Transcripts For CNBC Squawk On The Street 20140430

Get cash too. Its a big deal for the Energy Business and we have a very big morning on tap, carl. It will be just as the sun comes up. Yeah, guys were coming to you from a Conference Room called aviary at twitter headquarters. Dick costolo is with me. In a moment well talk about the quarter, talk about everything that happened in the course of that quarter and, of course, stock poised to open lower today as people are focusing on on that user growth. Well get to it with dick in just a minute. Yes. In fact, an important interview. Twitter reporting better than expected firstquarter results. Revenue more than doubled but as carl referenced stock down sharply after user growth short of wall street forecasts. Jim, were going to hear from the man himself and entertain many of the key questions investors have this morning. In speaking to a couple shareholders or former shareholders user Growth Continues to be at the center of concern. Weve been mentioning since the company went public which wasnt that long ago. Right. With dick costolo when he was on set that day when it went public behind us, but there is people want to know, what was the growth rate in users in terms of during the quarter, february to march, trying to understand that and model it to figure out their discounted cash flow models. The engagement numbers some say when you look at old users versus few users the same thats a positive. Where do you come down . Okay. There are people who are arguing this morning that the peak of the rate of growth, not the growth, because the growth is still up, the peak of the rate of growth may have occurred right before the underwriting. Whats funny is or ironic i should say, no one is laughing this morning, this is similar to the facebook quarter when facebook didnt get it right. I happen to be a big fan of facebook, they went back to the drawing board, but this is a carbon copy except the deal was done better. Although this is still the highest multiple stock out there. Right. In the internet arena. And i can tell you, carls out there, but one of the most disturbing three disturbing points in this Conference Call. One was we talked about seasonality. When right out of the shoot i dont want to hear about seasonality, the second eventually. I see no clear path for that at all. Its geared towards events and arent enough events to create a lot of twitter a lot of tweeting this quarter. I didnt know it was an oscar super bowl play. I learned that. And then finally the timelines, views versus monthly over month Monthly Average users, david this is the First Time Since the dotcom period that ive had to learn new metrics that im supposed to Value Companies by. Well, i brought a dotcom public and i tried to explain to people why eyeballs mattered. Didnt really work . The stock went from 63 to 1. This isnt going to do that. They have lots of cash from the underwriting. And they also have lots of users. They have significant Revenue Growth. But they havent even they said look, advertising, were not going remember theres a line in the Conference Call about how advertising we dont want to mess the site up. Zuckerberg has found a way people like the ads. Now this is a company that i think has much untapped value. Because if they get the site looking right and if they get people who dont tweet but make it their news service, but they didnt even talk about that, i would like them to get a do over. They need to doover this Conference Call. Not unlike what sandberg got to facebook. Maybe that can happen right now. Of course you need a doover. Better company than the call. Carl joining us from San Francisco. The lockup a concern for some people. Mentioned by jordan rohan. Given that. Lets let carl take it away and see if we can answer some of those questions. Carl . Guys, thanks very much. Good curtain razor on the quarter and twitter Ceo Dick Costolo joins us at twitter headquarters. Thanks for being here. A lot of things went right with the quarter. Revenue adjusted ebitda, the guidance for the year, but people are zeroed in on user growth and they want some wow. Yeah. How do you sum up how user growth was in the quarter . Yeah. Well, you know, date we opened, the day of our ipo, i was on your show, or your program, as my grandmother would have called it, and i said to you and jim, we have a lot of work to do. And we knew what that work was at the time and we set out a very clear plan for growth and how we wanted to attack growth. We talked about engaging new users more quickly, bridging the gap between awareness of twitter and engagement on twitter, et cetera. And we laid out a path and it started down that path and im happy with the work weve done and how that work has translated into growth in the First Quarter. Few things, one, the kinds of simplifying of the new user signup process to be much more mobile phone based and connecting to people you already know who are on the platform. Thats worked well for growth. Thats been a driver of growth. Two, the recommendations we send you when we see activity happening on the platform that we think might be relevant to you. Thats worked very well for growth. And then three, in the very early stages of starting to make sure we organized content for new users, started to work well. So as we continue to tie those threads together over the course of a year, and better organized content for new users when they jump into the platform so they get engaged right away, increase the value of each view that we show to make sure people are engaging with the views more, favorites and retweets were up again 26 in the First Quarter, so making sure we get the engagement rpms and engagement engine going so every time someone views twitter theyre more engaged with it, those things are working nicely. We have threads for each of those throughout the year and i think that it will be a combination of those changes that we make over the course of a year that will really result in a change in the curve. You see it as not a multimonth story a multiquarter story but when people look at timeline views per Monthly Average user down 8 year over year, you dont think people are beginning to find some alternatives some place else . No. In fact, engagement is well up on the platform. In fact, so timeline views per mau for our net new users were just as strong as our existing users in the previous quarter. That tells us that every net new user signing up is as engaged as our existing user. The reason youre seeing the year over year decline, we made a bunch of changes in the second half of last year to make sure that each timeline view, timeline view is just when you come to twitter, a list of tweets you see. We wanted to make each timeline view more engaging. We collapsed a bunch of things that were across multiple timeline views into a single view to make that single view more engaging. And timeline views multiplied by the engagements per timeline view are way up. So im really happy with engagement. I dont see any issue there. The quarter had the super bowl. It had the oscars. And the incredible Marketing Power of ellen selfie which i think well get a look at. You had the olympics and ncaa. Should you think the quarter should have shown more power because of those high profile, high television, highly tweetble events . The beauty of twitter is that every day in countries around the world, twitter is front and center and almost ubiquitous, everywhere in front of people every day. It doesnt take some special event to draw people into twitter. Yesterday, during adam silvers press conference, there were tweets on air under his press conference from players and other athletes and commentators about the punishment that was meated out and millions of tweets about that event while it was happening. So its not it doesnt we dont need moments to drive people into twitter. They see twitter and come to us every day. So the platform is already mainstream. We have people around the world 3. 3 billion views of the tweets about the oscars, 3. 3 billion of tweets just about the oscars, in the 48 hours after the oscars. If you compare that number because its a big number, to some of the Youtube Content networks with thousands of video channels, those content networks will get 3. 3 billion views in a month. We had that in 48 hours. The platform is already mainstream. Its just showing people the increased value that they receive when they log into the platform and create their own timeline. Weve had this discussion before about whether or not theres something about twitter that is archaic intimidating and alienating and youre telling me somehow mainstream is going to discover that its easier to use in the coming year . Well, theyre already consuming it all over the place on tv, in print, on websites and mobile sites around the world. Theyre seeing tweets every day and consuming them. What we want to do is improve that logged in experience for them and make that easier for them to engage with. Right. By bringing the content forward and pushing the scaff d scaffolding of twitter to the background. The lockup expiration, everybody is talking about that. You filed the ak that says you have no plan to sell your shares, jack dorsey, ed williams, who else is on board with that pact . Benchmark announced one of our early investors announced they have no plans to sell and frankly after speaking with most of our major investors that were with the Company Since prior to the ipo, many of those investors have declared that they have no intention to sell. So we feel great about that. Its frankly one of the reasons, probably the primary reason, we have decided and announced we wouldnt we have no current plans to have a secondary offering. Youve seen most of the other companies in our space have those fairly quickly on the heels of the ipo. We have had no plans to do that because most of our major shareholders have no desire for immediate lickety. Is there a timeline on the promise, the selling of the shares or the secondary . Theres no current plans. I would say visavis the timeline of selling specifically, when i do, when jack does, those will be in a accordance with a 10 b 51 plan and even under filing that theres another 90 days of a cooling off period before we would sell. On top of all this and the quarter, Alan Wert Zell the head of research at nbc, our shop, this week in the financial times. Your own people. I invite you into my home argues that social media in general, not just twitter, is not game changer and his general take is, if im social media, of course im going to promise you a tool that boosts ratings but so far the numbers dont show that. Dont webear that out. Whats your response . I have a different perspective. I kind of it snooshs heres look, when we developed our twitter and tv strategy it was because of a wealth of data that we had that showed us that there was a complimentary twoway relationship, not just that twitter made tv better and twitter drove tune in and agated attention to what was happening on tv but also that television drove engagement on twitter. Again we saw that just yesterday in the adam silver announcement. A wealth of data that showed us that. As we took our twitter and tv strategy to market there has been an evergrowing wealth of thirdparty research from fox research, from nielsen and others that show causal relationship between twitter and tune in to tv. In fact, the Nielsen Research showed specifically that there were three things that drove tv ratings, programs ratings, those were last years ratings, ad spent for promoting that program and twitterp. So hes wrong . I would say that we feel very good about the strategy since the thirdparty data backs it up and nbc is a great partner of ours and continues to work even more driving even more unique content into our platform and twitter reinforcing that content back to nbc. The focus on the twitter element on the tv element and the user growth element, i think has drawn attention away from mo pub. How do you make that easy for people to understand . Mo pub is our mobile ad exchange. Ill make it this simle. If youre an advertiser and you come to twitter we can get your ad in front of 1 billion mobile smartphone users 1 billion across ios and android. In q2 as we integrate that mobile ad exchange with our own twitter inventory, if youre an advertiser and you come to twitter, we can get your ad in front of over 1. 25 billion people using mobile phones. Its that simple. Do you feel the need to buy anything big . Are people pressuring you . People talk about it because theres been activity in this space. Were focused on strengthening our core product, twitter and vine i dont feel any particular compunction to go out and do something differences just because other people are doing that. We have a very clear focus on strengthening our core and focusing on three specific things, growth, operating leverage and operating efficiency and as we strengthen our core and service to growing our Core Products well be fine. Are valuations right now, im thinking whats app are they taking your breath away . Theyre significant. Hows that . Thats to the point. Yeah. But does it make you feel things you would want to buy are otherwise out of reach . I dont think so. We look at the landscape and have a consider aate approach t m a, the services we want to do with strengthening our core like the acquisition. Were in a period of growth names are under pressure now to show promise of things other than Revenue Growth. Yeah. Other than cash flow. Do you feel pressure to start putting some demonstrating some tree eps power in the traditional sense . I mentioned specifically im focused on three things, growth, operating efficiency and operatioperate ing leverage. That second and third are in service to steadily improving margins. Steadily improving margins. So as a High Growth Company what i want to make sure were doing is not starving the Growth Engine while constantly focusing internally on Getting Better and better at operating efficiency and operating leverage in service to margins. We did solicit questions on twitter, asktwtr. Good. Ill skip the first. The second one is you can ask me the first one. No. Is dick friends with zuckerberg on facebook . Im not friend with zuckerberg on facebook but i am friends with mark. I think mark is mark is just super insightful about thinking about the market and the industry and platforms in a different way that be other people do. He kind of looks at it from a different angle than other people do. I think thats i always find those conversations insightful. Could you ever see any Strategic Partnership with Cash Rich Companies such as apple, google and microsoft. We have them. Were embedded in ios with apple. Our partnerships with google and microsoft are growing so we already have those and those continue to grow. And finally, will punk ways ever be able to be a part of the hashtag . Like the apostrophe if you will. Yes. I put apostrophes in my own hashtags and back space over them. I dont think thats coming soon but something i do myself. You got a lot going on. We appreciate you having us in the house. Thanks for coming. Shedding light on the quarter. Dick costolo, the ceo of twitter. Jim and david, back to you guys. Thanks. Great interview. Thanks very much, carl. Better than the Conference Call, carl. This cleared up a lot of im not saying go buy it. I am saying this was better than the Conference Call. It was the doover i wanted to hear. It made me feel the last question that carl asked the most important question, never asked in the Conference Call, are you driving toward postibility given the fact theres been a giant selloff in the companies that really arent and he said yes, two of the three metrics are. This call made me more confident this interview, not the call. The call itself was a difficult one. The call was difficult. I went over it a couple times and i like twitter. I use twitter. So obviously i was in the camp of and dick costolo impress mess as a very good man. I wanted to hear about other modernization ways, hear a little bit more about the idea they want to be profitable and carls interview gave us that. Does it make me want to sell the stock anymore . Goes back initially to the underwriting price. But there are a lot of people goes back where are we 26 . 26. But it was a reassuring interview for those who think twitter has lost its way. You still think its going to go down another 11 points. Facebook is going to is selling percentage wise thats a lot. Facebook is selling at i could argue 22 times 2016 earnings. Yeah. This is selling at 100 times Monthly Average users over a timeline divided by paid views multiplied by uniques talking about how many people tweet and the oscars. Got it. Im going to watch that metric show. I am going to keep a close eye. Until the oscar comes back, im worried about the growth. World cup. Dont forget the grammies. They said the world cup will not generate why not . I dont know. Why not. Adam silver saved the day for the next quarter. Dont want to become like cnn where you need an event to get anybody to watch. This is a company thats driven by programming of others and the ive known Alan Wert Zell since im really old no offense, that makes you old too since 1996. His numbers he never says he only speaks when he has the data. That was called the emperor no close Conference Call question and they come back with fox says they like it. I dont know. I always know who i play for. But i know alan when we worked at abc together, there was no reason for Alan Wert Zell to say anything other than the fact that heres the facts. We talked twitter for a long time here. Weve got so many other things to talk about whether its ebay or ge. Well tweet those things and be on air with the twitter. I mentioned both those companies because were going to be talking to their ceos coming up on squawk on the street. That is right. Of course, General Electric Ceo Jeff Immelt live from france, talk about the companys bid for an energy unit and an exclusive with ebays ceo john donahoe, theyre paying 33 billion 3 billion to bring back nine. Getting six, bringing cash back from overseas. We have to talk about this. Why didnt he in dublin for heavens sakes. Futures, down open. 