good morning, well coucome "squawk box. u.s. equity futures at this hour are looking better than they were yesterday at this point you are looking at the dow bouncing back by about 172 points in the pre-market, that of course is nothing near the loss that we saw yesterday right now the s&p 500 is indicated up by about 27 after losing about 120 points yesterday. the nasdaq indicated up by about 130. but if you look at the damage from this week, the dow is actually done more than 6% just for the first three sessions this week. it is on pace for its worst weekly performance since late march. the index of course last more than 1800 points just since the selling began on friday. dow sitting at above 28,000 on friday yesterday it closed at 26,519.

nasdaq also a lot of pressure too. it was down by 426 points yesterday for a decline of 3.7% sitting just at 11,000 the s&p, nasdaq composite more than 8% from 52 highs. and it is early, but we are seeing some green arrows so far. you will see that the ten year is yielding 0.781% so below the 0.8%. but still sitting right around that range and oil prices have been another huge story, they have been under pressure as all of these concerns about lockdowns kind of picking up again in europe you see the wti is done by 3.1% again this morning so sitting at $36 a barrel at this point and that is a big way down in where with we started the week

>> it very much is.with we star. >> it very much is. with we stak >> it very much is.we started tk >> it very much is and this is the busiest day of earnings season. we have 70 s&p companies, they are all reporting, they make up about 26% of the index the index's market cap we'll position also be hearing from 16 nasdaq companies. and this morning watch for nbc parent company comcast, they will be on deck. we have kelloggs coming, we'll be hearing from kraft heinz. and tonight tech will be front and center apple, amazon, google and facebook we should say alphabet really. but that is the list for now and it will be a wild ride joe. >> yeah, and we have the big gdp number today first read on third quarter.

i love the way we did this all t the time every combination. but this is the first read on 3 q32%, which has been pointed out again and again, when you go down 32%, you have to go up 50%. but 32% will be a big number i'll read it, go back down anyway, it would more than double the prior record that we saw. i was coming in thinking, you know, monday i was worried like about an 1800 or 1900 points off. remember when that happened last time with covid? about three months ago we had to do back a lot from the march lows but still -- a lot of trepidation, a lot of concern. and in one day, it did that. so i was worried about that on monday down 650

but then here we are we basically got there at 1800 so is it better to really scare people on monday to make a bottom because now it doesn't feel like to me that 1900 doesn't feel as bad to me as it would have on monday >> no, it doesn't. and i would say the one concern about that is if you see a bigger drop faster, you are probably more likely to get attention in washington and maybe the idea that they would come back and try to deal with the stimulus package faster. but that seems to be the only thing that those in washington pay attention to forget about the fact that we're getting unemployment claims and jobless claims at 8:30 today those aren't the numbers that they are paying attention to it is not until the market says you have to pay attention that they actually seem to ever anything >> and strict mandated lockdowns versus people just scared to death, it is not that different. that was cramer's point yesterday. we may not go the route of

euro europe but even if people just rein in their ability to go to restaurants and everything else, with no chance of stimulus because it just doesn't look like it, so we're back where we were >> or more small business relief that is the other issue. they haven't even said the rest of the ppp funds that are out there for the small businesses >> and diane olick did that story a week or two ago. and in the "journal," on the front page, there is like eviction hiatuss th that are whh fi expiring so what happens. you don't just owe last month, you are behind four months or five months or whatever it is. so i don't want to -- anyway, in

the morning you get 150 points after 1800 i was trying to think of and an analogy. it is like you ever go into -- like not swampy land, but there is a lot of water and each step that you take, you are not sure that it will get into where your socks get wet and you are just trying to find something where you can make it where you need to go but you don't want to really hit that -- and i feel like that is what the market is doing. searching for something to support it and i don't know, are we convinced 150 will do it we'll see by the end of the day. and does the gdp be a sell on the news, can it be good enough to be a positive i mean, 32%, how do you get better than 32%? let's talk about covid cases because i think that honestly, i think that this next story about covid cases and where we are will be really what ultimately moves the market i think looking at gdp, that

will be a backward looking situation. to the point that you were making, joe and becky, this is all now a how quickly can we get out of this or are we going to at the rate potentially imagined, lockdowns or no. and investors continuing to closely follow the headlines on the spike in coronavirus cases the u.s. reported 80,662 infections yesterday so those are new infections setting a record high for daily cases for the third time in one week this was the first time the country has now recorded more than 80,000 cases in one day previous high was set last friday here is what white house coronavirus adviser dr. fauci told jeff smi-- shep smith last night. >> if things do not change, shep, there will be a whole lot of pain in this country with regard to additional cases and

hospital saigtsizations and death. we are on a very difficult trajectory we are going in the wrong direction. meantime in europe, multiple countries are looking at new restrictions in an attempt to try to slow the covid spread there. matt bradley is joining us from paris with the latest there. >> reporter: the latest here is french people trying to get their last he espressos in befo the new lockdown comes into effect at midnight, that will last for as long as four weeks and president macron announcing that last night in an address to the nation you could see the reluctance in imposing yet another lockdown. because this will bring with it tons of fresh economic pain. so here are the terms. basically starting tomorrow, you won't be able to go to restaurants or bars, those had already been restrained by a

curfew that was in place but businesses and schools for the most part will remain open the french government asking people try to abide by social distancing, try to work from home a lot of that voluntary. but to get around, you will still have to have some sort of permit, a letter normally signed just by yourself explaining why you need to be out and about so there is a lot of similarities with that full lockdown back in the spring. but we're seeing this throughout europe, germany will have a lockdown that begins on monday and we saw in ireland, they became the first country to put in a new fresh full lockdown probably going to start seeing it throughout the entire continent as the number of cases rise and more crucially as the number of people in intensive care units here in paris, about betwetwo-ts of icu beds are full, a stress

that they don't feel that they can endure a second time >> and the psyche of the french people around you, in the united states it is unclear whether we will have lockdown, but there is a question of consumer confidence when you hear that there is a rise in cases, so people decide i'm not going to go out today. i were just mentioning the folks behind you taking advantage of the last moments pre-lockdown. does this go to whether people still have the confidence to go out? >> reporter: my understanding is that the streets are thinner i'm standing right here in front of the eiffel tower. on a normal year, this place would be filled with tourists. you probably wouldn't even be

hear people speaking french. the tourists are gone and so it is quieter but it has been that way for several months and now with the fresh lockdown, i haven't nobody staying off the streets because of this, but the streets are thinner. there are a lot fewer people out and about. and it is a product of lack of tourism here so without that, it just feels a lot legs populated but for the most part, it seems as though people will be abiding by this, however he reluctantly. those scenes you saw back in the spring with people playing instruments on their balconies or clapping for each other, there really isn't that sense going into this again. people are frustrated. they won't be acting as though they have this incredible sense of solidarity. it really just isn't there anymore. people are fed up and in case the numbers of deaths and numbers of hospitalizations don't really rise, there will be more and more people when will

be wondering why is it that we're facing this economic pain when the actual deaths and hospital stai hospitalizations aren't increasing as much >> and my other question would be if they thinked ca ethe case getting out of control, why are they saying this is a lockdown that starts next week, why didn't they start it now because i think you mentioned that people are out as if this is last call trying to get in their last hoorah. >> reporter: they start tonight at midnight. >> i guess in germany next week. >> reporter: yes, they start monday in germany. >> so why wait >> reporter: i can't speak for the german government. but we saw it in france and britain, they do typically give it a bit of lag time

germany's situation isn't nearly as dire as the one here in france they have the technology available in hospitals, it has the equipment available. what it is lacking is the personnel. so they won't be able to ramp up dealing with a lot of new cases. but germany like in france, they are seeing new cases, but they are not seeing necessarily as many hospitalizations as they are here that is the question that is when the country starts to burst at the seams is when they can't handle the influx of hospitalizations so they can afford the delay here in paris, they can't. two-thirds of icu beds are filled with covid patients here. that is why unlike before when there was a delay, in britain there was almost i think more than a week when they imposed the new lockdown so these delays are typical. it is actually imposing it immediately like they are doing it here in france that is atypical >> matt, thank you when we come back, recent

volatility leaving investors searching for direction. we'll get advice and take a look at some of the morning's biggest movers the dow is indicated up by about 120 points twert twitter up by 5.6% ♪ you can go your own way

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the reason why people are worried about the length of the selloff is that the longer you wait, the harder it is for the cyclical to kick off so the length matters as much as the extent of the selloff. >> that mohamed el-erian yesterday. joining us right now is airies management co-founder and ceo, the firm oversees $180 billion in assets under management mike, great to see you as we try to make some sense of what is taking place in the public markets. of course you have a big real estate portfolio as well how are you seeing the economy right now? we'll get the gdp print later this morning >> thanks if having me

i think the last time that we spoke wa was april or may a lot changed, but a lot remained the same. i'm feeling much more optimistic today than i was even two or three months ago we just came out of a great quarter where we put up record earnings investor demand for our products is significant across the globe. as you pointed out, i think people are looking for a port in the storm. but i think more importantly when you look across our entire portfolio, 1500 to 2,000 businesses across the globe and generally the performance is better than i think i would have are expected earlier in the year given the depth of the pandemic. in. >> so is that sustainable in your mind? obviously there were stimulus checks that were sent out. we've been talking about all of

the things that we were taking place in spring and summer that may not be in place right now. so i think that there are some real questions and as we continue to see the rise of covid, what you think the economy look like the next quarter or two >> i think that it will be split. we've got a bifurcated market and bifurcated consumer. clearly the stimulus help. when you put $5 trillion or $6 trillion into a $3 trillion heel, that props up a lot of consumers and businesses, et cetera whether you are talking about real estate where we see life sciences, industrial logistics, single family residential, you know, those sectors are actually booming. if you were to flip the coin and look at retail hospitality, obviously more telling it is hard to make a blanket statement. you have to peel bake tck the layers in cooperates, same story.

