all this baggage of activision is pointed at one thing. mobile game revenue.hen i talked to xbox ceo, microsoft game ceo, he said everyone is focused on call of duty i'm looking at candy crush microsoft doesn't play in mobile when you look at the letter, it's really important. the biggest layoffs in microsoft's history, that was them getting rid of nokia. this is a second time, second biggest layoffs, 10,000. he is saying there is a platform shift coming is he going to fight the next war, a.i., whatever it might be, or is he going to spend his time trying to buy mobile game revenue to fund what's coming next i think that's a big question. >> satya kgot the last transitio right. he was sort of the guy -- >> he said that's where we're going. >> he was the guy under balmer who was focus inside that direction. the previous one microsoft got wrong, right web and mobile so how do they look in this transition how are they positioned do you think versus the competition, if it is a.i. we don't know. if it is a.i., how do they look? >> remember a year ago they were on o

melissa, back to you >> tyler, thank you. >>> up next, if activision's ceo is to complete its mergerd, there's just six months to complete it. but with the fda's recent lawsuit, are all hopes oa alf de d dashed the former ftc commissioner will weigh in that's next. g from comcast business, with fully integrated security solutions all in one place. so you're covered. on-premise and in the cloud. you can run things the way you want... your team, ours or a mix of both... with the nation's largest ip converged network, from the most innovative company. bring on today with comcast business. powering possibilities™. the hiring process used to be the death of me. but with upwork... with upwork the hiring process is fast and flexible. behold... all that talent! ♪ this is how we work now ♪ what if you were a global bank who wanted to supercharge your audit system? so you tap ibm to un-silo your data. and start crunching a year's worth of transactions against thousands of compliance controls with the help of ai. now you're making smarter decisions faster. operating costs are lower. and everyon

microsoft in activision, will that deal go through?: the ftc is doing his job to protect the gaming market, our opinion is that they are -- their objections to the m&a acquisition is unfounded. it is based on what might happen, not what is happening. we think this acquisition should go through, we believe it will go through. we believe it is a fair acquisition. is worth highlighting that post acquisition, the gaming revenue to microsoft be around $21 billion, about 11% of the entire gaming market. right now sony makes about 18 billion in the market and the are a lot of competitors in the similar range. we think the ftc is setting up a very dangerous precedent. we think they should go through. we think it will go through after he gets through all the objections. is certainly an intense environment. caroline: this is an interesting one, netflix has been getting into gaming more. are these the sort of companies that start ticking up interesting companies? what kind of companies do you see this consolidation occurring in? guest: absolutely

just to get out microsoft and activision.at deal going to go through, does that matter, do we see more waves of this? >> absolutely. the ftc is doing their job and trying to protect the gaming market. our opinion is that their objections to this m&a acquisition is actually unfounded. one is based on what might happen and not what is happening. that's a really good thing to highlight here. we think this acquisition should go through, we forget will go through, we believe this is a fair acquisition, it's worth highlighting that they gaming revenue to microsoft would be around $21 billion. that would be about 11% of the entire gaming market, but right now sony makes 18 billion in market and there's a lot that are in that range. so we think ftc -- ftc is worried about what might happen and we think that sums a very dangerous precedent for m&a across not only -- but broader entertainment ip. so we think this should go through. we think it will go through after it gets her all the objections, but intensive. caroline: we know that t

i am also there was still the acquisition of pending of activision blizzard, the computer video company, or gaming a company 69000000000 dollars. there is some regulatory challenge from europe here in the united states, but that's, i'll be at the also something that microsoft is looking at. indeed go to new york. thank you very much for the update the hair in europe. we spent much of the past year in the grip of an energy crisis, households across the continent. i've been encouraged to save on electricity this winter, but in britain that's just been taken a step further families and now being paid to cut that energy usage. alexa kitchen lights off, it's 5 pm in this english home, an ideal time to switch off as many lights and appliances as possible. i'm going to save some money on my end, isabel sa get credit back on my office though. but the main thing is to try and help the national grid. so we don't have to tune on any co poet via stations today . i think it's really important that as consumers, we don't jeff flick switches on, we prepaid to tune them off as well. sarah's participati

