1. 8 trillion. And jobless claims disappointed the street coming in at 898,000. It was the highest rating since mid august. Rising coronavirus cases in europe and the u. S. Affecting sentiment. 59 minutes left of trade down only 23 on the dow. The european measures definitely weighed on european markets. We have improved since the european close coming up, we will speak with gregg lemkau about how the pandemic changed the m a landscape. Plus the ceo of zoom will talk about the companys efforts to branch out beyond video meetings and the stocks run thissier. Fir mike, lets start with you the Broader Markets well off the session lows. A resilient showing throughout the last few years. You mentioned the market lows in the u. S. Were just before the european close perhaps that was one of the bigger pressure points, the overseas action. Where it has taken us though is really hasnt disturbed much of the trend. This is this area. Last week we broke above this range we have been in for a while. We have been talking about that as an analogy of what we went through in june and july, even when we get out of it we chopped around sideways for a little while. Thats an optimistic interpretation of it is a contained pullback so far. Look at the nasdaq 100 etf, this is an index and an etf that people are pointing out just about matched its alltime high. Thats a bullish thing but also leaves it vulnerable to a newpry retrenchment still in the uptrend from september but the hottest part of the market cooling off the most big cap tech and nasdaq 100 in general. U. S. Versus the rest of the world. This is over the last six months matched up pretty well except in august when the u. S. Market because of the nasdaq stocks kind of overshot the global trend to the upsaid. Pulled back, right back into parity here we go, overshot again from late september into the recent thai highs now maybe pulling back we will see if it becomes a parity thing the dollar rallying in recent weeks as well, contributing to this. The european close behind us helped sentiment here . It seems as if it did also the market did localize the damage in terms of again the overbought technology areas. You are again seeing a little bit more of a bid in some of the value and laggard areas like energy and banks so it did seem as if perhaps once we got clear of the overseas action that the market was kind of dealing with its own issues although, you know, the lows for today were basically where you would have wanted if you were a bull the market to stop going down and sort of preserve this sense that we are in a higher range at the moment. We are trading right now in line with where we closed on friday for broader context. Continuing to recover dow almost flat. S p alsoclimbing off the lows, down only a quarter of 1 . Mike, see you in just a bit. Investors are still looking for any clues on the size, scope, and timing of a new stimulus deal. Eamon jabbers has a look at what we may see this hour. Reporter what we know at this hour is we have a tang lumbar steering wheel. It is making it very difficult to drive this car. We have three different players with three entirely different positions between nancy pelosi, President Trump, and Mitch Mcconnell up in the senate expressing his reservations about what the president is trying to do all of that making it complicated in terms of getting a deal done. We saw the treasury secretary mnuchin on cnbc earlier today saying the administration is working with republicans up on capitol hill to try to come up with some kind of agreement. Heres what he said. We are also speaking to Kevin Mccarthy and Mitch Mcconnell on a regular base mark and i had a twohour Conference Call with the Senate Republicans over the weekend i think there are there are certain areas where there is complete agreement on the senate side i think you know what we call the targeted bill had overwhelming support that is the priority of the senate but we saw Mitch Mcconnell, the Senate Leader on the republican side coming out today pouring cold water on the negotiations between mnuchin and pelosi heres what he said. There were discussions going on between the secretary of the treasury and the speaker about a higher amount. Thats not what i am going to put on the floor so mcconnell saying he is simply not going to put a higher amount on the senate floor that means no matter what mnuchin and pelosi agree to it cant get past Mitch Mcconnell and therefore cant get to President Trumps desk for a signature. You have got all of these bottlenecks in this negotiation, neither side wanting to give in. There is pride here, there is politics and basic zplars cents. Mitch mcconnell saying his top number is around half a trillion dollars. Thats nowhere close to where nancy pelosi is and nowhere close to where the president is, what is now saying go big or go home he doesnt seem to be persuading his fellow republicans that jobless claims are disappointing in the past week the number of americans whoified for new Unemployment Benefits jumping to 898,000, the highest level since back in august it corresponds with layoffs that have been announced we have been reporting them from Big Companies like disney, at t, and others it could be distorted economists say by administrative issues linked to states processing those filings. California for instance has paused its claims reporting recent recently to work through some of the bag log issues it is the most pop laws state and contributes 20 to 30 of the total number the totals could be off. Continuing claims are worth watching they came out today. They indicate total Americans Still receiving benefits they continue to decline good news. 10 million from 11. 