happy friday. welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm sara eisen with carl quintanilla live from post 9 at the knock stock exchange. a goldilocks jobs report? a breakdown of the numbers and what it means for the fed. plus an earnings triple play. first up, cash. block cfo with us with a look at the company's blowout quarter in the future of fintech. the consumer, the ceo of restaurant brands are spending

trends, inflation and trying to reclaim the flame at burger king. finally, the chip trade, the ceo of microchip on the state of the sector as the industry tries to recover from what was a rough october. first, a look at the markets. stocks continuing their celebration of lower bond yields. poised to close out what has been the strongest week of the year. bond yields continue to drop. the ten-year yield down more than 26 basis points in the last five days. we're down into the 4.5 region on the ten-year yield, carl. every sector is higher. right now except for energy. the latest fuel for that bond rally, the october jobs report. lower than expected number, taking heat off the fed as it hesitates to raise rates to stem inflation. tom barkann believes rate cuts are not in the cards right now. listen. >> we don't have the sound from that, but basically said that's still far away. he wouldn't commit to whether he was done hiking or whether he

would be in favor of stop hiking in december. said he wants to see how inflation pays out from here. joining us is rosenberg research founder and president, david rosenberg. these are the kind of numbers you have been expecting to see for a while. weaker headline job growth, higher unemployment rate, weaker wages. what do you think it signals about where we are? >> well, i think that it does signal a significant loss in momentum, which is, i guess, a no-brainer considering we came off 4.9% gdp in the third quarter. the atlanta fed, i think, really kicked things off, sara, cutting its number down to 1.2 for the fourth quarter. if you believe that number, you had to believe that impchl-r employment was going to follow suit. today's number didn't surprise me. i think the downward revisions help explain why we had that outside -- outsized but what proved to be an artificial run-up in the previous two

months. but i think the economy is losing momentum. and i think that the people that threw it in the garbage bin will be putting that call back on in the opening months of the year. >> they aren't yet. we talked to tom barkin of the richmond fed. there is still a feeling, and i think you're seeing it in the market, too, and certainly in the equity market that the economy can come in for a soft landing. if the fed is done raising rates and we continue to see progress towards a bit weaker economy and lower inflation, that doesn't necessarily mean we're going to head into recession. >> that's today's narrative. you know, firstly, the recessions always start after the fed is finished with its tightening cycle. the recessions don't usually occur while the fed is still tightening. those are the lags. actually, i think those of us that were wiping egg off our

face because we were calling for recession a tad too earlier, what i was saying back in 2007, i was early to a fault, but the recession came in december of that year. to say recession is not going to come after the most pernicious tightening cycle since 1981, to me, is a low odds bet. the reality, when you look at the record is this, the recessions actually start two years after the fed's first rate hike. and the fed's first rate hike was march of 2022. that puts a bull's eye on this business cycle in the first quarter of next year. so, yeah, i would say that we're building up towards it. we've been in a soft landing. i don't think a soft landing is a permanent state of the cycle. we've been in a soft landing, but the soft landing historically is just a bridge between the economic expansion phase and then the contraction

phase, which i think will be next year's story. >> you remind me of deutsche. they write, we've been in the hard landing camp for almost two years. that said, the economy has been resilient. if we get through q4 and q1 without it occurring or pointing that way, we have to question whether our indicators are relevant in this cycle. would you agree it has to be done in the next couple quarters? >> i would say that 100%, that if we don't start seeing it by the first quarter, then i guess we'll have to pen a report called, the business cycle has been reversed. back in 2007, i would be on your show and you would be saying the same thing, where's this recession you've been calling for? back then the energizer bunny called the consumer had its battery extended because of mortgage equity withdrawal, cash out refinancing, the last ves taj of the housing bubble. that kept the consumer going until it didn't. the recession started in

december of 2007. not even the fed saw it. only me and dick berner on wall street were calling for recession back then. this time around, you know, the lags have been extended because of the last vestige of the fiscal stimulus in 2021. as powell keeps saying, these things operate with lags. i was very encouraged today. i guess if you're saying, why would the stock market rally and the bond market rally? well, i think that both -- both markets just love the fact that the wage number at 0.2. you know, we've got the labor cost number, nobody talked about the productivity. labor cost in third quarter, negative 0.8 sequential. the big concern we'll have this spiral without uaw strike object other strikes, the wages have been accelerating nicely. that's good news for both asset

