considering seriously a run for president. so we'll get his take on that. should be a couple great interviews tonight at 5:00 on "fast money. >> should be fantastic thank you very much. look forward to that thank you, all, for watching "power lunch." >> "closing bell" starts right now. hi, everybody, welcome to "the closing bell," i'm kelly evans at the new york stock exchange. >> i'm bill griffeth warren buffett's latest market bests with stocks. record highs right now the oracle of omaha has been telling cnbc his investment strategy some of the highlights coming up in a few minutes here. >> always interesting. auto sales rebound september numbers are come in strong so far. we'll have the final monthly tally for you coming up. look at shares of gm, we talked about yesterday they're at a new recent high. 7: up 3% today. ford up 2%. >> the autos among those leading

the transports to record highs again today. plus the grocery wars are heating up again. this time walmart is making a newing a b decision to go after amaz amazon very interesting a lot of people in new york city are very excited about it. we'll explain coming up in a little bit. >> good for brooklyn. we start with our top story right now, executives from two scandal-ridden companies have been meeting face-to-face with lawmakers on capitol hill today. cnbc cnbc's wilfred frost has the highlights of the wells fargo hearing, about millions of unauthorized accounts opened by that company and aditi roy has the latest on the ex-equifax's ceo, the attack that compromised the data after more than 145 million milliamericans. aditi, start us off. >> reporter: former equifax ceo richard smith was grilled for close to three hours by about two dozen lawmakers. as he headed out of the hearing,

i asked him about the breach he remained tight lipped eped a walked past our cameras. gave an eight page remark before he began the remarks with an apology. >> the ceo, i'm ultimately responsible and i take full responsibility i'm here to say to each and every person affected by this breach, i'm truly and deeply sorry for what happened. i've talked to many consumers. identi i've read your letters equifax is committed to make it whole for you. >> reporter: smith also told the subcommittee it took the company 40 days to notify the public about the breach because at first, the company only noticed suspicious activity and that it took weeks to understand the depth and breadth of the breach. he also said it happened because of human error and technological mistakes he also maintains that three ex-equifax executives who sold stock after the breach was

discovered did not know about the hack when they sold the shares smith, tomorrow, sits before two senate panels for another round of questions kelly? >> and that could be fiery adi aditi, thank you let's head over to wilfred frost now, he has the latest on the other hearing of the morning it was wells fargo ceo tim sloan. >> hey, kelly, yes, indeed tim sloan tried to list a variety of changes he's made since taking the helm as ceo ten months ago however, most of the questions focused on what he knew before the scandal became public, while in prior roles such as cfo here's sloan on that >> in 2013 when the sales practices issues were elevated to the operating committee, i sat on that operating committee, you're absolutely correct b, in my role at that time as cfo, that it was elevated to that group. we took action, but in hindsight, senator, we took action that was insufficient as i said in my opening statement

>> senator warren in particular pushed hard, quoting past earnings calls at him. >> in the april 2011 call, for example, i think i've marked that one, you said, "i can't wait to get a credit card in every one of our credit-worthy customers' wallets." nothing about whether your customers wanted or needed a wells fargo credit card. all that mattered was opening new accounts >> this was warren's ultimate conclusion >> at best, you are incompetent, at worst, you were complicit either way, you should be fired. >> strong words. now, speaking to me on the way out, sloan summed up his feelings >> the focus of the hearing was wells fargo one year later i don't understand why we spent as much time as we did talking about history, but we were able to get our issues out. >> the stock has recovered from

its lows of the day. it's now down just 0.3%. guys >> yeah. we got a lot to talk about on that one wilf, thank you. good stuff there was tim sloan's testimony enough to regain investor trust joining us in a debate today, dick from vertical group research, our bear today marty mosby from vining sparks has a strong buy on wells fargo right now. dick, what do you think? i know you're looking at the fundamentals you see a deterioration of the earnings at wells forgo, but how do you think tim sloan is doing in trying to restore confidence in that bank >> i think he's doing an excellent job. in fact, while i agree with the senator that the board of directors should be dumped, i don't think he should be dumped because no matter what he's done the past, i think he's doing a sue bu superb job in terms of turning it around. my problem with the company is not tim sloan or the board of

directors. my problem with the company i t haven't been able to increase their operating earnings and haven't been able to increase it in the last 12 month now they're facing a restructuring of the business at a time when they need to do something to show they can increase sales and earnings and it isn't happening. >> marty, why do you think his outlook is brighter then >> well, we've been through this before when you have disruptions and reputational issues. we see they're working through that judiciously and with the fervor you need to have to get this thing pulled out. the testimony today at least what we've seen in writings afterwards is talking about the changes that they've made. which is a nice pivot. the second thing is if we talk about earnings growth, there have been headwinds that have taken away earnings. look at the need to increase debt or look at the impact on efficiencies where they spent over $3 billion to fix these issues this year, once those things begin to plateau then get

recaptured k ed you'll see the earnings grout come ba earnings growth come back as we look into 2018 and 2019. >> i'll get you to respond to that, dick i was looking at charts today for the company. it's interesting that wells fargo stock hit an all-time high in february this year, and we're only a couple dollars away from that so it would appear the market's not as concerned act the protracted deterioration you're seeing in the earnings right now. what do you make of that >> i think it's pretty clear in looking at bank stocks, people are no longer looking at what do these companies produce, are they selling any of the products that they're producing, what's happening to the quality of the loans portfolio? all they're looking at is some mythical theory that if interest rates go way up, that bank earnings will go way up. they're forgetting, for example, the fact that right now, wells fargo is paying about -- sorry, the industry is paying about 45 basis points all in for money.

whereas, the federal funds rate is 116 points. now maybe every american is a sucker and going to stay there and take ten basis points on his credit account, but if, in fact, he's going to demand market rate on his deposits, the banks have got a problem. >> marty, what do you make of that point also here just looking at part of your case for the stock, you think they're going to do things like lessenexpen expenses is that true given they're trying to improve their public image? >> not realistic in the next six months what we're talking about is wells fargo as a long-term investment they underperformed since the announcement of this crisis a year ago by over 20%, so there is relative value in wells far go that you can catch. their dividend yield is 3% if we go back to what dick was just saying, yes, there's starting to be a positive spread on deposits but always been a

positive spread on deposits. we'll see more competition as with e get 100 basis points of spread deposits are a valuable source of funding that's what makes a bank different than a finance company, you can create profit here. >> let me ask you both, dick, starting with you, what you thought of tim sloan on capitol hill today under psh from senator warren did he basically keep his job today? >> well, i think so. i think he got a little bit flustered under the harsh questioning, but i don't think there's any reason that someone should come after tim sloan at this point maybe a year ago, two years ago, but tim sloan has taken a huge efforts to try and turn this company around and reestablish its credibility. the most important one is he's gotten rid of the decentralization where sal salespeople were running product lines and centralized the operation bringing core business, core operations like human resources, risk management, you know, back to a central location, which is going

to have a significant impact in improving the company, but not in improving the results >> what do you think, marty? >> well, if you look at tim sloan, he was the cfo when this was going on look at the financial impact, it's less of 1%. the cfo is in charge of accounting, in charge of the earnings, reporting those earnings they have impact in committees in general but the business operations is left up to the person running that business it can't be around the whole company running everything so, i think what he's done here is step forward, shown that they're addressing these things with the real strength and magnitude we would like to see and i think he's making progress here >> all right, gentlemen, thank you. good to see you both >> thank you. >> marty, dick, thanks. >> yeah. >> you bet. 50 minutes to go until the bell after a strong day yesterday in which we started the quarter with all four major averages in positive territory, the dow is tacking on another 78 points now, 1/3 of 1%

smaller gains. still higher four gains for the s&p eight for the nasdaq the russell taking a bit of a breather >> yes. >> down 1 1/2 points. still ahead the oracle of omaha, how he's investing in the market right now. later, amazon's purchase of whole foods may be helping that chain shed the whole paycheck image. we'll tell you about a study that found a rather surprising number of people who are defecting from one of whole foods' key competitors, though, as a result. and we want to hear from you as always. reach out to us here at "closing acoo" on twitter, on febk, send us an e-mail. you're watching cnbc, first in business worldwide kind of feel e it's a game changer. i wouldn't go that far. are you there? he's probably on mute. yeah... gary won't like it. why? because he's gary. (phone ringing) what? keep going! yeah... (laughs) (voice on phone) it's not millennial enough. there are a lot of ways to say no. thank you so much. thank you! so we're doing it. yes! "we got a yes!" start saying yes to your company's best ideas. let us help with money and know-how,

