Ive taken this quarantine times to update a couple of bathrooms. Not. Light bulbs i have always wanted to be handy. These numbers are expected to be insane i did change a couple of light bulbs. They are all different so finding the right one for all the Different Things my wife has, it is not easy. I have changed a couple of them but thats about it. Rising to the challenge, im sure before we get those numbers from home depot, lets start with the overall markets. The s p 500 finished the session just shy of the high just shy, we are talking 4. 15 points away from the record it is sitting at at this point. 3,386. 15 is where it closed. The record from february is 3,393. 52 the record close of 2020 up another 1 to 11,129. Looking at record futures. Two dow components reporting home depot and walmart big numbers expected from both of those dow futures up by 64, nasdaq up by 40 and s p up by 7. Dow component reported 4. 02 a share. Consensus was 3. 71. I noted revenue gain was over 23 . Comp sales year over year gained 23. 4 . Revenue estimate was around 34 billion. I think they did 38 billion it is what i guess we expected why analysts arent there, i dont know well have one on right now. He can explain why analysts are a little conservative. Im not even going to shame you into giving me revenue numbers what about this number and why is it so hard to figure out if the stores are crowded, everybody in a mask. Everybody is at home tinkering god knows what some of these shelves put up look like, honestly ill say this my call has been home depot now in 20 plus years ive never seen a quarter like this 25 comp for a 100 billion company. To answer your question, i raised my numbers to what i thought was a high of 12 to 14 . This is home depot putting up a 25 comp is amazing there will some that might do better it is actually more than it ever would have been. Who decided to paint every room in their house ive done a few things. I talk about your show a lot. Precovid19, i was talking about how stars were doing really well. We went from above midsingle digits to 25 . It is incredible i was with home depot management, they jokingly said, they are convinced everyone in the United States is building a deck right now they are in their homes more, they have more time. They are undertaking these projects people spender more time in their homes and the honey do list theyve been projects theyve been planning to do and havent had the time to do and now they are doing them thats an excellent description. I wonder how much has been added because of the stimulus that went out because of the 1,200 checks and additional unemployment dollars going out all of this additional money there. Fewer places to spend it you couldnt go on vacation. A lot of people couldnt go out and eat. Do you think this continues and if so, how long . Thats a great question something im wrestling with now. The stimulus has had a positive impact in certain categories i dont think thats as big with the Home Improvement retailers generally speaking, home depot and lowes cater to higher Income Customers who are benefitting less from stimulus as far as the sustainability goes, is the al coindication of spending there are clearly categories dining out, traveling, theyve been hit very hard that is spending that has been reallocated in large part. That is something im starting to wrestle with here looking at closely here to suggest what they are saying, all the bases it hides their business and allows them to perform well that is a sign and with a vaccine, how could they do a combination of both i was saying, you know you see it in the online ordering from restaurants. Did you see a forecast from home depot . Theres no guidance. I would suggest those comments would be up beat and that those businesses would remain strong the company has said it has spent 1. 3 billion on enhances pay benefits another question, do you think the enhanced pay and benefits are something that sticks around in any form . I think the answer is absolutely yes home depot is one of the First Companies to undertake high quality. Going forward, i think theyll be better compensating their employees. It is the right thing to do, a nice thing to do it is a benefit because employees are more engaged and loyaled loyal loyaled to loyal to the company. Tomorrow is lowes are you going to raise your base on lowes on this generally, we are slow to do that i would say, look, these numbers from home depot bode very well for lowes. They are performing much better now than a year ago. It wouldnt surprise me given the position of lowes, that they would perform better than home depot. It wouldnt surprise me to see Something Better than that 25 wow after what you said at the top too about how unbelievable this one was. That should be something to look forward to youll be here tomorrow, wont you . I will be here. Will we see that jacket again . Im going to switch it up for you. Did you use a couch nice fabric. Big game couch hunting better than animals. Thank you, brian well see you tomorrow see you tomorrow. Joe, ive missed you it has been a few weeks. How was your vacation . I think i know where you are . Did you feel his presence. Our little buddy is down there sluming in jersey. Andrew is at the shore. What, the hamptons were booked hes going to get inked he says hes never been there. I think hes in a rude awakening. Never been to new jersey . Youve got to give me the details. I see you that is a beautiful blue dnc blue you are sporting today. You can see how i am politicize everything that is brown you see this its purple. This is so beautifully purple. You are color blind this is so purple it must be the lighting. I just wanted to talk about my tie. Brown this is as purple can anyone confirm that it is purple in the booth. They cant. The s p just shy of an alltime high. Every day it says in instructions, happy traders. Every day, it says happy traders. Purple that guy does not look happy. There is happy traders you missed it that guy is not looking. He looks happy. Did you watch any of it last night . Did you know the nba playoffs started . I got up this morning and watched a lot of clips i didnt watch it last night you watched some clips this morning . I did im going to try to catch up right now. I had the celtics by seven and they did win i planned on watching the entire thing start to finish. Are you betting on this stuff . I Won Every Game on basketball over on the raptors. The over and had the raptors the first game as well did you see that one mitchell with 57 points. I won on that one. I had the celtics. I shouldnt say that because Michael Ruben would be mad Glen Hutchens would be happy. And wick, the other guy in boston when we come back, well talk about an early stumble for inperson education. Unc scrapping plans for oncampus learning after an outbreak of covid after the first week back. An update on vaccine progress next right now, check out shares of apple. Just below the 2 trillion market cap it needs to trade above that to reach that milestone right now, you can see, it is a 460. 25 we are watching that closely squawk box will be rig bk. Htac come on in, were open. All we do is hand you the bag. Simple. Done. We adapt and we change. You know, you just figure it out. Weve just been finding a way to keep on pushing. Wyou say the customersg a waymaklets talk data. S. Only Xfinity Mobile lets you switch up your wireless data whenever. I accept 5g, everybodys talking about it. How do i get it . Everyone gets 5g with our new data options at no extra cost. Thats good. Next item corner offices for everyone. Just have to make more corners in this building. Chad. Your wireless. Your rules. Only with Xfinity Mobile. Now thats simple, easy, awesome. Switch and save up to 400 a year on your wireless bill. Plus, get 400 off when you preorder the new Samsung Galaxy note20 ultra 5g. University of North Carolina chapel hill is canceling inperson classes after an outbreak of covid after one week shifting to Remote Learning by tomorrow it will continue to hold inperson classes in graduate, and health care. Moving forward with plans to play fall sports 23 members of a sorrority house in oklahoma. The entire house is on quarantined. The university is conducting Contact Tracing. Did you see the cover of the tar heel paper i missed that they had a banner across the top. I saw it on twitter. They had five clusters that had developed. At least five people in each that developed with covid. They called it a cluster f across the top of the paper. I guess it. I get it interesting. Bad. As the number of covid19 go ahead. All right delays the number of covid cases continue to rise, scientists are working hard to create a vaccine. Moderna has started phase three trials late last month joining us with more is dr. Carlos delrio. An investigator in the moderna covid19 trials. Thank you for being with us today. Delighted at being here with you. What kind of work are you performing whats happening right now is we are talking a phase three study taking place thats when you actually test the efficacy this is where the rubber meets the road you see if the vaccine has proven to be safe and can be proven to be effective you have to enroll large numbers of people. We are talking 30,000 people in 89 sites half receive the vaccine and half the placebo they do not know who gets what you follow the participants and you follow for infection and you follow for cases there is a group looking at the irregular allstarity. Seeing that stops the study. That is really the most exciting phase of developments for vaccine or a drug. We started hearing a few weeks ago the vaccine would be effective. Saying it would be nice to see 65 to 70 efficacy what would it mean if you saw something that was at least 50 up to 75 effective . What would that mean in terms of changing covid and our behaviors . Developing a vaccine against a respiratory virus is difficult. The flu vaccine we use every year is only 40 to 50 remember, we want to get to a point where we call a herd immunity at 50 , would you get there. It would be a game changer if we get a vaccine with 50 efficacy. With the flu vaccine, you often still get the flu but it is weaker. Is that a theory that is a theory as well. One is that youll get it but not end up in the icu or the hospital you would decrease the mortality of the disease where do you think well stand for how long until we get a vaccine and one that is massively deployed as the phase three trials are starting, the government has made investments to help them develop ahead of approval. The idea that one or more shows efficacy you dont need to start showing massive doses. Youll have those ready to go. If everything goes well, you may be talking march or april next year, where you can say we have a vaccine and plenty of doses. Reality is that nothing will happen you have a very good decision to have come forward with the production of the vaccine to come forward this way. You seem optimistic is that a Fair Assessment . First of all, i would say, we went from the virus to putting the vaccine in a human in 65 days nowhere in the history has the time line been so start. Because of the technology and research we have im hopeful well get to one or more effective vaccines as a result of that we are all hoping for the same thing, doctor thank you for your time. Wish you luck from all of us thank you joe . I think only putin got one quicker. He may have cut a few corners, as we know becky, youll have to check out twitter. This is so purple. It was important for me to wear purple as a red state, blue state guy. Politicizing clothing you are really sensitive about that that is not purple. Look at the thing it could not be more purple. Lift it up above the ticker maybe a little purple. Look on twitter it is as purple as my eyes coming up, a bidder working on the deal to buy tiktok and Steve Mnuchin will be on squaucsquawk on the street at 9 15. We are coming right back some Companies Still have hr stuck between employees and their data. Entering data. Changing data. More and more sensitive, personal data. And it doesnt just drag hr down. It drags the entire business down with inefficiency, errors and waste. Its ridiculous. So ridiculous. With paycom, employees enter and manage their own data in a single, easy to use software. Visit paycom. Com, and schedule your demo today. That selling carsarvana, 100 online wouldnt work. But we went to work. Building an experience that lets you shop over 17,000 cars from home. Creating a coast to Coast Network to deliver your car as soon as tomorrow. Recruiting an army of customer advocates to make your experience incredible. And putting you in control of the whole thing with powerful technology. Thats why weve become the nations Fastest Growing retailer. Because our customers love it. See for yourself, at carvana. Com. Confirming a report that oracle is in talks to buy tiktok of u. S. , canadian, australia and new zealand. Telling us oracle and microsoft are far ahead of other companies that might have expressed interest the concerns are that oracle doesnt have a consumer facing Media Business so this would be a good move and hence the interest this is like the is the dress blue and black or gold and white debate about your tie. No. It is not. Its purple. The last time i saw something this purple, it was a big dinosaur named barny miss barny. When we come back, the maker of the popular fortnite video game says apple is threatening the future of its games over a disagreement we head to the break, we look at yesterdays winners and losers just about five