tv Varney Company FOX Business August 20, 2019 9:00am-12:00pm EDT
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maria: have a great day, everybody. "varney & company" begins right now. stu, take it away. stuart: i shall. good morning, maria. good morning, everyone. all over the world there's stimulus pumping money in to get things moving faster. maybe helping your 401(k). europe widely expected to print up a storm of euros again. china has announced its own stimulus package. and america, the president wants a big interest rate cut and he's reportedly at least talking about more tax cuts. you want to make sure america's economy remains the strongest in the world. when everyone else is printing and stimulating and lowering rates, he doesn't want america left behind. the market appears to like it up to a point. we are going to be down a little
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begin. stuart: again, let me show you the futures. this is how we are likely to open this morning. seem to be stabilizing after a pretty wild couple of weeks on wall street. now, on the economic front, big news. a new poll shows that more people are changing jobs and moving because the economy is so good. market watcher scott shellady with us now. doom and gloom, you hear it all the time all over the place, but it really looks like the economy is humming along very nicely. how do you see the current state of america's economy? >> i think it's pretty good, stuart. all i do is look at the numbers, right. the facts don't lie. if you look at what our corporations are doing as far as earnings, the low unemployment rate, wages are rising, those are the things that will say we're not going into recession.
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so i don't think we have ever gone into recession with things looking as good as they are and stories like you just mentioned where people can get bigger, better jobs quicker. the unemployment time out of work now is really short. everything is firing on good solid cylinders and we're not ripping the face off it but we're going in the right direction. twhaps that's what we will talk about the next 18 months. the hardest job on the planet will be what powell has to do with the u.s. economy doing as well as it's doing versus the rest of the world doing as poor as it's doing. stuart: the rest of the world is printing money, stimulating, pumping money into economies all over the place, and president trump is demanding lower rates from the fed. so sum it all up. does america need lower rates from the federal reserve and would it work? what happens in europe when they are printing up another storm of euros? will that work? >> well, if you're looking at the 1955 playbook, you know, of economics, where you're going to
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worry about inverted yield curve and i'm so sick of talking about it, it's now the perverted yield curve, when you have everybody else pumping all that money out there, that's going to make our yield curve inverted. guess what? so what, right? if you've got that much negatively priced bond debt in the world as we have today, up to $15 trillion, some say higher, that's the new normal we will be in so i don't care. let them keep printing. we will have to cut rates here a little bit but our u.s. economy wouldn't say on its own, we need a rate cut, but with what's happening with the rest of the world, we kind of have to defend ourselves against the rising tide or lowering of tides. that's the reason powell will have a difficult job. i think he should step down, not do anything too drastic and see how the rest of the world goes. i think that's going to be the story for the next 18 months. stuart: i have been away for three, four days, and i have been watching the news. you keep in touch. all i hear is just this negative, negative, negative, oh, the economy's not performing for everybody, not everybody's doing very well. you know, it's constant. >> yeah.
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then you've got the left that are wishing a recession on the american people so that they can get -- now, stuart, i know i probably said this before to you, and obviously, margaret thatcher is probably held deeply in your heart but she's the one that said, of the left, they would rather the poor be poorer as long as the rich were less rich, right? that's their game plan and they are doing it right now. stuart: you're right. she's very close to my heart. what a wonderful lady she was. scott, thanks for joining us. see you again real soon. now, congresswomen tlaib and omar taking direct aim at israel in that press conference yesterday. roll tape. >> we give israel more than $3 million in aid every year. this is predicated on their being an important ally in the region and the only democracy in the middle east. but denying visits to duly
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elected members of congress is not consistent with being an ally. stuart: let's get into this. jason chaffetz with us, former republican congressman from utah. here's my opinion, jason. the ball is in the democrats' court. what are they going to do about this bds movement some in the party support this and a lot of them don't. it's a split party. >> oh, they are a split party. traditionally they have been united with republicans in support of israel and i think she said in part it right, they are the only democracy, israel is part of the solution, it's not part of the problem. the fact that they are lashing out against israel as opposed to hamas is about everything you need to know. but the question for nancy pelosi and steny hoyer is why do they put ilhan omar, the representative, on the foreign affairs committee? this is where the democrats are going with this. they are giving voice to it and reason to it and they should never, ever do that. stuart: i don't think the democrats going into 2020 can
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really seriously sanction israeli diplomats in the united states as a quid pro quo or tit for tat, and i don't think they can really interfere with that $38 billion ten-year deal between america and israel which was signed by president obama. i don't think they can do that. >> look, tensions were rising with president obama. i think you could just read it on the face of the two leaders. but thank goodness that donald trump is the president of the united states because he recognizes that our strongest ally in the region is the israeli government, and benjamin netanyahu and donald trump will take care of business. i have no doubt about it. so these ladies over here can flail all they want, but remember, they tried to visit palestine, not israel. remember when obama, he actually prohibited somebody from the ka
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necessa kanaseset from visiting. they tried to embarrass israel and shame on them. stuart: you think republicans are the winners here? >> well, i want the relationship to be bipartisan with israel. that should be the message to the world. anybody who is watching around the world needs to know that the democrats have some outliers but they are giving voice and oxygen to it and they shouldn't do that. stuart: i hope you don't miss politics. i don't think you do. >> i miss part of it. but yeah. stuart: okay. great to have you on the show. jason chaffetz, come again soon. thank you. appreciate it. dow component home depot, it gave a not-so-rosy forecast but their bottom line was better than all those expectations. so the stock is up 2%. nou whe you know where i'm going. ashley: you hate them. stuart: sorry, i do. it's up four bucks, about 2%. it is a dow stock so it's helping the dow. then we have kohl's. their profit was better.
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back-to-school season doing well for them. the stock is up just 30 cents, however. now look at the parent company of tj maxx, home goods, marshalls. tjx premarket is down 3%. an earnings and revenue, i think a revenue miss at tjx and they are down. the "wall street journal" reports that a group of states getting ready to put big tech under the antitrust microscope. is the bottom line that their business model, their very profitable, very strong business model, is that changing? ashley: it could well be. this is something -- don't forget, we already have the department of justice, the ftc, the federal trade commission, already involved in looking at the practices of these big tech companies. now we have the state attorneys general. why are they important? they were a big part of that crackdown on microsoft two decades ago now. they are going to get in there.
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the protection of your data is a big one but whether these big tech companies are squashing all competition on the internet, that's their big, you know, issue with these companies. in other words, no one else can get a look in because they are too big and too powerful. as we know, if data is affected, data is the product of these companies that they sell basically to companies and anything in there is interfered with, then yes, the business model will be changed. stuart: that's the threat. ashley: that's the threat. stuart: it's primarily google and facebook. ashley: yes, i think so. stuart: thanks very much. back to the futures. we are going to be down a bit more than we thought, down about 15 for the dow, down about 13 for the nasdaq. trouble at disney. a whistleblower claims disney defrauded investors by overstating revenue by billions of dollars. quite a story. we've got it for you. more disney news. we have a tech watcher who says the stock, disney stock, could
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double over the next two years. that's a forecast. it's going to double because of its new streaming service. the analyst joins us later this hour. china reportedly using facebook and twitter to spread misinformation about the hong kong protesters. details on that for you, too. terrorist groups around the world turning to bitcoin to raise money. "varney & company" just getting started. what a day. hey, who are you? oh, hey jeff, i'm a car thief... what?! i'm here to steal your car because, well, that's my job. what? what?? what?! (laughing) what?? what?! what?! [crash] what?! haha, it happens. and if you've got cut-rate car insurance, paying for this could feel like getting robbed twice. so get allstate... and be better protected from mayhem... like me. ♪
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stuart: hey, take a look at apple. fractionally higher. they are going to start their new credit card, the apple credit card. it's available in america as of today. apple's at $210 a share. while governments freeze terrorist assets, you know, trying to make it difficult for them to carry out their attacks, the terrorists themselves reportedly are going high tech and turning to bitcoin to fund their operations.
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walid phares is with us. i know you're not a financial analyst but welcome to the show. you tell me, do we have concrete evidence as to what the terrorists are doing using bitcoin? >> well, bitcoin as we all know is a cryptocurrency which is based on what, on nothing. no banks, no governments, no major regulations so far. this is ideal for terrorist organizations which are under the pressure by the treasury department, by the europeans and by others to go in. now, why are they successful, because the customers of bitcoin are very happy with the services that are rendered by this system. it's going to take time for our government and other governments to move in and make sure that the terrorists are not taking advantage. the problem is that there are other governments who could help us in this like china, russia, maybe iran in this case. they don't want to do so because they want us to be in trouble,
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basically. stuart: we've got a problem with bitcoin because you can trade drugs, you can deal drugs, you can fund terrorist operations. there's a degree of secrecy all about it. this is a real problem for america and i suspect for governments around the world. i'm not sure how you stop it, though. >> look, we have stopped what's going on on internet. it took about a decade. i don't think it's going to take a decade for this one, but cryptocurrency is the beginning of a new era. everything is going to be crypto. now it comes with currency, then services, then intelligence and counter intelligence. yes, we are at the beginning of a new era of counter intelligence and counter terrorism that we have not experienced before. stuart: let's talk hong kong. the chinese government appears to be using twitter and facebook to undermine the protesters. but i have to talk to you about this weekend's peaceful rally. look on your screen. 1.7 million people turned out to support democracy, to support civil rights.
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that's a real problem for xi jinping because how do you crack down on 1.7 million people who are behaving very peacefully? >> let's remember, 1989 tiananmen square, these were thousands of people but they were not organized, they didn't have any connection to the outside world, they were facing tanks and all it took for china to do is to send in the army and it was resolved. here, china or the regime in china is facing off with a real organized big city international finances and media and internet including of course twitter and facebook. that's why the chinese government decided to use what the other side is using to mobilize which is social media. therefore, this is not going to be easy for the chinese government, the issue of hong kong. stuart: maybe i'm naive but i just can't see -- i just can't see beijing wading in there, firing guns, beating people up, killing people, i just can't see that happening. am i just overly naive here?
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>> no. you're not. that's exactly what is happening in what i call the war room in beijing, dealing with hong kong. this is not a simple thing because if they wait, which is going to be the last resort if they have to do it. if they wage a military action on hong kong, hong kong is a big thing. it may be that hong kong ideas and activities will spread into china instead of china spreading its forces into hong kong. stuart: fascinating. walid, thanks for joining us. financial analyst of the day. thank you very much, sir. appreciate you being here. >> for the day. stuart: futures now showing a loss of, what, 30 odd points for the dow industrials, down 14 for the nasdaq. i'm calling it a fractional loss at the opening bell. the streaming wars. apple planning to spend billions of dollars on new content for its upcoming service, but apple's a little late to the game, maybe. will people be willing to pay for yet another service? apple's stock is up a fraction on the news. we'll be right back.
