Transcripts For CNBC Squawk Alley 20240711

Good wednesday morning welcome to squawk alley. Im Caro Quintanilla with jon fortt. Deirdre is with us for the hour. Nasdaq is trying to come back after a couple of days of losses as we turn our attention once again to covid levels in the United States. Were going to start the hour, though, with alibaba, a big drop for the stock despite these new sales records on this singles day. Hi, eunice hey, carl live streamers in china are wrapping up whats been a very long day pitching to Chinese Consumers and it seems as though the efforts have paid off. For alibaba, the value of the orders that crossed the site have just come in at just shy of a 500 billion, about 75 billion u. S. Dollars these numbers cap an extended 11day campaign thats a little different this time around not the usual 24hour singles day shopping extravaganza. There were some interesting trends that we saw that were generally pandemic related, where consumers were looking to buy goods that they probably would be buying if they were able to travel outside the country. So these are imported items, luxury goods, Health Products also very popular, given the circumstances. Now, as you guys had mentioned, theres a whole lot of excitement around the day itself and what this might mean for chinese consumption, but at the same time its been overshadowed by what appears to be beijings efforts to try to time chinas tech giant the regulators yesterday had announced new rules that are aimed at curbing anticompetitive and antiminpr the industry this would be bundle sales, exclusivity causes for vendors, another area where people were concerned about is this variable interest entity or vie structure. This is a structure thats been popular with Chinese Companies that were looking to try to find a way to open up an offshore entity, have international investors, which include u. S. Investors, to get a piece of the company. Now it looks as though those structures are getting some scrutiny as well and eunice, we are getting some numbers out of china, the media center over there, we have a total gmv, the amount of sales over the 11day period, im seeing that it is 74. 1 billion. So that is a big jump from last years 38 billion however, remember this year the event took place over 11 days. Guys, eunice was mentioning some of the antitrust scrutiny which has overshadowed this blockbuster shopping holiday thats important for alibaba and all the ecommerce names the government decided to let some new players in and the numbers, they really are astounding, in the hundreds of millions over a billion users in some cases, in the case of wechat so, guys, regulation is a really important point because it could undercut their growth, particularly in places like cloud. It took a collective 280 billion in market cap off the big chinese tech giants yesterday. Jon, some of those names are recovering today youll see their hong long listings in u. S. Where alibaba and jd. Com, they are recovering up to 1 and 2 today, jon. And, carl, im wondering what this really means, the idea of china doing an antitrust crackdown against tech giants. Its interesting because you had u. S. Tech giants like facebook, especially, but google saying, too, if you crack down on us these Chinese Governments are going to have all the power and theyre going to be the huge and have all the data. It sort of shifts the narrative somewhat if the chinese giants are getting cracked down on. I wonder how much of this is political and how much of this might be because chinese tech giants have power in and of themselves they keep insisting theyre not beholden to the communist party in china maybe theres some truth to that and the powers that be in china are trying to rail them in to reel them in to try to balance out their own power. But well see, carl, well see to your point, jon, politics may be playing a big role here cramers point this morning is you dont want to see large policy moves in china in general and this isnt the only one we had today. China also required, quote, patriotism as a legal requirement for legislators now to serve in hong kong and we did have some resignations of the prodemocracy movement in the hong kong legislature. So it does feel to a degree that it is the chinese flexing their muscles both on the business side and legislature side. These tech giants have largely been seen over the last decade as National Champions theyre Public Companies with many u. S. Investors, especially in the case of alibaba perhaps were entering a new era. We saw what happened with ant group, the Chinese Government slapped them on the wrist. The ipo postponed indefinitely well see how this shakes out. These are draft rules. Theyre open for Public Feedback and we should get more indication at the end of the month whether these regulations are going to go into place and what they actually look like. Yeah, big difference between a slap on the wrist and a crowbar to the knee caps well see which this is. Lets turn to apple now and what came out of yesterdays one more thing event well bring in joanne stern. I was thinking that this was possibly technologically the most significant since apple shifted to its own chips in the iphone to my eye, it didnt disappoint. The claims that apple is making about