Transcripts For CNBC Closing Bell 20240711

Report help to boost sent men this morning with the u. S. Economy adding 638,000 jobs in october. The Unemployment Rate fell to 6. 9 the coronavirus surge remains in focus, the u. S. Setting a record with more than 121,000 cases on thursday according to Johns Hopkins data 59 minutes left of the session in what has been a crazy week. Today though essentially flat, sara. Holding onto the gains i would argue, which are very strong so far this week. Ahead on todays show we will ask jeff sonnenfield how americas Corporate Leaders are thinking about the heated election race. Big news out of cvs as larry merlo announces hi retirement. We will also speak with the ceo of hershey asking about how cappy sales fell during this years unusual halloween season. Lets get to the final hour of trade, the markets and the election mike santoli tracking all the action for stocks. Frank has the vote count in pennsylvania ylan moi is covering the balance of power in the senate how georgias undetermined races come into play health care and Consumer Staples are up everyone else taking a pause. A pause a breonna taylorer. S p 500 up 7. 5 this week to date in a week he is time we travelled as much distance as we did back in soefl in three weeks. Not a surprise you would take a little bit of a pause with this steep of an ascent 3508, for people who care about weekly closes, above there would be a new high in terms of a weak lee close. It is not that unattractive a pattern. Wouldnt be surprising if we went sideways a little bit longer with seasonal factors in favor of the bulls at the moment and earnings coming through okay it seems as if the market has won back the benefit of the doubt for now even if you have to do time at the lower end of this range. We have fatigue today after the sprint we had this week. Look at the last four years now on sunday, this coming sunday is a fourYear Anniversary of the 2016 election day. So this essentially is the span of President Trumps four years since the election obviously not his term and you see it is decent returns about 13. 5 annualized. If you include dividends 15. 5, better than the average. But boy look at twice you almost gave up all the gains from election day and then regaped it back also from january of 2018, i actually have only done about 7. 5 annualized. It was a lot of front loaded returns as we got that tax cut also not the worst pattern Going Forward. Again, if you go sideways and stare step and think you are in a new bull market you are probably thinking it is okay tracking this bull market against early bull markets in history, it is continuing to track. This is from the march low, 2020 it is neckandneck what we had off the 198 bottom and of course 2009 there is a lot of other bull markets if you dated them from the start that fell away and look more like this. This is ranking among the top they of all time deny mean it is Going Forward like that. Doesnt mean it was at all a conventional bull market start after a long bear market but it tells you it is outperforming off of the lows. It seems like it would be long term bullish. Mike, when we get a final result both on the presidency and the senate, do you expect the market to have any sort of a major move have we already seen it with the big gains this week. I think you would have to see a surprise relative to what now is getting baked in as the most probable scenario. I think people are mostly leaning toward a split government of some sort. Clearly, if the senate goes 51 or even 5050 in ermgs the of democrats maybe you have a rethink of fiscal policy bee thats a couple months away. I think the market is tara reading it as an event we got past we built up a lot of anxiety we released a lot of it. Right now it is about are we going to get the seasonal rallies are earnings go to hole up, all of the typical questions we always go and the we got the good jobs number. Ed bian is taking the lead in pennsylvania this morning. But there are still more votes to be counted. We have the latest from pens pen. Reporter the counting of mailin ballots received by election day continues here at the Philadelphia Convention center joe bidens lead here continues to grow. It stands at about 13,000 votes. If he gets the states 20 electoral votes that would win him the white house. Heres a look at the numbers and a look at the active count here in philadelphia where biden captured 80 of the overall ought 94 of the mailin ballots were received and have been counted. There are 23,000 left that were received by election day thats statewide 9 of ballots circumstantial evidence by election day have been counted 112,000 are left the state excepts those will be counted sometime later today then ballots received after election day and up until today will be counted. Those numbers will be sent separate there are also 85,000 provision ballots that need to be counted. Long story short it could take days before we have a definitive answer in philadelphia in the race this tight. Are is there any updates announced by the state. We are excepting them to update the totals by the end of the day. The president actually discouraged his supporters from voting by mail he told his supporters to go to the polls and vote in person logically you would expect the overwhelming majority of them to be joe biden and he already has the lead. Frank collin in philadelphia thank you. Turning now to the race for the senate the nbc tally has 48 seats for each party that makes the final senate race in georgia absolutely key ylan moi has the details. We have to go through another whole election before we find out which party will control the senate the runoff for georgias two seats will be january 5th. Kell lee loeffler tweeted today, i have never backed down from a fight and i am not about to start now. She called her opponent wornoff a radical liberal. He fired back. Get ready, georgia, the negative ads are coming. Loeffler doesnt want to talk about why shes wanting to get rid of health care in the middle of pandemic. So she is going to scare with you lies about me. Now, i do want to point out there are two more senate races nbc hasnt called. Alaska and north carolina. Democrats are bracing for defeat there. That means everything is riding on georgia if joe biden is in white house, democrats would need to win both of those seats to clinch control of the senate. Thats why both sides are already starting to mobilize voters and their big donors all over again guys here we go again. Ylan, what can you tell us about republicans voicing support for staying quiet or condemning how the president has treated this election and his legal challenges and his, really, claims of fraud in some places like in philadelphia and some of the places that hes not winning . Well what we have seen is that the president has split the Republican Caucus once again there are some republicans who are standing by him such as as i understandy hyde smith out in mississippi who says she supports the president and believes that legal votes should be counted illegal votes should not be count and there are others who are voicing disquarter of the president s statement including senator pat toomey of pennsylvania so what you are really seeing here is the way that the Republican Party has tried to sort of gappel with the different tone and different style that the president has brought to the table we have seen that over the four years that President Trump has been in office and we are seeing it play out right now as well. Ylan moi, thank you. After the break, long time cvs Ceo Larry Merlo says he is going to be retiring he will be here to discuss that decision next. You are watching closing bell, the dow is down 124. [ sigh ] not gonna happen. Thats it. Im calling kohler about their walkin bath. My name is ken. How may i help you . Hi, im calling about kohlers walkin bath. Excellent happy to help. Huh . Hold one moment please. [ finger snaps ] hmm. The kohler walkinbath features an extrawide opening and a low stepin at three inches, which is 25 to 60 lower than some leading competitors. The bath fills and drains quickly, while the heated seat soothes your back, neck and shoulders. Kohler is an expert in bathing, so you can count on a deep soaking experience. Are you seeing this . The kohler walkinbath comes with fully adjustable hydrotherapy jets and our exclusive bubblemassage. Everything is installed in as little as a day by a kohlercertified installer. And its made by kohler americas leading plumbing brand. We need this bath. Yes. Yes you do. A kohler walkinbath provides independence with peace of mind. 46 minutes left of trade shares of cvs jumping today on the back of better than expected earnings, getting a boost from pharmacy tails in particular the company also raising full year guidance but the biggest news of all, Ceo Larry Merlo announcing he is retiring effective next year. He joins us now for an interview. Thank you. Great to be here. I dont think people were so surprised because you have been at the helm of cvs for a long time but perhaps surprised around the timing of this announcement you are on the front lines of covid19, just really starting to integrate your acquisition of aetna. Why now . This leadership transition does come at the right time for cvs health this. Year marks our two Year Anniversary of cvs and aetna coming together. I cannot be prouder of the work and the organization the last two years. The integration activities are complete the company is operating as one company with an enterprise lens. And i think the big news today on the Earnings Call is you know the Transformation Foundation has been laid. And we have many examples that we talked about today of new and Innovative Products and services coming to life in very meaningful ways. In many respects being part of the solution as we attack the covid virus. Yeah, i couldnt be happier in the boards decision to name karen lynch as my replacement. We worked together the last twoplus years shes a get it done person shes