we bought oracle, still in that cloud space, but we added to some of the value components in our portfolio. we added anthem in health care and even a sector that we normally don't dip our toe into, into autos, we bought a little position in ford -- charles: okay. >> i think9 with the demand and the supply issues, what we're seeing in the auto industry, that is a good intermediate -- charles: victoria, we have got to leave it there, because i've got to hand it over to my colleague -- and i haven't seen her in a long time. you picked a great day to come back, liz claman. liz: okay. well, at least i'm not wearing red. [laughter] no red today. we've seen enough on the screen. charles, folks, we do need to say that multiple forces are bearing down on the bulls as we head into this final hour of trade. number one, far and away, fear of rising cases of the delta variant cratering stocks. yes, due very much in part to investors' worries that the highly contagious coronavirus offshoot could derail the growth

of the global economy. so the dow down an even 900 points right now. the s&p down 89, look at the nasdaq losing 203 points. we have crude oil tanking in the aftermarket session, down 8% now. 8%. crude is now 13% off its recent highs. the wall street fear gauge, otherwise known as the volatility index, the vix, not even at its highs of the session. we're up nearly 34 points, 34%, rather, we're at 2471, very close to peak fear. even as new york city covid cases more than double, new york's mayors has just weighed in on whether he will follow los angeles county's reinstatement of the mask mandate. he says the simple answer is, no. but will businesses be forced to take matters into their own hands? the crunch fitness franchisee owe is here on what he's telling his franchisees about putting

the masks required signs back up on the doors, and you'd be surprised how well this company has done even at the worst point of the pandemic. across the board, auto stocks stalling out at this hour but for one name alone. if you own it, you are thrilled. you don't, the ceo is here live with the promise that could make it worth your while to give it a spun for your portfolio. but with all this market drama, we're t-minus 18 hours from liftoff of the world's richest man. we're about to take you straight to texas to hear from the man himself, jeff bezos, the head of the first flight -- ahead of the first flight into space aboard blue origin's new shepherd. we now have 58 minutes left to trade, and we are witnessing, you know, it's not just a rush, but an outright stampede into safe haven assets. we're going to systematically show you multiple market metrics so you can get a sense of how

fears of a rebound in covid-19 cases have triggered the selloffs. the blue chips are drenched in red. the dow jones industrials taking the largest percentage hit, a loss of right now 2.6%. that exceeded the 2% decline in late january that we saw. right now we're down 911 points. 946, a loss of 946 is the low of this session. the bears are firmly in control right now. the s&p -- which also is flagging pretty dramatically, we can see from the broader index it's down 90 points. energy and financial sectors suffering the worst of the retreat. and flip it over to the nasdaq, we do have big tech and everything else within the nasdaq because, remember, there are a lot of financials in the nasdaq, a lot of other types of countries, not just tech. we've got it down 200 points. that's a loss of about 1.5%. okay. let's go to the safe haven part. watching the 10-year treasury yield from this morning until now is like witnessing a lead

weight that's been dropped from the top of a building. what began at 1.25% at 8 a.m. eastern, and i was watching and thinking, yeah, that's low because we closed at about 1.3%, i believe, on friday, has now fallen as low as 1.17%. we're back off that low, we're at 1.899 % at the moment. that certainly looks like a rush to safety. crude oil futures setting down 7.9%. opec plus has agreed to boost supplies through 2022, you've got more supply, less demand, that smacks prices. we're down $5.88 to just below $66 a barrel at the moment. that's an 8 drop there. the entire -- 8% drop there. airlines showing right now, suffering the entire session. and not just selling off, you know, you've got a 35.8 president -- 5.8% drop in ual,

everybody's down either 3 or 4%. no bargain hunters to be found right now. cruise lines are really lagging and trying to bring up the rear here. you've got carnival down 6%, royal caribbean down 4.5%, norwegian down 5.8%. as we mentioned, the vix, the volatility index, is really going to be the gauge of how investors are feeling through this final let's call it 55 minutes left to trade. at the high of the session, 2478, that's the top level since may, we're at 2455 right now for a gain of 33%. now, can investors' shoulders hold up the weight of so many cross currents or will atlas shrug? let's get to our floor show traders, art hogan, ernesto ray mondays and scott redler have been busy dealing with the selloff, but they are here for us right now. art, is this all the fast-spreading delta variant, or

