>> live from new york where business never sleeps, this is "squawk box." good morning welcome to "squawk box." i'm andrew ross sorkin along with joe kernen. michelle caruso-cabrera is here with us today hanging out. becky is off look at u.s. equity futures this morning. let's try to show you what's going on dow jones looks like it would open off 7 points. the nasdaq up 0.21 points. yields are hovering under 3% 2.959. also show you what's happening overnight in asia. shanghai composite up 1.85%. hang seng up nearly 1% nikkei off marginally. european equities right now a

bit of a mixed picture, but we're mostly in the red. >> big rebound for shanghai considering where it's been. here are the big stories the s.e.c. is reportedly investigating elon musk's tweets wall street journal says regulators wanted to know if the tesla ceo was being truthful when he tweeted he had secured funding to take the company private. tesla shares this week have been all over the map they fell yesterday in the premarket they're lower by 1%, trading at 3.6599. it had gotten up to 3.82. new york city voting to cap the licenses for ride hailing companies like uber and lyft for a year the measures also include setting a minimum wage for drivers. tech stocks are on a hot streak the nasdaq on its longest winning streak for march amazon and facebook leading the way yesterday. yelp beat forecasts thanks

to a 21% rise in ad revenue. they are raising their profit outlook for the year >> and roku swung to a slight profit in the second quarter as revenue rose 57% roku added 22 million active accounts, and viewers spent more time watching content. they are raising their guidance for the year and tronc -- get rid of this name >> it's awful, isn't it? >> considering an offer to sell the "chicago tribune" and the rest of its newspaper business to an unnamed equity firm. the offer would value the business at up to $700 million or $19 to $20 a share. the united states set to impose new sanctions on russia the ruble has been dropping as a

result aim eamon javers has more. >> it's a form determination by the united states that russia was behind that attack in salisbury, in the uk the u.s. ultimately making this formal determination it required a lot of intelligence work to do that they said they violated the law in poisoning sergei skripal and his daughter this can include items like electronic components and other sensitive national security related equipment. look at the u.s. dollar versus the ruble. you can see this had a good impact on the currency exchange yesterday when this was announced. the dollar floating a bit higher there. ultimately the trump administration had been accused by some in congress, including some republicans of dragging its

feet in making this determination. the president had said he's been tougher on russia than anybody previously the administration is making the case that this shows that it is being tough on russia, holding russia accountable now for its actions in terms of that poisoning of the former spy. the former spy is a former russian national who had spied for britain, who had retired in britain and was living -- trying to live a quiet life that attack was survived by the spy and his daughter later two people apparently found a container including some of that alleged nerve agent. one of those people has died so a serious matter in the uk and for uk authorities >> definitely. eamon javers, thank you very much. klechina accusing the trump administration of a mobster

mentality as the administration plans more tariffs eunice yoon has more >> the same editorial says if the u.s. wants to play hard ball, beijing will play. the tariffs are kicking in almost simultaneously with the u.s., at 12:01 on august 23rd. the new list has been expanded from 114 originally, these items, to 333. the new items include trucks, vehicle engines, bikes, as well as farm equipment. china's commerce ministry criticized the u.s. calling the move unreasonable and said that the u.s. is showing that it puts domestic law above international law. china's critics would find that

comment ironic given that beijing's trading partners, many of them, and foreign firms have long been arguing that china protects its markets and also unevenly applies its rules and regulations to the companies here in favor of chinese firms as for the state media, it appears that the state media is preparing the public for a long-haul fight. there's been a 4,000 word commentary running in the state papers it's entitled "declaration. they say that the chines people have endured crises in the past but are resilient, and their effort to pursue prosperity is unstoppable. guys >> eunice yoon with the latest on what's coming out of china. thank you very much. colin moore joins us and ed

keon also joins us you've been around almost since the '29 crash it seems like. prudential for how long -- >> 20 years. >> at prudential 20 years. you've been in the business 80 years or something, right? the s&p is within spitting distance of an all-time high again. we're back >> it's been an amazing year >> of all the trade stuff, we're almost at highs. >> what great earnings will do >> chinese stock markets are not at highs that might embolden some people we know and talk about a lot both of you gentlemen seem to think the best days are behind us it's hard not to be bullish you say but maybe things are long in the tooth? >> bull markets and the economy doesn't die of old age, but the

fed is the one that usually does the deed >> i didn't mean to bring up that age stuff >> i was going to congratulate you. >> i was here the whole time you were on. >> certainly earnings are great. the economy is doing well. but it's our job to be professional pessimists in some ways and think about what can go wrong. i think for right now we continue to be overweight stocks we are still optimistic. we call ourselves barely bullish n now. so we think that things will be fine for now we think the market will end higher than it is now. as we go into the next year, things we've been worried about for years may happen

>> inflation >> we may see some pressure inflation. the fed overreact. >> why would we have inflation >> the main reason is that for years the labor force has been growing slowly as people dropped out. now the pool of available labor, people unemployed or out of the labor force that might plausibly get back in is shrinking rapidly which is a good thing. it's a great thing means americans are working. that pool is shrinking at a 1.5 million people per year. and if you look at the closest examples, 1960s, when you started to see unemployment go down rapidly and it gets below about 3% or so, then you really have seen a jump in inflation, not just a small increment >> it's pushed by wages. >> that's correct. >> it seems crazy to talk about that in 2019 we might see that. >> colin, i was referencing some things you were saying

do you agree with a lot of that in terms of a more muted approach to the market >> right really, yes. we have run quantitatively we regress where you expect returns to be going forward, you get the low single digit numbers from here. but also some of the fundamental points you made. u.s. corporate debt excluding the big ones like apple, u.s. corporate debt has been rising if interest rates go up, that's an extra cost. similar to that it's hard to see labor costs can't begin to rise from here because of that labor shortage that he was referring to so combination gives you a muted return from here, but still positive >> it's hard to understand what we want. every employment friday we hear, good but still wages are not rising then i saw an entire piece on how hard it is to get truck drivers, how great the demand is, how these guys are able to

ask for more money that's great it's a huge industry we move 80% of our stuff with trucks >> that's right. >> i was saying what a great -- if you pick that as a career, it would be a positive it seems to me for all the people in that middle class is it always a bad thing that wages are going up >> no. it's the rate. you don't want them to go up too fast you don't want them to go up too far. >> they're not they're just starting to catch up with what we wanted for so long, no >> yes the consumer is huge in the u.s. economy. you want the consumer to be feeling good that's usually a product of their savings and wages. but also, joe, in some of those numbers the averages don't look like they're escalating, but we're seeing pockets like truck drivers, certain areas of technology, where you're getting strong wage growth now so it's true on average, but to

me that reflects the skill imbalance in what the economy recovers if you have the right skills, then actually you are doing well if you don't, you're still struggling >> both of you guys could be looking for flies in an ointment where there are not any. we could be in one of these periods where good things are happening. i don't know what the next real issue will be. >> some days we say let's not overthink this earnings are good. economy is good. i think you have to think about what's next. >> you have to be risk managers, that's for sure. what do you think it is? inflation doesn't seem like -- that takes years could be a shock but you can't predict that it could be trade. the markets have been taking it calmly the last several months if i had to say what of the economic things that might happen based on fundamentals, i

think inflation is the most likely that's still a year or so out. >> michelle asked where the inflation might come from. i think trade is an issue. if you look at margins expanding, it's a lot of the globalization and outsourcing. if that changes, you have to perhaps increase the capital intensity of your business, manufacture more here and increase the domestic wages. so you do have some of those pressures, at least we need to reflect on that. scenario still leads to positive returns from the marketplace, just more muted than in the past >> how much do you pay for those earnings >> that's the right question it's the pe. if you get good earnings, that's the return in the market i would actually discount the pe a bit down from there. hence that mutes the return. >> the good news is the pe is shrinking as a result of strong earnings >> there's been multiple contractions, but the earnings

have been strong enough that it overcomes what would otherwise be a down market >> if we get some capital intensity, that would be a great thing. productivity might start to rise again. we will see a good productivity print for the second quarter >> okay. >> gentlemen, thanks >> thank you very much german discount grocer aldi is overhauling its u.s. strategy, which is incredible because it just got here recently it's coming to a town near you a live report from a store in illinois is next as we head to break, a look at yesterday's s&p 500 winners and losers this isn't just any moving day.

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stay on the great wall of china. airbnb says it is working on an alternative experience >> are homes in the great wall of china you say kibosh i always said cakibosh >> you said it correctly >> thank you i don't say many things correctly. >> there's a first >> how would you like free mcdonald's for life? mcdonald's is running a sweepstakes for a gold card, if it is redeemable for two free meals a week for 50 years. you can enter by placing an order on the mcdonald's app. >> i feel like price is not really the limiting factor for why i don't eat mcdonald's twice

a week >> is it calories? >> i feel guilty people don't eat mcdonald's twice a week >> i used to eat an egg mcmuffin >> the sausage and egg >> no, just baconbacon canadian bacon >> i like them all >> my favorite are the biscuits. i don't anymore because they're too heavy. >> the worst breakfast at mcdonald's is great. you heard that, right? it's 24 hours, too >> now it is it never used to be. >> i have never been an to an aldi german discount grocer sounds like a car. it's been in the u.s. for more than 40 years, it's now expanding. courtney reagan joins us now from st. charles, illinois

the aldi quattro, isn't it is that something else >> it does sound like a car, but this is a grocery store. we'll have to get you inside one if you have never been in one. aldi's u.s. headquarters is not far from here. this is one of their remodeled stores they're aiming to be the third largest u.s. grocer by store count by the year 2022 so right now they're opening their 1800th store today 700 more to go as part of this expansion plan that aldi announced about a year ago to spend 5$5.3 billion building ne stores and remodeling existing stores like this one here today. today aldi says they're halfway through that remodeling program. they're announcing a goal to have 20% of the store actually brand-new compared to what you saw last year with 40% more fresh food options aldi u.s. ceo jason hart says

when i'm looking for locations, i'm looking to be close to competitors. i know shoppers do shop more than aldi, though we hope they will shop more and more exclusively with us. he says that our sales have doubled over the last five years. we plan to double them going forward. and that's not all >> our same-store sales over the past several years has been much more than what the industry has realized that gives us more confidence to invest in the new stores but also to invest in the existing stores in the network, to continue to grow our acceptance with the consumers it's resonating. >> aldi is definitely growing. it is estimated they have about a 2% market share. the u.s. grocery industry is fragmented aldi plays in the private label space, so 90% of what you find in this aldi store are exclusive private labels that you can only

get at aldi, that also means prices are much lower. private labels are growing in acceptance, it's up about 4% compared to last year. millennials are particularly keen and more open to looking at private label foods. back over to you >> is this more of a competitor to a trader joe's or to a -- i'm trying to put it in a category >> i knew you would ask that i would say the closest thing to an aldi in the u.s. is actually a lidl, which may not help you much either, because they're also new they opened up their first u.s. stores along the east coast last year trader joe's is part of aldi south, which is a separately operated company to aldi north, which is part of where aldi u.s. is so trader joe's does have its own private label products it'ssimilar in that vain aldi also is sort of known for its no frills. so they charge you for bags.

