contrarian indicator, and some media have hyped apple is hitting $1 trillion today. >> look at that 12 zeros right there. >> yep i mean, business week doesn't existt 1200 anymore.

welcome to "the closing bell." a very good afternoon to you we'll get to all of those stories in just a moment, but first want to check in on the markets. the dow swinging a massive 240 points in today's session. it was down 213 at the low today. it was pretty much the open, but a solid intraday rally has us down solid the high of the day was up 26 points but you can some green on the screens. >> part of that story is apple it's our top story hitting the $1 trillion milestone. first time we've seen that ever.

>> when -- they valued it at $5,309 as walter isaacson reminds us in his biography of jobs, fast forward to the day and history is made at 11:48 a.m. eastern as apple becomes the first publicly traded u.s. company to reach a $1 trillion market cap throughout history the company has consistently redefined modern technology, up ending our expectations and relationships with these devices from imacs, to ipods to iphones. and the company has evolved with those products back in december 2005 it was actually the ipod that accounted for more than 50% of revenue now less than 1% instead it's the iphone that accounts for nearly 60% of company sales.

apple has sold more than 1 billion iphones. also taking advantage of a booming service business including the app store, apple pay. since then the stock is up nearly 300% as cook introduced new products like watches, speakers and wireless earphones and returned more than $275 billion to shareholders. there are challenges for apple ahead. analysts say -- >> the maturing cycle has been a bearish argument for a long time joining us now to discuss about apple's historic milestone today. jason, i'll start with you you're more bullish on the company. the momentum is there. is the fundamental story enough to keep apple past this trillion dollar mark? >> yeah, we think it is.

if you look at the most recent quarter obviously the iphone business is now a staple business esps are going up dramatically given the new device line-up we're looking at fantastic growth in the services business which carries higher margins, and we think it's the new growth story for the day. and obviously the capal returns program puts a nice bow on it. we continue to think with that and the cheap stock apple is something you can own for it long-term. >> ed, talk to us about your view on the stock and why you're not so constructive. >> i agree in the short-term this is great milestone for apple and the results were strong but the core problem you're facing is it's driven by the phone. so you've been flat or down on phones for three years running, which is not a stunning development, but it's not a good sign because your services business is not going to grow if your

phone business starts to shrink. used to be the apple of its time if you go back to 2005 when apple was doing ipods. we've covered for 20 years, we've seen this cycle before they're not in any danger today, so it's going to be a long ark but it's troubling to see their unit volumeerize starting to falter, and they've got to do something about it >> is that troubling that unit volumes are falling at the same time average prices are rising >> our view has been that analyst and investors that are overly concerned about unit volume growth are missing the big picture. if this is just a gdp business, if hardware devices is just a gdp devices going forward and right now 15% of the installed base of 1.53 billion giess or so

if that penetration goes up and asp goes up, this is going to be a ten of billions for apple in the next four years. that assumes like i said very little growth in devices >> but jason, the services business, a large part of it is apple music. we know from the likes of spotify and pand dorra that's sfil a loss making business despite being relatively mature. it's good few years old already. >> yes some of that is apple music, you're right but cross selling matters in the stickiness of the ecosystem is not just paying for one s subscription but paying for multiple descriptions. we're talking about phones, tablets, watches, ultimately connected home if apple pulls

that off, which we think they will we're talking about cars, a whole host of touch points with the consumer this is consumer business, and, you know, consumer business like pepsi are getting pes in low 20s. should apple be getting a pe with 15 or less with the business we just described so it doesn't make sense to us and we're pretty comfort wbl the growth story for now >> without the buy backs, will we be seeing a share price less supportive when they go away do you think that could be a catalyst for a pull back >> i totally agree the pe would go up but only when you start returning the growth values that don't have a growth story anymore. it's a good business, and it'll last for a while it's not going to collapse but i think you're probably going to see a pull back >> gents, thanks very much let's continue our market

discussion joining is carol pepper, steve grasso and rick santelli at the cme in chicago steve, let's starts with you if we didn't have this euphoric pop from apple would we be seeing declines in the market today? >> i think so. you have to couple that with tesla, too it's a risk on trade today you have risky assets like tesla trading higher, shirking off a lot of the trade concerns. but if we didn't have that we wouldn't have that run in the market today >> do you worry that's sort of a signal of some sort? >> it usually is you don't get that many times to shoot the top, but i think there are a lot of bears shooting at that trillion dollar mark, equal amount of bulls shooting at it i definitely think you'll see a pull back from here.

>> carol, what about the trade fears? do you think they're right take agback seat today and this week? >> i think they're going to disappear the closer we get to mid-term elections i think the strategy has been to make them look very scary and make them disappear as deals are negotiated i think republicans are certainly going to want them off the table. and another month or two trade will go way and we'll see strong earnings -- >> it doesn't look like they're going away but getting -- >> they're losing their effect on the marketplace >> i'm just trying to figure out why. >> because in the end they're not going to happen. once we get towards the election cycle the republicans are certainly not going to want to see these tariffs affecting the u.s. economy and we a tool for the democrats in the elections

companies are doing well they have a lot of cash to invest, and i'm a big growth bull as you know and will continue to be so. >> you make it sound very simple i'm not sure the president's thought process is quite that simple we shall see, of course. >> not to mention president xi >> exactly rick, let's come to you. i'm interested today we've seen this 9-0 vote of this monetary policy of the bank of england to hike rates, and the pound has fallen sharply after that. what does that say about the likelihood the dollar strengthen might abate from here? >> i'm very impressed. listen, part of that of course is the expectations of the tightening and traders getting in front of it but it really doesn't explain it it was a bit of a route today especially if you look at the longer term chart and how close the pound is to really breaking out on a down side in an aggressive fashion even to euro currency and you take the dollar index.

today it looks like it's going to close somewhere around 95 and a quarter or thereabout. from about the third week in july when president trump was talking about how he wasn't fond necessarily of a strong dollar, to think it's come back and it's going to potentially charge through or test that level again is very optimistic if you're a dollar bull. and if you're a multinational corporation i don't think you'd need to despair. the things that harms multinationals in their currency de jure is volatility. for the most part the word i would use is contain, somewhat like interest rates. tight ranges, maybe some intraday volatility, but not necessarily a lot of close to close vault tilt on the dollar side that might be in the process of changing to more aggressive trade to the up side

>> okay, guys, we'll have to leave it there still to come we're counting down to the cbs earnings score where ceo les moonves is expected to speak. we'll give you a preview what he might say about sexual misconduct claims against him. plus tesla stocks rockets higher today bad news for the bears a look at who stands to lose the most next. and we want to hear from you you can reach out to us. "the closing bell" back after a break. you might take something for your heart... or joints. but do you take something for your brain. with an ingredient originally discovered in jellyfish, prevagen has been shown in clinical trials to improve short-term memory.