gatt proven track record of driving growth and innovation and you know i am very confident in her capabilities to lead the company in its next phase of growth she does come from the aetna side of things, the insurance part of the business, which i think is key for investors, larry. Do you feel like you get enough credit for buying this company and for owning an Insurance Company from wall street there were Big Questions several months ago about the strategy. And its still not 100 visibility about insurance policies coming out of washington well, you know, sara, i do believe that for the reasons that we were just talking about, you know, the strategy, you know, is being validated with our results. Seven consecutive quarters of meet asking being and beating expectations, we defining what omnichannel for health really means for our country. And to meet consumers in the community and in the palm of their hand if i told you people would be traveling to a cvs pharmacy for a diagnostic test for a virus people would roll their eyes but in seven short months thats exactly what happened. We are test being 70,000 people each and every day for the virus. You know, representing our ability to be an important part of the solution inyou know addressing the challenges associated with covid. What that even means in a post covid world. The fact that individuals all around the country can seek care in what many would describe as nontraditional care settings. Larry, to what extend are those 70,000 tests a day, 6 million in total, been helping to drive sales in your pharmacies of more regular everyday items i know some of them are taking place in the car parks but is it driving traffic into the stores as well. Wilf, thats a great question all of that testing is being done from outside of the store environment through our drivethrough locations so it really hasnt had any impact in terms of our instore sales. What is interesting about what we have seep is 70 , you know, of those customers have not used cvs in the past for their prescription needs so we do think there is an opportunity to engage these customers in a different way and make them long term cvs customers. You have also signed on to help distribute the vaccine when and if it comes, larry whats the plan . How is that going the work is it going to be orderly . Well, is absolutely is orderly. We have been very impressed with, you know, the work of operation warp speed and you know, we have been participants in the various task forces you know, you saw the announce men in we were selected to be one of the partners in terms of distributing the vaccine to Long Term Care facilities, you know, addressing some of our most vulnerable populations and you know, we have been doing a lot of planning around that. There are some additional complexities with a covid vaccine. As we sit here today from a handling, a storage environment. And the fact that most of the vaccines that are in Clinical Trial will require a booster shot and the complex it associated with that. You know, our team has done a wonderful job from a planning point of view. And, you know, when a vaccine is approved, we absolutely are going to be ready to mobilize our forces continuing to be part of that solution. Larry we are of course still awaiting the result of the election but if the winner wants to expand health care coverage, do you think that that comes with a tradeoff for the private sector at the sort of Profit Margins you are able to make wilf, its a great question and, look, i think you know, the private sector has demonstrated its role in our country in terms of, you know, the ability to innovate and the role of competition in the private sector and you know, what we have seen through covid is many examples of, you know, Public Private partnerships at a federal level, at a state level, at a community level. And you know, we have been proud to be able to be, you know, part of that solution as we think about the role that we are playing in health care, you know, i tefirmly believe th the model we have built, the omnichannel for health being in the community and at home in the palm of your hand we will be there to be part of that solution. I fess more specifically, are you happy larry that it look like we are going to get a divided government therefore, even a democratic president wouldnt be able to implement any major changes to expand the Public Public option on insurance you know, sara, the challenge that exists in health care is you know all too often we talk about the problems and the problems are not new problems we know what they are. What we need, you know, are Creative Solutions thats what we are bringing to market we look forward to whoever is in the administration, you know, whoever is Controlling Congress to, you know, continue to focus on what we can do to make health care more affordable, more accessible, and make it simpler and easier to use and navigate and in doing so, help people achieve a Better Health outcome to reduce Overall Health care costs. Thats where we need solutions and thats really quickly, larry yeah no, i dont mean to cut you off. I just had one final one on testing because we are at, you know, 120,000 cases now per day. We are seeing Record Numbers across the country do you have more capacity . Have we figured out the testing thing yet, nine months into this pandemic whereas many people as needed can get tested, tested accurately, and can get results in a timely manner yeah, sara, we have been expanding our capacity we have 4,000 sites. We will add another 500 sites between now and early december and you know, we have the capacity to conduct about 3. 5 million tests a month. We have capacity, you know, in our Current System based on our run rate i will tell you that we have been partnering with several labs and you know, they too have done a terrific job of expanding their capability and as we sit today, as weve seen the need for testing, you know, ramp up, you know, our turnaround time continues to average about 2. 1 days so i would sit here today and say we are in great shape to handle the needs of the country. Larry merlo, thank you for joining us we hope this wont be your last time we will see you before february. Ceo of cvs you bet. Still to come, another ceo interview you wont want to miss we will speak with michelle buck ngom hersheys about earnis and how the candy maker fared in a halloween season unlike any other. We are back in a couple of minutes. 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. If youre concerned about the environment and Climate Change, how do you find companies that are driving the right outcomes . If you care about economic equality and social justice, which firms are addressing it in their workplaces and their communities . For nearly 40 years, calvert has delivered competitive returns by investing in Companies Making a difference because we see value in doing good. Talk to your Financial Advisor about investing responsibly with calvert. 36 minutes left of trade we are getting news coming out of georgia on the election lets get to contessa brewer. We just heard from officials at the secretary of States Office basically the message they are letting us nosaira is that this down of these ballot is a moving target that they are getting a few in that move the needle one way and then a few that move the needle the other way right now the gap stands at 1,603 with joe biden in the lead as you can see, as a percentage, he and President Trump are neckandneck. There are thousands of provisional ballots that have now been sorted. Most of these provisional ballots were cast by people who were voting in the right county but the wrong precinct if they went to the wrong county, their prigsal ballots are tossed out if they are not citizens and were taling to vote those provisional ballots will be tossed out now they are telling us there is potential for roughly 4,000 military ballots to arrive in the next hour and a half if they were postmarked by election day and arrive by 5 00 tonight those military ballots would be counted and could move the needle past the gap we are seeing now they are also dulling down on the fact that there has been so much chaos and noise around irregular layerities in the election system. He says every single irregular layerity will be investigated but there have been no widespread complaints about the process in georgia they are intentan every legal vote being counted and no illegal vote being counted as it stands right now joe biden is in the lead in georgia for those 16 electoral votes. Lets check in on individual market movers. Coty jumping after posting an earnings beat. Citing sales in skin care items. And trade desk saw connected tv ad spending increasing 100 year over year. That stock surge after a strong run already. Still ahead we will Ask Management expert Jeffrey Sonnenfield how americas Business Leaders are thinking right thousand about the election and what comes next. Plus former obama era commerce secretary Penny Pritzker gives they are thoughts on what a Biden Economic agenda might look like. As we head to break heres a check on bonds a wild week fortressries as well yields are higher, back abo above. 