philadelphia in a lawsuit that accuses him of running an illegal lottery with the voter sweepstakes in swing states. it's october 31st, 2024 and "squawk box" begins right now. good morning, everybody. welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc. we are live from the nasdaq market site in times square. i'm becky quick along with joe kernen and andrew ross sorkin. as joe mentioned, there is pressure on the equity futures. nasdaq bearing the brunt of things. dow futures off 1781 this morning. the s&p off by 40. that does come after slight declines for the major averages yesterday. if you look at the october performance on this final day of

the month, you've got the dow down nearly .50% of 1%. that is the first time in six months we have seen a decline for the dow. s&p is up .9%. the nasdaq is up 2.3%. if you are checking out treasury yields, it looks like yields are continuing to climb. the ten-year at 4.28. the two-year at 4.17. also, gold prices which has been setting new highs is off this morning. $2,788 an ounce. bitcoin this morning, right now, above 72,000. $72,276. starbucks new ceo brian niccol announcing the new strategy. it missed expectations on same-store sales in the u.s. and china. something we knew was in the offing. i spoke with niccol yesterday in the exclusive and wide ranging interview. his first tv interview since taking the helm of the iconic

american company. >> the thing i get most excited about is if we get our business back to being about first and foremost the coffee and the craft and that, you know, that moment where the barista hands somebody their beverage, that is refalling in love with the brand. it is an iconic brand. >> during yesterday's earnings call, niccol outlined his time to get the drink to customers in four minutes or less. we showed you the comments on how he makes that happen and the changes to the pricing structure and so much more. we batted around a lot of ideas, ourselves, over the years. he has a ton of them. >> it is obvious to me. taco flavored coffee. the first thing. >> big buyer of that? >> maybe a burrito flavor.

chalupa. >> less flavors. somebody said they get 30% of their sales now from those crazy drinks than new flavors. >> one of the things we talk about later and you'll see. the highest margin drinks are the most complicated drinks. if you think that is the input to the lines and the reason -- >> why the average consumer may get turned off. >> you may not want that. the other thing is what they are doing is alt-milk. they charge you for that. >> they will put it back up front. >> it will be free. they will make it out front where you do it yourself. >> which people have wanted. >> for a long, long time. you will see a lot of moves. that kind of stuff you wilsee w quickly. >> it is the right move, but painful. >> alt-milk.

it's not milk if it is alt-milk. you see utters on almonds? if you see anything that looks like something you can pull on. to today's big tech movers. microsoft and meta platforms under pressure after results. joining us is brent fill, jeffries. do you see something rhyme and this is happening to these two? >> i think the rhyme is really just a.i. combined with cap ex and spend tan what it will take for the next generation of applications. so, meta and microsoft, both great quarters, but both guiding to future of a.i. which costs a lot of money. so, meta is saying cap ex up significantly without being

specific next year. again, you had a 60 plus percent move on the stock year to date. i think it is perfect for the trajectory of 60 plus. for microsoft, it is about an air pocket in q2 for azure. they expect to decelerate to low 30s and reaccelerate in the back half. this is due to a third party not giving them enough of the workloads in q2 that pushes into the back half of the year. i think the common thread, really, is just high expectations for tech. a big move specifically for meta and investors just requiring absolute precision given all of the a.i. excitement and as we've said, a.i. in software and internet is a slow and

unpredictable adoption at the beginning of the cycle. it will become more predictable later in the cycle. right now, again, these a.i. work loads, i think, are really early and, again, as evidence of that, microsoft is seeing a.i. reaching $10 billion in revenue next quarter. if you put that into the bigger perspective, microsoft in the low single digit total revenue. again, you know, we're super early and, i think the expectation is for investors is it is overinflated. >> they're called the magnificent seven for a reason, i guess. one of the reasons, for example, meta. i can't believe the low. i remember when it was doing it and when it was hitting it. it was 90, wasn't it? it wasn't that long ago. a lot of this has to do with the performance of the stocks over

the last couple years. they must -- they've been incredible performers. >> yeah, i mean they have. when you think about the balance when zuck was in congress and they were reviewing the business model and the stock and never giving up. meta has done a phenomenal job. they have done a phenomenal job of post security sttransition t get on the page. they have over 3 billion users on the system that are active. we feel they have the best potential for a.i. given capital users and data to run a.i. meta has all three ingredients. we think they're in a really good spot. yeah, i think the next chapter now is can they sustain the mid to high teen growth? they got to 20% growth this quarter with the low 40% margin. really good financial performance top and bottom line.

can the next leg of a.i. be as profitable and as exciting for revenue? harder comps and again, everyone across tech with the cap ex war. what will continue to accelerate? google will slowdown the next quarter and the expectations were so low, the stock jumped. again, i don't think this is some massive pit stop. i think these are more speed bumps in my opinion based on what we see. >> advertising is dependent on a strong economy. we are, obviously, the lead story of the wall street journal. 2% of the gdp. if they do advertising slowed from last quarter, not that much, but it did. is there something looming if we

eventually get a slowdown for whatever reason? nothing lasts forever. there are concerns about digital sales growth, why couldn't it totally hit a wall some day? >> i think there sais a q1 comi. to your point, you had really, really strong back drop for advertising spend. you look at what happened with reddit, google, meta, all of these numbers have been really good fundamentally. many advertisers we speak with are saying q1 could be gnarly this year based on all of the pent-up excitement of what has been happening this fall with all of the activities. that attracts advertisers. i think that is probably more of the short-term we're keeping a close eye on. i think investors understand that would happen. it would drop post election.

that's a bigger usissue for met. for microsoft, that's not as big of an issue. that is more dependent on corporate enterprise for the a.i. solutions. that will have a different impact on microsoft. >> great. okay. brent, thank you. i appreciate it. >> thanks. >> see you later. still to come this morning, we have a busy day ahead for investors. we will be getting key inflation data and several earnings reports. we have the squawk planner next. check it out. quite a bit of red ink here this morning. nasdaq futures now down 225 points. we'll talk more about both microsoft and meta after this. as we head to break, let's check out the programming note. cnbc will be live all night on election night. we'll have the results as they start to come in and reaction from the biggest names in business. it all starts at 7:00 p.m. eastertin me. "squawk box" will be hosting an hour early the following day. wednesday morning, we start at

5:00 a.m. make sure you join us. we'll be right back. >> announcer: this cnbc program is sponsored by baird. visit bairddifference.com. this is our future, ma. godaddy airo. creates a logo, website, even social posts... in minutes! -how? -a.i. (impressed) ay i like it! who wants to come see the future?! get your business online in minutes with godaddy airo (man) look at this silly little sailboat... get your business online in minutes these men of means with their silver spoons, eating up the financial favors of the 1%. what would become of them when they discover robinhood gold allows others to earn

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numbers. also, a busy morning for earnings. quarterly results from merck and uber and comccomcast. we will bring you interviews with the company's ceos. those are first on cnbc interviews. robert davis and dara khosrowshahi. then apple and amazon and intel, the three big earnings reports coming out. there is a bit of weakness. amazon shares off 1.13%. probably because of what we heard from meta and microsoft. shares of carvana are soaring. they reported 64 cents a share. more than doubling estimates. revenue also beat and the company said full-year earnings would be significantly above the high end of its previous target of $1.2 billion. the stock was a pandemic darling that fell back to earth, but now up more than 800% in the last

year. 800% after the company restructured operations and cut costs in 2022. ceo ernie garcia will be on "money movers" today at 11:20 a.m. eastern. a first on cnbc. automaker stellantis reported a 27% decline in third quarter net revenue, but said it was making headway in the operational issues. it was making good headway in slashing bloated da-- i don't le that word. stellantis issued a profit warning in late september trimming its annual guidance. shares of roku are tumbling. the profit forecast coming below the estimates. roku will no longer report the number of households that use its products each quarter. that mirrors a situation by

netflix to stop reporting. and shares of dow component amgen beat expectations and revenue was in line with expectations. sales of the pharmaceutical products were up in the third quarter with ten medicines posting double digit sales gains. it expects numbers for maratide in the next few months. you have shares of clorox higher. the cleaning products maker raised guidance and said increased advertising help regain the marketshare it lost when the cyber tack disrupted production last year. the stock is up by just over 3%. ab inbev posted sales volumes that fell 2.4%. much worse than analysts

expected. in this case, in china, weakness in spending in bars and restaurants continued. the bright spot, the growth in the no-alcohol beer portfolio. corona cero was pushed up by more than 20%. coming up, a judge ordered elon musk to attend a hearing in philadelphia today as the d.a. there attempts to block his $1 million voter sweepstakes in swing states. details are next. "squawk box" will be right back. 0 billion in sales for weight loss drugs known as glp-1. even with disliked injections. dehydratech processing of a glp-1 drug demonstrated improved blood sugar reduction and reduced side effects.

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a judge has ordered elon musk to court this morning to address the bid by the top prosecutor to stop the $1 million voter sweepstakes. the lawsuit accuses musk and his pac of an illegal lottery to influence voters in the election. the attorneys for the philadelphia attorney general asked the judge to order enhanced security for the hearing after the d.a. was targeted by some anti-semantic attacks. one posted his home address and wrote that he loves visitors. mask up and leave all cell phones at home. meantime, former ftx executive was sentenced to time served in three years of supervised release. the fourth now ex-employee of the collapsed crypto exchange to

be punished. singh faced a maximum sentence after the judge noted his cooperation with the government was quote remarkable. the judge said he was persuaded that the fraud was not more limited than that of sam bankman-fried. the campaign finance scheme was unknown by authorities until singh brought to to the authorities attention. and when we come back, the first on cnbc interview with robert davis. as we head to break, look at yesterday's s&p 500 winners and losers. it all started with a small business idea. >> announcer: executive edge is sponsored by at&t business.

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live from the nasdaq market site in times square. we will all do this. we will be ready all the time. three shot. i'm joe kernen along with becky quick and andrew ross sorkin. wait a minute. i just read the prompter. it's kernen. have i got that right? i think it's kernen. checking the futures this morning. we take a quick look. not great. the nasdaq is the fly in the oin ointment. the wrench in the works. whatever it is. that's what's happening. these companies, the stocks have done so well, but there are a couple down today. meta and microsoft down sharply lower. e-bay is on the list. $1.19 a share beat estimate by a penny. revenue was up, but current quarter guidance fell short. the analyst said it was due to the one-time factor with hurricanes at the beginning of the quarter and the shoppers

distracted in the run-up to the election in november. he warned there are five fewer days between thanksgiving and christmas this year compared to last year. >> better start shopping because thanksgiving is late. >> oh, okay. now i see. still -- >> you think you can wait until thanksgiving. you will have a lot less time. >> still 365 days. >> thanksgiving alternates where it falls. >> we get them back, that's my point. we get the days back. we're not really losing. you know what i'm saying. i was worried for a second. if that starts happening, that's all i need. getting older and shorter years. horrible. >> that would be an issue. when we come back, merck is set to report. we will bring you the numbers as soon as they report and the first on cnbc interview with robert davis. squawk will be right back.

