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good morning and welcome to "squawk alley. carl and jocn have the week off. they will be back though joining us this morning as well, walter isaacson. nice to have him this morning. and a lot to talk about. more red flags for facebook, twitter and other social flat forms. for example this time for former president barack obama in an interview with prince harry, obama warned against the irresponsible use of social media. take a listen. >> the dangers of the internet is that people can have entirely different realities. they can be just cocooned in information that reinforces their current biases the truth is that on the internet, everything is simplified and when you meet people face-to-face, it turns out they are complicated. >> people are comply it ca llic

apparently that's what we hear. twitter and social media and facebook and everything else, the question is about regulatory in particular sort of come to mind, not to mention of course the meddling by the rush shacsin the election in 2016 and what if anything we're going to see in terms of increased regulation and/or at least the ability of these platforms to sort of police themselves. >> and the power of them, it's full any, but the bull case on all is that it is so effortless, so addictive, you can't give them up and that is also why they are getting all this scruti scrutiny axios talking about mark warner maybe having these briefings about how they were designed to be addictive so does that create perceived liability. >> this definitely strikes mes a sort of the big cultural

potentially financial fending on what the regulatory environment looks like sort of question for social media, but on the flip side, i do think it is kind of -- he brings up a good point, former president obama, but i can't help but think about that ben rhodes feature in the "new york times" last year where he talked about the eco chamber that was created in traditional media around the iran deal and so i can't help but think that there has been sort of issues on the traditional media side when you look at that feature, but then social media has sort of pushed sort of created this other area of people trying to tweet against it >> walter, what are your thoughts on this of course obama lending his voice to this i wouldn't say necessarily fully critical course, but certainly one that is joined by many over the last few months >> well, what president obama said was deeply reasonable i think it is wrong to put it in the context of, oh, he's aiming at donald trump's tweets no, he is looking at a deep

systemic problem with social media these days in which social media combined with the anonymity of people online, spreading false news, totally made up news, and also being extraordinarily provocative and opinionated in ways that are not based on real dialogue but done for propaganda reasons, we're getting into a place in which social media has polluted democratic discourse that said, i'm reflectively against any government regulations of speech or media i think we have to fix this ourselves instead of having congress pass regulations on facebook and twitter >> and walter, i mean that sort of seems like -- the point you just made, where do you draw the line between making sure fake

news doesn't proliferate and fake information doesn't proliferate and censorship is ai for example the answer to doing that >> no, i think the real answer to doing it is having platforms in which people have to take responsibility for their own words. on these platforms where you can be totally anonymous, people can just make things up and be paid to be working in a troll farm in saints petersburg or macedonia or someplace putting out fake news if we had certain platforms like facebook was originally intended to be, in which you you had to be verified, people had to know who you were, i think that leads to better discourse. but sometimes it's just not an easy fix to problems and i don't think that we can have a bunch of congressional hearings and say boom, we're going to fix social media by having ai scan to everybody's tweets and decide which ones should be deleted

that will never work >> speaking of social media, guy, elon musk took to twitter to ask his 17.1 million followers how he could better improve his auto and his solar power company also one user saying he needs to start working on a pickup truck and musk's response? i promise that we will make a pickup truck right after the model y. we've had the core design/engineering elements in mind for almost five years am dieing to build it. he has promised the model y by 2020, but also expected model 3 by this year and beyond if you followed it closely, walter, but that has been delayed he's not anywhere near what they had originally promised. he does use social media very effectively. i wouldn't call it fake news, but he does seem to promise things that don't quite show up anytime soon

>> main challenge for tesla is actually increasing its production to the level it said that it was going to be producing its regular cars and i think that sometimes you can divert attention from that by deciding you're going to go up against ford with an f series of trucks or something you know, this is a make or break year for tesla i love what they are trying to do to push battery technology to a new level because that is the big breakthrough we need in our lives is better batteries, but they can't do it if they can't get their production lines to put out the regular teslas at the rate of, what was it, 5,000 the week that they said they were going to do so i think that is the big deal. and i think it is fun to talk about a big semi truck and how will make a personal semi truck, but that seems against the brand a bit. if you are a ford buyer of an f

