As for stocks this morning, lets take a look at the futures. Youll see right now that it looks like the futures are indicated a bit lower. Of course this is coming after 7 days in a row of gains for the dow. Its the first time its strung together 7 days in a row of winning streaks for the entire year. The dow futures are down by 85 points. S p futures off by 10 and the nasdaq by 28. Imports and exports both down. In the baltic. Theres a Cocktail Party and theres one to drop the baltic index which peaked in july and hasnt been this low in awhile. Were all embracing it because it helps the emerging markets and takes pressure off of us in terms of leading the world. Somebody else plays along with us, there it is. So now growth concerns again. And fisher is going to be on at 6 30 and here we are again. Is it true theres never a good time to have a baby . Theres never a good time to raise Interest Rates ever. I think any time is a good time for a baby. Its never the perfect time so just do it. Theres two kinds of people in the world. Those that think theres never a good time to have a baby and its always a good time to have a baby. Its one in the same but if youre stretching it, just go ahead and raise rates. Well, well check again today. Is that a new suit . No, do you know what im wearing . If you saw the billboard before it was taken down. Youre wearing. Im wearing the suit. Is that the tie too. And the tie. Im going to do that tonight. Youre not going to go home . No, you have too many jobs. I do. Heres whats happening inbev and sab miller are moving closer to a deal finally. They have agreed to whats been called a pact in principle. The agreement says that inbev would buy its rival for about 67 a share in cash. Its 103 billion. The rules of what they can and cant say in terms of the european merger. Because whats going to end up happening is theyll have to divest different things. Its going to take some time. This is just the beginning and its possible the price could go up ultimately. Really . Because of the share purchase part of it or its not a done deal. Its not a done deal. We should also tell you another Macro Hedge Fund is closing. Fortress said to be closing its global fund. A regulatory filing showing that it dropped 17 so far just this year. It was hit by heavy losses on a bad swiss frank bet it hasnt been able to recover. The former wrestler expected to leave the if i recall. The other fellow thrown under the bus with this is a fellow that came over from citigroup. Well have a lot more on this in just a moment. We should mention though that he is probably the most famous person that people know from the fund, this is a small piece of the overall pie of fortress. Thats interesting. Sounds like they dont know who is going to call to say hey ive got some money. Its down 17 versus down 0. 6 . When we see things go unexpectedly one way or the other like the swiss frank and for the people that make the money, a lot of times it is zero sum and theres professionals that we talk about every day that, past performance, no guarentee. They can be so wrong. Paulson a couple of years got cold, right . You can have a great call and just suck for years. And the real question with this is they had run the fund for a very long time. They took his hand off the wheel for a little bit and hired this guy from citigroup to run it. Thats why i said is he getting thrown under the bus or not because they were supposed to be working on this together and then all of a sudden jeff leaves. They come back to try to man the ship and things get i dont know if they get worse but they dont get better. Now the whole thing is imploding. Well see what it call means and talk to kate kelly in a bit. Also in tech news this is is interesting because we had mr. Dell on the program yesterday. Recode is reporting that dells coowner approached hewlettpackard to explore the possibility of selling off dells pc unit. No word on if they were acting alone or doing this in concert as part of the deal in changing the game plan. Could be a way to raise money. And theyre also trying to move obviously as far away from the pc business as possible. I dont know if you saw meg whitman wrote a scathing memo. It was scathing about dell but a thing to suggest look at this deal. Youre probably reading all of this. This is going to be terrible for them. Theyre going to have all of this debt. This is great for us maybe thats what she has to do. Do you know who could nail them every time . Elmur fud. Thats the way he already tal talks. He wouldnt have to think about it. Barclays is reportedly getting ready do you know this guy . I do. Former jp morgan banker. Actually you know jes staley. Hes been on the show. I remember how you started. You went to the new york times. They didnt have a big m a business there in terms of reporting, you called all of those people and said just give me a chance once in awhile. This is true. Thats how you did it. I know your past. I know your story. You worked your way up. Clawing tooth and nail. Is this one of the guys probably . I dont know, actually. Why did they say yes in the first place . How did you get them hes presenting and making a market. I had a Good Business card. And then they say fine ill give you the next scoop. The next big scoop. I tried. Susan li is in london saying i dont have anything better to do. Just take your time. Shes covering this story in london for us. Sorry, susan. Thats okay. You take your time, joe, any time. Barclays is reportedly set to name jes staley as its new ceo. So lets take a look back then at his career. He spent about 34 years at jpm and he lead the Investment Banking unit and was seen as a likely successor to jamie dimon but then leaving for hedge fund Blue Mountain capital which have been and are run by former jp morgan executives. So lets take a look at barclays approaching him for the second time. Did you know that . According to the Financial Times the newspaper here in london the first approach was back in 2012 but barclays decided he was too expensive. His contract would be too expensive. In the end, the british bank went for a change in direction. They opted for retail banker Anthony Jenkins. He was