it's not like we're seeing a 20% drop in shares today on this news there seems to be a lot of confidence that the case may not be that strong >> one of the things people are going to be doing this afternoon is looking through those companies. >> thanks so much. thank for watching "closing bell" starts right now. stocks are gaining back some ground on the week as the s&p 500 aims a snap a five-day losing streak. th this is a make or break hour for your money the market up about 100 points on the dow s&p 500 is up about .6%. what's leading, information technology at the top of the market thanks to a rally in chips, especially nvidia. intuit is higher some of the less sexy tech stocks microsoft is also higher what's weighing, communication

services and energy. nasdaq's up a fulpl percent. apple, amazon, microsoft, qualcomm and alphabet. breaking in the last hour. activision blizzard making a move lower on news that the ftc is suing to block microsoft's acquisition of the gaming giant. we'll talk to former commissioner thompson about that news in just a second. also ahead on the show, this hour, commerce secretary aaimondo joins us to talk about competing with china including this week's big chip news. plus, we'll get a new read on holiday spending and strength of the consumer when joins by the ceo of etsy. to the breaking news of the afternoon. microsoft and activision the ftc now suing to block the deal they're alleging microsoft would gain control of top video game franchises here and potentially harm competition

microsoft putting out a statement saying in part, quote, we have been committed since day one to addressing competition concerns including by offering earlier this week concessions to the ftc. while we believed in giving peace a chance, we have complete confidence in our case and welcome the opportunity to present our case in court. joining us now, former ftc commissioner thompson. not a huge shock because we got rumored they were going to sue on this deal and the stock has been trading well below the offered price of 95 for a while now. but what's your reaction to the ftc making it official >> well, it's not a big surprise in a sense that this ftc has decided to be pretty forward and aggressive with regard to the tech industry. so bringing the lawsuit in and of itself is not a surprise. whether they will prevail or not, that's going to be a different question because it's going to depend on how they define the market and how they can show you consumers

are going to be harmed it's an uphill battle for them, but i'm not surprised they decided to bring the lawsuit >> why do you think it's political or do you think there's serious question or cause for concern about this takeover? >> well, look, i can't second guess what someone's motives are. hard to tell that. all i know is whether a case would be easy or whether, what will be a challenge. i think this will a challenge. don't forget out there who the rivals are the rival is another big company, sony, who has a comp competing platform and some of the same initiatives are we saying that any company that has a big platform will not be able to acquire a game company? i don't know if that's the message they're trying to send but it's one that you have to ask a question about >> there's a statement from one of the director of the ftc's

bureau of competition who says microsoft has shown it can and will withhold content from its gaming rivals. even though microsoft is committed to doing the opposite. she says we seek to stop microsoft from gaining control over leading independent game studio and using it to harm competition in multiple dynamic and fast-growing gaming markets. does this say anything about their case >> all yi know is the reason i think it's an aggressive position is there's a number of ways they could have tried to litigate this harm one, you saw earlier last week when microsoft said it would essentially license other consoles to have call of duty. and there are in numbers of different ways they could have handled it the fact they didn't want to go that route and go forward with just a lawsuit says something about where the statement they want to make

>> well, but also it looks like in the complaint, they're pointing to a 2021 acquisition microsoft made of zenamax, which i guess is another software gaming maker and star field and red fall were the games. they made it exclusive to their platforms. so i guess they're questioning the assurances microsoft is making >> one of the things to wonder about, does that mean the only company who buys a gaming platform and they want to make it something exclusive for them and they would be precluded from doing that you have to look at what happens in the rest of the industry as well including what happens with sony or anyone else. they're exclusive titles to them, too. are we saying any big company can't do that? those are questions any good court is going to ask. >> should we not be saying that? >> it depends on whether the consumer is actually harmed or

whether tahey're qgoing to get benefit from being on a platform and getting the latest in a particular game. don't forget that lot of these games are pretty exclusive in how they sell so that to the extent that companies want to offer special incentives, they can. look, i think these are some they thinks you have to look at, but what i'm saying to you that in order to prevail, it's going to be an uphill battle >> our white house correspondent just sent out a list of some of these cases that the biden administration has lost. in other words, they haven't been that successful when it comes to blocking these mergers. judge rejecting the ftc's challenge of alumna's acquisition of braille also with hamilton purchase of rival defense contractor there's a list that's longer of the ones that failed in court than the ones the biden administration has successfully won. what does that say about their arguments? >> well, i think their antitrust

