field. great to see you out there as well have a great long weekend. hope you make it, of course, back home at some point soon. >> you too. >> we're keeping an eye on the markets with the s&p up.022% as we wrap up a week here have a great long weekend, everybody. that will do it for us on "squawk on the street. "techcheck" starts now ♪ good friday morning. welcome to "techcheck. i'm carl quintanilla with jon fortt and deirdre bosa amc takes another billion dollars from the shorts, although the stock is below the opening price. an explanation of the mean trade reresurgence is coming up. apple gets a downgrade to sell what's behind that call in just a moment and finally, a warning from microsoft on a new hack, the

latest on the group behind solarwinds this hour, john. >> yep we're building the future, ceo of anagnost this hour as earnings show an inflection point and most countries at or above precovid levels for them that's a promising sign for the pipeline to recovery we're going to talk about how apple stores built the future of physical retail 20 years after the first ones launched and how shopping for tech has never been the same and the week's wild ride for bitcoin as well as institutional investors and crypto bulls factor in this environment. >> speaking of building the future, thematic tech investing we've talked about it here, clean energy, a.i. cloud, next generation tech, that has been a hot trade over the pandemic. but this morning, bob pisani, a warning from morning starbu on h dangers of this kind of investing. >> very much a warning everybody loves thematic tech

investing, electric vehicles, e sports, robotics, cloud computing all exploding in popularity watch out. morning star's majority -- >> bob, i think we're going to get your mic on. guys, let's continue this theme while bob gets ready this is prime for the arc investment thesis. high growth, high returns in the longer run, and we've certainly seen an easing of that trade, at least this year, even though it was so hot last year and it's so interesting to note, though, over the last few weeks or so, cathie wood and arc have been doubling down on some of their trades and introducing new ones that fit into the thematic tech. bob is going to tell us if you look at history and we'll come back to you, bob, if you look at history, this may not necessarily pay off, right we'll let you continue here. >> yeah. the important thing, everybody loves thematic investing thematic tech investing did very, very well. remember, e-sports, robotics,

cloud computing, all exploding in popularity. morning star is warning the majority of these funds do not outperform the markets, have high fees, high failure rates and run the risk of too much concentration. thematic tech investing did well during 2020. the record is much poorer over longer periods of time morningstar found over the past ten years, 30% of thee mattic funds closed due to poor performance. 34% under performed the market only 36% out performed this, by the way, is in a 10-year bull market. so why the underperformance. thematic investing by its nature is prone to investors chasing hot themes that go in and out of popularity they have very high fees that eat into the returns investors get. remember, you could invest in an s&p 500 index fund for almost nothing right now. morningstar also noted that a small number of actively managed funds have accumulated large

positions in many small cap stocks, parly cathie wood's arc innovation fund. take a look at companies like stratasys and lending tree this means that stock prices may be subject to the whims of investors in the fund, investors start pulling out, the stocks are in trouble what's the takeaway of all this? thematic investing, it's fun, it's easy to understand. if you like the theme but don't have the resources to investigate individual companies, thematic investing makes a lot of sense morningstar's report is saying don't kid yourself you have not found the secret of stock market wealth. they ask, as timely as it may seem now, some of the themes are going to age very poorly for example, ask yourself, investors ask yourself, will that work from home etf still be relevant in three years time it's a very good question and good reminder about the long-term effect of owning these funds. >> very good point, bob. it seems to me, in tech at

least, themes don't win. platforms and innovation do. part of the problem is as soon as some idea becomes busy, opensource or cloud or whatever, companies chase that they start defining themselves in that way, whether or not they have true innovation or defensible moats in that space investors need to be able to distinguish between who is leading and who is following who has a defensive position versus who doesn't. >> yeah. and part of the problem is, for example, even say cloud computing, you have to have what's going to happen is there's going to be a small group of people that are really big in the cloud ultimately. but there's a lot of small companies out there that are vying for some part of that money. a lot of investors say okay, i'll buy an etf, it's going to hold it, but a lot of these companies don't make money won't make money for three or four or five years long-term investors are hoping a small group will make money later on most of them don't so you're taking a bet on what companies are going to survive,

