fairly good. p provisional list of issuers, they're startling to release the names that have -- they don't feel comfortable with their audits or not getting the audit inspection, access they would like that may be the reason behind it we're out of time here don't miss larry kulp on "halftime. "techcheck" starts now ♪ ♪ good thursday morning, welcome to "techcheck. i'm carl quintanilla with jon fortt and deirdre bosa today amazon delivers split with next day results what this signals for companies, investors and other big tech

names. >> disney employees says the magic has died mongodb. we have the ceo later this hour. dee? >> we'll start with the 24-1 stock split and $10 billion buyback from amazon, one of the few spots of green among tech this morning shares up nearly 5%. coming down a little bit from those afterhour peaks. it's an unusual note amazon under bezos paraded its on customer obsessed and invested nearly every dollar back into the company. profitability has come second. does this suggest a more shareholder focussed, more shareholder friendly ceo in andy jassy. stock split doesn't create any new vashlgs but how the company framed it was important. a spokesperson said that it would, quote, give employees more flexibility in how they manage their equity and make shares more accessible for people looking to invest in the company. so, jassy could be responding to

the pressure from a sagging stock price by targeting retail investors. also what that stock underperformance has meant for hiring and retaining employees as for the buyback, $10 billion represents less than 1% of the company. and any ways, it's not guaranteed they do all of it, but again it could suggest that jassy sees value here and put a greater focus on profitability and thus shareholder friendliness jon, certainly bezos is still there, still involved, but i do think that this is sort of an important shift that we are seeing from amazon and that is sort of that attention to shareholders jassy, of course, taking over at a time when regulators are circling, when there's more competition for talent and notably shares have been under pressure. >> yeah, dee i hear what you're saying. you know, shareholder friendliness is one of those terms that gets used on wall street a lot, but it reminds me of that line in the "princess bride" that word does it mean what we think it means people who have been holding

amazon shares for a long time probably feel like amazon has been pretty shareholder friendly, but i think it does call into question how much attention amazon is paying to the current level of the stock price. something that you noted, i think, or alluded to is the employee piece of this amazon even more than a lot of big tech companies tilt a big proportion of compensation of employees toward equity, toward stock. boy, if you got to sell it in almost 3,000 dollar chunks, that doesn't give you a lot of flexibility. so, perhaps for a company that's been ramping up, expanding the work force pretty quickly, and dealing with tightness in the labor force, carl, that is a consideration. but it also might signal that in 2022 and a bit beyond, they perhaps don't feel as much pressure to spend on overtime, on covid mitigation, things that were really, really expensive.

maybe they feel they have their arms around the scope of that expense and can therefore afford to do things like this with their cash >> yeah. that's certainly the view from some on the street today obviously does allow you to deal with your stock based comp with more flexibility, but maybe it does sort of usher in a period where the hard lifting -- investing to meet the demands of covid, jon, to get hyper fast delivery times is coming to an end and starts to be a sharper focus on profitability. >> and hey, jon, do we dare say that this is day two at amazon is that such a bad thing they may look at other stake holders? >> they are very fond of day one and saying it's still day one. up to you as the investors out there to determine what day you think it is for amazon, but they even named their headquarters day one. day two, that's like an insult to them. >> i know, i know. i don't mean it as an insult could be a positive.

>> i know you don't. but we can dare say it but don't expect to hear it out of seattle. sticking with stock splits dom chu more on the historic impact for big tech, specifically apple historically. dom? >> so i guess i was listening intently to the conversation and a lot of this focus on amazon and the stocks, but might be because what it could do is promote that retail investor coming in a little more, that liquidity being brought in and just to that point, i was checking an online brokerage on amazon trading shares right before i got on air right now, and the bid ask spread on a roughly $3,000 stock is very small, about $1.75 but on apple shares, it doesn't exist. it trades 30 million shares on average a day, apple does, versus 3 to $4 million shares amazon does. more trading, tighter spreads, maybe that's part of the big story as well. but if you look at amazon compared to apple, we know apple had four to one split stock in july 2020.