both the battery life and raw performance that youre going to get out of these laptops, i dont know when is the last time youve seen a jump like this, if ever i was trying to think back to when did we have the sort of more most historical apple laptop announcement. I think for me in my recent history, it was the mac book air. I remember steve jobs standing up there and pulling out a really thin and light laptop. Out of an envelope. And if you think back, there was a lot of promises about the thinnest, longestlasting laptop ever from apple. For me, that was sort of yesterday was that kind of moment of course, not that much excitement on the hardware end the actual laptops are just refreshed with these new internals. But i think they did that on purpose because you can actually see neck in neck or apples to apples here how much gains apple gets by putting in its own chip versus using intels chip. So thats six, seven, eight, ten hours more battery life, three times the amount of performance, increased Graphics Performance so i think theme leaving the hardware as it is right now gives them that ability to really see like, look at what we can do, look at one little change in a processer can do. Ive got to ask about the impact on the whole pc ecosystem potentially here, because this is a significant performance difference that is being claimed. So are we going to see microsoft and surface having to push more into arm chips and trying to achieve this kind of performance and battery life benefit yeah, i mean one thing to really bring up is that tim cook in one of the last earnings calls said the mac pro has been huge, but 50 of these people buying new macs are not recurring customers. So lots of people are flocking to buy new laptops, obviously work from home, that makes sense. I think here whats really compelling is theyve now made a lot of claims about better performance, better battery life, and of course more apps than youve been able to get on a microsoft or windows computer. They said yesterday 98 these have better performance than 98 of the windows pc laptops out there. Of course, not really sure which laptops theyre talking about or how much faster those are. You know, there are a lot of claims apple made without a lot of numbers to back them up but when you look at that, you think, okay, youre a new buyer, you want to buy a laptop, look at this. Youve got a 999 mac book air thats faster, has better battery life than some of these similarly priced windows laptops. You can get a lot in a windows laptop for less than 1,000 the last couple of machines that i have purchased have been windows 10 laptops for under 1,000 and theyre powerful. Unfortunately, weve got to leave it there so much more to talk about here. Huge deal with this apple announcement thank you. Jon, were going to fauz pa and take you to the New York Stock Exchange they are unveiling some commemorati commemorative plaques, honing those who fought in the world wars, korean war and vietnam if you know your history, you know its formally known as armistice city, the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month when the armistice went into effect back in 1818. Lets take a listen. At the same time, we take you to the president elect, joe biden, at a wreath ceremony at the Vietnam Veterans memorial in philadelphia. Woodrow wilson wrote about this day back when it first started becoming a celebration he said america celebrates it because of the opportunity it has given america to show her sympathy toward peace and justice. He d take a breakeranbe back in a minute this is decision tech. Find a stock based on your interests or whats trending. Get realtime insights in your customized view of the market. Its smarter Trading Technology for smarter trading decisions. Fidelity. Shaped by technology chand human ingenuity,s. We can make it work for you and your business. 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. Yesterdays annual cnbc evolve submit featured some of the biggest names in business and their trans for transformation that included ibms ceo and i spoke to him about ambitions for the hybrid cloud and his plans to change the culture in ibm around favoring its own products take a listen. Its a question of understanding what is hybrid as opposed to pure public so i look at both markets from amazon as likely partners in this journey, not as being the one and two. Its about in the hybrid world, the question is where does the client want to decide where the workload runs. They can run it on amazon, microsoft, ibm, they can run it on private what is the Technology Platform that goes across all of those . Theres a great answer to that Technology Platform. There a then if we bring services to bear for those clients who would like to get that help, both in improving the skills of their own people, or for us to do the work for them, and that is why you see us report 24 billion on total cloud revenue. Thats a hybrid market, not a singular public cloud market. I also spoke to him, he made his first comments about the letter he sent to president elect joe biden about technology priorities. But this was interesting he had never outlined in quite this clear a fashion how he intends for ibm to be more neutral in serving the hybrid cloud customers needs. Right, well, we