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Or their new product tanked . Or not . What if they embrace new technology instead . Imagine a companys future with the future of trading. Company profile. A Research Tool on thinkorswim. From td ameritrade. Youre watching cnbcs squawk on the street live from the Financial Capital of the world. The opening bell is set to ring in about 6 30 minutes. Were going to kind of everything will be a mad dash. Yeah. You and me, carl is in San Francisco, so lets dash ahead for the next six minutes and start with ebay. The numbers were okay. Really . They were okay. Theyre okay. Okay being tepid. Not great, not terrible. Right. But what ive been focused on this morning and what a lot of other investors are is theyre paying 3 billion, theyre taking a discreet tax charge of 3 billion, jim, to bring back 9 billion in cash that they have overseas. Why didnt they do an apple bond deal . Thank you. Great question. I dont have the answer. Perhaps johnc donahoe will furnish that answer. The treasury was the winner and the shareholders the losers. Why not take on debt if you want to repatriate this cash. At this level of Interest Rate goldman would have done that deal. Its very odd and raises questions as in what are they doing with the money. Some might say listen, 9 billion doing nothing is better than is not as good as 6 billion they will use in some way. Did carl icahn want that . By the way, in the midst of every other company doing tax inversions, apple not using 150 billion in cash they have, instead doing bond deals did you see the pricing of that bond deal . If i were the treasury secretary i would say you get me the United States apple on the phone. I want to know how to do a deal like that. That was incredible. 30 year paper from apple. We have Russian Railroad bonds coming due soon from the czar. Wow. Are those paying off . I dont know. I dont know. The israeli bonds you got for certain holidays paid off. Maybe the russian bonds pay off. Should have got u. S. Savings bonds. So thats ebay. Well obviously its not ebay. Theres the big three in ebay. Give it to me. If you go to sporting event theirs cutting the price for stub hub because of competitive reasons. I hate competition if im a shareholder. Ebay is being competitive and im coming to you with a question that was not asked on the Conference Call but were going to answer it now like carl did with dick, where is amazon figure in for web services . Is ebay cutting prices to be able to combat amazon . Because it wasnt clear from their their business i dont know. Right. I think its hidden in the call. Amazon web services are cutting prices every week it seems. Right. Which is great if youre running on web services or cloud. I was surprised gross margins. Paypal did hold up okay. 19 top line is not bad. John will be on the show and a standup guy and paypal i like. I was very surprised about the need to spend. Its pretty obvious that auction value, decline of 9 , david, in the United States, they used a term i never want to hear on a Conference Call ever, competitive dynamics. David, theyre competing. We like monopolies, like utilities that buy each other this morning. We like exleen buying helpco. We do have a fairly large deal in that part of the world. Im looking for the press release. Probably not going to find it jim. I have it memorized dont worry. You have it memorized. They are the combination here, between Pepsico Holdings as you said and excel lon acquiring pepsico, is acquiring the pepco at this point. Rate base of 26 billion all cash consideration, 2725, which is representing a 24 premium to Pepco Holdings price on the 25th. The beginning of a new wave. Theyre doing value. I dont know. We see continued consolidation in the energy sector. Pepco is joining the Old Baltimore gas and electric. They fill in delmarva peninsula, fill in virginia. Its a really good acquisition. They can cut costs. Not a fan of excel lons management but this does make strategic sense. Excel lon one of the few you dont have to woiry about, the Supreme Court ruling the death of coal in the new york times, the epa will never allow mark my words, another coal plant built in the United States, never, ever. In light of the fact that we just got q1 gdp that grew 1. 1 annualized. Making france look very good. Let me add one positive note here, which is, for example, excel lon is going to borrow 7 billion to do this deal. Right. Ebay for whatever reason is at least doing something with its cash, bringing it home, we weres not sure why. Were not quite sure why. We have more activity. We seem to have more of a willingness of corporations, i would argue, recently with some of the transactionionses were look at, to do something other than buy back stock. Astrazeneca i think is going to happen. I think someones going to come in and buy that. The allergan. Theres companies that are saying there are values here. Pfizer will be the one that Buys Astrazeneca if anybody does. Im saying these deals, energizer, there are so many ways to make money here that those who are simply thinking when fireeye bounces im going to do great, i want you to refocus yourself. If youre really in software as a disservice to your portfolio stocks, called s. A. D. No longer called s. A. S. , rethink go into oldline technology or company like energizer we have minus 6 organic growth, were going to split the company in two, were going to make shic corporation which does well, energizer bunny to do quite well and the next thing you know like merck splitting up and selling Consumer Products business, theyre going to get a fortune on their Consumer Products business two years use you know what theyre doing. Theyre shrinking to grow. Shrinking to grow. Energizer well keep an eye. Theyre shrinking to grow. Audience loves that. As they should. And we havent talked ge at all. What the heck is that about . We havent talked ge. 13. 5 billion. Siemens may be in there at some point trying to do its due diligence. Were not sure where frances government comes down. They did the deal. Theyve at least agreed in principle although well. Alstom, say you are a major power plant company, utility in this country, an you get that epa rule wag youre doing right now is calling alstom and saying i want to be retrofitted, they are the retrofitted company, they own 25 of the retrofit business by my calculation done by alstom. Ge is a winner in this deal if they get it. Because of the epa and alstom has carbon coal. I dont think the technology is a bargain. The recapture, but i have to tell you, there is no doubt in my mind if you think the world is getting tough on coal you better call alstom. Its like calling sal. We should keep an eye on the coal stocks. You heard the opening bells. We are starting trading on wednesday. 37 seconds in. You can see the realtime exchange at hq. More red than green. Here at the big board that was arc la gistics, ringing the bell. At the nasdaq, Vanguard Natural Resources developer of oil and natural gas properties. A look at what i have in front of me david, can we talk weather for a second . Always. Everyone is talking weather. Great company talking weather. I had eaton last night talking weather. But, lumber liquidators, i mentioned this because you and i both know those growth stocks, talking easter not good. Easter shift. Easter shift and weather. So how bad is it . Express grips is talking weather. I always find it somewhat how about raising eyebrows, raise eyebrows here because isnt that they dont go to get your do not get your do not fill your prescriptions during the winter . Its really cold out im going to skip that prescription an not take avapro, lay low from the statins . No. Youre not buying the weather . No. Im not buying the weather as. N im not buying the fact that obama care signups werent so great. Time for feet to the fire. Dont blame weather if youre a prescription company. Right. Thats the one rain, snow, sleet, prescriptions. All right. There. Made my peace on that issue. Twitter as we knew is down sharply. Not quite 12 . Again, i come back to this comment you made, jim, even though you sound positive. Im nice. Down further from here. I didnt use a price target like callan did. Im still more bullish. Look, i didnt like the call. If you want me to detail, look, seasonality, they just came public put the interview with carl add that in there an mix it all around. The problem is that call is a little more i mean carls interview may be more defining, frankly. I dont like the fact that they are not talking about a personalized news service. I mean i would like to do the call with dick, go back over and say listen, we are now starting it to think about people who dont need to tweet who use us as a news feed. Younger generation like they went facebook to stain gram, going twitter to redit. Reddeddit this is where yoo to talk about trending. 18, 19, 2021yearolds. They look at twitter see whats trending or go to reddit. Reddit is better than twitter. Twitter should buy reddit. With the money from the deal. Maybe ebay will beat them too it. Thats a joke. I didnt like jordan rohans questions talking about the idea of how many total shares canning locked up. Look, on the Conference Call, said it is a meaningful portion of the supply that could come to the market. I didnt want to hear that. That was bad. That was bad. I want to do a reset in terms of some of the news. I did mention that First Quarter gdp number, 0. 1 annualized, well below expectations which had been 1. 2 . Nominal gdp up, the estimate had been 2. 8 . The driver is the driver of wherever there is growth in this country is oil and gas. More growth in oil and gas than there is na any than in any of these softwares or Service Companies in terms of earnings. Unbelievable hess was an unbelieve quarter. Phillips 66. Trinity, maybe the best growth of all, railcars. Okay. Phillips 66, ordered 2,000 railcars to move oil and natural gas. They will not be moving a lot of coal. You referenced it earlier. That Supreme Court decision. We havent taken a look at the stocks in question. What should we be focused on when you say coal is dead. Alstom. Thats how you get you call them up, if youre American Electric power, a Great Company, say look we have to retrofit quickly or the epa will shut down our plants. This is by fiat, government by fiat. Epa, this ruling they were studying this rule when i was in law school. This is about acid rain. Remember that concept. I do. And e pa won and the epa will call every utility in the country and say shut it down. Shut down those coal plants. Havent talked time warner, earnings out, this morning. 20 million shares bought back. Theres a theme for you, of course, that weve talked so often about. Spending 1. 3 billion. Spin of time will take place in the current quarter, time the magazine, print division, includes a lot of Internet Properties as well. You know what im talking about. Which will leave basically a movie studio and Cable Network including, of course, hbo which had a good quarter, turner ratings perhaps not as strong as people hoped for at time warner. Thats right. Because i was saying good quarter. Youre right. The stock is down. You see the stock down 1. 5 . Weve been talking a bit about the large deal in which alstom has accepted at least ges offer of 13. 5 billion. That for its energy assets. Mary thompson joins us at post nine and going to bring on a special guest. A special guest indeed, david. Jim, nice to be with you this morning. We have the pleasure i guess of being joined by General Electric ceo and chairman jeff immelt who joins us from paris to talk about this deal 13. 5 billion for alstoms power assets. Thanks for joining us. I know youve had a busy day already. Hey, mary, how are you . Im well. Great. Tell us what this means for ge . Look, mary, i think its an acquisition thats very consistent with our execution skills, our ability to drive synergies. Its in a market we understand. I think its got relatively low execution risk for investors. Its going to increase our Earnings Growth rate and its going to increase the industrial mix up to 75 of our earnings by 2016. I think it really accomplishes most of what weve laid out as strategic opportunities for the Company Going forward. Whats plan b if its not approved . Look, mary, we the underlying growth of the company has been fantastic. Were quite confident in the strength of our industrial businesses in 14 and going forward, but were confident in our deal. Weve done a lot of deals in europe over time and were pretty experienced in this kind of stuff, so i think we got a good offer and i think it will be executed. Done about 50 deals in europe during the time youve been ceo and you emphasized that on the call. Do you anticipate you might have to make any further concessions on this . There were reports that you might have to add a french director to your board and there are concerns about the Nuclear Assets of alstom as well . Look, mary, i would say weve been doing a ton of business in france for a long time. Its a country we know pretty well. So a lot of what we have talked about weve envisioned and how we think about synergies and what weve committed to do. I think france will be headquarters for some of the divisions of our power business. We already have a big operation in bellford which will grow. This is one that we acquired in 1999 and its quite competitive on a global basis. In many ways were adding. The focus has been on the fact youre acquiring the assets of a French Company but in essence this is a bet on the emerging markets too, isnt it . You know, mary, so like Many Companies that are in this space, the footprint is largely outside of europe and in the emerging markets. So if you think about ge, we have about a 45 billion footprint in the emerging markets. Alstom will add another 13 billion to that. Ge will be close to 60 million in the Growth Markets around the world. Thats a presence that no other Industrial Company in the world has, so we think we can do a lot with that as you look at the Company Going forward. So, you know, i would just emphasize again, mary a lot has been written in the press this week, but were kind of experienced players in this space and we generate a ton of investor value by acquiring European Asset at the right time and transforming them into globally competitive industrial enterprises. Jeff, jim cramer, good to see you, sir. Hey, jim. Good to see you. Okay. When i look at alstoms website and when i talk with the Utility Companies which i have often on mad money, its very clear that coal is in danger, you need to retrofit. When you want to retrofit you call alstom. If you once to avoid what the Supreme Court said last night, which is that epa now has the rules to be able to make it so that were not going to do coal, were going to do natural gas, thats ge and alstom, is the world not going in alstoms direction when it comes to the kinds of plants and retrofitting they do . So jim, what i would say is that first and foremost, this adds 35 to our installed base. We know how to do these retrofits on both coal and gas plants. We think this is the foundation on which investors economically are going to be able to really cash in on this deal. And we see great opportunity for coal retrofits, particularly in the developed world. And then in the emerging world, places like china, india, africa, places like that, theres still going to be Super Critical coal plants built. Still probably for the next decade the most dominant technology around the world will be coal. Its just not going to be in the u. S. And europe. So we see a big service play here and we see, again, a good Growth Opportunity in the emerging markets as well. Jeff, david faber. You said hey, david. Nice to see you. Youve referenced, of course, with this deal if it, in fact, does go through, a larger percentage of your revenues and the business essentially is focused on the industrial economy. What about Financial Services which continues to get smaller . Is there a point at which you will simply think about jettisoning that business or is it sort of at the size that you would like in ge capital . Look, the way i would like at it, david, the businesses were in like aircraft leasing, midmarket lending and leasing, these are good ge businesses where we have competitive advantage versus banks. To me, its really about can we generate good returns for investors and do we have competitive advantages versus banks. But make no mistake, david, i would like the company to be 5 industrial, 25 financial and i think at the end of the day thats what our investors want to see as well. So more industrial and then Financial Services, were going to be in the businesses where we think we can generate good returns and have a clear competitive advantage versus banks. And when you look back at some of the deals youve done, im thinking in health care, for example, amor sham and the like some have said you may have overpaid in the past. A, do you agree with that, and b, what lessons have been