good morning 8:00 a.m. at tesla headquarters in palo alto, california, 11:00 a.m. on wall street. "squawk alley" is live ♪ ♪ good friday morning. i am carl quintanilla with morgan brennan, mike santoli, post 9 of new york stock exchange jon fortt is off today volatility is the understatement of the week. major averages look to claw back some of monday's losses. in one week, saw the worst christmas eve ever, biggers inter day dow point game and biggest internet come back in a

decade nasdaq is the laggard of the group. it is volatility that's the main topic of conversation. >> you should be cautious on this market until it stabilizes. it is like an earthquake the initial one may be 7.8, but there are aftershocks, and it is better to wait and be cautious the aftershocks could still be disruptive >> the big aberration in markets isn't this year, it is last year, when everything went right for investors. they got great returns, virtually no volatility and every car relation book in their favor. now we're transitioning back to something more normal which by the way is better over the long term i think one thing we have to worry about is that retail investors are looking at the markets and saying i don't get this, maybe i shouldn't be in these markets to begin with and that's a danger. >> last few days have been abnormal volatile.

the volatility in november and december, that's typical with a bull market that's old and so late in the economic stage but the last few days i think are abnormal the machines are taking over more than human beings >> joining us, paul christopher. wells fargo head of global market strategy and thomas dignan thanks for being with us let me ask whether or not the action this week is disincentive to own equities as he just suggested on that tape >> i don't think it is a disincentive nobody likes a roller coaster ride, but the longer the time horizon, the more you benefit from this. i would be careful not to wait for it to stabilize. i think on inter day moves, it is unpredictable look at the long term opportunity. attractive valuations here, take advantage of that, stay in the market or get in the market. >> how much risk are you putting

on a further down side move given what you just said >> well, like i said there's always risk of further down side move and i think investors to their own detriment wait for stabilization. think back to depths of the crisis in 2009 when the market was down 666, there were bond experts calling for it to go to 400. then as it moved up, people stayed out of the market, waiting for the correction that never came i would not focus on what the near term risks are but focus on long term opportunity. >> paul, what are the questions that you're getting from clients and how are you advising them? >> the main question we get from clients is given that we see up sides of markets next year, should they put new money to work now we think the answer is definitely yes we would look past the question of gee, where's the bottom here. we think the direction will be up you need to be putting money to work, do it incrementally. be aware on the way back up,

there are resistance levels that are significant. it will take time. you need to be patient put cash to work and be patient. >> what do you like now? >> we still like cyclicals, industrials, consumer discretionary, favorable on tech around the middle of the correction here. we think the values are compelling we look for 13% earnings growth in tech next year. we like financials and health care >> tom, obviously we're painting a picture where the market overshot, maybe isn't reflecting some of the economic fundamentals what in particular would you be watching in terms of incoming data, credit markets, to reevaluate the idea and maybe that the markets are foreshadowing something worse? >> if you look at the current economic data, it's interesting. people talk about goldilocks scenario that's low inflation, low unemployment, moderate to strong earnings growth, moderate to

strong economic growth, which we have we actually have a goldilocks scenario i think the thing to worry about is outside the u.s., look at china. does china have the ability to stimulate their economy to keep things on track. now, also to put it in perspective, revenues from china from the s&p 500 is a little over 5%. so it is real. but i think the whole trade issue, it can get overblown but also you can surprise on the up side on trade as well, if we reach some kind of agreement with china. >> going to be key on the radar in the coming weeks. steve liesman standing by, guys, taking a closer look at data as we round out the week. steve? >> carl, i want to look closely at the data, how it manifests this debate in the market, buy hard, sell hard showing up there's opposite interpretations of data. look at the consumer confidence number from yesterday. you can see came down hard that's the biggest decline since

