Twitter and facebook scheduled to testify before the Senate Commerce committee on wednesday. Examine whether that content liability shield section 230 is still relevant and needed. This is one of the days in the market, im not sure what is happening in the overall dow matters so much to the tech story. April sl about flat on some promising iphone 12 order lead times. Then if you look it at the nasdaq zoom is up amazon, etsy maybe thats some halloween eagerness. Yeah, a bit of a mixed bag today, jon you have the stay at home names you mentioned. Tech broadly lower weve got that doubleheader again this week. A hearing following by earnings from the Big Tech Companies. And its interesting, looking at facebook and alphabet this month, theyre actually outforemaniou outperforming the big tech names. Alphabet is up 8 . Facebook up 7 again, we see the theme. The pressure is on in terms of antitrust and regulatory scrutiny yet, the stock prices not really reacting those are the two names that have been in focus the doj investigation into google and the expected ftc decision on facebook yet, not a whole lot of movement there, carl. And today, of course, were seeing amazon as the only, you know, big tech names up about. 3 . Zoom is the number one leader on the s p 500, kroger and amazon also helping to lead. Sort of has a familiar ring to it it certainly does this notion, carl, this idea that if covid19 infections are starting to pick up, you will see certain parts of the market that have faired better over the course of the past six months. Maybe return to that leadership roll carl, we just crossed beneath the 3400 level 3399 the last trade. The level that some traders are watching entering today is 3408. That represents the 50day average price for the s p 500. And to put that more graphically speaking, look at a year to date chart of the s p 500 what youre seeing is this area over the course of the last two months where things are kind of consolidating in this triangle zone right here. If were seeing some movement, maybe there is some case to be made that the s p 500 and at these levels is trying to find a reason to move up and down to establish a new trend. Two of the hottest spots in the nashgt we markets that weve been watching is in semiconductors and software these last two etfs are both up. The Semiconductors Index etf is down now nine of the last ten days then to cap it off, facebook and going the around social media companies. I would note that over the course of the last month, check this out look at the outperformers. Facebook is up 10 alphabet up 11 . Meanwhile, the large cap tech come Services Company like apple and microsoft not up nearly as much keerous curious to see if that continues to happen. Well watch facebook and see if that establish thats trend short term, carl will ill send things back over to you. All right what a great breakdown, dohm for tech stocks, ggb capital Jeff Richards is with us to discuss. Good morning good to have you back. Good morning. I know you have all kinds of tools and metrics at your disposal i wonder if you think were in for another round of record covid19 case growth, if were going to see a similar echo in the things that helped the world go digitsal like it did in the spring youre seeing the market predict we may have a rough winter ahead of us one thing i want to chat about is the health of Small Business in america and how do we make sure if there is a rise in cases and challenges with things like dining in restaurants, how do we make sure that Small Businesses survive and thrive this winter thats what were spending our time thinking about. How do you think thats going to work . For the ones that are still around, looking for Additional Support from the government. And they can embark on exercises that help the existing business and try to grow it. Yeah. One thing that were we created is what we call s b tech index, it tracks 23 companies that provide technology to Small Businesses in america as you know, 60 of americans work for a Small Business. Its 40 of you usgdp. We can talk about airlines and cruise lines and all these other things, 60 of americans work for a Small Business the companies that provide technology to those Small Businesses have become power houses docusign is up 196 . So the companies arming the rebels at the ceo shopify have done well this year. We believe thats in anticipation of the be tag that Small Businesses are actually healthier than people think. Jeff, the question then is how much better can they do . As i look at this morning, zoom, amazon, etsy higher. Those are all companies that have this play in Small Business as well. A lot of the stocks are richly valued given Everything Else happening in the economy, can they continue to capitalize its a great question, john a couple data points new Business Applications in america are up 40 year over year so 2019, we were in a booming economy. New Business Applications are higher this year than last year. Thats because some of the folks who were laided off in q2 and q3 started a new company. Anyone starting a company today is going to build it on technology youre not going to build a Boutique Clothing store without any Commerce Website youre not going to build a restaurant without a mobile app ordering capability or takeout we did a survey. 83 of Small Businesses in america are bullish heading into 2021 that is a much higher number than we anticipated. 