the noodle on it, just announce it. >> what an amazing job this crew did. >> unbelievable. >> it's great. >> our thanks to dom chu for being the sideline reporter. >> on behalf of the whole team -- >> thanks for watching the stock draft. closing bell starts right now. ♪ >> that was entertaining. going to be hards to top. >> wait until you see what's in store. >> i think i know. i'm sara eisen with a lot on tap. >> we do. we're late. stocks modestly higher as investors continue to assess the president's tax reform proposal as -- looking at a busy day for corporate earnings. nasdaq on record for new highs, other averages higher, but not there yet. >> speaking of earnings -- >> oh, boy.

>> coming up for you in this edition of "closing bell, amazon, alphabet, microsoft, intel, and starbucks reporting earnings today. breaking down intel's big quarter exclusively to the cfo, bob swan. >> there's a bunch of others out there. >> just went with the headlines. >> i hear ya. all the first five minutes of next hour. alphabet may dominate the digital age, but martin sorrell said amazon is the biggest threat to his industry, and he's joining us in a moment to explain why. first, let's begin with the reaction to the president's tax proposal. steve leisman at cnbc headquarters to look at the economic impact has. eamon, you first. >> bill, one of the questions here has been over the past 24 hours or so coming to the

president's tax plan has been whether or not they'll make changes to 401ks and tax treatments. i asked sean spicer in the briefing, over after the briefing, i spoke to an official here who clarified they are not planning on making changes at all to 401ks in terms of the tax treatment. that remains the same. put that one to bed today. also, today, treasury secretary mnuchin was on the "today" show and asked if the plan would be revenue neutral. here's that moment. >> mr. secretary, would you be willing to raise your right hand and look at the american people and say, i, steven mmnuchin, promise you this is revenue neutral and deficit neutral? >> again, our objectsive, matt, is to pay for this with economic growth. >> so the treasury secretary there not making a statement saying they want to pay for it

with economic growth. we'll see whether that flies up on capitol hill where a number of conservatives are concerned about the deficit and debt implications of the big tax cuts, but also there's a number of conserve tichs who like the idea of tax cuts and believe it stimulates growth and want to bring a lot of that money that companies are holding overseas back to the united states, so among the various questions, we still have now is exactly what the tax treatment will be for the repatriation of foreign earnings, whether they give that 10% or anything higher makes a difference in whether that plan incentivizes companies to bring money back to the united states and put it to work, bill? >> especially those tech companies that are reporting earnings after the bell today. eamon, thank you. >> can the administration get the growth it wants to pay for this? steve has a look how it all affects the economy, steve? >> the big day after debate on the tax cut plan is how much growth it generates and whether the growth generates enough

revenue to pay for itself. larry summers, working in two democratic administrations, he suggests the answer's no. >> but there is no, no serious reading of the evidence to suggest they came close to paying for themselves by stimulating economic growth. >> while the trump administration officials think they can bump up growth to 2% a year, they agree that more than growth is going to be needed to offset revenue lost from tax cuts. >> this will pay for itself with growth and with reduced reduction of different deduct n deductio deductions, and closing loopholes. >> here's a big complaint we're hearing a lot of today, just not enough data released to the street or public to figure this out. that's curious as he said the treasury has 100 people working on scoring different scenarios. bill, it might have been good to make some of that scoring available, but mostly what we're seeing from the street are estimates of modest growth effects from the taxes.

>> all right. steve, thank you very much. now caught in between the tax reform discussion is the possibility of a government shutdown at week's end. white house budget director m v mulvaney was asked whether he thinks the government avoids a shutdown. >> yeah, i hope so. we thought we had a deal on monday when we took the wall. we said, we're talking bowe the last five months of the fiscal year, just the end of september, only so much to do on the wall between now and september anyway, so let's have that discussion starting next week for next fiscal year. we thauought we took the step, look, the wall is off the discussions now. we thought there was a deal. the democrats were in the senate, especially silent on us for two days. i have not heard from them since monday. starting to get concerned. >> let's get reaction on tax reform, a potential shutdown, potential research partners, dan cliffton is joining us now. dan, nice to see you. here we are within 100 days, approaching, and investors have

to digest policy headlines from spending to nafta, of course, health care is still in the mix, and the new tax reform. what's the tax away to tell investors today? >> it's been an amazing week. look, i disagree on the release of the plan and data available. clearly, there was not enough information there if you were looking at passing a bill in the next couple weeks. we anticipate to get a larger plan from president trump in june, and what they're doing is putting out a set of negotiating principles of where they want to go. the response from the house republican leadership was not overly negative like we were expecting, and they can work with that. i think the tax reform process is moving forward in the first hundred days, we have a treasury secretary, never worked in washington, he's really starting to get in his groove, and we think what comes out of congress by the end of the year lives through -- has a lower corporate tax rate and repatriation. we're moving the process forward here.

>> dan, standby for a moment. breaking news in another area, wouldn't you know, united airlines, phil lebeau, what is going on? >> there's a settlement reached between dr. dao and united airlines, the passenger dragged from the flight two and a half weeks ago here in chicago. the terms are not being released yet. it is a confidential settlement. the attorney for dr. dao releasing a statement minutes ago saying mr. munoz, the ceo of united airline, would do the right thing, and he has. in addition, united has taken full responsibility for what happened on flight 3411 without attempting to blame others, including the city of chicago for this acceptance of corporate accountant, united is to be applauded. again, dr. david dao has reached a settlement, a confidential settlement with united airlines. i think united is hoping this starts to finally put this entire controversy to bed, or at

least take it off the front pages for the last two and a half weeks. >> i wonder how steep that was. >> boy, without us having any word, you know, it's confidential, the estimates are going to go sky high. >> any historical precedent on this? >> there is not. the speculation is between $5 million to $10 million. those are strictly guesses from lawyers who said, as i look at this, this is what i look at right now. typically, guys, you usually hear what the settlement winds up being maybe a year and a half, two years later. that's what happens in these cases. eventually, it is released in some type of a filing. how much the settlement was worth. for now, it's confidential. >> all right, thanks, phil. >> maybe you can find out before then. >> coming back, dan, you want to guess? >> oh, no, i have no idea. >> i'm with you on that. >> you know, then we have other concerns. i was talking about tax reform

-- >> you were optimistic, actually. >> investors are more pessimistic over the last month with the health care bill failing, but it's coming back. the government shutdown, you know, there's no overriding reason to shut down the government like there was in 2013, so a lot of this is just posturing, and so that will likely get resolved next week overall, and i think what people are missing about the first 100 days is that trump has really started to move to approve energy infrastructure projects that can total over $50 billion in 12 months. that's larger than what hillary clinton proposed on infrastructure. it's basically doing it by executive order. there's been good, been bad, and more of a stay tuned, but we're proceeding ahead on a growth agenda here. >> all right. dan, we have to go at this point. the united airlines story prodded us out, but thank you for joining us. >> gave us take aways. >> absolutely. closing bell exchange now with the dow up just two points, s&p is up a fraction, still about

eight points away from the all-time high, and nasdaq in record territory. mark from alpine funds at post nine, and meridian equity partners here, and jack is in for an ailing rick santelli today. good to see you all. the flood of earnings, a fire hose coming at us here, few mostly, the market liked what it heard here. >> absolutely. interesting week we've had here. normal economical da calendar, of earnings, got tepid as the week within the on, but clearly, wednesday tax headlines is what everybody waited for. interesting to see that the market really has not reacted either way to all the information that came out of washington. i think that is somewhat of a positive to take away, but earnings still going to drive the market, i think, the rest of today, form, and we had microsoft after the bell today,

