shares up 5% on lyft and what you know has been a tumultuous few days for the stock trading above now where it priced but not where it opened. joining us this morning two editors in chief stephanie meta, kevin delaney. good morning. good to see you both. what's the take where you are stephanie about what these guys have been through in the past week or so >> which guys? >> lyft. good question. >> i think that -- as you guys have talked about on this show and throughout the this week, this is an example of a company that is not profitable where there is still a lot of questions about the earnings potential. a lot of the earnings growth is going to come on from something that will happen in the future which is driverless cars and therefore getting rid of a lot of their labor costs. it should come as no surprise that this is a bumpy ride not just for this week but the foreseeable future >> kevin, what should investors

take away -- if the company itself gets all the money that it can out of the ipo, that means the price is as high as they can possibly get it which means for the retail investor, there's increased downside, almost you're betting against the company's interests as a retail investor out of the gate and they've kind of lost. the people that bought in on the first day at 80 something, not so happy now, though, it's still early. >> there are two things to take away from this, the first one is that lyft is the first of the really big high profile tech ipos. it's actually a good lesson for investors to watch and see what happens. it's instructional that people don't have unrealistic expectations about what happens in an ipo. lyft -- the second thing is, lyft is particularly hard to value because it's a unprofitable company that says to grow it's going to become increasingly less profitable there's no point in the horizon where you can see this being a

company that is profitable with any confidence today. it's an instructional ipo to look at as an individual investors because you see what happens. the company is going to price us as rich as they can. you're an individual investor. you get in on ipo day of the you're there. you have your buy order in. you buy above everybody and it's a struggle to get back to that price and we also see that -- it's really hard to value this company at this point. >> the fact that linchpin in terms of a company like lyft becoming profitable is going to be this bet on autonomous driving. we've had investors on air saying maybe we never actually get autonomous driving and driverless cars, what happens then >> they go through what everybody companies goes through. they'll have to look at ways to cut costs. the money they spend on marketing is phenomenal. it's not just the traditional marketing but it's sponsoring concerts and getting people rides to rap events. they're doing all kinds of

creative things because they're in that phase where they're trying to acquire customers. they'll have to start looking really hard at cost ifs this bet on autonomous doesn't go their way. >> we just saw this week there was this experiment in china where people were putting markers on the road basically that were designed to redirect driverless cars, autonomous cars. it was a good reminder that the path from here to safe, uambiguous a tonus driving where people want to travel not just controlled campus environments is actually pretty long and there are these issues. if you can put stickers on a road or paint symbols on a road and cause cars to veer into oncoming traffic, that's a problem. >> shorter term, are companies rewriting their s 1s to create a narrative that is a clearer path to profitability these names that we expect to come to market later this year, is that actually happening do you think? >> i can't answer that question.

i think there are going to be companies that are going to try to create a narrative that makes -- makes them more attractive to investors. i think there are also going to be companies that, you know, quite honestly, you have to be really honest and forthcoming in these s 1s and if you don't have the answer, you're probably not going to go down that path. >> you have lyft which is this massive thing but you also have pinterest. but that's likely to become profitable much more quickly than lyft and so that's an interesting way to look at the different s 1s we'll see. >> let's turn to elon musk this morning appearing in court as you know here in new york. a bit of a surprise razz the judge gives the tesla ceo and a couple of weeks to settle their tweet dispute. we had a long discussion about

where the bar is now for contempt, especially if you have an agreement with the regulatory agency. you surprised by judge nathan? >> no. i think she was frustrated by the parties. they were behaving like they were from central casting. the sec comes in, they wer exactly playing the role you expect the sec to play and then musk sort of has his, you know, tweaking that he likes to do of the sec, but i think at the end of the day she just said, be grown-ups guys, figure something out and come back to me in two weeks. i'm not surprised by her reaction. >> kevin, if they were capable of being grown-ups, arguably, we wouldn't be in this position. twitter takes the grown-up out of all of us if we spend too much time on it -- >> is this a confession? >> that's why i try to spend less time on twitter actually -- reacting to things these days, yes. it's an observation of elon musk, too. there seems to be little doubt

