the dow yesterday. another big round of retail earnings on deck the new plans by some companies to bring back workers. new survey data from voters since wednesday about how the government is handling the pandemic and preparing for the resurgence of the virus. "squawk box" begins right now. >> good morning. welcome to "squawk box" on cnbc. we are watching u.s. equity futures. after a down day yesterday, the dow lost 390 points.

the futures indicated up about 322. the decline of 30 points futures point to bigger gain at the open of about 30 points. the nasdaq is open it is very early we have seen a lot of volatility lately let's look at what is happening in the treasury markets. wti said the july contract that is the active front running contract trading above $22 a barrel one point of favor for the bulls on this. the 10-year at 0.698%. andrew >> thanks, becky we have a huge lineup of guests. we keep saying a huge lineup but we do. it is crazy. joining us exclusively this morning is walmart ceo, head of

coca-cola, james quincy, another exclusive with the new ceo of united the ceo of lonza that is partnering with moderna. a huge three hours ahead >> lowes, wow. adjusted net $1.77 the estimate was $1.32 look at the stock. up almost 4% home depot yesterday which was part of the reason that dow fell was because of home depot. same store sales up 11.2%. dot com sales rose 80% lowe's is going to invest quite a bit to support employees in lowe's case, $340 million in

the first quarter to support employers and communities in response to covid-19 $19.7 billion is above the current estimate there at $18.3. looks pretty good. can you explain it it is easier to shop >> lowe's has been in the midst of a turnaround. they have the new ceo they brought in who has been going to work i would say maybe they had an easier position to come off of lower comps. but you've got to give them credit i know there was problems in the past in terms of their website to get access to those maybe they've made massive improvements there that has been a key for all the retailers in the haves groups at this point

walmart and target have been investing so heavily for a number of years. maybe helping lowe's at this point too. one thing is interesting, they point outnumbers i wouldn't anticipate doing well at the moment, they have $600 billion in cash and resolving credit facilities these are things that you are hearing from companies in dire straights. >> we also have this not far from an all-time high, 126 would be the all-time high and it is helping home depot another v-shaped recovery with a little bit of the flop that's slope on a chart, isn't

it >> what is interesting, home depot was down when they came out with earnings in the morning. walmart had great numbers. they were up by the end of the day. there was some sort of broader malaise dragging down the market >> something from moderna about websites >> and from stat one key stock to watch today is moderna. those shares got a big pop after reporting positive earnings results for a phase one study. they fell sharply and were down again in the pre-market. are down again by as much as 4%. speaking to several experts questioning the response to the moderna news they said the drug trial results didn't include as much information to draw conclusions about how successful the trial

was and that the release was light on data. i did read the piece we know it was a small number of people eight out of eight who they had the final results from 45 people in the study eight out of eight showed they did develop antibodies that the company has classified as being the same as someone who had come back and recovered from it one of the picking points is, okay, you can have a wide variety of antibodies of somebody who p recovers from the disease. the company already didn't say the age of the eight people. they did say the 45 people were 18 to 55 years old if the response was in the longer of these people, they say it is less conclusive and that it is the older people targeted by the disease there were questions about the

durability about the antibodies that built up and the response this was all taken after two weeks of the second dose after that vaccine had been initiated. there was a lot of questions they'd like to see the data. still people that are hopeful but they want to see more after they can really make any call tied judgement >> pretty amazing. the immune system, it is like an organ. white blood cells. t cells, b cells, it is like an organ. and when you get older, it doesn't work like when you were younger. if you did develop antibodies and you are young and in the prime of life and your immune system is so sharp you can see how that would make

a difference >> unlike us >> i feel good i always felt good i attribute it to having three dogs that my immune system is constantly building antibodies from something they drag in from somewhere. part of it is ge netic whether you have a sharp immune system or not. >> i do too. part of the reason for the questions around this are things with he talked about yesterday too. we had the ceo of moderna on on monday as soon as that news was out and had a chance to talk about a couple of the issues people raised the question about how they would put out the release of these results that would not be finalized also the idea that national institute for allergy and

infectious disease they often come out with their own press release or dr. fauci the industry did not put out its own release and the timing of this with he spoke with the ceo of moderna monday morning as this was coming out he said at the time, they were going to put more money to work to make sure they could ramp up the vaccine quickly. i think we have a sound bite right here interest that on monday morning >> we are going to increase our investment in capital equipment, in raw materials to make as many doses as we can. >> where are you getting the money for these investments? >> we have a strong balance sheet. the grant from the gates foundation

the companies will capitalize. the companies in a great place >> he didn't mention that later in the day, they said it would be selling additional stock. around $1.3 billion. that was as the stock rose at the end of the day, it was up 30%. at the end of the day, shares up 30%. there have been questions raised by that too. why put out the timing on this again, experts are not willing to write this off. they just want to see more data and see exactly how effective this vaccine is. >> i don't think the ceo selling its shares is secondary.

>> no, no. these these were new shares. >> brings out the crazies. i don't know how the tesla crazies are involved with moderna. they are crazy anyway, they are involved with talking about it most of them think, i think, that ceo pump and dumped and sold his shares. it looked like general purposes. >> again, timing is interesting. that's why people are asking questions. we'll wait and see the rest of the data and see what that has to show. >> the reason they have conflated issues we talk about 10 b 15 programs

these programs to sell their shares this ceo has been selling throughout the process and arguably, if you were bullish, you could stop on the selling. >> jay clayton said that yesterday. i'd rather have people buying their stock than selling their stock. i hope he had his 10 b structured so that window for like two hours on whatever day that was that has already come back down. >> month to date, the stock is up over 50%. >> he said what you want is good hygiene. the fact that we are having a good conversation at all about a drug we hope and pray is going to work is marred and

questioned >> cramer said yesterday, that is capitolism. you don't wa-- capitalism. you are raising for general purposes, you want to do it. >> health care is a specific and unique situation in the middle of a pandemic. if a month or two from now, this drug doesn't work, for whatever reason, we hope that's not the case there will be more finger pointing and lawyers it will become a complete you know what. you want to try to figure out a way to avoid that. could it have waited a day or two? could it provide a situation i don't think that's capitalism, i think it is a timing issue >> you can talk to cramer about it, andrew the whole idea of releasing interim results of a phase one

trial, which is just testing safety and only eight patients that is something totalk about plus, i don't know if you or people, sort of in your place of thinking, can they charge anything for the vaccine they develop ever how do you get to a $30 billion market cap on a company? >> this is a company that never successfully made a drug before. >> how many vaccines do you need to sell to get near the profit margin >> this is going to become the issue for the p. >> the question is does the platform work or not i think the question is does this platform work or not? that's what we are watching. >> and does mrna be used in a

way that the cell picks it up and it exactly works >> if the platform works, there is a lot of exciting things about it that's the question. does the platform work >> we'll talk to lonza they'll be one of the joint manufacturers. he may have comes about what it will take to commercialize this? >> we'll continue after the break because we have dr. scott gottlieb joining us. new survey data and how worried people are about the resurgence of the numbers in the fall scott gottlieb will join us after the break. take a look at shares of lowe's. up sharply after earnings revenue. stock up about 6%.

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results. >> a lot of times in polling, g there are gray areas these results are stark. it all starts with the way we americans are experiencing this virus and how polarized that is by political party take a look at the result showing the personal connections people have. asking whether they themselves know anybody or have a personal connection to the virus or the experience 98% of democrats said yes, 42 of republicans, that is a dramatic disparity in the way we are experiencing this virus and the way people feel about this happening to them and their communities. polsters tell us it is largely because of the divided and segregated communities we live in the types of areas democrats or

republicans live in and are experiencing and answering sort of the way they think they are supposed to answer it. all of that plays into the experience around the virus that leads to the next two followings this fear of returning to work too soon 79% of democrats are saying they have a fear of returning serious concerns of returning to work too soon. 87% of republicans said they have minor or no concerns about returning to work too soon all of that is driven by the experience that people are having of this virus if it is dramatic in your life, you'll have a dramatic response. if not, then not the idea of a second wave coming through. look how differently republicans and democrats view this.

all among swing state voters yes, maybe no is the red the gray, the blue republicans anticipating a second wave, 21%. democrats anticipating a second wave, 93% of democrats expect a second wave. these are huge it goes to the way we live now the stark polarization of this country and experiences around this virus that is informing the responses we are seeing and the political attention given the scale of the fall out we are having some fascinating results here and more details throughout the course of the day here on cnbc >> thank you, we'll continue this conversation and get thoughts on all of this and talk about the potential of a second wave dr. scott gottlieb, fda

commissioner serves on the board of illumina and pfizer you heard what eamon had to say. let's take politics out of it, what are the health experts saying about a second wave >> this is going to come back in the fall in some fashion whether it is in a pandemic fashion will depend on what we do whether we have screening in place, whether we have good track and trace in place tracking people who are sick and getting close contact and offering testing it will all depend on the public health work. the coronavirus circulate on a seasonal basis there is no reason to say this will disappear we are seeing it come back in south america as they go into their winter we are seeing some seasonality

what do you do to fully understand you would have been part of the republicans. so 93% of democrats believe this is coming. for people to avoid a second wave, they need to believe a second wave is coming. how do you articulate that to the p ublic? >> a lot of states wouldn't touched by this. the more rural areas, which are republican states. looking at new york, new orleans, chicago, they were pretty hit the transfer will be lower in those cities because of more immunity in new york, you are probably getting to levels of exposure

that will reduce the level in the fall the vulnerable cities are those dense but largely touched. you think of dallas where they didn't have a big epidemic we need to remind people to have a good technique heading into the fall july and august, i think we'll have a quiet july and august and people will let their guard down come the fall, they need to be careful. >> you saw in texas, they had to reclose some churches that were open and they discovered some people with coronavirus there. a leaked pentagon statement that they believe the virus will be with us in some way through at least the summer of 21 does that make sense to you? >> look, it makes sense that

this coronavirus now is pervasive enough around the world. we have seven other strains of coronavirus that come every season they cause the common cold this will probably become an infection that will circulate around the world but eventually have a vaccine it is possible to develop a vaccine. doesn't mean we have one yet but it is possible we'll need to get vaccinated for this like we get vaccinated for the flu. >> i know we put you through the paces yesterday on moderna we had one conversation about this news report that may ask even harder questions that had been asked so far about the results. the fact that government agency working with moderna has not come forward to support what moderna has to say what is your positive optimistic

