little bit of a sigh of relief that maybe the virus is subsiding and there is a return back to normal, however modified it is. look, the biggest risk beyond tech, i would say. >> you can tell i'm getting nervous. always about watching something. in this case, it's the clock thank you. andrew, becky, let's do it again. tomorrow's friday. we don't want to forget that "squawk on the street" is next >> good thursday morning welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm carl quintanilla with jim cramer and david faber coming to you live we're coming off the first close above 3k since march and futures indicate more tail winds for the bulls. despite jobless claims of 2 million plus, oil relatively steady as the reopening trade, jim, really getting reflected

today in some of the comments out of retailers like burlington, anf, dollar tree, and dollar general >> yes, if you look at the dollar general, the numbers are just extraordinary i actually have never seen a comp store sales number this good 21 versus 7% estimate. dollar tree is going to be the one, david knows this well, people look like, you know what, now the dollar tree/family dollar merger which had been so on the rocks, the judgment is it's working and that stock could power much higher. dollar tree. the opening trade is sapping the money out of tech. i don't know how much longer it can last that's such a great book in gary because he knows so much about what people are spending they're essential because they have food, and i look at this market and i think how long with the dow up 4% can we actually say, hey, the reopening trade is just starting? it's already maybe too far too fast it's very hard to figure, particularly because faang is being distorted by the

president's tweets, facebook locked in with twitter, but the dollar tree is the tale of the tape because that shows what people are doing with their stimulus dollars >> they're going, and they're spending it on those things, jim. do you think it's sustainable? is it something when you look at the comps there, you expect will continue >> i have to listen to the excellent brian moynihan interview this morning on squawk, yeah, until the unemployment benefits run out. that's the big question, not this we have 40 million people. 1 in 4, i mean, that's the depression okay and the nasdaq is, what, off a few percent from its high. a total divorce from the reality that's on the street but as long as the stimulus stays in, as long as bonds like macy's, they had 6 for 1, six times oversubscribe for an 8% bond as long as the unemployment benefits remain so high, this

can continue carl, i gotta tell you, we have never had such a forceful reaction it's the exact opposite of the great depression the exact opposite of the great recession. it's confounding people, but boy, there's a luot of money ou there. >> you're not kidding. i think it was jamie dimon this morning that said thick might be up 50% year on year. i think we're going to crack a trillion in ig new issuance for the year now jim, is your playbook, are you going to wait for corporate debt to tell you it's time for equities to take a breather? >> i'm with the barbell trade, which means you can do a lot of opening trade, but you have to start thinking about, if you're rh really going to take recession off the table, it shows a lack of foresight we had a couple big hedge fund managers come on and talk about the doomsbay the doomsday playbook hasn't played out we never played back to the march low. one thing that is incredible is

small cap. how are they doing so well small cap represents america, i thought, and i thought america was in tatters so i think i'm afraid to go all in on this reopen trade since it's already had a pretty big run, but there's still some catch-ups. we haven't had the rails go far. i don't know how much further the airlines can go, but if you say that american cutting 30% means that they're going to actually prosper, then go for it we're in a really critical juncture because it feels like that there are a lot of people who want to say, you know what, ignore the unemployment number, full speed ahead, and a lot of other people are saying are you kidding me one in four people are on the unemployment line. july, the numbers go back, the money runs out, and we're going to be saying how the heck did we get up this high very split market. two very opposing camps.

it's so vociferous, you think it's not argumentative it's at this point dogmatic and very philosophical, meaning a lot of people feel that, i'm going to use a term i shouldn't, but coronavirus was a hoax meaning that it was just a bad cold i think those of us who live here feel that that's an atrocious judgment, but it does feel a lot of people who say you know what, we never should have been closed to begin with. there's so much pent-up demand why do we need social distancing will be the next thing you hear in ten days. >> right, and then the question will be whether we get a significant recurrence fairly soon or a big second wave in the fall you pointed to the pandemic of 1918, of course, or whether we don't. in which case, those who question the response may have even more ammunition in terms of supporting their contentions that said, of course, there is also the fact we came into this

without perhaps enough of a plan in general to sort of try to understand exactly what it was we were dealing with and set out exactly what we were going to try to achieve it's been kind of always evolving difficult, of course, given how little we still seem to know about the virus itself but jim, if i could come back to the markets. you're sort of painting this picture we have been hearing about lately, which is the economy and the stock market are just not the same thing. i, having done this as a financial journalist for 33 years, i have generally drawn conclusions about the market from the economy or vice versa should i no longer be doing that if i'm an investor >> you can't you can't do it. the big companies are too big. when jerome powell allowed anyone to raise money, it kept afloat a lot of companies i think you and i both know would

have gone under. we don't need to list them, but they're palpable, and it left small companies to do terribly you have to think at a certain point the people who work at the small companies, after ppp, the paycheck protection runs out, or the employment insurance runs out, this could all be a chimerical we could be on total quicksand, but if you look at the boarded up stores that we see in many towns, they're the little guy. you have to think the little guy, that those people can't go out, so they're going to dollar general. they're not going to macy's. >> right, but you have these conversations. i know you do during the course of the day, because i find myself sort of whipsawed we look at the markets, talk about the fed support, talk about the success of so many of the big cap companies in terms of this environment, but then you have during the course of the day, gary philbin, by the way, will be joining us. ceo of dollar tree, a bit later in the program but jim, you talk to people

through the day telling you, well, i got layoffs planned. i'm still concerned about what's coming i still don't know about demand. i'm still going to cut cap-x, all those things and then you come in every morning and the s&p is up another 1% >> look, carl, to bring it back to main street, there's a note today on royal caribbean so what do we know about the cruise lines epicenter of the pandemic. japan, about half of the people who got sick were from a cruise line okay, and i'll mention, it's carnival i think carnival is a wonderful company. i think royal caribbean is amazing. norwegian is my favorite they have all been able to raise money. they all have bookings well ahead of where we would expect them in 2021, and these are not people who -- the cruise ships are made up of people who are working in the small and medium

business so i think that the great quandary we feel is, who is booking? and how is it possible and how about we take brian moynihan's notion of maybe we're just a richer country or that we have many more people who are doing well or we're doing well and actually saved and i think it's the saving quotient we don't think of people think of america as reckless spenders. everybody seems to have learned something from 2008, 2009. the fed learned, people learned to save. they are spend thrifts when we want them to be spend thrifts. the kids are living on the mattress at home now they're starting to think about $80,000 college, whether that's worth it. we're a country that reminds me of what happened after the great depression with our parents and grandparents, where every penny was saved. we're not putting enough credence in what was in the bank account of people before this and how it's lasting for them. plus, remember, no one is spending on anything because there was no place to

go >> the treasury spending and fed spending they're spending $24 trillion national debt on our way to who knows where, and a balance sheet of the fed is going to be, what, $8 trillion at the end of the year that's where the spending is coming from. >> we study the great depression in school. what did we learn? the fed tightened in '37 that's the only reason the depression ended is because of world war ii we look back and think how stupid could they have been. now i can't say how stupid they have been. this is what i have been railing against 1937 forever you have to take that course where the fed said, hey, we're safe i mean, i think that jerome powell, when this is over, he's not going to be known as the guy who created republican wheelbarrow dollars. i think he's the guy who saved us from a level of deflation that would have been very much like what happened in germany and another area you don't want to talk about. >> even amid more discussion today that the fed is having