learned perhaps as ceo and the deals youve done that youre applying in terms of the current potential deal . Look, i think, david, deals, you know, no matter how long i do this and how many deals i do, i always learn something every time i do it. I think as you think about buying businesses for technology that positions for the future like am mer sham did, we feel good about the core technology. If you look at a deal like alstom, youve got a ton of cost synergies that are right in our wheelhouse. All these things are about taking risks, but i think increasingly and as we learned over time, take the risk in places you can control. Focus on cost synergies first. Pay a good multiple and generate and execute and you dont get them all right, but over time, i think weve gotten more right than wrong and thats how we can continue to transform the company. I heard jim talking about oil and gas. I mean we stand here today with a 20 billion oil and gas business. Its one of the best in the world. Its in all the right niches. We did single Point Acquisitions to build that business as well as organic growth and that business in 2000 with was a billion dollars. Weve done a combination of acquisitions in organic and we like that. You know, so i think when you look at that, i think we get them more right than wrong. Jeff, as david pointed out this goal will get you to a place where its 75 of your earnings will come from the industrial sector and that has been a longterm goal of yours. Once this deal is completed do you think that basically opens the door for your own exit and new leadership to take over at ge . There are been reports out there about no. What your future might be. Not that we want to see you go, jeff. What i would say, i found that to be an interesting article until i read some of the other names and then i knew it had to be b. S. In there as well. Look, what i would say, i bring incredible passion and heat to the job. I completely love the company and what i do. I have Incredible Energy for it. You know, i read jims transcript the day that article came out and what i would say, jim, i agree with you 100 . Ive always done this job like i had a oneday contract. Ive always done the job like i got to produce and deliver every day. And i have tremendous excitement and passion for that today and thats the way it should be and thats the way ge is and thats where were focused. I love how the companys positioned and i love our future. Jeff, its david, to be clear then, that article, these were your words, was b. S. . Listen, i david, heres what i would say, i think ive got a fantastic company, i love the way were positioned and there will be a right day for a transition of ge but thats not today. All right. Jeff, we want to thank you so much for joining us today from paris. Thanks, mary. Weve been speaking with jeff immelt the ceo of General Electric. He did it. Look, synergies theres a delay. That was great. We have to get to Rick Santelli, breaking news on midwest manufacturing. Rick . April release of Chicago Purchasing Managers survey, 63. We were expecting 57. 57. 5. 63 is a solid number. Its the best number since octobers read of 66. 6. So maybe april is being used as an excuse regarding weather to the 0. 1 gdp. The midwest where it was hit hard, augers a different tale at least based on this number. David, back to you. All right. Thank you very much, Rick Santelli. Well coming up the ceo parade continues. Well have an exclusive with ebays ceo john donahoe talk about his companys outlook which disappointed the street a little bit. The stock is down 5 and also talk about that decision to repatriate a lot of cash. Ahead later ceo of cbs leslie moon ves well talk about a lot of different things. Wonder what he thinks of twitter and the aero decision a few months away. Squawk on the street is coming right back. Right back. Heading off on that weekend getaway. Dont want to lug around a big piece of luggage . Well the cnbc duffel bag may just fit your needs. And its signed by the entire squawk on the street gang. You want it . All you have to do is guess fridays nonfarm jobs number. Tweet your estimate to squawkstreet and dont forget the nailthenumber. You have to be 18 years to enter. For all the rules and details, go to [ inaudible ]. You have until 8 00 a. M. Eastern friday morning. Iday morning. [ male announcer ] the Wright Brothers started in a garage. Mattel started in a garage. Disney started in a garage. Amazon started in a garage. The ramones started in a garage. My point . Some of the most innovative things in the world come out of american garages. Introducing the lighter, faster cadillac cts. 2014 motor trend car of the year. Aint garages great . But with less energy, moodiness, and a low sex drive, i had to do something. I saw my doctor. A blood test showed it was low testosterone, not age. 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Everybody knows that. Well, did you know that game show hosts should only host game shows . Samantha, do you take kevin as your lawfully wedded husband. Or would you rather have a new caaaaaar say hello to the seasons hottest convertible. Ohhh. And say goodbye to samantha. [ male announcer ] geico. 15 minutes could save you 15 or more. Weve been talking about natural gas. If youve joined the show regularly you know we talk about it an awful lot the export, a key for shahnear, building this enormous facility. You got to go down there. Im trying to. Im going to do the show theyre known as trains. Right. The largest maybe the largest project going on in America Today if exactly. In terms of infrastructure. Its incredible. But when it comes to the pay for the ceo of the company, that also seems to be a bit incredible, jim. 142 million. In 2013. The proxy came out last night. Its the most the biggest im going to do something i know before i say this. Shahreef sueki when were you a trotski . Can we date that . The workers united should never be defeated. You need some production. Did you sell your czar bonds. Shareef zu ki youre going to defend 142 million a year. Yes, i am. When the stock was at 8 bucks the man had a vision. Yeah. The man had a vision. Im not talking about mo green. Im talking about a real vision. He came on at 8 bucks and told everyone buy my stock because im allin with you. Everything that happens in this company i am going to benefit from if i can get the stock price up. He was looking at the camera and said, you by cheniere people. It was at 8 bucks. He let you in. I never hate ceos that make you money and let you join. I will not turn against him who had a vision we were going to have a glut of natural gas and export it. When people thought we would have a shortage of natural gas. Shareef suk ki is my man. Let you know. 1800 since august and came on this show in 2008. He said jim cramer, i want all of your viewers in cheniere. Were going to benefitp. Thats how im paid and buy it with me. I looks at him and i said, you are the most committed to a stock price ive ever heard. Its okay. He made a lot of money. Ive come from every party imaginable. Except for the pajama party. I like that man. If that wasnt enough for you we have stop trading coming up next. Stay with us. Stay with us. Capital to make it happen . Without the thinking that makes it real . Whats a vision without the expertise to execute it. And the financing to make it grow . Whatever your goal, it can change more than your business. It can change the future. Thats why, at barclays, our ambition is to always realize yours. Thats why i got a new windows 2 in 1. It has exactly what i need for half of what i thought id pay. And i dont need to be online for it to work. It runs office, so i can do schedules and budgets and even menu changes. But its fun, too with touch, and tons of great apps for stuff like music, cause a good playlist is good for business. I need the bosss signature for this. Im the boss. Honestly i wanna see you be brave on brand name mattress sets. Get three years interestfree financing plus, get free delivery, and sleep trains 100day low price guarantee. Sleep trains interest free for 3 event, ends sunday. Your ticket to a better nights sleep its that time. Time for stop trading. A name we have not discussed this morning up sharply, one that we both have had experience with in the past in terms of covering. One of the greatest shorts ive had was lvlt. Level three. Remember when everybody is talking about march 15th of 2000, that was the peak of the nasdaq. That stock traded at 1,965. How is it doing now . What happened today some. Its up a lot. What percentage . 11 . There you go. Lvlt is the company you need to get netflix faster. Right. This Company Finally broke out. I remember jim crow was the ceo then said couple years ago saying one day this will come through. David, this is about highspeed internet. It is. And finally working. Also about a company inflecting to Free Cash Flow positive which is a key and that has a 7 billion to your references to the tougher times, net operating loss. A 7 billion net operating loss when you get cash flow positive can be a strategic asset. Investors are liking it. What im saying its not done. That it can go still higher because when this company gets it right, this is a huge provider with a fiber company, they did the build out and entered the web crash and tellco crash, but they are back. Its just that it was substantially higher, 1,965. S whos quibbling. What do we have on mad money tonight. You know ive got concur. Why does concur matter so much . David, concur is one of those companies that is a software as a Service Company and we know that those have been the enemy and the stock is down 7 on what looked to be a good quarter. Were going to have to study that. Concur. Im still working on my expenses. Only another through weeks. Charifsouki is my herop. He saw the glut, going to export. Only man that will export natural gas in this decade. That was jim cramer. A number of ceo entires, including exclusive with ebay ceo john donahoe and leslie moonves. Were back after this. E back afs for the climate. The conditions in new york state are great for business. New york is ranked 2 in the nation for new private sector job creation. And now its even better because theyve introduced startup new york dozens of taxfree zones where businesses pay no taxes for ten years. Youll get a warm welcome in the new new york. See if your business qualifies at startupny. Com [ female announcer ] theres a gap out there. Thats keeping you apart from the healthcare you deserve. But if healthcare changes. If it becomes simpler. The gap begins to close. When frustration and paperwork decrease. When doctors are better connected. When grandparents get to live at home instead of in a home. The gap closes even more. And you begin to live a healthier, happier life. So lets simplify things. Lets close the gap between people and care. Make it happen with fidelity active trader pro. Its one more innovative reason serious investors are choosing fidelity. Call or click to open your fidelity account today. And our road map starts with twitter. The stock having its worst day since going public this morning, but Ceo Dick Costolo talking to us first on this show saying hes very happy with its level of user engagement. Well bring you more from that interview. Plus, the ceo of ebay, john donahoe, joins us live for an exclusive interview following his companiess results. A read on the housing industry from someone on the inside track. The ceo of true leo will talk to us. We start with twitter the stock curbing as investors worried about user growth, profitability and the lockup on monday. Ceo dick costolo joining us live earlier in the program saying hes happy with the path that the company is on. Joining us now, from San Francisco, is carl who conducted what was a great interview. Over to you. Thanks so much, simon. As you pointed out twitter is on pace for the third worst day since going public, down some 11 , 12 at the open. Down 49 from that alltime high of 74. A lot of things about the quarter were pretty much in line. Revenue was a beat. Adjusted ebitda was a beat, guidance for the year was good, advertising revenue up 125 . It was the inability to blow away those expectations on user growth that left some investors disappointed and we asked dick costolo with so many high profile events in the quarter, the oscars, olympics, super bowl, ncaa, why wasnt user growth more of a victory . The beauty of twitter is that every day in countries around the world, twitter is front and center and almost ubiquitous everywhere in front of people every day. It doesnt take some special event to draw people into twitter. Yesterday during adam silvers press conference, there were tweets on air under his press conference from players and other athletes and commentators about the punishment that was meated out and millions of tweets about that event while it was happening. So its not it doesnt we dont need moments to drive people into twitter. They see twitter and come to us every day. So the platform is already mainstream. We have people around the world 3. 3 billion views of the tweets about the oscars. 3. 3 billion of tweets just about the oscars in the 48 hours after the oscars. If you compare that number because its a big number, to some of the Youtube Content networks with thousands of video channels, those content networks will get 3. 3 billion views in a month. We had that in 48 hours. The platform is main stream. Its just showing people the increased value that they receive when they log into the platform and create their own timeli timeline. Weve had this discussion before about whether or not theres something about twitter that is archaic intimidating and alienating and youre telling me somehow mainstream is going to discover that its eyeeser to use in the coming years. Theyre already consuming it all over the place on tv, in print, on websites and mobile sites around the world, theyre seeing tweets every day and consuming them. What we want to do is improve that logged in experience for them and make that easier for them to engage with. Right. By bringing the content forward and pushing the scaffolding of twitter to the background. The lockup expiration, everybody is talking about that. You filed the ak that says you have no plans to sell your shares, jack dorsey, ed williams. Benchmark announced one of our early investors, announced that they have no plans to sell. And frankly after speaking with most of our major investors that were with the Company Since prior to the ipo, many of those investors have declared that they have no intention to sell. So we feel great about that. Its frankly one of the reasons, probably the primary reason, we have decided and announced that we wouldnt we have no current plans to have a secondary offering. Youve seen most of the other companies in our space have those fairly quickly on the heels of the ipo. We have had no plans to do that because most of our major shareholders have no desire for immediate liquidity. Is there a timeline on that promise, on the selling of the shares or the secondary . I think theres no current plans. I would say visavis the timeline of selling, specifically when i do, when jack does, those will be in accordance with a 10b51 plan and we would have to file that and even under filing that theres another 90 days of a cooling off period before we would sell. Obviously, guys, that promise in the a. K. And the promise last night in the Conference Call, the promise in our interview, not convincing a lot of investors. Technically on may 5th, hundreds of millions of shares are open for trade so thats clearly got some of the shorts interested in bringing the name down a little lower. Interesting to see if they can get beyond the skepticism as to whether or not there will be a lot of selling on may 5th. We did ask him whether or not he felt the need to buy something big. He said he was focused on growing the company as he is and we asked about the valuation of whatsapp which he said was interesting. Over to you. Yeah. I saw his eyebrows raise a little on that. Carl, on the business, i thought it was notable that he used the word mainstream twice in his answer to you. Ubiquitous is another word that came up in the conversation. The point is, 241 million monthly uniques in q4, 255 million in the latest quarter. They dont have the scale that facebook does and they may never do that. Does this issue come up . This seems to plague investors. Its clearly the challenge, is to and they will make the point here at twitter, that twitter is not facebook. So if you are a Facebook User and thats your sense of what social is, twitter is not necessarily that. Its trying to convince those people to adopt something that is different and in many cases is new and thats the only way user growth is going to get turbo charged in the near future. Okay. Thank you very much, carl. Well see you later in the show. Carl quintanilla from twitters headquarters. Digging the no tie Silicon Valley chic look with carl. The markets reacting to the first read on First Quarter gdp. Also the adp numbers out on private sector jobs. Also well get a fed statement at 2 00 p. M. Eastern time. A lot to digest. Thank goodness we have Steve Liesman with all the details. We have to start on gdp. Simon walked up and said is that a joke. I thought it was a misprint. I thought we got the data wrong. It was below what wall street was looking for. Ive had long my questions about simons sense of humor. Two reports guys ending in dp. Adp and gdp. Gdp as these guys were talking about a shocker at just barely positive. 0. 1 . Could have been a misprint because they were compared to an estimate of 1. 