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welcome back as we watch markets marching higher again today in a litany of all-time highs in the s&p 500, names ranging from the defense stocks, some of the health care names, the home plays, and speaking of which, driven b by an increase in home sales and home prices. deliveries increase 12%, orders increase compared to last year lennar trading up 5%. becky quick sat down earlier

today with warren buffett to discuss everything from wells fargo to tax reform. it was his comments on the stock market that caught our attention. becky has more now from omaha. good afternoon, becky. >> reporter: hey, kehl he, hey, bill it was what warren talked about with stocks. you've seen higher record numbers that come in every day, what's happbeen happening with t oracle of omaha thinks stocks actually make sense at these levels at least for now. >> the one thing i'm sure of is that over time, stocks from this level will beat bonds from this level. if i could be short the 30-year bond 3% or something, and long the s&p 500, and just have it put away for 30 years, stocks are going to far outperform bonds. the question is, which variable is going to change and everybody expects interest rates to change, but they've been expecting it quite a while. >> reporter: of course, the $64,000 question or maybe the $64 trillion question is, when the fed is going to raise rates

and just how quickly buffett says he can't guess on that, has no estimate when it comes down to that he thinks not even janet yellen could know the answer to that question at this point that is something that's going to depend on the committeconomy other variables. get this, over the short term, there is something he thinks is impacting stock prices right now, that's the uncertainty over the tax bill, whether or not that goes through congress he thinks it's a better than average chance that that bill does get passed. he says republicans, look, they need a win, they're going to put something up on the table and if they can't pass the tax cut, then they're going to have a tough time passing anything. so he does think it's likely it happens but says it's impacting behavior right now including his. that's really unusual. buffett almost every reacts based on what he thinks washington's doing, based on what he thinks the market is doing. he says right now he's not selling some stocks he might otherwise be selling to the tune of billions of dollars in berkshire holdings because he wants to see what happens with capital gains. he knows if the tax bill goes through, you could be looking at capital gains dropping from 35%

this year to 20% next year in a matter of months so he says why would anybody sell anything right now? in fact, he thinks there are hundreds of billions of dollars in potential sales that are being impacted by this right now. so, guys, it will be very interesting to see how this plays out over the next few months. >> that is crazy. >> right is i mean, he doesn't look, you know, six months down the road at all. >> we're marching every days to new highs. does he think actually when they get that tax legislation changed, the wave of selling prs pressure for people who have been waiting for the change to come through >> reporter: he says we'll see, he'll know in the next month or two because there's only 30-some days left in the legislative calendar to get this passed. if he thinks they're going to pass it, he's definitely not selling anything this year and paying 35% capital gains he could sell next year and pay 20% capital gains. same thing, end of the year, people are looking for losses for the things they want to sell this is a huge impact. he say it's definitely impacting him to the tune of billions of dollars. he thinks -- >> this must be important.

>> -- everybody out there is going to do something similarly. >> this must be important. kelly is writing it down. >> reporter: based on whether the tax bill goes through or doesn't go through, that's going to have a big impact people are holding onto tllosers they might otherwise sell. based simply on the tax situation. >> thanks, beck. see you later. safe travels home. becky quick in omaha joining us on our "closing bell" exchange, we'll talk about mr. buffett comments oliver is with us at post 9. sitting next to seven from the street.com and rick santelli is at the cme in chicago i mean, you know, he's famously said dow 1 million, too, down the road which we can talk about at some point. in the more short term here, sarge, an impressive rally, two-day rally for the stock market to begin the fourth quarter. on the heels of what we already sea in the third quarter. >> no doubt. we're at risk for some immediate profit taking, i think, and i

think as we head out toward the later stages of this legislative calendar, we have to pass a budget before we can talk about tax reform so don't forget the ecb. there is headline risk going forward. that said, i think by the end of the year, or by the end of the next six months we will have considerably higher prices for equities i do think the trajectory is still that way and it will also depend on who the fed chair is i do not think janet yellen -- i did think she would be the bed chair moving forward as recently as a month ago given her bewilderness over the situation, what got us here, i think she's kind of talked herself out of the job and i think you're looking at a guy like jerome powell. >> oliver, how focussed are you on personnel changes at the fed right now? >> i think it's important. there's a big question the more immediate question to us, how is the deleveraging of the balance sheet by the fed going to impact stocks and interest rates as much as that helped drive asset prices higher, there is a valid argument, i'm not sure it's entirely solid, that it

will have the opposite effect as they start to deleverage that's a question that's going to be answered over the next 30, 45 days. obviously -, tax reform as we talked about >> tax reform. are you waiting to see what happens with that before you make big moves as warren buffett is suggesting he's down? . >> no, we're not a very different scale than warren buffett that said, we do take into account tax situations and every year, as we get closer and closer to december and ultimately january, we look at maximizing or minimizing, you

know, tax consequences for clients. the end of the day for most clients, individual clients, th capital gains tax if you're already long term is going to have a much lower impact than what warren buffett is talking about at this level because it's billions versus thousands. >> right. >> i'm thinking through when you say, well, he's still hanging onto shares of wells fargo, there can be a lot of different motivations and he just brought up another one there even as we're trying to figure out what that may mean rick, what about you essentially, to me, we have the dollar back toward about 94 at the highs today and emerging markets you can't keep them down >> reporter: yeah, no, well, it's very fascinating because i know you're alluding to that when the dollar gets strong, emerging markets are going to submerge and i don't think -- i don't think that's been reinvented, in other words, i do think that it gets strong enough, the emerging markets will have a problem, smaller problem they would have had five or ten years ago when the dollar denominated, products they were dealing with were on a larger scale.exclusively and 94 is the level to pay attention to you know, we settle at 10 it,

trying to get to 94. lot of ground to cover especially ken you look especially when you look at the change of the equity markets still down is 1 1 basis points as you brought up, he usually doesn't have short-termism if we want stocks to go on longer terms, people like warren buffett not sell, i guess we raise the capital gains rate, right? >> sure. why not? sarge, you're the guy with the level -- what are you scouting for here in terms of numbers >> the s&p 500, yourpoint of resistance yesterday, we reached it right on the close. we opened that level this morning and support all morning. i don't have another level until 2,541. one could crop up here but i do see clear sailing up to 2,541. only about nine point from here. i thnk that's where we go. >> oliver, real quickly, you have a couple names you think

are places to be today cisco, a couple times, total we were talking about just yesterday. why are these attractive to you? >> cisco, again, cyber security is going to continue to be a bi theme for investors and the country and the world. cisco is a leader in that space. we like leaders in the space total, well-run company. energy prices are likely to rise over the next three years. not drop it's got a 6% dividend right now. so for safer energy play compared to some of the other stocks out there, we just like it as a core holding in our portfolio. >> repatriation stock, too. >> yeah. >> it's a repatriation stock. >> yes we do get the tax plan, assuming, passed at some point, should be out of the $2.5 trillion or $3 trillion overseas, probably $900 billion to $1.3 trillion is actually eligible to come home. >> right. >> if you project maybe 25%, 30% of that, well, cisco is probably in the top six or seven stocks. >> got it. very good, guys. thank you. always appreciate your thoughts. >> thank you

heading to the close with 37 minutes left in the trading session here with the dow up 75. still in record territory. so is the s&p right now. up next, walmart is checking another item off its shopping list the retail giant announcing an acquisition today that could help it speed up delivery times and better compete, yes, with amazon we'll bring you those details. later, what do a native american tribe and blockbuster eye drug have in common? part of a deal of drug maker aller kbr allergan

