part of this, at least with wti is because that january contract rolled. you're looking at a february contract. we were already in a february contract for brent but every time you see that roll you'll see prices come up slightly. the question is whether they can hold on to that. >> it would be under 35 i think if you just added 28 to where we close. did that start yesterday? >> i didn't notice it late yesterday. yesterday morning it was not. it was weaker yesterday morning. >> was it rolled already? >> no, yesterday morning we were still january. >> let's tell you about what's else is going on. we have a flood of economic data coming up. we have a final read on 3rd quarter gdp and at 10:00 existing home sales and the richmond fed survey. dow component nike is posting quarterly results. shares of that company up more than 35% this year already. a big day for last minute shopping and shipping. it's going to have 36 million packages today. meantime amazon prime says it's consumers have until midnight eastern time today to order and still get those packages and have them arrive by christmas eve. >> nike is just a horse. tripled in the last, i don't know how many years i was reading that. just incredible. $110 billion apparel company. how do you start an apparel company? still up and around and in your lifetime you start a company -- selling sneakers and move into everything else and still cheaper than under armour. corporate news google in talks with ford. for help building a self-driving car. i want to know what -- to help ford, google is helping ford s that it? >> sounds like it. automotive news says a contract manufacturing deal is expected to be announced during the annual consumer electronics show. google is testing small bubble shaped prototype vehicles that it designed. it looks like a bug or one of those crappy little smart cars. >> remember ford just opened up an engineering plant in silicon valley. it's the first time they have set anything up there and it's the first of the major auto makers to do that. maybe they're both getting a little help. >> more trouble for chipotle. it's a new strain of e.coli. a new strain linked to the chain. five more people became sick after eating at two more locations that were nowhere near cleveland circle in boston or the west coast. cdc says it's unclear right now whether these new cases are related to the outbreak that started in october. just last week the company's co-ceo and founder told jim cramer that the chain is safe. >> we visited the farms, the cdc was on a lot of the farms. we had our epidemiologists on firms and we could not pinpoint it to a certain location. i will say, though, that we can assure you today that there is no e.coli in chipotle. we have thoroughly tested our food and our services and we are confident that chipotle is a safe place to eat. >> it's odd though because it's been around for years and years and years. dropping down near 20% since the end of october on when the food safety issues first came to light. >> this news was released around 245 yesterday by the cdc. the stock lost almost 1 billion dollars in market cap. >> how many points was it that it was down? >> about 5.5. >> it's a big company. >> yeah. right. there's the chart. let's also tell you about a fight for talent. credit suisse is accusing ubs of raiding the ranks of its private banking business. credit suisse filed an arbitration claim saying that about 70 of its 300 brokers left for the firm in three months. they're winding down the u.s. private bank and said it would make it easy for brokers to move their business to wells fargo. >> sec will be pursuing an amended civil case against stephen choen. they will drop the part of the case involving the supervision of the trader but it does plan to pursue a claim that chohen failed to supervise matthew martoma. he is serving a nine year sentence for insider trading. settlement talks are on going but the parties are not close on terms and that comes after that. new developments in the sumner redstone saga. a judge rejecting the petition to have him interviewed by a psychiatrist as part of his evaluation of his mental capacity. but in a partial victory for his former girlfriend the court will allow depositions of the viacom ceo and two of the doctors. it's all very complicated. the case is important to viacom and cbs shareholders as redstone still reports both of the companies. and sherry redstone had been in discussions or he wanted to pay her $1 billion for her 20% stake in national amusements to effectively buyout the daughter which is a complicated conversation to have with your father. >> he needed the pay like big tax bills. >> there's going to be tax bills. >> two women are now suing him. who want more money. >> that's another piece of it but i believe the conversation with sherry was one over control. also according to that article sherry has a separate, so-called secret deal such that he becomes the chairman of cbs once and if she were to be in charge. but all is just speculation. >> she has been a strange -- >> but apparently now spending lots of time with him. >> got rid of the girlfriends. i think the tape we're showing is a couple of years old. saw a picture of him. he looked great in 2012 or 13 or so. in tech news a lot of focus on apple right now. it's hard for me to talk about this with a straight face because there are actually analysts now that are noticing that maybe the move to a trillion dollars isn't in the birth right of the company. they're on track now. the shares are. for the worst month in nearly two years. down about 10%. the market cap now 598 billion. so under 600. i wish i had written down the names of all the genius analysts that i've argued with over the past year about apple but this morning, they're cutting the price target to 130. i don't want to tell them that it's at 107. but coming down from 135. it's a start. it's at least a start. the stock remains rated market perform. it doesn't matter. they're all the same. yeah. but maybe some day -- i don't know -- i wouldn't come on if i were some of the analysts that were so sure that the revenue stream would never be interrupted. there could never be anyone else that makes any type of mouse trap that could compete and now all i hear is that they're desperately trying to find a new revenue stream other than iphone sales. >> did you watch the 60 minutes piece? >> no. >> no, because you were at the -- >> yeah, sweet 16. it was not my party but -- >> blake. happy birthday blake. >> yeah. it's coming up but it was a sweet 16 party. but the rangers did not cooperate. we ended the game after the first period. they were winning 3-1. when he been cheering and forget about those six goals scored by the capitals in the next two periods. lundqvist is like swiss cheese suddenly. i mean, i think if you pay people, like harrison ford getting paid too much money. too much money. >> no way. >> we're going to talk about that in shares. tease that. we're going to talk about that in shares. >> i did see how much he's making. do you know how much he made for the first one? 10,000 dollars. he's awesome. the movie was great. >> i did see it. >> you didn't see it? >> not yet. it will happen. >> it's a holiday tie. >> is this red? >> i'm doing some more christmas wear later this week. you have to watch out. >> i'm ready. i'm allergic. and i start googling it today, warm weather and ragweed which has always been a problem, supposedly it's everywhere. >> climate change is not your friend. >> climate change. i'm being effected by climate change. now i might need to ask viewers for some help because i had been using claratin-d. i couldn't get it. because i'm walter white. i'm going to start snorting it or something. i asked the pharmacist and they got me two over the counter things and put them together. like a zyrtec without d. >> they checked your license. >> because i had bought it. >> how about allegra-d? >> i couldn't get the d anything. >> you're locked out. >> penelope can guy it. >> but clait's not working anym. >> it's only every 7 to 12 years. >> do i need allegra or zyrtec? >> you need a allergist to tell you. >> we digress. a check on the markets the morning. let's look at europe and the early trading there. you'll see that things are relatively flat. ftse is up by .2% at this point but you're looking at modest gains. relatively flat for the dax and in asia overnight the nikkei was slightly weaker and slight gains for the hang seng and shanghai composites. check out the ten year note. the yield is sitting at 2.2%. just above that level. if you want to take a look at the dollar this morning. you'll see that the dollar is down against both the euro and the yen. euro at 109.26. finally gold prices at this point look like they are down by about $3. $1,076 an ounce t. big news though is what the oil market has been doing so we'll continue to watch that very closely today. joining us right now is john. he is senior market strategist at morgan stanley wealth management. also chris who is chief financial economist at bank of tokyo mitsubishi. thank you for being here. >> it's good to be here. >> let's talk about the market. at this point we're looking at stocks being down for the year. big turn from what we had seen the four trading years before that and a lot of people saying this is what we can get used to for 2016. do you think that's the case? >> it could be. look, we still have a little bit of time left, right? so we may have an end of year rally. usually the second half of december turns out to be better than the first half of december. so i'm still holding out a little bit of hope. i do believe in santa claus but we could end the year slightly up but i think next year could be a better year than this year. if you look at global gdp we went through a really rough time in 2015. that's reflected in the s&p and the high yield market and the oil market and i think we'll get a rebound just by calendar effects next year. oil may be up slightly and the dollar may be flat and company earnings in the u.s. could do better next year than this year. so i think up better than this year. not a great year but better than this year. >> let's talk about interest rates christ because what happens next year is really anybody's guess. this morning larry sommers lays out his premise where he thinks the rates in the united states will remain lower for longer than the fed ex pekted. goldman sachs has a different view. they expect the fed to hike a quarter point every quarter on twice the pace that the market is currently discounted. >> i think four times. bernanke left the building and left us with the idea that when they go they'll raise rates. not 200 like greenspan. it's been out there for a long time. i hope sommers view doesn't win out. i don't think this idea that there's secular stagnation and not enough deman, it's nonsense. if the fed was doing their policy off of 18 million car sales, business cap ex is extremely high. higher than the last cycle. even with mining and drilling and oil and gas drilling down it's still high. the fed funds rate should be at neutral now. >> spreads are blowing out worse than since 2008 and the next move is going to be qe. >> yeah, i don't know where this got going. >> why would the fed -- >> you have to be a professional. >> it's the european banks they're talking about. >> i know but the bill market is a little bit crazy right now. >> you lasted two days. >> but they have nothing. they have to reset the only tool that works. >> cut. it's not 5%. that's not a real unemployment number. >> everything. >> jack welch was here last week and he raised some real issues. >> i get this all the time. they are like why doesn't it feel good out there. i think it's a baby boom generation. >> jack welch looks at the stronger dollar which is hurting all kinds of exports. the entire 20% of the s&p that are reliant on energy prices that have gotten crushed. what do you do with that? >> that's a problem. that's a high flying sector. commodity, there's a boom bust cycle. we're just looking for crude oil to bottom. >> they're bond traders. they're long. they think the world sending. >> because we're in trouble. because you get this contagion effect in the high yield market. you see it spread a little bit where not only a high yield company is having trouble financing and telecom companies so that would be a bad scenario. i don't think that occurs. if we touch it we touch it briefly and go up from that. it's only 3 million barrels. we grew demand by 1.8 million barrels a day. you can close that gap quickly and this consensus view of oil is going to stay low for longer is probably a sign of being near the bottom. part is the change in mutual fund rules so if you want to be able to maintain you have to own treasury securities so you have the supply demand coming into the market. the multiple layers of leverage in the market it's not a banking crisis. it is an energy crisis right now. >> by the way, the euro dollar part of the spread is discounting a fed rate hike in march. so it's not like a disaster se in a yore. they're looking for rates to go up in march. >> do you think, john, that just in terms of stock prices even though you don't think we're at the verge of a disaster, you don't think stocks are cheap here? >> cheap versus bonds. it's comparable to 16 times forward pe back in 1982 when interest rates or the cost of capital was 10% plus for a lot of companies. >> you think there's room for expansion. >> there's room for expansion and earnings growth. so our forecast is 4% next year but there's upside potential on that if the dollar stabilizes. >> john, chris, great to see you both. thank you for coming in. >> coming up when we return it's going to be a white christmas, at least out west. a mix of wind and winter weather slamming areas like lake tahoe to washington state. we got a live report from the weather channel straight ahead but first waas we head to a bre, here's a look back at this date in history. ♪ while you're watching this, i'm hacking your company. grabbing your data. stealing your customers' secrets. there's an army of us. relentlessly unpicking your patchwork of security. think you'll spot us? ♪ you haven't so far. the next wave of the internet requires the next wave of security. we're ready. are you? >> a mix of wind and winter weather from lake tahoe to washington state. snowy conditions causing big traffic delays on major highways and blizzard conditions making travel treacherous into northern california and then in idaho the valley county sheriff's office is encouraging people to stay home because of the weather. sounds like great skiing. now to the national weather forecast, kate parker joins us from the weather channel, good morning. >> good morning. let's look at what we're talking about here. just a mess of travel for entire east coast. look at all problems that we have. 95 corridor is going to be a soaker. 