And shanghai up 18 points. The dax up by a half percentage point. Similar gain for the cac in france the ftse in london up by a similar amount the yield in the to twoyear, up 1. 763 also look at gold prices because they were under some pressure yesterday gold down about 1. 6 1,27 1,279. 50 lowes is recording 1. 05. Above the estimates of 1. 02. Three cents above estimates. The revenue number that im looking at, at least sales, 16. 8 billion thats a bit above looking at this forecast company sees fiscal year eps of 4. 20 to 4. 30 if thats not an adjusted number, its below the 4. 50 on the estimate here. 1. 05, three cents ahead. The company is supposed to earn 87 cents next quarter that would have gotten the company to 4. 50. They beat it by three, so they only need84 cents in the fourt quarter to hit that number maybe thats adjusted. If its not adjusted, its below the forecast maybe theres something there. The adjusted number may be different than the 4. 50. Looks like theyre lowering Guidance Company repurchased 5 500 millin worth of stock hurricane related sales about 2 200 million Comp Store Sales up 3. 5 total sales up 5 . The numbers for the fullyear are reflective of a loss on extingishment of debt and the gail from the sale of interest in the australian joint venture it doesnt give us numbers for the break out on the plus or minusthat. Which is never an operating result so you would add that back in once you see what total was. The stock is up 1. 54 if they were lowering guidance by 20 cents, 30 cents, the stock would not be up now. The Justice Department filing a lawsuit to challenge the at tchlat ttime warner mer. Leslie picker has the details. It was in the works. Three, four days ago we thought it would we couldnt figure out when. Or what they would say. And the cut issscuttlebutt, alln stuff going back and forth they didnt mention that not in the lawsuit any way. The Justice Department argues this deal would harm competition and thwart innovation. The government says the transaction would hinder rivals by forcing them to pay hundreds of millions of dollars per year for the right to distribute time warners networks which include tbs, tnt and cnn speaking yesterday at ts ceo Randall Stevenson spoke about what he called the elephant in the room theres been a lot of reporting and speculation whether this is all about cnn. Frankly i dont know nobody should be surprised that the question keeps coming up because weve witnessed such an abrupt change in the application of antitrust law here. But the bottom line is that we cannot and we will not be party to any agreement that would even give the perception of compromising the First Amendment protections to the press when hes talking about that change to antitrust law, hes talking about challenges to vertical mergers, which involve purchases along the supply chain as opposed to competitors are rare. Since 1979, the government has only challenged 23 vertical mergers. Three were abandoned by the parties, while the rest were approved the government has never won a single case. Thats according to harvard. At t said it was prepared to go to trial as quickly as possible. Leslie, we will watch this. April 22nd is the date to watch. All of this has to happen by then or they could extend, too they could. Would they they could. The break up fee for antitrust purposes is only about 5 500 million. Quite low. If you are at t you would want to stick with it. If youre time warner, would you want to stick with it . Is there another bidder or somebody else who could pick m them off at a higher price today . Potentially, but they could face the same antitrust concerns why wouldnt this influence whats happening with fox . You would think this will put a chill by the way on all major Large Consumer oriented branded deals not just media. Ierbroader. Unless you think this is really about cnn. Then everybody could be blocked. Sounds like euro antitrust not what you would expect from a Republican Administration with a Republican Congress its interesting because last week he talked about antitrust, how he does not view that as regulation, he sees it as antiregulation, because they basically have to do less patrolling after the deals go through. He sees it more as policing than regulation thats how he kind of this seems like its based on being too big. You cant see necessarily the unfair advantage that the company has. But that was part of the populist argument donald trump was making when he was running for president. I think we all need to figure out whether this is about this particular transaction and this either cnn or a particular view from the administration, or if this is a true if there is a broader view on the world to be had. We have a guess we can get to. Do you think the guy at the Justice Department would have heard from trump or do you think he knows what trump wants . I will bet you good money that at t will pursue discovery to try to see all of the email traffic and other documentation between the white house and the doj. Will the white house claim executive privilege on that if there is a form of communication . This is, by the way, going to be one of the great soap operas of our time be like the l. A. Times reporter, yeah, trump told him he cant do it trump said,ya, you cant do this. Get rid of cnn yeah that happened. Do you you need to actually know that. It would be funny if hes right. We want to bring in frank lafflin into the conversation. You listened to what at t had to say yesterday. Im sure you read the complaint by the doj if youre a betting man, and now youre no longer betting just on whether the companies will operationally be good or bad but betting on a lawsuit which way do you bet im betting that at t will ultimately win this. Appears to me, im not a lawyer or pretending to be one on tv, it appears to me with all the case law and precedent they have for how vertical mergers have been handled, particularly with the safeguards put around this to protect consumers, that they would lose the case seems to be preposterous the Justice Departments case appears