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tv   Squawk Alley  CNBC  April 8, 2020 11:00am-12:00pm EDT

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apart in the field and they're wearing face coverings, difficult to do in the dormitories which are mandated for foreign workers, and if a farm worker gets sick that can wipe out your labor force. back to you. >> so many dynamics in that one story whether it's immigration or food supply in this country thank you, our jane wells. welcome to "squawk alley." a lot of cross currents once again today even though the markets trying to hold onto some gains and extend what's been a my ra miraculous rally in some ways this week. and we're looking to see what the congress will do with additional sba fed loans and then we'll get a sense what was going on in the key meeting last month. >> we've seen so many days of dramatic market moves in the index indexes, hundreds of points.
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we're not seeing that, but i'm looking at tech stocks we are seeing still dramatic moves, pintrest up about 10% shop fie up about five the market faded gains yesterday in the 10:00 hour bounced back by 11:00 and close we were about flat you never know which way that is going to go, right, morgan >> that's true, jon. we have averages up about 20% off the march 23rd lows. one of the questions being debated on wall street right now is are equities ahead of reality? the focus has been for investors for the market the curve of the virus. we are seeing some of the hopeful signs that's maybe flattening in the hot spots like new york, new jersey, some of the other areas that have been epicenters here in the u.s at some point in the coming days, hopefully based on the
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models we'll get past that projected peak and i think the question shifts to what does the medium and long term impact of covid-19 look like on the economy and also what that's going to mean in terms of a rewriting on earnings, which were flat last year we don't have a tough comparable the way we did in 2018 post tax reform, and what does that mean for the market we are seeing some of the play books, discussions take root and manife manifest about what it's going to take, what it's going to look like, probably gradual, regional to get the u.s. economy back online. >> or the global economy, to that point. >> for sure. >> the world trade organization is out with its trade statistics and outlook report they forecast the global trade could fall by as much as 32% due to the pandemic. joining us to discuss that is roberto asevato, director
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general, thank you for being with us. >> my pleasure >> when we look at world merchandise trade down 13 to 32. what do we think this range could be over the next couple of months >> we would characterize that as two scenarios, rather than a range. because the number of uncertainties are so great there are so many unknown factors here that it's difficult to actually call these projections. but we are seeing, in a positive scenario, a fall in trade of around 13%, which is about the same order of magnitude that we saw in 2008, 2009. so that's huge the pessimistic scenario would see a decline in trade of around 32%. that's pretty much what we saw during the great depression of the 1930s, over three years.
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we're seeing that in one year. but that's just part of the picture. i think what is important to note is that we can recover much more quickly than we did in 2008 or in the 1930s. >> we're going to get to things like medical supplies and food supply, but you mention that you see -- you expect a steeper drop in sectors where the value chains are complex, electronics, automotive products. can you explain to viewers why >> because these are much more integrated chains of supply globally so we're talking about sectors like automotive sector and electronics where components come from several parts of the world. for example, an iphone made in asia, it adds -- it experiences an addition of about 24% in value only
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the rest is parts and components coming from different parts of the world. so the more integrated globally a sector is, the more it's going to be affected by the disruption of the supply chains >> director general,an even before we saw this pandemic take hold and rock the world, we were seeing, quite literally, the rules around trade being rewritten, supply chains rewritten, changed, tariffs. the trade war between the united states and china how does that factor into your methodology and how you're arriving at the projections today, what does that mean now in terms of post covid rewriting going forward? >> that's the point. that's precisely what is happening. i think this trajectory, the
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sharp decline that we are projecting, it's partly due to the fact that we were not doing great to begin with. so when we were in the last quarter of next year, trade was already decelerating quite significantly. and, therefore, we are adding a crisis on top of another one and this is one of the reasons why we have to be particularly careful in planning for the rebound. we could come back to pre-pandemic level of growth and level of economic activity rather quickly we could come to that in one or two years. but that would depend significantly on the kind of measures we put in place and one of them, i think, would be trying to avoid the kind of things that were bringing trade down, like the trade tensions, increasiing import duties across the board in big markets
