Thoughts on apple and the hot investments that he missed. Its a merger monday. Comcast and charter, theyre not merging, dont worry. But they have an announcement. Kate spade and coach, yeah, they are. Plus other deals brewing. And france has decided what the new president means for the u. S. And the global economy. First up though, Warren Buffett sharing his latest views on investing this morning. This is what the oracle had to say to becky earlier this morning on squawk about stock valuations. The most important item over time in valuation is obviously Interest Rates. I mean, if Interest Rates are destined to be at very low levels, not necessarily as low as they are now, but very low compared to the 100 year averages or 50 year averages it makes in i stream of earnings from investments worth more money. Buffett said bonds is a terrible choice relative to stocks. Take a listen to that. Anybody that prefers bonds to stocks is making a big mistake. I have been saying that year after year after year. Now, i dont i wont say that under all circumstances but it is ridiculous in my view for somebody to buy a 30 year bond and some countries 50 year bonds at these rates in preference to buying stocks. Stocks will bounce around a lot more. They can go down 50 . But a 30 year bond can go down 50 too at these rates. Bonds are a terrible choice against stocks. Echoing what he said in the past, that rates are the most important too many in evaluating valuations over time. Not unthinkable they stay low for a long time and he meant about a hundred basis points from wherer right now. For me thats the most important take away. If you sweat all the Interest Rates we have, youll miss the big picture. Dont make a move on france or large gdp or on companies. But i liked you know, they spent more time this weekend talking about things they missed and they were things that were kind of really extraordinary. I think the most important one was google. Because he was doing this huge amount of business with google for geico and he just point blank said you know what . I should have bought it. I wish more managers would come on our show and said i wish i had bought it because i found it so liberating. I mean, he got apple. He talked about by the way the ibm discussion about look, watson may not be commercial yet. I looked at watson, very candid man. He made me feel better about stocks. You come in on monday feeling better, but one of the things that makes me feel good, for instance we have a huge slate of fed speak this week. He basically is saying thats so granular to him. I loved it. I thought it was great. It was great. Listen, berkshires performance over any period of time you want to measure in terms of longer term you cant argue with it. No. He outperforms the s p, unlike a lot of other companies we know in their stock prices. Thats why there are periodic discussions of whether hes lost his touch or whether sectors are too foreign to him. Suspici suspicious of dynamic and high on single payer. For a lot of people, maybe we figure it out like other countries have. Look, hes talked about kaiser permanente, but these guys speak from such massive experience. Theyre very empirical and rationale. They have looked at situations and decided look this is the way it should be. There was a great moment where becky said arent you a republican to munger . He said im a different kind of republican. Just refreshing. The whole way. The whole way. Refreshing. I know this is an aside, but im i think its remarkable that these gentlemen, one who is 93 and one is 86, the mind body connection, when you have that kind of mind, your body stays strong. More cherry coke. My wife said what are you listening to . What are you listening to . Because its 6 00 they came on. You know, one time he mentioned apple. This time it was ibm. He basically said this wasnt a long term view of it. But you have to listen to them because they put everything in perspective. They also make you feel like you know what, owning companies is good. And i dont think yes, they do completely favor index funds. But at the same time, i mean, he just said, look, i saw a lot of kids with their iphone. We can do that too. I think that theres room for individual stocks in a portfolio of index funds which are definitely still the bedrock of what you need. David, you want to do this . Yeah, sure. We mentioned some merger monday. Thankfully we actually got a headline that will make it that. Because sinclair is finally announcing the deal. Been much reported on as a possibility. Its worth 3. 9 billion. Certainly important for sinclair shareholders and tribune shareholders. It includes 35 bucks a share in cash and 0. 23 shares of sinclair class a and it brings together the 42 stations that the tribune owns with sinclair and it creates a power house in terms of television stations. The local stations. Not talking about all the networks although they get some ownership in the food network and things of that nature. There may still need to be divestitures but the reason this can happen is because the ownership restrictions had been relaxed at the fcc in terms of how many stations one can own. Sinclair called it a transformational acquisition that will open up a myriad of opportunities for the company and theyre complementary to the footprint and will create a media platform that of course does include many of the largest markets in the country. So again, a deal in which a brief time it appeared that fox was trying to participate. Got together with black stone. Eventually dropped out and sinclair gets what it had been after. The rule changed in a way that made it so this deal would not have occurred because i know that i looked at next tar and thats another terrific company. They have kind they had kind of maxed out. So i guess its game on. There are more it is game on. It is. Wow. Theres a concrete example of something yes. In terms of what theyll allow. By the way they still may exceed to certain extent some of the restrictions. It may require some divestitures. I havent finished reading the entire press release to see if theres a mention of that at that point. Sinclair may sell in market where currently owned stations such divestitures will be going through the approval process. So theres that, jim. Its not something that could have occurred a year ago. When i had nexstar on, they make a compelling case, local tv its what people watch in the morning, how they vote, they want to watch the commercials. It was a big year, with the election year. I want to remind people not everything is facebook. Thats for sure. Sinclair was already the largest owner of local stations in the country and now poised to control a third of them. And coach is acquiring kate spade. 