♪ good morning, welcome to "squawk alley. i am here with morgan brennan and david faber. carl has the morning off we begin this morning with retail shares of macy's getting crushed after reporting weak holiday sales results, slashing its outlook. other big retail names like target and kohl's feeling the pain courtney reagan is back at headquarters with more courtney >> reporter: hey, jon. i'm actually standing in indianapolis here, but you're right, that disappointing sales result from macy's is dragging down the entire retail sector. for the holiday season which macy's defines as november and

december, sales through 1.1%, double digit growth line but the ceo says while sales are stronger on black friday weekend, they did weaken mid december and didn't return to expected patterns until the week of christmas as a result, the department store is lowering the full year forecast for earnings, sales and margin macy's reported four straight quarters of same store sales growth investors wonder if that trend is at risk shares down more than 18% today. this could be on pace for the worst day ever and this is after shares grew 80% between thanksgiving of 2017 and thanksgiving of 2018 kohl's holiday sales grew 1.2% for november and december, double digit growth online they raised the lower end of full year earnings forecast. still, kohl's shares are down more than 7% held down by action in macy's.

target is reporting the strongest holiday results, comp. sales 5.7%, thanks to strong traffic, and slight up tick in the average transaction. online sales at target grew 29%, with stores fulfilling three-quarters of the digital sales. toys, babies, seasonal gifts, the strongest categories for target and target is maintaining the full year adjusted earnings forecast and sales forecast. still, shares are being pulled lower more than 4% because of what we heard from macy's. master card reported for november and december, total retail sales based on actual spending were up 5%. but clearly it was not the jolliest holiday for everyone in the group. back over to you >> courtney reagan, thank you. for more, bring in former walmart u.s. ceo bill simon on the cnbc news line good morning to you. >> good morning. >> in terms of macy's in the

pre-announcement, the fact that you have other retail names trading lower, including target as well, is this something that investors should read through as a broader warning about the state of the u.s. consumer or is this amaze ee's specific story >> i think it is a huge overreaction i think retail is still very strong, the economy is still buoyant. and the problems you're hearing are specific to retailers. 1.1 comp. for the who will tahon isn't horrible, it is growth retail is a math equation. if retail is up 3%, and walmart, target are over 3%, then you expect some to be below it it is just an indicator to be successful in retail now, you better be on your "a" game. >> does this put macy's recovery strategy into question >> it will be challenge fing fo

them this is a setback, we'll see what happens in the coming months again i don't think the result is worth 20% decline in the stock. i'm sure it wasn't what they were expecting, but we'll see how they're able to recover from it i'm still fairly optimistic. >> bill, looking at target, comp. sales up 5.7% online, up 29% as courtney said that sounds pretty good to me, based on numbers that investors were looking at as far as the company like target is concerned, yet the stock is down 3.5% should you expect a name like target to be raising, even with those kinds of results >> yeah. i mean, i don't know the strategy to razor to halt

guidance sometimes underpromise, overdeliver. target has been doing a good job, they looked really good in the holiday season, and for the last year, brian and the team have been doing a terrific job they were probably the winner on toys, at least on brick and mortar side of the toys r us battle i expect them to continue to do well whether they held or raise. that's gamesmanship. but i think they're doing well. >> you mention target as a potential winner from the holiday season looking at the broader sector, what else do you expect to have performed well >> i think walmart, amazon, i think amazon obviously online will continue to grow. i think people need to temper expectations of the massive growth we are seeing from the online segment, and not because it is slowing down, it is the law of large numbers as these

companies put more and more sales online, the 30s and 40% growth they have been delivering will be harder to deliver because of the law of large numbers. brick and mortar i think for everything else besize toys and walmart ran an efficient, effective holiday season i expect them to do well then there are other winners in small pieces and places, but those three guys doing well, the three big retailers that suck up the oxygen in the room >> bill, your take at the outset of the interview in terms of the health of the consumer, i would assume some of that is informed by your work on the board of darden i know you can't speak specifically to that, but what gives you confidence overall in the consumer now >> yeah, i don't think the consumer is listening to the noise that everybody else, that you hear on shutdowns and mueller investigations and trade wars i think right now their pocket,

