Transcripts For CNBC Power Lunch 20240712

Senator ted cruz will join us on why he thinks there should be more backlash for tech power lunch starts right now welcome to power lunch. Im dominic chu. Real estate, financials in the green as well. Technology stocks, though, the worst performing sector in the s p 500. On the dow youve got walgreens, the best performer after its Earnings Report this morning the company expecting 2021 Profit Growth despite the pandemic worst performer, it is vertech pharmaceutical kelly, ill send things back over to you. Thank you very much stocks well off their worst levels of the day. No stimulus, jobless claims higher so are covid cases earnings may be the only hope. To bob pisani for more on that bob. And, kelly, were near the highs for the day but there are reopening worries out there if you look at the markets you can see thats all the travel stocks are weak again so the airlines, expedia, weak, even work from home stuff like ebay, salesforce, same thing mastercard and visa and American Express have been essentially down all week. Megacap down today theyre up for the week but only up on monday other than that all the megacaps down, tuesday, wednesday and thursday whats the problem its whats moving markets the bucks we always talk about stimulus hopes are diming there. The reopening, we have restrictions in the u. S. And europe all right, not a lockdown but restrictions earnings are improving and kelly is right thats a good story but a problem there. 41 companies are out there right now reporting earnings thats about 8 . 85 are beating expectations put up the next full screen there and youll see and the beat is almost 30 that is huge normally you beat by 3 to 5 . Thats enormous. The problem, we are seeing Third Quarter numbers better, better than expected. Fourth quarter numbers are creeping up as well but the market already expects a lot of companies to beat by a large amount big runup in the stock market in the middle of october on exactly this information the market knows this now. The problem is the wall street is expecting corporations to provide even better guidance they havent been. Now theyre going to do that they cant how can they its impossible. The reopening story is still very much in flux, the vaccine story is in flux, the stimulus story is in flux what ceo is going to go out and say, ladies and gentlemen, let us tell you what our Fourth Quarter is going to look like exactly. They dont know and i think whats one of the problems the market has right now its a little con strained by essentially whats going on around stimulus and the reopening story back to you, guys. Thanks, bob lets broaden that out with even more weve got less than three weeks to go until the big election so is it safe to keep buying stocks at these levels . Rus from blackrock, which is by the way rated five stars by morning star bob laid out an interesting case with the debate in the market right now. Is it really all about fiscal stimul stimulus if we dont get it do markets go lower. I dont think its all about the stimulus the market has sort of come to well, not completely but comi coming to grips with the fact we may not get a stimulus package before the election. Whats been tough you have two other factor, a weak jobless claims number which gives some concern about how the labor market will improve and obviously the increase in covid cases in europe and the u. S. Goes to mobility questions when people get concern it had affects moebltd and spending and thats also weighing on markets today. Whats been weighing on markets is this notion like you said there is a possible economic slowdown. Theres a sturgis in virus cases possibly coming up in the flu season as well yet, markets have largely shrugged it all off over the course of the past six months. Is it right for the markets and traders to do so i think it is actually and, again, lets take the longterm perspective. The economy has come back much faster than anyone expected. Much faster than it did in 2009. You had unprecedented stimulus youve had a remarkably resilient corporate sector, were seeing that today in the last week with earnings. Some companies, many of the largest constituencies in he can questionty indices have benefited and the other point that doesnt get enough credit clearly this crisis putting huge pressure on a number of households but in aggregate the u. S. Household sector is in much better shape than it was in 2009 debt is down easy to service the debt the savings rate sup wealth is up and this is providing an important cushion along with fiscal stimulus for the economy and for the stock market so how exactly then i mean you say that the consumer is in a better position. Theyre delevered. Everything is Getting Better with regard to their earnings potential yet know that the Economic Impact is still being felt from the covid19 lockdowns that happened months ago is the consumer really going to be the next driver of this kind of next leg higher i ask only because there are so many millions of americans who still do not have the spending power they had a year ago. This is definitely going to weigh on the economy for a long time its not as if the labor market is going to snap back. We know that theres been damage to industries and hospitality. Small companies, airlines, its going to take some time to redeploy resources having said that, you know, again, weve seen a pretty significant drop in the Unemployment Rate back below 8 . I dont know anyone in march who thought it would be that low rise in transfer payments double from where they were early in the year, another big prop for the households and also seen a lot of resiliency from companies. You know, again, think about why is the market higher what are the companies that are driving this whether we talk about