number one, and you're taking a bet on what sectors we may find that a lot of these sectors, you know, social investing, for example, ultimately kind of dies down so that you're making a lot of bets on companies and individual sectors this is why index investors say don't worry about it own the broad market there's some argument for looking at that way of investing. >> yeah. there is, bob. some people say this time could be different it's a bit of a dangerous argument cathie wood back in april did note, i thought this was interesting in a tweet, today's tech innovationdwarfs that of the late 1800s, early 1900s as a basis behind her thesis. we'll see how that plays out thank you. meantime we're going to take a look at meme stocks. we are seeing another surge for amc this morning that has us actually thinking about a moon landing. check this out it is closing in on being up nearly 150% in just the last week on pace to pass the record

volume it recorded at the height of the meme trade in january with roughly 220 million shares having already traded just this morning dom chu did math for us earlier and counted the outstanding shares and yesterday's staggering volume the company has changed hands twice in just the last two trading days. guys, it feels like deja vu all over again we watched this happen with gme and amc. but there is debate over who is doing the selling. a lot of folks seem to think it's institutional investors and this short squeeze, but rich greenfield was on "squawk box" and i heard him talking about the retail investors and he thinks it's them selling to each other, despite the common line we hear to hold no matter what >> yep four-day surge as we pointed out and the short selling loss is

now $1.3 billion, up more than 200% for the week. although it's not a big move today from the opening price, so although it's had a heck of a few days, it's to be determined whether or not buyers could revert quickly to a sell the move, sell the increase kind of mentality. >> yeah. we've seen that these meme stock trades can move very quickly i mean, investors, it's a tough job, right you have to know what to buy, when to buy and when to sell we'll see if people are taking the diamond hands mentality with this or they have a plan to sell portions of it at certain points because, you know, what looks like a gain today could turn into a loss tomorrow you never know, carl >> yeah. quickly, guys, apple is another story. rare downgrade to sell over at new street they go to a $90 target our friend pierre ferragu says the munster demand on the iphone cannot be secular and you have

to brace for a downcycle the iphone 12s likely to suffer limited innovation that call is about $30 from where we are right now catch the analyst behind the call later on "the exchange" at 1:00 p.m. eastern time we talked about this with david and cramer in the 9:00 a.m., it has some echos of what bernstein has said, tony sagknocki talked about 129 having similarities to the 6 cycle where you had a very big uptrend and then had to take a breather more or less. yeah the argument rests around whether demand is sustainable for the 12, but i remember last quarter, jon, remember we talked, we all had different opinions on what the greatest strength was the apple story has become so much more than the iphone. it's become services, the m-1 chip, ipads, and the return to work is it going to be a hybrid model so does demand for other devices be sustained what do you think of that, jon do you think this all sort of

rest on the iphone 12 or is there enough apple is doing on the overall platform that could make up for perhaps a decline in demand >> i think the question for investors around this call is, do you believe that apple trades on iphone trends alone i would say it doesn't that's not to say pierre is wrong. we will see. but apple doesn't just trend on whether or not -- trade on whether or not we are in a super cycle. i remember when apple stopped reporting iphone units and it was like a sign of overall growth is slowing down and it was, but at the same time they were building out the services story and the street really latched on to that plus, they've got an ecosystem, vertical integration, making their own chips, certainly from mobile, now for macs as well and that appears to be working do you want to bet against that entire ecosystem, including retail, including wearables where they're running away from google and samsung, we saw them try to respond to that earlier this month pierre could be right about the

iphone and wrong about the stock. well, one more thing, microsoft warning of a new hack reportedly by the same group that's behind solarwinds amon javers breaks that down for us >> it's the russians again, jon. that's what microsoft all but said yesterday tagging that group behind the solarwinds attack they put this report out last night. here's what we know, it's an e-mail-based attack. about 3,000 e-mail accounts have been targetd at 150 plus groups, says microsoft it uses usaid, the u.s. foreign investment, foreign relief agency, to send phishing e-mails. they're attacking government groups, ngos, think tanks, military organizations and others, including telecoms and defense sector companies microsoft says this is an active incident which is still going on right now. that's why they're alerting the world to it. take a look at this, this is a