gas prices, their paychecks, jobs are all really, really good, continuing to be really good, so is consumer spending. that's what you're hearing from master card results from the holiday period if it continues, if the shutdown continues and people start, you know, feeling a different impact on their wallet, in their paycheck, if something changes with the mueller investigation, if we can't solve trade, you know, i think it could go the other way. right now, for the period we're in, i think the consumer will stay strong, hopefully they'll be able to carry us through, maybe the politicians and policy makers can get out of their own way and solve things >> great to get your thoughts. former walmart u.s. ceo. macy's trades down 18%, on pace for the worst trading day ever. the broader markets major indexes, close to break even nasdaq, s&p and dow after being

down, nasdaq coming off lows as i said, looking to continue the four day win streak. tech sector is down more than 16% off the most recent 52 week high not helped by faang names this morning. almost all trading in the red. joining us on where the bright spots are in tech, business insider henry blodget, and john blackridge, and jim suma jim, want to start with one of the names that's been so dominant in the markets, and that's apple used to be the biggest stock by market cap, has been knocked down a few notches at least in the near term. i want to ask you. i just got back from ces, there was no one hit product, there was a lot about platforms and services it is not that i don't believe apple services entirely, it is just on the details apple is

putting forth i have a problem with this isn't about the total number of active devices, if i get more ipad, it is not like i spend more for every device i get. it is about active accounts which includes families, and investors don't have that number in front of them, do they? >> your observations are spot on the consumer electronics show used to be a launching, a lot of new phones, a lot of new wearables and products this year and even last year, it was more about the car of the future, about 5g, and more infrastructure bigger items and less about smart phones. let's be honest, the smart phone industry has matured, similar to the pc industry. most people around you have at least one cell phone, even two apple's unit growth is now reaching maturity and slowing. what's hurt apple to be honest is the trade wars and china.

so what it takes to drive apple stock further going forward is when they give earnings in a few weeks from now is for them to talk about what you said, was the installed base or active users. are they staying in the apple ecosystem. our research independently shows yes, they are, and to bridge the difference, it is simply people are holding on to iphones longer than they have before because the glass doesn't break as much, they're waterproof now and that elongates unit seams. it isn't a positive, but it doesn't mean the game is over. >> speaking of ecosystems, john, looking at amazon this morning, it is about break even, not effected as traditional retailers have been by the macy's news. it doesn't look like this is an overall consumer problem, so is this macy's miss on balance a positive for amazon? >> yeah, it could be i think we have high teens

e-commerce growth in north america for amazon in the fourth quarter and i think overall we're dinnear the high end of te top guide. i think it will be a good fourth quarter in north america for amazon we published the '19 outlook, and amazon did well. based on 50 senior ad buyers, representing 14 billion of ad spend. they expect amazon's ad business to double in the next two years, and that's driven by taking share from other digital players, television, and trade budgets. while we remain positive on the e-commerce business, the advertisingbusiness we're supe bullish on, and it is good for margins. amazon remains a top pick for this year. >> and when you look at a list of the largest u.s. companies by market cap now, top four, all big tech companies we have been talking about the

sell off in faang and in tech stocks they're still the most valuable companies in the u.s. and in the world. do those come up enough? >> look at apple, for example. this company is transitioning from hyper growth company to looking more like a utility, where you have a dividend, it will grow slowly, if at all. but based on everything we're seeing to jim's point, ecosystem seems solid, so you can count on a lot of cash flow there a long time it is trading 12 times earnings. that's a reasonable valuation supporting that. some other names are higher, neighb facebook in the 20s. i think the valuations for the tech sector have been generally in line with the market rather than way, way to the high side as they were in the 1990s. >> i want to go back to amazon because of jeff bezos news, split with his wife mackenzie.