internet commerce, whether were talking about cloud computing. You know, these are companies that have actually been able to leverage a lot of the changes that have happened and are likely to continue to happen in a way thats been reflected in their stock price. And, russ, before we let you go, this does translate into a reaction right now in the markets to whats happening in europe right now is whats happening in europe with regard to their covid case, their economy, their struggles to kind of get things controlled, how much is permeating into our side of the atlantic, if so, what do you buy and stay away from well, again, i think it does come down to how bad you think it becomes because we know that consumers, companies behave differently if were bringing down mobility and lockdowns are reimposed. If we see more of a slowdown ironically its probably a lot of the growth names that will resume leadership because what they demonstrate over the last six month, many of these are Business Models that, again, can survive very well even if mobility is impeded. All right r rus, thank you very much good to get your thoughts. President trump saying the u. S. Will not do another covid lockdown this as several countries and europe are on the brink of having to do just that as cases spike across the continent lets bring in meg tirrell taking a look at these numbers for us. Hi, kelly you are seeing cases surge in the number of European Countries and on a per capita basis, in europe and the uk youre actually seeing case numbers now surpass the number on a per capita basis here in the United States this was a visualization the wall street journal pointed out and its pretty stark. In the number of deaths they are rising in europe as well although on a per capita basis we are still higher there in the United States. Now, the rising case numbers in many of these countries leading to increased restrictions in various place, france now implementing a curfew for paris and eight other major city, london starting to bar indoor mixing from different households and increasing restrictions there, discouraging use of public transportation. Then across other places like the netherlands closing bars and restaurants for four weeks, germany enforcing tougher measures on gatherings and wearing masks, Northern Ireland closing schools for two weeks and restaurants for four weeks, guys, everybody trying to get a handle on these cases before it gets really cold and much more difficult to try to tamp down, guys meg, its interesting to watch the response to this and look at whats happening in our own states where florida has had a high number of cases but is still allowing restaurants to open and can send your kid all day with a mask on in a lot of places and other states like california and disney issue highlighted this, california moving much more slowly in that regard so are we going to get a laboratory kind of outcome, you think, in europe where were able to compare, i guess maybe sweden is the extreme example but one countrys approach versus another or not is it going to come down to the entire continent pursuing not lockdowns but more measures here yeah, youre talking with Public Health experts. They do point to Different Countries being more successful than others within europe pointing to germany as one that is perceived to be doing well although as you see theyre starting to ramp up restrictions as well. But you know, talking with epidemiologists they say thats a measure of success showing that you are monitoring things very closely and responding appropriately not that youre able to just keep everything at a zero level because thats not necessarily realistic, but monitoring the data and responding quickly and appropriately when you see signs of things going in the wrong direction. Yeah. Meg, thanks so much for bringing us the latest as always, meg tirrell, dom, over to you. Still ahead, facebook and twitter both under pressure as they deal with the fallout of limiting the spread of a New York Post article with regulation looming over the platforms, are they proving how much its actually needed . Republican senator ted cruz of texas will join us right after the break to talk about why Big Technology is maybe getting too big. More power lunch coming up next 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. Facebook and twitter under fire for restricting users for sharing a New York Post story concerning hunter biden. Jack dorsey saying our communications around the actions on the New York Post article was not great and blocking url sharing via tweet or dm with zero context to why were blocking, sun endable. The Judiciary Committee wants to know what is going on and the companies dont get to censure political speech joining us is tedcruz. Great to have you. Welcome. Thank you for having me great to join you. So id like to kind of pare back and kind of really get to the core of this issue here because theres so much confusion around what big tech can and cant do and should and shouldnt do the essence of the issue comes down to whether these are Platform Companies or publishers, right . If theyre Platform Companies they basically have to be an open forum and they get section 230 protections for that if theyre publishers which intervening in political speech looks like being a publisher, then they dont get those protections. I mean, is that a good way to kind of look at this issue and what happens now, do you think well, i think that is a good way to frame it and section 230 is a special immunity from liability that Congress Passed decades ago really at the start of the internet to try to encourage the growth of the internet at the time it was a fledge blink and nascent industry now these are the corporate behemoths across the globe its a very different dynamic and when section 