>> guest: so think about amazon, netflix or google. netflix is a perfect example. netflix started as what we call a distributer. so it was in the business of shipping dvds to people. it was able to then navigate the internet and broadband world and said we could be a big player in streaming, so then it started streaming the movies and the content and the television shows into the user homes and your tablets. and then it decided that it has enormous amount of customer data now. it knows exactly, you know, what their customers want, what they don't like, and not only that, they have a very large customer base too, you know? i think now netflix is close to 80 million subscribers. so, and these are technology firms. so so these companies are built up with affinity to data, if you think about it. so they make a lot of day-driven decisions. -- data-driven decisions. so now these companies say, well, i have all this user information. i can now use and exploit this user information in both how to price, how to promote, how to distribute the content to an individual user ve

google, netflix, over verizon, at&t. do think there will be a shift towards those companies? or political reasons ideological reasons, you see these powers shifting. google has just put out advertising seeking conservative find the new administration. i was wondered you think -- how much do you think the tech companies will shift? >> it will pass the swing back. under the wheeler reef gene -- regime it was not necessarily just in favor of the buyers. bias toal, there was a say we need to do what we can to protect the upstart. that usually meant small rather than big. that googleargument is bigger than at&t or verizon or any of them. it favored small rather than big, then the favoring of the infrastructure providers. everything that trump has said morests he is in much favorably opposed of infrastructure. that alone suggests will be a bias towards the network layer rather than the application layer. awouldn't say that it is going bias, as much as it would be a more balanced perspective. we do not know who is going to be the next chairman of the fcc. i think commissioner pye, coul

netflix, google -- won that war, and transport was priced at zero. and that's, in effect, what net neutrality was all about. it meant no pricing at the interconnect point or at least virtually no pricing, effectively no pricing at the interconnection point. usage-based pricing ended up getting wrapped up into it, and by and large, title ii was the privacy of companies that are buyers of transport over the companies that were sellers of transport. it's already clear that that presumption is going to be dismantled. now, it doesn't suggest that that will be entirely settled in favor of transport providers. but the presumption that it is settled in favor of the edge providers, the googles and the netflixs, is now largely gone. and it's hard to argue that's anything other than good news for the infrastructure providers. >> craig, to follow up on that, there's been this perception that the obama administration, the obama fcc favored these edge providers, google, facebook, netflix, over comcast, at&t, verizon, you know, the old line players. do you think you're going to see a shift either in congress or the new fcc toward those companies for political reasons or

or winning? i'd say they are winning. netflix, as well. google i'm sort of in your camp although i think they've got some room expansion wise. i i understand what you're saying. i think the fang trade is back on. >> i like the fang trade. the ones i have. i think it's value and it's growth. i don't know why it was so out of favor except it wasn't the stock of the moment post trump election. facebook, they had a little bit of the specific issues to them. i think those would be a blip. >> don't you think potentially that the fang trade is -- they see amazon, a lot of same traders in the same stock, when they're reaching for one, they're reaching for others. i think when amazon was going down it was pulling the rest of those down and that's why it was a great opportunity. >> there's the opportunity. when they all go down together even though each of them are very individual specific companies, then it is an opportunity. i still think it's an opportunity here. >> you have to think back though, amazon and facebook they reported quarters that were good

or break out here. splunk needs to raise its guidance if this tech rally is going to broaden beyond fang, the acrenim we coined for facebook, amazon, netflix, and alphabet, the old google, which has a gigantic cash overseas which believe it or not makes it a -- >> trump stock. >> there's also carmax. this is important because carmax has its finger on the pulse of the american auto buyer. earnings for this company hit a rough patch not long ago but lately they've broken out of the doll drums and the scotch has been a real scorcher. if you want the rally in ford and g.m. to keep going, may i suggest car max better tell a good story? friday kicks off earnings season and starts with the most important component of the trump rally, the bank stocks. in my 37 years of investing, i've never seen a real solid rally, a mean a broad, strong one, that has absolute staying power unless it has the bank stocks at the vanguard. can it continue? we'll know when jpmorgan, bank of america, and wells fargo tell us how they're doing. these are all companies that have had to deal with way too much regulation, regulation that's going to be cut back and applied far more lightly under trump. t

