good morning. cyprus fighting for its financial life. oracle disappoints the street and management is blaming the sales force. plus, the bull kb with another shot in the arm from bernanke continue? the rally, we did see stocks rally yesterday after the fed pledged to stay the course. it's thursday, march 21st, the day we've all been waiting for on march madness starts in earnest today. i'm not going to tell you what time because you have to watch cnbc. but anyway, it's march 21st,

2013. "squawk box" begins right now. >> good morning, everybody. welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc. i'm becky quick along with joe kernen. andrew ross sorkin is in new orleans this morning where some of the most powerful players in the world of on mergers and acquisitions are gathering for a conference at tulane. he'll be joining us there in the next hour. we are continuing to follow the fragile situation in cyprus this morning. first, our top stories here in the states, stocks rallying after the fed reaffirmed its policies on bond purchases and is record low interest rates. the dow hitting a new intraday high. u.s. equity futures at this hour are indicated a little weaker. dow futures are down by 26, 27 points right now. s&p futures down by almost 5 points. on the economic agenda this morning, we have weekly jobless claims. also exiting home sales. the fhfa philadelphia price

index. so a lot of different numbers coming offer we this morning. the jobless claims come out the at 8:30. in quarterly news, oracle fell short of wall street targets. the cfo says that macroeconomic forces were not a factor here. the company warning that its ailing hardware business will lose more ground this quarter. shares fell on the news in the after hours. we're going to be talking to an analyst this morning who covers oracle. that's at the top of the next hour. in other technology news, hewlett packard shareholders have re-elected the company's board. the chairman, ray lane and three others narrowly kept their seats. they had been criticized for their roles in the batched $ 1 billion acquisition. but, again, the board was re-elected. boeing plans to conduct two

flight tests of its revamped 787 battery system as soon as the end of this week. the plane has been grounded since january and, joe, i'll send it over to you for more news. >> i he like that with oracle. think if you were one of the salespeople. >> there are thousands of new people that have been coming on board. they worked getting things as quickly as the third quarter. it was interesting what the cfo said that this is a situation where they don't know to make sure that they close those deals by the end of the quarter. >> yeah. slackers or something. you know salesmen. the world resolves around salespeople. they say it's not even plaque row. usually that's wa we'll say. >> it was said there was a sense of urgency that was lacking. >> yikes. i'd hate to be one of those guys. i'm alone here. where is sorkin?

>> new orleans. he will be there at tulane. >> new orleans. that's cool. >> give me 30 seconds, i'll be right back. >> come on over. we have to check out to see how his eyes look this morning, thorls. >> i bet he he has benyaese with him, the doughnuts. >> yeah. i thought you were talking about something totally different. >> we'll see whether he's totally a mess. >> he's 23409 joining us until 7:00. >> he isn't? no. >> cyprus is desperately searching for a plan b today. has to find billions of euros to secure an eu bailout and avert a financial meltdown. our chief international correspondent who has been known to tie one on herself, michelle caruso cabrera joins us with the

late latest. this is serious stuff. pardon me. what have you got, michelle? >> it is serious. it is serious. in fact, let me show you some photos that we just took right around the corner from us is an atm machine where a long line has started to form. we just did the interviews. we haven't been able to send back the film. they are desperate and very angry and they are frightened and they can't believe they're living through this situation. the reason they're living through this situation is something has to be decided and very, very soon about what they're going to do in order to raise capital to bail out two bad banks that they have here. let me show you where things stand right now. the biggest headline is the european central bank has set a deadline. cyprus has to come up with a plan by monday or come up with liquidity assistance. that means they cut off the banks and that would mean the banks have collapsed. without any plan in place, that could force an exit from the euro.

everything moves very fast the. then the minister of finance is still in russia, still trying to secure some kind of deal. but it's unclear whether or not that's ever going to happen in time. now, by a weird yet wonderful coincidence, here in cypress at the same time is adam lerrich of the american enterprise institute. he was supposed he to be here to make a speech at a conference and yet he is an expert on global fsn financial crises, you've seen, what, ten of them, argentina, etcetera. great to have you here at this time. >> my pleasure, michelle. >> you've seen this movie so many times. what choices does cypress have right now? >> right now, unless the russians bail them out or the europeans, they can come up with the cash revenue probably towards a deposit tax on the large depositors which would lead to a tax of around 15% or 16%. or they can basically

restructure their two bad banks. it would be very simple to do that. what would happen is the banks would write off all their equity, write-off their senior debt, write-off their dpovt subordinated debt. and then the large depositors would president owners of the new bank and convert. >> narrator: between 50% and 30% of their new depositors in the banks. >> could they say we don't want to do anything of those? >> certainly they can choose to do that. i don't think that's necessary. basically, if they do nothing, and the ecb carries through with its policy of cutting off liquidity on monday, they will have no choice but to restructure the two banks. >> are you surprised to see lines forming? >> no. depositors are frightened for their money. they've been told there's a high likelihood of the banks closing and staying closed for a period of time. in fact, the lines are not as long as i would have expected

them. >> wow. interesting 30i7b9. i had a discussion with simon hobbs, my colleague, yesterday on the air. he says, michelle, the markets are rallying. i said, simon, i think it's that the markets don't care all that much about cyprus. it's too small to matter. well, i think one thing the eurozone learned last monday is they were they were potentially going to be a massive run on the banks in europe. they came back down. so if anything, the eurozone has gotten more comfort that there is no contagion risk. why is the market so tough? either market they can just solve this problem and is we don't have to worry or the market doesn't care. i think it's the latter. >> you think the market doesn't care? >> i think the market doesn't care. sicyprus is a tiny economy.

its banks are not highly connected with the rest of the international financial system. there is no risk of contagion here. >> adam, actually, of all the ideas you laid out, which do you think is the least bad of all those solutions? is it going ahead and letting the banks fail? >> that would be my preferred route. failure implies that the banks can't pay their depositors. they are restructuring. they will be very orderly. basically, the banks would be closed for two days. what would come out is when they reopen, the depositors would be the large depositors because the small depositors would be fully protected. the large depositors would be the owners of a bank and they would have deposits of somewhere between 50 1k3 60 or 70% of their money and the rest of the shares in the new bank. the banks would be solvent. the banks could be highly capitalized and they would then have access to the ecb for refinancing to provide any liquidity. >> and the fallout from that

would be that the russians -- >> and basically -- >> the fallout for that is that the russians are the ones who are unhappy for that. the eu it's not a big deal for. for cyprus, in the future, they need to come up with a new way to propel the economy because they're not necessarily going to do it st way they had been doing it to this point? >> that's right. in any case, cyprus is going to have to restructure the economy. cyprus's banking system reaches close to 1,000% of its economy. the eu has already announced that it dmandz demands cyprus return that economy to 20% of gdp, talking about reducing it by two-thirds. that's going to happen in any case. right now, the question is, how quickly can you solve this problem? if you do it with restructuring of the bank, which is quite simple and that can be done in a couple of days, you reduce the government's financing demand requirement down to approximately 5 billion euros.

because then all your financing are the government deficits. >> adam, thank you so much. >> my pleasure. >> becky, you highlight a really good point. what is very clear from this government and also from the people on the ground that i've spoken with is they absolutely don't want to see a reduction in the sides of the banking system here because they know that is what 50% of the economy and a ton of the jobs, as well. they realize it's going to be a change of livelihood. changes that will happen in this country no matter what are going to be startling to the people here. >> i saw all the headlines coming from russia and the president here making strong comments. is that going to fall on deaf ears in europe? is that not a big deal as far as they're concerned? >> that would be my interpretation, absolutely. would you agree with that, adam? whatever russia says is going to fall on deaf ears when it comes to the troika? >> it doesn't fall on deaf ears. but the europeans have made a categoric statements. cypress has to come up with 5.8 billion euros.

it can't be through new loans, it can't be through the pension funds, it can't be through securitized tax. even if they're going to come up with a tax on deposits or something else, they're going to have to solve the banks without the cash. >> but they don't care about the russi russians? >> they care about the russians, but not enough to give them another 5 billion euros. >> michelle, that you can very much and adam, thank you. >> that's the thing that really got me there was the 0.2% of the european economy he. so if you were to trade just the slightest inclination for the fed to go longer, which they said yesterday, you know, cyp s cyprus, if you can trade that for 0.2% of the european economy, wouldn't you take -- i'd take the positive of what's -- of the effect on what the fed said and the possible negative effects and the ripple effects on the economy for 0.2% of the european economy. >> right.

and if the europeans have laid down -- if the eu has laid down these strict laws, guidelines and said we're not giving beyond that, it's a problem if they cross the imaginary line at that point, anyway. >> and it's fascinating. it really is about russian oligarchs that were parking money in places that they knew -- because the real story is much more interesting. >> you can understand why the germans are like, forget it, we're not bailing them out. >> exactly. and they're fed up in general. it's like seinfeld. they don't forget the -- >> they have a different sense of humor, very different. >> i'm german, too. >> i know. so you're allowed to -- >> i'm allowed to say that. >> let's take a look at the global markets report. kelly evans is standing by in london. kel le, tell us more about any potential ripple effects if there are any. >> becky, here is what is so interesting. if you were to take a glance behind me, having heard the reports from michelle or news out of cyprus or lack thereof

this morning, you might think this is contechnologion from that event. not necessarily. what's interesting is this has more to do with the real problems across the eurozone right now and it's fundamentally a lack of growth. we got some really disappointing figures on this pmi indexes this morning that show germany with the xetra dax down 0.9%. surprisingly in contraction territory in march. these are the flash estimates. its service sector activities readings slurchled if the french data was awful so the bottom line is across the upper row zone. the economy continues to get worse. it looks like the first quarter will be the sixth straight quarter of recession. without a sharp rebound, there could be a seventh straight quarter of recession. anyway, the ftse mib, want to point out an interesting development here on the ibex. this has taken a leg down in the last half hour or so. this is one you would want to watch for more direct fallout, markets picking up on contagion risk and not picking up on

growth. let's take a look at some of the bond yields, as well. the fact that spanish and is italian debt is rallying, the fact that spain went to market rates more than expected when it comes to -- i think it was 2015, 2018, 2021 debt suggests 4.18%, 4.58% respectively. investors here are buying into the weakness for these sovenss which are seen as must vulnerable. finally, here is a look at forex. we did see the euro under pressure this morning. the euro is down 0.3%. it is below 1.29. the fact that this is below 1.29, the markets should potentially be a reason -- should give people some pause, i should say, so there is potentially market fallout, but it's not anything like what you might expect. so pack to the point, either markets think the cyprus issue will be resigned or they don't care. my money is on the former, although there might be a little bit of the latter, as well.

