Transcripts For CNBC Squawk 20240703

S p 500 up 3. 5. All of this coming after the major indices closed at record highs. Dow up 55. The nasdaq and s p gaining 1 . Treasury yields with the tenyear yield at 4. 33 . That was fast. Lets look at the meme stocks. Well see. It could come roaring back. Gamestop now down six. It was more than double that. Amc is above the recent lows. Gamestop and amc fell during yesterdays session. Amc, as it has in the past, took advantage of the rally. Announcing a debt for equity stock. It completed a stock sale on monday. Theres the weekly chart. There is contraction and time you think that is a meme stock craze lasts four days . The last one lasted and went much higher. Much higher levels. People said gamestop was much harder to short. Right. It could be a weak phenomenon . Four or five weeks . Yeah. It went into the hundreds, didnt it . People really wanted it to happen. They wanted it to happen. It would be hard to keep any of these things going. Do you think were going to see a meme from here to back like this and im not watching anymore . I think we need a tshirt of you doing that. Im a performance artist. Most people sit like this. Sit up straight and never move or anything else. Im a performance artist. I know you are. We finally learned, this performance artist, Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway requested to keep secret in the two s. E. C. Filings as it an amassed a position. 26 million shares of chubb for a stake of 6. 7 billion. The ninth Biggest Holding for Berkshire Hathaway as of the end of march. Insurance ace limited acquired chubb in 2017 for 29. 5 billion. A combined company adopted the chubb name. Evan greenberg is the ceo. Its a remarkable company. I had it for a while like a blanket liability. You know why you need it . If you have any money at all and you have a german shepherd, you need it. If it happens, they will try to get everything that you have. I have two now. I think they would not do it anymore. Now warren wont do it. Hes risk adverse. He want good credit risks. Parachute . I forget what its called. It covers whatever you built up in your life. If someone you could slip on your walk or something. This is a demonstration of how hard it is to find value. I was looking for something more exciting. Thats the hard part. Very hard to find value. Yup. It was a long wait to find out what it was. Its chubb. I like chubb. It is exciting in the way its run. Shares of cisco higher. Reporting 88 cents a share. Beating 82 cents. Cisco said the decline in revenue was the result of clients taking time to set up the equipment they received in recent quarters. Cisco offered similar comments in previous quarters. Cisco is approaching the end of the years long supply chain challenges. This is all deja vu because i talked about this last night on that groundbreaking show fast money. We talked all about cisco. I know you. You set the dvr or were you watching live . I stopped everything we were doing. I had the family sit down on the couch. I hook up a polygraph to you right now and it is going off the charts. Off the charts. Do we have a tenyear chart . Something going back to 2018 for cisco . This has been completely dead money. You can get back to a point in 2018 where it was trading at 50. Its been tough. They are trying to work off the postpandemic supply chain issues. I also mentioned, do you remember 200 billion market cap . It was 600 when ge was 500 or 600. Back in the day. Cisco. You remember the flip camera . Like austin powers . The flip camera. I think that was the high. When cisco decided to get in the consumer business and decide to make cameras. It is better with the fancy servers. They never had the color i wanted. I wanted that in a pale blue. They gave me a look that i get from you a lot. The person we were interviewing. What is this fool talking about . Talk about looks. A lot of looks. Does you see what it took to get a 13second take . He had eight cuts. Did you see the jumps . I did not. Let me tell the audience. President biden and former President Trump will give looks because they scheduled two debates. One to air on cnn on june 27th. One to air on abc on september 10th. You can mark those dates on your calendar. Both held without the involvement of the nonpartisan commission on the president ial debates. The Biden Campaign calling the commission out of step with the changes in the structure of the elections and interests of voters. Trumps campaign called for two additional debates. He is looking for ones in july and august. Later this hour, we will talk about the risk reward opportunities with Alex Thompson. I feel like this is a cage match. There were a lot of conditions. Trump was going to say yes no matter what. I think thats i dont know. I might have had counter conditions. Mics get turned off when the other candidate is answering. No studio audience. Cnn, say what you will, but we will see. I dont think how long the debate is and they may get past talking about january 6th. Im not sure they will talk about policies or the border. Jake tapper and dana bash. With trump, i think hes going in eyes wide open. What am i saying . What are you trying to say . You think it will be hard for trump . Hard debate for trump . I think he would accept anything just to get biden off script so people can get a look at that. If you had to go to a friendly place for biden, i would do cnn seven days a week for biden. I dont know. I think it will be very, very tough for biden. You do . I think it will be very challenging. I think under all circumstances, it will be challenging. Jake tapper i dont believe that. I think dana and jake will do a great job with it. I dont criticize the questioners. I saw clips where trump was buying people pizzas or something. Cnn happened to be in that for five seconds. Tapper almost had a heart attack. This is turning into and immediately dumped out. That place is crazy. I have great admiration for jake and dana. I do. He cant do anything for you. I will not throw stones. I really like bbret baier. What about sean hannity . I dont agree with him, but he is very good about what he is trying to do. Lets talk about netflix. We can do it after the break. Netflix is searching a deal to stream nfl games it year. The Company Revealed subscriber numbers and announced plans to launch its own advertising platform. Later, walmart is set to report and the instant Market Reaction. Squawk box will be right back. Announcer this cnbc program is sponsored by baird. Visit bairddifference. Com. With its customizable options chain, easytouse tools, and paper trading to help sharpen your skills, you can stay on top of the market from wherever you are. E trade from Morgan Stanley voya there are some things that work better together. Like your Workplace Benefits and retirement savings. Voya provides tools that help you make the right investment and benefit choices. So you can reach todays financial goals and look forward to a more confident future. Voya, well planned, well invested, well protected. Welcome back to squawk box. Deere shares are falling. 8. 53 a share. Better than 7. 88. Cutting the profit forecast for the full year. The stock is off 5 . Netflix says it the cheaper ad supported plan at 40 million users and struck a deal for two nfl games. Lets bring in mark maheney of evercore. It has taken years to see what streaming will look like. I have been struck by the new bundles. Its like whats old is new. I feel deja vu all over again. What is interesting about the deal is what it reflects. Netflix is now big enough to economically afford to carry nfl football games. They have 270 million paid subs. For them, the cost of the nfl christmas games is the cost of a mediumsized movie for them. It is in their 17 billion content budget for this year. Now they have 40 million viewers. They had 5 million last year. My guess is close to 80 million. They are doing this globally. That is anything they offer is the global reach. A lot of people enjoy nfl that dont live in the u. S. Netflix can give those viewers an audience. They have someone that can bargain for which games and matches . I would not want a lot of crappy match ups. You need to be smart enough to know who will be good in advance of the season . I hope they have somebody to figure that out. This is another coming outmoment for netflix. They have the cash to do it. You will look at more. Several years ago, they said they would never do live sports. They have been creeping toward that as they said they will never do ads. It is the best of the media stocks in terms of what we have seen. It is still, you know, its not back to 700. What was the high . 680. That is when squid games came out. When squid games 2 comes out later this year, it will take them back there. What is the incremental number that will come out . That is the fundamental question. Peacock has done it and others have done it before where you add a live sports event and people sign up just for that event. When peacock did it, it was different. On a christmas day, how valuable are those days . We dont have netflix in the house and we have to get netflix in the house today . I think it is more driver of engagement. I think it will get some subs. It is more engagement. They have more and more inventory to go after advertisers. They are close to 1. 5 billion ad revenue run rate. They dont disclose it. Thats a guess. I think they will be close to 4 billion in ad revenue. I think they will get there next year. Thats a good diversiification for the company. How are the efforts used to promote the rest of the platform . You go on the platform and you watch the game and this is how the Linear Networks do it, go during the commercial breaks. Just like the mike tyson and jake paul fight and worldwide wrestling next year. All of these are more and more tentpole opportunities for the company to bring in more users and increasing eengagement. The future is no ads . A few ads . Few ads. I know on this. I like one and a half minutes and the thing in the top of the corner i watch. I dont like four minutes. Will people still have ad free and pay for it . I think they will give you both and let users decide. Netflix always without ads and 30 or 40 of the market out there is certainly fine with ads for a cheaper price. If you want ads, you can have ads with a cheaper price. There is a large market for that. That is one thing that netflix did. They took long to embrace advertising. They have. It expanded their market. This was a company that kept taking up prices. They came in with aggressive low price with 6. 99. That is a latte in new york. Now they have that content and the nfl games. What a great deal. We found out yesterday that even these ads dont work. His view is he thinks 80 of it is a waste of money. I dont know about you, but i sit through the ads and see them in a way that is more annoying. Do you mind a minute and a half or would you rather have none at all . My preference is none at all. Im probably in a position to pay the fee for not having the ads. Ing having said that, you have a choice. I was going to ask about the package deal between peacock, owned by the Parent Company of this network, and paramount plus with the package . Im not familiar with that. To me, it is a sign of the times. If you put together a streaming bundle, you have to include netflix in there. You negotiate the terms. Thats what consumers want. The surveys we have run offer t overth over the years, people want bundles. People will recreate the bundles. They may pay more than in the past. Keeping my xfinity. We are bringing out hot wings for you. Im learning so much this week, andrew. How many times have you seen that show . Hot wing on netflix . A lot. Im telling you its a big deal. They get young demos. Yeah. Coming up, an interesting note on the Inflation Numbers yesterday. Some of the data was posted 0 minutes early on the bls web site. We will bring you the details of what happened after this. Initially when i came to the u. S. , i didnt speak english. I had to listen first before i spoke. Thats allowed me to observe trends happening as they unfold and really shift what im doing and what im thinking and working on. Thats how i think i was able to see the early social media wave and recently on the a. I. Side. Dad, dont forget about my new cleats. Sweetie, i cant make it to dicks this week. Have you heard of dicks. Com . Have i heard of dicks. Com . Girl lets go lets go have i heard of dicks. Com . screaming whoa. Dont overthink it. Lets go shopping. Actually what i need are some cleats. How about one of these . Great. Done. Anything else . No. Golf clubs . Not for me, for a friend. Yeah, yeah, of course. Anyone impressed with how fast that was . Yeah, totally i know, i went to dicks. My cleats thank you i love you wha. Ii went to dicks. Com. Ever heard of it . Girl 2 yeah, i told you about that. energy fuels, a leading american uranium producer, is ramping up production to supply expanding Nuclear Markets and diversifying into rare earth elements, key ingredients in many clean energy and defense technologies. Energy fuels. This one is fascinating. Some of yesterdays cpi data was inadvertently published 30 minutes early. The bureau of labor posted files to the web site before the release time. The early indications seemed to move markets. We were on air and did not seem to notice the move. The agency saying it is conducting the investigation into the procedures to ensure this incident is not repeated. Lots of questions of the information coming from the bureau and the fed. This is different from the data that jay powell got to say we are still on track. It was Richard Fisher who said it is possible that jay did not have the information. Hes alllallowed. Often times the president gets the data in the afternoon. They should not tell any of the guys in congress or guys and sg gals in congress. Those good at calling fidelity. Some members of congress