he has 16% of the stock. it could be they've got 16% of the stock since arguably we don't know how they're going to work out the divorce, a significant portion, even of amazon stock could go to her given that a key piece of the amazon story all these years has been jeff bezos' not outright control but having influence over long term thinking in amazon, how much detail do investors need and how soon about how all of this works out between jeff and mackenzie bezos? >> no, we probably definitely need to hear something i think things i would call out, i thought their statement was fair and well thought out. the company is i think the most valuable company in the world and they have over the last couple years had some issues, i think his eye has been on the ball the last couple years, i think it will remain on the ball we'll get investor information on what will happen, how it will split up

the other thing i would call out, he has a great set of lieutenants. i think his eye remains on the ball, amazon will certainly keep chugging along >> jim, do you expect to hear more about the rapid pace of slowdown in china in addition to apple that you cover >> absolutely we do. to be honest, trade wars bluntly are a negative for tech stocks it causes delays, it causes a pause in spending that's absolutely negative. what we're seeing is a lot of domestic companies, being defined about where are your headquarters governments, state owned enterprises are receiving a lot of direction where to spend their money. right now, they're being encouraged in china to spend on local chinese brands and the government is putting in tariffs here in the u.s. against chinese brands all of this makes things more expensive. when things are more expensive,

simply put, consumers afford less of them it is bad for tech we expect through earnings season many companies to talk about a pause and a slowdown in china and simply put, it is not good for a lot of i.t. stocks. >> we were all over apple, amazon, trade, et cetera bottom line, there's no one hit product trend driving companies and they're down considerably off their highs. so how do they look to you >> some of them still have enormous growth potential in front of them. you look at amazon, for example, which i own. in every market that they're in, the market is growing quickly or their share is so low they can grow a long time much different for apple and others i think you have to take it on a case by case basis most companies seem to be in a strong fundamental condition. >> thanks, guys. see you soon

when we return, trash talk in the chip sector we'll hear more of jon's interview with lisa su after the break. and how jensen lange followed up her keynote. and later, tom donohue joins us for the latest on the shutdown and trade dow is positive, up 33 points. "squawk alley" returns after a quick break. hey, batter, batter, batter, batter.

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meantime, a little trash talk breaking out among ceos of the chip sector. i spoke to lisa su, following her keynote at ces, talking about the new graphics card she announced for consumers could drive results. take a listen. >> we love the gaming market and it's been a real important part of our strategy over the past few years. i would say we've been preparing for this day for a number of months and, you know, we like to surprise our users, like to surprise them. there's a lot of excitement, they're trying to guess what's next we believe this will be very competitive, and jon, one of the things is gamers are now much, much broader, right, so they game, whether it is in aaa games or e-sports, a lot of them do their own content creation, video creation, so i think what

we put together is something that's extremely competitive and will be good for high performance gamers. >> here's the trash talk part. soon after su her rival nvidia jensen huang took the stage, said wow, underwhelming. amd letting the charts do the talking. two stocks are telling a different story of late. amd the best performing stock in the s&p, up 18%, nvidia fell off highs of more than 30% i also spoke with the ceo of intel mobile eye unit, how they're using photos in regular facing cameras to redefine mapping. >> the problem is logistical information, how do you build maps at scale, to do it efficiently and crowd sourcing idea allows us to do it at zero cost basically leverage the fact that all new

cars are coming out with a front facing camera, the majority of them have mobile insight, in puts us in good position to introduce new technology to the processing chips to get maps through crowd sourcing. >> and mentioned that in a couple years since they bought mobile eye, they doubled the work force, mostly in r&d, an environment where engineers are in short supply. intel has big staffing in israel where it is based which helps. >> one more thing with car driving technology to map with the chips? >> absolutely. and again, it is about platforms this year. another thing intel and mobile eye are working on, something called rss, not a simple syndication, but a group of rules that allow autonomous car systems to handle safety like a human. they're trying to make it into a standard >> any conclusions or anything -- i feel like we haven't heard as much about autonomous, people are saying it's almost here, almost here. give me your feel given the

