Potential successors to ben bernanke. Stocks nearing some record levels. The nasdaq moved toward their best september in three years. Apple is not part of the rally. The Company Announcing the new 5c and 5s will be available friday. Well talk about whether investors should be concerned. Look out elon musk. They are working on a new electric car. First up, fed reserve policy makers begin a twoday meeting today. The fed statement will be out tomorrow followed by a new conference with fed chairman bernanke of course. It comes one day after stocks did rally on news that former treasury secretary Larry Summers pulled out of the running for the fed chairman. Everyone is talking about yellen, though you look at andrews column in the time today, the mention of donald cone, geithner still gets a mention here and there. Geithners out. But i think that ferguson will be terrific. Look, i still believe that if you liked summers, you dont like yellen. Sure yellen was a popular favorite but the whole time that the president wanted summers yellen was a popular favorite. Whats changed . He clearly doesnt want yellen. Maybe he accedes to the senate . Morgan stanley says the longer the president delays, the easy choice, meaning yellen. The more clearly he shows his reluctance to do so. He had an opportunity yesterday to say lets clear this out. The president said, look, the republicans dont want to play ball. I think the president laid out the shutdown case pretty clearly. Hes obviously in a very combati combative mood other than wanting the republicans to shut down. I see taper, i see shutdown as a larger issue. It hasnt risen to a level of great concern for investors. John was at 25 if i recall. The president wants a fight. What would your fight be . 50 50 . 60 . No, im talking about the amount of wrangling the lesson from last year was dont believe any of it and hold on because then were going to have a huge rally doesnt mention 2011. By the way, the president is a chartist, not a fundamentalist. The president does not care about the stock market. Have you seen anything that indicates that he cares about the wealth thats generated, 401 k s. The previous president wanted to privatize Social Security. That was not a great call. Lets stop that conversation right there. Microsoft boosting the dividend 22 , a new 40 billion buyback. Stocks up. Hello. Is this value act beginning to flex their muscle . And or other shareholders. I think there was a Shareholder Base that was very unhappy with the nokia deal. You heard of value act and what they were able to accomplish with obviously an incredibly small percentage of the outstanding shares. But they were very unhappy with the nokia deal, theyre a large shareholder. This is new. How did you it is a 40 billion it replaces the previous 40 billion. Cap re is renowned as being smart and not adversarial. Right. I dont know that they would be publicly adversarial at all. Theres a lot of unrest within the shareholder ranks. I want to read the release here as well because i want to find out whats being released and whats being increased. Dividend boost is substantial. 28 cents a share now, right . Payable december 12 to shareholders of record november 21st. By the way, quote, amy hood, the new cfo, who is taking a pair of fresh eyes to the Balance Sheet, jim. Microsoft as opposed to apple is doing everything. Some of its not working that well. But i think they want the stock higher so bad. This isnt malcolm x. Before the Analyst Meeting on thursday. You had a restructuring announced, though no cost savings non savings announced with it, you had ballmer announce his retirement, you had a deal almost wholely rejected by stockholders, the nokia deal, youre now a device maker. Youre doing more on the Share Repurchase front, continuing, raising the dividend. Its a quandary to me. Its a desperate company that doesnt need to be desperate. You think its flailing as opposed to stra teejic . I dont know. David interjected something that i met the cap re guys in the early 1980s. If the cap re guys are unhappy, you did wrong. Okay . Maybe the biggest rigorous outfit there is. If theyre unhappy, you respond to them. Theyre great. It does sort of raise the conversation about the thesis some have going into the Fourth Quarter and that is we are in for a string of big cap div hikes as they try to keep pace with the rising 10year yield. I think youve got to. Im looking for some of the Drug Companies to do the same thing. Were seeing companies do things to get their stock price up. Huntsman announced a very important deal, a whitener, theyre buying a lot of stock. Tungston, this was a deal. These companies are not stopping. Boise. That action which signatures was inkr that acquisition was incredible. These companies are saying we are mad as hell about our stock prices and were not going to take it anymore. Activism. Activism is a key theme. It has led to different outcomes. Barrack. Lets not make too much of it. There was a Dividend Increase of significance but, carl, just to make that point, its not as though theyre instituting a new repurchase plan. Someone who knows the company well, john ford, joins us. Your thoughts and maybe some reflection on whats behind this move. Sure, carl. Im sure you guys have already mentioned value act and all of the rumblings are activism in tech, carl icahn out of dell but still paying attention to apple and david wisely just mentioned this 40 billion was a continuation of what was expiring. Youve got to raise the question of growth in large cap tech. You think about microsoft used to be seen as the gift that keeps on giving growthwise. Now its got big questions. Its got the surface event coming up next monday and everybody is saying microsoft hardware thus far is pretty much a dud. Its looking to purchase nokias devices and Services Business to spark growth there. Look at cisco, look at ibm, look at apple not coming out with preorder numbers for the 5c. Lots of questions where these companies have been successful in eras past, where they go from here. In a way you cant look at this Dividend