2015 down to the lowest level in five months it is crashing here, but let's use magic and put it in context. take a look. it is really a decline as you zoom in from a near all-time high, two months still remains at an elevated level. how good does consumer confidence do in showing usu us recession it did come down, came down steadily before the 2007 recession, steadily before the 2000 recession, and steadily here 6 to 10 months the decline happens ahead of time. it often shows it comes down, doesn't give you recession signal, a bunch of false ones in there. two different ways let's look at other data out there. similar story. directionally down that's softer data we're seeing. but the levels in all these cases except for one remain relatively high. so you have this debate. is this the canary telling us y

us recession is coming look at the ee con x factors fed tightening the balance sheet, trade war global economic weak nlness, an the market sell-off can create its own economic impact by reducing gdp and here's the other stuff on the other side strong consumer. we think the christmas selling was strong job and wage growth up near 3% tax cuts, still should effect the economy next year to the up side and finally at 2.5%, and still $3.9 trillion balance sheet, the fed is still easing. carl, put that in your pipe and smoke it in that conversation you have going on. >> nice piece of magic there, steve. thank you very much. paul, let me turn to you on the heels of what steve just said. we got some weak fed surveys, chicago pmi at 65.

people say it might suggest a decent number for ism as we turn the calendar. >> yeah, we're expecting a decent number for ism, considerably above 50. people worry the trend will head past zero to negative. the history suggests that really with an economy this good, what you get is slowdown to still positive growth and higher levels of earnings, meaning a higher level in the stock market than mid september >> thomas, do you agree with that, given the fact when we talk about possibility of recession fears, et cetera, but we have seen gang buster growth in the u.s even if you see moderation next year, still talking about potentially strong levels, right? >> even with moderation. if you look at the expected earnings in the s&p, it is 175 that gives you 14 forward multiple 14 times earnings when ten year treasury is 3% is a bargain.

this is a 7% earnings yield. i think the market is attractive i think there are concerns in the market there are uncertainty we have to get through on trade once you get past that, you'll see a little more animal spirits at the cfo level in terms of capex and spending and planning. that's where we have seen a pull back that can threaten next year >> we look forward to a lot of commentary behind the earnings once earnings season begins. paul, tom, thank you >> thank you the eia report on oil and gasoline inventory hitting the tape leslie picker has the details. >> hey, mike oil inventories just out supply dropping by 46,000 barrels. analysts thought inventories would be down 3.3 million barrels. meanwhile, gasoline inventories were up 3 million barrels for the week also confounding analysts that thought supplies would only be up by 200,000 barrels.

wti crude was flat before the data was released. it is up three-tenths percent now. remaining near the lowest level in 18 months morgan, back to you. >> leslie picker, thank you. wti crude is up fractionally now. still to come, tesla naming two new independent directors to the board, part of a huge sec settlement details next. after a wild week for tech, why our next guest says he is digging into apple for 2019. and why steve odland says pleajuchu.s. is experiencing a atu. the dow is down 37

pace for the worst month ever. one analyst says apple will be the best performing in 2019. welcome to you both. gene, this is your call on apple. obviously it has been a bruising

period for the stock, it is a beaten down valuation. is this a painful transition to the next phase of the apple story? before you tell me why you're bullish, how did we get to this level? >> we got there because people are still focused on iphone units and eliminating some disclosures, spook investors, and after that a chorus of negative data points out of asia on production of iphones those two pushed us to where we're at >> so why is that the story line and the market perspective going to change next year? >> every ten years or so there's a new paradigm, investing paradigm around apple. the last one was around the iphone the next one will be apple as a service. we're not talking about a small 15% of revenue that's a service to segment, we're talking about hardware services type of business unfortunately there's probably

risk to the march numbers but despite that, we think this will be the best performer of faang stocks in 2019 because over the next four quarters, we think the new reporting methodology will advance this idea that apple is performing with higher visibility and investors will look at what's most important, revenue, earnings, growth, and cash returned to investors it will take a few quarters for this shift but ultimately it should be a meaningful positive to apple's multiple. that's why we're upbeat on the story in 2019. >> joel, you also feel like apple is a buy at these levels what are clients telling you for why they're not being aggressive and staying away at this level >> i think kind of gene touched on it a little last quarter, cook and company pulled the iphone metrics out at the worst time of the story, near the peak of the market as well and that clearly rattled a lot

