steve kovac has been standing by at apple. long have been you been standing by at apple's flagship store? >> tyler, about 13 hours. not too bad. and actually, the line is just now starting to thin out. but still lots of crowds, lots of tourists, lots of gawkers. and look, the story here is people are still showing up for the iphone. i talked to a bunch of people in line, not only showing up for that, they're showing up for the pro line of iphones, the more expensive ones, including the max phone, the top tier phone that cost $100 more than it did a year ago. those are the devices that apple really needs to sell well, not just this quarter, especially in the holiday quarter starting in a few weeks. we know smart demand is low. we know apple is facing its fourth quarter of declining sales in a row. that would make it a full fiscal year of down sales. things will get better next quarter just because of all those production problems, but everyone's counting on the demand for the pro staying strong. just a few data points we have b

steve kovac joining us now. i don't think -- is he in san francisco -- i didn't even realize -- steve, i thought you were here earlier when we were -- >> no. >> wow. okay. >> west coast. >> kristina partsinevelos is right here with us on set and there's many angles of this to discuss. first of all tell us about the deal. >> it's important because two reasons. one, you have qualcomm that's going to continue supplying modem chips to apple until 2026. so that's seen as a win, especially because apple is its largest customer, contributes over 23% of total revenue. that's a win. the second major part of this too is that the patent licensing agreement will also continue. that's seen as a separate stream of revenue for qualcomm. both of them coming in. however, if you look at the stock price, it jumped up 8% earlier this morning. it's come down off of those highs. there's probably two reasons for that. one is we don't know the actual terms of the deal but the assumption is that maybe qualcomm's giving some type of prefe

steve kovac covering apple for us let's bring in annika crawford nice to see you again. >> good to see you >> tech is always front and center and apple is up almost 5% year to date and that's definitely led to a more uncertain and i guess more rocky environment in tech, hasn't it >> i think the overall market feels choppier than we've seen if the first nine months of this year and china that was supposed to work and come out of covid didn't come out and ureurope admittedly in a recession and the u.s. consumer showing signs of a little more pressure on the consumer so we're headed into choppier markets and that's basically just water falling >> do you generally feel as apple goes so goes the market right now just because it's been a market-weighted show for the most part since the beginning of the year it's the biggest stock in the market. >> yeah. i think -- i think that there are other stocks that are leading or also, you know, flags for the mark and whether it's microsoft, nvidia as well as apple. i don't think it's an apple-only game this time >> what about the rest of tech do you f

steve kovac, thank you as well. >>> and michael, you have set it up perfectly for us. so how are investors responding to all this? deirdre bosa joins us now along with the aforementioned dan miles who says apple is his single largest short. >> his name mentioned a few times in the last segment. dan, we have you now on the line, thanks for being with us. you outlined a number of reasons why you're short including the latest reports from china, and quote, no a.i. play. in your view, what is the biggest risk to apple at the moment? >> well, it's the one thing that hasn't come up in the last segment, which is what's the risk you're taking on owning it? and one way to measure that is what's your pe ratio? and what's the growth you're getting? so if you look at it from that standpoint, you're paying 28 times pe for apple. revenues grew 2% last year. they grew 1% this year. and you can buy the s&p at 21 times. so the multiple, if you look at it, it's actually expanded about 7% from two years ago, while the revenues are dead flat. and the eps is down. now, by the way, if you t

and as steve kovac pointed out, the lines are longs.w if those are longs i would analogize to the road show where there were a lot of demand and then off to the races and fizzled out. we'll see if it's true demand or first day, early adapters. >> >>> speaking of mega cap tech, microsoft and activision finally close to clearing that final hurdle that prevented the $69 deal from closing. we'll get details next. >>> delivering alpha is less than a week away. september 28th in new york city. scan that qr code or visit cnbcevents.com/deliveringalpha. >>> welcome back. let's dig into this week's ed decision. our next guest served as fed governor and says we may not need to raise rates any further from here, making the case it will be hard to avoid an economic slowdown next year as inflation starts to come down. joining us former fed governor randy kroszner. thank you for being here. is it binary, is it -- if you raise rates, you're definitely going to have a hard landing? if you don't raise rates, you'll avoid it? or is it a bit more complex

joining me now is laura martin, senior internet and analyst at needham and steve kovac is with us, as well. welcome to you both. laura, it doesn't seem like this -- i don't know, the apple shares aren't moving up on this. the larger questions are still probably just china and demand. >> agreed 100%. it looks like maybe biden is trying to thaw relationships with china. that's best for apple and disney who have big operations in china. each of them are about 20% of their revenue on apple's side and 20% of theme park revenue for disney. so it would be really great if we didn't go to war figuratively or literally with china. >> it's interesting you say that because obviously the president has been in vietnam. he was just in india. lately he's been corralling allies like korea and japan to form this. it looks like unfortunately, the u.s. is preparing for a more tense future with china. it has these agreements with india to build out its own -- i don't want to call it a built-in road, but to push back a little bit, but where and how shouldwe read the signals that we think the administration

. >>> let's get over to steve kovac for the cnbc news update. >> united flights are once again cleared for departure after a technology issue led to a brief nationwide ground stop this afternoon. united officials teld cnbc it held all departing flights because of the issue. flights already in the air were not affected. the issue was resolved in about an hour. >>> also lawyers for convicted murderer alex murdaugh filed a motion today seeking a new trial in the killings of his wife and youngest son and claim they uncovered evidence the clerk of the court tampered with the jury by telling them not to believe murdaugh's testimony or evidence presented by the defense. the once prominent south carolina lawyer is serving two consecutive life sentences without parole. for the first time in 18 years the rolling stones are releasing new music. the band's new album will debut on wednesday during a youtube live stream. it is their first since 2005's "a bigger bang." mick jager still going strong at 80, guys. >> they are amazing, the stones. it is amazing the stones are still rolling. particularly