next week. the investment committee is ready to go. "halftime report" starts right now. good to have you with us on this friday. our investment committee here today, joe terranova, jim jim, josh brown, shannon si koeshs from boston private wealth let's begin with the move by josh, doubling his position today in uber ahead of today's open talk to us why? >> yeah. so i had kind of gotten into it a little bit non-committally in the middle of december just looking at a stock that had been completely thrown in the trash something revolutionary happened in the tech space, the post ipo space last summer where we said we are not interested in these tam stories, now it is about profitability. i think uber's ipo disappointment was part that and we work what happened with uber is people stopped looking at it. meanwhile, the company had been making strides, getting profitable and union level economics, getting scale but reasonable scale and then looking at investments around the world that no longer made sense and walking away so you saw them look at eats and say, look, eats is going to be a great business in america. it's already an amazing business in places like australia it is not going to be a good business in india. it will not be a good business in south korea they did the mature thing and got out of those businesses. so you are seeing a management team that's balancing this idea of rapid growth, but growing responsibly and not just doing a vision fund, we are going to swallow up everything and figure out what it is worth later that's what i like about the setup here. >> the stock is right now having its best day ever. >> yeah. >> it sounds like it was clearly the comment from dara first on the call that they are going to be profitable, ebitda profitable a year earlier than expected >> yeah. >> and then here's what he told andrew sorkin in this exclusive interview this morning on "squawk box." >> this is a business that has it grows can become quite profitable for 2020 we got together as a team and said you know what, we can do the same thing not just for the rides business but for the whole business if you look at our plan for 2020 for every dollar of revenue growth from qu 4 to q 4 we expect to drop 55 cents to the bottom line. and at the same time make the kinds of investments as we want to make. >> as i said, the stock having its best day ever. this was the tipping point for you to double down >> basically, i think like a lot of people figure out about growth stocks like one of the best things you can do is average up when you get confirmation of things that you thought were once possible. i bought the stock in december i said i don't know how thing are going to go. they are losing a ton of money are they going to get to a points where they are responsible enough to show a pathway to profitability they say they are, but what is actually going to happen when you bet incremental proof they are on that pathway even if the stock is five or six points higher that's when you want to add more because what you thought could go right starts to go right in reality. it is a different mind-set from a value investment where you say, well it was at 20, now it's at 15, and if anything, the street is even more missing out on the upside. this is the opposite this is like, yes, this is confirmation, and i am investing this as a growth investor. the main thing i want the say though about this, being involved with the stock, and buying it under 30, adding to it closer to 39, the main thing here that i want the say is, this is a company that legitimately has now a platform. it's dominant in the space there aren't going to be new players that come along. we already went through that there aren't going to be new eats players either. we already went through that the biggest risk about the.can, too much company to be propertible is now fading. est now the question is how much of the take rate can they get. right now they get 22% on average of an uber ride. scott, you go to the airport for $100 22 of those dollars go to uber as autonomous becomes more and more realistic, ten year time horizon that migrates to 100%. there aren't any more drivers. the bigger you get now while they need drivers, but the margins increase over the ten years. >> there are price bumps from 39 to 56. >> higher. mahanay is in the 60s. >> where do you think this stock will go? >> i think from these levels it could be 50 bucks. >> by the end of the year? >> we watched tesla last week. we know that really anything on earth is possible. i am not looking for that i am saying this could and should be a $50 stock if they continue to execute the way they did this quarter for the rest of the year >> you didn't hold it? >> no, i think it is a broader ipo conversation let me address uber and josh's buy. when you are looking at the company. it is a resilient consumer the consumer is demand is there. i thought what dara emphasized, he has pricing power if you think about some of the initiatives he is adopting in california, where he faces the legislation challenges, that's where the pricing was actually strongest. they are reducing incentives, they are raising prices, and the consumer is still there. i think you are finally seeing for this company that turn not only towards profitability, but the ability that their pricing is there as it relates to ipos, there was in the third quarter of 2019 unquestionably this sentiment that you just did not want to be there. one of the things as the calendar year approached 2020 we talked about -- i remember at the new york stock exchange having this conversation that the last place this liquidity was going to go after was the ipos, there are several names that i have gotten into that talked about, slack and zoom video, but the ipos are investable once again. i would argue one of the best holdings i have is docu-sign which is pressing to all-time highs receipt now, a 2018 ip ork. and pinterest. pinterest, that quarter was fantastic. i would make the argument that from a social media platform, there is more value in pinterest than there is in snap because of the broader reach. >> why nobody else on uber farmer jim >> p/e ratio is very high right now. it is infinity into i am not going to say it's greejously price. it is roughly four tiles this year's sales or lower. i do like to have earnings that's why it is outside of my real but i don't look at this and say this is similar to tesla or roku or something like that when you have roughly four times sales and you look at profitability you start to think about operating margins and you can see the earnings multiple