Transcripts For CNBC Closing Bell 20160804

Larry kudlow discuss whether trump can close that gap. New jerseys Pension Fund Manager is slashing in half because of high fees and market underperformance. Hearing from the chairman coming up. A big story making the rounds here today. It will be another big wave of earnings after the close of priceline, activision, linkedin and kraft heinz. Lets start with the bank of england Interest Rate cut move and among other moves and affecting businesses back here. We have a report on the tourism industry. Steve . Pay attention. This is really down in the weeds and really interesting. Monetary policy stuff. In addition to the rate cut and more qe, the bank of England Governor Mark carney put a clever detail in to help banks, help the economy, and also, offer lesson to the federal reserve. Few are talking about it but carney exempted excess federal Bank Reserves and created by qe and when they create them, through qe, banks have to set aside capital for against them. Even though theyre totally safe and that reduces their profitability and ability to lend. Its a push me, pull you kind of thing to help the economy on the one hand with qe and hurt it through Bank Regulation and what he did, got rid of it. Why does the matter . Something that fred critics talked about for the u. S. They sit on safe central Bank Reserves to reserve against. If yellen follows carney, she could free up banks on the Capital Requirements and make room to help the economy. Carney by the way spent 13 years with Goldman Sachs banker. Could be fed folks out to there to listen to him. Steve, could you say that again in 140 characters . No, sorry, kelly. Cant be done. They may eliminate reserve requirements on safe assets and its a way that you can i okay. Got it, got identity. Holding on to the stuff thats safe, you dont have to put any money in the central bank. Right, rye. Freeing up the ability to maybe use it towards other purposes . Dont have to reserve it against capital. Thats what they have to do now. Got it, got it. Talked about in the u. S. And never movement. Do you think there would be any Movement Just because the bank of england went this route . I think if they show that it makes quantitative easing more effective and leads to lending and better economic outcomes, i think the fed i dont know why they havent done it but its something certainly that some of the smarter people that follow Monetary Policy say should be considered here. All right. Thank you very much. Fascinating. Now the fallout of brexit on the tourism industry. Assumed this might mean we might be elbowing aside fewer british tourists in times square . Kind of depends on who you ask, guys. The u. S. Government says tourists from the uk make up the Largest Group of overseas travelers to the u. S. Spending 4. 6 billion here last year. But with the sterling weakening, theres concerns that the u. S. Is too expensive. The travel industry seems to be mixed on brexit. On the q2 analyst call trip adviser said brexit is partly responsible for softness in june and july. And last week, American Airlines told analysts on the call that while they havent seen any Short Term Impact of brexit on the companys revenues, they do expect currency fluctuations to have a negative effect on the airlines saying down the road its business travelers that theyre watching most closely. Meantime, the travel trends index gathering data of airlines, hotels and travel sites they say that International Travel is muted in the u. S. And slightly down in the next six months. Guys, back to you. All right. Thank you. Probably does mean less travel. Appreciate that. Joining me are john wiener, john corepina and Rick Santelli out there. Jonath jonathan, we had a lot of wait and see today. Not a lot happening ahe of the jobs data tomorrow for a guidance. What is your read on this recent trend of sideways action . Seems like we have been in the wait and see mode for a while. Right . After through brexit, we had a market selloff and rebounded quite quickly and now stuck in the range here. S p has been in the 15, 20point range and looking forward for a catalyst in the market. Was it the economicalen car . Earnings season . Unemployment number of tomorrow . Seems right now that investors so complacent. The news, the headlines every single day doesnt really seem to spark investors to get back in the market. Now, yes, like i said before, coming off the brexit and i think investors are waiting to see the outcome of that and how that plays in the next few months and quarters and also its august. Traditionally slow in this period of time. So it seems like were going to get through this month with not a lot of volatility. Youre laser focused on helping people retire. How tough is that to do with super low Interest Rates and high equity prices . This is a pretty tough market to be the supermarket. Clients come to us to build portfolios so its like we can just put it in the s p and let it go. We think now that with a 19, 20 pe between, you know, depending on who youre talking to, this is traditionally high. We dont see any reason for the markets to go a lot higher. Without earnings going up. We had a good earnings season, pretty good just less negative. So we dont see a whole lot of upside and we are also not market timers. If you were for the past four or five years you were murdered. So were in it. You have to pick your Asset Allocation right and risk and be patient in this market. Ron, you mentioned that equities look like theyre fully priced at least but what asset class isnt . If youre building a portfolio of different asset classes, does it leave you anywhere to go where theres bargains . Yeah. Thats a good question. First off, we have income clients and luckily had the income producing stocks. They have done fantastic this year. What hasnt done well is googles, the tech sector or the bio tech sectors. Thats the growth sides. Look over five to ten years, thats the growth side more than the value side. But pick your market. Pick your need and then allocate towards it. Right now we like bio techs, the technology, but we like a basket. We dont want to make any big bets here. That would be risky. Rick santelli, lets go back to what happened this morning with bank of england. I thought the british Economy Holding in there okay, maybe a rough quarter or two here. They came out with a bazooka. Well, they definitely came out with more of a shot than many anticipated. Isnt so much about the rate but its sort of is. You know, mark carney doesnt like negative rates. You know, their 10year guilt down 16 basis points. Boon yields down 6 basis points and further negative territory. I dont get it. I agree with your first statement and that was a bit couched. Postbrexit world is way better on any front. Why he didnt keep the powder dry is beyond me. I think the big story of the day is the boiling frog story and thats metlife. We have talked about this. Whether its metlife, all of the stories by smart people that deal with pensions insurance, trying to create a future for people to retire, pensions are out of vogue. So people end up with annuities and not able to have enough horsepower to generate the return. This is all boiling frog. These are all big mile stoeston nobodys paying attention to. State of illinois, basically a junk rating. Their Pension Funds about funded to the tune of 30 . This isnt we are pushing the sewage down the road into much worse territory but we dont notice it right now and these are the things to be talked about right now. Yeah. I agree with rick. Go ahead, ron. Weve been what we have been doing for years and years is we have been lottering low Investment Grade bonds and lower on the lower scale, getting our 4 . Not paying attention to the negative Interest Rates. Its somewhere a nightmare. The reason england reduced the rates is worried about a recession. No ones going past the short term but everybodys afraid of whats going to happen with brexit and we have no idea. Wed rather be in the u. S. On the fixed side. We dont want to take the chance and think be patient with the equity side. Jonathan, meanwhile, the price of oil fluctuated around the last couple of sessions. How much is that moving stock prices generally here . I think it has. A lack of anything else that investors basing anything of. We saw it top up towards the 50 level and then slightly below 40. Nice level trading right here. I think investors happy to see it rebound off the recent lows a couple of points. All right. Crude currently up 2. 5 . Markets still broadly lower. Thank you. Well leave it there for now. With about 50 minutes to go in the session today and again other than a dollar index moving higher, not terribly a lot of moves here and talking about some historic things, bank of england for 322 years, today as low as its got. New low. Absolutely. Up next, legal battles for control of viacom slowing down efforts to sell a part. Well have the latest. Also, new polls show Hillary Clinton widening her lead over donald trump as the republican camp shows signs of stress. Supporter barney frank and adviser larry kudlow going to be here to have at it. Youre watching cnbc. Will your business be ready when growth presents itself . American express open cards can help you take on a new job, or fill a big order or expand your office and take on whatever comes next. Find out how American Express cards and services can help prepare you for growth at open. Com. Welcome back. Lets take a look at square. That stock is popping on a narrower than expected revenue loss and mobile Payments Company saw 42 year over year processes. And the loans jumped 123 in the same period last year. Remember we were asking would it hold on to the gains . Looks like it has here today. Check out other movers. First solar disapointing earnings guidance. Also reporting a drop in quarterly profit. We told you about that yesterday. Thanks to 86 million restructuring charge. Twentyfirst century fox, affiliate fee revenue disappointed and so did the increase. Down nearly 6 . Disappointment on the scale of the buy back. Thats one of the things working there. Staying in media, the battle for control of viacom raging on slowing down stakes of paramount pictures. Yulia boorstin has the latest developments. Hey, mike. Thats right. This morning, ceo philippe dow man said hes moving forward with paramount despite Sumner Redstone and his daughters opposition to the plan. Dauman said he narrowed down the process to a handful of prospects. The process has slowed down in recent weeks but we have reason to believe the Favorable Court developments last week will create a better environment to