have tens of millions of dollars. Some of those people. Some of them do. Some of them do. Hopefully they made that money prior to becoming congress members. Coming up, we are going whale watching. We reveal big moves from the biggest investors in the world. We will tell you about those investments next. As we head to break, we show you yesterdays s p winners and losers. Announcer executive edge is sponsored by at t business. Next level moments need the next level network. To s you need an idea. Its a pillow with a speaker in it thats right craig. A team thats highly competent. Im just here for the internets. At t its superfast. Reliable. You locked us out . arrggghh ahhhh solutionoriented. [jenna screams] and most importantly. Is the internet out . Dont worry, we have at t internet backup. The next level network. I sold a pillow are you interested in safeguarding your investments with gold . Alamos gold is a growing canadian gold producer with a long track record of outperformance. Alamos gold. Invest with us. Our growth sets us apart. car, this isnt the way home. Thats right james, it isnt. Car, where are we going . Were here. surprise the future isnt scary. Not investing in it is. Car, were you in on this . Nothing gets by you james. Nasdaq100 innovators. One etf. Before investing, carefully read and consider Fund Investment objectives, risks, charges, expenses and more in prospectus at invesco. Com good morning. Welcome back to squawk box. Live from the Nasdaq Market site in times square. Lets check the futures quickly. Green arrows across the board. Little ones. A lot can change between now and the opening bell. We had two great sessions in a row bringing the averages to new highs and bond yields are back up sharply. Gold rallied based on ppi and cpi. One was hot and revision wasnt happen on the ppi. The cpi was received with the notion that inflation was again starting to moderate. New this hour, the eu is investigating facebook parent meta over alleged breaches of content law over child safety risks. It is looking into facebook and instagram may create socalled rabbit hole effects. The Commission Said it is concerned about age verification on the meta platforms. Meta did not respond to cnbc and request for comment. Time to talk about whale watching. Some of the worlds biggest Money Managers revealing the First Quarter investments and filings. Leslie picker has more. Reporter andrew, chubb shares yesterday spiked on the revelation that Berkshire Hathaway named the insurer as the longawaited mystery pick. Berkshire hathaway disclosed the stake of 6. 7 billion at the end of q1. Comprising of 25. 9 billion shares. We have had the position in q3 and q4. Yesterday, we learned the mystery name is chubb. Now the ninth Biggest Holding. There were other interesting Financial Moves during the quarter as well. We dont always see this. Third point took a stake in Goldman Sachs which had a record high yesterday. Dan loebs firm had exposure to apollo. Viking and corevex paired back kkr and Michael Burry bought citi citigroup. In fact, among the 20 highprofile Fund Managers we tracked, we saw the biggest inn inflati influx of capital into the quarter. That was drive n by the chubb purchase. It certainly is good times for the financials, guys. Are you surprised there is so much interest in the financials . Reporter a little surprise, although, a lot of this is part of the catchup trade last year. Most people were expecting recession which would be bad for the publicly traded financials out there. Now there is a notion and narrative we achieved a soft landing and people are starting to feel more comfortable buying banks and firms that dabble in private equity because the macro picture has shifted so much and the regulatory picture shifted with the capital roles changing. That bodes well for investors on the sidelines and now, as we see from the filings, coming ack. If you piggyback the trades, are you always late . By default, you are late. Reporter these are as of the end of march. These are six weeks delayed. They may have changed. Andrew, oftentimes people who chase positions are doing so only to find that the manager has traded out shortly after. Leslie picker, thank you. Coming up, the debates are on. We take a closer look at the upside and Downside Risk to each candidate. Thats next. Squawk box will be right back. Announcer currency check is sponsored by interactive brokers. The best informed investors choose interactive brokers. Energy fuels, a leading american uranium producer, is ramping up production to supply expanding Nuclear Markets and diversifying into rare earth elements, key ingredients in many clean energy and defense technologies. Energy fuels. Its a beautiful. Day to fly. Wooooo welcome back to squawk box. President biden and former President Trump will take the debate stage, i dont know if it is a cage match or not. Both agreeing to two dates. The first is june 27th. Joining us is Alex Thompson with axios. Good morning to you. Lets talk about this happening and the rules imposed or not imposed on this debate. What are we supposed to expect . A few important things. There will not be an audience. At the moment it is just oneonone. No third party candidate. The first hosted by cnn and the second one by abc. This is the earliest president ial debate ever. Not by a little bit. A long shot. The earliest before this was september 21st. The second president ial debate is the earliest general Election Debate ever. June 27th allows the joe Biden Campaign to do, lets say he has a terrible debate, this gives him four months to make up damage before election day. That seems like a strange str strategy to try to do something and you get another chance at it. Hell be four months older which matters. We see four months. You could decline four months with that age. He was a totally different guy two years ago. Think of it this way, it is a risk by getting on stage with donald trump. Donald trump has shown no regard for normal debate rules. You may remember four years ago, he likely had covid and got on stage with joe biden. The Biden Campaign does not agree trump will be a fair or rational actor here. Having it early is a hedge on this bet. Basically, joe biden wanted to debate. Thats the only reason this is happening right now. Joe biden thinks if he gets on stage with donald trump, it will rebound to his benefit and it will help with some of the polls and that is why this is happening. It is a hedge what do this advisers think . Theyre split. I have to be honest with you. You saw nancy pelosi speak up to this yesterday when she said that she would advise nobody to get on a stage with donald trump. The president has decided what he wants to do. Some of his advisers think he will be fine. There are some people in the biden camp that see this as more risky than not. I saw the opposite put forth. That is he saw the swing state numbers last week in the New York Times and saw those and some of the numbers are staggering. Also with hispanics and other groups that he thought he could count on. He saw those and is being forced to consider a debate. I guess its possible that the president , himself, says he wants to be in a debate. Anybody around him would say, mr. President , think about this, probably. I would think. The notion was he was forced his hand was forced to accept it. I say the opposite. I say trump wants the debate to get biden off script and off reading a teleprompter. I think it is any of these things. Everyone has their own interests. I would not underestimate the power of ego and both candidates pushing for the debates. Donald Trumps Campaign wants a debate every month. They counter proposed one in july and one in august and one in october. They accepted the invitation of fox news with bret baier. The Biden Campaign said no deal. We proposed two debates and thats all you get. Cnn and abc. Saying no to bret baier. We know bret. We have seen debates from the other places. I think trump i dont know. Do you think this is cast in stone and say i want a studio audience or i want some other network to moderate . You dont see any changes, alex . I think he wants to do it so badly, i think he agreed to terms he shouldnt have agreed to. Absolutely. Donald trump gave up leverage when he said he would debate joe biden any time or any place. His staff in washington was handing out cards to reporters. I have one here in my apartment. Any time, anywhere, any place. Donald trump was forced to accept those conditions. I just dont know. Lets say you watch a different network. Lets say you watch 12 hours of fox one day. The next day you watch 12 hours of cnn. It is like this. They dont cover the same thing. Hes agreeing to go i would say Enemy Territory for a debate. Im talking about trump. Its a very friendly place for biden. Certainly the Biden Campaign feels that which is why this came together so quickly. In terms of the other question, is this set in stone . There is an xfactor here which is under reported which could unravel this thing. The rfk jr. Of it all. Donald trump and joe biden agree to a oneonone debate. If you look at the abc parameters, rfk believes he can make it for the debate. It requires getting on the ballot in that state to get 270 vets. Rfk is on the ballot in four states. He has a long way to go. Cnn told me that the guidelines remain the same. The Biden Campaign said they only agreed to a oneonone debate. What happens if eqhe qualifies . We dont know. Alex, thank you for this. We will debate the debates for some time. Thank you. Thank you. Coming up, a partnership in Cloud Security software and two look to compete with the cisco acquisition of splunk. Thats next. Lmwaart is set to report. We will have Market Reaction at the top of the hour. Energy fuels, a leading american uranium producer, is ramping up production to supply expanding Nuclear Markets and diversifying into rare earth elements, key ingredients in many clean energy and defense technologies. Energy fuels. Palo alto network is buying q radar from ibm. Palo alto will migrate customers to its platform. Ibm will train more than 1,000 of the consulting employees on its palo alto products. The ceo said it needs to prepare to go up against splunk. And dell shares trading at the alltime high after march g Morgan Stanley raising the price target on the stock. Dell shares are up 95 year to date. The jump back in march after the Company Revealed it benefitted from the a. I. Boom. When we come back, more on squawk box, we will have more with the ceo of exotec. That is all and instant reaction from retail giant walmart. It is a biie quawk box comes right back after this. Are you interested in safeguarding your investments with gold . Alamos gold is a growing canadian gold producer with a long track record of outperformance. Alamos gold. Invest with us. Energy fuels, a leading american our uranium producer,art. Is ramping up production to supply expanding Nuclear Markets and diversifying into rare earth elements, key ingredients in many clean energy and defense technologies. Energy fuels. voya there are some things that work better together. Like your Workplace Benefits and retirement savings. Voya helps you choose the right amounts without over or under investing. So you can feel confident in your financial choices voya, well planned, well invested, well protected. Cnbcs 12th annual disruptor 50 list is out, and one sector well represented in this years roster is logistics. And our next guest is the ceo of ware housing Robotics Company exotec, coming in at number ten on the list. Romain moulin, ceo of the company. Can you describe exactly some of your products to us and to viewers, romain . Can we see any of them or at least describe them vividly for us. I real describe. Thanks a lot for having me and the ceo of exotec. Exotec is a warehouse robotics provider. And we provide a system which is based on a fleet of robots running in the warehouse to bring goods to the picker. So anytime you have a distribution center, you might use this technology and what does it provide, it is density, it will fire up to the ceilings, your picker will work five tim s faster and better and working conditions. Thats what we provide them. It seems to be both good and bad for existing workforces, romain. Seems much safer. A lot of it is work that is difficult, dangerous, i wouldnt say menial, but in warehouses that vertically as you say are, you know, go up 40 feet, whatever, this would be a game changer and i guess thats why we call it a disruptors 50 list because of the disruption. Will your company employ enough people to make up for some of the people that no longer need to be in the warehouses . Yes. In fact, it is not the problem that they are facing, they dont find the people they are looking for. There is a labor shortage which is worldwide and to get back to your first remarks, thats because of the working condition. Ten miles a day, a usual picker. So these are tough conditions, and with our robotics system, we want to improve this condition and to improve the safety as you said. So, yes, it is a trend induced market and customer are really looking for the next generation solution. Thats why they come to us. You already have pretty good client list too. If you can tell carefour and gap and head count up 80 , a billion dollars of systems you recently sold on a 2 billion valuation. Longterm, what kind of compound growth do you think you can we think it is near the beginning. We have reached 1 billion intake in eight years. We are quite a Young Company and it is incredible to reach such an install base in such a short time. Our customer in different vertical, grocery, carefour, the gap, so our system is applied to many different logistics, many different verticals, which i think as explained our growth and if i take an example of the u. S. , we have developed our revenue each time in the past three years. So, i think the system, the products resonate very well with the