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welcome back to "the closing bell." here are the big losers in the dow right now. chevron and j and j. shares of tesla jumping following yesterday's earnings report but it was a following comment by elon musk on the earnings call that really gave the stock a boost. >> i'd like to apologize for being impolite on the -- there

are reasons for it, that i've gotten no sleep and been working sort of hundred, hundred 20y hour weeks, but nunt it doesn't excuse my not being polite >> so humble today's big jump >> musk is apologizing to just about everyone but the short seller, sara and wilf. he tweeted yesterday morning saying, that was in response to einhorn's letter >> this company has been about selling the sizzle

now thatthe steak is here the steak is sort of raw and uncooked >> when it comes to shorting tesla misery loves company more than 35 million shares have been shorted with the short interest now at a whopping $11.7 billion. today's intraday jump means short sellers have taken over $1.1 billion market to market loss on their position thore not seeing much in the way of bided cover orders as most short orders are looking for some kind of retracement first they've been down billions in the past and still added to their bearish positions, guys. >> world of pain today, though we have someone else less than optimistic on tesla shares here. also joining the conversation is dan ives from jbh insights it's

always easy to book a tesla debate because there's so many different views. i've spoken to investors who are still bearish on this. not backing down what do you see here >> two things. one are the gross margin sustainable. in our view they aexhausted a lot of the high end backlog, very quickly and rapidly they're selling high-priced $60,000, 65,000 version vehicles because they reduceed the lead times one to three months. with a higher price target they're getting a higher price margin the concern we have going forward is once the backlog of the high end vehicles, you know, gets exhausted, what is the true level of demand for the 35,000

base model, which is what they have set their goals to which is to introduce a high volume low cost car and there we're skeptical whether they can actually -- there's demand for that price point and whether people are sticking around. >> demand has never been the problem. >> no, i think demand has been the -- i think the argument is shifting more to the demand side because they are not going to have the model 3 base version out anytime soon and they have 420,000 net reservations what percentage of those reservations do you think were people going to buy a car with a tax credit >> how encouraged were you with the earnings call? 15% than the day before? >> this is major step in the right direction.

first up profitability is key for the second half. the obvious big concern here is there a cap raised in the next year so i feel like that gets push further back and now it goes from a production situation. especially given the hard show last quarter i view this as a major step in the right direction. it's still an execution story. >> are you concerned by how tired he sounded on the call clearly we heard it in that bite it was a bit of mumbling and stuff like that. execution is important >> he's obviously a very brilliant individual i think part of the stock reaction is also psychologically the fact he apologized to some of the analyst, the fact that shows credibility, that shows, you know, a level of confidence whereas before he's viewed as very defensive so you've got to factor that in as well.

the other point i do want to make besides the gross margins not being stable in 2019 is the capital structure. look at the capital structure. they have current liability of $9.1 billion, current assets of $6.7 billion they're $2.7 billion in the hole already. their accounts payable increased significantly quarter over quarter. they only are have about $2 billion of cash of which $940 million is deposits. they have $2 million of short-term debt that's going to be due so they basically have $5 billion of account payabilities and expenses plus $2 billion of debt that's due in the current portion of the debt facility so the capital structure to me is unsustainable you have to assume significant amount of assumptions going into 2019 for them to be free cash flow positive. they're going to ship 265,000

model 3s, margins are going to improve significantly, so we're skeptical of that. >>iest looking at the tesla bonds which have been a focus. they're up today, still yielding around 7%. how do you answer those questions about the capital position and the cash situation? >> it really comes down to this profitability trajectory and the model 3 sustainability on production, can they keep this going in 2019? are they going to have raise the market cap on it and right now the next few quarters it's a pivotal six to nine months and a fork in the road that tesla is front and center on. >> quick and final look. >> i'm really skeptical of the gross margin going into next year if the price point of the vehicles are coming down, if they're selling high end vehicles to europe and asia, how

are they going to make profit off $35,000 vehicles they're reducing the cap on those, but they're still quite expensive. >> more on tesla and why one analyst is calling musk's quote the most valuable apology of all-time, head over to cnbc.com. looks like we've got 38 minutes to go before "the closing bell." dow still negative, nasdaq going strong up more than 1% and apple help fueling the charge across the board. up nexttrouble may be brewing in the beer industry the data pointing to changing consumer tastes next plus a look at why you may start paying more for your lemonade >> this is regular lemon this is a lemon that's been throh a orugscching heat wave.

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welcome bang to "the closing bell." the dow is flat but well-off the lows of the day which was down 200 points or so nasdaq is up over 1% let's check in on some individual stock tuesday watch trouble may be brewing for beer makers as consumers favor other beverages like wipe and cocktails. the market research firm detailing the market consumption in the u.s. has fallen shares down around 16% year to

date the trading low by 1.4%. this all comes off an article in the wall street journal saying that people are trying to kind of have more exciting drinks than beer. i have a different theory why ipamerica people aren't drinking so much beer because it's overcomplicated in lots of bars you go to a bar in new york and there's a wine length list selection of beers like 20 to choose from or so just keep it simple. >> interesting because for a while it was all about craft beer >> to pick from all these choices, fruity, hoppy, just give me a heineken >> i'm on the other side i've never liked beer. >> you're just whiskey straight up don't even pretend it's cocktails. >> nike with an overweight

rating to an emerging retail technology company nike is trading almost 2% higher they are underweight footlocker on this technological transformation they like the fact they say nike and adidas initiate underarmor at an equal weight kramer yesterday argued apple should be valued like a consumer company, like proctor and gamble lemon prices have been on the rise this summer and they're likely to stay high for months to come. at a lemon grove in california with a look at why >> it's a beautiful day at underwood family farms in ventura county the big lemons on the tree are on schedule for harvest next

season but earlier a few weeks ago at the tale end of last season there was a scorching heat wave. you can see they're shrivelled up small the one on the left here looks like an olive, it's so tiny. about 50% of the crop was knocked out, and supplies coming in have all stagnated for various reasons. as a result we're seeing whole sale prices going up about 60% industry insiders say they haven't seen prices this high for about a decade or so wholesale prices for a carton of fresh lemons were going from $36 to $39 a carton back until beginning of the june but now between $6250 and $64. ultimately consumers might get squeezed retailers were either passing along those extra costs or

they're just not even stacking store shelves with lemons in the first place, and that's prompted a major distributor to tweet out, encouraging customers to opt for limes instead of lemons. >> if you want a lemon, buy a lemon. if you want a lime, buy a lime but the difference in price is not much >> so for the purests out there you'll have to wait several weeks for those prices to go back down. prices were expected to go back down in about september and october when the next harvest in the region is supposed to take place. >> lemons and limes, very different. >> totally different are we going to have a lemon shortage how bad is it? >> there is a shortage right now because basically what it is, this is the time of year where we're between harvests where we are, this is harvested. ware waiting for the imperial valley down in southern california to harvest. usually during this period of

time we depend on imports coming in for mexico and chile and a g argentina. but right now they're having their own weather issues so we're kind of in a holding period right now >> sara, i guess it's lucky you drink your liquor straight up. time now for a cnbc news update >> federal and state authorities in armored vehicles swarming onto the right patterson air force base in ohio amid reports of on active shooter at a medical center workers were told to shelter in place as the base was put on lock down. >> national intelligence dan coats says the intelligence community remains concerned russia is still trying to interfere in american elections.