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designed to save you money. save up to $400 a year on your wireless bill. plus get $250 back when you pre-order a new samsung note. click, call or visit a store today. stuart: look at disney's stock. $133 a share at the moment. by the way, a whistleblower accuses it of overstating revenue to the tune of billions of dollars. lauren simonetti, tell me more. lauren: she was a former
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accountant at the company and told the s.e.c. that what disney would do specifically with its parks, resorts and hotels, is if they gave you a complimentary gift card, they would actually log the revenue of that gift card even though they gave it to you for free, they would do things like that. in one year they overstated revenue by $6 billion. she said the stock form that disney used made it possible. i have disney's response to this. the claims presented to us by this former employee who was terminated in 2017 have been thoroughly reviewed, found to be without merit. stuart: okay. a more important story about disney is the streaming service. sorry, about apple. lauren: disney is streaming, too. stuart: they are streaming as well. apple's new streaming service rumored to cost, what, ten bucks a month. lauren: yep. stuart: that launches in november. but lauren, as i understand it, it launches in november, they only have five shows. lauren: five shows. stuart: that's it. lauren: that is it. apple is spending $6 billion
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this year on five shows, one of those is the morning show. ashley: looks good. lauren: it costs more than hbo's "game of thrones." stuart: to make? lauren: yes, to make for the two seasons. they are spending $6 billion. disney is spending $24 billion on all of their content this year but their streaming service, disney plus, also launches in november. obviously competing with apple. that only costs $7 a month. if you get the bundle, $13. so it's interesting, if apple can beat their rivals by spending so much less. ashley: disney has all that content. stuart: is less better? lauren: could be. stuart: they only have five shows. lauren: better be good. stuart: i can't cope with all these choices i've got. all i watch is david attenborough, that's it. lauren: the worse is when someone recommends a show to you, because they know what you like, you get hooked and never would have discovered that on your own. there you go, bingeing.
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stuart: the "wall street journal" says jennifer lopez and alex rodriguez are investing in a financial technology firm. hold on. which firm? what does the firm do? ashley: acorns grow, one of these niche apps where you put in your loose change into a bank alternative. it's quite amazing. this is called influence strategy. you have these big names come in and even develop some products themselves. this company already has ashton kutcher, bono, kevin durant. this is a big company, started with about 200,000 accounts. it's now up to five million. stuart: let me see if i've got this right. you buy a cup of coffee for $3.75. take the 25 and you actually pay $4, 25 cents extra goes into an account? ashley: little account. stuart: is it interest bearing? ashley: very few fees on it and it does bear some interest, yes.
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it's an alternative. there are so many out there. st they have a-rod and j-lo. >> it is an investment account. you can round up any dollar amount you want to invest. stuart: what's wrong with that? i have no problem with that. it is 9:30, tuesday morning. i'm back today. tuesday morning. we have opened on the downside. big board now, just after, what, a few seconds' worth of business, we haven't opened all the dow 30 but we are down about 20 points. a fractional loss, call it that. the s&p 500, i think that's exactly the same. a fractional loss. yes, it is, .16%. how about the nasdaq? always intrigued at the nasdaq because of it's packed jam solid with technology companies. across the board, down a fraction. the ten-year treasury this morning yields 1.54%. the price of gold, i believe is up a buck at $1,513 per ounce. mike murphy is here. we have already seen him on
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camera. d.r. barton is here. haven't seen him yet but here he is. ashley webster with us, of course. three big retailers reported this morning before the bell. that would be home depot, kohl's and the parent company of tj maxx, tjx. mike, first of all, overall, what do these numbers tell us from these retailers? what do they tell us about the economy? >> i think it tells you the consumer is still spending money but more importantly, the read-through on home depot's announcement is they say they don't see tariffs hurting business yet. i think that's an important point to look at there. you look at home depot, people are still going in, people still want to fix up their homes. the prices of homes are at the highest levels they have ever been so people want to invest in that asset. stuart: $fi5 gain is a nice gai. dow stock, too. what do the retailers tell us about the state of the economy? >> i think it's giving positive overall reading because you have some that are not doing well, kohl's got hit, tjx surprisingly got hit because they have been
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pretty strong. but you look at walmart, look at some of the other big names, the people that are doing retail well are doing it really well. i think the mall-based stores are in a bit of trouble, but retail in general is doing really well. that's good for the economy. stuart: now, the "wall street journal" says there's a group of states that are going after the big tech companies on antitrust grounds. okay. i don't know the details of this. but dr, with that in the background, would you invest fresh money into the two principal targets, facebook and google, would you put money in? >> i would and here's why. we have some experience in what happens when this goes on. your beloved microsoft went through this almost two decades ago. here's what generally happened. microsoft did not lose its current share of market. they still today have about 86% of all operating systems, so the thing that they were being attacked for, they didn't lose. what it did do, it made them
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take their eye off the ball on e-commerce and other platforms that they didn't get to develop -- stuart: they weren't allowed to. >> they weren't allowed to. that's the problem. i think it's a downstream problem more than a today problem. if you are looking to grow money for the next six to 12 months, it can still be done in google and facebook. stuart: same question. would you invest with that threat? >> facebook, no, but not because of the threat. because of the overall business. i think the growth that isn't there for them that -- and the competition that will be coming. but google is more interesting. i own google. but i'm looking at it very closely because if i can invest in apple, i can invest in microsoft, i can invest in amazon and get my growth there without having to fight the government, i would rather be there. stuart: that's right. those two appear to be targets. so the other three of the big techs make a better option. >> it's my job as a venture capitalist to find the startups that are going to come in and compete with or take some market share away from the googles of
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the world. stuart: you are on the job. pleased to hear that. to the global economy, all over the world they are printing money. everybody is stimulating their economy. president trump once again demanding that the fed lower rates here. some bears, those who are negative on the market, see this as a red flag. do you see it as a red flag? >> i see it as a necessary step. i don't know what the alternative is. the fact that globally we have people stimulating economies because they need it. now here in the united states, even though our economy's doing well, i don't think we can sit back and pretend we operate in a vacuum. so we also will stimulate and that's what the president's arguing for. is it a red flag? it would be better if all the global economies were going gangbusters and business was booming. it's not and you have to deal with the hand you're dealt. stuart: the question is, would all the stimulus work in europe? hasn't worked so far. will it work in china in the absence of a trade deal? >> so far, it has not helped enough.
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china just put some more stimulus in this morning and i think that that is needed there to help them get through the problems, they're seeing the feedback they're getting from the tariffs. i think this is not a red flag but it's certainly a yellow flag because of the problems the global economy is having. the u.s. has been strong for years with the global economy sort of flagging but we can't carry the globe forever. stuart: got it. check that big board. we are in business now for exactly five minutes. we are down 36 points. how about bayer, selling their animal health unit to elanco for $7.5 billion. all this because of mounting costs from the roundup weed killer lawsuits. they need the money. bitcoin, like to check it regularly these days, ten grand a coin. the price of oil this morning p up, he's throwing up his hands. you got a comment? >> i think bitcoin kind of caught the imagination of the investing public for awhile, but i don't really see it as an
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investable asset class at this point in time. it's a fringe asset class. i don't know, i think people can get caught up with it and get the fear of missing out and end up investing their hard-earned money. stuart: fringe asset class. there's a put-down. yes, it is. let's get back to the price of oil. i think we are at $55 a barrel as of right now. this is what i'm interested in. gasoline. it keeps on coming down. the price of gas, regular has come down for 18 straight days. we are now at $2.60're gallon. surely, surely that's good for the economy, isn't it? >> it's certainly good for the economy. i think we might be seeing this reflected in the retail sales numbers that continue to get better last month -- i have a few more bucks, i can go to walmart or kohl's or wherever. >> consumer is doing well. consumers have more money in their pocket and are spending that money. lower gas prices, absolutely credit to the consumer. stuart: i want to see it come
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down to two bucks a gallon. come on. wait for this. kroger are now selling vegan eggs made from something i never heard of, mung beans, m-u-n-g beans. d.r. is a chemical engineer. still in business as a chemical engineer as well as an investment guy. what is a mung bean? >> have yyou have probably had n a different form. if you ever had bean sprouts in your chinese food. it's just a very protein-dense bean and so what they are doing is taking that protein extract to use it to make -- it also has some really good properties that fluff up like eggs. the promise of the vegetable-based protein world is right now, what kroger is selling costs about $1 an egg equivalent. where you can get the national average is about 12 cents an
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egg. stuart: forget it. >> down the road five years from now, we will see impossible burgers and beyond burgers and just eggs taking the price curve going down, down, down, down to compete on price with meat alternatives. that's when this thing will really take off. stuart: look at beyond meat today. $12 higher. 9% up on beyond meat. maybe this thing -- >> unbelievable. >> the entire space is real. the plant-based meats or eggs is a real thing. i think the story with just is it's a company that's been around for six or seven years out of san francisco. they have some great backers. our friends at founders fund are involved with the company. but this space as a plant-based alternative is a real space. this company is raising money. they have raised over $1 billion before. they are a competitor to beyond meat, not directly but in the plant-based space. stuart: plant-based food is not going away. it's probably on a roll to
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expand. another food trend story for you. people are not eating cereal. i didn't know that. sales are down big-time and the cereal makers, what are they doing, trying new techniques? ashley: they are trying everything. going back to less huge boxes, trying to redesign them. consumer behavior has changed. people want more protein, they want a hot breakfast. they will take a protein bar on the go. some, i believe murph is one of them, don't have breakfast at all. is that right? >> that is correct. stuart: he's training for the marathon. ashley: even so, he's not a breakfast fan. is it the most important meal of the day? regardless, kellogg has raisin bran, special k, frosted flakes, their sales down 5% already in the first six months of this year. they are trying new things. for instance, kellogg is trying wild berry froot loops. adding new flavor to old products. strawberry flavored rice krispies. they are trying to reenergize a market that is starting to fall away a little.
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>> like the soda manufacturers, cereal is just not healthy for people, so these companies, rather than trying to add new flavors, they need to put a healthy alternative on the table for people. >> count chocula. stuart: give me something kids will eat. >> but if it's junk, just sugar-based junk, kids shouldn't eat it and the parents shouldn't be buying it. that's what's happening. you are seeing a shift where people want healthier life styles. stuart: you have how many, seven children? >> six. stuart: six children. you let them eat cereal? froot loops? >> my one son dylan who is 9 won't eat anything except cereal. i want him to eat something so he does eat cereal. but i push my older daughters, who are teenagers, they don't eat cereal. they haven't eaten cereal. they are more concerned about what they are putting in their bodies. dylan will get there. stuart: i bet they don't want television either.