market need right now. And exotec in terms of head count is also extremely important. We reach 1,000 people now. Real quick, in terms of what a. I. Is doing and what it could present as a challenge to your business in terms of competition, i assume most of these robots were originally built with machine learningand there is an install base, so thats fabulous. And maybe it is just too hard for people to scale up very quickly, but do you have any concern about that . And what are you doing on the other side of that in terms of a. I. Yourself . Yeah, i see a. I. As a huge opportunity. We already use a. I. In our robots. We have an automated picker, a robot that can manipulate goods in the pods that we transport and this automated picker is based on a. I. A. I. Can solve things in warehouses that we never solved before. Many goods which are very different, we have a lot of many informations, so this is a technology that will be key and we are integrating it very soon because we know it will change once again. I think we change again the first time with robotics, which means a lot of software and less hardware. If i show you the team, you would see that in fact 70 of the people are doing software and when you see our system, you see the visible part there, which is the hardware part. So, the algorithm, the software, the a. I. Are key in delivering more performance from our system. So a. I. Is a part of it. But it is a part that can have a great impact in the coming years, and all the players are working on this topics, and because we can solve once again things that were never solved in the past 40 years with a. I. It is interesting. We hope youre steadily moving up the list, romain. You were at cofounder with general electric, medical, working on medical robot features prior to this. And then this application must have occurred to you, which is pretty amazing. But we appreciate your time this morning. Good luck. Thanks. Thanks a lot. Just before 7 00 a. M. Here on the east coast. Youre watching squawk box on cnbc. Im Andrew Ross Sorkin with joe kernen. Becky is out this morning on assignment. Meantime, a lot of stories to tell you about. Some of the top ones, take a look at this, the meme stocks, i dont know if theyre meme stocks anymore, they have now tumbled. They have tumbled for a second day. Like of game stop, amc, blackberry all lower ahead of the open after following yesterday, halting their twoday win streak, despite the pullbacks, gamestop and amc still up more than 120 and 80 respectively so far this week. Maybe they still are meme stocks. Netflix saying ad supported tier topped 40 million monthly users, up from 5 million a year ago. They launched the ad supported plan at the end of 2022. 40 of all signups come from those plans in countries where theyre available. Netflix also revealing it will launch its own advertising platform and no longer partner with microsoft for that technology. Wall street journal saying microsoft asking hungs of emp hundreds of employees in the china a. I. Division to transfer outside of the country. It comes as tensions continue to accelerate. As we check on futures now, the dow up 35 points, the nasdaq looking to open 30 points higher. Over to dom chu who is looking at this mornings premarket movers. Earnings headliner from last nights close, thats cisco systems. Those shares right now are up just about over 4 premarket on shares of just like 75,000 shares or so of volume. It topped consensus estimates for both profits and revenues even though sales did drop by roughly 13 over the same time last year. Thats by the way the biggest drop since 2009. There is optimism that customers are working through inventory and getting things done better in the coming months, so cisco up 4 . The mystery stock has been revealed. For multiple quarters now, Warren Buffetts Berkshire Hathaway has been building a sizable stake in an unknown company. We found out late yesterday that it is switzerland based insurer and reinsurance giant chubb. Those shares are higher. You see roughly 8. 5 , around 25,000 shares of volume premarket for its u. S. Listed stock. Berkshire hathaway received a special exemption from regulators that put off a disclosure of that investment until it had enough time to build up that stake. That stake is 26 million shares, nearly that amount giving 6. 4 stake in chubb. It becomes berkshires ninth largest holding. Well keep an eye on that. We have breaking earnings, joe, back over to you. Went for walmart, looks pretty good here. The stock is up. The guidance is good. 60 cents a share, above estimates. Revenue also grew and beat estimates. 161. 5 billion. Thats a quarter. Also beating estimates. U. S. Comp store sales grew 3. 8 . Issuing guidance for the second quarter, Net Sales Growth expected in the range of 3. 5 out of 4. 5 . For the full year, fiscal year, the company now expects to be at the high end or slightly above its previous guidance for Net Sales Growth and operating income growth. Melissa repko joins us now with more. She has commentary. Great to see you. The cfo of walmart said while inflation is a factor, what is driving the performance is gains with shoppers of higher income and hes also seeing that a lot of people are buying online through their third party marketplace. So he said this is coming from growth in units and trips to the store and website, not from inflation. Is that going to be ticking away share from amazon or is amazon just growing so fast that thats not what were talking about. Thats a good question. It is worth noting that one of the drivers of walmarts performance this time around was its newer businesses like advertising. He told me onethird of their improvement in operating income came from newer businesses like membership program, advertising, Fulfillment Services for marketplace and thats straight out of walmarts sorry, straight out of amazons playbook. Right. Any sign from walmart about overall, the lowend consumer we keep waiting to see stress. But if youre going to go anywhere, as a low end consumer, it might be walmart. I asked him about the low income consumer. He said low income consumer is still hanging in there. While he said the pattern has held that people are buying fewer things like home goods and electronics, they are still sticking with walmart and walmart also benefited from having things like delivery for the first time. He said delivery surpassed store pickup. And he said we got customers that are coming to us more frequently than they have before, and newer customers that we havent traditionally had, and one of the things interestingly he mentioned is he said the gap between food at home, so, cooking your own food, versus going out to dinner, has grown. And he thinks that that is benefiting their grocery business and causing people to come to them, rather than maybe going to some of the names we heard from last week. Is there an explanation for how theyre capturing this higher end customer in. They are really adding the services that amazon has been known for. So thats speedier delivery, express delivery to peoples homes and then the wider assortment through the marketplace has allowed them to add things like dyson products or some higher end brands. New high, all time. I guess we shouldnt be surprised dow is at a lot of the averages are at all time highs, closing in on half a trillion dollars, walmart, quite a company. How about competition, ecommerce competition with amazon . Well have to see how it plays out, but ecommerce in the u. S. Is up 22 , and that was something he pointed out. But one of the other factors that walmart is being watched for is a couple of days ago they announced they will be moving a lot of people to bentonville and to offices and as the nations largest private employer, theyre signaling that theyre moving away from remote work and back to the office. So it is interesting to see what that will mean for other employers as well. The rest of the country. Yeah. Well, it is early. Thanks for coming in, melissa. Appreciate it. Thank you. Coming up, russian president Vladimir Putin visiting china, council of Foreign Relations president emeritus Richard Haase will join us after the break. Didnt we warn him not to cozy up to russia. He doesnt care. And later, from wall street to the white house and back, Anthony Scaramucci will talk crypto, the markets and his new book. Squawk box will be right back. A slow network is no network for business. Thats why more choose comcast business. And now, were introducing ultimate speed for business our fastest plans yet. Were up to 12 times faster than verizon, at t, and tmobile. And existing customers could even get up to triple the speeds. At no additional cost. Its ultimate speed for ultimate business. Dont miss out on our fastest speed plans yet switch to comcast business and get started for 49. 99 a month. Plus, ask how to get up to an 800 prepaid card. Call today welcome back to squawk box. Russian president Vladimir Putin arriving in beijing earlier today fortalks with chinese president xi jinping. Joining us now to talk more about the growing russia china relationship and, i dont know if there is something that needs to be done about it or not, richard haass, senior council, Vice President emeritus on council of Foreign Relations. Great to see you. Great to be back. You see the images and think what . Putin and xi . Yeah. This is an axis growing in the last couple of years. Evil axis. They clearly oppose an americanled dominated world. The chinese moved awfully close to the russians and ukraine and the chinese, as best i can tell, are not providing them arms, theyre providing them with the capacity to make arms. And, you know, i think what we live we live in a world now where all the hopes you have great power, coordination, cooperation, are dashed. And the real question for the most part is not what we can achieve in Foreign Policy, but what we can avoid. Neither of these countries has emerged as a partner. Do we have any leverage . Over russia, not a whole lot. Over russia, no leverage. Do we have our support for ukraine. Now the spigot has been turned on, well see how that plays out over time. Over china, look, not a whole lot. With the administration the other day, with the higher tariffs, a form of leverage, it is telling the chinese you cant get away with the return to an exportled growth model. You cant subsidize your workers and factories at the expense of ours. That gives you a little bit of leverage. We can strengthen taiwan, work closely with japan. Were not going to bring about a china that is going to be a partner. The question is can we push back against china so it doesnt do things that we dont want to see. It seems like any other country, objective country, other than russia, would look at what happened in ukraine and, you know, at least see that in world order, just whatever you want to call it, that was horrific what russia orchestrated. Is china so, i guess, its own selfinterests align it with russia, or is it just completely ignore all the what has happened in terms of the human casualties and the cause. Does china not care because they do the same thing as the uyguyghur are they an evil axis . Russia was sobered by the experience in ukraine, xi jinping must think about, hmm, putins army didnt perform so well, my own army is untested. No second thoughts about what they did to look what they did to the cities and to the number of i guess people say that about us back in israel, so it is all in the eyes of the beholder. The chinese point of view, this is the cost of Foreign Policy. I dont think that gives them no recriminations . What is the biggest priority for china . Xi jinping talks about renuf nati rejuvenation, it is about taiwan. It is a Foreign Policy goal, not an economic goal. It is not a goal about what is going to happen inside chinese society. This is a somewhat different china. Let me ask you this, this is jamie dimon speaking yesterday, he said we should be strategic, be thoughtful and fully engage with china. Fully engaged with china. They are not an enemy, he says. They are competing and they want to but then he goes on to say, they want a different world than we want. The free and democratic western world. It is worth fighting for. So ill let you parse jamies use of language there. But, look, it is not the cold war. China unlike the soviet union is fully integrated economically in the world. Theyre everywhere. We cant keep them out. We got to have 2020 vision. We can selectively economically cooperate, big market still, but for strategic goods, we got to be really wary about helping out. We have got to understand the threat they pose to our own workers and all that, and Foreign Policy, in most instances, we are not on the same page. Can we maybe find some ways limited to cooperate . I dont know. But they havent used their influence with north korea, north korea continues to build up the Missile Force and nuclear force. They havent been a big help with iran, as best i can tell, chinese or irans biggest importer of oil. They havent been helpful with ukraine. Doesnt make them an enemy. You got to get up in the morning and say the United States and china are not aligned. Where do you think the relationship is between israel and the United States and the Biden Administration . Good interview yesterday with arms embargo starting to crack. Never was an arms embargo. Distant 99 of u. S. Military aid, close to 4 billion a year is going to israel. Enough with the arms embargo talking. The United States has been and is extraordinarily supportive. The interesting story out of israel, i was there a few days ago, the interesting story is what is going on inside the Israeli Government. You got the Israeli Defense minister openly breaking with the israeli prime minister. And saying it makes no sense to just go after hamas militarily, this idea you can be sequential, lets try to eliminate hamas, which is an Impossible Task and then think about