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♪ good wednesday morning i'm carl quintanilla with jon fortt. megan brennan is back. we'll start with the markets once again today the major indices are rallying the dow, s&p and nasdaq up about 1% above tuesday's highs tech is leading the market higher so far in today's trade nasdaq is on pace for the fourth positive session in five for more on how the sectors position to close out the year, we're joined pby mark may and raymond kessler. good morning, guys good to see you. >> good morning. >> good morning. >> how would you characterize how old school tech has performed this week amid these swings >> it hasn't surprised me that we're starting to see a little bit more of a bottoming and some support out there. as i've been on the road meeting with investors, people are

definitely sharpening their pencil on names. i'd say that facebook is one of the names that's coming up a lot among investors, trying to get a sense for what to do down here a real view that i'm feeling is that on facebook, a lot of the faang stocks, there's a view that valuations have hit a bit of a floor here. if you look at the internet group as a whole, multiples are now near their five-year average and there's a real view out there that for facebook, amazon, earnings expectations have been reset. we've seen a big decel in revenue growth, especially for facebook, and those have been baked into estimates and multiples. this is the growing view among the investors i speak with. >> does that extend to apple >> i don't cover apple it's not a name that i know as much about but when it comes to google, facebook, amazon, netflix, we are starting to sense that

investors think they have reached some sort of floor here. >> aaron, what do you think? do you think we've reached a floor here in terms of valuations for the faang stocks you cover? >> we think large caps are pretty attractive and undervalued. small caps are in the fair value range that they have been over the last couple of years they were overextended for a while. facebook trading at 15 times earnings on calendar 19 growing still mid-20s next year. google trading 20 times earnings alibaba is our top pick trading at 12 times for a company growing 30%, so we think a lot of valuations especially in the large caps have got too attractive even if we see a little slowing in fundamentals, we think that's more than priced in at current levels here. >> mark, what are the new groupings or themes that you would look at with these stocks? i feel like when faang started, the attention was more to

amazon's top-line growth but the narrative has shifted more toward the cloud than it was then of course you've got microsoft which is not part of that group which is now, today anyway, the largest market cap tech company so what are the themes that investors should think about as they try to evaluate each stage of this journey as we head into 2019 how these companies are likely to perform and be perceived? >> cloud is going to continue to be a major theme in this space aws being a distant number one in that group. but as you know, google recently hired a new leader of their cloud business i think he's going to double down on the opportunity there and better position them to go after the enterprise segment of the market, which is where all the growth is happening. so cloud will continue to be a major theme. >> when you say that about thomas currian coming in at google, how important is it going to be for google to break out more data on cloud and be a lot more specific about how much

fuel it's willing to give that business, including doing more m & a? >> it certainly helped amazon a lot when they broke out aws. we've seen amazon stock the last two years since they started segmenting out, probably a little early for google to do that cloud is not a big enough contributor to their overall business as they start to gain more transaction, that will be big. another thing people aren't talking about, ar and vr, vr specifically next year facebook has a new product in the spring coming out called quest if you talk to people in the vr industry, it's a price point that's affordable, $400 or $500, not tethered to a pc and allows spatial recognition of a room, walking around a room at an affordable price point not tethered to a pc i think you'll start to see 2019 to be the year of vr starting to take off. >> baby steps, i guess, on that front. aaron, we mentioned alphabet and

google did the appearance on the hill today give us any clarity on the trajectory of regulation, to the degree in which we get it? >> we think it's still uncertain. we think for the large part companies will self regulate themselves facebook we think has taken measures to self regulate. of course you're going to have government officials still be upset over some of these issues, but we think for the large part self regulation in the space. >> aaron, i wonder if you think the dynamic in washington yesterday speaks in some sense to the idea that nothing is going to happen? you said him on the hill testifying and what happened in the oval office completely overshadowed it. could that not be the story of what happens in d.c. despite certain people's best efforts to