8 . Recovering from lost ground over the last few days and off of the good jobs report this morning. Well be right back. We love our new home. Theres so much space. We have a guestroom now. But, we have aunts. Youre slouching again, ted. Expired, expired. Expired. Thanks, aunt bonnie. Its a lot of house. I hope you can keep it clean. At least geico makes bundling our home and Car Insurance easy. Which helps us save a lot of money oh, teddy. Did you get my friend request . Uh, ill have to check. doorbell ringing aunt jonis here for bundling made easy, go to geico. Com. Hello . Forand sweetie caneasy, 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. I got it all from you im always pushing through i know well make it to the finish line i know youre waiting on the other side im like you ondemand glucose monitoring. Because theyre always on. Another lifechanging technology from abbott. So you dont wait for life. You live it. Time for our daily coronavirus tracker. The virus continues spreading rapidly in the u. S yesterday more than 121,000 new cases were added a new record. The seven day average of daily new deaths hit record highs in georgia, north dakota and south dak prescott saw the largest increases. In europe the virus continues to spread as well france, uk and germany all reported Record Numbers of case this is week the uk has begun its four week lockdown in asia, japan, malaysia and india are seeing spikes. Japan recorded its highest number since august. Wilfred time for a cnbc news update with sue herera hi is you. Hello sara. Hello everybody. Heres your election update at this hour. Raurs are asking the u. S. Supreme court to stop the count of ballots in pennsylvania that are received after tuesday but before the end of that states deadline extension that is now being challenged they argue some counties may not be properly segregating late ballots. A Pennsylvania Appeals Court is ordering some provisional ballots be set aside for now that were cast by voters to fix problems with their malin ballots. New jerseys Governor Phil Murphy condemning President Trump for claiming without proof that the election is being stolen from him. Murphy also urging republicans to join with him in criticizing the president s comments. That was i think the worst set of remarks ever delivered by an american president last night. It is hard to put it any other way. Lets count the votes. And by the way, he could still win this if i were in his shoes, i would let this play out because you just never know. You are up to date. Ill see you again in an hour. Thats our election update wilf, back to you. Sue, thanks so much for that. We have 28 minutes left of the session. Heres where we stand, a little bit lower of course after a resoundingly positive week all four of the major averages below the flat down. The russelday kleining more than the othersings downer inially a 1 . Coming up, hersheys ceo joining us about the Earnings Report and a boom in chocolate sales amid the pandemic. Thats next on closing bell. [squeaky shopping cart] [sniffing] is the salmon wildcaught . She only eats wild caught. [cash register beeps] uh, i need a price check on honey. Dont get mad. Get e trade and get more than just trading. Investing. Banking. Guidance. Stayed on my mind. Was another around the corner . Or could it be a different story . I wanted to help protect myself. My doctor recommended eliquis. Eliquis is proven to treat and help prevent another dvt or pe blood clot. Almost 98 percent of patients on eliquis didnt experience another. And eliquis has significantly less major bleeding than the standard treatment. Eliquis is fdaapproved and has both. Dont stop taking eliquis unless your doctor tells you to. Eliquis can cause serious and in rare cases fatal bleeding. Dont take eliquis if you have an artificial heart valve or abnormal bleeding. If you had a spinal injection while on eliquis call your doctor right away if you have tingling, numbness, or muscle weakness. While taking eliquis, you may bruise more easily. And it may take longer than usual for bleeding to stop. Seek immediate medical care for sudden signs of bleeding, like unusual bruising. Eliquis may increase your bleeding risk if you take certain medicines. Tell your doctor about all planned medical or dental procedures. Whats around the corner could be your moment. Ask your doctor about eliquis. Shares of hershey rallying today following strong q 3 earnings before the bell the candy maker beating on both the top and bottom line as well as reinstating its full year 2020 guidance. It also saw north Strong America demand for chocolate products and baking products. It rallied more than 30 from march lows joining us more in a cnbc exclusive is hersheys ceo michelle buck. Welcome back to the show thank you so much. Delighted to be here. Listening to your Conference Call and reading the Analyst Reports this really was a story of you completely pivoting the business around covid19 to what consumers were doing and how they were changing and you are starting to see results. Talk about what you did, what worked. Absolutely. I think it was a year of agility being king first of all we are delighted that we grew net sales 4 , adjusting earnings per share more than 15 , and saw market share gains across most of our markets with most notably almost 190 basis points in the u. S. So at the very beginning what we needed to do was to move forward, make sure we focused first on safety. Then focus on making and selling with excellence, executing with excellence during this time. And then, as you mentioned, really pivoting to follow the consumer as consumers were out and about precovid, you know, they were participating in our category, picking up instant consumer candy bars for example once the pandemic hit and consumers were homebound their behavior changed they were spending much more time at home and needed to pivot focus on our portfolio for example, lot of our takehome product started to do well smores for example, as consumers were looking to spend Time Outdoors with their family, and sometimes with friend. Also twizzlers which are used for road trips, consumers were not flying anymore, they were in their cars or at home watching movies with their family which is another great usage occasion for twizzlers we were able to pivot our understanding to identify where the consumers were going adjust our portfolio focus, adjust our media spend by bran, adjust messaging copy, et cetera, and then we also took a look at where they were shopping so where they shopped changed. We saw a huge acceleration in ecommerce, whether it was click and collect or home deliverly. Fortunately we had invested a lot in Digital Commerce capabilities over the past several years so we were able to turn on a dime when our business really accelerated threefold i would say at least in household penetration with Digital Commerce yeah, if i am baking, then many people out there are baking because i never baked. Michelle, absolutely. And you saw i think yes, so halloween was another great example of where consumers were you know, our brands play a very strong role in consumers lives. They are more than just functional products. Consumers have a real connection to our brands. Those brands show up not only every day. But they are a key piece of traditions, of rituals and of seasonal celebrations. So early on, in late may and late april and early may, at the height of the pandemic, really, we had to make a decision of what to do about halloween obviously, there were a lot of questions about what it would look like. We made the decision that consumers were going to want to participate and experience our brands, that they needed those moments of goodness. So we, as the leader decided to lead and to drive the season so we partnered with our retailers to convince them to partner with us to get behind the season so that we could merchandise product. We altered our portfolio as appropriate. We altered messaging and we helped consumers to find new ways to celebrate the season safely and you have probably seen many of those from candy slides where people took tubes and slid the candy to trick or treaters candy grave yards with sticks with candy taped on to them. Tables of candy as opposed to a Community Bowl and consumers really found ways to participate in very fun ways. So, in very safe ways as well. We even had a little bit of fun by deploying a reeses trick or treat robot that roamed around neighborhoods to safely dispense reeses Peanut Butter cups that decision to lean in made a big difference i am surprised during this year we were able the still grow sales during halloween. Michelle looking at the past quarter, though, tell us about some of the international results. A couple of countries in particular seem to stand outicst like china and mexico . Yeah, so clearly as you look at our portfolio the International Markets i think have been hit the hardest, particularly the developing markets ask. Most of them were down pretty significantly in q 2 but in q 3 we did start to see some rebound in india, for example, that was initially hit hard by covid we gained over 50 basis points of market share year to date and we actually saw our net sales increase about 6 in the quarter. Would we are starting to see some of that rebound mexico the rebound has been a bit slower net sales were down for the quarter though we were able to gain about 90 basis points of share. I am pleased with how our International Team also our own retail store teams and our food Service Teams are really, really fighting back to improve their results every month as we approach the end of the year. Michelle, on the outlook, and what you expect now Going Forward, i mentioned you reinstated guidance. Were here now with the second wave or whatever you want to call it, with a Record Number of coronavirus cases in the u. S. , europe is in lockdown mode, many countries. Where is the consumer going to go how are you prepping this time around we cant not as many of us can make smores outside this time whats that going to look like clearly the marketplace continues to be volatile and we all just have to watch carefully to see what we are seeing every single day what i will say is, i think weve seen consumers adapt in some ways that may remain for some period of time Going Forward. So they have adapted how they are living their lifestyles were staying on top of that as we did with our pivot that enabled such Great Success in q 3. I anticipate that the continue to though clearly we are going to be watching it very carefully. We have the Holiday Season coming up in q 4 i dont think there is going to be risk to that season like there was during halloween because thats a different occasion thats the occasion where people are consuming our products while staying at home with family and friends. We sold that season, already merchandised and we anticipate Consumer Behavior will be there. Michelle buck, thank you for being here. Thank you so much. Hersheys, the stock up 3. 