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Friday, November 30, 2018

Former President George HW Bush dead at age 94

Former President George H.W. Bush, the World War II veteran who was elected the 41st President of the United States and sired the nation's 43rd, died late Friday at the age of 94, the family announced in a statement.

Bush advocated a "kinder, gentler" conservatism, pursued policies that helped topple the Soviet empire and initiated military campaigns that ousted one foreign dictator and crippled another. He was 94 lived longer than any other U.S. president.

Wife Barbara died April 17 at age 92. Their 73-year marriage was longer than that of any presidential couple in U.S. history. Their children included former President George W. Bush and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

A day after Mrs. Bush's funeral on April 21, the senior Bush was admitted to Houston Methodist Hospital for a blood infection, a family spokesman said.

He had been taken there in April 2017 and in January 2017 for treatment related to pneumonia, family spokesman Jim McGrath said. During the January hospitalization, Barbara Bush was also treated there after experiencing fatigue and coughing. Their hospitalization came days after they had celebrated their 72nd wedding anniversary on Jan. 6, 2017.

The couple lived in Houston. During Hurricane Havey, which devastated the city in August 2017, Bush and his wife were in their second home in Kennebunkport, Maine. He praised the efforts of first responders and used Twitter to encourage people to donate to One America Appeal, a private relief fund coordinated by the five former U.S. presidents.

The son of a U.S. senator, Bush was the nation's 41st president and was the father of the 43rd and of a former governor who had hoped to be No. 45.

Capping a long political career, including vice president under Ronald Reagan, the elder Bush was elected to the White House in 1988 on a ticket with Sen. Dan Quayle, defeating Democrat Michael Dukakis and running mate Sen. Lloyd Bentsen.

Months before the victory, Bush delivered what became known as his "thousand points of light" acceptance speech at the GOP National Convention at New Orleans' Superdome.

While promising to fight for prayer in public schools and gun rights and against abortion, Bush tried to put a softer face on conservatism, striving to make America a "kinder, gentler" nation.

"Prosperity as a purpose means taking your idealism and making it concrete by certain acts of goodness," he said. "It means helping a child from an unhappy home learn to read. ... It means teaching troubled children through your presence that there is such a thing as reliable love."

The speech wasn't all "Kumbaya." He promised a hard line against Democrats.

"The Congress will push me to raise taxes, and I'll say no, and they'll push, and I'll say no, and they'll push again. And I'll say to them: 'Read my lips, no new taxes.'"

It was a vow that came back to haunt him.

During the budget battle with majority Democrats in 1990, he accepted a compromise to raise several existing taxes. Although no new taxes were created, the decision proved costly. Bill Clinton seized upon the perceived flip-flop, helping him oust Bush after a single term despite the Republican's major successes in foreign policy.

Five months after Bush's inauguration, he was confronted with China's suppression of the pro-democracy movement — its bloody crackdown on demonstrators in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. Although hundreds of demonstrators were killed, Bush responded with only limited sanctions.

In another five months, the Berlin Wall collapsed, on Nov. 9, 1989 — 28 years after it was erected. Bush greeted the historic event with a reactive response rather than with great enthusiasm.

"Of course, I welcome the decision by the East German leadership to open the borders," he told reporters in the Oval Office. "It clearly is a good development in terms of human rights. ... I'm very pleased with this development." Pressed about his low-key reaction, he replied: "I'm elated, I'm just not an emotional kind of guy."

"In retrospect, many people recognized that by refusing to gloat or declare victory over the Soviet Union, Bush probably helped avoid a backlash by hardliners in Eastern Europe," Stephen Knott, professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College, wrote in an essay. "He also did not want to endanger future negotiations with the Soviet Union."

Indeed, two years later, the U.S.S.R. formally dissolved with the Dec. 25, 1991, resignation of Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, Bush's negotiating partner.

In a Christmas speech to the American people, Bush praised Gorbachev's "revolutionary" policies that "permitted the peoples of Russia and the other republics to cast aside decades of oppression and establish the foundations of freedom."

"I'd like to express, on behalf of the American people, my gratitude to Mikhail Gorbachev for years of sustained commitment to world peace, and for his intellect, vision and courage," Bush said.

Closer to home, only a month after the fall of the Berlin Wall — matters reached a boiling point in Panama. After months of economic sanctions with Gen. Manuel Noriega over allegations that the Panamanian leader had engaged in drug trafficking and had rigged elections in the Central American country — Bush dispatched troops on Dec. 20, 1989, starting what was called "Operation Just Cause." The operation involved more than 24,000 troops in what was at that time the largest deployment of U.S. forces since the Vietnam War.

On the fifth day of the invasion, Noriega fled to the papal embassy on Christmas Eve. The building was surrounded by U.S. troops, who resorted to psychological warfare by blasting rock music. Noriega finally surrendered on Jan. 3. He was subsequently brought back to the United States and convicted of drug and racketeering charges. He served 17 years behind bars and died at age 83 in Panama City in May 2017.

Less than a year after the Panama invasion, another foreign crisis absorbed Bush. On Aug. 2, 1990, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein invaded oil-rich neighbor Kuwait. Bush responded by assembling an international coalition of nearly three dozen nations.

Under the leadership of Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, a five-month air bombardment dubbed Operation Desert Shield and the subsequent 100-hour Operation Desert Storm land battle pushed Iraqi troops out of Kuwait. But it stopped short of ousting the Iraqi strongman, setting up the second Gulf War that was initiated in 2003 by Bush 43 and resulted in Saddam's hanging.

In the 1992 election, the elder Bush attempted to capitalize on his overseas successes. In the final days of the campaign, he unleashed this salvo against Clinton and running mate Al Gore: "My dog Millie knows more about foreign affairs than these two bozos."

The electorate didn't buy it. By a margin of 43 percent to 37 percent, the Democratic former governor of Arkansas — with little experience in foreign affairs — ended the presidency of the man who prevailed over Noriega, Saddam and the Soviet empire. Third-party candidate Ross Perot swung the election with 19 percent of the vote.

Despite his disappointment, Bush was ever gracious in defeat. In a handwritten note to Clinton dated Jan. 20, 1993, Bush wrote: "I'm not a very good one to give advice; but just don't let the critics discourage you or push you off course. ... Your success is now our country's success. I am rooting for you."

The note received wide attention during and after the final presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, who refused to say he would accept the results of the 2016 election if Clinton won.

George Herbert Walker Bush was born June 12, 1924, in Milton, Massachusetts. His father, Prescott Bush, was elected to the Senate from Connecticut in 1952.

Six months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, George enlisted in the armed forces on his 18th birthday and became the youngest pilot in the Navy. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for bravery in action after being shot down over the Pacific and rescued by a U.S. submarine.

Weeks after his return from the Pacific, he married Barbara Pierce in January 1945. After being discharged from the military, he enrolled in Yale and later moved to Texas to go into the oil business.

He became involved in politics, and in 1966 was elected to Congress. He later became ambassador to the U.N., chairman of the Republican Party during the Watergate scandal, chief of the U.S. liaison office in Beijing before full diplomatic relations were restored, director of the CIA, and then vice president under Reagan.

