real look at a whole lot of different aspects of the economy tomorrow >> yeah, as well as housing data in the morning the dow finished higher. s&p basically flat the nasdaq down a quarter percent. that's going to do it for us at "overtime." >> "fast money" begins right now. right now on "fast," shares of first republican tumbling deposits at the regional bank plunging by 40% in q-1 and now they plan to lay off close to a quarter of their employees in q-2. plus, a beijing ban? new reports that china may stop u.s. chip maker micron from selling its chips on the mainland the u.s., for its part, asking neighboring countries not to help china if it needs more chips. is this just the start of a bigger trade fight to come and why investors keep hanging up and at&t. burgers, fries yo, and options ahead of mcdonald's. and new cell phone data showing dire reality for one of

calif california we start off with an earnings alert. shares dropping sharply, despite top and bottom line beat investors spooked by the massive drop in december posits, they dd 40%. first republic also saying it is planning to lay off up to a quarter of its work force in the second quarter remember during the day, it was up 12% or so, so the markets giveth and taketh away, tim. >> going down seems to be more painful, even though going up is more rewarding on a relative basis, but -- this deposit number is really a bad number. again, the street was calling for 137 billion, we see where they came in, so, we need to hear from the call what they're going to do. cost-cutting is what i think people actually believe the ceo can do, and certainly what they're going to have to do, but it's going to get back to, really, what's the level of

deposit rates that can be profitable for this bank, and what are they going to have to pay as a premium over their regional peers and where are they with their business model i don't think, at least right now, and some of the guides we have, and i know we're going to have a great discussion with a banking analyst who doesn't think they're necessarily going out of business, but they have options, but their core model is something that i think right now is really in question. and that's really where we are >> if it's a business built by depot deposits are above fdic insurance, i don't know if they're going to come back but outflows stabilized from march 27th up until april 21st, i think is the date. so, stabilization in recent days, dan, but -- >> yeah, listen, that was one of the the intents of the fed coming in and doing what they did. they wanted to make sure this wasn't systemic. we've been talking about frc, just been flat-lined, at that level for weeks and weeks. the kre, the regional bank index, it with was the same

thing. look at the bkx, if you want to pull that up that's the banking index that is equal weight we talk about the xlf a lot, berkshire is the largest holding there, over 12%. not a great indication of the bank look at the bkx how little rally it's had, given what we've seen by the participants of the large money center bankbanks, so, it t struck me a little bit, i don't know if you saw the article about the banking mess, if it's over or not. the bkx has not made a lot of progress it feels like there's other shoes to drop. >> yeah, kre, too. let's get more details the conference call is a half hour in. hugh son has been listening into the call hugh, what are we learning so far? >> hey, melissa. it's great to be with you. the ceo of first republican made what was probably the most important conference call in the 40-year history of first republic in about 12 minutes and there was no q&a, so, he was

very easy to take in, though it was painfully brief. the big news and the portrait that they wanted to portray was one of stabilization so, you saw, obviously, the deposits fell by 41% to 140 billion, more or less. that is, however, below the, you know, below the analyst estimate, and on top of that, you know, they basically said that since the end of the quarter in the past three weeks, they only fell 1.7% further. so, the image is stabilizing at first republic, however, you know, what are they left with? that's one of the questions. couple more points of sort of action here, you know, they're cutting up to 25% of their employees, that's a very deep cut. obviously they've talked about cutting executive compensation, closing offices and reigning in the real estate footprint. so, really, these are the steps of, you know, a company that's under some considerable duress another thing they pointed out

is, they've retained nearly 90% of their financial advisers and wealth management division, i guess that's another way of saying they lost 10% of their advisers, you know, in the post-svb and so, yeah, look, that's sort of the high notes from this 12-minute call, melissa. >> 12 minutes, hugh, that's it >> no questio&a >> hugh son, thank you for keeping us posted on this. tim mentioned, at what cost, the deposits we know in the days following the initial blowdowns in the banking sector, we got ads for cds from first republic. not going to be able to be easy to keep up with these sorts of payments just to keep deposits stable and stable meaning as hugh minentioned, down 1%. >> it's also about the profitability of those said deposits and i think that's the point you're getting at. if you have to pay 4%, 5%, just to retain and prevent outflows,