focus on what happens with data and privacy? >> some of it was for show yesterday we saw some in government don't really truly understand all the technology. i think there's some misunderstanding that google is not apple, they don't make iphones. that's a hurdle in itself. so we'll have to wait and see. we're not too concerned there. the biggest issue for stocks is the china issue, so how that gets resolved over the next month or two could be the bigger issue for stocks in the near term we think. >> mark, your thoughts on regulation, especially this idea of self regulation, given that you look at employment and job openings at these companies? >> i think we have a long history in the u.s. around a lot of smoke, things that may happen on the regulatory front and it really never does. i think the regulators have really preferred to have a hands off, self regulatory approach. facebook, obviously a lot of issues there, but at least they did take very early and proactive steps. i think that's helped the

situation out a little bit even in a worst case scenario where regulation does get involved, we've seen that's happened in europe we had gdpr in may of this year and it's had very little noticeable impact on the results of the internet companies in that market even when there is regulation the reality is, is that while there may be more restrictions on the collection and use of data going forward, these companies still have a data advantage over their incoumbent media competitors. >> still need to get congress to understand that google doesn't make iphones that was a painful moment yesterday. mark, aaron, thanks, guys. see you soon. we are still awaiting tencent music's opening trade here at the new york stock exchange bob pisani is live in post 5 with the latest. >> post 5 citadel securities, and right now indications 14 to

14.50. pricing of 13 hasn't hoped yet joe mccain runs trading for citadel securities a palpable sense of relief there was a lot of concern this is a crummy market, china is slowing a little bit, but your thoughts on how the process has gone. >> yeah, they priced at 13 i think everyone was happy that it was within the range. we indicate 13.50 to 14 so it started looking even higher than that and now we're at 14 to 14.50. it looks like it's around $14 so i think everyone is happy it's showing that. >> the important thing, i think, right now is that the deal got done at all. did we move the indication up? >> just a little more. 14.25. >> 14 to 14.25 now so we're narrowing the range

so the process has been very smooth often on these ipos you'll see prices move all over the place this has slowly, slowly been climbing does that mean anything to you >> it's hard to read into it too much but it does look like it's a sign of strong investor demand that's been very orderly we've been seeing the interest build up over time it's now pairing off over 5 million shares so i think it's a good indication that the tencent team did a great job marketing the deal. >> i asked several questions about chinese retail interests buyers can put in orders to buy from here. do you have any sense of where the orders are coming from >> a lot of that comes in through u.s. brokers even if it's coming from overseas interests. but you know this deal was marketed in the u.s., primarily to u.s. investors, to give them exposure to the 800 million users that tencent music has on its platform clearly they're looking for broad interest on a global basis. >> we've got to go, but any

indications of what this means for 2019 ipos. you're watching that whole situation with the unicorns out there. what does this tell you? >> i think it shows that there is continued demand for interesting deals from interesting companies like tencent. obviously there's a lot of speculation around unicorns coming to market in 2019 i think this is just continued indications that there is a lot of interest for these kinds of companies coming in the market. >> so bottom line 14 to 14.25 means they're narrowing the indication that's a sign we're getting a lot closer i know you don't give a time but maybe the next half hour fair? we'll keep an eye on it. guys, back to you. >> bob pisani, thank you. a big ipo as we await those opening trades there, especially on a day when tech stocks are leading the opening rally. we've got a big show still to come. kevin hassett is with us at the

top of the half hour next, u.p.s. ceo david abney joins us after the break this isn't just any moving day.

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u.p.s. saying it's been smooth so far still expecting to handle a record number of packages through the holidays joining us now exclusively here at post 9, u.p.s. chairman and ceo david abney. so great to have you here. >> glad to be here. >> before we get into peak season and what you're seeing so far, it's another triple-digit day for the dow, up 350 points right now. u.s./china headlines driving the headlines again. how do you think about all the volatility we've been seeing >> well, global trade is a big concern of many of our customers, and it's the uncertainty that one day they'll be up, the next day it's down and there will be positive news. i think that there is slight optimism right now that china and the u.s. are talking today that seems to reflect that also at the g-20, the fact that