level and skeptical level about it >> my view hasn't changed. it is encouraging to develop an antibody response. i'm not sure prized the nih branch did not put this out. this was disclosed earlier than the company wanted to. they probably felt compelled to disclose that monday morning that's my speculation why they disclosed. it would have been nice to see the tighter, absolute levels i think that's what people wanted to see. it would be nice to know all 45 patients developed neutralizing anti-b anti-bodies. the biggest issue coming out of the trial, this isn't a knock on the product at all, is that they

don't know the dose. they have to do a phase two work to do the dose finding they want to be in a phase three in the summer. the high dose seemed too high, low dose seemed too low. they are testing 50 microgram dose they may have to go back an test 75 microgram dose or something else they want the companies to get the dose right before they go to pivotal trials >> one thing you just said is important. a lot of people were questioning why moderna would come out monday morning and release these early results of phase one and issue stock offering for general corporate purposes later that day. what i had not heard before is what you said, there was some sort of rye lease that happened

on friday that maybe pushed their hand a little bit and that reminds me about remdesivir and the early results because stat got ahold of the conversation, i believe, the woman who was running it had online somewhere. got ahold of that and ran with the early results of remdesivir. what happened on friday? >> there was a reference made by someone who i have very high regard for who had resigned from the board. he joined the white house as ann a they are prapeutics advisor. it wasn't a reference to moderna. most people knowing he's on the board of moderna started assuming that might be data from the trial. i'm speculating here

that was one of the reasons this took off i have a lot of respect for him. i worked for him for five years. >> this is the guy with the options, right, scott? he's just getting hammered by the click bait websites, right >> whether or not he was or wasn't referring to this he might not have been we don't know. i think there was an assumption if you go back to twitter, there was an assumption he was referring to this. >> my point is this, you worked for him for five years this is the trump crony who benefitted from the release with all of the options lining his

pockets. that's the way it is being portrayed in certain circles you don't buy that >> i trust his integritiy. >> you need to get a little more cynical about things, scott. look at the world in a real way. >> i've been in washington long enough >> you know something about the guy. no, no talk to the drudgington post that's the new name for that >> that is stuff i had not known before thank you. i appreciate that. i think that's an important part of the narrative that needs to be out there too >> quickly, target is just out hitting the wires.

earnings on adjusted base si coming in at 59 cents a share versus 40 cents they had been expecting. comp sales overall up by 10.8% for the quarter. comp store sales up 0.9% digital sales up 141%. target has been one of the retailers that has nailed it in terms of making sure it is offering every option. you can order on target.com, order from shipt digital sales up 141%. we saw similar things with walmart yesterday. if you are looking through some of the breakdown on that, their comp sales for february were up by 3.8%. for march, they were up 11

2k079% by april, they were up 16.5 perts. that was a little different. talking about march is when they saw the peak in same store sales. it kept climbing digital was up 80% the company is saying they are going to extend their $2 an hour pay increase saying it would go to may 2 now july 4 would be extending that for their employees did you have a question? >> if you order on line but pick up at the store, that counts as a digital purchase, correct? >> i think the stores are doing fulfillment. if i'm correct on this, stores fulfilled about 80% of orders. if may be how they measured it same store sales up 0.4%

stores acted as virtual fulfillment centers and has been one of the ways a retailer like target or walmart has been able to step up in ways amazon couldn't amazon has been huge and increased market share but they don't have stores to do that fulfillment from this is one way target and walmart have been able to keep up and compete by using those stores >> do they break down between what is shipped directly against an amazon versus a pick up >> they may later. i'm only seeing the digital. all i know, their comp digital sales are up 280%. i think that combines both shipped and pick up yourself

from the store a programming note for you, target ceo brian cornell will be on "mod money" tonight at 6:00 p.m. eastern this is one of the companies that is alrely performing. "squawk box" will he be right back (vo) since our beginning, our business has been people. and their financial well-being. it's evident in good times, with decisions focused on the long-term. and crucial when circumstances become difficult. that continued emphasis on people -

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welcome back to "squawk box. a changing of the guard united airlines ceo stepping down and passing the baton to scott kirby he led united since 2015 the company's stock whip sawed after a moderate improvement for demand for trips in the united states we'll ask scott kirby about that when he joins us live at 8:30 a.m. eastern time. part of our all-star lineup of ceos this morning. >> coming up, reaction this morning from results from target and lowe's

target has turned around and off a little bit lowe's continues with a strong performance. up $8. we'll talk to an analyst in the retail sector next 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.

welcome back we've been watching two big earnings of note target is down a little after reporting better than expected earnings you are still seeing a nice pop on lowes let's talk more about this week's retail trends

joining us for that, director of retail markets at refinitiv. what do you think about the results this morning let's start with target. >> yes thank you for having me. target smashed it out of the park with triple digit numbers in e commerce. it is very evident today more than ever, a key on line strategy is key. really investing in the omni channel experience is something target did five years ago. it used to beat on earnings. its stock used to take a hit because it used to tell us it was going to invest heavily on the omni channel experience, which today is paying off with the numbers. the same can be said for other brands that want to succeed. >> how come target is down this morning? >> yesterday, we saw walmart

down by the end of the day that comes despite better than anticipated result >> absolutely. the difference between lowe's and target is lowe's smashed it even further out of the park target, we were expecting a good earnings season especially after walmart's numbers yesterday. the fact that they are having such high expenses, which is something we saw yesterday with the other retailers is costing the stock to take a hit today. the fact that -- >> if you look at the companies that have reported on this, yesterday, we heard from home depot, that stock was down they spent about $850 million putting towards extra resources. i think target is spending

something like $550 million and walmart has spent $900 million on that front. those are all things the street kind of anticipated, knew was happening and knew the companies were doing i think you would have a huge disappointment if they weren't investing in your companies. >> not just the investment in their employers but the omni channel. home depot saying they were going to spend $4 billion only on omni channel. in target, with he were expecting 27% gross market that came in and the company is taking a hit not just on the cost of the wages and employment but the fact that they have to ship everything faster for the consumer >> do you think that's the right call i think these companies are doing whatever they can to help anyway possible?

the street's reaction is the right reaction on this the fact that omni channel is here to last is a necessary evil and not an investment. this will be eating up the bottom line. you think about who are the lasting winners when the pandemic is over, they'll be able to give shoppers a fast and easy way to continue shopping. it is making more new consumers on the bottom line the amount of new consumers going on line to shop has increased four fold since midmarch this is something here to last those retailers that have reopened in asia are already telling us despite traffic already coming at very similar levels, precoronavirus at the stores, consumers are still gravitating on line to finalize those purchases.

it is a necessary evil those will be going up going forward at least for q1 and q2 >> sure. and those stocks have run a long way since march. good to see you. >> thank you for having me when we return, a few months ago, it would have been almost unthinkab unthinkable for a tom hank's movie to skip the theater and go straight to streaming but that is what is happening now that's why we create moments to feel kohler clean, every day. ♪

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>> apple made its biggest ever movie acquisitions buying 15 years of streaming rights to the film "grayhound" written and starring tom hanks and produced by sony.

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despite yesterday's decline, the technology sector is about 5% off its 52 week high. struck back in february. nasdaq 100 is up 6% so far this year our next guest says there's still room to run in the group joining us to tell us what's working in tech is gene munster, founder and managing partner you have a whole list of tech

stocks, some that are actually fitting to some extent by the situation that the world finds itself in. even among those, some you feel already reflect the positives and some don't can you just go over some of the ones that you think are fully valued or overvalued and then the one that you think definitely hasn't participated as much as it should >> the fully valued ones are amazon, potentially zoom, per d peloton, netflix when we think about returning to normal think about entertainment. peloton, netflix think about the categories sustained head wind. that could be around google or facebook what's going on in advertising. some of the greater speculation or better restrictions on

advertising, some things you heard with department of justice and google, for example. then there's the question about sustained tail winds if you look at companies that are really playing into ecommerce, wellness, 5g, all these, the future of work, that really plays, i think, most strongly into apple's strengths. so i think if you take that lens of what's going to return to normal, we'll have a tail wind, what will have a head wind it clarifies this whole pandemic trade. if i can, joe, just try to zero in on what i think is the biggest opportunity for investors here, it's a well traveled road but i think apple is ultimately the most upside. the reason is that for companies to really flourish post-pandemic you need two things. number one is cash they have close to $200 billion in cash. second is the right product road map to really play into those

tail wind themes apple has that the last piece and what has been lost amongst all this is valuation still does matter. if you look at companies like netflix, amazon, peloton, zoom, all those trade at over 100 pe then you fast forward anticipate look at a company like apple that trades at 25 pe, it is a massive gap relative to the opportunity. so that's how i think about the pandemic and post-pandemic landscape. >> looking at the charts of the ones you call overvalue and ones like apple undervalue, apple is a classic v recovery as well so you must have thought before the pandemic it was so under value because it's back to where it was and you think it's most the undervalued. >> yes just to even put some more framework around that.

again well traveled stories. then the question is what gets lost when everyone hyper analyzes a story how can it be undervalued if so many people are paying attention to this. there are two fundamental pieces we talk about the balance sheet and road map i look at a fundamental reason why apple trades at a lower multiple and one of the biggest reasons is the hardware piece. ultimately the hardware has long been viewed as a discount to its multiple because it's less predictable and because of that it has more fluctuations in their revenue growth compared to other growth companies like amazon that's why it trades at a lower multiple i think in the future the piece of hardware, the importance of hardware will be progressively important for investors. something that's been lost because of the demise of nokia and others but having services that work tightly together will

power some of these future sp p experiences. yesterday there were rumors that are credible related to apple and their glass. this is augmented reality. think of google glass but something that actually worse. apple is in a unique place to do the hardware piece and software to empower augmented reality the part that surprised me about those rumors and i think they are accurate is apple had plans to start to talk about those glasses this fall. it sound like they are going delay that until the spring of next year. probably doesn't shift until 2022 but that's a big deal. it's a big deal because it's a whole new product category >> you are saying they won't be that -- they will look like regular -- look like robert carridine in "revenge of the nerds. i'm not sure i want to look like that they will have bells and whistles they will be bizarre look.

we got to go thank you, gene. appreciate it. when we come back, we have the ceos who will be joining us from several companies james quincy of coca-cola will join us in the first on cnbc interview. that's coming up plus much more to talk about today. later today we'll talk to doug mcmillion who is president and ceo of walmart company reported earnings yesterday. stick around "squawk box" will be right back.

