if you're not alarmed by thats prospect, then the menace that we face is even greater. that's it for us this week. for the latest updates, follow me on twitter, facebook and instagram. i'll be back next week right here on "the wall street journal at large." thank you very much for joining us. ♪ ♪ jack: welcome to "barron's roundtable" where we get behind the headlines and prepare you for the week ahead. i'm jack otter. coming up, how investors should position their portfolios ahead of the election and how a trump the or biden win will affect the markets. and later, we ask can some of the country's most successful money managers where they think markets are heading. we've got the results, and that may be surprising. we begin, as always, with what we think are the three most important things investors should be thinking about right now. the stock market zig zagged this week as traders rotated in and

out of sectors. and amazon prime days kicked off an unusual holiday shopping season with retailers adapting to the challenges of the covid-19 crisis. which companies will benefit? apple unveiled its new iphone 12. will 5g drive a phone sales super cycle? my colleagues, ben levisohn, carlton english and jack howe. ben, let's start with you. mr. market is sometimes described as manic depressive, but this week it was more sort of schizophrenia that we saw. what's going on? >> yeah. it was just a very indecisive market. there were days when investors flocked to tech, and other days the nasdaq went down, other parts of the market went up. it really just depended on the news of the day. early in the week we had plenty of things that could have caused the market to sell off including drug trials at johnson &

johnson, eli lilly for covid treatment being halted, and we also saw, you know, cases of covid rising. but the market actually pulled through all that and even got some good news from pfizer. but it really, it was almost as if the investors were playing with a rubik's cube and just kept turning their portfolios and buying this and buying that and trying to figure out what they were supposed to own and couldn't do it. thankfully, they didn't chuck it in the corner and just walk away. jack: that's what i would probably do if you gave me a rubik's cube. everything you just mentioned was an outsized stimulus. there's a disease that no one really has too much control over, then there's, of course, stimulus, there's the fed. but sometimes that makes investors nervous. they want to look at fundamentals. so if you dig inside the stock market, really the earnings and so forth, what are they telling you? >> they're looking pretty good. i mean, i think the best case was jpmorgan. the stock didn't react well to the news, but when you look at the numbers, they grew earnings 4% over a year ago. so despite everything that's

going on, they're able to grow their business. and that's pretty impressive. and i think you'll see a lot of companies beating earnings forecasts, and hopefully offering guidance for the fourth quarter that's pretty good as well. and if that happens, i think we can feel pretty comfortable about the stock market continuing to go higher. jack: we also saw a nice retail sales number, and, carlton, for so many years we've been saying that the american economy is being carried by the consumer. how much longer can that last. well, it seem to be lasting -- seems to be lasting, maybe as people who kept their jobs, they're not going on vacation, a lot of things they're not spending on, but they are going on amazon.com and spending money on prime day. >> they absolutely are doing that. and also i know halloween isn't over yet, but the holiday shopping season is underway. as you mentioned, amazon held its prime day earlier this week, and that's look dogging to be the looking to be the kickoff. this puts pressure on targets,

walmarts, other big box retailers to spread out their holiday shopping season especially because black friday not going to look the way that the it has in previous years. so we're going to see this surge in online shopping. last year it accounted for about 14% of spend. this year salesforce predicts online shopping will see about 30% of shopping spend. and that's because fewer people want to go into the stores, expect stores themselves, you know, they want to be careful about having too many people all at once. jack: so this week barron's is right about i ebay. it kind of got left behind. why do we find it interesting? >> so ebay, it has actually done pretty well this year, and it had some activist investors in it earlier. it sold some non-core businesses and, you know, it's had a runup this year. but it's still trading pretty cheaply at about 15 time earnings where you have etsy trading above 70 times. ebay is in that mode of

reinventing itself, it wants to be that place where shoppers can come for electronics, message to probill ya, you know, synthesizers, things like that. it's trying to have this rebirthright now. jack: so if ebay is the least sexiest stock, jack, probably one of the sexiest stocks is, obviously, apple. big news this week with the iphone 12. what do you make of it? >> thanks for coming to me for the sexy story, jack. i don't know how super-cycley i'm feeling about this one. apple's a world class wooer, but the big selling point here supposed to be 5g. that's, you know, very fast mobile service. the problem is a lot of people aren't really mobile right now. we're working at home off of wi-fi, and the networks are not so ready right now. they need, like, another year, the carriers, to get their act together. so it's kind of an open question. you know, there's a forecast out there for $150 billion in iphone revenue, that's the