position has been pretty aggressive and they're willing to take chances on losing cases to make a statement about what they think competition should be but at a certain point, it also begins to harm the agency and its ability to affect the market if it doesn't have credibility but i think you have to balance those things out from a policy standpoint i think that the ftc wants to make a statement about big tech, but i'm not sure that in the end, if they're not successful, this is the kind of statement they want to make. >> so you think they're just picking the wrong target here ultimately or you think that's what's going to happen? >> i just think there's a lot of resources, a lot of energy here and i'm not sure that, the statement they're making, if they're not fully successful, will be the market will be in a better place that's the challenge >> right which is the goal as well.

appreciate your insight. >> thank you >> it's good to have you someone who is in that seat in the ftc. the former commissioner. to the broader market. stocks are off their highs but we are holding on to gains, mike, which is a change from the rest of the week what's on your radar >> if we hold here, we're going to end a five-day losing streak to start december. it's really keeping the indexes in neutral i would say that because we're right here where we traded back into right around november 10th, actually remember that cpi day? we got that big rally off the low. that's basically where we jumped up to and we're sitting right around that level. it's also just a mid way point of the seven or eight month range. it's not like we're breaking town further still in the longer term down trend but the market seeming like it's got a little bit of footing told we'll see if it's just counter trend. seems a lot of beaten down stocks squeezing higher.

lot of conversation about the state of the consumer. another uptick in continuing jobless claims and a lot of talk about utilization of credit in order to sort of bridge spending for consumers. but here from bank of america using their own internal customer data show the amount of credit card limits, the percentage that's being utilized for different income levels of customer what you see here is lowest income customers under 50,000 a year yes, trending higher from historic lows in terms of percentage of the credit limit utilized, but here's your pre pandemic level the sharpest increase in credit card utilization is among upper income the point is a lot of indepindicators are trending in a weaker direction but coming off of such strong levels, it's difficult to conclude the economy is on the precipice. >> when the bears are pointing

to the fact the consumers are starting to deteriorate, they cite credit card debt. >> that's right. and it is up in a fairly sharp way from the recent lows the fact is when everybody got stimulus checks, bone of the first thing you did is paid them down >> it's going in the wrong direction. >> so all this says there's room before it gets to a real critical spot. >> thank you mike santoli etsy is near the top of the s&p 500 today and the stock has doubled off the lows hit this year up next, we'll talk to the ceo about what's driving the strength of late and his early read on holiday spending you're watching "closing bell" on cnbc with the dow up 100 points (vo) hi, we're visible. a different kind of wireless company. in sports, catches are a good thing. wireless? not so much. so we don't do catches. with visible you get unlimited data for just $30/mo.

switch now to get a five-year rate lock. not a catch in sight. good luck. td ameritrade, this is anna. hi anna, this position is all over the place, help! hey professor, subscriptions are down but that's only an estimated 15% of their valuation. do you think the market is overreacting? how'd you know that? the company profile tool, in thinkorswim®. yes, i love you!!

please ignore that. td ameritrade. award-winning customer service that has your back.

etsy shares in the green today. the stock is down more than 40% this year, but it's also doubled off the lows and the ceo joins us now the stock has been all over the place. i feel like investors can't figure out if it's a pandemic winner or a long-term secular winner or what what are you hearing >> i think there's been a lot of changes across the world through the pandemic and certainly commerce has been affected more than most. etsy grew enormously during the pandemic and so the question that's been on everyone's mind is how much of those gains are going to stick and we're thrilled by the fact it appears the vast majority of gains we got through the pandemic are sticking for example, in the third quarter, we announced that we did about $2.6 billion of gross

merchandise sales. that's up from 1.1 billion of sales in the same third quarter pre-pandemic so while millions of people had to shop on etsy during the pandemic because they had few other choices, it appears they're coming back again and again now even though they have every other choice >> remember when you were breaking down the percentage of revenues that came from masks. feels like a long time ago they're insignificant, i know. that's sort of what i was implying the second half of the year, especially, we've heard and seen softness in ecommerce and amazon and shopify and some of the others how have you maintained the resilience and are you seeing any sign of that >> we shared in our earnings call that october was robust for us and we saw acceleration in october then we shared an outlook for the fourth quarter that said we're going to do

