Airline stocks are popping after the government gave approval to a different way to disinfect surface onz planes american, united, delta, theyre all up 8 or so. S p 500, nasdaq set for a record close. With he have 59 minutes left of trade. Brian, good to have you onboard. Yeah. Good to be here on a day where there seems to be a lot gf news. The markets are powering higher again. We have a long way to go two hours. Coming up, you remember herbalife. They sparked wall streets most epic battles on the Halftime Report it is reinvigorated, more than doubling from the march lows and our interview with the ceo is coming up later on. Were going to be joined by Penny Pritzker and ask her about the democrats economic platform and how a Biden Administration would tackle the coronavirus are your taxes going up . Were going to ask her directly. Right now lets focus in on the big stories that were watching to day mike santoli, as always, watching all the Market Action joining us to talk about the latest developments of the covid19 and treatment front is from stat news the were going to start with you, mike. This, the recent knock on this market rally, by recent i mean on wex this morning, was that this is a very narrow rally. 70 of s p 500 stocks actually fell last week it must have heard the criticisms because it seems to have turned around the breadth of the market today. Yeah. The market is essentially answered that critique now periodically with he get this it is true that rally has started to wabble or become more selective or sputter a little bit under the surface. But there is no single right way or objectively better way for the market to behave sometimes it is narrow sometimes it broadens out. The key point if you look at the one year chart of the s p 500 is its pretty difficult to find a lot of fault with the trend itself here was your sharp rebound. That is just a reflex from an oversold condition thst is a little less steep. That little run into the early june highs on the back and then it sort become a little more gentle since then breaking to new highs. I do think you can look at things like apples reversal off the highs to day tesla. Maybe there is a little bit of an emotional climax going on in the big Growth Leaders youre right financials working to day. Some of the stuff looks better i do want to take a look at the nasdaq 100 the qqq. It is the area of the market that perhaps looks a little bit slightly stretched on the short term really, again, thats an unassailable uptrend this is roughly speaking 21day average. That is a 4 to 5 growth stock. Lots of stories. Lots of talk about momentum and a chase. And just kind of a fad type of activity the market is conversion the stock flow stories into a bucket you flat enout here. Doesnt mean it is an impetus to go higher. If you look at facebook and other things like google is cheaper. It seems to me this is what is happening. Were treating these pieces of paper as similar instruments has apple will become a utility . I look at that i look at your notes this morning. I love your piece about how analysts are trying desperately to find some fundamental way to fairly value a company do the analysts matter and is the stock becoming a u silt much p like a water or Sewer Company . I wouldnt say utility. I think its basically a toll road operator with a franchise that nobody can penetrate. Thats exactly the way the market is treating Something Like microsoft i think the market wants to pay a lot for those things but again, its very difficult using standard valuation to git too far above where the market is already taken that stock even if you do believe this is a really durable, very long term cash flow story with the buyback and the dividends on top of it, brian. The Trump Administration is considering fast tracking the vaccine developed by oxford for use in the u. S this after the fda wants to treat covid19 patients with plasma lets bring in matt herper thank you for joining us first on the treatment news. What is the reaction from the medical experts . Doctors that you talk to how big of a deal is this . Does it expand coverage . Its not clear how much it expands coverage does it expand coverage some the convalescent plaza was available in the study that generated this data which is called expanded access program, 35,000 people in that study. The question is a lot of people are still very unsure whether or not there is evidence that it is effective. I guess if youre a patient in the icu, you want anything that can work if will is enough evidence to show that this does, why not go ahead with this emergency use authorization . We need more of this, dont sfwhe. The experience with hydroxychloroquine is a good reason to be careful about that. Whatever you this about hydroxychloroquine, any indication that we used it in patients who were in the hospital, there are now several trials showing that there was no benefit and there may have been harm so thats not always true. Robert caleb likes to say that, you know, in you put all the studies run in anything together, you might be better off getting placebo than drug. Its not always true that something is better than nothing. We heard that a vaccine may be 40 or 50 effective and that only 40 or 50 may take it. Were going to have to power our way through this is there any indication, and im referencing a study about germany two months ago that we are seeing t cell and antibody response naturally in human beings just by having some small viral load or a small exposure to the coronavirus is there any indication that we are self immuunizing not at all. I dont know why you would go to self immunization over vaccine there are a lot of vaccines in development the development. Theres a tendency of people watching to focus on one but really, the i see you have them up there mow dern yashgs pfizer, johnson johnson, novavax and then there are more after that. I wouldnt bet on the way the fda se fda set the sbbar is if a vacci is 30 effective you know