have some catching up to do, particularly in public cloud. I thought his comments on the culture were really interesting. You think about ibm, such an old legacy tech company, and stuck in their ways in many senses so it was encouraging to hear from him meanwhile, a topic we talked a lot about, it feels like just a few weeks ago, the deadline for bytedance to sell its u. S. Operations is tomorrow despite filing for an extension, the tiktok parent is unclear on where things stand and the imminent ban from the Trump Administration julia bore st julia has more on what we know. Filing a petition with the u. S. Court of appeals to ask what is going on this comes ahead of the deadline tomorrow that the Trump Administration set for bytedance to sell off tiktok over National Security concerns. The deal isnt complete, so the question is what will happen tomorrow and whether the government will shutter the app. Now, bytedance is asking for a review of the actions of the review of the order that demanded that they divesting their u. S. Business. Tiktok saying for a year, tiktok has actively engaged in cfius in good faith to address its National Security concerns, even as we disagree with its sesment. In the two months that the president gave his preliminary approval to our proposal to satisfy those concerns, weve offered Detailed Solutions to finalize the agreement but have received no substantive feedback on our extensive data and privacy framework. So bytedance has agreed to sell 20 of its assets to oracle and walmart with oracle running Cloud Services and security. Thats the plan the president approved back this september but the plan hasnt gotten clearance from the Chinese Government. No comment from oracle or walmart on the latest petition and we have reached out to the Trump Administration and have not heard back yet now, the other question is, with the what the Biden Administration thinks of tiktok. They say it is too early to say, though it is noting that in july the Biden Campaign told its employees to delete the tick top app from their devices due to security concerns. Tiktok says the Trump Administration has forgotten about trying to ban it, would like to know whats up well continue to watch that with every turn. That story just will not go away well take a break here. Were awaiting the president at Arlington National cemetery to participate in a National Veterans day observance. When we see him, well take you there live squawk alley is back in a moment announcer sponsored by City National bank. Its their business to be personal our Retirement Plan with voya gives us confidence. They help us with achievable steps along the way. So we can spend a bit now, knowing were prepared for the future. Surprise we renovated the guest room, so you can live with us. Oooh, well. Im good at my condo. Oh. I love her condo. Nana throws the best parties. Well planned, well invested, well protected. Voya. Be confident to and through retirement. Hey, our workers comp insurance is expiring. Should i just renew it . Yeah, sure. Hey there, Small Business owner. Pie insurance here with some sweet advice to stop you from overpaying on workers comp. Try pie instead and save up to 30 . Thirty percent . Really . Sure get a quote in 3 minutes at easyaspie. Com. That is easy. So, need another reminder . No, im good. Reminder for what . Oh. Ho ho, yeah need workers comp insurance . Get a quote in 3 minutes at easyaspie. Com. The market continues to be led this time by the nasdaq, up about 1. 5 here, although the dow has managed to climb back up 72 or so we will keep our eyes pressed at Arlington National cemetery as we await the president for the wreathlaying ceremony on set vans day well be watching the tomb of te unknown soldier. Inhe meantime, squawk alley will take a break. Well be back in a moment. The expertise that helps keep hospitals clean, is helping keep businesses clean too. Look for the ecolab science certified seal. We take you to Arlington National cemetery and the president. The president t the Vice President , at Arlington National cemetery, the tomb of the unknown soldier, a wreathlaying ceremony we should point out that although were in a period of tumultuous politics in america, it feels like a time to set that aside and focus on those who served in the armed forces and died serving america carl, thats right. A solemn moment at the tomb of the unknowns in arlington, virginia it comes at a fraught moment in american history, as the president continues to deny the Election Results from last weeks election. This is the first time weve seen the president of the United States in public since that press conference on thursday in which he cast doubt on the election process the president has been insisting over twitter that there were some irregularities, presenting that with no evidence. But we have not seen the president in public since thursday of last week, some eagleeyed photographers captured his image on the golf course over the weekend. This is his first public appearance and it comes at a time when we have this fraught period where we have a president elect also holding a veterans day remembrance ceremony, his in philadelphia which we saw earlier today now the president appearing here in arlington so you have these dueling