allow us to progress with several parties toward a highly beneficial transaction to present to our board. Now, daumans talking about the fact that judges have allowed cases to proceed. Theyre now three trials scheduled for october in massachusetts, delaware and california. These debates of redstones mental competence and whether the dismissal of dauman and other directors can proceed. Redstones National Amusements today issued a press release criticizing daumans leadership and dauman is sticking with the plan to try to strike a highly beneficial transaction for paramount. Guys . You know, julia, i guess the question still hangs over whether, in fact, even absent this dispute with the redstone family, it is a great idea to try to sell a stake in paramount right here. Does anyone think its a great solution for viacom as a whole . Well, i have just been talking to people about this in hollywood and its very hard to certainly sell a stake in a paramount while this is going on. Who wants to be involved a legal battle . Seems like the companies that would be most interested in buying a percent of viacom is overseas. We have heard of Chinese Companies and others expressed interest. Its less about the actual value of paramount. It was one of the weakest parents of the company in the Earnings Call and theres a lot of talk about how it was really hurt by the bad performance of the teenage mutant Ninja Turtles sequel. They have work to do on paramount said they on the call and theres questions about buying in right now. Whens the impact of a report almost for dauman to step down in a month and the first indication to orchestrate something to leave and now that thats been widely reported, what happens . Well, i think the fact that there are three lawsuits that are ongoing explain why that would have to have settlement talks. Maybe one to figure a judge but three it makes sense for them to try to have a conversation and negotiate between the two parties. I think theyll probably have more negotiations. But these are such complicated issues and so much drama here, so many relationships. Who knows what will happen . Well, we know youll stay on top of it. Yulia boorstin, thank you very much. Meanwhile, just over 40 minutes left in the trading day, we have the dow modestly lower. Down about 18 points. The other indexes hugging the flat line. Nasdaq as has been the case for a wril, still the strongest. The chairman of new jerseys Investment Council which oversees the states Pension Investments here to explain that move coming up. Also, is the contest of Hillary Clinton and donald trump heats up, well have our own showdown right here at the stock exchange. Were drowning in information. Where, in all of this, is the stuff that matters . The stakes are so high, your finances, your future. How do you solve this . You dont. You partner with a firm that advises governments and the fortune 500, and, can deliver insight person to person, on what matters to you. Morgan stanley. Itslexus performance iny to streetlegal form. Taking for a limited time get great offers on our complete line of f sport performance vehicles. At the lexus golden opportunity sales event. Welcome back. Shares of metlife are down 9 today after its earnings miss last night. The life insurer with a 90 of quarterly profits. The prospects for the business resulted in noncash charge of about 2 billion lower Interest Rates playing a role in that. Metlife ceo looking to back out of the u. S. Retail business. It sells individual variable annuities and selling a chill in the space. Absolutely. This is not limited to metlife. Meantime, republican congressman coffman is not happy with the partys president ial nominee and launching a campaign in colorado to stand up to trump. Heres the ad thats reportedly set to start airing tomorrow. People can me, what do you think about trump . Honestly, i dont care for him much. And i certainly dont trust hillary. Im a marine. For me, country comes first. My duties always to you. So if donald trump is the president , ill stand up to him. Plain and simple. And if hillary wins, ill hold her accountable every step of the way. Im mike coffman and i approve this message. Work hard and serve you, thats what ill do. Well it seems to be working in terms of getting attention already. For more on the state of the party amid rumors of a trump intervention, we welcome senior contributor and unofficial adviser to trump larry kudlow and hillary advisory, barney frank. Holding her accountable. What if trump wins . Ill stand up to him. Oh. Doesnt this, larry, in a way work . Let me throw this out there. Donald trump is out there as a total maverick. Isnt it better if hes able to give the gop contenders a real obvious way to say to their constituents, we are not with him, were doing our own thing and does that help the gop letting the local guys apply to the constituents and donald trump does the mavericky thing . Happens all the time and yeah. I mean, except for paul ryan whos a friend of mine. I tweeted today i personally endorse paul ryan. Im not sure he cares but i did. Sure. Look, these guys have to go their own way to be reelected. Barney grang, frank, you went your own way . Well, very decidely in at least one respect as you will remember but i always supported the president ial candidate of the party. I never had the problems that so many republicans have with donald trump. But i want does that establishment, plays differently with the democrats have a way to choose the standard bearer and this is unusual. This is not the norm for the republicans. It is true that, for instance, bill clinton was going to beat bob dole, the money went into the republican congressional race and this distancing of, repudiation of a candidate, i dont think youve seen this on the republican side in this measure, 64 was more. A little of this on the democratic side in 72. Mike coffman represents as a republican a district with the largest hispanic population. This is a man who has won the district. He may have a larger hispanic population outside of florida than any republican and what you see the fact that i think donald trump lost hispanic voters and why Coffman John Mccain is also scrambling for the first time in his career since he first won again because of the hispanic population. What can you tell us, larry . Whats happening on the inside . Are people really upset . This story is just wrong. Okay . Newt gingrich put this out some place and then starts naming names and Reince Priebus and Rudy Giuliani and Rudy Giuliani made it clear there was no intervention. Should there be if the poll numbers have done what they have done . No. Look. I cant predict the outcome. I think trump is much different candidates than the republicans have had. An outsider. Okay . I think he is a tough guy. All right . But putting that aside, similar stages, back in 1988 with papa bush and 1980 with ronald reagan, my year, trump is doing much better. They were down 20 plus and i know trump has lost ground and made bad mistakes in the last week or two. Hes going to give an economics speech at the Detroit Economics Club on monday and i can tell you just trust me on this, it will be a very solid progrowth speech. If youre in the progrowth camp and i think help trump resteer the conversation. Two problems. First of all, if trump says what larry is getting him to say hes going to undercut his message about working people because its going to go counter to this notion about working people. Its going to have a tax incident that undercuts that. And second, bush and reagan, they were behind opponent and not with the degree of people saying i dont like him. Whats different about this is that opinion about both candidates are kind of locked in. Mike dukakis was unknown and then bush told people some things about mike dukakis being a liberal, et cetera, they didnt know and didnt like. Everybody knows just about everything about Hillary Clinton and donald trump. So, when the candidates are as well defined as they are, movement of that magnitude is less likely. One new variable is we have all of this money that donald trump raised just very recently. Could that change things a little bit . Not much. I have to say, some ways attractive it seems to me. This is a campaign of which the paid media has made less than the unpaid media and healthy for the society. I think unpaid media in both cases, democratic and republican were back to where it used to be and i welcome that. I think having paid media be as dominant as its been is not unhealthy. In disagreement with barney, trumps tax plan is really going to help middle class folks. I mean, its got a substantial increase in the standard deduction. It also has a lower marginal tax rate for the middle and lower income people and also i think the gem of his art is cuts in business taxes. But, larry hang on. Given large and let me just get this out. Both large and Small Business tax rates are going to come down substantially and what the Research Shows is that middle income wage earners benefit the most of lower corporate taxes. Anything in the campaign made you think that such a message of corporate taxes resonate with either side . Its counter talking about business taxes cut, a lot of things that many in the public believe that i disagreed with on all sides here but the notion that just goes count tore the thrust of the campaign. People, voting of the details, the thrust of trump to go after the big guys and be better and cut back on these rich guys and a tax plan that headlines as you just did, larry, understandably, favoring business and business tax cuts is that at the very least takes a lot of explaining its no. It is. Yes. And its also big business. By the way, Small Business is also voted overwhelmingly for republicans. If the republicans have got to be working hard to get Small Business, thats kind of tough. This is asking something that six weeks ahead of time and, barney, what happens . I mean, theres been charges, trying to bury them and play them in the nfl games. You know, same thing that happened in the democratic, you know, primary process. Is this debate going to only hurt Hillary Clinton . Given how well shes doing now at least in the polls. I dont know. It depends, frankly, this is going to be a test. Donald trumps style served him well in the primary, i dont know how it will work visavis Hillary Clinton. The notion of burying the debates obviously neither candidate had anything to do with that. And i have to say this. If there are people who would rather watch football than watch the debate, good luck to them. And probably maybe some of them they dont want to vote they shouldnt vote. Ill say