To celebrate his 75th, 80th, 85th and 90th birthdays, Bush parachuted from a plane. Before his last jump, for his 90th birthday, he tweeted: "It's a wonderful day in Maine — in fact, nice enough for a parachute jump."

He maintained that sense of humor in other tweets. He posted this on July 30, 2015, while recovering from a broken neck.

On Jeb's 63rd birthday on Feb. 11, 2015, he tweeted this:

A day after Jeb announced his bid for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination, George H.W. beamed with pride on the twittersphere, even though matriarch Barbara Bush had initially said: "We've had enough Bushes."

There were no other tweets about Jeb during his unsuccessful campaign.

On Jan. 20, 2014, a quarter century after his inauguration, Bush 41 tweeted this:

H.W. maintained a public silence about son George W.'s presidency until the publication of the biography "Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush" in November 2015. In the book by Jon Meachum, the elder Bush used the term "iron a--" to refer to two leading hawks in his son's administration, Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Still, the elder Bush said, "The buck stops there," referring to Bush 43.

Days before his January 2017 hospitalization, the senior Bush had sent a letter to President-elect Trump expressing regrets that he could not attend the Jan. 20, 2017, inauguration. With his flair for humor, Bush wrote: "My doctor says if I sit outside in January, it likely will put me six feet under."

"I want you to know that I wish you the very best as you begin this incredible journey of leading our great country," he added. "If I can ever be of help, please let me know."

Trump, however, didn't get any help from the elder Bush to reach the White House. The former president confirmed to author Mark K. Updegrove that he voted for Hillary Clinton in the Democrat's failed run against Trump. The former president said in Updegrove's 2017 book "The Last Republicans" that he considered Trump a "blowhard."

Bush, who watched Trump's inauguration from the hospital with his wife, son Neil and daughter-in-law Maria, was released from the hospital on Jan. 30, a week after his wife. Days later, he was well enough to toss the coin from his wheelchair at Super Bowl LI in Houston.

In addition to sons George W., Jeb and Neil, survivors include son Marvin and daughter Dorothy Bush Koch.

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Fed concerns aren't over for the market yet

Trade relations between China and the U.S. overshadow most everything as stocks enter the month of December, but in the week ahead the Fed and U.S. economy come back into play with important Fed testimony and the November employment report.

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, whokicked off a powerful rally with his comments Wednesday, appears before the Joint Economic Committee of Congress this coming Wednesday to speak on the economy. Powell said the Fed was close to the neutral rate, the level on the benchmark fed funds rate that is neither stimulative nor slowing for the economy.

That comment sparked a rally of more than 600 points in the Dow and, in the market's view, reversed a previous comment from Powell that neutral was far off, meaning the Fed would have to keep hiking interest rates aggressively. The market is now pricing in one hike for December and just one for all of 2019.

"I think the markets may have overemphasized the dovishness of what he's trying to say," said Scott Anderson, chief economist at Bank of the West. "I think [the Fed] is trying to wean the markets off of forward guidance. …They want to give themselves a little flexibility." Anderson said there's risk the first half of 2019 could be weaker, and he does expect the economy to slow just below 2 percent in the second half, in part due to trade wars.

He said Powell's comment makes the Fed's interest rate forecast all the more important when it is released after the next meeting on Dec. 19. The Fed currently has forecast three interest rate hikes for next year, but the market is concerned the economy will not support that many. Powell's comments before Congress in the week ahead are also important, given the fact he was criticized by President Donald Trump for raising interest rates.

"It's kind of dicey politically, I think, and the fact his statement just a month ago was interpreted so hawkishly," said Anderson. Economists expect Powell to state that the Fed is independent and point to the fact that it is dependent on data for rate guidance.

Although the stock market rallied on Powell's statement and bond yields fell, some economists believe the markets misinterpreted the Fed's message. Both J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs economists expect four rate hikes next year.

The emphasis in the week ahead will also be on any U.S. data that can help steer the Fed. Most important is Friday's employment report, but there are also vehicle sales and ISM manufacturing data Monday.

Economists expect 200,000 jobs were created in November, and wages grew at a pace of 3.1 percent year over year. Vehicle sales will also be important, especially after GM's announced layoffs, and economists are expecting to see sales on an annualized basis at 17.2 million, down from the 17.6 million reported in October.

OPEC meets Thursday, and analysts expect Saudi Arabia and Russia to steer the group to a production cut, with Saudi Arabia bearing most of it. Oil prices fell more than 20 percent in November, their worst month since October 2008.

"Our base scenario is you might get some sort of actual but gradual and not really telegraphed 1 million barrels a day cut," said Citigroup energy analyst Eric Lee.

West Texas Intermediate crude futures lost 22 percent in November and closed down 1 percent Friday at $50.93 per barrel.

Stocks staged a stunning turnaround in the past week, erasing losses for an otherwise rough month of November. The S&P 500 was up 4.8 percent to 2,760 for the week and is now just a point below the key 200-day moving average. The S&P was up 1.8 percent for the month of November.

Stocks rallied on Powell but also on optimism for a trade truce between the U.S. and China when Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping were to meet Saturday.

"Is the market pricing in a cease-fire?" asked Scott Redler, partner with T3Live.com. He said the market could have gotten ahead of itself, depending on the outcome of the trade meeting between Trump and Xi. "We just had our biggest weekly move since 2011. Is that taking away from the actual event? I think the market has priced in about 75 percent of a cease-fire."

Redler said the next area of resistance is around 2,810, if stocks continue to gain after the weekend meeting.

Stock traders may also be watching the bond market,after the 10-year Treasury yield fell to 2.99, just below the 3 percent level. The yield, which moves opposite price, moved closer to the yield of the 2-year, in a flattening move. With the 2-year at 2.78, the difference was just 21 basis points.

Traders believe that occurs when the market is warning about the strength of the economy. If the yield inverts and the 10-year drops below the 2-year, it is a fairly reliable recession warning.

Monday

Earnings: Coupa Software, Mesa Air, Smartsheet

Monthly vehicle sales

8:00 a.m. Fed Vice Chairman Randal Quarles

9:15 a.m. New York Fed President John Williams

9:45 a.m. Manufacturing PMI

10:00 a.m. ISM manufacturing

10:00 a.m. Construction spending

10:30 a.m. Fed Governor Lael Brainard

12:00 p.m. Dallas Fed President Rob Kaplan

Tuesday

Earnings: Hewlett Packard Enterprises, AutoZone, Toll Brothers, HD Supply Holdings, Donaldson, Bank of Montreal, Dollar General, Guidewire Software, Marvell Tech

10:00 a.m. QFR

Wednesday

Earnings: H&R Block, Lululemon Athletica, Brown-Forman, American Eagle Outfitters, Lands' End, Korn/Ferry, Cloudera, Five Below

8:15 a.m. ADP employment

8:30 a.m. Productivity and costs

9:45 a.m. Services PMI

10:15 a.m. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell testimony Joint Economic Commitee

10:00 a.m. ISM nonmanufacturing

2:00 p.m. Beige book

8:15 p.m. Fed Vice Chairman Quarles

Thursday

Earnings: Kroger, Michael Cos, Thor Industries, Broadcom, Cooper Cos, Ulta Beauty, Hovnanian, Signet Jewelers, Duluth, American Outdoor Brands, Zumiez

8:30 a.m. Initial claims

8:30 a.m. International trade

10:00 a.m. Factory orders

11:00 a.m. Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic

6:30 p.m. New York Fed's Williams

6:30 p.m. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell

Friday

Earnings: Vail Resorts

8:30 a.m. Employment

10:00 a.m. Consumer sentiment

10:00 a.m. Wholesale trade

1:00 p.m. New York Fed's Williams

3:00 p.m. Consumer credit

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Even at $6, Snap's stock still isn't a bargain, Cramer warns: 'It's an ill-advised decision to buy'

Snap Inc.'s stock price may have fallen to just over $6 a share — down about 70 percent from where the stock started publicly trading — but even this low price shouldn't fool investors, CNBC's Jim Cramer said Friday.

