coming off the losses we saw at the end of last friday now, consumer discretionary, as you can see here, one of the key focus sectors, all those names with particular exposure to china and the coronavirus outbreak like the casino operators. those are key. all of them trading lower today. we've also got some higher-end retail names like tapestry, nordstrom, capri holdings, formerly known as michael kors then of course the cruise operators, travel operators, monitoring the developments with the royal caribbean ship docked off the coast of bayonne, new jersey, with several passengers being tested for a possible coronavirus issue. keep an eye on all those consumer discretionary stocks. back to you folks at the new york stock exchange. >> we've got some commentary, dom, from the world health organization on the tape right here some of the cases in japan regard a cruise liner have

spread, but, quote, let's be careful not to overreact it's 8:00 a.m. at uber headquarters in san francisco and 11:00 a.m. on wall street. "squawk alley" is live ♪ good friday morning. welcome to "squawk alley." i'm carl quintanilla with morgan brennan, jon fortt at post 9 of the new york stock exchange. busy day, whether it ta's the j number or the interview with mike pence or uber, saying it

will reach a key profitability goal sooner than expected. it's up 8%, on pace for its best day ever, believe it or not. two guests join us happy friday best day ever. do you think the commentary reflects that, moving the target forward reflects that? >> yeah. what's the basic investing model of every softbank vision fund company? we're going to dump capital in the market so we own the market share and then raise prices. they're saying i'm going to raise prices in california, raising prices. everywhere else, so valuable, we're raising prices >> we'll talk about that in a moment quick, though, let's get to the fed releasing its semi annual monetary report to congress. >> the fed is raising concerns about the potential impact of coronavirus on global growth in that report, the fed mentioned the virus as a, quote,

new look to the outlook and said it could lead to disruptions in china that spill over to the rest of the global economy this threat comes as the fed says international data has been showing, quote, tent tich signs of stabilization the global slowdown in manufacturing and trade appears to be nearing an end while consumer spending and services activity around the world are holding up here in the u.s., the fed estimated that last year's manufacturing slowdown shaved about half a percentage point off of gdp part of that was due to the grounding of boeing 737 max planes, but the fed said that is not enough to tip the country into recession mean while, the fed also highlighted the gains in the stock markets, saying equity prices increased notably last year and it attributed those to the fed's monetary policy. they said running the end of its securities portfolio earlier than planned should have only

small effects on the balance sheet and negligible implications for the economic outlook. the fed continued to cite transitory factors as holding down inflation below its 2% target it said the economy grew moderately in 2019 and it will continue to monitor incoming data as it assesses the appropriate path for interest rates. guys >> all right there's a lot in there thank you. we geelt 'll get to the fed lat. to continue our conversation about twitter, your thoughts about getting profitable, pricing power, shaving off some of the unprofitable parts, all making sense to you? >> the thing with uber that impresses me is the scale of the business it is a global logistics company. people call it ride hailing or sharing, it sounds like a small name to give it. it is a massive global enterprise $4 billion of revenue. >> is this essentially an ipo

do-over? we're right back around that range, the level where uber opened up initially. it's been on a wild ride down, now back up. we know a bit more than we knew then, both positive and negative if you're thinking about getting into the stock and assessing what kind of a business it is, how do you think it looks now versus then? >> it looks like dara wants to be profitable. i think those comments about pricing, they stuck out to me, right? he's going to raise the revenue base by increasing price then he's talking about consolidation saying i'm not going to make dumb deals he's thinking about getting bigger, owning more market share and raising revenue by increasing the rates because he runs a better service than lyft. he's looking fat contin ing at market, trying to get some of that energy back they're paying money to get market share where uber is talking about raising rates. that is a powerful position for them to be in.

