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post 9 of the new york stock exchange carl quintanilla is on assignment and we're going to begin this morning with facebook. it is down about 2%. several state attorneys general noungs announcing an anti-trust probe into the social network and alphabet, as well. julia boorstin has more on facebook from l.a. hey, julia >> jon, new york attorney general latisha james is leading a bipartisan coalition to investigate facebook for antitrust violations she's joined by seven other state ags plus the ag of the district of columbia, so far the attorneys general saying, quote, we will use every investigative tool at our disposal to determine whether facebook's actions may have endangered consumer data, reduced the quality of consumer's choices, or increased the price of advertising facebook shares moving lower on the threat of potentially large fines from these attorneys general. now, a separate google anti-trust probe is expected to be announced at a news conference outside the supreme court on monday.

today's news is in addition to the ftc's anti-trust investigation into facebook, which facebook confirmed in july, and the department och justice's anti-trust investigation into google. facebook telling us today, quote, people have multiple choices for every one of the services we provide. we understand that if we stop innovating, people can easily leave our platform this underscores the competition we face, not only in the u.s., but around the globe facebook also saying that it will work with the state ags and it welcomes a conversation with policy makers about the competitive environment. morgan, back over to you >> julia, thank you for bringing us the latest on this developing story. turning to the august jobs number now, mixed picture from today's payrolls report. the u.s. added 130,000 jobs in august versus an estimated 150,000. meanwhile, the unemployment rate held steady at 3.7%. average hourly wages grew 3.2% year over year here to walk us through it all

is greg boudel, head of u.s. equity and derivative strategy also with us is john bellos and former acting assistant secretary for economic policy at the u.s. treasury department gentlemen, good morning to you both greg, i'll start with you. it would seem like this jobs number that we got this morning, there's something for everyone to love or i guess i should say, hate bear and bull. how would you break it down? >> i think it's a very mixed number and i think it tells you very little directionally. the headline number was a little worse. the average hourly earnings number was better. it gives you very little directionally for the equity market we look back at the manufacturing ism as something as a directional indicator for the equities ismaybe more important this week. >> john, your thoughts on this as many investors look to the fed to see what they do not only later this month but into the rest of the year >> i think the context is really important. over the last few weeks, we've seen an increase in recession fears.

that peaked on tuesday asthe ism, which was just mentioned, manufacturing was negative people are increasingly concerned about a recession in the united states. i think today's data suggests that those recession fears are perhaps premature and maybe the bond yields have fallen a little bit too far. and what we are seeing is more stability. we're seeing an ongoing expansion, you know, 100,000 private payrolls will continue to support income and consumption. and we think continue to drive the expansion. so i think the big message today is that the fear of recession, which had been building, was probably premature and we could see some retracement of the price action that we've seen over the last few months or the last month >> john, what, if anything, do you think these numbers tell us about the wiggle room that the president has to continue to play hardball with china in this trade war? >> you know, i think probably not -- they don't tell us that much obviously, the trade war is primarily impacting manufacturing and global trade and we are seeing weakness

there. you know, that's why the ism number on tuesday did spook people i think that's ongoing and i think that remains a concern. but i do -- you know, i would go back to wing that the jobs report tells us that that's not likely to put the u.s. in recession in the near term, and we think the expansion is ongoing. >> greg, what does it look like for october? >> our economists are forecasting a 25 basis point cut. i think the thing that we think is potentially interesting here is that if we do get a continued slowdown in the data, that what thefed does or doesn't do in september or again in december is potentially going to have little impact on the equity markets. we're talking about recessionary fears, which seems a bit strange when the u.s. equity market is in touching distance of all-time highs. we think the risk here to u.s. equities are asymmetric and skud to the downside. >> greg, to that point, it says here in your note that you're cautious on equities, but cautious on bonds. break it down. >> the house view is very much

