Skip to main content

tv   Closing Bell  CNBC  August 23, 2018 3:00pm-5:00pm EDT

3:00 pm
>> gazillions of dollars >> i hope they take that $9 million of winnings and give it to a charity i think it would be the right thing to do for guys who don't really need $9 million >> but i would still watch thanks for watching power and thank you for joining us this hour. it is time for "the closing bell." i'm sara eisen in for kelly evans. thoughts on trade and president trump's comments on the fed and interest rate policy it's a cnbc exclusive. i'm josh lipton in san francisco. alibaba's big reversal why the chinese stock turned south this morning the new popular video game fortnight may have reached the
3:01 pm
top. hurricane bearing down on hawaii "closing bell" starts right now. welcome to "the closing bell." and welcome to mike santoli. first let's check on the markets for you. dow falling today. dow now down a little less than 60 points. s&p 500 is flat, though. most of the groups within the s&p, mike, are lower only positive spots right now are information technology and consumer discretionary >> commodity relates stocks down again. the russell 2000 did set an intraday higher. and if the russell closes higher it would be up for a sixth straight day >> live for a summit joined by
3:02 pm
the dallas fed president kaplan. >> sara, thanks very much. we are kicking off our coverage today of the jackson hall summit i want to start at a place i'm sure you don't want to start, but this issue of what the president has said about the federal reserve. he's commented on interest rates, that he'd prefer the fed didn't hike it before you comment on what he actually said, i want to know your thoughts about the president commenting on the fed policy >> so i'm not going to comment on what he said. i will say this, though, our job at the fed is to make decisions on monetary policy and supervision without regard to political considerations or political influence. and i'm confident we'll continue to do that and i think that's probably the only thing i'd say about that. >> do you have concern, though, it'll create political -- in the public, one of the reasons
3:03 pm
you've talked to the press, to the public, you make speeches. is it possible the fed reserve got a bad rep from the president and now the president is saying -- >> i think our job, though, and what we'll be focused on and what i'm focused on is making good assessments of the u.s. economy and the global economy, good monetary decisions again without regard to political influence or political considerations and i'm very confident we will continue to do that. >> do you worry at a time -- let's say there was a close call on raising rates, it could potentially be seen as bowing to the influence of the president >> it's not going to affect our decisions. how it's seen, you'll be a better judge of than i will be but i can tell you around the table we'll be striving to meet the standard i just described.
3:04 pm
i'm very confident we'll continue to do our job in an apolitical way >> another issue from the white house that affects the federal reserve policy is tariffs. texas, which is the entirety of your district has a huge relationship with mexico what is your assessment so far of the economic effects of tariffs? >> so far the actual impact on overall economic growth i think is modest. i think if this widened or was extended i can tell you i talk to about 30 ceos of month, we do expensive surveys. it is having some chilling effect on ceo's decisions to spend on cap x, it has effects on the oil patch and capacity constraints. >> drill into that, how does the tariffs affect capacity? >> we're producing record levels in the basin in texas, and in
3:05 pm
the united states. but texas is about 70% of u.s. production one of the constraints, though, we have is working shortages but a bigger constraint is infrastructure one that has infrastructure issues is pipeline capacity. that takes teal steel. and with steel tariffs a number of people in the business have told me they're concerned with the steel tariffs it will certainly raise the cost of the pipeline infrastructure, may slow it, and my concern if there are geopolitical outages from iran or venezuela we need to u.s. to be pumping more. i would call that a second order effect i would say the first order effects are direct impact so far in the economy texas economic growth is strong. i'm watching to see if it widens, though >> let's pivot right where you were going which is growth 4.1% of the second quarter the current cnbc rapid update has us doing 3% so far in the
3:06 pm
third quarter. have you looked at your forecast for this year? >> our forecast for this year we were in the range of 2.75 to 3%. we'll have a very strong year in '18. we'd thought all along we'd have a strong year. one of the reasons i'd point out is sizable fiscal stimulus and the only caution i give is in '19 some of that stimulus will fade further in '20 so we think it'll fade down in potential. >> you're not as a result of these tax cuts, which are supposed to boost capital investment and productivity, you're not changing your view of potential? >> i'd like to see potential gdp growth higher. what would do that, so far we've seen modest improvements from cap x. some of that from my talks with ceos is moving from next year to
3:07 pm
the following year to today. i'd like to see more infrastructure spending in the united states. i think we're about $3 trillion underspent the two gdp growths in the united states is work force. and we think the work force growth is slowing. the problem is because educational and skill levels are lagging we think productivity growth is likely to stay sluggish even though it's going up substantially in a lot of industries >> sara eisen back in new york has questions for you. >> i was wondering if you could zoom in on the u.s. consumer within this conversation about broader economic growth. really surprising strength in some of the retail reports we've been seeing this week. after 4% spending in the gdp,
3:08 pm
how much is it tax cuts and how much staying power does it have? >> even before the tax cut the good news about the u.s. consumer, which is about 70% of the u.s. economy is u.s. households have been deleveraging literally for the last eight or nine years if you look at household debt to gdp today it's much lower than it was 7 or 8 years ago. so consumers got ability to spend, a strong job market which further bolsters household ballot sheets and the ability to spend. so we think the consumer is strong and the consumer is going to provide a strong depending on the u.s. economy i'm not surprised the u.s. consumer has been spending we think u.s. households are in pretty good shape right now. >> president kaplan, hoping you could weigh in on this long running debate on wall street about the treasury yield curve, how narrow the spread is between two year yields and in fact 21
3:09 pm
basis points now between two tens at the moment we've gone from thinking maybe that's a worrisome sign to kind of explaining it away. so what is the usefulness of watching this indicator? >> so i'll speak as someone who's spent his career in the markets for the last 30 years. what the curve tells me on the short end, i think the two-year, for example, is someborespondin fed policy and dp expectation on rate hikes the long end is liquidity but also it's telling me that expectations on future growth are somewhat sluggish. and so i think that second point is worth paying attention to i think it's consistent, in my view, with u.s. gdp growth tailing off in '19 and 2020 down toward potential and i think that's what the yield curve is saying. i think the yield curve is worth
3:10 pm
paying attention to. i think the long end is somewhat depressed by all this liquidity. but even with that the shape of the curve tells me that median term outlook is a little more sluggish than the short run economic indicators would suggest. >> and for folks at home, an essay on outlook on growth so we're not spending a whole lot of time on it. but i do want to follow up on mike's question, 20 bits is not a lot to work with the next rate hike in september is 25 basis points would it stop you from hiking rates if it would invert the curve? >> the feds funds rate is 75 to 2% the one year and the two year i accepting more rate hikes. if we raise rates, which i think we ought to be raising rates to get to a neutral level, i think we ought to be raising rates three or four times over the
3:11 pm
next nine to 12 months if we get for example 2.5% to 3 quarters that's still below the 80 something number for the ten-year, but it's starting to get flatter. that's something i'll be watching, but i hope we can get to neutral without creating a yield curve. >> now back to my colleagues who are unfortunately in new york. i don't mean to rub it in or anything but -- >> sayhello to the moose >> yeah, steve, it seems you're fighting some pretty tough wind out there. >> we are. it's the worst of it >> it's the only thing that tells us it's not a fake backdrop there because it's pretty gorgeous. thank you very much. joining our closing bell exchange now to react to all this we have eric marshal and jonathan corpina
3:12 pm
