The russell up nearly a full percent. The broader markets, though, flat s p just lower dow, just higher joining us for the full hour, stephanie link very good afternoon to you thanks for having me. Markets flat overall, but whats happening underneath . Massive rotation today, and it actually started over the last couple of weeks and a lot of that has to do with a little bit better Economic Data that were getting around the world. Even over the weekend, we got the export import numbers out of china. And even though they were down year over year, the trend is still definitely up. And this comes on the heels of better pmi so i think a lot of it is a little bit better Economic Data. And then its this trade talk seems to be making some sort of progress so the cyclicals are actually the ones that are leading. Its financials, tech, industrials. And within tech, its se semiconductors versus Software Software is actually getting slammed. Is it that the expectations came down too far, too fast, especially with all the talk about recession fears . I think so. I think we were talking about recession every day for the last month. So the Economic Data is important. And if its going to improve a little bit, its more than people had expected. Thats why its the economically sensitive stocks and sectors that are leading today well see if it lasts. Were one tweet away from maybe it not but now, its a good day wilfried is covering fresh comments from Bank Executives as the financials do get a lift today. Ylan mui has details on a new stateled antitrust probe of google and david faber has more on eliot managements multibillion dollar stake in at t but wilf, i know youve been listening these calls and conversations from ceos all day. Whats been the takeaway firstly, banks are trading higher because yields have risen. But also, those updates you mentioned, morgan, from the barclays financials conference here in new york and those updates are not worse than feared so yields, of course, significantly lower than when we last heard from management over q2 earnings back in early july heres is john shrewsbury, the cfo of wells fargo if rates remain in line with current market expectations, we expect fullyear 2019 Net Interest Income to be down approximately 6 versus 2018 this would imply that we expect Net Interest Income in the second half of 2019 to be down approximately 1. 8 billion from the 24. 4 billion of Net Interest Income we earned in the first half of 2019 so that would mean the second half of the year, Net Interest Income is only down 7 compared to the first half. Thats better than worst fears, given the huge moves weve seen in rates shrewsbury had no idea to give on the banks cfo search and citi ceo said that growth should be offset in other areas and operating leverage his stock is up 4 today, leading Strong Performance of all of the big six and this kind of fits, steph, i guess with what you were just saying about how much expectations came down we get the update. Its not that were going to see hu huge growth in the second half the derisking and derating of the whole sector, all year long, no matter what, really has been surprising. Surprisingly negative. But now, youve got interesting yield stories, right i mean, think about how much capital these companies have been returning, both buybacks and dividends. And i think thats going to continue, obviously. And the valuations are really pretty trattractive so, yeah, im overweight financials its not been a good call all year long, but im hoping were about to see a turn. More coverage from the banks at that barclays conference. Jamie dimon, the headline speaker tomorrow around lunchtime. One to watch tomorrow. Meantime, state attorneys general are opening an investigation into google. Ylan mui has the latest from washington reporter 50 attorneys general are now banning together in a Bipartisan Coalition to conduct that antitrust investigation into google. 48 states, plus the district of columbia and puerto rico are taking part in this effort only two states, california and alabama, will not be participating . But here at the Supreme Court, the ag said that the investigation is actually already underway and theyve started requesting documents from google. All of our everything weve requested so far is related to advertising if there are other facts that demonstrate that we need to go in another direction, we will talk about it. And were certainly open to doing that reporter now, about 13 of the ags spoke here at the Supreme Court today. And they had a broad array of concerns beyond advertising. They talked about search bias, they talked about privacy, as well as just googles dominance in the marketplace so this is clearly going to be a massive and sweeping investigation into google. And certainly, the largest action weve seen so far by the states guys ylan, quickly, any commentary or sort of sense why alabama and california didnt sign on . The fact that there are so many state attorneys general that are involved in this, to have two that arent, it seems unusual. It seems significant reporter not clear on alabama, but obviously, googles headquartered in california, and that ags office says that they do remain committed and concerned about anticompetitive behavior so well see if they go their own route or if theyre just going to sit this one out entirely ylan, thank you well, coming up, well be joined first on cnbc by Louisiana Attorney general, jeff landry hes going to weigh in on the crackdown on big tech, what the change is he wants to see and dig into those details around the timeline of this lots of questions. Lots of questions that were looking forward to that interview in the next hour of the show now, at t spiked this morning after management revealed a 3. 