of people. everyone knows smart phone cycle is well past its peak. gene talked about it in the past and it is clear, their asps of the portfolio continue to rise average selling price 26% this year, year over year they can survive with declining volumes. it is where the supply chain suffers most i would avoid supply chain, i wouldn't buy it with your money. they're in for another round of pain in coming quarters as well. what i would like to see from apple, they want to become a services company, give more metrics as far as services go, breaking it down and then on the m and a front. they're sitting on cash, want to be a leader in health care, could make a play there, or even within content and kickoff streaming initiatives. they need to make more sexy headlines. >> can i jump in on that can i make one clarifying point.

live tv is not the right venue to do this, but i urge investors that apple needs to give more updates in terms of how their business is trending what really would be ideal is for apple to give an analyst statement once every two years so we can frame in some of the things like improving revenue per user i think there's a huge opportunity the company has to advance investors' interests by giving more disclosure if at all, once every two years. >> this has been a rallying cry by analysts that the investor based gene doesn't understand the model. you can have citi cut that forecast in half today, but how much does it matter if in fact as others argue most of the profit growth in the next five years will come from services and wearables. >> right we need a little more guidance given they've taken some visibility away with reporting

metrics. one of the largest companies in the world, it only makes sense they would do an analyst day once every two years >> joel, moving past apple for a moment, you cover quite a wide swathe of tech and media names what do you like here, what don't you like >> i'll start with what i don't like i'm negative on facebook i still think even yesterday, for instance, team zuckerberg kind of rolled out new initiatives, platform changes to instagram. bash lash was immediate, they rolled it back relatively quickly. i think they're doing tinkering with instagram at the wrong time, trying to offset the news feed platform and are running the risk of saturating instagram stories with a ton of advertisements which will turn off the user base. that's my core thoughts on facebook and the semiconductor space, i think rallies are to be sold,

even if a trade war eases with china, you still have massive inventory pileup, cloud digestion going on in north america and china and europe, and there's a lot of red flags, whether it is cracks in the automotive markets on the up side, it is a consensus call, but cloud computing. i think we're in early innings of this transformation to the cloud. it is real names we like, names like workday, mostly in the security space, they continue to differentiate themselves to product offerings. >> and those stocks held up better than most parts of tech in the downturn. we have to leave it there. joel, gene, thanks for joining us. >> thank you we are watching shares of tesla today. the company tapping larry ellison and kathleen

wilson-thompson to the board of directors. shares are up 2.5% tesla and elon musk agreed to appoint a new chairman and two independent board members after the sec lawsuit, alleging that musk mislead investors with a tweet about taking the company private at $420 a share. ellison, no stranger to elon musk or tesla. here he is back in october >> my second largest investment i will disclose now, not sure people know, i am close friends with elon musk big investor in tesla. independent board director, ellison is a big investor in the company. i'm sure that's raising questions. you look at shares, investors seem to like it. >> obviously in a technical, formal basis, he is an outside director no corporate connection. in terms of how it will be received, i think you're weighing the well plugged in founding member of the silicon

valley establishment almost against the idea that he is not necessarily going to be that much oversight >> depends on the definition of independent. when we come back, we have consolidation in the cannabis space. details on that coming up. and the worst performing names in the dow in today's session. index down 49 points (toni vo) 'twas the night before christmas, and all thro' the house. not a creature was stirring, but everywhere else... there are chefs, bakers and food order takers. doctors and surgeons and all the life savers. the world is alive as you can see, this time of the year is so much more than a bow and a tree. (morgan vo) those who give their best, deserve the best. get up to a $1,250 credit on select models now