"Do not be tempted by Snap's $6-and-change share price. It's not a bargain," he warned. "At more than five times next year's sales [estimates], you could argue it's actually fairly expensive. And, of course, there are some alarming long-term trends here."

For Cramer, host of "Mad Money," the most worrisome thing about the Snapchat parent is its cash generation. When Snap went public in early 2017 with nearly $1 billion on its balance sheet, that was the last thing investors were worried about, but lately, "Snap's cash hoard has been slowly dwindling," he said.

Since the second quarter of 2017, when Snap had $3.24 billion in cash, its cash balance has declined by double digits every quarter, falling to $1.4 billion as of its latest quarterly report.

Worse, the company's cash from operating activities — what its core business earns, minus some major expenditures — has been shrinking by bigger and bigger amounts. And while some of that money is being invested in growth, most of it is funding the social media company's day-to-day operations, Cramer said.

"As we've watched the company struggle and the stock go into freefall, I've started to wonder if Snap has enough money," he said. "Just keeping the lights on at Snapchat is costing these guys a fortune. That's not good."

While Snap currently has no debt, a business that drains cash instead of generating it presents a "huge problem," the "Mad Money" host continued.

The proximate cause, he explained, is that Snap spends a fortune on the cloud: with hundreds of millions of users uploading and downloading Snapchat content every day, the parent company has to pay for the digital space.

And even though Snap's management laid out some lofty goals for the year ahead, namely turning a profit and stemming the company's free cash flow losses, Snapchat's total number of daily active users is now declining, Cramer warned.

"Snap's growth is evaporating before our very eyes," he said.

Add in Snap's slowing revenue growth — up 44 percent in the latest quarter, down from 72 percent in the year prior and 285 percent at the IPO — and some high-level executive departures, and Snap's future looks murky to Cramer.

"Until Snap gives us some reason to believe in a turnaround, it's an ill-advised decision to buy the stock," he concluded.

Shares of Snap ended Friday's trading session up 1.72 percent at $6.51, dipping slightly in after-hours trading.

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Cramer on how to play the possible outcomes of Trump-Xi meeting at G-20

President Donald Trump's meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at this weekend's G-20 summit will be a defining moment for the U.S. economy and the stock market, so investors have to be prepared, CNBC's Jim Cramer said Friday.

Leaders of the world's top 20 economically developed nations, known collectively as the Group of 20 or G-20, are meeting at the Buenos Aires, Argentina gathering to discuss topics of global significance such as the future of work.

Trump is expected to sit down with Xi to address U.S.-China trade relations, which have soured this year as the Trump administration took a hard line on China's trading practices and the nations exchanged tariffs on each others' goods.

Many on Wall Street expect a positive result from the meeting. On Thursday, Trump told reporters he was "very close" to striking a deal, but remained unsure if he would follow through.

Cramer, host of "Mad Money," saw five possible outcomes:

  1. Weakness in the Chinese economy and stock market brings Xi to the table and leads to a deal. Cramer gave this possibility a 10 percent chance of occurring and said it would cause a 10 percent rally in the U.S. stock market.
  2. Trump extends the existing 10 percent tariffs on Chinese imports instead of raising them to 25 percent at year-end as planned. Cramer said there was a 10 percent chance of this happening and forecast a 5 percent rally if it does.
  3. Trump keeps the tariff hike to 25 percent in place, but says the administration will wait to impose another round of duties. Cramer pegged this as the most likely option, giving it a 50 percent chance of occurring.
  4. Trump not only keeps the tariff hike to 25 percent in place, but slaps 10 percent tariffs on the Chinese imports he hasn't yet sanctioned, which equate to roughly $280 billion worth of merchandise. Cramer pegged the odds of this happening at 25 percent, and said it would cause a 4 percent decline in U.S. stocks.
  5. There's a 5 percent chance the "unthinkable" could happen, the "Mad Money" host said: the meeting goes south, Trump puts 25 percent tariffs on all Chinese imports and the U.S. stock market tanks 10 percent.

Assuming the Trump-Xi meeting results in the third option — the tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods still go to 25 percent at year-end, but no additional tariffs are announced — Cramer had a plan in place for stock-pickers.

If it happens, "the recession stocks with little exposure to China will roar higher," he said, telling investors to buy PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble, McDonald's and Clorox "right into the opening sell-off" on Monday.

"At the same time, ... hedge funds will dump any industrial or tech company that's perceived as having too much reliance on the Chinese market, and here, you've got to think 3M, Emerson, United Technologies and, sadly, Apple, which has become the ultimate political football given its mastery ... in both countries," he continued.

Above all, the "Mad Money" host preached caution, especially with the stock of Apple, in which his charitable trust owns shares.

"For most investors, this game may not be worth playing," Cramer said. "If you're a trader, you might want to scoop up some Apple if it really goes down and gets hit with heavy selling, as I expect, although I still believe that Apple is a stock you should own, not trade."

"In the end," he said, "I just want you to be ready for the most likely outcome here, which means the recessionistas rally on Monday and the industrials get absolutely slammed."

Disclosure: Cramer's charitable trust owns shares of Apple.

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Microsoft has better fundamentals, but buy Apple, says tech investor

Microsoft may have replaced Apple as the most valuable U.S. company, but don't count Apple out, investor Nancy Tengler told CNBC on Friday.

"Clearly the fundamentals are better for Microsoft in terms of which space they're in — the cloud space, the growth they're experiencing — but I'm not willing to walk away from Apple at these levels," the chief investment officer at Heartland Financial said on "Closing Bell."

Microsoft's market cap held an implied market valuation of $851.2 billion at Friday's close, exceeding Apple's market valuation of $847.4 billion.

Tengler, who owns shares of both Apple and Microsoft, said she's closer to selling Microsoft and buying Apple right now. "This is an interesting time to be adding."

"We have to get used to the recalibration of iPhone flat sales, no transparency, what's the next big thing," she said. "We're going to find it's services and something we haven't thought of yet. Look at the Apple Watch, it's just kind of been a stealth outperformer."

Apple shares have had a few rough weeks, releasing disappointing earnings on Nov. 1. The tech giant also announced it would no longer break out iPhone, iPad and Mac sales figures, which garnered a swift response from Wall Street.

However, Tengler dismissed analysts' concerns.