series ford truck, you don't have that sort of attachment to a tesla brand that people that are buying roadsters might have. >> i wonder how long investors are willing to allow tesla as a company to be effective to be this trojan horse to bridge us to this battery powered future or to perhaps even get us to automated driving. right now you have to trade on the enthusiasm of drivers to sell teslas today, but you have the founder saying yeah, but that is just this middle period before we're all on automated driving anyway >> you know, all great innovative societies need visionaries. steve jobs was a deeply spiritual visionary. elon musk is a visionary so it is great to have him around but you also -- vision without execution is hallucination at a certain point, you have to execute on your supply chain, your assembly line, turning out

the cars at the rate that you said you could >> we do need guys like this around the hyper loop, he has the -- >> spacex. >> spacex of course. >> he needs to send one of his teslas to orbit with mars. >> of course, the trip to mars we never mention solar city anymore which is a part of tesla. i think that company has had a rough go of it not sure if the tax breaks will still be in place. >> it certainly wasn't top of the list to preserve those tax breaks >> no, it wasn't >> i just wonder at what point you got the model s with the production delays, you got a model y, a tell asemi truck, pip truck, the cool new shingles for the shol soolar company, the hy loop and at what point is he overextended >> i think the way to keep from being overextended is if you get

the s series car turning out like crazy and starting to make a profit at this point i'd like to see something make some real money, real revenue, and that is really the s series car that would -- if they can get the production right and sales right. >> and finally bringing things closer back to home now, new york city is implementing a new fee for ride sharing services, part of a plan to ease traffic congestion right now there are about 68,000 cars associated with ride sharing services in new york city compared with just 13,500 yellow cabs. seattle, portland and chicago have already implemented similar fees this is uber's newly minted ceo looking to transform that company following a string of scandals i know it's been a while since you were a regular resident

here, but i remember bloomberg tried -- >> oh, no, i live in new york part of the time and i'll say up front that bar a barney oig harfford is a friend of mind i was totally impressed with the appointment of help as we talk about execution of tesla or uber, what uber needs right now is to execute on the numbers and thing barney harford is the exact right person to understand the cost and the people involved. so he will be a good partner with dara. i think when it comes to the congestion thing, sure you might want to put a fee on cars, but i don't think you should distort the marketplace by saying we'll put a fee on ride sharing car, but not taxicabs or personal cars if you want to put a fee on cars, put a fee on all cars and

let the market sort it out but don't just pick on the ride sharing programs to hit with the fee. >> yeah, it will be interesting. congestion pricing has been around for some time of course it started in london failed in new york city as you know a number of years ago under mayor bloomberg. thousand with the subw now they are trying to raise revenue through that but we'll see. walter, thank you for joining us this morning >> thank you the major averages actually on modest gains this morning as investors look ahead to 2018 and the possibilities of a repeat for the record high returns and record low volatility of 2017. bhob bob pisani is on the floor >> they say 2017 gains can't happen again, but why can't they many trarders say we can't have

20% returns because it is not normal average is 8%. they say we can't keep hitting new highs. we had 62 all-time highs this year that is even in years when we hit new highs. the average is less than half of that they say we can't keep doing that and they say we can't keep up with the low volatility, only 80s da eight days where they moved. and we can't have these huge differences between sector performances so technology best performing sector outperformed energy and telecom by over 40%. but why can't we stay at the highs? look at this, earnings are not peaking out and if anything, they are going up thanks to the tax cuts and the complaint the market is expensive? that is true, but the global economy is expanding. this is exactly the time people could justify a high multiple and staying high as for the low volatility story? it seems clear that absent a big outside shock, we have a low

volatility period that is likely secular. long temp. caused by low rates, etfs, whatever and finally about everyone who wants to dump technology and buy cheap sectors like energy, maybe. if you believe though in the global economic expansion and earnings continuing to expand, that would logically argue for growth stocks which are still technology names back to you guys >> thanks, bob when we come back, apple's legal headaches just beginning over its iphone slowdowns a day after bearish reports about iphone demand and tax reform, oil prices, and drones we're watching the top trends for the transport secretatorsec. and healthy correction or bursting bubble? e p ypcuenesto a ceo of one of thtocrtorrci

there is no rest for the weary. on top of reports that apple x sales could fall below expectation, lawsuits keep piling up over the deliberate slowdowns. there are now eight lawsuits seeking class action status.

