Good Tuesday Morning welcome to squawk alley. Were with you for the hour, what a fascinating market day, john walmart and home depot tickiki things off then for awhile there a bit of a tumble the dow briefly at its biggest loss plenty of dynamics to watch as we watch the retail earnings and the progress on stimulus big stocks and big tech in particular apple is fractionally higher amazon perhaps riding that retail news overall. Up better than 2. 5 . Alphabet up about a percent. Microsoft lower, and then there is oracle. In the news because of this tiktok bid, perhaps, carl. I dont know if there is anyone not bidding for tiktok lets start off with exactly that as a source tells cnbc that oracle has entered the race to buy tiktoks u. S. Operations. Walt, you know what my first take was on this microsoft was telling this story about their focus on the enterprise now theyre bidding for tiktok and oracle, how does it facility them at all . Does everyone just have to have a look microsoft baffles me on this, frankly, john. It is exactly what you said it right. The fraction of trays. It found a focus and that focus is enterprise. It has always been a separate Little Company in micro sosoft they are an Enterprise Company and tiktok doesnt fit oracle i have no facts other than what has been reported in other publications if i had to guess i think it is one of two things, or both one is that it is an investment. This is a successful product it is possible that it just looking at this as an investment but the second thing is you have to remember that ellison is close to and very pro President Trump. And President Trump needs an American Company to take these assets of tiktok to justify his policy position versus china on this and it may be part of a political thing. I would not put it past him to just drive in the price for microsoft. What is tiktoks significance . Some people talk about the algorit algorit algorithm. What beyond it might people be interested in acquiring . I think it is its success they managed to execute very well what they set out to do it is hugely popular and hugely attractive from a business point of view. Not just from a consumer point of view. And there are people who think this is, you know, this is a case, one of those rare cases, and they are rare, where someone moved first and wont be over taken. We already see Mark Zuckerberg trying to compete with them by doing instagram reels. I think some possible acquirers including some bcs rumored to be working with larry e lis ellison will continue to have this as something for a certain demographic. And that is, to me, the main thing. Walt, how would you rate oracles management accumen at this point im not sure. Larry ellison has been great for 30 years they have done an amazing job at mic microsoft. Theyre poboth very good the ceo is not the person that will do all of the management and execution of any product they acquire it depending on their teams. I have no idea who, on their teams, they would put in charge if they acquired it. We have to get your thoughts on the Apple App StoreCompanies Like epic games challenging policies, but specifically im interested in the escalation right now between apple and epic apple threatening to entirely quick epic out of developer access to the app store which is beyond fortnite and would affect epics interest. This reminds me of steve jobs. He would be negotiating with someone. But this is different now. Apple is different is this a smart move from apple . So i think there hasz be bee lot of misunderstanding here some unfairness to apple and some things that apple may need to change. If you will give me a minute, let me tell you what i think you can argue with it. We have done this many times, jon. And i respect i always respect you on this. It does remind me of steve jobs because this was steve jobs era thing, the app store you remember when the ie phone first came out he didnt want to have an app store. He didnt want third party things in there except for the ones that he picked like google maps and he made the argument you can just use websites instead of apps in 2008 they did start the app store with 500 apps. But he insisted, and this is true throughout apples dna. He insisted on strong cura trtin i dont think it could have been the biggest thing on the app store. I dont think that was in the plan and i dont think they came up with this with the idea that people would have inapp purchases that would be a big deal that goes along with the games so curation has been a valuable thing. Its one of the reasons that i use apple products because they control the quality of what is on their devices. The iphone and the ipad in particular i dont want ten app stores where i dont know what the other nine are doing in terms of Quality Control and prevention of malware the overwhelming majority is on an dro andro android, not ios this is part of their persona. They are not skimming, which is a financial crime. It is not a tax. This 30 thing these are loaded words that are just like in politics where the republicans have decided to call the estate tax the death tax that is what it reminds me of. Every merchant takes a fee if you want to put your new breakfast cereal, and get shelf space as safeway, you have to pay them something i see that argument so, so all im saying is some of this is unfair to them. But, and there is a but. And why dont you say what you were going to say and then i will tell you what the but it. I think we should have a long long long long longer conversation about this in the beginning their argument was more hey, we have these tools. The inapp purchase system is going to make a cut. Now you have players like basecamp with hey. They say we dont need your tools, we have our own economies and our own base and we want to take that margin for ourselves apple is saying whether or not you use our tools or not you have to pay us the 30 walt, we have to leave it there for now, but i want this longer conversation with you. Walt mossberg the one and only, thank you for being