Before the decision to pull the bill last week we are moving on and i dont see anything that would challenge that basic operating rule at this moment. Thank you, john. John harwood in washington this morning. And good morning. Good morning, its 8 00 a. M. At facebook headquarters in men low park, california. 11 00 a. M. On wall street and squawk alley is live. Good morning, welcome to squawk alley, im john ford, and with me, kelly evans and mike santoli. Facebook rolling out new camera features on its flagship app. Its latest challenge to snapchat. They encourage users to use the in app messenger. This is the fourth Time Facebook has cloned key snapchat features in the past nine months, watching snap shares now, they are under pressure. How much are they down . Almost 5 . Lets bring in yousef scali, analyst with cantor fitzgerald. Guys, it might seem frivolous on the surface to some folks, this issue of features but engagement especially among this premium young customer going to be key to how these platforms are able to draw advertisers. Yousef, whats your take on facebooks move and snap stocks reaction . Well, i think its a great move and it is one that we expected. Now, the issue is how will it impact the numbers . The last Time Facebook did something as important it was the middle of last year in june when instagram kind of copied snap and the impacts of that was slowdown in the growth of users and engagement at snap. I think it will be interesting to see what happens over the next couple quarters but if youre snap, youre worried. I dont think there is a whole go ahead, sorry. I was going to say ive got the updated app with me at post 9. Is it live right now is that whats going on over here . Its live right now and our viewers can see the difference between me on the regular camera and theres good ones here. This is the new facebook app. Do you know who this is . Carmen miranda. This is my foxy look. You can control through these very quickly. This looks like maybe gold leader sort of star wars thing. Some of them scary. Theres a lot as well. Thats creepy. Think pandas are cute, kelly . Not anymore. They were a moment ago but not anymore. I think what that tells you is its easy to copy a lot of these functions and the issue is around really engagement and user growth ultimately. Raul, you are a veteran of both the hardware side and the service side and things like gaming and its a really interesting time for that. Do you think that this is an existential threat to snaps growth . The fact that facebook by using some of its previous acquisitions in this space has been able to clone so much of what makes snap distinctive . The interesting thing about snap is you kind of have to really understand the product or be within a certain category to learn how to use it properly. Facebook is interesting because they can clone those features and they can add it to their platform so any Facebook User who extends well beyond the typical snap demographic, it gives them an opportunity to play with it and use it. The only thing id say about it is, you know, instagram tried it with their stories and it feels like an afterthought. It feels like a bolton feature to instagram. I dont get it, to be honest, on instagram so it will be interesting to see how facebook puts it into play. One thing i will say is snap understands their audience better than anybody. I was in las vegas this weekend at mgm and they actually had a kiosk where you could buy the snap glasses during spring break which is pretty interesting. These guys are hard core marketers. Its tough to say at this point. Mike, you think evan spiegel is surprised like i look right here . I think youre making snap stocks sell off as people see this. To me the question is, look, if you bought snap, if you believe in the potential it can grow into this valuation you are betting on a second act, right . Youre betting on their ability to parlay then gaugement with the younger audience into something deeper. Yousef, i wonder what that might be if instagram can come along and clone these things right now . Ultimately snap today has been a great forum for the 13 to 24 but i think over time for the stocks they need the expand well beyond this demo. I have it because my 14yearold daughter has one but if not, im not sure i would be on it. So they need to expand. Its a matter of time to see how creative they are. Everything weve seen from snap is that theyre super creative so they need to extend themonet dont think its an issue for the next two, three, four quarters. Because theyre monetizing so little versus facebook versus youtube at oneeighth or onetenth that i dont think it will have an issue from monetization but they will if engagement slows, thats what well be looking at. Youssef real quickly, i have to wonder, does facebook have to worry about ip Going Forward . Theyve so blatantly copied the features, could snap sue them and try to basically either force them to shut down or pay them quite a bit for what theyre doing here . Im not an ip lawyer