consensus. i would call that a sort of super cycle. it's up nicely from the last couple of years. the low end is $143 billion, that would be a slumper cycle. that would be a big disappointment, and the high end is $178 billion, that would be a super duper cycle. the carriers have been very aggressive with the subsidies they're offering on these phones, much more so than in past years. i think there's plenty of chance for a big number. i don't think wall street has any idea, and the stock up to 30 time earnings four years ago. jack: yeah. that's pretty expensive, and you going to find few places today at least where you can use 5g. >> and you guys won't know how cool i am because you won't be able to see me with a new phone. [laughter] jack: thanks, jack. how would a biden win affect the markets? pimco's libby cant tums versus mozzarella stick

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medicare annual enrollment ends december 7th. call today to learn more and we'll send you a $10 visa reward card with no obligation to enroll. ♪ jack: election day is less than three weeks away. will the outcome affect your investment portfolio? how will a blue wave affect the economy? joining me now, pimco's head of public policy, libby cantrill. libby, great to have you with us. you definitely have one of the most interesting jobs in finance right now. one of the fears heading into november was that election day could come and go, we might not know who won the presidency, it could even be weeks before we get a result, and in the worst case, people actually fear violence. you say the markets are sending some signals that those worst case scenarios may be less likely. >> that's exactly right. equity soling tilt had been

elevated, indicating that the markets were pricing in an election outcome that you may not know until certainly not on election night, but maybe for several days of after or even several weeks. and there was some indication that markets were pricing in an elevated chance of a contested election. fast forward to today, they really are pricing that in, still some elevated volatility around the actual election but not necessarily the expectation that there is going to be a contested election, and for good reason from our perspective. specifically, because many of the battleground states actually process and count ballots weeks before the election day which means that they will likely be able to report on election night. so we may know the results of florida, of ohio, of arizona and, big battleground states actually on election night. and as a result, the market actually may have a good sense of who actually won the white house which is the reason why a lot of the el elevate elevated

ec by few volatility has receded. jack: as far as what we actually find out on that night, you have studied two scenarios. one is the blue wave, the other is if trump wins and the republicans hold the senate. you think it's unlikely that there would be a split between the white house and the senate. why is that? >> yeah. just in terms of, you know, for better or for worse, the american electorate has become much more polarized, much more part sanctioner as we all know. and that has -- partisan, as we all know, and that has led to much less vote splitting, ticket splitting in terms of different parties. and actually the 2018 midterms you said ticket splitting at its absolute lowerrest meaning that usually people just vote for the same party down ballot -- jack: now, what -- i do want to ask, the republicans are often seen as more investor-friendly. what to you' the market pricing in now? >> yeah.

the market has been, i think, has gone through different feeling, different emotions about what a democratic sweep would look like. and i think, you know, several weeks ago there was really the fear of increased corporate tax rate, increased individual taxes, that could actually be a headwind from an economic growth perspective, but the market's pivoted over the past few weeks, and now the focus really is on additional stimulus. almost romanticizing this democratic sweep scenario and, you know, with an increased chance of stimulus not only in terms of covid relief, but also infrastructure and other sources of spending. so in some ways, they're a little bit schizophrenic. it's gone from fearing the democrats to almost wanting the democrats, again, because of the prospect of additional stimulus. jack: the word schizophrenic has describing investor activities.

under a biden win, what sectors do you think would do well? >> they line up in terms of husband policy priorities. his policy priorities. construction, home building will likely do well with a big infrastructure bill, tax incentives for first-ing time home buyers. we'll likely see, and we've already seen it, renewable energy do very well, hospitals do well as the affordable care act is put on more firm footing and also states and municipal ities because we know democrats are going to prioritize spending there. this is one lesson from the financial crisis that states and cities really lagged in terms of economic growth. they're a big employer of about 13% of non-farm payroll. so really prioritizing them in terms of funding. and better credit but also likely muni bonds would do well with the anticipation of higher tax rates. to those sort of, kind of the winners in terms of a democratic

sweep. jack: trump sectors would be what? >> status quo, kind of status quo policy. maybe you see a small infrastructure bill, again, kind of a tallwind for construction and home building, but also probably financials and technology and also pharmaceuticals with the assumption that we may see a bill under biden i would never come to fruition under trump. jack: libby cantrilling thank you so much, really appreciate it. >> thank you. jack: coming up, what do high-level money managers really think about the economy and where it's going? the results of barron's big money poll. it's good stuff, that's next. ♪