exxon, general motors tomorrow, and big name next week, apple, facebook, but i think the catalyst is going to be an fomc wednesday, force investors to watch this market the next few sessions until there was information from washington. >> we have to get through this afternoon first. >> we have to get through this afternoon, and end of the week next week is jobs numbers. a lot really going on here. >> yeah, mark, including earnings as previously mentioned. you've been doing sort of a score card on where we are into the earnings season so far. what are you hearing? what are your picks on that? >> yeah, i mean, statistics are showing with a little more than a third of the s&p 500 reporting, 85% have either beaten or matched expectations in the averages about plus-6%. at alpine funds, we're about cash flow. that's driving the market. cash flow is good, and so far this season, looks pretty well. it is -- enables investors to push off all the noise going on in the political world and, i think, they are really

concentrating on this tax deal right now. >> yeah. jack, we talked a lot with rick about how placid currency markets and the treasury markets have been. >> not impressed. >> through all this. i mean, it's the equity market really seeing volatility, whether it's coming from washington or corporate earnings out there. >> yeah, bill, you know, there's a disconnect going on. you can see it just in looking at that ten year hanging stubbornly at 2.3%. >> right. >> there's some kind of fear that seems to be -- it's a black cloud over the market place now. i don't know if it's the, you know, the fear of what happens say during the first term of reagan where everything got pushed off a little bit, and we didn't really see the full effect of the tax cuts coming into effect until 1983, although, they were passed in 1981. let's pay tension to that. remember, this could be a situation where you buy the rum rumor, sell the news. you know, i agree that earnings are important, but with all the news coming from d.c., what's more important is where the earnings are going to be in

another year or year and a half when the cash comes back and you see tax rates down. remember, seed capital is so very important, and, you know, that's something we have not seen over the course of the last eight years. our little company, an exchange that started, we were a lucky one, able to get that seed capital, but how many ideas out there over the course of eight years were not able to get funded. >> right. >> see, that's the problem, and that seems to be what's really the optimism that's underneath the market right now. >> jack, how bullish are investors -- excuse me, john, asking you the question. on sentiment. you know, we look at elevated levels, record highs, worth asking how bullish inve stors got, and does that tell you anything whether the rally continues? >> i don't know how bullish they are, but they do not fear the market right now. overall sentiment has been high, and we had no real negative headlines that impacted this market. as we watch this market continually trend higher, any time we thought we got to a top

or technical level, you've been wrong to this point. the overall sentiment is stay in the market, ride it out for as long as you can until there's real selling pressure sessions on this market where we see some real conviction. >> all right. guys, we got to cut this short, too. we have to move on here, but thank you, all, for the thoughts on today's market action. appreciate it very much. >> thank you. >> because we're coming back to phil lebeau on united airlines. yes? >> bill, a statement from united airlines regarding this settlement, and it's pretty short and it's not surprising that it is short. it says, we are pleased to report that united and dr. dao have reached an am my cab resolution to the incident that occurred aboard flight 4311. we look forward to implementing improvements announced, putting customers at the center of everything we do. that's the statement from united, again, a confidential settlement reached between united airlines and dr. david dao, the passenger dragged off the united flight april 9th.

>> you have to think, phil, it is good news for management. i mean this could be a big overhang on the stock every time he or the lawyer came out, it was bad press. >> and the video shown again. >> and over and over. >> it will take time to get past it, but it's the first step, and everyone said this within days of the incident, settle this quickly as possible, get this out of the news as much as possible. it's still going to be out there, but potentially this moves it off the front pages and a little further back. >> all right. very good, phil, thanks very much. we'll see you later. yes. >> there's that video. >> yes, ma'am. 45 minutes left in the trading session. the dow is up 12 points. fell early on after oil fell. energy stocks lower today. oil fell below $49 a barrel. we have come back a little bit here. the s&p up a point. nasdaq record territory, gains there. russell down a point and a half right now. >> alphabet, amazon, microsoft,

intel, a few big names reporting earnings after the bell today. we'll bring you the numbers of and instant analysis coming up, plus, intell's cfo speaks with us about chip giant results as soon as they hit the tape. don't miss it. >> looking forward to it. largest advertising group, wpp, the company says companies are holding back on spending right now, wpp's ceo says how he thinks that could effect digital and revenue at both alphabet and amazon. that's coming up next. looking forward to talking to martin sorrell again. you're watching cnbc, first in business worldwide.

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tough internet companies report after the bell today, alphabet, amazon, microsoft among others, and google is dominating the advertising space. this year, the search giant forecast to command more than 40% of u.s. digital ad revenue share. that's according to e-marketer. >> however, our next guest says the biggest threat to the dollars is amazon. >> generally. >> well, let's get his view on it. sir martin sorrell. >> good afternoon. >> welcome back. amazon, an 800-pound gorilla. >> so many directions at the same time. >> yes. how are they are threat to the digital ad dollars out there? >> search, i mean, i -- i had always thought that about 25% of search in the u.s. originates with amazon. i saw it today from one of the incomers, at 55% of product searches emanate from amazon. yesterday, i saw the insertion of a camera into a lexus.

not only will they be listening to you, but watching you too. might be fine if you're trying on clothes, but how far are you prepared to let cameras into your home? all sorts of issues. because you can't go too far as far as privacy issues are concerned. talking to one media owner who competes with amazon on content and also pays for capacity on cloud, so it's a big goal to have them competing, they are frenemies competing in so many ways. looking at nuance data for cpt companies in january and february, which were weak, one of the things, of course, were the online channels. neilson does not cover the retail audit data, data channels, but amazon invites clie clients of other agencies to seattle discussing how they can

effect evidencely get more market target progress, and amazon competes in such a marginal way. i was in the middle east, they bought soup, the amazon ali baba equivalent in middle east, a company that's grown very aggressively in the middle east markets like saudi and others. so jeff bezos who controls the company by equity control is going in so many directions, and, obviously, this is an interesting situation in relation to the established players, whether it be google, facebook, or snap or whatever. >> sure. you mentioned that the consumer companies, pngs, the unilevers, how does that change ad strategies, and does it mean they spend less and why you faced a tougher quarter? >> well, certainly, there's a trifecta. there's the disrupters in transportation, hospitality, or retail. there's the activist investors,

you mentioned png. we have others in png with 1.5%, cost $3.5 billion, and then, of course, you had bill aikman there before, and he caused a little bit -- >> saying that means costs -- they pay attention to costs too? >> that said, bp element, obviously, the heinz offer at the door, basically the message there is, i think, nobody's safe. there's $100 billion company betting $143 billion for a bigger company, certainly significant, bigger company, and more long established, so i think the message is no -- what clients do particularly in the cpg area is hunkering down, focusing on costs being more efficient, more effective, the paradox is at the same time they want to increase the top line growth. >> right. >> interesting development is the top 20 clients, who not all of them reported for the first quarter of this year, but many

have, the average growth in revenue growth is 1%, mainly price, and you went back to q4 of 2016, it was about 2%, about half price, hall volume. volume is under pressure, and at some point in time, the good news for us, i think, is that the pack captions come as well have to invest more to grow the top linement that's the critical, i mean, what you look for is growth, and that's what drives tsr return. >> is that decline in volume a reflection of the economy, or is this a strategic issue right now? >> i think at the end of the day, the top line -- gdp growth is affected, has been. we snapped back in 2010, and in our own case, 12-16 record years, and '17 with the pressure we're seeing probably will be in the same region. not a good year. having said that, the pressure is on the gdp growth.

very little inflation. very little pricing power. therefore, that's a focus on cost, and that's where the short termism comes in, and the biggest problem that we all have to face is the sample on the short term. executive ten year tends to be 6-7 years for ceos, four to five to six years for cfos, and cmos is 18 months, even less. there's a certain level of insecurity, other than the controlled companies like -- for instance, you see amazon -- alphabet, amazon, controlled companies so they know if they make a bet on the future, putting it crudely, invest in the future and fail, they are not tore up. there is a tendency to be risk averse, and i think that's driving a lot of the decision making at the moment. >> but looking forward, i mean, we have stocks in the u.s. and at a record high around the world -- >> right. >> multiyear highs. painting an optimistic picture for the rest of the year on global growth.

