open on the dow, about 174 points higher, it's come down just a little bit, nasdaq up about 153 points and the s&p 500 looking to open about 23 points higher joe, great to see you, see you again tomorrow maybe we will start a spac tomorrow "squawk on the street" begins right now. ♪ good thursday morning, welcome to "squawk on the street," i'm carl quintanilla with jim cramer and david faber. q4 begins, futures are solid as investors look past some of the rising covid friends in europe and the u.s. more corporate layoff announcements and instead focusing on stimulus talks now in their final hours, jobless claims 837,000 our roadmap begins with stimulus hopes. the white house counters with an offer around $1.5 trillion including $20 billion in aid for airlines, talks continue today. plus covid headwinds for airlines, american and united furloughing more than 30,000, this, of course, as federal aid

runs out >> and shares of bed bath & beyond are surging, the retailer reports comps of 6%, online sales soaring 89%, jim so earlier in the week, jim, and even last week you seem to be pessimistic about the prospect of a compromise coming together. do you feel any different this morning? >> look, i think the airline layoffs are looming large because with layoffs come a cut in roots, with a cut in roots is a pain point, but i think it's the senate, we keep talking about mnuchin and we keep talking about speaker pelosi, but i think the senate is buying into the president's v-shaped recovery and i think mitch mcconnell is buying into it which says why do we need more we have a v shape, it's just certain industries that can be triaged. i know that the industries represent small and medium-sized business so i'm against that, but i would say in favor of the mcconnell position, at least if you are looking at the stock market, this set of earnings, now, that is not what they care about and i don't want to

minimize the loss if you worked at goldman you were laid off today, if you worked at all state you have to feel pretty miserable, but i have to tell you, carl, when you look at pepsico, when you look at bed bath, when you look at conagra you start thinking what the heck is going on? the bed bath numbers were extraordinary, new management, admittedly one of the most poorly run companies around but it is big. when i look at the companies i see this common theme, if it has something to do with eating at home, something to do with making your home better, you may have to be a really bad businessperson to not do great numbers. >> well, if you have a digital platform that works. >> true. >> and a strategy that you've already put in place prior to the pandemic or at least one that you've been able to work very quickly to establish. i mean, that's the key, right? bed bath i don't remember them necessarily be any giants in e-commerce prior to this, jim. you mentioned of course and we talked about the struggles this company has had for years as it

bought back so much stock at prices that are so far higher than now it's a joke it was a creeping lbo on its way to bankruptcy. >> should have been a spac. >> yeah. >> it's 89% -- they have huge growth online, huge, but it's starting from a very low base. they were terrible at online, this he didn't know how to do it, they were too busy trying to buy one kings lane of course, david, i have the company on tonight because that's what i do. >> that is what you do. >> i'm a booker machine. >> you are. >> but the earnings per share, the cash on the balance sheet, the cash flow up more than $750 million, gross debt reduced, david, this one is real with 6% comp 89% growth with digital. i don't know, couponing down when you go there, david, you know that there's -- there's like 40 different hanger skus. >> yes. >> five different kinds of trash can for your kitchen, for your bath. >> yes. >> that's all being cleaned up the couponers are still there, i bring my $5. >> right. >> do you know what, david, it's

digital and it's fabulous. >> they have a pretty big -- they have large stores. >> right. >> do they maintain and keep those or -- that's what i wonder walk-in traffic is not anywhere near what it once was, unclear when that will come back to be fully what it was. i think of the bed bath not far from where i live, for example. >> well, i think that this new ceo is from target, he's going to have to deal with which stores -- there were so many things poorly run, i don't even know if he's addressed how many bad stores there are, but what he has addressed is this multitude of incredible number of shop keeping units and how difficult it was and where they make the stuff and where they get it and the gross margins i don't know i mean, i think, david, they were -- they were trying to run the place into the ground, previous management. >> we used to talk about it a lot, why he. >> previous management said they wanted to come on "mad money," i said you're welcome. then, i don't know, they

canceled, which was probably smart. smart nonbooking i'm going to go this weekend i am going to see, david, mine which is about two miles from me which, by the way, was the original bed bath, david. >> okay. >> it was kind of a museum to bad management let's see how it looks do they still have the candy aisle everywhere there's more licorice in that place than housewares. >> carl, it is going to be a feature today, even though it is still quite a small market cap as we know. >> 60% short, david. >> yeah, a lot short and you always do some back to how much stock they bought back over years at far higher prices. >> carl, how many times did i go up to the board with david at that relic that we used to work at and say to david, david, they're buying so much stock it's got to be a creeping lbo and it turned out to be ill-advised which is another term for moronic. >> it's true, our mad dash it was a feature, carl, i remember it well. >> sometimes i would confuse it

with best buy and i really made a lot of good points best buy is looking good i meant to say bed bath. it's like cvs and cbs. >> ticker symbols -- timers are very similar do you think a story like bed bath is a micro tell about the mac troe environment we have personal income slipping into negative territory this morning, savings rate has come way down, another 800,000 filing initial claims i mean, how much of that trade, that stay at home, you know, home improvement trade can continue if, in fact, household balance sheets look worse? >> well, it's strange because restoration hardware which is the high end is booming, you have way fair booming which is the low end, you have an outfit like bed bath picking up a lot of business, just housewares around the house, costco saying the same thing so there is a place where people are going, obviously amazon prime day is coming up, those are days, david -- here is what

happens, it means you shop until you drop, so, i mean, since you don't shop, i mean,is it -- le me ask you something. >> yes, sir. >> you are a teetotaler on amazon pry day >> i'm a teetotaler? i don't drink on -- >> amazon prime day -- i'm comparing that to alcohol. >> okay. >> you are like a temperance guy for amazon. >> oh, yes, that is correct. i'm sorry. yes, i am a teetotaler when it comes to participating in commerce is what you mean, other than paying restaurant checks which i try to do every single night and day. >> who goes to restaurants >> i go every single night. >> where >> outside of new york you have to come out sometime, my friend, things are happening and hopping. i don't know, president may call it a ghost town, i'm not sure, maybe around trump tower, but otherwise things are hopping. >> carl, i love david's attitude, but let's say you take a place like barsay miguel, you are allowed to have 12 people, it is hard when you have 4

people working for you to have 12 people in the restaurant. >> outside, jim, everything is outside. >> okay. >> my entire neighborhood everything is outside. >> starting today, though -- >> starting today 25%. >> fantastic how many people am i allowed to have at my bar if i have three when i used to have 30? constellation brands, number three beer number three beer. you have corona, you have modella. >> nobody is saying it is easy, that is not my point of course it is difficult. >> i thought you were running it in my face. >> not at all. those rumors of new york's did mice are greatly exaggerate sd all i'm saying yes, i do not participate in commerce, i try not to, desperately not to, jim, however i seem to be at odds with much of the rest of the country. >> carl, i think that going back to your original question, okay, i think october is a fulcrum moment, i think that when you see all state, did they really need to lay off all those people goldman is having a fantastic quarter did they need to lay them off are people using the pandemic as