points away. Maybe less than that from an alltime high. We are watching that closely too. As business moves forward, were all changing the way things get done. Like how we redefine collaboration. How we come up with new ways to serve our customers. And deliver our products. But no matter how things change, one thing never will. You can rely on the people and the network of at t. To help keep your business connected. Good morning u. S. Equity futures are showing some gains we are very close to an alltime high the dow jones indicated up about 80 nasdaq is at 33 already. Looking to add to that today up 42 points. The fight between apple and epic is moving way beyond fortnite. Apple is looking to disable their developing rules epic is the creator of unreal engine, a sweet of too suite tools used for developers. Fortnite is one game it has 350 million registered players. The entire mobil app economy is estimated to be worth 120 billion. Ill bet you that economy was a stayathome beneficiary as well to say the least joining us now to discuss this, current president of care journey. A Health Care Analytics firm i look at your comments and i cant say i was surprised. You are not convinced that 30 they charge is a result of eamon oply or that that is unfair to epic how do you know 29 is not for fair or 25 and where does epic come in and compete for that im very pro competition. On this issue, the question mark is where the market failure exists if you and i wan to access the internet to play a game, we can do so. We have services on the mobil apps that look like the app. You and i might bank on my deposit by mail. You dont pay 30 to apple they distribute the app. Netflix, we sign up and pay for that in a direct to their website. We distribute the content through the app. There are normal and proper Market Forces at work that allow one to determine the best value for the service. I would argue the Number One Service games get is distribution fast through these app stores that have strong feedback loops to the Customer Base getting as many customers as possible and using the developer around pi to access and up charge customers as they play your game. There are terms of that deal im not so sure the government will be better or worse than 29 , 22 , that will be on whether apple treats developers consistently it will have one outcome and fw there is evidence of malfeasance, if you will, youll see the courts and regulators come in on laws that exist on the books today. Tim cook points out i dont know if you call it a miracle but that app store with 1. 7 million apps it has been an unbelievably success. To be able to piggy back that distribution, is it a gift horse . What do you want from us you should say thank you, not f you. For obvious reasons, if behavior on the part of an app store reflects developer treatment. Under what basis have you not. Those guard rails against that with this evidence, you ask me the question, epic games are available on mac the platforms are ubiquitous on the personal matter, i care about Health Care Data one of the advantages is that it does create an opportunity for stronger privacy protection. The idea that we want every app available. If my kids take my phone and download an app that hasnt been secured. And Sensitive Data is leaked out. Im more worried about that than these entities squaubling over fees where were you on the obama admin operation on Net Neutrality how did you feel about that . Are you kidding me, of course we need Net Neutrality it didnt mean everything was free it meant there were equal opportunities for App Developers big and small to access in the economy. I would argue even in those results, you would have clear policies to manage services above and beyond the basic infrastructure, those can be negotiated in a fair Market Driven way i dont see any instance, in fact, the principal of being able to bring apps, even if it is a competitor app, the value on this. With he have to run if they lose you, i dont know how theyll prevail on this. We have to go. They are telling me wrap, wrap we have somewhere to go. We have to be fair to all of our guests, apparently anyway, thank you. Well see you soon thank you and how much time chit chat in the meantime. Well bring you the dnc highlights we are expecting walmarts numbers in a few minutes ons eybring you those numbers as soth come out. Up 137. 97 this morning right now, switch to tmobile and get four lines of unlimited for just 25 bucks a line. With access to americas largest 5g included. Thats right. Unlimited and nationwide 5g for the whole family for just 25 bucks a line. Only at tmobile. Set to add thousands of jobs in a hiring spree in new york city adding 2,000 workers in new york theyll be working in the historic fifth avenue building that once housed lord and lay tore that amazon purchased from wework increasing remote work good price when you can get it when we come back, we are on record watch for the s p 500 checking out some of the stocks for the big names. Hitting those highs yesterday including walmart. Walmart hit an alltime high yesterday. Well hit the Second Quarter results. Up another 2. Walmart ceo will be with us to break down the numbers when they hit. Stick around well be right back. Ttle surpri. Two . They didnt panic. They got a bigger car for their soontobebigger family. After shopping around for insurance, they called usaa who helped find the right coverage for them and even some muchneeded savings. That was the easy part. Usaa insurance is made the way liz and mike need it easy. Ubefore money, peoplee the wtools, cattle, grain,it even shells represented value. Then currency came along. They made it out of copper, gold, silver, wampum. Soon people decided to put all that value into a piece of paper, then proceeded to wave goodbye to value, printing unlimited amounts of money as they passed the buck to the future. Thats why its time for Digital Currency and your investment in the grayscale funds. Go digital. Go grayscale. Democrats kicking off their Virtual Convention eamon joins us with highlights good morning. Unlike nothing weve seen before in american politics in a pandemic era, democrats try to figure out how the convention looks. No balloons or silly hats. They did have some political stars on last night. Starting with Bernie Sanders who made an explicit appeal to the left wing base saying they need to come together to support joe biden even if they were sanders supporters the future of our economy is at stake the future of our planet is at stake. We must come together. Defeat donald trump and elect joe biden and Kamala Harris as our next president and vice president. My friends, the price of failure is just too great to imagine the biggest star of the night is former first Lady Michelle obama. She used the words of President Trump on the death toll against him. Donald trump is the wrong president for our country. He has had more than enough time to prove that he can do the job but he is clearly in over his head he cannot meet this moment he simply cannot be who we need to be for us it is what it is guys, youve got to imagine republicans are watching this and taking notes in terms of what worked and what didnt work a different experience watching this from home than it has for me in previous years you can imagine republicans will be watching and say well do this and not that. Democrats may shift the format we can expect aoc and bill clinton speaking tonight more political stars on the horizon. Were there many manages the Business World can take away from the campaign . Not a lot in terms of policy. This is about donald trump and the dooimt of donald trump that hes not fit to be the president of the United States we saw john casen there endorsing joe biden. What the democrats were trying to do is show that they have the biggest possible tent politically. It strained a little bit at times. We saw this aoc who are disenfranchised from donald trump. Not a whole lot of focus on tax rate, policy or all of that stuff. We need some we need some sound, eamon, i think. Ill tell you why i think that i have been watching they do it very effectively. They do it very effectively with the nba playoffs when something great happens, there is crowd, video, fake people i guess you really cant do that, but i miss that. Yeah. You really need that. I mean, the republicans cant start piping in jeers, that would be too weird theyre stuck. Both parties are stuck. Its all weird. Flat but this flat delivery thats sort of you know, but back to my question yesterday. So you think i think they had to think, when do we put bernie up we want to keep his people but we dont want him to be the face of the party you saw what happened when he almost became the nominee. They ran from him so quickly i just dont think that his positions are palatable to enough people. Its a fine line. Bernie sanders knows that he took a lot of blame Bernie Sanders took a lot of blame inside the Democratic Party for not seeming to be reluctant in 2016 to endorse hillary clinton, not coming around fast enough. I think Bernie Sanders last night was trying to rectify a lot of that by saying making a real endorsement of biden in terms of policy, too hes talking about bidens proposal for health care for americans saying its not what he would prefer but its much better than what we have right now. Sanders using this moment to try to unify the party as i say, it did feel like it was straining a little bit especially when you saw john kasich and what he got on the left saying whats this republican doing here at our convention. Right. Hes like a man without a country. You know whats buffets saying criticized by he doesnt have anyone, democrats or republicans that think much of him im from ohio. Thanks, eamon. Becky. You bet. Criticized by category, praised by name. I think thats the saying, joe yeah. For more on this, lets bring on jim pedakukis hes with aei and a cnbc contributor and julie margetta roland julie, let me start with you just in terms of what you think happened last night, what you think needs to come out of this. And maybe most importantly, lets taylor this to the Business Community what should they be listening for . We didnt see a lot of policy specifics last night, but i do think we saw some themes that well see throughout the rest of the convention they do give some lessons for the Business Community we saw a theme around the Health Crisis that our country is facing, the depth of that crisis and the need to address it thats going to mean investments in research and design, its going to mean investments in manufacturing that will bring the ppe and testing and Contact Tracing that our country so desperately needs to get back on track. We heard talk about systemic racism in our country. Thats going to mean not just fixing the policing crisis in our country, it means fixing the ways racism fixes our economy and excludes certain people from it. Jim, i think the big message well be looking for, both from the dnc and then from the Republican Convention when it comes up is what do they plan to do interms of spending and how do they plan to pay for it do you think well hear much of that in either of these con vechgss . On the second point, we dont do that in washington. Thats old school thinking i think one message from this convention for markets, for wall street, for business was do not be afraid. Listen, there is all of this talk about just what republicans have been saying, that joe biden will be a tool of Bernie Sanders and aoc and the hard left. If you watched that convention, Bernie Sanders got up there and he was a tool of joe biden he was a good soldier. I mean, i dont think they could have asked any more out of Bernie Sanders when he talked about policy or sort of the bits that were sort of most popular and certainly least scary. He didnt talk about putting ceos in jail he didnt talk about breaking up amazon, which most people like so i think thats the message they wanted to get across, they did a pretty good job doing that what are the odds that that happens again tonight with aoc last i heard last night she wasnt going to be invited to speak at all they might have some listen, as we know doing these zoom calls, theres a lot of technical difficulty perhaps there will be a technical difficulty during her 60 seconds of talking. Julie, what do you think on that, what the democrats have to do right now to try and pull both sides together while theyre bringing former republicans into this as well . How effective will that be for the overall base well, i think all the democrats really have to do right now is to speak to the moment that were in its not really hard to find policies that can unite across Bernie Sanders and republicans who arent interested in voting for donald trump because were all interested in policies that can get us out of the crisis right now. That means policies of a pretty big scale. Some of the things that Bernie Sanders talked about including universal child care, universal prek, investments in climate, investments in infrastructure, these are all things that will create jobs and unite across the party. Julie and jimmy, good to see both of you. I feel like well see a lot of you in the coming months. I hope so. Thanks for your time. Jimmy knew he was on as the other side of that, right . Anyway, never mind coming up, walmarts Second Quarter results due out any minute were bringing you instant analysis with the rmfoer ceo of walmart u. S. Well be right back. Before money, people traded goods. Tools, cattle, grain, even shells represented value. Then currency came along. They made it out of copper, gold, silver, wampum. Soon people decided to put all that value into a piece of paper, then proceeded to wave goodbye to value, printing unlimited amounts of money as they passed the buck to the future. Thats why its time for Digital Currency and your investment in the grayscale funds. Go digital. Go grayscale. And im here with nicole and miles and were out to find the top looks for day one back to school at Dicks Sporting Goods and so we want to find something thats going to grab everyones attention the variety and selection is crazy bucket hat bucket hat this would be a fire first day fit. Definitely making a statement with that. Go dicks. Whether youre going back to School Online or inperson, get the brands that make a statement. Day one starts here. The s p 500 inching closer to the record closing high well find out what could drive this market higher and where you should be putting money to work. Waiting on walmart earnings expected any minute the numbers and the instant reaction is straight ahead. And a new rival emerges as a possible suitor for tiktoks u. S. Operations. That story and much more as the second hour of squawk box begins right now. Good morning and welcome back to squawk box here on cnbc im joe kernen along with becky quick. Andrew is off today down at, what is it, Seaside Heights or i dont know hes somewhere around. Thats actually not where he is. But hes at the shore. He is at the shore and i think by now he might have a rash, im not sure he may end up liking it down there. U. S. Equity futures are sharply higher and theyve moved up. It might be because of walmart, becky. I dont know they moved up just in the last couple of minutes. I know walmarts out yeah. It is and its a very strong number thats probably exactly why the futures are moving higher. Bertha coombs has the numbers. Lets get straight over to her bertha reporter walmart under 1. 