that we'll get a deterioration in the economic outlook in the final quarter. the manufacturing side of the economy is going to remain very soft, but it will turn into a broader economic slowdown. a sharp slowdown, but not a recession. we think this is something that can drive a continued rally in the bond market. we can get u.s. ten-year yields down at 1% and i think that's an environment where risk assets will struggle and we'll see the s&p retrace some of the gains we've made recently. we think it's an environment that will drive a lot of different sectorial winners and losers we think some of the more cyclical names, the industrials and consumer discretionary stocks and small and mid-cap names could be particularly at risk in that environment >> the most important catalyst you're looking for throughout the rest of the year >> you know, i think people are probably putting too much attention on the next meeting or the next two meetings from the fed. our view that there's something much bigger going on at the fed that will play out over the next two quarters and in particular, we think the fed is more focused on realized

inflation than they have been over the last few decades. we think they're more growth oriented and that becomes increasingly clear as that becomes clear, they'll realize, this is not the fed that they've become accustomed to i think that's going to help support growth and so we would be a little bit more optimistic than what greg just laid out in terms of the growth outlook. but i also think that it's going to support bond yields at low levels and it will support credit markets we're seeing a different fed than what we've been accustomed to it's not a question of one or two meetings, it's a question of the bigger picture, which we think has really shifted for the fed. and i think that's really going to become apparent and that's going to drive prices over the next few quarters. >> john, just to wrap this all up then, how shoulding or playis market >> i think the risks are out there and i think it's very clear in an environment of heightened risks, you want to have bonds in your portfolio i agree with greg on that. but i think the other lesson is that the world is starved for

yield. so as investors are looking around assets that do have some yield on them will benefit and investment grade credit, we think, is well positioned for that it's a deep liquid market, high quality in terms of the credit quality. and there is some yield there. so, you know, as you're thinking about that big shift from the fed they just mentioned, an asset that's particularly well positioned for that would be ig credit so we're looking for outsized returns on ig credit going forward. >> all right greg and john, thank you for joining us today >> thank you >> nasdaq is back in the green, despite some weakness in f.a.a.n.g., looking for a third positive session in a row. frank holland has more on today's movers from times square good morning >> lululemon, the biggest gainer, shares up 8% yesterday you reported on their earnings beats as well as impressive growth in north america and especially in menswear 35% growth there we all know joe kernan is a big fan. costco having the biggest

impact shares popping since it reported strong august numbers with 6% growth in the u.s. and 23% growth me commerce chip stocks are coming off of two days of gains right around 3%, moving higher on optimism over u.s. and china trade talks, up slightly, about half a percent today, but for the week, universal display micron, lam research, intel and others with that high china sales exposure all rallying on the trade news great week for all of them the f.a.a.n.g. names, however, mostly in the red, as julia reported on those reports that state's attorney generals are launching antitrust probes into facebook andalphabet next week texas specifically looking at google's advertising practices and new york reviewing facebook's control of personal data the entire group lower today on those concerns of big tech coming under fire. apple, however, mostly flat following a morgan stanley note that growth of apple stores are actually growing, tracking ahead of morgan stanley's estimates. back over to you >> all right frank holland, thank you and when we return, frank calderoni is with us on how the

company's customers are planning ahead for more tariffs, fewer, sooner, or later and later, the president's chief economic adviser larry kudlow joined us with his take on the jobs report lore on that a t more "squawk alley" still ahead, stay with us.

what if? that's what anaplan clients and everybody else asking themselves when it comes to tariffs using the company's financial planning software to analyze just how and when tariffs might

impact their businesses. national economic council director larry kudlow joined us earlier this morning saying conversations with china on trade have been going well take a listen. >> the phone call night before last between secretary mnuchin and ambassador lighthizer and vice premiere lee yao hey went very well. that's important they have decided now the deputy's level, the deputy's level will continue in washington later this month. and from that deputy's level meeting, will come an agenda and an outline so that the principles will meet in early october >> joining us now on set of post 9 is the chairman and ceo of anaplan, frank calderoni you can give us a look at how this is really affecting businesses at the micro level.

