Recount in that fight for a p g board seat and cisco shares up 6 premarket on an earningsdriven recovery walmart, though, is up sharply in the premarket the dow component reporting better than expected earnings, revenue, and comps, which were the best in eight years. Online sales up 50 . Walmart issued some upbeat guidance for the full year jim, you just said to joe, that Doug Mcmillen may have reinvented this company for real hes done a great job in bringing in mark rory of jersey fame hes done a lot of tech stuff for jet. Com. Smart. I think this was the quarter where you realize, were playing for keeps. We can actually make a lot of money, cutting prices, bringing people in, well, whos that . Thats amazon. So we found our toetotoe now the stock was down yesterday, down about a buck and a half, off of target. That turned out to be a mistake. This company is taking share by the way, online 50 is rather remarkable this is a reinvention. And i think that people have to recognize, when walmart gets it right, like, i remember during the golden age of walmart, in which we may be in a second golden age you would look at it and say, this is a premium multiple best in show company. This number was as good as costco, as good as home depot. David, youre doing media today, but you know walmart well we said, best comps in eight years. Best grocery comp in six years traffic up, ticket up, hard to find any hair on this one. Yeah, well, grocery, of course, we know, is such an important component for the company, over time, of course, becoming the largest grocer. Its more interesting what mcmillan is doing in terms of the leeway hes been given by his large shareholders, the walton family, to, carl, think about the longer term future and its a long way, isnt it, jim, from that day with they surprised everybody, upstairs at the new york stock exchange, during that i think that analyst presentation, when they significantly lowered in terms, but as a result, they do seem to have given themselves the needed, i guess, space to change things and create a better growth path. Yeah, look, i think that day was seminole i had doug on at the end of the day. He came on the show. And it was not just saying it was we didnt become fast friends that particular day. But, you know, they figured it out. And yes, they did lower expectations but theyre beating expectations now, yesterday, for the 50 you know, i dont know, for maybe the fifth time, Brian Cornell lowered expectations this is a different kind of lower expectations this was setting them on a path to spend a lot of money, because they couldnt afford to lose to amazon and when you talk with them, all they talk about is, were going to beat amazon no one talks about beating amazon youre supposed to lose to amazon and drown in the amazon so if we found our toetotoe, what does that mean for everyone else . Why is best buy raising guidance today . Why is Restoration Hardware raising guidance best buy won. They won their category. They are the only one left to buy stereo equipment or buy for iphone, great standalone, they really help you Restoration Hardware was a big squeeze. Gary friedman, one of my favorite execs, lets see how he did. He bought a lot of stock at 20, in the 25, a lot of stock in the 70 good average, about 50 its really whats most interesting about it, hes got three stores in florida. Well, those were hurt. Hes got a big store in houston, and he still blew away the numbers. Gary friedman, congratulations redefining furniture, because its not just furniture, its the gallery. But its an upscale gallery. Its not like well, with i dont want to be too critical of other galleries. But the first one, july 18th, 2018, he bought 32,000 shares at the price at 27. 59 and then he told everybody to buy it no one listened. They all laughed at him. Another carry situation. We get those periodically. By the way, the guidance is 102 to 104 streets at 80 so streets got some catching up to do. The street got its head handed to it a lot of people really kind of roped gary off because they had a couple of bad quarters gary has these Conference Calls set to music like nordstroms. And what happened is people just said, hes off the reservation i heard people say, hes off which is actually kind of a negative term. Yes and it turns out he owns the reservation. Hes not off it, he owns it. Guys, lets move on to pelts here the interesting twist in this proxy fight between nelson peltz and p g. Peltz appears to have lost his bid for the seat last month, but this recount shows him winning by an extremely slim margin. P g, which did not want the activist investor on the board says it doesnt consider this final and may appeal im trying to remember, the margin here, were talking not hundredths of a point, thousandths of a point its time for p g david, what do you think of this idea its time for p g to say, as a gesture, well have you on the longer they protest this, if he comes on, its less pleasant. If you keep stiff arming him and he does win, thats not a recipe for conviviality no, it isnt. And listen, this took weeks. The independent inspection of elections took weeks to do this. And in fact, on both sides, there was a preliminary count. Remember, that preliminary count apparently was enough in at least p gs eyes to declare victory incorrectly, right after the proxy vote took place. But both sides were higher than what ended up being the numbers, guys and you know, its hard for me to imagine that therell be Much Movement now, saying that, of course, youre talking about 43,000 shares out of almost 2 billion shares this were voted at the meeting. So, you know, the margin of victory here was 0. 0000 just keep going with juniyour zeros l you get to it. But that said, jim, are they really going to challenge this first of all, taylor, frankly, does not look particularly good here the decision that was made to fight, fight, fight and then to declare victory incorrectly, it would seem i just dont know that you can challenge here and have your shareholders support you at this point. It doesnt send a good message no, and the lead director, its time for jim, you remember boeing, such an honorable guy, to reach out to peltz and say, you know what, come on in, its too close, theres too many people by the way, the stock is reacting positively. I mean, i would think if the stock were down 1. 