good morning it is 11:00 a.m. at kennedy space center in florida, it is 11:00 a.m. on wall street. and "squawk alley" is live ♪ ♪ good friday morning. welcome to "squawk alley."

i am jon fortt, mike santoli, carl quintanilla has the morning off, and morgan brennan is live from cape canaveral, florida early this morning, boeing starline had complications with delivery post launch morgan >> reporter: yes, that's right, jon. complications that are continuing to be assessed, addressed, and shape what is going to happen, the next steps for the boeing starliner spacecraft this was the first test, first flight of starliner, uncruewed, no people on board, failing to make the trip to the international space station as was planned. the launch itself which happened about 6:36 a.m. this morning went according to expectation. the issue arose when starliner separated from the upper stage of the atlas 5 united launch

alliance rocket, about 15 minutes later, an issue that can basically be summed up more or less as one tied to automation and it was an anomaly that just a short while ago in a press conference with nasa, boeing and the united launch alliance officials was summed up as one that if astronauts had actually been in this spacecraft, they would have been safe the entire time, but would have actually been able to take control. here is what nicole mann, nasa astronaut scheduled to be on the first crewed flight of boeing starliner had to say about it. >> this vehicle is a new level of automation that we've never seen before, so what we're really doing is we're testing that automation. that's why you have test pilots on board, especially for early missions that's our job, that's what we're trained to do. we're looking forward to flying on starliner

we don't have any safety concerns everything on this, all the systems that keep us safe have functioned properly on the launch and currently on the vehicle. >> reporter: so not clear what the root cause of the anomaly of the issue actually was, but it caused starliner to burn a lot of fuel. the call was made by nasa and boeing to not try to pursue the correct orbit for the spacecraft to then be able to pursue docking with the iss early tomorrow morning instead, starliner is going to stay in safe orbit for the next two days at minimum, next 48 hours at minimum, continue to collect data, continue to run what tests it can. then it is going to attempt is ground landing back at white sands in new mexico as early as sunday morning unclear what this is going to do to the time line, to the trajectory for boeing to be able

to get the green light to put astronauts inside this vehicle for launches for nasa. if this mission had gone 100% right, that was something that was expected to happen early next year. not sure, not clear yet based on what we heard from officials whether there will be another uncrewed flight or whether they can assess this and move forward. it is one we're watching closely, talking about as the hour unfolds >> morgan, so we have this in the right context, it sounds like this is a failure, not a catastrophic failure, but success would have been connected to the space station, staying there for a week, and then coming back they didn't connect. they've got to come back in 48 hours. so this doesn't look as good as they wanted it to look, correct? >> reporter: yeah, no, this is an issue, this is definitely a headache this is not this test flight going according to plan. i think failure is probably not

the right word to use per se it was not a full failure. it failed to go to the iss as planned. that said, there's still the launch happened the way it was supposed to, now they're attempting to land this vehicle, which is also such a key part of this test because obviously you want to make sure that is going as safely as possible before you put human beings on it so that's why it is a test, also why nasa administrator jim bridenstine who will be joining us in a short while on the show said there was still a lot about this mission that has been and is continuing to go right, even though that trip to the iss is now not going to happen. splitting hairs a little bit, but not complete failure >> seems like a game you lost but you had a few good plays still lost still a fail morgan, thank you. see you in a bit.

switching gears to delivery on earth, amazon is now its own largest delivery carrier, the e-commerce giant announcing it is on track to deliver 3.5 billion of its own packages to customers the growing fleet of planes, trucks, vans is alarming fedex and u.p.s. guys, good morning dan, i feel reflective we have what, seven trading days left in the year, in the decade even i'm looking back at amazon's performance, it is up more than 13 x by my read over the past ten years. how much is delivery part of why they've been able to differentiate over that period of time. >> it is a key ingredient of their success with prime going forward, it is about delivery, freight, taking the