the usmca was signed at the end of the day there's more questions than answers, and our customers are continuing to express, asking us what are their options, how can they comply but at the same time how can they optimize their supply chains. >> u.p.s. is on the front lines in terms of all that freight moving around the globe. are you optimistic in terms of a u.s./china trade deal longer term >> i would say cautiously optimistic i do believe that some of the missions that the u.s. government is trying to accomplish, that that needs to happen just get concerned sometimes with the methods, tariffs and stuff like that. but do believe now that discussions are ongoing, that there is a possibility for a deal, we just have to see how long it will take. but yes, cautiously optimistic >> your read on the global economy, and also the u.s. economy? >> the u.s. economy, i'll start first, with tax reform and some

of the deregulations is still going well you hear a lot of things about what's going to happen we're not really a leading indicator, we're more of a present day barometer. but we feel that the economy is going well across the world, there's just increasing global concerns, whether it's brexit or china/u.s. or europe/china, so a little bit of a headwind there, but there's also tailwinds that are providing positive energies. >> you point to this narrative of slowing growth, fading fiscal stimulus, corporate deleveraging has it impacted cap ex plans for you guys >> it really has not as part of our transformation, we're focused on our strategic imperatives and making the investments that will pay off for investors, our customers and our people so, no, it really hasn't had an

effect. >> is that mostly in the error somewhere else >> you know, it is throughout. in our ground network we've added 400,000 packages per hour this year. when you think about that, that's pretty amazing. 350,000 in the u.s but we've added aircraft, we've added for this peak season 100,000 employees from thanksgiving to christmas. so if any of you know college students that need to do something, we'd like to have them for the next few weeks. >> is the 100k seasonal in line with historical trends >> you know, it's probably slightly higher, but it's in line with the growth rates one of the things that helps us get that 100,000 people is when one-third of u.p.s. employees in the u.s. started as seasonal employees, so it's a good stepping stone into the company. >> peak season traditionally a very, very busy time of the year, crucial time of the year

for u.p.s. we've seen issues around costs the last couple of years the fact that you're on with 13 days to go until christmas, i know there's a lot that can happen in that almost two-week period, but how is the season going so far >> the first half has gotten off to a very good start for us. the network is performing from a service standpoint the way we thought. in fact our network right now is performing at nonpeak levels to put that in a comparison, that would be like traveling on a road during rush hour at the same pace as nonrush hour time, so we're very encouraged by the fact that our service levels -- >> you're hearing tencent music opening for trade over at post 5. it was indicated 14 to 14.50 and you're going to see an opening trade with a 14 handle,

which has bob pisani was telling us a moment ago, the company could well take as a victory at this point after pricing at 13. >> it's amazing how quickly the ipo window narrative has changed. we'll see how this plays out the stock continuing to move in this opening trade, but bob pisani was just talking about this being a difficult market for ipos the weather changed rather quickly as it has a way of doing in the winter. david abney, we'll be back to you in just a bit. bob pisani now at post 5 with this ipo opening what can you tell us >> here's all tencent officials behind us with the bell. of course we have a little ceremony down here there's stacy cunningham right on the side here and they're all about to hit the bell. there's a bell they bring down on the floor, that is not the bell that's up on the balcony, that they're all about to ring they have just hit it and are

taking a few pictures. a lot of smiling faces this thing could have easily gone south, easily remember the problems, very weak market conditions overall, a somewhat slower chinese economy, and the fact that the space has not been performing very well, although many of these companies are not exactly the same, streaming has been difficult so just the fact they got the deal done this morning, when i talked to officials, they were happy about that the fact that they got it at the low end was not a problem. the important thing was they got it at 13, now opening at $14.10 and a lot of people down here said, you know, this is a victory. we should all go home for the rest of the season at this point. a lot of relief that the deal got done guys, back to you. >> david abney, ceo of u.p.s. still with us here at post 9 i wonder if you could draw out a bit of a rope map for how wireless devices are helping you get more efficient