what comes after, he said, no, we have to think about what cams after now. We need an integrated policy, a political track in addition to the military track. The pressures inside the Israeli Government have surfaced. And so how does that play out in your mind and how does that change the relationship with the Biden Administration if it does at all . And i say by the way, i keep raising the Biden Administration, politically in the United States, this may politically be helping biden in some ways by not sending some of this ammunition to you dont think thats whats really happening here. I will also tell you, i think the perception among some people in the United States has moved against President Biden as a result of those comments. I think President Biden is trying to thread a needle. What hes doing is too much for israel from the point of view of and from others, doing too little. It is a nowin situation. What is interesting is what the Biden Administration is arguing for is just what youre hearing from the Israeli Defense minister. There has got to be a strategy for if you want the arab countries to send thousands of forces to govern gaza, theyll only do it if there is a palestinian dimension to israeli policy. Bibi netanyahus dilemma is if he introduces such a dimension, parts of his coalition may crack and youll be going in the direction of new elections. He may face a dilemma. The realities on the ground versus the realities of his it is not months, it is weeks. He doesnt sound like in his own mind hes not saying what you just said the defense minister is saying. Hes going. Will that work and is it someone said, dont want to use whacamole, but now hamas is reemerging in northern gaza, someone said it was like cutting the grass, you cut it, and then two weeks later ugly expression mowing the grass. You cant find a conventional war in an unconventional setting. If you want to persuade the people of gaza trying to change hearts and minds for 40 years, richard. How do you here it is a narrow thing. You want to say, you dont want to support hamas, there has got to be a better way for palestinians to achieve some of their political ambitions, thats a legitimate voting in hamas to govern gaza was probably not coloss elections there, it is a good example that what is it, a twostate solution again . Are we back to that . Werenot there now. In israel, people arent ready to talk about a twostate solution after what happened on october 7th, there has to be separation. There has got to be a palestinian state, maybe a threestate solution. The point is if you want israel to remain a Jewish Democratic state, it cannot remain forever in occupation of 5 million, 6 million, 7 million palestinians. This is something israelis need to do for themselves and the palestinians. It you need a palestinian partner. You need palestinians who arent hamas, cant be the Current Palestinian Authority that is feckless. We need a new generation, thats going to take time. It is going to take not months, but years to build palestinians who are willing and able to coexist peacefully with israel and to govern their own territory. Thats got to be a point. How does israel prevent another october 7th . They have to strengthen their own intelligence. October 7th should have never happened. That is on israels own failures. You do not allow hamas to come back. You work with saudi arabia, with the united arab emirates, egypt, and say we want you guys to police gaza, what will it take for you to do that . What do you need from us . Thats the conversation that has to happen. I was just in the uae, just in kuwait, and so forth, these countries are ready to have that conversation if israel is ready to do you think netanyahus days should be numbered . Is that just sort of hear that in your voice. I think he needs to change his policy. Whether he stays or not, thats for israelis to decide. I do believe right now his military only first we sort this out militarily and then turn to that cannot succeed. I think whether he stays or not, thats up to israelis. I believe the policy has to change. I think the israeli im going to get really complicated for you. If there is a transition of government inside israel over the next six months, what does that do to the politics here in the United States as it relates to President Biden and foreign President Trump. I dont think it has a big change on our politics. Do you think most americans are going to the polls this november going to be focusing on this as opposed to the border as opposed to inflation, as opposed to 100 other domestic issues. I dont think this is going to be driving the election, maybe some voters the reason i mentioned it is i think that you could argue that some of the things that are happening on campuses around the country are driving elections, or driving perceptions of things and so they all are interrelated in a way. Best hope there is summer vacation. And the end of the school year. Iran, i thought something was starting there, and both sides, they didnt want like both sides said, look, we dont want to do this. That was interesting, not a lot of good news coming out of the middle east, the ability of israel and iran to have informal rules of the road so that didnt escalate, i thought that was a rare piece of diplomacy that they things are firing from both countries at each other. That was impressive. The administration, Biden Administration deserves some credit for keeping the lid on that. What we havent seen is the situation in the north with hezbollah get out of hand yet. Im not going to sit here and be positive about the middle east, but that was a rare piece of careful diplomacy in a part of the world where you dont see a lot of it. Richard haass, thank you. Good to see you. Up next, tesla planning to test robo taxis in china, it faces some stiff competition there. A live report from beijing is next. Bitcoin surging, up, like, 3,000 or 4,000, back above 66,000, trading above now its 50day moving average for the First Time Since midapril. Well talk crypto and more with Anthony Scaramucci. Squawk box will be right back. Announcer time for aflacs trivia question. Which novelist published the strange case of dr. Jekyll and mr. Hyde. The answer when squawk box returns. Nostril uhuh. Bill uhhuh. Hiphop limping mmhmm medical bills uhhuh pancakes cash who pays you cash when you have medical bills . Grrr no idea. [tapping] gap the gap left by Health Insurance . Who pays cash to help close that gap . Aflac oh, aflac get help with expenses Health Insurance doesnt cover at aflac. Com pictionary . its time. Yes, the time has come for a fresh approach to dog food. Everyday, more dog people are deciding its time to quit the kibble and feed their dogs fresh food from the farmers dog. Made by vets and delivered right to your door precisely portioned for your dogs needs. Its an idea whose time has come. Energy fuels, a leading american uranium producer, is ramping up production to supply expanding Nuclear Markets and diversifying into rare earth elements, key ingredients in many clean energy and defense technologies. At university of energy fuels. Maryland global campus, getting a bachelors degree doesnt have to mean starting from scratch. Here you can earn up to 90 undergraduate credits for relevant experience. What will your next success be . Announcer now the answer to todays aflac trivia question. Which novelist published the strange case of dr. Jekyll and mr. Hyde . The answer, robert louis stevenson. Tesla ceo elon musk hopes to test his robo taxis in china, but the ev maker is entering a market with some stiff competition and eunice yoon joins us from beijing with more. Hey, eunice. Reporter well, tech giant baidu has a fleet of 500 robo taxies already in the city of wuhan. And this week the Company Announced that it plans to expand that to 1,000 fully selfdriving robo taxis by the end of this year. So, we went to wuhan to find out just what the service is like today. Im at my hotel in wuhan and im going out to dinner. I decided im going to take baidus selfdriving robo taxi. You need a special app, but not everyone can ride. A notice pops up and warns no young children, pregnant women, elderly, the infirmed or anyone with a bad heart. Im in the right part of town to get the service, but the app says i need to walk to 100 feet to get to the closest station to board the robo taxi. It costs about the same as a regular taxi. We got one. It is coming in 15 minutes. Here is the robo taxi, but there is a driver inside. The staffer told us to catch an unmanned cab, weneeded to go to another pickup point, less than half of the taxis still come with safety personnel. We did. And another showed with another assistant. Finally, we got one without a human. Great. No one is inside except for us. Were on our way, but were moving kind of slowly, about 30 miles an hour. On chinas notoriously chaotic roads, the robie taxi drove up a ramp, made a uturn and negotiated its way around bikers riding tandem and a driver. In an emergency, you press this for help. So it took us a little bit of time, but we finally got here. The baidu robo service is 24 7 and it looks like the car is going to go off for another trip. And what we learned is that this is a real experiment because from the time that we first called for an unmanned cab, joe, it took us four hours before we actually got the cab. But once we were in it, it actually works. Right. The 500 operating robo taxis, which you said at the beginning, i was, like, thats amazing, and going to a thousand, it is not quite true. Exactly. Well, no, it is, i mean, there are some that have the Driver Assist safety driver. Reporter i know. It is a work in progress as baidu executive told me. But i also felt that was interesting is what happens if youre in there, you have an emergency, so i asked the baidu executive, you know, what do you do in that kind of situation, and they said that you would have to have the peace of mind to go on to the app and change the destination, so in case youre going to the office and you have to go to the hospital, you change the destination on the app, or you could do what i did, which is call the sos button and then an agent comes on and they can remotely stop the car for you. And one thing that she said to reassure us is they have 360 degree cameras, both inside and outside of the car. So theyre constantly monitoring you for safety purposes and, in fact, at one point, we opened the door accidentally in the cab and they told us, please close the door. Is elons technology superior to this right now, do you think, sorkin . What he wants to test or is it all the same . It is years until this is really go ahead, eunice. Reporter no, no, no, i was going to just say that, you know, obviously hes not here yet. There is a lot of expectation that tesla is going to be rolling out robo taxis here and experimenting as well. There was some commentary about that in the state press just yesterday. There was an article about how baidu had spoken tosome of the local reporters, and said that they would be open to the idea of working with tesla on the robo taxi. On teslas robo taxi, depending on the progress and rollout of the robo taxi but baidu wouldnt comment on that report. The vehicles you were in, they have lidar, radar . How do crews and waymo produce their cars and what technology they use in tesla, which is camera own. Reporter yeah, so it is not camera only. So my assumption is that it would be lidar because there are now six generations of these cars and baidu is working with different car manufacturers, all local, to be able to bring the price down. In fact, this week, they announced the sixth generation of their car and they saidthat they can now sell it for 28,000 per car, which is less than half of what they were selling the previous generations, so you could see the ways in which baidu is trying to get ahead and really trying to roll this out here in china, and perhaps internationally. Okay, eunice yoon in beijing this morning, thank you. Coming up, sky Bridge Capitals Anthony Scaramucci out with a new book, talking about his journey from wall street to washington. And then next hour, transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg o sciisurpeal guest. Do not go anywhere. Squawk box coming right back after this. But its not the critic who counts. With every swing and block, your game plan never changed. Some still call it luck. Let them. Because you know what its always been. Inevitable. Are you interested in safeguarding your investments with gold . Alamos gold is a growing canadian gold producer with a long track record of outperformance. Alamos gold. Invest with us. Our growth sets us apart. Welcome back to squawk box. A couple of quick corporate stories, walmart shares are rising this morning. Retailer posting a better than expected earnings and revenue number. Also raising its full year forecast. Deere shares falling, the Agricultural Equipment manufacturer cutting its profit forecast for the full year. Pfizer agreed to pay up to 250 million to settle more than 10,000 lawsuits over cancer risks associated with zantac, its discontinued heartburn drug. The exact amount has not yet been finalized. It continues to vigorously against the lawsuits, which they say are not supported by reliable science. Coming up, Anthony Scaramucci talks bitcoin in the market and return of the mcdonalds value meal. For a month anyway. It looks to lure customers back to its locations amid some high food prices. But will it work . Under armours results are out and they approved a Restructuring Plan and a 500 million share buyback. Stock der unpressure. Squawk box coming right back. You need to hire. I need indeed. Indeed you do. When you sponsor a job, you immediately get your shortlist of quality candidates, whose resumes on indeed match your job criteria. Visit indeed. Com hire and get started today. When it comes to investing, we live in uncertain times. Some assets can evaporate at the click of a button. Others can deflate with a single policy change. Savvy investors know that gold has stood the test of time as a reliable real asset. So how do you invest in gold . Sandstorm gold royalties is a publicly traded Company Offering a diversified portfolio of mining royalties in one simple investment. Learn more about a brighter way to invest in gold at sandstormgold. Com. Energy fuels, a leading american uranium producer, is ramping up production to supply expanding Nuclear Markets and diversifying into rare earth elements, key ingredients in many clean energy and defense technologies. Energy fuels. Its a beautiful. Day to fly. Wooooo bitcoins surging more than 7 on wednesday having its best day since march 25th. Cryptocurrency taking off after a cooler than expected cpi report. Right now, bitcoin is still above 66. Joining us, Anthony Scaramucci, sky Bridge Capital founder and managing partner. His new book is from wall street to the white house and back it does go over his experience and it is four pages. It is a pamphlet because it youre making fun of the pages. Also 954,000 sometimes i say it to my therapist. Every second was you could probably write did every 221 pages. 