actually to not spend the amount of money they have actually spent is maybe lower than you expected the jawboning was just incredibly effective the other big story today, guys, we're going to wait for this executive order to come out of the white house. reports about a draft, but obviously, targeting social media companies, trying to prod regulators to rethink the law that protects them from being sued or being held liable for their content. sorkin did talk to mark zuckerberg about that, about small business, and a lot of other things some of that ran this morning on squawk >> our policies are grounded in trying to give people as much voice as possible while saying if you're going to harm people in specific ways, if you're going to do something that's going to cause violence or if you're saying that something is a cure to a disease that has been proven to be a cure but it's not, and that could lead people to either not seek another treatment or do something that could be harmful, we'll take that down no matter who says that. we had a case recently where the

brazilian president was saying that hydroxychloroquine was proven by scientists to be safe, and we had to make the difficult decision of taking that down even though we want to provide as much voice as possible. so there are lines and we will enforce them but i think in general, you want to give as wide of a voice as possible, and i think you want to have a special deference to political speech >> jack dorsey last night tweeting, fact check, there is someone ultimately accountable for our actions. as a company, and that's me. please leave our employees out we'll continue to point out incret information about elections globally he said our intention is to connect the dots of conflicting statements and show the information and dispute so people can judge for themselves. jim, how much pressure do these stocks deserve to be under today?

>> not that much i think, because remember, they're still based on earnings. and i think that what will happen is that even if this section 230, that's what the exception they have to basically be like considered common carriers, even if it's discussed, it won't be taken away, i don't think. it's interesting the example that mark zuckerberg did i'm not sure whether it was intentional or not, but he said they had to take down that the brazilian president said hydroxy was safe we have a president who doesn't say it's safe, we have a president who says it should be used well, kind of ironic, wouldn't you say? i do think, look -- i'm sorry, david. >> no, listen, he also discussed, jim, during the interview with andrew, voter suppression and if they see things that would lead to potential sending people the polls at the wrong day or the wrong time, they would take that down as well but jim, i don't know if you had an opportunity to read the order. and section 230 was designed to

address court decisions really in the earliest days of the internet so that if you engage in editing of content or restricting the content, then you potentially were considered a publisher, and therefore open to liability. and things like defamation and liable for torts but my question is, in reading this, what is going to then -- they had an out. and they were protected from civil liability when it was acting in good faith to restrict access to content that was considered obscene, lewd, filthy, excessively violent, harassing or otherwise objectionable. so that's your exception there where's the law drawn now when people say, okay, you have all out free speech, you have to do

things that allow free speech and publisher speaker is allowed to engage in whatever they want to say, and you can't edit it? i guess my question is, where is the line drawn here? what constitutes what i just said and what doesn't? >> i always think marc benioff, who is on "mad money" tonight, often talked about the notion, look, let's say "the new york times" were to take, just print things that were untrue. it would also have a counter saying it was untrue and i think that -- i totally understand, by the way, the president's view it's not outrageous. in the sense that you don't want anyone to contradict you if you're not lying and you could argue that some of the stuff is bias. i'm not going to totally dis the president's position, but i think it's a dead end because in

the end, this is not a -- there's the first amendment, there's commerce clause. there's a lot of people and congress, justice, and the supreme court are all going to get involved in this thing in the end. justice already. and an executive order is the beginning, not the end >> right even as we speak, guys, bolsonaro is on the tape saying his opponents are trying to oust him in brazil by silencing social media that backs him. clearly a global story a lot more to get to this morning. we'll talk about boeing resuming production of the max. some of the guidance we're getting on employment out of the airlines a ton of retail from burlington to a & f to dollar tree and dollar general 'rba ia mewee ckn mont this moment. this moment right now... this is our commencement.

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china's legislature has approved a proposal to impose a new national security law on hong kong. question is what happens now eunice united stat eunice yun in beijing. >> they defended the sdegz, saying it protects the long term prosperity of the city, this comes after what people often describe as a rubber stamp parliament overwhelmingly approved the legislation 2,878 in favor and only 1 against

now, this vote allows beijing to tighten its controls over the territory, which generally up until now has been running its own affairs separate from mainland china now, top officials will be able to work out the details of this legislation, including what exactly is defined as an activity that would be considered subversive to the chinese state and when and how they plan to open up intelligence agencies wirn the city as you can imagine, there are many people in hong kong who are worried about the implications this means for their freedoms, many of them are now looking to the u.s. for a response. secretary of state mike pompeo had said he believed and that the u.s. believed that hong kong is no longer autonomous from mainland china, and that president trump had promised earlier this week that something would be done about it by the united states so a lot of people watching that a loft ospeculation about what that's going to be, whether it means visa restrictions for

chinese officials, a freeze on transactions or possibly the u.s. pulling its long-term relationship and preferential trading status with hong kong. so that has been raising a lot of concerns in hong kong among business people there who i speak to some of them say that their manufacturing and shipments out of hong kong could face higher tariffs and they're worried about the business climate the american chamber of commerce said these tensions are now at a whole new level. guys >> we're going to wait to see how the u.s. does respond. the president did promise there would be a response of some kind thanks, eunice >> take a quick break. as we said, futures looking pretty green as nearly all of the names on the s&p 500 are trading above their 50-day moving average back in a moments. these days, it's anything but business as usual.

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it's what we've always done. it's what we'll always do. the data this morning not so good jobless claims, another 2 million. gdp down 5 one of the worst numbers on record that tends not to get in the market's way dow looks to open up 240 in just a few moments.

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welcome back to "squawk on the street." as we get you ready for an opening bell on this thursday, about four minutes from now. let's squeeze in a mad dash. last night, the ceo of workday was one of your guests on "mad money," and it's a feature for you on the mad dash. >> i know that you know neil you know what a solid shooter he is he delivered a number that was not as bad as feared and an outlook i regard as being even though the headlines said it was not good, really to be spectacular because there are a lot of deals that got pushed out but will be done this quarter. he landed a very big deal, fannie mae he also has announced two market moving partnerships. one with salesforce on the reawakening trade, so to speak, the sales' force has a thing called work.com worth looking for, and microsoft the reason i mention all of this is because this is the stock to watch if the money is going to ever flow back to tech otherwise, you know what, david. it's the recovery trade again,

which is the one that confound most americans because how do you recover when you have gdp down 5%? the answer is the things we were talking about, which is liquidity, which is the fact that a lot of companies made it that we would have said couldn't have made it, including look at macy's, kohl's, and thank you, jay powell, because it was you who did it, not the shoppers at macy's or kohl's >> as carl pointed out, the jawboning alone was certainly enough, or the idea of fed support being there seemed to be enough to support these investment grade markets or even noninvestment grade to a certain extent, and the fallen angels is also where the fed said it would come in potentially and help support the market >> everybody hurts >> i'm so glad you brought that up, because we have had our share of bankruptcies, and let's not, of course, forget that it was through no fault of execution on the part of these companies. hertz had a large debt load. it was backed up by the enormous fleet of cars, the value of