the rally continues on wall street for the most part. three out of four of the major averages the dow, s&p, nasdaq, still moving higher. the russell which was yesterday's big gainer has fallen today among the small caps. look at some of the other movers on the market, urban outfitters under pressure after deutsche bank downgraded the retailer from sell to hold on valuation purposes stock down almost 4% shares of urban outfitters rallied 20% over the past three months with nearly half of that gain coming in just the last month. and roku shares falling sharply for a second straight day. sending that stock down more than 18% just this week. of course, this after the streaming media player maker announced its new products which are priced aggressively to increase the number of active accounts out there but shares are still up more than 20% since it just came

public last week and it's 50% above its ipo price of $14 today, down almost 10% >> that's a big move i wonder if it's just part of that shakeout. >> well, we wondered if this could last so many of these ipos this year in that area have come oust the gate running fast, and then they falter >> we'll keep an eye on roku. also the grocery wars heating up as walmart announces it's buying parcel, special ic s i in last-minute deliveries. could help compete with amazon which earlier this year bought whole foods. since that acquisition whole foods prices have dropped and that's negatively impacting traffic mostly at trader joe's and sprouts. 10% of trader joe's regular customers visited whole foods between august 28th-september 3rd, more than any other competing chain. also interesting is the data shows lot of overlap between trader joe's and whole foods and you never know for sure. >> sprouts. >> maybe it's been reported but

it's not a bad strategy if whole foods' whole idea in the u.s. was to say, we're going to go into a whole foods neighborhood, you know, undercut them on price, and benefit from that effect and it's largely worked at this point. >> it's an amazing to me how quickly we're seeing the response i mean, people's loyalty changes just like that is it just because of price? they're moving from their beloved trader joe's everybody loves trader joe's for various reasons. they're going to go to whole foods because they lowered the prices >> they're visiting. trader joe's has done well -- my sister will always tell me, try to get into trader joe's in new york city, don't try, but you got to get the lime cherry popcorn tortillas. they have a lot of unique quirky and cost-effect if products that appeal i'm not sure whether whole foods can -- >> we will see just more evidence as we've been saying this is a watershed year in the retail industry. >> oh, yeah. it's fun, it's great for the consumer. >> it's fantastic for the

consumer >> and it's time now for a cnbc news update. >> which is also than taftic. >> walmart up 1% today let's get over to sue herera. >> taunk yhank you, guys, very . here's what's happening at this hour, everyone president trump and first lady melania meeting with puerto rico residents affected by hurricane maria and meeting with local and federal officials working to restore power and deliver food and supplies to the island's 3.4 million people. secretary of defense james mattis along with joint chiefs of staff chairman joseph du nfor facing questions from the armed services committee mattis says the u.s. should stay in the iran nuclear deal >> if we can confirm iran is living by the agreement, if we can determine that this is in our best interest, then clearly we should stay with it i believe at this point in time, absent endindications to the contrary, it's something the president should consider

staying with atm fees have hit another record high. for the 11th straight year according to bankrate.com, the average total cost of an out of network atm withdrawal is now $4.69. up more than 2.5% from last year but it's up 55% over the past decade ridiculous that's the news update at this hour i will send it back downtown to you. and bill, i'm looking forward to you joining me on "nbr" tonight. >> once again, i'll see you, "nightly business report." always love doing that show. thank you, sue. >> you got it. here we are on the floor of the exchange with 30 minutes left in the trading session, i'm here with my friend from rosenblatt securities. et et even you have to be impressed with -- >> i'm not a naysayer like a certain william griffith i want to get that off the table. i've been a buyer. still even as we go into the close here, we're looking as if

there's going to be strength to the bell people anxious to get involved with the biggest liquidity event of the day being the new york close. >> you know, warren buffett made the comment to our becky quick a while ago that he's waiting to sell some of his stocks until after he knows what the tax reform is going to look like, more specifically capital gains treatment. do you think a lot of people are koi doing that right now >> yeah, i think people are waiting for something big like that we've seen a lot of things like geopolitical noise you'd think it's more than just noise and yet it really hasn't moved the needle the fact the vix is under ten now, the market is at all-time high, it's just telling you that technical guys are getting squeezed and short sellers are going to be forced to cover sooner or later. long onlies, why would you give up anything right now? you got to wait and see. tax reform, some of these other things so, you know, we're in that spot where, you know, listen, is this a passive market, is this what the market of the future is going to be, etf creation and then the buying in behind that

then we're just going to continue this way? so there's a lot of interesting things going on, just in terms of the way the market's structure is i mean, frankly, bill, i've been down here 27 years as a trader and i've never seen what we've been holding at all-time highs so effortlessly. so it's really unique and, you know, we're watching it carefully. >> art cashin said something similar to that yesterday. thanks, gordon we all learned something here. kelly? >> as we always do thank you, both. coming up, hurricanes irma and harvey destroyed thousands of cars across the southern u.s. that's leading to higher new vehicle sales at major automakers we'll debate whether those sales bumped will be short lived, how they will help the stocks. later a first on cnbc interview with uber investor shervin pishevar fights in lo stay with us we'll be right back.

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certainly las vegas still shaken today after that deadly concert shooting on sunday night. our jane wells is there still. she has the latest on the

investigation. jane >> reporter: hey, bill at the top of the hour we should get some more information and maybe some answers to the many questions. we have started to learn a few things about the shooter, stephen paddock, known high roller in las vegas, vip at the top tier at cesars days before we checked into mandalay bay, he transferred millions of dollars to the philippines where his girlfriend may have family. see two small holes on the 32rd floor of the mandalay bay. he would have had a direct view of us right here and certainly had a direct view of this behind me this is the concert venue, where the slaughter happened today it is still a cordoned off crime scene and proves no matter how many cameras, security you have in a city like las vegas, it wasn't enough to stop a lone wolf with 23 weapons so do changes need to be made? >> we're going to do a lot of work thinking about this in the future, about working with the federal government

president of the united states is coming here in a couple days with not only the white house, with congress, with agencies, to think about the best path forward in the future. that's not really for today. today is about the victims, their families, making sure that loved ones can come to las vegas, mgm resorts will host them in any of our properties, make sure they get home, make sure they have what they need. >> reporter: mgm resorts is now committing $3 million to humanitarian aid for the victims and their families and also to care for with whatever counseling or needs for the first responders and others who were first on scene. i want to show you, though, one more video that we have. up the street at the wynn today, something i've never seen before they were using metal detector wands for guests and checking bags now, is that a sign of things to come i don't know guys, i was in mandalay bay last night, and while there was more security, we hadn't seen

anything like that yet bill >> well, that may have to be the future the question i still have, and maybe you get some answers at the top of the hour as you said, how in the world was he able to get 19 or 23 firearms into his hotel room i know he was there for nofour days, maybe he didn't have the housekeeping come in and change the room all that time how does that happen >> reporter: oh, the sheriff's department said he had ten bags. he may not have brought them all in at once housekeeping was in the room and according to what police have told us, they did not see the weapons. he was able to conceal them. this is someone who took a lot of time to plan this >> thank you, jane let us know what you learn at the top of the hour. see you later. 20 minutes left here this market resilient. >> we're up 88 points now. >> that's about the high for the session i think right now. and the s&p, the nasdaq, also continuing to move higher. allergan's stock continues

its month-long slide, though, down more than 7% due to intense political scrutiny from capitol hill over this blockbuster eye drug, restasis up next, what's behind the concerns in washington. donald trump is in for puerto rico, surveying the damage, after an exchange of heated words with the mayor of san hahn how the president was received and what message he gave to puerto ricans. stay with us is the monolithic view of emerging markets obsolete? at pgim, we see alpa in the trends, driving specific sectors of out performance. where a rising middle class powers a booming auto industry. a leap into the digital era draws youthful populations to mobile banking and e-commerce. trade and travel surge between emerging markets.