221 pages. Is there if i pay him to read it, he charges me for the index. There is no index. No. You can buy is on audible. Thank you for bringing up the book. Are you do you have updates on the institutional adoption of bitcoin . Ive seen some comments, everything is eventually going to be on lightning or lightning network. Listen, i think the institutional adoption is happening now. The state of wisconsin announced we expect other Pension Funds to announce and, of course, bitcoin now has the Regulatory Approval and i think that was the rate limiting step for a lot of these large scale institutions and just remember, if youre not long bitcoin, youre possibly short bitcoin in the sense that if you believe and i think blackrock is more or less said this, this will be part of a longterm tactical Asset Allocation strategy for institutional investors, then at some point you got to get long bitcoin. Is it a percent of bitcoin, 1. 5 bitcoin . I dont know. So, a lot of smart institutions are saying let me get long this thing before it becomes part of a total tactical Asset Allocation index. That is starting to happen now and thats very good for bitcoin. Is it because it is a hedge against 34 trillion in money printing or whatever it is . Or is it going to be used to seamlessly transact around the world . Or both . Im in the digital gold category. Michael saler, will say, no, this is in the universal currency category, meaning it will eventually be the standardized currency for the world over things like the lightning network. But i think what is important for people to do is do the homework on bitcoin. When you do the homework on bitcoin, you go toward bitcoin, i know very few people that have done the homework, you know, several hundred hours of understanding bitcoin, not just reading the right paper, but rally understanding the history of money and all the different boxes that bitcoin checks off. That was a revelation. I have been in trouble on this, because i announced our we announced sky bridge our bitcoin position in november of 2020. And a lot of institutions, wire houses, they didnt like it, they didnt like the position, it is four years later, now these very same wire houses are adopting the position and are getting long the etf or allowing Financial Advisers to recommend the etf. So, you know, sometimes when youre early, you get a lot of bumps and scrapes, but it pays to be early in bitcoin and i think were still early in bitcoin. If theyre really if there is 21 million and it is going to eventually have a some percentage of what the gold market is, why it should be 150 by the end of the year, i have no idea what 150,000 is by the end of the year, if it seems like if thats a given, it should be moving up even more quickly. Lets just do the math. Lets say goal is 16 trillion, lets say tom lee is wrong by half, which i dont think he is, and i appreciate him coming to my book party last night, i think tom lee is going to be right. But if bitcoin got to 8 trillion a coifed tom lee or wild tom lee . It was wild tom lee. Hes so zenlike, so smart. Doesnt have your or my emotional wave length, joe, you know, we have a tendency to sign and cosign. Our product. No. I need more product lately, joe. Not less product. More product. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. I have a political go ahead. I know where youre what do you think im going to say . I know where youre going. Im going to sit over here and im going to represent 80 million big news of the morning, the last 24 hours youre going to gang up on me. The big news of the past 24 hours is biden is going to debate trump, trump is going to debate biden. What do you think of this decision . Is this a good idea for biden, bad idea for biden, good idea for trump, bad idea for trump . What does the cage match look like, the results . I think it is a great idea for biden. And i think the trump team is probably now looking at those conditions that mr. Trump impetuously agreed to and theyre probably worried about a few of those onditions. So now what is at issue, trump said you make up the rules, ill debate you anyplace, anytime, they made up the rules and he hit the bid and now why do you think this is going to be very good for biden . Because there is low expectations. Anytime you enter the debate even andrew has low expectations. The president is way more put together, and hes way sharper than people want to give him credit for. He does have a stutter that has plagued him his entire life and he is older, but as ive said on this show and other shows, i would take somebody older and slightly forgetful over somebody that is full on crazy. So, to me, i love nato, i love the international order, i love the fact that we have very, very smart people that are working on things like the economy. I dont like the impetuousness of donald trump. A number of your peers on wall street, who i think had moved away from trump and are now moving back. Im thinking of, you know, i dont know if they ever moved away, but ken griffin, so many others, there is a whole bunch of people that are moving back into trump camp and folks like bill ackman, i dont know hes fully into trump camp, but clearly in an antibiden camp with the hope that somehow hes going to find some new candidate who is going to emerge. I had president then Vice President biden and bill at a dinner at the conference in 2017 and ackman . There was some soreness there. It spilled over to where we are now. I think bill is an analytical guy. I think thats his objective view. He thinks mr. Trump is going to win. Thats his objective view. I think mr. Trump is going to lose because this is a get out the vote situation. These are two candidates that have been in the public spotlight for five decades. There is very few people in the United States that dont know who they are. This is not the barack obama 2008 introduction tour. These are two known entities. What do you think there is an argument to be made, though, i dont know if you think i dont know if you think it is helping him or hurting him, the fact that trump is, you know, down in the courthouse, and has been muzzled, does that help him . There is a view that the public doesnt see him that much, that people forget about some of the things that might be considered on the crazy side, but another view that, you know, he needs to be out there in front of a lot of people to get them excited and riled up. How does this cut . Is he getting a lot of attention being at the courthouse . I think he is. I think the it is a different type of attention. You see the former president would tell you that any type of attention is good. Good attention, bad attention, negative attention, you pick the attention, get the spotlight on me, you get the spotlight on me, my name recognition goes up. And these president ial contests are generally popularity contests, not hiring decisions by the American People, it is a popularity contest. And so he likes this sort of stuff it is who do you like, though, or who do you hate the least. He loves all of these guys showing up with the long red tie and the white shirt and theyre doing this in front of the camera outside the courthouse. He loves that stuff. Bill ackman tweeted out, thats how we happened to see it, victor david hanson, a synopsis of the did you read that, the background of when you say hes i feel anybody that has a stuttering problem, i feel bad for them, that conjures sympathy, there is a lot more in joe bidens history than stuttering and a lot more of problems that he has right now are not tied to stuttering. I think you know that the American People, 70 of the American People would prefer two other choices than these two. Right. Thats what im saying. Both sides are holding their nose. This is sort of the relics of the youre a life long republican and life long republican. Maybe you think that socially im liberal. I think you share that. There are times when President Biden is saying certain things about Corporate America or where you probably say, oh, hes just appealing to the populist side of things, he doesnt believe in those a lot of what he does is anathema and his policies are anathema to what you stood for your whole life. And so is trump. I dont want to im not here to defend trump. But if there were 40 people that worked at a Pharmaceutical Company or 40 people that worked at an aircraft manufacturer or Automobile Company and they said to you, hey, this is not working, you got 40 people in the the former Vice President of the United States that will not endorse the current potential republican nominee. He was on the ballot with him. You can find both now. You can find both now. I can mention other people, mnuchin the secretary of commerce, wilbur ross. Im not going to out people. You cant find people who worked for biden. They went in knowing what they were if i told you the drug, i was there, i watched the drug getting made, it is going to kill you, will you take the drug . The drug is going to kill you, joe. There is a nostalgia coming back to what we had for four years versus where we are. You cant deny it. Nostalgia for the checks being written to every american family. Im just trying to tell you something, there is a Surgeon Generals warning label on the candidate. This candidate is dangerous for your health. This candidate is dangerous for democracy. The country is split down the middle. You either got stupid people or traitors. Just respect the other side that they have a different point of view than you. I grew up with the other side. They have a different point of of view. Not everyone a trump backer is stupid or a traitor. I didnt say that. Theyre not listening to you. Thats not it, joe. This week we grew up, you and i, a bluecollar aspirational america and turned it into Something Else and trump is an avatar for those people and i respect that. Its not just that. Book called from wall street to the white house and back. Anthony scaramucci. The scaramucci guide to unbreakable resilience. How do you have this resilience . I have to deal with joe. I told you it was going to be back to me. To help you see untapped possibilities and relentlessly work with you to make them real. Sure, im a paid actor, and this is not a real company, but there is no way to fake how upwork can help your business. Search talent all over the world with over 10,000 skills you may not have in house. More than 30 of the fortune 500 use upwork because this is how we work now. Welcome back to squawk box. Mcdonalds is rolling out at special 5 value menu trying to lure priceconscious participants. Have people loving it. Problem consumer at lower end of the income spectrum painfully stretched. We saw on wednesday the cpi report, leaving less for splurges like eating out. Not just mcdonalds issue. Remember starbucks earnings two weeks ago. Ugly. More consumers looking for deals. Same with wendys. The ceo backed off the idea hiking prices during busy times. Chipotle is doing well but still in growth mode compared with mcdonalds, which is everywhere. So what will 5 at mcdonalds and a value menu get you . Sounds great. A sandwich, mcchicken or mcdouble, never heard of. Apparently a budget double cheeseburger only one slice of cheese. Small fries, small drinks. Passes amendments of the constitution. Sent it back, numbers dont work. Cocacola broke the deadlock kicking in incentives. Now mcdonalds has a simple message with a low price people want. Subsidized . Hilarity yeah. Okay. That might be trafficked in june. The question, will it linger . Wh whats going to happen when it goes away . On the other hand, argue on a call, ad campaign do wonder. Not fixing the fact labor costs risen, food prices staying high and competition for the fastfood dollar on the high earned and from groceries lower end. Real problem q1 of last year mcdonalds raised menu prices to cover costs and average ticket size wont down. A warning a reckoning was coming. Now, a bright spot. On the Technology Side the touchscreen kiosks now in one and four stores, allowing more lowcost sales and smartphone ordering and delivery are catching up. Where the pitch will come from for mcdonalds. Not value ads and campaigns. This blocked the menu because it pinches profits. Yes, mcdonalds has to have Loyalty Programs to boost frequency but with labor costs higher, thanks, california, the Company Needs tech maybe even a. I. To lower productivity. Not just lower prices, lower costs. Until we get awed mated and robots, i feel bad. There are people, their First Experience with work. An entrylevel position and theyre going away. If you have to pays 25 go away or fewer people per restaurant and maybe more restaurants. Newsletter hash it out in the newsletter. A qr code on the screen for you even to open up your phone quick. Quick. Got to get it. Or type in cnbc. Com and get the full text of both of these arguments and you can share. Thanks. Coming up, under armour fast tv. Under armour under pressure. We discuss it after a break. Well be right back. After doing about eight years active duty, additional four reserves, i wanted to go after that lifelong dream. Since graduating, ive gotten promoted; and im able to operate with confidence now because i now have the technical expertise. At university of maryland global campus, i feel i can accomplish anything. Learn about our more than 125 online degrees and certificates at umgc. Edu. Its 8 00 on the east coast. Youre watching squawk box on cnbc. Im joe kernen along with very talented mr. Andrew ross sorkin. Know what . Becky off today. Back tomorrow. Coming back on friday. That thats dedication. Isnt it. It is. Just as easy to say, see you monday. Shell be here. Among the top stories, walmart shares jumping to alltime high, better than expected First Quarter results. Expect to his high end or slightly top previous years guidance. And chubb jumping. The stock that Berkshire Hathaway built a stake in. Secret mystery stock, built a stake in the company both 6. 