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those things helped to set the stage for the decline we're seeing now. >> director general, are the risks particularly high for emerging markets i'm thinking about particularly countries that are reliant on trade more than usual for their economies. you talked about integrated supply chains and industries that need those as being an area of risk, but it seems there are countries in similar positions >> several and the problem with the emerging economies, is that they not only face the supply and demand shock that we see globally, but they also are very vulnerable in different ways to begin with, their health system is not that great they are not fully prepared mostly so the duration of the pandemic can be pretty significant if they don't take the right measures the second point is their social security safety nets are not
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that great either. they're very vulnerable. so the impact of an economic slow down can be pretty disruptive from a social perspective. having said that, those that export natural resources, they could experience a stronger rebound more quickly especially if commodity prices pick up once the demand is restored after the pandemic is controlled in the major markets. >> medical supplies and pharma we've already seen so many flare-ups, tensions erupt over chloroquine, face masks, respirators, you name it how important is it going to be in the future as governments try to make sure it's manufactured in their countries and then not traded to other countries? >> i think the attempt of being self-sufficient is a dangerous
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one. first because no one is going to be self-sufficient it doesn't matter how powerful, how advanced technologically you are. those supplies will come from different sources. if you try to bring it to your own national territory, you'll be misallocating resources and increasing costs that may make sense in the short term, but medium and long term, that's a losing proposition. those products, they are heavily traded right now only the products that are very much final products that are related to the pandemic they account to about 300 billion in imports globally you cannot disrupt that supply chain. what is more wise would be two things first, diversify supply that
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you're not relying on one single source of supply from one country, one region or one area of your own country. and the second one is have more international coordination so when we have something like what we see today, there is a coordinating effort to get the supplies where they need to be at that point in time. and then move them around and make sure that you ramp up and prepare the health systems as we go along in a coordinated fashion. but just self-sufficiency is not the right answer here. >> certainly i think we all hope that we do see some sort of coordinated longer term plan that is put in place it's shedding light on china, and the fact that the key supply chain within in the health care sector does lie in that one country. just to shift gears a little bit, the other big global economic trade story playing out
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right now is crude oil, you have opec plus scheduled to meet tomorrow to talk about production cuts in coordinated fashion, question marks about what this is going to look like in terms of u.s. involvement as well from a w.t.o. standpoint, is crude oil something that should potentially be taken up in a more active way? does it make sense to have something like a cartel in place when we are talking about trade flows and trying to promote more economic activity in a more positive way on a global basis >> well, this is a sector that has never been truly liberalized. we have a supply side arrangements, the demand tends to be pretty stable. so it's heavily dependent on these supply-side arrangements in the w.t.o. we take a look at this in a more holistic fashion. in other words, do these actions
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affect trade flows and they somehow change the level playing field or affect a level playing field. at this point in time, these conversations are extremely important because they affect the economy from a horizontal perspective. it's not a sector. the whole gdp, the whole economy is affected. this is not only about trade this is horizontal impact that those measures and arrangements may have on the global economy >> roberto thanks for that fascinating report everybody should take a look at it we'll see you soon roberto acevedo is the director general of the world trade organization. joining us is dell's technology founder and ceo, michael, dell an organization with tens of thousands of