was the market looking for a reason to correct today? >> i think a combination of both, for sure. if you look over the internals the last month, our leadership has gotten pretty skinny, and the indexes were willing held up by fewer and fewer names. we come into today and and, clearly, everything coalesces around concern that perhaps this delta variant is going to slow down the economic growth. that's what we remember. we remember very just less than 15, 16 months ago when this pandemic was exploding, it obviously crushed economic growth globally. i think right now what we have is a multi-speed economic recovery globally, and there's some countries that are doing much worse than the united states. i think what is happening today is the realization that perhaps even in the united states we may see some restrictions, but i don't think it's going to be anything like what the market is manifesting today in terms of downside. liz: yeah. you know, when you talk about what it's manifesting, let's just keep in mind that there is a sort of a low boil underneath, and that's a positive one.

we're seeing earnings simmer, right, ernesto? we've seen robust earnings in the first week where we're having sort of the reveals of how companies have done over the past quarter. but what do you sense, and are you concerned on a day like this or you buying? >> well, as far as buying, i think you want to wait a little bit longer. you want to wait until the vix crosses 30, that's a better buying opportunity than right here. it's tempting to put some money to work, but i would give it a chance to sell off a little more. as far as the earnings, they're coming in strong, you know, for the year the market is expecting 50 plus percent earnings growth. having said that, that is already in the price, and so what the market today is realizing is that that you're going to have lower economic growth than you thought you were going to get a couple of months ago because of several factor, because of the possibility the fed might raise rates sooner

because of the covid delta variant and, don't forget, the infrastructure package is really going to get stuck in politics and back and forth for a while. and it won't be known for a while, so all of these factors together are pointing to lower economic growth yes, sirring yields at -- depressing yields at the long end and the prospects for better earnings growth down thed road. not this year. this year's good and it's going to be very strong, but it's already in the price. liz: wow. i mean, guys, we're looking at novavax up 15.5%. we just showed moderna, jumping 10. it's been on a multi-month tear. scott redler, i know that you had about 30 short positions a couple of weeks ago. now you've got about three or four. tell me -- i'm sorry, you had 30 long positions, 30 long positions three or four weeks ago, and now you've got three, four or five. what are they, what are you still long, and what did you see where you said a week or two ago, you know what? i'm ready to lighten up a bit

here. >> well, the first guest, art, said it very well. you know, we start to see narrow leadership, the ev lines getting worse, we started to see just the deterioration underneath the surface. from pretty much i would think november up until february you got paid to sit in names. as as an active trader, i love when names are above the 211-day -- 21-day. in the past two or three weeks, we started to see that falter. and then last week when the s&p couldn't make a high and all of a sudden the small caps started to roll over, you had some clues to reduce risk, so i limited my positions. a lot of guys in my community actually came in pretty short, and now for the first time -- not the first time, for the fourth time since the marlos, we're testing the 50-day. so is this 3.5% correction going to be it, or will there be more potential downside. so the second guest i agree with, i could see we're in a

vacuum right you -- right now. maybe is this as good as it gets, so we could see lower price. actively i would say stay on your toes, keep your monthly flows going in. as long as you have the risk, last week was your time to take some risk down. and we also talked two weeks ago about buying vix call spreads when you don't need insurance. if you did that, it was a great hedge for you. liz: yeah. it's a tough session today but, folks, let's keep it all in perspective. we are very close to all-time highs at least as of a couple of weeks ago and last week. scott, art and ernesto, great to have you on an extraordinarily busy session is. we do have more breaking news. the u.s. senate just gaveled in moments ago. senate majority leader chuck schumer said to tee up what is basically a test vote for billions in spending on that

bipartisan infrastructure bill. that could happen later today, but we're still awaiting details of legislative language. the white house busy blasting china though, bluntly blaming beijing for hacking microsoft exchange though it stopped short of imposing sanctions. what's next then? to edward lawrence live from the white house. >> reporter: that's what we all want to know, what exactly is coming next? this is an advisory that the u.s. put out with a number of other countries including in the e.u. and nato, basically calling out china for the activities they caller responsible and destabilize -- call irresponsible and disabling. in so the no sanctions a attached to it, just a very public lashing of how exactly chinese activity from the chinese communist party goes through the ministry of is state security going after these