50, i would say, geez, the people have spoken the people are speaking. They want the stock higher and they want peltz on the board lets make that gesture to nelson peltz saying, you know, were not going to wait for another count. Come on in not to mention the resources, attention, and money its costing its 30 million, but what is it really . As this thing goes on, you could start a brand with how much it costs to try to keep him on. Like, dove no, thats another company. You know, tide extra extra strength could have been started with this money. Of course, you guys have interviewed peltz several times about this during the course of this is a dsaga this is a sound bite from nelson peltz back in september. I dont even know how to spell lose, okay so im not going to discuss that what were hearing from all the shareholders is thank you for getting involved tenacious, right . Implacable. Good word yeah, relentless, the way so many carriers and the british have im sorry. Right you know, its funny, yesterday, when we broke the story, i said, he might have been learning the letters for lose, but apparently he didnt need to actually figure that out what will be most interesting, of course, is if and when he is se seated, as seems likely, and takes his role as a board member on this company, what will that mean the way p g have painted it, even one voice in that boardroom that was embraced by the board and its ceo would be enough to sew some discontent and perhaps create friction that was not to the pebenefit of shareholders. I dont know guys, well see where it actually leads, but it will be interesting when that tenure begins again, as it seems likely to for mr. Peltz. Yeah, its interesting, because, of course, peltz not on the board at ge, david but now on the board after the ed garden coming on the board after considerable amount of market cap shrinkage, i dont know i mean, this idea that one guy can disrupt everything, david. What the heck is this . I mean, you got a whole chorus of people, the guy sings out of tune and it wrecks the chorus . I know. Listen, sometimes it depends you know, theres no doubt nelson is going to show up to those board meetings very well prepared and hes got a lot of people who can its not just about reading the board book, they are doing enormous amounts of work, which puts you in an advantageous position for the dialogue that may take place in a board room, versus other members who show up and do their reading but dont have their staff go through everything and not doing deep analysis and asking a lot of questions. Every board, as i understand it, is different and the dynamic is different. Sometimes one person Means Nothing and reluctais reluctant speak, but other times it can make a difference. When you look at the proctor board, its a completely heavyweight board. I did not feel the same way about the ge board these are people who have all been distinguished, theyre remarkable, andi have to believe that they are confident in themselves and if nelson comes on and they think that everything that mr. Taylor does is right, well, then, you know what, theyre going to win over nelson these are not people who are look at this, frank blake, mcnernen, these guys are total heavyweights why would they be confused if they really, knowing that nelson will come in and say, listen, i changed my view. But you know what . These are people who have to be able to do that. Theyre too strong this is not an academic board. I look at the ge board and it looks very much like the board of the overseers at harvard. But you know what, theyre not playing with my money. Not anymore, theyre not. Well, listen, when it comes to money, though, guys, theyve got 3. 5 billion thats the most money that will be in that boardroom at stake of any of those Board Members now, its not nelsons per se, but it is trianns thats a great point. And the stocks higher ge may have you know, theres some issues. You know what, weve got to move on well take a break. Davids got so much coming up this morning his exclusive with john malone, Liberty Medias chairman will weigh in on things like netflix and other things sarahs at cokes investor day, the First Investor day in eight years. Weve got some m a to get to, as well sarah, good morning. Good morning, carl. Yes, this company is actually opening the curtain on some neverbeforeseen innovation, like this. Theres no branding, theres no name for it. Its a brandnew cocacola flavored with all steve ya, no sugar no artificial flavoring. Theyre letting analysts and investors tape it. A lot more on innovation were going to talk to James Quincey, the brandnew ceo about the lineup and much more this is his firstever interview since becoming ceo its coming up right here, 10 00 a. M. , squawk on the street. Well be right back. whoo woman class, lets turn to page 136, recessive traits skip generations. molly i reprogrammed the robots to do the inspection. Its running much faster now. See . Its amazing, molly. Thank you. thank yo. What we do every night is like something out of a strange dream. Except that the next morning it all makes sense. To power global ecommerce Fedex Networks are massive, farreaching and, yes. A little magical. Fedex. Com slash dream busy morning of fed speak. Weve gotten philly fed claims and now Industrial Production. Hey, Rick Santelli yeah, ill tell you, in the Industrial Production numbers are rather big so if we just look at production, thats almost double expectations its up 0. 9. Last month it was upgraded from 0. 3 to 0. 4 big number but if you look at utilization rates, another big number. 77 . We were expecting 76. 2, 76. 3 and last month has gained almost half a percent from 76 to 76. 