back over to you guys. >> okay, kelly. thank you. don't bet. >> here in britain, there's a betting shop on every corner. >> this is from the man who spends hours and hours filling out his bracket. >> i can eat you alive. there's no money on the line here. >> who did you pick to win? >> the president and i have the same team winning it all. it's not the very first thing we've agreed on in terms of policy, but -- >> who? >> indiana. >> it has to be a sign of the top or something, a sign of the apocalypse? >> louisville is tough. and miami, i can't think how good -- gonzaggonzaga. >> i haven't filled mine out yesterday. >> you have until 11:00 a.m.

>>. >> i've got plans. i need more screens, more dvrs. >> you've been practicing for about three months. >> and i'm going to finish in last. i know way too much. >> i'm going to pick based on the colors of the uniforms and i'm going to beat you. >> it's a good idea. coming up, the growing business of marijuana, the story of entrepreneurs capitalizing on states legalizing pot. president obama making the short trip from jerusalem to the west bank this morning, he's meeting with palestinian leaders. the president is on its first visit to the middle east since becoming president. and finally, for anyone that grew up in the '70s, or '60s and '7on 0s like i did, you're not going to know anything about this. but the lead obituary in the "new york times," this is a big deal, believe it or not. harry reen, who was the first bona fide male adult film actor. he was the star of "deep

throat." obviously. he was paid $250 to appear in that movie and it earned $6 00 million. he died at the age of 65. he he became a first amendment cause celeb. allen dirchuwitz represented him at one time. handle bar moustache. tae, but i would not bring that up, other than it is the lead obituary in the "new york times." $250 and the grossed $600 million. anyway, he's gone and we're going to go to break. [ male announcer ] what?! investors could lose

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welcome back. u.s. equities are weaker this morning after finishing higher for the markets. dow futures down about 28 points. s&p futures off by about 28 points below fair value. in our headlines, south korea has been investigating a cyber attack on a number of its major companies. officials say initial findings show a chinese internet address was the source of an attack, but experts say attackers launch attacks from other countries in a sense of trying to keep their own identities from being

exposed. suspicion has quickly fallen on north korea. >> let's get to the national forecast. you know what? i was channeling my man, my man from the weather channel, reynolds wolf. you didn't see my bit yesterday -- reynolds, it was the first day of spring yesterday. i had to dig out my car today. so i went over a list of cities that had temperatures like 15 degrees below normal and every time i said it, it's 15 degrees below normal which, of course, indicates global warming. and then i went to the next one, 20 degrees below normal which of course -- because everything indicates global warming. even when they're down 20 degrees below normal, that somehow is different than the norm, so it must indicate global warming. >> we talk. he's really smart. and he's smartly dressed.

>> there's some people in parts of the northeast that wish that we had some global warming right about now. we're talking about the first full day of spring and still it's very chilly in parts of the northeast. there are a few scatter heed showers out there. for the extreme southern plains, we've got print of shine, snow showers possible in kansas city. could see snow for parts of the graix. out of the to the west, it's relatively quitette in los angeles and sfrarchl. beautiful. partly cloudy skies, 86 degrees. missoula, you've got snow showers mixed in are drain drops. tleent r atlanta, no delays at hartsfield-jackson. is so far, so good. >> and there you are, pollen did again. your buddy, eric fisher, i see him on nightly news every night with his sleeves rolled up and

no jacket. just a lot tip, you don't want to look better than brian williams if you want to be on his show. so maybe lose the -- you know, the little thing and the scarf because you don't want to one up him. >> very true. excellent point. i will definitely keep that one filed. >> you do look -- but you couldn't look better than brian or you won't be on the show. eric dresses down a little. >> he dresses like us. >> it's tough to look better than brian, no matter what. >> it is stilt a little too cold for a convertible here in the northeast, but if you're taking a business trip where it's warm, how about renting a drop top? road warriors are now ditch the boring mid size sedan and impress clients with an impressive set of wheels.

ender prices added porsches, bentleys and other vehicles. a company rents audi exclusively. then you have imagine lifestyles and others lending ferraris, aston martins. wa do you think, joe? >> expensive. >> the silver car audis are about $75 a day. porsches from hertz, about $300 a day. not bad if you want to impress somebody. 6/and the enterprise bentley, close to $1,000. not bad if you want to show it off for one day. you get the okay from your finance department before you do this, that would away word to the wise. >> you know who would use that was that guy that was dating what's her face and was acting like he was rich. >> oh, right, rafael and --

>> those who people love to hate. ann hathaway. >> all right. let's get to this. the legalization of marijuana and colorado and washington is leading to a new industry. fortunes roger parloff writes the magazine's latest cover story talking to entrepreneurs saying, yes, we cannibus. full disclosure, i went to school in boulder and i don't know what has changed. is it more legal now than it was in the '70s? >> it is. as of november, it just got really legal in colorado and in washington. and it's really -- if eric holder let's it go forward, the attorney general, it will be more liberal than amsterdam or something like that. for the first time, this is not just medical, but for the first time, you would be licensing cultivators and wholesalers and

retailers. so you would have a real industry. >> why hasn't washington, d.c. -- not washington state, but why hasn't eric holder or anywhere from the administration said, hold on a minute, this is not compatible for what we have as a federal law? >> well, i think one reason is -- and he could make a statement any minute, really. he's overdue to make a statement. but the margins were about 60% in colorado. i'm sorry, about 30% -- >> you'd be going over federalism. you would be saying to the states that you -- >> yeah. and both times, he was a candidate, obama sort of tilted in the direction, hinted that he didn't want to get involved in conflicting with the states. he was going to let the states handle this. but he's really at a difficult point and nine of the former dea

administrators have wriven to him and said, you know, have written to holder and said the time is running out. there's an industry that's going to start and you need to do something now. >> it doesn't seem like we need another -- another vice that can hurt -- i mean, it's -- >> i think we need another tax source. >> that's what i mean. i see wa you're talking about there. if you look at the on the one hand at, you know, a pet peeve of mine, you look at bloomberg where we've gotten -- i don't know what is next, really. you're adding something that's theoretically, you could argue has similar effects to smoking cigarettes if you smoke too much. it's not good for your lungs long-term. >> you know, i think they've had a problem ever proving that. >> really? >> yeah. >> are you a donor? >> no, no. but they can't prove that. >> taking unfiltered smoke into your lungs?

>> increasingly, you don't have to smoke it. they have these vaporizers. >> really? >> ya he. i can't demonstrate, but these were the sorts of products that i was looking at. >> but this is not medicinal, either. >> it's for wellness. >> it's for wellness. it can be like viagra. three pills have been used for the actual disease since it came out. but that's amazing. gambling, we seem to turn a blind eye, lotteries. >> you bring up a great point about how these are businesses that are investing a ton of money and they're assuming these laws are going to stand. the legalization is going to -- >> these places can be visited by tourists. >> that's another thing eric holder has to decide is how are they going to handle that vis-a-vis the neighboring states. but, anyway, what i did was i attended this investor conference in seattle where a bunch of investors who want to invest in the legitimate

cannabis industry were meeting with entrepreneurs who were pitching products. and that's what the story is about. >> but in general, with the way new york city is going, that has a polar opposite to what you're talking about here. you're hiding soda. eventually. i mean, it's pathetic, i admit it, but -- >> well, i think the prohibit n prohibition -- the anti-prohibitation case is an -- >> bloomberg should study that when we're dealing with salt and coca-cola. roger he, appreciate it. thank you. >> sure. when we come back, chairman ben bernanke did want disappoint yesterday. we have the full story and the market reaction right after this. thank you orville and wilbur... ...amelia... neil and buzz: for teaching us that you can't create the future...