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all right. merck is out with the quarterly results. the pharma giant earning $1.57 a share. it comes on revenue of $16.66 billion. that is ahead of expectations. for the full year, merck sees the range of $7.72 to 7.77. it is looking for revenue in the range of 636 to 64.1 billion. that compares to expectations of $61.5 billion. joining us is the merck ceo robert davis. robert, there were high

expectations after july and the stumble in earnings there. at this point, the stock is up slightly. what do you think is the most important message you need to get across to wall street? >> becky, first of all, thank you for having me. you know, as you said, this is a strong quarter for us with 4% growth and 7% if you adjust for exchange and it really is driven by the overall strength of the portfolio. katruda continues to do quite well. we're in the middle of launching one of our important drugs for pulmonary hypertension. importantly, our animal health business as really rebounded and growing quite strongly. grew 11%. really, the strength of that portfolio has allowed us to overcome the fact that gardisil was down 10% in the quarter. overall, i think the portfolio sets us up for really a good

finish to the year. >> keytruda has been phenomenal there. growth there was up 21% ex fx when you look at those numbers. what do we anticipate next? i know this is because of additional uses for keytruda that continue to come out. >> well, you know, i think what this really shows you that keytruda is a foundational therapy in cancer. we now have 41 indications that go across 18 different types of cancer and importantly we're moving into earlier stages of cancer. a lot of the growth you are seeing is growth new tumor types we're able to treat, but moving into earlier stages. that's so important. if we're ever really going to cure cancer, we need to treat it early. we have nine approvals in the early stage setting for four for overall survival. keytruda is a story, but there is more to come. it sets us up well because we're

broadening our oncology portfolio with the leadership that we expect to continue to maintain. >> again, $7.4 billion in sales in the quarter for keytruda. you are seeing the biggest rolloff of patent we have seen because it is a blockbuster drug. people have been asking for a while what comes next. what are the new releases you have? i know one is people have been watching. >> this is really an important drug. pulmonary hypertension is a devastating disease. at five years, 43% of the people facing this, unfortunately, will pass. our ability, hopefully to make a difference there is important for the patients and it will drive growth for the company. if you look beyond that, you know, i feel good about how we are expanding our pipeline.

over the last five years, we more than sttripled the phase three programs with unique assets. we have over 20 unique assets in phase three. that will fuel the launches. we have more launches or the same number of launches as in the last ten. the majority of which have blockbuster potential. they really do now extend across a very broad and diverse pipeline in oncology and cardio metabolic and vaccines as well and animal businesses is doing well. as we look at the post-keytruda leadership, you will see a broad portfolio. leadership across multiple therapeutic areas that i think is setting us up for sustainable long-termperformance. that is why the keytruda is more of a hill than a cliff. >> robert, in july, the stock

was down 9% on the earnings release with the guardasil sales. $2.31 billion for the quarter. that was below $2.46 billion. what do youexpect with gardasil sales? >> as we expected and really we tried to foreshadow in the last quarterly call, we are seeing a slowdown in demand in china. it's due to a couple of factors. part of it is, you know, i do think we seeing an impact to the economy there as well as we look at activity at the local centers for disease control, the cdc and where the points of vaccination happen. we are seeing lower activity and desire to promote vaccination at those levels. that is driving a situation where we have to focus on activating and educating and making sure we get that demand back. i can tell you as we look at the

long term in china, i continue to think it is a real opportunity. over 120 million women still need the vaccine and we're about to launch in males assuming we get approval into the beginning of next year. huge opportunity long term. we're very focused in the short-term on working with our partner to address this and we're investing in driving the demand to do that. so, there's hard work ahead of us, but the confidence in the long term and ultimately, that combined with the fact that if you look outside of china, everywhere else around the world, we saw overall very strong growth. i think nearly every region we had grew double digit outside of china. so, with the growth in the world with what we're doing to act vast demand in china, we remain confident long term we will exceed $11 billion of revenue with gardasil by 2030. >> there are things in your control and things that aren't. let's talk politics.

first of all, if our relationship with china worsens, what does it mean for gardasil? and then set the price for the big drugs out there. how do you think about things in those two realms? how do you fight back and try to protect yourself around whatever may happen? >> yeah, well, obviously, what we try to do is whoever is in the administration here in the united states and, frankly, whatever is happening on the global basis continue to stay focused on what matters. are we serving the patients and customers? are we able to drive and deliver cutting edge science that improves lives? as you think about china, obviously, what we do, as we an we approach the chinese market, we are focused there. we are patchyositioned.

there we have an opportunity for great growth outside of china. we are invested in driving a diverse gardasil portfolio that reaches behind china. the concern with the i.r.a. is really impact on the blunting investments and innovation. we very much support finding ways to lower the out of pocket costs for patients. the medicare part d changes put in place. we support those. what we want to make sure we do is protect this industry and the innovation we bring. not only do we bring important treatments that benefit patients, but we create a lot of high paying jobs and we are a net exporter. this is one of the few gems of the united states, this industry, and we need to protect it. our mission is to continue to work with whoever's in the white house and in the administration to continue to drive those messages and be a partner in

solving some of these issues so we protect the innovation for the patients counting on it. >> robert, there are a lot of things on the horizon for cancer. how many of these would be used? would keytruda be used in combination of treatment? is there anything that wouldn't be effective with as a sort of a double-edged sword for all of the cancers and the new technologiies that we don't hav yet? >> joe, i appreciate the question. i can tell you we have not really found an area that keytruda does not work in combination. we are exploring a lot of areas. areas we're investing in we're excited about. antibody congegants which is the next chemotherapy. instead of trad treating the bo

you treat the tumor. great with keytruda. we have one important one in bladder cancer that is changing standard of care there. a lot more to come there. we are not stopping there. we are actually starting to see t-cell engagers. we hear of cell therapy. we are finding t-cell to augment what keytruda can do. whether it is that or one of the things we're excited about is we're looking to combine keytruda with the antigen therapy and all of those technologies are exciting. we are investing and driving all those in the clinic and really, i think we're going to continue to see keytruda and more broadly the pd-1s as a foundational therapy as we go long term with

treatment of patients facing cancer. >> robert davis from merck, thank you for your time. >> thank you for having me. coming up, more on the conversation with starbucks ceo brian niccol. and at the top of the hour, we will have more with our interview with uber ceo dara khosrowshahi.

welcome back to "squawk." it has been eight weeks since brian niccol took the helm of

starbucks. i started out by asking him what it has been like since he started and what he sees as the biggest revolution and the biggest low hanging fruit given all the things he says he needs to fix. >> excited to get the turn around going and, you know, i think there's some obvious things we can do like getting people brewed coffee faster. you know, we just made the announcement of not charging for alt-milk. the pricing architecture is transparent and easy for people to understand. there's a lot of simple things we can put into action and i'm excited how the organization has hopped to it. they're excited to get back to starbucks. >> i asked brought challenge around pricing and how people think that a cup of coffee at starbucks is just too expensive. >> i think the challenge we have right now is we're not giving them the experience that reinforces that coffee quality

craftsmanship is worth it. some of the things we have done to make things difficult is hohow long it takes and the customization, we made it almost like it's very hidden to understand where your coffee price is going to end up. that's why we're doing the pricing architecture to the customization and the first step in the simplification is no longer charging for alt-milk. for customers, that's the number two customized play that customers do right after espresso shot. >> on the milk piece, if the alternatives to milk become free, what is the discount that people pay? >> it will be a 10% discount that the customers that customize in the alt-milk.

that will be very noticeable. the other thing, too, the signal if you think about the coffee condiment bar. we're listening to what customers are asking us to do. you will continue to see us do this, andrew, where we understand the challenges, the frustrations that people may have interacting with the starbucks brand. we will fix those and move those friction points. >> niccol said dropping the charge for the alt-milk will drop the bill by 10%. i asked about the baristas and the efforts to unionize some of the stores. >> what i shared with all of our partners and specifically the folks that work in our stores wear the green apron, i want to create the best barista experience, in-store experience for our employees. you know, we just announced we're going to be focusing on

promoting from within about 90% so their career grows with the company as well. i also think that when we give the partner experience, you know, a terrific every day experience, that results in great customer experience. and, you know, that's what i want to have happen. i want our partners to thrive and i want the business to thrive. >> brian's policy around return to office made a bunch of headlines earlier this week. we talked about it onn the broadcast. i asked him to explain his point of view on that policy. >> i was surprised by the news. this is a policy at starbucks for over two years and i think i've been pretty consistent on this. i think, first of all, to do your job really well, i think there is a piece of this where you have to be in the office, building the culture,

experiencing the brand with each other. and i think that's when we're at our best. and, you know, return to office continues to get a lot of great headlines. in this case, this was a headline that was looking for a story. there really is no story. it is the same three day a week policy we had. and, look, here's what i tell you. you've been to our offices, andrew. they're fabulous. like, the culture is great, the coffee experience is great, the people are great, i don't know why it is such a big story. i like spending my time here. it gives me a lot of energy. >> it sounds like maybe you're going to then enforce the policy a little bit more strictly than you have. do you expect people to leave? >> look, people can make their own decision. i'm kind of a rule follower. you know, we have a policy. there is a reason why there is a policy. the expectation is people follow the policy. so, you know, i think people should follow the policy because there is a reason why we have

the policy and if you want to be part of starbucks, that's one of the things that is to be part of starbucks. you got to contribute to the culture. you got to show up and you got to bring a positive energy. >> we'll have a lot more of that exclusive interview with brian niccol in the next hour when we get into a lot of issues around the pricing strategy. really getting into the balance between the mobile piece, which is actually in its own way created great growth, but also great challenges because it has upset what has happened in store because so many people come in store and find that they have been deprioritized by somebody who has used the mobile ordering app. we'll get into that whole conversation and we'll get into china, which becomes very interesting. >> he's a great manager, great operator. but people think you have a kitchen sink and it is straight uphill from there. this is a longer battle. he has to undo some things that have been in place for years. >> we get into the timeline of the challenge of this. a whole bunch of analysts who

try to map on the timeline of what they did at chipotle to see if that's the kind of thing you can do at starbucks. you'll see his answer later if that timeline makes sense. when we come back, the economist setot release an endorsement in the presidential race. >> who could that be? >> publication's editor in chief will join us next. we'll have that when we come back right back. your shipping manager left to "find themself." leaving you lost. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. sponsored jobs on indeed are two and a half times faster to first hire. visit indeed.com/hire with gold and copper