>> in regards to russian involvement in the mid-term elections we continue to see a pervasive messaging campaign by russia to try to weaken and divide the united states and the new england patriots have signed wide receiver aaron deckered to a one year contract. the 31-year-old decker has played for the denver broncos, new york jets and tennessee titans let's see how he likes new england. i'll send it back downtown to you guys wilf, sara, back to you. >> sue, thank you very much. still ahead cbs earnings are due out at the top of the hour we'll preview what he may say, that's coming up and later casino stocks are getting crushed on earnings over the past 24 hours, brutal

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welcome back to "the closing bell." stocks have stumbled early on in this session due to china trade fears and heated up rhetoric but things have turned around. positive territory for the s&p up about 0.5%. apple a big part of that story and technology overall having a nice day >> after the bell we'll get earnings from cbs. what we can expect from the numbers and the conference call. >> those earnings numbers are sure to be overshadowed by the allegations of sexual misconduct against ceo les moonves that were reported in the new yorker. the stock has lost nearly 9% since friday morning before that report when it comes to the results analysts predict both cbs's earnings per share and revenue will grow over 6% of the quarter. and on the call they'll be looking for any comments on issues weighing on the stock

including comments on sexual misconduct allegations as well as cbs' legal battle with sheri redstone and it's outlook on digital revenue as well as advertising just this morning reporting that cbs board members learned several months ago the lapd investigating an alleged sexual assault by les moonves prosecutors declining to file charges because the claims were beyond the statute of limitations. cbs declined to comment on this matter but just last night cbs hired two law firms to investigate separate allegations of sexual misconduct made against moonves. the company saying moonves will have no role in this investigation and at the board takes the allegations seriously. now we're awaiting the earnings due out at 4:05 eastern with the earnings call at 4:30. guys, back over to you >> a lot of focus with that.

a long time cbs shareholder. you've said you've owned it more than ten years >> one way or another. >> are you happy with the board right now. >> i think the board was having problems as of yesterday and they've redeemed themselves. they have have very powerful people working with them and i like the inquiry i'm not happy with the idea it took so long but the board i think in the last couple of day has acted responsibly and we'll see how fast the investigation is. but i'm optimistic it'll be done correctly. >> the share price is down since this news first broke. is that resting on the possibility les moonves is no longer the ceo >> i think the share price right now is attractive. and i think the beauty of what les moonves did, and i don't

think there's anybody in my position that would hesitate to say he was probably the best operating executive in the industry he took cbs from one area where it was relying on one single stream of revenue, advertising, and moved it essentially to the cabe cable networks the problem with that, though, is that it's a one trick pony. once he collects these retransmission fees, which is the bulk of the cash flow increase, he's not going to double them again. so that part of the business is going to grow very slowly. and the basic business is probably a 4%, 5% grower but there's a bonus roundabout to be played i think the shareholders of cbs are going to benefit mightily. right now sports betting is going to be legal in three states one of which is new jersey where

the giants and the jets hang their hats and i think other states are going to legalize. and cbs also has the right tuesday the ncaa tournament, which is probably the greatest betting in the country >> and the problem here is it'll drive people watching live >> most of the betting in the bookie shops is done in game, so the viewership of the entire game is going to go up the cbs people are going to figure this out very rapidly and raise their advertising rates significantly because ezthese are a very tough largely male demographic and very hard to reach. and cbs is just sitting on a bonanza and just have to be attractively influenced on the outcome of the stock >> i guess, julia, though, there are two huge uncertainties who's going to lead that company larry is describing into the

future and what kind of company is it going to be at all, is it going to merge eventually with viacom and what's that going to mean for the valuation and stock price here what are analysts saying >> well, analysts have really come out and written notes that directly address moonves and his leadership does moonves have a successor? no, there's no named successor for moonves. it's speculated that cbs' officer would be the natural person to replace him, but the reason the stock is down is because les moonves is cbs he's well regarded for what he's done for cbs, but there's an investigation going on right now. i think investors are concerned about the lack of clarity about what's going to happen in the future not to mention the fact there's this lawsuit with sheri

redstone and her national amusements which controls a majority of the voting shares of cbs. >> larry, just to wrap things off, were you making the point earlier les moonves has already done his amazing work for the past decade now the story is quite simple so whether he stays or goes is irrelevant to the stock price. >> this is not a stock you're buying to because they're making deals. there's probably 20 executives who could run the business but a couple of decades ago there was a similar situation with a guy named fred silverman, and he was replace asked the network lived happily ever after. partly anyone is replaceable these are $3 billion companies, and it's more than a one-man

show >> we'll leave it there. thank you. casino stocks getting crushed today. mgm the latest to report a mess on earnings. up next we'll discuss whether investors are no longer betting on vegas after the bell we'll get earnings from shake shack, act vision, and go pro

casino stocks are mixed today after mgm resorts reported a miss on earnings and revenue reports this morning mgm just the latest to report a disappointing earnings report this week. >> jon taffer joins us for his take on the stake and future of the vegas strip. thank you for joining us so your headline thought on where these numbers have come from clearly very disappointing for all the vegas casinos for the quarter. is it a one quarter effect or the start of a meaningful trend? >> we think it's a one quarter effect remember last year we came off a

very strong convention season, two major fights and this year we're a little softer and it's changed our guest mix. as a result we're in a much more of a competitive race situation. rates have come down a little. occupancy has come down. i think from here it's up. even mow mgm is reporting a drop of 8 to 10 revenue, we're impacting table games, food and beverage and all these revenue sectors. it's good news for consumers it's a great time to visit las vegas. prices are low >> what sort of events are you expecting to bail them out, and when was the last time that major events really drove such a big shift from quarter to quarter in terms of how many people were visiting >> you know, when we do a major fighter in town we're picking up four or five days. and sometimes six days in a

quarter is a significant amount of time. so that increase during that six-day period which is powerful not only in room rates because we're running higher rates, occupancy, but we're driving higher food and beverage activity so when you do that in five, six days in a quarter the quarterly impact can be pretty darn significant. put two of those events in a quarter and we've got a significant factor if you don't repeat is going to affect quarterly earnings >> jon, are you concerned we're seeing a slight slippage in the numbers? typically do you expect the numbers to be very toipight in cycle? is it worrying we didn't have a better quarter >> sure it is. we're concerned about that but there's a lot of activity going on not only the las vegas knights driving more room rates for us, but we're building a new baseball stadium there's a lot of activity.