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welcome back, everybody. let's focus on the markets. standing by at the cme is scott nations. how about all the concerns that have been out there? cypr cyprus, the market seems to be shrugging that off. you are worried that things are are priced for perfection right now in the markets. >> short-term, you see this market. they're taking the something like cyprus, as you say, at least the u.s. markets primarily shrugging it off. and it's going to take something to derail this market. i don't think it's going to happen before we set a new high on the suspect.

b s&p. but after that, we're expecting so much good news that the news is going to be disappointing. about. >> we got a taste of that yesterday with fedex and oracle. are you concerned about what companies are going to say about the global economy? >> i am because it seems that earnings preannouncements are not as good as they usually are about now. fedex, i think, might be a one off. u.p.s. might actually be the beneficiary of fedex's problems. so kind of wa goes -- >> did fedex raise prices too high? >> i think they have too much overnight capacity. u.p.s. will be the beneficiary of that when it comes to second day or next day slower ground delivery. fedex obviously has too much capacity to asia and they're going to talk about grounding some planes. so i think that a lot of the problems from fedex are fedex specific. but they do point to problems in the worldwide economy. although, you know, this morning, we got some pretty good news out of china. so i don't think china is going

to be the problem going forward. i think it's going to be the fact that german manufacturing is not everything we might hope it would be and that's going to be -- german manufacturing is simply the beating heart of the eurozone. >> sure. on top of all those things, i forgot about caterpillar, too. you can call all these things one offs. fedex is saying that it's pricing issues with some of these things. but at some point, do you start to look at a lot of one offs and say, wait a second, there's a bigger tren here that we worry? >> i'm already looking at that. fedex is a tremendous read on what's going on in the u.s. economy. caterpillar, oracle, not just u.s. economy, but the global economy. europe is very, very weak. was going to happen in emerging markets, china, i think is questionable. so i just think there's a lot of question marks out there and the market is not pricing that in right now. >> no. that's a really good point. scott, i guess the federal reserve sees a lot of those

question marks, too. they made the point that they don't want to get into a situation where they pullback too quickly because they don't want to see something that's unsustainable gains in the labor market. i guess that's the good news if anybody is waiting for anything is that the fed is still standing by. >> i think what the fed had to say is essentially bullish for everything in the world except for change. because they don't seem like they want to make any changes except for the news that mr. bernanke has now had a conversation with the president about his tenure. and it seems more likely than ever that his term will come to an end in january. unfortunately, it's going no be just about the time that we really have to start changing the regime as far as the accommodation is concerned. but i understand he's been in auchs for seven years and might want to be doing something else. >> he's been in office for seven years and you can't say his name. >> bernanke. >> why is that so hard? i don't understand. >> it's a -- >> it's a sub-iq thing, i think.

how can you not say bernanke? hey, scott ashens. how are you doing, scott ashens? why can't you say his name? >> he just did. >> joe, i didn't know it was a problem for pup. >> it's a huge problem. seven years. you're on options action. >> george, it warms my heart that you're that worried about my pronunciation. oh, did i say george? i meant joe. >> i don't get it. i think it's disrespect. is that what it is? >> no, i think it's a chicago thing. everybody here in chicago -- >> it's an old dog new tricks thing. from now on i'll call him mr. greenspan ii. >> i'm shorting all your picks on options action. seriously. i think your credibility is formed by that. >> he corrected it. scott, thank you. >> i'm going to -- >> we'll see you on "options

action." every word i'm going to do without pronouncing -- >> thank you. >> i'm glad you watch, joe. glad you watch. >> coming up, is we love logistics. so it's oh, surprise -- no, it's no surprise u.p.s. collects lots of data on every package shipped, but wait until you hear how much information. how much information the company is grabbing and why other companies are standing up and taking notice. that's from u.p.s.'s chief information officer next. first, though, and on the date in history trivia question, what happened seven years ago today? i know what happened -- yeah. a lot of things happened in the world. find out when "squawk box" returns. ♪

[ construction sounds ] ♪ [ watch ticking ] [ engine revs ] come in. ♪

got the coffee. that was fast. we're outta here. ♪ [ engine revs ] ♪

into welcome ba . welcome back, everybody. what happened seven years ago today? the first tweet was sent. twitter founder jack dorsey sent that tweet. it read "just setting up my twttr. i" you might notice something strange in his tweet. there are vowels missing because the twitter name didn't add the "i" and the "e" until december 2006. >> interesting. in the shipping industry, time is money. and you'll see in a second, it's amazing, a little bit of either can make a big difference to a company. joining us on set, u.p.s. chief information officer, dave barnes, he's in charge of

collecting every piece of information possible on every package that the company handles. are you some kind of -- are you gee geeky? >> no. university of missouri. >> university of missouri. in preparing for this, it's just mind boggling what you guys do. and we should have known this logistical logistically, which is a slogan for u.p.s. 6.3 million packages a day serving 8.8 million customers and you delivered 6.3 million packages, but there are 39.5 million tracking requests every day for 16 million packages. so people are calling more than once to find out where their package is. >> they definitely are. >> you should have never given them that opportunity. >> it has truly grown xwraund our dreams. our peak is 65 million tracks on our days. >> and you know where these things are? >> we do. we know where packages are at any given times.

our customs software is a preponderance. >> and then i saw this, that one minute reduction of idle time is 400 grand a year. one less mile driven by a driver saves 30 million a year. so if you -- you've got guys driving around saying, where is this place? that is not what you need. >> no. our drivers are professionals. but nonetheless, we're always looking at big data to try to get insights from it and see if we can go after the goals. when you look at a idea of one mile being worth $30 million, we have the motivation to try and discover new -- >> i love our guy. we have the same guy. is that typical? >> yes, it is. you have the same driver doing a similar route. >> do most wives have a package delivered just about every day? >> many deliveries. >> i don't know how many on million we see. this -- now that i think about with u.p.s., you're not alone, i'm sure.

this data that the s&p 500 is crunching on any given day is just mind boggling. >> yeah. it's ee mormus amounts of data. it's kind of an avenue contain name. >> peda bytes. let me give a creditor for that. if you look at paper stored in a package car, typical package car of u.p.s., one pedabyte is the equivalent of 32,000 cars and we store 16 of those. >> so of troubles, you said? >> trucks, yeah. >> each one filled with paper -- >> it would be 322,000 of those. >> right. >> do you store that and -- do you have to get rid of the requests as soon as the package was delivered, right? you don't keep that stuff around? >> there's new data coming in 24 hours a day, 365, but we do store tremendous amounts of it. >> dave, when did you start

doing this data mining? i mean, this is something you guys picked up on very early, i would assume. >> we did. we looked at this back in the '80s and there were two things going. one was come pewtational power was dropping in costs, growing in capabilities. and we knew we have noted to change the way we did our business. we have 8.8 million customers on an average day and we link to all of them. so beck move information, one is the digital and the other is the physical. our goal was to see if we can move the information faster than the packages. >> it sounds like it's a perfectly efficient symptom. is this almost like where you can continue to get more and more efficient? >> you know, it is that. and the goal here is to keep looking for those hidden insights. data is one thing. and we store large amounts. the reality is you have to create value out of that. one mile, $30 million, you can do some big investment. >> wow. >> then you've got fuel, how you

do things. you've got to think about how you do that because if you make a decision, you can save 400,000 gallons of fuel a year. and then you also land -- you have more early morning landings in commercial airlines. and that means you land earlier than them in fog. so you have to know all about fog to predict when it's going to dissipate so that you can -- >> exactly. we took a look because we have so many early morning landings, is there a better way? we use big data to take a look at different characteristics and we were able to come up with a series of algorithms or mathematical models, that creates tight space, a scenario that we shared that knowledge with the government and the other agencies and that allows us more flexibility. >> we have to go. i see the guy that comes to our house uses one of those did i ode things. is that it? >> yeah. this is one of our diads. this is the current generation of those. >> it's like a universal remote.

>> a big remote. you can drop this from six feet. but this diad takes all that information and for an individual driver, this is their whole route every day. >> amazing. >> and the technology that that drove allowed us last year to save 85 million miles. >> i guess you can't tell us whether you're -- are you taking business from fedex? they had a bad quarter yesterday. >> i can't really comment on that. >> they must do similar things. david, a pleasure having you on today. appreciate it. >> thank you. when we come back, we're going to talk more about why a major corporation is making employees disclose information about weight and body mass index of themselves. and then later, the morning's early stocks to watch including the street's reaction to oracle's quarterly results. us, we're going to talk markets with wall street veteran robert wolf. andrew will be joining us from new orleans this morning. stick around, squawk will be right back. [ male announcer ] i've seen incredible things.

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welcome welcome back, everybody. a new health screening and wellness policy at cbs some people are calling an invasion of privacy. dr. troy brennan is the company's chief medical officer. thank you for being here. >> thank you for having me.

>> explain how this came about. i guess because you're asking people to disclose some of this, some people have says this is an invasion of privacy. explain what the thought process was behind it. >> well, there's no disclosure. these things are heavily regulated from a privacy point of view. this particular program meets all the requirements that are set forth. the information never comes back to cvs care markets. information the employee and doctor can used to find out if the patient needs to be treated for very common conditions. >> i read through everything you're doing. it is confidential information. it's collected by an outside company. you don't see it. i guess what happens is if people don't supply that information, if they don't go for screenings, they are charged $50 more a month. some say why not just offer a discount to those who do supply that information. >> well, we are trying to create

incentives for people to check on their health, to see whether or not they have high blood pressure, check their blood sugar and cholesterol to make sure their weight is okay. we think with incentives, they will get treated early, we will prevent complications. as a result, our employees will lead much healthier lives. >> i understand that. but why use a stick instead of a carrot? >> it's an incentive one way or the other. the company contributes a good deal to people's health insurance. and people can get an additional contribution if they take this. it makes common sense to us. >> it's funny. i watch the way it is being covered in the media, doctor. really it's just amazing to me. if you see a state-run program like this or, you know, new york city, i watch what goes on in new york city now with the activists. and the media is like, oh, well,

of course you need to do all these things. of course the state can require all these people to do this stuff and take away stuff. and private corporation which is paying -- hopefully you'll continue to pay for people's health plans. sooner or later, people will say, forget it, go under obama care. i hope it would be a private incentive for people to take care of new own health care. >> well, we're committed to providing -- >> we'll see for how long, doctor. >> we think good health means good business. >> i agree. >> we're committed to that. >> it seems odd when a company tries to do it it becomes an invasion of privacy.

if the federal government will dictate, say it loud, say it proud. >> these kind of programs have become much more common. >> 79% of companies are doing something similar to this, right? >> exactly. >> you get incentives if you give up smoking and things along those lines. a person should own his own health. that's what i want. i don't want where the government has to decide how to keep a person than that's a person's own responsibility, is it not? >> i believe so. i believe it's important to encourage people to do simple things that can help their health in the future. >> doctor, thank you very much for joining us today. >> thank you. >> when we come back, more of this morning's top stories. plus, we're watching shares of oracle. the company missing its mark and plaming the sales force. this is america.

