Denny, welcome good to see you. Thank you for having me appreciate it. Weve got about a hundred s p names on the tape so far for the quarter and in tech, at least, if you strip out netflix, what has there been to complain about, really . There really hasnt so far. You know, the numbers, particularly if youre focused on companies with Long Duration competitive advantage and you would highlight over the last couple of weeks, weve seen microsoft, for example, put up exceptional numbers, as the cloud transition continues and azure continues to ramp and you know, its just amazing, if we think about the numbers there of their commercial Cloud Business, which is effectively the size of Amazon Web Services. Its a different kpocomposition, mix of business. But both of those businesses are growing 40 at 40 billion annualized its pretty remarkable numbers so, you know, a great area to continue to be in. Microsoft, you know, still trades at, you know, an evaluated but reasonable valuation. Asml put up great numbers. And obviously, you know, a very competitively advantaged company, with a monopoly position in whats called euv, which is Semiconductor Capital equipment company, where its technology will be inserted for many, many years, to continue to propagate moores law. And then, you know, we expect the digital add ecosystem, particularly around social in the facebook numbers, and the ad numbers from amazon should hopefully continue to show progression there. Google, a little more muted. And then, you know, this continuing narrative out of the Semiconductor Companies like we heard out of tsmc, where things arent getting worse things have been adjusted a little bit for supply chains and for huawei, but things look to be getting a little bit better from here. Okay. Now, lets bring in Synovus Trust portfolio manager, dan morgan dan, that was a setup to what i consider to be a deeper question for investors here were in such an unusual period, take microsoft for example when you get these big cloud and 5g transitions, often the big stocks dont make a really big move microsoft has managed to do that so if youre an investor, how do you find the next microsoft, maybe a big stock that has got a lot of potential still well, jon, you know, just kind of taking from the earlier discussion, i wanted expect those microsoft numbers to roll into the amazon report thats going to be coming out on friday we know that the infrastructure has a Service Cloud space thats very strong. I think were looking for aws at about 8. 5 billion, about a 40 increase we know that commercial cloud, intelligent cloud, and azure were all very strong for microsoft. So i would expect those good numbers for microsoft to roll into another big cap tech name like amazon who will be reporting on thursday. So looking for good things out of cloud and looking for a good migration from microsofts report over to amazon coming later this week. Denny, what do you make of the realogy Amazon Partnership today . Do you think this is amazon making a play into real estate, or is this a way for them to get more of their devices into homes . In other words, should other realtors, the zillows of the world, be worried about this move you know, its too early to tell, but it could be either you know, real estates a huge category and whether thats the ownership of real estate, the sale of release or the rental of real estate and if we think about amazon, for example, and the point you just made and we think about what some of the highest selling merchandise was on prime day, it was all around the connected home, right . Whether its, you know, thermostats, doorbells, or echo devices. It helps to highlight the virtuous relationship that amazon wi is in with its customers thats really important. And theres a lot that amazon can leverage from that so well see where they go with it dan, im curious about alphabet and specifically, youtube, which has been an important growth area for them but some choppiness lately but i wonder if we could be putting the wrong focus on whos likely to get hit by disney plus rollout. Could it be youtube . Should investors be a little bit wary about that younger demographic thats all about youtube now, but traditionally belong to disney and might be going back its interesting to see whats going to happen with youtube. Are google going to eventually try to compete in that space in terms of, you know, being more focused on streaming theyve got youtube premiere are they going to enter the wars with amazon and fox and disney and netflix and so forth and start getting more involved and having their own content and so forth . Its kind of an interesting thing. Because as you know, jon, they dont break out the youtube numbers. Its in that other revenue category with their gcp, which is their cloud unit. Its kind of hard to figure out exactly whats going on with that unit, but it will be interesting. I think it does create an opportunity Going Forward for google as we know, their core ad business was only up 16 in the First Quarter and it seems like thats starting to mature. It will be interesting to see if they can make bigger inroads in, kind of with the snap crowd, so to speak, with regards to streaming and can they make youtube and youtube premium actually work for them and become a huge Profit Center . It will be interesting to see what direction they take that. Denny, your thoughts on alphabet, too, in the unscientific work we do here at this desk, it does seem like theres more consternation going into that print than any of the other major ones yeah wing thats a really fair point if we rewind the clock to last quarter and look at digital ad ecosystem and whether it was facebook and amazon that put up both very strong results in terms of the