technologies you visited with. >> my feel is it is computer assistance autonomous is not almost here. there are fundamental technologies around mapping to see changes in a road, being able to have redundancy, and roles that computers follow around safety that are important and in early stages. years to go before we sleep in the car. >> in the front seat. >> great coverage from ces thanks for bringing us all of those interviews this week meantime, the intel ceo bob swan is on with jim cramer on "mad money" tonight. shares of american airlines are down 8%. down big, driving the rest of the airline stocks with it much more on that move straight ahead. look at the worst performing stocks in the dow so far in today'seio exxonmobile, merck and pfizer. en information.

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welcome back to "squawk alley. deirdre bows has an exclusive with the company >> reporter: we rarely hear from the chair. he is an investor in some of the oldest, biggest unicorns, airbnb and uber we wanted thoughts on companies staying private longer or taking a company public in this environment. >> the number ceos of today are afraid of going public there's never been access to private capital like this. not sure we would see some of the largest companies in the world today if they had not gone public as soon as they did they had no choice most companies run with quarterly earning reports. when i am going to make a decision, it is about life and business when i make a decision based on three months forward, i'm not going to make the right

decision we are famous for the 300 year plan you want to think forward, you have to think really far away. >> reporter: he said when his company called the we company goes public eventually, and he says they're ready, he will look to companies like jeff bezos who despite the quarterly grind are able to focus on long term vision another investor focused on the long term is softbank moss we asked how his strategy changed the outlook for vc funding and startups have a listen. >> the minute that you start having to report publicly, you have to play games with your numbers and games with your growth, and usually the person that loses in that situation is the consumer so for trying to create extraordinary experiences for consumers, the longer they stay private and by masayoesh ee

doing that, the more life changing for people. i'm also on the other side of the table with masa on a couple things, and that's frustrating as hell. but what am i going to do, get upset at the game? no i have to figure out how to outhustle and win. >> now, kutcher is not an investor, he is a strategic partner for wework, but he wasn't afraid of getting in at the current valuations he said he didn't understand the business, now he sees it as a tech company guys >> in terms of understanding that business, they have been burning through a lot of cash, right? any sort of commentary when they expect to start making a profit? >> well, after their latest investment they have more than $6 billion in cash that they're able to use. and remember, they had this rebranding exercise, more marketing at this point. this company is not going down, it is continuing to grow,

continuing to notch heavy losses first half of the year more than $700 million in net loss we'll see what happens by the end of 2018, but i don't think they're cutting back newman said he is not cutting back on costs even if we see a downturn and the company could get squeezed in that environment. >> you talk about gains or ashton kutcher was i don't know if this came up in the conversation, but they're taking in money at one valuation higher and allowing older shareholders to sell it far lower. i can't figure out where it ends up or how you value the company. >> reporter: right well, people i talk to say you end up with blended valuation. there are two trenches, sold some, softbank bought some at valuation of $47 billion, then others at $20 billion. it let's the company return money to some investors. this company is nine years old kutcher said he would be willing to invest at the $47 billion

valuation, but it is confusing this is something we're seeing, david, from softbank they cut deals you saw it with uber higher valuation that let's them set this higher valuation. >> great stuff thanks for bringing it toys. let's go to sue herera for a news update. >> hello, everyone president trump speaking to reporters outside the white house before departing for texas. he says he would prefer to make a deal with congress on a southern border wall, but if not he will most likely declare a national emergency >> i have the absolute right to declare a national emergency the lawyers have so advised me i'm not prepared to do that yet, but if i have to, i will i have no doubt about it, i will it is once again safe to eat romaine lettuce. federal health officials announcing an e. coli outbreak linked to the lettuce was over 62 people got sick, including 25