online targets. the notice says the chinese hired criminal hackers, targeted military, universities, critical infrastructure in the u.s. among others. it says they continuously monitor for gaps in on line security, also try to get in to security systems through a third-party vendor. the administration has sanctioned russia for similar activity, but this so far is an advisory, no sanctions attached to it. here's why, listen. >> to the best of my knowledge, and i'm getting a report tomorrow morning on this, detailed report, my understanding is that the chinese government -- not unlike the russian government -- is not doing this themselves, but are protecting those who are doing it. maybe even accommodating them being able to do it. that may be the difference. >> reporter: yeah. so if you read the advisory though, it says this, they have observed increasingly sophisticated chinese state-sponsored cyber activity

targeting u.s. political, economic, military, educational and critical infrastructure personnel and organizations. so the advisory went out today. the president will be briefed in detail on this tomorrow. the white house press secretary saying that they are not going to hold back, that all options are on the table for possible sanctions, and this is not the last time we have heard about cyber activity, china and russia from the white house. back to you. liz: you know, we're looking at the chinese stocks. everything from baidu to tencent, alibaba and didi, of course, which just recently went public here in the u.s., getting hit 6.8% to the downside. they're getting hit on both sides, both their own government and the u.s. at the moment, so we are watching this very closely. edward, thank you so much. >> thanks, liz. liz: quick check, folks, yeah, lots of red on the screen. but we do have to bring up this positive note. from launching one of the world's top businesses ever from his garage to launching into

outer space, what billionaire jeff bezos is saying rice right now ahead of his great voyage to the great unknown. not just saying, but saying to fox business. you'll hear it next. the closing bell ringing in 47 minutes. the dow is off its lows, still down 838 points. the fear factor gripping the markets at the moment, but could we see at least a slight paring of these losses? you've got to say tuned. much more ahead, "the claman countdown" is coming right back. ♪ ♪ liberty mutual customizes car insurance so you only pay for what you need. how much money can liberty mutual save you? one! two! three! four! five! 72,807! 72,808... dollars. yep... everything hurts.

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♪ liz: we are just getting this breaking news, and fox business has learned that a giant of the cable industry is set to retire. according to sources, pat esther, president and ceo of cox communications, will announce his retirement. he will apparently stay on until the end of the year. he got his first job at cox about 42 years ago, was a pole climber installing cable at a then-small atlanta-based carrier. he ended up i growing the company into a global $20 billion in annual revenues, but he's also known in the industry

as a ceo who cares deeply for his customers. in fact, at the onset of the pandemic, he increased internet download speed for the company's low cost internet customers to insure that families could continue learning and working from home white house a financial burden, and -- without a financial burden. we've known him forever. this is him showing us around raiders stadium in las vegas. they outfitted the whole thing with a million screens. amazing. executive vp and sales and marketing chief is going to be named president. he will spend -- he has spent about a decade growing those divisions of cox and previously held positions at coke coal lahr la, unid coca-cola and unilever. we are just getting that breaking news, best wishes to pat esser. all right, at this time tomorrow or the world's richest man will become the world's richest astronaut. jeff bezos just under 18 hours

away from blastoff, yes, indeed. but guess what? he's going to take the trip aboard his blue origin new shepherd spacecraft just nines days after richard branson made his historic flight. so he'll be the second billionaire to go to space. he just spoke with neil cavuto about this historic adventure to the great beyond. listen to what he said is. neil: this is the first one with human beings. are you a tad anxious? >> neil, i'm not. i am excited but not anxious. we'll see how i feel, you know, when i'm strapped into my seat, and -- but, you know, we're ready. the vehicle's ready, this team is amazing. i feel very good about it. liz: oh, my gosh. [laughter] to where it'll all happen and jeff flock who joins us live from van horn, texas, where the next chapter of the privatization of space will be written tomorrow morning. jeff, they are brave. >> reporter: well, yeah. i'm glad they're not launching

today though, because it's blowing like heck right now. it's hot and there's a storm coming in. so so if we could get weather tomorrow, we could have problems. take a look what it looks like out on the launch pad, this is what it looked like when they tested this vehicle, one of the 15 times they tested it without people, unmanned. yeah, it sits out on the tarmac there, and then you've got, of course, on top of it the capsule. that's a six-man capsule, but there'll only be four people in it, bezos, his brother, the youngest fella ever to go into space, an 18-year-old kid from the netherlands, and an 82-year-old woman. bezos says you've got to put these flights up there, a lot of them, so that you advance the technology so we can colonize space. here's some more of what he told neil. >> this is a tourism mission, and it's very important because it lets us practice, and it will