2. 4 billion in cash. Coach says it maplans to mainta kate as a separate brand. Premium is based on a price last december prior to all of this speculation starting. Terrific buy. Coach had a magnificent quarter. Its a very energized company thats gone back to its roots in terms of how it works. Its got great clothes. We cant just think of it as a Handbag Company anymore. They made some acquisitions. This is another good deal. Take out another competitor. Kate went through ups and downs since the end of december when we learned about the idea that its for sale and might be sold. You get the earnings per share not an insignificant multiple looking at the comps. I mean, coach trades at 16. 6 times. And berlusconiurberry is around the time. I know people are upset because they saw where the stock was. It was too high for what is basically an industry that is really hurting. And thats one of the things that i find about coach, the accessory business. Remember these are places they sell their own stores but they are theyre in the mall. So i think kate people should be pretty glad. Its being done as a tender offer and it can close pretty quickly. Not an enormous deal although, you know, almost 3 billion. Its an important deal because i have been waiting for the consolidation of the companies that sell into the Department Stores. This is first one. They have been all very laggard. Matthew boss has a piece out in jpmorgan saying you think that capacity is really coming out. It will be a 30 year bleed. Theres 3,064 stores that closed this year and thats almost nothing. So you need to have the companies merge. I keep hoping that the f corps will do something. Well get to nordstrom and macys and kohls along with a bunch of media names. The French Election came out as elected, macron beat he opinion. 66 of the vote. The polls had him up by about 24. Le pen had promised to pull france out of the eu if she won. People may wonder if theres not more of a relief rally today, jim. But discussion is about how many seats he can win. Yeah. The French Market had a good week last week. One of the things that i think maybe we get away from this is this this constant worry about whos going to lead the eu. If we talk about italy it will be the same thing. Youre not going to get it was the the dutch election was the high tide of socalled nationalism. I think that the french in the end really there was a lot of commentary. We have had some great from michelle and from wilf. But that last debate was kind f of you know, kind of a shocker to the french people about a lack of knowledge of the country. And i just think that when we think about europe now we should think about it as an area of great growth. Because we keep Getting Better and better numbers out of europe. When are they going to stop easing . A lot of the chatter does it give draghi enough cover to do something serious . There was a great interview that michelle and wilf had. Is there going to be reform . Yes. When is it going to happen . We dont know. At what kind of reforms . Dont put us down. 35 an hour workweek wait a second. It wasnt like trump who called for a massive tax cut. Right . And said no to china. And, you know, it wasnt like that. Well get a lot more on todays movers this morning including this new agreement between comcast and charter. Later on an exclusive with dell founder and ceo michael dell. Get his take on the changing tech landscape. The s p comes off the first record close since march 1st. The dow half a percent away from one of its own. Back in a moment. Hey gary, what are you doing . Oh hey john, im connecting our brains so we can share our amazing trading knowledge. Thats a great idea, but why dont you just go to thinkorswims chat rooms where you can share strategies, ideas, even actual trades with market professionals and thousands of other traders . I know. Your brain told my brain before you told my face. Mmm, blueberry . Tap into the knowledge of other traders on thinkorswim. Only at Td Ameritrade. We cut the price of trades to give investors even more value. And at 4. 95, you can trade with a clear advantage. Fidelity, where smarter investors will always be. And at 4. 95, you can trade with a clear advantage. Our 18 year old wase army in an accident. 98. When i call usaa it was that voice asking me, is your daughter ok . Thats where i felt relief. Were the rivera family, and we will be with usaa for life. Comcast and Charter Communications confirm that they have a new operational agreement that will involve the two Companies Working together on Wireless Communications plans over the course of a year or even more and across much of the country. A key part of the plan as weal calls for them to only Work Together with regard to National Network operators and its got as you might expect a number of the Wireless Companies in that sector chatting this morning, wondering what it may mean. It may not come to much. If you want to go back to the mid 90s i remember a partnership between pack tell and nynex that was put together by what were then the old phone companies if you recall to compete with cellular one. What ended up happening . They