that had to be hospitalized. luckily, no deaths were reported the vatican launched an official track team with the aim of competing in international events 60 holy sea runners, swiss guards, priests and nuns the first members of vatican athletics. its goal to promote sport as an instrument of dialogue, peace, solidarity you're up to date. that's the news update this hour back downtown to you guys. jon? >> not expecting smack talk out of that team >> yeah, probably not. although you never know these days >> indeed. european markets just closed seema mody joins us with today's action >> hey jon, we saw notable reversal in today's trade, weaker than expected data out of china, and slowly climbed to the up side. data out of europe is not too great. french industrialproduction

unexpectedly declined in november, driven by a 10% decline in petroleum related services machinery and equipment dropped 2% some analysts in europe citing the yellow vest protests as the underlying driver out of that weak data from france. britain's largest automaker announcing thousands of job cuts and discontinuing some vehicle lines as part of a restructuring to the european operations tat owned jaguar, will cut 4500 jobs mostly in britain as it faces slowdown in china and lower demand for diesel powered vehicles. on retail, updates from john lewis, test co, and marks and spencer. the retail sales number shows the worst performance in december since 2008. if you look at the other part of

the retail story, uba says the top picks in the luxury retail space calls these names defensive plays as the market projects softening in that luxury market in 2019. and note from hsbc on european luxury guys, back to you. >> i'll take it. when we return, the president and ceo, tom donohue is with us back after this break.

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welcome back between the shutdown and trade tensions, policy is top of mind for ceos and investors alike the president and ceo of the chamber of commerce, tom donohue just wrapping up his annual state of american business address in d.c., saying governing by crisis is no way to do the nation's business he joins us now. first on cnbc interview. tom, good to see you right now we have president trump heading to texas, mexico border. day 20 of the partial government shutdown seems that there's no deal in sight, at least right now. how is this effecting business and ceo sentiment in the u.s., is it? >> yes, of course it is. but it is important to understand the longest we had a shutdown was 21 days, and that's

because as they go on, it becomes more and more difficult for businesses to get permits, to get information, to go public when it is all scheduled, but it is very, very important for individuals because you know the gas station is not going to give them free gas, and they're not going to stop at the grocery store and find that, and you can't delay your mortgage, and then it gets really sensitive and difficult. i think the president made an interesting point on the way to the plane. he says i still think we can make a deal. i think that's true. we wrote to everybody yesterday and said take care of the daca, take care of the dreamers and let's get on with this thing and figure out what's the right and reasonable thing to do to protect our borders and i'm hopeful because what usually happens is this country is when

it gets tight enough, people make a deal. >> what is the right and reasonable thing to do to protect our borders? if we build a border wall, we put american companies to work potentially, right >> yeah, and it will take ten years, and that's another problem, by the way, one of the major points we made in our talk today is that number one on our agenda is to get an immigration bill because we're out of workers right now. if you did a bill, a major effort in infrastructure and think we can get that done, we don't have the workers to do it. we're very hopeful that we can put those things together. one of the companies and individuals think of all this, they think it is getting difficult, it is time to make a deal

i believe the government will. >> tom, interestingly you point to the need for kind of comprehensive immigration reform which is something we've been talking about so long, it's almost laughable that we still have to talk about it and nothing has gotten done yet, yet all of this is over a border wall which it is hard to see how you draw the line from one to another. does the chamber have a forceful position on what the emphasis should be on, and are there specific congress people that you're looking to target with that message >> well, there's no question that the administration understands there's a fundamental difference between an immigration bill and border security and so to look at the border security, i think there have been a number of proposals made by both parties and they have been put aside right now

i think they'll come back to something there. the politics of the issue should not be the concern about security or economics but it will be and it will have to be, and we look forward to being as helpful as we can in finding a solution when we move to the question of immigration, i believe the president and the administration will be helpful. >> tom, let's talk trade we are coming off the u.s., china trade talks, there seems to be optimism there on the other, the eu coming out, saying talks with the u.s. are not going to include agriculture. some lawmakers here are saying we're not going to get a deal done with that ally unless that's on the table. how are businesses that you represent accounting for all of the trade uncertainty now, and is it effecting their investments for 2019