"Wall Street gets embarrassed. They're like a woman scorned. When they don't get the information they want, then they begin to pile on," she said.

She is betting that Apple will make the successful transition to the next big thing and will bring the Street along. It just may take some time, she added.

Therefore, for patient investors, they are getting paid to wait, said Tengler.

— CNBC's Jordan Novet and Sara Salinas contributed to this report.

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Cramer's game plan: A week defined by trade talks and employment

Trade talks and the latest data on U.S. employment will color the week ahead for the stock market, CNBC's Jim Cramer said Friday as stocks rallied on high hopes for a U.S.-China trade deal at the weekend's G-20 summit.

President Donald Trump is planning to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Buenos Aires, Argentina gathering on Saturday to discuss what has amounted to an ever-escalating trade war between the two nations. Next Friday, a Labor Department report on U.S. job creation will bookend what Cramer expects to be an "exciting" week for stocks.

"Between Trump's meeting with President Xi over the weekend and the employment number on Friday, there's a whole lot going on next week. Let's just hope it's not too exciting," the "Mad Money" host said.

With Saturday's market-defining meeting in mind, Cramer turned to his game plan for the week ahead:

Spending-focused cloud player Coupa Software reports earnings on Monday. The Federal Reserve's slight step back from its initial plans for raising interest rates created a better environment for growth stocks like Coupa's, Cramer said.

"Speaking of the Fed, I sure wish they'd start thinking not just about the raw data interpretation, but also about outfits like Coupa, which save companies a fortune ... by cutting back on people — the most expensive part of a business — and allowing them to rely on software to handle procurement," he said.

"That means all of these cloud-based enterprise software companies are inherently deflationary," Cramer continued. "So [Fed Chair Jerome] Powell might want to listen in on Coupa's conference call, which, by the way, I expect to be a good one."

Dollar General: Cramer expected a strong earnings report from Dollar General, which will issue its quarterly results Tuesday morning.

"The best-performing portions of retail this week were the bargain basement operations: Ollie's, TJX and Burlington Stores. Dollar General fits that bill," he said. "I see an upside surprise coming."

Autozone: Auto parts retailer Autozone will also report earnings. Cramer is a fan of the company's share buyback program, which he said was as good a reason as any to buy Autozone's stock after its report.

"Even if the company delivers slightly off numbers, just a little bit of slippage, it's usually a great buying opportunity," he said. "These days, people are keeping their cars longer and longer, which means they need more maintenance and spare parts, a real boon to all of these ... auto parts companies."

HD Supply: HD Supply's earnings will give Cramer a sense of how small businesses are faring in this country because the company provides industrial services to roughly 500,000 smaller-scale professional customers.

"It's all part of the pastiche that I like to put together to take the temperature of the economy in real time," he said.

Toll Brothers: Homebuilder Toll Brothers will add to that pastiche. Cramer expected the company's earnings report to "tell a tale of both strength and weakness."

"Remember, I'm not saying the economy overall is weak, I'm saying it's weaker than it's been, and one of the reasons is the slowing housing market," he explained. "I bet Toll confirms my view, particularly on the coasts."

Two Cramer-fave retailers, Lululemon and Five Below, will report earnings on Wednesday. The stocks of both companies have been struggling of late, Lululemon's "in sync with ... the rebellion against high-priced apparel" and Five Below's on worries about trade with China, Cramer said.

"I think both sell-offs are overblown at this point," he argued. "However, I'm mindful of how hard it is to own retailers right now, [now] that people think the economy's shifting to a lower gear."

Kroger: The largest U.S. supermarket chain will also issue its quarterly results. The "Mad Money" host harbored concerns about the company's slew of formidable competitors.

"While I think, certainly, that Kroger can spin a good yarn about remodeled stores, that merely makes it an OK house in a very bad neighborhood," he said. "I'm going to have to say no, thank you."

Broadcom: After Wednesday's closing bell, investors will get results from chipmaker Broadcom. Cramer said there was a lot to be learned from the company's conference call.

"I want to know about its quizzical acquisition ... of a software company called CA that works with mainframes, not to mention the exposure to China, 5G and Apple, although the latter is not to be named," he said. "At most, you make some cryptic reference, say, [to] a major customer. Still, there's a lot to learn from Broadcom."

On Friday, Cramer will be eyeing the U.S. Labor Department's non-farm payroll report, which measures job creation and is a key indicator for the Fed when it comes to raising interest rates.

"I think it will give us our last strong set of employment numbers — because I think it's tailing off — giving the Fed [the] justification ... that it needs for one more tightening, December tightening, before it waits to see how its rate hikes have impacted the economy," Cramer said. "Now that Powell has chosen prudence over dogma, there's a good chance this once red-hot economy can get the soft landing that it so sorely deserves."

Disclosure: Cramer's charitable trust owns shares of Apple.

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United inks deal with Avianca, Copa to expand footprint in Latin America

United Continental Holdings has reached a long-sought after deal with two major Latin American airlines allowing the third-largest carrier in the U.S. to expand in the region.

The agreement, which United announced on Friday, will allow United Airlines, Panama's Copa Holdings and Colombia-based Avianca Holdings to share revenue from flights and coordinate schedules. The three-way partnership is subject to approval from regulators. Avianca, Copa and United are already tied through a code-sharing partnership.

Joint ventures that allow airlines to coordinate routes and share either profits or revenue have become more common in recent years as carriers seek to expand internationally. Foreign ownership rules generally limit airlines from abroad to purchase another carrier outright, so such deals along with minority stakes, are a way to provide them with exposure to international markets.

Avianca serves around 170 destinations and has more than 180 aircraft, while Copa has a fleet of about 100 aircraft and serves about 75 destinations, according to the companies.

Flying to and from Latin America accounted for about 8 percent of United's revenue in the third quarter, while American Airlines, the largest U.S. carrier in the region, received more than 11 percent of its revenue from Latin America flying in the quarter.

United's agreement with Avianca comes after a legal battle that could have further delayed the deal was dropped last year.

In a filing on Friday detailing the deal with Avianca, United said it would provide a $456 million loan to Syngery Aerospace Corporation, Avianca's owner, using stock in Avianca as collateral. The Wall Street Journal, which reported the deal earlier on Friday, said it would be used to repay a loan from hedge fund Elliott Management. Elliott did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Juul said it wasn't Big Tobacco. Now it's considering money from the maker of Marlboro

Juul has prided itself on its independence from Big Tobacco. It may not be able to much longer.

The e-cigarette maker is in talks to sell a stake of the company to Altria, a person familiar with the matter tells CNBC. Earlier this fall, Juul paused efforts to raise money from private investors because of regulatory uncertainty, people familiar with the matter say. The fundraise would have valued Juul at more than $20 billion, these people said.

The change of course highlights the existential crisis in which Juul finds itself. Its fruity flavors, questionable past marketing and explosive popularity among teenagers have invited critics to compare it to Big Tobacco and the days of the Marlboro Man and Joe Camel.

Juul designed its devices to look completely different from cigarettes. The company has used its autonomy — and its purported purpose of eliminating conventional cigarettes — to brush off those comments. That wasn't enough to prevent attention from the FDA.

