to get our free decision guide. humana - a more human way to healthcare. welcome to "power lunch. i'm kelly evans and dominic will join me in a moment. stocks lower but well off their lows of the session. for the third day in a row, no deal on stimulus and fears of a second wave growing as europe combats a rising number of covid cases and the highest number of americans filing for weekly jobless claims since the middle of august putting a question mark on the pace of the economic recovery and later the senate judiciary committee says it'll subpoena jack dorsey after the social media giant limited the sharing of a new york post article about hunter biden

senator ted cruz will join us on why he thinks there should be more backlash for tech "power lunch" starts right now >> welcome to power lunch. i'm dominic chu. real estate, financials in the green as well. technology stocks, though, the worst performing sector in the s&p 500. on the dow you've got walgreens, the best performer after its earnings report this morning the company expecting 2021 profit growth despite the pandemic worst performer, it is vertech pharmaceutical kelly, i'll send things back over to you. >> thank you very much stocks well off their worst levels of the day. no stimulus, jobless claims

higher so are covid cases earnings may be the only hope. to bob pisani for more on that bob. >> and, kelly, we're near the highs for the day but there are re-opening worries out there if you look at the markets you can see that's all the travel stocks are weak again so the airlines, expedia, weak, even work from home stuff like ebay, salesforce, same thing mastercard and visa and american express have been essentially down all week. megacap down today they're up for the week but only up on monday other than that all the megacaps down, tuesday, wednesday and thursday what's the problem it's what's moving markets the bucks we always talk about stimulus hopes are diming there. the re-opening, we have restrictions in the u.s. and europe all right, not a lockdown but restrictions earnings are improving and kelly is right that's a good story but a problem there. 41 companies are out there right now reporting earnings

that's about 8%. 85% are beating expectations put up the next full screen there and you'll see and the beat is almost 30% that is huge normally you beat by 3% to 5%. that's enormous. the problem, we are seeing third quarter numbers better, better than expected. fourth quarter numbers are creeping up as well but the market already expects a lot of companies to beat by a large amount big run-up in the stock market in the middle of october on exactly this information the market knows this now. the problem is the wall street is expecting corporations to provide even better guidance they haven't been. now they're going to do that they can't how can they it's impossible. the re-opening story is still very much in flux, the vaccine story is in flux, the stimulus story is in flux what ceo is going to go out and say, ladies and gentlemen, let us tell you what our fourth quarter is going to look like exactly. they don't know and i think what's one of the problems the market has right now it's a little con strained by

essentially what's going on around stimulus and the re-opening story back to you, guys. >> thanks, bob let's broaden that out with even more we've got less than three weeks to go until the big election so is it safe to keep buying stocks at these levels? rus from blackrock, which is by the way rated five stars by morning star bob laid out an interesting case with the debate in the market right now. is it really all about fiscal stimul stimulus if we don't get it do markets go lower. >> i don't think it's all about the stimulus the market has sort of come to -- well, not completely but comi coming to grips with the fact we may not get a stimulus package before the election. what's been tough you have two other factor, a weak jobless claims number which gives some concern about how the labor market will improve and obviously the increase in covid

cases in europe and the u.s. goes to mobility questions when people get concern it had affects moebltd and spending and that's also weighing on markets today. >> what's been weighing on markets is this notion like you said there is a possible economic slowdown. there's a sturgis in virus cases possibly coming up in the flu season as well yet, markets have largely shrugged it all off over the course of the past six months. is it right for the markets and traders to do so >> i think it is actually and, again, let's take the long-term perspective. the economy has come back much faster than anyone expected. much faster than it did in 2009. you had unprecedented stimulus you've had a remarkably resilient corporate sector, we're seeing that today in the last week with earnings. some companies, many of the largest constituencies in he can questionty indices have benefited and the other point that doesn't get enough credit clearly this crisis putting huge

pressure on a number of households but in aggregate the u.s. household sector is in much better shape than it was in 2009 debt is down easy to service the debt the savings rate sup wealth is up and this is providing an important cushion along with fiscal stimulus for the economy and for the stock market >> so how exactly then -- i mean you say that the consumer is in a better position. they're delevered. everything is getting better with regard to their earnings potential yet know that the economic impact is still being felt from the covid-19 lockdowns that happened months ago is the consumer really going to be the next driver of this kind of next leg higher i ask only because there are so many millions of americans who still do not have the spending power they had a year ago. >> this is definitely going to weigh on the economy for a long time it's not as if the labor market is going to snap back. we know that there's been damage to industries and hospitality.