a take away from what kaplanha to say there about expectations being weak, holding down yields. what do you think that tells you for the course of the fed? >> i think it's kind of masking expectations of what we should see looking forward. i think it was interesting from the beginning when steve asked him a question about president trump's comments, when he kind of pulled back and took the interview and then at the end he said i think we should probably be raising rates i think in time, you know, our economy has continued to get better the fed has a plan in place match they're going to have to stick with this plan if they deviate too much from it, i think it's going to cause a bit of turmoil >> stock rates higher this year? >> that's what we should be getting. >> steve, what about this idea the u.s. is doing really well. robert kaplan really lit up when he was talking about the strength of the u.s. consumer. is there such thing as a decoupling economically, where
3:13 pm
we can stay strong when the rest of the world is weakening? >> yeah, sara, i know this topic comes up every time there's a divergence in performance. we were talking reverse a few yeersz ago when em and international was outperforming the u.s. significantly i think in the longer term basis markets do tend to move in sync with each other. but the valuation and quality of earnings we're seeing around the world is telling us at some point there will actually be a convergence rather than a convergence happening or a decoupling >> and the convergence favoring which areas? >> we like non-u.s. equities. and where we like outside the u.s. is in developed markets, in europe, for example, as well as emerging markets despite the
3:14 pm
volatility that we're seeing now. emerging markets had a very strong year in 2016, up almost 12%. and last year was the best performing equity class, and so being down 9.5%, 10% this year after two strong years is probably in line with the behavior of the emerging markets given the volatility they come with on the valuation perspective they still look attractive with us >> still getting hit pretty hard with the etf down 1.5% guys, i just want to play some sound. president trump did some interviews with fox news >> i don't know how you can beat somebody who's done a great job. i'll tell you what, if i ever got impeached i think the market would crash, i think everyone would be very poor because without this thinking you would see numbers that you wouldn't believe in reverse --
3:15 pm
>> eric, do you agree with the president that the market would crash and everyone would be very poor >> well, i would say that, you know, we're not investing in our portfolios based on, you know, day to day tweets from president trump. but what i would say is generally the market does like gridlock in washington but talk of impeachment and stuff like that that would create uncertainty in the market it probably wouldn't be a good thing for wall street, for u.s. equity valuations. >> eric, is your read for the fact the markets making new highs, mean it would be higher otherwise if we didn't have these issues or is it essentially setting those issues aside and just kind of paying attention to some of the economics? >> i think for the most part the
3:16 pm
market is really shrugging this off. but, you know, to the point earlier if you look at relative to the ten-year treasury right now, around 3%, equity valuations here in the u.s. are very reasonable with the s&p trading at 17 times forward earnings that's 6.5% earnings yield that equity risk premium is relatively attractive here so we're still finding attractive opportunities for stock picking in this market >> jonathan, you were saying you thought there was some worry in the market today about the president. >> i do. i think those headlines coming out of washington are concerning there's definitely more information that's out there so investors, wall street, maine street are going to wait to see how this unfolds when you talk about impeachment, that's a long process. this mark has plenty of strength
3:17 pm
behind it. >> maybe we're in for something like that. >> it's the normal pattern we've seen before. >> so watching it but not necessarily selling off -- that's what we've seen thank you. let's hand it over now to leslie picker. quick market flash here on mcdonald's >> that's right. mcdonald's shares falling to a potential low on reports of multiple potential illnesses at one restaurant in james town, new york 22 individuals reported common symptoms of nausea and vomiting from august 4 through 21st and all individuals indicated they had eaten various breakfast sandwiches at the establishment. the department added mcdonald's is fully cooperating with the investigation. we also reached out to the
3:18 pm
mcdonald's a local franchisy saying out of caution for the health of its customers it's proactively closing that risteraestaurant f cleaning >> not the kind of headlines investors like reminds you of chipotle a little bit. >> but one restaurant in the context of mcdonald's entire system is a little bit less -- >> worrisome when we come back alibaba, what's behind the drop and what it says about possible weakness in that whole chinese technology market and internet stock next >> and later hawaii airlines is suspending flights and preparing for hawaii's first hurricane in 26 years the latest on all of that ahead on dloeb
3:19 pm
let someone else do the heavy lifting. tripadvisor compares prices from over 200 booking sites to find the right hotel for you at the lowest price.
3:20 pm
so you barely have to lift a finger. or a wing. tripadvisor. but prevagen helps your brain with an ingredient originally discovered... in jellyfish. in clinical trials, prevagen has been shown to improve short-term memory. prevagen. healthier brain. better life.
3:21 pm
on the go and want to rent a movie? showtime. or buy the hottest shows. even here? we've got you covered. now they are all yours. to take on the go. on any screen. bingo! alright! and watch whatever you buy. wherever you are. head to xfinity.com/stream to start watching.
3:22 pm
simple to rent, easy to buy, awesome to go. welcome bam to "the closing bell." dow's down 53 points certainly off the session lows leaders in the down today, home depot, apple, visa, unh, microsoft another winner cal pillar, boeing, goldman sachs all the bigger losers in the dow. chinese ecommerce giant alibaba reported a mixed earnings results report this morning. earnings saw come in below estimates. it's been a volatile day of trading especially for the stocks, up and down below the flat line. >> mike, the bottom line did take a hit here in part due to a one time change of compensation.
3:23 pm
alibaba sharesa you mentioned were higher this morning but then this stock took a turn after president trump spoke of rising tensions with china, pressuring chinese stocks including alibaba. >> i think not enough focus has been put on china, and that's been for a long time and we want to have a big focus is on russia -- not enough focus is on china. and a lot of countries, not just russia and china it's many countries we have to watch and probably individuals also >> now, i did catch up with rbc's mark muhaynie. he likes alibaba but thinks the tensions between u.s. and china could weigh in here. they're the most sensitive on that tariff talk because they're in the import, export business no surprise the president's comments today could be pressuring shares. he did say his company is focused on chinese domestic
3:24 pm
consumption less so on chinese exports. alibaba q and e revenue did surge 6.8% the other chinese internet stocks also struggling today jd, ten cent, baidu, all in market territory >> it has been a brutal period deservedly so or not after 61% revenue growth, they don't appear to be showing any sign of weakening chinese consumer >> that whole group doesn't seem to be trading domestically on those expectations who knows what's going to happen with the technology picture there, and it's an amazing divergence >> on the charts trading nation just said they're attractive, there's some tradeable bottoms
3:25 pm
>> see how that goes all right, with about 35 minutes before the bell dow is still down about 60 points you have the s&p down less than three points right now, basically finishing flat for the s&p. the nasdaq outperforming a little bit coming up this mystery mover reporting earnings after the bell yesterday could see its highest close in nearly two years after the gain but first when we come back we're talking tennis caroli caroline waznacki and more on "the closing bell" when we come back understanding we're not in this alone, and teaching my kids that no ambition's out of reach. ambitions live everywhere. synchrony helps make them happen with data, insights, financing and technologies. ♪ ♪
3:26 pm
synchrony. what are you working forward to?
3:27 pm
it can power your apps with public services without starting from scratch. it brings your business up to speed, doing more with systems you have in place. it can bring all your apps to life and run them within your data center. it is... the ibm cloud private. the cloud that's built for all your apps. ai ready. secure to the core. the ibm cloud is the cloud for smarter business.