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investors trying to pick up the pest after stocks snapped a three day rally. drug companies are racing against the clock. to develop vaccines and treatments and how to ramp up production ceo of the company partnering with moderna will join us to talk about those efforts plus first cnbc view of ceo of coca-cola. james quincey joins us with a business update. second hour of "squawk box" begins right now

good morning, everybody. welcome back to "squawk box" right here on cnbc i'm andrew ross sorkin along with becky quick and joe kernen. take a look at u.s. equity futures. cutting up a couple of companies reporting. dow looks like it will open 306 points higher. s&p 500 about 34 points higher and nasdaq 112 points higher we have a huge lineup of guests. ceo of walmart, ceo of coke and ceo of united airlines, head of pbh and head of lonza. a lot coming up in just a bit. couple of big retailers reporting this morning lowe's shares surging after reporting quarterly earnings of $1.77 a share. that was well above the conhe

census smaft $1.32 revenue and same store sales beat the street's forecast that stock up by 7%. a lot ofquestions about why it was able to so sharply outperform particularly when we heard from home depot yesterday. and there's been some speculation that has been picking up in different place. some on twitter, some from a couple of different analysts home depot did have, did decide to forego its big spring sale. they were concerned about being able to handle the crowds at the stores as they were trying to deal with coronavirus. lowe's went ahead with that sale someone else pointed out that home depot is more tied to contractors so where you had construction shut down in a lot of places that might have hurt them more than lowe's. but home depot shares trading higher they are up by 1.37% today then target which earned 59 cents a share for the first quarter. 19 cents better than the current estimates. estimates came down sharply very

recently at the end of april when the company warned about the expenses they are spending right now. not only to take care of their employees to make sure to get quick delivery that stock is up by 23 cents brian cornell will join jim cramer tomorrow night on "mad money" uncertainty, which is never totally zero in the stock market, we always talk about it constantly maybe more now continues to rattle the markets. joining us now is david bianca made headline in the way you feel, david. you continue to be cautious about equities what does that mean? should we sell right here because you're cautious and we think we're headed back down and buy at lower levels. is that what you would recommend right now? >> joe, good morning i would recommend being under weight equities. we are, instead preferring to be

overweight corporate credit and municipal bonds is a better reward for the risks. we are one weight equities and our preference is for large cap u.s. equities and continued sticking with growth stocks. where i think the most vulnerable part of the equity market remains and i don't think there's value there, it is value stocks it is at this stage, financials, but still energy too, industrials. even things in the past were defensive had more risks than before like reits. so i know we may all be sick and tired of watching a certain group of stocks just keep leading the market but that leadership is well deserved. technology, health care, and sticking with some of the defensive things like consumer staples and utilities are my preferred defenses so stick with leadership but i think the leadership in terms of all asset classes for the next few years is going to

be corporate credit and municipal bonds. >> so the market is up 30% from the lows and there's a lot of companies that you probably, you know, some of the great companies, great stocks that you could have gotten 30%, 40% lower. >> that's right. >> so at that time were you -- you were less cautious you at that point must have said wow i haven't seen some of these stocks at levels like this for a longtime did you make any buys, any purchases, any recommendations when we were down 30% lower? >> of course we did. we used the opportunity to buy the stronger and growth names we liked for a longtime some same positions but increased those positions. >> are you still underweight down there >> yes >> still underweight >> i was underweights at the lows we did make attractive returns in corporate credit. >> what about --

>> i would point out that we stuck the entire time with the growth stocks that we've been and that's done well for us within our equity accounts >> a lot of people think we can retest lows. that's why they are cautious why you are cautious let's say we go back down and test the lows. what would you do this time? would you get out of your underweight position this time in hindsight or still not buy down and stay underweight down at the lows. i wonder if you would buy that dip or whether you would not buy it again what would you do? >> there's a better chance i would buy the dip. if he we went to 2,500 or lower on the s&p 500, we probably be more open to going to a more neutral position on equities, and that would be because there's more time that's gone by we've been able to monitor the policy responses to this crisis. but this crisis and this recession is still very much --

it's still playing out the economic damage has been tremendous probably the vast majority of it is behind. but we're still learning about the real damage to corporate earnings power and balance sheets >> but we're definitely seeing that we hear it every day from most people let's say that the market continues to confound a lot of people and goss up another 10%, 12%. at that point would you sell that rally and lighten up would you do it at that point? >> i would sell this rally >> you would sell this rally you're selling this rally right now. >> i think this is an opportunity to lighten up on risk, find the opportunities in the other asset classes that are still there. yeah i do think this market has taken a giant leap of faith and when it comes to these tech stocks which that's where i most enthusiastic, there's still a

lot of blue sky in valuation if you're going to buy blue sky make sure it's the most crystal clear of blue and that's why we're sticking with proven growth stocks that you will fine that your other guests have talk about and find no reason to rotate away from that towards value stocks >> everybody is waiting for a correction or a pull back and markets need a pull back it seems like no one of buys 30% up, that would be three good years for you, 30% up. if you did ten each ear that's all you try to do on any given year could you have had 30% that's like three good years >> give me a second. we haven't had a change much because what we're doing works so well. we've went overweight the best growth stocks. i would admit that we have been cautious over the past few months and i think investors should remain cautious given this is the most uncertain environment in a very longtime

yesterday i was encouraged listening to secretary treasury mnuchkin and chair powell. i feel they are committed to robust monetary policy the fed is the chief banker to the treasury department. i like the way i'm hearing the treasury department explain the risk >> i think you would have to be crazy to buy stocks right now. on may 1st you would have to be absolutely nutso to buy stocks at the bottom you have to be crazier than ever. right in front of your face no one should be buying stocks right here >> i would be under weight on equities >> david, thank you. we appreciate it thank you. we'll check back with you because time will tell we got some people talking about 3400 so there are differing opinions. >> couple of years >> all right thank you. becky. when we come back the

interim ceo of lonza which is partnering with moderna to help experiment its covid vaccine will join us then james quincey will be our special gut esto see what's happening around the globe right now when it comes to the consumer consumer "squawk box" will be right back. when we started our business we were payir postage. i remember setting up shipstation. one or two clicks and everything was up and running. i was printing out labels and saving money. shipstation saves us so much time. it makes it really easy and seamless. pick an order, print everything you need, slap the label onto the box, and it's ready to go. our costs for shipping were cut in half. just like that. shipstation. the #1 choice of online sellers. go to shipstation.com/tv and get 2 months free.

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developing new vaccines at record speed trying to anyway and this pandemic isputting a renewed focus on the pharmaceutical industry' manufacturing capacity where it is. what's manufactured. which technique. meg terrell joins us now with more hi, meg. >> reporter: those are all of the major questions he and as all of these companies are racing to develop and test the safe and effective vaccine that's only half the battle. then they have to manufacture it on a scale that's nearly unprecedented for pretty much everybody on the globe experts say right now we don't have that manufacturing capacity but starting to get built. if you take a loat the typhoon partnerships j and j plans to partner with others to get up to a billion dose moderna partnering with lonza. oxford working with astrazeneca.

pfizer working with biotech. a lot of these companies are depending on an industry that a lot of us don't know a lot about and contract development in organization that are playing an ever larger role in making our medicines. pwc estimates this was an industry about dall$99 billion n 2018 compromises names like emerging bio solution and lonza name not familiar to us now but will play a major role in making these vaccines, guys >> interesting, meg. >> go ahead. it was interesting >> stick around. we're going to have a longer conversation right now let's bring in chairman of lonza, albert bainy. he's partnering with moderna

thank you for being here today >> good morning. >> let's talk first about just how tricky it is to go ahead and manufacture an rna vaccine to this point they've never been commercialized what's the biggest challenging you face on that front >> you're right to mention it would be the first time. moderna decided to join force with lonza because we offer a broad range of manufacturing processes. all the steps in this manufacturing process are owned by lonza we have key expertise of scaling process, from lab up to commercial industry technologies so we understand the processes we're designing the future manufacturing sites. and we may be able to produce the first small volumes for lab

trials in june, july of this year we expect to be able to manufacture large volumes as of december 2020 in north america we'll have to make a point here. lonza is manufacturing the active ingredients of the drug substance. we're not manufacturing the final vaccine. behind or after our activities, finish our activities which must to be done and managed by lonza. >> albert, it's andrew ross sorkin here. just wanted you to comment, if you could, on what you think of the results that we heard earlier this week from moderna there are still questions out there about the veracity of the results, how much we should take away from those results, and

whether we should think anything about the fact that the national institute of allergy and infectious diseases didn't come out publicly with moderna at the same time? >> well, i understand the question but i am the wrong person to answer this question because all the questions, issues, linked to clinical trials should be addressed we're manufacturing the drug substance. we're not involved in the clinical trials. of course, we're not experts on the clinical trials. i apologize if i can't comment on this very important question. >> let me ask you -- sorry, joe. let me ask you in terms of where this manufacturing will be taking place because there's a lot of questions if the vaccine is successful where it would be manufactured and where, who would be getting it first. >> so, first of all we have two

manufacturing plants in north america and we are installing now our first manufacturing l lab -- other planning another plant in switzerland and on top of that if need we can add another north america later, a second manufacturing lab of lonza and add two manufacturing labs and if need we can also install in singapore so assuming we will use all of our current capabilities we could have two manufacturing labs in north america, three in switzerland and one in singapore. this would be the end game excuse me? >> where in north america? are any of these in north america? >> two we're planning one manufacturing

lab in boston, north of boston and as i said before we can add a second lab or so in north america. >> okay. >>. >> reporter: this is meg terrell. a lot of experts have pointed out is that the supply chain, of course, is going to be the key question here for manufacturing all of these vaccines and the manufacturing capacity is only as strong as the weakest link in the supply chain how confident are your in your ability to have the materials you need to do it at the quantity you're talking about. what's keeping you up at night in term of what could go wrong here >> well what could go wrong. i'm taking the perspective of the production of the active ingredient what could go wrong and create some delays is having access to the equipment. we're building new plants. new manufacturing plants

this is the main reason why we could be delayed in this for the rest we have confident that we have money, know hours expertise, with the people and talent that we can manage that correctly and satisfily. but any access to a treatment -- excuse me. >> reporter: sorry to interrupt you. just wondering if you need more funding to be able to make all of this happen on the scale that you're talking about you know, we know that moderna has support from barta here in the united states. it also just did a stock offering of more than a billion dollars worth of stock that they said would go to manufacturing and distribution of the vaccine but you're doing this on such a huge scale you need morme monetary support