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>> they do. they are big fans of "varney." stuart: sorry, we are out of time. it's 9:40. we have d.r., murphy, thanks very much indeed. the dow industrials taking a turn for the worst, now down 81 points. not sure if something just happened. just above 26,000. new type of blood test to screen people for early signs of alzheimer's. it appears to be, wait for it, 94% accurate. want it. doc siegel joins us next on that subject. nearly two dozen towns in texas hit by hackers demanding ransom. officials say the attack was coordinated, it was sophisticated and we've got the story for you. next, we have a guest who says disney's stock value could double in the next two years because of the streaming service. more "varney" coming right up for you. at carvana, no matter what car you buy from us,
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stuart: now we are down 74 points on the dow. it's about a quarter of 1%, still above 26,000. take another look at kohl's, please. down just a few cents. now they're saying yes, they did see an impact in the second quarter from those tariffs. kohl's right there, down 24 cents. disney, better take a look at that stock. it's now at $133 a share. it's up more than 20% just this calendar year, 2019. wait for it. our next guest says it could double in the next two years. the ceo of the web marketing firm steel house is with us. take a look. you think it's going to $250? make your case. >> it's not just my opinion. i talked to a lot of bankers, lot of private equity firms. you look at disney's business right now, they are valued on
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theme parks, valued on hit movies. you go see a hit movie, you pay $15 one time to see it. with this streaming service, when they do that exact same hit movie and get a new subscriber, that person's now signing up to pay $7 a month or $9 a month, month after month after month. which values them more like netflix. stuart: so wait a second. okay. they are going to pull in a ton of people because their content is so watchable. >> absolutely. their own prediction is over 100 million new subscribers the next 24 to 36 months. stuart: a hundred million. you think that's a viable target, when you've got all these other streaming services out there? >> well, netflix and disney are in another class. apple, we can talk about. apple's not going to make it in that business any time soon. we can talk about that. stuart: i will. but first -- >> basically netflix and disney, they have huge content libraries
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that they have invested in. disney spends over $20 billion a year on content. netflix, over $14 billion a year. so they can keep that consumer month after month. netflix has virtually no churn in their business, and disney's expected to have the same. you just think of that streaming service. it's like a whole new disney on top of the current stock. stuart: the extra, it's a whole new element of the entire business extra on top of what they've already got. >> right. so you take that and you are essentially stacking another $100 billion to $200 billion in market cap on top of the existing disney market cap, so a lot of people think disney's the next big -- if they are the next high growth company because of the streaming service. going back to the apple point -- stuart: wait, wait. they start in november. >> yes. stuart: they have only got five shows. >> yes. it's crazy. they have the wrong device. apple tv device is number four in the market because it's too expensive.
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they have no content. they have -- it's just not a full service right now. the iphone doesn't matter. people still watch tv on their tv even when it's streaming. they don't want to sit there and stare at their phone. so the iphone doesn't give them an advantage. it's just launching the service with basically, it's not fully fleshed out. i think they are going to basically get crushed over it. stuart: netflix and -- sorry, netflix and disney emerge as the clear front-runners in streaming. >> right. stuart: year, year and a half from now, those are the biggest games in town? >> yeah. and basically, apple is not competing with disney and netflix. they are competing with like starz and showtime. stuart: you are so contemptuous. >> i have apple products. i have an iphone in my pocket. basically they are competing with starz and showtime. one hit show, two hit shows, then you will binge watch for a month and cancel the subscription. they are not competing with disney and netflix. stuart: disney's chief executive
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officer, bob iger, i met him a few times, used to work with his wife, he's clearly, i think, one of the best executives in the world at this moment. you agree with that? >> i totally agree. bob and netflix, they basically own entertainment now. stuart: wow. that's something. disney, you think $250 a share within two years. >> i firmly believe that. not just me. every private equity person i have talked to is saying the same thing. it's a self-fulfilling prophesy. if they say it, it comes true. stuart: that's the truth. when you are wielding tens of billions of dollars you can make things happen. mark, good stuff. thanks for joining us. appreciate it. back to the market. now we are down 80 odd points. if you look on the left-hand side of your screen, it's a sea of red, i'm sorry to say. the dow 30, 28 of them are down. we've got just two that are up. jimmy johns, one of the fastest-growing sandwich chains in the country, and it takes food delivery very, very
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points. down 106, to be precise. but we're still just a little bit above 26,000. here's some breaking news on brexit. british officials will stop attending most european union meetings and that starts september the 1st. now, we, the brits, they want to be out by october 31st and the brits are saying they will only go to these meetings that actually matter. it's going to reduce attendance to those meetings by over half. ashley: not many of those meetings do matter, to that point. it's boris johnson kind of sending the eu a message. we will be out october 1st, we don't need to attend these meetings. stuart: it's a red line. i wonder if that moved the market. i wonder. that announcement came out a few minutes ago, that's when the market turned south. we are down 95 points at this moment. could be. could be that's a factor. totally different subject. food delivery. let's talk about it. all the rage these days with millenials, especially.
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our next guest will not be using uber eats, grub hub for his delivery service at his restaurants. he's a big guy. james north is the ceo of the chain jimmy johns. okay. you're not dismissing delivery all together. just keeping it in-house. have i got that right? >> that's right, stuart. good morning. how are you? stuart: i'm okay. tell me more about keeping it in-house. >> well, when i was on six months ago, we talked about doubling down on delivery, and we are all about fresh, fast product at an affordable price delivered to the customer in 15 to 20 minutes. ever since we did that, consumers are going crazy for it and it's really working. stuart: is that a guarantee, if you live within a certain distance of a jimmy john's outlet, you are guaranteed delivery in 15 minutes? >> it's not a guarantee but at delivery areas of five minutes
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from the store, so what we do is we make a really fast sandwich, the faster we make it, the fresher you get it and with that five-minute delivery area, we can get it to you in about 15 to 20 minutes. the third party companies cannot do that. they add cost, add margin and they add an extreme amount of time. so our delivery is just so far superior to the competitors' and we're doubling down on it and the consumers are loving it. stuart: so you're not paying fees to a delivery company, you are keeping it in-house, but using -- have you got special delivery employees? >> we have our own delivery drivers. we have about 20 to 25,000 delivery drivers across our 2800 stores throughout the country. so they are employed by each independent store and they are delivering these sandwiches in 15 to 20 minutes to the consumer versus the third party which adds an exorbitant amount of cost and they are doing it in an average of 45 minutes, sometimes
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an hour. the consumers just can't afford to pay that cost and they can't afford to wait that time. that's what makes jimmy john's so special. stuart: 20 seconds. will you answer this question. what proportion of your business is accounted for by delivery? >> we are about a third and growing every day. stuart: whoa! a third? whoa! i didn't realize -- that's extraordinary. hey, look, james, thanks very much for joining us. accent and all. we appreciate accents on this program, actually. james north, jimmy john's guy, thanks for coming back to us. that's very interesting. >> hey, thanks for having me on. stuart: sure thing. see you again soon. got it. next one. california's homeless crisis, and it is a crisis, is out of control, getting so bad that some businesses are being forced to move to new locations. move away from the homeless. you are going to hear one sacramento hair salon owner's story in our next hour. get this. the business roundtable, whole group of big-time ceos, led by jpmorgan's jamie dimon, they say
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big corporations should put social awareness ahead of maximizing shareholder profit. they want companies to be nice. i've got some problems with that. as you will discover with my take which is next. the ant min. carrying up to 50 times its body weight. it never questions the tasks at hand. but this year, there's a more thrilling path to follow. (father) kids... ...change of plans! (vo) defy the laws of human nature... ...at the summer of audi sales event get exceptional offers now!
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stuart: two items coming out of europe. item juan, the brits will not attend any european union meetings after september the 1st. boris johnson's red line, hey, eu, we're leaving. second item, italy's prime minister is going to resign? ashley: he is in the middle of a speech. the prime minister has been in a major fight with the coalition government, the nationalist league party and the five star party is measure of know confidence. he announced. i will go to the president and
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resign this is italian politics, anything can happen. they have a massive debt levels and government in effective. coalition parties are fighting each other. it is complete deadlock. this is interesting. forget the fact that italian banks never recovered. they are massively in debt. stuart: these two items from europe suggest that the european union is if close not to breaking up, a devastating split. ashley: right. stuart: look at the market. it has had some impact on our market. we're down 70. moments ago we were down 100. nasdaq is down 33 points. you're hearing it fresh. now this. i don't know whether it was image polishing effort or or a genuine shift by business but i'm not wild about the statement from the business roundtable. the very top echelons of american business issued a
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statement, a pledging social issues. they want companies to be first and foremost, nice. they want business to be sensitive to customers, employees, suppliers, communities, almost as an afterthought, shareholders. maybe we need to remind the titans of business it is shareholders who own the company and it is their money who is at risk. there is a lot wrong with this. if shareholder capital is diverted out side the company future performance suffers. that means all stakeholders suffer. innovation suffers. the competitive ethic suffers. i don't know about you, but i invest in companies i think will make a lot of money. that is what i want them to do. so the company will make progress and i will share in it. that is why i invest. now we all have our own personal values. i wouldn't invest in a tobacco company, for example, that is not what these executives are talking about. they're engaged in a reversal of corporate priorities. it doesn't look like profit is
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job one these days. i can understand where this is coming from. it is a deliberate softening of capitalism'sism imagine. that is a response of the attacks from presidential candidates, especially senators warren and sanders. who knows who wins in 2020. business appears to be hedging its bets. i have news for america's business royalty, the left has no time for you, no amount of softening and promising to be nice will do you any good at all. if the socialists win, you're toast. so get real. support vigorous capitalism, which made america great and prosperous in the first place. the second hour of "varney & company" is about to begin. let's get right it. market watcher tom lyden, what do you say about the business roundtable. are you smiling with me or again
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me? >> i'm with you. stuart: up to a point? >> we'll not move away from profitability or companies will go away. you're absolutely right. i represent the etf industry, $4 trillion. there is a big shift on for est related etfs. s&p 500, carve out those good for the environment, social governance that don't have board members with a bunch of old people, guys, white guys sitting around the table falling asleep. we need an upgrade a facelift. to some degree this is what they're saying. they will not shift away from profitability for sure. investors, especially millenials are looking for this type of representation in their portfolio. you can get that in etfs. stuart: you're saying there is a genuine shift on part of society which wants capitalism to be less gung-ho for profit? >> no. i'm not saying that. it is profit number one, as you say. however, we're under more scrutiny. if you have been running a
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fortune 500 for a long period of time, your board members on average are 78 years old, they're all white guys, and they don't have diversification, they don't have younger thoughts, you're going to come under scrutiny from investors. stuart: fair point. fair point. hold on a second. >> sure. stuart: i want to bring in tom rogan, "washington examiner." where are you? i'm sorry he is there now. "washington examiner" commentary writer. tom, i think the business roundtable to trying to defect criticism of capitalism that comes to it from warren and sanders in particular. what do you say? >> well i think that's right. there is a political environment right now where capitalism carries unfortunate thely a negative connotation to more people to more americans than it did before. part of this is understandable public relations campaign, understandable in the sense it is solely designed to protect the profit margins but the risk here is that if they deflect too
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much, get too invested in the pr effort, vis-a-vis the profit incentive, desire to generate maximum revenues, give shareholders that which they have invested for, then the profitability of these companies would decline. i say as someone who is younger, who doesn't expect unfortunately due to the be absence of entitlement reform to get social security, i will invest in my limited savings in companies i think will deliver maximum returns. not companies that salute aoc in some way, alexandria ocasio-cortez. stuart: seems to me, that american capitalists at the very highest level, they seem to want to make america more like europe. in europe they have workers on the board of directors. in europe they have climate crisis which has to be considered by every corporation. am i right in that? i just feel that they're trying to make america more like europe. i'm having none of it.