company of the e-mail some of the recipients have received it looks like it's coming from usaid, it says usaid special alert donald trump has published new documents on election fraud. that's going out this week you wonder why is usaid is sending anything the group that receives that why am i getting an e-mail like that from usaid and maybe they click on that button there and then the russians are off to the races. so that's how they lure you in a phishing e-mail, something that provokes your curiosity to the point you can't resist, just clicking on that to see what it's all about and then once you do the russians have you, in your systems, and that's what microsoft is warning people about, particularly i.t., telecom, defense contractors, all those folks, that's who seems to be targeted here, jon >> well, is it true -- go ahead,

jon. >> eamon, that's an element, almost an art behind how, you know, scammers pick how they craft these e-mails. based on sometimes people's instinct actual i knew it reactioning they will click on something even if they realize a split second later they shouldn't have is this playing off perhaps some of the paranoia and conspiracy theories in our politics you think where they're seeing there are some people who are clicking on this stuff that comes across? >> it's social engineering and your point is a good one, right, which is that, you know, this e-mail if you put it back on the screen it looks like transparent b.s. because usaid would not be sending anything about about donald trump and documents on election fraud under the biden administration that's just nonsense, right. so some people to your point jon, might say i know that's nonsense i'm going to click on

here, out of a sense of proving yourself right you can click on it to get that satisfaction of realizing it's nonsense and once you take that bait, that temptation, you're in. the russians are in. that's the problem >> eamon, when did microsoft learn of this attack is there a sense that companies and federal agencies are quicker to respond and to share information or is that sort of part of the story as well? >> well, they say they first observed thisgoing back to january, i believe, in the alert. but they're alerting the public as of last night so we're going to have to get more detail from microsoft on, you know, what happened between january and now in terms of this attack. it looks like what's happened it's metastasized and gotten bigger and going after more people therefore, you can presume that's why microsoft decided they had to alert the world this is happening so people see these e-mails coming in and say some of them did get stopped by spam filters and other security

devices, but apparently some have gotten through and that's causing some problems now. >> it's interesting, sort of as you say, the effects of all of this, a quarter of the targeted organizations were in areas of humanitarian work, human rights work it's clear that whoever is behind it, is looking for areas, the few remaining areas, i guess where americans have trust >> yeah, absolutely. the "new york times" is reporting a nexus to vladimir putin the common theme looking for entities that criticized putin. you can see what the motivation is right away on the russian side here. this is an element of state craft. there's criminal organizations we talk about so much in ransomware and then the nation state hacking which is gathering intelligence that has happened, you know, since time in memorial, but what's going on here is spying on a scale that you couldn't

have imagined before you had this cyber hacking capability. breaking in and stealing documents from a nonprofit would have been an epic feat in the 1970s. today you send out 3,000 e-mails and back come the documents and it's all done, you know, before lunch time >> right let's harrowing and interesting we have acknowledged the information we do from microsoft and you. that's eamon javers. we'll talk to the ceo of autodesk later on, the legacy of the apple store and we're just getting started on "techcheck.

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which shows will you be getting into tonight? how 'bout all of them. netflix. 'cause xfinity gets you really into your shows. when one burns for someone who does not feel the same. daphne, let's switch. from live tv to sports on the go. felix at the finish! you can even watch your dvr from anywhere. okay, that's just showing off. you get all of this on x1. so go on, get really into your shows. you need a breath mint. xfinity. it's a way better way to watch. a gut check on lordstown motors deutsch initiates a hold price target of $8 the opportunities in evs and trucking is there but difficult to acquire jon, i think eight is jonas' target at morgan stanley it's not as low as the $1 target

over at wolfe when they downgraded earlier in the month. >> yeah. i mean being the next tesla is tough. being the first tesla was first. we'll see if anybody can do it meanwhile, software company autodesk picking up m&a momentum joining us to talk about the business and outlook, ceo andrew anagnost andrew, good to have you. >> good to see you. >> talking to you because so much of what autodesk does is your customers are planning the future if they got big plans to build buildings and design products, things like that, we see it showing up in your results you say you hit anp inflection point. what does that mean for resumption of economic activity coming out of this pandemic? >> yeah. as you know our customers cover a large sector of the economy and what we've seen is monthly active use of our products, which is an indicator of activity for planning to build, actually building, planning