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♪ ♪ jack: twice a year barron's surveys a group of high-level money managers to find out where they're looking for investment opportunities. we call it the barron's big money poll. oppenheimer invest. chief investment manager john stolfus participated and joins us now. 33% were neutral, that's more bullish than in recent years, but nearly 95% think the market either fairly valued or overvalued. and maybe the most useful statistic for long-term investors is that nearly 9 in 10 are expecting single-digit returns over the coming decade. that is well below the returns we've seen in the past ten years. john, are you still bullish e on stocks? >> jack, indeed i am still bullish after this long run. i think the evidence is in

resilience in economic data and the fact that many companies are doing much better than expected navigating these rough waters as a result of their ability to deploy technology. whether it is to manufacture goods, deliver goods or provide services. jack: we just heard from libby cantrill on how pimco preparing for the election. of our, the people we surveyed, 56%, i think, said joe biden would win. last year, four years ago they thought clinton would win, so i don't know if that's a good gude. but are you doing anything to prepare for the election? >> you know, we are holding in the place our positions related to cyclicals over defensives. and in our approach, we want to own technology, industrials, consumer discretionary. and our contrarian pick, financials. when it comes to the economy, we think it's all about -- when it comes to the market, we think it

really comes down to you have to look at policy at the federal reserve and economic performance. so we think whichever party wins, we think we're going to have a fairly good market as we get covid in the rearview mirror and we begin to see the processes of moving towards a sustainable economic recovery stateside. jack: you mentioned the industrials. what appeals about that sector when everybody else focused on sexy technology companies? >> jack, industrials to us are the new technology. we love 'em. it's the internet of things whether it's the conversation a jet engine has with a central database or whether it is a pallet that has sensors on it that comment on where the pallet9 is located, what the contents of the pallet are or whether it's a vehicle that's able to let its owners know is it well maintained, does it need

an upgrade, does it need servicing. jack: i know that carlton has a question for you. youal like one of her favorite sectors. >> yeah. so one of the sectors that has been unloved has been financials, and i think we saw evidence when the big banks reported this week and didn't get much love. where do you see promise in the bigbags where maybe -- big banks where maybe other investors do not? >> well, when it comes to financials, we think they're going the get their day once we get some kind of more traditional steeping of the yield curve. -- steepening of the yield curve. but if we can just get to a point where we feel more comfortable about safety related to covid, which would likely mean once we get a vaccine of good efficacy and adaptability, we think we'll return to a more normal economy. in the meantime, investors are worried that if covid sticks around longer than expected and

the economy suffers as a result of that, that banks might experience nonperforming loans, and they might have to -- the fed might force them to raise the reserve requirements. we don't think that'll happen. so we think positioning now, they're cheap on a price to boog basis, and a good number of them are highly attractive including some of the names that reported this week. jack: i think jack howe -- >> hey, john, this is jack howe. i want do you about bonds. a lot of our big money poll folks say take money out of bonds, put them either in cash or more stocks. but what if i'm too stingy to sit in cash and too chicken to put more money in stocks? you like convertible bonds. is that the answer? what do you like about convertibles? >> yeah, jack, what i like about convert bls is they're a hybrid. they can provide you with a stream of income, they function much like a bond in the sense

that improved economy, improved credit ratings will be good for the price of the bonds. and on the other hand, they're also a play in terms of the convertibility factor within the convertible. so there might be a point down the line when the holder of a convertible bond could exchange it for equities at an attractive rate. jack: thanks very much, john, not a well known asset class but certainly useful. i also need to point out that john stolfus is part-time professor at nyu, and he has his students read barron's, and for that we love you. >> yes. love bay ron's -- we love barr ron's. jack: up next, round table member gives their pick for the coming week. stay right there. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ anywhere convenience. everyday security. bankers here to help. for wherever you want to go.

