commissions being at zero, the biggest barrier to entry is taken away, and so, you know, all those things combined, i think the education and the youth are the two biggest underestimated things there. >> j.j., we are out of time, but we will see you back here soon >> thank you >> thanks, becky have a great day. >> you too joe i'll see you back here tomorrow as well it's friday. right now set for "squawk on the street." good thursday morning, everybody. welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm david faceberfaber, jim andl have the morning off let's give ewe look at futures as we get ready to start trading one-half hour from now we are set up for what appears to be a higher open. we've had a lot of that lately our road map this morning starts not with the markets but with ida's aftermath, flash floods,

tornados, the storm battering the new york tri-state area leaving at least eight dead and the region in a state of emergency. >> plus, apple easing app store rules allowing some apps to bypass apple's payment cut shares rallying ahead of the open. and covid's big box office hit, the blockbuster sequel to "top gun" delayed adding to the list of the top releases being pushed into next year. well, we're still dealing with the remnants of hurricane ida, which has been battering the northeast. it's made everybody's desk -- everybody at this desk this morning's commute a little bit ten tenuous, but we're all here, you i think perhaps leslie had the most to deal with coming from outside the city >> i had the lowest margin of error considering my commute was already the longest, and so it i think quadrupled this morning in order to get here. but it was fascinating i mean, we woke up about 4:30, went downstairs, basement flooded of course, like i think

a lot of people in the tri-state area experienced. >> you took that picture, right? >> that was about five minutes into my commute getting onto a parkway in westchester on the outskirts of new york city it was basically a river for all intents and purposes we saw cars abandoned all over the streets. we saw trees down that had t totaled cars that were abandoned on the side of the streets it was basically mayhem, even this morning after the rain stopped. you see the horror stories on social media and elsewhere all across the trit s-state area. >> that's the subway which is still not operating at anything close to normal levels in fact, none of us could get down here via the subway, which we typically use at least the streets of new york city themselves were not too bad. >> manhattan it seems like had a few hours to drain out. >> towns in new jersey a lot of flooding newark airport, central park getting 3.15 inches of rain in an hour last night. >> they said it was like a once

in 200 year flood or something along those lines. >> 500 year flood. >> well, the rainfall total was 1 in 500 we hear that a lot lately. we were talking about that last hurricane we experienced the remnants of that a few weeks ago or a week or two ago, and here we are dealing with this again >> i don't know that -- like markets too, it doesn't really conform to the long-term statistical probabilities. we have more, you know, two sigma events so to speak than you're supposed to based on how long we've been around, absolutely let's get more detail, contessa brewer for more on the remnants of ida good morning, contessa >> there's a takeaway from leslie's story about trying to get into work this morning, it is that it's going to take a long time if you have to go into the office you've got mayors and governors of multiple states saying please stay home if you can so for instance, in new york city right now, we still have major disruptions in the subway line the head of the mta says full

service should resume by this afternoon, but right now much of the mta is still shut down amtrak had suspended service this morning between philadelphia and boston. people showed up at the train station and had not been aware that their trains had actually been canceled at that moment, in philadelphia there are disruptions and cancellations to septa, new jersey transit, that all important commuter train lines to get into the city all by one line was suspended this morning because of flooding, because of downed trees and power lines and things like that. all right, let's show you one of the major ways people get into manhattan. the fdr. this is a major thoroughfare that runs up and down the whole eastern side of manhattan. it was flooded, cars abandoned, that then blocked traffic. so what i've heard this morning, and this is not just unique to new york city. this is across the region there

are people who are finding the way they normally have to get to work is blocked or they're having to change their path somehow. look at all those cars on the fdr. all right, newark. newark saw more than three inches of rain in one hour at the airport. the airport was flooded. flights were suspended there has been a partial resumption of flights this morning. if you're flying in and out of that all important united hub today, check ahead to make sure that your flight is scheduled. the airport is saying the parking lots are open but getting to the airport there may be problems because of streets that are blocked at this moment. the train station in newark and the surrounding areas we saw flooded there. look at the airport, inside the airport actually flooded and then the water rescues have continued this morning we saw rescuers out in boats they have just -- we've just learned that as rescuers are going out into neighborhoods, they're finding more bodies.

just have learned four people were found dead in a house in new jersey the death toll in new york city, the new york police department says is now eight. those rescues continue, and guys, one more note. just because the rain has cleared out does not mean that the flooding risk is over because we know that major rivers aren't expected to crest until tomorrow, so, for instance, the schuylkill river in philadelphia, that's expected to crest at ten feet above flood stage, so there are going to be bright sunny skies outside, but the flooding threat remains very real, very imminent. >> contessa, you cover insurance, of course, for us, and you cover it so well how would you characterize kind of this area and its protection against flood insurance, is this something that we could expect to see pretty significant damages that would be insured, or are people most likely going to be left on the hook here? >> now, remember that a lot of

times for flood insurance, like from a hurricane, you would need specialized flood insurance. people who live in low lying areas where they're required to have flood insurance for their mortgages may have that in place. so we'll have to wait and see how this breaks out and what it's characterized as. the wind damage was significant in some places there have been multiple tornados that touched down and trees that have come down. remember, because the ground was so saturated already, when trees come down, those are covered events from property and casualty insurance we know from analysts who cover this industry that they thought ida was about a $25 billion impact along the gulf coast. that was even before it hit the northeast. now you look at the widespread damage here, it will be significantly higher, reinsurance may kick in for a lot of these insurers in the

gulf coast state farm is the big insurer, travelers has less exposure in the gulf coast let's see how that breaks out in the northeast. and one more note here you can expect to hear this, you know, mike points out two events do not prove climate change, but the insurers themselves are saying their clients and the brokerage clients have got to pay attention to the risks that come with climate change because this is the first major hurricane of this atlantic season it has done a lot of damage. >> that's a really good point, contessa it kind of throws into whack all of the models that i'm sure they've used historically in order to assess the cost for insurance. thank you for joining us today, for staying on this important story. now we also have some more video from this morning's commute just speaking about kind of the lives in danger we saw a lot of cars that were kind of left abandoned we saw some very heavy moving water, even just this morning. so it's pretty remarkable just

the fact that even though the rain has stopped, you know, six, seven, eight hours at this point, just the aftereffects as contessa was mentioning, it's going to take hours, if not days, for that water to truly rese recede in some of these areas that truly are not used to experiencing this type of weather, guys. >> yeah, you don't know the overall impact, people who weren't really coming to work, it wasn't necessarily a regular week so maybe people can just sort of extend the weekend we can sort it all out. >> i hope so. we enter today's session with apple and alphabet trading at all time highs. we're joined by d.a. davidson and company managing director and senior research analyst tom forte. thank you for being here on this day. can you give us a big picture sense of what's going on with big tech right now what's going on in terms of sentiment, and really just the

shrugging off of any type of risk or negative news that seems to be, you know, affecting this sector >> sure, so when i look at it in a company by company basis i think for google, investors are warming up to the fact that google owns the most valuable video being youtube. when you think about the advertising revenue they can generate on youtube and their relatively favorable margin versus netflix, i think that's what's driving google, in addition to the fact that i lapping easy compares when you think about the pressure on digital advertising at the start of the pandemic. and for apple, i think that the advantage of a multiyear upgrade cycle for their most important products being the iphone. i do think that investors are shrugging off the antitrust regulatory risk for both, which i do think is meaningful and something we're following k closely. >> now, tom, it seems like investors are also shrugging off