>> well -- >> from your lens -- >> well, it's u.s. growth that's driving the u.s. market. i mean, the relationship between business in this administration is very different to what it was to the previous administration. there is access. they do listen. they are introducing a tax bill. we're seeing how much get implemented. we did not see health care implemented, but odds are the trumponomics for the u.s. economy, america first, good news for what is the 18 trillion economy engine, which is $74 trillion. i'm bullish, rightly bullish, i think, about the u.s. economy in the short term and medium term. issues of what happens elsewhere is another issue. >> yeah. >> look at our results, u.k. was strong and western continental europe is strong, and the paradox of the market was that packaged good companies and automobile companies, et cetera, see pressure in the u.s. market and overseas expansion has been better. >> sir martin, good to see you. >> good to see you too.

look forward to seeing what alphabet and amazon do. >> don't we all? we all wait with baited breath. >> you gave us a preview. >> thank you very much. intel posts earnings after the close as well with tech giants chief financial officer to run through the numbers with us exclusively after they are released. back in just a moment. justikthmarines did. at one point, i did change to a different company with car insurance, and i was not happy with the cuomerervice. we havswitched back over and weeel like we're back home now. thprocess through usaa is so effortless, that you fl like you're a part of theamily. i love that i can passhe membership tmy children, and that they can be protected. we're the williams family, and wee usaa members for life. call usaa today to talk about your insur needs.

shares of ge down 8%, dow up

more than 6, and while he called ge amazing, the chief investment officer, ed garden, knows something has to change, and he sat down with david faber to talk about the state of ge. david joins us now, sir. >> yes, bill. interesting words from mr. garden, of course, no stranger to ge, been in the stock for some time. for a portion of that, things seemed to go well, and as you know, 2006 was a challenging year for ge, and the tone, perhaps, changed a bit. still constructive, but, perhaps, with a bit of a threat there, ge, said, of course, back in march they would embark on cost cutting over the next couple years. that is something that trian is watching very closely, and mr. garden made it very clear if they do not, they'll take it upon themselves to become a bit more, well, active. >> management understands that they need to execute, right?

it's all about execution. i think it's the right initiative. now they need to deliver. 2017, david, is a important year for the company for management. they feel the pressure. they need to deliver. they know share owners are looking for significant change if they have it. >> significant change, if they do, the key question, this is the 16th year as the company's ceo, and despite what we're not bad numbers from ge, the last cash flow scared off investors. the stock reversing course, guys, as you know, it was the quarter prior to that that was a particularly disappointing one for ge, and seems to have gotten the attention, if they are not paid attention all along for

trian. only a personality of the company, but in position to galvanize other large shareholders, as many others are able to do. >> i noted the conversation with him about procter & gamble, coming off a different disappointing quarter. seems like it's friendly to begin with. this was a question mark. we didn't know what trian would do with the stock after revealing that big position. >> afraid i can't tell you what it is they want other than, of course, the stock to go in another direction, sara, but they had early conversations, mr. garden indicated that. they had the dialogue, watching, using words "rooting for the strategy already in place," but as you well know, you have to pay attention because perhaps, there is more daylight between what they see and what they execute. sometimes things get hostile. >> indeed.

thank, david. >> sure thing. >> david faber. >> time now for a cnbc news update. >> hi, sara, bill. here's what's happening. japanese prime minister abe welcomed by russian president putin at the kremlin. this is the third meeting in seven months between the two. the meeting is widely regarded as a sign both want to settle the dispute over four islands off the coast of japan that both countries claim. palestinians throughout the west bank observing a general strike in support of a about 1800 striking prisoners in schools, universities, shops, and transport facilities, well, they were all shut down. toyota recalled 2016-models that could leak oil and potentially increase the risk of a crash. the recall includes 228,000 vehicles for here in the u.s. and actor johnny depp appear

ed and he was dressed up, there you see. and fans captured this video of depp in action. he did pretty good. that's the news update this hour. i have not been on that ride in a long time, but i'll tell ya, if johnny depp's on it, i'll go. >> there you go. >> that's a treat for the parents. >> oh, absolutely. >> sue, see you later. up next, beware of the tax man, john hickenlooper weighs in on the proposal to get rid of the state tax deduction. rooms. because they have tvs in them. and, when we're not in those rooms, we want our shows to go with us. anywhere? you got that right, kid show thing. get a directv all-included package for 4 rooms.

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the country is still trying to figure out what president trump's tax proposal means for them. what could impact wealthier residents of high tax states like new york and california. we are in washington with ylan and details on this one. >> hi, sara. the biggest itemized deduction households take is a state and local tax deduction. the state foundation said it's worth $1.8 trillion over a decade, making it even bigger than the mortgage deduction. now, the blue states like

california, new york, and new jersey, they enjoy the biggest benef benefit. the democratic stronghold with high property or income tax rates, red states like texas, alabama, tennessee, they get the smallest deductions, and the fight over whether or not to till the reduction has already begun. new jersey senator menendez called it doubled taxation, and it was brought up back in january at trump tower. >> it is a proposal that's been discussed that would end the deductability of state and local taxes, for example, which would be devastating on the state of new york, california, et cetera. >> reporter: guys, remember, 30 republicans, about 30 republicans in the house, come from those blue states and enjoy the biggest deductions, so, guys, remember that they are going to be facing a lot of pressure from the constituents back home to keep the deduction alive. >> all right, ylan, thank you very much. let's talk about the impact of

eliminating the state and local tax deduction right now. >> joining us is governor john hickenlooper, a democrat from colorado. looking at your state income tax, governor, 4.63 last year, less than california at 13, but, still, not very low. do you think this could deduction -- getting rid of the deduction actually will pass? >> well, first, i have to say, i penalty 15 years in the restaurant business. i hate the complexity of taxes, paying taxes issue and i understand the desire to make them simpler and get rid of a lot of the deductions, but this is crazy, and it's not just blue states. look at a state like ohio, made a loot of civic investments, municipalitie municipalities, and what's happening is the federal government is cost shifting. in other words, it's shifting a burden of cost back on to municipalitie municipalities, counties issue and local governments just at a

time when the federal government's telling us, well, you have to raise more money to build bridges and roads. it doesn't seem wise to me on the surface. >> all right. but as you well know, they got to pay for this somehow. show me one deduction where anybody who has been able to benefit from the deduction is going to willingly give it up, morning deduction, interest on bonds, you know, whatever it is, you're never going to find anybody who willingly gives that up, so why not this one? >> well, that's why this is so hard is because everybody's got an ax so grind, and it's very hard. once you do all of them, it's almost -- it is, it's a steep hill, a difficult thing to get done, but this is one that will slow down economic growth, you know, the whole notion of trying to reduce the tax rates for wealthiest americans, which, you know, we have the greatest philanthropists in the country in colorado. i talk to the guys all the time, with the exceptions, that most of them do not care about saving

