All in the name of raising money for paid yediatric cancer and research. We have a number of speakers joining us live here throughout the next couple hours. There they are. We have nascar champion jeff gordon and cliff robins of bull harbor group, and a unique way to play streaming media, and, yes, involves teletubbies. Oh, boy, looking forward to that coming up. Green Light Capital statement e einhorn, bringing you all the headlines of what he talks about as soon as we get them, but we begin with apple crossing an important milestone today in terms of value. Bertha is at the nasdaq with that side of the story for us. Reporter yeah. Apples market cap today crossing 800 billion in market cap. It crossed 700 billion after blistering 37 gain the prior year. Already this year, apples up more than 32 notwithstanding iphone sale numbers in the most recent quarter. The stock is up 100 a share since tim cook took over as ceo in 2011. A gain of nearly 200 , and apple is a big catalyst behind the nasdaq 100s out performance not just today, but this year, accounting for a third of the gains year to date in terms of the index, and, also, it hit a high today along with the composite. 800 billion, watch for 15444, bill, the 800 billion dollar mark. All right. Well watch that one and on amazon. They are both racing, it would seem, towards the trillion dollar mark at some point. Thank you very much. Meanwhile, if you saw this this morning, warren buffet joined becky quick this morning following berkshire as meeting in omaha. One of the topics talked about was investing in stocks versus bonds. Listen to what warren said. Anybody that prefers bonds to stocks makes a big mistake. I said that year after year after year. I wont say that under all circumstances, but it is ridiculous, in my view, for somebody to buy 30year bond and some countries 50year bonds and so on at these rates in preference to mining stocks. Stocks bounce more, going down 50 , but 30year bond goes down 50 too at these rates. Bonds are a terrible choice against stocks. Joining us now to discuss that, brian singer pr william brar, stuart grasso, and Rick Santelli in the Closing Bell Exchange today. Brian, you agree with Warren Buffett. A lot of people do, but what do you recommend investors do about that . Absolutely agree. I think the bond situation is one where assets are priced very much above fundamental values. Look at equities and look at equities in europe predominantly. Central banks normalizing Balance Sheets means these prices diverge back on values, and you got to look at places like italy, spain, financials all in europe. Rick, we all know the obituary for the bond bull going on since 1982 has been written over and over and over again. Prematurely over and over again. Do you agree with Warren Buffett now at this stage that bonds are not as good an investment as stocks . Id think the simple answer is yes, but, you know, theres a lot of as risks here, bill. Last july, record low yields, meaning records high prices on the treasury curve. Of course, many of the years, 20122014 saw pretty nice gains with respect to the fixed income market, but, yes, i think hes right. The other note is it all depends. Not all investors are the same, you know, a 70 basketball player might not like a corvette, but theres a lot of people that do. Whether its insurance companies, mutual funds, diversified portfolio managers, the treasury in the fixed income market, the corporates in the high yield always find a place, but generically for viewers thinking about investments, obviously, timings important, but, yes, i have to agree with that, especially when we consider the feds balance sheet, the ecb, the bank of japan, and, certainly, seems as though i certainly dont want to be on the other side of what all the Central Banks own. They have to build an addition to store securities and corporate securities, not a good place to hide right now, i would agree. And, steve, you know, all this talk about the stock market comes after we had record highs hit on friday, and so, you know, you can go kind of in a broad basket like that or strikes me this is a good backdrop to have this sohn conference, about stock picking, ways to make money against a quiet environment. Yeah. I wonder, though, its actually a great time to have that type of event, kelly, especially when youre talking about what you just led in with, passive versus acti active management. Looking at the etfs that, you know, scattered amongst the landscape here, apple seems to be in every one of those etfs, look at the price, and i believe that equities are just climbing that wall of worry. Im not sure theres a wall of worry. You had, north korea, that goes by the wayside. You have progrowth policies that are thoughts, not really end acted just yet, but were looking back on earnings right now, earnings have been good enough, so you have to be diversified, but equity seems to be wanting to make tremendous gains from alltime highs. And brian singer, you know, turned out to be a nonevent for our market today, but the french elections already priced in here, but you like the european markets at this point, right . Absolutely. The u. S. Market is really been sliding, not going up a wall of worry, but sliding up a hill of complacency right now, and i think its priced in here, and you have to look elsewhere. French election, which is fine, rest of the year, we see, obviously, italian issues, german election later on, but with Central Banks normalizing processes, almost every investor in the world talking about pop p populism now and geopolitics, its behind us now. Looking at the Fourth Quarter as a great Investment Opportunity and we lead today with a purpose in the place that people dont want to go, italy, spain, financials, also sfranfrance. All right. Sometimes it can work out. Gentlemen, thank you for the thoughts on todays market action. See you later. Kelly . Well, speaking of the sohn conference, Howard Hughes moved higher today by 3 after bill ackman revealed they have the best Investment Advice moments ago. Take a listen. Retained