big walled gardens or even the long tail, where we saw continued healthy spending in places like twitter zmap and, you know, places that have struggled a little bit and then it was the it really was the cor core aggregation of search and youtube together. So i think its twofold. One is social advertising growing much faster and outside of the purview of google, hence the incremental dollars are a little more difficult to grab because of the likes of amazon in the market now and engagement levels at places like facebook and the targeting mechanisms around First Party Data there. And secondarily, as the digital ad market eclipses roughly half of the total Advertising Market exchina, are we just getting to the point where its harder for google to grow multiples faster than what the ad market is growing . So is the answer 2x versus 3x or 4x that weve seen historically . And i think thats really what all of us are struggling with to define right now and it will be interesting to see, you know, what we get out of googles report, relative to the other platforms. And then the other dynamic thats important for google is, its investing heavily in a lot of other businesses, be it hardware, cloud, or google play. And unfortunately, those come with incremental margins that are lower than the core search business, so you have this ongoing pressure on the margin line, which puts a little bit of pressure on their ability to grow earnings. So thats how i would characterize google. A quick one for both of you guys i noticed that you both hold alibaba and that stock is up nearly 30 yeartodate. Dan, why dont we just go to you. Do you hold on to this stock how is it or isnt it potentially affected by trade talks between china and the u. S. Well, thats an issue for alibaba, no doubt. I think the real core reason that we hold the stock is because of their strength that they had on the last quarter in terms of their ali Cloud Business they are making some small inroads in the u. S. But are making some bigger inroads over in china in terms of being more of a player against an aws or an azor in that space so i think, as you mentioned, you know, the trifts aariffs ano that and how it affected, obviously, is something to be concerned about. But the reason were holding the stock is off a ali cloud and some of the inroads theyve made in that space. All right denny, dan, good conversation. We covered a lot of ground see you guys soon. Thanks, carl. Thank you sorry, guys a big show still ahead bradley tusk joins us with his take on all the regulatory headwinds facing big tech. The first of the tech earnings at this eck woowe cans snap seo report well dig in on what to expect and which of these five tech giants spent the most on lobbying this quarter . Well tell you thats all ahead stay with us yep, td ameritrades got that. Free access to every platform. Yeah, that too. I dont want any trade minimums. Yeah, i totally agree, they dont have any of those. I want to know what im paying upfront. Yes, absolutely. Do you just say yes to everything . Hm. Well i say no to kale. Mm. Yeah, they say if you blanch it its better, but that seems like a lot of work. No hidden fees. No platform fees. No trade minimums. And yes, its all at one low price. Td ameritrade. I know all about huawei, i know all about 5g and were working on it. And we have companies that are now getting very, very strong in that department. Were going to have the best 5g in the world, just like we have everything else. Our Silicon Valley cannot be competed with. Theres nobody that can compete with Silicon Valley for the brain power or for what we do. As the u. S. And china get set to restart facetoface trade negotiations, President Trump using Chinese Telecom giant as an olive branch. The president promising timely licensing decisions when he huddled with the ceos of seven tech giants at the white house yesterday. Joining us now from washington, for more on this, former National Economic counsel Deputy Director in the trump administration, clete wilhelms he left the administration this spring clete, thanks for being with us this morning and ive got to ask, did yesterdays meeting really change anything . We have the ban going into full effect in midaugust where do we go from here and what do you really take from that timely decisions . Well, im encouraged by where things are headed at the moment. I think yesterday was an indication that the United States is going to handle this in an appropriate manner and thats that the u. S. Is going to crack down on transactions that pose Core NationalSecurity Threats, but that theyre going to let things moving forward where those same concerns arent going to be raised and that theyre going to do it in a timely fashion. So i would view yesterday as positive i also think that if you look over the weekend, chinas talking about makinging more ag purchases. They made a big sorghum purchase last week and as you know, theres a lot of talk about a trip so things are trending in the right place, but i want to put a little bit of caution out there and say that huawei, agriculture, these arent the reasons that the talks broke down about two months ago, and structural issues and tariffs are what this is really about. So i would just curb our enthusiasm a little bit until you see more news on that front. Clete, what makes you think that huawei wasnt a critical piece of this . And you know, if youre encouraged and its trending in the right way, how does it actually get past lawmakers and, you know, theres bipartisan support from both sides that huawei is a Security Threat and American Companies shouldnt be allowed to supply the company. Right i think the position that the administration is moving towards on huawei is totally defensible and