we see things with doorbell cameras and people allowing packages to get in-house how many of those ideas and things are you toying with as you look at the next generations of devices coming online and what's going to allow you to deliver more packages more quickly? >> technology is certainly a big part of this peak season service levels that we're experiencing right now. in fact, what i was talking about, our service levels and all the applause happened here, i thought it was for u.p.s.'s service level. they tell me it's about tencent's opening price so i'll have to accept that. but really mobile devices is more where the company is moving we have an advanced technologies group that is just focused on these future technologies. to give you an example -- >> they're very happy about that technology group you've got. >> that's right. another example of technology and how it's helping us, when we hire that 100,000 people, we're

able to give them mobile devices for helpers to actually deliver to our customers so they just use a mobile device. in our buildings, the same thing, they can scan a package, this mobile device tells them where to place the package, on what belt. so technology is really deskilling, which is important for this temporary workforce, and is giving us much more flexibility. >> i've got to get your thoughts on amazon. last week morgan stanley comes out with a note and says it sees rising competition from amazon air. the market is missing the risk amazon air poses and the firm believes it represents 2% revenue loss for fedex and u.p.s. shares tumbled on that your thoughts, your reaction >> when is comes to amazon, everyone has gotten an opinion some of them are real strong doesn't necessarily make them right. but amazon is a good customer of ours we have a good relationship.

and we believe that we're important in their future of being able to reach their customers. but at the same time, we are the vendor of choice when it comes to e-commerce. our network is open to all of e-commerce shippers, large and small. in fact we're really focusing on small and midsize businesses as we speak >> that's part of your transformation plan that you laid out during the fall i just also have to get your thoughts on the trump administration's task force report that was finally released about the usps one of the things that was suggested, and it is to sell access to mailboxes to companies like u.p.s is that a good idea? >> you know, we have a great relationship with our customers. we go to most everyone's houses. but getting access to the mailbox would be an even closer connection so as long as when you find out all the details that we can go along with those conditions, we

look at that as a very positive step an we think it helps the consumer because no one wants to get a delivery notice at their door saying they didn't get a package right. and if you get mailbox accepts, you can just provide much better service. >> lastly, i've just got to get your thoughts on freight rates as we go into 2019 transportation costs, logistic costs have been something cited as a big increase for many companies across the board have they peaked >> i wouldn't say that they have peaked what i would say is when we talk to our customers, we focus on the overall value. and there are things going up. fuel at times is going up. of course when you have tariffs and other regulations and barriers to trade. but we look at the overall value. how can we help our customers reduce inventory how can we help them speed access to the market

those are areas that we believe we provide a real value, and we think that has led to this peak season service levels and interest that we have. it's been a real tailwind for us, the fact that we've had this network running the way that it has. and that's kind of in spite of earlier in the quarter where we were going through some labor negotiations there were some concerns on our customers' part. we were able to get a positive conclusion to that, very happy to say, and now you can tell by our network that we have a lot of confidence. and just want to tell all of my customers out there as well as you guys, there is room at the inn. we have more room in our network and we can absolutely take things between now and christmas, we just prefer sooner rather than later. >> david abney, ceo and chairman

of u.p.s., thank you for joining us today in the midst of this peak shipping season. >> thank you. and when we return, the latest on brexit ahead of this afternoon's confidence vote for prime minister theresa may we are live in london after the break. first, take a look at the best performing stocks on the dow so far in today's session. heavy metal and plastic, caterpillar, visa, boeing. eaeystl re "squawk all" il ahd.

european markets are closing abroad with the question of what's next for brexit a key driver in today's action wi wilfred frost has the latest. >> that internal conservative party no-confidence vote in theresa may will take place between 1:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. eastern time the latest betting market odds suggest an 87.5% probability that she will get the 158 votes

of our 316 mps, 50% needed in order to win now, sterling has rallied on that news as have uk and european equities. the confidence coming from the fact that some 180 of her mps have come out to support her publicly during the course of today, more than she would need for victories. now, for markets to be wrong, you'd need to see a large portion of them lying publicly and voting against her privately, which seems highly unlikely by the way, it's important to put the rally in sterling in context. the pound is still down week to date, month to date and still down over the last three months, down some 4.5% from its three-month high why is that? even if theresa may's power is enhanced with victory tonight, the chances of her middle ground brexit deal passing parliament in the months ahead remains very low.

