Sorry to cut it a bit short today, a lot of news today thank you. Meanwhile, welcome everybody, this is squawk alley, were continuing to hunt for indications and clues. Meadows, kudlow, mnuchin all saying mild symptoms, and leader mcconnell says just ahead a great phone call with potus. We talked business and that really has taken over whatevertrack we might have ordinarily spent on the jobs number we wish the president and the first lady well. We wish everyone well who has had a diagnosis of the virus and there are all kinds of questions now about the state of president trumps agenda clearly the Senate Majority leader trying to emphasize that part of things remains on track as far as the Supreme Court nomination and more, carl, but yeah, well just have to see as well how the markets continue to react to this. Amon jabbers, take stock of the information were getting from all areas of washington dc and all branchs of government. Yeah, a massive Contact Tracing around here as officials strandble to figure out who has been infected, who has tested negative, and who is of we just got a few minutes ago mark med d mark meadows say they knew hope hicks tested positive before they took the trip yesterday the president going forward. Meadows also giving us a update on the medical deny. Im not going to get into any particular stream that he may or may not have the doctor will continue to provide expertise in the residence. He is in the residence now meadows also saying that he has tested negative. A number of staffers are now working from home. Anyone in contact with the president yesterday is apparently now working from home today. We will try to figure out how many staffers were able to report, stressing that the president is engaged here. He is focused on the substance the first question asked this morning was about the economy. And well monitor this throughout the day as more and more officials continue to be tested we had a statement from joe bide than we dont have yet back over to you that will certainably interesting to see as we get the slow drip of the results out i have to return to the fact that mark meadows was not wearing a mask im wondering if you have any indication if the administration is likely to shift its approach tomask wearing and some of the other Health Efforts around coronavirus or if you think they stay the course. The white house staff has been very cavalier about it. He says he was six feet away from the reporters there in the driveway with him. He didnt feel a need to wear that he said they have protocols in the white house and they will wait to see if they tighten those protocols. And there was a moment earlier in the week at the president ial debate in which the president s family was approached by official whos asked they wear masks. The president s family did not wear them. There has been a real resistance to be seen publicly wearing the masks. The president as been proking others for their insistence on wearing them on that note, this first and fore most is a health issue, but were a month and a day from election day and in an unusual year where many people are going to be voting and mailing in ballots ahead of that day. Is it clear yaet how does this affect the electoral calculus here some people are saying that this is because because of some of the things youre seeing, the president and his family have been saying and doing about mask use. Others are saying this will get sympathy for the president because he is sick absolutely everything is political in washington, especially this, john. As you look at it there is a cupping ways to slice this welcome the president is wanting to portray himself as being healthy, were rounding the curve, it will make it extraordinarily difficult for the president so argue from his sick bet that the nation is rounding the curve on the virus. That is a difficult argument to make right now on the other hand we have a very entrenched moment now where everybody on both sides of the aisle are processing it as confirmation of what they believed so we see this debate that 98 of peep say it will not change their minds. This is not going to change votes but it will make the messaging harder for the president. But im sure you would agree that sick bed is probably overstating what we know we dont know if he is in bed or not. Bloomberg saying that the commerce secretary wilbur ross, who is 82, has been testing this morning and is negative. For more guidance on how it affects the congress thank you for joining us. The question that everybody is wondering is what does this mean the announcement that the president has tested positive. What does it mean for the marketing and the policies i think the stimulus is very important. It is part of the announcements that we see now. Is there more pressure on secretary secretary mnuchin. The news came out and you and i have been talking for weeks about a market about which people are rising the waves and protecting themselves, so i think we saw a sell off and those are sell offs being picked off. The market should be down, the down should be down, that is what happened when the sell stocks kicked in once they washed out then you started to resert into the kind of thing youre talking about. And when pelosi said that the so youre saying little nibbling buying, the sell stops, operating in a vacuum. But we have gone beyond that now. We are making a point that it is not just the economy, it is the election also and you will have speculation that if things get worse for the president , can the election continue this weekend with pence stepping in could the president in the polls went badly for those that think it might hurt his ego to just step down and say he was not defeated by the people, it was the vie us rvirus. As a backdrop, we will look at things like the stimulus package. I think it is interesting that the markets, off of the lows, travel and lee sure stocks tend to be weak. There is concerns, for example, that another wave of reinfections might occur, and it suggests to me that the diagnosis, raising awareness in the country about concerns of a second wave, is that one of the pesk effects