next step. next year you'll have the majority of their packages that will be self fulfilled it is a shot across the bow to u.p.s., you saw that with the fedex agreement. with investors for amazon and faang, it is next step, cloud, delivery the numbers don't lie. talk about 3.5 billion, that's big numbers. key to valuation and key to their golden touch what bezos has done. >> mark, i am looking at the stocks, tech stocks are up the most in the past decade. names like netflix, nvidia, apple, salesforce, microsoft, seems like cloud and mobile and streaming were three of the big trends that differentiated those. what do you think it will take for the likes of amazon over the next decade, key trends that will determine who grows big and who fails? >> i think what amazon needs is more of these gcis, growth curve

initiatives. i think one day investment is one of those what i mean by gci, all growth stock companies, growth rates slow unless they have initiatives that rebalance or reaccelerate growth. you see that with one day now. another thing you focus with amazon for the next decade, amazon for business. we put out a report on this two weeks ago. i think they take the logistics powerhouse, they'll use that to serve businesses and finally focusing on what amazon is doing in international markets. the odd thing about amazon the last decade is the international retail growth is less than u.s. retail growth, typically the opposite of what we would see with most growth companies we think that these launches they made in five international markets in the last five years, top 20 gdp markets, see this acceleration in markets like india. if they can do that, you'll see consistency and reaccelerated growth for multiple years through the next decade. >> dan, obviously performance of

amazon in the last decade or two is unassailable. it is conspicuously below the high, and seems like the next thing for amazon or the thing they're set to make a priority and dominate is just tougher or has fewer network effects, less software, more bringing stuff to people to their door is the market concerned or are we digesting a huge rally. >> great point mark makes excellent points. really, it is about cloud. you go to aws keys, that's key to valuation of amazon fundamentally in terms of what microsoft has done, they closed the gap. from an investor perspective -- >> taking the premium out of aws to some degree >> some of the parts, aws is key. jedi was a seminal moment. from investor perspective, worries the gap is starting to close with microsoft, jedi,

inflection into the deal. >> a bumpy ride for uber and lyft shares in both companies are down about 30% in the last six months alone, while the market continues to rally to new highs. one investor getting out, former co-founder travis kalanick he sold 90% of his shares. normally founder sells out, it is a cause of concern. he is selling low. he is not in control of the company, he has other ventures that he might want to fund do you think this is a signal about the company itself or really about where travis' attention is. >> i think it is the latter. his cost basis on shares was darn low congrats to travis if it wasn't for travis, uber wouldn't exist there were excesses, no question, while he was running

the company, but no travis, aggressiveness, style that's well documented, that's what allowed uber to succeed. it has been great we think for drivers and consumers. i like uber as a stock here. every internet ipo in 2019 underperformed that means somewhere in there there's a reversion play i think the ridesharing business has gotten very attractive, and i think the company has a lot of options in terms of bringing eats business, either grow it to scale, profitability or cut it to profitability i think they'll do both. i think they shed assets that don't work well, probably india eats, and grow others that work well i like the asset it is out of favor there's a real opportunity for outsized gains going long uber now. >> dan, the future for these guys, do you think it is good, snapchat good or facebook good >> i think 85 is a big variable. you look now, that's a huge overhang on these stocks, combined with unprofitability

and what you have seen right now, if you could lift being domestic, no food delivery, makes it more bullish going to 2020. no doubt, 2020 is a fork -- they need to prove the growth they can get to profitability and there's investor confidence, needs to be -- right now it is waning. >> all of this, he is done selling, it has been an overhang on the stock, that's not necessarily a negative going into next year. >> it is a positive. i think some dark clouds are clearing now 85 is a big variable i can tell you, that continues to be an ex-variable for what it means for the contractor employee. >> do you think they'll get the exemption? >> i think it will be tough. part of our issue now is there's a lot of lobbying behind the scenes ultimately i think they have to go to court.