3 . Coming up next, a square surge, and a pallen teen march sales are down from last quarter but we are hoping things will pick up by q3. Yeah. Uh. Boss doug . Sorry about that. Umm. What. Its. Um. Boss you alright . [sigh] [ding] never settle with power e trade. It has powerful, easytouse tools to help you find opportunities, 24 7 support when you need answers plus some of the lowest options and futures Contract Prices around. Dont get mad. Get e trade and start trading today. Ed in the market zone is sponsored by e trade trade Commission Free today with no account minimums. Welcome back 12 30 left in the trading day. We are in the market zone, commercial free coverage of all of the action heading into the close. Mike santoli here to break down these crucial moments of the trading today. And today we have got barbara deran with us as well. Good afternoon to you. Broader markets. Stocks gaining steam into the close. Major averages now on pace for positive closes as you can see, only just. But the best week since april likely to be in the books by the time we get to the close you can see a nice improvement there as we have approached the close intraday likewise for the s p mike, despite the declines today, i would like to say a positive week. But we are in positive territory. Thats on top of a 9 plus gain for the week. We have gone from anxiety the relief to i think an urgency for people to get more exposed to the market as we head into year end fearing we have cleared one of the big known psychological impediment with regard to the election in this case i can see the argument it has gone a little far a little fast in the last week on the other hand, semiconductors making a new high credit markets look fine it doesnt seem like there is a lot out there thats going to get the market in trouble soon. Barb, have you taken new positions or are you thinking differently about the market given the way the election is going . It has been a bit of a roller coaster. Last week, fears over covid, the pandemic worldwide, the lack of fiscal stimulus, that is delayed. And then of course the election. Then i think because the market was so oversold you saw everybody stampeding in. Last friday is when i added to positions. But to existing positions. I did add a little bit of industrials, at that moment in time it looked like a blue wave was coming, cyclicals, industrials, small cap names when monday started people were underinvested but the tech stocks, the big cap tech stocks were cheap so you saw both things happen, stocks that people thought would benefit from a blue wave and tech stocks i am not adding here because as mike just said we had a big run quickly. I think as the dust settles and we get clarity on the president ial election not necessarily the senate that wont happen until january with those two senate seats. But lack of control of the pandemic is a problem. I think we saw that in the numbers this morning in unemployment, which were good but they are backwards looking up saw the long term structural unemployment go up and you heard chairman powell seeing the Realtime Data and it is not looking good. We have got to get some sort of fiscal stimulus package in place. I think we are going to have a lot of volatility in the market post election because of that. Industrials are up 7. 6 so far this week. Bitcoin has been surging this year it is up more than 100 since january. Bill miller joined cnbc earlier today making the case again for investing in the Digital Currency. I think right now that it is going to its staying power gets better every day. I think the risks of bitcoin going to zero are much much lower than they have ever been before and you are getting greater adoption i would say people who dont have exposure to bitcoin i would strongly recommend at current prices that they do that along with bitcoin, miller also say generic drug company tel aviva is one of his top picks. That moving off the back of interview, up 6 off of that recommendation barb, any exposure when you hear a famed Value Investor who has been in the market so many years saying you probably should have some it is on i think its 12th anniversary. It has proven itself. I know, i am one of those people that no matter how much i study and talk to top investors bill miller, do you have a Value Investor say that and the endo iment he is involved in talking about it i frankly still dont get it i would be playing the other end in terms of the encryption part. No, i am not involved in bitcoin and i am not going to be in the near future. Mike, it has been a good week for gold and silver as well. Not as good as it has been for stocks but you can start to see the long term case play out again particularly when you see further stimulus, further qe in places like the uk and talk here of at least one of fiscal or Monetary Policy being extended. Yeah, this is when they believe a bit more like risk assets along with bitcoin and the dollar being weaker. It is interesting, it is like what are you buying protection against if it is moving in tandem with a lot of other risk assets, global liquidity trade and all the rest of it it is interesting. I get fascinated by the bull case being it probably wont go to zero and it is about where it was three years ago. I buy the idea that you want to have exposure, but mostly because it is a trade asking speculative instrument as opposed to technology refuse loose. Square hits an alltime high today on the bask earnings last nate kate rooney has more on that for us square is up as much as 14 after blowing past wall streets expectations citi, needham and success squa hannah raising their price targets. Despite lofty expectations quote square managed to beat by a mile jack dorseys Payments Company recorded a 403 increase in sales. Eps was double what analysts were looking for quarterly profits for the app now make up more than half of the companys total. Back to you. Wow extraordinary. Kate thanks so much for that one. Mike i mean we have seen some of these fin Tech Companies do very well this year and have temporary pullbacks but square kinds of having a good quarter and jumping accordingly. It has been a remarkable move it has had these before where it goes vertical after a convincing batch of results a lot of talk like it is potential for an ali pay like they have in china all include stiff transactional app. Though it only covers 10 of u. S. Users right now tremendous expectations. You know, it is 100 times, two years out earnings whatever it is, it is in the right place, for sure, in terms this economy. Meantime, we want to hit pallan tear as well. Shares jumping double digits today. Josh lip ton with the story. Hitting a fresh record high in todays trade its best day since going public back in september. Now rallying 55 off its early october low. I caught up with an analyst who covers the name. He says there might be the perception that a divided government is good for pallen tear but he doesnt buy that opinion. The election doesnt matter much here he says pallan tear delivers Critical Services for Government Agencies if they win the contract, he says, it is Important Software at that works not because the company has political relationships inside washington. They report next thursday. Back to you. First as a Public Company thank you josh josh lipton. Big move here, mike, in pallan tear in the last two sections. Is that an election play it would seem to be, on some level an election play, people backing into it. Also the risk appetites rising i could see the rationale why it would offer more adoption better customer marketing message without an overhang of some kind of controversy but it is not necessarily clear to me that thats a tangible thing. But i could see why that might be the motivation for the bump. A fda Panel Decision on biogens alzheimers drug could be announced soon. Biogens stock moved significantly two days when the fda released briefing documents about this alzheimers drug ahead this meeting of a panel of outside advisers to discuss the evidence behind the drug we are meeting now, virtually, and they are taking a vote this is why this is such a big moment for biogen. Last year they diss continued these phase three trials because it looked like this dug didnt work in october they got information that says wait a minute it does work we are going to file with the fda. Now it is time for the fda to weigh in on whether that data is Strong Enough to gain approval the stock is halted right now. The panel just did its first vote they have more to go but the verse vote result was negative they essentially said the one study supporting the drugs approval did not provide strong evidence of effectiveness as a treatment of this drug for alzheimers disease. There are more votes to come we will bring that to you. The stock is halted until after the final vote the important point to make is that the fda does not need to final the recommendation of this outside panel of advisors and many expect because they have been so positive on this drug so far they will approve it regardless of the votes today. Back over to you. Meg, i am confused by this. I have seen your tweets over the last 30 or 40 minutes. The first vote was 81 noyes. Two uncertain. As you said, negative in terms of the outside recommendation. If they did go ahead along those lines and not get approved presumably all the gains this week would be given up again in items of the stock price earlier on tuesday and wednesday yes so the fda is not set to decide on whether to approve this drug until march. Now they could make a decision any time before then we dont know what the fda is going to do for a little while whats going to be very interesting to watch is when this to be reopens, which should be later this afternoon after the final vote, does the market believe that the fda itself feels so strongly about this drung it will disregard negative