of the president testing positive now yes, lets look at the cru e cruise lines they basically shut down they say we will spray clean, do what duo, and give reassurances. One of the most cared for people in the world is victimized by th this they say if we can get to the guy with the most doctors and protections, what can they do to reassure people. So that is a reason that that Leisure Group came under additional pressure. The president coming down with the virus tells them that this thing may be a little bit more difficult to cap than they thought. That renews concerns, youre right, thats why they sold off this morning the first lady tweets thank you for the love youre sending our way. Were looking forward to a speedy recovery. They are saying that they are awaiting results, how much is on the line on his diagnosis . A great deal. As i said before youre going to begin to see Vice President ial nominee harris and candidate pence move in. You will begin to see in your Wire Services speculation, as to what may happen if either of those test positive or worsen or whatever can the election continue with the Vice President ial candidates assuming the title of president ial candidates. That speculation, the league background of that those will all be a factor for the market to consider expect the news wires in the last five days to be filled with that kind of stuff youre right, the age of these two candidates makes any thought of infection important to both sides. That is a great point, its not just about todays tests, but the tests that were going to see every day really for the next 12 days, perhaps. Thank you, bob director of floor operations still ahead this hour, bill gurley, an investor with an alist track record, is with us next on the other side of the ayitea st wh us can go your own way its time you make the rules. So join the two Million People whove switched to xfinity mobile. You can choose from the latest phones or bring your own devic, and choose the amount of data thats right for you to save even more. And youll get 5g at no extra cost all on the most reliable network. So choose a data option thats right for you. Get 5g included. And save up to 400 yr on the network rated 1 in customer satisfaction. Its your wireless. Your rules. Only with xfinity mobile. Our next guest has been very outspoken t covid19 and our ipos were going to hit a lot of topics with him in the next few minutes, bill gurley joining us now. Good to have you back on squawk alley. Thanks for having me. We want to start, of course, with this very serious news that we have of the president and the first lady having tested positive for the coronavirus. And having mild symptoms, what whakt has this pandemic had on the way you look at investing if it is life sooipss a lot of people had the expectation that this would be disastrous and for a few, you know, that were exposed to travel or leisure, for those it was. You had situations where founders had to scramble to lay off staff as fast as they can. Quite unexpectedly, and you guys talk about this every day, the Financial Markets and the tech markets took off like crazy and then something that i think was also unexpected is that people talk about covid accelerating the future for companies that are exspoeds to trends, revenue started to explode. In february and march you had an kppgsz of things coming true, and this it was positive. Yeah, i want to ask about that effect specifically is there an impact on what you have seen in the process of companies coming public. Because of that narrative, because of all of the investor attention on the stock market, Retail Investor intention. If youre looking for growth or returns, you cant go to bonds, has all of that intensified the possibly. There is one thing we know for sure which is that one of the many i would call false rules about an ipo process is that you had to go meet people in person. This is a reason that people argue that direct listing would not work that is blown out of the water, right . Now theyre using zoom conferencing and ipos. There is a highly speculative nature o to the markets now. A willingness to get into project thats are five or ten years into the future that we have not seen since the 99 time frame. I cant speculate or know exactly what it was, the confluence of events that lead to that. Lets talk about that direct listing versus ipo thing youre an investor in a company that went public this week i had some conversations with frank at snowflake that had a more traditional ipo process, and there are people saying bill, you have a point about the traditional process needing changes, but youre taking it too far. There are good things about the direct listings and spacs that are not for everybody. Do you think they are for everybody now . You argued both sides of this argument yesterday, which was great. I did i think direct listings are the exact right model for everyone i would even say the traditional ipo, this, we were talking about this on cnbc over a year ago year to date 2020 the total under pricing dollars on the traditional ipo is 24 billion and it was in the six to seven range the year before it it has accelerated and gotten worse the snowflake ipo you talked about was 4. 