sovereign debt cries nis europe. a lot to work with there. traditionally a month of thin volume, although not the story yesterday and today. >> we'll see what happens this afternoon. crude hanging in there, gold is up $20. let's get back to headquarters and the "halftime report." thanks so much. welcome to the halftime show, let's meet the starting lineup for today. jim lebenthal is here along with joe terranova, josh brown, jon najarian, rich saperstein is here, the chief investment officer for hightower treasure ris and a barron's top adviser. here's the game plan, mousetrap, another downgrade for dow member disney, dragging the stock lower. is the sell-off and sentiment justified? our experts weigh in.

oil slick with, a stunning 85% of the energy sector in bear market territory, is anything in that space safe to buy today? we begin with the sell-off. the dow in the midst of the biggest two-day drop since march, merck, disney, goldman, so many other names dragging at this hour. a mixed bag of economic data not helping much. and all that against the back drop of what's been happening with crude oil that story well told, march 2009 level there is. so joe, what's, what's the one thing we should be most worried about today? >> i think, well first of all, you should have been worried weeks ago. i think that was the time to be worried. the most important thing to look at today is the end of the day. that's been the pattern so far in a lot of these sell-offs we talked about it yesterday. the market always seems to come back either in the middle of the day or the end of the day. there's going to be a time. there's going to be a moment where the market is not going to come back. it's going to open up down 200

and throughout the day and it will sustain the gains and close 300. i think that's what you have to look at that's when the acceleration to the down side will begin to take hold. right now it seems to be death by 1,000 cuts. >> you mean sustain the losses, obviously. so josh, the thing we should be worried about most today is what? >> probably our own behavior. and our own inability to contexturalize, the day-to-day basis and the bigger picture. it's been kind of the open question, you've got deterioration in the eternals, the market has been able to hold within 2% to 3% of all time record highs. why? the leadership stocks were all that mattered. the leadership stocks held up and that question was, will they eventually succomb to the deterioration between the surface. we got our answer this week, scott. whether it's disney, netflix,

under armour, go down the list and i think right now, what's vexing people is they feel like there's no place to hide. the other thing i think we should focus on, i'm not going to go crazy right now, but high yields. you're seeing multi-year wides on spreads for both investment grade and high yield. we're not talking about actual price of an etf, what we're really talking about is risk off in the bond market that's getting worse, not better, the longer this goes on. as a case in point. take a look at something like junk bonds, a 500-basis point spread. that's a big change and it's happened quietly beneath the surface, it's the kind of thing coming home to roost. i think we should continue to watch. >> energy, 85% of the space, in bear market territory. throw up some growth names. the damage in tech is well known at this point. take a look at the growth names throughout technology.

that are just getting wrecked today. we'll hopefully show you those as i mention them. but doc, speak to that. >> let me hit one thing real quick, judge. yesterday we talked about of course the show proceeding, the minutes from the july fed meeting. that was so wishy-washy, as far as did you get a dovish report? or did you you have bearish out of that? that i think that's contributing to what we're seeing today. i mean certainly the downgrades, they do hurt the market because some of the big-cap stocks and dow stocks like disney being downgraded. the rest of it is the uncertainty that instead of being quelled, was instead fed by the comments we got out of the fed. at least our interpretation of the minutes in july. >> rich saperstein is with us today. money and investing section raises an interesting issue. you hear the word contagion and

people try to dismiss it. no way like 2008 and certainly it's not in the same conversation. however, how can emerging markets falling out of bed, real questions about what's happening in china, if the fed hikes rates, the dollar gets stronger, those markets get hurt more. how do we just say okay, it doesn't mat centre. >> it clearly does. and while all eyes are on the fed, the real issue, as we see it is the global unwind of the carry trade. because for years and a zero interest rate environment, emerging market countries have been borrowing money and the trade is now unwinding. there's been a lot of carry trades occurring with em currencies and em investments, and in the last 13 months. $1 trillion. we have situation where we have emerging markets under great stress and that's going to impair u.s. corporations that