>> we're producing around 1 billion dose as year we he need additional funding clearly, yeah >> albert, what would happen -- we've spoken from moderna about where they think where this is going, how this would be distributed. the point is it would be going to health care providers first if you come up with a vaccine, particularly because you're manufacturing it in so many different countries, where do you see that being distributed which countries would have first access to it >> in order to be able to give you a clear answer today i can't. two main reasons number one, the infection is older now. we're part of the manufacturing process but we don't tone final vaccine. the decision where this vaccine will be distributed is the responsibility of moderna. of course, we will try to work with moderna

it's an important topic. governments are calling and asking if they could have abscess or reserve some capacities this discussion has not been initial initialized. the final decision is in the hands of moderna because they are owning the final product >> albert, i want to thank you for your time today and meg, thank you for joining us >> thank you for your interest bye-bye. >> thank you thank you, meg lot more coming up on "squawk box" this morning. when we return we'll talk retail with the ceo of pvh. and ceo of coca-cola will be here to discuss the global economy and coping with covid-19 and then the walmart ceo doug mcmillon will join us exclusively on the company's latest quarter

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fashion retailers are re-opening their doors around the u.s., hoping to shake off sluggish sales which is hard to say. let's welcome many chirico chairman of pvh whose brands include cal vine cline, tommy hi hilfinger and others it's a microcosm of what we're doing here you have to think about how to re-open the entire world what are you doing where are you along that process globally

different parts of our stores are at different parts. japan is the major country that's morale in lockdown. as we move to europe we're seeing about a 60% of our stores opening in europe today. and here in north america, we're seeing about a third of our stores being open today. and what we're learning as we're seeing traffic trends is if you think about what's happening in europe and in asia, the traffic and the sales have built over time as we've opened and we're seeing that same trend here in the united states. actually, in asia our comps today, our store by store brick-and-mortar basis is only down 10% and we're seeing big increases in ecommerce

we're seeing similar trends when we move to europe as we start build towards that and here in north america we've only been open for about ten days now and we're outperforming all plants but running more or less somewhere in that down 40% to 30% range >> amazing environment to be operating in and just thinking about what it would take to re-open. can you just tell us everything you've instituted? you must do different things about fitting rooms and, you know, keeping your employees safe keeping distance with the number of people that are in the store. if someone wants to bring something back that happens a lot with retailers, and i mean what do you do that somebody already brought to their home and how do you make sure it's okay to touch to somebody else can you touch on that, manny >> sure. joe, we're in a whole brave new

world. i'll start by saying we put up a safety and health of our associates and our customers in our stores so, obviously, all of our associates are wearing masks and gloves we're encouraging and asking all of our customers to do the same. we're actually providing masks as they walk in. we shortened our store hours to provide significantly more cleaning in the stores and cleaning different time of the day. we put in, you know, safety and protective equipment in the store, plexiglas shields at check out. the fitting rooms, you hit on a key point. we've closed our fitting rooms for now. and we've extended our return policy and we've made it more generous and when goods are returned, we basically put goods in

quarantine for 48 to 72 hours, and we provide a cleaning to those goods before they go back on the floor so we're trying to address all those issues the big issue also is that we've significantly reduced the capacity in the stores by 75%. so in a lot of our stores you'll see lines outside as people have to come in so we're really trying from provide for social distancing at the same time. so it is a brave new world that puts significant pressure on traffic in the stores our traffic is down probably 25% to 30% depending on the region but our conversion rate is higher because we think the consumers that are entering the stores are, how would you say, more dedicated shoppers or there on a mission so it looks like the consumers really want to come back and shop and we have to just manage this whole process and to try to make it work

for consumers and for ourselves. >> manny, in terms of the mix, the mix, the fashion mix, in terms of what you think there will be demand for in the future and maybe how it all changes given the fact that there's going to be some part of the population that's going to be working from home for at least some, you know, portion of the next year, if not longer, hopefully less time, there's going social distancing, people will not be going to big group parties and things where maybe you would wear a little extra flare. how does that change what do you think the mix of what you're selling should look like >> well, what we've seen and anticipating is core basic will probably be stronger and fashion really have to be careful with as you move forward. we're seeing much more casual as you would expect, some of the more rigid dress, little bit

more like i am dressed this morning for you guys shirt and tie, dress shirts. i think that's a category that's seen pressure. tailored clothing, seeing some pressure now we had seen in the last couple of weeks that start to bounce back significantly but as you would expect, core basics, we have a huge underwear intimate business men's and women's. that business has been very, very strong both in store and particularly online and then that whole casual component and athletic piece of the business that we have a good component in that's been very strong for us as well. so i don't think that's a surprise given the dynamics that we're dealing with right now as we're seeing the workforce come back in asia first, because that's at least six to seven weeks ahead of north america and europe is anywhere from two to four weeks ahead of where we are

from a re-opening process, we're seeing those other categories start to come back as people are working their way back into the work environment and there's more social commitments going on right now for people >> manny, thank you. please come back great having you on. come back and update us. if i give you and drew's address and you live in connecticut can you send him some shirts you make men's shirts? >> we'll work on that. >> can you do that not the return ones. anyway, thanks manny we appreciate it i'll be in touch thanks becky. working for your, andrew, always always >> i got a lot of shirts >> that one looks very familiar. that one is getting some wear, i think. you really got 20 of those >> i literally got i think about 18 shirts all in different shades of blue

>> you've been there for about 40 days so i don't know what you're doing maybe you're recycling them. >> i wash them, i iron them. >> you wash and iron? >> i go. >> i have great cleaners all right. becky. >> thanks, guys. still to come on "squawk box," scott kirby takes over today as ceo of united. we'll talk about his plan to keep business travellers flying. that's ahead of our interview with the ceo then the ceo of coca-cola james quincey gives us an update on business and what he's seeing in the global economy "squawk box" will be right back.

welcome back to "squawk box" this morning

scot kirby steps into the role of ceo at united airlines and transfer of power coming as investors look for signs of improving demand across the industry fill lebew -- phil lebeau joins that story >> reporter: not a huge upthe tick in bookings not just united but other airlines as well when you look at shares of unite this is an airline they were down 90%, 95% in terms of traffic at the worst of it in april. so they are saying that they are noticing a moderate uptick in demand april bookings down 95%. but what you need look at for them is where do they go from here in terms of the capacity, yeah they stripped down to 90% of their schedule, down 90% in may and june, but in july they are only down 75%. they are gradually adding back aircraft as they start to see more people booking tickets and

taking trips overall we're still a long ways off in the united states from seeing traffic levels we saw a year ago we're down 91% 244,000 people were screened the most recent data a couple of days ago compared to 2.6 million and we're off the low of 87,000 on april 14th. but you can barely see an upthe tick there at the end. yes we're up to 244 but compared to where we were a year ago still a drop in the bucket down 91%. don't forget we'll be talking exclusively with united ceo scott kirby that's coming up next hour, guys. be interesting to hear what he has to say about the state of the business and what type of optimism he has about adding back aircraft, traffic picking up as we head into fall but how does united make the adjustment come this fall for potentially laying off thousands of workers if that traffic is not at the level they originally were

hoping for fascinating interview that will be coming up again that's in one hour >> that's an under statement first day what do i need to know how would you like that. we wish you well great. >> joe, the good news for him he's been there four years he's seen a lot of changes going in place right now not like he's coming in and be surprised by anything. united announcing this morning a deal with clorox and cleveland clinic in trying from most great engineer cleanliness and disinfectants at the ticket counters and at the gate >> he brings lot to the able still to come, an addition to scot k scott kirby. coke ceo james quincey will join us and then the leader of nation's largest retailer doug mcmillon will discuss the re-opening of america. the company's latest quarter

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welcome back to "squawk box," everybody. we've been watching the future after a big down day yesterday, the this morning it's indicated up by almost 300 points. s&p futures are up by 32 and nasdaq are up by 103 and those gains for those two indices are more than those two indices lost yesterday. when we come back the ceo of coca-cola james quincey will share his unique perspective on consumer demand as ecominoes around the world re-open "squawk box" will be right back. clean is a feeling.