this. Trump is going to change the conversation. I hope. To the economy. And Economic Growth. Which is an issue he should be able to capture because mrs. Clinton doesnt have any Economic Growth policy. Youre doing your best. Ive worked very hard on this. What he has take this. What donald trump has is what a lot of republicans have had, larrys hopes. Hes been telling me to come out for more immigration and theyre going to be protrade. Thank you. Hope springs eternal. Im an optimist. We appreciate it. Fabulous. Well see you very soon. Time now far cnbc news update with sue herrera. Heres whats happening at this hour. President Obama Meeting with military and National Security advisers at the pentagon to discuss what is and isnt working in the fight against the Islamic State. It comes as the u. S. Military rathering up the engagement in libya. President obama will hold a News Conference in the next hour and watch it here live on cnbc. A judge has named a special prosecutor in the case against a Chicago Police officer charged with firstdegree murder in the killing of black teenager mcdonald in 2014. E judge swore in the attorney Joseph Mcmahon this morning. Rome increasing the security measures around tourist attractions, religious sites, ports and shopping areas in response to potential threats. Ib creased number of police and soldiers of possible targets. And its been called a creepy sight. That is creepy. A person dressed as a clown walking the streets at night in green bay, wisconsin. Late at night. Photos of the clown going viral on social media. And while police have received calls, that say theres nothing inlegal of someone Walking Around dressed as a clown at night. Better be careful. People are hunters. See a clown in the backyard and im glad my kids didnt see that. They have that fear of clowns. I do, too. A lot of people have a fear of clowns and his name is gags. Nicknaming him gags. Yeah. Dont ask me why. My brother lives in green bay. I texted him. Have you seen this guy . If hes still out there in january that would show hes crazy. Exactly. Yeah. Thank you, sue. With just about 28 minutes left before the bell, we have modest losses on the dow. 12 points or so. S p just about flat. Leading traders tells us what he thinks getting in the close next. Brace yourself for a storm after the bell. Well analyze the results hitting the tape. Stay with us. Heir auto insuranc. 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The market, prior to this morning futures fight and once the day started and the Economic Data came out, the focus once again returned to whats going on in the states and our economy and then what tomorrows going to bring and so we have got the day thats been relatively quiet. The markets still stuck in the 2150, 2175 range and no reason to break up and out. Theres no reason for buyers to get anxious and get address gre greszive. Three weeks or so in that range. A lot of times the market into the neutral state before a catalyst. Listen. Tomorrows job number is a catalyst if its way off base. Right in line of 160, 180, i dont think theres a move at all. If its a crazy number, people start to be suspicious because it doesnt make sense with all of the other weak data were seeing and weaker and might make more sense and then that may cause the markets to have a move. Thank you very much. Youre welcome. Thank you. Heading into the close about 20 minutes or so left. Dows down 7 points. S p barely higher right now. Fluctuating all day. Nasdaqs hanging on to a gain of about 9. New jersey latest government sponsored pension fund to cut back. Thats next. Also still ahead, the restaurant stek or the about as wanted as overcooked steak in the second quarter. And the rest of the year isnt looking appetizing either. Whens behind the slump, coming up. [baby talk] [child giggling] child look, ma. No hands. Children i, j, k. [bicycle bell rings] [indistinct chatter] [telephone rings] man hello . [boing] [laughter] man you may kiss the bride. [applause] woman ahh. [indistinct conversation] announcer a full life measured in seats starts with the right ones early on. Car crashes are a leading killer of children 1 to 13. Learn how to prevent deaths and injuries by using the right car seat for your childs age and size. Welcome back. Hedge funds appear to be losing popularity of state Pension Funds as investments. Kate kelly joins us with the latest state to reconsider the position. Local state of new jersey. The Investment Council just voted to dramatically pare to 6 of the total portfolio from more than 12 right now. The move comes amid a debate of labor unions advocating against the relatively hi fees to Hedge Fund Managers and performance which according to the most recent figures available of hfr up 1. 6 this year on average through june. Versus an s p thats up 2. 6 through that period. New jersey isnt the only pension fund grappling with the issue. Calpers, new york city and others made similar moves in the recent years. The Fee Structure long been a subject of debate and underperformance serves, of course, only to stoke those frustrations. New jersey has not said which specific names to cut from here beyond proposing to get rid of staenlgs and pair back credit oriented ones and targeting lower fees. 1 in 10 i believe is what theyre looking for and happens to have good performers in the mix including Elliott Management up 6. 2 and third point up about 5. 2 . That said, pers hing square is down 19 and new jersey reported 45 million from them in this past year. Well see if they add to that redemption or out of it entirely in the year or so to come. Thank you. Appreciate it. Joining us to talk more about the decision, tom burn, chairman of the new jersey state Investment Council, tom, thank you for crossing the river for us and tell us more about this. You bet. Whats the rational behind the move . Were the hedge funds not deliver what you were expecting . Its both. Very short answer is a combination of bad performance and high fees means youre out and Hedge Fund Guys are capitalists and understand that. So our Hedge Fund Guys in the last year dramatically underperformed what we have done internally and so how do you justify the kind of fees and manage it more internally. Its also more of a rethinking and so we did not want to throw the baby out with the bath water. And so were not getting rid of all hedge funds and saying lets keep stuff that is undercore lated with the stock market because that is a useful diversification but lets get rid of stuff that is highly core lated with the stock market and people saying, hey, we are smart guys. Pay us and well outperform and theyre not. They have value then . Yes. And im going to back up a step if i may and one of the things that we have done with the labor representatives on the council and everybody, a broad discussion about alternatives in general. And for a while there was hostility toward all alternatives and now i think theres a realization that private equitys done very, very well for us. Ditto for Real Estate Investments and some hedge funds good, others not so good and drilling down and getting rid of whens not working for us. What was the overall return of the hedge funds you were invested in last year . Last year, they lagged our internal by about 10 . Wow. And so, they were down, you know, in the low double digits. I would imagine it takes more than one year. Right. Of evidence. So this is of course. A long running thing. Its been a long running thing. And we were mindful of the fact that in the last 25 years, hfri outperformed the s p Hedge Fund Index . Yes. Almost half the time. Not the last six years and so has the world fundamentally changed or what . So thats part of our thinking, too. Lets not get out of uncorrelated stuff at the wrong time and thats why i say other states have gotten rid of hedge funds entirely, we are trying to be nuanced. Where is it going . Going to passive indexes . More internally managed in other strategies . We are going to up what we put in equities, a little bit, and domestic equities in particular. And ive argued since ive been on the council we were low there. What was it . 27 to 30 . I said equities alltime high youre not fazed . We are always nervous, long term. We can dollar cost our way average in and i pointed out at our last meeting we are expanding risk parameters. We are upping our expected return by a tiny bit and we are taking a little bit more risk to do this. And people are comfortable with that. And its not all going into stocks. Some goes into fixed income, into opportunistic credit and things like this. Cant be necessarily an easy trade. Trying to meet a target. You have globally rates offering you very little. Thats right. A huge challenge and a thing i point out, new jersey is under funded because of a lack of contributions of the State Government an our consultants cant get us to an asset mix that is has reasonable volatility. Reasons of 7. 9 . Thats the target . Target. State statute . Treasurer sets it per state statute and everyone knows its probably too high and comes down gradu gradually. With the expected return up there, it doesnt tell the state to put more new money in there to top it off . Well, right. We are struggling to put in what we can at this level. They, i shouldnt say we. And new jersey has had huge budget problems and thats a whole separate problem that we need to work on. Seems like an easy thing to put off to tomorrow, unfortunately. Thats what we have been doing for 20 years and terrible for the beneficiaries. Got to change. Tom byrne, appreciate that. We have 14 minutes left in the trading day. We have the s p 500 just about flat. Up about, geez, less than a point it looks like right now. Tech is leading, though. Been across the board. Up next, the names reporting after the bell again today. Priceline, activision, previews on the way after this. Good car o maneuver quickly. Thats also true of a good car company. People have always bought cars. But we saw an opportunity in sharing cars. So we moved fast and launched car2go in 29 cities, all around the world. Doing that required dozens of data centers, designed for speed and performance. We built our business on the ibm cloud. Because thats what the ibm cloud is built for. The light bulb, a bright idea if you use the right ones. Led bulbs use 85 less energy and last a long time, saving you up to 100 over their lifetime. Heres an idea replace yours today. [light instrumental music] welcome back. That applause for the pan mass challenge behind us. Making the way to ring the closing bell today. Art cashin mentioned 300 million to sell on the bell so keep that in mind watching the markets whipping around here. Some fun and games leading up to earnings season today. Lets get previews of Julia Boorstin and susan li. Julia . Well, kelly, activisions games are expected to drive massive gains. Expected to grow revenue 92 to 1. 