Transcripts For CNBC Squawk On The Street 20240711

How retailers are shifting Sales Strategies online this Holiday Season then, questions over astrazenecas vaccine trial, what the ceo is saying this morning. And finally what a salesforce acquisition of slack means at this hour. Right back at you in terms of this market action, we have seen it a lot, mike in terms of the dows performance this month there has been some rotation lets start there. Somebody this morning saying aerospace is up 40 . Which frankly i did not necessarily know it has been that strong in that short amount of time does it continue in this rotation or do we have to watch this in last day, day and a half of trading there has been a stutter step in that rotation. We had a couple of these since march. One of them peaked in june now it has been very, very aggressive aerospace is part of the industrials group. Industrials fully kind of got back to precovid levels and the valuations of industrial stocks are well above where they were based on expected earnings eight months ago the market has gone a long way to saying things are on the upswing. We fed off that a lot. If you look at Something Like copper prices today, globally, the markets are trying to send the message there is a big rebound coming does it come on time, does it not . This morning you see the nasdaq is outperforming again i do think you have a little bit of an ebb and flow of those relationships, but it is hard to argue with the general tone of the markets, which is better Economic Times in 2021 you see a lot of wall street firms coming out with some pretty aggressive upside targets for the s p 500 and whether that is something to believe or to fade is going to be the question in the next couple of months as part of that rotation we saw the russell 2000 outperform this on track for the best month since the indexs inception back in 1984 thats how optimistic people are in terms of banking on that recovery trade on the back of all this positive vaccine news we had but keep in mind, the vix has remained elevated. So this is a rally that has gone on with record closes and new landmarks like the 30,000 mark for the dow with some skepticism it has been above 20 since february 24th, thats the longest stretch since the financial crisis so there is some skepticism here, there is expectation for increase volatility, though perhaps, david, some of that volatility could be coming out now that President Trump has said that he will effectively concede if the Electoral College votes for joe biden as president. And that vote is december 14th not something you would think would be a surprise typically. But this is not a typical year and he certainly has not been a typical president. Take a listen to the president who, again, did speak yesterday in that press conference from that little desk that he had, talking about his plan when the Electoral College actually comes in so if the Electoral College does elect president elect joe biden, are you not going to leave this building . Certainly i will. Certainly i will and you know that. But as you say, melissa, it does erase a little bit of anxiety in the market, president elect biden continues to appoint his cabinet, or at least is giving us the names, subject to senate confirmation, which i think also is giving some acquiescence to the market as well as they see steady happenedhand at this point. We havent had yellen announced yet. And gary against lgentzler, the way, seen as friendly to the cryptocurrency industry, he actually taught a course on blockchain and cryptocurrency at m. I. T. From that perspective, hes seen as sort of we know where he stands on the key issues when it comes to regulation. And that is certainly comforting for the market, there arent any of these far left picks, much more centrist and moderate and that, of course, is soothing to the market. I would argue the market is priced itself and behaved as if this is settled. Yes, there is this residual what if that is going to scenarios you can draw out there that maybe there is going to be some disturbance along the political front. But i think the market moved on to a large degree, and actually, melissa, interesting when this discussion about the volatility index remaining above 20, journal had a piece today about this there is a couple of asterisks on that, one is in 2009, you had a crash that basically bottomed in march like this yore, hear, a massive persistent rally this date in 2009, we were over 20, didnt go over 20 in that year either. The credit markets were less settled than they are now. It is not that unusual after a crash for there to be some residual anxiety the other piece of it, people talk to me about this all the time, the huge feeding frenzy in retail, speculative call options going on for months right now has the effect of actually inflating option prices in a way that filters into the volatility index in which case, a high vix is not telling you anything about fear, it is telling you about greed more than anything. There has been some debate over the last couple of months over to whether or not the vix is a true indicator because of the distorting activity. Thats something to watch. The vix is only it measures moves in the markets, so exactly never really was purely a fear indicator, but it may be less so now than it had been. Financially, melissa, you know, retail itself, there had been a significant surprises there including some mallbased retailers that performed extremely well gap shares did sell off after earnings on wednesday. But, for example, it has been up sharply. Somewhat of a surprise, i guess, as we are now at black friday, where by the way inventory remains quite low, which is going to be good for margins. People are at home. Not going to be standing in line in those crazy black friday crowds this year and we have become i dont want to say underserved, but less stored over the course of the year the one sort of theme that happened with the pandemic is that it accelerates trends, right, in general, across indices. For this particular industry it accelerated store closures so in the first half of the year we had i believe a Record Number of store closures, in the united states, and so that is helping the stronger retailers out there with the stores and im sure, david, after this black friday may take on a new meaning this year for many retailers. Lets get to that story, of course malls are bracing for a different kind of black friday amid the pandemic. Bertha coombs is at a mall in paramus, new jersey, and has more for us this morning bertha we are at the west field garden state plaza, and we are seeing some traffic. They opened early for black friday at 7 00 a. M if you look, people have been pouring in since sun up for the most part, but certainly the parking lot is nowhere near as full one woman told us by this time on a normal year, you couldnt park anywhere near the front of the door to get to a store it makes her a little sad to see it, but she says in some ways it is a little bit of a Silver Lining i think of huge crowds, but obviously there arent this may end up being the best time to come it might be the safest time. Yeah, she said shes here because her daughter brought her, she wouldnt have otherwise, but a lot of these mallbased stores have been doing well on line over the last week coming into thanksgiving, kohls, macys, both up more than 50 , taking some share from rivals like nordstrom. Of course, theyre not ding as well as the big box stores, they continue to be the monster share online target up 167 , best buy nearly 90 . Walmart better than 80 . Amazon, the laggard, up 65 over the last week. Bear in mind, amazon is also twothirds of the market share the others are just chipping away at it, at this point, amazon remains the big magila as most of us shop. The National Retail federation says that 106 million of us will be shopping today, one in three. That mix will be a whole lot different than what we normally see in store bertha, thank you bertha coombs. For more black friday and what to expect from the retail sector, lets bring in oliver chen great to have you with us today. Your most recent note went out this morning, theres no place like home. What are we expecting in terms of the ones who will win the screen today we were out at walmart and target and the mall this morning. Mall traffic down about 30 to 40 in our view. And what we think is online is growing 70 plus so who is going to win the screen we like walmart and target we also like American Eagle as well as tapestry so there are winners and people are out there shopping there is long lines in electronics. It is an at Home Revolution that is happening here. It is also deals for days. So the period started earlier, almost as early as october, with amazon kicking prime day, and the season has gone for a long time inventories are low, which is good for margins Inventory Availability is pretty good with the exceptions being video games and electronics as people really look to zoom and cocoon the cocooning trade, you mentioned in your note also that appliances will be big i cant imagine gifting a refrigerator though i could use one and i wont turn one away. I want to ask you about the retailers that look like theyre winning on paper bertha went through the big increases for Online Shopping, macys and nordstroms. The