with us. Always happy to be here when we come back former walmart exec will be with us well talk about walmart and their blow oout quarter. Back in just a moment. Come on in, were open. All we do is hand you the bag. Simple. Done. We adapt and we change. You know, you just figure it out. Weve just been finding a way to keep on pushing. Wyou say the customersg a waymaklets talk data. S. Only Xfinity Mobile lets you switch up your wireless data whenever. I accept 5g, everybodys talking about it. How do i get it . Everyone gets 5g with our new data options at no extra cost. Thats good. Next item corner offices for everyone. Just have to make more corners in this building. Chad. Your wireless. Your rules. Only with Xfinity Mobile. Now thats simple, easy, awesome. Switch and save up to 400 a year on your wireless bill. Plus, get 400 off when you preorder the new Samsung Galaxy note20 ultra 5g. Shares of walmart and home depot going higher ecommerce sales up 97 now 11 of total sales joining us is former walmart vp, welcome back, andy, good to see you again. Thanks for having me. There is a whole host of strange circumstances that lead to the quarter that walmart just had. It helps if your smaller competitors are out of business for a few months how do you rate their progress especially on ecommerce it is extraordinary nearly 100 growth im not surprised having worked for the team there, seeing what theyre doing, firing on both cylinders. I could not be less surprised given the kcaliber of the talen while i was there. How much further do you think it has to run and what is motivating them . The big getting bigger and the small getting smaller . Is it pepsi, coke, amazon . Or Something Else . What i learned at walmart, that taught me more than i realized, is the love for the customer the sam walton spirit of lets do things for the customer and the save money and live better mission to bring down costs to increase the standard of living. And what time in our history have we more needed with the economic climate in the country, than a retailer that cares profoundly about the customer. I think you mentioned amazon theyre a monopolistic player. They talk about the way they control the ecosystem. Right now we need walmart and theyre stepping up. It is amazing to think youre praising walmart in retail and calling amazon the monopolist. Im sure we could have lots of conversation on that not saying i come down one way or the other. A few years ago walmart stock was less than half of where it is right now this seems to be a validation of walmarts strategy to this point and it includes buying bonobos is it continuing to buy smaller brands to feed omni channel . I think it is bringing in the dna. Around the time of the acquisition is when that started to take off. You had a mixture of dna coming in from an ecommerce start up that was all about technology and ecomm what they did building a store organization taking over, and the chess move internationally. So i view them as the great multiplier melding digital and physical retail in a way that only walmart can. They have a super Center Infrastructure what about the tech side . Is it mobile that is getting the focus or getting deeper into data through things like logistics and things like delivery look at the success of Online Grocery pick up. You see a marriage of unfair advantage having 4,000 plus Super Centers with the power of the Technology Teams across web and mobile and that is something that only walmart can do, right . Because of that infrastructure of the stores. So where were seeing strength is where theyre marrying technology, dna, and focusing on mobile Product Development and the asset that has been in place for a long time and where walmart is number one. We didnt get a lot of clarity on Subscription Service or walmart plus. There has been vague terms of what it will be, but do you see something close to what prime has become im a big fan of recurring revenue models thats how you have to drive repeat behavior and get retention. I think has walmart responds it will be formidable look at disney plus, right as people have seen the power of taking an enduring brand and marrying it to an easy way for consumers to continue to engage, i think it is inevitable that walmart will do great things i dont know if you noticed their turning their parking lots into drive in movie theaters Building Community in ways that walmart is unique. Look at what they did for Hurricane Relief theyre one of the most benevolent actors on the stage and i think you see this starting with the chairman benefits for all kinds of employees, they were a leader there. A leader in wages. The other thing is Inventories Inventory down seven do you worry about the prospect of further supply chain congestion going into the back quarter of the year . Especially going in back to school you know im not smart enough to comment on that, but i know there are people who are there and the focus on inventory whil i was at walmart, with the challenge of e commerce, it will be increasingly complicated, but i could not be more confident in the people there and those challenges well a few people have had as good of a look inside at it as you have, andy we continue to watch what youre doing post walmart good to see you again, thank you for joining us thanks, appreciate it as we go to break, one potential beneficiary of gym closures and limited capacities is peloton squawk alley is back after a quick break. music anncr give customers access to precisely what they want, when they need it the most. With adyen, the payments platform that delivers convenience for all. Adyen. Business. Not boundaries. Welcome back, everybody. Teva says they will vigorously defend themselves in a lawsuit filed by the government accusing the company of medicare fraud. They paid two foundations to cover the medicare copayment for some patients using their drug they say that shielded them from big price increases and boosted sales. Dramatic video as police aboard a suspicious troller and find a billion dollars