manufacturing, up to precovid levels in about every country in the world except the united states by the way. it's still just under pre-covid-19 levels but trending right up this says for us, the economic cycle in the industries we serve has bottomed up and moved -- bottomed out and moving in the other direction which i think is a positive sign for other aspects of the economy as well. >> so we talked to intuit earlier this week, really talking about small and medium business, that momentum that they're seeing there in digitalized even if on a secular level. they're not recovering as quickly as many would like how does that relate to what you're seeing with your customer base, even in the u.s. is there a more towards more digital processes getting deeper into your portfolio, even as they haven't returned to pre-covid levels >> absolutely. frankly, jon, it started during the pandemic everybody started to realize their processes were too fragile, supply chain engagement

too fragile and started moving to digital tools that's only accelerating in the construction industry, look, it's with too wasteful, things cost too much and not enough sustainability built into how they work. they're waking up to the fact that we have to do this digitally, we have to industrialize, we have to look more like our product, manufacturing counterparts out there, and stop being kind of the wasteful ad hoc industry we've been that's driving a lot of interest in digital tools >> andrew, good morning. it's deirdre more is being done digitally and autodesk is pushing deeper into infrastructure projects. i wonder how cyber security plays into this, into your business, on the infrastructure side the supply chain side, are you spending more time on it, hiring more, thinking more, as we get increasing attacks and the prospects of more as well? >> absolutely. cyber security is on everyone's mind we invest more in it every year

to ensure that our systems are secure, but i remember what you highlighted in the last report they go after the most vulnerable aspect of the whole entire system. the soft part, the human that requires us to all be vigilant the systems are getting more and more secure. our ability to detect is getting more and more robust but people are still the weak link in our cyber security processes and we have to pay attention to that. >> finally, andrew, i wonder, this is a shot in the dark, but is there any relationship, do you think, between the degree to which we return to a physical office and billings? is there any marginal tailwind for billings when you work remote >> you mean, billings in our industry or billings in general? >> i'm sorry did you ask a question for --

>> are you talking about billings in our industry from what our customers do and their billings or are you talking about autodesk >> yes. >> i didn't quite understand your question. look, you know, the product activity goes in different directions people ask this a lot. if you're -- if commercial space is going to get less utilized are you going to build less commercial space, are people going to be reconfiguring less commercial space the truth of the matter, everybody is reconfiguring their space to be less dense and more collaborative and rents are going down and sublet spaces and new companies are moving in and reconfiguring those spaces to be less dense, new construction is happening in suburban areas as people start looking at office parts in suburban areas, multifamily housing, projects m move, so we are not seeing anything in our industry that looks like a slowing down in billings for our customers related to the return of work. in fact, there's another book of business the money shifts to other types of activities.

>> all right well the truth is in the data. andrew anagnost from autodesk, thank you. >> thank you >> meantime guys, two big debuts pacing a big weekend for the box office as streaming questions linger on performance and julia, it's a good question as we see amc continue this wild rally this week. >> that's absolutely right, deirdre. memorial day weekend opens the summer box office with two films and it's a test for movie going now that more than 70% of theaters are open and it's a key test of new distribution models and the end of that set 90-day window between when films are released at theaters and available at home. audience reactions will impact studios and theater chains amc the stock skyrocketing as the meme trade has returned. now one of the two films is paramount's "a quiet place 2" grossed $5 million from thursday

screenings and expected to collect as much as $40 million in domestic ticket sales through monday now the film will be exclusively in theaters for 45 days before it's streamed to paramount plus subscribers. that shortened exclusive theatrical window prompted john krasinski and emily blunt to push paramount for higher compensation because they earn a percentage of the boxoffice. sources tell me paramount countered the vast majority of box office revenue is collected well before 45 days. tells us nearly 90% of ticket sales for the first "quiet place" movie were in the first 45 days. the other film, "cruella" taking a different approach, simultaneously offering it to disney plus subscribers for an additional $30 fee it's unclear how that will impact its box office take hollywood is also closely watching the international box office which prepandemic was increasingly important to

studios' bottom lines. last week universal's "f-9" brought in over $160 million from eight international markets with 85% of that revenue coming from china mkm's eric hander tells us the numbers make evident that post-pandemic potential for hollywood content, and guys, potential is not just here, but also internationally deirdre? >> it's fascinating to see how this will play out as the different studios take different approaches to this thanks for bringing that to us and see what happens after this weekend. still to common here on "techcheck," jon says this is the second most important thing out of apple, after the iphone we will discuss and debate the legacy of the apple store 20 years in that's next. later, exclusive sound from box ceo aaron levie as he responds to activist pressure from starboard. "techcheck" is back in three minutes. that building you're trying to sell,