i think it puts you in a bit of a challenging position there is one positive take away that hugh mentioned, which is the assets under custody and the adviser resense. that was a real area of focus for them bringing in talent they cater to high net worth individuals, but making all of those, you know, all of those every efforts to acquire them and at least they are able to retain those high net worth individuals. >> and i think the biggest take away for me, this feels like we're rehashing it we went through this semicrisis already, we're worried about the floor falling out, the sky falling down, whatever you want to use there, jpmorgan did just fine, large money center banks did just fine. we had to hear from these regional banks i think we knew this was not going to be good this was going to be terrible. but we've already lived it it's already over, so, i don't know if it's going to have a huge effect on the overall market tomorrow.

i think it's not good for the regionals. but it's very easy to transfer your deposit from a bank, from one to another these days, so, i think crisis, quote unquote, averted for now. >> do you feel better knowing first republic's results in a 12-minute conference call where there were no questions answered -- >> no, the bank's not down 90%, or close to it, because they're less profitable. this isn't a story of -- because this was a story of one of the great growth stories in the regional bank. they had a 20% in terms of what they were doing when most other w banks weregoing 2% to 5% wouldn't be down where it is today. there would be plenty of people that would be willing to say, okay, doesn't need to grow as fast, and i understand, derating multiple this is what dan is referring to in the kre we just don't know and we still haven't gotten to an environment where some of the credit velocity has picked up. so, i -- there are clearly trades in here

clearly. but i -- you know, i'm just not ready to make that call. >> just before, because i don't want -- i don't feel better about seeing the results, what i'm saying is, the market needed to see them, just to see how bad it really was, but i think the market has already digested all of this. >> all right, so, couple things. extrapolate it to the economy here, because i think this is really important in this piece i referenced by "the wall street journal," they were quoting a bunch of goldman sachs data, and i thought it was interesting. every 10% -- >> contracting 2% in loan growth and that's, like, so, let's think about that so, we're seeing this across regional banks, we're going to see it across, we know some of the major banks have tightened up their standards, even as they brought in more deposits that is probably -- we're been talking about what's on the other side of this crisis, so, what does that mean for the contraction in the company this headline, they are going to cut their head count by 20% to

25% in the second quarter alone. so, remember that episode we had a few weeks ago where i told you there's a certainty there are going to be less bankers in america at the end of this year? we're going to see further consolidation, banks close, and that doesn't bode well for these people finding the similar sorts of jobs. so, i just think that what that means for consumer spending also, we saw some of the data in and around svb failure and what that meant for consumer data these are the pal pations that are going to continue until we have some sort of clarity about when this ends >> let's go to christopher mearinak great to have you with us. >> thank you, michelle good to be here. >> melissa, that's okay, though, i get that all the time. >> sorry about that. >> no problem. you don't cover first republic yourself, your firm does, so, i'm wondering how you see first republican's results as sort of any sort of sign for some of the banks that you do cover. >> so, clearly it was a disappointment on the deposits we thought that there would be

40 or 45 billion decline, not 72 i think that the cost-cutting has to happen immediately, which they talked about. the question is, can they really pivot from being a growth company to being one focused on expenses and profitability we're not sure it's in their dna, but they're going to have to they have to make this change for survivability. i thought it was disappointing there wasn't q&a i think we needed to get that therapy on the call, but it didn't happen, so now we have to ask the company to give us, if not weekly, perhaps biweekly updates about what's happening with the balance sheet and really the shrinking of the balance sheet is now the next critical step. >> what do you think is the next chapter for first republic what options do you think it has on the table dozens of banks have had a look at this thing, nothing has happened so far. i don't know if a deal could be in the works here. does it need to raise capital somehow, would that be -- what are some of the next things you're looking for here? >> i think shrinking the balance sheet. they have to shrink the assets they have to constitute themselves as a much smaller

