. chrs! that's confident. but it's not kayak confident. kayak searches hundreds of travel sites to help me plan the best trip. so i'm more than confident. forgot me goggles. kayak. search one and done. good morning it is 8:00 a.m. at amazon headquarters in seattle. it is 11:00 a.m. on wall street. "squawk alley" is live ♪ ♪

good wednesday morning welcome to "squawk alley." >> you're out numbered >> there's a show like that. stocks off the lows, we are still in sell off mode as china announces $50 billion in retaliatory tariffs on american products more on how it impacts the economy, first check in with senior economics reporter steve liesman who is all over it >> thank you economists hitting out on the theory of the trade case criticism comes after commerce secretary wilbur ross reiterated on "squawk box" that trade deficits are a big negative for the u.s. economy >> we have had a big problem with trade deficit for a long, long time.

several presidents got us into this big deficit this is the president who is going to get us out of it. he is determined to go forward and this response should not have surprised anyone. the response to the 232 tariffs was quite proportionate. >> here's the economic problem for the administration as growth increases, trade deficits increase. the administration wants growth, has been somewhat successful achieving that as growth rises, so does the trade deficit. this is the current account. those are buckets of gdp growth. at 2 to 3% gdp growth, trade deficit is 3.6 and grows more when we are 3 to 4% growth moody's economist explains why this happens >> you have bigger trade deficits when the economy is strong because we're buying everything, buying everything we produce and everything everyone else produces.

you have big trade deficits when the economy is starting. >> here's proof from the import side if you look, when the economy contracts, imports contract, down by 8.2% and look what happened when gdp is over 4%, you have import growth of 7.6% very simple math as we grow more, we import more. he points out bigger fiscal deficits mean bigger trade deficits we need to borrow more from abroad here are statistics for you. president trump came into office, deficit was $510 billion in annual rate january grew 15% increase why? because we grew more and that's good, carl >> steve, quick question for you. i get it we grow more, trade deficit grows more, we buy more. how much of that is the fact that it is a stronger dollar when the u.s. economy is stronger >> dollar plays a role in it but if you look at what i did,

the data i crunched there was over a good period of time, would probably x out dollar effects other than broad effects over time. the dollar will play a quarterly or year to year role over times i look, which is mostly from 2000, 18 year period i crunched data, should take out the dollar effect. it will play a role. bigger story is when we are wealthier, we buy everything we have here and buy stuff from there too. >> steve, thank you. steve liesman. >> more on the market impact, bring in senior portfolio manager and washington crossing adviser. good morning, guys good to see you. >> good morning. >> you were net cautious, well in advance of the volatility we have seen the past couple of months there's a large school of investors who believe it is bluster and brinksmanship and

chance to buy boeing when they couldn't before. why are they wrong >> we felt there would be reratcheting up in interest rates, that would lower valuation, there was tightening of global liquidity. i would down play the china things u.s. isn't irrational, there's no desire for trade war, but there are imbalances to be corrected. u.s. needs to be paid for technology exports, for example, and as the rest of the world grows, trade balance should improve. i would downplay trade aspect. but moving towards the exits, that's real. >> looking at the stock markets move in reaction to potential for trade war with talk of tariffs levied on both sides, does that not seem like a real risk in terms of the global economy and what it can mean for the u.s. >> the market peaked january

26th, way over 2800 on the s&p 500 index, before the trade thing cropped up initially there were concerns about interest rates, central bank policy and dollar liquidity, and short volatility trade that had to unwind trade only exacerbated existing trend. it is a fact we look at but not the only one. >> you seem more bullish about the over all economy, kevin. how much risk do you see in the tariffs? >> ultimately a mixed bag. there's short term effect because of a lot of uncertainty and you're upsetting status quo. when you have retaliations in kind as relates to trade, it is disrupting more than one industry, this industry or that industry, has depressing effect on real value of household incomes in the united states, has inflation effects, also has effects on china a lot of the excess savings in