our stake in Howard Hughes, never sold a share, never talked publicly about the company. The question is, why talk now . The answer is this is the most attractive time in the history of the country to invest. They tried at the widest discrepancies of Net Asset Value with a better understanding of the business and the business has had a huge head start over the last six years. Well, bill ackman held the stock for years now, already chairman of the board, and scott is here as you have been all day, but you follow this so closely, this i mean, do we call it a disappointment . I dont mean just i know what you mean. So much anticipation, a couple positions that we dont know about yet, but howard is a story we know a lot about when it comes to ackman. I was expecting, i guess, hoping wed hear maybe one, two of the new ideas in a portfolio that we dont know. Ackman positioned this as new because he had not talked about it publicly, and if ever, and certainly not that often, and, yes, its been in the portfolio for a long time. Hes been so high on the company for a long time. If you recall that forbes cover from 2015, baby buffett with ackman on the story. The cover story was about his hopes and dreams for the Howard Hughes corporation and some saw it, at least ackman hoped itd turn into berk sure like cash cow machine for him. The stocks done well. Opened it for a long time. You said hes the chairman. If anything, thfrs bill going back to his bread and butter. Even though its not a new investment, its going back to his roots in real estate. Remember, his family was involved in real estate. When he was at the Harvard Business school, he bought a stock in alexanders, the department store, because of the real estate assets. General growth properties, the mall reit is one of, if not the greatest Hedge Fund Investment of all time pouring in tens of millions and took out 3. 7 billion, so if all the turmoil that bill ackman has been involved in the last few years, this is a guy whose going to his bread and butter and back to the real estate roots. Bill . That was the question i was going to ask, scott. We all sort of expect controversy from bill ackman these days after the whole referee between him and carl icahn, but do we see now, is it more a plan b for him, shying away from controversy or just see real value and real estate these days . I think he sees real value in the investment. If you look at the ackman portfolio and ackman performance, theres two spectacular blowups, one blowup in the last couple years, which he sold out and took a big loss on. Herbal life has not traded in the direction he thought it would and lost money on that, but if you look at other stocks in the highly concentrated portfolio, platform specialty, products, Howard Hughes corporation, its the performance of the stocks that has helped ackman from march 31st of the 2016 to april of 2017, up 18. 5 net of fees. Now, most people focus on valeant, the disaster it was, and herbal life, the high profile fight on our show a few years ago, but hes quietly trying to stage a comeback. Up 4 in april. Up 2. 5 year to date, thats better than being done. Yeah. And as i said, this is over the last, if you want to call it year, hes had a decent go of it. I think more competence is the theme here. Scott, thank you for sticking around. Bill, keep the other guy who you know so well picked a name in telecom, in his competence, more knowledgeable about that sector than anybody. Perhaps thats the theme of the day. Interesting one, century link. Yeah. Mostly in the fact that the companys already done a big thing, and thats a deal. With level three. Hes not pushing as an activist for the company to do a deal, but its the next level, get the beth athletes for both companies in the field to make it a success hell think itll be. Biggest in the s p. Thank you, scott, appreciate it. Wow. All right, guys, thank you. Heading to the close with 48 minutes left in the trading session today, dow down 4 points, not ear the market response that we saw in japan overnight after the french elections. Talking more about that coming up. Plus, more from the sohn Investment Conference in new york. The head of the social capital on why he likes tesla convertible bonds, very specific investment there, and nascar champion, jeff gordon, talks to kelly, and cliff robins views himself as a friendly activist investor telling us where hes finding value these days, and then deborah fein on the unique presentation today on under the radar streaming plays. Thats still to come here on closing bell, youre watching cnbc first in business worldwide. Tribune media, local tv stations buying tribune valued in a deal at 3 billion, assuming net debt, ceo called it transformational, and tribune runs 42 tv stations around the country, plus a cable station, wgn america, and owns 31 stake in the food network. Tribune up 5. 25 . Sinclair down 2. 5 today. Kelly . Well, im here with chimath from social capital, just invested next idea on stage. I thought you couldnt top amazon, okay, and you come out saying tesla. Now, should i say you are long tesla, that youd buy tesla or are specific that you like a certain piece of the debt here . We love the convertible bonds, and the reason we love convertible bonds is that it gives you all exposure, to be precise, 95 of the exposure to the upside that the equity does, but unlike the equity, if the equity somehow gets impacted, if they cant raise the money they need to finance a car, your completely protected. Basically, you get a costless fiveyear call on one of the greatest entrepreneurs. Whats the price . Trades at 0 yield. When we started to buy it, it was yielding 5. 