guys >> wilfred, thank you. i'll see seeing a lot more of you as the day unfolds here. let's get over to sue herera for a news update. good morning, everyone here's what's happening at this hour french police releasing a photo identifying the suspected assailant of a shooting spree in strasbourg a 29-year-old with a long police record for crimes, including armed robbery. he has been monitored as a suspected religious radical by french intelligence services. first lady melania trump taking a short trip to virginia to visit troops at a holiday event at jointangley she shook hands with the service members and spent time with their children. >> i'm honored to be able to say welcome home and thank you for answering the call of duty i have said this before, but it's worth repeating we know that we are free because

you are brave. >> a new report out this morning shows how being overweight is really bad for your health researchers say those who are overweight or obese are at a higher risk of developing 13 different cancers. 4 million deaths were caused by being overweight in 2015 and that is the news update this hour let's get back down to "squawk valley." squawk valley? squawk alley in the valley of the canyons of lower manhattan. you know where i was going with that, carl. >> see you in a bit. after the break, kevin hassett is with us the dow is up 318 for some of the best gains of the month.

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major indices in the green this morning with investors eyeing some of the mega cap tech names to power stocks higher what month is it

dom chu is back at hq with a look at why the new boss of the next rally will likely be the same as the old boss dom. >> so traders are watching for a number of key stocks to make moves higher to be the leadership and assume that position for the next leg of the market higher if one were to come if you take a look at stocks like amazon or apple or microsoft, there's a reason why many traders are focused so intently on those. that's because they are among the leaders of that run to record highs will they be the leadership for the next leg if you look at the s&p 500, a handful of very large cap names have been powering the gains between the year to date period through october 3rd, near those record highs, microsoft shares have gained 35%, a gigantic company moving not far to the upside apple up 37%, nvidia, amazon an

netflix. as we look at the old bosses to become the new bosses, howard silverblack points out that the year-to-date returns of the s&p 500 through the month of november, 42% of those gains just these three stocks alone, microsoft, apple and amazon. meet the new bosses, same as the old bosses back over to you guys. >> thank you very much, dominic chu. meantime ahead of next week's fed meeting, the president again reiterating his desire to have the fed not raise rates. this time in an interview with reuters saying the move would be, quote, foolish our steve liesman is here at post 9 and he has brought a special guest, the chairman of the council of economic advisers, kevin hassett. >> let's bring kevin right in did the president know you were coming on the big show so you'd have to answer for his comments?

>> you could put liesman in a cowboy hat and call you hoss >> do you think -- >> the president speaks his mind but of course we respect the independence of the fed, that's why we appointed such great independent guys. >> i'll move off of should he be doing it to whether or not you think he's right you're going to crow in just a minute and i'll let you crow about the 3% growth this year. do you still think we should have a 0 fed funds rate? >> the thing that i can say is when you and i were talking about the tax cuts last year at this time, i said if we passed them, we'd get a capital spending boom which puts downward pressure on prices because it's a supply shift. that's exactly what we're seeing in the data. we've had a capital spending boom for independent business up 16%. if you give us the fourth

quarter, we're up about 10% nationwide and that's the kind of thing that puts downward pressure on prices i think they thought inflation would accelerate we've had the growth with inflation decelerating which is what our model said would happen so it's going really according to plan for us. >> kevin, let's talk about your model, which the 3% growth is a given this year. but there's so many doubters about next year. the street doesn't appear to believe you. the fed doesn't believe you. the world bank, everybody is below that, some more substantially than others. do they all have it wrong or is there some other thing they're missing here >> it's just like last year and there are two factors i want to point to the first is there has this capital spending boom which we've talked about the thing about capital spending, it gives to gdp twice. you get it when you give to the machine and the machine starts