which conceivably was going down or their inability to monetize those to pay down debt in an effective way, but the losses there are significant, not the least of which, of course, was for carl icahn he had agitated years ago, had people on the board of directors, of course, and sold stock at 72 cents yesterday. >> oh, boy >> 50 plus million shares. >> incredible. he's got some winners too. a lot of winners we have to go to phil lebeau on this because there's 700,000 cars that theoretically could hit the market that's an actual used car market mov mover. we often forget as we buy the autos and all the oddo equivalents as part of the recovery trade that the autos have not snapped back. there really isn't anything there other than -- well, maeg m maybe magna because they saved money as an auto parts company

we know during the interview you brought to us, where they have too much auto, so we have to watch it here. watch this workday it's going to be the tale of the tape, even more than micron which yesterday preannounced a much better than expected quarter. >> all right, guys there's the opening bell at the nyc. live shot of times square. i know, speaking of cloud names, you got sale i know, speaking of cloud names, you got salealesforce tonight. jpmorgan this week did do their own channel checks, looking at some of crm's partners they weren't all that optimistic >> no. look, i'm betting marc benioff has a particular plan for companies who want to reopen and reopen in a correct way. and i think if he directs -- if we see numbers for that that are good, that's going to win over a lot of new customers that he did not have before. a lot of people still feast on oracle there was a subtext about feasting from oracle

i think the people going to the cloud, companies going to the cloud, it's still early. i know it seems like everyone is on the cloud, i don't want to bet against marc, this work.com initiative is quite impressive it's the best way to try to figure out what to do for your employees. it's almost as if the government should have just figured out what marc did or maybe marc is the government in this case because it's been so unruly. no criticism of the government, look, it's hard. you have dr. fauci, foremost guy, and i don't want to spend too much time on sooins, but he said don't wear a mask, and now he says wear a mask. he said the fall is definitely going to be bad, now fall is not going to be bad. he's offering ill advised information. i say that as someone who reveres him. >> cdc, too, jim the cdc in particular from the very onset of this crisis has been very hard to follow again, and the mask thing, what i recall came from them

specifically don't worry about wearing masks. save them for the frontline, the people on the frontlines then that changed. we look at asia where wearing masks had been done in daily life frequently, and the rates there are so far lower than we have in this country >> look, they would be much better if they just watched dr. gottlieb in the morning. they should follow him on twitter. they can say, here's what the plan is. gottlieb has been so much better than these ill-advised people, and cdc at one time was a great organization and was considered to be the best in the world. and i think when the book is written, they will come under particular criticism for what's happened to them they gave us terrible guidance >> jim, this is one day where the financials are not leading here we did get a lot of information from the banks today american express and bernstein yesterday talking about spending

improving but still down in the mid 30s. entertainment still down 90, and brian moynihan talking about loan deferrals here's what's he said. >> you have seen the deferrals in our customers accounts fall dramatically we had probably a million in the first couple weeks, fist three weeks, and then we have had in the next five, six weeks after that, a total of half million. it's really dropped. the last couple weeks in mortgage, for example, very small. why is that happening? i think people have adjusted asked for deferrals. they were shocked by what happened once they got the deferral in the mortgage area, 20 odd percent of the people who asked for a deferral made their payments, which means they were in a different position when the payment time came than when they asked for deferral >> he added apparel spending up 50 month on month as people are starting to broaden their

spending palterns. >> burlington didn't have that great of a number because burlington was closed by the government viewed as nonessential when you interviewed dollar tree, i really am curious what philbin says about apparel they had a very bad apparel lineup during the fall of last year and winter. but if they say that the people are buying apparel there, and tjx, another one to watch, that stock is going down. stupid bag of hammers. that company is going to have a pretty interesting situation today, by the way, the recession trade is on. maybe someone is looking at this one out of four people and comparing it to, say, 1931 i'm busy trying to reconcile, but of course, obviously, what we have now is a safety net, and 1931, the banks all go 1932, banking holiday. 1933, we figure out that we need a bunch of programs to put people to work

versus unemployment insurance and jay powell printing money. but today is day where we're seeing the new caterpillars battle the proctor & gambles, and i have to tell you, my money is on the proctors >> if a week ago, or eight trading days ago, i would say go long wells fargo and short peloton, i'm not sure you would have done that >> that would have been the most stupid thing in the world, and also correct >> yes, and also correct wells fargo, we were watching that stock it had a 9%, 9 plus percent yield, now it's down to 7.2%, given the move up in price and the overall rebound of the banks. >> look, jamie dimon came out and said v is for victory. he didn't say it was going to be a w, a u, a swoosh he didn't even say it was going to be an amazon. he said it was going to be a v,

and when you have a v, you have to sell peloton and you have to buy royal norwegian carnival, which by the way, ain't no stopping those stocks now. isn't it getting tired aren't the airlines getting tired when american has to lay off 30% of the people even though they're not supposed to be laying off anybody because they took the fed money, but i know they're doing buyouts, and what is that about >> yeah, layoffs at american and more significant layoffs at boeing beyond the 2500 voluntary yesterday we heard about in the morning a lot more behind that at boeing. the numbers are, you know, getting to be fairly large at least in these industries, carl, that have been so hard hit, of course, travel and leisure being the key ones >> oh, my god, travel and leisure, and you hear moynahan say they're really not spending that much. i find that what's most daunting is that they're half of

everything i have a friend right now who is doing a cruise -- the grand canyon, and everything is half meaning not half off but marriott is only allowed to be like half full everything is in half. how do you make as much money when you can only have half your customers? it's the government by fiat telling you you're going to make 50% less, and of course, the way leverage works, your expenses don't go down, but your amount of money you take in, revenue, goes down big. this is the problem i have with trying to understand how the market is going to resolve itself because unless you have a dollar tree, dollar general, your revenues are going down big and your expenses are staying the same that's not a recipe for good numbers, but right now, good numbers don't matter that much they somehow don't matter. >> u.n.'s got a report on international tourism which they say will drop 70% this year. the biggest drop since they started taking records back in the 1950s.

which sort of leads you, jim, to domestic travel, right ini'm sure you have seen the google search trends, searches for yosemite and national parks are through the roof, and now we have mgm and wynn laying out their vegas plans. >> by the way, read the wynn plan it's extraordinary and they bring in the johns hopkins guys i was very worried about air flow as a restaurant owner, there's a bad cdc piece put out about if you have air flow done the wrong way, patient one giveatize to patient four but they come up with a terrific plan to save wynn and make you feel like you could go and do gambling and be safe, and i think it will work, but remember again, you need crowds a lot of businesses need crowds. and i think that when you look at the good thing that dr. fauci has been talking about over and over again is social distancing. and that means no crowds so i don't know how you have no

crowds with businesses that need crowds i haven't been able to figure it out yet. >> jim, one of the strongest performers this morning is the pharmaceutical seconder. of course, we talked earlier this week about merck, when they, you know, made some moves in terms of vaccines and therapeutics, but merck, pfizer, j&j, lilly, of course, which has just been an incredibly strong performer, up over 12% this year, is also up yet again not sure why the move is being made, but that's certainly one of the strongest areas of the market >> that's the recession trade coming back, david it's not the -- it's not the vaccine trade. because lilly is mostly diabetes and immuno and it's not testing it's really, you know, how is moderna doing? anybody selling there today? good opportunity because -- oh, moderna is up 4% get your broker on the phone, do

a little selling there i'm talking about the executives and not the owners i'm still reeling from the selling there. i have never seen anything like it and i know it may have been planned, but you know what, you can plan something that's not right. and they have a lot to answer for. i'm going to stay on that story until i actually see someone answer it. it is just not something that should have happened it just shouldn't have happened. >> right >> it wasn't right >> not to say that there isn't a chance that the vaccine will prove effective. i mean, i know it was eight people we're waiting obviously for a far larger sample size, jim, but you know, there are those who do believe the mrna, the technology itself will prove effective. you will have a vaccine in some fashion that is at least quite helpful. >> you don't come on and be really enthusiastic and do a huge media blitz you speak softly, like a j&j, that's doing incredible stuff.