this idea that it's allowing some apps to kind of bypass their app store fee. this news out this morning that allow some of the apps, including netflix to provide links to their websites for user payments which allows them to kind of get around that 30% app store fee that's become a little bit more controversial investors don't seem to be a re reacting to that this morning. >> i agree with you that investors are not looking and reacting to that that's a good question on why. my thesis is that over time that 30% commission that apple collects from the app store could decline to a lower number such as 10%. i think maybe the hope from some investors is that if apple can make adjustments on its own, it won't require the government to step in and maybe come up with a more onerous solution for apple. i think it's curious that investors are giving the stock a path on that important development. >> tom, real quick just to come back to valuation about these names. where are we mainly both coming

off of incredible quarters, top line and bottom line growth. where are we on multiples? >> yep, so apple's still trading at a premium multiple to where it has historically given that it was able to achieve a higher multiple on the higher margin non-hardware revenue and google i think is more reasonably on a valuation basis versus historical. again, it's benefitting from the rebound in digital advertising >> all right tom forte, thank you for joining us >> my pleasure, thank you. >> keeping an eye on both those stocks, of course, this morning as well as they hit new potential highs. coming up, though, ford is due out with monthly auto sales just a few minutes from now plus, what cathie wood tweeted about autos late last night. take a look at futures as we get you ready for an opening bell about, let's call it 17 or so minutes from now more "squawk on the street" straight ahead

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dealers is there are a number of buyers out there who they would like to buy, but they're not seeing the supply that they're looking for, so as a result, i wouldn't call it a buyer strike, but i think what we're seeing in the market right now is definitely a number of people who are saying i want to buy, but i'm not just going to buy to buy. i'm going to wait until i can get what i'm looking for so it's a bit of a chicken and egg situation. we'll get the ford numbers here shortly. we expect them to be negative as they were for all of the automakers yesterday the industry sales pace, 13.1 million vehicles for some perspective in terms of how much the market has fallen off over the last four months, the pace of sales in april was 18.5 million so it's down, what, 25, 30% in terms of a pace of sales in just four months. and again, this is largely because the automakers just do not have the supply of chips to not only meet the current demand, but also restock their

inventory. >> all right, so ford, the f-150 pickup production is where now and what are our expectations? just give us some perspective here, phil, where they were and where they are >> well, they're not meeting their -- what they forecasted originally i don't have the exact percentage, david, but i can tell you this, yesterday the company said that the f-150 plant in kansas city, which has been shut down thelast two weeks is going to be shut down next week as well. and then you've got the f-150 plant in dearborn, michigan, going down to one shift. so there is clearly a restricted number of these vehicles that are being built, and i know from talking with ford dealers they've got people who are saying i want an f-150 do i have to order it and then wait and in some cases they do. when you're ordering and waiting right now, it's going to be a lengthy wait because the backup in terms of the ability to get the chips and to complete these vehicles, it's there, and it's real, and it's going to last for some time. >> phil, i have to ask you about

this cathie wood tweet from last night where she talked about how auto buyers, the decline in auto sales is really due to this idea that buyers are abandoning gas powered vehicles in favor of electric is that the sense you're getting based on kind of the itemized demand you're seeing in the market >> no, that is not the sense that i'm get ting if you read her tweet carefully she mentions the chip crisis, and she says it is a real impact in terms of what's happening with auto salesm she also says i wonder what is happening as she says people are abandoning gasoline powered vehicles for electric vehicles she doesn't say immediately, says over a long period of time. it is going to happen, but it's not going to happen immediately. as far as a percentage of sales, guys, being up, it's up like 30% for evs. we're coming off a really low

base we're just not seeing the numbers that would support her saying people are abandoning ice vehicles at this point. >> i think we got the number from ford. i don't know if you had a chance to review them >> there you go. >> i'm seeing them come up here. >> 124,176 units >> and remember, david, august is typically -- august is typically one of the busiest months of the year for automakers the sales, if they're not at the top, they're close to the top. typically we see a sales pace of 16 to 17 million vehicles, sometimes it's closer to 17, maybe 17.5 million vehicles. we're nowhere close to that, and that's why you have what we have right now. there's just no inventory. and as a result, drive around to a dealership sometime. look at how much empty space there is on the lot right now. that's because there's just not the supply. >> yeah, certainly being down 5

million units at an annual rate for north american sales has not accounted for a few thousand going towards tesla. texas governor greg abbott, he'll be on "squawk on the street" in the next hour we'll be right back. hey lily, i need a new wireless plan for my business, but all my employees need something different. oh, we can help with that. okay, imagine this... your mover, rob, he's on the scene and needs a plan with a mobile hotspot. we cut to downtown, your sales rep lisa has to send some files, asap! so basically i can pick the right plan for each employee... yeah i should've just led with that... with at&t business... you can pick the best plan for each employee and only pay for the features they need.

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from the things you touch to the air you breathe. today, more than 100,000 of us are innovating to ensure spaces are more efficient, healthier and safer. abm. making spaces healthier for you. wall street back to work, my guess is most virtual today, brought on by the remnants of hurricane ida. let's go to seema mody for more. >> good morning, people are slowly returning to work here on wall street, but the torrential rain overnight resulting in a travel nightmare for so many transportation remaining a key challenge getting to and from work after multiple subway

stations across manhattan were flooded and a number of lines and trains remain suspended or delayed. so that board meeting you're expected to attend at 9:30 a.m. eastern, perhaps that gets pushed back at 10:30 a.m. or later. this of course has raised some fresh concerns around how vulnerable new york's public transportation system is to extreme weather events to what we saw last night. new york city transit is expected to be a big beneficiary of the $1 trillion infrastructure bill, which continues to be debated in washington mta, which operates new york subways is expected to receive around $10.7 billion in federal funding, so we'll see if the weather events over the last 24 hours impacts those talks if at all. speaks of travel, traffic continues to build in and around the city, a number of people telling us on their commute in today that they walked or biked into work. you can take uber or lyft, but it is getting expensive.

i tried to book a car about an hour ago from outside of the new york stock exchange. it cost around 65 to $85 surge pricing is certainly kicking in that's actually come now down to around $45 for some individuals we spoke to in the financial community who came in to work today, they no longer have the luxury of working from home. a number of traders we spoke to, market makers. they don't have that infrastructure they were given from that company this time last year that's no longer available in their home office. so they had to come back to work, and that's exactly what they're doing today. david. >> all right, seema, thank you see many mowdy of course speaking to wall street. we've got an opening bell less than six minutes away. we're going to talk a lot of stocks stay with us

shares of chewy down sharply in premarket trading, posting a wider than expected quarterly ross and missing on revenue. here's what chewy's ceo had to

say yesterday on "closing bell" about the company's website traffic. >> q2 traffic was flat to a little bit own, but traffic to chewy's website, to our platforms were actually up 20% that tells you two things. one, that the consumer influence to our platform, and their buying behaviors are strong. secondly, it tells you that we're actually picking up share from a market that actually is reeling from kind of the -- you had the highs of the last year >> yeah, i mean, picking up share probably no doubt for the rest of the pet supplies industry, but just not quickly enough you see the stock indicated down 9% this stuff peaked at 120 you've lost a third of your value. it very much is in that category to have companies that were in a fast-growing part of the economy in e-commerce, you want to talk about zoom or all the rest of it, that got an acceleration effect during the pandemic, also just a huge, you know, pet adoption, everything going on, and now what's the real run