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powered by the nation's largest gig-speed network. to help give you the speed, reliability, and security you need. tools to manage your business from any device, anywhere. and a team of experts - here for you 24/7. we've always believed in the power of working together. that's why, when every connection counts... you can count on us. welcome back to "squawk box" this morning at the start of 2020 when we were just learning about the coronavirus coca-cola was at all time highs in march as businesses across the globe came to a halt the stock hit an all time low. since then shares of coca-cola have rebounded 16% joining us right now is james quincey chairman and ceo of the coca-cola company, someone who has got his pulse on the global consumer in a way few do james, great to see you this morning. i want to start with this. about a month ago when you were reporting, you were talking

about volumes being down about 25%. that was about 30 days ago how does it took right now >> you know, we're still seeing in may globally negative volumes. they are a little bit better than they were in april. principally driven by the degree of lockdown. there are some markets where the lockdown success eased it's not fully opened. but not the lockdown as it was and so we're seeing some improvements in countries where the lockdowns are coming off but still quite negative versus prior year very early days in the re-opening phase >> to the degree that your experience in china may offer us a little bit of a path forward what are you seeing there not just in term of the supply chain, but in term of the way the consumer is behaving i imagine it goes to some of the social distancing and other requirements that are in place

there. >> yeah. a couple of effects in china clearly things have improved in china from demand point of view, where there is social distancing, of course, it is meaning that sales in those channels are not back to the levels that they were pre-crisis, pre the virus. the other thing we're trying to gauge globally is you have a big inventory effect which wouldn't be normally something to really worry about on a global level. but when the lockdowns occurred, retailers stopped buying and kept selling to some degree. when the re-opening starts there's a restocking phase so we certainly have been cautious where sales are looking like they are improving. trying to understand how much is the consumer and how much is restock. i think for manufacturers like us, we're going to need to see

some more months, at least some more weeks go by before we can really gauge what the consumer is doing it looks like in a place like china, where we were down 90%, we're coming back in may, even though not to pre-crisis levels yet. >> what percentage of the business is grocery versus restaurants versus events, stadiums and the like. how would you break that down? >> yeah. for coca-cola globally the simplest way to look at it is about half of our business is all the collection of at home, where you buy and consume at home and half of our business is away from home principally restaurant, cafes, on the go outlets and stadiums are a smaller piece of that. but there's a whole series much channels that add up to away from home. in total it's about half of our business that's the bit that's been most impacted by the lockdown

the effect of the lockdown is very concentrated on the away from home channels some improvement in at home and ecommerce that goes with at home but not nearly enough as we pointed out in our update. not enough to compensate for the away from home sales >> james, historically coca-cola is one of the largest global advertisers in the worldand that, of course, has a trickle down effect when, in fact, you stop contiguous or you slow advertising. speak to that in term of how you're thinking about marketing. what that marketing spin looks like and maybe what kind of channels you plan to using future and if that shifts? >> yeah. in the very short term of the second quarter we made a decision that a lot of that money was going be ineffective frankly, some of that resource needed to be redirected, helping in all the community actions

we spent well over a million dollars in community support actions around the world we wanted to have less the advertising, one, because we didn't think it would work from a financial point of view and two just as importantly it would be tone deaf in the heart of the crisis so we came down very drastically in the second quarter. as we look to the second half and in 2021 clearly we'll start to do more marketing activities. we'll see some channel shifts. clearly what we're going to also be focusing on that is where is reactivation we'll be spending marketing dollars to help bring the away from home channels back up we have to recognize that coming after this virus crisis will be the economic impact and hangover of the lockdown and there will be a much greater focus by consumers on affordability and getting the price points lower

so our marketing will shift both in term of where we advertise and what we're trying to support, and understanding there will be a different consumer out of pocket money reality for some per of time. >> and the other question i was going ask, you prioritize what you call your core brands during this period, what happens to all of the other brands that you were trying to build i've become an addict of the ah-ha, that's how you pronounce it, ah-ha sparkling water. but i imagine that was a new brand for you. so it's probably not going getting the same kind of marketing attention nor the same kind of shelf space it might have in your plans just three or four months ago. >> good news for you is the that our ah-ha will be. we're very pleased we're going even in the crisis the simple reality in the short

term is four of the retailers in the middle of the lockdown they need to focus on less space they use to keep the supply chain running bp the complications of running their operations running they kneed fewer space naturally that leads to all manufacture stories pull back on innovation you can't engage with consumers to tell them about it and it clogs up the supply chain. we and many others are to concussion on the core brands and core package sizes to make the supply chain run around the world and for the retailers and that was really important during the lockdown to make sure we didn't run out of food and beverages around the world as we move forward clearly we'll bring back innovation. tougher. kind of a recessionary environment. we have gone or going through a process of prioritizing which of the innovations did we really think was starting to work at the beginning of this year and

continue to back them the rest of the year. i've been one of them. which of the ones for prioritization we won't do in the second half. maybe we'll keep them the next year somewhere we'll decide the move and the way the world is going in the next 12 months that innovation is no longer the right thing. i want seems very longtime ago, january sitting here today and the mood has changed so some of those innovations need to be parked and kept in the drawer for another year. >> going back to stadiums to some degree but i'm thinking more broadly in terms of sports, you have sponsored lots of different sports leagues, including the nba, olympics and so many other things what kind of conversations are you having with the leagues, with the television networks, either about pulling money back, pushing them to go forward and press ahead with or without people in the audience does that make those sponsorships to you less

valuable how are you managing through that >> well, absolutely tricky, very tricky clearly there's a couple of effects here we have these sponsorships with multiple sports events, stadiums actually there's a whole series of things, concert, he et cetera, et cetera. at least in the way that they were envisioned a few months ago. we'll have to have a concert we'll have conversations about how are they thinking about going ahead, how do they apply the necessary government guidelines what do they imagine they will do in terms of whether they will have the events or not have the events what that means to sponsors. of course, we like many other sponsors will be there going okay so what's the new deal? how can we manage through this together i'm sure in the long term many of these will still be fantastic properties and there's a lot of things we can do together in

partnership, but we do have to cross the bridge to get there and in some cases that means renegotiations it's a new reality everything has been shaken up and we have to prioritize the money we spend, where it will be effective. so i think there will be -- there will be changes coming in the coming months as we work through these problems >> separately, your headquarters is in the state of georgia georgia has moved to re-open was one of the first to re-open. can you just speak to your own personal experience on the ground >> yes, sure georgia has loosened up some, parts of the lockdown, not the whole thing. and of course like many other states and many other parts of the world the local cities also have a role to play and their own sets of rules. we have a large complex in atlanta.

still prioritizing that. people going to the complex, those whose jobs most depend on being there. lab technician, other sorts of jobs which are really very dependent on being at the location and keeping everyone else working remotely, as many as we can and we certainly see that running through the summer at the end of the day, even those places where lockdown has been eased, they are still asking to maintain social distancing best way for to us achieve that for the safety of our please own for everybody else that come to our complex is prioritize those that have to be there and ask the rotate maximize the amount of time they work from home. we still see a very extended period of time with this duality and a low occupancy in our offices so we can promote physical distancing and that reality will carry forward for some per of time even as the

kind of hard lockdowns ease. we see that around the world we only have a very few offices almost as open as they were prior to the crisis. most of them are in this space, a low occupancy so we can prioritize those that most need to be there. >> james, we only have about 30 seconds but real quick given what you're saying which seems to be longer timeline than a lot of people are thinking about, do you see a disconnect between markets, if you will, and the real economy in terms of where you see the world 12 months from now? >> we looked at every crisis we've been in for 130 years. we know we emerged stronger from every single one but i'm very much of the view that this will be a new or more of an extended year recovery than a recovery. where the markets may be

anticipating some time ahead on the ground economy there are a lot of people who are on unemployment or on furloughs the economic impact of the lockdown is just starting to begin. we do see a protracted adjustment coming off. we will emerge strong from that. we always have but that's what we see ahead >> james, i want to say thank you for joining us this morning. we appreciate all your insights and perspective. we issue and all your employees a lot of luck. i should also just mention i misspoke at the top of this interview your stock did not go to it's all time loss. it's gone to the lows just over the past year. but, again, we appreciate you being with us, james and look forward to having you back on "squawk" very soon becky? >> when we come back, two more "squawk box" exclusives. walmart ceo doug mcmillon is here totalk about business united airlines new ceo scott

kirby will share his strategy to steer the airline out of this crisis and then robert kaplan will talk about jerome powell's testimony yesterday. "squawk box" will be right back.

breaking news, futures pointing to a strong gain at the open after stocks lost a lot of of steam into yesterday's close. results from some of america's biggest retailers. we got the biggest and exclusive interview with walmart ceo new era at united. one of the toughest stretches for the the airlines industry. scott kirby takes over today as

ceo. we speak to him exclusively. what else does the federal reserve have up its slooef eeve fight the coronavirus. we'll ask robert kaplan in another exclusive interview. the final hour of "squawk box" begins right now good morning i'm joe kernen along with becky quick and andrew ross sorkin futures are up 300 where we've been parked most of the morning. let's get right to the interview of the hour. walmart latest earnings out yesterday showing, becky -- i was going to read the story. but you go anyway, go ahead >> joe, thanks as joe mentioned those earnings were out yesterday. we all saw that and saw the numbers that really showed growth in ecommerce in physical stores as consumers are the turning to this retailer for essential items during the coronavirus pandemic joining us right now exclusively

from bentonville, arkansas is doug mcmillon, walmart's ceo thank you for joining us today >> good morning, becky good morning joe and andrew. >> let's talk a little bit about what you're seeing we heard from the company yesterday, saw the earnings that were stronger than anticipated saw revenue was up by more than $2 billion than the street had anticipated for the quarter and. saw that sales, same store sales were up 10% with digital sales up incredibly sharply by 74% it's hard for to us kind of go through that and figure out what you're seeing in terms of the consumer so maybe you can start with that, doug because as the largest retailer in the world people tl people look to you >> sure. first of all, i just would like to thank our associates. they've done an incredible job serving customers. we've seen volatility, it was a tale of different periods of time as we went throughout the quarter. everybody saw the quarter in the

u.s. started in a relatively routine way but then quickly moved to the stock up period that was covered, you know, widely and we sold a lot of paper goods and hand sanitizer and cleaning supplies and things like that and then the food came volume was strong. then we went through a per of time as people stayed home we saw them solving problems as it results to entertaining themselves anticipate families and educating kids, different categories took off, puzzles, and coordination in crafts sold at rates that we haven't seen in a really longtime and towards the end of the quarter we saw a different phase and it was driven by stimulus money in the u.s. more than anything elsewhere other categories started to take off. during the period of time it was interesting being in the stores and watching sales online and watching america move together adult bikes go to off. it's been hard to find an adult bike we're trying to get back in stock at this point.