to be based on what they presume at t will do to raise prices and restrict competitors that does not seem like a Good Business move for at t and would on the get more juscrutiny in t future i dont think they have a strong case the department of justices case rests in part on quotes that they have selected previous quotes made by executives at at t over the years about competition. You say those quotes are taken out of context theres one interesting quote where they say, you know, giving effectively these combinations, if left unchecked could cause harm its that key thing. Left unchecked if you look in the broader context of what previously directv and other executives said, they were making the case that for other examples of vertical mergers, such as comcast, nbcu, if you dont put appropriate safeguards in, there could be competitive harms at t has been offering these exact safeguards which is all they were arguing for. Once the deals were put through and they put the appropriate safeguards forward, you didnt hear complaints from them. I think that will give justice a weak case. What did you make of the pricing pressure they would have with turner assets and others in terms of the fees, carriage fees they charged to other distributors given the distribution they would have on a national basis, which the Justice Department seems to separate or differentiate from the footprint that comcast has you are making the argument there that they would have enough market power that they could raise prices enough on that content then all of a sudden cable customers would their prices would be too high, they would disconnect and be forced to flock to at t. Thats ridiculous i dont think they have that much market power. You have plenty of other employeepriced options. Look at at t that came in, a big proponent of a virtual pay tv product with directv now they drove prices down caused concern for my clients about the margin and the revenue impact, but theyre leading the industry in moving that direction. Pushing customers that direction. Theyre out there lowing prices, why they would restrict the content makes no sense i think about fighting city hall i know where that expression came from. I know youre saying the government doesnt have a strong case, but you remember what happened to the Financial Firms that said like jamie dimon, saying theres no way to fight these guys cheaper to pay you are sure these guys, the heft and size and clout of the government, i would be afraid. You think at t eventually prevails and the government goes away after they lose you think thats a possibility they are putting a lot of lawyers to work on this. Thats the other downside we do have a lot they need to work. Arent you afraid of the Justice Department if they came at you for something they have unlimited resources and a lot of time. But you also have legal precedent. As you mentioned before. The number of cases until you dont do you anticipate both companies would continue to extend the transaction date, the april 22nd drop dead break update if the case were continuing could you see one side decide that they wanted to walk from i dont cover time warner i cant comment on them. I would expect that they would especially at t. Mapping this out, i think the trial could be over by the second week of february according to the timeline they laid out probably a twoweek trial. Fast forward 60 days, get a verdict a few days later it could be done inside of that time frame, but well have to say. This is important for at t they strongly believe they have a case and they will continue to move forward and hope the past precedent and similar remedies for similar transaction also prevail. Lets game this out in terms of what you think it means for the companys performance between now and whenever something gets resolved one way or the other on this if it drags out longer than that, lets say to april or by early summer, lets assume it gets decided sometime between now and the next eight months what does that do if anything to at ts performance if they go ahead and are able to finally complete there deal, what does that mean . If the deal gets turned down or the conditions put upon it are so onerous they wont do it what does this mean how would you tell people to react to this stock today. Youre sort of back to square one, where they were today they still have a powerful wireless and individuvideo entertainment. Theres ways to get access to some of this content, they just wont have as much control over it as they like. Its a far better story for them to get the content if not, they have a Good Business they can continue to move forward with. I dont think theres a lot of estimates out there come bipi t time warner. Just expect them to keep moving forward. The stock is at 34. 64 you tell people to buy it here we have a 40 price target. We think it will mean revert to 13 times earnings. I think its just been a bit overdone here. Based on a lot of irrational concerns about subscriber losses on the video side. We think theyre on the right side of that trend with directv now to capture the changing trends in individual yo cvideo. You have ever been audited . No. Have you ever been audited by the lowest learner irs cant say i had that privilege. I cant either. But i can only imagine i have been audited by the other irs, they do whatever they want. They strike fear and terror into your heart they dont care. Theyre great people wonderful. Thank you. Frank, thank you. Can you tell them how to spell kernen at ts outside council is going to be joining david faber that will happen at 9 10 a. M. Eastern. Join in the fun we have things to get to we do more news out of washington when it comes to the media front. The fcc chairman ajit pai will unveil his plans to roll back Net Neutrality plans today veteran cbs newscaster charlie rose has been suspended after allegations of Sexual Harassment eight women have come forward to say mr. Rose groped them, walked around naked in front of them and made sexual advances towards them the Washington Post reports that the women were