parks and beaches closed to avoid a repeat of last weekend >> and tesla on the call, elon musk dropping the f-bomb in a rant against stay-at-home orders it is april 30, 2020 effin "squawk box" begins now. good effin morning i'm becky quick along with joe kernen and andrew ross sorkin. markets rose sharply on the remdesivir news. you watched the markets take off instantly. the fed will continue with the stimulus programs reaching in

every direction. the s&p saw an even bigger gain. the nasdaq up by almost 3.6% the dow futures also up. keeping an eye on the treasury department seeing how the fed news will play out there the fed news is back about 0.6%. sitting at 0.612%. if you watch oil prices, which has been a big indicator of demand around the globe and what is happening, this morning, wti is up about 16%. all the way back up to $17.49. >> wow, all the way back up. 17 unbelievable let's get an update on the pandemic the number of global cases that

we talk about nearing 3.2 million. i don't know how good that enough is for anything we have more than a million in the united states. new york state cases near 300,000. i don't know of the reliability that state prisons near 7% testing positive breaking overnight, california governor plans to order all beaches and state parks to close tomorrow to avoid repeating last weekend's violations hot weather, the police memo leaked to several media outlet's yesterday. andrew >> to put some is of those numbers in context, yesterday we had the most deaths in the united states from covid than we've recorded, 2,700.

we always look at the number of cases. it is hard to know what is real and what's not deaths are harder number to fudge. >> we don't know what the mortality rate is. if we knew there were 10 or 50 times more cases, then that would be a much lower mortality rate it is at -- we are on the other side of the apex for the number of people getting it >> sure. the point i'm making is -- the deaths are for people that could have gotten sick three weeks ago. hopefully we'll start to see that come down as well >> we hope as starts start to reopen, that is another question. >> you can do it per capital or compare it and look much worse >> i wasn't comparing it to anything i was comparing it to death.

the idea that 2,700 families lost someone yesterday that's the only thing i was trying to say. we want to talk about the markets. we have a mark thaet has gone up and up and up. we can't fight the fed bringing in mike santoli for the big story of the morning what an effin call we'll start with tesla that not being there and two years behind schedule. elon musk blasting the pandemic stay-at-home order here is what he had to say

>> caller: the extension of the shelter in place or i would call it forcibly imprisononing people in their homes against all constitutional lines in my opinion and breaking people's freedoms in ways that are h horrible and wrong and not why people came this country off [ bleep ], excuse. it is an outrage this is a time to think about the future and also to ask is it right to infringe on people's rights as what is happening right now? i think the people are going to be very angry about this and are very angry somebody -- if somebody wants to stay in the house, that's great. they should be allowed to and not be compelled to leave. to say they cannot leave their house and they'll be arrested if

they do. this is fascist. this is not democratic this is not freedom. give people back their god damn freedom. >> around 3:30 a.m. eastern, musk tweeted this. we'll show you this on the screen liberty american flags with a unicorn and explitive you can only imagine looking at the numbers what do we know about the next quarter and the quarter out? >> there is a lot we don't know. if you were noft al begin, tesla

relying on strength. not really having much to say and ee- musk saying provocative things the factory in california only closed for a week in the first quarter. suspending guidance on volumes for this year. i think you can scrutinize this performance from both angels the bears focusing on $300 plus billion. cash flow, with err not really sure why the negative cash flow. very strong sales and a net profit on the bottom line. the fact that this stock went from 920 to 370 in a month from the high in february to the low in march and now is back above 800 is remarkable and almost

can't be pinned to what's going on at the company. it is just to show how sentiment has whip sawed so dramatically this is always a spring loaded version. >> do you think this is a tesla story specific or that the rest of the car market will somewhere benefit? are they different in so far that ways that people think about the demand, will people invest in their vehicle that that is where people will spend more time in >> i don't think it is moving on macro realities. first of all, tesla has always been different i don't think the core tesla buyer will think, i need a car, i wonder which can one i should get? i'll get a tesla what you will see is detroit giving cars away the rest of the year this is a test of really

head-to-head competition or if tesla is still a part of the market and if they are a core demand out there for the brand >> i want to get your thoughts on facebook. that stock surging on the hopes that ad markets have seen the worst. saying after a steep drop in march, things have begun to stabilize. striking a more cautious call than musk. he said that he worried opening the economy too soon would almost guarantee a future outbreak what do you say about this >> it shows the difference of the two ceos >> it shows the difference between the two ceos one who can work from home and one who can't. it's clear if you need employees in the

building, you are getting more stressed out if you are somebody who doesn't, you can take a different attitude >> it also says a lot about the business so facebook said things stabilized in april over a flat year on year rate. you had a worsen viernment you can throw at a company like facebook and they get to about flat over the year and they say they are going to tweet the expense side this year and profitability will be concerned. if you think april is as bad as if gets, they can't help but do fine and stock will been down. a lot of folks point out that facebook is really a small business play given the advertiser space that hasn't come into play the user intensity of social media and on line anything has gone up. >> to the extent that you think

of facebook and google as the rest of the economy as so far as the small business and advertising relates to the supply to be in business and what they imagine is the demand piece, maybe we are in a better place. i struggle to understand what these numbers really mean in the larger context >> we are in a better place if you are in the right part of the industry the longer term shift, all it has done is accelerate the shift digital will take from everywhere else. it is so dominant. they'll be fine. it is not necessarily a great indicator of overall ad demand, business spending. we can't make that determination yet. the market is clearly saying even if we got bad, it is not going to stay bad in terms of general business condition

>> thank you, mike >> thanks, mike. i thought we were going to talk microsoft. worlds most valuable company is that for a reason. we have to get to the squawk planner. getting to the closely watched jobless data at 8:30 expecting additional 3.5 million new filings. barclays and bank of america raised their forecast. the total now stands at 26.4 million claims. also getting personal income and spending data for march and the ecb's latest rate decision a big earnings report. mcdonalds and twitter. and no jobs report tomorrow. they can't do it that fast tomorrow is may 1. what do you make of the report we've already seen microsoft, we'll talk about it

later. we haven't said what it was. it is like there was no covid-19 crisis or it drove what microsoft helps people do, that is work on a computer or work virtually. >> yeah, one thing i'll mention about microsoft. in terms of where the pre-market is sitting, microsoft only traded above this level for two weeks. the consensus that this was an indispensable stock before hand. it does point out we are in a relatively brief phase of changed behavior and not something that will go on. not like the stock had gotten super cheap. it gave a little entry point to play what everybody acclaimed as the long-term winged story >> are people really worried about the miss in the market or

the fed. then they would have seen it coming anyway. that would have been the latest excuse now saying, well, yeah, it is the fed. >> that's no different we went through that in the early 2010s saying the same thing. if the fed decided not to let the entire system crash. by doing that, enabled people to kind of get back into the market after they rushed to cash in the historic way after a month of panic, then that's that. >> how many times are you going to be on today >> i don't know. >> we don't need to book anybody else we don't need anybody else which is fine. thank you. becky, what's up still to come, dr. scott gottlieb will weigh in on the

positive drug results from gilead and about california's decision to close beaches and state parks. check out shares of oil giant shell. the board slashing the dividend for the first time since world war ii a 66% reduction. suspended the next stage of the share buyback program saying the level was not proudent given economic instability that stock down about 6% "squawk box" will be rightac bk.

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welcome back, there are reports that the fda may grant consumer use of the gilead drug remdesivir there is evidence that the drug is effective >> remdesivir has a clear cut, significant positive effect in diminishing the time to recovery this is really quite important >> shares of gilead rising on

that positive drug trial news we got here on the air yesterday. joining us now is dr. gottlieb, former fda commissioner, if you were still running the fda, would your decision be to push this through quickly >> this data set meets the legal threshold to allow the drug to be authorized to be used in the setting of a public health emergency right now. the drug showed improvement in time for hospitalization of 15 days to 11 it also showed a trend in lowered death. a lot of these were pretty sick patients in a sitting where nothing else is available, it meets the use of emergency use

>> dr. fauci said a second wave is inevitable but the white house cannot extend the lockdown orders >> it is probably the end of the federal guidance to the states i think the states are going to make individual decisions still. the slope or the curve down isn't steep. we are on a flat part of the curve now. we've seen the decline similar to what happened in italy and spain. it went up quickly and took a long time to take that curve it went up and came down quickly. you look at states like maryland, indiana, tennessee 25 states in all where the number of new cases daily are going up only about six states they've

shown declined ohio and idaho being two of them also seeing this in the northeast. the states will have difficult decisions to make in may you heard elon musk's comment. i think that reflects a growing sentiment where people want there to be over they have tough decisions to face this month. >> what do you think, why are the cases not coming down? are we not following the guidelines close enough? >> that's right to some extent the model and other models were predicated on the curve. the way those models were built, they assume the slope of the curve up was going to be similar to the slope coming down what we've seen in the european countries is that the slope is gradual coming down.