for more, principal with the norman nielsen group, and he was employee number 66 at apple back in the early days. bruce, good to have you in this morning. >> thank you >> first of all, what is your read on this issue that has now become controversial about apple kind of using software remotely to they say of course enhance the performance of older phones, but users say that it is slowing them down? >> well, it is slowing them down and the reason for it is the batteries no longer have the ability to maintain peak power for as many hours as people use their phones apple's failure in this case, which is typical of apple, is they kept it all a big secrets if they allowed you to check your battery, if they allow you to see your battery was slowing down, it was causing them to have to slow it down, you would have the option of going and buying a new battery instead, there is just this mysterious slowing of the phone which after decades of software

upgrades, slowing things because the code just gets more and more complex, people just assume that the old phone can't handle the new software so it is once again apple keeping everything a big secret because that is just their natural inclination. it's gotten them into eight lawsuits >> and of course it also does feed people rushing to the cynical swview that it is not jt to preserve the usefulness but i wonder what you think about the afternoon tight for t appetite for the newest models hard to know if the reports are verifiable about slow uptick of the highest end models, but how do you think the cycle looks for apple? >> i suspect it is good. this happens every 90 days we went through this 90 days ago where turns out apple sales were

slumping and then of course they broke all the records. what apple does and it is a very deliberate strategy is they line unenough com p up enough comb pponents that th won't run out of part. and then when they get to the point of where they have a clearer picture of what the maximum number of sales will be, they cut back on their orders. this not only ensures that they always have the parts they need, but it also ties up production capacity and keeps the companies from offering that capacity to other cellphone companies. so it is kind of a double win for them >> bruce, i'm kind of curious about the ownership model with iphones. there was a time not that long ago that iphones were subsidized by the mobile carriers and that is really completely changed, they don't subsidize anymore. it is now all installment plans. how much do you think that factors into iphone sales as people focus on the x and the

new phones >> well, i imagine it does factor in. but on the other hand when your monthly payment drops from $60 to $20, you can afford to pay $40 a month for your phone or whatever so it is a different model in some people are suggesting in a apple should actually be leasing phones a lot of us have signed up for the new phone a year plan which for all intents and purposes we're leasing except that there is a legal ownership in the contract butit is a different model in the early days, you would think twice about spending $500 to buy a telephone that you can carry around with you, why would you want to do that. but now people understand the model -- the value and it didn't seem to be as much of a problem as i thought it would have been. >> yeah, and it does seem as if investors are trying to get used

to that idea that maybe you'll have a smoothed out update cycle. bruce, thank you very much for your time this morning >> sure. and still to come, the price of ripple is surging right alongside rival crypto current city bitcoin we'll speak to the ceo of ripple is what is behind the recent run up [lance] monica, it is absolute chaos out here! gale force winds, accumulations up to 8 inches... ...don't know if you can hear me, but [monica] what's he doing?

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welcome back transports underperformed the broader market, but the story has recently flipped will that tiffin continue in 208 i look a look at the driving forces expected to play out in the new year in 2018, the economy will propel freight volumes to new records spurring more murn spurring mergers and

infrastructure spending. electric vehicles, automation, drones, even block chain for trucks all in the works but new federal regulations will have the biggest impact coming into the new year, commercial trucks must be electronically tracked and railroads will have to install new safety tech, many won't be ready second e-commerce escalation. there will be more planes to move more packages as fedex, u.p.s. and amazon all grow their fleets more mergers focused on the last mile of delivery and more big stuff. literally. as companies like xpo logistics and jb hunt deliver furniture and other large items that can clog networks. but what shomer e shoppers are g more of. and third, labor shortages warehouses, railroads and shipping docks will also feel the pinch as a tight labor market leads to shortages. a particularly big issue next holiday season when companies may not be able to find all the