some companies have been directly impacted and -- >> given your vision of corporates, what will it mean like in a year or two? we hear from facebook and others saying that people won't have to be on their campuses, people are moving to what are called zoom cities now how will that change the dynamic or do you believe that this is short lived? >> i personally believe it is short lived. i would not sound the death knell of the office. i think for all of us who are performing well and feeling productive in a zoom environment, there is just no substitute for being together and collaborating. we need to train our people in person and i think that is even true for facebook and google. clearly we've all learned a lot, so moving to a more flexible

work situation i think is something on the table but i would not say that office life is over >> you guys putting money to work right now >> we are. we had our earnings yesterday. we had a decent quarter. we put about $4 billion to work in the private markets but i think interestingly the pipeline going into the end of the year is really, really building we've seen a noticeable pickup in m and a activity in north america and europe and that is a combination of not just the stress adistress of th year, but i would say a real pick up of investing in the water front. >> and how much of that is a function of the politics in this election we keep hearing the private companies saying if this is a blue wave, i want to sell before new year's, capture what may be the lower capital gains rate if

taxes go up next year. >> i think that is a part of it. my own view is that it is three fold one is the tax driven selling that you talk about. two is you have a lot of private investors both on the buy side and the sell side who frankly have not been active for 9 to 12 months they are seeing some path to earnings visibility and i think that thereis just pent up demand and money is coming off the sidelines. and three and probably most pornly back to your question about where is the economy going from here, now eight months into this pandemic even though the recovery is uneven, we can now underwrite earnings at least in certain sectors. so a lot of the flow is coming in sectors where buyers and sellers can meet in the middle over price because we have some sense of earnings visibility >> great to see you. and look forward to doing this

in person. we'll try it soon. >> be well thanks for having me all right, coming up, some stocks to watch this morning including another deal in the semi conduct toor sector. and check out the biggest winners and losers on the nasdaq ♪ we made usaa insurance for veterans like martin. when a hailstorm hit,

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welcome back it is time for this morning's executive edge we're looking at shares of draft kings. the stock down 34% this month, despite a ton of sports events also a number of ballot measures to watch next tuesday that could impact the company we should ask the expert joe, what is happening here? >> i mean, i don't think -- i mean i've been winning across the board. not sure that is it. you know, it is pretty funny when i get in a bad mood and she says what's wrong and i go i just lost the game and she says how much. asa $5 and she's like that is what a latte costs but that still matters to me you know, that is interesting. one thing that we have seen is just abysmal ratings, but that

shouldn't equate necessarily to draft kings. i wonder if they are wondering about -- go ahead. >> i think the ratings matter immensely and is the racings problem because there is just too much sport respes content. and whether you think covid has changed everybody's behavior and even just interest in sports which if that is long term, that is a bigger challenge. >> i think it is the former, not the latter >> yesterday there was nothing happening. zero the world series ended tuesday no college football. no nfl there is a game today, carolina playing today. but yesterday i wasn't sure what to do. i was sdwridrinking coffee, smog cigarettes, pacing -- no, kidding, i wasn't doing any of

those things but i did notice that there was nothing to bet on yesterday. and tomorrow a lot of ncaa games tomorrow night >> you have a problem. >> and then you have saturday. saturday is like the mother of all opportunities. anyway, that is interesting though but you look at the nba what happened with those ratings, terrible world series, the terrible even the nfl i think is being affected but i'm wondering are the process spepgspects for dissemi dimming for draft kings? will it pass in all these states, do we know that is part of the growth story, is it not, that it becomes -- >> for sure. >> because you can't do it over here and they always know where i am. which should tell you guys something. your phone knows exactly where you are.

anyway, deal news today, marvell reportedly nearing a deal to buy inphi, it could be announced as soon as today. we're calling it second chip deal this week following the amd deal if you don't know inphi, they are a leader in high speed data movement interconnects i think i just like saying that. big fast data through the globe between data centers and within data centers signal integrity i guess is the key for inphi. now i've said everything i know about it and i wouldn't know about it if i didn't have google >> exactly when we come back, big tech coming under fire in washington. ceos of twitter, facebook and google all testifying before congress yesterday we'll talk to former obama white house chief chlotenogy officer

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today is the busiest day of

earnings season. but yesterday the focus was in washington with with ceos of twitter, facebook and alphabet testifying before a senate panel. eloi noti ylan mui is joining us this got pretty heated >> yeah, it was a political brawl and not just between the senators and the ceos, but also between the republicans and the democrats. the gop senator ted cruz threw the most punches primarily aimed at jack dorsey he accused the company of trying to censor conservatives when the company restrinkcted tweets arod the new york "post" story on hunter biden >> mr. dorsey, who the hell elected you and put the media in charge of what the american people were allowed to hear and why do you persist in behaving as a democratic super pac?

>> dorsey did defend the company's policies but says the rules still apply to the president. >> just to be clear, we have not censored the president we have not taken the tweets down that you are referencing. they have more context than the label applied to them. we do the same for leaders around the world >> at the same time, democrats called the hearing a sham and they pushed the companies to be even more aggressive in policing their own platform and to stand up to republicans >> what we are seeing today is an attempt to bully the ceos of private companies into carrying out a hit job on a presidential candidate. >> the marrying did not move the ball at all, but it did lay bare some of the bitter politics

heading into the election and tech companies were caught in the middle >> yeah, ylan, a tough place to be for any of these guys yesterday, but thank you joining us right now is former white house chief technology officer under president obama and now president of care journey. probably not surprising to see it break out into a fight like this with less than a week to go before the election. but getting through all of the those, what does it mean for the tech companies after this? they are in a no-win position. >> punches were thrown, but non of them landed as to the public policy risk that they will be regulated coming out of this, the probability didn't really move, if anything it probably weakened it because it showed the fissure between the two parties about what reform looks like >> i guess it matters a lot who wins the senate.

>> yeah, i mean there are clearly -- you heard pockets of this in the hearing when there was less temperature bipartisan efforts around the honest ads act or even the pact ad which would create some baseline transparency provisions on content moderatiomoderation so there were crumbs if you watched to see that there could be a deal. but the hearing itself wasn't designed to foster more cooperation and learning unlike the house antitrust hearing last month where i think that we learned a lot as a country about how the platforms operate. yesterday was mostly when in my opinion working the wreps reps advance of the election. >> but you have a situation though with 230. it makes a sense that these companies are no longer just are posting boards for things. they have gotten involved with moderating discussion. and with trying for set soto se guidelines

so how does that not change at some point >> well, there was one exchange in the hearing yesterday, i think it was senator cory gardner, he did get all three platforms to admit content that they generates should be treated like published content and now the question is how far can one interpret what that means. would support for paid ads be subject to a different standard than perhaps what you and i might post as individual users so there was maybe an inkling of how to go forward on balancing what has been the bedrock of internet regulation and the back stop of a real serious problem i will say you saw the fissure between the platforms and themselves, twitter clearly on the side of internet and perhaps others talking more broke investing the resources necessary come tomorrow apply with new regs. so that may be another thread to

look for in the coming months. >> i would say some of them would clearly like to see new regulations coming so they don't have to be the ones deciding this zuckerberg said that and it seemed clear that sundar pichai is kind of the same mindset with that but if you are talking about regulations not coming, and because the democrats and republicans can't agree on this, you are going to continue to see this heat on the companies being brought by certain senators and probably higher up than that and what kind of backlash does that mean for these companies even if you don't get regulation, you will have a lot of americans who are mad at them, angry at them and potentially don't want to use their services >> yeah, look, to me, and i think we've talked about this before, the industry has very clear opportunities for collaboration on some of these difficult issues like what is defined as misinformation and how to treat it when it is introduced into the system so i do think there is a chance to balance the kind of content

moderation flourish where you can go from no hold indication to ai powered human engineered efforts. but still have some consistency on fake news or a number of other content categories the industry can do more to self-regulate and it hasn't stepped up to the level it could as we've seen in areas like child which exploitation or cybersecurity threats where there is more of a consensus approach let's together solve something in a multistakeholder way. so we can solve it better as an industry their willingness to work together is a function of the heat they feel and we're not there yet. >> that is crazy to me, theed idea that they can't agree on child pornography and making sure that they try to get rid of that >> no, on that point, child exploitation is the one area where we have an area of

collaboration where the industry does have a common view and that every platform uses that definition to kind of remove content. so we have models. that is the one positive light in what is owesis otherwise a complicated stew i'm on the side of this is a misinformation problem i think it is about election 13w6r7 interference and spreading disinformation that is where we need more consensus to solve >> thank you, i'm sure we'll talk to you again soon >> thanks for having me. coming up, tom fanning on his company's latest results and what he is seeing in the broader u.s. economy and a lot of industrial and corporate clients, but a lot of residential too. so does one offset the other we'll see. futures right now up 135 points.

welcome back want to show you shares of pinterest because they are trading higher this morning. they are trading actually i should say way higher, up about 32%. the company reporting strong revenue and user growth in the third quarter, saw greater engagement than it did in the spring and benefited from the boycott of facebook interestingly. meantime shares of etsy rising as well after the company's earnings and revenue beat the street the marketplace benefiting from the pandemic shopping trends, face mask sales made up of about 11% of etsy's growth merchandise

sales given that so many retailers were making custom face masks and crafty kind of face masks for folks >> yeah, i saw the number, they sold a lot a lot, a lot, a lot. anyway, let's get to tom fanning. ceo of southern company. you have utilities, across a broad swath of the southeast it's hard for us to understand how you boost results. how you add customers. we understand yindustrial versu residential, and people say you've got a lot of industrial

exposure was it offset by people staying at home and using more power at home, tom? >> oh, joe, this is fascinating stuff. listening to you guys all morning, and the results of the covid and europe, i think i can offer a different perspective for the covid effect on the economy of the united states, certainly in the south, but we also go to illinois, virginia, and some other places. here's what we're seeing and that is when we saw this first wave and we shut down america, we saw significant loss in sales, like 8 to 10% on some days but the last time i was on the show, just three months ago, gee whiz, we started to see that effectless effect lessen significantly to may, june, the loss of sales was down to 1 to 3%. in the third quarter, we saw sales return roughly to normal among the customer class as you're suggesting, there's a big

different. as you would expect, residentials weigh up. commercial is better than what we thought we thought it was going to go down a lot it's down moderately industrials down a lot, but overall sales now are returning to normal, and the reason why we're beating on earnings is our initial o and m response, relative to the loss of revenue was much bigger, and so therefore, our bottom line improved going forward, there's some other very interesting data, and that is we're not seeing this kind of enormous second wave having a corresponding big impact on the economy. when you look at our headlights, that is kind of economic development activity, what we're seeing is this in industrial sales, if you look year over year, second quarter, third quarter, for sure they're down no question about it but when you look at the momentum statistics, the first derivative, if you will, the second quarter to the third quarter, of the top ten

industrial sectors, eight of them are improving they're positive one is flat. and only one is getting worse. so here's my thing, i think america is learning to live with the covid virus, and my sense is, as customers and as businesses are prone to do, we will adapt to these changing conditions. >> i guess it makes sense, your commercial versus industrial point. the nasdaq's big building, it's just me and you, mac, right? but all the lights are on. the heat's on. so even if you don't have your work force back, we're still using it but industrial, you're running machines that might not be running and stuff for demand, and things like that so there's a key difference between commercial and industrial >> absolutely. and i think a lot of companies in the spring, as we suggested, were opportunistic in taking