but clearly there is a lot of copying going on. I would suspect that there is not a lot of copyrighted material behind what snap is doing, at least in terms of features and functionality. Certainly from a pr standpoint, you know, more and more people know that facebook is really playing or trying to catch up with snap, which tells you that snap is the creator. So maybe from a pr standpoint its not great but from a pure ip standpoint, im not too worried. By the way, i want to mention to everybody, were seeing markets at a session high. The dow only just turned positive, now were up 70 points. Meanwhile, the s p is up. John, a Strong Performance for nasdaq but i dont know if its because youre managing to spark some sort of new bull market. What do we call this new technology . I dont know, i think ive scared people enough. Worth mentioning red hat up 6 this morning, tesla doing pretty well, too, which is interesting considering elon musk doing more and more stuff, which well talk about later on this hour. Also a busy morning for amazon, that Company Unveiling three new products including amazonern from amazon fresh pickup and also confirming its acquisition of sook. Com. Others want to know about amazon go convenience stores. We told you the company is delaying its rollout of the stores due to technical difficulties talking about timelines and when and if these projects will contribute to the bottom line. Raul, youre from out in seattle, operating out there. How important is amazon innovation like these to the ecosystem up there . I mean, its incredibly important. Amazon is doing some Amazing Things here and, in fact, i have friends that work there that went through the Retail Experience. They told me its a blind blowing experience. You walk in the store, you pick up whatever you want and walk out. Thats like the ultimate sort of the future of what retail should be. When you think about back in the day when apple created the ultimate Retail Experience with no lineups, you know, that was thought to be innovative but amazon is taking it like five steps further. Theyre leaps and bounds ahead of anybody in retail and theyre turning retail on its head completely by going from an ecommerce giant to creating this ultimate Retail Experience that no one will be able to touch. Im sure theyll bring it out and im sure eventually it will come out but, yeah, there are some bugs when you think about it. Walking in and picking up products, who knows how these things are being tracked. Its being reported the stores work well when its fewer than 20 people in there then it gets trickier. Is it a matter of time and can anybody else jump in and figure it out before they do . I dont think anybody can jump in and figure it out before amazon. These guys are working on mindblowing stuff inside. Amazon is innovating not just in retail and Drone Technology with shipping and logistics and even theyre even interested in the augmented reality space as well so theres a ton of innovation happening at amazon, its very important for the ecosystem and im sure its a matter of time. The thing that has me scratching my head about this, apple rolled out something similar, use of a couple years ago where youre able to use your phone in the apple store, you scan something and walk out with it but it doesnt seem to be part of the culture. Whenever i try to do it, the retail people are surprised. They want to be there with me checking me out of the store. Is that a sign that i dont know maybe theyre following me around the store wanting to give me good service or maybe that this didnt catch on as much as some people might have hoped. We dont officially cover apple but clearly in the case of amazon theyve defined what ecommerce is and now they here in the process of defining what the new retail is. I agree with raul on everything he said and i would add that from a stock standpoint, from an investor standpoint, these are things you would want amazon doing. Were not talking about billions of dollars being spent on these initiatives. Were talking about tens of millions of dollars out of that cap x of about 8 billion. So you want them to take risks and expand their addressable market. Thats what alibaba is doing and thats the other one people need to keep an eye on and amazon is better positioned than anybody to continue to innovate and come up with a solution to will revolutionize the space for the next 50 to 100 years. And bear in mind you dont have to v the app in your hand. The app is open, you physically walk in the store and just pick stuff up. They make it as natural and as seamless as possible. So you just need to scan it at the entrance of the store. Thats right. Well, i hope it works, anything that makes that process simpler, i like that visual of just driving into the parking lot and somebody else puts the groceries in your car, too. That makes sense. Raul pseudo, ceo of unicorn, youssef scali of cantor fitzgerald, thanks to you. Thank you. Coming up on the half time report, David Einhorn joins scott wapner at