people haven't been following mitigation as strict as they had been able to accomplish in china. we are likely here to have an em-democrat epidemic with a gradual decline. we won't have all those tools in place. the bigger risk is that we reopen we never get rid of it, it continues through the summer and we face the risk in the fall that it starts to reignite in a more proburobust fashion where o and college campuses that is the risk and the concern we face here >> there is a group. this has gotten where people are divided. there are a lot of people in the country that talk about what we

are trying to do i'm not saying either side or taking either side some say this is about bending the curve so we didn't run out of ventilators once you do that, you are not going to prevent some exposure of the entire country. you can't be in a lockdown until there is a vaccine there is going to be some spread that ends up with some type of herd immunity or makes it not as horrific when there is a wave. we need to make sure they get

the care they need but you are never goodiing to gt to zero with people locked up in their houses while people wait for a vaccine? >> right we are never going to get to zero let's assume 20% of new yorkers have had covid-19. look at all the morbidity and mortality. we have refrigerator trucks outside of hospitals you take that and increase it to 30% to 40% and apply that to every dense population center in the united states. you ask yourself whether we are prepared to continue with that amount of death and disease. we are going to have spread. the question is what does the economy look like? a lot of people will stay home

and businesses who don't have customers in a setting where this is spreading widely that is the risk this doesn't go away because we don't get rid of it at this round. those steps were as painful as they were and we continue the spread into the fall >> that sounds like the worst of both worlds. >> the hope is that we have a better tool box going into the fall we need to have case-based interventions. we shouldn't be isolating people infected and trace sick contact. we'll have one or more drugs remdesivir looks active. it is not a home run but looks like it could help we might have antibody drugs and doses sufficient we can help with major outbreaks in big cities in the fall

if multiple manufacturers make it over the finish line. we may have a better tool box heading into the fall. we may have a better risk especially going into flu season >> you always talk in the most measured terms and it is hard to understand what your actual position is. to come back to it, if you could help us. what are you suggesting here, that the governors are moving too fast would you tell them to shut down or stay closed longer? is that what you are trying to say? i'm trying to get to the essential piece of what you think is supposed to be happening but isn't. >> i'm still in the camp that i think we should see sustained reduction before we reopen you look at states like ohio, they are more or less meeting

that standard. they've shown a sharp reduction. i'd like to see it extend another week but you look at states like massachusetts, indiana, colorado, tennessee, it will be hard to see those states reopen. we are seeing cases bounce around30,000 we haven't seen declines yet that is a big epidemic i'd like to see the states go longer it will be hard for the governors. you are starting to see the fray and people being restless. and rightly so people are getting badly hurt by this economy i think every week we get, we are better off we are not going to get much further without some real consequences on the back end of this >> dr. gottlieb, thank you we'll talk to you tomorrow, i

think. >> thanks a lot. okay when we come back, a lot more on "squawk box. have you been frustrated about your in ability to unlock your iphone because of your face mask you are not alone. it may soon get easier we'll show you some images of the pandemic impact from yesterday across the country ♪

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welcome back to "squawk box. time now for the executive edge and maybe potential help with a common frustration some of us have been having with facial recognition. apple has released software to

developers for testing that would make it easier to unlock your phone to make it easier with a mask. all you would need to do is swipe up wearing a mask and skip the face id delay and enter your pass code instead. it will likely be a few weeks. i don't know if you remember, one of those phones where you had the thumb print. i thought that was good. they took it away in favor of face i.d today, you kind of think you should have both >> the brave new world >> the last time i was in a store, i had a mask and gloves on i thought about it i said forget about it i'm not taking my phone in there. you risk getting contaminated.

the answer is, you are just not going to use your phone in public >> i had the grocery list on the phone and the gloves on. >> i know. you've got to memorize it. >> the thin gloves, can you use your phone for a while before i got a box of those, i was using big yellow dish washing gloves. i was using those and sterlizing and reusing them on the phone, you couldn't get those to work. the big ugly yellow dish washing hands. >> if you take it into the store with you, you are going to get your phone contaminated. >> i wipe the phone and all of that you've got to write down the grocery list now >> i'm stayingaway from you. >> you are staying away from me.

the brave new world where all of us are walking around going there's that guy, famous guy, the brave new world on facial recognition took a turn. we are all going to be wearing a mask the next 50 years >> year and a half >> can we do x ray recognition or something >> i wonder if they'll figure out a way to do it just with your eyes. >> i would know you how of 10 million people there's sorkin i could see you coming it might work with eyes. you are right. >> mine, vi to draw in, which is depressing shows my hair color. >> tmi >> coming up, we'll talk markets and potential impact of today's big jobs data. futures now, mod rated up at 83.

comcast, mcdonald's all expected around 7:30 a.m. eastern these days, it's anything but business as usual. that's why working together is more important than ever. at&t is committed to keeping you connected. so you can keep your patients cared for. your customers served. your students inspired. and your employees closer than ever. our network is resilient. our people are strong. our job is to keep your business connected . it's what we've always done. it's what we'll always do.

good morning welcome back to "squawk box" here on cnbc let's show you u.s. equity futures. dow looks like it would open up about 90 points higher, the nasdaq up by 100 points.

fed chair warning things may be worse than we've ever seen the central bank is ready to act if support is needed we are committed to using our full range of tools in this challenging time we'll use them forcefully and aggressively until we are confident we are on the road to recovery and to ensure that recovery will be as robust as possible as long as needed, we'll use them >> with us this morning from global strategy. i said at the top of the show, i wasn't trying to make excuses. joe was suggesting i might be. is this the situation you can't fight the fed anymore?

between this news, the market just keeps moving higher and higher >> let's start with the fed first, andrew. yes, in the short term, can you not fight the fed. by my estimation, they've already added about 50% of the gdp. $11 trillion of the $22 trillion of that stimulus so far. that is having an effect on the liquidity. as for the medical side of it, even if you had a vaccine tomorrow we had a discussion about how long it would take with dr. gottlieb on the possible impact. the impact will take quite some time the third, fourth quarters will be difficult as well none of these is figured into the prices

that is my concern looking at what investors could be doing at this time. >> explain what you mean by that you don't believe the second half of this year is being factored properly in terms of the demand picture >> that's right. i think the demand is going to fall off demand for consumption, demand for investment goods are going to fall off more than investors have given it credit for i think they have a second leg down i don't think this is going to be any different, andrew, from what we saw in the final quarter of 2008 and bottom out until march 2009 we have a rally that still seems looic a be like a bear market valley. it could seem even more like an

equity where the economy is headed right now, what you have is a 10-year yield sub only in the area of six basis points that could go up to the markets we hit a high of 78 basis points but weave come back. the bond market is giving a much more negative crisis than this >> you once called for sub 1 on the 10-year. do you see negative rates in the future >> this time, i would only say the 10-year yield could go close to zero. beating the march 9th low of 31 basis points i could also see the federal funds going negative the last few days, we have lingered close to zero we are not far from going

negative at all. those are both, i think, should be things investor should be considering. >> as you were bullish on bonds and bearish on rates, the s&p moved. it is fine to say, you know, the stock market is wrong. the bond market is right people can trade that is like a 50% move. i think bond guys should stick with bonds a lot of them, you go back to the financial crisis, none of them ever got bullish in 2008, 2009 you might be right now 60 basis points is frightening s&p, it was 29.40 again. bears in the stock market before

the pandemic were at 2,400, 2,500. we are back to almost 2,940. that's either one hell of a bear market rally >> i would say it is neither, joe. this is not trading advise i'm providing. i'm talking about where the markets are suggesting about the economy and where we are headed. the stock market could stay divorced from the economy because of the fed it doesn't necessarily have to reflect the economy. >> just in a motor of a few weeks, yes, you have moved up s substantially and it is a trader's market. that's not the job of the fed.

i'm saying that in the matter of months, the economy is going dominate over the fed. the long-term holders will dominate over the traders. that is the message in short i'm trying to provide here >> okay. sri, always good to get your in sights a longer debate and we hope to see you soon to continue it. back over to becky when we come back, microsoft rising on an earnings beat we'll dig through the numbers next right now, take a look at the trade in bitcoin up more than 20% in the last two days you can read more about the surge in cryptocurrencies on cnbc.com

welcome back u.s. equity futures up let's talk microsoft higher as quarterly growth soars more than 15%. saying the number of customers moving to the cloud. they've seen minimum impact from the covid-19 crisis. that's the most valuable company in the world right now replaced some of the other tech stocks jockeying for position like apple and others but they are mostly tech and mostly not as

dependent on covid as hertz. what are you hearing don't we need to rent cars again some day >> why where you going? >> it is a big issue of the automakers because of the fleets that hertz buys. you can see the chain effect >> i think enterprise is the biggest buyer of any out there i do think enterprise is the biggest car seller i think they are the biggest car seller out of anybody. it is multiple companies and jobs all tied up with all of that >> think if you were stuck in new york with an partment, andrew if you were stuck in a small

pa apartment for the rest of your life can't travel, can't fly, can't travel what would you do? is. >> i'd be screaming like elon musk right about now >> that's crazy. we've seen the 420 stuff and the flame thrower. he keeps setting the bar higher. do we like it or not at least he speaks his mind. at least he's not afraid of twitter, which i am. >> that is true. >> yeah. that silences you. the block button is the best thing ever invented. anyway >> when we come back, we'll talk about the fed's stimulus plans and the state's reopening for business with southern company's ceo. report from comcast, our parent company, mcdonald's and twitter. and instant reaction from wall

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southern company just out with earnings this hour. joining us to talk through the numbers, the pandemic impact on his business and the reopening of states, thomas fanning, president and ceo of southern company. the reopening of states, we said that so innocuously. where are you headquartered, tom? >> we're in atlanta, in georgia. but, you know, we've got -- we're in virtually all 50

states. >> i know, but you catch my drift. you can speak to all of these different things, but georgia obviously controversially to some, the governor there, opening before a lot of people think it's time. before we get into that discussion, tell us how operating your company right now and advising other people, including the administration and other utility companies, how has that -- how have you been managing and what's the environment for utilities? >> well, you know, actually been managing really well our company had a heck of a quarter. 78 cents relative to i think consensus at 71. i think part of that includes a coronavirus effect and the other thing, joe, that's just fascinating is we had some of these early spring storms, big tornadoes and some other things easter weekend and other, and operating under what we call our coronavirus protocol, we're actually doing pretty well

you know that i help lead the electricity industry in things like hurricane response, snowstorms, all of that including cyber and national security, physical issues. we also now have picked up the mantle on our industry response to the coronavirus you know this industry can never take a day off anyway, so we're one of these businesses that is fundamental to, you know, kind of continuing our american way of life. and we've actually been doing really well. there are big issues you point out georgia particularly, but i think one of the things that's really important to us is harmonizing the response of the federal government to the states you know, we're heading into hurricane season we've got to make sure that as we have historically done we've provided mutual assistance from all over the united states to an affected area. we have to make sure we can do that well. i believe we will. >> other than the sort of executive team, most of your

guys are out in the field. they can wear masks and stay separated, can't they? have you furloughed anyone you haven't had to layoff anyone, have you >> no. zero in fact, you know, we really take that very seriously we've made a commitment as long as we can not to furlough anybody so we're working very hard across the system not tod that now we have had over half our work force now telecommuting, and that's worked pretty well. so i think, you know, we're considering a phase in at the right time again, we've got to harmonize federal, state, local kind of responses and what our actual experience is to the coronavirus, but we have a phased in approach and i look forward to the day things get back to normal, but until then we may see some permanent differences as a result of all of this. >> yeah, tom i was going to ask you about that permanent differences in terms

