i'm dominic chew. check out what's happening in real estate. that sector the worst performing sector overall. keep an eye on it as we watch the markets trying to go toward record highs. that's it for this hour of "squawk on the street." now over to the gang on "squawk alley". >> good morning. it's 10:00 a.m. 11:00 a.m. on wall street. and "squawk alley" is live.

>> good morning. gawk to "squawk alley". we are watching new highs early this morning. before we settle in to yet another tight range. ten-year the highest since april 10th. apple, ibm, and google dominating the conversation betwe. becky is standing by in omaha with the latest. >> good to see all i don't haof

morning. an amazing amount of technology talk and again this morning with warren buffett. it's fascinating because this is a guy who claims he is not a technology guy. in fact, doesn't even own a smart phone even though he owns a big stake in apple. he talked about a lot of technology names, and when he starts talking about them, we listen. he went on and on about jeff bezos, how he started to incredible -- he's had two incredible bids in two different industries. he doesn't think there's another manager like that. he went on and on about amazon and bezos and how great things are. but at the end of the day, buffett doesn't own amazon. >> why don't you buy shares of amazon? >> stupidity. i was impressed with jeff early. i never thought he could pull off what we did, and what's really -- i mean, i thought he'd

pull off something, but on the scale that's happened, i mean, it's changed your behavior. it's changed everybody in the office's behavior. and the remarkable thing about jeff and everything else, is he's done it in two industries almost simultaneously that don't have that much connection. >> buffett also spoke candidly about google and how it's another opportunity he and charlie munger missed. it's funny. they actually said they should have seen this one coming. they said they had a good insight into it because of what geico was going. they were using it for advertising early on. he said it mazed him when he realized what they were paying a click years ago, $10 or $11 a click for every person that clicked on a ad. he said when you have zero cost as a company for providing that, somebody clicks, you charge them $10, you compare it to a cash

register that prints out money. he said he met with people who came to visit with him. he said he should have had better incite into these r those issues. we asked him if he likes google so much, how come he doesn't own the stock now? >> if i was forced to buy it or short it, i would buy it, same as amazon, but it's hard to buy. psychologically it's harder if you looked in the first place and passed at x to buy it at 10 x. that's cost a lot of people at berkshire. they saw the lower price, they said if it gets back there, i'll buy it. that's a terrible way to think. >> he said if he was faced with the decision of either having to buy the stock or short the stock, he would buy it. both in the case of google and in the case of amazon, but i think this really shows at evolution of his thinking for a guy who claims he's not a

technology investor, we see how he's evaluating the companies and finding ways to evaluate the companies based on what he knows and how he's valued stocks for a long time. >> that's a fascinating answer he gave you as to whether or not he would be forced to buy it or short it. we're going to talk about this a bit. it's good to see becky working hard in omaha. all of these mea culpa from buffetts are happening as ai, and cloud, and machine mobilities are things with toss around with ease. >> yeah. we've been trying to get warren buffett to code in all of events. one time i got him on the phone. he said i don't like tech stocks and i don't understand ek technology. it was interesting. i guess that's the situation. he made a mistake. that's hard to say about warren buffett. i always thought he sort of missed all the technology stocks because it wasn't comfortable with him, and he liked to stick

in media but not in the stuff that was changing the way we consume media and other things like that. >> although, a guest in our last hour reminded us that the name of the company, berkshire hathaway are old textile makers he dumped a long time ago. seeing where that era was headed. what does this say about his interests now and how tech fits into our overall economic being? >> i always thought it was a miss to him to think this way and not being part of the conversation because he's so smart about things like that. i think it says he understands what's happening even going forward is going -- it's interesting he's not buying stock now. bezos is in the middle of automation and robotics. the companies will be big players going forward of where computing is going. he said they were too high now,

and then he followed it by saying that's a bad way to think. it would be interesting if he moves into the stocks now given the trends and where they are with relation to the trends that are coming. they have strong positions both google and amazon. >> have you seen anything like that, mike? my overall take away is how bad he is as a tech investor. not only was he scared of it, but he has basically inside information. he has praise for bezos and still isn't investing. are there investors who are great in one area and bad in another. >> i think there are so many lessons captured in what you said. one of them is buffett is one of the few guys who will accent yut how stupid he was. when you see the companies worth

