california teams from competition? >> or does the ncaa adopt it and say, we have to go that route? >> we have to go down that road, because that's where it's going to go, eventually. >> you have all the high-profile athletes backing them. that's going to be one to watch. thanks for watching "power lunch. >> and "closing bell" starts right now. welcome to the "closing bell," everyone. i'm wilfred frost at the new york stock exchange. a separate positive and a positive quarter, despite a negative august, that is how things are with 59 minutes left of trade >> and let's look at what is driving the action on this last day of september the tech sector surging with apple in the lead up more than 2% right now oil falling on weak chinese economic data. also, saudi aramco resuming its operations to full capacity. that has the energy sector weaker today and the delisting walkback the white house downplays any limits on u.s. investing in

china, which has chinese stocks bouncing today we've also got another big announcement as well don't miss the debut of a new segment here on "closing bell" today. the market zone is coming up into and after the close we'll bring you the stocks and stories every investor needs to know and it will look a little different as well. joining us for the hour is mark tepper from strategic wealth partners mark, thanks for being here. >> thanks for having me. >> looking at the dow today, we're up 154 points. the s&p is also hovering right around 2980, it looks like a decent last day for the month of september as we head into these final three months of the year, what are you watching the most closely? >> i think the biggest catalyst right now is a potential trade deal all eyes are looking on this meeting next week between the u.s. and china, because if you think about it, it's really, really difficult for ceos of publicly traded companies to execute on their growth plans if they have no visibility as to what the future looks like i think the biggest thing that we're watching right now is whether or not there's going to be a trade deal.

we are pretty confident that the fed is going to cut one more time before the end of the year. there's like a 70% implied probability that that happens. and then earnings season so there's been all of this talk about a potential earnings recession over the last few quarters and we've been able to avoid it. let's hope we can avoid it again this quarter >> we've got a lot to discuss with mark. we are up by 152 points with 58 minutes left let's drill down on the big stories we're watching today bob pisani and bertha coombs has a look at the last days of the market phil lebeau is covering boeing bob, let's start with you. >> an unusual wide dispersion of winners and loser for the third quarter. take a look at some of the big gainers down here at the new york stock exchange. we saw defensive stocks like procter & gamble and walmart have a great quarter overall stocks around housing like home depot were strong. small select group of international consumer stocks were strong. nike was the outlier

health care had a rough quarter. fisa was weak. exxonmobil and all of the energy stocks were a mess as oil rallied briefly and fell back down and finally, industries generally had a very tough time, caterpillar among them, down 7%. and guys, we're expecting a huff time for the fourth quarter, particularly for energy stocks as those prices keep dropping. back to you. >> it's amazing what two weeks' difference makes bob pisani, thanks for that. the nasdaq could close lauer for q3, breaking a two-quarter winning streak bertha coombs has more on what's moving the index >> it's a little bit of a divide, small caps are weaker this quarter, but the nasdaq 100 with large caps is on pace for a 1% gain, right up there with s&p and the dow. apple providing the most upside impact its market cap back north of $1 trillion after august swooned. semiconductors also recovering to be the best-performing tech sector this quarter led by chip equipment makers kla and lamb

research, which both hit historic highs and both are up more than 70% year-to-date meantime, those high-profile ipos not the only ones suffering icarus-like falls. invisalign maker align technologies, once a high flyer, down for its third quarter in four and netflix, the worst performer of the f.a.a.n.g.s, tumbling nearly as much as it did during last year's fourth quarter back to you, wilf. >> let's get over to mike for today's market dashboard hey, mike. >> here's what is ahead. acore holding, that's one very important big stock doing a lot of work today. a charged relationship it's about utilities in combination with something else right now. a grand tour is a time to perhaps go overseas. some investors starting to suggest, perhaps and a muddled position a look at how real active hedge funds are positioned right now but first, a core holding. apple is giving the market a lift very important to all the indexes. up about 2.5%. here's one year of apple, a

great snapshot there's the all-time high. essentially almost exactly one calendar year ago, we hit that all-time high. we are bumping up against it kind of a grind. it tells a good story of abandoning hope in early july and this big grinding comeback but let's look at a composite of the wall street sentiment toward apple today. of course, jpmorgan coming out rising its price target and saying perhaps a better-than expected uptake. this in yellow is the percentage of buy ratings that's only at about 40% right now. so i think it's about 40% is not buy ratings, so 60% buy ratings at this point. but what's most interesting is, this is the consensus price target and the stock itself is bumping up against it. that suggests subdued sentiment for apple. on balance, that's a net positive however, i would just point to this spring when basically the stock overtook very briefly the consensus price target and didn't manage to hold those

levels so i think it's coming up to a level where it's going to be a bit of an upside test for apple. >> i guess the other support the stock has had is buy pabacks. the debate is how much of that is left to run apple, if it bias its stock back very actively, very regularly. and contributes to this idea that it's actually underowned by the active company warren buffett has his stake he's not presumably stem cellsellicellse i it i think most other than most big stocks, just sentiment drives things the business itself has been very steady. >> mike, i'm having a hard time figuring out your theme here with these charts. >> i wouldn't try too hard i think i underwhelmed everybody, morgan. we can talk about it >> it's an interesting chart, nonetheless. mark, i want to get your thoughts on this apple is the best performer in the dow. one of the best performers for the quarter, as well

how does that speak to have the broader market >> with regards to apple, specifically, just as mike talked about, sentiment is basically at like a decade low, with about 50% buy ratings on the stock right now. with they continue to execute on transitioning, towards services and wearables, you'll see more analyst upgrades and i think that's going to propel the stock. as far as the broader market wing it's really healthy right now that f.a.a.n.g. and a lot of the big companies are not necessarily leading the market apple has done very well, but a lot of the other big boys have not done as well and i think that really speaks to the health of the overall market when you look at the equal weight s&p 500, the equal weight is actually outperforming this month. i think that's proving to us that the stock market is healthy. >> let's switch now and announce boeing phil lebeau is in chicago with more hay, phil. >> these safety changes that are being endorsed and put into

place by dave mullenberg, these were recommended by the board. he has accepted those and added a couple of others in terms of oversight. this doesn't just have to do with the 737 max, this is for the entire company but especially on the commercial airplane side. over the weekend, there was the report that some of the military versions of the 737 max had safety redundancies that were not on the commercial side you can bet that those will be part of any changes that are ultimately put in place as the company applies for recertification. as you take a look at shares of boeing, we're almost to the six-month mark of when this plane was grounded you can see that while it's down since march, it's up over the last month and this is going on even as there's a new report that the 737 ng, the model before the max, airlines have to do some inspections for possible cracks in those planes. guys, back to you. >> another day, another round of boeing headlines, phil thanks for bringing us the latest here, phil lebeau

we've got 51 minutes left of trading and right now stocks are higher with the dow up about 139 points for the session let's bring in jared witter. thanks for joining us. i'm looking at your notes. you say you remain irrationally bullish for 2019 what does that mean? >> irrationally, because if you think about all the threats we faced this year, the trade war, brexit, the laundry list of risk scenarios and potential problems, you would never know that global equities are on pace to annualize almost 30% returns this year. commodities are up almost 17% on an annualized basis. it's actually been a really great year for risky assets. but you would never know that for conversations that we have, you hear from a lot of different investors. the reason we're bullish through the end of the year, there are two reasons. investors are positioned incredibly bearishly they have defensive allocations within equities, and large

allocations to bonds and wherever investor position is quite this cautious, it's historically been a great time to own risky assets. our bull and bear indicator of market sentiment on a zero-ten scale, it's below one, so it's about as bearish as you can get. and in the past, that's been a great sign for short-term upsid upside is that view also contingent on none of those risks getting worse? >> obviously, anything can change and if trade takes a bad direction, there's always potential for risk but a lot of these that are very familiar to investors at this point, arguably even priced in, and this is in a moment where the second catalyst for more upside, you still have very easy and accommodative monetary policy bank of america, merrill lynch expects the fed to cut more this year and look at housing data and the mortgage refinancing boom, it looks like there's still gas left in the tank with regard to