we talk about this at the macro level all the time but what kinds of customers are coming to you really wanting to get all of the use they can out of your software, running these scenarios? is it mostly focus who have manufacturing in china, retailers? who? >> so, jon, we're a planning software company so whep our customers do different kinds of what if analyses tariffs is a great example many of our customers are working on dealing with uncertainty related to tariffs so anaplan allows them the ability to do different scenarios based on where they're sourcing some of their products around the world we tend to sell to global customers, so they're sourcing from multiple different companies or countries and they use anaplan to be able to look at scenarios things happen in china and they're sourcing from china. what are some of the alternatives they look at? i would say a majority of our customers, especially global ones, are dealing with that today. >> very often, the thing about uncertainty is you never know when it's going to hit

except this time you know. everything is dealing with a similar type of uncertainty, at least a lot of people are, specifically around trade. is that unusual? is it causing you to deal with your customers in an unusual way? >> so, i would put into the category of uncertainty is really requiring companies, businessmen and women, to really make decisions in realtime right? they have to react to what's happening around them. tariffs is a great example another great example is brexit, currency and when you have the ability to do realtime scenario planning, you then start to look at different possibilities. and you can make different decisions to gear your business to the best outcome. and that's where anaplan really comes into play, which is very effective. >> what are you telling them to do as far as manage ying your supply chains around tariff pressures. >> we don't necessarily guide them on how to manage the business, but give them the capability to look at different scenarios. as i said before, sourcing product from multiple different vendors is tariffs is going to be an impact allows them to

react more quickly as far as switching manufacturing from one versus another so they can manage their costs more effectively >> as all of this uncertainty, tariffs, trades, all the question marks that are out there on a macro level, has it been good for business for anaplan? >> it's been very good i wouldn't say just that the world of planning is changing i've been a planner for many years at various companies i've worked with prior to anaplan and the days of planning over weeks, over months is in the background companies now have to react, as i said, in realtime. and i think those are great examples of why anaplan becomes such an effective platform for these companies. and i think why we're doing so well >> twitter is realtime the president, as we all know is on twitter, and what he tweets not only affects the markets, but affect these companies and how they have to factor in what the different scenarios might be does that change the way a company like yours needs to plan

its pipeline for product because it seems like, yes, you were built for realtime planning, but realtime planning even means something different now, it feels like to me, than it did a year ago. >> it did. and i think it will continue to evolve for us, we're a software company, so we don't have to deal with manufacturing and products but again, it puts us back into understanding and appreciating what our customers are going through and really provide them with that capability i was just talking to customers this week in atlanta and new york and every one of them, cfo, cios, they're telling me about the need to really leverage information and making decisions. and that's where anaplan comes into play. >> the president just tweeted about tariffs, by the way. i want to ask about this space in general and i want to go even broader than planning, because it fits into analytics domo is getting crushed this morning post earnings. it's down about 30%. it recently had its ipo. you guys had your ipo, what was

it, 11 months ago? >> just about a year ago >> 11 months ago you're up about 3x from your ipo price. what's making the difference in this data analytics and i guess planning space, you think? in terms of what is really making this. >> if i look at planning, planning is a large market and if i look back, it's been several decades before there's been any change from a technology perspective around planning spreadsheets are 40 years old this past june other technology, more of the legacy technology, has been around for 10, 20 years. that has forced companies to react slower in how they plan. having a plamplg like ours allows them to start to change and pivot to address all of these needs. and that's been very effective >> a lot of people know you as the former ceo of cisco and an executive at red hat cisco is down over 11.5% over

the last three months. do you see a slip off in terms of enterprise spending, confidence among ceos and businesses obviously, you're a beneficiary of the uncertainty, but i think there are some questions about what that enterprise spending question looks like. >> we're a global company. 60% of our business in the u.s., 40% out. i do a tremendous amount of outreach to kmcustomers. that's a big part of my job. i talk to a lot of cfos, ceos. what i'm hearing going back the last few months is positive. companies are talking about investment, they're talking about how they're changing their business, looking out over the next year, two years so most of what i've heard and seen has been very positive reaction >> frank calderoni, ceo of anaplan, thank you >> great to be here. the dow son pace for its second positive week in a row coming off its best day since june here are the names leading in the index in today's session we've got a mix, boeing, intel,