when you talk to j&j, listen, you have to speak to this harvard professor. he lectures you about how dumb you are, and that's okay, i can handle that. i was told that at harvard myself so i got an extra dose, but i do feel the stocks going up in the drug group where the ones who say listen, we're going to have a recession. enough with the reopening trade because in the end, it's too far too fast i think it is too far too fast by the way, pfizer is quietly in the lead, i understand, with the vaccine. and glaxo offered some good news the ceo said a couple things one, no geographic preferential treatment in terms of vaccine distribution clinical trials would begin soon in france and belgium and move on to the u.s., but merck is up 2% i want to turn you quickly to housing because toll did report, and you asked whether it's a

counterurban trade, because we thought about toll in many ways in the last few years as an urban trade. >> i know, because they did all these fantastic projects we see them in new york. they ring new york city, and of course, they're in brooklyn and hoboken. toll was up $2 it was up $2 last night, and all on one figure. the figure was up 13% in may and that's really rather extraordinary. people feel that the rates are working. low rates. but this counterurban trade is really fear of virus and as long as there's fear of virus, there will be people who say i'm done with urban. i don't know how long that lasts. for about as long as the -- i don't know, people don't fly i think that what does matter is that the rates are so low, people feel this is a once in a lifetime opportunity because a lot of housing is depressed. there's some real buys out there, and also, doug, the

fantastic ceo, poinls out there's not a lot of inventory, but what is there is down a little bit i think the housing may number is extraordinary i didn't expect it to be up that big. a lot of people shopping for houses pent-up demand is what we keep hearing. >> no kidding. mortgage apps up six straight weeks. we talk about high frequency data, but everyone points to mortgage apps, puncrchase apps, more than anything >> in keeping with the rally in wells, which is mortgage centric, wells taking a little bit of a breather here, still yields 7.4, david. but i do think that housing is surprising spending is surprising balance sheet is surprising. the ability of companies to be able to raise capital when they shouldn't be is surprising the big omni channel move is

surprising and that's what's made it so the hedge funds who have made these horrendous bets against this market just have to be reeling they have to be reeling. they just got the wrong side of the trade. >> a lot of them, jim, took risk off, but i don't know that a lot of them were actually short. a handful were, certainly. we heard from some people who were quite negative around the very bottom of the market, but you know, i think what you may see more is underperformance as opposed to actual significant designs. >> that seems reasonable i just keep going back to the reverberation of the hedge funds that came on and you know, i don't even know if it's fair that stan druckenmiller was painted with that brush because i was rn't at the club if you don't pay attention to ray dalio, i think you're pretty foolish. but there was -- the rich people

who came on were very scared how about that for the correct generalization >> yeah, but they may still be, and they may have reason to be i mean, all right, so we had this incredible move from the bottom we talked about it we talked about the divergence between the real economy and the stock market and so many other things here it is, the s&p is 3,042 a number i think many people might not have anticipated we would see again for quite some time even six weeks ago but is this a number indicative of where the market is that you tell people come in now, the water is safe? >> you just had a vicious rotation you could come in to workday as of now, still even up 12 pause the stock is down 50% from its high, and neil laid out a long-term course but let's talk about disney for a second i don't want to talk about the actual firm that downgraded, but if you look at disney, carl, this is something that i really need your help on.

let's say you're opening a slow opening of parts of disney that's taken the stock from $90 to $120. now, is that a slow opening where we have no -- take your temperature, that's the biggest ruse of all. taking temperature what does that mean? the people who give you the disease are the people who have no temperature, but they take temperature. you need blood tests >> i'm laughing because jim's referring to a downgrade out of imperial today we don't talk about them very much, but they go to underweight, and jim, they say it's up 20% in a few weeks because of disney springs, which we admittedly can say is immaterial to the income statement, but their argument is that you want to trade it, not own it, which i think goes counter to your more secular views. >> look, disney is going to be open some day. let's not forget, a lot of stocks are going up because they survived and if we -- if the virus is --

didn't come back, a lot of states opened. there were a lot of naysayers. then survival, we get to a bridge with the unemployment and the economy does open and the companies are deserving of where they're selling. i get that i think it makes sense, and now that dr. fauci, who again, i mean, he is still the expert dr. fauci said it may not be bad this fall. let's just get to the fall and a lot of people can do okay. >> yeah. let's hope we don't become brazil, which is increasingly a topic of discussion, too let's check in with rick santelli who brought us all the data this morning. not much of it good. hey, rick. >> well, not much of it was good, but the market thinks otherwise. look at intra day of tens. yields moved up a bit. is the sovereign data the safest it's where the people go, and they seem to be leaving. they look to be closing at a

ten-week high today. i think a lot of the people globally that were buying some of these sovereigns have moved into the equity markets because it's an unloved space but you still can cash a check it's been long since mid-march if you look at ten-year in particular on the french side, this is really revealing look at the ten-year, this is a month to date chart. there's been two sessions all of may so far that have closed above zero, and by above zero, one was.004, and one was .002. we want to watch because they're going to be throwing $2 trillion into the system. my guess is much like many global markets, they're going to take off and rates are going to start to move up again hint, hint, they cash your check even if it doesn't make economic sense. and finally, the euro versus the dollar closing at a two-month high, which means the dollar index is closing at a two-month low. back to you. >> all right, rick, we'll see you in a bit >> s&p, 3039 is off the initial

bounce we're still hanging in above the 200-day moving average, which at this stage is about 3,001. we're back in a moment this is a tempur-pedic mattress. and its mission is to give you truly transformative sleep. so, no more tossing and turning... or trouble falling asleep.

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produced "the irishman". we're back to intellectual property in the bidding wars >> apple likes to start slow they want to be sure they get it right. it's not unusual for them. now we see them coming on with the tom hanks movie, with this they're going to be a major force. they're going to be major in movies and podcasts. they have the more fire power that be anybody. obviously they're making this as part of that service revenue stream they realize has great gross margins. this is important. i'm glad we're talking about it. this must have been a jump ball, carl, and the jump ball went to the guy who had the most money that's a big change. because someone was playing with borrowed money the other one was playing with cash >> that's a good point >> it remind me -- >> yeah. it remind me, carl, of my interview with john malone last november, i guess. we sat down for our annual

interview. he talked about remember, jim, he talked about optionalty and their efforts. he said they're sort of testing the waters they're going to see and be deliberate, but they are going to make moves based on what they see in terms of consumer response clearly, they are starting to spend more money we've seen that in terms of filling out their library a bit. bidding here and then this will raise that question that everybody loves to ask, will they look to make an acquisition of some kind in this area i say it seems small in likelihood, but it's interesting to note what apple is doing here >> we'll watch the dow here. boeing is in the lead along with a few of the pharma names, merck, pfizer, unh and proctor a mix. boeing stuck in there. back in a moment turn on my tv and boom,

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s&p led by dollar tree up almost 19 % for the week to date we're going to talk to gary p l philbin about their comp nbeumr of 7 this moment. this moment right now... this is our commencement. no, we'll not get a diploma or a degree of any kind. but we are entering a new chapter in our lives.