3:28 pm
welcome back to "the closing bell." kroger is the latest company to join the battle against plastic. the grocer says it will aim to eliminate plasting bags from all kroger stores by year 2025 >> and unlike straws paper bags actually work. next week all eyes will be on new york as some of the world's greatest tennis players descend upon the u.s. open great annual tradition joining us now the u.s. tennis association president katrina adams and caroline wozniacki great to see you, ladies >> thank you >> caroline you won your first grand slam at the australian
3:29 pm
open earlier this year does that give you some confidence going into the open >> definitely. it was such a great experience to win it. and i've always played well here it's one of my favorite tournaments of the year. i'm hoping for a great couple of weeks. >> how is it driving interest and excitement around the sport in general >> it's very important for us to showcase tennis for two week, three weeks with our qualifying and hopefully get more people engaged with the sport and hopefully young players will want to play our sport that don't play tennis currently. >> what would you say is the state of tennis in that regard you're seeing golf tracking hard with the younger generation. >> we have our new brand net generation, which we're hoping to push and get more juniors involved and i think all sports have been struggling in the last couple of years particularly
3:30 pm
with e-sport evolving. there's a lot of activity around it >> i was going to say if you're serious about tennis at a young age do you think it has to be an intimidation factor of your whole life, or can it just be fun? >> i think it can be fun, play it with other kids, others whenever you want. you can play it whether you're 5 years old or 90 years old. i think it's amazing it becomes a lifestyle and i think that's what's so great about our sport. there are courts basically anywhere and it keeps expandsing merchandise i love it, and it's given me so much it's brought my family and everyone so close together and it all started because of tennis we played doubles together when i was 7 years old my parents were playing together, i played with my brother and it's a great way to interact. >> how old were you when you
3:31 pm
started? >> i was 6 >> that's young. what's also great about the sport is women are nominating it right now. i talked to serena williams earlier. is that a problem for you, that women are having a lot more wins this tournament? >>ia mean for americans? i think for us we're excited to have a lot of americans in the u.s. open. but i think caroline i got to the finals here and when was the first time you got to the finals >> 2009. >> and i think no one's really dominating right now and it's an opportunity for more americans to play but we also have caroline who's our number two seed an opportunity to play as well >> you say you feel good >> i think there's not really any guarantees there's so many great players and you have to grind out from the start. it's seven tough matches, two weeks and you have to play every single one to get through.
3:32 pm
i'm happy to be here, feeling good and, you know, one match at a time as we say >> what else are they doing to make sure men and women succeed at this sport not just at the highest levels but really drive interest early >> we have our network that goes out and have maybe 350 plus programs around the country providing tennis and education opportunities. as we mentioned it's about public park tennis we have clubs, communities that have tennis courts and as long as we can zrus a sport particularly with our 10 and under they could take a racket or get out in a driveway or on a street and get out and play before they have access to many of our school and after school problems. >> i think tennis is having a bit of a fashion moment, am i wrong? serena-nike compbinati
3:33 pm
serena-ni serena-nike combination i think we talked about last week. >> i think we're doing great i think especially as a woman you want to look good on the court, you want to feel good about yourself i think we're doing a great job not only being powerful women, strong women but also very fashionable. serena always has fun stuff to wear i collaborate with adidas to do my own collections venus has beautiful stuff as well it makes tennis even more fun. >> caroline, good luck to you. >> thanks for having us. time now for a cnbc news update with sue herrera. here's what's happening at this hour, everyone. attorney general jeff sessions releasing a strong statement in response to critical comments from president trump during his interview with "fox & friends" which aired today. the statement reading quote, while i am attorney general the
3:34 pm
action of the department of justice will not be improperly influenced by political considerations, end quote. emergency crews rushing to the scene of vintage military plane crash, crashed it in blaine, minnesota. firefighters put out the flames and the pilot was russiaed to a hospital authorities are looking into the cause of that crash. police in miami are trying to determine the actual identity of a detained man who claims he was mistaken for his twin brother. he says police should have arrested his brother raoul who escaped from a georgia state prison however he admitted to using his brother's identity in the past they seized about 1,100 turtles and 750 eggs some are endangered turtles and are said to be worth about $11,000 a piece. that is the news update this hour guys, i'll send it back down to
3:35 pm
you. >> wow, would not have guess that kind of value for a rare turtle sue, thank you very much appreciate it. have you taken a quiz on facebook recently? if so and you did, you may be risk plus hurricane lain is heading towards hawaii, and it could be the first major hurricane to make landfall there in 26 years. how his airline is preparing for the storm. that exclusive interview coming up when "closing bell" returns
3:36 pm
3:37 pm
3:38 pm
welcome back to "the closing bell." if you look across the s&p 500 only one industry that is trading higher right now, and that is technology utilities just hopping into the green there. but materials, energy, financials, biggest losers you've also got weak spots in industrials and staples as well. commodities are selling off today. yields are lower that's not helping >> yields lower, dollar boubsed a bit. meanwhile president trump just authorizing an emergency disaster declaration for hawaii, which is bracing for impact as hurricane lane makes its way towards the highlands. it's expected to reach the
3:39 pm
islands tonight into friday. >> what are airlines doing to prepare? joining us exclusively is peter engram, hawaii airlines ceo. have you ever had this in your career >> good morning. good to be with you. we've had hurricanes come close to the islands over the last several years, so we are well prepared, you know, for running the script we've run, and it's the kind of thing that is very dynamic and we have to be really on our toes operationally. we get different information and in this storm particularly the forecast has been changing day by day over the last several days so we've been evolving our plans how we're going to react >> so what is that script? does it mostly the involve obviously canceling flights as needed, but is there a need to help people get off the island, do you have to be flexible about
3:40 pm
scheduling what's in play right now >> yeah, we try to stick to our schedule as much as we can when this is going on obviously the first consideration is the safety of our guests, the safety of our employees and making sure we're operating in a safe manner all the time in this case we are right now operating fairly normally. the storm is off-shore there are weather effects on the islands, particularly on the big island, but it is really a rain event, and the biggest winds are offshore and not affecting the armts. we expect heavier rain to come into maui and honolulu over the next 24 hours, so we've been dealing with that here we've implemented a waiver of our change fees, people have been changing their plans to get
3:41 pm
out of the island sooner if they can. our flights are right now very, very full. and so unfortunately we'd love to have more airplanes to help people even more than we are able to. but we're doing everything we can to accommodate as many guests as possible and making sure we're reacting as dynamically as we can. >> so you are offering refunds for people who do have plans on hawaiian air to go to hawaii over the next few days, and if so how big of a hit is that financially? >> we've offered change fee waivers, and, you know, we will at an event like this see some impact on our bookings including on our neighbor island flights, flight to flight within the islands of the state we haven'tt tallied up the financial impact of that yet it will be, you know, a number that is big enough to talk about in an earnings call at the end of the quarter
3:42 pm
but it is, you know, part of operating in the airline businesses is we have these weather events and we've got to respond to it. and this is, unfortunately, it's the normal course. we do have the regular hurricane season in the pacific, and this is something we have to be ready for in this time of year >> peter, wanted to talk a bit about your suspension of flights to beijing what's behind that, and is it sort of a front in these trade tensions we're having with the country or something else? >> well, it has absolutely nothing to do with the trade tensions we've been operating to beijing for the last 4 1/2 years our business plan always required that that market was going to have to see growth. and unfortunately we haven't seen as much growth as we expected when we launched flights back in 2014 we had a little up tick in the growth back originally when we offered nonstop service for the first time
3:43 pm
but the market has not grown as much as we had hoped, so really this is an economic decision based on the purchase of the flight over the last four years, and we've got opportunities to deploy aircraft to markets that we think are more promising in the near term. we think that's the right balance decision for our airline and for our shareholders >> well, thank you for joining us, peter. to talk about those plans around the hurricane and best of luck to the company >> my pleasure thank you for having me on 27 minutes to go before the close bell dow is down 78 so we've been sort of wavering around these levels, about as low as125 at the lows. and the russellafter touching an intraday record is down 0.25%. shares of l brands hitting a low not seen since 2011 today.
