welcome back to "squawk on the street." i'm seema mody materials standing ow as one of the leading s&p 500 sectors. this as copper hits a fresh all time high here in early trade. freeport is the top performer up more than 3% the rally in copper prices also helping lift emerging markets. some of the commodity producing nations like brazil getting a boost from copper's climb. in fact, the brazil market is up 2% hitting a six year high now we'll send it back downtown for the start of "squawk alley." seema, thank you good morning it is 8:00 a.m. at facebook headquarters in california 11:00 a.m. on wall street. "squawk alley" is live

♪ good tuesday morning jon fortt is back with us finally. sarah eisen and joining us this morning, robert w. baird, collin sebastian and ed lee good morning nasdaq is trying to bauns back from three days of loss this is morning. we're seeing pretty good action in the faang names that are leading the way. prior to this morning, it was a mixed picture for the basket of tech stocks. a mixed picture for faang and for the month, netflix down 9% alphabet and amazon are under pressure we've been having this discussion the last few days as they were having some trouble getting out of the gate. it is difficult for people to point to anything substantial. >> there is nothing big changing here, right? this is usual. i think people come the realizations as to what the future might look like for some of the services and i think that

sort of tweaks the market a little bit >> are the name an atm for when sent gets a little jittery? >> well, i think that's likely the case especially given the strong performance for each of the names year to date at least ahead of earnings i think the bigger picture is that competitive gap between a lot of these companies and legacy companies and industries is actually widening so on a historical basis, taking advantage of the blips where the stocks trade side ways or down are typically very good opportunities for investors. >> ed, they've all hit 52-week highs in the past four weeks except for alphabet. google, is there something special or different going on with google you think? >> the google story for years has been what's after search it's been a big thing. they gained some of the back on mobile even the facebook dominates on mobile. it's unclear what the next big business s the cloud business is

doing okay but it's not gang busters. it's no the at the scale certainly that search is or doesn't seem to be that way. and international is way for them to grow as w they're having a hard time with that they're looking at the eu and anti-competitive practices they're not in china that is not going to happen any time soon. international growth is hard so all of the tech stocks, they're saturated in the u.s. in the sense that if you use facebook, you're already on it you're not going to be into it now they want you to use it more often. i think that's the key for a lot of the companies in trying to get more engage ment >> i think the other way we can distinguish is by valuations and they're not all created equally for weeks running up to as these stocks were running up, it was all about whether the stocks had run up too far away from where the fundamentals justify has that been shaking out at all? which one looks like the best value right now? >> yeah. i think that's accurate.

like i said before, this may be an interesting opportunity for investors. sentiment is best for facebook there is more of an opportunity for amazon or alphabet they're doing a good job diverse fig the business with youtube and doubleclick and eventually the cloud platform >> i think that's interesting element to look at in order to get more growth, you have to strap more ad dollars out of everyone. they really need to tap into tv budgets for that to happen that's why facebook is doing the video thing and google is doing youtube tv on top of that it's a way to muscle in on a territory they haven't really gotten a big ig hand in. >> why isn't alphabet leveraging more of the moob shots the moon shots or the wamo valuation? >> that's a good question. i think the cfo there has instilled a lot more discipline in terms of how these moon shots are working.

i think she is setting guidelines she is saying, you fwhee you want to do that, fine. i'll tell you how much that costs. and what the return might be if we're not going to get a return, maybe we should ease back >> collin, i'm wondering about apple. i know you cover the internet names. but it can be a catalyst at the same time, if we get a new design that can give a boost to certain app that's have a chance to maybe make updates, get some new customers how do you look at that iphone announcement we expect to see in a few weeks now? >> i think in general any device or platform that drives increasing use or better use of the internet or internet applications is good for companies like google and facebook the fact of the matter is as networks speed increase, as the phones improve in terms of device quality and in usage, then people should be searching more and they're socializing