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welcome back to "squawk alley. shares of canadian cannabis company surging after a hostile takeover shares up 10%. aditi roy is in san francisco with more. >> hi, morgan. after responding to green growth

brands hostile takeover bid this morning, saying the bid undervalued the company, which was valued at $1.3 billion before the offer the canadian cannabis company says its board was approached by green growth yesterday about the proposal, and that green growth then took that bid to shareholders fewer than six hours later. the new board chair irwin simon was just appointed to the position yesterday he says the proposed offer is risky given green growth position to complete brokered financing at a price that's more than double the recent average of share price the stock plummeted on short selling report earlier this month. analysts expect more m and a activity in the new year, eyeing alcohol and tobacco companies for near term deals and consumer packaged goods and pharmaceutical brands as partners with cannabis companies down the road as the industry consolidates

we'll see how green growth responds back to you. >> aditi, thank you, a lot of action in this young space. straight ahead, they have been popular for years buy backs starting to bite back to the tune of several million and minutes away from capping off a wild week trading overseas theupe cses dee roanlo iunr way when "squawk alley" returns.

hi, everybody. contessa brewer. here's your cnbc news update syrian government troops arrived at the frontlines but haven't taken over the city. the troops outside the city haven't withdrawn. he told the ap they were invited to ward off a turkish attack russia is building a border fence. the fence is topped with barbed wire with sensors. russia says it is essential to prevent in filtration attempts by saboteurs and amos oz died from cancer he was a perennial contender for the nobel prize. and be on the lookout for scammers pretending to be from social security administration

they claim your number will be suspended for suspicious activity, but that will never happen more than 35,000 people reported scams this year. more than ten times the amount than in 2012 getting more and more sophisticated all the time let's get back to "squawk alley" and mike >> thank you very much european markets are closing higher friday's rally on the heels of heavy selling. the dax marked the end of a six year win streak. germany down 22% from highs. joining us, managing director at bks. boris, good to have you here it feels like going into a new year, maybe there's a soft consensus building that european stocks look cheap. maybe time to bet on market recovery with those regions rather than elsewhere. how do you think the region is set up >> i think the region painted

itself into a tight corner the ecb is very much gungho on tightening credit at a time all of the european economy is rolling over the cliff and moving dangerously towards contraction at this point, especially in core countries like france where we still don't know full extent of economic damage done by populist uprising you saw in the last couple of weeks. i think the jury is out as to what the european economy can stabilize in the first quarter the very best bullish case is the following. the europeans negotiate some sort of brexit deal. the u.s. begins to ease the powerful example going to not tighten further, therefore easing credit, and

trump agrees to a trade truce. if you have these factors, i think the european stocks are bound for a strong rebound but that's a lot of ifs. that's a bullish scenario for 2019 the more dangerous scenario is that all of these exacerbate then you could have further sell off as the trade tensions and political tensions rip the continent apart. >> boris, we talk about threading the needle that's like trying to thread three with the same thread which of the three stands the best chance at least >> i think saner heads will prevail on brexit. brexit now is as much a risk for european continent as it is for the uk if they really go through a no deal brexit, which will be detrimental to the uk and dangerous for europe, europe is a big exporter to the uk and uk is a big supplier of financial

services to europe, it is intricacy between the nations, it is important for everybody to create a deal. that will be the first positive sign if you can negotiate a brexit deal, you'll see a sigh of relief with european investors and probably a good signal for european stocks to go higher. >> boris, i want to go back to the point about the ecb. we are so focused on the fed and whether the fed is tightening and tightening too fast. it sounds like you're laying out the case that's exactly what's happening with the ecb >> no, it is exactly right remember the hard part here is mario draghi is set to retire at the end of 2019. unless they face a financial crisis in the region, it will be hard to completely change gears and move to more accommodative stance, even though all of the conditions and micro data in the