80 going to be a problem and 90 being the problem. we have the rain in the forecast. tomorrow we continue with the showers. you won't see as much of it in maine. in the south it's another story. we're talking about blinding downpours and potential for severe weather. big problems for us right? watch this. along i-10 we can see the strong thunderstorms today. those stretch farther north into atlantic. thunderstorm is the big day for severe weather. this is where we could see the potential for tornadoes in addition to damaging winds not to mention the fact that we could see very heavy downpours that will cause ponding on the roads so you definitely have to take your time if you're traveling on this holiday. it's going to be great along i-35 today. no problems for you heading north from dallas to wichita across 70 until you get to the front range. that's where you start to see problems as we still have a winter storm in the west guys. so a lot of travel trouble. >> kate, thank you very much. let's switch gears to politics. candidates are out in iowa, new hampshire, tennessee, arkansas and south carolina today. nbc's tracie potts joins us with a look at how republicans are increasingly targeting hillary clinton. >> well and there's a reason for that. on the democrat side she is out in front by 25% right now. so clinton is finding herself in the cross hairs not just of donald trump but of several republicans. >> donald trump in a blue state focussing on hillary clinton. >> he's a liar. >> on lindsey graham dropping out. >> and the new attack on the media. >> i hate him. >> jeb bush, a frequent target of trump. >> his family is so ashamed. >> bush says it's not funny anymore. >> bush too taking aim at clinton saying we're making the right moves against isis. >> no we're not. we're not in the right place. >> chris christie tells new hampshire his party needs to focus on clinton and not on each other. >> i'm saving my brawn for september of 2016 because it's going to be my job to make sure that hillary clinton doesn't get within ten miles of the white house. >> marco rubio also drawing distinctions between democrats and republicans. >> the democratic party is controlled today by radical elements that lean to the left that want to see more government control over our economy and our lives. >> the top democrats are in iowa where voters will decide in just six weeks. >> today dr. ben carson is in south carolina where he'll go after the southern conservatives that just found out less than 24 hours agatha their home state candidate won't be on the ballot because he's dropping out of the race. >> just a couple of weeks ago we were saying that the campaigns would go into quite mode as we got toward the holidays. is that not the case this year? >> not yet. maybe over the next week or so but they have a little more time than they normally have. earlier in the past we've seen the iowa caucuses, and new hampshire primaries in january. this year we're talking february 1 and mid february so they have a little bit more time after the holiday to campaign than they normally would. >> thank you for joining us. >> so they did the debate again on saturday. 7 million viewers. the next debate, there's two nfl playoff games. >> are you in bernie sanders camp. >> here's what i was going to say about bernie sanders. and god bless bernie and i would never discriminate against age. especially me because everybody is living longer but reagan got hammered for being the oldest president ever to take office and he was 69 years old. bernie sanders right now is 74. he would be the first president ever to assume office at 75 years of age. if he served out his term he would be in the early 80s by the time he was finished. so you have this big fight on the democratic side between hillary clinton and a 74-year-old socialist and she is winning though. she is winning. so you got to hand it to her. >> i thought you were making a different argument. >> but why is it there is no talk -- reagan was too old. he was 76. >> there is no debate though. >> we just heard wow she widened her lead to 25 points. he's a horse. there she goes. >> nobody is -- >> she's winning -- >> why even have the debates? >> that's my point. >> you hide them on a saturday night. >> that's what bernie sanders says. that's where i thought you were going for it. >> the whole party is trying to get her elected. >> it looks like they should toughen up for the general. >> it is a core nation. but i like that we still talk about it. >> when we come back this morning, republican presidential hopeful rick santorum will join us live. the issues he is pushing on the campaign trail, next. first as we head to a break take a look at yesterday's s&p 500 winners and losers. ♪ my language skills, i've read all of your lyrics. you've read all of my lyrics? i can read 800 million pages per second. that's fast. my analysis shows your major themes are that time passes. and love fades. that sounds about right. i have never known love. maybe we should write a song together. i can sing. you can sing? do be bop. be bop do. do be do be do. do do do be do. ♪ welcome back, everybody. let's get you up to speed on the markets. check out what's happening with the u.s. equity futures. they're higher this morning. looks like the dow futures upright now. s&p futures up about 5.5 points. the nasdaq is up by 13.5. the big story is oil prices. you can see that wti is up by 21 cents. it's back above $36 barrel but that's probably because the contract rolled overnight. you're looking at a february contract verses the january. every time it rolls we have seen it pick up steam. brent at this point, that's at 36.45. and jobs with the cost. a contract manufacturing deal is expected to be announced during the annual consumer electronics show in las vegas in early january. google is currently testing small bubble shaped prototype vehicles that it designed. more coming up at the top of the next hour. >> the field of republican presidential can bait hopefuls is one candidate smaller. our next guest on the campaign to join us now from washington presidential candidate rick santorum says it's good to see you. he decided this wasn't going to be his time. he didn't see a viable path. do you still see a viable path for yourself to eventually be the nominee? >> absolutely. i go back again to four years ago i was sitting at 3 or 4 nkt aiowa in a field half the size of this field and we were able to come back and i just remind everybody that 75% didn't decide until the last week and that will be a higher number this year and our favorable numbers are strong in iowa. we're continuing every week to pick up more volunteers to represent us and build out our grass root networks so ian gattis pate this race changing between now and february 1st and i plan to be the beneficiary of that change. >> so if you finish, you know, way down in iowa, would then it become a more clear to you that it's probably not your time? >> yeah, you know. i have never believed very much in polls and polling. particularly caucuses so i don't pay much attention to those. we continue to work hard and if things don't turn out, four years ago we ran until we cone run anymore. until the money couldn't come in and we din have a viable path and we'll make that decision when the time comes but we'll do well in iowa and we'll do well to come. >> a lot of candidates, if it's not you, would you venture an opinion what type of candidate you think is in the best position? besides yourself which of the ones would give hillary clinton a run for the money. >> well, you know, look, i'd support any of the republican candidates over hillary clinton so i don't have a favorite in the race except yours truly. i'm going to focus on the issues that brought me into the race. i wrote a book called blue collar conservatives talking about how we have to get the 74% of americans an opportunity to rise. it's important to provide hope. democracy itself, it's one of the things you're seeing trump doing is people are losing faith and in our institutions and they're tired of all of this political correctness. and i'm going to continue to articulate that message. >> senator, you talk about trump and the appeal that he has as an outcider. not politically correct but then you see these comments that he makes for example about hilary yesterday. what do you make of that? >> you know, i think he has reached the point where there's nothing he can say that's going to arouse anymore outrage. maybe it will outrage people on the left but now all of that is just trump and i don't know if there's much more you can say about that other than the fact that in the end the people in iowa who i had a lot of faith in, i think they're going to look seriously about who is a viable candidate going forward and winning this race and i'm hopeful at that point that, you know, sort of level heads will prevail and this seems like the year of somebody with no experience and no vision and no policy is the person that is going to be the nominee. that is not necessarily going to happen in the end. >> tell us what's going on behind the scenes in terms of money ball in politic which is is to say once we get through iowa you have to imagine there will be a shake out. i'm wondering how you think the money is going to split among those that remain and sort of the jock i ceying on ahead of t. they're going to wait and see who is real. all of these polls are great but until people start voting none of it is real and four years ago when we came out of nowhere and won the iowa caucuses, i raised as much money the next day as i did the previous year. just to give you an idea of how money will automatically turn on once they realize who is the real candidate that can actually get votes and win elections. so i have no doubt that we'll be successful in iowa. but have no doubt just like four years i finished second. i wasn't given credit for beating rom any but still had a huge influx of money and that will be the case this time around. >> the other candidate versus been moved on imgags to where they change their stance on amnesty. will he win the general election if he takes a real hard line and says people have to go back and we have to secure the border. can that person win a majority? >> i think it depends on how you approach the issue. when i wrote this book last year i focused the whole campaign on making sure that it can climb and the reality is that wages have gone up at a slower rate than in history. it's supply and demand. >> you're saying that someone can get elected if they say everyone has to go back and no path for citizenship if for people that came here illegally. >> you have 12 million people, most of whom are wage earners and competing against jobs and americans and you have illegal immigran immigrants. >> it's more of a problem you have. >> i know a lot of folks that listen to the show say we need more workers. except if you're a worker that see the wages not go up. that's one of the reasons that it's so hot right now. it's low paying wage jobs. >> all right senator. see you again soon. >> thank you. >> coming up, hot toys, must have gadgets. apparel all known as traditional items on holiday wish lists. but how about a huge donald trump head or life sized storm trooper. we'll talk about that next. it's hard to find time to keep up on my shows. that's why i switched from u-verse to xfinity. now i can download my dvr recordings and take them anywhere. ready or not, here i come! (whispers) now hide-and-seek time can also be catch-up-on-my-shows time. here i come! can't find you anywhere! don't settle for u-verse. x1 from xfinity will change the way you experience tv. while you're watching this, i'm hacking your company. grabbing your data. stealing your customers' secrets. there's an army of us. relentlessly unpicking your patchwork of security. think you'll spot us? ♪ you haven't so far. the next wave of the internet requires the next wave of security. we're ready. are you? welcome back. it's down to the wire for christmas shopper with three days until the big day. the ceo of fat head joins us in detroit with a look at the holiday sales. good morning to you. >> good morning, andrew. >> so we have some of these fat heads. we have a lot of the political fat heads around and one of the things that's so fascinating about your business is historically you managed to through the sales predict