alix: we are moments away from the closing bell. i'm alix steel. joe: and i'm joe weisenthal. [closing bell ringing] alix: we've got some cheers there. stocks are falling ahead of greece's referendum. the dollar declined. the jobs report fueling doubts about the timing of higher interest rates. joe: the question is, what did you miss? there is a ton going on today. mixed result in today's unemployment number. we dive inside the data. alix: and the countdown to

greece's crucial referendum. who do you think will win? joe: and we talked to the ceo of popeyes about food costs and the state of the fried chicken industry. alix: stocks snapped a two day winning streak. the dow is still negative for the s&p, this was the first weekly move of about 1% we saw since april. we did see a lot of movement in stocks. you can imagine, everybody quitting their trades and just go to the beach. you're not going to see a lot of volatility or action, but the markets were interpreting the number is more dovish than anything else. joe: nothing too dramatic. one interesting sector -- some developments about easing travel restrictions, so they had a good day. alix: seven days as opposed to

five days. more people l coming. nevertheless, 1367 days since our last correction. that's pretty exciting because we are a week away from earnings. things can get exciting. joe: speaking of countdowns or count up's or anniversaries, this week was the sixth anniversary of the economic recovery. it has been so long and yet it still looks like the recovery is going to go on. there's no recession insight and that's one of these permanently disrespected recoveries. no one has taken it seriously but it keeps chugging along. alix: it's like the run we have seen in u.s. stocks. it's the most hated bowl rally. no one wants to be excited about it but we still climb higher. joe: speaking of economics, i want to take a look at this morning's job numbers and look at the main unemployment rate. it measures discouraged workers,

people on the fringes, we got a nice drop from last month. i'm getting better at circles. this jobs report was not great, but these key indicators -- this is an indicator janet yellen likes to watch. it keeps improving and we keep getting numbers where the fed is going to like what it sees. alix: my deep dive year, i want to get into the bloomberg terminal and talk about the baker hughes recount. this was crazy cool today because for the first time since december, we added oil rigs. it's a slight uptick -- 12 oil rigs added. the reason that was a big deal as we have seen the oil rigs

come off as we have seen oil prices come off and shale has been starting to add some rigs back. all five of the prolific plays added rigs. the reason this matters is if oil companies are coming back again, they are going to keep drilling and that will have some issue for the recovery in oil prices. you will have production slowing. joe: the oil rig declines have become so consistent that i almost stopped paying attention to them. now they are back up. alix: it was really exciting. for more on the big story, i want to bring in our guest, a bank of america merrill lynch head of u.s. equities and quantitative strategy. also an economics professor from the university of oregon.

thank you for joining us on this exciting day. joe: what does today's report mean for the fed? does it change anything for the fed outlook? >> i don't think it's going to change anything about the pace, i think it fits well with the view that we will have a gradual up tick in rates. as far as the timing, it pushes you a little away from september toward december, but we have a few more reports to get do a lot more data. joe: does today's report change anything for your perspective? >> the fed starts in september, they've hiked 25 basis points every other session. but the jobs report today was meh -- that's my technical term, a quantitative term. i agree with the rationale.

it's going to be a quiet summer. there's not that much information a comes out over the next few months. jackson hole. not a lot of fed rhetoric is going to come out over the next couple of months, which is interesting. that could add some nervousness to the market. joe: one of the disappointing numbers was the wage growth number. what do you chalk it up to? why are we disappointed by this number month after month? tim: it's hard to argue anything other than there's a lot of slack in the market. we are above the rate of natural employment and it's keeping a lid on wage growth. that's what we are looking at. alix: the other big part that stood out was the labor force participation rate, at its lowest level since 1977. janet yellen seemed to think as the market recovered, more people would come back into the labor force. is this an anomaly or a trend?