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"the economist" magazine unveiling its endorsement in the 2024 presidential race for vice president kamala harris. the cover of the magazine showing an image of donald trump and asks, quote, what could possibly go wrong? joining us now is editor in chief sandy betos. thank you for joining us this morning. there has been a lot of controversy over publications deciding one way or the other to endorse or in this case maybe not endorse a particular candidate. walk us through your think about

why you made this decision and have you frequently in the past has the magazine endorsed candidates? >> yes. it absolutely has. we have endorsed a u.s. president since 1980 and we endorse in elections around the world. the uk election, french election, indian election. this is nothing new for us. as you know, we are a newspaper, we call ourselves a newspaper. we look like a magazine, but we call ourselves a newspaper, that is known for its its world view and opinions. we were founded to champion traditional english liberal principles, free market, individual rights, the rule of law, all those kinds of things and we have a view of the world, we're not ashamed about that, we have editorials every week advising politicians around the world on what to do in certain things. it would be weird for us not to put that together and offer our assessment of the candidate. and what a voter might do in a particular election. this time around, what we decided to do was to really make

our argument for our many readers. we have many readers who are going to vote for donald trump, we have republican readers and democrat readers. and we wanted to make the case that we think the risks posed by donald trump, a second donald trump, are unacceptably high, both for the u.s. and for the world. let me explain that. i think many people think the case against president trump is wildly overblown. if you look back at first trump presidency it true there was a lot of drama, a lot of storm and drum but quite good policies and the economy was pobuoyant. there are a lot of people who i think it is going to be okay, it will be like that again. kamala harris is an underwhelming candidate. this is not a strong endorsement for vice president harris. she is, however, unlikely to be acatastrophic president. i think she may be underwhelming, i hope we're surprised on the upside if she wins.

i don't think she has the tail risk that donald trump has. and that's in three big areas. firstly, his policies are a lot more radical than they were in 2016. if you look at what he's promising to do economically, 20% tariffs across the board, he talks about using the tariffs as a substitute for the income tax, 200% tariffs he's talked about on certain countries, this is ter for a free trade magazine disqualifying itself. the consequences for the world economy, if he enacted much of that, would be really dangerous. secondly, his proposals to deport, to the end of it, his proposals to deport huge numbers of undocumented migrants, these are people with jobs, a huge supply shock to the u.s. economy. and the tax cuts, he's offering new tax cuts pretty much every day. the economic risk is really big. and then there are two others i'll get to in a second. >> i want to ask you a different question. your magazine is owned by a number of business leaders including the family that owns fiat, which also owns chrysler,

jeeps are part of the americana, some people would say parts of red states and blue states. did you get any influence, outside influence about this decision or anybody saying maybe you shouldn't endorse somebody this year? >> zero. let me make this really clear. we're unusual. we're which commercially indepe we're privately held, and secondly, we have total editorial independence. i'm actually technically hired by an independent board of trustees, self-perpetuating group of four people, the only people who can fire me, nobody has -- i had no conversations with anybody on the board, nobody about this. this is a decision made by us, ultimately by me and the way we do it -- let me just say this is unusual in the u.s. context, we collect all of our journalists. we had 1350 people in the room last week when we discussed this. somebody make the best case for trump and for harris. and we had a discussion.

in the end, i take a responsibility for what we write. it is our view, totally independent. no contradiction between an endorsement and being independent. >> zanny, we got to cut it short. we have a whole bunch of earnings reports that are just hitting the wires as you are talking. thank you, though, for joining us. it is a fascinating read. and i think no matter what side of the aisle you're on it interesting to take a look at it and try to measure how you feel about it. zanny, thank you so much for joining us this morning. >> thank you, andrew. comcast is out, releasing results, earnings of $1.12 with 6 cents better than estimates. that's a real time quote yousee there. so revenue of $32 billion. 32.07. also topping expectations. free cash flow was 3.4 billion. revenue and connectivity, media, studios and theme parks all coming in ahead of expectations.

and the paris olympics generated record high incremental revenue in media of 1.9 billion. studio revenue grew 12.3%. despicable me 4 grossed $1 million at the global box office. this is partly due maybe to the olympics. peacock paid subscribers increased 29% over the year ago quarter. and quite a few just in this quarter, adding to that. and it now totals 36 million, net additions of 3 million in the third quarter and peacock revenue increased 82% to $1.5 billion. studio revenue up more than 12% and "despicable me 4" grossed nearly a billion dollars at the box office. some of the same metrics. looked like there were adds in some businesses, broadband and business, and connection and wireless continues to do well. the -- you did see video

subscribers again. look back, a smaller number than we have seen. >> the media piece was the most complicated piece in a way because what you saw was actually top line revenue which was higher, a very good thing, and yet adjusted ebitda was lower, meaning so, you know, even on significant increases on the revenue side, the profit side, on the media piece came in lower. that's where i think there will be -- >> the costs -- >> following all this, we're going to -- well, then, it raises the question, if you're going to spend money on sports and on elections and other things, can you make that a profitable business. >> yeah. >> it has been -- >> we knew this was going to be -- >> not that -- barely look at stock price, but it has been on a bit of a mini rally here from below 40 and this is first time we have seen 43 in a while. now up almost 2% to 43 and

change. remember it was much higher a couple of years ago, i think well above, i think above 60 at one point. >> look at uber, just out with its quarterly results. earnings of $1.20 a share adjusted ebitda, only slightly ahead of expectations. revenue coming in at 11.19 billion. that topped estimates of 10.98 billion. mobility and tldelivery revenue ahead of estimates. fourth quarter, uber seeing gross bookings in the range of 4275. that compares with estimates of 4368. well, actually, look at where the stock is right now. stock is down on the back of this news off now about 7%. this is one of those stocks when earnings have come around where there is actually a big delta in terms of how much it moved. the ceo will be joining us for an exclusive interview in a few minutes to discuss the results.

and so much more. tech earnings a big focus for the markets this morning. we're awaiting apple, amazon and intel after the bell. but if you're checking out the nasdaq, the pressure has come from microsoft and meta. microsoft shares down by 3.6% this morning. the earnings and the revenue both beating estimates on a better than expected azure cloud sales growth. however, the guidance is what is weighing on the stock in the premarket. microsoft is calling for slower than expected growth for the current quarter. and, again, that stock down by at this point 3.7%. and then there is meta, which is warning of what it calls meaningful acceleration in infrastructure expenses next year. the company reported weaker than expected user numbers and ballooning losses for its reality labs division, that includes the augmented reality and a.i. divisions that have been working here. losses here hitting nearly $4.5 billion. meta shares down by 3.5% this morning. year to date, up more than 60%.

that came ever since zuckerberg started talking about pairing back how much he was spending on the metaverse. this is not just metaverse, but a.i., you see the knee jerk reaction from the stock, off by 3.5%. shares of robinhood, under pressure, the company reported revenue that missed analyst estimates. net revenue reduced by $27 million from promotion that paid customers to transfer their balances from other brokerages. the company has now been trying to work to attract more sophisticated investors to its platform by expanding it to futures trading, index options as well as credit cards, retirement, crypto, cash accounts, betting on presidential elections. all that part of that effort. take a look at shares of coinbase. they are lower, perhaps unusually so. we'll talk about why. missed estimates of 41 cents. revenue fell short, coinbase said a drop in the price of ether in october could offset growth in subscriptions and

services. here is the company's ceo brian armstrong on "closing bell: overtime." >> our subscriptions are on pace. we had a positive quarter of positive adjusted ebitda. even though the market conditions were weaker, we still managed to have a pretty good quarter. >> we should mention that stock up more than 19% year to date. it has tracked to some degree the price of bitcoin, but little bit of pressure on ethereum it seems like. also to come this morning, the ceo of shark ninja will join us to discuss the company's quarterly results. the state of the consumer and the upcoming holiday season. that company's stock hitting an all time high yesterday. look at the futures this morning. red ink across the board. dow futures at this point down by 180 points.

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reaction to that is, and why you think that's the case. >> yeah, it is really tough to gauge market expectations, but for us actually we came in on a gross bookings, top line, growing 20% right at our own expectations as well. our ebitda came in at record levels, 1.7 billion, up 55% as well. free cash flow over $2 billion in operating income over $1 billion, another record for the company. we're very excited about the delivery, the results this quarter, and incredibly optimistic about where we're going from here. >> let's talk mobility. revenue up 26% year over year. driven if large part by trip volumes. where are you seeing that? is that more of an international play right now or more u.s.? go ahead. >> we see pretty broad strength in terms of trip volumes, but especially outside of the u.s.

in the international markets when you look at apaec markets r european markets and latin american markets as well. there is a number of newer products that we're launching. two-wheelers in latin america, is or three-wheelers in india as well. and this is resulting in very, very high trip growth as we lower the price and make the service available to a much higher percentage of the population in those markets. we're seeing very strong growth in the international markets. >> delivery business, trip volume driving about 18% of the growth year over year. how much pricing power do you have on the delivery piece? >> well, i think that we have seen in delivery that it is a very, very sticky habit. audiences are at all time highs, frequency continues to increase as well. and then really on the price side, we are focused on making sure that deliveries as affordable as it can be. that comes in a couple of ways.