these are stores losing traffic in store, but theyre getting an online buyer but that cost is much more expensive to fulfill that order. A lot of retailers were acquiring new customers online, so the key is to engage the younger customer in particular also the retailers that have been able to survive and raise capital are taking share from those who have gone bankrupt or contracted furthermore, with bankruptcies and with this period there is a lot of rent and renegotiation happening too. So all these things are happening. Dont forget economically speaking, saving rates are higher and you cant spend on travel and youre not spending as much going out. So these are factors that are giving a nonrecurring boost, stimulus help during the summer, the retailers are hoping for another stimulus to be a positive factor too. And apparel is all about leisure, so what has been tough is dress and office for sure but i want an air fryer, so, you know, home is really working too. Oliver, you know, i wonder about tactically how retailers view this period, when kind of the door buster thing, the promotional black friday type items, the traffic drivers, just to get you to buy other things, do people focus more on what they need and dont do the kind of incidental purchases and who does that benefit and hurt yeah, for sure. It is all about conversion so the Treasure Hunt is not happening as much when youre online youre going straight for the deal what is really happening is personalization too. So a lot of the retailers of the future can really identify exactly how youre searching what you want and promote to you very uniquely, kohls and ulta have done a good job with collecting data. Retail is about magic plus logic. It is about the wow factor and emotions, but logic around ai and affecting the customer thats been a factor thinking about promotions, it has been a planned promotional season, very heavy on gifting, and very heavy on access price points thats been good for retailers, and margins have been better on the pace basis of better inventory control. We see fantastical and functional products, customers looking for value, and then fantasy, customers really looking for feel good product too. And thats another trend, thats important. That Everyday Low Price is certainly very, very important and the future is also data. Yeah, speaking of the future, every black friday we talk about the growing importance of online, but given the behavior changes that have taken place over the last eight months as you said at the outset, it is even more significant. In fact, it is almost dominant a year from now, take me out, do you get anywhere near what mall traffic used to look like or is this sort of the seminole moment when it really changed there are so many permanent changes that have accelerated. Thinking about Curbside Pickup, buy online, pick up in store, the amazon effect, returns at amazons and kohls, the digital and the physical, those will continue to accelerate Curbside Pickup in grocery a big deal so fastforward a year, though, were going to face easy compares, traffic down 30 and people are itching to dress up and go out and celebrate with family that will come back over time. However, the vaccine process is likely to be very phased and well it will strain the supply chain there is a pentup demand for getting out and being with family in real life. I think it will come back. Bigger, better, stronger, what happened in malls is bifurcation too. There is better malls and worse malls and the worse malls have gotten worse unfortunately. Oliver, thank you for your time appreciate it. When we come back, astrazeneca defending the handling of its covid19 vaccine trial. Were going to take a closer look at which vaccine related Companies May have stocks that are particularly good for your portfolio. Take a quick commercial break and well cook bame back right this 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. Astrazeneca is likely to run a new global trial of its covid19 vaccine candidate, thats according to companys ceo. He sold bloomberg the drugmaker may launch a fresh study testing the vaccine at a lower dosage rather than adding a test to an ongoing u. S. Trial joining us for a look at what is next for vaccinemakers is dr. Amill devaughn and louise chen, Cantor Fitzgerald managing director louise, recognize you dont cover astrazeneca directly what is your take on the progress of this trial, what it means overall for the market for vaccines eventually . Yeah, thank you so basically for astrazeneca i think the data are somewhat messy and give the market a bit of unease about whether or not this vaccine will be effective new. I think the question will be will it make it to the u. S. Market or will it be pfizer and moderna that are the frontrunners here in the u. S. Over the next year or two in terms of vaccinating the broader population the problem with the vaccine is were not clear as to what the efficacy is, the 90 efficacy dose was in younger patients and also by mistake and unintentional. I think another trial probably is warned for fda emergencyuse authorization here in the u. S. And in your assessment then what does it mean for pfizer and moderna assuming they get to market as quickly as we expect does it mean they will be controlling theentire first phase of the rollout yeah, i think thats what were going to be seeing i think on december 10th, there is going to be a committee that is going to come together and review the regulatory emergency use authorization of the Pfizer Vaccine and thats followed by the moderna, probably a separate review for that. Well see the documents pretty soon for that. In the u. S. , i think in december well probably likely see an approval for emergency use authorization for both the pfizer and the moderna vaccine, which are both highly evocati , efficacious. I think it is very promising in terms of those two being the frontrunners here in the u. S. And also for next year as well and it will be free of charge to patients and theyre going to do a rollout where they look at some of the high risk population groups, essential healthcare workers, haealthcare providers first. Dr. Devaughn, im curious if were eliminating a competer from the Vaccine Market in the u. S. Next year, im wondering if that changes your suassumptions for sales and whether it changes the assumption of how fast a price of a vaccine will come down historically vaccine prices havent remained elevated, they have gone down to a few dollars a dose eventually z this a does this alter anything in terms of the timeline . Thank you for having me on. I agree with what louise was saying earlier, this likely makes astrazeneca more risk into the market it is going to be about how much pfizer and moderna can make in terms of the vaccine i think there is going to be demand to sell that much our current estimates in our model only includes what they already agreed to supply to these various governments. Over 450 million doses now that they talked about having contact with the u. S. , so we still have a model based on that, but, yes, they can supply more, there is going to be demand and i think there will be a lot more divestments going out for both companies. In terms of longterm pricing sorry, we hope there will be demand for it. Given the lack of confidence among some, do you think astrazeneca, which didnt do the best job here it would seem in terms of going through the data and the trial, do you think that hurts the overall vaccine effort in terms of peoples confidence . Yeah, i think it is unfortunate. I think there is very sensitive area, a lot of people already nervous about the speed with which this has all happened. Political overtones as well. I think we need good, clean data, i think for pfizer and moderna they have produced good, clean data, the fda seems to be doing the best they can to make everything transparent, having the Advisory Committee meeting that we see the data and hear the discussion so that should help. We have other ones coming as well, johnson and johnson and other vaccine manufacturers. Hopefully that overall people get comfortable with these do seem to be very effective and safe vaccines. I think there will be a setback to that messaging, but there is other players here that should hopefully hopefully we have more options coming thank you very much for your time this morning. Thank you coming up, electric vehicle spacs have been on a tear this month. Nikola, lords town, fisker we can give you more you can see from this chart how those have done, though. Electric vehicle battery startup jumping on the bandwagon going public today or closing their deal were going to talk to the ceo of quantum scape later in the hour and here is another look at futures. About 6 1 2 minutes until we get started with trading ianar cseorhe markets. 