Claims. 1. 3 million last week, and that is the 15th weekly decline, so the downtrend continues. However, 17 million are still unemployed and still collecting benefits. Ive got two big tech stories for you. First off, the twitter hack. Fake messages appeared from big name celebrities. It was a bitcoin scam. The important point is the hackers took over the platform and could have sent out messages to disrupt the market or the election or anything. They showed they could do it and that is a huge problem. Stocks way down. Second tech problem, the top court in europe will restrict the transfer of the personal data of europeans to american companies. They are worried about our surveillance of them. This could severely disrupt big tech operations and big tech stocks are down. While stocks generally are moving lower, especially those technology issues, the dow, we are looking at a minus 180 at the opening bell, down 21 for the s p and really, the nasdaq taking it on the chin. Again, technology problems. Nasdaq will be down about 120 odd points. There may also be some election jitters this morning. A new poll puts the president s Approval Rating at a very low 36 . The president is worried. He shuffled his campaign team. Brad parscale, no longer runs the show. Varney company is about to begin. Stuart the caseload continues to rise, 41 states, its rising in all of those 41 states. Nationwide, more than 65,000 new cases reported on wednesday, 137,000, that is the total number of fatalities. Arizona, florida, and texas, they account for 40 of all new cases in the United States. Look at florida. 10,200 new cases in the latest reporting period there. That brings their total to more than 300,000. Governor desantis, hes pulling testing from labs that cant return results in less than 48 hours. Get a move on, he says. Look at texas. They hit a new single day record for virus deaths with 110 and more than 7,000 new cases on wednesday. Texas Governor Greg Abbott says the military is coming in to help. Got it. To the markets again. Futures still pointing lower. I see a lot of red on the lefthand side of the screen. Market watcher d. R. Barton is with us now. Your reaction to the rising virus caseload. What do you have . Well, stuart, i think that theres an interesting dichotomy here. We have seen the caseload go up, up, up and you have talked about 41 states, but the mortality rate i think is what traders and investors are seeing gives us a little bit more optimism that despite rising caseloads, the severity is not showing up. Now, that will usually have to have a little bit of delay to see if that happens, but i think the fact that that mortality rate has ticked up just a little bit, that its lagging so much, we are dealing with this better, our hospitals are not as overloaded. They are overloaded in some places. And thats giving the market some continued optimism that the fed wont react to this and be worried about an economic downturn because of the caseload. Stuart all right. Tell me about the election risk. That was a very low Approval Rating for the president in the latest poll that we have seen here. Is there election risk being built into this market . Oh, i think there is a bunch of election risk but theres still a lot of uncertainty around that. One of the most interesting polls i saw this week was that the people that are giving biden the lead that were seeing in the polls also answered another question, do they believe the silent majority will still give trump a strong chance to win and more than 50 said yes. So i think that uncertainty keeps the market a little propped up in that maybe the republicans can hang on kind of state. Stuart i saw that poll, d. R. The secret trump voters. Apparently there are a lot of them out there but they dont want people to know they are going to vote for trump. That really undermines confidence in some of the polls we have seen. I saw that, d. R. That really stuck out to me as well earlier today. Look, we are out of time. Look, thanks for joining us. We will see you again real soon. Thank you. By the way, in our next hour, health and Human Services secretary alex azar is on board. Hes blaming the rise in cases on young people. Hes on the show 10 40 this morning. All right. Crossing this morning, june retail sales up 7. 5 . Lets bring in gerald storch. Hes with us now. 7. 5 up in june compared to may. That sounds pretty solid to me. Whats your reading . Its a very strong number. In fact, its up since june of last year, so an increase over even normal times. You get the real sense of an economy thats like a thoroughbred racehorse raring to take off and the reins are being restrained by this virus and some of the shutdowns but these numbers would be considered pretty good even if the coronavirus didnt exist. The mix is different. You see big increases like in Home Improvement stores like home depot or lowes, big increases in discount stores, food retail and things like that, big decrease in restaurants. Clothing, even though they are up versus last month, still down pretty significantly by 23 . But you know, if we can just get this virus under control, this economy is poised to spring back. Stuart whats your big takeaway from this . Pick on any particular factor in that report. What strikes you . What stands out to you . Well, it definitely shows more of a return to normalcy. You see growth in some of the categories that were very depressed getting back to where they were before. The Internet Sales while still robust were actually down month over month. They were still up 24 year over year. Its still growing really really fast but they