3% on their income taxes. they got more than enough money to do what they need to do, and the financial system is, you know, almost a wash in capital. low interest rates, it's not like you're going to be able to argue this new capital coming into the system is somehow going to magically stimulate the economy. i mean, probably not going to happen. you're not going to get anymore stimulus than you already have. >> i wonder if it'll cause people to migrate to texas and florida, the no income tax states if it went through. i wonder what the impact would be. >> well, and when you look at it, state income taxes, if they do migrate, that's unfortunate, but it really is a point of double taxation. people are taxed twice on income. we've never done that before. this is a contract we've had between federal and local and state governments for, you know, almost a hundred years. >> well, look at the other direction, though. wouldn't this put pressure on those states that do have a

relatively high state income tax to lower it? >> well, i think they got pressure on it already. that's for the citizens of, you know, look at the states with higher taxes, new york, california, their citizens have a voice. they have elections. they are paying that tax. why should the federal government tax them twice for what, you know, taxes already paid? doesn't really make sense, right? talk about taxation without representation. that's it. >> all right. >> we'll see where it goes. >> weapyep, governor, thank you appreciate the time. >> no, thank you. >> we're heading to the close here, 18 minutes left in the trading session, the dow up 11 points. it's -- art would say the market's hypnotized because of the earnings coming out in a bit. previewing the earnings, what we may deal with in 15 minutes, look at the numbers expected from alphabet, amazon, microsoft, and intel to name a few. >> technology, though, where the

names appear is outperforming, one of the best performing sectors in the s&p. after the bell, we'll comb through the intel numbers with the chip maker's cfo, bob swan. we'll be right back on "closing bell." anything worth pursuing hard work and a plan. at baird, we approach your wealth management

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with the nasdaq at a record high, there's no day like today for tech earnings, and cnbc reporters are standing at the ready. we have julia, dom, and josh with google parent, alphabet. kick it off for us. >> well, amazon has been creeping ever-closer to a thousand bucks a share as it reports first quarter earnings after the bell. revenue profit expected to grow, but, remember, this was amazon we're talking about, and it's a company that's never been shy to surprise shareholders with bigger than anticipated investments and dizzying array of investments. this is amazon's fastest growing and most profitable segment. competition, though, heating up in the space from the likes of microsoft and alphabet, and, remember, that it miessed revene expectations last quarter and looking for any color on amazon's prime membership program. guys? >> all right. thank you.

julia, what are we looking for from microsoft? >> well, analysts expect microsoft to benefit from growth in the cloud and office 365 businesses. earnings are projected to grow 12% to 70 cents a share and revenue expected to grow 7% to 23.6 billion. investors are watching to see whether the windows continue to outpace the pc industry's decline and how much new products like office 365 are cannibalizing microsoft's traditional business, and investors hope to see how the acquisition of linkedin pays off. >> thank you. dom with a look at inn dell. >> all right, the second half of the microsoft combination, folks out there think intel is a bell weather overall. they have pc demand, here's what to watch for. analysts expect 65 cents per share earnings on revenue total of $14.8 billion, the biggest

segment of the bids is the client computing segment for pcs, data center is second biggest here, and beyond the headline numbers, investment community looks for commentary on the health of the ship mar t market, especially pcs, growth center, data centers, internet of things, and they beat estimates for eight quarters in a row now, but the stock traded up in half the instances. currently, options market pricing a 3% move up or down after the report. conference call at 5:00 p.m. eastern today. back to you. >> dom, thank you. we have intel's cfo talking to us after this on what could move the stock. meantime, out to san francisco now for a look at alphabet with josh. josh? >> bill, investors look for efg of 739, gross revenue of 24.2 billion. core google revenue and margins,

meaning house internet businesses from search, map, youtube, how they perform, and when questioned there how that recent youtube advertiser boycott impacted results in the core, analysts do not think there was a material near term financial impact. we're going to soon find out. guys, back to you. >> yes, we will. thank you, gang. we'll get ready for the fire hose in a bit. we heard what to expect from alphab alphabet, and up next, a bull-bear squareoff on a stock whether or not to buy right now. stay tuned. [pony neighing] what? hey gary. oh. what's with the dog-sized horse? i'm crazy stressed trying to figure out this complex trade so i brought in my comfort pony, warren, to help me deal. isn't that right warren? well, you could get support from thinkorswim's in-app chat.

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remember what we were just saying? go irish! see that? yes! i'm gonna just go back to doing what i was doing. find your awesome with the xfinity x1 voice remote. as you've heard, alphabet reports after the bell, so now's the time to debate, bullalphabe. >> we have both. cfr research, has a strong buy rating, along with david, who is bearish on the stock. scott, you think this stock, which is trading a little below in the 800 range, can get to 1,000. why and what do you look for tonight to confirm that thesis? >> right. thanks, sara. a couple things. initially, we look at alphabet as a unique investment of growth and value. revenues will increase 17% this year and 15% next year.

we expect margins to actually widen. in addition to that, they have a very strong balance sheet, and if you believe what a lot of the politics are talking about, the repatriation tax on foreign earnings is going to go down substantially, and that could provide a catalyst because over the last year or so, alphabet injected more discipline into their spending as well as their capital allocation. the bottom line is we see alphabet as more growth and more value than a lot of its competition. >> all right. and, david, you have a very different opinion. >> value? we got a company that's trading at three times as expensive as the average s&p company. it's one of the most expensive companies in the s&p 500, and investing 101 does not say you beat the market by investing in the biggest company in the market. look at the fundamental franchise. if it's under attack on all sides, if there's one word to watch for, it's alexa. people are going to oral search

via amazon and similar. we've seen now, that if you're an online shopper, three times likely to go right to amazon than you are now to google. of course, in terms of video, youtube, under attack, not just the advertisers that are worry. people are increasefully going to facebook, even twitter. when you're already priced big premium to the market, and fundamental franchise crumbles, watch out. >> a decade after an ipo, this is a a company that's managing to grow its revenue double digits. >> yeah. and, sara, i take issue with the data david referenced. on our estimates, for this year, alphabet traded at 22 times our exceptions, and as a peg ratio of 1.3, next year, trading at 1.1. that's a slight premium to the

market and does not account for all the other great things going on with the company, including the balance sheet. >> all right, david, i'd love a response, but we watch the clock like a hawk, but thank you for your point of view on this, and, scott, thank you as well as we prepare for the alphabet earnings among many others. >> pregaming here. >> yes, we are. >> up next, the closing countdown. >> and minutes away from all the earnings coming out, including alphabet, amazon, microsoft, int intel, and more than that as well. we'll have the classic instant analysis only cnbc provides you. you're watching cnbc, first in business worldwide. whoa that's amazing... hey, i'm the internet! i know a bunch of people who would love that. the internet loves what you're doing... ...so build a better website in under an hour with... ...gocentral from godaddy. type in your idea. select from designs tailored just for you

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it's your trade. e*trade. start trading today at etrade.com final two minutes of traiditraid i trading today, but the dow did not move a lot. let me show you what moved today. that's wti crude oil. down almost 1%, in fact, off the lows of the session here, below $49 a barrel for part of the time, and some of that production issues, whether opec maintains production cuts, but the dollar is strong against the euro after the ecb meetings this morning, mariodraghi comments,

and now we are ready for all the earnings, bob. this is the -- this has been the busiest week we've had, and today will be the busiest day. >> and the calendar, we have the same earnings every quarter, but important thing is, banks look good. industrials are good. now it's the tech names for tonight. i take a look at samsung. very good, i think, leading indicator for tech. good numbers overnight. tip numbers good for them. that's important. you see they trade 2.5%. big oil now, this is another story. showed the oil price. it was not supposed to be this way, folks. this was supposed to be a big year for oil. remember, oil is supposed to be moving towards $60. a lot of the models to the earnings, sales production, not

going down, and trying to influngi influen influence, and there's earnings expectations for the year come down, and that's why energy is the worst performing sector this year. >> so far this yearment thanks, bob. dow up 9 points on the close. no idea how to do this, but here come the earnings in the second hour of the "closing bell." ♪ >> here we go. welcome to the "closing bell," sara eisen in for kelly evans. bill rejoining us in a moment. finishing up the day on wall street, another day, another record for the nasdaq ahead of the big caps tech earnings. the nasdaq closing at a record, up.4%, a star performer all day. the s&p 500 moved late higher to the top of the index. all three closing positive. on track for the best rate of the s&p and dow of 2017. russell 2,000 and small caps