$450 billion like amazon and alphabet, there's a sense it was inevitable and looking back, anybody should have been able to see it in '97. guess what. along the way the stock was down 90% high to low at one point. you didn't know all along the way. part of being warren buffett is not having to short or buy. you wait for your fat pitch and take a swing. he said apple doesn't have to be doing anything different to be worth more than it is today in terms of what the share price represented. i think if you looked at google, you said it's a great company. they're kind of getting credit for it already. >> he did say the beauty of bezos is a business lesson he waited for payments to get perfected and the internet to get perfected and waited for transportation lo jestics to get pfrted and then moved in after others spent trillions on kapt tall investment. hard to know if he'll have that

patience on mobility. >> he just missed tech. it's pretty basic. it's been a very important and transformative part of the economy. he didn't bet on the winners which is something he tends to do. i think probably he regrets doing that. one of the things that was interesting is i think he said he misjudged the ability of bezos to pull it off. that was his biggest issue. he thought there were hard challenges and he couldn't pull it off and he did. a lot of people doubted jeff e bezos when he wasn't making profits. you remember when they were c l called amazon.bomb years ago. he probably should have focussed on tech more. we tried to get him to come to code. he said i don't get tech. i don't like the business. i was like it's kind of big. we talked to his people all the

time. it was interesting. it was a resistance to looking at something. i could see why looking back you would do that. because the prices. but even now amazon and alphabet have big bets in ia and automation. i think those are two dbig area going forward. they are pricey, but you have to wonder who is going to own the next part of the computing product. >> it's not like he doesn't have any exposure. he owns apple and ibm. we can glean something from both of these investments if you're looking at the buybacks. you're getting ramped up again at apple, whether it's a consumer products company. talked about watson as an ai play. you can glean miss tech incite there. >> and effectively, i think it was a bet on his part both on the fact that the stocks were cheaper than most of the largest leading tech stocks.

to maybe it made more sense. his comments about the firm pricing power of apple and iphone reflects that. he views it not so much as an innovation machine but as a company that everybody is willing to pay up for. that's different. by his admission, miscalculated that company. speaking of the pc market, gates was at the table with buffett and munger this morning. let's take a listen. >> i don't think that the success of the technology sector will be improved by some tax change. the tech companies are not starving right now, and it only comes up when you have profits and these companies have very high profits. it's not like we're going to be stronger in the tech sector by making owners of those stocks

richer. >> interesting discussion. munger did say he thought repatriation would bear some fruit. >> yeah. i need to digest with bill gates said. it seems to be pushing against what the market is expecting right now. we're always talking about okay, you did this tax plan, tax cuts, whether it's just an entirely rearchitecting of the tax system, it's great. he says doesn't really matter. if it doesn't matter, then what ought the stocks be doing and is there a possibility that in some way it's a negative, because it's better for other stocks than it is for tech? >> i think what gates is saying is it might be good for tech knock investors. tech as a business maybe not. they're not capital constraint. apple has not needed for cheap money. >> now to washington d.c. we're getting the breaking news on mike flynn. >> there's exclusive reporting from nbc news that president obama had warned president trump

against hiring michael flynn as his national security adviser. that's according to three obama administration officials talking to nbc news. this morning apparently came less than 48 hours after the november election. the two sat down for about 90 minutes in the oval office when president obama delivered that advice to president trump. and, of course, these revelations come on a day when former acting attorney general sally yates is scheduled to testify before congress. we have reached out to the trump administration. they have not yet responded to this reporting by nbc news, but we're following the testimony from sally yates later on today. back to you. >> just to clarify, it's important, because the trump administration has been putting it on obama for vetting flynn and letting his qualifications past. >>. >> reporter: this is the first we know of the warning.

and now flynn has raised a host of problems for the administration. now we're seeing there were warning signs early on. >> we'll come back to you for more on that. care ra, mike, our thanks to you. great discussion about buffett and technology to start the hour. when we come back, big news from dell as it looks to develop the next generation of cloud computing technology to help companies like snap chat. john sat down with dell. and more from warren wubuffett' interview. dow is down 23. "squawk alley" is back in a minute. >> anybody that prefers bond to stocks is making a big mistake. i've been saying that year after year. stocks will bounce around a lot more. they can go down 50%, but a 30-year bond can go down 50% at these rates. bonds are a terrible choice against stocks. be flexible and productive.

