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Market moving insight and analysis join Jim Kramer, David Faber and me, Karl Cantonea, on the opening bell hour of CNBC's Squawk on the Street. Good Thursday morning. Welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Karl Cantonea with Jim Kramer at Post 9 of the New York Stock Exchange. David Faber has the morning off. Pre-market's a bit soggy as the focus shifts to the macro. ADP, with a big miss, first sub-100 print in nearly three years, yields lower across the board as the odds of a half-point fed cut get some more traction. A roadmap begins with stocks looking to stabilize following that rough start to September. NVIDIA is under a bit of pressure again. The company denying reports that it received that subpoena from DOJ. The vice president proposing a 28 percent tax on long-term capital gains. Lower than the president's 40, Mark Cuban calls into Squawk today saying Harris is "pro-business". And the steel deal in danger of the Biden White House reportedly preparing to block Nippon Steel's deal for U.S. Steel. First though, let's get to the markets this morning in ADP and productivity, Jim, and unit labor costs a lot today. I think that there's a whole new thesis that's going on in the market and started actually with NVIDIA's Congress going. It shouldn't have, which is that when we now see any weak numbers, we sell the semis and we sell tech. I have Caterpillar on tonight. Caterpillar actually holds up better than the semis. I saw NVIDIA, I saw Broadcom which reports tonight, dropped very quickly when we had that weak ADP and how this is happening is beyond me because these companies trade on inventory. They don't trade on GDP, but it doesn't matter. Right now, if you have something negative about the economy, it goes right to the semis and the computing in general. But you've been writing and talking all week about build-outs in general and CAPX and infrastructure. And when you have jolts show cycle lows for construction job openings, that says something, right? Oh, no. I mean, look, we're getting the right reasons to cut. If you're the Fed, I don't know about a double cut, about 50. I do think that there is a growing perception that Intel is doing so poorly. That is going... They spoke yesterday at a fireside chat. They're cutting back. They're cutting back CAPX spending. Maybe that's the reason why we're seeing ASML, besides just worrying about China downgraded today from top picket, Morgan Stanley. And, of course, they place it with ARM, which does the opposite. They're a taker, not a giver when it comes to some upside. And I do think that what's happened here is that people are beginning to recognize Intel as a giant problem for the economy and for the U.S. government. So when you couple that, and dollar tree earnings, and this last BLS, and the revisions, and PMI, and now today's data, why don't you think 50 is appropriate? Well, by the way, Solantis could piece the journal saying the price are doing so poorly. The ARM is, I don't see you do 50 is because how's a measured person? He can do 25 and 25 and 25. 50 implies panic. 50 implies that you don't have any good news, of which there's still some good news. And I think that 50 is just too much. It just says, you know what, we took it way too high, and that would be the narrative. Wow, they screwed up, they took it way too high. The only way to really win if you're pal is to say, "Listen, we've got it under control." And 25 means cut to 25 times under control. But isn't that, we've got it under control. What caught them into trouble when things were going the other way? Well, I think that they didn't be a culprit, which you got to appreciate. I do think that the number we see tomorrow will make everything much easier. And anything you say today can obviously be counter matted immediately by tomorrow. Maybe he comments on the video. It's kidding. But it's been calm, as I said, by doing this work. I mean, like, how's the video doing? I mean, in videos now, I thought that yesterday it would have peaked because it seemed like that for a moment we were focused on other things. But, no, when you see it on the ticker in the morning and you see that it just trades down every piece of weak news, you realize that it's become mean. It's almost mean. It's stocks like GameStop right now. She's that's undeserved. It's a real company, clearly not. Well, you were on air when we got word from the company. Yeah, that was me. Yeah, that was me. The beat. I said that last night to my wife. I said, "Hey, I broke this big story." I said, "No, they called you. You went on air and you said there was no speed." I said, "Well, you give me a break. This is like something." Yes, I want people at home to know that what happens is that the company issues the release. You get it first and you come on air. Scott Wopner shows Scott and Mike had me on. And what I just think that happened here is that there is a sense that as aggressive as this Justice Department may be, maybe they're not that aggressive. And I do think that one of the things that I don't want to lump Justice Department in with a lot of other things, we're hearing about the Harris transition from Biden. But there is a sense of more pro-business. I think justice cannot be influenced by that. But you come back and you listen to Mark Cuban this morning and you start seeing speeches given in New Hampshire that indicate that, "Wait a second. Maybe we're a little less tough on business and rich people than Biden." And you start saying yourself, "Well, I don't know. Everything seems to be a little more pro-business from this administration right now." That's interesting. Since you brought it up, Cuban was on with Andrew and Becky this morning. He did call Harris pro-business, said she's talking more about entrepreneurs. Right. And their access to investment than any candidate he's heard. Take a listen. If you've ever taken over a company that was floundering, that the CEO got fired and you had to step in, it takes a lot more than the 40 days that she's been in