worth of cocaine. They say it is the biggest seizure of the drug since 2017 in japan using art to encourage social distancing. They hope people in the spoking area outside of a Tokyo Railway station will avoid standing on the art work on the ground and put space in between them. Squawk alley will be back in a minute henry. Virtual wallet® is so much more than a checking account. Easily see whats free to spend. And put money aside for your next big purchase. Like a trainer for henry. Stop it. Carl, do you have those figures . Yeah. Henry sit . Its carl. Virtual wallet® for Digital Banking from pnc. Its time to get more from your bank. Uber, facebook, and booking holdings rbc out with their top picks for top tech names and reiterating their bullishness on those three stocks despite two of the three being impacted. Mark mahaney is back with us should i go into the why . No, i just wanted to say hey. Now well go into the why. I want to start with uber, right . You have a 50 price target here up 57 despite a big show down they have doing in california that is a big market ly ask it this way is it built into the 67 upside. What is not built in is a really strong recovery in ride sharing. And look, the uber eats business is doing phenomenally well they will probably sustain triple digit growth for a long time it is the rides business that i think expectations have varied recently rides i thought would be a vshaped recovery early on and that is clearly not the case will we get to a full recovery in the back half or way to 2022. There is a big trip up issue later this year. They will have to shut down california if they dont get this stay. It is more of a material issue for lyft there is a lot of issues around uber it is a High Quality Asset that is dislocated and there are very few of those it is the only large stock and that is why it is the long i will also touch on facebook were not talking about the boycott any more two or three weeks ago it was all we could talk about. Is that because its not so much a real thing for them longer term does the retail news that we got today in a way provide more tail winds for facebook you have to reach out for those digital customers somehow . Look, all of these ad platforms have been tested by covid. We learned which are the most e resilient and which are the least. Well talk about google, facebook, pinterest, et cetera it turns out that facebook was the most resilient they had the least deceleration because they have a really robust direct response they serve eight million advertisers. There is always someone willing to sell you something in your news feed and there are eight million that compete to make it more resilient and there is two things im focused on political campaigns that we think can add a point or two to the growth rate. Youre seeing a lot of spend the other is the rise of social commerce were seeing more and more activity like that occur on facebook that means the cpms can go up for facebook near term and long term we like facebook and in terms of valuation it is one of the cheapest on the growth adjusted basis. Mark, you know on uber im reminded of what jim chainos said on our air, he said were paying for the benefits of those laid off because theyre independent contractors and they never paid into the pool. There is broad headlines being written. They say it is the end of the gig economy. How do you push back on Something Like that . I dont think there is. I think the right side is that these people should, there should be some sort of pool that uber, lyft, doordash, and others should contribute to there is something about the gig economy. The majority of the drivers dont want to work fulltime, for many of them this is a secondary occupation for them. The laws need to work and conform to a different reality some people use this as good supplemental income if is great for people who want to earn money quickly. These companies should contribute to some sort of portable pool of benefits. Uber is now under pressure, admittedly, and acknowledged and endorsed that kind of approach that should be the win here for all the people their companies, employees, contractors, as well as the sttstt citizens of the states theyre in youre long booking holdings. That would put it right about at the level it was in january before the pandemic hit. My question there is how optimistic is that really . If they have not redeemed that level yet, and they have come back quite a bit, why would they yeah, so what we had here is a real stall out in travel globally we had a massive correction. I mean we up ended the laws here we had a recovery into june, and then we were really just flatlined. So you really need customers and Leisure Travel to pick up. That will require a vaccine. I think booking is a good global asset. A Good Business model. It has always generated a lot of cash flow if is fundamentally good and it is displaced i dont know if it will take six months or 18 months to get paid. But im trying to look through them, that is where we want to be and booking is one of those three companies. Mark, stay with us. I want to get your thoughts on am z amazon as well were going to look at two headlines from deirdre bosa. Amazon doubling down on office pace work in major cities other Tech Companies are fleeing the likes of San Francisco and new york embracing remote work in some cases indefinitely shares are up some 75 this year more than other big cap tech names, and it has already been on a hiring spree. One that brought its worldwide employment close to one Million People cementing its place as the second largest private employer the latest round will add 3,500 corporate jobs 6,000 of them at the former lorde and taylor store betting that most staff will return to the office the second story, i mentioned that 75 jump in sale prices here, those gains have been proved irresistible to masayo masayoshi son. He is now pouring billions of dollars into microsoft, alphabet, tesla, netflix, and amazon that stake is now worth about 1. 