if you don't want to pay extra for bags, you bring your own when you get your cart outside, you put a quarter in it to release the cart, bring it back inside they have eco-friendly lighting. >> it's like a discount airline kind of thing. >> very much only five aisles in here >> i'm glad you did the comparison to lidl when we went to break, i thought -- i was thinking about lidl lidl just opened in the last couple of years. aldi has been here for 40 years under the aldi brand >> yes yes. aldi has been here since 1976. so today they opened up their 1800th store they're looking to have 2500 stores, which would make it the third biggest grocer by foot print, behind walmart and kroger they same to serve 100 million shoppers by the year 2022. they said they have 7 million new shoppers last year alone

they have been around but they're not everywhere 35 states. you're right, lidl did open last year, opening in virginia and expanding north and south. >> are you thinking about telling your people to try this? >> my people >> who are his people? >> the people that shop for him. >> jeeves. >> you mean my team. >> would they ever leave whole foods and try something else >> it depends. they go to the farmer's market >> fresh >> obviously >> for arugula >> okay. i don't know why i'm playing along. thank you. >> good job, courtney. >> what the hell did you think i meant by you people? >> there was an archie bunker tone >> we're back in the yellow zone again.

he has people that do things for him. not specific -- >> you should call them by their names. jeeves >> not true at all coming up, media matters we'll talk about the m&a frenzy in this space. first as we head to break, check out oil prices this morning. if you're getting gas at the pump, do it by the barrel, wti will cost you 66.99. who would have thought,

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♪ welcome back you're watching "squawk box" live from the nasdaq market site in times square. ♪ >> we're back. good morning among the stories front and center, adidas posting strong earnings sales were boosted by increases in north america and china adidas is backing its 2018 guidance and the ceo says adidas is on track to meet its long-term targets until 2020. >> heaardly any products we make

in china go to the u.s if a trade war impacts our industry, it would be miniscule for us. the bigger risk is if the u.s. consumer disposable income gets hit, that's the bigger issue right now the supply chain structure is not hit by that i'm more concerned about renminbi in china weakening or the consumer spend in the u.s. being impacted >> adidas shares on that news, you can see, they've been getting close to the top end of their yearly range up almost 8% now rite-aid and albertson's terminated their $24 billion merger deal. last month proxy advisory firm iss recommended that rite-aid shareholders vote against the merger as it wouldn't give them fair ownership of the combined company.

blackstone is buying a 2$250 million stake in start-up taskus the company manages custom support for many tech companies including dating app tinder. >> there you go. >> sinclair -- >> our producer wants to start doing a segment. he got a lot of calls yesterday. he's on the market >> oh. >> we talked about him being on bumbler. there he is. did you know this story was coming up again? >> i did >> what did i send you this morning? there's a report on drudge that says most of these guys like greco on these dating apps, they try to play out of their league. to you that means she bowls on a different night, right what do you think? this is like reality now

>> it's reality television >> yeah. >> real house husbands of new jersey u.s. equity futures -- ladies, you have seen what you're missing >> greco's stock is high >> yeah. do we have an 800 number i can -- we can make a full screen of your -- >> move on >> okay. news in from the media sector tribune media terminating its merger agreement with sinclair broadcast. a lot of people thought this deal would be approved by the trump administration but ajit pai came out against it president trump tweeted he wanted the deal to happen, but now it look s like tribune media is walking away.

sin cleclair broadcasting down over the past year. 21st century fox earnings out last night joining us to talk fox earnings is matthew harrington. good to see you, matthew >> thank you >> i think about 21st century fox numbers, divide them in two. the stuff disney will get and the stuff disney won't get let's talk first about what disney will get. how do they do >> two buckets they have to be encouraged with the international cable momentum, particularly in india. and i think including hot star, their streaming business, and the studios you pointed out had a nice quarter with the success of "deadpool."." "deadpool 2. on the fox side, fox news

continues to show good numbers better monetization on the advertising side broadcast was ham strung by the world cup costs. so it looks like it's a win for both sides of the equation >> what do you think ultimately happens with sky, the product in europe that both comcast and twenty first sentry is trying to buy. >> i think sky is a great asset. at 14.75 pounds, basically that allows for the synergy value it's a bit of a vanity contest when bids get above this level i think comcast has more experience of running that matter of business than disney does it's a great asset you don't have just a presence in the uk, you're in germany, italy, spain and switzerland and a lot of original programming.

sky originals on the scripted side, sports and news also i would slightly handicap comcast as a favorite. there could be some quid pro quo as far as hulu, the ownership there and programming from nbc that could entice -- get in nicely and wrap around everything, though they have to be careful with the uk takeover laws in terms of not crossing lines on the horse trading >> let's talk about hulu for a second when all is said and done, disney ends up with this big chunk of hulu. they talked about how much they're spending on over-the-top and hulu is working at a loss. they'll have to absorb that, right? there's a lot of cost moving from disney's previous strategy to this direct to consumer how does that play out where do you end up thinking about disney when you think about all they have to invest in to get to that final place

>> i think disney, when you look at the family, ambience of the brand what they're doing there, espn, direct to consumer basis has a lot of promise i think hulu is a distinct animal clearly the masses are -- the losses are massive now it's not clear whether they topped or not. it's a formidable entrant. having the consolidated ownership in disney, at least 60%, see if they take out comcast, that's probably a good thing in terms of getting it cleared as far as a strategic path >> where do you think cbs and viacom land in this whole mix? >> you know, i would say that certainly it makes sense to get increased scale and some arguments put out in terms of putting those two companies together, we have, those make sense. they are sub scale

>> in terms of subscale and not subscale, where is verizon they don't have a content piece, do they need a content piece there's discovery that is laying out there. sort of if you were to sort of line them up, what do you expect over the next 12 months? the only company that's done a masterful job integrating content is comcast and nbc universal. >> you're not just saying that >> exactly i think verizon and some other cable companies, for example, standard charter are sticking to emphasizing the network business i think that content, it makes sense on the grand scale if you're trying to compete with netflix. if you're just really trying to be moving towards 5g and

optimizing cable architecture, i'm not sure you need to buy content. buying smaller content assets, i think the fox assets were unique, some of the -- the notion that everybody will scramble to acquire a smaller content company, i'm not sure that makes sense >> what happens now with sinclair and tribune tribune officially walking away now. >> people were surprised because of the posture of the government on that. i think wgn in chicago, there's some issues there in terms of selling that and retaining functional control i think it was a little bit much from a regulatory advantage point. i think this is more or less the outcome everyone expected when it was referred to the administrative law judge >> do they become players in any other transaction? what are their futures, do you think? >> i think they'll push forward with trying to do more conservative news commentary

they have a massive market presen presence i think fox is certainly the leader there i think it's indirectly probably good for fox that the tribune and sinclair were not able to come together even though fox would have picked up station assets >> matthew, thanks for coming on >> thank you coming up when we return, you may have heard of ghosting in the world of online dating. greco around >> yeah. >> what about in the workplace eric chemi has that story now. >> that's right. candidates are applying for these jobs, they want to get interviews, and then, poof, they disappear from the process we'll talk about that next ♪ ♪

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welcome back check the equity futures quickly. they've turned around. up 6 on the dow. up 4 on the nasdaq the s&p nearly close to an

all-time high, up three quarters of a point this morning. >> it's time for today's executive edge a tight labor market meant so-called ghosting is working its way into what is now the hiring process if you know what it means to be ghosted, or if you don't, you're about to find out. >> for years job applicants complained that employers would disappear from them, a term known as ghosting. people would be in touch for an interview and then never hear back, now the tables have turned >> reporter: what started off as a dating term has spread across fortune 500 companies and offices across america it's called ghosting, and it refers to the practice of ending a personal relationship with someone by suddenly withdrawing from all xhcommunication. >> it's been happening in professional organizations, different types of industries. it's happened everywhere. >> reporter: we decided to

investigate. ♪ it turns out that job candidates of employees are literally turning into ghosts. disappearing from the interview process. [ screams >> we've been seeing an uprick recently over the past six months in areas related to industries in energy, finance and business services, and industrial and manufacturing >> reporter: but it gets spookier corporate managers are telling sbns sb cnbc they're seeing ghosts across the entire process. people not showing up for interviews not showing up for the first day of work. some people disappearing from jobs they already had. >> it's certainly a trend. with the market as tight as it is for good candidates and so much hiring activity going on, there's more of everything happening, ghosting being one of

them >> experts don't recommend this practice saying it could one day come back to haunt you >> you think >> i get it. people say for years, i have been trying to get a job, i don't hear from the companies. if all of us were interviewing for jobs in our career, we would do it on the phone, then in person now it's done in text. now employers are saying they're not even responding to the texts. >> do you find it easier to blow off a text or an e-mail? >> e-mail. text is more intimate. >> both. to me they're the same yeah >> text feels more immediate >> swipe and delete. forget it. >> really? you're ghosting people yourself. >> not that many people text me.