one, two years out is not going object greengous at this price level. i don't have that crystal ball, crystal much of a view on what those earnings are going to be. >> you don't necessarily have to because dara helped you get more clarity in the road map, if you will, to profitable. that's the sort of game changer that i feel like josh has made a move on. >> i think the enthusiasm around the transparency, that is really in sharp juxtaposition to tesla. if you think about governance and a management team that's providing clear transparency on what the expectations are for the next couple of years if you go back to the fourth quarter. it was trading at three times revenue. that's an amazing entry point given the fact that as josh said you have seen this story improve. i think for us we want to see positive free cash flow. that's a requirement for us. we are not going to see that for a while but i don't think this is something that is in the same camp as what we have seen in tesla the last couple of weeks especially on the management side. >> put a button on this and then i want to move on to another big story today. >> the eats business which people were excited about a year and a half ago before the ipo is growing 4% there was so much commentary about there is so much competition there, you will see the weaker competitors fall away they could end up with more pricing power there. they have signed 400,000 restaurants in one year. many independents, and many massive chains that is a trend that will continue it is not just u.s it's global. so if there is upside here it is not going to be about do they get an extra dollar versus lyft. it is going to be is it more than rides is eats profitable is freight something that go grow beyond the 1% of the business it currently is if that's the case to me i feel like you are looking a of the platform a la google that could be much more than just i need a uber to get me somewhere later today. it is more than taxis if all this stuff falls into placement i am willing to bet of the might? we will continue to watch the stock. we said best day ever right now. had to be up grayer than 8.25% now firmly as you can see as josh was discussing it here, let's call it a 10% move, a 10% gain today in shares of uber. elsewhere we are dealing with a market reacting to jobs report stocks are giving a little bit back today is it about the jobs report? what is your take on why stocks are reversing today. >> my background as a futures trader aligns exactly to what he has been saying. the last ten years has been about growth not being afraid to step in and buy stock at a high. we are making a recovery in the market amazon, microsoft, both stocks all-time high. there is your story for the day. yes, unemployment report, yes, coronavirus, yes the ten year is trading at levels that make us uncomfortable. it is about microsoft, amazon, resilientsy. i emphasized that i am not afraid the buy amazon approaching $2100. st in, 185 post earnings you can extract that to facebook, netflix, and apple. >> the story of the week has been the amazing gains we have seen dow is up 3.5, s&p, russel all in line with a gain of at least 3%. >> i think if if you think about what is happening with coronavirus and you think about a shift to safe haven assets i actually feel like some of the mega company u.s. companies especially in the technology sector are being seen as safer havens for u.s. investors who see this as for better or for worse, i think we are expecting this not to have a significant economic impact, and so they are looking at families that they feel comfortable. i think that's why we are seeing flows to the names that have done welcome well. >> the chip. semietf is up 8.5% josh highlighted it saying chips were the key to the market well, you got a recovery in chips. and not surprisingly a upside in the major afternoons >> microsoft is up 9% this week. at an all-time high. yeah, i think -- like what they have done with tech is they have ripped a lot of things out of it that we used to follow we used to look at f.a.n.g. and say oh, this is tech what is left in tech is of size, like what moves technology in general is semiconductor and soft way they pulled out the facebooks. pulled out -- now woe say, what could really drive a continued tech rally and you have already got stocks like microsoft and the big software components at record highs. it is the volatility in the somis now that's determining from week the week whether we feel good or bad about the trend in technology stocks this was a very good week. >> let me give you some idea how good of a week it was. microchip up ten, applied materials 7.5, amd 7 terra dine, 6. to josh he is point he talks about the move and the path forward for the rally they like. software and services. >> from a fundamental point of view, i want to go back to the cheps for a second here. chips are now the modern equivalent of what 40 years ago the steel industry was or the oil industry was it is a macro economic indicator. if the global economy is doing well, people are buying more computers, more cars, more everything and everything has a chip in it when you get past the coronavirus, which we did of the least ehomeowners associationally this week what you are left with is a fed that is still injecting liquidity into the financial system, so are central banks around the world. and trade is completely off the radar. do you know we did brexit last week, scotty did you know that? we did >> market yawned it is off the radar screen china, off the radar screen. the positive forces are in place for the economy. it is reflected in chips. let's move to another big story today. new at noon, an update to a store we brought you earlier this week. the power struggle inside credit suisse it took a dramatic turn overnight when the ceo resigned. major shareholder ricky sandler of eminence capital packed tm will now leave the phone next week ricky joining us pie phone good to have you back. let's be clear, reading some of the commentary come out of the firm it doesn't appear reresigned it appears he was fired. there was a significant deterioration in trust and creditability. we decided the current leadership would not be in a position the resolve that situation. so he got fired? >> i think that's right. he was asked to resign or he would have been fired. this is a board that made a terrible decision based on what they believed to bethe perception in a sensationalized swiss media world. the broader perspective on the firm and on tejon is terrific. you can look at their glowing remarks about tejon on his and it and frankly