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♪ ♪ jack: so, jack, it has been a bizarre sports season. we had the stanley cup in september, tuesday night football which is not really a thing, we had no thursday night football. you have found an area of the sports world where everything worked pretty much according to plan. >> yeah. basketball was able to reopen in disney world, finish out the season with no covid outbreak, which i find remarkable. disney's doing something right. maybe we should declare the rest of america part of disney world. i'm just spitballing. one concern with basketball is that the television viewership was way down. i was wondering if that was having to do with streaming. i spoke with mark cue barnes he's a dot.com bazillion their and owner of the dallas mavericks. one reason was because the season got scrunched at the end of the year with football and baseball and the elections, a lot of competition.

he remains quite bullish on the sport. jack: thanks, jack. i want to ask each panelist for one actionable idea, and i know carlton's idea will do quite well whatever happens to sports. >> yeah. so i'm looking at netflix. it reports results next week x. what got me looking at it was this buzz over the show called emily in paris. people watched it and talked tons about it. the appetite for content is there, netflix has more with the crown next month. stock certainly has run up recently, but i do think it's a good long-term play. jack: and ben's idea goes nicely with netflix. >> it is. it's yum brands. the stock reports earnings in two weeks, and it's been trading in the range for a while now, but it's now probing the top of that range. the company trades cheaply as a sum of the parts, and if it can get pizza hut working, the stock really could be undervalued. jack: thanks a lot. jack, or carlton, ben, all great

ideas. thank you. to ed read more, check out this week's edition at barron's.com and follow us on twitter. that is all for us. stay safe, wear your mask, and we'll see you next week on "barron's roundtable." ♪ ♪ >> from the fox studios in new york city, this is imlar bartiromo's "wall street." maria: happy weekend with, everyone. welcome to the president obama helps position you -- helps position you for the week ahead. coming up, my interview with the c or fo of johnson & johnson, joe wolk is here, the drugmaker halting vaccine trials earlier in the week. i'll is ask him about that and the company's quarterly outlook. then later, i'll speak with ceo john mackey on the rise of online grocery shopping and where retail heads next. but first, let's take a look

back at some of the week's big moments in this week's edition of "the week's talkers." watch. ♪ ♪ maria: you have a scenario that you believe took place here. tell us what you see. >> oh, definitely. they framed general flynn because he was the cornerstone of the insurance policy to destroy president trump in the event he was elected. maria: you've been talking about this, something was to come, for some time. >> if you take a look at this hard drive and you're an fbi agent, you're compelled to do something about it because there are things on it that haven't come out yet that if any fbi agent sat by and watched it, they shouldn't be an fbi agent. maria: the fbi was leaking stories to web sites, and then they would use those stories that they leaked as evidence to renew the warrants to spy on the trump campaign. >> this is a scandal, and it stinks. if you look at what the obama

administration did, it politicized the fbi, the department of justice, the cia. it used them, essentially, as a political oppo research team. maria: facebook officially said we're not going to disseminate this information broadly. twitter officially closed down any account that tried to disseminate these e-mails so that the american people would understand. >> look at the behavior of the big tech oligarchs who want to control the biden administration. they immediately censored this information. maria: what was your takeaway on day one of the hearings for judge barrett? >> well, you heard from the other side that it's all about health insurance, and this doesn't have anything to do with health insurance, this is all about getting a qualified person -- very highly qualified person -- on the supreme court. maria: $29.9 billion in revenue, better than expected at jpm. >> well, it's a wonderful position to be in right now because the yield curve widening.

as i like to say, that makes geniuses out of otherwise low-level iq bankers. maria: oh, yes, third quarter earnings season now in full swing. we heard from jpmorgan and all of the banks, the major ones, the large ones. 42 s&p 500 companies reported so far, 88% of those beat earningses expectations, more than 83% beat revenue expectations as well. let's talk about the quarter and what's ahead with ryan payne of payne capital management. ryan, thanks for being here this weekend. you say prepare for more surprises to the upside. what does that say about the economic recovery give us your stance the on the backdrop here. >> yeah, i think the one thing, maria, is every economic surprise has been in the positive since march, right? so i think, you know, on friday we had retail sales numbers again, they totally blew away expectations coming in at almost 2%. which i always say never bet against the american consumer. we just love to spend here in