it makes a lot more sense to the investors who might be interested in the company because you understand what the mod sell going forward rather than we're going to lose money >> you're also seeing them getting into freight, logistics, beyond uber. >> the uber eats business, i come back to it with the upped profitability target for a year, gross profits jumped by 71%, above analyst expectations as well but it continues to be a drag, at least in terms of profitability. extremely crowded market, right? lots of competition. how does that change this year >> i think you saw in his comments he wants to be number one or two in each of the markets. uber eats is a massive global business, more global than postmates and grub hub and doordash i think he's leveraging the core uber brand and their presence in all these markets for the ride business to launch uber eats and invest heavily in the marketing. i think you'll see the profitability come over time >> he mentioned he was working

with kitchens, the cost base of who they have to pay versus a real restaurant with a store front. rates could be much lower. >> i would say half a friendly -- >> yeah. >> i wonder how you frame take rate in this environment investors love it. uber is getting more out there, but the drivers feel like they're not getting paid enough. reading this report, they're thinking wait a minute, what do you mean you're taking more? i'm still not getting enough >> i think we're going to see what happens that seems like the test market of all test markets for uber, right? they're letting drivers have more control over those rates, letting them see where their riders are going they're trying to escape the law but creating a natural experiment for what if we treat our drivers differently, give them more control over our tightly managed operations and logistics service. it couldn't have been set up better for them to say here in this state with this group of

people we're giving them more control to see how much we can let go versus everywhere else. >> california something like 10% of the total gross revenue a big market for them and the legislation proposed will be a real test. >> an awful lot of drivers are going to start communicating about what it's like to operate in california. that's going to effect where drivers every else want to be. >> it will be a nice petrie dish of economic case study apple might be losing its throne to tesla as the favorite stock of millennials our kate rooney explains that from one market. hey, kate. >> hey, carl tesla appears to be the new fan favorite we have fresh data showing millennial retail investors buying up the automaker this week numbers from start-up showfi show it's the number one holding on that trading app. it passed apple for six straight trading days traders bought 20 times more tesla stock this week than on an average week and wednesday tesla made up the largest dollar

amount of securities bought and sold in that platform's history. this is a sample size of retail traders. they have about 200,000 user, millennials age 25 to 40 with an average household income of about $100,000 one other factor, sofi says there was a new record of buying tesla for a fraction of the share. people were buying up parts of the stock trading above $900 this week. sofi began offering stock bids in july and that trend has caught on at other brokerage firms, charles schwab, square, and robin hood out with the same feature. i spoke to an analyst at td ameritrade who says based on tesla's moves it couldn't have been all retail interests this week institutional investors were getting in on the td platform, folks took profits as the stock surged for its best day in six years. >> kate rooney out in san francisco. kind of leads to a conversation

we've had all week, which is is this fadish or real institutional money deciding they have to own it? >> the fundamentals, no real news i don't think happened this week, and the stock, you know -- you look at the chart and it's like gymnastics up and down, black flips. it's been a wild week for the stock and the volatility you're seeing in tesla. i'm not sure what to make of it. >> i wonder how much of cause for concern it is when you see a chart that is going parabolic, much like bitcoin a couple years ago and you have this retail fervor the concern i would think is you'll see some of these new up-and-coming investors potentially get burned if that parabolic stock chart plays out the way history has shown. >> under every elon tweet there's a scam tweet, so you link those things together pap lot of people are interested in tesla. they maybe can't afford a tesla, so you buy tesla stock and move on the underlying issue is every

one of their opportunities or successes also looks like a challenge. they've managed to spin that model 3 production they have to spin model 1 production the model s getting long in the tooth. they of got a bunch of cars on the used market where they're shutting off features on the software level to secondary buyers and they're getting mad but there are things they can do love to update the software over the air. they can also take away those features some of their challenges, their brand loyalty, they have to start managing that stuff. >> i love millennials. i could have been one if i had been born a few years later. they or confusing me i thought their favorite stock was snap they were buying it in robin hood they switched to apple and now tesla. i don't know this they were in apple, i don't understand how you go to tesla now. it seems like exers and boomers are buying tesla and millennials buying the stock

save up, buy a tesla, an actual -- >> hold their value for a long time >> i wonder, there's ban leen a of talk about fundamentals ross gerber has been an uber, tesla voter forever and reuters talking about the valuation around 550 it's trading around 750 right now. how much do fundamentals matter here how much of this is actually investor fervor around the company versus investor fervor around the man >> i think it's both elon musk has a fa gnattal following. people look at him with such respect and admiration, those who love the company, so, you know, i'm not sure you could convince the tesla lovers that the numbers really matter or they're paying too much. people love the company, love the car, lover elon. >> that's not rigorous analysis. >> certainly not people buying the stock today are sort of believing in that narrative. >> a good secondary case we'll see in the future is spacex.