who was going to win the election apparently. >> absolutely. so in the past two elections our fat head sales have actually been a leading indicator. so in '08 obama outsold mccain and in '12, obama outsold romney. right now trump is outselling hilary 3-1. >> and are you -- is that a prediction then? are we putting that on the table? >> well, you know what, fat head sales leading indicator, have to put it on the table. >> there was something else too? it was cups or mugs or something? i've seen this indicator before. not with fat heads. do you know what i'm talking about? >> oh t mugs? no i'm not sure. >> there was another indicator. so i'm google it. but it's mcginnis. is that the name? >> yes. >> biggest seller right now ahead of the christmas holiday season now or now the holiday itself? >> well, our top seller right now is star wars. got my buddy behind me here kilo ren leading the way and also darth vader which is old school star wars is doing well. and steph curry with the golden state warriors. he's doing well and lebron is behind him. >> is it the lifesized ones that sell the most or the heads themselves? which are the biggest sellers? >> the lifesize fat heads are the largest sellers. what you have is called a stand out. we'd love for you to put up the life sized fat heads but you don't have enough wall space in studio but the life size are the ones that sell the most and when you put them on the wall, they look real. they're coming off the wall right at you. >> what's the price point on one of these? >> price point is $100. but right now we're obviously running a large amount of sales right now. we have 50% off hundreds of door busters. >> patrick, who is your basic client? who is your customer? >> so our customer right now is female and average age is 35 to a4. that's our core purchaser. our core user is 4 to 18 and again female is trending right now. >> so the moms are buying them for their kids in other words. >> that's it. moms and grandmothers are out shopping for the kids. >> so the other question i had was licensing which is to say, how much of a fee on any of the star wars stuff do you have to pay to disney and and is there a minimal licensing fee or no? >> it's public domain. for disney we pay on average about 10%. >> okay. what about sports? same thing? >> if you average out all of our licenses we're in that range of around 10%. >> real quick, one final question, how much is being sold online and on mobile? >> sure, about 75% of our business is online. and right now we're doing about 35% of that is on mobile. so mobile is definitely trending right now. it's about 60% of our traffic. >> wow. okay. patrick, happy holidays. >> thank you. same to you. >> thank you for making those fat heads. we still have our fat heads. do you remember? >> you ordered another one. wanted it for a christmas present. >> of you. >> yeah, my wife. no, somebody else. 7-eleven does it too. >> the coffee cups. >> but it was something else. coming up, the paycheck awakens. a report suggests that harrison ford was paid 76 times as much as his star wars co-stars. not quite ceo multiples but stay tuned. you're watching squawk box on cnbc. first in business worldwide. i asked my dentist if an electric toothbrush was going to clean better than a manual? he said sure. but don't get just any one. get one inspired by dentists. with a round brush head. go pro with oral-b. oral-b's rounded brush head cups your teeth to break up plaque and rotates to sweep it away. and oral-b delivers a clinically proven superior clean versus sonicare diamondclean. my mouth feels super clean. oral-b know you're getting a superior clean. i'm never going back to a manual brush. okay. harrison ford, you saw "star wars," bought the tickets, reserved them, but there's -- it's not difficult to see this movie, is it? >> no. >> the thing is, andrew's right. nobody else is making money because every theater is showing this. it was a showing every half hour. >> right. there's, like -- >> nothing else. >> the plexs have ten theaters. >> numbers do not surprise me. if you're going to the movies, this is what you see. >> how much was harrison ford in the me movie? >> earned every penny. >> gets $25 million. >> 24. >> they said it was too high. >> he bets .05% of the gross. >> of the gross. >> i think it was the gross. >> the way they figure out gross is messed up. >> it's, like, zero. >> you know, i think everybody in the movie does it. jj abrams gets 2%, and new stars get some percentage after the movie gets passed a billion dollars, which, inevitably, it's going to do. everybody's doing -- remember which is what they did. he took a percentage. he's unavailable for new roles, but he made a fortune as a result of the deal cult. they didn't pay anybody in the beginning. first one, ford made ten grand. >> there are not any other really big named stars. >> fisher's in it. >> who? >> 76 times the other -- >> needed him because he ties it. my generation is there because of the older guys there. >> dropping the bucket on a relative basis. >> you had found another way to plug your column today. this is a totally unique way of, again -- >> yes. >> it's amazing. >> i try. >> they need it. they need it. >> thank you. no, no, no. i wanted to comment, less about -- i wrote today about greenfield, only analyst on wall street who wants to sell disney, but he came on air yesterday and came on our air on "squawk on the street" on friday, and if you remember, we had a conversation about whether he was calling iger a liar saying he had come on our air on our show and said, or at least he was saying was he could make espn, unbundle espn and sell it alla cart, and it's fine. that's what it seemed like he was suggesting. however, i went back to read the tape, read the transcripts. i would say to his credit he was straightforward saying it was inevidenten they would go ala cart and over the cart eventually, but not tomorrow. and probably not for five to ten years, maybe sooner, i don't know. i think there's a huge challenge when and if that happens. it opens up the system that all the things rich says are true to an extent in terms of the challenges they face, but it's not clear that they face them tomorrow in the way he seemed to suggest in this report where he downgraded the stock to $90 a share. the stock trading at $160. >> even with the numbers for "star wars," it went down yesterday. >> it did. there's amazing comps, and the film business -- and rich is long about this, long term, once you are past 2017, it's hard to see espn growing in a significant way, and so then, basically, every film has to exceed at the same level. >> another "star wars" every other year. >> in the movie business, it's inconsistent. can you nail it every time? >> right. >> that's the question. >> nbc universal has the same issue this year. >> right. >> what i didn't agree with is what if you don't like football or all sports or, what if, you know, you're not paying for it if you don't like nfl. that's a stretch. >> that was my deal yesterday too. >> people now, for example, on hbo, showtime, over the top services, where during "game of thrones" season, they will, buy it for three months and cancel when it's over. the question is, if you're a football guy, you do that just for a season. >> even, in my household, i'm not that type, but some are. >> most people watching football, they watch college football, nfl. >> basketball. >> college basketball. and then they are watching masters, watching -- well, that's not espn. >> we have to go. best story read all weekend, how i escaped vietnam, nothing to do with anything, but i read it in the times and wanted to tell you about it. ♪ today, we're seeing new technologies make healthcare more personal with patient-centric, digital innovations; from self-monitoring devices that can interpret personal data and enable targeted care, to cloud platforms that invite providers to collaborate with the patients they serve. that's why over 90% of the top 25 global pharmaceutical companies are turning to cognizant. our domain experts, technologists, digital and data specialists, clinicians and scientists are transforming the way clinical research sites collaborate with pharmaceutical companies, and enhancing patient engagement with innovative platforms and solutions. our population's growing healthcare needs present growing opportunities for our clients: to advance the future of medicine with digital, and improve the quality of lives. ♪ we heard you got a job as a developer!!!!! its official, i work for ge!! what? 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(whispers) now hide-and-seek time can also be catch-up-on-my-shows time. here i come! can't find you anywhere! don't settle for u-verse. x1 from xfinity will change the way you experience tv. while you're watching this, i'm hacking your company. grabbing your data. stealing your customers' secrets. there's an army of us. relentlessly unpicking your patchwork of security. think you'll spot us? ♪ you haven't so far. the next wave of the internet requires the next wave of security. we're ready. are you? apple under pressure, stock on track for two years, down 10%, read on head winds for apple. >> more trouble for chipotle. the cdc investigates a new e.coli strain linked to the chain. scares straight ahead. warm winters are tough on those who count on sales, but warm december gives other a boost. hot portfolio picks for warm winters as the second hour of "squawk box" begins right now. ♪ live from the beating heart of business, new york city, this is "squawk box." washington, d.c. for christmas. >> or new york city. >> first in business, worldwide, i'm joe with becky and andrew, and breaking overnight, a spacex rocket blasting off from florida, and it stuck the landing. the rocket delivered six communication satellites into orbit and returned to cape canaveral in florida where it successfully completed the first rocket landing and first time a booster rocket returned in ticket. previous attempts to land on floating platforms have failed, and i guarantee that the people cheering all have probably engineering and science degrees, and -- >> you know, i watched that -- >> to the easy to get that done. >> the right stuff. awesome. >> great, isn't it? >> all the guys lined up in the control sent e just like that. yeah. >> that's true. >> watched that 25 times. >> yeah. this is a private sector victory and accomplishment, but i'm telling you, they know a lot about math, these people. i read one of the guys was trying to describe what it was like. like, trying to land something on a postage stamp. launched off the empire state building and land it on the stamp in the wind. >> right. >> very, very cool. >> watching last night them saving everything, figuring out how to do a scrubber, putting together and ripping off the flight pan cover and wrapping it in cellophane to six things. there's too much c02 -- >> way are you talking about? >> not the right stuff, but apollo 13. >> i've seen the right stuff. >> ed harris is there. >> is he? >> control room. >> astronaut in the first one? >> yeah. >> really? i know he's a chain smoker. >> yes. among the other top stories this today, a flood of economic data on today's calendar. 8:30 eastern time, final read on gdp, and at 10:00, the home survey. equities, wow, given back the gains, s&p futures flat as well as the dow and naz dang. it's a big day for shopping and shipping. ups predicts to deliver 36 million packages today, the busiest 24 ours of the year. if you have not finished, prime says its consumers have until midnight tonight to order and have packages arrive by christmas eve. more trouble for chipotle, a new strain linked to the chain. five more people became sick after eating at chipotle. the new case was in kansas, north dakota, and oklahoma. the cdc says it's up clear now whether they are related to the earlier outbreak. this outbreak took place i believe in november. check out the shares. dropping to a 17 month low to down nearly 20% at the end of the october when the food safety issues were reported. talking to an analyst in ten minutes. are investors following the crowd with the year end stock picks? dom joins us now from the headquarters. >> good morning, becky. you real in august, august 6, beginning of august, we asked viewers, tweeters, and cnbc.com readers to weigh in on which stocks they thought were good bargains to buy the rest of the year in dow stocks that were then in correction territories. remember, we put a bracket challenge up, matchups together, apple in there, intel, exxon, caterpillar, ibm, amex, procter & gamble, and walmart. through all that sourcing and voting, you picked apple overwhelmingly to be the best stock pick in a time the dow pick took a dip the rest of the year. we wanted to see if the crowd was right on this trade because apple was the overwhelming pick. applefuls not the best pick to buy on the dip for the rest of the year, not until now. look at the performance of eight components since the august 6 close. intel up 18% just from that date, august 6 to today. see how it finishes the year. procter & gamble, the only other winner among eight stocks, up 4%. apple down 7%. the overwhelming pick there. amex down 9, ibn down 1 p 3%, and caterpillar and walmart lagging here from then until today. the interesting part, guys, is that intel, procter & gamble, and dow industrials, again, the only two stocks doing okay in this particular competition here, and they were marginally higher, shares of procter & gamble. intel the big winner, i will say there is something in common here. the animalyst picks, apple has e highest average target price. if you follow