between 3.6 and $4 billion of gross merchandise sales was our guidance, which was really robust particularly when we compare it to last year when there were so many supply chain issues that benefitted etsy and etsy sellers. we gave what we thought was pretty robust guidance what our research says is of course people now are very value conscious. they also, if they're going to buy fewer things, they want those things to mean more. that's our sweet spot. etsy has millions of things for sale that have a lot of meaning and are priced at a really fair price. >> i heard the same this week from the ceo of signet fewer things, more valuable. i don't know you can't give any read on holiday sale, but howdo t you compete? >> our sellers have a lot of tools. we've invested a lot to give our

sellers tools so they can decide to put items on sale and how much they want to put items on sale and many of our sellers are deciding to do that. but the other thing is that i think people are really realizing that they want to buy things from other humans and that sure, you can mass produce things abroad in units of 20,000 and it's cheap to mass produce them, but then you've got to put it on a boat to put it on a train and a van to your home four mark ups along the way. when a seller makes something just for you and she sends it to you, there's no markups between her and you. so she can make something really beautiful for you and sell it at a really fair price. >> speaking of seller, how do you keep them happy and on the platform when there are other areas and other places they can go competition. they can add their own brand shop on shopify or third party on amazon. how do you retain and grow them?

>> they have many places they can sell we had about 2.2 million sellers before the pandemic. we have well over 5 million sellers on etsy now and they're coming and staying because etsy brings them buyers who value what they sell millions in fact, almost 90 million active buyers on the platform right now. and we're investing a lot many marketing. we're really pulling out all the stops to make sure our sellers have the best holiday season this is the super bowl for them and so we're investing in marketing. we've launched an etsy purchase protection program recently. we've stepped up customer support so our sellers are supported so they can succeed. >> i believe you're in washington today speaking with members of congress pushing for small business what exactly are you asking for? >> i was in washington all day yesterday making sure we do pass

legislation that can protect against things like counterfeits and have good intellectual property protection but do it in a way that also looks after the needs of the smallest sellers and doesn't paint all ecommerce sites with a broad brush thinking about care giving, one in five of our sellers say that's one of the main things that stops them from investing more time and energy in growing their business so we think better federal support for care giving is a great investment in our economy that's going to allow small businesses to grow that's another thing i was talking with members of congress about. >> keep us posted. josh, thank you very much. good to talk to you. >> thank you >> ceo of etsy still to come, commerce secretary joins us exclusively to talk about the latest efforts to compete with china and just following this developing story for you. we just got a letter that

activision ceo shared with his team after the ftc blocked, sued to block the deal. the takeover from microsoft. in the letter, he says this sounds alarming so i want to reenforce my confidence that this deal will close the allegation that this deal is anticompetitive doesn't align with the facts and we believe we will win this challenge. we'll talk to an activision analyst for his take on where the stock should be trading the stock should be trading straight aheadna do that. he was proud of the price he was charging. ♪♪ my dad instilled in me, always put the people before the money. be proud of offering a good product at a fair price. bell." i think he'd be extremely proud of me, yeah. ♪♪

get refunds.com powered by innovation refunds can help your business get a payroll tax refund, even if you got ppp and it only takes eight minutes to qualify. i went on their website, uploaded everything, and i was blown away by what they could do. getrefunds.com has helped businesses get over a billion dollars and we can help your business too. qualify your business for a big refund in eight minutes. go to getrefunds.com to get started. powered by innovation refunds.

check out today's stealth mover. hershey. the stock on a sugar high. ubs upgrades hershey to buy from neutral. raised its price target to 269 from 244 a nearly 14% upside from closing price on wednesday the analyst predicting the candy maker will continue its sweet earnings beat. stock's been on a roll in 2022, rallying more than 20% this year consumer staples as a group are

actually done for the year so it's been an outperformer these analysts think the earnings beats can keep up up next, the commerce secretary on whether there are any plans to expand china export controls on next generation semiconductors and much more on this relationship when we come back d tohelomeomtu with so menm in t cse