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 mmm hmm 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. Four minutes to the opening bell on wall street. Salesforce topping the list of premarket movers on the dow regrouping some of the ground loss over reports of a slack takeover we have the opening bell on the other side stay tuned i made a business out of my passion. I mean, who doesnt love obsessing over Network Security . All our techs are pros. They know exactly which parking lots have the strongest signal. I just dont have the bandwidth for more business. Seriously, i dont have the bandwidth. Glitchy video calls with regional offices . Yeah, thats my thing. With at t business, you do the things you love. Our people and network will help do the things you dont. Lets take care of business. At t. Welcome back we got an opening bell, a few seconds from now melissa, i bet you covered this company, im sure you have on fast i dont know if you noticed, im sure you have as well, how much it moved up. Palantir but it seems reflective of the speculative nature of some parts of the market here a 50 billion market value, going to be higher even than that today yeah. I mean, you can see it in a lot of different corners of the market im sure mike can speak to that in terms of the ipo market and the investor desire to be in spa spacs. Were seeing that reach for risk with the markets at record highs. We are. And were going to get started now as you hear the opening bell, real Time Exchange here. I used to say that from the new york stock exchange, back at hq, ive been back at hq for a while now, as have you. I have. Five months, i think. Yeah. It is going to be a bit longer as well as we take a look here a few more days left in this month, which as we said for the dow at least has been a very strong one absolutely. Up 11 on the s p, month to date if you looked at just this week up about 2 , backed off the slightest bit on wednesday right now, were basically opening up what would be for the s p at a new closing high. 36. 45. Everything is working together the big the big kind of flashing yellow light at the moment is just how overexcited, you know, investors have become about this everything you look at in terms of how stretched the market is technically, how exuberant sentiment is becoming, it is telling you be careful because people are excited we had 4500 s p target sent out by jpmorgan. That is the kind of thing youll see november to december very difficult to fight the strong season at trends, but it issals always a question whether people got the bullish message too strongly you have the nasdaq once again outperforming with the likes of tesla picking up yeah, good old tesla, thats a name you know as well. Palantir, i mentioned, it is up over 11 12 . Just keeps climbing. Melissa, this new cohort we talked about early on in the pandemic that seems to be replacing Sports Betting with stock picking hasnt gone away in fact, if anything it seems to have grown in importance, and the people who come on here who announce their spac deals at the time, theyre looking to that cohort as well because they see that they like it that they move towards it, that it helps them send their stocks up immediately upon announcement of deals, which is very important. Dont know how long it is going to be with us, but they are showing themselves to be a powerful force. They are here for now you mentioned tesla, that has been a favorite, of course among the robinhood traders, new to the market tesla is up since the announcement of its inclusion in the s p 500. And thats in part powered by, of course, of course, more broadly managers who need to make their portfolio look more like the index, but, of course this has been a favorite among these retail investors, and thats helping the momentum here with the entire ev space we talk to quantum scape later on that should be an interesting interview in terms of how they stand out, a lot of high profile backers and people are speaking very highly of its Technology Including the former cto of tesla. So that is going to be an interesting one to watch it is up here 8 right now. By the way, i think the headline youll be looking for perhaps today is tesla eclipses Berkshire Hathawayin total market cap so thats been nip and tuck for a little while interestingly, there is also a parallel there, because the last very, very Large Company to go on the s p was berkshire hathaway, ten years ago. And it is similar in the sense too that the founder owns almost 20 which Warren Buffett does with about shirt it theyre going to be vvery clos were at 550, 551 billion now. Yeah. In terms of teslas market value. I think berkshire looks like just under 550. There you go, yeah. Thats what number six, dont know got to be apple, alphabet, amazon, microsoft, facebook what am i missing so, again it because the total market cap is not counted in the index waiting i remember when bob was reporting, 80 of the total market that is actually maybe in the top ten or dozen, wont go it is number five or six overall in terms of u. S. Market cap now. Yes facebook is, you know, 780, so and we got the other guys, apple still below 2 trillion, right around it, 1. 99 is where i have it right now. Quickly back to palantir, which i keep an eye on, a lockup there is a ways away they would not let a lot of the insiders, direct listing as is slack which will talk about was well talk about in a moment, but direct listing for palantir, didnt do particularly well, if you recall, but that they didnt allow a lot of the insiders who can have sold to sell more than just 20 of whatever they actually had, melissa, and so we will wait on the lockup there, perhaps, im sure there is lots of people looking at this thing going it has the gone to be a short the question is always when. You can sit there and just get mowed over. Im not sure about the flow in terms of shares available to short. And when the options activity opens for this one but im sure people are looking at this carefully. I wanted to look at crm. This is one we are watching into next week on reports that a deal could be announced in days crm is recouping some losses as we mentioned, suffered on wednesday, on this deal. And this is a deal that would target microsoft in terms of competition. These are two companies that have been sort of in competition for quite some time, after microsoft made a bid that was amazing microsoft making a bid for crm. Yeah. You think back on that, thats just staggering to think about, but that actually happened it didnt go through and then later on they were both competing for linked in, which microsoft won. Yeah. Exactly. No, it is it is remarkable. What is interesting is slack had that massive run upon this news breaking, and, you know, maybe nobody has numbers necessarily firmly attached to what this might be worth, but it is worth noting at 15 of the shares were still short in slack. So there were a lot of people caught on the wrong side of that now, just more generally in play, an interesting and unique asset, it is sort of like everything in the Digital World trends toward messaging and or advertising. And thats kind of what every other player who doesnt have that piece might be looking for. Yeah, a laggard as well, with fairly strong business model, but one that was not obviously growing as fast. Not a particularly good last quarter. In contrast too crm, last quarter which one, maybe two back resulted in that stock climbing enorm ousenormously. They added market value in a day or two, you see it there on salesforce, that was back in the august late august time frame. Not a bad time to use your currency marc benioff is nothing if not aggressive always has been. You think about this company now whose market cap well eclipses that of oracle, once its main rival, still a key rival but microsoft clearly in its sights they never actually got to a deal with microsoft, microsoft was interested, they never announced anything, thankfully in his mind walked away, of course, he wanted a very, very large number at the time but certainly well justified but m a an important part of the strategy overall this would represent the largest deal that salesforce has done in terms of at least the size. We dont know price. None of the reporting on wednesday gave us sort of that sense in terms of where it might be as a premium to where the stock was in terms of the unaffected stock price well see. But if youre salesforce, you want to use this opportunity to use what is a very strong currency and trades at high multiples at this point. And right now, salesforce is almost exactly ten times as large in terms of market cap versus slack so a big deal, no doubt about it, the biggest in its history still not something that say bet, the company size, you know, we have to see about a further premium, but, you know, scaling out around those levels, and it is interesting because slack, i think one of the knocks was youre going to get people to pay, is it much more a product than a company longer term . And it seems like maybe some of that is coming around. And you have to wonder, you know, when the reports first came out on wednesday, it sounded like a trial balloon it sounded like slack bankers saying, hey, slack is for sale who else is out there in terms of potential bidders you got to wonder who else might step in if not crm or if crm who else could step in with some sort of bid. And speaking of currency, maybe it is a zoom maybe a zoom though that seems look a strange combination. Also really high multiple company, growing that fast typically investors dont respond particularly well. Even though it might not be a bad idea for the longterm benefit of the overall business. Investors dont like that typically, you know, when you got that kind of a company at that growth rate stepping in for a company that is growing much slower they