small companies, airlines, it's going to take some time to redeploy resources having said that, you know, again, we've seen a pretty significant drop in the unemployment rate back below 8%. i don't know anyone in march who thought it would be that low rise in transfer payments double from where they were early in the year, another big prop for the households and also seen a lot of resiliency from companies. you know, again, think about why is the market higher what are the companies that are driving this whether we talk about internet commerce, whether we're talking about cloud computing. you know, these are companies that have actually been able to leverage a lot of the changes that have happened and are likely to continue to happen in a way that's been reflected in their stock price. >> and, russ, before we let you go, this does translate into a reaction right now in the markets to what's happening in europe right now is what's happening in europe with regard to their covid case, their economy, their struggles

to kind of get things controlled, how much is permeating into our side of the atlantic, if so, what do you buy and stay away from >> well, again, i think it does come down to how bad you think it becomes because we know that consumers, companies behave differently if we're bringing down mobility and lockdowns are reimposed. if we see more of a slowdown ironically it's probably a lot of the growth names that will resume leadership because what they demonstrate over the last six month, many of these are business models that, again, can survive very well even if mobility is impeded. >> all right r rus, thank you very much good to get your thoughts. president trump saying the u.s. will not do another covid lockdown this as several countries and europe are on the brink of having to do just that as cases spike across the continent let's bring in meg tirrell

taking a look at these numbers for us. >> hi, kelly you are seeing cases surge in the number of european countries and on a per capita basis, in europe and the uk you're actually seeing case numbers now surpass the number on a per capita basis here in the united states this was a visualization "the wall street journal" pointed out and it's pretty stark. in the number of deaths they are rising in europe as well although on a per capita basis we are still higher there in the united states. now, the rising case numbers in many of these countries leading to increased restrictions in various place, france now implementing a curfew for paris and eight other major city, london starting to bar indoor mixing from different households and increasing restrictions there, discouraging use of public transportation. then across other places like the netherlands closing bars and restaurants for four weeks, germany enforcing tougher measures on gatherings and wearing masks, northern ireland

closing schools for two weeks and restaurants for four weeks, guys, everybody trying to get a handle on these cases before it gets really cold and much more difficult to try to tamp down, guys >> meg, it's interesting to watch the response to this and look at what's happening in our own states where florida has had a high number of cases but is still allowing restaurants to open and can send your kid all day with a mask on in a lot of places and other states like california and disney issue highlighted this, california moving much more slowly in that regard so are we going to get a laboratory kind of outcome, you think, in europe where we're able to compare, i guess maybe sweden is the extreme example but one country's approach versus another or not is it going to come down to the entire continent pursuing not lockdowns but more measures here >> yeah, you're talking with public health experts. they do point to different countries being more successful than others within europe

pointing to germany as one that is perceived to be doing well although as you see they're starting to ramp up restrictions as well. but you know, talking with epidemiologists they say that's a measure of success showing that you are monitoring things very closely and responding appropriately not that you're able to just keep everything at a zero level because that's not necessarily realistic, but monitoring the data and responding quickly and appropriately when you see signs of things going in the wrong direction. >> yeah. meg, thanks so much for bringing us the latest as always, meg tirrell, dom, over to you. >> still ahead, facebook and twitter both under pressure as they deal with the fallout of limiting the spread of a new york post article with regulation looming over the platforms, are they proving how much it's actually needed? republican senator ted cruz of texas will join us right after the break to talk about why big technology is maybe getting too big. more "power lunch" coming up