of having staff that is working from home more frequently, but i also wonder what kind of energy changes you have seen with corporate usage down and home usage up i don't know how that balances out. >> no, becky, you're right on the money. the kind of fun way to think about it is the normal days right now during the depths of the response to the virus, it has looked like a very strong weekend day so what you see is, you know, i think some moderate reductions in industrial much more severe responses in commercial, but residential is significantly up and so you kind of add all of that together, that is what it looks like our critical infrastructure personnel remain at work so what we're doing is taking those folks that otherwise work in offices or marketing or something like that and they are telecommuting. it's actually working pretty effectively. i do miss the interpersonal

connection and all of that, but otherwise we're able to sustain a really good business right now. and interestingly, this has the unexpected benefit of reducing costs. so as we have reduced revenue, we've been able to follow that with reduced costs and maintain our bottom line. you can see the results in the first quarter. >> tom, were you a fan of what governor kemp did, too much too soon where did you come down on all of that? >> you know, i don't want to paint that with a brush. he has a very phased in approach and i think that's what we all have to consider >> great they're playing us out thank you, tom fanning good luck navigating through all of this. we'll see you soon as we can earnings imminent. earnings from comcast,

mcdonald's and twitter "squawk box" will be right back. so. let's talk. edward jones. it's time for investing to feel individual.

the earnings parade marches on the numbers and market reaction straight ahead the fed pledging to keep rates near zero as it looks to add new tools to keep the economy afloat we'll break down what it means for investors. elon musk lashing out at investors. his take at stay at home orders and reaction from the street as the second hour of "squawk box" begins right now

good morning welcome back to "squawk box" right here on cnbc i'm andrew ross sorkin along with becky quick and joe kernen. take a quick look at u.s. equity futures. we are in the green on a very big earnings day we'll be bringing you corporate earnings in a moment let's show you real quick where things stand actually, we're not. we're going straight to joe who i think has mcdonald's earnings. >> yes kate rogers. interested to see this lots of drive throughs not the online ordering that others have. this should be interesting this global company. mcdonald's quarterly results just released. let's get right to kate rogers. >> reporter: eps coming in at $1.47 a share. analysts looking at $1.57 a

share. global same store sales fell 3.4% the u.s. managed to see a small same-store sales increase of 0.1% for the quarter like many other restaurants, pre-could he have individual sales were strong and march alone saw a big decline of 13.4% in the u.s 75% of mcdonald's stores remain open globally. most are adapted to focus on drive through, delivery and take away this includes 99% of u.s. stores drive through does account for 2/3 of the business in the u.s. allowing for continued operations during this time. the company previously this month did withdraw its 2020 outlook and long-term outlook due to uncertainties surrounding the impact of covid-19 additional steps taken for financial security is increasing the cash position with $6.5 billion of new debt and reducing

cap-exby $1 billion. mcdonald's has seen a lot over 65 years and i'm confident the actions we are taking will enable us to emerge from a position of strength kempczinski will be in "squawk on the street." >> let's check that out. mcdonald's shares up by 19 cents. getting earnings from comcast, our parent company beating the street with earnings of 71 cents a share. they added 477,000 high speed internet customers in the first quarter. this is interesting, despite the partial effects of covid-19, the company is still exceeding analyst expectations when it comes in for adjusted earnings per share. consolidated ebitda, high speed internet ads it's the cable part of the business that's particularly interesting. this is the best first quarter on record for customer relationships. they were up by 371,000. that's growth up 24% year over

year the video customers were down. they lost about 409,000 video customers. that's not a surprise. the company has talked about how it's not going to chase the unprofitable subscribers but people need to be connected more than ever before you are seeing that kind of play out there. running through nbc universal revenue was down by 7% that was primarily because of the closure of the theme parks and because of film revenue that was hurt remember, theaters everywhere have been closed nbc universal adjusted ebitda was down 25% to $1.7 billion the broadcast television revenue up by 1.8% cable network adjusted ebitda down 1.2%. film revenue down by 22 1/2% because of decreases in theatrical revenue as theaters everywhere were closed with these issues for sky the total customer relationships were down by 65,000 a lot of that was because of the

postponement because of sporting events sky revenue down 3.7% and ebitda was down by 15%. these are some of the numbers we're running through. the olympics are going to be postponed. we'll hear more about that from the company. >> near term future and long term future. the near term future, the broadcast network signed some new deals and did things like that, but i would think that that business could get worse near term, you would think, because of sports and stuff, but then in the same year you're going to have the olympics, the super bowl, soccer, there's all kinds of things that are -- >> back-to-back olympics. >> all back to back. exactly. but the theme parks, that's like when we -- >> what do you do? >> we talk about unemployment claims you shut down the economy. no one's working. >> right >> there's no one going to the theme parks. i don't see that -- that's not a shock. more people, what strks andrew,

business customers, broadband, that is a great business whether it's video -- you don't even need video. >> it's a subscription business so people are signing up. >> everybody's staying at home. >> upgrading. >> broadcasting from home, playing games from home, all of that. >> right >> they launched peacock this month on xfinity too. >> peacock. >> the cord cutting is real? that 400 number, that's a pretty big number, isn't it to lose that many? >> it is, but it's not surprising they said they've been wanting to get rid of customers that aren't profitable subscribers. you can't subsidize that for forever. they've recognized what's happening is people want the internet connection. that's much more important as people change what they're doing and how they're viewing and those type of things and that's the beauty of having the cable. >> the company notes that was the strategy and because it's working on that, it's allowing them, you know, not to from the time so much about the losses in

the video subscribers. >> the stock's up by 1.6%. >> okay. twitter, andrew. meantime, let's talk twitter because their earnings are just out. julia boorstin has the details there. hey, julia >> reporter: good morning to you, andrew. twitter beating expectations on the top and bottom line with revenue of $808 million surpassing projections of $776 million so the company did note a revenue decline of 27% from march 11th through the 31st of march. particular weakness in the u.s. though they did say that weakness in asia was starting to subside. earnings per share of 11 cents beating expectations by a penny. now the company's monetizable daily active users, the main user metric grew to 166 million, 2 million more than expected strongest year-over-year yet they did lower the expense growth they said percentage growth would be in the teens with full

year less than 20% than they had previously expected. twitter's ceo ned segal saying as events such as the summer oliympics are pushed to next yer to help them benefit from the improved ad products that are our number one priority today. of course, ned segal will be joining "squawk box. they won't be providing any guidance based on uncertainty around the advertising market. back over to you. >> julia, thanks we are now about halfway through earnings season and today is going to be one of the -- probably the busiest day for reporting results on this last day of april the broader markets are on track for a strong monthly finish with the dow on pace for its best monthly gain since 1987. the s&p on track for its best

monthly gain since 1974. a banner year for high school graduations. really joining us now, jim paulson. best eight years of my life, high school, yeah? anyway, let's get to jim paulson, equity strategist at the luthold group. you have been okay in terms of the prospects of not hitting new lows that's sort of been borne out. are you surprised it's the best month in 40 years, whatever it is >> well, look, joe, early on i wrote about this is the bear market at warp speed everything has been at warp speed. the market fell faster, almost 6 1/2 times faster in the first 23 days than the average bear market in post war history it's now kind of recovered faster than almost any other one. you've also had the economy, of

course, fall faster and quicker. you've had policy officials respond faster and quicker you had the vix fall and rae cover faster this whole thing is sort of at warp speed so maybe -- i'm surprised, no doubt about that, but on the other hand, it sort of fits the narrative of how fast this crisis is moving, both on the down side and the up side and has been throughout. so maybe it's starting to feel more normal, if you will >> do you think, jim, there's still a chance that since it's a novel virus, we don't know that much about it, we're not even sure of our immune response, there's a lot of uncertainties do you think we could go back down in warp speed to test the -- if everything, you know, time by length contraction, singularity, everything is happening quicker and quicker which is true, but we could head

back down just as quick as we've gotten back here, don't you think, if we have some setbacks or it turns out this virus is different in some really bad way for the world? >> i think you're right, joe, but i fully expect setbacks. i think that's okay. in other words, if we have evidence that the cases are spiking again, even later in the fall, i think the market can handle that, those kind of things we're more prepared at this point. our hospital capacity is more prepared for that. >> right. >> we have a larger percentage of the population that might have some immunity i think that's okay. i don't disagree with that in the sense that if the virus were to mutate into some new form or become more lethal or maybe more lethal for a broader array of the population rather than just old and compromised -- >> that would be bad. >> -- that would be a very significant development. you bet we could go down in a

hurry. >> what if it's just that we don't return to a normal that generates enough revenue to keep normal businesses open what if we -- and, you know, i'm -- i don't know if that's going to happen because i think there's a lot of pent up demand, i think people are going to want to go out to restaurants and do all the things that we used to do what if you just can't >> right. >> what if the separation and the number of tables and the -- you know, the seats on airplanes, what if you're down 50% in revenue for an extended period of time because things don't return to normal and we're not at a tipping point of profitability for 90% of the companies in that business >> well, if the economy, you know, is only -- if we're down 50%, we've got a problem, no doubt about that that's unsustainable and we've got further down to go 24e7b you can paint a picture,

whatever you want. i think it's not uncommon though, joe, to have -- come out of a recession and not have everything come back right away in the economy that's not anything new. in the 19 -- after the inflation broke in 1980, we didn't have energy, mining, or agriculture for the entire next decade after the 1990s real estate crisis we didn't have commercial real estate for the '90s we certainly didn't have any tech ipos in the early 2000s and we lost a lot of things after the '08 crisis, many of which never came back. you know, we had a lot of things that remained far below normal, if you will, after that. and still do and the unemployment rate always takes a long time to come back none of that prevented the economy from progressing or the stock market from rising in those previous aftermaths. even if we don't -- it's going