1 . Just missing a digit. How did we get to this awful number . Consumer spending not too shabby at 3 , but that was driven by the way by health care spending, likely the Affordable Care act for the First Quarter, playing a big role. Housing, another Second Quarter, Second Quarter a very bad numbers there. Business equipment negative. Government. No rebound from the shutdown negative number in the fourth quarter. Inventory also down as well as real trade. But here are the comments. It says bmo, American Economy stalled this year in the face of severe weather. Capital economics says weve already seen a market improvement in the monthly data for march which suggests there will be a big rebound in the Second Quarter. Gdp growth. And rdq, we do not take this report as a serious representation of the state of growth in the economy. And the reason for that optimism is the other dp number, adp, which continues to show good job growth in the economy. Heres what we got. 220 on the estimate sorry 220 on the number versus a 210 estimate, march revisions to the upside. Goods producing not too bad, Strong Service sector growth, that compares with an estimate for the friday government report of both private sector and government hiring of 215,000. What about the fed . I think whats going to happen, i think the fed takes the number with a grain of salt. Stays on course to taper. Doesnt change its expectations for upping the funds rate some time mid next year. They will keep an eye on this report. Any sign the weakness is confirmed its more than weather will raise red flags inside the fed. Cant you say it has to be more than weather . You cant possibly blame it all on the weather. The expectation was 1. 2 . Right. I mean you can say that a large part of it is weather. Its certainly more than the weather estimates of most economists, sara, but we have problems in the economy. I think housing is a problem that we need to start to think more about. And some questions in the economy, i think Capital Spending is one of them. But other things are going well and the general thought, sara, is that the head winds from last year are diminishing and a big part of the negative or the detraction from the economy was the weather in the First Quarter and also the march and april data so far has been more robust. Well see what the fed statement says this afternoon. Steve, for the meantime thank you very much. Up next on the program, an exclusive interview with the ceo of ebay, that stock in the red today after its firstquarter results. Find out what he has in store for the company as they repatriate cash and pay tax. And later, cbs Ceo Les Moonves will tell us what he thinks about the arroyo battle with the broadcasters. Squawk on the street will be right back. Right back. [ girl ] my mom, she makes underwater fans that are powered by the moon. She can print amazing things, right from her computer. [ whirring ] [ train whistle blows ] she makes trains that are friends with trees. My mom works at ge. Female announcer sleep trains interest free ends sunday. Orks at ge. Its your last chance to get three years interestfree financing on beautyrest black, stearns foster, serta icomfort; even tempurpedic. Plus, get free delivery, and sleep trains 100day low price guarantee. But hurry sleep trains interest free for 3 event, ends sunday. Sleep train your ticket to a better nights sleep could mean less waiting for things like security backups and file downloads youd take that test, right . Well, what are you waiting for . You could literally be done with the test by now. Now you could have done it twice. This is awkward. Check your speed. See how fast your internet can be. Switch now and add voice and tv for 34. 90. Comcast business built for business. Check out shares of ebay down 6 after firstquarter results disappointed wall street. John fortt is live in los angeles for the cable show with an exclusive interview right now. John . Thanks there, sara. Want to bring in john donahoe, ceo of ebay. Stock trading down a little bit after this report. Results generally, though, better than expected. John, thanks for joining us. Want to dive right in. First, with this cash question, why do this repatriation or at least prepare to repatriate . Is it because you want to maintain that, a, credit rating, versus taking on more debt, and exactly what sorts of Companies Might you invest in or buy with this money . Well, john, this is just a simple extension of our Capital Allocation strategy. It doesnt commit us to repatriate the cash. Its not triggered by any specific m a or anything specific. And it doesnt preclude us from issuing more debt. It gives us more Financial Flexibility over the medium to long term as we look at our u. S. Cash needs going forward, be it buyback, acquisitions, gives us flexibility that we think will be important in the medium to long term. Okay. So something set aside should you choose to do it but not putting a specific timetable for it. Second question is about alibaba. We expect ipo documents from that company any day now. There are rumors that the market cap expected could be twice ebays. Its a global ecommerce player. Whats the argument going to be for investors to put their money into ebay instead of a company like that . You know, whether its ebays growth direction, whether its whats your argument going to be . Ebay has a strong global platform. Were present in 190 markets around the world. We have 150 million active consumers roughly in the ebay and the paypal business. We have two globally known brands. Globally respected brands. And over 200 billion of commerce volume safely trades through the ebay and paypal platfo platforms. Those platforms have built up over years. Consumers trust them, Merchants Trust them. 20 of those transactions are cross boarder. Well continue to invest in the two strong Global Platforms and continue to invest in leading Edge Technology around mobile technology, around ways to bring commerce to the local market, so weve got a strong global franchise and well continue to extend and grow that franchise. All right. Sound good. Simon hobbs, back in nyc has a question. John, a lot of people are struggling with this decision, to double back, to repatriate most of your foreign cash, 9 billion, back that this country and pay a 3 billion tax bill as a result. I mean, why do that . Why not do what apple has done and borrow the money here against the money thats held abroad . Why pay its great youre paying more tax, but why do it . Well, simon, to be clear were not weve not decided to repatriate the money at all. All weve done is take an noncash charge that gives us the flexibility to do that down the road if we so choose. Its just driven by looking at our future needs for cash, internationally versus our future needs for cash in the u. S. As we look going forward, weve announced a 5 billion stock buyback, which obviously has to be financed by international or domestic cash, our m a needs over the medium to long term, doesnt preclude us from issuing more debt, we issued that last year or two years ago, its a way to give us more Financial Flexibility over the medium to long term. John, david faber. Hate to belabor the point what does that mean . If we can follow this through. Im getting a lot of questions from your shareholders trying to understand it. Perhaps it hasnt been communicated as well as it should be. This is a chance to do that. Why do you need that Financial Flexibility . Youre not particularly levered. You said you could issue more debt. Can you give us some sense here as to why now, understanding its noncash bs but nonetheless, the idea of Financial Flexibility . You know, david, its just prudent planning. Theres really Nothing Specific around it other than when we look at our u. S. Cash today, versus our international cash, we have significantly more cash outside the u. S. And if we look at our needs going forward, this was simply a way to take a onetime, noncash charge to give us the flexibility, if and when we need to repatriate cash down the road we can do it easily. It doesnt preclude our ability to issue more debt, not driven by any specific event other than what i would call a continuation of good, medium to longterm Capital Allocation strategy. By doing it you clearly signal that you are likely to repatriate, correct . Well, i wouldnt say that. What were signaling is we have a lot of cash outside the u. S. That we look forward we have significant needs inside the u. S. And we want to have the flexibility down the road if we completed our cash or completed our repatriation and saw a major acquisition a year or two years, three years down the road we would have the flexibility to move quickly if we needed to. Simply getting more flexibility. John, i have a question. Clearly you got past all of the drama around carl icahn pushing you to split the businesses, but if you go through some of the results clearly the growth when it comes to sales growth is in the paypal unit. When it comes to ebay marketplace growth, some investors are disappointed. In fact, sales growth is slowing. I know guidance disappointed a little. How do you plan to speed that up and build on those synergies which you emphasized so much during the fight with carl icahn to increase the sales growth in the marketplace. We feel good about the First Quarter. We got through it distracting proxy fight, outperformed on the top line, outperformed on the bottom line and reaffirmed our annual guidance yesterday. So as we look forward in the Second Quarter and rest of the year were going to continue to drive strong growth, strong growth in the ebay core business. We accelerated growth outside the u. S. We had strong fixed price growth inside the core ebay business. Well continue to drive new user growth and expand that global franchise. And then paypal continues to accelerate growth. Accelerating Merchant Services growth in the First Quarter. Were expanding internationally. And mobile technology is driving both mobile commerce and mobile payments. Mobile up 70 in the First Quarter. So well continue to drive the positive fly wheel that gets created on ebay and help that accelerate paypals growth off ebay. Its a formula thats worked over the last several years and one well continue. John, lets take it macro for a moment. We had a weak gdp number this morning. You had good results for the quarter. But didnt raise your full year guidance at least not yet. How much of that is being conservative, how much has to do with uncertainty over how you see the overall Macro Economy performing, whether its here in the u. S. Or internationally where you seemed, as you said, to have some pretty good growth last quarter . You know, john, i wouldnt say it was Macro Economically driven one way or another. Only 90 days into a year, one quarter into the year. We feel very good about our annual guidance. We reaffirmed that yesterday. Again, within any given year you have pluses and minuses. International growth is strong, domestic growth is about where we thought it would be. We think we have good opportunities in the second half of the year and were investing in the Second Quarter to capitalize on those opportunities. So we feel good about the year and the Macro Economic factors didnt really weigh heavily one way or another. All right. John, thanks for joining us exclusively after this quarter and investors have a lot to digest from your preparation to potentially repatriate that cash to your outlook for the rest of the year. Thanks again. Sara . Good to get clarity especially on that issue with so many questions. Up next on squawk on the street, housing data, going from bad to worse. Well talk to the ceo of trulia about what he cease in the industry and his first reaction to the companys Earnings Results right after the break. Te weekend getawah way . Dont want to lug around a big piece of luggage. The cnbc duffel bag may fit your needs. And its signed by the entire squawk on the street gang. You want it . All you have to do is guess fridays nonfarm jobs number tweet your estimate to squawkstreet dont forget the nailthenumber. You have to be at least 18 years of age to enter. For all the rules and details go to cnbc. Com. You have until 8 29 a. M. Eastern friday morning. Ay morning. Your . They think about tires. And what theyve been through lately. Polar vortexes, road construction, and gaping potholes. So with all that behind you, you might want to make sure youre safe and in control. Ford technicians are ready to find the right tires for your vehicle. Get up to 120 in mailin rebates on four select tires when you use the Ford Service Credit card at the big tire event. See what the ford experts think about your tires. At your ford dealer. Transit fares as in the 37 billion transit fares we help collect each year. No . Oh, right. Youre thinking of the 1. 6 million daily Customer Care interactions xerox handles. Or the 900 Million Health insurance claims we process. So, its no surprise to you that companies depend on todays xerox for services that simplify how work gets done. Which is. Pretty much what weve always stood for. With xerox, youre ready for real business. For 175 dollars a month . So our business can be on at ts network which is. Pretty much what weve always stood for. Yup. All five of you for 175. Our clients need a lot of attention. Theres unlimited talk and text. Were working deals all day. You get 10 gigabytes of data to share. What about expansion potential . Add a line anytime for 15 bucks a month. Low dues. Great terms. Lets close. New at t mobile share value plans. Our best value plans ever for business. [ male announcer ] when fixed income experts. Work with equity experts. Who work with regional experts. Who work with Portfolio Management experts, thats when expertise happens. Mfs. Because there is no expertise without collaboration. More news out of the Housing Market. Week lly motor gauge applicatio to a fourweek low last week. More on that in d. C. Good morning. Good morning. That Weekly Mortgage number is the current gauge of whats going on in housing right now and the volumes were down nearly 6 week to week with rates not moving an inch and the weather warming up nicely. Repsis have been disastrous since rates popped up last summer but Mortgage Applications to purchase a home down 4 week it to week and down a striking 21 are from a year ago. They should be improving. Last year wasnt exactly a housing boom. These numbers are an indicator of sales because most folks need a mortgage to buy a home. You may be asking, why the numbers are so bad if home prices are rising so nicely as we saw from yesterdays caseshiller report up around 13 from a year ago. Those prices were juiced throughout 2013 by all cash investors at the low end of the market. Today, those investors are slowly moving out and leaving those high prices and the market to regular buyers. Buyers who need money for a down payment, need good Credit Scores to qualify for a loan. They need enough equity in their current home to be able to move an they also need to have confidence in this Housing Market. Now clearly there are not as many buyers as the market might like. The census just reported in the First Quarter of this year, the nations Home Ownership rate fell to the lowest level in 19 years. Just below 65 . Now there are still some investors in the market at the low end and all cash buyers are actually still over one third of the market before the rest affordability is the culprit this spring. More analysis on the dotcom, go to it realty check. Cnbc. Com. We know youve been all over the slowdown approach in the market. Well stick with housing. Shares of trulia are trading higher after reporting a mixed First Quarter in terms of results, the companys revenue beating estimates but missing on the bottom line. Here is the companys cofounder and ceo. Good to see you again, pete. Hi. Good morning. Good to see you. Before we get into your companys numbers, want to follow up on dianas reporting there. All the data is adding up to Slower Growth in the Housing Market. With your unique vantage point, how slow does it go . How much worse does this get for housing in this country . So i think what were seeing the Housing Market is finding an equilibrium. The investors are stepping out of the market and regular home buyers moving into the market. Were seeing just a balancing act and trying to find the equilibrium. Were quite happy about that. I think as we look back at 2012, 2013, we saw growth in the metrics an were thinking its achieving some sortle for of modest growth over the next sel several years. If you look at some of the other factors, Home Ownership rates are at the lowest level in 19 years. I mean were nowhere near back before the financial crisis. How much longer is it going to take until the Housing Market gets back to normal . Yeah. So we see its you know, some measures its getting back to normal. Home prices are up 30 year over year. You see home sales, they have around 5 million a little stagnant over the last couple quarters. The couple of areas which have yet to grow is one is the new home sales construction. Youve seen really disappointing data in the First Quarter in new home sales. A lot of momentum in the next couple years. On the Home Ownership data, were seeing incredible growth amongst a rental audience. Were seeing just a year over year growth, almost doubling in volume, doubling in inquiries. A lot of growth as you can see if theyre not owning theyre renting. Were actually one of the beneficiaries of that growth in consumers looking to rent. Sure. I know thats going to be an area in which you will invest, peter, moving forward. What would you say to investors about the earnings that youve just reported . Youve clearly done well on subscribers, missing slightly on the bottom line. The stock really hasnt gone so far this year. How are you selling the business and Business Model at the moment . Were delighted with the fourth quarter. Look at this in the Real Estate Market in the u. S. , 27 billion in real estate related advertising in its infancy. Trulias audience is growing rapidly. Nearly 50 million in april. Also we see Revenue Growth growing rapidly. This is a huge market this early on in the infancy. Where were excited to highlight in the First Quarter, is both subscriber 7,000 subscribers, a record for us, significant record in our history, and its also a mobile usage accelerating. Weve been a huge beneficiary of transition to mobile and mobile Audience Growth accelerating, able to monetize the audience and just an amazing experience using our mobile apps, looking at pictures, looking at maps, data, all the information, super valuable. I just want to get your thoughts here on recent comments made by Rupert Murdoch to fortune saying he looked at a potential acquisition of zillow, your competitor or you trulia to complement his Australian Business but these companies were, quote, overpriced. Would you consider a sale to mr. Murdoch or someone else . You know, the newscorp had has experience in looking at building businesses internationally in real estate. Number one australia is owned by newscorp and a huge success when you look at that business. I cant remember the numbers but like 4 or 5 dlp market cap. Is that a yes some. Compare that to the u. S. And its a much larger market and smaller valuation for us so we think theres a lot of potential for valuation growth in the future. Its not a not. I dont know if thats a yes. He admires newscorp and what theyve done in real estate. Thank you. The companys ceo of trulia. Breaking news to catch up on at the new york mer. We have nymex oil prices bouncing off of lows this morning. Still trading here below 100 a barrel. We saw a rise in inventories of 1. 