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facebook and twitter under fire for restricting users for sharing a new york post story concerning hunter biden. jack dorsey saying our communications around the actions on the new york post article was not great and blocking url sharing via tweet

or dm with zero context to why we're blocking, sun endable. the judiciary committee wants to know what is going on and the companies don't get to censure political speech joining us is tedcruz. great to have you. welcome. >> thank you for having me great to join you. >> so i'd like to kind of pare back and kind of really get to the core of this issue here because there's so much confusion around what big tech can and can't do and should and shouldn't do the essence of the issue comes down to whether these are platform companies or publishers, right? if they're platform companies they basically have to be an open forum and they get section 230 protections for that if they're publishers which intervening in political speech looks like being a publisher, then they don't get those protections. i mean, is that a good way to kind of look at this issue and what happens now, do you think >> well, i think that is a good

way to frame it and section 230 is a special immunity from liability that congress passed decades ago really at the start of the internet to try to encourage the growth of the internet at the time it was a fledge blink and nascent industry now these are the corporate behemoths across the globe it's a very different dynamic and when section 230 was passed, big tech was providing a neutral public forum they aren't anymore and we've been seeing big tech get more and more aggressive on censuring and silencing voices they disagree with. that being said the last 24 hours marked a dramatic escalation and they've crossed a new line it started yesterday where both twitter and facebook blocked a story from "the new york post" alleging evidence of corruption concerning joe biden and his son

and ukraine and "the new york post" wrote it and twitter prohibited anyone on the platform from tweeting o posting the article and blocked "the new york post" itself from tweeting their own article then today twitter doubled down. there was a second story from "the new york post" alleging corruption again in the biden family, this time concerning communist china and there receiving millions from communist china. twitter once again blocks anyone from tweeting that story and it's the first time i'm aware of of big tech being brazen enough to directly censure a major media outlet and to block anyone from communicating a story published on a major media outlet. >> right senator, here's the thing about this that's so fascinating to me are they not then inviting the loss of section 230 protections so if they're acting like

publishing companies aren't they going to be stripped of those protections? section 230 only applies to online platforms not monitoring content. the only exception if it's obscene or otherwise offensive, offensive does not mean political speech so don't these actions mean they shouldn't be covered under section 230? >> will, i think that's absolutely right and i think you're seeing growing congressional skepticism of the monopoly power exercised by big tech and their willingness to abuse that power and so this afternoon i announced along with judiciary committee chairman lindsey graham, we together announced that on tuesday, the judiciary committee will vote to subpoena jack dorsey, the ceo of twitter, to testify before us next friday and explain why twitter is engaged in active election interference, that they are actively trying to suppress

major media coverage look, "the new york post" has the fourth largest circulation of any newspaper in america and twitter is preventing anyone from posting now two stories putting forth evidence of corruption of joe scarborough and, by the way, if anyone disputes the evidence, that's actually what free speech is all about. you know, we were talking about section 230 a second ago if the stories turn out to be wrong they can be sued for defamation and hauled into court and they're subject to damages >> exactly. >> twitter isn't twitter gets immubts under section 230 that "the new york post" doesn't get. >> who, senator -- right, that was an extension of the fact that back in the day libraries and book shops and newsstands couldn't get sued for defamation so these platforms exist at scale because they're basically seen as giant newsstands and treated the same way under the law but if not acting under that

same way they lose them. who, is it a prosecutor now? what next steps would be taken to say, okay, you are literally claiming that you are acting in a manner that a publishing person would act therefore, you could be liable for all the content on your platforms and, again, investor, the shares are only down 2% but this would potentially undermine their entire existence so the issues are potentially enormous if the companies say, yes, we're publishers wouldn't they lose them. >> there are a host of avenues that it can come from. it's not likely to come from a prosecutor because it's not likely to be a criminal action but it is likely to come from, number one, trial lawyer, trial lawyers suing, suing them for content, for decisions they're making that are biased and unfair and i expect trial lawyers will be making the argument that they have abandoned the protections of section 230, but, number two,

from the department of justice and the federal trade commission and i have spoken repeatedly with the attorney general, the deputy attorney general, the assistant attorney general for antitrust, the chairman of the ftc, the president of the united states, the vice president, all about directing the enforcement authority of the administration to go after big tech and stop them from abusing their monopoly power and they are monopolies under the antitrust laws and abusing their monopoly power and they are doing it to censure views they happen to disagree with, to silence those they happen to disagree with and now just 19 days out from an election, to deliberately and blatantly interfere in the election >> senator cruz, it's dominic chu. i want to bring back something you mentioned early on in the interview. that is the chinese communist party. it seems to me as though the battle that the u.s. is going to have that's of real consequence over the next 50, maybe even 100 years or more is going to be