to take a while. there's going to be things like airlines that might take a long time to come back, but that doesn't mean that the stock market is necessarily not already back in a bull run just like it has been in the past when you could exit a recession and it takes many years to get back going again. i think that's not any different. >> well, i don't know, jim we're -- you can't help human nature i mean, we're at 2930 or 2940 on the s&p. when things were perfect and it was the greatest economy in history and the lowest unemployment rate in history and wages were rising, all the things we talked about in davos, we were in the cat bird seat and we were only at 3400 >> right. >> why do we deserve to be at 2930 when a perfect world only gave us 3400 just -- i don't know >> right two things on that one is the broader market, joe, is still a lot cheaper

you've got -- if you go outside the s&p 500 or just the s&p 500 large cap growth, if you go outside of that, you're talking about small cap stocks, cyclical stocks, high beta stocks, international markets that are still down 20% plus, 20 to 30% from their highs and a lot cheaper state. but even the s&p 500 right now, it sells at a blended multiple trailing a future of about 21 times. sounds high, but that's the same blended multiple this thing sold at late 2017, early 2018 the difference being at that point it was a 21 times multiple on a very healthy, robust, record setting earnings level where today it's a 21 multiple on a very depressed earnings level. back then that multiple was contrasted with a 3% treasury yield. today this multiple is contrasted with .6 of 1%

ten-year yield and massive liquidity and monetary support massive fiscal support so i don't know that necessarily being back within 15% of the old high is a violation necessary muof saying it's grossly over valued. there's a risk that things turn out better than possible treatment possibilities arriving so i'm not saying it's not without risk, but i also think that we're still really climbing a wall of worry and we've got massive support under this thing and the economy. bridges to see us to the other side >> all right, paulsen. what else is going on now? we've got to go, but are you okay if your senator becomes a vice presidential candidate? are you going to -- think she would be good? >> she would be good willing to talk across the

aisle. >> can she speak minnesota >> you betcha. >> we could use -- maybe we could use that plain spoken midwestern type thing. all right. so you're willing to let her, you know -- you don't need her for senator then >> yeah. yeah >> real good you betcha thanks, jim. we'll see ya later becky? still to come this morning, are movie theaters a thing of the past or will we go back again once these restrictions are lifted what would it take to get the industry back after it was closed from the coronavirus. we'll ask imax's ceo richard l gelfant. s&p is flat. nasdaq up by 91 points stay tuned, you are watching "squawk box" right here on cnbc. - [narrator] soon, lights will come on.

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welcome back to "squawk box. some stocks to watch let's show them to you a lot of companies rolling out earnings altria sales beating kraft trading higher cigna shares getting a nice boost as well. topping estimates and it is backing its full years earnings

target in an environment where so mean have walked away from guidance becky? >> andrew, thanks. imax posting a bigger than expected loss from the latest quarter. probably no surprise more people are streaming movies at home and it's seeing theaters everywhere closed. all of that pressure has put pressures on shares of imax down by 45% from last year. joining us is richard gelfond. richard, good to see you thanks for being with us >> thank you, becky. >> let's talk first of all just about the company's positioning. you've made it pretty clear that you think you're in a strong financial position and that you can weather any of these closures that we've seen around the globe. >> yeah, we are very -- we do have a very strong financial position we have about $350 million in cash our burn rate is about $10 million a month even before we do moredrastic things, which hopefully won't be necessary, so

we're in it for the long term. we have been around for 50 years. we have a global brand we found out yesterday that china said starting june 1st they're going to start reopening theaters there so we think we're very well positioned >> when you say more drastic things, what do you mean what steps have you taken today? what would be the next line of defense if you need to take more drastic measures >> well, i don't think drastic measures will be needed. in fact, we haven't really laid off anyone at imax, but obviously when you enter a crisis like -- you do a variety of things that are just prudent, but what i was referring to is, you know, this is all backed by science and we'll all see where the science takes us >> that's the question at this point you have governors here in the united states that are starting to reopen states for business

as you mentioned, china saying that it's going to be reopening schools and looking at theaters to open those up again i think the real question is will people come if they're open what kind of measures will you take at the theater? are people going to be sitting next to each other will there be separation there how do you make sure customers feel comfortable coming back >> china issued early guidelines what they said was they were going to do some social distancing measures, whether it's every other seat, every other row or perhaps if you come with a family of four, there's some vacacancies on the side of you. early on there will be social distancing measures. we are going to do things to make people safe

the theaters >> those measures don't compare. what will that be. the next 18 months until there's a vaccine that's widely available whampt will that mean? >> the good news for imax is the cost of restarting rounds to zero for us. we can flip a figurative switch because if you look at other forms of out of home entertainment like baseball or theater, there are large startup costs because you have to pay the talent, you have to open the stadium or the theater, wherever it goes. for imax we're housed in other people's multi-plex. we're a technology license facility when they open we just go n. so it's not that big a deal for

us reduced capacity, it's a very interesting thing in the movie theater business a successful chain for a year does about 20% capacity so even at 50% capacity, there's a lot of room to make money. the issue is you have to shift people from just the habit of going on friday and saturday night to different times these are unusual times and i think people will do that. >> richard, did you see the battle that seems to have broken out between amc and our parent, universal -- nbc universal just with this idea that they want to release trolls and perhaps other movies too and not have that same sort of excludes sift nbc universal said, look, it's always going to have a place for theaters, maybe that relationship changes, not only because of coronavirus but because of people's viewing habits what do you think about this debate

>> becky, this is a debate that's been going on for a long time, at least the last five years and those two companies. i think universal did something understandable, which is they had spent a lot of marketing money and they had a movie ready to go in "trolls" and they released it so everybody gets that on the other hand, i think what amc is concerned about is that universal is trying to make something more out of it than it was. i mean, it's a unicorn event at a unicorn time i think if they go back again and say this is going to change the world, that's for another day. universal's next blockbuster movie isn't until next april i think we just saw the frustrations boil over about the pandemic and changing business models i think there will be a lot of time to work it out. the good news is unlike that battle which got a little bit of headlines, the rest of the industry i've never seen working closer together in the 26 years i've been doing this

the studios, the film makers, the exhibiters are really singing the same song in terms of how do we get it open and how do we get people back to the movies quickly >> but you think it makes sense during this pandemic to see different types of relationships like that, like what universal did with "trolls"? >> i think they didn't have a choice because they had this movie that was ready to go and they spent the money so they tried it i think the financial results, it's too soon to say and are mixed. i know there's a lot written about how well it did in streaming, but on the other hand by streaming it now, they lost ancillary revenues like tv rights and streaming rights and electronic sell-through rights down the road. i think they tried something, it made sense i don't think we can draw a lot of conclusion out of it. i think we have to wait and see where it goes. >> richard, one quick question when people come back are you

going to anticipate or require that people wear masks in the beginning like airlines are now saying >> so we have different partners in exhibition. we're more of a technology provider on a global basis, and i think that's going to vary so i've talked to a lot of different people, and some are saying temperature and masks and others are talking about different seating plans. i think it's going to merit -- it's going to vary i think one thing we have to remember, a lot of people said because of streaming will people go back? i don't know about you, becky, but i've watched you guys enough to know that you are getting a little bit tired of this and i know i've done enough streaming on my couch and i've run through my favorite netflix shows three times over i can't wait to get out of my house. >> i can't wait to get new content but i'm not running back to a theater any time soon i am a big fan of getting new content but i'm going to take this slowly. that's not one of the first things i'm going to do when i

get out of here. >> when you read some of the studies, there was one in the u.s. done by someone called edo, a market research firm 70% of the people said they're ready to go back and 75% of the millennials said they're ready to go back remember, a lot of these movies, especially the blockbusters, which imax shows, those are the kinds of films millennials goes to i think for good science reasons they're less at risk and i think subjectively they feel they're less at risk so i think you're going to see those people go back soon. >> hey, richard. thank you so much for joining us we really appreciate it. we hope you'll give us additional updates as things do start to open up in china and other places too >> thanks, becky really appreciate it. >> talk to you soon. joe? coming up, the fed vowing to take every step it can to protect the economy during the pandemic we'll get the details straight ahead. for today's aflac trivia

question, in order for a company to qualify for the s&p 500, how many consecutive quarters of positive earnings are reirqued the answer when cnbc "squawk box" continues eighty dollars. a hundred dollars. i had good health insurance. why isn't this covered? well, then they started getting bigger. eight-hundred dollars. eighteen hundred dollars. i saved for this. but not that much. i'm glad i had aflac. they gave me money when i needed it most. that's why aflac is here, to help with the expenses health insurance doesn't cover. i love that aflac duck. aflac! get to know us at aflac.com

now the answer to today's aflac trivia question. in order for a company to qualify for the s&p 500, how many consecutive quarters of positive earnings are required the answer, four

take a look at futures this morning. we are now moving largely into the red. the dow off 24 points. s&p 500 off we'll call it almost 1 and nasdaq looking to open higher, 87 points higher we are waiting jobless claims at 8:30 eastern time. all of this on the back of earnings reports we've been hearing about this morning among the biggest stocks twitter. shares popping on quarterly results. we will talk to the cfo. that will happen at 8:40 eastern time stay tuned we are back in just a moment

welcome back, everybody. the fed and congress have

committed trillions of dollars to help keep the economy from going into a prolonged down turn believe it or not, it might not be enough. steve liesman joins us what's that mean what's happening here? what would have to happen to keep this from >> reporter: it's a really interesting question i got to ask steve mnuchin and fed chairman jay powell essentially the same question, are they each taking enough risk with taxpayer money to help save the economy, especially to help those businesses least able to qualify for loans? in some video you haven't seen yet here's treasury secretary steve mnuchin responding to that question >> there are people who have said, you know, i should price this so that, you know, we lose all of our money, so that we support these markets. the $450 billion are not grants though they are money that i invest in these facilities to

create credit support. i think it's pretty clear if congress wanted me to lose all of the money, that money would have been designed to subsidies and grants as opposed to credit support. >> equity investor, lose all of the money and in some cases they'll take money at the fed press conference. the limits on the fed's authority to take it >> we can do what we can do and we will do it to the absolute limit of those powers. we will keep at it and i just want people to know that we will be at it with the legal authorities that we have until we get through this thing. we will keep using our authorities, but there are authorities that we don't have and there may be a need for those authorities to be used as well as ours