7 mill be barrels of crude. Gasoline up 1. 6 Million Barrels. Fuels up 1. 9 Million Barrels. That increase was slightly less than what analysts were looking for and less than what the industry reported yesterday and still keeps our inventory levels just shy of 400 Million Barrels which would be a record high in terms of Record Keeping since 1982. Since the government has been watching storage levels. That is ultimately what is weighing here on the energy markets. Coupled with that weak reading on First Quarter gdp, participants will be watching this afternoon to see what the fed has to say in terms of its easing of those bond purchases. Right now, though, were Still Holding below 100 a barrel for crude. Back to you. Okay. Bertha thank you very much. Bertha coombs at the nymex. Alibaba was expected to file for its ipo here in new york but more than a week later were still waiting. Whats the holdup . Well have some details on that next. Next. Nd freddie mac have been there for america. Helping millions realize their dreams of homeownership. And when fannie mae and freddie mac needed help, america was there for them. Today, fannie mae and freddie mac celebrate payment in full to taxpayers. Together, weve created one of the greatest comebacks in our nations history. So, lets preserve and strengthen fannie mae and freddie mac. Because without them there really could be no place like home. Thats why i got a new windows 2 in 1. It has exactly what i need for half of what i thought id pay. And i dont need to be online for it to work. It runs office, so i can do schedules and budgets and even menu changes. But its fun, too with touch, and tons of great apps for stuff like music, cause a good playlist is good for business. I need the bosss signature for this. Im the boss. Honestly i wanna see you be brave everything looking good. Velocity 1,200 feet per second. [ man 2 ] youre looking great to us, eagle. 2,000 feet. Still looking very good. 1,400 feet. [ male announcer ] a funny thing happens when you shoot for the moon. Ahh, thats affirmative. [ male announcer ] you get there. Youre a go for landing, over. [ male announcer ] the all new cadillac cts, the 2014 motor trend car of the year. Female announcer sleep trains interest free ends sunday. Its your last chance to get three years interestfree financing on beautyrest black, stearns foster, serta icomfort; even tempurpedic. Plus, get free delivery, and sleep trains 100day low price guarantee. But hurry sleep trains interest free for 3 event, ends sunday. Sleep train your ticket to a better nights sleep alibaba was expected to file its f1 this week but investors are waiting. Kayla tausche has the details. Youve been doing a lot of reporting on the delay. Whats the holdup . As investors have been waiting for this document we had word last week it would happen as soon as potentially monday of this week. Now it appears from the people that ive been speaking with, the filing is more likely to come early next week. These are massive documents, in this case an f1, hundreds of pages in length and you can imagine a lot of normal procedural stuff behind the scenes going on. Dotting is, crossing ts, making sure you have an auditor sign off on almost every single number. Im told the delay in the ipo filing is not expected to hold up the timing of the ipo with executives and underwriters hoping for potentially the largest ipo in the u. S. Ever to come to this market by labor day. Now that could, of course, change by a couple weeks depending on what the sec has to say, but at this point thats still the case. Of course Market Conditions could change that valuation, but right now, upwards of 20 billion is what some advisors are talking about. Of course executives are doing meticulous review of what is a very, very massive document, but some advisors i spoke with were talking about the idea that only recently was the document shared with the broader pool of underwriters and this recent buying spree by alibaba and its founder and chairman jack ma had shifted focus. In the last month alibaba and or ma have done three deals, paying 532 million for control of a Financial Software company, buying 1 billion stake in an online games and Entertainment Company and just as of this monday, paying 1. 2 billion for refly a onefifth stake in youku. Those are Strategic Priorities for alibaba for ma, for the broader empire, but, of course, until you get some of those things out of way you cant sit down and hunker down and take a fine tooth comb to some of the important documents. David, sara, simon, i know that investors are waiting for this document, especially investors in yahoo to see what these numbers hold, but it doesnt look like well get that until next week. 400 pages i hear, kay ta. Its not going to tell us more in terms of basic Sales Numbers than we got from yahoo . Eventually the amended filings may include the First Quarter of this year. I dont know if youre hearing differently. Well get a much better sense of margin and everything that goes into it, but were not going to get updated financials at least in the top line that we got just from yahoo reporting its last quarter. Exactly. It wont have the First Quarter until later on when it goes back and forth with the sec and then right before the road show will publish the most recent financials once it has those. David, we also wont know how big the ipo will be. Im told and this is customary it will have a placeholder figure of how much it looks to raise, a small number but thats not going to save 20 billion or 15 billion, but of course the talk in the market is that this could be the biggest ipo to hit the u. S. Market ever. Yeah. Why theyre going to bring it in august is beyond me. August 25th. Everybody will be around then. Well see what happens. Kayla, thank you very much for that. Joining us now is a tech entrepreneur who knows how to profit from social and gaming, dan port was the ceo of [ inaudible ]. And sold the business to zynga for 180 million two years ago and currently the head of digital for the Hollywood Talent Agency William Morris endeavor. Good morning. [ inaudible ]. Im excited. I dont think theres been a huge success of track record of companies from asia listing here or even operating their business here, but i think that the Commerce Business has turned out to be so much more defensible than i think anyone would have ever thought. Let me pick up on that. Kayla was highlighting the transactions jack ma trying to do before he comes here and hes launching this battle with ten crept, the big china players. What does that say theyre having this struggle, rapid acceleration on m a, because china is such a great market or because as you say, there may be other factors . I think youre seeing this battle and you can actually see the same thing with amazon here where theyre trying to combine content and commerce. So on the one hand you have ten cent connecting these people between kind of content and games, and then youve got alibaba on the commerce side and at the end of the day, theyre all going to be fighting over the same people encroaching into each others territories. The other topic everyone is buzzing about the f8 conference from facebook. The first time weve seen that in a couple years. Mark zuckerberg is set to speak. Are you expecting any big product announcements out of facebook now that it has become a Public Company with investors scrutinizing everything it does . I dont think youre going to see anything as a Facebook User that will be different for you, but obviously facebook has moved to mobile, the conference will shift to mobile, and aside from facebook a lot of people are still looking to make money on mobile especially through mobile ads. So anything they roll out on that front thats going to help other developers is going to help app discovery, people think the app store is broken, cant get their app found, thats where the opportunities are. Dan, your head of digital at William Morris endeavor. What do you do . Mostly roll back in my chair, put my feet on the desk. Can i get that job. Were looking constantly at the way the entertainment landscape is changing. You know we are interested in and work in tv and movies and music and books and all those things are kind of undergoing a seismic shift. We make Strategic Investments for things that could be disruptive for our business. Any big conclusions you can share with us . The at the end of the day its going to be content driven. We get all upset are people going to watch on their phones, ipads but the end of the day, good content is really what stands out. Im not sure how up to speed you are on the fact that twitter is having another bad day in the wake of its results and questions over its ability to grow and engage people in the huge lockup, twothirds stock becomes available on monday. Yeah. Whats the inside track, what are people saying behind closed doors. I think two things. One is i do think that, you know, traditionally people do sell, but i think that the people who are invested are very much in this for the long run. I think, you know, 10 to 15 years ago, companies would go public at 100 million revenue. Thats when amazon went public. If they were at a billion like twitter is now they would have grown ten times and you wait a long time to go public, and youre at a slower end of your growth curve. What i like about twitter especially is vine. We see in the talent business a lot of kids on vine who are building tremendous audience, vine unlike be youtube or instagram has this kind of revine thing where people can share other vines and theyre really growing audience at a very, very rapid clip. And can you monetize that . I think in some ways you can more highly because if youre a viner you can crank out the sixsecond incremental videos faster than you can on youtube and you can have brand integration and stuff like that. Were looking and working with a lot of those people and i never hear anybody talk about it. I think its really interesting. If you can argue that youtube as a Standalone Company would be worth 50 billion, even if vine is worth a 50 of that is there value there. Good to see you, dan. Come back any time. Thank you. Dan porter joining us. We need to be vining more. Carl does a lot of vining. Probably vining as we speak on the west coast. Up next General Electric making a multibillion dollar for alstoms Energy Business. Hear what ges ceo had to say about the offer and where it fits into ges plans when we come back. On car insurance. Everybody knows that. Well, did you know that game show hosts should only host game shows . Samantha, do you take kevin as your lawfully wedded husband. Or would you rather have a new caaaaaar say hello to the seasons hottest convertible. Ohhh. And say goodbye to samantha. [ male announcer ] geico. 15 minutes could save you 15 or more. [ male announcer ] geico. At your ford dealer think . They think about tires. And what theyve been through lately. Polar vortexes, road construction, and gaping potholes. So with all that behind you, you might want to make sure youre safe and in control. Ford technicians are ready to find the right tires for your vehicle. Get up to 120 in mailin rebates on four select tires when you use the Ford Service Credit card at the big tire event. See what the ford experts think about your tires. At your ford dealer. [ banker ] sydney needed some Financial Guidance so she could take her dream to the next level. So we talked about her options. Her valuable assets were staying. And selling her car wouldnt fly. We helped sydney manage her debt and prioritize her goals, so she could really turn up the volume on her dreams today. And tomorrow. So lets see what we can do about that. Remodel. Motorcycle. [ female announcer ] some questions take more than a bank. They take a banker. Make a my financial priorities appointment today. Because when people talk, great things happen. Welcome back to squawk on the street. Check out shares of royal dutch shell. The oil giant posting better than firstquarter results an boosted by gas earnings. Increased its dividend to 47 cents a share. The stock up 3. 5 just off of its session highs. Simon, back over to you. Thank you very much, dom. Meanwhile the french conglomerate alstom is accepting General Electrics bid for its energy assets. Ges Ceo Jeff Immelt joined us earlier in the show. Mary thompson here at post nine with the highlights on that. Hes clearly engaged on a Massive Pr Campaign within the french establishment now to get this through. That is right. Youre correct in that. They have experience there. They know how to do it. Remember the deal isnt final, that alstom called ges offer compelling and General Electric said on an analyst call its binding cash and debt offer did have the support of the board. As for immelt he sees the purchase of the companys businesses as a good strategic fit to its own power business. I think its an acquisition thats very consistent with our execution skills, our ability to drive synergies. Its in a market we understand. I think its got relatively low execution risk for our investors. Alstoms board, shareholders and the labor board approve the deal ge expects it will close in 2015, at 8 to 10 of earnings and result in 75 of its operating earnings coming from its industrial businesses. Thats up from a goal of having 70 of operating earnings coming from those businesses. Immelt wouldnt say if further asset sales and finance would account for the remaining 25 will be necessary to reach that ratio. Lastly it is expected to bring about 1. 2 billion in cost savings over the next five years. The cfo will be leading the effort to turn the costs. One question the Investment Community has about the deal why is ge making a bet on alstoms turbines at a time when the developed world is increasingly opposed to coal fired anything. Heres immelts response. Theres still going to be Super Critical coal plants built. Its still probably for the next decade the most dominant technology around the world will be coal. Its just not going to be in the u. S. And europe. During his 13 1 2 years as ceo, immelt has done 50 deals in europe. This would be his 51st and his largest ever if approved. Now with recent reports saying he may leave before the firms mandatory retirement age of 65 we had to ask him if the successful completion of the deal could pave the way for his exit and appointment of a new ceo. I think ive got a fantastic company, i love the way were positioned and there will be a right day for a transition to ge but thats not today. Not today. But remember the deal isnt going to be done until 2015. I believe he used the phrase b. S. When it came to some of the reports. He was talking about a report earlier and goes i knew it was b. S. When i saw the people they mentioned as replacing him. He said that in guest. Of course its some of his top lieutenants mentioned in the report, people he looks on favorab favorably. Should anybody mention the germans offer . Yeah, we on the network . Yes, you can. Lets talk about that. Alstom has knowledge that it received an expression of interest from siemens. Siemens have reportedly set to sweeten an earlier bid, and alstom said it would consider all bids, during the month its reviewing ges offer. So its not final . No, it is not. They have until june 2nd, then shareholder vote. The labor board has to approve it. And the germans have said we need four weeks to look at your books. Until june 2nd. But they did sound pretty confident. All right, mary. Good interview. Thank you for bringing it to us on the heels of the ge bid. Les moonves, plenty to talk about with him. About with him. [ cows moo ] [ sizzling ] more rain. [ thunder rumbles ] [ male announcer ] when the world moves. Futures move first. Learn futures from experienced pros with dedicated chats and daily live webinars. And trade with papermoney to testdrive the market. All on thinkorswim from td ameritrade. Visit truecar. Comoney,com,t and never overpay. Yers remorse. A good deal or not. Okay, this is the price,sman comes and youre like. Ells you, today is wednesday today, we greet you. Treat you. Care for you. Today, you can come to Cleveland Clinic for anything, everything or just to get that thing checked out. Big, small, and yes, the best heart care in the nation. Its here everyday, for everyone. Thats the power the power, thats the power of today. Cleveland clinic. Call today, for an appointment today. That corporate trial by fire when every slacker gets his due. And yet, theres someone around the office who hasnt had a Performance Review in a while. Someone whose poor performance is slowing down the entire organization. Im looking at you phone company dsl. Check your speed. See how fast your internet can be. Switch now and add voice and tv for 34. 