they announced back then and happened toward the ladder part of august there. look at the performance on apple in the first day when they announced the split, the shares went up about 10% in one day because of that maybe sentiment shift there. on a 35% basis up over the next month, 39% over the next six months and 54% over the course of the next year to put that in context, the stock splits to deirdre's point earlier don't change the fundamentals of the company. they still have to do things to generate revenui they still have to do things to generate revennues and profits it may seem not like a lot here, but this is kind of where that 10% one day jump was and then it was kind of off to the races over the course of the next two years for apple shares again, not driven purely because of the stock split but apple certainly getting a boost because those shares have become more accessible and by the way, there's a lot of talk of apple, remember, is a dow component it couldn't have been a dow component pre-split. does amazon become more

attractive as a possible speculative dow component if its shares are only roughly 140, 150 bucks many that remains to be seen, deirdre. >> alphabet now a contender, too. dom, thank you. wall street liked this move, bank of america and ever core maintaining amazon as top pick for 2022 one of the analysts joins us now, ever core isi head of internet research mark it's great to have you continue on this discussion i mean, my question to you is why now? why is amazon doing this stock split now when calls to do this and plenty of reason to do in the past what does this say about andy jassy's leadership and amazon at this moment? >> deirdre, i think the more interesting thing is the share buyback, actually putting capital to work to buy back stock. this is the first time in a decade that amazon has bought back stock they disclosed a little bit in the 10k they put out bought about a billion back in january and early february we learned last night they

bought a billion more. that's chump change in terms of the total amount of cash, the capital the company has. it's a signal. what this company does, they have a process internally where they always have a price which they're going to buy their stock if it gets below that price, where they view the stock is cheap. they didn't do it in the last decade how they thought about their value. that says something today about how they think about their value. i think the signal is strong public investors are seeing that this is a year in which you talk about apple trading up 50% post stock split, i think actually this is exactly what's going to happen -- i think it's possible that this happens with amazon. finish your major investment cycle, margins ramp this year those advertising dollars, aws dollars coming up to ramp up, this is a great opportunity to buy amazon and just got your signal last night. >> and those advertising dollars, speaking of, mark, they actually broke out that advertising segment for the first time last quarter. and all feeds into our conversation earlier is amazon becoming more shareholder friendly what does that mean for the long

term of a company like i said that has prided itself on this relentless focus on the customer >> well, i like what jon fortt said earlier, shareholder companies are companies that have their stocks go up, that's how investors think about it this is one of the best mix shift stories in tech. structural margins are going up, major investment cycle like the last two years margins were 5% done that investment cycle five years ago the margins would have been 2%. this business is skalg every one of these cycles scaling the higher margins the most interesting data point out of all of that advertising disclosure, get this, amazon generates more ad revenue than youtube and growing faster than youtube. data points that's in plain sight. you realize how big advertising is in amazon and starting to tap into brand, display. all the money so far ad money so far has been performance marketing, google-esque money. now they're going after the

brand dollars. you could see these growth rates remain premium at amazon for quite some time and got wonderful implications for margins. >> hey, mark good morning it's jon so, tell me more about your thoughts about the possibility of a major investment cycle being over it seems like with amazon there's a new investment cycle pretty major that could always be right around the corner and i wonder how you balance that possibility versus just the possibility that that lumpiness and unexpected costs related to covid, related to labor, that that might be over and that might be why they feel more comfortable setting aside this money and buying back stock? >> well, i'll give you two points, jon. one is i may be wrong. if i'm wrong that the investment cycle is over, it's going to be because they super accelerate their investments in grocery recently they shut down -- announced shut down the amazon bookstores, four-star stores but they are switching those dollars over to groceries. and it's possible they'll go through a major investment cycle there. i don't think they are, but that's possible. that could be where i'm wrong.