93 plan to hire ledding into 2021 both of those indicators say that s p 500s are doing better than we think and the tail wind of new businesses getting created and launching on square and wix and big commerce, thats a big trend. And 575 plan to spend more money on technology. Are they going to have the access to capital that they need from banks, from venture capitalists like youre self yeah. Thats probably the biggest i would argue that is the biggest constraint in growth of the s p 500 economy in the u. S weve lost the regional Banking System in america. Theyre roughly half as many Regional Banks as they were two decades ago. So who is Lending Capital to the Small Businesses theyre using technology from companies that we back but most venture capitalists are not backing the local restaurant or dry cleaner or hair salon of getting access to capital is super important. I would say that small Regional Bank is being replaced to day by Companies Like square. Square capital lent over 2 billion last year. I this i youll see a lot of the tech providers because they got great intelligence into the health of the companies build an offering to augment the Technology Capabilities and replace some of that Small CommunityBanking System that we lost over the last two decades jeff, good morning. I wonder how much of the Small Business story is about fiscal stimulus as you said, as the data says. You have seen Record Number of americans starting new ventures. But how much are they dependent Going Forward on potential more government aid yeah. Its a great question. So of the 4,000 snbs we surveyed, 52 applied for a loan from the c. A. R. E. S. Act or ppp program. We thought it would be higher. We were surprised it was that low. Quite a few businesses were actually reasonably well capitalized. Of course, a lot of the Business Owners are happy to happen into personal savings that is not great. You have big tech Companies Like google that can borrow money at 0. 45 interest meanwhile, the local Small Business owner is having to borrow in the low teens. Its not a Great Dynamic as you mention, when the stimulus does run out, what happens to the 52 that did apply and did receive a loan thats a big concern for us as we head into 2021. You know, jeff, when we were all sort of getting a handle around the scope of the pandemic earlier in the year, there was this underlying narrative that big tech, the giants of our own economy, were going help us develop tools that we could use universally and try to mitigate the worst of it. I wonder what kind of grade you would give that idea and if you think that there is still hope for something to be deployed at scale from some of the giants who have or leading us in the ways of ai, for example . Well, we havent seen the sort of Contract Tracing application widespreaded option you like to see in america which does seem like a fairly strong solution so i would have to give a pretty low grade. But im a venture capitalist im always hopeful i think technology companies, you know, we have this interesting dichotomy, big tech is also under fire from the government and so there is this hard problem to solve where we love their help but were also dealing with sort of a government and business tension that has been going on now for many years even prior to the Current Administration so im syrupuper hopeful i think well figure this out. Im optimistic that Drug Companies will come up with a vaccine. And then eventually well learn how to live with covid19. If you look at northern california, weve actually had a fairly low rate of infection thats because people can dine outdoors and host gatherings outdoors hopefully well see that persist even as we head into the colder months yeah. Well, the mayor of new york city this morning is held a briefing. We thought they might talk about locking down or going remote instead, hes encouraging families to opt in to in person classes because at least a lot of the urban centers learned some lessons so far. Jeff, always great stuff thanks for kicking off the hour. Thank you more prepared than ever that is what facebook is saying ahead of next weeks election. Social media giant looks to fight disinformation well take a closer look next. Stay with us we started goodrx in 2011 because too many people in the United States cant easily get to a doctor or afford the treatment they need. Thats why goodrx has built a leading consumerfocused Digital Healthcare platform. We wanted to make shopping for healthcare as easy as it is to shop for travel or electronics. As a public company, we hope to provide even more services that help people get the healthcare they need at a price they can afford. He liction delection day isa day away Julia Boorstin has more. Facebook is exploring new ways to prevent manipulation into the week and to minimize possible civil unrest after the election the wall street journal reporting on facebook preparing to calm election related conflict with tools to spread to slow the spread of viral content and lower the bar for suppressing potentially inflammatory posts tools previously used in slri lanka and myanmar. We built new teams with experience across different areas to prepare for various sean arrows. We created new products, partnerships and policies to just pausing post election ads to ensure were more prepared than ever. The Ceo Mark Zuckerberg and the coo are involved in all the big decision thats facebook made recently around content such as banning accounts across the platforms. Some other key voices involved in content decisions include nick clegg he is former uk deputy Prime Minister and leader of the liberal democrats there. He vaz involved in the decision of the New York Post article on hunter