noon eastern. We learned einhorn is pressuring gm to make big changes. Find out about that at the top of the hour. Gm shares up close to 4 and just about at the highs for the day right now. And straight ahead, markets trying to avoid their longest losing streak since 1978 and then back from the dead. Samsung says its bringing that troubled galaxy note 7 back to market. And later, the president s new tone when it comes to taxes and infrastructure. Were breaking down the trump agenda when squawk alley returns. Hey gary, whatd you got here . This bad boy is a mobile trading desk so that i can take my Trading Platform wherever i go. You know that thinkorswim seamlessly syncs across all your devices, right . Oh, so my custom studies will go with me . Anywhere you want to go the markets hot sync your platform on any device with thinkorswim. Only at Td Ameritrade your insurance on time. Tap one little bumper, and up go your rates. What good is having insurance if you get punished for using it . News flash nobodys perfect. For drivers with accident forgiveness, Liberty Mutual wont raise your rates due to your first accident. And if you do have an accident, our claims centers are available to assist you 24 7. Call for a free quote today. Liberty stands with you™ Liberty MutualInsurance Markets trying to avoid their longest losiing streak in 40 years. Session highs up about 90 points. We had strong Consumer Confidence numbers an hour ago and investors weighing this against white house policy. Lets bring in the Morgan Stanley head of emerging markets. So glad you guys are here. Steve, i want to begin with you, a huge not the Consumer Confidence. Taking this above as mike was pointing out the highs from the last cycle, it took markets a second to catch up and now the financials are rallying. Is this a sense that the mojo is still alive . Even the defeat of the gops Health Care Bill . I think theres a couple major factors, one is the sentiment within the market which is in many ways predicated on implementation being good so there will be imperfections in policy space. So to that extend the market is ahead of itself. But when you look at the mac macroeconomic data, softer data, harder data, there is two tracks and the harder data is showing the economy is doing okay, likely to be far closer to 2 than 2. 5 or 3 . So we think this is a Good Opportunity to fade high valuations. And you mentioned a little excitement. The dow is now up 92 on a day when britain triggered article 50. Its practically gone unnoticed, european markets will close in 10 minutes time and you think thats an attractive place to invest, right . I think that the big comeback story of the past few months has been europe thats been the single biggest economic surprise in the global economy. In the current quarter, the european economy is growing well above 2 . Over the past year the european economy has grown at a pace which is slightly faster than the u. S. Economy. Its been a very long time since thats happened so this is whats going on in the marketplace that we have signs of a synchronous global upturn which is taking place but this is very cyclical in nature but this is good news and europe and japan have been the two places which have led with the growth supplies worldwide. Looking at the chart. They were big losses. Is there anything in the volume or just consistency of losses that should give any pause . I think not, you had a massive compact runup. Youve had a little bit coming off the boil as it were, i wouldnt read too much in that. I would go back to basics. Whats happening in Market Sentiment and valuations. Ive been boring you for many quarters on this that valuations matter and where were trading at in u. S. Market that is increasingly compelling which is going in a different direction than europe and japan so when you start adding up latestage Economic Cycle here, early stage in europe, valuation there is versus here you dont need to be drastic, just use it to be planful, be disciplined in selling at higher valuations and looking elsewhere globally. Obviously key to that Global Investment story has been the dollar. Its backed off heavily, not evening up at all over the twoyear basis if you look at the dollar index. Is that a linchpin to the global story or has that been a tail wind recently . Its a very important chain which is taking place. The dollar is exhausting its third major bull market in the postbretton woods history. The dollars bull market seems to be coming to an end so therefore i think this is very important investment implication that basically means you need to underweight the United States. So the dollars bull market is extended and against many currencies now it looks expensive, whether its the mexican peso, even currencies such as the euro and yen the dollar screens as quite expensive. So i think this is a major turning point with serious investment implications for a global portfolio. Does that mean the price of gold is going up . Does that mean the price of oil is going up . By the