a way to be able to get rid of people and say, hey, listen, the pandemic makes it so we can't have them or is it one of those cases where you literally don't have a business so you have to let people go? or is it that the people who have money like an amazon are able to hire as am many? this is the month where congress is going to have to start saying, well, wow, i mean, i guess people aren't doing as well in the pandemic, but that's up to senator mitch mcconnell. really, he is the man. >> well, to your point, jim, i mean, q4 is always the quarter in which 2021 or the next year's budget is starting to come into view and people think about operating leverage, it's not a unique story, but challenger layoffs are 3 x today for the prior month year on year and that's something we don't usually see. it's one reason why the fed's mary daly did say yesterday on closing bell that certain areas of the economy are definitely going to need federal support. take a listen. >> we need fiscal agents to

offer support to the parts of the economy that have yet to recover, to the millions of americans who are side lined and wondering how they're going to pay their bills. so whether it happens next week or next month is important to those american households, but also really important to shoring up the economy. >> so now, jim, we have the airlines literally issuing memos to employees apologizing for having to separate workers from the company, but with the caveat that they might not have to or you might quickly come back if, in fact, a deal comes into place. >> it is amazing the game of chicken that they are playing in washington where it seems like that everybody is thinking the other guy is going to go over the cliff and give in, but when you see these layoffs and you realize that -- the widespread nature of them and the fact that they've been -- a lot of companies have held off, that now it seems like, do you know what, this is the time, the pressure is going to be great, but, again, the pressure is on the republican senate because i

think that when you see secretary mnuchin spending so much time talking to speaker pelosi, they have got to be close to something, but then when you look at, david, this is really important when you look at the senators and republican party who believe the president, remember, the president saying that we are back, we're having a great economy, they have to contradict the president to vote for an aid package what they're saying s mr. president, your economy isn't that good and i don't know whether they have the courage to do that. do they have the courage >> wow, you're really asking me some tough ones today. >> no, i want soft balls, i'm sending you some soft balls. >> if history is any guide and i'm going to look right at you, you can look at me, if history is any guide, no. >> that's right. well, you don't want to be tweeted. geez. >> no. >> tweeted -- >> that's what the fear is here with a month or so to go before election day, it's going to be interesting. but really, i mean, to carl's point doesn't it come down to mcconnell trying to get them in order to a certain extent and

the fact that he didn't seem to express displeasure with the idea of $2.2 trillion yesterday. >> i had senator warren on yesterday, senator warren, outspoken, i'm still looking at you i don't know if that's the right thing to do tv-wise. >> it reminds me when he used to be on the same set you used to have to turn. >> this is not just social distancing, this is like social mile running when you look at what senator warren said, i said why is the senate not part of giving $7 billion to minority businesses to keep them in business, why aren't they doing it why isn't congress doing it? she goes, senator mitch mcconnell. >> that was it. >> that was it, yeah she's a woman of few words but i think she's a woman who understands the temperament in the senate and the senate seems to not recognize what constellation brands does at the end of their conference call and what they say in their note, i have them on tonight, minority businesses are being crushed, okay

hispanic businesses are being crushed, but they are not stocks we don't trade them. unless, david, they do a spac. >> everybody has got a spac and a dream as i like to say. >> boy, the people in robin hood they love spacs and they like optiones >> we've got more spac news today, too, we have hims coming on later, this he announced their deal with oak tree, playboy. every day is spac day. >> there's an etf. >> there is an etf that starts today ticker spak, we will talk more about that and we will get constellation and pepsi. got some initiations of snowflake, draftkings, papa jo's ba ia nuhn ♪ ♪ ♪ "hmm's and ahh's" heard in-call.

♪

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watch palantir this morning, up in the premarket about 4%, of course, a day after its direct listing debut, although off of those intraday highs, jim, from yesterday, what was your take on the action >> i think people when they do these reference points, they don't really know, there's terrible discovery, horrible price discovery. there was a burst of buying that took that stock to $11.35 and i swear, i mean, right there and it was very much in a rush, someone must have felt there was going to be a gigantic buyer coming in on top of that and instead the buyers dried up and the sellers searching for some level, david, the sellers don't even know how low to go. >> this is the direct listing

issue. many companies may be looking at it, particularly if they don't have to raise primary capital, this seemed to have been a success and by many accounts it was, but to your joint, jim, when i talked to some of the people who were potential sellers, they didn't tell morgan stanley what their plan was. >> no. >> so they don't know. morgan stanley is sitting there trying to match orders with people who are playing games is really what it comes down to. >> yes yes, david. >> the buy orders is what they kind of know at morgan stanley, but they don't -- i made this point yesterday, they don't really know how much they have to sell. imagine putting a book together when you don't really know how much you have to sell. >> syndicate, david s in the dark, too. >> yeah, so no one tells the truth when you're flying to put this book together and that's what you end up with by the way, the reference price is meaningless. >> meaningless. >> and so we will have to watch the price action and particularly how you try to actually balance these two things because you've got selling shareholders but you don't know if they're sellers and if they're smart they're not

going to let you know. >> you know the reference point was supposed to be 10 bucks last week, not 7.25 but 10 bucks. carl, the idea that people come in and start buying this at a level of sales, 20 times, do they even know what they're getting? i mean, there is a new audience of people, whether it be spacs, whether it be direct listings, they are so fascinating. >> do you think the robin hood people called morgan stanley and let them know, somebody at robin hood says we have 10 million to buy? i don't think so. >> david, if they think it goes up -- i'm in a fight with about 100 people on twitter who say why don't you like spacs, they go up? oh, okay well, palantir, it goes up the other one went up a lot, that was a good company, much too expensive. carl, the valuations here, the valuations at all of these places unless they have faster growth rate are really out of control. i'm not talking snowflake,

snowflakes has got amazing revenue growth, no one knows how to rice that, but these companies -- palantir doesn't have that kind of growth i mean, why should i give it the same -- a better multiple than a workday, which is recommended today? and surface now. why am i giving it better than adobe? seasoned companies that know what the hell they're doing that really have great management. >> well, your point is good. citi does take workday to buy, they are looking at 265, jefferies initiates snow at a hold saying it's ahead of the fundamentals is your point specific to direct listings >> i just think that this one that palantir in itself has been around for a long time, wasn't making -- you know, not making money. i think that they may feel that they have a hold on, what, 150 clients that are unshakeable, i'm not sure about that. i spoke to marc benioff last night from salesforce, he has a new program to be able to roll up vaccines.

i think if he decided to turn his guns towards something they do, partner with snowflake, they can go after palantir. >> jim, to the extent that the commercial opportunity is the key growth platform authorize them, you question as to whether they can be as successful as they have been with the defense department. >> precisely what is their edge because they're very good at targeting -- >> terrorists. >> -- terrorists does that mean they're good at targeting people who might want insurance? >> i don't know. >> me, neither. >> they say yet they are. >> oh, okay. i say i am, too, i'm doing a spac. >> what's your -- you should do a spac it's free money. >> i would love to do that. >> free money. >> i know. do you know how many times i've been approached to do a spac >> of course i know people have told me, too got to do a spac. >> do you want to do a spac? i said for what. no, it's a secret. >> what should we focus on >> carl, that's what they say. give me a sense of what the spac is about no >> it doesn't matter. >> why should i join you

>> we're going to make a lot of money. >> isn't that what the whole idea is, that's why they call it blank, jim, it's blank for a reason. >> i write a blank check to my painter yesterday i felt bad about. >> you should have done a spac with him. >> we will take a break. within we come back we will talk about what the quarter may for trend as we get into q4 and the month of october, seasonality and whether the s&p can finally close above 3363 back in a moment

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ what to watch on this thursday morning, we will keep

our eye on developments regarding a stimulus compromise, but there are earnings from bed bath, pepsi, constellation, jobless claims and ism atht e top of the hour. we are back after a short break. taking california for a ride. companies like uber, lyft, doordash. breaking state employment laws for years. now these multi-billion-dollar companies wrote deceptive prop 22 to buy themselves a new law. to deny drivers the rights they deserve. no sick leave. no workers' comp. no unemployment benefits. vote no on the deceptive uber, lyft, doordash prop 22. one ride california doesn't want to take.