3:44 pm
and we're counting you down to some big earnings after the bell after the close we'll bring you the results coming up. (indistinguishable muttering) that was awful. why are you so good at this? had a coach in high school. really helped me up my game. i had a coach. math. ooh. so, why don't traders have coaches? who says they don't? coach mcadoo! you know, at td ameritrade, we offer free access to coaches and a full education curriculum- just to help you improve your skills. boom! mad skills. education to take your trading to the next level. only with td ameritrade. with tripadvisor, finding your perfect hotel
3:45 pm
at the lowest price... is as easy as dates, deals, done! simply enter your destination and dates... and see all the hotels for your stay! tripadvisor searches over 200 booking sites... to show you the lowest prices... so you can get the best deal on the right hotel for you. dates, deals, done! tripadvisor. visit tripadvisor.com tap one little bumper and up go your rates. what good is your insurance if you get punished for using it?
3:46 pm
news flash: nobody's perfect. for drivers with accident forgiveness, liberty mutual won't raise your rates due to your first accident. switch and you could save $782 on home and auto insurance. call for a free quote today. liberty mutual insurance. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪
3:47 pm
welcome back to "the closing bell" with the dow down 90 points let's check on some other stocks to watch right now williams sonoma on pace to close at its highest level it's the west emdivision and pottery barn, teen and kid divisions that led the gains that stock up 16%. my theory, mike, they have the lock on baby presents. pottery barn kids and all of the personalized gifts, chairs and step stools and blankets that is the baby gift. >> it's definitely on the sort of higher end of baby without a doubt. and there is a bit of a baby boom happening, that's the investment theme right now in general. >> lots of monogram towels >> there was a lot of -- on the
3:48 pm
other side, l brands still falling today after issuing weak guidance for the year, the parent company of victoria secret and bath and body works lowering its pressure outlook. l brands hit lows not seen since january 2011 today stocks actually cut in half year to date. the dividend yield is 8.5% right now. you remember this a couple years ago when macy's had the high yields traffic is no good with leverage to the mall. >> and with such a strong consumer environment you really see with the companies the product lines which aren't working right now. jc pennies, sears, earning
3:49 pm
brands and jil kramer this morning saying not really freshening up the look >> i believe he's 80 years old and there's no clear successor, owns 16% to 17% of the company still. >> it's victoria secret that's the problem. >> absolutely. facebook is banning a quiz that could have exposed the data of up to 4 million users did you keta it? you'll know after "the closing bell" returns after a quick break.
3:50 pm
when my hot water heater failed it rocked our world. we called usaa. and they greeted me as they always do. sergeant baker, how are you? they took care of everything a to z. having insurance is something everyone needs, but having usaa- now that's a privilege. yes or no?gin. do you want the same tools and seamless experience across web and tablet? do you want $4.95 commissions for stocks, $0.50 options contracts? $1.50 futures contracts? what about a dedicated service team of trading specialists? did you say yes? good, then it's time for power e*trade. the platform, price and service that gives you the edge you need. looks like we have a couple seconds left. let's do some card twirling twirling cards e*trade. the original place to invest online.
3:51 pm
3:52 pm
a billion to close, that's the sale inbalance into the close. markets have turned a little bit south. nasdaq now firmly in negative territory. it was up most of the day. five months after the cambridge analytica scandal shook facebook, the social platform is pulling the ad of millions of users data >> facebook announcing its banning an app called my personality for failing to agree
3:53 pm
to an audit and because the app shares information with researchers and companies with only limited protections in place. saying until notify the 4 million people which shared their information with the app this is only the second app to be banned since the cambridge analytica scandal resulted in the banning of this is your digital life facebook says the number of apps its suspended is now 400, up from 200 in may saying they've investigated thousands of apps for their use of data. this data headache comes on the heels of facebook announcing they've identitied more manipulation to russian accounts earlier this week. the question is how it will impact users and investors it's worth noting shares are down about 18%, but today shares are pretty much flat >> julia, i wonder if there's
3:54 pm
any way to know whether all of these, i guess, incursions by all these parties that are now being identified by facebook and others represents an uptick in that activity or the fact facebook is now carefully monitoring and trying to root this stuff out >> this was an app mostly active before 2012, and this is also a smaller incident than the came bridge analytica scandal the issue was it wasn't people who used the app, it was also all of their friends who could have been accessed, where their data could have been accessed. whereas in this situation it was people who gave their information to the app facebook is going big in trying to investigate thousands and thousands of apps to make sure they understand who exactly has access to what they did change the rules about how much access would be granted to apps a couple years ago, but they are looking way back to
3:55 pm
make sure there isn't data floating out there >> all right, julia, thank you facebook trading right near those levels that sort of collapsed after earnings today >> still down what, almost 20% since that report. up next we'll be back with the closing count down >> and after the bell we've got aiparade of earnings reports agn. straight ahead on "the closing bell." we will be right back. ♪
3:56 pm
3:57 pm
introducing e*trade personalized investments professionally managed portfolios customized to help meet your financial goals. you'll know what you're invested in and how it's performing. so you can spend more time floating about on your inflatable swan. [ding]
3:58 pm
just over two minutes till the closing bell you have the dow down 88 points right now. the markets did start higher with a morning rally, mild one but you did peak out about 10:00 this morning not a lot of identifiable catalysts here bond yields backing down a bit you did have some more talk about hard liep talks with china. the dollar yields up about 0.5% we await fed chair powell speech tomorrow a bit of hesitation ahead of what he might say about the path of federal reserve interest rate policy we're sort of hovering here above the highs near that brief kiss of a record high the other
3:59 pm
day. >> you never know, we could be 6.5 months into the a bear market >> the president's impact is very debatable it's not entirely clear there is is any impact. but the tariffs, small amount of tariffs today imposed on china retaliation immediately dollar goes up and you see sectors affected, particularly big industrials, metal stocks. we saw boeing predictably down, caterpillar, exxon, chevron, base stocks all predictably down all the usual suspects, things so predictable so everything is 2% down on the tariff concerns for those particular sectors, internet stock and the only thing that helped the s&p was the tech sector. >> so pretty defensive tone in general right now. i'm looking right now gold down
4:00 pm
about $11. >> there's all sorts of smaller central banks may be selling for various purposes that's very hard to parse back >> bob, thank you very much. ringing the bell here at the big board. second hour of "the closing bell" starts now sara welcome to "the closing bell." i'm sara eisen in for kelly evans. mike santoli joins us in just a moment down day, moderate declines pretty much across the board dow closing lower, 75 or so points 0.75%. s&p 500 down 0.2%. information technology closed up everybody else lower material financials got hit the hardest in the s&p
4:01 pm
nasdaq breaking its winning streak russell 2000, small caps hit another intraday record high and closing south lower of 0.3%. plus trade war fears, they're heating up again coming up the ceo of mack reny grill tells us how tariffs are impacting his industry and his restaurants. joining us is charlie here at post nine for a change welcome, charlie >> thank you >> and stephanie link is here. and leading the dow today, vees wraush caterpillar was the big laggard. over at s&p advanced microthe wenner and l brands, a brutal day, down almost 11.5% stephanie, retail has been so strong and consumer discretionary actually was up
4:02 pm