more on the devices. so in general that improves the playing field for all of these participants >> you know, it's exciting to talk about some of the innovations, ed, and some of the big changes happening around ai and what collin is talking about. yet, every time the stocks start flying high, you get comparisons to the nifty 50 or the tech stocks of the ''90s s that fair i'm thinking marks do you have increasing dominance of these stocks within indices >> you know what i think if it's a fair criticism. i think another way to think about the facebooks and googles of world is they're creating sort of the business fran structure of the internet. they're owning it. in other words, that's part of the reason why growth is a more challenging thing for them it also, at the same time, means it's harder for newer entrants to kind of cut in, right because you're creating your -- the new incumbents i think that is a challenge going forward. not just for facebook and google but the next facebook or google.

if there is going to be a chance for another sort of wave of technology innovation whether it is through an ai form or others, it's going to be that much harder these guys really own the block right now. >> speaking of facebook, a survey suggests that falling out of favor with teenagers. that's according to the latest data e-marketer. facebook among 17 to 12-year-olds will drop 3.4% as they give up the platform. that marks the first time that marketer predict aid decline in facebook usage for any group collin, we talked about this this morning with krayemer who said zuckerberg saw this coming a long time ago. that's the whole point of building what is essentially a portfolio of platforms >> yeah. i agree with that. in fact, most younger users are -- have migrated to camera first platforms like snapchat and instagram. i think what we found is that use cases are different between snapchat and facebook. one is much more real time

communication the other is more of a repository of shared content that the community can access at any given time so we think both apps will do very well and in fact there is a lot of overlap between snapchat and instagram which is a key part of the facebook family. >> ed, i don't buy it. i mean, they were supposed to have rolled over on facebook three years ago. if e-marketer is predict ag decline in usage for the first time, they're the only ones who didn't predict the decline in usage. meanwhile, facebook is the one that's just been racking up the numbers when it comes to engage ment and when it comes to user growth. so who knows what they're going to come up with the next few weeks to keep teens engaged, sfligt. >> they always have the best insight into what people are actually using outside of facebook as well you're right there are tons of teens on facebook but i'll give you a channel check. my 12-year-old daughter, she not on facebook. she's on instagram all the time. a little bit of snapchat interestingly enough, she'll ask to check my twitter. dad, can i see your at which

timer? i think she likes to seat broadcast, funny things that flow through. >> that's danger nothing no good can come from that >> i know. >> exactly >> but the demos here accord together marketer is 12 to 17 and 18 through 24. something that snapp will dominate. >> i think that's -- i like that prediction i think there's only more room for snap to grow i do think they really tapped into this as collin said this camera first sort of identity the way of communicating when you open up snap, first thing that happens is a -- the camera on your face. that's the first thing you're seeing, right? it's telling you take a picture of something first that's how people are starting to communicate is through pictures more so than texts. i think snap is sort of been the first on that i think they're still tapping into that in a way that facebook is figuring out >> got news for facebook, collin, is not only do they own

instagram but they f. we really are going to divide this by demographic then, eventual lit users will age out of snapchat and come home to facebook, right? >> well, i don't know if they age out of snapchat. i think had as they graduate from schools, they also graduate to facebook. that is the easiest way to find a broader group of friends and family so i think we've seen that in our research already that there is some leakage from the younger people using the apps like is snap, back to facebook or over to facebook as they get jobs into the workforce >> does your -- what your 12-year-old? >> she's 12. >> does she watch the shows? i think it's interesting that big media giants like our parent company come comcast as invest in snap and time warner is doing a new snap show. >> everyone is doing some version of this. >> they're bullish on this audience. >> she doesn't really see those things if she's on instagram, what she really loves is she moved on from this now but buzz feed does

tasty videos the 30 second two minute clips of just food not because she's going to make the food but it's entertaining to her i think that's the kind of content that, you know, video content that plays really well on the services. it fits the format nicely. you're not trying to shoe horn in a tv show into a different format i think that's the key if any of the formatted if, any of the shows are going to survive or thrive, they're going to figure out the format more than the content. >> next time can you just have her come >> sure. >> okay. >> ed lee, collin sebastian, thank you for joining us when we come back, goldman sachs taking to twitter yet again to call out the president. the contentious tweet and some of the fallout in a moment then why one analyst says facebook and alphabet are poised to outperform the faang counter parts. and detaflz ford's plan to grow the foothold in china when "squawk alley" comes right back. hey you've gotta see this. c'mon.