>> it will i think the china thing is very instructive. a team from the trade office is just leaving there they had a very good exchange. ambassador lighthizer will go back in the next short period of time to try to tie those issues up, and to make sure that whatever agreement we make, there are ways to being sure that our trading partners in china live by what they say we're going to do. i think folks are happy. i know about the u.s. marine corps. that's what we call the new nafta agreement, usmc, and that looks positive that's the only way to remember it and people are very positive about that

we hope we're going to all work together to get that cleared through congress i think we will. i know we will it is 14 million american jobs and when you start doing that, you'll be able to cut back then on the tariffs, on canada and mexico that will build other people's confidence that good deals can be made. i wouldn't worry about the discussions with our friends in the eu it is very early time. they're more involved in the brexit thing now that will be interesting nor us -- for us to see in the next days. >> major topics for american businesses to keep an eye on look forward to having you join us again tom donohue of u.s. chamber of commerce. >> thank you very much. coming up, what to expect from fed chair powell in just about an hour. first, let's get a preview of what's on rick santelli's mind

rick >> well, of course we're all thinking about jay powell, the fed, a new flexibility i'm going to try to put grasp to that flexibility and we're going to call it the fed spread. what is it tune in after the break. alerts -- wouldn't you like one from the market

when it might be time to buy or sell? with fidelity's real-time analytics, you'll get clear, actionable alerts about potential investment opportunities in real time. fidelity. open an account today. i am scott walker. here's what's coming up at the top of the hour. we debate the big bull call. he says the bull market has another ten years to go. after a come back for shares

of twitter, one firm makes a call of the day on the stock. the fed chair speaks in our hour what will jay powell say this time about rates the opportunity to find out, and you'll do it at noon on the half david, see you in about 15 >> see you then, scott. let's get over to the cme group and rick santelli joins us for the santelli exchange. rick >> good morning and thank you. you know, the fed and central banking policy, specifically quantitative easing and central bank balance sheets at the rage at the water cooler and it will be the rage at 12:45 eastern when we hear more from jay powell i really do think we're going to see more moon walking, and i don't mean it in a negative way, but walking back a notion of less flexibility to more flexibility is a good thing. you know, in markets there's a relationship trade called spreads meaning that one value

in one market, say a two year note yield and how it relates and equates over time to a ten year note yield gives you a yield curve spread, and the relationship changes obviously another very famous spread, the ted spread that's t bills and euro dollars. it gives you a vision of what credit may look like at the shortened. we're going to create a new spread called the fed spread and it is quite easy we all know the fear now is that central bank balance sheets cumulatively moved up like this, and now eventually they're going to move down like that the issue is is that the markets follow that, and in october, cumulatively all central banking stimulus, we reach the tipping point where we're losing on the cumulative totals. many fear the market is going to do this. and that makes perfect sense and that's why flexibility is needed because the fed and

central banks created this dynamic. but here's the issue as i see it we know the balance sheets have to runoff, we know the stock market got very nervous, but the goal should be to widen the spread out between the two lines, meaning we would like to see this continue but we'd also like to see the market pay less attention to it, and therefore create a way for the markets to hold onto footing that isn't correlated to the depletion there. i think the fed needs to pay attention to that. most likely what the fed has to do is level the balance sheet off, say it is around $3 trillion when it comes to uncle sam, and hope that the stock market does something like this. and we want to make this as wide as possible. but in order to do this, all of that requires a feedback loop. hence, we call that flexibility. morgan, back to you.