we ended up the quarter down in inventory so we're in recovery mode right the now >> just in terms of being in recovery mode that's something i've heard from retailers they've never seen anything like this in their careers. things are changing not just on a monthly basis but weekly basis in trying to figure out where the consumer is headed next. how much of time does that eat up >> it is a situation where we got to watch it week to week our replenishment team and merchants are doing a great job of rejacketing second quarter started off as we mentioned yesterday relatively strong and it's a continuation of how the quarter earned. kind of depends on what's happening in each local community and each state as you see the country start to re-open there are different things happening in georgia, florida or in the northeast, for example and we got to respond to what those customers are looking for at that time it's clear that people have been at home and they look around and

think, you know, i'm going replace that lamp or replace that office desk and then they start thinking about the outdoors as they get out to the backyard and front yard and realized they need to do some land scaling we've seen those categories take off. people are starting to think about in some cases going back to work and we've seen those trends show up in the health and beauty categories and footwear where people are started to think about going back to work walmart has always been a company that does well during strong times because you're every where. there's a walmart store within ten miles of 90% of the population but you've also done very well in down turns in the economy because you offer value and offer bargains for people. i just wonder if you can see based on the number of unemployed people we have in this country right now what the consumer is feeling, how strong they feel about things based on types of purchases they are

make they're he's consumers who are worried they won't have a job a few months from now? >> before the stimulus money started to flow in the first quarter, we could see private brands, smaller pack prices, starting to surge as a percent to total as the stimulus money started to become available to them that changed in discretionary purchase went up becky are when i think about what the future looks like i do think about it locally first i think that the u.s. economy is going made up of what happens on the ground in each one much these communities and across the states and we've all got to work together, the private sector, government, state, local, federal to help put all the pieces in place so we can sustain that i think if the consumer generally feels like they are going to have a job and access and to money and some form of security we'll see them spend it if they don't we won't so the unemployment numbers have to be addressed. the thing that's on my mine

right now more than anything else is small business i think we all have to work together to make sure that those that need support get it and small business as part of this phase four legislation that's being discussed needs to be addressed lower income communities need to be addressed because we have to bring everyone along in this economy and that will play out in our business. we'll see the differentiation and to the extent question as a country i want to make sure this recovery is the lasting and includes everyone. we've learned by being open through this whole process that there are a number of pieces that have got be put in place to make that possible i think we're a bit of an example of how others should be thinking about this. prosecutor operational procedures to adjust we adjusted our store hours. we clean at night. we're metering customers in stores there's operational things then this issue around social distancing and taken a number of steps to create distance and protection for our associates

and customers and people wearing masks and things like that have to be done related to ppe. if you have that combination of things and cute them well i think we can put the economy back to work while protecting people the at the same time. this is really an and situation. not an or situation. as i watch the news that's the thing that keeps coming to my mind we sometimes debate this as if it's one thing or the other and it's really an and we got to work together to put those pieces in place including testing in a big way and eventually a vaccine so that the economy here can thrive again. >> do you see this playing out in typical ways in your stores there are some areas where people don't want to wear masks, where employees feel like they have to be the ones who are policing that and trying to kind of monitor all of those issues because not everybody thinks that they should be forced to

wear a mask when they go into a store. how do you handle that >> i've been going out during this period and gone to north carolina and virginia and texas, ohio, nebraska and of course here in arkansas and i've seen customers behave differently as time has gone on i have seen some regional differences. but generally customers and our associates are working together. i do see people using the directional arrows in our ailes. i see them creating some distance of course there are exceptions and we need a partnership with our customers here to get this right. but there's a lot more good behavior than there is concerning behavior. and i think in time everybody will figure out, i sure hope they do, this is incumbent on all of us to behave in a way that enables the economy to respond in a positive way in a sustainable away so we don't take two steps forward, one step back and another step forward to that kind of volatility will happen to some extent but not

ideal. >> doug, first of all let me commend you once again for everything that your company has done and what all your employees are doing, every experience i had there. i feel like i have to thank all of the people who are on your front line but i do have what may be a tough question for you and it's really a public policy question to some degree there are a lot of small business owners out, there maybe you can put your business round table hat on who said we've effectively been put out of business by the government and, in fact, walmart has been to some degree a beneficiary of the rules and regulations which have limited our ability to compete, and it's not just that we're out of business now but we're worried that either we won't be able to get back in business, or because walmart has done so spectacularly that you've now captured some of those customers that may not go back to some of those small businesses which are still needed as we try to rebuild the economy.

what do you tell them? >> you know, i think that those of us that stayed open needed to and, you know, the country needed access to food and essentials and for those of us that operated during this period of time, our associates as you said did step up and they are every day coming to work and serving others and we are really proud of them. as it relates to those business that had to close we have to get them open and going. competition is good in the retail business. i don't celebrate it when other retailers go away. we want more retailers not fewer. as it relates to restaurants and other types of small businesses, lodging, travel. we got to light these things back up. from a brt point of view, working together to make good advice available to government official sos that set smart policies to support those industries that need it. more broadly laying down support for small business as i've been traveling around, andrew, i'll see different

businesses along these streets around our stores. some open, some not. some doing pick up, some not i wonder how many of these are going open back up i think the majority will. we want as many of them to open back up as possible. what the brt did it went through each industry, retail, manufacturing, and others and we laid out plans on how to re-open safely and that's one of the things we can do to add value. we need to get people going as quickly as possible and do it in a safe manner. that's really important for the country and that's what we want to see walmart support as lot of small businesses we have a lot of small business members at sam's club. we want the home come back online we've been advertising for small business on sam clubs.com and emails to support those small businesses we serve a lot of small businesses through our marketplace seller business and that's robust' hoefrlly we can help in that way we're launching a fulfillment service. so we do think about the platform that walmart creates

for small businesses >> doug, as happens so often washington is in the midst of another great debate about what more it should do to try to help the country and the liability issue seems like it's down between par the at the san lines once again do you know how that should be handled? how would you like that to be handled when someone re-opens and maybe in the best interest tries to keep everyone safe and we're all just trying to do the right thing here we want fwoerj we want people to get paychecks. we want people to be safe. we don't want lawyers just, you know, just lining up waiting for the next j and j or whatever it is how should we do this? >> joe, i think some level of support there is need. some form of liability protection again particularly for small and

medium size businesses that may not have all the resources that they need to come back online as quickly as some of our larger companies did. i think that debate should happen and some level of support should be provided no one in this country wanted this to happen it's a virus that has spread across every part of the country and we just need to work together to try and create a safe environment for businesses to come back online in every way and i think some form of liability protection for them is a piece of the puzzle. >> doug, we spoke with dan bartlett about a month and a half ago from your shop just talking about what you guys were doing to try to pull people in and put people to work i know walmart had been going around and hiring people and hire temple from some of those industries that were most hard-hit where a lot of furloughs were taking place. amazing to hear you hired 235,000 people in the united

states across the quarter. it sound like that's 2,000 people a day, more than a person a minute how did that go? how did you do it, first of all? and the how were those associates working out >> yeah. it's been kind of unbelievable really how that's happened and our team that put together an expedited hiring process, deserves a lot of recognition and appreciation because they figured out a way to do site quickly. in our case we wanted to make sure the associates that needed to stay home, they didn't feel well, had a pre-existing condition, whatever had the ability to go on leave we adjusted our paid time off policy and put in a three tiered leave policy in place so people would feel comfortable doing that when the crisis started we had option and we were hiring. we moved quickly to start creating this experiod indicted hiring process as we did it we found a lot of people who worked in food

service need work. they were coming some people from the hospitality industry, other retailers, and so it just grew and grew. some people took leave, these folks joined the company and helped to get this work done serve the country. we're grateful for that and appreciative of it i was in a tore the other day where i was talking to an associate that had been with us for more than 25 years and right next to her a gentleman that started few weeks ago that came from another retailer and they already formed a relationship and were having a good time serving customers in the toy department that was pretty cool to see. now more than half of these associates we've hired as temporary. we'll figure out as time goes on how many of them stay. online grocery business our store business has grown we need help picking orders at store level. increasingly for general merchandise not just food so we can drive our business as it relates to pickup and delivery we'll need people and we hired a

lot of aggravate people during this period of time and i expect a lot of them to stay with us. some of them can go back to their job before if that's what they want to do but we're glad to help during this period of time >> doug, there's been a lot of problems with supply chain people still can't find toilet paper on a regular base. clorox wipes we heard problems about beef and beef production. what other issues do you see in the supply chain and what kind of status would you put on those issues that point? >> we're working to recover in the categories you just mentioned. i want to thank our suppliers for the work they've done to operate safe facilities. there's been a strong partnership there. at this point there are a lot of different categories that are sold out i've never seen a craft and fabric department sold out like i'm seeing now i mentioned adult bikes. hard to find an adult bike some categories in general merchandise and sporting goods

have sold out as people are doing things in their backyard and wanting to move and, you know, do things with their kids. it's somewhat of a widespread issue right now across the store where we got in stock opportunities and obviously working on that. >> doug, i know walmart owns most of its own real estate but what about some of those shopping centers where you're an anchor tenant in an outdoor shopping center. what's the impact of other stores that haven't opened there and in places where you pay rent, are your paying full rent? >> we're paying full rent. we did on the flip side actually forgive rents for those use our space inside for april and may we are open, many people are not. our priorities are number one support our front line associates give them everything they need. number two serve customers number three was help others we were looking for place whether it's in payment terms or lease issue i just described, hiring people where we could

help other people during this period of time we learned a big lesson during hurricane katrina back in 2005 about not worrying too much about the short term p and l and doing everything you can that's right knowing in the end that will be rewarded in the appropriate way. it's been wonderful to see our associates figure out ways to help other people, and in the case of our locations, you're right. we do own most of those. we need those businesses that your surrounding the stores to be strong and come back online i'm hoping that happens and it's important that each state level, community level that we do this in the right way so that they can and do so safely we've done some things to try and share what we've learned with other people. our sam's club team invited small business owners into our buildings to show what we've done with ppe and social distancing and other operational

changes. maybe that's one way we can help >> doug, you're a global company. you saw this pandemic hitting your stores in china you were one of the early voices to say this is a big deal and we need to get our arms around this quickly. what have you seen as businesses re-open in china and how tricky is that and are those measures that are being taken in china can they be replicated here? do you think it's a similar sort of emeasure gerns because china does take drastic measures in terms of tracking its people and not allowing visitors from other nations come in until they quarantine for 14 days what's the experience you have seen there and do you expect to it be replicated here if >> can it be reply indicated u.s. is different than china and other markets we operate we're in 27 right now. we do see variance different governments, different societies are handling the situation in different ways. in the case of china you're right. we started to see this in early january, and our team there

responded well in similar way to what you've seen play out here in the u.s. i do think that when you look at all the pieces that need to be put in place, exposure, notification here in the united states is an important component. opting in can be thoefl your local community and to your economy locally and nationally coming back online i think as the capability comes back online we need to help educate others and help them under why they want to do that while also talking about issues like testing and a vaccine so people can see a puch that gives them hope. i'm optimistic about what will happen it will be challenging we need to solve a lot of problems the brt experience has been enlightening because the business leaders are work together to solve problems in a way that's actually really cool. we're having weekly phone calls. we have different teams working on different pieces.