and travelers taking charge. we're back after a short break

it is time for the euro close. dom chu has that back at headquarters for us. dom? >> all right, so, sarah, european stocks trying to hold on to some marginal gains generally speaking on what's been a volatile day across the atlantic all five major averages were initially boosted by fresh stimulus measures out of china, but are now trading off of those levels as we head towards that closing bell over there. auto stocks in particular took a dip late in the session. if you look on the back of that heels of the u.s. justice department is launching an antitrust probe into four automakers, including germany's skproex dmw as well. but if you take a step back and look at the week that was, automakers and their suppliers have actually had a pretty good performance so far this week, up close to 6%, almost four percentage points better than the broader stock 600 index. that's due in large part to

renewed trade optimism, as well, and finally, looking ahead to next week's ecb policymakers meeting. they will make the debate potential of further stimulus measures there executives at top european banks have stepped up their criticism of negative interest rates this week, saying that they discourage lending and create further head winds for the eurozone's struggling financial sector overall the bank side of things is now down 20% over the course of the past year. so a huge move for some of these big companies out there. i'll send things back downtown to you guys at the stock exchange >> absolutely, dom, that's going to be a big one to watch next week thank you, let's get over to south laiherrera for a news upd. >> defense secretary mark esper cautioning european allies against cozying up to china, arguing that beijing seeks greater global influence by leveraging economic power and stealing technology. his comments came in a speech at a think tank in london >> the more dependent a country

becomes on chinese investment and trade, the more susceptible they are to coercion and retribution when they act outside of beijing's wishes. the political and economic leverage china is gaining by carrying out this strategy has begun eroding the sovereignty of many nations >> hong kong police clashing with protesters again outside a subway station the latest altercation in 14 weeks of sometimes violent demonstrations the ratings agency, fitch, cut the island's credit rating, warning that the conflict was hurting the image of the business climate there and pope francis wrapping his visit to mozambique by denouncing the rampant corruption that has helped make the southern african nation one of the world's poorest countries. he received a raucous welcome at a rain-soaked sports stadium where he held mass you are up to date that's the news update this hour back downtown to you kbiguys morgan >> after the break, alan

patricov joins us here here at post 9 and docusign searching we're back in a minute johnson & johnson is a baby company. but we're also a cancer fighting, hiv controlling, joint replacing,

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states are launching new investigations into big tech companies. one was just announced today another could come monday. ylan mui has the latest from washington >> sarah, washington is leading a joint investigation into facebook over antitrust issues it's a bipartisan effort involving the district of columbia and seven other states

including nebraska, colorado, and ohio and i'm told additional states could sign on later a statement, new york ag letitia james said even the largest social media platform in the world must follow the law and respect consumers. we will use every investigative tool at our disposal when james pointed to three key questions in this investigation, has facebook endangered consumer data, reduced the quality of consumer choices, or increased the price of advertising no word on how long this investigation might take and remember, new york is already investigating facebook over a separate issue, its collection of 1.5 million user email addresses. next week, it will be google that's in the hot seat a source tells me roughly 30 state ags are planning to launch an unrelated anti-trust investigation into the company on monday. texas attorney general ken paxton is taking the lead on that one he's a republican. we're expecting democrats to be part of this, as well. so the frustration over the power of these platforms is coming from both sides of the aisle.