with china and it's going to be on the technological front there is going to be a battle for superiority and the u.s. is going to be in a heated one. if you start going after big technology companies in america, like the ones that you are mentioning right now, is there a fear that we will lose our competitive advantage in a fierce battle for technological supremacist -- >> i don't think there is a fear or a risk of that. i agree with the premise of your question i think china is the single greatest geopolitical threat facing the united states for the next century i also don't think the answer to how we compete with china is to utilize the same strategies communist china does of censuring any views that they disagree with. who in their right mind would want a handful of silicon valley billionaires deciding which americans get to speak and which

americans don't get to speak who in their right mind would want them having the ability to determine election results we've seen -- look, there's always been biased media reporting. that's nothing new from the first reporter who carved words onto a stone tablet, there were all sorts of bi biases what's different is the concentration of big tech ex-ne ex-needs anything seen in the history of humanity. they dwarf the size of standard oil when it was broken up. they dwarf the size that at&t was when it was broken up under the antitrust laws and their role fundamentally has a greater impact on our democracy than either telephones or oil, which is information and communication and speech and they're now

blatantly cent suring the media. that is a very dangerous thing if we want to continue to have free elections in this country >> senator, i wonder if all of this back and forth and we've seen this with congress in the past couple of week, this whole back and forth about how to regulate them and are they monopolies i mean if these platforms lose section 230 protections, it would effectively shut them down, wouldn't it? >> well, i don't think it would. i mean at this point these are massive monopolies with enormous financial resources. i think what it would do is change some of their conduct and, frankly, for years, they did behave as neutral public -- they know how to do so, you know, i have chaired a series of hearings in the senate on big tech censureship and there was one document in particular that we discussed at length it's a document that google prepared and it's entitled, the good censure and this was an internal google document about a

50-page power point they developed and they described how the old view of the internet was and this is in their words, laissez-faire free speech and how big tech had moved instead to what they called european style censureship and the four companies they identified were google, youtube which is owned by google, facebook and twitter. and instead of free speech, they now were engaging in european style censureship. i think the objective of policymakers, of congress and of the executive should be to get big tech to return to being a fair public forum where people are allowed to have free speech and engage with each other instead of giving them star chamber pow story silence anyone they disagree with >> i mean, they would seem to me to have a pretty clear choice to make, either as a platform with no moderation or a publishing company and we're liable for all the content. it will be fascinating to see what comes of these hearings and what additional steps are taken,

senator ted cruz, thank you so much for your time today. >> thank you, appreciate it. really appreciated that. dom, over to you >> great interview of course, much more to explore. coming up on the show, billionaire robert smith is paying up and this time it's not for college kids' student debt this time it's for tax evasion we've got those details coming up plus solar ipo array is lighting up in its market debut joining a group of soaring solar stocks what's behind the hottest trade on wall street with those solar stocks xtinuppower lunch" comg ne what do you look for when you trade?

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welcome back robert smith is perhaps best known for paying off the student loans for 400 graduates of morehouse college. today he's in the news again for settling a tax investigation by the justice department robert frank joins us with the details. robert >> dom, prosecutors saying robert smith willfully and knowingly violated the law in participationing in a tax evasion scheme but it won't be prosecuted because of his cooperation in a much larger tax fraud case now, smith will pay $139 million

in taxes and penalties for his role in an offshore tax scheme by one of his early investors and that person was robert brockman prosecutors say brockman hid $2 billion in income from the irs making his case the largest ever in american history. for smith this all stems from a billion dollar investment that brockman made in 2000 to help smith launch this to equity partners, his private equity firm prosecutors say smith directed profits from the fund into offshore entities in belize and said smith used nominee trustees to hide his control of those entities and he used untaxed income to buy a vacation home in sonoma, california, a ski property in the french alps and to fund his charity. now, the u.s. attorney is saying smith who has a net worth of $5 billion, quote, committed serious crimes but his