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a leader in income, alternatives and responsible investing. welcome back three minutes until we get started with trading here on this thursday. let's squeeze in a mad dash. starbucks. >> david, how do you show confidence in your company maybe you do it the old-fashioned way, you boost the dividend starbucks boosts by 10% that is not insignificant. why? kevin johnson wants the starbucks shareholders to know that they are confident and focused on value creation and returns for them dividend increase meant to send a message it will create value for all stakeholders yesterday i found is quizzical that an analyst upgraded the stock. >> cowan. >> i think this is the kind of sign that you are getting. conagra which we can talk about later boosted the dividend substantially, by 29%.

and what's happening, david, is there are a lot of companies that don't know how to show that they are doing well in the period that is corona and the way to do it is to give you a dividend increase because that's something -- you don't do that -- very strong statement, very strong by starbucks, a lot of people worried about united states, i think you shouldn't, i think starbucks is reinventing themselves they've had problems with lines, there are so many vacant spaces, david, you said it's the roaring '20s in new york but there is a lot of vacant spaces. >> there are a lot of vacant spaces i'm just trying to point out there is a lot of life as well no tourists so it is all new yorkers. vacant spaces you do wonder about downtown areas where you don't have near full capacity in terms of people going to work who typically would stop at the starbucks in the way you would. >> i love starbucks and there is always such a long line that i would go to another starbucks. now i think that they're going to conquer -- i think what

you're going to find is that there's going to be starbucks where it's all digital i don't know if you have the app, david, they have an app. >> i don't i don't. sorry. >> i can't help you. >> i know. >> are you a panera club member? >> no, i don't go to panera. no >> mcdonald's raised -- >> mcdonald's, i haven't been to one of those in a long time. >> very good piece this morning about raising numbers, mcdonald's and i think that that's going to turn out to be a barn burner quarter and a barn burner year from wells fargo people have to buy that is correct it is going to 244, their price target is very right. >> you're talking about mcdonald's knew. >> i'm giving you the complete array of places you have never walked into. carl, i don't think he knows the difference between egg on his face and egg mcmuffin. >> i have never had an egg mcmuffin. >> that's not true. >> that is true, never not once. >> carl, how do we school a guy who has never had an egg mcmuffin how do we even approach that

>> i don't like eggs that much what can i tell you, charl i'm sorry. >> jim, did i notice the wells price target increase on mcdonald's and focusing around menu, which has definitely been a story at mcdonald's in the last few weeks. >> it has. >> here is the opening bell. >> isn't it nice, carl, that the discussion is not about a previous ceo and some of his alleged indiscretions? isn't it welcome that it's about their business >> although that story is not over, either. >> no. >> jim. >> no. >> your point about the div hike at starbucks does follow the div hike at texan, followed the div hike at microsoft and general mills. that's four. is that a trend? >> yeah, i think that -- by the way, senator warren wants to eliminate stock buy backs, stock buy backs have become the villain. i have not heard of a lot of -- even joe biden, i'm not sure where he is on raising taxes on dividends. i know when i used to work with

larry kudlow a show called cramer -- kudlow and cramer that he was in favor of lower taxes for capital gains because he felt that that added to the economy, i was in favor of lower taxes for dividends because i wanted to encourage people to continue to be long-term holders. waiting to hear a comprehensive plan about how that is going to be taxed there are a lot of people to say can we please tax everything someone whoes in hell state pays more than $750 a year. david, i checked my taxes, i'm paying more than $750 a year, i don't know about you. >> i'm well aware that i'm paying a lot more and obviously the disallowance of the ability to deduct state and local income taxes certainly has hit people. >> how about the fact, david, new jersey and new york are fighting to have me and new jersey -- >> who gets you? >> we're going to have to try to split something, but new jersey just added a millionaires tax. >> i saw that, but i did notice that david tepper, a friend of yours, moved back to new jersey. >> you know --

>> sometimes it's worth it, even if you've got to pay a big tax bill. >> i think tepper recognized that florida is a suboptimal place to live. interesting, by the way, he is no the moving to where the panthers are. >> no, he's not. >> when i called him the last time i said, listen, i have to know something i've got to know he said, look, i think the markets are fine i said, no, i want to know about christian mccaffrey. i have mccaffrey for fantasy he said, i don't know. i don't know the owner doesn't know how about the washington team, can someone at least name them >> oh, god, there was a devastating -- i was watching last night, my friend jeremy on espn mr. snyder. >> you can't look at him if you are a cheerleader, you are not allowed to look him in the eye. >> we can't go there at all. i participated in his ipo. >> what was that >> it was like college -- >> oh, okay. wasn't he also involved with the

six flags at one time? i don't know do you know what, my memory, it's still there it's still there. >> is it >> he was, yeah. >> because biogen has a drug that -- >> no, i'm fine. >> are you sure you don't want to get in that trial. >> i'm good, as long as i can almost keep up with you i know i'm all right. you know, you're older than i am yeah. >> yeah. >> let's move on, though, to some stocks, guys. in fact, you know, might as well hit this ael right here because it's up a lot. it's not that big a company, american equity investment, life holding company, that's what i'm talking about right there, it's an iowa-based insurer. take a look at it, though, this morning because they do put out a release after the journal put a story out about a letter this he got from a theme and massachusetts mutual life wanted to buy the company for 36 bucks a share in cash. letter was dated september 8th so i'm not sure quite why they waited so long to leak it or whatever they may have done there, but we did get a response

from american equity investment life holding saying we got the letter and it's 36 bucks a share. so they have confirmed that and they're just sort of saying, okay, everybody hold on, we're going to consider what's going on here. significant premium, jim, for this relatively small company, a $3 billion deal were it to get to the finish line. >> brian sullivan's show this morning, $28 billion raised in the month of september, not since -- that hasn't happened since 1989, so there is a lot of capital out there. carl, to your question, to your point, of consumer spend and where the money is, thank you to jerome powell for making it so that everybody can go get money who has money. those who don't have money, very hard to get money, which is something that i think as an american i'm not crazy about isn't it the american way to try to help people who need help minorities, whatever, they're having a tough time getting loans. but a company doesn't seem to have a hard time getting a loan

at all a spac, the money is there here take some money. not for minorities. >> the point you're raising, jim, the point you're raising, we talked about starbucks dividend hike and that, again, this morning raised the conversation of why does the fed own starbucks bonds? it's not a lot but they do own some and how appropriate is that when you have companies raising dividends to shareholders? >> not appropriate that's a black box -- remember, that's controlled by blackrock, so, i mean, i imagine the fed has some deny ability on that if they choose to have it i'm waiting for some senator, some person in washington, to call for an investigation of how that's happening, but right now i think everyone is grateful that the fed is trying to keep people in business given the fact that neither the congress nor the administration seem to be able to agree to anything that keeps people in business. jerome powell said, listen, i