fact set and look at analyst targets, andrew, analysts believe the stock could rise 37% over the next 12-18 months, far and way way bigger than any other projected rise of the stocks, guys. >> thank you, dom, for that. meantime, more on the markets as investors count down to christmas and the new year. richard bernstein is here, head of u.s. equity and quantitative strategy at bank of america, and good morning to you. you are sitting next to me, looking through the notes, and you say do the opposite of what's worked for the last 30 years. >> yea. >> what's that mean? >> what's that mean? so here we are. we're at the end of a 30-year cycle of falling interest rates, easy monetary policy, massive stimulus. rich on the screen can corroborate this. he taught me everything i know. he was the first to hire me from business schools. worked with him for eight years. great to be here with him. >> great connection. >> great connection. we've been in the thirty-year bull market, and the next cycle will be the opposite of that. think about the fed, they are unwining massive credit caption carries created over the last ten years of unprecedented liquidity. you want to buy everything that did not work over the last 30 years, and here's what i mean. just take what -- what was the biggest lagger over 30 years? big, boring cash rich u.s. companies. emerging markets out performed markets, credit outperformed equity, and it's basically rewrite the playbook. >> like the seinfeld approach. >> exactly. do the opposite. george castanza, doing opposite of i think stipgts, gets a job and girlfriend, works out great. >> rich, what do you think of your protege and view of the world? >> that's right. i have not thought of it in 30 years, but in a ten to 20 year time frame, i agree. as the credit bubble inflated from 1998-2008, it was all credit related asset classes. it was everything from emerging markets to commodities to housing to hedge funds to private equity. they are all credit related asset classes. since 2008, when the global credit bubble deflated, all the credit related asset classes underperformed plain old fashioned stocks. what's interesting is that people are still waiting for credit related asset classes to come back to life. my guess is everybody watching the show right now is probably agreeing with the statement that the global credit bubble is deflating, then my question would be, well, why have an interest in credit-related asset classes? >> okay. talk names them. >> yeah. you got specific names you like? >> well, you know, i think that one of the areas that fit the seam is pig cap technology, a sector or a sub sector we've liked for a long time. here's the reason i like it. >> that's grown. >> it's done well, but i think it's just in the early stage, so a little known fact, they are trading at rock bottom multiples relative over the last couple decades now, so they are still super cheap, growing dividends, and i think that that's the number one reason you want to own stocks, so here we are, we've got -- >> you're just going to live in a dividend world? >> well, we're going to live in a nuanced dividend world. >> okay. >> don't bayou tillties and high dividen dividends, but growth. rates at lowest levels sign. yield is still very scarce. do you want to buy bonds when interest rates are rising? not really, right? what do you buy? stocks that have inflation protected dividends yield. >> right. >> that what i think tech offers. >> talking about the u.s. equities, buying europe now? talk about things that have not worked. >> i would buy europe making sure i hedge currency. you know, i think there's a lot of people out there right now that are talking about europe out performing and europe doing well. don't fight the ecb. that's absolutely true. in local terms, europe is out performing the united states year to date, but in dollar terms, it's under performing. in fact, in dollar terms, it's under performing japan so it's the worst of the big three developed regions in dollar terms. there's interesting things going on in europe. hedge currency, same with japan. hedges outside the united states right now, number one issue is hedging the currency. >> how do you allocate u.s. against the rest of the world? just allocating 12 months? >> the s&p. own the s&p. >> hold on, s&p? >> u.s. over the rest of the world. >> everyone thinks if just owning an index, i thought everyone thought it would be a lousy year. you told me to do the opposite of what to do. >> the s&p lagged other major k, like, emerging markets, and other benchmarks. s&p is great place. >> because we went nowhere this year? >> we've had a pretty strong, you know, seven year track record, but if you think about the s&p within context of, again, 30-year credit expansion period, the s&p is not the best place to be. you want to be in smaller cap stocks and i think there's other asset classes. i'm not bullish on the s&p, but i think it's going to be a relative winner. i think you're going to suffer losses in other areas of the market. >> rich, in the george world, what do you do with oil? >> what do you do with oil? well, i think the amazing thing about the energy sector is that i think it was actually in a bubble. people always talk about the fed distorting the economy. energy was one sector that was completely distorted. nobody cares because we're benefitting from lower energy costs, but i think it's going to be a very long drawn out process for the energy sector to consolidate. there's a ton and a half of money sitting on the sidelines waiting to invest in, quote, distressed energy. what that does is stymy the consolidation of the sector. i think this is going to be a long drawn out area, and i don't think people have caught on yet. i think people think it's temporary. even the fed thinks it's temporary k talking about how the falling energy prices is transient. that's the word they are using. nobody is believing what's going on in energy could be a major issue for a number of years. >> okay. you mean like google? apple? amazon? you don't mean ibm. >> i do. >> you'd buy ibm? are they tech anymore? i don't know what it is. the old tech is not tech. >> i leave it up to the fundamental analyst to tell me good and bad ones, -- >> hp snrks. >> the whole gamet. some might go away, but other companies are going to be around in ten years are paying a dividend throw off cash. i actually wouldn't own, you know, the so-called fame stocks -- >> facebook? no? >> i think that the risk is they are super expensive. everybody owns them. >> okay. i just wonder what you meant by tech. barely tech. >> well, tech is barely tech. there's consumer tech, industrial tech. it's a weird sector, but big cap cash rich dividend growth tech stocks fill the profile we're looking for. >> okay. leaving it there. rich, thank you. >> thank you. >> sure, thanks. >> happy holidays, every. >> in the headlines this morning, google in talks with ford on autonomous cars. phil lebeau is joining us now for details on the story. ford's going to help google with that little thing that there's no way you could fit in one of those things, phil? >> well, i think it's a mutual partnership. i've talked to people who have confirmed for cnbc there are discussions going on between google and ford. this story was first reported last night by yahoo! auto, the deal will be announced at consumer electronic shows, but others say there's not a deal announced, but discussions. we could see the relatively near future. why do they consider partnering up? accelerating development of autonomous driving vehicles would supposedly be a stand alone entity, not a ford or google or alphabet company, but stand alone company because you got the liability issues and question of who is responsible of an accident, and question is whether or not we'll see it announced in the next couple weeks in the consumer electron igs show. why would ford and google look to each other and say, hey, it makes sense, let's get together. look from each company's perspective. ford brings manufacturing exper teesz. i've been to google, see where they manufacturing the pod cars and they modifieied vehicles. it's a nice entity for 50, 75 vehicles, but not mass manufacturing. that's what ford brings to the table. google is the most advanced of the companies out there working on autonomous drive technology. you bring the two together. perhaps you can accelerate very quickly the development of autonomous drive vehicles. mark fields, ceo of ford, has been very aggressive since the company opened up a research and development facility last year in the silicon valley about saying, look, we need to move quicker when it comes to mobility issues. particularly autonomous drive vehicles. this partnership would clearly be a step in that direction, and one important note, guys, as you look at shares of ford as well as alphabet, parent of google, this is not an exclusive relationship. if they partner up, they'll both be working with other companies, google works with other auto makers in the future, and ford works with other tech companies in the future, but this is the next step of what we'll see between traditional auto makers and tech companies coming together when it comes to autonomous drive vehicles. >> we're going to be sitting around, phil, you know, really not driving, and there's going to be, like, like, the sky's like almost dark with drones, and it's going to be a weird world. i just -- like, 2020, what we talking about here? >> joe, have you been in autonomous drive vehicle, joe? >> every day i have -- oh, it doesn't drive itself. >> no, no, no. i'm not talking about your world where jeeve s is driving you. >> no, i have not. have you? >> once you get in one, you realize it is remarkably comfortable once you're behind the wheel. i know it sounds like a science project to a lot of people, but once behind the wheel of the autonomous drive vehicle -- i've done the google car and others, it's natural. i said it before, it's like an extension of cruise control. i know people sit there say, but how do you know it's not going to crash? i tested auto pilot in new york a couple months ago, after five minutes, you gain trust that the vehicle knows what it's doing on the road. >> so then why shouldn't i short uber if it comes public, phil? >> well, uber will play with autonomous drive vehicles. they won't need drivers. >> move into the -- where you call and some car would come -- >> long ways from that, joe. you need vehicles that will talk to each other and there are always beginning to be millions of vehicles for at least the next two to three decades, there's millions of vehicles out on the road that will not be able to community kate with the smart vehicles manufactured. you're going to have people driving vehicles. >> wind powered vehicled. >> suvs. >> okay. all right. see you later, thanks. >> when we come back today, more trouble for chipotle. the restaurant linked to another outbreak of e.coli. restaurant analysts join us next. playbook for the next year, a slow down for apple, will the auto sector keep good times rolling in 2016? "squawk box" will be right back. ♪ i built my business with passion. but i keep it growing by making every dollar count. that's why i have the spark cash card from capital one. i earn unlimited 2% cash back on everything i buy for my studio. ♪ and that unlimited 2% cash back from spark means thousands of dollars each year going back into my business... that's huge for my bottom line. what's in your wallet? came out today thousands of people to run the race for retirement. so we asked them... are you completely prepared for retirement? okay, mostly prepared? could you save 1% more of your income? it doesn't sound like much, but saving an additional 1% now, could make a big difference over time. i'm going to be even better about saving. you can do it, it helps in the long run. prudential bring your challenges it's gotten squarer. over the years. brighter. bigger. it's gotten thinner. even curvier. but what's next? for all binge watchers. movie geeks. sports freaks. x1 from xfinity will change the way you experience tv. welcome back, cdc investigates another outbreak linked to the chipotle mexican grill in three states, not included in the outbreak that started in october. the company said we indicate the before we may see more cases stemming from this, and cdc reports some additional cases. since this began, we have completed a comprehensive reassessment of the food safety programs with an eye to finding best practices for each of the ingredients used with all of these programs in place. we are confident that we can achieve a level of food safety risk that is near zero. last week on "mad money," the co-ceo and founder told jim cramer that chipotle is safe. >> we visited the farms, cdc was on the farm, epidemiologist was on the farm, and we could not pinpoint it to a certain location. i will say, though, that we can assure you today that there is no e.coli in chipotle. we have thoroughly tested our food, thoroughly tested our as far as -- surfaces. it's a safe place to eat. >> all of the statements made in the media blitz last week sound hollower after release. it happened in late november between november 18th and 26th, but better very a victory lap after we heard everything, correct? >> good way to look at it. they indicated more releases from the cdc but between the boston incident on the pth and latest news from the cdc, this is probably a lot worse than the company expected, putting up the fourth quarter guidance put pout at risk at this point. >> i will add myth this past weekend, went with my daughter, and i said, don't worry about it, the food's