votes from the panel thats what we will watch later today. Biogen halted meg, thank you. Two minutes to go. Lets get to mike santoli. Internals are holding up. More negative in the morning, more downside than up. It improved since then a little bit less than 50 50 look at new highs versus new lows right now on the nasdaq nasdaq was accelerating higher 200 new 52week highs is strong for the nasdaq breaking out at least for one day there 33 new lows the val tiltindex continues to bleed lower. Went from anxiety to relief. It is reflected here under 25, back to the lows of the post covid shock moving in the right direction for the bulls. You wonder if maybe it is going to settle out along these levels as it did back in the summer. Just under one minute left in the session. We are just higher on the nasdaq just lower on the s p. The dow is down about a third of one as we have been saying throughout the hour resoundingly strong week for equities the s p up around 7 the nasdaq up around 9 . As for todays trade, Consumer Staples and tech are the best two sectors. The worst sector is energy, down 2 financials follows that, down. 8 for the week as a whole, the dollar has been soft, downer inially 2 down another third of a percent today. It helped risk efforts broadly also helped gold, up 4 for the week at close, egts are lower across the three major afternoons s p fractionally lower, do you down. 2 of welcome back, everyone, to closing bell. Im sar air hea eisen with wilfd frost. And mike santoli what a week. Stocks took a breather today after a blistering fourday rally on wall street, compelling the s p 500 to have its best week since back in april there it is. Closing absolutely flat. We have got some strength today in groups like Consumer Staples and materials and Technology Weakness to offset that in energy financials, consumer discretion father and real estate for week as a whole all settingors were Higher Technology the biggest winner, up almost 10 . The nasdaq popped into positive territory there into the close another decent Day Health Care really strong this week, up more than 8 . Materials up almost 8 Communication Services as well there is the russel 2,000 index of small caps. Down about 1 for the day. For the week as a whole the nasdaq gained more than 9 the s p gaining more than 7 we still do not have a decision on the election. Coming up this hour, find out what Corporate America and the leaders are saying about the election when we are joined by Jeffrey Sonnenfield who just hosted a zoom call with some of the countrys top ceost this morning. Angela joins the conversation. First to you, mike, on what the price action told us today, pausing after a giant rally, and this week, and what let us there. I mean the pause today makes all kinds of sense just in terms of how driven by immediate news flow you had this whipsaw of a market from pricing in some kind of a blue wave scenario, piling into, you know, the still cycle stocks, value names, things that were going to benefit from big fiscal stimulus and selling bands. That was up until tuesday. The rest of the we can was pivoting away from that, rebuying the growth stocks, talking about gridlock,talking about a mostly fed supported economy. It is one of those deals where you had a 7 gain in the s p that maybe pleased nobody because nobody owned all of it i think it is a positive week. A record weekly close for the s m i think it is a two and a half year record low close on a weekly bases for the dollar index. It seems like things are set up to rebuild risk appetites going into year end. The question is, have we covered too much ground . Angela, have we run up too quickly or is the risk reward for equities in the year ahead been fundally improved because of the election . I dont know if it is just because of the election. And thank you for having me on here again i think certain key markets drivers, i would see obviously as the road count progresses i think the markets are pricing in the fact we will likely have a divided government if thats the case then tax and regulatory overhaul is off the table and is kind of unlikely. I think we have had better than expected unemployment data and you know, i think there are expectations based on senator majority leader Mitch Mcconnells comments yesterday that we will see, potentially, a fiscal stimulus p. Ackage before the end of the year. These are all drivers. But the elephant in the room is when you opened the newspaper and saw that the u. S. Hit a record daily Coronavirus Infections lots of good nows out there. Good Earnings Reports as well. But the virus is creeping in and we are seeing it today with the mixed messages the market is indicating here. Heres what i dont get about the market reaction, barb. Going into the election the market was rallying bigtime on this idea of a blue wave because it was excited about a huge stimulus and the fact we would get a decisive result. It doesnt look like we are going to get either of those two things and the market is celebrating nonetheless. Why . Well, i think there is a couple thing one i think the uncertainty of the election and the flipflop from blue wave to maybe divided government to still not knowing is really we know the market hates uncertainty. I think we have had rotation among groups in anticipation but i think, you know, we are going to see the market has raced ahead because the fundamentals to the bull market are still in talkt recovery is continuing to happen i think we will still be slower than we could. We have still got fiscal stimulus coming and we heard in the Senate Leadership today that we think it could be deny by year end year end is when a lot of Unemployment Benefits roll off you have the fed, the good stimulus, and of course there is the hope of vaccine, which possibly comes out in the first quarter. Frankly, i dont think thats the saving grace it would help the markets psychology but i still think if you look at some of the Asian Countries or new zealand, australia, they have done a remarkable job controlling it without a vaccine. We really need to control with it the standard cdc recommendations. Biden will be pushing that if he indeed is our next president. Angela, whats your take on whether yields will be rising or falling over the next months. In in terms of yields where we saw yields kicking up a little bit today i think long term Interest Rates are going to stay lower for longer as fed chair powell keeps telling us. I think thats going to be constructive for some riskon positioning whether we look at cyclicals. Areas Like Health Care i think there is less concern about regulatory constraints and also it is looking cheap other areas we like are sustainability linked themes we like investing in Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and Smart Mobility i think these are interesting things if there is a blue wave, i think will will be additional tail wind from a climate package, a 2 trillion climate package President Biden has been talking about. Im sorry, vice President Biden. Jumped the gun here. I was going to say both of those things are big ifs thank you for joining us. How are the worlds ceos responding to the election uncertainty . Lets bring in Jeffrey Sonnenfield senior associate dean for leadership studies at yales cool of management. He held a round table discussion with top executives and leaders earlier this morning jeff, talk us through what happened, as much as you are able to tell us. I know you are not supposed to name names and what the big takeaways for you were from the biggest ceos thanks, sara. I must admit, modest as i usually am i really didnt know let folks snow we were having this event i am impressed cnbc fairetted this out i might slip out a name or two we promised anonymity. This thing developed l. A. Night at dinner. I started hearing from a number of ceos, 30 of the 100 Largest Public Companies assembled and have shown you their names so you know they were real i can show you their photos how they endanled. It snowballed through the nate it was amazing a few them found out when they woke up at 5 00 or 6 00 in the morning. Bob iger joined us at 3 00 in the morning. I think he was wearing his pajamas for the call there was enthusiast ic for the meeting. There was a good deal of variety in the room. There were some enthusiasts, there were some Trump Supporters there, just between us, chevy schwarzman was there steve and i have together in the past after 9 11, after the collapse of enron, after the collapse of Lehman Brothers we had pulled together ceo forums quickly. This one was really quickly, through the it. And their level of anxiety and concern was registered by their shocking participation we had, you know, the leaders of the businesses were there, pharmaceutical, retail, transportation, manufacturing, you name it, consulting. Great color, including iger in pajamas and all but what is the anxiety about . Is it about the fact that we still dont have results is it about the way that it is shaping up or what . Bob i dont think was necessarily in his pajamas but he did have a big cup of coffee. Some of the Trump Supporters start with that were concerned that there was a quickness to criticize the president for denying a freedom of eggs president ial that we all should be entitled to have even though there is a pretty incendiary language that we were talking about earlier as well as a concern that he should be allowed to challenge and make sure that there is a free and fair election. The other side of that was an awful lot of people in the room got into this ferocious debate about how some very sophisticated well informed people had such a bad idea of how the balloting issues unfolded that for example, in pennsylvania it was the Republican Legislature that they never had never, in the history of pennsylvania n the history of the commonwealth, they never had mail ballots before this year and it was a Republican Legislature that brought it out. But then they put restraints on it that they couldnt open the ballots until the