outages. when they saw that kids were coming home from school, and parents were better offat home than in the factories, they started takingoutages. they started worrying about long-term production get leasemiesman to keep an eyen inventory. economic development, here's what we're also seeing, that while the number of jobs in the next year or so that have been announced, the number of projects, the number of jobs associated with those projects is up 40% year over year, and the number of capital investment is up 140% the response by industrials are in fact, they can see their way through to the covid going away or at least lessening and they're going to start ramping back up. >> quick question for you. you said that of the 10 industrial sectors, you're looking at 8 are showing gains

one's flat and one's a little worse. which one is worse which one is flat? >> you bet it was chemicals is the one that's flat and that's kind of curious to us because a lot of feed stock that we use in our chemical processes in the south is natural gas, and natural gas is super cheap i know joe you mentioned at the top about how revenues were down a little bit that's fuel prices to us we don't make any money on fuel. it's a straight pass through fuel is cheaper, electricity prices are cheaper that flows right to the benefit of our customers, so that's the big one. >> so you're a third now, renewable, and you're working hard let's just call it solar, wind, hydro, and nuclear, and you've heard all the latest, you know, the latest debate and all that, you know, no fracking and getting off fossil fuels and things like that you're trying your best. a third is a lot, isn't it you have come a long way

not everyone is at a third yet, are they >> no, heck no and in fact, before i got in this role now about ten years ago, we were about 70% coal for heaven sakes new gas was in the single digits now we're over 50% gas coal is at an all time low for us in terms of energy production at least in modern history that goes to something like 16%, and half of that is one plant, which is exceedingly efficient and inexpensive in alabama so good heavens, we're making a big move one of our utilities, georgia power company was named a solar, i mean by the solar industry, the investor owned utility of the year we do these things without mandates because it's the best thing to do for our customers. we continue that in order to hit these net zero objectives that we have signed up for and to accelerate them, america needs to continue to

invest in technology solutions, particularly storage, particularly deal with the carbon atom, et cetera. >> we're watching you down there. i see you've got a blue tie on is georgia turning blue? the vice president thought that was a good place to go, he went there. four years ago i think, andrew, didn't you go there as one of the states that was -- and i didn't think it was back then. got my doubts now. i don't know we'll see. >> hey, joe, we're going through a hurricane right now. big effects. 2.2 million customers out. we're good >> thanks, tom >> thank you, buddy. i wanted to get andrew in. but coming up, wall street looking to recover from its worst selloff in months. stay tuned you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc at calvert, we know responsible investing is hard.

if you're concerned about the environment and climate change, how do you find companies that are driving the right outcomes? if you care about economic equality and social justice, which firms are addressing it in their workplaces and their communities? for nearly 40 years, calvert has delivered competitive returns by investing in companies making a difference because we see value in doing good. talk to your financial advisor about investing responsibly with calvert.

talk to your financial advisor about investing responsibly as business moves forward, we're all changing the way things get done. like how we redefine collaboration... how we come up with new ways to serve our customers... and deliver our products. but no matter how things change, one thing never will... you can rely on the people and the network of at&t... to help keep your business connected.

good morning, welcome back to "squawk box" right here on cnbc i'm andrew ross sorkin along with becky quick and joe kernen, take a quick look at u.s. equity futures after what has been a tough couple of days if not

longer looks like we might have an update, 111 points higher on the dow, nasdaq up 107 points, s&p 500 up about 20 points we've got gdp numbers coming, but we have earnings crossing the tape as we speak joe. >> yeah, might not be a dow component but feels like a super dow component to me. earnings just in from nbc universal parent comcast io comcast adjusted quarterly profit at 65 cents a share. revenue competed wall street forecasts and this is a fascinating report because it's so multifaceted. and i guess the bright spot for the company continues to be this focus on broadband and how well broadband is actually doing. in fact, because of broadband, the company was able to add

633,000 customers which brings the number of new customer relationships to a net 556 so you know, all of these companies like comcast are dealing with cord cutting and everything else, but when you've got sort of a broad band base to back things up, that goes a long way, and it went a long way in these numbers. if you want to look for you guys see the theme park business, and i mean, it pains me to see that, but that's why most of these results are down from a year ago, even though a lot of the parts of the company are doing really really well but whentheme parks go down, i mean, the numbers are really kind of staggering but they really aren't staggering because they're closed or at least they're reopening with not a whole lot of people back there, or had been closed and now they are reopening. actually you look at nbc universal, we had the sports coverage and other setbacks, but i would say dealing pretty well with everything, even though

revenue at nbc universal total was down 18.9% but that obviously includes the theme parks where revenue was down 80.9% >> yeah, they say excludeing -- >> universal studios was tough too. think about it, you can't go see a movie really in the theater. go ahead, beck, sorry. >> joe, i was just going to say on your point about the theme park, they say excludeing that segment, the theme parks >> would have been up by 9%. >> would have grown 9% for ebita year over year that's pretty impressive. >> the way it is, most of the metrics are pretty solid well, in terms of beating expectations, anyway most year over year, when you have theme parks, movies and things like that, tit's not goig to be up year over year. the stock has come down a little bit. it was down yesterday, obviously, and the day before but it's up a little bit today up about .6%

and people are going through this right now, obviously. peacock had a pretty good launch >> peacock is a big deal too. >> you know, together with xfinity, and i'd say, you know, and i have been on it a few times. you guys get it, you guys are on it once in a while if i know i have a minute, it's only a minute of my life, i don't feel that bad, i kind of like the commercials, seeing them once in a while, and the little thing at the bottom. >> they had 22 million sign ups. they recently, as you know, secured distribution on roku, but what's interesting is they exceeded every internal engagement method on peacock without the benefit of the olympics which have been postponed and without the benefit of the office which they'll be getting in january of 2021 >> i was looking at -- because now on twitter i see a lot of sky stuff. do you guy see sky stuff

i see it and sometimes i forget. oh, that's us now. but sky continues customer relationships at higher prices, in the core uk business where there was a return of sports as well in large part so sky, revenue consistent with the prior year excludeing the impact a lot in here. a lot in here, and i know it looks like we're spending an inordinate amount of time on comcast, but what are we going to do here it is a major media player that, you know, has tentacles across a lot of different parts of the economy, and it is our parent company, beck. >> right stocks up by about 2% right now. in the meantime, wall street is looking to recover from its worst selloff in months. mike santoli has your market playbook steve liesman has a preview of today's all important gdp number and what it means five days out from the election. we're going to start with phil

lebeau, he has news from united airlines. >> united airlines announcing it will begin an expansion of its free rapid result covid-19 testing for passengers this time they're going to be targeting transatlantic passengers as we take a look at shares of united keep in mind that many in the airline industry believe this is going to be the key to getting more people to fly in the future. if they can say, here's a result of a covid-19 test, we just took it at the airport, you are clear, everything is fine, that when you get to your destination, those governments will say, yeah, okay, you're free to go about you don't have to quarantine here's how this is going to work this is a four-week test, free of charge, it will start on november 16th. it will be on three of the flights going from newark to london each week monday, wednesday and friday, i think it leaves at 7:15 at night. it will be required for all passengers except for those under 2. it will be free of charge, but here's the other important note. the uk restrictions on

quarantines, on covid-19 traveling around the country, those still apply. so even if you get a test result that says you do not have covid-19, when you get to the uk, you still must honor whatever their rules are at that time, as you take a look at the airline stocks, keep in mind that transatlantic travel by some estimates is down as much as 90% compared to precovid days, so this is important in terms of hopefully reestablishing travel. convincing these governments that if you can show rapid results, accurate result, that people when they land should not be quarantined it's a long ways to go before that actually happens with all of these european countries. guys, we're going to be talking with scott kirby, ceo of united airlines that's coming up in one hourment f we'll talk to him abo-- one h. again, targeting transatlantic flights.

>> thank you very much let's take a look at where the market is set up here. yesterday, s&p 500 down 19 points or so we are approaching what are perhaps consequential lefvels here t it's also the year to date break even number. a lot of folks saying we have a 2% cushion from where we are right now before you have to start to reevaluate as to whether the market's uptrend is going to hold or you have a kmang change in character. market didn't handle particularly well, not traded well off earnings, see if it's going to make a stand, and bounce indicated in the s&p is really only about 1/5 or 1/6 of what was lost yesterday. stocks versus bonds since the equity peak on september 7th this is the s&p 500, etf, along with the nasdaq 100, and then the total bond market, that's a

sable ride for bonds but what's notable here is as you're seeing these losses in the equity indexes, no lift at all in bond values, therefore meaning yields have not gone down on a net basis since that period. you can look at this two ways. there's not an intense rush for safety that sometimes happens in an equity selloff. if you have a portfolio with both, you're not getting a great offset from bonds right here you can read it two different ways in terms of the economic ma cr macro single if you're invested in a balance portfolio you've not necessarily gotten help from the bond side, guys >> hey, mike, i saw you tweeting about this, and it's an interesting kind of thing to play around with, the idea that generally for an election, if the markets are up in the three months leading up to election day, the incumbent wins, if the markets are down in the three months leading up to election day, the challenger wins now, we're at the flat line. >> just about. >> only three trading days left to go before election day,

what's that mean. >> it's the incumbent party, sometimes there's not an incumbent on the ballot. i would say two things, one, if things are not going great in the economy, it tends to go against the incumbent party. this is one of many inputs we haven't had that many elections, we don't have statistically significant robust models that say this is what happens when that happens, and it is notable that there has been some dissidence from what the market is saying, and poll numbers and betting markets: maybe this brings this more tino alignment. i think at some point the market is going to be wrong about this. we'll see if that happens this time. >> you think it means potentially it's a closer election than some polls suggest or we could be sitting around counting ballots for a long time >> of course that's a very likely possibility i don't have a way of handicapping that. i just would say that the s&p

500 is an amazingly blunt instrument to determine if that's the case. we have big data runs on the substance of what's going to happen in the election and what we're looking at is a coincident indicator of what has happened in the past which is the stock market. right before august 3rd or whatever it is that we're benchmarking this to, that that's going to render the verdict on this. >> and allow in covid and when we can count and, you know, we've already got almost, you know, 60% of the total votes have already happened. and the closer it is, that means the longer it might take, and that means more uncertainty. everybody's got a narrative for why the market goes up and down. >> we explain why the market is changing if you were 70% sure you knew how it was going to turn out, 30% chance of being wrong in five days is a big one. >> i have said that a lot.

it's 60/40 if you stand over there, you've got a 60% chance of not getting hit by a piano only a 40% chance of a falling piano, would you stand over there at 40%, i wouldn't a preview of told's gdp data, a number that's going to quickly become part of the political debate, about the recovery, and the futures have moderated gains, now they're up just 50 points after the first three days of this week that we saw. "squawk box" will be right back. expecto patronum!