hello, world. or is it goodbye? you know, it seems like hope and trust are in short supply. [clap] now, as businesses we can blame and shame. or... [whistles] we can make a change. [clap] we can make work, work for our communities. create more equal opportunities. [clap] it's time for business to show its true worth. because it's not goodbye, world. it's hello, team earth. [clap]

been a huge focus this week after president biden toured taiwan semis new chip plant in arizona. the company also announcing a second factory is underway the announcement is part of the biden administration's plans to become more self-reliant in chip manufacturing in this country. also been making moves to cut off china's access to high-end chip technology as well. j joining us to talk about this is the commerce secretary, gina raimondo great to have you, madame secretary. welcome. >> nice to be with you >> you've got a huge job ahead of you with the implementation of the chips act billions and billions of dollars. how are you deciding where that money goes to which companies >> as you say, it's an enormous undertaking and early in the new year, we will be making clear what the criteria is and which

companies would be even eligible, but our goals here are clear. which is to say right now in the united states, we don't manufacture any really leading edge, cutting edge chips and so, and we buy 90% from taiwan so we need to manufacture enough in the united states of those chips. we also need to expand our production of the more mature chips. the kind that go in cars or medical devices. so the entire point of this program really is around our national security. we're overly dependent on other countries for chips we need for our economy and military and our goal is to make sure we invest this money in a way that reshores that supply china and in the process, i think we'll create hundreds of thousands of good jobs. >> on the jobs question, the biggest problem i hear from

executives in this industry, and i was talking to them around when this, the biden toured the new plant in arizona, is talent. people do we have the skilled people to operate these advanced semiconductor manufacturing plants or in this new taiwan semi plant, are we going to issue visas? bring people from taiwan >> the answer is we need to do both and we are doing that. i think the state department is very focused on making sure that visas are efficient so in this case, you know, the experts and e engineers can get into the united states to do the work at the end of the day, we have to do more with workforce training science and technology teaching there's no doubt at it and what we are doing here with the chips and science program isn't just incentivizing the creation of a few new

manufacturing facilities we plan to invest in more research and development working with universities and community colleges even high schools and apprenticeship programs. we have to produce vastly more engineers, mathematicians, statisticians, if we're going to really meet the challenge that we need to and be innovative and productive like we need to >> on a related note, i know you're overseeing the china export controls on advanced semi manufacturing and in order to make that effective, we need our allies on board. japan appears to be on board what about the netherlands there's a report in the last 24 hours, and this is important with asml, a key player, that they, too, implement the kind of controls the u.s. is doing to cut china off. is that happening? >> you said it perfectly in order for these to be effective, they need to be done with our allies. because if the united states

controls a product and say the netherlands doesn't, then china is able to get that product from the netherlands. so we are working on a daily, weekly basis with the government in the netherlands and japan i'm optimistic that we will find alignment, but they have to go through their own process to get there. what i will say is the reason i'm optimistic, they have the same national security incentives as we to. this isn't about slowing down china's technology broadly this is very specifically around denying china sophisticated technology that china will use in its military and in its surveillance technology. it's every bit in the interest of the netherlands, japan and all of our ally that is that happen, which is why i'm optimistic that we will get there, but they have to do their process. >> sounds like the dutch aren't quite on board at this point

yet. on the effectiveness question, you know, the ceo of baidu was asked about this on an earnings call i want to share with you what he said about whether this was affecting his company. this is one of the biggest technology companies in china. they do ai, self-driving cars. the ceo said on this question, certainly there are some alternatives to the restricted chips and we have the technologies to use these alternative chips to achieve almost the same effectiveness and efficiency in our a icloud, and wider ai businesses. he also noted that automotive chips are not on the prohibited list and finished by saying we think that this actual increases some good market opportunities for the chinese chip companies and that it would eventually benefit from these opportunities. in other words, limited impact and that it's actually going to help chinese chip companies. >> but again, the purpose isn't to slow down you know, china industry or chinese tech

companies. the purpose is to prevent our technology from getting into the hands of the chinese military and they do not have this technology they don't have equivalent technology the united states and our allies are ahead of them and we need to maintain our lead and you know, president xi and the communist party have been clear. they have this civil military fusion effort where they want to procure technology and put it into military uses so we have an obligation to prevent that from happening for as long as we can. in terms of their ultimate benefit in the long run, china's been very clear. president xi's strategy is crystal clear. he wants to inindigenous nuys all technology so what we need to do, our strategy, our competitiveness strategy with china begins at