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center but only charge you for what you actually use. you get the advantages of having the hardware close to you which some customers still want for regulatory reasons. i sat down with the company's founder and ceo at dell head quarters in texas to talk about the company's plan for cloud services in the future for dell technologies. take a listen. >> i don't want this to come across as we're anti-public cloud. >> sure, you sell them a lot of stuff. >> exactly. and we have partnerships with many if not all the public cloud providers, but we believe there's an appropriate workload for those environments, and when you modernize and automate the some premise systems for the predictable part of the work lode, i'm going to say that's 85% to 90% for most organizations, you'll find the on premise systems are competitive. we've seen a bit of a boomerang

effect. customers have run to the public cloud and say, wait a second. this is more expensive. and there's also a bit of a lock in. the public clouds have created a developer environment that's really easy. and they want you to use their database and all their developer tools. now, with pivotal, we have a cloud neutral developer ready platform, and across dell technologies, developer ready infrastructure. you can develop the apps, run them in any public cloud you want, and also run them on premise. >> drop box is one of the ones that went to the public cloud and then came out. >> well, you actually see this with almost every leading software as a service company. what they figured out is that it's actually too expensive to be the public cloud, because the operating costs of the

infrastructure itself is too large of a cost relative to their overall pnl, and so -- >> what do you think when you see snap? they're going to spend $2 billion in google over five years. >> we could save them some money. it's not that hard. the math is not that hard. and so what i would tell you is is a -- for the predictable portion of their workload, now, how much is there -- i'll say 80% is probably predictable. but a i.t. person that stands up today and says hey, we're going cloud first, and everything is public cloud, i would not be surprised if in about two years they find themselves uncompetitive. >> this is kind of a bold argument that michael dell is making here. basically if you know how much computing power you need, you

know how much storage, et cetera, you're better off owning it than renting it from amazon from microsoft, from google, and not only that. he's putting dell's money where he is mouth is saying we'll ship you the equipment before you pay. put it in your data center or in the only pay for what you use. there's pricing differences depending on how much you tell them your base load is. if you want to start off not paying for that much, then your per use rate is higher. but this is something that dell can uniquely probably do because it's private, because it's a big financing, but a challenge to what's become conventional wisdom about cloud is cheaper. >> and with snap's results wednesday, we might get more insight on whether they can continue to keep paying bills like this. >> that's a big bill, basically 20 pl over the five years. i don't know what kind of out

clauses there are, but looking at players like that for at least four out of five of your compute cycles, you're better off with us than the public cloud. >> we don't hear from him that often. it's a reminder because it's a private company just how much he's transforming into cloud. how big of a chunk of their business is it now? >> it's a growing chunk. a lot of dell emc's results are public, because of the tracking stock and the way they have things structured. they're still losing some money, but he says they're doing it strategically and growing their share and milking the pc and server and storage businesses. like secure works, security stuff, rsa. >> you have more from dell coming up? >> yeah. we talked at trump, manufacturing. >> that's coming up. also keep in mind the 2017 investment conference is underway this morning. keynote speakers include david

einhorn and many more, plus unrest on france's streets following the macron victory. at fidelity, trades are now just $4.95. we cut the price of trades to give investors even more value. and at $4.95, you can trade with a clear advantage. fidelity, where smarter investors will always be.

to be a nightmare! does nobody like the future? c'mon, the future. he obviously doesn't know intel is helping power autonomous cars and the 5g network they connect to. with this, won't happen in the future. thanks, jim.

there's some napkins in the glovebox. okay, but why would i need a napkin? you could have just told me a bump was coming. we know the future. because we're building it.

david einhorn and other big names taking the stage at the investment conference. leslie picker is there with the latest. >> reporter: i just came from the next wave presentations. those are for the up and coming fund managers. the guys that want to be on the stage that bill ackman is on. we heard some pretty interesting picks from these guys this morning. some market movements already. one from david thomas. he is recommending a long in a company called gigamon.

he's predicting a 40% to 50% up side over the course of one year in gigamon. the stock price is up significantly on that one. partly also due to the fact that elliot took a 5% stake. that was disclosed earlier this morning. another tech name that we heard was totem point saying he likes xilinx. he says it's a play on artificial intelligence and machine learnings. he sees data centers, automotive and industrial. we only heard from one manager calling for a short position. david copley is very bearish on china. he's nervous about the spillover from china into australia and new zealand and called for three shorts that could play that market. everyone is very excited waiting for the main event to start. we're looking for some insights

from names like bill ackman and others. can't wait for it to start. we'll keep you posted. >> going to be a big afternoon. thank you. leslie picker on duty there. when we come back, a reaction to warren buffett's comments over the weekend on investing, interest rates and more. tomorrow on "power lunch" don't miss an exclusive with loyd blankfein. back in a minute.