europeanon union prepares to send microsoft and antitrust warnings over the plan of $69 billion activisionnd has a april 11 deadline to finish its review of the deal. the potential eu warning comes after the ftc last month sued to block the acquisition saying it would suppress competition and activision blizzard closed at $76 and change and buyout price is $79. we'll see if it can season that $3 or less than $3 over the next couple of weeks. the retail trading revolution coming full circle as meme stocks, have you seen this, suddenly back in fashion. jamie rogozinski, the founder of the wall street bets reddit chat room where it all began is here to tell us why the reddit rebels now think meme stock mania is a again a winning trade. even if the word bankrupt is flirting around with some of these names. the "claman countdown" is coming right back, don't go away. ♪ liz: the sleeping apes have awoken. since the new year, meme stock mania has aaron rodgers and roa. we're only halfway through the month and we're seeing meme stocks like carvana, spiking 48%. game stop up 11%, amc climbing 24% bu

activision is more of a momentum play so bob, please, do not turn this into a losing trade.s. thank you for the grades keep 'em coming. m.ail us askhalftime@cnbc.co or tweet us, we'll do final trades next. so, am i still on track to reach my goals? the plan we created can withstand uncertainty. lately everybody has opinions about the economy, but i count on personal financial advice. my ameriprise advisor understands the markets and me. she knows my goals and can help me reach them with confidence. the markets may fluctuate but you're still on track. no wonder more than 9 out of 10 clients are likely to recommend us. because advice worth listening to is advice worth talking about. hello, world. or is it goodbye? you know, it seems like hope and trust are in short supply. [clap] now, as businesses we can blame and shame. or... [whistles] we can make a change. [clap] we can make work, work for our communities. create more equal opportunities. [clap] it's time for business to show its true worth. because it's not goodbye, world. it's hello, team earth. [clap] >>> i'll see you o

between activision and open ai, which way is the smtock suppose to be going?at do we know about this valuation deal? >> it looks like they're trying to -- according to the report, raise $300 million by selling these existing shares. this is a fund-raising mechanism. this is a $29 billion company on paper. if you want a data point that we're not heading into a recession -- >> this would be -- >> prerevenue start-up. >> do you know what it's previous -- probably in the single digits. >> tens of billion dollars, i think. >> casey, i totally take steve's point and that's what's makes the timing fascinating here. everything else in tech has blown up and it's winter except for this do you think that this valuation is justified or is everyone just piling into the only thing going on right now >> i can see it both ways. i think there's a lot of upside here, right, open ai releases chat gtp in november it gains a million users within about three days it can be used for a lot of things they do have tens of millions of dollars in revenue, mostly by selling access that's

layoff and cost cutting, spending billions on ai, stolen cloud and pc growth, then there's that activision deal we'll tell you what to look for and how to position and what the stakes are for the report. >>> and how sky-high egg prices could be a tailwind for one group of stocks in particular and it's not calmain >> that will be an egg-celent report >> you did that. >> let's talk about the markets. they're giving up some gains yes, they are, but we are well off session lows at this point here it's a mixed market, and that's the best way to characterize it. the dow industrials are just about flat on the session, but specks of green up, still above 4,000 for the s&p 500. it's down six points right now to give you again, context for the trading range on that broader index. we were flat at the highs of the session and down roughly 30 points at the lows tilting towards the negative side of things, but for right now, down about 1/10th of 1% the nasdaq composite down about one quarter of 1%. we'll have more on that in just a second if you look thematically, technology is in focus for one reason,

activision and blizzard shot up nearly $6 billion for king digital several years ago. as businesses are stuck in purgatory these companies are going no make a lot less money and people aren't going to like their stocks put it together you understand why the video game industry's been such a dog. but most of these headwinds seem temporary. the console shortage already a thing of the past we got more potential blockbusters coming later this year because people can get together and create things and eventually advertising will make a and back along with the rest of the economy after the fed's done tightening when that happens i bet the gaming stocks actually make a comeback too but it may be down the road i definitely think they have more down side but at some point they'll be cheap enough to be worth buying it's just that we aren't there yet so here's the bottom line. while the video game industry came out of 2022 look like one of the biggest losers in the post-covid era i think it could just turn out to be a temporary problem. not a permanent one. too soon to start bott