rate prove that it wasn't just a pull forward and a surge. >> you're trying really hard not to say tailwind. i know you really wanted to, but no, i think what's interesting here is it kind of is this microcosm of what we're seeing across the board in retail, the higher labor costs, that affected their bottom line you've also got issues on the supply chain they specified what dog food is being something that they were unable to source as effectively. clearly those types of issues are not limited to brick and mortar retailers but also e-commerce as well. >> mike, as we count down to want opening bell here, i'm keeping an eye on the mega caps as we have all week. we talked to apple and google at the top of the show with tom forte briefly. alphabet i should say approaching that $2 trillion market value also noticed nvidia shares have had a surge of late, not quite in that top tier it is $560 billion in market value. one of the great performers oaf

over the last few years and a favorite of my colleague jim cramer >> beyond the faang super growth favorites, you know, tesla's been acting very well too. it's also right in that sub trillion dollars range we have had a perking up of the old nasdaq trend, about a year ago today actually in terms of out performance. >> hereat the opening bell at the nyc, we open up the stocks real estate investigation company site centers and at the nasdaq, quipt, home medical. we do have a lot of green on that report. come back to that theme that you were discussing. tesla still up only 4% this year, but a bit of life, and i did again notice nvidia right back towards those highs because it had backed up for just a bit. it seems to be somewhat relenting in its moves higher over time. >> netflix has gone vertical in

the last few days. again, sideways, hadn't had any outperformance it seems as if -- we've had this little phase where economic data are falling a little short of estimates. the jobless claims today were pretty good, pretty much on target it sort of kept a lid on this move in treasury yields stuck around the 13 area, and it seems like we're back to that muscle memory of we buy the growth stocks when that happens it's the low and slow environment. yesterday's rally did kind of wobble over the course of the day. we're in this pre-holiday late summer period where it doesn't seem like there's brand new themes emerging. you see risk appetit appetitappo percolating. >> you do tend to kind of see this before non-farm payrolls come out due tomorrow. this is something that's going to be very much one that we pay attention to given its importance with regarding monetary policy these days, but you know, kind of this wait and

see activity, faang tends to really benefit from that because people see that rightly or wrongly as a byway to kind of pa growth without being too risk centered. >> sure. and the question is is it kind of a market where you can win two ways in the sense of, look, if the numbers aren't great, then we know that the fed will look for an excuse to go slower and you can hide in the growth stocks although, if you go the other direction and people start to think that it's game on for the fed, and we're going to have to be getting into taper mode, if the cyclicals are the thing to run, then it doesn't always help the indexes because the indexes are so heavy in the big growth stocks that's your tradeoff. >> another market theme or story we've been following for quite some time of course is the continued pace of regulation from china over many of its companies, many of which, of course, have listed here or certainly raised capital in our markets as well. no letup so far. you got more on the ride hailing companies, although it does not

appear to be impacting shares of dae dee. we -- didi we've had a significant, p pinduoduo being down 5% this morning. didi just reversed course when i was looking at it moments ago it actually had been up the transport ministry, which is the internet watchdog and other regulators on wednesday ordered 11 ride hailing platforms by year's end to stop unfair practices such as recruiting unli unlicensed drivers that was a statement published thursday morning in beijing. of course they're well ahead of us more coming at the ride hailing platforms. as we say many times, many investors who continue to hang on here or have nogotten she lal shell aked over a period of months now so far no end in sight.

>>st it's interesting because in speaking with investors, and i know you have these conversations daily as well. you get two schools of thought the there's this one camp that people feel it's basically uninvestable, and there's this other school of thought that believes china's not going to let these companies fail they're major employers in the country. they're major beacons for pride and the consumers use those products squaring those things on a day-to-day basis is really, really difficult i don't know anyone who has a perfect model that's able to fully encapsulate all of that nuance that's been going on. >> not at all. alibaba we should mention, one of the top companies in china and certainly the first that we all remember having listed here at the new york stock exchange and one of the largest listings of all time, it's launching ten major actions to promote common prosperity, expects to invest $15.5 billion by 2025 towards

that goal of common prosperity we all share that goal i guess as well, we're planning on investing towards it. >> i want you guys to succeed as much as myself common prosperity. >> heading in that direction. >> communist party behind you too. >> i had a people daily in china, president xi this morning saying china will set up a stock exchange in beijing and build it for a major base for innovative small and medium-sized firms this is at a trade summit. the economic nationalism, we want to keep capital here. we want to have more direct control over where research and investment dollars go, very strong theme running through all t this. >> the spate of companies coming public here right at the nyc and listing on the exchange and raising capital here was very impressive >> every day it seemed like, chinese education company or something. >> or another part of their

economy, and that has stopped. >> that has ground to a halt >> that has stopped. so she has got perhaps what he was hoping for in terms of them keeping the capital at home. wanted to move on to a deal i mentioned earlier this week. there was a journal story of course detailing the likelihood that baxter would acquire hill-rom, what we told you was the price, 156 all cash and that it would come later in the week, and thankfully that was the case this morning baxter did announce it's acquiring hill-rom. it's a global medical technology leader it's 156 bucks a share in cash, total enterprise value about 12.4 total equity, 10.5 bill, and you know, the question now as you're seal hill rom shares are up. you may need china approval coming back to that. that always figures very prominently in the assessment of the risk for any of these deals once they're announced and given the size of their business there, it does seem

likely they'll need china approval this could take anywhere from as much as 7 to 11 months there is a chance for a second request on antitrust, although it is not expected to be a pros problem. antitrust these days is always an issue for any deal of any size frankly given the ftc and lina khan certainly and the doj as well. perhaps we talk a lot about tech but also in pharma and this area as well. >> and hill-rom is a data collector as well. they have this high-technology you would expect that would be under additional scrutiny as well as part of this deal. you bring up a very good point the regulation has made deal flow much stickier especially as it pertains to aspects of cross border as well as antitrust. it seems like this one will certainly be in the cross hairs there. >> we'll see they're talking early 2022, and again, but these days those who at least take a look at these things are playing it quite conservatively >> wanted to quickly take a

look, the biggest loser in the s&p to start off is hormel foods. the company did have its results, pretty much matched estimates. another food company that was downgrading its outlook in terms of sales and margins going forward. yesterday was campbell's the stock bounced because it had really been very weak going into the print, but there's this real separation going on where specifically the food companies, the traditional food companies are really having evacuations compressed here relative to things like personal protects like p&g and colgate, 22, 24 times earnings hormel's not quite as cheap but they're much cheaper if you remember back in the pantry loading days of 2020, there was this line of these companies saying, you know what people are rediscovering our products they're kind of reestablishing their affections for our brands.

maybe there's some truth in that, but it seems as if right now there's a big hangover effect of a lot of people had great years last year in this industry, and now they're dealing with the cost side in things and a slowdown in demand. hormel down something like just under 2% right now. >> makes sense i stocked up on all those foods, and guess what, they're still fine they don't go bad. you don't need to keep buying them. speaking of a big mover today, apple really having some pretty strong performance, 1.3%, which for a $2.5 trillion company is significant we of course talked to tom forte earlier in the hour about some of the tail winds that company has been experiencing, and so you know, despite news that would indicate they could be feeling some margin pressure, investors seem to be shrugging it off and sending a stock upward today. >> halo effect of all these little incremental like new features and you know, driver's license in your wallet it's stuff that doesn't necessarily filter directly through to the numbers, but.