ending fractionally lower. wild hour of earnings. coming up, josh lipton covers alphab alphabet, julia over microsoft, and dom chu with earnings, and susan dee with starbucks, and we have the go pro numbers. everyone is working this hour. >> oh, boy. >> we have our senior markets commentator and columnist, mike san santolli and stefanie link. mike, stage set. expectations high going into the tech earnings with the nasdaq closing at another record. >> they are. tech companies reported today, up solidly more than the market year to date. they are companies, alphabet, amazon, that don't manage quarterly earnings. i think there's a swing in terms of how the reaction's going to be. maybe a logical sell the news moment, but on the other hand, a lot of people still have been big believers in the idea, so should be leading account

market, but it's not clear to me they are overowned yet. >> where are you on tech versus the rest of the market and other industry groups? >> overweight, but less so given we had such a nice run, although, it's really hard to take profits in these things because it continues to deliver, and if they don't, they have a hiccup one quarter. it's typically a buying opportunity, particularly tonight because they are such secular winners. you know, it's been a mistake to sell any of them in the past. mostly, the fundamentals, there's not much change in terms of the secular growth dynamic, so looking forward to it. >> you were saying yesterday that, what, alphabet, amazon, the most two important to watch here, but intel, that's a meat and potatoes company. we have to know. that tells us how the rest of the industry may be doing. >> it is. it is also lagging in the group. >> right. >> it's been hot, but intel is the boring incumbent in the area. you want to see that. shows you how much life is left in the semiconductor side. and, you know, honestly, i think

it's really the reaction to the reports that's going to matter most opposed to what it's going to tell us about the numbers down the income. >> all right. straight to amazon, we have what looks like a big bottom line here at least. >> that is right, beat on bottom and top lines, eps up 1.42, 1.12 was expected. big beat there. slight beat on revenue, 35.3 expected, 35.7 billion. and as i mentioned, you want to watch out for the awf or cloud computing numbers because this is now the most profitable and fastest growing segment within amazon. that came right in line with expectations at 3.6 billion dollars. remember that last quarter, this number came in a little light, causing the stock to fall in the afterhours, but now we have a strong pop from amazon up nearly 5% in the after hours, bringing it closer to that thousand dollar mark, guys? >> what do you think? i mean, the skeptics are always

wondering why they don't turn a profit more often. this looked good. >> yeah. last quarter was more disappointing, right, missing the sales number, aws and better margins. this go-around, 43% aws, up exactly what people expected. the whisper was 40% or below, less than that. guidance not as negative from last quarter. last quarter was a shocker. see what the rest of the points come in at, but it's what we pay for, right? >> nice to have a stock up more than 50% in 12 months, top 4% on earnings. >> well, not only that, but almost $5 billion, so it is growing up, i feel like. there's a level of maturity so reactions are no longer all over the map. 4% is a nice move on top of the all-time high. >> right. >> it is not a huge gyration because nobody had a handle on what to drop the bar. >> bracing for the company to lower guidance and keep higher investments.

we are worried about that. looks like for now it's good. >> here we go. alphabet's numbers are out. josh, how do they look? >> bill, alphabet reporting eps at 773 versus expectations of 739. revenue 24.75 billion. expectation there with 24.2 billion. looking through the numbers, google advertising revenue, 21.4 billion, and paid clicks, up 44%, cost per click down 19%, and total pack in the quarter, 4.6 billion, and on the call here, look for questions about mobile search, about youtube, about youtube advertising boycott as well, however, the executive taken through the controversy, the call is at 4:30 eastern. guys, back to you. >> all right. well, another one. we're even revenue looking good this time around, right? >> it seems like it. i was just trying to look here. you have to see, because the street likes to pick apart down below some of the other metrics, like costs per click. see if that reacts, if stocks

pull back. >> declining for a while now? >> a million years. >> because of mobile and youtube apps. >> depends how much it's going to. >> people were nervous about youtube ad revenue. that was a concern. some numbers came down in the quarter, but the stock did well in the face of that, but that was a concern, anything going in, certainly looks like the revenues are fine, and it was an overreaction. >> are there still questions about the -- just this structure of the company, and all the little pet projects they have going that go beyond the purview of search and the other things going on? >> i think it's the fact they have discipline attached to it right now. i think there's a cult to boost more at the cfo, and that's in effect. i think, though, as soon as sentiment turns and people start to find a reason they want to stick to the numbers and sell the stock, you point out the fact they basically are this sort of one megaproduct company, and they try to pour a lot of capital elsewhere. >> looking for commentary on the call, cloud, another big bag of

theirs, all the other bags are interesting. >> absolutely. >> all right. starbucks, must be susan lee. how do they look? >> indeed, it is. going to the numbers, and i'll tell you now it's all about sales and that's why the stock is down in after hours. we're going to begin with earnings per share on the bottom line in line with estimates at 45 cents a piece. revenue's missing. comp sales below estimates coming in at 3% whereas the market looked for 3.7%, and two quarters down, two quarters in a row starbucks missed sales, and, you know, we had executive of starbucks promising the market we're going to try to get back to the historical average of 5% sales growth. we continue to be below that level, but, of course, in the quarter, they tried to improve the mobile experience, mobile order with a long line of complaints last year, and we have the unicorn frappichino.

>> reiterating, they said it was a better comp in march, 4% in the u.s., and say, according to the cfo, we continue to see further acceleration into april. promising, maybe, there's been a little bit of a pickup at the end of the quarter. >> very consistent with what we heard from most consumer companies that that january-march was dull, april-may better, tax issue, who knows, but very easy comparisons going forward, i don't expect the stock down for long. >> we'll know more tomorrow on "squawk on the street," exclusive interview with the starbucks ceo and kevin johnson, howard schultz, both. >> take a picture. >> chatting with them tomorrow. >> going to be a cramer special, i think, 9:00 a.m. joining us for the conversation is river front investment group cofounder and chief equity strategist doug sandler, digesting earnings.

starbucks stands in contrast to the others we've just seen, alphabet, for instance, and amazon. not a tech company, i guess, you could say, but it was advanced and sort ahead of the game on technology and mobile ordering. i just wonder if there's a distinction right now between the tech companies and everybody else when it comes to the earnings, doug? >> yeah, i think any time i look at a restaurant or a retailer, the first thing i want to know is, are they growing same-store sales? you know, that's a tough thing to do. the easy thing that restaurants and retailers can do is grow square footage, continuing to add stores issue and any big restaurant, it's going to hit that sort of wall where you can't add more stores, and you have to drive people through the stores, which is difficult. that may or may not what they bumped into this time around. from the tech perspective, the neat thing about tech is there's a sector with a whole place about the same as the s&p, but it's traditionally delivered two, three times the growth, and that's just not an opportunity investors get very often, so, you know, you have core building

or fundamental blocks in tech today. there was software, semiconductors, internet. from what it sounded like, they are all delivering good numbers, ultimately what makes the stock go up, and i think it gets you a premium valuation over the rest of the s&p. we like that. >> good way to frame it. we have the seminumber right now. let's get to the the earnings alert on intel. dom? >> headline numbers going forward for intel. we have an earnings beat, narrow one, 66 cents a share. analysts looking for 65 cents a share. revenues could be called in line, 14.8 billion, and street looked for around 14.81 billion. also combing through at least unusual parts of the earnings so far, we do have the company's ceo saying that they saw some average selling price strength, they saw across nearly every segment of their business

demonstrates continued demand for high performance competing, only, he says, increases with the explosion of data. we also got business unit results to comb through now and bring highlights of those, but now, shares beat, appear to reak negatively off the bat. we'll see if that happens as well with your interview with the cfo and conference call at 5:00 p.m. back to you. >> thank you from the promo. see you later. microsoft is out. julia, how do they look? >> hey, that's right. well, microsoft's earnings beat expectations coming in adjusted earns of 73 citizen a share, 3 cents better than expected. revenues missed, revenues of 23.56 billion estimated 23.6 it 2 billion. shares trading down 2% now. the company says it will be providing guidance on the earnings call, which is coming up at 5:30 p.m. eastern. they said here, the results this quarter reflect the trust customers place in microsoft cloud. back over to you.