savita: it's hard to say. maybe the structural unemployment level stays high for the next bit of the future. a lot more companies are actually guiding down on wage pressure and are even missing earnings on wage inflation, so that's actually a good sign for the economy, but maybe not a great sign for labor-intensive stocks. alix: if you look at the services sector, we have seen a real diversions and a services sector is not a place where you will see a huge amount of wage increases. what do you think of that? is it here to stay? tim: it looks like it is going to be a persistent trend and that is something beat fed will have to grapple with. on average, the fed looks at wages across the economy and will look at this data and say there are some tantalizing

hints, but we are not seeing the broad-based, stronger wage growth that would raise their interest in speeding up the pace of rate increases. we are just not quite there yet. joe: one of the things about this past week, it was not a particularly great week for hoping they could raise wages. we got the news and the referendum was announced at today's disappointing number. you could see it in the futures curve. what does this mean when you look at the market? this change in perception, does it change your outlook at all? savita: it doesn't. i think we are going to get out of that zero bound. that's a resounding positive for stocks. there's a lot of nervousness

around the fed rate hike, but it could be the signal we need in the u.s. and on a global basis because it tells us this $4.5 trillion experiment we engaged in with easing our way out of the recession, we're finally ready to unwind liquidity. i don't see it as a big risk to the stock market overall. i think the timing is tricky, but we know it's going to happen in the next month. just get it behind us and get off the zero. 0% on the fed funds rate is for an emergency situation. we are not in an emergency situation anymore. joe: just a little housekeeping -- our twitter winner from yesterday, got 275 k. that was the closest of the people that we did.

congratulations -- i can't read the name that we will get something out to you. alix: rapidfire here -- tim, what's the number one thing you want to know? tim: the fomc minutes and janet yellen. savita: earnings. we need to see topline growth to feel better about this recovery. joe: i can't think about anything until the referendum on sunday. alix: i'm thinking about china. the shanghai composite under 4000. cpi coming out midweek. joe: thank you very much. alix: coming up, we will speak to a member of the european parliament ahead of the referendum in greece. she might have some strong words. ♪

alix: i'm alix steel. joe: i'm joe weisenthal. alix: another democrat is making the bid for the white house. jim webb announcing his campaign today. he formed an exploratory committee in november. he's a former marine and decorated vietnam veteran and had a brief stint as secretary of the navy in 1987. joe: nascar once you to leave your confederate flag at home.

they are asking fans to refrain from displaying the stars and bars. in a statement, the facility say they want welcoming environment in all of sports. alix: it just keeps coming, the confederate flag backlash. those are your top stories. joe: greece remains in focus ahead of the sunday referendum where the broader implications of the outcome are being way. -- weighed. what's it like on the ground in athens and what consequences could devote have? a member from the european parliament joins us now from athens. thank you for joining us. what do you make of this situation your countries in with the referendum in which weight do you think it will go?

>> it's a very confusing situation because nobody knows what the consequences will be, so it is very difficult to predict, but i think yes is rising a little bit in the last few hours. nobody knows what will happen next. i'm afraid people are not only confused, they believe know would be a heroic move to stay in the eurozone while the government disagrees. the government believes they cannot comply and we will have to be starting over the government. joe: do you think the government is being honest with the greek people? they continue to insist a no vote will not risk their position in the euro zone. do you believe that? eva: yes, i know that because i'm in the european parliament and i know there's a different language outside and inside. everybody on the outside is saying there is no discussion and we cannot trust this government. and the government says no would

be ok and in the next day we must have an agreement with this government. this is confusing and i think it could seem to manipulate citizens, to blackmail them. even by changing the constitution and the law to bring the referendum a few days earlier, so nobody knows exactly and nobody is well-informed. referendums don't happen like that. it's not proper for our democracy. alix: if the greek trimester and prime minister were standing in front of you right now, what would you want to say to them? eva: that i'm sorry for what i've seen in my country. i never thought i would see the greek republic face this. trying to send money to our friend and they have lost our credit cards.

i would say that they lied because they have promised to get the negotiation and agreement and instead of resigning, we try to pass the responsibility. the attention is huge and they are trying to make it even stronger. it should be a government of all greeks and not to support the campaign like that. also saying the army is taking care of the stability inside the country, it doesn't seem to have the democracy. joe: this morning, the greek finance ministers that even the event of a no vote, they could reach an agreement with creditors in an hour. is that completely delusional? eva: yes. i listened to the creditors and

i have been listening to them for five or six months. if the greek government wanted an agreement, it could reach an agreement. the differences were minor. they tried to impose more and sensitive taxation, some form that would make the system viable. i do believe this is the blame game, i hope the members of the parliament will stop any intention. alix: thank you for staying up so late for us. we appreciated it. coming up, you will hear from the ceo of popeyes. what is driving their growth domestically and abroad. joe loves fried chicken. joe: i do. ♪

alix: welcome back. the fast food industry has taking a quick approach to ditching trans fat, others are playing catch-up. we're looking at same-store sales across the board. joe: you can see how weak most of them are doing. mcdonald's is down 2%. popeyes is surging 7% with same-store sales growth. alix: and that is fried chicken, not healthy yogurt. we spoke with the ceo on wednesday. take a listen. >> our number one driver or is our louisiana roots. we are blessed to have that brand equity to build on.