when you start to put numbers around it, could be 500 million more in cost for uber, lyft significantly less that's a gut punch 85 continues to be the gut punch, not just them but doordash >> mark, you put out a new note on netflix which is up around 40 x over the past ten years, you're still bullish on the company. outperform rating on the stock dan, you've got a sell mark, what's the risk in netflix purely on valuation? seems to me there's a possibility through 2020 or 2021, if disney plus does well, even if netflix continues to do pretty well, the wind comes out of the sails as far as investor enthusiasm what do you think? >> i think you set that up right. look, the stock, had a buy on it a substantial period of time, seven, eight years the last year the stock hasn't

worked, my call hasn't been right. there were greater head winds with the new ott launches, but there are self inflicted issues. netflix may have been too aggressive the last round of price increases and then they materially dramatically cut back on advertising spend in north america in the first part of the year that may have been a mistake going forward, netflix in the next year, growth in streaming will be global, not in the u.s., like 90% plus of subs for netflix, it will be international market that's where they have 130 new local content shows. my guess is that's where the win is, that's where you get 25 million new subs each year netflix is positioned better than anybody else for the streaming market that's key to the why we like netflix shares, despite the turbulence. >> dan, how much sell is because you think netflix isn't going to perform well business wise, how much is because you think the

shine will be off because of a lot of streaming options. >> that's the tech thesis. 10 to 15% could churn. apple, peacock, hbo and others, that's the tough issue for us, content will be hard to grow subs in faang, we continue to be bullish on other names, apple being the top pick netflix more cautious. yellow flag in 2020. >> nice to mention peacock. >> speaks to a broader point. >> consumers have more choices which they didn't have before. >> do you not think netflix for a lot of people that have been on it view it as a quasi bundle? it has its own genres, categories >> 85, 90% agree lower end, you have churn, price sensitivity. look what iger and cook priced streaming services, was a shot at hastings and netflix. there's a lot of pricing hubris

going on at netflix hq. >> i consider apple to be barely a service at this point. >> it just touched >> the big one was disney. huge mark there. >> that was iger, fox asset and everything that was them saying look at the clips. all our work shows the level of subs coming in for disney is eye popping. took the street by surprise. >> like to say we'll continue to watch this mark, dan, thanks. when we come back here, falters in the mission jim bridenstine joins us to discuss. another day, another all-time high for tesla. not really all right. we'll speak with an early investor, former board member. the stock is above 400 "squawk alley" is back after this

welcome back to "squawk alley. i am at the kennedy space center on florida on the day that the starliner capsule made the first journey to space, a journey that hasn't gone as expected due to an anomaly basically a new result that will have the starliner coming back to earth instead of traveling and docking with the international space station. i am joined by nasa

administrator jim bridenstine to talk about what we've seen unfolding. thanks nfor joining us. >> we had a successful launch of atlas 5 rocket center stage worked splendidly with two rl 10 engines that are new. the starliner on the way to international space station had a challenge. the challenge was it did not do the orbital insertion burn the way we were anticipating we made an effort to demand it to do that burn, but what it comes down to is automation. what we were trying to do is make sure we could do the mission end to end, completely automated, and that didn't work. then we started to try to give it command signals and seems like they did not get received by the spacecraft either here's what's important. the spacecraft is in orbit, is safe if we had astronauts on board, they would have been safe. and in fact, if we had had

astronauts on board, they would probably have taken over manually and it would be flying to the international space station now. but there's a lot of testing to do the spacecraft is in order, we will bring it home to white sands, new mexico in the coming days there are a lot of successes from today's test. >> a lot of successes, the fact that it is not going to the international space station, docking, staying there a week as planned, is that a failure >> it is not a failure it is something that we didn't want to see happening, but also true that we test for a reason, because we want to be able to learn these things that we need to learn, so when we put humans on board, they can go and be safe we also have to remember, when we had space shuttles, we went to the international space station with humans the first time, they flew it themselves, in fact when we landed on the moon went with humans and they flew it themselves with humans in the loop in the spacecraft in many cases it is actually better, but in this case the automation didn't work

the way we were hoping. >> for many viewers that are not so familiar, we don't currently have the capability to send astronauts from u.s. soil to space now. that's the purpose of the program, which includes boeing and spacex haven't been able to do that more than eight years. what does this do for the time line. >> we're working through that, we'll get good data and information. here is what nasa does we learn, we make fixes and move forward. that's what we intend to do. now, the question i get asked, will the next one have humans on board, too early to know we have data to get through, things we need to learn, we want to move fast also a reason we have two providers. these are commercial crew providers, nasa is not owning and operating the equipment, we are buying a ride from a robust commercial marketplace boeing and spacex are very dissimilar capabilities which means if one has a setback, the