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i don't know about you? >> well i think that, the issue, i mean you're right, but there is an obvious counterpart, which is extension time, having none of it. look what is happening in those economies. look what is happening in germany with the board representation, on verge of recession. look in france, youth unemployment are half what they are or grows half what they are in the united states. there is a statistical baseline now that conservatives, that capitalists cap use to say to those young people, don't trust me, don't trust alexandria ocasio-cortez, look at the compared data and look at the policies because the same policies she is promoting are the same policies that are causing worst data in those countries. stuart: there are quite a few europeans on this program. recovering europeans. i should say, you, ashley, myself. the guy at jimmy john's there. i think we're refugees from all of that. i don't want any of that. i just don't want it. last word to you, tom, are you a
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refugee? >> fortunately i have, through my father i have always been a u.s. citizen but i would say that, you know, every time i go to europe i'm always very happy to come back to the united states. stuart: there you go. excellent. mr. rogan, you just saved yourself. great to have you on board, lad. great to have you on board. we better check the big board. we come back a bit. we were down over 100. now we're down 64 points, a quarter of 1%. a couple of individual stocks, let's look at them. first of all, home depot, sales fell short. they lowered their outlook. they're concerned that the trade war may slow consumer spending. now the stock is up 4%. that is a big gain. why? because they did better than wall street expected. expectations game all over again. in this case i'll take it. home depot is up 8 bucks. tjx, parent of tjx, home goods, they missed the mark. they are down 3 1/2%.
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kohl's did down with back to school spending but they're down 4%. a couple of retailers not doing well. tom lyden, come back in again. there are two online retailers, etfs i should say, you really really like them, don't you? are these pure play, online selling, these are etfs, correct? >> that's correct. the easy thing, big box retailers are going away. we'll have 8,000 stores close this year. there is an etf, emty, empty, inversing going against selling short those big box retailers, like the gap, like barnes & noble. within this index you're selling them. onln is online retailers. stuart: on the screen now. >> grubhubs. that type of thing. if you want best play it is
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clix. long online, short big box retail that's are closing. that is up 25% year-to-date. stuart: on the screen right now, that is clix. >> clix. stuart: go with online retailers, that is long. buy those shares. >> correct. stuart: but bricks and mortar companies -- >> short,. stuart: short. they bet if they are going down. they made money going down? >> right. the big box have been down 15%, online is up 15%. you put them together, up 25%. stuart: nice looking chart. am i right saying online selling at this moment is up 13% so far this calendar year, up 13%. >> it is stuart but we talk about online, it is only 11% of retail sales. that is mind-boggling. i don't know about you, but amazon packages showing up at my house every day. stuart: somebody is ordering something every day. you're right, there is a whole lot more to go at.
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they're doing well already. tom, thank you very much. i will remember clix. residents, business owners across california truly fed up with the state's homeless crisis and a crisis it is. liberals, this is my opinion, i think they see the homeless as victims. they pin the blame on society. now this is my opinion. they don't have a solution to this problem though. i want to know, can anything be done to fix this problem quickly? we'll see if our california guy, larry elder, has a solution. because he is on the show. the nfl has new helmets but raiders wide receiver antonio brown doesn't like them. he didn't show up to practice on sunday to protest. what i want to know, what is all the fuss about? is that new helmet that much safer? we'll find out on the show. new blood test for alzheimer's, researchers say it is 94% accurate. does this mean they're closer to a cure? what is the treatment if the test comes back positive?
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stuart: couple items from europe seemed to upset the market a few minutes ago but we've come back. we're down 60 points. a new blood test to screen people for early signs of alzheimer's. it is reportedly 94% accurate. dr. marc siegel is with us now. first of all, doctor, can you confirm it is 94% accurate? >> it is approximate. about 90%. japanese researcherses looked at it, some researchers in the united states are studying it at all, it is being delivered at a
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big alzheimer's meeting. it is not just accurate seeing that you have alzheimer's. it is accurate sew seeing that you don't have it. there is evidence tell you could get it, don't have it yet, when compared to the special brain scans. before in the a vans, hey, you're on the road to it. stuart: can i get the test tomorrow morning? >> no. stuart: who can? anybody? >> only a year or two away the way it is heading. a year or two away. that is not so far away. stuart: that is pretty good. suppose someone takes the test it, comes up positive, yes you have got it, or yes it is going to happen to you. what is the treatment? >> first of all we have the idea, you exercise your brain, do more exercises physically, generally, eat better, family gets away ir, what is coming down the pike, we have
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alzheimer's are targeting the same protein i'm finding in the blood earlier. go forward two or three years. you find the protein in the blood. you confirm on brain scan or not even on a scan. this vaccine you inject protein in the skin, blocks formation in the brain is many coming down the pike. this is from the university of texas and southwestern, another company is working on it, united neuroscience. it looks extremely promising. about 96% successful. if i package both things together, early detection, early vaccine, we may look at different future. stuart: good news indeed. people my age worry a lot. you get forget if you have, you wonder what is coming down at you. hold on a second. i have to get the subject in. nfl football people, they have a new helmet. star receiver antonio brown doesn't want to use it. his much older helmet is not a
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fan either. tom brady is not a fan either. is the new helmet that much safer? >> absolutely. it is malleable. it is called the 01. it is malleable. four layers of protection. lateralizes forces. it has cushions and form. they tested helmet against the air advantage he wanted to use, the new helmet is 40% better absorbing impact. less concussions, less takes after concussions. nfl says a safest helmet. it's a little more expensive. antonio brown can afford it. get with the new helmet already, please. stuart: if you're a parent of a youngster who wants to get into football, i would be happier if the new one was being used. it is much safer. >> they studied it in high schools. looks promising.
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staying off the field wouldn't hurt but if you're going to play it is worth it. stuart: two good stories. you hit the ball out of the park. >> you threw a great pitch. stuart: thanks, doc. now, this, this could be really serious stuff. 23 cities in texas have been hit by a coordinated ransom attack. when a hacker locks up the town's computer, demands money to fix it. it happened friday, they still haven't got it fixed in all the towns. we have the story coming up. it's a shocker. e-cigarette maker joule going global. we'll have the story after this. this was me before liberty mutucustomized
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stuart: we have come back. it's a modest loss at this point. look at beyond meat. got an upgrade from jpmorgan from neutral to overweight. that means you buy more of it. that stock is up 7%. 154 is the quote on beyond. 23 towns in texas hit by a ransomware attacks. tell me more because that is a serious thing, ashe. ashley: oh, yeah. listen this, has been happening around the country for the last year. we have maryland, we have texas, florida most recently got hit with a whole series of these ransomware attacks. they essential tie up the entire computer system, render them useless unless you pay the ransom otherwise they get tied up. it could last for weeks. they don't go for the big cities. they're going for the little
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municipalities. 23 hit in texas. from what we understand, we don't know which individual, but we don't have the information. they are struggling, they can't get them back online. people are paying ransom. city officials are paying ransom. this particular attack has proven to be very, very profitable. by all accounts, they can't stop it. stuart: i -- ashley: this is a story that will grow and grow. they have tried to track down who is behind it. as you know doing that is near-on impossible. stuart: they take ransom payments. ashley: bitcoin, correct. stuart: that is the worst possible pr for bitcoin. ashley: but they also hit hospitals who cannot afford to have the computer system down for anytime at all. stuart: that is important. it's a growing story. ashley: yes it is. stuart: juul, the very popular e-cigarette brand trying to go global. what exactly are they doing with
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this? >> they're raising $325 million to fuel worldwide expansion. not only have a ban in san francisco, you have a protest in new york city outside their juul offices downtown about the dangers of e-cigarettes. you have a lawsuit. why the stock is down almost 2%. stuart: altria has a stake. >> 35% in juul. illinois is, state is charging that they marketed to teens. that is seeking class action. stuart: okay. that lawsuit. >> yeah. stuart: more important, surely are the two big issues they're facing. number one, they got this lawsuit in illinois. >> yep. stuart: i think more importantly, the centers for disease control, they're saying vaping as a possible, potential cause of severe lung illness. that's really bad news. >> the cdc is investigating, almost 100 cases of people who vaped having see rear eschews with their lungs. we were concerned about the
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development of the brain because of vaping but now the lungs too. are there copycat devices that kids or adults they are using laced with a drug. ashley: juul said it is not the product that is being taken in those situations. stuart: not them. ashley: that is their response. stuart: here is an interesting headline for you. mercedes may be spying on you. the company admits it installed tracking devices in the newest models. full details in the 11:00 hour. i know you want to hear about that. according to a new study, athletes perform better after a harsh, tough speech from the coach. compared to positive and uplifting messages at halftime. i will talk to brian kilmeade. what does he make of this? we have a montage just like that. ♪ imagine traveling hassle-free with your golf clubs.