>> what happens is if they text me at a bad time, like on the subway, i may never respond. maybe that's what happens with these interviews >> many, many, many, people have my interview, far fewer people have my phone number >> now a lot of people don't have e-mails, they give out phone numbers, all communication is on phone. that's why the job candidates and companies are doing everything on text because people don't even check e-mail anymore >> wow >> the destruction of society. the collapse of culture. can't even respect your possible employers enough to say i'm not coming >> thank you, eric >> no pga talk >> we'll get to that tomorrow. we have friday >> some interesting pairings today. tiger's playing with rory. >> you're just jealous you're not out there. >> i think it's a story they're switching next year. >> switching what? >> when the pga is played, to make it a much bigger deal between the masters and u.s.

open >> just the whole schedule about avoiding the nfl season. >> and avoiding the olympics, which has become a big deal. >> because some are in the olympics >> then it's like the nhl thing, do you want to send your players to the olympics, conflict with the season >> and ryder cup coming up going to be in france. >> you going taking the whole week off? >> no, i like it on tv i like to watch. >> it's great. >> liesman just texted me, michelle, i have your number >> that's creepy >> you don't know how creepy that is. >> saudi arabia is stepping up its fight with canada. we'll tell you what the kingdom is doing and why next. first a look at the winners and losers in the premarket. ibm, caterpillar and boeing in positive territory

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diplomatic tensions between saudi arabia and canada showing no signs of cooling off any time soon. saudi arabia says they have no interest in mediation and that canada owes them an apology. justin trudeau said that canada not apologize even if it puts their relationship at risk. joining us now richard murphy. trying to help us understand what this all means and where the u.s. is within the midst of all of this. what do you think this is really about? >> i think it's the very quick reaction on the saudis to what they considered a unprovoked attack by the canadians. they reacted quickly, expelled the ambassador from canada -- >> but the question i have is, does this -- is this suggestive

of something else? meaning, is this suggestive of where our relationship, the u.s. relationship is with canada and with saudi is it that we are now better allies of saudi than we are because of our -- because of the u.s. frayed relationship with canada, has that given license to saudi to be more difficult with canada than it would otherwise? meaning, if we were better allies with canada the way i think we were perceived to be even six months or a year ago, would saudi even dare approach it this way? >> i think they would've reacted under any circumstances because they took this as interference in their internal affairs and the fact that frayed relations between washington and ottawa are internationally now, i don't think they needed that sense of

open door to go out and hit the canadians. i think they resented very much the diplomacy by tweet -- >> what's the implication of this is there a real life implication? >> there's a real life implication given the saudi trade, given the presence of several hundred students in canadian medical schools and practicing as residents in hospitals. it has an impact but its limited. >> for our viewers who aren't familiar with how this all started of the canada has a foreign minister, she posted a tweet being critical about what she sees as human rights abuses, some arrests. people criticize saudi arabia on human rights because they have a human rights issue, what is it

about this in particular that upset them >> perhaps because it was so public, diplomacy by tweet is still not an accepted way of conducting business -- >> maybe she's learned from president trump. >> well, he's been a very explicit practitioner, hasn't he we're standing aside, at least as far as i can tell, saying, as the saudis have said this is between saudi and canada. they will find a way to work this out. >> if this were barack obama under the same situation, he did not have a good relationship with the saudis, he would have been more vocal about supporting canada as we stay silent because we, president trump, has decided we are backing the saudis in almost all cases >> let's also acknowledge that we don't stay silent. we have just published the annual human rights report

country by country of practices which we disagree with. we've criticized and it includes some pretty explicit criticisms of the saudis. >> if you were still the diplomat, would you have done what christopher freeland had done >> i'm a pretweet diplomat. i'm not trained for that. >> would you have said it publicly like she did? >> it's public and its put the prime minister in the position of having to say we will always stand for human rights, so it's gotten more and more set in their positions. >> when was your first ambassadorship >> back in '71. >> he's the real deal. >> that's right. >> i want to talk about the state of the state department. >> where is it >> the state department or deep state department. >> you just had a birthday too, didn't you >> well, yes.

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elon musk versus the sec, the regulator reportedly probing the tesla ceo's tweets days after he said he wanted to take the company private. no deal. rite-aid and albertsons call off the plan $24 billion merger. the stock reaction coming up. plus earnings central. viacom set to report quarterly results. will bring you the number straight ahead the second hour of "squawk box" begins right now. ♪

announcer: live from the beating heart of business, new york. this is "squawk box." good morning welcome back to "squawk box." live at the nasdaq market side at times square. take a look at future equity futures at this hour. we'll show you what's going on right about now. nasdaq off about 1.5 points and the s&p 500 off close to a point. the ten year right now still hovering just under the 3%. we're at 2.960. couple headlines to bring you this morning. the biggie, tribune company has terminated its merger agreement with sinclair broadcasting of the its filed a suit against sinclair for breech of contract.

no response from sinclair as of yet. that is going to be a fight. >> the ceo says sinclair did not live up to its obligations and we intend to hold them accountable. they're angry. >> they are because if you looked at that merger contract they needed to go so-called all the way or as far as they could and clearly it appears that perhaps they didn't. we'll see. data analytics company will be taken private. dun & bradstreet shareholders will be getting $145 per share, a premium of more than 18% over yesterday's closing price but the buyer is a private equity consortium. >> the funding is secured. >> its secured. elon musk take note. also be getting a fresh read on inflation this morning when the government releases july's

figure. weekly look at initial jobless claims. both of those reports coming out. we'll bring you them as they happen. twenty-first century fox reported 50 cents per share. revenue also topping forecasts and fox's results were helped by distribution fees and the success of dead pool 2" at the movie box office. shares at the box office, flat. adid asposting strong earnings. the ceo says the company remains on track to meet its long-term targets until 2020. ceo was on earlier on cnbc europe and said anything we ship to the u.s. we make in vietnam, so we're not worried about tariffs.

last month proxy adviser firm iss recommended the drugstore chain shareholders vote against the merger saying it wouldn't give them a fair ownership stake. let's get to the broader markets. tom manning, ceo and president of f.l., putnam investment management company and jeffrey souts, i'm interviewing guys like you today looking for some -- for a bull. we had two on earlier. both very tepid in terms of bullishne bullishness. i looked at tom's comments i'm not sure we'll get too much bullishness out of tom. can i put you down as a bull or -- because i may need to do my own survey here. are you bullish with where we are right now? >> yeah, i am. we told people to raise cash on this show in january and told

people to put it back to work at the february 9th undercut. our target was 2860 which we hit this week. we'll hang around here. this is the biggest vacation week of the year. next week we'll break out to new all-time highs. >> that doesn't mean you can't raise your target. you have a new target? >> i think the market's going to be over 3,000 by the end of the year. >> on the s&p? >> yes, sir. >> another 5% or so. see how quickly i did that. >> impressive. faster than the jumble. >> yeah, yeah. that you're still working on. >> i'm not optimistic whether -- that's a tough one. tom, i found interesting about your comments was that the market is more or less fairly valued but as the fed normalizes the fed is going to pay a lot of attention to what the market does. are you talking about the stock market or the bond market? it almost seems like you were saying that if the stock market got a little bit nervous that

that could actually influence their future moves in terms of normalizing? is that what you're saying >> you'd like to think that that's not the case, joe. in reality that has been the case in the past -- in this past regime, the fed is paying attention to everything, right, and their interest is to continue to have the economy move forward and not have an impact on it one way or the other. if we see a little bit of relief, meaning interest rates moving higher, it could be the catalyst to take this market higher. >> plus you have the president that is willing to say, you know, we're doing a lot of stuff here to try and get the economy going and you're working against this by raising rates. he's not afraid to say it. they may actually -- they don't want to hear that. they want to stay independent. they have to read the news too they probably do want the economy to continue to do well.

>> two things right now that are cap on this market and jeff may be right as the year goes on we may be able to get through this current area, but it is the trade talks and it is the, frankly, the flatness of the yield curve. if you're an investor, you're paying a lot of attention right now given the fact that it has historically preceded recessions. this idea or notion that longer term rates move a bit higher will actually help take the lid off this market. >> all right, jeff. so, i've never heard you i don't think talk about trade, have you -- is it just one of those things, you know, if you watch the market you wouldn't even know it was really happening so is it -- is it really not something that you need to put into your toolbox as far as things to consider >> the stock market's telling you that the trade war, if you will, is not going to be that severe or its not going to

happen. if you read "the art of the deal," you see that donald trump starts out with outlandish demands and then walks it back and then things work out and the deal gets done and he declares victory. >> we talked about this yesterday, jeff, and the whole idea of the efficient market and whether the market really does knows things or whether it assumes things until its proven wrong and then it reacts. it worries me that i put a lot of confidence in the market being omniscent. it can move 5%, 6%, 10% in a month or so which indicates it -- it's not always all-knowing about risks that are present, so i wish it were, because then i'd say it absolutely knows that we're not going to have a trade war, but maybe it realizes we could have one and goes down. >> it's possible.

i just don't think its in the cards. the earnings power is so strong and i think the economy is very strong. the real final sales figure that came out within the gdp report was up 5.1%. capex is picking up. the most in a long time. i just don't see what derails it. >> okay. all right, gentlemen, tom manning and jeff saut we appreciate it. 3,000 is a pretty nice number. oh, my gosh. >> i solved the jumble. >> did you google it >> i did not. when we return, trade and the state of arkansas. we'll talk to the governor about the tariff impact on his home state. check out futures at this hour. let's show you right there. dow is open off 12 points.

