Points the s p which is then up five out of the last six weeks and up the last six sessions in a row is up by 5. 5 this morning and then the nasdaq which has been this incredible out performer for months on end is the other performer this morning its down by 13 points but remember nasdaq was only down friday after being up for several sessions in a row. Setting a new high every one of the closes. The s p is less than 1 from its all time high. Its up back in february the treasury markets youll see right now. The treasury yields are where they have been the ten year is at 0. 556 . Melissa. We have an update on the pandemic the United States surpassed covid cases. It took just six weeks for u. S. Covid cases to double. The growth appears to have leveled off at an average of 54,000 per day over the last week in College Sports news over the weekend the mid american conference scrapped its all football season delaying all fall sports until the spring of 2021 the logistics were too complicated and costly and now multiple Media Outlets are reporting the power five conferences held an emergency meeting with the expectation that fall sports will be postponed until next year which would be very disappointing to a lot of fans out there. Yeah. People have been waiting for sports to come back but when you see some of the troubles that the professional leagues have even had even when they have lots of money to be throwing at this when you see those issues and add that to the idea of college kids being in dorms and going back through some of these things i cant say im hugely surprised to hear about some of these set backs at this point given where westand its more understandable and the professional sports here with mixed results seems to be struggling relative to what the european side and sports managers managed to achieve quite quickly relative to a much more delayed start date here every time we do a show wilf has to bring in soccer. I love when you say that. Joe likes that one very much circumventing congress and many, many questions he joins us with more on this. Theres so many questions on this and i was on the phone with producers yesterday. Begging to walk us through this. Even after going through hours of trying to figure out what was happening. Im trying to stay im still confused the president only has limited Authority Without legislation from congress. Hes right up to the edge here and we heard democrats complain over the weekend and was actually over the line lets walk through what he did first lets talk about the reaction. What he did was a serious of executive orders including the payroll tax cause which is going to defer payroll taxes that runs through the end of the year it doesnt look like the law is going to be changed under this congressional layout right now the president is simply hoping here that there will be a new congress he will be reelected and hell be able to pass a law making that permanent but trying to figure that all out, which way do you bet on that is a real open question the president not able to extend it but he is directing his federal agencies to find ways to go out and help renters so well see what the federal government can come up with there then its 400 in bonus unemployment that will replace the 600 a week that people have been getting under the cares act. This is money coming from Homeland SecurityDisaster Relief fund and the federal government is going to pay 75 of this under the president s plan states will be responsible for 25 . You already heard some complaints from the states that they simply dont have the money to be able to do that. So you heard from democrats over the weekend that this is entirely unworkable. Unfortunately the president s executive orders described in one word could be unworkable, weak and far too narrow. The event at the country club is just what he does. A big show but it doesnt do anything and its what the American People look at the executive orders they dont have close to doing the job. He explained exactly what the president hopes happens here with his payroll tax if they want to challenge us in court and hold up Unemployment Benefits and theyre going to have a lot of explaining to do so becky, essentially a dare from the treasury secretary saying sue us. If you want to be the Political Party thats suing to stop unemployment checks going to Unemployed People ahead of the election go ahead and do that. Lets start theres going to be a lot of questions. I know all three of us want to ask. Lets start with the basics. If the democrats challenge any portion of this does that mean they challenge all of it we could see them saying they want to challenge the idea of a payroll tax holiday or a relief at this point but we dont want to stop the checks from going out. You could there are three different executive memorandum here and executive orders. So you can do a lawsuit that targets specific federal action so you dont have to challenge the whole thing. You can go after bits and pieces the question is politically whats the strategy . You saw nancy pelosi arguing this is both unconstitutional and also too little. If its unconstitutional then the democrats are putting themselves in a position where they sort of morally or righteously would need to sue to block it but also if it does provide any little bit of help they dont want to be in the position of being the ones to take that away. We keep saying its 400 in unemployment its really 300 coming from the federal government and theyre saying the states could pick up an extra 100. But we should probably recharacterize it as 300 coming from the federal government. Its 300 from the federal government and the states would pay 100 and you already heard them saying wait a second. Our budges have been so badly hit that we cant pay for the services that were providing right now, let alone an unemployment benefit were not going to be able to do it states will be able to find a way to do that and well see what governors say this morning as they get into their offices and try to figure this thing out. If the states dont come up with the