56 a share. Thats more than 30 cents better than the Analyst Consensus on revenues of 137. 7 billion compared to 135. 5 top line estimate samestore sales were up 9. 3 . Thats nearly double the analyst estimates of 5. 4 gain thats coming off a record 10. 5 gain last quarter. Sams club very strong as well up 13. 3 the ecommerce up 39 after rolling out Curbside Pickup in june international was down 6. 8 due to the strong dollar x currency was up 6. 1 u. S. Ecommerce nearly doubled, up 97 for the Second Quarter after a 74 surge in the First Quarter with strength in general Merchandise Sales as people bought more items for home and outdoors, particularly Strong Demand for things like bicycles. You know that if you tried to find one and couldnt. Cfo brett biggs said stimulus checks were impactful for consumers in the Second Quarter. They are watching right now whats going on in washington and the new stimulus package negotiations carefully saying it would be helpful for consumers to have a new stimulus check the uncertainty of that gives them pause to provide guidance for the rest of the year as does the uncertainty of school reopening. Biggs says that business right now is seeing fairly normal comps, but its unclear how back to school is going to play out and that its going to be a little choppy and later than weve seen it in the past as a result of the very different schedules weve seen across the country. Second quarter covidrelated Company Bonus costs were 1. 5 billion. The third bonus is being paid out just this week becky, a monster number. Yeah. Im looking through this release and theres no shortage of eyepopping numbers in this, bertha you mentioned so many of them. Heres one that jumps out at me. Sams club saw the growth in membership income was the highest quarterly increase new member count more than 60 the only down side i see in any of this, margins improve just about everywhere walmart net sales were down by 6. 8 but that was because of the changes in currency that youve seen and whats happened with the dollar if it hadnt been for that, they would have seen an increase of 1. 6 there, too. So many numbers to dig through it tells you whats happening around the globe. 7 for 10 markets around the globe were open. Some have had to reclose a little bit but overall its strong everywhere the fact that they have this omni channel ability to sell and ability to sell online and have them pick up in store or outside in the parking lot, you dont even have to go into the store, is really one of the things that is playing to their strengths right now. Interestingly, theyre not quite ready to talk about whether theyre going to do the rival to amazon prime, the walmart plus that people have talked about. Certainly when you look at those comps when it comes to ecommerce, youve got to think theyre thinking much more seriously about it bertha, thank you very much folks in the control room, can we call up that walmart chart. Were looking at it here lets look at the interday maybe on a closer bigger screen on this walmart shares closed yesterday at an alltime high. This morning they were trading up 2 before we got these numbers but on these numbers its jumped even more. Just to put this into perspective what youre dealing with here. If you can look at that chart, last i looked it was up Something Like, yeah, 8 i wanted to make sure i wasnt seeing things. Thats a gain of 6 from the alltime high that walmart shares set yesterday this is a dow component. Dow was already up based on what we heard from home depot now its indicated up by 132 points this morning, the dow futures. Well continue to watch that joining us to dig into the walmart results. Becky joe, go ahead no, just as an overall, s p is near an alltime high, too. A day doesnt go by where an article is written or we dont make the case throughout the day that its a sugar high based on fed action, based on stimulus, based on these transitory effects and responses to the virus, and you look at home depot, and thats stay at home obviously. Walmart has a great digital presence so thats kind of a stay at home play, too but underlying all of this theres got to be something to the notion that there has been a lot of Economic Activity that we have misunderestimated in the words of george bush maybe maybe were way out over our skis. Maybe the s p has no business being anywhere near where it was before the pandemic or maybe not. Because the numbers we just saw for home depot and walmart certainly bring up the you know, if its an air pocket, we just had the floor move up a little bit theres the airlines, the cruise ships, gym operators and amcs of the world and all the other things that are just devastated but somebody kept doing something throughout the pandemic and we are i feel a little bit better about the market levels. I feel better about the market levels. Consumers have been spending. Consumers have been out there. Theyve had fewer places to spend at nobody was going on vacation cruise lines, airlines are suffering from it, but people took the money that they would have deployed in those areas and put it back into places like walmart, home depot, not to mention those are the stores that have been open throughout they have continued to build their lead and pick up market share throughout all of these things absolutely this is the sign that the consumer is spending somewhere. Maybe its like a balloon you squeeze here and shut it off there. Then the outside you know go up, you know . My only point is that i just dont think its you know, a lot of people think theyre smart by looking thinking theyre smarter than the market and there are some more than green chutes we need to evaluate about where we are than the fundamentals. Lets bring in Charlie Oshea and he can talk about this last bit and whats sustaining it charlie is Moodys Investment Services and senior credit officer. Bill simon is with us. Former walmart ceo of walmart u. S. Bill, well talk with you. All the time you spent at walmart, did you ever see anything like this absolutely not. This is just a phenomenal quarter for them good on all fronts as you guys were talking, it was an indicator that the consumer is still there once we sort through all of this covid stuff, theyre willing to spend. Particularly impressed by their operating income ive been watching that for several years. Its been challenged as they moved their business to digital and ecommerce. Operating income has been under pressure they grew their operating income 9 and even adjusted for currency in the mid teens. Thats phenomenal. And, bill, i guess youd have to say that that is just incredibly strong management doug mack micmillon pushing this theyve been pushing on that and building it, its really getting off now. I agree dougs terrific. Bretts one of the best cfos in the country. Right now it looks like theyve been able to get the ecommerce growth under control to a way it can deliver some pathway to profitability. If they can do that, theyre going to be tough to stop. Yeah. Charlie, what do you think looking through these results . Well, i agree with pretty much everything bill said. In fact, everything bill said. I would go one step further. I think that were seeing this every quarter it looks like theyre run beining on all cylinders. Weve gone from an eight cylinder engine and the way theyve been able to integrate it with store base, curbside, everything else. This is a tough one. This is setting a high bar for brick and mortar retail. Its giving amazon something to think about. Ive said for a long time that i frame the question of how does amazon compete with walmart not how does walmart compete with amazon were starting to see this battle really escalate hey, charlie, what would you say broadly about the consumer because obviously this is huge for walmart. What does it mean for the overall economy and for other retailers too . If you were open you obviously had advantages thats not exactly a lightning bolt coming out of the sky, but i think what were seeing with the consumer, they have money, theyre willing to spend they werent able to spend for a while because a lot of places werent open and now that things are starting to reopen, theres a lot of pentup demand here during the early days of the pandemic, during the lockdowns, no ones buying pants. No ones buying blouses, no ones buying tops. You cant eat those and you cant use them to clean your house. People had kind of shifted their demand towards the essentials and the consumables. Now theyre moving in another direction. Walmart is benefitting they benefitted from the early blast of spending and now theyre benefitting as it expands and you saw the margin go up which indicates theyre selling a lot of other nonconsumable stuff because those margins are lower. I also cover the auto retailers. The auto retailers showed an awful lot of resilience. Q2 numbers for my rated universe were much better than expected we didnt expect them to be that bad. The consumer clearly has money the stimulus obviously helps the folks that are still employed are out there spending and i think that portends well for target, the essential retail type consumers will be benefitting. Bill, we go back and forth on this debate in washington about what is needed in the next stimulus plan. Obviously the democrats and the republicans are pretty far apart. Based on the number that youre seeing here with walmart, what does that tell you about the strength of the consumer or do you think you can even figure that out right now is it based on the last stimulus checks still being spent we have a senator, tom cotton, whos coming up a little later this morning what would you be asking him and telling him you need to see in terms of a stimulus package when you see numbers like this from a walmart and a home depot well, its really hard to gauge, but by and large i think they need to build a program that will bridge the consumer to, you know, close to normalcy, whatever that looks like its probably going to require another stimulus you know, walmart and depot, others did phenomenally well theres some a whole, you know, litfulany of retail trage that didnt participate in this boom its not a broad boom, its a very narrow boom at this point you know, i think its a good lesson if you take a healthy consumer by and large and you keep them home, even the ones working are working from home and you feed them a bunch of cash, theyll go spend it that needs to be what we are doing until we can get fully functional and past covid however long that takes. Bill and charlie, want to thank you both for being with us today. Obviously big numbers and we appreciate your instant analysis on this. Home depot shares surging in the premarket as well Frank Holland joins us right now with more on that. Frank . Becky, shares of home depot trading 2 higher with a pandemic fueled Home Improvement craze. Home depot reporting a beat on revenues and beat on ets with more than a quarter over estimates. Eye popping here 23 growth with estimates just at 11 heres a large reason why. The sales per customer increased as 10 they nested and invested more in the homes and backyards. Home improvement giant said they paid 480 million to employees in bonuses but brian nagel from oppenheimer said he was watching closely the overall cost of doing business they remain the same 17 of sales this quarter, versus 16 just a year ago overall this was the quarter that analysts were expecting from home depot. Lowes which reports tomorrow, those shares up 3 joe, back over to you. All right, frank. Thank you. Thats two out of two anyway today. Becky, i have to tell you im getting a lot of support a lot of people chiming in that