i've seen these ceos collaborate in an appropriate way to solve the problems, to put the pieces in place, together with government to create a future for the country that hopefully is better than it would be otherwise i certainly think so i think that's way we should proicht. we should learn from china and other countries to apply what we should given the way we live here >> what's an example of keeping between business round table and the government actually led to a real problem being solved recently >> as it relates to ppe. in the beginning the last real challenge trying toe figure out how we were going to approach it and what ended up happening is the states were source ppe, brt members were working on i want as well. we par netnered with others we communicated at state level at times to help people get information and provide supplies several governors have been participating on our calls

i found the home be really competent and caring and good partners as we try to solve these issues >> jet.com announced is going away that brand. was the acquisition worth it >> i'm sorry what was it worth >> was the acquisition worth it? you have mark lowry and other things you got in that acquisition but that was a big acquisition. >> sorry absolutely we would do that all over again. if you look at the trajectory of our business it changed when we made that acquisition. not only did we pick up mark lowry and a great team we picked up fulfillment centers it ended up paying off what changed is the walmart brand really has extended to reach all kind of people you know you'll remember, becky you were there when we made the announcement and talked about jet playing a role with younger customers, urban customers and what we found is that walmart is able to do that.

our brand is stretching in a way that's really very exciting. and we've been able to attract brand to walmart.com that was the other role that i thought jet would play as we were going need a brand to be able to use to attract some brand that didn't want to be in our stores. as time has gone on and web experience has improved and apps got better and we built these capabilities we found brands are comfortable coming to walmart and we shared some of the names yesterday, swell and ray band and champion you got to go on walmart.com and check it out it's been one of my surprises as we've gone the ecommerce business just how many brands matter online. i've been doing retail for a longtime and thought i had a sense for the brands in this country and what we needed to have we have found a ton of important brands beyond what we ever had in the stores. walmart has basically just become the brand where we have the best return on investment for investing a marketing dollar

or capital in the brand and so this is about focus. absolutely thankful for what mark and jet team have brought to walmart.com teand our compan. >> thank you for you team and associates for what they are doing every day during this difficult time we appreciate your time today. >> thank you guys for helping educate us all >> thank you very much for coming on. coming up -- thank everybody coming up an exclusive interview with the new ceo of united airlines today is his first day on the job. shares jumping same store sales are well above expectations up almost 6% company ceo joins jim cramer on "mad money" tonight. you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc so, no more tossing and turning...

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coming up, when we return on box an exclusive interview with scott kirby who takes over today as ceo of united airlines. we'll talk about air travel demand that's been crushed by the coronavirus and how he plans to navigate some of the toughest business conditions this country has ever seen. stay tuned, we return with scott kirby the new ceo of united airlines after this. has stood strong through every dark hour and bright dawn our country has endured. it has seen the break in the clouds before anyone else. for the past 168 years, we've also stood by you, helping you weather storms like this one, to protect your loved ones. and we'll do it for 168 more. hei came across sofi and it was the best decision of my life.

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when every connection counts, you can count on us. get the connectivity your business needs. call today. comcast business. . united airlines is hosting its annual meeting virtually today. with a new man in charge let get our phil lebeau. it's not phil. let's get our phil lebeau. he has the man in charge i don't want to give you a promotion, phil. >> reporter: i won't take it let's bring in scott kirby who is the man in charge of united airlines, effective today. he becomes ceo scott, thanks for joining us this morning on your very first day on the job let's begin first with the main question that everybody wants to know, how is business right now and give us your outlook in

terms of where things stand and what kind of progress or challenges you're seeing, let's say, over the next month >> well, good morning, phil and thanks for having me on. this is uncertain time in the aviation industry and obviously while we're in the worse financial crisis in the history of aviation the opportunity to get to the other side is really bright and we're confident that demand will recover. we have all kinds of evidence that shows us the signs of pent up demand for leisure travel and business travel. we're confident we'll get to the other side we have to get through the crisis and get a full recovery and we like everyone are confident the virus will be defeated there will be a recovery and while it's too early to, you know, say we see the light at the end of the tunnel certainly a lot less dark in here than a few months ago >> reporter: scott, you guys used the phrase moderate improvement in demand. what does that mean? do you expect that to increase

in june, in july put it in perspective for us >> so in april, middle of april we hit the bottom. and we had a couple of days, actually that we carried fewer than 10,000 customers. normally we carry half a million. now we're back up to 35, maybe 40,000 customers per day so we've had a huge increase in percentage still, obviously, a long ways away from where we need be to get a full recovery. we started planning in april for a world where we might not see any recovery in demand well into next year so the fact we're starting to see some improvement in demand means every day we feel more optimistic about the timing of recovery we know it will still be hard. we have a lot of difficulty to go through the timing is getting better every single day >> scott, you've seen the backwash on social media of people saying look these planes

in certain areas, certain routes, high density routes like new york to chicago too crowded. putting way too many people on these planes should be blocking the middle seat not doing anything to help social distancing on a plane what do you say to those critics? >> safety is in our dna as the number one priority here at united airlines. always has been, always will be. we've led in safety initiatives throughout this crisis whether it's the first airline to require masks, putting up plexiglas counters, electrostatic spray. we announce ad partnership with the cleveland clinic and clorox to get experts in under the tent with us. helping us design the right scientifically sound policies for creating the safest environment possible and i'm confident we'll get this right at united airlines what we're doing right now is we are upgrading airplanes. that route you just talked about

has bigger airplanes, already started flying we're on a daily basis upgrading 30 to 45 flights a day bigger airplane to promote social distancing on any routes where we have an aircraft available and given the number we have available to try to couple with social distancing. importantly, however, we also think it's important to get our customers where they need to go and in today' environment people that are flying need to travel it's medical professionals getting out to the front line. people going to visit a critically ill loved one in dire circumstance and this is a time when most our customers are really not discretionary. they are people that need to travel to giving them the option to get there, we also think it's important. so because of that most importantly given our customers the the choice powered them with the choice that we're notifying them of any flight we think might be over 70% load

but any flight that might be over 70% and letting them switch complete flexibility, complete freedom to switch to another flight so far over 97 puerto rico of our customers are staying on the existing flight. but we've chosen for now to attack this problem by giving customers the choice and moving forward we'll be working on, we have a lot of innovative ideas for safety working with our partner own scientifically sound ways to promote safety >> reporter: why not block the middle row jetblue is out today saying we won't fill the middle row until the beginning ever july. why not say for now we won't put somebody in the middle row >> it's very rare that there are flights that are full. but we also do think it's important to get people to where they need to go particularly in a time when people need to travel again, the kinds of people that are getting on our planes are mostly people that have a high need travel. there's a reason we were considered an essential service and that is because the customers and the goods we're

carrying need to travel. so empowering customers with that choice, and focus on everything else that we're doing on safety is currently what we think the right approach is really to give those customers the choice tell them in advance so they are not surprised and as i said over 97% of the customers are choosing to stay on. importantly doing things like having masks is really -- having our customers wear masks is one of the most effective ways i think for us to promote safety on board the airplane. >> as you make this long transition back and obviously dependent on medical advances and vaccines and everything else, but in the meantime it just seems like the business model has changed a little bit and i'm sorry to say probably have, to you maybe have too many people, some of that has to be rationalized in terms of pilots

and support and too much capacity but in the end don't prices need go up? your expenses -- cleaning planes, expenses are going up, refer new is going down. don't you need to charge a fair price? i can imagine it's much higher than what we're used to in terms of fair pricing. >> yeah. well, look, one of the virtually linings that i think will occur on the back side of this crisis is we will come out of this a more efficient airline and there's all kind of opportunities, there will be opportunities to change our efficiency, to change our cost structure in other ways. one of the things you talked about that is increasingly important i think even once we're past covid and we have a vaccine and people aren't worried about covid any more the emphasis on safety and hygiene is much more important in all of our society but certainly on airplanes. authors not going to be huge

costs. and i am hopeful that by the time we get through all of this, that we've made enough improvements in the other parts of the business that we can get right back on to the trajectory of growth. but one of the things we know is people are anxious to get out and anxious to travel. as great a call is, it's not the same as being there in person. i do -- i have a large family, extended family and we do a zoom conference call. it's not the same as sitting next to you mother and having a dozen grandkids in front of you playing on the floor and coming up doing all kinds of crazy stuff. it's not the same. people are anxious to get back and connected. we're social creatures we look forward to connecting the world once we're analyst crisis i don't think it will require big changes in the pricing structure at least for that to happen >> scott, i agree with you on how anxious a lot of us are to get out. i miss my grandma.

i haven't booked a ticket because i don't see at this point in my mind a time frame where i know i'll feel comfortable with that. i wonder what you're seeing in advance bookings how many people are willing to put money down because that flow, that customer booking money that comes in advance is oxygen for airlines. what do you see right now >> we do see a lot of pent up demand it's interesting, when national parks open gateways to national parks had a huge spike in demand we know that there is demand i think the most relevant metric is probably look at the next 30 to 60 days and demand sim proving in that period i talked about it, 35,000 customers a day. demand sim proving but not anywhere close to normal we see a bigger increase in demand in the third and fourth quarter. but will those people show up? i think we'll see continuous improvement in the demand environment and even prior to a vaccine more and more people are going to get out and travel.