>> so glad you brought that up >> star link, our somewhat fanciful satellite service, ipo that next year if all these investors race to that because they believe in elon and he can deliver that, and that has real challenges in terms of at&t, verizon, they can provide a similar service and there's no status quotient of like i have a tesla. it's just internet access. i think we'll see whether those investors move from against a product that is just as unproven >> spacex has been a fan favorite within the private markets. three funding rounds last year alone. the idea that star link koul potentially ipo in the next couple years is going to be something for sure to watch. i have a number of people involved with tesla in the last 24 hours reach out to me about it does seem to be watched closely. >> the car is a status symbol. you look around on the roads of cities, you see more and more of them every day that's a signal to the retail

investor is that the best decision they can make with their money? who knows? >> thanks for that biggest earnings of the mover might be pinterest upbeat guidance, up 13%, was up 18% earlier today. talk about a story that's, compared to tesla, more of an underpromise, overdeliver. >> pinterest, and ben was here months ago with the ipo, he's an understated guy. he's not going to do a lot of flash and overpromise. the company is steady. they've had one product and that is a high-margin business for them, selling it primarily in the u.s. you're seeing in the growth numbers the international audience starting to kick in where they've made a lot of investments in eastern europe and those are monetizing for them, which i think will be a story going forward. >> we talked about that last time the international push what do you think? >> we just saw google's earnings and the search ad revenue kind

of flatten out the dollars tend to start in the u.s. you definitely see that. you're seeing a lot of fatigue out of what you're getting out of google and facebook some of those dollars are moving to alternative platforms, alternative marketing products where maybe you're trying to drive actual shopping behavior, trying to get to the bottom of it with that google text box >> there's so much crowding on facebook, instagram, google, whereas on these other platforms like pinterest or snapchat or twitter, you might be able to get more reasonable pricing and stand out a little more from the crowd while everyone else is on those platforms. >> from an investor perspective, you have to wonder, some of these second-tier players, and i think it's fair to call pinterest that on a good day, your pinterests, your snaps, roku, etsy, how big is the market for these guys? is it going to be a scale game in that market where they

eventually get choked off or is it one of those best of breed story where is they can get a nice profitable niche, more apple-like, right, in a premium market and do well >> i think with pinterest in particular, you know, you look at what linkedin did, established the base around professional users and job seekers and have kind of taken that and generate the revenue. i think pinterest with e-commerce and shopping is trying to be that solution where people go to pinterest as the search engine for shopping and could potentially generate revenue from that. >> we'll see more implementation of a.r it came up in pinterest last night. >> this week they announced you can kind of test beauty and makeup products on there using virtual reality, where you can see what it looks like on you. they're introducing that and technology they can use for that as well. >> 40% year to date would make it the best s&p'er

our wilfred frost asked the vice president about wau way in the last hour, specifically whether the u.s. should be fund ak competitor here's what he said. >> we believe the best way forward is what was announced in the last several days. the fcc has a plan for dealing with the spectrum that we think is going to make 5g much more rapidly available across the country, and that's the plan the president has endorsed and will be carrying forward. >> the huawei story is getting more interesting, especially if you believe the conversation between the president and boris johnson. >> i can't get enough of this story. how many times can you buy nokia and ruin it? is it five times, six times? >> satya nadella said when that idea got floated >> bring it back out look, i think ultimately the reason bill barr is talking about doing this is because he wants to guarantee american access to that equipment, not because any of the financials