china showed up on our shores as this persistent trade deficit. that's had some negative effects. the relationship with china which had been so beneficial for so long, there are no problems emerging from it, including financial fragility. this is i think a normal push back it may land in a better place with more balance globally, that would be a bullish thing for the long run outlook >> and kevin, where do you see the most opportunity now >> well, interestingly we are seeing more opportunity in fixed income area as yields backed up. some of the data has been fading in terms of strength and momentum and growth and profits, for example, as it came through february and march, so we've shaved back equity exposure tactically in february and in

march, but we're still somewhat overweight equities in general and then within that, we like companies with strong balance sheets, low debt, increasing dividend, steady cash flow, utilities looking interesting, consumer staples look interesting as a value play, and those are the places we would be looking. >> on one last note on that momentum, adp today, auto sales, isms solid, a week and a half from bank earnings do you see a slow down in expectations for earnings out of q 1? >> no, but i think what we did because we discounted the tax cut quickly, that also went into the stock market as well and what we have been pushing since first quarter is more of a defensive trade. if you look at long banks, short utilities, that was reinflation, growth, earnings, surprise, acceleration trade that's rolled over

we are talking more about staples, utilities, and other defensive equities in the list since last quarter >> on that note and the fact you're getting into rate sensitive names again, where do you see the ten year treasury going? >> the ten year treasury is greatly restrained by the interest rate repression in japan at 0% out to ten years, and europe, where the german yield is not 50 basis points for very long. when you have a pull on the bottom, floor, essentially pulling the ceiling of u.s. rates, it is hard for the ten year yield to get to 3%. >> kevin, barry, thanks, guys. important to hear from you both. appreciate your time as always see you soon >> thanks for having me. >> thanks. we continue to get new

details on yesterday's shooting at youtube headquarters. aditi roy has the latest. >> reporter: it appears the alleged shooter that opened fire at the youtube headquarters was a disgruntled youtube user they say the 38-year-old had her own youtube channel and also had her own personal website where she posted videos on topics like veganism recently lashed out against youtube saying the company was discriminating against her videos by reducing views she might have been referring to changes to monday at theization. it makes it harder to make money from ads they were addressing criticism over questionable content on the platform the incident left four injured and sparked reaction from silicon valley and the tech community in general

we heard from jeff bezos he tweeted horrible and truly tragic day for youtube and google we are pirk awishing the best fl those effected jack dorsey said i can't imagine what our friends at youtube are feeling and dealing with right now. he also tweeted about gun control. and another saying no words to describe how heshl it was to have an active shooter at youtube adding we will come together to heal as a family youtube offices are closed, parent company google is offering grief counseling for all employees. back to you guys >> thanks so much. certainly will be a story to follow. how will trump's tariffs impact tech. looking at the nasdaq, dow down

47 points. spotify first outside investors joins us as wall street makes notes of the unusual direct listing. more "squawk alley" straight ayitus st wh ♪ today is a good day to make a plan for your financial goals and your everyday ones too. pnc can help. we'll be with you every step of the way. let's start today.

you know what's not awesome? evgig-speed internet.. when only certain people can get it. let's fix that. let's give this guy gig- really? and these kids, and these guys, him, ah. oh hello. that lady, these houses! yes, yes and yes. and don't forget about them. uh huh, sure. still yes! xfinity delivers gig speed to more homes than anyone. now you can get it, too. welcome to the party. nasdaq, negative for the year barely once again as the trade war fear grips the markets. moments ago, new economic adviser larry kudlow walking back the president's hard line on tariffs, sounding optimistic

about negotiating with china and the possibility that tariffs won't be implemented with technology squarely in the crossfire. question is what's next for big tech joining us, roger mcnamee. good to see you again. >> great to see you, carl. >> for a tekch investor, is it what we have been used to in the last couple weeks or is it in addition to that, trade. >> carl, i look at this and go we have several different problems, right? the trade problem at this point is not directly targeting tech but it is hard to imagine if the tit for tat continues that we don't eventually get to tech that causes me to be really nervous. then watch trump's moves against amazon and that's terrifying the notion that a president of the united states would select a single company and for personal reasons and then say things that are factually not true, that is