>> gets investors excited. >> creates a sense there's a lot going on there. >> that quarter, and again, 81.4 billion in revenue. i still come back to those numbers. it was a 36% increase in revenue, 39.6 billion in foam. up 50% in iphone sales and made over $21 billion in income that was last quarter. didn't get that much of a response, but you can see just last week it's been responding >> but you know how it works with apple, of course. it's going to be this big launch quarter for the iphone and the sales numbers are kind of through the roof, and then you're going to quickly dial ahead to the new fiscal year starting and it's going to be tough comparison so if i look at, you know, september 2021 fiscal year sales supposed to be $365 billion for apple. 378 next year, that's not much growth but apple's been able to

engineer through those very, very well. that has to be the story going into next year. i want to do a story that's not stock market related but one that is important in the business community and one we've been following for quite some time i'm talking about had wwhat is the official settlement between purdue pharma and the court and the plaintiffs and states. they have reached that roughly $4.5 billion bankruptcy settlement it will shield the owners or the former owners of purdue, members of the sackler families, lawsuits that would accuse them for contribute to the opioid epidemic this has been a long time in the making, perhaps not any one side overly happy with it, but all signing on at this point and it will provide a lot of fund to deal with what unfortunately is a rising epidemic, certainly in part because of the pandemic. it has exacerbated the problems, opioid deaths, i believe this

year are at an all time high i did speak to steve miller. he's the company's chairman who is cobbling this together. of course he has a long history in sort of restructuring we had an opportunity to talk back in march when this was first announced as a possibility, long before it got to the finish line here's what he had to say about the settlement itself as pr proposed at the time >> this is a milestone in public health history never before have you seen this amount of money, $10 billion being devoted to opioid abatement. i think when people think about it, they will come around to the notion, well, i might have liked something slightly different, but thisis certainly a lot be better than going into endless costly litigation that may end up with no proceeds going to anybody. >> that argument apparently winning the day with many of the states signing on. and again, the agreement to actually allow the sacklers to basically allow further lawsuits.

>> the judge of course saying that the $4.5 billion settlement was actually not enough, that he believed it should have been much more, but because the sackler family has so much parked in offshore accounts, they weren't able it acto accest and get a higher number for victims here as you mentioned, it's certainly not a result that either side seemed happy with it. >> purdue will continue in business and the profits will and or what is produced will go towards this as well so it's almost operating as a not for profit. >> annuity >> yeah. it's quite a story and quite a sad fstory. let's get to bob pisani. >> the endless bid continues people are amazed but every day there's an endless bid this was a very nice open. i know it doesn't seem that way. three to one advancing to declining stocks with no particular market mover. that's a nice open, and it's broad. i've been telling you there's been some complaints about some

of the traders, the breadth of the market is narrowing a little bit. they don't like that, energy stocks up, industrials up, tech up, health care, heck, that's most of the market right there you've got your cyclicals, your growth stocks moving, everything the only thing that hasn't been participating is bank stocks bank stocks have been sideways for a long time now. you can't get a tremendous amount of loan growth or a tremendous amount of interest rate acceleration from that particular sector. the earnings are just about over, but i just want to highlight cig nit. this is a very interesting story. nobody quite expected the numbers to be as strong as they are, we know of course jewelry bounced back nicely but not quite as nice as this kind of numbers here signet is up big, not only did they beat, they raised the guidance and the comp store sales were off the chart, tremendous up 97%. signet was $6 at the bottom last year, $6 now you do the math on that.

the s&p doubled since the bottom in march 2020. signet's up 1200% essentially since then there's one of the big winners here's what's interesting, look at the earnings situation. you talk about revenge spending, the company had, of course, a decent 2019. you see that big drop in 2020 to $2.11. look at this number for 2021, $7.23. that's an astonishing comeback that is revenge spending 2022, the estimates are lower. that's because everybody's anticipating that people are going to go out and travel more, dieb more, and there's going to be less spending on jewelry. maybe, we don't know maybe as this extends a little bit further, people will continue to spend. that number, $7.23. that's pretty darn comimpressive elsewhere, very interesting data from charles schwab in their trading in their brokerage accounts within their retirement accounts this is a good look at how quasi

active trade rers aring ie doine the average act up 22% in the last year. the average trades, they do about one a week that's not terribly active it's not inactive, but it isn't day trading ing and they only hd 12 positions on average. they love tech stocks. the most popular stocks in these accounts at schwab are apple and tesla and amazon interesting, nio shows up also as number six. that's kind of curious there is some interest in some out of the way stocks like electric vehicle stocks. in terms of who's got the most money, there's no surprise, the baby boomers have the most money in their accounts. these millennials are not exactly poor look at this, michael, $103,000 from millennials in their schwab accounts that's one-fifth of the baby boomers, but considering they're 29 to 40 not bad so even millennials are doing pretty well in this situation.

>> maybe not as well as prior generations did at that age, but they're catching up it would seem at an accelerated rate with this market. bob, thank you. still to come, texas governor greg abbott it's an interview you will not want to miss. let's take a look at how treasuries are faring this morning as we await friday's key jobs report for august bond yields are pretty much lower across the board modestly so. the ten-year note just below 1.3% we'll be right back. ♪i got it, you got it♪ ♪i want it, you want it♪ ♪when i want it, you've got it♪ ♪when you want it, i got it, i got it, yeah♪ ♪when they want it♪ ♪we got it, yeah♪ ♪

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the street." we were just talking about this earlier this hour, but for more on china's latest crackdown on tech, let's get to our eunice eun live in beijing with the details. >> well, china has summoned 11 ride-hailing companies, including didi, to have a discussion about rectifying unfair practices and change them by the end of this year. the transport ministry along with other regulators said that

the companies need to improve worker conditions as well as pricing for drivers and address unhealthy competition and disturbing market order. now, this directive comes as companies generally have been scrambling to try to adhere to beijing's new guidelines for example, tonight alibaba confirmed to us that local media report that they are going to invest 100 billion, $15.5 billion by 2025 to support president xi jinping's common prosperity goal. a lot of that money goes to support smes and farming and also shutting down accounts that have been getting stock tips to their millions of followers in line with new rules to silence accounts that, quote, bad-mouth the chinese financial markets as well as economic policies this also comes as china today

said it's going to crack down even harder on show business, especially celebrities if they find out that they have been evading taxes, and then, finally, of course,the backdro of all of this has also been that a lot of companies have been very restricted in looking for a place to ipo and now president xi jinping tonight had -- well, the state media was reporting a speech that he made vowing to strengthen china's stock exchanges. in fact, not only, he said, is he going to deepen reforms for the new third board, which is a board that is generally for some smes and smaller companies, he is also going to set up a beijing stock exchange so this beijing stock exchange, according to the stock market regulator, is going to make beijing a center for innovative smes so there hasn't been a lot of detail, but the stock market regulator says it's very excited to fully implement president

xi's orders. >> very excited? okay eunice, very much appreciated. thank you. eunice yoon in beijing for us. another look at the s&p 500, which has hit another record high we have a lot more "squawk on the street" for you straht ead.ig municipal bonds don't usually get the media coverage the stock market does. in fact, most people don't find them all that exciting. but, if you're looking for the potential for consistent income that's federally tax-free, now is an excellent time

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viacom, paramount studio dae lying a ter of tom cruise films amid concerns about the pandemic outbreak it has been moved to 2022. that was the date that "mission: impossible 7" was set to debut that film now released next year september 30th have to wait more than a year for my next "mission: impossible." tom cruise does incredible stunts. >> we have waited 35 years for the next "top gun." >> that comes out in eight months what if they delay it again? >> something i asked bob about, the cre of viacom, when he joined us back on august 5th after the company's earnings in terms of the changing release dates and the way, frankly, all of the distribution of movies is changing here's what he had to say. >> we are all living in this

covid world and so we are looking title by title on what we should do considering really all of the constituents involved so you will see us continue to have a variety of release strategies in this covid time, but in general we do like the 45-day fast follow model >> 45 days you get it first and then it's on paramount plus or another direct to consumer platform viacom shares, by the way, are up not that much. love that tom cruise. >> all right he seems to really want his movies in theaters for sure. coming up, texas governor greg abbott. don'gonyert awhe.