>> okay. here's an example of what i'm talking about. the fed announced the program to buy investment grade corporate debt it's going to leverage $75 billion of treasury money at 10 to 1 total 750. the main street lending facility that the fed hasn't launched yet, it will launch another at 8 to 1 the total, 600 billion the good news, mnuchin has $270 billion worth of money he can use. he could decide to take more risk with the economy if they need it. andrew >> steve, i wanted to ask you, i don't know how much you talked about the ppp program with the treasury secretary, i give him an enormous amount of credit for the program they put forth i know there are lots of issues we could quibble with. the big quibble i'm hearing about right now is as they've tried to read or shift the program to focus more on smaller

banks and try to get smaller companies given that there's a view that some of the money went to the wrong players the first time, that a lot of small businesses, especially in states like new york and new jersey, which are the hardest hit, are having the hardest time getting access to some of this you look at the numbers. if you are in nebraska, i love the people in nebraska, 90% of those loans are going through, but because new york is not -- or new jersey is not getting any special preference in fact, getting less special preference because the big firms like jpmorgan and bank of america are almost being pushed to the side, they have huge market share in places like new york and new jersey, what do you think is going to happen there >> reporter: andrew, let me answer that question generally and then specifically. first of all, i think if you're the treasury secretary and you're getting complaints on the one hand that the big banks are getting special preference and on the other hand, like you just mentioned, that the big banks are being shut out, you're

probably close to being in the right place because you've heard both of those issues on the one hand they had to set aside separate times for the smaller banks to get access to the sba system that suggested the big banks had special access i think the treasury secretary is trying and i think probably admirably here to really balance a lot of competing interests with the bigger issue, andrew, that they don't have enough money. and a bigger problem for this ppp program is that a lot of the money is supposedto replace salaries that would otherwise be paid by unemployment insurance and business owners don't have enough for their real expenses, whereas, they should have the employees on unemployment insurance and they should have loans to help with other expenses there is not enough money. that's why the focus is going to be very shortly on how big and how much risk this main street lending facility takes. let's bring in chris naguha

from evercore. christian, there were things you thought were on the mark and other things missed it will you go into some of each please >> for sure. so i thought chair powell was very strong on credit policy yesterday. he gave a very forceful statement about forcing new programs, extending programs very well executed where i thought it was a little weaker is monetary policy. making it clear the fed is going to go all in across forward guidance and a future new qe program in order to underwrite the strongest possible recovery. this was a sort of transition meeting. in all fairness, band width constraints and other reasons i think probably prevented them from getting to that set of

issues at this meeting, but it is a little disturbing when the central bank talks about how the virus presents considerable risks to the medium term outlook but then doesn't detail what it's going to do to oppose those risks. >> the pivot back to normal monetary policy that you say was clear in what the chairman was saying, what do you mean by that why was it clear that that's something that is going to be happening as soon as i guess they can do it >> right so i think -- what i have in mind here is that the fed leadership and the fed staff have been completely consumed in recent weeks by this titanic struggle to unfreeze the credit markets, to get even the treasury market functioning properly again, and i think in that context with rates already at zero and a ton of market functioning qe taking place,

just a fixed market function issue, understandably reasonably the core monetary policy questions has got sort of pushed to one side for the time being and you see this really in particular in their rather weak form of forward guidance which says they will keep rates at zero until the economy has weathered the recent events and is on track to achieve their goals. they could come up with much more forceful guide dachbs it's going to be necessary that when this market functioning qe wraps up, they transition to a regular forceful monthly qe program. so what powell had to say on this yesterday was interesting he said the fed believes it's current -- stance's current guidance is appropriate, quote, for now, but that they have started talking about what monetary policy might look like and the kind of changes that may or may not be appropriate in the

months ahead so i think of that as a recognition that the next phase of fed policy will involve turning back to some of these core monetary questions, as i said, enhanced forward guidance, a regular qe program and whether they will or won't add some yield caps into the mix. >> krishna, thank you. those are sale salient points t are much clearer appreciate your analysis. >> any time. >> becky. joe, thank you when we come back, we'll have more of what's been happening with this morning's stocks to watch. "squawk box" will be back after a quick break. birthdays aren't cancelled. hope isn't quarantined. first words aren't delayed. caring isn't postponed. courage isn't on hold. and love hasn't stopped. u.s. bank thanks you for keeping all of our spirits strong.

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up next, tesla, microsoft and fabo a mroftceokndicso and... let's get started.

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♪ surprise first quarter profit despite coronavirus factory

shutdowns, the stock has been racing higher. up about 70% over the past month. phil lebeau joins us now with more that wasn't what we were talking about. that was pretty amazing. >> reporter: joe, i have long said the best conference call during earnings season is always the tesla call can be kind of boring. a lot of times elon can mumble through some answers, but every once in a while he gives you something that people are going to talk about. that's the case this morning tesla shares did pop on the q1 profit and the fact that this is a company that made it through the first quarter better than expected remember, they had the three-month factory closed down the month of march they said, yes, it will impact q2 to what degree it is unclear then he sounded off on shelter in place orders including dropping the f bomb. here he is during the call. >> the extension of the shelter in place or frankly i would call it forcibly imprisoning people

in their homes against all their constitutional rights, that's my opinion, and breaking people's freedoms in ways that are horrible and wrong and not why people came to america or [ bleep ] excuse me. outrage. outrage. so -- >> reporter: he went on to say it's fascist what's going on california is dealing with shelter in place orders. they did not restart production in the fremont plant it still remains over 500,000 vehicles this is what they did all the way up through last year a lot of people are wondering, guys, if they do bring down their guidance for deliveries given the fact that it's been closed five weeks in fremont and it's unclear when production will resume there. >> phil. phil lebeau. thank you. appreciate it. >> andrew.

>> thank you from tesla to big tech earnings, here is what some companies are saying about the current business environment facebook seeing signs of stability it says in the ad market you have microsoft saying the coronavirus had a minimal impact on the revenue qualcomm is forecasting no change to the 5g outlook we're joined by gene muenster and our own john ford is with us as well, co-anchor of "squawk alley. gene, i'll start with you. this is like a tale of two cities, two countries, two worlds it's so hard -- it's so hard to look at some of the news headlines in one respect and then see some of the are earnings reports on the other. >> yeah. that disconnect has puzzled me i think what we're seeing as a lot of these positive headlines are coming from tech companies that are becoming more and more the fabric of our lives even in the shelter in place

obviously the advertising business, those have been particularly resilient facebook's commentary shocked investors in the month of april, but i do see a distinction outside of my area of expertise, but if you look at what's going on with airlines, hotels, this is still very real we are not in the clear yet. i think these tech companies will weather it better, will be in a much better place than a lot of other companies on the other side of this i do understand this disconnect and attribute it largely to just where our lives are going, more towards these tech companies >> right hey, john, let me ask you you. one of the things i think we expected to look at a google, alphabet, facebook and say this could be an interesting proxy for other parts of the country, other parts of the economy you know, we continue to talk about barry diller's comments we're going from $5 billion to

$1 billion forex paid yeah you hear 100 million people in the world in the travel industry being out of work. that's not unemployment, that's like a human -- that's a human travesty so the question is why are we not seeing those numbers filter if those -- if that's real through these types of tech companies which you think would be affected given that that's such a big part of the add spend? >> well, andrew, i think in a weird way it makes sense here's my thought process behind it for a long time through the last few years of this boom we've seen certain big companies certainly in the stock market but also in their revenue and profit having an outsized benefit. i'm thinking of faang stocks the reason for that is there was an idea of a whole new digital economy, subscription economy. behind some of the value and what you're seeing is a weird

life test of that thesis and it's actually bearing out. it's actually being uncertain and being hurt but at the same time you see microsoft 365 doing well you see azure doing well yes, the linked-in business was hurt because of the advertising slowdown there, but you have other businesses, xbox live. you have people surging towards at-home use. then i think there's another factor here that we're going to see. take an entirely different tone now that people feel some of these companies and the technology and the way they're

structured in a diversified way helped them to survive and helped the society to get through this i think that's why you see some of these ceos, mark zuckerberg asserting themselves more. it's putting them in a beneficial position. >> hey, gene, in terms of investors out there trying to make sense of this, trying to figure out given how fast the stock market has moved on so many of these stocks, have they missed the train, would you still get in if you were going to, which ones would you pick >> that's an easy answer for me. i think it's apple ultimately if you fast forward you missed that point there. they will consolidate behind the best leadership behind apple and also the product roadmap exiting all of this around not only 5g but wearables, health care, wellness, services, the balance sheet that they have, the valuation, it's hard for investors to really wrap their

head around one of the largest companies, the world getting much larger. i could see the stock doubling the next few years and ultimately this is the best rest well type company for investors. i want to caution tonight's results for apple are going to be messy because their hardware piece for june if they give guidance is going to be messy. if you look at the opportunity for this company for the next five years, i think apple is far and above all the other tech companies. >> okay. gene, john, great to see you guys appreciate it. hope to see you again soon. when we come back, a very big hour ahead on "squawk box. steve bannon is going to join us on reopening the economy, the government and the business response to the pandemic and so much more. a conversation you don't want to ss 're back in a moment ♪