guys, one more date to mark in your calendars for next week thursday, that's when the house judiciary committee will hold the next hearing in its anti-trust investigation so, it's going to be a tough week for big tech. back over to you >> ylan, thank you let's bring in venture capital pioneer alan patrikof who joins us right here at post 9. welcome back, alan >> thanks. >> how worried should investors and google and facebook be as a result of these latest investigations >> i think at the outset, one should understand, i don't believe facebook or google or anyone else will be brought into this have started out to deliberately be monopolistic or to cause problems. they have had an inexorable growth beyond anyone's original expectations and as a result, they've, i don't know, become too big and too pervasive in our whole lives, that that's the problem and it's not even -- it's the old monopoly theory was, monopolies cause prices to go

up they haven't caused prices to go up as much as they've caused prices to go down. amazon is an example and the cost of advertising has been disrupted, because everyone is dependent on facebook or google as a platform in order to launch something and that's scary and i think we need to -- i think it's constructive that the government is doing that i've been involved in something with called the open market institute for the last two years, which is thinking about this whole issue and what impact it has on society. >> so, is that -- is that establish bullish on these stocks or not on the one hand, if some of these companies get broken up, that could be good for investors. a lot of times, you end up unlocking shareholder value, as they say, when that happens. but if their business is restricted in certain other ways, then that could be bad, because they've got to spend more money with regulatory requirements and such. >> when i originally started focusing as a citizen on this issue and was concerned, to me, breaking up was one of the

easiest alternatives to regulation but the real problem, in my opinion, i've come to see the use of data, which they cross platform on. you know every time they make an acquisition, they all have access to this data. and as a result of having that data, they're at a big advantage, an increasingly strong advantage, which has information. and if there was some technique to make this information available, as they do on cross-platforms to outsiders on some equal footing, i think -- i'm not giving you the perfect solution, but it's the data that's critical aspect and if there's a way to accomplish that through this -- these investigations, i think that's for the good. and i don't think the stocks will necessarily go up because of this. but hopefully, there's a constructive solution. >> there's so many cooks in the kitchen now, right ftc, doj, you've got lawmakers

in both houses of congress and you've got now attorneys general getting involved in all of this. and this idea of anti-trust. there's a big debate brewing, right, about whether the law, the current law here in the u.s. actually supports anti-trust scrutiny of these companies, what the precedent is. and i think it kind of gets to a bigger question here i want to get your thoughts on this about whether that's actually the case, the law would support such scrutiny and if it doesn't, does this again put the ball back in lawmakers' courts to decide what those laws need to look like and what tech regulation overall needs to look like going forward >> i think the laws have to be revised. i think the original sherman act of 1988 and the clayton act, they were about oil companies buying every oil company and controlling the oil market they were about the railroads buying every railroad and controlling transportation, resulting in higher prices today, the kind of monopolies we

have are totally different they didn't anticipate the technology world we're living in and so therefore, they need to have new rules and out of it we'll, you know, set the basis perhaps for the next, what is it, it's more than a hundred years since those laws were put in place. >> alan, wanted to turn you to wework, which we know is considering a slashing of its valuation now by more than half ahead of its ipo, as the street continues to be skeptical of the company's business model, its corporate governance have you ever seen anything like this >> what you read and i read are the same, which is this potential decline in what they slashing of their ipo filing price. i have never seen that in -- i mean, i've seen 5 or 10% at the time of actually going public the night before so to talk about cutting the price, it tells you that perhaps it got way ahead of itself in the private market it tells you that perhaps

there's too much money in the private market at these pre-ipo stages, where people want to get in on a hot deal and you know, i don't want to throw stones at anyone, but i think softbank hit the mark on top. >> and that's what i wanted to ask you about. if you're softbank in this scenario, you're already half a billion underwater on uber and now, if this slash in valuation happens with wework, what's the peril >> i think someone has to look, take a closer look at the vision fund concept and whether $100 billion and now another 100 billion or whatever the number will be is the right kind of dollars that should be put into young companies. i mean, it just -- >> is the danger that you don't get more investors kicking in for your next fund what's the danger if you're in that position of those big bets you made, at least for the current -- and don't say you -- not me >> i say if you're in softbank's position i'm putting you in their shoes >> many times, i say, i wish i