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employees around the world michael dell, you have been running this company as ceo or chairman, mostly as ceo since 1984 thank you so much for being with us you've also committed, i should note, $100 million from the michael and susan dell foundation related to covid-19 how does this compare with other challenges that you've seen over the past 35 plus years >> well, jon, i don't think we've quite seen anything like this it certainly -- and the full impact of this is uncertain. i think it leaves us all feeling unsettled. it's got far-reaching impacts really for almost every person, family, community. it's left us, you know, physically isolated with our nuclear families, but i think
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it's emotionally united us i'm sure we'll talk about the digital transformation, which has been astonishing and rapid but i think we may be experiencing a human transformation with more empathy, generosity, gratefulness, kindness, selflessness and humility. all our companies are becoming more human, we have dogs and children popping up on conference calls we're more remote but more connected than ever before i think now every day is teacher appreciation day we're relating in more meaningful ways as we experience the heart wrenching challenges we see around the world. it's unprecedented in terms of economic and human terms i think really three things that, you know, we need to focus on in a crisis like this, the
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first is, of course, ensuring our teams feel safe and protected. and that they have the resources they need to be productive i'm inspired by the way our team has operated through this. we started, actually, work from home about a decade ago and we have well more than 90% of our 167,000 team members around the world working from home. >> i bet this has made you glad that you started that a while ago. and maybe also changed your practices a bit. how is the old mindset around working from home held up? what have you looked to change >> well, it's been pretty seamless i'll tell you, one of the big challenges that young families have had is, how do you juggle all the responsibilities of home schooling, making food for your kids, entertaining them, while also doing your day job. and, you know, that's been a fairly big challenge
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i think the other -- kind of the second thing that i focus on in a crisis is your customers and they're going to remember how you treated them and helped them during a crisis forever and we've helped, you know, large numbers of customers around the world, public and private sector, in keeping society moving, i think there are some incredible stories to be told there as well. >> what kind of help are you talking about? >> say again >> what kind of help are you able to give are you talking about equipment, lines of credit? >> well, all the above, jon. i think in the public sector, for example, you know, work-from-home was really very uncommon and so for the first time we've seen states moving tens of thousands of people into work from home. they need a lot of help to be able to do that. you know, there's additional
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capacity that's needed with their vpns and virtual desktop interface capacity and certainly, the essential support and services to keep all their systems running. i think the thing we've heard consistently from customers is that technology has never been more important than it is now. and finally, kind of the third thing is you got to move quickly to make sure your business is financially strong and that you're focussed on the future and making the investments to come out of this stronger. so those are some thoughts >> given that, and what we've seen so far and we're not through this yet by any stretch, i wonder if you have a perspective on what a return to normal demand looks like based on what you're hearing from your customers about their cash flow and availability of resources. based on what you're hearing in
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conversations with other ceos, maybe business round table is this a v-shaped thing possibly still is it more of a u-shape? >> i think it probably varies by sector what i would tell you is i think the digital transformation, the fourth industrial revolution, things like software defining networks, nfv, virtualization for 5g, cloud, i think all those investments get accelerated. i think work from home persists. and, you know, how this rolls out in terms of the future periods, it's -- i don't think anyone is able to predict that and i certainly won't try. >> but it sounds like, in a way, you're saying that office space may be a little less important but investment in software and services more important? if people are going to shift to
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more of a work from home scenario, that means equipment, technology, it might mean thinking differently about physical space >> sure. if you think about this, jon, you have 700 million plus computers in the commercial sector i'm not even including all the kids in schools and, you know, public sector. and, roughly, 25% of those were remote workers, either that worked at home or that travelled. and so, you got, you know, a large number of workers and computer systems that were either, you know, kind of permanently in an office, not in their home, or they had some remote capability. and so, as companies work to build out what i think is going to be a more persistent work