other one continues to move forward in its development which spacex will continue to do i don't anticipate that this will give us a long term struggle i think what this will do, it will give us things to learn and you know, in fact, you could argue that you learn a lot more when you have an anomaly than when everything goes right. >> i realize there are a lot of question marks around all of this but if we see the time line slip back, the financial implications of that, where does that fall? >> so that is an important thing. remember, we're buying the service, and we need the commercial crew providers to be successful so we can buy more services nasa's goal is to be a customer, one of many, in a robust commercial marketplace we want to have numerous providers that are competing against each other on cost and innovation when there is a setback, obviously that can have a feedback when it comes to maybe a provider not being able to win

the next contract, whether nasa or another commercial company that wants access for the value of micro gravity that's up to the commercial companies to figure out. there is no doubt that there will be impact but again, this is the united states of america. we take risks, we move forward. >> given that this is a public, private partnership, it is a newer business model for nasa, a lot of focus on price per seat with spacex and boeing what is it >> we need to negotiate that we are partnering with them investment of two dissimilar capabilities that we can buy rides from important to note costs will come down, the more rides happen, more costs come down the more commercial companies want access to space, the more international partners want access to space, the more the cost to nasa comes down. i think it is a net positive. >> given the fact the commercial crew restores that u.s.

capability for human space flight, how much hinges on this happening when you start to look ahead to some of the other longer term goals of nasa, whether it is bringing americans back to the moon or after that mars >> we go to low earth orbit to learn to live off the earth long periods of time. why? so we can go to the moon we go to the moon for a purpose, why? we want to go to mars. when you go to mars, you have to be there a couple of years earth and mars are on the same side of the sun. once every 26 months but as far as getting to the moon, i don't think there's any impact here. i think ultimately, i don't think, i know that this is a capability for getting to lower earth orbit, not capability to get to the moon. for that we have an entirely different rocket and capsule, it shouldn't impact the art must program, the objective by the president is land the first

woman and man on the south pole of the moon in 2020. >> you have that sls rocket over your shoulder here at kennedy space center jim bridenstine, nasa administrator, thank you for joining us in the midst of what's been a busy morning with the boeing starliner test flight jon, back to you at the new york stock exchange >> morgan, thank you thank you for that the administrator trying to avoid calling that a failure as we head to a quick break, getting a check on shares of care.com it is up some 13%. iac plans to buy the online marketplace for $500 million in cash this comes one day after iac announced it is spinningff o match. "squawk alley" is back after this don't go away. he helped me set up my watch lists. oh, he's terrific. excellent tennis player. bye-bye. i recognize that voice. annie? yeah! she helped me find the right bonds for my income strategy. you're very popular around here. there's a birthday going on. karl! he took care of my 401k rollover.

wow, you call a lot. yeah, well it's my money we're talking about here. joining us for karaoke later? ah, i'd love to, but people get really emotional when i sing. help from a team that will exceed your expectations. ♪

european markets closing momentarily. seema mody has a look at today's action. >> hello, mike european stocks finish on a high note, strength in italy this

morning, fresh record highs where uk lawmakers approve boris johnson's amended brexit bill. brexit worries are easing at this hour. three positive reads across the uk gdp for the third quarter revised up consumer confidence hit a five month high, business sentiment rising new leadership at the bank of england. andrew bailey, chief executive of the uk financial watchdog has been named the new central bank governor he will take over for mark carney in march. and bailey, like jerome paul and christi christine lagarde doesn't have deep experience. an interesting trend to watch. a last minute deal between russia and the ukraine that green lights transit of gas to europe yuk plays a key channel for transporting between russia and europe seeing natural gas prices in europe fall.