classes. >> couldn't you also argue that the consumer is just not showing signs of going into recession? there still is a healthy demand for labor. there's still historically low amount of americans filing for jobless claims each week. you could say that's lagging. but if you look at some more real-time indications from companies we're getting on earnings, and i know a lot of them are in the services sector, but just today, live nation and expedia and even starbucks, and we'll talk to restaurant brands in a few minutes here, but nobody is talking about a consumer that's falling apart. they're talking about strength and maybe they see weakness in the low income cohort, but nothing broad based. >> i think apple's guidance was something you didn't mention that we could throw into the mix. and then in the next few weeks, you know, we'll be hearing from walmart and target and macy's. i think their guidance is going to be very important. but i would ask you the question that if you're right, that the consumer is in such great shape

and we'll going to have a terrific holiday shopping season and the consumer was so strong, why was there no retail sector employment growth? there was no growth in retail employment. so, the retailers might be telling us something about what their outlook is. when you look at that 4.9% gdp growth number, of course, all anybody talks about is the headline number. you're right, it was skewed by the consumer. and the consumer, you know, ran down its savings rate to almost 3%. you know, the pre-covid norm was more like 8% to 10%. we're down to 3%. so, it was actually a very low quality consumer spending print and gdp print in that third quarter. in fact, there's almost no growth in gdp if the savings rate hadn't been drawn down as much as it has. i say when you're taking a look at, you know, why is it, sara, that delinquency rates are going up or the below 4% unemployment rate and delinquency rates going up in subprime autos, they're

going up in credit cards, you're starting to see some strains. one of the things i noticed in today's job number was the one number that was really strong, was multiple job holders. up over 200,000, to a record high. i think we're up to about 8.5 million americans right now taking on more than one job. that's a contra cyclical indicator. that shows you that we're starting to see stress at the margin hit the household sector. it hasn't hit the average, you're quite right. but change is always at the margin. you're starting to see some stresses. that was actually the first number i went to was the -- was multiple job holders. in the past four months it's started to hook higher. that actually is a very good prerecession indicator. >> a lot of people say it's just normalizing, david. we will see. thank you for joining us. it's a good conversation. a good debate. david rosenberg. meantime, apple, one of the

last big tech names to report, seeing revenue decline for four straight quarters. steve kovach is in san francisco this week and joins us to talk about it. i guess there was a couple -- there were a couple analysts, steve, who said that event on monday night might have been a precursor to concerns about, say, macs in particular. that got borne out. >> i asked tim cook about that directly, has the mac business bottomed out? it was down more than 30% for the last quarter. cook told me, you know, they expect the mac business to kind of resurge again because of those new models they announced, those new m3 chips. look, that's not going to be enough, carl. this weaker than expected guide is a lot due to just -- we're seeing weird comps from what happened last year over in china, over the product release cycle. the earnings call last night was kind of this excuse-a-thon

explaining why they're not going to be able to return to top line growth as the street was expecting. they're guiding towards flat to no growth. and also saying, look, we have these really tough comps. we released new airpods last year. that makes -- that sends things like wonky. there was the ipad launch last year they didn't have this year. there are some bright spots. shares have eased off but services very strong. and i was looking at morgan stanley's taking this morning, just saying they're growing in all the right places. services, if you believe in a long-term view of apple that services are going to continue to grow and benefit from that 2 billion plus active user install base, that's where we're seeing the resurgence in growth. look, tons of headwinds in china, in the united states, emerging markets look great but it's not enough to take over for

the lack in those more important markets. >> down a percent today but still up from 165 in late october. we'll see what happens next. steve, thanks. there one tech earnings to another, the cfo of block is up next. now on pace for the best day since november of last year. plus, sam bankman-fried found guilty on all seven of the criminal fraud counts brought against him. more on what happens next coming up on "squawk on the street."