no. alright, see you down there. mmm, fine. okay, what do we got? okay, watch this. do the thing we talked about. what do we say? it's going to be great. watch. 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. carl, shares of cty in focus. they're reporting a surprise quarterly loss and warning that expects retailers to reduce some of the stocking of beauty products that the company acquired from procter & gamble until the second half of 2018.

now that includes big names like covergirl, clairol and wella they rival he estee lauder as e makeup segment did well. shares of coty down 40% over the past 12 months sarah? >> seema, thank you. >> the president's relationship with ceos continuing this week with lloyd blankfine taking to twitter. blankfine tweeting wish the moon wasn't the only thing casting a he shadow across the country we got through one, we'll get through the other. for more on the president's relationship with business leaders, we're joined now by two cnbc contributors, steve oglin and bill george. gentlemen, good morning. >> good morning. >> good morning, sarah >> steve, if i recall, you were pretty critical of the ceos decision to disbanned the councils and walk away from the

president. what do you think happens next in terms of the contentious relationship >> it's unclear who disbanded first. but i think it's really very important. the business leaders, ceos and other business leaders remain engaged on the policy issues you know, i engaged in both the bush white house and the obama white house and i wasn't there to criticize the politics of anything that was going on but the business community drives our economy we have a lot of issues before us whether it's tax issues, regulatory issues, health care, trade, all of these issues are where ceos need to focus and they need to have vehicles to stay engaged which is why it was so disappointing to seat councils go away all the issues that were in place when the councils were established still are issues before us today and the ceos need to stay engaged they got to stay away from the politics >> they have their cell phones they have their land lines, they have relationships already with the white house and the white

house staff. what they don't have is just this sort of public parade into the councils which didn't need that much. don't you think just as much work will get done behind the scenes when it comes to collaboration? >> i hope so not every ceo has a hotline to the white house. but, look, i it this important thing is that ceos do stay engaged on the policy issues and just try to stay out of the political fray ceos have many constituents, customers, employees, owners, and we as a country are split politically and those constituents are split politically. so by supporting one aspect of politics, you're by definition, you know, going against some of your other constituents. you have to be very careful as the ceo. >> bill, steve makes an interesting point. i was especially interested to see the ceo of intel step down from the council saying "i resign because i want to make progress while many in washington seem more concerned with attacking anyone who disagrees with them.

i asked him specifically about his engage ment with president trump back in may and he said, look, despite the disappoint ment over paris climate, i really want to stay engaged. this is important for the whole country. apparently at some point things crossed a line for him is that what you see happening with more ceos, bill where do you think that line ought to be? >> i agree i think they did cross the line. and the second press conference after charlottesville, but i think ceos are going to stay engaged. but not necessarily in these photo op type councils the councils were long before charlottesville that they were a waste of time and they didn't feel like anything was being accomplished everything is open loop. they're used to practicing close loop management. when you sit down, fwauk specific issues and get agreement and move ahechltd i think they'll do that with people like gary cohen, trying to get some agreement on tax reform, on a repatriation, on

infrastructure that's where the action is going to be as well as going directly to the respective house and senate committees and the cabinet departments. where they can get things done or the health care companies to the fda. i think they found that this was not a good use of their time as well as causing huge back pressure from their customers and their employees about some of the president's actions so you'll see them continue to engage in different ways they'll use lobbyists more and maybe not as directly they'll get back to running their businesses instead of trooping down to washington every month or so for a photo op >> or, bill, in some isolated cases, they'll use the twitter feed can you explain what you think blankfine is trying to accomplish with these tweets that are read by some people as throwing some serious shade at the white house? >> well, i haven't spoken dr directly with lloyd about this other than the early tweets. i think he's trying to say, look, we need to get things done