need help in an impassioned plea i think he is a very feeling man who is trying to get things so that people do well and i think he's succeeding, it's just that it's only certain people david, when i look at what -- what senator warren says or what some of the bankers are saying to me, ray mcchoir, citi. >> yeah. >> you're just -- these communities are not getting the money. the minority communities are not getting the money. i know that when i spoke with mccormick they're giving $500,000 they went to the african-americans who work for mccormick and said where should the money go, they had a great list i think that there are people who are trying very hard to get money, but it's individuals. >> yeah. >> it's companies. nobody is bigger than the federal government individuals and companies they can't deliver. as much as they want to. they're just not big enough. >> right right. and getting the money in their hands is not as easy, i guess, as we had hoped. >> no. i mean, i'm impassioned about

this only because i think that we're becoming even more of two societies. >> i mean, yeah, that is something that the pandemic has done it would seem is divided -- divided -- made the divide even greater. and which is what we talk about all the time in terms of what you call sort of the real economy and the economy that's reflected in stocks, which you see yet again with the nasdaq up 1.3% why? well, we know why, don't we, because facebook is up 2.2% and google is up 1.2% and amazon is up 1.7% and on from there. and netflix is up 2.3% that's all today, by the way and, again, we're watching as we begin october and come off of last month, we're watching the last quarter of the year now to see how we perform given the incredible performance really of the equity markets despite the pandemic, but the nasdaq up 26%. jim, i wanted to quickly come to you on a couple of names you very briefly mentioned but they both reported earnings we got three earnings reports. >> yes. >> we've got pepsi, we've got

constellation and we've got conagra. the stock is not doing much. constellation is down 3% company did generate $1.4 billion of operating cash flow, $1.2 billion of free cash flow, that's up 2% and 10% respectively also took their debt load down by $600 million. you've liked this. >> i have and i think in-home drink something pretty high. this he did mention there are still some problems with mexico and getting supply they did pre announce -- they gave you a guide at the beginning of september and they kind of didn't raise it from the guide down enough and i think that's what's hurting them i thought conagra had a good quarter, does not seem to move people at all. pepsico on the conference call they talked about some channels hurting a lot, that's a kweet from him and when you hear some channels hurting a lot you tend to think, wow, maybe the pandemic costs are not going away and he's saying that, too so suddenly you have a stock

trading at 141 at 601 when the numbers reported and it's down. >> pepsi had organic growth of 4.2%. >> that's an overreaction. that was a very good number 4.2. soda stream is doing remarkably, but the people who are selling the stocking they just want greener pastures and greener pastures are the companies that you just mentioned >> yes right. many of the big tech names that are once again showing -- showing momentum here and showing, carl, leadership, although unlike -- you know, where we sort of see some rotation, we have the banks up as well today. despite really the yield just sort of sits there. >> and the fed not letting them raise dividends or, you know, jamie dimon wants to go back to buying stock i will tell you that goldman sachs is up on the laying people off. >> up on laying people off. >> up on laying people off people would say, listen, jim, they are part of a big etf and that's moving that, but it's

hurting. pepsico, sell it down at 137, everyone is going to raise numbers. there's two guys that are going to upgrade it tomorrow don't be an idiot. i'm talking to the buying who are so busy buying spacs very haven't even mentioned nikola. >> we haven't. that's been up the last couple of days. >> we have another one that laid off people, carl, that's doing well is disney we're back into the 1990s. >> i'm this i go about disney right now, jim, from a football standpoint because the nfl now has a statement that steelers/titans will be rescheduled for later in the season instead of monday, tuesday, after one additional player and one personnel member tested positive for covid-19 today. so that was a business discouraging earlier in the week, jim, although there's no indication that the season itself is beginning to fall apart. >> let me give you something really discouraging. bio reference labs tested all the players sunday and all these people involved.

okay it came up with the people who had it, the original then they tested them today, they ran it three times. then they tested again and an additional person was found and then they tested again and another additional person. now, what is to say a lot of us would like to think that you all catch it at the same time. now you're staggered i know they think day five is the day that they don't have any more people who get it that's not looking right remember, they tested those people on saturday so this disease is still beyond the kin of most people there was no believe that there would be another titan yesterday. when i spoke to the company that does it, and the company is really great, they were just hopeful. they're still hopeful, by the way, that no one from the vikings got it it is pretty amazing because there was a nose tackle that had it from the disease, what's dit with this disease, is you would have thought that the -- that

the viral load for everybody would have been high enough to catch on monday or tuesday or wednesday. so they don't have this under control and they just don't. and it's worrisome what happens if there's another one? >> yeah. indeed we will watch it, jim, for further developments nfl has been pretty good about issuing statements quickly. >> they've been fabulous. >> we got within four points of 3,400 for the first time in a couple of weeks, let's get to bob pisani hey, bob. >> hey, guys first day of the quarter, nice start 4 to 1 advancing to declining stocks, we're close to 3,400 but almost 200 points away from the old highs we had a nice correction in the middle of september. take a look at the sectors, nice move up in semi-conductors, good news out of st micro, good guidance from them, consumer discretionary, industrials, modestly strong. again, banks and energy lagging here, this is the story for the last quarter, starting off with a story for the fourth quarter

stimulus matters a lot why does it matter because people are really getting concerned about the layoff numbers and people are looking for some -- even a triage help for some various industries you have heard about all the layoffs that are occurring with american and united, all state, disney was the other day, marathon petroleum, royal dutch. long list, it gets longer every day. dow you're going to hear a lot about this in the next few weeks because when the earnings announcements are made that's when they're going to do the layoff announcements, that's why the stimulus becomes very, very important. at least that's what the market believes october -- september was complicated trading, october is going to be i think even more complicated. look, all of these buckets that we talk about, they're not going away, the election uncertainty is very, very high right now, we had progress on treatment and vaccine, maybe we will hear phase three progress on vaccines in october, we don't know, but that's certainly generally good news here, that's the most important thing, progress on stimulus we don't know where things are going with mnuchin or pelosi

right now, but there's some hopes that a deal can be reached. and reopenings are balanced against these layoff announcements and yet we've been getting great economic data. chicago pma, adp all really good the hope is that earnings will save things. st micro had great guidance, pulling up all of the semi-conductors today, we look at all these numbers, advanced micro, good news from them q3 revenues higher than expected, guiding higher for st mic micro. the guys mentioned what was going on with constellation and pepsi. bed bath & beyond is huge beat, we were expecting a loss, they had a gain 50 cents. these numbers were off the charts, way outside of what most analysts were anticipating for bed bath & beyond. you see digital sales, this is the story with retailers winning on this front, up 89%, in store sales up 12% that's certainly good news we keep joking with etfs, etf edge i have a show we talk about thematic etfs and what's going on and we joke about there's an

etf for that the spac etf is finally launching today, this is from defianc defiance spacs raised $41 billion so far this year, almost as much as anybody else $41 billion is what that should say there, that's almost as much as the regular ipo process you might say how do you have a spac when you don't know what the acquisition is 80% of the company public through the spacs, they're public already like draftkings, 20% will be blank check companies and they will have to figure out what companies they are going to want to buy in. rather interesting situation for them carl, back to you. >> all right, bob, we'll see you in a little bit. bob pisani watching yields in morning and some manufacturing data. let's get to rick santelli >> yes, exactly. right now we're looking at the notion of what's going to change in the economy, well, maybe the market pmis will give us a clue to this because we are now looking at 49.3 -- i'm sorry,