2 million the prior week it shows employers are bringing back workers there is progress on that front. But for the level, they are historically high, painfully high even with quirks like the california issues. Just to bring it back to the stimulus conferring, we know that extra unemployment benefit bonus lasts. That ended americans dont get that at the end of the year a lot of these programs also end if they cant figure out a way to pass stimulus, including the extension of 13 weeks for state Unemployment Benefits. The key point, if we bring up the first chart again, yes it increased and the numbers are historic and depressing but it is not enough of a decrease to probably change the political dynamic in the shortterm, and also having heard from eamon some of the republican lawmakers views whether or not stimulus is needed in the shortterm it is a tick up but it is not like the bars back in august or before. No, we are not in the 5 to 6 million range. But that is up for debate. Im not sure a lot of folks would agree, with you know, 10 million americans little living off of the unemployment claims, that topping them off wouldnt be a brirt before we get through the pandemic and develop a vaccine. I think everyone agrees it is of utmost importance but not weighing on the lawmakers minds. The seven day average of coronavirus cases is moving higher in the u. S. And several European Countries are dealing with outbreaks of their own. Megger theel has the latest for us. Reporter we are seeing cases spike across the number of European Countries check out these curves you can see the spikes really happening predominantly in places like france, the uk, spain, netherlands and germany to a lesser extent it is leading the countries to implement new restrictions to try to tamp it down before we get further into the cold months n. France you are seeing a curfew put in place in paris and other major cities london easing restrictions in terms of indoor gettogethers. Trying to discourage people from taking Public Transportation you are also seeing in the netherlands a partial lockdown germany bans on gatherings and mask wearing in northern ireland, closing restauran schools for two weeks and restaurants for four weeks with the colder months, they are seeing a window of opportunity here to try to tamp this down. Stocks closed down 2. 5 and we have a weak yuri and british pound in response to the new coronavirus cases and lockdown measures. After the break, m a activity surged in q 3 can that pace continue into year en we will ask a representative from Goldman Sachs for his take next you are watching closing bell on cnbc. Its a thirteenhour flight, thats not a weekend trip. Fifteen minutes until we board. Oh yeah, we gotta take off. You downloaded the Td Ameritrade mobile app so you can quickly check the markets . Yeah, actually im taking one last look at my dashboard before we board. Excellent. And you have thinkorswim mobile so i can finish analyzing the risk on this position. You two are all set. Have a great flight. Thanks. Well see ya. Ah, theyre getting so smart. Choose the app that fits your investing style. Keeping your oysters growing while keeping your business growing has you swamped. you need to hire i need indeed indeed you do. The moment you sponsor a job on indeed you get a shortlist of quality candidates from a resume data base so you can start hiring right away. Claim your seventyfivedollar credit when you post your first job at indeed. Com promo welcome back global m and m rebounding sharply in the Third Quarter mega deals having the busiest summer on record with 36 total deals valued at 456 billion lets talk more about the m a landscape with a representative from Goldman Sachs lets start with data on the m a. Listened to the call yesterday how busy are you expecting it to maintain how long can it last what key factors does it rest on the markets have been incredibly busy as you saw yesterday in the results from us and across the industry. Strong underwriting in equities and debt light m a revenues because there is a lag effect of when deals happen and when they close what is amazing about the m a market in march, april may there was no activity. It was down 85 , completely dead we saw activity picked up in the Third Quarter and meaningfully in September September was our record september ever with 473 billion of mark and a announced in september. Thats continuing in october i think where you heard stevens bullishness in the transactions we have seen and whats this the pipeline after taking a pause in strategic activity, it has picked up stig cannily in the past few months. What about ipos is that looking as positive as well it has been incredibly hot. Amazing to see how quickly things changed if we looked back toll march, i dont think people expected ipos for two years. Now we are going to see a record of ipos of all time in 2020. It has been a mix of growth companies, Companies Like unity and snowflake, and a significant pickup in spaks. Those two combined have driven a massive resurgence in the ipo market as investors look for a growth environment. It seems disconnected from the real economy the ipo boom, the spak boom, the m a boom explain. What is that signaling that investors ahave confidence . Is it preelection rush why is it happening . Thats good question. I would say there has been Massive Central Bank stimulus that happened the markets. One of the stories of this pandemic has been the resilience of the Capital Markets n. That period of march, april, may, the amount of capital that was raised by the most Distressed Companies was staggering boeing raised 20 million. Airlines raising money Online Travel companies, restaurant companies, cruise ships. The markets were resilient in raising capital to help sustain the Business Models of companies that were challenged that put a lot of confidence in the equity markets as the equity markets rallied the ipo market opened back up. As investors are seeking growth they have chased after ipo and the option