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from home feature of their work place, you know, that's going to be a significant change for sure and, yeah, they'll be some shifts, i think, within real estate and that sort of thing as well >> right before this crisis hit, we were in the thick of a trade war with china you and i have talked about china before and trade and the impacts on the global economy. what do you think is the one to two year impact of the china u.s. supply chain relationship between different companies, the flow of that given this. does it show that's more important? does it improve? or does the relationship deteriorate perhaps because people are looking to diversify? >> let me say about our supply chain first. good news, it's working quite
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well we're able to, you know, function and largely around the world we've been designated essential because we are providing the equipment for the health care sector for all the national, you know, health services. for the first responders, for things like the sba loan program, and all the systems that are critical to keeping the economy going. you know, we've been on a path with, you know, creating resilience in our supply chain for a long time, and i think that will just accelerate and supply chains will be reoptim e reoptimized for further resilience. >> that means geographically, too, i take it >> sure. absolutely >> so let's also talk about
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investment you have msd capital, you've had quite a good amount of money to invest airbnb has taken on a billion dollars in debt, i imagine fore stalling its i.p.o. what are you doing as an investor what are you advising your invested companies to do given the need for cash that so many businesses, especially smaller businesses, have right now >> so look, i think, you know, we're humbled that, you know, the role we get to play asdell technologies and helping our customers and keeping the economy running and functioning. that's really what i'm focussed on on a day-to-day basis again, i'm optimistic that technology will play an incredible role in the recovery and ultimately growth phase of
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this and that's where, you know, i'm focussing my attention >> i guess i'm wondering advice to entrepreneurs trying to figure out how to balance keeping their organizations running, viable, keeping them alive, and also the other commitments that they have is there either something that you're seeing from customers or advice that you have this used to be a small company you're running now that's now quite large, what to do in a time like this >> you know, for smaller entrepreneur yal businesses you have to stay focussed on liquidity, stay focussed on your customers and figure out how do you use this as an opportunity i think that just playing defense is not the answer. we have to be thinking about how do we invest for the future and prepare for the recovery and
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growth phase, and look, i think there will be shifts you know, we're definitely believing that, you know -- from the feedback and conversations i've had with hundreds of customers, the largest companies in the world and the mid-size companies as well, that the role of technology not only during the crisis but post the crisis is just essential for how they're able to operate their businesses and they'll likely pivot more of their investment to technology. >> and what happens, do you think, to the practice of offering credit to businesses in order to purchase that technology it's quite common in large enterprise tech companies right now to do that but i imagine there are questions about ability to pay back is this a time where cash rich
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companies you think will extend more of that credit or a time they'll have to be more careful about extending it >> well, we're certainly extending credit to customers. and we've got, you know, healthy position in terms of our -- we feelcomfortable about our liquidity. dell financial services has been extending and allowing customers to defer payments as necessary and, you know, we'll work with our customers to be flexible i think there will be shifts to more consumption and as a service, and we're prepared to help our customers through that. >> and then finally, just a broad perspective. i'm hoping you can give, the bill is going to come due on this for so many governments trying to support their economies and companies through this deficit spending has been happening for completely justifiable, understandable reasons. do you expect corporate taxes to
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either go up or for that conversation to open back up after this is done and how do you think business leaders should address that? >> i think there will be a raging debate, jon, about how to pay for all this and who got bailed out and who didn't and that sort of thing. get out your popcorn, it'll be interesting to watch we're not policy makers. and certainly, you know, whether it's through our foundation or our company we're going to do our part to help the world recovery and to help the world recover and keep running during this period. >> that is happening whether you're talking about education, people on video conferences getting workdone as we are right on here. michael dell, founder and ceo of dell technologies.