seasonal help they need. certainly we're already starting to get some early indications of those labor shortages and a tight labor market impacted peak shipping season in the last couple of weeks. so we had the report out of the "wall street journal" yesterday that u.p.s. was pulling its corporate staff into the field with less lead time to get all the packages delivered in time for christmas. joining us now for more on the transport sector as we head into 2018 is managing partner ever broton capital donald, great to see you >> great to see you. how are you doing? >> i'm doing great, thanks one of the things that we didn't get to in that package but is certainly in ocus, tax reform. how is that going to play out for the sector >> as you are well aware, it is a very capital intensive industry and so they will be

able to bonus the depreciation as they run through buying new locomotives, new airplanes, et cetera but in the case of the xpo logistics, the fedexs of the world with a global reach, they can bring back profits earned overseas without penalty >> and we've got crude oil hovering near 2 1/2 year highs wti hit 60 bucks a barrel. how should we look at energy in 2018, how will that affect the bottom line? >> our long term view is that there is a permanent cap placed based upon the efficiency of fracking but we're very near or at that cap already. but that said, transportation industry is really revolutionized itself and everyone is better at collecting a more complete fuel charge, so they are less affected by higher rates of fuel. >> and in terms of technology, something i just touched on in that playbook for 2018, a lot of

technology taking root here. we have the electronic logging devices regulation that just took effect last week for trucking for example positive train control which will be in all of the railroads or supposed to be by the end of next year. >> we'll see >> also drone delivery potentially for packages and some of these other technologies what do you see as sort of the bhegest driving force in terms of tech shifts in 2018 >> well, technology is indeed going to be sort -- continue to be a huge source of both opportunity and challenge for the industry the opportunity is that by tracking all of those trucks you can pre-plan what they will be doing tomorrow and the next day. the challenge is that they can't cheat the log book anymore they have to complete the 11 hours of legal work that they can do within a 14 hour window and then they have to sit still for 10 hours that is the law. and with the electronic logging device, i'm not saying you can't cheat it, but it makes it

incrementally more difficult to cheat it but you get better efficiency, starting to offer futures on transportation moves you get block chain sharing of information and so it'sier to plan your supply chain as a result >> and you mentioned some of the benefits of the lower corporate tax rate and accelerated de3r50erks any potential pit fall there just in terms of companies deciding to add a lot of capacity or any other kind of unintended consequences? >> well, problem with capacity

is labor it is also the limiting factor i begin to worry when trucking companies start to talk about how they are able to find enough drivers because it means that those people that have no alternative jobs out there, testify lost t they lost the job at the factory or construction site and they say i can always drive a truck and that means the economy is slowing. i like it when trucking companies are struggling to find drivers because it means that the economy is white hot. but the big looming issue is at what point do we have autonomou trucks one is being tested in nevada. there is a driver sitting there,

but the truck is driving itself. >> it will definitely be something to watch in 2018 and beyond donald, thank you for joining us and have a happy new year. >> same to you and let's get right over to seema mody with the european close. >> just as we see weakness in tech stocks here, it is the same sector under pressure in europe. check out the apemsuppliers overseas moving lower in reaction to reports of slowing demand for the iphone x. shares of ams down 7% followed by dialogue semi conduct tore and st micro a different story for iwg, the workplace as a service firm soaring after confirming that it has received a takeover approach from brookfield asset management and private equity firm both from canada, that stock up more than 27% if we shift the conversation to

autos, china based automaker has bought an 8.2% stake in volvo. and already the owner of volvo car group which is a completely separate company from the truck maker. shares of volvo moving lower erasing earlier gains. and arcam is up sharply on news that general electric announced that it will raise its stake in the 3d printer maker to about 95% from 77%, ge buying arcam shares from elliott and polygon. and interesting move and a number of of european companies reacting to u.s. tax reform, barclays expecting a write down of more than $1.3 billion on its annual post-tax profitas a result of the new law. royal dutch shell says it sees a charge of up to $2.5 billion for its fourth square earnings and bmw expecting a positive impact on net profit for 2017.

