iphone x goes on sale. i'm carl quintanilla, sara eisen, john fortt. coming off the heels of the earnings last night, and the pictures of all the lines at many apple flagships we're cnbc, so let's start with earnings this could be investors outside with all this cheering, because there have been so much doubt, so much fear leading into this quarter. the iphone 8 demand doesn't seem to be there, will they manage with the x, the 8 was strong enough to carry the fiscal fourth quarter into really strong numbers, above what analysts expected, and the x supply appears to be good enough that the guide on revenue is higher than expectations the mid point of the guide >> cfo saying they are quite happy with the production schedule of the x, which has been, of course, a source of much debate over the past few days our josh lipton is there live. just talked to cook a few

moments ago. josh, nice pictures of that first customer in line actually, a bunch of customers getting a handshake from cook on their way in >> that's right, guys. you can see the store here is opening right now in downtown palo alto. you're looking there at apple ceo tim cook was here greeting the crowd, greeting the first customers. this has become a real tradition at this store. cook is often here, welcoming the first customers looking, of course, to buy the new iphone x. apple, remember, calls the phone the future of the smartphone and call the edge-to-edge display, wireless charging, facial recognition technology in fact, we caught up to the first guy in line at the store and he's been here since tuesday night waiting to get his hands on this phone, and it was face i.d., that was the feature he was most excited about of course, the starting price for this phone, $999

apple told walk-in customers they could come and pick up the phone, but remember, they caution people, listen, you better arrive early if you want one. i got here in palo alto, it was dark out this morning, but the line was already down the street now, in fact, wrapping around the corner guys, back to you. >> josh, there were two big questions or concerns from investors going into the release of the x one was would consumers shell out the $1,000-plus for this phone, and the other, would supply be able to handle it, given all these new features has apple put those concerns to rest after last night's conference call and what you're hearing from tim cook today? >> well, i did speak to apple ceo tim cook about a few issues and one was whether they'd come into a supply-demand balance with the phone i asked, listen, do you think you're going to come into a supply/demand balance in another quarter as with previous models

and cook telling me simply he couldn't predict that, couldn't answer the question, and couldn't give me a real time frame and the issue there was he said this was a different rollout, it was a staggered rollout with the 8, 8 plus, and now the x, so apple finds itself in a different situation, different experience guys >> and we still don't know, guys, what the consumer three months from now is going to be willing to pay for an iphone we've known for a long time the first people are willing to pay $2,000 for a gold iphone or whatever the latest model is, because they've been doing that on ebay. apple is going to get to capture that margin this time. the question is, three months from now will it shift towards the 8, that we will see. >> i'm wondering if we're talking too much about the actual price tag, because isn't the fact here, john, and you know this better than me, but in the u.s. most people have these monthly installment plans already with their phone carrier, so, yes, they are

paying a little more for the x, but we're talking about $16 more than the iphone 8 per month. >> sounds like a good question to ask of dan niles, founding partner of alpha capital one both he and the fund are invested in apple. dan, good morning. >> good morning, carl, how are you? >> good, i'll pretend to be carl >> sorry the problem with phone interviews >> yeah, i like carl a lot so, dan, did this surprise you, the quarter that apple reported, which was all iphone 8 and then the guide into the x if i recall you were skeptical, do you feel the same >> i mean, you have to give them a lot of credit. i was really surprised with the numbers, because you have to remember this third quarter their revenue accelerated for the third quarter in a row year after year, and that's without the benefit of the iphone x, which you've been reporting on

today and that's going to benefit them the december quarter. so to see revenues down year over year in the last 2016, you know, june, september, and now up 12%, that's pretty impressive so i think you have to give them full credit and maybe there is a lot more pent-up demand than we thought, because the x benefits in december and into march, which will be less seasonal than normal i'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, but the real question will be once they have plenty of supply, how does it shift, because i wonder how many people will spend over $1,000 a phone, but right now it seems to be strong >> what indications would lead you to be skeptical when it looks at the stock market, consumer confidence, broad measures of wages in this country. >> all of those things, as you rightly point out, are bullish we own the stock that's why it's not one of our most