was in the original early stage wa at wework or uber. but it gets to these atmospheric levels we have all of these companies going private much later because there's a lot of money that could fund them where previously you needed to go public to get that money and there was much more scrutiny. and it gets to my favorite subject lately, which is shareholder democracy. and shareholder votes. because all of these companies are going public with the founders having super majority shares on top of it. so it compounds the problem. i think that wework as a new idea, it's permeated the country. it's an easy company to attack on the other hand, there's a lot to compliment them for in terms of what they've done, in terms of shared spaces everybody says the same thing. what happens when the economy turns soft and there's a lot of space that they've gotten, they took on long-term leases and rereleased with short-term

so it's an uncomfortable position to be in. >> before we move on to the next topic, all of this capital sloshing aren't in the private markets right now, and the facts that raised are poised to stay even lower for even longer, do you think there's a bubble here? >> i think there's an excessive amount of money in the later stage of these early private high tech companies. because funds have been formed and you know, we've staid outye of that area we were in a most -- we're in a start-up seed "a" round and go into a later stage, but not at these atmospheric levels, because it's very hard to see a venture-type return at these prices i don't know to buy in at a $47 billion valuation, to make two times your money has got to be $100 billion. there aren't that many -- >> should they delay it? should they delay the ipo? >> if he could avoid it at this time and get his capital structure straightened out and some of the things that people -- you know, a 350-page

prospectus, nobody can read, really that's as hard as the mueller report to read i think that he should be -- if i were he, if i could -- if i had the capital available, maybe slow down a little bit, fewer countries, fewer places to open and concentrate on what i've got and building that. he's got a great base. you don't have to take over the world. >> you're talking adam newman, the ceo there? >> yeah. >> we also wanted to ask alan about box. ceo aaron levie joined us last night exclusively on "closing bell" after jeff smith disclosed a 7.5% stake in the cloud company. here is what levie said. >> overall, they see an opportunity where box's shares have been undervalued by the market and frankly, that's what we're focused on on driving, both by reaccelerating the growth rate of the company, as well as driving greater profitability in the business so we're very aligned with starboard's interests and we

look forward to collaborating with them on this process. >> aaron levie, ceo of box they, too, have struggled. they've been public for a few years, struggled to put out consistent profitable growth and therefore the stock hasn't done much since the ipo it's lower >> it's an interesting -- i could have come down here today and you could have been talking about any company and any activist fund. it just happens to be -- i know a little bit about starboard, because through my money manager, four, five, six years ago, i had an investment in the hedge fund i do not, full disclosure, have an fechinvestment today and frankly, they were an activist in a public tech company that i knew. knew very well and they really provided a very constructive role. they were in for a couple of years, they changed the management around, they changed the directors around they did a lot of the right moves. in fact, to a certain extent, i'm sorry that they left after a couple of years, they did sell their stock

so i think -- i don't know levie and i don't know box intimately. i have reviewed the record and it's -- it has slowed down in terms of its growth, but i think -- and he -- as far as i understand, he does not have a super majority, so they've come in at 7.5% i don't think they'll go over 10, and they will, i think stabboasta starboard -- i don't know jeff smith -- i think they will play a constructive role and he's smart in welcoming them. >> the market agrees with you? >> okay, i have friends. >> and this gets right back to the point you made before about dual class share structures. box is one of those companies that did away with that structure. i wonder when you see a move like this, though, and certainly, levie is very well respected in silicon valley and seen as one of those up and coming, i think, kind of tech start-ups, at least for how outspoken he is. and broader trends and how he talks to them. do you think that when these

types of dynamics take place, more founders who are taking companies public continue to adopt this dual class share structure? >> i absolutely hope that that isn't the case because i do believe in shareholder democracy. i have spoken out, and i do believe that having perhaps some control in an early stage growth company, that maybe, you know, two, three, five years old and goes public, there are things they're doing in terms of research and development and marketing, that they need time, because it's going to create perhaps early losses while they're developing their market. and so having a sunset provision, which enables them to phase out that super majority of control, you know, for -- but it's got to be realistic the last couple have come out, have had 15-year and 20-year sunset provisions. that makes -- >> it's a long day >> that makes a sham of the