cooperation put him on a path away from indictment now, brockman will face seven charges of tax evasion, 20 counts of wire fraud and money laundering charges, dom, back to you. >> robert, i'm curious this type of thing, i mean you mentioned thatthis is a scheme there are a lot of wealthy folks out there, ballerini billionaire, millionaires trying to find tax minimization strategies and there is a line between what's legal and illegal. how prevalent is this kind of tax sheltering kind of behavior relative to those people and should many others be worried? >> well, between 2008 and 2018 you had over 15,000 wealthy americans come to the irs under this voluntary claim basis to say, look, we have overseas accounts they might not be reported and want to claim them now that was $11 billion worth of at that time hidden taxes so it was

very common then, probably less common now that there are much stronger controls here but what's interesting about this is prosecutors made very clear that smith knew what he was doing was hiding this income and deliberately used nominees to hide his control of that money which is the key for an offshore trust and to hide his ownership of them so a lot of questions about why smith is not being prosecuted and just shows how important smith's cooperation is to what is now the largest tax fraud in american history of $2 billion. >> always a bigger fish out there. robert, thanks for the update. we appreciate it kelly, over to you >> still ahead, jobless claims are hitting their highest since mid-august how big a role will the economy play plus solar stocks are flaring higher in hopes of a biden presidency that's right after this.

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welcome back i'm sue herera in paris, hospital workers are striking for funding and better

resources. the government confirming at the same time more than 30,000 new covid-19 cases in a single day for the first time ever. with no deal in sight the european union's top negotiator is saying brexit trade negotiations will continue and may stretch into next month. uk prime minister boris johnson had set today as the deadline for a brexit deal. in colorado, the cameron peak fire is now the largest in that state's history it has burned more than 160,000 acres so far hundreds of firefighters are trying to protect homes being threatened along the wildfire's eastern flank. and across the west coast more than 8 million people have been exposed to hazardous pollution levels by those record-setting wildfires the associated press says particles in the smoke caused emergency room visits to spike and potentially caused thousands of deaths among the elderly and the infirm you're up to date. that's the news update kelly, i'll send it back to you.

>> thank you very much sue herera. to the staggering number of americans filing jobless claims just last week nearly 898,000 that's the highest level since mid-august and highlights the need for more covid relief with less than three weeks until the election how big a role will the u.s. economy play in this year's election. let's bring in ben white at politico and cnbc contributor. mike, i'll start with you. do you have any explanation for the uptick in jobless claims and the fact that they're so persistently high week after week >> so, they didn't seem to be any clear distorres nil last week's number. obviously over the past several weeks, the past several months the level has been more elevated than would be expected given the number of layoffs and somehow it's probably related to 9 bath

backlog of claims to be processed. >> ben, that said, you'd expect a number like that and there would be a lot of concern in the market, especially about where that covid relief is coming from but the dow is only down 50 points today even though there has been no forward movement really on these relief talks how do you think that will factor into the election >> hey, kelly, good to see you i think it obviously will make a significant impact this election is not going to be decided exclusively on the economy and more so a referendum on president trump and his handling of covid but this increase in jobless claims and the slowdown in pace of job creation is obviously very concerning and it's led people to be quite frustrated and i think it's adding to what is a significant lead for joe biden in the poll so it will be a major issue in the election coming up. and i think markets are reacting not terribly to it i think because there's growing belief in the markets that biden

is probably going to win democrats may take the senate in which case there could be a significant and large stimulus package once biden is sworn in so i think at this point there's disappointment that it's not getting done now because obviously it needs to get done now to help the economy and create more jobs and help small businesses but i think there is some growing belief we will get a big stimulus at some point in january after a biden inauguration so probably offering some support to markets right now. >> mike, can you give us a sense of the outcomes for gdp and unemployment based on a big stimulus package in the next quarter or two versus maybe not getting one at all >> so, if we got a stimulus package like was being considered the past few weeks, $2 trillion that, could add several percentage points to gdp over the next several quarters now if we gent get that i think the economy can continue to grow in the fourth quarter and into the first quarter. but, you know, as ben pointed out then we have to have a whole new discussion about the type of