sell into it. which will hurt earnings eventually. >> but it doesn't hurt companies that have minimal or no exposure? can you still pick u.s.-centric stocks and think that the stock market is going to go up and your portfolio is going to grow? >> certainly there are industries that are u.s.-based like home builders and they're going to do fine. but relative to a market that's under pressure, they will not. the real concern in the long run are some emerging market countries and companies that have a tremendous amount of u.s.-denominated debt that they won't be able to service, they'll go 32 their sovereign wealth funds, once the money runs out. when that occurs, that's when the market will have to deal with these global problems. this is an unintended consequence of the zero interest rate policy that we've pursued. >> that's the problem. is that now the fed wants to hike at a time where you could make a good credible argument that they shouldn't go near the

trigger to hike interest rates, given what's taking place elsewhere. >> or the market has already begun to price in the first hike so why not just do it and maybe that's really what all the jawboning has been about. let the market have its fit beforehand and then it's a nonevent. a quarter of 1% rate hike. i don't think with employment as close to full as possible that we're really calling this a trigger. >> while i basically agree with josh, it's one thing that the fed is looking at that would disagree with both of us, the strength of the dollar. particularly what we're talking about with emerging markets, that's an implosion being caused by china. i think what the markets are doing right now a is they're waking up to the fact that the 7% target in china is probably a fantastic. that the real numbers as we've talked about for many times are much lower and if you don't have the growth from china, you're going to get a stronger and stronger dollar, which is finally going to impact the u.s.

economy. we've been all operating under the assumption that the u.s. economy is stronger to get through what's going on overseas, but where it breaks down is a dollar that gets too strong. >> let's bring in wall street veteran ed yardeni. for someone who has been i would say pretty bullish, and who said maybe we had entered the final stage of we're about to enter the final stage of the bull market, where are we in your view in this market? >> to play a somewhat similar and different spin to all the comments thaw folks just made, i think if you take a step back, we have to consider the possibility that we're seeing the bursting of another bubble. this time is the commodity bubble. very often you don't see bubbles until they burst. i think that's what's happening in the commodity pits right now. i think the commodity bubble was based on the china bubble.

a lot of bets were made in the last decade that the chinese were going to demand a lot of commodities, a lost products, going to be a great source of global economic growth and that bubble is starting to burst real quick. >> i think that's had an impact on the commodity markets. the junk bond market reflects it, particularly in the energy sector. the question is whether this will lead to a global recession, whether the u.s. can continue to grow and help avert a global recession. >> what's the answer, that's the fear. >> history is not on my side here, so trying to maintain a bullish posture on the u.s. equity market. history shows when bubbles burst you typically get recessions, this recession i think is clearly coming from overseas sources. i think the u.s. economy is still the world's number one economy. it's kind of the donald trump of world economies, it stands out

among a bunch of very bland economies and ones that aren't perform sog well. i'm betting that the u.s. is going to do well. the housing market is very strong. it could get stronger, consumer spending and employment remains very strong. we, unlike other countries, don't depend as much on exports as the rest of the world does. >> ed, it's joe. why is the market paying attention to this stuff. i follow the high-yield market very closely. the high-yield market topped out in february. the crude oil market has been going down for 11 months. why does it matter right now today on august 20th? why didn't it matter when it topped out back in march. if it doesn't matter, you have to believe in the theory that once again, we could re-enter dice the term decoupling, correct? >> the reason is matters is what we're seeing in the commodity pits. that's what's unnerving everyone is that the price of oil is back down. the flip side of the

commodities, is the dollar, as was mentioned. i think suddenly as i talk to our institutional accounts, nobody saw a recession a few months ago. now they're all worrying about a global recession. >> it's josh, does it make you laugh when you hear, the fed can't raise this month because of china and next month because of oil. the dollar of the month after. is there a goldilocks period of time, for the fed to initiate a rate hike cycle, not to get to 3% interest rates, but to get off of zero. is there any such thing? >> i've argued for a long time, that the fed should have been starting to raise interest rates for no other purposes than we would have room to lower them when we need to. arguably this is an environment where they should be lowering interest rates, not raising interest rates, given the fragility of the global economy. i think they've got themselves trapped here. if they raise rates