the power of interest rate cuts by the fed >> mark, there seems to be so much dysfunction emanating out of d.c you can talk about impeachment in the house or gridlock overall, you can talk about trade and all the uncertainty there. how big are a risk to have the markets are d.c. politics right now? >> in the short run, it's a huge risk it's going to drive a lot of volatility in the short run, because that's what political headlines and noise do they drive a ton of volatility in the long run, what drives investment performance is not politics, but policy, right? so monetary policy, trade policy, what we're doing on those two fronts and also profits. so, you know, as i mentioned earlier, we're looking for the fed to cut one more time we really want to see a trade deal, right? i don't know if that's going to happen i don't know how much incentive china has to get a deal done right now. and we need to make sure we see earnings moving in the right direction. >> would congress actually passi

passing usmca, would that help offset some of the angst around china and a trade deal there >> i don't think it would be impactful enough the big issue right now is that china trade deal and that's what's causing so many ceos to think about moving supply chains and trying to figure out how to handle, you know, this skprproblem and that problem so they can try to plan for the future the bigger issue right now is definitely china >> jared, just finally, cyclicals or defensives. are you going for the more risky equities or not? >> at this point, we've got to own cyclicals. you've got to look at sectors like financials, industrials, materials. names that have been really beaten down that are underowned. in some cases, they pay a really nice dividend yield, so you get paid to wait and when investors are so cautious right now, i think it's a moment, certainly through the end of the year, to get a little bit more bullish, take a little bit more risk in your equity portfolio, as long as these really supportive conditions obtain this is not the moment, in other words, to be loading up on the defensive sectors like staples and utilities and reits.

>> jared, thanks for joining us. >> thank you we're one month away from the brexit deadline with no definitive resolution in sight coming up, we'll speak with david cameron, the former uk prime minister who called for the referendum in the first place that started it all. plus, the next round of china trade talks are set to kick off in the next few days. we'll discuss the odds of a deal and what the market wants to see in terms of negotiations and chicago pmi coming in below expectations with a reading of 47.1 in september and the dallas fed's manufacturing index fell to 1.5 in september, down from 2.7 in august "closing bell" will be right back ♪ limu emu & doug

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welcome back to the "closing bell." check out shares of netflix, those are up about 1% after netflix said it resigned its hit show "stranger things" for a fourth season. they also signed show creators to a multi-year content deal i'm kind of surprised, wilf, that this wasn't already done, given how great -- >> you're also kind of excited >> -- "stranger things" is >> the full reaction was about a minute ago when you realized you

had this read to come up big fan of the show? >> especially that last season finale, yet quarter to date, netflix is down 29%. >> it's well off of its july highs. >> that quarter's earnings coming up will be fascinating. if they have another slip in subscriber numbers, i'm sure the 30% fall will be accentuated but everyone says because of "stranger things," it's going to bounce back. >> you need to watch that show >> i don't know. i have to admit, i haven't even given it a one-minute try, so i've been shortsighted perhaps on it. >> it's good >> my next one is i'm watching the next season of "the crown," and they know i'm canceling netflix. >> the references are all from my generation, not yours >> i'm stuck in the middle >> barry, we haven't introduced you yet. no one knows you're here hang on. hedge fund manager carl bass and mitch mcconnell appeared on cnbc earlier today, giving their take on what they hope to see from president trump heading into next month's talks >> you never know which side of the pillow trump is going to

wake up on, and my fear is that i hope he doesn't do a deal that jeopardizes the long-term national security of our country, because he wants the stock market to go up. >> i hope the president can get a good outcome here. the chinese have been stealing our intellectual property and not playing by the rules for a long time, so i admire what he's trying to do but i hope we can get a conclusion to this some time soon, because rural america really needs it. >> for more, let's bring in barry knapp who joins us now, managing partner, before we get to those particular comments, the last two or three weeks takeaway on u.s.-china headlines has been generally improving sentiment, has it? >> improving sentiment >> not on friday, but -- >> improving sentiment with respect to getting a deal. also, a series of macro economic numbers from china that should be clearly increasing their incentive to want to do a deal if you simply walk through their

august data, urban fixed asset investment, for example, is increasing better than 7%, but private sector investment less than 5 the whole was supposed to get money to enterprises their industrial production. steel is piling up in the quarter again. mobile phone production is falling at a 6% annualized rate. their profits numbers are negative, but sales are positive so they clearly have massive margin pressure as a consequence of all of this so, you know, they -- >> but it doesn't change the general bargain that we all know, which is that they can survive for another 12 months, quite comfortably, if necessary. they're not going to fall into a recession. >> i would argue that as it pertains to the rest of the world, they're already sending out a negative recessionary impulse. this is their second one in five years. the first one, their heavy industry sector collapsed from 14 to 16 steel, you know, cement, all of those companies, ordinary imports are falling at a 20%

annualized rate. right now, that's falling at a 6% annualized rate as it pertains to the rest of the world, china has is already sending a negative or a recessionary impulse out there >> what does that mean in terms of where investors should be putting their money? steering clear of china and arguably emerging market companies that could be very exposed to china and also germany? i think about fed smith from fedex and saying that the contraction they're seeing there is from china. >> it's funny, you ask that, i put a relative performance charge of the msci emerging market index into my note this weekend. when i wrote the asset allocation portion of the barclays global outlook in december of 2010 there's been like a period of about six months of stabilization in emerging markets, but they have underperformed massively that whole time period. so now, sort of piling on and saying, hey, you should sell them now, i think, is probably not a great idea

and if there is a deal, you could get a ferocious rally in emerging markets it's a little tricky i would be more inclined to be looking for a spot to sell emerging market equities than sell them as bearish as i might sound. >> mark, would you get a ferocious rally in u.s. equities, if you got a deal, as well >> i think so. i mean, i don't know that it's going to happen. obviously, you'll see an improvement in sentiment right away it's going to take a little while for the earnings to really kick in, though. i think that there's been some damage that's been done, that's going to be long lasting so i think if there were a trade deal, you'd see multiples expand you would see the market rally we would definitely below through the most recent high of like 3028 or whatever it was, without a doubt. >> barry, just quickly, the deal with japan, and if us kplrks a get confirmed, are those as bullish as a china deal would be >> no, not at all. all of these things move in the same direction, which is to make

it more difficult to do foreign direct investment. the usmca, the investor direct settlement, part of the deal basically makes it much riskier to invest directly in mexico so the whole thing is in the same direction away from economic efficiency. it will help on the margin in the short run from a sentiment perspective. it creates the impression that these deals are moving us towards a better place in reality, when you look through the details, none of these deals are all that great >> the flip side of that, of course, is it sounds like it makes a stronger case for the u.s. >> but that was already inevitable >> okay. >> from my perspective, if you just look at the big, broad trends, the manufacturing renaissance thesis that was put forth by people like bcg in 2011, again, it's one of those things they published this weekend. look at the oecd, labor cost competitive indexes, they're converged globally there's no huge advantage to go to china to ship to the rest of the world, as there once was what we needed to do in the u.s.