pretty well today. so you see a stand out on the down side like l brands and it really leaves a mark >> i think the take away this week is the consumer is really strong the consumer is 75% of the u.s. gdp. not every company is doing well in u.s. consumer, but certainly there are a lot of them. we can list the names, macy's, nordstroms, khols. on the conference calls, the confidence levels that they've had, all of them, really, has been spectacular. it does speak to the fact all of these heavy investments they've been doing over the last several years is starting to pay off >> the dow's fed president joined us just in the last hour of "the closing bell." i asked him how much staying power this consumer resurgence had. here's what he said. >> even before the tax cut the
4:03 pm
good news about the u.s. consumer, which is about 70% of the u.s. economy is u.s. households have been deleveraging literally for the last eight or nine years if you look at household debt to gdp today, it's much lower than it was eight or eight years ago. and so the consumers got ability to spend we've got a strong job market which further bolsters household balance sheets and the ability to spend we think the consumer is strong and we think the consumer is going to be strong not just this year but into the following next year >> that's a pretty bullish outlook. charlie, how are you playing it. >> that's the only thing that's concerning is it's becoming a consensus view people are anchoring with this idea the economy can't grow more than 2.5% and now it is growing more than that
4:04 pm
it's going to continue to help the economy. >> it seems in general the market is kind of in this now what moment. you have earnings just about done, this kind of slow mark to the old highs, touched it and now we're kind of sagging back below it and on the one hand you have this that everyone agrees with and fourth quarter stuff >> today it was all macro. you're getting towards the tail end of earnings, a couple more to go. if we're all now hostage to macro, politics, tariffs, everything at the same time because we're long-term we're using that to our advantage. if the stocks fall or some of of our favorite industrials fall we're in there buying. because the reactions on a day-to-day basis to the stocks are really incredible. because they give you opportunities.
4:05 pm
that's the way we're looking at it, if you will. >> the strong dollar has really been an anchor, why not today. chinese currency went down and you have commodities all low across the board energies and materials got whacked today. are you a buyer of those kind of stocks on a dollar move? >> on these kinds of days you're actually having that happen. you're seeing the industrials and the materials, particularly the materials got hard hit hard. but over the last couple of weeks, actually. you've seen a reversal as the dollar has actually pulled back. look, i think if the dollar can just kind of stay here and not really shoot-up, it's the vulaesty of the speed of the dollar in terms of what makes me nervous. if it goes up in a big, big way very quickly that makes me worried. that gives me the opportunity and the confidence to be buying these sectors. >> charlie, where does a contrarian orientation take you right now in this market in terms of style or region or type
4:06 pm
of stock >> of course that means selling tech these tech stocks have run, and we think the under appreciated part of that is the money, the flow in the index funds goes overwhelmingly into tech stocks. in 2000, 2001 it was microsoft, it was cisco, and a fascinating statistic. after the peak in 2001 not one of the top ten stocks in the s&p outperformed over the next 18 years. not one. so you can get overrun and then they can underperform for a long period of time >> we're going to dive into the that call a little bit but we've got an earnings alert on hp. josh lipton with the details sara, hp reporting earnings per share here of 52 cents the street was looking for 51 cents. revenue up 24 eps guide hp is calling for between 52 and 54 cents, especially in line with forecast they do raise their full year now looking between 2 and 203. that is a bit above.
4:07 pm
personal systems, $9.4 billion that's better than expected. printing here 0.2 billion. that's also better than expected i did have a chance to catch up with the ceo here. he says the company continues to play their own game, that it isn't all about profitable growth talk about this 12% growth on the top line, so that was a 12% comp he doesn't disagree about the broad pc market with flat-ish revenue. can consolidating market share, can that be sustained i asked him, can he continue doing that? mathematically he said, yes. we believe we have innovation to amaze them and also asked new cfo mark
4:08 pm
phizer does he still expect it to be up, and he said he does. and finally on trade tensions and tariffs i asked wiseler any concern at all his company will get caught in the cross fire there. and he said rather than chase ghosts we'll continue to work with the administration and as the facts and positions become known we'll continue to work as we always do and continue to mitigate as we all know for our consumers. >> charlie, i'm guessing hpq was not one of those crazy valued tech stocks you were talking about. >> yes, there was a time two or three years ago there were a lot of value big tech cap stocks, and we brought a lot of them in fact, microsoft was a value stock a couple years ago
4:09 pm
it's not really anymore. hp has rallied, but it's a little too expensive for us. >> not bad 12% revenue growth for hp >> it's up 19% on the year you know, i think expectations were that the i.t. spending environment was so aggressive, so strong they were going to have a good quarter. you can see the sell-off is not really that big a deal this isecter or end market for pcs and printers hard to get excited about it if i do that i have microsoft, so you get the pc exposure i still like microsoft i'm not involved in this one president trump giving an interview to fox news last night was run out today commenting how the stock might perform if he ever were to be impeached. >> i don't know how you can ever
4:10 pm
impeach somebody who's doing a great job. i tell you what, if i ever got impeached i think the market would crash. i think everybody would be very poor because without this thinking you would see -- you would see numbers that you wouldn't believe in reverse. >> how do we filter this into the outlook? i mean it's ironic in a sense that people say if trump were elected the market would crash, but it didn't. just in general this issue of the potential vulnerability of this president, how does the market kind of metabolize that >> yes, so i'm publicly not a big trump supporter, but i happen to agree with him here. i think the bad news of impeachment proceedings are not going to be received well by the market if you look at back at watergate the market had a bad time. and impeachment is the epitome of people yelling at each other.
4:11 pm
>> on the flip side people make the point the backdrop is much stronger, commodities, currencies than during 1974. and we've gotten a lot of the pro-growth policies. this is the point you've been making from president trump, so what would the market be so upset about? >> again, you've got to be careful not to let our own personal views in here, but the market likes tax cuts, the market doesn't like regulation anything in terms that would make it more likely to have an elizabeth warren presidency i think would be received well by the market >> you see it as noise >> i kind of see it as noise we just don't know i agree to a certain extent with charlie the market doesn't like uncertainty. but it depends on who's really running, depends on the congress, on a lot of different things so initially i think the market would sell-off, but, yeah, we have the tax policies in place
4:12 pm
we have the pro-growth policies in place they're not going away, so i think if we got an initial sell on the news i think it would be bought >> school of thought says it's helping to build up worry again. >> the market was a democrat during president obama's years then >> yeah, it wasn't a great recovery i mean it was steady but it was 2% growth per year the economic recovery wasn't that spectacular for eight years right now and bank stocks didn't do all that well during that time period. i really think oats pretty the disputable at the moment >> we had easier fed policy, too. that helps >> yep, fair enough. up next it has been a rough couple of months for alibaba the stock volatile today despite strong revenue growth. up next we're going to discuss
4:13 pm
whether a alibaba boom or bust is in the works. coming up the fast money traders tell us how to play the red flags, if that's what they are, in the housing market and big plans. so how do i make the efforts of 8 employees... feel like 50? how can i share new plans virtually? how can i download an e-file? virtual tours? zip-file? really big files? in seconds, not minutes... just like that. like everything... the answer is simple. i'll do what i've always done... dream more, dream faster, and above all... now, i'll dream gig. now more businesses, in more places, can afford to dream gig. comcast, building america's largest gig-speed network. here's a trip tip: when you search hotels on tripadvisor... enter your destination and the dates of your stay. tripadvisor searches over 200 booking sites... to find the best deal on the right hotel for you. tripadvisor. you might or joints.hing for your heart... but do you take something for your brain. with an ingredient originally discovered in jellyfish,
4:14 pm
prevagen has been shown in clinical trials to improve short-term memory. prevagen. healthier brain. better life.