they agree with me, not on the economy but that your ty is purp until. Yeah, not on the figures. Yeah. All of the important arguments yeah, exactly no, the but the other i mean, maybe its a zero sum game or maybe its a little bit above zero sum maybe whats not spent on going tout dinner is spent on paint, i dont know there is stimulus money that went out there and this can all come crashing down on any day, i understand that you know, it can get scary and who knows what the news cycle is going to bring, but at this point i just think maybe weve, you know, over done the pessimism. Ive always said that. Anyway, i try to be happy, optimistic we do have a lot to be happy and and not everyone does i need to walk in some other shoes obviously as well but by definition the market is up to form yeah. Absolutely this morning i hate when people say absolutely this morning the dow is indicated up about 108 points. Peter shacknow points out at the current levels home depot and walmart alone would adds more than 100 points to the dow futures. The big pop is all walmart and home depot driving things up based on real numbers. Based on real numbers and, you know, who knows, maybe it will be maybe other companies will drive it down Katie Stockton yesterday was on. Shes great. She said were definitely going to hit some overhead here and 5 to 10 pull back looks like it would be scary it would be easy to paint what could cause a spike in the vix and a selloff in the market. Coming up, the electric vehicle frenzy continues on wall street another startup going public today. Were going to hear from the ceo of canu. I think its a great idea, u ntric canoe yodot have to paddle its awful squawk box will be right back. Knowing were prepared for the future. Surprise we renovated the guest room, so you can live with us. Im good at my condo. Well planned, well invested, well protected. Voya. Be confident to and through retirement. Welcome to camp tonsafun on xfinity its summer camp, but in your living room. Learn how to draw with a minions expert. How to build an indoor Obstacle Course plus. Whatever shes doing. And me, jade cattapreta. The host of es the soup camp tonsafun. Its like summer camp, but minus the poison ivy. Unless you own poison ivy. In which case, why . Just say summer camp into your xfinity voice remote to join. Tesla shares hitting another new all time high. Elon musk is on number 5 on the forbes and tesla is up in the last five trading sessions there is a growing number of electric vehicle startups going public in a nontraditional way this morning we are seeing yet another. Phil lebeau joins us with another. He has more with the story phil, good morning. Reporter becky, good morning. This was announced in the last few minutes. Canu, you may not be familiar with them. They are hoping you will be. It will be going public through a spac it will be through a merger with Hennessy Capital korpikoski. The value 2. 4 billion it will be trading on the nasdaq under cnoo 600 million will be the proceeds what is a canoo . Thats the name of the first vehicle. Its certainly different looking to be sure it will go on sale in 2022 the ceo, were going to hear from shortly, calls this a loft on wheels. Also calls it a space ship now theyre hoping at canoo that they can replicate the success or at least the investor demand for an ev spac related stock after it goes public take a look at nikola. This is the blueprint that these ev companies have been hoping to replicate. Thats tesla that youre looking at there if you looked at nikola and you looked at what nikola is over the last three months, you would see that it has exploded in value. There we go. Theres nikola it pulled back a little bit. By the way, we now have three ev spacs lets bring in the ceo of canoo. Joining us from torrence california uli franz right there in front of the canoo were going to talk about the vehicle a little bit tell us how quickly did this deal come together when did you Start Talking to hennessy and saying, yeah, we think this is the way to go . Hi, phil. Thank you for having me. Yeah, we are working on it a while and we were really looking at different spacs that are out there. Hennessy has a very mature team. They have a very good track record we are really happy that hennessy joined forces with us. Youre planning to roll out that vehicle thats behind, you which is also called canoo youre planning to roll that out on a subscription model basis by 2022 thats right. Where are you going to build it second of all, do you really believe there is a market out there, especially an urban market for this subscription model when it comes to evs like that yeah, absolutely. So we are rolling out the vehicle at the beginning of 2022 and there is a huge market for vehicle at our size. Our vehicle is actually sitting on a unique architecture it has a huge interior space on a relatively small footprint it is perfectly designed for the urban environment. The millenian yals are not willing to make a long term commitment they would really appreciate what we are doing. We have a subscription model which allows them to get the car month by month it includes pretty much everything so its insurance, its maintenance, its dmv all comes into one package and i guess this is the new way how to shop vehicles uli, youve been in the Auto Industry for years many of your former colleagues say this is not going to end well when it comes to all of these ev Companies Going public through spacs. One said this is going to end poorly for a lot of investors. How do you convince investors your ipo is the one thats going to survive in our case, we are different. We have already vehicles on the road as you might know, we started at the beginning of 2018 and within 19 months we designed, developed, and produced 32 prototypes and 13 of them are running vehicles they deliver results every day and the other ones we have been used for testing so we also performed already more than 50 physical crash tests just to make sure that the correlation between our simulation fits the realworld results so we are a Mature Company we also attracted, for instance, a company like unda. They did hard Due Diligence for us we make money with this Engineering Service already today. Uli, last question here you told me yesterday on the phone you like to call this a space ship or a loft on wheels the inside is certainly unique right. You believe there is a market here for people who are tired of the Traditional Seats within a vehicle, right yes absolutely absolutely because vehicles dont have to look as they look today because today even all electric vehicles look like Combustion Engine powered vehicles they have an engine compartment, passenger compartment, and a Luggage Department we take advantage of the electric power train and we could make the interior more relacking and we are not talking about traditional car seats. We are more talking about furniture and as you mentioned, its pretty much a loft on wheels the other thing what we can bring across is design is already ready for autonomous riding imagine if we move to 112, 113, 114, there might not be any reason for a direction of a vehicle. Its already designed to look symmetrical. Uli kranz joining us in front of his companys first vehicle, the canoo. Joe, i know that you were looking at that and saying, thats not bad i could stretch out in the back of that, maybe get myself a Little Something to eat, watch some tv. Now thats appealing to you, isnt it it is and i saw some of the tape you ran, phil, at the beginning. I dont think they were all canoos a lot of them look like glorified mini vans which appeal to me a lot as a huge fan of the mini van theres a reason we all sit facing forward when were moving, isnt there, phil . In case something happens. I dont know if i want to be sitting around in a circular seat they said theyve done crash tests. Shoulder harnesses . Of course theres no way you couldnt come to market with this and you didnt have restraints in place. Theyve done crash tests already, joe i will be curious to see, its a funky and interesting design ill be curious to see if, a, the subscription model works and, b, if this works. Theres a businesstobusiness component to see if they do short haul deliveries. There are a lot of questions here. Youll be out in one, phil. I think you already would have if it was easier to travel. Oh, yeah. We look forward and thanks, phil. You bet. Always fun. Fresh directs push into the suburbs. Programming note, 9 15 eastern treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin will be joining squawk on the street. You dont want to miss that. Stay tuned before money, people traded goods. Tools, cattle, grain, even shells represented value. Then currency came along. They made it out of copper, gold, silver, wampum. Soon people decided to put all that value into a piece of paper, then proceeded to wave goodbye to value, printing unlimited amounts of money as they passed the buck to the future. Thats why its time for Digital Currency and your investment in the grayscale funds. Go digital. Go grayscale. [ engines revving ] its amazing to see them in the wild like th shhh. For those who were born to ride, theres progressive. Now tmobile has thousands more. Locations across the country. More towers and more coverage than ever before. Tmobile is americas largest 5g network. With more 5g coverage than verizon and at t combined. Experience it now with our best deal ever. Unlimited for 25 dollars a line for four lines with 5g access included. Its time to join tmobile. Still to come on squawk box, David Mcinerney will be here guess what, thats where the customers are these days, in the suburbs. Cities dont have quite as many people in them plus the s p 500 inching closer to its record high rk gntmara will join us with his call on the markets. Evony top five troops arab archers eagle guards dragon cavalries ninja warriors champion cavalries who will you choose . Make friends and conquer the world. Evony the kings return download now home depot and walmart on the move home depot earned 4. 02 a share beating a consensus estimate of 3. 71. Comparable store sales more than doubled forecasts at 23. 4 increase those numbers are unheard of not up as much as it was seeing more profit taking. Walmart earned an adjusted 1. 56 a share for the First Quarter compared to 1. 25 and comp stores in the u. S. , sales up 9. 3 analysts though had expected an increase of just 5. 4 , becky joe, that stock pulling back a little bit from the higher gains we saw earlier you have to keep in mind, walmart closed at an alltime high yesterday and its still up 2 from that alltime closing high in the meantime, onliene grocer freshdirect is pushing into more suburban neighborhoods. David mcinerney is joining us from the bronx good to see you again. Hi. Good to see you. Thanks for having me back. Yeah. I made the point in the past that ive been a freshdirect user for a long time, a heavy user i hadnt thought about it much but in this pandemic it must have turned operations on your head youre seeing so much more demand and people who want to have things delivered directly to their house you started in the urban areas and the urban areas are a lot less crowded than they used to be theres probably a lot more demand coming from the suburbs how have you been juggling that and making sure you are getting the deliveries to where the people are thats right, becky id say overall the Growth Continues to be tremendous, both in the cities but in the suburbs. And i think were really in a remarkable time. Were witnessing a Seismic Shift in terms of how they want to buy their food and what weve seen is within the cities that we operate, new york, philadelphia, d. C. , weve seen the urban dwellers migrate out to the suburbs and as they migrate out they are taking freshdirect with them. And you combine that with, you know, sort of this iconic truck that we have that Everybody Knows and, you know, customers in the suburbs, new customers in the suburbs see it, word of mouth goes on and then all of a sudden we see really explosive growth there as well frankly, its something that we like a lot we like the suburban customer. They have really big pantries. They really value the fresh food and, you know, weve had a good time with it thus far. What are you anticipating do you think people will be back in the urban areas come september or do you think this is a trend thats going to last longer theres a huge debate about that right now . Yeah. Were sort of on the sidelines watching we are talking to a lot of our customers and the truth is, we are hearing from some that they plan on staying wherever they are. You know, whether thats in a suburb in our trading area or somewhere else in the country, but i think there are a fair amount that are coming back. Were planning as such were planning to see a significant migration back in september or for all three cities and while the ramp up will probably not be as strong as weve seen in earlier years, were still expecting growth theres a big chunk of our business which is the offices. We do a Corporate Office business as well that has been pretty much nonexistent. We think that will take more time to ramp up. We see that coming back to some extent in september as well. You know, well talk about your new Distribution Center in washington in a moment but are you planning to continue service to some places that you have traditionally only served in the summertime i think about the hamptons, jersey shore where people are going and coming back. That service that youve offered has only extended