was cut our corporate tax rate and do away with the worldwide taxuation system we did it. >> all right on that note, barry knapp, thanks for joining us today. >> thanks. after the break, analysts are split on their outlook for wells fargo, following the appointment of new ceo, charlie scharf we'll get the word on the street on that stock, next. and don't miss the debut of "the market zone," our new segment which takes you through the most important of the trading day as we head into the th wl cinup atilbeomg just a few minutes away "closing bell" back after this

welcome back to the "closing bell." time to get word on the street a couple of opposing notes on wells fargo today. august research upgrading the stock to buy with a $60 price target bear downgrading to it neutral and lowering its price target to $50 from $52 a share august research is optimistic about incoming wells fargo ceo charlie scharf however, bird says there are still -- excuse me, bear says there are still very real headwinds in play. >> bmo capital markets upgrading cigna to outperform with a $188 price target meanwhile, the firm saying the company provides a hedge against uncertain election outcomes. this after citi named cigna as the, quote, most compelling stock just last week those shares are up 2% and longbow research upgrading burger king to neutral seeing an impossible whopper

lift and those shares are up 2% now, as i'm not going to comment on that, although i have tried the impossible whopper but i am going to get your thoughts >> i would eat a whopper over a big mac any day of the week. >> oh. >> however, when it comes to breakfast, mcdonald's is eating burger king's lunch. eating their lunch at breakfast, that was a good one. i like mcdonald's better when you look at everything from user experience to their in-store makeovers to delivery to mobile, i think i would rather be positioned in mcdonald's right now >> what do you make of the wells fargo all? interesting kind of dichotomy there. the only point i would make, as well, for the guys downgrading it is they've had a great run since mid-august and clearly geared to the yield picture, which has changed course a little bit. >> so it's always a good thing to have a permanent ceo in place rather than a temporary ceo. and the person they identified, you know, he held leadership positions in visa, jpmorgan,

most recently, bny mellen and we own visa and jpmorgan, so obviously, we like those companies. we think it's going to be a positive for wells fargo but we would be much more comfortable within the bank space owning a company like jpmorgan, which is best of breed. >> okay. there we go. wells fargo trading down, just about 10 basis points today. coming up, wework's disastrous journey towards an ipo taking another turn today. we'll tell you about the latest plot twists, next. and as we head to break, here is today's bond report. u.s. treasuries little change today with the ten-year yield holding below 1.7% years on the ten-year have dropped around 16% this quarter alone. we'll be right back. - [spokesman] if you've tried college but never finished,

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just under 30 minutes left of trade we're higher by 129 points on the dow. here are the key things driving the action the tech sector is leading the charge with apple on top, more than 2%. oil is falling after saudi aramco says it's resuming

operations to full capacity. and the white house downplaying any limits on u.s. investments in china, which has chinese stocks bouncing. >> it is time now for cnbc news update with sue herrera. sue? >> hello, morgan hello, everyone. here's what's happening at this hour republican congressman chris collins of new york has sent a letter to house speaker nancy pelosi's office stating that he is resigning his house seat. his resignation will become effective once that letter is read on the house floor tomorrow collins is expected to plead guilty tomorrow in federal court to insider trading charges ukrainian president volodymyr zelensky says today that kiev was unlikely to publish its version of a transcript with his conversation with president trump the phone call is at the heart of the president's impeachment inquiry. hundreds of people gathered on the hedge of hong kong's victoria harbor on the eve of china's national day celebrations they formed human chains using green frog soft toys, which have come to symbolize this summer's

protests and hundreds of new york city police officers lined the streets and overpasses as the body of fallen officer brian mulkeen was escorted to a funeral home this morning. he was shot and killed sunday after grappling with an armed man in the bronx, but just moments ago the nypd says the officer most likely was killed by shots fired by his fellow officers you are up to date that's the news update at this hour wilf, i'll send it back downtown to you >> sue, thank you. we'll see you next hour. let's send it over to mike now for the second installment of the dashboard mike >> wilf, thanks. taking a look at a particular charged relationship in the markets. the utility sector is about flat today, but that means it's still sitting at record highs, all-time highs for utilities almost nobody really outright loves them, but they keep buying them why? the story line goes, it's because of dividends, a reliable dividend yield take a look in the blue is the utility sector dividend yield, been trending lower as utility

share prices have gone higher. and you have the kbw index its dividend yield has been trending higher as they raise dividends, the banks do, and share prices have pretty much gone flat to sideways, maybe up recently what's interesting is you have near parody right here below 3% at these two sector dividend yields now, why does the market not really view banks in the same light? what they're really buying with utilities is predictability. no surprises yes, over time, the dividends will go up, but they're not in absolute terms really all that attractive for banks, if you have a fear of recession or something else, you do have more concern about what might happen fundamentally but it is a little bit of an interesting reality check, though, on the idea of just buying boring utilities for that yield, guys. >> well, mike, even if you take the predictability away from banks, if that's your belief, you've got this huge overall cash back yield to offset that factor and it does make me wonder,

after we discussed where all of these dividends and buybacks were proved, if they just pivoted a little bit of that buyback, back into dividend. whether that would have screamed more of a, we're undervalued as a sector to investors, because you could have seen the dividend yield comfortably at 3, 4, 5%. the cash-back yields are under 10%. >> it's without a doubt true, wilf i think the buybacks enabled them to essentially kind of reduce their capital base in big bites as opposed to over time. but you're right, it would have attracted perhaps a different class of investor that really does want the bird in hand cash yield that they're getting out of the utility >> quickly, mark, would you rather utilities or financials? >> oh, man, oh, man, that's a tough one. i'll stick with utilities, because it is a safety trade they are looking a bit stretched. they're very overvalued. but i think, you know, when we're entering a fed easing cycle, banks tend to und underperform, so we'll go with utilities here >> we've got some news on amazon deirdre bosa has the details

>> published just moments ago on cnbc.com, amazon is in talks to bring its cashierless technology that runs the go stores to other retailers, like airport shops and movie theaters this is according to people familiar with the matter, telling cnbc now, amazon currently has 16 branded go stores across the country. and these stores, if you haven't used them before, it allows you to scan your phone, grab whatever you want off the shelves and simply walk out. an amazon spokesperson says that the company doesn't comment on rumors or speculation. you can read more on the story on cnbc.com from our reporter, jordan novat >> this could be a total game changer for all of those people rushing around in the airport. deirdre, we also want to ask you about the wework situation today. officially pulling its ipo filing what's the fallout >> well, wework pulled its filing, as you said, but it is still badly in need of cash and soon bernstein forecasts that the company is burning through $2.8 billion a year, and that it will run out of money in the first

half of next year. that's only a few months away, guys so now new co-ceos, they will have to prove to markets that they can turn around the business, before that day comes. there are big outside stake holders and the success or failure of wework, softbank has poured more than $10 billion into the company according to a report now, the conglomerate is tapping its own ceo, marcelo claure to help with the overhaul massa san tapped him in the past to run sprint. another major stakeholder in this wework saga, commercial landlords. wework is the largest private sector tenant in new york and london as it looks to cut costs and slow growth, there are some concerns that it could affect the commercial real estate market a raymond james note says that wework likely accounted for less than 2% of office leasing activity in all of the u.s. last year that number climax to 3.6% in manhattan and 4% in san francisco. wilf morgan >> deirdre, do we think softbank

is now more likely to try and foot the bill again and invest more cash that we've seen the leadership change, in a way that perhaps is the ipo is starting to fall away they weren't willing to step in, meaningfully enough? >> right well, we've heard reports that they could be looking to step in with a few billion dollars, but wework needs some of $6 billion. they were going to get $9 billion from the ipo and subsequent debt facilities so it may be that wework just isn't able to give -- softbank, excuse me, isn't able to give softbank enough. they were supposed to put $16 billion into wework last year. that was scaled down, because there was some disagreement reportedly within the vision fund the saudis didn't want to put that much money in even if softbank wants to put more money in, we don't know that they're able to >> deirdre, thank you. mark, wework, is it woe specific to the company, or do you see it as indicative of a larger shift

in appetite within the public markets, especially when you see double-digit drops for some of the biggest ipos for the quarter? >> so i think there's been a lot of hype surrounding some of those ipos and they haven't lived up to the hype, at least initially, with the exception of beyond meat and zoom initial by. but i think the problem is really with wework it's a tough business model where they're signing all of these long-term lease obligations, and then they're subleasing on very short-term flexible, on a short-term flexible basis, who in the event of an economic downturn, they're going to be the first ones unable to pay their bills. >> we've got about 20 minutes left of trade. just slipping a little bit in the last hour or so. still to come, the launch of our new segment, the "closing bell" market zone. we'll take you through the top stories driving today's market moves and tell you everything you need to know in the final minutes of trade but first, we're coming back with your last cnchae trade.