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with baelcome back. breaking news on auto sales. phil lebeau has numbers for us. >> whopper of a month last month when it comes to auto sales. sales rate according to auto data, 18.57 million. that was the pace of sales last month. that is way beyond what anybody was expecting. even the most aggressive estimates coming from wall street thought we might see a sales rate of 17.4 million or 17.5

million. again, sales rate, 18.57 million. the first time this year we've seen a sales rate over 18 million. the strongest, at least in a year you'd have to go back to late last summer that you saw sales rate as strong as this and guys, just to drive this home, coming into this month, a lot of people said, well, listen, the hurricanes will give you a little bit of a bounce, you might get a 300,000, 400,000 sales rate bounce, might bring it up into 17.3 million. huh-uh the sales rate much stronger than that at 18.5 million. back to you. >> so if it just went up by a million and a half on a run rate, phil, does that mean there's going to be a major giveback with the series of disappointments after this month? >> i think most people believe we've only seen part of the giveback or the benefit, if you will, from the hurricanes. people saying, look, give me that insurance claim check, i got to go out and buy a new car or truck we'll see more of that in october. when we look at those numbers in about a month. but there's also the question that's going to be coming up about whether or not we're

seeing an overall strength in the underlying economy because these numbers are well beyond what people are forecasting as far as the bounceback from the hurricanes is there a stronger consumer out there, is that what we're seeing here with these numbers coming in as strong as they are >> well, we have a bull and bear on automotive stocks coming up momentarily. we'll talk with them about that as well. >> you bet. >> thank you, phil, see you later. this controversial patent -- cnbc's meg tirrell has the latest on the story. she join us. >> reporter: a very fast-moving story. just this afternoon, four congressmen on the house oversight committee have joined the chorus of government criticism of allergan's unusual patent agreement with a native american tribe this comes after five senators criticized the deal already and today allergan's ceo responded saying the company isn't trying to avoid patent challenges for its blockbuster eye drug restasis, just trying to avoid

what he calls double jeopardy, having to defend patents in two systems simultaneously, one of which allergan is asking the senate judiciary committee to review quick stepback to review what's going on here. last month facing charges from generic drugmakers who want to make cheaper copies of restasis, allergan transferred the patents of the drug to the st. regis tribe. native american tribes it turns out have sovereign immunity to a specifickind of patent challenge known as interpartis review or ipr. the tribe moved to dismiss the ipr challenges allergan paid the tribe almost $14 million in exchange. allergan faces challenges through the traditional federal court system in a letter today to the senate judiciary leaders, allergan's ceo says a major misconception of several senators that have criticized the deal. last week four senators asked the committee to open investigation into the arran arrangeme arrangement. just today -- sorry, last night,

senator claire mccaskill called it an absurd loophole she said should be illegal. the coalition of congressmen from the house oversight committee joining in. >> my understanding is the way this worked is the tribe went to allerga in the tribe is looking to diversify its revenue stream along with other ones. if you think it's good for them to be outside of gambling, alcohol, cigarettes, whatever, and possibly represents a stream of income for them to be a ibl to do this sort of patent thing going guard, you know, is it that allergan came up with this nefarious plot to do this or is it that this tribe is actually, you know, hunting through all these filings to say, hey, you, you, you and you i mean, which way does the regulation need to fall, on allergan or the tribes >> it's a great question i've spoken to the attorney and firm who came up with this, it's a small firm down in dallas, they focus on patent law they noticed that there was this protection for state universities and other sovereign people -- people who have sovereignty who include native american tribe they went looking for tribes who might be open to working with companies in this way. they were connected with this

specific tribe and their attorney who i've also spoken to they see this as a way to diversify -- >> i can see other tribes and other universities now looking to the pharmaceutical entry -- >> that's right. i got off the phone from congressman peter welsh from vermont, he points out the oversight committee had a bipartisan support for looking at this so miss this is not going to be the end of the scrutiny, guys. >> i wonder if it's the worst thing -- not with this particular case, but the idea that native american tribes may be able to come up with some kind of revenue stream for it. >> certainly that is a good part of this story. >> yeah. >> thanks, meg. >> thanks, guys. >> let you get back on the phone. as we just reported this blockbuster month for auto sales with numbers well beyond expectations for the month of september. we have a debate as we said on whether the stocks are a good y n rhtow coming up. (baby crying) (slow jazz music) ♪ fly me to the moon

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welcome back quickly, one of the big stories today is auto stocks the sales numbers came in huge, as phil lebeau just told us. the stocks are getting a boost today. 18.5 million sales some are citing post-hurricane buyers as part of the reason behind that surge. take a look at some of the september performance there,

toyota leading the way with a 15% gain gm up 12%. the question is will this momentum continue or is it short-lived because it's a one-time event because of the hurricane? joining us with their thoughts on automotive stocks, eric ross. he's bullish on the sector jamie from consumer edge research is our party pooper he's our bear in this case what'd you make of these number? does this play into your argument or not? >> we saw consumer demand we were measuring spiked up huge because of hurricane buys. we've been seeing consumer demand of people researching to buy new automotives since may. >> you're not bullish because of the replenishment needed because of the hurricane. >> this is just the start of what we think is going to ba big cycle turn. >> why would it suddenly turn in one month if this has been going on since may >> 700,000 cars were flooded. >> that's the hurricane effect. >> we started seeing people doing research back in may you think about when you buy a

car, don't walk into the lot and buy the car the next day. >> right. >> what about you, jamie >> i look at the results today, we see a lot of fleet sales growth which is seasonal, as hertz, avis, enterprise repleni replenish, could also be a hurricane effect to the degree insurance companies are going to take time to assess claims and consumers need loaner vehicles i tend to think it's more femoral and any type of hurricane or replacement demand could be borrowing from the future and bringing it forward to today in other words -- >> no, there's two ways to read today's news if eric's right, this is a massive bullish case for autos at a new high, cycle we haven't seen this year for if you're right, this is the worst thing we could have seen, because the bigger the spike right now, the worst the hangover will be. >> i tend naturally as the party pooper to take the latter. i think we're in a lull with the new vehicle technology cycle as much as people are researching vehicles, what's the compelling step function change in tech? i think a lot of consumers are waiting for autonomous or

electrified tech which is probably two, three years out and overlay that with the idea that late model used vehicle supply is ramping significantly. so, a 2015 model which is very similar to a 2017 or '18 model in terms of tech for a 20% to 25% discount is the value purchase there's a lot more of those opportunities on the market. so i tend to think that this is going to be a longer lull on the new vehicle side than september suggests. >> a lot of those things were flooded. i wouldn't touch them as a potential buyer. in san day this is a cyclical play. so you got to buy first. you got to wait for it to bottom then you have to own it at that point. then the stocks go up big-time. >> or about his point people are waiting for autonomous cars. >> are you waiting, if you need a car right now, are you going to wait three years for an autonomous car >> i don't want an autonomous car. >> exactly, just bought a new car. people are researching new cars. great things are coming but they still need to own a car. >> last thought, very quickly.

>> i'd add to that, cars.com, car gurus, carvana on the used vehicle side, lots of evidence to support the bullish view. my thought is you might be pulling 2018 forward a little bit, that's why this is more ephemeral than long term. >> all right two smart guys with two different points of view good to see you both thanks for joining us. we have a market flash on marriott vacations seema mody, what's going on? >> reporter: potential consolidation in the time share business marriott vacations made a takeover bid for ilg in recent weeks valued at $30 a share. that according to bloomberg. it was reported in june that ilg was working with investment bank molis to explore strategic options and potentially a suitor that does fit this reporting ilg i'll just point out exclusive global licensee for hyatt, weston, sheritan, brands. that stock higher on this. back to you. >> 6% pop there, seema, thank you very much. >> all i know is i think eye

glass makers are rushing to the stores. >> i knew you were going to -- i like her specs >> yours, too. we have the closing countdowcong yr n miouway in just a moment. stay tuned building a website in under an hour is easy with gocentral...