one with a membership program. we now have 25 million members in our program, you get free delivery, you get discounts on delivery as well. and mobility. those -- the number is up 70% year on year. higher and higher percentage of our consumers are getting in more affordable service both for delivery and mobility and as a result, they're much, much sticky to our product. they transact or spend three times more than nonmembers do. and then we're also working with a bunch of merchants as well and you may see it on nfl game day, you know, 50% off wings, et cetera, to get special deals to our members and all of our customers at uber eats as well, we call them merchant funded offers and the percentage of offers running through the system are at all time highs as well. so while we do think we have pricing power and we have seen that over the past couple of years, we're actively working to make delivery and mobility more affordable for everybody. >> got to ask you about the big

headline you know we reported and a lot of folks have been talking about for a couple of weeks now, this news that you have been discussing, the possibility of wanting to acquire expedia, a company that you used to run. what can you tell us? >> well, andrew, i'm sure you would be shocked to know that we're not commenting on any particular deal one way or the other. for us, our focus right now is organic growth. and when you have a business that's growing top line at 20 plus percent, bottom line growing at 50 plus percent, we have free cash flow now that we're allocating more and more to buying back our own shares. so you combine kind of the compounding of bottom line and reducing share count that we expect to start doing next year, you get very, very high returns for shareholders, so for us right now, the bar for any kind of acquisition has never been higher. and the focus is really

organic growth. m&a will be smaller deals that are much more kind of closer to home in terms of what we do. an example of that is a proposed deal to buy food panda in taiwan. we're not looking to do big deals, transformational deals one way or the other and the focus is on organic growth. it is still at a very, very high level. >> i will read between the lines. it sounds like this is not something in the offing. let me ask you a different related question. long-term, there has been this talk and you talked about it about the sort of super app idea, using the uber app as a platform for all sorts of things. how should the investor class think about that? >> it is something that is well on the way. we have essentially a super -- a family of apps that people are using, every day, and we want to make it an everyday habit, going

anywhere, getting anything. you see us adding more product on our mobility app, we're adding trains, for example in the uk and we just started launching trains in spain as well. in delivery we started with restaurants and now grocery, you can get pet food. and really expanding the kinds of services we have on delivery as well. so, we are slow by but surely building that super app that can be your operating system in your local town. anything and everything that you want, anywhere you want to go, and how you want to get there, we as uber want to be there for you and we'll have a membership program that embeds you into our ecosystem even more and more. we're well along the way. there is no other company that is trying to do this and no other company that is executing that local super app vision as we are. >> earlier this month when tesla came out with its announcement on cybertaxis, the next morning uber shares were up 9% i think

on the idea that there wasn't all of that much data or new details on what they were planning on doing with uber taxis. with cybertaxis. that had a lot of people thinking, okay, this is still a place for uber where they can really excel and i guess people are wondering what your plans are for autonomous at this point. >> well, we have -- we really advanced our autonomous progress forward. we announced five different partnerships with autonomous companies. coco, cruise, are some examples. and we have 14 different partnerships with ev providers all over the world and also very, very happy to announce an expansion of our partnership with waymo into austin and atlanta which is going to happen in early 2025. so i think uber is going to be the largest platform for autonomous partners and vehicles. it will bring the magic of

autonomous and the safety of that ride to many more consumers all around the world. and as we know, autonomous is going to be a much more safer transportation method as these algorithms learn more and more how to drive, where to drive, what to do, what not to do. we're very, very optimistic about the future of autonomous within uber. and we really want to help the ecosystem develop and thrive. >> is tesla a competitive threat? would you partner up with them potentially at some point? >> well, we got teslas on the platform now. and we would love to have teslas as they acquire the ability to drive autonomously, safely, of course, we would love to have those too. we're hoping they will be a partner for many, many years to come. >> but, dara, your stance of their ability or waymo's ability or somebody else's ability to disrupt your business by effectively matching the car

with the customer over time you think is what? >> well, i think that it is not an either/or, andrew. people love the either/or. mcdonald's has its own app and a direct relationship with its consumers. but also distributes through uber eats and so in some ways we're competitors and we also work together. i think in many ways autonomous will move the same way. there will be certain players who don't want to invest in distribution and all of the local logistics that we have built over the past ten years. when you use your phone on the car, what to do, et cetera, the matching technology that we have, there will be some partners who say we want to work with uber because we want to focus on building the safest driver in the world. there may be some partners who want to have a direct channel. we think all partners will want to be on the uber network. we bring the most demand, you'll have more business, you'll have shorter pickups, et cetera, and

just makes sense to either work with uber exclusively or work with uber and have your own channel. we think that's where things are going because they went that way in travel, they went that way in food delivery. and we think autonomous will eventually move in that direction as well. >> we got to run. you're doing -- you're offering special drives on election day for folks? >> yes. get out to vote, we're offering 50% off rides to voting centers as well. and, you know, we want to help people be heard. >> dara khosrowshahi, thank you for joining us this morning, appreciate it. still to come, we're going to talk rates ahead of tomorrow's jobs report with jim grant, founder and editor of grant's interest rate observer. and if you've been watching the ten-year, jim grant might give you some idea of what is going on there. shares of merck down. the company reporting in the last hour, $1.57 a share, above

estimates of $1.50 on revenue of $16.66 billion, also ahead of expectations. that stock now as you can see, not much happening. we'll be right back. >> announcer: time now for today's aflac trivia question. what is the average candy consumption per person on halloween? the answer when "squawk box" returns. aflac! like how aflac pays people money for the expenses health insurance doesn't cover. aflac! health insurance does leave a gap. but aflac gives people money to help close that gap. aflac! oh! coach prime got one on the line too baby! uh huh! see that's how you hold up a trophy. trust me. get help with expenses health insurance doesn't cover. find an agent. get a quote at aflac.com. i hope you're hungry. i'm glad i brought my own dinner. uh huh. (man) these men of means with their silver spoons. what will become of them when they discovern dinner. robinhood gold allows others to earn their very liberal rates on idle cash. they would descend into chaos.

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>> announcer: and now the answer to today's aflac trivia question. what is the average candy consumption per person on halloween? the answer, 3.4 pounds. last year, chocolate sales reached an all time high of $48 billion. that cannot be true. that is not the consumption. that's how much we buy. 3.4 pounds a piece? you buy the candy and it sits there for the next six months, tempting you, getting you fatter and fatter all the time. check out shares of conocophillips, moving higher, earnings of $1.78 a share, 14 cents better than estimated. the company produced over 1400 barrels of oil equivalent a day, better than expectations. the management said it

anticipates closing the planned acquisition of marathon oil this quarter and expecteds to exceed their initial $500 million synergy guidance. that stock up by 1.6%. bond yields have been a huge focus. we're watching ahead of tomorrow's jobs reports. for insights on this, we want to bring in jim grant, the founder and editor of grant's interest rate observer. we have been awaiting talking to you this morning. we had a running debate. bond yields have been moving higher. almost every day since the fed decided to actually cut rates. why do you think this is? >> well, i think the market thinks the fed might have overdone it. and the market can't help but notice that none of the persons who ought to be talking about the public credit debt deficits have mentioned those words, let alone deployed the trends and debts and deficits. the combination of perhaps overly accommodative fed and the

aforementioned credit public issues and then we have an election, a risk that somebody is going to win. and that's also weighing on the market. >> just in terms of the plans for fiscal austerity or lack thereof. >> yes, i think so. one of the great ways not to get rich for the past 30 or 40 years has been to have concerns about the public debt. deficits under reagan, interest rates were sought in half as the debt, i think, doubled or more. and, you know, bond yields fell for 40 years, 1981 to 2021. notwithstanding all the reasons why certain right thinking interest rate observer might have why they shouldn't have fallen, but they did fall. i think the world has been out of practice at critically examining america's public credit and the weight of

american debt. >> that bull market and bonds you just described, it was historic, probably never seen anything like -- and your point, and you never traded in your -- your vigilante hat for the modern monetary theory. >> last survivor. >> yeah. you never traded it in. you always felt this way. but you pointed out that the commensurate bear market following a bull market is sometimes maybe not the same in terms of ferocity, but if it was anything close to the -- you point out we were at zero for how long and we had $18.4 trillion globally that were priced to yield zero. less than nothing. and so you think that the beginning of that move higher in rates that we saw, that that's not finished. and inflation is still going to

be around. what do you think we could go back? >> if you look at the -- go back to the dotcom boom. >> this is like the dotcom boom in bonds. >> yeah. so this sock puppets and $18.4 trillion of negative yield in debt is some sock puppet. that was the, to me, the great world beating excess of that bull market. i think that common sense would tend to support this proposition that great excesses characterize great bull market tops and great bear market bottoms. and i think the 18.4 trillion was the clarion call that the 40-year bond market was over. and, you know, rates, i think alone among important financial prices have trended over the course of 150 years in generation lane cycles.

from 20 years, 25 years, the bear market in bonds preceded the 1981 to 2021, that was 35 years. so it says the past must be prologue, but if it were, we were looking at the start of what could be a generation like a bond market. >> what makes it why now? you said the bond market looked through this for 40 years. >> this is -- it is a conjecture based upon historical observation, nothing that says it has to. if it were to do it, one might look back at the end of it and say, a-ha. the reasons were the final comeuppance with the american debt, with the abuse of the so-called reserve currency privilege, with the perhaps the end of the -- what we call the ph.d. standard, which is the

improvisational management of monetary policy with mathematical models that don't always yield sound results. there are all things that could be driving this hypothetical bond bear market. but we're on firmer ground of observing what has happened, namely generation length ups and downs and the excesses that preceded what might prove to be somewhat sustained. >> the tipping point would be potentially a war. that is what -- the tipping point would be a war. >> war is the -- is the one and only thing that is certain to foment inflation. people talk, they say dogmatically that inflation is always an everywhere monetary phenomenon and john cochran, it is always an everywhere a fiscal phenomenon. but or the fed, it is always an everywhere phenomenon of public expectations, which seems the most tenuous.

wars have scaled to -- big wars, invariably resulted in currency. >> the curse of being the world's reserve currency is that we get things like monetary, we are spoiled into thinking that we can do whatever we want. >> the curse is -- >> i hear people saying that. we can print as much money as we want. >> a somewhat underachieving child says here is $20 million. go out and drink yourself to death. that is in a way like the reserve currency privilege. >> you think inflation is coming back in the next couple of years? >> i do, yes. and to me inflation resembles one of the underground coal fires in west virginia that is always latent and not always manifest. under the surface, you feel it in the souls of your shoes, but doesn't always flare to the

surface. i think the makings of a man manifest inflation is there. and one of them is the evident underinvestment in defense capex over the course of the last several many decades. >> jim, thank you very much for coming in. good to see you. >> when we come back, brian niccol looking to stir things up at starbucks. his comments on the coffee chain strategy, we're going to bring you that right after this. and check out shares of peloton moving higher after its quarterly results. the company broke even during the quarter. that was much better than the 16-cent lohass tt the street had expected. peloton naming peter stern as the company's president and ceo effective january 1st. we're coming right back.

welcome back to "squawk box." starbucks' new ceo brian niccol has a big goal, get the time for a customer to receive a drink down to less than four minutes. in an exclusive interview, i asked him about the challenge of mobile horders which the founde howard schultz called starbucks'

achilles heel. >> we're basically in three businesses with multiple access points. we do hot drinks, cold drinks and food, and then the access points we have are in cafe, mobile order and drive through. and one of the things we have to be better as a company is understanding operationally how do we deliver good through put in each of the access modes. that's the visibility we give our baristas and that's what we're going to do consistently for our customers. that's not what we're doing right now. and that's what one of the key pieces of the puzzle here to fix our operational standards so that the customer gets the experience that they want. >> i want to read you this is "the wall street journal," they gave your message of back to starbucks a lot of credit for being what they called radically simple. but the author posed an interesting question. the hallmark of a successful quick serve chain these days is being digital and locking in loyalty members.