company. the ratio i hang my hat on is that 51% of the funding is debt. and so, that really is not a good number. the average for large cap banks is 14 today, so, that's way out of whack they have to shrink. i think they have to actually execute on that, so they can be a much smaller company and they revisit kind of where they go strategically. it's a hard pill to swallow, it's really friendly fire from what happened with svb, but for them, it is what it is, it's the one company that really has been singled out. the rest of the industry, i think, has side-stepped this issue, and i think this is the one that we need to get clarity on, so, now we know how bad it is, to the point made earlier, and now they have to do the heavy lifting of shinrinking th balance sheet. >> kurt -- chris, i'm sorry. >> i see what you did there. >> the question i have, though, where do fed funds need to settle in? where do they need to settle in and can we read this through

other regional banks because we are talking about an element of, where can they be profitable i'm just curious say we have fed funds at 12% for five months, where does the deposit rate have to top out at? >> for them, their total funding was a little bit less than 3%. i think they need to get 3.25%, 3.5% and stop there. i'm sure incrementally, they're paying 5% today, so, they're in low water. the whole industry, we generally see about 220 to 240 point spread that's a way to think about it for the industry first republic is clearly going to be higher they already are higher by a country mile so, they have to change gears and kind of stop paying as high rates, but again, that goes back to shrinking the balance sheet if they do that, they can pay down their funding on borrowings and really reconstitute themselves as a much smaller company. they most likely have to shrink by at least half, mostly

two-thirds >> chris, if we have you back on in nine, 12 months, are we still going to be talking about first republic as a publicly traded entity >> i think we are. they have a strong ceo i think he's built this company from the ground up for many years, took it out from maryland b of a a long time ago it's going to be hard. it's going to have to focus on profitability, but i would not count jim out. >> what multiple would you put on this new first republic i mean, compared to all the other banking options that there are out there at this point? >> so, i start with the price of tangible book, i think it's going to be at a deep discount for awhile so, 50% to 60% of the tangible book is a place to start, and as you reconstitute the earnings, most likely a five or a six multiple is where we sit, so, it definitely is a low valuation for awhile, until they can show, that's why i think this biweekly or weekly announcements where they are with the balance sheet

with from fiprofitability is a significant step they have going to have to make up new disclosure rules about how often they communicate >> multiple about five, we have a screen up here, the forward pe being about 13, including the decline that we're seeing in the afterhours, so, it needs to be more than cut in half from here. >> unfortunately that's where book value, i think, can help and perhaps be a little bit of a safety valve, but again, i don't think we know what the real numbers are. i think the real earnings is a lot less than what has been in the screens here in recent days. >> all right, chris, thank you so much for your time. appreciate it. all right, so the forward multiple needs to be cut by more than half and there's still a lot we do not know when it comes to the earnings power. is this a story you want to be part of? >> ah -- it's not, unfortunately. not yet. let me not rule it out there is -- i still think there's real risk here

i'm going to add, what still has not fallen out is credit and chris had a nice chart here, we talked about net interest margin, cost of deposits, hold to maturity and available for sale and if you kind of time theories that data out, it brings to the front, are we really going to have a situation where there's going to be more stringent controls over available for sale versus hold to maturity and i think that leads to the credit tightening and shrinking of loan growth and all of those things that to dan's point i think kind of pushes us over that edge. >> let's get to the markets now and broader technology tomorrow starts a very big week for the sector alphabet and microsoft report after the bell later this the week, meta and amazon alphabet up less than a percent today, microsoft fell 2% there's so much to be looking at >> yeah, all that stuff is -- is out there.