favorite tech stocks we like others better like facebook, for example. but i think with apple, the multiple's really low. they've, obviously, got a lot of cash on the balance sheet that can benefit from tax repatriation so, there are a lot of things -- and they've got a nice solid dividend, so there are a lot of things that make you say, all right, i'll give it more time and see. maybe people will pay up for the $1,000 phone and with the installment plans, as you talked about earlier, it makes it seem a lot less than if you have to shell out all that money all at once >> will they pay that much in china? we saw china return to growth, that was important for investors to see, sales rising 12% on the quarter. what are you expecting in terms of the x demand there? >> it's interesting, because you bring up a really good point with china you have six quarters of negative year over year growth, got as bad as negative 30% the middle of last year, but

to see that bounce back to 12% without the iphone x shipping is pretty incredible. the one thing with a lot of those countries is, because you do have a lower gdp per person there, you know, as opposed to a ferrari or whatever, you know, having a high end iphone in some ways is almost, you know, a status symbol, you can afford to do that, et cetera, so it's a luxury good. just like a high end handbag or car or whatever. so i think early on there's going to be a fair bit of pent-up demand, particularly in china. the last big upgrade in form factor was really in 2014 when you went to the, you know, five and a half inch phones, so this is kind of the next big step up. i think the early demand will probably be pretty solid there for that particular reason >> finally, dan, in terms of how the street views the stock, 37 buys, six holds, no sells. is there any room for sentiment

to improve on the name >> i mean, i think it was john that brought this up earlier there's, you know, the world economy is really positive right now. 45 of the countries are growing. the oecd wages are up, unemployment is low, et cetera, so i think the sentiment improving is what you're seeing in the overall market, which is multiples continuing to go higher. we like the 3d sensing capability apple has, so we own a lot more of a company called momentum, which provides 3d lasers, so we're excited about the augmented reality features that apple has but we think there are other plays within the apple food chain that are more exciting than apple, which we like better to some extent, that's how we're playing apple, really, is through some of the laser suppliers like momentum and others >> that's good color, dan, always appreciate your time. good to talk to you again,

thanks >> thank you >> dan niles, alpha capital one. when we come back, even though apple customers are lining up to get their hands on the new x, some experts are sounding the alarm over security concerns jobs rebound after the hurricane disruption, but wages are a bit of a disappointment. what that data means to the markets. and later, an unlikely pair. why steve wozniak and rob gronkowski are teaming up. the tight end is going to join us right here when "squawk alley" returns post 9 is sponsored by fidelity investments we cut the price of trades to give investors even more value. and at $4.95, you can trade with a clear advantage. fidelity, where smarter investors will always be. and at $4.95, you can trade with a clear advantage. giveyou're finished! curse you, he-man, you interfering imbecile! give us one good reason we shouldn't vanquish you to another dimension! ok, guys, hear me out.

switching to geico could save you... hundreds on car insurance. huh, he does make a point... i do like to save money... catch you on the flip, suckas! geico. because saving fifteen percent or more on car insurance is always a great answer. when it might be time to buy or sell? with fidelity's real-time analytics, you'll get clear, actionable alerts about potential investment opportunities in real time. fidelity. open an account today.

today jobs revealed 261,000 in october, a little light of the expectation. still pointing to healthy growth for more on the jobs report and market impact, joined by wells fargo senior global executive strategist and adp strategist and cohead of multiasset solutions. welcome to both of you scott, the market reaction, somewhat tepid stocks are flat. near record highs. yields initially dipped on the report they've climbed back since how do you interpret that reaction from today's jobs report >> sara, i have to say, you know, in all the jobs reports that you can think of in recent history, this has to be the most meaningless at the top of the list of meaningless. there's too much hurricane affect in this

the nonform payroll number was a complete guess average hourly earnings had some hurricane effect in it maybe the most somewhat reliable number you could see is that the u-6 rate dipped a little bit, and that's a good thing, but overall this report is going to be quickly forgotten and the story is going to be tax cuts and the fed. this report, i would not even focus on this report >> though a lot of people are looking into the wage numbers and they are saying it's not good enough. when you see a 4.1% unemployment rate, you should see wages growing more than nothing from the previous month because of the hurricane effect >> we really thought that here towards the end of this year and maybe in the first few months of 2018 that you would see a 2.9 number we did last time, which had hurricane effect, but without the hurricane, a 2.9, maybe a three, which we would argue that would spook the market that's a negative 4 corporate margins. we may see that.