>> stefanie, you were on this -- >> i do. that's whisper numbers of 73 cents. the surprise that is expected. the stock did nice over the last week and a half on expectations that pcs might be a little bit better or less bad, and that cloud would be well. i did not check cloud numbers. i got to get that. that's really key. i wouldn't also get negative on this because they have an analyst meeting coming up in the beginning of may to outline their growth strategies and how they see an acceleration in earnings by 10%, and that could be driven by linkedin, and intergrainte integration and that regard. it's not terrible. >> you asked, she's got it. how's cloud look, julia? >> well, microsoft saying revenue was 6.8 billion, increased 11%, 12% in cost of currency, building business highlights here, server products and cloud service revenue

included 15% driven by ad growth, and enterprise revenue decreased 1%. looks like that's a bit strong -- oh, sorry, that revenue in total intelligence cloud is stronger than expected versus analysts' expectations there. that's the cloud business that is driving the quarter. >> 6.1 to 6.17 in in particular segment. it's 93% growth, consistent with last quarter. also very good. no deceleration there. clearly, cloud is actually driving amazon and microsoft, and that's a theme that's a lot of people are in the stocks. >> where are we in the cloud cycle? >> middle. >> yeah. >> i believe it. people were nervous so many price cuts were this quarter from both companies. all companies, actually. that might be signaling that the demand might be weakening. obviously; that's not the case given the strong numbers of both

companies. >> i would point out with microsoft that, you know, softened up after the report. it's been stretched. look at valuation of the stock, it's a decade high, but a dozen year high relative to the s&p. it has to prove itself at these levels. it was too cheap for too long, and now it's got revalued higher, and maybe has to grow for a couple quarters. >> aws number of within amazon for cloud business, 3.66 billion. that was pretty much on par with what analysts expected, a growth driver of the stock and company. >> very much consistent, really, with expectations of 43%. very big number. >> you got more from deidre? what more do you have? >> exactly right. we are seeing revenues from awf right in line, but it is interesting to note that operating income was a little bit light from awf, amazon's money making cloud computing seg. . 891 million in terms of

operating income versus 1.1 million, which was expected. coming in light on the revenue side of 11.1 billion versus 11.2 expected, and bigger loss than exempted 481 million versus 321. despite that, though, guys, this is a more than 40% growth in profit, so investors very happy with that, and pushing amazon to fresh all-time highs in the after hours. >> and this comes at a time when we are talking about tipping points in the retail industry, and how amazon truly is starting to gobble up much more market share, and not only e-commerce but away from brick and mortar now, right? >> 7% of the share in retail now. that's astounding number for one company and growing leaps and bounds. retail is a fun part of the story. >> all right. now we have expedia and susan lee has that. >> expedia down in after hours.

bad industry, we had a miss on the bottom line, eps light. only earnings 5 cents, adjusting below street estimates, revenue topped estimates, looking at travel companies, growth bookings matter, and growth bookings were strong, up from 14% above estimates earning 23 billion in the quarter, room nigh nights 12%, but expedia extends ahead of the travel season, marketing dollars in, marketing up 22%, pressured some of their margins and their bottom line, and also, they are spending more to get back on to the cloud. cloud expansion continues in 2017, and the shift of the holiday to the second quarter also hurt first quarter numbers. that's a look at expedia. back to you. >> down 2%, thank you. gopro earnings out. we have those details. >> hi. it's a beat on the top and bottom lines, so revenue

guidance is strong. all that drives the stock up now after hours, a little under 3%. the revenue's coming in at 218.6 million, beating estimates of 207.8 million, and earnings are a lock of 44 cents, beating by a penny, and the company also beat on the q2 revenue guidance, how it reports between 260 and 280 million. the street looked for 243.7 million. growth margins, however, for q is and guidance on growth margins for q2 light to a slight miss there, but in its full year guidance, the company expects double digit revenue growth year over year which is well above the roughly 7% that analysts were expecting. now, the release does not have a number on units shipped. we'll look for that in the call, but, again, the stock after hours is going up to the positive numbers, and through the regular session, the company stock is down 32% year over

year, a rough couple quarters for them, but up over 3% year to date, and the company's ceo says gopro is executing a turn around. we'll hear more from him and updates with the production delays that have dogged the company recently on the call. that begins at 5:00 p.m. eastern. we are letting you know that nick woodman will be live on cnbc interview on "squawk box" tomorrow morning. watch for that. back to you. >> thank you. appreciate it. i want to get a final comment from everyone, but dom has more on intel. >> move downside after hours moves more down now. we are down about 3 partnersh.5. we do have new numbers on the forecast for intel as well. we were told it was a slight earnings beat, a ever so slight revenue miss and see the current quarter earnings per share at 68 cents on adjusted not gap basis, and average analysts' estimates were 54 cents and see revenues

1 14.4 billion and looked for 14.3:billion. so better there. and earnings at 2.85 a share. 2.80 was the average analyst estimate, despite better than expected estimates. we'll comb through more as we head to the conference call, and, of course, the interview later on in this hour. guys, back to you. >> very good. doug sandler, we had technical problems. a final comment from you. what are you hearing now? encouraged by the numbers you hear, especially from technology? >> yeah, certainly am. encouraged boufrt t ed about th right? bull markets for eight year, and i think the multiple expansion's over with. ultimately, earnings have to come through, and here we see, you know, best earnings season since we've seen in 2011. that needed to happen to provide a stable platform for the bull market to continue to move up. on tech, i would just say a certainty in tech is the biggest

guide tends not to be the guide ten years from now. we like tech. small and miss-size companies over the big ones. >> the big ones are getting bigger now. the highlights, the all-stars of the afternoon, mike and stefanie, are amazon and alphabet. >> they are right now, although, i think this short period after the close shows what's in earnings season. you have all the offsetting moves in general, earnings good enough to support the move we had in stocks, but it really is a higher bar than we've had three months ago, and that's why it's been a market that's idling here near the lhighs. >> willing to commit more dollars? >> i like what i'm hearing. it's about the ones down, i like to buy stocks when they are down, but i say this. i think the reason we are not seeing massive reactions is i think there's more generalizations to the names, and they understand these are the seculars, not driving earnings, may have a bad quarter or two. these are not bad quarters, not

even microsoft. they ran really, really big time. assess the situation. see where the guidance falls out, and -- >> starbucks was interesting, 3%. >> i think it's a decent kmep tear about april, number one, and i think most people thought it was because they would be up 3-4% same-store sales in north america. it got 3. understanding. 7% in china. people looking for 5%. there was enough there. give it time. buy on weakness. >> okay. i think we got them all. i don't know how we did it, but we got them in there. thank you, both. >> thank you. >> appreciate the thoughts, and we got much more in this earnings extravaganza coming along. numbers are out. now we talk with top analysts on how to trade alphabet, amazon, microsoft, and intel. >> we're going to talk to the ceo, bob swan, breaking down the chip maker's quarter in an exclusive interview. the stock under pressure here in

the after hours. you're watching cnbc, first in business worldwide. say carl, we have a question about your brokerage fees. fees? what did you have in mind? i don't know. $4.95 per trade? uhhh. and i was wondering if your brokerage offers some sort of guarantee? guarantee? where we can get our fees and commissions back if we're not happy. so can you offer me what schwab is offering? what's with all the questions? ask your broker if they're offering $4.95 online equity trades and a satisfaction guarantee. if you don't like their answer, ask again at schwab.