demonstrating their confidence in the u.s. economy, they could further unwind the most fragile areas of the global economy. and if they don't raise rates, everybody will say, what's the matter here? are things that bad? so i think that's what the markets is reacting to today. is that the fed is in a no-win situation. i would have to, i hope that they would just do it. >> ed thanks so much. i appreciate it. >> there's nowhere to hide. where do you hide? financials, you got a flattening yield curve. the financials rth going to work in that environment, energy is falling out of bed. techs have looked terrible. industrials aren't working what will work? >> ultimately in this environment you have to have a little cash, a little cautious because of the uncertainty. but domestically we like banks, home builders, and consumer discretionary. talking about lower oil, basically as a benefit for the consumer. we've got 17 million units in auto sales, homes being sold. the u.s. economy is it moving

forward. jobs gains, we continue to stick with u.s.-centric investments, thanks for coming over. >> you're welcome. >> rich sapper tooen, shytower treasury partners. coop more than 6%, netflix. what's behind the drop and will it continue? we talk to one of the top analysts on the street. another downgrade for disney, the second this week. has the company lost all of its magic? or is this a buying opportunity. but what if you could see more of what you wanted to know? with fidelity's new active trader pro investing platform, the information that's important to you is all in one place, so finding more insight is easier.

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think of it as a way to take more control over your operating costs. and yet another energy saving opportunity from pg&e. find new ways to save energy and money with pg&e's business energy check-up. let's do our trader blids, four trades on four stocks making news today. first up is valiant, buying sprout pharmaceuticals. $1 billion. there's a look at valiant. the 50th deal dock since valiant's ceo, mike pearson took the job in 2008. >> this is an odd one, though, judge even though it got a lot of headlines, with the female viagra, whatever we want to call it, it is not a terribly effective drug first of all. second of all, there are by not terribly effective, i mean the numbers are right around 20%. >> i'm just quoting the fda. >> but the side effects, that is i think as much as anything why the stock is down.

because something that has questionable side effects like this, even though a billion dollars, valiant can throw a billion out and it doesn't matter. they've lost $8 billion in market cap just by buying them. so obviously people are worried that maybe they're overreaching and they might continue to do so. >> jim, eli lily. the stock is up 5%, holding up in an ugly market. >> they have positive results from diabetes drug. diabetes is a huge market and growing rapidly. >> and we talked about the high-growth tech names that are falling apart. gopro among them, down 6%. >> i don't think they did anything wrong. think it was their turn. the last time the stock got down to this level, july 6, it found support. maybe the longs get lucky again. >> l brands, guidance is good. phenomenal company. we got the footage to show what they do, even more reason to

bite stock. st coming up, stephanie link making a big trade in her portfolio. >> not going to work. >> there she is, second place. >> she'll break down the trade next. plus, despite the downturn, some well-known stocks are still trading near their record highs. our desk weighs in with their picks, when we come back. opinions. there's no shortage in this world. who do you trust? whose analysis is accurate? how do you make sense of it all? a simple, unbiased stock score consolidated from the opinions of independent analysts... is that too much to ask? nope. equity summary score, powered by starmine, will help you execute your ideas with speed and conviction. and it's only on fidelity.com. open an account and find more of the expertise you need to be a better investor.