where i think i'm right the last two years had a dramatic two to 4x increase in infrastructure, distribution centers and now said for the first time in three years that they got exses excess capacity the amount they spend to build out the nodes to do the super same-day delivery, that's going to slow. that's going to allow the margins to ramp up i had this exchange with the cfo, strong take away, margins are going up year. >> mark, how much head wind are you expecting not just from europe and -- any part of western europe or the middle east, and then currency? is that going to be something that we're going to talk about in earnest on this next round of earnings prints? >> yeah. three things to tick them off, first inflationary risks and amazon already called this out it's trucking services are more

expensive for them and employees are more expensive and raw input, steel for all the distribution centers they built out. that's already in the model. we think they can absorb those costs. that will be a head wind currency, of course, we saw that in the guidance. western europe, that's 20 to 30% of their revenue if russia's invasion of ukraine expands, we hope it don't, but if it does expand, okay. then that's going to negatively impact amazon. no question about it that is risk >> mark, thank you we'll talk to you again. >> thank you, deirdre. we turn now to another ceo trying to make his mark on the company and that's bob chapek of disney holding annual shareholder meeting facing backlash for not taking a stand against florida's so-called don't say gay bill and also signaling a number of changes from the igor era. julia boorstin with more we heard from the ceo hi, julia. >> well, carl, under attack for failing to come out in opposition to that don't say gay bill in florida, bob chapek

giving insight into how he's different from his predecessor, bob iger, who tweeted against that bill last month chapek saying they chose not to take a public position because they thought it would be more effective to work behind the scenes with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle now, this is just the latest example of how chapek is handling his role differently than his predecessor did now, since iger left as executive chairman at the end of last year, chapek announced plans to support lower cost version of disney plus under iger, it was focus on remaining ad free and disney plus looks to reach a bigger audience, the disney's earnings call, they're exploring more general entertainment programming and executives are reportedly discussing moving into the horror and thriller genre with some of those series. at espn, chapek is encouraging his executives to explore more opportunities with sports betting as it is legalized in

more states. this after the sports giant held back in this sports betting arena for many years so this moment, guys, is a real litmus test for chapek in terms of both how he takes a stand and also how he decides to pursue growth. >> julia, we have been talking about this for a while now, how wide is the tent of the disney brand? people remember when eisner created a whole new realm of content that could fall under the disney brand, not the label but under the corporate umbrella >> yes remember, so of course disney has star overseas. that's a place they can explore more general entertainment content. here they have hulu but still don't control hulu entirely. there's still that piece that's owned by comcast and we expect them to work that out pretty soon and figure that out. but there's this sense of whether hulu will be much more of that general entertainment umbrella but the question is what does

disney want diz gnu plus to be a replacement for linear television, packaged together with hulu? or do they really want the disney plus brand to really be about kids and family and then have that broader package with hulu and espn plus be the way they bring in everyone else. >> bringing in the horror and thriller genre would be a departure from what we think of it as now. i wonder if they were to do that, expand sort of their audience, would they do that organically? do they have the studios and the tools to do so or make another acquisition, we know they have been so successful in picking out great studios and franchises >> you know, they absolutely do have the studio and the skill set to do so because of that fox acquisition, deirdre so acquiring fox, they got fox search light, they got that whole studio and look, they already have been moving slowly into this arena. they have taken the star wars brand and they've been doing some of these series including the upcoming series. yes, it's all about the star

wars franchise, but it's not for kids this is supposed to be more mature and sophisticated content and they're trying to do that with some of the marvel stories as well. they'll be pulling back some marvel series that were more mature back from netflix over to disney and this is all part of the same thing of building on those brands but also trying to reach the widest audience possible >> all right, julia, thanks. and david, ceo of mongoda. stock jumped nearly 19% yesterday. taking a breather today. "techcheck" is just getting started. ♪ ♪♪

