 Fears that the Amazon effect would kill the retail sector now seem to be overblown Despite a majority of consumer switching to online shopping over brick-and-mortar stores retail giants are adjusting by offering more online options and revamping their stores these new retail environments proving successful for stores like Target Walmart JCPenney and Nordstrom all seeing growth in recent earnings reports Let's take it to our markets panel invest market advisory group principal Michael Lee and stock swoosh on her Melissa Armo. Melissa, I want to ask you first about retail specifically We kept saying that retail is dead and it looked like it was dead You you have online that is taking over everything Amazon is the new Walmart back 20 years ago People were about Walmart killing all the mom-and-pop stores now It's Amazon killing Walmart and killing everybody, but you have a bifurcated market at least as far as earnings You have Sears is heading to the tar pit It certainly looks like you have gap earnings down Then you have Macy's coals and Target that just blew away earnings. So what is going on retail? Well, it's very interesting because Amazon is still the strongest in that sector. I mean, they're still making new highs constantly So everyone's still competing against Amazon, but I've got to tell you Target came out this week with earnings They were up Walmart had earnings the other week They they were up huge overnight and I like that stock too So these these stores that have the brick-and-mortars are trying to compete in the store and online with Amazon Amazon does not have an online store So they if they can compete with them in both arenas the Walmarts and the targets can go up against these people the JCPenney's and the Sears Unfortunately, I mean those stocks just don't look too great. I I don't think they're out the door I mean, I don't know Michael. I want to ask you about Sears specifically once the dinosaur starts heading for the tar pit Tends to never make a turnaround. They try with Yahoo It was e-commerce company obviously, but it seems to me Sears is just hanging on his Sears own life support here And will not be around in the next five years Yeah, well Eddie Lampert has gone in and he's tripped out all the good assets for his hedge fund I don't you know, Sears days are clearly numbered at this point. Do you think Eddie Lampert ruined it? You know Well, he brought in some really smart guys to turn it around, you know, 12 to 15 years ago Maybe even a little bit longer at this point and then he none of them stuck around He didn't want to pay these guys and then slowly but surely it's been like the Dutch boys sticking his fingers in the holes The dike like it's just been one problem after another and then with Amazon coming along I just the days are clearly numbered for this company. You have to be innovative I'll tell you one thing Walmart's done and this is really recent and was before the earnings came out You can go and online and buy furniture and put it in a room like a 3d virtual Like if I want to go buy furniture for a living room, that's pretty cool So you have to be innovative if you're gonna compete against Amazon and Sears and JC penny have not been innovative enough to compete I want to ask you about something that is incredibly innovative and that is Netflix Netflix has the best predictive software there is That's one of the reasons for their success They've not been able to get replicated despite the fact that a lot of these companies have some incredible AI scientists working on this stuff But the model doesn't necessarily make sense to me I get the fact that they have this incredible content There's incredible predictive software, but you have incredible competition right now coming from Amazon coming from Apple And coming from everybody in the world now streaming Netflix is at a new high Does Netflix continue on this bull run? I really like Netflix is along now it failed in the earnings I wouldn't necessarily buy in here but looking at the market ahead and bullish in the market So Netflix is still in the uptrend even though it crashed on the earnings I still think it can make new highs like you said what I do like though I think the strongest point is Netflix as far as they're creating their own content Otherwise if you want to watch show ABC, you must subscribe or you won't get it That's the only way you can see that show and once you're in and you've got it And you're in love with that show you know, we have a favorite show whatever the show is like the show You want to watch it every night? You don't want to miss it And so that is something they're ahead of the game with Apple with that They're ahead of the game with these other companies and that's that's why Disney is trying to do more of that too And that's why Disney now pulled back and they're gonna be doing their own content and putting it out even more in a special way Where you must subscribe to that specific channel online and on TV to get it And that is one of the reasons I like Netflix I know the model as far as the profitability you look at that say well This doesn't make any sense, but look at what the stock has done It's split and now it's halfway up again behind where it was in before it split whenever that was three years ago Michael what worries you? I mean it was is there's a lot of people out there with incredible optimism There's also people on the other side that says we need to get a bunker and canned food and go hide from the coming apocalypse out There this the longest bull market in history. What worries you is that a presidential alleged payoff to a porn star? Is it inflation? Is it the house turning to the Democrats? Is it the trade war? What out there worries you? You know what if something bad is going to happen or something's going to turn this market It's something we don't know about one of the reasons I think retail is taking off is that since November of 2016 you've seen a remarkable turnaround on the people of the lower end of the labor scale meaning those with less in high school education or only a high school Education the unemployment rate for people with the high school education or less has basically been cut in half over the last three years and What's not talked about is when you add when you look at wage growth when you add not only hours were Average hourly earnings when you add additional hours worked plus one-time bonuses average hourly earnings are up about 5% What we hear about is this consumer debt bubble? I can tell you right now this consumer debt bubble simply does not exist when you look at debt to assets It's at the lowest level in 30 years and when you look at debt service to disposable income So the percentage of after-tax money it takes to service the consumer debt It's also at the lowest level in 30 years It sounds like you're very bullish Michael Extremely super Melissa and Michael. Sorry. We got to cut you off there We got a whole show to get to and Steve Maltepe's one of the greatest sports gamblers in the world is going to be on here later today The family of Arizona senator John McCain stating today that he is spending his treatment for brain cancer Well wishes pouring in from congressional colleagues after the announcement McCain was diagnosed last summer with an aggressive form of brain cancer and had been undergoing chemotherapy and radiation treatments He turns 82 next week. Our best wishes are for you senator McCain You are a war hero, sir And so many in this world had looked up to you and we thank you for being who you are the best wishes to you and your family, sir Coming up big tech meeting today