How retailers are shifting Sales Strategies online this Holiday Season then, questions over astrazenecas vaccine trial, what the ceo is saying this morning. And finally what a salesforce acquisition of slack means at this hour. Right back at you in terms of this market action, we have seen it a lot, mike in terms of the dows performance this month there has been some rotation lets start there. Somebody this morning saying aerospace is up 40 . Which frankly i did not necessarily know it has been that strong in that short amount of time does it continue in this rotation or do we have to watch this in last day, day and a half of trading there has been a stutter step in that rotation. We had a couple of these since march. One of them peaked in june now it has been very, very aggressive aerospace is part of the industrials group. Industrials fully kind of got back to precovid levels and the valuations of industrial stocks are well above where they were based on expected earnings eight months ago the market has gone a long way to saying things are on the upswing. We fed off that a lot. If you look at Something Like copper prices today, globally, the markets are trying to send the message there is a big rebound coming does it come on time, does it not . This morning you see the nasdaq is outperforming again i do think you have a little bit of an ebb and flow of those relationships, but it is hard to argue with the general tone of the markets, which is better Economic Times in 2021 you see a lot of wall street firms coming out with some pretty aggressive upside targets for the s p 500 and whether that is something to believe or to fade is going to be the question in the next couple of months as part of that rotation we saw the russell 2000 outperform this on track for the best month since the indexs inception back in 1984 thats how optimistic people are in terms of banking on that recovery trade on the back of all this positive vaccine news we had but keep in mind, the vix has remained elevated. So this is a rally that has gone on with record closes and new landmarks like the 30,000 mark for the dow with some skepticism it has been above 20 since february 24th, thats the longest stretch since the financial crisis so there is some skepticism here, there is expectation for increase volatility, though perhaps, david, some of that volatility could be coming out now that President Trump has said that he will effectively concede if the Electoral College votes for joe biden as president. And that vote is december 14th not something you would think would be a surprise typically. But this is not a typical year and he certainly has not been a typical president. Take a listen to the president who, again, did speak yesterday in that press conference from that little desk that he had, talking about his plan when the Electoral College actually comes in so if the Electoral College does elect president elect joe biden, are you not going to leave this building . Certainly i will. Certainly i will and you know that. But as you say, melissa, it does erase a little bit of anxiety in the market, president elect biden continues to appoint his cabinet, or at least is giving us the names, subject to senate confirmation, which i think also is giving some acquiescence to the market as well as they see steady happenedhand at this point. We havent had yellen announced yet. And gary against lgentzler, the way, seen as friendly to the cryptocurrency industry, he actually taught a course on blockchain and cryptocurrency at m. I. T. From that perspective, hes seen as sort of we know where he stands on the key issues when it comes to regulation. And that is certainly comforting for the market, there arent any of these far left picks, much more centrist and moderate and that, of course, is soothing to the market. I would argue the market is priced itself and behaved as if this is settled. Yes, there is this residual what if that is going to scenarios you can draw out there that maybe there is going to be some disturbance along the political front. But i think the market moved on to a large degree, and actually, melissa, interesting when this discussion about the volatility index remaining above 20, journal had a piece today about this there is a couple of asterisks on that, one is in 2009, you had a crash that basically bottomed in march like this yore, hear, a massive persistent rally this date in 2009, we were over 20, didnt go over 20 in that year either. The credit markets were less settled than they are now. It is not that unusual after a crash for there to be some residual anxiety the other piece of it, people talk to me about this all the time, the huge feeding frenzy in retail, speculative call options going on for months right now has the effect of actually inflating option prices in a way that filters into the volatility index in which case, a high vix is not telling you anything about fear, it is telling you about greed more than anything. There has been some debate over the last couple of months over to whether or not the vix is a true indicator because of the distorting activity. Thats something to watch. The vix is only it measures moves in the markets, so exactly never really was purely a fear indicator, but it may be less so now than it had been. Financially, melissa, you know, retail itself, there had been a significant surprises there including some mallbased retailers that performed extremely well gap shares did sell off after earnings on wednesday. But, for example, it has been up sharply. Somewhat of a surprise, i guess, as we are now at black friday, where by the way inventory remains quite low, which is going to be good for margins. People are at home. Not going to be standing in line in those crazy black friday crowds this year and we have become i dont want to say underserved, but less stored over the course of the year the one sort of theme that happened with the pandemic is that it accelerates trends, right, in general, across indices. For this particular industry it accelerated store closures so in the first half of the year we had i believe a Record Number of store closures, in the