in this country. we need to get things moving ahead. and these things are a big distraction. there say huge distraction now away from the main issues. it seems to be never ending chaos. and he's saying, let's get back to business. let's build the economy. let's work on immigration, legal immigration. let's work on repatriation of the $2.5 trillion that is sitting overseas let's get to work on specific issues and get something done. i think the frustration ceos are feeling, nothing's getting done. they were not particularly interested in health care reform or repeal and replace. and that took seven or eight months and nothing happened now they want to see this fall, we've got to get down to business and get something done. i think that's a real test for the senate and the house republicans right now. can they get anything done i know gary cohen wants to that's why he's saying in there to his credit. i hope they do our economy needs this we don't need cutting h 1 pv 50%, we need to expand them. >> steve, as we continue to wonder about the after effects of that stunning week we saw

last week, do you think ultimately taking this moral leadership stand from corporate executives will prove to be good business >> well, you know, i, again, i think it's fraught with risk to go after a moral, ethical religious political stance as a ceo. your constituents are so varied. customers, employees, owners and i think bill is right. some of the vehicles are not working and they're a waste of time clearly, you should discontinue them but we still have to stay engaged. we have to find the productive roles regardless who have is in the office you know, whether it is somebody with a red shirt or somebody with a blue shirt. the ceos need to be agnostic about that and focused on what is good for america and what is good for the economy and these issues that bill is talking about are the issues that we should be focused on whether it's through the white house or through the congress and so i hope that ceos get back engaged and do so productively because the america needs them >> bill, what if anything is

lost by the disbanding of the council and the loss of this photo op it seems that president trump really wanted to give the appearance he's right in there negotiating deals, sometimes for these companies, for the benefit of american workers. if these ceos are taking a step back from the president, what if anything does that deprive him of leverage wise >> well, i think it was a very dramatic statement we've not seen anything like this in last 25 r. 50 years whee ceos made a decision they had to separate en masse. some things need to be very clear b no one should associate with the kkk, white supremacists and neonazis these things are not a part of american society and would ever encourage. they're saying let's get back to business and let's work. they'll continue to work with the president. but they'll do so individually they don't need a council to do that where they sit around a big table and nothing ever happens

they want to get something done. ceos are prak ma tists i also think there is a moral line with their employees and their customers and they want to hart c hear the ceos standing up and being counted for very important issues for them. you're always at risk of offending people i think it's very important that you have some level of clarity about your values. and i think they did that i'm proud of them for doing it starting with ken frasier who started the whole thing. i think it was a very courageous move on his part but i think now we're going to see let's get back to business let's gets something done. let's get the economy moving let's get our businesses moving. and that's the order of the day for september. >> we'll see where this relationship goes next or maybe not maybe all will be in private now. guys, thank you for joining us on this session. bill george and stephen odlin. straight ahead, ford's new electric bet in the world's second biggest economy "squawk alley" is back right after this

ford is making a renewed pitch to go electric in the world's second largest economy our phil lebeau is in chicago. >> jon, china is the largest auto market the second largest economy and the largest auto market this announce nent more than by ford that it formed or at least has a memorandum of understanding that it will work in a joint venture with a chinese automaker is important they're going to be building electric vehicles for the china market and when you look at the china market if, you've been there, jon, i've been there several times, increasingly you are noticing there are chinese

automobile owners whether they're tesla or any number of brands that are plugging in take a look at sales by a wide margin, china will outsell the u.s. and that gap is only going to continue to grow in the future. now here in the united states, we're increasingly seeing more plug in electric vehicles being brought to market. volvo is introducing the new xc 60 plug in hybrid electric vehicle. this say crossover volvo had a fair amount of success the last several years and they believe it's electric models as they convert to more electric models in the lineup over the next ten years that they will have the same amount of success take a look at shares of the parent of volvo which is geely automobile we're going back to last year. hit a hefk a run go back to 2010, up 5 pun 00%. that's when volvo was bout by geely from ford. >> wow