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let's get to jim at stop trading? >> an upgrade. it's an election year. that's when the farmers do best.

i had the largest seed company on this week they don't do as well. they buy equipment, you get a check from the government. you buy equipment, you vote for the incumbent. buy deere. >> interesting call. bloomberg has a piece china is buying soy from the brazilians >> i'm calling that relationship sup optimasuboptimal >> what's tonight? >> when you go through the drive through technology, that's zebra technology b benioff, reporting earnings. and maybe we throw in a question about twitter and facebook why not? >> yeah. and media. tieing in all the rest that's a show. we'll see you tonight. >> okay, thank you

>> "mad money" at 6:00 p.m good thursday morning. welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm carl quintanilla with sara icen and david faber 3 k on the s&p now pending homes about to cross. let's get to diana >> hey, carl pending home sales in april fell 21.8%. that's much wider than expected. and we're down 33.8% year over year now, these pending home sales represent signed contracts people out shopping in april there are forecasts of what may close sales will be. in the northeast down 48% for the month and down by 52 % year over year. also very big drop in the west down 20% for the month and 37 % annually all this said, the realtors seem optimist optimistic they expect this to be the

bottom for home sales. we saw that in newly built homes. they're saying may will be the bottom for closed home sales and they're revising their forecast for 2020 slightly higher to just an 1 1% drop in sales and prices up 4% annually so a huge drop in april pending home sales not only the largest one-month drop annually but also the lowest level of this index since the realtors began tracking it in 2001. but signs things are already coming back. sara >> diana, thank you. we'll begin with today's market action that's just the latest data point. the dow and the s&p 500 extending yesterday's gains a little bit here. the nasdaq not joining the party. bank of america ceo joining "squawk box" earlier discussing today's jobless claims number and the effects of the pandemic. bank of america's consumer accounts take a listen. >> if you look at our customer's checking balances, say, under $5,000 and under, average

balance they were running before the crisis, they're up 30% or 40% in average balances in their accounts today versus 12, 13 weeks ago. that means the stimulus is in their accounts there's more to come we'll see if that stimulus can hold on long enough until the reemployment comes back. >> kbwco tom joins us now. that statement about better checking account balances, the stimulus checks working, the latest in a string of positive comments including from jamie diamond this week. do you think the market got too negative on the state of the banks and the overall consumer picture? >> good morning. and absolutely i don't know if investors realize the first quarter of 2020 was the worst quarterly performance ever since we've had the bkx index. the index was down over 40% in the first quarter. there was a lot of unknown and a

lot of really bad news was in the bank stocks. i think what brian said this morning is what we're hearing across the industry. we've had two conferences in the past two weeks we keep hearing things about cash in consumer's accounts. we hear that deferral requests are down significantly we hear that banks which scramble -- excuse me. corporate customers of banks that were scrambling for liquidity right when the crisis started are now starting to pay the money back and we're also tracking card flight data which is a service that looks at what small businesses are doing with sales, and you're seeing that small business sales have bottomed and they've been up for five straight weeks so there's a lot of optimism that the worst case scenario could be off the table >> and yet, we get another 2 million americans filing for unemployment benefits last week bringing the 2 and a half month old to 40 million unemployed there are some signs of

recovery, the continues claims number feel. it's a good sign of a rebound. still, tom, i mean, how do you take that economic carnage and marry it with the optimistic outlook you're painting on the consumer >> well, first, i don't mean to be painting an optimistic outlook. frankly, the bank stocks went down so much that there was so much uncertaintythat it was forecasting an absolute worst case scenario. and yes, that's terrible that that many americans are out of their jobs at the moment, and the second and third quarter are still going to be choppy quarters and we think provisions could be higher in the second quarter. but i think the relief rally that we've seen in the bank stocks recently is that there are some signs that it's stopped getting worse and we're seeing stability before it could get better we're not forecasting in our numbers -- i wouldn't call it a rosy scenario, but our forecast for the consumer is similar to

what i think others have said which is we think unemployment will probably peak now the government stimulus programs will help. and that you'll see some improvement or you'll see improvement by year end. and i think that's the type of inflection that was driving the bank stocks and the reason why we've had somewhat of a rally over the last several weeks but no, there are still head winds it will be a distress scenario i think the point is it's just that we've seen some stability >> yeah. tom, it's david. it's not somewhat of a rally it's been a furious rally. although, as you say, off lows that we hadn't seen for quite some time. we've been focussed on wells far fargo. it had a 9% dividend yield a few weeks ago. are the dividends safe at the banks? >> well, here's -- that's a great question we believe there are two aspects to the payment of dividends. the first is does the industry

have enough cap can tall the answer is absolutely yes the second element is can the banks earn their dividend? and i think that's the critical question that's going to determine which banks cut dividends. we think, i think, there will be more di dend cuts, but we just recently completed an analysis we think the average meeting payout for the 2030 banks we follow is 60 % mind you, before europe cut their dividends, their payout ratio was 150% so we believe that 90% or so of the banks of the 230 we follow will earn their dividend this year it's that 10% to 12% that may not for consecutive quarters and look, wells fargo did not earn their dividend in the quarter. if they have a continuing track record if not earning their dividend, then i think their dividend is at risk so they would be on that list. it doesn't mean they're going to cut it the other point you and others in the market should remember is that in a couple week's time,

we're going to get the fed answer to the distressed and c car analysis where the regulators are going to approve capital plans for the big banks. that is going to be very telling for wells fargo. >> tom, you know, we tend to focus on the larger cap banks. even though wells' market cap for a while was below $100 billion. you mention some 200 odd some banks in your universe is there a part of the banking universe you think is particularly cheap right now >> i think it's the middle bucket so i'm going to have three buckets. the first is the highest quality banks. so jpmorgan trades at 1.7 times tangible book right now. we have jpmorgan, collin frost, first republic the market has gone there first. i'll talk about the bottom bucket there are a couple of banks, and i'll take the 12% of the banks we follow that might not earn their dividend this year or

banks that may have an unusual concentration of hotels or energy lending or lending that investors and we know are of great concern. i probably think you don't need to go that far down the value opportunity in bank stocks there's a middle tier of really high quality super regional banks that are trading 80% to 100% of tangible book at dividends north of 5%. stocks are still down 35% on the year if the worst case scenario's being taken off the table was still a challenging environment for the next several quarters, i think those stocks are going to continue to keep working and david, that's where i'd look for the best value right now >> tom, we heard from goldman yesterday. they're going to start bringing traders back to the floor in limited fashion, phasing it in in new york and london what do you think staffing is going to look like going into the second half of the year, the back half, the back quarter, and implications for spending and head count >> yeah.