wonder, what is the problem . You got a real problem, maybe youre running in a some point youre running into a head wind, you can admit that and it does feel that on this, like it is further along certainly you do want to get a market check if you can, sometimes, if you are slack. Dont know what was behind the leak, i didnt report it, havent got a lot of fresh reporting for anybody here, but it does feel based on the reporting i read and having done this for a very long time that this thing could be fairly close in terms of it your point is a good one are there any other bidders . You can cross google off i dont think they can do anything given antitrust theyre still trying to get that fitbit deal closed and some other names, ibm is tied up already to a certain extent they seem they are willing to do m a, but not that long a list though you may know better than i in terms of what would make a good fit for the company i do think you would probably be looking at other, you know, Enterprise Software type companies. Oracle, would actually fit there. It is smaller, theyre busy, and it is not clear that it would they would have much to best a salesforce proposition at this point. But, yeah. It is not it is not one that it seems like, you know, has gone unexplored in other areas, but, you know, hard to make the match better than salesforce necessarily. All right, were going to take a quick break here. We have been telling you about quantum, we mentioned it, saw the price up 8 right now. It is a spac deal. Well talk to the ceo of the electric vehicle batterymaker. As we head to break, a look at the movement in treasury this morning after trading was closed for the thanksgiving holiday today is an abbreviated session for the bond markets in the united states, closing at 2 00 p. M. Eastern time. We do note here yields are moving lower across the board, ten year note still well off its highs from november 8th. Were now at. 855 november 9th, by the way thats when the Pfizer Vaccine news was announced next week, a busy Economic Calendar led by the jobs report. Stay tuned squawk on the street will be right back before we talk about taxsmart investing, whats new . Well, audreys expecting. Twins grandparents we want to put money aside for them, so. Change in plans. Alright, lets see what we can adjust. Wed be closer to the twins. Change in plans. Okay. Mom, are you painting again . You could sell these. Lemme guess, change in plans . At fidelity, a change in plans is always part of the plan. Adapting. Innovating. Lemmlsetting the course. Lans . 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Experience amazing at your lexus dealer. Electric vehicle batterymaker quantum scape backed by the likes of bill gates agreeing to merge with Kensington Capital acquisition corp. To go public, of course, via spac the combined Company Remains listed on the nyse right now, trading under that Ticker Symbol you see there. And it is up, the deal having closed this morning. Lets get more on quantumscapes public debut nice to see you, sir good morning. And im sure a big day for you having closed the deal what do you tell your Investor Base about your ability to get to real revenues and potentially earnings it is still many years away, is it not it is and i think the key point there, guess a couple of key points, one is this is the beginning of a massive transformation in one of the Largest Industries on the planet and it is going to be a multidecade long transition. There is a huge opportunity, hundreds of billions of dollars in value over that period of time i think the most important point to make is the the time doesnt reflect what traditionally would be thought of as market risk or Technology Risk we have technology that works, our automotive customers have tested it. And we have the support of the largest car company in the world, volkswagen, our biggest investor and really the time that we now in first revenue is really spent doing two things, one is wrapping up, factories take time to build and scale up, and two to do the final automotive qualification process which takes some time also it is a little different than the Traditional Company that might be more of yeah. But, i mean, it is one thing for things to work in a laboratory and another thing to work at scale. Youre confident your battery, solid state battery, charged more quickly, and give a longer life, that it will be able to work at scale . Youll be able to produce it at scale . Well, what were confident about is that the fundamental science risk is behind us because the battery has already been tested at automotive power by the automotive audience itself. I think rather than scaling production, we understand our technology well, we know the of making it keep in mind the Production Partnership is with we have a joint venture with vw where we jointly will make the batteries to scale vw knows how to make very high volume, very high quality products in the marketplace. So, yes, i think were pretty comfortable that were going to be able to scale this now that the Technology Works jagdeep, a lot of players in this space in particular making Great Strides in terms of battery efish ficiency tesla is hiring now for its aggressive push, and solid power bills itself as all solid state. Can you speak to the technology . Are you completely solid state or some sort of hybrid that uses a liquid or gel for its electric t electrolytes and where does it stack up with efficiency and power compared to an equivalent lithium ion. The key characteristic that defines a solid state cell is the material that keeps the capital apart is entorely solid state. It doesnt burn. Once you that separated, that is a solid ceramic, you can eliminate the traditional carbon or silicone and you get all the benefits you referred to earlier, density is 80 higher, you get fast charge which you cant do with any other typical cells, cell state or liquidbased, and you get the safety benefits of the ceramic being noncombustible the key point here to make is that all the improvements that are being worked on in the lithium ion battery space, things like, you know, better cap materials with more nickel consent, things like better manufacturing process for the cells, that still applies, with the difference of we dont need that extra anode material which saves cost and volume and therefore we leverage the industrys learning curve with the additional benefit of not needing that extra material. Giving you the additional benefits of solid state. In terms of cost to the oem, jagdeep, im curious whether volkswagen believes it will be able to mass produce a car using the solid state battery at a competitive price. Im wondering at what point do you achieve scale enough for that to happen or maybe even to surpass in terms of bringing the cost down, the efficiencies of lithium ion . Well, this is in fact the key reason why we exist as a company, we believe that this fundamental transformation that we i referred to earlier, this, you know, this 100 million unit a year market that today is only 2 penetrated by evs, needs a better battery in order to really see a higher penetration of evs in the marketplace. And that better battery is needs to be a battery that can close the gap, in todays Battery Technology and the combustion engine. That means you need lower range, 300 to 500 miles of range, you need faster charge times, refuel gasoline powered car in minutese were talking 15 minutes which gets a lot better and the safety of conventional engines. So todays liquid batteries just dont get there and thats why this is really important to close the gap between ev based powertrains and combustion based power trains we believe as we get this battery in production and on the road it makes evs competitive to enable the completion of this transition of the automotive power train. I know youre not an expert necessarily on the Capital Markets but i am sometimes so the spak fervor we have seen, y youre a Development Company and where would you have gone for capital . Do you think you would have access to it effectively in our case we already had access to capital. We had a Balance Sheet close to half a billion dollars in cash pre this transaction and with this transaction we raised 700 million more which we really think is helpful. We didnt do this transaction because we didnt have access to capital but allows us to accelerate the production and commercialization of this important technology. And you are going to be able to get to revenue positive and Free Cash Flow and all those other exciting things with the cash you currently have on hand . Yeah. This capital more than fully funds us through the First Factory that we are building with volkswagen so not only do we get real cars on the road but we have an Additional Capital left over that can help us scale to our subsequent factories so this is a good process for us. Taking the Company Public in the past and theyre ipos a yearlong process and complicated. This is a much more streamlined process. Obviously theres good and bad deals. We happen to think were a good ones and im guessing its here to stay because its so much more streamlined and efficient. No doubt. Youve done a good job it would seem communicating even during the course of our interview as your stock went up another 12 thank you for joining us. Thank you, pleasure. Still to come, shop ifify wh reasons to feel jolly. Backing off half a percent this morning. Hear what the shopifys president has to say this lbeig bk. Squawk alley. Wel rhtac hey, dad hey, son no dad, its a video call. You got to move the phone in front of you like. Like its a mirror, dad. You know . 