incredibly disturbing. you see it in the stock. for me it is like i look at this and go we don't even get a chance to look at fundamentals now, we have all of the externalities. >> if this results in more chinese purchases of semis or more money for usip, you may say this was worth it. >> i would agree if that's how it turned out. remember, we could have had the trans-pacific partnership which would have gotten us better intellectual property protection and we walked from that. >> but china wasn't involved in tpp, right >> sorry >> china wasn't involved in tpp. >> no, no. but remember how tpp worked. it was essentially creating a unified front in dealing with china, so it would have made it everybody's trade would have had to go on that basis, and so i look at this, you can do bilateral things with china, in their interest to have good relations with us, there's a lot

of stuff goes back and forth i am listening to wilbur ross talk about how deficits work and effect the economy and think if people like that are in charge of the economy, we don't know what they'll think history is simple. what you want is stability right now, we have uncertainty as a market investor, uncertainty is a terrible thing. tell me what the outcome is, get to equalibrium until then, we have to all be really alert. >> roger, looking at the president's tweets about amazon, what do you think the impact of that will be what kind of regulation or changes will we see in response to that? >> i have absolutely no idea what i can tell you, i do go to washington roughly once a month is there is more openness and interest in antitrust regulation as regards the tech industry than has existed in memory i think with good reason the truth is, there's been no regulation the last 8 or 10 years of the tech industry in

particular, and they adopted business practices as amazon where they have horizontal and vertical integration amazon is looking at the best sellers on the site and create their own product in competition with people selling on the site. that would not have flown historically if we were to have that kind of regulation again, it would be good for the economy, and not bad for amazon so i don't know how that will turn out in the end, i would like us to take a more growth, more innovation oriented, more entrepreneurship oriented model where we put restraints on the biggest guys to let new things come along right now, entrepreneurship is being harmed by the success of the biggest companies. >> speaking of the biggest guys, see facebook shares down another 2% plus today. you have been a big critic of facebook we know zuckerberg will be testifying next week on capitol hill what do you want to hear him say? >> you know what i would really

like to hear them say is that they're going to provide investigators with all of the data from the russian interference of 2016, that they're going to genuinely work with the investigators to find out what really happened, that they're going to reach out to the 126 million on facebook and 20 million on instagram who are touched by it, reach out to them personally with a message that explains what happened shows them all of the examples of the stuff they saw, explains that hey, we can't have foreign countries interfering in our democracy, and then reminds everybody that the purpose of the interference was to suppress votes. so the best way we can fight interference by anybody is for everybody to go out in 2018 and vote in mid term elections as long as everybody votes, the impact will be very small. >> do you think that testimony next week is the first step toward real regulation of facebook >> i have no idea. again, i think the attention span in congress is pretty short now, i'm not counting on regulation coming out of it.

what i am counting on is for people inside the company to recognize that things got out of control and that they need to take responsibility as americans for protecting our democracy i believe people inside facebook are capable of solving the problem. they haven't shown any interest in doing so yet, but knock wood, they'll do that now. that's what i hope >> roger, thanks so much >> my pleasure when we come back, the most powerful man in the world versus the richest man in the world a look at what president trump and jeff bezos bring to the table as their very public feud plays out. another check on major averages at this hour. red arrows across the board, dow down 171 points, s & p down 11, nasdaq down almost 28 points we'll continue to bring you the latest on the steep sell off stay with us polk county is one of the counties that you don't think about very much.

it's really not very important. i was in the stone ages as much as technology wise. and i would say i had nothing. you become a school teacher for one reason, you love kids. and so you don't have the same tools, you don't always believe you have the same... outcomes achievable for yourself. when we got the tablets, it changed everything. by giving them that technology and then marrying it with a curriculum that's designed to have technology at the heart of it, we are really changing the way that students learn. and i can't wait for ten years from now when i get to talk to them again and see, like, who they are. ♪