let more people get up into space. and that practice is what will allow us to build the infrastructure so that the next generations of people really do amazing things in space. >> reporter: speaking of practice, liz, that 82-year-old woman i mentioned, her name is mary wallace "wallly" funk. she practiced and trained just like the men did in the mercury program with 12 other women. they were good to go in space but, of course, back then nasa didn't want women in space. now jeff bezos is making her dream come true. listen. >> i was disappointed in 40 years of it, but now i'm going to go up with the best team ever. [laughter] and we're going to show the world what can be done in space and how we could act and think and how we want to bring things back to people. >> reporter: well, you know, liz, they used to say the sky's

the limit. if you've got money, the sky is no longer the limit. the limit is space. and god knows where we go after that. we'll be with it live here tomorrow morning. liz: yeah. and a couple hundred grand. that's a limit too. jeff, we wish them the best, and thank goodness for dreamers like bezos and elon musk and branson and, you know, taking a shot here with the privatization of space with their own money. good to see it. all right, as the delta variant's tent tentacles grow and expand, how are people dealing with the potential for new closures? we're going to talk to the ceo of growing gym giant crunch fitness next. folks, the selloff continues. the dow jones industrials down 900 points. lots of red across the screen with the fear index spiking. we're coming right back with much more straight ahead. ♪ muck.

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liz: fox business alert, merger mondy zooming into today's pop stocks, video conferencing giant zoom making its biggest acquisition ever buying cloud-based call center company 5-9. this is an all-stock deal ring willing in at $14.7 billion. you can see zoom is falling 2.5% as few details have been provided on just how 59 will fit into the conferencing business. bill ackman's pershing square sinking, now down 1.3% on the announcement it has canceled plans to buy a 10% stake in yun versal -- universal music.

speaking of, amc piling on to last week's 24% slide. covid fears hitting the movie theater chain despite another blockbuster weekend courtesy is of space jam: a new legacy. amc is just down about a percent, well off the lows of the session though. and what do we see here? if it raked in more than $31 million at the box office. however, on the opposite side gamestop is up 2.6% bucking today's downward trend. remember, it did drop nearly 12% last week. peloton speeding faster and higher than all of them, straight to the top of the nasdaq's leaderboard, taking a page out of netflix's playbook announcing it will be entering the video game business. how will that work? well, bike owners soon be able to play lane break where riders

can virtually push a rolling wheel as they take on resistance and strength challenges. a little sissy is action or do i have that wrong? all right, shares popping 6% right now. and we should flip it over from peloton to beach body, pumping serious investor iron. we've got beach body up 4.5% as at-home fitness companies find new muscle on spiking covid fears. but on the other side of this, gym owners are in the opposite position. look at planet fitness, down 5.2% right now. no doubt the news that los angeles county restarted mask mandates this past weekend to slow the spread of the delta variant has investors worried with. l.a. says masks are required again in indoor public places and businesses including gym chains. how they preparing for this latest chapter? crunch fitness has 1.5 million mens across the u.s., canada and

australia -- members and is weighing that exact issue. let's get to ceo ben midgely. ben, welcome. you've got a bunch of l.a. clubs. i know that, because my dad used to belong to the sunset boulevard one. what is the situation specifically in l.a. county right now? >> yeah. we have a lot of clubs in california. down in l.a. they've been through this before, right? so we're communicating with our franchisees and our own properties in the area. we're ready for it. i think the members are ready for it. we got through it pretty well last time. i was listening to some of the stats, crunch fitness was one of if not the only chain that was up 5.6% over the last year. so we found a nice way to thread this balance with our members, made sure they stayed safe and comfortable, and we'll take whatever happens next and handle it as we did before. members want to keep exercising, they like the environment, so we're ready for it and hopefully past it soon.