google's earnings. then look at netflix. it is a different beautiful wax. >> it's binary. you either fail there or exceed that. and often it is a news event. it causes netflix to break out or exactly what maybe you're implying. they've gotten back to that high. >> the other thing that's important. people are continuing to welcome for growth. if you're uneasy about the next two months. top line growth is one thing that everybody can bank on. irrespective of evaluation. >> you think facebook could make a new high? >> that's one of the big ones. let's focus on that. in the context of the general conversation. we know that some had a little trouble recently. that would be google on its news. netflix, quite good. so it is binary. we can all agree i think that it is up turn. to sort of test that theory, that's exactly what it is. i didn't make the lines fit. they fit. top of the channel. top of the channel. we're at the top third. and i'm thinking here that this channel, not only is it getting back, but close the or the high of the channel. so we're going to look at this part. in detail. here we go. so what do we kn

they're comparison shopping and reviewing on google as they check their facebook and instagram feeds or watch movies on netflix. in short, the add generation is fanging. it gets better. when the economy is slowing and it's not a trump day, you can go back to buying the stocks of companies that do well in a slowdown, the ones that don't need trump's help. you know what i'm talking about. yes, facebook, amazon, netflix, and alphabet, nee google. hence the nasdaq's all time high. the trump rally may have taken a breather. but the fang rally, it's back on. it was so powerful, it went all the way down the food chain to the actual device people use to connect to the internet. that's right, the pin action boosted the stock of apple, which revealed that its app store developers raked in $20 billion in 2016. that's up 40% year-over-year. that means the stream of revenue i'm most excited about for apple, the service stream that can help the company diversify might be growing faster than expected. why else would they release this number? i like it. so did the market. i think the bears on apple, i think they're starting t

or netflix? >> we've seen it before, when alibaba was coming in 2014. it was a massive deal. what happened to googlehat some people thought was a pretty decent comp here. the stock underperformed for most of the summer into the fall when that ipo came. look at the facebook. it's obviously been underperforming since november. could that be used as a source of fund? obviously the story is pretty well-known. they told us they're going to be spending more, investors didn't like that. facebook's going to report in a couple weeks. let's say you've had some monster gains. in q 1 you may just look to do stock replacement strategy. the february 3rd weekly expiration that's the week that's going to catch their earnings. that's a pretty good way to protect your downside if you have big gains and you're worried about, let's say, an ipo surge that could cause facebook to be a source of funds. >> karen, is that a concern of yours seeing that you have alphabet and facebook? >> yes and no. we mentioned in this piece about selling just a portion. so you may have these big public numbers like the enterprise value may

years of transport, netflix, google won the transport and it was priced at zero and in effect that is what ms. neutrality was all about. it meant no pricing the connection point or at least virtually no pricing at the interconnection point. usage-based pricing ended up getting wrapped into it and by and large, title to this over the companies that the sellers of transport. it's already clear that presumption is going to be dismantled. that doesn't suggest that it will be entirely settled in favor of transport providers put the presumption of the edge providers part to argue anything other than good news. the old-line players do you think that you're going to see a shift in congress or towards those companies for political reasons or ideological reasons do you see thdid you see the baf shower shifting seeking a conservative lobbyist to help them navigate the new administration? how much do you think will shift between the old tech companies and players? >> guest: the way you characterize it is exactly right. under the regime, the pendulum had swung quite far. maybe not necessarily just in favor of the edge providers per se but in general there was an anti-incumbe

netflix or amazon. imagine other in that sentence five years ago. they all desire content and the ability to get close to the consumer. what's interesting is that amazon, googleapple, they have lots of cash. but they haven't done a lot of big deals. do you expect that to change at some point? acquiring rivals? >> the five biggest market cap companies in the world are these big tech companies. they all have to have big cash balances offshore that were underpenetrated. as the topline growth starts to slow, it's a natural time to do it. is this question regulatory peace. will they allow them to do that? not from a trust standpoint willy, but the doj or ftc, they allow these big companies to get bigger? it your expectation that the trump administration will be more like the bush administration when it comes to antitrust? gregg: i think it will be. the hope is that it will be a bit looser. the obama administration in the past year. more stringent around m&a. there were $500 billion in transactions last year that fell away because of antitrust. a lot of big deals fell away and the obama administration heading into its last year got more aggressive. i think that it