i think first of all, i think most firms are doing everything they can to keep their colleagues employed. this is an unforeseen situation, and the good news is that the financial services industry had a good amount of profitability coming into this which should give them a good wherewithal to keep folks employed and not have to let people go because of the pandemic okay i think generally firms are -- the managements i talked to are working hard to do that. i think we're not going to get back into areas where mass transit is required to 100% restaffing until there's a lot of comfort about how mass transit is utilized. and i think that is one of the tightest constraints so i think you're going to see offices, folks start to return to offices, but they're going to practice social distancing, and i think you probably won't have 100% in office attendance which will have an impact on small

businesses that provide lunch to those folks. all around the eco cycle and have a positive impact for others but i think you'll see corporate america come back but not necessarily ramp up to 100% in the next several quarters >> tom, as we think about the long-term changes to our society and consumer behavior, one of the things that some of these bank ceos have talked about is the shift to online banking happening at a much faster and broader speed, especially among older americans. do you think that sticks and how does it change the trajectory? what happens to bank branches? what happens with the outlet to m&a? how much does it change things >> that's a massive trend that was already underway before the pandemic and you are absolutely right it's accelerated it. it's bringing new users who would have not adopted digital

technologies but had to. that's a whole new universe for this moment. i read a great report recently about small business there is a great thought piece that said the main street banks, these are the banks that did the small triple p loans around the country. they need to be digital mainstream banks and every bank in the market today needs to make sure they have a very strong digital strategy and i think that some banks are going to realize that's an expensive thing to do, and i think this will accelerate consolidation on the back end of this, and then the other thing is i do think we're going to have lower for longer rates on the back end of this that will probably be a factor that spurs consolidation i think the consumer reports i've been reading see that consumers like the digital connectivity with their financial institution. >> who are the buyers and the sellers in your consolidation outlook? >> the best way to do it, i think -- so this is just

mathematical we've gone back and looked back over the last several years. typically what happens is a banking company or financial services company with a stronger currency will acquire a company with a weaker currency and i think you could see how the market has stacked up the banks by a price to tangible book value would be a good first step and the banks that have a currency are going to have the advantage versus the banks that don't. and that's how i would probably think about who the buyers and sellers may be >> tommy, thank you for joining us >> thank you all right. let's get to elon with the details on the president's signing of an executive order this morning that targets social media companies. a lot going on here, elon. >> that's right, david i was able to get a draft copy of the executive order and the way it would work is the administration would ask the fcc

to write new rules about how and when they can remove content and remain the shield. and looking into companies that might violate the rules. the doj would have to create a working group of state attorney generals to look at any relevant local regulation and all government agencies would be required to review their digital ad spending to see it's on platforms with viewpoint restrictions it's not final until the president signs and the signing is not yet on his public schedule however, the president did tease that an announcement to coming today on twitter, of course. he wrote this will be a big day for social media and fairness. now, this all comes after twitter flagged two of the president's tweets about mail-in voting as potentially misleading and the twitter ceo put out this

statement. he said this does not make us an arbiter of truth our intention is to show the information in dispute to people can judge for themselves more transparency from us is critical so folks can clearly see the why behind our actions i want to point out once the president signs this executive order, there's nothing that's going to change immediately. the administration has 30 days to ask the fcc to write the rules. the fcc has to decide whether to comply and write the regulation. this battle is definitely far from over. back over to you >> elon, it's david. just a quick question. what are they trying to rectify here what do they believe in the administration has been wrong that this would correct? >> well, there are two sort of different but related issues here sort of broadly republicans have been upset with social media companies. they feel there is bias against

conservatives. evident in the platforms, that they unfairly target conservatives in flagging information that they feel is inaccurate or misleading but i would az also point out that these particular tweets, there's lots of debates about things the president has tweeted but these were related to the election process twitter said it felt in that case, that's what crossed the line here. it's not sort of the broader political debate, but the specific information about elections that was concerning and so that's what this is technical fight is over. but certainly it's in a much broader political context. >> all right elon,we'll look for more developments later on in the course of the day. the executive order, potential out of the white house today when we come back, we'll check in with dollar tree not only leading the s&p it's up 14%. it's gone from 72 to 100 in the last couple weeks. today responding to their earnings

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the ceo of the dollar tree i think we talked a few weeks ago obviously when things were just torrid in terms of sales growth in the month of march and april. can you give us color on how the trajectory has changed since then >> sure. it's been a bit of a stage as we've gone through this. i have to just call out thank you to our 190,000 associates. 15,000 stores, two countries we wouldn't be where we are today without their dedication but as we called out early on, it's all the essentials folks needed cleaning, paper towels, kids got done with school more meals at home but it has changed the customer has moved onto how do i make my home, dress it up around bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, outdoor living and even called on graduations today. as resilient as folks are, they still want their celebrations. as we've seen drive by

graduations, birthday parties and even our party business has recovered from where we started. >> on the categories where we saw real supply restraints, we talked the first of april, have they caught up in the most extreme cases? >> we're doing better. i would not say we're caught up. and we are working hard night and day across the country you know, it varies by vendor. it varies by geography we are getting all those essentials into stores and maybe what used to run out in two hours we certainly are seeing folks now last a day or two. but i'm going to guess on some of the essentials to get back to what i would consider our normal end stock, it's going to be another several weeks before we get back to that normal in the most critical items.

it's interesting across the items people need. whether it's cooking at home or buying a comforter for their kid's bedroom, those are the types of things we're seeing an up surge now in. it shifted away from essentials. we still need the items but people are buying more of the things they need to go on with their lives right now. >> gary, it's sara if you look beneath the surface, i mean, family dollar, very strong dollar general, excuse me, very strong 15.5% comps dollar tree was negative why such a big divergence? >> to be clear, family dollar and dollar tree and i think it spoke to two things that happened during the quarter as the pandemic started off, people just bought essentials and that continued to where we carry a broader assortment we carry national brands

and clearly our customer needed that assortment. for dollar tree, we were faced with our biggest holiday until you get to christmas, easter holiday. and for easter, it basically evapora evaporated it's when most of the shelter in place orders occurred and people did not buy easter products anywhere close to what we would have expected. but post easter, we started to see that dollar tree is starting to get back to normal. as we called out today, today as we go into may, it's certainly a much more normal cadence post easter from where we were headed before that. for family dollar, quite frankly, it's been strong but same thing, shifting from a very high surge on consumables, but now really the things that people are buying is outpacing our consumables part of our business as they buy for their home and outdoor living.