Today, Juul is able to market itself as an enemy of Big Tobacco simply trying "to improve the lives of the world's 1 billion adult smokers." That will become much harder to do if it sells part of itself to Altria, the maker of top-selling cigarette Marlboro. However, in teaming up with Altria, Juul would gain regulatory expertise to help it manage the tricky waters that are becoming even choppier as the agency cracks down on rising rates of teen vaping.

Over the summer, Juul closed a $1.25 billion round that valued the company at $16 billion after a year of explosive growth for the company. At that point, Juul's dollar sales had skyrocketed 783 percent in the 52 weeks ended June 16, reaching $942.6 million, according to a Wells Fargo analysis of Nielsen data. The e-cigarette category as a whole grew 97 percent to $1.96 billion in the same period.

Juul now represents more than 75 percent of the e-cigarette market, according to the Nielsen numbers. But Juul faced a growing and glaring problem: anecdotal reports suggested many of its customers were teens. Federal data later proved a surge in teen e-cigarette use was underway.

All the while, Juul maintained its argument it was a health-focused company that wanted to help adults switch. And it wasn't associated with any tobacco companies.

"We're the No. 1 e-cigarette in the United States," Juul's Chief Administrative Officer Ashley Gould told The New York Times in April. "And we're not a big tobacco company. We're an independent company."

Weeks after the story, in a rare move, the FDA issued a 904(b) letter requesting a slew of company materials, including marketing documents, research on whether certain products' design features, ingredients or specifications appeal to different age groups.

In September, the FDA went even further, declaring teen e-cigarette use an epidemic and placed the blame on Juul and four other brands, including Altria's MarkTen. Commissioner Scott Gottlieb ordered the companies to come up with a plan to reverse these trends.

The same month, federal authorities showed up at Juul's San Francisco-headquarters unprompted, seeking more information on the company's sales marketing practices. They seized more than a thousand pages of documents. Juul CEO Kevin Burns in a statement said the company walked regulators through "every part" of its business, including its marketing practices and age-verification tools used on its online shop.

As the FDA scrutinized Juul and debated its next steps, the outcry grew even louder. Federal data proved parents and teachers weren't wrong. In just one year, the number of high school students who used e-cigarettes increased 78 percent, equating to 20.8 percent of high school students.

It could not be determined how much of Juul's business is teens, but some estimate it is significant. The FDA regulation could therefore represent pressure to Juul's business. Meantime, Juul is spending millions of dollars to combat underage use and conduct clinical studies in order to prepare for an application it will eventually need to file with the FDA.

Weeks before the FDA announced how it would try to curb youth use, Altria in October said it would remove its MarkTen pod-based products and will stop selling all flavors except for menthol or tobacco in its cig-a-like products until the FDA reviews and approves them.

Juul said it suspended sales of fruity flavors in retail stores while continuing to sell these flavors on its age-verified website. Two days later, the FDA soon said it would restrict where these flavors can be sold, restricting them to age-verified stores like tobacco and vape shops.

On its own, Juul has made a number of missteps. It tried to roll out a Juul-sponsored e-cigarette lesson plan in schools that critics have said are right out of Big Tobacco's playbook. In this instance, Juul's chief administrative officer Ashley Gould told The New York Times the company wasn't aware tobacco companies had also tried this tactic because Juul didn't build its management around former tobacco employees.

Altria has decades of experience in handling regulatory and legal issues. Similar to Juul today, Altria faced enormous public pressure in the 1990s. It helped craft a deal between manufacturers and state attorneys general, known as the Master Settlement agreement, which established fixed amounts tobacco companies would pay annually and limited marketing in exchange for ending a wave of ongoing lawsuits.

But partnering with a cigarette maker exposes Juul to skepticism from those that have questioned the company's mission to end cigarette smoking from the beginning. Each Juul pod contains as much nicotine as one pack of cigarettes.

"If Juul really wants to eliminate cigarettes, why would they even consider partnering with a company that not only makes the best-selling cigarette brand among kids, but has repeatedly fought efforts to reduce smoking?" Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids President Matt Myers said in a statement.

Selling a portion of itself to a tobacco company could also spark internal backlash among people who joined Juul to execute its stated mission: "eliminate cigarettes by offering existing adult smokers with a true alternative to combustible cigarettes."

Juul co-founder James Monsees told CNBC in an August interview that one of the biggest pride points at the company is having already converted more than 1 million smokers from combustible cigarettes. He said Juul is trying to attract people who could also work at tech companies like Tesla, Facebook, Google and Apple.

"And what that meant was for someone to come here instead, especially in the early days, they'd have to truly believe in our mission and want to be here to end smoking and to have one of the biggest impacts on public health in the history of the world," he said.

Since spinning off from vaporizer maker Pax Labs last year, Juul has raised money from just a handful of investors, including Tiger Global, Fidelity Investments and Tao Capital markets. Despite being in the backyard of Silicon Valley investors, Juul has struggled to raise money from them.

Many venture capital firms aren't allowed, based on their agreements with limited partners, to invest in anything related to alcohol, tobacco or guns. While Juul's device isn't technically a tobacco product, the addictive nature of nicotine and its popularity among kids has turned it into a toxic brand among start-up tech investors.

"People who don't understand this issue don't have kids in high school," said Jeff Richards, a managing partner at venture firm GGV, who has four kids, the oldest of whom is a freshman in high school. "I'm acutely aware of how big a problem this Juul device has become."

The two companies declined CNBC's request for comment. The Wall Street Journal first reported Juul's talks with Altria, while Axios fist reported its recent fundraising efforts.

—CNBC's Ari Levy contributed to this report

WATCH: How Juul made vaping cool and became a $15 billion e-cigarette giant

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The other big Trump-Putin story: Nuclear treaty hangs in the balance as Russia-US tensions rise

WASHINGTON — As U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin tease on whether or not they will meet at the annual G-20 summit, a crucial nuclear weapons treaty between the world's two greatest nuclear powers hangs in the balance.

Last month, Trump announced his decision to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces, or INF, Treaty, an agreement that eliminated an entire class of nuclear weapons from U.S. and Russian arsenals.

Russia, Trump says, has violated the arms agreement by building and fielding the banned weapons "for many years." On behalf of the administration, national security adviser John Bolton flew to Moscow to personally deliver the decision to the Kremlin.

"It is the American position that Russia is in violation," Bolton told reporters after a meeting with Putin. "It is Russia's position that they are not in violation. So one has to ask, 'How do you convince the Russians to come back into compliance with obligations they don't think they're violating?'"

Read more: The US and Russia control the lion's share of the world's nuclear weapons

The INF treaty, signed in 1987 between President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev, prohibited the development and deployment of midrange nuclear-tipped missiles. The agreement forced each country to dismantle more than 2,500 missiles with ranges of 310 to 3,420 miles from their arsenals.

In short, the treaty has kept nuclear-tipped missiles off the European continent for the last 30 years.

Gorbachev criticized Trump for threatening to withdraw from the nuclear disarmament treaty, saying the move "is not the work of a great mind."

What's more, the move rattled arms control experts who feared the scrapped treaty would spark a nuclear weapons race.