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indeed you do. indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. visit indeed.com/hire good thursday morning. welcome to another hour of "squawk on the street. i'm morgan brennan with david faber and mike santoli carl has the morning off just getting a check on the market with a lot of green arrows the manl averages all move higher still in a tight trading range the s&p a new record high, up 0.3% h the dow also up about 98 points. factory orders are out just a

moment ago, and rick santelli has that for us as well. rick >> thank you, leslie yes, our july read on factory orders up 0.4 of 1%. that's better than expectations, but it's definitely lagging. in the rearview mirror up 1.5, weakest since april when it was minus 110. we know why. a lot of issues affecting manufacturing, issues on supply chain. august auto sales weren't very solid, so you can see how leading in from july we continue to see these weaker trends and if you strip out transportation, there is a marked improvement so we could see how airlines and airplanes and aerospace enter into this. it's up 0.8 of 1%. july final on durable goods at minus one-tenth of 1% which is the same as the mid-month read if we look at ex-transportation

on durables, the same effect it pops up to up 0.8 as well finally, capital goods orders non-defense ex-airport a proxy for business spending, had a goose egg in the mid-july read now 0.10 of 1% now up 0.9 of 1% morgan barks back to you. the markets more broadly the s&p and nasdaq notching new record highs joining us vance howard at howard capital management and ben menle, head of portfolio strategy at etaw vance, the fact that we are at record highs here for the s&p and the nasdaq, better than expected jobless claims this morning, a lot of focus on the jobs report tomorrow morning as well your take at these levels? >> we're very bullish and we love new highs because an etf a

stock, you can't double in value without hitting new highs. new highs should be celebrated and embraced they are so much more fun than new lows, right? >> fair enough ben, i want your take, as i look through your notes here, you say the peak growth market narrative is a fallacy why? >> well, i mean, it's really the stock in trade of a bearish market view, this idea of peak growth in other words, the main impulse fundamentally is behind us and it's downhill from here. that idea i think is flatly wrong in this environment. you can go back in history and find plenty of examples of being from 3% growth to 2% growth and there is legitimate concern that you are pushing stall speed and the economy will decelerate even more in this instance here, we are going from 12% growth to 6% with consensus showing 5 to 6% u.s.

gdp growth next year and the other reason, as you look at the growth outlook and dined of the history of high growth/early cycle type of dynamics, there is a tendency to underestimate how long the recovery takes so this idea of pushing growth out even past the middle of next year to be substantially above trend at least needs to be acknowledged so that's the fundamental underpinning for corporate earnings and equities here that i think your default position over that period is to lean into risk, and that's how we are positioned. >> okay. vance, i know you mentioned new highs. much more fun than new lows. that being said, it is those big megacap tech names have been some of the biggest outperformers, so-called faang stocks and the like in recent weeks as well. is there still room to run there, or would you be focusing

on other areas of the market >> i would not there is a lot of room to run with big tech. i think it's going to be wonderful. the last couple of quarters this year i think will be very positive our by lines clearly the mathematical calculation on which way the market is going, we are bullish on large tech you should be buying on pull back and adding to your winners. continue to make the cash register ring. >> ben, you mentioned that this idea of seeing moderating growth from peak levels is maybe a little bit of a head fake in terms of an overall market call, but does it not tend to, throughout history, tell you that the market itself might be either downshifting or migrating away from those stocks most leveraged to the snap back to growth to other types. how positioning-wise do you look to steer in this current moment in the cycle? >> yeah. and i think underneath that question is this idea of valuations, you have this wide

spectrum of valuations in the market if we are looking at regions, we look at china as being an em in general, relatively cheap. s&p and then within s&p tech as being relatively expensive it depends what your timeframe is for putting together a portfolio. if you are putting together a strategic allocation for 10, 15 years, load up on the cheap stuff and underweighting the expensive stuff. that's not how it works over the next quarter or year, however. sometimes things are expensive -- sorry, sometimes things are cheap for a reason and sometimes things are expensive for a reason, and that's exactly what we are seeing in terms of the dynamics with tech and the dynamics with emerging markets we see significant headwinds vis-a-vis emerging markets over the next few months and maybe up to the next year it seems like all the primary macro risks are stacked against emerging markets versus

developeding markets the near term asset allocation we favor demerging over equities tech, can you get comfortable with expensive tech valuations i think the answer is yes to that as well in the near term. if there is not a full-throated reflation trade that takes place where rates are pushing up and values are outperforming growth, which i think we are in a high growth, not necessarily deflation redux, you could get comfortable with those tech valuations where they are. >> vance, you certainly sound very bullish you rely, it seems, on technical factors, perhaps fundamentals as well is there anything on either one of those fronts that would change your opinion given you have the opportunity in some of your funds i see to go to a lot more cash that you currently have >> yeah. like you said, we are bullish, very bullish we trade a mathematical system as long as the by-line is

positive, we will stale bullish. but this is a great bull market. there is a tremendous amount of cash on the sideline to keep fueling this hieng higher and higher and higher. think about this there is a lot of indexer that want to buy the index funds and that's great and that means every day every week every month newnan is coming into big teng it gives you a decent floor there. i think you've got to take the emotion out and trade what is actually happening a great bull market. great stocks doing great things and making a lot of money continue to push your winners. >> vance and ben, thanks for joining us this morning. >> thank you all right. let's get over to contessa brewer now remnants of hurricane ida battered the northeast last evening. >> david, the death toll is rising as daylight has come and now we have crews going outdoor to door checking on people in new york and new jersey. the total as it stands right now 14 people who have died, mostly because of flooding in this

case i want to take you to a suburb of philadelphia, to bridgewater, pennsylvania the nbc helicopter is up overhead what we're seeing here is widespread water damage. this is near the king of prussia maul in philadelphia you can see just how much water they were inundated in this was a historic rain event in new york city all of that rain, and remember central park got more than 3 inches in one hour yesterday, shattering records. what we saw is that it created lingering mass transit problems. so even this morning, even as subways start to resume service today, there are still widespread disruptions on those lines. and then the regional transit in new jersey and the mta, the train lines that go north and west of the city have been disrupted. in newark, new jersey, there were also massive flooding problems at the airport in

newark newark reported 3 inches of rain or more than that in less than an hour, and the flooding actually went into the terminals themselves they had suspended all flights some of those flights have resumed this morning for limited service, but again the airport has sent out alerts saying you may have trouble even getting to the airport because of blocked roads because of flooding and downed trees there are problems on the fdr. the fdr is -- it was essentially a parking lot where people had abandoned cars in the flooding that's the massive thoroughfare that runs up and down the eastern side of manhattan and all of that water with people just leaving their cars, if they had stalled, trying to get out of the floodwaters' way. so a real problem there. and then the last piece of video that i wanted to show you, and this is just coming in to us at cnbc -- oh, we don't have it we know that there is such widespread flooding that there are major metropolitan areas in