werent as big as they were the prior month, when people were hunkering down. You see a general trend towards more normal activity. I think as we go forward here, this is a big question, right, whats going to happen with more lockdowns, more virus, i think the numbers are still going to be good. Where you going to see a pullback, the restaurants and bars but thats only running about 9 of retail sales. You know, it would just be a 1 drag so im not that worried we will go backwards. We just arent going to grow quite as fast until we get this virus under control. Stuart youre not that worried even if we do get a whole new series of relockdowns and reclosures, youre not that worried . You still think were on track to get to normal retailing pretty soon . I think we are on track. I believe that people are getting smarter. People are taking more responsibility, wearing more masks, et cetera, and governments are getting smarter. You notice theyre not shutting down all of retail. They are shutting down bars, shutting down Indoor Dining and restaurants. Again, that part, i do expect a decline. But that doesnt mean you are going to see a decline at target or walmart or costco or the grocery store, home depot, maybe even some of the clothing stores, theyre learning to work with this a little bit. Thats why i dont think we will get back to where we were at all. We cant really take off and have the kind of robust growth we all want to see until the virus is checked. Thats for sure. But i have a lot of confidence, by the way, in our Health Care Industry and the pharmaceutical companies that are working all kinds of therapeutics on top of vaccines to eradicate this. Stuart gerald storch, thanks very much. See you again real soon. Now lets get to that twitter hack which is a major league story. Susan, this is a hack that hit ceos, celebrities, politicians. They really, its a huge deal here. Tell me more about it. Susan big deal. Biden, obama, elon musk, jeff bezos, bill gates, kanye, uber, probably one of the biggest Security Breaches in social media history, at least in more nan a dethan a decade. All of these accounts are posting the same message leading back to a bitcoin scam that may have netted the hackers 100,000. Twitter says it was a coordinated social engineering attack by people who successfully targeted some of our employees with access to internal systems and tools, and what that means is employees were tricked into giving up passwords and access to the internal system and the account. Jack dorsey, twitter ceo, tweeting his apology, writing of a tough day for us at twitter, we all feel terrible that this happened. This has also raised questions about security on social media, especially heading into the november elections and the president ial election and you are probably wondering why hackers couldnt get into President Trumps account. Well, speaking to security experts, they tell me that there are probably heightened security around the president s account, very limited restricted access internally which proved to be a good thing in this case. Twitter shares down this morning and looks like its going to be a sizeable selloff for the stock with volume because stu, people just are not confident in the Security System and the flaws within the social media platform. Stuart it brings into question what could have happened. This was a bitcoin scam. But supposing they put out these fake messages from important people talking about wall street, the economy, the election, politics. You could really disrupt things with that. Susan or cause political and diplomatic turmoil. If a tweet came from say the Chinese Foreign ministry and the state department, i mean, there are a lot of implications here. Stuart there really are. We will discuss them throughout the show. Thank you very much. Lets look at some earnings. Blowout report from Morgan Stanley in the Second Quarter. Huge trading numbers. Their revenue was up 30 , 13 billion came across the transom, better than expected as they say. Check bank of america. Strong trading there as well. That boosted their revenue a little bit in the Second Quarter. It was overshadowed because they had to set aside 4 billion for virus related loan losses. Other big banks have done the same. Bank of america stock down 3 . Johnson johnson profit down 35 . The virus cut the sale of Beauty Products and medical devices. That stock virtually, however, unchanged. Move on to abbott labs. Medical device company. Strong revenue, strong profit. They expect a good strong second half of the year. The stocks up just 1 in a generally down market. Generally down, yep, plenty of red ink if you check the futures. All across the board we are on the down side, especially technology on the nasdaq. Now, believe it or not, theres a demand for robot cooks. We will show you one. The man behind it all joins me next hour with a live demonstration. I believe that thing is [ inaudible ]. You are looking at states rolling back reopening plans after what appears to be a second wave of the virus. Thats going to hurt the comp. Economy. We go at that after this. Hey, can i. Hold on one second. Sure. Okay. Okay safe drivers save 40 guys guys check it out. Safe drivers save 40 safe drivers save 40 safe drivers save 40 thats safe drivers save 40 . It is, thats safe drivers save 40 . Hes right there. Its him hes here. Hes right here. Hi hi. Hey thats totally him. Its him thats totally the guy. Safe drivers do save 40 . Click or call for a quote today. Maria had to do everything for me. 