4:15 pm
on the go and want to rent a movie? showtime. or buy the hottest shows. even here? we've got you covered. now they are all yours. to take on the go. on any screen. bingo! alright! and watch whatever you buy. wherever you are. head to xfinity.com/stream to start watching. simple to rent, easy to buy, awesome to go.
4:16 pm
welcome back we have an earnings alert on ross stores. leslie picker has the results. >> ross stores beating on both the top and bottom line. comparable store sales also a beat, yet the shares of ross stores plummeting down about 4.7% in after hours trading. and here's why guidance coming in a little below expectations for the full year eps guidance. for the top line, though, they beat by about 3 cents per share. revenues came in at about 3.7 billion versus 3.66 billion that the street was estimating there. it's important to keep in mind, too, as you look at the stock decline price this stock has gained significantly year to date it's up about 2% over the last 12 months. analysts said expectations were incredibly high coming into this quart, coming into these numbers today. and when you look at the full year 2018 eps guidance it was
4:17 pm
increased, but it's still kind of at the lower end of the range that analysts were predicting. they were guessing or predicting it would be 4.08 and the range is now 4.01 to 4.1 eps, guys. back over to you >> the expectations only got higher than tjx reported, and this pull back is the stock only gets it back to where it was two weeks ago. shareoffs alibaba reporting lower. on comments from president trump saying there needs to be focused on trade and crack down on china. >> joining us now to discuss it all the chief equity strategist at zacks investment research
4:18 pm
john, there was also some talk before the president's comments today that the company itself was sort of saying there's going to be heavier investments, concerns about margins with alibaba there's often a bit of juteany about the financial numbers themselves so where does this report leave you and has the big pull back in the stock been a warning or an opportunity? >> first of all, michael, i would say it's an opportunity. i've got $210 price target on the range, back to the june highs by the end of the year and i've got $250 of my target at the end of 2019 that's a 20% growth target now, why do i like that because i see the 20% earnings growth in their numbers. what you've got to understand about alibaba is that people are casting it as an amazon, and it's not an amazon it's an amazon, a paypal, and other things that get like an ebay so if you put ebay, paypal and amazon together you get a much more profitable core business with 60% profit margins.
4:19 pm
that business is what's growing their market and they're just diluting it out with their others three segments. that's a strong business model probably lighter than amazon and probably able to deliver that 350 in 2019. and i think you're going to get trumped out of the way probably in the next two months this year >> what do you do with these stock snz. >> i think you buy them. obviously if you're an investor ten cent had a problem with their video games. if you step back and you look at the growth rate these companies have, 61% is astounding. i mean that's hard for any business to grow at 61% let alone one of the size of
4:20 pm
alibaba. and if you look at the -- you know, the pe versus the growth rate and look at the top line growth in particular, which is the most organic part of growth, stocks are very compelling and the media, with all due respect, a lot of the precipitate media that i read today said things like if you took out this factor or that factor the only revenue growth would have only been 50% i think there's a high bar for these companies. but if you're a long time investor i think this sector is probably the best in the world to buy and hold. >> john, you know, it's interesting because this is a market that has flocked to any large tech platform where the dominant position that has that kind of top line growth. so don't you look at the way it's treated, something like an alibaba and say what's the market telling me i don't understand or is it just about, hey, there's a taint on chinese
4:21 pm
companies right now because of all the political stuff. >> mike, you've got to remember alibaba, there is no more marquee name in china if you're going to buy a stock they're going to be in etf, the chinese mutual fund and the index. they can't escape the story of the trump trade war, and that's what's happening they're too big, too visual, they're too liquid and they're too traded so they're just going to stay in the news and be hit broad-sided like the market for some time to come until this trade talk gets to resolution. >> all right, we'll see how it all shakes out with alibaba. thanks for your time we have an earnings alert on intuit josh lipton has that for us. >> reported earnings per share here of 32 cents
4:22 pm
$2 billion buy back, mike, and the dividend is raised also some big news, intuit is saying they're announcing that brad smith, current president and chief executive officer and chairman of the board will step down as ceo at the end of december 2018. he's going to remain with intuit and become the executive chairman of the board of directors. they've currently appointed an executive vp at the company to succeed brad smith effective january 1, 2019. other change thaz ss they say, t of the company also stepping down in january 2019 the company saying under brad smith the company more than doubled its customer base to approximately 50 million customers, doubled its revenue to more than $6 million and more than triple gap earnings per share. for this if you turn in tomorrow brad smith will be there live at
4:23 pm
exclusive. >> josh, will do another earnings alert for you this one on gap. les leslie picker with those numbers. >> gap beating on the bottom line unfortunately this earnings picture isn't really changing. as you can see there the stock down in after hours trading thanks to some comps, their global comps being down 5% versus 2.6% lower than the street was estimating. now, on the bottom line gap beat by about 4 cents per share reporting 76 cents per share on the revenue side gap reported $4.09 billion versus the street's estimate of $4.01 billion. now, gap's conference call begins in about a half an hour now. so we'll be tuning in for comments on that call with regard to potential areas of strength moving forward, guys. >> yeah, shares getting hit pretty hard here less than 7% after hours
4:24 pm
leslie, thank you. not all retail going to be a winner this season >> no, it's interesting. when times were tough for the consumer gap was positioned for that, its basics they've kind of operated in that low growth for a long time because the '90s was their heyday people still concerned i think about the core gap brand among other things so old navy carried the company for a while. meanwhile sales of both new and existing homes are on the decline. up next fast money traders are going to tell us whether these housing worries are turning into a buying opportunity plus fortnights massive success has led to a lot of massive copy cats.
4:25 pm
4:26 pm
4:27 pm
we've got a news alert on microsoft now. let's get back to josh lipton. josh >> sara, so this news on microsoft, the headline here is that microsoft is being hit with a u.s. bribery probe over deals in hungary this is dow jones citing sources under investigation in potential bribery and corruption sales in hungary. dow jones noting it serves in
4:28 pm
similar probes microsoft telling the journal they actually moved quickly to investigate itself after they became aware of this potential wrongdoing at its hungarian operation. the company saying it's cooperating with the justice department and sec we've also reached out to microsoft to get a statement on this and bring it to you when we get it new home sales down 1.7%, lowest sales pace since october 2017 >> fast money traders join us now to tell us how they are playing the space if at all. the core, home building stocks have been pretty lousy laggards right here it's starting to feel the market thinks this cycle is not going to live up to hopes. >> it you look at this space it is a value investor's dream with single digit multiples or very low digit multiples despite the
4:29 pm
data we've been getting, earn g ings being good. the homebuilder index, i think we have a chart on that, it's a year to day chart -- we don't have it. it's a fantastic chart that shows everything i'm going to say, which is lower highs, lower lows all yearlong, and it keeps going down, down, down if you're a value investor like i am it's pretty interesting i don't own home builders. i own lowes instead, but d.r. horton can make the cheapest homes, and then i would own toll at the high end because there are a lot of people that are making very good money that can afford it. >> and a big jump for that stock.