at the same time, they're buying activision it's a great company we'll see. that there are. in the environment today, you're seeing a lot of challenges will it get done, do they have the appetite to do that? that's a question i don't have the legal background to answer >> hey, john it's steve let's switch gears over to cloud because that is what this stock usually trades on after those results come out we were already warned by microsoft that growth is going to slow down a couple digit percentage points. when do you see it easing up or do you see it easing up? can they get back to the high growth numbers >> actually, amy hood, cfo, said cloud was going to slow sequentially, five percentage basis points when she said that, we thought, well, she missed the last two numbers, the last two azure growth rates by 100 basis points so she didn't want to miss it this time. we assumed they would do better than that. even at 300 basis points or 200 basis points, that's worse than expected >> you think it's because of things like energy costs what causing them to miss lik

chief investment -- >> meanwhile, it's a year since microsoft announced that deal to acq acquire activisionbviously, still trying to get regulatory approval. possibility in the states is that it will have to go to court to do that, facing off against the ftc. the main event in the uk, there's not a lot of transparency there in terms of what the antitrust regulatory body in the uk is going to choose to do here. we are expecting to hear something fairly soon. it's a panel for -- so, four-person panel. where's my notes oh no. >> david, while you look for it, we do have nadella's blog post already out. and they are eliminating 10,000 jobs through the end of fiscal '23. less than 5% of the total employee base. $1.2 billion charge related to the severance costs, and other changes, jim on a day where we got much smaller moves at companies like teledoc and unity software yesterday. >> well, look, right now, we're rejoicing in the tape -- the premarket tape i'm not so sure that's going to be the case when we sit back and say, well, we're about to get reporting. now, obviously, how's microsoft going

microsoft has said sony's concerns are self-serving and they overstate the importance of activision'sinfosys has raised its annual sales forecast. it warned there would be pockets of uncertainty because of the downturn. india's second biggest i.t. firm posted a 13% rise in net income, beating estimates. fast retailing is keeping its retail for private -- profit and sales intact. catherine, talk to us about the headwinds affecting retail, textiles, manufacturing, as well as the uncertainty of the consumer. what are you seeing as a major player in the space? >> looking back at the results that were reported yesterday, i think the biggest disappointment was the impact of the yen on the company over the quarter. this is likely going to continue through february. going forward, the trajectory looks better for the company outside of japan. and one think i am looking at for japan is that the bar is higher given the track of yen for the company to deliver more than 15% through february. we need to be watching the rest of the temperatures over the next seven weeks and see how it affects the co

and they are also waiting for the activision deal to complete.what do you make of the job cuts across technology? is this cutting the fat? is there more headcount to go and what is the resilience of the talent market? ray: we have had 1400 rounds of layoffs. 27,000 workers announced so far this year but in the big picture tech companies have let go of their bottom 5% every year and i did not happen since 20 and the pandemic. it has been three years of that. what we have been's seeing is -- what we have been seeing is that workers let go have been able to find jobs within 60-90 days. while that sounds concerning, they are going to other industries. companies that could not pay the same amounts as the digital giants are able to grab them. and start ups that would not have been able to afford the salaries that these large digital giants are paying. tom: it is comforting to hear a lot of these people being laid off or finding positions rapidly. what do you want to stay clear of? you have talked about relative optimism around microsoft and tesla. are