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one huge earnings mover is bill holdings. bill.com helps small businesses handle payments and invoices and expenses. it's down almost 30%. despite a beat on earnings and revenue, the story is a massive cut in guidance. significantly lowered outlook thanks to what ceo referred to as a challenging macro economic environment. with today's move the stock has lost half of its value since the start of the year.

>> a couple blowups this week. block blowing a way investors up more than 10% after beating on the top and bottom lines, raising full-year guide amid this efficiency push and personnel cap to reduce redid you understand -- redundancies. joining us is block's cfo amrita ahuja. tell us what lined up. >> thank you for having me. what you saw in third quarter, we grew 21%, all while driving efficiency. we had our highest quarterly ebitda. we raised our 2023 profit guide and released preliminary 2024 profit guide which shows 40% growth ebitda. this is where where we institute

constraints and discipline so we can put as much towards tour customers and driving value to our customers will ultimately drive value for our shareholders. we also initiated $1 billion stock repurchase authorization where we see value in our shares and offset stock-based dilution. >> can you talk -- some of this involves a.i., right, and your ability to revolutionize, is it the sales force? how is that being implemented or used as a tool? >> yes. our cost constraints involve not only personnel team size cap, which we think will enable us to be more effective in decision-making and speeding up our efforts towards our product road map but using new tools like a.i. to make us more efficient not only in the back of house and how we run our business there a customer service or sales perspective, but also in terms of how we deliver new value to our customers. we've already been using a.i. for a number of years, frankly, in terms of how we run our underwriting models and risk

loss models and how we're able to bring more customers into the economy, which is ultimately our purpose, economic involvement. >> the buy back, you announced $1 billion buyback stock authorization. the stock has been hammered. it's about 70%, 80% off its highs. any reason you wouldn't execute that right away? >> you know, we're definitely going to execute it where we see value in our shares. ultimately, we've put out an expectation that we're going to achieve our investment target, investment framework target of rule of 40 by 2026. that includes significant margin expansion, significant growth and profitability and significant growth in cash flows. which gives us the confidence to deploy our balance sheet towards returning value to shareholders. and that's the genesis of this $1 billion buyback. >> we're looking at the three-year stock chart here, amrita. why do you think it has declined so much? and i get there's a plan to

reinvigorate growth. i'm just curious your thoughts on the stock price. >> you know what you see from our shareholder letter that we public b published yesterday is refocus on our top strategic priorities. we think ultimately that will make us most effective in delivering value to our shareholders in the midst of an uncertain macro environment. you see us with square is outlining our four top strategic priorities that will carry us forward in the way that will bring us the greatest value. building upon our platform, driving new capabilities through a.i. and enabling our customers to bank on square as we build out cash flow tools from our sellers. from the cash out per peculpec persp perspective, with he sit in commerce, financial services and community. we're going to bring them together in a unique and differentiated way to be able to

build upon primary banking relationship with our customers. if we can get those right, our stock will work and we'll deliver shareholder value. >> the street is interested in not just consumer confidence or small business confidence, but large corporate confidence and the way they're thinking about '24 spending in light of what may happen to the consumer or small business. would you say you're thinking expansively about say, for example, enterprise tech spend in the next year? >> you know, we're very watchful of the macro trends. we obviously have real-time access to millions of data points, billions of data points across our millions of small business customers as well as millions of individuals on the cash app platform. what we see is generally healthy trends with some areas of watchfulness. we're going to continue to watch all those areas as we determine how we run our business. again, with our preliminary profit guide at 40% growth from

ebitda perspective in 2024 and more than 4x on an adjusted operating income basis year over year, we're going to be operating our business with discipline. >> as you laid out some of your new priorities or re-emphasized the growth plan here, the cost cuts, i'm curious where bitcoin fits in, amrita, because it was a big focus for jack dorsey. is it still a big focus for the company? >> our efforts around our emerging initiatives inclusive of bitcoin are all within an investment envelope where we exercise the same rigor and discipline as we do with our more established businesses. with bitcoin we're focused on driving utility of bitcoin so that ultimately if the internet does see a currency that enables broader crossborder remittance and brings more people into financial success and into the economy, we think bitcoin can be a big part of that.

