we have been watching these -- is darden.hing the stories about the ceo throwing in the towel. he will be stepping down from his post at the end of the year. once a successor is found, whichever comes first. shares are up on the news. it is always -- it must be strange for the person when you step down, to see the stock go up. >> look what happened when steve ballmer step down. that has to be a slap in the face. >> i guess you try not to take it personally. in patnt to bring dorsey. he is the vice chairman and chief investment strategist. we are near the top of the markets, but no signs of a rational exuberance yet. you are invoking the words of alan greenspan. nowhere near a bubble. >> it does not feel like it to me. you pick up m&a activity. most of it is rational. you are not seeing a rush of individual investors back into the market. we are not at 25, 30 times earnings. there are pockets of craziness, but overall, calling the market a bubble right now, i am not sure you know what a bubble looks like. >> janet yellen signa

clarence otis joined darden back in 1995.struggling with a number of its divisions, a number of restaurant chains have been struggling of late, dealing with higher food prices. a lot of folks having more trouble getting out to eat at casual dining, trying to sort of cut back, kelly. once again, we have a shake-up here at darden at the top. clarence otis out as chairman, and he will stay on until a successor is named. back to you. >> bertha, thank you. evan newmark, not the kind of reaction you like to see if you're ceo in this case. >> no, but i'm kind of surprised they didn't already have a replacement there. darden has had issues for a number of years. it shouldn't be a surprise to anybody. certainly not some of their larger investors. so, the fact that they kicked him out and didn't have somebody there, a bit of a question mark over the board, i think. >> kayla? >> well, it's also been the target of activist discussion, too. you have starboard in there, marketa capital in there as well, and there was some question over the

he will leave by the end of the year either way, darden says it will nominate nine directors for the 12 available seats, insuring that perhaps at least as many as three of the nominees proposed by starburn value could be elected. starbird and barrington capital have been critical of otis. they pressure for change, they actually criticized the sale of red lobster to golden gate capital. so this is something that they have pushed for and it appears to be coming for past year very quickly following the sale of red lobster, back to you. >> who is the buyer of darden? >> i think there is actually a significant shortage of shock. it's never a good sign when the stock goes up like it does. you probably have a couple days people case on the back of us. maybe it trades up to $50. yeah, i think you take a shock. >> bill ackman, shares of herbalife falling in after-hours session. the quarterly report next. >>> a new way to invest if airlines. virgin airlines, will the unique silence strategy make it a bbuyr investors? >> high risk, uprisk, downside 20%. >> so this is a company developing for he

she is watching shares of darden. nicole. >> taking a great look at darden.arden on the move to the upside. it is up 4% today. that is a big move. we're hearing chairman and ceo will be stepping down, clarence otis, who has been under scrutiny by those activist investors. in this case we're talking about barrington and starboard value, who have been looking closely at the ceo and basically saying he wasn't running the company correctly, selling off red lobster you may remember. so he will step down by end of the year, up 4%. melissa: nicole, thank you so much. let's bring back our panel for reaction. i guess for reaction to herbalife that i was going to say, i would rather, that was tough. you guys were good. you really were good. look, everybody realizes what ackman's role in all of this is, he wants to kill the company. i think wall street was right to suspect his motives in this. when they see the results, as tough as those results are you have to hold this guy's feet to the fire which is what you did. >> i would say this, take out the ackman noise, that i

it's trying to get a look at darden's books.it was sdeek zeking a judicial order to compel darden to provide it with data. it also said it raised its stake to 8%. previously, it was north of 6%. starboard has been prove moving to replace darden after it sold off to golden gate capital for $2.1 billion. starboard viewed the price as undervaluing that red lobster chain, guys. back over to you. >> the ceo was on my list among the worst last year. still a lot more to go there. >> i talked to the guys a couple of months ago. they really, really hated that whole red lobster sfinoff idea. it's amazing they're still fighting given that it seems like they've lost. it basically seems like a vendetta and a feeling that's going to go on for a long, long time. so let's talk about facebook. here's what we sort of -- a lot of people don't realize on the show, when things happen, we send a lot of e-mails around to each other. and throw out ideas to each other. if facebook is killing it so much in mobile, as they appear to be. is there room for