2 billion stake in the company though shares are now well off the highs. David faber joins us with the latest hey, david reporter hey, wilfried it is a large stake in a very large company. Of course, always worth pointing out that percentage wise, still very small, given at ts 270 billion, roughly, market value made an interesting point, were below a 2 gain now. Earlier this morning, the stock had been up a lot more there are plenty of challenges for at t eliot is not going after the big ones and saying, well, break this thing up, which some investors perhaps wished might have been the case thats no what theyre focused on theyre focused on better execution of the current plan in terms of at least margin improvement. Their plan from there is to say, hey, you know what, we think this is a company that could have 36 ebitda margins, adjusted ebitda margins within the next three years that would be 300 basis points of ebitda improvement. How . Cost cutting focusing on areas that perhaps are not getting the return they need how much would that amount to . Well, theyre saying, listen, were just thinking 5 billion, but it could be as much as 10 billion. That would be one key part of why they believe that the stock can go higher. Another, nonstrategic divestitures were talking about things like home security, Regional Sports networks, sky mexico, latin america, their paid tv business in that area as well as the puerto rican operations. Will they actually move to sell any of these things . Unclear. They may have been in an attempt previously to sell some of directvs latin american assets. Not sure there were buyers at that point a lot of this does come down to management i think there will be a key area for elliott to be focused on will they get what i believe is the upgrade in management that they hope for. What is the communication going to be like the board of directors, with the lead director, matt rose. So far, one conversation elliotts had with Randall Stevenson, i believe, as well, one conversation with mr. Rose that does not mean that theyre going to be off to the races here and sort of fulfilling what elliott is hoping for in terms of some of those changes i discussed. But it is a long road perhaps that they will go here december 28th is when the nominating window for directors opens. They are all up the entire board. Last year, they held their annual meeting in, i think it was late april well see if we get to that point. The hope from elliotts perspective is, perhaps you execute on some of these things were asking for, some divestitures, margin improvement. Perhaps adding some people in terms of upper management and or some changes on the board. And that gets you to a ten epps grower, 10 . If you get the margins and the buybacks that may come with less leverage, wilfried well see. And you can see the market perhaps during the course of the day expressing some doubt as to whether they will get there and the current plan in place, as well david, your take i mean, clearly they as you said, anyway, they want some changes in terms of leadership in those creative positions, those content creators, where they see is different from a background in telecommunications. Are they implying they want changes right at the top you know, i think that thats fair to assume that that would not be something that elliott would necessarily object to, but that is going to be sort of theyve left that out there. They certainly havent said it, because this is a kinder, gentler approach right now and from our perspective, we want to see, can we get traction in terms of getting the company to agree by the way, in its statement, we should point out, at t did make a point of saying and wie hae it for you that they maintain a regular and open dialogue with their shareholders, including, of course, elliotts perspectives its that last line, many of the actions outlined what were already executing today. So you may hear at t saying, were trying to do many of the things youre asking us to do. Although, wilfried, as you well know, there are plenty of people believe that the long track records of deals not done and done has been a bad one, whether it be tmobile and money and spectrum that was given to that company when at t was unable to acquire it or directv, who is having a tough road of things as it watches subscribers leave the service, or even the warner acquisition, which took two years to complete, its still a question mark as to whether at t will be able to execute on those assets the way perhaps the previous management was able to. David, is there any significance to be had about and just to use your words, this kinder, gentler approach certainly, it was quite a long letter that elliott put out this morning. You know, i think that they are happier to have that go their way. If they can approach other countries with sort of the idea that we can be constructive, morgan, as opposed to just coming at them, as has sometimes been the case with elliott, in terms of a more combative tone that could be helpful as well amongst their own investors, amongst their ability to attract more capital, perhaps. But it doesnt mean that it wont turn nasty if they dont get what they want we know the history. Elliott doesnt back off but that said, if you get to a fight here involving a vote to try to oust investors, they dont have a large percent at stake, so perhaps its priming the Shareholder Base at this point with a nicer approach than one that would be more combative. David, thank you very much for that quick take, stephanie, before we talk about the broader markets on where at t has actually had quite a good yeartodate performance, albeit terrible for the few years leading into that. Its had a good run as of late so maybe there was some speculation building on this, anyway but they have a 100 billion expense base annualized. This is at t i think theres a lot more they can do than just cut out 5 billion to 10 billion in that expense space. So the margin side is very intriguing to me the m a they cant do anymore m a. They cant informs, they are going to have to divest, but they have to regain the confidence from investors. So im not involved. Its a very cheap stock. I actually prefer verizon. Theyve been better in terms of executing in the 