safe. i have second thoughts. what happened? >> that's right. i think when you have multiple incidents, i think that's when the customer is less forgiving about the scenarioin, and it hi consciousness at that point. since the announcement after the guidance, you are talking about possibly mid-teen declines in same store sales opposed to negative. eps for the quarter they talked about, that's at risk. it's a matter of not meeting the guidance laid out there, but how bad it will be for the fourth quarter now. >> means you do what with the stock? >> i think it's tough to get into ahead of the news, it's worse than people expect, but after the dust settles, we get the numbers, it it's worth a look. recovery starts at that point, a six to nine month recovery period as long as you have expectations of negative comps in the full year of 2016, restaurant margin pressures, you know, as long as you expect that, you're okay going into it. i think the company still has some recovery left ahead of them here. >> you got a price target of 575, even though that stock's down at $5 now? >> yes, the target's based on long term, and i assume the company has it rough in 2016, but a bounce back in 2017. there's a lot of things working for them, utilizing catering orders, that could be a big opportunity for the company. i think you're going to see the markets of the other brands, shop house asian concept as well as pizza. things like that get people in more, certainly the growth crowd, but near term, i have caution on this thing. >> here's what i don't get. they said they've gone back, can't identify e.coli anywhere, looking at new practices. how long does it take for new practices and new supply practices to be put in place? when should i feel safe about going back? i'm confused. >> yeah. it's certainly not something that happens overnight. i think it's, you know, six to nine month process to get it rolled out, you'll see marketing over the next six months on that end too. you'll see the company put a lot of of effort. you're already starting to see that, you know, about new practices in place to really assure customers the food is safe. i think it takes time to realize that. it's going to take promotional offers, free give aways to get people in. that hits margins, though, too. could be a year of flat eps for the company, which the market may not look at. there's why you have caution now, but once priced in, might be an entry point. >> rj, thank you. >> absolutely, thank you. coming up, caught on tape, one of santa's helpers taking out holiday stress on an nba ref. "squawk box" will be right back. welcome back to "squawk box" on cnbc. southwest settling a lawsuit over a jet fix problem, promising to fix over side of outside companies that maintain the plane. a surge in acquisitions of car dealer shi eership dealerships, saying 456 dealers bought so far in 2015, up 40% the prior year. warren buffet bought a dealership last year. shares of nike today, the shoe maker posting results after the bell. the company expected to benefit from consumer preferences for leisure and turn around in china, and stock up 37% for the year so far, and we've talked about how remarkable that is. >> long time nba referee is apparently on santa's naughty list. last night, in san antonio, the pacers were playing the spurs, and fans were treated to coy owe tee claws, riding the sleigh, brought a present for the ref, and when one of santa's helpers popped out and kicked him in the shin. before -- >>. [ laughter ] >> running away. >> oh. >> nice. >> yeah. here's a helper. >> a helper. >> not the real elf on a shelf right there. coming up, we're going to take a check on tech, look at dismal month for apple and expectations for the iphone maker in the new year as we head to break. look at u.s. equity futures at this hour. calling it close to unchanged. back in a moment. as a developer! its official, i work for ge!! what? wow... yeah! okay... guys, i'll be writing a new language for machines so planes, trains, even hospitals can work better. oh! sorry, i was trying to put it away... got it on the cake. so you're going to work on a train? not on a train...on "trains"! you're not gonna develop stuff anymore? no i am... do you know what ge is? welcome back to "squawk box," everybody, the forecast on christmas eve, high of 73 with showers, and christmas day, temperatures in the is 60s, and, in fact, you'll be walking in a winter summerland is what usa today says today. morgan brennan has businesses benefitting from the heat. morgan, good morning. >> good morning, becky. that's right. well, thanks to el neen owe, we have a warmer christmas in parts of the country, bad for ski resorts and retailers stocking up on cold weather inventory, but it's producing winter. take potential winter. take home depot. the company can't share specifics mid quarter, but that even though consumers do not necessarily spend as much as buy as many winter products, that the warmer weather in december is overall good for business, and that it drives more outdoor projects. they say that's also likely the case for lowe's and auto parts retailers like autozone benefit because people are driving more, more wear and tear on vehicles, and a business that benefits? golf. golfnow, a tee time booking service, booked round up dramatically this season, over 35,000 games this month in the northeast alone, versus 8,000 a year ago, and more than nine times as many golf games versus last year in the midwest, but there is one business that is not benefitting, which is landscaping. you see more grass cutting and maintenance, u.s. lawns, which owns 250 offices across 42 states says warmer weather drives up costs because they hang on to areas in the north east that focus on snow removal this time of yearing and it's unused. >> all right, morgan, thank you very much. >> okay. we talk about apple a lot. market has not been kind to the shares this year, and stocks dips 10% in the last month reflecting growing worries about iphone shipments next year, maybe falls for the first time since the device is launched in 2007. joining us now is steve, managing director and i.t. harvard analyst. you have a buy and price target of 130 on apple, is that correct? >> that's right. we brought it down from 150 to 130. >> what was the hay eighest? >> 150? >> not at 180? >> no. not post-split. >> what's the highest on the street you've seen? >> probably 170 or so. >> because to get back, now you start at 130 the stock at the high, and now it's 134. >> it's rough here the next one to two quarters, looking fwlat to down in the march quarter. >> below 600 billion now on market cap 598 or so. when we were at 780 billion, why so difficult for analysts at that point to look around and see that out of 30 analysts, all 30 have a buy? to figure out everyone's acted on bullish intentions, and maybe if it's price -- dpuoesn't matt the multiple, but unlikely to hit a trillion. only had to go up how much? 25%, that's not a big gain, but a trillion dollars never been done before. why do you think analysts -- no better than the public at deciding where tops and bottoms are. is that not their job? >> well, there is uniqueness on apple. no company's been this large ie either. they have a mass product. >> other companies have been 598, cisco has been, general electric was over 600 billion for a while. >> the negative view is it's mature, and, clearly, there's a saturation issue, and growing revenue is difficult. at the same time, there's still a number of years to go in terms of improving functionality of it, and markets like india and china is not penetrated yet. there's an argument. >> hanging on to valuations all the time, when you talk about valuation, you're almost believing this is a god given right of a company. it's not. there's disrupters, samsung, others building a better mouse trap all the time, right? why not see the past is littered with leading tech companies out innovated. >> absolutely, joe. we've talked quite a bit about that over the years. if you have been successful, less to be in the future. terrori it's a niche product and gaining share for many years. >> do they need a different revenue stream to get back on track. i don't know. number two, remember when tim cook told us about china, had not slowed or things were great in china? how much isslowing. >> we have not seen slowing yet, but slowing in searching for iphones from 80% growth to 15. i think that's not so much an economic comment as it is they are now anniversarying the iphone. hard to know how much it's going to -- >> the company has a lot of large numbers. >> apple said in the december quarter they expect some unit growth year over year. we're dplaflat. the question is the fact it's not that expensive. >> i know that. wasn't that expensive at 780 billion. it was ten times earnings. >> well -- >> what's the trigger to change people's perception to change the multiple? that's the question. nobody knows. >> yeah. viewing apple as an annuity business because the growth did not going back to 30% soon. you get to see some growth, but it's the belief that, you know, there's not a competitor. that keeps me interested. years ago, samsung came in, a real competitor. >> advertising a lot >> long term disruption tech as there is in tech, but i don't see who hurts apple. >> amazing product. >> as a result, they have the opportunity to build into other products over time. the car is the ultimate one longer term. >> sticky once in that ecosystem. >> right. >> you buy everything. >> you are. >> and stocks to replace it. >> love it for that. >> one of the new things in technology in general is platform economics, you create a sticky platform between two groups, what apple's ios is, differentiating them from the company that went to the top of the hill and crashed down. >> the average person looking at the phone 46 times a day. >> i'm more than that. >> per hour. ideally. you know what? i'm addicted. what do you want? look, i love this thing. it's magic. >> that's the point. 46 times, what person are they talking about? i resent that. i resent looking at it 460 times a day. i resent that. i do. i hate this thing. times i pick it up, and i'm compelled to do it, just to check twitter. five new twitters on my feed. >> you're an addict and you hate yourself for it. >> i do. >> i think apple could be different because typically in tech, you have a different approach, but in this case, it's such an important product. >> what about the watch? you could have gotten a free one. you don't have one. >> i wore it yesterday. not today. >> you have one. how many bands? >> just one. i'm not greedy. i think that's a long term winner. >> buy ibm? >> tioo early. that's a 217 stock. >> all right. thank you. >> morgan stanley? >> merrill. >> okay. thank you. >> thank you. >> when we come back this morning, the auto industry coming up, the strong year, but are big year end incentives and rise interest rates a sign that the sector is set for a slowdown? phil lebeau and others weigh in. "squawk box" will be right back. a huge year for the auto industry, but time to look forward, and we have the 2016 play book with phil lebeau. >> reporter: in 2016, we'll see more cars and trucks with semiautonomous technology where the driver will be able to take their hands off the steering wheel and allow the car to handle things like acceleration, steering, braking, and even parking. tesla's auto pilot has some of the technology, but in 2016, we'll see more models from bmw, gm, and other auto makers. next year, will be a challenging one for electric vehicles, hybrids, and plug-in electric hybrid models. why? many believe the national price for a gallon of gas in 2016 stays under $3. that means it'll be tough for new greener models like the chevy volt to gain traction even when they are sold at a lower price point. timely, a record year for annual sales here in the u.s. now, 2015 was much stronger than the most bullish analyst predictions, and that is carrying into 2016, most dealers should do better thanks to strong consumer confidence, low interest rates, and the fact that the average car or truck in the u.s. is still over ten years old. >> joining us now is paul, the managing editor, won a pulitzer prize of the coverage of auto industry, and it's great to see you. >> hey, becky, how are you? >> i'm great. great. what do you think happens in 2016? do the record sales continue for the auto industry? >> i suspect on balance they will, honestly. i was surprised that 2015 was strong as it was. you know, since the bailouts and bankruptcy of 2009, we had six straight incredible years. goldman sachs could be up of vehicles sold, there's lower oil prices, a huge boost to buying habits. a good year on balance. >> don't worry about the fed raising interest rates and deals are not as sweet? >> well, you know, that is an issue, honestly. on the other hand, the interest rates so far are still historically low, and i think the balance, you know, it's one of the things where reduction in gasoline prices trumps whatever higher interest rates are likely in 2016. >> phil mentioned in his piece that we're looking at americans going right back to the big suvs and big trucks. >> yes. >> looking at low gas prices, and when prices fall, that's what americans want to drive. what happens in 2016 on that front? >> well, more of the same. i mean, actually, 59% of the vehicles selling this year are big trucks or suvs. it's absolutely remarkable. you know, ironically, this is on the heels of the paris climate control conference, you know, where basically people said, look, you know, we're pledging ourselves to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and