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higher led higher by tech and health care stocks, only two sectors are in the red today financials, which are largely hugging the flat line, and the energy sector, which is down half a percent as crude prices are lower. >> the dow is looking at 2% of gains for the month of september, as things stand we've got 17 minutes left of trade. mark, what are you going for >> i think this is a great entry point for amazon right now this stock has been essentially dead money over the course of the last year, it's gone nowhere, but the thesis hasn't changed. there's three reasons we love them number one is the cloud, number two is their advertising and number three, obviously, is their retail ecommerce business. and when it comes to retail, nobody can compete with them when it comes to pricing convenience, and then you look at their higher-margin ad business, their higher-margin cloud business those are growing like crazy the biggest knock on them right now is for them to transition

over to this one-day shipping, it's expensive it's going to be a short-term drag on profits, which in my opinion is giving you a great opportunity to enter this thing, fair value is somewhere in the 2,2400 range so 20 to 40% upside. >> you're not worried about anti-trust scrutiny. >> i think that's more of a concern for the likes of facebook and google than it is for amazon i don't think there's anything to break up when it comes to amazon >> what about the theory that because of wework's tre vails and other private companies trevails, it hurts amazon and netflix because they have such stretch p\e multiples, and therefore companies like wework having to pull their ipo, flightily influence investors' mind-set towards an amazon >> so i don't think the valuation is all that stretched at all on amazon i think it's quite undervalued when you look at it on an ev-to-ebitda basis, but netflix, big issue with them carrying a

high multiple in the face of them losing u.s. subscribers, at the same time that you have more competition entering the space that's certainly an issue there. but when it comes to amazon, i think they're undervalued. >> we've got about 15 minutes until the close. up next, we're going to tell you everything an investor needs to know about today's trading day when we take you inside our new segment called "the rkmaet zone." down is up 136 points. we'll be right back. [leaf blower]

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we have got just under -- just over ten minutes left of trade and we are now in the closing bell market zone, where we'll take you through everything an investor needs to know about the market day, as we count down to the close. we'll track the most important stock moves and break down the market action, as the bell rings. >> you're going to see some of the biggest movers of the daikon stanlt changing and updating on the right side of your screen, and cnbc senior markets commentator, mike santoli, will join us every day to break down these crucial moments of the trading day. today, we've got mark tepper of strategic wealth partners here to do this dance with us, as well >> let's kick off the market zone with seema mody who's watching a bounce in the china markets. seema? >> a number of chinese tech stocks rebounding in today's session after the u.s. treasury said it is not planning to block chinese listings on u.s. exchanges, following a report on friday that said that this was under consideration by the white hou house, sending shares of alibaba, baidu down.

today's rebound not enough to help the chinese stock market, which did end the quarter lower by 2.5%, its seventh negative quarter in eight as investors count down to the upcoming trade talks scheduled for october 10th guys >> seema, thanks very much mike, the bounce in the likes of alibaba, less than the four on friday, but this is an important story for the overall turn in sentiment we got from friday to monday for the rest of the markets? >> for sure. we are bouncing in general and they are participating in this bounce but it does show, even though there's been pushback on this story, it's sort of on the radar screen at this point of investors. they don't think it's going to go away unless it truly is discounted by the administration >> apple the one of the big winners on the dow today as we head into the close. let's get to jon fortt for those details. >> apple, morgan, holding on to the boost it got today as jpmorgan raises its price target on a december 2015 $243 to a december 2020 $265 an iphone is the reason. jpm says supplier checks showed

demand for the iphone 11 is stronger than expected jpmorgan also bullish on the iphone they expect next year they're raising their unit volume estimates by $1 million and 3 million for the december quarter. saying, we believe the volume upside will have significance in demonstrating that the firm can deliver balance of volume and profitability, even in a tough backdrop a word of caution just from me with the looming possibility of tariffs in december, it's possible that apple is building more u.s. inventory than usual, guys >> john, key point right there, thanks for bringing that to us mark, not only is apple one of the best performers in the dow so far for the quarter, but the semiconductor stocks, despite all of the angst around china over the last three months have done pretty well, too. >> they have especially as we move over to these new 5g phones, one of the semis that we own is broadcom. we like broadcom it's kind of our anti-semi, semi, right. it's got more software exposure,

but they're big in radio frequency, which will be important for those 5g phones. >> not a massive increase, but also pushing back the date for it from december 19 to 2020, which is what we're factoring in, as well. >> about a 20% upside, respectable at this point. what i find most interesting is, it was a relatively tepid upgrade without a lot of edge to it, and yet the stock is up 2% people grab at apple when they want more exposure >> let's move on to gm suppliers are on the move as the uaw strike leads to layoffs at some of those companies. >> layoffs and rising costs, wilf we are in day 15 of the uaw strike at general motors the talks do continue today. this is the first day that strikers are eligible to get $250 per week strike pay from the union, not from general motors, as they continue their protests and their strike at gm plants around the country. as you take a look at the suppliers, keep in mind, there are growing concerns that as

these guys have lost production, some analysts are saying, they're not going to be able to make that up and that's why you're looking at these stocks under pressure since the beginning of the strike that's what we're looking at there in terms of general motors,ticking slightly higher it remains, generally speaking, where it was when the strike began two weeks ago. guys, back to you. >> phil lebeau, thank you. mike, is this going to be a n noisier news quarter for gm? >> yes, i feel a feeling we'll be talking about the manufacturing data you'll have to say, if you add back the effects of the uaw strike maybe it's going to just kind of cloud the picture just slightly, but i think it's also a tricky spot in the auto cycle for them to be going through this, even though it's not kind of make or break stakes in terms of what's on the table with the union, it's obviously something that the market is not sure what to make of at this point. >> thor industries is meantime on pace for its best day in eight years and frank collins has more on that >> thor shares up more than 15%

after a solid outlook for next year, and a beat on earnings, both largely due to strong sales of european rvs, better known as caravans from the irwinheimer group. however, the u.s. market is expected to decline for the third straight year after a record 2017. some tough comps there another one, rv maker winnebago. i've spoken to ceos of both of those companies. they believe the consumer economy is very strong, citing consumer spending increasing for the past six months. back over to you >> frank collin, thanks very much for that. we've got just six minutes, just under six minutes left until the close. we are high by 135 points on the dow, just off the session highs of about 170 if you're just joining us, you might notice your screen looks a little different from normal we've launched the market zone on "closing bell," where we bring you uninterrupted coverage into and after the close, all the stories you need to know with constantly changing data on the right side of your screen. and at the bottom of your screen, you can see a preview of the next few stories we're

covering to guide you through the close. >> it's the new normal as you mentioned, we've got about five minutes left until the close. there are a lot of biotech stocks moving under the radar today. cnbc's meg terrell is bringing them to light. meg? >> hey, morgan a major cancer research conference over the weekend in europe has several biotech and pharma stocks on the move. seattle genetics is among the leaders with bigger companies, merck and bristol myers also gaining. g1 therapeutics among the biggest laggards and the biggest gainer is due to old-fashioned m&a, dova pharmaceuticals is being acquired by sobey in a deal valued at almost $19 million that's sending that stock up almost 40% >> a quick take on health care more broadly what'd you like? >> within health care, we would like to be in the medical devices, right that's where i think you're going to get more stable growth. a company like abbott labs that's a company we really like, we own it. abbott labs, one of the great things they're doing right now

is they're really at the forefront of solving this diabetes epidemic that's a result of years and years of these high-carb diets. their freestyle libre glucose monitor up >> let's get over to bed bath and beyond >> upgraded from outperform to neutral. also upping its price target to $16 a share from $14, just two days before the beleaguered retailer reports its quarterly results. analystset bashen says he sees a good chance of stabilization if not growth as sweeping changes take hold. bed bath and beyond has a new board. it's seeking a new ceo, cutting costsing with reducing inventory, refreshing stores and evaluating a number of non-core assets shares are higher by almost 8% on the report today. they're down ap% in three years. it's also key to note that short interest in this name is about 52% of float wilf