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okay, big numbers out,

amazon out with earnings, big beat bottom line, 1.48 versus expectations of 1.12. stock up roughly 4% now. joining us for reaction, victor anthony from ages capital, and landon refreshing himself from first hand capital management. good to see you both. >> thank you. >> kevin, what do you think? you like what you are hearing? >> well, i think we like the position. we like the holdings. you know, we are curious on what's the next act. amazon is slow to pull the curtain, but the awf is cruising along, rolling over people is what you expect and hope to hear from a company like this. >> that's the cloud business right there. >> victor r y, a price target o 9.53. shares are moving close. the competition is going to be seeing apple -- excuse me, apple and alphabet to get to the 1,000

mark after solid earnings from both. >> we'll see. we'll see. the numbers are solid, guidance solid. a breakout of the resale business, first part of retail business is solid. business is going 30% range, solid, subscription business is 50% range, and it added more prime subscribers than we expected. awf slightly better than what the buy side expected. they expected price cuts as well as competition, a slowdown in the whole shift to the cloud infrastructure, taking a toll on a top line growth right, and the company's moving on ail cylinders, and i think that's going to refute the bad cases on the stock that amazon is another significant cycle to pressure margins going forward, overall, good numbers for amazon. >> kevin, you mentioned that it's hard to always kind of get a clear word from amazon,

exactly what might be that next driver. is there anything you see out there that is going to cause investors to have one of their little bouts of short term impatience with the level of investment or, you know, sort of whatever priority is taking the floor right now? i mean, you got a chance to buy amazon in many years out a double digital decline from the highs. have not had one of those in a while. >> right. you know, the per sis tent negative argument against amazon is just valuations. margins too thin. never making enough money. it's just too pricey. i view that as at mirror image of a value trap, crummy stock, but the price is so low, you can't leave it alone, but then you realize there's nothing else to say about it. it's bullet proof, but the bad thing is the stock is too expensive. what i learned over the years is that people said that about all my favorite stocks that were my most successful investments, so

i think on ward and upward with the guys. >> you can point to the shipping costs. we know that amazon's trying to figure out its own system, but continuing to rise, they rose another 34% in the quarter, and international, it's somewhat of a weak spot for amazon right now. >> yes. so they are investing aggressively in several markets in europe as well. there's a big market. huge opportunity. amaz amazon's investing against it. amson sees demand. they announced just in the u.s. alone, they are hiring hundred thousand workers over 18 months. made announcements where they hire ed probably 17,000. on pace to meet the goal. important for amazon, they are invested against significant growth, and so that's why the reason why we are in the bull capital with amazon, benefitting from secular winds, and retail, they were -- cloud services business, despite the competition, advertising as well

as others, and we'll see what they do with logistics. that's the next big miss, i think, to enter into over the next decade. >> all right. victor anthony, kevin, good to see you both. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> appreciate the time. >> time now for a cnbc news update with sue, sue? >> hi, sara. united airlines has reached a settlement for an undisclosed sum with the passenger dragged from the chicago flight this month. dr. dao was hospitalized after chicago aviation police forcefully dragged him off the plane to make space for crew members. the senate's top democrat ripping trump's tax proposal as a nonstarter, and schumer called it a gift to the wealthy to benefit people such as donald trump. >> i have never seen a tax plan that does more harm to the middle class and more to boost those at the top than the outline released yesterday. >> overseas, far right

presidential candidate le pen spent several hours after dawn fishing on a crawler in the mediterranean sea. the trip is just the latest effort by le pen to paint herself as the candidate of the french workers. that is the cnbc news update this hour. back downtown to you, sara, bill in. >> she made it to the runoff, and she went fishing. >> went fishing, and, apparently caught an octopus. >> there it is. all right. good for her. >> like holding a baby in the u.s. >> yes. >> thank you, sue. >> that's a good one, sara. >> see you later. >> you got it. >> alphabet shares are rallying after reporting better than expected earnings. up next, we'll discuss whether this hot stock can keep climbing to new highs. >> then intel's cfo, bob swan, joining us to talk earnings and how the trump tax plan could impact his bottom line and other things. stay tuned. (fans cheering)

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tbut with lightning fast shifts instant. and dynamic track-tuned suspension, what the road demands, the gs delivers. experience high performance through high technology, in the lexus gs 350 and gs turbo. experience amazing. we've got another earnings alert here on alphabet. josh lipton with the details, and speaking to an executive, josh? >> i got off the phone with a senior executive at alphabet running through the quarter. just to get their sense of the quarter, first and foremost, of course, investors want to know what the impact could have been if some brands suspended campaigns on youtube late in the quarter. this executive saying, they are taking seriously all they can do

to protect the ecosystem for revenue per speck tef. the executive says that the near term impact in this executive's words, modest. long term, the executive saying we continue to benefit from the secular shift from how people are consuming content. i also asked, you know, you are pushing into businesses that carry lower margins than traditional search business. emphasis on youtube, cloud, hardware, and having to think about the margin dynamic. the executive saying, listen, it's a tradeoff. it's a tradeoff that the company is willing to make, particularly because it does benefit overall profit dollars r a, a and these the places to be. the cloud, another issue that, obviously, investors are focused on as the company looks to diversify away from the traditithere additional on line ad business, and other revenues breaking out in the cloud, putting into the other seg m, revenues clocked in 3 billion in the quarter, and this executive said they continue to have great

enterprise wins in the quarter in the cloud, and they are building off investments over many years and security, and machine learning, overall, pleased with momentum, and, timely, i did ask the executive bout president trump. now, weighing tax cuts on re repatriation offshore earnings. they support corporate tax reform, hope it occurs, too early to know what form it takes. of course, tack reform one of the few areas in silicon valley where trump and corporate find agreement. back to you. >> repatriation overseas cash, josh, thank you very much. let's bring in a pair of shareholders here, david windsor and danny, a portfolio manager at janet. clearly, investors are happy up 5%. i wonder how much of the big tech strengths in the names have been on the idea they will be allowed to repatriate at a lower rate. >> got to be a part of it.

the earns keep coming through, and the index buys more, and they keep going up and dominate the returns in the market, but, you know, fortunately, google shareholders, a long good term invest. . they think it's cheap. >> so -- >> versus -- >> deny, we heard from people who feel disease not cheap at these levs, but it's never been considered cheap. why do you like it here? >> yeah. i would actually ecodavid's comments, and the stock is reasonably valued relative to the growth rate, particularly looking out 2019 and 2020. ex-cash, repatriation, as you spoke about, you are trading somewhere close to a market multiple when you start looking out into that time frame, and if you look at, you know, the quarter posted, the growth for the size of the company is actually pretty amazing, i mean, the course business, again, grew

22%, i think, it was, which may have been even modest consideration over the last quarter. they continue to have margin expansion. they control traffic acquisition costs, and so to the extent they continue to sustain those trends, and more importantly, i think as you look forward, they are not even yet getting credit for a number of initiatives they could have including cloud computing business just discussed about. we think it's quite reasonably valued. >> you mentioned, you know, the index just keeps buying tech names. as a matter of fact, the top five largest companies in the market, apple, alphabet, microsoft, facebook, and amazon, all all nasdaq stocks, tech stocks, although not categorized that way, but seen as these, you know, winner-take-all companies, winner-take-most company. is that the world we're in now? is the market just having to

distort a way of valuing this segment of the economy? >> it's amazing what happened. you know, i think even you wrote a report very recently, you know, we think there's a lot of value because everyone's focused on those stocks, and, you know, so, you know, wintergreen, we can find a lot to do in other areas, and, you know, this year, you know, fortunately, outperforming, whereas if you didn't own the tech stocks, it's tough to outperform, and, you know, i think it was an earlier commentator who said, you know, the winner-take-all, doesn't mean they win forever. so i think that the higher they go, the riskier they become, the more people fall in love, and we see this movie before, so, you know, i think that as sentiment begins to shift -- >> okay -- >> but google's, you know, shareholder oriented, customer orie oriented, it's a really great company. >> we have to go, but thank you,

david and deny for the thoughts on alphabet today. meantime, intel shares lower after reporting earnings. >> up next, hear about the quarter exclusively from the cfo, bob swan, here on "closing bell," you're watching cnbc, first in business worldwide. ♪ whoa that's amazing... hey, i'm the internet! i know a bunch of people who would love that. the internet loves what you're doing... ...so build a better website in under an hour with... ...gocentral from godaddy. type in your idea. select from designs tailored just for you and publish your site with just a few clicks-even from your... ...mobile phone. the internet is waiting start for free today at godaddy.