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our next guest just wrapped up a two day tour of his home state of arkansas, let's bring in governor hutchinson. good to have you here, sir. >> great to be here. >> kayla tausche was on yesterday.

she interviewed a lot of farmers. very few of them willing to criticize the president, actually pretty supportive of the methodology here. he supports the president too. what are you finding when you go across the state which has a lot of potential agriculture exports that could be effected are your farmers angry on board >> i just finished agriculture tour of farmers all across arkansas and there's a lot of patience and recognition that what the president's trying to achieve is the right thing and so there's a lot of patience there and you look at what this president has achieved in terms of looks like we're going to successfully rebalance nafta, get a more favorable agreement to the united states, when it comes to the eu they've reached mutual goals with regard to tariffs. china has agreed to try to rebalance the trade, to buy more agriculture. they recognize the need to

tighten up so they aren't stealing our technology and so these are great success stories and our farmers recognize that. we do hope that the president is position today declare victory soon because even though we're very patient on recognizing what the president's trying to do, we know that long-term there's a significant cost to agriculture, to reinvestment here from foreign countries in the united states and so we hope that the president can achieve his goals quickly and we can get back to doing business. >> do i understand correctly $339 million worth of agriculture exports could be at risk in a worse case scenario when it comes to arkansas? >> that's right. we're rice producers. we sell globally our rice and cotton. so much of our agriculture products, there's over $300 million at risk, but that risk has been reduced because i believe he's diminished the risk

with the eu, although we still have to wrap that up. right now our china is one of the greatest risks we have both in terms of our export opportunities there, soy beans being one of those, cotton being another one, but also in terms of reshoring manufacturing in the united states, that's one of the objectives of the president is that we'll bring manufacturing back here and we've started down that path, but as long as there's trade uncertainty foreign direct investment will slow down. reshoring and manufacturing will slow down. businesses do not like uncertainty so we do hope that we can get back to a certain future soon. >> governor, all this trade stuff is going to be viewed in the prism of the upcoming midterm as you know and who knows whether that gives some urgency to maybe getting a win here, i don't know, but just if you could comment on that?

i'm not looking at, you know, "the new york times," i'm looking at the "the wall street journal" today on a. 13, carl rove, he says the blue wave may be receding of the tuesday's election so that the gop has a fighting chance to keep the house. then you turn the page to the op ed pages of the "the wall street journal" and they've never been particularly entlald with the current president, obviously, but they call it the red wave illusion. evidence builds of major gop losses in november and they talk about how many governorships could be loss and it looks bleak for holding the house. so who do you believe when it's the same paper that has blue wave, red wave, which is true? we won't know -- we didn't know -- "the new york times" was 99% hillary at like 6:00 on november 8th or whatever it was and within an hour it was 99% trump, so how do we ever know?

>> that's why politics makes such great entertainment, nobody knows until the end of the story and the voters always control it. to me it's a lot about, one, the economy and the economies performing very well. will it be performing as strongly in november and that's a key part of it, the president needs to keep that on track and i think that he will. secondly, it's about momentum in terms of the voter and their energy level and there's some indications that the democrats is very mobilized which is traditional in a midterm elections. that's one of the things we've got to do is make sure the republicans get out and recognize the importance of it and then, when you look at the governor's races, though, and that's what i look at most closely, i think we're in very, very good position to have strong winds and maybe even pick up a couple of seats. so i'm optimistic about november, but it's a story yet to be written. >> the journal says the president's persona is trumping

that positive policy results. here's one thing that i would say. when we look at ohio and people say, wow, not since reagan have they had a democrat in that district. most midterms you should assume that they're going to be much tighter -- when the incumbent is one party, the midterms almost always show a flip to the other party, so i would assume all these races that heretofore would not have been so close, they'll start closer. so pulling out a win there -- i'm not sure. i'm not sure how you necessarily look at it, but if -- you know, to seize on the notion that because these normally not close races are close -- usually you lose 30, 40 seats just -- you start out losing 30 or 40 the incumbent president's party does, don't they >> absolutely. we're fighting against the tide of history because historically we lose seats in the midterm

elections and so we'll see on that point, you know, you mentioned the static that comes out of the white house. there are a lot of distractions -- >> the journal mention it had. >> well, very good point. good distinction. i talk to our voters here, they really recognize what substance actively is being accomplished so here in arkansas and in midamerica there's strong support for the president. i believe that will continue into november. we just got to make sure that we run elections like we're supposed to, be effective in it, not taking anything for granted, but there is a focus on the differences that this president has made in deregulation in terms of renegotiating the trade imbalances across the globe, in terms of our supreme court

nominees, all of these are big success stories that resonate in arkansas and across the midamerica. >> one final question, you want to go back to trade and nafta. agriculture exports big for arkansas. in mexico, if anyone complains about nafta, its farmers and agriculture. they feel that nafta -- they feel it's very misunderstood that while nafta helped the auto industry in mexico dramatically, it devastated mexican agriculture because u.s. agriculture is just so much more productive and was able to undercut them. what do you think about nafta in terms of its importance for the united states and what it would do for your state if we finally got a deal done there? >> it's essential. it's been a long time since nafta was entered into as an agreement with all of the modern technologies that we have. we need to take another look at it and modernize it. that's what the president is

doing. but the north american trade is critical, critical to the united states and while we lost manufacturing jobs after nafta was entered in to, we've readjusted our economy and now if you don't have that north american trade then we lose jobs again. it's like a double hit. so we right now are exporting not just agriculture but we also have an interchange in the automobile and aerodefense industry back and forth with mexico, manufacturing jobs depend upon that. we want that north american trade to continue, not just with mexico but with canada also. very critical for us. >> okay. thank you for getting up early in little rock, we appreciate it. >> thank you. coming up, the ruling that some are calling a major blow to uber and lyft. the details next.

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now the answer to today's after lack trivia question, what is the name of reddit's mascot the answer -- snoo. making headlines. a major blow for rideshare giants in new york city. city council vote to go cap the number of licenses for ride hailing companies like uber and lyft for one year. the package of measures from the city council also includes setting a minimum wage for drivers. hackers are now targeting major golf tournaments, including the pga championship. russian hackers are apparently going to influence the outcome of the tournament. >> effect their swing? do they reprogram the club >> i don't know. golf week reports -- let's see. the pga computer servers were hacked locking officials out of

crucial files related to this week's tournament and the upcoming ryder company. it's the europeans. they'll do anything to win the ryder cup. the hackers left a message making it clear that it's all about money, extortion, leaving a bitcoin wallet number though no specific ransom amount was demanded. the pga does not intend to meet any of the extortion demands. a letter came to my house that says it wasn't address today me, it was address today someone else but to someone who had lived there but it was single, we know what you've been doing and we'll tell you wife if you don't give us $7,500 in bitcoin. if we tell her that's not going to be enough because we'll tell all your neighbors and they're going to know. they just sent out this blanket letter to anyone in the area saying we have -- and someone probably does have secrets, i guess, in this world and you could never trace who did it

and -- that's one use for -- that's a pretty good scam, is it not? could that work? you think anyone sent them $7,500 >> yes. yes, i do. absolutely. >> you think you would be scammed? >> no, i don't -- >> you know what >> she knows everything. >> she does. i would not possibly be able to work the payoff. i tried to do it on bitcoin. >> maybe we'll share stuff on the commercial break. no deals. shares of rite-aid plunging after the drugstore chain and albertson's called off its merger. details after the break. welcome to the xfinity store.

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included with your internet. and over here i'm having my birthday party. dj fluffernutter, hit it! ♪ dj fluffernutter simple. easy. awesome. ask how to get $300 back when you sign up for xfinity mobile, and purchase a new samsung phone. visit your local xfinity store today. ♪ good morning welcome back to "squawk box." we're live from the nasdaq market site in times square and among the stories front and center, viacom is among the companies issuing quarterly numbers this morning. the reported profits of 1.18 per share beating estimates by 11 cents. revenue was in line with wall

street forecast was down 3.7% from a year ago. british drug company gw pharmaceuticals says its new treatment for epilepsy will cost $3,200 per year per patient. it's the first cannabis based prescription drug ever approved by the fda the company says the price is in line with other brand name epilepsy drugs. the war on world on trade continues between the u.s. and china. chinese state media today accused the u.s. of having a mobster mentality in implementing additional tariffs on chinese products. also warn that had beijing had all the necessary means to fight back. we'll have more on that in just a moment. we want to tell you about shares of rite-aid which are plunging after calling off its merger with grocery chain albertson's and bertha coombs joins us with

more. >> because of shareholders just never really buying in, our cnbc.com colleague notes that rite-aid's biggest holder opposed the deal arguing that the deal undervalue the pharmacy chain. albertsons says it was not willing to boost its offer because they mutually agreed to part, there will be no breakup fee. rite-aid chairman and ceo telling shareholders, while we believe in the merits of the combination with albertsons we have heard our stockholders and are commit today moving forward now as a stand alone company. rite-aid has a much smaller footprint after selling 2,000 stores to walgreen's. the key now will be whether it sells off its pharmacy benefit

unit envision rx and guys, this comes one day after -- just hours after carl icon raised an objection to the investors deal. they should be out with their notices tomorrow it'll be interesting to see if they come out against that deal what the implications are there rite-aid was left the shell of its itself after the justice department said they couldn't merge with walgreen's and they thought they could level the envision rxpbm -- >> which is now -- >> right. the prescriptions benefit managers which is now a business under more scrutiny and use their pharmacies, put them in albertsons and be able to have a bigger footprint with albertsons. for the pe folks, that gives them something stronger as they try to spin that out as an ipo.