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welcome to the welcome to the wolfpack. no, not nc state but guest host robert wolf's 32 advisers and former ubs chairman gives us his perspective on financials, the cyprus situation and what it means for the global banking sector. >> is there a bad moon rising over europe? we talk cyprus and the fate of the eurozone with financial times chief editorial commentator michael wolf. we're hunting for big deals

in the big easy at the biggest mergers and acquisitions conference of the year. we'll talk to mark of citigroup about targets, tactics and strategy as the second hour of "squawk box" begins right now. ♪ werewolves of london good morning, everybody. welcome back to "squawk box" here on cnbc. i'm decky quick with joe kernan. andrew will join us about mergers and acquisitions. there have been some red arrows. dow futures have paired their losses 13 points below fair value. s&p futures are down by less than 4 points below fair value s. stocks finished higher and wiped out most of last week's after the fed reaffirmed bond

purchases and record-low interest rates. fed chairman ben bernanke saying central bank might slow the pace of bond buying but only after the labor marked shows sustained improvement over a number of months. >> we are seeing improvement. i think one thing we need is to make sure this is not a temporary improvement. so we have seen periods before where we had as many as 300,000 jobs for a couple of months. then things weakened again. important criterion would be not just improvement we have seen, but is it going to be sustained for a number of months. >> and with a moderate economic recovery continuing, investors have been watching for indications that the central bank might start pulling back on bond buying. yesterday the chairman reaffirmed the fomc stance on the asset purchase program. >> the committee could vary the pace of purchases progress is made towards its economic

objectives. or assessment of the efficacy and costs of the program changes. at this meeting the committee judged that no adjust was warranted. >> i think that is a reaffirmation. he's affirmed it so many times. probably re, re, re, re, re. between 2.9% and 3.4% in 2014. like they have any idea. and between 2.9% and 3.7% in 2015. and these forecasts are just a little bit lower than estimates given in december. but we would take those numbers. >> absolutely. 3.7%. >> the stock market would be so much higher. yeah, it would. let's do it. >> all right. there are going to be some bumps in the way for individual companies.

>> obama care. >> oracle not helping out with earnings either. >> we'll see. >> oracle, the enterprise software company posted earnings of 65 cents a share on 8.97 billion. the culprit slow sales of software licenses and shrinking server business. if you watch shares in after hours you can see the premarket down by 7.6%. joining us on the phone to talk about the numbers is brent thill, senior software analyst at ubs. in a very uncertain time in the global you would expect the company to blame internal. this was a problem with sales associates, particularly the new ones we have been hiring. >> yeah. good morning. i think this was averagely internal execution. this is not a macro issue. it has certainly been an issue that many have been reporting really healthy numbers.

last year they missed q2. they got back on track really quick. we think they're going to do it again. q4 is their biggest quarter. we call it the calm before the storm, if you will. oracle historically has been a strong execution machine. but some of the deals just closed. a handful have closed in q4. we think more internal than external. certainly it has raised questions around a changing competitive landscape. >> yeah. if this is an issue where it's a one off it makes it sound like you think this is a buying opportunity if the stock is down 7% or 8% today. >> that's right. historically it's the best opportunity. we buy the dip. this happened last year around christmas. went to $25. you saw a very sharp sell in 25 to 36. historically, within one or two quarters after an oracle miss,

the stock is in our view, from our analysis, 10 plus percent. historically, again, they have never had two quarters back to back with terrible execution. we had a chance to speak with mark burg last night. tends to housekeeping quicker than most. we think we're confident it can get back on track. >> brent, thank you very much for joining us. >> and second straight day of gains for stocks yesterday after the fed promised to continue its easy money policy. join us is chief market strategist as ban yon partners. i saw you, john. i'm trying to figure out what you were getting at. were you trying to figure out whether he was leaving yesterday? man, that was the biggest stage you've ever been on, isn't it? you looked like you knew it too? >> i was trying to get a little

more news out of the guys. i think there's a philosophical question, other central banks have eight-year term limits for their chairman, the bank of england and ecb. alan greenspan was in this job for 19 years. so i wanted to try to get bernanke to talk about whether he thought, you know, that there was a -- that a chairman should step aside after eight years. he didn't bite. >> no, he didn't. he said the only two people with term limits are the president and vice president. oh, you were watching? >> i read afterwards. it was interesting. >> but that -- he could step aside without having a term limit. in other words, he could say i think eight years is an appropriate amount of time, set a precedent. >> jon, if he takes the balance sheet from $1 trillion to $12 trillion and says, see you later -- he's got to be there for the other side of this. do you want him to leave after

he's done this? you want i am to stay? >> some consistency. >> i want him to get out of this mess. he said the exit strategy is no big deal. does he have one? >> yeah. that was actually the news that came out yesterday is, you know, they're starting to refine their strategy. they say they're kind of turning their switch. they're turning it into a dimmer. they're gradually going to taper down these bond purchases once the economy gets back on stronger footing. but, frankly this balance sheet won't be shrinking in the the end of the decade, if not later. so the guy could be in his 70s or 80s by the time we're back to a normal size. >> we all could be. >> what? >> except for you. >> bob, how much of this -- what has really been extraordinary market activity. it is the beginning of something

that could really be nice. after 12, 13 years where people don't even believe buying hold anymore. they don't believe it. maybe we're starting something. how much of that a femoral because of the fed and how much is improvements maybe caused by the fed? >> you know it's something i've been thinking a lot about lately. you wonder how much the fed is really impacted, you know, this recovery that we have seen. is the market and the economy really able to sort of stand on its own right now? and i don't think the answer is a really quite clear. you know, certainly you would see a market react if the fed were to reduce the amount of bond purchases they're doing on a monthly basis. the numbers are in comprehendible. you can't wrap your head around $85 billion a month. >> no. >> it's kind of ridiculous. but i think the economy is really at a point where it would probably be able to move forward. just maybe not at the level that we're seeing. i think we could get back to

sort of a more normalized growth pattern if the fed does sort of step away. it's like an act in recovery. once you take away the support, you know, there are going to be instances where you're going to see some chances of reverting back to where we once more. but i think if you sort of move on from all of this the economy could probably move forward. you know, we've come from such one sort of swing of the pendulum one way it's going to take us a long way to get back to where we should be. >> jon, can't you design some sort of a study where there's one camp that really does believe if you print this much -- people argue whether it's being printed. when there's this much liquidity, it's going to go somewhere where it's treated better than zero. one camp said that accounts for the stock market rise. the other camp said $85 billion is actually helping the economy

and that's actually underpinning the rise in stock prices. is there a way to figure out which argument is correct? >> i'll give you two ways that i think about it. one is -- so let's say we do this whole exercise in reverse and the fed sells all this stuff. what would happen? i think the stock market would tank. we actually could see bond prices soaring because people expect the economy to slow down so much. in other words, i think if you take this stuff away you probably get worse outcomes which is a sign to me there's some benefit coming out of it. the other point i would make, there has been a study of this before. what the fed did after the great depression. morgan stanley had a great chart they put out the other day. it is an average of overall can economic output back in the '30s, '40s and early 50s. it was really high and came down very slowly. that strategy in the long run

ended up working without doing a lot of damage to the economy. you know, the fed very gradually brought down the balance sheet after cutting rates a lot and pinning interest rates in the 1940s. they're on the same path right now. >> bob, in terms of corporate profitability, certainly that warrants higher stock prices as well as corporations. it's the overall economy we're worried about. >> it certainly does. and interest rates alone, corporations can bother very cleanly. the credit standards are supposedly loosening up. banks can lend at cheap money rates. people can go out and buy a home if they feel secure in their jobs. to jon's point, i don't think the fed will start to liquidate this. i don't think they're implying this is going to happen. but the economy, if they did start to sort of remove these purchases, you know, i think could stand on its own.

again, the market would certainly react. but i think as time goes forward the economy and the market would get back on track and you would start to see this. we have really become quite addicted to these low interest rates. but i think if we continue to move forward, eventually these are going to be removed. >> we have to get to andrew. >> we're talking about removing this. why take it away now? the fed put the policies in place in september and it looks like it's workng. >> gee, it's only been five years. we were supposed to get angioplasty and we have a catheter burning up the femur. whatever it is. femoral artery. yangeoplasty is supposed to clear the clogged up artery. you're not supposed to put new arteries in that bernanke constructs. you're supposed to let the patient start to rehabilitate on its own, jon. i'm sick of the training wheels. >> the job sector is picking up.

the housing market is coming back. >> that might be in spite of, not because of. you're a big enabler. the reason you couldn't give him a hard time is because you're a huge bernanke enabler. >> wow, that's a ridiculous comment. all right. i'm trying to tell you how they see it. >> i hear you. we need them there to tell us what's going on. jon does a great job. >> he does. and he's hand some too. bob, so are you? andrew is in the big easy speaking to the world's biggest merger and acquisition players. andrew, we were missing you the last hour. >> i swear i thought that was a bong. and we just had the cannabis guy. >> it is the hand grenade, new orleans's most powerful drink. >> a what? >> hand grenade. >> that's orange juice, right?

