as for mr. icahnz. he's done that on swap, meaning he's used derivatives to mimic that size position, but has not needed to file, because he doesn't own the common stock outright. but nonetheless, hertz is, sources close to the situation, tell me aware of mr. icahn's stake, and, therefore, moved to put in that pill at 10%. what's unclear at this point is what mr. icahn plans to do. a number of investors in hertz had been pushing the company to consider a spin or carve-out of some kind of its equipment leasing business. there have been others who said, ooh, maybe you could actually merge it into uri, united rentals, which has interest in it, although the expectation is it would trade at a higher multiple and has a higher net operating loss. what the company chooses to do from here is unclear, and what mr. icahn may do from here is unclear. he's not returned calls for comment. there are a number of other activist shareholders we've noted who own stock in hertz, but not nearly the size of mr. icahn. when

mr. icahn has stated he's a patient person and sometimes it takes two or three years for an idea to materialize. so, this could be a long, protracted situation. if you're buying it tomorrow, based on a paypal spinout, you could be stuck in something for quite some time. that being said, the company has a lot of merits. there's reasons to own this. particularly in this marketplace, where so many names have run. this is a name that has not run. and i see the same value that carl icahn sees in the name. paypal is a wonderful asset. >> it's josh. i want to go back to paypal being a wonderful asset. if you could quickly speak to their true strategic decision as other web wallets, google, visa, mastercard. everyone seems to be strategizing about web payments. and now, you have the virtual currencies. is paypal really the crown jewel that maybe we thought it was in 2011? 2012? or have things changed. >> it's a great question. people love to try to -- amazon is out there. google is out there. you think

a series of tweets from mr. icahne last two weeks. he said our investment has crossed the $3 billion mark over yesterday. calling this a no-brainer. there you see it right there. as of yesterday. and pointing out that when we first started to buy the stock back in the middle of august it was up $468 a share. but we keep on buying. most importantly, perhaps, though, he is weighing in if you recall it was december 4th when he put out a filing saying that he was going to seek a proposal at the annual meeting on a buyback of $50 billion. it actually wasn't in the filing, but i told you it what's in the letter. give billion in the course of the fiscal year that will end let's call it next october for apple. that was december 4th we got the back and forth. this is the first statement that we've gotten since then. we feel apple's board is doing a great disservice for to shareholders by not having markedly increased its buyback and leaves us with this. in-depth letter to follow soon. for its part if you want to go back to dec

i've heard it from a number of shareholders not just mr. icahnof splitting this business, and as you said it's not a new argument, not new for mr. donahoe or for anybody who has thought about ebay. the idea simply being that this is a faster-growing business embedded within ebay, not quite the size of the marketplace business but getting closer. it might become a takeover play and deliver a lot more value to ebay shareholders and not to mention frustration with their capital allocation at the company. i think we heard from mr. donahoe some of the answers as to why it makes sense staying within the company no doubt about it. >> but what i run in to because i do a lot of valuation on ebay, okay, let's say all that is true. what the heck is the stock still doing at $55? carl icahn acts out of frustration that the company isn't doing enough to create that value. why? yes, i know that breaking this up could be different scpuicult stock has been a disappointment over the last year. >> no doubt. but the marketplace business has had a bit of a tougher ti

even with a small economic interest mr. icahn at ebay and has also submitted a nonbinding proposal for the company to split its pay pal business from its marketplace business. 0.82% position roughly 10 million shares. let's call it a half a billion dollar position. only one-sixth of the position we know he has in apple with his tweets earlier today and his appearance on "fast money" halftime yet he has nominated two directors to ebay's board and he is pursuing a shareholder proposal nonbinding to separate the company into its pay pal business or spin that business off i should say and be basically the marketplace business along with gsi commerce, an important platform it also has. for its part ebay in the release goes on to say it welcomed the opportunity to listen to the perspective of all its shareholders, including mr. icahn. his board nominations will be passed on to the nominating committee. regarding the separation proposal ebay says it routinely assesses the company's strategic direction as explored in depth a spin off or

." >> clearly mr. icahn didn't get his son, who was smart and ambitious. carl got into princeton and paid for half his tuition with his winnings at the poker table. >> i was always very good, if you call it--i don't know if you call it talent or whatever. i was always good at making money. >> was her ever. he's said to be worth $14 billion. >> do you live a glamorous life? >> i'd say no. >> absolutely not. >> he's married to gail golden, his second wife and former assistant. >> how you doing? >> because he is such a workaholic, gail says they have little time to enjoy the money he's made. >> do you have a yacht? >> we have a yacht, but we don't use it much. >> you don't have a lot of houses? >> yeah, we do, but we don't go. >> [chuckles] >> can she have anything she wants? >> she takes it. she don't ask me, you know? i have no idea what she buys. >> but why do you care? >> well, you know, i just don't--i wouldn't like somebody just frittering away money. i mean, it still means something to me. i'm a kid from far rockaway. i still would not-- >> you have $1