230 was passed, big tech was providing a neutral public forum they arent anymore and weve been seeing big tech get more and more aggressive on censuring and silencing voices they disagree with. That being said the last 24 hours marked a dramatic escalation and theyve crossed a new line it started yesterday where both twitter and facebook blocked a story from the New York Post alleging evidence of corruption concerning joe biden and his son and ukraine and the New York Post wrote it and twitter prohibited anyone on the platform from tweeting o posting the article and blocked the New York Post itself from tweeting their own article then today twitter doubled down. There was a second story from the New York Post alleging corruption again in the biden family, this time concerning communist china and there receiving millions from communist china. Twitter once again blocks anyone from tweeting that story and its the first time im aware of of big tech being brazen enough to directly censure a major media outlet and to block anyone from communicating a story published on a major media outlet. Right senator, heres the thing about this thats so fascinating to me are they not then inviting the loss of section 230 protections so if theyre acting like Publishing Companies arent they going to be stripped of those protections . Section 230 only applies to Online Platforms not monitoring content. The only exception if its obscene or otherwise offensive, offensive does not mean political speech so dont these actions mean they shouldnt be covered under section 230 . Will, i think thats absolutely right and i think youre seeing growing congressional skepticism of the monopoly power exercised by big tech and their willingness to abuse that power and so this afternoon i announced along with Judiciary Committee chairman lindsey graham, we together announced that on tuesday, the Judiciary Committee will vote to subpoena jack dorsey, the ceo of twitter, to testify before us next friday and explain why twitter is engaged in active election interference, that they are actively trying to suppress major Media Coverage look, the New York Post has the fourth largest circulation of any newspaper in america and twitter is preventing anyone from posting now two stories putting forth evidence of corruption of Joe Scarborough and, by the way, if anyone disputes the evidence, thats actually what free speech is all about. You know, we were talking about section 230 a second ago if the stories turn out to be wrong they can be sued for defamation and hauled into court and theyre subject to damages exactly. Twitter isnt twitter gets immubts under section 230 that the New York Post doesnt get. Who, senator right, that was an extension of the fact that back in the day libraries and book shops and newsstands couldnt get sued for defamation so these platforms exist at scale because theyre basically seen as giant newsstands and treated the same way under the law but if not acting under that same way they lose them. Who, is it a prosecutor now . What next steps would be taken to say, okay, you are literally claiming that you are acting in a manner that a publishing person would act therefore, you could be liable for all the content on your platforms and, again, investor, the shares are only down 2 but this would potentially undermine their entire existence so the issues are potentially enormous if the companies say, yes, were publishers wouldnt they lose them. There are a host of avenues that it can come from. Its not likely to come from a prosecutor because its not likely to be a criminal action but it is likely to come from, number one, trial lawyer, trial lawyers suing, suing them for content, for decisions theyre making that are biased and unfair and i expect trial lawyers will be making the argument that they have abandoned the protections of section 230, but, number two, from the department of justice and the federal trade commission and i have spoken repeatedly with the attorney general, the Deputy Attorney general, the assistant attorney general for antitrust, the chairman of the ftc, the president of the United States, the Vice President , all about directing the Enforcement Authority of the administration to go after big tech and stop them from abusing their monopoly power and they are monopolies under the antitrust laws and abusing their monopoly power and they are doing it to censure views they happen to disagree with, to silence those they happen to disagree with and now just 19 days out from an election, to deliberately and blatantly interfere in the election senator cruz, its dominic chu. I want to bring back something you mentioned early on in the interview. That is the Chinese Communist party. It seems to me as though the battle that the u. S. Is going to have thats of real consequence over the next 50, maybe even 100 years or more is going to be with china and its going to be on the technological front there is going to be a battle for superiority and the u. S. Is going to be in a heated one. If you start going after Big Technology companies in america, like the ones that you are mentioning right now, is there a fear that we will lose our competitive advantage in a fierce battle for technological supremacist i dont think there is a fear or a risk of that. I agree with the premise of your question i think china is the single greatest geopolitical threat facing the United States for the next century i also dont think the answer to how we compete with china is to utilize the same strategies communist china does of censuring any views that they disagree with. Who in their right mind would want a handful of Silicon Valley billionaires deciding which americans get to speak and which americans dont get to speak who in their right mind would want them having the ability to determine