this position to turn things around. If not like we've heard the Starbucks new CEO come out with every plan, you know, and said everything that they're going to do, it takes time to pull these pieces together. To go from zero to 100 miles an hour is not easy. So that's first and foremost and most important. He's referring now to this compressed cycle that we have. Right. Where we're in a month where early in absentee voting is actually beginning already. Yes. Look, I mean, we're beginning to read lots of shifting. I'm not a political guy, but I will say that I have said from the beginning that as soon I heard that that Ms. Harris was the nominee, I turned to my know, Tony West, who is the general counsel, and he's general of, you know, I mean, this is a Uber. I mean, I mean, it was like the premier tech company. Think about, think about the arc of Uber. It was really the first one. It was the one that actually came to probably. We know that Travis Kalanick's story. I just think there is a more quintessential California tech company than Uber. And here he comes, any general counsel before that. Remember, he was a PepsiCo. Then he was a justice and he went very hard against the banks. So his whole arc is one of justice to quote the great Martin King. I don't mean to minimize, but I think Tony West is an amazing guy. You brought him up literally the first day we thought she would be a potential favorite nominee. Well, you get these icons from what we do. Okay. And I looked at the Uber team and I said, wait a second. This is going from infant to adult, big time. Why? Well, because it's Derek, of course, sorry. And it's Tony West. And that's something Tony West surfaces. I'm in New York Times and said this. Surfaces as maybe her most important ally will come as a business. And I think anyone who thinks that Tony West is anything other than pragmatic has not talked to him. It doesn't realize his job of trying to represent an industry, not just a company. And that's who I rely on as the witness as the barometer. Because Biden had no one like that. And he was sitting in a room, but no inner circle person. So you used to hear from business people all the time. Well, Biden doesn't take my call unless it's a certain part of health care, which is particularly interesting. So does a 28 cap gain tax rate interest you? Yes. Very much so. Because again, I mean, cap gains is for rich people. I like to cut through the chase. You know, you can always say, well, it's not 40. It's not 39. I mean, it's almost as if Biden put out the straw man of a very high number. And suddenly we've got a vice president who says, wait a second. It's a really high number. And let's- Does it even win? Another version of UPod? Yes! Yes! It was under problems and over the liver. That's perfect. I look at what's going on. And I just think, well, they have figured out the media. They have figured out that we can very quickly glom on to something like capital gains, make it look a little better. Of course, this stuff has to go through Congress, but I remember in a sweep you're looking at different from what we see right now. Again, I always feel difficult upon you. And what I know about it is that capital gains is the dominion of the rich. If you say that you're going to cut it from where Biden is, you're perceived as being more moderate. More moderate seems to be one of their big issues. There's cap gains. There's corporates and buyback excise. And now Goldman puts some numbers on corporate. Every percentage point that moves, they say, moves about two bucks of next year's S&P earnings. That's costant this morning. Yeah. I don't think it's the best, but I would say that since it's universal, it's implied. Remember, we're looking at what stocks are upgraded and downgraded. And if every single stock has the same problem, well, you're not going to get anything from Wall Street. I do think, yeah, sure, profitability is reduced. So therefore, maybe you should pay a lower multiple on the S&P 500, but I'm not buying that. I just think, again, these taxes are very difficult unless you have that sweep in Congress. There's always someone one to block another. Yeah. But it's a good reminder that this tax code is going to get rewritten either way. And I know it's going to happen in the next six months, let's say. Yeah. Look, I think that one of the reasons why September is so difficult is every day we've got something new. As soon as I saw the capital gains thing, I said, people are going to buy stocks. But then they did. Now today, it's front and center. Maybe they do. I find that the narrative is much more driven by Harris and by Trump right now. You used to hear about Trump's plans all the time. They does have this economic statement today. Maybe that won't clarify where he is. But I do think that when you see capital gains, what you should be thinking about is the 1%. And if the 1% is influential and feels better about her moderation versus the narrative that she is an extremist, well, that just once again, I mean, the media just goes out and says, well, wait a second, she's a more moderate. And that is what historically would win for president, not extreme, but moderate. Right. We're going to see. I mean, obviously there's so little time for her to clarify her views, but the debate's coming Tuesday. Yes. And that will be eye opening either way. Yeah. Look, I think that Mark Halpern, who I know used to work never has a terrific blog, and he talks today about how well this campaign is going when it comes to uniform coordination and what's the message, what they're saying, which is that they let the people under the minions really kind of say, yeah, and she's changed. She's changed. And whether that is subterfuge or not really doesn't matter because there's so little time. Like right now, you got that incredible speech up there. And that speech said Wall Street, listen, I'm not your enemy. And then when you couple that with what the beginning of the Biden administration, where you couldn't even get, they wouldn't sit down with a business person. Remember, Trump