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good morning. here's your c nbc update. spanish police releasing video of heavily armed officers in separate raids arresting two people for suspected links to isis. they say the pair were trying to enlist people to join the islamist group. sally yates will testify this morning. she's expected to say she strongly warned the white house about flynn's connections to the

russians. a man accused of killing two engaged doctors in their boston home on friday is expected in court. investigators say the man who was shot by police reportedly knew the victims. a new study reveals the average american life span was just over 79 years in 2014. a gap still remains. several counties in north and south dakota had life expecties 20 years lower than some counties in central colorado. life spans did increase along both coasts as well. that's the news update this hour. back downtown to "squawk alley". >> thank you very much, sue. a busy weekend in europe. let's get to hq. >> interesting market session today. stocks pulling back from 21-month highs having priced in macron's victory.

investors are focussed on the economic challenges facing the president-elect including high unemployment, immigration, and slow growth. if we look at the french equity markets, pulling back. keep in mind since the first round of election results on april 23rd, we've seen a nearly 7% runup leading up to yesterday. currencies, the euro right now holding onto 1.09. angela merkel congratulated macron on his victory, pledging to help him tackle france's economic challenges and work with him to promote stability in the eu. but today in paris protesters hitting the streets, pressing displeasure with the outcome of the election and speaking out against macron's free market solutions for the french economy. on the populist movement, pressing on in the wake of le pen's defeat on many investor's

minds is the italian election expected to be held in march 2018. the movement has been at or near the top of the polls for quite some time. some of the populist parties to watch not just in italy but across europe. we finish with m&a news. despite pressure, akzo noble rejecting a third offer valued at $29 billion. shares are down 3% in today's trade. in this case, third time is not a charm. thank you. >> warren buffett on "squawk box" this morning to share his views on investing. here's what he had to say about stock market valuations. >> the most important item over time in valuation is obviously interest rates. i mean, if interest rates are

destined to be at very low levels, not necessarily like now, but low compared to 100-year averages or 50-year averages, it makes any string of earnings from investment worth more money. >> for more on this, we're joined by ron. welcome. >> good morning. >> does buffett's claim that historically low interest rates make this valuation seem reasonable? >> i find it interesting. i actually get to come on your show and debate warren buffett, so -- but with that said, i mean, really? but with that said, obviously low interest rates support higher pes by math. but this market, the vix is below 10. there's a lot of complacency. the interest rates are tenning higher. unemployment is at all time lows. it's hard to see what's going to

drive this market higher at this point. >> well, two areas that you guys are actively involved in terms of your investment banking business, deals and ipos seem to be coming more and more this year. what does the rest of the year look like, and will that continue to propel or at least be a theme in this market? >> i think it can be a theme in the market, certainly low volatility in theory should help capital formation. there's a lot of deals that look like they're coming. of course, private valuations have made some of the companies not think that maybe the market's not quite there yet. but i think the deals being better this year than last year. >> ron, i'm interested in this interest rate perspective. interest rates are low, because growth outlook isn't what some people would hope. does that not counteract the effect? i wonder perhaps it justifies the valuation for certain

stocks, but shouldn't it make other high valuation stocks who's prospects aren't great more risky? >> i think that's true. what bothers me a little bit about this market is the market is certainly discounting the health care getting done which then leads to tax reform and then leads to infrastructure spend. and from i'm watching in washington, i'm not sure i'm ready to bet the house on any one of those three outcomes. today the earnings yield is like 5.3%. the ten-year is 2 .3. that's an equity risk premium of three. that's a fairly valued market. we need growth, and we need to see where growth is going to come from to drive this market higher. >> do you really think that the market is -- has so much invested in policy? because we have almost 90% of the s&p now in. you have a blended growth rate of 13.5. you got to go back to 2011 to

see earnings with this kind of muscle. >> you do, but you also have things like where are you going to get unemployment is 4 .75. product is nil. participation rate you're not going to get it from labor in terms of market increases. so i do think we need policy. we need tax reform for sure. health care is another whole debate. i did find it interesting that the one thing that i found striking about mr. buffett and his partner is the guys that made billions on insurance did advocate single payer. i found that an interesting comment over the weekend. >> yeah. that's a good point. >> think about it. >> what are you seeing in terms of the enthusiasm for this bull market? the flows, the level of bullishness that's out there right now? >> you know, i think that what i see is truly enkacapsulated in e