day of so there are reasons for these delays but they are thinking it looks suspension it is 95 , suddenly it switches over there is a reason why we got to the mailin ballots late after the machine votes were counted we had a lot of discussion about what was real, what was not. There were some who used the language i dont want to be too inflammatory right now of almost a coup detat, some were saying the president s message last night upset a lot of the critics saying it was presuming powers that the president doesnt have and the unity on the call was that the fortification of society has to do with the ceo stepping above and beyond. And as adelman shows in this trust data that 92 of the 35,000 people they surveyed this huge survey, showed that 92 want their bosses want their employers to take a position on social issues and 3 4 of them want them to get involved in social progress issues instead of the government to do it so there was a concern we need to do more of that a lot of the ceos. The ceo of alex goreski of Johnson Johnson is really proud of really how he and 3,000 other ceos first time in history encouraged paid time off and had workers out as volunteer poll workers. Which is another misunderstanding there are a lot of poll workers out there that are bipartisan and there is an opportunity for inspections but Corporate America was encouraging that participation, there was a lot of support there was concern we could lose ground if we looked like we let misinformation travel. That that has to be corrected. Sure. I dont know if if any of you remember, there was a famous photo where when after john f. Kennedy was killed in dallas and johnson was sworn in they had an unseen judge there swearing him in. He didnt need to be sworn in. He was not even a judge. He was just a magistrate it was just to give the public the sense of a peaceful transfer of power lbj was already sworn in as Vice President. But it was the deputy who had this idea they needed to do that similarly now, the business groups are ready to celebrate the transfer of power here, as soon as this is named, if vice President Biden is to be 2345i7named as president elect that these businesses are going to promote a peaceful transfer of power. What was the tone of Economic Outlook of the ceos. I am of the glad you mentioned that i was ig intrigued by the discussion you had before you brought me on there is another twist to this joe biden and Mitch Mcconnell happen to be very good personal friends. I once overheard a situation where vice President Biden had a malproppism, made a gave and people were making fun of it it was elaine and mitch who shut it down. Saying joe biden is our friend in stale mates in the last administration mitchell met with joe biden. They had a relationship that president obama and Mitch Mcconnell didnt have. There is a belief that actually biden and mcconnell will be able to get some of the stimulus through. I think some in the market understand that. There is another twist as to why despite all the uncertainty out there, it is not necessarily the gridlock explanation, and in fact some things might be done in a way that supports more of a breath of ideology working across the aisle, and there is some enthusiasm for that wilf. Im glad you asked about that, you know, i think it was franklin who said something about philadelphia, if we dont hang together we surely will hang separately. Jefferson said every dins of opinion is not we will leave it there, jeff. Thank you for coming on and sharing. Sure. We appreciate it. Next time i want to weasel may way into this coverings . You were almost in there we havent had this kind of Voter Participation since Teddy Roosevelt and mckinley. Thank you for joining us. I know. That is exciting. We should mention next time when jeff says, just between us that there are a good few hundred thousand people included maybe more, who knows. Up next, former commerce secretary Penny Pritzker will discuss wh jatoe bidens economic agenda will look like if he wins the white house we are back in 90 seconds. Welcome back lets just check in on how the markets finished, which was essentially flat s p just lower nasdaq just higher with the dow down about a quarter of a percent. Thats today but for the week as a whole, resoundingly positive gains, 7. 3 for the s p 500 just this past week. Of course therefore pausing today from that rally that we have seen as we await calls on the president ial race in several battleground states with vice President Biden currently leezing with 253 Electoral College votes. For more on what a biden presidency could be, lets bring in Penny Pritzker. Good afternoon to you. Thank you for joining us. Thanks for having me. I guess the first question is whether policy will change as it relates to u. S. And china. Do you think we are looking at a game changingly different approach by a wouldbe President Biden compared to a President Trump. I think the first thing on president elect bidens agenda will be to get the virus under control. The second will be to address the issues around our economy. And then of course to put the United States back on the Playing Field on the global stage in a leadership position i think as it relates to china, theres many aspects of the policy that will require review. We are going to have to wait to see precisely where the Vice President takes us i know his belief is that the United States, with a strong economic domestic economy and a strong competitiveness plan can compete with china. What about some of the other things on the list that people talk about, whether it is the Paris Climate Accord or the Iran Nuclear Deal do you think those are types of things that he will be seeking to rejoin . I think the Vice President is very much committed to helping to putting the United States back in dialogue all over the world as it relates to clean energy and the global climate. Its absolutely essential that we address the challenges that were facing from Climate Change and the United States needs to play a leadership role that has been the position of the Vice President for a very long time. How do you think, madam secretary, the biden group is going to take the fact that this was such a close race . I mean, it is so far off from what the polls expected. The fact that it doesnt look like the democrats are going to take the senate. And what the message for biden and for the Democratic Party is from that . Well joe biden is a unifier i think hes absolutely the right man for the moment that our country is going through hes got the capacity to not only work through the senate remember, these are many of his former colleagues. But hes also got the capacity to have the country face the challenges, the very significant challenges that we have ahead of us and to put together a policy agenda that will first as i said deal with the coronavirus. What did the electorate tell us . The electorate told us, watching awful you on television over the last several days is that there are two issues on their mind deal with the virus and help get our economy going. I want my job and i want my income going up again. So i think joe bidens got a plan to address that, first to deal with the virus by mandating masks, dealing with testing. We need a National Plan around testing. Dealing with contact tracing, making sure we have a plan to get the vaccine out. You cant address just the economy. You have got to address getting the virus under control. Then there is a plan to deal with our economy and i think he will be a very good jobs president. I think that his focus on innovation on getting people back to work, on clean energy are all opportunities for our economy. And so i think that joe biden has is ready to lead even though the country is in the situation its in, narrowly divided. How low on the list do you think a trade deal with the uk is going to be well, i think, look, the United States government has the capacity to do many things at the same time. And if, you know, vice President Biden decides that a trade deal with the uk is a priority, it will get done. But you dont sound like it will be one. What about covid . Look, i think reinvigorating the transatlantic relationship is a high priority there are many, many facets to that not only with the uk thats been in a really important ally of the United States, but also with you know, with Continental Europe i think joe biden will address all of those thing i think hes you know, this is a man who has had enormous capability of working around the world with leaders so i think as it relates to a trade agreement, you know, which trade agreement gets prioritized when, is something that, you know, im i dont know, but i know that joe biden is going to want to make sure that the United States can be have access to markets and be able to be as competitive as it has always been. So theres a lot of work that has to be done to put us in that position because we are in such a you know, a difficult situation now. My biggest question secretary pritzker is what will be different on the covid front because we are in this dangerous period where we are facing more than 120,000 cases per day obviously the worst is coming here in the winter according to the experts. But lets say come jan if he is in fact elected, what changes under his administration in terms of actual policies on testing, on a federal framework for dealing with this . First of all, i mean, what a tragedy that we have 120,000 new cases a day. Thats more than japan, i think has had in the whole pandemic. And we are going to get back to 1,000 deaths a day that is just horrific. And thats not where we need to be if we follow basic science, if we all wear masks and i believe vice President Biden will mandate that we all wear masks, it becomes the social norm if we all wash our hands if we all keep our distance. If we all if we have testing, which is ubiquitous and there are many universities around the United States, and labs that have created lower and lower cost testing that can be used, you know, multiple