had this media, he had this round table of doyens. And here we've got a guy that wouldn't take like an oil, an oil person's call. I think most people would agree who've dealt with the Biden White House that their interest in capital markets, they had other issues they'd rather focus on. Well, I thought he would have changed from when I saw him on the train when I was doing Cuddle on Kramer, and he bragged to me that he was the poorest senator and didn't have anything to do with the stock market. But to me, an oddity to be something that you popularize, but most people in America, other than the 401k and IRA, they don't want stocks. Right. We're looking at DJT here, of course, coming well off the highs earlier in the year. We didn't really touch yesterday, Jim, on their focus on small business tax deduction, that tenfold increase in deducting the costs of starting a new business. No, look, I'm just going to say to someone who started five businesses, it's a total sham, okay? You don't make any money. So who needs a tax break? Why do they always say this? This was a province of the left. It always was. It was like, you know, people come to me and say, "Are you starting a company? Does the tax break?" I said, "I'm losing millions of dollars. What do I keep on the tax break for?" I mean, it's fatuous, but the media laps it up because the media is just kind of like taking the statements. And I just think when you get a break in the taxes, and it's 50,000, is anyone really going to start a business? Well, they'll say maybe a small business person will be able to have it. Small business people, no, I don't know, tend to fail for heaven's sake. I just think that what you want to do, if you want to help small business, you give them money, or you give them loans, and this is not tax breaks, it's a middle of the road Democrat position. As opposed to just funneling money, which is the far left, the right to say. Right, but that goes to the argument that she is some sort of California pragmatist. Yes, but again, just in terms of the people who think at home is like, "Wow, what a break for small business." They have to understand small businesses just lose money, hand over fist. And it's why so many of them fail. So the idea of a tax break is like, "Give me a break." Although, we are running, Jim, 400 plus 1,000 applications a month, which is up 50 percent from 2019. No, that's true, but we should be up for growth country. We are growth country again. And I think people should recognize that we're seeing a lot of people square off an idea of immigration. Immigration is positive for growth, but it's also the third rail for another party. I don't know. Look, isn't it the takeaway that everything's up in the air? Isn't that it, but that the media is brought into a moderate story, and maybe it's true? I was just thinking it's the most we've talked politics in a long time. And I'm very uncomfortable with it. I'm just very uncomfortable. The capital gains is our belly width. What do I know about politics? I can go to MS, okay. Still to come this morning, the president is reportedly planning to block the Nippon Steel, U.S. Steel deal. We'll talk about that. A big op-ed in the journal today about what it means for Cleveland Cliffs and a bunch of others. Here's the market, pre-market, as Dow futures go green. More squawk in the street in a minute. This is the day of the big sale at your gift shop. Welcome in. Which isn't just a big day for your business, but for the network keeping it all connected. Next in line, please. So is it possible to get business internet you can really count on? It is. With 99.9 percent network reliability from Comcast Business, it's like this neat little bow. Would you like that gift wrapped? Really ties it all together. Reliable internet for your business. It's not just possible. It's happening. Comcast Business, Powering Possibilities. Support for this program is provided by Chevron. The anchor offshore platform is utilizing breakthrough technology to enable us to produce oil and natural gas in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico at pressures up to 20,000 PSI, a new industry benchmark. Anchor is part of Chevron's plan to produce 300,000 net barrels of oil equivalent per day by 2026 in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, home to some of our lowest carbon intensity producing operations. That's energy and progress. Visit chevron.com/anchor. My dad works in B2B marketing. He came by my school for career day and said he was a big row as man. Then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad spend. My friends still laugh at me to this day. Not everyone gets B2B. But with LinkedIn, you'll be able to reach people who do. Get $100 credit on your next ad campaign. Go to LinkedIn.com/results to claim your credit. That's LinkedIn.com/results. Terms and conditions apply. LinkedIn, the place to be, to be. Busy day in the auto sector. Fords out with some numbers. Let's get to fill the bell this morning. Hey, Phil. Hey, Carl, for the month of August, Ford sales up 13.4%. So a nice month for Ford, and especially when you break down the key numbers that we always look at when we get Ford's monthly sales, truck sales up 12.3% compared to the same month last year. Hybrid sales. Hybrid continues to be red hot and Ford is taking advantage of it. That's where the market is. That's where Ford is pivoting. Up 49.8% in August compared to the same time last year, and then EV sales up 29.8% August over August. Bottom line, you continue to see the growth in hybrids and in EVs for Ford. Overall, though, very nice month for Ford with increase of 13.4%. Guys, back to you. You know, Phil, I ripped yesterday and this morning to Atlantis, not doing well, big inventory issues. Yes. So when we think of that and we look at what we just heard from Ford, is that just a trade off share loss? They completely, they lost it in terms of the first half in terms of production, Jim. And everybody knew it. Everybody knew it. And you finally saw Carlos Tavares come out about a month ago and say, "Blame