5 . Which you can imagine tesla now has been paying you to basically go along the ride with them for five years and see if they pull it off. What does it convert to . In equity, premium of 5 of todays current price. Its incredible, effectively like buying equity, but protection of a bond. People say, well, problem with the tesla debt is, you know, maybe thats not serviceable at some point. If thats true, i understand youre calling into question the entire company which seems extreme, but theres plenty of people shorting it, effectively making the same case in some ways its unsustainable. Talk about the shorts for a second. You know, anybody that thinks they can mod ill the future in excel lies to themselves and investors. With tesla in specific sm. True with everything country. If an analyst says short the company, you you dont believe financial modelling has any real no real basis in it . It is valuable after you built a logical model. In the case of innovation, innovation needs to be built on the heels of an understanding of product and technology, and thats very hard to do unless youve done it before. Thats why when we start looking at businesses, we start from that perspective and use models to reenforce perspectives, but not to come to it. Does it bother you at this point, i dont want to drive an electric car because you made the analogy to apple, and iphone is a wonderful product which i couldnt wait to have and cant imagine not having at this point. Im not sure i personally feel the same way about tesla. The point is, is there a market smaller than apple . The market is probably as big, if not bigger. I say that because theyve shown unbelievable ability to go down market to create lower and lower price point products to get mass users option. Happy to ship my car to you and have you drive it for a month, and what youll realize is i want to find charging stations that have to figure it out, wait in line thats what is incredible. Neither do i. The software does it for you and drives you there automatically and plugs the car in. Bill has a question. Bill . I do. Warren buffett has been singing the praises of jeff bezos, felt he missed the boat with amazon, but love what he accomplished with retail and cloud space. Do you acquaint that with musk and tesla and in other words, if youre going invest in his companies, are you betting the jockey in this case, or are you betting on the Business Model created for the company that we call tesla right now . Its such a fantastic point in question. At the end of the day, when you are making deep methodical investments in technology companies, it is fundamentally first and foremost about the jockeying. And that was the point earlier today, which is that every time wall street tried to bet against the jockey, for example, with jeff, they have been wrong and shorts got faces ripped off. That was true with facebook. It was true for a period with apple. It was true for a period with google. I think itll probably be the case with tesla. I think that, absolutely, this is a bet on a guy who is probably the closest thing to Thomas Edison in our generation. Why bet against a guy like this . Why would we not want to see his world view . Well, look, the boring company, i hope its id like to scale that, do that across the country, the hyperloop, all that stuff. Fantastic. We need that. More of that. I hope they get it going. I want us to talk about something mundane quickly while youre here, thats oracle. You talked about you like net suite. Oracle bought them. You are focused on Big Tech Companies working right now. What about the older Tech Companies there . Anything that you think the markets are looking past . So oracle is not a business you can short today, but its also not a business thats going to win tomorrow. The reason you cant short it is because theres an unbelievable sales and marketing machinery that will figure out how to tax its existing customers in umpteen numbers of ways that are unbelievable and like, unknown to the cfos. Put ibm in the same category . Absolutely. They are a services company, they are not building or innovating. Watson, Artificial Intelligence youre laughing. I mean, watson is watson is a a joke. Just to be completely honest. Why do you say that . What do you know to know its a joke. Companies advancing in a. I. Do not brand it with a name named after Sherlock Holmes character. What you do when innovating in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, you spend time collect iing enormous amounts o data. Who do you take seriously . Google and amazon buy and far ahead of every other company. You dont think watson is to be a brand for ibm saying were trying to make these investments, do you think they made end roads there . I think what ibm is excellent at is using sales and marketing infrastructure to convince people who have aless knowledg to pay for something. Orac oracles in the same bucket. Cant short them, stock will not go down, but can you fundamentally long these two businesses over the next decade . I think the answer is no. All right. Well, i want to ask you about the warriors too, but i guess the only thing there is we hope well, we, i say i like curry, what can i say . I love them all. Theyll win. Im sure you have to say that. Thank you very much for joining us. Thank you. Appreciate the time. Much more ahead, bill . Yes, indeed. A lesson for chi math, tom watson at ibm, where that name came from. Down eight and a half points on the dow, but were still pedal to the metal at the sohn conference, jeff gordon will join us next. And then later, friendly, a selfproclaimed friendly activist investor, cliff robins, and deborah fein on the best investment ideas coming up on closing bell. Even a coupe soup. [woman] so beautiful. [man] beautiful just like you. [woman] oh, why thank you. [burke] and we covered it, november sixth, twothousandnine. Talk to farmers. We know a thing or two because weve seen a thing or two. We are farmers. Bumpadum, bumbumbumbum i am benedict arnold, the infamous traitor. And i know a thing or two about trading. So i trade with e trade, where true traders trade on a trademarked trade platform that has all the. Get off the computer traitor i wont. cannon sound former nascar driver, jeff gord gordon, honored for work with his Childrens Foundation to combat pediatric cancer and other childhood diseases, and hes here on set. Chills to say this, you know, that and by the way, you do the job better than i could fry to