phil, i haven't made it to china. i'm jealous. i want to. i'm wondering how that electric vehicle market is going to develop differently from the u.s. and the u.s., tesla has been very much a leading player. it's been more of a luxury market do you expect it to be different in china >> well, it's huge difference in china that the government is pushing electric vehicles. not just with incentives that you see here, you have those over in china. but it's much more aggressive by the chinese government to say we want you to buy electric vehicles good example, if you want to buy a vehicle and you're living in a big city like shanghai, if it's internal kbungs engine, good luck getting a license plate because of congestion. if you buy an electric vehicle, you're boosted to the top of the line that's one way the government is saying we want people to drive electric to get around the congestion rules, can you drive it in an urban area >> phil, if you have to explain to folks what is going on

between fiat, jeep, and great wall, what do you say right now? >> icy that great wall would love to own either all or part of fiat chrysler, specifically jeep having said that, they have not formally contacted fiat chrysler i talked with people at fiat chrysler they're not scratching their heads. they realize there is interest in the market. they said that he wants to do a deal with a number of automakers, potentially by the time he steps down as ceo at the end of next year but having said that, you've got to step up with something. you can't just say we're interested in buying you and there has not been a formal proposal and this one is a little baffling from the standpoint of you get your dmukz a row before you come out and say publicly we want to buy a particular entity. that doesn't appear to have happened so far with great wall which by the way has backed off a little bit and said yeah, well, we really haven't made a formal proposal. >> curious, how many anti-trust regulators would get involved in

that does it go through a u.s. jurisdiction or just europe and china? >> yes oh, yeah sipius would get involved, the committee for foreign investment in u.s. entities because you're talking about these jeep plants and you're talking about even though fiat chrysler is foreign owned, it has a huge presence in the united states. and they would get involved. and it will be interesting to see what kind of requirement this is he would make of great wall in terms of altering or modifying any type of a purchase in order to make it go through >> yeah. not sure the politics favor that kind of chinese takeover >> that too. >> phil, thank you phil lebeau. let's get to seema mody at headquarters the european close >> sarah, just like in the u.s., upbeat day for european stocks take a look at the german dax. in rally mode. posting the best one day performance since july 12th and shrugging off a disappointing report on economic sentiment

it is also a strong day for the miners led by bhp billiton they're announcing plans to exit the u.s. shale oil and gas business a move that has been pushed by activists and manage ment. they also did a jump in underlying net profit. miners also getting a lift from koerp prices which we've been discussing now at a record high. meantime, in currency land, the euro moving lower against the dollar they await the jackson hole speech not just by janet yellen but mario draggy mario draghi. he is talking about buying back that program the euro trading down from the 2 1/2 year high hit earlier this movement another reason stocks moved higher today and we finish with a plunge in shares of providence financial definite lit chart of the day. losing two-thirds of their value. the ceo stepping down after the uk based subcrime lender issued the second quarter profit warning in three months and also scrapping its interim dividend

back to you, sarah >> all right that is an ugly move thank you. let's go back to hq. sue herrera has a news update. >> good morning. good morning, everybody. here's what's happening at this hour bill cosby back in a philadelphia courtroom he has hired a new team of lawyers to defend him in his second trial on sexual assault charges. the new team includes the lawyer who previously defended celebrities like michael jackson, mike tyson and sug night. they moved the trial start dave from november until march of 2018 dangerous flooding overnight in kansas city, missouri dozens of people were left stranded on roofs and trees. some areas recorded ten inches of rain and thousands of people were left without power. the last section of an ice wall around the nuclear plant in japan goes into place today. the wall has been frozen in steps since march 2016 to stop contaminated water inside that plant from leaking out the reactor was damaged following the massive earthquake

in that area back in 2011. and rescuers in italy pulled two more children from the rubble of an earthquake on the resort island. the boys 7-month-old brother was rescued earlier. unfortunately two people were killed and thousands are left homeless you're up today. that's the news update this hour back downtown to "squawk alley." carl, back to you. >> sue, thank you very much. quick programming note as we go to break, do not miss ross levinsohn, the publisher of the l.a. times he's going to be on with the judge on "the half." dow is holding on to the gains we have the second best advancest month of august. we're up 137

what a rally we h it came out november where want to show you the s&p 500 futures here trading was very thin the preopen. it's august. snob doing much. and then just boom, everybody started buying right at the open five to one advancing. there is the preopen on the futures. you can see we rallied right at the open