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the tape this morning. >> yep this morning but hey, yesterday, mongodb a winner as well the data base platform company is down slightly this morning after a double-digit rise yesterday following those fourth quarter results. stock like a lot of growth stocks has been struggling, losing more than a third of its value year to date joining us now on the state of the company enterprise software spending mongodb ceo dev ittycheria good to see you. so strong quarter, which we have been used to seeing from you guys lately, but what really caught my eye, the 2000 net new customers in q 4, more than 100 are spending at 100,000 plus annualized reoccurring revenue kind of run rate the big customers, what's driving their activity with you? >> thanks, jon nice to be here. first of all, i would tell you that what customers are

basically indicating they view mongodb increasingly strategic platform our seven figure customer crowd grew nearly 70 percent year over year people view mongodb truly strategic platform to drive their innovation agenda and build applications that transform their business >> so, even given that, how much time are you and the management team spending thinking about europe right now, either direct exposure to companies that have a lot of their business there or companies based there as we're increasingly hearing concerns about economic slowdown because of the war in ukraine? >> yeah. first of all, my thoughts are with the people of ukraine it's a really tragic situation from a business point of view, our exposure is quite minimal. we have in the low single digit millions of revenue coming out of russia for billion dollar business, that's not really material but, we're trying to do our part to contribute to helping the people of ukraine. but there's no real business

impact we're not seeing any impact in our forecasts from europe. >> dev, it's deirdre i want to ask you about return to office plans. you said previously that you made it clear the expectation is that employees will return to their offices. your headquarters is in new york you have offices all over the place including not far from here in san francisco. are you seeing a difference in employee's willingness or desire to come back based on where offices are versus new york versus san francisco, for example? >> we definitely believe the world will never come back to the pre-covid days of everyone being in the office five days a week, but we believe a hybrid world does matter, is the most effective way to run the business so some employees who will be in the office five days a week. some employees who will always be remote. but most employees will have the flexibility to be in the office two to three days a week we think that face to face connection, the ability to form relationships, to be deeply more deeply connected to our mission, our purpose, those things really matter and those face to facs sce

in interactions really matter we created a hybrid environment. planning to come back on april 4th. obviously hopefully conditions continue to open up. but we believe that's the world of the future. and our goal is to attract and retain the best people in the industry and you have to give them choice. >> dev, can you give us some granularity on how you're able to drive the revenue momentum that you are kind of component of the work force wise, what have you been doing in sales and marketing hiring over the past couple of years? what are you planning to continue to invest in that allows that to happen? and what besides i guess on the labor side is enabling that that you're also investing in >> yeah. so first of all, i want to say we crust jossed $1 billion billion dollar threshold as a company. not many companies reach that threshold over five years. five years ago when he was $100 million business second, i would say that our business is accelerating through this a year ago our business was

ranked 38% year over year. now it's ranked 56% year over year and atlas is growing 85% year over year, north of $600 million business the reason we're seeing these results, jon, is that we believe marrying a great product with great distribution is how you have to run a b2b business as much thought we put into our product and platform and all the innovation we do there, we put just as much thought in terms of how we go to market. we have a very sophisticated go to market approach direct salespeople at the high end, inside sales organization at the small and medium size customers and self service business on top of that we have a partner channel. this is a massive market you have to meet customers where they are so, you can't just take a one size fits all approach that's really paid dividends our productivity rates are incredibly high. we're seeing broad base performance across every gio and every industry and so, we feel really good about the opportunities that we're investing heavily for growth. >> all right continue to watch it

always love to get the on the ground insight from you as well. dev ittycheria, ceo of mongodb >> thank you. check out the nasdaq week to date, yesterday 3.5% gain wasn't enough to keep it in the green for the week we'll break down some of the current volatility with fundstrat dave lee we're back in a moment i'm sam morrison, my brother max recommended you. so my best friend sophie says you've been a huge help. at ameriprise financial, more than 9 out of 10 of our clients are likely to recommend us. our neighbors the garcia's, love working with you. because the advice we give is personalized. hey john reese, jr. how's your father doing? to help reach your goals with confidence. my sister told me so much about you. that's why it's more than advice worth listening to. it's advice worth talking about. ameriprise financial.