>> digital gold as cathie wood said this week. appreciate you coming on. good to see you again. >> thanks for having me. >> block cfo. from payments to paying up, a sales miss at burger king weighing on shares of restaurant brands this morning. that's the parent of brands like popeye's and tim horton's. the ceo will join us on the quarter. expedia and booking holdings reporting earnings. bookings, strong numbers but they warned of the impact of the israel/hamas war. you can read more at cnbc.com. ae both medicare and ae medicaid, i have some really encouraging news that you'll definitely want to hear. depending on the plans available in your area, you may be eligible to get extra benefits with a humana medicare advantage dual-eligible special needs plan. all of these plans include a healthy options allowance. a monthly allowance to help pay for eligible groceries, utilities, rent, and over-the-counter items like vitamins, pain

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european market set to close in just a minute. next picture to close out a strong week with the german dax leading the gains there, the stoxx 600 on pace for its best weekly performance since march powered by a series of solid earnings and dovish tilts by central banks, all leading to lower rates around the globe. retail stocks the outperformer, up more than 2%. maersk guiding 2023 toward the low end of guidance range and giving a cautious outlook. on the flip side, bmw gets a bump after the company reported a healthy third quarter earnings report with upside on operating margin. semen's jumps on report it's considering sales in new york. outside of europe, china

services activity comes in weaker than expected in october, adding to signs of a weaker economic recovery. the number did come in slightly above 50 indicating an expansion from the previous month. we're trying to figure out, carl, exactly what's happening in china. there was this narrative things have bottomed out as the government has infused some stimulus. but they don't really do consumer stimulus like we do here in the u.s. so, maybe not having as big an effect. i'm just thinking back to earnings report from coke and estee lauder and canada goose and yum china. not talking about a big recovery. >> foreign direct investment going negative. not good. if you're long inside the chinese government anyway. let's turn to the latest in the trial of ftx founder sam bankman-fried. last night a jury found him guilty. kate rooney was at the courthouse last night. joins us at post 9 to talk about what happens next and how busy the month of march is going to

be for his team. >> it's going to be a busy one for sam bankman-fried. it's not quite over for the crypto founder. he faces another trial next year over campaign finance violations. last night he was found guilty of what the u.s. attorney called one of the biggest financial frauds in american history. the verdict coming almost exactly a year after his crypto company filed for bankruptcy. bankman-fried was convicted across the board, seven counts of fraud and conspiracy on lenders, investors and customers. it was an emotional scene in that courthouse last night. bankman-fried's father doubled over with his head in his hands when that verdict was read. his mother was crying. the defendant, bankman-fried, staring straight ahead during all of this. the jury came back with a lightning fast verdict. it took around four hours, including a dinner break. in their month-long case the prosecution called ftx a pyramid of deceit. they presented evidence showing bankman-fried knowingly stole customer money. u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york saying the cryptocurrency industry and players like bankman-fried might be new, but this kind of fraud

and corruption is as old as time, they put it. they said they have no patience for it. the defense team saying mr. bankman-fried maintains his innocence, will continue to vigorously fight the charges against him. no official word on an appeal. bankman-fried will remain at manhattan detention center until that sentencing in late march he'll face an indictment over campaign finance violations in march as well after spending $100 million on political donations in the 2022 midterm. but there's a chance they would drop that case after last night's verdict. we'll see. >> i mean, so it's stunning how quickly he rose and how quickly he fell. it wasn't that long ago he was on cnbc buying up troubled bitcoin players, talking about how, you know, he's the leader in the industry on regulation. must be weird as someone who covers it to see this. >> i think something that's gotten lost, too, we've been so just trying to keep up with the news cycle. i think stepping back and

talking about the velocity of which all this happened, there's a lot of comparison to theranos, madoff. theranos took years to come out. this was a great scoop. from the time it came out and the company went bankrupt was about a week. they were talking about 2019 when it was founded. the whole thing grew from nothing into a $32 billion company in about two years and then came crashing down. just the extent to which he was able to charm politicians, investors, the media, they actually used a couple -- andrew ross sorkin's interview, an interview i used with sam bankman-fried as evidence saying you lied to the media as well as investors. at one point he told us there was no conflict of interest, and they showed it and said, this is what you were saying publicly