times a week so we can get folks back into our factories and other places and then tracing we have to also be able once we have tested, to be able to connect people very quickly and let them know whether they have been exposed to someone who is has the virus. And thats the kind of thing that has to be you know, thats the thing that the federal government can can lead on, and should be leading on and hasnt been leading on. The idea that the states have been left to their own to figure it out is really i think a dereliction of duty. Penny pritzker, thank you for joining us, appreciate the insight. Thank you so much i really appreciate your having me. Former commerce secretary under president obama. Mortgage rates keep hitting record lows here up next, mike santoli looking at whether the falling cost of dent is helping to ofetfs several big economic head winds we are facing at calvert, we know responsible investing is hard. If youre concerned about the environment and Climate Change, how do you find companies that are driving the right outcomes . If you care about economic equality and social justice, which firms are addressing it in their workplaces and their communities . For nearly 40 years, calvert has delivered competitive returns by investing in Companies Making a difference because we see value in doing good. Talk to your Financial Advisor about investing responsibly with calvert. T you can go your own way sor about investing responsibly go your own way your wireless. Your rules. Only Xfinity Mobile lets you choose shared data, unlimited or a mix of each. And switch anytime so you only pay for the data you need. Switch and save hundreds on your wireless bill. Plus, get 300 off when you buy the Samsung Galaxy note20 ultra 5g. Learn more at your local xfinity store today. The u. S. Hitting a grim milestone this week, becoming the first country to hit 100,000 daily covid19 cases the surge isnt showing any signs of slowing down, with daily cases hitting a record high of more than 121,000 yesterday. For more lets bring in former fda commissioner and cnbc contributor dr. Scott gottlieb thank you for joining us. Thank you. How concerned are you about these numbers, 121,000 daily cases . Do you think we are heading in the same direction as europe and the need for more lockdowns . Or are we dealing with each case better we are heading in the direction of europe in terms of pervasiveness of the infection across the United States whether or not we need a national lockdown, i think we can deal with this effectively with targeted mitigation on a state by state basis but we are not doing that right now. So we are building trouble for the future i think it is going to explode in several weeks we are going to see the case numbers really start to explode. 120,000 cases arent 120,000 we are probably at best diagnosing one in five cases, maybe less than that this is at least half a million case as day, probably more, in terms of actual numbers of infections it is spreading across the United States right now. There is only a handful of places where you have really dense epidemics right now. The midwest, the upper midwest, the great lakes region, utah but it is not like it was when we had the epidemic in new york or in the south. We had created infection in small areas. Right now it is diffuse across the entire United States we are building up a lot of trouble for the future you have to worry what january is going to look like, what december is going to lock like right now given the way this is rising it is not just the case. It is the hospitalizations as well thats really the number to watch. 53,000 people hospitalized 10,500 people in icus. Thats a lot and it is growing quickly. That said, trying to find a baying positive out of this, if the cases really are half a million per day then are hospitalization rates and death rates per case relatively encouragingly low . Its absolutely the case that we are doing a better job preserving life inspect hospital and fewer people are bog hospitalized more people are being treated at hope the criteria for hospitalization has gone up. They are not hospitalizing people as easily when you infect this many people, we are going to have a pressed Health Care System its just the fact that even if we get the death rates down and we manage People Better in the hospital and the flow into hospital improves with discharging more easily, more quickly, we are infecting a lot more people. Eventually the Health Care System is going to be pressed. When you look at what is happening in utah, south and north dak prescott, wisconsin where they are building swing spats in hospitals thats going to happen across the u. S we dont have the ability to back stop that many i think ros. If you have diffuse spreading across the country it is going to be hard for the federal government to back stop that much. If ever this was a dime, doctor, for the fda to move fast, now is that time where is the emergency use authorization for regenerons antibody treatment or some of the rapid saliva tests and some of the other key innovations that have come out that would make this a little bit easier . Really, the near term game changer is going to be thats antibodybased drugs the vaccines, even if we get an emergency use authorization this year, i am on the board of pfizer, it is really more of a 2021 even until you have protective immunity in people you vaccinated even if we rolled it out this year it is going to be two injections to get people to immunity as for the antibodies, i dont know where they are. I thought they would basketball authorized already i dont know what the obstacle is but we dont have enough doses we didnt make the investments we needed in april and may to get the supply on hand we are in a little bit of a bind i think we need to keep that in mine there is no therapeutic cure coming we need to deal with december and january the oldfashioned way, tracking, tracing, targeted mitigation, isolating those who are infected doctor, how worried are you by the story in denmark that the virus has mutated into minks and back into humans again not that worried. I think we need to learn a lot more about the characteristics of that virus. The fact that you see mutations in the virus making the leap between seeing something mutate when you sequence it and it having different clinical characteristics in humans that make it more contagious or more pathogenic or more serious as an infection. Thats a big leap. There is a gap between the two we see mutations all the time. The vast majority of mutations dont have an impact on the at of the virus to infect us or cause disease. What have we learned now that schools have opened up nationwide about the ability for children to transmit this and whether they are a source of the spread we are seeing clearly kids can get the infection. They can get sick from it and can transmit the infection what we have learned is that they are less likely to get infected younger kids appear to be less likely to transmit the infection and appear to be less likely to get very sick although we have seen bad outcomes in kids. I dont want to discount that. I think there is a trend to lean forward and reopen schools i think schools that havent opened are going to have a hard time opening we should focus on trying to keep the schools that are open opened and reopen the others after the winter i think there is an opportunity to have a spring semester. We need to get resources to schools, ppp for teachers retrofit h vac system, and final will he get better data out there on what worked and what didnt we havent collected data about who opened and who was successful did masks help did sanitizing help . That should be able right now. Dr. Scott gottlieb, we always learn a lot thank you very much. Former fda commissioner. After the break, mike santoli back to look at how the fall cost of debt could impact the u. S. Economy. Ci miaw r, we will tell you ho soaled companies are ramping up their defenses against misinformation surrounding the election back in just a minute. Has you swamped. you need to hire i need indeed indeed you do. The moment you sponsor a job on indeed you get a shortlist of quality candidates from a resume data base so you can start hiring right away. Claim your seventyfivedollar credit when you post your first job at indeed. Com promo lets get over the mike, who is looking at the low cost of debt at the moment of all sorts, wilf. We get through the election, it is understandable if attention starts to turn to the economic head winds a decent jobs report under 7 unemployment. Maybe no long term stimulus. Here is plotted on same chart the last two decades the average of a 30 year mortgage and corporate downgrade bond yields. A steady path downward it is a tremendous buffer for households who also have very low debt burdens as a percentage of disposable income all of this stuff is working in favor of people being able to kinds of i guess kind of tough it out through a tough winter, perhaps, as well as letting companies completely term out their debt and maybe even inflate equity valuations. All of this is one of these offsets that we have to keep in mine of course the fed told us they intend this to be the case for quite some time. Mike, the interesting thing here is whether we get more stimulus if we do, whether that means the fed doesnt have to do so much more and that the end of the curb could start to rise again whether that puts pressure on corporate or homeowners. You could have pressure if both of those things fire at once but it didnt do that when we put 3 trillion into the economy back in the middle part of this year maybe it would if the economy is starting to kmug a little bit better i dont think that would choselings off it is happening for a reason thats more of a 2017 type scenario in the best case where you basically do have the cost of debt going up but essentially for more of the right reasons than not maybe we take that challenge if thats whats out waiting for us. Thanks mike. Still ahead, facebook