darden restaurants has kind of a rough go of it at various times.ur holdings. >> nothing always works. darden is way early in the situation. the jury is still out on it. activist situations like darden could be j curve, with where you have to come in and fix things before you start to get better there is a board meeting in the september or november. starboard will try to replace majority of the board. we're very confident they will accomplish that. cheryl: what do you see for the second half of this year? we got a lot of surprises from people you're following and investing like icahn, ackman, people like that. do you think activism continues for second half of the year? >> money being poured into activism from pension funds and allocators is just incredible. hundreds of billions of dollars in activism. the other key thing is, the large mutual fund, institutional investors, big shareholders are have a much larger respect for activism than they ever did and supporting activists than they ever had in the past. it will just i think get a lot bigger. dav

meanwhile, darden restaurants ceo clarence otis will step down as chairman and chief executive officer. otis will continue to serve as ceo until a successor is appointed. last year, darden drew the ire after his selling red lobster, which is suffered from the climbing sales. and zillow has agreed to urges trulia in anchase all stock deal. and those are the top at once. back to you. >> all right, su keenan. thank you very much. herbalife is a stock that bill team. called a ponzi's it missed analysts estimates. the stock is down sharply in after-hours trading. joining me from atlanta, between -- joined stanford. thanks for joining "taking stock ." what is the big take away from bees numbers? >> herbalife has had a long straight, 20 one quarters, a beating expectations, and people are looking for them to beat expectations quarter in and quarter out. you see the result in the shares today. -- taking the the shares down now. i was on the buy side. the analysts often get them wrong. analystswere the getting the numbers wrong -- perhaps with the help of the company -- but the number one trend

. >>> and darton ceo clarence oden will be stepping down after more than ten years on the job at darden and still a fight over the board of directors. >> all right, meantime miss for u.p.s. and the company posted a a profit of 1.21 for the daily rate and they also lowered their guidance wend will talk to the ceo curt kuhn and in terms of the packages, domestic daily up 7.4, but the rates even though they are going up, people are finding ways to ship less and less. >> but they are spending a lot of money and that is one of the misses so is that what didn't happen in christmas time, and remember, all of the overtime costs, and don't let it happen again and the stock come canning in well behind the rest of the group. i didn't think it is that bad, but everything is overshad edow by this little company called winstream. apparently they are spinning off assets, and so while united parcel is going to transport, the two largest companies that watch the show won't. >> yes, i am glad that we are transitioning, because this is developing in the last couple of moment moments. >> verizon and i.t. o

how about darden? just tonight, clarence otis stepped down as the ceo of the troubled restaurant company. and now things look brighter and perhaps a transaction can occur. how about zillow buying trul owe? i have liked zillow for a while now. zillow was somehow loses traction or falling apart or about to fall because there were so much insider selling. i had to rebut that point by point for more than 100 bucks of upside. i liked zillow because it answered every one of my objection, whether it's the shoddy service in new york. it bought the much better street easy or being a slave, but created one of the best mobile desktops out there or it went over the big firms, thanks to some terrific returns on investment. in ads placed by individual brokers. but my biggest worry when we sat down with ceo spencer ascot this spring, where the company is headquartered, was the need to ratchet up ad spending because the competitor had committed to spending fen -- tens of millions of dollars on ads to take share from z

darden restaurants has been struggling. not only do you have slowing sales but they have not been able to turn all of garden around which is why they need to make the most changes, so will it make any difference? can have two must that they do it. >> they have a real macroeconomic problem that we have seen in this middle casual. when things go bad, people go down market to wendy's and mcdonald's. when things get better, it is nicer. they have to have a soft but not full recession. that is a weird niche. >> that is why you are seeing them want to get in. they probably want to sell all of garden real estate and rented at which probably met about $2 billion or a want to split the company altogether, either keep their specialty restaurants that .ave been doing really well >> which restaurants? >> bahamas restaurants, longhorn. there are more like the theme restaurants. maybe split the two, split the difference and maybe that would be enough. >> thank you so much. we will have more "market makers" after the break. dairy is here

darden restaurantses searching for a new head of the table after the ceo steps down.rling was stumped. a court ruling clears the way of the sale of the l.a. clippers to steal balmer. good morning, it's tuesday, july 29, 2014. "squawk box" begins now. >> good morning, everybody. welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc. i'm becky quick along with andrew ross sorkin and brian sullivan. joe is off this week. the fed is in focus today. the central bank set to begin a two-day meeting. most economists expect janet yellen and company to taper the fed's bond buying program by another $10 billion to $25 billion. steve liesman will join us with the exclusive fed survey coming up in the next hour. on today's economic calendar, we have the s&p case-shiller price home index coming out at 9:00 eastern. then an hour later, we get july consumer confidence. we have a flood of companies set to post quarterly results before the opening bell. get ready, folks. we've got pfizer, merck, etna, and siriusxm radio. after the bell, we'll hear from amgen, panera, american sxers. brian, we have to g