last couple of months, especially the recent data is showing significant fallout of demand i think they're playing a dangerous game keeping a brave face, saying everything is on target. they lowered growth estimates mildly for 2019. but overall china stayed the course of normalization. that could be a policy mistake if they remain titan face a political crisis in the first quarter, there's more than 50% chance the whole region could go into recession in 2019 create a bigger problem than they have now. >> it is clear that's not the scenario priced in yet. >> no. >> boris, i need your thoughts on where the dollar is headed for 2019 >> also really, really hard to call now so much of it depends on fed

policy and the political ramifications between the u.s. and china. the problem is that there is no good place to be it can't rally, despite strong interest rate yield differential than everyone else i am in a wait and see mode. i think out of consensus trade, something not priced in, is if we have a second global financial crisis, a big sell off in the marketplace one that will soar is the swiss franc, something the market is not looking at that could be the surprise of the year >> boris, we'll watch for it >> thanks, guys. happy new year to everybody. >> happy new year to you as well. fears of economic slowdown are taking a toll on u.s. consumer confidence. the confidence board saying while it is historically high,

suffered the largest drop since 2015, fell the second straight month. joining us, former office depot ceo and now president and ceo of conference board, and david dodson now with stanford school of business. good morning to you both steve, i'll start with you we put up a chart earlier, steve liesman did, showing consumer confidence not only for this year but going back the last 50 years to put in perspective the confidence level how would you describe the drop in december. is it a blip or coming off strong levels, given the uncertainty and volatility, or is this a canary in a coal mine for what could be slower economic growth next year? >> i think we're at very high levels historically as steve's data showed earlier. what you see in month to month comparison is a little here and

there. the consumer confidence index from the conference board is made up of a couple sub indexes. when people say how are they doing now, the jobs market is strong, wages are strong, they feel good about where they are when you then start to say zooido you think things get better in six months, they say no, they're not going to get better because they're so good now. i think we're on a plateau economically and i think things are not expected to get a lot better, but not expected to get worse from here as well. >> david, do you agree with that in terms of where we are economically now in the u.s. >> not really. the stock market has been so erratic in the last couple of weeks. people say because the fed raised interest rates a quarter point. show me a ceo that says people don't want to buy the product. i don't think that's what's happening. i think what's happening is for the first time since world war ii, independence of the fed was

called into question you have a treasury section that has to makeup a quote or tweet by the president to reassure markets the fed will remain independent, that's destabilizing, especially when we have a political environment where monitoring fiscal policy is used to get people elected or reelected. that's frightening the second thing is that trading relationships with important trading partners are in trouble because we have a situation we poked them in the eye instead of saying these trade agreements need to be revisited but need two signatures on the page at the end, we need what's called an agreement lastly, we had an infatuation with whatever the latest statistic is, unemployment, gdp growth instead of thinking of underpinnings of the economy and fiscal and monetary policy, we score poorly $22 trillion in debt, passed a tax cut that was supposed to be paid for by spending cuts, didn't happen, and by gdp growth, didn't happen. we're 3.5% gdp growth and going another trillion in the hole

if i'm in debt personally or my company, you have one of two choices. you go bankrupt or you have a plan to get out. the problem is we don't have a plan to get out of this debt mess we're in. 2034, we're messed up. >> steve, the debt problem is largely attractable. on trade, those can be quickly reversed given the right set of policy choices >> that's right. i'm sorry, go ahead, dave. >> no, please. >> you know, from the consumer standpoint you don't see those issues show up not worried about stock market volatility, that comes and goes, not seeing issues with trade show up in consumer confidence, and from a consumer standpoint which you know makes up 70% of the economy, we're seeing the highest levels of consumer spending with the great holiday

season retail sales up over 5%, online sales up nearly 20%. these are very strong levels you don't see this kind of slowdown when we talk to our ceos, yes, they're worried about trade, but tends to be sector specific. when you get talking to aluminum or steel people, they're concerned about their issues overall, we're at very high levels that's what we have to keep in mind >> steve, consumers probably don't worry about company stock going down much, but ceos of the companies do, and perhaps with borrowing costs going up as well i wonder if you think the markets influence things like 2019, investment spending by big companies in the environment >> certainly can volatility does that i think the question is, as was raised, where is the fed going with this. the medicine made dovish