♪♪ making friends again, billy? i like to keep my enemies close.

guys, excuse me. i didn't quite get that. i'm hard of hearing. ♪♪ oh hey, don't forget about the tense music too. would you say tense? i'd say suspenseful. aren't they the same thing? can we move on guys, please? alexa, turn on the subtitles. and dim the lights. ok, dimming the lights.

welcome back to "techcheck" i'm carl quintanilla with jon fortt and deirdre bosa stocks in the red this morning a day after the s&p had its best day since june of 2020 currently session lows here, dow is down 450. volatility is obviously the theme. nasdaq is coming off its seventh move of more than 3% this year last year that happened just five times this morning, down better than 2% once again. we'll talk to fundstrat tom lee in just a second. good morning here is what's happening at this

hour surging gas prices are helping drive another jump in inflation. consumer prices are up 7 president 9% over the last year. the highest jump since 1982. car prices pause their historic jump in february and actually fell slightly. oil prices surging as much as 6% after yesterday's huge decline. they since cooled a bit and are currently up about 1%. unvaccinated workers at united who got exemptions will be allowed to return to work 2,200 employees will be able to return to their jobs at the end of the month united says about 200 workers were previously fired for refusing to get their shots. "wall street journal" says they will not be asked to return. and health insurance giant anthem wants to change its name. its plan to rebrand itself as draw attention to its broader health portfolio beyond insurance. the core of the company remains its blue cross blue shield programs which will keep their names. carl, back to you. >> thank you very much, rahel. nasdaq may have rallied

yesterday but we're back in the red today. our next guest says while stocks are suffering, valuations come in so sharply there are no longer demanding in his words. joining us to discuss tom lee. tom, good to see you what do you mean by that, valuations no longer demanding >> hey, carl you know, when we look at valuations, i think there's a couple simple measures to look at one is something like median market pe, the median stock on the s&p that multiple is 16.5 times forward earnings now it was almost 20 times at the end of 2019. so, the stock market even though we're, you know, two years or three years really almost past the pandemic start, the multiple has declined in terms of free cash shield, same story that free cash flow yield on the median stock is 5.8% the 10 year is under 2%, so you're still getting paid a pretty hefty preem yunmium to o

equity stock is no man's land because a lot of uncertainty including the war and surge in inflation, but, the fact that the market valuations aren't causing you to have a huge margin of error on the downside means i just think you can't really get that hurt if you buy stocks here over the next 12 months >> right you're beginning to spin out a bit of the narrative, yellen is on the tape right now talking about whether or not there's a path for further sanctions, given the horrible offensive we saw yesterday. but does sound that you're beginning to hear from world leaders, the limits of sanctions because of the collateral damage, am i right >> that's right. i mean, what's pretty apparent now is that the sanctions have caused oil to spike and commodity prices to spike, so, it's now delivering pretty big blow to the rest of the world. so even anyone outside the conflict is now paying the price

because food and energy has gotten expensive so, it just shows you the sanctions are essentially becoming a game of relative pain you know, is russia going to suffer more pain than the rest of the world but, i'm not sure it's a great strategy to actually continue to add sanctions that cause further inflationary pressures >> hey, tom, it's deirdre. good morning you've seen a number of hedge funds increase their cash positions. are you, despite sort of 7% annualized rate of inflation, is this a smart move for the average investor >> you know, i think the foundation for the bull market is still in tact you know, i would say the best sort of arbiter of that is the yield curve has been steepening to ten year versus 30 and twos versus tens. if that's the case, what we're really experiencing even with inflation is a spike in commodities that are now working its way through the system and as painful as it is, it is very

different than being in a secular structural inflation problem. and so, yeah, i think it's painful now. you know, even today's cpi report as you just mentioned, one of the sort of glimmers is that used car prices which was over half of that rise in cpi last year is starting to decline. so things that were viewed as enormous risk to the market in terms of continuing to add pressure are diminishing and that could be the case for cpi really over the next 12 months. >> so tom, do you hold on to more cash? >> well, i think we are in a no man's land for the moment. you know, our base case for first half 2022 was that markets would be treacherous this is far more treacherous than we expected and i think it's, of course, because we're in wartime conditions. but, do i think stocks will end higher from here on an absolute basis? yes. i think even though we're at s&p