>> let's go to mike. >> it has become a little more ragged right now less than 2-1 positive all day and now it's narrower than that. i think you would have to say, we've got a relatively mild bounce off of friday's sell-off. another way to look at breadth the etf compared to the actual s&p 500. and what you're seeing now is, you know, the outperformance over two days of the equal weight, which is, you know, which is something that's maintained today about on parody. shows you reasonably broad, but nothing overwhelming also, volumes pretty light today. >> putting that in context for us you're watching "the market zone." we have less than three minutes to go here until the bell, which will end not only the session, but the month and the quarter. let's send it over to rick santelli for a check on bonds. >> we started out the day with the second-worst number for

chicago pmi since the end of 2015 if you look at a chart of ten-year, 190 high, 146 low. the midpoint, right about where we're closing, down a basis point on the day about a year ago, they were 260 basis points 280, we've lost 50 basis points of rates, bottom, final, the dollar index continues to surge. another fresh high going back 28 months bertha, the nasdaq, the index with the best performance today percentage wise, how does it look from your end >> today, we're seeing a lot of the ugly ducklings today getting a bit of love. some of the stocks that have not done so well this year newell today is one of the stars. it's up 3% on an upgrade from sun trust, which says that they think that the company's trau d turnaround is really starting to take hold. the stock is up, but down 27 from it recent highs marriott is one of the big losers on the quarter, down

about 11%. overall, this was a quarter where you saw chips come back despite swooning over tariff fears in august. they were the big leaders, big cap tech, up pretty well, as well software, flat on the month. and biotech was the big losers we've gone from worrying about congress doing something on drug prices to worrying about whether elizabeth warren's surge in the polls is going to mean democrats are really going to move on bigger regulation. finally, small caps this month have really done very well they've been the leaders looks like they are still going to be down for the quarter, but overall, it's been a fairly good month for small caps bob, over to you >> thank you, bertha two sectors going in different directions here. energy stocks moving down again today. we had china economic data that was a bit weaker and we had concerns about a shortfall in oil. that's fading away here. this is the third energy rally that's failed this year. earnings for exploration and production companies like eog

have been coming down fast elsewhere, better picture with retailers, another strong day. look at brands, footlocker, all strong still a horrible year for retailers. there's the close. the s&p 500, closing tout quarter one about 1%, closing out the month, up about 2% [ bell ringing ] if you're just joining us, welcome to the "closing bell." i'm wilfred frost. >> and i'm morgan brennan in for sara eisen, along with mike santoli, cnbc senior markets commentator. we are in the markets zone you can see the day's market action on the right side of your screen, with the stories still coming up on the tabs a to the bottom of your screen. let's take a look at how we closed the session here on wall street, as stocks settle gains across the board, though off the highs of the day, with the dow finishing up about 101 points

the high had been 175. the s&p, also finishing up about 15 points or about half a percent. the nasdaq finishing up about 0.7% and the small caps, the ruffle 2,000 finishing up 0.2% >> tech doing well health care materials leading the charge also worth noting, morgan, the dollar, up 0.3% today. a big move during the quarter, there, as the quarter performance. this, of course, the end of the quarter move now 3.4% so all of president trump's comments about it, he does have a point if you're looking at that last three months and with earnings season coming up, it will be something to keep an eye on. >> all the major averages also finish ed the month higher. and the nasdaq, the s&p, and the industrials also finished the quarter higher one chart to show you right there, though, that was a different story, would be the renaissance ipo etf. you saw a gain today of about

1%, but in general for the quarter, it did finish lower and that's because we've seen a lot of these big tech unicorn names that have gone public in recent months, really sell off, especially recently, even pipeline names like beyond meat finished the quarter down about 8% joining us to talk about the market day in general, though, is mark tepper, ceo of strategic wealth partners, still with us, and sam stovall, chief investment strategist. welcome to you both. mike santoli, i'll start with you. on this first day of market zone, it would probably be accurate to say that the markets have been in a sideways zone >> they have largely been sideways you could hea last thursday, the s&p closed at 2977 we closed today at 2977. essentially today, you took back that sort of pre-weekend jittery news-driven sell-off i think that what you would say from september is that the market had plenty of excuses to back off harder than it did, and it really remained hovered

within this area, around 3% of the all-time highs i think you can take away from that there's been some resilience on display. >> for that reason, you're invoking a little bit of kelly clarkson, as well? >> yes, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger it could be a clarkson rally >> mark, what's your take on these levels, as we look at what's a strong month and a decent quarter how are we set up for the final quarter here >> the fact that the s&p was up roughly 2% this month in the face of an impeachment inquiry, in the face of trade deals that are escalating and de-escalating and skom disagreemeand some disn the fed, i think we're setting up for a much better first quarter than fourth quarter. >> i think there is the potential for euphoria to take place in the four, as mark had just mentioned and mike had just mentioned, because we have had an awful lot of headwinds that

we could have contended with negatively, the market still is about one-half of 1% away from an all-time high and as we look at what is likely to occur in terms of third quarter earnings reporting period, where we're down almost 4%, i would like to say that you can rarely hurt yourself falling out of a basement window with the bar already set so low, possibly we'll end up surprising to the upside. >> one firm that disappears with the view of a q4 is morgan stanley. stating in pa new report that the risk of a recession has increased materially the firm saying that they've moved, quote, from the perception that this is late cycle to a belief that it's the end of the cycle mike, they've been more bearish than some for a while. is this sort of chasing that view, doubling down more than seeing the fundamentals? >> i think there's a little bit of introspection and self-scrutiny in this trying to say, look, have we been missing something here they've been calling for a range-bound market with us being

at the very top of the range they're calli inin ining for. i don't know that we've necessarily gotten the verdict some indicators are leading in that direction, but you have not seen things like unemployment claims turn up you haven't seen the leading economic indicators turn down in a decisive way i think this is going to be the argument we're having for a long time right now has it just been a lull in growth and that essentially, the fed is going to cut 2 to 3 to 4 times without necessarily seeing a lot of pain up-front or, you know, are they potentially behind the curve and in fact recession is inevitable the longer the trade fight goes. >> sam, there's a difference between markets and the economy, right? so how key is one to the other right now? >> well, i see that the economy is actually still relatively solid, to use the term that the fed described a little while ago. i think most investors are optimistic in nature, if they don't believe that a recession is around the corner bull markets don't die of old age, they die of fright.

and what they're most afraid of is recession and as mike had just mentioned, while some indicators are weakening, a lot of people are pointing to the manufacturing indicator, such as the dallas pmi, the chicago pmi, et cetera. we've got to be reminded that about 10% of the u.s. economy is manufacturing based and 90% is services and if we're still well in the expansionary readings for the ism non-manufacturing category and other services-oriented readings, i would have to take that positively. >> it's the last day of the month and the quarter. let's get over to bob pisani for the stocks that are leading us higher bob? >> and this has been a very strange quarter overall. if you would have told me at the start of the month that everything that was up would be essentially defensive, i would have said you were crazy, given the move that we saw earlier in the year in cyclicals. yet, take a look here. what do you think of the market when you've got a quarter where the leading sector is treasury

and gold on top of that! sectors in terms of equities, the leaders are utilities and consumer staples folks, look at this long and hard you will not see a more defensive rally in a long, long time meantime, the laggards q3 essentially gave the thumbs down to global economic growth all of the decliners were essentially tied to the cyclical sectors. metals and mining, energy, materials and banks. the lone exception being health care a little more defensive. that had problems as biotech sold off late in the quarter of course, on concerns about slower growth in that particular sector guys, back to you. >> bob, thanks very much >> mike, one other asset class to throw in for the quarter's performance, chi mentioned, huge move for the broad dollar index, 3.4% for the quarter to what extent will that start to way are those key levels on the dxy, it spooks equities more than -- >> i don't know if stgs going to be as simple as the round number it's not, in itself, i don't think the ceiling for past

rallies or anything like that. but it's been interesting. i don't think it's been a very linear relationship between strengthening the dollar perhaps because it's been at these levels the last couple of years, it seems like it's not weighing, except on earnings estimates, perhaps, and that's probably the play we're going to see it >> mark, the place that the russell 2,000 and the transportation average both finished the quarter lower, they've been underperforming, how crucial are they to a more sustainable, broader market rally into the end of the year >> i would typically say that it's very crucial for the russell 2,000 to perform and at least keep up with the s&p 500, but the research has been done that during long secular bull markets towards the tail end of those bull markets, small caps underperform, and that's really just due to the fact that they have high leverage a third of the companies aren't making any money and all of the best small caps are midcaps, and the midcaps are

large caps, and the large caps have graduated >> mark, sam, we'll leave it there. thank you both very much still to come, we are one month away from the brexit deadline and coming up, i'll sit down with the former uk prime minister, david cameron, to talk about the chance of a deal and how he feels about the 2016 referendum now "closing bell" back in 90s seconds.