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Stuart big techs got its problems this morning. There is the twitter problem and the problem with the europeans and big tech is down across the board. Not a huge selloff by any means but some of those stocks are coming back down below, well below their record highs that they reached earlier this week. Facebo facebook, they are rolling out a new section to debunk virus myths. Mark zuckerberg will personally interview dr. Anthony fauci today. The stock, though, down another 1. 50. 238 on facebook. Amazon extending their workfromhome policy all the way through january 8th, 2021. That stock is down 28 bucks. Firmly below 3,000 a share. Lets have a look at netflix. They report later on this afternoon. Walking it up, they are up four bucks at 527. Susan, this will be they will be reporting on the quarantine quarter, right . Susan thats right. The first of the big tech highflying Growth Stocks report today so that will be interesting. Subscriber numbers always a key. Netflix guiding for around 7. 5 million new global subscribers in the Second Quarter. Might be a bit conservative, given the covid lockdowns and the record Netflix Streaming we have seen during the quarter. Thats why analysts are looking for something closer above eight million. This is especially after that blowout 15 million plus number for new subscriptions and ads in the First Quarter of this year so subs usually move the stock. Checking the options market, they are pricing in a near 12 move in netflix stock up or down on friday, according to how i guess earnings play out but theres a lot more competition coming online as well when it comes to streaming, so peacock started this week, you have disney plus over 50 million subscribers in its First Six Months and thats why i think guidance is going to be pretty clear here and key here, stu, because you need to know how well does netflix think it will do with the increased competition. We are looking at subscriber forecasts and people are needed above six million for the Investment Community to be bullish. Stuart i am a netflix addict. Susan i dont know how that happened. Stuart the virus did it to me. Thats the truth. More than 65,000 new virus cases reported all across america in the latest that was just on wednesday alone. Weve got reports, i will show you a map, actually. 24 states rolling back reopening plans. Everywhere from california to maine. Monica crowley is with us, assistant secretary of the treasury. Monica, are we going to get a sharp vshaped recovery for the economy if we are now starting to close things down again . Great to be with you this morning, stuart. This virus has certainly proven to be quite resilient and in the areas of the country where we have seen it raise its head, governors have taken certain measures including imposing restrictions back again on certain businesses and certain activities. We do expect that theres no question that might impact the economic recovery. But lets remember that President Trumps progrowth economic policies that delivered the booming economy the first time around remain in place. The tax cuts, regulatory relief, unleashing the energy sector, freer and fairer trade deals and so on. As we safely open the economy, even with these new restrictions in some areas of the nation, those policies are kicking back in and thats why you are seeing Green Sprouts in a lot of different sectors of this economy. Stuart treasury secretary mnuchin talked about a big new emergency payment program. Wouldnt that keep people at home . Extending these emergency payments through to the end of the year is whats being talked about. That keeps people at home, doesnt it . That doesnt open up the economy. Well, there is a consensus that this pandemic is going on and it is impacting americas workers and businesses in a longer period of time than maybe anyone anticipated so theres a consensus that there is the need for additional assistance to the American People. The top line conversations between the administration and congressional leadership have been occurring but negotiations will start in earnest next week. One of the things that is being discussed is Economic Impact payments, another round of that, perhaps another round of ppp funding for Small Businesses, Unemployment Insurance and what to do about that, and of course, Liability Protection for businesses, hospitals, health care workers, and schools. Stuart thats going to be vital. That will be a nice big push for the economy. Monica, thanks very much for joining us. Im sorry im always so short on time with you. Better come up to new york and see us right here. I would love to. I would love to be back in person, stuart. Thank you. Stuart im looking outside at sixth avenue and its absolutely deserted. Come up and have a stroll down sixth avenue, see how it goes. Thanks, monica. See you soon. Weve still got a sea of red ink on the lefthand side of the screen. Implying stocks are going to go down at the opening bell. Well, we will see about that. We will take you to wall street after this. Introducing stocks by the slice from fidelity. Now you can trade stocks and etfs for any amount you choose instead of buying by the share. All with no commissions. Stocks by the slice from fidelity. Get your slice today. In a highly capable lexus suv at the golden opportunity sales event. Lease the 2020 nx 300 for 339 a month for 36 months. Experience amazing at your lexus dealer. Look, this isnt my first rodeo and let me tell you something, i wouldnt be here if i thought reverse mortgages took advantage of any american senior, or worse, that it was some way to take your home. 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