that elon is going to keep being elon, if anything. i doubt he's at home going, dodged a bullet on that one. i think i'll stay off twitter for a while. >> that's totally right. elon musk is a gift to business journalists like ourselves. he's the great corporate reality television star of our moment in history and in the business press. part of it is, he's doing something really hard which is trying to build profitable, successful companies in areas that are -- that are not, you know, internet photo sharing sites that are actually building vehicles that people have to drive in and building rockets -- >> he's like a grown-up san diegoie howser. the company's really mature and he's being flip about it. >> the other news this week which is really important is that the tesla sales so far this year have actually been disappointing, below numbers and one of the things he's got nn trouble for is actually publicly tweeting sales projections that were unclear. it's now becoming clear that the

numbers were actually not even really as good as he was suggesting at that point. >> i wonder, stephanie, how much of this is an elon musk specific on twitter story and how much of this really sets the stage for what is now going to be a whole next generation of founders and ceos that are coming, for example, to the public markets that have -- are doing that with twitter as their main platform >> i think it's actually both. this is an elon specific story. we've never seen anybody like him. we probably won't see anybody exactly like him going forward. i think if i were a shareholder of tesla, i would actually welcome some sec intervention at this point because he's not doing his shareholders any favors. he's constantly undermining tesla's own credibility and making it hard for the people who are actually doing the work to do the work. he is, you know, not intentionally but actively undermining the company's credibility. if i were a shareholder, i would actually love it if the sec were

monitoring his tweets. i think it would be good for the investors. >> you have to imagine there are workers who are like, hey, we're busting our butts over here to make this thing actually click and every -- this is unforced errors. >> you see models -- there are hundreds of ceos on twitter not actually having this problem by way of contradictory evidence. >> fair point. >> you also see some of the big people in the tech industry have foresworn twitter. >> we miss him still. >> one amazing figure on twitter, might have even invented the tweetstorm at one point and at some point he just got off. i don't want to deal with this, he said. there are examples of people -- he just raised a big fund who nor longer on twitter. >> finally, kevin, quartz investigating over sexual harassment claims reviewing over nine pages of internal emails from employees on the allegations. what's the lead in this piece?

>> this piece is that there was this internal uproar over questions of sexual harassment at microsoft and actually allegations of pervasive sexism. it started with a woman who was an employee of microsoft, been in the same position for six years and felt that she was prevented from actually having access to other opportunities at the company because of her gender and this -- she emailed this out to a group of people and it went on -- it was very serious of -- brought on people that the woman felt the company had not adequately responded to. >> this is a sign of the times i will say and critically important not only for microsoft to get to the bottom of but for other companies to watch. we happen to have had microsoft's head of human resources at work event earlier this week talking about some of

these -- for what the culture is doing right now. blauz some of the things coming up in this email chain or old. can they show with some degree of confidence the employee base that they're ready to actually address this stuff >> microsoft's response is really interesting to look at here. the first thing that happened is, kathleen is one of the protagonist here. she and others were cc'd on this chain. she replied on march 29th so nine days went pass between the start of this email chain and when microsoft in an official capacity acknowledged them. she responded in a way that was

very acknowledging, she's recognizing that there were serious concerns here and it culminated yesterday in an all-hands meeting where employees brought their concerns to microsoft. i think if i were in a similar position at a company, i'd probably would not have watd nine days to step in and let's say find another way besides this massive email reply all chain to talk about some of the issues that people have had over years at this company. >> techs dealt with gender parody, wage inequality, this would be another layer. >> yeah. to john's point, if this hadn't been a wake-up call for every company in america and every company globally, let this be a wake-up call, because if it's happening at microsoft, which is a company that clearly has empathetic leadership or has leadership that has tried to be empathetic, it's happening everywhere. i don't know if it's town halls or if it's a call to action or employee resource groups,