and juxtaposed that with what was going on behind the scenes. i think that's something to keep in mind. just how ridiculously fast all of this happened. >> is there a discussion about how easy it was for prosecutors to get his partners to essentially turn on him? >> that also happened quickly. so, it was in december last year. so, all this is going on in november. goes bankrupt, they're talking about extraditing sam bankman-fried. i think that was the moment a lot of people assumed that he would be found guilty, obviously, the criminal justice system needed to play out, innocent until proven guilty, but that was almost insurmountable in terms of the evidence they were able to get from the three top people, including his former girlfriend. some stories inside the bahama's penthouse, the way he operated. i think that was so powerful for the jury to hear that and bring them inside the room. they were all roommates as well. they lived together, they worked together. these were the people who knew sam bankman-fried. based on some of our reporting after this whole thing happened,

and it unraveled, there were only a handful of people that would have known. he kept an insular inner circle. there weren't low level employees that would have known about these issues. it was up to a handful of executives. >> what about all the customers that lost money, are they getting it back this is. >> they actually might. the bankruptcy case is playing out in delaware. they have recovered about $7 billion of customer money out of eight or ten. there's a chance they maybe would be made 90% whole. there's a chance they will get that back and the venture portfolio -- ftx ventures was in anthropic which has done incredibly well in the meantime. they might make it back. >> definitely exonerating some restructuring team's comments what they saw when the books were first opened. kate, thank you. let's get a news update with leslie picker. >> carl, the u.n. estimates gaza and the west bank need more than $1 billion in aid through the end of the year.

the war with israel has choked aid supplies to the region. the u.n. estimate comes as secretary of state antony blinken travels to the region. the leader of the iran-backed lebanese militant group hezbollah spoke today. he distanced his group from the attack in israel saying it was 100% palestinian. he also criticized the u.s. for failing to secure a cease-fire. three passengers on a san francisco bound plane that made an emergency landing last month filed a class-action lawsuit against alaska airlines for emotional distress. they said that they want to prevent similar security incidents after an off-duty pilot in the cockpit's jump seat allegedly tried to cut the plane's engines. back to you. >> thank you very much. up next, we just mentioned some slower than expected growth in china. the ceo of $40 billion semiconductor company microchip says his company is seeing the same. hanging in there as the tape is pretty supportive today. dow's up 200. back in two.

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shares of microchip are higher. joining us this morning to talk about the quarter in a cnbc exclusive is the ceo. a lot of discussion across the street about how the things you raise are consistent with your peers. that is elevated inventory and weaker in demand. anything you would push back on on that front? >> no, not at all. good morning, carl and sara. you know, we're going through a classic inventory correction for the industry, amplified to some extent by weaker macro concerns that have been there in all the

regions of the world, pretty much all the markets we're in as well. we have to work through it. usually two to three quarter period of time over which these things get worked out. the long-term economics for why semiconductor use, the importance for them and innovation all remain pretty much intact. that's what we continue to focus is to sow the seeds for long-term growth of the company. >> what do you need to do to navigate at least the current environment? >> so, what we've done is bring down what we're -- our plans for shipments to customers, in some cases to our channel partners, so that they can adjust their inventory consistent with where today's business is at. as that happens, we'll be shipping less than what the real consumption will be. that's what sets up the case for correcting the inventory and then you get back to consumption, you get back to growth. that's where we're focused is on the one side, you know, getting the correction done. on the other hand, our customers

after two years of being focused on just dealing with shortages are, you know, doing tremendous innovation with new products and a lot of our effort is to help them, empower them with innovation with all our new product and technology so they can also bring some growth into their business with new and, you know, wonderful new products. >> can you talk a little bit about what you're seeing across the different end markets that you operate in? it's pretty diverse. >> it is. we're probably one of the most diverse companies in terms of end markets. i would say all of our end markets, with probably the exception of aerospace and defense, which is about -- slightly less than 10% of the company. when i look at industrials, when i look at automotive, our infrastructure, data center, computing, you know, all of these areas are weak. consumer has been weak for a while. the degree of weakness can be slightly different between customers, between certain subsegments of the market, between parts of the world and where they're at but they're all