>> google and nvidia are raising concerns with regulators about microsoft's $69 billion bid for activision-blizzardd give microsoft the advantage in areas of mobile gaming and subscriptions and the cloud. the report adds that google the and nvidia gave information to support the case to block the deal brian. >> all right pippa, we appreciate it. have a great day thank you very much. >>> for now, let's talk about money. specifically the earnings onslaught about to come from big ban banks. many bank stocks are hot kb index up 5% this year some of the names you want to watch? no one knows like anton schutz thank you forg getting up early. you are well known for taking the banks out. do you have a view on the big banks right now? those are the earnings that we will talk about on cnbc. what are you expecting >> well, i'm expecting a mixed bag. there are some parts of the banking space doing well net interest income has been a big focus on investors with rates no longer as zero, banks benefit from the rates rising that may be close to the end deposit costs may be catching up clearly the lowlights are inv

believe an economic slow down could slow down office 365 subscriptions and legal descriptions for activision blizzard. there was a piece of the note i thought was interesting. yes, the macro backdrop was going to be challenging but raised the idea that maybe the market is maturing how do you see cloud is it possible that it's maturing what does that mean for microsoft and the other hyper scalers? >> i read the report and it was very interesting and i should let you know microsoft is a top three holding in my portfolios the downgrade was predicated on the idea the second gen implementation of more advanced cloud solutions was here and people are more cost conscious, reducing head count, they're going more to the social cloud rather than the individual interpretation so i think that's a little bit of a reach i think a lot of the head count reduction has been -- has played out. there's a lot of, obviously, reduction in forward earnings and spend. you know, the valuation i think is interesting they came out and they actually were ahead of the street revenues i think for 2024, the street at 241,

and so they will do the best they can, but i don't think the activision deal will ever be approved by> do you think their appetite has dmiminished at all >> their appetite, i don't quite follow. >> just microsoft, i mean this is a deal they want done, they said they're willing to go to bat and take to court -- >> yeah, they've campaigned hardly for it. we'll see what happens but the ftc in this case seems to be a very strong and serious obstacle they'll continue to play out it doesn't look to me like it's going to happen and they'll have to reboot and attack that market some other way >> do you ever see ai monetizable? i guess it just depends on when. what are they doing with chat gpt. are you just reciting from something that that program wrote for you, paul, or are these your thoughts? >> that's right, joe i'm here virtually and i have somebody talking -- no, but i actually think that there is a good chance it will be monetizable and i think it will be pretty big. sometimes other tech themes come and, go but i like this one. they made a really big triple follow-on investment here an

about this, is there another hick hiccup -- hiccup, please, he acts in microsoft's acquisition of activision they're reporting that the antitrust watchdog of the e.u. is warning microsoft over that $69 billion acquisition of the maker of "call of duty," huge franchise. they're expectedded to put out this statement of objections, basically why they're concerned about this potential deal. microsoft then address cans those concerns to twist their arm and get them to push it e through. microsoft says, look, we need more content because with we're competing with the likes of sony. they've offered to let "call of duty" play on other consoles like nintendo, for instance, all to a-- allay fears. stuart: one of these days, europeans will come up with a viable company like microsoft. in the meantime, they're going to copy their ideas and take their money. look at bitcoin can. have you any idea why it's breaking out? lauren: fear of missing out. stuart suit that's it? stuart: lauren: and the ftx fallout. you're stuck in the $16-17,000 range, and all of a sudden over the weekend 21,000 the, it seems to

layoff and cost cutting, spending billions on ai, stolen cloud and pc growth, then there's that activisionn and what the stakes are for the report.

we'll get his outlook and his thoughts on mna, activision and much more. >>> we're getting some back of the 4% two-week gain of the s&p this week. it had given back roughly half of it. we firmed up in the indexes, when we got comments that she wasn't in as much of a hurry to have big rate hikes. more balanced view there you see where the pullback has settled out. 3900 on the s&p. you want to draw a trend line from october, that gives you an area where bulls would like to see hold at the louse of the day, near a short-term, like four-week average. the market has found a little of support right here still underneath the downtrend line right there a lot of rotation below the surface, still, as we see some weakness across the board. but staples have actually done a little better today after losses yesterday. here's a ten-year note yield as i said, 3.4%. it seems like it will be somewhat important people looking at the chart saying it might be oversold. look at the floor that might be created around the 3.4 level we'll see if that means anything for risk assets to continue to stay support