making starbucks friendlier to people who place an order the old-fashioned way while pushing fewer promotions to power customers will be a tricky balance raising costs per transaction. that isn't the end of the world, selling coffee is lucrative compared with food, but it probably won't be consequence-free. how will niccol strike a balance between authenticity and profitability? what do you think? >> yeah, look, well, you know, this is why we get to do these jobs. and what i love is that i think it is a simple strategy that we can truly execute. and it is a balancing act. 30% of the business comes through mobile order. but i think we know what are the consumer requirements for a great digital experience? we got to improve those things. we need a great app experience, great customization experience in the app and when you get to the store, we got to have a

great pickup experience so you are able to get your drink and get on with your day or if you decide to order ahead and sit down and stay with us, you're able to have that experience the exact way you want. i really -- my experience has been with this, andrew, it is understanding the desire of the consumer experience that you need to deliver for each of these access points. drive through, mobile order, and cafe. and i think we will be rewarded with more business, more transactions, and the profitability will be there. the business, even though it has challenges now, it is a really strong economic model. and we get the transactions going again, the economic model will continue to flow. >> i asked him how often he talks to starbucks' patriarch of sorts, howard schultz. >> he's been terrific to be available when i need him. he's, you know, informed me on a lot of the history, how starbucks achiefed what starbucks achieved, and the

success that we had around the world. i think it is always powerful to have folks available to you that you can bounce ideas off of, get the history on how we used to do things, and, you know, i'm enjoying the relationship. the good news is, you know, he doesn't have any interest in running the company. that's my job. and i'm going to continue to reach out to a lot of great resources so that hopefully i'm doing the best job i can. >> a lot more of that conversation with starbucks' ceo brian niccol including his plan to bring back sharpies and we'll talk about china, which, of course, has been a huge part of the business, but also a huge pain point. coming up, florida's cfo jimmy patronis joins us to discuss the push to invest state pension funds in crypto. taking the price of bitcoin this morning, not too far, from an all time high. but up half a percent.

72,272. ether has not participated this time around in the crypto rally to the extent it has -- and we'll be right back.

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> let's bring in florida cfo jimmy patronis and it is good to see you again. it has been a while, mr. patronis. >> great to be with you, joe. >> this i guess is in response to some i guess comments from former president trump regarding u.s. strategic crypto reserve, which interestingly would follow something that we have seen in wisconsin, in michigan. you sent a letter to the state board of administration, i guess, sort of pitching this idea. not something that i guess a lot of people think is with the fiduciary responsibilities of state pensions, they don't maybe always think of crypto or bitcoin in that respect. why do you? >> well, crypto is do not going anywhere. it is not going to contract. it is going to continue to be expanding. and i think we would be a fool if we're not prepared to do

everything we can to harness the opportunities there. ye i'm a fiduciary over the state's pension funds. i put it to our investment team, let's get all the tools on the dashboard, let's look at everything we can do to possibly leverage this opportunity. i'm very bullish on florida. you can probably figure that out by now. as we had 400,000 new net floridians come to florida last year alone, our state's reserves are four times higher than they were in 2020. so, again, we're in a good place, i like to pay down debt, i see there is an opportunity that is very bright for florida's future. we need to be prepared for what crypto can bring to our investment portfolio. >> do you think china is trying to fool the rest of the world into thinking they're not interested in crypto. in the past, they said some negative things about bitcoin. you think we need to stay ahead technologically in the china in fact is making and is interested

in making inroads into crypto. >> look, if you're not paying attention to it, you're making a mistake. it is real. it is not going anywhere. like i said, i'm very bullish on florida. we saw a surge of cryptocurrency, interest and activity as we had 2020 in miami. i think that at one point you'll see miami as the crypto capital of the world. i'm going to continue to push forward to make sure that we're doing everything possible to take advantage of this. it is not emerging. it is here. >> give me this as an interesting -- a quote. recently governor desantis also leaned forward to protect the personal finances of floridians from government overreach and woke corporate monitoring. and by signing legislation to fight back against the central bank digital currency, cbdc. you're looking at this -- the cbdc as a centralized currency,

which is sort of the antithesis to what crypto or bitcoin aims to be. so there is -- there is sort of a tinge of some political rhetoric in that comment there. so you think that the government is going to continue to print too much money, you think bitcoin is a way for floridians to maintain purchasing power? >> thank you for making those points, because that's exactly where our head is on this. we look at the failed policies of washington. i hope president trump is going to be able to turn around, but i don't think it is going to happen overnight. he's walking into a real mess. we need to be able to be able to have a hedge against this massive overreach by the federal government with the centralized currency. look, i don't want the federal government knowing when my son went to the grocery store to go by a bag doritos at 2:15 in the afternoon. we need to have some protections in place and i think where we make it a welcome and interesting expansion of

dialogues in florida and maybe even a greater expansion. we have about $800 million in crypto-related investments in our state portfolio. but i would not be shocked to be able to see that growing under a trump administration in the near future. >> and you think that en masse in the country that the u.s. -- crypto is going to become more important in terms of a sovereign fund or in pension plans and retirement plans? for government employees? >> look, as a fiduciary, it is very important, i got firefighters, i got teachers, state employees that -- i need to make sure we're doing everything humanly possible to get the best return on their investment and if we're not being open minded to what crypto can do to diversify that portfolio, shame on us. again, it is a direction that we're going to start to push, we're going to be prepared to seize the opportunities presented by just as your show has been speaking to earlier, the change of what the

administration can bring in the future financial outlook of our country, our world, and florida is going to be prepared to do the most for our fiduciary responsibility that we take so seriously. >> zero state income? is that still true? we had -- we had new jersey governor, you know what the state income tax over a million dollars is in new jersey? 11.5%. it is 11.5%. how does that strike you? >> so, joe, i met three separate families -- i met three separate families from chicago, buffalo, new york, and new jersey. all three families moved to florida. i want to know, you know, why did you come? they want to keep their money. >> all right, thank you, jimmy. >> take care. see you. when we come back, the ceo

of shark ninja tksal quarterly results and the consumer. the stock hit an all time high yesterday. this morning, down by about 11%. "squawk box" will be right back.

welcome back to "squawk box." this morning, shark ninja reporting earnings this morning, beating expectations on the top and bottom line while raising 2024 net, citing growing momentum into the holiday season. joining is shark ninja ceo. good morning to you. i was trying to count. we own a shark ninja blender on my instagram this morning i saw a couple people with the ice cream machine. nice to see you. tell us what's happening here. it's been a remarkable story. we talked about the stock hitting all-time high. but how are you doing it? and what's happening with the customer, especially at a time when -- it's funny, we keep talking about how strong the economy is but how people feel everything is too expensive. >> look, we have had a great quarter this quarter.

we grew our top line 35%. we grew our bottom line 26%. and that's in a market that is flat to down overall. so we think that our three pillar growth strategy, gaining share in the existing categories that we're in, expanding into new categories and growing internationally is really resonating and working. you mentioned the onsumer. the consumer is looking for the best product at the best value. and i think that's what shark ninja has been able to deliver. that's why the consumer really responded and resonated with our products. >> where are most your products manufactured. i asked. there's a big question about tariffs. depending on who you think is going to be the next president of the united states. >> we can't predict what's going to happen on tuesday, but we have been preparing for this for the better part of last five years by diversifying our global supply chain. in fact, today, we have tariffs, china tariffs on a number of our

products that come into the united states. and it hasn't impacted either our gross margins or our average sale prices to consumers. in fact, by the end of 2025, all of our u.s. products will be able to be made outside of china. so, you know, that diversification effort started five years ago and it's continuing to accelerate now. >> what countries have you moved to, by the way? >> yeah. we've move pride marly to southeast asia. vietnam, thailand, indonesia, cambodia, those are really the markets that we're focussed on. >> in terms of where the growth is coming from, how much of it is these different appliances in the kitchen, the stuff i'm seeing that seems to be very popular where people are making ice cream at home and buying more blenders and things like that, versus, you know a lot of now home products that you have, if you will, the vacuum cleaners the hair dryers, all of that?

>> well, andrew, look, we're in 34 different product categories. you know, we go to market under two multibillion dollar brands that we created shark and ninja. we never acquired a dollar of ref knew in the company's history. the business over the last 16 years has grown at a compounded annual growth rate of 20% a year during that period of time. so to put it into perspective for you today, ninja is the fastest growing outdoor cooking company in the world today. shark is theest growing hair tools company in the world today. when you think of the contrast of those categories, vacuum cleaners, robot vacuums. blenders ice cream makers, entering into so many new categories. we launched a product, first launch into the skin care space. you know, you're showing viewers our ninja slushie product, frozen drinks at home. that product has only launched six weeks ago and has 200

million impressions already on social media. so it's this consumer problem solving innovation. it's driving consumer demand that we do through our advertising and our marketing. and it's our dominant omni channel strategy where we sell our products direct to consumer online and in every mayor brick and mortar retailer. >> hey, mark, you beat expectations. you raised guidance for the full year and yet your stock is down 8.5% right now. why is that? i look through, your cash and cash equivalence were down to 127.9 million. envennatory up. what do you attribute the drop in the stock price to this morning? >> well, look, our business has really strong momentum behind it. we just grew our business 35% in the quarter. our guidance shows that we're off to a strong q4 holiday season. we're focussed on delivering long-term investor value and focussed on delighting

consumers. and you know, the stock price is kind of out of our control on a day-to-day basis. we think if we keep driving our play book of disruptive innovation, delivering it to the consumer with high quality and at a great value, the consumer will respond and ultimately investors will respond as well. >> mark, thank you for joining us this morning. we'll keep our eyes on the stock today. thanks. >> thanks so much. it is 8:00 a.m. on the east coast. and you're watching "squawk box" right here on cnbc. i'm becky quick along with joe kernen and andrew ross sorkin. >> orange. >> orange for halloween, happy halloween. >> my wife's birthday. >> oh, and your wife's birthday. pumpkin. >> what do you think that mean? >> i'm under a spell. permanently. >> a love spell. let's talk about today's top story. comcast reporting third quarters earnings and revenue above the

streets estimates. up by more than 12%. peacock paid subscribers up 29% versus a year ago quarter to a total of 36 million. that stock right now up by close to 5%. uber reporting 1.to a share. revenue beat forecast. reports that uber has talked about a bid for expedia on those reports around that, uber ceo said this when he joined us in the last hour -- >> to the extent that we go out and do m & a, it will tend to be smaller deals that are much more kind of closer to home in terms of what we do. an example of that is a proposed deal to buy food panda in taiwan. we're not looking at this point to do big deals, transformation gnat deals one way or the other. >> merck reporting third quarter revenue and profit both above estimates excluding foreign exchange impact, sales of cancer

drug keytruda grew by the 1%. the ceo joined us earlier in the hour. >> a lot of the growth you're seeing is new tumor types we're able to treat but moving into earlier stages. that's so important. if we're ever really going to cure cancer, we need to treat it early. >> shares of merck down 4% year to date. this morning off by 1.25%. back to the broader markets as we hit the halfway point now in the earnings season that we love so much. joining us is carry firestone, executive chairman and co-founder of rss asset management as well as a cnbc contributor. b plus, a minus so far, what do you think? huh oh. i don't know whether we checked carry's -- >> hold that thought for a second. >> yeah. >> let me know when we can go

back to her. we're going to try and -- i think we're going to work on that, go to -- i guess it's at least probably a b plus. what do you think? >> yeah. >> although the reaction in some of the stocks hasn't been as good. >> no, it's very high expectations earnings -- >> it moved a lot. >> quite a volatility. when we come back, we'll try to get carry back and also the chairman of espn on the challenges of cable and his "sawtrmi. sports seang quk box" will be right back. ♪ ce can help address some of the biggest challenges in financial markets. if we focus on the mortgage market and follow the life of a loan from origination right through its pricing in the capital markets, our data science capabilities can provide a deep level of insight. at ice we have extensive data sets, especially around three pillars. the property, the mortgage and mortgage performance. this trifecta of data and its history is a bit of a data scientist's holy grail. ♪♪