me. I'm the one we continued to produce vehicles when we shouldn't have been producing them at the rate they were." Look, you go and you talk with a Stellantis dealer, Dodge Ram, doesn't matter who. You talk with one of those dealers, they will tell you the inventory glut was killing it. And they were like, "We need more in terms of greater incentives. Stop the production at the level that they were coming at." And then we're finally seeing that now with Stellantis saying, "We're going to cut back production of certain models." You just, they were way over production in terms of new vehicles in the first half of this year. Maintime, Phil, these suggestions out of Tesla AI that they could roll out full self-driving in Europe and China early next year. Yeah, and that's giving the stock a bit of a boost. Now, we'll see how much that really moves the bottom line. Certainly, if you can expand a product where there is some demand, and it's a little unclear still when you talk with analysts exactly how much demand there is for full self-driving because they've cut the price a couple of times now. But any time you can expand that, and you can now offer it in Europe as well as in China, you're certainly going to help the bottom line. And that's one reason why you see shares of Tesla, excuse me, moving a little bit higher this morning. One theory, Jim, this morning is that Tesla is absorbing some of the enthusiasm that's leaking out of NVIDIA. I wonder if you think that makes sense. Look, I think that we have to remember the last conference call, very grudgingly, must-gave credit. It was very hard to listen to him to Jenson Wong and the team. Well, Jenson Wong, they're a Mercedes shop, okay? Let's just understand. They do a lot of work, full suite, including the digital twin with Mercedes. But I do think that you're going to hear about that exchange for a very long time because must does not like to pay the price of NVIDIA chips. A lot of people would then tell you, wait a second, the payback NVIDIA is almost instant. So that's Jenson's rap. I don't know. I think this is going to be a tussle for very many years. Definitely some churn going on an EV penetration. Robot piece. Did you read that slide? Yes, the Jonas robot. Jonas right. He's so entertaining to see. I think he just says, boy, we haven't anything entertaining. I'm going to put out a piece about robots. Really nice. Our thanks to Phil. We'll talk to him in a little bit. We'll get Kramer's mad dash count down to the opening bell in just a moment. Support for this program is provided by Chevron. The anchor offshore platform is utilizing breakthrough technology to enable us to produce oil and natural gas in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico at pressures up to 20,000 PSI, a new industry benchmark. Anchor is part of Chevron's plan to produce 300,000 net barrels of oil equivalent per day by 2026 in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, home to some of our lowest carbon intensity-producing operations. That's energy and progress. At chevron.com/anchor My dad works in B2B marketing. He came by my school for career day and said he was a big row as man. Then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad spend. My friends still laughing at me to this day. Not everyone gets B2B, but with LinkedIn, you'll be able to reach people who do. Get $100 credit on your next ad campaign. Go to linkedin.com/resaults to claim your credit that's linkedin.com/resaults. Terms and conditions apply, linkedin, the place to be, to be. The Kramer is mad to ask as we count down to the bell. Yes, Carl, there was a company at one time that had become very much of a meme stock and that's C3AI. People felt that it was the best way to play AI. Well, if that's the case, people are now beginning to wonder whether that is such a good idea. People last night on John Ford, CEO, he tries to talk a pretty good game, but at the same time, he has a subscription business and the subscription business had lumpy numbers and also the billings, let's just say, what happened is that if they were so good, why didn't they got higher? It's the way that the theme was on the call. I found the analyst combative. I felt Tom Sibel, who's an old hand, handled it just okay, basically saying enough already with that and the analysts don't play that game. You can't have a sequential quarter to quarter decline in billings and expect people to buy into all your positive rhetoric. It was painful call. I think Tom's terrific, painful call. Do you think this is a precursor to some estimates coming down, some revisions happening? Yes, and I also think people last, once again, we're in this world ever since the Nvidia call where everyone's questioning anything AI and if you have AI in your title, obviously, it's a non-starter versus a GitLab, which was up very big the other day and that had very good AI numbers, but people are going through AI, positive negative, don't forget tonight is brought up. And there was an analyst out today from Evercore who said buy it in front of the print, meaning buy it ahead of the conference call. I was going through some of his other things and he said, buy or you should buy into the Nvidia July quarter print. That was not a good idea. So I want this fellow to go one for two because my tablet just owns it, but be aware that there's just a lot of game playing once again about a big quarter tonight by Hawk Tan and Broadcom, which is smack in the wheelhouse of AI. Right. So your general take this morning was you'd like to have a session in which Nvidia is not the focus. Wait, I think we need a session where people say, you know what, banks are making a good move. I'm taking a look at Pfizer, take a look at Merck, maybe Merck Bottoms here. We continue to have good numbers from UNH and I want that. I want finance and I want healthcare. By the way, healthcare, health maintenance, the insurers, typically those are the ones you really want to crush ahead of a Democrat doing well, not this time. Again, I'm coming with this, there's no attack on pharma. Where's