welcome back to "squawk alley. as china announces new tariffs, products like clothing and shoes remain off the list for now. retail concerns remain around consumer electronics, televisions, home appliances for more on the impact, we are joined by former sacks chairman steve satoff great to speak with you. >> great to speak with you. >> when i go to the store and go shopping, it is amazing how many things say made in china on them we have a long way to go before we see potential tariffs in place on either side, there's a risk it could escalate further given how beleaguered the tech sector has been, what's the risk >> this is a big risk for consumer economy two-thirds of gdp is the consumer the consumer is pretty healthy today. if you look at retail sales in the last quarter, we're growing about 4% anything that increases price to

the consumer causes risk to growth i look at this as another tax on the consumer we are making progress with tax reform the economy is healthy if we have the tariffs, you'll see risk to growth rate, you'll see job losses our estimate five jobs lost for every job created in the u.s. as a result of this >> and what does this mean in terms of consumer electronics, television, home appliances, all the other things that are moving back and forth on the trans-pacific trade route. you mentioned it could we see an actual impact in terms of what consumers are paying or does this divert more dollars to stuff made closer to home >> absolutely it is going to increase prices. a lot of items you can't produce at home, don't have the capability takes long lead time relative in terms of being able to build

capacity to do it, and may or may not make sense to build capacity, depending on labor content. i think you are going to see price increases. if you have a 25% tariff on an item relatively low margin, it will be substantial price increase and will hurt demand. >> steve, a lot of what you're saying rhymes with what retailers were saying about border tax back when legislation was written on the hill. this is completely different this is the executive branch and it will involve a long period of waiting, public commentary, wto rules. will the retailer's voice be as effective this time if this is all for real >> look, we view the border tax as existential threat to retail. i think this will be a real threat depends what categories are included, electronics, appliances are part of this, auto types of products i think it will be a real threat

and retailers will rise up and express our concern because what it is doing is risking growth of the economy and risking momentum that we have now >> steve, i wanted you to stay there. we want your reaction to the feud playing out between president trump and amazon ceo jeff bezos robert frank has more on that. robert >> this is the ultimate battle, most powerful man in the world versus the richest man in the world. not since roosevelt called rockefeller the biggest criminals in history have we seen the white house so directly take on a single corporate type. so we had fun. looked at what do each of them bring to the fight on the money front, bezos worth a lot more, 37 times more than president trump. bezos worth $115 billion he lost 12 billion in the past two weeks. still 150 billion. it is about the base of support.

trump's basis voters bezos has his prime members, last count amazon has 80 to 90 million prime members. that's 18 million more prime members than trump voters. lots of people could be both market cap government has a budget of $4 trillion, around 2 million employees. amazon has market cap smaller, 652 billion, but around 566,000 employees. on the political weapons front, the president probably has the edge he has the ftc, justice department, postal service, pentagon, and the irs. bezos spent more than any other company last year on lobbying. amazon spent $13 million in 2017 he personally owns "the washington post. the post says bezos has no role in newsroom or story decisions, but president trump calling it the fake news "the washington

post" being used as lobbying weapon against congress. so far neither bezos or amazon responded to any of trump's tweets only have bezos' 2015 response to trump's campaign attacks in which bezos tweeted quote we still reserve him a seat on the blue origin rocket guys, back to you. >> robert frank, thank you for that >> steve, what do you think, president trump versus jeff bezos or something bigger like sales tax and where e-commerce fits into the debate >> i think it is a bigger issue than the president against jeff bezos. i think you have fundamental disruption how shopping and retail is happening in the united states. happening over a long period of time amazon has been the primary beneficiary, it is the largest player this issue of internet taxation is at the core of it because internet retailers that don't

have domicile in a state don't have to collect taxes. what's happening is this is not -- people are supposed to pay sales taxes. states are losing about $25 billion in noncollected taxes. amazon actually collects taxes on products that they buy and sell they don't collect taxes on the marketplace, meaning that retailers who sell on amazon and ship directly to the consumer. the issue here is that retailers who have a brick and mortar presence, say a hardware store in town is collecting taxes, and some internet retailers aren't collecting taxes it isn't an amazon issue amazon has been advocating collection of taxes. there are internet retailers that don't want to collect taxes. the supreme court is now getting involved and looking at whether or not the ruling in 1992 is accurate for today's environment. the internet was just getting going then now the internet is a major