shares trading down 3% after an earnings beat, revenue matching. joining us now in an exclusive to talk the numbers along with next intel's cfo, bob swan, thank you for joining us. >> great to be with you, thank you. >> told me this morning, watch the data center number. revenue up 6%. came in light of what investors were expecting. that is to be the growth driver and seen as disappointing again. why is that? >> yeah. you know, overall, we feel great about the quarter. up 7% year on year strong. operating income and earnings growth, and the data center business performed right in line with our expectations for the full year. we're looking at 8% growth for the year. 6% is what we expected in the first quarter. we feel like we're

well-positioned with trading products coming online in the second half of this year. so far, so good. as a result of our momentum, we took out the four year outlook for the year. >> we were talking earlier, well, first of all, when we have intel cfo, we ask about how the business is doing. what is your assessment of how sales are doing now? >> bill, it's a good start to the year. client business grew 6% year on year, still volume levels in terms of unit volume in line with what we expected. what we saw was real strong afc performance. as consumers and businesses continue to buy up for high performance, high performance pcs, so our average selling prices were very advantage in the quarter and the performance for the client business is one of the key reasons why we took up our full year guidance. so, so far, so good, feel good about where we are.

>> all right. >> bob, a lot of the counter parts in the industry have been talking about this particular point we're at in the semiconductor cycle and feeling it's just a lot more life left in the market, and yet it's just in a hurry, revaluing a lot of the companies, and maybe it's gotten overconfident in certain areas. i wonder what you think about exactly how long the megamove can continue. >> you know, it's an exciting time to be in the semispace. the incremental needs for data, storage, computer capacity, and all the millions of connected devices around the edges, we think plays very well for the industry, and in particular, play very well for us. we think it's an exciting time in the first quarter results indicate we're well on track to capital idaho on these dynamic market. >> were you frustrated with the share price, reacting to the report, and also underperforming the peers so far this year really only are up 2-3%? >> you know, we're excited about

our performance for the first quarter, and, you know, good, strong performance across the board, and we look out over the rest of the year, we feel the year is going to be even better than than we expected when we entered the year, and, again, we're looking at after a record 2016, we're looking at another record 2017 for the companies, so we are focused on the things we can control, building great products for our market, and feel good about where we are as of now. >> all right. bob, we know you have a tight schedule. you have to get to the conference call. we move on as well. thank you for joining us. >> thank you very much. >> bob swan, cfo at intel. >> there's more. another earnings alert. courtney reagan has athena health. >> that's right. plunging after hours, down 17%, missing top and bottom lines, and a weak 2017 revenue forecast. interesting quote from the ceo who said we are well positioned

for a renaissance as government and main dates wane for unique product management, and they go on to say the business model is on the right side of history. bill, back over to you. >> if not today, down 16.5%, right? >> i know. >> thank you, courtney. >> it is. over time, it's a controversial company. they definitely have had to reorient a lot of their investment, a lot of the strategies away from certain things with the rollout of obama care, and i don't know if that's part of the frictional pain in the quarter, but, yeah, this is an adjustment they have. >> all right. microsoft, last we checked, it was down, and now, yeah, down 1.4%. they beat on the bottom line, 73 cents versus 70 cents expectations. they missed on the top line, though, and we'll dig deeper into the report with a shareholder of microsoft when we come back.

microsoft just reporting quarterly results, the stock currently down to the tune of 1.4%, even though cloud continues to be a big growth driver for the company. let's bring in robert luna from sur vest wealth management, earning microsoft for companies. again, azure and 365 telling strong growth for microsoft. was this a case of running up too far in the results? >> yeah, sara, i think so. this is a stock with a tremendous run. we were trading at 21 times

forward earnings for microsoft, the shareholder base is not the same shareholder base as amazon. you're not going to get the same type of growth. it's a tremendous run. it does not mean it's a stock you sell. be patient with the company, but as you mentioned, you know, the number i thinkt gob a little patient. office 365. the number one enterprise used app in the cloud in general. they breathe new life into this company. if are you a share holder that owned ibm in the past, i think this is the thing you are looking switching over to right now. as you mentioned, a lot is baked into the stocks. so in terms of the new entry. these evaluations are not extremely attractive. >> you are getting up with right now. not much of a pullback. we were talking during the break. we don't want to overthink this. it's run up prel pretty good to this point. >> especially in the last couple of weeks. >> you had this excellent acceleration as the overall nasdaq went up with the overall

design. in fact. it traded monday. it's not giving up that much. to bob's point, i actually agree, for microsoft, for so many years, it was the applauding value, it now has a premium to the marnth and has to j that you have each quarter. >> i wonder if it include, this is the first quarter where linkedin added $509 million in mef revenue. i don't know if it was an operating profit for loss? how much is the story here? >> it's hard to tell, but i think it's all a part of the things that they are making it more relevant. i would think there is a downside to microsoft. this is an enterprise story in terms of their consumer division. surface is great. there was a recent statistic over the ipad out there. that's a great product. as we all know, pc sales in general are declining. in terms of having that impact on a consumer from an amazon or

google, it's not playing that type of role for the consumer. that's an area that's a weakness for microsoft. if you can get some traction going there, i think it can give us the next leg up. short of that i think a lot of this is baked in right here. >> very good, always good to see you. >> 10 ', for the year. 34% over the last year, 12 months. >> not too shabby. we have a slew of conference calls starting at the top of the hour. we'll tell you what to listen for, for names like amazon and microsoft when we come back. >> speaking of big tech earning, one well known market watcher will give us his taim take on amazon earnings. what is next for the two tech tight ans coming up on cnpc who's the new guy? they call him the whisperer. the whisperer? why do they call him the whisperer? he talks to planes. he talks to planes. watch this. hey watson, what's avionics telling you? maintenance records and performance data

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. >> vir tex pharmaceutical hiring on earnings. >> we are looking at a beat on vir tech pharmaceuticals on an adjusted basis of 41 cents, confirming estimates of 13 cents. the metric that thompson reuters uses for vir tech sales, 508 million. it's a pete on both of those products. you see vir tech up about 1.7%. back to you. >> meg, thank you. we are minutes away from the conference calm from amazon, microsoft and starbucks. mike isn't telewill tell us which one to watch for on each one. >> yes, he will.

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do you after hours. obviously a new ceo. i do think the street wants to hear whether they have to change expectations, whether they have operational stuff there to discover. within it comes to the huge growth leader, the amazons and alphabet, the key questions is whether the executives see any reason to moderate investor's enthusiasm. not about the grand future. that's something these executives sometimes want to do and basically say, let's keep it real. here's how we need to invest. >> it should be goodch on that starbucks point. the u.s. is so critical, investors are used to the 5%. they got 3%. what they got in the release is things are looking better in march and april. i wonder if they will make that point that things are coming back. >> they want, they make that

point. >> they have been disappointing a little later. >> they say it's on a path back to 5. you don't have to readjust comps. maybe pricing. again, those operational issues. unicorn. >> yep, bottleneck. >> there it is, johnson and schultz, 9:30 a.m. eastern time. we did it. that was closing bell. >> it was fun. >> it was fun. >> "fast money" starts right now. >> it is an earnings palooza. we have full team coverage on the busiest night of the year on earnin earnings. we will clek in later on. gene munster of blue venture is standing by on the red phone in minneapolis. we will switch over to amazon at 5:30. we are