4:30 pm
also existing home sales yesterday was pretty dismal as well >> investors or home buyers can't afford it anymore. you've got two choices here. someone can figure out a way to make a cheaper home or interest rates can come down. i'd rather have show me on these. show me you can do something different, you can make homes cheaper, then i'll buy them. i don't need to buy them here. >> thank you good to check in with you and we'll see you tonight onfa fast money. one technician says there's three names in the group you want to buy right now and he'll be there to tell us what they are. time now for a cnbc news update >> here's what's happening at this hour, everyone. president trump declaring a state of emergency in hawaii this as hurricane lane, which is category four hurricane has
4:31 pm
already begun to impact that state with flooding and a foot of rain in some areas. forecasters are warning of life threatening impacts, and they say this could be the worst hurricane to hit hawaii in decades. an armed attack killed at least four people in libya today the attack occurred at checkpoint east of tripoli, and the local mayor says he suspected that they were behind the attack the miami-dade fire rescue response units, they captured a 7 foot long red tailed bowa contradictor in miami lakes, florida. bowas are not native to the area and the speculation is that it was a pet. and what's the most you've ever paid for a ham? how about $2.8 million that's the winning bid for this country ham at the kentucky state fair in louisville all the money goes to charity.
4:32 pm
that is nothing to snort at. we hear the winners were squealing with delight there you go >> how do you do that? what makes it worth that much? >> it goes to charity and this year a local family and one of the largest banks in the town pitched in together. they got 2.8 that's not the highest the ham has gone for in the past i don't know if that's some kind of economic indicator, but it went for 2.8 and the winner gets to pick the specific charity the money is o donated to >> sue, thank you very much. >> you got it. let's get to some of the other big stories today in our rapid recap. >> in a statement the chinese commerce ministry reacted saying that china resolutely opposes the u.s. tariffs and will continue to take necessary counter measures >> if the news flow gets to it
4:33 pm
point where it looks like the far left can take the white house in 2020 that is going to be a major market risk >> i think we can see a 3% gdp here >> do you think that could continue into next year as well? >> i don't think i see that continuing out for multiple quarters >> if we can get china, nafta settled, i see a 10% pop in the market >> if we see something we don't like, some country is buying something we don't want them to be buying we stop it we will be protecting america's crown jewels of interlellectual property from foreign investments. >> prosecutors who are investigating a series of payments between american media michael cohen, donald trump, and then two women at the center of all this >> if we raise rates, which i think we ought to be raising rates to get to a neutral level,
4:34 pm
i think that means we ought to be raising rates three or four times over the next 9 to 12 months >> three our four rate hikes over the next 9 to 12 months, and that from kaplan who's been watching the yield curve and he comes from the world of goldman sachs and banking and he knows that's an indicator. >> you would think that could get you pretty close to having short term rates above long-term, but maybe not i think it's sort of read net hawkish but not too dramatically neutral. >> they are being transparent with all the hikes >> december is now about 60, 65% likelihood with the spiefb hitting a record high earlier this week many investors are wondering if a top is coming or if as our next guest believes this bull market has more room to run.
4:35 pm
joining us now the head of u.s. equity and quantitative strategy at bank of america merrill lynch. are you changing your tone or getting more bullish or sticking with the call? >> sticking with the call. i think what's really remarkable is how strong earnings season has been in terms of hitting tons of records. i mean we had a record number of sales in earnings beats. we had records year over year earnings growth. we've had a huge pick up in cap x. this is what's interesting to me, despite the fact that u.s. corporations have every reason in the world to start managing expectations lower, be it, you know, decelerating growth overseas, be it trade friction, currency risk, but we're still seeing management guiding above fairly high expectations for the next 12 months
4:36 pm
i think looking at the fundamentals from a bottom up perspective nothing's changed, in fact things have gotten better and guidance is still very positive. that would keep us sticking with stocks at this point i think the bigger picture question is we still haven't tested the theory, you know, of this great rotation from fixed income into equities if interest rates go up for us for a sustained period of time if you look at bond in flows over the last 8 or 9 years of this market, they've been a multiple we've still seen more bond buying than equity buying. i think the next leg of the bull market could be driven by the idea as interest rates rise and investors suffer losses in fixed income there might be even more incentive to move into equities. so that's really the collin. yeah, go ahead >> i was going to say that's from the investor's perspective, look althe impact of yields
4:37 pm
potentially going up, if they do go up in the sustained way from the corporate perspective, look, earlier this year we got up above 3% of the ten year. corporate yields were a bit above that and we had a bit of a seize up in the market. you talk about 20% earnings growth and the upward guidance and year to date s&p is up 7%. >> yeah, true, true, true. the s&p has seen multiple compressions this year to your point i think part of the wobble earlier in the year was just how overbought and how positive sentiment was heading into the year. you know, 3% on the ten-year, that's not some magic number which everything goes wrong. in fact, i think corporate debt in the u.s. for large cap companies, i mean the good news is that most companies have locked in fairly long dated, long maturity, low interest rate debt even if rates rise and fed
4:38 pm
widens a little bit, this is not a casualty that hits balance sheets and income statements today. this is something that slowly unfolds over time given the maturity structure i think the real risk from a leverage perspective and rising interest rate perspective is smaller cap companies where they have a much more floating rate risk than large caps, and they have leverage rates are kind of at never before seen levels. that's the leverage i think is potentially going to suffer in a rising cost to capital environment. but large caps to me still look pretty healthy you know, certain sectors like industrials, financials, tech, very healthy balance sheets, on a historical basis so i see there are still big pockets of the s&p 500 that look healthy even in a rising interest rate environment. >> you said tech, so i just wondered what part of tech
4:39 pm
do you still see the faang names driving this market, leadership up to the 3,000 level or is there going to be some sort of rotation >> within faang there are some that look good and some i think don't look good. within tech i think what looks good is companies with high cash stockpiles and on top of that they've been able to repatriate it it's almost a value-tech call, if that makes sense. >> it does, and it's sort of on trend, right, mike thank you. all right, when we come back we've heard a lot about american companies getting hurt by tariffs but they may be serving ain to the restaurant industry details later on "the closing bell."
4:40 pm
4:41 pm
4:42 pm
up next ramonos macaroni grill recently emerged from bankruptcy protection. but first speak of why
4:43 pm
restaurants-good actually be the big winners in the fights over food tariffs >> that's right. tortilla chips and cheese are some of the popular favorites at this local mexicanat eery coming up we'll show you why these are cheaper because of the tariffs it really- it rocked our world. i had no idea the amount of damage that water could do. we called usaa. and they greeted me as they always do. sergeant baker, how are you? they were on it. it was unbelievable. having insurance is something everyone needs, but having usaa- now that's a privilege. we're the baker's and we're usaa members for life. usaa. get your insurance quote today.