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♪ ♪ good day, sunshine stuart: i like it. i like it. lively, upbeat, summertime song. good day, sunshine. are we okay with this if. ashley: i'm taking it. it is all good. stuart: second only to, here comes the sun. first song sung by ritchie havens at woodstock festival. ashley: look at you. stuart: big news out of europe. israel's prime minister conte says he is resigning? ashley: we have a political crisis. i hate to be tongue in cheek but what is new in italy? this current government is only around 14 months. coalition between the nationalist league party, and at
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this establishment five-star. they accused the league's leader of trying to undermine him calling a vote of no confidence. says the guy to my right wants to be prime minister. so i will go to the president, offer my resignation. what happens? they will try to get another coalition. if not, they go back to a snap general election. stuart: another crack in the facade of the european union. the cracks are all over the place. ashley: yeah. stuart: i have another one for you, kind of a crack. british officials they will stop attending european union meetings after september the 1st. they are not going to show. ashley: yeah. stuart: go ahead. that is boris johnson in ply opinion, drawing a line in the sand. we're coming out on october 31st. get with it, european union. guess who is with us? nigel farage is with us. am i right. is this boris johnson laying down a red line, we're getting out? >> this is a negotiating position, because on the face of it you know, it is really tough
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stuff. it is sort of a mini diplomatic withdrawal. so i should as chief brexiteer be cheering this, and yet overnight he wrote a letter to one of the bosses in brussels, to say actually, he would like to go back to mrs. may's withdrawal agreement, get rid of the bit about northern ireland, he would be happy wit. so you have to ask yourself, are we going absolutely full speed for exit on the their first of october, come what may, or is boris using these tactics to get a slightly better withdrawal agreement? we'll find out. okay. but you want a absolute flat-out we're out, deal or no deal we're out, you are out, that's what you want. now, are you, you're not convinced that boris johnson is with you, are you? >> no. because what boris wrote overnight to donald tusk in his letter, he said his highest priority was to get an
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agreement. now given this agreement would mean, stuart, on the 31st of october, rather than absolutely leaving we would enter a two-year transition period which would mean, we couldn't do a trade deal with the usa for at least another couple of years, i, i'm just a little bit suspicious. boris talks a good talk. he sends big signals but i'm just worried whether he is really got the guts to take us out. i'm of the opinion that the only deal being offered by the european union is one that politically keeps us very close. i think right now no deal is the best deal. so do a majority of the british public. stuart: the socialist leader of britain's labour party, jeremy corbin, says that boris johnson is britain's donald trump. now does that do boris johnson any good or does it harm him among, in british public opinion? >> well it is designed to harm him obviously.
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that is why jeremy corbyn said it. but you know, i'll tell you this, donald trump, nobody in this country dared stand up to donald trump. i was literally his soul public supporter, i really was. gosh, i'm used to being in the minority, but that was really tough one 2 1/2 years ago but things have changed. because what people in this country can see, trump says he will do things, now he delivers. there is much more of a mood in this country, whether you like donald trump's style or not, he is a guy that delivers. so i don't think jeremy corbyn's jibe will do johnson any harm at all. stuart: my dollar says britain is out october 31st, come what may. i believe that, i don't know, because i live in america, i live in new york city, seems to me reading the british press, listening to british people, there is a shift in public opinion, get on with it, get
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out. what do you say? >> you're right there is shift in public opinion but political imperative. a few short months ago i set up a brand new party, the brexit party, we won the european elections, getting 50% more vote than any other party. one thing boris and his advisors telling him, if you don't deliver brexit, or acceptable form of brexit on 31st of october, the horrible specter of nigel farage will wipe you away in the next general election. i hope my presence here as the bogeyman, the ghost, means that he delivers. if he doesn't, i promise you, i'm coming to get them. stuart: this is very british segment we did. we kind of like it. you speak a lot like our president. you know him very well. >> i do. stuart: nigel, thanks very much getting in our studios in a short notice. we much oblige. nigel. thank you.
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we're having a modest love. we're down 87 points but still above the 26,000 level. our next guest is president of bristol gate capital. this is important, because his fund is up 27% this calendar year. the overall market is up 20%. he has beaten that. michael, did i get it right? >> you did. stuart: can i call you michael cap? >> michael cap is easy. stuart: that is what everybody else calls you. i will go through three stocks you like. number one, tractor supply. what is so good bit when the farmers are supposedly hurting because of china trade deal? >> tractor supply is a name we used to own in our portfolio, we don't own it now, we could own it again. it is a wonderful specialty retailer. it is not just selling to commercial farmers, selling to contractors, tradesmen, recreational farmers and ranchers which have lots of money, spend lots of money on their farms and ranches. it serves smaller community in
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the u.s. outside of metropolitan areas, some of the farming communities. so, it doesn't, it doesn't typically have a walmart next door or a, home depot next door. stuart: and their product lineup, you can't easily get online. it is made for bricks and more tar, go in, touch it, feel it, buy it? >> correct. it is insulated from the amazon threat. if you buy a bag of feed or fertilizer. you will not order it online delivered through the mail, you pick it up in your truck and bring it home. stuart: your naics case is home depot. you like it and own it. >> we've owned home depot five years. home depot as you alluded to in a little earlier in your program, didn't have amazing numbers. they climbed a wall of worry on wall street. the stock is reacting well today. stuart: very well. >> one thing to keep in mind with stocks like home depot, the last time interest rates got
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this low back in 2016. in the fourth quarter of 2016, we saw a surge in refinancings, that created a nice tailwind to companies like home depot as they went into 2017. stuart: okay, that is the story there. ross stores, i know you have owned it for several years. what's so good about it? maybe buy some more? what is so good about it? >> we owned ross for seven years. it is our longest term holding. we think off price retailers like ross, tjx have a better mousetrap than traditional retailers. these companies are able to buy excess inventories at 40 to 60% discounts to wholesale prices. when you couple that, with the genuine treasure hunt appeal to visiting the stores, you have a bricks and mortar retail concept that has taken huge share over the last 10 years, from the likes of macy's nordstrom, et cetera. even in the age of amazon's, stuart, they have not only grown but thrived.
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stuart: we like to have people successful, investor on the show tell us stocks they like. tractor supply, home depot, ross stores, we'll take it. michael, thanks for joining us. >> thanks very much, sir. next case, sacramento, california salon owner, says she had to relocate her business because of the homeless camped outside of her business. she says she has to clean up after them. she has been broken into too. can anything be done about this? we'll ask the question. check the price of bitcoin. new report says it is being used to fund terrorism. does that ruin true believer pete hegseth? he has got some -- ashley: he is a big believer. stuart: it is used as payment for ransomware as well. that is bad pr for bitcoin. we'll ask hegseth momentarily. ♪
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2,000 fence posts. 900 acres. 48 bales. all before lunch, which we caught last saturday. we earn our scars. we wear our work ethic. we work until the work's done. and when it is, a few hours of shuteye to rest up for tomorrow, the day we'll finally get something done. ( ♪ ) the day we'll finally get something done. dear tech, let's talk. we have a pretty good relationship. you've done a lot of good for the world. but i feel like you have the potential to do so much more. can we build ai without bias? how do we bake security into everything we do? we need tech that helps people understand each other. that understands my business. we've got some work to do. and we need your help. we need your support. let's expect more from technology. let's put smart to work. ♪ ♪
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>> this video is for gavin newsom. i want to tell you what happened when i get to work. i have to clean up the poop and pee off my doorstep. i have to clean up syringes. i have to politely ask for people i care for, i care for the homeless to move their tents. you want to make it comfortable for everybody except people that work hard and we have to change that because of your lies. what are you going to do for us? stuart: good question. that was the california sacramento salon owner. she had to move her business because the homeless were right outside of her front door. larry elder is with us. salem radio talk show host. larry, this is what to me what gets me. i think that the left regards homeless people as victims. you can't touch victims. is that the nature of the problem here? >> i think that's a big component to the problem. look, there was a piece in the
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"wall street journal" the other day that said even during the great depression, when homelessness, when unemployment was 25%, 25%, you did not find people pooping and urinating in the streets. this is a sort of a perfect storm of a number of things. mental illness, drug abuse, family breakdown. unwillingness to build sufficient shelter and even if you did, are you going to force people to get up, to go into the shelters? there is local supervisor who is proposing a big bill to build all the housing. we have 65,000 homeless people living in, here in l.a. county be stuart. he wants to build housing for all of them. he was asked, after the housing is built, do you force them to get up and leave? he said, they will be invited. he said, do you force them to get up and leave? well, shelters will be nice they will want to go. what if they don't? he wouldn't answer. this is question we have to ask yourselves. is it okay to acceptable to sleep on the streets, when there is sufficient shelter, shall you be forced to go into the
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shelter? that is the question we have to ask and answer. until that is asked and answered we'll have this problem. stuart: there is absolutely no solution at hand is there, none? there is none? >> no, there isn't. not when there is insufficient shelter. what do you do? pick them up, put them in jail? there is not space in jail. let them out on the highway? then what. the question, when and if there is enough shelters, there is plenty of money here in california obviously, will they be forced to get up and leave? the answer is, the politicians don't want to answer that. i'm sure the aclu will go crazy. can you sleep on the streets? why do we have anti-loitering laws, vagrancy laws, what is the point? are they unenforceable? why do we have them on the books in the first place if they are not enforced. stuart: that is very good point, larry. there is no solution. if you can't force people into a home which the taxpayer has provided you don't have the solution to the problem. the aclu would not let you force
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anybody to do anything that is the way life is. not just california. we have it in new york city, it is exactly the same. the weather here is lousy. the weather good in los angeles, they go there. >> you're right. stuart: thanks for being on the show today, you are indeed the voice of reason from california. thank you very much. now "the new york times," changing their line of attack on the president, they couldn't get russia to stick. now they're going after him on racism. brian kilmeade on that next. ♪
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stuart: we're down 70 points on the dow, still well above 26,000. we have two big drugmakers. they're scrambling to avoid a trial over opioids. those two companies, they're negotiating. ashley: allergan, they have apparently come to a settlement. endo will pay $10 million. allergan will pay five. doesn't be, this is for two counties in ohio. stuart: that's it. ashley: they say similar lawsuits brought by hundreds of cities, counties and states. so bottom line is, these settlements are going on and on
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and on. they decided to get out earlier. teva and perdue paid 85 and 270 million respectively to oklahoma. stuart: long way to go. ashley: long way to go indeed. stuart: almost 10:51. that means we go live on the radio to brian kilmeade. host of the "brian kilmeade show." brian i will start with a montage of sport coaches, taken from movies, heavy-duty guys. watch this. roll it. >> hard work of so many. disrespect of a few. was it fun? was it fun? >> you know how to play football. you play football, like you never played football. a guy gave his life to this football team. that is what living is. six-inches in front of your face. now i can't make you do it. what are you going to do?