you would think there would be some more wage pressure in 2018. i think we probably will see a little bit that's a factor and that's been a stubborn number to move higher in this particular recovery, but i think we are finally, and i'm talking the last five, six months, the labor market's finally tightening and i think we will probably see some wage increases. >> sticking to this wage growth question, unemployment at 4.1%, and we haven't seen the wage growth, why is a tax cut going to cause that to shift that seems to be the gop's argument that, you know, if we have this corporate tax cut, businesses have more cash, they are going to pay people more money. how is that going to work? >> so far it hasn't worked look, the relationship with unemployment and wage growth has consumed a lot of debate by the fed, by the analysts, et cetera. most of the empirical evidence

suggests the so-called phillips curve, that relationship is nonlinear. meaning as we get to some level of unemployment, perhaps it's around 4% or below 4%, you do start to see some wage pressures. and this debate has also been complicated by the fact the participation rate has been quite low and that caused some people to believe there's labor slack. >> is a tax cut going to create some other incentive to raise wages? >> i think not i think to raise wages will require different type of policy what tax cut could do is potentially lift the gdp growth modestly and reduce the slack in the economy, which would then translate into high wages. there are some provisions that are modestly pro growth, such as expensing of capital, lower taxes, but thus far it hasn't translated into significantly more aggressive wage growth. >> so, scott, assuming everything happens the way you're describing, does that

increased wage environment, does that become a corporate margin story for the overall stock market or is this more a story about financials and steeper curves? >> well, i tell you, carl, i think really it is a corporate margin you know, you and i have talked before we see some headwinds. valuations are high, the fed's hiking rates, you know, i don't know about the fiscal progress in washington. we'll get something in terms of taxes, i'm not sure it's going to move the needle on a $19 trillion economy, though, and, of course, we've talked about these high margins what can negatively affect those and certainly one of the big things that can negatively affect corporate margins is wage increases, which we haven't seen much of. i think those are issues, the wage issues, i think, are going to show its face in 2018 hasn't yet in 2017, but that's ahead of us for sure >> carl just mentioned the banks. are you surprised to see banks at the bottom of the s&p today this comes after jay powell gets nominated to be the next fed chair, which is the bank

regulator and he's considered to have a light touch on regulation and at the same time we get that proposal for a 20% corporate rate, which is said to help the financials among the top groups that could benefit >> look, let's not forget also a fair bit of optimism has been built into the financial sector following the election, so they have rallied quite aggressively off the bottom following the election the banks are still waiting a come things. one, we have not yet seen a pick up in loan growth, and secondly, the youth curve remains stubbornly flat and today continues to flatten those are the two things that will continue to drive the banks into next year rather than just the one-time boost to the earnings, such as tax cuts >> all right, gentlemen, we will leave it there on the markets and the economy thanks very much >> have a good weekend, guys >> have a great weekend. did you see steph curry got name dropped in the gop tax bill and totally rolled with it the nba star was used as an

example of how it intends to separate millionaires from small business owners, saying it would look at the income of steph curry and steve's bike shop. shortly after curry tweeted, "i wonder if steve's bike shop is hiring." that was sort of odd that he was dropped, especially because president trump earlier this year withdrew his invitation for curry and the warriors to visit the white house. >> drop an astros name instead of curry >> not the most flattering light in which to drop a name, suggesting here's a multimillionaire who might try to pass as a business, right maybe that's something to do with it. >> what's steve's bike shop? is that the coach? isn't the coach steve? >> yeah. >> pick a steve. as we go to break, look at shares of starbucks. we had a nice upside reversal today, aren'ting after reporting revenue that missed expectations we talked to kevin johnson earlier this morning plus, the president's twitter account briefly going

dark more on the rogue employee who shut it down when "squawk alley" continues.