make sense huawei and ericsson are already going to build verizon, at&t networks in this country no one is going to buy those companies and then subsidize losing a price war to huawei the american government shouldn't even do that but can you buy those companies and a controlling stake and say we're guaranteeing access to the equipment for our law enforcement? that is what bill barr is pursuing, not just the straight race to install new equipment. i don't know that a conservative position is the cop ship by nokia, but that's where we're at >> the knee jerk has been central planning, right? is it? >> highly unconventional to think of the government stepping in and owning a piece of nokia or buying the company. bizarre. >> it is unlikely that there's not a major american competitor in networking equipment and that is the result of massive merger activity that we allowed for years and years and years. cisco the big player we should look at cisco and say why aren't you making this

equipment? why aren't you a player here why are we asking the government or private equity to invest in european firms because we can't supply our own networks? that's one of those policy things that played out in a way nobody expected. >> might get a chance to ask them on wednesday when they report earnings. >> there's a lot of things we don't do the degree to which we're moving away from free markets is staggering to me we're centrally planning now we're taking the chinese playbook and we'll do that that's how this is going to work granted, the south korean government has subsidized and sort of protected samsung for a while, and they've got 5g equipment. it could go that route too it's also a fifth of their gdp, samsung. >> yeah, because that's how they play the game. is that the game we're playing now? that's scary to me >> we've learned these lessons with every generation. 3g they were not interested. 4g came up, they're very interested, all kinds of government activity on those

networks that we don't talk about. there are nsa buildings in this city where they get to look at what's happening on the networks the interest here is a national security interest. >> bingo >> not economic interest whether we're centrally planning because of a national security concern or because we want to beat huawei, that is getting deeply muddled here. i think it would be a lot more clear to everyone if we would start saying the national security part out loud >> from a trade stand point we've been wondering, what is the framework? it gets confused every time with each additional episode. >> if we move most of the streetlights in america to a 5g network, american health care to telehealth over 5g, not being in direct control of that equipment presents an enormous security risk you can say it out loud and say we're going to stand up a competitor in america that we can legally control ormake tha investment that we can legally control. that involves -- that has some

clarity to it as opposed to we just don't want to lose. >> guys, good conversation good to see you both >> thank you >> casper taking a big leg low they are morning after surging in its ipo yesterday, down about 15% right now. stay with us what do you see? we see a billion more people breathing free. we see access to fresh food being the global norm, not the exception. we see homes staying cooler, without the planet getting warmer. at emerson, when issues become inspiration, focusing core strengths to create a better world isn't just a result, it's a responsibility. emerson. consider it solved.

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welcome back to "squawk

alley. you can see the video right here this is competing with spacex's constellation as well as amazon's plan. maxar technologies aims to capitalize on the growing demand for satellites and their services both through its own next gen constellation and telestat planning to compete against spacex and one web i spoke with the ceo earlier about how maxar is merging >> demand pipeline is strong, and i think there's a bit of changeover between whether it's geostationary or low-earth orbiting we're well positioned to play in both areas so we announced this week a contract with geostationary satellites we're building st. pauler

satelli -- smaller satellites as well and our own satellites in the low-earth orbit. we're excited to play in both e sectors. returns are in the future but very good. >> spacex is putting up its star link satellites. in the coming days one web will be launching one of its satellites as well is there room for all of these different meg continaconstellat, room for everyone to compete, not just financially but physically in terms of being in space? >> well, there's only so much spectrum they'll compete with each other. the fact they're launching, they think the business cases are there. we're happy to support them as they go at that. i'm not sure whether they'll all be successful, but that's commerce, capital international, and we're happy to help along the way. >> maxar has become a stock turnaround story, up some 175%

over the past year thanks to a focus on deleveraging the balance sheet. also a series of high-profile contract wins including one recently from nasa meantime, in his state of the union, president trump touted the creation of america's sixth military branch earlier this week, space force, and urged congress to fully fund the ar te misprogram to send a man and a woman to the moon surface in 2024 "the wall street journal" reported today that the white house's 2021 budget profile earmarks a 12% increase for nasa and that initiative specifically maxar's ceo saying such a commitment is reassuring for his industry >> space is a strategic imperative and it's great to see the administration leading on the space front with the new space strategy, the xwli establishment of the space force as well. we're the first element of the artemis program so we're sending it up on a time line putting the first piece in space to be able