5-1 advancing. i think a lot of talk about the tax policy come together that helped. you can see this in the sector momentum is back semiconductors and biotech stocks and bank stocks haven't done much this month at all. they haven't been leaders. they're back they're momentum names out with the defensive names you know, the consumer staples and utilities and real estate have been down today you can see this in the dow. you look apple and caterpillar are strong all day. cisco is also strong boeing has a contract out for icbm systems again that, is helping them. and the defensive names, coke and procter & gamble they're on the down side here is something else that might have helped a little bit there is a report out. this is widely passed around on trading desks this morning norway, the biggest wealth funneled in the world is going to increase the stock holdings to 70% from 60%. this is a lot when you have nearly a trillion dollars in assets under management. they already own 1.3%st global market just do the math they have $1.6 billion in stocks they'll go to $700 billion

that's a substantial amount of buying the wealth funds, slowly get bigger and bigger. they're having significant impact on the markets. and we report often on what they're doing. these are the numbers. these are a few months old the numbers. you get the general idea here. norway is number one china, kuwait, saudi arabia. these are among the top five you throw the numbers together, it's close to four trillion dollars in assets under manage ment. i think the story here is talk about the tax cuts finally moving forward and maybe a little thing about norway also helping the markets. back to you. >> all right thank you, bob and some tech sector names among those leading the way as markets do bounce back after the selloff. the best performer in the s&p 500 right now is tech. apple, adobe among those doing well joining us now, tom dignan, ubs head and rob sanderson managing director. welcome to both of you tom, start with you. i mean, a number of tech names,

especially lit big ones, have been doing particularly well apple is near its 52-week highs. but also around the time of, you know, when people tend to sell the news around the iphone announcement how do you protect yourself if you're an investor right now do you stay with the names or do something different? >> i think april sl interesting. there is a couple different ways to own it. can you own the stock or you can own some of the semiconductor companies that supply into apple and other companies. can you make a bet on mobility and a bet on content and rf and just the increase content within the phone. that may be a better way to do it >> rob, it is time to look more down stream versus the headline faang type names that have been leading so much of the rally this year? >> i think the participation at least across the internet secretary juror fairly broad a lot of the smaller caps have come up. true the mega caps have been the leadership group for the broader market i think the participation has already broadened out significantly beyond the big

leader names i think the temptation to keep pushing the leaders makes a lot of sense us to one thing i continue to point out is the relative valuation versus the market of these big stocks, they have had a big move but the relative multiple hasn't changed outside of historical norms. the market multiples moved up quite a bit. >> rob, everyone keeps saying that the seasonal weakness of august and these names are just more vulnerable they've been bigger winners. tech is still the star performer so far this year but if it is season alt, then september is traditionally a weaker month than august so worth taking a pause here and resuming the buying after the fall >> yeah. i think it's pretty difficult to dissect it or manage it to the month over month basis a lot of times we've seen end of august rallies as well i don't know the historical norms. but i think through the end of the year these are often very strong secretary half performers

and we have had a pull back in some of the leadership names, amazon, for instance it's down. 8% or 9% from the highs after the quarter. so there has been a pause. i don't know if it's this is the beginning of the rally or not. i do think there will be a second half rally again this year for the name. >> you know, rob suggested that if you're looking for incremental changes to models, business models, i mean, arguably very little is changing other than sentiment on day to day basis. but disney's defection from netflix might end up being interesting over the longer term do you think that's fair >> i think it's really interesting. this is a challenge for netflix. i think other providers will see that and netflix to the -- for the most extent doesn't have much content. and they are dependent on the disneys of the world for that content. >> rob, what do you think is going to mean? and to netflix's defense, they argue we knew this day was coming years ago that's why we're spending $7 billion in original stuff of our own. >> well, i'll take the opposite side of that view. i think this is a setback in the