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resetting near the bottom of the hour on "techcheck." i'm carl quintanilla, jon fortt and deirdre bosa coming up this half hour, the historic legacy of the apple store on retail. we'll get to that. first let's get a news update and rahel solomon. >> hi, carl. good morning bogey has temporarily stopped deliveries of its 787 dreamliners. the faa is still waiting for information from the company showing inspection changes meet federal safety standards boeing shares are down a little more than 1.5% right now a key gauge of business activity in the midwest has jumped to its highest level since 1973 despite ongoing supply constraints the chicago pmi soared to 75.2 in may, any reading above 50 indicates growth the core pce price index up 3.1% since last april.

the monthly gain of 0.7% was slightly above expectations. and france has slipped into rece recession first quarter gdp growth a small loss, thanks to weakness in the construction sector and the second quarter may be off to a weak start household spending fell more than 8% in april jon, quite a different story in the states as far as home spending back to you. >> indeed. thank you. apple continuing to expand its retail footprint opening its newest store on in rome yesterday. that latest outpost comes nearly 20 years to the date after the first store opened in the tysons corner mall in virginia outside d.c. i attended that store's grand opening on may 19th, 2001. the unique interactive layout designed to fuel steve jobs' switch campaign getting pc users to jump to macs and boost sales of the ipod, which wouldn't launch until five months later

2002, made a step moving stores out of malls into iconic locations. taking over a former post office in so ho in new york city, cemented the tech giant's retail dominance paved the way for fifth avenue and so many other apple stores 2017, apple's retail square foot vaulted to nearly twice its closest competitor these stores were seen as a crazy gam bit at the time. a lot of people forget gateway failed with its stores months earlier. we saw a earnings miss from them the ceo returning to many, apple was following a failed blue print but no of it a different blueprint. other giants are following suit. google opening its first permanent store in new york city this summer. amazon has all kinds of stores pushing on the same kind of omnichannel story line apple has been creating for a long time. this retail innovation from

apple has given the tech giant protect against downside from particular down cycles or product blips which brings us to new street research downgrading apple to sale with a price target of $90. they expect iphone sales to slump as consumers eye non-electronics post-pandemic. you have to be careful with apple because it doesn't just trade on the iphone and whether you're talking about chip vertical integration, owned across so many products or the app store, services, subscriptions, and that big cash hoard stores like this, they have a lot of ways to pull customers in, didn't mention wearables, keep them in the ecosystem. there's a piece out today, jon, about wearables at apple they have about a ten-year head start which is interesting for a company that has historically preferred a second strike advantage. i'm thinking of jon's piece and the genius bar and how genius it

is to have to go to a place to get your equipment repaired and while you're waiting you check out the items on display and see the graphics that are better than the item you have and that drives purchase intention. >> yep i know my mom loves the genius bar. whenever they can get in i'm not going to argue with the success, the incredible success that apple's retail story has been over the last two decades, but, jon, i don't know, i take issue looking forward, what is the plan i mean, mini apple stores in target locations it seems to go against everything that made this such a successful bet in the first place. going directly to the customering may it a destination, employees as brand ambassadors, do we think that now that angela has left the position and deirdre o'brien has gone in, she can navigate the next phase of apple's retail story where perhaps vr and services need to play a bigger part i'm confused by this target move. >> absolutely.

i think you got to remember, ron johnson launched this idea within apple and the first move, carl, that apple made for an executive to replace him, that didn't work. that was one of tim cook's biggest management failures of his tenure then they got in angela and figured out what this is about more than half of apple's employees work in retail it's a part of the engine here and a part of the ecosystem and now they're an economic driver cities compete and want apple stores because they draw tourists, economic engine for the things around them, kind of flip this idea of a mall anchor tenant into a new era where now you have anchor ten napts for cities, city blocks, city areas, carl, and apple has managed to do that. >> yes we'll see if maybe google can do that in san jose or microsoft or new york city. we're going to check that out. it's a great piece keep your eye on salesforce today. a beat on the top and bottom

line revenue up 27. some granularity on slack. watch jim's full interview on "mad" only on cnbc.com in the meantime box ceo aaron levie and his response to starboard coming up next there's a lot more "techcheck" ahead after this quick break