through august what will happen this year thats exactly right. That is a first for us typically we follow our customers, and when they come back, we bring the business back and this year we will be extending. Were extending certainly through the fall and then i think, you know, like everybody else, its going to be wait and see. We have the ability to stay out in those areas and if thats what our customers want, thats what were going to do lets talk about your new facility because this is really state of the art huge place where youve used i think a lot morrow boots to do some of the production talk about the investment that youre making in this and why you think thats the right way to go. Yeah. These are what we are calling micro Fulfillment Centers. The ones specifically that youre talking about were putting up in washington, d. C. That will be the first one we have there we have a few in new york. Its a combination of micro fulfillment and robotics which we use we have both already this will be the first time that were combining them together. So a micro Fulfillment Center that is leveraging robotics. I mean, i think we should use the keep the term robotics in check. We are still relying very much on people. We are about fresh food. Its the meat, seafood and produce. What were using the robot particulars for is get more velocity through our buildings and speeding things up by bringing the food to the worker the team person as opposed to the team person walking to the food to pick it then well be leveraging the human aspect for things like produce ratings, slicing the fish and the idea is well be fulfilling out of our first hub which is this sort of monster high velocity state of the art facility in new york well be fulfilling raw material into these micro Fulfillment Centers. This one will be in d. C. And consumers in d. C. Will be able to go on and get really a full offering that they can order on their phone and get it delivered within a couple of hours, which is sort of where we see the market going i think this is about this is about speed and about fast, which is what were hearing from our customers that they want in addition to the quality yeah. I agree with you it is definitely the next step and certainly what customers want david, thanks for your time today. Its good to see you we will talk to you again soon. Okay. Good thank you. Thank you joe . Becky, i think you were referencing this coming up, what is the impact of rising crime rates on real estate in urban growth talking about the cities with Violent Crime rates spiking in new york, atlanta, chicago, detroit, cities fearing a downward spiral where more families leave and that lowers the tax base robert frank is going to have that story vicious circle here are the futures right now they have moderated along with home depot and walmart. Well be right back. The decades long decline in urban crime and rates may be able to turn and if that sends families fleeing to the suburbs, there could be an economic Ripple Effect robert frank joins us now with more theres not a day that doesnt go by where we dont think about this, robert when it rains, it pours. Theres a lot of reasons it seems like to leave the city yeah, joe the headlines keep coming now. From new york to philadelphia, chicago, l. A. , even denver crime rates in major cities are rising in the double digits the increases are almost entirely in gun violence and homicides. Philadelphia seeing a 30 increase over last year. Chicago with a 40 increase. Denver homicides almost doubling in recent months now the largest increase is in new york city where we had 291 shooting victims in july that is nearly triple the number of last julyposting the worst week since 1996. Now for the year to date shooting victims are up 81 . Now criminologists say four big reasons in new york. First, you have the lockdown starting in march causing a big drop in gun violence but when cities opened up again it unleashed what police are calling a backlog of violence or planned retaliatory shootings. You had the big spike. Secondly, you had bail reform and prison releases. Also during covid, you had a 39 drop in arrests just this year which some attribute to a police work slowdown. Then of course you have the big backlog in the court system so you cant prosecutor process all these arrests. Experts say the numbers have already started coming down a little bit from july and if schools and companies reopen, they could come down even faster robert, why do they think if schools go ahead, joe. The first point you made the first point okay. Go ahead answer that and then ill ask you a question so when you look at shootings, its not necessarily teenagers that are involved in the shootings but according to former detectives i talked to yesterday, schools sort of keep an institutional lid on a lot of the retaliatory violence that keeps people indoors in an overseen environment they say once schools reopen you could see a big decline in the culture of violence that you see in some of these neighborhoods we were talking about pentup demand because of the covid and i just cant believe what you said right at the top there, that theres pent up retaliation demand for beeves that people have. Yeah. For real . Is that measurable, honest to god . Thats crazy so when you talk to the former detectives and criminologists who dig really deep into this data, they find its very specific to certain crimes, i. E. , gun violence in certain neighborhoods on certain streets in certain neighborhoods. Thats where all the numbers are coming from. When they look into whos doing the shooting and why and when, they found out that basically there are these planned retaliatory shootings between gangs and drug groups that you couldnt find people in march and april. No one was around. So you had people waiting until people were back out and vulnerable again until the shootings started. Thats why you saw the big spike in late june, early july that has started coming down a little bit but its still running at about twice the level as last year wow thats what i was going to say. I mean, that was when they told you you didnt know that, did you . Was that obvious to you, robert . When you were hearing it did you no. I had no kidding. No. That was the most surprising it was also surprising to me that when i talked to three criminologists yesterday and two detectives they all cited that as the main reason to your point on cnbc, we talked about pentup consumer demand. I had no idea that it also applied to violence and rivalries between gangs and territorial disputes its staggering. It is also perhaps a positive sign that if some of that has been released, perhaps were not at a new higher sustained level. Once thats released we could start coming back down that is in fact what were seeing in some of the august data although, robert, year over year were still running ahead of last year, right . Year over year which would absolutely. Its not all just pentup demand this is higher numbers than we saw last year. Youre absolutely right if you look at last week and the week before that, they are still running almost double what they were last year and so, again, everyones hoping that schools and some of the more sort of companies reopening, returning back to normal in new york city. Now on the negative side you have a billion dollars being cut from police in new york city and, you know, its unclear whether since you have a higher level whether youll see more retaliatory shootings from those shootings. Youre absolutely right. It has come back down but we dont know whether it will return to last years level. All right, robert thank you very much. When we come back, were going to talk markets with strategist mark grant right after this break in the mean time, check out shares of apple. That stock is hovering just below a 2 trillion market cap it would be traded at 467. 77 to h e milestone. Right now its at 457. 30. Squawk box will be right back. Before money, people traded goods. Tools, cattle, grain, even shells represented value. Then currency came along. They made it out of copper, gold, silver, wampum. Soon people decided to put all that value into a piece of paper, then proceeded to wave goodbye to value, printing unlimited amounts of money as they passed the buck to the future. Thats why its time for Digital Currency and your investment in the grayscale funds. Go digital. Go grayscale. Clean i a feeling. Its the satisfaction of upgrading to a bidet seat, just like that. And the simple joy of washing your hands, without ever touching a faucet. We think its the Little Things that matter. And we know you do too. Thats why we create moments to feel kohler clean, every day. You say the customers maklets talk data. S. Only Xfinity Mobile lets you switch up your wireless data whenever. I accept 5g, everybodys talking about it. How do i get it . Everyone gets 5g with our new data options at no extra cost. Thats good. Next item corner offices for everyone. Just have to make more corners in this building. Chad. Your wireless. Your rules. Only with Xfinity Mobile. Now thats simple, easy, awesome. Switch and save up to 400 a year on your wireless bill. Plus, get 400 off when you preorder the new Samsung Galaxy note20 ultra 5g. The consumer staple sector is a key part of the market but its often overlooked. Dom chu has todays sectornomics this is harkening to a conversation we had with joe yesterday how trillions have become part of the conversation more and more. With you guys mentioning apple is approaching the 2 trillion market cap mark, we put into context just how big the s p 500 staples sector is. If you add up every Single Company in the sector, this is the market cap that you get, 2. 3 trillion just to give you an idea of the size and scope that were talking about. The entire sector is 2. 3 trillion versus apple is near 2 trillion right now you look at apple, also whats happening with facebook and amazon, alphabet, microsoft, all of these guys here so facebook is roughly three of those would make up the entire Consumer Staples category. How much market volume you have the biggest ones gain. These are the ones you want to focus on Procter Gamble has added 95 billion in market cap. Walmart will add more. Its added 59 billion. Cocacola 47 billion and pepsico, 46 billion. To put everything in context, the Consumer Staples sector is really important its the seventh biggest sector out there but its almost the same size as three facebooks and just about the same size as apple if it keeps going on the trajectory, joe. Ill send things back over to you. Thanks, dom nice brown ty youve got there, right, becky that could not be more brown his is purple his is fuchsia his is purple and yours is brown. Purplish to me. You are brown. It is purple theyre both purple put it next to joes. People are sending me the sound track to purple rain, prince and purple rain. Thats because you blocked everybody who doesnt agree with you. The haze he has going on now. Haze barney, prince. This is so purple. Elder high school for that look at doms ty is purple yours is not for more on the global markets, were bringing in mark grant. B riley fdr. I remember things. Its kind of an affliction im going to tell you something and give you a compliment. You remember, i was surprised when you came on once and said, markets not going anywhere. Bond market is not going anywhere as far as Interest Rates. Then i held you to it next time you were on and you said, you know what, i was wrong and i changed my opinion that was 500 points ago on the s p. Think if you had just stubbornly stuck to saying that the equity markets arent going you were right. You switched at about 2900 on the s p. Where are you now . Are we now fairly valued in your view for what were seeing in the world . First, i hope you notice my invisible tie. Invisible high tech. Well draw that in. The answer to that, joe, is i think the markets the equity markets go continue to go up from here to some extent the biggest concern ford markets, frankly, is the election i also think, joe, which i want to point out, that the bigger move in the equity markets has come because there are no yield in bonds you cant get any yield. Investment grade bonds very little yield. In treasuries and consequently, a lot of money is rolling out of the bond markets and into the equity markets, which are supporting them in my opinion. Election risk what is going on there we had a republican strategist, jimmy p on earlier saying that what corporations heard last night was theres nothing to fear and i was going to ask him, have you looked at the platform at all have you heard anything thats been said by the democrats or joe biden over the last six months do you agree with that, theres nothing to fear . No, i do not agree with that. I think theres a distinct differentiation and this is not, not a political statement between the especially in the tax area of what President Trump is proposing and what the democrats are proposing. Democrats read what theyre putting out. Higher Capital Gains tax, higher tax for corporations which is pretty much the opposite of what President Trump is proposing i think you have election risk in here and these are people that ive been telling institutions and individuals, have some more cash than usual have some shorts out you can buy some etfs that have shorts but so buy some puts i would have some protection on going into this election whats happening with covid, mark do the markets see something positive is the market going to be wrong about whether theres reclosures and whether we have a terrible fall joe, you know, a lot of people have hopes and prayers and we all, of course, everyone of us with the medical issue coming first, but the economic issue coming second hope that they find some vaccine i dont think its going to be any day soon, though i will say that the underlying fundamentals for the markets and unemployment and production and manufacturing are doing much better than many people thought, which also i think lends a floor, if you will, to where we are. Then i think the other big giant part of this is the fed and these incredibly low Interest Rates we have. Weve got to go okay. Thanks for having me on, joe. Thanks, man thanks youre welcome well have you bk acagain soon to check in with you thanks, well see you. Thank you squawk box will be back with the good morning blowout retail results pushing futures higher this morning. Gains have moderated among the averages and the individual stocks. Big box stores benefitting from stayathome spending during the pandemic the s p 500 could close in theoretically on an alltime high meanwhile, tesla shares nearing a milestone. 