[ male announcer ] eligible for medicare? that's a good thing, but it doesn't cover everything. only about 80% of your part b medical expenses. the rest is up to you. so consider an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company. like all standardized medicare supplement insurance plans, they could save you in out-of-pocket medical costs. call today to request a free decision guide.

with these types of plans, you'll be able to visit any doctor or hospital that accepts medicare patients... plus, there are no networks, and virtually no referrals needed. join the millions who have already enrolled in the only medicare supplement insurance plans endorsed by aarp... and provided by unitedhealthcare insurance company, which has over 30 years of experience behind it. with all the good years ahead, look for the experience and commitment to go the distance with you. call now to request your free decision guide.

president trump's twitter account briefly shut down last night, so how did the most important social media account in the world disappear for 11 minutes? julia boorstin has more on what went wrong julia? >> that's the big question, john, how did twitter not have more protections for the president's account? here's what happened for about 11 minutes last night president trump's personal account was deactivated. twitter restored the account, which has 41.7 million followers. the company initially saying the that fsnafu of human error, then tweeted, "through our investigation we have learned that this was done by a twitter customer support employee who did this on the employee's last day. we are conducting a full internal review. it's unclear who this employee was, and the company reportedly

considered requiring two employees to remove important twitter accounts, but reportedly never implemented that policy. it's unclear what additional security measures twitter has for the president's account. president trump acknowledging the deactivation in a tweet this morning, "my twitter account was taken down for 11 minutes by a rogue employee i guess the word must finally be getting out and having an impact." well, it's unclear what he's referring to he's become on the platform tweeting multiple times this morning. the timing of twitter's fail is awkward as the company faces growing scrutiny twitter executives on capitol hill testified just this week about russian-linked twitter accounts having pledged last month to embrace new transparency measures around ads. and ceo jack dorsey has talked a lot about protecting twitter from everything from trolls, to hack attacks, but clearly the company has to look internally, as well. carl >> julia, quick question i think this is unique in that

the president's primary mode of communication, i think it's fair to say, is twitter, which is a private company. and so this raises all kinds of questions. is it possible for employees to put things on the president's twitter account that he didn't put there, what kinds of protections are there around this account the tweets from which have global geopolitical implications >> absolutely. this is a very unusual situation. so, we'll have to see how twitter responds i hope we hear more from them about what they are doing to protect the account. >> i don't know who looks worse here, guys, twitter or the president, because the president is using it as a primary communications method to tweet about policy and geopolitics like north korea, as you said, but twitter itself -- >> oh, my gosh >> how could they not protect that >> in "the new york post," taxes take a back seat to the twitter story. that's all folks i did a poll on twitter, where would the president turn if he didn't have twitter. >> and >> instagram, facebook,

snapchat, or linkedin. >> because you can write on that linkedin doesn't seem like president trump's style. needs a broader audience >> julia, thanks let's get a news update with sue herera >> good morning, everyone. here's what's happening at this hour speaking of president trump, he is departing for hawaii on the initial leg of his first trip to asia as president. he will visit five asian countries before returning home on the 14th. he commented on the trip before leaving. >> and i think we're going to have great success we'll be talking about trade, we'll be talking about, obviously, north korea we'll be enlisting the help of a lot of people, and countries, we'll see what happens but i think we're going to have a very successful trip there's a lot of good will >> the travel website tripadviser has apologized to a texas woman for repeatedly deleting her review of a mexican resort that detailed how she had been raped there by a security guard. it issued the apology to

christie love after "the journal sentinel" of milwaukee published an investigation about her 2010 episode. a federal appeals court ruling the dallas cowboys running back ezekiel elliot can play this sunday it blocked a lower court ruling that required elliot to begin serving a six-game suspension. you're up to date, that's the news update this hour. back downtown to "squawk alley." carl, back to you. >> sue, thank you very much. as we go to break, look at shares of bitcoin briefly passing 7,400 at one point i think crypto currency market cap surpasses 200 billion today. still ahead, apple customers lining up for the iphone x, but the new face i.d. feature 'lnsing concer wel talk to a security expert when "squawk alley" comes back

and i am a senior public safety my namspecialist for pg&e. my job is to help educate our first responders on how to deal with natural gas and electric emergencies. everyday when we go to work

we want everyone to work safely and come home safely. i live right here in auburn, i absolutely love this community. once i moved here i didn't want to live anywhere else. i love that people in this community are willing to come together to make a difference for other people's lives. together, we're building a better california. apple's iphone x hitting the shelves today. let's take a look atsome of th most buzzed about components from the animoji to the face i.d. joining us now, ed lee, editing manager of recode, and director with menlo ventures. welcome, both of you ed, do the lines that we're seeing around 5th avenue, john was there earlier, that we just saw opening out in california, does it matter if we don't get the supply side situation? >> doesn't matter, because even if you have to wait, even if they didn't quite make enough to make that current demand, people will wait for it