90. Comcast business built for business. Hes all fired up about growth in our nations economy. Lets go to Rick Santelli with the santelli exchange. Well, thank you very much. And what a professor to have on the fed day. We have Professor John taylor. Welcome, professor. Good to be here. Thank you for having me. Its our pleasure. All right, listen, i was in a discussion earlier today. Tell me if im on point or off point. The fed being datadependent to me is a twilight zone, rod serling statement to make. Tell me if this is correct. We look at data, and if it weakens, we keep doing a strategy that gives us a. 1 gdp, even though weather related, uneven growth. Does it seem kind of crazy to hold out as datadependent strategy that probably fails the litmus test of cost benefit analysis . I dont think its been successful. I dont think its worked. And i think its good theyre getting off of it gradually. I think youre right, the First Quarter was largely weather, but its still not even when you put that in, its not that great, and a rebound in the Second Quarter most likely, but thats also coming back from the weather. So i think if you look at this policy over the years since they started it, i dont see it as much signs of success. I think youre exactly right. If the john taylor rule was dictating overnight fed funds rate, where would it be at right now, professor . Be about. 25 , most likely, and it wouldnt have gotten into all of the qe in the first place, so the questions about exit and the uncertainty about that wouldnt be there. So i think it would have a lot of advantages to follow an approach like that. Charles evans made the following statement not long ago. Well put it on the screen. For me, there is a problem with simplistic approaches. Simple tailor rules failed to express policy, intentions clearly. Professor, where i come from, kiss is the rule of the day. Keep it simple, or stupid, ill say, keep it simple. What is wrong with simple where every player in the marketplace can tinker with your formula and nowhere fed funds ought to be. Isnt that a better way . Isnt a rulebased fed policy preferable . Absolutely. And it worked for quite a while while it was being followed more or less. In the 80s or 90s, a good time, economists call it the great moderation. You look back at that history, when the fed was most ruledbased of all, and now off of that. So i think Charlie Evans is dead wrong on that statement. All right. Listen, with regard to imf policy, youve written great papers on the exceptional Access Framework. And what i see now is with respect to ukraine, the imf is going to be given the first part of what it called the bailout of 17 billion. Heres the key. The u. S. Has promised to underwrite a euro bond issued by eye crane. Can you tie all that up together . Is this a good idea or bad idea . I think its a good idea to get in and help the Ukrainian Government get on better track with economic policy. The exceptional Access Framework which the imf i think broke the own rules in the case of greece, that was a problem. They have to fix that, they havent repaired the rules. Theyre intending to do it. In the meantime, a strategy to make sure ukraines debt is sustainable so they can get out of the mess and actually give them some encouragement to follow some good, say, free market, if you like, policies, which would help that country tremendously. Excellent. Thanks for clarifying that with regard to ukraine. Thanks for taking the time today, professor. Simon, its all yours, buddy. Thank you very much, rick. We have two big interviews coming up. Marriott ceo will join us with the groups results, and les moonves will be with us live. Were back after a quick break. Passion. Became your business. At t can help simplify how you manage it. So you can focus on what you love most. When everyone and everything works together, business just sings. You stand behind what you say. Theres a saying around here, around here you dont make excuses. You make commitments. And when you cant live up to them, you own up, and make it right. Some people think the kind of accountability that thrives on so many streets in this country has gone missing in the places where its needed most. But i know youll still find it when you know where to look. Good wednesday morning. It is 11 00 a. M. On the east coast, 8 00 a. M. Out west. We have a great show for you this morning. Im at twitter headquarters in San Francisco. Well hear from twitters ceo this hour, along with the ceo of ebay, john donohoe. Ges ceo, jeff emelt, and les moonves and arnie sorenson. Meantime, kayla is back in new york along with john steinberg, buzzfeeds coo and cnbc contributor. Good morning. Good morning. Lets recap twitter. Revenue in line actually a beat, adjusted ebitda, a beat, the guidance for the year good. Investors today obviously disappointed that a Monthly Average users did not grow more than being simply in line. Some weakness in international. The stock today is on pace for its third worst day since going public last fall, as investors worry about the lockup expiration, of course, on may 5 kt. We did talk to dick this morning. So many big deals in tech lately. We asked him, dos he feel the urge to buy something big. Were very focused on strengthening our Core Products, twitter and vine. I dont feel any particular compunction to do that. We have three specific things growth, operating leverage, and operating efficiency. And as we strengthen our core and service to growing our Core Products, well be fine. Are valuations right now, im thinking whatsapp, are they taking your breath away . Theyre significant. Hows that . Okay, thats to the point. Yeah. But does it make you feel like things would you want to buy otherwise are out of reach . No, i dont think so. We look at the landscape and we have a very considered approach to m a. The kinds of things we want to do in service to strengthening our core, like the quinnipiac acquisition, were able to do. Some argue growth names are under pressure, to show promise of things other than Revenue Growth, other than cash flow. Do you feel pressured to start putting some demonstrating some true eps power in the traditional sense . So i just mentioned specifically im focused on three things growth, operating efficiency and operating leverage. That second and third are absolutely in service to steadily improving margins. Steadily improving margins. So as a highgrowth company, what i want to make sure were doing is not starving the Growth Engine while constantly focusing internally on Getting Better better and better at operating efficiency and operating leverage in service to margins. All right. So obviously theres the user growth question. Theres the lockup expiration question. And on top of all that, guys, the question of whether or not twitter drives tv ratings, a bit of a debate between costolo and allen woertzle this week. John steinberg, id love to get your views. Whats the stock reflecting today . I think the story theyre telling on the call and what hes telling you is its a good story. Content is created and ultimately it doesnt need the consumption on the platform. The challenge is, he said on the call, people are consuming tweets everywhere. Theyre not getting the full revenue benefit of that. If they had a tv Network Partner or Mainstream Media partner or had a way for people to consume it in a newspaper online format, i think the company would be better positioned. But theyre changing the story. Now its no longer a social network. He described with you a relationship with tv where its complementary, not just where twitter benefits tv, but tv should benefit twitter, too. You put the question to him about these moments the oscars, ncaa, and the olympics. Even though he talked so much last night about the oscars, 3. 3 billion impressions just from that single selfie, today he told you, look, we dont depend on those moments. But what sort of message do you take away from that flipflopping, for lack of a better word . Well, i think they would point to, obviously, the incremental steps that theyre taking to try to drive that engagement, being more aggressive on notifications, make it easier to onboard, as they say, changing that user profile, which were going to look at later on this hour, making the image and the picture more of the star. Its no one thing about twitter, all this time, people have said what can i say in 140 characters . And a big part of the strategy here is to prove to people that its no longer about those 140 characters. They talk about the envelope and the kinds of things you can stuff into that envelope, i. E. The tweet, and convincing people its more than just a series of letters. John steinberg, the bulls this morning would argue theyre keeping their add load light, theyre being modest on pricing, and theyre still going for scale. That will pay off long term. Yeah, i mean, i think they have a full bowl story, actually. If they came out and leaned into the youtube argument, he compared them to youtube a little bit. If they said its not about user engagement, this is a platform where a few celebrities, Business Leaders put the content out, and people discover from different kinds of places like youtube, thats a compelling argument to me. The company has tremendous Revenue Growth, profitability growth on an adjusted ebitda basis. Its a Great Company if they just didnt have to keep seesawing back between being a creation platform and a consumption platform. Carl, i know youll have more on the platform and some of the new initiatives that twitter is rolling out later this hour. Well look forward to that. And for more from twitter, carl, you may look casual, but youre all business this morning. Battle of the buttons. I know. If dick did three, does carl do three . Carl was very envious of jon fortt and i not wearing ties. He went out to california, said ill take it up a level, two buttons. Well see. He looks great, though. He always looks great. Speaking of jon fortt, he has another tech story this morning. Shares of ebay are down big despite strong Revenue Growth across the board. The stock, though, look at it. Down 5 . The big question, of course, is this questionable tax repatriation, and jon fortt is live in los angeles with some answers. Jon . Thanks, kayla. Good numbers from ebay. 4. 3 billion in the top line. 70cent eps, but a lot of questions about what ebay has done accountingwise. They really have taken a noncash charge that gives them flexibility to repatriate overseas cash if they choose to do that. But taking a look at the business in general, john donohoe struck an optimistic tone about the rest of the business, though the u. S. Business performed as expected, but international did a bit better. Listen to what he had to say. International growth is strong. Domestic growth is about where we thought it would be. We think we have good opportunities in the second half of the year, and were investing in the Second Quarter to capitalize on those opportunities. So we feel good about the year and the macroeconomic factors didnt weigh one way heavily or another. Now, to take off on this question about potential repatriation, its important to understand ebay already has some debt. They already have a Buyback Program going. A couple months ago, donohoe said theyre open to doing more debt, but only if it doesnt affect ebays a rating. Take a listen to what moodys said back then, also, however, they view the increased levels of share buybacks as marking a traditional shift in the traditionally conservative financial policies. So this could be just a hedge. If they find out that taking on more debt would affect the a rating, now theyve already taken the noncash charge, theyre able to repatriate that cash to do acquisitions. Well see what they end up doing. But i think that is the issue here. They are not actually repatriating the cash. Theyre not actually writing a check to the irs quite yet. But they have the flexibility to do that if they need to, guys. No doubt. And investors are scratching their head, jon, even if they dont do it, what will they do . We may never know until we know. But we have Jon Steinberg here, too, and i want to get his thoughts. We were discussing before the show the parlor game of what they could do. Do they buy a company . Do they maybe down the road split off paypal and want to make sure that each separate company has enough cash on the Balance Sheet . Yeah. What do you think they need this cash for . When you look at the quarter, there was actually an acceleration in paypal, so the business is doing well. Gross merchandise volumes decelerated, but in line, as well. I think they need an acquisition to basically make the Company Exciting and create an upside for growth to get out of the low multiple theyre in right now. I would hope that its for some kind of transformative acquisition in ecommerce. That would be my hope. I dont know. Jon fortt, when you talk about the competitive threat to ebay, is there anything at the top of the acquisition list that would help the companys Competitive Position right now . Well, im not sure, kayla. You look at mobile is clearly the area where they would have to make some kind of acquisition. They already did braintree and got vinmo along with that, and thats important. You also have to look at what alibaba is doing. Theyre going to suck a lot of the air out of the room once they go public. Alibaba is making all kinds of little investments in messaging, in videotype aps, that sort of create this ecosystem for them. Even though theyre not outright acquiring the companies, theyre getting lots of data about what users are doing, and in, prospective ways of driving payments, driving audience. Maybe ebay needs to do Something Like that. It might not even be specific to their core business, but something that adds and gives them information about where they should move next. I think thats a very good point that jon makes. If you look at what alibaba announced the other day, taking in investment in the youtube of china, you could very much see ebay doing Something Like jon said, not in the core, but in terms of the expansiveness of the audience. I know you put the question to donohoe about the threat of alibaba, especially as it raises a bunch of capital. He seemed to dismiss it while recognizing it as a good company. Well see what happens when alibaba goes public. Jon, good stuff. Well see you later, thanks as always for bringing us big interviews. Up next, the arguments that the Supreme Court are over, and now we wait for a decision on aereo, one that could change the future of tv as we know it. Cbs Ceo Les Moonves is one of aereos fiercest critics, but is he worried about what the future might hold . Well ask him in a moment. Plus, jeff immelt will weigh in on the bid for alstoms Energy Business. Thats coming up a little later this hour. Honestly, im pouring everything i have into this place. Thats why i got a new windows 2 in 1. It has exactly what i need for half of what i thought id pay. And i dont need to be online for it to work. It runs office, so i can do schedules and budgets and even menu changes. But its fun, too with touch, and tons of great apps for stuff like music, cause a good playlist is good for business. I need the bosss signature for this. Im the boss. Honestly i wanna see you be brave honestly trwith secure wifie for your business. It also comes with public wifi for your customers. Not so with internet from the phone company. I would email the phone company to inquire as to why they have shortchanged these customers. But that would require wifi. Switch to comcast Business Internet and get two Wifi Networks included. Comcast business built for business. Welcome back. Were at post nine where david faber joins us with a cnbc exclusive interview. The fight between broadcasters and the startup aereo, it made its way to the Supreme Court. Arguments were heard last week. And now we await a decision, but that hasnt stopped a lot of people from commenting on whats likely to come when we get the decision in june. Cbs has been one of the more vocal critics when it comes to aereo. Of course, a number of the broadcasters, including our own parent company, has joined in that criticism. Joining me is ceo leslie moonves. Good to have you. Nice to see you, david. Good to be with you. Lets talk a bit about aereo. Okay. Because many people do view it as a threat to your business, something