to have output the capital spending boom in the third quarter leveled off a little bit we were looking at the data a lot to try to figure out what was going on there are a lot of capacity utilization problems so, for example, in computers and peripherals, it was 90% and that's way above normal capacity so those guys have to buy machines that's the second thing. >> i've got to cut you off only because the graphics being put up are not working out with what you're saying. what we're looking at are business spending numbers year over year, that the growth rate is quite a bit down. if you look at the month over month which is the bar chart, it looks pretty squirrely the last three months so it's a little hard -- and the street is a little pessimistic about, quote unquote, capital spending boom that you're counting on. >> i'm happy to e-mail you the sources. i was referencing the gdp data mostly but the fact is that the latest advanced number was a surprisingly low number. my guess is it will reverse next

month. with capacity utilization so high and everything having gone up so much this year, it seems like the people making machines will have to buy machines themselves so we'll be at 3 or above 3 for next year as well. >> kevin, does it bother you that stock buybacks have been surpassing cap ex, or there is a certain fung ability to that >> there is a big stock of cash overseas and people can bring it home now when they bring the cash home, one of the things they're doing is repurchasing shares if you repurchase shares, like say apple is a company that's done a lot of that, then what happens is you free up capital for new innovative companies what you would expect to see if you think the repurchases are a good thing because they reshuffle capital to the people who need it the most is a big surge in capital spending by independent businesses and that's up 16% this year. so it's all working really the way it should be. >> kevin, looking at your economic forecasts into 2019, how are you modeling for china and trade policies between the

u.s. and china >> that's a great question because right now that's one of the places where outlook has changed a lot. the european economy is clearly slowing. i think the european economy is slowing because capital spending is on hold as people wait to see what happens with brexit there's a lot of financial distress in italy. europe exports a lot to china, which itself i think is suffering a severe slowdown right now. so the global economic outlook is a little lower than we had last year. but for the u.s., we're really humming along. >> kevin, what's your expectation on how the slowdown in the housing market, particularly when it comes to equity growth, is going to affect the economy heading into 2019 with people perhaps feeling less wealthy than they might have >> well, that is one factor that we're watching closely you're right, the housing market has been one of the weak spots this year. i think that if you're wondering about the sustain ability of the boom, then the fact that we don't have this out of control

housing sector should give you comfort that we don't have to worry about our financial institutions having another housing bust because housing is really underperforming but i think as we move forward and incomes continue to grow, real wages are growing more than 1% at an annual rate, then those higher incomes will increase housing demand i expect that to turn around next year. >> kevin, does labor represent a constraint on growth in this economy? if you look at the participation rate, which is something, by the way, the president complained a lot about as a candidate he also complained about the large number of americans, 95 or 96 million people who were out of the workforce or not in the labor force, and that number has actually grown under the president. is there a constraint on the extent to which this economy can grow because we don't seem to be able to grow the labor force much more? >> hypothetically there is, steve, but it's one of the things we've been following the closest since i've been here we just tweeted a chart at the last jobs report that's one of the most important charts i've seen since i've been at cea.

we looked at all the people who got a job and then asked ourselves what percentage of them came from out of the labor force. so we're basically getting people back in they're reparticipating in society. the answer is 73.5%. that's the highest percentage of new jobs going to people who were previously out of the labor force that we've seen in u.s. history, as far back as calculated so i think people are coming pack but you're right, if that were to slow down, that's why we'd have a less rosy scenario going forward. >> kevin, you sound like not only are we not at full employment but maybe there's more slack in the labor market than expected. >> i think there's more slack because people are coming back into the labor market. when we took over, everybody was extrapolating a trend but, yes, there's that and the fact we have a capital spending boom going on, which means that you

don't have to get runaway inflation even though we have had unemployment rate very low because the supply shock is putting downward pressure on prices. >> kevin, i am not going to ask you if you support the administration's trade policies here, which is what everybod always wants to ask you because we know what you said before here's what i want to ask you. do you get to tell the president that he has done so much to help business spending and capital spending with the tax cuts, but that the uncertainty created by the trade and the tariff wars are taking away from confidence. we have seen some decline in some of the ceo confidence surveys we're looking at, and that one policy of the administration is working against another. do you get to advise the president on that problem? >> i'm not going to talk about my conversations with the president, but i can tell you that i do support his trade policy because he's trying to push tariffs and nontariff barriers all around the world. they did a study of what happens