the pharma attack? You're supposed to, you know, it's like DA probes rack. It's when you have no story, you're right. Pharma attack, but no, no pharma attack. One session ahead. Let's get started here with the opening bell and the CNBC will try to change. At the big board, it is Footmarker celebrating 50 years and at the magic, KTMG and Steph Curry's underrated golf, celebrating its third annual curry cup, trying to increase competitive golfers from diverse communities. We talked to Curry earlier in the week about that endeavor. What a delight he is. Yes, and look, he's a very subject and thinker. I was talking about the UA, the Under Armour, toward China, what it would mean and remember, Kevin Plank is in a multi-quarter turn. I think that Steph Curry is part of that, which is really amazing. Guys, I know it's business card. By the way, you interview a lot of athletes and I can say, well, they know business, but it tends to be personal what they're doing personally. You know, Steph had a vision about Under Armour in China, which is pretty amazing. Speaking of a vision, the vision that Mary Dillon is bringing to the turn at Footlocker is extraordinary, just like she did for Ulta, and we don't remember Ulta being good because right now the stock's been under a lot of pressure, but Footlocker, she says, "Mole your turn, don't forget." And when I spoke during the day of their quarter, she continued to lay out, look, it's a big turn, but it's going to happen. I had first felt it would happen sooner, that was wrong, but it will happen. It certainly has been a series, though, of higher lows going back since May. Exactly. And I think what's going to happen here is that there's going to be a quarter where she just says, "You know what? This is the turn." By the way, she's one of the few executives there that will say, "Listen, it's not the turn yet. Don't get ahead of yourself. I got ahead of myself because I saw Insider buying by Mary." It turns out that that was really my fault because she did lay out a vision that was going to be a shorter timeframe, and now it's a longer timeframe. But the fact is, rebuilding the balance sheet is number one, and that's what they're doing. I find these CEOs who don't rebuild the balance sheet, Walgreens has to rebuild the balance sheet, Intel has to rebuild the balance sheet, you've got to get that balance sheet rebuilt before you can make a turn. Jim, you mentioned China, JP Morgan today, downgrades to neutral, Tiffany, which I know the name we used to talk a lot about, downsizing their Shanghai flagship. Bernard, no, you understand what he's doing. I think that the China piece, originally there's a lot of groaning to that. I was like, "Now you down, wait, China." But I do think that when you take a look at what people are really worried about with China, which is a traumatic slowdown, we think about the kind of things where they detain executives, and I find these stories painful. I mean, who do they detain? Who do they decide? Look at AstraZeneca. China detains AstraZeneca staff and data drug import probes. That is not the way to bring in foreign capital. And yet I find that China, when I read that piece, I just say domestic consumption sluggish, weak private business sentiment, prolonged housing market problems, deflationary pressure. In other words, stay away. While we're covering that part of the world, Jim, move to Japan and this Nippon deal. Top of the Washington Post yesterday says White House moves to block. We mentioned the journal op-ed today that kind of argues that a Cleveland Cliffs chase is about unions protecting unions. Yeah. Now, okay, so let's go over this. I've been very negative. They've read for the 50s that that story is going to happen because Lorenzo came on. Lorenzo Gonzalez was the incredible CEO of Cleveland because he came on our show, he said, "Listen, that deal's not going to happen. I'm a believer in him because he is true north when it comes to telling the truth about the steel industry." I would point out that there is also a second wave of thought, which is that if you combine these two companies, it really hurts the auto industry, but versus being a union company, U.S. Steel, Adam, this is the way that they will keep their business versus what's going to happen. If they don't get the deal, in other words, what happens is Cleveland could have put out. If they put out a proposal saying, "Listen, we have XYZ Steel Company is willing to take all the overlap," so we get this deal done. I think Justice blesses it, or the president, blesses it in a last minute transaction maybe after the election because no one wants to lose Pennsylvania. Right. We're already dealing, and the journal points us out, employment at Mills is down in recent years regardless of any of this. Yeah, the way you want to, if you want to look at the people at New Corps, please cover your ears because New Corps is a vastly superior company in the U.S. Steel, but they both had. They all have to share pricing and grades, and that industry has been hurt by backdoor steel from China, through Mexico, that no one seems to be willing to confront except for Laurent. So, consults from Cleveland Cliffs. We'll keep an eye on it. It's moving along here, although as you pointed out yesterday, weird agreement in all the circularity politically of this thing is remarkable. Yeah, it's not a big company, and people should recognize that it's a shadow of its former self. New Corps is the king, deservedly so because of technology. One of the things that's really a shame about U.S. Steel and happen to Bethlehem Steel, you've got to put some money in these things. These things are just giant money sock, and if you don't put the money in, then frankly you've got to take over a bit of the nip on steam. Speaking of bids and takeovers, Verizon Frontier. Oh, okay. So, look. One of the things I think that this should have spent a little more time on when Hans Vesburg was talking, because Hans talks, and he's very, very authoritative, but this company was bankrupt four years ago. And wasn't that the time