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. See yourself. Welcome back to the mirror. And know youre not alone because this. Come on jessie one more. Is the reflection of an Unstoppable Community in the mirror. Many families break traditions this year because of the pandemic but retailers may be getting a boost in other ways Contessa Brewer joins us from kingston, new york hey, contessa. Reporter hi there. Here the lights are on and the fresh cut trees are out in the nursery. I wish we had smellovision for many families this kicks off the holiday decorating season but people started to pull out the christmas beens and decking the halls earlier than ever. It is a go big and go home mentality. People look to pierce the pandemic gloom by embracing the traditions that dont require social distancing. Sarah put up the first decorations right after halloween. I think were grasping at straws here, trying to get a smile on our face and kids, too. If decorations help, more is more and more is better in my opinion. Reporter in their most recent earnings calls, home depot and lowes mention the enthusiasm for home holiday, Brian Cornell said they want to celebrate the Holiday Season but its very different. Adams is a regional chain upscale, sales of holiday up 57 since october 1st, melissa. Thank you ill take it, con fes sa brewer. More squawk on the street is coming right back should auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind should auld acquaintance be forgot and Auld Lang Syne well take a cup of kindness yet for Auld Lang Syne next customer please. Good friday morning, everybody. Welcome to another hour of squawk on the street. Stocks are largely higher this morning. Of course this day after thanksgiving its a shortened trading session and close at 1 00 p. M. Eastern and there you can see the dow lagging a bit behind the broader index of the s p and the nasdaq as it has much of the year outperforming up about 36 thus far for the year 2020. Lets get to the road map this morning beginning the markets and why stocks are up again on as i said this abbreviated trading day. The busiest shopping day of the year, how retailers adopt to a different black friday. Astra zeneca defending the Coronavirus Vaccine trial. What the ceo is doing to address those concerns. We start off down in South Carolina where Frank Holland is looking at a retail category thats surged during the pandemic hey, frank. Reporter good morning to you. We are here outside of a home depot and weve seen steady traffic on the black friday and picked up over the last hour and shares of the retailer nearly doubled from the march lows as more and more americans invest in the home or buying bigger homes in the pandemic and the company is preparing for a record black friday. Theres double digiten creases year over year and in response home depot said to increase staffing by double digits for curbside delivery and pickup in store and traditional instore shopping to manage this holiday peak many retailers warned of inventory shortages. And also issues with delivery. Emery campbell said home depot is creating a gift Center Online and in stores for best sellers, focusing on volume over variety. You use the number of items and buy deeper if traditionally, we would have ten drills, we would then buy instead of ten we may buy eight and buy a lot more of the drills to have more product for the entire season. Reporter and last quarter home depot reported an 80 increase in the Online Shopping and 60 picked up in store or delivered by curbside into a car. The company says its going to double digiten creases to the Online Support systems because on this black friday this retailer and others dont know how people spend their dollars back over to you. Thank you Frank Holland in South Carolina. For a closer look, lets bring in Charter Holdings chairman ray washburn and retail ceo greg maloney greg, ill start with you. Jll did a survey and it showed that even though so many people this year are buying online theres an element of the store, whether it be Curbside Pickup or picking up in the store. Was that a surprise to you no, not really. We have seen that happening since about march since this all started. People had really things were shut down almost eight to 12 weeks and when it started to pick up it was pickup in store or curbside and a lot of retailers had Curbside Pickup only and well see this Christmas Season be a Curbside Pickup or pickup in store as the online shipping methods start to stress out closer to christmas. Ray, are you does it matter to you as somebody who has a pulse on Shopping Centers whether or not people are picking up in store or actually going to the store do you think that this could be a Consumer Behavior change for years to come . It is our Shopping Centers are open air centers where theres street front parking so we havent had too much of an issue with people wanting to pick up at their cars retailers will deliver to them but our tenants are the higher end and people want to experience, have that Shopping Experience and the sales healthy throughout the pandemic. From the accessories standpoint. The higher end retailers that have dresses and the mens clothing, they have been suffering but accessories and jewelry has done extremely well. Whats your best guess about what things look look coming out of this . I dont just mean people going back into stores but how retailers try to strike the balance between their omnichannel investments. We have been talking for a long time about online and brick and mortar all working together to deliver the best product, the easiest, quickest way to the consumer so this is just an accelerant of those two things colliding and this season is really unknown people said we dont know what to expect but one thing we expect to see is sales increase over 2019. We originally pre the election and the other things had really predicted somewhere around 1 or 2 we are up to 3 to 5 over 2019 because of the consumer and how theyre a little bit more comfortable than they were with the survey six weeks ago. Ray, you mentioned youre well situated for this nature. What are your expectations now that we are in the middle of or beginning of the Holiday Shopping season . Could you be up year over year or is that asking too much we are up year over year because people arent traveling and theyre buying accessories sales are strong and we are up year over year because in dallas a year around market, not a Seasonal Market and people are staying home theyre shopping and as long as we give them a safe environment they feel to walk around and feel safe and distance in a certain way we havent had really any issues at all. Greg, as you look around at other properties, the rest of the industry, do you feel as if we have kind of gotten beyond the tonight of worrying about across the board wholesale commercial real estate and retail bankruptcies . Are we really at that moment where weve worked our way through . Are you expecting further aftershocks and implications for what the Competitive Landscape looks like i think well have some additional pain in the system. I think theres some retailers that dont make it through this Christmas Season and well see an uptick in the First Quarter but again i think most of the pain is over right now we are seeing a very positive influence. Ray is absolutely right when he said safety, it is a safe environment and people feel comfortable theyll come to the centers and the sales will start to pick up but we are not beyond the pain of the retailers and most of the pain we are seeing is in the mall sector. Where its an enclosed Shopping Centers so its up to us as mall owners to really make sure when the customer comes there they feel safe and the environment is absolutely clean. I want to get back to the purchases of those expensive accessories. I dont know where people are bringing the chanel purses to but i see and notice that is going on globally. Do you think that this will keep up can it possibly keep up . People may not spend money on a Beach Vacation but may buy the chanel bag this year but not next year. Up spring fashions coming in, right . Buying the fall fashions today and a great thing about womens fashion is the seasonality of it and change of design one thing is the Restaurant Business and our outdoor seating. Almost all of our restaurants converted to a lot of parking lot shopping i mean dining. Thats held the sales up very well but now the cold season especially in texas started to hit and the ppp money has run out and in the our mallbased stores are suffering substantially but the ones in the open air market are doing okay with the decent weather but the rhetoric coming out, the customer traffic across the platform in the Restaurant Business is substantially down in the last three weeks and true nationwide because people are staying home and not eating out. Theyll shop because thats a quick experience restaurants are onehour experience thats much more of a challenge right now. A lot of pain felt in that sector, certainly. Thank