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box ceo aaron levie responding to activism over at starboard. josh lipton spoke to him last night and has more >> carl, box just reporting earnings results, but the real drama for the cloud software vendor right now is this fight for starboard value, that going red hot. starboard nominating its own candidates to the board ahead of box's annual shareholder meeting pitting its candidates against ceo aaron levie and two other directors seeking re-election. starboard pointing to what it calls box's poor results and subpar shareholder returns aaron levie hitting right back >> we're very aligned that the strategy is to really drive great growth and profitability and i think when you look at our share price returns, as a result of that strategy being executed, i think it's pretty clear, you know, that that is -- that

strategy is working at this point. >> another key area of contention and announcement in april that kkr would buy $500 million worth of box's stock starboard not happy saying this was done to buy a vote ahead of this election contest. aaron levie saying that isn't true. >> i think it would be hard to knock the credibility of kkr and their views of long-term, you know, profitable shareholder returns. kkr led an investment in the company and we're confident they are long-term believers in the business and the current plan that we have they have a strong track record driving significant shareholder returns for their investors. >> now some analysts i speak with jmp, thinks box could be an acquisition target for the right suitor, maybe ibm or cisco levie says he will always consider the best path forward for this shareholders but excited about the path boblg is on right now. >> josh, the chess match here

between companies and activists always interesting to see which way they attack. some people might forget before satya nadella there were activists after microsoft. it seems funny now but if you look at box and dropbox, both of them have kind of under performed some of the broader cloud expectations they both have market caps under $15 billion, for example but i just wonder, what, if anything, analysts are saying about the likelihood that you could totally reinvent a company like this under either activist or private equity watch without founders that doesn't seem likely either. >> to your point about share performers, that is something starboard is bringing pup aaron levie is right, box is up 25% in the past three months. pull back the chart 2020 was a different story, finished up 7% and under performed some rivals, but also under performed the market

after your question about starboard wants here, there are folks who still think box is an acquisition target i was talking to one analyst last night who thought some of the more muted reaction perhaps in response to this was because, well, to the extent that box keeps hitting its targets maybe it mutes the idea that starboard will win this thing and get its candidates on the board and push for a sale we'll see what happens >> fascinating to watch the play between activists and the ceo. that's good stuff. josh lipton. cathie wood is not concerned about esg fears impacting the future of crypto we're going to explain on the other side of this break plus, watch amd, benchmark calls it a buy and says shares are trading at a level that presents opportunity. read the call and others like it only on cnbc.com/pro we're back in two minutes. ♪♪

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by renewables will bring that topic into stark relief and will encourage, we believe, an acceleration in the adoption of renewables beyond which otherwise would have taken place. >> that's's ark's cathie wood at the conference earlier in the week talking about the institutional adoption of crypto and the falloff. in addition to waiving off esg fears for the space she told investors not to fear regulation scrutiny, bitcoin is on its way and impossible to shut down. those comments not helping necessarily. still on pace to end the week below 40k, trying to hold below 37k right now, plus yesterday, david solomon at goldman sachs say he's extremely cautious and buyer beware, and kuroda of japan saying at this point it's barely used as a means of settlement >> right you've had all the comments from china over the last few weeks.

however, i do see cathie wood's point in the more regulation it's probably beneficial my key question over the last few months and as we hear bitcoin called by some of the newer generation investors, boomer coin, how do we know this isn't going to look like our grandpa's kcryptocurrency a few years from now however, how do we know it's going to be bitcoin and not ether which has seen huge gains this year and surpassed in terms of this year bitcoin's gain. >> we have to be careful about the boomer talk when talking about money. boomers have a lot of money. the dollar boomer coin, the dollar is pretty nice to have a lot of dollars in the world, despite the things people are chasing, success or failure tends to be measured in dollars. a lot of coin's out there but cathie wood's point on the

ecological impacts and the financial incentive toward greener mining especially when you have these councils forming, makes a lot of sense to me, carl i mean, i think when you see economic incentives pointing in the right directions you see systems, coalitions, best practices, deirdre, building around that. >> i'm still wondering, jon, if you call bitcoin boomer coin what would that make the u.s. dollar the senior's coin or century coin or something like that. anyways, how would you feel about being able to pay to control parts of another person's life? well, if you have the appetite for it, a new app is offering you the chance to do just that take a look. ♪ nowadays there's an app for almost everything from controlling the lights in your home to the locks on your doors. hailing a ride or ordering