all right. on a day where the s&p 500 goes negative on the year. below it's 200-day moving average. ugly picture on the board. almost everything is in the red. utilities are hanging up. look yields are falling. across the curve and you do have maybe a flight to some sort of yield going on in the markets, flight to safety, utilities catching another bid today. we want to show you our leaderboard. in the halftime portfolio competition. the race has been going back and forth at the top for a matter of weeks. josh brown is on top, 8.5% is

his portfolio, stephanie link up 7.5%. she joins us on the phone because she's made a very interesting trade i think. certainly as it pertains to the kind of conversation we've had today, steph and the ones we've had day after day. you're out of morgan stanley. and you're into visa. what's going on? >> yeah, hi, scott. so i'm a big long-term fan of morgan stanley. as you know, but i just think there's a couple of things that are going to keep this stock kind of at a trading range at best. we have questions about the fed. you guys were talking about earlier. and the flatter yield curve, that's a headwind, a headwind for the entire industry. but more importantly, the third quarter for this sector is a seasonally soft one. and we're getting kind of data points that that continues to be the case this year. capital markets trading, fx, think numbers are at risk to come down. not only for morgan stanley, probably for the capital markets

group in general and some of the money center banks. so without any near-term catalysts and big headwinds, i don't think the stock is going to go anywhere near-term. >> what about visa? >> visa is not cheap, but you get what you pay for. a great franchise, they're growing double digits top and bottom line, driven by the secular growth trends we know about from paper to plastic globally. but more importantly, scott, they've got pricing power big-time. their business is strong. and numbers are going higher. and i think you have a catalyst, a potential catalyst at the same time, with this visa europe acquisition. so it's expensive, it's not necessarily my style to buy something that's already up a lot. but i do think the secular tailwinds are very positive and i like the catalyst, in the interest rate environment, i think it's going to do better than something like morgan stanley. >> steph, we appreciate it very much. >> thanks, scott. >> stephanie link, tiaa cref

portfolio manager. making a move, scott, what do you think? >> i like it. i think morgan stanley moves higher, wealth management division is by far the leader. i like what she's doing, visa is good, let's see if she can catch josh. >> how about the idea of maybe investors need to reset expectations on where they think financials are going to go in the near-term. i cannot remember anybody on this desk being negative financials, you correct me if i'm wrong, doc, but it's been a steady song of the financials are the place to be. >> i believe all of us thought that at some point this year, we were going to see an interest rate move to the upside. and that when that move came, financials would benefit in a big way, directliors, the brokers like joe mentions, morgan stanley, because the mass of exposure to a broker network. however based on what we're hearing out of the fed and based on what china did, it seems lower for longer has extended and even though they're saying it's a toss-up for september and

december, i don't know if they can move this year since they haven't moved so far. >> relatively speaking, they still look better than almost any other sector. >> there's one near-term problem, which is capital markets, with this volatility, nothing is going to get priced. >> the dow is down 250, the s&p is down about 27, dom chu has a market flash for look at what's moving on a day when almost everything, it feels like is in the red. but i guess not the case, dom? >> here's a smaller cap company. this is nortech, spiking on a dow jones industrial average report citing sources that says united technologies is in talks to potentially acquire the company. nortek is a company that makes ventilation systems, security and prevention systems, it was worth about $1.2 billion. so on the smaller mid cap size of the spectrum is now worth about $1.4, $1.5. this is a stock, scott, that

trades about 19,000 shares on average a day. it's trading 30,000 shares right now. so obviously a thinner-traded stock, guys. back to you. >> dom chu with the latest. bond yields falling for a second straight day after fed minutes suggested the rate hike -- what did they suggest? jackie de angelis is at the nymex with the futures now crew. that remains the question, jackie. >> there are definitely two camps on it we're watching the 10-year right now, the lowest level in more than three months, 2.1% at this point. scott nations, let me get your take on this. there are two camps on this. some think we're going to see september. some think it's got to get kicked down the road. what do you think? >> well i think that normally, a market like today, the emerging markets would be screaming that you have to fly to quality. and why don't we see more than a six-tick rally in the 10-year futures? because we're worried about the fed. if you look at the fed funds futures here at the cme, they say it's less than 50% that we'll get a rate increase in september. but it's still really likely