7 billion as of end of march. Only got, like, 200 how much left to go . 200 million left to the try to deploy . This doesnt really help that much. Does it . No. Toughness. And new yorks Federal Reserve president John Williams telling reuters in an interview yesterdays cooler than expected cpi data isnt enough to warrant rate hikes in the near future. Williams said a Monetary Policy is, in his words, in a good place. Futures this morning, have been in the positive range after a couple of big sessions, but as you can see just barely. Thats with a threepoint move in walmart. Not everything is chipping in but at new highs. Treasurys this morning. 433. An immediate move down we saw in yields yesterday, on the cooler cpi. Lets get to dom chu. Among other things moving as well. Premarket movers. Dom . So, thank you. Talented mr. Kernen. Caught up on other earnings headliners not walmart. Joe just mentioned. Start with deere down 5 . 60,000 shares premarket volume. Maker of farm, forestry construction and heavy equipment. Considered an economic bellwether stock. Reported better than expected profits and revenues but cut the profit forecast at falling prices have take an toll on demand from the farmers buying heavy equipment. Shares down about 5 . Move across the pacific for our next earnings mover. Jd. Com. Stock rose over 800,000 shares volume reporting better than expected quarterly results. Helped in part by discounting and shop rewards strategies helping drive customer transactions. Otherwise slowing in the chinese economy overall. And cap things af with news on netflix. Streaming jintd up fractionally premarket around 10,000 shares of volume. Netflix says ad supported topped 40 million monthly users up from 5 million a year ago. Keep an eye on netflix shares and now back to the talented mr. Sorkin. Back to you. Thank you from the talented dom chu. And under armour shares tumbling. Down by 11 right now. Reporting quarterly results. The companys board with a Restructuring Plan. Part its whats going on. Reporting earnings 11 cents a share. 3 cents bet than estimates. Revenue 1. 3 billion in line with estimates. Joining us, Williams Trading analyst sam. What is going on with his company . I mean, we were very confused why they made the change in, in leadership a few months ago. This is the first time well get to hear whats going on. We had thought they were making good progress. Clearly the progress wasnt up to what kevin plank was anticipating. So, you know, sort of a wait and see still. I guess it could be argued its good that theyre pulling back, but we had sort of thought they were pulling back enough, and making appropriate adjustments. You know, kevin planks been fairly aggressive at his prior leadership at under armour. We have yet to see where hes going with this, but certainly the numbers, you know, from a revenue perspective for guidance, 750 million under the streets numbers, u. P. S. , i mean the street 59 cents. Theyre saying 18 to 21 cents next year. Why were seeing the big move in stock right now. Can you explain, though, for a company that has had folks like tom brady involved in it. Currently steph curry. Why they havent been able to break out of this this challenging period . Is there a product issue . Is it a distribution issue . Its its its a i think the companys been unwilling to pull back enough in past years, and now theyre scrambling to do so. I mean, back when sports started shorts chalet went out of business, i think 2016, they kept driving revenue at that time, versus, and put a lot of product that was distributed in some of their better distribution like dicks into retailers like kohls and never done a great job segmentingthe product. That appeared to have been starting, and based on this restructuring maybe, you know, its happening, but the problem is, its that they dont have a lot of musthave product. You know. I dont know how much product tom brady would sell, but i think may have missed opportunities with steph curry both from a product and from a marketing perspective. Over time. Sam, stock trading now at 6. 08. You know, you have a retailer target on it. Yoel know if you changed or revised it this morning. Do you buy it at this price and is it a great value opportunity . Or you see risks outweighing that . Just to be when they announced this, this change in leadership, i had, i lowered my price target and down graded to neutral. I havent touched the rating or price target since then because i thought it would all be g guesswork in a sense. We have to wait and see. I have a whole rating on the stock. I dont think theres always opportunity but i dont really foresee i think, see how it plays out. Thank you for joining us this morning. Good to see you, as we try to make sense of this news this morning from under armour. When we come back, a lot more on squawk box. A conversation, atlas merchant capitalist bob diamond joining us on the set after the break. The all new godaddy airo helps you get your Business Online in minutes with the power of ai. With a perfect name, a great logo, and a beautiful website. Just start with a domain, a few clicks, and youre in business. Make now the future at godaddy. Com airo what took you so long . Im sorry, there was a long line at the thai place. You get the sauce i like . Of course youre the man i wish. The future isnt scary. Not investing in it is. Nasdaq100 innovators. One etf. Before investing, carefully read and consider Fund Investment objectives, risks, charges, expenses and more in prospectus at invesco. Com oh. Were back. Having a conversation. Right to our next guest. Here to talk markets, banks, inflation and fed policy. Bob diamond, ceo of atlas merchant capital. Former ceo of barclays and, like all of us, amateur youre much more. Less amateur than we are about w watching the fed. At the time 150, 175 basis points. Ever believe what the market would think at that point . You said maybe half that at most . We talked in january. Remember . It was clearly in the market it was going to be 150 to more. And my sense at the time was, there was far more risk for the fed, for the chairman of the fed, to ease rates with the economy as strong as it was, and the worst thing that could happen is an ease. Its a stokes inflation a little bit, and you have to come back in and raise rates. I did not believe there would be firsthalf rate cuts. I i remember telling you in january, maybe towards the end of the year. Maybe one, and i think, well, the economys a little softer right now. So i think its a bit more balanced, but maybe this year. Maybe not. What you said right at the beginning of, when we were speaking here was, the worst thing that can happen is if they dont continue tightening . It stokes market sentiment, or whatever, and then they have to sounded like describing what we have sort of seen, but saying no. That we are seeing some affect to the restrictive policy that will allow them to cut . I think so. If you like, look at the second half of last year. So we talked in january. We just had the second half of last year. The economy was a bit stronger than anyone thought. Inflation was a bit lower than anyone thought. And the labor force was, labor markets, still really, really tight. So in a way, in january, im saying to myself, they actually cant cut. Now look at the first half of this year. I would say for most of us the economy is a little softer than maybe we thought. Maybe. Inflations a little higher than maybe we thought. Yeah and for the first time were seeing a little softness in the labor market. Maybe. Actually in a position they cant raise. Seeing higher in indexes and bitcoin, and i mean, youre sure the economy is slowing and sure the labor market is weakening . Im not sure. And youre sure inflation is moderating . We have to watch the numbers opinion i think what efi feel pretty confident about, you and i talked about, too. If you look at the marketsened a t and the goforward, much better at 5 than at 0. Abnormal envimronenvironment, 1 years 0 interest rates. Why are we rushing to get back there and why is europe does europe, cut before us . I think both europe uk will lead, europe second and both ahead of the u. S. Now, to some extent, ithink they need it. Right . Their economies are a little have not recovered as well as the u. S. Economy. So i think they need that that, you know, impetus to Economic Growth a little bit more than we do. I think whats fortunate for europe is, theyve come in to the first half of this year. The economys a little stronger than people expected and inflation a little lower. So i think they are poised to cut, joe. The banks have been breaking out, especially like jpmorgan. Why . Yield curves steepening . Theyre loaning more . What is so positive for the banks, and is there anything on the horizon, commercial real estate, anything that is disturbing . Theres a lot of things. Particularly in the portfolios. You mentioned commercial real estate. If you vero base it on banks, and obviously jpmorgans performing well, but look at the 4. 5 thousand banks in the u. S. Just those banks. Right now all 4. 5,000 . 4. 5 thousand. Well see consolidation. Cant do them all. Definitely going to cut them. Really . No question. Say theres a strong bank thats feeling good today. Theyve weathered the interest rate. Weathered the commercial real estate, and all theyre doing is saying, were strong today. Whats the goforward . Forget advisories. Thats the litmus test for banks. The real litmus test, those that take depot is the and make loanance, whats the goforward. Far better than 0 interest rates. Next move likely lower, not higher. Great for banks. There is probably as much demand for lending as there has been in a couple of years. So the goforward, for core banking, i think the goforward banking opportunity in the market environment is pretty good. Got to go. You always have things to ask bob diamond. Whats on your mind . Got to go, burt well, the question i would ask, if you looked at all of these whale filings, chubb and some of the stuff dan is buying, goldman. Would you buy financials right here at this point or that anyones too late . We are definitely investing in financial services, but our focus is very much outside of kind of the big public listed banks. I think what were seeing a lot of people invest, to your point, andrew, is in insurance platforms. Where they can be married. Right. With Something Else. With their portfolios. I think thats what dan is looking at and i think it makes sense. Youlike Scottie Scheffler . I think this is rorys week. Going to get a major. On a personal basis . Now free, at last we got to go. Got to go. Golf, golf. I know. Scottie scheffler, like that, and hit the ball. And like that when im dancing. Okay, secretary Pete Buttigieg joining us live right after the break. I dont know if he plays golf, but well nifind out when squa box returns. [bushes rustling] [door opening] dramatic music yes hon the weathertechs here. Weathertech is the ultimate protection for your vehicle. Lasermeasured floorliners. No drill mudflaps. Cargoliner. Bumpstep. Seat protector. And cupfone. What about my car . Weathertech. When it comes to investing, we live in uncertain times. Some assets can evaporate at the click of a button. Others can deflate with a single policy change. Savvy investors know that gold has stood the test of time as a reliable real asset. So how do you invest in gold . Sandstorm gold royalties is a publicly traded Company Offering a diversified portfolio of mining royalties in one simple investment. Learn more about a brighter way to invest in gold at sandstormgold. Com. Its a beautiful. Learn more about a brighter way t. Day to fly. D wooooo welcome another special guest this morning. Transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg hwho joins us on a number of topics. Fight over airline fees and another ship crashing into a bridge. Thank you for joining us. Start with this faa reauthorization bill. Whats in it, whats not, and how happy or unhappy you may very well be about it . So were really glad to see this pass. Glad to see it pass on a bipartisan basis in the senator and last night in the house. This includes a number of provisions that help support the faa continuing in our course of enhancing safety. Also a very important Consumer Protection provision. Youll recall a few weeks ago our department put forward a requirement that air funds, if they owe a passenger money, they get that refund automatically. A big question whether the bill would align with that and ultimately it did. As a matter of fact, it fortifies that putting into law so a future administration couldnt strip it away. Were happy with this, ready to run with it now. Other thing, important for the faa were still