week and i think they're all facing headwinds in terms of where the macro is and where consumers are and what interest rates are doing to people, et cetera. but aerospace and defense has unique upsides. for us three sides is commercial aviation, defense and then there's space. >> are you trying to condition the street to get ready for maybe margins that fall below previous floors? >> not really. i think if you look at us over 15-plus years, we have a pretty consistent model for gross margin, operating margin and cash flow through the cycles. and i think no one quarter -- we've had bad quarters in the past. no one quarter defines a company good or bad as the case may be. we've had a number of 40% operating margin on the floor on a trailing 12-month basis, and we feel very comfortable that's where we'll be through this cycle and into the next upcycle.

>> finally, the street's been really interested in whether or not there's degradation of demand for evs. we got some warnings from some other chip companies, from panasonic on batteries. are you seeing that, at least where the adoption curve might get bent a little bit? >> yeah, absolutely. that is happening. to slightly different extents. i think we're seeing it certainly in europe where many of the subsidies have done away. there's been commentary in the u.s., from the u.s. manufacturers. even in china, i think there's a price war taking place among the ev makers. so, there is still some growth, but not the same level of growth people expected. and certainly i think consumers for borrowing money to buy cars are more skittish unless the price of those cars are recorded. and evs in general have been premium products, certainly in the european and u.s. markets. >> so many silos we can talk to you about. really appreciate the guidance, at least on this quarter. look forward to next time.

thanks. >> thank you, carl. bye-bye. coming up next, speaking of cars, gm self-driving use cruz suspending operations after that deadly crash. deirdre bosa will look at cruise ryifre e. ve dfentxperiences are coming up next. often hard to know which way to go. it's nice to have options, but too many can be confusing. for instance, if you have medicare, you may be able to get a plan with extra benefits if you know where to look. a licensed humana sales agent can help show you the way. take humana's medicare advantage prescription drug plans. these are convenient, all-in-one plans that offer all of the benefits of original medicare, plus add extra benefits. with a humana medicare advantage prescription drug plan, you'll have doctor, hospital and prescription drug coverage in one convenient plan. but that's just the beginning. because every humana medicare advantage prescription drug plan also includes dental

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in san francisco. but they have not come without issues. for today's "techcheck," our deirdre bosa looks at the battle over autonomous vehicles, particularly in san francisco. >> good morning. the promise of self-driving cars has always outpaced the reality. robo taxis hit the streets of san francisco, we tried it out for ourselves with gm cruise's and alphabet's waymo before cruise's operations were suspended. here's a preview of our longer dive into the technology.

>> reporter: we just went around a car with its emergency lights on. it did it pretty smoothly. now we're -- oh. now we're behind a car that's trying to park. he got out. oh, my gosh. and he kicked it. i'm going to put down my window. so, this guy just kicked the car. and now we're calling support. this is stressful. oh, my gosh. oh, he just spat on the car. so, those were the most stressful few moments i've had in a car in recent memory. as the number of driveless cars on the road increased, so too did the problems. >> there have been 75-plus incidents. so, to me it's like playing russian roulette. we're the last line of defense for most people. seconds matter. if it takes us a minute to go around the block because there's

a vehicle in the way, that puts the people in that building more at risk. it puts that building more at risk. and it puts my firefighters more at risk. >> we're the hot line for first responders. that's the first thing we built in response to feedback. police and fire can call a number and we can quickly relocate a vehicle in the way. every collision is reported at the state and federal level. we've shown first responders but that has to be carefully controlled in order to maintain the privacy of our customers. >> reporter: we tried out waymo as well. while they had morrow bow taxis on the streets, waymo has been testing longer. both companies say they logged more than 1 million driverless miles. >> that's interesting. it took the opportunity to squeeze through a pretty narrow space and did so fine. actually, doing better than the drivers around us. i got to say, one word to describe this ride, unremarkable. we didn't get honked at once. there was one incident i thought maybe we cut someone off. it was uncertain. but it's really been really