i think, you know, the 8 is there as an alternative, as a plan "b," but people want the x. the 8 is cheaper, really great, more people will buy that, but what we're seeing is people saying i want to give you more money, not less. i want the bigger one, the better one so it really underscores how apple really is always the striver brand that you want the best from it, and so, you know, again to apple's credit. >> becky, you say that the face i.d. has a potential to be a game changer what are you referring to there, talking about security or something else >> that's right. you know, they say the eyes are the windows to your soul what apple is telling you the face is the window to your personal security. i think the face i.d. is a game changer, because it changes an adds a new modality to cybersecurity, which is an kp existential threat to all consumers. >> ed, i'm wondering what you think about this early demand picture we see for the x

on the one hand, it's great, people are lining up for this $1,000 phone, but we've always known the early people will pay ridiculous prices to have the new thing. does it matter more what we see three months, six months from now and primarily what developers are willing to do specifically for the x versus these other models >> i think that's a great question i got a chance to play with it a little bit, our sister site the verge did a great job of doing a review of it what's interesting, it's more the form factor, to me, that's interesting. it's smaller than the plus size, but does more. in terms of the apps and what the developers created it for, it's not there yet it's like the early days of the ipad thing and the first few months are the hard core early adopters will say i got this thing. regular users, if they get it, will be like, all right, it's more expensive, what do i get aside from animated emojis it's going to take three or four months before you see what you can do with this the a.r. kit is a potential

killer app for them in terms of how developers play into it. again, we have to wait to see. >> we've been talking about that off camera this morning. i think a friend of mine tells me the mlb app will allow you to point your device at a player, stats will pop up about that player i mean, does this elevate a.r. as at least the most exciting innovation on apple's front burner >> yeah. so i think the iphone x, it's great, because there's a ten-year point on the iphone and they've come up with what i think is a platform shift. a.r., v.r. is clearly the next major platform to emerge and i think the functionality on the iphone x makes some of the functionalities come to live menlo ventures are excited about the investment opportunities we're going to find there. >> can you elaborate on that i know you're invested in some security companies, which goes back to your previous point, bit site is this a consumer facing issue or bigger ramifications across

the valley for some of these start-ups that you're working on >> look, security implications of iphone x are huge, because you have a second modality which you can validate consumer identity is a really big issue and one of the ways in which consumers can start protecting themselves and feeling better about doing things digitally is using the face i.d. and i think third party developers are going to do it >> ed, how are you going to judge whether apple really is moving the market, you know, as we head into 2018 toward the functions inside this phone? is there a particular industry, whether it's gaming, whether it's retail, whether it's social media that you think really has to gloom on to the features in this to show it's got legs and is going to pull the rest along? >> with the a.r. kit and new environment they created, i liken it to the app store, right? apple never imagined an uber would have been created out of the app economy, but it is

it's a $70 billion economy that would not exist without apple and other smartphone makers. the a.r. kit, if it creates the same kind of environment where new players emerge where they hadn't imagined, that's a sign of success for what this new hardware allows it to do the other side of it, something we haven't talked about as much, the services business. we talked about it yesterday in terms of, you know, how that's growing 20%, 30% i know there was a one-time adjustment in yesterday's numbers, apple has never had a real cogent media strategy given how wide their platform is now with their devices, they are a broadcaster that way if you think about it, they haven't really taken full advantage, whether it means buying more exclusive content. i know they are going to spend about a billion to do that, or going after sports rights. i think the nfl is up for grabs in a few years and that could be a real interesting foray for an apple or amazon or google, whoever it might be. all these guys are well positioned because they are so well distributed i think that's what i want to see from apple next, more than

the hardware >> question is whether they are distributed for a league used to being on your rabbit ears. >> you're on cbs, nbc, millions are going to watch it. amazon took thursday night, a few hundred thousand are watching it. it's a good first step, but hasn't proven they are a mass market the way broadcasters are, but you never count apple out. it's pushing a trillion dollars, got a lot of money, can do lots of stuff >> that will be an interesting thread to watch. we'll leave it there, thank you. ed lee from recode, menlo ventures >> good topic to talk to rob gronkowski about coming on later, you'll never guess who steve wozniak is banking on it is gronkowski we'll hear about his app and how he managed to get the apple cofounder's seal of approval dow's up 16. rick santelli, what are you watching >> you know, i'm watching a lot of action in the options rates move up, dollar moving down, curve's getting flatter.