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higher the industrial average just off the highs that were set moments ago. now at 22,638. intel, again, the best performer. american exchange -- american express right behind it. and let's give the travns ponsp their due as well, bob pisani, all-time highs airlines and autos were the standouts today. the rails were going lower still at all-time highs on the transports. >> the key thing here is we've had good reports from major sectors today. delta had a great report we were up 4%, 5%, 6% in all after tof the airlines throughout the day. >> ten-year yield, they're the airlines. >> look at general motors, too, general motors had a good report and lannar had a good report it's not like we're drifting up because everybody's buying stocks we had companies, themselves, are reporting good numbers. >> we hit 236 on the yield on the ten-year today that took us back to early july in today's session and oil was down a little bit, but still, at $50 a barrel. >> and if you take a look at the banks you're talking about what's going on with interest rates, new highs at all four of

the big banks. when is the last time that you saw bank of america, morgan stanley, citigroup and jp morgan all 52-week highs? >> so, it continues. the 44th all-time high for the dow set just this year stay tuned more on the markets and an update out of las vegas on the second hour of "the closing bell" with kelly evans and company. see you tomorrow, kelly. thank you, bill. wng to "the closing bell", everybody, second day of the fourth quarter nearly as strong and certainly as record setting as the first looks like on the close even the russell, small caps join the other major averages to close in positive territory given yesterday was a record close for all fathour that means to today is, too. the dow closing at 22,642. the s&p 500 up 2,534 the nasdaq up to 6,531,

almost .25% gain today the russell 2000 in the red for much of the session did add 2 1/2 points at the bell to close around 1,512, just shy of that level. again, record highs for everybody. intel, walmart, leading the way. for the blue chips today let's bring in h our group here to talk a little bit more about it, joining me now, cnbc senior markets commentator michael santoli. also with us, dennis burman from the "wall street journal." joining us today and brian singer, who is a partner at william blair and portfolio manager of the macro allocation fund. we'll speak to shervin pishevar later this hour. >> which is kind of flat to open, and then grinding liar .2%, .3% gain per day. today, you keep wanting to say it's too calm, too orderly, you have too long a streak of wins however, when you have autos up

2.5%, auto stocks up 2.5% today, and 12% in a week, home builders up 2% today, banks up 8% in the last month, and airlines up 5% so that's either the market telling you a pretty good message about the economy, or it's some kind of a wishful head fake rotation of everybody deciding what the hot stocks are going to be for the next couple of months. we don't know exactly what that is, but i think the market has earned the benefit of the doubt. >> dennis, what about you. >> >> well, it's interesting to hear warren buffett's remarks about buying stocks instead of owning bonds if you look at the spreads between the high yield index and investment grade index as well, man, those spreads are incredibly tight so if you're looking to get any bit of yield right now, you have to go back into stocks and the market responding. as mike i think rightly points out, the market is sort of presenting bits of data that make it possible where you feel at least comfortable owning those stocks we use dodd have dow 20,000 hats around the "wall street journal," kelly, now i have to print dow 23,000 hats. >> i don't think you're printing

23,000 hats. but we will have more on warren buffett's comments in a moment first, some news on taxes out of washington ylan mui brings us the very latest. >> reporter: a senior republican tells me the house tax plan is highly likely to include a fourth top rate on wealthy households remember, the tax framework from the big six only included three rates, 12%, 25%, 35%, but did give lawmakers an option of adding a fourth rate for the richest americans. at least in the house they appear ready to take it. no word on what the top rate would be, i'm told it would not be above the current rate of 39.6%. this move could help republicans defuse criticism from the left that the tax plan so far primarily benefits the wealthy and the senate, finance committee chairman orrin hatch said today those attacks are unfounded until all the numbers in the plan are settled, and he did appear to signal that he's open to that fourth rate as well, kelly. back to you. >> all right, ylan, thank you

very much. brian singer, just interested in your reaction in terms of the significance of a fourth bracket here and moving the tax plan along and affecting your investors. >> i don't think it's that significant. it basically is expected, what you'd expect home' -them to do tax plan through eliminates to some degree the criticism that it's benefiting the rich so in that sense, it's expected. probably priced in no great impact. >> all right we know oracle has been outspoken on taxes oracle of omaha. warren buffett sat down with becky quick earlier today in omaha. becky joins us with some of the highlights including a big deal berkshire hay nouannounced. becky? >> reporter: that's right. berkshire has over $60 billion in cash on hand, at least the last time we checked all that money has been burning a hole in buffett's pockets. today we find out what he spent some of that money on, although we don't know exactly how much he spent for the purchase.

he wound up buying a 38.6% stake in pilot flying j. that stake is going to jump to an 80% stake by the year 2023. let's run through some of the number on this deal. it's the 750 retail locations in 44 different states, fourth largest trucking fleet in the nation that's because they're delivering so much gasoline and so much diesel fuel. he said something like every 22 second, there's another gasoline drop that they're doing somewhere? the k in the country with these trucks 70,000 parking spaces for trucks at the truck stops 4,900 showers for the truckers when you stop by these places. by the way nc, before this deal today, this was the 15th largest privately held company in h the united states based on the "forbes" 400 list. kelly, this is a classic buffett move coming up with a company like this, buy something you like, something you know you're going sfo to be a longtime hold

in, holder for forever over an extended period of time. what is an uncharacteristic buffett move, something else that's been going on, not selling stocks as we get toward the end of the year because you're waiting to see what washington, d.c., is doing you were talking about this with corporate taxes, uncertainty about what's going to happen with it. it made buffett do something he never does, wait and see what happens with washington. here's why >> i think there's a lot of that going on because i think there's an expectation that if they reduce -- that if they have a tax act, it will be -- they will cut the rate, certainly corporate rates, and be kind of foolish to have a gain now and pay 35% tax on it if by waiting a few months you were likely to pay 25%. >> reporter: so kelly, all of that is what something that's been changing buffett's behavior he said probably billions of dollars when it comes to be

berkshire hathaway if ma it makes yoo s you wonder what'n to happen to the market. there's pent up demand don't know what will happen with washington it will all sort itself out in the next few month. >> yeah, we're going to ask our guest about this in a moment i'm curious on the individual tax side, he's been outspoken over the years, did he broadly seem to support this plan? >> reporter: no, he did not. he says he does not like a lot of the things that this plan does we didn't go through every single one of the brackets, idea of shrinking to three brackets from the seven no idea about what he thinks about adding a fourth. one thing he's outspoken about is the estate tax. said getting rid of the estate tax he thinks is a terrible idea, even as somebody who would potentially again fit do lly be road from the estate tax they like to call it a death tax as if it impacts everybody who dies hi said to illustrate his point why he didn't like it, there were 2.6 million people in america who died last year he said only 5,000 of them would have needed the estate tax or

gone through the estate tax. he said if you think this is benefiting anybody but the richest of americans, you better think again. >> wow becky, great stuff thank you very much for joining us again that's becky quick out of omaha. let's go back to his point about the capital gains tax for a moment it's interesting to think for a second is there pentup selling we talk about the tax plan as passing and being a bullish factor when it passes, it's bearish, because everybody thinks now i know the rate at which i can sell. >> it could be that. although i think we should make a distinction, i think what warren buffettt was saying since he's a ceo of a company, if we were to sell as berkshire hathaway, corporate tax rates might be lower down the road we're not talking about lowering the capital gains tax for individuals. >> okay. >> it's not about you and me deciding, let's wait until january 2nd. >> so by lowering -- >> to sell all my stocks if it's a company that -- >> tax on profitability. >> owns an investment, then maybe you would wait. >> which is interesting, dennis, it makes you wednesdayer then about the conglomerates, anybody else out there thinking about doing things like spinoffs,

divestitures, where that could affect those choices as well i'm sure there are deal makers crawling all over that. >> absolutely, i have a rule, kelly, something you don't understand on wall street, the reason, the answer is taxes. and that is a very good point. if you can dispose of an asset with a very low tax basis you bought 40 years ago at a far different rate, i think buffett has got it right just wait and hold on and see where that come in makes perfect sense. >> what you think, by the way, of h is deal to buy the truck stocks a 40% stake in this one. >> look, he's going to soon over 80% after a few years. i think it makes perfect sense good way to spend money. he's not going to lose money our fixsation on electric cars and driverless cars notwithstanding, going to be have decades until the vehicles are off the road and don't need gasoline particularly large cross-country trucks i think he's going to be fine. might have gotten a little discount to having a family sell to him