united states, and so that is helping the stronger retailers out there with the stores and im sure, david, after this black friday may take on a new meaning this year for many retailers. Lets get to that story, of course malls are bracing for a different kind of black friday amid the pandemic. Bertha coombs is at a mall in paramus, new jersey, and has more for us this morning bertha we are at the west field garden state plaza, and we are seeing some traffic. They opened early for black friday at 7 00 a. M if you look, people have been pouring in since sun up for the most part, but certainly the parking lot is nowhere near as full one woman told us by this time on a normal year, you couldnt park anywhere near the front of the door to get to a store it makes her a little sad to see it, but she says in some ways it is a little bit of a Silver Lining i think of huge crowds, but obviously there arent this may end up being the best time to come it might be the safest time. Yeah, she said shes here because her daughter brought her, she wouldnt have otherwise, but a lot of these mallbased stores have been doing well on line over the last week coming into thanksgiving, kohls, macys, both up more than 50 , taking some share from rivals like nordstrom. Of course, theyre not ding as well as the big box stores, they continue to be the monster share online target up 167 , best buy nearly 90 . Walmart better than 80 . Amazon, the laggard, up 65 over the last week. Bear in mind, amazon is also twothirds of the market share the others are just chipping away at it, at this point, amazon remains the big magila as most of us shop. The National Retail federation says that 106 million of us will be shopping today, one in three. That mix will be a whole lot different than what we normally see in store bertha, thank you bertha coombs. For more black friday and what to expect from the retail sector, lets bring in oliver chen great to have you with us today. Your most recent note went out this morning, theres no place like home. What are we expecting in terms of the ones who will win the screen today we were out at walmart and target and the mall this morning. Mall traffic down about 30 to 40 in our view. And what we think is online is growing 70 plus so who is going to win the screen we like walmart and target we also like American Eagle as well as tapestry so there are winners and people are out there shopping there is long lines in electronics. It is an at Home Revolution that is happening here. It is also deals for days. So the period started earlier, almost as early as october, with amazon kicking prime day, and the season has gone for a long time inventories are low, which is good for margins Inventory Availability is pretty good with the exceptions being video games and electronics as people really look to zoom and cocoon the cocooning trade, you mentioned in your note also that appliances will be big i cant imagine gifting a refrigerator though i could use one and i wont turn one away. I want to ask you about the retailers that look like theyre winning on paper bertha went through the big increases for Online Shopping, macys and nordstroms. The these are stores losing traffic in store, but theyre getting an online buyer but that cost is much more expensive to fulfill that order. A lot of retailers were acquiring new customers online, so the key is to engage the younger customer in particular also the retailers that have been able to survive and raise capital are taking share from those who have gone bankrupt or contracted furthermore, with bankruptcies and with this period there is a lot of rent and renegotiation happening too. So all these things are happening. Dont forget economically speaking, saving rates are higher and you cant spend on travel and youre not spending as much going out. So these are factors that are giving a nonrecurring boost, stimulus help during the summer, the retailers are hoping for another stimulus to be a positive factor too. And apparel is all about leisure, so what has been tough is dress and office for sure but i want an air fryer, so, you know, home is really working too. Oliver, you know, i wonder about tactically how retailers view this period, when kind of the door buster thing, the promotional black friday type items, the traffic drivers, just to get you to buy other things, do people focus more on what they need and dont do the kind of incidental purchases and who does that benefit and hurt yeah, for sure. It is all about conversion so the Treasure Hunt is not happening as much when youre online youre going straight for the deal what is really happening is personalization too. So a lot of the retailers of the future can really identify exactly how youre searching what you want and promote to you very uniquely, kohls and ulta have done a good job with collecting data. Retail is about magic plus logic. It is about the wow factor and emotions, but logic around ai and affecting the customer thats been a factor thinking about promotions, it has been a planned promotional season, very heavy on gifting, and very heavy on access price points thats been good for retailers, and margins have been better on the pace basis of better inventory control. We see fantastical and functional products, customers looking for value, and then fantasy, customers really looking for feel good product too. And thats another trend, thats important. That Everyday Low Price is certainly very, very important and the future is also data. Yeah, speaking of the future, every black friday we talk about the growing importance of online, but given the behavior changes that have taken place over the last eight months as you said at the outset, it is even more significant. In fact, it is almost dominant a year from now, take me out, do you get anywhere near what mall traffic used to look like or is this sort of the seminole moment when it really changed there are so many permanent changes that have accelerated. Thinking about Curbside Pickup, buy online, pick up in store, the amazon effect, returns at amazons and kohls, the digital and the physical, those will continue to accelerate Curbside