2 billion and continuing to add today with amazon shares up another 3 meanwhile he has been selling down stakes some valuable assets like alibaba and sprint. That left the company flush with cash to make these big bets. Call it masas big momentum move to steal from one of our editors. A big move, looking like Warren Buffett there we just had an ex walmart exec on praising walmart. But the moves that amazon is making to invest in commercial realizati real estate and hiring people, how should they think about that particularly during a time when capital is at a premium . I think it is a gift, unfortunately or fortunately that we got from covid a dramatic acceleration in Online Retail. Etsy saw it, ebay saw it, amazon saw it amazon is accelerating and doubling down on investments theyre using this as a chance to grab market share and retail share. Physical landspace share this is the amazon that you would expect the company has always been willing to make aggressive longterm bets are they a monopolist . Maybe. They are taking advantage of the dislocation and the fear out there, and theyre shifting up i guess the question, mark, is when youre adding thousands of new corporate jobs in half a dozen cities, do you sense that their priority right now is continuing to capital right now into retail, or another vertical what will amazon buy next . I think it is a, b, and c i think theyre doubling down on groceries. That is a extremely tough Logistics Business it requires a lot of people. Office to office and business solutions, products, services, that is secondary and i think they will invest in that aggressively and third i think internationally there is a lot of markets where they want to try to accelerate the presence they had they were a little late to those markets. I think amazon is learning the lessons. You mentioned china and alibaba, theyre learning from china that if you under invest, you lose, and they want to over invest and invest in market shares. That is what im watching for on amazon mark, finally i guess really this time, i wonder what the take away is for amazon, for investors in general, from this latest round of retail earl ini . The line was that amazon was going to beat up walmart one of the first areas they went in was tools they would take out home depot, they would take out best buy those guys are doing great and they seem to have figured out a lot of omnichannel we have amazon investing in physical space, what does it mean you went through a lot of history. And they have gone into a different channels they had a fairly large amount of money that all said the Company Executed phenomenally well and the play in Online Retail is benefits were going to watch for that curve as it comes back down. We have yet to see that happen in Online Retail i know walmart talked about a slow down in july. Across the board we have not seen that. We wont know the longterm winners in this for probably another year or year and a half. Shopify should be a winner as well i love talking about shopify. I have been talking about them for awhile always great to have you you too, john. At u. S. Money reserve weve helped hundreds of thousands choose the best Precious Metals for their retirement portfolios and many are in profit positions today because of those choices. So dont wait until the next crisis. Get started securing your financial future today. One of the criticisms of traditional ira accounts is theyre typically tied to paper assets that are often unprotected from inflation or even a market crash. Recently, Congress Passed a bill that created a better solution. Its a new type of ira that allows you many of the same tax benefits of a traditional ira, but without the same types of exposure to market volatility. Its like somebody finally came up with a better mousetrap, but for the ira. So whats this better mouse trap called . Its called a Self Directed ira. 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Its full of everything that you need to know about Getting Started on your selfdirected ira today. Youll be glad you did. Deirdre. With Interest Rates near record lows, dominic chu is looking at those bringing dividend safety. Okay, carl, we look at the consumer staple sector it is a sector associated with dividend payments. Take a look at what is playing out right now. The s p 500 trades at 1. 7 yield. The overall consumer staple sector is higher so we decided to take a look at some of the consumer staple stocks that are still paying dividends and held on to some of their market cap gains and price movements. And theyre not falling in value. This is the screen that we came up with. We looked at positive threemonth price appreciation then a dividend yield that is better than the 2. 7 in the overall sector here are the names that pass the screen kraftheinz right now. Kelloggs. General mills 3. 1 pepsico and kimberly clark. These names had price stability or growth and pay a yield as well some of the fames that some investors may be looking at when theyre screening for stocks that pay dividends and have a little perceived relative safety dividends important these days, dom, thanks. Coming up, the new york city governor and mayor facing off about reopening gyms this month. Hey, kids welcome to camp tonsafun on xfinity its summer camp, but in your living room. Learn how to draw with a minions expert. How to build an indoor Obstacle Course plus. Whatever shes doing. And me, jade cattapreta. The host of es the soup camp tonsafun. Its like summer camp, but minus the poison ivy. Unless you own poison ivy. In which case, why . Just say summer camp into your xfinity voice remote to join. I think he is really disturbed by this. But again i dont want a Susan Collins response here. Im disturbed and concerned about this. I would like them to do something about it a lot of people at pinterest are hard working people that deserve better that was kara swisher yesterday talking about Ben Silvermans culture there at pinterest. Pinterest making moves today after a bog post and a employee walkout. Pinterests first black board