53.2, 53.2 is our final read carl, this, of course, takes away the 53.5, puts it in its place. we are still hovering at very significant levels, the bounce is nice and we will still get another ism later on top of the hour, of course, with regard to the marketplace. we see yields moving up. the data points have been good we could debate as to the level of initial and continuing claims, the rate of change on how they're moving down, but they were better than expected so look at intraday of ten, yields did move up if you look at a two daythey have been moving up over the last several sessions to the tune of -- open the chart up to early september -- on a closing basis this is going to be a one-month high, should we stay up at these current levels in tens and 30s on an intraday basis it's the best levels, highest yields, lowest prices traded in about four weeks the 10th of september. foreign exchange, with he all know that june and july weren't good months for the dollar index

but it firmed up quite a bit right around mid-september you can see on this intraday chart that it came back a bit, but once you hook in previous four days and look at a one week dollar index low to high it's lost over a penny and continues to deteriorate and many of course will believe that the euro currency and its weakness due to covid spikes and now the fact that it's coming back is the driving force of that market carl, jim and david, back to you. >> all right we'll see you in a little bit, rick, for ism. so we are off the initial highs this morning when we come back later on this morning, football super agent drew rosenhouse as titans/steelers is postponed to a later date on two more covid cases. back in a minute (♪ )

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senate commerce voted to subpoena some top tech ceos. we have more on this this morning. >> with vote was unanimous to subpoena the ceos of twitter,

facebook, and alphabet to testify before the committee the hearing date is uncertain. there's a desire to have this happen before the election as the platforms are being accused of mishandling misinformation as well as of political bias. the subpoenas require them to speak on section 230, the liability shield as well as privacy, and the impact on the media. again, the tech company ceos being subpoenaed by the senate commerce committee we'll see how they respond back over to you >> all right we'll keep our eye on that jim, i don't know if -- jim, it reminds me alphabet just this morning was named as one of b of a's top ten ideas, high conviction short-term ideas for q 4 does this throw that into question >> no. there's youtube things going on. they're going to be monetizing more i think the google cloud is doing better

this stock is barely up. it sells for 33 times earnings you have to back it out. it is cheap. i have to tell you facebook is -- if you look at the facebook ads for politics, i mean, it is stickered like a cigarette box. i don't know what more they can do mark zuckerberg addressed this thing personally, trying to figure out how to please everybody so they've come up a strategy basically it just says hey, don't believe this thing it may not be true what else can he do? do they want him to take down every ad i think that violates the first amendment. he's caught between a rock and a hard place i don't know what he's going to do, but i know when you look at the ads on facebook, i think they're doing it right i don't know i mean, take a look at it. the treatment is the same on the videos and the feed. and i just -- i do not know how to make the label more prominent when donald trump tweets something. >> what would twitter say? >> dorsey -- i talked to ned who

said how do you violate people's first amendment right? donald trump talks about ball s ballots. we know that it's right under the president's note i mean, i don't know what more can you do say listen, everything is a lie? say he's the worst president ever a clown? david? >> they would say don't take the ad in the meantime, 3383. about pnts f e itl 10oiofthinia highs. back in a moment ♪ ♪

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all sectors green this morning except for energy. on the dow gainer's list, boeing is number one. almost got to 173 this morning that's about a one-month high. more squawk on the street continues in a moment.

time for jim and stop trading. >> i have to tell you this remarkable op ed piece this morning by the ceo of wynn they're building a lab you'll take a saliva sample to find out if you have coronavirus. maybe everybody has to have a lab at every place

>> that's certainly where we're headed we'll see you tonight. great show >> mad money tonight >> good stuff, jim thanks jim has i think bed bath at 6:00 p.m. eastern time in the meantime, welcome to another hour of "squawk on the street." i'm carl quintanilla with david faber and leslie picker. we're watching for headlines on stimulus let's get to santelli with ism >> yeah. big data points here construction spending really coming in at a level that is much higher than expected. looking for a number up three quarters of one percent. double it. up 1.4 % on construction spending this is an august number it is now the second best number of the year, the first best number was january up 1.9 very solid now the money ball number for the 10:00 hour, our september read on ism manufacturing. we're expecting a number around 56.5 this is a disappointment 5 5 .4

55.4 is the number and if we go through the internals, you can see what's going on here. new orders is a problem. 67 .6 last time 60.2, our new read if we look at what's going on with regard to prices paid, it's ramping up 62.8 versus under 60 59.5 last time and maybe the most telling number, even though it improved, the employment index is still below 50. it's below the expansion contraction line it's at 49 .6. a bit of an improvement from 46.4 considering we have tomorrow's big important jobs data to see this sub 50 remaining, it's going to make people rethink some of the horse power on the jobs front david, back to you >> okay. thank you, rick. still no deal on another stimulus bill, but there are perhaps a few signs of progress coming out of washington d.c we have the latest

>> the next few hours can decide if they can afford the compromise the white house has offered a $1.6 trillion package that includes $250 billion in state and local funding that's up from the $150 billion the white house previously offered it also includes $400 in enhanced unemployment benefits that is more than the $300 that workers are currentlyreceiving from the federal government but less than the $600 democrats wanted there are two areas where it appears both sides agree any new deal would include another round of direct checks and the white house is also offering $20 billion in aid to the airlines the white house chief of staff described the administration's offer as extremely generous, but he said that republicans are not going to be able to get behind a deal that starts with a two or even anything close to a two

on the other hand, house speaker nancy pelosi seems unlikely to be able to pass anything through her caucus that is less than $2 trillion so we will have to see how democrats respond to this. they had already delayed a planned vote on their own, $2.2 trillion package last night. so if a deal does not seem to be within reach today, democrats are saying they're going to go ahead and plow forward and put this on the floor. back over to you >> thank you that comes as we see all the headlines this week trickling out with job cuts at disney and oil and gas. it will be interesting to see how it filters into the stock market that's a segway to our next guest. turning back to stocks turning higher in q 4, but what are investor's biggest concerns for the market going forward and the stock survey, 61% said

it was a new wave of the virus 27% answered slow economic recovery which could also be related to that virus, and 12% said it was election uncertainty. joining us now is jpmorgan asset management ben mandell as well as amy wu silverman. thank you for joining us amy, let's start with you. how do you think stocks would react if there is a second wave of the virus >> certainly not well, and unfortunately when we look at the option markets, uncertainty is already extremely high, and that's been coupled with other major events like elections. if we get a second wave sort of in conjunction in the same time frame of elections which a number of people believe might be contested and obviously with data points perhaps deteriorating around a recovery being further off than hoped, i

think those hedges grow larger and larger and uncertainty gets higher and volatility more expensive. >> would it look like march, a mirror image if there is another up tick? is it worse? is it better if we see a second wave >> i think it's more about volatility than direction here, in the sense that you have clear tail risk on the left side of the growth distribution that's coming from the prospect of higher cases, the higher hospitalizations and a policy response on the other hand, you have a right tail risk coming from vaccine news, and markets are simply going to toggle over the coming months. it's not a directional bed as much as it is a little bit more volatility here. we think in our baseline the relative economy is -- a fiscal

package is nice to have but not need to have there's a broad degree of support for growth and you can see that in the consumer numbers from this morning. you have supported consumer spending government support you have healing organic healing in the labor market and saving rates. this big pile of dry powder accumulated over the last few months what you're seeing is that even as income ticks down, consumption is moving up so even in the absence of additional support, you're getting consumer spending down that saving buffer and that's leading to above trend growth. we expect it to continue over the coming quarters. and our default positioning is risk on notwithstanding the kav kwaut that there's more volatility around election risk. >> amy, in speaking of volatility, as part of our fourth quarter stock survey, they asked the question to investors and strategists what is your strategy ahead of the november election.