45 billion and earnings per share projected to grow 225 to 42 cents per share. On the Earnings Call, we may hear questions about the plans to capitalize on demand for esports, competitive video game playing, especially coming to the companys new hit overwatch. Back over to you. All right. And susan li, what are we expecting today . Priceline, expecting a beat on eps earnings per share and revenue. Should be higher close to 13 . But its a guidance forward that people are really paying particular attention to, especially in light of trip adviser yesterday with a big miss with earnings and we have seen some tightened competition of kayak and airbnb. What does the Third Quarter hold for priceline . Thats something investors looking into expecting gross bookings. Coming in lower than the second quarter. Back to you. Yeah. Priceline reporting after the bell enunusual for them. Looking forward to that. Thank you. Well see you guys in a little bit. Joined by larry pakowski. Where do you find opportunity in the markets . Kelly, we are up 17 year to date and up that much because were benefitting from the bargains we found last year. Last year, we found lots of bargains in areas out of favor and unpopular. Energy, bio tech. Energy and mining which the headlines screaming negative and we saw opportunities and to the benefit for us and fellow shareholders this year. Larry, how about this year now . Markets at alltime high. Broader market. A lot less i guess really cheap goods out there, at least from the top down. What are you finding now . I think you are right. There are. Looking forward, looks less like the index is benefit of performance and the tech bubble in 2000. We are finding select opportunities in financials. We own some sharyls which is part holding company, part Merchant Bank and jeffries run very well. So we think there at 85 of tangible book value you have a bargain and waiting for the all clear on the Investment Banking system the bargain is not there. Thats a strong stomach kind of investment. Any others from the sectors to mention . Hewlettpackard, a big win for us, having bought heavily and meg whitman came in to run the show before splitting if two, we owned Hp Enterprises and hb, inc. We think hp, inc. Is cheaper and 8 sts times earnings, we think people expecting the printer pc business to rapidly decline are too pessimistic. Again, we are looking for areas of opportunity where there is fear, disinterest and what we always do. Fear and auto stocks, airlines, any of that stuff appealing . Not yet. We are looking closely and good areas. Cheap and gotten cheaper. We cant buy them long. Right. I guess thats a good problem to have. Thank you for joining us. Down here. Good to see you. Coming up, you guys have got the closing countdown. Right. After the bell, we have the earnings. Also about 20 minutes away from a briefing and press conference with president obama at the pentagon. Hes been meeting with the generals to discuss the next steps in the fight against isis and well bring that to you as soon as it happens. Keep it right here. Youre watching cnbc, first in business worldwide. Hey gary, what are you doing . Oh hey john, im connecting our brains so we can share our amazing trading knowledge. Thats a great idea, but why dont you just go to thinkorswims chat rooms where you can share strategies, ideas, even actual trades with market professionals and thousands of other traders . I know. Your brain told my brain before you told my face. Mmm, blueberry . Tap into the knowledge of other traders on thinkorswim. Only at td ameritrade. All right. Final four minutes of trading today. We have a very steady market. Major indexes not doing a lot. Plus or minus all day. We did have a little bit of a bounce in crude oil and distance in the price of the recent lows below 40 a barrel but otherwise really not that much going on. Bob pisani, waiting for the jobs number tomorrow. Its good, good that oils over 40. We really trying to break out of the range right now. Last ten, 11 days, 250 points between the high and the low in the dow industrials. Very strange, folks. Normally a normal day, the dow 125 points from the high to the low. So were a little over 1 move in the last 10, 11 days. Very, very quiet. One thing to note and i think you mentioned this earlier, techs doing very well. The tech index at a new high. Not historic but go back to 2001 to get a better number. Look at the tex index. Highest level since 2001 right now. And we got oldschool names of micron doing well today and the newer tech stuff is helped power and the numbers have been better for the newer Tech Companies and tending to move the whole thing forward. Another point, we have been talking about the low Interest Rates. We have a good example of what low Interest Rates are doing to the Insurance Business today. We had net, pru, lincoln report and what a mess this was and whats happening is low rates are making it impossible for these companies to meet their future obligations. And having serious problems. Metlife took a 2 billion write down. Thats a lot of money. 2 billion write down for products that are essentially guaranteed products, annuity products theyre called and buy a stream of income from them. Very long term. Long term obligations and having trouble matching up the income, the Insurance Companies from the Treasury Bonds with their longterm obligations. 2 billion is what metlife had to write. And thats why its down so much today. Nobody expected that. People dont look at the insurers in terms of victims of ultra low Interest Rates. But ironically maybe metlife freed itself. Yes. Not to say that the write down is something that jeopardize the system. Metlife is trying to separate the retail arm from the Major Company and basically move it off, trying to get rid of it essentially. So thats how difficult the overall business is. The Insurance Companies cant possibly make any money. You want to imagine what its like to be an Insurance Company in europe or japanese. Try being axa, negative Interest Rates. Here 1. 6 on a 10year. Over there, youre a negative. Thats a good point, actually. We have seen a slight lift in the 10year yield. We have the jobs number tomorrow. Who knows . All of a sudden it could jolt the treasury market. How could it be that prices for treasuries so high . Foreign investors are coming in here and would you not think axa wants a u. S. Treasury . Even with currency risk, you want to own it. They dont have an alternative. Why rates capped here for so long. Appreciate that. We have first what ryan bank up the nasdaq celebrating its ipo this morning. Kelly, sec hour of closing bell starts with you. Hi and welcome to the closing bell, everybody. Im kelly evans. Finishing the day on thursday on wall street, the you with a slight drop of 2 points there. Watch how it settles out and remains the case. S p looks like positive territory but less than a point. 2164 is the level there. The nasdaq, the outperformer today hung on for a gain of 6. 5 points. 5166 is the level. A lot of different cross currents. Huge moves from the bank of england this morning, initially stocks rallying and largely faded into the close. Oil higher, too, by about 2. 5 and waiting on the big jobs number tomorrow and also for more big earnings after the bell today. Reporters are standing by for us. Susan li on priceline. Julia boorstin on activision and josh lipton for linkedin. Mike santoli here. Hello. Manager stephanie link with us, as well. Welcome. And cnbc fast money trader guy adami to talk about jack in the box yesterday, guy. I was watching you. I was like look at kelly giving me a shout out. Awesome. So excited. Like a little kid. They did pretty well there. So thats one place we can look to for strength in that space. Meanwhile, mike, what do you make of the market . The market does this, often. A neutral state before a big news item of an economic report, like the jobs data tomorrow. 1. 5 on the 10year treasury yield and the middle of the range and the s p 500. A listening time. I dont necessarily mean that tomorrows data to budge us out of it and what we got going on. Big cap tech the story in terms of people finding stuff this seems to make sense even at alltime highs whether it really pans out or not, doesnt have that consumer cyclical risk and people are shunning right now. The last gasp of earnings today, stephanie. I guess retailers in a couple of weeks and moved through the season largely with an index at alltime highs. And running in place for three weeks and the interesting thing i think is that underneath the surface you have seen a little bit more of a risk on, little bit more of a cyclical bias to the market mike was mentioning. Materials with a good run of it. Health care and financials with a pause today. Thats okay. They have been very good performers in a couple of weeks and i think it all depends tomorrow on the nonfarm payroll numbers and Interest Rate. Its going to be very interesting to if this report gives it momentum to continue or if we pull back and see the lows again. Were you freaked out in a larger sense of financials after metlife yesterday . Seeing a company like that down as much as it was today. No. Not really. I think everybody was more concerned about the big banks and about the regionals and the flat yield curve. Everyone kind of forgot that theres a big book of business for these life Insurance Companies so if youve noticed, the Property Casualty Insurance Companies held in remarkably well. Aig, look at the results. Very good. Traveler. I think pockets in Insurance Companies much more vulnerable and overlooked. Thats why the life insurers traded at big discounts to book value already. Not like the market was blind sided. Interested to take a quick look at linkedin, looks like a big beat on the bottom line. Obviously with a lot of newer companies to look at the like for like there. But maybe some movement as we start to get those earnings come through. Before that, guy, though, whens on your radar screen . I think the fact that oil may be stabilize for a day or so interesting as this was the selloff for the next leg higher or this bounce in a bigger selloff . I think thats the question everybody has to ask themselves. I still think oil has a leg to the downside and interesting. You mentioned bank of england. Again, Central Banks going wild and they should do a reality show. One of the interesting comments out of carney and paraphrasing and basically said a thing weve been talking about for a while. The acts of our central bank empowered and forced other Central Banks to act in kind. You know, now youre hearing people talk about this race to zero in currencies and again i dont know what it all means. Im not an economist. But it just sounds on the margins like its not a particularly good thing. Well, lets see how pricelines doing with this going on. The results are out and susan li has the numbers. We have a beat on earnings per share eps adjusted at 1393 apiece and looking for 12. 