the question -- opportunity it feel like this year that microsoft really ate google's lunch. to me, at least. >> ate everybody's lunch >> but google is outperforming on a year to day basis microsoft. i was shocked to look at the numbers, because you think, oh, my gosh, they're under the weight of microsoft right now. microsoft looks like it has to roll over, to me google looks like they have to prove themselves and i don't know how much google is going to lose in ad revenue and have to build up in funding their ai, sol for me, i think both of them probably need to take a bit of a step back, and if they do, the overall market rolls, too >> to me, it's so much about cloud, how penetrated we are, and then, you know, really, what's the spend going in enterprise, at least in the near term if you look at the charts, i just want to point out some of the stuff that i think we talked about a lot, but that microsoft and apple, since -- over the last four months have outperformed the s&p

relative basis outperformance of 23%. both of them right back up to resistance. and i think we may or may not have a chart on this so, there's apple, essentially net worth relative or just the performance relative to the s&p over the last couple years, you can see, we're right up at that level where it's been running into resistance and it's a 23% move in the last four months i don't think we're ever going to see apple's value relative to the s&p this high ever again and that's -- you can -- you can -- i could never be wrong on this because we will never know when never again is, but i think we have a backdrop of the setup here it doesn't make me feel great about what big cap can do and the charts are telling me that, as well. >> yeah, so, the setup for microsoft is particularly bad, if you think about what we know just in the last couple weeks. that cdw preannouncement is not great for microsoft. if you think about all the hype built into this story right now because of ai, there's not too many other large cap companies we've seen, i know we talked a little bit about nvidia, that pc

data that we saw a couple weeks ago is not particularly great. so, you know, i say to myself, stock's at the top end of the range here, trading about 30 times, it's had a really good run, based on some things that it really becomes a bit of a show me story here, and i think you're going to have a better opportunity to buy this thing probably down 10% in the next couple weeks oower, but to me, i think the valuation reset probably needs to happen a couple turns here. >> all those points aside, i still think there is an aspect of these names where they're still perceived as being safety. and we just shot back to that frc situation, where there's so much uncertainty, so many unknowns, and it gives you a sense of jitteriness, when you have an analyst calling for the price target to be essentially 50% of where it is right now, so, i do think there's a psychological safety net that these companies still offer, and that might led them to be a slightly -- >> that might be the biggest point of all the stuff we brought up, because if you look

at when svb collapsed, all of them took off and the first week of april, all the charts sort of flattened out. that might be the biggest takeaway, was that the reason why they got padded? >> only thing i'll say is, safety is very crowded >> i agree >> if you look at the nasdaq, it's flat lined this whole month at 13,000, you know what i mean? if one company is perceived safety, that basically do, like, have some sort of warning about enterprise spending or something like that, and the cloud stuff is also really interesting, because it's not just big enterprises. we look into small, medium businesses, too, so, to me, there's probably one of these lurking out there that are going to basically say, in this rate environment, also we're going to hear higher for longer, even if the fed pauses that's something that could weigh on valuations and all of these companies are expensive right now. coming up, pricing pop coca-cola reporting strong results as the soda maker passes costs onto the consumer. what the pricing power will mean

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welcome back to "fast money. micron sharing dropping today on reports that china could ban the u.s. chip maker from selling its semiconductors into the country. this move would be a major retaliation by beijing, and it comes after the chip's act barred american companies from investing more in china while getting new u.s. funding last year, revenue from china made up 25% of micron's revenue. how scared should we be of this? >> i think, look, micron is such a cyclical trade on some level within the chip space. we kind of know what they do we know it's about inventory and deram pricing and if you look at the chart, it kind of tells you about that on some level, maybe we priced through a lot of bad stuff we have no idea. and when the white house is reaching out to samsung, or there's a reference that they have actually reached out to samsung, at least south korea to urge their chipmakers not to make up the market in china if micron is banned -- it's is just

interesting. think about the things that the u.s. has done to hardware companies or semiconductor sxees in that part of the world. and -- should they be surprised? no.cautioned about the broader impact, not just in the tech sector, but consumer products >> yeah, this is getting dialed up if you talk to folks who used to go to china a lot for business, they're not going anymore. you bring up the situation with huawei, that was the cfo detained in north america for -- whatever reasons we deemed at the time i don't even remember. >> tim cook or someone senior from apple -- it would be significant. >> yeah, listen, tim cook, elon, i mean, those guys are fine, they're made guys, as some of you guys might say i think what they do to their own people and have done, you know, like, is reason enough to say, you know what, i'm not bringing my smartphone when i'm going over there, i'm not doing that sort of thing so, to me, i you this it's going