shawl of being invested in spaks. The big surprise i would say has been the resilience of strategic markets. Corporations i am not sure they have stability underneath them and the uncertainty of march, april, may, june has gone away to a degree and they can look at the five year outlook and figure out what they want to do strategically. When we talk about ipos and spaks and the road shows that lead up to them. I guess at the start of the year or as lockdown began one of the questions wasnt whether the market environment was right but whether you could introduce investors to oettlely new companies they didnt know without road shows but i guess that problem has been overcome as well . I would say we have turned everything on its head kind of to everyones surprise a lot of conventional wisdom has been challenged. Things that we did because we always did things that way have certainly changed. You know, weve done i guess 89 ipos since march then 125 follow ons and converts, all virtual road trips. No inperson investor meetings in any of those. The days of flying the Management Team from boston to baltimore to kansas city to minneapolis may be behind us forever. We have seen the same thing on the m a side the potential buyers traipsing through headquarters which has confidentiality risks and scheduling refuses you are able to record a questionandanswer by zoom and things get done faster and have more confidentiality i think a lot of the practice was changed by necessity and i think it is changed for the better Going Forward. What about spaks in particular, gregg . I cant figure out whether these Blank Check Companies that everyone and their mother is starting is the future or a sign of a speculative bubble. Dont encourage my mom. I think she will be calling about a spak any minute. It is amazing to see what happened i would say a lot of people are skeptical. Go back two years ago i was skeptical. The spak model has really evolved to become a credible way to take a Company Public spak two years ago it was the path of last resort. You couldnt sell your company you backed into a spak the structure of the old spaks was you raised 500 million in the spak, did you a 500 million deal 20 of that value leaked right away to the sponsor of that spang. It was punitive to the seller. The way the structure evolved is that promote or the carry for the sponsor of the spak has been earned out over time that 20 is broken down into pieces and only earned as the spak of the stock goes up. Like a private equity carry. And the spaks are 2 2. 5 billion so interestingly, the spak alternative is a credible alternative. I think what is giving people anxiety is the mad rush we have seen 138 spaks to date raising 58 billion. I think we are hitting to point of be po indigestion where investors are saying pause, take a break, let me tie guest what i have and then lets have a new wave of spaks coming to the market. The diverse Board Initiative which david announced a year or so ago, how has it gone down has it led to you losing any deals . It sounds like with the numbers you are talking about you have plenty of deals. Have you lost any deals because of that . Not so much i have been encouraged by the receptivity to it. He announced we are not going to take a Company Public without at least one diverse board member we have taken 52 Companies Public and a lot of companies have come to us saying help us do this we dont know what companies havent come to us because they dont agree with the policy. But most of the companies we worked with have been excited about it and used it as a force and function to drive diversity on their boards which we fundamentally believes drives better outcomes. The one thing i am surprised at is that none of our competitors followed suit. I would have thought they would follow in behind us. I am happy to be a pioneer and leader in diversity but i think it is better for the world iffin everyone else did the same thing. Gregg, you mentioned when you announced it that next year, starting 2021 you would require two either women or diverse Board Members. Is that on track to happen can you do that . We started the policy july 1st. I think we are likely to roll out the two policy july 1st of 2021 we have built a massive base of diverse Board Members to help our clients. We are working with them to be able the populate those boards i am confident we can do it. When we announced, it doesnt sound that heroic. But for a lot of companies it is hard when you go to two, it becomes even more difficult. It shouldnt be. We want to help your clients achieve it and populate their boards with highly qualified diverse Board Members. Interesting that nobody else followed suit. Gregg we will leave it there after the break, cracking down on ppe fraud. Dow component 3m is taking big steps to prevent price gouging and counterfeiting of its n 95 masks. We will tell you how bad this problem is next. Before we talk about taxsmart investing, whats new . Audreys expecting. Twins wed be closer to the twins. Change in plans. At fidelity, a change in plans is always part of the plan. Drifting toward session highs here dow almost positive on the session. S p down a little more than. 1 . Dow component 3m is making an evident to crack down on price goumging and counterfeiting of those n 95 masks seema mody has the story. Reporter 3m filed 20 lawsuits some resulting in criminal charges so far, 3. 5 million counterfeit respirators have been seized with the help of law enforcement, 1200 rates raids, including this in peru, and another in vietnam piles of boxes full of counterfeit n 95s. 3m says without the proper filtration, lives are at risk. They are not made with highly engineered materials that are designed to filter out the particles as claimed they do not have the fit, the performance. And frankly, they are dangerous. Reporter speci