it makes it unsure for both in terms of their path. >> do i understand correctly in terms of the chronology, maybe when the deal was proposed the pbms were not quite as under intense pressure at regulatory -- >> right. this is more about the cash, people felt they didn't give them as much cash. the interesting things on the pbm is the two biggest yesterday came out and said, hey, we are not collecting as much of those rebates, those confidential discounts that they get from drug makers, express scripts saying we only get 400 million in revenue from that and you had yesterday cvs say we now only get 300 million revenue, that's only 3% of our revenue, we're giving back 98% of those rebates to our clients and telling them that that should give the rebate a point of sale to people still in the high deductible phase so they are trying to diffuse and

get out ahead of that issue. >> sounds like you're bolstering carl's case. >> the question is, can you do better just as a partner >> it's also difficult -- he also suggest that had they build their own pbm the way anthem is but that's a long-term process and they would be far behind trying to do that, so that's one of the things that david cordani said when he talked yesterday on "squawk on the street." >> got it. thank you. let's talk trade for the latest on u.s./china tensions let's bring in michael hearseen. he's now director of china you' eurasia group. i think the president thinks he's winning based on the action and other markets and the respective players here and when

you're emboldened and you're going down this path where people think a trade war is one that can't be won, that makes it -- that could be a dangerous thing to feel like you're going to win when there are no winners, i don't know. sometimes i think -- i give him the benefit of the doubt because it's been so long that they've been fighting against us, basically. what should we do here is this going to go to the 500 billion number eventually? >> it's definitely going to go to the next round. right now so we're about to see later this month the second tronch of the first round. the 16 billion that's coming in august will bring tariffs on each side to 50. i think at this point there's nothing that looks like its slowing down president trump at this point. he smells blood in the water on the chinese side. he sees chinese equities dropping. he sees china's currency under pressure. he feels emboldened. no real very significant

pushback yet on him and the u.s. he may be misreading -- >> maybe or is he? what would you tell him if you took him aside, don't get sure about this and we're still cutting off our nose to spite our face or would you tell him, you know what, there's some evidence that we might come out of this better off >> so i wouldn't be gambling on china folding any time soon. the regime has a lot of tools that they can use to support the economy, to support the equity markets and really what you see right now in beijing is a sense that the leadership needs to rally around xi, that this may not be about trade on the u.s. side, that this is about weakening china. some of the sentiments that were in chinese state media overnight that increasingly reflects the view even in policy circles in beijing, they're wondering, trump is upping the ante without leaving much time for

negotiation. so there is an embattled feeling in beijing right now. >> does he want to hurt china or help the united states >> there's some of both in the administration. i think some in the administration are still taking a fairly pragmatic if hardline view on this and trying to push china into concessions. >> we do sort of accept some crazy stuff that's been going on. yesterday max -- >> my former boss. >> yeah. he was saying, look, china's not going to change from their economic model. stealing intellectual property, not allowing partnerships to come in here unless they get the upper -- their whole economic model, if you look at it, any normal, you know, person would feel insulted to be on the receiving end of what you're getting, but so it just sounded weird that they're not going to change so there's no reason to even try. we just need to accept it almost is what -- he actually wants to get allies involved. he wants to get other allies

involved to try to put pressure. the facts of the matter is, it is an economic model that is unjust. >> there's a middle ground. we're not going to change china's economic model -- >> so they're -- they're going to steal intellectual property -- >> why isn't there a middle ground >> i think there is. i think there is a middle ground. if you look at for example, what china's done on intellectual property, you're right, there's still a lot of cyber threat and behavior that's unacceptable to the u.s. but when it comes to for example, protecting copyrights or trade rights that's an area china has been improving because china is moving to more sophisticated economy. they know they need to do that at home. china doesn't want to stay mired in a low end factory to the world. with this trade dispute, its a matter of -- we're not going to change their model overnight but are there concrete wins where the trump administration can use pressure but right now it's a very long list -- >> and that conversation with max yesterday, the other guest

was derek scissors and he said just give up. we're not going to reach a deal. >> so then what? >> they're economic model, we disengage. we start to assume that we are just going to do far less business with china in the future and that's the way its going to be. >> i think -- >> that would be painful. >> that's pretty painful. that's a pretty dark view. there are some industries where maybe we have become integrated with china to an extent that is not ideal for national security or for the resilience of the u.s. economy. when we do this broadly, this is a big price to pay for u.s. companies. this is a market that i don't think we can afford to sit out we got to engage. i don't think its time to give up right now. >> thank you. appreciate it. we'll see. midterms are coming. i don't know. something's got to happen by then. you don't go to the midterms in a full blown trade war, do you >> the pain might come after

midterms that the president feels compelled to let up the pressure. >> the question is, do people feel the pain? >> we're not but farmers are. used car prices hitting a record high. we'll tell you what's behind that price surge. check out shares of tesla right now. we're back in just a moment.

used car prices hitting record highs. phil lebeau joins us with more detail on why this is happening right now. >> reporter: good morning. a lot of what we're seeing with used car prices, we see a wave of newer, more valuable vehicles coming into the market. look at the rise in used car price particularly over the last five years. it has really taken off and now, yes, it tops $20,000 on average if you're buying a new used vehicle.

a used vehicle maybe for the first time you're buying it, so what's driving this. used car prices going up for three reasons. you've got increase suv and truck demand. those are your higher priced vehicles. forget about the sedan that was built in 2010. certified preowned is in demand. people can pay more and the dealer's know that therefore they are getting people to buy into those certified preowned models and there's a surge of 3-year-old lease models coming off and entering the market. >> used sales have been at record levels. we are seeing that used prices are going up because of that, so largely when shoppers are hitting the used market they're looking at vehicles that are about three years old, much newer than they've seen in the past and that's driving up the prices. >> reporter: take a look at the dealership stock, auto nation, group one as well as car max. all of these, they were under pressure. a little bit of a comeback more recently, although you can see that this is not been a spectacular year, not like a

couple of years ago. bottom line, we see used cars or new car sales at a strong pace still, close to 17 million and those waves of 3-year-old lease vehicles they continue to come off and go into the used lot. >> okay. phil, stay with us. investors still reacting to elon musk's tweet by taking tesla private. the sec now reportedly making inquiries into what musk tweeted and whether its really true. joining us right now is theresa goodie, and formally with the sec's general counsel's office good morning to you. perhaps it was inevitable that the sec would at least lob a call in if not a letter to try to understand the veracity of what took place. do you believe when elon musk wrote his tweet that funding was secured, that funding was secured? >> well, it's not really

ultimately up to whether or not i believe it was true or not is whether it was actually true or not and so i am not shocked at all that the sec has already started to inquire about whether or not his statement is true that he secured funding and he continued the snowball effect by saying that the only contingency was shareholder approval, so whether that means that there actually was a tender offer so this continues to snowball with the statements whether or not they're true but more importantly and fundamentally to the sec, in addition to whether or not this is fraudulent statements or market manipulation, this is ultimately a disclosure issue and whether or not this was proper disclosure. >> help us with this, from a very legal perspective and this goes to the definition of whether is is, before -- for elon musk's tweet to be true, does he need a signed term sheet from some funding source

is that what would be required could he say, i had a conversation with so-and-so and they said they'd be happy to do it, would that -- would that be funding secured? >> this is ultimately the analysis the sec is going to make as to what funding secured means, but my understanding and my perspective is that this should be something that they already have deal documents for. there's a lot of communication. if funding is secure, there are actually documents in place for this and if the only contingency is shareholder approval, that would lead me to believe that the board has voted on this and we have a statement from the board saying it was raised last week so it seems rather unlikely that the board is already approved this, so for the shareholder approval to be the only contingency it seems rather unlikely -- >> it would be unusual, but could you see a situation -- i would recommend given that the market's are so unhinged about this situation, for the sec to come out publicly and say -- in

a very immediate way, we've looked into this and here's where things stand right this second given all the uncertainty around the situation >> the sec's investigation is going to take some time. what i expect them to speak on probably earlier rather than later would be the method of disclosure and whether or not this was actually a recognized distribution channel and also whether or not this was broad nonexclusive public dissemination of this information and given the chaos and confusion in the market, i would expect for the sec to weigh in on this aspect earlier rather than later -- >> would they weigh in it on themselves or force tesla to come out with a new disclosure >> i'm surprised that tesla hasn't already made some sort of disclosure especially through an 8 k indicating the exact facts and circumstances around this transaction and what's been going under way because there's such confusion obviously still

in the market. this is not a piecemeal type of disclosure issue where you put this type of information out and you expect the investors to hunt for it and try and figure out what it could be and all these questions as to what he's saying means. these are all questions that should be answered from the get-go and this shouldn't be some piecemeal -- >> i have a question. after this came out and this discussion started about whether or not this was some type of sec violation by musk, immediately you started hearing from his supporters, it's just elon being elon. what's the big deal? i'm curious from your perspective, what's the worse case scenario here if this is truly a violation, what's the worst case scenario for tesla and more elon musk >> elon musk could be civilly and criminally prosecuted. there could be significant fines associated with this. the company not coming forward and issuing an 8 k or a proper

public disclosure clarifying for the market and bringing an end to this chaos and confusion that could be further violations for tesla. his continued tweets, each of those has a snowball effect because whether or not they're true those are each individual violations if they are untrue and the continued use of twitter rather than recognized customary distribution channel, fair and efficient dissemination of information this is all one on top of the other. >> criminal prosecution? if this were a pump and dump, that would sound to me criminal. what do you think could potentially be criminal beyond what would be maybe obvious civil issues if indeed the stuff turns out not to be true that he said >> if he had the intent to manipulate the stock price, which some are saying that he really was trying to goose the stock price so whether or not that's true, that -- >> even if he was just trying to

flush out the shorts -- if there's an email that says his intents were to flush out the shorts, does that institute market influence >> yes. if he's trying to influence the value of the price for that reason that's intent and his statements being false, being misleading, omitting material facts, it's very difficult to make a statement like this in a tweet. that's security's fraud. that's criminal and civil. >> thank you so much. phil, we got to go but there's a lot more to talk about here. the sec needs to change the policy and stop the tweets. i know they want to get -- it's just a terrible idea that this is even being loud. when we come back, stocks to watch ahead of the opening bell on wall street and coming up, alexis ohanian is going to join us on set. as we head to break, take a look at the big dow winners and

losers in the premarket. ibm, caterpillar and chase all higher.

let's take a look at a couple of stocks to watch this morning. booking holdings, a company formerly known as priceline, reported a profit of $20.67 a

share. beating the consensus. however, current quarter earnings guidance was short and as a result stocks almost down 10%. a short of consensus and that's a big move for beating on the bottom and top line. and norwegian beat estimates by 9 cents with quarterly profit of 1.21 a share. norwegian gave a stronger than expected full year forecast in what it says is a very strong booking. >> 19 cents according to that thing. >> the prompter was already moved. i don't know if the king of norwegian has ever taken a norwegian cruise line, do you know >> he should. >> it's nice. >> apparel retailer canada goose posted a smaller than expected quarterly loss and its revenue exceeded analysts forecasts. the goose, canada goose. >> i love those coats.