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the government is set to report a massive 33% gain in gdp. obviously that comes after an incredible decline when covid shut the economy down all over the place, but it is a number that will quickly become part of the political debate about the recovery steve liesman is here to explain what the number really shows about the rebound and steve, maybe what it doesn't show too >> that's right, becky the largest ever increase in gdp expected to be reported this morning. and that's going to follow the largest quarterly decline, amidst the coronavirus and a hotly contested presidential election that will quickly

incorporate this number as part of the debate. here's the story gdp did rebound faster than expected it's been helped by a strong government spending, easy fed policy and of course helped by underlying economics that was already in the economy before this virus started the recovery according to most economists expected to continue. ellen zentner writes while the recovery has been uneven, gains in economic activity have been increasingly broadening out. that's important strong household spending has propelled growth to this point, and a powerful rebound in equipment spending the service sector remains the hardest hit part of the economy. the cnbc rapid update, actually, they boosted the outlook for in quarter because of yesterday's trade data there's 30.6 i guess it's down a little bit minus 32% for the second quarter, up 6 for the fourth quarter. 5.4, and overall, you're not going to get it all back, because you're down 30 and up

30 it's still going to be for the year, down 3.8%, and still challenges ahead from the spread of the virus, uncertainty of the election, and the current lack of additional stimulus joe brusuelas writes policy makers should focus on the size of the economic gap that has left small firms, and the poor and working class struggling to keep up. the number will play into the presidential election later in the day, calling it gross domestic politics, instead of gross domestic policy. besides the gdp data on the macro, we've got a huge plate of earnings comingout, including from some big, well-known tech companies this afternoon amazon, apple, facebook, alphabet we're joined by jake wallflower, ceo and cofounder of blueprint capital founders you go back all the way to

leyman brothers, don't you, jake >> good morning, yeah, i still carry the leyman brothers bag, as a symbol, we're not too big to fail. >> i used to send out the books, the merchant bankers and tell everyone we were the oldest bank in the world, oldest investment bank jake, you have a definite contrarian viewpoint, and we were micro analyzing, you are not expecting a blue wave, in contrast you think the senate stays red and trump stays in the white house? >> look, i think that if you look at historical polling numbers, they tend to discount the incumbency effect. i think that when a incumbent is down, anywhere from 3 1/2 to 5%, that's effectively break even

from a prediction point of view. i think very much about 2016, how hillary clinton seemed to have all of the momentum going into election night, and we all woke up the next day with a hangover now, i think, you know, we have that situation here again in 2020 where you have trump behind in the polls, but you're also seeing some real momentum on his part, and i think investors are making a mistake if they're paying attention to what national polling data shows. i think you've got to look at it at a much more granular level, state by state, really focusing on, you know, what we call these swing states and in the swing states, the numbers for biden appear to be tightening, which means trump is starting to make a resurgence, and i think he is certainly going to market the

fact that, you know, we're going to have a 33% increase in gdp and try and get us all to forget the 31% decline in gdp in the second quarter. >> you mentioned if there's a blue wave, you think we'll see a selloff as we would be inviting increased regulation, and higher taxes. if it stays with the status quo, the markets will rally sometimes the most obvious things are the things that happen but a lot of times when it seems too obvious, it seems like, you know, it's not going to happen but that would be the normal, if you just connect dots for me, anyway >> i mean, let's face it i mean, the market seems to respond favorably to republican administrations, principally because they have a pro business stance you're going to see increasingly declines in regulatory efforts out of washington, d.c you know, you might see more certainly fiscal restraint, but

what you also, you know, won't see are higher taxes, which i think everyone expects if we have a blue wave, which i think would be painful for corporate pocket books as well as painful for personal pocket books. >> the gdp number you point out is going to look good, but it masked a lot of serious damage that's been done to the economy. how should we view it if it's 33 or 34, 32, whatever? >> look, i think when you look at the gdp number, certainly we have to celebrate the fact that we do have a resurgence in economic activity here in the united states. but i think you also have to look at jobless numbers where you are seeing a positive trend there. they're three times what they were prepandemic, but revisions downward if you look at existing home sales, robust numbers are being reported across the country. so i'm glad to say that we are experiencing the kind of

recovery that should support the stock market here. having said that, we're about to go through an election i don't think going to bed on election night we will know who the winner is. i think we could have a long protracted battle that could even make its way into the federal court stm systystem, ani think that along with record numbers of coronavirus cases are going to produce a level of volatility that will square investors, and my advice would be not to get scared stay invested in this market we saw a v shaped recovery earlier this year, and we'll see a w shaped recovery throughout the rest of this year. >> all right jake, those are some interesting viewpoints that we'll know soon enough you know, we haven't been able to say that in a while, but today is thursday, right oh, my god, well, we'll know whether we know or not in a couple of days, anyway, and then we'll deal with it

i remember 2000 pretty well, as i'm sure you do, and that 38 days was agonizing, you don't know what to do. >> stay invested is what you do. >> very good might be good advice we'll see. it will be tested. thank you, jake, thank you from blueprint capital advisers, andrew >> joe, we've got so much coming up this morning. the issue at stake for big tech. we're going to talk about it no matter who wins the white house, jon fortt is going to join us, he'll give us one hand and the other. as we head to a break, though, take a look at faang stocks this morning. facebook up about 3% after those hearings yesterday alphabet up 1%, and of course we're going to get earnings on so many of these companies after the bell today we're back right after this. time now for today's aflac trivia question.

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now, the answer to today's aflac trivia question. in 2016, google purchased you tube how much was the deal? the answer, $1.65 billion. it is five days until election day, and there's a lot more at stake than just the presidency for tech, policies and incentives could shift and could shift in a very big way, whichever party wins jon fortt is here with his take this week in "on the other hand." jon. >> tech had better hope the republicans win big next week. let's start with taxes, republicans have lowered the corporate tax rate, and with enterprise spending in a covid slump, tech needs those taxes to

stay down. when it comes to business development policies look at what the democrats have done in new york and california, shutting the door, and pushing to the redder pastures of texas and virginia with china policies, republicans know this is no time to ease up. alibaba, huawei and tiktok have proven chinese company can exercise tech driven products, infrastructure at the highest level. what's not clear is whether we can trust china to keep its hands off those companies and the data of u.s. citizens. the future of the u.s. tech industry is at stake, andrew. >> okay. so you're saying california should go red, then? i don't understand >> well, on the other hand, tech could better hope the democrats win big next week. let's start with taxes blue states like california where a lot of tech companies are based pay more money into the federal government than in the taxes than they tear

coronavirus and wildfires, with those things, republicans in congress act like they don't deserve more aid, and then when it comes to business development policies, republicans making american less hospitable, and then with china policy, democrats know this is no time for alarmism yes, china's tech policies are dangerous particularly the way they're willing to use surveillance at the core of ai technologies we can't let that become the norm, but the way to battle it is with standards and verification, not scare tactics and tariffs. i'm not sure republicans are being thoughtful enough here and the future of the u.s. tech industry is at stake, andrew >> john, here's the question i have for you there's then section 230, how does that work into this for you? >> well, you know, everybody seems to hate section 230 all of a sudden joe biden is bashing it. president trump is bashing it, but i think the way this

realistically plays out is both parties are angry with the ways things are working online for different reasons. i'm not sure this gets worked out. this is like the new health care, except without any one clear solution that's even likely to get a majority of votes. final question for you, there are many very public ceos in tech land in silicone valley, and maybe they're socially liberal. i don't know if they're fiscally liberal or conservative but you know that they're either out for biden or won't say otherwise, and there are a number, but it seems like a lesser number, in silicon valley that are pushing for president trump. do you think that there's a secret group of people that are in the valley that are just not saying that they're for president trump? >> oh, sure. i think especially when you get into certain income brackets in northern california, southern california, as well, there are

lots of people who are more of a libertarian bent, not only when it comes to social issues but certainly when it comes to economic issues. do i think that's going to turn california even purple, absolutely not that is a factor these issues as we try to illuminate with on the other hand are more complex than they seem on the surface. >> jon, is the real answer that technology companies really just don't want anybody -- is the answer that the technology companies really just don't want anybody to get a strong win one way or the other so that nothing gets done? >> i don't think tech is necessarily there on every single issue i think one of the more unifying issues in tech is immigration when it comes to skilled labor i hear a lot of concerns about the number of talented grad level students, computer science graduates, even at the undergrad level who are not staying in the country. so i think it varies issue by,

but these issues don't fall cleanly into just one party or the other. >> okay. jon fortt, thank you, sir, great to see you on both sides, both hands. becky. still to come on "squawk box," dr. scott gottlieb on the rise in daily covid cases. >> and international papceo mark sutton, the response to the pandemic, how the economy looks from where he's sitting. the futures this morning are indicated up but not by as much as we had seen earlier earlier the dow had been up by triple digits, now account inned up by just 38 points after losing more than 1,800 points in the first three trading sessions of this week

welcome back to "squawk box," i'm dominic chu. we're going to kick things off with shares of sphopify, 40,000 shares of volume the cloud based ecommerce solutions company reported profits and revenues that topped consensus estimates. shopify was helped as traditional retailers tapped its

services during the covid pandemic to migrate their sales online versus in store you've got shares of moderna, higher around 2 1/2%, 25,000 shares of volume premarket the biotech company known for its work on developing a covid-19 candidate reported mixed results. it was a wider than expected loss but on better than expected revenues, helped along by more grant based revenues tied to the development of that covid voo vaccine khcandidate, and roughly 30,0 30,000 shares of volume. the packaged food company behind oscar meyer hot dogs and planters peanuts, reported profits and revenues that topped expectations it boosted forecast for key metrics around sales it was helped by stay-at-home eating trends. three green ones on this day i'll bring it back over to you >> thank you for that report meantime, corona cases count

continuing to rise across the board. white house coronavirus adviser, dr. anthony fauci telling cnbc shep smith, the u.s. is in quote a bad position >> if things do not change, shep, if they continue on the course we're on, there's going to be a whole lot of pain in this country with regard to additional cases and hospitalizations and deaths. we are on a very difficult trajectory we are going in the wrong direction. >> joining us right now is dr. scott gottlieb, of course a former fda commissioner and contributor, sitting on the boards of ialumina and pfizer the question i would ask you, in europe we're obviously starting to see some forms of lock downs. in the u.s., you have said repeatedly you don't think there will be lock downs, but i wonder whether you think there's going