new jersey that are swamped with water at this point, and that the rescue crews are going out, guys, and still finding people who need hem help. >> it's just -- the damage appears to be so broad certainly those of us who live in the new york m&a got a firsthand look at it as well i have video from my future brother-in-law who is a first responders, a firefighting with the fdny, northbound on the paychex in lower westchester county in yonkers, new york, last night he got stuck in this thankfully, he got home safe. he helped another traveler who was stranded his car was submerge get home, too we are already seeing 15 billion, 20 billion, $25 billion estimates put on the damage from hurricane ida down in the gulf region where insured losses are concerned. the fact that we are seeing this type of damage sweep through the northeast, which is so populous

as well, what could the potential impact be to not only the property casualty insurers, but also the reinsurers? >> and what we're going to see is already just in louisiana there was some expectation that the reinsurance would kick in because you would have the insurers hitting their limits on catastrophe spend. but what happens in the northeast, and morgan, you have covered insurance, you know this, people are caught off guard. they live now in areas that were not typically prone to flooding. and when rivers rise and you get flooded, it's a different kind of coverage that's required than if the rain gets in because there is roof damage or things like this that so what happens here is that some of the people may get insurance coverage if they have proper insurance on their homes. they may see coverage because of the wind damage, because of trees into roofs

we know that there were tornados there were multiple tornados that were confirmed in maryland, in new jersey, and elsewhere but the real question is, as these rivers rise, and remember the schuylkill in philadelphia, the delaware river, those are not supposed to crest until tomorrow that kind of flooding requires a different kind of insurance. usually, flood insurance is required, and a lot of people live in areas that traditionally didn't require mandatory flood insurance. >> contessa, be a while before we have it sorted out. thank you for helping us out. notre dame, meantime, seeking u.s. authorization for the covid baht meg tirrell has the latest >> hey, mike moderna said it started its application for the booster dose of the covid vaccine this will be a half dose, 50 micrograms scared with the 100 dose level for the first two shot they said they tested this with

344 people, saw robust antibiotic responses of more than 40 times against the delta variant. so this goes to the fda ahead of that september 20th timeframe that the white house and its health advisors put out as the week they plan to start offering booster doses broadly to the general population yesterday the fda's advisory committee set a date of september 17th that's the friday before that week to meet to discuss pfizer's and biontech's booster dose. that application coming in at the end of august for that vaccine. and so we'll hear that public hearing about boosters guys, this could be a really interesting discussion because not all of the fda advisors believe that booster doses are actually needed right now because the vaccines appear to hold up so well against severe disease. so it will be a very interesting meeting. we will see if they vote in favor of this and that puts the regulatory process in place to start this and then we will see how they handle moderna's application as well, which is just starting to come in.

malik johnson folks might be a little bit further mbehind as we need to see the data and the j&j shot that started rolling out a little later than these two. guys >> thank you. as we head to a quick break here, let's give you a look at the roadmap for the rest of the hour that includes the return to office trade manhattan seeing its strongest month of office leasing in more than a year. a day away from jobs friday with millions of americans set to lose their emergency unemployment benefits. and an exclusive interview with the texas governor greg abilt. don't go anywhere. re."wkn e "squa oth stet

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plus, save up to $400 when you purchase a new samsung phone or upgrade your existing phone. learn more at your local xfinity store today. companies are planning to return to office, and our next guest says softening office fundamentals have yet to result in any appreciable reduction and asking rate which are, by an large, holding firm. joining us, gil, i find that hard to believe. walking around downtown or midtown, the biggest office markets in the country and look at ibuildings i know are barely 50% filled up with employees and probably won't be anytime soon given the rise of hybrid work. how can asking rates be hanging in there so much >> good morning. well, look, i think that the numbers are focused on really effective rates, which is the rates after concessions that landlords are giving and there, there is a

significant gap, and that is how landlords are retaining, if you will, tenants, is by gig them concessions so the effective rents are coming down. the asking rents, generally speaking, have not come down or not come down if any substantial way, and i, too, am i bit surprised by that. >> what do concessions look like what are we talking about given they are not going to show up in the headline number, i guess you're saying? >> they would not. free rent for a period of time prior to the pandemic you might get one month of free rent now you might be getting six months of free rent. and, obviously, as particularly leases that are subleases are being signed, there the asking rates are coming down >> so what are your expectations i mean, there are so many different things to try to understand in terms of -- and not know in terms of what is

going to happen with the office market given the rise of hybrid work, the fact that so many work forces may be in 50, 60, perhaps 70% of the time, is your expectation there will be a lot of capacity out there for a long period of time >> i think it will take a while for things to work through the system and that's not uncommon when you have a slowdown in demand for office while there was a different reason in 2008-2 # 09, it took a while for the excess inventory to work through. once the economy starts growing again or continues to grow and grows more or gets bigger, that's usually what happens after each cycle, then that space starts to be taken up. so i think it's going to take a while. yes, there will be hybrid work we don't know exactly what that looks like generally, you hear companies talking about three days in the office, two days at home but the space is still acquired. space is being used differently

than historically. so it's not about cubes in offices but the spaces are more creative you know, you take up more space with couches and desks and things that millennials like to use. so square footage is getting used in a different way. we may see, you know, some percentage reduction in demand in the immediate -- the short to medium term and i think it will normal liz and we will be on our way but it could take a few years. >> more space per person could work in favor of building owners i suppose over time. turning to retail, gill, you mentioned that in 2021 more physical stores are being opened than goesed. i presume because so many were closed in 2020 what areas are growing we see things like the mall, real estate investment trust stocks flying. seems like people feel like this is going to be a durable comeback for physical retail >> yes so you're exactly right. we are working off a low base, right.

so there are more stores opening than closing, but 2020 was pretty severe on the other side of that coin i do think that retail is in better shape than most people think. certainly in better shape today than it was 15 months ago. we're finding that the buzzword in that space some any channel so people that buy online, consumers buy online as well as in store, and in particular they return to in store, and then maybe make an impulse purchase that's sort of what you are seeing going on in retail. certain categories, grocery stores, do it yourself stores, beauty stores, essential stores are doing quite well or starting to do quite well i think the stat is that we're only down about 10% in terms of foot traffic versus 2019 at this point. so definitely recovering in retail and learning how to do retail, if you will, in the context of the virus

>> yeah. back to office buildings to end here i wonder, what about sort of those b class buildings given this environment it wouldn't seem to be that much demand for them perhaps. are any landlords thinking about how to repurpose an office building for some other use? >> you're correct. i think there is always a flight to quality when you have a slowdown in demand and then naturally there is a thought around repurposing and things could be repurposed from anything to potentially warehouse space, to health care space, and in particular in downtowns to life science type space. so moving from what's not popular, if you will, or in high demand to what is. we will and are seeing a certain amount of repurposing for sure. >> appreciate it t thank you >> thank you well, still to come, cnbc exclusive with texas governor greg abbott. agn.s&p at record highs ai we'll be right back. stay with us