extra 100 does the 300 go away or will the unemployment checks still be increased by 300 . Thats a good question. I dont know the answer to that. I dont know if the whole thing collapses under this proposal or if theyre able by 300. Aman, i wanted to ask, going back to the sound bite that we heard. If its not just a brilliant political move whether its 300, 400 or the 600 as recently as 2, 3, 4 weeks ago the republicans, some of the republicans suggested they didnt unemployment benefit and thats how the narrative was coming across and with one little signature the president turned that on its head and might well now whether it gets done or not. Being able to claim that he was the one to get the Unemployment Benefits out. Right, look, politically thats the genius of the move over the weekend the president takes action, shows himself as a leader who is taking action trying to help and put the democrats on the defensive. Thats why you saw that dare saying go ahead, sue us if you want to be the ones to block us. Politically this is good politics over the weekend for the president. The question is whether its going to result in actual checks going to actual americans. The potential for this to backfire is if you promise 400 a week you cant deliver it. The mechanics dont workout and people say wait a second the president is leaving us in the lurch here heres the guy that signed the executive order and im not getting any money. They have to figure out the way to make the mechanics of this work thats going to be tricky too. Theres a risk here as well. Over the weekend says the president could wave the states contribution of the 100 and it could be covered by the federal government its almost a stroke of political genius and trump to the rescue once again. Were coming to the rescue. The question is would they review that on a case by case basis. State by state and on what basis would they review that a red state versus blue states kind of a thing . Who is going to make that decision theres a lot we havent been able to sort through and who has the authority to do that i heard a lot of political commentary of people saying this means that the two sides will be forced to come together and come up with a deal but i kind of doubt that on some level it seems to me that this provides cover for the president to get what he has wanted to say heres what i wanted all along it means that Mitch Mcconnell is not going to have to reign in some of the republican senators in his camp that didnt want to go along with anything theres nothing thats going to bring them to the table. It puts the democrats in a much tougher position theyre going to have to table just about anything and go ahead and go the opposite direction and take them to court over this i dont see them pushing things closer to a deal. Yeah, becky thats where i am scratching my head as i stand here this morning trying to figure out the dynamic of this. In the modern era, in the past ten years or so, congress doesnt do anything unless theres a foreseen deadline. Theres something that were about to go over and congress can bring itself to cut a deal but absent that, theres just no incentive for people to cut a deal because everybody can point fingers and we dont see any mechanisms out there theres no big major deadline. They have already blown through the 600 a week deadline Neither Party would want to take the benefits away from americans struggling during the pandemic thats already gone. They blew right through that. In this case you could see a scenario where both sides point their fingers to each other and take it to the voters. The stock market is not giving them any sorry the stock market is as becky mentioned before, about a percent away from record highs so theres nothing from that side of things either. Its not like the situation will be plummeted and congress is forced to takes action theres no force coming from the Financial Markets at this point. Right that could be a real forcing mechanism as well. If they see the bottom fall out of the market and they say were going to have to do something here everybody that i see quoted talks about 1. 5 trillion deal being baked into the market here and so you do wonder what happens if the market comes back today and says well wait a second we thought we were getting 1. 5 trillion and now were getting executive orders and 400 a week and maybe not. And that assumption that the 1. 5 trillion is in there starts to crumble does that have an effect on the markets . You guys would know better than i would. If it did, that would have impact in washington that could be the sort of thing that forces the players back to the table to cut a deal. In the meantime, are we going to see congress go on recess like they were supposed to be doing . Thats a good question also they said they were going to come back and wait for a deal. I think that at this point theyll stick around waiting to see whether theres negotiations happening but what were told over the weekend is that things broke down entirely and theres no conversations happening if theres no conversations happening theres no reason for them to be in town theyre going to have to figure all of that out. Aman, again, thank you for getting up early with us this morning. A lot of questions we have a lot of answers thank you very much. Good to see you. Some answers. Amazon in discussions about using some closed jcpenney and sears stores as Amazon Fulfillment Centers. Thats according to a wall street journal report. It would speed up the crucial last mile of delivery. Its closing 154 stores this summer late last year it was closing 96 or more stores one does expect amazon or other Success Stories this year will find some options to pick up struggling rival companies, all of their assets in a year or so ahead. A new development from tiktok over the weekend planning to sue the Trump Administration as soon as tomorrow according to npr. President trump signed an executive order that would ban transactions with tik toks Parent Company meanwhile they held preliminary talks about a potential deal over the u. S. Operations shares up about 4. 