i think it makes sense i don't think it's that sexy good, fine, solid. >> not meant to be. >> exactly. >> if you look at the whole burerkshire hathaway portfolio, his new investments are placing him at the center of the movement of stuff. the railroads, the truck stops, energy he's got the pipelines and electrical grid plays, too it's transmission distribution stuff that's always going to be there and grow along with the economy. >> brian, let's talk for a second about the transports today. the s&p 500, best performers delta up 6%, united up 6%, american up 6% you know, you -- so on and so forth across the airlines. we talked about how well some o the autos are doing, too what do you make of that >> basically there's a lot going on in the zindustry right now tax changes being proposed, we got oil prices that are moving, jet fuel prices obviously part of that, gasoline prices part of that they recently kind of picked t out -- peaked out, they're coming back down a little bit. that's supportive for the industry as well a lot of this on a day-to-day

basis is more noise than anything else. but there are some important aspects of these changes that do underpin the transports. >> dennis, what would you add there? you know, these are pretty big moves today. >> well, as we know the airline have been in rough times for a while, but look, i think if we're wondering about stocks here, we're printing dow 23,000 hats, kelly, there is real core improvement and economic growth indicative in a number of companies as mike was pointing out. so there is a basis for us not to have total doubts about where this rally is headed but, again, the airline stocks are so fuel price dependent, that can reverse on you at any moment, too. >> one thing, michael, to add on the tax issue before we move on from that, hanes was one of the worst performers in the s&p, down 4.5%. interestingly, it could suffer if the tax reform happens. companies with a lot of u.s. profits, barons was outlining the whole thing over the weekend. there's a number of thing including hanes brands, insight,

you know, mnk. where oddly if you actually get this type of reform, might go from having a single digit corporate tax rate to something in the low -- >> that was the concern, essentially all you're doing is a radical shift in the tax burden among companies without necessarily changing the overall. it was one of those things if you built a system from the ground up, maybe that's how you would do it. yeah, just the way a lot of small stocks are trading strictly on tax cut hopes, some will be on the long end -- >> kelly --dennis. >> if there's a change on the e deductibility of interest that rewrites the entire corporate finance picture and definitely be winners and losers, perhaps ones we do not expect that come out of the reorganization. there's a lot that still needs to be answered and gown through. >> all right we have breaking news. speaking of the transports, it's on ford. phil lebeau joins us what's happening, phil >> we're 20 minutes away from the ceo meeting with analysts and explaining to them his plan

to transform ford. remember, he became ceo in may he said, look, i want to take the first 100 days to assess the company, see what we want to do. here's his 100-day plan. really three key points here more on trucks and suvs. fewer investments in cars. charging up electric vehicles, spending less on gasoline-powered vehicles. less on the development of internal combustion engines. and finally, cut costs substantially. here's an example of what we're talking about. ford's plan, cut material costs over the next five years by $10 billion. that's an incremental increase compared to what they had previously forecasted. also, ford plans to slash engineering expenses by $4 billion over the next five years. again, jim hackett will be laying out all the details for his plan in about 20 minutes he's going to be holding a webcast with analysts on wall street we'll be listening in. we'll have updates as well as some sound from jim hackett. finally, guys, take a look at

shares of ford versus general motors year to date. the reason we're slowing this is, they typically move in tandem, but you can see that general motors has been breaking out much more aggressively than ford over the last, what, month and a half, two months and a lot of that is because people are saying, look, ford's put the building blocks in place to profit on autonomous drive vehicles and electric vehicles we'll find out about ford's plan, again, more details about it in about 20 minutes kelly? >> all right, looking forward to it, phil, thank you very much. brian, before we go, i wanted to squeeze a word in with you about emerging markets today up another 1.5% even with the strong u.s. dollar, that's 30% year to date i mean, we don't see this kind of performance last like that very often >> no. we don't it does, however, seem to come in bursts for the emerging markets and there's a lot that's quite beneficial right now that's going on. this is a first time in a long time where we have growth throughout the world basically, every region is reporting positive growth and

we're back to that kind of long-term 3.5% reel that we've seen for the last seven decades or so. that's kind of what people are looking for, what's getting priced in. importantly, though, so many institutional changes with rule of law and profit rights have been made in these markets, and that does nothing but increase the fundamental value of assets there. and that's something we can ride for a longer period of time than just this year >> i know. five or ten years ago, i would have thought you're right, but lately, i don't know feels like it takes a long time for progress anyway, thank you, guys, for joining us brian singer and dennis -- >> thanks, kelly. former equifax ceo richard smith getting grilled on capitol hill today over the company's massive date to breach up next, how future hack attacks can be prevented. plus, famed venture capitalist pishevar, when he

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welcome back take a look at shares of equifax today. as former ceo richard smith apologized to congress about the hack that compromised 145 million people's personal data smith explained the failures and promised congress they've been fixed. >> human error involved the failure to apply software patch to our dispute portal in march of 2017. technological error involved the scanner which failed to detect that vulnerability on that particular portal. both errors have since been addressed. >> well, joining us now, brett horn, a senior equity analyst at morningstar. leo, chief information security officer at sixtera brett, you cover the company and the shares are up 2.5% today do you think that he has quelled

some concerns around the stock >> yeah, i think it's really just a case of no news is good news i don't think there was really any material new information that came out of the hearings and the market viewed that positively >> what about tomorrow he may be going up against senator warren, yes, if he's headed over to the senate? >> yeahing a i think he's going to continue to face very strong criticism and i think essentially, you know, going to congress and taking his lumps is him, you know, per tforming his last acta ceo. it's appropriate since this happened under his watch. >> leo, what's your take on what we learned from the company in terms of what was breached in the first place, what has been done to fix that now, and the fact that lots of americans have signed up for their protection going forward? >> right, well, we're seeing the aim old security strategies fail time and time again. most enterprises have a hard outer shell, meaning they're using a very robust perimeter defense, but not much defense interior not much defense inside the

perimeter. we note from the ceo's statement that the adversary had access to the interior of the network from may 13th, to about july 29th that's an extraordinary amount of time for an adversary can do damage so i think it's a lesson for enterprises to focus more resources an strengthening the interior of their network, rather than trying to just monitor it or maintain significant perimeter defenses. >> brett, what kinds of assumptions are you using for potential liability that equifax might face i mean, it seems to me that's the key swing factor in deciding what this company ultimately is worth, and also, you know, wells fargo is up on the hill today as well, years after, you know, the offenses in terms of its accounts scandals. you can't necessarily know exactly how quickly the equifax matter is going to be put to rest >> yeah, well, the breach at equifax is unprecedented in some ways, certainly in terms of the scale of the breach. there have been similar type of breaches in the fast

experian had a breach a couple years ago, a much smaller one admittedly we sea thie things like the tart breach and so forth. in terms of legal costs and fines, those hits have been material ultimately manageable for those companies. i think, frankly, that's going to be the case for equifax as well >> brett, yesterday, sheila bair, the former fdic chair, joined us and mentioned she thought bank-like regulation could be coming for these companies. and why shouldn't it and if it does, does that significantly change the earnings power >> well, i think thabs tt's the other component of it, what are the ongoing cost i think it's certainly safe to assume there's going to be an increased focus on security, going to be higher spending around security. whether that's at the company's own initiative, or, you know, through government mandates. so i do think it's fair to assume that, you know, there will be a long-term margin hit from this as well. >> leo, what do you think the long-term security aspect implications of this should be both for equifax, but for all the credit rating firms?