4,200, i think we could still exit this year with 5,100 or higher >> hey, tom, you mentioned cpi if bitcoin is an inflation hedge, why isn't it trading like one? >> jon, that's a great question. so, there's two ways to answer that one is, of course, it's not a great hedge because we have inflation. or the other is bitcoin doesn't actually see inflation in the u.s. i think that's what we'll know in 12 months but it's, of course, been a great inflation hedge for people who live in countries that have had huge devaluations. you know, whether it's the ukraine, venezuela, turkey, those who own bitcoin and russia, they have been shielded from the devaluation of the currency which is essentially the core of why they're seeing inflation. >> but i guess be better if they could get dollars. so i guess that being the case, what is your expectation on the role that bitcoin and crypto

currencies play going forward, particularly in light of the executive order that we got yesterday, which of course, lays out the questions to be asked more than the answers? >> yes, that's right i mean, i would say that the biggest -- i think the most important way to look at this is compare this to five years ago when anyone would have said bitcoin is just a piece of code or just -- it's a bubble or you know, it's a pure source of speculation. today it's becoming something that even the u.s. policy treasury department has to figure out i think it just shows you that crypto is solving some real problems, and i think the usefulness outside the u.s. has been proven during thi conflict so i think it's actually ultimately all good things happening. >> hey, finally, tom, having done so much good, high frequency work on covid throughout the pandemic, it's amazing how much we are not

talking about it lately, i see the cdc is going to devise some guidelines we might drop masks on public transit next month are you putting all of that data work in a drawer do you expect to revisit it later on >> we're -- that's a great question i think the best case would be for covid to disappear, similar to other pandemics and if that's the case, that would be a great outcome we're still compiling the data and i would say that we'll have a better sense because, you know, really the last place where covid is raging is actually the far east. and once that's done, if there's no new variant, we could really hopefully just table the whole thing, like you said >> that would be amazing you definitely kept us so well informed for a couple of years and we're hoping we don't have to go back to that data stuff. tom, thanks. we'll talk soon. tom lee. >> thank you after the break, another round, elon musk versus the sec.

plus, take a look at the kweb. alibaba down 10% we're back in two. it's a thirteen-hour flight, that's not a weekend trip. fifteen minutes until we board. oh yeah, we gotta take off. you downloaded the td ameritrade mobile app so you can quickly check the markets? yeah, actually i'm taking one last look at my dashboard before we board. excellent. and you have thinkorswim mobile- -so i can finish analyzing the risk on this position. you two are all set. have a great flight. thanks. we'll see ya. ah, they're getting so smart. choose the app that fits your investing style. ♪♪

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take a look at shares of tesla, they are down today along with the broader market. shares down 20% year to date amid the plunge in valuation relative to some other names that's not that bad. ceo elon musk has been making headlines. what else is new, asking a federal judge to remove restrictions requiring attorney approval for his tweets. those limits imposed part of an s.e.c. fraud settlement after tweeting in 2018 that he was considering taking tesla private, quote, funding secured. joining us now margins editor ron john roy before we get into what the s.e.c. might do, why is elon doing this right now they've taken a relatively light handed approach to his tweets, so why is he putting himself back on the line >> yeah, i think that is the real question here, why is he escalating it because they have been seriously escalating things in the last few weeks. february 17th, musk lawyers sent a letter to a federal judge saying the s.e.c. is harassing them with these investigations musk has been tweeting that he's peeling back the layers of the

corruption onion of the s.e.c. which was a great line, but he's saying he was forced into this settlement he's saying that his first amendment speech and activity is being chilled. it really begs the question, why is this escalation happening now? because the s.e.c. has been completely hands off during this entire process think about how many tweets there have been that would have violated this agreement. i was on this show a few months ago talking about hertz and the tesla partnership which shot the stocks of both companies up and then musk came out and said that there's no contract signed and then of course there's the big one that's kind of the central question when musk tweeted a poll on november 6th saying that he would be selling 10% of his shares if the crowds said yes then the shares fell 17% so, the s.e.c. has been so hands off that it makes no sense that musk is escalating right now. >> does it maybe speak to the importance and rising influence of the retail investor, elon musk was first and sort of