takeout. but what about an app that lets you pay to control someone else's life? well, there's an app for that too. and new new is that new kid on the block. the control my life app is still in be hailing a ride or ordering takeout, but what about an app that lets you pay to control someone else's life? well, there's an app for that, too. it is the new kid on the block the control-my-life app was created two weeks ago. it is described as a human stock market where you buy shares in the lives of real people in order to control their decisions and watch the outcome. >> some things that i feel like, oh, i'm maybe 50/50 on, it is nice to open it up to a second opinion, a third opinion, and have their voices make a difference and choose for me >> whether new new will grow old with you is yet to be seen but for indecisive folks everywhere, this app might be the easiest decision they've ever made. now, if you have been watching the show we know you have a thing for qr codes take out your phone, scan this code it will take you to a website where you can watch the full

piece and much more original digital content. jon, i just had an idea. what if we put the show on this app and we had the audience control every little move we did, would that be interesting or a little scary? i think our producer probably would say no >> on twitdter a lot of people are trying, but love the piece paying to control someone else's life i called it parenting. first, hp beating the raise of guidance, not enough to keep shares in the green. you see down there 8.5%, that following warning of more impact from the chip shortage dell same story. another beat on the top and bottom strong demand in desktop pcs and notebook dell down with 2%. more on the move orsn cnbc.com we're back in a moment

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under a billion dollars. that's for amc, game stop and virgin galactic, which are among the most shorted names according to data firm oratex. amc numbers specifically, take a look that stock surge resulted in $1.3 billion in losses for the shorts there, according to data from s3. short selling may be a part of what is driving this rally, if traders are trying to close out positions they might need to buy back the shares causing additional demand and boosting the prices amc stock has more than doubled this week, and according to s3 about 20% of its shares are sold short. that's about four times the average for the typical u.s. stock. it is also heavily traded, at least it was yesterday it was the most active stock on the new york stock exchange with nearly 700 million shares trading hands, that's about seven times its 30-day average meanwhile, mentions of amc on twitter, reddit, we're seeing it everywhere those are on the rise.

a couple of hashtags to bring you this morning #amcsqueeze and amc strong are trending this morning. back to you guys >> we have to pay attention to that stuff now, kate it is crazy. kate rooney, thanks. we'll take a break here. when we come back, who needs a bathroom when you can have a zen booth? the new installations inside amazon's warehouses when we are back at one more quick break ok, at at&t everyone gets our best deals on all smartphones.

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throwing things at me? look, as cfo it's my job to be ready for whatever's next. that's why i have my finance team, randomly hurl things at me. it's also why we use workday. it gives us insights, so we quickly pivot our strategy, people, planning, you name it. sorry, sir. i will aim straight at your next step. see that you do. would you like some coffee? workday. the finance, hr, and planning system for a changing world. ♪

reaching ama-zen the tech giant introducing minuteful practice rooms as part of the company's working well program it announced last week it is a mix of activities and exercises to help employees recharge and reenergize. it comes as we have seen power struggles over the workforce two leaders of a failed union drive in alabama barking shareholders to push the company to conduct an audit and consider workers for board seats. during amazon's annual meeting, in the vote both proposals were rejected, just like the union. carl >> guys, i'm going to defer to dee on that. it reflects on the margin, a changing face of labor relations at amazon.

>> it does they played a much bigger theme this shareholder meeting than in the past along with a few other issues like anti-competition >> yeah. guys, what a week. we packed a lot in we hope you all have a long and enjoyable memorial day weekend see you tuesday. let's get to the judge carl, thanks so much welcome to "the halftime report." i'm scott wapner, front and center this hour the hunt for new highs. now sitting on the doorstep of new records, are we about to make the next move higher? we debate it with the investment committee. joining me for the hour. stephanie link, jason snipe, jon najarian, josh brown along today as well. good to see everyone on this friday look at the markets here the dow has been up five of the past six s&p, three of the past four. so we have a little bit something going here ten-year note yield at 1.59. josh, i said it. we made it through may so much for the sell in may and go away because the s&p was up .8%