we'll get one this year. the bigger problem is for the dollar bulls. >> gris, i used to ask you how high we thought we could see yields this year. now it's how low. >> i'm in the camp that there's not going to be a rate hike in september and maybe not even in december. i'm surprised bonds haven't gotten a better bid. yields are still much better than they are here than europe. the next levels we're looking at is the 1.94 level. a little bit of support. but the real support is the 1.85, to the 1.87 level. >> on the live show, we're talking about commodities, with a gold bull on and the commodity king himself. dennis gartman. 1:00 p.m., futures now. >> are we going under 2% on the 10-year? >> it looks like it, i don't think fundamentally we should, but look at what the markets are telling you. that's the direction it's going. it probably does. >> doc you've been making bets

on where rates are going in the portfolio otherwise. >> should have held it. as you know all year i've been saying lower for longer. finally we got back to nearly break-even in my bet on that and i said i'm out. i should have held it i agree with jim, i think we do break 2. but i don't know that that's what the fed was telling us, that they're going to be under 2% for very long. think it's going to be a short move. >> the fundamentals don't support going below 2%. our economy is growing very nicely. we're going to get another shot at the labor market before the fed does anything on the august numbers which come out the first week in september. if that's a strong number. that changes everything. if you look at jobless claims, it would indicate it will be another strong number. everyone is getting excited about what's going on with the fed. this is normal, end of august volatility. we don't wore i were about that. >> fatutz, this is a

yiddish-free zone. >> if you're long tlt, for the risk off portion of your asset allocation, if you've got treasury bonds as some kind of a hedge, you're not freaking out right now, this is just the way it works. >> we've got to go. coming up, hold your thought. as markets continue to fall, we are around session lows, we'll head live to the new york stock exchange for a view from the floor. let's look at what's working today. yeah there's some things working. fidelity, national, hormel, ex-paex exepdiator. always obvious.ies aren't sometimes they just drop in. cme group can help you navigate risks and capture opportunities. we enable you to reach global markets

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hello, everyone, i'm sue herera with your cnbc news update. greek prime minister alexis tsipras will submit his resignation to clear the way for early elections on september 20th. tsipras is expected to make a televised address this evening. he lost his parliamentary majority after rebellion by hardliners in his party who oppose the country's bailout agreement.

chinese officials starting to clean the blast site in tianjin today. after huge explosions killed 114 people and injured hundreds more. anti-chemical warfare personnel carrying out samples of air, water and soil at blast site. mexico is tightening rules for foreigners entering the country through one of its pedestrian crossings along its border with the u.s. those entering will have to show a passport. fill out a form and after staying for more than a week, pay roughly $20 for a six-month permit. south africa's parole review board has six months to decide if off the car pistorius can be released from prison. he was due to be released on friday after serving five months of a five-year sentence. judges said the decision to release him was made too early. i'll turn it back to you, scott. >> i want to turn everyone's

attention to the wall. show you what the markets are doing, it's a rough day on wall street. the nasdaq has given up 5,000, the dow is looking at its worst couple of back-to-back days in an awfully long time. s&p is negative on the year. below the 200-day moving average. steve grasso is on the floor of the new york stock exchange. that's the best place to start. with somebody who watches the technical levels closer than most. >> the 200-day moving average. i follow the cash, 20.78, the first time we've been below it opened up below it. haven't been above it all day long. since october of 2014, scott. so it is a very, very important crucial level for the markets. there are a couple of other levels to watch. right now we're at 2053. the low from last week was 2052. we violated that early. and then you have to go back to july, 2044 is the level to watch

on an intraday basis. >> our guy, art cashin was talking about 2050 that we were able to hang on to that. that was important. >> he's talking about futures. a couple-point difference, right in the same ballpark. i've asked everybody on the desk what their biggest worry is, what's yours? and you know, guys and gals down on the floor, what stands out? >> well if you look at the way eem has collapsed, if you look at the currency issue, if you look at the fact that credit spreads have started to continued to widen. we don't really have the big buffer between fed funds and between the 10-year treasury. normally when you start to get into the rate rise cycle. you have a 350 basis-point cushion, we don't have anywhere near that you usually start to raise rates in an inflationary environm we don't have that, either. it looks like we're getting pushed into a recession. >> yeah.