welcome back to the "closing

bell." let's send it over to mike santoli for his third dashboard of the day >> morgan, calling this one the grand tour, among all the sell side notes, one out of jpmorgan saying, finally, they believe it is time to emphasize european equities over u.s. equities. this is a relatively chart of the european euro stocks 600 index against the s&p 500. and this is only over the last year, which is actually kind of interesting. because this shows it kind of holding its own. and i think a lot of folks are going to focus on this idea here that a couple of times, kind of based off of similar levels, again, a relative basis, it does show you, that, in fact, the market seems like it didn't want to get much lower on a european versus u.s. basis. this is local currency obviously, the currency affects would change the equation, but this is the backdrop, i think. and if we have given you previous years, it would have come down from something like that in other words, at low levels, the european market is at least

right now refusing to underperform further, guys >> and mike, the other thing that's really interesting about this debate over the last couple of years, is the makeup of those two relative indexes, very little tech, very heavy banks, negative interest rates in the eurozone implicitly, that's the call. it's a call in those sectors and on value, as well as the financials, yeah >> mike, thank you very much coming up next, breaking down the brexit battle more than three years have passed since former uk prime minister david cameron resigned having lost the eu referendum. >> the british people have made a very clear decision to take a different path and as such, i think the country requires fresh leadership to take it in this direction. ly do everything i can as prime minister to steady the ship over the coming weeks and months. but i do not think it would be right for me to try to be the captain that steers our country to its next destination. >> after this break, i'll find

out where he stands these days and how he thinks the congupmi brexit deadline could play out don't go anywhere. "closing bell" back in a couple of minutes

welcome back to the "closing bell." spacex's new starship rocket

making its debut over the weekend in texas, on the coast in boca chica. the stainless steel 165-foot-tall spacecraft, you can see it right there, is the first assembled prototype of the vehicle being developed to ultimately send cargo and as many as 100 passengers at a time to mars. >> of course, we can go to other places in the solar system, like satu saturn, and b-- but the critica thing we need to focus on is the fastest path to a self-sustaining city on mars >> that was elon musk at this event over the weekend starship will be reusable, meaning it will be able to fly to orbit, to the moon, or to mars, and then make its return back to earth. musk has laid out an aggressive timeline, perhaps unsurprisingly, saying starship could reach orbit within the next six months and that people could be aboard within the nex year mike, this has been one that is being watched very closely by

the space community. and it also comes at a time where spacex has quite a number of other nearer-term goals and projects in the works, as well, including their commercial crew, their crewed dragon capsule that would send astronauts back to the international space station. and also these satellites, the star link broadband constellation he's looking to put up into orbit. >> this one, my question is, have they ever landed it back? >> they have tested an earlier, smaller prototype called star hopper, and it did a very small, short flight and came back down. there's going to be another test with this, with star -- with starship in the next couple of weeks to next couple of months, it could travel as far as 65,000 feet and then with the goal of landing, but this gets right back at that crucial central economic thesis of musk and spacex, which is reusability, for which this company has pioneered some of these techniques, and certainly done

with what many folks out there said couldn't be done, so it is something to watch >> for sure. >> we will be watching looks like an airstream trailer. >> meanwhile, wifflfred will be sitting down with david cameron, with just one month to go until the brex diteadline, that interview is coming up right after this break, to stay tuned.

welcome back we are just one month away from the brexit deadline and negotiations continue to teeter

between a deal and no-deal brexit in his new book, "for the record," former british prime minister david cameron reflects on his call for the brexit referendum three years ago and he joins us now here at the stock exchange david, thanks so much for joining us great to be with you >> good to be on the program >> i want to tackle that question of the referendum result right at the top. and right in the front of your book, you write, quote, i'm truly sorry to see the country i love so much suffer uncertainty and division george osborn in review of your book went further than that. he said, this is an understatement, david is distraught is that true are you distraught >> it is very difficult looking at britain today and recognizing we've had three years of uncertainty skbechand we haven' able to go forwards or go backwards and that's incredibly frustrating. we're still a successful economy, we're still growing, still have very low unemployment, still a great place to invest, but it is sfru frustrating and that pains me. >> has it been a very painful

three years? have you been down, depressed? >> i've had a lot of time to reflect on the decisions i've made, good ones and less good ones i try to reflect that in the book i'm confident what we did for the economy, where we got rid of the biggest budget deficit in the world, created over 2 million new jobs, a million new businesses, that was a success but obviously, we're dealing with the consequences of my losing the eu referendum and it's very frustrating that three years on, we haven't yet resolved the situation i mean, i hope boris johnson is going to go to brussels, is going to get a deal, bring it back, take it through parliament that's the right way to put into place the result of the sfrurm but it's been very difficult >> the prime minister and his chancellor today reiterated, 31st of october, leave on that date, no ifs, no buts. do you agree that's the right approach, even if a deal doesn't materialize? >> i hope a deal will materialize. and if it doesn't, as far as i can see, parliament has

legislated that we will not leave without a deal and i don't think it would be sensible to leave without a deal it would be bad for the economy, bad for the united kingdom i hope we get a deal, but if we don't, i think we'll have to find another way of unblocking the situation. i wouldn't rule out a second referendum it wouldn't be my first choice, but we are stuck we can't go on being stuck and in the end, there are only three ways to unstick it that's to have a deal that parliament would approve, and to have a general election and a new parliament or a second referendum >> you say in the book that the boris johnson referendum left the truth at home with some of his campaigning. and at another point in the book said outright, leave the campaign was lying can the british people trust their prime minister >> i think boris was an effective mayor of london. he can be an effective prime minister he needs to focus on getting this deal and he has my support in doing so. in the book, i try to reflect faithfully what i felt at the time and what i feel now looking back and there were occasions when

the leave campaign for instance, by saying, you couldn't veto turkey's membership of the eu, that simply wasn't true. so there weren truths, but i don't complain that somehow the referendum and the campaign was illegitimate it was backed in a manifesto i put forward. nine out of ten voted for that i was able to put forward a leaflet to explain why i thought we were better remaining but in the end, we lost. and that needs to be reflected >> there's lots of criticisms about the leave campaign, fought over every day for the last three years. was your campaign perfectly truthful >> i think we told the story about britain being better off and better and stronger inside the eu, but we lost, and i think you have to accept that. i'm happy to say that while some of the forecasts we made about the instant impact on the economy sadly have been born

out, we had not been growing as fast as we had been, some of the other forecasts that we had made have not turned out to be the case, and the economy is stronger than some thought but generally, i think we fought a pretty accurate campaign the trouble was, i don't think it made enough emotional connection with people we made a lot of good technical arguments, but we didn't take people with us and we have to reflect on that >> the nation, our nation that you and i share is clearly in turmoil. i think it's reallydamaging th image of the uk around the rest of the world what about the other way around. when you see the division, the possibility of impeachment hearings for the president, is that hurting the image of the u.s. in the eyes of its main allies >> i'm a tremendous believer in the special relationship between britain and the united states. and i think one of the ways we maintain that is by trying to make sure that whoever's the president, whoever's the prime minister, we make it work.