if you come look at the strip there's cranes everywhere. now with the tax cuts in place there's a surge of new activity, which is going to result in more activities, more attractions and you watch how the bounce back happens as a result of that. the experience just seems to get better year after year, and now it's really fueled to get better >> i wonder what the impact on sports will be we just saw mgm and mga resorts sign a deal together are we going to be able to gamble everywhere? >> we wondered if indian gaming would have that impact, and then we worried are outside casinos and all these other markets, river boats, et cetera but they didn't erode the markets so much they come to las vegas for a great experience, and that experience is really what drives

our two and a half to three days average stay on occupancy. >> jon, thank you for joining us >> it's true i don't go to vegas for the sports book. >> but matt does, your husband does >> he does >> i agree -- >> i think the restaurants are fun. there's nothing like the vegas vibe it's not baby friendly >> it's not baby friendly. i think sort of once a year, maybe once every two years, it's a great trip wave got about ten minutes left of trade we'll of course have the close coming up for you. we are just an hour away also from cbs' much anticipated conference call. we'rmotonge niri the line and of course we'll bring you the latest later on "the closing bell." and seamless experience across web and tablet? do you want $4.95 commissions for stocks, $0.50 options contracts?

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losers in the s&p. they're coming up now. the s&p is up 0.% overall but trip advisor down 11%. wynn resorts down 10%. coming up next six minutes left of trade we'll be back with the closing count down and we are counting you down to the cbs conference call that will begin 4:30 eastern time will ceo les moonves join this call and will he areddss the sexual misconduct allegations against him? we're monitoring all the action for you. "the closing bell" will be right back so they won't be used by anyone but you. the ibm cloud. the cloud for smarter business.

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welcome back to "the closing bell." a couple minutes left of trade let's start with the s&p intraday chart we opened low, very steady improvement and we approach the close up about 0.5%. a great intraday improvement it is the nasdaq that is really outperforming up 1.26% the tech sector up 1.5% compared to the sectors towards the bottom tech right near the top. why because of two stocks in

particular apple up 3%, today up some 9% for the week as a whole. a very good week for apple of course hitting that trillion dollar market cap intraday can it close the session but tesla up some 17% for the week as a whole. as i bring in bob pisani the key focus will be seebcbs of course. >> the important thing today is this whole tariff story is getting less and less traction the low print of the day was the opening print and it was the slowest and upward that's important >>ites remarkable when you consider shanghai down 2%. >> they're taking it very seriously. the major indices are down 7%. second thing is technology again resuming its leadership. remember last week we were obsessed with value over growth? well, that story has kind of

played out some of the value names, for example consumer staples were strong, clorox, that stock trading up and another overall value group the pharmaceutical stocks have also been better ever since lily had its earning report, pharmaceuticals are up there's been raw market participation. this was a very impressive

>> it's down about 9 points as the bell goes, but was of course down as much as 200 early. nasdaq up more than 1% and the major league soccer ringing it at the nasdaq sara, back to you. and welcome to "the closing bell." i'm sara eisen in for kelly evans. wilfred frost rejoining us in just a moment. let's take a look how we finished up the day. s&p closing up 0.5%. dow is trying to inch back up in the final minutes of trade didn't quite do it despite apple hitting the trillion dollar mark and adding 30 opponents points

to the dow russell 2000 small cap index also not too shabby. get ready it's going to be another busy hour for us here on earnings julia boorstin will be bringing us the numbers morgan brennen covering aigs results and josh lippen will have the numbers from gopro. we're about 30 minutes away from that cbs earnings call joining us today to talk about this market is mike san tolly and michael back from destination management leading the dow of course was apple. cf industries was the big winner

on the s&p, trip advisor the biggest loser. apple becoming the first u.s. company in history to hit $1 trillion of the market cap everybody's trying to read into it, mike what does it mean for apple? >> apple didn't keep us in suspense that long finally crossed and closed over a trillion dollars, so that's great. it obviously reflects how big the market is. so it makes sense on that front but also really does reflect how remarkably huge apple is as an economic entity. quarter of a trillion dollar in sales, most profitable company in the world >> stephanie, to what extent do you believe it's been pushed over the line because it was close to the line? >> i think there's no two ways

about it, the quarter was great relative to some other faangs. guidance was supposed to come down, it didn't so that's great. what i think is happening is that apple actually underperformed from the march low until monday or what they reported by 27 percentage points, relative to facebook and netflix and alphabet, all of them on avr. so i think it just lagged and i think everyone was so jazzed up about owning a faang, they were all worried about owning some of the more cyclical technology names, so they all poured into faang. some weren't that good and apple was great. so you can see this rotation i don't know if it lasts or not but the valuation is still pretty supportive. i think that is what's happening in addition to the fundamentals. >> facebook closed up a little more than 3% last time we talked, you weren't worried about facebook privacy concerns you weren't worried about having

to spend a lot to deal with some of the scandals and the issues are you going to walk back your comments on facebook or are you still a believer >> i'm just going to say i was wrong, how about that? i don't know if that's walking back the facebook issue was bigger than we expected still huge cash flow, but you are starting to see some lack of engagement in facebook users, and of course the growth is going to slow. i still think it's a reasonable name, but it is going to go through a rough patch as they really get their footing here around this privacy issue. >> michael, what about your view on apple do you think it's the one to pick of the double a faang names of the moment? >> i like google as well, but i will stay apple is a reasonable purchase the buffet came about apple not too long ago has done very well.