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we're navigating through a storm. we all know people are cutting the cord at a higher clip than they have in the past. if you look at the past few years, seven, 8% fewer households watching television, that's a great business model. it has been a great business model to espn and to the walt disney company. when that business model is in decline, you have to adjust. that's what we're doing right now. >> that was espn chairman jimmy patari on the sports immediate owe landscape. joining us now with more is sports reporter alex sherman. good morning w hey, joe. nice to be here. >> good to see you. >> like wise. >> what do you think?

>> look, i think there's no better proxy for the state of american media than espn. i mean, it has been the most successful cable network in many ways, certainly the largest by revenue. it has been walt disney's crown jewel. and it really speaks to the state of the transition of media because really up until now streaming launched as additive, at least initially to the cable bundle. that's why everything is called espn plus, right? that's what the plus stood for initially. buy cable but also buy this. >> cnn plus. never mind. never mind. >> that was the thought. now we're at a mode and it's really going to be highlighted by august of 2025, which is the tentative date that espn is going to launch its flagship, that's what it's calling the code name for this all-everything streaming service. so espn is last in the game to launch a streaming service giving customers everything. why is that?

because this product is meant to be in essence a replacement product for espn. and that's where we are today in media. finally, all the media executives collectively have decided, you know what, we're in the end game now. we're going to need to launch products that are an other to cable, not an add on to cable. that is an enormous bet for espn. because it has long-term rights deals where it's paying billions and billions of dollars every year for sports right which is are rising in cost as cable subscribers get lower by the millions each year. so this has to work. and one of the interesting things that jimmy pitaro told me is that as they're thinking about how do we price this new service, their data is inconclusive so far. they have not come upon the ideal price point through their own internal research for this product. because it's going to be way more expensive than every other

streaming service upon launch. you know, i don't know if it will be 20 or 25 or 30 or $35. but it's not going to be this disney plus 5.99, 6.99 product. it's going to be different. >> so this goes back to the pricing side, but does he talk about how many people he ultimately thinks need to be watching this? >> yeah. >> and there's an interesting related issue around that, which is that the sports leagues care about eyeballs because there's also so many other sponsors and other ancillary pieces of the business. so, yes, it could be very profitable for espn to have a small number of viewers, if you will, at a high price point, but that also then creates its own conundrum for the rest of the ecosystem. >> it also highlights the advantage disney has of owning a broadcast network abc and cable network in espn where if it all goes poorly and people don't sign up for this new streaming service and the cable customers come down, they can always shift games other to abc.

jimmy pitaro said there's about 50 to 60 million people outside of the cable bundle, that's who he's targeting this streaming service toget -- i'm sure they love to get as many of those people as possible. realistically, if you opted out of the cable bundle, that means logically you're not that tied to espn. because it's the only way to get espn today. so, if you really love espn, you would still be paying for cable. so i think it's an open question very much, even among younger people, how many younger people are really going to sign up for whatever that price is, 25, $30 a months. espn outside of the bundle service and how many of those people will actually cannibalize themselves, cancel cable now that espn is out there. jimmy pitaro says he's agnostic to whether someone pays for this new streaming service or cable. >> how much would they have to charge to make it worthwhile for the people who are canceling cable? >> well, espn charges about $10 per month -- of your cable bill

every month you pay espn $10. they'll have to charge something more than that to make this up because of all the advertising that's rolled in. the exact number again probably in that 20 to $30 range. >> they can't be totally agnostic, jimmy could be agnostic but the truth is if he does -- if he accelerates the unbundle, it also therefore impacts the other linear cable stations that abc or disney owns. >> 100%. >> disney may be agnostic but the rest of the company may not be agnostic. >> this is why espn wait so long to launch this product. >> fascinating. >> alex, thank you. and you can catch the full interview on cnbc sport videocast on cnbc.com. let's get back to -- we found her. we got her. i think her audio or i think her mic is working. let's get to kari firestone.

so, i was asking you whether you were watching the first half of this reporting season for earnings and whether you were, i don't know, have you been going, oh my god, this is great? or it's pretty good. or i wish it was better. where were you on this? >> well, first of all, happy halloween, and that wasn't a trick or a treat the video audio. i don't know what happened. i would say that the first half has been a b plus. it's been fine. i think the market has been quite understanding of some reports that were great. of the recent reports, google had very strong earnings result. the stock is up but not nearly as much as some people thought it would be with such strong results. we just saw microsoft. big names are what the market drives up and down on. and they were fine. they were good earnings numbers, but somewhat disappointing on both the sales and earnings guidance for the next quarter.

so now we're past financials. they were all decent. they beat numbers, but expectations were very low this quarter. joe, estimates were up for the s&p about 3.8% for this quarter versus last year. so, you know, they couldn't. they could achieve those numbers. it's really what you're thinking for the fourth quarter or next year where expectations are much higher, really in the mid teens for the s&p growth for next year. and that is a big ask and a big lift for a market that's trading at 21 times earnings for 2025. >> it always comes with the reports. and that is the outlook. would you say the outlook has been positive for most companies? or has it been mixed? how is the visibility? do they know. i guess everything is different. there's technology. there's subgroups within technology that include digital advertising or ai. and then there's everything else in the components across the

board, cyclicals or healthcare or consumer. any of those things. >> yeah. i would say that uplook sounds pretty good, it doesn't sound fantastic. what we know that inflation coming down helps many of these company. they're finding more employee. there's not the shortage that there had been. so that's a positive. for the tech names, they're spending like crazy. you heard from all of them they're increasing their cap-x for next year. that's going to weigh on the stocks. that's not what investors who like free cash flow, and we all do really care about. so, you know, i think that we have to be careful about too much spending on ai when we're not seeing enough generated revenue and profits from all of that spending and that might be happening some at google and some at meta. but for the most part, they're just spending like crazy. and we have to see, you know, better -- i would say better outcomes on the productivity

side of that. but the numbers were, i would say, reasonably good for financials. they haven't been good for capital spending. caterpillar was week. honeywell was weak. we know manufacturing has just been in a poor state for the last three years. >> always like your art. is that a specific city that's behind? almost looks like amsterdam or shotgun. is that a speck city? >> you know, i think it is. if i turned around there's a label next to it and i could tell you. yes. it looks to me like it's a city that has a lot of brick buildings. it doesn't look too much -- i would say boston. >> very cool. surreal. thank you kari. >> thank you, joe. coming up, we're going to have more from my exclusive interview thwi starbucks new ceo brian nichol. we'll bring it to you right after this.

welcome back to "squawk box." i spoke exclusively with starbucks new ceo brian nichol as he tries to turn around the fortune of the new coffee giant. the part of the strategy was to make the menu less complex. how he plans to tackle the

coffees. >> a brewed cup of coffee, that's a highly profitable transaction. we would be delighted to have more of those happening in our business. oh, by the way, coffee, probably the best health and wellness drink you can have. you know, based on everything i've read and what i've learned more and more about being at starbucks. so i think selling the idea that we are committed to coffee and educating people on what we do from the farm all the way to the moment it gets in your cup, i think is going to really excite people. you know, the customization and making the coffee or the drink personally yours, that's something we're going to continue to do. but we are going to put some guardrails on some of the customization because some of it frankly ruins the beverage and it really ruins the experience for everybody involved. so, we have to strike a balance to make sure we protect the integrity of the drink, the integrity experience, and then

get people still that personal experience that they're after. >> you're a food guy. you came with a food background. what should the food at starbucks be? i think this has been a perennial question. >> yeah, look, i would love for people to learn more about what actually goes into our food. and i do think we probably have an opportunity to fewer items better. i think we have the opportunity to make the world's greatest croissant. i just had some egg bites this morning. they're terrific. so i think we have some items that we can make brilliantly. and i think we have to eliminate some of the breadth we have because some of those are not brilliant. >> real reduction in the kind of food, not the kind of food, the number of items. if you know in the display, they only show you one piece of food that looks like it's been there forever. >> right. >> one of the things he wants to do is make it feel fresh so you see all of the food. >> that would be good.