biden. And hes drawn criticism for prior opposition to the Trump Administration another name to watch, monika bickert. She is a former krcriminal prosecutor she led the decision to block all content that denies the holocaust. Whatever facebook does in this charged environment, shiit is se to draw criticism from both sides. Zuckerberg will testify on wednesday. That hearing is on censorship suppression in the 2020 election guys julia, i wonder if the stance that facebook is taking this cycle is markedly different from last cycle i mean they say theyre better prepared than ever i dont know how high the bar is particularly for u. S. Elections where that goes. But last time, four years ago there was this idea coming out of zuckerberg to think they had influence was a bit absurd have they embraced the idea of the influence now . Yes i think actually what i would say, jon, is what were hearing from them now is much more similar to what we saw in the 2018 election, the Midterm Election its very different from what happened in 2016 back in 2016, zuckerberg talked about the importance of facebook being a truly open platform. What were hearing now is they understand that this is a platform that can be manipulated and theyre willing to take the steps necessary to try to block that manipulation. All right julia, thank you very much Julia Boorstin as we head to a quick break, going to take a check on the markets. The dow is down 700 points thats about 2. 5 . S p 500 down 2 . Nasdaq down 1. 75 . Well be right back. Tech remains under pressure. The dow down more than 700 points all s p 500 sectors are in the red. Facebook is down in todays session. Nick thompson joins us a very big week for big tech earnings also, we have that hearing on wednesday right before the Big Tech Companies report. Were going hear from the ceos of alphabet, facebook, and twitter. Nick, i know you covered, you know, the twists and turns so closely. For facebook, i just wonder, the company says that theyre prepared is that going to be enough as were just one week away from the election i think the fa account that theyre testing on wednesday shows the perils here. Theyll be accused of censorship and called in for more panels. So theyre trying to walk a fairly narrow path here. Yeah. It seems like an almost impossible task, nick. So Julia Boorstin was just telling us this time around it looks like more the way that they treated the Midterm Election in 2018 is that going to be enough and can they walk this, you know, fine line . Do they ultimately, the leadership at facebook have to choose that theyre going to either censor or deamplify certain posts that they think is misinformation or disinformation yeah. Thats a great question. So my view of the situation is that right now facebook is in an impossible situation but its not an impossible situation because of the external forces, because of the politicians who are angry at it. Its in an impossible situation because of the structure of the platform theres been a lot of Interesting Data released including a new study i just read about this morning showing that when you go on to facebook, you almost inevitably become more polarized when you go into other platforms like read it, that doesnt necessarily happen so there is something about this structure of facebook, the fact that youre connected to friends, that the amplify posts based on engagement and emotion, the structure of facebook inevitably leads to this chaos and this mayhem. So you can take the system and you can add all the measures and put a little ice on it right here and you can put another, you know, referee judging things over here. But ultimately, to get out of the buying theyre in right now, theyre probably going to have to make fundamental changes. Nick, that doesnt sound too encouraging. Were about a week away from the election youre saying they need to make the fundamental shiftsst sho short of that, nick clegg they had to break glass tools do you know what that might mean what that means is if they dont want to have this happen in 2024, they have to make fundamental changes. They wont make them before next tuesday. Are they in it good shape before next tuesday i think the tools thee created behind the break glass sign which probably is some kind of kill switch for viral misinformation, i think thats probably good. Its not a great sign of the tools they have ready for american democracy were tested in myanmar and srilanka. But here we are. I think thats stuff theyre building that julia talked about, i do think its good. It will be helpful i want to take a look at this other one and say given the year that were in and the fact that people have been voting early to such a great extent, facebook to some extent has already dodged a bullet i mean there is a lot of bad stuff that could have happened already that apparently hasnt you know, twitter has taken more flack over that New York Post story than facebook. And just as long as they can sort of get past election day itself without a big blowup, theyve done okay. Why is that wrong . I think they can do okay. I think by fighting fires and carefully deploying airplanes and employing a lot of firefighters this he can actually sort of keep the problem in control i think theyve done a decent job of that well know more in ten days but what i mean is that if they dont want to structurally constantly have to be fighting fires, they dont want to have explosions all around, then they need to make big changes for the next time. Yes, i think youre right. They have avoided the worst outcomes and done very good