes. inact, it's enroven to be me effectiv type 2 diabes. at lowering a1c th jia. invokana® works around the clk redu t amount of sugar allowed back into the body, and sending me sugar out allrough the process ofody, urination. and ile it's notor lowering stolic bloodressure or weight loss, it m help you with botot vokana® can cause impoant sideffects, including dedration, which may cause you to feel diy, int,lighthded,or wk, upon standing. otr si effectsay include dney pblems, genil yeasinfections,changes naon, , ghotassium, ineases in cholester, of be fracture, orrina t infections, possibly serious. ses side effects may incl, which n life threatening. stop taking and ll your or if u exrience symptomou of allergic reaction sucas rash, swelling, or difculty eathing or swallowing. do not take invokana if you have severe liver
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or kidney proble oe on ysis. tell your doctor abo any medical nditions anmeditions you take. usg vokana® with a sulfonylurea or insulin may cause w blsugar. it time to tu things around. lower your blood sugar witvo imagloving your numbers. ere's on one invokana. imask your dr about itby nam. ere's on one invokana. i'm scott wapner. today on "the halftime report," mark cuban joins us after sparring with the president on twitter. what does the investor think about the president's first month and the market's reaction? and is mondelez out of the running as a kraft heinz takeover target? and missing the trump ralrally,e they the next to take off? plus, is he now changing his tune on the market? noon eastern "halftime report."
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it starts then. sa sara, see you in about 15. >> sounds like a good one, scott. thank you. let's get to the cme group, rick santelli with "the santelli exchange," as always. rick? >> good morning, sara. you know, sometimes the smallest things could keep you off the scent of a really good trade, okay? there are several, actually, i can think of off the top of my head -- politics. politics is definitely going to keep you off the scent. sometimes emotions keep you off the scent. you know, i remember when i used to trade. if i had a loser, i could go have lunch, do whatever, because i didn't want to get out, because you didn't really take a loss until you got out. if i had a winner, i couldn't leave! i stayed in the pit or next to the pit. i couldn't leave when i had a winner. those are all really horrible things that happen to you on a break. the difference between a flat line or a market that's tired versus consolidation is huge! huge! okay? and now we have a lot more proof since we've had this conversation.
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look at a chart. let's look at a chart starting on january 1st, 2015. dow jones industrial average, okay? you see it there, kind of cemented in your brain. i'm going to give you some real, real easy tips on certain scenarios that can make you some money. all right, here's that chart you were looking at, dow jones industrial average. and a couple of things we want to point out that are really important. first of all, all this sideways activity. this is key, okay? this sideways activity included a major, super important double bottom. and once that double bottom was established, especially in lieu of how interest rates were trading at the time, your psychology has to change from that point forward, okay? so, what happened is we started to break out. and right when you took out this consolidation right here, everything changes. so, when we made this low, virtually that held all of this, this is going to be our point "a." now let's go down here. take "a" to the major top at
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"b," "b" minus aqua 1,844 dow points. remember that. remember when i said consolidation is different than flatlining? this may have been the most important, yet overlooked due to politics, move you're ever going to see, because not only is this an important consolidation after the way it's set up, but this is an important consolidation at all-time historic highs! so when you get to the low for the next wave and it starts to move to the up side, that is our point "c." you take your 1,844 points, you add them to "c," you end up with 21,576 as a target, but what's more interesting is time and price square, if you're a technician. if you look at the fact that this was 31 days and then you add 31 days to "c," what you end up with is you end up with a date, and the date is march 6th, 2017.