force. brick and mortar retailers that don't play on the internet are at a disadvantage to the internet only players that don't collect taxes. that could be 7, 8, 9% in taxes. that's an advantage an amazon seller -- this is a big issue. it is bigger than trump versus bezos. >> yeah. quail versus north dakota, as you mention arguably impacts wayfair, ebay, etsy, i could go down the list here big discussion i'm sure we'll have you back onto talk about it more. thank you for joining us steve sadove when we come back, spotify is now a public company. the first outside investor joins us in a few moments, the dow is down 133 nike gre, he wenotrsell off the

lows "squawk alley" back after this so no matter what you trade, or where you trade, you'll only pay $4.95. fidelity. open an account today.

i am courtney reagan here's your cnbc update. paul manafort, president trump's former campaign manager is back in u.s. federal court, asking a judge to throw out the criminal charges filed against him by special counsel robert mueller, arguing mueller overstepped his authority. day three of jury selection in bill cosby retrial.

two are african-american all said they read media reports about the case, haven't formed an opinion about guilt or innocence. five ospreys arrive in japan. they'll be deplioyed the next several years. most indoor tanners don't get screened for skin cancer indoor canning they estimate causes more than 400,000 cases of skin cancer each year let's get back to "squawk alley. >> thanks. seema mody has the european close. >> hi. most stocks are in negative territory. we are off lows. the trade jitters are center stage in europe as china fights back against the white house by

outlining plans for tariffs on u.s. goods technology is the worst performing sector for a second day. the sector now down 9% since march 13 automakers under pressure, led by bmw, volkswagon, china big destination for european car makers copper prices suffering the biggest decline. miners are taking a hit, china is the world's top consumer of copper big news there as china tariff news takes a toll on boeing shares in the united states, european rival airbus is experiencing a modest decline, down just about 1%. stock still up 12% so far in 2018 let's step away for trade. there's one specific stock in focus in your, wpp advertising giant says it is investigating personal misconduct allegations leveled

against long time ceo martin sorell accusations include possible misuse of company funds. he rejects the allegations, shares down 2% morgan, sending it back to you >> thank you seema mody over two hours in the trading day, major averages are in the red, off session lows as they digest tariffs between the u.s. and china joining us, head global market strategist paul christopher and b riley specialist thank you for joining us >> thank you. >> paul, start with you. all of the major indexes are lower, dow transportation average, exposed to the trade situations we have the commodity complex with the exception of gold sagging. fears from investorsoverblown or does it make sense to you >> no, fears are overblown

there's some ex-trap ladies and gentlemen going on one round of tariffs, each side, now another round. now from here we go to five or ten and then a trade war that would be very negative. we don't see that happening. these are modest, small tariffs, not much economic impact, not much inflation impact. investors have to figure out how tariff strategies will evolve. we don't think it will have major economic impact. still looking for good earnings this year for stocks. >> certainly we have a lot more questions and more time in terms of tariff time line. you have until may 22nd for businesses to raise issues then another 180 day period at least until potential tariffs are in place on the u.s. side. looking at seven and a half months if everything goes according to headlines we have today. art, what do you think >> it is interesting, came into the market this morning, felt

like i was in cast a blank a, saying i am shocked to find gambling going on. see the market respond to something we should have expected we saw reaction to steel and aluminum tariffs from china, took awhile longer, this was immediate reaction, equal, dollar for dollar for what we placed tariffs on their goods. now we have to sit back, remember this is probably part of a negotiation process, not fun to watch hope to get to a better place in the end of this. i think what's going on now is the part not fun to watch. to paul's point, the market can get to worst case scenario instead of thinking perhaps we get to a better place, perhaps there's middle ground and become better trade partners with someone who has not historically been a free and fair trader. >> if this is just the start of negotiation, where do you think tariffs end at the end of negotiation? >> that depends on how open both

sides are to negotiations. the real crux of the issue for the u.s. is the fact china doesn't buy much from us they could assuage those concerns by making token purchases. the other issue, how u.s. firms have to turn over technology to chinese counterparts to do business in china. that's probably an internal policy change that the chinese will have some difficulty with, but at the end of the day, they sell more to us than we sell to them it will be more pressure on them to make that internal change i think we will get negotiating concessions from them. if that's the case, expect a tariff problem to die down >> so art, in light of all this, we heard about reflation, does that make sense as we see today, flight to consumer staples, folks piling back into bonds where do you put your money now? >> that's a great question three things to think about.