69. Revenues, though, did miss the street estimates, 2. 5 billion. The street looking for 2. 58 billion and bookings with the key metric and we have 17. 9 billion and still looking for the Third Quarter guidance and eps guidance for q3 in line with expectations. Back to you. All right. Susan, thank you. Those shares up about 1 . Guy, what do you do them . Priceline, you think a 13 to 150 stock, you think its expensive but on valuation, its actually not saying reasonable and not crazy and you have to ask yourself, are the zika concerns going to find their way into priceline over the next couple of quarters . So, id have to wait and see and tell you something thats traded really well over the last couple of days and stephanies probably looking at this. Look at move in Royal Caribbean over a couple of days since they reported. Traded down to 65. Held. And its bounced in a meaningful way. Im not saying im getting on a cruise line any time soon and the stocks were trading as if nobodys getting on another cruise ever again. I think the same thing could be said for the airlines. They got sold off pretty hard and a nice literal rally today. I eat not sure that i want to go all in and overweight both of the sectors and the expectations have come down and getting in the numbers probably have to be tweaked downward and find places where their stocks are attractive and valuation, even after that cap is like delta at 8 times earnings, priceline at 17 times forward and growing at 20 and readjust and pockets to pli. More expensive to maintain the flight of planes maybe than the website but i get your point. But, you know whens interesting is, you know, the airlines dont get great benefit in terms of stocks from low oil prices. Right . We have seen this odd pattern or seems odd. Your interview was very interesting. Low fuel prices enable price cuts. Exactly. And then investors get upset because the price cuts feed through. And thats the metric theyre focused on. If their operating earnings improving and the number is down and aided and abetted, which is the right one to focus on . I mean, this is an active debate in the industry. Interesting thing is over two months, the number comparisons of a twoyear stack basis is easier. Whether or not you think its an investment or a trade, i think theres a trade definitely there at the very least. Priceline group is moving up nearly 5 as investors continue to look through the results. Lets go to seema mody, whens going on. Here we go. Up about 12 in todays session. Wall street journal reporting that rackspace is an advanced talks to a private equity firm, a deal could be announced as soon as this week. If you take a look at the q1 Earnings Reports, a mixed set of results and management highlights an acceleration of deals thanks to growing debate of aws, Amazons Web Services cloud support and microsofts cloud support, as well. Keep in mind rackspace has been in the cloud space for quite 1078 time providing the infrastructure for some of these other names like amazon and microsoft and we are looking at shares up 4. 5 after hours, kelly. Thank you. Any thoughts on this one, rackspace . Trading at about a third of the price it traded for three and a half years ago and clearly i guess they may be receptive to somebody coming in with a premium and the kind of sort of relatively steady cash flow business a private equity firm would be interested in. Sure. A thick theme in technology is cloud. True. Clearly with google and amazon and microsoft and even other Companies Like service now and sales force. Com. So makes sense that there would be some interest of private equity. These guys have had some execution problems and clearly not the other bidder of a Public Company and makes sense someones interested in it and would like to see the details. I mean to mikes point, this stock is well off the alltime high. I dont think on valuation its all that rich. Plus, probably a 18 Short Interest and those folks not that happy with todays action and ensuing action to see and is this a to stephanies point just now, is this sort of amazon ties and lifting all boats . And it appears as though whats whats going on and interesting i think even stephanie sort of warmed up to amazon and if you think about that for a minute that speaks volumes as the type of market we find ourselves in right now. I got slammed on twitter when i bought amazon at 690. I didnt get it clearly at the bottom but i think that you can buy some secular winners in technology to augment my value style. Very nice. Youre up 70 bucks. How many stocks can you say that . Ill take it. Rackspace up 7 . Kraft heinz looks like its trading up, a decent move and part of the sector trading at high valuations. Linkedin, theres kraft heinz up 3 . Not a lot of movement in linkedin, guy. I guess well look closely at the results and this ones usually what happened a couple of quarters ago . It fell like 50 the next day and unusual to see it not budge. You have the deal, i think the deal for linkedin trumps any earnings release. Mike and stephanie can speak to that. Looking to see if microsoft stock reacting to the beat and thats not happened yet and not moving just enough i think to register that. Well, what different days it is here with microsoft now being the one to own it. Guy, thank you. Just a parting thought before you go of jobs or anything else thats a key thing to watch here . Im so fired up for this jobs number. Two extremes over the last two months. So tomorrow do we split the difference tomorrow and have some benign nonevent or get some outlier . I dont know. But its fascinating to see because the bond market is absolutely going to move on the back of this so i still think rates go lower. Tomorrows a long way to tell the tale on that. Thank you for joining us. Pleasure guy adami. Theres much more with him and the fast money crew next hour with head of u. S. Equity strategy and see where she tells their clients to put their money to work right now and an area of the market thats cause of concern. Coming up here, president obama is about to hold a press conference on the strategy for defeating isis. Well bring you his comments as soon as that begins. Second quarter was rough for fast food companies. Well discuss thats whether its making the stocks less appetizing. As a supervisor at pg e, its my job to protect public safety, keeping the power lines clear, while also protecting the environment. The Natural World is a beautiful thing, the work that we do helps us protect it. Public education is definitely a big part of our job, to teach our customers about the best type of trees to plant around the power lines. We want to keep the power on for our customers. We want to keep our community safe. This is our community, this is where we live. We need to make sure that we have a beautiful place for our children to live. Together, were building a better california. Welcome back. We mentioned the linkedin results are out. Josh lipton has more. Josh . Kelly, easy beats here for them. Eps of 1. 13 versus expectations of 78 cents. Looks like revenue pops 31 to 933 million. Thats verse estimates of 898 million. Just looking through the release, kelly, talent solutions, what recruiters use to spot the job candidates on the site, that was 597 million in revenue. Marketing solutions, 181 million. Premium subscriptions, 155 million. Those are all beating estimates. It looks like cumulative members, to 450 million. In a statement, jeff wiener saying joining forces of microsoft enables us to further accelerate and scale our ability to deliver value and create Economic Opportunity for everybody member of the global work force. Theres no Conference Call here because of that pending merger with microsoft. Back to you. Should have those shares pinned around 195. Still, stephanie, just joking that now they go ahead and deliver some nice results for shareholders. Now beat on earnings and margins looked okay. So just a little ironic but, hey look, microsoft is making a big bet on the company and not falling apart. Thats for sure and we may know why they wanted to pay a higher bid. Maybe management does have an incentive the look good for its one shareholder. They still want to be getting resources and basically saying, hey, we were a good buy. Interesting. Positioning going on there. We have an Earnings Report on activision. Julia . Beating on both the top and bottom line. Adjusted earnings of 54 cents higher than 42 cents expected. Revenues coming in at 1. 61 billion. Estimates of 1. 46 billion. The numbers adjust for deferred revenues and exclude the deferred revenues they still beat analysts projections. The company said they reported record digital revenues and also raised the fullyear earnings per share guidance. Shares now trading up about 1 . Kelly . Thank you, julia. Any thoughts on this here, guys . This is a space where its just all about pokemon go and there was a story of gamestop acquiring a bunch of Different Stores and jockeying for position. A sleeper company. But to be honest with you. But this is the First Quarter they had the king acquisition closed and clearly they had synergy there and the stock trading at like 21 times forward estimates glowing at 35 . Reminds me of a monster. Like the market. You never short a dull market. They have executed and executed. More drama with the come pet to recalls. Electronic arts is hit or miss. Activision is right there. Stock quadrupled in four years. Low gas prices arent enough to get diners to dine out these days. Lets get to susan li. I call it a new reality in dining, kelly, where slower sales rates might be here for a while and you would think that against a backdrop of cheaper gas prices and promotions and also new menu items americans enticed to go out to eat. Not the case. Sales growth stalling in the month of march according to the group that tracks the receipts and across all the segments of fast casual which is growing at an average rate of 6 to 7 and then as you see sales slowing down more than the segment of 2015 and, yes, thats when you strip out chipotle and going through the individual issues right now. Whats holding back diners . Factors of living costs, rising faster than wages. High college debt paid for by students and parents and millennials dont have cash to spend and individuals choosing to cook and eat at home and the ceo of mcdonalds pointed out. Going forward, they say they sales only grow half a percent to 2022 below the growth rates we have seen after the financial crisis believe it or not. Back to you. All right. Thank you. We want to talk about the head winds of the restaurant group. Robert, this is an interesting one to me, a little bit of a head scratcher. I see that others say theres a pivot to fine casual happening or fast casual 2. 