content story. but netflix programming budget is massive there is not one content house or any group of content house that's controls anywhere near the majority of the programming options. i think they will have no problem deploying that budget. and that budget gets bigger and bigger each year so yes a step back in the content story. i think plenty of time and opportunity wrels elsewhere to . >> tom, snap has not traded well since the ipo. there is this talk about spotify coming to market without an ipo. how much should investors worry about the health of the overall ipo market uber has had all of this pr trouble. that's onest names that people have been expecting. how merky does it look >> i don't think individual investors should worry too much about the ipo market for the most part, they have difficulty participating directly and i think you do have to look at each individual offering separately because sometimes there is just

this big tail wind behind it right now i think it's good we don't have a huge tail wind behind it. the animal spirits when lead to overpriced markets aren't fully imbedded in the market yet >> where does semiconductors fit into your tech thesis? they have been so hot lately. >> yeah. semiconductors have been really hot. i think a lot of people look at these as these are the super cyclical companies that will pull back. and i think it is different this time in semiconductors. i think the cycle is xtended you have consolidation in memory, pricing power is maintained >> maintained until well >> you have -- >> how long is the psych snl. >> you have three competitors, samsung, micron and it goes until one goes after share aggressively samsung almost can't go after share. they need to make money in semiconductors they need to make money in memory and they need to kind of steer clear of any kind of anti-trust type areas on the other side, the micron

and nynek, they're fine making money at this level. >> all right tom, rob, thank you for that insight. >> thank you >> thank you when we come back, president trump departs for uma, arizona, for a campaign style rally will he stay on script after last night which he did. but first, watching shares of toll brothers under pressure this morning the home builder missing on the top line the stock down 2.5%. don't miss toll brothers on "closing bell" today at 3:00 p.m. eastern

is tax reform enough to end the market slide and wall street's big flip on a chipmaker. that's our calf the day. we'll have an interview with the long time halftime guest ross levinsohn. he's been appointed publisher of the l.a. times we'll see how he plans to succeed in an industry where so many others have struggled halftime report sat noon eastern. we'll see new ten minutes or so. >> that's a big story in media circles. thank you very much. the president is about to depart for arizona he has that rally planned later this evening in what has been a busy week for the president. here's a live shot of joint base andrews. there is the 18th state that president has visited since inauguration and it is the fartherest west he

has gone we're watching everything at the white house today. and we can talk about what we might expect tonight good morning >> yeah, good morning. you're right they have marine one fired up at the white house. the president is ready to go as you say, he's going to be heading to arizona, yuma, arizona, where he is going to visit a border patrol facility and then he's going to phoenix for a campaign style rally tonight. now last night the president addressed the nation on the mission in afghanistan and he took pains at the beginning of that to sound a note of national unity in the wake of some of the devisivness we saw in the wake of charlottesville, virginia, last week here's what the president said last night >> when one part of america hurts, we all hurt and when one citizen suffers an injustice, we all suffer together loyalty to our nation demands loyalty to one another love for america requires love

for all of its people. >> the president there emphasizing all of the america's people in that phrase and ft. meyer last night today in phoenix, a different style event. we're going to be seeing the president of the campaign style rally. one of the questions hanging over hanging over today's event is whether or not the president is going to offer a pardon a presidential pardon for sheriff joe arpaio, a controversial figure in arizona, who has been accused of racial profiling in the past. i talked to two white house officials here this morning, who would not rule out that possibility, that the president would offer a pardon and we'll see whether or not the president takes that step later on today we might not know, carl, whether he's decided to do that until the president takes the stage or takes to twitter, just before he takes the stage in phoenix tonight, carl. >> all right i will take it thank you, eamon and still to come, the rock might top "forbes" list of the highest paid actors. but when it comes to the box