comments, you saw the stock market rally, they walked it back, it went down i think this is what you're seeing i think monetary policy more than anything from the perspective of ceos. that's important because their cost to capital is so directly effected by that i think we have to see is it two increases or three increases next year, a quarter point each, and i think you've got two baked in the question is whether there are three or more. >> david, going back to earlier points about the fed and an argument around politicalization of the fed, you said you don't think president trump and powell should sit down for a meeting. am i wrong >> it is perfectly fine for the president or treasury secretary to talk to the fed the question is whether that impugns independent of the fed that's the line you can't cross. the reason is the fed is one institution worried about long term economic health i think it is appropriate for the executive branch to talk to

the fed, then the executive branch needs to be clear that the fed is independent the fed's independence isn't based on custom or courtesy, it is structural. the way the terms are laid out, open market committee, the way decisions are in secret, we want the fed away from the political process. that's important, that's what is jittering the markets. that donald trump and treasury secretary need to calm down. >> gentlemen, thank you both for joining us happy new year >> happy new year. when we come back, speculation around a possible new executive chairman at facebook who might that be one day, if at all, what it might mean for mark zuckerberg first, rick santelli, what are you watching >> i am watching real price discovery. there's not a lot of people left in this business, but there is in chicago it is real price discovery in real time. the only problem is that prices

they're discovering now might be built on prices that weren't actually discovered. that's what we're going to talk about aftethbrk.r e ea duncan just protected his family

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nearly a dozen highly-rated life insurance companies, and give you a choice of your five best rates. duncan's wife cassie got a $750,000 policy for under $22 a month. give your family the security it needs at a price you can afford. i am scott walker. here's what's coming up top of the hour new reporting how the white house is coping with recent selloff in stocks, including why one high ranking official called a well known investor. more details top of the hour. and is the come back in stocks more than a year end

positioning situation? we debate. and the stock of the week, a cloud player making a big move more at noon on the half we're about 15 away. see you then. >> what a tease. looking forward to that reporting. thanks, scott. let's get to the cme and rick santelli for the santelli exchange. >> good morning. thank you. there's a lot of great discussions on our channel one of the discussions has been why is the market getting so nervous? it didn't seem to have a problem when all of the plans of the fed in terms of a somewhat automatic pilot runoff of the balance sheet, for example, the announcement of that, and how it was pencilled in, brought through various communications and statements of previous meetings the market didn't seem to mind but i can remember in 2012, 13, 14, many discussions we had here that quantitative easing, global

liquidity and the rise of the stock market, liquidity from central banks grew, so did the price of many sectors, especially the equity sector and it was thought and i voiced it many times along with others, yra harris comes to mind, there would be the other side of the mountain nobody seemed to mind then either all of the talk on ultimate disruption when quantitative easing turned the corner reached that peak from adding to not adding none of these things when voiced seem to make a difference. what makes a difference is actual volatility, when it is actually happening because we are now going through rediscovering of market price discovery. when i talk about the pit being real time price discovery, it is but what it is built on is not necessarily trusted by investors any more what's too high?

are market evaluations correct we don't know. in fed, we trusted we trusted in ben bernanke, janet yellen, mario draghi, we trusted that they would always come to the rescue but there comes a point where enough is enough and chairman powell is catching a lot of flack and it always ends up being politicized, all intense issues in the age we live in end up central stage for political discussion, but the reality is that i think the current chairman ought to be given a much bigger chance to prove himself because somebody needs once and for all to let the bernanke, yellen put expire. we have to break that pavilion loafian conditioning that if the markets get wild, the fed will come to the rescue i think he's doing a good job. remember, he's not saying that

he's going to go on a blind tightening campaign. at some point, real time will reveil morgan, back to you. >> the other four letter word, data thank you, rick santelli when we come back, possible faceoff in the works at facebook and some of today's laggards on the nasdaq 100. netease, idexx, all weighing on the index. resqwkll" ter this break. this isn't just any moving day.