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is a. millions of americans are set to lose special pandemic unemployment benefits this weekend. steve liesman looking at potential economic impacts. >> good morning. about 10 million people stand to lose emergency unemployment benefits on september 6th. just in time for labor day the race is on for individuals in the broader kpli to replace lost government government income with employment from near term many economists think the lost revenue will win out this morning, we don't expect the end of emergency benefits to lead to an immediate jump in employment and the near term expect it will weigh more on personal income and spending total claims, that puts together regular jobless benefits and the pandemic emergency programs, still top 12 million as ever the latest data from mid-august. most of these will expire, leading to some $6 billion in weekly transfers from the federal government and state government, by the way, to individuals. andrew stettner from the century

foundation said it will have a big impact it takes time for people to find work and most people didn't start looking until they got vaccinated in april. several studies have shown that ending benefits leads to a minor increase in employment, if any at all a recent paper at columbia and harvard and elsewhere found that 25% of those who lost extended benefits found work after losing the government check they say 21% who found work when they were still receiving the check. that's a modest but statistically significant difference se the benefits still substantially higher than the average. they will be among the hardest hit. amid the outbreak of the delta variant could make it harder to find work and suggests an end to the pandemic will put more people back to work than an end to benefits will mike. >> steve, thanks very much the stakes continue to build for the jobs number tomorrow. our "etf spotlight." the online retail group.

ticker i buy tyinrying to hold n stamps.com, carvana, and doordash but watch chewy shares they are sinking this morning, reported a wider than expected quarterly loss, guidance below street consensus down about 8%. had already been down some 20, 25% from its all-time highs. after the break, don't miss the governor of texas, greg abbott we will be back in two minutes folks the world's first fully autonomous vehicle is almost at the finish line today we're going to fine tune the dynamic braking system whoo, what a ride! i invested in invesco qqq a fund that invests in the innovators of the nasdaq 100 like you you don't have to be a deep learning engineer to help make the world a smarter place does this come in blue? become an agent of innovation with invesco qqq

i'm rachelle solomon here is your cnbc news update at this hour this hour. the northeast wakes up to severe flooding, we are getting a first close-up look at what the storm did to grand isle, louisiana officials say that all of the structures on the state's only inhabited barrier island were

destroyed. video from a drone shows many homes without a roof on the positive side, the coast guard announced the port of new orleans has reopened. advocates of abortion rights says they are devastated by the supreme court's decision overnight to allow the new texas abo abortion law to remain in advance. advanced terminations after six weeks of pregnancy, the majority stressed they are not ruling on the constitutionality on the bill and that legal challenges will continue in lower courts. in virginia the supreme court says the governor can take down a statue of robert e. lee they say that 19th century restrictions on removing the statue no longer apply because they would force the state to express a message to which it no longer agrees. you are up to date back to you. >> thank you. the state of texas is the center of controversy on a number of fronts this morning. grabbing headlines for the abortion law, and this as the state works to court new players employers and jobs here to discuss texas and the

economic trajectory in a cnbc exclusive texas governor greg abbott thanks for being with us this morning. >> my pleasure, good morning. >> i want to get to the news that you are joining us about, which is some of the these new technological and innovation-based investments in your state, specifically afternoon the startup gald good you can, autonomous trucking we would be remiss if we didn't have about the topics in the news right now that have become not only the subject of debate and controversial politically and socially for corporate america as well. so so called heartbeat bill. forbes is out with a survey, two-thirds of college educated workers may avoid texas now because of this abortion ban what's your response >> so you do see some publications who try to categorize the texas business environment based upon the positions that the texas legislature takes. however, the truth of the matter

shows something completely different. the federal reserve puts out a report every single month that shows the mobility of people moving from one state to another. month after month after month, including the most recent month, shows people are choosing to move to texas more than any other state in the united states and it's not even close. and so regardless of some hand wring wringing by some publications, people not ringing their hansds are people that create jobs, run businesses that care about their daily lives and people are choosing texas over any other state, and part of that is because of our low regulations, no income tax. we constitutionally banned an income tax in the state of texas. but we have a terrific business climate, which is exactly why gaddock chose to come to texas and improve its mobile innovation so companies are choosing texas because it has the superior

business climate. >> i totally understand that and certainly texas consistently ranks high on cnbc's list of top states for business. but right or wrong, for better or worse, i mean, you have businesses that have not been shy to react to to some of these political or social topics as of late, be it whether it's the abortion situation, whether it is some of the voting laws that are being implemented. we have seen that happen in georgia. i know you are in the process of implementing voting reforms in texas that are getting a lot of attention. maybe because of work forces, maybe investors insisting on esg. aren't you worried that some major players are going to respond negatively or donation dollars in light of some of these topics >> so, first, again, we continue to see a massive influx of these employers coming into the state of texas because, candidly, not only do they like the business environment, but, morgan, you need to understand that there is a lot of businesses and a lot of

americans who like the social positions that the state of texas is taking. it's important that i congress one thing that you -- i address one thing that you raised. you raised the issue about the election integrity law that passed the texas legislature and i will be signing. if you go back when major league baseball, all-star game out of atlanta, and there was a big to-do in the state of texas between texas as well as major league baseball about that as well as big companies in the state of texas that came out and criticized the state of texas for the position that we were taking, but, morgan, this is important. when they learned the facts of what the election integrity law does in the state of texas, they realized that texas was adding more time to vote. texas was making it easier to vote than before the law passed. let me give you one quick example. that is texas has almost two weeks of early voting to make it very easy for people to vote,

and in the president's home state of delaware they have zero days of early voting so it's far easier for people to vote in texas or even in new york than it is in so many other places and so if people look at the facts, they realize, wait a second, texas really is a well governed state. >> so i just want to put a fine point on this. are you saying these policies are helping to bolster business right now? >> again, people vote with their feet and this is not slowing down businesses coming to the state of texas at all. in fact, it is accelerating the process of businesses coming to texas, particularly, interestingly, they are leaving the very liberal states of california and, i got to tell you, whether it be elon musk, who i talk to frequently, elon had to get out of california because part of the social policies in california and elon consistently tells me that he likes the social policies in the state of texas

>> so just to shift gears a little bit, covid. we're starting to see the cases have been elevated in many parts of the country, certainly in texas as well. you can argue based on the data, the rate of increases on some of those key met tricks in the state of texas potentially flat lining where do we stand in terms of cases and hospitalizations and the response and the resources that the state has available >> a couple of things real quick, morgan. that is, as you pointed out, the numbers are flat lining, if not declining. the positivity rate in texas is at a three-week low, and has steadily declined for three weeks. it's the lowest that it's been in over a month. hospitalizations are flat lining the positivity cases are flat lining so things are looking good the same thing that we have seen in the other states hardest hit like arkansas and louisiana and missouri and florida and so things, there is a

glimmer of hope about the way the things are looking in texas. but also, morgan, one thing that the state of texas is doing is we are using in these antibiotic infusion centers, we have been opening these up around the entire state of texas and these antibiotic infusion centers are doing a terrific job of reducing hospitalizations it's one of the best ways to keep people who test positive for covid out of hospitals. >> and certainly regeneron has been a major focus giving the treatments and increasing availability of them what do you attribute that flat line or potential decrease in terms of the delta spike in your state? i ask that from a policy standpoint and the fact that texas was very early in terms of reopenings, but you also implemented a ban on mask mandates and the like. >> sure. if you look at the studies globally, when delta hit israel or delta hit the u.k. or delta hit other states in the united states early, it seems like

there is a life span of advancement of the delta variant that lasted about a month or so and then you see a decline and you see this repeated from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and it looks like it's blg repeated in the state of texas also so we are anticipating to see an additional decline, as well as a lot of people with acquired immunity dr. gottlieb, who i think is a contributor on cnbc and who is also tied to pfizer, he said recently that it's extremely important for health officials to take into consideration acquired immunity and the role it plays in making sure that we slow the spread. the fact of the matter is, there is a tremendous amount of acquired immunity in the state of texas run report showed 30% of texans have acquired immunity and dr. gottlieb said that is just as powerful in being able to rappel future infections of covid as a