companies really need to pay attention. this is happening -- if it's happening at microsoft, it very well could be happening at your company. >> thank you, guys. when we return, the s&p 500 looking for seven straight day in the green. it's up right now about .4%. we'll tell you the role tech stocks are playing in rally. former cea ed lazear will sit down with our own rick santelli. wait wait... how did that get out here? that is definitely not for sale! is this a yard sale? if it's in the yard then it's... for sale. oh, here we go. geico. it's easy to switch and save on homeowners and renters insurance.

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welcome back. the president telling reporters this morning that the fed should lower rates and move to a strategy of quantitative easing. our steve liesman has more. >> president trump substantially raising the ante in his comments and criticism of fed. he thinks for the first time he quantitative easing. that's an emergency measure where the feds buys bonds to push down interest rates. >> i personally think the fed should drop rates. i think they really float us down, there's no inflation, i would say in terms of quantitative tightening, it should now be quantitative easing. very little, if any, inflation and i think they should drop rates and they should get rid of quantitative tightening. you would see a rocketship,

despite that we're doing very well. >> the fed has been trying for the past several years to go the other way by raising rates and reducing the $14 trillion balance sheet that swelled as a result of qe. the fed in march following the december mark selloff and the strong criticism from the president end the balance sheet reduction later this year and be patient on rates. together with the president's recent announcement that he would place political supporters steven moore and herman cain on the board of governors, the comments are raising concerns on wall street. the selections could raise questions about the independence of the federal reserve and could be perceived as an attempted politicization of monetary policy. the president's call for rate hikes as the government reported better than expected job numbers and many economists see some slowing this year but generally solid growth and they're

upgrading the current quarter from the weaker first quarter right now. so i think there's some eyebrows being raised right now about this idea of qe. >> yeah, thanks for putting all of that together with us, steve. we'll stick with that topic and the market. the s&p looking for its seventh straight day in the green. also being boosted this week by some notable tech names including facebook which is lower today but up more than 5% since monday despite the regulatory headwinds swirling around the company and how about snap, surging more than 100% since the start of the year. good morning to you both. daniel, i'll start with you. the possibility of qe 4 here given this question and where we are in markets, shocking to you or would it make sense >> i don't think it makes sense. the jobs state this had morning reflected that we're still seeing a very healthy economy, wages are growing.

let's see what happens with china. maybe we'll reach some type of modest deal where we get china buying more of our commodity goods, soy, exports, natural gas. i don't think we need to be doing more cuts. >> brian, i'm going to put the same question to you especially given the fact that we had that strong jobs report this morning, we've seen a reigniting of the inflation trade this week. >> we have. it's all about a continuation of further diversification we believe of customers pollings in how they're managing their money. last year we were so concentrated. we do think that this is about stability and we've said it several times, we really think that 2019 is this generation's 1995 and 1994 the fed misstepped. the fed clearly misstepped in december. we've had a gold did i lock scenario that developed that many people we talked to haven't been around they don't know who goldilocks is.

we've taken care of one of the bears. the seconds bear was the fed misstep. we already had that. we believe that this is all about stability and we're with daniel that we don't believe that the fed can, will and should cut rates. we think that this is going to be about stability, stability in said policy, stability in economic backdrop and most importantly, stability in the stock market with respect to what profits are. >> you put the earnings recession story to bed. that's nowhere near bed yet. we'll be negative this quarter and who knows about q2. >> how do you know >> analysts expect it. >> carl, these are the same analysts that missed the fourth quarter pullback, the same analysts that dropped number so substantially we've been having as a strategist for the last 25 years, i've had this model looking at earnings revision and in january we wrote about this that we've never seen earnings revision drop to as negative as