>> no. we filled it with orange juice. >> i just told becky -- do you remember what you were asking me yesterday? do you remember that conversation we had? >> no. what are you talking about? >> you were talking about what does the morality clause in your contract actually stipulate? >> did you really ask him that? >> we did. >> we were joking. it was a joke. i can't believe you said that on television. >> why did you need to know on your way to new orleans what it actually stipulates? >> i thought he was lying. >> i wasn't. he asked me what does a morality clause actually -- >> hold on. you're not giving the full context to this conversation. >> let's just drop it. andrew, get to your -- anyway. you can't get out of this. >> i'm here in new orleans -- i can't get out of this one. i am in new orleans. this is probably one of the greatest barometers of market

conference in the world annually. all the lawyers, bankers, comes here and talks about the dark arts, if you will, of mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance. you get a look at what's going on behind the scenes. you will hear about dell, eihorn. brunswick, pr firm, does a survey of the folks here every year before the conference. they actually have statistically been pretty accurate about where mergers and acquisitions are going the next year. 97% of the folks here said they believe there's going to be more transactions this year probably to be expected given where the markets are going. we're going to talk about cyprus and see what that means to the markets. look at this. in terms of where the deals are coming, number one consumer goods, 31% believe consumer

goods will be the big targets of the year. 27% say tech and telecom. 15% said energy. and health care, which by the way was number two last year, has fallen to number four. in europe, watch for deals in financial services and energy. and in china, watch for deals in manufacturing. here's two other things to think about. everybody here thinks that the mega lbo, the big leverage buyout, they say it's back. and more importantly, given all the cash that's on balance sheets, 70% of transactions they are arguing are going to happen in cash. which is a big distinction from where we have been before. we will see where it all pans out. we have mark schaeffer from citigroup this hour. and skadden's eileen nugent. and wendell pierce. he owns a grocery store down in new orleans.

but you know him from "the wire." i'm going to continue finishing my hand grenade. and i'll see you guys -- >> hair of the dog. >> and i'll be reviewing the morals contract. >> i looked up some of the -- i'm worried. it covers just about everything, andrew. if you did anything last night, just keep it quiet. >> andrew? >> yeah. throwing away the key there. >> he has no dollar bills. gone. completely. that's after getting a couple hundreds changed. >> andrew, see you coming up in just a little bit. up next on "squawk", finishes, to europe, to the fed, we welcome robert wolfment and chris whalen and how this cyprus situation could play out. stick around. "squawk" will be right back. ♪ [ male announcer ] this is karen and jeremiah. they don't know it yet, but they're gonna fall in love, get married, have a couple of kids,

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from from cyprus to the fed to the housing market, the banking sector has been a big topic of discussion. joining us to weigh in on the latest in cyprus our guest host robert wolf ceo of 32 advisers and chris whalen of carrington investor services. good morning to both of you guys. >> good morning. >> before in week i had to do a

little boning up on cyprus. i admit it. i did not know there was no capital structure for any banks in the entire country. and i don't know whether -- is that unique to cyprus? >> i haven't focused on cyprus until this past week. >> it makes some sense, does it not? how long can it exist? >> cyprus is a special case. i did business with the greeks in the internet world. it has become a russian haven. europeans in a day spent a lot of credibility that it took them years to accumulate. how this decision ever got out into the open i don't know. think about it. it makes no sense. the point is you go in,

restructure the banks. you hear depositors above the insured limit. you don't scare every banking customer by going below. >> that was the problem, though, cyprus was concerned about making the russians leave for good. >> come on. they love it there. what are you talking about? >> the president didn't want the -- the president of cyprus didn't want to take more than 10% from the big investors. >> it illustrates the fact we don't have a bank supervisory regime in europe. >> this is the perfect time you could compare and contrast how the u.s. handled the recovery versus europe. they both had immense liquid from extra banks. but the u.s. banks all recapitalized. europe banks have not. that's the big difference. >> remember, the u.s. industry, with the exception of citigroup,

paid for the cleanup themselves. it was not the u.s. government. >> my point, and i kept making it yesterday -- >> equity is equity. >> that's right. but taxing depositors 10% is one thing. but keeping a 0% interest rates, don't you think savers have been hit at least 10%? >> more. >> so we recapitalized, which is the same thing. >> they are subseu diidizinsubs. >> retired people have been forced -- >> forced. >> the the two biggest in throws back-to-back months into the funds. >> we feel better about ourselves. >> it's not even that. it's just to maintain margins. they had a liquidity probably

because they pretended a lot of exposures didn't belong to them. citigroup is the example. all of a sudden they had to take back all these assets and essentially put capital underneath them. that's where the leverage came from. that's why we had a crisis. >> do you see eye to eye on banking and in politics i doubt. you ran a bank. >> i think the banks needed to recap. okay. they were leveraged between 35 and 55 to 1. i think the one thing we learned is it's equity and nothing else is. they needed different equity. they needed to get ready before basel 3 or dodd/frank. they need to be more capitalized. they can't use goodwill and subdebt as equity. they need pure equity. >> basel 3, more capital, we're still in a deflationary cycle.

look at housing. we have had a recovery in terms of housing prices. we have tight supply. one in four families flattened down. it is shrinking in the fannie, freddie, jennie. cash sales. interestingly you see funds taking out unsecured debt to go and buy homes. even now where they are paying essentially retail plus. this is not a normal housing recovery. we're very cautious about this recovery. it's good to have. we're happy to see the numbers. >> so you agree with the fed's decision to say we're going to handling in there? >> i don't think the fed qe is having much impact on the economy. i think it's mostly hitting the financial world. >> you don't think with them buying mortgage backed staour securities? >> it's about savers. >> you have austin on frequently. we h had a call with clients on

housing. on the last show i was bullish on housing. but austin looks as if you take out that decade where you had double digits every year, prior to that we were 1% a year. >> we'll continue this conversation in a moment. thank you very much for coming. >> my pleasure. >> robert will be with us the rest of the show. >> up next lulu lemon downward dog. >> downward facing the dog. details after the break. and can cyprus get a deal done by monday? that's the latest ultimatum from the european central bank. we'll hear from another wolf, martin wolf, ft's on the cyprus situation. check out the futures right now. off a little bit. more "squawk" after. [ female announcer ] what if the next big thing, isn't a thing at all?

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enough! [ male announcer ] because whatever you need, we'll have it or find it, and get it to you fast. staples. that was easy. welcome back welcome back to "squawk box", everybody. jc penney bondholders defaulted caususe it pledged inventory as collateral without providing any security for their investments. but they have dropped their case meaning it is not in danger of having to pay $326 million and

mcdonald's is adding chicken mcwraps. the company said they will be the the basis for a new platform that will evolve and add different varieties as time goes o. hewlett-packard investors re-elected. >> shows you how tough it is. >> if there's any board you think they will say i'm fed up with. >> it was a close vote for ray and some of the others. i think it was 58% and 53% in some of the others that were re-elected. >> why hasn't don thompson been on here? >> saw him in january. >> ceo of mcdonald's. >> this is a question he is answering. i thought the same thing. snack wraps you either get. >> the ranch sauce.

>> you eat this, don't you? >> it's like one tiny thing. >> i eat everything. except that mcrib. i have seen what that is made of. >> i have not had one of those. >> they put it in a bowl. >> good way to come on the show. thank you. >> you're right. boeing is ready to start testing its newly designed batteries for the grounded 787 jet. test flights of the jet and the new battery are set for sometime in the next few days, most likely this weekend. test flights will be the first since last month. boeing continues to work to putting the jet back into service within a few weeks. you know, the battery issues they had were such a low percentage. how many tests do you need to do to fix it? >> i don't know. i don't know how you do it. >> i don't know the answer to that but we'll see. >> boeing has had a couple good

orders. they had ryanair. this morning you said delta is buying some. >> loves it. >> who doesn't? greatest exporter. >> and the bank doing a lot of the financing for these foreign companies to buy. >> they're the expert. >> let's take a look. >> are you starting something with me already? >> not yet. that was a great week. phil gramm paid the week before. you paid the following week. i may have to have obama run every year. >> appetizers, coffee, two entrees. >> well, i'm a fat cat. look at lulu lemon. one cent before than the street

was expecting. earnings for the fiscal year are short of expectations. we told you lulu lemon announcing it is withdrawing its popular line of yoga pants because you could see through it in too many places. follow us on twitte twitter @squawkcnbc. up next, cyprus running close to empty. what does it mean for the eurozone recovery? we'll talk about that right after this. >> right now, take a look at the european markets this morning. you have seen declines. part of this is because of the economic numbers that came in europe. cac is done 1%. "squawk" will be right back. we're here on bourbon street in the big easy talking about deals. deal makers and what's on top