america. i think the one thing i'd look at here is what is the trend right now, and that's every economist, every strategist has veered very, very negative. but time and time again we've seen economic data come in better and better. so i think there's two real big influences proright now on the economy, and that's low, low interest rates and the american household able to refinance debt, you know, with refinancing their mortgages. it's really, really fueling this housing boom, and you're also seeing this deurbanization. you're seeing a lot of millennials leaving new york, going and buying houses, and all the economy is around buying a house. it's tremendous. so whatever you're losing on that hospitality and service side, we're really starting to gain back because of these other trends that are happening. maria: yeah. when you look at the mortgage market, mortgages are soaring with interest rates where they are. do you want toal locate -- to allocate capital consistent with where the growth is, so you're saying retail, there was a big boost in car buying, furniture

as well as i just mentioned mortgages. is that how you're allocating capital, or do you have a different strategy? >> i think you have to look at two things here. you have the work from home stocks which have just killed it, i mean, growth is just going through the roof here, and the valuations reflect that. valuations at this point, when you look at growth, you look at technology, it looks a lot like '99, 2000. now, will be, that trend can go on for a very, very long time. it looks irrational to me now, but it doesn't mean those stocks can't go higher. as someone who's trying to get a longer-term return for my clients, i love those beaten-down value names. look at the financials, interest rates have ticked up a little bit. that's good for margins. look at those loan provisions. earnings were very, very good relatively for the banks, you know, better than expected. and even owl. i'm a bold man, maria, you start looking at energy, energy consumption's going to go up a lot over the next two decades,

and supply keeps coming down, and you're basically buying stocks in the energy sector for, like, book value right now. maria: yeah. >> i made a joke recently, warren buffett's laughing at you. he's buying a lot of these companies that are, you know, at their price at their book to value. so a lot of great opportunity out there. maria: so does any of this change with the election and the results afterwards? we're just two and a half weeks away from election day. do you want to look at what, you know, the election tells us in terms of energy or any other spaces? because, remember, donald trump and joe biden have very different approaches to energy. >> that's a really good point, but i think the bigger mistake that investors are going to make here -- and i've seen it time and time again this year, is waiting for the election to be over to get invested, waiting for that certainty. now, you know, when the market recovered, i was one of the few people on wall street saying we may see a v-shaped recovery back

in april. before the summer, again, there was a lot of concern about what the market was going to do. market went up big other the summer, we had a summer meltdown. now there's a lot of uncertainty going on and a lot of investors sitting in cash and waiting. i think that's going to be a big mistake regardless if it's trump in the white house or biden. i think the one trend we can all agree on is they're going to spend a lot of money. maria: all right, ryan, thank you so much. ryan payne, payne capital management president. stay right here, my cell phone repair. did you know liberty mutual customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need? just get a quote at libertymutual.com. really? i'll check that out. oh yeah. i think i might get a quote. not again! aah, come on rice. do your thing. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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♪ ♪ maria: welcome back. a lot of vaccine news this past week. on friday pfizer boosted markets on its news that it could apply for emergency use of its covid-19 vaccine candidate codeveloped with biontech as soon as late november. that was earlier than the market expected, it caused a big move. it has received the necessary

safety data required by the fda, so pfizer shares lifted many boats. and earlier in the week johnson & johnson announcing a halt to its covid-19 vaccine trials after a participant suffered an unexplained illness. i spoke with the cfo and executive vice president joe wolk on the news of the trials and what's ahead for johnson & johnson. >> so, maria, we're letting the drug safety monitoring board kind of go through their analysis. we've learned about this event, singular event, within the last 36 hours. it should really reassure the public that all scientific, medical and ethical protocols are being followed to the utmost degree. and we just have to let that process play out, are let that information be analyzed by the independent board, and we'll proceed accordingly. again, we've had 100,000 finish. maria: understood -- >> -- patients on this platform through other means we ebola, h user e v, zika, and so we have a

