you had david einhorn in there last year. >> exactly. >> shorting the stock. and now to think carl icahn is calling it undervalued. certainly one to watch today. >> much more coming up over the next couple of hours, i'm sure. also, it's called the hindenburg, and it has the trading floor buzzing, because the omen is back in play right now. so even as stocks are rebounding today, you can find out why some are predicting a stock market disaster is looming. we will look carefully at that coming up a little bit here. >>> and one merger is grounded. look at the stocks of american airlines and u.s. air, both depending on a deal to go through. american airlines down 48%. u.s. air down 11.5%. the proposed merger, the department of justice says consumers would be hurt and is suing to block that deal. so far, only investors are getting crushed today. we'll talk to a few lawyers who have opinions on that deal. >> let's get you caught up on the markets, how we've been trading so far this tuesday. the dip in the morning happened again, and then it returned. the market up 4

david einhorn and his big announcement that he would short green mountain coffee.llen 14%. you see what a fall it had been doing. carl icahn made his stake in herbalife public. up more than 90% year-to-date. bill, however, has not been so lucky. since announcing his big stake in jcpenney it has gone down. should you follow along with activist shareholders? with us now, ceo of alpha clown, and his fund does just that. good to have you back. the perfect day. are you buying apple? >> that is a good question. we have been in apple for years. we have been in apple and our activist strategy for at least two and a half years. liz: you are happy today because the stock is up about five and a half% after he tweeted and then confirmed to me on fox business just about 39 minutes ago, on the phone. he said, we are there and think it is highly undervalued. you have to be thrilled. >> i'm happy that he thinks that apple is undervalued, but, you know, winning in terms of following activists, disposers or hedge fund disposers generally is really about being consistent, not falling

david einhorn selling his barrick gold.g shares in freeport-mcmoran and raising it 70%. when you track what is going on in gold it is interesting. get this in december of '08. $752 an ounce. boy those are the days. it doubled as the fed ramped up its balance theet by two trillion between 08 and june 2011. so that is what is going on with the paper trades in gold, right? we want to look at too, there's another story. there's a bigger story too if you want to think about what is going on with the world gold council report. we're talking about worldwide demand in gold. wow!. china's demand in gold up 54%. india tracking 51%. mideast, 33. turkey, double digits. there is still demand for physical gold, right? ashley: yeah. >> what we're talking about with the hedge fund guys, these are paper trades again. these are trades in and out of gold miners and etfs. so central banks too, must be noted 10th straight quarter biling gold this past quarter. there are different storylines with gold. do not listen to media pundits who try to p

apple does pay a dividend already and did so under pressure from another big hedge funder david einhorn. >> apple some investors believe they don't have enough in the pipeline to keep the stock high. he's going to have to offer bigger detends instead. if you're soros or iron horn, that will be your big pay off. john chambers from cisco just appeared on cnbc to talk about lay-offs at the company. we'll turn to the clip you can listen to in meemt. to paraphrase the interview you're seaing, he said he would have a video conference with sisz co-employees here very shortly and will tell them specifically who is losing their jobs. he declined to say where those cuts are coming, jon and laura. we should point out sysco's largest population is in san jose. cnbc reporters clearly confused. sysco turned in strong profits. chambers says he's got to change the focus of business. we'll monitor this and get more information. >> we have a much nicer reality here weatherwise. christina loren, a hot one but beautiful out. >> really nice especially for the first part of the day. picture of san jose shows

i'm talking about dan loeb's efforts with sony corp or david einhorn and apple, a largely successfult score. activism watchers report that we're now seeing a three-year high if you look at the number of activism filings year-to-date which is 47 compared to the low 40s in the last two years. the average market cap of a target company reaching about $3.5 billion this year. that's up nearly $1 billion from last year and may even be an all-time high. it's just that the records don't go back all that far. >> thankfully, they have been so active, kate, because it gives us more to report on and to follow because the first seven months of the year have been quite amazing in terms of just what these activist investors are doing and the number of stoms they're doing it in. >> we're almost through the annual meeting season. it's a slightly unusual time of year to be getting involved, but i guess there's never a bad time to try to create better shareholder value, and you've got a situation in which the markets are rallying but company turnarounds are still under way. gary cohn was talking about

david einhorn looking at this. looks at the cash and the only surprise he's looking at apple and not microsoft if he's looking at a hoard of cash. looking at a buyback. instead of paying out a special dividend that he sees the buyback and in his analysis or the analysis of his people he sees that this company has not done overtime shown that they can really do something with a cash like a great acquisition that really pushes the company forward. >> and he wants the larger buyback done now. >> let bring jon fortt, our tech reporter. what do you make of all of this? >> it's really interesting in the context of tim cook getting criticism over the past few months for being too shareholder friendly and now you have the ultimate shareholder activist carl icahn coming in and saying there's a lot of value in a. interesting to see how this plays out particularly in the weeks ahead of this september 10th announcement where we expect to see a lot of excitement over perhaps not just one new high-end iphone but some lower cost

it's one thing when david einhorn comes down with a strict. if carl wants to shake you up carl doesn't care, he's going to shake you up. >> those who have gotten the call from him, aubrey mcclendon, former ceo of chesapeake found icahn, very reasonable man, has good ideas. it's not like mike wallace online one, the old joke, the most -- the most diangerous cal in the world. icahn is a guy you've got to listen to because he's been around forrer but einhorn has been around forevered. and that one was not amiable. >> and they fought him very quickly and rather successfully. now, you do get back to the point that there's not how much can an icahn do in a largest market capital in the world. it's not as though he can take a sizable position and threaten me could move to a proxy fight. you don't know where all the large shareholders stand. but it seems unlikely at this juncture. but it is interesting to note an activism generally we have seen a willingness of some of the well-known players to take positions in extraordinarily large companies which t