>> thank you, rick santelli. great to get your thoughts on a busy fed speak week. i wouldn't want to play against you in pictionary. i am a family man.

i am a techie dad. i believe the best technology should feel effortless. like magic. at comcast, it's my job to develop, apps and tools that simplify your experience. my name is mike, i'm in product development at comcast. we're working to make things simple, easy and awesome. cnbc reiterating his confidence in apple, its stock and its services in the long term.

and its pipeline couldn't be stronger when it comes to the company's legacy, listen so what cook told jim cramer >> if you zoom out into the future and you look back, and you ask the question what was apple's greatest contribution to mankind? it will be about health. because our business has always been about enriching people's lives. and as we've gotten into health care more and more through the watch and through other things that we created with research kit and care kit, and putting your medical records on the iphone, this is a huge deal. >> joining us now, former apple scene currently cmo of rx advance. john, good morning that was a big statement from tim cook given the contributions apple has already made to

creativity, productivity, and entertainment over the years how high is the bar, how much do they have to do in health for that to go down as apple's greatest contribution to mankind? >> first of all, i'm not an apple spokesperson, nor do i have specific insight into exactly the details of what tim cook is talking about. but i completely agree with his perspective that there are things -- and i saw this week at jpmorgan health summit, i saw it at ces, it is not the stuff that you hear about publicly on television it is the things that are going on privately with meetings with ceos and ctos and others and something big is actually going on i believe that we're at the very beginning of the indispensable role of health tech, where the big consumer facing companies, apple but probably amazon, probably google as well, maybe even others, that they are poised to be able to take things like wearable devices which are

up until now, you know, tracking 1,000 steps a day, but a more curiosity, sort of bury useful we're about to move into an era where sensors are getting more powerful, algorithms are getting more powerful, technology and health care is moving from averticly siaver vertically siloed highly inefficient industry to the big health care players want to move to platforms, they want to be a horizontal model like we've seen successfully in retailing and in fintech and others so i believe that tim cook is absolutely on to something i think there is no reason why apple can't be innovative in health and it may be the great legacy that he is talking about. >> you said a lot of these innovations right now are not actually being covered or discussed publicly on television help me change this. what should we be talking about, what are that he is closed

private meetings entailing right now? >> well, i think that you can look back -- go back to 2007 when steve jobs introduced the iphone up until that moment, the wireless industry was 2g, the blackberry, nokias, cellphone, the flip not roll la this is what people thought about. and rapidly kodak filed for bankruptcy, apple had completely reinvented a new way to think about photographer and we were in the era of 3g so these things quickly. i believe that we will see something similar in health. we'll go from curiosity to useful to indispensable. and indispensable means that that has to do things that are significantly more capable in terms of health and preventive

care than what we have today with wearable devices. or things to be able to enable people to do more self-diagnosis, where the coupler can have a bigger role just as they have in other industries >> and it can't just be for the wealthy. john sculley, thanks for in-side. "squawk alley" returns in less than three minutes duncan just protected his family with a $500,000 life insurance policy. how much do you think it cost him? $100 a month?

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welcome back coming up in the next hour, it's been a big day for fed speak with barkin already making comments, bullard, evans, cash cardi set to as well but how about the fed chair himself? jerome powell. you can see it here live starting at 12:45 eastern on "halftime report." and immediately following that, the man who is sitting down with powell, david rubenstein will join the exchange in a cnbc exclusive. you won't want to miss that. guys, i think if i had to sum up one word for the commentary we've heard so much of over the past week, it is patient seems to be the word of the week >> rick santelli would say flexibilities. you drew all those beautiful pictures and also got a note, major indices have crawled back off the lows during the session.

still just about at break even, a bit of green we see on the dow, s&p and nasdaq as we approach the noon hour >> that despite the retail which has been a key feature this morning. >> yeah, that macy's miss did figure prominently david, thanks for sticking with us now the half i'm scott wapner greatest bull market on record really only halfway done that is what one hedge fund heavyweight said on this network today. is he right? it is 12 noon, this is the "halftime report." a man who made billions in the market says it is time to get back in. >> there are plenty of opportunities today. that's what i'm looking at >> more from the ultra successful investor. and plus jerome powell addressed the markets. we'll hear from him live and a double upgrade for a stock traders love to trade.