Election Results weve seen look, theres always been biased media reporting. Thats nothing new from the first reporter who carved words onto a stone tablet, there were all sorts of bi biases whats different is the concentration of big tech exne exneeds anything seen in the history of humanity. They dwarf the size of standard oil when it was broken up. They dwarf the size that at t was when it was broken up under the antitrust laws and their role fundamentally has a greater impact on our democracy than either telephones or oil, which is information and communication and speech and theyre now blatantly cent suring the media. That is a very dangerous thing if we want to continue to have free elections in this country senator, i wonder if all of this back and forth and weve seen this with congress in the past couple of week, this whole back and forth about how to regulate them and are they monopolies i mean if these platforms lose section 230 protections, it would effectively shut them down, wouldnt it . Well, i dont think it would. I mean at this point these are massive monopolies with enormous financial resources. I think what it would do is change some of their conduct and, frankly, for years, they did behave as neutral public they know how to do so, you know, i have chaired a series of hearings in the senate on big tech censureship and there was one document in particular that we discussed at length its a document that google prepared and its entitled, the good censure and this was an internal google document about a 50page power point they developed and they described how the old view of the internet was and this is in their words, laissezfaire free speech and how big tech had moved instead to what they called european style censureship and the four companies they identified were google, youtube which is owned by google, facebook and twitter. And instead of free speech, they now were engaging in european style censureship. I think the objective of policymakers, of congress and of the executive should be to get big tech to return to being a fair public forum where people are allowed to have free speech and engage with each other instead of giving them star chamber pow story silence anyone they disagree with i mean, they would seem to me to have a pretty clear choice to make, either as a platform with no moderation or a Publishing Company and were liable for all the content. It will be fascinating to see what comes of these hearings and what additional steps are taken, senator ted cruz, thank you so much for your time today. Thank you, appreciate it. Really appreciated that. Dom, over to you great interview of course, much more to explore. Coming up on the show, billionaire robert smith is paying up and this time its not for college kids student debt this time its for tax evasion weve got those details coming up plus solar ipo array is lighting up in its market debut joining a group of soaring solar stocks whats behind the hottest trade on wall street with those solar stocks xtinuppower lunch comg ne what do you look for when you trade . I want free access to research. Yep, td ameritrades got that. Free access to every platform. Mhm, yeah, that too. I dont want any trade minimums. Yeah, i totally agree, they dont have any of those. I want to know what im paying upfront. Yes, absolutely. Do you just say yes to everything . Hm. Well i say no to kale. Mm. Yeah, they say if you blanch it its better, but that seems like a lot of work. Now offering zero commissions on online trades. We charge you less so you have more to invest. vo im a verizon engineer and today, were turning on 5g across the country. With the coverage of 5g nationwide. And, in more and more cities, the unprecedented performance of ultra wideband. The fastest 5g in the world. It will change your phone and how businesses do everything. Im proud, because we didnt build it the easy way, we built it right. This is the 5g americas been waiting for. Only from verizon. Welcome back robert smith is perhaps best known for paying off the Student Loans for 400 graduates of morehouse college. Today hes in the news again for settling a tax investigation by the Justice Department robert frank joins us with the details. Robert dom, prosecutors saying robert smith willfully and knowingly violated the law in participationing in a tax evasion scheme but it wont be prosecuted because of his cooperation in a much larger tax fraud case now, smith will pay 139 million in taxes and penalties for his role in an offshore tax scheme by one of his early investors and that person was Robert Brockman prosecutors say brockman hid 2 billion in income from the irs making his case the largest ever in American History. For smith this all stems from a billion dollar investment that brockman made in 2000 to help smith launch this to equity partners, his private equity firm prosecutors say smith directed profits from the fund into offshore entities in belize and said smith used nominee trustees to hide his control of those entities and he used untaxed income to buy a Vacation Home in sonoma, california, a ski property in the french alps and to fund his charity. Now, the u. S. Attorney is saying smith who has a net worth of 5 billion, quote, committed serious crimes but his cooperation put him on a path away from indictment now, brockman will face seven charges of tax evasion, 20 counts of wire fraud and Money Laundering charges, dom, back to you. Robert, im curious this type of thing, i mean you mentioned thatthis is a scheme there are a lot of wealthy folks out there, ballerini billionaire, millionaires trying to find tax minimization strategies and there is a line between whats legal and illegal. How prevalent is this kind of tax sheltering kind of behavior relative to those people and should many others be worried . Well, between 2008 and 2018 you had over 15,000 wealthy americans come to the irs under this voluntary claim basis to say, look, we have overseas accounts they might not be reported and want to claim them now that was 11 billion worth of at that time hidden taxes so it was very common then, probably less common now that there are much stronger controls here but whats interesting about this is prosecutors made very clear that smith knew what he was doing was hiding this income and deliberately used nominees to hide his control of that money which is the key for an offshore trust and to hide his ownership of them so a lot of questions about why smith is not being prosecuted and just shows how important smiths cooperation is to what is now the largest tax fraud in American History of 2 billion. Always a bigger fish out there. Robert, thanks for the update. We appreciate it kelly, over to you still ahead, jobless claims are hitting their highest since midaugust how big a role will the economy play plus solar stocks are flaring higher in hopes of a biden presidency thats right after this. 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 sweetie can coloryou just be. Gentle with the pens. Okey. Okey. I know. Gentle. Gentle new projects means new project managers. You need to hire. I need indeed. Indeed you do. The moment you sponsor a job on indeed you get a short list of quality candidates from our resume database so you can start hiring right away. Claim your seventy five dollar credit, when you post your first job at indeed. Com home. Welcome back im sue herera in paris, hospital workers are striking for funding and better resources. The government confirming at the same time more than 30,000 new covid19 cases in a single day for the first time ever. With no deal in sight the European Unions top negotiator is saying brexit trade negotiations will continue and may stretch into next month. Uk Prime Minister Boris Johnson had set today as the deadline for a brexit deal. In colorado, the cameron peak fire is now the largest in that States History it has burned more than 160,000 acres so far hundreds of firefighters are trying to protect homes being threatened along the wildfires eastern flank. And across the west coast more than 8 Million People have been exposed to hazardous pollution levels by those recordsetting wildfires the Associated Press says particles in the smoke caused emergency room visits to spike and potentially caused thousands of deaths among the elderly and the infirm youre up to date. Thats the news update kelly, ill send it back to you. Thank you very much sue herera. To the Staggering Number of americans filing jobless claims just last week nearly 898,000 thats the highest level since midaugust and highlights the need for more covid relief with less than three weeks until the election how big a role will the u. S. Economy play in this years election. Lets bring in ben white at politico and cnbc contributor. Mike, ill start with you. Do you have any explanation for the uptick in jobless claims and the fact that theyre so persistently high week after week so, they didnt seem to be any clear distorres nil last weeks number. Obviously over the past several weeks, the past several months the level has been more elevated than would be expected given the number of layoffs and somehow its probably related to 9 bath backlog of claims to be processed. Ben, that said, youd expect a number like that and there would be a lot of concern in the market, especially about where that covid relief is coming from but the dow is only down 50 points today even though there has been no Forward Movement really on these relief talks how do you think that will factor into the election hey, kelly, good to see you i think it obviously will make a Significant Impact this election is not going to be decided exclusively on the economy and more so a referendum on President Trump and his handling of covid but this increase in jobless claims and the slowdown in pace of job creation is obviously very concerning and its led people to be quite frustrated and i think its adding to what is a significant lead for joe biden in the poll so it will be a major issue in the election coming up. And i think markets are reacting not terribly to it i think because theres growing belief in the markets that biden is probably going to win democrats may take the senate in which case there could be a significant and large stimulus package once biden is sworn in so i think at this point theres disappointment that its not getting done now because obviously it needs to get done now to help the economy and create more jobs and help Small Businesses but i think there is some growing belief we will get a big stimulus at some point in january after a Biden Inauguration so probably offering some support to markets right now. Mike, can you give us a sense of the outcomes for gdp and unemployment based on a big stimulus package in the next quarter or two versus maybe not getting one at all so, if we got a stimulus package like was being considered the past few weeks, 2 trillion that, could add several Percentage Points to gdp over the next several quarters now if we gent get that i think the economy can continue to grow in the Fourth Quarter and into the first quarter. But, you know, as ben pointed out then we have to have a whole new discussion about the type of stimulus we would get under a biden which could also be quite significant in the order of several Percentage Points on gdp which would translate into, you know, generally each percentage point of gdp gives us a half lower on ben, finally with the election quickly approaching and both biden and mcconnell saying theyll effectively wait until after that to advance their package, you know, either its going to be what democrats want or republicans want. I guess we have to consider the possibility that it could be, for example, a Biden White House and maybe republican was still have the senate. What would happen to the stimulus in that case, do you think . Yeah, that is a challenging scenario if biden wins and republicans continue to control the senate because you see right now Senate Majority leader Mitch Mcconnell is very unwilling to put a large stimulus package on the floor of the white house at 1. 