you and i have discussed in the past. The recent quote from barely diller, vocal in his support for the company, given hes an owner, judge roberts asked a question, that being the chief justice, which was youre only doing this to get around the copyright law. What were doing is complying with the law, says mr. Diller, what we did is constructed a technological advance within law as we understood it. Why is he wrong . Well, you know, number one, aereo would like us all to believe that if youre against aereo, youre against technology. And thats absolutely not the case. I think the broadcasters and other companies are very much protechnology. We put a lot of our content online. We have deals with a lot of the people that are paying for our content, like netflix and amazon, that are online services. They provide the same thing as aereo does. The only difference is they pay for our content. Aereo basically takes our content that we produce and distribute and steal it and deliver it to the public for a price. Were very happy to have them distribute the content, but like everybody else who distributes our content, they need to pay for it. Look, were very pleased with our case. Were very pleased with how it went at the Supreme Court. But pure and simple, theyre taking all the work of all the Creative Community and theyre stealing it. You know, during the arguments in front of the court, the justices did seem to be trying to draw some sort of a distinction about designing to the law instead of breaking the law. And, also, had an understanding, leslie, it seems, at least, retarding technological advances, particularly when it comes to advances such as the cloud. You say aereo struck down, thats not going to stop technological advances. Beyond what you just shared, what else can you share in terms of making that argument . By the way, aereo basically declared there was a fire in a movie theater. I. E. , if you shoot down aereo, which is an illegal service taking our content illegally, then youre antitechnology. And that is just absolutely not true. You look throughout Silicon Valley and throughout all the media companies, and we have a great deal of business with clouds. We put our content up there all the time with a lot of Different Services that always pay for it. Whats illegal about this is theyre taking our content, and theyre selling it to the public and theyre not paying for the content. So the Creative Community should be up in arms about this, because basically theyre taking the content that every producer, writer, you know, actor, director, puts on the air, and theyre basically taking this content, selling it, and getting paid for it without giving anything back to the people that produce the content. Thats wrong. There are plenty of monday morning quarterback when is it comes to Supreme Court arguments. I dont know who will end up right or wrong here. Certainly, many are saying, hey, given what we heard in that court, it is certainly no slam dunk for the broadcasters. That aereo is shut down here. Leslie, you have to have a plan b and im curious if can you sort of share it given it may not be that many months before we have to have a real conversation about that . No, by the way, the decision is supposed to be some time in june. We are very confident in our legal position. Were very confident that the Supreme Court will do the right thing. There is not going to be great financial harm to us if perchance we should lose this. There are a lot of things we can do by the way, not all of them are proconsumer. So there are things were going to do, this is not going to hurt us financially. Our deals with the mvpds the comcasts, directvs will not be affected. We will be fine. This is just the beginning of people be able to steal content. Well, why . Whats it going to lead to . If, in fact, its upheld if its upheld, there could be a la cart. There could be a lot of ramifications about this, where the ecosystem wont be the same as it is now. Right. And as i said, there are a lot of companies that are paying us for our content, and were very pleased with those relationships. And we have the ability to go over the top and direct to our consumers, which is one possibility as well. I know. Youve raised over the top a lot. You mentioned a la cart. Many would argue were going there slowly but surely anyway, regardless of aereo, given the choices available to people in terms of what they can get over the broadband. Youre helping that. Clearly, you have an important netflix deal. Youre one of the early adopters there. Yes, exactly. So were moving to that potential world regardless, arent we, of whether we have an aereo or not, even though it may obviously quicken that pace . Thats a very good question, david, whether we go a la carte or not. Its an interesting proposition. The world of a la carte, however, once again, people will need to pay for the content. You cant take somebodys profit and make a profit on it without paying them. If the world heads to a la carte down the road or some other form, a, it probably wont be good for the consumer, and b, it certainly wont be good for our businesses. Well, again, you know, diller simply saying, hey, were just giving people an antenna theyd otherwise have top of the tv, were putting it somewhere else. And judge roberts did at least sort of seem to give credence to that idea that theyre just helping you do what youd otherwise do yourself. No, judge roberts alluded to the fact this was a gadget and how was it different other than you take it for nothing. There were a number of points made in the Supreme Court arguments that certainly supported our case and led us to feel were in a favorable position. There were a number of questions there about the legality. By the way, theres the copyright law. If you want to deal with the w law, we are certainly in the right. In addition, as i said, they have led you to believe that this will be the end of technology. We are very protechnology. Leslie, a couple of other things to quickly hit with you while weve got you. Yes. Twitter today, for example, down sharply. I dont expect you to weigh in on their earnings, but im curious, because allen woertzle came out with this quote where he said its just not true, that is that twitter drives tv ratings, im saying the emperor wears no clothes, it is what it is, these are the numbers. Do you agree, does twitter not drive tv ratings . I dont quite agree with that. I dont know if theres a direct correlation between twitter and our tv ratings. But i think having a dialogue around our shows certainly is helpful. We like the relationship with twitter. We like people talking about our shows. So i wouldnt make this a bold Statement Like allen did. Were very happy having people talk about ncis and big bang and et cetera. So no clear evidence it actually helps ratings . Its hard to tell right now if theres a direct correlation. You know what . Were touching all our bases and thats why were americas numberone network. Yahoo announcing its getting into your business, too. Scripted content seems to be all the rage these days. Does it make it more expensive for you . Is that Something Else you have to consider as you look to the future . I dont think so. I think we welcome all the people that are trying to produce content. Remember, were not only a network, were a Large Production company, both, you know, for cbs and for showtime and the cw, and all sorts of places. So we welcome everybody in whos getting in the original content game. You know, were were successful at it. And, you know, the more the merrier. And finally, one that you and i would usually start with instead of ending with, buybacks. The exchange offer, of course, will come later this year, in which you buy back a lot of your stock. Talking about cbs outdoor, which went public here not long ago. But some of the shareholders ive been talking to say, come on, do nearterm buybacks. Give us more money now. Lever up. What do you say . Well, we just did a buyback in the First Quarter for over 2 billion. I think thats a fairly substantial level of buyback, and our Buyback Program is continuing. We continue to be more aggressive. We wont borrow a lot of money, obviously, when the outdoor transaction happens. Were going to continue to be aggressive about buying back our shares and the future seems very bright. All right. As always, we appreciate your time, leslie moonves. Thank you, david. Cbs ceo. Interesting fight on aereo. Yeah, covered a lot of ground there, david. Thank you. Sure, kayla. From one great ceo to another. This morning, Frances Alstom announced it will accept General Electrics bid for its energy assets. Ges Ceo Jeff Immelt talked about the deal in an interview this morning and Mary Thompson joins us with the highlights. The deal is binding and requires final approval of the board, shareholders, and labor board. On cnbc this morning, immelt sounded confident of the deals chances despite the recent political uproar of Frances Alstom home country. Weve done a lot of deals in europe over time. Were pretty experienced in this kind of stuff. I think we got a good offer, and i think it will be excuted. If executed, ge sees it closing in 2015 and adding 8 to 10 cents by 2016. It means by 2016, 75 of ges operating earnings will come from its industrial businesses, and it also expressed cost kufts of 1. 2 billion to be expected or realized, i should say, five years after this deal closes. Now, buying alstoms renewable grid and thermal businesses would be ges largest acquisition under immelt, one done in france but with an eye on emerging markets. We have about a 45 billion footprint in the emerging markets. Alstoms going to add another 13 billion to that. Ges going to be close to 60 billion in the Growth Markets around the world. Thats a presence that no other Industrial Company in the world has. So we think we can do a lot with that. Now, as i said earlier, the deal isnt final. Alstoms board has until june 2nd to review it and can review any unsolicited offers until then. Siemens is expected to make one. Alstom saying they received an expression of interest, and it would give siemens access to information. The news of the bid leaked and caused an outcry in france where politicians are concerned about job cuts. Ge says it plans to add jobs to alstoms existing businesses and immelt said he doesnt expect to make further concessions to win the deal. France is already going to be headquarters for some of the divisions of our power business. We already have a big operation in bellfort, which will grow. We acquired it in 1999 and quite competitive on a global basis. So were adding to strengths ge has in france. Well have to wait until june 2nd for the final decision. Back to you, kayla. Thank you so much. A seminole announcement today, but it doesnt seem like the situation for ge or immelt is over for now. But for now, thank you, mary. From france to the broader european markets, we want to get you the close in the u. K. , just go five minutes to go in the markets. A mixed session so far, a day in which data showed euro zone inflation rising in april to. 7 . Thats below forecasts, which does raise the likelihood the ecb could act to ward off deflation in the months ahead. Paribas one of the biggest losers, could receive a fine. This is in connection with alleged violations of u. S. Sanctions against countries including iran. Kate kelly at cnbc has been reporting that u. S. Authorities are in an advanced stage in this inquiry, and, of course, we will see where those settlement talks are he assume. Coming up next, over 1,000 rooms, 49 suites, five dining rooms and underground concourse and a 56foot steel structure centerpiece. Those are just some of the shy lights from the new marriott marquee which opens in d. C. The ceo of marriott is here to weigh in on that. First, Rick Santelli, whats on your mind . Kayla, well have to look at our first up onetenth, the First Quarter gdp, and ill give you a number, 107th out of 117. Does that sound good . Well talk about what that means. Its actually a comparison of the u. S. Versus other countries. Youll want to hear this one in about five minutes. [ male announcer ] great rates for great rides. Geico motorcycle, see how much you could save. Female announcer sleep trains interest free nouncer ] ends sunday. Es for great rides. Its your last chance to get three years interestfree financing on beautyrest black, stearns foster, serta icomfort; even tempurpedic. Plus, get free delivery, and sleep trains 100day low price guarantee. But hurry sleep trains interest free for 3 event, ends sunday. Sleep train your ticket to a better nights sleep welcome back. Dow is holding on to slight gains. Nasdaq and s p are negative. We want to go to the cme group and see what Rick Santelli is looking at. Hi, kayla. This morning, we had an important piece of data and that was our advanced look at First Quarter gdp, and i understand that weather was an issue. Keep in mind a couple of things. Weve had now january, february, and march data. So economists, they get to look at all the data thus far for the entire first three months of the year, and they get to try to factor in what the number would be. And believe me, if youve been listening to the analysts and economists over the last several months, weather has been their big bane, okay . When they were looking at 1. 2, theyre looking at all of the available data and factoring it in. In my opinion, this miss this miss can really be quantified by the disparity between what those economists expected and the. 1 that we actually received. Ill take it a step further. I understand the weather was an issue, but i will tell you this, 70 of the u. S. Economy is consumption, okay . What were the consumption figures . The real personal consumption was. 3 . It was 3. 3 for the quarter last year. The Service Sector, 70 of the economy, the Service Sector had a blowout set of data. They had the best level, 4. 4 on service expenditures, thats a 14year best. So if you want to weigh this out on a teeter totter of objectivity, theres a lot to be talked about here. Now, were going to deal with another issue. The big story yesterday is the House Committee was trying to work on making some temporary issues regarding Corporate Tax code permanent. And ill tell you what. Mr. Camp had been working on tax code changes for years with the house ways and means committee. I doubt any of this will pass. It really does underscore, whether youre looking at ebay, apple, or how much is overseas, the Corporate Tax code, the tax code in general, is horrible. I want to give you a couple of specifics. 1986, a rewrite under reagan. 26,000 pages today, its 70,000 pages. Over the last ten years, 4,400 changes, so basically a change every day. Since 1986, weve had 14,400 revisions. According to world bank, 61 nations do it better on tax policy than us, and heres my statistic of the day. Out of 117 countries, with regard to efficiency of tax policy, we ranked 107 with the World Economic forum. I tell you what, there is a lot to be said about making subtle changes. But when everybody in the entire world, including every politician, everybody on april 14th, everybody understands our tax code stink, we keep putting more bandaids on. If we cant get something so obvious fixed, its a little bit depressing when you think about the future of any type of fiscal improvement with regard to what comes out on that side of the hudson. Kayla, back to you. All right, thanks, rick. A lot of people trying to reconcile that number today. But you always, with your props, do it nearly bheft. Thank you, rick. Mean white, the lineup of major ceos continues. Simon hobbs joined by a special guest. How do you follow that . How do you follow that . Opens in washington, d. C. , tomorrow, spanning an entire city block. The marriott marquee will boast 1,200 rooms and 60foot steel sculpture as its centerpiece. Theyre announcing earnings that beat the street, raising its guidance for the year as the ceo accelerates its share buyback. Joining us in another first on cnbc interview is arnie sorenson, the president and ceo of marriott. Thanks for being with us. You bet, simon. Nice to see you. This is, as i understand it, the fifth Marriott Marquis in the country. I imagine youre pretty pleased to run it for the owners . Were so excited to see the Marriott Marquis in washington finally open. You know, a hotel like this, its 1,175 rooms, obviously a deep involvement with the city and their convention center, is a decadelong project, to get from idea to opening. Were finally at opening, and we couldnt be more excited. You know, in preparation for this interview, i was going to ask you why anybody at this stage would open a hotel in washington when the market has found it difficult to grow, partly because of the federal cutbacks, but also, of course, because Group Bookings havent returned in the industry. I saw the figures youve come through with today that actually revenue per available room across the country in the First Quarter is up over 6 , much better than people expected, and the outlook also is being raised for you guys. Yeah, what were seeing, both in the United States and around the world, is really strong samestore performance. And in some respects, its a steady as you go message. Weve seen rev par coming out of the recession at 5 , 6 , year on year, starting in 2010, continuing into early 2014. So were a little over 6 across the United States, and a little over 6 across the globe. You go as far away as a place like asia pacific, we reported the best rev par growth since the Second Quarter of 2012. And thats a comforting thing, obviously. What everybody is talking about this morning, or lots of analysts certainly, is the way in which youre now accelerating the share buybacks. In the First Quarter, youre now buying at an annualized pace of 1. 