to be a fundamental change in shift of personal behavior, consumer confidence and the like as these numbers spike and i would also suggest as i ask you that question, i still am seeing people getting together in homes, going out to restaurants, doing that, not just in new york where obviously the levels are lower, but even in areas where there is big spikes. >> well, thank you, andrew i don't think we'll see lock downs until the united states similar to what's going on in europe right now they have a national policy to shut down broad swaths of commercial activity. i think what we're likely to see is targeted mitigation i think states and some cities are going to put in place measures like curfews like closing bars and restaurants on a rolling basis as epidemics spike in local regions one way to keep track of what's going on around the world is that schools are open in countries like france right now, but bars and restaurants are now closed, and the united states, schools are closed, but bars and restaurants are open

that's really the dichotomy between the united states and the rest of the world. in terms of what's going to turn the tide in the united states, the reality is i think we're not going to start to see a slow down in the pandemic until you see consumer behavior changing, until you see mobility data start to decline that's been the message of the past surges and the virus. the biggest impact came when consumers started to go out less, wear masks more. and it's going to take more infection until we get there unfortunately the we'we're not o see this start to peak until after thanksgiving i think after thanksgiving that's going to be a turning point when the infection levels get high enough in many parts of the country that we start to see policy reaction, and also consumer behaviors start to change, and so the month of december is really spent probably hunkering down a little bit more, and hopefully we start to turn the corner as we get into the new year. >> just to put a point of clarification on it, your point

is that you think that people are going to behave so badly over thanksgiving that it's going to create such a crisis that that is going to change people's behavior. is that accurate >> that's what happened in the south. you know, if you looked at the data in the south, people stopped going out as much. people started to wear masks more consumer behavior did change mobility started to decline. open table reservations started to decline i think consumers are going to lead the way not policy makers in a lot of these states, and i don't think consumer behavior is going to change until we see higher levels of infection in parts of the country. states like wisconsin, you're seeing start to decline. consumer behavior does change, it just takes a lot more more than where we are right now. probably after thanksgiving, and thanksgiving is probably going to potentially spread. people are going to come together after thanksgiving. december is going to be the more difficult month. these cases are going to build

all the way through november it's going to start to look more difficult as we get into the month of november. and we'll cross 100,000 infections at some point in the next couple of weeks we might do it this week if the states report on time. we have to see if states like florida and texas report on friday and saturday, because we might get above 100,000 this week >> doctor, one of those nightmare scenarios we have been dreading is the convergence of flu, influenza, and covid, and, you know, we're getting close to flu season, and i wouldn't know what -- if i started, if i get a fever, i mean, that would just make me sure that i had covid, and not necessarily the case, right, but i have read that the flu season is either starting slow or anecdotally, we're not seeing as many cases and they're trying to tie that to covid? is it that we're washing our hands more or when does it start

in earnest, when should we expect to see flu season in earnest? >> well, if you look at the data out of australia, they had almost no flu season relative to past years, and what it does appear to be is that the mitigation steps we're taking, the social distancing, the mask wearing, while it helps prevent the spread of covid, of coronavirus, it's very effective against the spread of an influenza, and in fact, all of these measures really were designed in 2006 plan as a way to battle a pandemic flu, not a pandemic strain of coronavirus they seem to be effective against coronavirus spread i would expect the flu season this year to be greatly diminished that said, there are case reports when people get coinfected with flu and coronavirus, they have a worse outcome. it's every reason people should get narrow flu vaccine in year if you get coronavirus, and you go into the doctor or the hospital and present with coronavirus, there's a chance you'll get infected with flu at

the same time, and vice versa. if you get the flu and present to your doctor with influenza, there's a risk you go out into the medical system, you come in contact with coronavirus all the more reason people should get their flu shot right now. the best thing we can do to protect ourselves into the coronavirus season. >> what does that look like, flu and coronavirus at the same time what does that look like >> there's case reports, most of them out of asia most of them early on in the pandemic last year, in 2019 when it first surfaced because that's when you had influenza still circulating in asian nations as coronavirus became epidemic, and you saw patients have dramatically worse outcomes. now it's a selective group you're looking just at patients who go coinfected, not the ones who got coinfected and might have been at home and did just fine by the time coronavirus started circulating in the united states, influenza had largely dissipated we were coming down the flu e

epidemic at that point. >> if you get a fever, if you start to feel ill, is that an argument for just staying home and not going to your doctor if you're risking picking up something that could be worse than what you already have >> if i think you take precautions, you could present to the health care system, you just need to be careful as you're presenting to the health care system, especially if coronavirus is epidemic. i think it's prudent to get tested because you want to know if you're infected so you can give guidance to other people you might have been in contact with so i wouldn't recommend, unless, you know, there is no testing in your local community or it's backed up because we're stranging the syst straining the system, i wouldn't recommend not getting tested i think it's important to get diagnosed. >> maybe this is a selfish question, you can help my family, all the families around the country as they're thinking about thanksgiving everybody's calling each other, what are we going to do for thanksgiving, get together, not

get together, should we all get tested before we get together. if we were to get tested, would that be enough, if we put 15 people together around a table, is that a problem, indoors, obviously it's getting colder outside. what's the gottlieb family going to do, and what would you tell the sorkin family and the squawk family to do i'm going to forego thanksgiving this year. i have older parents i'm not going to be bringing together a large group of people and risking older individuals who we have so far been able to protect through this virus this is really the last stage of the acute phase of this. 2021 is going to start to look better i think we'll be celebrating together in 2021 thanksgiving. we need to get through the next couple of months this is the hardest point in the pandemic right now, the next two months, we have done a very good job sheltering a lot of people, and keeping people safe. we can't give up our guard right now. we need to be vigilant i would tell people to be prudet

at thanksgiving. be mindful of bringing older people in contact with young people who might be asymptomatic spreaders. be careful if you're going to come together. we're not going to be this year. we're going to be doing it, celebrating the thanksgiving the spring of 2021 >> dr. scott gottlieb, it's always good to see you and get your perspective, appreciate it very very much >> thanks a lot. when we come back, a business outlook from international paper ceo mark sutton we'll talk about the company's latest quarter they beat on the top and bottom line, and ask what he's hearing from customers in the pandemic and what he can see in the supply chain. the dow futures have turned down they were up by triple digits for much of this morning, after losing 1,800 points, more than 1,800 points over the last three sessions they have turned down, indicated off by 37 points s&p still in the green up by 4 1/2 points, the nasdaq up by 58 quk x"ilbeig back. at calvert, e investing is hard.

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there were tsunamis fourtin the world. and once they happened, we were in a major hurry to get to those regions to provide aid and support. it was very humbling to be able to help out all those people. it's my dream now to go into clean energy and whatever the next new fuel source is, that's where i want to be. i want to be on the front lines of implementation.

it's time you make the rules. so join the 2 million people who have switched to xfinity mobile. you can choose from the latest phones or bring your own device and choose the amount of data that's right for you to save even more. and you'll get 5g at no extra cost. all on the most reliable network. so choose a data option that's right for you. get 5g included and save up to $400 dollars a year on the network rated #1 in customer satisfaction. it's your wireless. your rules. only with xfinity mobile. welcome back, everybody. international paper reporting third quarter numbers this morning. adjust the earnings came in at $0.71 a share, and that was better than the consensus estimate of $0.48. revenue was above the street's forecast joining us is mark sutton, the chairman and ceo of international paper. good to see you. thanks for being with us.

>> good morning, becky, happy to be here. >> let's talk about the numbers. that's a strong adjusted earnings beat. revenue also beat by a little bit less than that sort of a margin where did you make it up, in the operating margins? >> yes, we did, and i think what we saw was as yourn, it's been ha -- you know, it's been hard to predict quarter to quarter metrics. we saw stronger demand in our packaging business we did a tremendous job in managing costs i can't thank our employees enough for managing through this uncertainty, and you put that together, we're 70% package company, we ended up with a strong result both on the top line as you mentioned and on the earnings line. >> i guess when you talk about the strong demand you're seeing, that's sequential, correct >> it's continuing to be strong sequential, other than a couple of segments, namely ecommerce, most other segments are down slightly year over year, but

ecommerce is up unbelievable, order magnitude. some is a shift in retail, from standard retail to the online channel. a couple segments that were hit in the second quarter, durables, some of the food service that supplies restaurants those have improved, and it continues as we enter into the 4th quarter, even through the month of october >> you've got to be watching the climbing covid cases like we all are, and what that might mean for some of those segments as you mentioned, things like the food service business, restaurants, and i guess that means cafeterias at schools and workplaces, too, is there any concern that that demand is going to go back down or do you think that this time will be different? >> well, you know, i can look at our own company as kind of a laboratory for how much more we know now than we knew in march and how we have been able to work to keep our employees safe, and you know, 85% of our

employees work in factories, so they show up every day, and they have learned how to use the protocols. and i think i see that in a lot of our customers' environments as well. so ultimately the consumer needs to continue to practice the procedures that we have all learned about in terms of sanitation and mask wearing and social distancing. i got a lot of faith that we'll be able to work our way through this because we know so much more now than we did months and months ago. >> what about ecommerce, you mentioned that's up sharply. ecommerce is still just a small portion of overall sales in america. retail makes up 12% right now? >>st that about what it makes up in the corrugated packaging, the overall percentages of retail. you're right, it's a relatively small segment, but growing rapidly, and it has been growing rapidly. it just, you know, tripled its growth this year obviously because of some of the dislocations in commercial because of the covid situation

>> do you anticipate that those sort of ecommerce patterns will continue even after covid leaves and as a result, how do you kind of manage for that have you changed any of the lines or ways you set up for what you're delivering >> i think we will see some permanent gains in ecommerce there's a lot of first time adopters that just were not heavy ecommerce users for one reason or another. they tried it, it works, many many experiences that people have had have been positive. i think the transportation and logistics network has beefed up their capacities to make the delivery portion and the final mile, you know, successful so i feel it's going to reset, it's hard to determine how much it will reset, but for us, and a company that is anywhere in this value chain. it's different equipment it's different service platforms. so we have been scrambling to make more of that type of package and less of another type

of package that might have been going to food service or restaurants. some of the machinery can be adopted. some of it has to be new, and we're working behind the scenes. there's a lot of feet paddling under the water to make sure we deliver on time for all of our customers. >> yeah, just keep swimming. ducks moving along mark, thank you. it was great to see you. >> thank you coming up our squawk exclusive interview with kenneth frasier and kenneth sonnenfeld we gave back that 170 points up to be down 80. that's always tough to bounce a little of the morning after a big selloff. seems like it doesn't hold we'll see. take a look at the biggest s&p gainers, though, "squawk box" will be right back