ousted in july and i guess the choice was intentional since they were switching from the previous investment banker. Bob dimon remember him before Anthony Jenkins . Another American Investment banker that headed up barclays. Thats the latest from london. Back to you guys in new york. Thank you very much. Susan li and well be talking more about this story. In the meantime, earnings is the major focus of the markets this week. Johnson johnson posting results before the bell and then well be hearing from jp morgan and intel this afternoon. Joining us is ed campbell. Hes principle and Portfolio Manager at qma. Ed why dont we start with you this morning. The big story yesterday is once again Profit Margins are getting crushed at a time when companies will have to start spending more on things like wages and other issues, potentially commodities too. Does that concern you about what well hear for this earnings season . The earnings season has been better than expected. We dont think not much to go on just yet though. True. Its still early but 2015 is likely to be very weak. We probably wont get any Earnings Growth at all. Thats one of the factors that keep you less cautious in not buying the rally. And then this guessing game about the fed. We dont think we have a green light to rally into year end and were not buying this rally currently. You can break those out. The whole issues about Earnings Growth is probably baked into the market at this point, right . I think some what and i think Earnings Growth is likely to get back on track next year but were still cautious. We still see volatility reasonably high and we dont think the riskreward profile is such that you want to be overweight equities at this point. If your concern is you dont know where the fed is heading would it make a difference if they kale out and raised rates in october or december . I think if the fed did move that would take away a cloud that is hanging over the market and that would be an improvement for investor sentiment. Crew, lets talk about that because people are still trying to figure out if the fed moved if thats a concern when they didnt raise last time it did all kinds of things. It weakened the dollar which helped boost stock prices across the board. Does this market want to see the fed continue to remain on hold or do they want to just see this rate hike get out of the way . Pretty much Everyone Wants the fed to just get on with it at this point. The response to the fed not moving tells you everything you need to know about it. They are a source of uncertainty. The fed kept saying theres all of this uncertainty in the marketplace and thats dragging on growth. Now the fed is the source of uncertainty in the marketplace and they dont seem to be able to recognize it. Are we making this up though . Were looking at weaker demand in a lot of different pictures. Were looking at slower growth. Is the fed the source of uncertainty or the economy itself . The fed would tell you financial conditions are tightened and therefore they dont need to but the problem with that argument is its circular. The fed itself is the board for financial conditions. Its a starting point for everything. So they cant really have their cake and eat it too. Ubs has said all they need to do is hike rates and the economy will accelerate and get a better and more stable platform to work with. If the fed doesnt move the economy gets worse and not better. If the fed raised rates, lets say 25, 50 basis points the markets knee jerk reaction would be here we go. Were starting a tightening but youre looking at that thinking its that and they dont move again for awhile. I think so. If you look at the underlying inflation conditions with inflation well below the feds target they have a lot of leeway. If we get the first one out of the way and they can signal that the pace of rate hikes is likely to be measured that would be a more positive scenario for the market. You dont like stocks right now are there sectors that you like or areas you like . Theres areas of the markets we find attractive. We like preferred stocks a lot. Attractive yields. 5 to 6 . Exposures are dominated by the banking sector. We like high yield bonds. We think the spreads more than compensate you for the risks that you face in investing in that sector. Were looking at yields above 8 and they widened with the energy names as well. I want to thank you both for coming in today. Thank you. Okay. When we come back, why Playboy Magazine says it will no longer be publishing images of nude women. Well tell you about that when we return and later a special squawk box conversation for the next 20 years. The future of media. It all starts at 8 00 eastern. You dont want to miss it. As we go to a break though take a hook back at this date in history. The only way to get better is to challenge yourself, and thats what were doing at xfinity. We are challenging ourselves to improve every aspect of your experience. And this includes our commitment to being on time. Every time. Thats why if were ever late for an appointment, well credit your account 20. Its our promise to you. Were doing everything we can to give you the best experience possible. Because we should fit into your life. Not the other way around. Can we take our blind folds off . Mine is already off. Mark, you want to try this . Were delving into his personal life now. This is as bad as it can get. If you pie into our theory that we all lived these past lives we dont know who we slept with. Im sorry but we have once again not disappointed those that expected us to sink to the lowest level. I dont think a three hour special is too much. Those are great. They are. Look, its 20 years, all right . Ill sorry. Sue me. Were going to show a little bit. Starting to feel do you remember reagans funeral it went on for it was like five days of just so this is not a funeral but some people at home might anyway, we are back. If you dont know were celebrating the 20th anniversary of squawk box and we want you to be a part of it. Some celebrate throw back thursday with with us in the plaza outside our studio from 7 00 to 8 00 a. M. Eastern. For free tickets send an email to squawk boxtbt