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historic market gains in sight. it's the final day of april and the dow's on pace for its best month in 30 years. the s&p having its best month in more than 40 the first quarter earnings starting to crystallize. we've reached the halfway point for the s&p 500 reports this morning from mcdonald's, twitter, comcast and more. in 30 minutes, the all-important jobless claims number filings expected to fall the final hour of "squawk box" begins right now good morning i'm joe kernen along with becky quick and andrew ross sorkin i like the energy there, andrew. really i'm looking forward to this next hour, right? huh? it's not -- >> trying to bring it. we don't need it we have so much stuff going on >> that's true

but the futures have turned around significantly, actually early on we were up well above 100 points we're now down 140 the s&p down 10. nasdaq had some strong earnings to key off of last night from some well-known tech stocks. that continues to trade nicely higher treasury yields are -- you know, are almost zero basically. they're .6 of a percent for the ten year oil prices which have been a salve to the market, equity market in the past, not helping so much today even though they're up 15% we've got a big -- as we've been talking about, i can't do it as well as you, andrew. we have a big final hour for the show on tap for you. we're speaking with former white house chief strategist steve bannon in just a minute as well as the ceo of calpers, the

nation's largest pension fund. after the jobless claims number, eugene scalia and the twitter cfo ned segal. let's get you caught up to speed on some of the results twitter reporting a top and bottom line beat for the first quarter. monetizable daily activity users grew to 166 million in the quarter, 2 million more than had been expected. it is the company's strongest year-over-year user group and that is up by over 5%. mcdonald's posted a mixed first quarter. the company did see strong pre-coronavirus sales. they dropped more than 13% in march. mcdonald's is also suspending share buy backs, increasing cash position and cap exspe-ex spend $1 billion comcast posting mixed quarter.

the company saw its best quarter for new high speed business customers in 12 years. nbc universal and sky under som pressure and the theme parks that have been shut down not to mention the films that can't be showed in movie studios that are closed, too. joe? >> thanks, becky president trump hosted business executives at the white house yesterday to talk about efforts to reopen the u.s. economy as more states including alabama and texas get ready to roll back restrictions joining us now for more on the different states response to this crisis, steve bannon, former white house chief strategist now host of the podcast the war room pandemic. steve, it's -- tomorrow's may 1st. how is the conversation on may 31st going to be different than the conversation we're opening in your view what's going to transpire over the next 30 days, 31 days? >> you're going to start to see these governors i think prudently but boldly start to

unlock their economies in a few minutes you're going to announce, you know, what, another 3, 3.5, maybe up to 4 million more job losses. at 30 million -- this is in the last 100 days, really 60 days we've had greater job losses than the great depression. i think you're seeing the governors i think if you look at the polling, they've got a lot of support from their states you'll see states like texas, ohio, florida eventually start to open up and doing it in a way that makes sure that their states are safe, the public health systems are working and people can get back to work. i think that's what people want to do, they want to do it in a smart, prudent, as fast as possible as fast as prudently possible. >> how is the interplay going to work between the trump administration and the different governors? governors of different parties, of different states with different populations and everything else. how do you see that playing out in this charged environment that we're in right now

>> well, you say charged i think if you look at, this has been unprecedented obviously in world history what's gone on and obviously american history, but i think generally this kind of new federalism that president trump has said in line with the governors to be the management, right? they said the overall policy at the federal government level and supplied logistic call support i think allowing the governors to do this, whether it's governor murphy in new jersey or governor cuomo or people like governor dewine, it's worked out pretty well. i think people in those states, particularly if you look at the polling, are genuinely happy and president trump, what they're doing is putting the overall guidance and do support where they can do support. i think what we'll start to see is by may 31st, i think we're going to be in much better shape, particularly feeling this through of how you unlock this economy. i think the president is doing the smart thing by backing the governors and letting the governors take the lead.

>> as k across the board you th the balance between the economy and the expression the cure being worse than the disease itself, you hear that a lot. do you think the right balance has been struck at this point because we're basically still closed down? been very painful, but we have bent the curve and we're seeing some progress in trying to minimize the number of deaths. >> look, as you know on our show, we started in january because we realized what an historic event this is going to be given what the chinese party did in locking down hubei province it's the size of france with the same population. in quarantined wuhan, 40% bigger than new york, we knew this would be massive we advocated you should have a harder shutdown, but i think what the president did, backing these governors, having this new

federalism proved to be smart. people closer to the deck plates can manage this. when you go back and look at it given everything that could have transpired, obviously over 60,000 deaths so far, this has been the largest mass casualty event in america for civilians, it's been terrible in that regards but at least given manageable than the alternatives if you had done nothing than going to herd immunity prudently done smartly done it was made up as we went along. backing the play of governors to do this is going to be smart president trump took bold actions at the federal level when he had to stopping the travel to china, stopping the travel in from europe, declaring a national emergency that allowed fema to get involved and have more resources. so far i think it's come off quite well given the horrific nature of what we had. remember, if the chinese communist party had told us back in december when they knew about human-to-human transmission, they told the world south

hampton university in england said 95% of this would have been avoided, all the deaths, all the agony and economic carnage given the fact that was hidden from us and people lied about it, i think genuinely everybody, gavin newsom or governor cuomo, dewine, abbott in texas, desantis, i think people pulled together and we've actually come forward and now let's get on with it. regardless of political ideology, 30 million americans unemployed as of later this morning when the numbers come out, that is both republicans and democrats but they're american citizens. what they want to do is get back to work and the governors i think at the tip of the spear with the president having your back at the federal level. >> andrew? steve, this is a political question

i just wonder i wonder how it shifts the affordsable care act given that we've proven that we care or we say we care about employees and we care about their health >> look, you go back, andrew this is, like i said, unprecedented. if you look at the action taken at the federal reserve, it's one of the reasons why you're talking about the ee bowl yent stock market it's unprecedented 3, 4, $5 trillion bazooka to back it up

we've had a change in the nature remember, we're at war president trump is a war-time president. this is a war on two fronts. on one front it's about the pandemic and this unprecedented virus that came upon us. the other, and let's be brutally frank about it, is this war against the chinese communist party, both an information war and economic war you remember it's your deal book conference back in the fall of last year. i took on tom friedman, eric schmidt and others and said, hey, we have to face a brutal reality. we're facing a competitor that is not a partner, not a strategic work mate, this is an enemy. we have to face that if you look at it, they treated us as an enemy that's why i think the scale of this has been so unprecedented look at what we've done at the federal reserve level. yes, the very nature of how we have to get our hands around this has changed to a degree we have to deal with this

amazing scale that we've had in the last 90 days. >> steve, the president still seems at least partly to be pulling his punches on talking about doing something to china, somehow getting reimbursed for their role in all of this or some type of punitive action because people attribute that to still wanting the trade deal to succeed. do you eventually think that there's going to be something that we're going to ask for china to reimburse the world or the united states for at this point? and do you think that the trade talks are making it less likely that he's too vociferous at this point? >> go back to what andrew said a minute ago look, we've got 30 million people unemployed. you have hundreds of thousands of people around the world dead. you have economic carnage everywhere it's not just the cash we put

in, it's the opportunity costs of what we've had to forego. no, the chinese communist party, they're knowingly responsible for this, as the president said. let's leave aside the fact of what they've been doing in these labs let's leave aside the fact do they have a biological weapons department with all of this combined at the health level, public health services, there will be full investigations of that we know for a fact they knew they had human transmission and community spread in mid to late december they knew this and they lied they came to the white house and signed a trade deal. the trade deal you're talking about, president trump reiterated last night, they never said a word about this they had the world health organization come out on the 14th of january saying after consultation with senior members of the chinese government, the chinese communist party, they've told us there's no human-to-human transmission. these are bald faced lies.

they're going around the world vacuuming up all of the personal protective equipment and the key part of doing testing and protecting the doctor and nurses teams that were so essential to save lives in places like italy, brooklyn, queens no, they're directly responsible. the people of the world are going to demand an accounting. they're going to demand a responsibility the chinese communist party is going to have to pay president trump forced them into a trade deal they definitely didn't want to do, but i think that's been overcome by events to a degree about they have to answer to this first all of this about i.p. protection, forced technology transfers, all of that are very important but they have to answer this first. i've got to tell you, i think the world is going to hold them in judgment and the judgment is not going to be very pretty. they owe trillions if not tens of trillions of dollars. every casket you see in heart island in that mass grave has a laura soesh yated with it, and it should. you're talking about opening up. we're trying to work through what even the liabilities are

for businesses, right? that's one of the reasons president trump had the meeting. mitch mcconnell is talking about does the government get involved in that? every one of those costs are going to have a lawyer, too. the chinese communist party knew about this, they turned a blind eye to itand particularly when they had it in their own country they didn't care about it going around this is what i said at andrew ross sorkin's conference in november they're the enemy of the chinese people, they're the enemy of the citizens of the united states and they're the enemy of man kind they have to be held accountable and responsible. >> steve bannon, thank you we appreciate that thanks for mentioning that conference a lot of times. a few more times would have been fine, i think, for my taste anyway andrew's too >> it was a great conference >> it was, indeed. thank you. got a great host anyway, thank you. steve bannon

becky. guys, let me bring you some headlines that have been hitting as you've been talking jpmorgan apparently is putting out some information that it sent 220,000 loan applications to the small business administration just this week. there's been a lot of talk out there about how these loans are only going to the big companies, the big companies were first in line jpmorgan said the total amount of those loans was for $17.8 billion but the average loan size was for around $81,000. they said half of the ppp loan applications that they sent to the sba came from businesses with fewer than five employees you have to remember the big banks are still responsible for being the banks for small businesses in america, too i believe jpmorgan has 7% of all small businesses in america that they bank. i think wells fargo has probably another 7% and bank of america probably 7%, too if the big banks aren't there, the small businesses don't get the loans because they are their bankers as well.

take a quick look at shares of j.p. morgan chase. down by 61 cents they have sent in 220,000 loans to the sba just this week, the average price of those loans that they have asked for, $81,000. still to come, several big interviews including with the ceo of calpers the largest public pension fund and labor secretary eugene scalia on what's expected to be mbother bruising jobless claims nuer we will get that coming up in 14 minutes' time. "squawk box" will be right back.