4 billion of your own stock. Thats in one year. 8 of your outstanding shares. Why are you buying so heavily when the market in general has stalled . Well, we have weve purchased about 4 billion worth of our stock now over the last four years, and essentially the way our Business Model works, were a management and franchise company. Were not a real estate owner. So we produce about 1. 5 billion or so of ebitda or of fees, excuse me, and this year, we think our ebitda will be close to 1. 5 billion. Its a cash machine. To the extent we have opportunities to invest in our business, as with the acquisition of the prodia Hotel Company in south africa which we closed first of april, well invest in the business. To the extent we cant find sufficient uses of that capital, we think the right thing to do is return it to shareholders, the right way to do that is buy back our stock. And while our stock has moved really well, were up over 20 , i think, year to date, and there is some apprehension in the market about where equity values have moved, what we see is an industry recovery thats in the middle middle innings, not towards the end of the end of the game. And that means healthy growth coming in the years ahead. The way that works in earnings per share means our stock, we think, is a really strong buy at this point. Before i let you go, a lot of people in the industry for a long time have spoken about when theyre going to be able to amazonize whats going on. I see it in the press release for the Marriott Marquis opening, youre talking about mobile checkin, checkout, mobile guest services, allowing guests digitally request everything from an extra towel to a wakeup call. Are we there yet in your view with what the companys doing . Or is there space for some of the others like expedia or trip advisor or price line to work with you and do it for you . Well, its an interesting space, obviously. We have one enormous advantage in the lodging business, and that is that the stay cannot be milled to somebody. So were not selling a product that can be wrapped in a box and sent by fedex. We still own that stay, and we still have a personal interaction with our guest. It doesnt mean it wont impact the way they buy. Weve seen already that marriott. Com has now for five years been one of the topten retail sites on the internet. Weve seen in the last two years 40 of that business move to mobile as opposed to desk top, and well see that shift continuing to move. So weve got to make sure we invest in those channels so that we are as easy to use through a mobile device. Weve got to also make sure we have the languages so that the bookers in china or the middle east or brazil can book in their own language, and were doing all of that. But were also working with folks like expedia and trip advisors and the others, some customers want to make sure they use those sites. And so, if they want to book through that site, they can book in our system, as well. Okay, well leave it there. I know you have a busy day. Thank you for joining us. Arnie sorenson, the ceo and president of marriott international, from the headquarters outside of washington. Thank you so much, simon. Up next up next why relocating manufacturingpany to upstate new york . I tell people its for the climate. The conditions in new york state are great for business. New york is ranked 2 in the nation for new private sector job creation. And now its even better because theyve introduced startup new york dozens of taxfree zones where businesses pay no taxes for ten years. Youll get a warm welcome in the new new york. See if your business qualifies at startupny. Com all right. Coming up at the top of the hour, with may almost here, were looking for springloaded stocks that could pop in a notoriously tough month for stocks. Well talk to the analysts who called it right back in december. Where does he think the stock goes from here . And amazon is one of this months worst performers. Its also down 25 year to date, but one of our traders is defending his bullish position. Its all straight ahead on the half. Kayla, well see you in about 15 minutes. Thank you, scott. Twitter made a lot of headlines recently when it unveiled this, the brandnew look to the twitter profile. If youre a twitter user, you would have been prompted to change to this over the last month, but why did the social network decide to make the change . Our Carl Quintanilla is live with some answers. Hi, carl. Hey, kayla. For those of you who maybe have not tried the new user profile, its one of the tools theyre using here to drive engagement and user growth. You saw it on the screen there. Bigger photos. More emphasis on the image. It was announced on april 8th, gone to 100 of users as of last tuesday. We talked to carolyn penner, head of Product Communications here at twitter headquarters, and we asked her, why now . So here you can see at the top you have a really big image. It gives you a lot of space to sort of creatively express yourself. And to show people what youre interested in. I mean, definitely come up with a new picture. I was going to say, youre interested in the new york stock exchange, im not sure, but thats my sense. And here, you have a much bigger profile photo, so people can see who you are. Maybe theyve met you and not sure if this is the right account for you. Theyll know that because theyll be able to match your face to the picture. And kevin durant. His image is more interesting than yours. You could take a queue from him. Yeah, of the followers, i could take a page from that. He has a future called the pen tweet. What it is, essentially you can take any tweet youve sent over any period of time at twitter and pin it to the top of your profile page, so that it always shows at the top of your profile. When you announced this, it didnt take long for people to make comparisons to facebook. Does that bother you, or is that part of the plan . You know, the Profiles Team sheer, and actually with every feature we introduce at twitter, theyre interested in making twitter better, so they want to make it easier for people to discover whats happening, learn about users, connect with people and express themselves. So in this case with profiles, they designed some, tested them with users, put them out in the wild, got feedback, shifted to a new version, and through that cycle, we ended up with this version. So its really really the focus for us is making sure that were introducing the best f features to twitter. Meantime, data obviously is a big piece of the twitter story. Data licensing. Tracking what people tweet, and how. Even in realtime. We sat down with simon rogers this morning. Hes the Data Scientist here at twitter, and we got a cool look at what the world looks like when people start tweeting about one then in a very short period of time. In this case, it was the nbas press conference yesterday. This is the response to the silver press conference yesterday about sterling. We know people go to twitter to talk about events like the oscars, but when news happens so, for instance, that was the reaction to the thats the moment he said ban for life. Ban for life, people responded immediately on twitter. Its something unique. A place where people can discuss the stuff where it happens. The conversation lingers for the rest of the press conference. Exactly. Theres a tailoff, in that peak, that spike. And its not a california story. Not a california story. In fact, if you zoom out, you get the whole world. You can see its spread uniformly across america, even cuba and down here. Interesting. This next map is so this is our regular beyonce chatter. She released her album online. But you can see what happened when the album struck. This is normal. And suddenly the albums dropped and the whole world is talking about it. Not just in the states, but london, instan bu istanbul, sou. And this is people tweeting the word sunrise as dawn spreads. And there, its just about hit america, tweeting the word sunrise. You would have turned to your friend, what a beautiful sunrise, and you tweet it. All right. So you got three examples there, a sunrise, beyonce dropping her album, and the nba press conference, jon and kayla, it sort of begs the question, how reliant is twitter on big events when it comes to building new users, and what happens in those periods where big events simply dont happen . And, carl, i wonder what happens when squawk on the street comes on with you at 9 00 in the morning . I have to believe that that would look just like beyonce, but i know they probably couldnt go into that in the short time. It is interesting, though, to see how much activity yeah, were very big in istanbul you dont see how much activity, right . You see a relative picture of activity. We dont really know the bulbs are getting bigger, right, but we dont know from what size theyre getting bigger. And theyre relatively small. It feels as if twitter had a tieup with a Cable Network, a television channel, comcast, they could leverage all the conversation and put it in a place where everybody would see it. Thats really the goal of the new profile pages, is to make something that a nonlogin user can go to to see a pin tweet, to see a statement that someone is making without having to be an engaged user. Although, jon, there are those out there trying to make the argument, if investors are trying to get twitter to be as big as facebook and hence as profitable as facebook, thats unlikely in some peoples views, because it is different. It is so short term, it is so high frequency, and its so reliant on big things happening around the world, that people need information on in a hurry. Its too bad that they just cant make a full pivot into that as opposed to sitting in the middle. I think that is the issue right now. But weve a lot to chew on, carl. Only you have the power to get so many people up, so early in the morning on the west coast. So thank you for bringing all of this to us this morning. Well get a little bit more from you later today. Carl quintanilla in San Francisco. See you later. All week here at cnbc, weve been highlighting the top people in business over the past 25 years. Cher wang may not be a household name, but her chair of htc has made her one of the most powerful women in technology. We go through her story when we come back. [ male announcer ] the Wright Brothers started in a garage. Mattel started in a garage. Disney started in a garage. Amazon started in a garage. The ramones started in a garage. My point . Some of the most innovative things in the world come out of american garages. Introducing the lighter, faster cadillac cts. 2014 motor trend car of the year. Aint garages great . Requires precision and anattention to detail. G it takes knowledge, hard work and a plan. At baird, we approach your Wealth Management strategy that same way. As an Employee Owned firm we have the freedom and resources to create customized financial plans built to last, from generation to generation. Well listen. Well talk. Well plan. Baird. As the cofounder of htc, cher wang is one of the most powerful women in technology. Shes also ranked number 22 on cnbcs list of the top 25 people whove had the most profound influence on business over the last 25 years. Josh lipton spoke with cher wang about her success and vision for htc. Josh, take it away. Yeah, kayla, you could say cher wangs entrepreneurial spirit runs in the family. Her father was a selfmade billionaire who taught his daughter about the importance of hard work. Wang also credits her Christian Faith as a source of her success. The bible says that humility comes before honor. And once you humble yourself, you want to learn, because theres a lot of stuff you can learn from, the surroundings, the people, and the people that are different from you. So to be able to observe, to listen, to be humble is also very important. Now, wang cofounded htc in 1997. That company experienced rapid growth. By 2011, htc controlled 9 of the Global Smartphone market, and wang and her husband were the wealthiest people in taiwan, worth more than 3 billion. Wang says that her mistakes in business have proved just as instructive as her achievements. She talks about the time back in the 1980s when she sold a product to a customer who was unable to pay for the merchandise. Wang says that was a valuable lesson in the importance of knowing your customer. To understand your customer, to actually visit them, to really understand what they need, and really observe and listen is very important. Actually, these characteristics, also this type of attitude should really Customer Service should really come with your heart. In recent years, the company has lost market share to rivals such as samsung and apple. Wang is now putting her impressive skills as a leader in and technologist to work. She tries to reestablish htc as a major player in the smartphone wars. She tells me the strategy involves diversifying the line of smartphones the Company Sells and increasing htcs marketing budget. She says the Company Needs to do a better job of communicating with customers about the value of its products. To tell the truth that when you actually view it and you see it, you love it. And the only problem with us is that we havent really communicated very well. So it is very important. This year were going to communicate very well. Wang is taking a more active role in the company, now overseeing marketing, operationing, and Customer Service, and she tells me shes now working seven days a week to get htc back on track. Given wangs track record, her energy, her experience, investors shouldnt underestimate her determination to succeed. Josh, you cannot underestimate their impact on the smartphone market. Its an Important Company and an important face behind that. Thank you, josh. Weve been talking a lot about twitter this morning but facebook is also making news, doing something it hasnt done in three years. Well explain when squawk on the street comes back. Financial noise financial noise financial noise you are gonna need a wingman. And my cash back keeps the party going. But my Airline Miles take it worldwide. [ male announcer ] it shouldnt be this hard. With creditcards. Com, its easy to search hundreds of cards and apply online. Creditcards. Com. Why let erectile dysfunction get in your way . 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For the first time in three year, facebook is hosting its developer conference, drawing 1,700 engineers to hear from Mark Zuckerberg about how they can make money from facebooks platform. Morgan brennan is live in San Francisco with more on that. Hey, morgan. Hey, kayla. So it may not be on todays f8 agenda here, but at facebooks developer conference, everybodys buzzing about one thing. Thats facebooks longawaited, muchanticipated new mobile add network. They even estimate that such a network could create a brandnew 3 billion revenue stream for facebook. So what exactly are we talking about here . This would likely be a network that lets marketers use facebook data to better target ads in apps and games outside of the facebook platform, and reportedly it will be called facebook audience network, or f. A. N. This would mean that facebook could generate additional revenue stream from its treasure trove of user data without crowding the facebook newsfeed, and most importantly, thats not reliant on adding more users. Facebook is keeping quiet about whether this will actually be unveiled today. But what we do know is that the network is, quote, very early stages and the company sees it as a very big opportunity. Now, thats according to coo Sheryl Sandberg on last weeks earnings call. Now, weve seen Similar Services rolled out by rivals like google and just recently twitter. But analysts say facebook is well positioned because of its 1. 28 billion active users, provide so much personal information. So well have to see what ceo Mark Zuckerberg has to say when he takes the stage a little later today. In the meantime, what he has noted is that todays f8 event, which is the first in three years, is really all about developers and helping them to make money. Well bring you more as the event unfolds. Kayla, back to you. Thank you, morgan. Jon steinberg, final thoughts . A bigbucks idea. If they go with the mobile ad, it drives their business, 52 comes from appinstalled ads, they can drive a ton of revenue for them and publishers. Very exciting. Do you think its three more years before the next one . I dont think so. Its a different company. They had a lot to do over the course of the three years. Maybe a whatsapp integration for publishers. Well see. For now, thats all for squawk on the street. Its just about noon time on the east coast. Scott wapner, you have soft earnings, soft data to send out april. Yeah, absolutely. April wipeding down, kayla. Thank you so much. Looking forward to what may could bring for the markets. Heres todays playbook. April draws to a close, what will an often messy month mean for your money with some big events looming . Hashtag plunge. With twitter suffering one of the worst days since going public, we hear from an analyst whos gotten it right on what happens now. And batting over bezos, amazon shares is one of the years worst performers, so why is one of our traders buying . Lets meet pete, john, weiss, steve grasso on the floor of the new york stock exchange, and Steve Liesman with the nasty gdp report, what it means for the markets. We begin with