to be -- i think we are in the midst of a very hot economic war that doesn't really appear to get any cooler any time soon. >> if beijing did this, this would probably re-accelerate reshoring, the reshoring movement, right? because if you are a dell or apple computer and you manufacture over there, you no longer can get those chips from micron in china. so, what do you do and if south korea's not going to fill the gap, you can't make your product, so, what do you do you have to find other places to make your product, because you can't live with that risk anymore. >> it's good for samsung >> that's why shares are rallying today >> and they reported some numbers that weren't great, so -- it's very inflationary, too. we talk about all the things that are going on, you can't get away from it >> you took the worlds right out of my south. seems like every time we try to get on the right side of this trade, there is something, and it just shows how it's just drastically out of our control here to your point earlier about, am i concerned? surely show me a company where 25% of

its revenue is wiped out and they find another way to act quickly? the last point i'll say is, this actually might be the rallying cry for intel. this might be the thing that actually rescues them from themselves >> i think if you look at nvidia, the entire space, people are going to start to analyze, do i have enough profits, and nvidia is up 85% year to date. people just arbitrarily, or just across the board, just get smaller in chips, see if that happens on the back of this news. all right, there's a lot more "fast money" to come. here's what's coming up next pricing the pop. coca-cola's results staying nice and bubbly, as costs get passed onto customers but when will the price hikes flatten the soda surge more on the fizz biz, next. plus, a decade of dullness bull or bear, you'll want to hear this call why our next guest says the boring market could be a beautiful place to invest. you're watching "fast money," live from the nasdaq market site

in times square. we're back right after this.

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♪ welcome back to "fast money. pricing power, a big driver for coca-cola's earnings beat today. the company raised prices 11% in the first quarter. while the volume's only went 3%, shares ended the day relatively flat here's what the ceo told "squawk on the street" about where prices are heading from here >> overall, we see moderation. we see the input costs moderating as we go through the year wages moderating as we go through the year kind of cost to medium moderating and we'll see our own pricing moderating as we both cycle last year's strong price

increases and the marketplace, particularly in some of the developed economies, starts to go back to less off-cycle price increases. >> that's good news. coke is not the only consumer company profiting off a rise in prices we heard a similar story over at p&g there is strength, finally, in soda, in water, tim >> well, coke is one of these companies that's got a brand that has pricing power we've seen this were more luxury brands, the spirits world. so, their gross margins were up 123 basis points year over year, which was significantly above expectations you heard the ceo put a prudent outlook there, which talks about, hey, things aren't going to be this good for this long, but if you think about what higher grocery prices have meant for people like walmart, it's what's going on here if you look at commodities and they're not related to making of coke, but lumber prices are at three-year lows. wheat prices are at three-year

lows, transportation costs are coming down. at some point, as a consumer, you go to the store and it's like, are you serious? i went to go buy beer, yeah, i went to buy beer over the week -- >> beer is okay. you're an adult. >> i drink coors light for reasons that probably people don't want to know about, which means just it's like boat water, but a 12-pack is $14.99 in the super market, it was $11.99 p precovid >> you drank the full 12 >> took some time. >> let's side bar those reasons. i mean -- one thing that's interesting about straples, they were not trading well at february when the market was at the all-time highs it was yolo time it was kind of anything that got killed in 2022, you were buying. staples were down. if you think about the pricing power, if you look at the xlp, it's trading almost right back at those levels. you can say, okay, well, so is the s&p 500, but the fact is,

here's a company, and the narrative is that inflation's coming down, they have pricing power, they're doing it. even with growth where it is at low single digits, valuations seem stressed. it's making all the cases of why you own staples. coming up, shares of cleveland-cliffs and whirlpool details of those quarters next. plus, right back where we started from why the next decade will see a sideways s&p that would be a trader's dream come true. more on that call when "fast money" returns ah, these bills are crazy. she

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welcome back to "fast money. another check on the markets today. stocks closing mixed as inves or thes brace for big tech earnings the dow jumping 66 points, the s&p up a tenth of a percent and nasdaq ending in the red, down three-tenths of a percent. shares of cleveland-cliffs and whirlpool afterhours with results. our next guest expects a sideways trading range for the next ten years let's bring in barry banister, steeple chief equity analyst it's hard enough to call a year, but you're calling a decade, and you're calling it flat why are you doing that