a year from now when we're looking at same store sales comps, are you going to make an exception saying that was the pandemic and don't and now our numbers are x. you can't compare to what they were a year ago, or is this sustainable? >> well, clearly, we've had a spike in unusual demand. we've set an all time record one week for family dollar in the history of the company i'd look at it this way. it's a different crisis. but in 2008 when dollar tree was gaining the right type of format we saw our customers discover us and stick with us. all the work we've done on the investment of family dollar around h2 innovations i look at through a similar lens i think people are going to find us, like what they see and stick with us. we'll figure out the quarters

but we're building this for the long-term, and we'll navigate through the balance of this year first. and then i think it's going to suit us better going into next year knowing that customers are going to be probably tight on budgets, needing value, needing convenience, and i would even add in being -- feeling safe in a small box environment. so i think those things work in our favor. >> did you see a specific bump in sales after the stimulus checks were mailed out in terms of discretionary items and how do you look at that? is that a one-time thing >> i would say we've always called out tax time refunds when they come. we certainly see that with the stimulus from the co-vid relief. it's been that on steroids it's gone a long way to help our customer have money in their pockets during this critical time and we see that. and that's really not just

what's driving essentials. i think it's a lot of what people have been able to spend money on, you know, regarding their homes, and having celebrations and categories outside the home without a doubt, we see it so the further we get away from that, it will be interesting to see how customers respond. and that's why i sort of call on 2008 it's another data point where customers came to us more foot traffic back in that time. right now it's more about people are coming in and shopping with intent so as we look through q 2, we'll be further away from co-vid stimulus we will also have unemployment benefits at the higher levels and at the end of july, so that will be another marker for us to watch how our customer responds. but i think we're geared up with the right kind of values and convenience for these customers. many of them seeing us for the

first time >> i don't think we got guidance from you this time in part because of the uncertainties you've been talking about. the timing of government stimulus, unemployment rates, shelter in place mandates, vendor supply. of that list, which to you is the most important puzzle to get an answer to >> i think it's customer sentiment as much as anything. how does our customer shop the further away we get from co-vid? and there may be a bit of a chop there as we get further away from it and the unemployment stopped at the end of july over the upcoming months we're in the right place and the right segment. small box value discount i think it serves our customers well supply chains will catch up. have no doubt. it's taking longer than we would all like, but that will be tail

wind for us this time next year. >> we always appreciate the color and insight. dollar tree leading the s&p this morning. gary, thanks >> thank you, folks. let's get a check on where we stand across the major averages we're positive for the s&p 500 about a third of one percent the nasdaq has also gone positive the dow is up 62 points. just building on recent gains with the s&p above 3,000 we got a close above there yesterday. the dow above 25k. utilities, health care and consumer staples in the lead energy, financials and communication services are all lower. n't go anywhere. "squawk on the street" will be right back you should be mad your neighbor always wants to hang out. and you should be mad your smart fridge is unnecessarily complicated.

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jcpenny which is reorganizing in chapter 11 bankruptcy, opening stores, bringing the total to 300 nationwide it plans to have nearly 500 stores open by next wednesday. international tourism expected to fall 70% this year about 110 million jobs are estimated to be at risk worldwide. the 70% forecast is based on countries reopening their borders in august. cnbc.com has more on that story. and south korea reporting 79 new cases today. the most in nearly 8 weeks officials have tightened restrictions amid concerns of a second wave of covid-19. at least 82 cases this week have been linked to a logistics facility of one of that

country's largest online shopping firms and in part of south western japan, tourist attractions that reopened tuesday are closed today after officials confirmed eight new cases of coronavirus the local mayor warned of a second wave if new infections cannot be traced you're up to date. david, back to you >> thank you, sue. sue herera this company recently provided guidance of 20% to 25% same store sales comps for the quarter and 24 % to 29% revenue growth shares have done well since the pandemic began we'll talk to the ceo of tractor supply after this.

record breaking sales and earnings taking shares of tractor supply to an all-time high this week. stock up better than 50% since the nationwide lockdowns began in mid march and it is the best

performing stock of any in the retail sector in the s&p 500 let's talk to the company's ceo who joins us now on cnbc nice to have you with us this morning. >> thank you, david, for having me on today. >> very happy to have you on i assume you're happy with the landscape that you see out there, no pun intended i guess the question would be how have you pulled forward demand given just the unpress lented demand you're seeing in so many different areas and geographies or is this sustainable? >> first, i'd like to thank our team members to serving the essential needs of our customers during this time and always just impressed by the service they're providing our customers, and as a way to your question, we saw pull forward in demand at the end of q1. we gave back some as we started

in q2 as our customers stocked up on food and animal feed like many of us did since then, for the last eight weeks, our volume has been consistent and very stable at these kind of escalated comp levels and we've seen that escalated growth really across all channels, all geographies and all product categories as we look at the business over the last eight weeks, we don't see a pull forward from future weeks and months >> and you've discussed as well, i know very recently, categories such as homesteading, poultry, do it yourself i mean, is any one sort of a real focus or is it simply across the board that people seem willing to come in and spend money on these different categories >> i think in america right now we're certainly seeing a rural revitallizati revitallization. we're seeing the summer of yoush home and the summer of your backyard we're seeing people embracing

sustainable living and to all the categories you mentioned play to that the homesteading, the chicken poultry, food and feed and coups and people buying chickens we're seeing incredible garden activity but we're also seeing really nice strength in our core businesses in things like pet food and animal feed really across the board. all categories are doing quite nicely even our big ticket items like outdoor power are running strong >> like some of your retailers like kroger have given one-time bonuses to employees, the hazard pay bumps. they're temporary. are you making moves to extend that, and what do you see to people who say there's still a risk operating on the front lines of the stores where people need the essentials so badly that employees should be paid

more for longer? >> our team members are the heart of our relationship with our customer and we're committed every single day to delivering legendary customer service, and over the last three months, we will have provided over $30 million in appreciation po bo nuss to our team members on the front lines, in our distribution centers as well as in our store support center all team members since mid march through the end of june received 2 an hour in additional wages. we announced yesterday -- two days ago in the afternoon a permanent wage been fits increase for all of our team members on the front lines there are three components the first was for a dollar per hour wake rate increase that's

permanent. many of our team members will receive $1.60 and up the second thing was for our store managers they'll be receiving restricted stock grants going forward with one in the next four weeks to start the process. and we really feel it's powerful for them to be owners of our company moving forward and then kind of the third component of our announcement was kind of an enhancement of benefits for part-time team members. it was a robust enhancement including access to medical, dental and vision, life insurance as well as sick pay. and it's the first time our part time team members have had that. to your point, we firmly acknowledge that our team members are a strategic part of our customer value proposition they're the heart and soul of our company. and we're committed to supporting them and leaning into them during this time.

not just with these part time appreciation bonuses we've been doing but with permanent increases across the board on wages, benefits, other means of compensation >> that's good you're making it permanent. my other question was about the move to the burbs. do you see that trend lasting and how are you seeing it in terms of what people are spending on their lawns and their properties >> i think the coronavirus has either exacerbated trends that we have in the market or has created some new trends. so in terms of an exacerbation and a pull for it is around technology we see our customers embracing technology more and more and we probably moved the adoption around technology forward two or three years in terms of same day, next day delivery and curb side pick up the same is true on shopping trends we saw this rural

revitallization. we see this embracement of your backyard and home. it can be a safe place for you and we see people bonding with their families and tractor supply is just a great format for those customers. we have convenient locations and a format that's 15,000 to 18,000 square feet. it's not intimidating and we've been very much out on the forefront in terms of safety and health both with our team members as well as creating a customer shopping experience on the front edge of this with plexi glass and with ppe and we added a greeter role to the front of our stores to wash carts when customers come in and sanitize them and do things like head count counting. we're seeing a lot of trends and shifts in our customers and tractor supply is there for them in a convenient format for the needs. >> finally, you said recently in a virtual retail conference that you think the strong will become stronger through this pandemic

and you indicated your willingness to invest more in the business now you've outlined investments you're making in your associates but what're investments are you making during this period? >> yeah. as you indicated on our analyst call yesterday, we talked about the momentum we have we talked about our commitment to investing in the business to emerge stronger from the pandemic we believe there's a big opportunity for us out there as we just discussed, we did invest in our team members, a strategic asset. that was a 5 $5 million annual invest we're also investing in other areas notably in technology. we announced two days ago the relaunch of our website with brand new architecture and open source, cloud based and site speed and search relevance of the site would be so much more crude to new experiences we announced the launch of our first ever mobile app. it will be in the available in the android store in a couple

weeks. we pulled this forward by three months it will be tuned around our neighbor's club where we have 16 million members and also around bio line pickup and curb side. you'll hear more and more about investments from us in the next six two eight weeks in other areas but we believe we have an opportunity to lean in the business and emerge stronger from the pandemic. >> all right well, we appreciate you sharing time with us thank you as the stock hits a another new all-time high. the ceo of tractor supply. >> thank you david, later today on the closing bell, don't miss the ceo of restaurant brands parent company of burger king, pop eyes, an interview with an update on sales trends at the stores that have reopened. it's coming up at 4: 30 eastern time s&p up about .4 %.