0. Have the exciting new chains just been maturing and people looking for something fresh . Whats going on here . You know, this industry is, you know, on a decelerating sales trend since the beginning of the calendar year. June was materially worse than may. Sequentially its tougher. I think consumers are, you know, we have heard companies talk about deal fatigue. The fact that consumers arent as excited to go in for the 4 for 4. Value offerings we have seen recently. Other thing to keep in mind is that these Restaurant Companies with labor costs going up have had to take menu pricing and in doing so i think there may be the shift to the grocery store, especially at the low end of the totem pole. Can the labor costs offset by lower commodity costs . Yes. It can be. And in this past quarter, probably the peak quarter in which food costs deflation will have have benefited the restaurant operating line and then Going Forward and into next year, the probability is that those tail winds of low commodity costs less beneficial as labor rates continue to go higher and at a period of time where were just not getting the kind of sales leverage for the industry of the past. Robert, you say that theres a perhaps deal fatigue out there, basically people tired of these package value pricing, pricing menus. But is there any answer to that for these chains, besides yet more value pricing . We heard commentary on Conference Calls maybe the most promotional environment of 2008, 2009 out there. Whens the way out of this . The problem is when you have two of the larger brands and chains in the industry struggle as they are, mcdonalds as well as chipotle, theres a lot of deals and discounts coming from the big guys and the little guys have to respond. And so, in this environment, its going to remain, the big winners consumers, not so much a restaurant company. If you had to, robert, make quick recommendations, who would it be in this space . My two favorite picks in this point of time, jack in the box and panera bread. I think the key take away from that is that gives a high level of confidence that the things that management said theyre going to do makes a difference in the year ahead. Secondarily on panera bread, the Technology Initiatives are really resonating with consumers and the food they serve. That again i think is really going to deliver the mail for them. Technology might be the next driver here of these trends. Thank you for now. Appreciate it. My pleasure. We have an earnings alert. Speaking of food on kraft heinz. Seema mody, whens happening . 85 cents adjusted. Revenue in line with expectations. The company also raising its Quarterly Dividend to 60 cents from 57. 5 cents. Keep in mind, the company struggling the keep up with this accelerated shift in consumer eating habits. Stock up 4 after hours. Thats not a bad move for kraft heinz. Big company. Thank you, seema. President obama is holding a National Security Council Meeting just held it at the pentagon. 0 on the campaign against the Islamic State, vowed to take questions from the press. Well bring it to you live as soon as it happens. Stay with us. Ervices, but they demand the best shopping experiences. Theyre your customers. And by blending physical with digital, cognizant is helping 8 of the 10 largest u. S. Retailers meet their demands with more responsive retail models. Ones that transcend channels and locations, anticipate expectations. Creating new ways to engage at every imaginable touchpoint. Its a new day in retail, and together, were building the store of the future. Digital works for retail. Lets talk about how digital works for your business. The check they sent isnt enough to replace your totaled new car. The guy says they didnt make the mistake. You made the mistake. I beg your pardon . He says, you should have chosen fullcar replacement. Excuse me . Let me be frank, he says. You picked the wrong insurance plan. No, i picked the wrong Insurance Company. With Liberty Mutual new car replacement™, well replace the full value of your car plus depreciation. Call and if you have more than one Liberty Mutual policy, you qualify for a multipolicy discount, saving you money on your car and home coverage. Call Liberty Mutual for a free quote today at thats liberty stands with you™. Liberty mutual insurance. Welcome back. Its time for a cnbc newses update. Lets get to sue herrera. Heres whats happening at this hour. Florida Governor Scott identifying the American World killed in london in a knife attack as darlene horton, the wife of a psychology professor at Florida State university. Five others injured in that attack. Police sady dylann roof was assaulted this morning in prison. He was punched several times. Roof suffered minor injuries. Protesters attending Donald Trumps rally in portland, maine, held up pocket constitutions. Trump is hoping to win at least one or more electoral votes in maine. One of only two state that is divides up the votes. People from across the country are streaming in to indianapolis for the Worlds Largest Gaming Convention. Organizers say gen con is longest running and best attended Gaming Convention in the world with 5,000 events and exhibits. It runs through the weekend. Theres still time to get there. Thats the news update this hour. Back down to you. I was going to say theres a con for everything and then comes in another way. Thats a different yes. Theres a convention for everything. Yes. There is. And a Convention Center for everything. Yes. And i grew up going to them in the Insurance Industry and thats another story. Oh my gosh. Thank you. Yeah. The little squeezable snoopy of metlife and everything. We might need a cocktail for that. Exactly. Hello to dad watching probably chuckling about this. Sue herrera. A quick check on after hour earnings, waiting for president obama to begin speaking and zynga down 8 after the Earnings Report. Fireeye down 15 on the earnings. Apparently a miss and includes layoffs. And zillow group down about 6 . So we have had a lot of beats this quarter, generally speaking. Here are a couple of places where people are struggling. Zynga with an upgrade this week. Didnt manifest itself there and i think people trying to figure out a way around some kind of the pokemon gotype games, but obviously not good enough this quarter. What about fireeye, too . Yeah. Software security space is totally out of favor. They were all hit hard at the beginning of the year. Some have made the way back. Fireeye got as high as 16 most recently and pulling back. I think clearly are winners and losers in this Software Security space. The one name or two is proof point. A good quarter. And palo alto. And fireeye, the interesting thing, again, on this real quick is that, you know, publicly generally speaking you think its a place to be right now. We have the internet of things, we have hacks in the news every single day. A valuation issue. An execution one . I think some of the leaders are taking share. Last year, you could buy a broad basket of this space and you could do pretty well. This year, you have to actually find the winners and the ones dominating and taking share including cisco, palo alto. We have more on this, seema . Watching the stock move in extended trade. Fireeye down more than 14 . The Company Plans layoffs as its new ceo takes the helm. Looking at earnings adjusted loss of 33 cents versus estimate of 39 cents. Revenue missing expectations. 175 million. Again, thats below the street consensus of very weak q3 guidance for full year. And full year revenue and earnings forecast. That stock down more than 14 in after hours. Well be sure to get on the Conference Call and you get you more details. Mike . Its my impression with some of the smaller Software Security names the fix is not universal. Right . The right products and the stuff that the companies have priorities about right now in terms of the threats and not sure that if you full array of those products. You Want Companies now want a full solution from these companies and not all those small players have the full solutions. They have targeted products that were fine when the i. T. Offices buying little pieces of what they needed and now a company to manage the situation, because its so complex. Yeah. Thats why you have to stick with the bigger players or find a company thats a niche and really truly differentiated. The viruses they build up resistances to the medicine. Yeah, no. I cant get my head around the threats in the space. Lets get to john harwood with different threats. The president is about to address. He is at the pentagon going to update us on the fight against the Islamic State . He is. Hes met with the National Security team and going to come out and take questions and expect he gets questions about the 400 million delivery of cash to the iranians in at the same time that american hostages inl colluding the Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian were released some months ago. This is an issue on the campaign trail. Donald trumps going hard after Hillary Clinton and president obama for that. And we can expect, of course, other questions related to the president ial campaign in addition to those about the fight against isis. And about the strategy, in particular, is that what this discussion is about . Do you expect him to be asked about either, you know, doing more especially in light of some of the horrible terrorist attacks . Whether there are people acting on their own or whether its about continuing to sort of strike the homeland of isis, if you will . I would expect him to talk about all phases of the fight. The administrations position has been they have made some progress in rolling back territorial gains by isis in the region and that the terrorist strikes in various places in europe, and elsewhere, have been sort of the lashing out of an organization that knows that the state part of the Islamic State is losing ground. But thats not an adequate answer for the American People who are very concerned given the incident that have happened both in our country and overseas so i expect him to discuss that in all phases. Already affected sales for Hotels Across europe, flights. Seen people address it, too. Unfortunately what the repetition of it, not the fact of one or two vicious attacks, its now the fact that people start to think do i want to change my plans . Absolutely, no. Finally able to measure this, too. A lot of european economies suffering. I think the eurozone about 10 get it is gdp from tourism and this summer youre seeing measurable declines. I mean, just the uncertainty in general. So many things going on in europe and with the u. K. And brexit and that sort of thing. And currency and its already been a slow grower to begin with and this on top of it. Zika. The whole thing. Really just very challenging environment over there right now and thats why youre seeing all this Monetary Policy and some fiscal policy changes. Yeah. Trying to support things. Well take a break and come back and update you with the president there to update us on the strategy against the Islamic State. Stay with us. Can an established bank move like a startup . 