i don't try to delve too much into u.s. politics in what i say, but i think it's probably true to say, if you look behind both the election of donald trump and the brexit vote, we're all dealing with some deep undercurrents of people feeling economically left behind, very high levels of immigration that mainstream politicians haven't done enough to deal with and i think the new media environment, where everyone can create their own channel, their own facts, their own truth, their own echo chamber there's no point moaning and whining about these things, we've got to address them and deal with them, and that's a task for modern politicians. >> you were very clear in your government to try to open up your nation to investment from china. clearly, that's not what's going on between the u.s. and china at the moment does the uk have a fundamentally different perspective of the benefits of a trade relationship, because of our relative economic size >> i think that -- my approach was to try and have a positive

relationship with china. the question is, can we make sure china rises safely? and i think that means that when you want to try to include them in the institutions we established, the imf and u.n. and world bank, and when they want to establish new institutions, genuine multi-lateral ones, we should do that, too. but to be fair to president trump and the americans, there are abuses over copy right infringements and intellectual property and the like. and perhaps it is time for some tougher action but i think that there's risks involved in these tariff wars. and there are dangers from them getting out of control >> given where we are, if you were in his shoes, would you up the ante from here or soften it? >> i wouldn't. i think, for instance, here we are at the stock exchange, i think actually america benefits from chinese companies coming to list here, just as britain benefits from chinese companies wanting to invest in britain,

grow in britain, and list on the london stock exchange. so i would think that, i mean, it would probably benefit london if new york were to do that, but i wouldn't advise it >> what about your view on the euro zone, clearly faced an enormous sovereign debt crisis during your time is that possible to happen in the next five to ten years again? >> well, i worry about the stability of the euro. one of the reasons i launched -- the main reason, the biggest reason for trying to have a renegotiation and referendum was to recognize that the euro zone was driving change in europe those euro zone countries are inevitably going to have to a deeper union amongst themselves. they're going to have more coordinated fiscal policy, more coordinated banking action that has consequences for britain. and i worry, in a way, if they do those things, i was worried about how britain would relate to that, but i also worry, if they don't do those things, will the euro zone be able to cope with the next financial crisis that comes along and i think that's a real worry.

>> to your point, if they do those things, and they have also since the referendum committed to trying to move towards a centralized military, how would a second referendum go if it were played again? >> britain has always had a special place within the eu. we're not in the euro zone we're not in the no border zone. my negotiation carved us out of ever-closer political union. the only way britain works in the eu, in my view, is by carving out a special place, and what i was trying to do was make it more special. but if we could only -- britain will never, in my view, sign up to a might be of the euro or a membership of the new border zone >> a little offtopic here, david. in the book, you were very critical of president obama, as it related to syria. you said, quote, he lost his nerve and that, quote, his handling of assad is still the thing i regret most about his entire prote entire presidency.

>> just to balance it out. my view is that it was great that the leader of the most important country in the world was humane, decent, hard-working, a good man, but on syria, i felt that our response to the chemical weapons attack, a red line was crossed we should have agreed between us before it happened what the reaction was going to be i then lost that vote in the house of commons, which is a matter of huge regret. and i think more generally, when you look at syria, of course, iraq shows us the perils of intervention syria shows us the perils of non-intervention look at the lives that have been lost, the refugee crisis, it has been a failure for the west and one where i think we could have done more if we'd worked harder. >> is the u.s., at the moment, at risk of failing to back its allies, saudi arabia, against iran >> i don't think it is i think my concern with this situation is that the iran deal

that barack obama and i and others agreed, it was imperfect, it could have been better. of course, all of these deals could be better. but it did, at least, keep iran verifiably away from having a nuclear weapon and i worry that by backing out of it, we created a more unstable world and that's going to leave us with hard choices. >> my final question, david, when the dust settles on your career in many decades' time, how do you hope you'll be remembered >> of course, this brexit vote is a huge event for the united kingdom and for europe but i hope people will take a balanced view and say, look, he modernized the conservative party, got it back into power, ran the first coalesition power, dealt with the deficit, and did some things i'm very proud of, like being the first center-right leader to embrace and pass gay marriage, as well as keeping our promises to the poorest countries in the world there's a good record there. but obviously, at the moment, and perhaps for some time to

come, this brexit question is going to loom very large for my country. >> david, a pleasure talking to you. david cameron there. morgan, back to you. >> what a wide-ranging interview. a lot of topics there. it's time now for a cnbc news update with sue herrera. >> thank, morgan here's what's happening at this hour, everyone president trump attending the swearing in ceremony for labor secretary eugene scalia at the white house. afterwards, he was asked if he knows the identity of the whistle-blower involved in his call with the ukrainian president. >> we're tryingto find out about a whistle-blower when you have a whistle-blower that reports things that are incorrect, as you know, and you probably now have figured it out, the statement i made to the president of ukraine, a good man, a nice man, new, was perfect. three house committees say a subpoena has now been sent to rudy giuliani, president trump's lawyer, seeking documents in their impeachment inquiry. in addition, "the wall street

journal" reporting secretary of state mike pompeo was listening to the july 25th call between president trump and the ukrainian president. and a german court heard a consumer group's class action suit against volkswagen, the first such trial in germany. it filed the suit over the automaker's diesel emissions scandal. vw has already had to pay compensation to car owners here in the u.s you're up to date, that is the news update. morgan, i'll send it back downtown to you. >> sue herrera, thank you. still ahead, the vaping epidemic we'll hear from former fda commissioner mark mcclellan with his take on what he thinks lies ahead amid a slew of new reported illnesses and later, we're looking ahead stit stitchfix set to report results tomorrow what to watch for when the "closing bell" comes right back. - [spokesman] if you've tried college but never finished,

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welcome back let's send it over to mike for the final installment of the

dashboard. >> a muddled position. that is what hedge funds collectively have assumed right now. take a look at this chart of net hedge fund positioning, the leverage that's being employed by long/short hedge funds. right now, it's very neutral it's been going sideways actually for some time now this is a pretty long-term chart. it goes back to the mid-2000s. so you see lots of leverage ahead of the crisis. this is interesting, so from the beginning of 2018, we did have a lot of aggressive positioning, a lot of hedge funds altogether were very long the market. that has come down and i think you've just been shopping around right here on one level, this was a positive it basically says that the sort of leverage trading community is not really all in on stocks and therefore perhaps good news can be reflected in higher prices. the one thing i would point out is the morgan stanley folks who put this together in the prime broke raj area, this right around here is the beginning of 2008 so in other words, you got down to a neutral progression before the overall markets really did take a leg lower nobody is really suggesting that

the conditions are there for another 2008, but they're saying, this is an automatic get out of jail free card for the market, because hedge funds are lightly positioned but i think it really fits with a general sense of subdued sentiments going into the fourth quarter. >> and it shows how hedge fund managers have been much more restrained since then, compared to the three years you've got before then, it's significantly lower for quite a decade >> and perhaps sort of we're forcibly taught those lessons, or not having as much access to those big bets their customers maybe don't want it that's arguably the case, too. >> mark santoli, thanks. up next, the vaping crisis mark mcclellan will join us next with his take on the latest slew of lung illnesses. that's ahead and coming up on "fast money," the chart master has five charts he chose you'll need to watch going into year end we're back in a couple of minutes. ♪ limu emu & doug

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keeping the night interesting, is all about setting the right tone. ♪ lower carbs. lower calories. higher expectations. ♪ the light beer you've been waiting for has arrived. corona premier. welcome back to the "closing bell." today marks the deadline for juul to respond to a letter put out by the u.s. food and drug administration earlier nont inquiring about several issues, including the company's outreach and marketing practices. this comes on the heels of at least 13 deaths and more than 800 illnesses in people who use vape products. for more, let's bring in dr. mark mcclellan, former

commissioner of the fda. doctor, thanks for joining us today. it seems to me that everything we're talking about with vaping right now, essentially fits into two buckets. you have all of the marketing and the debates about whether this is incentivizing teenagers to begin vaping, to begin using nicotine, and then you have this bucket around all of these mysterious illnesses, and in some cases, deaths is that the way to think about it that there's two different buckets that are being investigated right now >> morgan, that's right. two different buckets, but add a third, which is the potential for vaping and e-cigs to be a safer alternative for adults who would otherwise smoke. and smoking is still the number one premature cause of death in the united states. and that's why fda was trying to find a path forward for regulation that would help people who otherwise would smoke would get to safer to alternatives but we have these two other problems, these two other buckets that have really overtaken the whole issue from a

public health standpoint >> do we actually know, is there anymore evidence or signs of what could be causing those illnesses and deaths >> a lot of those illnesses and deaths are occurring in people who are using kind of homemade vape products, not some of the main ones where the ingredients are all listed and they're available through national marketing and the like but other types of products, often products that contain marijuana, marijuana derivatives, and oils. and it's thought that some of these additives may be playing a role, unfortunately, because we need to get a more aggressive regulatory structure in place. we don't know as much as we should about exactly what it is about some of these vaping products that's causing the problems but it's different than the ones that are for the most part being wildly used by young people and adults today >> why are we in a position, mark, at all, where we're having to rely on after-the-fact