second, we have our sweat equity to make it come to life in every community we serve. >> there is a lot of discussion about the minimum wage and the whole fight for 15 of the drive to a low-wage employees more. how does that affect your business and how do you think about the value of paying your employees and what you get out of it? cheryl: for us, the minimum wage is a starting wage. we are excited to help people launch their careers, but it is a career and we quickly move people into management and into supervision and franchising as a career path. we focus on a balance between a good, competitive starting wage. we are often above the minimum wage and we worked quickly to help you aspire to a career in the restaurant industry.

>> one of the things we have seen is a quick rate in the fast food industry has been on the rise. at the low end, companies come out in force to pay more to retain employees. has that pressured your business? cheryl: we are a fast growing company and the result of that is we are opening new restaurants and offering a lot of emotion opportunities that insulates us from the turnover. alix: i'm a commodities clever, -- lover, so i want to ask about how you manage her cost. if you look at chicken prices over the last decade, they are up 55%. chicken is more than 40% of your overall cost. how do you manage that? cheryl: it is a commodity business and this year, we had a significant increase in chicken prices at the beginning of the year. through judicious pricing action, we managed it across our entire menu that allowed us to stay competitive.

our comps were up despite modest price increasing across the menu. we expect chicken to settle down in the second half and we are looking forward to that. joe: you have been able to show pricing power and pass that along to the consumer? cheryl: yes, because we are a growing and healthy brand. you have to be strong to pricing power. alix: i've been looking at the avian flu affecting 47 million birds. you said that has not affected you. what's the distinction between that and egg laying chickens? cheryl: that is where the confusion lies. avian flu has only effected the birds that lay eggs. you see it in supply and pricing. it has not effected the broiler chicken, which is the chicken we eat. it has not affected our business. the good news for the egg people is that the season is about over and summer will bring that to a close.

alix: chickens get to roam free. they don't get infected as much by the flu. joe: i want to talk about -- the u.s. is seen as one of the strongest economies in the world. where are the areas outside the u.s. where you are seeing strong growth and growth potential? cheryl: the interesting thing about popeyes is we have the opportunity to double our footprint plus grow internationally. internationally, the sky is limit because people love spicy food, chicken and seafood. they love our brand as the fastest-growing chicken brand in the world. we have very exciting growth going on in turkey and southeast asia. latin america. alix: does the strong dollar help or hinder you? cheryl: the dollar fluctuates. working with our franchisees, we adjust overtime to accommodate that. alix: does that mean you hedge or take it on the chin? cheryl: we are not big in

hedging. it's our franchise royalties we have to keep an eye on. joe: why is fried chicken so good? i love it. cheryl: it's amazing. our chicken is marinated in louisiana spices and made chris crispy batter that you love. alix: it's the batter and it is fried. what's not to love? cheryl: the different salads. alix: joe ate his weight in fried chicken after that taping. i ratted you out. ♪

alix: don't miss this -- contagion. where is it? not in europe. look at the positive outflows between spain and greece. track each other for years and then greased the verges -- greece diverges now. joe: that's basically the whole story of what's going on in europe. alix: you are headed to athens tomorrow. what are you most excited about? joe: we will be doing a live special on sunday evening live

from athens. everyone's got to watch it. thanks for watching. alix: we will be back here on monday. happy fourth. ♪ >> from our studios in new york

city, this is "charlie rose." we begin with our continuing coverage of the greek debt crisis. prime minister alexis tsipras gave a speech today, after he offered a new w proposal to the eurozone. he accepted most of the terms from previous negotiations with him conditions attached. joining me now is erik schatzker . here in new york, peter coy,