>> well, there's no doubt that there will be more regulation and more spending on security. the question for me and other cyber security professionals is what can the adversary do with the information that was taken can they defeat other security controls so we know that identity theft is a real risk coming out of this breach, but since the adversary now has information on millions of consumers, can they use that information to break down other defenses? we have knowledge-type questions that can be defeated we have social engineering type activity that can be conducted with this information. so my concern is not just the identity theft problem, which is significant, but also the ongoing security threat from the use of this information by sophisticated criminals. >> all right mr. horn, mr. taddeo, thank you both for joining us. >> thank you >> we'll hear more from equifax tomorrow. he's invested in startups like uber and airbnb coming up, shervin pishevar

weighs on and whether more could choose to stay private rather than launching an ipo. and procter & gamble, the ceo promises to take the gloves off in a fight against former activist investor nelson pelz. we'll have details straight ahead. with my advisor's help along the way, it's finally my turn to be the host. when you have the right financial advisor, life can be brilliant. ameriprise

welcome back corporate leaders at procter & gamble holding a webcast earlier today to answer shareholder questions as the proxy battle heats up sarah eisen has stayed for late

for us and joins us with some of those highlights. >> well, it's an important company and it is crunchtime for both sides in this proxy fight today, p&g hosting a webcast this afternoon to address shareholder questions, many are which points nelson peltz continually ra lly raises in his criticism of the company peltz has gone after the company's insular culture most upper management, p&g lifers board member meg whitman did address the culture critique she was on the webcast listen. >> many of you may not know i started my career at procter & gamble and i think that may have been true of the company 20 years ago, maybe even ten years ago, but increasingly, they are adding outside hires in key roles, so the general council, cio, the brand new head of north america, health care comes from outside the company. and they're also doing, i think, a very good job of interacting fast in the environment, whether

it's in silicon valley, the digital environment. so i as a board member, i see a big change in, from p&g to being very, you know, business savvy globalists >> and this is the first time we've heard publicly from a board member about the fight behind the scenes. board members are taking meetings with shareholders along with upper management. the company did say, though, it's open to adding new board members but that peltz is just not the right fit. in fact, ceo david taylor even said they're in the process, the vetting process for new members to the board listen >> we will continue to look for globally experienced board members who represent the next generation of leaders, as the world is changing fast and new and different prospectives will be needed. digital perspective, big data analytics experience will be important. as our ability to use the new marketing vehicles and media will only accelerate as a.i. and machine learning become important value contributors

we will look to add cpg experience as well as specific knowledge in our categories like health care and we will continue to build a board that reflects the consumers we serve >> actually, peltz argued he brings the consumer package, an investor and board member. p gnd g is saying pelz's experience is mainly in food companies which is very different than household products and the timing and the alignment with the board is just not right right now for peltz to join two years into this transformation of the company. i will say, guys, recently got the backing of two key proxy advisory firms, iss and glass lewis, to add pelz to the board. the battle is on between the two sides to convince especially those constitutional investors and index funds which tend to vote late in these proxy contests to vote for their sides. >> it's amazing. no doubt the whole situation is going to be studied, going to be a harvard case study just so all-out on both sides

with really high-profile people on all sides of it >> the biggest ever company. >> in terms of -- >> to get a proxy battle. >> in terms of a size of a battle i also wonder if i vesters anvee sitting there saying they went either way pe peltz -- >> like adp and ackman, the company is fine on its own, maybe it -- >> could be a bonus, otherwise well run also, i mean, maybe in the company's favor, if he were added to the board and there was not an appetite to realign the entire company the way he says, what's the productive role he's going to play aside from being kind of a gadfly on the board? i don't know. >> his argument would be he would only be 1 of 12 members. not like he's going to come in and split the company into his new organizational structure which he does propose. he would just bring fast, urgent ideas. as for the share price, the stock is up 9.5% so far this year so no question, the fact that this fight has ramped up adds to the pressure on management to show that he are executing on this

transformation we have seen that in the last few quarters to david taylor, the ceo's credit, the stock has outperformed since he took on the role about two years ago but it's really been supercharged since nelson pelz reve he had a ginormous stake, 3.5 million earlier this year. >> we'll see if it works sara, thank you very much. time for a cnbc juupdate wi sue herera. >> here's what's happening at this hour, everyone. russian president vladimir putin offering condolences to the u.s. after the deadliest shooting in american history putin speaking at a ceremony in the kremlin, as the new u.s. ambassad ambassador, jon huntsman, presented his credentials. joe biden campaigning for alabama's democratic senate candidate doug jones calling him a man of integrity jones is running against republican roy moore it has been 20 years since a democrat held an alabama senate seat over 38,000 pounds of ground

turkey including the publix store brand and fit and active fresh ground turkey have been recalled due to metal shavings the meat was processed and packaged by pressed edge foods which is a north carolina company. and the boss opens on the great white way tonight. bruce springsteen to begin an 18-week-long residency at broadway's walter kerr theater it's one of broadway's smallest with a capacity of under 1,000 seats. springsteen says the show is just him with his guitar, piano, and the words and music. and kelly, just getting an update out of las vegas. the news conference. the update, sheriff joe lombard said they identified all but three victims of that shooting at this point. it's ongoing i know jane wells is coming up in a few minutes, maybe she'll have more details on that. i'll send it back to you >> sue, thank you very much. we will get the latest on las vegas. once we come back there this break. in terms of the investigation

into the nation's deadliest mass shooting, an update on casualties from the attack that's coming up in just a moment. also president trump visiting puerto rico to view the devastation caused by hurricane maria. we'll also head live out to that island for the latest recovery efforts coming up.

well, it's earnings season once again. >>yeah. lot of tech companies are reporting today. and, how's it looking? >>i don't know. there's so many opinions out there, it's hard to make sense of it all. well, victor, do you have something for him? >>check this out. td ameritrade aggregates thousands of earnings estimates into a single data point. that way you can keep your eyes on the big picture. >>huh. feel better? >>much better. yeah, me too. wow, you really did a number on this thing. >>sorry about that. that's alright. i got a box of 'em. thousands of opinions. one estimate. the earnings tool from td ameritrade.

las vegas is still reeling after sunday night's shooting left at least 59 people dead and more than 500 injured. jane wells is on the ground there with the latest on the investigation after an update. jane >> reporter: hi, kelly, we're getting all kinds of new information. this is the crime scene behind me still cordoned off the reason why, you can see over there, we have fbi, an fbi evidence team which is out here working with local law enforcement. surveying the situation. because, of course, you wanted to see where the bullets came from, where they landed. all that sort of thing we're also hearing that the number of injured may be lower than previously thought. slightly they may have double counted as many as 20 people in certain hospitals. that's one bit of good news. as for identifying the dead, here is what the sheriff just said >> all but three victims, we still have an active scene at the grounds near mandalay bay, so we ask anyone to stay away

from that area until further notice >> reporter: also, they said they have finished the search of stephen paddock's reno home, found more firearms bringing the total number of guns he possessed to 47. and, you know, this is generally one of the safest and most security-oriented cities in america for a variety of reasons but even mr. las vegas, himself, wayne newton, expects there will be some changes. >> i think that when all the investigations are done, that possibly something goodwill come from it in terms of being able to learn how we can do things better >> reporter: and i want to show one more time this video we got earlier today. inside the wynn where i have never seen this before, they were using metal detector wands and searching people's bags. i'm staying at mandalay bay. that wasn't our experience last night or this morning.

we'll see what happens this afternoon when we get back to the hotel. kelly? >> jane, was there any more information on the firearms he used either in terms of how he got all of those in the hotel room, what kind of weapons they were to be able to fire so rapidly? >> reporter: we haven't reached that part of the news conference yet. there were reports that he had a special device which allowed him to fire the weapons more rapidly. earli earlier, the sheriff had said he got the 23 weapons in there through 10 bags but checked in thursday, four days before the shooting so this may have been a bag-by-bag process that hasn't been revealed to us yet. you know, kelly, there's no information yet that he owned any of these guns illegally. and in nevada, machine guns are legal if they're older than 1986 if you go through the long profession of a federal background check which takes, could take a year and cost a lot of money >> wow all right. jane, for now, thank you jane wells in las vegas. president trump, meantime,

wrapping up his tour of hurrican hurricane-devastated puerto rico moments ago. contessa brewer was with the t president and joins us. >> reporter: the work at the commander in san juan continues even though the president is wheels up from puerto rico heading back to the states h e got a chance today to go out and meet some of the families who lived through hurricane maria and now have lived through two weeks without running water, without electricity, long gasoline lines, no cell phone communications then he went up in a helicopter and got to see from the air some of the damage that has just wiped out the infrastructure on this island, has crippled the supply chain and where logistics for getting businesses back up and running have been so very damaged. his comments about how much all of this damage costs, though, have caused some consternation on the ground. >> i hate to tell you, puerto rico, but you've thrown our budget a little out of whack because we spent a lot of money