"Withdrawing from the INF treaty only increases the threat to allies and let's Russia off the hook," Thomas Karako, director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told CNBC.

"This is a colossal mistake," Jeffrey Lewis, a nuclear-weapons analyst at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, California, told The Guardian. "Russia gets to violate the treaty and Trump takes the blame," he added.

When asked, the Pentagon said Defense Secretary James Mattis is "completely aligned" with Trump's abrupt announcement to withdraw from the treaty.

"The secretary of Defense has consistently said that Russia has not been in compliance with the treaty," Pentagon spokesman U.S. Army Col. Rob Manning said. "The secretary is completely aligned with the president, and he is in close contact with the president on this."

However, in October, Mattis told reporters in Brussels that any decision to withdraw from the INF treaty would be done in consultation with NATO partners since Russian missiles pose an immediate threat to allies in Europe.

"This will be a decision obviously made in concert with our allies by the president," Mattis said at the time. "We are trying to bring them [Russia] still back into compliance. And now is the time. It's gone on long enough."

When asked whether Mattis coordinated with NATO counterparts in the wake of Trump's announcement, the Pentagon directed the query to the White House, which has yet to respond to CNBC's request for comment.

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Bitcoin crashes 37 percent in November, wiping $70 billion off of cryptocurrencies' market value

November will be a month to remember for bitcoin investors.

The world's largest cryptocurrency ended November down 37 percent, its worst drop since April 2011 when the cryptocurrency fell about 39 percent, according to data from CoinDesk.

Bitcoin hit a low of $3,878.66 Friday after starting November above the $6,300 mark. The digital currency is now down more than 70 percent since the start of 2018 and 80 percent from its all-time high hit late last year.

The market capitalization of all major cryptocurrencies took a $70 billion hit for the month, according to CoinMarketCap.com. XRP, the world's second largest cryptocurrency, dropped 18 percent in November while ether fell 43 percent in the same time period.

For bitcoin, this month's price performance was a stark turnaround from its relatively stable October. The cryptocurrency traded near $6,400 without much volatility as global markets fell.

Michael Moro, CEO of Genesis Global Trading, said "it didn't take much for the price to break down" after bitcoin failed to stay above the key support level of $5,850.

"It's unclear if this is a 'bottom' or a brief period of consolidation before next move down, but buyers are still maintaining some cash on the sidelines in case it does go lower," Moro said.

There was a spike in short interest in bitcoin as momentum traders piled on, he said. But still, Moro said Genesis is seeing a decent level of buy-side interest at the $4,000 level.

The CEO also pointed to a "messy" fork on the bitcoin cash network. That digital currency split into two versions: "Bitcoin ABC" or "Bitcoin SV," short for "Satoshi's Vision" in mid-November.

"While the split occurred on a different blockchain, there were still spill-over effects on other cryptos, including bitcoin," Moro said.

Still, there were some bright spots for crypto bulls this month.

Digital currencies got the backing of a key figurehead on Wall Street — Jeff Sprecher, chairman of the New York Stock Exchange and CEO of its parent company ICE. Despite headlines of cryptocurrencies flopping, Sprecher said they have a future in regulated markets.

The Intercontinental Exchange is backing a version of bitcoin futures through a start-up called Bakkt that goes live in January. Nasdaq and VanEck also confirmed they are planning to launch multiple cryptocurrency products, which include bitcoin futures in the first quarter of next year.

Regulators stepped up enforcement of initial coin offerings in November.

The Securities Exchange Commission announced its first civil penalties against founders who did not register new coin offerings, adding to its crackdown aimed at abuses and outright fraud in the growing digital industry. This week, the agency settled with pro boxer Floyd Mayweather and music producer DJ Khaled, who the SEC said pumped up initial coin offerings without telling investors they were getting paid a promotional fee.

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Behind Coinbase's quiet roll-out of OTC crypto trading this month

Coinbase rolled out an over-the-counter cryptocurrency trading desk earlier this month, but until now has been hesitant to openly discuss its ambitions.

The widely followed startup, recently valued at $8 billion, wanted to test interest in the product from professional traders first, and work out the kinks quietly.

"We wanted to make sure we had all the boxes checked before we went public," Tim Plakas, head OTC trader for Coinbase, told CNBC at the company's New York headquarters this week. "We needed to have some of our trusted institutional clients on board and were in a beta mode to make sure that all the pipes were working."

Over-the-counter, or OTC, trading is done directly between two parties instead of on an exchange. Coinbase acts as what's known as an "agency" and earns commission by executing client trades.

Coinbase is best-known for the popular U.S. cryptocurrency exchange that was on-boarding as many as 50,000 retail accounts per day during the crypto boom last year. But although it took off with ordinary investors, many institutions weren't as eager to use it, according to Christine Sandler, the head of institutional sales.

The OTC "soft launch" began with a small network of clients like asset management firms. Sandler announced it in an interview with Cheddar this week. But she said it was important to debut it slowly with a ring of trusted institutions before they "blanketed the Earth" with a new product.

Sandler, who was head of electronic equity sales at Merrill Lynch and later Barclays during her 30-year career on Wall Street, described OTC as giving "an extra pair of hands" to facilitate a trade.

Clients can call Coinbase and say "I'd like to buy $1 million in bitcoin right now — what's the spread?" Coinbase, in this case, finds willing buyers and sellers without tipping off the market that a big order is coming. Coinbase will then get a bid and an offer, and reflect that in multiple price quotes for the client.

Wall Street professional investors are slowly warming to crypto. Goldman Sachs-backed Circle has a "principal" OTC desk called Circle Trade with a minimum entry-point of $250,000. Principal trading desks use their own inventory complete customer orders and also provide liquidity for clients. Genesis Trading is another OTC option for crypto in addition to Gemini, a firm founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss.

The Coinbase executives anecdotally started to notice an increase in OTC volumes and decided it was time to jump in.

"This is a really opportunistic way for us to counterbalance and offer something that's different than our exchange trading but offers value to clients in a way that's really safe," Sandler said.

One of cryptocurrency's major benefits or risks — depending on who you ask — is its anonymity.

Digital currencies' secretive nature has led to criticism from economist Nouriel Roubini and others, who peg it as the currency of choice for money-launderers or criminals. Bitcoin itself has fallen more than 70 percent from its high, marked by volatility on its way down.

In addition to price and headline risk, counterparty risk that a party might not live up to its contract obligations is already top of mind for asset managers.

"All of the participants in this program and on our exchange have gone through full [know your customer] and [anti-money laundering]," Sandler said. "They're known entities to us."

Eventually, Coinbase said, it will also link the OTC offering to its custody business. Custody in cryptocurrency means storing these assets offline, in what's known as "cold storage." That makes it hard to make a trade quickly, since it takes multiple days in most cases to move the cryptocurrency back online. But at some point, Coinbase expects clients to be able to make those trades immediately in the OTC product before the funds are physically available, then settle the trade when the funds come out of cold storage days later.

For now, Coinbase's OTC desk is only available to accredited investors on Coinbase Prime. Eventually though, executives said it will available for Coinbase Pro, which is designed for more sophisticated individual traders.