you wanted to buy them when they were bankrupt? Why would you go now? But they do have a lot. They have like 13 million lines that need to be converted that a lot of them are very old kinds of lines that I didn't even know that people had any more TSL lines, but this is going to give Verizon more half, but they also really didn't have to pay a lot for it clearly. And it's a take on her. But I do think that they should have spent, you know, look, I mean, Hans Vesburg's not going to come on to see how Verizon, look, I should have bought this thing earlier, but when I look at Frontier Communications as emerging from bankruptcy, goodbye copper, hello fiber, April 30, 2021, that they cut the debt by 11 billion, and now they only have 11 billion in debt. So it's not like Verizon is overpaying, but I do think that there was a time to buy it in this debt. Right. Vesburg, as Jim says, did come on school. I talked about the regulatory approval process. Oh, he's very special, one. First of all, we think this is great from consumers, and we are, of course, expecting that there's going to be the regulatory approvals will be thorough and go through it. But this is a great deal for everyone involved, so we are very confident that this will go through. But we also expect that the process will be thorough, and we have dealt with this type of processes before. Look, the administration has favored a radical deploy of fiber wherever. They don't like the two countries, the country that doesn't have the good lines, the country that does. So I think this can work. At the same time, we want to know what any of these unions are saying about it, also just in the timeframe of when this deal is announced. It is well-timed from the point of view that we have a union president, but they won't be able to bless it. And justice is independent of the present on this. Justice is, you know, they're going to look at this very seriously and talk about market share. I think that there shouldn't be a problem, but I have felt that every deal shouldn't be a problem. Right. Exactly. And you've been routinely disappointed. Yeah. I mean, look, the... Well, no. I shouldn't say that. Gents among did not get a subpoena. Terrific. Right? I didn't get one either, like heavens. We're going to talk to Antonio Nierry later on as we mentioned. Now, that's going to be great because there, again, people are going to say, "Wait a second. If that stocks down, we should sell Nvidia because they're a partner with Nvidia." But the fact is, it was the gross margins, the pressure, and a lot of the pressure could be related to Blackwell. We want to ask that. We know that Blackwell, this is the delayed great super chip from Nvidia. That really hurt the margins because they had bad deal problems, been down to throw out a lot of stuff. And so you want to ask them how much of it is really just, "Hey, listen, there's some margin problems." Because the revenue seemed very strong. Yes. We look forward to hearing from him. That's very important. He's usually pretty candid and decent-color about the quarters. By the way, I mentioned Merck as being the tell of whether they move into healthcare because Merck's been the worst. Merck's up two bucks. Bunch of moves on the sell side today, Jim. The one that stood out might be Coke, CFRA cuts to hold down to 72. I've been waiting for this. Now, there are a lot of companies that reported 10 weeks ago, and all we cared about was GOP-1. And then it turned out that GOP-1 didn't matter what matters, the rotation, because weakness and that set Coca-Cola up to a very high price. I know better than to sell Coke. That has been one of the great sucker plays in the last deck ever since James Quincy came and you want to own Coke. So any weakness in Coke, and this is the KO kind, the knockout kind, I would be a buyer. As opposed to Pepsi where I still, Pepsi-Co, I still worry about GOP when it comes to snacks. Because of the snack element. Yeah. And these, that used to be their silver arrow, right? I know. But, you know, GOP attacks, the snacking business, now, Konnager would disagree with that. They think snacks are somewhat immune. None of the food companies have even suggested that GOP-1s have any impact, and I think that's going to end up being something they shouldn't be so aggressive, I'd say. There's a couple calls on housing. One, I know, KBH gets cut at RBC, Jim. I only mention it because the long bond, the third of your treasury, is not that far from a three-handle. Yeah. Which would have been unthinkable a year ago. You sell the homebuilders at your own risk. These are single-digit Christ earnings, multiple stocks that tend to balloon when we do get rate cuts. But I think people say, "Wait a second, the stocks are up so much, I'm late," or they already made their move, that's not true. You can't say that. They don't make their move until the multiples go higher, and they have it yet. So don't sell the homebuilders when you look at what bonds are doing, it's a big mistake. We should mention the two-year, Jim, almost down to below three-seven. That's going to take you back to last summer. We got almost a full point of positivity on the curve. You've cut a huge capital gain if you bought them six weeks ago, which is very unusual. I have a big capital gain on the two-year, but for some who bought it and are part of the problem of the capital gains, maybe you're making billions, you'll want to flip those. Maybe if you have 50 million in treasuries two-year, you'll flip them for a nice gain. Have you heard some of these tactical calls to short the two-year? I wonder if those are attractive or...? I mean, it seems so obvious that it's got to be wrong. I mean, everybody's going to be doing... Those people do that. Young character. There you go. And what do you have to send me if you do it? An invitation to your funeral. Yeah, it's kind of like seasonality, Jim. I mean, does it work if everybody knows it's kind of... September, I mean, everything that you think is going to happen does not happen. Let's be very careful. I just think, look, we wake