on puerto rico and that's fine, we saved a lot of lives. >> reporter: he also said today that, hey, puerto ricans did a great job not having a lot of deaths, quote, like in a real catastrophe like katrina of course, more than 1,800 people died in katrina right now the death toll in for puerto rico, certified death toll, stands at 16 the governor told us this morning he expects that number to go up because they're just now beginning the process of going back to hospitals and to the morgues of certifying the deaths and figuring out who died of natural causes, who died because they didn't have access to insulin or medical services, who died from thirst or hunger that is going to take time like assessing the true magnitude in terms of cost for getting this tide back up and running, kelly. >> yeah, it's going to be a huge effort that much we know. contessa, thank you very much. contessa brewer in puerto rico for us. now some breaking news on yahoo! josh lipton, what's happening there? >> kelly, breaking news from yahoo! providing notice to

additional users affected by that previously disclosed 2013 data theft you recall, kelly, in december last year, yahoo! disclosed that about 1 billion accounts existing in 2013 had likely been affected yahoo! is now saying it's recently obtained new data, new intelligence, now believes, in fact, all user accounts, so 3 billion, were affected by the august 2013 theft. yahoo! saying this is not a new security issue, and they're sending out e-mail notifications to those affected. they say the investigation says that user account information that was stolen did not apparently include bank account information, payment card data, or passwords and clear text. the company saying it continues to work closely with law enforcement. kelly, back to you >> all right josh joshua, thank you very much. josh lipton out west. the board battle is still raging at uber up next we'll talk to sherpa

s ketal shervin pishevar to get hita on the ride-sharing company. keep it here you're watching cnbc, first in business worldwide

welcome back drama at uber continues to unfold the company's board of directors meeting today to consider proposals to limit co-founder travis kalanick's role and strip early investors of voting power. shervin pishevar

>> thanks so much, kelly, shervin, thanks for joining us here. >> thanks for having me. >> you just wrote this letter. as one of uber's early investors, you have a stake in some proposed changes. what is your position that you're advocating for? i know there's a vote expected by uber's board any minute now. >> that's a great question i've written a lot, through letters, kind of rationally explaining some of the views that me and many other shareholders have. steve russell and i, an early investor and adviser, have hired our lawyers, emanuel handled the court case in delaware so we flew into that and the judge agreed with her, our views, and pushed back bench marks, rejected benchmark's claims and put it into arbitration. now, yesterday, we wrote another letter explaining to some of the board members at uber the

implications of the vote today which would be stripping the class "b" shares of the super voting rights and vested rights of in of the, about 200 really early founding employees of the company. some of the advisers some of the investors who've been in this company for a very long time. the reason why this is important to many of those people and many others as well is we're a nation of laws and rules. that's why the little courthouse in delaware stands for so much might be a little courthouse, but it actually holds up our economy and our legal system so today, in the boardroom, it's my opinion that if the board of directors of uber decides to strip these rights of all of these early employees and advisers of the class "b" shares, that they're doing something that is wrong. and that continues a wave of decisions that have been wrong

by the board of directors, led really by, in my opinion, benchmark. >> now, today, recode came out with a new article, says she doesn't think your position is going to hold up in court. and she said that she thinks you don't have a -- she believes the board will vote against your position what do you think your chances are? >> i appreciate kara's opinion i have lot of respect, immense respect for her as a journalist, but frankly, he's nshe's not lar her opinion on the law doesn't carry as much weight as her opinion on the journalistic side of what's going on in technology the legal review has been done, as i said, some of the greatest lawyers out there. mark geragos who's now leading our case, quinn emanuel, advised us in a court case before. these are some of the greatest legal minds in our nation. >> kelly, you want to jump in here, kelly? >> yeah, thanks. shervin, hi, again. >> hey, kelly. >> take up on the thought -- hi.

i know your attorney said express this has a formal notice, if you vote in favor, our attorneys -- >> that's right. >> you've begun such a part of this company you know, what do you mean by that what are the potential outcomes here that they're referring to >> in my opinion, when a firm like benchmark decides to take such actions against a company, $12 billion investment is worth over $9 billion and they begin to strip the rights of not just the founders, but the early foundational employees of the company, they bleed into a territory of ethics and law that we think really matters for people to take a stand to have courage to stand up for what's right so what we said in that letter is absolutely true if the board of directors decides today to strip those rights, we will be filing a class-action suit against them and we will pursue them in the courts, not just here in the u.s., but in many key nations in

the markets of which the company operates the board of directors of the company cannot be a clown car operation. this has been an amateur hour to watch everything unfold by the company and as a shareholder investor, we have to hold them accountable for their actions. they have a fiduciary duty to do their job and protect the shareholders and the employees and their rights and they're failing at that test >> how does this play to your outlook on taking uber public? you're a shareholder in uber, as well as airbnb how is your jute looutlook in gl >> the beauty of the employees and team at uber have created is the company is basically like a utility at this point.

the algorithm and the data, and the business that they built, is one of the most beautiful businesses that i've seen. it's one of the -- it is the fastest growing company in history. and so that can't be taken away from them by a board of directors. that can't be taken m them by a board of directors, it can't be taken away by lawsuits or any other amateur, in my opinion, actions that have happened the company is fine. the service is fine. it will continue to scale. it is one of the most important technology companies of our time it will continue to do so. many companies, including facebook, zuckerberg, and many other companies have had lawsuits, spiegel. that's not the definition of how that company will fare when it actually goes public >> great shervin pishevar, we look forward to having you back on to talk about hyperloop kelly, back over to you. >> thank you very much >> i look forward to seeing what the heck is going to happen with uber now shervin and julia, thank you

both one city in orgegia is desperate to win the bid for amazon's second headquarters, after this

welcome back it is time now for our fast take today. we begin with goldman sachs exploring a bitcoin trading platform, according to "the wall street journal," after jamie dimon has called bitcoin a fraud. i'm just going to say this feels to me like a bit of a desperate move by goldman. >> it is a move. goldman's lloyd blankfein says they're looking at it. obviously this is one of the few

areas of quasi financial instruments where a middleman, a market maker, can potentially see some good. if your clients think it's an asset class, maybe you have to behave as if it is >> goldman famed for its trading prowess. we'll have to go to the trading platform of the future speaking of platforms of the future, facebook says users were exposed to ads from russia one critic says, "i don't think they're owning up to the fact that they're a media company." they're hiring a thousand people to monitor ads >> it's an admission that they have to vet ads and filter some content. it does remind everybody that the people who want to get phony stuff out there and want to propagate certain material are ahead of the people who are policing the algorithm

i don't know what changes. >> i think "the wall street journal" has a better editorial process. >> kind of like the one i came out of american has a complicated love-hate relationship with these tech giants. stone crest georgia city council has de-annexed 345 acres of land and hwants amazon to pick it fo their headquarters maybe that's the more desperate gamble of the day. >> stone crest is a lovely name. >> jim thorpe, pennsylvania is a real town. it is in coal country in eastern pennsylvania it used to be called mock chunk. when jim thorpe died, his widow said, if you'll name the town after him, you'll get some money. >> i find that to be a heartwarming story we'll see what works out for georgia. snap's ceo is making a rare

public appearance at the vanity fair conference. we'll tell you challenges he faced after going public ♪ we're drowning in information. where, in all of this, is the stuff that matters?

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important communication becomes. and what's really interesting is that, you know, when you go public and you really need to explain to a huge new investor base, right, instead of having ten investors you have 10,000, you have to explain how your business works at the same time that you need to do that, there are all these new regulations about what you can and can't say and how you can communicate. i think one of the things we've been going through this year is learning how to best communicate the snap story >> that was snap ceo evan spiegel at the vanity fair summit in l.a. shares of the company are down about 14% from theiripo price in march interesting point he's making about how we have to communicate but it's hard to do that >> you're constrained. he said in that gathering he traded capital investors for perhaps long term oriented public investors, which is upside down. >> long term oriented? interesting. >> if you're a private company,

and you're controlle cv -- vcs on the board coming up, a star-studded "fast money" tonight, disney's ceo bob hieiger. that does it for us. over to "fast. i'm melissa lee. tonight on "fast," the stars are aligning for special special night. disney's ceo will be here. plus mark cuban will be here plus jpmorgan's marko