and we got to finish with miners getting a lift as copper prices jumped to levels not seen since mid 2014, this after china asked its largest producer of the metal to temporarily stop production for environmental reasons. mike, back to you. >> that copper move getting a lot of attention thank you very uch let's keep it at hq and contessa bluer has the erbrewes update american airlines apologizing to two black nba basketball player after they were tikicked off a plane in dallas after they were accused of stealing first class blankets winter weather is slamming the uk, authorities issued weather alerts after snow and ice hit large parts of the country leaving thousands without power. and growing number of women appear to be using pot during pregnancy. the study of moms to be found marijuana use among pregnant

teens rose 13% in 2009 to 22% in 2016 the rate also jumped for women ages 18 to 24 rising from 10% to 19%. harley-davidson hopes teaching more people to ride will get them to buy more bikes the company says it is expanding the number of dealerships that offer a riding academy right now 245 stores offer the program, each one determines the price to charge students, but i checked, the closest to cnbc's headquarters charges 425 bucks for a three day course after that, what you spend on your hog is entirely up to you >> maybe they should make that applicable to a down payment or something. >> that would be a great idea. >> not all that complicated. all right, contesscontessa, thar much straight ahead, we'll show you the tax reform winners and losers, including which companies are outlining major ans atanfft eir bottom line.

cryptocurrency roller coaster icontinuing this mornin, it broke less than 15,000 after selling below 12,000 last week joining us is the ceo of ripple. ripple has surged more than 500% this year. brad, nice to have you here. first of all, just tell people what ripple does because it is not just the currency, you are

also very involved in block chain. >> absolutely. so ripple sells a block chain technology to banks and other financial institutions to do real time settlement between banks. so today if you wanted to send $10,000 to london right now, the fastest way for her do that is to drive to newark or jfk and fly it there our view is in a world of the internet, you can stream video from the space station, you should be able to real time settle to banks. >> and banks are getting a board with this? there is a lot of money attached to those slts settlements. >> we have over 100 banks working with ripple around the world. i think the vast majority of banks like 99.9% are paying other banks like jchlgt p mopmor citibank to make that settlement, so they are excited about this >> and there is a belief that you could transform the global payment system over time, although then the alternative argument is you need it

centralized. that it actually benefits some efficiencies i would assume you come down on the latter >> anytime that you can do something without that central counterparty, you will reduce friction which is measured by time, cost, speed. so by removing that and going direct from point to point, you can stipulate going from the bank of david, bank of morgan to bank of mike, you just go directly to the bank of mike >> so if the immediate opportunity is efficiencies in this area, the actual kind of nuts and bottoms sort of plumbing of the financial system, how does that relate to the value of the ripple tokens or bobit coibitcoin? >> it's a great point. and one thing we have to remembert bitcoin? >> it's a great point. and one thing we have to remember bitcoin >> it's a great point. and one thing we have to remember bitcoin >> it's a great point. and one thing we have to remember value is drived by its utility. what problem is that solving how big is that problem. how many customers do you have no question that there is a lot of hype in this system

for ripple, we use this digital asset called xrp to settle liquidity needs between banks. so today there is $27 trillion parked at different banks around the world so they can make payments between each other. our view is you can use a digital asset like xrp to do that in real time because xrp has been so firkts, efficient, settles it in about three seconds. >> so just passes through currency for that period of time >> that's correct. >> but it is a buck 12 there are 38 billion of them out there? >> there is actually 100 billion units. ripple the company owns 61%. so when people look at the market cap, some sources don't look at the whole 100 billion. so the market cap if you include all, it would be about 115 billion. >> of the units out there. >> correct there is 100 billion units times where it is trading. >> so is it frustrating to see the mega move higher on bitcoin and all the focus on bitcoin

this year? given all the bubble talk and everything else we've seen specifically. >> yeah, no question on 2017 is a euro crypto. within that, the lead-into the segment says xrp is up 500%. xrp is actually up 20,000% this year it is the number one performing digital asset for the year and i think a lot of that is because we have real customers it is an asset that works very efficiently at scale where you can do massive number of transactions per second, very, very quickly, compared to bit coin is much slower. so bitcoin is upcomparison i thp has dramatically outperformed that >> i want to understand your economics. you're selling a service to banks and they are paying you in dollars? >> correct i grew up in the midwest my mom and dad still live there. i explain to my mom we sell software solutions to banks and