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thank you so much for being with us. >> thank you, jon, good to be with you >> carl? >> jon, senator bernie sanders ending his presidential campaign for more on this -- >> that's right. bernie sanders telling staff in a conference call a short time ago that he is dropping out of the race that clears the way for joe biden to be the democratic nominee to take on president donald trump this fall we'll wait to hear what remarks bernie sanders has to make publically but his path to the presidential domination had become narrower and narrower as the weeks went on you saw this consolidation of democratic support around joe biden, making it very difficult for sanders to justify continuing his compaampaign. he had said in his recent days that aids and advisers said they made the case for him to stay in for the policies he prefers. but you saw moves for joe biden
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making moves, including reaching out to bernie sanders earlier in the week, getting his thoughts on who biden should pick as a presidential running mate. you know when one candidate does it to the other candidate the race is all but over this avoids the problems that democrats had in 2016 with sanders staying in far too long and not giving the nominee time to consolidate support among the base this gives biden a couple months to work on what was a grueling and bitterly divided presidential fight >> in the midst of social distancing, too. thank you for bringing us that breaking news. want to note stocks are at session highs right now, dow and s&p up about 2%. dow trading at 23108 if we hold nto the gains and
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closes about 23k today, it's the first time we've seen that since march 13th, just about a month let's get the latest on the coronavirus outbreak for that we go to sue herera, who is back at hq for us >> thank you very much good morning, everybody. british prime minister boris johnson is responding to treatment for covid-19 and remains, quote, clinically stable according to a government spokesperson, johnson is still in good spirits and he is being treated in a london hospital's icu. democratic leaders chuck schumer and nancy pelosi are pushing for additional relief funds. the lawmakers want an interim bill worth at least $500 million which would be separate from any c.a.r.e.s. act expansion the coronavirus pandemic appears to be hitting people of color harder new data shows a higher covid-19 infection and fatality rate among hispanic and african-american populations
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new york city's mayor commented on the disparity saying there are quote clear inequalities how this virus impacts people. and delta airline, starting monday the carrier will reduce the number of passengers aboard by blocking off the middle seat. that will halt automatic advance upgrade programs as well for more coronavirus coverage you can go to cnbc.com carl, at least nobody gets the middle seat. if there's a silver lining, that might be it. >> we were talking about it a month ago as a concept, sue. and it's come to fruition. sue herera, thank you. getting breaking news on wells. let's get to steve leishman. >> the federal reserve announcing it will narrowly and temporarily suspend the cap on the balance sheet side of wells fargo that was imposed as a result of compliance problems in
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years past the fed saying it's lifting the cap to allow wells fargo to participate in several small business lending programs that have been put together and announced as part of the rescue package for the economy. specifically, lending by wells under the paycheck protection program and the forthcoming main street lending facility from the fed will not count against wells fargo's balance sheet cap. they had complained publically that this balance sheet cap at $1.95 trillion for wells made it difficult for it to participate as much as it wanted in these programs now, in an interesting twist, the fed saying, any profits that wells makes from either ppe or main street lending must be given to the treasury or to an approved nonprofit approved by the federal reserve. the cap will be reimposed after
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these programs end i'm told the federal reserve board voted nunanimously for ths measure today but the vice chairman recused himself because of family conflicts that caused him to recuse himself from other wells fargo matters in the past. >> thank you for bringing us that welcome news especially given the fact there are so many small businesses out there trying to get those applications in with so many different lenders. we'll take a quick commercial break right now. the s&p is up 2%, 2,711 is the level there. stay with us ♪
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that's simple, easy, awesome. go to xfinitymobile.com today. welcome back stocks trading near their session highs right now. with the dow up 532 points joining us on the cnbc news line is tony conaris. thanks for being with us today, tony we kicked off this hour talking about this debate that seems to be emerging in the markets right now about whether equities are getting ahead of reality whether we could potentially see a retest of the march lows as some of the data, earnings come in coming weeks. what is your assessment of the levels we're trading at right now? >> thanks for having me. look, in the first quarter, particularly in the second half, there was no shortage of opportunity in the market for value industrial like us at oak
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mart just because we're long-term value investors doesn't mean we can't be nimble and go with opportunities, there was opportunities in the second half i think there were opportunities where the baby was thrown out with the bath water and it's a great chance for us to improve the portfolios of our client we were active in the first quarter. i can discuss what we were doing we just put out our report >> yeah. >> in the oakmark select fund we added four new names in the quarter. that's unusual but we had an unusual environment. >> absolutely. i'm curious what the babies that were thrown out with the bath water are from your perspective. where have you been finding value? i realize the selloff has been
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br broad in the last couple weeks but some has been names where revenue dropped to nearly zero and where there's an uncertainty about returning back to service and business. >> the names we bought were a mixture of things that were down for no good reasons and others that were down for good reason and addressing your point where revenue dropped dramatically, one we named was bookings holdings, the largest online travel agency. they'll go from making $100 a share, a $1,400 stock to potentially losing money this year but they have a terrific balance sheet, a great management team and we think they have a long runway to make it to the other side with value intact i wouldn't be surprised to see earnings of $120 a share on a cash basis in a couple of years. that puts the stock at 11 times that number. which is far too cheap for a company of this quality.