2,000 and elon musk is dancing all the way to the bank. Hes number four in the world on the wealth list and looks like hes headed higher in his view. Yesterdays 11 surge is what is doing it were hearing that oracle is now in the hunt against microsoft to buy u. S. Operations of tiktok from bytedance we have a conversation with tom cotton on tech pensions that just this week have grown even hotter the final hour of squawk box begins right now. Good morning and welcome to squawk box here on cnbc. Im joe kernen along with becky quick. Andrew is off today. I think that becky can im not sure whether she can actually hear me or not. We talked. I wanted to ask her a question is she just out of the picture temporarily . Give me an idea. Can you hear me . Thanks okay thanks were still on watch for a new alltime high for the s p 500. U. S. Equity futures at this hour, as you can see, up 51 on the dow. 57 on the s p up 6. 5 in the nasdaq 25, 26 or so what about now becky. Im here. Can you see me okay, good. Yeah, i hear you we glossed over the fact that andrews not here. I think were all you were blown away that hes down in your neck of the woods now i know youre in one of the she she sections im wondering what if he ended up wihere all those guys from te jersey shore what if hes there with snooki, mike the situation room. Blitzer. I hope that he did his homework. Anyway, we miss him. When i asked him, you know, he said he was leaving. Does it involve a plane . I didnt think hed want to fly on a plane he said no he got a nice place. Youre in a nice place i cant wait. Yeah. I cannot believe the guy who hes vacationing in new jersey now my gosh, how things have changed. Exactly exactly. Maybe well find out he changed his opinion about the garden state. He talks about the turnpike, factories, the smell. I do. I do yeah. All right. Now hes vacationing here. Yeah, he is what if hes in Seaside Heights. He may already be back anyway, big retailers crushing some quarterly earnings. Walmart beat the street on profit and revenue in the Second Quarter. U. S. Same store sales jumped 9. 3 versus forecast of 5. 4 u. S. Ecommerce sales, the kind of stuff that has doubled. How do you double anything walmart is too big to double too big to fail. Anyway, walmart cfo telling cnbc government stimulus payments had a clear impact on the consumer in the Second Quarter. Becky, i thought bill simon kind of dampened my sort of macro view and said it really is specific to maybe walmart and we surely expect across the border vshaped recovery. He was a little bit down but it was kind of like, walmart. Yeah. But also he reiterated what we heard from the company, too, government stimulus programs really work and really have kept the consumer afloat. You wonder what happens if theres not additional government stimulus that comes or if the stimulus is cut down significantly, were going to get a chance to talk to the cea about that in just a moment. And tom cotton. Well move on. Tell you about home depot easily beating analyst expectations on of the first and Second QuarterHome Improvement projects. I redid a bathroom redid a couple of bathrooms. New shower changed the toilet stool . That gets complicated the toilet paper roll, do you do it so its on the front or i never know i want to be handy so badly because i think its i think it makes you attractive or something and im just becky, im not. Im not. No. Revenue versus Second Quarter. 23 year over year comp sales. Tomorrow were slated to get target Second Quarter results and well speak exclusively with target Ceo Brian Cornell at 6 45 a. M. Eastern time. Was quale down there with you . If he were still producing, becky, you know what we would have started this hour with smoke on the water from deep purple. Deep purple yes. Yes, yes purple haze was a good one. We would have done austin powers when he was talking trillions versus billions. Some of the stuff we used to do. Wed get thrown off the air for. We played that schwing sound we cant do that anymore why am i even mentioning it. Lets go to tesla. We should have started with brown eyed girl because your tie is brown check out the shares of tesla. Weve been watching that this morning. That stock surged more than 11 today. Its gained about 40 just in the past week. Its up another 2. 3 this morning. Bloomberg said yesterdays jump raised elon musks fortune to 8. 3 billion we were saying fifth before but he is fourth he is 15 billion away from the number three position which is held by Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg another spac in the news. Hedge fund starboard has created a special purpose acquisition unit and found to raise 300 million. Starboard is one of the latest the former blank check vehicle joining pershing square. They have not identified a company that the unit would buy and take public. Thats why its called a spac. Becky . Joe, thank you. A new report from the white house says the countrys emergency pandemic policies were set up quickly enough to help alleviate americas responsibility joining us is tyler good speed hes the acting chairman of the president s economic advisers which put out the report good to be here. Thank you for having me lets talk through what we know from the initial money that was spent. Obviously were hearing it from Companies Even today walmart cfo saying that the government stimulus definitely had an impact on its shoppers and the american consumer. What do we know about what was spent and then i guess the next question is what happens now right so one thing that we observed in this report is that the magnitude of the shock that hit us in march and april of this year was truly unprecedented in historic terms both in scale and in speed also what we found is the scale, speed nature due to the adverse shock was historic unlike other previous federal government responses, this was very targeted. With programs like the paycheck protection program, we targeted relief to small and Mediumsized Enterprises that were most vulnerable to adverse cash flow shocks such as this, and also we targeted aid through the Economic Impact payments and enhanced Unemployment Insurance benefits to the households most at risk. When we look at recent survey data, we do see among the lowest income households, they had planned to use the Economic Impact payments for house spending needs. Tyler, some of the programs were targeted but there were others that were not targeted at all. Youre shooting with a pretty broad bazooka. Im speaking of the 1200 that went to 80 of americans that broad stimulus had an impact on what weve seen in the economy in a sense when we dig down deeper when we look at the lowest income households again, over 1 5 of those households reported they had used the Economic Impact payments or enhanced Unemployment Insurance benefits in the past seven days to meet essential spending needs thats why one thing were thinking about is were wondering why there isnt a greater sense of urgency to visit face needs they could be called to debate and vote on areas of broad bipartisan agreement, that includes a second round of Economic Impact payments, that includes a potential reload of the paycheck protection program, that includes an Employee Retention and hiring tax credit and that includes employment Insurance Benefits for unemployed workers we would like to see a lot more sense of urgency would you say that nothing that is not essential be included by that i would include what republicans have wanted to see that liability wasnt there. The president would prefer to see a comprehensive agreement that includes not the removal of liability but, rather, limitation of excess liability for businesses when reopening in the context of the covid pandemic in the absence of a comprehensive agreement, the president would be willing to pursue a narrower deal that focuses on those areas of bipartisan agreement, including but not limited to enhanced Unemployment Insurance benefits, Economic Impact payments and its only in the absence of congressional movement on those fronts that the president has already and will continue to explore all mechanisms forex he cantive action. Hey, tyler. Its my understanding that the administration and the white house is not necessarily even on the same page as many of the republican senators who have been looking at this were going to be speaking with tom cotton in a little bit coming up, and would the president be it seems to me like the president wants more than what the republicans are putting out but less than what the democrats are asking for is that how you kind of see the situation too . So that on that question i would have to refer to my colleagues in the office of legislative affairs. My role here at the council is to provide economic vike nocono what do you think should be put forth . 1 trillion, 2 trillion, 3 trillion i dont think the appropriate term is stimulus i think thiscontinues to be a matter of Economic Relief where necessary. The president has stated correctly that we it is important that we continue to provide enhanced Unemployment Insurance benefits for americans who have lost employment as a result of this adverse shock, but to do so in a way that doesnt impose unduly high implicit marginal tax rates on the return to work i think the president is also correct to note that we would definitely prefer an agreement, a comprehensive agreement for liability agreements and the president is correct to do a payroll tax cut by raising aftertax wages. Tyler, i want to thank you for your time today. Thank you for having me coming up, beck, a covid testing game changer we spoke about yesterday quite a bit. Now were going to speak with one of the yale researchers behind a new test thats cheaper and much less invasive than the coronavirus nose swab. And where is Americas Campaign against chinese tech headed arkansas senator tom cotton will join us to talk restrictions on huawei, tiktok, now maybe alibaba. Well talk stimulus as well as you just heard with tyler, the creator. As we head to break, check out another retailer the company showed a much greater loss stay tuned, youre watching squawk box on cnbc when it comes to parenting, youre a pro. You know your kid doesnt step around puddles. And you know cheap leaky diapers are an amateur move. You need luvs prolevel protection. Luvs. Parent like a pro. You say the customers maklets talk data. S. Only Xfinity Mobile lets you switch up your wireless data whenever. I accept 5g, everybodys talking about it. How do i get it . Everyone gets 5g with our new data options at no extra cost. Thats good. Next item corner offices for everyone. Just have to make more corners in this building. Chad. Your wireless. Your rules. Only with Xfinity Mobile. Now thats simple, easy, awesome. Switch and save up to 400 a year on your wireless bill. Plus, get 400 off when you preorder the new Samsung Galaxy note20 ultra 5g. Its quite simple. We use saliva as the sample type what were trying to do is get away from the swab, the swab thats been a bit of an aversion to the swab type were hoping to also get around some supply chain issue with swabs and we dont need fancy collection devices to keep our prices down. Whats unique about it is we havent developed a test that we package up and send out to you what weve developed is the method for the test, were able to share this test with other labs for them to get this method up and running in their local labs so the test itself, weve actually just adapted, its quite commonly used pcr test which develops a virus rna weve replaced it with a workout which brings the price down. How would it work though . If it still requires a lab to put it together, you deliver it to me and then, what, i drive it to the lab how long does it take for me to get my results back . Much like what you do at the moment with a swab whether that swab is being ordered for you by a doctor, or what were hoping to see is maybe in schools where you have a global booth, you can drop off your saliva sample and have that taken to the lab taking out that time consuming step, we are hoping results will be available faster. This isnt one of those rapid tests that people are talking about. We can get results sort of through in about three hours for 92 samples but depending on the through put the lab is experiencing, this isnt to say that results will be available in three hours, but just that its a slightly faster protocol means labs can put through more testness a day we do hope we can see in some situations