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[shouting] stuart: i do have to tell you, that is from the movies. let's begin here. we're playing now because the university of california study found these harsher, negative, halftime speeches from the coaches were more effective than positive, uplifting speeches. you're a sports guy. do you agree with that? >> i'm fascinated by this whole study. stuart: yeah. >> they taped these locker room speeches over the course of years. northern california teams, mostly basketball, they also played it to a focus group to say hey, what is more motivational to you? they say the negative speeches were. so you're up by 10, keep it up, guys, win this one, or, play hard. i don't care if you win or lose, you say, you're not playing good enough. you're up by 10, but you should be down by 10. play like i taught you to. that is more motivational, if you want results in today's game. i think that is understood. however the extreme, the extreme negativity, where you throw a
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chair, knock over a watercooler, not motivational. stuart: you're a coach. you're a soccer coach. not a football coach. are you with that kind of approach to the team members? you got to win, you got to win, you're an idiot. you're not trying hard enough? that that put my two sons off football, flat-out. >> you don't take personal insults but you can push a team, no doubt about it. a couple of things. you have to do it in spurts. can't do it all the time. if you're yelling at same level every day. it become as blur, white noise. if you compliment every single thing they do, the compliments become null and void. you have to break it up, understand your team. we had mike eruzione on our show, the captain of the olympics team, he said he could get screamed at every day, herb brooks could no diminish. he is hat boston college today, very good hockey team, he is
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involved with the hockey program. he used this. some of these guys want a hug. as opposed to a hit. and things have changed. there are different ways to motivate. kids are smarter. players know when they're being manipulated but i also think you got to know your team, know your player what operates you. i guarranty you, stuart, you manage your staff, right? there are certain people got really thick skin and certain people that don't. you know, if you say one little thing they care so much, they will take it to the extreme, so you might hold back. others you can sit there and push them really hard. i don't think there is any difference. that is why the study is valuable. not just a kid getting ready for a fall season. not just a coach for high school and college. this is for managers, ceo's, human resource people to get more out of their talent. stuart: there is nothing wrong with my team. i'm never critical. >> how thick is their screen? ashley: elephant-like. stuart: very thick, actually. i have too to get this in,
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"new york times" changing its tune going after president trump for his alleged racism. they couldn't make russia stick. now they're going after him as a racist. what do you think about that from "the new york times"? >> that is one of the most important expose's ever, when it was exposed in a town hall to disgruntled employees, hey the russia thing didn't work, the racist thing we hope will work. now they're going to the next r, which is recession. once it is exposed, understood, the people who know the president knows he is not a racist. they knew he was going after elijah cummings not because he was black, but cummings came at the homeland security secretary on nothing he knew about and personally disparaging to him. he was sticks up to his guy. there is opening, boom, boom, all the outlets, casual american, walking by the tv,
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maybe the president is. now that it has been exposed and been presented, i hope the american voter is more savvy than that. maybe people earn your vote. don't be manipulated by somebody else's agenda. stuart: from "the new york times." brian, thank you very much, sir. always obliged. very much appreciate it. >> ashley can take anything. go at him hard. he can take it all. ashley: thank you, brian, i think. stuart: former editor of psychology today has gone before congress saying google manipulated votes in the 2016 election. he claims google influenced millions of voters to side with hillary clinton. his research is not going without criticism. we have details on that coming up for you. there is a lot of recession talk, actually constant recently. i don't think we should be buying into it. our economy is booming. we'll be separating the economic myths from reality next. ♪ we trust usaa more than any other company out there.
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stuart: the economy is booming and outside of this program and this network, you wouldn't really know it. i call it the greatest story never told. this is not an opinion. it is fact. i've got some proof for you. number one, 32% of american workers say they plan to get a new job this year voluntarily. that's according to a harris poll study. when you plan on changing jobs on your own, that is optimism. 29% say they regularly search for jobs while they are employed. that's an optimistic point of view. 78% say they are open to trying something new if the opportunity presents itself. what's wrong with that? speaking of opportunity, 7.3 million job openings in june, the highest number since the labor department started keeping that statistic 20 years ago.
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there are more jobs available than workers to fill them. what a time to be in the labor force. now, i'm using words like optimism and opportunity here. but turn on the other cable networks, read the papers or listen to the democrat candidates and the only word you are likely to hear to describe this economy is close to recession. hand-to-mouth existence. they are talking the economy down but not here. oh, no. not here. the third hour of "varney & company," home of opportunity and optimism, yeah, we're about to begin. stuart: following up from that little rant, here is captain america, otherwise known as pete hegseth, "fox & friends" weekend cohost. he's a good man.
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now then, i'm going away for three days. you get out and about and look at the media and you would think america is going to hell in a hand basket. >> of course. stuart: people think we are living hand-to-mouth, paycheck to paycheck and we're all suffering. >> because they want that. bill maher has been the only one in the media honest about it saying he's cheering for recession. it was russia, russia, russia, then resistance, resistance, resistance. then racism, racism. racism. now it's recession, recession, recession. it's all about narrative. doesn't have anything to do with the facts of what's actually happening as we found out with russia, with the so-called charges of racism against the president and go out and talk to voters, talk to young people. they realize if they want the find something better, they can. it's bafall based on them. if they want to get a new skill or trade at a vocational school, earn a trade, you can make a lot more. the jobs are there for you. the problem for democrats is where the rubber meets the road they're wrong. you talk about this on the program all the time. they just, they are hoping for
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it, the democratic candidates haven't figured out how to talk about it and as a result, they are cheerleading for it. stuart: they are all about feelings. not about facts. they are about feelings. >> they don't care about your feelings. stuart: i want to move on for a second. i'm sure you have seen all these reports. you surely have seen the reports that bitcoin is being used by terrorists to fund terrorist operations. you have heard about bitcoin being used to pay this ransomware. 23 towns in texas attacked. i know you are a bitcoin investor. you think you might want to pull back a little and say it's time we regulated these people? >> no. listen, obviously i'm not okay with that. i don't want that. but that would be like saying the mob used to pay each other in cash and therefore, we got to get rid of cash. stuart: no, that's a rotten analogy. >> why? stuart: because it's irrelevant. >> it isn't irrelevant. it's a form of currency that is not traceable. that's why people love bitcoin because you can transact
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anonymously without dealing with a third party. stuart: is that why you bought it? >> no, i think it has political ramifications. i think it empowers the individual. i think it cuts out big business, big banks and government from things that otherwise manipulate and control my life. we don't even -- we haven't begun to scratch the surface of the potential of bitcoin and where it could be used and why. the problem is the bad guys are figuring it out, too. that's where you've got to target the bad guys and what they're doing and give them no platform to do it. but you can't blame bitcoin for this. stuart: you're still in it? >> i am. listen, i'm in it for the long haul. i'm a bad guy to talk to as far as the ups and downs. i think as the economy tries to figure out what's happening with the currency and showdown with china, that is going to affect the long-term choice of people to invest in bitcoin. stuart: you got married recently? >> i did. stuart: friday night? >> i had a very special guest there, too. stuart: and? i do want the audience to see that wonderful picture of you and the seven children that
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you -- >> yes. stuart: -- have accumulated. ashley: sound of music. stuart: do they sing? >> they do, very poorly, like us. yeah. my beautiful bride, former jennifer cunningham, now jennifer hegseth, works at fox nation here. she has three kids from a previous and i have three and we have one together, gwennie who is swinging between the two of us. stuart: her second birthday friday? >> at our wedding. we threw a big old party. what they didn't have, maybe we will get it when professional photos come out, is stuart varney dancing. stuart: that's not true. that is not true. >> you never know. if it's out there. we are going to have it. it will be on the air. stuart: i just wanted to congratulate you. wonderful wedding. it was at a trump national golf course in new jersey. >> colt's neck. listen, we just wanted to have a huge party with the people who have loved and embraced us and
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celebrate with them. that's what we did. stuart: i happened to be there standing next to you and jen, your bride, and the phone rang. >> we will let people speculate. it was an honor to have you there, truly. we had a ton of wonderful folks, told some stories, had a few adult beverages. i like to dance which there might be video of that. stuart: i'm sorry to say i missed it. >> when i have video of that, i will bring it. stuart: you got it. congratulations, pete, and to jen. wonderful stuff. good luck, man. hey, look at this. while hegseth was talking, america turned the market around. boom, just like that. >> you're welcome, america. stuart: now we're down two points because the interview's over. nonetheless, momentarily we were actually in the green. we are watching interest rates very very carefully. you have to these days. the yield on the ten-year
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treasury is 1.54%. i have real hope that later this week, we will see the 30-year fixed rate mortgage come down to 3.5%. ashley: it should. it may take all week. stuart: should do. home depot, a very very strong gain for that stock right now. $9 higher, 4% gain there. home depot, at $217. it is a dow stock so it is helping the dow industrials. back to google. last month, the former editor in chief of "psychology today" testified that google manipulated at least 2.6 million votes in the 2016 election. with the capacity to manipulate a whole lot more. roll tape. >> if i understood your testimony correctly, you said in subsequent elections, google and facebook and twitter and big tech's manipulation could manipulate as many as 15 million votes in a subsequent election? >> in 2020, if all these
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companies are supporting the same candidate, there are 15 million votes on the line that can be shifted without people's knowledge and without leaving a paper trail for authorities to trace. stuart: well, there are questions about the methodology that dr. epstein used, questions coming from his critics. we will get into that with the director of the creepyline, a documentary about google. briefly, watch this. >> you're searching for the most private stuff on google, things that your spouse might not want you to know about. facebook constantly manipulates their users. they do it by things they insert into the news feed, they do it by the types of hosts they allow their users to see. ♪
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stuart: better get back to a story which this program brought you yesterday. former editor of "psychology today" went on the record in front of congress and said google manipulated votes in the 2016 election because of bias in search. roll tape. >> you testified before this committee that google's manipulation of votes gave at least 2.6 million additional votes to hillary clinton in the year 2016. is that correct? >> that's correct. >> your testimony is that google is, through bias in search results, manipulating voters in a way they're not aware of? >> on a massive scale. >> if understood your testimony correctly, you said in subsequent elections, google and facebook and twitter and big tech's manipulation could
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manipulate as many as 15 million votes in a subsequent election? >> in 2020, if all these companies are supporting the same candidate, there are 15 million votes on the line that can be shifted without people's knowledge and without leaving a paper trail for authorities to trace. ashley: good grief. stuart: i call that really powerful stuff. however, yes, there are questions about dr. epstein's methodology and how he came up with those numbers. with us now, the director of the creepy line, that's a documentary about big tech finding its way into our personal lives. before we get to him, just roll this clip. roll tape. >> you're searching for the most private stuff on google, things that your wife or spouse might not want you to know about. >> facebook constantly manipulates their users. they do it by the things they insert into the news feed. they do it by the types of hosts they allow their users to see. stt the director of the movie
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with the clip of which you just saw is with us. welcome back to the program. >> glad to be here. stuart: is there any way to prove the numbers which dr. epstein was using? >> look, at this point, we don't have proof that these votes were moved. one thing we do know is that the way the google search engine works, if i search for stuart varney, it has to do two things. it has to select pages out of billions of pages, bias number one, and has to put them in an order. so the engine is biased by design. that's the baseline. when google says there's no bias, it is bias. if i say which is the best candidate, it has to put one first. so the methodology which he uses shows that there's potential for manipulation if they so choose. that is the important thing here. if they so choose. google shows any bias internally towards one candidate or another, the potential that dr. epstein showed is there to do what he said they could do.