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>> some of the names that have also done amazingly well this week are names that have futures that seem endangered, nordstroms, kohl's, i wonder your take on those and conversely, the stay at home names that have been rallying for a month now. how much danger on the down side if, in fact, we get a return to semi-normal life, how much is embedded in those multiples? >> here's a stay-at-home name we ended up buying in the first quarter. constellation brands beer company, key brands corona modello, they have the global pandemic with the key name as one of their brands p. but looking at the recent results, they seem to be holding up well. we think we're buying this
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looking at a couple years at around 10 times normalized earning. they're still growing their beer volumes, 8 to 10 times the rate of the beer industry at large. it's a terrific franchise, wile again it's a more stable demand structure we think the market got ahead of itself selling it off because of covid >> i realize they haven't been trading exactly lock step but when you look at the moves that have taken place, the correlation between equities and crude oil, we saw it yesterday, that reversal, the 3.6 reverse sal and the s&p moved lower as crude prices moved lower today we're seeing energy the best performing sector in the s&p again as prices in the crude market are higher. is there value to be had in that sector or is it too volatile to uncertain to beaten down given everything we're seeing play out with this
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price war on a global basis? >> well, we do own energy. we do think it's investable. we did use the first quarter as an opportunity to upgrade our energy portfolio, as well as take a tax loss for clients. so we added eog resources, which is a diversified u.s. producer with best in class management and best in class balance sheet. when you have markets like we had in a sector as beat up as energy, even companies as good as eog, which are not cheap often, are cheap and cheap enough for a value investor like oakmark that has high standards for management and quality of business and underevaluation. and eog fit the bill in the first quarter so we were add kpooit - excited to add it to the portfolio. >> thank you for joining us and sharing your insights. >> thanks, morgan. dow up 604, close to session
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highs here that's a gain of better than 2.5% as we are watching this rally try to extend into the third day of the week. tomorrow, do not miss an interview with bill gates, 6:00 a.m. eastern time on squawk. gates has had so many interesting things to say about his efforts to build capacity for a vaccine, even in advance of the discovery of one. that's tomorrow. be back in a minute. 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. and sometimes, you can find yourself heading in a new direction. but when you're with fidelity,
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if you tried to order groceries for delivery you know it's not smooth. instacart adding new tools for the backlog. >> instacart said orders spiked 300% last week, it's been difficult to get delivery time from leading services, instac t instacart, walmart, amazon and
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peapod, they increased before president trump declared a national emergency and it's expected to be higher with new data released this week. instacart will have customers place an order and have them filled by the first available shopper. customers are given an estimated delivery range, the company says normally within two days and are notified when the delivery happens. they allow customers order up to two weeks in advance, no restrictions on size since the outbreak, delivery sites show having no availability in the times posted but companies are sharing a few tips to beat that backlog. choose replacements, it has flexibility and speeds up the time of your order if your first choices are not available. second check delivery availability before you order and double check in the morning. companies say things do open up but you have to be on top of it,
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kind of an early bird get s the worm situation use chats, the call volume is very high and the most updated information is on their site morgan, back over to you i'm hopeful about these changes with instacart we'll see frank holland. sticking with the delivery theme as we head to break. look at shares of the amazon, ups and fed ex ups jumping because amazon is halting amazon shipping, its pilot delivery service to compete with ups and fed ex. it needs the people on the capacity to handle the surge in its own customers' orders right now. analysts saying itou be clda good opportunity for ups and fed ex but we'll see if this is temporary. stay with us heading in a new di. but when you're with fidelity, a partner who makes sure every step is clear,
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stocks shooting for one-month highs here as the dow is above 23k trying to close there for the first time in a month. sanders out of the race. being let by boeing, raytheon, and more we have more don't go anywhere. (vo) quickbooks salutes those who work for themselves.