grasso thanks, steve grasso on the floor. stewart frankel, do you have a question? >> i didn't get a chance to answer your question about the deflation rate going under 2%. the potential for dysfunction is there. there's a great note about it. they could be the ones that drive the 10-year below 2%. you've got the mid september iranian agreement that needs to be done. spending authority bill on september 30th. the debt limit needs to be raised in november, it could be very contentious. >> steve mentioned recession, ed yardeni mentioned the potential of a global recession. there's a very little chance of a u.s. recession in the near-term. you've got a labor market that's too strong. a housing market that's going really quite well. and industrial production, although it's being affected by the dollar is still quite high. there is no sign of a recession in the u.s. >> we had mentioned earlier in the show, names like gopro,

netflix, some of these high-growth stocks that have started to pull back. even so, a number of popular names are trading at or near record highs, including facebook, nike, starbucks, all day we're letting you, the viewer, pick the names you think it's time to take some profits in, do a little trimming. dom chu joins us for a look at who is leading in some of the voting of the pairs, that you guys have come up with. >> so we did the buy the dip exercise a few weeks back. now it's about selling the riffs. these stocks are in the s&p 500, all at or near record highs, with about 5% of entering today. they've got positive momentum. we put them on match-ups, for joe terranova and josh, we try to get closer match-ups, so it wasn't apple versus ex saun. nike versus starbucks. on this side here, chipotle, versus underarmer, home depot

versus netflix. we whittled it down by viewer votes to these now. very tight race with facebook and jp morgan. jp morgan comes out of that part of the bracket, nike edges out starbucks on that side here and viewers also said chipotle perhaps a little more relatively overvalued than under armour and netflix more than home depot. this is our final four now. i guess the question becomes whether or not viewers will continue to feel that way about some of the stocks. they can go to cnbc.com and vote there, also tweet with the #sell did thele did the rip. we want to know what viewers think about whether these stocks are worth taking profits in. that's what viewers have said so far. i would be curious to hear what the traders think and whether they would have voted this way or not. >> doc, you can weigh in first. >> i would agree with most of what i see here as far as i thought one of the stocks you wanted to hold was home depot. not on the sell the rip side.

netflix, they're going to be able to tap the $48 billion company, take some money off the table. i would think netflix would be one that people go for first in the 6% sell-off. >> the right side of the bracket is domestically oriented. the left side is where you have the emerging market exposure, jp morgan and nike. >> i would take it one step further and say nike would be the sell over jp morgan just because of what i think under armour is doing. i think they have clearly penetrated a lot of -- >> it's funny, nike delivered an absolute blow-out quarter. if not, if not the stand-out earnings report of the entire reporting season you could make the claim that it goes to nike and all the concerns about china, nike had good things to say about the business over in china. >> nike is not the most expensive stock on the board, not bay long shot. if we're in an environment if you're selling the expensive names and that's what the market is doing, going around, taking in the expensive name, netflix

is the one that gets taken down. >> i reject the whole premise of this segment. those names on that board, those eight names and the four are hands down the best companies in the market right now. they do everything right. they continue to outperform expectations. they've got great products, great consumer loyalty. why are we thinking about which one of those to sell? those are the names that when the market does start heading higher, presumably will be leading the charge. i think you want to be going on the other way. >> sell freeport mcmoran, that's maybe the worst company on earth. >> coming up, the disney trade, another major wall street firm downgrading the stock today. is wall street getting it right? or is this a buying opportunity? you're watching cnbc.