i think stephanie is right in her last comment she made that it's still a reasonably price stock. you have apple floating around with hundreds of billions of dollars of cash, huge growth rate,a services sector going through the roof right now it's a safer technology investment than some of the flier names out there. >> mike, before we move onto tesla, is ama consumer company -- >> it does seem to function more than that way right now. we're not necessarily talking about constant sort of software driven innovation. that's not really where the financials come from i do think it's interesting because apple's fundamentals don't change all that erratically. a day like today it seems why wouldn't you buy it. it's perfect, it can't go down, so you're going to get these swings like this, and then at

some point people are going to be worried about what the supply chain says and is iphone in structural decline >> the peak question has always plagued apple. a lot of doubters who have ultimately been proven wrong >> one thing the company has done well is really transform itself the ipod was 50% of total revenues not too long ago. >> stephanie, one second for us. we've got numbers out of cbs let's go to julia boorstin who has them for us. >> cbs beating expectations on the top and bottom line. revenues coming in at $3.47 billion. just a hair stronger than the $3.6 billion estimated earnings coming in, adjusted earnings of $1.12 per share, a penny better than wall street estimates you can see the stock trading up 0.5% there's no response to the allegations, no comment about the allegations or about the

pending lawsuit with national amusements there is an update here on cbs' digital streaming business saying cbs access and ott are greatly exceeding our expect eggs and now on track to hit that number of subscribers by 2018, and we predict we'll have 16 million domestic subscribers by 2022 they're continuing to grow content licensing to netflix, apple, cbs and others and advertising continues to grow well, up 2% for the quarter, saying they recently concluded a terrific up front. pr perhaps this indicates we'll hear less from les moonves it seems they're entirely focused on the business. it'll be interesting to see how

he responds to the questions >> maybe he doesn't comment on the early statement, but no doubt there'll be questions about it interesting discussion we had in the last hour on this, that the stock is down sharply on the prospect of les moonves leaving. but some people think his toughest work is already done. >> it could well be in terms of cbs' operating business itself in addition to the risk moonves leaves because that makes it more likely cbs and viacom go together and right or wrong cbs shareholders don't like that prospect so that seems to be happening below the surface. >> i don't know where the appropriate spot to acknowledge this is, whether it's quote in an earnings release, if it's at the top of a call. i don't know whether the analysts are going to be gutsy enough to ask questions, but clearly this is what's driving the stock, and these numbers, do they matter? >> i don't think so. the stock is down 11% year to

date and it's going to have an earnings cagr from 16% to 11% in 2019 so if people want to find value in the stock this is it. you've had a huge overhang and have always had the ceo as an overhang he's done a great job at positioning the company relative to their peers the problem is if he goes you have a leadership point, right that's a big deal. back to the mma with viacom, i actually think there's something to that. a billion dollars in cost energies potentially is big, big number i actually think and you marry the two sides, you know, concept and distributions. >> cbs comes out and moonves on its own as an independent is probably less exciting to

investors -- look, this is slow and steady media company, not like there's big swing factors in a quarter like studio results that's all of a sudden going to become a topic of conversation on this call the topic of conversation on the call should most likely be prospects for leadership. >> given he hasn't taken any temporary reprove from his role and given in the past he's always been on the earnings call, he kind of escaped addressing it. if he's still ceo he's got to address the questions. >> it's going to be asked. someone's going to ask and if they don't directly ask about the allegations they certainly are going to say what's going to happen in terms of your future role in the company? they're going to dance around it i agree more and more it's starting to ulpeer it's not only likely but maybe embraced by the market for cbs and viacom to get together in a lot of ways cbs is really flying basically on the optimism

about moonves and his strategy it's really essentially a ceo led sort of excitement in this company. so if he goes i just don't see how it's not going to merge back into viacom, because they're probably not going to be able to find a leader assuming he goes to stands alone. >> only on the media business would you have a 68-year-old ceo with no obvious successor and might have handcuffs despite these allegations. that shows you what it's like. you're betting on the leader in these companies more than most other industries >> we'll take you to conference call for you live to listen to what he says if anything we've got results on shake shack. >> eps on an adjusted base coming in at 29 cents versus analyst estimates of 18 cents. revenue up 1.16 million versus

the street looking for $111 million. basically in line at 1.1% and the company did reiterate its full year revenue and stam store sales guidance you are seeing the stock down more than 6%, as some analysts may have been looking for more in terms of same store sales we saw 1.1% for the quarter, so that may be what's driving shake shack down >> that's interesting. the consensus i got for same store sales was 1.1% >> the stock has done well also there's larger questions whether on a same store basis they really can get any leverage in terms of sales. they're already very crowded and all the rest of it, it's not clear -- >> well, they have an expansion

plan >> exactly >> the stock up, had a great last year as well. >> you have to beat in raise by a mile when you're at this valuation. and both to your pints, you're not seeing operating leverage merchandise i always like that as an investor but it could take a little pause in the near term merchandise. we've got another earnings report >> activision blizzard beating expectations on its top and bottom line. beating ball street estimates of 35 cents revenues of $1.385 billion from the $1.382 billion that was projected. projecting adjusted earnings of 47 cents compared to the 66 cents estimated.

the company leaving its full year guidance unchanged at nearly $7.5 billion in revenues and $2.58 in earnings per share for the career i spoke to the activision ceo who said quote it was a record first half of the year in term of revenue and earnings per share driven with success across our franchises the exciting half of the year is the back half of the year and we're particularly enthusiastic about the momentum we have in e-sports this brings the total number of city based teams for the overwatch league to 14 a source telling me that the price paid for these teams was substantially higher than the last round of team sales

it's worth noting while e' sports is growing we really haven't seen it impact activision's bottom line now much more earnings and analyst reaction to come on "the closing bell." don't go anywhere. yem, we've got more on this busy earnings day for you. next we'll bring you the cbs earnings call live featuring embattled ceo les moonves. you do not wantoisth t ms at is this at&t innovations? t ms at yeah, wow..this must be for one of our new unlimited wireless plans. it comes with a ton of entertainment options. great, can you sign for this? yeah. hey, uh.. what's in that one? that's a shark. new and only with at&t, you can get unlimited data, 30+ channels of live tv, and your choice of things like hbo or pandora premium. more for your thing. that's our thing. visit att dot com.

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watching shares of shake shack, they are moving lower despite reporting an earnings beat just moments ago. joining us now to discuss the numbers. nick, same store sales came in pretty much in line, just above 1% where is the disappointment coming from? >> we also needed the guidance to be raised and that was reiterated without raised guidance from here clearly the valuation is going to be a concern. we need to figure out where

transaction trends in particular are head said on this call i'm primarily interested in that in addition to the margins trajectory for the remapder indf the year by far, you know, the highest company on the model within restaurants i always compare these guys with a small cap, a fast casual burger habit, to me i'd much rather own habit. given invaluation here you really believe these guys can get to their not only ultimate target of 450 units, you have to believe they're going to be able to sustain aubs and no longer restaurant has longer-term been able to sustain 20% with the exception of starbucks >> nick, thank you very much for joining us with that view on shake shack immediately after

the numbers. now, the cbs earnings call is set to start in just a few minutes. coming up we'll bring you that call live and we'll see if ceo les moonves addresses the sexual misconduct allegations against him. at crowne plaza, we know business travel isn't just business. there's this. a bit of this. why not? your hotel should make it easy to do all the things you do. which is what we do. crowne plaza. we're all business, mostly.