its better than 30 . Thats what they said they will approve. Thats going to be better than that immunity that youre talking about. What about this Financial Times report, matt that the u. S. , the Trump Administration is slooking lookt fast tracking the vaccine. People wonder if corners are being cut from a safety per sickive with political pressure around the election to get this vaccine out. There are two separate things i heard from a lot of doctors that are worried that corners will be cut adjustment saying that youre going to approve the after the are as tra citizen he cana study doesnt mean that it is going to wshg well. The problem with the uk is there is not a the lot of coronavirus. Brazil, there is a lot of coronavirus but the study is smaller. Its possible that there will be data from those studies that could warrant at least some expand expanded access. It doesnt have to be for everybody. But really the question is whether the fda gets an opportunity to weigh that evidence properly and to abide by the standards that its already set. Matt, i want to go back to the previous point i asked you about Natural Immunity im confused by comment. The reality is if half the country cant get it or wont take it and its only 30 to 50 effective, we look at 1968, the forgotten pandemic twice as deadly to those under 65 as covid19 so far has been its still exists in some form today. And theres been some talk that maybe were a little more resistant against covid19 because of the flus even i understand this is different than just the flu. Why would a vaccine be better than us doing what we have done over centuries well, thats why we have vaccines the immunity from a vaccine can be better than the immunity you mount yourself hpv is a good example there. I wouldnt have in order to get the immunity from other coronavirus t cells and killer t cells, those are things that the vaccines hope to generate. That is the idea behind astrazeneca. But its a lot its one thing to hope that immunity exist is going to kick in and help us gosh, i do i dont know but vaccines are i wouldnt assume that is the same thing as a vaccine which is why were in such a hurry to develop one. Matt, thank you for your reporting. Appreciate you joining us on closing bell. Good to see you. After the break, shares of herbalife doubling off the march lows with Second Quarter sales climbing more than 8 over the last year. Were going to talk to John Agwunobi and ask him what is driving the strength in the business [ thunder rumbles ] [ engine rumbling ] [ beeping ] [ engine revs ] uh, you know theres a 30minute limit, right . Tell that to the rain. [ beeping ] for those who were born to ride, theres progressive. Woi felt completely helpless. Hed online. My entire career and business were in jeopardy. I called reputation defender. Vo take control of your online reputation. Get your free reputation report card at reputationdefender. Com. Find out your online reputation today and let the experts help you repair it. Woman they were able to restore my good name. Vo visit reputationdefender. Com or call 18778668555. Welcome back herbalife shares doubled since the march lows the company has been deemed an essential business during the covid19 outbreak and the ceo took the top job just in march just as the coronavirus pandemic was gaining momentum the ceo john agbunobi joins us now. Good to see you. So what is driving the surge in business you know, we have an amazing strategy that is in place for a while. Were growing now and continue to grow in the future. Most is driven by demand, obviously. Of a lot of the people around the world are waking up to the notion that health is wealth and theyre spending the time to live healthy balanced lives and theyre looking for dmcompanies like ours that can supply them with Healthy Nutrition what is happening on the seller front you are getting more sellers for the product people are displaced from home or work and looking for the opportunities from a career perspective in addition to our customer demand, were finding that a number of individuals are sitting at home and working on computers and realizing there may be another way to add an additional income stream so we are finding that many people are coming into the business with a view to helping develop their own stressors. You are a data company not getting into into personals privacy. How do they change your Business Strategy and perhaps the profitability . Yeah, brian, its a good point. So what we are finding is that across the industry and especially in our company, there is an acceleration in the push to a new Digital State our company, were really beginning to Leverage Technology in what has been a very traditionally very manual business were high touch, hightech. And so we are finding that were gathering data and were understanding customer habits, consumer behaviors people bought this who bought that you know, those kinds of things are now available to us. We look to the future, a big part of our growth is going to come from the application of technology across our platforms around the world 94 Different Countries what about the core, multilevel marketing . Is that still a bad term or have you got past that . Our challenges of the past are behind us. Our future is so bright. Were really focused on the Business Opportunity there are many people out there who are looking for additional income streams there are many people out there looking to start their own little businesses. And our job is to support them in that. Carl icahn selling millions of shares. Does that stock sale who famously, you know, was the subject of a book and argument on this network about your stock, john, does that stock sale change the pace or direction of your strategy not at all. Carl has been in the business for eight years. He is our largest share holder today and always expressed his support for the leadership and the strategy that we have in place. By the way, one of the finest Leadership Teams this