employees or either with employees or wanted to work for charlie rose. Cbs suspended rose pbs and bloomberg suspended distribution of his interview show in a statement rose apologized for inappropriate behavior but said he doesnt believe all the allegations are accurate when we come back, lowes just out with earnings well dig through the report with brian neagle next squawk box will be right back. So youre looking for male customers, ages 2554, who live within five miles of your business . Like these two. And that guy. Or maybe you want to reach women, ages 18 to 34, who are interested in fitness. Namaste. Whichever audience youre looking for, well find them were the finders. We work here at comcast spotlight, and we have the best tools for getting your advertising message out there. Anywhere, any way your audience watches. Consider them found. Lowes reporting its quarterly numbers just a couple of moments ago joining us now corporations are people what have we decided the Supreme Court yeah then you can say that joining us now is brian nagel from oppenheimer what is with that yearly forecast thats below expectations, brian. Are you adding back debt extingishment . The street is expecting 2. 50 what are they expecting to earn . Theres a onetime item in there. You look at the guidance they laid out for the year at the press release. Its the same as what they had previously, basically in line of the consensus estimate of 4. 50. So they boeat by three cents the stock is up less than a percent now. How is Everything Else what was the estimate for samestore sales how did it compare to what the company did . In line . Overall, this was a good quarter. The conversation we have a lot, when we look at lowes results, compare those to home depot, the number everyone will focus on is the Comp Store Sales, lowes did a 5. 7. That included benefit from the hurricanes the negative would be home depot did a 7. 7. Looking at lowes in isolation, this was a good report once again, its not as good as what home depot reported a week ago. Why am i i didnt see that what did you say it was 5 5. 7 okay the overall sales up about 5 . So thats good how are the gross margin numbers of 34 how does that compare to home depot . Its about the same weve seen now with these hurricanes, probably a bit of noise. There the hurricane related sales, which lowes called out to be about 200 million in the quarter, there was a lower margin theyll talk more about this on the Conference Call. Gross margins were in line with what the street was looking for. You will growth margin degradation and the hurricanes weighed more on the quarter. I thought the estimate was 3. 5. Thats because the company for the year is forecasting 3. 5. They dont see the 5. 7 continuing so there must be some of the hurricane in there, i guess that got them to 5. 7 in this quarter. Right . Thats correct. I think lows also takes the tact of trying to set their guidance low. They beat in q3, they didnt raise guidance i dont know if i would read into that theyre expecting a slowdown, but that probably implies theyre setting theb bar lower for themselves what is your rating . Outperform rating, and a 100 price target outperform with 100 price target how about home depot same. We have an outperform rating, 178 price target. Brian, thank you. Thank you we are also watching shares of Urban Outfitters. The retailer posting earnings of 41 cents a share revenue beat samestore sales rose 1 that defied street expectations of a 4. 5 decline. That stock up this morning close to 3. More coming up this morning. A 30 million hacker heist the victims are use eefrs cryrs cryptocurrency startup. And we will talk to vista jet about private aviation during the Holiday Travel season. As we head to break, a look at yesterdays s p 500 winners and losers today, the new new york is sparking innovation. You see it in the Southern Tier with companies that are developing powerful batteries that make everything from cell phones to rail cars more efficient. Which helps improve every aspect of advanced rail technology. All with support from a highlyeducated workforce and vocational job training. Across new york state, were building the new new york. To grow your business with us in new york state, visit esd. Ny. Gov. Welcome back youre watching squawk box live from the Nasdaq Market site in times square. Good morning. Welcome back to squawk box on cnbc look at futures at this hour the dow is up about 55 points. Nasdaq looking to ep open about points higher. A Digital Currency startup called tether says it has been hacked and claims 31 million of cryptocurrency was stolen. This is one of the conundrums when it comes to various cryptocurrencies, even with the blockchain, how things can get stolen because of the anonymity involved, it is gone and gone for good thats terrifying it is terrifying. Bitcoin hit a new high the price approaching 8,200s before pulling back. The market value of all cryptocurrencies climbed to 2 22 billion yesterday. Thats a stunning number. 2 242 billion of people putting their money in cryptocurrencies hoping we will figure this out. It is amazing i need to find the value of my 25 bitcoin from five years ago. Where is it i dont know. This is part of the problem. You have to find the app where it all went. Its somehow owned by you somewhere . I imagine somebody sent my 5 or 25, just to see what it was i dont know where it is now it has to be worth more. Its like my ge stock which i cant find killing me i lose money every day i dont have the certificates. Have you tried to get new certificates expensive its expensive. Maybe not worth it. It would have been worth it at 28. Or 60. On the wall street agenda october existing home sales are out at 10 00 a. M. Eastern. Janet yellen will take part in a conversation with former bank of england governor mervin king this evening medtronic, campbell soup, dollar tree and hormel will report before the opening bell. Sales force, hp, and hewlettpackard enterprise will be out after the closing bell. A positive finish for stocks on monday with small caps outperfo