you for your time. Appreciate it. Thank you. After the break, astra zeneca and oxford defending the handling of the covid19 vaccine trial. Well take a closer look after the break. Reentering data that employees could enter themselves . Thats why i get up in the morning i have a secret method for remembering all my hr passwords. My boss doesnt remember approving my time off. Lets just. Find that email. The old way of doing business slows everyone down. With paycom, employees enter and manage their own hr data in one easytouse software. Visit paycom. Com for a free demo. Youre choosing whento get connected to xfinity mobile, to the most Reliable Network nationwide, now with 5g included. Discover how to save up to 400 a year with shared data starting at 15 a month, or get the lowest price for one line of unlimited. Come into your local xfinity store to make the most of your mobile experience. You can shop the latest phones, bring your own device, or trade in for extra savings. Thats simple, easy, awesome. Visit your local xfinity store today to ask, shop, discover the latest on xfinity mobile. Astra zeneca and oxford defending their Covid Vaccine trials following questions how the candidate was tested the ceo saying the company is likely to run a new global trial of the covid19 vaccine candidate telling bloomberg that they may launch a fresh study testing the vaccine at a lower dosage rather than adding a test to an ongoing u. S. Trial hospitals and private clinks struggling to keep up with the demand for covid testing the Holiday Season macking a bad situation worse with reported wait time of six hours in some parts of the new york city what if anything is done about it our next guest runs clinics, the ceo of summit city m. D. And nice to have you, doctor. I have one of your city m. D. S in my neighborhood. Walk out in the morning to go to work and the line at 7 00 a. M. Around blocks. It was insane. That was prior to the holiday. Do you think that will let up . Are people getting tests prior to trial or because they had syst symptoms summit city m. D. Is largest multi Specialty Company in the new york metropolitan area and seeing a lot of visits, almost 34,000 patient visits a day, of this 70 are covid related what were seeing is not many repetitive visits and the only repetitive are first line responders as well as maybe teachers but the lines are going to continue until a vaccine comes out and until a nice weather comes about. We are being inundated and we are trying to take care of all of these patients who come and see us we have, yes, lines around the block. Yes, unfortunately, we had to close the line down hour and a half earlier and still open to the regular hours. We have to accommodate the patients with health and sanity to the front line providers. Yeah, no. It has to be a huge challenge. You think this is just going to continue this was not a function of people getting ready to get on plans or wanting to see relatives indoors and therefore wanted to get tested do you think that demand in new york, new jersey is going to continue absolutely. I think we are just headed into the unfortunately a very tough time with the pandemic the holidays will make ate little worse because people unfortunately wanted to be with their family and theres only so much social distancing and mask wearing to have and i think this will continue until the summertime unfortunately. Doctor, if you could identify the biggest pain point in terms of axel rating the process, the amount of time it tacks to run the test and get the results, shortening the lines, what would it be . What is it thats causing the bottleneck in your view . Just demand. Just the volume. 100, 200 now. We piloting a new software for line control and where they can come in and we are going to be able to text them when they can come back to be seen because im very worried about people coming into our lines in the middle of the winter with the cold they already have flu or covid and i dont want them standing outside in the cold so we are trying to pilot how we can get the people back in and to be seen at a time that is somewhat convenient for thome i dont want them standing outside in the cold. Also just so you know we do triage non covid patients. Im worried about non covid or flu patients with chest pain, belly pan. We bring them in on a separate line to be seen for their health care needs. Doctor, trying to contend with all these volumes for tests and perhaps screening for covid, what are your prerations like for having a vaccine will you have a role in distributing it . We are speaking to local governments, state government, federal government we are trying to be able to attain the vaccines to be able to provide the care that the public needs when h1n1 hit we were successful giving the flu shots at that time so i think we are already planning to buy the cold storage units. We are trying to work with the local towns and hopefully well be part of this to give the vaccines to the community and the patients. Whats do you have any info for us on the Positivity Rates of the tests has it been moving up . The Positivity Rate is moving up i dont have the exact numbers for you but i can tell you that in our new jersey, our local hospitals are being inundated right now with covid so the testing might be more because were testing more but the hospitalizations are absolutely going up and unfortunately the totalities mortality will be going up. What about you have got obviously all these employees that are on the socalled front lines yourself sitting in the offic offices all day long are you having to hire people . You adjusted the office hours, reducing hours. Right so we are always recruiting, getting new staff coming in. We had to decrease the hours for the line but not the hours that were open because we wantds to accommodate everybody on the hours we are open and we always have had great procurement with ppe and the number one thing is to keep the staff safe and with good morale because if they go down who are going to see these 35,000 to 36,000 patients a day . Yeah. Its quite a thing i guess ill be seeing the loons around the block for sometime. I hope youll come back and update us but thank you for today. Thank you and be safe and wear your mask thank you so much. Youre welcome. Later on cnbc dont miss professor sir john bill, he helped to oversee the oxford vaccine trials not going to want to miss that at 1 00 p. M. Eastern. Were taking a look at the Communication Services sector. It is up more than 20 year to date powered mostly by big begans from the top two holdings, facebook and alphabet. A name not helping the cause is disney backing off about a quarter of a percent saying the company increasing planned layoffs that it announced in september as the coronavirus continues to batter the theme park business. Well take a quick break squawk on the street be right back before we talk about taxsmart investing, whats new . Audreys expecting. Twins wed be closer to the twins. Change in plans. At fidelity, a change in plans is always part of the plan. Working, parenting, problem solving. At new chapter vitamins weve been busy too. Innovating, sourcing organic ingredients, testing them and fermenting. Fermenting . Yeah like kombucha or yogurt. And we formulate everything so your body can really truly absorb the natural goodness. Thats what we do, so you can do you. New chapter wellness, well done. This was the theater i came to quite often. The support weve had over the last few months has been amazing. Its not just a work environment. Everyone here is family. If you are ready to open your heart and your home, check us out. We thought for sure that we were done. And this town said not today. The men have been andtaken wheres guy . Ot today. I think im his new pet. [ whimpering ] we have to save them. Thunder sisters. Thunder sisters thunder sisters [ gibberish ] [ gasps ] [ suspenseful music playing ] [ screaming ] for a group known as the spak mafia, buy shares in an ipo, hold until the deal is announced with a pop and sell shortly thereafter they can redeem at the price they paid for the units plus interest and warrants so theres embedded Downside Protection a study looked at 13 filings and 90 on average of profession sol investors die vested before the deal was closed so then the question becomes whos left holding the bag . How does the spac perform after the mafia moves out. The data team here pulled the median return for spacs that announced or completed mergers this year. The best performers all electric vehicle plays. No surprise here charge point, Quantum Space and nikola the Health Care Technology company down about 31 since the deal with Churchill Capital became the subject of of a short seller report but history shows that they can be a losing proposition over the long run. That nyu study found 12 months postmerger produced negative returns every year going back to 2010 but some sp acs perform better than others. Mckenzie found that spacs of former ceos tend to outperform traditional ipos and the market as a whole and those led by an investor tend to undertperform and some say the caliber of managers this year could lead to better returns in the future guys im going to say it could it this be that different this time around in that theyre different from the spacs in years past where going