thats that when we say National Security, we mean National Security and were going to crack down on transactions related to the network and things like that, that really could cause a problem for us but at the same time, the administration is talking about allowing transactions to move forward, where our companies would be competing with companies from korea and japan and our companies should be able to compete for those kinds of things and if thaw dont raise a National Security threat, if its something related to a cell phone and not the network, that should be able to go forward and i think the u. S. , to be credible here, is it needs to do this in a nuanced way. Now, the point i made earlier about huawei not being the reason that things broke down was that if you recall in may, where the u. S. And china got into problems was over how china was going to make legal changes in order to effectuate commitments on forced Technology Transfer and that is what they need to get back to. I think huawei is helpful for the atmospheric. It is clearly something that china cares about, but this deal, at the end of the day, is about forced Technology Transfer, its about the tariffs and how the two sides are going to get through those issues. Why is huawei even in the trade discussion i dont get it either its a boldfaced Security Threat thats been completely infiltrated by the Chinese Government and the administration was justified in the really extreme step of stopping all of these u. S. Suppliers from dealing with them, or its just a bargaining chip and we were bluffing. How can we have it both ways well, china is the one who has been raising huawei as part of the trade talks when i was part of the negotiating team, we went to Great Lengths to keep this out of there but china has been raising it. And i think, again, where the u. S. Is going on this is defensible it doesnt need to take the maximalist position, which is to say that every transaction with huawei is problematic. The u. S. Can protect National Security by focusing on National Securityrelated transactions. And so i just go back to the point that doing this in a sophisticated way, where we draw distinction between those things that really cause a problem for our networks, as distinguished with Semiconductor Components that go into cell phones for use in china, i think theres a difference there so i think that the administration cant handle this while being responsive to the legitimate National Security threats. If all thats true, clete, why do some still believe that restrictions, broadly, are still tied to whether or not the chinese buy our agriculture . So in the most recent discussions, those two issues have been linked but what im trying to say is the core of the real deal between the u. S. And china is about forced Technology Transfer and that the tariffs that the u. S. Put in place to combat that so this is an issue that we need to get through in order to focus on those real issues clete, well see ysoon how much really is dependent on huawei thanks so much for being with us today, Clete Willems and when we return, who was the top tech spender in lobbying this quarter the answer depends on how you count it were back after a quick break gentle music my degree from snhu has helped me tremendously. The flexible class schedules allow me to go to work fulltime, run my catering business and be a mom and parent. When i reached this accomplishment, it was like, its here, its happening, its now. We, at Southern New Hampshire university, are the ones who succeed. We are the ones who break through. Is your anonymous data really that anonymous . Leslie picker is back at hq to tell us. Leslie jon, youve likely checked that box under terms of service, you know, the one allowing companies to share or sell your data, and chances are you agreed to this because they told you that your data would be anonmized. A new study found that even if personal attributes like your name and email address are stripped from your data set, it could still be possible for someone to reidentify you in fact, a team of european researchers found that 99. 98 of americans could be correctly reidentified in any data set using just 15 demographic attributes, like age, gender, and marital status the researchers published a demonstration tool that shows how likely you are to be traced, just by providing your zip code, gender, and birthday we tried this out on some prominent Ceos Jeff Bezos uniqueness is about average at 82 Warren Buffett has a nearperfect chance of being identified at 97 , and Mark Zuckerberg is below average with just a 51 uniqueness when it comes to those three demographic traits the researchers say their findings contradict the reassurances weve heard from companies and governments for years. This idea that deidentification is enough to protect the privacy of peoples data in fact, the standard of anom sedationizati ization for privacy laws is simply defined as datarendered anonymous in such a manner that the data is no longer identifying. The question from this research, though, is whether these laws need to be tightened in order to ensure that data is truly anonmized. Carl thats fascinating, leslie. That buffet number of 97 is this a matter of your age, meaning the footprint that youve left . Because buffetts not sociallily media active but hes certainly been around a while. Its his age and also where the population density is. One would that imagine that omaha, for example, has less population density in his specific zip code than say, seattle or San Francisco suburbs, like where Mark Zuckerberg lives so i think its a combination of all of those things. I tried it out on myself and i only have auniqueness, so well below average, but i live in manhattan where