analysis of possible deaths caused by this, as opposed to having done the necessary tests earlier, where now vaping is so, so widespread already. >> well, great question, wilfred. fda has tried the last couple of years under scott gottlieb's leadership to put a more aggressive regulatory structure in place unfortunately, that didn't really get going until 2017, and it takes a few years -- i know people think that's a long time, to get regulatory structures in place that can monitor use, that can tell companies exactly what they need to do for products to be determined to be safe enough and appropriate for use. and fda is in the process of setting that up now. there's a deadline of next spring for getting these regulations in place i wish it could happen faster and i know people at fda are working as quickly as they can to get there >> dr. mcclellan, you mentioned that there is obviously hope and

some reality in the fact that existing smokers are using these products in general to try get off of nicotine. what about the thought of essentially making it prescription or restricting the use in a greater way, as perhaps initially was done with things like the nicotine patch? >> sure, remember, it's not the nicotine that's the biggest health risk with smoking, it's all the stuff that's in the cigarette that is combustible and creates tars and lots of proven carcinogens so it's really trying to get people off of those carcinogen products, the smoking, and into alternatives and we do have some alternatives to cigarettes that are available today. nicorette gum, other types of alternative ways of getting nicotine and exactly as you said, there is an fda regulatory process for that they don't necessarily require prescriptions for some of these alternatives and it's thought and hoped that some of these e-cig products could, with the right evidence behind them, become proven

approaches to help adults quit smoking. and that's what this regulatory approach that the fda is putting in place intends to do we are not there yet and i think the companies in the industry should be proactive about trying to develop the evidence that is needed to show that their products are safer than cigarettes and other types of combustible and show that they can help adults quit smoking, at the same time as they don't really encourage a lot of young people to take up nicotine use >> mark, we'll leave it there. thanks so much for joining us. >> thank you up next, tackling the pay gap. bernie sanders proposing a corporate tax that could impact your company in a big way. the full details when "closing bell" returns. but with opportunity comes risk. and to manage this risk, the world turns to cme group. we help farmers lock in future prices, banks manage interest rate changes and airlines hedge fuel costs. all so they can manage their risks and move forward.

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democratic presidential candidate bernie sanders proposing a new corporate tax plan robert frank joins us with the details. robert >> wilf, it's called the new inequality tax and companies with the biggest pay gaps. that applies to companies with revenues of more than $100 million, both public and private companies where the ceo makes

more than 50 times the median worker salary. it starts at a half percent, goes up to 5% for companies whose ceo makes more than 500 time the median worker sanders says it would raise more than $150 billion a year the companies that would be hardest hit are mostly in retail, chains mcdonald's, for instance, would have paid an extra $110 million, walmart $108 million, some of the other companies include chipotle, coca-cola, dollar tree and kohl's the s.e.c. requiring companies to disclose the gap between the ceo and workers. so we have data that we can now tax. >> anyone can argue that i started at the bottom, i worked super hard and risen to the top and that still applies to anybody that joins the workforce today. but the crucial difference is when they joined, most of these ceos back in the '70s or '80s the gap to ceo pay then was far,

far lower. >> the gap was 30 times back in 1980 now it's 300 times that's the average so even though ironically he's going after the top dollar makers, what you're really looking at is the distance so it gives this weird penalty to companies that have a lot of lower paid workers like restaurants, like banks, like these companies in retail. >> a, do you think that a proi postal like this could gain traction, even if sanders isn't on the presidential ticket, and, b, how do you think companies will react >> i think this idea is popular. why should there be this much of a difference today between the top and the bottom companies will finding a way around it. the s.e.c. doesn't require you to figure out that median pay level in a certain way so they don't define how you define it. so they can poll or survey a select number of workers they can get rid of a unit with a lot of lower paid workers. >> when you ran through the

numbers, though, it's not enormous numbers relative to their profitability. >> right. >> so you could see them trying to find a way to massage it. instead of paying $150 million to the government, let's pay our people that much more as a bonus at the end of the year. >> you could, but would that lift it up enough? he's going after the top earners. what you're really talking about is those with lower paid workers. >> it would be hard. >> yeah. >> and the other unintended consequence you've got to be careful of is do they let people go who are the underpaid staff and then your median ratio improves >> right you made that point this morning. that's a terrific point and that's what some companies have done to shrink that ratio just with the s.e.c. reporting. >> goldman sachs is the best of the big six banks. it's still a bad ratio, it's over 100 but most goldman sachs employees are pretty well paid you go straight into an

investment bank or trader role the worth was citi which was 400 something odd. >> now that we're going into retail, will they have to change that ratio >> from a tech issue the best is over 100 times. >> or reclassify some of those employees at contracts. up next, yr lltrt ouwa see look aahead. things to watch as we head into a new trading day. now, we've got away around that. looks good. we're on target. blockchain on the ibm cloud helps pinpoint a problem anywhere from farm to shelf. it's used by some of the biggest retailers everywhere. a nice wedge. so more food ends up on your table, is that daddy's lettuce? yeah. and less food goes to waste. ♪ ♪

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former british prime minister david cameron joining us earlier and expressing his concern about the eurozone outlook. >> i worry about the stability of the euro. one of the reasons i launched -- the main reason, the biggest reason for trying to have a renegotiation and referendum was to recognize that the eurozone was driving change in europe those eurozone countries are inevitably going to have to have a deeper union amongst themselves they're going to have to have more coordinated fiscal policy and banking action that has consequences for britain. i worry in a way if they do those things, i was worried about how britain would relate to that. i also worry if they don't do those things will the eurozone

be able to cope with the next financial crisis that comes along i understand that is a real worry. >> it's interesting, guys, because just last week sara asked whether another debt crisis would come to christine lagarde. she said it wouldn't if there was a centralization of powers the big question is, is there the political will to deliver those things it's certainly something that president macron wants angela merkel used to want it but she have the same sway she used to. and in italy they're moving in the opposite direction >> conceptually on paper it makes sense, in reality not so much it also brings to light as prime minister, fully three and a half years ago you felt like we could have a referendum because this is the way it's going in europe, we should have some kind of europe on it and we're not near there yet. >> i did ask that as a follow-up which i think he slightly dodged everyone assumes the second

referendum would definitely go the other way. you look at some of the other arguments and they say that will never happen there's many different hurdles but i thought that was an interesting take an a pessimistic outlook on the eurozone. >> a lot of stuff you guys covered there. stitch fix is in focus, set to report results tomorrow afte the bell >> investors will wanting to see revenue growth expectations are for revenue to increase nearly 36%, but there's debate whether revenue growth is better in the form of new customers or current shoppers spending more. there will be new users, at least in the uk, because stitch fix launched there in may. the ceo said on its last earnings call it seems like there was a lot of excitement in britain, but did the excitement translate into new subscribers the stock has moved double digits each of its last four reports. positive the last two after

plu plunging the two reports prior to that. back over to you guys. >> that is not the only thing that is happening tomorrow we're going to tell you right now we've got the ceo and chairman of u.p.s., david abney will join us tomorrow on "squawk alley. today the dow ended up about 96 points we finished the month higher and also the quarter higher. >> the s&p is up 2%. we've been in this general area for a while but a lot of excuses in september to have a little more of a rough go. >> will we get the same absolute size of move in q4 as we did last year, mike, in either direction? >> in either direction i would doubt it i think 20% peak to trough or trough to peak in any three h

three-month period is a little more than you're going to get. can we really expect the seasonal tendencies to not work so profoundly two years in a row. does that increase the odds it will work this year? >> we're out of time for the show today that does it for "closing bell." "fast money" begins right now. live from the nasdaq market site overlooking new york city's times square, this is "fast money. i'm melissa lee. this is like the brady bunch tonight on "fast" a bold call on apple. why one analyst sees nearly 20% upside for the stock also ahead we'll find out what is next for wework after the company officially pulls the plug on its ipo. later, a golden opportunity. how much can you make on a big bearish bet on the gold miners first, break out your palm pilot because we're th