5 billion. It turns out that you dont have to use a sheet of paper and a human guess to price something and decide who gets the shares you can simply match supply and demand everything went smoothly, it went great, the way they opened snow flake the next day is the same way a direct listing works, you just match supply and demand and use the systems built in that have been there for years that spacey wtacey was talking air that day the number of Public Companies is half what it was awhile ago they had to under price by 200 million. They had to have a tax to go public, and it is completely unnecessary. One response to that is the spac crazy. You create a massive pricing umbrella to get a Company Public where the traditional route means someone gets to allocate money. They say hey, you dont get to allocate that money to your friends, im going to allocate it to mine so, bill one last point, if you look at this spac they launched this week, he is attacking the ipo. He is not that is who he is going after. Bill, it has been fascinating to read your critique of the call for the innovation and the reform, im curious of your spac crazy. You think is the right approach. Direct listings are not for everybody, but is there a spac bubble down, do they work for everyone how do you see a spate of spacs. The average ipo dollar adjusted, the average underprice r by 42 you add in the fees and that is a 49 to cost capital. I dont know how people can talk about this with a straight face. And the traditionalist will tell you that spacs, you cant use those well theyre way cheaper. We have Interest Rates near zero it is nutty. I think every company, not only will every company go to a direct listing, but youll have more companies go public they cant afford a entry fee to get the game going spacs have come in, there are tons of them, theyre willing to discount their fees, and it is way cheaper and faster i this it is more elegant. Yes, it just allocates shares this is the third chapter. It is super easy but quickly you have warned companies not to spend frivolously with these other ways to go public is it as surgt for them to go public or are you changing your tune on that there is a famous interview with mark zum ckerberg, he shou not have listened to people that told him to wait it is an amazing job of helping a company old interest model so yeah, i worked with a number of company thats have gone public on a 10 million quarter, like a 40 million run rate. Youre seeing that with the spacs. Youre seeing companies earlier in their life go public. How much of your argument here about how antiquated the ipo process is, is about the entire process and how much is really about pricing unity did, i believe, a kind of action to discover the night before didnt have that kind of pop that you criticize, and they modified the lock up it seems like there are modifications that some companies can make if they choose to deal with some of the issues that youre talking about and get them a good amount of money when they come to market what is wrong with that . It is improved. Lets keep in mind that we talk about the traditional ipo process, but that process has changed and gotten worse nap is why the numbers show that. They show especially this year things have gotten four times worse. You say why is that . They changed the process for going public they used to have really large sales desks that would help push a stock out. It was called sales and distributi distribution now theyre one tenth the size they used to be. They had banks that had jump ball economics all of that is gone. Today they will tell a ceo that their job in the weekend they meet with other companies, is that you should get a 97 order rate and you want to finish with 30 to 50 x over subscription and they come on your show and brag that is instane. It goes back to supply and demand cnbc sells ads where would you have to price an ad so you have 50x demand. Why would you do that . It makes to sense. Fortunately i have to idea, for the record there i have no idea. Imagine your house, you want 97 of the people that look at it to bid, and you want 30x bids before you pick one, where do you have to price it it is super easy stuff i would love to get your take on something we have been talking about a lot. That is the losses that apple and google are facing over the 30 fee they charge in the app stores it really tampens competition, where do you you come down on this. Yeah, i call itd a rate too far. I was trying to argue that for a Platform Company there is an optimal rate it is one that you can sustain over a very long period of time. Even at that point in time i highlighted that 30 was a little too greedy. It is super interesting at this point in time because if you look at what google published theyre picking one industry that is similar to 85 in that way. It looks ash train, and i know that is interesting, but with all of the weight on google from the u. S. , from china, from the eu, to play hardball at this point in time seeing particularly risky for this point of view. Being old enough to having seen a few generations of tech, i dont think google is here today if it is not for the antitrust pressure we are waiting to have an election day in california it is going to effect google and the gig economy at large what do you think it is going to happen and what is the strategy for tech starting november 4th it is Pretty Amazing what has played out here. It may be unprecedented in that a law was pushed on to the books on dmaf behalf of a group of pe that didnt have any desire or ask for anyone to do this. The polling shows that a vast majority dont want ab 5 it came out now that the s. E. I. U. Pushed the bill through, and the San Francisco chronicle and the l. A. Times acknowledged that would happen i think basically we have a bit of capitalism where the unions went in and wrote a law on behalf of a bunch of people they dont represent. And they have been caught with their hand in the cookie jar by these supposedly liberal newspaper organizations that say this is not how government should work. Im hopeful. The polling that i read is positive, and i think it is fortunate that someone would do that kind of thing when there wasnt a problem in the first place. Bill, and then what if there are issues around safety, protections for the gig economy, doesnt there need to be a better model in place for those workers so the gig economy can thrive yeah, they have been working in california to try to push those and be part of prop 22 i remind you of when it took off. That was the lawest unemployment in your lifetime so you have to ask grouyourselff this is so horrible, why didnt they go to any other entry level job that was unavailable there was record unemployment. The reason is they have maximum flexibility. They can work when they want no one is proposing that we go to walmart, mcdonalds, or st starbucks and say get rid of shifts and just let people work when they want to. No one is recommending that the flexibility be added to the other things this is the exact