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i want to assure all small businesses out there, we will not run out of money the president has asked us to go back to congress we hope they pass this tomorrow and friday and we want to assure everybody, if you don't get a loan this week, you'll get a loan next week or the following week the money will be there. >> that is the treasury secretary, talking to us just a few hours ago about these loans for small business joining us today is dave dodson, a professor of management at stanford university. he's also an investor and an adviser to more than 30 small businesses professor. thanks for your time today good to see you. >> happy to be here. >> a lot of criticism skpand soe praise for this program. we've got to put into perspective how quickly it was thrown together. can you give it a grade so far, given the wrinkles that we're still trying to iron out >> easy, i would give it a c-minus or maybe a d must ha-pl. look, i realize that everyone in washington, d.c. and wall street are congratulating themselves on
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this program, and yes, they had a limited time to do it. but i the tell you that the people on main street are worried and fighting for their survival and if these loans don't get through and don't get done correctly, we're looking at an entire generation of small business people who will be wiped out of their entire life's work look, this program was dead on arrival, i'm sorry we have small business represents 59% of the jobs, the nonprofit is 10% of the jobs that's 60% of the jobs out there. they got 17% of the money and washington, d.c. is shocked that we're out of money of course we're out of money we were out of money before the program even started who got the rest of the money? large businesses that already have access to capital so that's the first problem that we had the second problem that we have is that banks are saying all the right things in front of the camera, but the fact is that they don't want to make these loans. and the reason they don't want to make these loans is it's 1%, and the treasury department and the sba keep changing the underwriting rules, so they're
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facing a situation where they make a loan to somebody and if they don't do it exactly right, and by the way, these rules are changing all the time, they're stuck with the loan. so what the banks are doing is they're saying, if you don't have a credit card account with me, sorry, we can't make the loan if you have 51 employees, sorry, can't make the loan. and by the way, we're only going to do it to our existing customers. and as we look at all the people who want loans, we'll give it to the people who need it the least, because those are the least risky. but the banks are doing it exactly the way the program was designed >> and then you've got situations where you fill out an application, the guidelines change overnight, you wake up in the morning and you've got to do the application all over again i'm curious, i mean, what remedies can we do at this late stage and do you have any intelligence as to how much money is actually being cut in the form of a check from the bank to the business that's one metric that we at cnbc have had trouble nailing down >> i can tell you of 33 companies that i'm directly involved in, one of them has
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their sba number and their sba number, i was reading an email from the banker just this morning. and he said, well, we have the sba number, i'm not quite sure what that means. i don't know if we'll be getting you anything more. we'll be getting you your documentation as soon as we can. that's all i can tell you. that's what's really happening on main street, even though washington, d.c. thinks everything is going swimmingly they need to get out of the marbled offices and see what's happening out there with real business the second problem with this program is that they said, look, here's the deal. you can borrow money, but you have to spend it in a certain way. and you have to spend it basically on two things. one, payroll now, that might seem on the surface to make a lot of sense, but here's the catch put your mind in the person who owns the lumberyard, for example. and he has no work for his employees. the federal government says if you keep those employees, we'll forgive the loan that sounds good, except that what happens after eight weeks if he still doesn't need those people and can't bring them back
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again, he's stuck with the loan at exactly the time when he cannot shoulder that much debt this might be a company that he and his family worked on for a generation the second thing is the federal government has said, oh, by the way, if you have anything extra left over, pay it to the real estate company now, what -- why would you do that why would you pay the real estate industry and make that industry special what about the person who is the landscaper who needs to be paid? what about the person who is the mechanic who is working on the truck that needs to be paid. if you pay the mechanic, you have to pay the bank back. if you pay the real estate person, it's free. >> yeah, there's so many pieces of this that maybe weren't thought out, because it was so quickly put together and put together by people who maybe haven't owned their own businesses in many cases but dave, just to dig into this a little bit more, the fact that you do advise, you do invest in more than 30 wize businesses