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good morning, futures mixed after yesterday's big time selloff. the dow is drifting into negative territory pre-market, giving up pretty nice size gains from a few hours ago, this on the baedseusiest day of earnings season with four major tech

companies reporting. and a good look at you aour thi quarter growth 30 minutes away numbers expected to be huge after last quarter's record decline. and health care on the ballot, a special interview with merck ceo ken frazier, the final hour of "squawk box" begins right now. good morning and welcome to sko "squawk box" here on cnbc. can we bring that gdp number out. i'm joe kernen along with becky quick and andrew ross orkin. sometimes that happens by mista mistake. it comes out we're now down we were up about 170 for most of the morning, now down 104. this is after 1,800 points that

we lost monday, tuesday, wednesday basically. so we're at 1,900 now. yesterday's big drop, of course, fears over surging coronavirus cases here and in europe, which helped push the dow and the s&p to their worst day since back in june the dow is on its longest losing streak february. since last friday, lost more than 1,800 points. add the hundred in, and it's even worse we're going to be speaking act the markets and your money this hour first, though, there are results this morning they keep coming it's a busy day, becky >> it does first of all, let's get you caught up on comcast earnings out about an hour ago. the parent of nbc universal and cn cnbc beat analyst settlements on the -- estimates on the top and bottom corner. they had 556,000 net new customer relationships also a record. and then when you look at sign

ups for the peacock streaming service they have reached nearly 22 million they also said that that happened without the benefit of having the olympics, which got po postponed. also without the benefit of "the office." theme parks continue to weigh on the financial results because of the pandemic related restrictions, you have in orlando and osaka, operating at limited capacity, but growing attendance, they said. if you excluded that segment, the theme park segment, nbc universal's ebita would have grown by 9% year over year the stock up by 1 1/4% andrew >> so many health care issues on the ballot in the presidential election, including the nation's coronavirus response and the cost of prescription drugs we're starting this hour with someone who knows a lot about both of these issues and is making a big push for his employees to exercise their right to vote. joining us right now is ken frazier, chairman, and ceo of

merck, and jeff sonnenfeld, senior associate dean for leadership studies at the yale school of management and a cnbc contributor. good morning to both of you gentlemen. ken, i want to start with you, and i want to talk about the voting efforts in just a moment. but given that we're watching this steady rise of covid cases across the country and frankly, the globe right now, and we're watching the markets selloff in large part because of that, i wanted to get a sense from you of how you're thinking, ken, about the time line in which we may getting a vaccine, and some some of the efforts you're undertaking in terms of your partnership with ridgeback for what could be an oral therapeutic, which i think a lot of people are hoping has lots of promise. >> good morning, andrew, and thanks for having me let me start by saying there are a lot of companies in our industry working on different approaches to vaccines and we have heard some good, as well as

therapeutics, and we have heard good news from regeneron, eli lilly, we are awaiting news from pfizer, as setrazeneca, j and j and moderna and others i'm very optimistic that in the near future, we will find some of these studies about some of these vaccines and therapeutics are going to be positive i'm very optimistic about that as far as what merck is doing, let me start with the anti-viral, as you know, we are going into phrase 2, 3, with our direct acting oral antiviral product. that's a partnership and what we know so far about that drug is very encouraging. we know that at concentrations that seem to be safe, that i prevents viral replication and so now the question is in a large study of 2,700 people can we show that it actually has an effect on sickness and death, morbidity and mortality, and we're very optimistic about

that behind that, we actually have two vaccines, one of which has gone into human testing, based on a measles virus vector, and the goal is to have a vaccine that can provide durable prek with protection with a single dose, and right behind that is based on the one we used in ebola. we're very optimistic about merck, our goal at merck is to produce medicines that can have an enduring impact on this not just in the pandemic phase, but also in the endemic phase. >> so, ken, just help us we were all looking at a calendar, and i know it's hard to prognosticate, when you talk to families about your expectations about what the world looks like six months out from now, 12 months out from now, when are you expecting a vaccine will be on the market? not necessarily yours, and when are you expecting, and we can talk about the ridgeback

product, is that something that could be terrific if you could walk into a cvs or walgreens and get it if in fact you were to be covid positive >> starting with the antiviral, we think we'll have at least some interim data on that in early 2021 and we're already spooling up to make millions and millions of doses and by early next year, much more. i think if the antiviral works, particularly if it's an oral you can take over five days, you can then use it more readily with people they don't have to be in the hospital you can use it hopefully earlier in the disease, and if everything works out, you could use it prof laprofalaktly. as it relates to the vaccines, given the timetable, we don't yet have data, i would say there's no way we could think it would be broadly available before mid 2021.

i'm optimistic they will be available at that time, and as far as what i'm telling people, you know, my own family, we usually have a very large thanksgiving dinner. we're not going to have that this year. we think it's not responsible to bring that many people together when we're seeing a surge ocf coronavirus right now. >> and finally, and we'll talk about voting in a moment, but are you thinking by next summer people are still wearing masks they're not wearing masks? there's going to be a real need for a drug, there won't be because so many people will have the vaccine? what does the future look like in your mind >> i don't see the therapeutics that we have or the vaccines that are coming as a silver bullet i think for the foreseeable future, we're still going to have to practice basic mask wearing, social distancing, hygiene, i think that's with us for a while, and i would say certainly well into 2021, we

will be trying to observe these public health measures i'm optimistic we're going to have therapeutics and vaccines i think it's a mistake to say it's a silver bullet, and overnight we're going to be able to vaccinate enough people, treat enough people. the natural history is these viruses don't go away. we don't vaccinate people for measles because measles are around i don't think they can expect to give up on public health measures anytime soon. >> jeff, i want to bring you into the conversation and pivot a little bit of the discussion to election day. we are just five days away, and one of the things that has been remarkable to watch over the past month, something that you have been chronicling and supporting in large part behind the scenes has been an effort by corporate america to help their employees get time off, ken doing it at merck, to go and vote you've said that democracy is at stake here speak to what's happening.

>> thanks, andrew. usually when i come on and have the honor of joining you guys on the show, my goal is to not start too much of a food fight at this hour over breakfast. and in this case, my goal is to stay out of ken frazier's way. what's this guy doing on, and then the segue that you suggest right there actually is a perfect one because where ken just took us in talking about in very realistic terms where we're going in terms of virology and therapeutics is so realistic, talking about the middle of next year, we had a great model that ken has set with his peers in the pharma industry, and nine of them, of course, signing this n incredible statement we're not going to be rushed by a politics at a time, where candidly between us, the president was saying in labor day there could be a magic bullet out, on the very special day of november

3rd. johnson & johnson said their peers we're not going to rush things and not have political intervention that kinded of leadersh of lead gold standard that ken and his peers stand for. we look at this coming lenelectn day, it's not just the pharma companies watching politics a poisonous effect we have seen a remarkable degree of ceo encouragement of public minded spiritedness, that volunteerism we have close to 3,000 employers have almost a million employees out there volunteering as poll workers, and of course getting the day off to vote. it's just remarkable responsibility that ewe're seeing, and ken is the gold standard of sparking these kinds of initiatives. >> ken, why do you think this is happening now? >> well, first of all, i think we have to take a step back and

realize that this is an election that is being conducted in the midst of a public health crisis, the coronavirus crisis, and so tens of millions of people will be voting in a different way this election through mail, and i think we have to do as a business community, as well as everyone, the media and anyone else who is privileged to hold a position of public trust and influence is to encourage people to vote, but also to encourage them to respect the integrity and legitimacy of the actual process. because of the way in which the election is being conducted right now, it's very likely that we won't know the outcome in some states on election night, and so it's important to encourage people to have the patience, the civility, and the restraint to actually wait for the outcome of the election and to trust the process. >> how politicized can i ask, is it inside your own office, ken, in terms of just the

conversations that are taking place between executives and employees and whatnot, about politics right now >> i don't think it's very politicized inside merck, i don't think we have a lot of those conversations. we are totally focused, irrespective of who's elected on november 3rd or thereafter we're totally focused on the challeng challenges that our country faces right now, around the coronavirus, and as well as the underlying issues that have to do with patient affordability. we want to work with whoever is in the office, whoever the congress is, the administration is, we want to solve the fundamental problems of affordability and access, and have a system that encourages investment for future medicines and convenience that vaccines t future pandemics, for example. >> hold on, jeff i want to take it quickly while we have ken here, jeffment i'm sorry. >> please. >> i want to take it to drug

prices and it pains me to see that you don't have a lot of friends lefr friends left, ken. i don't know which side of the aisle you would appeal to for logic. i hear worse stuff coming from the president's side on, you know, bringing prices down, 70% by reimporting drug controls from europe. where do grow? what's going to happen after the election, who's your friend this time around that understands that pharmaceuticals are probably the best deal in town for dealing with these chronic illnesses? >> certainly, let's start with the w.h.o. said the impact on global gdp from the coronavirus is the $28.26 trillion the reality of the world is if we're going to solve not just the pandemic but the chronic health conditions that are costing so much money, the best solutions are often pharmaceuticals and vaccines so i have to believe in the logic of people. i have to believe that people are of goodwill, and they want

to sovp tlve the problem of patt affordability. the fundamental problem isn't the price of drugs it's the structure of insurance benefits it's the middle men, everything in the system that misaligns incentives so the person at the pharmacy counter isn't getting the benefit of the rebates that we're paying which are about 50%. i have to say, while we don't have a lot of quote friends, i think there are a lot of people who want to fix the situation in a way that's good for the country, good for the economy and good for patients. >> sorry, jeff, you were going back i just wanted to hear about that because it worries me about innovation, and everything else. >> thanks, joe i was just going to reinforce the point, anticipating where you might have been going in that look at these time frame issues, unlike pressures that have torn apart companies, ken invests 10 to 15% in long-term

solutions but also the ceo engagements so critical for public trust, all of these virus, remedies that come out, whether or not they're the therapies or the vaccines, don't matter if people aren't going to take them. we have seen since april, the public trust has so collapsed the support for taking vaccine it was roughly 75% in april, 72, 75%. it's fallen now, according to morning consult to less than 40%, and public trust, again, spilling into next unique's electioning election a survey tells us 62% of the nation is afraid the supreme court may have to intervene to select the president, and they're very worried about that, and they're looking to ceos like ken and others to announce, use their voices to bring calm so in fact, i think it was 72% over last night have told us of american voters, they want ceo voices involved, and sure enough what did we see yesterday, the