them at a price that's going to allow you to monetize those well down the line talk about whether activision blizzard, whether they're paying too much for that or not but is microsoft at risk for their salesforce/slack scenario. >> the transaction you just mentioned but i don't believe they have to do a mega transaction to put more in the cloud. what's happening at microsoft is they're sitting on a massive enterprise installed base. talk to the big institutions, any other firm, the percentage of cloud adoption is very tiny, so there's still a lot of runway ahead, and you throw in workloads, if you look, 55, $60 billion cloud business, enterprise is 1.4 trillion, plenty of room to go i don't think you really need to make a slack-like acquisition. that's my belief. >> not saying necessarily that big, just wondering if acquisitions are needed for margin boosting as the cycle continues. kash. >> the margin can come from the work force reductions, and also slowing down capx, if azure is slowing down, that's good, plenty of things. >> we'll see how that plays out, kash rangan, from goldman sachs,

awful lot of dry powder out there private equity funds have $3.6 trillion waiting to go to work activision is at a very high level with valuations down and volatility high. the investment grade bond market is functional, but the leverage finance market is not yet fully functional but as we get some stability i rates, that could finance a lot more m&a and lbo's so i think that m&a is likely to be something we see a lot less friction on, a lot less resistance into 2023. >> rick, it is karen, thanks for being on let me ask you about that dynamic. because you have prices down but for the acquirers, their currency is down and the cost of financing is higher. so is it private equity that will make the difference and do equity heavy deals how do you bridge that gap between the financing markets, the currency of their stocks versus the targets wanting a descent price. >> and the answer to that is right now the private companies, you know, with the stocks down so much, who wants to tell at these distressed prices. and the buyers don't wan to have to pay an enormous premium so to bridge that gap, th

ftc side, going after the microsoft activision deal.hey don't want instagram to happen again don't want facebook happening again or don't want another double click and this administration is really going after these mega mergers which will put a chilling effect on it. >> they don't want campaign donations from these company, do they >> if you break them up there's multiple companies to offer campaign donations. >> i haven't thought about it that way. >> and i don't know if we have a live look in here, but jonathan cantor is speaking at the department of justice presser going on right now, so he is a key official in there. there you see him at the podium with merrick garland he's a key official in all of this this does speak to the biden administration's whole agenda here when it comes to technology and sort of corporate monopolies as they see them more broadly. the president, remember, had an op-ed in "the wall street journal" just last week talking about his vision for what the technology industry would look like in the future and talk

suits against google in the past two years, there is also the action brought by the ftc to block activisionpast year. so there is a far-reaching effort to stop big tech from getting any bigger, dan. >> it is funny i guess it comes down to the remedies when you think about this is it nine competitive, that one thing. if it is disadvantaging consumers, that is another thing. there is no evidence right now that amazon's monopoly that they have in e-commerce, that their monopoly in digital search is disadvantaging consumers i think when investors have been looking at overhang about regulatory, there is a lot of shots across the bow at this and none of them really stuck. so if revenues are not that big, i think these guys will figureoit how to move on and i don't think it will hurt competition. i don't think of the remedies are breaking up this company. >> a lot of big tech, as tim points out correctly, you want to break up google, that is fine fine it is worth a lot more sum of the parts for before it is trading right now. this stock made a multi-year low back in early november, it is rallied 1

received a number of complaints from its competitors and the ftc over its $69 billion purchase of activision blizzard. many say they think the deal will lead to vie valls of microsoft xbox losing access to activision blizzard's top titles such as the call of duty franchise purchase was first announced a year ago. but antitrust regulators in the us and now internationally are trying to block the sale. an international marketing firm, survey 32,000 people in 28 countries and found globally, people are pessimistic about their economic futures. fewer than 40% say they think their families will be better off in five years. only china came out with more positive than negative answers. analysts say effects of the pandemic and inflation are likely the reasons for the negativity time is 7 48 . we have developing news from san francisco to police say stay away from the area near the 3500 block of gary boulevard. there's a lot of police activity and ktvu sally rasmus, you just arrived. so what do you know about what type of that? really really well, first off dave, we can show you that a couple of bloc