>> thanks. let's get to sue herera. >> good morning, jon and everyone here is what's happening an oklahoma city mall reopened after a shooting last night forced a lockdown and massive police response. the alleged gunman was taken into custody hours ago. overseas, buckingham palace says prince philip was admitted to a london hospital as a precaution the 98-year-old duke and husband of queen elizabeth walked in under his own power, expected to stay a few days. the e. coli outbreak effecting romaine lettuce is not over the cdc identified 138 cases linked to lettuce produced by a salinas, california grower the latest case was december 1st. health officials say people shouldn't eat romaine from the region. and today is the busiest day for travel according to airlines america. three million passengers are

expected at the nation's airports, with tomorrow being the second busiest bring your bags, bring your patience that's the news update this hour guys, back downtown to you jon? >> thanks. we are getting some early box office numbers on "star wars." julia boorstin has that from l.a. how does it look >> disney announcing rise of skywalker off to a strong start, $40 million coming in from the domestic box office in thursday night previews that's the fifth best preview performance in industry history. it does come in behind the force awakens. 57 million in previews $45 million for the last jet eye in thursday previews coming in fifth is not bad, dramatically higher than rogue one. disney points out the audience response is stronger than critic reviews. has a 58% critic score

it is expect to bring in between 175 and $200 million at the box office one of the biggest of the year and one of the biggest of all time >> thank you when we come back, tesla up 83% in the last six months early investor, former board member joins us next and getting a check on where the major averages stand two hours into trading "squawk alle iba aer isy"s ckft and etfs are commission-free. and when you open a new brokerage account, your cash is automatically invested at a great rate. that's why fidelity leads the industry in value while our competition continues to talk. ♪ talk, talk

tesla shares are near all-time highs, up 58% in the last two months. the stock is moving toward the 420 dollar mark. august last year elon musk tweeted he was considering taking tesla private, and that was theprice it was an ill fated attempt. steve wesley joins us to talk about all things tesla steve, it is funny, the less he tweets, the better things seem to be for the company. is there a real connection there? >> well, i think there may be. i don't think you're smart to try to run your company or the united states by tweeting. what you need to do if you're a car company executive is make great products at a great price, that's what tesla has done

>> many customers extremely satisfied. the larger theme for those that are not believers has been there's more and more competition coming, the sale of evv vehicles is not increasing year over year at this point, and that they're going to find themselves in a challenged market position headed to 2020 is that a real fear? >> well, i think that's dead wrong. let's look at the facts. tesla has shown terrific growth, 2017 they sold 120,000 vehicles. 2018 that number doubled to 245,000. this year looks like they'll be over 400,000 that's terrific growth second, tesla has gone international faster than dreamed. already number one in switzerland, netherlands, norway, number three in united kingdom. just built a factory start to finish in 12 months, are rolling out vehicles today, selling them in the world's largest auto market

third, the company is profitable what's not to like about that story. fact is, elon is building a great product, just moving a little faster than everyone else. >> steve, kind of hard to believe, tesla has been a public company for just about ten years. it has been a decade of tesla. what does the next decade hold for a company like this? are we going to be talking about it should things go the way elon wants as one of the big auto companies of the u.s., or does it have to transform to more than an auto company in the next phase? >> look, in the 21st century economy, you have to re-invent yourself every ten years, if not every five here's the good news, the entire world is moving toward electric vehicles the simple reason, single largest cost component of electric vehicle is the cost of lithium ion batteries, that cost is down 90% in the last decade, will continue to go down

the narrative is that electric cars are wonderful, fast, safe, and clean, but they cost too much the narrative you're going to start hearing in the next 24 months is all those things, but electric vehicles will be cheaper to buy as well and don't forget, many electric vehicles like tesla model 3 get the epa equivalent of 123 miles a gallon what's not to like about that. >> battery cost coming down for everybody. that would be perhaps the answer talk about china being a big opportunity, what's the average selling price of all cars in china? i wonder how much profit margins earned now by the auto industry can be displaced or be preserved in that scenario when everybody is going ev. >> that's where tesla caught the others looking, they were one of the first to bring battery production in-house. you made a great point without a doubt, as the world