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coming up, stocks are tanking for another day. the s&p joining the dow. where is the safety trade at the moment? it seems to be gold. rallying today. should you be snapping up the gold miners, on the dip? >> meantime shares of john deere outperforming the broader market. the earnings are out tomorrow. should you be buying the stock ahead of the numbers? and the most overvalued stocks you may want to sell now. we're narrowing down those names. that and more, big market day. scotty, back to you. >> thanks so much. seal you guys soon. well disney another downgrade. bernstein today, cutting it to market perform. saying the sector is undergoing a massive upheaval. it's our call of the day. josh, i go to you first on this. so what are we to make of the commentary? the sentiment? >> it's me, too. >> you got another analyst, a stock that's down 30, 25 points. another analyst just oh yeah,

we're a little bit cautious here, too. i don't think there's anything more ton it than that. i read the first page of the report. lost me when they started comparing disney to aol. i kind of xed out. >> you need to rethink the valuation, rethink the multiple on the way that these stocks are trading. let's bring in rich greenfield, the top-rated analyst or one of on this topic for sure. he downgraded disney to neutral earlier when last couple of weeks. rich, welcome back. >> we downgraded disney in march. at 106. and the thesis was really that even espn as powerful as it is. isn't immune from the fact that consumer behavior is moving away from live linear tv. they have a lot of big sports rights contracts. as much as we all love sports. as revenues miss expectations when you have fixed costs, the only thing that you end up with margin compression. i think that's largely what the fear is right now. is that you know, ear starting

to see real clear signs that consumer behavior is moving away from tv and tv bundles. >> i get it. but look, i mean eiger mentions espn and subscriber drops. and the market reacts like a bomb was just dropped on the entire media business last week. >> well hold on. i would actually dispute that. i think if you looked at what happened a year ago. pull up a stock chart on discovery, viacom. these stocks have gotten crushed over the last year. the reality of what happened is investors were rotating from those stocks into names like disney and time warner. and because they thought that having a lot of sports and a lost content made you immune. and that that was a safe place, that even though the advertising troubles were bad. that you could kind of find safety in certain names and i think what we learned from eiger

and even from time warner's lack of endorsing guysens the next day is that everybody exposedle as the tide of media goes out, nobody is quote unquote safe and i think that's what's happened. this is not something where it's been an all of a sudden revelation. it's an all of a sudden revelation for the strongest companies that they're exposed as well. >> hey, rich. so let's follow up on that. espn is an important part of disney's earnings and revenue. we won't deny that that came up on the call and there was some consternation, the second half of that discussion was that disney has done all its distribution deals in such a way that if they did have to, or feel like selling espn ala carte or any of their other properties, they can. and the second part of the comment i'd like your reaction is do we think that cord-cutting from espn is going to be a serious conversation a month from now? when both college and football pros start up and the marketing machine around "star wars" and all these other things start to

heat up? is that the way we start thinking about disney come early november? >> we wouldn't short disney. i think that there is a pretty nice content cycle coming up. it was more of the i felt with the espn risks we were on the you fully valued side. i want to come back to your point on going direct to consumer, because this is where i think eiger is not being honest with investors. i really do not believe that espn is prepared to go direct to consumer. yeah could they? sure. but just imagine what happens in that scenario, you're a huge football fan. your comment is so perfect. you were about to start college and pro football season. but if you're a huge college football fan or pro football fan, but not a tennis fan or not a baseball fan, you're not going to sign up for espn for the entire year. you're going to sign up for espn for just 16 weeks, 17 weeks. the entire model is built around subscribing to these very expensive channels for the entire year. that's why netflix has

diversified its content. that's why hbo struck a deal with "sesame street." "sesame street" on hbo, the reason is you need to have a diverse set of programming. i think the challenge for all of these quote-unquote niche cable networks is they don't have broad programming, it's very hard to see how they can pivot to a direct-to-consumer model where you can subscribe or you'll want to subscribe for the entire year. >> this conversation could go on for much longer and unfortunately we don't have the time to do it now. when does the selling of netflix stop? and what is it about other than just some of the high-growth names pulling back. as the market has a little bit of puke. >> netflix has had a huge run over the course of the last year. a bit of it is taking a breather. the reality is that as you're looking at all of the things we're discussing and the inability of media companies to answer the key questions, they're still buying back stock when they shouldn't be, because they don't have visibility. the one stock that the viewers