remembrances going on at a time when you have dueling administrations as the president continues to scramble to find a way to carry on his administration past january 20th not clear how he is going to resolve all of that, carl, but a fraught moment, as i say, as we watch this wreathlaying ceremony in arlington. Lets get a news update with sue herera good morning, everyone. Here is whats happening at this hour facebook is extending its postelection ban on political ads for another month. Advertisers are being told the move is meant to help prevent confusion or abuse on footbaace platform while americans, as you just saw, honor veterans day, europeans remember Armistice Day and the end of world war 1 british royals and political leaders attend a memorial service. In saudi arabia, an Armistice Day celebration was shaken by an explosive device and three people have been injured and in australia, a tip from u. S. Authorities has exposed a major child sex abuse ring investigators have identified 46 victims in australia and say three men have been arrested in the u. S. For their connections to the case. Up to date thats the news update this hour ill send it back to you, jon. Thank you lets reset here at the bottom of the hour take a look at some stocks dom chu, what have you got thats watch whats happening in the extension of the rally weve seen on some of the covid19 vaccine positivity. If you look at the dow, s p and nasdaq, we are solidly higher and interestingly enough, over the last couple of days weve seen a little bit of a return to nasdaq outperformance, and the reason why thats notable is it has been an underperformer over the course of the last couple of days, at least since the election take a look as we drill down further into the markets we are seeing a bit of the outperformance of the s p. We have hit these levels here, atrecord highs three different times now over the course of the last three months. Sectorwise and then market cap, its been notable the really outperformance of the nasdaq, but underperformance just since the beginning of the movement you can see the morniorange lin the white line the orange line represents the nasdaq 100 the gap has been growing a little bit over the course of the last week or so. Well see if that continues. And the reason why, its one of the lead stories on cnbc. Com right now. There is a fear that there will be a resurgence of the covid19 virus happening in the coming weeks and months if that were to happen, whats the Economic Impact and should some of the companies that benefit from work at home and stay at home do better weve seen zoom video up 3. 5 today. Docusign is up and teledoc and 2. 5 gains for amazon. Com. Well see if that comes back to fruition again, but remember, this rotation thats been happening, its been very short term these have been the real winners so far, jon, in 2020, since the pandemic lows. Well see if the covid rise makes these guys outperformers again. Dom, thank you. The revenue beat, not enough to keep rackspace shares in the green. The stock currently down almost 2 joining us to ceo kevin jones. Good morning take me through what the challenges and opportunities are for rackspace during this period when theres been so much stress on Data Center Resources well, thank you, and thanks for having me back so things are fantastic at Rackspace Technology we Just Announced our Third Quarter results. We had the highest sales in the history of the company, highest revenue in the history of the company, and best cash flow since 2017 so weve got lots of momentum in the business and weve now posted five consecutive record sales quarters in a row. We raised guidance across the board for 2020 for revenue, cash flow and profitability so were actually very optimistic here. If you think about the market opportunity, the 400 billion market opportunity, right in the middle of the shift in the industry to the cloud. So were off to a great start. Its a public company. Feeling really good about our business and excited about the future. What about customer churn what is underneath that, causing that what are some of the things that you can do to slow it down yeah, in terms of, you know, our customers what weve actually seen is a lot of positive momentum. We measure churn in an overall metric called net revenue retention. And net revenue retention, which means how fast are they growing or shrinking, our net revenue retention for our core business has increased to 99 in q2 and we just hit 100 in q3 we continue to see more and more momentum as more and more workloads move to the clouds this is really because of our good Market Strategy and because of the overall momentum. So were seeing customers consume more and more cloud resources and were quite optimistic that will continue. What are you going to have to do in 2021 to keep that momentum going, to retain those customers, to make sure that those retention numbers stay as high as you would like how much of that might be discounting, how much of that is Something Else look, were focused on i would really say three things as a company. First of all, continued accelerated Revenue Growth we touched double digit growth ahead of our expectations, even a short time ago were going to continue to be focused there. Global expansion a lot of these