a majority of people said they were rotating into lick cyclica. only 9% were compiling cash ahead of the election. do you believe people are underestimating the volatility over thenext five weeks or so? >> it's an interesting question. and i actually just wanted to address one point that he made that i think is interesting. look, at this point i think that the idea that we might get a presidential land side or might get the vaccine early is getting underpriced a if you look at what the derivatives market is placing their bets on. most investors are extremely concerned. you see it reflected if we get a cyclical recovery which would dove tail with the vaccine making it possible for people to go out and about again, i think the tech kind of

cues momentum trade is at risk it's something we looked at for a hail and the one thing that's nuanced in the derivatives market but interesting is that while uncertainty is high and volatility is expensive and the s&p in particular through november and december, you actually don't see that as much in tech, but if we get an unwind of the work from home trade, which obviously coupled with the cyclical recovery asing with the leg that is anti-momentum, i think you actually own something like tech puts, q puts and iwm calls as a way to play that structure. >> ben, i'm curious about your comment about a co-vid related bill being nice to have. they did acknowledge that another trillion dollars let's say at minimum is part of a baseline forecast on q4 growth

what would your picture look like if we get nothing this week or this month? >> listen, if you get nothing, what you're doing is shifting in time the payback you're going to get. in other words, the swing in the fiscal impulse from positive to negative is not going to happen in the middle of next year it's going to happen at the beginning of next year it's hit the growth. my point was you have a lot of other good things to compensate for that growth. you have consumer spending down. the saving buffer. interest rate spending like the housing market which is robust at the moment. and you have signs that cap exis turning up it's not simply sort of a household consumer spending led recovery now it's broader and that's supported even in the event that the fiscal swing into negative territory comes at the beginning of next year >> ben, amy, thank you both for

joining us >> thanks. we'll take a break here. when we come back, another day another spac this time it's hims and hers we'll talk to the ceo as the dow has lost most of its early gains on some of the disappointing manufacturing data and some of these diskurking headlines on stimulus talks we're back in a moment ing) ing) - [narrator] wherever you start, snhu is where you can finish. (crowd clapping) (crowd cheering) - here we go. - [narrator] and it's it. - [group] yay! - [narrator] you did it, high five! - southern new hampshire university. - [man] that gets a hug. (laughing) - look at that! master's degree, i did it! - i did this for my children. i am very proud of myself. - [narrator] finish your degree at snhu.edu. that's why i get up in theoyees could enmorning!selves? i have a secret method for remembering all my hr passwords.

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the street." etf spotlight, ticker xlp. trying to hold onto this year's gaining. currently trading in the red down about .3% one name in the ygroup. pepsico moving lower better than expected results helped with at home snack purchases. wall street is not impressed the stock down about half a percentage pnt rhtoiig now "squawk on the street" will be back stay with us ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

hims and hers announcing it will be going public via a spac. oak tree acquisition corp. is the name of the spac they are valued at 1 .6 billion. a number of investors providing the capital. joining me now is hims and hers co-founder and ceo andrew, good to have you

you know, you were a unicorn without a doubt you could have gone public the traditional root why do this route and why ek tree >> thank you so much for having me i'm incredibly excited to share the news today i think for us we have been planning to take the company public for close to two and a half years since we launched the business specifically we chose to enter the market through a spac route because it allowed greater speed, efficiency of a deal and flexibility relative to the traditional ipo process. the structure allows for a streamlined couple of months and allows us to tell the story of hims and hers that is advantageous i think the structure allowed a deep and valuable partnership with oak tree. it's an incredibly institutional investor with deep capital

markets. experience we can surround the team with and an organization led by one of the best investment minds out there i think a combination of those factors and the team made a lot of ens for us as an organization >> why was it important to you to move quickly? you've benefitted from the pandemic is that one reason your business is doing very well as a result of the pandemic and the timing is good >> the pandemic has been a looking glass into the future. it's exposed people to the benefits of telemedicine. how simple to access a physician from the comfort of your couch it's affordable and efficient. i think that's why 100 to 200 times more telemedicine visits are taking place this year versus last year with our business what it did is it allowed us to accelerate our road map we were able to launch things like behavioral health, allowing patients to see a psychiatrist for affordable prices online it allowed us to launch at home

testing kits for covid-19. it allowed us to launch primary care offerings where families could come and talk to a doctor within a couple minutes for things like the flu and a common cold i think that awareness of telemedicine, the awareness that our health system in this country really needs modernization and needs it fast, i think just coupled together made a story that is strong and needs to be shared with the public markets >> are you establishing a real relationship with the consumer many people know your company. basically hair loss, ev. you mentioned these other of these other areas. you're not taking insurance. people are paying whatever it is they're just paying for it is that a relationship that can be sustained or really is it going to come down to somebody wanting their viproduct? >> business has scaled quickly the last couple years.

t in comparison to the largest telehealth players in the market today, it took them over a decade to hit that number. i think the reason is it's a proof point behind what happens when you power consumers when you give customers choice and you give them flexibility and transparency so on the hims and hers platform today we offered dozens of different medications and treatments across dozens of different services and specialties, and it's all comprehensive care in one place. you can come have a dermatology appointment in the morning and then have a psychiatric appointment in the afternoon, or primary care doctor appointment in the evening and i think the other part of this is that we offer this service in a way that is simple and affordable so on average, our services are 20 to $40 a month. it's something that no matter who you are and how much you have saved in the bank you can afford and i think it removes so much of the complications that occur with insurance, and billing in the existing health system we think this is a huge step

forward in health care and it's obviously an industry, a $4 trillion industry that needs to be modernized and digiti digitized, and we think we're leading that charge. >> you said 20 to 40 per service. you do not accept insurance. how do you bring the price of health care down in a way that other areas have not been able to figure out how to do that, and what does that mean from the standpoint of thequality of care, the quality of doctors and people on the other side of the screen that people will be speaking with and will be diagnosing certain ailments? >> i think we are probably the first company to go public in the markets that has built an infrastructure and a system that's entirely focussed on the consumer what that means is essentially we rebuilt the health care

system we have doctors who have had on average 14 years of experience before our platform, and the technology under it such that a physician and a patient can jump on their phone from the comfort of their how much and connect. when you think of the u.s. health care system, you think of hospitals and a lot of people. you think of a lot of costs. and so what we've been able to do by verticalizing the system with cloud technology is remove the friction and cost. so the patient is able to come to us and get very, very affordable costs so $20 to 40 on average our patients are paying a cash pay price that is equal if not cheaper that be the co-pay they have on their insurance plan and so as most people know in this country, as high deductible plans increase, and i think it's roughly 50% of families unable to afford the deductibles on their insurance plan, an option like ours that is affordable and

cheaper than people's insurance i think is something that's going to take a lot of excitement for people. >> andrew, back to the capital market side of this. the deal with oak tree values the company at 1.6 billion that's less than nine years' worth of your estimated 2021 revenues why is that a multiple to revenues that investors should be happy with, excited about, or think is frankly better than perhaps what they could get with some of your competitors >> the company has this really powerful combination of factors. we're operating as the first digitized modern health care system you're talking about a $4 trillion market. we really believe over the next decade there's an opportunity to build a system that tens of millions of people are cared for. coupled with that you have a rare combination in public markets.