to provide power, propulsion and communications for the artemis program. i think it will be a great program for the first woman and next man on the moon >> something to watch as we head into another week. we expect that white house budget proposal. also we mentioned earlier in the hour, those comments from c.o.o. at spacex, that star link constellation could be spun out in an ipo in the coming years. could be something to watch closely as we see this emerging satellite boom begin to take shape. >> yep great stuff. >> now a reminder, do not miss a special report on the coronavirus outbreak, tonight, 7:00 p.m. eastern, right here on cnbc

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secretary of state mike pompeo meeting with the european union for an affairs chief the representative joseph borel is in washington for a two-day visit to help improve transatlantic relations between the eu and the u.s he is expected to meet with nancy pelosi and jared kushner a new round of protests in france as unions keep up the pressure on president macron's pensions and plants. the protests which started in december have seen millions of people take part former illinois congressman joe walsh is suspending his gop nomination campaign, tweeting out the announcement, saying, quote, i'm suspending my campaign but our fight against the cult of trump is just getting started, end quote and one person was killed and three others hospitalized following an early morning fire at a hotel in los angeles. first responders say they found the fire burning in several rooms when they arrived. the cause of that fire is under investigation. you are up to date that's the news update this

hour back downtown to "squawk alley." jon, back to you >> sue, thank you. the ceo of credit suisse has resigned amid a spying scandal, and dom chu has the story as european markets just closed overseas dom? >> that's right, jon european mostly lower, more red on the screen than green one of our big corporate stories of the day is credit suisse ceo resigning effective february 14th, on valentine's day while he's been largely credited with restructuring credit suisse, the bank has faced a huge slate of these problems and power struggles as of late, most notably the spying scandal that erupted last year after contractors followed a former credit suisse executive as he left for ubs the bank's chief officer was blamed for that & internal investigation found zero evidence that he was aware of the plans. however, naturally, that raised some questions over how he was

in the dark about a plan formed by one of his top aides and executives we'll monitor this particular story and that major shake-up at one of europe's largest lenders. we're keeping an eye on shares of finland's nokia and ericsson after william barr suggested the u.s. take a stake in one of these companies to, quote/unquote, blunt china's huawei's domination in 5g wireless technology. how a deal might play out remains unclear, but barr's comments are pushing nokia and ericsson shares higher in european trading we'll keep an eye on those stocks when it comes to telecom. when we come back, 225,000 jobs added in january. ed lazear will weigh in on that. ♪ ♪

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what impressed us yesterday or last night was the fact that that network effect is actually working for these guys you're seeing more riders, seeing each rider take more trips, so that demand is still there, and on the driver's side or what we refer to as the supply side, the drivers continue to stay with uber the cost of acquisition on the driver's side is also declining. so there's a lot of operating leverage that they're progressing towards, which we think actually makes the profitability more likely a few years down the road. >> is this what we expect out of the company that's going to lose a billion dollars this year? >> look, i think, you know, the stock reaction today reflects the fact that investors feel like visibility is improving a bit. we finally now have a precise quarter we can look forward to as far as ebitda profitability that target, though, it makes assumptions. for example, management remarked last night it assumes the competitive environment intensity moderates a bit further from kind of the tame

environment today, so we need to see a little more moderation on that front it's unclear what it bakes in in terms of regulatory impact so, you know, i don't think it's a slam dunk that they hit this fourth quarter target, but i think what's going to be interesting is the they sort of see adverse development on the competitive side or the regulatory side, how does management react, you know, how do they approach those tradeoffs between growth and profitability. do they want to hit the profitability target and growth suffers as a result? and how does the stock react to that >> ali, your notes talk about a mote for uber. how confident are you they can reach profitability on an adjusted basis by the fourth quarter of this year >> well, pretty confident. again, as tom mentioned, there are already indications. let's put it this way. the rides part of the business is already profitable. the adjusted ebitda margin expanded to 24% in q4.