cnbc. Com. There will be a lot of stuff going on. Corn hole, games, booths. Apple dunking. Apple dunking. There wont be any of that will there . No. Is this false advertising . Theyll be able to get a picture with you. How about that . Thats fine. Thats pretty good. But as in playboy i am not nude at this point. Anyway an exciting week here on squawk box. We had the great privilege to ring the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange and if you werent watching closing bell and you havent heard, i thought it was going to be sort of run of the mill. We had to go back into the city after we went home and then once we were there i was really happy. It was really cool. Having covered this and watched this for so many years its amazing to be on the other side. To get to see what happens up on the desk. And the matinee idol that brad pitt doesnt want to be around him because he cant compete, he rolled out the red carpet for us which is really nice as well. We do have a unique relationship with the New York Stock Exchange with the first presence on the floor with cnbc. You dug it. That was your bucket list. It was my bucket list. Youre not cynical. You havent replaced the b in bucket with an f of things youre not going to do. It was great. We got those coins. I have a lot of range and yo saw me with the gavel. What do you think i was invisioning that to me as i was hitting it as hard as im not sure. Wackamole game . Who do you think . I dont know people that question the very tenance of our way of life in this country. We had to put our fingers down on this button. You did well. Do you think what we were touching i talked to tom farly about it. If you hit it early the bell goes off early and creates a big problem for them. I just didnt know. He was still talking well into when we had actually finished and im still not sure. I think hes still talking about the oil markets. It was a big move yesterday. Youre so nice. Were going to talk now about the world of hedge funds. New details this morning on fortress shutting its global Macro Hedge Fund. Kate has more on that. Good morning, andrew. Yesterdays leak of news of a shutdown and the man that ran it leaving the firm really caps off months of tension at this fortress macro fund. From what i understand, internal disputes, wrong way trades and also a wave of investor redemptions have brought the macro fund from 8 billion, that was at its peak prefinancial crisis to the aum, the most recently reported which is about 1. 6 billion as we understand it. Thats only through late august. It got worse from there. Mike, again, the personable 50yearold that ran the fund, now im told in a bit of tension with his partners over how and when hes going to leave and theyre still working that out. Although he himself not saying anything at this point. We also have not seen a formal announcement although well get more clarity today. A number of questionable calls or really bad calls frankly that they made dragged the fund down 1. 6 last year and then 17. 5 through september respectively. Some of the things he called for that didnt span out essentially among other things. He said he was bullish on chinese equities. He was expecting them to rip. They did the opposite. He predicted a september rate hike. He could be forgiven for that. A lot of people expected that as well and it didnt happen and then 18 months plus of various bullish calls on brazil. Its the last one that really damaged the fund. The bottoming out on september 23rd cost the fund a bundle and the move in rates as well. So from what im told they bailed out of positions or is in the process of doing that and everybody is waiting for more clarity at this point. So just put this in a little bit of perspective. How big is the mack cofund relative to all of fortress. Its 3 of their assets and i think my sense is they wanted to try to get this done before earnings so they could have details to share at that time. So the waning fortunes of the fund meant its a smaller piece of the overall pie at fortress and that means, i was about to say on a mack kro level but it not be that damaging for the firm. A very early hire. He started a version of this fund in 2002 and its an unfortunate come down for a wellknown well liked guy on wall street. The sources i was talking to last night were suggesting there was a feud also going on with the former citigroup guy that they were working together on this. The question is is jeff being thrown under the bus . Whats happening here . I heard there was internal tension there for awhile and they took over seoul leadership of this fund earlier this year when some of the problems were hitting hard so i dont know if the details on that. Who is right. I dont know what youre hearing but it sounds like theres bad feeling to share. And a lot of frustration over how much he made in terms of fees for himself over the past two years. Reporting 140 million over the past two years and he has stock in the company . Im not sure about that. But this feeds an on going concern that people have with hedge fund and there has been a slow claw back. 20 for upside its where you dont see upside for going on two years now and you dont want to hear that the fund manager losing your investor money is making a bundle in the process. I dont know that that was a driving factor but it doesnt help. We have a chart upright now. This is fortress since going public. 32. Now about 5. 30. They are like black stone. They topped the market with their ipo and it hasnt been good since. I do know some investors who were super excited about this story within the last year or two and again to be fair as you pointed out the macro fund is a piece of the overall business. They do private equity and other hedge funds but its not been a great story if you look at the full public trading of it. In fairness to our friend, is black stone a Comparable Company or not really . Black stone does much more as you know. They have a massive real estate arm. Their Hedge Fund Business is very different. They have a lot of different aspects even just to that business so fair point i was only thinking of companies that went public right before the market fell in 2007 and