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we've got an earnings alert now on aig >> an earnings miss for aig on an earnings basis meaning that it missed street expectations by 16 cents now in terms of the units themselvesgeneral insurance which is closely watched, adjust pretax income of $168 million which reflected lower net inest vestment income. the ceo addressing that business specifically saying our efforts are taking hold and we remain committed to achieve agan underwriting profit as we exit 2018 another big business life and retirement results pretax income of 962 adjusted book value per common share 6434 pack over to you apple rallying today to uncharted territory becoming the first u.s. company to hit a

trillion dollar market cap >> did you hear, it did it apple hit a trillion dollars it happened this morning at 11:48 eastern time ultimately closing at 207.39 so apple officially has a market cap above a trillion dollars this comes less than two days after its latest earnings report it took apple shares about nine months to log that last billion dollars of the market cap. it happens to also be my birthday, and then took it nine months to get where it is today to hit that one trillion that marks an 18.4% gain that does outpace the nasdaq over that same period of time as well as the s&p 500 and dow jones industrial average some market watchers thought

that amazon would be the first u.s. publicly traded company to hit a trillion dollars but apple of course was the first to log its name in the history books today. amazon has made some impressive moves. so it's worth pointing out since november 8, 2017, amazon has actually logged $45.3 million in market cap that's a gain of 63% back over to ayou guys up next it cbs call featuring ceo les moonves is about to start we'll bring it to you live right after this quick break with tough food, your dentures may slip and fall. new fixodent ultra-max hold gives you the strongest hold ever to lock your dentures.

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quem back. shares of cbs trading down now about 0.4% we're moments away from the earnings call beginning. julia boorstin joins us now with what to expect on the call >> it seems cbs earnings results are overshadowed over allegations of sexual misconduct reports on ceo les moonves revenue grew 6%, also a hair stronger than expected

notably in the earnings release there's no mention of the sexual misconduct allegations or the investigation, so we'll have to see whether moonves addresses the issue himself at the top of the call or if he waits for analyst's questions. they're likely listening for any commentary from moonves on the issues that are weighing on the stock. in addition to the sexual misconducts allegations there's cbs' legal battle with sheri redstone and national amusements in the earnings release moonves streaming services, show time ott are exceeding expectation and also said revenue is growing. if you look at the shares down by nearly 0.5% the real question is going to be what he says about those allegations potentially about a secession plan and we'll hear more when

the call starts. >> thank you for that, and you're going to stay with us to react when the call begins let's introduce our full panel as well, which will have to react as and when we get comments stephanie is with us, and we also have bill cohen joining us a bit later. mike santolli still with us. >> obviously there's not going to be any decisive news here that says les moonves' fate is determined it's more about what to expect from this investigation. he's going want to characterize the business, talk about the business he's not that interested in this potential merger, and there's a court case coming up all those things are probably going to be thrown into the

soup >> there's no interesting stuff yesterday in the conference call and hearing from elon musk whether he would go after them or apologize to them now there are even more. >> it's hard to invest in a company like this. there's too much unknown at this point. the fundamentals are there. the stock valuation makes a lot of sense and estimates are probably going to go higher after this report. that's the irony of it all at the same time you have this huge overhang. and i think if it's not addressed on the call the stock is going to tank big time. because it adds to more uncertainties going forward. >> so the call is starting we want to our viewers and everyone to listen in. >> good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to our second quarter 2018 earnings call joining us is our chairman and which he les moonves and our

chief officer. results will be discussed on an adjusted basis unless otherwise specified. it's adjusted to restructuring charges and costs related to other corporate matters incurred during the quarter also note that statements on this conference call related to matters which are not historical facts are forward looking statements that can cause actual results to differ. in earnings related to today's presentation can be found in orwebsite at cbs corporation.com. finally in light of other matters and the advice of counsel the scope of the call will be limited to the quarterly results of the company with that i'll turn it over to les. >> good afternoon, everyone. and thanks for joining us today.

as you can see from our results cbs turned in another strong quart. revenue was up and eps was up 8% to a $1.12 marking our 34th consecutive quarter of eps growth, and we remain firmly on track to deliver the kind of full year results we told you we would. beyond that we're as confident as ever in the strategy we have in place in setting us up for continued long-term success. the reason we have such great confidence is because we are constantly successfully staying ahead of the changes taking place across our industry. and as we do we're taking full advantage of the ways we can monetize our content across new forms of distribution. in fact there are few companies as uniquely positioned to profit from the explosion of premium content on new platforms as we are. over the top of director to consumer services are becoming main stream, and we have our own

well-established platforms that are growing right along with consumer demands our digital distribution services, cbs all access and show time ott are surpassing our expect eggs, and we have some news to share today in that regard as we've said our goal is to have 8 million subscribers combined from all access and show time ott from 2020. i'm pleased to tell you today we're now on track to hit that number in 2019, a full year ahead of schedule. based on our growth trajectory and the trends we see ahead we're announcing a new target. we are now projecting we will have 16 million subscribers from all access and show time ott by 2022 in other words we plan to double our original goal in just two additional years and that doesn't even include the subs we're just beginning to get

international. we're already having terrific success in canada. our growth rate in canada is just as fast as it was when we launched here into the u.s., and awe' we're now getting ready to expand we're over the top platforms are gaining huge traction particularly among younger viewers. so we have a tremendous opportunity to grow our subs even more. at the same time we're growing our ad based services. cbsn hit another all-time high with the heels of a record setting two to one as it continues to attract new and younger viewers. we continue to build upon this success. just yesterday we announced plans to launch direct to consumer channels in our o and o

television markets these local ott channels will feature live streams of our station's news cache as well as breaking news, original programming and an expensive library of on demand content we will start by launching in new york in the fourth quarter, followed by l.a. and other markets in 2019. once again this is another way to deliver our content directly to consumers to reach younger viewers. we're already doing that with our digital sports network nearly six months after its debut sports hq continues to generate more streams and significantly daily users than cbs at this point after its daily launch and we're seeing spikes in viewership after sporting events in addition to sports hq along with our sports website stands to benefit from the recent supreme court ruling on sports betting by creating a whole new

ad category as well as drive demand across our sports related content. coming up this fall we will bring in another one of urover the top as well. as we've done with news and sports our now ott service called et live will bring our content to audiences in a whole new way. all of these ad supported streaming services, cbsn, cbs local, and et live can ultimately be bundled with all access and show time ott with one comprehensive direct to consumer platform. nobody has a better offering than local news sports and entertainment than we do and these local added benefits give us greater cross platforming and cross p promotional opportunities. this includes hulu live, youtube