and twitter taking new steps to crack down on the spread of election misinformation including potential action against President Trump. Details it laer on closing bell. With this seal, this restaurant is committing to higher levels of cleanliness. The expertise that helps keep hospitals clean, is helping keep businesses clean too. Look for the ecolab science certified seal. Welcome back time for a cnbc news update with sue herera hi sioux. Hello will. Hello everybody. Heres what is happening in the election at this hour. In arizona President Trump is gaining on joe biden he trails by less than 40,000 votes in the latest count that covers 94 of all expected ballots. The federal agency that oversees u. S. Election security is pushing back at unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud. The Cyber Security and Infrastructure Security Agency saying Election Officials have detection measures that make it very difficult to count fit ballots. Philadelphias democratic mayor jim kenny saying he thinks President Trump should acknowledge he may have lost and congratulate joe biden as the winner meanwhile, he says that ballot count is going ahead under the vfgs of county, not citi officials. The votes will continue to be counted until every valid ballot is counted while some, including the president , continue to spew baseless claims of fraud, claims for which his team has not produced one iota of evidence, what we have seen here in philadelphia is democracy, pure and simple. You are up to date. Thats the election update at this hour. Sara i will send it back to you. Sue, thank you. Up next, cracking down twitter and facebook taking big steps to combat election lsinformation in a major way. Wel have all the details, when closing bell returns congratulations welcome to the aflac program. Aflac now tell me, what does aflac do . Aflac pays you money directly to help with unexpected medical bills. And is Aflac Health Insurance . No, but it can help with expenses Health Insurance doesnt cover thats right. Are there any questions . Coach yes . Can i get one of those cool blue blazers . You know i cant play favorites. Alright lets talk coverage. Its go time get help with expenses Health Insurance doesnt cover. Mmm hmm get to know us at aflac. Com its a thirteenhour flight, tfifteen minutes until we board. Oh yeah, we gotta take off. You downloaded the Td Ameritrade mobile app so you can quickly check the markets . Yeah, actually im taking one last look at my dashboard before we board. Excellent. And you have thinkorswim mobile so i can finish analyzing the risk on this position. You two are all set. Have a great flight. Thanks. Well see ya. Ah, theyre getting so smart. Choose the app that fits your investing style. Thats why i take osteo biflex, to keep me moving the way i was made to. It nourishes and strengthens my joints for the long term. While helping with occasional joint stiffness. Osteo biflex. Do you have a Life Insurance policy you no longer need . Now you can sell your policy, even a term policy, for an immediate cash payment. We thought we had planned carefully for our retirement. But we quickly realized that we needed a way to supplement our income. If you have one hundred thousand dollars or more of Life Insurance you may qualify to sell your policy. Dont cancel or let your policy lapse without finding out what its worth. Visit conventrydirect. Com to find out if you policy qualifies. Or call the number on your screen. Coventry direct, redefining insurance. As we still await the results of the 2020 presentation election, facebook and twitter are taking steps, their biggest yet, to stop disinformation. Julia boorstin is here with the details. Sara, thats right, facebook and twitter are taking unprecedented steps to stop disinformation and to slow the spread of discord. Facebook is pulling down groups aiming to oppose Election Results, including ones organizing inperson action with a hashtag stop the steal. Facebook also reporting to make users make additional clicks before they can sow the spread of falsehoods. Though Steve Bannons account is active on facebook, twitter banned his account for glorifying violence. Facebook pulled down one of his videos from his account. Meanwhile, twitter suspended fake ap accounts that made false claims and twitter claims they have flagged a dozen of the president s tweets as misleading since tuesday. His account could be blocked if he continues to oppose the ults are of the election. They are leaving up tweets he is allowed because he is an elected official but of course that could change any detail how much of this we are seeing across sites like facebook, these calls for violence and incitement of violence, militias potentially as a result of the election in. I think if facebook and youtube and twitter are doing a good job they are pulling it down and stopping the spread of it before it goes viral. I think we will hear a lot of that facebook announced they pulled down coordinated networks of pages and groups around the world. But they share data on that kind of stuff monthly they are constantly fighting this information around the world, not just around the election i think we will ultimately get more data on how much they have prevented from being shared. But already, it sounds like significantly more than they could have possibly considered doing with the last president ial election julia, thank. Up next, the push to 270 still on, and a number of states remain uncalled. We will dive into that andom se of the legal issues ahead in the race to the white house. Closing bell back in a couple. Up next, the race to 270 is still on, but there are some legal alng ichleesn the way. We will break down what they could mean for the market when closing bell comes right back. Alright, okay. Hows that . Is that how you hold a mirror . [ding] power e trade gives you an awardwinning mobile app with powerful, easytouse tools and interactive charts to give you an edge, 24 7 support when you need it the most plus 0 commissions for online u. S. Listed stocks. Dont get mad. Get e trade and start trading today. We are still awaiting results from key battleground states and lawsuits from the Trump Campaign are already mounting. Scott . Late word from pennsylvania, the state Republican Party there has gone to the u. S. Supreme court asking for an order that all of the counties in pennsylvania set aside any mailin ballots that came in after election day the Supreme Court basically declined to rule on the states extension of the deadline until after the deadline the gop wants to go back and get all of those ballots thrown out. In order to do that, the ballots need to be set aside thats the order they are seeking. Important to note that those ballots have not yet been counted and according to officials in pennsylvania, they are not likely to affect the margins which are growing for vice President Biden in pennsylvania a similar order by a state court in pennsylvania has provided that provisional ballots be set aside as well for potential challenges by the Trump Campaign and Republican Party and other suits have taken aim at transparency as votes are counted. But experts point out that any effort will have to get rid of enough ballots to make a meaningful change in the result. He cant just come and say there has been widespread fraud. He has to show that signatures were accepted that could not have been accepted he would have to show that individual poll watchers were throwing ballots away. He would have to actually demonstrate fraud. In all, by our count there are eight lawsuits in play in various states in nevada they are talking about widespread fraud among the ballots but with precious little evidence and we are likely to see recounts in georgia and wisconsin. Scott, any sense of how long this could take if President Trump refuses to back down and continues to pursue these legal paths . It varies state by state. There is the deadline to actually vote on the president and Vice President there are deadlines so there will be a rush to get things done the fact is if at the trump administration, Trump Campaign continues to press the challenges, we could be talking about this for weeks to come scott, thank you very much. In raleigh today as we wrap up the week, amazing to see the kind of gains we did we saw almost a 7 1 2 gain for the s p. 9 rise for nasdaq what will you be looking for other than Election Results and the way the market treats it i will be looking at the bond market it has been the bellwether and the style of stocks. You did have a sharp drop in bond yield right after election day. The market concluded they were overcommitted there was going to be the blue wave, and the fiscal stimulus s p closes at 3500, less than 1 below where it traded back at the highs on october 12. It seems like we are at a Decision Point as to whether in fact the recovery trade will be ascended into november the other take away was everything was high. S p was up 8 1 2 . With that in mind, the dollar down almost 2 it provides a little bit of something for everyone absolutely. It is much more about investors feeling they needed to get more exposed to the market. There are four days in a row for the s p 500. It shows you, whether people felt forced to do it because of violent repositioning or whether they sat out waiting for the election to pass but there was a sense they were adding to their risk allocations. High yield debt was in demand. That was the denam i can you dont know if it was a quick adjustment coming into the election or something more just to wrap this up. This was a global rally. Places that didnt have elections to get past. Europe in particular lockdowns were enacted in the last week or so. Nonetheless, the euro beat the s p. We are out of time fast money starts now. From a secure bunker i am in for melissa lee. Welcome to all of you folks. Tonight on fast. Election protection. Wall street on edge as results roll in. How our traders are navigating the uncertainty. Plus the prescription for profits. Two of