they were ever in history. guess what happened in march. the likelihood of an earnings recession is excessively low. the market was reactive and too negative on this earnings recession and everybody sold. it's just this lack of perspective in such a short-term bias on investors these days, we've forgotten -- >> you going to defend mike wilson on this. >> the bar is much higher coming into this first quarter reporting season than we were at the christmas lows when companies were coming out and they were originally revising down expectations. at 2900 we think we're a bit stretched particularly given where we see first quarter earnings. >> i want to go more into the impact of the president continuing to jawbone the fed this way. is there any interpretation of this other than president trump trying to stack the economic deck in his favor? i don't know anybody who thinks at this point qe 4 makes logical sense? >> that's a possibility and maybe potentially he's feeling

out some potential negative surprise with china, obviously, we're getting closer and closer we think to a deal there, but maybe he's seeing something behind the curtain that we're not seeing as a negative expectation. >> what's the investors smart response going forward to the president's pushes against the fed? you could argue that the fed reacted to him, although the fed would say no, we didn't, and what he said before made sense. this time he's a lot further out on a limb. >> i think the fed is reacting more to what markets were doing and financial conditions were doing back at christmas. to a broader extent, what investors should be doing is thinking longer term and what we've been advocating is you want to buy offense and defense today and not overpay. the challenge today is defense is really expensive. the challenges that were laid cycle, if you want to go pure offense, we don't think that's a good idea. we're buying ideas like mcdonald's and stocks that have a low combination of some offset

catalyst that are not overly expensive and defensive business models. >> brian >> we believe the stock market is a market of stocks and i think the more you think growth versus value, offense versus defense, i think this is about buying ideas again. this is about buying management teams and products and cash flow and we have the best companies in the world right here in the united states and so, yeah, it's good that we're seeing a bottoming out of global growth. that's awesome, but you know what, wedon't need massive global growth for the united states to work in terms of the stock market. focus on those names with steady earnings, great cash flow. >> tech stocks have rallied pretty good this year. >> we own parts of fang and we want to buy those fang stocks with discernible earnings, great cash flow and a brand appeal to them. we own those, right, but i'm not saying to have four, five, 6% 7%

positions. have your core position and trade around them. >> all right. gentlemen, thank you. brian, daniel, happy weekend. >> you too. take a look at the best performing stock in the dow so far in today's session. walgreen's boots, pfizer and home depot among them. a lot more "squawk alley" ahead. , technologies, , and markets expertise we create the possible. and when you do that, you don't chase the pace of tomorrow. you set it. nasdaq. rewrite tomorrow.

. getting news on spotify and apple as we talk about the growth of apple services business. the journal has a story that apple music has surpassed spotify in paid u.s. subs, 28 million in terms of spotify's 26. spotify had a head start but apple has been adding subs more rapidly at a monthly growth rate of about two sixth. we asked spotify ceo of how deep pocketed companies like apple and amazon might impact his company's market leading position. >> these are formidable companies, no doubt. i believe in this day and age that you need to be very clear

with your brand, what you are for consumers in order for them to take it up and the best experience wins and now we're adding the best content to that as well and that's now spotify. >> some discussion on social media today about who subscribes to apple music, do you know anybody who does >> i know tons of people who do. apple and amazon have a built-in advantage, which is credit cards on file. they had them already from itunes, hundreds of millions of them, so they just have to convert that existing base whereas spotify has to grow a base from scratch. this is just u.s. it's not international. that's why spotify has to expand into podcast and other areas because they're playing from behind. >> all right. but the bulls in terms of services and apple will latch on to this and we were having this debate on this show just yesterday, this idea of, you know, the services that they unveiled are starting to talk about last week, whether they're late to the market, whether it was anything that's going to really change the marketplace