>> we've been talking about this since 2019, you know the market peaked a couple days -- about mid-march of 2020, with covid we've made progress since then and we came right back down and then back up on a bounce i think it's easier to focus on current year, which a lot of our research does, and then also on the long-term, five to ten years out. and leave the middle to just be worked out when you look at it, the price earnings multiple from december 2021 is going to come down by about half the earnings should just about more than double and so, you'll end up with a flat market. much like 2000 to 2013, or 1937 to 1946, i mean, i can go back quite a long time. you end up with these flat sideways range-bound markets >> so, barry, when you look at it, though, there's so many geopolitical possibilities that used to be outliers, they're not outliers anymore

there's so much happening inside this country, so, i get that in ten years it could be sideways do you see major events happening short-term >> yeah, back in october of 2022, just about a week and a half after the lows, we said that we wore up 500 points by april. and about 85% of that move is done, so, the easy money is behind us. the hard money is now. we've been saying that there's going to have to be avoidance of a recession, and that would have to be pushed back, and it looks like that is pushed back, but a classical recession by the end of the year is possible. and as far as longer term, yeah, the geopolitical risks surrounding oil, which is really the key to inflation, as much as labor, that is a very big issue long-term. the dollar over the very long-term is going to be, as a store of value, is going to be under some pressure. and we've got this thing called fiscal dominance, where the fed loses relative power to the big

spending treasury, and eventually, you know, the populous vote for their own benefits it makes it a lot harder for interest rates to stay very low. and that's what stocks need to stay very high >> barry, this is bono, thank you for your time. so, reading your report, it would seem to imply that being that we're going to be flat, reported that we're going to be flat over the next decade, the low fee index strategy is likely not going to perform well. so, sounds like one, you'd be a proponent of active management during this period of time my question is, what type of strategies do you think perform best in the environment that you foresee over the next decade >> yeah, well, we definitely now how the environments shake out they tend to be slightly more inflationary they tend to feature a weaker dollar they tend to have a compression of pe ratios, the price earnings multiple comes down. so, those would argue for international value small cap,

as an overweight, and growth over the long-term as an underweight in your portfolio. so, we all know what value is, that's everything from these beaten up banks to energy when it resurges, to industrials and basic materials. and we know what small cap is, and the international, it could be a mix europe and emerging markets. >> barry, great to get your thoughts, thank you. >> thank you >> barry ban esther of stifle. >> all right, so, long-term outlook, and all the power to him, it makes sense in many ways i would just say this, if i'm looking at small caps, you want to be overweight in that environment, i do not think so i saw david rosenberg mention, if you look at the underperformance relative to the s&p 500 and the nasdaq, it really feels like it wants to crack here all the things we talked about at the top of the show -- listen, we know there's a lot of small cap financials that are in

this index or whatever if you go back to november 8th of 2021, that's when the russell 2,000 topped out, and that was a month before basically the nasdaq and it was two months before the s&p 500 so, i'd keep a close eye on the russell. it could be a leading indicator for the largerindices. >> that's just not going to happen, and international is going to continue to, i think, it finally relative underperformance for more than a decade we've had this reversal and i think we just started that. coming up, communication breakdown. at&t reeling from its post earnings plunge. is it time to hang up on this name we'll dig into that trade next. plus, mcdonald's on deck to report tomorrow. how are options traders placing their orders the details when "fast money" returns.

- double check that. eh, pretty good! (whistles) yeek. not cryin', are ya? let's tighten that. (fabric ripping) ooh. - wait, wh- wh- what was that? - huh? what, that? no, don't worry about that. here we go. - asking the right question can greatly impact your future.