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the the ecb says it's going to cut off emergency funding for cyprus banks if no bailout deal is struck by monday. martin wolf, chief editorial commentator for the financial times joins us on the latest in the cyprus story. good morning, martin. we heard earlier 0.2% of thf th european economy so unless there is contagion this is a tempest in a teapot. that's the question. is there anything that can happen from this that we really

need to be concerned about? >> yes, i think there is. i agree with you. it is an incredibly tiny economy. but it is now beginning to look quite likely. quite likely that cyprus will leave the eurozone. that, i think, is a very important event. remember, the eurozone was specifically designed to be irreversible and in fact, technically if cypress leaves the the eurozone it should leave the european union. it's not allowed to be in the european union and not in the eurozone. that probably wouldn't matter. the crucial point is that means every further crisis with other countries, and it's certainly not over, people will start saying, well, you know, it could leave and it is possible, it is imaginable the companies will leave. we probably will have exchange controls in cyprus if this

happens. there will be chaos. either outside investors or inside investors will become that much more nervous, very much more nervous perhaps. and for that reason it is quite an important moment. >> yeah. it's amazing. people have talked about that. it can be so small. serbia after world war i. everybody talks about that. my just wonder sometimes if greece was able to devalue -- we've been quiet on greece. who would be the next most likely to -- who would it benefit to leave? how would it go, the dominoes? do you have any idea? >> yeah. well, it's pretty clear if cyprus left they would start

looking at greece. it has remained weak and vulnerable. and i think people would naturally look at greece and think about it. now, there is a good news story for the eurozone. some new currencies, the economy would implode. there will be a warning to everybody else to behave really proper. they would circle the wagons around the rest and they would stick by the programs they have agreed. it would turn out to be a solitary event. it would show the cost of exit. but i think the big answer to your earlier questions remains where it is. it's perfectly possible that five or six years from now if greece exited, had a new current

and i all the rest would be better off than it would otherwise be. getting from here to there is total chaos. a new currency out of nothing, getting through all of that is an immense mess. >> it's the world state side here. how are you? >> i'm fine, thank you. couldn't you see a different alternative where russia gives the loan and they want cyprus to stay in the euro otherwise it becomes also worthless? can't you see they are better off staying in the euro for all the deposits and investors in cyprus currently? >> i think if a russian depositors that's true. the question is how much does the russian government want to put up? it would have to put up quite a lot of money if -- to avoid any real problems in cyprus to

guarantee that this will happen. probably talking 6 billion euros would be needed to avoid any writedowns of these deposits. they will get that money back. the main reason they didn't get more money -- more money wasn't lent, it's grossly overin debted. you would have to consider it a gift. they have talked about reference. on the base of what we're hearing at the moment, it doesn't seem likely. that creates quite big questions for the west. cyprus is an important base. >> martin, thank you. appreciate your time today. >> pleasure. >> and a preview of what's coming up from new orleans. andrew? >> we are in the big easy he. we are talking mergers and

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welcome back welcome back to "squawk box". we are here in the big easy in new orleans at the tulane conference. we're talking to mark schaeffer, joining me, co-head of mna citigroup. >> thanks for having me here. >> a month ago there was a day we had the heinz deal. usair. dell right around then. prior to that we had the nbc u comcast deal. there was a lot of momentum and then nothing. what's going on? >> the last three weeks have been weak. $130 billion. the fourth quarter was good. we started the year pretty strong. still up in terms of volume. but the key point, it doesn't

seem we're in the midst of a major recovery. >> what does that say about confidence? some people say it's a fed-fueled run. we're in the middle of a cyprus bailout. we are we? >> we live in a world of continued uncertainty. i think that really translates into confidence. high uncertainty, low confidence is the big issue why this market is not better than it is. you correlate to the s&p 500, consumer confidence, those are all really high and have been high for a while. the transactions are not happening. >> you're saying it is not back? >> we are not there yet. >> are we going to get there? what's going to hold us back? >> i don't see at this point until -- perceived risk improved and confidence improves that we

will see a major uptick. >> there's been a big conversation about cash. we talked about this survey. i don't know if you were one of the numbers surveyed. they said cash is king. a lot of cash put to work. >> cash is king. funding rates at or close to historic lows. cash flow yields. 600 basis point spread. equity correlations broken down. a lot of reason to believe it's better than it is. it's way trumped by perceived uncertainty and the lack of willingness to take risk. >> how big a deal is it that cash is overseas. they say, look, i have so much cash overseas. to the extent there are deals, where are we going to see them? are people going to use their cash abroad? >> i think the the answer is probably yes it will stay a abroad. you know, we've talked about the

areas. i think in the upstream you will see deals. we have been talking about tech for a while. we are in arguably a tech tonic shift. there's a lot of cash on the books. >> you advise a lot of boards. activists. we have david eihorn going after apple. what does it mean? >> well, it's changed. we are definitely seeing the targets getting bigger. while the numbers are down year to date, what you have to recognize is the public campaigns are one thing. but a lot of letter writing and conversations go behind closed doors. i think it is a factor and could be impetus for more mnas.

>> what are people pushing for? >> a lot of it is around capital structure. >> is that the right answer? some around shareholder value, governance. a variety of things. >> i have a final quick question. i know you're involved in dell deals. i won't go there. a lot of them have shops. it's invented or talked about 10 years ago at this conference this idea you can resell your company as a way to say we're at least trying. does it actually work? >> look, it's pretty mixed. i'm not a fan, to be totally candid. they're sort of here to stay at this point. i'm a little bit old school. i believe if you're going to market a company market it before you put any lockups in place. >> mark schaeffer, thank you for being here. good luck with the conversation. i'll send it back to becky. >> as we go to break,

hewlett-packard. the company is announcing a 10% dividend increase to 14.5 cents per share per quarter. up next, we'll reveal yesterday's money madness matchup. >> and we also have the final four picks of pope francis. i don't know if we have ever had that before from the pope. >> stick around. a lot more to come squawk style and basketball style. oh this is lame, investors could lose tens of thousands of dollars on their 401(k) to hidden fees. is that what you're looking for, like a hidden fee in your giant mom bag? maybe i have them... oh that's right i don't because i rolled my account over to e-trade where... woah. okay... they don't have hidden fees... hey fern. the junk drawer? why would they... is that my gerbil? you said he moved to a tiny farm.

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welcome welcome back, everybody. third matchup of "squawk" money madness is complete. we tabulated your votes. the faceoff between facebook and gold man sacks was a nail biter. facebook one with 53% of the vote. squawk.cnbc.com website major is bank of america versus city group. you get to decide who advances. this is which stock you think is going to perform best between now and the end of the year. joining us right now is managing director of u.s. banks and special finance and research analyst covering both banks. if you looked at citigroup and bank of america and you had to pick which was going to perform best between now and the end of the year, what would you say? >> i would go with citi. you have economic growth in the

emerging markets and decelera decelerating in the u.s. >> if you look at the united states, what concerns you? is it the housing market? any indication? >> both are positioned to do better as the the housing market gets better. b of a is uniquely positioned that way. citi will benefit from it. the ability to grow loans and net interest spwbg will be a tough challenge. >> price targets for the end of the year, citigroup is trading 50%. bank of america? >> price target is $12. >> so $12.78 was yesterday's closing price. you think bank of america is seeing the best it will see. >> it is trading at a multiple point to citi and jpmorgan. so i think it's priced in. >> anything that would change your mind? we have gotten some companies in the last 24 hours who have told us concerning things about what's happening as well.

fedex came out with numbers that were disappointing, as did caterpillar. >> what you are seeing at citi, you've got a concentration of latin america and nonjapan asia still seeing relatively improving growth. >> thank you very much. by the way, make sure you vote on facebook to send bank of america or citigroup through to the next round. andrew is in the big easy today at the mergers and acquisitions conference. and here is the pope announcing his final four picks. georgetown apparently likes marquette, gonzaga and creighton. they are in the bracketsment they could make it. i don't know if this is infallible or not. [ female announcer ] what if the next big thing, isn't a thing at all?

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eastern. john is here to break down the number. >> we are eating our way through the big easy here in new orleans and talking about the business of food with wendell pierce of "the wire." >> i suggest you modify your attitude as the very delicious third hour of squawks box begins right now. ♪ welcome back to "squawk box" here on cnbc. first in business worldwide. this hour he's going to join us with two big shots. and business in the big easy. you may recognize him from hbo's "treme" or "the wire."

he also played in the 1990s cult classic "hackers." and he played at one point a chairman and ceo of a major bank, of ubs. actually, that was kind of a real role for a while, even through the financial crisis. >> great firm. it still is. >> you didn't kill it. >> despite me, it's still successful. >> one of the top stories is threatening to cut off funding to cyprus. the nation has until monday to agree on a bailout plan. if the deadline isn't reached, the ecb will cut off funding. she reports lines are starting to go get long outside of the banks. in corporate news, oracle's quarterly results fell short of wall street. the company blaming its rapidly expanding sales force for the severe miss.

didn't talk about macro factors. cfo said macro economic forces weren't a factor. the the company is warning that its ailing hardware business will lose more ground and sales are falling sharply. in other tech news, hewlett-packard announced a dividend increase. i think it was yielding about 2.3%. so you add 10% on that. what is that, bob? 2.53%. which isn't bad in a zero interest rate environment. u.s. equities had been a little bit waerbg. they have been preparing their losses through the morning. dow futures only 11.5 points below fair value. we've been watching what happened overseas in asia. the nikkei was up 1 1/3.

in europe, red arrows because of economic numbers. also concerns continuing about cyprus. the cac is done 1.1%. we have positive comments made by fed chairman ben bernanke. >> we'll use models and other indicators and the state of the labor market to try to make a good estimate how much we need to change the rate of flow. but, again, the point is to let the markets see our behavior, to let them see how we respond to changes in the market. and higher levels of purchases or the ultimate facing out of the program. >> in other words, it's not going to be spigot on, spigot off. rick is the head of strategy at

wells fargo securities. rick, thank you for joining us this morning. >> thanks for having me. >> you have been right on some big calls in the past. you called it right almost to the day back in march of 2009. >> yeah. >> for the bottom. >> you called it back in 2002. so we have been watching this real build, this positive numbers we've been watching for months at this time. it makes a lot of people wonder what you think about where we stand at this point. >> we are tactical traders within a strategic meeting term time frame. four or five weeks ago we said the s&p wanted to push through 1513 to 1567. we have been up into this range now for two weeks. we have stalled here. we pulled back monday on the cyprus news. we have back come into the range. if we can push through 15 # 7 we

next target 1613 and we think that would be in and around this whole leg up and we get a decent move down that would ruffle many a feather on wall street. we will not crush the market down but certainly the s&p can fall 150 points from there. heard some of the late to the game. >> prop of 6% to 10%. >> yeah. but then we'll have we think one final medium term up side move well in 2014-2015. and target something like 1778. so in the bigger picture we think the market is the right place to be in. for people who are shorter team and like to tack kael play, we're getting more concerned. this week we have seen probably at least two or three guests this week we are well-known wall street strategists who have

changed their tune. it took essentially all time highs. >> i know who you're talking about that. >> that tends to be the type thing that -- >> i told her not to try to time the market. when it was 9,000 she was talking about the consumer. there's no way -- and i said why, meredith, are you trying to time the stock market? you know nothing about -- >> municipals did very well too. >> i don't fault her for that necessarily. that's what she's good at. and banks and stuff like that. and i said the same thing of all those guys.