business round table, the national association of manufacturers, the u.s. chamber of commerce, and five other diverse business groups unify. they're very loud statements saying we believe in a peaceful transfer of power, and we're hoping for na, and have calm through election day, and as ken said, wait for all the ballots to be counted, given the surge of voters that we have this year on top it's going to take a while to count the ballots. we always wait until after election day unfortunately, the president and justice kavanaugh also have recently said it all has to be done by november 3rd or it's going to look like manipulation. >> ken, let me ask you a question as we have been doing this interview, i just got an e-mail from a viewer effectively making a critique suggesting that the efforts by corporate america to

encourage voting is not a politically agnostic act, that the conversation around a peaceful transfer of power is not a politically agnostic act because president trump has made noises about whether the vote is rigged or other things like that, and in fact, the efforts by corporate america are really an anti-president trump effort what do you tell that viewer >> i think that comment is refle reflective of the sad situation of the country where everything is politicized i think this issue around the process goes beyond personalities, it goes beyond parties. it's our birthright as a nation to have free and fair elections. going back to the declaration of independence, we say the just powers of the government are derived from the consent of the governed and that con ssent is expressed

through free and fair elections. this is what we were taught in civics and it's unfortunate that people see every one of these things through a political lens. from my perspective, this is really about our birthright as american citizens and frankly, the fact that we have been for many many years, a model of what it means to have a representative democracy for the rest of the world. >> we've always had ballot counts for military ballots and provisional ballots have always been counted after election day. and there are several states, colorado, and i think eight or so states that are fully mail-in ballots. it takes a while of course to get them all counted i think it was albert einstein that said physics is easy, it's politics that are complicated. >> ken, jeff, thank you for joining us ken, thank you for helping us through all of these issues around covid, and to both of you gentlemen for getting out the word on voting we appreciate it very very much.

>> thank you, andrew i'm optimistic about coronavirus and i'm optimistic about our democracy. >> thank you you're here. >> good. that is good to hear we heard earlier on the show about united airlines upcoming rollout of rapid covid tests for certain u.s. to uk passengers. phil lebeau joins us with another special against this morning. phil. >> let's bring in scott kirby, the united airlines ceo, he joins us today from the united club at dallas fort worth airport. scott, thank you for joining us. i'm curious about this testing that you will begin on november 16th now, this is for select number of flights from newark to london, and if people on this flight, they're all going to be tested, if somebody tests positive, are they told, look, you can't get on this flight, what happens then? >> thanks, phil. good morning thanks for having me today we're excited about this new

test it's going to last for four weeks. we will test everyone on the airplane over the age of 2 if somebody tests positive that's the protocol we're going to use that person won't be able to get on the airplane, and we're using this to demonstrate the possibility of working out the logistics and opening borders. it's important to be able to open up the world economy. this is going to be with us for a while, and testing is a way where we can both be safe and still open up the world economy. >> now, this is an extension, slightly different but an extension of the program that you have already instituted from san francisco to hawaii for passengers flying in that route because of the quarantines in effect in hawaii that people have to be tested before they go on those flights, and you have actually seen an increase in the number of people booking trips to hawaii because of this testing in place, correct? >> we have, and united from the beginning of the pandemic has taken a leadership role starting

with safety initiatives and the department of defense, and the first airline to start testing what we're trying to do is increase confidence for consumers, and find ways there are things we can't do until the pandemic is over, and until we have a vaccine there are things we can do safely and trying to gradually open the economy and pushing the edge of how we can open up and start to take down borders that have been closed. >> scott, i have heard from critics who have said these rapid results tests are not 100% accurate you're using the same one the white house was previously using in terms of people going into certain areas of the white house. the critics are going to say, if you can't 100% guarantee somebody does not have covid-19, should you be doing these tests. >> whether you're taking your kids to school, driving to work, nothing is 100%.

what we can do is use a layered approach what's happening on an airport, back front, wearing masks on board the airplanes, the risk of a false positive or false negative on a flight like this is really really low you get into the world of where the risk is really really low, and if we're going to do both, going to be safe and open up the economy, which by the way, is really important we've got in barbell economy of some firms that are doing really well, and the service, travel entertainment leisure industry in a depression right now. if we're going to open the economy, we can do it safely we can do it safely regardless. >> i wanted to ask you about a report i just read in the last few days it was an ire rish study that took a look at a transatlantic flight where 13 passengers wound up infected on that flight

nine were wearing masks. it happened over the summer after a lot of things had been put in place the flight was 17% full and they went on to spread it to 46 people throughout ireland. i was surprised by that because we keep hearing flying is safe, you can't get it on a plate. do you know about that study and is that part of the reason you're doing this? >> i did read the study. we were doing this before. but i did see the study. it's hard to comment because they didn't give detail. they didn't say what flight it was, anything about the airplane so it's hard to know if people had coronavirus before they got on the flight. what i would say is the time line what we found in our studies, before you get the robust air flow going, which happens when you start the engines, there's a time when you're at risk there's a study from the '80s

but the airplane was parked on the tarmac for two hours what we're doing at united, which is unique, and i would encourage all airlines to do is running on auxiliary power before we start boarding until the last passenger gets off the airplane that gives passengers the benefit of the robust air flow 100% of the time they're on the airplane that can make them uniquely safe without seeing the details of that study, it's hard to comment specifically we have done rigorous studies in all kinds of scenarios that we feel confident about the safety on airplanes >> one last question, how worried are you about holiday travel especially as we see this resurgence in cases around the country? what's your early read in terms of demand right now? >> demand had been building. it's flat lined a little bit as you have seen the resurgence in cases. we have said there's going to be ups and downs. this is not going to be over

until we get to a vaccine, which is a widely distributed and available vaccine, which is probably a year or so away we're going to see ups and downs. the bigger point is how do we get to the vaccine and back moving towards real normalcy we're going to continue to see strong demand over the holidays. it's so far away from normal that these up and downs aren't that relevant compared to where we need to get to a year from now, once there's a widely available vaccine. >> scott kirby is joining us from the united club at the dallas fort worth airport. scott, thank you for joining us. guys, this testing of flights between newark and the uk, that starts on november 16th. a four-week pilot, and after that, they will assess, do we expand that, what do we do next, but they're going to be starting that on november 16th! good to hear, and thank you, phil, for bringing that interview. >> you bet. when we come back, our first

look at third quarter, gdp, we've got an all star panel waiting in the wings to dissect that data and tell you what it means for the ony d ur money.yo stay tuned, "squawk box" is up next s&p down by almost a hundred points

. welcome back to "squawk box," everybody, this is cnbc

and we're just a minute away from our first read of third quarter gdp, it's a number we are expecting to be up 32% joining us to talk about this is michel michelle jerrard, and michael strain, joining us from aei economic policy studies, and stephanie kelton, professor of economics and public policy. also standing by, steve liesman, and rick santoli we have been watching the futures ahead of it. it is 30 on the east coast, let's get to the data with rick santoli. >> we are obviously expecting our first read on third quarter gdp, when i pick it off the wires, i'll shoot it out there. and also looking for initial jobless claims jobless claims continue to move lower, 751,000, of course, that is still a bit above what has been the lowest initial claims week, which was 767. so we made a new low there, and continuing claims, almost exactly as expected, 7,756,000

and everybody's looking at be h benchmark of initial looking for improvement, i haven't seen gdp cross the wires yet, but gdp now has a higher number traders have a whisper number above 32 33.1, i would say that's a bit of disappointment to the whisper number, better than expectations, minus 31.4 and as many will point out, getting 33.1% back of a smaller economy of course doesn't get you where you started but certainly is an improvement, and as we continue to monitor what's going on in the interest rate market, i don't see a whole lot of movement, and some of the

specifics regarding personal consumption and pricing indexes, i have not seen across the wire. i will turn it over to the group, revisions coming out. 787 last week, on initial moves higher at 791. and 8 million, 373,000 last week's continuing claims moved a smidge higher as well. 8,465,000. i'll throw it back to the panel until we get the minutiae regarding gdp. >> not much movement on the treasury front not much movement in the equities market either dow futures indicated down by 87 points, which is right where we were this comes after a huge number of losses over the last three trading sessions let's get instant reaction, starting it steve liesman. are there things you want to pull out >> it came late, becky i would say this it's a good number it's a very good start

33% gain we have a 35% in our rapid update, so rick is right, there were higher numbers on the street because of yesterday's foreign trade number there's a lot going on when it comes to trade business equipment was pretty good, and we'll see if it continues. that's really the big story you had shut downs and reopenings during the quarter now the question is do we have reopenings and shut downs in this quarter the big stimulus last quarter. we'll see if we get any additional stimulus not looking good. i'll throw it back, and interrupt later whiff en i have details in front of me >> michelle, in terms of what you had been anticipating, that number may be weaker than the whisper number but better than the consensus. >> it was increased because of

the strong durable goods investment, business investment, so that's good but also because of trade where you have this situation where because we had a big rebound of demand, stepping back on the data i have seen, the trends that we were expecting were there strength and consumer spending, strong rebounds in housing, and business investment. of course you see the weakness ongoing when you look at nonresidential investment, you look at state and local government spending. i would echo what was said by rick, it may look like a v, because you're up 33% after being down 31. but it's not you're still not, you know, back to where you were before the virus hit, and quite honestly, we don't think you're going to be back at that level, well into 2021 >> yeah, stephanie, the other added part of this is, you know, these numbers again are back ward looking and we are seeing an increase in covid cases, a lot of questions about what's going to happen to the economy under that scenario, whether we

see people deciding to not go back out, and whether that hurts the economy or whether we've gotten a little better at managing this. what do you think? >> i think that, you know, the evidence is clear, we are in the midst of a spike in terms of the virus. i think that the result of that is we are going to see, perhaps localized by more lock downs as hospitals get overwhelmed and mayors and governors are forced to do what they need to do to manage the health care system and keep people safe in their cities and states, so i think you're going to see this undulating sort of, you know, shift across the country as the virus moves through and policy makers respond, and as you said, consumers respond, because as long as people remain concerned about their health and safety going out and getting back to normal, they're going to essential vote with their feet, and businesses are going to see that reflected in terms of, you

know, the lack of customers coming through their stores. >> michael, how are you looking at the gdp number, not only the gdp number but also jobless claims which were pretty important too? >> i guess i'm looking at it in a couple of ways i'm trying to think about what this means for policy, and a gdp number around what we got, a lot of this growth, my guess, was earlier in the quarter when the c.a.r.e.s act provisions, the more generous unemployment insurance, the payments to households, the paycheck protection program were helping to support the economy just given the kind of mechanics of the way gdp is calculated and there's no reason to go into this, but if you plunge in the month of april in the second quarter, and recover quickly in the month of may and june, you know, that's all second quarter stuff. you could get a real good third quarter number and not see a