trying to speak directly to them we know that's very important for him. you have that move from amazon yesterday, the stock split that they said is going to make their stock more accessible, which feels they're talking to the retail investor, could that be part of it >> yeah. but i do think the regulatory climate has changed around retail investors remember, 2018 was a different time the s.e.c. has been much more aggressive but most important, specially related to retail investors, the market has sold off. think about how many companies are down 50, 80, 90% and if you think about it, when everyone is making money, it's hard for regulators to regulate everyone is happy. it's when a lot of people have lost a lot of money that you're going to see a much bigger appetite for investor protection i think this time will be different. and if musk is forcing the s.e.c.'s hand right now. >> i wonder separate from obviously the compliance issues that we talk about a lot, the way in which this commodity

shock has exsen chee waited the look at musk and what he did logistically ahead of this to be in a good position if things went south, i wonder, do you give him some credit for that right now? >> yeah. this is again why it's even more confusing because tesla, the company, is actually doing pretty well. they delivered 1 million cars last year. their net income is on the rise. their margins are on the rise, which is again even more confusing why musk is doing this because i see this playing out in a few different ways. either scenario one, the s.e.c. fights to maintain the status quo, which makes no sense because they have been hands off any ways so scenario two, this is where things get more interesting. the s.e.c. can start doubling down on litigation they could say the settlement is void and that you are already violating it any ways, let's start going back to the tweet and make the investigation live again. double down on the insider trading investigation because remember musk sold $100 million of tesla the day before this twitter poll and that is under

investigation. but i think the more extreme way this can go, and i know this might sound crazy, is imagine if the s.e.c. actually tries to deplatform musk off of twitter again, it almost sounds impossible, but if you can prove that in a public company executive repeatedly used a platform to break securities laws, what's to say -- no one has a fundamental right to a twitter account. so i do think it's even more telling right now that when the company is doing pretty well that musk would escalate things. again, if anyone could steam roll the s.e.c., he is the master of twitter, it could be elon musk, but i do believe the next few weeks and months this is a serious escalation and if you're a tesla shareholder, maybe you don't need to be nervous, but you at least need to be aware that this is happening because this has to escalate he has kind of laid the cards out. >> yeah. but ranjan, maybe this was all the plan consider if you will elon musk as a tv show, right? tesla kind of famously doesn't have a pr department

but considering that it sure gets a lot of press. last week or the week before the episode was joe biden won't talk about me this week it's the s.e.c. beef when you're lacking in product news, it sure keeps people talking about elon musk and tesla. >> yeah. and this is why i do think this question of what right does elon musk have to @elon musk the twitter account is going to become the central question think about it, public company ceos, there's such strict rules around corporate communication but somehow twitter has just slipped through the cracks and people can say anything they want and if he is muzzled more, if he is deplatformed, it changes the economics of tesla the company because, as you said, they get hundreds of millions of dollars of free media via his twitter account. it's this amazing vehicle for obtaining advantageous financing through targeting the retail investor so, the more he is actually escalating this, the more he's increasing the risk that there

will be additional restrictions placed on his communications, i do think that really presents a risk to tesla the stock. >> yeah. we'll see how it plays out, ranjan and what precedent it could set for other ceos becoming looser on twitter thank you. we'll talk to you again soon. still to come this morning, we're going to look at the gender pay gap and the agenda of tracting new workers "techcheck" is back in three

♪ let's get a gut check on jd.com that stock tanking today despite beating expectations for the latest quarter, slowing revenue growth that is weighing on the share price today. jd not the only chinese internet name in the red this morning pinduoduo and alibaba sharply lower. dragging down the kweb etf, drop more than 10.16% would be its worst performance since its inception in 2013, guys. which is almost surprising because of the pain that the kweb and these chinese names have been through the last few

years and just accelerating. investors not seeing the value despite huge drops >> yeah. what can we say about that really there was a time when we were talking about chinese domiciled stocks being uninvestable, there's stocks being uninvestable and unkr unk uncreasing these days in the market that are of that kind of concern. meanwhile, you missed part of the show is your dvr broken do you like to watch with your eyes closed? don't worry. you can follow and subscribe to our podcast, listen any time, anywhe wrer u wnadreheveyodolo podcasts "tech check" is back in a moment