ended up buying each other. Not much more than that. And thats one take away for some investors to say maybe this is leading comcast to potentially think about trying to buy charter one day . Although regulatory wise, hard to imagine thats something that would be allowed. What it will allow, well, you get access to the network overall. You get the buying power of the two companies together to allow them to get hand sets at a lower price. So there are some efficiencies there. And you do preclude them from doing anything to buy a sprint or a tmobile separately. Now, some this morning i have spoken to seem to think does it mean they want to get together to buy one of the companies . That to me is sort of the fanciful thoughts of people who have Nothing Better to do. When was the last time you saw a 60 plus billion dollar deal by two separate companies for one company, it just doesnt happen. This is more about trying to see what they can do in terms of wireless and their own mobile virtual agreements they already have in place. Getting some handset agreements perhaps. Then seeing if they want to come together under one brand. That would be important for a wireless a wireless offering. Right now, separate brands. Well, john measure in the Conference Call at tmobile point blank attacked comcast, Parent Company of our company. Its a store business, they dont have the scale and you see tmobile ticking up and you see sprint coming back. The tmobile quarter was excellent. People say, look, you do need the stores, you do need that scale. The Tower Companies last week, american tower, sba, those were on fire. As people continue to say that these unlimited plans are really, really causing a slowdown for everybody. So its a lot more capacity is needed because they have so much stuff swamping the networks in terms of theyre swamped. I find my comcast wifi faster than if i use my verizon. Apparently the two companies, they talk all the time. And they decided well this is at least something worth giving some thought to. Or moving ahead on for at least a year in terms of not being able to do anything with anybody else. David dont know if it will amount to much. Im not sure if they believe that it will or it wont amount to much, but at least they want to give it a try. Do they really want to actually take a big step into what such an incredibly competitor arena. At t is doing everything it can to diversity away you get hbo with at t. Everybody is being creative about not losing subs although verizon has yet to really emerge with something that would tell me that its going to stem those losses. That was still the big surprise of the quarter, the verizon losses. That becomes a continued question as to what verizon will do. By the way, one thing they want to do is buy this Company Straight path. Oh, my. Straight path, straight up. Its verizon thats this Multinational Telecommunications company that Straight Path refers to in the press releases. 184 a share. This thing started with the 95. 63 deal to sell to at t. Then they went up from there. You know what 184. It was a heavily shortage stock. Really questioning its worth. Well, they were right to question the worth. It was worth four times. Investors expected at t which has three days to respond may come back and try to best verizons latest bid. This is all just spectrum, thats all Straight Path had. They were supposed to build it out but they were doing fake things. Are you serious . Fake cell sites that didnt really work. And the ftc said stop doing that. The only thing that didnt happen by Warren Buffett is that he didnt say i like Straight Path. They covered Everything Else. Thats for sure. Well get you more on what buffett, munger and gates said on squawk. Look at the premarket as we kick off a busy five day week. A lot more squawk on the street in a moment. All right. Were counting down to the opening bell here to start the week. You want to talk a little bit newell in the yeah. Nwl. Now, david, this was a company, my Charitable Trust owns it. It had been a tough ride, why . Because they indicated that things had gotten tough we are the channel. Remember, they sell into the they sell into the targets of the world which have always been pretty terrific places to sell. Until amazon. Well, mike polk got it together. He raised the numbers very big and dividend very big. I think a lot is international, but a lot of it is new products and a lot is getting rid of what jordan, he didnt like. Hes really kind of sold a lot of product. Added to the candles. So many different right. So many different versions had been put together by Martin Franklin and that was the definitive deal for the guys. Now theyre the Largest ConsumerGoods Company and they have the best growth. I mention that because we only think about what cpg what companies can do really well here. Im not saying its a takeover target by any means by kraft heinz. But this group has gotten little growth. Mike has more growth than the others. I have him on tonight to explain whether they have the really terrific by the way, sharpie business. They had elmers glue. They got rid of the tool business to Stanley Black decker for a good price. Some say flotsam and jetson, i say look out. The Yankee Candle business that has turn around. One thing theyre doing together is making money, making money for the shoulds. A lot of a lot of people thought hed short this. Amazon, his store would be amazon, but hes apparently figured out the channel. Congratulations. It will be great to hear. Because hes really turned this thing. All right. We have an opening bell coming up right after this. En this bel. It starts a chain reaction. Thats heard throughout the connected business world. At t Network Security helps protect business, from the largest Financial Markets to the smallest transactions, by sensing cyberattacks in near real time and automatically deploying countermeasures. Keeping the world of business connected a