>> by the way, brian and i were talking about his go-to order, he takes a black americano or black coffee. he says he now enjoys an iced americano with sweet cold foam. analysts on the street have been tracking his time it took for his turn around plan at chipotle to work. they tried to forecast what his plan would look like for starbucks if they mapped that on to it. i asked him if he sees his work now at starbucks as easier or harder than what he fakced at chipotle. >> i haven't seen the analysis. i give the guys a lot of credit for trying to come to a conclusion. what i would say is what i'm really excited about with starbucks is i think most of the issues we're dealing with are very fixable and are in our control. which was also a lot of the similar challenges i faced at chipotle. so what i'm committed to doing with starbucks is figuring out where are these pain points. how do we knock those down, get

them out of the way, get the right operating model in place, clean up the pricing architecture, share with people again what makes starbucks so special. and then match it up with the great experience, whether you do it through the drive-thru, mobile order or you come into our stores. and that is a -- it's pretty straight forward play book. and you know, i'm confident that this team and the starbucks organization is going to be able to deliver on getting back to starbucks. >> and we should mention while u.s. business is his near-term focus, i asked him if he shares his prospective on the chinese market given with folks like howard schultz, same store sales in china were down by 14% and what should happen to that business. >> it's a challenge, right? we have a tough macro environment. competition has really ramped up. and the business frankly hasn't performed the way we had hoped it would perform. but that's not to say that i

don't believe -- i think people would share this sentiment, that the starbucks business will be a much bigger business than it is today. you know, it's going to go well beyond 7,000 stores. i'm heading over there for the first time in like the first or second week in december. i'll have some opportunity to spend time with the team. and that's where we'll better understand, you know, the growth plans and what is the right partnership that we probably put in place going forward strategically so that we can grow smartly in china. and get that business what it needs. >> is that something -- there's been speculation that's something that should be spun off, should not be wholly owned, should be in partnership with others. do you have a sort of sense about that? >> look, there's a real opportunity for us -- we have talked about this, right, we're evaluating strategic ways to grow there. and you know, i think we're going to want to continue to have a piece of growing the china business, whether that means we do it by ourselves or whether we do it with a partner, that's what we're evaluating

right now. and i think i've seen a lot of companies where they had great success where they bring a partner in and then they do it together. you know, i'm optimistic for where china can go. and then i think we have to -- well, i have to get more up to speed on the business and we have to smartly evaluate what is the right way to structure the business going forward. >> going to focus on those sentences just now as they try to watch this space as to what happens next with the china business. meantime, starbucks has been a political target here in the u.s. in the past. and i asked niccol about the election next week and whether he has any concerns about unrest in any plans for the stores. >> obviously next week is -- we get to see america execute democracy. and i think that is one of the greatest gifts we all have. and a responsibility that we all have, you know. we have the responsibility to go vote. and then i think one of the things that's special about

america is we have the transition of leadership. and you know, i'm optimistic that we're going to get through this perfectly fine. hopefully there is not the unrest that people are speculating. but, you know, i believe in the democratic process. and i really do hope people get out and vote. and i really do hope people respect what america is all about, which is we have the right to go vote and, you know, follow through on our democratic commitments as a government and a country. so, i'm an optimistic person, andrew. i'm going to believe in the good of people and that we're going to get through this just fine. >> but do you have to make any preparatory plans? i know of other leaders at businesses, especially ones that deal both either customer facing and/or have to deliver things that if there is unrest, that they have to have some different sort of plans in place. >> you know, we always have

security monitoring what's going on at all our stores. our partner safety and customer safety is really important. so fortunately for us, we already have all these systems in place that in the event something happens, we're prepared. and we'll make sure we keep everybody safe. >> finally, we got into a conversation about his plan to bring back the personal messages on cups. >> we are. we're going to get back to doing that. we're tracking down the sharpies and going to get back to writing little notes on the cups. it may not be everybody's name because, you know, but we will definitely be getting back to writing on cups again here in the not too distant future. >> how many sharpies do you have to buy? >> i thought the number i heard was close to 200,000 sharpies we have to track down. >> wow. >> unfortunately it's not as simple as just going to the staples and picking up some sharpies. you know, that's the power of

our scale. >> 200,000 sharpies. you might want to go -- who makes sharpies, maybe want to go long that company. >> is that 3m? am i making that up? >> going to get a big sharpie order. >> i thought it was 3m, black sharpies. >> i think you have to use a black sharpie unless you use a silver sharpie. >> blue? >> you could do that. >> knewell brands. >> i'm just trying -- >> what are you trying to do? >> okay. never mind. wrong. i was wrong on that. when we come back at 8:30 eastern time, we have breaking economic data, including new inflation numbers. then, north island glen hutchens will join us. "squawk box" will be right back.

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more were seeing some red ink this morning in the pre-market. but things have gotten a little better in terms of the nasdaq. there's the futures. take a quick look at the treasuries. i think we're at about 4.27, 4.28 on the 10 year. rick santelli is standing by at the cme in chicago. rick, we had jim grant on. he said he was the last vigilante standing. he never traded in his vigilante hat for a modern monetary theorist hat. but once again he did say some sobering things about just how big that bond market, bull market was from 1981 and how much negative interest debt there was at the peak. he called it actually a sock puppet. it was 18 trillion or something. he said the commensurate bear

market could be a lot worse than what we've seen so far. and he doesn't necessarily think it's over. i don't know if you saw that. >> no, i didn't see it. but you know, first of all, there's a lot more of us indi vigilantes around than just grant. he might be the guy on the horse in front of the line, but there's plenty behind him. and look towards europe, look at what's going on with uk yields they're talking about more supply. it's going to get nasty out there. here are the numbers that are hitting the wire. let's start out with the employment cost index. we're expecting a number just shy of 1%, up .8, that's what we received. how does that fit up, .8 smallest month over month cost index variable going back to june of '21. june of '21. so that's pretty good. second quarter of '21. now, let's look at personal income and spending. there's a lot of categories here. there's seven. so bear with me. on the income side, exactly as

expected, up .3%. equates to july to find a hire number go back to may when it was up half of 1%. now let's look at spending, shall we? it was on the low side. it popped up a bit, up .5%. that is really a nice number. that equals where we were in july to find a higher number go to march of this year when it was up .7. now let's go to real spending, shall we? that's up .4. another nice with beat. if you look at the pce price index, month over month, up .2, exactly as expected. a little hotter than our .1 last time. to find a hire, you have to go to april of this year. now look at the year over year price index. that came in at exactly 2.1, which was expected, but it is .1 smaller than our last look at 2.2. 2.2 in and of itself was the

lightest since dec of '21 when the comp was 1.8. we remin that that same comp category. month over month core pce, up .3, up .3 month over month. that actually is the hottest number going back to march of this year. and finally, number 7 core year over year pc-e, and that number comes in hotter than expected at 2.7. we were looking for 2.6. but it equals last month 2.7. and 2.7 actually on the core number, if you look at that, that would be the biggest level going back to 2.7, since april when we were hovering at 2.97 rounded up to 3. now we still have two categories left. initial jobless claims. 216,000. that's about 14,000 lighter than expectations. and that is definitely lower than 228 slightly revised last

week. but there's number asterisk here, many economists, our own favorite peter bookfar, there's a lot of noise in this number due to storm. so it's hard to tell if it's getting back on to its proper gps. and i would also put out there that many thought it would actually be higher base on certain effects. so we want to monitor that and on continuing claims, the metric of 1.8 million now becomes 21st consecutive week above that level, 1,862,000. that's lighter than expectations. that follows 1 million 888,000. after all that, how did the market synthesize these numbers? what we saw yields on the 10 year move up to 430. now back down to 428. exactly where they were before any of the data hit at all. 2 year more susceptible regarding inflation, fed and the strengths of the job market. it was 416. 418 prior to the number.

you can say better news. i'm not sure exactly where they see the better news. we did see some inflation numbers a little warmer. some subtly cooler. but all generically, the only is claims. i'm not sure if that counts. as far as jim grant and the vigilantes, there's an article in the journal that the next administration is going to inherit a great economy. i'm not sure how i'll define great. but they'll inherit a boat load of debt. back to you, joe and the gang. >> steve liesman joins me now. i haven't seen that in a while. it says liesmania in the teleprompter. it's still alive and well, steve. there's groupies everywhere. >> amazing. yeah. with this amount of data, joe, you imagine people going absolutely crazy. >> yeah. >> look, that eci is a real good number. it's something that powell watches a lot.

so that came in lower than expected at 0.8. the other hand, the core being higher than expected is significant. and it's kind of like a stall speed here. but, i don't know. you want to have this debate about the economy? it looks to be doing pretty well. i just looked briefly at the two states i think were probably most affected by the hurricanes. they saw dropoffs in claims -- florida and north carolina. so it looks like obviously the hurricane had devastating effect on people's lives. some towns out there, really big, important deal. however, it doesn't look like it's having a big macro effect. yesterday we heard that the impact on the jobless market patched through relatively quickly. the consumer seems to be doing well, up 0.5%. that's an important beat on the upside. it may flatter that third quarter gdp again, although it's probably included. and give us a good jumping off point for the fourth quarter.

savings rate down a little bit. got to watch that. i'm not really sure where the right level is. people are going to be comfortable, 4.6 down from 4.8. the other thing we're watching income numbers seem to be okay. joe, i think we're all right. i would like to see more progress on inflation. i think the bond market wants to see more progress on inflation, but it's not going the other way. we're kind of stagnant on that core rate. i don't think the fed will be happy with that. but i still think it will feel it has scope to cut. boom. >> jim grant, we've, you know, i wouldn't say he's the boy who cries wolf necessarily. he has a sobering view of fed policy and debt and things like that. but when you look at that long -- that 40 year bond bull market, and you look what -- we haven't had any real come uppings for the maybe what was irrational exuberance. >> no. >> it would mean we need to be

underestimating the inflation that's sort of built in and ready to emerge at any time. i don't know if you think we are or not. >> i don't think that's right, joe. but i do think this idea we talked about earlier this week, this invincible fence. we don't know where that fence is until we cross it. and that's a reason for prudence on the fiscal side. especially if we want capacity to address issues. finally, i think there's a big national security aspect to our physical side help our al lice when needed. >> yeah. he talked about -- mentioned that war and everything else. all horrible things. we're supposed to be happy and get ready to trick or treat and stuff. all right. you eat 3.5 pounds of chocolate today? >> what? >> i don't know if that's right. you eat 3.5 pounds of chocolate today? that's a lot, isn't it?

do you? >> steve, thank you. when we come back, north islands glenn hutchens will in tjouso talk markets, the fed a much more. we'll be right back. it's time. yes, the time has come for a fresh approach to dog food. everyday, more dog people are deciding it's time to quit the kibble and feed their dogs fresh food from the farmer's dog. made by vets and delivered right to your door precisely portioned for your dog's needs.