liz: ben, how did you do that? i mean, that's highly unusual when gyms were ordered to be closed across the nation and then you managed from march of 2020 til basically january of this year to see that meaningful increase in membership and in revenues. what was it specifically that you were able to do there? >> yeah, it was probably about three things if we narrow it down because we hadn't been through it before. so, first, franchisees took the closing and reopening process very seriously. we stopped all the members' payments, we overcommunicated with our members, we took all the health and safety protocols very seriously, and i think one thing we did well is we got a readiness plan out to our franchisees about three weeks after the closures happened so they were well prepared, and i think we were a bit ahead of the industry curve so when reopening

happened, they were ready to receive members and that wave of sales because people had been pent up if for a while. and during the shutdown we only lost 2% of members which was very surprising to us when some of the other chains lost a 15-50%. and then lastly, i think we just had a high level of member trust, and members wanted to get back and get that feeling of community. so, you know, fingers crossed. we did great. we're looking to ride that momentum through the next phase. liz: just a couple of hours ago mayor bill de blasio here in new york city said the simple answer is, no, new york city will not be reinstituting its mask man kate although nobody's -- mandate although nobody 's got a crystal ball right now. we have seen cases jump meaningfully certainly in urban center but also in states where where the vaccination rate is definitely lore. lower. what is the power of each franchise owner where, in your universe? can they decide even if a city

says, no, we're not reinstituting the mask mandate, can they independently do that, or does it have to be a chain-wide order and edict? >> well, there's some -- franchises have have a certain level of control. what we mandate for the franchisees is that they follow all state, city and county regulations because, as you know, through this last shutdown those requirements change from city level to state level to town level. so they did a great job. they have to follow what's going on in their community, and by doing so, obviously, their members respect that. and we've been through it before. hopefully we don't go through it again, but they're prepared should that happen. liz: yeah. that is the thing, you guys have got to be super prepared. there are other companies that have done really well obviously whether it was peloton or beach body which just went public via

spac. beach body's been around forever, but what are you guys doing to, i guess, in the new normal make sure that if people aren't comfortable walking into a gym at this point, crunch is there for them? >> like i mentioned, overwhelmingly we have all our members back, and we're actually up 10.2% from when this started to now, so very fortunate from that standpoint. of when the shutdown happeneing we have a digital platform, and we've been in that space for a while. and we held that out to all members for no additional costs, and our workouts went up about 100,000 a day. digital fitness has gone through the roof, and we believe that's not a permanent change in consumer habits, but more as a necessity to main sustain your exercise programs because exercise is important to you. so what i think is going to happen, there's about 60 million members of brick and mortar health clubs in the u.s., the industry's been growing about

3-4% the past few years, we expect that to happen going forward, but 30-50% of all brick and mortar members a membership on the other side. -- have a membership on the other side. the members can exercise where it's convenient for them. liz: got it. well, it's great to have you, ben. we're wishing you guys the best of luck and a lot of healthy owners and, of course, customers. ben midgely of crunch. we are coming back with the ceo of autonation bucking the trend, it's higher, you'll find out why. ♪ ♪

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seconds ago. the dow transports, by the way, while off session lows are now in correction, down 10% from recent highs. so we've got it down 256 points. low of the session for transports down 411. so you've got to be grateful for moves like that. i mean, down 411, we're now down 254 for the transports which, of course, have all the choo-choos and the delivery guys like fedex, ups, railroads, beyond. already are, you know how a new car depreciates, speaking of transportation, as soon as you drieft off the lot? if everybody's dad has told them that, right? not anymore. in sort of a stranger things upside down world, the reverse is happening as a pandemic demand for cars surges, use models -- some, not all -- bought just a year ago with low mileage are now worth more

today. "the wall street journal" reporting a dealership offered to buy a one-year-old chevy silverado for three grand more than what was originally paid. autonation sitting in the sweet spot of this rising demand for vehicles combod with a lag in car production due to a semiconductor shortage. the company reported record quarterly earning, and shares of autonation pretty much all day long have remained in the green unlike just about every other stocked today. up 4% in this final let's call it 18 minutes of trade, up 130% over just the past year. autonation ceo mike jackson joins us now. mike, listen, you can take a victory lap all day long are. i get it, you're incredible. you've got to tell me exactly what is going on on the ground when it comes to inventory. how are you able to continue selling so many 'em cars when we know that so many plants have

been idle because they can't get chips? >> liz, good afternoon. how are you? you know, liz, as you and i discussed a year ago, the headline is and one of the consequences of this god awful, terrible, horrific pandemic has been a reallocation of the american pocketbook towards their home and towards personal transportation. by that, i mean, a personal vehicle. i mean a car or a truck. they want to control where they go, when they go and who goes with them, so demand is strong. and the manufacturers have done a terrific job of restarting the plants after the shutdown. when they got hit with this chip disruption. now, i should point out though our shipments in the second quarter of this year of new vehicles are double what they were a year ago, and they're only 6 or 7% down from 2019. so it's not like the shipments aren't coming through. but inventories are lean from the shutdown.