working to do. Notably, a mandatory account that will help with Capital Spending to do these big i. T. Upgrades, will fall in the budget. A different legislative vehicle, but certainly this authorization piece is good news and were thrilled to see it pass and get to the president s desk. But lets interrelated to all of this conversations hidden fees. A little separate issue i know but airlines and industry straight filing a lawsuit against the department of transportation as a result of the efforts to try to overturn or this rule for hidden fees. Youve taken to x and said you were speechless. Anything more to say than just being speechless . Yeah. So the same week we put out that rule on automatic refunds we put ot a rule on fee transparency. Basic idea, before you buy a ticket the airlines ought to tell you all costs associated. What change fees, cancel fees, baggage fees et cetera are connected to that ticket and concerned about bait and switch situations. Hey, air f. A. R. E. Is half off. You book the ticket a bunch of things are a part of the ticket and they dont count as air f. A fare and are not half off. They need to put that information out and airlines are suing us. Airline industry lobby, more specific, saying that this information would be confusing for consumers. We are inclined to trust consumers. I think vast majority of americans would agree. We will defend the rule. We think its the right rule, good policy and based on our Legal Authority to intervene and prevent any kind of unfair deceptive practices. Is it about the deception piece or is it about the trying to put just a total on it . Because its not just there are the times youre referring to but also times you go and see the airfare and realize that, you know, you want bags got to pay extra. Want this, pay extra. You want this by the time its over the price could be several hundred dollars more . So were not setting a cap or a number. We havent done that since the days of regulation. And were not saying that you cant have some kind of unbundling. Because theres a healthy debate over how far you go with unbundling. It may be some customers appreciate being able to get a lower fare knowing theyre not going to take it back. Not saying you cant charge for carry jon bags. Some interested in a rule like that. If you do, tell the passenger up front. Another thing in our refund rule. Charge for Something Like a bag and the bag doesnt get there or charge for wifi and it doesnt work, you need to get your money back on that as well. Help me with that one, by the way. Wifi. It never works. How are they going to know that the wifi didnt work for the two hours of the fivehour flight and actually get me my money back . Tell them and if theyre not being responsive, tell us. Well followup. We have billions of dollars of refunds back to consumers and ready to chase this and get people whats owed to them. Well let you know. Meantime, department of justice, curious about your reaction to their findings on boeing. Also curious what the tell the american publicing when it comes to getting 0 an boeing flight . Actually seen people online and other places saying, im looking for airbus plane . I got on a boeing airplane a few days paying and i will in a couple hours. Anytime i get on a boeing, its backed by the faa and flight crews and precisely wee were putting so much scrutiny on them now. Restricting their production until its expanded safely. This is all about taking what is currently the safest form of travel in the world, which is sb being on a u. S. Airliner and doing everything it takes to keep it that way. We will be extremely rigorous and extreme scrutiny on the aviation side and pushing our culture to get something recem belonging roadway safety. We saw roadway deaths go down by between 3 and 4 last year off a number of 40,000. Something like one or two thousand people didnt die last year just off of that gain. We need to keep driving those numbers down until they get to zero. The number of passengers ho lost their lines in the airline crashes last year e. And a related question, but might thinking a curves ball of short. Keep talking robotaxis on the broadcast. We w waymo is tlhere and others. What is a palatable number, where you and government officials say, know what . Weve got the number down from 35,000, 40,000 deaths to 5,000 deaths, but 5,000 deaths will be result not a huge be making a mistake but potentially a computer . Youre right. A real paradox here. Seems like the public would be more accepting of more deaths and injuries caused by people than caused, so to speak, by machines. But i also think we have an opportunity and a responsible to say about these new technologies. The standard should be, dont just be as good as a human driver. Be much, much better thaw we can. Part of what we have contemplated in our new rule on automatic emergency brakes, for example. Set a new regulation that means cant be a bell and whistle. Standard on every car. Part of what were thinking about sensors on those cars. They can or should see in the rain, in nighttime better than humans. Not just make it as good as humans but make it much better. I think 100 years from now i wouldnt be surprised people are scratching their heads, that untrained human beings are driving cars at all but we have to get from here to there. Got to roll. One final question. Pretty good debater. I want to know, did the president consult you about this decision to debate former President Trump coming up in june and again later in the fall . And im not yeah. Im not involved in campaign tactics. Got my hands full with what the president s asked me to do on the transportation front. What ill say ask that we have a really good story to tell in his administration and im proud to tell it out on the road celebrating projects. Happy infrastructure week its literally infrastructure week and finally not a joke here in washington. Funding to back it up. And you know, the other things were doing. Proud of the work the president s done. Mr. Secretary, appreciate you joinusing this morning. Thank you. Squawk box coming right back. We got some numbers for you in just a minute. Im just here for the internets. At t its superfast. Reliable. You locked us out . arrggghh ahhhh solutionoriented. [jenna screams] and most importantly. Is the internet out . Dont worry, we have at t internet backup. The next level network. I sold a pillow [ ] your skin is everchanging, take care of it with gold bonds age renew formulations of 7 moisturizers and 3 vitamins. For all your skins, gold bond. Welcome back to squawk box. Rick santelli here live at cme hq with breaking news of the mo morning. Start with jobless claims. 222,000 following a slightly revised 232,000. So were down 10k. Continuing claims. 1 million 794,000. That is definitely a little bit hotter than expectations, in the rearview mirror, a subtle lower revision from 1 million 785 to 1 million 781. So we continue to remain under 1. 8 million in. The last time over that was the last week in march. Lets move towards april Housing Starts. Expected to be 1 million 421,000 seasonally adjusted annualized united units. Super light. 1 million 360. 1 plmillion 360. Lowest since the rearview mirror. Down to 1 million 287,000. These are really weak numbers. If you look at last month, last month is the weakest level going all the way back to june of 2020. So these are huge misses on starts. Look at permits. 1 million 440,000. That is less than the 1 million 480,000 we were expected. In the rearview mirror, a positive revision from 1 million 458,000 to 1 million 485,000. So the 1 million 440,000, that is the weakest going back to april of last year. Lets look at phillie fed Business Outlook for may. A may number. 4. 5. Expecting the number closer to 8. So a little bit of a disappointment, but not much. And if you look back, weve had quite a streak of negative numbers. This remaining positive is fairly good, a fairly good thing. Look at april import prices. On a month over month basis, up 0. 9 . Hottest going all the way back to march of 22, and if we look at x petroleum, comes down, not very much. Up 0. 7. Hottest number since december of 22. If we look at import prices on a longterm basis year over year expecting up 0. 4. Almost triple up 1. 1 . The hottest going back to you guessed it dec of 22. Dec of 22. Look at export prices on a month over month basis, expecting up 0. 2. More than double. Up half of 1 . Hottest since february when it was up 0. 7 and finally export prices year over year. Expected to be down a little over 1 . Finally comes close to expectations. Down 1 . And down 1 , well, that, consider this. The 15th consecutive negative month over month change on year over year export prices. That is a good thing. A good thing. Last month moves from minus 1. 4 to minus 1. 6. So at least export prices are coming down a bit and most likely, as we continue to watch the give and take on global trade, we should keep in mind that countries outside the u. S. Are starting to look a whole lot better. Especially in the eurozone and to an extent the uk. We want to pay close attention to the numbers and implications what Central Banks will and currencies will do. 475. Up about a basis points since numbers were up. Means three basis points up on the session. Ten year currently 434. Up two basis points on the numbers and unchanged on the session. Joe, back to you. Yeah. Thats got a, two basis points unchanged. Not sure there are too many surprises there, rick. Bling in our own diana olick and steve liesman. Diana, you first. Good morning, joe. Yeah. As rick said, on that Housing Starts and Building Permits number a huge miss but should come as no surprise. Im not actually sure why the, the forecast were for an increase, because we saw Mortgage Rates in april go up over 7 , up to 7. 5 and really stayed there for most of the month. We heard from the Home Builders even though they had a strong beginning to the spring market, they really started to see traffic die down a lot. Home builders sentiment yesterday. The number came down out of positive territory into negative territory with buyer traffic being the worst read in that report. Thats because theyre not seeing people come in and saying they have to start with incentives again. It dialing back on incentives. On putting extras in and doing some of the Mortgage Rate buydowns. Now they have to start to do it agains you have Mortgage Rates over 7 not only are people shying away from buying but just not going to be able to afford it or even to qualify for that mortgage. When you break out singlefamily versus multifamily. Singlefamily down on starts and permits. Permits, of course, indicator of future construction. Interesting on multifamily. Saw a monthly jump in multifamily. These tend to be volatile numbers on multifamily. A couple big projects to skew the numbers one way or the other. We have a lot of supply and multifamily, but i will say rents started to tick up again. Even with that new supply. So perhaps theyre seeing down the road theyre going to need more supply coming on. Especially if people cant buy homes theyre going to have to rent them. Again, disappointing numbers on home builder, again, because of Mortgage Rates. Bright side, we saw rates come down a bit. 6. 99 on the 30year fix you just under 7 . If we can hold back into the 6 range you might see these numbers come back. Builders feel better about it. Right now not seeing the traffic. 6. 99 a lot better than 7 . Feel much better even at 6. 99. Its psychological. It is. Its like, its a sore. 6. 99. I aint paying 7 . Whats up with you . Well, i i think the jobless claims numbers, a good number. I would caution that the increase in jobless claims since the lag, start of the session. Be a little careful with that. Interested in downward revision in march for housing follows down revision for retail. March looking at the moment less strong than we thought it was. I dont know if you caught this yesterday. Able to do an wrap it up, joe, towards end of the day. Youre usually glued to your tv watching the afternoon coverage on cnbc. Youre not smiling. No. Yes, yeah exactly. Not baseball. What happened yesterday with retail sales number, the good discussion we had yesterday, took flat retail sales together with the inflation number, and whats going on . Downed revisions to q1 by 0. 4 in the wrap it up. Q2 remained strong. Take it with a grain of salt. Not much data on it. Watching this ongoing debate betweenliesman, optimist, pessimists, whatever you wa unnt to call it. Does lower activity bring less inflation . Markets seem to believe thats the case right now. May end up wrong like theyve been in the past and i get to interview tom barkley today from the fed and ask that question, but i will say everything i say about supply and demand has nothing to do with what diana was talking about. Housing market is so weird. Glad you said, i get the interview. Earlier you said, between liesman and santelli. Using third person for yourself. You know who else does that . Stickys going to stay sticky. Doesnt matter. Going after trump. Theyre all youre using the third we think that we will be later going on a subway, down to the New York Stock Exchange where we will be sitting never rick, diana, and steve rick was still talking. Said we got to go. I would love to t great respect. A good one. Liesman has great respect. Great respect. Coming up after this, talking meme stocks. Robinhoods keefe officer weighing in on return of new stock trade and walmart, stock jumping in the premarket. Up this morning over about 6 right now. Youre watching quk x,sawbo and this is cnbc. Tamra, izzy, and emma. They respond to emails with phone calls. And they dont circle back, theyre already there. They wear business sneakers and pad their keyboards with something that makes their clicketyclacking. Clicketyclackier. But no one loves logistics as much as they do. You need tamra, izzy, and emma. They need a retirement plan. Work with principal so we can help you with a retirement and benefits plan thats right for your team. Let our expertise round out yours. I cant believe you corporate types are still calling each other rock stars. Youre a rock star. Were all rock stars. Oooo look look at my data driven insights, im a rock star. Great job putting finance and hr on one platform with workday. Thank you guys, can you keep it down. Im working. You people are guitar noises . Hand over the air guitar. Ive got another one. Ise your dedicated fidelity advisor can help you open those doors. For you, mama. Through personalized Money Management that can evolve with new chapters. And they can proactively view your entire portfolio. With an eye on taxes and the impact of risk. So you can enjoy moments together. Because doors were meant to be opened. Meme stocks, and dom chu with a check how these names are doing. Did you already talk about them in your stocks . Doesnt matter. Do it again. Youre on again. More dom. I was going to do it before but wanted to focus on earnings for that last mover. Caught up on meme stocks now. Cooled off significantly. The headline. Gamestop down 39 per share. At one point tuesday in the premarket session this was an 80 stock. To tell you how much things have cooled off in just a couple days time. Thats gamestop. Show you whats happening with amc. Similartype story. At one point in the premarket tuesday, currently at 5. 