- are, are you qualified to do this? - what? - especially when it comes to your finances. - yeehaw! - do you have a question? - are you a certified financial planner™? - yes. i'm a cfp® professional. - cfp® professionals are committed to acting in your best interest. that's why it's gotta be a cfp®. find your cfp® professional at letsmakeaplan.org. welcome back to "fast money. at&t dropping nearly 4% today. now down more th a $17 price target on t since last august craig moffat is joining us you are so close to your price target, so, congrats on a good call

in terms of what has happened, though, since earnings, what do you think finally dawned on investors? because from what i read, when they first reported, everything was sort of fine, they stuck to guidance, you know, the business is not growing, but there was though reason for the stock to decline this much. >> well, yes and no. first of all, good to be back, melissa. but i guess a couple of things the first thing i would say is -- is -- and what obviously struck people was free cash flow was a billion dollars. i mean, this is a company with a $16 billion target for free cash flow for the year. and while admittedly, some of the miss was -- expectations were around $3 billionfor the quarter, so, came in two-thirds light. some of the explanations are reasonable, some timing of cap-x, some timing of receivables and particularly payables but it certainly puts them

behind the eight-ball for the full year of free cash flow. and that's the only reason to own this stock is the dividend they're paying a $7 billion dividend and they generated a billion dollars of free cash flow, so, that's alarming on its face there are bigger strategic issues here. >> sorry, craig, it's tim, thank you for joining us, and boy, i wish i had listened to you probably not just in the last year, but maybe over the last couple of years. and you've defined in your note that the wireless game is becoming a zero sum game, and it's going to come down to competitive advantages please articulate what those are for at&t at this point and i think we know what they are for t-mobile, and they've crushed it please examine that. >> yeah, tim, i'll tell you, you mentioned a couple of years -- i started covering this name in 2006 the stock is below where it was when i started covering it in 2006 so, this is not a stock with a track record of a lot of

shareholder value creation and the struggle is, look, verizon differentiated itself with consumers and businesses for years with the best network value proposition. t-mobile differentiated itself with best price proposition and now arguably it has best price and best value or, best network it's never been entirely clear what at&t's value proposition was in the first place other than, we give away phones to almost anybody. doesn't have to be a premium price plan in order to qualify for a free phone that's expensive business, right? they started resubsidizing phones after the subsidy model had gone away. at tremendous cost to free cash flow and they still haven't gotten out of that trap.

so, at essence, the real problem is, you start with what they're selling customers is arguably overpriced relative to what it is now you have the additional problem that the industry growth rate is really finally starting to decelerate and fall back down toward a much more sustainable growth rate that is reasonably close to the population growth rate and then layer one more piece on this, and that's the cable industry is now pricing wireless way below where the wireless players are. they're using verizon's network, so, the network is just as good. the prices are lower and they're taking more and more market share so, what's left for the incumbents to fight over is getting much, much smaller >> craig, thank you so much for joining us price target, $17, we're just a couple percent away from that. appreciate your time all right, so you said you wish you had listened to craig, mainly because you are a shareholder? >> i am with t-mobile and i'm a customer of t-mobile and i'm

really happy about that. people used to malign me for being a t-mobile customer. >> that's it >> what more can i say i'm long at&t. >> 6g. this is what we're going to hear >> 6g? >> the spin has to be on for these guys >> yeah. >> it's not great if you have all that debt, you know what i mean >> yeah, definitely. let's get to options action here mcdonald's is on deck. a busy day for restaurant stocks the golden arches reporting before the bell tomorrow mike khouw has the action. you hide wrappers from your wife, as we learned on friday. >> oh. >> not every day, not every day, but you know -- an egg mcmuffin before work sometimes is a bit too appealing to resist. let's be honest. okay, mcdonald's, which is one of the busiest restaurant stocks in terms of options trading traded three times today puts did, as you indicated,

slight ly over calls. right now, the options market is implying a move of 2.5% higher or lower but the buying of those puts believes it is lower by the end of the week. >> do you like mcdonald's, the stock? >> i -- i do, but i don't mind buying the puts here they are cheap, short-dated. if you get something you don't like, it probably protects something that you have made multiples of the 2.5% move >> mcdonald's, if you look at the chart, it's figured out how to navigate a great economy and a terrible economy over the years. look at where the chart is right now. it's very hard to -- to place your bets against this name. >> i feel like you might go to a drive-in, tim, have a wrapper -- >> i have nothing to hide, all right? let's be clear and what's the -- the oreo ice