america was in the forefront of that, but you wouldn't know it from the pattern of car sales in the country. >> what about volkswagen? watching the story closely. how do we get resolution in 2016? what happened? >> well, looks to me they are trying to take a playbook in a way for the emissions switch scandal. hiring the same attorney, kenneth feinberg for a owners compensation fund for owners with vehicles that were faulty. they are scrapping the scrapping das auto for something more humble, i think. i don't know how much traction that will have, but it's going to be a couple years before we know how this finally plays out, honestly. >> there was a news story in one of the papers today, about how one of the top officials this, top executive now, played a key role. he was dubious they'd make the california standards stick or they'd be able to meet them. said it was basically doing the impossible. >> more and more revelations like this come out before it's over. they will be ugly. what concerns me about volkswagen is some of the basic corporate governance issues are in place and e resolved. the heavy role of the employees uni union, the german government through the state of lower sax, and the porsche family. the shareholders come in fourth place on this. this is not healthy, i don't think. >> we've been watching china closely. a lot of concerns about the slow down in china, and that has to be something that the big car makers are looking at too, because for so long, that was a huge generator of growth. >> it was thee big generator of growth, and, by the way, not just china, but all, exception of india, but brazil and russia's a mess. china, the big one with the question, was last -- was this past summer's market crash, a speed bump or really a crash of the entire economy? most people who have been with the former -- we'll see. there's a lot of debt imbalances at the local level in china, and i'm not sure this is the worst over yet. >> talking detroit, but you are in florida. what are you doing there, paul in. >> yes. i lovive here. >> full time? lucky. >> yes, as a matter of fact, i was in lon dor for three years and just move back to america, and i love london, but happen to be back. >> glad to have you back. pa paul, thank you. coming up, this morning's big movers, list of stocks to watch up next. sure, tv has evolved over the years. it's gotten squarer. brighter. bigger. it's gotten thinner. even curvier. but what's next? for all binge watchers. movie geeks. sports freaks. x1 from xfinity will change the way you experience tv. take a look at stocks to watch this morning. express scripts says it expects to earn somewhere from $6.28 a share. the outlook above consensus estimate of $6.04. up a percent. and netapp is buying solidfire in a deal to boost its flash base storage offerings, putting the stock under pressure because analysts feel is lessens the chance that netapp itself will be bought. down 2%. >> in consumer news today, a small study out of ireland reveals majority of 2-year-olds know how to use touch screen technology. 91% of parents surveyed said their child could swipe the screen of smart phones or tablet, and half of them unlock the device. experts say this technology used is more like traditional play than watching tv and could have a different impact on the developing brain the toddlers, so it's better? >> my kids figured out the password to the phone by watching. >> by the time they are 3. >> maybe better. maybe it's not a passive situation. more like learning. you're doing something. >> i don't know. all that screen time. coming up, talking about the force is strong at the box office continues with "star wars," coming up, biggest opening weekend ever, and we have the incoming ceo of amc entertainment to join us on the "squawk box" set after the break to talk about the movie business. back in a moment. more trouble, cdc investigates another outbreak, details on location of that latest outbreak, and what it means for the restaurant chain. >> the force awakens for amc theaters. >> light it up! >> and now! >> incoming ceo is here to talk about the success of star wars and what it means for the movie business. >> santa! oh, my god! san santa's here? i know him. >> amazon is prime more profits. a look at what the giant's doing to make sure your presents arrive on time. >> thanks a lot, guys. merry christmas. >> as the final hour of "squawk box" begins right now. >> must be italian. ♪ live from the most powerful city in the world, new york, this is "squawk box." ♪ >> welcome back to "squawk box," everybody, this is cnbc, first in business worldwide, i'm becky quick with joe and andrew, and we are less than 90 minutes from the opening bell on wall street. futures all over the police station. this is the highest seen, gone flat, but now they are up by close to 50 points. the nasdaq up by 15. looking at early trading in europe, yeah, not much going on, although the ftse is up. >> down earlier. >> there was green arrows. >> when i was in, it was down. >> basically flat. >> oil up? >> crude oil prices, watching wti because, remember, wti was below $35, back below 36. was above earlier this morning. this is a contract rolling overnight. looking at the february contract for wti sitting just below $36. >> go down two to get back where it was at 34. it's a psychological level of being below 35. >> other stories investors talk about this morning to tell you about. general electric selling more financial assets, selling less than half of the stake in hyundai capital auto makers, and the motors unit, ge, exiting the entire stake in the venture. mining giant bhp hired a new york law firm to conduct an independent investigation of a dam burst at the mine in brazil. it plans to share findings with others in the industry. we're going to get a fresh read on third quarter gdp, and analysts looking for a 1.9% annualslightly lower than the last estimate a month ago. >> if hyundai merges, it would be -- has that happened? >> i went out to asia, spent time with bernie lowe, pronouncing it the way he told me to. >> this is accurate pronunciati pronunciation? >> i believe so. >> hyundai? >> i thought i was just doing -- >> you don't know that the companies are merging at this point? you don't have inside -- >> you think it's hyundai? >> it's not hyundai. it's hyundai. hyundai -- i like, anyway. google is reportedly in talks with ford for help building a self-driving car, and automotive news says a deal is expected to be announced in the annual consumer electronics show, and google is currently testing small bubble shaped prototype vehicles that might be more embarrassing than a minivan if you drive one. >> hey, now, i like my van, and would rather drive my van over that. >> looks like a smart car. >> would you take it on a highway with -- >> no. >> with trucks. >> no. >> welcome at that thing. >> no. not going in any minicar on a highway with trucks. >> right. not with that thing. what is that? like, i think i bought one -- you can usually see the feet. kids drive those. >> right. let's talk about trouble for chipotle. the cdc now flagging a new e.coli strain linked to the strain. five more people were sick after eating at two more locations, and cdc says it's unclear right now whether these new cases are related to that outbreak that started back in october. . last week, they told jim cramer the chain is safe. >> we visited the farms, cdc was on the farms, and we had epidemiologists on farms. we could not pin point it. i will say, though, we can assure you today there's no e.coli in chipotle, and we have thoroughly tested the food and surfaces, and we are confident that chipotle is a safe place to eat. >> to be clear, this happened in november, and still, the comments made sound hollow when you realize there's potential for more cases to develop, and they have not identified what happened, where things went wrong. they are talking about changing their supply standards, but that is something that takes months to do. shares actually dropping to that 17 month low, down 20% in october when the food safety issues were reported. a couple stocks this morning. conagra's numbers below estimate hurt by weak sales in the consumer foods business, however, the company gave an upbeat outlook for the current quarter. steelcase earned 32 cents a share, two cents below street forecast. the outlook is short of estimates and they have been hurt by falling profit margins to larger payments to dealer, joe? >> dow, s&p, and nasdaq snapping a two session losing streak as stocks rallied into the close. joining us now is jp morgan funds, chief global strategist, and david blitzer, s&p dow jones indexes managing director, also sharon of s&p committee. have you done ancestry.com? >> no, why? >> i mean, do you -- relate the to wolf? >> no. >> he's got a beard. >> he's got a beard. he grew up in buffalo according to the reports. when he became popular,'ons ago, and i've been in buffalo once in my life. >> that doesn't mean -- >> like, would be back several generations. >> okay. there's hope maybe you are. anyway, i got to do blitzer, it's david and david again, making it very difficult. going to the other david. i got last week on thursday and friday following what we thought was a pretty good reception to the hike, david, and that was disappointing, and i don't know what it portends for 2016, but so much for the easy exit sort of being a slam dunk and rip your face off rally that some predicted. >> i was not expecting a rip your face off rally, but i thought the markets took it pretty well in two key areas. first of all, long term rates did not jump and dollar came down. dollar is the lynch pin for 2016 if. dollar goes up, we have all confusion of 2016 repeated all over again. if the dollar comes down from what i think is an overvalued level, if it comes down, that's going to, you know, inoculate markets from fed tightening, pushing up inflation numbers a little bit, and i think it's going to help global commodity prices, and, also, push up rates. dollar is down a bit, next year 15 better year for equities, but i think a tougher year for fixed income. >> david, historically, you know what to watch for here, an election year, right, and there's all kinds of different cycles that people try to glean, you know, some type of forecast from. what are you expecting 2016 to look like? more of what we just saw, or -- >> well, i think typically in an election year like this with the incumbent not running, you know, he's probably trying to clean things up and have a wonderful legacy and that kind of thing, and that means he's not going to spend at lot money, and in normal situations. this year may be slightly better for us. they seem to have timely settled the miscall issues for a while, and we had vague fiscal policy to agree they are spending more, taxing a little bit less, a plus, and especially at the beginning of a fed tyightening cycle. i toss into the pot what you mentioned minutes ago, and that's oil. oil fiscal makes people nervous. we heard, oh, my gosh, 135, that's unknown territory almost. newspaper headlines, lowest in 11 years. that gets people nervous, and that's what i don't think people have been expecting for the last few months. the fed -- nobody left on earth who didn't know the fed was going to hike last week. they couldn't -- must have been in a hole for years. >> but combined with the fed hiking and, david, you can answer this too. we had the meltdown in junk, and then we have the spreads, and you got sort of this uneasy feeling in credit markets that it's impossible to explain because i don't think anyone thinks that any of the, you know, the situation is not right for a recession any time soon, so it's weird that you would have credit market concerns. >> well, that's right. it's a very distorted situation. i mean, you got liquidity problems in a lot of fixed income markets which are contributing to the problems in high yield, and oil problem is too but it's important to look at the how market to see what's going on. what's going on is opec broke down. this is not a cartel, but almost a blood feud between the shia and sunnis causing over production from the middle east contributing to a glut of oil pushing prices down of the that's good for dm consumers. this is not about a lack of demand. once you get past that, you know, i think, you know, to david's point on the fiscal issues, actually, the bill passed last week is very stimlative. it's going to push deficit from what looked like about 2.3% of gdp up to 3% of gdp for the fiscal year. people say it's bad, but that's putting tax incentives, think about the idea of a perspective tax incentive, and rather than learning in december you made a decision in march and got a tax break, but learn you get one going forward, which could cause a serge in capital spending. i'm looking for a stronger year for u.s. gdp next yearment i think consumers are strong because of the cheap oil, and capital spending is strong because of better tax incentive, and, overall, i think it's a relatively positive environment despite worries mentioned. >> so, david, have we -- is this the same bull market we have been in for six years? i mean, we had the 10% correction. right? are we still in this bull market? >> well, by definition, there's not been a bear market since this started, so, yes, it's the same one. >> continues next year? >> i -- at this point, i think everything looks reasonably positive. business capital spending has not been that wonderful so far, in fact, most of it seems to be buying back shares. >> don't expect it to be at zero, a criticism. >> well, it's been weak. hopefully, you know, the