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stuart: but we don't know that they are actually doing that. for example, in the 2010 election, facebook sent out a message, get out the vote, like a public service message, get out the vote. they sent it to 60 million people. but my understanding is they only sent it to democrats. they knew who they were. that shifted 360,000 votes. according to dr. epstein. it sounds valid to me. >> look, it is definitely -- he was proposing a monitoring system to calculate bias. that is what he's proposing. he says because these potentials are there and because we saw statistical bias, statistical bias in the searches of the people that were in the study, what it shows is it was biased top ten for hillary clinton. that is what his research showed. again, whether it happened, we don't know. but what we do know is the potential is there and his research, the people he studied, it did happen. now, whether it converted to a vote, i cannot say. stuart: we cannot confirm --
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>> we cannot confirm. stuart: -- the numbers. >> we can confirm his research is extremely valid. the methodology is very sound because the engine is biased by design. stuart: that gentleman, dr. epstein, is in fact a voter for hillary clinton. >> absolutely. stuart: he was publicly very much in favor of hillary clinton. >> absolutely. stuart: in the 2016 election. what to me, it's so insidious because you don't know what they're doing. they have astronomical power between them. there are three multi-billionair multi-billionaires, all of them are worth $50 billion plus, and they are the new big brothers. that's the way it seems to me. >> no, it is. i mean, this is the thing. i know dr. epstein very well. we have gone through the research. even the potential of a company doing this is dangerous and undermines democracy and his research, remember, he did the test in india in 2014, he did it in 2016 and he did it again in 2018.
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so we have many elections that he has done this research in that have shown similar results, if not the same results, and look, at the very least, just let us know it's not happening, google. be transparent. if it's not happening, then show us. stuart: well said. matthew taylor, thank you very much, sir. a timely interview if ever there was one. thank you. i want to show you a tweet from president trump that came out right after we did this segment on our air yesterday. deirdre, set the record straight, are those numbers accurate? deirdre: no. there's one numbers problem, one language problem according to dr. epstein, who did an interview on monday. he says where the president says google manipulated from 2.6 to 16 million votes, dr. epstein says no, i said there was bias but i did not say that voters were manipulated, past tense, in 2016. so that's a language choice on the verb there. then if you look to the numbers,
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dr. epstein said in his interview on monday in 2020, 15 million voters could be affected. again, this is projecting to the future, not focusing on the past. i think one very simple way to do this, if we talked about the methodology, is just for example, facebook can send out a don't forget to vote message to people that it knows are democrats only. that's part of how the machine functions. stuart: that is flat-out manipulation. you don't know it's happening. they're not going to tell you who they are sending that message out to. i'm sorry, it's manipulation. you may not be able to prove categorically, objectively the numbers, but -- deirdre: they know an awful lot about us, big tech. we have given them a lot of information. stuart: all right. by the way, we did reach out to google and facebook for comment. no word back yet. now this. mercedes-benz admitting some of its cars have a secret sensor that can track your exact location at the flip of a switch. we will tell you all about it, after this.
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♪ there's a company that's talked to even more real people than me: jd power. 448,134 to be exact. they answered 410 questions in 8 categories about vehicle quality. and when they were done, chevy earned more j.d. power quality awards across cars, trucks and suvs than any other brand over the last four years. so on behalf of chevrolet, i want to say "thank you, real people." you're welcome. we're gonna need a bigger room.
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stuart: guess we should have seen this coming. the list of things that are spying on you, that list got a little longer. mercedes monitoring us? deirdre: yep. mercedes has secret sensors, it can track your exact location. they can just flip on a switch and find, kind of like find my iphone, you know. they can find you. they say they only use it in extreme circumstances. so i was thinking oh, you know what, maybe if i broke down on the side of the road, i would actually want this. this is not really how it's being used. it's basically for finance customers who have defaulted on their payment. so they can be tracked down. what you may not know is about 80% of new mercedes are actually sold on finance plans which i did not know, and the company dominates the car leasing market. they have a little p.r. problem because of this. i will also mention that other manufacturers, bmw, jaguar, land rover, they actually do not carry out -- basically mercedes just looks bad. stuart: it sounds like they are tracking you. that's sinister.
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ashley: what if the car is stolen? maybe they can tell you where it is. deirdre: they give the information to third party recovery. it's a little bit sketchy. stuart: the idea of a car company being able to track where the car is, i have no problem whatsoever. deirdre: you pay your bills, you have no problem. stuart: thank you. ford is banking really big-time on electric cars over the next few years. what are they doing? ashley: they say they are launching at least 16 battery electric vehicles by the end of 2023. four years from now. stuart: just about everything. ashley: everything. they are working right now two smaller suvs, all electric. they are about the size of the ford edge. i know you know that. and also, i know you know this, too, the f-150, they are working on an electric f-150. stuart: i have an f-150, it's gasoline powered. i have no problem going electric
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so long as you guarantee i can recharge quickly and easily. ashley: infrastructure. that is the key. obviously hopefully between now and then, there will be more places to plug in. stuart: hopefully. ashley: otherwise, you will be on the side of the interstate. stuart: let's look at the markets. not that much going on. it's pretty much dead flat, i've got to say. at the moment we are down 11 on the dow, down only 2 on the nasdaq composite. momentarily, ryan payne's coming up. he's going to look at this. the perception of the economy certainly in the media, and the reality of the economy. rather different from what the media sees it. we will get into it next. ♪
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if you're turning 65 soon or over 65 and planning to retire, find out more about the plans that live up to their name. thumbs up to that! remember, the time to prepare is before you go on medicare! don't wait. get started today. call unitedhealthcare and ask for your free decision guide. learn more about aarp medicare supplement plan options and rates to fit your needs oh, and happy birthday... or retirement... in advance. stuart: flat to slightly lower. that's my opinion of the market thus far this morning. we are down 16 on the dow, just a fraction of 1%. still above 26,100. ryan payne is with us, popular guest on this program. i don't know why. but he's popular. he's a young guy, that's probably it. >> that's all i have going for me. stuart: we are talking now about perception versus reality.
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on the economy. the perception, i want you to knock this down if that's what you want to do, perception is the manufacturing sector is weak and weakening. that is the perception. tell me the reality. >> 10% of the private sector is actually employed by manufacturing. it's such a small portion of the economy that it's really irrelevant. stuart: is it expanding? >> well -- stuart: weakening manufacturing sector. is it not weakening? >> more importantly, it is weakening a little bit. more importantly, the service sector which drives the economy has been going up and up and up consistently. we are a service-based economy. that's the real number you want to look at. stuart: look, manufacturing is, what, 10% of the economy. why is there a perception that it's not worth much or that it's going downhill or something? where is that perception coming from? >> i think it makes great headlines. stuart: that's it? >> that's about it. if you think about it, right now
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the economy's in great shape and all you can look at when you google or go online is recession, recession, recession. stuart: that's another one. i want to nail that one. the perception is because you hear this word recession all the time, the perception is that the economy is slowing and that's where we are headed, headed to recession. what do you think is the reality? >> okay. the reality there is it's not really slowing. if you look at last year, we had this big jump in gdp because that was because we had the tax break, right? that was an artificial stimulus. over the last ten years the gdp averaged 2.3% a year. guess where gdp is going to come in this year? estimated? stuart: 2.3? >> bingo. exactly right. we are getting normal growth we had for the last decade. nothing's really changed. that's not really slowing. that's what's been normal. stuart: we always hear that sooner or later, there has to be recession because there always is. that is true. that is true. >> sure. stuart: when do you think we get this recession? >> what i worry about is i think the perception is it's happening sooner than later. that's what everyone's focused
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in on. i think what we discount, i talk about this a lot, is remember, the gdp or the country is basically driven by the consumer. the consumer right now is probably in some of the best shape they have ever been. that can drive the economy for a very very long time. i talk about this a lot, but the consumer now too is not as leveraged as they used to be. americans are actually saving again which is shocking, but americans are actually not as leveraged as they used to be. that's huge. stuart: i do find that fascinating. >> it is fascinating. stuart: the savings rate is about 8%, isn't it? >> i know. it's insane. if you think bit, it's such a polar opposite of where we were a decade ago. i think because of that, because you don't have that overheating, it's going to be very hard to go into recession. stuart: here's another one. the perception is that a long, drawn-out trade war with china will set our economy reeling. that is the perception. that's what you hear all the time. reality? >> okay. so reality is, if you look at exports, they're down less than 1% this year. it's a very small percentage of
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gdp. furthermore, companies are smart. they're not just sitting there saying they are going to slap these tariffs on us, we're not going to do anything. number one, you have to look at like take american eagle, for instance, a retailer. the teenagers love it. so basically, that 10% tariff would take their profits down by 13%. however, couple things they are doing right now. number one, you had the yuan that's been devalued so that offsets some of the tariff right there. the goods are a little cheaper that they are importing then. they are starting to diversify their supply chain, 30% comes from china now. they will bring it down to like 20%. over the course of the next year or two. they are doing that as well. in addition to that, they are also looking at renegotiating with their suppliers, saying you got to suffer this as well. stuart: i've got one problem with china trade. i think there has been a specific response on the part of the business, not investing in new capital equipment. that reinvestment of all the money they've made, reinvestment
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into capital equipment, capital expenditures, that is slowing down. i think that is the result of china trade problems. >> i'm going to play devil's advocate here. imagine we get some sort of trade deal where things ease up a little bit and that capital expenditure on top of strong gdp from the consumer kicks in, we could be off to the races. again, the market could be off to the races. stuart: intermediate deal would put us off to the races. because you have to settle the theft of intellectual property or forced conversion of technology. you don't have to deal with that. if you had a short-term deal on tariffs and agricultural products, then you've got yourself a short-term deal. i think you're right, i think the market would respond. >> stuart, we speak the same language. i'm with you. stuart: well, with a different accent, we do. ryan, thank you very much indeed. appreciate you always. thank you. apple spending some money on original content as they gear up for their streaming service. eventually you know they will go
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head-to-head with netflix, hbo, disney plus. they are shelling out, apple, now, shelling out, what, $6 billion to compete? that's not much compared to netflix's $14 billion spent on original content and disney's staggering $24 billion on content. that's a lot of money. apple will reportedly launch this streaming service within the next two months. how about disney? if you've got an amazon fire stick and you are a disney aficionado, ash has bad news for you. ashley: you're not going to be able to get disney plus. amazon's fire tv is the most popular streaming device. 34 million active users as opposed to 29 million for roku. the general consensus is it makes no sense for disney plus not to be on fire tv and vice versa. so they will probably be expected maybe some last-minute deal, it's probably over
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carriage fees or some sort of fee. this is no deliberate freeze-out by disney not to go on to this particular device. negotiations are in process. $6.99 for basic. $12.99 you get disney plus, hulu and espn. stuart: you see disney on the screen right now. $135 a share. earlier today, we had mark douglas on the show who said that stock could double to around $250 a share within the next year, year and a half. that's a big jump. ashley: yes, it is. deirdre: i'll take double. stuart: so would i. disney has a whistleblower. more news on disney. the whistleblower is saying what? deirdre: she is saying disney overstated its revenue and in a year 2008-2009 by as much as $6 billion overstated. she worked for the company for 18 years. she said she tried to go to the company normal channels once in 2013, was ignored, once in 2017,
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management got in touch, didn't follow up. i do want to make a note, disney says her claims are completely without merit. she says basically that employees were taking advantage of gaps in the accounting system. she herself was an accountant. for example, if you sold a gift card to me, then you could record it when you sold it and then i guess if you are, as the whistleblower says, you would again put it in when i use it. they sound really small and pedantic but that adds up to real money. that's not the only example. i think what's more noticeable for disney is that the s.e.c. is apparently taking her claim seriously. they have met with her in person, met with her over the phone, they are asking for more information so they at least are doing due diligence. that doesn't mean they think disney did anything wrong but they are doing their job. stuart: what's disney's response? deirdre: that the claims are completely without merit. and that she was fired, she was terminated, but i'm going to go right to disney's statement. they say in fact that she had acted in a bad faith, she
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displayed a pattern of workplace complaints against her co-workers without a reasonable basis for doing so in a manner that was disruptive, inappropriate and in bad faith. stuart: got it. thanks very much. we've got some retail names to report for you today. they reported on their profits earlier. first of all, look at home depot. sales actually fell short of expectations and they did lower their outlook. they are concerned that a trade war may slow consumer spending. but home depot is cashing in on the refi business, whereas people are, you know, getting the cost of their monthly mortgage payment down and putting it into renovation of their homes and home depot doing well. look at it go. nine bucks higher, 4.5%. then there's kohl's. they say back-to-school spending has been strong. they say their partnership with amazon on returns, getting more people through their doors.