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all right. welcome back to "squawk box," everybody. we just got a new pce inflation number. it's the last inflation data point before election day. joining us is glenn hutchins, north island's chairman. glenn, just looking at p-ce, you know, the pce came up 0.2%, but

core pce year otver year was 2.% versus 2.6%. do you think inflation is back out there and potentially going to rear back up? >> i think we need to look at it. i look at the year over trend, quarter was 2.2% core pce. feels like that's the trend you're looking at. the combination as i said a couple times ago, the combination of strong economic performance, best economic performance in a g7, with inflation down to the 2 to 2.5 range. i think means that it's now looking increasingly likely that jay powell and his crew pulled off a soft landing. gotten through this interest rate cycle. now 4% employment, 2.5, two-year tren of growth and inflation, 2, to 2.5% range. >> steve liesman was here last.

we have been waiting for this recession to kick that we have been predicting for over a year. steve liesman was here last week saying it's not where rates are going to end up. they never end. >> right. i saw that. >> continuous cycle of rates that are going continuing to change. jim grant was with us earlier this morning. he made the point that he's really worried that next week one of the two candidates is going to win. because what he looks at is fiscal irresponsibility. >> i think we can be probably more worried one of the two candidates might not -- two candidates might not win and we have a problem on our hands. >> that's a fair point. >> the question is -- >> the question is, either of these candidates are talking about spending increases and rising deficits. >> right. >> if you worry about the bond market today and the deficits we already have, and the deficits either of these candidates will inherit, what happens when they start ramping it up? >> that's a good point.

i think the way to think about this right now, becky, maybe take a the step back and come into your question which is we do -- have a choice right now. in a couple days between two people who we can compare and contrast. as jim clyburn often says, i run against the alternative, not against the all mighty. now it's time to look at one of the two. as i make that decision, i think we're sitting here right the middle of times square right in new york city. the economy are about elections, like markets are about the future, not about the past. so i look at what the candidates say. rather than a lot of time into what either the last two administrations has done. what do these two candidates say about what they're going to do. also, i take them at their word. o. >> well, that's pretty scary. at their word, we are talking about ratcheting up massive -- >> gotch ya. we'll come back to that. we heard lots of reasons why both candidates, quote, can't be believed. harris had this liberal to more conservative evolution since

2019. trump, you know, don't take him literally or he just says things for the effect. both sides say you can't listen to other side. all i have to do is listen on what they say and focus on what their plans are for the future and focus on economic poll smich when i focus on economic policy, i think of other things in economic policy this audience and this setting, economic policy and markets is what you want to talk about. and i look at less the specific proposals that are both have a lot of election rhetoric in them and more the philosophy behind the proposals that will give me some sense of how the person will act when they're in the oval office making tough decisions. that's how i think about it, right? we talked about the most important thing for me is fed policy. we talked about that earlier. i don't need to go into that at great lengths. fed independence is extraordinarily important. if you look at the compare and contrast the two positions, harris has supported fed independence and trump has questioned it. and has suggested he might

interfere with it. the fed is the primary -- is the most potent policy -- reliable policy tool we have right now. as i said frequently, imagine what would happen if the people making fiscal policy had been making monetary policy in the last five years. that's number one. >> on that point, we've had others who have come in and said that braynard and others have been pushing on the federal reserve even though the biden administration say they're in favor of fed independence, this is an administration pushes just like other -- >> it's different than the president overtly intervening in the fed. there's a breakfast once a week, once a month to coordinate policy. you have to coordinate policy and you have to share views. but it's about whether or not the president overtly and intervenes and puts political pressure on the fed. we talked about the fiscal. >> can i ask you this question, just go straight to it, elon musk, i don't know if you saw this -- >> probably not. >> owners should brace for economic hardship.

interesting. deep spending cuts in a potential trump world. because of both the teariffs an his plan to scale back government in a meaningful way. >> right. >> do you think that's a good thing, bad thing, something the american public should accept, a way to do it with a scalpel rather than a hammer? >> fiscal policy sanity is the big issue of our future. as i said a while ago, getting spending down and getting taxes up are something we have to do. governments don't seem to have a need -- an interest in doing it. the bond markets will eventually enforce that discipline, like what happened to liz trust in the uk. and so, i don't -- i think doing it in a way that induces real hardship on people is not politically viable. and not, you know, the right approach fphilosophically. i think you have to look at a

ten-year window which you move your taxes up and spending down and get to some point your deficit is growing at a lower rate than your economy is growing. >> but the markets change their mind, like they did with liz trust, you better do this today. >> is a 10-year plan ahead of the markets, this is where we're going. so when i was in the clinton administration, 1993 budget, when combined with george bush's andrews air force base led us to balance budgets in 1996. and by the way, the economy was thriving. >> wiright. >> those were tax rates higher than what overall harris' proposal today. >> can i ask you a different question, you come on here, on this show, effectively as a proprietor, sole proprietor for the most part. and are willing to share your political views on what should happen this election. >> right. >> there are a lot of ceos today that will not do that. >> right. >> you know, jeff son feld put out a piece with a whole number of retired effectively fortune

500 ceos, many of whom are adamantly against former president trump and say they're for kamala harris. >> right. >> however, current ceos who run big companies for whatever reason and they used to be quite public about their views are not now. do you think that they should be? >> so, i'll answer that question but like to get back to the four, five dimensions along which i have made my decision. i'll walk through those but let me answer that question and get back to what i was talking about, which is it's -- the modern day workplace has a lot of pressures on ceos around employees, around shareholders, around customers. and i think their jobs are to balance all those interests and run their companies. i think it's -- in many cases asking too much of them except for the unique ceo toengage in the political process.

the extent they express their political process. ceos come on shows like this and advocate a certain point of vurks i take that as what is almost in the best interest of their company as opposed to them giving us a public policy kind of advice of any sort. so i don't think -- i think -- i don't see why ceos should be in a position to be advocating for broad based political issues in the interest of the company, aren't in the interest of the shareholders or employees. >> where do you land on jeff bezos with endorse or lack of endorsement. he owns a newspaper. obviously that is described as the enemy by -- and i think we know historically he has endorsed the other side against trump. but i ask, you know, he obviously owns private businesses interestingly enough. >> i saw bezos on your show, she endorsed it. made an endorsement. they always made an endorsement. i think that jeff -- if you read jeff's rational, i think i

believe his explanation he just botched it. he wanted to move into this position and he just executed that in the wrong way. i don't think he was being craven in any way or being pressured in any way. i think that's just his decision. personally. let's go back to the main discussion here which is on on tariffs. you know, we all know trump has proposed very large and widespread tariffs, and harris supports more limited and targeted use of tariffs. i think that's the right approach, limited and targeted. there are tools that should be used. you had a very good discussion about that yesterday on the show, but i think large tariffs are -- they're a regressive sales tax. they're inflationary. they elicit retaliation, leaving everybody worse off and they don't pay for the cuts in taxes that people are talking about. the regulatory issue is one that's important to talk about. the -- i think perhaps the most disappointing for me element of the biden administration's

policies has been the aggressive stance. its aggressive stance on regulation and the lack of business people involved in decision making in the administration and the lack of consulting with the business people. happily, harris has adopted a more pragmatic and business-friendly approach. >> that's been the question. >> let me make this last point. i haven't seen anything in this administration remotely like trump going after the at&t-time warner merger as a consequence of his not liking cnn. >> this goes to what i would argue is what i would describe as asymmetric risk that the ceos in america feel. do you think that's not true? meaning -- when i say asymmetric risk, if you were to come out publicly for trump today, that if he wins, that there's little chance that he would retaliate. right? but if you came out for harris, he might. but if the harris were to win, i don't know, maybe you think that harris is going to be retaliating against ceos who

publicly don't endorse -- >> i would not expect that, no. >> you don't think there's any risk calculation -- >> is elon musk in a position of risk? i guess i would ask. >> my view is elon musk, jeff bezos, these are the richest people in the world, they have a calculation that's very different than what i would be talking about. and they're also individual proprietors and founders of their companies, and they're very different situations than a ceo, who's -- who reports to a board. >> retaliating -- by raising the corporate tax rate and by telling -- >> but not specifically saying -- not specifically identifying a company -- >> it will be across the board. >> the corporate tax rate she's proposed -- >> it's -- i know. >> it's lower than what bill clinton had. >> if you love the economy, some of what we're seeing in the economy right now might be from the 21% corporate tax. >> some. >> i don't know if i would be changing anything. >> on industrial policy, i think, is the other issue. the trump tariffs and his

policies and administration tilted toward rust belt industries. harris supports the industry of the future, a.i., biotech, friendly toward crypto. climate change, trump has called climate change a hoax and not our problem. harris wants to address the problem. i think we need to recognize the importance of fossil fuels. when i visited poland and ukraine not long ago, they're still burning coal because that's all they've got to burn, so we have people in those situations. and we basically need to understand the role that natural gas plays as a bridge fuel to the future. but we need to take climate change seriously as an economic threat. and i think that's of extraordinary importance. i'm getting ready to go down to brazil, and the climate change in the amazon -- affecting the amazon is enormous and changed my travel plans, for instance. >> really? >> immigration i know you focused on -- this morning, she made the point that mass deportations advocated by

trump are bad for labor market policy. and harris said in her speech the other day, two days ago, that she supports immigration reform, which includes strong border security. pathway to citizenship for workers, farm workers and dreamers. not mass importation. not mass migration of workers. there are other issues. abortion, health care, foreign policy questions, but those are the main -- >> those are the main economic points. >> on which i compare and contrast. i think nobody's perfect. neither administration did a perfect job. neither candidate is going to do a perfect job, but if you look at the two of them, i come out as a harris supporter for economic reasons. >> glen, you're a long-time democrat. you mentioned being in the clinton campaign. you were very close with president obama. how close are you to this administration? have you had input in what they're talking about to this snoint point? >> not really. i know a group of people. i know them from a lot of the

people from pastefforts. the people who are close to them in this town, you know, i know well. but i'm not engaged in a kind of -- i'm not a surrogate for the campaign. i'm not engaged with the campaign in that sense. i'm an independent actor, independent proprietor. >> if former president trump wins re-election next week, what would be the policy or two that you would focus on trying to have input in? >> appointments. appointments. >> appointments for -- >> personnel is policy, right? there's very good people, some of whom have been on this show, people like jay clayton and kevin walsh, who i think would be terrific people to serve in an administration and would be rational and make good decisions, so i think that's -- that would be the most important thing that i would focus on. chief of staff in the white house would be another one you would to see as a signal of someone who, you know, had a capacity to run that building in a professional way. >> glen, i want to thank you very much for being with us

today. glen hutchins. >> thank you for having me.

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welcome back to "squawk box." we got some breaking news about

our parent company this morning on the earnings call, telling investors that they are considering spinning off the cable channels that are owned by comcast, perhaps including cnbc and some of the others as well. they're also looking for potentially a partner for peacock, the stock moving on the back of both the earnings this morning, but i think even more so after making those comments on the call, the stock up now about 8%. >> it would be to shareholders. >> it would be to shareholders. interesting to see whether the roberts family, which of course has a controlling stake in comcast, in those shares of a spun-off company, would also want to control those. >> i think they're thinking about the entertainment networks, usa network, syfy. >> including the news or not. >> i think at this point it's all on the table, but i think a lot of people looking now at what that would ultimately mean. what does it mean for growth of that business if you spun it off

without too much debt? what does that business look like versus the cable business? a lot to chew on this morning. little bit of homer news, if you will. i'm sure our friends at "squawk on the street" are going to pick this conversation up in just a moment. i want to hand it off to them now. join us tomorrow. "squawk on the street" begins right now. happy halloween, everybody. ♪ all right, good thursday morning, welcome to "squawk on the street," i'm scott wapner with jim cramer. david is on assignment. carl has the morning off. futures are digesting a whole bevy of earnings this morning. we would be lower, a drag from both meta and microsoft, and we are going to begin, though, with that story that "squawk box" was just covering, this news developingaround our parent company, comcast, and for that, let's brin