type of job type that allows someone to make the ability to get themselves through school or be an athome parent you have to be careful, job types are changing there are start ups that have other ways for people to make money we have to be careful how we think about it. Thank for having me stocks close to session highs here, lets get to sue and get a news update. Good morning, everyone we start with top trump advisors that helped with the debate on tuesday are getting tested including Chris Christie he scridescribes the recautiopr before the debate. No one was Wearing Masks and the group was about five or six people in total. The secret service had a outbreak at their Training Facility in august sources telling the New York Times that 11 employees tested positive in central aryland. And the Supreme Court saying they hear a republican appeal over arizona voting restrictions including one that prohibits absentee ballot collection by third parties. They struck down that ban but it will remain in effect for the upcoming november election julia, out to you. Thanks so much, sue jobs day means a special s sentelli exchange. A special advisor, thank you for joining me i have a lot of emails around one in the morning, the markets had big moves. The president and the first lady testing positive for covid now we look at the markets and the moves and we see that a lot of that has been reversed. My question is a simple one. We wish them a speedy recovery, but in the end is the market looking at todays data in the form of a jobs report and it certainly seems the real moves were prompted by the president and first lady getting covid at 1 00 in the morning your thought right, well, i dont have much to add to that that is particularly profound. The focus on the markets and the real economy is primarily an increase in uncertainty. The good news is that the uncertainty will be resolved quickly and we hope in a positive manner. I would say that this is hopefully just a few day event obviously if things go in a negative direction things will be different pi i think mo i think things will look more stable next week than they do right now. I think this is a relatively shortrun effect revisions were positive, ours held up, wages held up, epop for theyre fifth month in a row improved employment and participation was down threetenths im glad you mentioned epop. It is really a good indicator of what were seeing in the economy. We have been talking about this for a long time and i have been saying that were going to seen an sshaped recovery you go from very steep negative job declines to zero and you get steep increases, and then it will flatten out so our positive growth was not as large as we saw in the previous month and that is what you expect you get closer to a normal employment economy, were not there yet, obviously, but when you get closer to that youre going to see job growth slow down this is consistent youre going to see that in jobs but gdp as well. This quarters gdp, as you know, everybody is saying we dont know the exact number but it will be very large numbers that people are expecting that will not persist forever. So that is just showing up you expressed that you want today clear up some of the data around minority employment numbers because maybe we didnt quite catch the guest gist of it yes, we want to look at lower paid workers are doing, this is a month when africanamericans made significant gains relative to white if you looked at the Unemployment Rate among africanamericans it dropped from 13 down to 12. 1 that is a drop of almost a full percentage point if you look at the same thing for whites what you saw is a drop of threetenths of a percentage point in absolute and relative terms africanamericans made gains this month that is good news for a variety of reasons they were the most hurt in the layoffs. They were in the industrys retail, Food Beverages that were most affected by it. That is a piece of good news were going to have to keep it there i could always talk to you for an extra hour if i had it. Ill look forward to your thoughts a month from today. Have a safe weekend. Jon fortt back to you. Thank you, nearly 20,000 amazon workers testing positive for covid19 the latest after the break dont go anywhere. Yep, td ameritrades got that. Free access to every platform. Mhm, yeah, that too. I dont want any trade minimums. Yeah, i totally agree, they dont have any of those. I want to know what im paying upfront. Yes, absolutely. Do you just say yes to everything . Hm. Well i say no to kale. Mm. Yeah, they say if you blanch it its better, but that seems like a lot of work. Now offering zero commissions on online trades. We charge you less so you have more to invest. Amazon with a blog post disclosing the number of employees testing positive for covid in the last few months for the First Time Since the pandemic took hold amazon coming out with comprehensive data into the virus spreading across the workforce. Nearly 20,000 workers have tested positive in the last six months and that is out of nearly 1. 3 million total employees. The numbers dont include the thousands of Third Party Contractors who fulfill that last plimile delivery. And two states stand out because the amazon case rate was higher than the general population rate we have been asking for this data previously amazon said they didnt need to release the total number of cases, now amazon is, however, the Biggest Company to disclose such data perhaps putting presh on others to follow suit like walmart, kroger, and home depot amazon seems to call out others, not by name, saying the information would be more powerful if there was similar data from other major employers. Unfortunately there are no standards for reporting or sharing. Part of the reason, guys, is because companies, amazon included, had been unwilling you have to wonder will they be more transparent when it coming to other data. In response to that they say there is no Industry Standard on serious incident rates thank you, d. Were keeping our eye on tesla as well this morning, down about 4 reporting q 3 deliveries at nearly 140 k up next, some of the biggest