rosenberg. they don't know if the market is expensive or cheap at 9,000. >> do you think it will impact the markets. >> i think it has been fueled -- it's not the only factor. the markets move similar to how they have moved. if there was a new headline that said qe is gone, do you really think the s&p is going to stick at 1560? i don't. >> so you will hear what ben bernanke has to say. you're a behavioral strategist. there aren't a lot on wall street. you're looking for when everybody is running one direction to run the other direction. >> we are a counter trend player which is quite the opposite of nonfundamental people tend to look at the market if you're a pure technician in the textbooks identify a trend and play the trend until at some point the

trend ends. what we try to focus on, and i've been doing this 15, 20 years of my 30-year career. the first 10 years i was trading in the pits in new york. my life span in the trade was generally 30 seconds. i looked at the markets from a longer term point of view. it most likely made more sense to focus on and provide value if you can identify where a trend ends much more so than, oh, a market is moving up. because it's very hard to outperform a market that's already made a substantial bottom. it's moved up. and you go, oh, it's an upward market. let's get on board. you're not likely to outperform. the best way to outperform over time is to sell stocks near real highs. that's what we try to do. when you alluded back to october 10th, 2002, we got along the day

after the dow made a five-year low. that was the low that lasted for multi, multiyears. march 10th, 2009, the first time i turned bullish. even back in '05, occasionally you have an economist who i used to work with back at night. one of the major tier 1 firms. in june of 2005, he had been always calling for 10-year rates to move up. he finally threw in the towel. i think it was june 3rd or 5th of '05 saying 10-year rates would fall from 2.9 to 2%. five minutes later, i'm presenting to the whole firm and i said you want to be selling bonds right now. this is the peak. so we had completely opposite views. it took 30 months until rates

once again got as low as that day. we try to play for extremes. we're not always right. i don't want to say we always have the game light. you know very quickly if you're right or wrong. losses tend to be small. >> thank you very much. coming up, a read on employment. closely watched jobless claims. and breaking down the data. as we go to break, u.s. equity futures down about 15 points indicated on the open. we're here on bourbon street talking about deals, and mergers and acquisitions in 2013. "squawk" is back right after this. ♪ [ male announcer ] how do you engineer a true automotive breakthrough? ♪

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considering an offer. blackstone is carrying out due diligence ahead of the expiration of that period. michael dell and silver lake partners agreed to take the the computer maker private for $24.4 million. andrew joins us with two special guests. andrew, take it away. >> hey, thank you very much. we are here at the tulane conference. two lawyers, behind the scenes guys, the ones who actually get the deals done. thank you guys for being here. >> thank you. >> one thing that has come up on our show, cooperman a week ago said management buyouts broadly where the insiders are doing the

transactions, says this is insider trading at its worst. there's no way to get around it. you guys are lawyers involved in deals like this. what do you think of that. >> we spend all our time doing the best we can in that circumstance. >> is it a bad circumstance? >> no, i don't think it is. if it's a good deal, it's a good circumstance. and it's manageable. i mean, you have a lot of, sure, the management knows about -- more about the company than anyone else. but if they're constrained and they give the same information to every bidder, it can happen. >> fair for shareholders? this is a big question. >> when they go to the banks and cash their checks, it all seems fair. those companies just sit there. that doesn't make any sense. we spend a lot of time, and the courts in delaware keep a close eye on us.

making sure we recognize the conflicts, we disclose the conflicts and put in procedures to try and level the playing ground. is it going to be an arms length deal? no, it can't be. we do our best to make it as much as we can. >> i think a lot of what's happened there is people assume the management is going to get rich and they have visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads. they will probably get equally rich assuming it's a successful deal with any of those buyers. so there's a way to manage the process. and times have changed. they really take an active role. they push management as much as they can to the side. it's a different deal than the ceo half a percent. >> activism. that's another issue that comes up repeatedly.

you know, if david eihorn shows up at your door or bill ackman, let's write confidentially agreements so he can feel like he's inside? what's your best advice if you are representing a big company. >> the first interesting thing is that activists are much more likely these days to be going after large cap companies and making a mark there. i think the right thing to do is to get away from the motivation of people. to be fair, lots of activists show up. they have different motivations and whether or not you bring them under the tent depends on that. but they are well versed, schooled. they show up with good ideas, good plans. they are talking a lot more to all their stockholders,

including these people. >> what do you tell them? >> engage. you have to engage. activism has changed. their only goal was put the company in play, hopefully sell their stock out of the profit when somebody came in to buy. there's no longer one size fits off. you have to listen. >> and activists trying to push for a deal. i was going to say, what do you do with the short sell senator bill ackman comes out after herballife and basically said it is a fraud. what do you do? >> i'm not sure your strategy changes all that much if you're management. the management is used to talking to the marketplace and explaining the country's strategy and putting their best foot forward and explaining what the deal is. you just have to deal with a negative voice out there in that circumstance. >> let's talk about your main

business. mark schaeffer half an hour ago was not so positive where we were going. we thought business was back. he said maybe not. you know whether the deals are coming or not. >> we're well advanced from the days we had a conference here. that might have been eight years ago and we were hanging the crepe paper. we're long from that. there's a disconnect between the na market and s&p. >> it used to track pretty well. >> it used to track very well. there's been a disconnect the last three years. and i think what's happening is the mna market closely reflects the underlying pace of the economy which is improving but gradually. the s&p is off on its own. easy money has done a lot. >> right. >> if you think about it, you're a trader, you can buy stock in a second and unwind the trade three days later if you want if

things change f. you're doing a deal, signing up today, six, nine a year from now before you close. so deal makers have to be able to look down a track a lot farther than a trader and feel confident about where it's going to be. >> and cyprus in the middle and you're in trouble. >> and i think confidence is the thing. if you looked around my firm, we're busy. we're busier than we've been. but you still worry there's not that feeling of confidence in the boardroom. it feels like it could stop again. >> thank you for joining me this morning. >> thank you. >> back to you guys in the studio. >> thanks, andrew. coming up, closely watched weekly jobless claims. and wendell pierce from hbo's "the wire" talking about doing business in the big easy. don't forget to vote in

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welcome welcome backing everybody. the senate has approved a bill to avert a government shutdown

next week. that legislation goes back to the house today where it is expected to pass. it would keep the government agencies and programs funded through the end of the fiscal year. also, a federal watch dog is faulting freddie mac. it is said to have failed to properly resolve serious consumer complaints that could involve possible fraud for improper foreclosures. jc penney said it is fixing its performance. it could take more time than initially believed. i know it's a shocker more everybody. in that jc penney report it said in the report that it filed yet any change in its strategy to be expensive. they are trying lure back shoppers that need the stores. the electronics maker is

forecasting the current quart they're it will fall below estimates. it is due to planned product transitions at apple, jabil's largest. there's a guy named jay and a guy named bill. and the stock went down. no, it didn't. >> the equipment manager has a number. that's right. >> if you go on the website, i have a picture. >> you were a fullback. now you're just full of it. >> did you ever play? >> no. look at me.

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welcome welcome back to "squawk box". breaking economic news, rick santelli, the the number, please. >> and the numbers are 336,000 on initial claims. that's a jump of 2,000. and it could have been a little bit more but the 332 last week became 334 and this week's 336. if we look a lot continuing claims, you know, there's not a lot going on there really. subtle revisions hovering 3.05 million. interest rates hovering in the 190s in a 10-year. obviously the fed meeting

yesterday wrapped up. europe, i find it fascinating. they are down today. it's going to be very interesting to see if the last minute bell ripping here of course for the equity markets reflects a little less positive sentiment than we're seeing right now. s&p is a little bit squirrely in the last 15 minutes. fair value may be an issue. existing home sales, 10:00 eastern. that will be interesting to see which side of 5 million units were on. tomorrow is not a big day today. but my guess is with the banks in cyprus not opening any time soon, the the weekend trade especially tomorrow and late could be rather interesting. back to you. >> rick, stay with us. for more on the data, let's bring in chief economist at rdq economics. i don't know whether the claims number is interesting enough to

talk to you or not, john. but given the fed testimony and cyprus, there's plenty to hash out. where do you want to start? >> i think the number is interesting. it continues this downward decline. claims are now at 340,000. and that's a significant improvement from where we were in the second half of last year. so we've had the fiscal cliff uncertainty. we have had sequestration. we have had these problems in cyprus. and the economy keeps on picking up what a little bit of momentum here. not fantastic momentum. but certainly more than i think people were expecting if you go back to two months to the -- two or three months to the end of last year. >> what's the most interesting thing about that, john? did it happen after the sequester or did it happen in light of, you know, no payroll tax holiday? or the fed is orchestrating it? >> i don't think the fed is

orchestrating it. despite qe, i'm not sure how quantitative easing causes it at this point to cut back on lower. so what this jobs number signals is that layoffs are declining. maybe that means companies being more lean and mean are thinking five years after the the start of the financial crisis maybe it's time to get on with growth plans. this aligns with the payroll survey week and probably gives us a decent shot of another number above 200,000 for job creation, which would be good news. i'm not saying it's great. but i am saying despite all those other factors, the economy looks like it's growing at least 2.5% in the first quarter. that's better than we are seeing out of europe after we saw the manufacturing numbers earlier today. >> i think it makes sense that jobless claims is doing better. the average workweek is now at