customers that are consuming cloud are global or International Companies and weve entered several new countries over the last several months, weve got 120,000 customers in 120 countries and the last thing that is the plan to keep us ahead is our focus on innovation. So to keep customers happy we have to continue to innovate and were already on our way to becoming the leading multi cloud provider and were going to stay in the slot there and do a great job and then focus on areas where we see the next generation value. Artificial intelligence, cloud native development, and edge computing. So thats our plan. We look forward to seeing how it plays out kevin jones, ceo of rackspace, thank you. Thank you as we go to break, paypal and square are trying to make up from some losses over the last few days, despite the gains today. Both are still down more than 6 so far for the week. And speaking of all of that, with this bounce, the dow is once again on pace for its best month since january of 1987. Dont go away. Audreys expecting. Twins wed be closer to the twins. Change in plans. At fidelity, a change in plans is always part of the plan. 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. Completed its first journey with human passengers in the middle of the nevada desert two Staff Members going 500 meters in just 15 seconds at 107 miles an hour. The ceo of Virgin Hyperloop joins us this morning, jay walder always good to see you congratulations. Thank you good to be here. Before we do anything else, let me Say Something to our veterans and thank them for their service. Thank you. Its the most important thing to think about today, jay. Thank you for that how many unmanned tests did you do, and how was this really different other than that you had people inside . Hey, you hit the nail on the head we had already run over 400 tests in that facility in the las vegas desert we proved that hyperloop works what this did was to answer the question that i get asked most often, is it safe. And we resoundingly answered that question. We had two teams go through, josh and sar, who you mentioned, and two of our other colleagues went through the next day. So its absolutely spectacular i think were looking at pictures here now. How were they chosen, just out of curiosity any report cards from them on how it felt . You know, we actually asked all of our team, would you like to be the first person to ride in a hyperloop pod, and we had over 40 responses. We narrowed it down on the basis of physical tests, psychological tests. Josh, our cofounder, was standing at the front of the line all the time. He said, hey, i want to do this. Its our baby. And i love the fact that our own colleagues were the people in the pod and doing it they loved it. They said that it was smooth and it was fun i dont know if youre seeing the footage right now. But theyve got smiles from their faces from ear to ear. They had it during the ride, they had it after the ride and when we went out for drinks after that it was spectacular. Jay, we are seeing the footage, and were seeing their big smiles and fistbumping. I want to ask you about the finances you guys have raised about half a billion dollars, but i imagine this is a very capital intensive undertaking. What kind of funding are you looking at as an ipo which would raise the profile of the project to on the horizon for you guys hey, look, it is a capital intensive project. I think one of the things were showing is that were knocking down the markers step by step and i think thats what investors are looking for. Ive had many investors coming back to me in the last few days and tell me how excited they are to see this and that the company is hitting its milestones and doing the work that we said we would do this really positions us to go on to commercial activities and i think thats the big part here this really is the transition point now to say weve proven the technology and weve shown that its safe lets move forward to commercial activities an ipo could be in the future at some point but probably not right away. Jay, how much uncertainty has the pandemic inserted into this market in this situation i imagine there are a lot of cities, municipalities, governments now not clear on at what point Public Transportation usage will reach 100 again, what the design of that will need to be going forward, and certainly the feasibility of raising debt for that, given all of the other priorities, new priorities, that governments are likely to have what are you hearing its actually going the other way. Lets think about it for a second this is a terrible Global Pandemic and it creates theres no question about that, its created challenges for our company. The tests that you saw we brought out in the middle of this pandemic. But at the same time, i think one of the things that people are realizing is, a, we would like to be together, b, we need mobility, and c, yes, we need to rebuild what should be evolving. And weve been struck by how many people are coming to us now and saying we really do want to move forward, we really do want to think about how we do this. And i think the vision of superfast transportation, high capacity, flexible, able to move people and goods, mobility and logistics, and doing it in a way thats cleaner and greener