film makers in the world warning that movie theaters might not survive this coronavirus pandemic the ceo behind tt inhajot letter to Congress Joins us next. Dont go anywhere. Dozens of high profile names in hollywood writing letters to Congress Asking for jon, i guess the question is how long does this bridge need to be there seems to be no sense of when well really see a full return ov movie going. You he major studios delaying their biggest releases even as more than half of theaters remain open because there isnt a sense that the demand is there for theaters to be full again. How long does that bridge have to be and do you think at the other end of this the number of theaters may just be smaller considering the rise of things like streaming were coming back into business now it will be ramp up over the next four months. Were open in 48 states across the country and some are all parts were hoping the governor will allow us to open soon in new york we can do so carefully with our cinema safe protocols. As we get all those states open, we believe well have more movies the play the rest of this year no doubt the business will not be the same in the last part of 2020 as it was in 2019 if we get the states open, we have the movies come back. Well ramp up over the course of this year and return to the strong business we had before in 2021 john, how do you think the president s diagnosis impacts Consumer Sentiment around going back to anything, broadway, a movie, a live concert. Is there a limit to which you think consumers are willing to subject themselves to get into a room are we all willing to wait 15 minutes for a swab test result before we go into see a movie . We surveyed a lot of our movie goers and theres a large group ready to come back now theres a second group that just wants to learn more about the safety protocols and hear what their friends are saying theres a third and Smaller Group that just wants to wait it out until theres vaccine. What were trying to do is entice those first two groups to understand that indeed we have the safety protocols in place and they can come back out to the movies as for the president s diagnosis, watch the stock market fluctuations. I guess the stock market is saying its not a big deal seems to be a mild case. The right protocols are in place to govern the country. I dont think it will have much of an impact about going the movies or restaurants. What will have an impact is whether or not they believe the protocols are in place to keep them safe. John, can you clarify what the financial issue is here. Is this really about landlords demanding rent we had a record breaking year. When you shut down, you dont eliminate all your costs you still have leases. You still have mortgage payments you still have to keep your utilities going. Theres substantial cost in ramping back up. Retraining the staff, bringing people back, getting ready with the safety protocols is most of it leases . Large part is leases. Thats correct does it take congress to fix that is it a issue of forgiveness where the leaseholdsers dont want to cut the movie theaters a break. What is it i dont think thats on the table. There are three concepts on the table in congress that were negotiating right now. One is to use some of the cares act money that was already appropriatuate for Hard Hit Industries like movie theaters another one is a piece of legislation called the restart act. The last is the expansion of the ppp program. The payment Expansion Plan to make it more usable for Companies Like movie theaters. Id add the jobs in this equally important, we had 150,000 furloughed employee, millions of people in movie production and distribution affected by this. Were not up to 50 of our employees back because of the challenge economic circumstances. The legislation is important to help our workers as well john, theres no question that even when all the theaters are reopened, that the industry has been permanently altered by covid19 whats your take on how that will impact the industry there is an expectation that several other studios will follow the specific terms of how movies are released to cinemas are negotiated between an individual districter of movies and individual exhibiters. I wont comment on specific terms. What we have seen is the vast majority of the movies that were scheduled for lease in our theaters have been postponed for later release. The question is whether they come out later this year like james bond and wonder woman or pushed into 2021 like fast and the furious. Most of the movies, and most of the movie distributors have said we believe in the Theatrical Release model and business when the pandemic is over, we want our movies to go into theaters we believe some of these moves is a pandemic Business Model and not a long term Business Model john, theres going to be a lot of attention on the performance of wonder woman 1984 from Warner Brothers as well from the next james bond movie we appreciate your joining us and hope youll come back as more theaters open thank you for having me the markets open down on that news about the president s diagnosis and they popped up a bit but back down. Rolling over just a touch not near session lows. We are awaiting word on test results from Vice President biden and Speaker Pelosi two more data points it will be important to investors. The judge and the half are on the other side of this break when we started carvana, they told us that selling cars 100 online wouldnt work. But we went to work. Building an experience that lets you shop over 17,000 cars from home. Creating a coast to Coast Network to deliver your car as soon as tomorrow. Recruiting an army of customer advocates to make your experience incredible. And putting you in control of the whole thing with powerful technology. Thats why weve become the nations Fastest Growing retailer. Because our customers love it. See for yourself, at carvana. Com. Our breaking News Coverage continues this hour. Welcome to the halftime report. The president testing positive for covid. Stocks falling sharply on that news recovering a bit now markets reacting to the latest jobs report