up and suddenly we hear that the vice president's got a different plan from the president and it's economic. There's been no distance between the two. Suddenly, we find out, no, she favors a better tax break from wealthy people than Biden. Wow, she must be pretty good when it comes to moderation. That's the wrap. And that's what they're doing. And you can say, well, it's disingenuous or you say, how will you? People calls on Dollar Tree, gets cut over at BMO and at loop, actually the BMO target goes from 130 to 68. Goldman had a great chart looking at delinquencies, still pretty contained at the low end. Yeah, I think there were some issues in Dollar Tree involving their supply chain. I think that one of the things, and they always have these theft issues, unfortunately, but I first propounded when it came to these, that when they broke the buck, when you started seeing things north of the Dollar Tree, that became a sign that, wait a second, people are now checking the pricing out. So it was every $100 when you figure it's the cheapest. When it starts going above a dollar, then you start doing price comparison versus Walmart. And the price comparison does not favor Dollar Tree. And there's a lot of competition to say. The chart I'd love really quick, the booth to build is Tapestry versus Dollar Tree, where it is kind of a reflection of trouble, whether it's competition gym or whether it's a macro tell, but the difference between brands that sell luxury versus brands that sell discount. It's real. But I think that what people are doing is going toward TJX, which sells luxury at a discount. That's one of the reasons why I think the Nordstrom's deal is so interesting. I had to sell to hold, I sold this morning on Nordstrom, as deference to the fact that the family has put together a bid, but remember they put together a bid before, and that was wrong, people think that this bids chimerical were zero, perhaps. And what I come back and say is, what RAC is worth, you can close it almost all but a couple stores in Nordstrom and get a very good price for RAC, which is a premier destination for off price. Really quick. I want to jump in and get Aiman Javer's on. I think some news regarding Snap Morning, Aiman. Good morning, Carl. That's right. The Attorney General of New Mexico, Raul Torres, has filed a lawsuit this morning against Snap, Inc, the parent of Snapchat, and he's alleging here in this lawsuit that Snap, because of the way its social media service is constructed, makes itself available to child sexual predators. And in fact, facilitates the exchange of child sexual abuse material in the lawsuit. The Attorney General of New Mexico is saying that Snapchat is a primary platform used by criminals to carry out sex torsion against children. He also says that sex torsion is so common and simple for predators to carry out on Snapchat that criminals circulate scripts that they can use to victimize minors in Snapchat has not taken steps to block those scripts. He's also saying here that there's been an undercover operation by the New Mexico Department of Justice to set up dummy accounts on Snapchat, and they've attracted a whole lot of really gross attention from predators on that service, we'll reach out to Snapchat and get their response to this lawsuit, which was filed this morning. Carl, back over to you. Aiman, thanks for that. Just one more chapter in moderation of social media content. Yeah, look, I mean, these lawsuits are really only one faith euro on the other side of that. I think whatever you do is you get to the regulators, tell us what to do. I always felt that meta took that position. That really never did the sexual prayers that I know of, but this is obviously incredibly serious to the, not just under the stock because it's just been pummeled left and right, but to the zeitgeist of it, which is saying, you know what, go to Pinterest if you want safety. Pinterest is the one that I think has the most safe environment, but that, again, is really for crafts and all ages. Finally, as we await PMI here in a couple of seconds, and we'll go to break, let's talk some Ravens chiefs tonight and some team valuations. Wow. You know what, I went down to see what Jerry Jones had going down there in Dallas, and I went to that Dallas town store. Yeah. I mean, I think that's a conservative price for denture. I'm not a, I hate the cameras, but I don't hate that valuation, but I just think it's very right. I don't hate the way he runs the shop and his store is very involved in legends and, you know, he's a great business person. He's just a great business person. What can I say? I'm surprised the Pat's held their value, but I know that Bob Kraft is instrumental in trying to figure out how to make the most money as a franchise, but I only mention that because there's no ballot check. All right. And there's no Brady minutes, but they're still, and there's no real starting quarterback. And I wonder, we haven't really talked about whether or not the influence of private equity will change the way valuations are calculated, right? Well, when I Clark Huntline is the owner of the chiefs who made me one of the richest owners, he said, look, it could help everybody in terms of having parity. I think one of the things people have recognized is that the salary cap's going to go up very big. And so you need more money just because of the salary cap. And I look forward to that game. Obviously I went out to see the chiefs play. I remember that. That's a life shot, by the way. The only thing I remember is I have a minus nine screen, screen grad that I did for because it was truly unbearable. It was so unbearable that I think that Jason Kelsey kept his pants on. Sure. Well, some of the chatter around your birds is pretty positive. I would say. I don't know if these last four hours. I told Chefter, draft it, he drafted Barkley, now that's Chefter. I'm talking about the king. And he went out for Barkley. I think that's important. There you are in Brazil. How he rose and told me, hey, listen, we're on the plane going down. It's all very