home it begins with investing in america. like you said, in talent, research and development making more semiconductors here on our shores and that ultimately is the way we will compete and outcome pete china >> can you expand those export controls >> if we think we need to, we will we evaluate it constantly. we're constantly getting information from the intelligence community what we're trying to get away from is kind of the whack a mole, putting companies on the entity list one at a time. instead, we're saying a core part of our strategy protecting america from you know, china's maligned intentions, is to deny them certain technologies and that's what we're doing and if we have to add more, we'll do that >> and finally, just a question

on the economy we're seeing media and technology i know the madministration is saying we're moving into a more stable period of growth, but you speak to businesses and industry every day. what are you hearing >> some caution but a lot of optimism clearly inflation is an issue and although it's coming down, there's more work to be done clearly, you have factors in the world like what's happening in russia that are you know, kind of exogenous and cause uncertainty. most ceos i talk to though tell me that they are doing just fine they are continuing to hire. their revenue is you know, in a place that they're comfortable with look, the fed is raising rates that is designed to slow the economy. it should not surprise anyone that the economy is slowing. that's the whole point but if you look at the fundamentals, you know, productivity, growth, gdp

growth, strong job market, consumer buying, i can't deny that inflation is an issue and that the economy is slowing, but i'll tell you this i'd rather be in america than any other place in the world right now. as i look at europe's economy and china's economy, the united states is positioned really from a position of strength to weather whatever might be coming >> secretary gina raimondo, thank you so much for your time today from the national come pettiveness forum. wall street is buzzing about treasury secretary janet yellen signing on to a new place in history. we'll explain when we come right back back dow's up easy-to-use tools, and paper trading to help sharpen your skills, you can stay on top of the market from wherever you are.

23 minutes until the close o-uses make complex trading less complicated. custom scans help you find new trading opportunities. while an earnings tool helps you plan your trades and stay on top of the market.

what should the future deliver? while an earnings tool helps you(music)our trades progress... (music) ...innovation... (music) ...discovery? or simply stability... ...security... ...protection? you shouldn't have to choose. (music) gold. your strategic advantage. (music) visit goldhub.com. look what the cat dragged in. trust me. you call that cute? ooh! with the paws? with the hat?

what is wall street buzzing about today? janet yellen and money in fort worth today unveiling with the first bank notes printed with her signature on them alongside her treasurer, marking the first time in u.s. history that two womens' signatures will be on the dollar bill >> some will note that this is the first time the signature of a woman treasury secretary will be on a u.s. bank note and the first time the signatures of two women will be on our currency. but really, this is not about me or treasurer malurba to me, these notes represent the hard, ongoing work of the treasury department to strengthen the economy and

advance our economic standing around the world and it's also a remeinder of the contributions of women who have worked at treasury and in the economics profession >> she also noted as she practiced her signature after previous treasury secretaries were mocked for their terrible handwriting. remember jack lew's? then who can the forget her predecessor's and his wife posing with a sheet of bills secretary yellen i am told in the ceremony today said i never thought growing up in brooklyn i'd ever have my name on the money. when we come back, chinese tech stocks surging as they ease covid restrictions up next, we'll discuss whether it's sustainable and activision blizzard under

pressure on this new suit to block its takeover from microsoft. when we take you inside the market zone. dow's up 100

power e*trade's easy-to-use tools like dynamic charting and risk-reward analysis help make trading feel effortless and its customizable scans with social sentiment help you find and unlock opportunities in the market

with powerful, easy-to-use tools power e*trade makes complex trading easier react to fast-moving markets with dynamic charting and a futures ladder that lets you place, flatten, or reverse orders so you won't miss an opportunity we are now in the closing bell market zone mike santoli is who here to bre down these crucial moments and frank holland here to talk salesforce we'll kick it off because we're seeing an up day for the first time all week. for the first time in five days. the s&p is up about a half a percent. we built on that strength into