depending how long it takes, drew out the time line efficiently, depending how long takes, flight to safety may be with us awhile if we get beyond this particular tariff negotiation process in short order, that will make a great deal of sense and economic fundamentals behind the market in earnings and economic data continue to be robust. second thing that's also important is when we have down drafts that we have seen, and there have been plenty of them, it creates opportunity technology sells off, all of technology sells off nvidia has a bad story, or tesla, the entire sells off. there are great value opportunities presented to us. we may get to a point where active management has a renaissance and stock picking wins the day that's probably as important to remember right now, we have to go through the sausage making part of the process and none of it is fun to

watch. >> tech was actually higher today. gentlemen, we have to leave it there. thank you for joining us >> thank you. tesla is not the only component that's green now more "squawk alley" in a bit rick santelli, what are you watching today >> i'm continuing to watch volatility that seems to be associated with trade issues of the day. what we are going to talk about, is it possible to address fair trade without undressing the economy, after the break ♪

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.

coming up on the halftime report, are we witnessing the end of the trump bump for stocks what the escalating trade talk means for your money, whether the game has now changed as some are suggesting. the bond king, what he makes of the markets and why interest rates are falling. and the come back on athletic stock. name and unusual activity on the halftime report. carl, see you in about 15. >> sounds good let's get to rick santelli hey rick. >> hi carl this is turning into a real thought game with regard to trade. anybody that has any presence in stocks, direct, indirect, active trader, manager, tech guru, holding lots of stocks, whatever

it is, you're an unhappy camper when what's going on with trade effects your portfolio there's e-mails i have today from very, very aggressive traders and they are really unhappy. but let's take a look at it. striking a balance on fair trade isn't easy, but it actually makes me think of a strike back in the late '90s, ups had a strike that ended up costing ups about $600 million, in today's terms, about $950 million what was it all about? 160 to 180,000 workers on strike a long time. why were they on strike. they wanted better benefits, higher wages, they want a more fair deal. and for that they were willing to risk not getting paid, there's been strikes where people get fired, think of reagan in 1981, and ultimately wasn't good for the strikers,

having no money, wasn't good for the company while it lasted. but in the end, in hindsight afterwards many workers if not all thought it was worth it. they got a better deal and overtime short term negatives they experienced were outweighed by the medium to long term benefits can this be the same i think it can you have to sacrifice. many things not included in the cost of what the president is trying to accomplish, albeit in a messy sort of way is to ultimately, ultimately make things better. and finally, president g spent a lot of time with the president when he was new to his term. what i find fascinating, he is a reformer now he has unlimited tenure as president. corruption is not good for global trade many also think this could president, mr. president g, with the save face route here

he could indirectly deal in unfair practices and count down on corruption at the same time we don't know the strategy, just know the immediate negatives back to you. >> interesting day today, rick get ago news alert >> the fda commissioner calling on internet providers and social media companies to do more on the opened crisis. saying in a speech, they find offers to purchase opioids all over social media and internet, including twitter, facebook, ye and others he is concerned they haven't been proactive in rooting out illegal offers to distribute opioids from platforms saying he thinks everyone can do more. he says they're not taking practical steps to remove opioid

listings on sites and social media. fda is soon going to host a summit with ceos and other senior representatives of these companies and others to try to find solutions we are looking for more information on that. we'll bring it to you when we get it back to you. >> thanks, mega. coming up next, a man recognized spotify potential early on what the first outside investor saw that others didn't more "squawk aeycongp.ll" mi u you know what's awesome? gig-speed internet.