and they actually cover a lot of overhead costs already within the firm so we think that's positive. what we're waiting for, trying to see is basically whether that network effect that's applicable to the rides business is also going to be b applicable to the eats business. we're seeing signs of that there is some stability in the take rate they have. we're thinking probably near the end of this year we will see actually some stabilization in pricing for uber eats. we think that's going to help them progress more towards profitability. so to answer your question, we are pretty confident these guys can hit their guidance at the end of the year. >> tom, tell me about consequences, though far long time, a lot of cash was subsidizing these pricing actions, these low prices from uber, from lyft, et cetera, from doordash, from, you know -- go on and on. it seems like some of that cash is backing away.

look at what's happened to softbank, et cetera. now investors want to see at least a path to profitability from all these companies does that mean growth is going to slow down and have they talked enough about the impact on the top line over the next couple years >> so far growth seemingly hasn't been all that impacted from either pullback of incentives or couponing or other things that are raising prices for consumers like surcharges being levied on ride sharing by cities like chicago and new york and others so far we haven't seen much impact at some point, you would have to imagine that it starts to erode sort of the number of use cases or the ridership if fares keep going up but uber has been very surgical about how they're passing through price increases, so kind of the least sensitive right fielders are getting price increases and the least sensitive markets are, and other more sensitive markets are maybe

just getting minor price increases so you haven't seen the impact on growth yet >> maybe fewer 30% discounts you would say. >> probably. >> ali and tom, thanks, guys appreciate it. >> a reminder, can't get enough "squawk alley" watch us live anytime on the go on the cnbc app. download it today. imagine traveling hassle-free with your golf clubs. now you can, with shipsticks.com! no more lugging your clubs through the airport or risk having your clubs lost or damaged by the airlines. sending your own clubs ahead with shipsticks.com makes it fast & easy to get to your golf destination. with just a few clicks or a phone call, we'll pick up and deliver your clubs on-time, guaranteed, for as low as $39.99. shipsticks.com saves you time and money. make it simple. make it ship sticks.

shipsticks.com saves you time and money. but she wanted to be close to nature. home. so, we met in the middle. ohhhhh! look who just woke up! you are so cute! but one thing we could both agree on was getting geico to help with homeowners insurance. yeah, it was really easy and we saved a bunch of money. oh, you got it. you are such a smart bear! call geico and see how easy saving on homeowners and condo insurance can be. i'm scott walker here's what's coming up top of

the hour josh brown making a very surprising move today in his portfolio. a stock that's having a great day. we have the details and the debate and the power play inside credit suisse taking another unexpected turn and ricky sand ler will talk about his next move the that stock. and one firm putting a new price target on another stock. we'll explain at noon. we're about 15 away. see you then >> all right, scott. in the meantime, the president's been making some comments on the iowa caucuses, the impeachment number -- the jobs number i should say, also impeachment and china and the coronavirus. take a listen. >> no. working very hard. late last night i had a very good talk with president xi and we talked about mostly about the coronavirus. they're working really hard and i think they're doing a very professional job they're in touch with our world

organization, cdc also we're working together, but world health is working with them, cdc is working with them i had a great conversation last night with president xi. it's a tough situation i think they're doing a very good job [ inaudible question ] i think that china will do a very good job. >> that is the president on his way to the carolinas for an opportunity zone discussion but also talked about whether or not the house should expunge his impeachment on the house side, said that was a very good question we'll monitor and see if he makes additional comments today. >> a week packed with news back to the coronavirus, talk about mobile world congress, you mentioned it a couple hours ago, ericsson pulling out of mobile world congress in barcelona citing coronavirus fears in the next week, a question is, is anybody going to follow e ericsson's lead?