and it's a big increase in global growth and disproportionate growth in the u.s. but uncertainty over our progress is clearly having an impact on market that's why i think it's important we move forward quickly with the china deal that is on a running clock. i think we recognize that if we make positive progress as we have with korea, as we have with usmca, as we're doing with europe, if we make positive progress with china, that will be very, very positive news for markets. >> kevin, i always enjoy talking about the numbers with you thanks for coming on today. >> great to be here. thanks for having me. >> and our thanks to you, steve liesman, as well. >> pleasure. coming up this afternoon, from the white house to commerce, do not miss an exclusive interview with wilbur ross on "power lunch." we're talking u.s./china trade talks, opportunity zones, and, yes, even space. an investment in that emerging sector that's 1:00 p.m. eastern today tethbrk.t more "squawk alley" afr e ea

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i'm scott wapner here is what's coming up top of the hour on "the halftime report" today. we're looking ahead to next week's fed meeting what are the chances of no rate hike, and would that be good or bad for stocks lululemon down 20% one firm says buy it we'll ask our desk whether they agree with that. and jon and pete finding unusual activity again today, revealing the stocks likely to move on their options activity coming up

on "the half" carl courtney reagan has a quick market flash >> some updated guidance going forward reiterating what lowe's told us in november for the rest of this fiscal year which ends in january and looking forward to fiscal year 2019 which ends in january of 2020 lowe's is looking for earnings per share between 6 and 6.10 there is also a big buyback for $10 billion. because of that buy back and when that happens it could potentially make that earnings be less impressive because, of course, it takes down the number of shares. we also have a slightly light sales guidance for the next year shares are higher by 2%. back over to you >> we see that stock spiking "squawk alley" continues after a quick break. this isn't just any moving day.

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time we were all nervous about something big, y2k maybe you giggled then i understand the issues are dissimilar but the issue of fearing something unknown, never broached before, and having a lot riding on it, there are many similarities but after thinking about it, there's a lot of ways to soften a hard brexit and i would like to put a special thanks to ira harris who gave me a couple of these ideas to think about. one is foreign exchange. look at the chart since the brexit vote in mid-2016 between the euro and pound knowing both are competing as export economies. the long and the short of it is the euro is strengthening. that's a big plus for the uk second, corporate tax rates, i can't tell what you a difference it would make to have companies zero in on a lower corporate tax because many of them are somewhat mobile. uk's 19% now but ireland 12.5% there's room there

manufacturing capacity and trade. now we're going to bunch those two together very quickly. think about donald trump and what's going on with the european union regarding tariffs and autos. think about the capacity of auto manufacturing in the uk. now start thinking of the possibilities. my guess is that our president might make stronger overtures after today's confidence vote regarding theresa may because tariffs with regard to the eu and autos in the u.s., well, think about it the island's right there, could mitigate a lot of those. unknown and uncertain and costs associated with that at the end of the day, i don't know, i think a hard brexit may not be as hard as some think carl, back to you. >> all right, rick santelli, thank you very much. we are hanging in there after a few days, five, in fact, where we've dropped 1% interday from the opening trade the dow is up almost 350 the s&p up almost 40

welcome back an auspicious day for an ipo today is the 38th anniversary of market's apple debut apple went public in 1980 pricing at $22 a share

it's split a few times since then the market is up over 43,000% since then, carl >> it took a while to get that runup but it eventually got there. >> kind of like you and me >> i'm not sure what that means. theresa may the confidence vote in a little bit let's get to "the half." carl, thanks i'm scott wapner to hike or not to hike, that is the question the answer, well, it has everything to do with where your money and stocks could go from here it's 12:00, noon this is "the halftime report." >> the fed and china trade, both in focus today are these two crucial issues about to clear a path for a new bull run plus, a call on the s&p for 2019 that you'll want to pay attention to one wall street firm threw in the towel on a key sector and the retailer citigroup says to buy until the end of the shopping season. "the halftime report" starts right now. good to have you with us on this wednesday here to debate and