way, oils reversal also helping this market. Well, i think that, you know, these correlations are breaking down in the last few months. We saw a massive rally in Commodity Prices even though the dollar really hasnt done much so i think these one in one correlations are breaking down. Im much less optimistic about Commodity Prices including oil because i feel that as far as oil is concerned, the supply story is really turning around which is that i think people have underestimated how productive u. S. Shale is and how quickly u. S. Shale supply can come back to the market and im also quite concerned about whats happening in places such hinahich weve had a massive debt boom in china which is what has led to this big surge in Commodity Prices over the last year but thats showing signs of cooling now so i wouldnt take the dollar to sort of mean that Commodity Prices are going higher. I think those correlations have broken down in the last six to nine months. Well, well see the synchronous global upturn would be good news. Ruchir sharma, stephen wood, thank you for joining us. Samsung slapping a new face on its troubled galaxy 7 smartphones. But first, check out shares of red hat on pace for its best day of march, 2015, yesterday hitting fresh 52week highs. Squawk alley will be back in a moment. President trump leading a listening session this hour with the fraternal order of police. This is the president with the fraternal order of police, a meeting this morning just taking place there. Hes sitting down in the white house, well take a listen. Youre the greatest people. You keep us safe, right . Yes, sir. You keep us safe. Its a tremendous honor to welcome the fraternal order of police to the white house, so many of you know for so long and youve been friends of mine and you do a great job. I want to thank you your entire Leadership Team including your National President chuck canterbury. I want to thank you for your support during the election. I guess you probably know, the numbers were extremely lopsided, right . Im trying to figure out who were the few people that voted the other way . Who are they . Could we find out who they are, please, and let us know . As i traveled the country during my campaign i had the great privilege to spend time with our Amazing Police officers who risk their lives everyday to keep us safe. I made a crucial pledge. We will always support and you people know that better than anybody, you know me the incredible men and women of Law Enforcement. I will always have your back 100 like youve always had mine like youve showed that on november 8. Im also pleased to have with us our great attorney general jeff sessions. Thank you for being here. It was a big day you had yesterday, too, on sanctuary cities. That was a very, very important thing you dont and frankly a very popular thing so congratulations. And jeff is with us. His strong support of Law Enforcement, you know that, he was in alabama, they was attorney general, he was the u. S. Attorney and a lot of people dont know that, they know him as the senator but the Law Enforcement people knew him even more as the others so going to do a great job. Good job, great to have you with us. Sadly, our police are often prevented from doing their jobs. When policing is reduced, the main victims are the most vulnerable citizens of our society and you see that all over. In too many of our communities, Violent Crime is on the rise and in time places our citizens have not been safe for a very, very long time. These are the painful realities many in washington do not want to talk about. They just dont want to hear about it. And we have seen that, weve seen it all over. By the way, who is from the standpoint of new york . Where are my new york guys here . Thats terrible. [ laughter ] i have one sitting in my office, hes the greatest, hes coming right in. Last year in chicago 4, 368 people were shot, nearly 700 more have already been shot since january of this year alone. Ski whats going on in chicago, right . What is going on . Theres no excuse for it. Theres no excuse for it. Im sure youre asking the same question, whats going on in chicago. I also want to thank our Vice President for being with us, mike pence has been amazing, an amazing Vice President and very much a believer in Law Enforcement and the job you people do. All of our citizens have the right to live in safety and peace. We will work everyday to remove the gang members, drug dealers and violent criminals from your communities and we already are. Theyre being moved very quickly. In fact general kelly, as you know, has done a fantastic job on the border. Down 61 since inauguration, people coming in, down 61 which is a tremendous number. My highest duty as president is the security of our people, the security of our nation. That is why ive already taken numerous actions to enhance domestic security, including the creation of task force on reducing Violent Crime, an Interagency Task force to dismantle criminal cartels along with historic actions to secure our