other dave is correct that it will come back. the tax benefits are strong. i think that's a big plus. the dollar has been something of a concern, i agree with that, but if opec is crashing, pretty much accurate, oil might stay low and there's improvement. consumers look robust. it's business buying shares instead of buying equipment. that's the only real concern i think. >> right. and, david, you don't -- black swans you don't think about? isis? whether we put boots on the ground, here or anywhere, that's something that we eventually would be faced with. i don't know whether that is going to helpful. >> i worry about black swans, and u.s. intervention there would be, you know, have huge long term geopolitical consequences, but it's not a threat to the u.s. economy, but a black swan, you know, the problem is they fly in the night sky. you can't see them. something big could happen, and so you got to diversify. >> yeah. >> even if you got relative positive. >> it's a crappy bet, the end of the world, because you -- >> well -- >> you win and you lose. >> you win, and money's worthless. >> right. >> and if only happens once, and if you're wrong, you're wrong o nine out of ten times. that's 95% of short putts don't go in the hole? >> really? >> coming up, david and david -- probably 100%. >> i thought you meant on the short gain. never mindmind. >> i have to go to you too. anyway, the incoming ceo of amc theaters on success of "the force awakens," i got such a good spoiler. >> don't, don't, don't, don't. >> other block -- >> nobody listen. >> other block busters of 2015, joining us off the break, and, later, amazon prime to profit this holiday season. thanks to procrastinators. inside look at the shipping frenzy at one of amson's hubs just head. we'll be right back. i'm here at the td ameritrade trader offices. ahh... steve, other than making me move stuff, what are you working on? let me show you. okay. our thinkorswim trading platform aggregates all the options data you need in one place that lets you visualize that information for any options series. okay, cool. hang on a second. you can even see the anticipated range of a stock expecting earnings. impressive... what's up, tim? for all the confidence you need. td ameritrade. you got this. welcome back, fans out in full force to catch "star wars" this week. breaking new over half a billion dollars, 520 since opening overseas wednesday. joinings now, the incoming president and ceo of amc holders, and amc theaters movie chain, ceo of starwood hotels and resorts, saying ten days more? >> you have both at the same time now? >> ten more days in the hotel business, my career has been wonderfully fun jobs. i loved every second of the ten year association with the starwood, and i think i'm happy at amc entertainment. >> just give us the back story of how it happened. >> well, starwood and marriott are coming to the in a merger. the ceo of marriott, there's a friend of mine, a guy named arnie, biggest hotel company in the world, and shall we say that frees me up to do something better or different? and what is more fun? >> how? >> somebody call me. i've been a long time movie fan, a movie buff, and being in the airline business and cruise line business and ski resort business, in my career, i sold a lot of tickets to things, sure we sold a lot of tickets. >> as you look at the new big, and you look at the shifts taking place in the film business, what do you see happening over the next five years? >> two things happening, and they are very important. technology is going to give them more clohoices in watching movi, important for amc, the largest executive in the world to make sure we participate in the technologies so that our revenues stay strong for years to come second, we have 353 movie screens in the united states alone. it's really important that we make the movie going experience at movie theaters spectacular. >> that's what i was going to ask. how anxious are you about this really, the very quick changes we've seen in the windowing of pictures, of films where you have now some films being released even only for a couple weeks, and then same day, all the sudden available on vod so i can watch on itunes or watch through an apple tv or another device, and whether -- i was just telling you, the theater i love the most, 84th street on the upper west side because of the lay flat chairs like -- >> fake leather, so comfortable. >> so comfortable. >> yes and yes. >> by the way -- >> different experience. >> it is a different experience, but i do that or watch a movie in bed or couch at home. >> at my couch at home. >> i would think -- >> i'm not into the inbetween part of the seat anymore. >> except that one in times square you want to avoid. >> what did you hear about dolby cinema at amc prime, but we participate in amc in both revenue streams, when you watch on other technologies, other venues, but also in the theaters. >> when i watch at home, you get a portion of that somehow? >> may be a way? i have not started work yet. give me time. >> really? >> having said that, what goes on in the theaters is nothing short of spectacular. you sit in the seats. >> up believable. >> imax skreecreens, just the m incredible sights and sounds. >> capital costs to transform theaters with new seats and whether to keep the experience at this high level and keep people coming back, you'll have to continue it upgrade cycle in a way theater systems have not look at before. >> absolutely right. amc is committed to upgrading experiences in our theaters, but it's inexpensive. it's a couple million dollars of screen to transform it from a decade ago. >> quickly, i noticed i love when i can now reserve my seat, when i can do that before hand, but i realized watching "star wars," i did not go to a screening because it was just first row seats around. do you not sell as many with reserve seats or better because they love being able to reserve? >> people love being able to reserve, number one, and we move seats into more and more theaters around the country. we bring it to manhattan very soon in a big way. we take seats out of the theater for full reclinining seats so a seats are good seats because seats are gone on the far left and far right and far forward. it's clear this is how mov moviegoers want to watch films, anxiety out of picking a seat, and there's full alcoholic bars in a lot of the screens, having wonderfulfully comfortable seats. >> they are great. where does ticket pricing head? >> we're seeing almost a 50% premium that people are willing to pay for these premium experiences with seats, cinema screens, and we have the movies of traditional houses. >> right. >> right in the same building and people are voting. with starwars, for example, many prefer regular experiences. >> okay. final star wars question. do you believe that all the other movies get crowded out? theaters show "star wars" over and over and over again, if you're another movie, can you surface your content? >> i think what you find is extra people going to the theaters see trailers. there are great christmas movies out, there's will smith, joy with robert denear row, and jennifer lawrence, big short, christian bail and steve carell, and comedies, daddy's home, and there is a lot out there. with opening weekend of 248 million in north america, it is star wars, star wars, star wars right now. millions of seats at amc waiting for people to come to the movies. >> heard of hans solo. he made a lot of money, right? >> yes. >> we got to go. thank you very much for being here. we hope to have you back for more. we got to go. >> when we come back this morning, fallout from the fighting of new york giants beckham, jr., and carolina panthers josh norman, and then economic data in focus, gdp data minutes away. futures still looking like they are higher. dow futures up 4 2 points, and "squawk box" will be right back. beck ham, jr. repealed the suspension received yesterday for conduct in sunday's game against the panthers. he threw three personal foul penalties, one for a diving helmet to helmet blow. the appeal expected to be heard tomorrow. >> the catch is that he's made, too, and he missed one. hit him in the hands in the first play of the game. >> we got third quarter data coming up. nobody move! get on the floor! do something! oh i'm not a security guard, i'm a security monitor. i only notify people if there is a robbery. there's a robbery. why monitor a problem if you don't fix it? that's why lifelock does more than free credit monitoring to protect you from identity theft. we not only alert you to identity threats, if you have a problem, we'll spend up to a million dollars on lawyers and experts to fix it. lifelock. join starting at $9.99 a month. welcome back to "squawk box." our last look at third quarter gdp, up 2%. that's slightly lower than 2.1 we saw last time. about as expected. arguably some looked for a smidge under 2%. let's put that in some sort of perspective here. of course, if we look at the gdp quarters of the past, last time we were at these levels was last year. since this is 2%, we'd have to go back to the first quarter for lower. to give you perspective, look at the consumption number, better than expected at 3%, but equals our last look, the price index, 1.3 across the board. they were expected. maybe the most important aspect, q3 corporate profits, .10 worse. it's currently 1.7. interest rates? gone through the whole thing, it 20 before, during, and after in terms of ten year note yields. equity markets, preequity up a little bit, no great shakes, and one the great surprises based on value throughout the globe, and the way markets get more or less volatile, the transmission, the dollar index really has backed away from that 100. we'll continue to pay attention to the euro levels, 105, and is 10, and for the moment, in front of housing data, the market's coming into an even equity motion and an even change on treasuries. joe and the gang, back to you. >> all right, rick. thank you, steve leisman joining us now with more on the data. what's your forecast for when the fed's going to cut? >> qe. i do not have a qe -- you see thursday and friday? this is not working. >> what do you mean thursday and friday? >> 700 points? >> decline in the dow. >> yes. qe. >> the real economy. >> qe. >> not the surreal economy. blowing out a little bit, and the fed needs to respond to that, right? >> with easing. >> i don't think that's what's happening. >> there are people that are saying that. always be. >> always be people who say something. i think the question is whether or not the fed does two or four rate hikes next year. >> there is a certain uneasiness in the credit market. >> we have the high yield, undiscovered territory, and we've never been coming off of zero before, and nobody quite knows how the markets react. two factors at play as i see it. first, fundamentals, rates go up a little bit, but we don't know how the long end of the curve reacts, and i don't know how the guy next to me reacts. that's the question. >> there's nobody there. >> there's nobody there, but if i think the other guy on the other side in the market is going to panic because of rate hikes, i might sell ahead of time, but there's a legitimate question, and maybe we ought to bring in esteemed guest here who knows more about this stuff than i will who taught me what i know, thankfully -- >> okay, john -- >> becky's introe -- >> john, you can come in. >> just, like -- >> it's the opposite. i'm throwing it away from me, joe. it's the opposite of camera hog. john redding joins us, if you get his reports, there's a question there, if you put up the ten yearings which is around 2.25, barely budged since the fed hiked rates, what the long end will do. what happens? >> to begin with, the fed has to start unwinding. the fed has to start unwinding its luck on the long end with all of bonds it owns. remember, the fed built up the balance sheet, did operation twist, bought long end papers, so the long market is not in a sense free to trade. obviously, it trades and yields grind higher, but the market does not believe the fed. they said there's two rate moves next year and two rate moves in 2017. the fed said, well, we think we'll do four next year, and four in 2017. now, if the fed turns out to be right and i think the fed will be right, and the up employment rate challenges fed to raise rates at that pace, it's still not clear, then, what the long end does. that faster rate hike flattens the curve more. long rates come up because real interest rates are so repressed. i mean, your ten year real interest rate is something like three quarters a percent. >> right. >> to put a round fraction on it. >> no way for a capitalist kpli economy to work without longer term money. >> larry summers, predictions for 2016, he thinks rates will be lower than the fed. >> he's a little cagey in that regard. you say lower, well, lower where? i mean, i think we can agree -- >> half a personality. >> .75 is not the right number, but turning to the economy that we got here in the gdp report. john, something we follow here, final sales to domestic buyers, getting rid of the noise around it, running at 2.9%, but the overall economy at 2%, talk about to what in your mind is the real economy out there? 