that there was nothing else here as proof that he was, you know, essentially just a sark official lamb to save the board's reputation. >> so what do you do now you talked the other day about things you were considering, maybe calling a special meeting. you clearly had backed tejon now what >> we are considering all of our options. we continue to think that the board is in entrenched and in need of some refreshing. we continue to think that the chairman needs to step down. he has commented and committed that he will be stepping down next year. that possibly might need to happen sooner. but we are considering all of our options at this point. and i can't really say anything else. >> but is it fair the say that -- i mean, would you come forward with slate of board members that you would like to be added and then go for a full-blown proxy fight to try and win that >> i don't know that i would do that at this point we are just keeping our options open and doing some of our own diligence and work on the legal and governance side to at least consider what the best option and path would be for us generally speaking, running board slates is not what we like to do. generally speaking, being a public activist is not when we like to do we -- we work with our companies. we are very constructive in fact, this is a case where we kaem out defending the c-- whert defending the ceo. that's more our style. we are consider you go our options. >> how about the new ceo what do you expect >> i expect a steady pair of hands. he is well nope in switzerland he has run businesses. he was on the strategy committee. i expect him to continue tidjahne strategy. the market believe has the turnaround and the strategy will continue and i think thomas will provide a safe pair of hands for that. he has capably managed the swiss private banking business in the last years. >> it doesn't sound like you are somebody who looks at the situation as des appointed in the ousting and saying i am going the sell my shares you are going to hole on >> this is too much valuable it is a valuable franchise moving in the right direction. selling my shares now would not be the right thing to do i don't think that we put the company in the hands of an uncapable manager. i think the board made a suboptimal decision here perhaps with their own agenda, perhaps enench fromming themselves is kind of spitting in the face of shareholders and good corporate governance. >> are you taking with harris associates, the largest share holer, 8.5%, with dave heir over there? >> i have had conversations with dave from time to time. >> member move on. i know you have to leave in a minute but i didn't realize the other day when we spoke,you have a position in a stock that's surging today. that's pinterest; is that right? >> that's correct. >> why opinion tress and when >> we started buying pinterest late last year this was an irk po early in 2019, a bit of a high flying ipo that came crashing down late last year to frankly below its ipo price. we think the core fundamentals at opinipinterest, the core vals tremendous as referenced by their $335 million global user that are still growing at 25%. so monthly active users over $300 million, growing 25%. this is a company that has delayed moneyatization of those users and has been implementing systems to do that that comes in fits and starts. and the market got disappointed late last year with the pace of that and the stock came crashing down from north of 30 to 18 and we entered at that level and earlier this year. and this is a phenomenal platform where the monetization of its users is somewhere between one quarter and 1/20th of its peers and the fundamental health of its business is phenomenal as judged by the growth of the users. and frankly, the intent of its users to be shopping for and using pinterest to visually see the things that they want to buy. so this is a powerful platform that is just building its monetization engine. and so there will be some fits and starts but there is significant value here. >> one heck of a gain today obviously. when you were with us the other day you spoke of a bifurcated market we mentioned sort of tesla on one side as representative of these speculative stocks, this mania as you described it. and then the other side, these real value plays i am guessing you are it iffing this one into the right side of the market, if you will? >> yeah. i think -- i think it was, certainly as of year end, left for uninteresting and unexciting and not making it into the fashion show as it will and then i think that's the thing about this market. it is not just statistically cheap stocks like capri that trade at five or six times earnings that are interesting. there are real growth companies that at points in time get left for dead and creates a opportunity for investors who take a longer term approach. >> ricky we appreciate your time we will talk to you again to an. >> thanks. >> the latest on credit suisse and pinterest thrown in there as well a stock you talked about not five or ten minutes ago. >> i did everything ricky is saying i fully support. applaud him taking a position. the monthly active users both worldwide -- the interesting part was the growth in the u.s. was only 8%. but as ricky pointed out, 26% worldwide. that's staggering. i think you do have to compare it to the snap and the social media phenomenon that seems to be aligned from an investment thesis to snap i think it is even more compelling for pinterest. >> do you have a take, josh, on a stock leak this? >> i don't i don't really understand what the -- it is another internet advertising business basically there is nothing to it that really distinguishes it from other very large publicly traded internet advertising businesses that frankly are better at this. it is not as though the valuation was half or a quarter and there is some great discount like if i really wanted this as a play, to be more deeply into internet ads i would buy more alphabet to be honest with you. >> i wanted to ask you, you weren't here the other say we made a big deal about you getting out of twitter completely. >> yeah,ia you. >> now what? the stock ripped this week there are people who are suggesting that the story has turned more positive stephanie link made a great call in the name. where do you come down on it today given what happened? >> it is already giving it all up it is not a good company i love -- i love the service i love a lot of people that work there. a huge amount of respect for what they are trying to do i think it's got a chance to be a good business over time. but like, it is a