borders and remove criminals from our country. Were removing ms13, were removing criminals all over the country. Theyre getting out. Were taking them out and for that i thank you folks, i know youre in coordination with general kelly and the Border Patrol and i. C. E. And youve been doing a fantastic job. As president i will work night and day to make america safe again and weve already done a big part of it. Youll see the numbers come out very soon. I want to thank all of you for your leadership. I want to thank all of you for your expertise, the job youve done. Its a great honor to be with you today and well go around and introduce yourselves. That is the president with the members of the fraternal order of police expressing his support for Law Enforcement. Of course, early today the president tweeting applauding a move by Ford Motor Company to invest in plants in michigan. Those were mostly previously disclosed but the news has been on General Motors as weve been telling you, green light capital, David Einhorns hedge fund, has proposed a radical structure of splitting gm stock into a dividendpaying security and one that would be more for Capital Appreciation and taxing the growth of business. Gm responding basically opposing this move says that the company has engaged with mr. Einhorn over the past several months several times to talk about such thing and gms board and management concludes this would create an unprecedented security that creates unacceptable risks and isnt in the best interest of shareholders and points to its existing shareholder return plans, buybacks, etc. You have to wonder if the move is just investors thinking maybe theyll do more shareholder friendly moves to appease if they dont go all the way for example, gm saying theyre going to return cash this year and then the slate of directors thats been nominated. Spotlighting the fact that this is a depressed valuation on a big company that hasnt been able to change that situation for a while and maybe there will be other measures and well hear from David Einhorn. And davids fundamental point well hear on the half time show is that gms dividend is being undervalued in the market. Do you think he has a case far . You can say as a general proposition in this market if your stock yields 5 or 4 , well above the average for everybody, clearly the market isnt placing great value on it because its keeping your stock below at this very abovemarket dividend but Ford Motor Company similar high dividend yield. So it could mean the market says, hey, these are businesses that face longterm pressures. I wonder if theres a creep against shareholder rights. Look at the snap ipo. You dont get a vote if you buy the stock. Are perhaps corporates becoming emboldened to make moves like this . In this case a hedge fund proposing this, because the world seems open to these infrastructures we were talking about the fact that green light a few years ago asked apple to create a special preferred security as this vehicle for returning its catch holdings to the market and that didnt fly but it did show you that people are prying to propose experimental structure. You could say apple has a unique situation. We have to figure out a way to distribute the cash. In gms case there is questions about how profitable is gm going to be in the medium to longer term, it seems like a different question than for apple. And gm says as green light grants this would not do anything to change the underlying operations. All right. Wapner will be asking the good questions on the half coming up. Still to come, President Trump reportedly striking a new tone when it comes to tax reform. But first a quick programming note. Well be sitting down with fed vice Chairmanstanley Fischer at 1 00. And at 4. 95, you can trade with a clear advantage. Fidelity, where smarter investors will always be. Its your glass of willpower that helps keep cravings. Far, far away. Feel less hungry with the natural fiber in clinically. Proven meta appetite control. From metamucil. Hello, everyone, im sue herera, heres your cnbc news update at this hour. A prominent republican is raising concern about devin nuness action. Nunes is under fire for visiting the white house to view classified information while leading an investigation into the Trump Administration. Heres what senator Lindsey Graham said this morning on today. If hes not willing to tell the democrats and republicans on the committee who he met with and what he was told then i think hes lost his ability to lead. The tsa is facing criticism after video of a teenage boy receiving a patdown went viral. The boys mother said she asked agents to use a different screening method because her son suffers from a sensory disorder. The agency said, however, it followed procedure after the boys laptop set off an alarm. The first new british pound in 30 years is making its way into circulation. The 12sided coin you heard that right, 12sided is supposed to curb counterfeiting and it features a hologram. And facebook is looking to beat