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some buybacks starting to bite back after companies spent billions earlier this year bob pisani, i guess not all companies view it as a way of buying low and putting the stock away, but looking ill timed on some fronts. >> they are not market tirmmers in the long run, it might work apple has lost nearly $9 million this year buying back its own stock. and it is one of those that i call buyback monsters. since 2013, apple share count has declined from 6.5 billion

shares to 4.5 billion. that is a phenomenal buyback and there are other major players. oracle, walgreen's, they ever significantly reduced their shares outstanding wells fargo has, applied material as well so this whole argument plays into the hands of two major groups number one, there are those who have been critical of the tax cuts in general arguing that the money is used for buybacks and dividends that only enrich share holders. and those who dislike the whole trend toward what is called financial engineering in the wall street community using money to make earns and earnings growth look better rather than growing revenues and deflects money from investing in capital expenditures to growing the bit. there is truth to both arguments. here is the question will these criticisms coupled with this decline in the stock market suddenly make all these corporations embrace

expenditures don't bet on it. buybacks will likely pick up with the remaining money that is available and the short term thinking of most of these corporate americans that are out there make it far more likely that immediate gratification will continue to prevail over longer term investments. two points about the "wall street journal" article. number one, yes, they lost money this year, but they have been buying back stocks for five years. i guarantee you they have made money. investors have made money long term number two, it is not all or kno nothing. the cash that is available, about half goes to buybacks and stocks and the other half to capital expenditures so the question is what is the right percentage i think this is a very good debate to have but there is still money going to capital expenditures out there. i'd like to see even more myself >> and it is interesting because if they stop buybacks because they are spooked by the market, chances are that they will just pay down debt or do something

that seems conservative as opposed to take on some kind of a new project and put it into new investment >> and that is a key point we talk about buybacks, almost as if it is or buybacks or capex. for many, fedex comes to mind, but they put money in both places on the heels of the tax cuts >> so we have to get corporate -- why does this happen corporate america thinks there is more value to them in buying back stock than the capital depends schur expenditures and it is the mental thing you know your earnings will -- apple reduced share count and all other things being equal, earnings go up 5%. duh. tell them stop thinking so short term because it will make your stock look good. but that is a hard nut to crack. >> maybe we'll see the end of debt finance buybacks at least in the year to come. thank you. dow is positive someone's agai

-- once again, looking for the first you been of sub 1% move. we'll talk about changes possibly coming to facebook in a minute

changes ahead for facebook

long time chairman stepping down from the boards of ibm and p and shift, but retains his role at facebook and airbnb. there is rumor that he could take a larger role facebook says that he will continue to serve on their board in the same capacity, but into the some play. >> market watch yesterday. some theories where goinare goi. >> people connecting the dots. not that weird if he wanted to reduce his workload, but to stay on one is kind of odd. on the other hand, nobody seems to be extrapolating much in terms of the stock facebook giving back some of the weak gains so far this morning >> and of course on the heels of yet another deep dive by the "new york times" into facebook and some of its policies around hate speech. i feel like 2019 will be another topsy-turvy year for this

company. >> and of course as for next week, final trading session of 2018 as we put this year to bed. >> mop it up, yeah >> and then you will come back to a democraticle controlled house and we'll see if the shutdown changes as a result of that have a great weekend back to the judge who is back with the half. i'm scott wapner after the best two years, is the worst really over for stocks it is 12 noon, this is the "halftime report." >> with one and a half trading days left, the debate intensifies. is the bottom in is a wave of pension fund rebalancing about to lift stocks and if so, will it be a temporary bump or will it solidify the bottom? plus a big name tech stock up 10% in four sessions it is our stock of the week. after