you know what's not awesome? when only certain people can get it. let's fix that. let's give this guy gig- really? and these kids, and these guys, him, ah. oh hello. that lady, these houses! yes, yes and yes. and don't forget about them. uh huh, sure. still yes! xfinity delivers gig speed to more homes than anyone. now you can get it, too. welcome to the party.

buying inconsistently. dow down 179 the ndx has irflted with green arrows more "squawk alley" in a moment. duncan just protected his family

with a $500,000 life insurance policy. how much do you think it cost him? $100 a month? $75? $50? actually,duncan got his $500,000 for under $28 a month. less than a dollar a day. his secret? selectquote. in just minutes, a selectquote agent will comparison shop nearly a dozen highly-rated life insurance companies, and give you a choice of your five best rates. duncans wife cassie got a

$750,000 policy for under $22 a month. give your family the security it needs at a price you can afford.

take a look at spotify shares trading down nearly 6.5%. a general partner and the first outsider investor. he led the company's series a round. pj, thanks so much for joining us today we understand you did not sell any shares yesterday you're still holding on to your stock. >> correct no, we are firm believers in the potential of spotify going forward. >> it's interesting, right now, spotify is the leader in the streaming music space, but there is growing competition when you look at apple, apple music, amazon and google and pandora, all these different players, how concerned are you u about competition? >> it's important that also apple for instance, they are

very strong in their device ecosystem, but weak outside of it it's been a part of the outset to be pervasive and working all kind of devices. with the apple's global market share up about 20%, that limited their reach. if you look at the other competitors, amazon is very, very strong, also in the u.s., but much weaker elsewhere. so i think spotify has the benefit of being more do b abl and also working across devices in a way that none other does. >> this was a big part of our debate yesterday what's the path they reach what is the right move u >> i think the model has been fine tuned for several years now. the idea is that when new music

comes on board, a likelihood of that and then over time convert tog a paid user, that's a very, very predictable path and people in the growth team work diligently on having that further. >> so someone's on board and they can tell quickly whether or not they're going to be b a paying customer. >> exactly i think the path we chose was described in the listing documents that the likelihood of someone to become a subscriber over time is like more than 50%. >> it seems like video is dpoipg to going to be new battleground you had a taylor swift exclusive this weekend how important with these new formats for spotify's growth >> i think the just having music will not be a dif rench warater

and having content in the frm of videos, exclusive interviews and podcasts and such is probably important part of that continued to differ in the way they've done up until now. >> what about becoming a content creator? there's so much room out there now with record company landscape kind of decimated in the last decade or so. i can't imagine that spotify or apple music or one of these other streaming services wouldn't be considering becoming a company essentially. >> i think it's pretty clear, also, looking at the listing documents, that the strategies about creating marketplace where you can actually as an artist, reach spotify directly it's not so much spotify being original content creator rather than creating a platform for the artist to go directly to spotify and intermediate some of the big

players in between that have basically dominated the industry for the past 70 years. >> i want to get your take on where the stock's trading now. i think at 139 last i checked. reference price had been 132 all over the place given the fact it was a direct listing sort of seen as a grand experiment here at the new york stock exchange does this price make sense to you? >> it was well-known and discussed frequently that the direct listing route was probably inherited much more volatile and that since none of the founders at least had signalled they wanted to sell at this point in time, i think they can't care about whether it was high or low volatility and it was something that really worked for them. and we supported that. if it's the right place currently, market is always the

best jobs are back >> thanks so much for joining us we hope you'll come back and talk more about the stock. zpl watching these levels. gold was up 14 bucks now up a buck. soybean about 3% boeing was 311 now 322, so we'll see if that cares through the to the afternoon. to the judge and the half. welcome. our top trade is this the end of the trump bump stocks are under pressure. trade war with china escalate ing and have the once stock friendly policies of the trump administration come to an aend and will the bull market be next with us, joe, jim, jon and aaron brown. we begin with the markets. stocks are off their lows. china retaliating with tariffs offor their own.