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that most likely, if i was trading and i did this, i would probably take a profit here. does that mean it's the high? no. it means it's a high. capital preservation and taking profits are not mortal sins. jon fortt, back to you. >> thank you, rick santelli. and snapchat founder and ceo evan spiegel commenting on the company's future in its road show video recently. listen. >> every time i'm talking to someone that uses our service, they always say, like, i can't wait to see what's next. i think that sort of anticipation from our community is one of the things that motivates us to make new things but also allows us to. i think our community knows that they should expect the unexpected, right? expect change from snap. that's one of the things that makes us so excited about the future. >> and for more on how snapchat got there, let's send it over to josh lipton, who's got more on an often overlooked part of this company. josh? >> well, jon, snap ceo evan
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spiegel builds most of his technology inhouse, but he also buys start-ups to strengthen his services. and one he bought has proven to be a hit. in march of last year, snap bought a start-up called bitstrips for $64 million. that is the company behind bitmoji, a free app that allows users to create and send personalized cartoon likenesses of themselves as part of a snap like the ones you see here of your dedicated tech correspondent in san francisco. bitmoji, whose investors include kleiner perkins and verizon's mergers, is now the number one free app on the app store. it's popular enough that snap highlighted it in its road show release this morning. it is said that bitmoji makes the snap experience more fun, personal and familiar. that drives engagement, which in turn can excite advertisers, so it also sees similarities between how spiegel and facebook's mark zuckerberg approach m&a. both use acquisitions to enhance
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the user experience and push that forward in different directions. spiegel is certainly not afraid to spend money. snap, when it was called peek-a-boo, bought mobile scanning app scan in 2015 in cash and cash and equity. $79 million plus stock in 2015. $64 million for bit strips in 2016. and that same year, $150 million for mobile search company verbafy. don't expect them to stop soon. they could use proceeds from the ipo to acquire complementary businesses. snap declining comment for this story. >> there's going to be a lot to watch. when question come back, why trump winery is requested permission to bring in nearly two dozen foreign workers. dow is down 64. plays)♪ ♪ h ho heigh ho ♪
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♪eigh hheigh ho it off to wo he's to all of you rly sers, go-getrs, and shouesleepers. use the esho truly anheorld, are the who can't it to get out in
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this morning. is u and h. dom. >> shares of united health among the biggest laggards and in the s&p 500 today, the justice department is joining a whistleblower lawsuit against america's biggest health insurance company. it was filed in 2011 and alleged unh defrauded the medicare program of hundreds of malls of dollars by over charge for procedures that weren't done or already performed. the suit was brought by a former unh executive and unsealed
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yesterday. united health has rejected the allegations and will contest them vigorously in court. the biggest drag on the dow. back over to you. >> getting slammed on. thank you. a winery owned by donald trump's son eric is seeking to hire almost two dozen foreign workers for its spring harvest season. robert frank has more on that story. certainly that got your attention, robert. >> it certainly did. report out today the trump winery in charlottesville, virginia, is seeking permission from the labor department to bring in 23 foreign workers to plant and harvest grapes this year. the notice says the winery needs workers between april and the end of october. they would be paid $11.27 an hour. this is in addition to the six foreign workers that the winery requested back in december. these workers would come in through the so-called h2a program that rer mitts american employers to hire foreign workers under temporary work visas as long as no qualified u.s. workers want the jobs. now more than 100,000 foreign workers have come in through
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that program since 2003. the winery job posting says this work requires workers to be, quote, on their feet in bent positions for long periods of time in weather that could be as cold as ten degrees. now, despite the president's emphasis on using american workers and america first, this is not a new hiring practice for the trump organization. he and his family's companies have applied for over 284 foreign guest workers across all of their businesses since president trump launched his campaign. the winery known officially as the trump vineyard estates llc is technically owned by his son eric trump. it was given to him in 2012 by his father and that was acquired from patricia cloogy. between while, since trump became president stores in the washington, d.c. region have been selling out of trump wines. so clearly there's a demand for their wines and demand for people to pick those grapes. guys, back to you. >> robert, good story. robert frank, back at hq.
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when we come back, the president is set to arrive in south carolina momentarily at the boeing plant. we'll bring you the latest on that in a moment. dow is down 67. what's critical thinking like?. what's tm spi(ches)what's it woo lk to ur mom? what's t valuef walk in the wood the value capital is to create, t st wlt t thin thatt morgan stanley
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waiting for the president's arrival in north charleston, south carolina, where he will tour the boeing plant and make some remarks, meet with dennis mulenburg of boeing before heading to west palm later on today. it's an important day politically but for aviation geeks, man, what an opportunity to talk about the plane itself, which is 224 feet long. boeing's been tweeting out great pictures of the new 787-10, the latest member of the dreamliner family. >> this particular plant employs more than 7500 employees. and south carolina has been a hub for aerospace in terms of building, engineering. so good place potentially for president trump to talk about his plans on manufacturing jobs. i know phil bel. we bow reported earlier some of the discussion will also be on the export/import bank which is a political football that companies like boeing have been pushing for to get that
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financing. >> also a good chance for us to triangulate around the president's message around companies like boeing. he was harsh when talking about air force one a few weeks ago but he's a man who can be negotiated with. >> boeing stock at an all-time high today. enjoy the long weekend. see you back here on tuesday. let's get to the judge and "the half." >> carl, thanks so much. welcome to the "halftime report." i'm scott wapner. our top trade this hour beating the benchmark, why active stock pickers are back in business. and what it means for your money. with us for the hour today, steven weiss, josh brown, john lebenthal and one of baron's top 100 financial advisers. before we get to the markets today we want to welcome in mark cuban on the phone. four weeks into donald trump's presidency, mark, welcome. >> thanks, guys. thanks for having me on. >> you have

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