goes electric, there will be greater competition. you're seeing volkswagon coming out with what appears to be a great product in 2021, 33,000. honda putting a car on the market in china, 21,000. firms like audi bringing great cars on the luxury side. there will be more competition the big question in the auto industry boils down to this. who is going to win the smackdown between china and the u.s. if you're an american, you ought to be rooting for general motors, ford, tesla to particular things into higher gear i want to see american cars win that battle. >> between tesla and spacex, mr. musk has been successful but needed to raise tens of billions since the beginning of both companies. are they done at tesla needing to raise more capital? >> i don't know. there were a lot of nay sayers, tesla is losing money, when are they turning the quarter

they have two profitable quarters in a row, looks like this one will be profitable. the primary reason it wasn't profitable, they were building huge new facilities, battery plant in nevada, a huge plant in china. they managed to build these factories in record time they're building what looks like will be the final one in berlin. if that gets online as quick as the others, they'll have a jump. but costs are coming down, everybody is going electric. next big thing will be autonomous we'll see. may need to raise money in the future posting three quarters profitable, you have to hand it to the company. >> in the relatively near term, next couple years, does tesla need to have a ceo or coo who is an operator whose name is not elon musk? >> of course that happens to every company. there will be a point where elon steps down, focuses on spacex,

who knows. >> i am not even saying step down, steve jobs got tim cook, he needed tim cook steve continued to run the company, but there's been that criticism of elon musk that he needs to not shoulder the whole thing himself. do you think he is going to hand that responsibility to somebody else in the near term, next couple of years? >> look, elon musk and every corporate ceo needs to find that successor to take it to the next generation without them. i wouldn't be in a hurry to pushy lon off stage for two reasons. one, he continues to produce great products two, he is just moving faster than other people out there. the move to bring battery production in-house was a master stroke they're building great products. we'll see how the cybertruck and others go, but for now, model 3, number five selling car in america in terms of unit sales number one in terms of revenue that's gas or electric he is doing more right than wrong. i wouldn't be in a hurry to move

him off center stage >> steve, appreciate you joining us thank you. >> happy to be here. happy holidays >> thank you. and when we come back, what is next for boeing starliner and the race against spacex. we are live in cape canaveral. first, rick santelli, what are you watching >> market volatility hasn't been an issue, it is december, after all. time for holidays. maybe not exactly the holiday you would expect 'lta authaafr the break.

i am scott wapner. here's what's coming up at the top of the hour. another record setting day with the rally. what it means for 2020. number one industrial analyst steve tusa dropped a new note on ge the interview you don't want to miss if looking into this name and michael farr, the names to bank on as a new decade gets under way. looking forward to it. see you then >> see you then. let's get to the cme and rick santelli with the santelli exchange hey, rick. >> good morning, mike. quickly, let's put a cap on today's numbers. very impressive numbers, personal income and spending, subtle improvement in the final read on university of michigan kansas city fed index was the only fly in the ointment, minus eight. happened to be the sixth

negative number in a row i know that manufacturing signals may be severely crimped due to what's going on in global trade. nonetheless, thought it was worth a mention. interest rates are hovering close to ten basis points. and next week supply, going to year end, markets get thin supply in december, twos, fives, selfe sevens, pay attention to it is christmas month, holiday month. holiday cheer. yet for equity traders, a bit of witches and warlocks i don't want to step on the toes of our great coverage in equities, but could be a biggie, and not only talking about the notion of futures and options expiring when all of the indexes are around all-time highs, think of when you parrot off with a large rebalancing. when equities go up a lot, rebalancing means you have to

account for the profits and change your position back to the original metrics that's going to mean losing stock for sure as i talk around large institutions like pensions are probably going to have to shed somewhere in the neighborhood of 16 to 17 billion of u.s. stocks by year end. we have been conditioned what happens when you get volatility, markets pay attention, could be a feedback loop to lower rates. finally, u.s. economy has been market to market with grading, i love grading things, that had to be an a. according to cnn poll, 76% of respondents say the economy is good to very good, highest percentage level since 2001. i wonder if anybody on stage last night for the debate had a chance to read that survey jon fortt, back to you >> all right, rick thank you. let's send it over to morgan brennan who is at the kennedy space center where boeing

starliner successfully launched but failed to connect with the space station. morgan, what have you got coming up >> reporter: well, on the heels of the botched boeing starliner test flight, what it means for the company, what it means for the country, and what it means for the race between boeing and spacex to restore human space flight to this country we've got that coming up after the break.