snapchat at its own game. The company is rolling out a camera feature on its app that creates masks and frames as well as shares photos privately with a friend. Well keep track of that one for you. Thats the news update for you, back down to squawk alley. Johns already a pro at it, sue, weve seen him as a panda and with flowers on his head and as a merman. Thats why i love john, hes into pandas as much as i am. There you go. But you still havent managed to erase that yet, kelly. That was the first thing i mentioned. Because it was green. John knows everything technolog technology. Hes the goto guy. Thank you, sue. Were counting down to the close in the uk and across europe. Lets get back to seema modi. Stocks in europe rebounding. Just in fact in the last 20 minutes closing at session highs or i should say moving to session highs here as politics in the u. S. Take a backseat for now. Traders focusing in on the countdown to brexit. Tomorrow is the day uk p. M. Theresa may is slated to kick off article 50, officially kicking off the twoyear process for her country to leave the european union. Theres a lot of uncertainty around what a brexit will look like. The depreciation in the pound suggests a weaker uk economy but the ftse 100 is up about 15 or 16 since the ukraine referendum, benefitting from that currency affect. Meantime, the Scottish Parliament is debating a motion that would give first minister Nicola Sturgeon authority to demand a second independence referendum. Lawmakers expected to vote in 30 minutes from now. This comes one day after surgeon and uk Prime Minister theresa may failed to overcome their differences over scotlands opposition to brexit and push for independence. Lets talk about politics in france, though. The french president ial election less than four weeks away. The latest poll shows far right Leader Marine Le Pen would have the most votes in the first round at 25 followed by centrist man yawl mv emmanue macron. In the second round, hes expected to beat le pen as hell get the support from candidates that will be eliminated in round one. Thats how were shaping up ahead of that april 23 first round election. Mike . Seema, can you clarify this so is it another hour till they close or. No, we have close, for two weeks we did have the european close at 12 30 p. M. Eastern but we are back in action. European markets closing higher. That we go. Thank you, seema. With the gop fractured on health care President Trump looking to make headway with tax reform and infrastructure by appealing to house democrats. Joining us is jared bernstein, senior fellow at the center on budget and policy priorities and the Tax Foundation director of federal projects joining us from d. C. Thank you for being with us. Thank you. Kyle. I guess theres a lot of different pieces of going after something on tax at this administration. Theres doing in the a big overhaul way maybe just to take the rates down. Who among these onkss do you see as a likely path . So far i think theres been push towards a comprehensive package. Thats the hardest thing to do. There are tradeoffs like in health care so that would take tim time. But most of the proposals put forth are individual reform and corporate reform at the same time. Jared, what do you think in terms of i guess the will to try and get just anything done on taxes or is it going to be bogged down in some of the same factionalization that we saw with health care . The will to do something on taxes is very strong among republicans and these guys and gals are much closer on taxes than they were on health care but style said an important phrase there. He said broad reform, thats complicated. We saw what happened to a complicated Health Care Plan so i think the prospects for broad reform are small and getting smaller so instead of reform i think well look at tax cuts. What shape they take, whether theyre favoring the wealthy or corporates, thats the kind of thing were talking about right now. If trump wants to deal with the democrats, that means youre probably not going to get the regressive tax cuts they tried to pull off in the Health Care Bill and were unable to do. How likely do you expect that to be . Theres talk about the Trump Administration dealing with moderate democrats. That could allow him to outflank the conservative wing of the party but if he does that, hes got to consider the proposals they would have on the table and will willing to move forward. Is that something you expect to happen . I dont know if thats going to happen without them taking another look at the proposals. What trump put forth in his campaign was a significant tax cut as jared mentioned, republican plans tend to cut taxes for the top more than for the bottom and trumps plan was no different so i think you would have to not only bring in infrastructure but also take a look at how he structures his tax proposal. On the infrastructure point, jared, what kind of coming together this would be a bipartisan effort . Is that possible . Its definitely possible and frankly