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certainly some banks, i'm seeing it with my family members who are getting the runaround from banks like jpmorgan chase, where they can't even get to the point of putting the application in, we're certainly seeing some challenges are there certain lender or certain banks among those companies that you do work with, where it seems to be going much more smoothly than others? >> well, no doubt about it that the community banks are stepping up but the community banks, everything that they're doing, they cannot support what represents 60% of the jobs out there. so, yes, the community banks are doing a wonderful job. there's a company that i'm involved in that has about 125 employees. so they'ir existing large lende said, sorry, you have more than 50 employees, we can't help you. so you know what they did, the next thing they did, they had to lay off 22% of their workforce, they had to drop the employees they had and drop their workweek from 30 weeks to 40 weeks. now scrambling around trying to find a community bank and the
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community banks are saying, i have all of teahese application from my customers, i'm going to take care of my own customers first. >> so many unintended consequences that appear to be coming from the program as set up do you think that the program, as set up, is fixable, or is it that we have to layer more programs on top of what's already been put out there, perhaps better thought out, to fix some of these problems in order to get to where we need to be for small business? >> it is absolutely fixable. and it's essential that it gets fixed, because we are talking about, as i said, an entire generation of business owners who put their heart and soul into their company and they are facing a situation where they have zero revenue and they will not survive if we do not fix the program. the easiest way to fix the program is talk to people who are receiving the loans, talk to the loan officers who are making the loans. get out of the marbled offices of washington, d.c., and find out what's really happening on main street. that's what we need to do. it's -- the ceo of city corp.
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may be an incredibly smart businessperson and an incredibly smart banker, but he doesn't know what's going on with the lumberyard in seattle. those are the people that you need to talk to. >> dave, two things that are going to get a lot of attention today. one is the prospect of the senate adding another quarter trillion dollars by unanimous consent tomorrow we'll see what happens the other, as we reported a few moments ago, wells getting its cap temporarily lifted freeing up some capacity there to what degree are those positives in the overall scheme of things? >> they're absolutely positive when i saw the cap on wells fargo, it's mind boggling. the largest lender of small businesses was capped at about 3% of the total program. that was insane. so i would applaud the treasury secretary for making sure that that got fixed right away. but the problem is that wells fargo doesn't want to make these loans. and to the extent they're going to make the loans, they're going to make the loans to their
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customers or the people that are the least risky. and here's the irony of it the companies that are the least risky are the ones that don't need it. the ones that can pay it back are the ones that don't need the loans. you need to be making these loans to the riskiest loans, the people who are fighting for their life, who have 25 or 250 employees that are risking losing their jobs. you've got to create an incentive where the loans go to the riskiest people, not the least risky people >> finally, are you advising your businesses that you do advise to pay rent in april and maybe may? >> well, here's the crazy thing about the program, is that prior this program rolling out, almost all of our companies had negotiated deals with their landlords to defer rent. one company who is trying to get a loan right now told me the other day, they said, i don't know what to do, because i already worked on a deal with my landlord, which, by the way, is one of the largest real estate companies in the united states to defer my rent but if i take the loan and pay the landlord, it's free. so i think i'm actually going to
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take the money and pay the landlord, who i already got the deferral on instead of paying my other vendors who are fighting for their life >> dave, remarkable mix of issues that business owners are having to deal with. thank you for your time and please come back dave dodson is a professor of management at stanford let's get to the judge and the half all right, carl, thanks very much our breaking news coverage continues now. i'm scott wapner this is the i'halftime report. stocks holding on to gains this hour as markets continue to digest new information regarding the coronavirus. our investment committee is with me, as always today. jim lebenthal, steve weiss, sarat sethi, jon najarian, and meghan is with us. as we said, some optimism about the virus seems to be, at least one reason why stocks are higher this hour, holding on to a gain is the dow of better

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