tv and more traditional bundles that are great partners for us as well. no matter the size of the bundle we continue to negotiate dealwise tdeals with distributors. during the second quarter we renewed our agreement with charter communications that means over the last 18 months we've done deals with three of the top distributors in the industry, verizon, dish, and now charter, giving us more confidence than ever we will achieve our goal of $2.5 billion in accounts revenue by 2020. we're also growing our total subscriber number of both show time and cbs across new forms of distribution in fact our pay subs have grown sequentially and total subscriber growth up 6

hers a he hers, and we are growing and as we do our average subscriber rate is increasing at an even faster pace. the driving force behind this growth comes down to one thing, our premium content. clearly the cbs corporation is something our subscribers have to have. each month they watch our program on one or more platforms. so no matter where or how people want to watch programming it's clear what they want to watch is concept produced by our company. to safe this demand we're ramping up our production output we're now producing series across netflix, apple and cbs. that's more than double the number of outlets that we sold to just five years ago in addition weave just two dozen

pilo pilots in development. as we increase the amount of programming we make for third party distributors we're driving growth of our content licensing business this is true in the global marketplace where demand remains extremely healthy. already we've signed deals for our new broadcasters before they even aired in the u.s. all of this means that content licensing and affiliate and subscription increases are having a big and bigger impact meaning only 38% came from advertising last year. and the best part of that is advertising also grew in the second quarter up 2% while advertising continues to become a smaller part of our total, it remains a very part of our business and we're setup for continued strength here again.

once again we had another terrific up front with healthy demand in daytime, news, prime time and late night. and volume grew as well from our thursday night entertainment line up to our sunday nfl package, our programming was well received and we sold a number of units to the super bowl and the grammies, which we have on back-to-back weekends in the first quarter of 2019. and the momentum continues here in the third quarter which gathered up more than 20%. this was the first time we went into the marketplace with our integrated broadcast and digital sales team and we continue to lieverage th power of digital advertising with the huge reach of broadcastative of course prime time television on the cbs network was the reason we were able to continue delivering market sales year after year

when two of the highest rated television events the super bowl and the olympics aired on cnbc looking ahead to the fall we'll put together another great schedule, in addition to 17 mitt return series we'll also launch six new shows as well as new series from dick wolf and others there's no stronger growth platform than cbs television network and the best part is we own five of our six new shows meaning we'll have greater opportunity to monetize them for years to come. next year given the strength of our news schedule along with the super bowl and no aolympicic to program again, the cbs network will finish number one for the

12th consecutive year. and james corden continues to grow on-air and online, his carpool karaoke segment with paul mccartney has been viewed more than 127 million times. for example, cbs evening knows was the only anchor that interviewed president trump before and after the repeat summit with vladimir putin over at cbs this morning gale king was the first network anchor to report from texas regarding the separation of children from their parents at the bord frer. and laura o'donnell was the only anchor to report from annapolis the morning after the "capital gazette" newspaper shootings so we continue to distinguish ourselves with our hard news approach for sports we're gearing up with nfl football this fall we have a number of high profile

matches. we'll have the afc championship game in prime time and the super bowl back on cbs and for the first time our all access subscribers will be able to stream our football coverage on any connected device they want including on mobile phones with a new deal we have with the nfl. and there's a great line of programming this fall, including an exciting thriller called $1, a new show called tell me a story, and the return of the comedy, no activity. and we'll bring out our heavy hitters in 2019 with urhighly anticipated reimagination of the twilight zone. to full coverage of past seasons of our most watched entertainment line-up on cbs to thousands of hours of library programming no other streaming service offers such a full array

of must have content anytime we have programming all access grows and we expect that trend to continue. premium concept is also driving growth during show time. we launched a highly acclaimed series last month we premiered the controversial from sasha baron cohen, and coming up this fall we'll watch a new series followed by escape and also in the works are halo, a series based on the popular video game that we're producing with steven spielberg, city on the hill starring kevin bacon and executively produced by ben affleck and matt damon

so we continue to add to the content pipeline as well of course there's no one more prolific than stephen king who delivered yet another best-seller in the second quarter with another upsider and who will have another release coming this fall local we're setup for a strong second half at our tv stations as well, with so many critical races in contention, political spending is already ramping up o far this year our political revenue is nearly double what it was at this point during our last mid-term election in 2014 plus thanks to the legal swraegz of sports betting we're already getting new ad dollars at kyw in philadelphia and expect the same in new york as well. our base advertising business is strong and we continue to grow new revenue streams from all the ways where licensing and

distributing to our ever increasing portfolio of premium content. key to success is the expansion of our director to consumer process and internationallyally as well. this is the path our world is moving toward and our standing team is right there at thefo forefront. with that, i'll turn the call over >> good afternoon, everyone. as you heard our investment in our growth initiatives continues to pay off with our record quarterly results. cbs is evolving into content company with direct to consumer offerings. and it's all because our company produces the content that audiences have to have and gives it to them in all the ways they want it. as a result of this strategy

we're growing a more diverse mix of stable and predictable revenue than ever before >> we're going to keep monitoring that call for you, particularly when the q and a gens but in the meantime let's discuss. stephanie link, and cairn fineman and mike santolli with us as well what do you think at the top of the call he said he wasn't going to address -- >> i think you start with a bad beginning and then work downhill i think the appropriate thing that would have been done or should have been done given the seriousness of the allegations was that lead outside director would have provided a five minute or so update on the legal realities and perhaps a timing

on when these realities would be resolved second, i think the call at least this far was excessively lengthy. the quarter is a slow quarter in the media. the real fun begins when the fall season comes on the business is okay i think it's going to get better we've got a strong economy i'm a little worried about the auto industry. but i'm very excite as i said earlier about the sports stock price is reasonable. however, it's not business as normal we're not in kansas. les indicated that the earnings were before unusual charges. the unusual charges in this quarter were $35 million and that's even before the legal investigation costs start to mount, and those are going to be incredibly significant and these are cash costs and it's nice for them cas on their calls to say, well, we

omwant to discuss operating earnings but meanwhile cash is going out the door all is not really do at this point, and there's a lot of work that needs to be done in clarifying exactly what is happening and behavior and how will it be dealt with? >> i mean, it is so typical moonves, upbeat, cheerleader, talking up the shows he sounded good. this is one reason why investors love him, but to hear him like this now and for the investor relations we'll keep all of the questions and the comments to the results, what a letdown. >> his message has always been, we've got this figured out we had this figured out a long time ago and to larry's point it seems like they were trying to chew up the clock with this call obviously, they certainly wanted to have him and they wanted to have him on and hide behind the legal disclosure and we shouldn't talk about it and