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today's equity and opportunity forum we are excited to unveil the third annual cnbc momentum women at work survey. our julia boorstin is back with the highlights hi, julia. >> well, carl, we know that the pandemic had a devastating effect on women in the workplace. two years in and 1.1 million women are still missing from the workforce according to the national women's law center, but our cnbc momentum survey saw signs of progress. more women are eager to advance in their careers nearly half of women polled consider themselves very ambitious and that's up four percentage points from 2021. they're still below the results of our pre-pandemic levels about a third of working women

saying they're very satisfied with clear opportunities in their crept job, that's back to pre-pandemic levels and 20% of all women say their career has advanced in the past year up six percentage points to 2021 and that is tied with increased dialogue with management 33% of women polled say they talked to their manager monthly about their goals and that's up from 2021. women of color are seeing more progress than white women do and 20% of hispanic women in the workplace and 20% of black women in the workplace saying their career has advanced in the past year and that's compared to 16% of white women a third of white women, age 18 to 34 report career advancement in the past year and that's compared to 35 to 64-year-olds things do still seem tougher for moms and nearly 30% with kids

say their career has taken a setback and 23% say their salary is lower, but on the upside employers can help this group achieve career goals by offering more opportunities for on the job training or find further education. guys >> julia, some interesting color and the increased dialogue with management amid work from home and a hybrid working environment. thank you. we look at the biggest movers ahead of a cnbc special tonight focusing on tech micron is down more than 6%, by the way. "tech check" is ckba after one more break ow you can sell your policy - even a term policy - for an immediate cash payment. we thought we had planned carefully for our retirement. but we quickly realized we needed a way to supplement our income. if you have $100,000 or more of life insurance, you may qualify to sell your policy. don't cancel or let your policy lapse without finding out what it's worth. visit coventrydirect.com to find out if your policy qualifies. or call the number on your screen.

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tech once a safe haven in volatility and now the year's biggest laggard. the nasdaq losing more ground than the dow and s&p in 2022 so far, but some areas within tech were softer than others and etfs down more than 25% year to date. tonight at 6:00, cnbc explores the sector with a special with our own frank holland. what should we expect tonight? >> hi there, jon techs boomed during the pandemic and now two-thirds of the nasdaq is at least 25% lower than their

52-week highs. we will take a closer look at a wide range of stocks including those faang names like netflix and despite two-day performance why many are bullish on the giant like zoom. of course, we'll look at investing in chinese tech. where are the opportunities? three areas that have been directly impacted by the russia-ukraine conflict and that's chips and we'll talk about some of the biggest names in those spaces, the valuations and the opportunities and the big themes and those sectors and where investors can go from here with the current landscape changing so rapidly so far that and much more at 6:00 and joined by christina partsinevelos. >> that's such an important part of the market and it's been so supportive for so long and investors are looking for perspective and ideas. our frank holland, we will see

you tonight. guy, even though we are close to session lows, dow down 391 i would take note that oil is below 109, kind of interesting gas futures sold off a little bit and the vix given all of the uncertainty it's surprising to see the vix flirting at the moment with going red for the session. let's get to the judge and the half >> carl, thanks so much. welcome to "the halftime report." i'm scott wapner front and center this hour could a rally in stocks be just getting started? that's what one market watcher is suggesting today each as the markets remain volatile. we'll take it to the investment committee for the great debate joining me for the hour jenny harrington, rob sechin, josh brown and pete najarian, co-founder of market rebellion.com. a day when the latest read on inflation shows a 40-year high and yields are up and that's 2% on the ten year. stocks are lower and the dow is down abo