public via spac the only option in this round Companies Choose this way. Contactually. Thats what advisers that work on the deals say, the types of managers bringing the spacs public are a different caliber of people, the Companies Taking public tend to be a different caliber. For example, when you look at the returns you also need to siphon out the fact that a lot of the spacs in prior years done by Energy Companies and what has energy done in traded douwnward you have ev names, Online Gambling companies and tend to be unproven in the Public Markets and thats part of the reason why they go public through spacs but they have performed pretty well and interesting to see how they do in the future. The more speculative names seem to be doing better than the established names like a multiplan around for a very long tomb, a private equity business sold but it does for some names seems to be replacing the last round of vc money and going public i dont think would necessarily have hit the market through a traditional ipo. Yeah. Nikola, for example, essentially prerevenue at this point. Trying to do a traditional ipo unless youre a bio tech stock you face a tough crowd on the investors on the road show so spacs this year are a route to the Public Markets, a Capital Raise they may not have gotten otherwise and speaking of cvs a lot have pulled back on some more speculative investments because they saw some significant down rounds last year so a lot of the private funding that was keeping the early staged startups capitalized previously that spigot is maybe not turned off but its definitely going a lot slower than it has in rekrentcet years so spacs are more attractive. The quantum scape, we had them on, that did well when they announced the deal and came down and then closed the deal and up 31 just today. Yeah. Ev. Yeah. Its almost like an arbitrage for the spacs for you. Thank you. Thank you. Well take a closer look at how retailers gear up for an unprecedented Holiday Shopping season after there bak at fidelity, youll work with an advisor to help you build a flexible wealth plan. Youll have access to taxsmart investing strategies, and with brokerage accounts online trades are commission free. Personalized advice. Unmatched value. At fidelity, you can have both. Time for a news up date. Leslie im leslie picker thousands in Southern California are still without power after the local utility shut off the electric the move came amid heavy santa ana winds. National math and reading tests are postponed until 2022 because of the pandemic. The testing for fourth and aigtd graders set to be done next year. In thailand, thousands turning out for prodemocracy demonstrations largely peaceful. Some carried yellow ducks that have become an i con of the movement. In taiwan, hulling pig guts and throwing punches, theyre protesting imports of u. S. Pork with an additive thats banned in the eu and china. Ruling Party Members criticized the demonstration as a waste of food that stang up the Parliament Floor and quote disgusting back over to you, david. Hmm, yeah. Disgusting. I would agree with that. Great pictures. Thank you. Were about an hour into a shortened trading day and lets get a check on where things stand. S p up the nasdaq having a nice move this morning we have been talking about the names. Whether its palentir that came back theres a short report and tesla, we were talking about market cap 562 billion if you keep track at home. Historically this is a day, a half day of trading day after thanksgiving, when you did get a lot of retail favorite stocks moving, a lot of things that move in a hurry and people know the names because everyone had previously been at home and with not a lot to do and you have a half day of trading to do and thats the way the world is and dealing with this backdrop for a little while now and seems like an exacerbated version of this but light volumes and a tech cent centric focus today. Bio tech up 2 . Moderna up 14 maybe in part on that set back for astrazeneca in terms of launching a new global vaccine trial for the lower dosage and seeing that move i mean, wow, what a move, 15 just in about an hours worth of trade. That would seem to be the reaction there it is a Holiday Shopping season like no other. Joining us now is ceo paul treval good morning. Good morning. Thank you for having me. Theres an etf for anything but an Exchange Traded fund of clix which is short brick and mortar retailers up 1. 9 today is it as simple as that . If the market is making this into essentially the win for digital only or a more subtle picture . No, look, i think the year is difficult but a win for digital and certainly where the action has been and the coronavirus pushed that and we have seen that happen and as holidays come up we have seen a lot of black friday turn into cyber week and month and now a huge push oin line and Digital Sales up 45 this year and those are the big winners this year and plays out as people feel safer sitting online and shopping from the home and businesses with a strong digital presence, we are 90 online coming out with big discounts, moving market share online and leads to a good Holiday Season. A way that its not as difficult as it otherwise might be is the spending pie seems to be reasonably big with an excess savings socalled from back in the stimulus days and foregone spending up to 1 trillion by some measures and what do you think about overall spending volumes . Hows it pacing through the ends of the year . We feel good about it and we have up 20 going into the month of the Holiday Season. Today 35 off, a big discount of the year and positive because the markets up, good indicators, savings is high, people are encouraged about vaccine news but to your point is year is different from the holidays of past because we have been fighting in retail to move toward experiences and less money to goods and hard goods and clothing and Consumer Spending was up 70 . Do you have what recustomers are looking for online thats comfortable cozy clothing we try to make shirts that feel better, last longer. It is the year of sweaters and outerwear and boots. Dad will probably get a nice flannel shirt. Were prepared like a lot of retailers to provide that. I wonder how quickly you can change the inventory in response to the trends and turn it from dress shirts the more cozy apparel and how quickly to turn back once people are going back to work and want to refresh the dress shirt wardrobe. I think in the spring its challenging. Luckily the summer came in with short sleeved shirts and the dress shirt business down 30 but casual up 35 and offset i think we are quicker the design production cycle is less than six months and react to the pandemic and make sure that fall had the clothing that people are looking for and i think thats key and added a few brands along with our own lines to excite people so the key is being ready for Holiday Season which i think we are and then after that what does the spring look like . We are looking fausorward to whn people get back in the office and we think after everybody cooped up theres a resurgence of that and well be prepared for that. You are Digital First, 90 . How do you think about brick and mortar particularly in manhattan . I assume rents are coming down dramatically is it not worth getting bigger everybodys in a wait and see. You have some winners, people who sell essential goods and grocery and targets, walmarts of the word but the natural shift with limited exposure is online and im happy were not a business with over 50 of the revenue from the store and we really believe that the best thing about the product is touching and feeling and experiencing it and then push them online and looking in the markets that make sense for us to say when are people ready to be back in store we think theres a shift and we have gained Online Customers that wasnt shopping online that is now online but six months well look at where does it make concerns to have a store the spending boom on goods over experiences is an unusual dynamic coming out of a recession next year and not necessari necessarily pentup demand for stuff but experience is it worth worrying yet everybody sells goods but everybody is ready to get out to restaurants, take vacations. For our business 50 dress and 50 casual, we can play into the market and meet the customer where they are and ready for people to dress up again so you have been at home for nine months, you havent been wearing the clothes you wore before so we are positioned the ride out the upswing and excited to be out and might not be buying sweat pants but they want to dress for special occasions, buy new things and wear them outside and experience with friends and family like they havent been able to for a year the key for businesses like ours is have a great holiday, take care of customers, lets get to a point with a vaccine and retail gets back to normal and capitalize on that. Yep what a lot of us are hoping for. Thank you. Thank you. Quick programming note as we head to break, this sundays dont miss the premier of empires of new york chronicling the rise of five icons that not only reshaped the city but contributed to the world we live in today thats sunday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern. That was a truth for new york city and came from the young black people from the bronx block parties and the park parties on the streets of new york city we was able to tell our stories and our feelings and our emotions thats when the resources would have to come our way. Artists living in Lower East Side hanging out in the east village, we were hearing about this movement that was going on uptown hip hop with deejays and mcs and graffiti and break dancers it was profound and wead h to do something about it holiday ads might look different this year. Retailers decreasing the Marketing Budgets building out the Digital First strategy in and it is pags of a push for 2020 joining us is marketing expert shelley william, great to have you with us. What is the number one platform that you think is getting most of that reallocated dollar. Great to be back. Retailers have reduced the Marketing Budgets in terms of not being with ecommerce and more dollars senpent with ecommerce and the google ads are great and social media ads perform well and we know that we had so many retailers that were went bankrupt in september. 