5g play, so thats the one i would go with at this point. Okay. Lets broaden out and discuss all of the markets we are trading essentially flat at the moment. S p in the red, dow in the green. Lets bring in cnbc contributor rich bernstein from Richard Bernstein advisers good afternoon to you. Richard, we were talking at the top of the show about whether or not that global macro data had at least bottomed, even if its not looking particularly rosy yet. Whats your take on that well, wii think, will, it depends on where you go around the world. Surprising to many investors, if you look at leading indicators which are very, very important as opposed to coincidence or lagging indicators, some of the strongest leading indicators in the world are actually in china. Theyre not here in the United States, theyre in china and they have some of the strongest of the Major Economies so if you look at europe, youll see leading indicators look kind of blah. Look at japan, they look terrible look in the United States, they look blah to weakening but look in china, theyre actually bottom iing which is a oddity relative to most peoples expectations lets dig into that a little bit more private data shows a sharper slowdown whats an investor to believe here, especially if you are looking at it as a close leading indicator . So i think its important to look at leading indicators that are not necessarily government issued, or at least are scrubbed by other entities like the oecd or Something Like that i think if youre to a certain extent, im not going to go out on a limb in saying this, some Chinese Government data is propaganda and one has to be a little bit careful with that but that being said, even within the propaganda, that if you look at the trends, forget the absolute numbers this gdp, 6 , 5 , 7 , who cares. Thats not the important question the important question is, are things Getting Better . And i think with the amount of stimulus theyve done, to make a bet in the next 6 to 12 months, their numbers are not going to get better, thats a huge bet to say that economics 101 just doesnt work anymore stephanie, do you agree absolutely. And i was encouraged bip the paxon number out of china, were at a threemonth high. The commodities have actually stabilized there are indications that are telling you things are getting no worse maybe theyre not great, but you only need those incremental data points for people to get excited. And when everyone is crowded in the defensives and practically no one owns the cyclicals, it doesnt take much. Stephanie, to what extent is the tech sector underperforming today because of the political threat, versus the rotation thatve youve mentioned already . Yeah, i actually think that the f. A. A. N. G. Stocks are hanging in better than i would have thought this is kind of old news weve been expecting this, and the fines that these companies have seen so far have been really minuscule relative to what their cash flow generation is so i think the f. A. A. N. G. S are probably in a trading range, because you are going to have this overhang. I think software, way crowded at 25, 30 times revenue those are really outstanding multiples. Those are got to come back down. And semis, i think, are where your value trade is. I actually like broadcom into the report on thursday richard, im looking at your notes quickly here and you say your positioning remains defensive. It sounds like maybe youre taking the other side of this tray well, morgan, it depends where we are in the United States, we still believe defensive positioning is the right thing to do. Profits in the United States are decelerating the risk of a fullblown profits recession in the United States is getting higher and higher, almost every day theres no doubt about that. But as you look at outside the United States, you can almost see light at the end of the tunnel so from our positioning at our firm, its sort of like, look. Look at the last ten years the last ten years, the u. S. Has outperformed everything. Did people believe that was going to happen ten years ago . No way no way everybody says, you have to invest outside the United States emerging markets are the place to be and the u. S. Outperformed for ten years. Now were sitting here and everybody is saying, where are you going to invest other than the United States . Our bet is that we look forward a year, two years, five years, ten years, were going to find that nonu. S. Markets perform better than u. S. Markets and thats the positioning that were starting to take i dont want to say whether were 100 , but thats what were starting to do rich, thanks for joining us sure, will. Coming up on closing bell, the backlash against ecigarettes growing today as the fda slams juul for illegal marketing practices. Well discuss the latest fallout on what it means for big tobacco. Plus, well speak in a first on cnbc interview with jeff landrybo aut why hes joining the new antitrust probe of google its all coming up stay with us closing bell will be right back of 5g with ultra wideband, so more screaming, streaming, posting fans. Can experience 5g all at once. This is happening in 13 stadiums all across the country. Now if verizon 5g can do this for the nfl. Imagine what it can do for you. Servicenow put our this changes everything. Youre right sir. Everything. No not everything, i mean youre still blatantly sucking up to me gary. Brilliantly observed, sir. Always three steps ahead. Six steps ahead. Sixteen. So many steps. You done . A million steps ahead. Servicenow. Works for you. Welcome back over 40 minutes left of trade. Mixed session, as you can see, on the russell that leads the charge lets send oit over to mike for our market dashboard lets start off saying is the market cheap with an e p an indistinct profit outlook, the initials ipo, and s p takes the w. The market cap weighted Standard Poors 500 has been incredibly hard to pebeat and you need a to spell debt. In this case, t is a Ticker Symbol so lets figure that out as well the for