and then when you hear a data point like this, they might not be first to market but don't count them out especially with all those phones in everybody's pocket. >> speaking of services, a lot more looking to come into the market and compete when it comes to ipos, a number of these services company liking to ipo, not all investors are playing with the same handicap. one week after lyft as the stock lurched with its ipo price, we're taking a look at the divide that exists between the two types of potential shareholders. leslie picker with more on that. >> hey, john. the two types of shareholders being retail and institutional shareholders and every deal there are significant disadvantages that retail investors may not even realize exist. they don't get access to the most informed analysts, they don't get access to management through the road show and if they get an allocation of shares it's typically a very small portion fts ipo. weeks before the s 1 is even

public, analysts from the banks meet with the executives at the company that's doing the ipo. in those meetings, they help inform the analysts and help them come up with projections for things like revenue. those forecasts are only shared with the banks, clients, institutional investors, of course, to help them make informed decisions about whether to buy shares in the ipo their notes don't become public until weeks after the deal even closes. once the company officially starts marketing to investors with a price range, retail investors are also largely left out of that road show process as well. company executives will travel the company and host meetings with investment firms. these meetings are invitation only, not even the media is allowed in. there are restrictions as to what management can and cannot say in these closed door meetings and the company will post a video of the presentation on retail road show.com that reflects what they talk about, but retail investors will not know what goes on during the q&a

portion of those meetings. and lastly, retail investors are typically excluded by and large from allocation, especially in a hot deal retail investors are given no more than 1/10 of the offering. if an ipo has a pop on that first day of trading like we saw with lyft and many others, retail investors don't get to ride that upside at least on day one en masse. >> i can't hammer this home enough. we have folks on maybe who are early investors who are, you know, involved in, for example, the tech community and we're watching the lyft ipo closely and they say, it looks like it was asuccessful ipo, yeah, we're trading back above the ipo price, we're at 75.11. if you wanted to get in when this opened for trading, it was 87.24. so if you were a retail investor and you started trading as soon as you could, you're still losing money on this. >> exactly. >> and we talk a lot about things like, you know, wealth disparity, income inequality, et cetera. this feels like one of those places in the market where it's really stacked against the

little guy. >> it is. to be fair and warren buffett said this on air last week ago, if he were an individual investor, which he is, he still clears from ipos because they are risky and they are stacked against the little guys for these reasons. the sec has looked at the ipo process and hasn't taken any issue with some of these disparities largely because -- they won't come out and say this, they don't want too much retail interest in these ipos because they are risky. if you have an ipo security that's never had a public comp in the markets like lyft, for example, then the exact range at which they should be trading is so unclear and so uncertain that, you know, they're kind of okay regulators with the little guy staying out of these things. the problem is, the little guys don't know how it stacks up against them. >> the other story brought up is potential punishments for those that get a piece of the

allocation and try to short. they might be banned in the future deals. >> right. >> it happens? >> transparency is so limited as to who is shorting this thing and with lyft a huge story surrounding this as opposed to other deals is just the amount of short interest especially on day one that's been circling this deal. the little guy is going to have a much more difficult time taking the opposite side of that bet, taking the short bet than an institutional investor would have. >> leslie, great stuff. what a week. >> what a week more to come. >> yes. let's get a news update from sue herera back at headquarter. >> hello, everyone. here's what's happening at this hour. >> michael cohen's lawyer sending a letter to house democrats asking congress to delay cohen's prison sentence. the lawyer says cohen recently got his hands on a hard drive with more than 14 million files, but he would not be able to go through all of them before may 6th and that is when his sentence is due to start. brand name drugs were

significantly more expensive than they're generic counterparts in 2017. researchers analyzed nearly 400 generic drugs and the average annual cost was about $365. but the brand name versions, the price was close to $6,800. british foreign secretary jeremy hunt launching a media freedom campaign alongside international human rights lawyer amalclooney, this from the sidelines of seven foreign ministers meeting in france. >> we are here because it's never been more dangerous to report the news. according to the committee for the protection of journalists, in the last five years we've seen the highest number of journalists imprisoned than at any time since their records began almost three decades ago. >> you are up to date. that's the news update this hour, back down to "squawk alley." coming up after the break, a

former ceo chair is going to join rick and talk about the numbers in-depth. meanwhile, dow trying to hang on to some gains. we're back in a moment. announcer: the cnbc trend tracker live data board is brought to you by the cme group.