office, he falls to number 48. so who tops the list when it comes to actually making the register ring for hollywood at the box office find out when "squawk alley" returns. atform wherever i go. you know that thinkorswim seamlessly syncs across all your devices, right? oh, so my custom studies will go with me? anywhere you want to go! the market's hot! sync your platform on any device with thinkorswim. only at td ameritrade

this morning, "forbes" put out its annual list of the top

20est highest paid actors. all making over $55 million in the past 12 months but are they worth it? >> we wanted to know which actors actually had the most alpha. who can single handedly increase box office revenue, just by being in the cast. we looked a t the number's bankability index to come out. it comes from bruce nash, a hollywood-based consultant who sells his data to studios to figure out how much exactly to pay cast and crew. a few guys who get paid a lot do in fact bring real value to money. that includes mark whalberg, adam sandler, samuel l. jackson and matt damon, they're on both lists. top alpha and top salaries but then there's the group of actors who are not getting their fair share bradley cooper, brad pitt, will farrell and denzel washington are among the biggest revenue drivers, but they did not make "forbes'" top 20 this year and finally are the actors with the big paycheck, but not necessarily any box office

alpha. chris hemsworth, ryan gosling, jeremy researnner and chris evas are in that group. they all made over $18 million in the past year without much alpha to show it hollywood can look much like wall street or ceo compensation, sometimes the best performers don't get paid the most. back to you guys >> what about the women? >> are with the women? >> they did the actresses a week ago. emma stone was on the top of that list. they did actresses that week and actors last week if you want, we can go back and combine the genders do a whole another analysis for you guys. >> that's what jennifer lawrence was doing after that one movie, right, where she didn't get -- >> the gender gap issue? >> and amy schumer, saying she went back to netflix and renegotiated after seeing some inequalities but i guarantee you someone is running these algorithms and models at studios all around the country, eric. thank you very much. >> you got it. >> we'll come back in a moment dow is up 152. this is the best day for the dow since april 25th

and we'll stay that way, as long ck7%e're up more than 0. ba in a minute where to get in... where to get out. if only the signs were as obvious when you trade. fidelity's active trader pro can help you find smarter entry and exit points and can help protect your potential profits. fidelity -- where smarter investors will always be.

welcome back to "squawk alley.

the metals trade getting a lot of attention this morning. base metals rallying with copper, zinc, aluminum all hitting multi-year highs and the spider, ticker sme, up about 2% on the day. this improving a following global economic outlook, optimism around china. the rebounding commodities, putting the aussie dollar higher as well. the new zealand kiwi, both nation's big producer of metals. carl, back to you. >> seema, thank you very much. apple has reduced the wait time for customers to get its air pod wireless headphones. originally, that was about six weeks. it's been cut to eventually now four weeks apple says the time between order and deliveries now, two to three weeks, as we knew that like with most things apple, very difficult, supply logistics are everything with these new products >> but this is crazy this isn't really new. they announced these almost a year ago in september and they still can't get these things shipped. what is going on, tim cook >> i don't know. they're little, they're complicated, but come on, it's been a year. >> people like them though,

don't they >> yeah. >> that's obviously the problem. >> normally pretty good at mass production, a complex thing. i don't know what's so hard. >> well, suppliers, you can lean on them, but in the end, your supplier is your supplier. >> yeah. >> that's certainly something apple's good at in some other areas. but dow with a very nice gain. best day in about four months. let's get to wapner and the hal half >> and welcome to the "halftime report." i'm scott wapner our top trade this hour, the state of the rally and whether reports of progress on the president's agenda is enough to stave off a correction for stocks josh brown is with us today, along with john and pete najarian also with us, chris hizey, bank of america global wealth and investment management, cio we begin with the snapback for stocks, which comes just as some have been predicting a coming correction dow jones industrials is up today by 150 points. so, pete, everybody was talking about, oh, my gosh, correction's coming could be