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market value of $375 billion with a b marcie, great to see you this morning. thanks for joining us. >> good morning. thank you for having me. >> how are you looking at the market environment there are so many people that look at the headlines, unemployment numbers where you get unemployment claims literally 15 minutes from now, 10 minutes from now and then they look at the stock market

and they say it feels like there's a disconnect and they're trying to make sense of it. >> so for calpers we're certainly a longer term investor we pay attention to longer term trends more than we do to any type of short-term shocks but when you're a system that isn't funded, you have to pay attention to the short term. this volatility has been elevated our entire investment team has played a defensive posture but, you know, this time as it relates to the downturn related to this health pandemic versus how the fund was positioned and the health of the fund in 2008 and 2009, we're actually able to deploy some offensive strategies as well. that's been optimistic but we do worry. we worry because if we don't hit our 7% return target obviously that puts more responsibility on our public employers to have to pay more we do pay attention to it, but we're really careful about not

overreacting and really thinking about the long term and how these trends will really impact the various asset classes across the portfolio and where those opportunities might exist in the future >> so tell us where those opportunities might exist then what trends are you going to see going forward? >> so one of the things that we were able to do if you think about, again, calpers not being completely fully funded, drawdown risks and risk mitigation certainly one of the top three priorities for the investment office we were able to set up some distress triggers, if you will certain points in the market we would be able to deploy capital appropriately through a couple of very strong business partners those capital calls are coming in and those will have nice payoff for the fund over the term that will be one of the opportunities we could see as far as the asset classes, we certainly want that, commercial real estate. we're tracking the unemployment rates.

there will be trends coming out of this pandemic having the markets reacting the way they have to a health-related item that impacts the economy and impacts the financial markets. one of the things we want to applaud is the federal reserve we have to applaud their efforts. it's unprecedented but they've been very helpful in keeping the financial markets working. >> marcie, i wanted to ask you a question we were talking about calpers on the air earlier this week. we had scientific advisor black swan author seem to level on the program. he was critical of calpers decision to unwind a tail hedge strategy last year i wanted you to hear what he had to say and react to it >> universal hedge, $11 billion would cost you a penny or something -- it would cost you $30 million in an adverse situation would have made you a huge amount. i think he insulted not just the

public but he insulted the retirees who are invested and depend on calpers for their future income. >> you know, we don't want to -- >> can you react to that speak to it? >> yes, certainly. i don't necessarily want be to debate this. we think these products work very well for many investors but the decision that was made by calpers back in october was one that was more related to looking at the total fund, the utility of our office, what we're good at and capable of and back to the fact that our concern was draw down risk and this fund coming into the downturn we were 73% fund the we have asymmetrical risk. the down side will hurt us more than the up side the risk mitigation is two areas. factor weighted equities which we've been putting in place,

about 15% of the portfolio is in weighted equities and treasuries 10% in long duration treasuries. those were what we were using to hedge. i have to say through this volatility we have been advantaged by about $11 billion with those strategies. >> final question, you've been a big proponent of esg i'm wondering whether it's more or less important and how you think the changes are dynamic for you? >> i think it's extremely important. i don't believe we will change our view on the importance of governance on the various boards and the companies that we're investing in proxy season obviously is coming up we are very encouraged by what we're seeing but we will continue our emphasis on board diversity. we'll continue our emphasis on risk management and that includes risks related to climate and supply chain i think this pandemic has certainly highlighted some issues around the supply chain

and what our consumers are concerned about. consumers and investors like calpers. we'll keep our focus on governance and climate related financial disclosures. our tcfd will come out in a few months we think that these are important to the fund but we have to understand long-term risk, situate the portfolio appropriately. >> marcie, thank you always great to see you. >> yes. >> largest pension fund in the country. thank you very much. >> thank you, joe. initial jobless claims expected to drop but still clock in the loss is expected to drop still clock in at a painful 3.5 million. we'll be right back.

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welcome back to "squawk box. futures down triple digits rick santelli is standing by at the cme. >> reporter: move to 3,839,000 3.839 on initial claims. the high water mark was 6,867,000. as far as continuing claims new all-time high. last week unrevised at 15,976,000 that moves up to 17,992,000. so 17.992 million on continuing

claims and, of course, we continue to monitor initial claims especially, not only because some states are backlogged still using programming software that's really out of date also trying to view that against ppp, it may be bringing down some of these numbers as employers get their checks and bring some employees back. we can see it initially was lower but not by much. experts thought it would be around 3.5 million they were very close the employment costs next the first quarter up .8. i'm not sure that's a relevant number it was the entire first quarter. personal income and spending for march, not going to be as impacted but it's slowly catching in. down 2% on income. down 7.5% on spending and if we look at the fact that year over year deflator is minus 7.3 -- i'm sorry, year over year deflator is 1.3, positive number, it's down .3 month over

month, the month over month is fascinating. a, many believe there is this deflationary air to everything and it's hard to doubt that. on the back side many think we'll see inflation. the distance between the two might be a very, very long runway interest rates really haven't done all of that we're at 61 basis points at 10, 19 at 2. 2s to 10s, still hovering about 42 basis points. we're going to continue to pay attention to christine lagarde at the conference. subtle changes on the ecb side not much the big question everybody is going to be asking themselves is is there going to be a euro bond that will solidify the notion of all countries sharing on the credit quality of the best credit of the european union that is back to you. >> steve liesman joins us now. rejoins us stevewith more

hi, again. >> reporter: hey, good morning, joe. i think one of the things you can watch here is now the insured unemployment rate. what this is is a percentage of those with continuing claims, those who are eligible for it. it is now at an historic 12.4% proxy not bad for the unemployment rate and where it may be going it's a week behind so there's still more catchup to do looking at the states, many of the states individually are actually down. a couple of the ones that are up i'll give you here real quickly. washington state was up. michigan looks like it was up again big time here. let me just look at this no, sorry, that was down michigan was down. new york, i believe, was up 13,000 florida inexplicably is down again at 432,000 maybe they're catching up or

maybe they're still having problems processing any claims the question becomes are people getting benefits once theyeven apply and whether or not some of these ppp programs that are out there might result in fewer unemployment claims that are out there. i'll be monitoring christine lagarde and the ecb in the next few minutes. >> steve, thank you. for more on the claims number and the unemployment picture in this country, let's bring in u.s. labor secretary eugene scalia. secretary scalia, thank you for joining us this morning. >> pleasure to be with you >> the numbers were bad this morning. we expected bad numbers. we know what's been happening as we forcibly shut down the country. but where do you think we head from here? >> well, these are tough numbers to see i agree. what it means is in total over the last six weeks that we've been looking at unemployment claims are at about 30 million it's a very high number, but

couple quick notes about it. one, the president, congress moved very swiftly in march to address this, including with the unemployment enhancements made in the c.a.r.e.s. act. as of last tuesday all 50 states and the district of columbia are now paying that attention nal additional supplement in the c.a.r.e.s. act that's valuable relief the states have old computer systems, but we are working with them at the labor department to help get these payments out. the second point that i do think is important, as difficult as it is to see this many americans unemployed, we came into this period of unemployment by a very different path than say the great recession and we'll go out by a different path. there's some reason for optimism there, too >> mr. secretary, steve liesman asked the right question is the ppp working

what would these numbers be without it >> well, i think the ppp is one of the best things in the c.a.r.e.s. act as you know, that's the program of loans for small businesses where the loans are largely forgivable if the businesses keep those workers on payroll. from the perspective of the labor department, the reason i like that program so much is that there's light at the end of this tunnel. we purposefully paused our economy, but the pause was meant to be temporary. if we can keep these employment relationships intact, then workers can get back on the job more quickly businesses can get going more quickly. i think the program's been a great success despite some of the sniping that it's come in for. i have no doubt that it's helped keep some people out of unemployment. >> mr. secretary, as labor secretary part of your mandate obviously is to make sure that you are looking out for the rights and the welfare of workers, too we start to hear business leaders like elon musk who are

out there saying he thinks it's wrong that the states have shut down his business, that he should be allowed to bring them back anybody who wants to come out and leave their homes should be allowed to what's your response to something like that when you hear a business leader talking out loud about how he would rather have his workers back and shouldn't be forced by the state not to have them there >> i think it's right for people to go back to their business places as the governors make those determinations in accordance with the blueprint the president laid out you're right, we at the labor department have strong interest in protecting workers, both those who are out of work but also those who are on the job and could be exposed to the virus. i've been working very closely, roo ellie for months now, with the occupational and health safety, osha, on a couple of fronts one is giving guidelines to business industry specific guidelines we did it for meat packing together with cdc earlier this week we've done it, again, working

with cdc on other industries and we'll continue to do that so that companies and workers know what's needed to keep them safe, but we're also fielding complaints from workers. we are investigating when there are concerns by workers that conditions are unsafe and we have tools, including enforcement tools, that we'll use if we need to to protect workers and that message is an important one for people to hear >> the meat packing industry, that was going to be my next question the president has insisted that the meat packing industry stay open because they're vital to the national supply chains, but those were shut down, those packing industries -- those packing facilities were shut down because there had been hundreds of cases of coronavirus that had been circulated what have you heard from the workers in those meat packing industries what are you doing on that front? >> well, as i said, we worked closely with the centers for disease control in putting out guidelines i think they came out last sunday about how to safely operate those plants, and social

distancing, all kinds of hygiene practices. changes in how they run their conveyor lines and the like, which will help protect workers, but it's going to require constant attention the companies are going to need to pay attention to worker welfare. at the same time we know this is a critical part of our infrastructure, part of our food supply that we need to keep available for the food supply and safe for workers, too. we will, as i said, continue to look into concerns employees raise and consult with cdc >> you said that you've been looking in and investigating some of these complaints where are you receiving the most complaints what geographic areas and industries >> health care there have been a lot of concerns there that's been a source of complaints and focus on the part of osha. emergency responders to some extent and meat packing. you know, one of the many

extraordinary things about this period we're going through right now is how much it can change in just a period of a few days. meat packing, two, three weeks ago was not on most people's radars as a hot spot it became one just as health care was earlier we will keep looking at different industries where conditions may be getting more problematic and, again, we will also continue to provide industry specific guidance that helps workers and employers know what's going to make for a safe environment. they want that confidence. they want that assurance as we reopen we're going to give it to them and we are going to use the tools that we have, which are i think effective tools to make sure that employers are protecting their workers as we reopen. >> every ceo we've spoken with have said in order to bring their workers back, they need to do things like make sure they get more protective equipment for their employees, make sure they have testing, adequate testing to ensure that the work

force feels confident, comfortable, if there aren't cases circulating. obviously there's a limited number of all of those things, and if every single ceo is trying to get his or her hands on all of that, i just wonder, do you get involved with that process? do you say there are certain industries that should be put to the front of the line that are more important to get back faster >> well, i think that the task force, president, vice president, governors have recognized certain industries that need special attention because they're so vital, critical to the american people and our economy and that focus is appropriate i participated in the president, vice president's meeting yesterday with some executives i continue to be impressed by the steps that companies want to take to protect their workers. i think it's a good sign business leaders are recognizing that their customers want to feel safe, their workers want to feel safe. we want to help them in that

enterprise, but i also recognize that not every business is going to know the right thing to do or sometimes be inclined to do the right thing. we'll be vigilant in looking to that front as well >> secretary scalia, thank you for your time today. >> appreciate being with you >> andrew? coming up when we return, a lot more we're going to talk to twitter cfo. he'll join us live to talk about ad spending during the coronavirus pandemic and the jump in users his company just saw. the shares are up 8% just an hour ago check out shares of microsoft as well which bead on the top and bottom lines in the latest quarter. they said coronavirus outbreak had minimum impact it saw increased business in a number of its cloud-based segments stay tuned watching "squawk" on cnbc. don't forget to subscribe to our podcast. you'll get interviews, original content and behind-the-scenes access look for us on apple podcasts or