21. This was north of 13 at one point in the earlier trade. Just here on tuesday. Thats something to watch as well for amc. And then lets get you caught up on other names out there besides those that have been caught up in this kind of meme stock frenzy. Besides gamestock and Amc Entertainment you have blackberry shares down onethird of 1 , 3. 22. And on microcap. Speakers headphone maker, worth about 45 million, 50 million. Down 5 . Sunpower caught up in a meme stock trade. Although solar stories to go along with that. Meme trades lower than a couple days ago. Andrew, back to you. Talking about meme stocks talk about return to the meme stock trade this week. Seems to have meant a lot of business for trading platforms. Including robinhood. Joining us now robinhoods chief brokers officer team. Good morning to you. Good morning. Trying to understand what you think happened this week. Why this happened. Really, how much of this was driven by retail versus institutions . Yeah. We just look at numbers, the last time the meme stocks had their rally, were probably doing about, in our customer base, rear probably doing about a quarter of volume. At that point in time and not seeing which tells you, what . It tells me well a couple things it tells me. Number one, if you think about all the people that came in to the market during that period, i mean, a huge, huge number of new market participants. Right. At that point in time. Theyve grown up. We can see that in our data. 80 of those customers are still with us. Uhhuh. But now are opening retirement accounts. Looking for yield. You know. Theyre opening the credit card, get 3 . Theyve moved on with their life and theyre sort of rounding out their investing experience. In this instance we did see our volume spike. There still is interest in this. You know, theres interest in movement and volatility. Thats really what it is. Our two biggest days were not anything related to this. They were in video. Video earnings and news. Do you look at this as a positive thing or a i do. A negative thing for the marketplace . When you see stocks move like this. We were talking about sort of the integrity of the marketplace. Genuine concern, things like this happen and not moving for fundamental reasons that it undermines that integrity . Yeah. I think by the way, a good segment and i watched it. He made a couple points were really interesting. Number of tradeable incidents is down dramatically. Right . At the same time, were at highest Participation Rate in the u. S. For households. So now you have more participants with furor instruments. Right . Its naturally grog to lead to concentration in areas. I would also say, even the number of people that came into the marketplace, you know, during covid and the gamestop era, those people are still in the marketplace. Majority of them are still in the marketplace and now investing in a very different way. So the question always becomes, hey, we would all like we all think its beneficial for every american to participate in the greatest creation in the world. How they get there, if its through this its if pure speculation and they lose. Thats a problem. Sometimes they leave. They dont say. Yeah. Which you see a gamestop move the way it does, or, you know, by the way, trump media company. A top ten stock. One of the top ten. I think number ten. Number ten on your, on robinhood. I dont know what you think of that. Do you say seems like a completely plausible valuation or do you say, this is insane. The folks hard to tell your complaints theyre not smart, but are they making a big mistake . Heres the way id say it. If you think, like we can watch what theyre doing with their portfolios. As i said, 80 of those in the marketplace are still with us. Over twothirds of the people that are even participating in gamestop, amc, ejt, theyre longterm investors. So theyre taking a small portion of their portfolio and saying, this is interesting. Its what everybodys talking about, and think of it as a trade . Think of it as a trade. Not an investment. Not something they might you can, you looked at our ricks. Theyre not moving. Core portfolio remain the most popular names that sit on that. When you said that theyre acting differently this time. Its like, yeah. A tenth of the money less than if they stayed in some of those names. Right . Yeah, but you have to make the assumption thats the only thing they were doing. Right. Yeah. But its been been a lot of pain in the meme stocks. Yeah. Yep. What do you do with the clientele not a longterm investors in there making trades, you can tell, i assume, in their portfolio whether they think this is a longterm trade. If thats the case, is there different types of education . I know you have a whole bunch of educators on the site, but do you particularly, know send out a notification to one kind of client different than another kind of client . Its more on the instrument. Right. So youll see notices. A. , this is a highly volatile stock, would you like tolearn about volatility what can happen with the moves . You cant be we wouldnt be speck for clients. We would be specific for the securities. And anything that were doing with those. I think thats probably the best methodology to ensure whats the correlation these days between what you see happening in the equity markets, nasdaq and the like, and bitcoin . For a long time, bitcoin and of other. I think they diverged a little bit here. They did diverge, and i dont think weve seen the same correlations, and so, obviously, we have a native crypto business, but we have the bitcoin etfs, and that was fascinating when those were first launched, because, you know, many, many customers took a very small portion of their portfolio, sold it, and bought one of the bitcoin etfs. They they arent they arent customers that are willing to be a native crypto investor, but they want crypto exposure, and thats even in a retirement account. Have you seen any difference in terms of any big inflows from folks who are using your savings account and the credit card . Weve seen a large inflows across the board, and then the last quarter, and its continuing right now, so were taking is that moneythen getting invested . It is getting invested, yes. Were seeing large inflows from all of our major competitors. As we continue to enhance the offering and become and broaden it, you know, were weve become a destination for a lot of the larger customers, and those customers are much larger than traditional robinhood customers. Fair enough. Steve, thank you for coming in this morning. Thanks for having me. When we come back a lot more on squawk. Were going to go inside walmarts earnings, talk about what drove its First Quarter results, that stock moving much higher in the premarket on some upbeat guidance on what the future may hold for that company this year. Look at the dow right now. Well talk about thaanmo ene meack. D re ing at schwab is now powered by ameritrade, unlocking the power of thinkorswim, the awardwinning trading platforms. Bring your trades into focus on thinkorswim desktop with robust charting and analysis tools, including over 400 technical studies. Tailor the platforms to your unique needs with nearly endless customization. And track Market Trends with uptotheminute news and insights. Trade brilliantly with schwab. Are you keeping as much of your investment gains as possible . High taxes can erode returns quickly. At creative planning, your portfolio is managed in a taxefficient manner. Its what you keep that really matters. Book your free meeting today at creativeplanning. Com. Walmart gaining in the premarket on better than expected First Quarter results and some pretty good guidance. For more, lets bring in retail analyst at forester research. Theres a couple of things we try to glean from this. One is, you know, just that walmart seems to be able to execute with this Management Team again and again, but also, were trying to figure out the macro environment, which seems to, at the same time it plays into walmart, there is some signs of stress on the low end of things . Right. They are certainly able to attract some of those more affluent consumers, but overall, the walmart numbers were pretty strong, definitely stronger than a number of other competitive retailers like target. Its ecommerce numbers were actually, i would say, off the charts. They reported year over year ecom growth of more than 20 , which is higher than the industry is growing, and it was even higher than, i believe, amazons u. S. Numbers. So, its definitely picking up share. It also talked a lot about its amazon or its walmart ads business, which is also growing in the strong 20 level. Its International Numbers were pretty positive too at over 10 , so it is it had a great First Quarter, and that is definitely because of a lot of these other businesses, not just what consumers themselves are purchasing. Were you as far as the guidance, was it it was raised, obviously, and they were positive, but is it still conservative, do you think . Well, its definitely their numbers, i believe, are in the low to mid Single Digits is where theyre speculating the rest of the year is going to shake out. Its higher than inflation, which suggests that they are certainly picking up transaction volume. They certainly picked up transaction volume this quarter. But when i saw the numbers, it looked like it was a business that was looking for and more like amazons business, a significant part of walmarts business now is coming from its third party marketplace, which is part of their ecommerce business, and their ads business, which is, of course, Consumer Packaged Goods Companies and other brands that sell at walmart, purchasing advertising to be in front of shoppers. So, those are definitely highmargin businesses. They are monetizing a lot of their foot traffic and the eyeballs to their website, and those are those are definitely parts of the playbook that some of these larger ecommerce behemoths have succeeded with, and now, walmart is just simply taking pages from those already very successful examples. Its gotten a little bit political. Im talking about price increases passed along to consumers, and people have even appealed to the big retailers to try to moderate increases and actually bring down prices to help people that are strapped. Do you think is walmart done either . Have they raised prices more than they should have or, for lack of a better term, for profiteering in an inflationary environment . Are they able, at this point, to bring any prices down to help strapped consumers . Or is it exactly what it is . I would not say that walmart is one of the companies that has been gouging consumers by any stretch of the imagination. I think that some of the other grocery chains have had some of that reputation. I think that even perhaps some of the specialty retailers may fall into that bucket. Walmarthas really led on its Everyday Low Price model. Its that edlp vision that has been part of the companys ethos for decades, and the truth is that part of the growth and transaction volume is largely led not just because of that value equation but because consumers often do know where they can get the lowest price for milk or eggs or whatever commodities theyre purchasing, and often, it is going to be a company like walmart, as well as, you know, there are other players that are in that bucket too that are trying to win on value. But certainly, i would say that walmart is not one of those violators. Very good. Thank you. Appreciate it. And well see you again soon. If i say elp to you, do you does it mean anything . She said Everyday Low Prices. Yeah. Doesnt mean anything . Doesnt. Elp . No. There you go. Emerson lake and palmer. Thats what you think . Thats what everybody thinks of a certain age. The guy in the final check on the markets. We are up a little bit today. Two great days that weve seen so far. Maybe cooler inflation. Not a lot happening today in the meme stocks. What did we decide . Why they go up or why they go down, people like to do a trade. They like a trade. At least it moderated a little. Join us tomorrow. Becky will be back. Squawk on the street is next. Good thursday morning, welcome to squawk on the street, im Carl Quintanilla with jim cramer at post nine of the New York Stock Exchange. Fabers on assignment. Premarket is pretty steady as the bulls look to defend these all alltime highs. Were on dow 40k watch. Our road map begins with rally mode. S p eyes its 24th record close of the year. Walmar