adam: let's talk about the capital allocation because they got pushed by david einhorn to up the buyback of course there was an increase in the dividend. i think the whole plan is 100 billion over next four to five years and they borrowed at incredibly low interest rates to do that what mr. icahn now wants them to do is increase the amount of the buyback with another borrowing because they have a 150 billion in cash. why jeopardize that when the government is giving money away like it is candy. doesn't that pose threat to long-term investor and carl wants to make money quickly and he is out, he doesn't have a stake in innovation and product improvement at apple or does? >> that's an excellent question. i think he is concerned about the capital allocation strategy. i think you hit the nail on the head. i don't think he is particularly unempressed with tim cook as ceo or the innovation that will be announced in the next quarter or two but, yeah, i agree, he has had the reputation coming in and out. i don't think this is a situation like he has with dell where he is actually trying to fix a

several including dan lobe and david einhorn reduced gold holdings during the quarter.cut his stake in atf in half. checking on some of the stocks, the gold trust is up by around 1%. air products in frankfurt up by 1.4%. and mondelez also lower by 1.3%. it is, in fact, a day high. >>> still with us, john canaly investment strategist and economist at lpl financial. john, we see a lot of those big hedge fund guys cutting their exposure to gold. this has got to be the right move given that fed tapering is coming, whether september or december, and the dollar is moving higher. >> yeah, that's a good point. we exited our positions in gold earlier this year. it just hasn't been acting normal, quote/unquote, a difficult time getting above its 50-day moving average. and, you're right, one way or the other, september or december, qe is going to end or at least slow down and i think those don't add up to a good environment for gold. the one positive for gold would be that there is still plenty of demand in the emerging markets and the middle class for gold, but i think the big ru

. >> you got to wonder, this is an extremely easy target, isn't it, because david einhorn has been pushingeturned to shareholders. we know that apple was going to do that anyway in terms of returning more cash to shareholders, in terms of share buybacks. so, you know, he could easily be successful in this one, can't he? >> perhaps. as you point out there are some major hedge fund managers who do have a position in apple as we know. we'll learn more today as we do this whale watching, but apple has been under tremendous pressure to return more capital to shareholders. that is something that we perhaps could see more from apple going forward. >> seema, thank you very much for that wrap-up of that story. we have been asking, is following a big activist investor like carl icahn a smart investment strategy? jeff tweeted that following icahn is perhaps part of a diversified portfolio. keep your responses coming here on "worldwide exchange." by e-mail at worldwide@cnbc.com, via twitter @cnbcwex, or direct to me @carolincnbc. >>> meanwhile, these are your headlines, the eurozone emerges from the l

david einhorn's green light capital cut stakes in cigna, gm, computer sciences and marvel technology. it also took a stake in rite-aid. it increases its stake in aetna and dissolves stakes in microsoft, hess, barrett gold, western digital, seagate and cvs. dan lobe's third point dissolve stakes in hess, spider gold, apple, delphi, and advi. what is that? i don't even know what that is. it cut its holdings in sprint, delphi, mylan labs and hartford. took new stakes in thrm thermo, cooper tire. trian had new stakes in dupont, gnc and sotheby's. george soros added 2 million shares of his stake to jcpenney. right now, let's get a check on the markets this morning. >> a quick note, berkshire hathaway coming out with its numbers now in terms of its stake, cut its stake in american express. wale go throu we'll go through it and give you some of the details as we peel away. >> okay. let's get a check on the markets. the futures are at this point indicating a little weaker. dow futures down by 37 points. s&p off by 5. you have oil in this morning and right now oil prices are up about 93 cents

here's a company after david einhorn pushed for the same thing couple quarters ago, that last quarter billion of stock t. prior two quarters before that they didn't buy back 2 billion. i would go to mr. icahn and say, i hear you, i'm doing it. >> we will see if that happens. paul, thank you for joining us this morning. >> thank you. >> appreciate it. >>> coming up, breaking nick data. light housing starts, second productivity numbers 8:30 a.m. eastern. about ten minutes from now. stick around. >> what were you doing nine years ago monday? you should have been buying shares of google for $100 bucks a pop. we'll talk about the internet giant on the 9th anniversary of its ipo. that's monday on "squawk box," starting at 6:00 a.m. eastern. (announcer) scottrade knows our clients trade and invest their own way. with scottrade's smart text, i can quickly understand my charts, and spend more time trading. their quick trade bar lets my account follow me online so i can react in real-time. plus, my local scottrade office is there to help. because they know i don't trade like everybody. i trade

. >> as more hedge fund guys get into this reassurance business, whether it's david einhorn, green lightc and now dan loeb, ipo'ing here at the new york stock exchange today. >> it is well managed from the insurance side. people just, oh, it's a play on -- it's a play on -- look, it's a great insurance well-run company with good underlying portfolio. >>> all right. up next, it's the mad dash as we countdown to the opening bell. let's take one more look at futur futur futures. it looks like it's going to be a little bit nasty off the open. dow an implied down 115. more "squawk on the street" from the nyse straight ahead. [ male announcer ] this store knows how to handle a saturday crowd. ♪ [ male announcer ] the parking lot helps by letting us know who's coming. the carts keep everyone on the right track. the power tools introduce themselves. all the bits and bulbs keep themselves stocked. and the doors even handle the checkout so we can work on that thing that's stuck in the thing. [ female announcer ] today, cisco is connecting the internet of everything. so everyone goes home happy. ti