it's the biggest telecom conference in the world every year talk about economic impact s outside of just china, if anybody follows their lead, if there are more impacts from that it could be an impact on the tech industry. we'll see. >> something you cover for us every year we'll continue to watch in the coming weeks >> certainly watch it. >> it's jobs friday, which means it's time for a special "the santelli exchange. let's go to rick >> former chairman of the council of economic advisers under george w. bush, ed lazear. thanks for joining me on jobs friday 225,000 jobs month over month, wages up 0.2%, workweek, 33.3, 6 1/2-year high on labor force participation, and epop popped to a 12-year high.

it's all yours, ed divine what it means for our viewers. >> let me start with the employment to population ratio number because that's the one that reveals pretty much everything we always talk about what's happening to labor force participation, workers coming back in, but the easiest way to see it is look at the number of people working compared to the population that number is at 61.2 to be honest, i'm surprised. the number that we thought would be the peak, when i say we thought, most of the people in labor economics profession, saying because of demographics, we wouldn't get much higher than 61%. we're at 61.2% that's a great number. it tells us two things, one that the older workforce, people 65 and over, are continuing to work at high rates and that's unprecedented. the second thing it says is that the people between 25 and 54

years old, particularly 25 and 34 years old, have rejoined the labor force and are working, getting jobs, and that's great news that's actually the big news i think in the numbers that we see this week, this month. obviously, 225 is big. i always look at the three-month moving average, which is 211,000. that's high and it's not only high, it's higher than the average for the last year. so looks really good >> when i brought up that exact point, actually two points, and i don't pat myself on the back because i'm wrong as much as anybody in this business, there's no crystal ball, but the unemployment rate, bringing people back in has been my mantra for the last several years. i think there is a pool out there that isn't claimed only by demographic facts behind it that can come in, and i think that will continue. i think other issue is even better there's this notion,

conventional wisdom in all of economics, that jobs have peaked and i think they'll surge back a bit. they might not average what they did several years ago but they can bump up as you just described. >> that's an important point when you say jobs have peaked, the question is what would we expect to see in terms of job growth if we were at the peak. and that's an easy number to calculate. all we do, if we're at the peak, only one way to create new jobs and that's basically new people coming into the population, so just look at how many new people in the working age population, multiply that by the proportion that's supposed to be working, and if you do that, you get a number like 65,000 to 75,000 think about where we are relative to that 65,000 to 75,000 number. that tells us that we're still very strong in terms of bringing people back into the labor force even this late in the recovery >> i think that's a very important feature. now, let's step back a minute.

we obviously see what's going on with issues beyond any economy or central bankers controlling the former coronavirus we're coming back a trade infraction, signed a phase one but hardly had time before china had to before china had to del with the virus as you look at the global dynamics, ed, are we going to end up suffering or are we going to see the economy find a point to consolidate in the quarters ahead, especially with all the political uncertainty we face in november >> well, too m me, it looks more like school days ago if i look at the numbers -- i don't like fancy models. my model is essentially to see what the market is doing and use that as my single predictor of what the growth rate is going to be that's telling us we are slightly north of 2%, which is solid, obviously not spectacular, but begun, given where we are in the recovery, that's fine that looks to me like consolidation

the kind of things that we are talking about, the exxongenous events, coronavirus, trade is not exactly exon nows but those factors have effects on the economy, but fortunately, because our economy is so resilient and so robust those effects tend to be relatively minimal. even major events like hurricanes, major disasters, when you look at the gdp numbers you can almost not see them. they are just a bare blip in the numbers. so that's a function of our economy being very well diversified, very well resilient. and i think that's going to continue for the next few years. >> ed, i am going to put you in the hot seat i don't like politics. i like markets but sometimes they intersect. >> okay. >> simply, when you listen to the state of the union knowing all presidents exaggerate a bit. >> sure. >> for the most part were all the economic extremes he took throughout there, taking administration credit for, for the most part were they accurate