100 to 200% growth with expansion categories as we look to expand into hypertension and cholesterol or diabetes. so really robust financials. 70 plus% gross margins 90 plus percent recurring revenue. when you couple it with the large market, clear need for modernization and health care, and this coupling of robust revenue and very, very efficient economics, it's just something that i think is rarely seen in the public markets and i think it's a story that's going to be well received. >> yeah. and finally, 70% gross margin gets people's attention. what are you going to use the bulk of the money for? we know you in terms of marketing. we see your ads on cnbc. what else? >> the division for the business has always been for hims and hers to be the front door of the health care system that means offering more and more services, more conditions, more treatments, so that more people can come to us no matter who they are and where they live

and get access to great care just like you've seen in the last couple years, rapid expansion into more offerings. you're going to see the same thing from us today. we have an audience of individuals in their 20s and 30s, and we see the things they're suffering from like hypertension and cholesterol and diabetes the coming years we'll use the capital to accelerate growth and accelerate the condition expansion to hopefully help millions of more people. >> we'll watch as you guys now get closer to -- close of the deal you announced today the stock price actually not doing particularly well, but there's been a lot of talk about it in the weeks ahead of this. appreciate you taking time >> thank you so much zblchlk simplnch as we head to break, we go to direct listing. look at shares of palantir a day after the public debut down about 5% from where the stock opened in yestery'das

trading. "squawk on the street" will be right back stay with us (♪ ) keeping your oysters growing while keeping your business growing has you swamped. (♪ ) you need to hire i need indeed indeed you do. the moment you sponsor a job on indeed you get a shortlist of quality candidates from a resume data base so you can start hiring right away. claim your seventy-five-dollar credit when you post your first job at indeed.com/promo

welcome back, everybody. here's your cnbc news update the nfl has postponed the titans steelers game again after another titans player and team employee tested positive the game will be reschedule for the later in the season. professional soccer players walking off the field to protest hate after a player on the opposing team allegedly used a home phobic slur at another player the european union is taking legal action against britain over the proposed plans to breach part of the complex it

agreement reached last year. the british pound fell against the euro and the dollar after the announcement some analysts see a higher risk of a no-deal brexit. california is not the only place with major wildfires nine people have died in the ukraine as fires have burned more than 46,000 acres there you're up to date. that's the news update this hour i'll see you next hour, carl back to you. >> okay, sue we'll see you then after the break an exclusive with the ceo of caesar's entertainment over the takeover of william hill. back in a moment

as we kick off the final stretch of 2020, a top strategist lays out his play book for the fourth quarter and iv ay omonmefr csur service sectors. find out more on trading nation.

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welcome back let's get to contessa brewer alongside virtually the ceo of s caesar's entertainment >> thank you we're looking forward to being side by side sometime when this pandemic distance is over. tom, it's great to see you today. speaking of the pandemic, here it is. you were able to close a big deal in the pandemic now you're able to close another one, but you don't expect your bid for william hill to close until second half of next year are there risks in that lag time >> there's always risk in an m&a transaction. in this case what we need is approval on the william hill said, and normal course regulatory approvals on our side

given what we've just went through with caesar's, this should be a more straightforward transaction. >> and the board on william hill is unanimously recommending. but the value of the shares is put at more than 20% higher than your offer is there any concern on your part about the shareholder's accepting it and if they do accept it, what's your plan for the uk part of the business? >> we've spent a great amount of deal with the william hill board. as you've seen, they unanimously recommend the deal as structured in terms of what we would do with the non-u.s. assets, we said in our disclosure yesterday that we intend to sell the non-u.s. assets that they don't

fit our core structure despite being a great brand and a great business overseas, we're a domestic focussed company. >> and you've said your intentions are on the u.s. side of the business, and you said that the total addressable market in the future would be $35 billion. i know the single digital wallet for sports gambling, online, i-gaming, casino games online and online poker is important to you, but that's important to draftkings spending a ton of money. it's important to mgm in its efforts on this front. how would this deal position you competitively and strategically? >> yes to be clear on the 30 billion number that you cited, what we've said is the last two brokerage reports that have come

out had total addressable market in excess of 30 billion. we don't think it needs to be nearly that big for this transaction to be a home run for our shareholders what this allows us to do is work toward a single wall let solution where we tie online sports betting and online casino and online poker to a single wallet and our caesar rewards, and to our partners which allows us to accumulate in a cost effective fashion, and the broad array of options to earn and use points online and offline we think will make our customers stickier than some of our peers, but we think this is an enormous opportunity as i've said before

to you i think this is the largest opportunity in this space in three decades from a growth perspective. we think there will be multiple winners in the space, and we think we're well positioned to be one of them >> i want to ask you about a short-term question here co-vid has already disrupted the nfl season we just learned that two more titans team members have tested positive the nfl now says that game between the steelers and the titans will be delayed until sometime later in the season are you concerned about the implications of coronavirus for this season and how important is football in this year's sports betting trajectory >> of course we're concerned with coronavirus generally throughout our business. sports included. what we're talking about here in terms of equal opportunity and the deal that's on the table today is much more about the next five and ten years than

about the current season or this week's games we've seen the sports leagues deal with health-related issues since they've come back. all of them have continued in a responsible manner we expect that will continue to be the case. >> tom, it's david faber you're moving aggressively in terms of expanding your footprint. the caesar's deal was large. now you're embarking on this t can you give assurance that you're on top of the situation in a co-vid environment where people aren't able to get together as you want them to >> absolutely. as an aside, i've listened to you talk about m&a for years we kept three senior executives

within caesars that were instrumental in building the sports business, building the partnerships, and erik and chris are our co-presidents of the caesar sports business and they're leading this charge for us so that we can keep our eye on the ball on the core operating business, and you've seen what we've been able to do to date in the sports and online world both from an operating perspective an from the partnerships and now this deal and our core operations have been improving we posted the prerelease third quarter numbers in our release on monday which were strong. >> right how do you see reporting in the future i mentioned it you'll have a fast growing part of the company one would anticipate being sports betting online gaming and the

traditional people walking into the casinos. are you going to separate them is it one company, one report? down the road you could imagine shareholders are saying wait a second, they have to separate out the fast growing assets you built up in online gaming? >> so our intention in this deal is we will close into a 100% wholly owned sub of caesar's entertainment. investors will be able to see the results of that subsidiary in whole in each earnings report if it becomes the right answer for shareholders, then that becomes a separate public company that's reporting its own results. everything is on the table as we move forward as you know, this is an extremely fast-moving area and we have been pretty nimble historically and will do what's right by our shareholders. >> tom, the wynn resort is out

this morning talking about their plan for rapid testing for massive groups of customers so they can relaunch group business and send people back to concerts it's on the heels of mgm resorts talking about rabid testing and turning results in 20 minutes so people can reengage in a way that makes them feel secure. how important is it to the las vegas recovery, to the strip recovery, in getting these massive groups of people back in >> it's a huge piece of the business the group business is what drives your midweek occupancy, and it also drives your cash food beverage and entertainment business so the missing piece in vegas right now, the key missing piece is that group business i'm heartened since closing the caesar's transaction, entering