4 we havent had a 77 handle going all the way pack to the spring of 2015. So these are very good manufacturing numbers. And weve all been reading these stories that manufacturing is starting to kick in a little bit, even though weve had other areas of mixed data. So a key number, i didnt see Interest Rates move much, although 171 twoyear takes me all the way back to october of 2008 carl, jim, david, back to you. Okay, ill take it. Ill take it, rick, thank you very much. Of course thank you we are at the Liberty Media investor day today, as we do every year, luckily, being able to sit down with a number of the executives of a company that, well well, you think about qvc and they own that, and formula one, a new addition, of course, serious control in satellite radio or trip adviser or live nation you go on and on and whos behind a lot of this well, john malone is still the companys chairman still sits on nine public boards as a result of that. And as is the case every year, thankfully, we get a chance to sit down with mr. Malone and discuss sort of the state of the world and media and cable and so many other things, as opposed to focusing on some of the companies i just mentioned, when we began our conversation today, we were talking issues of scale. In particular the threat that netflix represents, given the scale that it has been able to obtain worldwide take a listen. Its all about scale. And its all about, you know, can netflix get enough scale that nobody really can challenge them can they figure out how to use that scale how far along are they on doing that my own personal opinion, the only outfit right now that has a chance of overtaking them would be amazon. And the reason being that amazon has an entirely different monetization strategy. But, you know, reid is a very smart guy and hes not wasting any time, you know, hes pouring the coal on the burners. Spending fortunes expanding fortunes. Expanding globally at a more rapid clip and hes been you know, god bless him, he has been successful in throwing hail mary passes and then growing into them and i think hes going to continue to do that. Now, you were hes got a great service. Right hes disintermediating the studio industry by going directly to the talent and the producers ahead of the studios so hes a Disruptive Force you had been arguing for years that the Cable Companies should have banded together, figured out a netflixlike service. Its too late now. Its way too late but, you know, cable at one point could have done it as you know, when i was direct tv, i tried very hard to buy netflix for direct tv. The stock then was like 17 bucks. You know, presplits and reid was pretty clear that his ambitions were to build a much bigger global company. And he was right to do that. Yeah. So, you know, his scale, the ability to create content to scale, i mean, if you think about it, three years ago, hbo was the biggest, most powerful thing in the premium entertainment category they spend, i think 2 to 2. 5 billion on content theyre now dwarfed. Netflix will spend 8 billion next year. Correct and besides that, hbo is essentially only a domestic distributor. So they dont have the Global Platform under them. And while they can syndicate or sell their content to foreign distributors, it is not nearly as strong a Business Model as being able to know the customer, deliver the stuff directly, and control the pricing at which your product is delivered. So, ahaving all the information about the consumer and their habits, in which reids case is not using for advertising at this point, but he certainly can use that optimize his programming. I think hes done a brilliant job of building that business. And scale will beget scale . Its only scale is very, veryproducing that has a high fixed and very low variable cost so when you get to a point where your marginal cost is zero, profitability is enormous as you scale up and hes on that track. So whether or not his stock is ahead of itself, i dont really have an opinion. But theres no question, hes built one wonderful company. There you go. Back at netflix headquarters, where Reed Hastings watching has certainly god to be happy hearing that, guys when your marginal cost get to zero, thats probably a good thing when you have such an enormous Distribution Platform malone explaining very easily, i think, the power that netflix has, jim yeah, david, i think people may not really understand this Artificial Intelligence company. Netflix knows what you want, just like amazon these are two companies that anticipate you and have unbelievable customer service. David, these are like the gems everybody wants to be them, but they cant be, because three guys were first. Yeah, and the point is of course, the discussion well get to disney and fox a bit with malone as well, but the point of the discussion is about scale. He mentioned that only amazon is in a position in his opinion to really challenge netflix, doing it through a different Business Model, of course using the prime service and using it as an engine for ecommerce growth but they have established quite a beachhead and theyre growing so much more quickly outside the u. S. Than they are inside of it. Spending enormous amounts of money to get it done but for now, malone concedes field to netflix and saying the chance of cable having done something has long been passed the stock is not expensive if he thinks its won i think thats important if he thinks its won, you woul have to understand, what is it doing at only 83 billion . Right . Should be much higher. David, look forward to a lot more later on this morning well get cramers mad dash and count down to the opening bell still a lot of names we havent go gotten to today. Tomorrow, well speak exclusively to Chuck Robbins futures look to avoid their first threeday losing streak since august back in a minute [ keyboard clacking ] [ click ] [ keyboard clacking ] [ clacking continues ] good questions lead to good answers. Our advisors can help you find both. Talk to one today and see why were bullish on the future. Yours. We cut the price of trades to give investors even more value. And at 4. 95, you can trade with a clear advantage. Fidelity, where smarter investors will always be. For the past several days, futures have been n