vix. that's a certain amount -- maybe it's complacency. maybe it's wait and see, but it's certainly a little bit of, i think, indifference to the risk side. i think there's more risk factors to the downside than catalyst of the up side from where i sit. >> your point is well taken and a lot of people are trying to do work on vix below so. it's only happened 20 times since 1990. the sample set is small. i saw someone with a chart in the instances we have on record, returns for the s&p six months later are not that bad. you have to go a year after the fact before you start getting some minus signs. this could go on for a while. >> it definitely can, and it's going to, again, require some catalyst. i mean, look, i would love to see some really policy

initiatives out of washington that can if do nothing else, just mix it up a little bit. mix up the tax trade which needs mixing up. lower corporate tax breaks, and get some things going in washington which i think can provide some foundation to the market. but we need to send a lot of those people on a team building exercise in washington, because it doesn't feel much like team play over there now. >> that is a skeptical take, ron. thank you for joining us. >> no, i don't mean top skeptical. here's my caution. any time the vix is below ten. any time the markets are pricing in things, look, right -- >> a lot of people are talking about that. the kpa sen si factor and that low vix. we'll leave it there. thank you for joining us. the ceo of stifel. >> thank you. let's go over to dom nick. >> doorgood morning. shares down about 40 -- 4 % on

heels of a bloomberg report siting brazil's national police has apparently raided one of aelxeion's offices. the statement cites inquiries into the company's sales practices in the country. we're watching the shares fall. we've reached out to alexion for a comment. we'll let you know when they get back to us. that's why the shares are down. we'll have more coming up right after the break. [vo] when it comes to investing, looking from a fresh perspective can make all the difference. it can provide what we call an unlock: a realization that often reveals a better path forward. at wells fargo, it's our expertise in finding this kind of insight that has lead us to become one of the largest investment and wealth management firms in the country. discover how we can help find your unlock.

the halftime report is live today at the investment conference in new york city. we have interviews lined up for you. tops on the list, one of the biggest investors of united airlines. he has a lot to say about the company's miscues and the future of united airlines. plus a surprise stock pick from keith meister who will join us live immediately after addressing the crowd here. and the analyst behind a stunning new call on apple is with us as well. halftime report starts noon eastern from here in new york city. always a highlight of our year. can't wait to bring you the picks this year. we'll see you in a bit. >> that's a big show. let's get to the cme group and get the santelli exchange. good morning. thank you. this morning my first guest was jim bianco.

he always has interesting ways to look at things. i liked his baseball analogy between the yankees and the cubs. cheap players that perform versus old-timers that are expense ive. he compared it to the stock market. indeed, i think this is the type of market that fits the new interpretation of an old anal y analogy. we also talked about rates. many out there believe there's one to two quarter point hikes this year and in 2018 there will be four. that's an overnight range of 2250 to 250. let's look at a couple of charts. i could show you yield curve charts but there's distortions. central bank holds a lot of securities. i'm not sure the signals of the past and trying to handicap with

the yield curve is telling us means what it used to. if we look at a one-year chart, we can garner important information. we're currently at 1.33% that's about the highest since march when there was a fed meeting in mid march. four basis points away. 1.33 currently. a one year of tens. 2.63 is high. we're about 26 basis points away from the high field. on a simple observation such as that, i can see that the fed removing a combination is stickier on the two-year note. do you really think we could see a 2.25 to 2 .50 overnight rate? that would place the two-year at least 75 to 100 base points higher. the fed's balance sheet and reductions is the topic of the

day, probably a topic in 2017 maybe some sort of rally in 2017. the devil is in the details. we know an inverted field curve sends up sos signals. look at europe at the beginning of some of that was very strange behavior in yield curves where the short end rates were rising faster than the long end rates. fed deals in models. my guess is they think they can get away with six tightenings. they would like to get that type of insurance considering the climate and the length of the business cycle, but the ten-year is the key. my point is that if you want to reduce the balance sheet, you don't want to invert the curve, and you want a steeper curve, what lightbulb would go off if you were a micromanaging bureaucracy trying to manage how they get out of their balance sheet to steepen the curve? ponder that. are we going further down the rabbit hole? this is something we should be

on top of before we read about it on the front page of the paper. john, back to you. thank you, rick. much more ahead from our exclusive interview with michael dell. including staving off from carl icahn and dell's take on the trump administration's tone on immigration. we'll be right back. it was a lot harder to go private than it was to buy emc and gain control of vm weare as well. but it was absolutely worth it. >> did you ever think you might lose the company? >> yes. wifi.