whole process. but i do think that having the early ability of the founder -- but i think levie is taking an approach -- he doesn't have super majority control, but he's being open and saying, i'm willing to listen and let's talk >> see, we got it back to dual class structure. that was your favorite topic alan, thank you for joining us alan patry cou patrikof and still to come, an exclusive with the ceo of do docusign following their q2 results. the stock is up big. we're back in just a moment. und, cdw can deploy a flexible hybrid cloud solution that can scale with your needs. today and in the future, so you don't need this. wow. that sounds great. so, what happens? jerry has been stealing our lunches! no! for hybrid cloud solutions, you need vmware cloud foundation and it orchestration by cdw. people who get it.

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all right. coming up on the "halftime report" at noon, it is turning into a big week for the bulls. we are drilling down on the stocks that maybe worth your money right now. plus, a big call on the airlines two names, one company says you've got to buy. we're going to name names. and fed chairman jay powell is set to speak about the economy and fed policy it will be the last time you're going to hear from him until the next fed eeting. all of that is ahead on the "halftime report" coming up at noon jon, what did trump tweet today? where's jerome or something like that well, he's going to be on the "halftime report". >> all right brian, thank you let's now get to the cme rick santelli's got the santelli exchange any whips today, rick? >> no, no whips today. we only do whips every now and again, jon but listen, what was whippy was some of the data points involved in today's jobs report listen, there's a major assumption out there by many

economists and analysts is that we're late cycle and of course jobs are going to drift lower and the demographics are the big issue with regard to things like labor force participation, employment-to-population, and that these things can't really do much more well, i think the latter isn't correct, so i'm not sure about any of it. granted, jobs have been slowing. i'm not convinced that it is going to take this glide path all the way into a recession, if that occurs in 2020 or not let's look at a couple of charts labor force participation rate moved up 0.2 to 63.2 that goes back to january of 2013 that this number has shown up several times, but it is the high water mark going all the way back to the fourth quarter of 2013. the more dramatic chart is employment to population it's 60.9, it is the best since december 2008. that certainly isn't acting late cycle, so i think that assumption has some questions attached to it

another issue this week, even though jobs were light, corporate issuance was heavy, heavy, heavy oh, my goodness, there was a three-day period, 72 hours, where we had investment grade issuance just a whisker below $75 billion. $75 billion. three-day period, historic historic never had a three-day period like that. and the thing, how much september is left? it looks to me like there's another $40 billion 20to $60 billion in the pipeline for the month, maybe more. i understand it's an opportune time, isn't it with interest rates moving back down to historic lows. in my mind, it's a demand story. what's really fueling this is easy a big number $17 trillion of negative debt is making demand just insatiable for some of this positive returning paper, so it's a marriage made in heaven, but there is a bubblicious feel to it, isn't there? rates are up this week, even

though they've come well off their best levels and that occurred after the jobs report and leading up to it was the most important story of how they snugged up, maybe let by europe. we were due a correction because of the big drops in august is this bottoming? is this bottoming action i think it's still a little bit too early to tell. morgan, back to you. >> rick santelli, thank you. apple, deere, disney, just a couple of the names that sold debt this week when we return, docusign, the big earnings mover this morning. it's surging about 18% the ceo joins us exclusively on the other side of this break don't go anywhere.