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trade war. china threatening new tariffs on u.s. goods including natural gas. red flag, the sec reported probing elon musk's tweets as the tesla ceo floats the idea of taking his company public. plus breaking economic news, key data on jobs as the final hour of "squawk box" begins right now. ♪ announcer: live from the most powerful city in the world, new york. this is "squawk box." good morning. welcome back to "squawk box." live from the nasdaq market site in time squares. the futures right now, this is a pretty -- this is a week where people is gone. >> that's true. >> that is an august board right

there. >> it looked like yesterday's board or the day before. >> these are dog days and i've told brian sullivan about this but i'm going to enlighten my current coanchors, dog days comes from the position -- i don't read well. i'm trying to give you something. >> give me something. what do you got? >> dog days. >> where is this coming from >> where does it come from >> i don't know. the star sirius? >> sirius xm. >> it's a dog. that star is prevalent so that's where the dog days comes from, but my question is, how do the dogs of the dow do during the dog days of summer do they outperform or not outperform are there cat days >> those are important questions. >> important questions >> here in manhattan where we must -- >> there's a movie called dog days.

>> dog day afternoon which is fantastic. >> you're out of order >> it's a new movie. >> oh, really. >> there's a review. >> oh, no kidding. >> we just revealed our age. >> i think that frayedo was in that movie. >> he was. >> one of his last movies. >> amazing. >> treasury yields today are also sort of dog dayish, 295 or so. 2.957. so we'll go elsewhere from the markets to find something compelling, andrew, i think. >> these are the moments when aren't you glad elon musk tweeted what he tweeted two days ago. >> i could do three hours on elon musk. >> absolutely. >> and the best part about it is -- >> why >> because of my aforementioned -- i know how much you admire him and respect the guy and want -- >> you were very mad yesterday

and -- >> i'm frustrated. >> disappointed. >> i'm disappointed. >> i've seen it progressing from the flamethrower. >> i didn't like the flamethrower. >> i loved it. >> i'm disappointed that this is happened because i think its created uncertainty that didn't have to happen. >> but i'm surprised that you were surprised that you didn't see enough sort of erratic history -- >> i've seen the history and i've tried to think maybe its going -- it's going to get better. i've been hoping. >> after that last conference call, you could argue that maybe he had changed his ways. >> i thought that he had made a mistake on the first conference call. he had come out and said he'd made the mistake. >> apologized. >> by the way, i don't -- i'm not upset or frustrate that had he's trying to take the company private. i think the intent may be correct. i think the way he's gone about this has created so many questions and not just questions about the strategy, but questions about his own veracity

and that's the part that i think is unfortunate in all of this and i think it's going to make it harder for the company not easier and that's really what, for me -- >> what was so great about the way he did this, at least for us, is that there were so few details -- you know, you're not constrained in any way about all the things you could talk about because there's nothing you could constrain you. you could speculate. where could the money come from? would cfius get involved sec? what about twitter it goes on and on and on. >> the questions are endless because you don't know. >> exactly. >> because you're not sure it's real is underlying all of that. >> that's another core question, sure. >> are you supposed to take it seriously or not >> do you want to know every time you get an email? >> do i want to know every time i get an email >> i don't and i do now. >> i keep my phone in my purse whereas -- >> i don't want to know, that's all you'd be doing is looking at spam coming in all the time.

>> do you know what i have set up here -- >> does your buzz? >> it buzzes and flashes. >> it keeps going off and i'm sitting here and i have phantom vibrating on my -- >> i have the setup so every time president trump tweets it alerts me. >> that's a good one. >> you don't do that >> i wake up in the morning and i'm like, he's been -- >> you have him -- you can do that >> on twitter you can set that up. let's go to some of the top stories making news at this hour. tribune terminating its merger agreement with sinclair broadcasting and finally suit for breach of contract. they engaged in unnecessarily aggressive negotiations with regulators over terms of approval such as refusing to sell stations in certain markets. new york city vote to go cap the number of licenses for ride hailing companies such as uber and lyft for one year, the package of measures from the city council also include setting a minimum wage for

drivers could have a huge impact on uber and lyft. uber says it plans to go public in 2019. will this impact that? it's not just a story of new york city, the real issue is whether this becomes a precedence for other cities and municipalities to just say, we're going to take a pause on this as well. michelle here are the stocks to watch this morning. viacom posting better than expected earnings. revenues were down from a year ago. we'll talk to an analyst about the company in just a minute. party city, don't you want to go there? announcing a pilot program to sell products on amazon beginning with this year's halloween season. separately the company reported a slight earnings beat those revenues missed wall street mark. another company caving to amazon for another distribution channel. rite atd and albertson's terminating their $24 billion merger deal. last month proxy adviser from

iss recommended that rite-aid shareholders vote against the merger as it wouldn't give them fair ownership of the combined company and you can see rite-aid is falling by more than 8% in premarket trade. okay. the u.s. and japan will be holding bilateral trade talks today and kayla tausche is in washington today. good morning. >> reporter: good morning. those talks in japan are continuing where japan continually urged the president and vice president to rejoin the transpacific partnership to no avail as of yet. the meeting underscores a series of negotiations. two senior eu trade officials will visit the u.s. on august 20th. canada's ambassador told the globe he expected to be back at the table with the u.s. by next monday and a mexican delegation is in d.c. this week continuing negotiations on nafta. those meetings set to continue today and the mexican economy minister said yesterday he was

optimistic about talks producing a broad agreement. meanwhile, the july agreement between the u.s. and the eu is beginning to take shape. the state department sent a cable to u.s. embassies in europe on tuesday asking officials to identify businesses in their domains where tariffs and regulation could potentially be cut. that cable which was read out to cnbc placed priority on natural gas and soy beans and the suggestions could be fodder for forthcoming negotiations with the eu spokesperson saying president yunker or discussing visits to the united states, some to the eu, certainly the administration is trying to keep busy this august even as the markets seem to be fairly quiet. >> okay. thank you for that report. it's an interesting one and we'll keep watching it. we have other news to bring you as well this morning. viacom just out with its better than expected quarterly earnings. bob bakish doing quite well.

take a look at shares of viacom. they are up right now. joining us right now is jim gross managing director at barrington research associates. what's your big headline, jim? >> i think the best news out of it was that there is a turn around that is beginning, though it is still early in that process. they did have a couple of films of note, quiet place" was the biggest one and they said that was the first one under the new regime and then book club was acquired very inexpensively. however, on the media network side there was rating share growth and pricing growth that was good. but there was still declines in revenues because domestic ad revenues were down on lower linear impressions they said and there was also somewhat -- some

pressure on affiliate revenues. so it's sort of exlem pli fys the challenge they have, they're still fighting the cord cutting and some of the other issues that are probably plaguing them more than some other companies. >> the good news there, digital and next gen initiatives showing significant growth including a 33% increase in digital streams up 200%. what kind of grade would you give bob when it comes to the digital piece of this? >> i think he's doing very well on that score. however, it is early in some of those initiatives and viacom has always had a focus on sort of the younger demographics and that's been somewhat of a mixed blessing. it's hard to reach that demographic, but as you reach that demographic it's also the ones most likely to either find

a different way to get it or maybe not -- >> jim, how do you feel about bob bakish as a leader and as a manager and the reason i ask is, he is the one individual that sherry redstone reportedly would like potentially to run a combined cbs/viacom if that kind of transaction were to take place and if, in fact, les moonves were to be pushed aside? >> i think he's done well. i can't say that i particularly know him at this stage, but i've naturally watched him progress and i know he was the leader in the international markets where viacom does have an edge, so, you know, that's very good. i still wonder about the fit of cbs and viacom at this stage not because either are terrible companies or great companies, however, it's just that they've seemed to grow apart in terms of

their intent to capture their space in a media landscape and i don't know that the fit is exactly the same as it was, so whoever took over the other company would have a challenge because there's a lot of operations that aren't exactly in line with what they've been focusing on. >> fair enough. jim goss, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> viacom used to be express scripts, just start -- does it really -- does it make any less sense do you think why not? why not? don't you think they could use -- how do we know? they used to be together. it made no sense. do you remember medco, do you remember how merck had to have medco and not have it? it's all about investment bankers half the time, isn't it? >> build it up and tear it down and build it up and tear it

down. >> does it make more sense >> are you talking about -- >> i'm confused. >> you might as well go cvs -- cvs express scripts? >> yeah. >> there's a banker's fee in there for you. >> itt, it didn't matter. california and the wildfires, thousands evacuated, more than 300,000 acres consumed. special correspondent scott cohen has the latest from mendocino and the complex and the command center there, hey scott. >> reporter: hey, joe. this mendocino complex is the name they've given to two fires that is close enough to each other that is essentially one incident. this fire is ta monster. the largest in california history. 18 major fires burning in california right now and its only august. they did make some progress

yesterday particularly in the southern and eastern sections of the fire trying to keep it away from the populated areas and sort of nudge it into the national forest to let it burn but they'll get a test today. more triple digit temperatures, low humidity, red flag warnings across the fire zone. take a look at this fire by the number. 3 20i thousand acres. 229 structures destroyed, 119 of them homes. 9,200 structures still threatened and of the two fires the larger fire the ranch fire is 46% contained, the river fire 81% contained. the largest fire in state history not likely to hold that record for long. >> the fires are hotter, the fires are moving faster, the fire behavior that our firefighters are seeing is very unpredictable more so than we've ever seen before. >> reporter: take a look at the statistics for this season to date. 629,000 acres burned in

california as of sunday. same period last year was 223,000, we're almost triple where we were just a year ago and nearly five times the five year average for this time of year and again, guys it's only august. >> there's been a lot of criticism, scott, that they haven't done enough to clear the dead underbrush so as a result there's a lot more dry kindling there which would contribute to the increase in the numbers. >> reporter: there's only so much that they can do, michelle. we had a disastrous drought here in california for several years and that created a lot of fuel, alot of dead trees, more than they probably have ever had in terms of fuel and then when the drought let's up and some of the new growth comes in it's almost the perfect mix of fuels for these fires. so you have that situation going on and the continued hot and dry temperatures and its just really a perfect storm. >> yeah. thank you, scott. okay. coming up when we return, a lot

more on squawk. a call on currencies next. we had to a break. take a look at the big dow winners and losers. stay tuned. you're watching "squawk box" right here on cnbc. what do advisors look for in an etf? don't just track an index, help me meet a client's need. is the fund built to sell or built to last? etfs are only part of a portfolio. so make it easy to explain. give me a quality fund that helps me get clients closer to their goals. flexshares etfs are designed and managed around investor objectives. so you can advise with confidence. before investing, consider the fund's investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. go to flexshares.com for a prospectus containing this information. read it carefully.