or highly exaggerated? your final thought. >> i would say for the most part they were accurate he is basing it primarily on the labor market and that's -- that's really important. what we see are very low unemployment rates across the board. wage growth across the board the point he raised about wage growth at the bottom exceeding wage growth at the top is new, and it is important. and that -- i think that's accurate you know, we could use to see a little bit higher gdp growth i would like to see investment take off again but, you know, i think for the most part he characterized it as a strong economy it may not be the strongest ever, but it certainly is a strong economy and i think he can take credit for it. >> thank you ed, i appreciate your opinions. you have always been a straight shooter for me "squawk alley" gang, it is all yours. >> thausk rick. >> zen desk meanwhile marginally higher fractionally after

earnings shares gained on a strong report but guide that has some investors asking questions. joining us, zen desk's ceo i want to ask you about this guide, particularly when it comes to profitability you are going to be investing in growth it is not just you, across the cloud sector, we see amazon, microsoft, google talking about beefing up their sales forces. now players like you guys. what is happening in the cloud ecosystem that has -- growth is still strong, but there is this move over the next year to invest even more why? >> so, we just came out of 2019 with great results we grew 36% year over year we guided towards over a billion in 2020, still growing, you know, 30%-like

i think the market, our investors, everybody wants to see us continue to grow and continue to see how far we can take this, and how much we can change the world of enterprise software and we are doing that. i think they -- the market, they favor strong growth rather than, you know, aggressive margin improvements right now we still have margin improvements we are very diligent about it but we definitely see growth trumping large margin improvements right now. >> it is interesting to contrast that we just had earnings from uber investors are excited about the exact opposite they are talking about margins more but of course you are in the software and cloud business, which is different now, you said on the call that your customers right now value flexibility and speedy normo-- d enormously that's why you are excited about

the aws sunshine is aws going to become a larger share of your business >> let me say, we are still in the early days, still this the beginning of a whole new generation of platforms and applications out there that provide a lot more agility, a lot more flexibility to businesses the children of the revolution today they are not going to be satisfied with traditional kind of enterprise i.t. and how it works as a boat anchor to their businesses and zen desk is super well-positioned to take advantage of that. our partnership with aws, where we make our platform natively available on the aws platform is incredibly interesting for a lot of our customers that are already replatforming to the cloud and to aws so we are very excited about being right there in the middle this massive change in the

industry >> you can see on the screen the stock's strong move since the end of november. we have got the leave it there for now. the ceo of zen desk, after earnings, thank you. >> thank you stocks have been in a pretty muted range here, down about 195 right now. s&p hanging inrod aunthe 3336 level. "squawk alley" is back in three minutes. but now quickbooks helps me get paid, manage cash flow, and run payroll. and now i'm back on top... with koala kai. (vo) save over 40 hours a month with intuit quickbooks. their medicare options...ere people go to learn about before they're on medicare. come on in. you're turning 65 soon? yep. and you're retiring at 67? that's the plan! well, you've come to the right place. it's also a great time to learn about an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company. here's why... medicare part b doesn't pay for everything.

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it has been a heck of a week for the markets. today's breather notwithstanding. four solid days of gains we returned to record highs. good information out of the isms, adp. the president was acquitted which some say was market positive jobs numbers above expectations almost a gold o'locks kind of number, dow still on pace for its best day for eight months. the dow was on pace for its best 1,000 point week since june. in earnings season, they private more tech and retail quarters that ended january >> a little bit of the rally of the unloved today. we talked about uber of course that's lifting lyft. at the same time go pro is a bit

higher granted they have had a lot of trouble for other reasons. it might be a little bit of a sick feline bounce we will see. >> we are having all this conversation even as the coronavirus concerns continue. something we continue to watch. >> all that. have a good weekend, guys. let's get to the judgment and the half. carl thanks i am scott wapner front and center this hour a josh brown double down the stock he just made a big bet on is straight ahead it is 12:00 noon, and this is the "halftime report." >> announcer: a wild week for the markets. your next money move is straight ahe ahe ahead. this social stock soaring double digits right now and one top investor making a big bet on it we will unveil the name. bust buy up more than 50% in the past year and just got a new street high price target it is our call of the day. lyft, cisco, nvidia, and more