same day results if not what were striving for is to get below the 24 hour time frame that were not seeing in many places at the moment. How much does this test cost . I believe ive read that nobody is looking to really make any money on this, theyre trying to just put this out there and make sure its available at the lowest cost possible. Thats exactly right. Were being very clear and open about what labs should be expecting the reagents cost and how much people can have it in the cost thats because the reagents and chemicals that make up the test, depending where the company is getting them from, they cost between 1 and 4 for the reagents thats the reagents for the tests. There are some markets that have to go on to there to cover the logistics of getting the test, the personnel to run the test and also just they need to pay for the facilities that theyre in to do the tests its that markup that were still trying to limit that labs charge we do want this to be as cheap as possible for society. And we want to be part of that conversation with how much labs are charging trying to keep it down. I do think this could be a huge game changer for schools getting back and for businesses bringing more employees back how quickly can this be rolled out . When do you think it will be widely available probably within the next couple of months i mean, whats happening at the moment is this can only still be run in the clear labs. The labs have to get in touch with us. We do have to issue them the right to use this test and to make sure its set up properly, make sure theyve got the equipment thats available im hoping well see at least within the next month more and more labs starting to roll this out, deciding to make it available. Clearly we want more in that moment whats the accuracy rate . Its looking really good. We do have about 6 to 12 virus copies per microliter. What that means is its quite on par with many of the other traditional pcr tests that are already out there. Its about 90 sensitive and patients about 88 to 90 sensitive and asymptomatic, healthy individuals. So what were missing is theres more of a chance that we might miss that very, very low viral load the viruses may start to pick up in an individual and the idea is we want the frequent testing if you are tested more, you might miss one day if you have low amounts of the virus but if that viral load starts to increase because youre having frequent testing, well quickly pick that up next time. Ann, thank you for your time this morning but more importantly, thank you for your work on this front its something we are all kind of eagerly awaiting and looking forward to hearing more about. Thanks a lot thank you. Joe thanks, becky. Fresh data on Housing Starts the morning after home confidence spiked. Tom cotton on the new heightened tensions in china. Uings are heatingp. Stay tuned, youre watching squawk box on cnbc before money, people traded goods. Tools, cattle, grain, even shells represented value. Then currency came along. They made it out of copper, gold, silver, wampum. Soon people decided to put all that value into a piece of paper, then proceeded to wave goodbye to value, printing unlimited amounts of money as they passed the buck to the future. Thats why its time for Digital Currency and your investment in the grayscale funds. Go digital. Go grayscale. Thats nice happy birthday, 94 thats great thats great, ann. It is. You know what, ill bet you she would say that life went really quickly because now for me ten years, i remember the 70s, 80s, 90s i remember so many ten years that ten tenyear periods doesnt seem that long to me. Oh, yeah. Im stag berd by how different the country was 100 years ago. Thats a great day she still feels like shes 18. Thats my mothers mother shes in indiana. Reminds me of your mom. Yeah. It does. Indiana. Happy birthday, grandma when we come back, we have breaking data on housingtas. Srt stay tuned squawk box will be right back. More towers and more coverage than ever before. Tmobile is americas largest 5g network. With more 5g coverage than verizon and at t combined. Experience it now with our best deal ever. Unlimited for 25 dollars a line for four lines with 5g access included. Its time to join tmobile. Welcome back to squawk box. Rick santelli here live at the cme hq were expecting our july read on Housing Starts and permits we received numbers that are much better than expected. Much better than expected. 1. 496 million on starts. So just shy of 1. 5 million thats up over 22 , fanned we look at permits, 1,495,000 almost exactly the same number a bit under 1. 5 million. Thats up almost 19 these are really powerful numbers. On starts, thats the best number since february. On permits, thats the best number since january so these are really quite spectacular, and another thing thats been quite spectacular is how aggressively up the Euro Currency continues to trade. It surpassed 119 today its the best level in, what, since may . Well call that 27 months. May of 2018 which means the dollar index is at the worst levels in 27 months. Its something definitely to continue to Pay Attention to with respect to how these housing numbers are filtering in we dont see Huge Movement yields, but they still are holding up very well considering they have some giveback yesterday. Remember, 72 basis points was the interday highs on ten. Hovering at 68 havent given up too much ground becky, back to you and happy birthday, grandma. Rick, shes in your neck of the woods in indiana just around the corner diana olick joins us with more on the housing data. Diana, what do you think looking through the numbers . Reporter theyre definitely a surprise to the up side. Thats a great thing were seeing much more than we expected i want to break out the Single Family versus multifamily that came on the multifamily side thats not where the market needs it now we need more Single Family starts Single Family starts were up about 8 month to month. 7 p ers percent year over year still at 945,000 analyzed units. We were at a million in december and january. Dropped in april due to the pandemic demand for Single Family newly built homes is so strong right now that we should be seeing those numbers much higher. Demand for multifamily, not as strong right now whats the problem you talk to any number of the builders, they say, look, we had to layoff labor. We lost supply chain lumber yards shut down sawmills shut down because they didnt expect to see this kind of demand. Theyre having trouble ramping up you continue to see that in the july numbers which is a disappointment on the Single Family side. Why do we need this . The supply of newly built homes was down 14 year over year in june people coming through, we saw the home Builder Sentiment number hit a record high out yesterday in august. Theyre still seeing people come through the show rooms sales expectations all very high were not seeing the starts pop up as much as they want. They are up but not nearly as much as we want, becky. Diana, we did see a pop in Mortgage Rates last week and we should keep that in perspective. A pop to historically low levels do you think that will have an impact on the demand story or is this a demand supply squeeze supply squeeze. Thats whats putting pressure on the prices. Rates bumped up pretty size bring. About a quarter of a percentage point. Yesterday they started coming back down. I dont think the bump up briefly in Mortgage Rates is going to have any effect on it its going to be what brokers plan to do weve already seen them raising prices we saw that in the Earnings Releases just a few weeks ago. If you continue to have so little supply and so much demand, prices have nowhere to go but up. I dont think its Mortgage Rates, i think its supply and i think its price thanks, diana good to see you. When we come back, arkansas senator tom cotton on growing u. S. China Technology Tensions and well get jim cramers first take on the markets ahead of the Tuesday Morning opening bell we are on s p 500 watch today. The number to beat 3393. As we head to a break, programming note for you dont miss treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin on squawk on the street at 9 15 a. M. Eastern time very important time to hear how these negotiations areoi gng in washington right now make sure you stay for that. Squawk box will be right back. I keep working my way back to you, babe with a burning love inside yeah im working my way back to you, babe and the happiness that died i let it get away servicenow. The smarter way to workflow. Microsoft has competition in the quest to buy tiktok. A source telling cnbc oracle has begun talks to buy tiktoks u. S. Operations it is working with u. S. Venture firms who have a stake in the country. Washington also now at the center of two major market stories. Strained u. S. china relations and stalled stimulus talks for a closer look at both, lets welcome senator tom cotton of arkansas a member of the banking, intelligence and Armed Services committee. The senator is one of six republican lawmakers recently sanctioned by china. Senator, thanks for joining us youve been outspoken. An outspoken critic specifically the ccp more than just china given what were watching right now, what do you think we have an expression called terminal pricing what does the end game look like for where youd like the United States to be in relation to china with all of these tech issues what does it look like hey, joe. Good morning i guess after sanctions last week from the Chinese Communist party i wont be able to take my wife on our long time secretary ho honeymoon to wuhan china sanctioned me because they hope to dominate the world economy, hope to replace the United States as the orlds primary economic power and they hope to do it in the world of tech the Trump Administration after many years and administrations before his has finally stood up to china yesterday they clamped down on American MadeTechnology Going into Semiconductor Chips ultimately bound for huawei which is an arm of chinese intelligence under written by the Chinese Government for years and years and years which has given it a dominant position building out wireless technology, something we cant allow to happen not only for economic reasons but for security reasons as well weve finally taken long overdue steps by standing up to chinas years and years of preying upon americas workers and fact tris, our companies, our investors, stealing our jobs, stealing our intellectual property. What we want china to do is start behaving like a normal civilized nation and not like an economy where theyre stealing our technology and threatening our prosperity. I guess if its done in a way thats illegal or through cheating or through stealing, its one thing and thats where we always hear the disagreements, because the United States wants to be the preeminent economy in the world. China wants to be the preeminent economy in the world nothing wrong with that. Competition is healthy your point is that its for years its been done in unscrupulous, unethical ways through cheating and stealing. Thats where you get the argument people want proof . Thats right. Look, this is a problem for both parties. We passed most favored nation status the Clinton Administration gave china access to the World Trade Organization in the first year of the Bush Administration china has never upheld it. It breaches the international commitments. It uses subsidies, import controls, export finance and other means to yuntd cut not just the United States but other democratic economies thats one reason why huawei cleared the market before the trump took action on 5g wireless you are competing against the communist party which has one goal to strengthen the power of the party in Chinese Society relative to every other part of Chinese Society and to strengthen the chinese nation. Thats not something we should put upon our businesses and our workers. They should not have to compete with a mercantilist communist power and thats something high pastime we stood up to it. Im glad the Trump Administration is doing that. Whats it look like delisting . No more ipos our own jim cramer talks about how important chips are and do we with taiwan semi, do we become a protector for taiwan semi how far do we take it . Whats the end look like for you . Does it ever hurt the u. S. , come back and hurt us, our trade and we have to protect our economic independence. We have to protect our security. For instance, semiconductors not really made in china because they dont have the american spirit of innovation and attention. They are made in taiwan using the American Technology. The Trump Administration said the chips with American Technology can no longer go and have them made in the United States so we have resiliency built into the system so we dont see the threat refaced in march and april when they had the market cornered on vital goods. That is vitally important for the american people. A lot of them understood it before but i think a lot of them understand it now. What do you think speaking of end games, whats going to happen with stimulus 4, wherever we were, shifting gears entirely we want to get your thoughts on that and, you know, s ps challenging new highs. Some people say on the one hand that doesnt give a lot of impetus to congress or and maybe its not necessity point, but certain sec torsion are still hurting. Well, joe, nancy pe lows sis and the democrats walked by from the industries hardest hit, help businesses stay afloat, help families who are working in Industries Like hotels, hospitality. Now