3% economy because that's what final sales of domestic buyers is or 2% because that's what gdp says? >> problem is supply and demand. for the longest time -- >> always been a problem. >> longest time coming out of the great recession, the economy's been perceived as being inadequate demand. now we have demand. that number, which is fixed investment spending, consumer spending, housing, it's running at around 3%, but the overall economy -- >> no, no, not around 3%, but it's exactly 3%, and before that, 3.6. the consumer strong throughout this. >> right. yet the gdp, nation's output is growing at 2.25 as a trend. the jobs numbers have been growing 200,000 a month as if the economy is growing at 3.5%. so it's very difficult. it's going to get a hand on this if the gkp numbers are direct, that suggests the u.s. productivity growth rate collapsed to basically the lowest rate seen in the post war period which sort of seems a little odd with all the technology in front of us that we're carrying around us, so, in the -- in a sense, i think what we have a problem now is that we have a supply constraint economy, not a demand constra constrained economy, and the zero interest rate policy now a quarter rate policy a policy aimed at ending stimulated demand. not tightening, but the fed is renormalizing interest rates to an economy that's behaving out of crisis and at a normal rate. >> how do you fix that? if it's an over supply problem, what do you do? >> if an economist, we need policies to liberate the supply side. what is thee most antigrowth policy the u.s. has? in my opinion, the u.s. corporate tax system because you say companies, if you make your money abroad and keep it abroad, you don't pay taxes. >> we have to fix it. >> right. >> becky asked how. >> she asked the question. >> that's the answer. >> i answered it. >> answer is -- alan greenspan says it's entitlements, that basically, you have more and more entitlements in the form of social security and medicare soaking up more and more investment dollars that could be out there, and you don't have the investment on corporationings, and that's, then, not translating into productivity in the economy. >> i think there is a lot we're not getting investment spending, not having the recovery that we would normally have seen, and, clearly, low interest rates are not the answer to this. it has to be something else. >> john, can i just turn for a question? >> yes. >> i don't understand -- i understand, i think, how to factor in cold weather p into the economy. >> yes. >> i don't know if the economic turns hot is opposite of cold. if i was thinking that -- i need to dispoint cold weather like i did the first quarter last year and year before that, and storms to think, you know, the economy's stronger than the data making it seem, and that was right, by the way, with nice second quarter and third quarter rebounds, but how do you factor in better weather? housing numbers, but discount data from november and december? >> quite possibly. on the other hand, there's real beneficial effects from that, which is namely that households do not spend as much on winter heating bills, and that along with lower gasoline prices, liberating more than $100 billion this year gives real spending power spent on other things. households are slow to adjust. what it does is puts house hoho in a stronger position to carry the economy forward in 2016 because people are in better financial shape. november and december, a lot of outdoor activity on housing especially is going to look strong. >> last thing -- >> no, no, we're getting wrapped. >> i don't hear that. >> we got wrapped four times. >> did we? >> they are yelling at us. >> now i do. i don't hear you, man, don't get mad at me. >> sorry. >> i didn't get a one. >> for the record. >> i got four. >> you should talk to the anchors. >> if you are shopping, head to the malls, adobe says monday was the last day retailers promised online deliveries would be there by christmas eve unless you're a prime member. we go to the prime hub in manhattan, mary, good morning. >> reporter: hey there, andrew, i'm in a 40,000 square foot facility serving prime members in manhattan and parts of brooklyn, of course, ordering late today. amazon prime now is a service specifically for amazon prime customers offering free two-hour delivery to the clients, and one-hour delivery for 7.99. tight deadlines means this place is humming because it's promising to get you all your last minute gifts by christmas eve at 11:59 p.m. it's not cheap for amazon, but in this case, convenience for customers outweighs cost. here's our worldwide director. >> it is a pricey thing to do one-hour delivery to customers, but we focus on keeping our costs in line so that we offer great things to customers. >> reporter: this is the first holiday season amazon's had prime now available in multiple locations. there's history to anticipate late requests, but in the final week, items like consumer electronics like headphones, flat screen tvs, and amazon's electronics like the fire tablet, and prime now expands amazon's close to 42% share of all online sales according to slice data. nearest competitor in the space? bestbuy.com at 2.4% of the sharemeshare me . online shares impressive, of course, is their growth. adobe reports growth so far this year, up 10% for online sales through sunday at $71 billion, additional 3.3 billion in sales online expected to happen between monday and christmas eve. back to you. >> elves will be business si. mary, thank you very much. when we come back, the empire state set to open doors to marijuana for medical use. we're going inside the state's first cultivation center to see what they expect in the new year. by the way, check out futures again. modestly higher most of the morning. right now, dow up by 45 points, s&p up by five points above fair value, and nasdaq up by 11. new york state's five medical marijuana licensees are gearing up to sell cannabis in the state in the new year. we have an inside look at one of the cultivation secenter. virio? yeah? >> reporter: verio health, yeah, we're here at the cultivation center in johnstown, new york city. you see the flowering room, one of eight here, eventually going to have a 20,000 square foot grow house. it's one of five companies in the state awarded a license over the summer to sell medicinal cannabis beginning january 5th, and we have a look inside the company's lab to check out some of the five branded products they are developing now, none of which can be smoked. it proved uses here in the state include oils for vaporization and capsules. the medicinal is the most restricted in the country. there's ten approved illnesses to get certified urn the law including cancer, hiv or aids, parkinsons disease, als, and huntington's disease. with two months left, patients cannot yet be certified, but department of health says that should be up and running soon and insurance does not cover medicinal marijuana, but the health is committed to expanding patient access. >> as far as the low income program, folks that are on medical assistance or reduced income qualify for a 10% reduction across the board on all products. >> reporter: now, they were one of the five selected from a pool of 43 apply cants, each paying $10,000 to register, and another $200,000 to apply, and cash awarded to those without licenses, and those in new york invested $5 million in the facility, guys, back over to you. >> kate, what do you think, you can't smoke it? you can't smoke the stuff behind you or they crush it up? pills and that's how they sell it? >> reporter: yeah. you cannot smoke it under the law. as i mentioned, becky, one of the most restrictive in the country. you can't consume it via edibles, popular in other states, so the plants behind me, freeze them, dry them, making them into oils to be vaped and oral capsules i mentioned. >> okay. kate, thank you very much. >> all right. i beg to differ. i've seen people smoke pot in new york city. you can smoke -- i mean, haven't you -- >> not legally. >> no legitimately. >> it happens from time to time. >> it's been done. it has been done. >> from time to time? >> yeah. >> yeah. >> you have friends? >> i have friends. >> you have friends. >> jim cramer from the new york stock exchange. checking the future again now. right now, dow futures up close to 50 points fair value. "squawk box" will be right back. >> give us an idea of next year, or we're in christmas mode? >> i think it's christmas mode. look, the last four quarters we had are reports that matter. garden terrific. conagra great, it's not the companies. if we hear more stories about how the rate hikes come and come and come lock step, that can derail what we do. that's what people are focused on. >> you saw the spread stuff, general uneasiness in credit. do you tie that share of line spread of oil. cured by higher oil prices as well? >> higher oil. oil price, natural gas, mining, minerals, coal, it's almost as if there is -- that these feel like the year 2000 for the dot-coms as a reader said to me. listen, feels like all the companies blow up like the dotcoms in 2000. there's a bizarre similarity. these are great one-time great american industrial companies that are just drifting away as if they are dot-coms, and many more people are employed in the companies, but something to watch because these companies were indebted, joe, and we don't know where the debt is. >> buy one stock next year, apple or nike? >> oh, geez. i think nike's going to have a good quarter. even if not, i think they've got so much momentum versus -- look, i've listened, apple could be a good stock, but it's second half stock because people made a statement, and the statement is they are only cell phones. be more than cell phones. greatness about nike is western europe and china and united states and then we have, geez, we have olympics coming, a lot of good stuff. >> yeah, yeah. i was hoping for philly but i don't know, jim, next year? >> no. i mean, i think there's -- geez, redskins come on, and giants, if they didn't have the injuries, much further, look, the half teams like cardinals and panthers, they are -- kansas city coming on strong. new england. the teams are halves. they just got -- they are loaded. >> never thought i'd say it, but pittsburgh, they could be on the field with anyone right now, couldn't they? >> you know, how many buys can you have in so much time to get rested. adelman is back. the teams, almost unfair. unfair that there's a couple franchises better than everybody else. >> watch the musketeers playing wake forest today, playing no. 6, xavier. six, undefeated. >> that's fine. i'm ready for basketball. >> i love them. >> no one carrying baseball field on the basketball field or talking trash. it's college. they take the scholarships away. not just one game. they take the scholarship away. >> yes. >> on the yes channel. >> i agree. >> all right, jim, thanks, see you in a couple minutes. >> now just three days from kris ch christmas, and last minute preparations are moving at a frantic pace. nbc reports from north pole, alaska where santa is giving him a never-seen-before look at last minute reindeer practice. >> ha-ha, hi, buddy. >> reporter: with christmas eve fast approaching, main means are getting reindeer games out of their system and filling up on fuel. as for santa's bright shiny guiding red light? we're about to find out if he's ready for thursday's trip around the world. we were invited for the test flight. >> come on, ruldolph. >> take off looks good. solid landing, and -- >> he did great. he's ready to go. >> ho ho ho! >> have you been good in school? >> yes. >> i know. >> inside the elves' workshop -- >> that's what the teacher and elves tell me. what do you want for christmas? >> skate board. >> receiving toy requests loud and clear. >> and what do you want? >> i want ariel -- >> sometimes just loud. other times he can't make heads or tails. >> i got to tell you, i hear a lot of i don't know. i tell them, i got four bags packed. i think we'll do good. great weather. ho ho ho! in the north pole, nbc news. coming up, chipotle in the hot seat, cdc investigating an e.coli outbreak, ford helping google with self-driving cars? stocks to watch ahead of the opening bell. "squawk box" returns in a moment. it's your grandpappy's hammer and he would have wanted you to have it. it meant a lot to him... yes, ge makes powerful machines. but i'll be writing the code that will allow those machines to share information with each other. i'll be changing the way the world works. (interrupting) you can't pick it up, can you? go ahead. he can't lift the hammer. it's okay though! you're going to change the world. i built my business with passion. but i keep it growing by making every dollar count. that's why i have the spark cash card from capital one. i earn unlimited 2% cash back on everything i buy for my studio. ♪ and that unlimited 2% cash back from spark means thousands of dollars each year going back into my business... that's huge for my bottom line. what's in your wallet? . let's look at some stocks to watch this morning. chipotle, jpmorgan chase downgrading the stock to neutral from overweight saying recent food safety issues are too prominent to recommend the stock. ford said to be in talks with alphabet's google unit on building that self-driving car. you're looking at that stock up this morning as well. general electric agreeing to sell a 23.3% stake in -- pronounce it. say it the way would like to. >> hyundai. >> hyundai. >> to hyundai motor. and it's kia motor -- >> we have to get that cutting analyst on. >> happy holidays, everyone. >> what did he see at chipotle? ♪ good tuesday morning. welcome to "squawk on the street," i'm carl quintanilla with jim cramer, david faber at the new york stock exchange. fairly mild pre-market. the dow has logged seven consecutive sessions with triple digit moves. a lot to work with today, revised gdp, more trouble for chipotle. a mixed morning in europe. existing home data in about an hour. keep your eye on ud