Still, Sandler said the new product could have implications for the average bitcoin trader, in the sense that it brings more activity to the sector.

"It's bringing diverse flows to the marketplace, and that of diversity creates healthy markets," Sandler said. "The worst thing a marketplace could be is homogeneous. Bringing more diversity to the marketplace is absolutely paramount."

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Blowout earnings from Salesforce, Workday revive cloud rally and shake off concerns about economy

Two weeks ago, cloud euphoria appeared to have come to an end. The broad market sell-off, stemming from concerns about the global economy, was having an outsized impact on stocks that had enjoyed the biggest rallies over the prior 12 months. Salesforce fell to its lowest since April.

Those concerns dissipated in a hurry this week, thanks to blowout earnings from the top cloud software companies and reassuring commentary from their leaders.

"The new normal in the world is political volatility and hopefully it doesn't have a huge amount of impact on our business," said Workday CEO Aneel Bhusri in a call with analysts after his company's earnings report Thursday afternoon.

Whatever concerns companies have about a potential trade war, the economy and political instability have done nothing to slow down Workday's momentum. The company reported 34 percent revenue growth in the fiscal third quarter, its fastest growth in a year, with sales and earnings topping analysts' estimates.

Workday shares surged 13 percent on Friday to a record $164, lifting its gain for the week to 21 percent. The stock got a boost earlier in the week from cloud peer Salesforce, which reported results on Tuesday that blew past estimates.

Salesforce co-CEO Marc Benioff refers to the broadly changing landscape as a "digital transformation" that's leading businesses to buy technologies to help them manage and analyze the massive influx of data. Even if the economy sputters, companies will keep spending money on applications that are critical to running their business, whether it's infrastructure like cloud servers or software for tracking sales and managing payroll.

Salesforce shares climbed 17 percent this week. After Tuesday's earnings report, Benioff called the quarter "phenomenal" in an interview with CNBC's Jim Cramer, and said that with visibility into the next fiscal year, "I don't think the company has ever been stronger."

As the biggest and most valuable software-as-a-service (SaaS) company, Salesforce has a tendency to pull the rest of the industry along with it. The Bessemer Venture Partners Emerging Cloud Index, which consists of 46 publicly-traded cloud software companies, jumped 9 percent this week, about twice as much as the S&P 500. Okta, Atlassian, Twilio and ServiceNow all climbed more than 15 percent.

Jason Lemkin, a start-up investor and founder of SaaStr, said that chief information officers are dedicating almost twice as much money as a percentage of their budget to cloud platforms as they were five years ago, benefiting this whole class of suppliers.

"We're all stunned at how big these SaaS and cloud companies are," Lemkin said. "The valuations are priced to perfection but nothing seems to be able to stop the migration of the CIO budget to the cloud. All of us got that wrong."

Salesforce and Workday weren't the only companies to provide upbeat news. Other emerging software and infrastructure providers to report better-than-expected results this week included Splunk, Box, Veeva, Nutanix and Anaplan, which went public last month.

Veeva CEO Peter Gassner told investors on Wednesday that demand for his company's health software continues to grow because customers need it to deal with all the complex regulations of the industry, which has more personalized and specialized medicines than ever before.

"Complexity is just increasing and now they see, hey, there's a cloud solution that do the job and that's what's creating the momentum," Gassner said.

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Market close to hitting 'all-clear' signal that could mean upside ahead: Wall Street bull Tony Dwyer


The market is close to hitting an "all-clear" signal that could mean there is more upside ahead, one of Wall Street's biggest bulls told CNBC on Friday.

Tony Dwyer, chief market strategist at Canaccord Genuity, is looking at the S&P 500's 10-week rate-of-change indicator, which measures the percent change in the index.

When it drops to minus 9 and then recovers to minus 5, "that's your all-clear signal throughout the current cycle that the correction is over." We're not too far from that now, at around minus 6, he said on "Fast Money Halftime Report."

Barring any major sell-off on Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 are on pace to post solid gains for November. The action followed a rough October that saw the Dow end down 5.1 percent for the month, its biggest one-month fall since January 2016. The S&P 500 had its worst October since September 2011.

"As long as the yield curve stays positive, investors should stay generally bullish, and you tactically move based on ridiculous levels of euphoria, when you have an environment ripe for volatility, versus recently where you have environments ripe for opportunity because you had that kind of I call it a whoosh … and then a retest."

He has said he plans to stay bullish until the yield curve inverts, which means long-term rates are lower than short-term ones. Historically when that happens it has signaled a recession in the foreseeable future.

Dwyer sees four sectors that can lead the market to new highs.

"When the Fed pauses raising interest rates and you haven't inverted the curve and shut down credit, the … four sectors that do the best are banks, industrials, tech and health care," he said.

On Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said he considers the central bank's benchmark interest rate to be near a neutral level, an apparent turn from his earlier remarks that it was a long way from neutral. He also said there is no preset policy path. The stock market soared on his change of tone.

The Fed is expected to hike rates in December. While the central bank's most recent projection is for three increases in 2019, traders now see only one more hike fully priced in for next year.

However, Dwyer said he would wait for confirmation that the market is going to hit new highs.

"If you don't make a new high … you are going to roll and you are going to roll hard," he said.

— CNBC's Fred Imbert contributed to this report.

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Steel and aluminum tariffs remain a headache despite Trump's trade deal with Mexico and Canada

The United States might have a new North American trade deal in place, but the Trump administration's tariffs on steel and aluminum continue to be a headache for businesses, lawmakers and America's neighbors.

Despite expectations to the contrary, the 25 percent tariffs on steel and 10 percent duties on aluminum are staying put for now. They remain such a big point of contention that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took aim at the tariffs Friday during a signing ceremony for the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.

Trudeau tied the tariffs to the layoff plans at General Motors announced earlier this week to the chagrin of leaders and workers in the U.S. and Canada. "Donald, it's all the more reason why we need to keep working to remove the tariffs on steel and aluminum between our countries," the Canadian prime minister told U.S. President Donald Trump, who was standing directly to his right.

The tariffs were first put into place on March 23 under the Commerce Department's rarely used national security authority, known as Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. Mexico and Canada were initially exempt pending the outcome of the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement. The exemption was removed June 1, however.

Several lawmakers expressed their dismay that the tariffs on our key allies have not been lifted. Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, and Rep. Jackie Walorski, R-Ind., separately said they were "disappointed" there is still no resolution. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., said the tariffs are "doing more harm than good." He added that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said over the summer that the tariffs would be lifted as part of the larger trade negotiation.

"Our objective is to have a revitalized NAFTA, a NAFTA that helps America and as part of that the 232s would logically go away both as it relates to Canada and to Mexico," Ross told the Senate Finance Committee in testimony on June 20.

Speaking to reporters in Buenos Aires, Argentina, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said the tariffs are working, but that negotiations were continuing.

"We want an agreement that is fair to Mexico and fair to Canada but maintains the integrity of the president's steel and aluminum programs which have been very successful for the U.S.," he said.

Some policy watchers predict that the tariffs will be lifted soon.