check out shares of darden. part of the pressure it's facing from activist ceo clarence otis announcing yesterday he'll resign. stay on until a successor is chosing. that's something activists had pushed for. the reason, carl, stock is up better than 3% day. >> now the dow has gone negative. keeping our eye on companies like visa, mastercard, bp, an interest in russian sanctions. >>> meantime, open for business. uber announces new tools to lure corporate expense accounts. svp of business joins us next. >>> plus, jon chan on blackberry's latest acquisition, and east versus west. live in malibu and the hamptons comparing real estate on the coasts. "squawk alley," back in a moment. in a world that's changing faster than ever, we believe outshining the competition tomorrow requires challenging your business inside and out today. at cognizant, we help forward-looking companies run better and run different - to give your customers every reason to keep looking for you. so if you're ready to see opportunities and see th

clarence otis, i thought he'd be in there, i didn't think there would be any shakeups at darden which is red lobster and olive garden. now otis, chairman and ceo, is out. lots of good things can happen when activists pressure boards. this is one of them. i'd like to say there's a bull market et so >> tonight on the profit... i go inside skullduggery, a toy company that should be filled with imagination and fun. >> it was kind of, like, confusing. >> can you read? >> instead, i find two brothers struggling to make a profit on merchandise that kids don't want while falling short on creating new hit games and toys. >> it's our first game ever. it didn't do very well at market. >> the toy industry, while enormous, is a brutal and competitive game. >> these toys seem like they're already out there. >> and if the brothers can't learn to innovate and sell... >> steve, why do you think nascar's good for skullduggery? [laughing] >> they'll get shoved to the back of the closet with the other forgotten toys. you basically just said, "[bleep] you, i'm just not gonna do it." my name is marcus lemo

just today the ceo of darden departed under pressure because of the company's poor performance and stock. mane while, activists successfully took board seats at cliff natural resources, an iron company, causing that stock to jump. and the success of so many drug companies of late signaled some real health in the market. i think the good news about a leukemia drug, the amazing hepatitis c cure from gilead that keeps power that stock higher, merck driven by new drug sales, amgen join the positive parade tonight with a terrific number. all of this suggests some lasting health in health stocks. plus, some areas of tech are very strong. i said twitter last night was a battleground. it delivered a great quarter. it gained more than a dozen points after hours, spurring a host of buying in other social media stocks. to paraphrase bob marley, those are all the good things we have, but now let's focus on the good things we've lost along the way. namely some tailwinds as we call them on wall street that have been boosting stocks for months that now seem like headwinds. first we're witnessing what a

cast members from "real world," christopher darden, the assistant district attorney who tried o.j. for murder. monica lewinsky of course. what did she specifically have to say about the clinton affair and about the '90s? >> well, she provided some insight into how -- what she was thinking about during that -- the impeachment. and i think she made a lot of points about how she actually didn't -- she said she didn't expect nearly the media attention it generated. you could say how could you not expect that if it came out in the media? but i think what she reminds us of is that was really a time when tabloid news became political news and the boundaries between what we call tabloid news and, quote unquote, serious news, it sort of blurred into what we have now, which there really aren't any boundaries at all. >> let's play a clip from the show. this is where you describe this shift of how we the media covered all these things. >> at the beginning of the 1990s there's still a distinction between tabloid culture and news. those two things mean different things. by the end of the 1990s t

darden's clinton otis is stepping down from that company amid pressure from activists investors. companies will be celebrating the chairman or chief executive roles. the most did not come fast enough nor go as far as needed. >> when we come back this morning, it is the political divide of the future putting thousands of manufacturing jobs at risk. we will talk about that right after this. also, aetna rolling out results moments ago. earnings and revenue beating expectations and the company raising its ref knew guidance for the year. the chairman and ceo will be our guest host on "squawk box" tomorrow. "squawk box" will be right back. >>> welcome back, everybody. today the national association manufacturing is releasing numbers. they say killing the export bank will put hundreds of high paying export jobs at risk. joining us noub is jay timmons, the president and ceo of the national association of manufacturing. jay, this has been a hotly contested argument going back and forth this year. it was probably a surprise argument. it's rare that you would expect to see this much fight o