32 that went bankrupt in september of this year and so what they did was that definitely affects, complete advertising spend more Holiday Spending rn spending, so others reduced the spend towards ecommerce and mobile is doing very well and creating an experience online thats responsive to the new consumer buying patterns is crucial for brands at this point through covid and the Holiday Season. Google ads are doing well what other platforms are the beneficiaries of this reallocated budget you look at basically what the consumer patterns are looking like now people are at home, not going to holiday parties, not going to work and so theyre playing games online and a lot of inapp Advertising Opportunities that seem to be performing well and those are mostly on mobile and people online and social media and interacting with friends there and when you show up where the consumers are you have a win and not to say that traditional advertising is not working tv is always working people are sitting at home in the recliners, pick up the remote, the phone and closer to making a purchasing decision that way but ecommerce is really driving the ad spend in 2020 and as far as covid is concerned. What methods are the retailers using to try to stand out from the clutter everything is a stream you feel like youre inundated givering an email address to any retailer you are buried. Anything creative thats happening or can think about the problem is with black friday it seems to start earlier every year and this year with amazon prime moving the prime days from july to september or october what that did was start the holiday buying season earlier and like you said we are getting ads and deals all the time so it feels like every day is cyber monday so to stand out brands need to connect with the audience and meet them where they are so dont be tone deaf in this time we are at home not partying or going out and be sensitive to that. People are still struggling and suffering during this time but make sure youre not tone deaf and the experience is seamless and cant use overly salesy type of techniques. What kind of value can you provide . Are you making sure that its a seamless reaction with a Purchase Online . When you need customer service, have a question, all of those things working because if theyre not that hurts you long term but the overly active sales campaigns are not going to resonate this year you have to go deeper and make a connection with people struggling with so many things in 2020. As somebody with teenage kids who spend a lot of time online and see a lot of product pitches but mostly its only respond to the ones that engage on the preferred platform do you see things on tiktok tha dont feel salesy but resonate thats a fun platform and people that are trying that out to see if that makes sense but if thats not where your target market is thats not where you want to be i caution people if this looks hot now stay true to who your market is, where you know they show up every day and the types of information they look for you to provide for them so tiktok, giver it a shot but if it is not your target audience you wont get the results youre looking for. You mentioned advertising in games, in app. Im wondering how you effective you find that to be and how much of an increase has that been in this pandemic in terms of spending it makes more sense because people spend more time on the phone and getting the advertisements in app, playing a game and it pops up, it is something youve seen somewhere and doesnt feel as intrusive as the ads on facebook. These ingame apps really are things that you may have clicked on, maybe put it in your cart but you didnt act on it so theyre really responsive to what it is youre looking for and meeting you in that space where you are and not feeling so salesy. I assume this is a certain kind of demographic, the gamer. Yeah. But it could be. I play scrabble in a mobile app and i see things i saw on google or took a look at and popping up in my scrabble game so again thats a great way to connect with your audience and give them whattheyre looking for in a way that doesnt feel like spam. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Take a loo for over 30 yeark lexus has been celebrating driveway moments. Heres to one more, the lexus december to remember sales event. Get 0 financing on all new 2020 and 2021 lexus models. Experience amazing at your lexus dealer. And look, it feels like im just wasting time. Thats why Td Ameritrade designed a firstofitskind, personalized education center. Oh. Their awardwinning content is tailored to fit your investing goals and interests. And it learns with you, so as you become smarter, so do its recommendations. So its like my streaming service. Well except now youre binge learning. See how you can become a smarter investor with a personalized education from Td Ameritrade. Visit tdameritrade. Com learn so, what sho d we do today . Visit tdameritrade. Com learn wow. Can we get some sun . Uh, mom . Can we go to the beach . beep beep beep should we just go see a movie . Yes im always up for a good movie. Go rogue in the allnew, fiercely reimagined nissan rogue. Pet owners have been paying big money for their loved ones during the pandemic. And are looking to spend even more this upcoming Holiday Season kate rogers has that story for us nice sweater there on the old dog there, kate. Thanks, david we all love to spoil our pets. This is my dog ollie hes mad i woke him up for this hit. Hell be getting a gift or two under the tree while i may be a crazy dog lady, im not alone. Pet owners will pay big this season so many have adopted and brought pets home during the pandemic, particularly many dogs data shows that half of shoppers surveyed this year say they will be buying supplies and treats for their pets this year, spending about 90 on average. Bigger retailers like pet smart and chewy. Com are poised to benefit and amazon, walmart and target as owners stock up on food and presents for their pets, but Small Businesses like andys pet shop in san jose, california, are seeing a boost the owner says that the demand is soaring and she stopped advertising as the staff is already stretched thin and business is up 20 over last year its a trend thats been growing over the years and decades. People are treating their pets as a Family Member and we have birthday cakes for dogs and we have these gigantic bones that dog goes crazy for even if little dogs cant handle a bone that size they want to give love back to the pet. Separate data from others say that dog onners are more likely to gift their pets than cat owners im going to spoil this guy as i do every year. Back to you. Yeah. You probably do every day, right . Jim cramer had the thesis a long time ago, the pets used to be outside. Then they got inside now they basically are with us all the time including sleeping with us. This dog sleeps in a king size bed and is wearing a hoodie is that a hoodie . Look at that hes been a good sport. He deserves a treat. Yeah, with very cat lovers here including mike santoli. I think it may bear out your point that people do tend to lavish more gifts on dogs than cats because dogs seem to appreciate it more i wonder if there is any sense out that tl there that the adop trend slowed down. Was this strictly a stay the ahome phenomena. Are the pet vendors going have a give back and a Small Business owner interviewed said they ran out of pets and so many dogs adopted during the past few months everyone is going to have to go back to work eventually. All nut pet parents are going to have go up too kate, thank you and thanks to im sorry, forgot the name. What is the dogs name ollie ollie thanks to kate and to ollie. Coming up, the president of shopify and that companys strategy that stock soared since the start of the year. You can see up almost 160 squawk alley right after this he can brachlt right after this break 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. Good morning, its 8 00 a. M. In seattle and 11 00 a. M. Here on the stock market. Squawk alley is live back in black its been too long let loose good black friday morning welcome to squawk alley. Were going to begin this hour with covid19s impact on retail and what that means for Sales Strategies as well for the rest o