cream, not a -- >> the flurry. the mcflurry it's great and thank goodness for happy meals, because my son wouldn't eat otherwise. i won't say anything about their chicken, but fortunately, that's where his protein is coming from i'm probably going to get in trouble for that, but we're not hiding from that >> you own mcdonald's. >> yes >> you think it's fine here? >> i think it's really expensive. and i've been selling upside calls and i'm almost flat in the position >> mike, thank you mike khouw for more options action, be sure to tune in 5:30 on friday. coming up, if you are going to san francisco, be sure to bring a couple of friends. new reports showing cities could still be facing major problems post-pandemic. the implications on retail, restauras,nd me.nt aor "fast money" is back in two.

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welcome back to "fast money. a new report from apollo showing cell phone activity in many of america's major cities is still severe by depressed from p prepandemic levels new york is at 74% of its p precovid levels. chicago at 50% and san francisco just 31% of what it was before the pandemic. think of the impact on commercial real estate,

restaurants, retail and more i mean, 31%, part of it could be cord cutting, cost cutting, downsizing, et cetera, but part of it is just, you're not going back to that city and think of the implications >> i can't go into the analysis there because i don't really know what the correlation really is to population outflow and cell phone usage i think all of us try to use our cell phone a little bit less every day, it's harder to do i don't think there's any denying there's been -- much in the way that covid accelerated trends that were already happening, we were already seeing people leaving urban areas and moving to more remote and regional parts of the country. i think that's going to continue to happen. the front page of "the new york post" is not what's going on in new york city. and i think -- we deal with this all the time if we live here, i think sometimes things sound like they are worse than they are. i mean, look new york has got its issues, but i think life feels very much like precovid. >> yeah. and there are a lot of, i mean, sort of trades, if you will, if you follow the migration

patterns, population outflows of these sorts of cities, you see it going to texas and florida, that's where you see the regional banks doing better, because they are making more loans, just because of the influx of businesses and people. >> and you also have lower taxes, so, people going to lower tax states, they go to safer cities so, there's -- i think tim started off the right way. i don't really know all of the analysis that went into this, so it's hard to sort of cherry-pick where we're at with this, but i think pandemic has changed a lot. people want a better quality of life >> here's one thing, zoom today made a new 52-week low, down 90% from its all-time highs. when you think about the trends and things we thought would stick around >> and you were probably on a zoom today >> i was >> it's still very much part of the fabric >> but it's a pretty shocking sort of stat when you just think about the some of the behavior that we had, that we've adopted. some of the things that we heard over the last week or so from

some of the airlines and what they had to say about business travel, so, it's just kind of interesting. listen, people look at us all the time to try to demystify the stuff going on in the markets, uhl t i'll tell you, this stock is about as imbedded as it's been in most of our lives in a normal time frame, and the stock market is saying no >> the intra-day today on zoom was weird. just spiked higher midday -- i don't know what's going on there. coming up next, final trades ♪ ♪ do the work, before the work. bodyarmor lyte.

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time for the final trade let's go around the horn tim? >> so, intel, we talked about it some of this chip stuff, it bodes well start to lag back into this trade. >> steve >> nvidia. love the stock but right now, you got to take >> bono? >> if you are concerned, i'm just here to remind you that six-month treasury is still paying you 5%. >> nice trade there. dan nathan

>> debt ceiling we're about to default. just kidding microsoft, i would about be a buyer. >> thank you for watching "fast money. see you back here tomorrow at 5:00 meantime, do not do anywhere "mad money" with jim cramer starts right now starts right now my mission is simple -- to make you money i'm here to level the playin field for all investors. there's always a bull market somewhere. and i promise to help you find it "mad money" starts now hey, i'm cramer. welcome to a special dallas cowboys, the star of frisco, everything is bigger in texas, special edition of "mad money. welcome to cramerica other people want to make friends. i'm just trying to make you some money. my job isn't just to entertain but to educate a