ive got to say this is something i hope these guys can pull off. We cant be too confident about their ability to do much. I think the nation really needs an investment in our Public Infrastructure and the problem is that Donald Trumps initial plan was actually a very bad one. It basically was a tax rhett giveaway to investors who were doing stuff they would have done anyway so no marginal productivity improvements on top of that. Democrats have some good ideas in this space and its possible theres a compromise having to do with repatriated earnings as part of a tax package, were getting into complexities but these are the kind of things you might see Going Forward. Kyle, during health care now with taxes were getting educated on the rules of reconciliation and what can be done within that format and what other kinds of measures we have to expire after after ten years. What is the appetite among republicans in congress to allow the deficit to grow with tax cuts even after they get sunset after a decade . That might be the path of least resistance. Tax reform is very difficult. You cut marginal tax rates but you broaden the base and those that get impacted by the broader base may not like that so you may see a tax cut however you are right that in a reconciliation package that means those tax cuts would need to expire over time so the best case, at least for those that want to see tax reform is something that is closer to revenue neutral that would be able to go through the reconciliation process. All right, a lot of different approaches, well talk about it for months, probably, jared and kyle, thanks very much for your time. As we head to break, checking apple, one of the betterperforming stocks on the dow up about 1 . Ubs out with a new note on apple saying the bull case for 200 a share over the next two to three years. The firm says a share price of 17 is more likely. Well be right back. Approaching medicare eligibility . You may think you can put off checking out your Medicare Options until youre sixtyfive, but now is a good time to get the ball rolling. 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Im scott wapner, coming up on the half time report, the first interview with green light capitals David Einhorn as he puts pressure on General Motors to create two classes of stock. Those shares surging this hour. Plus, a noted wall street watchers call for investors to run from the financials. Hes identifying the banks that will fall the hardest and the biggest hits and misses from the half time traders this quarter. That starts noon eastern. See you at the top of the hour. Cant wait for that. It will be an awesome interview. Lets get to steve leaseman with a rapid update on the economy. Steve . Hey, kelly. Good morning. The trade data boosting the outlook for firstquarter gdp, the economists we survey in the cnbc rapid update along with moodys boosting their outlook by. 2 to 1. 6. Whats important about this is we had been going the other way. There was fear wed be going below 1 , we now look to be solidly in the 1. 5 , maybe trending towards 2 . You can see the range there, 1. 3 to 1. 9 and q 4 tracking 1. 9 . Bank of america. Goldman is at 1. 8 . Morgan stanley is up to 1. 5 and moodys which puts the survey together. Theyre on the low end 1. 3 . Were about a half to twothirds through the First Quarter. Just giving you an idea and that fear well be below 1 looks to be fading. What is the average or the key number here that youre seeing . I think theres always a fear with the First Quarter it can come in weeker because of a seasonal problem that seems to be in the data and the government has tried to work that out and fix that problem. We dont know if thats been fixed yet so were looking at that, Consumer Spending is the best place to look is but business investment, whether the confidence is translating into machine buying and plant building on the part of companies, kelly. Well see how much that plant billing gets done in the last three days of the quarter. Coming up, how venturebacked startups are targeting toy giants lego and fisher price in helping parents and schools teach kids. Thats when squawk alley comes right back. Welcome back. Parents are trying to get a leg up for their kids futures and looking to do that with hightech toys. Julia boorstin is in los angeles with more. Julia . Hey, kelly. With about half of the highest paid american jobs now requiring some coding knowledge, toy start ups are lining up to offer kids fun ways to learn those vietnam b valuable skills and parents and schools are buying. The Global Market for Child Development toys is projegted to reach 40 billion by 2019. A number of start ups are taking on industry giants lego and fisher price and trying to break Tech Education free from the tablet. Now, osmo conneipads with real objects. Its raised nearly 40 million from mattel and sesame street. The most popular kit costs 189 we believe that theres a huge influence on childrens growth and learning and thats where the value is and weve seen that parents are willing to pay premium if there is inherently a learning value. Wonder workshop brings coding so life by teach iing kids to program robots, dot and dash, with mobile devices thchlt pairs 200 and has been adopted by 10,000 schools worldwide, including some 7,000 u. S. Elementary schools. These robots are very affordable and thats been a core focus for what weve witbe trying. 