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welcome back to "squawk box. futures at the worst levels in the pre-session. 15 points on the dow nasdaq trending higher on strong tech earnings posted last night and this morning the s&p down about 12. becky? thanks very much, joe. we've got an update from the european central bank. steve liesman has been monitoring this. he's back with more. steve, what's up >> reporter: becky, some quick headlines from christine lagarde saying europe faces a recession of unprecedented magnitude she goes on to put some numbers on the extent to which that is unprecedented saying gdp this year, not this quarter, this year, could fall between between 5 and 12%. that lower range is where the forecasters in the u.s. might

think will happen here 12% would be unbelievable. now to respond to this, the ecb is launching a program which can expand stimulus to have cheap loans given to banks what are these these are three-year loans at, wait for the interest rate here, minus 1% three-year loans to banks minus 1% for on lending to customers also prepared to expand a program where it buys corporate bonds. the pandemic emergency purchase program which is now at 750 billion euros. maybe disappointing markets by not announcing how much they're expanding it lagarde saying the ecb is fully committed to do everything necessary and you need an ambitious and coordinated government effort. she was criticized by saying too much about what the fiscal side needed no do and not providing enough from the monetary side. we'll see if what she's saying, becky, is enough for markets. >> steve, thank you. joe? let's get to cnbc headquarters jim cramer joins us now.

jim, i have haven't seen all of your tweets. juggernaut, almost any type of environment? >> geez. nadello on a conference call laid out that every one of the divisions is almost made for this era it wasn't obviously set out like that it is an incredible, let's say, all cylinder quarter and this teams product has been -- i think become the standard overnight for corporate. i also think that you're getting azure let's just say so busy that they can print money. it was a great quarter that's a stock to watch. if the futures try to bring things down, i think that stock can go up. >> how about any surprises in the parent company of cnbc, jim, and comcast? you know, you look at the claims number, and i think of theme parks and i think it's similar

it's like when there's -- when they're closed, it's tough to have results you can compare to a year ago >> right. >> you need to know about how these parks are reopened to really forecast anything there's some good things in the report as well >> yes and i think that one of the things, theme parks will open up eventually that's ephemeral what i think is permanent is this stay at home and the stay at home signups for high speed that's not going to go back down it's not like when the pandemic is over, that was okay, let's go back to the old way. one is a good secular trend and the other is cyclical. it will be dealt with. i thought it was a good quarter. i obviously work for them. because high speed is such a great profit center. >> i think we're going to talk to the twitter cfo. >> oh, man. >> how are you getting along -- how are you getting along with the twitter ati. elon is having issues with the

twitter ati. >> i get along with ned. the twitter people, it's amazing. let's take remdesivir. dr. fauci who basically cured aids he said this can become the standard immediately everyone on twitter attacks him. dr. nissan contributed one of the things that we know is that we're at war time with covid. you have to do some war time things have you to innovate that's what fauci is doing do people want people to die, joe? is it kind of like goldfinger? they want people to die? how can people be against? >> you tell me i was wondering that what causes people to be so mad that you thought the drug might work and it did work why do they not want it to work? >> there was a previous guest who used the term chinese communists and we're at war. the chinese communists sabotaged. they could have day one or day

two taken this drug. we thought the chinese, even in "lancet" that the chinese thought it was toxic, could kill people how many people on the battlefield against china died. >> what causes someone in this country to hope it doesn't work or get mad at you when it does >> i thought banham was too reserved >> like calling youtube reserved >> the people who died in the epidemic are the first casualties i wish he mentioned him, but he's on the right team >> i think twitter is ready now so we're going to head there andrew >> twitter reporting first quarter results this morning above analyst's expectations they saw their strongest growth year over year ever. ned, thank you for joining us. wee all trying to make sense of this you can look back at this last quarter, but really, what everybody is trying to do is look forward i think people, specifically

when it relates to twitter, try to understand what you think the ad market is going to look like. we did her from facebook and google that they think the first weeks of april were showing them they thought there was a sign of recovery are you seeing the same sign >> it's an incredibly dynamic environment, andrew, so we think it would be too early to discern trends based on what we or anybody else perhaps is seeing now as this global pandemic continues to unfold. when we were trying our earnings call which was just completed to help people understand what we're seeing and what it's like to operate in this environment we find ourselves in today, we pointed to that march 11th to march 31st timeframe as ad revenue was down 27% in that timeframe, as our customers and advertiser events were postponed, as events around the world were postponed or canceled, and as those come back, we'll work hard to deliver twitter to a bigger audience and help advertisers even better

than we have been able to do so far. >> how key for twitter do you think are sports are live events? ned, are you still with us >> i'm with you. sorry, i lost you for a minute >> we really want to try to understand how key you think live events, sports and the like, are for twitter. and how maybe that differs from some of the other -- from some of your competitors. >> well, live events are really big way that people use the service. but that's not just about something that's scheduled that we all go to a stadium or watch on our sofas it could be something like the last dance, where you effectively have watch parties on the service where people feel like they're creating their community around them from their shelter-in-place environment it could be a global pandemic where people come to the service

to learn about it to get trusted information and find out where they can learn more about any given topic around this global pandemic when we think about events, we think much more broadly than we do about sports and scheduled things because so much that happens in the world isn't that. >> ned, speak to what the mix of the advertising base looks like. how big a component is travel for you? we had barry diller on the program now about two weeks ago. we reference it constantly, i think i did even in the last hour he said expedia, for example, was going to go probably from a $5 billion ad budget this year to a billion dollar ad budget. >> travel isn't as big for us as other verticals where we feel like we perform really well helping media and entertainment companies, helping tech and telecom companies, financial services companies and many others where they want to be in front of their customers,

connecting with what's happening. twitter tends not to be as much used by advertisers for considered purchases like plane tickets as much as for a new mobile device, for a movie launch, or even for just connecting with your customers during this trying time where advertisers talk about their loan forgiveness programs or about gofundmes they're doing to support their customers. >> so how closely are you following, therefore, just straight up consumer demand and what happens in the social distancing world given that movie launches were something that were a valuable piece of the twitter puzzle or a new launch of a phone. i think there's some real questions about, you know, what employment looks like this fall, whether people are going to rush into the apple store to get the new phone or the new iphone or other types of devices >> well, we watch all these things very carefully. we have seen some people continue to launch products and services, whether it's zombie with the phone they launched on

twitter or you have seen ads for the ipad and other devices that have come out recently, movies and other things that have continued to launch. but when we step back more broadly, we think about the opportunity to help these advertisers not just with these launches but with more direct response formats over time that will start with app installs that's multi tens of billions of dollars growing market where we have important business today but it needs to be and will be much bigger for us, and we need to keep moving down that funnel for advertisers and helping get all the way to a purchase on twitter eventually >> how much advertising scheduled got moved to the third and to the fourth quarter, and is that money in the door already? is that money that has to get booked later can they get out of it if in fact they decide that the business isn't there or that they even want to push it into 2021 >> well, it's too early, i think, to assess trends and

decisions that advertisered have made in such a dynamic environment where this current stage of dealing with the global pandemic may evolve into a different one, may revert. we're seeing different behavior from different kinds of advertisers, where some have already pivoted the things they're advertising about. others are waiting, and others are continuing with the same campaigns they had planned before so i think it's too early to assess what's being pushed out, what's being canceled, and how exactly this all plays out we try to step back from the days and weeks and think more about the years and our revenue product road map and how we can deliver even better for these advertisers over time. >> okay, ned, always good to see you. we wish you well stay healthy, stay safe. we're all using twitter constantly we're all on it. >> thanks. >> we appreciate it. good to see you. >> you too >> becky up next, we'll get you ready for the opening bell plus, don't forget, the berkshire hathaway annual meeting is on saturday

if you have questions for warren buffett and you're a shareholder, you can email the questions to burkeshirequestions@cnbc.com

let's take a final check on the markets before we hand things off watching the futures this morning. we went from an up picture to a down picture over the course of the last few hours dow futures indicated down by about 208 point. this dms after we got the weekly jobless claims number. they total 3.8 million the brings the total over the last six weeks to more than 30 million people who have filed jobless claims not surprise giving the shutdown, but it has lots of people wondering when this ends, how we come out the other side nasdaq is indicated in positive territory, up by about 32 points s&p futures down by about 21 after a strong day for the markets yesterday based on the news we heard about gilead and remdesiv remdesivir >> can we -- did we ask the

twitter guy if there's something worse than blocking they can put in and by the way, andrew, you say you don't block people someone sent me a shot of you that you blocked them. so you do do it. you do do it once in a while you do do it, right? >> i don't think i blocked anyone in a very long time >> i'm going to send it. i want something worse but i'm not sure some kind of hand signal or something. anyway, we gotta go. >> that does it for us today make sure you join us tomorrow right now, time for "squawk on the street." >> good thursday morning welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm carl quintanilla with jim cramer and david faber the ceos of mcdonald's, dow, and service now, as stocks look to give back gains on this final day of april futures down 200 weekly jobless claims, 3.8 million. that's a total of 30 million in the last six weeks oil is up on reports