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Really fast. Introducing the comcast business Summer Savings event. Fast Internet Speed to drive performance, plus cutting edge wifi for your employees and customers, and voice mobility so your calls find you wherever you are. Get some of our most advanced products at a great price with over 500 in savings. Call today and ask how to get these savings plus a 250 prepaid card. Comcast business. Built for business. Welcome back. Heres how we finished on wall street today. S p managed an ever so slight gain. The dow down about 3 points. Nasdaq was up 6. Oil was higher. Big news this morning, of course, bank of englands huge moves on the monetary side. Thats whip sawing markets today. We have the jobs report tomorrow morning and an Earnings Report on weight watchers. Seema . Once again, a big mover here. Weight watchers down about 8 . Earnings 46 cents. Revenue missing expectations, 310 million versus consensus of 318 million. Interestingly enough, taking a lock at the price action in shares of weight watchers, down right now in extended trade on the disappointing Earnings Report and year to date, down about 50 . Keep in mind this is a company that oprah got involved in back in october of 2015. Who knows . Well see if oprahs leadership or her involvement is actually helping but, again, looking at the stock down 9 here, kelly. Affects the investment in the company, too. Thank you. Ill notice higher in keeping with the theme of jack in the box yesterday. You know, jack owns qdoba. Theres bright spots in the food space and intriguing. Weight watchers is other side of this. Yeah. Zero sum game. Thats the way fast food is looking. Weight watchers, you know, see that mentioned Oprah Winfreys investment. Stock below 7 when that happened and coming quarter, youre pretty much one full year of her involvement and you see if it has any fundamental impact. The problems of chipotle driving people elsewhere and why you have jack in the box and i dont know the details on that one, though. Panera. So i think that there is some things happening on the traffic front that may give back. Well have to see. Chipotle may have problems for years. In terms of weight watchers, stock up 6 today and down 9, okay, thats not great but giving what it had at least earlier today. Restaurant brands, the parent of burger king, also a good perform eer year to date, as we. Quietly outside of the core you have some winners. Crazy. Teslas elon musk using the call yesterday to reassure analysts that despite when you look at product lines and trends of the past, the company is doing just fine. All of thats kind of lumped together, can be confusing and then teslas a moneylosing company. Not really. Not if youre growing at like, you know, 100 a year. We loved that quote. He said youre not a money losing company if youre growing. But you can be growing your losses, too. What do you think his point was . If you want to get inside his head somehow, i think he thinks of himself on a multidecade path of building the future in whatever forms he sees possible and i think he sees it all as investment. He didnt promise to have production at a level that would be profitable on a per vehicle basis or any other basis. So i mean, dollars and cents, real losses on an accounting basis and saying were not deviating from the plan. That we have had in place for a while. I think its kind of a cult stock. People can get around the fact that profit ability is fine. But there are some investors that dont operate that way particularly at a multiple like this. Should be public at this point but thats for another discussion. Reminds me of amazon in the early days. For sure. Will the company make money . How long will we see it . Investing to be able as well run and as good of a company, strong as they are today it is true but amazon after the ipo only went to the market to raise new equity once. Not like tesla coming back. Thats true. We got to take a quick break here. Again, waiting on president obama. Just so everyones aware, he is running nearly half an hour late at this point. Coming out of the briefing at the pentagon, expected to give the American People an update on the strategy on the Islamic State and as soon as that begins well bring it right to you. Welcome back. Earnings out, the stock moving. Seema, how did they do . Beat expectations. Earning of 19 cents adjusted versus 18. Revenue in line at 97 million. The ceo of El Pollo Loco saying we expect to open 17 to 20 companyoperated restaurants and 10 to 15 franchise companies. 6 higher in after hours trading. Thank you. Mohawk, as well. Housing theme continued to also be a strong one talking to home depot earlier this week. A ceo, this is the sort of, you know, what he want it is project an just been executing so well here. Absolutely. The sectors so much benefitting from the low Interest Rate environment. One sector that totally gets it, the benefits of it, its this one. So you have been seeing companies that can execute able to beat and raise. Home depot and lowes, a mistake to sell them and i have sold them and rebought them back and then mohawk is great today. Louisiana pacific with a great number, as well. Osb prices extremely tight. I was telling mike they were saying that the prices are tighter kind of for longer because its been a slow gradual recovery in housing and not a spike up and they believe its can last for sometime. Low rates filtering into the mortgage refinancing boom and a beneficiary. Thats the cycle that runs there. You know . Homeowners with more cash and goes into carpeting. Thats why its hard to imagine even if theres a hiccup in the Food Industry theres any problem with the consumer because unless all of these companies wilt at once and, you know, Something Else is happening there, this spend is there even if its just there in slightly different ways. For sure. We said it so many different ways. Consumer choosing what they want to buy and not everything is perfect. Wages not that great. Right. Up until recently jobs havent that great and depends and theyre being very selective on what theyre doing. Zynga. We have the earnings. Julia . Well, kelly, not choosing zyn zynga. Beat by 5 million at 175 million and earnings were in line of estimates basically in the and the stock down over 9 at the monthly active user numbers dramatically disappointed exec tass. Now the company 61 million Monthly Average users. Expectations were that the company would have about 67 million. And the company this is down from 68 million in q1 an down from about 83 million in the prior in the year ago quarter and talking about a dramatic decline year over year in users and also a decline of q1 to 2 and why the stock is down. Kelly . Down 9 . All right. Thank you. Want to go back to john harwood in washington. The president we understand may be getting closer now to speaking. Anything unusual about this delay . No. President s frequently after meetings of this kind, dont know what postmeeting might have taken place. Or briefing for the president might have taken place after the meeting. But running a little bit behind schedules part of the run and we have a twominute warning and expect the president to walk out any minute and update the country on the fight against isis and, also, take some questions and certainly drawn in once again to the 2016 president ial campaign. Oh, sure. I assume this is going to be addressing libya, as well, where i think air strikes there begun. Us, maybe france and another place where the Islamic States kind of been pushed out of the parts of the middle east and has a foothold. Thats right. Addressing that and as we discussed earlier, the 400 million plane load of cash, not in american dollars, but in other currencies, that was delivered to iran at the same time prisoners were released earlier this year. Republicans, donald trump and others, are saying thats a ransom payment improper. White house insisted thats not what it was. But the president will make his own defense in a couple of minutes. Yeah. Exactly. By the way, oh, okay. A quick break and come right back. Okay. Well stay right here. Sorry, everybody. Were waiting to see the president come out of this briefing. And, yeah. I mean, john, he is going to get drawn into the 2016 election. Probably not the first question but the next one. Thats right. And hes feeling pretty good about that election at this point because after he put his shoulder to the wheel and Michelle Obama did, too, at the democratic convention, Hillary Clinton built a significant lead over donald trump since those conventions. And the president , of course, very badly wants a democratic successor own thats if she wins Hillary Clinton. You know, john, you mentioned earlier, hes probably also likely to get a question about these reports of the shipping of cash to iran. The white house, of course, had a response to that but does it seem like a thing to dog the administration and by extension the Clinton Campaign . To a degree. To the extent that republicans and congress and donald trump continue raising it. Its an issue that will be on the agenda. The administrations trying to make the case that this is just residual opposition to the Iran Nuclear Deal by people who failed to stop it. And, you know, well hear some of that from the president , as well. But the question of is this a ransom payment or not, given the appearances a plane load of cash, its certainly puts the administration on the defensive and i think we will see that reflected