4:44 pm
4:45 pm
turns out some restaurant chains are actually coming out as big winners in the ongoing tariff fight with china, mexico and other countries.
4:46 pm
our didi roy is at a restaurant in san francisco with some of the details. >> corn tortillas as well as cheese that you see here are some of the big staples here for tacos at this mexican food chain. and the ceo here says the trade war has actually benefitted his business because the items are cheaper. why? because the tariffs from china and mexico have caused a pileup in many items ranging from pork to potatoes because these items are a lot more expensive now to ship abroad because a lot of foreign buyers don't want to buy them to pay the extra tariffs. as a result that's helping the restaurant chains. the ceo here says he's saving 1% to 2% of his total cost because of the tariffs >> it's not free money because nothing's free, right? but it fact the tariffs have taken place and we are seeing a decrease in cost, there's
4:47 pm
nothing but positive for us, and i hope it continues. >> how much are prices going down plateixe q is a data analytics firm for restaurants, and looked at invoices from 3,000 restaurants and looked at data to see a price decrease in these tariffs. actually five key ingredients are here they predict over the year restaurants will save $19 pillion on pork, nearly $4 million in corn and nearly $2 million in cheese. the owner of this eatery says he's going to take that savings and help the company reinvest it back to you guys >> aditi, thank you very much. >> joining us now the ceo of romano's macaroni grill joining us here at post nine >> good to be here >> your company has recently
4:48 pm
emerged from bankruptcy protection what got it in there, how has it been changed and fixed right now when you look at some of the casual dining stocks it's a good time in terms of the backdrop for thel. >> mack reny is an iconic brand. it's been around for 90 years. you go through different change, the company has gone through multiple ownership change. you start to assume and accumulate liabilities that at some point you need to shed. so from our standpoint when we came in i went through a national reinstructturing turn around firm, and we got engaged with macaroni a little over a year ago and the goal was to gep a strategic plan that rebuilt the company or repositioned the company for sustainable growth to do that we figured out the
4:49 pm
most effective way to shed the liability was to take it through a restructuring. so as part of our plan it's successful, very successful. we were in and out in three months, and through that entire period, through the last year we've been implementing -- we've developed and implemented the plan, which has resulted in significant same store sales growth, and, you know, a re-establishing of the brand and the company. >> so what's the plan now? are you growing locations, are you looking to go public what's the long-term vision? >> so the long-term vision for macaroni grill when we came in was really for stabilize the business and build a platform. and by platform i means systems, people, process. so we've really focused on doing that to get the business back on track but then also to go through and build growth through acquisitions because we have the platform to leverage today that we didn't have a year ago. >> and acquisitions of different concepts
4:50 pm
what would make sense at this point? >> very disciplined and i think you need to be when you look at acquisitions so you don't sink the ship so we look at the brands that are out there. we want to be very careful to make sure we inherit a brand that and it doesn't have cap ekts acape and we have the rationalization molding them on to the platform. >> what about if aditi how they were lowering the cost of some of the food? y have you seen the cost changes? a little bit if anything it will benefit us because of the tariffs that china has put on produce, so i think down the road, depending on how all of this goes and how it shakes out. i think it will benefit us, but time will tell. >> she was saying that the commodity prices have gone down for such key food items. >> a lot of our count tracntrac already baked. >> where are you on the pasta?
4:51 pm
>> olive garden? >> will you be doing something like that? >> no, we will on a smaller scale. it's a great program, and advertising marketing tactic it works well. for us it's really focusing on bringing those guests in and taking care of them and we're all about hospitality, quality and that's what we focus on. >> if it keeps selling so fast it means not everyone is doing the low carb thing, right? >> probably good news for you, then >> mark roney grill. chad or favorite one of america's most popular video games may be going the way of the hula hoop or cabbage patch kids >> they went out >> thank you >> brad smith will be stepping down at the end of the year and he'll join squawk alley tomorrow for an exclusive interview to talk about it. an interview you won't want to miss we'll be right back.
4:52 pm
with tripadvisor, finding your perfect hotel at the lowest price... is as easy as dates, deals, done! simply enter your destination and dates... and see all the hotels for your stay! tripadvisor searches over 200 booking sites... to show you the lowest prices... so you can get the best deal on the right hotel for you. dates, deals, done! tripadvisor. visit tripadvisor.com
4:53 pm
4:54 pm
the video game fortnite has been a phenomenon around consoles and mobile this year, but its run atop the charts may be coming to an end. julia boorstin has a look at that hi, julia. >> fortnite has slowed dramatically and data research warns that that kind of growth may never return fortnite's revenue grew from 2% from june to july. that is over 32% revenue growth between march and april and 72% revenue growth between february and march. other bad news,a, cording to twitch metrics, fortnite has the top spot of most watched games on twitch after dominating in the first half of the year in august, fortnite is falling
4:55 pm
behind, too. the question is whether the market for this kind of game is saturated and whether players are simply moving on to other games with that popular battle royale mode such as pub g. we'll have to see how it plays out to the big gamemakers as they embrace the battle royale mode that fortnite popularized in october, electronic arts is launching battlefield 5 and both will include multi-player modes that are similar to fortnite's battle royale. fortnite is credited, though, with attracting younger gamers across the video game business mpd group just reported that games rated for teens or for everyone grew 22% year to date this year from last year and a lot of that, they say, is really due to fortnite and that type of game guys >> fortnite is so true in terms of the phenomenon, i wonder if there is seasonality with the trends and is it like a school
4:56 pm
year thing where students get into it? >> the thing about fort nite is it's an incredibly social game and it allows you to play with up to 100 people and it is a social game and people have speculated that maybe the slowdown is the fact that kids are out of school and they're not around their friends as much and they're off doing different things in september and october, they'll be key for a number of reasons. september is because it's back to school. we'll see kids hanging out and we'll see the social element of fortnite starts to kick in again and in october, when we get the massive game launches from ea and activision will those be so huge that fortnite becomes less appealing? we'll see. >> julia, thank you. >> shouldn't they be doing homework >> just juggle it all. >> up next, a better look at today's after-hours movers when we come right back ♪ never drop to your knees,
4:57 pm
♪ look into the sky for a momentary high, ♪ ♪ you never even tried till it's time to say goodbye, bye ♪ ♪ everybody fights for a little bit of light, i believe. ♪ geico motorcycle, great rates for great rides.
4:58 pm
4:59 pm
let's get you awe check on some of the headlines and moves in the after hours shares of hpinc., despite revenue and earnings beat after the bell earnings came in in line with analyst expectations and it's up
5:00 pm
about 2% >> ross stores also falling after issuing third quarter guidance despite an earnings beat and that's been another extremely strong performer. >> up double, up 60% in the last year, but a retail loser and intuit announcing the company's ceo brad smith will be stepping down at the end of 2018 and he'll remain at the company and become the executive chairman and be on "squawk alley" tomorrow morning >> all right that does it for "the closing bell," "fast money" starts right now. >> i'm melissa lee, your traders on the desk are tim seymour, karen finerman, and bob grasso >> before the bulls bailed on the name, so is it headed for another breakdown, or could this be your best chance to buy in the top technician will be here. bitcoin is hanging tough despite rejections from the ftc and brian kelly says the action could be a bullish sign for the

119 Views

info Stream Only

Uploaded by TV Archive on