theyre coming back to washington because they think donald trump is stealing post office boxes in the middle of the night. This is crazy talk this is the democrats trying to preemptively blame the post office for donald trump beating joe biden in november and to cover up the fact that they have not been able to sit down at the table and get a reasonable compromise bill worked out the president took actions to help some in the short run but we hope we can get a better bill passed if the democrats release their 3 trillion wish list and reach an accommodation with republicans who want to help those who need the most help the possibility of reclosures and schools that have tried to open, i know you saw the North Carolina chapel hill, its tough. Policy makers really dont have any clearcut path thats going to be absolutely right with no risk where are we right now in dealing with this pandemic youre going to hear at this convention every single night, youll hear the Trump Administration criticized for its virtual response through the pandemic where are we at this point joe, take the example you just gave of schools theres no doubt that its a challenge for some schools to reopen i visited schools across arkansas all of which will be opening this month but also offering a virtual option for parents who want to keep their children away from the classroom for Health Reasons but its going to be a challenge. Thats one reason why a compromise would be money for schools to reopen. In many cases, getting the kinds of physical protective barriers they need whether its plexiglass screens, more desks, outdoor tents and canopies or what have you. The evidence shows our kids, especially our young kids, need to be in School Getting inperson instruction. More broadly, as we confront the virus, theres a lot of exciting environments in terms of low cost athome testing, more developments on the vaccines as well again, our legislation would have provided more funding for that kind of testing and vaccine voemt as well. Thats why its so disappointing the democrats walked away from the any ghosh yating taubl and now their pry order is to feed into this about the post office. We need to help our country get back to Something Like normal. Thank you. Since you bring up the post office again, senator, where do you stand on this . Do you think the post office is ready and able to handle all the mailin ballots that are anticipated this year . Do you think thats the right way for people to be voting . Of course theyre ready and able to handle it. The post office has long had challenges like any business, its been impacted by the virus, but if every person who voted in 2016 voted by mail, which isnt going to happen, and every vote took three pieces of mail, which isnt going to happen, that would be fewer pieces of mail than the post office handles in a single day it is a tiny, tiny fraction they handle between a few tweets from washed up celebrities about post office boxes being stolen because theyre worried donald trump is going to beat joe biden and they want to cover up the fact that they refused to pass reasonable compromise legislation to help people in businesses who have been harmed by the virus the post office is more than capable of handling the increase in mailin ballots they dont deserve the democrats attacks on these operations for this election. Senator, just as an aside someone asked me to ask this about the aue de uae deal . Does that open up new markets for some defense sales to either the uae or i think its yeah, its an incredible Success Story it certainly puts a lie to all of those people like joe biden when we moved our embassy to jerusalem, arab nations would turn their back. The uae has been a partner with the United States. I suspect theyll do more of that now i also suspect there could be other arab nations that follow in this path and also could open up the opportunities for more armed sales to our allies to defend against enemies like iran i guess just to return to what began our discussion, senator. You think about alibaba or maybe some of the companies that you know, that maybe we dont want to preclude doing business with how do we make sure we dont over shoot from the political heat that is surrounding and the tensions surrounding china right now . How do we walk that fine line . Theyre a Major Trading partner. If theyre close to us in terms of economic strength, thats a trading partner that we want to have business with well, they are a Major Trading partner, joe also, that Trading Partnership has given them a lot of leverage over policy formulation in the United States. Any time were going to you hear washington talking about a tougher action against the communist party, you hear them running to washington saying, dont hurt our action. We should be open minded and we need to be cleareyed about the threat china poses you mentioned tick toblg earlktr its a trojan horse on the phones especially of our kids vacuuming up all of their personal data sending it back to china which the communist party will have access to for the rest of their lives we have to be clear eyed and hard nosed senator, thank you for being with us this morning we appreciate it thank you both. It. Thank you. You are a frequent guest and we appreciate having you on. We will see you again soon. Coming up, the biggest stocks on the move ahead of the opening bell on wall street. Futures right now up 60 points on the dow, nasdaq strong up 56 and the s p indicated up 9 stay tuned, youre watching squawk box on cnbc we know business keeps moving. And however we connect, whether its over the phone, online, or in your office, were here to listen and provide solutions that help you run your business better. Because the decisions you make have far reaching implications. And a relationship with a Corporate Bank like pnc can provide just what you need. As one of the nations largest banks, pnc brings customized insights and a local approach. To make informed choices now and in the future. Amazon reportedly expanding its payroll significantly. The wall street journal says the company is adding 3,500 jobs in six major cities including 2,000 in new york. The journal says that amazon will locate those workers in the historic fifth avenue building that once housed retailer lord and taylor amazon recently bought the building from wework at a price reported to be more than a billion dollars. I hope aoc doesnt get wind of this, becky. But at this point the jobs are still going to be there, but lets not make too big a deal out of this, we may hear about it tonight maybe also apple announcing apple music radio this morning, starting today global Radio Station beats one will be renamed apple music one. Two additional radio dagss will also launch. One focusing on hits from the 80s to now and the other focusing on country music. Shares of radio competitor spotify, 10 cent music and sirius xm are down on that news. 10 cents down by 1. 1 . Lets get over to cnbc headquarters jim cramer joins us to talk about what hes been seeing this morning. Jim, home depot and walmart both those numbers far better than had been anticipating and its hard to figure out what that means for these retailers if it can continue and then also what it tells us about the economy overall. I think that they are all going to be a little more cautious and circumspect because there was a big check that everybody got and a lot of that money was spent at the stores and they will be able to say its elevated and you are not going to see that again. I think you have to step back and say, all right, let them come in, let them sell the stocks these companies, this is what i said last night on mad money, these are the winners and while they were doing these numbers they wiped out a lot of the little guys. So the competition is going to be far less, it was not their goal, just like it wasnt dominos pizzas goal to wipe out the little guys but you will see good numbers for these guys the rest of the year do not bite on this is it, theyre offer and coming down. Wait until they come down and then do some buying. You know, jim, im surprised just looking at walmart trading down right now, it did sit a 52week high im sorry, all time high yesterday, but that stock was up by 8 or 8 i should say right when the news first came out are people seeing anything or do you think this is just trading back and forth as people look at how far its come . I think the Company Needs to be a little cautious because unless there is another deal from washington they wont be able to maintain that pace now, that doesnt mean that its not a buy, but it does mean that they are saying, whoa, this isnt going to keep happening. So let it come in the stock was bid up to 136 last night weve soon this many times, Companies Come in too hot, say good things but also say, listen, we dont know if we can possibly continue it becky take the latter, two days later they forget the negative and start buying it again. These are Great American companies. You have Steven Mnuchin why not. You have Steven Mnuchin coming up the treasury secretary in just a little bit what are you hoping to hear from him . What are we thinking are the two sides closer together or farther apart . We have to see if at least there can be a small deal, something that makes it so that the companies we know that are hurt by these Big Companies can continue to hire and stay around until the vaccine. I know it always feels like were waiting for gadot with the vaccine but there will be something that is the calvary and if we cant keep the small guys alive what happens is all the companies that are reporting today are going to wipe out everybody. Look at the Balance Sheets they have how do you go up against them . So im hoping the secretary proposes something that Speaker Pelosi has to get behind because its just going to be too long, its a bridge too far between here and the vaccine. I think i saw home depot added 5 billion in Free Cash Flow offer the last three months its crazy. Your true value, dont you just say, i give up . I surrender. You cant surrender in retail, right . You cant just wake up and say im going to give up, but, you know, becky, you cant compete and i love true value, i always try to throw them business why . Because you dont want them to get hurt, but thats not enough. Its not enough. Yeah. Wait until amazon reports then it will really be crazed. Thank you. Yeah, right we will see you in just a few minutes. Okay. As we approach the open lets get a look at some stocks on the move. Dom chu joins us now, again, nevada dom. Nevada dom. Nevada dom, i cant remember which one it is. Nevada. Oh, my god, you got it yesterday, dont do this to me nevada. I know. Nevada nevada anyway, as im seeing jim cramer in front of me about 30 feet in front of me on the main set lets talk about some of those themes that becky and jim were talking about. The slowing momentum in big earnings names, home depot is up on the day, it could open up at a new record high, however, look at that kind of slowing momentum that were seeing in the premarket trade not up nearly as much as it was right when the earnings came out. Same story with walmart. Walmart and home depot, remember, huge Free Cash Flow generation going on there, yet there is this sense here that perhaps things have gotten a little overdone, that premarket trade still a little negative, but remember walmart also could have opened at a record high had it not been for the premarket drop one more to look at as well. Kohls which came out with better than expected results, one of the three not at a record high, however, the slowing momentum in the premarket continues for kohls as well, down 7 . It had seen positive territory right off the start. Its certainly something, joe, becky, that we should all talk about, this idea that there are stocks doing well in the premarket but we are seeing a little pull back right now we will see if that carries into the regular session. Back over to you guys. All right dom, thank you lets get a final check on the markets. You can see 54 points now on the dow, the s p is the one that i guess is getting a lot of the a lot of the talk, conjecture, et cetera, up about 8 points this could be the day that we see a regain of all the covidrelated losses in the average, becky, and its Pretty Amazing and i know youve been watching some when youre home, but i know you are aware of what was going on, but hopefully enjoying enjoying your family, which thats is that the only good thing about this whole i guess there is a few good things, but it has been nice. Thats the best. Having everyone around, isnt it yeah. Yeah the Silver Lining in a ver difficult situation for so many people across the country. It has been but, anyway, we are powering forward, powering through it i will see you tomorrow. Do you know who i hear is on with us . Sully. Thats going to be not the guy from monsters, inc. , not that sully, but brian sullivan. Different sully. Yeah, different sully anyway, we will see you tomorrow, becky, make sure you join us tomorrow squawk on the street is coming up right now. See you guys. Good Tuesday Morning, welcome to squawk on the street, im Carl Quintanilla with jim cramer. David faber has the morning off. S p needs about 11 points for a fresh all time high and the stellar results from home depot and walmart may help us get there, although walmart has gone red premarket. Coming up this hour treasury secretary mnuchin on the prospects for future stimulus, the house votes this weekend and a lot more but, jim, your discussion with becky a moment ago