vaccine. with our acquired immunity, with those who have already received full vaccination, the numbers are beginning to look very good in the state of texas. >> that is very promising to hear hurricane ida hit the gulf very hard earlier this week certainly louisiana got the brunt of it. but we have seen a certain amount of oil production shuttered in what is the impact or impacts to texas, if any? >> well, first, you know, obviously, our concern and our hearts go out to the people in louisiana. but also our resources, because i instructed both the national guard, as well as the texas division of emergency management, to provide resources to help our friends and neighbors in louisiana like they frequently help us but as far as the impact on texas, it has been extremely minimal. there was no hurricane effect to the state of texas the only thing that we have seen that you all probably talk about on your show, there has actually

been a dramatic increase in the price of natural gas and that will be helping businesses in the oil and gas sector in the state of texas. >> yeah, multi-year highs. let's get back to gaddock. new autonomous trucking facility in tstate of texas it will establish a long-term presence in your state as well how does it speak to some of these innovations and newer technologies, whether in transportation and logistics or you mentioned elon musk, commercial spaceflight, texas has become a hub for that as well perhaps not surprisingly. how does it speak to those new types of businesses that you are courting >> it goes back to what we were talking about earlier, and that is texas really is becoming the leading innovation state in the united states, and we can go through the stories, morgan, that you, yourself, have reported on. there is, of course, spacex that you mention. there is blue origin, where you

were in the state of texas for that there is the gig factory also army futures command, where the future of the united states army is being built out here in downtown austin where their focus is on artificial intelligence and robotics. but now also autonomous vehicles there is the alliance texas mobility innovation joan where gat i canic is operating out of. there is a location where they have a large sector of autonomous vehicles already operating, business to business, in deliveries, whether short haul or long haul, operating from there and by the way, for the viewers, where this autonomous zone is located is also the headquarters of charles schwab. >> so this autonomous zone, i guess in terms of the data you are able to glean from there, how does it speak to how quickly potentially or slowly we could actually see of self-driving technology on the road in texas

more broadly >> so the first word you chose was the correct one, how quickly, because it is moving very rapidly because every single time one of these vehicles goes out on to the road and makes a delivery, that is software information that is being processed that will be used in the future and so the pace just continues to accelerate with every single trip that is taken some are short haul, where it may be going from the texas alliance center to a walmart store or an amazon fulfillment center or some could be long haul going from the dallas/fort worth area all the way to the city of houston. and so all of this is programmed information that just makes future travel and future trips even better and even safer so we expect this to happen at a very rapid pace. autonomous vehicles are coming very rapidly in the state of texas. >> governor abbott, we appreciate it. wide ranging interview

we tackled a lot of topics we appreciate your time. thanks for joining us today. >> thank you, morgan all right. after the break, a closer look at bitcoin's bounce. now hovering right around just under that $50,000 mark. we'll be right back. stay with us

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over bitcoin what seems to be driving it? >> what's most interesting to me for this rally is the fact that bitcoin dominance, the measure of bitcoin's market cap relative to the market cap for the rest of the crypto injury, has been this decline we are at 42 currently relative to highs earlier this year of about 70 and close to the all-time lows of 37. now, my take on this is we're seeing anincreased interest in other aspects of the crypto industry that represent a push in innovation in the smart contracts space, particularly the layer one protocols that enable the disintermediation of contracts. ethereum, solana, dot, and some lar sass as sets have seen a lot of interest. it's a clear indication that institutions are looking beyond bitcoin to other ways the industry might evolve finance going forward. and it's really interesting and i think that's where we will see a lot of growth and innovation in the next six to 12 months.

>> that interpretation implies an infrastructure play, sort of the promise, longer term of the way crypto might be able to sort of overtake and infiltrate the rest of finance. but is it also, in terms of ethereum, not drivencraze? those two aren't necessarily contradictory, but it seems like that's the headline phenomenon right now. >> yeah, it is a great observation. ethereum and other smart contract protocols sit behind the nft layer. they're what enables individuals to invest in things like nfts and we have seen the beginning in the nft space there is also other interesting things happening in terms of smart contracts and making data available to people in a decentralized way as well as other innovations. you're right to look at the upper layers and understand how those aspects of the industry are growing too. >> and you think bitcoin

dominance just continues to go lower to the point where, you know, that's just another coin >> i don't think it will be just another coin largely because bitcoin space in the crypto industry is one of store value. it is a strong inflationary hedge. particularly in the face of $4.5 trillion potentially coming back into the economy and the united states as a result of fed action, people are always going to look to bitcoin as an inflationary hedge in a store value. that said, as the industry grows, and as new projects are introduced, it is inevitable that bitcoin dominance will continue to shrink over time, because it will be just be more interest in projects beyond what we have seen in the past. >> chris, thanks a lot for the update appreciate it. >> you're welcome, great being here as we head to a break, look at the top gainers on the nasdaq for this week so far as you see the list populated by a couple

of the chinese companies that suffered as a result of the regulatory crackdown going on in that country, but rebounded a bit. netflix also on a bit of a surge lately we'll be right back. why is it the best wireless deals require a trade-in? right now, at t-mobile we're getting rid of the trade-in headache. switch and get the epic iphone 12 with 5g on us. get it on magenta max with unlimited premium data. no trade in required. no worrying about having a phone that qualifies. you can keep it or pass it down. it's that easy. unlimited premium data, iphone 12 on us and no trade in required. you won't get that from anyone else.

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shares of charge point holdings up. second quarter revenue, 56.1 million. that's higher than the last year, same quarter of course, may also be a beneficiary of the infrastructure bill, networks charging stations for evs sending some other names up as well one of the few spacs out there still well above that $10 price. we're back in a minute

everything i envisioned it would be and better. impossible to describe it unless you actually are doing it and i hope we can get thousands and thousands of people to be able to experience what we experienced today. >> that was sir richard branson speaking with me back in july, fresh off of the high of a successful trip to the edge of space and if you look at virgin galactic, those shares, they're actually taking off this morning. 4.5%, this is despite news that the faa is investigating that specific space flight, following

reports that the aircraft veered out of the designated air space midflight. virgin issuing pretty lengthy statement about that, saying we dispute the misleading characterizations and conclusions in the new yorker article and going on to say, quote, although the flight's ultimate trajectory deviated from our initial plan, it was a controlled and intentional flight path that allowed unity 22 to successfully reach space and land safely at our space port in new mexico at no time were passengers and crew put in any danger as a result of this change in trajectory they went on to note the spaceship did not travel above any population centers, did not cause a hazard to the public part of the reason the shares are trading higher today is likely the fact that the company also announced the manifest for its next space flight of spaceship 2 unity from space port america it is going to be the first commercial human tended research mission for the company, three paying crew members from the italian air force and national research council and it is going to be happening as soon as late september.

that's pending technical checks and weather. that does seem to be what investors right now are reacting to in virgin galactic stock. so there you have it i'm sorry i couldn't be with you today. but tomorrow, back at the new york stock exchange with you. >> all right, morgan, thank you. that will do it for us on "squawk on the street. want to check your tech, you say? well, "techcheck" starts now happy thursday morning, we are checking your tech welcome to "techcheck. i'm jon fortt with julia boorstin deirdre and carl have the morning off. coming up today, apple's app store concession how pressure coming from overseas is changing the rules for al