welcome back to "squawk alley" on the heels of o boeing's star line es this morning. a launch not going according to plan a key look at what that means for being able to once again send americans back to space from u.s. soil that is a capability that was lost to the u.s. eight years ago when the space shuttle program ended. nasa implement ed the commercia crew program and awarded contracts in the billions of dollars to both boeing and sp e spacex to develop vehicles to basically create astronaut taxis, space taxis, so ferry people back and forth to the international space station. the program as it stands now is poised to be running around three years behind schedule. and the big question mark today is given the complications,

given the fact that boeing's star liner will not be docking with the international space station on this key, uncrude test flight that took place today, what does this now do to that already delayed timeline. so keep in mind, spacex did its version of this uncrude test earlier this year. we were here for it. back in march. it was successful. spacex has one more critical safety test it needs to complete in mid january for nasa to give it the green light to put astronauts on board its spacecraft for boeing, unclear as we just heard from nasa administrator a short time ago what today's scenario means in terms of next steps for boeing, but it is a key question to ask because as it currently stands, the u.s. depends on russia to be able to send astronauts back and forth iss. is 2020 going to be the year when human space flight once

again returns to america guys >> morgan, you know, great work out there. i'm not trying to give nasa a hard time. i'm not trying to give boeing a hard time. they've got a hard enough time as it is, but whether it's a company, no matter who it is, i like for people to call things what they are. why is nasa having such a hard time saying the word failure here yes, the launch was successful, but the whole mission with was to connect to the space station. they're failing to do it why can't they say that? >> well, i think, i think you heard from the nasa administrator in his own words how he's thinkinging about this test flight today. certainly failing to document with the iss certainly a failure and and anomaly within one of the sys m systems tied to automation, an automation problem that boeing still doesn't know the root cause of so i think it's a developing situation. a lot of question marks.

a lot that has yet to be deciphered or decided including successfully whether they're going to be able to bring this starliner spacecraft back down to earth come sunday >> right morgan brennan, doing great work for us out there thank you, morgan. >> all right as we go to break, a quick look at the markets really near the highs of the day. 32.23 for the s&p. all time high up more than half a percent. "squawk alley" returns in less than three minutes

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josh lipton voins us with more >> jim cramer says he wants just one present for the holidays an apple's new air pod pro. it's estimated they'll generate revenues of up to $6 billion this year. that's nearly double 2018's level and next year, he says apple could sell 85 million air pods generating 15 billion in revenue. as soon as 2021, he sees

deacceleration in air pod revenue u growth to single digits or lower. not every apple watcher agrees with that. i caught up with gene money center this morning. he says we're just scratching the surface and forecasts it up 20% in 2021. they're part of the broader wearables category some believe if they can keep growing this strongly, then apple can enjoy accelerating growth even if iphone sales remain flat. people who order from the apple store can receive them for 159 bucks on december 23rd for the one jim wants you have to wait until january 14th though apple continues to ship products to its stores and they're available at other re l retailers as well. back to you. >> not sure i understand his logic on h this one. i mean if people have air pods, might they not b want to buy air pods pro and apple's probably going to come out with air pods pro two at some point

it's not like oh, i got an iphone, never going to need one of f those again >> this is his math, estimates he's look at the adoption curve, the saturation strong growth this year and next, but look out on the other side analysts who agree with the call, interestingly, you would expect certainly from renovation -- >> we've got to leave it there thanks that will do it for "squawk alley. to the half. >> this hour, stocks on pace for their best year since 2013 so how far can this last minute momentum carry your momentum it's 12:00 noon and this is the halftime report. >> the rally that won't quit another day of record highs for the major indices. we'll look at set up for 2020 and what it means for your money. the number one industrials anal