should be buying is netflix. they're the beneficiary of all of these trends, they're putting the consumer first and they're winning and not just in the u.s., they're winning globally. the pullback is a great opportunity of buying the stock. >> it's a conversation that needs to continue, isaid, rick, conversation that may need to continue. they may take issue with your thinking they're disingenuous with their investors. coming up, before you invest in a hedge fund, you may want to listen to our next guest. he's being called the matchmake ore f the smart money world and his method has caught the attention of one of the world's richest people. we're back after this. ♪ ♪ if you can't stand the heat, get off the test track. get the mercedes-benz

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awww, you're nervous. that's so cute. call and upgrade to get x1 today. ♪ we're back. i just want to remind you about this market selloff that we see. the dow is down, the worst couple of days for the dow in an awfully long time. you have the s&p down. our folks would tell you the fact that we've been able to hold onto that 2050 level is at least something to hank your hat on for the moment, although we're a fraction above it. worth watching for the remainder of the day. here's a question. you're watching for a hedge fund but don't know which one to choose, a new startup has the backing of one of the world's

richest men. it's called alt x. it has the approval of carl slim. sam hockings is with us. great to see you. >> great to see you. >> what's the business -- how does it work? >> well, i'll get to that, but it is an interesting day. i hope a lot of our hedge fujds that are in the system are short on the market today. it's a day-to-day analytics platform for the investment community and really what we're providing is insight. we're providing transparency. we're providing new and different ways to look at data, kind of big data and tamakes it into smart data. >> you're looking at far more than performance, right? >> yeah. you know, the world we're living in today, what we see is there's many other ways to get data. you can get data from regulatory data, you can get network data, mapping about who the people

are, you can get news and information that's coming out. >> and you can get ahold of their own letters that they send out to their very own investors. >> well, you're not suppose dodd some of that, but you can get the data and what you can apply is natural language processing and you can see the sentiment of the analysis, text mining and get some new insight into what these guys are all about. >> you're still raising money? carlos slim? i don't know a better seal of approval. i don't know how that happened hochl u did that happen? >> we've had a longtime relationship on wall street with the slim group and they're great investor. we have others with jeff at value act. you know, one of the things when i started, i wanted the guys that had been in the business, that know the business and really appreciate this play they're doing. >> i appreciate your coming in. please, our apologies. as you know, we're in the midst of a pretty sizeable selloff and a greater conversation about what it means with it going forward. we'll have you back.

>> thanks. >> sam hocking with altx. we've mentioned how the selloff appears to be intensifying as we head into the afternoon hours. we're going to take a quick break, as as we always do, we'll set you up for the second half of the action today and hopefully a little bit beyond that as well.

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it's the brand more doctorsose recommend for minor arthritis pain. plus, just two aleve can last all day. you'd need 6 tylenol arthritis to do that. aleve. all day strong. picture. everything is off. let's call it at least 1.5% in nasdaq's case. joe, who knows if we're going to get a bounce today. but you're looking for a kind of day where you say the selling starts and it doesn't stop. >> yeah. i don't know. i think gut feeling today is the day. so i wouldn't look for this afton be a buyer. i could be wrong. i hope i'm wrong. >> i think that's a good think. you want the flush. i don't think you want the weak recoveries at 3:30 that don't go anywhere. >> more importantly, we've had

bad days, a lot of them this year. it seems like every single one, every day you get a snap back. i'm not trying to be trite but it seems like it's happened all year. see if it happens tomorrow. if you get a snap back, you can buy. >> doc? >> they're catching people here with vix exploding. >> that was about 33. thank you. "power lunch" begins now. >> snap time is over. "power lunch" and the second half of the day starts right now. >> we'll measure our words carefully here. tyler math tyler mathisen. >> it's down. we're off by 27 points. oil in the meantime has been getting a bit of a bid today.