8 trillion only at 500 billion but i think if we continue to see really bad unemployment numbers and i think the october jobs report is not going to be very good and the election is then over, i think the whole attitude among republicans might change at least a little bit given what theyll see but wont want to boost biden too much so i think markets would probably react somewhat negative to that split Congress Plus a Biden White House but i think Economic Data might turn out bad enough that it changes the narrative and everyone realizes we cant keep doing this we cant not renewing Unemployment Benefits and not sending more money to Small Businesses closing either way we probably get something but under a democratic sweep it would be a much bigger number. Yeah, all right, guy, thank you for now. Appreciate it. Ben white and mike feroli on the economy and the election and the town hall with President Trump is tonight alt 8 00 eastern on nbc and it will be simulcast on cnbc as well dom. Kelly, to the bond market right now. Rick santelli tracking all the action of the cme group out there. Rick. Hi, dom we had important data but one thing id like to point out the sixmonth outlook for the october philly fed was the second best number in 27 years at 62. 7. Goes all the way back to 93 and i think that is noteworthy because we are all considering what type of an economy were going to have nationally and globally once we get on the other side of the coronavirus. I think this gives us a hint now, look at a two day of tens under 69 basis points briefly. Those were the lowest intraday yields since october europe, theyre spiking and the markets are going the other way. Look at october bund yields. Stretch that out to march and not only the last time we were there but minus 86 alltime low in march finally, euro versus dollar starting at the end of september obviously their currency is suffering as rates move down along with equities. Rick, thank you very much coming up in power movers a bullish call on a restaurant believe it or not and a bejoetech bust and well hear from the ceo of stripe as the unicorn makes a big bet on africa this time stay with us power lunch returns after this unicorn stripe making a big acquisition in africa. Kate rooney joins us with more. Hey, kelly, stripe is acquiring Nigerian Company paytack for roughly 200 million. I spoke to stripes ceo patrick about the deal just now bullish on africa pointing to massive growth in internet and smartphone users because we are an Infrastructure Company we have to look on sort of longer term time horizons. As we look at the world in 2025, 2030, 2040 its so obvious that africa is going to be such a significant part of the years and the decades ahead. Stripe is one of many Silicon Valley Tech Companies offering employees the option to work remotely even after the pandemic collison saying it could make workforces for global and make the west coast and u. S. Less of what he calls a citadel for stripe stripe, the number one on cnbcs disrupter list this year is now Silicon Valleys most valuable private company at 36 billion i asked collison about an ipo what all of us want to know. No comment on when ohr how theyll list and says they remain focused kelly, back to you yeah, of course, you know, investors want to know if theyre going to do an ipo and when, would it be a traditional one . A good point about the Remote Workforce and i mean how do they stack up against some of the other Big Companies out there. Interesting so collison is from ireland and have a ton of remote engineering hubs and his company was more remote than your average tech company and more bullish on remote work as far as diversifying. Interesting to see going forward. All right kate, thank you so much. Kate rooney with the latest on stripe for us. Dom. All right, kelly, check out this mystery chart the stock is up 450 in just six months and its part of a group many people are betting will go even higher if joe biden wins the election take a look at that charlotte. Power lunch will be back after this stay restless with the icon that does the same, the rx crafted by lexus. Lease the 2020 rx350 for 409 a month for 36 months. Experience amazing at your lexus dealer. Hmms and ahhs heard incall. Welcome back to power lunch. The biggest solar ipo of the year array technologies, is up more than 50 in its first dave trait trading. The whole group has been soaring. Invoesco solar etf, tan up in the last month alongside a rise in joe bidens polling numbers the graph we showed you just before the break belongs to sun run one of the best performers in the solar space so far this year it is up 360 . For more, lets bring in joseph osha from Jmp Securities lets talk about whether or not this optimism has priced in everything it can for clean energy in the coming year. Okay. Its an interesting question thank you for having me. The short answer is i dont think it has we have some movement, i think, reflecting what a biden presidency could look like but if it actually happens and we see some of the pal sees that we are talking about, there is a lot more head room left to these stocks in my opinion. Joseph, then, what exactly drives it . Whats the incremental next step, next headline, next development, next regulatory issue that needs to be cleared for these types of stocks to have that catalyst