this is a Transportation System that will not pollute the air that we breathe. I think thats resonating right now and i think in some sense the pandemic has helped people to shake off the cobwebs congratulations really appreciate you coming on to celebrate and we hope youll continue to do so as it develops over the long term thanks again thanks for having me. Meanwhile, u. S. Sellers on alibaba seeing all of their expectations exceeded on singles day. We will ask alibaba president Michael Evans and one of the sellers about it next. Dont go anywhere. Im expecting Great Success you know, that day all eyes are on the platform, Chinese Consumer really trusts the brands that are on there. The Chinese Consumer is definitely buying more this year than any year in our history. Weve seen Significant Growth year on year in terms of gmv, last year was five times what the Previous Year was. Plans available to anyone with medicare. Many plans provide broad coverage and still may save you money on monthly premiums and Prescription Drugs. 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Claim your seventy five dollar credit, when you post your first job at indeed. Com home. Alibaba just wrapping up another recordbreaking singles day with American Brands profiting from huge sales on the platform this year joining us now, alibaba president , Michael Evans, as well as one of the American Brands, alberts founder and ceo. Good morning, good late evening for you, and thanks fo michael, let me get to you first. Alibaba is breaking out the amount of sales American Brands have sold over the event with one hour to go, that figure was 5 billion do you have the latest how does it compare to past years . Whats the opportunity for American Brands in china right now amid a pandemic when traditional sales are under so much pressure . We dont have the final number just yet. We may get it during this broadcast, but were well above 5 billion for the u. S it reflects the participation of thousands of brands and Small Businesses, and particularly the Small Businesses like bissel and all bird and uncle bens and fenders, and many, many others we put a focus on. The message for the u. S. Brands, a china strategy and a Digital Strategy is going to be critical in the postpandemic world we have seen enormous interest in both the very Large Businesses like apple and estee lauder and many bigger brands like nike, but other brands that have terrific products have the ability to reach the Chinese Market with Great Technology and the digitization were putting in place to make sure they can reach consumers, theyve all done extremely well. Joey, i was a little surprised to hear all birds would be participating we know the brand, but in china i would imagine a new brand, especially for a consumer that typically likes the big name brands like nike, what told you you should be going into china how did it work out this year for you, your first singles day . Well, i think michael is right. China is very important. Its a huge market for every brand now thats global, us included weve been there for just over a year and this period, the singles day period weve seen 3x growth the platform has been a really good friend to us. They treat us like a great brand theyre proud to support its a wonderful Sales Channel for us id just say, you know, theres also the idea that singles day is very promotional but were not a discount brand we dont do promotions we offered an exclusive product aligned with environmental ambitions we have. We called it a d9 product for the carbon emission of the product. And consumers in china ate it up they really like the idea that they can have Great Innovation and a great new product without extracting as much from the planet so, really happy with the success this year. You know, deirdre, with just michael when the pandemic struck, all four of allbirds Offline Stores in china were closed. We worked with them to come up with a Digital Solution for video chat so they could still connect with their customers and tell them what shoes work with what outfit. Sort of the most important portion of their business. When i talk about digitization, this is what i mean. We heard from our big a part livestreaming is was a part of the event this year as you know, michael, we also take a look at stock price this year singles day was overshadowed by new draft rules from beijing on anticompetitive behavior among big tech companies, alibaba included. We saw from ant group last week that new innovations can hit big tech hard if had china how is alibaba preparing for new rules, particularly in the cloud business, which is so critical well, look, in the antitrust proposal proposals, they have been put forward for public comment, so its going to take some time before we have any clarity on where it goes. Im not sure its particularly fruitful to spend a lot of time speculating on what the likely outcome is as it relates to ant, its a very different situation what we see in innovation and Innovative Companies and industries is a requirement for the regulator to also adapt and evolve and i think that is not unique to china you see that everywhere in the world. So, the key is, number one, we have to have close collaboration with the regulator to help in the development of the appropriate