company has ever seen is in place right now. Lots of tenure, lots of experience and carl is a major shareholder and remains so today even after that sale. Debt finance share buybacks, john not exactly popular right now during the pandemic. A lot of Companies Deal with falling revenue. Why are you going that route yeah. Were a business that generates eye lot of cash. Its generated by our business, not from any other source. We do what we think is right for the company on any given day right for the shareholders on in if i given day our decisions are based in our strategy you know, john, your company, especially the way that youre structures with people and sales folks and direct marketing are uniquely qualified to address the reopen because your business is truly people to people. When you look at your crystal ball, im sure you have scientists and medical experts and who knows what else on your board or at least consulting you, what are you hearing around parts of the country about a return to i hate to use the term normal, but you no he what i mean. Yeah. We have the advantage of having watched the pandemic as it evolved into china were in china and a number of other countries around the world. So we got to see kind of what works and what doesnt in many different settings and so as it relates to the u. S. , i think very clearly theres the impact of the disease and the pandemic itself on peoples behaviors, on consumption. And then, of course, there is the impact of the what is happening in the economy on peoples Decision Making as well its complicated its moving state to state and city to city but were in every community our distributeors live on the corner live down the street from almost every single consumer every single one of our customers. So really involved at the street level on whats going on much its pleasing to see that people are responding, you know, technology has been a great help the plain old phone is important as well. People calling each other, talking to each other, helping each other through this. By the way, my heart goes out to every Single Person that has been impacted by this. There are many that lost loved ones and lost their jobs im also confident that were going to get through this. As it relates to the pandemic, a question on product, you are making any claims about certain vitamins being able to help fight against covid19 . I know there are studies about certain vitamins d, e, deficiency and making covid19 worse. The. Sar yashgs weve been very, very cautious to never link our products to the pandemic or to people suffering in this moment. Our business had a strategy working really well before the coronavirus hit. Our products were selling well before the pandemic hit. Were very proud of the fact that our distributeors, our teams, our employees weve all focused on just making sure that were here to support people, not here to take advantage john, herbalife, we appreciate you coming on best to you and your team. Thanks for joining us on closing bell. Thank you the show is called closing bell. Because thats what every day we count you down to. And the markets, they are higher once again dow, you can see up 242 points were on record high watch will we hit it well, you got to stay tuned. Also coming up, a rare and scary double whammy weather event in the gulf of mexico could that create the perfect storm for oil and gas . Well show you how much is in that region coming up next on closing bell. Icarndstk ou right now, the worst place to be is stuck inbetween. Accelerate your investments or pull back . Change the plan or stay the course . Thats why Northern Trust is here. With specialized expertise. A history of success through every economic climate. And proven strategies rooted in data and analytics. Giving you more control. Clarity. And confidence. For now and whatevers next Northern Trust wealth management. And look, it feels like im just wasting time. Thats why Td Ameritrade designed a firstofitskind, personalized education center. Oh. Their awardwinning content is tailored to fit your investing goals and interests. And it learns with you, so as you become smarter, so do its recommendations. So its like my streaming service. Well except now youre binge learning. See how you can become a smarter investor with a personalized education from Td Ameritrade. Visit tdameritrade. Com learn welcome back along with Everything Else going on, we continue to follow the developing story along the gulf coast. Marco which was thankfully downgraded to a Tropical Storm overnight from a category one hurricane set to make land fall today. 44 of all u. S. Refining capacity is somewhere in the path of the duel storms. It will be 50 if you include the corpus christi, texas area now of that, about 2. 8 Million Barrels per day is in the houston area so the storm looks like its going to go turn toward houston, keep in mind that might have a larger impact. You also got 1. 7 Million Barrels a day in beaumont, including the biggest refinery in america and beaumont and port arthur issued a mandatory Evacuation Order for the residence as of 6 00 a. M. Tomorrow morning new orleans and baton rouge as well as lake charles these are just the areas to keep track of marathon, exxonmobil in bay town texas, valero has four across texas and louisiana. Total and citgo and more bp, shell, and chevron removed workers from off shore rigs. The about 15 to 20 off shore production is currently off line actually not that bad b 300,000 barrels we are day on 10. 8 Million Barrels thats why oil is not moving much right now. Yeah. Energy stocks tell will you are up nicely. To your point on oil, brian, i wonder if if, you know, whats different about this time is that the pandemic is still raging were seeing rising prices in europe and asia. I wonder how you think about the demand picture which is starting to pick up a bit does it make this sort of supply issue that we could see in the gulf less serious or less of an impact on the price of oil i have