member, third female, carl this is interesting because it is clearly not just about numbers because this is a company that has a female commerce base and had a female chief operating officer. Culturally and operationally are there things that pinterest believes they need to change and will change . That is a great point one of the first things we ever said about this company was the overwhelmingly high number of female users great to get karas take on that in advance of this move. Johnson as go to break check out some of these retailers. The xrt giving up some gains today. One of the worst sessions in the last few weeks quk le will be back in a couple half of the retail earning story this morning is home depot. Frank holland spoke with the chief Financial Officer a moment ago. Home depot stock falling after a blow out q2. No guidance to cause those declines a patch work and kind of a difficult licensing and permitting viepermit ing environment in q2 limited. He says do it yourself buyers were more than able to offset those declinesdeclines. 23 growth in sales. The company is earn couraged by the 200 growth of Digital Sales in q2. Expect to see more of the store as a hub model continue as home depot trying to adjust its model to have people buy online and pick up in store another thing the company will do is online workshops they will continue doing those online partly as a driver to its website and spent about 120 million on ppe products for its employees and expects the number to decline as it figures out better ways to distribute the products to people home depot stock down. No guidance a factor there carl, back over the you. It was about this time yesterday that we heard from new york Governor Cuomo that new york city gyms would reopen on monday we got take from mayor de blasio who insist that gyms will not open any time soon good to see you. Thank you, good morning once again, we have this cuomo de blasio that makes things confusing whats the status . We have to wait to see how it plays out between now and then we have about 40 in the city and the rest of the 120 are outside of the city. We have a million members in new york and our 2,000 employees back to work a lot of good stuff ahead of us. Yeah. Do the capacity restrictions and the Mask Restrictions make sense to you or do you think they could have been more lenient i think its a im happy to get open. We have many states operating under those same stipulations and the Customer Experience has been pretty good im pretty happy with that its a great first step. We can operate fine under that scenario for the time being. Chris, what de blasio and New York City Hall seems to be seeing that Health Inspectors are the issue. They dont have enough people to go around to the gyms and make sure they are doing things right while dealing with schools reopening and whatnot. Interesti ining bottleneck do you think there are other ways they can ensure that either using technology or some other means versus having people who would be checking schools or restaurants or whatever also having to check gyms one thing we have at planet is we have touchless check in. Were open in many states. We have 1500 of our 2,000 stores open we log 45 million work outs since may 1st and only 100 cases someone reported they had the virus while working out and zero where somebody contracted it in our facility i feel safe. People clean the equipment before and after seems like it would be possible to allow inspectors to camera and feeds from equipment so they could see, yeah, only a third of the equipment is being use used has there been any instances of technology we havent seen any of that in our states on any camera or surveillance who is doing the best, from what you can see i want to separate out whats happening on the ground. Clearly governments have a lot on their hands dealing with pandemic, testing, hospit hospitalizatio hospitalizations, et cetera. Are there best practices youre seeing with local and state governments helping businesses to open safely i think its one of the reasonable stipulation in place in protocol what they want social distancing and cleanliness protocols. I think its all doable and its way to get gyms open and my business and make sure everybody is safe. I dont say any of them necessarily works better than each other we use data Going Forward on making really the decisions on how do we determine whats necessary, whats essential or not essential. When i look at gym, i look at us as really, ive said were in the Health Care Business than the gym business you have almost 15 million members getting off the coach and getting them healthy we look at the covid virus and who it affects the most, its obesity, diabetes and heart disease. Sadly only 20 of the u. S. Have a gym membership we got to get the other 80 active they are given those i was able trouble staying afloat at 100 capacity. How am i going to stay open with 33 . Even at 33 capacity youre still talking about 100 people at any given time. With us, 20,000 square feet we can float people in and out of the facility. Interesting, chris. Well see. Hopefully well get clarify between the mayor and the governor over time it was good news on the margin yesterday. Thanks for the time. My pleasure thank you. As you mentioned, carl, the dow is lower pretty much the flat line. Nasdaq up about half a percent i got my eye on amazon, as we mentioned which is higher with the retail names and then pinterest which is going through quite a bit. Still up 3 . Near all time highs. I know youll be watching that as we close out lets get back to headquarters with the judge and the half. All right,sir. Thank you very much. Welcome to the halftime report. The record run for stocks as the s p 500 hits a new intraday high can the remarkable move from the march lows keep going. Joining me for the how are stephanie link, josh brown and brynn. We do begin with a look at stocks we did lit the record on the s p. Josh, its hard to believe that the s p was at 21. 91 back on march 23rd and here we are having