the close. you have most sectors higher only ones lower, energy, communications services and financials the chips are leading. what's causing the strength. >> i think it's a little bit of a bounce in things that have been hit the hardest if you look at broadly across tech except for tesla, has been bouncing hardest that's been the epicenter of the declines also an uptick in bond yields so they look stretched in the short-term to the codownside the one you haven't really seen is crude oil which rally attempt really didn't take hold. so that remains this disinflationary maybe slower growth story, but the rest of the market has been okay with it today. still a neutral setting for the stock market >> let's get to the breaking story of this afternoon, which is the ftc suing to block microsoft's takeover of activision blizzard on antitrust concerns brandon ross from light shed

partners joins us to discuss he covers the gaming market. brandon, how much of a surprise is this? because we got a little bit of a heads up that this was coming and there have been doubts throughout >> this wasn't a surprise at all. i think they gave hints last week and continued to drop hints that this was coming given how quickly the responses came from microsoft and activision, they were definitely expecting it as well >> does the market think this deal is going to happen or not because while it is what 20 bucks below the offer price, hasn't been hit as hard as some of the other video gamemakers in the space. >> stocks are probabilities at the end of the day and even if microsoft is going to take this to court, and it sound like they're willing to fight this, there's a chance they're going to win and the market is heavily

discounting the stock from the $95, but even in the case that they do lose, i think this company does between $4 and 4.25 in earnings next year. this stock is probably not that far off from where it would trade in a break scenario anyway so you have that then ups if this deal gets done. >> based on your read of the video game market and i know you're not a lawyer, but concerns around anticompetitiveness and the worry microsoft could restrict some of these game franchises to other video gamemakes, does it sound right to you >> it doesn't make much sense to us whether it's hardware, software or mobile, or the three combined, microsoft does not have a leading position and

console, where i think is most concern, it's third behind sony and nintendo in the case of call of duty, which seems on the point of the most contest in this deal, it would be extremely uneconomical for microsoft to take call of duty off of sony's platform because it probably accounts for more than half of the overall revenue for the franchise. so that wouldn't make much sense. i think that microsoft's goals here are probably, if they want to restrict call of duty, it's on their subscription service. they're definitely, even though it's nascent and missed targets they want to use as subscription service, but i think it would be an overreach of the ftc to regulate it and mobile, where king is pretty big with the candy crush franchise. >> yeah.

>> yeah. which oi'm sure many people watching this play and spend lots of money on, but overall, microsoft and activision are quite small in that space as well >> mike, you've been watching the stock. we were talking about this as well brandon says it's near where it would be even if the deal doesn't happen and they lose the challenges what's your take >> it's plausible if it gets th% ea valuation, but if you look at how tit's traded since january, it's had this vast outperformance against the other two. i think it's a decent chance that the spread to the deal price of $95, which is a cash deal, is pretty significant here already built in a decent probability of a break and you know, we know, warren buffett himself bought activision thinking this deal was just a likely close so we'll see i mean, i think that the basic nature of court battles is

there's an unpredictability to it even if you think the rationale favors one side. >> glad you noted warren buffett in that arbitrage trade. >> thank you very much, brandon ross take a look at salesforce. it continues to be one of the big laggards in the dow following the departure of the co-ceo baird downgraded the company to neutral, slashed its price target to 150 from 200 citing a leadership change and macro headwinds. frank, mark beniof gave a state of the company what did he say about the high profile ceodepartures >> he was very upbeat about the f future salesforce. his customers have asked about the departure of brett taylor he still maintains that customer

retention and demand, they both remain strong. however, when it comes to the bombshell, report from the journal saying he felt taylor wasn't focused enough on the business of salesforce, not the product or the engineering and that's what led to his departure. listen to what he said today >> i'm so grateful for brett, you know, how much i deeply love him and stewart, too and so many. not here that's the sad part. but you know what, let me tell you what the exciting. what's exciting to me is that we're able to have all these great customers and also we're introducing you to this amazing new data cloud today >> talking to jim cramer the full interview is going to be on "mad money" later today. there still remains a question about demand all the executives saying across the board customers are taking longer to close deals. they said they don't want new products they want salesforce and other

tech companies to give them ways to maximize the products they've already purchased. sorry. go ahead >> we're looking forward to it frank, as i understand it, the brett taylor news while maybe it came as a surprise to folks, fully on his own terms and as i understand it, he's still there and is going to finish out, he's not leaving on, with bad blood or anything like that. what is the market so concerned about here is it the fact that it was a surprise, that investors really liked him? >> you know, i want to confirm first what you said. i speak to the chief marketing officer, the ceo of the service cloud, a big division in the company. they said they wish brett the best and he wasn't leaving on bad terms or under tension or duress i think the big issue is that so many people who were crucial to businesses, especially businesses that salesforce has acquired recently, are now leaving the company. you have to remember i believe tableau was about a $17 billion