they've never been able to rebuild with this level of demand. and here's the insight i can give you, liz, we now give our customers visibility on what is in transportation, what is being built, and they're selecting the car long before it ever arrive ares at our dealerships. and when it comes in, they take delivery. so, yeah, the headline is demand is strong, and production is, indeed, and remain disrupted with the chips and will be into next year. liz: i'm hearing from people flying into new york, liz, i can't get a rental car. what has the fact that everyone's rent cars done for your business? i mean, anecdotally, have you seen people -- probably the 1%, i guess -- who are vacationing and they're having to buy a car instead of rent one? >> you know, the demand for personal transportation, a personal vehicle has been there since april of last year. of course, travel came to a standstill in the pandemic, so

all the rental car fleets dramatically reduced the number of vehicles available, and now when people are resuming travel, you can't rent a vehicle, they can't rebuild their fleets because of the disruption in production. but that's really not what's driving demand. the overall demand is there for a personal vehicle, and i have to say, liz, within that positive environment autonation's performance is outstanding. we had this unique combination of very strong brand coast to coast, great customer experience, a digital platform, and we saw this coming and bought aggressively on the pre-owned side. imagine on a same-store sales business our pre-owned business is up 65% on a revenue basis year-over-year. that is far outperforming the industry. so autonation's performance is exceptional, yes, in a positive

environment. liz: well, you know, mike if, you could have a future in this industry. what do you think? [laughter] yeah, earnings growth of -- >> i'll eventually figure it out, liz. liz: eventually, yeah. listen, due to a lot of breaking news, we've got to leave it there. mike jackson -- >> always great to see you. liz: the whole sector, it's the best in the entire sector. we're going commercial-free when we come back. great to see you, mike. "claman countdown" coming right back, dow jones industrials down 846. don't go away. a fund that invests in the innovators of the nasdaq-100 like you become an agent of innovation with invesco qqq

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♪ liz robinhood taking aim at a hefty ipo bull's eye. the free mobile trading app disclosing it's looking to share 55 million shares of class a

stock at $38-42 a share in its highly anticipate9 initial public offering. robinhood is valued at more than $35 billion, but could we be looking at a case of buyer beware in robinhood is also forecasting that its third quarter revenue will be lore than its second quarter numbers due to a slowdown in trading particularly it references cryptocurrencies. charlie's covered a lot of that, but today he's also looking at tesla's second quarter earnings, just one week away, but shareholders' minds could be focused elsewhere with. investors are embroiled in a contentious court battle with ceo elon musk over his 2016 acquisition of solar city. let's bring in, charlie, the stock is flat at the moment, but we've got to guess gordon johnson very understanding of what exactly is going on here. >> yeah. of all the short sellers, there's three i follow, dick they nose, obviously, and

gordoning is the other one. gordon, what was the takeaway from all of this? it seemed like it was elon being elon, you know, just spouting off. you know, i -- i'm waiting for someone to really lay a glove on the guy, and no one really has. why is that. >> right. so i think it's clear that this was a bailout of elon musk's cousin and effectively spacex which had lent solar city hundreds of millions of dollars. he effectively paid $2.6 billion for solar city, so guess how much the second bid was? 0.0 dollars. there was no second bid. and the reason why is because everybody knew that solar city was a loss-making company, it either was going to go bankrupt, no bank executive os or corporate executives wanted to test it, and even tesla shareholders were skeptical the day before he did the

acquisition, he showed them a fake solar panel that didn't work, hasn'ted, never worked. -- hasn't worked. and so i think it was a bailout. >> okay. so, now, this is going to go before a judge. this is a class action lawsuit, i'm assuming, correct? >> that's correct. >> okay. class action lawsuit. why hasn't the sec weighed in on this? if as clear cut as you say it is, they're always looking to nail a corporate ceo when they can. i mean, you might want to say that jay clayton was a lot easier on corporate executives, but we've got a new sheriff in town in gary gensler. if this is so clear cut -- we should point out that the board of tesla approved the deal. i know you would say boards are manipulated by the ceo, but they still did approve the deal, i just don't understand why this is such a high crime, why it's just before a civil court and why it's not before an sec