stimulus we would get under a biden which could also be quite significant in the order of several percentage points on gdp which would translate into, you know, generally each percentage point of gdp gives us a half lower on -- >> ben, finally with the election quickly approaching and both biden and mcconnell saying they'll effectively wait until after that to advance their package, you know, either it's going to be what democrats want or republicans want. i guess we have to consider the possibility that it could be, for example, a biden white house and maybe republican was still have the senate. what would happen to the stimulus in that case, do you think? >> yeah, that is a challenging scenario if biden wins and republicans continue to control the senate because you see right now senate majority leader mitch mcconnell is very unwilling to put a large stimulus package on the floor of the white house at 1.8 trillion

only at 500 billion but i think if we continue to see really bad unemployment numbers and i think the october jobs report is not going to be very good and the election is then over, i think the whole attitude among republicans might change at least a little bit given what they'll see but won't want to boost biden too much so i think markets would probably react somewhat negative to that split congress plus a biden white house but i think economic data might turn out bad enough that it changes the narrative and everyone realizes we can't keep doing this we can't not renewing unemployment benefits and not sending more money to small businesses closing either way we probably get something but under a democratic sweep it would be a much bigger number. >> yeah, all right, guy, thank you for now. appreciate it. ben white and mike feroli on the economy and the election and the town hall with president trump is tonight alt 8:00 eastern on nbc and it will be simulcast on cnbc as well dom. >> kelly, to the bond market right now. rick santelli tracking all the

action of the cme group out there. rick. >> hi, dom we had important data but one thing i'd like to point out the six-month outlook for the october philly fed was the second best number in 27 years at 62.7. goes all the way back to '93 and i think that is noteworthy because we are all considering what type of an economy we're going to have nationally and globally once we get on the other side of the coronavirus. i think this gives us a hint now, look at a two day of tens under 69 basis points briefly. those were the lowest intraday yields since october europe, they're spiking and the markets are going the other way. look at october bund yields. stretch that out to march and not only the last time we were there but minus 86 all-time low in march finally, euro versus dollar starting at the end of september obviously their currency is suffering as rates move down along with equities.

>> rick, thank you very much coming up in power movers a bullish call on a restaurant believe it or not and a bejoetech bust and we'll hear from the ceo of stripe as the unicorn makes a big bet on africa this time stay with us "power lunch" returns after this

unicorn stripe making a big acquisition in africa. kate rooney joins us with more. >> hey, kelly, stripe is acquiring nigerian company paytack for roughly $200 million. i spoke to stripe's ceo patrick about the deal just now bullish on africa pointing to massive growth in internet and smartphone users >> because we are an infrastructure company we have to look on sort of longer term time horizons. as we look at the world in 2025, 2030, 2040 it's so obvious that africa is going to be such a

significant part of the years and the decades ahead. >> stripe is one of many silicon valley tech companies offering employees the option to work remotely even after the pandemic collison saying it could make workforces for global and make the west coast and u.s. less of what he calls a citadel for stripe stripe, the number one on cnbc's disrupter list this year is now silicon valley's most valuable private company at $36 billion i asked collison about an ipo what all of us want to know. no comment on when ohr how they'll list and says they remain focused kelly, back to you >> yeah, of course, you know, investors want to know if they're going to do an ipo and when, would it be a traditional one? a good point about the remote workforce and i mean how do they stack up against some of the other big companies out there.

>> interesting so collison is from ireland and have a ton of remote engineering hubs and his company was more remote than your average tech company and more bullish on remote work as far as diversifying. interesting to see going forward. >> all right kate, thank you so much. kate rooney with the latest on stripe for us. dom. >> all right, kelly, check out this mystery chart the stock is up 450% in just six months and it's part of a group many people are betting will go even higher if joe biden wins the election take a look at that charlotte. "power lunch" will be back after this