whole lot of improvement, so a lot of what we saw was the reopening, certainly, but was fiscal policy, the c.a.r.e.s act. and my big concern is that the lo of those provisions have expired. the paycheck protection expired in august, a lot of income support for households expired in july. and so i think that this really suggests that a, the c.a.r.e.s act was a success, but b that the absence of fiscal policy support, especially given that we are looking at a resurgence, looking at a situation where, you know, in some respects, at least the worst of the virus may be yet to come we need more fiscal policy support. when you look at the details of the report, you look at the contributions to gdp no surprise, big contribution from consumer spending, state and local government spending

contributed negatively there was a negative growth contribution, which to me suggests that we need to be helping states and localities. >> that may be the analysis that a lot of people look into it we're not going to be getting that anytime soon. the senate has adjourned it's not coming back you've got an election, and then the fallout from that election i mean, you're not going to be getting additional stimulus likely until next year what will that mean for the economy? >> the lack of stimulus, i couldn't agree more with everything michael has said. i do think the strength recflecs earlier in the quarter don't mistake the strength for thinking that more fiscal support isn't needed we have seen a stalling out, if you will, combined with the increase in the case numbers which is going to make people more conservative. we're looking for 4th quarter gdp to be up maybe 3 to 4%, and

quite honestly, there's downside risk given how things are unfolding. i think you're right that this is backward looking and we're encouraged, you know, it's exactly as we have talked about, the strength in business and consumer spending, helped my bifiscal suppoby fiscal support to keep it going, we continue to need support because as we see it now, the growth numbers over the next three to six to nine months are not going to look anywhere close to what we have seen now. >> hey, steve, we sfopoke with o fanning earlier today, the ceo of southern company. when you look at industrials, there are industrial consumers across ten segments. eight of those segments are showing strong growth. one was flat one was down he said we should ask you about inventory levels when inventory gets run down, that's when the industrials have to pick up steam to make sure they are resupplying what do you think about that

kwh what have you seen >> i'm going to throw a question to michelle at the end of the data i'm going to give you inventories were up 6% that's a strong inventory rebound. in fact, let me go back here we haven't had an inventory rebound like this in a while trade took away 3% those two things worked together we bring in stuff from overseas, which we couldn't get in and by the way, our exports are hurting, the rest of the world is hurting that subtracts from gdp, it goes on the shelves or storehouses and that adds to gdp we did have an inventory rebound in the third quarter a lot of economics or forecasts i'm reading are for a bigger inventory rebound in the fourth quarter. is this 6% you have seen here, does that take care of what you thought was going to happen in the 4th quarter.

do you expect a rebound in the 4th quarter, and the reason it's important is it could power gdp in the 4th quarter as well. >> we had an expectation for a larger, if you can imagine, contribution from inventory, so strength as these numbers this morning at the moment, we wouldn't, if anything statistically, it would help our 4th quarter numbers, suggesting that there is still more to go in terms of building some inventories. >> a big question, becky, that needs to be answered, i was just going to add real quickly is retailers need to figure out what kind of christmas this is going to be. nobody really knows if it's going to be one where you can bet on a normal christmas and a lot of the imports. >> too late. like what's done is done, you know, that's all decided in july i think a lot of them stocked up because consumers were very strong at that point, but, you know, the inventory was getting it here, the supply chain was the big issue for that

we'll see. steve, rick, stephanie, michael, michelle, i want to thank you all. we'll talk to you all soon christmas, that's right. it's always good, even this year it will be good. coming up, we're going to look deeper into what the gdp number meansor f investors stay tuned you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc at calvert, we know responsible investing is hard.

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the european central bank out with its decision saying that risks are tilted to the downside, and clearly signaling additional action to come. saying on the basis of the current assessment, the ecb will recalibrate its instruments as appropriate to respond to the unfolding situations he goes on to say that the staff assessment of the economic situation in december will allow for that reassessment. so joe, this is very much in line with what was expected at the ecb with single additional action, but would not act until december when it has a chance to further assess the gdp and economic and inflation outlook when it comes to the resurgence of the coronavirus over there. joe. >> thanks, steve let's get back to what he talked about before, gdp, the economy bouncing back in the third quarter, growing at its fastest pate ever, 33.1% annualized

race and joining us jim paulson, to set this up, you said it's rear view mirror, a lot of it is discounted 25 to 30% would be significant anything above 30, up to 40 would be kind of old news, but there are three things you wanted to look at which gauge confidence among consumers in businesses and, now you have seen the numbers, it was investment spending, consumer housing and big ticket durables. how are those three? >> they were all really good, joe, i just i come back, i do agree that this is rear view mirror sort of data, and pretty much as expected on the overall number, but if you look in the internals just real quick, you know, we had a huge increase in nonresidential business investment spending, and you know, if companies are really hunkered down and worried about the economy hanging by a thread, they wouldn't be boosting their investment spending by as much as they did. those are investments for the

future that they could postpone if they were worried, and there was really strong activity there. and you look at what consumers are doing, joe, housing activities on fire, big ticket automobiles, and other durable goods are on fire. again, consumers may be spending more money, but where they're spending i think is significant because you don't buy a house or a car or other durable items if you're really fearful of losing your job, and yet they're showing that, so one take away to me would be the confidence that's exuded by those third quarter number and i think the biggest report of the morning is the continuing jobless claims number which dropped dramatically again this week, is down 4 plus million for the month of october, and that is probably close closely corred not only did we end -- not only

did we end the third quarter, but we're starting the fourth quarter with a lot of momentum >> that's the question, because you're up, you know, i know where you are, your next -- you're in that area where we're seeing some covid spikes and a lot of this data is before, you know, the most recent worries sort of got heightened, not just about potential lockdowns, maybe we don't do that, but the consumer fears and confidence that you're talking about, speak to that have you factored that in to what you're saying >> it could happen, joe. i -- it is hard to -- hard to weigh that there is no doubt, if it got bad enough that could happen, where you scare people enough to just stay in their homes and not spend. but even what they have shown throughout this pandemic is when they stay in their homes, they spend. i mean, you think about the surge we had in cases in the summer, and we just got a 32% growth rate during a covid surge in cases, a big chunk of that

last quarter was during that surge. so i don't know. i certainly could, but as an investor, if we have a bad winter covid here for the next two months, do you want to sell into that when it looks incre e increasingly likely by the experts that we are going to get at least increased treatments of very beneficial, if not a vaccine, of coming fairly soon i think it would be a tough sell >> i think we got to go quick. i know you are -- you are a mondale humphrey type guy. minnesota and all. but you don't care who wins? you with buy any dips? >> well, i would i would, joe i think if the dems win, i don't think they're going to be passing a lot of tax hikes and regulatory restrictions early next year. particularly if the economy is in question. i think that's going to be -- the election will be more of a 22, 23 issue. >> i love how you business types do that. you business types, your

democrats, but you go, but we don't really mean any of that stuff. probably none of that will happen anyway. that's how i'm able to be a democrat anyway, jim, thank you we appreciate it see you later. becky? >> thank you, joe. when we come back, jim craig cramer's first take on the day ahead. a key nuerf ocmb ostks to watch as we approach the opening bell.

welcome back to "squawk. want to get to cnbc headquarters jim cramer joins us right now. jim, we got this gdp print, numbers looking like we keep floating around on the dow there, up and down here. we also have a number of earnings reports this morning. a number of big tech companies this afternoon if you're playing the market today, what do you do? >> have to sit on your hands you got facebook, apple, and amazon, google, i mean, i think if you do anything here, ahead of these, you're going to end up saying, what was i thinking. either way, i had to think, by the way, the market now is oversold and i do like the fact that the market is not opening up this early morning i was

watching dom chu, looked like the market could open up half, three quarters of a percent. that would be a disaster just bring heat seeking sellers. i think there is a blue wave component where people want to get healthcare because they believe that the hard left of the party will hijack and that single payer and that's hate the managed care companies those stocks will be under pressure again >> okay. jim, we'll see you in a couple of minutes and i know you got a big show coming up, so we're excited about that i'll send it back to becky >> jim brought up dom. dominic chu is here with a few of the big stocks on the move this morning dom, what are you seeing >> yes, mam, i do. the earnings barrage continues the busiest day of the season. we'll look at shares of ralph lauren up 2.5% premarket. they reported much better than expected profits but revenues fell shy of forecasts. ralph lauren said that revenue growth in its mainland china

markets returned to precovid pandemic growth levels but that current quarter and full year results would continue to be negatively affected by the pandemic and prolonged demand recovery those shares up nonetheless. next up, shares of kellogg the package food company best known for cereals and snacks like corn flakes, eggo waffles, cheez cheez-it, revenues inline, better than forecasts. kellogg rose the full year profit forecast, better demands for foods consumed at home 6% or so decline in spotify. 80,000 shares of volume. the streaming music and podcast provider reports a wider than expected quarterly loss. overall revenues were roughly in line with estimates. spotify said it grew its premium paying subscriber base by better than expected 25%. 6.5% decline there back over to you

>> dom, thank you. i like the shoes, by the way wearing shoes like andrew. you wear it well >> dom >> yes, sir. >> next it is going to be november as of sunday. know what's next know what's coming >> have you seen the photos from down there >> you knew? i thought you would say the election you know i'm talking about augusta, don't you >> weird not to not see azaleas, just orange trees in the distance, you know >> wow, can you imagine that's right. i doesn't think about that fall in augusta, wow that's a whole new ball game all right, i didn't want to digress. thanks, dom. we got that to look forward to if we get past next week a week from next thursday! starts >> i'm thinking about tuesday right now. anyway, let's get a final check on the markets this morning, 1800 points, more than 1800 losses for the dow over the first three trading sessions and this morning the futures have been all over the place. we have seen the dow up triple

digits, down triple digits relatively flat up by 5 points s&p 500 up by 9 1/2. the nasdaq up by 73. don't take your eyes off this market today make sure you're watching through the day and make sure you join us back here tomorrow right now time for "squawk on the street." good thursday morning. welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm carl quinkeen quintanilla w cramer and david faber new lockdowns ahead of q3 earnings q3 gdp sets up a record, and claims keep their 7 handle road map begins with the economic bounceback coming off the worst quarter in history third quarter u.s. gdp roars back, not enough to wipe out q2's loss. >> covid versus earnings as virus cases surge around the world. it is the busiest day for corporate results and what has

been a strong season so