to keep going . There is two things remember, first, that the business has been doing pretty well, even under the Current Administration there are a lot of consideration like falling prices for solar, some of the fires that we have had out here in california, what that means for residential solar. So those things will continue to drive the business but additionally, depending what happens in november you could see extensions of tax credits, you could see additional policies around supporting certain types of technology, especially in storage. So those things would be incremental to what is happening now and would, inmy opinion move stock prices further. There was a time over the last couple of decades when we used to look at clean energy, solar energy type stocks and juxtapose them alongside the prices of oil. Right now the threat for oil is that it keeps going lower because there is not a lot of demand, there is oversupply. Is that going to play out more as a secular head win for head wind for so loor since we have cheap fossil fuels for the next few years or so the relevance comps are not oil. It is actually coal and natural gas. Both of those have been really cheap for a long time. And that hasnt prevented the deployment of solar. Certainly to the extent that we see Vehicle Electrification happening low fuel prices do matter remember, this is an environment where co 2 levels in the going up and there is increasing recognition of that. I dont think low oil prices are much of a challenge and frankly low natural gas and coal price havent been for a while. All right we showed sun run and the massive run it has had what is the best pick, who has the most upside for solar stocks moving forward here. We are fans of sun run. The stock i highlighted yesterday that i think is sunova, ticker, nova i also highlighted j eed generay make generators but is moving into the business of rig providing batteries. We highlighted that stock as well finally, first solar, which is in the business of making panels more frankly for dig utility scale solar farms. I think thats going to be a Good Business for them as well three stocks that i would highlight. Thank you very much we appreciate it thanks a lot. Kelly, over to you we will get you more on these markets coming up. The dow is down about 50 points. We were down 300 at the low. Watch or listen tois live or on the go on the cnbc app we are back in a couple. She wanted a roommate to help with the cooking. But she wanted someone who loves cats. So, we got griswalda. Dinners almost ready. But one thing we could both agree on was getting geico to help with our renters insurance. Yeah, switching and saving was really easy drink it all up. Good could have used a little salt. Visit geico. Com and see how easy saving on renters insurance can be. Wow, i wish i could get a deal on a smartphone, but im not a new customer. Well, actually now, new and existing customers can get our best smartphone deal. Its historic. That is historic. Which means. Im making history, right . Yea, i dont know if id exactly sa wow. Me, dave brown. Existing customer who got the greatest deal in history. Just like every other customer gets. Oh thats cool too. Its not complicated. At t is making history. Everyone gets our best smartphone deals, including the lates preorders. music anncr give customers access to precisely what they want, when they need it the most. With adyen, the payments platform that delivers convenience for all. Adyen. Business. Not boundaries. We have got some breaking news here with regard to the fcc and section 230 that we just spoke about a few moments ago. Julia boor citizen has the details. The fcc is looking to take action to he form section 230 of the Communications Decency act which currently shields Internet Companies for legal liability for the content on their platforms. The fcc chair saying fccs general counsel has told him the fcc has Legal Authority to interpret section 230 and they intend to move forward with rule making to clarify its meaning. Saying quote social Media Companies have a First Amendment right to free suture but dont have a special right to immunity denied to other Media Outlets such as newspapers and broadcasters it will be interesting to see how it enter plays with the push in congress. It seems like this is a bipartisan issue that we have seen pushes from both sides of the aisle interested in clarifying this section. As a followup, whats the likely interpretation that the fcc chair might make to clarify the rule what he said in that quote there is that he doesnt think that the internet platform should be held to a different standard than the broadcasters but of course these are very different situations with the platforms effectively hosting content from anyone. Whereas the broadcasters are all about professionallygenerated content. The open platform is much harder to regulate. I think there are some logistical questions also about how you can regulate the content on an open platform. But it certainly seems to be moving forward here. We will see what comes out next from the fcc. A big move for traditional versus new media thank you for the update cally over to you. For the whole internet, potentially. Dom thank you so much. Thank, everybody for tuning in to power lunch today closing bell starts right now. Thank you very much kelly and dom. Welcome, evan, the closing bell. Im sara eisen here with wilfred frost. As always. Stocks heading lower for a Third Straight session we are off the lowest levels of the day. We were down 330 earlier in the day. Heres whats driving the act. The treasury secretary saying a stimulus deal would be hard to get done before the election but that the Trump Administration would keep trying. President trump meantime indicating he would raise his current offer on stimulu