mr. icahn's suggestion whatsoever. if we can trade both of these stocks now, ebay, netflix. take netflix first. what's the play here? >> on which one? >> netflix. >> i think if you're long the stock, yesterday you certainly got no reason to change that posture. >> if you're not long yet, is it too late to get long? >> i can't buy a stock that's trading at 200 something times last year's earnings. i really don't know what this current year's earnings will be. if you're a trader, just use the moving averages as your risk gauge if that's what you want to do. >> would you buy in amazon? >> no, for the same reason. >> okay. i was testing you there because you make the same argument. >> that's the point you talking to fundamental analysts about their price targets. it's hilarious in a way because they're absolutely is no way that you can take a traditional discounted cash flow analysis model and apply a reasonable multiple to the way these stocks trade. they trade much more on sentiment and emotion than do more mature tech companies at a certain point these companies will be subsu

mr. icahn, thanks for joining us.to talk about herbalife, as you know, down significantly today. but there's been news on apple recently with you increasing your stake. any news coming out today on apple from team icahn? >> yeah. well, we just put out what you're just referring to, we just bought another -- we just paid, what, another $500 million today. >> you bought another $500 million on top of the previous position. >> yeah. that's right. bringing us to 3.5 billion, and we say -- >> that's apple. >> -- if nobody else sees it, we sure do. and we do, charlie, we think it's really very undervalued, and the board is doing a major disservice by not using the greatest horde cash in history. i mean, there's nothing close to it. i mean, it's almost criminal that you just sit there fallow with it when you can be taking advantage of the company's stock. if you own 50% of this company, if your uncle left it to you, you wouldn't be sitting with it. >> that's a good point. mean, and so, obviously, we feel strongly about it, b

question is does this have the potential apple, if they can't get going, to be a kind of morasse for mr. icahn? it's not now, but could it be? >> listen, he clearly is very loud and long on this stock, and making his case but you have seen apple obviously pushing back against the activist investor. as for what apple can really do, listen, i agree with john. i think they have to come out, it's either new products and/or new services but the big headline here was the miss on the iphone that accounts for 50% of the top line. more than ever, that company has to find new drivers, new opportunities, whether that's a cheaper iphone or larger ipad. they got to look for different ways to grow that top line. >> i feel slightly frustrated on apple's behalf here. they only sell 51 million iphones and wall street, some traders decide that 54 million is the magic number. it's a record, 51 million. >> it is. tyler -- >> there is already some built in. >> josh, quick. >> remember that some analysts were caught off guard here. that's a big number but they thought listen, this quarter particularly, apple had ce

we will get more details from mr. icahn himself.momentarily. >> we thought we were going to be talking about apple. now we realize we have a lot more to talk about. we will take a quick break. when we come back, we will talk to the world squash champion. not just over the past year, three of the last four years. matthew mcmahon will be on set with us. ♪ >> all right, mcdonald's opens its books tomorrow. .hey have over 34,000 locations more golden arches worldwide means more catering to local taste. mcdonald'sive products that we wish were sold here in the u.s. >> all right, moments ago, we got word that carl icahn head stake in ebay. he is pushing the company to spin off paypal. this comes on the heels of the news that he has a multimillion dollar stake and apple. we are thrilled to have him on the phone right now. i know we were delayed a little bit with this news coming out. you were not ask -- you were not kidding. what is your plan for ebay? what would you like to see happen with the paypal spin off? -- with trish, we think , we

or apple with mr. icahn.will continue to talk about this in significant ways, but juniper is a company now as you point out, carl, not just of elliott. >> if i were at juniper, i'd be so angry, listen, we have the cycle going for us and the volume of business is finally good and now you come in starting to make noise it's been awful and the whole way down and you said nothing and now it's finally good to us and are suggesting. >> they are probably saying shrink to grow. >> they finally got it right and now they are all over them! throw the bums out! >> stanley beats by two cents. sales up nine. construction up six two in do it yourself. >> europe did not hurt them for once. i have a theory. and stephanie bounces back and forth with me on this. when you see a company that has horrible quarters last fime they don't let it happen again. they did pull it off. europe turning is a continuing theme. i know we have to focus on -- on countries that are right now currency plunging, but when you listen to chuck bunch, e

not necessarily mr. icahn himself, but the issue itself for this stock to take another leg higher or at least get jump started once again? >> i think that the management definitely should address why they feel like they need to hold onto the 100-plus billion dollars of net cash they have and why they're only committing to return the cash flow that they are going to be generating but that they want to hold onto that. certainly if they do make a comment that they see an opportunity to return that that would jump start the stock but i wouldn't expect them to do so given the conservative attitude that management and the board has taken with their cash hoard. >> alex at some point tim cook has tried to take the high road really as it pertains to the buy back. they say they'll look at it in the beginning part of the year maisch march. at this point do you want him to come out and say, look, we heard carl. we may not agree with the level to which he wants us to buy back our stock at this particular point, but we are