the market, how the leading companies in the market have come together in common purpose to work toward -- in bringing back groups as the public health situation improves we've worked with bill horn buckle at mgm, rob goldstein at sands to really put forward some incredible protocalls to bring group business back to the state and that you saw the governor this week made the first move to start raising the caps on group gatherings and for socially distanced entertain which are the first steps and indicated that as we move forward so long as the public health numbers continue to be under control, that our customers can expect that to move further that's a big piece as we look

forward. the group organizers are looking at 2021 as we are now. so a path to being able to bring that business back is an important one. so we're particularly excited about what the governor announced this week, and the effort city-wide to do this in a safe and healthy manner. >> yeah. the governor has now raised that limit so that 250 people are now allowed to gather, but at 50% capacity max it is such an important part of nevada's economy and for the economies of cities like chicago and orlando, new york, and san diego as well. tom, thank you so much for joining us we appreciate the insight into this acquisition of william hill thank you for your time. >> thank you >> and thank you, contessa, always interesting the stock is above where they sold the 30 million shares a few days ago let's stay with casinos. jane has a look at how the city

is betting on a post poeandemic comeback august visitation was down 57%. that was better than july. and as we've been talking about, they've had zero conventions since last march and the losses from that alone could total in the $16 pl. you still can't go to a show and you have a brand new football stadium with a team and no fans can go to the games. las vegas has lost more jobs more quickly from co-vid than it did during the great recession mark has been driving a cab here for 20 years and has never seen anything like it >> there's no traffic. i mean, you drive down here. look there's nothing moving there's nothing going on here. the squawks are for the -- sidewalks for the most part are empty. i mean -- i look at this this isn't vegas >> well, there are some signs of improvement.

mgm resorts opened the last of the closed properties yesterday. >> unemployment was 30% here one this first started that number has been cut in half but it's still very, very high we're going to try to do all we can to make sure the community is here in the long run as well. >> bill horn jrn buckle says the company restructured the finances and the real estate in the last few years so liquidity is not a problem like in '09 he says he doesn't think the company will ever return to 82,000 employees it's leaner now. we talked about sports betting, co-vid he said they've focussed on the importance of bet mgm in 11 markets and after talking about mobile check-in for ten years, you can do it at just about every property in las vegas. >> yeah. jane, interesting. some things that will stay with us after the pandemic. jane wells in las vegas. after the break, he represents

some of the biggest names in the nfl. an agent talking about the titans/steelers postponement and what it might mean for the ague we'll stay on that story, and we'll be right back. - [narrator] at southern new hampshire university,

we're committed to making college more accessible by making it more affordable, that's why we're keeping our tuition the same through the year 2021. - i knew snhu was the place for me when i saw how affordable it was. i ran to my husband with my computer and i said, "look, we can do this." - [narrator] take advantage of some of the lowest online tuition rates in the nation. find your degree at snhu.edu.

s&p got close to 3400 this morning. about a two-week high at least but settled back as we got discouraging data on manufacturing out of ism and headlines suggesting a compromise on stimulus between mnuchin and pelosi is going to be difficult we're going to watch that but we're holding gains this morning. the other big news is the nfl is postponing titans/steelers until later on the season from additional co-vid cases. let's check in with the ceo super agent. drew, good to see you again. >> good to see you >> how worried should we be? >> worried i'm very worried because we're only basically going into our fourth week of the season, and we're already postponing the game. it's very concerning i think the nfl has been worried about this all along

in fact, they fined nfl teams nearly $2 million so far for not following covid-19 protocol. essentially not wearing masks and things like having unauthorized people in locker rooms. be a huge wake up call for the nfl any team, any week they got the situation under control, this is definitely the right move by postponing this game though. >> so do you think it is something? is is the fault here written protocols and policies is it about enforcement? is it about something you can't fix short of going into a bubble >> i think it is a combination of all of those things and the reality that we're dealing with a pandemic i'm not sure where you can point the finger other than everyone associated with the nfl.

players, coaches, add my stray tors, everyone has to be vigilant and follow the protocols, be careful. wear a mask, wash their hands, take the tests every day, avoid the clouds, all of the thing that's can thread to a positive test whether or not you're a coach, player, or administrative executive if you catch it you can pass it on to your entire team like that look at how fast that happened to the titans. it eliminated this week's game and fortunately they're going to postpone it. sounds like they can make it work on a bye work for both the titans and the steelers, but this is something that has to be taken very seriously as soon as i heard this news i sent out an immediate clarification to be aware of this stay on top of this situation,

because this could affect everyone's livelihoods moving forward. >> i was going to ask you about the mind-set right now among players and staff as well. they are pretty confident, i would argue, going into the season, or the preseason as we had it this year what are they thinking now and those coach that's have been say fined in recent weeks for not wearing a mask, is their behavior changing? >> i think whoever is going into this has to be shaken. you pray for a speedy recovery for everyone that has been affected by this terrible event. a coach, adadministrator, playe this hits hard

they're not playing a game this week that doesn't happen in the nfl the nfl is marching forward through all of this. the draft, the meetings, free agency starting training camp starting the games, i mean this is big that they're not playing a game this week. and every affiliated with the nfl has to take this very seriously and be extremely careful. i think the protocols are outstanding. i think everyone has done a great job up to this point somewhere along the lines something didn't work. and everyone has to learn from this and make this an isolated case we're seeing more of this and it could be devastating results for the rest of the season >> what do the devastating results look like. what is the liability for the nfl and it's affiliates as it per taints to covid cases? >> it is devastating from a

health standpoint. your number one concern is how this affects the player, the coach, the administrator, health wise, number two, it means that no one gets paid if cams are canceled people are not getting paid families, and businesses and communities, it certainly doesn't help the prospect of bringing fans back to the gains and to the stadiums. so i mean this has a very devastates effect on everyone associated with the game and it could lead to other games being canceled and postponed let's hope that we're nipping this in the bud. they won't have any more flare ups, postponements, or gosh forbid cancellations

>> stepping back of the broader perspective here of this pandemic, particularly of putting people in the seats, what are you hearing from ownership in terms of their willingness to spend maybe like baseball it is unclear how many people will be in the stands or even basketball where it is unclear how we're going to start this or who will be in the stands, is there an unwillingness to spend the money on the names they need to? >> i think it has been varied throughout sports and in the nfl, for example they're projecting that the salary cap will go down for the first time that i can remember and i have been an nfl aergent r 33 years in the nfl there is a projection that the salary cap could be less they saying it could go as low as 175 that would have a massive impact

on how owners would spend and how that money would be distributed. and this is in the nfl, the most successful of all of the professional football leagues. the least affected so far. so there is still wide ranging impacts taking place we're not through the woods of professional sports by any stretch of the imagination and we won't be for quite some time. >> drew, we appreciate the candid picture everyone is hoping for the best for the players and the league thank you. >> thank you for having me on. >> two hollywood legends are going to join us in the next hour brian grazer a r harndonowd. don't go anywhere.

good morning, it is 8:00 a.m. at imagine entertainment in beverly hills and it is 11:00 a.m. on wall street. "squawk alley" is live ♪

welcome to "squawk alley." the dow is up 260 at the hope. we lost some of that on weaker than expected manufacturing data down about 2% after that debut and direct listing yesterday our next guest has unique insight into that name he is a palantir board member. he was the ceo of zi