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♪ welcome back to "squawk box" this morning. the dog days are over. janice henderson out with harsh word about bill gross. >> he's made some bad bets. he believe still in his basic presumption that inflation won't get out of control and you'll have bond rates between the u.s. and eu. he hasn't lost faith but he's been wrong and wrong badly in the short-term and he's accountable and we're

accountable for that. >> reports say that investors pulled out about $200 million from the fund in july. it's the fifth straight month of outflows for that fund. >> cover the post with his wife. >> very tough divorce. >> nasty, terrible divorce. >> war of the grosses. >> they all sound totally unhinged and the performance is suffering -- i don't know if its suffering as a functionality of it but sometimes -- >> you don't give money to somebody that's getting a divorce. it's just really tough at those moments. >> this is some crazy -- >> this is one crazy -- this is a rich people divorce, man. >> it's happening out in california, too. >> they get divorced in california. >> it's on the cover of the post. >> it's tough. >> i didn't even know you could buy like fart spray to put in a

vent. >> that's something he did. >> is it real dead fish or dead fish spray >> it was real dead fish -- and she repainted a picasso. >> she's apparently very good. >> $39 million picasso and did pink panther music and put it up on the wall and took the real one. he has no idea that he has the fake picasso. >> we move from that -- >> i thought we were going to go to the good stuff. we just went to his crappy bond performance. >> you wanted to go -- you wanted to go deep. >> yeah. they're buying -- she bought three $40 million house senate intelligence committee he couldn -- $40 million houses so he couldn't buy them. rich people problems. >> the white marbles getting stained again. >> let's get a check on

currencies. how's that >> there are problem spots in the world. turkey's getting clobbered, russia is getting clobbered, tell me something. a lot of these countries have shot themselves in the foot, a lot of their problems are of their own doing but at the same time, when interest rates go up, when the dollar goes up in the united states, it hurts emerging market countries. what's your assessment of where these things stand and how bad it could get >> i've been telling our clients that we are in a bear market of emerging markets. there's going to be divergences within -- equities as well. as you point out em benefits from low interest rates in the u.s., strong global growth, strong trade and we've had that two out of three of those pillars tugged out. u.s. rates going up, trade tensions. it's a very negative backdrop but within em there's risks in

turkey, argentina, south africa, brazil, russia, mexico. >> yeah. so we've had guests come on and say, em valuations actually look good here and the u.s. looks relatively expensive. would you follow that trade? >> no. i'm still very cautious. it's too early to call. i think the trade tensions are still working themselves out. we don't know where that's going to end up. the market's don't like uncertainty and there's a lot of uncertainty around the orld. in this sort of uncertainty environment, it's very hard to catch a bit for emerging market. >> the whole world remembers -- a lot of people remember -- >> the oldest, yeah. >> the tie bot, the russian ruble finally being unhinged back when currencies were far more likely to be fixed back in the '90s and just the tremendous wave of things that happened across the world that was caused by systemic risk many believed.

are we going to see that again or are we safer this time around >> well, i hate to say never say never but never again. that's a terrible thing to say. i do think as you point out, a lot of these contagion phases in the past happened because of countries were pegged. that's one thing that has changed from 1997 and '98. very few pegs now. so in a sense, floating -- i've always been a fan of floating exchange rates. helping countries adjust over time rather than have this big -- when a peg break it's like a dam breaking. we're seeing pang but not this huge systematic risk buildup. >> which brings us to one of the big -- china and what's happening with their currency. they let it float a little bit, but in the world of floating exchange rates, that to me looks like a peg. where do you think that's going?

>> it's not a strict peg. in most emerging markets are heavily managed. i can count on my two hands how many emerging markets they are. they're heavily managed. china, we push china to introduce more market into its exchange rate. emerging market is selling off so the yuan is selling off. to me it would be odd if it didn't sell off. it's reflecting a broad based em selloff. if you look at the year-to-date performance it's only down 5%, 6%. it's not terribly as an underperformer. i am worried about the slowdown there. we've had some stimulus measures so obviously the makers are getting worried about growth. as far as the trade tensions, i think it was a mistake to pick a fight with china. you have problems with china but china can ride this out much

better than we can. >> even when you see the disparity in the performance of the equity markets where china's is way off and ours isn't? >> i do. when push comes to shove, china doesn't have an electorate to answer to. we have midterms coming up. china doesn't that that political constraint. they're just running shoet and its tough to go against someone -- a country that has such -- >> autocrat. all right. thank you. appreciate it. >> some people think we're headed that way, though. >> do you? >> some people do. >> i don't. >> autocratic rule, no free press, blah, blah, blah. coming up, this morning's stocks to watch, plus breaking economic news, weekly jobless claims and the latest producer price claims.

♪ we're just seconds away from jobless claims and the producer price index.

futures are -- oh, man, like watching -- like painting grass, watching paint grow, what is it? it's not rocket surgery but not much happening. he's on bum bler. most people go on bumble. >> let's get to rick with the numbers, rick? >> reporter: initially jobless claims 213,000, that's a drop of 6,000 from a slightly revised 219,000. continuing claims, 1.755 million. that is -- that is not much on tense a little bit higher than 1.726. now let's get to the meat of the matter. july ppi expecting up 2/10, unchanged. goose egg no changed. and if we strip out the all-important food and energy it's also on the light side only

up .1. let's look at year over year, shall we final demand up 3.3 that's actually decrease of .1. 3.4 we had last look was the highest year over year since november of 2011 so it eased up a bit and if we look at year over year x food and energy it is up 2.7. that's also a .10 cooler and that was the highest in september of 2011 versus november on the last one. so let's take a step back here. claims still remain as a very low level. inflation on headline very tame even x food and energy on the year over year they're still running a bit hot and all of this leads right down into the tunnel of tomorrow's consumer price index which, of course, will be much more important. if there was anything to this number, we wouldn't still be at

295, we're at 310 in 30s but we are a dollar index up just a bit, still hovering at a nice level, darn close to the 13 month highs that we experienced a couple of sessions ago. michelle, it's all yours. >> thank you, rick. steve liesman joins us now with reaction to those numbers. and no inflation to scare the fed to being more aggressive. >> that's right. no trade impact that i can see here. it's not showing up. one thing we see for sure is that the energy prices declined in the month -- some of them are back up, again, is that right? little up and down. joe, you made a flat 66 -- >> a little bit. >> gas was down 01, heating number down. you guys talking about that used car story, passenger cars up 0.7. the outlook before this number but i'm guessing they haven't changed very much.

92 of the september hike, december 66% and the next one doesn't come until june. something of a pause priced in. i'm going to show you this some other day, but the idea that powell will now have a press conference every month has changed the whole structure of that probability. there's now a high probability for each of the months, but the one where you go 50% is not until june. how is the fed thinking about some of these tariffs? one, it's going to look past one time price rise. there's a generalized rise in the price level. we're looking at a rate. going up one time on a price is not that big a deal. two, it's going to monitor the effect on inflation expectations. does it get built in i don't know that's the case. no evidence of that. it sees offsetting economic drag and finally, it's going to watch the flows. there's a lot of these tariffs are at the producer level. watch the flow to the consumer level and that's where we'll take a look tomorrow. big rise, for example, in

washing machine prices because of the tariff. it's okay for it to happen one time because the next month you don't get that increase so its not a rise in the inflation rate. it's a rise in the price level which doesn't concern the fed. so one is if it keeps happening that's a concern and two is if the idea that oh, my god, all the prices are rising all at once makes me think to change my expectations for inflation then you have an impact from the tariffs and you can see right now we're a long way from that. >> tune in tomorrow at this time when we see the cpi number. we'll talk trade with pete riet. ayun. ckts when it might be time to buy or sell? with fidelity's real-time analytics, you'll get clear, actionable alerts about potential investment opportunities in real time. fidelity. open an account today.