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but the stock's down nearly 5%. check tjx. they are the parent of tj maxx, marshall's, home goods. sales missed the mark. that stock down just 1%. go figure. the business roundtable, that's a ceo group led by jpmorgan's jamie dimon, says big corporations should put social awareness ahead of maximizing profits. i completely disagree with that. our next guest, though, says companies can actually make more money when they are socially conscious. we will get into it. ♪
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deirdre: there's a couple called acorn. it's a lot like bank of america's product ten years ago, you buy a cup of coffee, $3.75, 25 cents goes automatically into your account -- stuart: no, no, no. a cup of coffee is $3.75. i give them four bucks. deirdre: exactly. stuart: 25 cents extra. what do they do with it? deirdre: they put it either in savings or in an investing account for you. that way, you save and invest and let's call it painlessly. one of the problems for these companies really getting off the ground. there's a lot of companies that have been doing this, but it just has yet to go mainstream. so the benefit to a company such as ashcoracorn, they have jenni lopez, alex rodriguez, kevin durant, and they want to make saving more snazzy. stuart: it's easy. deirdre: very easy. stuart: let me talk about that
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business roundtable report. the ceos all get together and say they want to shift their focus away from shareholders making money. away from profit basically. softening kind of capitalism. they want to move towards companies being more socially conscious. again, i think that's watering down capitalism. i'm a shareholder. work for me. make my stock go up, please. i'm an owner of the company. that man right there is tommy sadlin, a tech entrepreneur. i believe he disagrees with me. go ahead. make your case. >> well, thank you for having me back. look, this may sound revolutionary, may sound like socialism, but actually, i think this is just good common business sense. if companies treat society well, if they interact with customers, with regulators, governments, ngos, if they treat those groups well, they will do well over the long term. i don't think this is about
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watering down capitalism. i think it's just about being a more enlightened capitalist which means your business will grow more and more into the future. i think that's the definition of sustainability. delivering profits into the future. stuart: well, is that automatic, though? i can say all kinds of nice things about my customers, my suppliers and my employees but does that help me make more money for my shareholders? >> the good news is on the whole, yes. so i wrote a book about this, about the relationship between business and society and mckenzie did some research. what they found is about 30% of a company's earnings are a stake from its relationship with society. so there's huge amounts of value you have to protect by treating stake holders well. we also found companies who integrate environmental issues deep into the hearts of their business model outperform their peers by about 2% per year on the stock market. that adds up to more than 20% over a decade.
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so this is a hardcore business issue that you can gain competitive advantage by engaging radically with society. this doesn't have to be a cost center. this is not about fluffy corporate responsibility. this is about making more money by engaging with society more effectively. stuart: it's not done that well for europe, though, has it? >> well, it's really interesting you mention that. some of the worst offenders in europe, think about volkswagen. volkswagen was actually deemed the most sustainable company in the world or the most sustainable car company in the world by the dow jones sustainability index weeks before its scandal about emissions testing. i think the old world of measuring sustainability and all that philanthropy, that's going now. i think this is no longer about giving, no longer about being sort of a nice guy. it's about saying if you do this, if you engage with your society better, you will make more money. i think you can see that in europe, you can see it in the
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u.s., asia, wherever you want to go. stuart: all right, tommy. you made your point. that's interesting. you know, with the british accent coming on strong like this, we accept it. we accept it. thanks very much. we will bring you back because it's a very interesting point. all right. now, the "wall street journal" says there's a group of states getting ready to put big tech under the antitrust microscope. what worries me here is that they will force a change in their business model. ashley: that could very well be the outcome. we shall see. but at least 20 states, if not more, will launch this effort could be as early as next month. what they want to know is they want to know just a handful of dominant technology companies are essentially using their marketplace to stifle any competition. if they start to get into that, then yes, ultimately the business model of these giant companies could be affected. don't forget, we already have the department of justice, federal trade commission are doing their own investigation. you want to stay under the microscope, they really are. stuart: the two companies in
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particular, google and facebook, are more under the microscope than most. ashley: yes. stuart: they are under pressure on the stock market today, too. just a little. not much. now, i want to clarify a story we discussed earlier today. i mentioned during our segment on social media's impact on the election that facebook sent a go vote reminder and 360,000 people voted who otherwise wouldn't have. it was actually 340,000. we also mentioned that the go vote reminder was sent only to democrats. there is no evidence it was sent only to democrats although i will have to look at facebook's own report on what it did in the election of 2010. got it. slight correction. check this out. wait for it. a cafe in california getting ready to open in september. it wants to pair your food with marijuana. we will tell you all about it after this. ♪
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secretary hogan gidley just went on fox news and said quote, we are not considering a payroll tax cut at this time. bear in mind, a payroll tax is like your social security contribution. it's a tax when you've got a job, payroll tax. the possibility of that kind of tax cut was reported in the "new york times" and "washington post" this morning. gidley shut it down. it's not going to happen. but the president is still pushing for -- ashley: i like the concept of pushing for more stimulus by cutting taxes. maybe one that affects social security which we know is struggling and has had all sorts of horrible forecasts of running out in the near future. we know that. but i think the president is on the right track. stuart: he wants us to -- wants the federal reserve to cut interest rates 100 basis points, one full point, drop it now. that's a form of stimulus. i think he's talking or just mentioning with his aides cutting other taxes as well. bottom line is he wants
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stimulus. deirdre: that is for sure. we know fed chairman jay powell will be speaking from jackson hole, wyoming this friday. that's something the markets are going to be focused on, 100% chance if you look at feds funds futures we will have a 25 basis point cut in september. stuart: friday afternoon? deirdre: friday afternoon, jackson hole, wyoming. stuart: the market watchers have to stay late. deirdre: everyone's weekend is ruined. there you go. stuart: here's a story that's intriguing. this may be a sign of the times in the future. cafe in california is going to pair, put together, your food with the correct marijuana. deirdre: yeah. the chef is taking it really really seriously. a lot of chefs talk about pairing food and wine pairing, she's trying to do the same with the right kind of, the right flavor of marijuana with the food. for example, i was going through some of these suggested menu pairings. stuart: wait, wait. the audience has not a clue what you are talking about.
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kush is a brand name of marijuana that goes with what? [ speaking simultaneously ] deirdre: she is suggesting a stew, a hardy meal. stuart: give me a dessert. deirdre: so infused perhaps with some oil, they say they can put it in olive oil, in ice cream, in sorbets. stuart: that's put it in. wait a minute. i'm talking about smoking a joint. deirdre: you can do both in this restaurant. stuart: so -- wait a minute, in the restaurant, you can light up your weed right there in the restaurant? deirdre: that is the goal. stuart: if you want that particular kind of pot to go with your stew, you can do it? ashley: it's like having a wine sommalier. stuart: you can only do it until 10:00 at night. ashley: yes. stuart: after 10:00, you can't do it. deirdre: bizarrely, your bills have to be separate because california has a weird law where they don't want you to be able to sell say dorritos and reese's
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peanut butter crunch in the same space you can sell joints. getting a little off track. stuart: sign of the future. now this. kroger is now selling vegan eggs. made from something i have never heard of. that would be mung beans. m-u-n-g. look, bottom line here is, plant-based food is expanding rapidly. ashley: it's here to stay. we are seeing it in more variations, more distribution and more outlets selling it. deirdre: when fast food joints put it in burgers that's pretty mainstream. we've tried them. stuart: beyond meat is nicely recovering today. last time i checked, that stock, beyond meat was up eight or nine bucks. there you go. nearly ten bucks higher. 6.8%. deirdre: best ipo to date this year, for sure. stuart: absolutely. ashley: has this been brewing? it's interesting. stuart: the trend towards vegetarianism and veganism, is
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that the right word, it's exploding. it's reflected in the food that's being put in front of you. deirdre: a lot of people do it for health. a lot of people do it for environmental reasons, socially conscious reasons or just taste reasons. stuart: i've got no problem with it. more "varney" after this. ♪ ♪ limu emu & doug hour 36 in the stakeout. as soon as the homeowners arrive, we'll inform them that liberty mutual customizes home insurance, so they'll only pay for what they need. your turn to keep watch, limu. wake me up if you see anything. [ snoring ] . .
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stuart: this america buying greenland thing? we got a tweet from the president. clearly the man is poking fun at himself with the whole greenland debacle, promising not to build a trump tower in greenland, although seems like prime real estate to me. >> that was hilarious. >> i thought it was from the onion. i checked twice to make sure it was the president's account.
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>> he would put a golf course next door. stuart: it is tongue in cheek, tweaking the media, and tweaking the left. you can't buy greenland. what a day. my time's up, greenland or not. connell mcshane in for neil. connell: red or white with your joint? stuart: stay out of this. connell: i'm connell mcshane and this is "cavuto: coast to coast" filling in for neil. new fears of a china conflict. we're talking about more than a trade war. the warning that the u.s. may be picking the wrong fight with china. some states are looking, reportedly to keep big tech in check. we see a big b
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