smooth. >> so, the california dmv found what we got a glimpse of in just one ride. cruise isn't ready for prime time. but maybe just as interesting, guys, the waymo felt very much like it was ready for prime time. be sure to check out the whole piece on cnbc's youtube channel and cnbc.com. big shout out to producers andrew and laura, who were essentially stunt drivers for the shoot. laura was hanging out one of the cars. and i will tell you, they were not that easy to follow. the cruise does things you weren't really expecting where the waymo drives really well, i have to say. >> it was suspenseful, deirdre. the -- when the cruise got spit on and kicked, what was it -- what happened? what went wrong there? did it hit another car? >> so, a car was trying to back up and the cruise went forward and didn't let that car back up. and basically what happens when it's uncertain is it just stops. that's sort of the incident that

led to its suspension as well. it stopped over a pedestrian, but then after a while it tried to pull over and then it dragged the pedestrian with it. so, it doesn't have that kind of human judgment. don't move if there's someone under the vehicle. move if someone needs you to move. that's really what's at issue for cruise. whereas we don't know exactly how many incidents both companies have been in, but the cruise incidents have made it to the media whereas the waymo have not. i will just say anecdotally taking those two rides, you can understand what a huge gap there is between the two. and i know we talk sometimes about how driverless -- the driverless future isn't here yet, but i have to emphasize that with waymo it felt like it was already here. they are still operating by the droves in san francisco. >> love to see that in new york. actually, i wouldn't. >> probably will. >> i know we will. >> soon enough. it's good -- sara, it's good for kids. you think about the proposition. you don't want to put young kids in an uber where you can't really trust the driver, but

these driverless taxis sort of solve for that. you don't have to worry about someone who might be suspicious. >> a lot of pedestrians, though. deirdre, thank you. deirdre, interesting reporting there. up next, from driving to drive drive-through, the ceo of restaurant brands, lower and ti than expected lesas. we'll talk about it. stay with us. we earn your trust. maintain our financial strength and stability. and deliver solutions that meet complex needs. massmutual. partnering with financial professionals, benefits brokers, and institutions. in the u.s. we see millions of cyber threats each year. that rate is increasing as more and more businesses move to the cloud. - so, the question is... - cyber attack! as cyber criminals expand their toolkit, we must expand as well.

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c'mon, we're right there. c'mon baby. it's the only we need. go, go, go, go! ah! touchdown baby! -touchdown! are your neighbors watching the same game? yeah, my 5g home internet delays the game a bit. but you get used to it. try these. they're noise cancelling earmuffs. i stole them from an airport. it's always something with you, man. great! solid! -greek salad? exactly! don't delay the game with verizon or t-mobile 5g home internet. catch it on the xfinity 10g network. shares of restaurant brands international, that's the parent company to brands like popeyes and burger king, trading lower after a miss on revenue and

slower comps in some stores. joining us is rbi ceo, josh, it's good to have you. welcome. >> sara, thanks for having me. it's a pleasure to be on the show. >> it looks like the comp miss just came from burger king s. that a consumer weakness or something specific to burger king, which i know is going through a bit of a refresh? >> i was actually really happy with the results this quarter. it was a little bit below the sell side expectations. but if overall you look at it, the results were great. same store sales across the business were plus 7%, a terrific result in any environment. and even within that the burger king u.s. same store sales were up over 6.5%, that's also an excellent outcome and i was happy as well with the traffic in the quarter. we mentioned we've gone from having struggled with traffic to producing flat, same store traffic in the quarter which is a terrific outcome, shows a lot of progress tom and the team are making and was ahead of where the rest of the industry is.