other companies. >> sounds like a lot of other companies. >> easier to get your head around but the technology that we sell is block chain technology software, but embedded in the payment floes, we can eventual a digital asset to enable low cost transactions xrp costs a fraction of a penny, but bitcoin costs about $40 per transaction which frankly is about what you pay today through swift. >> so what was the long term strategy for the company would you come up with the publicly traded company, would you want to see contracts tied to xrp what is the vision there >> so ripple is very much focused on solving a payments problem flp is problem. our view is we can solve the problem at scale there are certainly other use cases for xrp in other kinds of transactions even securities trsks transactions we certainly want to see companies succeed in those verticals as well. and given that we have a rolot f resources, we can help those

other companies be successful. >> yeah, right now that is a great deal of money we're talking about at your disposal if you can sulactually sell it. >> absolutely. we own 61%, trading around $1.15, so over $60 billion of value. >> okay. what are you going to do with it >> we are going to invest in the ecosystem to both help accelerate the adoption of ripple's technology, we announced in q3/q4 that accelerator program. very similar to what visa did in the early stages of the visa network. used the asset to -- still early days 100 customers is great >> but a tiny percentage of the financial transactions -- >> for sure. for us to achieve kind of long term success, we think about an internet of value. how do we enable value to move the way information moves today. it goes back to that example of

the airplane you have to fly the money there? it is crazy today how we move money. >> we could sit here for a long time >> this is fascinating >> my head would probably explode at some point, but i'll keep trying to understand all this thank you. >> thanks for having me. and still to come, it is the app apple recently named the iphone app of the year and josh lipton is live at its hq josh >> reporter: that's right, morgan this app is now seeing 50 240urks n50,000 new downloads every day. so what is we'll tell you the moment a fish is pulled out from the water, it's a race against time. and keeping it in the right conditions is the best way to get that fish to your plate safely.

bacteria can multiply to high enough levels that even cooking it will not destroy all of them. it's definitely the most important thing in my business. how fresh is the fish? where it comes from? how it gets here. the more i know, the better. sometimes the product arrives and the cold chain has been interrupted, and we need to be able to identify where in the cold chain that occurred. we took our world class network and we developed devices to track environmental conditions. this device allows people to understand what's happening not only with the location of that asset, but also if it's too hot, if it's too cold, if it's been dropped... it's completely unique. we ship fish, beef, poultry, vaccines, insulin. this is about monitoring and protecting everything we ship. i catch all this amazing, beautiful fish and then once it's out of my hands, i have no control over what happens to it.

if you have a sensor that can keep track of your product, it keeps everybody kind of honest that way. it's really all about the network. you are looking at trillions of transactions a year. not too many companies in the world can even scale to that type of volume. who knew a tiny sensor could help keep the food chain safe? food has to be fresh. it's that simple. right in the heart of the was in his financial crisis, and saw his portfolio drop by double digits. it really scared him out of the markets. his advisor ran the numbers and showed that he wouldn't be able to retire until he was 68. the client realized, "i need to get back into the markets- i need to get back on track with my plan." the financial advisor was able to work with this client. he's now on track to retire when he's 65.

having someone coach you through it is really the value of a financial advisor. today the $60 a barrel battle line for oil and what it means for the energy stocks. our thul one onumber one oil an be with us and what to watch for in the financials in the new year and john inn is seeing options the hotel industry back to you. i think we're overdue to have you standing outside in negative 20 degree weather >> true story, i saw car exhaust freeze in the air and come to the ground love williston, but i'll go back in june. >> okay. fair enough. turning now to taxes, we're

finally getting hard numbers regarding the impact of tax reform among the winners near term at least, chubb which said it will welcome a bottom line boost in the fourth quarter. bmw will see upwards of $1.1 billion added to 2017 profit, though they did add that the effect of a lower tax rate including potential negative effects in 2018 said can't currently be quantity filies fi with reasonable certificate tied there are some losers here as well namely some of the big banks citi warn that had it could take a $20 billion hit. and shell announced it would take a hit the takeaway many of these forecasts are tied to valuation of deferred tax assets which companies can log during unprofitable periods to offset future tax payments those essentially future credits