administrative judge? >> right. because i think they wanted to let this case go forward. keep in mind, what we learned in the deposition, etc., is elon musk said two key things. number one, solar city did not have financial problems. but what we learned in his deposition is the cfo said they couldn't raise debt right before the acquisition for the first time. the ceo of solar city sent elon musk an e-mail saying, look, we need cash, we're going to wait to do an acquisition. growing concerns especially from ernst and is young where they concluded that solar city did not have enough money to pay their own obligations -- >> all right. i got -- why isn't this guy indicted and in jail? >> well, i think that they wanted to let this case play out. keep in mind, elon musk and his two cousins lent solar city personally $100 million, and

spacex lent them over $100 million. so your question, fair question, they want to let this play out. keep in mind, delaware is very deferential to corporate executives, so i think that's the only way in this may go -- that this may go in elon musk's favor. but solar is city has not done well. >> let's get back to elon and tesla. you know, you're still -- you've been bearish on this for a long time. the stock has obviously not tacted bearish. isn't there, isn't this kind of a lost cause at this point? i mean, you know, this is what it is? investors like it as a future play? it may, the numbers may not work, but it's a horrible short? >> i don't think so, charlie. i think what's effectively going to happen is i think when they report earnings in 2q, and i think people are going to be surprised by the downside e there. they're losing potential share in europe, and in the you have

massive competition coming. their. >> credit cells a are effectively going away. as you know well, charlie, they've never made money in a year without those credit zones. those are going away. and, again, you have tremendous competition. so i think the rabbit's out of the hat. and most importantly, the reason they get a tech-like valuation is because of or full sale drives. since 2016 i've been saying the product still doesn't exist, and over the weekend elon musk called it a, quote, neat trick. >> all right. liz, why don't you, i hear you have a question. liz: before we to go and, gordon, we're running out of time here, but just a quick mention. tesla today announced it's offering full self-drive, $199 a month, but that's not my question. we're looking at the meme stocks which in many cases are heavily

shorted. some of them are struggling today. not all of them, but some are struggling today. do you have any other short positions? what else are you looking at besides tesla? >> so that's a great question, liz. thanks for that a lot. we covered the solar stocks. we think there's a big selloff there. china's going to disappoint, we don't think joe biden's going to get any of his climate initiatives passed, so we're looking at the solar stocks, and we actually think qanta stocks are going to be -- canada stocks are liz: got it. >> one more thing liz, fsc, i've been telling it since 2016. this is product that does not exist. this is something the sec should look into with their new head. liz: thank you for joining us. charlie, we appreciate it. we need to look at markets right now. call it three minutes left before the closing bell rings.

we're check safe haven gold. we show you 10-year yields at the low of the session had fallen, listen, 1.17%. slightly up now. as we look at currency markets and gold, we see it too is call it flat, slightly lower. down about $2.890 at 1812 a troy ounce. dollar is mostly stronger against major currencies. inflation hedge bitcoin, bitcoin has struggled today as most of the crip coyou are currencies. as we talk about cryptos in the grand scheme of this selloff this is risk off day we ever seen one. in the final minutes of trade, the countdown closer says he has a etf to risk for your portfolio mule all fund research scrfa.

todd, your quick thoughts on that and what happens tomorrow with the broader markets. >> a new etf, is the pbc. bitcoin exposure through the bitcoin trust as well as equity exposure. it has a small slice into grayscale and equity exposure. it's a good way to balance exposure with bitcoin in your portfolio. this is one of 200 plus etfs that came out in 2021 we like that we think are interesting. qqq a, infl, that those are a couple of other ones came out in the past couple months that call our i at cfra. liz: quick, what happens tomorrow when we open at the bell? >> i think there will be some stabilization. i think probably some buyers are stepping in and we'll see people shift towards safer areas that held up better. technology, in particular, health care have been relatively

strong today, and we think it will help us recover tomorrow. liz: todd rosenbluth, great to have you. major sell-off today. [closing bell rings] liz: we're off the lows. the delta variant slamming the markets or at least fears of it. we closed off session lows. the big question how will the fed look at tapering as we move forward. that does it for "the claman countdown." "kudlow" is next. ♪. larry: hello, everyone, welcome back to "kudlow." i'm larry kudlow. so we open this evening after a nearly 900 point selloff in stocks, across the board declines among all the indexes. oil dropped to 66 bucks. bond yields under dollar 20. fortunately king dollar where investors and traders seemed fearful of the delta variant. that is the big story. maybe that will lead to shutdowns, business closings, that might damage