ex-fed governor robert heller is going to be my guest i'm going to ask about the new kehahaenrman and other issues, li wt pped to wages on this jobs report all after the break.

i'm scott walker coming up today on half-time apple's unbelievable run the stock jumping, closing in on a history making milestone top ranked toni with us exclusively. plus, if you're wavering whether to buy into this market rally, the man who once ran the biggest

mutual fund has simple advice for you. we'll tell you what it is. and the options traders say is about to drop. "halftime report," as i said, top of the hour. john fortt, see you in about 20. >> all right, sounds good, scott. and as we just discussed, wages stalling in the october jobs report. steve liesman? >> don't get to say this often, guys, missed expectations. that was the number, by the way, and the wage number, always headed for a miss either way as economists had to estimate, numbers of jobs lost in september and reguesstimate the number in october with three hurricanes, it was always a fool's errand. let's take a look at the numbers again. 261,000, that missed, some call that light but look at the revisions, up 90,000 for august and september. wages unchanged, but remember, a month before they were up by half a percentage point, very strong half a percentage point,

also hurricane affected. may be real to that number, 4.1% labor force participation at 6.27 leisure and hospitality up 106, manufacturing up 24,000, but only 11,000 added to construction if there was really a hurricane bounceback, you would have expected more jobs there for construction moving on, government up by 9,000. here's some of the commentary we got. bmo writes, although the headline figure disappointed, the october jobs report is strong enough to virtually lock in a federate hike next month. we still think the weight of evidence supports ongoing fed tightening, however, another rate hike in december, another employment report will be issued before the meeting here's the chance of a rate hike, ticked up a couple moipois to 90% as the market is ignoring the supposed weakness and figured the fed would, too bulk of the data points to

strong goet in the economy, including the isms just got a strong one at 10:00 this morning the first look, guys, at cnbc rapid update for the fourth quarter running at a very strong, carl, 2.8% >> yeah, and some of the numbers out of atlanta, too, looking -- >> atlanta, i throw those out, don't want to have bigtechnica discussions, cnbc wrap it up, go online >> you don't >> we've been beating that by quite a bit. just want to tell you that, atlanta has a weird model for the beginning of the month i throw that out for now >> it's always entertaining to see what their models say. steve, thanks. busy day steve liesman. let's get to rick santelli and get the santelli exchange. rick >> thanks, carl. i'd like to welcome my jobs, jobs, jobs friday guest, former fed governor and all-around cool guy robert heller. bob, thanks for taking the time. >> good to be here >> all right, you heard steve

liesman steve liesman nicely wrapping up the jobs report. i want to dig down in that one area last month jobs report was a bit dismal due to the hurricane, but the wage component month over month shouldn't have been that affected by weather issues and it was up .5 today it was goose egg, zero year over year last month was 2.9. now we're back to the 2.4 area do you have quick general thoughts on the one-time pop in wages? was it a one time off? >> no. i think there will be more good news on the wage front if you say high wages are good, especially here in northern california when we will have to rebuild from all the fires obviously, there's a delayed response people can't be put to work immediately. it will take half a year, maybe even a year until all the permits are there. that's the problem with slow government, but there will be increases in wages very strong, especially up in northern california. >> i'd like to hear that, but don't like to hear it based on

the broken window kind of economic theory. i'd rather see real, organic growth let's move on. do you think today's job report in any way impacts the rising interest rate, the hike side of the equation, especially considering when you have a new fed chairman you should get ratified, so you will in the form of jay powell february of next year? >> i think we're still in a normalization phase on the federal reserve, it's a catch-up phase. at the moment they are still very stimulative they have to get back to normal, so they've got to keep on their path, and the sooner they get there to normal rates, the better it is >> what are your thoughts on jay powell generically, you know, we've all heard he's a consensus builder, he's not that fond of overregulation, which thank goodness, but do you have any other observations you would care to share, sir >> well, i fully agree with you. here's a consensus builder he has been going along with the