at this News Conference. We know any victory against the Islamic State is a doubleedged sword and trying to, you know, pride, sympathizers and other parts of the west to stage these lone wolf attacks. Right. And, you know, when you have the entire western world with soft targets all over the place, if you can find a small number of people willing to give up their lives, you can pull off those and thats what the Islamic State decided thats their strategy, as their territorial hold shrinks, thats a problem for france, for the United States, for belgium and and here and many other places. Heres the president taking the podium. I met again the National Security council on destroying isis. I want to thank the generals who returned from the middle east for hosting us and for their continued leadership of our men and women in uniform. I last updated the American People on our campaign in june, shortly after the horrifying attack in orlando. In the weeks since, we have continued to be relentless in or fight against isil and on the ground in syria and iraq isil continues to lose territory. Tragically, however, we have also seen that isil has the ability to direct and inspire attacks. So we have seen terrible bombings in iraq and in jordan and lebanon, saudi arabia, yemen and afghanistan. Attacks an istanbul airport, a restaurant in bangladesh, bateal Day Celebrations and a church in france and a Music Festival in germany. In fact, the decline of isil in syria and iraq appears to be causing it to shift to tactics that weve seen before and even greater emphasis on encouraging highprofile terrorist attacks, including in the United States. As always, our military, diplomatic, intelligence, Homeland Security and Law Enforcement professionals are working around the clock with other countries and with communities here at home to share information and prevent such attacks. Over the years they have prevented many, but as weve seen it is still very difficult to detect and prevent lone actors or small cells of terrorists who are determined to kill the innocent and are willing to die, and thats why as we discussed today were going to keep going after isil aggressively across every front of this campaign. Our air Campaign Continues to hammer isil targets. More than 14,000 strikes so far. More than 100,000 sorties, including those hitting the isil core in raqqah and in mosul and in stark contrast to isil which uses human shields well do everything in our power to avoid civilian casualties. With our extraordinary technology, were conducting the most precise air campaign in history. After all, it is the innocent civilians of syria and iraq who are suffering the most and who need to be saved from isils terror and so when there are allegations of civilian casualties, we take them very seriously. We work to find the facts, to be transparent and to hold ourselves accountable for doing better in the future. We continue to take out senior isil leaders and commanders. This includes isils deputy minister of war, a Top Commander in mosul al hadani and yet another significant loss for isil, its minister of war umar al shoshani. None of isils leaders are safe, and were going to keep going after them. On the ground in iraq local forces keep pushing isil back. In a major success, iraqi forces, with coalition support, finally liberated fallujah. Now they are clearing isil fighters from more areas up the euphrates valley and iraqi forces retook the Strategic Air base just 40 miles from mosul. Now the last major isil stronghold in iraq. Given the success, the additional 560 u. S. Support personnel that i ordered to iraq last month will help turn this base into a logistical hub and launchpad for iraqi forces as they push into mosul. Meanwhile in syria, a coalition of local forces backed by our special Operations Forces and air strikes continues to take the fight to isil as well. The coalition is fighting its way into the town of mondaj, a gateway for isil fighters coming in and terrorists heading out to attack europe which is why isil is fighting hard to hold it. As isil is beaten back, were gaining vast amounts of intelligence. Thousands of documents, thumb drives, digital files, which we will use to keep destroying isils networks and stop foreign fighters. We also continue to intensify our efforts against al qaeda in syria which no matter what name it calls itself cannot be allowed to maintain a safe haven to train and plot attacks against us. I do want to step back and note the broader progress that has been made in this campaign so far. Two years ago isil was racing across a rock to the outskirts of baghdad itself and in many ways isil looked invincible. Since then isil has lost at the dam, at tikrit, baiji, sinjar, ramadi, at rubah hand now fallujah. In syria isil has lost at kubani and the dam and al shabadi and they have lost in vast stretches across the turkey border and all transit routes into raqqah. Isil has not been able to reclaim any significant territory that they have lost. So i want to repeat. Isil has not had a major successful offensive operation in either syria or iraq in a full year. Even isils leaders know they are going to keep losing, and their message to followers, they are increasingly acknowledging that they may lose mosul and raqqah and isil is right. They will lose them, and well keep hitting them and pushing them back and driving them out until they do. In other words, isil turns out not to be invincible. They are in fact inevitably going to be defeated, but we do recognize at the same time that the situation is complex, and this cannot be solved by military force alone. Thats why last month the United States and countries around the world pledged more than 2 billion in new funds to help iraqis stabilize and rebuild their communities. Thats why were working with iraq so that the military campaign to Liberate Mosul is matched with humanitarian and political efforts to protect civilians and promote inclis i ever governance so isil cannot return by exploiting new divisions or grievances. In syria, as ive repeatedly said, defeating isil and al qaeda requires an end to the civil war, and the assad regimes brutality against the Syrian People which pushes people into the arms of extremists. The regime and its allies continue to violate the cessation of hostilities, including with vicious attacks on defenseless civilians, medieval sieges against cities like aleppo and blocking fooled from reaching families that are starving. It is deplorable, and the depravity of the Syrian Regime has rightly earned the condemnation. World. Russia use direct involvement in these actions over the last several weeks raises serious questions about their ability to pull the situation back from the brink. The u. S. Remains prepared to work with russia to try to reduce the violence and strengthen our efforts against isil and al qaeda in syria, but so far russia has failed to take the necessary steps. Given the deteriorating situation it is time for russia to show that it is serious about pursuing these objectives. Beyond syria and iraq well keep working with allies and partners to go after isil wherever it tries to spread. At the request of libyas government of National Court we are conducting strikes in support of governmentagned forces as they fight to retake sirt from isil and well continue to secure their country. In afghanistan, one of the reasons that i decided to largely maintain our current force posture was so that we could keep eliminating isils presence there, and we delivered another blow last month when we took out a top isil leader in afghanistan, umar chalifa. Finally it should be clear by now and no one knows this better than our military leaders that even as we need to crush isil on the battlefield their military defeat will not be enough. So long as their twisted ideology persists and drives people to violence then groups like isil will keep emerging and the International Community will continue to be at risk in getting sucked into the kind of global whack a whole where were always reacting to the latest threat and lone actor and thats why were working to counter violent extremism more broadly including the social, economic and political factors that help fuel groups like isil and al qaeda in the first place. Nothing will do more to discredit isil and its phony claims to being a calfat than when it loses its base in raqqah and in mosul, and were going to keep working with partners including muslim countries and communities, especially online, to expose isil for what they are, murderers who kill innocent people, including muslim families and children as they break their ramadan fast and who set off bombs in medina near the prophets mosque, one of the holiest sites. Moreover, we refuse to let voices of division undermine the values of what keeps our america strong. One of the reasons were the best in the world is we draw from all the skills of all people, including patriotic Muslim Americans who risk and give their lives for our freedom, and i think the entire world was inspired this past sunday when muslims across france joined the catholic neighbors at mass and in a moving display of solidarity prayed together. The greeting they extend to each other has to be the message we echo in all of our countries and all of our countries. Peace be with you and also with you. Now, before i take some questions i also want to say a few words on another topic. As our Public Health experts have been warning for some time, we are now seeing the first locally transmitted cases of the zika virus by mosquitos in the continental United States. This was predicted and predictable. So far weve seen 15 cases in the miami area. Were taking this extremely seriously. Our cdc experts are on the ground working shoulder to shoulder with Florida Health authorities. There is a very aggressive effort under way to control mosquitos there and pregnant women have been urged to stay away from the particular neighborhood that were focused on. Well keep working as one team, federal, state and local, to try to slow and limit the spread of the virus. I do want to be very clear though. Our Public Health experts do not expect to see the kind of widespread outbreaks of zika here that weve seen in brazil or in puerto rico. The kind of mosquitos that are most likely to carry zika are limited to certain regions of our country but we cannot be complacent because we do expect to see more zika cases, and even though the symptoms for most people are mild, many may never even know that they have it. Weve seen that the complications for pregnant women and their babies can be severe. So i, again, want to encourage every american to l