Increase krowithout thinking about what else are they going to do with the cash. If will lead some to wonder if and when they will start to leverage the offshore cash. They have to split the company up. This nokia deal, the market has spoken. Nokia keeps going higher. Microsoft doing nothing. Im hoping value act and cap re can you do that as a lame duck . Arent you locker your successor out of options . Thats what the complaint was about the nokia deal. Thats a good point. I dont know. I think that ballmer doesnt want his legacy to be a 33 stock. In the case of value, they signed a confidentiality agreement, youre not going to see public oofring there. Why dont they just get rid of the stock . They say we got this one wrong, lets just move on. Like, hey, this was a bad buy. One of the things these activists, i love them. I used to be a head fund manager. It would be like, no, we got it wrong. No, no lets start making noise, we can make it right. What the heck is going on, value act . And then management listens to them . Why doesnt management tell them to hit the road . If management thinks theyre speaking for a larger base, theyll listen. Even some activists take different approaches in different situations. Sometimes theyll be tough, other times theyll try to work with management. Look at aerpostale and sycamore. What kind of fight are we in on that . I dont know. Have they been to any of their stores . Sycamore. Maybe go in and great lot of nfl tickets this weekend. Carl icahn is going to have his dinner with tim cook one of these days, which leads us to apple shares, which are falling in the premarket. In a is one day after they closed at what was the lowest level, i believe, since july 29th, the company issuing a release saying the iphone 5s and 5c at 8 a. M. Local apple retail stores, 12 01 pacific time online. Mean next week we get more details on preorders. They got a lot of phones. Theyre ready. Its not going to be the same problem with the first roll out. I got some ideas on that dinner. Order in chinese. Icahn is a money saver. You think hes going to say, listen, lets go splurge . No, hes going to order in, get some work done. Im sure tim cook is buying. Maybe that Bacon Cheeseburger that peltz did with the pretzel roll. Dont laugh. That moved the stock from 7 8 to 3 8. We have a new ad for the iphone. Take a listen. Ring, ring, tell you about the new trends interestingly, guys. Even though apple has taken some knocks on the way back to 450, a highly watched survey called asci, apple crushes every pc maker, 87 Customer Satisfaction, dells at 79, hp is at 80. Ties for their best score ever. Someone was on twitter yesterday saying why arent you more excited about apple . Im an apple family. Its about cheaper phones in china, its about samsung, its about lower prices, its about maintaining margins. The products are the best. I look at that ad and im thinking ill go buy something. Its not about that. You said it. Its about new products. Well probably get some sort of an ipad announcement before the end of the year. Nothing new. Ill get it. Ill get it. Ill watch it. There is no expectation as this year now enters almost the Fourth Quarter that were going to get some unexpected announcement. And these product announcements are always anticlimactianticlim. They offer stock. Does that hurt their ability to get new clients . I think the guys used to go to Goldman Sachs are going to twit per. B twitter. But do they not go to apple . When we come back, boeings next boeing 787 dreamliner is set to debut. A little weakness off of some europe weakness. Twoday fed meeting begins. And well talk more about the microsoft div in just a moment. [ music transitions to rock ] make it happen with the allnew fidelity active trader pro. Its one more innovative reason serious investors are choosing fidelity. Get 200 free trades when you open an account. Take a look at microsoft. Just got a 22 div hike making some waves. People beginning to wonder maybe there are further moves in the Balance Sheet to come. Well find out. Also a 40 billion buyback to replace the 40 billion one that expires at the end of the month. Meantime, General Motors planning to take on tesla with a luxury electric car of its own, developing a car that can go 200 miles. They didnt say when the car will be available. Some discussion on whether they want to improve the volt or create a product that competes more with tesla. Good luck. Bmw introduced a product and they cant touch tesla. I think gm is a terrific stock but those who buy it for this are mistaken. Buy it for the gasoline models that everybody wants to be renewable. Earnings matter. Gms got em. There does seem to be a great deal of advancement that needs to take place in terms of battery technology. I dont know if tesla is further ahead of making a battery more economically or not but that seems to be where the focus is. Were going to have a cheaper iteration. When i drove the tesla, its very easy to fill up so to speak, but you have its the distance between. And you get to a mass market car that goes 250 on a charge that they make a battery for that is not 14,000. You have to be able to pull into the Vince Lombardi stop at i95 and get a soda at mcdonalds and come back and your car be charged. Thats my dream come true. Thats my dream. Make it happen. Youve made so many of your dreams happen. Make it happen. Give me an extension cord, ill wrap it around your neck. Its interesting that gm is eyeing the model s area. Even on recent calls, musk talked about a car called the gen3. When we had them on the show. He is really focused on making the tesla a mask car. Its similar to when henry ford said were going to make a car for everybody, a model a for everybody. Tesla wants to bring down the cost and they can really ramp up production. Henry ford comes with a lot of illogical baggage. You said before you dont get in the way of a cult stock. At this point your thoughts on tsla are it could still go higher. I did a piece last night on netflix saying netflix can go higher. Even after a couple of downgrades last