janet yellen federal reserve model. he's never dissented, so i think overall it is steady as he goes. i think the most interesting question will be what, if janet yellen decides to stay on the federal reserve board as a governor she can stay there until 2024 if she wants to that would be an interesting pair >> all right now let's build on this a minute many traders on this floor and all of my sources understand not all market signals are as legitimate as they used to be. however, this flattening curve is making everybody nervous. in your opinion does the flattening curve alter the fact that the fed's proactively raising rates on the short end and other central banks and lower rates overseas continue to keep ours soft so the curve's going the wrong way? from the fed's palate anyway >> well, the flattening curve

for even an inverted curve is not good news usually for the economy. i'd say maybe we have an exception here, because the overall structure of the yield curve is still very, very low. if you get a short rate in the 4%, 5% range, that's when it means the fed is stepping on the brakes and that means the economy will be slowing down but i don't think we are there right now. >> excellent thank you for your thoughts, bob, always interesting. carl quintanilla, back to you, sir. >> this morning, rob gronkowski is here at the nyse. the new tech name he is getting involved with when "squawk alley" comes right back. well, in 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.

his family. his steinway, which met a burst pipe. so grant met his insurance: you are caller number 12. which didn't quite cover the steinway. but what if he'd met pure insurance? owned by members. he'd have met: lisa, your member advocate. who'd introduce him to gustav, a temporary address, and help him get tickets to the mozart festival. excuse me, grant likes beethoven! uh, the beethoven festival. pure. love your insurance.

a new augmented reality app is launching soon, combining emoji and hologram technology. the company gained support from apple cofounder steve wozniak and big names on the grid iron joining us this morning at post 9, rob gronkowski and mojiit founder. turn to you first and ask you to explain to viewers what this is. >> mojiit is a virtual expression message like snapchat, but with a custom avatar that looks just like you that you can customize from head to feet. >> how did you get involved in this

is. >> well, jeremy and i have a mutual friend, so we got to know each other and decided that -- to team up it was such a great idea he wanted some personality, wildness into it, to express, because it's an expression, it's an expression app. so i just thought i'd fit well, too. what's so cool about it is being able to dress your avatar. that's what i like being able to dress yourself to express yourself, which is huge. >> digital version of yourself >> what about the hardware has advanced to the point where this is now possible? >> it's so advanced that i'm going to tell you right now, apple can't do this, facebook can't do this, snapchat can't do this, none of the biggest competitors can mimic this technology right now >> and the hologram projects from the phone on to what? >> any surface >> any surface >> yes >> and this would be sent to someone? >> so i could hold up my phone, what's going on, send it to you, then you would receive the message and i would rise up from

the floor in front of you in avatar farm. >> projections on how many people will use this in a year or two >> so our last company that i was involved in we built into facebook to 1.9 billion users and everybody today uses the facial filters and animation i invented i think this is going to be invd it's going to be much bigger than that. we're driving traffic to mojiit.com pause we're take the first 50,000 pre-signups and less than a month. >> gronk, talk business. a few months ago we had gronk ball from brook. >> brookstone. >> a fun product this is fun, too how do you decide what to get behind and put your brand behind >> you get a lot-of-ideas every single day i've got a good team behind myself that helps me out big time, my family members and we've got a lot of things and you want to pick what you're real el into the gronk ball with the speaker. love music and love waking up. have the speaker, blue toorkts boom, ready to play.

this year you get to create your own hologram and avatar, put your views on it, build the character how you want it to look like. all my friends all the time, we're in a group tar, sending their avatar that looks just like them, super neat, super cool and now i can spend my friends a 3-d avatar and they will be mind blown. >> are you the decider or other people say this is a gronk product or this is not >> the people that -- the people that know me personally know what to bring like to my awareness. >> he's not going to go for this. >> got to be fun. >> not going to go for that one, but, i mean, you want to pick and choose, too, there's a lot of things thrown at you all the time you want to pick and choose on stuff that you like a lot, too. >> interesting, because we're talking about the new iphone. >> the new what? >> have you heard about it, the x? >> heard all about it. reminds me of the animojis.