let's hop over to the cme and get the santelli exchange.

hey, rick. >> reporter: hi, carl. i love jobs friday and i also love the guest i have on job friday. ed la ladeer. so much to talk about. darn good number, if you looked at the employment to population ratio, 60.6 so is it dropped a .10, 60.7 the last couple of months, best in, what, 11 years and if we look at the participation rate, it dropped .2 to 63, it dropped from a six year high level, if we look at the unemployment rate, i don't pay much attention to it because what the other two i think we can bring more people back in finally, wages were growing but not nearly as much, a .1 yearover year. we did see a increase. what do you see? >> thanks, rick.

it was a great summary. i would say the general picture is this, we're still strong, but it does look like we're starting to plateau and i would say that for a couple of reasons. one, you pointed to the employment population ratio. i always look at that. it's down a little bit. the easiest way to get at that is to look at the people who are not adversely affected by the demographic trends. look at the 25 to 54 year olds and what's happened there is, as you mentioned, we have had some pretty good progress there. we brought in about $750,000 of those people over the past year but over the past couple months it's flattened. it does look like we're starting to reach -- i don't want to call it a peak, we're definitely slowing down in terms of where we're going to see the labor market going. that's fine of the now you mentioned hours of work. hours of work are really

important, 1/10 of an hour just to remind you is the equivalent of about 400,000 jobs. that's a big deal. it is back up to 34.5 and that's where we are when we're at the peak of a business cycle, so that looks pretty steady. everything looks good. the 180,000 average over the last three months is still above population growth, so again, everything is good, but i would say that, you know, we're getting close to the end of the recovery and the question is simply whether we'll reach a plateau, how long a plateau it'll be and hopefully we won't go back down. there's no indication that we're moving in the negative direction. >> reporter: all right. let's dig into all the talk, of course, the last couple of hours regarding the central bank in the company, the fed, their mission, the president on the qe scenario. listen, i understand that the administration wants the economy to do the best it can.

i get it. and i understand that he likes lower rates and talking about it to me isn't the end of the world, but pulling an emergency tool out like that on a day where the s&p strung so many gains in a row, does that make any sense to you, ed >> well, i'm never a fan of the administration trying to affect the central bank. >> reporter: let's just talk about what could be on his mind that would warrant that type of throwback into a tool that, in my opinion, should never be used much less when everything looks as good as you just described? >> right. i certainly agree. when you think about qe and ask yourself when was qe effective most people say qe 1 was probably effective, qe 2 was less effective, qe 3 even less effective if at all. when you think about unwinding one of the things that people were worried about, you unwind those tools that were the at

least effective so they'll have the least harm going back in the other direction. >> reporter: not only that, ed, let me stop you a minute. >> go ahead. >> reporter: aren't there lessons to be learned from mario drago being in so deep, there's no place to grab, yot a toe hold to get out, japan wants to not only continue to stimulate, they want to raise taxes now. these aren't good ideas and there's many places to look that these central banks are in a quagmire, would you disagree with that? >> no. no, i actually don't disagree. i think -- one of the good things i would say about chairman powell is, you know, while there were some things that we might criticize at the start in terms of his rhetoric, i think he's a very thoughtful guy and i actually think that the pattern that he's been following is probably pretty sensible, particularly with the revision after the first of the year. so i would not weigh in too heavily on trying to influence the fed.

i actually think that they're probably doing the right thing right now and as you said, look, this is an election year -- >> reporter: we're out of time. i'll have to leave it there and you like where we left it actually. i could talk to you for hours. i bet you i see you in four weeks. morgan, back to you. >> rick santelli, thank you. after the break why jobs in the solar industry are making a comeback despite what's coming from the white house and later, why wells fargo is taking it's rating down on intel this morning. we're back after the quick break. -i call it my comfortable future plan.