exciting yesterday. And I do think that there are people who are wildly enthusiastic about the birds in Brazil. I didn't know that we had that many fans. No. My wife's listening. I don't mean we. I mean, they choice it. Whoa, do you play? What's your position? Oh, I'm back here. Yes. Oh, we. How are you? I kind of expected you to go. But I know you're a busy man. I was debating it. And I do think it is in the network. And I would have loved it. Okay. But it was not like someone's just saying here. Here's your ticket. Yeah. And then, of course, for our own purposes, our corporate bosses will watch for the impact at Peacock as we get Packers. Look, you guys, let's see, I mean, the NBA deal, known as the sports destination. I do think, I don't know what you do if you have it, both one linear and you have it on cable. You really want to drive people, like the Kansas City game to cable. But who am I? I'm just at all the worlds of stage and I am merely just a player. Wow. This is like a Comcast still struggling to get back above 40. But it's one of the great times of year, Jim, where we get all this back. Oh, always. No. And we all did our fantasy, the Slump and Dick, and we got it yesterday and we all have great, great regret. But I have to tell you, if Shefter has regret, which he does, of course, I have regret. And by the way, my PC grows up, grows. And that's why I have Bijon Robinson from Atlanta, who I want. I wanted to see D Lam, but I'll feel better because if they beat us, we, at the Cowboys, then I wish that that company was that company, not team, was worth 6 billion, not 11. As we're talking, we did get services, PMI out a couple of moments ago. Final reading for August, 55 7, looking for 55 1. All right. Let's buy Nvidia. Yep. The number remaining above 50 marks the 19th consecutive month of expansion in services activity. Nvidia is up two bucks. Oh my God, are we that fatuous? S&P holding 55 20. As we go to break, we mentioned bonds earlier, the yields were lower across the board at the open as we get the two year, almost back to May of 23, bouncing right off of 372. Stay with us. Keep your eye on Roku today, nice, almost a 6% gain here as Wells upgrades to equal weight, moves some estimates on Q3, Q4 platform, platform revenue growth of 11 to 14%. That's ahead of guidance and consensus. As you can see, a bit of a move here, and after some of the action after the bell last night, for the time being doused down 93, we'll be back in just a moment. Stay with us. Let's get to Jim and stop trading. What's the great turnaround stories in the infarment industry? It has been what a Vastina, Dr. Vastina has really done in terms of writing Novartis. It's been a horse. It's got a 3% yield, by the way, it's up to 16% of the year and it gets the wrath of Goldman today, which takes us from by the whole business. It's moved too much. I hope it comes down. People buy it. I get a lot of nice calls on mad money and waiting about things I've done right. Let me tell you, I had this in my, I had this in my bullpen. I didn't pull the trigger because I just felt it's just kind of an unsustainable rally. That was wrong. And I think it's going to continue here. It's very good. It's the latest, though, in a collection of names where you've had a nice run and you were unwilling to let go. We just mentioned Kocum in a bit. We talked proctor this week. No, it's really true. We let go of a little bit of proctor. But look at it. I did an alphabet. I mean, alphabet's got a big trial, starts on Monday about advertising. I think that the government's from the wrong side, but that hasn't meant much. I did think that they had a better case with a, with a, with a default search. But I held, I've held on to alphabet way too long. It's been a bear. And it didn't even, when it was down the most of any stock during, you know, it was like down like four or five in, in the daily, I did this chart of daily losses and this company came up. It didn't bounce back ahead of the S and P and I should get out of alphabet. I should. I mean, I'm in it because I'm afraid that one day Apple give a meeting with the Glowfest and say, you know what, we're also going to have their AI and then I'll get a better chance. I got cattle on tonight. Now, cat has been a stock that has been deeply influenced by, by what people think about the economy, but it's a much more stable company. It's not like that anymore. And people should recognize the reason it's had a run is because of Batman, Jim Mobile, but he came in and said, listen, listen, we are going to be fiscally responsible. We're going to do the right thing for shareholders that a lot of people just said, oh, that's the name cradle. Uh-uh. I'm a huge believer in Apple, but he's been dead right the whole way. The street is down the whole way. These people have cells on it. They reiterate the cells like the Justin Department of Giuseppe, except for Jesse Moore. That's it. That's going to be a great interview. A lot of color. Yeah. Yeah. He's real. We'll see it tonight, Jim. Mad money, 6 p.m. Eastern time. When we come back, HPE among the biggest S&P laggards after results, we're going to talk to Antonio Neri in a minute. 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Carl Quintanilla and Jim Cramer set the stage for Friday's key jobs report, exploring market reaction to Thursday's weaker-than-expected ADP payroll report. Hear what Cramer had to say about a September Fed rate cut. Nvidia also in the mix after shares fell 11% in two days. The chip giant denied reports stating it has received a subpoena from the Justice Department. The anchors also discussed Vice President Kamala Harris' capital gains tax proposal -- and billionaire investor Mark Cuban telling CNBC the Democratic presidential nominee is "pro-business." Also in focus: Verizon buys Frontier Communications, President Biden reportedly plans to block the Nippon Steel-U.S. Steel deal, J.P. Morgan downgrades China, Ford auto sales, Tesla's self-driving boost, CNBC's official NFL team valuations.
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