>> again animojis cannot do what we can do and i urge apple to pay attention because once that integration most likely will happen, we'll make the ix happens ten times better. >> what do you mean the integration, want them to buy you? >> you know. >> there's worse things, right. >> they got plenty of cash. >> i just think that this product will be amazing inside the iphone and amazing inside of snapchat and facebook messenger. >> before you go, are you tired of being asked about take a knee >> is it overshadowing what should otherwise be an exciting season >> it is an exciting season and just really focus on what i can do to help out the team every single week. >> do you think it's hurting the business of the nfl? >> i think the whole thing is just negative -- he likes to

focus on things that are positive like this app. >> focus on positivity. >> just for the viewers, and we hear this a lot from them. for those viewers and fans of the league who say i can't watch, i won't watch because of this, what do you say to them? >> who wants to comment thon >> i don't real very to comment on this. >> it's not really appropriate for him to talk about. >> one last try, on just ratings alone, we, for instance, had cbs earnings last night and the ceo talked about there's games spread out over a wider difficulty abuse, different pipelines and that means that some ratings are going to be down year on year, over a two-year stack, does that concern you or not >> people are always going to watch football >> i'm just trying to put on the best show i can every sunday. >> it shows. >> it shows. >> thank you >> thank you guys for coming in. >> no problem. >> mojiit is the app. >> when we come back, a lot more on the action. dow is up 8. we'll talk about pandora losing

a quarter of its value and the verdict is in, aleast according to nielsen we'll tell you why netflix monked to win over viewers with its second season of "stranger things" in a minute. you always pay your insurance on time. tap one little bumper, and up go your rates. what good is having insurance if you get punished for using it? news flash: nobody's perfect. for drivers with accident forgiveness, liberty mutual won't raise your rates due to your first accident. switch and you could save $782 on home and auto insurance.

call for a free quote today. liberty stands with you™ liberty mutual insurance.

netflix's "stranger things" season two a big hit public results released, including the stats behind the second season of the netflix thriller the data shows the season's first episode was watched by 15.8 million people within the first three days that tops the 15 million people who watched the premiere episode of the most recent season of "the walking dead. so putting netflix in a category of any other type of blockbuster, i'm not sure if it's apples to apples, but either way, i mean, this is some pretty tasty fruit viewership-wise. >> nielsen can't measure tablet, phone or laptop so add that in, and these numbers are even bigger, but i guess this is really the first peek at the numbers, not that netflix is going to confirm it probably. >> amazing just because after the facebook earnings because we saw some

statistics on market return if you bought f.a.n.g. from the facebook closing low and netflix is the biggest winner. >> i went back to the "game of thrones" season finale, 16.5 million, so the numbers really are comparable with some of tv's biggest blockbusters, premiers and finales. >> pretty phenomenal. take another look at apple of course, the day after earnings that beat expect aksz not only on the fiscal q4 results but also on the q1 holiday quarter guide. also the day that the iphone x is available in stores and in stock. the stock is it up 2.75% at this hour if it goes above 174 say and poo cents then it hits $900 million in market cap. >> billion. >> billion, not used to saying 900 billion about anything, yes, $900 billion in market capital, even though it was there briefly after hours in the start of

trade. heady territory. >> star burks as we said earlier, very nice upward reversal after being down in the pre-mark currently up better than 3%. we talked to kevin johnson earlier this morning with cramer and david. they shade they won't see the high ground in the premium coffee market even though they have lots of competitors from blue bottle all the way down to dunkin and mcdonald's. they do cut their long-term earnings target from 15 to 20 and now 12, and what cramer said is a graduation to a different kind of grower you can't necessarily grow with those numbers at that scale. >> i wonder what the next advance for starbucks is technology-wise. this is a company that was among the first to put wi-fi in stores that was curious at the time it worked out they are among the first to try to do wireless charging. now that is sort being taken up certainly by apple, the first phones with wireless charging. what do they do next, whether with virtual reality or something else that might drive traffic and perhaps after the results? >> i think that's an interesting angle on it.

stocks overall, guys,ing are hanging in there the dow has gone positive here so we continue to watch the market reaction to what was a decent jobs report, right, and wonder how much focus there should on the lack of wage growth. >> what are we from the tax bill to the apple chair ways and means starts. >> the battle begins. >> and the lobbyists are out in the force. >> let get to the judge and "the half." ♪ >> and welcome to "the halftime report." i'm scott wapner on this friday. astounding apple the company crushing earnings. it market cap closing in now on $1 trillion, all this as the new iphone hits had the market today. what the top analyst on the stock is doing to his price target today we'll find out in a moment with us for the hour, josh brown, steve weiss, brothers george nan and kate moss shares rights afte