Pickup in grocery a big deal so fastforward a year, though, were going to face easy compares, traffic down 30 and people are itching to dress up and go out and celebrate with family that will come back over time. However, the vaccine process is likely to be very phased and well it will strain the supply chain there is a pentup demand for getting out and being with family in real life. I think it will come back. Bigger, better, stronger, what happened in malls is bifurcation too. There is better malls and worse malls and the worse malls have gotten worse unfortunately. Oliver, thank you for your time appreciate it. When we come back, astrazeneca defending the handling of its covid19 vaccine trial. Were going to take a closer look at which vaccine related Companies May have stocks that are particularly good for your portfolio. Take a quick commercial break and well cook bame back right this this is decision tech. Find a stock based on your interests or whats trending. Get realtime insights in your customized view of the market. Its smarter Trading Technology for smarter trading decisions. Fidelity. Astrazeneca is likely to run a new global trial of its covid19 vaccine candidate, thats according to companys ceo. He sold bloomberg the drugmaker may launch a fresh study testing the vaccine at a lower dosage rather than adding a test to an ongoing u. S. Trial joining us for a look at what is next for vaccinemakers is dr. Amill devaughn and louise chen, Cantor Fitzgerald managing director louise, recognize you dont cover astrazeneca directly what is your take on the progress of this trial, what it means overall for the market for vaccines eventually . Yeah, thank you so basically for astrazeneca i think the data are somewhat messy and give the market a bit of unease about whether or not this vaccine will be effective new. I think the question will be will it make it to the u. S. Market or will it be pfizer and moderna that are the frontrunners here in the u. S. Over the next year or two in terms of vaccinating the broader population the problem with the vaccine is were not clear as to what the efficacy is, the 90 efficacy dose was in younger patients and also by mistake and unintentional. I think another trial probably is warned for fda emergencyuse authorization here in the u. S. And in your assessment then what does it mean for pfizer and moderna assuming they get to market as quickly as we expect does it mean they will be controlling theentire first phase of the rollout yeah, i think thats what were going to be seeing i think on december 10th, there is going to be a committee that is going to come together and review the regulatory emergency use authorization of the Pfizer Vaccine and thats followed by the moderna, probably a separate review for that. Well see the documents pretty soon for that. In the u. S. , i think in december well probably likely see an approval for emergency use authorization for both the pfizer and the moderna vaccine, which are both highly evocati , efficacious. I think it is very promising in terms of those two being the frontrunners here in the u. S. And also for next year as well and it will be free of charge to patients and theyre going to do a rollout where they look at some of the high risk population groups, essential healthcare workers, haealthcare providers first. Dr. Devaughn, im curious if were eliminating a competer from the Vaccine Market in the u. S. Next year, im wondering if that changes your suassumptions for sales and whether it changes the assumption of how fast a price of a vaccine will come down historically vaccine prices havent remained elevated, they have gone down to a few dollars a dose eventually z this a does this alter anything in terms of the timeline . Thank you for having me on. I agree with what louise was saying earlier, this likely makes astrazeneca more risk into the market it is going to be about how much pfizer and moderna can make in terms of the vaccine i think there is going to be demand to sell that much our current estimates in our model only includes what they already agreed to supply to these various governments. Over 450 million doses now that they talked about having contact with the u. S. , so we still have a model based on that, but, yes, they can supply more, there is going to be demand and i think there will be a lot more divestments going out for both companies. In terms of longterm pricing sorry, we hope there will be demand for it. Given the lack of confidence among some, do you think astrazeneca, which didnt do the best job here it would seem in terms of going through the data and the trial, do you think that hurts the overall vaccine effort in terms of peoples confidence . Yeah, i think it is unfortunate. I think there is very sensitive area, a lot of people already nervous about the speed with which this has all happened. Political overtones as well. I think we need good, clean data, i think for pfizer and moderna they have produced good, clean data, the fda seems to be doing the best they can to make everything transparent, having the Advisory Committee meeting that we see the data and hear the discussion so that should help. We have other ones coming as well, johnson and johnson and other vaccine manufacturers. Hopefully that overall people get comfortable with these do seem to be very effective and safe vaccines. I think there will be a setback to that messaging, but there is other players here that should hopefully hopefully we have more options coming thank you very much for your time this morning. Thank you coming up, electric vehicle spacs have been on a tear this month. Nikola, lords town, fisker we can give you more you can see from this chart how those have done, though. Electric vehicle battery startup jumping on the bandwagon going public today or closing their deal were going to talk to the ceo of quantum scape later in the hour and here is another look at futures. About 6 1 2 minutes until we get started with trading ianar cseorhe markets. Congratulations welcome to the aflac program. Aflac now tell me, what does aflac do . Aflac pays you money directly to help with unexpected medical