deal slack was a $27 billion deal these are huge acquisitions for the company and now the people who divided those companies before the acquisition have decided to walk away, so questions about the growth of the company going forward. marc said he's looking to focus on organic growth as well as unorganic. >> just unfortunate timing in a long planned event that he would leave after a while. thank you very much, frank chinese tech stocks are rallying today, extending a major comeback the k web etf is up nearly 40% over the last month on hopes that china would ease up on its zero covid restrictions. let's bring in managing director of blue shirt group which advises chinese companies. so gary, there's hopes this reopening is for real though it's kind of hard to get the full picture coming from china what do you see? >> thanks for having me here

the next two weeks are really going to be critical because there's two elements that are driving the rally. first of all is obviously whether covid restrictions are going to loosen and stick and that's still an open question. the second thing what we're not hearing a lot about and is more important is that there's been a lot of progress on thiswhole issue about access for the audit ors to look at the work papers in china and that, i think, actually is probably more important in terms of the redicuction of risk on these stocks right now >> so it looks leek tike they'r going to play ball here? >> yeah, so i was in hong kong last week and met one of my good contacts there who's pretty close with the major chinese tech companies so he gave me a really good data download on the recent visit fwi u.s. inspectors and he told me the companies that he talks to and he covers are extremely comfortable about the ability to

access the working papers, which is a key issue, and the major chinese tech companies, eight of them, gave full access through their audit ors to all the paper they needed. if you recall three weeks ago, the inspectors came back early they didn't say why. is it good news, bad news that they gave up what i'm hearing is it went really well and that's, you know, that's a huge positive that they're going to resolve the audit issue within the next couple of months it has to happen this winter >> what about tesla in particular i wanted to ask about that because these reports that tesla is cutting production in china is there a demand problem there? how do you see tesla has a play in the chinese market? >> i think they do have a demand issue. they shift 100,000 in november everyone saw that number, but the thing is you know, a lot of the showrooms were not open.

they were not able to be open enough the thing i think is more important, like we all know that the chinese economy is really, i hate to say, it's kind of in shambles because of the covid restrictions so certainly the change is going to help. but here's the thing, the chinese are huge savers because there's not a big social safety net and the first year of covid, 2020, people had a lot of savings they could rely on those are gone i was there and people were like, i burned through my savings. it's a different story now chinese are cash buyers of car, real estate. so the liquidity is not there. so i think there really is a demand issue how big is it, we'll find out. but it's certainly very plausible and i think that's the case >> thank you very much quick programming note tomorrow, don't miss our exclusive interview on this show with the bank of america ceo he's joining us from the u.s.

competitiveness council to talk about that and a lot of news made on the banks this week, mike santoli, that's weighed on their stocks concerns about the economy and how they're starting to prepare for a downturn what are you seeing in the internals? >> yeah, some fresh pressure on banks this week. they've found their footing today. really moderate reads. moderate volumes here. slightly positive on the breath. you were just talking about tesla and salesforce look at those two stocks on a one-year basis against amazon. kind of the same path. individual stuff going on with each some leadership questions around each of those companies and a lot of kind of retrenchment as opposed to really gunning for growth and all now basically cut in half as of today. the volatility index is easing back in the 22s ppi tomorrow might be a market mover. we'll have to see. >> looks like we're going to break the losing streak for stocks the s&p 500 is up three quarters

of one percent what's leading today technology for a change. you are seeing strength in some of the chip names. nvidia up 6.5% sky works solution also seeing strength in consumer discretionary. a rebound in things like nike, etsy amazon is higher today as well and that is certainly helping. the only sectors that are lower here on the close are energy and communication services that's it from me on "closing bell." overtime with scott wapner >> thank you very much welcome to overtime. you just heard the bells we're just getting started here at the new york stock exchange today. we have important earnings about to hit including lululemon, costco and broadcom. the stock moves i know you want to see eric jackson is going to be here with us today on whether you should buy or sell the tesla slide. which continues. an