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is helping hunt them down at their source. because the faster we can identify new viruses, the faster we can get to stopping them. the most personal technology, is technology with the power to change your life. life. to the fullest. welcome back. joining us now nebraska governor pete ricketts, he just released a five year trade plan in his home state. he's going to travel to mexico this month. we care about nebraska and i care about corn huskers and everything else. can we talk more about -- go into your plan, certainly, at some point, governor, but just talk about how the trade impact is affecting you with what's

happening already with all the farmers in nebraska? how are you faring in your state? >> sure. so far, you know, we're continuing to stay in contact with the administration with regard to trade and we're concerned about how it might impact us. most people are marketing their soy beans but that will change when we get to harvest. we have time to wrap up these trade deals, especially with some of our most important trade partners like canada and mexico. it's one of the reasons i'm going on this trade mission to mexico this month and why i went to canada last year, to really thank our best customers. what we do is want to see this get all wrapped up by harvest time and that's what we're encouraging the administration to get done. >> hard to handicap anything nowadays but the idea that a sort of a leftist populist in mexico might be a better friend than the last guy -- not friend but easier to work with than president trump, i don't know if that was on anyone's plate but

is that the case in your view? are there positive signs coming from a possible deal with mexico with nafta >> well, that's what we're hearing is there's a lot of work going on behind the scenes right now and that they're working to try and get this deal done and that's what we're really encouraging, as i said. our deadline is harvest. when we start bringing in our crops, you know, people are going to need a place to put them, they'll start marketing their corn, they got notes to pay. this is something we really like to see wrapped up by labor day so we can have that certainty going into harvest. it can obviously get pushed past that if it needs to but really we'd like to see this get done before we start -- get into the october time frame. >> what's your five year plan for nebraska you're not going to -- have you thought about that >> i'm not about -- i'm not about imposing any taxes, that's

not what we do here. >> he always complains -- his secretary pays more than him, give him a nice 60% wealth tax. see how he likes that. >> well, what we're really trying to do is make ourselves more business friendly. it would send the wrong message to do that to warren. what we found out is we have a lot of different groups that are doing international business or have international contacts and we -- sometimes we be landing in a country and we'd be running into some of our colleagues who are flying back to nebraska and we're like, what were you doing here we're organizing. it's about 30 different groups. our agriculture groups like the farm bureau, cattlemen, corn, soy bean, dry beans, you name it, get all those groups together as well as our chambers of commerce, our industry groups, our university systems, they all do work overseas and really coordinate everybody's efforts so we can present a united front for nebraska.

we think this is unique pulling together this governor's council on international relations. these 30 different groups and have a five year plan of where we're going to go so everybody kind of knows what everybody else is doing. really work on educating our folks about how they can take advantage of foreign markets, seek strategic foreign direct investment to create jobs in our state. so we looked at our industry segments, where we're strong things like agri-business and food science, i.t., manufacturing, look to see where we should be going to those countries and invest in those sort of things, trying to create goodwill ambassadors among all of our folks. >> i have an eye for kansas and indiana and i love flyover states, i'm thinking about andrew -- the nebraska tourism commission, is there anything they could say -- i know -- >> i go to -- >> every year. >> governor, we met in omaha on the ground not in a flyover

state. we spent time together. >> okay. >> he knows. >> i withdraw the question. >> tourism is apart of this. >> i'm relieved the way he described the five year plan because five year plans make me very nervous. >> don't poor mouth omaha or nebraska or the state of colorado. >> thanks, governor. coming up, meal kit company gobble just announcing a partnership with walmart. alexis ohanian is going to join us on set next.

welcome back to "squawk box." i'm going to say gobble gobble. you do a little bit. the $15 meal kit company gobble gobble but really only one gobble announced a partnership with walmart through the e-commerce giant. joining us is the founder and alexis ohanian and founder of reddit, good morning to both of you. >> good morning. >> how did the partnership with walmart come together? >> well, we have titans of industry as investors and they're now giving us more than cash. they're helping us connect with big companies and big brands and facilitating these partnerships.

we got introductions from investors, took the ball from there and today, i guess we have a touchdown. >> how does the business change as a function of all of this >> to succeed businesses need a product innovation and a distribution innovation and walmart is a huge step forward in that distribution/innovation for us. they serve two-thirds of all americans. they're the world's largest retailer, selling gobble kits online, maybe one day in store is game changing. >> why is gobble different there's so many different meal kits out there. is there any innovation there? >> it's a meal prepping service for busy families. we actually have an army of sous chef that do all the prep work for you so you can cook dinner with fresh ingredients but in 15 minutes and one pan. >> it's all about that vision. families, that's why we go so excited about it. you can think of those traditional meal kits as like groceries in a box. they show up and you still have to do all the work. i want to spend -- i want to spend time with my family, not be chopping and gobble solved

that. >> what's the price point? >> it's $12 a meal. >> you found her her or you found him how? >> how many people for $12. >> $12 per person and you can order as many servings and dinners as you like. people usually order for two or four people. >> we -- gary and i were both mentors to her and we're just really impressed. so many people were impressed at growth of all costs. margins and quality and made sure those were a great experience before the rollout and here are the fruits of that today. >> there are a lot of meal kit companies. there's also this thing called amazon and whole foods. >> yes. >> and how is that impacting your business and how are you thinking about them? >> yeah. i think to succeed similar to stitch fix when there's so many different retailers and clothing stores you can go to, you have to think about this end to end and i think technology, namely

personalization, is a huge greenfield opportunity in the food space. so whoever can nail that and typically agile start-ups that are making a core competency in data science just have the opportunity to send you exactly what you want in the most convenient way possible, specifically to your tastes. >> is walmart going to let you access all of your data that way you know this family would want to buy this particular meal kit as opposed to another one. >> all of their data is a really big statement. quite a bit of data is being shared between the two companies and i think that with time as we develop our relationship we'll work closer and closer and have unique incites with gobble. >> long-term, do you think that walmart ends up buying a company like yours or really getting into the space in more meaningful ways? is that what you're hoping for

>> we back founders -- >> we see these as great -- it's a great testament to the great work she's done. there's a lot of m & a in the space because so many of these companies realize they can't build the tech themselves. we're excited because we know this company can stand on its own for a very long time. >> is the company profitable yet? >> no, not yet. we're reinvesting into growing the business. it's a golden moment for gobble. a lot of meal kits that may not have had a rigorous attention to economics, it's time for us to invest. >> what's your acquisition cost? everybody's fascinating by how much it costs. >> interestingly we're about half the customer acquisition cost of public companies today and we also have 40% higher retention. their credit card -- >> what kind of numbers we talking about? >> we're -- we're talking in the 52 to $100 range. it's quite economical for us

because gobble is actually the exact product the "modern family" wants. we have the hire -- >> $12 per person cost, how much is the shipping cost you what's the food product cost you got no, no, i'm curious what kind of margin you can capture on $12 per person which seems like it should be a big margin but i am actually imagining it is not as big as we think. >> i think it actually is a really big margin. this industry started out because they were disintermediary grocery. the problem long term when you start these companies wasn't margin, it was churn it is what are you making a product that people actually wanted and they would come buy again and again and again. the customer acquisition cost wasn't paying off in traditional meal kit companies but they have opportunity to install automation and get high margins. >> i can do a nutrisystem type thing and lose -- i'll do gobble

for a month and i'll lose 30 pounds and four inches on my waist? can you do this for me >> we can. we have cancer survivors >> not just weight loss. whatever you happen to need, you can be very specific >> yes diet oriented meals. we have people eating gluten-free or celiac, different diets. we've designed dishes so they can be customized for your diet. that's part of our secret sauce. >> i have a totally out of left field question as our social media guru, alexis elon's on twitter. do you think public companies should be able to disclose or put out big breaking news information themselves on twitter? is that a good or bad idea >> i think it is the modern equivalent of putting out a press release on the news wire i think it would behoove those leaders of public companies to like prep their comps team i would treat it just like a modern press release

this is the modern news wire >> i don't get your take on this, andrew >> because i think that what happens oftentimes is because of the way twitter is structures, you don't get the print -- if elon would put out the press release one time with a link just once, that's fine to me dribbling out one piece, then the next piece and you got to wait another hour, the markets open, all of this. >> maybe do it a little bit -- jack dorsey certainly wants it to be okay >> i know he does. >> i say this -- i don't own any twitter shares but i do think it's a different world we're in now and elon certainly is one of the most prominent ceos doing it but i see this as being the sort of new normal now that he's validated this way to bring things to the market >> congratulations gobble gobble. when we return, m amjicrer joins us live from the new york stock exchange we'll be right back. at the lowest price... is as easy as dates, deals, done! simply enter your destination and dates...

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and i am a senior public safety my namspecialist for pg&e. my job is to help educate our first responders on how to deal with natural gas and electric emergencies. everyday when we go to work we want everyone to work safely and come home safely. i live right here in auburn, i absolutely love this community. once i moved here i didn't want to live anywhere else. i love that people in this community are willing to come together to make a difference for other people's lives.

together, we're building a better california. hey. cramer's here. let's get down to the new york stock exchange jim cramer joins us now. this is out of left field, i'm looking at cnbc.com here chinese leadership facing a rare backlash for its handling of the u.s. trade dispute just came out 22 minutes ago from one of our people in -- i

think this was maybe from our china bureau anyway, i can't believe what i'm reading here because you rarely will see any government or communist party criticism but they're saying that the president, president xi's been too nationalistic and has mishandled this. i'm wondering if this is the beginning of something where there is some introspection. it just seems like that's anathema to the whole thing in china that they're doing anything wrong i wonder if that's something they could actually start to brew over there. maybe there are some things you should change. >> we know there was a professor -- i don't know exactly the -- his stature -- that came outand complained about this last weekend. typically you don't hear of dissent. if there is dissent, it is totally kwelquelled. i keep waiting for someone to wake up over there, say, listen, if we decide not to take u.s. l and g it is going to cost our people a lot more.

if we continue to devalue our currency, it is going to cost people a lot more. the idea that the chinese consumer is immune as president xi is immune is different. just because there is no election doesn't mean that there couldn't be a change in policy >> a backlash is being felt at the highest levels of government hitting aides close to xi. >> versus a tariff or kfc. hey allergy muddlers. are you one sneeze away from being voted out of the carpool? try zyrtec®. it's starts working hard at hour one. and works twice as hard when you take it again the next day. stick with zyrtec® and muddle no more®.

the fpginancials have gaine over 6% if the past month. after similar moves, the trend continues with the sector outperforming a month later. well, that was a great show. thank you, michelle. join us tomorrow "squawk on the street" begins right now. ♪ ♪ good thursday morning. welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm carl quintanilla with jim cramer and david faber at the new york stock exchange. futures imply another morning of muted intra day ranges for stocks europe's mostly red. 10-year yield down to $2.94 as we get a nice mix of low jobless claims and tame wholesal