high degree of confidence in the safety of this, but we want to make sure we're thorough for this unexpected event. maria: understood. you have to make allowances for the situation where people might actually have an adverse reaction, i get that. but does this in any way suggest that you are having less confidence in a vaccine the way you were quite confident just six months ago of having a vaccine out in the market within the next year? >> yeah. so, maria, with a 60,000-patient study, unexpect add verse events are something -- adverse events should be expected to some degree. i think the best way to answer that is we have not altered our investment plans in terms of expanding our manufacturing capacity. we're still on the timeline for first quarter next year for potential approval, and we're going to let the science dictate how we proceed. maria: understood. let's talk about the third quarter. you reported earnings, posting a double beat on the top and

bottom line. joe, what drove the business in the last three months? tell us where the growth at j&j is today. >> yeah. so, maria, all three segments performed extremely well, especially considering the pandemic dynamics. in pharmaceuticals, a great portfolio of in-line products, a very promising pipeline continues to excel. we believe we led the market there in terms of our performance top line. consumer had very strong the performance within our over the counter medicine such as tylenol, listerine and oral care was extremely strong as well as zyrtec and pepcid. and medical devices, probably the most pronounced impact to our beat, where elective procedures came back in a very profound way. if you think about the second quarter, that segment was down almost 35%. it's down about 4% as hospital systems have adjusted their protocols for the pandemic. we're seeing a lot of those very important elect i have

procedures -- elective procedures coming back to the market, and that's helped our business. maria: what about that in terms of medical devices and seeing that kind of growth sustained going forward? i think in the early days of this pandemic, people were putting off knee rerace inments -- replacements, whatever medical device needs they had. you did see an increase in hospital visits, a willingness for people to get back into the hospital, back into the market to actually deal with these things. do you have any evidence of that this is sustained, that this sustains in the coming quarters? >> you know, i'm bullish that it will be sustained, maria. if you look at the third quarter dynamics, each of the months were down about 3-4%, so it didn't vary greatly. the second quarter you saw a tremendous improvement with each of the passing months. i also have to give a tremendous amount of credit to the hospital systems out there. they are making patients feel safe. they can run their hospital systems in a manner which treats all patients and not just shut

down for the potential to treat covid patients. so a lot of learning has happened over the last 6-8 months with respect to the pandemic on the scientific front but also operationally in terms of hospital systems. maria: in terms of the pharmaceutical business, joe, what do you expect in terms of pricing pressure? many people are expecting prices to start really moving lower with this pressure from government to get lower prices for the consumer out there. do you expect pricing pressure? >> so, maria, we don't only expect it, we're incurring it right now. so i spoke about the tremendous pharmaceutical results we had, and that's really attributable to our innovative portfolio of products that meet high unmet medical needs. we experienced in the u.s. about 7.5% of price decreases this quarter alone, yet we were still able to grow 5% because of the innovation and the solutions that we provide to patients. so this has been a topic for a number of years now. we don't expect it to subside.

but we think the right cadence of innovative products certainly can overcome that, and you can still perform extremely well. maria: joe, let me ask you about the supply chain. this is obviously something that people are worried about. we really got educated on the subject at the beginning of this pandemic when a lot of people learned for the first time that 70% of the active ingredients in our drugs are made in china. what can you tell us about diversifying your supply chain? can you to that in terms of -- can you do that in terms of moving some manufacturing to india? are you expecting to take any supply chains back to america out of china? >> so, maria, when that talk sparked early on this year, we were in a very solid position at johnson & johnson being a global company with very important products to provide. we were never heavily dependent on one specific region or country in terms of supply. so that really didn't apply to us. we want to make sure we've got great business continuity given the importance of our products. i will say that having a lower

corporate tax rate, which we currently enjoy -- and, again, it's still above the 37 countries in the oecd -- that's an important factor. it's no longer a headwind that i might have experienced four years ago when i was looking at anage sis as to where to place manufacturing. maria: my thanks to joseph wolk of johnson & johnson. don't go anywhere, we're talking

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in england, the retail giant took triple its online grocery sales from a year ago, it is one of the jewels of the amazon portfolio. john mackey is the whole foods cofounder, ceo of whole foods, also the author of "conscious leadership: elevating humanity through business." and, john, it is great to have you this weekend. thanks very much for being here. >> thanks for having me on the show, maria. maria: so tell me, john, how the last several months have gone at whole foods. it seems to me that if you can adapt to a delivery mechanism, you're in good shape, but those retailers that have been unable to do so in a fast way, they really have been left behind. at whole foods how have you adapted to more online grocery and delivery? >> well, maria, of course, 2020 has been the weirdest year of my life, the weirdest year in whole foods' history. it's been a terrible year.