overall i was really pleased with the results of the quarter. >> so what is the story with burger king and how you've been going through this plan to accelerate sales, you've been investing. is it going to need more investment? is it going relative to expectations the way you want? >> we put in place our claim to flame plan that tom and the rest of the burger king team have been working on, investing over $400 million this year and next year to really get the brand back on its feet and moving in the right direction. it's working well so far. we've been investing in advertising and have the sales moving in the right direction, are remodeling restaurants and seeing really good consumer reaction to that, and we're seeing big improvements in franchisee possibility, the life blood of this business, allowing them to reinvest. and we look forward to investing not just this year, next year, but for many years together with our franchisees to really build the business back to where it should be and reclaim the flame. >> i'm curious to know how

you're thinking about menu innovation and burger king has been innovative on the menu versus kitchen complexity and keeping franchisees happy, getting a healthy number. where's the balance right now? >> we've been focused on our core equities. we have been focused on things like flame grilling, have it your way, and, of course, the whopper. we are bringing innovation around those themes but that is closer to the core and since it is almost lunch time and i hope many of your viewers are hungry, maybe they don't have lunch plans, we have a ghost whopper a special for halloween. it has a good amount of kick to it and is a play on some of the things that are the strongest of our business. please check it out if you don't have lunch plans. >> you don't need to argue very hard. are franchisees right now kicking and screaming or onboard for the most part? >> i think we're making progress there. we're seeing some results on the

sales side, so the advertising investments are working. and we're starting to produce investments out of the capital we're putting into the restaurants. i think we're seeing a shift in franchisee sentiment, more confidence in making investments. we just had our franchisee convention with all the franchisees in the u.s. and canada. you can feel the excitement, feel the confidence that's shifting in the room. i think we're seeing a lot more buy-in today than we had certainly 12 to 18 months ago, and we're working to build on that over the next 12 to 18 months. >> one of the themes this quarter is around pricing, and i'm wondering how you're planning going into next year for what pricing looks like and whether there's pushback from the consumer to higher prices. >> sara, so we saw more inflation last year. we've seen moderating inflation as we've moved through 2023 that would be our expectation for the rest of the year into next year. you'll see lower inflation in some of the inputs that go into our business. and as a function of that, our

pricing at the restaurant level has slowed down. so you see less pricing happening, and i expect both the pace and the degree of price increases is likely to be slower as we move through the rest of the year and into next year. >> what about consumer spending? you have a good read, heavy in canada, you have business in china. of course in the u.s. any changes in behavior and sentiment just around the economic climate? >> in our business we haven't seen a big shift. the consumer we observe in our restaurants is doing pretty well. whether you look at our canadian business, we're the biggest player in the canadian market, we grew sales and traffic. we have more guests coming into our restaurants in canada. i think that's because we're doing the basics right. a compelling product, a great price point, and we're super convenient. we see that in the u.s., too. if you look at the results for our two biggest businesses in the u.s. with burger king and popeyes, they had excellent same store sales, and both had flat guest counts. we're seeing stability in the

consumer trends that we're seeing in our business and, again, i think that's because we're focused on doing the basics right every day here and that's working for our guests. >> josh, thank you for joining us. really good to get the color on the quarter. >> thank you so much for having me. don't forget to drop by burger king or popeyes. >> a sales guy, josh kobza. >> brings us to today's buzz and that's the super bowl. cbs parent paramount announcing it has virtually sold out of its super bowl ad inventory. they kept prices in line seeking between $6.5 million and $7 million for a 30-second spot. fox $600 million in advertising during last year's big game. interesting to see that hold up in pricing. >> you know why it sold out. everyone betting the chiefs will go in, taylor will be there, viewership will be off the chart. >> usher is doing the half. >> this is taylor swift and the nfl. huge demand. >> thanks for setting me

straight. impressive tape, we're not that far from year-end targets. i think wells is 4420 for year end. russell once again positive year to date. >> always happens when everybody is wringing their hands over the rise in yields, and then we get a big week of relief. i think the question next week, is it going to be confirmation of that trend and confirmation of the weakness we saw in manufacturing and jobs today in the economy. >> have a great weekend. let's get to "the half." welcome to "the halftime report." i'm scott wapner. the big question now, how long can it last. we'll ask the investment committee. joining me for the hour today shannon saccocia, joe terranova, jennifer harrington. yields way down, stocks way up. shannon, is it really it? yields way down, i would say the bulls went 3 1/2 before this week.