"USTR Lighthizer today carefully acknowledged that the three countries will negotiate on the tariffs. Once they agree that there are demonstrably changed circumstances on metals issues, the metals tariffs on Canada and Mexico likely cease, our instinct is early in the New Year," Terry Haines, an analyst at ISI Evercore, wrote in a note to clients.

But businesses and farmers are growing impatient. An agricultural coalition group formed to oppose tariffs said that U.S. exports targeted with retaliation, including beef, pork and apples have faced more than $1.1 billion in new tariffs, leading to a 21 percent drop in exports.

"While USMCA offers exciting opportunities for market access into America's largest and closest ag export markets, any gains will continue to be offset by the losses farmers are experiencing from retaliatory tariffs as long as they are in place," Brian Kuehl, executive director of Farmers for Free Trade, wrote in a statement.

The influential Business Roundtable also called for a "prompt resolution" of the tariff issue and said it would review the USMCA against the objective of increasing the competitiveness of U.S. companies.

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Six White House officials violated the Hatch Act, agency finds

WASHINGTON – Six Trump White House officials violated the Hatch Act by using their official government social media accounts to engage in political activity, according to a ruling issued Friday by an internal government watchdog agency

The staffers cited include Trump's executive assistant Madeleine Westerhout; principal White House deputy press secretary Raj Shah; deputy communications director Jessica Ditto; Vice President Mike Pence's press secretary Alyssah Farrah; former White House director of media affairs Helen Aguirre Ferré, who left in August; and Jacob Wood, a deputy communications director at the Office of Management and Budget.

None of the officials will face disciplinary action for these violations, the Office of Special Counsel wrote in a letter Friday. (This agency is different from the Justice Department Special Counsel's Office, which is led by Robert Mueller.) Instead, each of the aides has been advised that "if in the future they engage in prohibited political activity ... we will consider such activity to be a willful and knowing violation of the law, which could result in further action."

Signed into law in 1939, the Hatch Act bars employees of the executive branch from using their official positions to actively support or oppose any candidate for federal office. This can mean making political speeches for a candidate, sending letters or endorsements, or publicly promoting one party over another. The president and vice president, however, are exempt from the restrictions. When the OSC finds that employees have violated the Hatch Act, the consequences are typically minimal, and usually consist of a warning or sometimes a remedial briefing on the rules.

Friday's rulings were issued in response to formal complaints filed by the Committee for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a nonprofit public interest watchdog group.

Westerhout was cited for two tweets she posted this spring, both of which contained the acronym MAGA, which is short for Trump's campaign slogan, "Make America Great Again."

Farah was also cited for a MAGA tweet in May that read, "This is what #MAGA looks like: Under @POTUS TRUMP, the unemployment rate is the lowest it's been in 17 years."

Wood and Aguirre Ferré were also both cited for posting tweets that had MAGA in them.

Shah's violation consisted of a June 4 tweet in which he wrote, "Fantastic @RNCResearch release #Winning: 500 Days of American Greatness." The OSC found that Shah's tweet "highlighted research done by a political party and provided a link to the party's website and its research," which constituted a Hatch Act violation.

The final aide to be cited, Jessica Ditto, had committed a violation by retweeting Shah's tweet with the RNC research link, OSC found.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNBC on Friday about the ruling.

CREW's executive director, Noah Bookbinder, said in a statement that the group was "glad" to see the rulings, but he cautioned that official warnings have so far not been enough to stop the steady stream of Hatch Act violations being committed by aides in the Trump White House.

In the five months since the most recent of these Hatch Act violations were committed, Bookbinder said CREW has filed 11 additional complaints with the OSC about apparent violations.

This is hardly the first time that Trump officials have been in hot water for using their official taxpayer funded platforms to advocate for partisan political candidates. Senior White House advisor Kellyanne Conway, White House social media director Dan Scavino and outgoing ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley have all received formal reprimands from OSC for Hatch Act violations since Trump took office.

The violations prompted OSC to issue additional guidelines earlier this year, expressly prohibiting federal employees from posting messages that include "MAGA" or the phrase "Make America Great Again" on their government social media accounts.

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Top VC deals: Bustle buys Mic; Quip raises new capital; Qualcomm aims to back AI

Bustle Digital Group agreed this week to buy digital media company Mic, a company spokesperson confirmed to CNBC. The deal was valued at about $5 million, the Wall Street Journal reported. Mic had previously raised almost $60 million from investors including WPP Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Alumni Ventures Group, according to Crunchbase.

Wave Computing, a Silicon Valley-based cloud company specializing in artificial intelligence, raised $86 million in Series E funding, led by Oakmont Corporation. The round brings total investment in Wave to more than $200 million.

Workforce management company Deputy closed $81 million in Series B funding, led by IVP. The Australian software start-up works with companies like Amazon, Uber and Compass to schedule hourly employees for shifts and pay out wages. Deputy has raised $106 million to date.

Online oral health company Quip raised $40 million in equity and debt financing. The equity round was led by Sherpa Capital. The company mails sleek electric toothbrushes and other oral care products to subscribers and offers ongoing dental advice.

Rheostat Therapeutics announced $23 million in Series A financing. The start-up works to discover new treatments for neurodegeneration, cognition and rare diseases. The round was led by MRLV, a venture capital group within Merck, and AbbVie Ventures. It also included participation from Amgen Ventures, Alexandria Venture Investments and the Mayo Clinic.

Former Snap Chief Strategy Officer Imran Kahn has raised $17.5 million for a new e-commerce start-up, Axios reports. Lightspeed Venture Partners led the investment round, according to Axios. Kahn hasn't commented on the name of the company or what it plans to sell, but an unnamed source tells Axios the start-up with launch in time for the 2019 holiday season.

MondoBrain, an enterprise AI firm, raised $13.3 million in Series A financing, led by French fund Japia. The start-up is headquartered in Virginia and has more than 50 enterprise customers including Airbus and Johnson & Johnson.

Roam Robotics announced $12 million in Series A funding, led by Yamaha Motor Co. The company says it builds "robotic exoskeletons to enhance strength, speed and endurance for everyday people as they live, work and play." Boost VC, Menlo Ventures and Venture Investment Associates also participated in the round.

Tock, a global platform for restaurant and winery reservations, raised $9.5 million in a round led by Valor Equity Partners and Origin Ventures. The start-up manages reservations and seatings for restaurants, similar to OpenTable or Resy, but applies the technology to pop-up shops and event-based businesses as well.

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and Ashton Kutcher's venture fund Sound Ventures were among the backers in a $2 million seed round in LearnLux, a digital financial wellness platform. The start-up offers customized financial services platforms for businesses and employers as a means to reduce stress in the workplace.

Facebook invested $1 million in CodePath.org, a nonprofit that provides computer science education to female and minority students at universities around the country. Since launching its university program three years ago, CodePath.org has taught 1,700 students across 30 universities.

Qualcomm Ventures launched a $100 million AI start-up fund, which will "focus on start-ups that share the vision of on-device AI becoming more powerful and widespread, with an emphasis on those developing new technology for autonomous cars, robotics and machine learning platforms," Qualcomm said. Qualcomm Ventures has previously invested in companies including Cruise, Cloudflare, Fitbit and Magic Leap.

—CNBC's Salvador Rodriguez contributed to this report.

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