i suspect that a full recovery, when you feel completely comfortable going to see your grandmother, may take us getting to a vaccine been great this week to hear news and last week news about the progress that our wonderful scientists and medical community making in terms of a vaccine we'll have a gradual recovery but full recovery doesn't happen until we get to a vaccine. we're preparing united to go through a time of depressed demand, pretty significantly depressed demand for a period of time to make sure we're here he and as soon as the vaccine is in place we can bounce back quickly. very important we can bounce back quickly and get right back on track. >> scott, i want to ask you about testing. would you added voluntary indicate that either airlines or the government require testing literally on-the-spot at the airport? that would clearly give people confidence when they are gets on that plane that whoever they are

sitting next to and the ability to catch something won be there. the question is, is the marketplace going to do that is the government going to do that what do you think should happen? >> the first question is logistics. can you have enough tests and a repetitive test that you can do full test. within this somewhere is an answer so, you know, one of the first steps that united airlines and the whole airline industry is work with the tsa on is temperature testing. when you come through the airport and enter. long term there's going to be some kind of solution before we get all the way through to a vaccine about using testing and whether it is serology testing so you know hey i already had, i've already had it, i have antibodies or you have other testing to prove that you don't have covid-19 at the time and maybe you have a passport on

your phone i'm not sure what the actual answer will be but i think that that testing, everyone you have on your show, i'm watching your show every morning, everyone is talking about the testing is going to be one of the keys to really getting out of this. and for people to be able to feel comfortable that they are around others -- we're going social distancing until we feel comfortable being close to everyone else, and testing will be one of the keys logistically, when the aviation industry was carrying over 2 million people a day through airports logistics much saying you'll have a rapid test for 2 million people per day seems a little long at this stage. >> the other question i had, scott, was introspect now that we have a little bit of hine sight, not much, how do you think -- what do you think of the construct of the bail outs for the airlines and how they were constructed insofar as two things strike me one is that the shareholders were bailed out which, course

s-a controversial issue given how bail outs are structured and the clear advantage that an airline shareholder has an advantage though obviously shares have struggled but relative to maybe what would have happened and the requirement to keep people employed through september 30th clearly while so many of them still aren't working and the prospect and actual expectation that the day after so many of them will lose their job whether that could have been constructed in a more efficient and fair manner? >> first, look, i think capitol hill house senate republicans, democrats, the administration, treasury deserve huge can ykudo. this is an extraneous event.

i think they've done a phenomenal job not just with regard to airlines but with regard to providing liquidity to businesses they did it fast the way they did it was effective. you look at airlines, and when demand was down 98% the rational answer economically the rational answer the only answer honestly would have been to just shut down the air traffic system and we are an essential service. we're now flying 40 international cargo flights per day bringing critical goods and medical supplies back to the u.s. we carried thousands of medical professionals to the front lines of covid we couldn't have done that without support in a world where nobody else was flying and the revenue coming in the door was zero so i think what the government has done been to support a critical cog in the economy and a critical cog particularly in a crisis like this in getting people and goods that most

people and essential goods to where they need be by the time we get to october 1st hopefully we'll don't see a recovery in demand but, you know, none of thus think it's going be back to 100% and will lead to some hard decisions. we're hopeful at united airlines we can work our airlines to vary our pay structure by not laying anyone off or furloughing any of our front line employees and instead using voluntary programs and in particular asking people to work fewer hours until we get through the crisis if we can do that if we can have people work fewer hours all training, all the experience, we have hundred thousand wonderful people at united airlines who wanted to get back helping customers. if we can keep them on the sidelines a little bit while we get through the crisis, but still engage, still working, not working as many hours, when there is a recovery and there will be a recovery, when there is a recovery we can snap back

quickly and if we furlough people, if we lay them off we might get through the crisis but what snap back but will be really, really hard. we'll be working with our unions still painful for people but hopefully we'll have a better outcome. >> one last question for you you told your management and administrative staff 30% of those jobs are going away starting in october. that's the expectation now on the flight attendants, the pilots, the crew, the front end workers, are you committed to not having any furloughs at this point or looking at this saying look as i look in the crystal ball i expect x percentage of these jobs have to go away come october. what percentage would you say have to be eliminated at this point? >> one of the thing we know as we're going through this is we don't know what demand will be in the fourth quarter and first quarter. no one knows what the recovery will look like so we need to prepare for flexibility and that's the

message we're sending to all of our people we hope, as i said, we hope that we can work with the unions to avoid furloughs and actually just use fewer hours you look at the flight attendants for example today they are doing an incredible job of taking about half of our flight attendants have taken voluntary programs where they are not flying right now that means in a world where demand is down 50% we wouldn't need to furlough a single flight attendant if half voluntary the other half can thereabout. if demand of 50% and everyone agreed to lower their minimum line guarantees if you're a pilot to fly 50% fewer hours if we can do that we can ride through the crisis and when the recovery comes we go from 50% to 60% we can quickly snap up to 60 when it goes the from 60 to 80 we can quickly snap 80 that's the key we need to work with our union partners and already are to accomplish that. that's our goal. by far that is what is in the

best long term interest of all of our people. it preserves all the jobs in the long term, and because it preserves our ability to bounce back and snap back quickly it means when the crisis is over, you know, we can the opportunities and be in a really good position like every other airline around the world >> scott kirby, ceo -- day one ceo of united airlines joining us exclusively this morning on "squawk box. andrew, back to you. >> phil, thank you for bringing us that interview. thank you and good luck. when we return, we'll check eng llh jim cramer ahead of the opinbe "squawk" returns after this. the smarter way to workflow.

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♪ ♪ when i think about what the future looks like, i think about it locally at first. i think the economy will be made up on the ground in each one of these communities and across the states we all have to work together, private sector, government, federal to put all the pieces into place to sustain that that was walmart's ceo doug mcmillon earlier on "squawk box. let's bring in jim cramer. jim, this is something you've been talking about for a while, the retailers, the big guys, the ones allowed to open from the targets, the costcos, the walmarts, the home depots, the

lowe's, they'll survive, but doug touched on this to say what it means for smaller retailers to come back, too. that's an important message. >> it was. especially when he was talking about going down the street and looking at them but the government shut down his competition. if you were walmart, the thing you would most want do is have the government shut down your competition. that happened. obviously the government didn't want to have to do that. walmart is essential walmart is the biggest grocer in the country. they deserve all the greatness they had what you said about all the hiring they've done. they're a good citizen, but at the same time i think the government was a bad actor in the sense they let some big guys become bigger. it was darwinian aided by the government it was somewhat rigged, they didn't mean to rig it because of health reasons, but the competition has been wiped out here wiped out. >> yeah. it's going to be a huge question i know you're speaking with

brian cornell tomorrow night on "mad money." it's huge what they just came out with their earnings, too watching the numbers from all of these companies and seeing particularly the ones that are able to pivot when it comes to digital. that's where the huge growth has come i was shocked at the numbers target put out in terms of how strong their digital sales were particularly in the month of april. >> you correctly nailed it immediately. the stock was trading down at the beginning. i don't know where the stock will end up today. this was a monumental number when you do that kind of e-commerce, contactless e-commerce, that's what target owns it was remarkable that people don't understand that this is a franchise that has won it's won if you want to pick up something, you go to target. walmart, mark lurie on that call, exceptional job. there's more for walmart there's room for target.

everybody else is -- lowe's is great, home depot is great, costco is great then nobody's great. that's it. maybe dollar generalful we have a hundred thousand retailers, but they're kind of done a scary time when you think about it the rest are done. >> it is i look forward to seeing you later today. i loved what you said on "mad money" last night about the idea of a recession -- or a depression, i should say, will be off the table >> yeah. depression is off the table. it's not moderna, these people playing cnbc, wake up. it's not us. if a company puts out a press release that's bullish, that's premature information is what i call it. it's a disease that affects a lot of other companies premature information. >> jim, thank you. >> you're welcome. >> andrew? >> thanks.

steve liesman joins us he has a special guest on hand as well. steve? >> thank you, andrew bringing in president robert kaplan, president of the dallas federal reserve. good morning, president kaplan i want to ask you off the bat, the country is moving to reopen. it seems to be doing so at a faster pace than anticipated does this make you more optimistic about the outlook >> i'm watching carefully how the reopening is going success in a reopening means that the cases may not continue to decline, but it also means that they don't spike. so, i think this reopening has to happen, but it's got to happen with good testing, contract tracing, good procedures that's what i'm watching whatever the government says, until the consumer is willing to resume some of their previous

activities this recovery will not be as strong as it could be. >> do you think it's a situation where they'll open it but they may not come >> the answer is they're going to restaurants i made sure to go to restaurants myself to go through the experience i stayed in a couple hotels. they're going to go -- people will resume some of their previous activities. to some extent they'll be willing to put their toe in the water and fly. my concern is until they feel more comfortable, they won't fully engage in previous activities that you can't legislate, you can't stimulate with money that's behavioral, and that's why the more we can invest in testing, regular testing, ubiquitous testing, contact

tracing, until we have a vaccine that gives us the greatest probability for people to be comfortable resuming their previous activity. this is very much a behavioral determinant how quickly we can grow as we get into the third and fourth quarter >> president kaplan, has the fed done enough here or does it need to be thinking about and implementing other programs now to help stimulate the economy and provide relief >> the fed has done a lot to help stabilize the markets and make sure small companies, mid size companies and big companies have access to capital, but these are loans. we're the lender of last resort. this is intended to be a bridge to when we'll recover. my guess is we'll need to do more my guess is also you'll need more fiscal action, whether it's aid to governments or or fiscal

action as we go through this the problem is we'll have an unemployment rate that peaks at around 20%, which we will reach soon here. we'll end the year with an unemployment rate as high as 10%, and we'll need to grind that down and it's probably going to take more fiscal action to help grind that down. >> okay. i think we lost steve. as a result, i think we lost president kaplan so, we've only got about 40 seconds left take a quick look at the futures. right about what we've seen through most of the session. want to thank dallas fed president kaplan for appearing thank liesman for bringing us that up about 300 points on the dow premarket. nasdaq indicated up 112 points s&p indicated up 34.

oil above 30 not a lot happening in the -- on the yield curve but a lot happened on the show today coca-cola, walmart, united who am i leaving out you guys were on the show. >> we had lots of good guests today as we have recently. >> good day. >> it was a good day thank you. have a great night, everybody. we'll see you tomorrow make sure you join us. "squawk on the street" is up now. good wednesday morning welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm carl quintanilla with jim cramer, david faber coming to you live from various locations. futures are green as investors watch the number of new covid cases continue to drift lower, more lockdown restrictions easing in states like connecticut and michigan retail earnings from lowe's and target oil above 32, the ten-year about 71 basis points. jim, when we look at the retail numbers, you made the point a few moments agit