take a look at shares of docusign, up big this morning. up 18% at this point. reporting q2 results, upbeat quarter guidance the ceo dan springer joins us now in a cnbc exclusive. dan, good to see you >> good to see you, jon. >> this strikes me as a pivotal quarter. a lot of folks on the treatstret obviously didn't see this coming there are a lot of branded clouds out there experience cloud, marketed clouds the agreement cloud. explain to investors what this is how it's different than the

digital signing market and where you're taking it >> absolutely, jon we're super excited about the docusign e-signature is a foundation for the business but they have a broader set of needs not only in the way they sign it but the way they prepare it after it's done we have a broader suite of how it's done and that's what we're bringing to market today >> this is similar, slightly similar to what we heard from slack a few days ago, in which they're using channels for people to collaborate, but outside of organizations how do you expect this move for more intracompany collaboration to affect this cloud era >> i think it's key, the connectedness that you're talking about that slack is sort of seeing and pushing for is very similar to what we're seeing as well companies want to be, in our terminology, more agreeable. those are the communications we

want to have within our economy. back office functions that they try to digitally form. but also the front office. they want a customer experience of what the customers expect, easy to be dealt with. and we see the slack movement is similar. >> dan, it's amazing to me how much e-signatures is largely an untapped market? where do you see the greatest industries in far as sectors >> i think why we're super decide be about the core e-signature business and the broader cloud to make this a better opportunity but we don't want to move over from the signature business. it's what sort of brought us to the dance, right if you think about the $50 million until revenue which we'll deliver this year the bulk of it will come from

e-signature. we like to talk about the fact that docusign is unusual we serve in the bigge efgest and largest enterprise we had our first million dollar acbd deal that we announced in the quarter. it's not just that segment it really is very broad. we think financial services will continue to be a driver for us as i mentioned, fed will be excited. i think you'll see us continue to demand internationally, domestically, it's a broad-based opportunity. >> i'm curious what the competitive landscape looks like, dan. who are your main competitors and how are you staying ahead of them in innovation and things like discount pricing? >> if you think about the overat all t.a.m., e-signature, a $25 billion market if you think about the broad agreement cloud, we think that gets into doubling the overall opportunity. when you think about the competitive set, it's so early,

right. we're about 4%, 5% penetrated in the core signature business and less on the broader one. so, we actually talk about competition, we talk about paper and manual processing. but the business is so early days in the early inning, and we believe that our biggest competition really is paper and manual processes we like to say it's a great competitive set to have because they don't fight back very hard. it's just a matter of time before we're able to replace it. >> a lot of people thought that adobe had the digital document, that whole stream all tied up. clearly that's not the case. i wonder from the mega cloud platform, whether you're talking amazon, microsoft, google, is any one of them better tuning their platforms for the market that you're trying to grow or are they all the same >> well, i think when you think about the infrastructure side. it's a huge part of where the cloud is going and we've been much more focused on the application and thinking

about the end user value but on the infrastructure side, i think it's a hugely competitive space. and it used to be looking like a two-horse race, when you think about microsoft and amazon now, looking at some of the other players what google is doing. i think you're going to see more and more competition in that space. but i don't think it's going to be necessarily bad for those players, it's a really large expanding market on the application side, we think this new cloud opportunity that we see in the agreement cloud is the next big cloud, because we think, go back to your connectivity joint, jon, this is about bringing clouds together we work strong with dip and making it more valuable for them in what connects them which is the agreement, too >> well, a big day for docusign's stock, up 18% dan springer, ceo, thanks for

joining us squawk hour is back in less than three. johnson & johnson is a baby company.

but we're also a cancer fighting, hiv controlling, joint replacing, and depression relieving company. from the day you're born we never stop taking care of you. see you guys later for "closing bell. we're set to wrap up what looks

like a strong week up 1.8% for the s&p so far this week we're there to react to jay powell who is speaking at the snb in switzerland we'll see what he has to say >> his friends call him jerome now? >> jerome, that was the subject of the trump tweet, right? >> yes let's send it to brian sullivan >> jon, sarah modi, thank you very much. welcome to a "the halftime report," i'm brian in for scott once again job growth it does fall once again, stocks they don't care. shaking it off markets coming off a big week. get ready, fed chair jay powell set to talk again. jay powell getting ready to speak this hour about the economy and fed policy his last speech before the next fed meetinging what happens if investors don't like wha