google has expressed concerns to ftc about microsoft's acquisition of activision blizzard.ned sony in raising competition issues. rishaad: a look at the data out of china, the trade numbers there. showing how exports did fall back in december, less than it -- anticipated. we saw exports down 9.9% from a year ago. that was better than estimates. for imports, shrinkage of some of point -- 7.5%. yvonne: coming as a business owner, your bottom line is always top of mind. so start saving by switching to the mobile service designed for small business: comcast business mobile. flexible data plans mean you can get unlimited data or pay by the gig. all on the most reliable 5g network. with no line activation fees or term contracts. saving you up to 60% a year. and it's only available to comcast business internet customers. so boost your bottom line by switching today. comcast business. powering possibilities. >>: 29. a grim day in shanghai. we have experts down 9% in december here. these were better than anticipated but still, pretty awful. it's pretty awful but he goes to show why

now they are moving to machine learning microsoft tried to dump into activision what it comes down toompany, they don't care about layoffs. it is about the business and about the money. i agree with jessica that it has a negative impact on workplace culture. what we are finding is with the executives, they don't care about that they care about the shareholders being happy and they continue to thrive in the industry >> i'll give awe n example. salesforce under pressure with activist investors. they are looking at the balance sheets and staffing and saying a mismatch they are looking at the twitters of the world and see what elon musk did it is still running. we can debate twitter if you like it seems to be working he cut 2/3 of the place. >> i would be worried. >> here is what i would say. you have to be careful about setting that dangerous precedent. think about the mindset. if the idea is, well, we're operating well we're making cash. everyone else is laying people off. let's lay people off we are financially thriving and that is a dangerous precedent. you have to consider the negati

cases out there that are going to court that may get decided in 2023 >> are you thinking microsoft/activisionp losing, at some point you have to say, that's enough >> do you think they made a mistake taking this approach >> i personally think they made a mistake. i understand why they're doing it, but a record of 0 for x, 0 for 5, 0 for 6, 0 for 7 in court is not a great record. >> also, you had a big restructuring business for a long time. is that going to get hotter? >> that all comes back to the inflationary process because - >> are you staffing up the restructuring group at this point? >> we have a healthy restructuring group. >> i'm trying to figure out if that's supposed to be symbolic of what we should take away? >> you should take away some hope for 2023. we have a known risk in the debt limit and no life preserver. >> you're hoping for a pivot we're not supposed to say pivot because we're supposed to let the fed do what they're doing because they need credibility. don't you think the market is kind of sniffing out a pivot and the fed keeps saying no, no, but why isn't the market wher

curveballs per se, at least one of them is ongoing which is a lot of folks focused on microsoft and activision should think about merge ners the context of these historically nonadjacent businesses, what's unique about this particular transaction and your decision to pursue breaking it up effectively, that historically by this sort of antitrust math you wouldn't necessarily say that microsoft had a too big a stake in that space. do you think if you're a board member of a company you have to think of antitrust differently. >> historically congress actually told us to look at all mergers not just horizontal mergers but vertical mergers we're react vating the law there. decades of precedent from the courts across the country that explain what types of vertical mergers may be illegal or legal. we're in the process of currently revising our merger guidelines that lays out how we look at deals and when we're able to publish that should give clarity. >> lot of deals have a timing triggers, a calendar to them and depending on when you come in it can sometimes scuttle a deal irrespective if you will of

so probably a gaming studio but we will have to wait and watch what happens with microsoft and activisionmber, the one thing everyone in the streaming industry wants is engagement and that is what you get with io games. the captive audience. people spending to work three numb hours. that works perfectly for netflix. jonathan: geetha ranganathan on netflix and beyond. the stock is up by about 6%. tom absolutely crushing subscriber estimates. tom: that is like column duty and all that stuff. our kids sit at home. the you do this? jonathan: absolutely not. do you want my rant on gaming? i think what to get to a certain age, you should not have a consulate that is on view. there is a whole industry dedicated to get people to stare at the screen. tom: of course. jonathan: whether it is consular gaming, that is the same thing. tom: my answer here, and i feel like i am channeling robert iger of disney, it is still about content. as geetha said, but we can say now that we did not say 90 days ago is netflix is hitting the ball out of the park. jonathan: austerity. can we discuss that a little bit