towards tax are worth less on paper after the corporate rate reduction. that iswhere you are seeing some of these big hits mostly upbeat longer term comment tak commentary so employees and/or wage hikes including nbc parent, comcast, at&t, wells fargo, just to name a few and boeing allocated $300 million towards investments as soon as this bill was signed >> we should point out the erosion of the deferred tax asset. that's non-cash also that's non-cash. >> kind of a cosmetic thing. sore of in book value, but the market knew that it wasn't a hard tangible book value, so right now we're in the accounting adjustments phase of figuring out what this means on paper and how it changes behavior corporate behavior is the interesting partthis year. >> absolutely. >> we kind of felt like we would get a wave of the bonuses/announcements and it just stopped good for one day. >> sure. >> and you could make a political calculation, at least

for a few of them. i hate to sound skeptical but there were certainly people who were doing that, whether it came to at&t, you know, so many businesses that have business in front of the government, whether it's an at&t or a wells fargo or a parent not to make light of it. they were great for workers. i know everybody is liking it, but it didn't go on. >> yeah. i wonder if the pr value is diluted by everyone saying it's not that big of a deal. >> i know. >> when we come back, apple, amazon, disney, netflix and add das have a new celebrity shareholder. details on who that is when "squawk alley" rurps

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well, it is that time of the year of for new year's resolutions. for some the goal will be to practice meditation, but the good news is there's an app for that our josh lipton is at calm headquarter in san francisco josh >> reporter: that's right, david, and here at headquarters, remember, this is the app that apple just recently named its iphone app of the year, so what does it do it offers a series of guided meditations, david, where users like your loyal technology correspondent seen here opened up the app, closed their eyes and worked on being more mindful. the app is free, but like a lot of apps in this space, it does require a subscription if you want to take full advantage of all the content. now, apple highlighted apps that foucs on mental help and mindfulness such as calm and its

rival head space as a true breakout trend in its app store in 2017. other apps in the space include inside timer which offers 8,500 guided meditations and 10% happier which is inspired by the best-selling book of the same name, so what explains though this sharp rise in the popularity of meditation apps? calm's co-ceo says it has to do in part with the election of president trump. >> reporter: i think donald trump is not to everyone's taste, and i think he makes some people angry and frustrated and so i think learning to be more mindful and relaxing and calming people has -- has proved to be particularly popular this year >> reporter: now to date calm has already massed 16 million download it's seeing 50,000 new downloads every day. the company is on a $40 million annual run rate. it has raised $1.5 million from

investors. now its competitor head space has seen 21 million downloads. companies such as google, unilever and linkedin include the app into their benefits packages head space has now raised $76 million from high-profile investors, including briar capital, linkedin's jeff wiener and jessica alba this is part of the broader health and fitness category. the top three apps, fitbit, sweat coin. >> a very mellow josh lipton i might add. >> all right "squawk alley" is back in a moment speaking of top downloads, take a look at today's top chart for free apps. amazon clearly a beneficiary of a lot of holiday gifts we'll be right back.

taking care of a family member can lead to plenty of questions. fortunately, there's a place to get the answers, for them and for you. find articles, tips and tools from experts and others who have been in your place. the caregiving resource center at aarp.org/caregiving. feel that? that's the beat of global markets, the rhythm of the world. but to us, it's the pace of tomorrow.

with ingenuity, technologies, and markets expertise we create the possible. and when you do that, you don't chase the pace of tomorrow. you set it. nasdaq. rewrite tomorrow. and i'm like that's so sweet, but then i opened the next box, and it is stock to amazon where he got the gift cards, stock to netflix, stock to apple and the little head phones, adidas stock and disney

stock. >> that was kim kardashian outlining had a number of christmas gifts from her husband kanye west noep noticeably absent from there, twitter and facebook even though they are both huge social media gurus. >> i would have been happy with the first stocking and gift cards. >> that's it for us on "squawk alley. "halftime report" starts now sully? >> all right thanks, dave, morgan and mike. appreciate it. welcome. i'm brian sullivan in for scott wapner once again. your top trade this hour, the battleground for oil $60 a barrel we are there again crude oil has surged 14% in just 90 days, but is this time really for real, or are we in for another drop your halftime team today jon and pete najarian and jim lebenthal. energy the worst performing sector of the day,