week. Breaking bad is like walking dead where you literally need to get in it. You heard les moonves talk about how he needs netflix in order to be able to have those more than he needs outer wall. Incredible. My advice to outer wall is kind of mohamed ali. You can run from being red box but you cant hide from weaker earnings. When we come back, the head start you need as we count down to the opening bell. Futures hanging in there, mildly positive after that 118 gain yesterday. A lot more squawk on the street from the nyse straight ahead. Tomorrow the feds next move. Is this the day the taper begins . The fed speaks, the market reacts. Then the chairman reacts and Steve Liesman is there. The timing, the actions, the reactions. Everything has to synch up. My expenses are no different. Receiptmatch on the business gold rewards card synchronizes your business expenses. Just shoot your Business Card receipts and theyre automatically matched up with the charges on your online statement. Im john kaplan, and im a member of a synchronized world. This is what membership is. This is what membership does. How old is the oldest person youve known . We gave people a sticker and had them show us. We learned a lot of us have known someone whos lived well into their 90s. And thats a great thing. But even though were living longer, one thing that hasnt changed much is the official retirement age. The question is how do you make sure you have the money you need to enjoy all of these years. About five and a half minutes before the opening bell. Time for cramers mad dash. We just got some news on safeway. The company put a poison pill in place. It triggers when an acquirer gets to 10 or an institution gets to 15 . What interesting in the release is they say theyve become aware of an accumulation of the significant amount of the common stock of the company. Now, i can recall when air products did this and i told you it was ackman we havent heard from him in terms of a proxy, i think the window opens the 20th of september the i cant tell how it is, what it is, i can just say poison pill. We focused last september on Credit Suisse going from a sell to a buy. They talked about how the company was troubled and they had to bring up trouble. Ive been waiting for this company to catch up with the industry. Now theres consolidation. Private equity used to like these things, whether it was but this used to be private. They already did it. So this is not their first rodeo. Thats right. But i do think its worth a great deal, underappreciated company, new ceo. You know what, this one is worth geez, its bad. The stock is moving as were talking here. But the news itself, they do say an accumulation of a significant amount of common stock theyre aware of. This is an amazing time. Every tom, dick and Harry Hedge Fund and they react. Another one that didnt say go take a hike. We have that opening bell four minutes away. Today tapering and transitioning at the fed. Two former fed governors two former f governors [ male announcer ] staying warm and dry has never been our priority. Our priority is, was and always will be serving you, the american people. So we improved Priority Mail flat rate to give you a more reliable way to ship. Now with tracking up to eleven scans, specified delivery dates, and free insurance up to 50 all for the same low rate. [ woman ] we are the United States postal service. [ man ] we are the United States postal service. [ male announcer ] and our priority is you. Go to usps. Com® and try it today. [ indistinct shouting ] [ male announcer ] time and sales data. Splitsecond stats. [ indistinct shouting ] its so close to the options floor. [ indistinct shouting, bell dinging ]. Youll bust your brain box. All on thinkorswim from td ameritrade. Youre watching cnbc squawk on the street, live from the Financial Capital of the world. The opening bell set to ring in about a minutes time. Some news today, a lot of upgrades, some coming from jpmorgan. We havent mentioned the airlines yet. Extraordinary. This is about u. S. Airways. Tharp s theyre saying 50 50 chance. Us airways would be up substantially. The government wanted a trial well into next year and usair they got the trial a lot sooner. [ bell ringing ] theres the opening bell. Down he their at the big board. Celebrating the premiere of hostages. If thats the school in philadelphia, i couldnt afford that. Speaking of retail, did you know there were 99 days until christmas. Right after labor day you have to put your orders in or youre not going to get your stuff in time for christmas. Shopper track has a forecast for november december. They see holiday up 2. 4 year over year, below last years 3 . They see traffic being negative year own year, hopefully made up by larger transactions. I have limited ksh i had express, which is off limited. Theyre saying theres still great traffic in the highest end malls but express has hit on the idea that theres a lot of downturn in other malls. Sears baker street put a release a couple of weeks ago. Youve got a very small flows in your comparisons are not quite right and youre not accounting for some of the negative things. We had bruce berkowicz on and he was talking about still seeing real value in the real estate. Okay. Its ban long time now. I want to clarify my comments about netflix. These are short squeezes, tesla, sears. There are some very rigorous hedge funds did work, thought they were radically overvalued and the public came in and bought the heck out of tesla and sears is kind of like herbalife its hedge funds versus hedge fund. Dont you think . Yes, it is a gang up. Metric warfare. Make akron should go to are hedge fund and say this isnt a fair price. He started it. So far hes brought a knife to a heart attack fight. Thats a quote from a bad piece. That cant work out well. We keep mentioning secondary it seems pandora is off 10 million shares. Some guy who was trying to gain linked in was saying to me youre so wrong to say that linked in was no one is angry at linked in and the more as ashs i think the same thing happens with pandora. Pa