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nice rally going for four up days time for our etf spotlight taking a look at the ticker ita rising up 10% from a month ago one of the group's biggest holding is boeing. restarting productionof the grounded 737 max jet after the dow component announced it was cutting more than $12,000 u.s. jobs the stock is in the green today, but still down more than 50% so far this year. it is leading the dow which is up about 100 points. we're going to take a icquk commercial break stay with us on "squawk on the street." at mercedes-benz, nothing less than world-class

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that's why, when every connection counts... you can count on us. the covid-19 outbreak has forced child care provider brighthorizons to shut down 80 of its centers with the country reopening and companies returning to work, should families expect services to reopen full time soon and what does that even look like? joining us now is the ceo of bright horizons steven cramer.

welcome. are you opening 80% of those centers that had to close? >> so, we absolutely are starting our reopening plans and so families and employers that have always relied upon us are going to start to see us reopening our centers throughout the summer into the fall and certainly going to be doing that in a very safe and healthy way for children and families. >> how do you do that? >> so we have been operational in 150 centers throughout this crisis, so i think we have now deep experience in understanding how to operate child care centers in a healthy and safe way, and what we did right at the outset of this crisis is we implemented protocols that are very specifically aligned with making sure that we can keep children and families safe we certain are following cdc

guidelines as well as local health authorities and in addition to that, we have a direct relationship with dr. christi christian moffit who has helped us ensure that we put protocols in place that absolutely keep everyone safe. >> are you expecting a change in demand with so many people now working from home and many employers allowing people to work from home even in states that have reopened >> so i think it's a great question at least what we're hearing back and what we are certainly working closely and listening very closely to our employer clients and also doing surveys of families that were previously enrolled in our centers to understand what those patterns are going to look like, and what we're hearing from families in particular is that the last couple months have been incredibly challenging as they've tried to stay productive at work and at the same time they have been the primary caregiver for their children on balance, families are very

excited for us to reopen, regardless of whether or not their offices are reopening, because they ultimately are looking for a safe and healthy place for their children to grow and learn. >> yeah. tell me about it we talked to melinda gates a few weeks ago and she was making the point that key to reopening, one of the keys economically, is to fix what she called a broken child care system in this country, that in so many cases it's unaffordable for parents to send their kids to these kind of day care centers and in many cases the day care centers themselves will not be able to reopen as a result of how hard they've been hit over the crisis how do you see the system in this country working for everyday americans >> so for the past, you know, 30 years, we have been focused on partnering with employers because we see them as an important source of financial support for employees and for

working parents in the process of child care, and so i think it is very challenging to think about what non-supported child care centers look like and the tuition and fees that they have to charge because, again, delivering high quality child care is expensive. in most child care settings across the country all of those costs are borne by the individual family. we, for 30 years, have gotten employers to invest billions of dollars behind the idea of supporting their employees and child care in a way that i think is really critical as we look forward to the success of employers, employees, and ultimately the equation between the two. >> i can't get my 2-year-old to put on a mask. do you get the kids to wear masks, stephen, at the school, and the teachers as well is that something that works okay for the kids to see their teachers in masks? >> absolutely.

our protocols call for all of the teachers and staff in our child care centers to wear masks and that is different for children to see our teachers and the staff in masks on the other hand, the way we are helping our parents to educate their children before they come back is that heros wear masks and ultimately our teachers are heros and so the children see their teachers as heros and so that makes that adaptation a bit easier. certainly children are very resilient in that way. our protocols absolutely do not have children wearing masks. i think that it is absolutely understood that the idea of young children wearing masks is not productive and causes more challenge than it does good in that the children are constantly fidgeting and touching their face and ultimately are not comfortable wearing masks, so again, within our centers children will not be wearing masks.

>> and what other changes do you have to implement, for instance, with toys or art supplies that, you know, everybody touches? can you have more supplies or people can have their own or shift to other activities that don't require such high touch activities >> >> sure well, i think our safety starts at the front door and so for children and parents who arrive at our centers, we are undertaking health checks and we really first and foremost are looking to make sure that the children who are attending the programs are healthy and the same is true for our staff we start with a group of individuals both staff and children who are healthy and then ultimately throughout the day, wereally are working hard to make sure that both the provision of food as well as the work that they're doing throughout the day is done as separate as possible the reality is that we can't

have social distancing of children, that doesn't work, and part of the experience of coming to a child care center is that social experience, but we are taking a lot of precautions to make sure that, for example, snacks are individual and they're individually wrapped and done in that way so we are taking the precautions that are necessary to keep children and families safe. remember, we've been doing this in 150 centers over the last couple of months through this pandemic and are really quite expert making sure we're doing things in way that work for children but also make sure that everyone stays healthy >> stephen cramer, thank you for joining us >> a real pleasure thank you for having me. >> the ceo of bright horizons. bright horizons does do business with nbc universal and our parent company comcast, like so many other employers david? >> yeah, sara, one name we haven't gotten to this morning, sorry i didn't bring it up with

jim on how closely we covered it when it was fighting off xerox's bid for the company is hpq it did report numbers not being well received by investors and a downgrade from jpmorgan and they say they downgraded to neutral, not a great help at this point, based on a lack of catalyst following the second earnings quarter print that met low expectations with positives on the personal systems segment offset by setbacks in printers and a lackluster outlook for third quarter in terms of what they expect for printers they have a roughly 4% dividend yield. jpmorgan notes their price target goes to 20 bucks. of course that is a significant personal increase above the $15 the stock currently inhabits, carl >> yeah. a lot of discussion about when you're working at home, you don't use as much paper or printer ink.

thanks see you later on good morning, everybody. welcome to "squawk alley." i'm carl quintanilla with morgan brennan and jon fortt live from separate locations we begin the hour with facebook this morning and at controversy surrounding social media and censorship of political speech mark zuckerberg talked to andrew ross sorkin about twitter's move and its fact checking of the president's tweets >> we are different companies but we've been pretty clear on what i think the right approach is, which is that i don't think that facebook or internet platforms in general should be arbiters of truth. i think that's a dangerous line to get down to in terms of deciding what is true and what isn't, and i think political speech is one of the most sensitive parts in a democracy and people should be able to see what politicians say >> meantime the president is expected to sign an executiv