regulatory environment. Number two, we need regulatory transparency so, the investors, the company, regulators, everyone else can see the transparency and understand the rules by which the game will be played. Thats where were headed. Hi, joey, its john fortt, good morning, good evening i remember a day when brands like allbird would shy away from the china market because of counterfeit issues i find it interesting youre going big in china on singles day but on amazon you have the issue of them coming out with products that look a lot like allbirds give me your perspective on counterfeit as the concern stands globally i dont know li online its part of the game, unfortunately. Our focus is innovating ahead of anyone that can catch up to us you raise a good point alibaba through team all is the only platform were on globally of any material size we look at we do that because the traffic is there of course, thats important, but its also whether were treated like a brand were not data is not siphoned off and used for other purposes weve seen other plat forms, as you mentioned, use data and do things we find really negative for our brand and theyre not treating us well as a customer thats the lens we look at counterfeits are always going to be there for us, we dont really spend too much time worrying about it. And i know in the u. S. In particular, were doing fantastic despite all probably a dozen or so ripoffs at this point. China, same situation happened. While we have you, joey, i want to ask that pandemic question about the adjustments youve made to the business, whether it has to do with staffing levels, product design, manufacturing during this time to keep yourself on track and growing. Well, yeah, so we saw this thing coming probably a similar time that michael did because we have sales and operations in china, we saw this in early january. We put a hiring freeze on. We stopped signing new store leases at that point and we were able to navigate through this thing really well some of the innovative practices that michael was talking about that weve done in china to keep things flowing and keep the operation humming, weve actually taken some of those learnings and applied them to the u. S. That means weve been able to keep on a fast majority of folks in our stores. Were now all reopen for all 21 stores we have globally. Were coming out of this really well fortunately, we sell amazingly cozy and comfortable shoes and apparel. And thats what people want right now. We have a running shoe we launched in the midst of the pandemic you know, for the first time in a decade some people are strapping on Running Shoes weve had a lot of good luck in this as well but, you know, overall, despite a very trying time for retail, a very trying time for the shoe business, by and large were feeling really good right now. Thats good to hear michael, i spoke to a number of other American Companies participating in singles day this year. A few were also optimistic that china u. S. Relations could improve under an incoming Biden Administration do you share that sentiment . Most important focus for us, irrespective who the president is, is to continue our strategy in the u. S. , which is exactly what weve done which is connect brands, smes, Great Companies like allbirds and many, many others to the Chinese Consumer weve been doing that for the last five years. Each year whether its it doesnt matter who the president is, that number increases. The reason it does is because Chinese Consumers want to buy great American Brands. Theyre safe, theyre reasonably priced, and theyre very high quality. So, we will continue to do that. We will continue to communicate about that u. S. Was the single biggest contributor to global sales in this 1111 festival of all countries, its china, its what we expected, its what we expect will continue. Yeah, certainly a pretty remarkable result. Thank you both so much for being with us today. Congratulations on singles day Michael Evans and joey thank you. Carl, interesting entry, especially when it came to ant group. Michael evans mentioning they need regulatory transparency, even if that means it could upend one of the most important parts of their business. As we started the show, we could be entering a new era of antitrust scrutiny in china as the u. S. Continues down our own antitrust road. That was a nice wait and see positive spin on it, to be sure. Im also looking at some Semiconductor Names as we head toward noon. Qualcomm and nvidia, both of those quite a bit higher qualcomm up 5. 5 , nvidia up 4. 5 . Coming off the heels about the m1 chip at apple, more discussion of 5g its been a remarkable morning for the semis. As for the dow, we didnt get to the 29933 we got on november 9th but at 29,500, lets call it, awfully close to 30k time to get back to the judge at hq thanks very much, carl. Welcome to the Halftime Report on this veterans day im scott wapner we have special programming for you, including a visit with sofi ceo, the Investment Committee here to talk about the markets today, including two veterans, degus wright who served in the United States army, jim labenthal in the u. S. Army thanks to you guys and all of our veterans we always salute those in service and those who continue now. Joining me, stephani