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welcome back to "power lunch. the biggest solar ipo of the year array technologies, is up more than 50% in its first dave trait trading. the whole group has been soaring. invoesco solar etf, tan up in the last month alongside a rise in joe biden's polling numbers the graph we showed you just before the break belongs to sun run one of the best performers in the solar space so far this

year it is up 360%. for more, let's bring in joseph osha from jmp securities let's talk about whether or not this optimism has priced in everything it can for clean energy in the coming year. >> okay. it's an interesting question thank you for having me. the short answer is i don't think it has we have some movement, i think, reflecting what a biden presidency could look like but if it actually happens and we see some of the pal sees that we are talking about, there is a lot more head room left to these stocks in my opinion. >> joseph, then, what exactly drives it? what's the incremental next step, next headline, next development, next regulatory issue that needs to be cleared for these types of stocks to have that catalyst to keep going? >> there is two things remember, first, that the business has been doing pretty well, even under the current administration there are a lot of consideration like falling prices for solar, some of the fires that we have had out here in california, what

that means for residential solar. so those things will continue to drive the business but additionally, depending what happens in november you could see extensions of tax credits, you could see additional policies around supporting certain types of technology, especially in storage. so those things would be incremental to what is happening now and would, inmy opinion move stock prices further. >> there was a time over the last couple of decades when we used to look at clean energy, solar energy type stocks and juxtapose them alongside the prices of oil. right now the threat for oil is that it keeps going lower because there is not a lot of demand, there is oversupply. is that going to play out more as a secular head win for -- head wind for so loor since we have cheap fossil fuels for the

next few years or so >> the relevance comps are not oil. it is actually coal and natural gas. both of those have been really cheap for a long time. and that hasn't prevented the deployment of solar. certainly to the extent that we see vehicle electrification happening low fuel prices do matter remember, this is an environment where co 2 levels in the going up and there is increasing recognition of that. i don't think low oil prices are much of a challenge and frankly low natural gas and coal price haven't been for a while. >> all right we showed sun run and the massive run it has had what is the best pick, who has the most upside for solar stocks moving forward here. >> we are fans of sun run. the stock i highlighted yesterday that i think is

sunova, ticker, nova i also highlighted j eed generay make generators but is moving into the business of rig providing batteries. we highlighted that stock as well finally, first solar, which is in the business of making panels more frankly for dig utility scale solar farms. i think that's going to be a good business for them as well three stocks that i would highlight. >> thank you very much we appreciate it >> thanks a lot. kelly, over to you we will get you more on these markets coming up. the dow is down about 50 points. we were down 300 at the low. watch or listen tois live or on the go on the cnbc app we are back in a couple. she wanted a roommate to help with the cooking.

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(music) anncr: give customers access to precisely what they want, when they need it the most. with adyen, the payments platform that delivers convenience for all. adyen. business. not boundaries. we have got some breaking news here with regard to the fcc and section 230 that we just spoke about a few moments ago. julia boor citizen has the details. >> the fcc is looking to take action to he form section 230 of the communications decency act which currently shields internet companies for legal liability for the content on their platforms. the fcc chair saying fcc's general counsel has told him the

fcc has legal authority to interpret section 230 and they intend to move forward with rule making to clarify its meaning. saying quote social media companies have a first amendment right to free suture but don't have a special right to immunity denied to other media outlets such as newspapers and broadcasters it will be interesting to see how it enter plays with the push in congress. it seems like this is a bipartisan issue that we have seen pushes from both sides of the aisle interested in clarifying this section. >> as a follow-up, what's the likely interpretation that the fcc chair might make to clarify the rule >> what he said in that quote there is that he doesn't think that the internet platform should be held to a different standard than the broadcasters but of course these are very different situations with the platforms effectively hosting content from anyone. whereas the broadcasters are all about professionally-generated content. the open platform is much harder

to regulate. i think there are some logistical questions also about how you can regulate the content on an open platform. but it certainly seems to be moving forward here. we will see what comes out next from the fcc. >> a big move for traditional versus new media thank you for the update cally over to you. for the whole internet, potentially. dom thank you so much. thank, everybody for tuning in to "power lunch" today "closing bell" starts right now. thank you very much kelly and dom. welcome, evan, the "closing bell." i'm sara eisen here with wilfred frost. as always. stocks heading lower for a third straight session we are off the lowest levels of the day. we were down 330 earlier in the day. here's what's driving the act. the treasury secretary saying a stimulus deal would be hard to get done before the election but that the trump administration would keep trying. president trump meantime indicating he would raise his current offer on stimulu