it's not clear to me mr. icahn would be willing to take this on.for leverage, points of leverage, and i don't think he's got them here nor does he want to go toe to toe with john malone over this one. >> we don't want to hover over the carl eicahn twitter account. >> that would be a big surprise. he's got plenty on his plate as you both know. >> yes, he does. >> thanks, david. david faber on the sirius xm satellite radio deal. >>> let's take a break. we have 30 minutes left in the trading session. we're down seven points. market just kind of meandering here. >> it's been very flat this last hour. not doing much to change the picture yet. it's been a really rough start to 2014 across the nation. also when it comes to the weather. the earnings season could be even rougher at least for the stock market if you believe the way the earnings warnings are hitting wall street. find out if it will really be as bad as companies are saying. >>> and from a delta plane skidding off the runway to a small plane making an emergency landing on a major highway in new

mr. ica icahn. he gets really excited, get the stock higher than it is.le out there touting it all the time. to me the stock is trading with it probably should be at $500 giving what they gave and the guidance they gave. >> let's get back to facebook. julia boorstin's got the latest. julia. >> melissa, the latest on the call investors can continue it. mark zuckerberg talk about shifting facebook to shift toward different things with different people. facebook's looking to launch many other stand alone mobile apps like instagram and merge like inextra gups or sharing publicly on twitter. as for advertising, dave said it's on the decline because there are fewer ads on mobile because prices are higher. zuckerberg asked whether it was going to increase its ad load. he said it would increase the quality of ads which would drive pricing up. there was a dodging of questions but whether teen engagement is still a problem, the execs pointed to totalover y'all usage numbers which, of course, are up. back over to you. >> thank you much, jul boorstin. bob peck still

mr. carl icahn. [ male announcer ] here's a question for you: is your tv powed by coal? natural gas? renewables like solar... and wind? let's find out. this is where america's electricity comes from. a diversity of energy sources helps ensure the electricity we need is reliable. take the energy quiz. energy lives here. go! [ male announcer ] it's chaos out there. but the m-class sees in your blind spot... ♪ pulls you back into your lane... ♪ even brakes all by itself. it's almost like it couldn't crash... even if it tried. the 2014 m-class. see your authorized dealer for exceptional offers through mercedes-benz financial services. david: you heard it here first. activist investor billionaire carl icahn sent an open letter to apple shareholders pushing the company to return more of its huge cash hoard to investors. charlie gasparino broke the news during an exclusive interview with icahn during the past hour and charlie is here. everyone is focusing on herbalife, you focused on apple to begin with. >> one of the good things on fox business, we're on to the news. if you watched brand x

icahn? >> that's a good question. i never thought i'd be talking as much about herbalife. we should point out mr.d calls, mr. ackman, and neither has rubenstein and associates which is their pr firm which is usually quite responsive. they are not denied that'o mr. denine is out. we've given them ample opportunity. my blackberry, i still don't see them getting back to me, and we've been asking them for the last half hour, 45 minutes. it sounds like he's out. why he is, i can't tell you. i can just tell you the short has not done very well. why are we talking about herbalife? you know, listen, i cover wall street. it's always fun to cover when big guys get involved, and when you see two opposite, very intelligent people, bill ackman, very intelligent on the negative side, carl icahn and billster ritz very intelligence on the positive side go at each other and to cover this blow by blow, it gives people an insight into how wall street works. be you're an average investor, this is the stock you stay away from. [laughter] cheryl: a stock i would buy. >> unless you don't mind gambling, you know? >> bec

mrs. "bloomberg surveillance ." i'm scarlet fu with michael mckee in new york and tom keene is in davos. shares of ebay up three percent in the premarket after carl icahn sell some of its businesses. he spoke with trish regan about why, and here is what he said. >> there is no reason they should be together at this point. in our opinion, i think it will be helped i a management team that is separate and can go its own way. and i think the multiple would go up dramatically and also the help of the company would be better. >> carl icahn, activist investor . our guest host, scott galloway, carl icahn called for the splitting off of paypal. is there a synergy between paypal and ebay? does it make sense? >> almost none. carl is absolutely right. paypal is a joke or not. grew 19% last year versus ebay, which -- paypal is a juggernaut. own the we used to discovery card? sears. they talked about the synergies. one person benefits, the ceo, because they get to smooth out earnings. make it to diversify. but here is the issue -- investors do not need the ceo's to diversify for them. they want them losing sleep, they want them focused, accountable. spinning off pa

mr. schmidt. >>> welcome back to "squawk box," everybody. let's get you up to date an what the futures are telling us. they are suggesting a lower open across the board. making headlines this morning, ebay, carl icahn and is calling for a spinoff of the paypal unit. that's an idea that ebay immediately rejected. separately, ebay reported quarterly earnings of 81 cents a share, beating by a penny. netflix beat estimates of 66 cents, the online video service also said it added more than 2.3 million streaming customers during the quarter. >>> "squawk box" from davos is coming right back. [ male announcer ] here at optionsxpress, our clients really seem to appreciate our powerful, easy-to-use platform. no, thank you. we know you're always looking for the best fill price. and walk limit automatically tries to find it for you. just set your start and end price. and let it do its thing. wow, more fan mail. hey ray, my uncle wanted to say thanks for idea hub. o well tell him i said you're welcome. he loves how he can click on it and get specific actionable trade ideas with their probabilities throughout the day. yea, and these ideas are across the board -- bullish, bearish and neutral. i think you need a b