the pandemic has, obviously, made a lot of people sick, it's killed now over 200,000 people. it's made a lot of adjustments. but our first thing at whole foods has been to end keep our customers and our team members safe, so we put a great emphasis on that early on. in terms of temperature checks, mandating mask wearing for both team members and our customers, discuss infecting grocery carts. we've been repeatedly named the safest supermarket company in the u.s. during the covid crisis. but, yes, things have changed. i mean, social distancing, people wearing masks, it's more of a transaction to come in the stores instead of peopleling orerring longer -- people lingering longer. our prepared foods crashed. whole foods does a lot of business in prepared foods, and with lunchtime traffic counts way down as offices closed down, we saw that really, really tail off. so we've also had to limit the number of customers in our store

at any one time due to social distancing requirements. on the other hand, restaurants have largely closed down, so so we've actually seen our sales go up a lot. sales have been very strong during the pandemic. but particularly they've been strong for delivery. as you mentioned, our online delivery sales have tripled in the last year, and that's been very challenging to keep up with that. but people are cooking at home, so that's been good for all supermarkets in a way. maria: you know, we had don peebles on, real estate developer, a couple of weeks ago, and he made a stark statement to me that i really was taken aback. he said retail in new york is dead. he he said brick and mortar in new york is dead. without the foot traffic, they're not going to be able to survive. what's your take on brick and mortar at this point? i mean, clearly many cities are on lockdown, and if we see a second wave in the next several

weeks, in the fall, that's only going to worsen. so what's your take now? do you want to adapt even further and keep ramping up the online portion of the business knowing that the foot traffic is not likely to come back anytime soon? >> i think people exaggerate the current trends too much. is new york going to come back? i don't know. my entire lifetime i've heard new york was going to die many times -- [laughter] and new york's a pretty resill cent place. people come back -- resilient place. is it going to come back next week? probably not. so we're going to have to get through it, make people feel safe again. but i do think that's going to happen in the next year, and people are going to begin to return from the suburbs, so to speak, to new york. it's still got a high quality of life, but it's a retail not dead, restaurants aren't dead, movie theaters aren't dead, they're just sort of in hibernation for a while. maria: so, john, what have you

learned from your customers in these last seven months? how have you seen customers change, adapt to these trying times? have you taken anything away that you didn't know before in terms of your customer base? >> i think the weirdest thing that's happened is, i mean, whole foods -- people like to shop at whole foods because we create this, our stores are beautiful, they're fun, food is fresh, and foodies like to come in and pick out their own stuff. and now with mask wearing and social distancing, people come in with a list, and they just -- it's a transaction, right? they just want to get their stuff and get out. i mean, i do the same thing when i go shopping. so what i've learned is people are scared, and you've got to keep them safe. maria: great to see you this weekend, john, thank you very much. >> thank you, maria. maria: john mackey, ceo of whole foods acquired by amazon back in 2017. don't go anywhere, more "wall street" right after this.

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maria: welcome back. coming up next weekend right here on the program. don't miss it, we've got a big show. we are talking biotech with immunity bioceo my special guest coming off the news that the fda has given his clearance to begin phase one trials for a covid-19 vaccine. plus, over on fox news i'll see you sunday, can't sunday morning futures" live on the fox news channel when with i speak with wisconsin senator ron johnson, senator kelly loveler and devin nuñes, all my special guests. catch the show on sunday at 10 a.m. eastern on fox news.

plus right here on fox business, start smart every weekday 6-9 a.m. eastern for "mornings with maria" on fox business. i hope you'll join us and set the tone for the day every weekday. in the meantime, have a great weekend, everybody. thanks so much for joining me. i'll see you again next time. ♪ gerry: welcome to "the wall street journal at large". for four long days this week colorly-i illuminated with charts and images punctuated by long, turgid lectures especially from democrats, amy coney barrett -- president trump's pick for the supreme court vacancy -- managed to school senators, tv viewers and the wider public in the proper role to have judiciary in the american system of government. while democrats tried repeatedly to get her to tell them what she thought about