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introducing xfinity xfi. find your awesome and change the way you wifi. the trump administration's policies on immigration and manufacturing, michael dell has been to the white house to meet with the president. i asked him his thought us on whether it would be b possible to move dell's manufacturing back to the u.s. and whether the president set the right taupe on immigration. here's more. we're having those discussions with the administration and sort of sharing our experience around the world. in terms of what do other governments do to attract not just the final production of a product like a server or pc, by the way, we have many manufacturing today in the united states -- >> but if you were talking

scale, most or all back here, do you think it's possible? >> so, what you have to do is get the components. you know, the component man f manufacturing, because if you're just trying to make the finished products and you're import iing the components, it's going to be incredibly expensive and not so efficient. there's a lot of good work going on that could bring some of those component industries back to the united states, but it's going to require a specific strategy by the united states government to attract those industries. you know, they left for a variety of reasons. and look we're in a competitive marketplace and you know, if the u.s. wants to bring those industries back, it's got to have a determine nisic strategy to do so. >> do you think it would be a good idea? >> well, i haven't seen enough

of the proposals to be able to really answer that question. but on the quality line, you know, in terms of communities here in the u.s., would it be a plus? >> i think it could certainly be a plus. i mean, what you also see when you go in these factories today is there actually aren't a lot of people there. these factories are more about capital equipment and technology and less about labor. and arguably, that would be probably fewer people involved coming to the u.s. because labor is more expensive. >> you would likely automate even more. >> on immigration. is this administration on the right path do you think as far as how they're talking about the policies? we've seen some moves toward hib visa reform or are there

corrections you would make? >> there again, we are engage nd the discussions and the h1b visa is highly skilled for the talent and our sector. we think immigration reform is important part of you know, moving the economy forward. positive things i can tell you is that this administration, this president, very focused on growth. and creating jobs. and i see that as only good news. >> yeah, i was particularly interested in what he had the to say about manufacturing and exactly what it would take to bring it back. bring back the components. that would cost a lot of money. you talk about incentives that the government would have to put in place to lure some of these chip makers, some of these memory makers, et cetera, back over here, so you'd have to target some specific product categories and it would take it sounds to me, a long time. it's possible. >> it's not like they're having

those con vversations. dell is is on manufacturing counsel. >> he doesn't have enough specifics to say whether it would be a great idea because it doesn't sound like there's an amount of money on the table saying here's what we're willing to invest and by the way, a lot of it is going to be automated. >> back to the discussion of whether or not technology is an aggregate creator of jobs, which there's still conflicting opinions about. eric schmidt saying more people work as a result of robots, we don't know. >> did you gens a sense from him what can be made in the united states that is not with the right insentives? is there new business that can be made here that just isn't? >> he was talking more about the older businesses and said you could bring it all back if you're willing to spend enough on the incentives to bring it back. >> when we come back, after slashing his stake in ibm, why

buffett says he's worried about watson.

it's a really interesting product and i'm sure the revenue

is grow, but from a very small base. i would say you've got over smart people who have been given some time to work on other products and i would say that when youp get into that area, you have to worry, maybe even more than with the phone. have to worry about somebody jumping the eutility of somethig like that. >> that's buffett adding color to the comments on friday, that he sold a lot of his stake in i ibm, above 180, which is where it topped out earlier in the year. interestingly, ibm is not the worst dow component of the year. exxon, chevron, verizon, even ge. >> but it is the worst over the last three months, down 13%. it has been a spiral. on the other side of the dow is warren buffett's big investment now of apple, which by no coincidence is the best performer now. i like how buffett said he looks at his furnishing store to look

at consumer insight, tell the people don't want to buy the cheapest smart phone, they want to buy the expensive one and that's apple. >> it's the worst case for apple ever. he doesn't even own a smart phone. that would scare me. >> a lot on the apple. >> okay. our thanks to becky for good coverage over the weekend. scott wapner at the sohn conference. welcome to a special edition of the halftime report. i'm scott wapner and we are live today from the sohn investment conference at lincoln center in new york where some of the biggest money managers in the world are pitching their best ideas to try and end childhood cancers. cnbc is the exclusive broadcast partner and we'll speak to two of those investors in a little bit about their big ideas. brad and keith meister, also with us for the hour today, three of our own. joe, steve and josh brown. it is a