7 this morning. Microsoft confirmed that its in talks to buy the Popular Video sharing app and its share price benefitted this time last week really when it was looking like they are the most likely suitor and lawsuit threats or not this one in the shortterm at least as we approach the election is not likely to see either side turn around and suggest that this isnt the way forward its such a hot button topic and like wise, the legal system will be able to block any sale in the shortterm twitter has a market cap of just under 30 billion and we heard variations on how valuable tik tok operations are when you have people defected to other services in the meantime with the chaos. Questions about what it would mean but it might be a tough one to full off based on its market cap. And were learning that microsoft is open to inviting other parties to invest along side it which is a head scratcher since microsoft does have the money and wherewithal to make such an acquisition on its own. Why would it also invite minority investors whats the strategy behind that. This is a fascinating deal with huge implications in terms of what else the administration can do in terms of forced divestitures with collecting a percentage of every transaction. The other question is well, we saw a big two day pop for facebook last week up about 6 over two sessions off the back of announcing its launch of reels after an already good couple of weeks as well. And one wonders if this continues to drag for the next couple of weeks or months and facebook can start to take from tiktok and decrease the value of microsoft and twitter or whatever else would be trying to buy. Theyre trying to figure out the evaluation because we spoke with him last week and as the biggest shareholder in microsoft, he said hed love to see this deal get done at the right price. I dont know what the right price would be when youre trying to take all of these things into account. And the number of users on it at any given point and this transaction fee thats out there. How do you possibly figure out a fair valuation because thats difficult to do and you have none of the other factors involved i didnt know when to go there. Its really hard, by the way two anchors will have a large gap. My final point was going to be that you wonder where the reyar retaliation is going to be. The big question out there is going to be what this means for apple. But the retaliation is real. One could argue that even without National Security questions over the last couple of decades, the only reason that you have it is because facebook and google and amazon were banded in china initially and in that sense its a fair push back its always a dance when youre doing this with partners. We all have to jump in and try to figure out the timing on this. It is. Do you guys have spy cameras . I can see melissa and i can see wilf even when youre not on camera. I can see the show. I want to get you this app i have to hand it to andrew. He was right with the early call on this. The one thing that i can say is if you have the app and you can see everybody you know who is coming next. Im going to make sure that melissa gets that. It is tricky. Ill take that too. Okay. Anyway. We should discuss this on the break. Well square this away. We will when we come back, warren buffets Berkshire Hathaway buying back a record amount of the company stock. We have a run down of the latest moves by the oracle of omaha next as we take a break, take a look at the price of gold its up this morning after a sell off on friday now at 2,040 an ounce squawk box will be right back. Stock slices. For as little as 5, now anyone can own companies in the s p 500, even if their shares cost more. At 5 a slice, you could own Ten Companies for 50 instead of paying thousands. All Commission Free online. Schwab stock slices an easy way to start investing or to give the gift of stock ownership. Schwab. Own your tomorrow. Schwab. Lookentertainmentour experience xfinity x1. Its the easiest way to watch live tv and all your favorite streaming apps. Plus, x1 also includes peacock premium at no extra cost. This baby is the total package. It streams exclusive originals, the full peacock movie library, complete collections of iconic tv shows, and more. Yup, the best really did get better. Magnificent. Xfinity x1 just got even better, with peacock premium included at no additional cost. No strings attached. Second quarter profit jumped by 87 thats a big holding for Berkshire Hathaway but a 9 million decision and thats its aircraft Manufacturing Business because of the impact of the pandemic and what that has done to the Airline Industry. Berkshire spent 2. 1 billion to buy shares of bank of america. That was already the second largest stock stake after apple. Berkshire owns now 11. 9 of the shares and that came in late july and early august so after that Quarter Ended so the 140 billion they had spent some money after that. And natural gas pipeline and storage. That came after the end of the quarter as well. Its a little bit down from where it is. It was it looked like they were spending money a huge question is going to be what happens with other bank shares we find out around the 18th what the holdings are and get a feel for if he likes bank stocks in general or theres just some that he likes. Totally agree i cant wait for those thats a phrase that you only hear on cnbc but i mean it though. Only from you. Because in q1, of course we learned that he was a seller of banks. He trimmed jp morgan and s synchrony financial. Theres a big question given that he slightly increased his bank of america stake but significant in terms of 2 billion whether this is now a massive change of heart and he is bullish us. Banks in general. Its one of the others at that 10 holding in the company we snow there was a massive amount of volume i was trying to do lots of reporting on it. It needed to be one of the big existing holders of the stock. We dont know who that was but we wont know the answer but of course if you did sell significant amounts of one of