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at letsmakeaplan.org. here's what's coming up top of the hour today. are we back in a goldilocks environment? we'll debate what lies ahead with those new highs getting ever closer. plus from the greatest economy ever to quantitative easing that's what the president said, so we'll debate what could really happen next. and pete joins us from minneapolis. all ahead at noon. we're about 15 away and we will see you then. >> we will see you then, scott. thank you. after two years of job losses in the solar industry, thanks in part to tariffs, experts are projecting a rebound in 2019, part of that demand is being driven by a new solar mandate out of california and our kate rogers is there with more on the industry's growth.

>> reporter: you just said it. the solar industry making a comeback of sorts here in california thanks to that mandate which requires that all new homes that are being built, including the ones you see here behind me do have solar power and that begins in the year 2020. now, peterson dean is the solar installer here on this job site. it's projecting to do about 12,000 solar installations this year and that means the company needs workers fast. >> that mandate is going to increase our need for installers by roughly 300% just based on current install rates today, so translated into literal terms, we'll need another 350 to 400 installers by year-end. >> reporter: the solar foundation is projecting a 7% increase in jobs nationwide this year, both because of that new california mandate and because the tariffs you mentioned are set to decline by 5% each year,

that's going to make them cheaper for consumers. advocacy groups also say other positive tailwinds include the adoption of more solar technology by big corporations like target and also more utility companies turning to solar to make things cheaper for customers but like many growing industries finding skilled labor is a challenge. >> finding qualified employees and technicians and electricians and welders and all those sorts of skilled trade is incredibly challenging. many of our projects, big utility scale projects are out in remote places so the labor pool has to be transported there and so it is a change for us. >> reporter: peterson dean does offer its workforce 401(k) plans and health insurance. if you're a really skilled solar installer you can make up to $50 an hour. one more important benefit is ongoing training, reskilling and

upskilling its workforce which we know is really important in a tight labor market, guys. back over to you. >> thank you, kate rogers. and after the break, amd up more than 13% so far this week alone. we'll look at why momentum in that stock is weighing down intel. the analysts behind this morning's downgradof iele nt joins us next. stay with us. but to us, it's the pace of tomorrow. with ingenuity, technologies, and markets expertise we create the possible. and when you do that, you don't chase the pace of tomorrow. you set it. nasdaq. rewrite tomorrow.

all of you. how you live, what you love. that's what inspired us to create america's most advanced internet. internet that puts you in charge. that protects what's important. it handles everything, and reaches everywhere. this is beyond wifi, this is xfi. simple. easy. awesome. xfinity, the future of awesome. shares of intel falling this morning, down just over 1% off the back of a downgrade over at

wells fargo. citing increased competition from the likes of amd, among other factors. the analyst behind that call joins us now on the cnbc newsline, wells fargo's aaron rakers aaron, good morning. >> good morning. >> so, the timing of this is interesting to me because intel just recently in the past month cracked the level where it was trading when brian resigned and intel was in this period of leadership transition. they've got a permanent ceo now, just poached a cfo from qualcomm, and you're downgrading. is this a vote of perhaps neutral confidence in the leadership team? >> yeah, yeah, i think just to be clear, you know, we're downgrading to market perform, we're not going to a sell rating and i think part of this is just, you know, as we look at the valuations this year, kind of support an outperform rating we're not comfortable seeing the enterprise valuable multial

expand to what they've been seen as as far as the high levels over the past five years we also think that amd, obviously, becoming more visible as a competitor is going to temper that multiple expansion at this level if not temper the upside in terms of the financial expectations so, it's just stepping on the sidelines as we see incrementally more visible competition coming at intel and then we wait to see what the company outlines as far as the new management team in early may at their upcoming analyst day. >> so, aaron, to what extent is it a zero sum game valuation-wise now between intel and amd? because it seems like a few weeks, months ago we were seeing the opposite effect when intel's projections for the year were not as pessimistic as some people expected. people seem to get a little bit more bearish on amd shares do you think that's going to continue throughout the year >> yeah, i think from an amd perspective, first of all, we've got some major product launches coming up here over the next