obviously they're going to try to, i suppose, slow walk this whole investigation process for now. >> why >> and see where it goes. >> karen, what's your take >> i agree i think that the quarter was fine, but it was sort of hidden behind the two very big elephants in the room. what is the future of les moonves there and what is the future of this company as a stand alone entity maybe they couldn't talk about the via com stuff because we'll find out in the quarter which way it will go i agree with larry who said they should have come out with some statement or if they weren't going to come out with anything they shouldn't have waited for the first 30 seconds of the call and they should have told investors beforehand we will only talk about the quarter. the subscription growth and that's all great, but none of that is what investors are focusing on right now when there are these two other very big

issues that are more at the forefront. >> absolutely. karen finerman, thanks for weighing in. we know you have to get ready for the show and we'll see you at the top of the hour for "fast money. stephanie lang, as an investor and -- the stock is trading, what below ten times earnings so it's cheap, and i guess you're wondering is this an opportunity or is there too much uncertainty that's not getting cleared up on the call right now? >> i just don't think -- you have catalysts, right? eventually the resolution of this and you don't know the time line at all, so it's cheap at nine times earnings and i think it was good enough and nine times earnings is down 11% on the year they beat on revenue and they beatenitia, but i just feel like there are so many other names that i can invest in, i don't necessarily need to do this one. >> bill, in terms of the fact that les moonves is still ceo and he will not have a temporary reprieve and he's non the call

and if the question is asked about the sexual harassment allegation should he answer it or can he hide behind the i.r. and the legal team saying i will not answer it. >> i think he'll hide behind the legal advice he's getting. he will say there's been a special committee that's been hired and two major law firms including mary jo white the former head of the sec in the southern district of new york. so he's not going answer these questions. they're made that very clear i'm not the least bit surprised that they're going to take a business as usual approach, and i would not expect him to get on the call and talk about the allegations. they have a system set up and they have a process set up and they're going to stick to it because that's what their lawyers are telling them to do and by the way, les' contract is very clear that he has to be doing business as usual or else he's entitled to say that his duties can change and he can ask for a big payout

>> good point there, bill cohen. julia boorstin who covers the company and who covered les moonves. i want to bring you in with some reaction about what does it is a about where the company is right now that he was on the call with business as usual and no mention of the allegations >> well, after reading his statement to "the new yorker" which was pretty detailed with nuance in response to the sexual misconduct i did expect him to say something on the call, given some sort of not explanation and some sort of response and been saying that the investigation's ongoing, so i was surprised he didn't say anything and i think with some of your other guests on the show said you're right. the company is trying to show business as usual. moonves spent 15 minutes outlying the company's growth, talking about digital growth in particular, trying to remind investors that regardless of the fact that the stock is down 9% since before the news broke on friday that he's doing a good job preparing the company for the digital future, et cetera. so i think that the fact that they're focusing on the digital

growth numbers and talking about the fact that advertising will be strong for the midterm elections is they're trying to change the narrative and distract away from these allegations, but it will be interesting to see if any of the analysts decide to ask the question despite the warning that moonves can talk about this or if they respect the warning from the ir person saying there will be no commentary about allegations. >> >> larry, i felt in the 3:00 hour when you were with us that you were bullish and more recently less bullish. >> i think you have the sossology in the finance the finance is terrific. all of the numbers -- all of the numbers work what you have to do is get the sociology right and you don't know the timing of that, but something like what happened today i think is very important because the question people are going to be asking is where were the independent directors? why would moonves who is under

investigation be allowed to dictate the terms of the conference call? at least the independent directors or the lead outside director should have been on the call to tell investors that this was getting supervision of the board. that's a board duty. >> bill cohen, can you describe the scenario under which les moonves is ceo of this company >> well, i mean, the scenario under which he stays ceo would have to be something like these two detailed investigations go forward and these legal investigations that they announced late last night. they go forward and how long that can take, who knows month, right and at the end of that they come back and say, you know, we've investigated this. the allegations against les moonves, you know, either they happened before he was ceo of

cbs or an executive of cbs or they're not true they're made up or whatever it is that would, frankly, be the only scenario under which he could, frankly, stay. i think it would be very difficult for him to stay if it comes back that the allegations are true that is different from what his contract says and what he can potentially be fired for cause or he can leave on his own if his duties are changed or any number of other ten things happen and then he's entitled to a big payout so i think they're going to be very deliberative here they've shown that that's what they're going to be and there's no reason for an independent director to be on this call at this time, and this may actually be the first legitimate challenge to sort of a me too movement expectation that a leader of a company that gets caught up in these allegations is -- leaves very quickly. >> i think this could be the

first challenge to that. >> larry, when we consider what happened with charlie rose did they wait and give time for a full investigation there or not? is there a difference in approach within cbs for these two individuals? >> the charlie rose was resolved very, very quickly, but it's one thing to be a personality on a media company and another thing to be the ceo and probably one of the best compensated ceos in the country. you know, i think the investors deserve better investors own the company. the redstone interests are the owners of this company mr. moonves is a manager and one of the first things you learn in business school is there is a difference between management and ownership and you can look at the wonderful case on columbia pictures, how the alan interests basically got into a conflict with the people running columbia and that was resolved with the owners. you have this court case that's going to be decided. the fact that this is going on is really, in my opinion, pretty

incredible, but it will be decided in the delaware court in october. i think it's going to go the way of the red stone interests and the control situation in the stock will be legally upheld people like myself who had bought the stock understand that this is the rules of the game in this particular game and, you know, i think what the call tells you here is that the management is not thinking about the shareholders the directors are not thinking about the shareholders it's the shareholders that own the business the management works for us and we want to be held responsible and they need to address this in an intelligent and timely manner. >> i would just point out the share price of cbs which weave been talking about for the last hour is down and has been losing stream even though it was a better-than-expected earnings report and 1.4%. the first question was just asked by the analyst and it was about the ott business over the

top and nada about the misconduct allegations and we'll keep monitoring this one for you, guys. big news les moonves on the call. business as usual. nothing to see here. >> thank you all of our guests, stephanie link and bill cohen and thank you to mike santelli as ever. that does it for "closing bell," "fast money" begins right now. this is "fast money," you've been watching the coverage of the call with ceo les moonves for the first time since a bombshell new yorker reporter brought up allegations of misconduct he did not address those allegations. the q and a is starting and we will have more on that as it develops and good to have you with us tonight. we are starting with a historic day for apple and a historic day for the market and the first u.s. company to be worth $1 trillion and closing above that level. let that sink in a trillion dollars and the stock smashing records as it jumped to an all-time high and it's been quite a high for the california-owned company and founded by the late stev