15yearolds in the United States are currently ranked 38th in the world of terms of math skills. These companies hope their toys can help change that. They are just two of the more than l 00 companies in the running for the 2017 cnbc disrupter 50 list, which will be revealed in may. Thank you. Sesame streets Venture Capital arm. Who knew. Coming up, young brand ceo sitting down can sarah this morning. His take on how his industry is changing. When we come right back. The dow is up 100 points near session highs after starting out in the red. We got a little rally on our hands, up about half a percent. Meanwhile, automation and the use of machines, a key issue for business and in no industry greater than restaurants, which see significant labor costs. Back to our sarah who spoke to greg creed about the impact of robots on fast food. When it comes to technology and fast food, theres been two approaches. So far. Theres figuring out delivery and digital order. Look at dominos on that. And payments. Going to mobile payments, away from cash, even look to starbucks for a good example of that. I talked to the ceo about this and asked him when would start using technology and thinking about text message when it comes to the service operation. Labor costs you mentioned with run of the biggest costs for these businesses along with food. Heres what he said about Artificial Intelligence and jobs. This whole Artificial Intelligence, the whole watson thing, not sure were going to have you know, robots replacing people soon. Though to be fair, i was in shanghai recently at new pizza hut Concept Store and i was greeted by a robot and it greeted me at the door, took me to my table. And so, i think its the beginning of robotics, but i dont see it wholesaling, changing peoples jobs in the shortterm. Were not going to be driving cars. Were not going to be, think about how amazon is developing and how machines are telling amazon to deliver the goods. I think one of the key questions is what are we as humans going to do in ten or 20 years . What will we be doing . Our treasure ki secretary said Artificial Intelligence wont threaten u. S. Jobs for 50 to 100 years. Sounds like you would disagree. I believe having a listen to the people in the artificial intelligentsia and were starting to work with them this n that area, i think this is way too long. I think its going to happen next year or the year after. But i do believe by the mid to late 20s, youll start to see a dramatic change in sort of how machines sort of run the world. Automated . Is. That will be hard. I think it will be hard to automate. I dont see how running down a line at taco bell where, i dont think people realize, we dont make a lot of the products until the customer orders them. And you know, standing on the taco bell line, putting the ingredients on the taco, maybe that day will come. I dont think that day will come particularly soon b, but in terms of order, using kiosk, mobile ordering, i think part of the process will change. The manufacturing part. I think were further away. So, thats going to be the big question b about when these ceos and companies can use automation to try to deal with some of the labor costs. Pretty candid comments from a company that employs over 100,000 people around the world. When it comes to technology, the front and center issue is figuring out ordering. And that is something that he is thinking about and so many other of these other restaurants. They go at it alone with an app or work with a third party like a post nate or grub hub, which could bring them into the system. Up could also become like a travel agency and control the prices for some of these restaurants. Thats going to be the big question. Panera is probably the best. Just ordering straight from your phone. The best case for Driverless Cars is bringing me my food. Whether its groceries or fast food, right . Thats certainly going to be the case and thats what these ceos are going to have to figure out. How this fits together. How many food apps do you want on your phone or do you have to work with a third party and how powerful do they become. We will dont watch it. Kelly, mike, thanks for joining me on sidewalk squawk alley. Over to scott wapner and the half. And welcome to halftime report. We begin this hour with breaking news. Hedge fund manager David Einhorn turning up the heat on General Motors with a plan he says would raise the companys stock prices. The stock is rising on his proposal and he joins us on the phone. Welcome. Good to have you. Thanks. Nice to be here. You want to split gm stock into two classes, which you would would unlock value f