couple months. we've got some new cpus expected to launch in late may. we've got some server cpus coming up in the june time frame and i think that confidence can improve in amd's kind of set-up as we move through the course of this year to take share in both pcs as well as in the server market relative to intel related to intel as we move into earnings season, our calls that we don't think estimates are going to move materially higher at this point as we see more competition, and we continue to believe that investors kind of take a bit more of a wait and see approach to that kind of improved financial as we move into the second half of the year >> so, aaron, what's an investor to do? because we've seen semis rallying more broadly, you know, the downgrade here by you of intel today, amd is up more than 50% since the start of the year. are there places within this sector that you see as buying opportunities? >> yeah, so we've been continually constructive on amd. again, we think there's a momentum story there, a share

capture story that will play itself out and i think further confidence in that as we see some of these products launches coming up. the other name is that nvidia, while the company's had some tough quarters over the last couple quarters related to some inventory bills we actually think that starts to improve as we move through 2019 as well >> all right aaron, bold call on intel, thanks for joining us. >> thank you first apple, now amazon reportedly planning its first alexa empowered wearable device. its head phone answer to apple's airpods. deirdre bosa's in san francisco. >> amazon is getting ready to release air buds with built-in alexa capability, could happen as early as the second half of this year but it should really come as no surprise because amazon has long been looking for ways to move its virtual assistant beyond the home. bottom line is that alexa has to go mobile if amazon wants to

compete with apple's siri and google's assistant that are built into our smartphones our headphones go with us everywhere too and increasingly they are wireless. apple doesn't break out numbers but top analysts have called them apple's most popular accessory ever and expects shipments of up to 55 million this year. the newest version includes better siri support. airpods have been a huge revenue generator, apple's accessory segment notched $17 billion in sales last year so guys, short of a smartphone, which amazon as we know has already tried and scrapped, air buds a represent a good opportunity to make alexa mobile, increase its device revenue and perhaps most importantly bring users deeper into the amazon ecosystem. the question is, can amazon create a product that will be as popular as the airpods google's first iteration, the pixel buds, were a flop. another question is, would amazon ear buds have to work through apple or google operating systems? an analyst at gartner tells me a

work around could be putting all the technology right into the ear buds and that could be totally disruptive guys, think joaquin phoenix's a.i. ear piece >> lot of apple news today thanks when we come back, why prin hrycear wants to ban "fortnite" in a moment

well, call it a battle royal. during a visit to the west london ymca, prince harry called for the popular online series, "fortnite," to be banned, saying the game and others like it are, quote, irresponsible while adding that social media is, quote, more addictive than drugs and alcohol. guys, first of all, i want 2004 party animal prince harry to meet 2019 soon dad to be prince harry and be, like, who are you? harry's got a severe case of the dads but second of all, i think banning probably not the way to go kids need discipline so set limits so they can learn to deal with -- they can grow up to be elon musk but without the compulsive tweeting. >> i think that's absolutely right. set some boundaries for your kids on all things, right?

>> yeah. absolutely i'm not sure that i buy that it would be more addictive than drugs and alcohol. but we have had this debate before, whether it's gaming, whether it's smartphones, et cetera, and the role they play and how engrossed people get. >> market really hasn't budged in the last hour or two. we're going to watch to see what the afternoon brings for now, let's get to the judge. carl, thanks i'm scott wapner did goldilocks just deliver a big gift for investors what today's job report means. it's "the halftime report." >> announcer: did the jobs report and the slowdown in wage growth hit the market just right? the dow and s&p now less than 2% from all-time highs. will this lift stocks to the next level plus, the president's call is there any chance the fed will go along and holding the halftime investment committee's feet to the fire see where their picks hit