prerecession numbers. the only thing they have left to do is start hiring. they gained as much efficiency as they can. now you have to hire. you can only do so much in efficiency gains. i think this trend continues. >> rick, the 350 is the the cutoff, right? is that still what we use? or we don't know what to use anymore with the participation rate? >> you know, most traders down here would say 400,000. but obviously we're below 350. i guess my issue is this. the last comment by our guest with regard to this is a good thing, the next step of course is they have to hire more. i don't know. you look at organic growth and there's more in whole foods than there is in some of the earnings we see during earnings season. i'm just not so sure. five years after a crisis we

have to knowledge father time plays an important role in every issue, whether it's housing. but i think when it comes to jobless claims we have come to a point where there isn't going to be potentially more layoffs. and i'm just not sure there isn't a bungee cord on how the traders are supposed to correlate that with the first friday numbers every month. i think it's not like it used to be in that regard. you could bet on it figure you were going to see a direct upshot to hiring and for that to be the case. you add in the part-time issues and all the get around the rules that's going to happen as we get closer and closer to putting all the piece toss obama care some place and i think it's going to get tough to figure it out at that point. >> what about that, john. it would be nice to do, three, three and a half. is that in the cards? >> absolutely. if you take bernanke at his word

yesterday, the fed is thinking much higher number. 1.5 points of fiscal drive on gdp growth. i think those fiscal drag estimates are way overblown. that gives them a little more cover to keep on quantitatively easing. but it's not just the jobless claims numbers. in the last month or so, great numbers from manufacturing, from housing. we'll see more later on today. from consumer spending numbers, retail sales despite the end of the payroll tax cut is pretty much hard to find an economic indicator that hasn't beaten expectations in the last few weeks. and if we get another month or so of that, when does that become the sustained improvement that chairman bernanke was talking about yesterday as a, for tapering back on qe?

i don't think they want to taper back. but i think the economy looks fairly interesting here. a broad range of indicators are on an upswing. >> rick, we'll see you later as well. >> joe, if you get a chance the santelli exchange, we have a really cool instrument to combat what's wrong with the economy. it's lent to me from the ecb and federal reserve. they only let it out once in a while. you want to watch today. >> is it a geiger meter? >> what time? >> about 11:45 eastern. >> excellent. all right, rick. >> no. excuse me, 10:45 eastern. duh. >> is that right? maybe there's a time change. john, thanks. >> the ghost busters thing maybe they measure with. take a look at shares of lulu

lemon. the retailer had to pull a popular line of yoga pants because the pants were too sheer. the stock is still up in the premarket. and kb homes posting a smaller than expected loss. just a few minutes ago revenue sharply above the consensus. >> let the >> let the good times roll. up next, a join venture between wendell pierce and joe henry. ♪ ♪ [ female announcer ] you're the boss of your life. in charge of long weekends and longer retirements. ♪ ask your financial professional how lincoln financial can help you take charge of your future.

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welcome welcome back, everybody. futures have been a little bit weaker. we're still down 12.5 points below fair value. they came in at a strong level. 340,000. so that trend continues. let's get back down to andrew in new orleans. he joins us with two special guests. this is something we have been looking forward to all morning, andrew. >> i have been looking forward to this all morning. we're in the big easy, in new orleans. wendell pierce, you know him from "the wire" and "treme." you have a famous line. we can't say it on cable.

we could but we won't. you're a businessman too. >> yes. . >> you guys are hooked up to do pretty interesting things in new orleans both on the building side and constructing grocery store chains effectively. >> yes. >> first of all, how do you know each other? >> we grew up together. a great neighborhood called pontchartrain park. at segregation, it was the only place they could purchase a home. >> after katrina you decided to go in business together. >> i put out a call to our generation saying our neighborhood was destroyed. some of the deepest flooding. our parents worked so hard to build this great number. it's on us to rebuild it. so i solicited his business sense and expertise. >> and you worked for hp. >> a number of them. united water. a number of large corporations.

>> and you decided first into the housing business. >> right. it's nonprofit. i started to see all around the city we had commercial strips that weren't coming back. we had to make sure they had an opportunity to shop. since they worked so hard i said i think this is a great opportunity. >> this is the the profit mode. >> yes. definitely. >> tell us about the grocery stores. >> sterling farms, fresh food grocery stores taking the -- taking vac of the pent up demand. all of those areas where unfortunately american business stands on the sideline. we said we're not going to stand on the sideline. we will come in and bring food

access. >> is this a good business yet? a profitable business yet? >> it's very profitable. what we call heavily urban markets are under served. as a result providing them with the right service, the right quality and price points we think we can make it a very lucrative business. >> and you're trying to bring produce, fresh produce. >> when people hear about the idea they say, wow, which is so distinctly different about your business. really nothing. we're not going to reinvent the wheel. what makes me different is that my competitors demonstrated a dysfunction. they see these consumers as not worthy. well, they come to them, travel over miles and have shown dedication to their browned, service. we see them as emerging markets. >> what's business like in new orleans these days? is it back? >> pockets are back. wendell likes to call it a tale

of two cities. there are parts that have returned and other parts that are struggling. the political issues that go along with business here tend to really damper the ability to really accelerate growth here. as we get less a little bit sized. >>. >> these are local regulatory issues. >> we have another story we're opening up now dealing with regulatory matters. it's just bureaucracy, bureaucracy. >> i'm a part of board here. we're talking about startups and people coming to pitch all week long to different venturists. there's a real spirit here and development. it's a yin and yang. >> do you care about obama care? you're the local regulatory issues. let's talk about the national

issues we talk a lot about. >> obama care is a little bit to be defined. because of the number of employees, we're directly affected by that. we're still doing our analysis until sort of the dust settles. we don't know exactly what the impact will be on it. we like the idea of everybody having a choice and having health care. >> right. >> but we don't know what it is going to mean to your bottom line. >> while we deal with all of those, you know, obstacles, the revenue stream, the urban market that everyone sort of ignores because they feel they're a little risk adverse. i don't have that aversion. i feel this is wealth waiting to be mined. it's demonstrated by magic johnson. he did it the best. he showed that you can go into markets that you traditionally overlooked and will it be profitable. >> before i let you go, wendell, let's talk acting. you're part of the nbc family.

>> i am doing a job with michael j. fox. i'm in the news business. i play his news director. i'm trying to get him to come back and working with his wife to get him back. it's going to be fun. in the meantime, i will commute between new york and new orleans with sterling farms. we're opening the store. >> one final question. he watched it all at one time over christmas break. a lot of shows are doing this this way now. house of cards came out. as an actor, how does that change the business for you. >> actors love it. it demonstrates how people love to watch their show and their interest in the show. there's a way to quantify it. >> and monday taoeuz it. >> actor and entrepreneur, wendell. thank you for being with us this morning. this is very exciting for me.

back to you in the studio. >> break a leg with the mother network nbc. stocks on the move ahead of opening bell. what has jim cramer all fired up. "squawk box" back in two minutes. can't catch "squawk box" on television? well, we're just a few keystrokes away. find the show online and on mobile. @squawkcnbc. like us on facebook and visit squawk.cnbc.com. your investments and the information you need at your fingertips. "squawk box" on cnbc. profit from it. g at all? it's lots of things. all waking up. connecting to the global phenomenon we call the internet of everything. ♪ it's going to be amazing. and exciting. and maybe, most remarkably, not that far away. we're going to wake the world up.

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welcome welcome back, everybody. the futures are a little bit in the red this morning. they have improved since the beginning of the morning but dow futures are about 15 1/2 points below fair value. another stock to watch this morning -- cisco. downgraded from underperform to market perform. jim cramer, judge wapner, joining us this morning. we got to talk stocks i guess, jim. i was just checking out a couple

of the tip-offs today. i do confess to that. have you thought about that? >> we were just talking about that. when you came to us, that was kind of our buzz. >> it is a productivity problem. did you guys see the pope's final four picks? did you see when i put that up? >> i saw it flash up but i missed it. >> i don't know if he -- i don't know whether he's -- >> that's the jesuit lineup. yeah, thought that was terrific. >> i don't know whether i'd take these to the bank, necessarily. it kind of makes sense but i did check, they are in four different brackets. they could meet. with st. francis not make the count tournament this year? >> xavier. how about we go with norva? >> i think this is all jesuit, jim, all jesuit, all the time. it could mean -- that would

be -- robert wolfe said what if that really is the final four? >> above? >> you could easily see two of them in. >> you could see georgetown ond gonzaga. >> gonzaga overrated. i'm just sayin'. >> i agree. i think so, too. who do you have in winning, jim? >> i think -- i know this issing going to be in your face but i think louisville win. >> they're hot. >> the hot team -- anybody coming in hot is the winner. >> how about you, scott? >> i'm going -- i like miami. i'll go the upset because they looked awesome this year in the acc. >> that was a slam down this weekend. >> i'm going with the upset pick. >> i'm worried about -- i wondered about miami. chuck todd, it kind of kills me that he's -- >> i always follow his tweets. you do, too, i guess. >> i do. that's kind of irritating.

>> though ole miss looked awly good this past weekend with anderson. >> great stories. i got indiana. i don't know. i like victor. cody zeller. >> the president has indiana as well. >> i thought the president -- he's a pro football fan. i know he drafted alfred morris. right? i think the presidendentays -- he he's in every pool there is. yeah. >> this is just shameless. >> that's a good thing sglp but when the president's in the middle east and we still know what his picks are, it is kind of a water cooler thing. we should have saukd about something else probably but the futures are down 15. you guys will update when the market opens, you guys update whatever you need to do. >> i want to be in new orleans with andrew ross sorkin. he's interviewing bunk? my daughter's down there? the whole thing is great. i want to be on bourbon street.

>> where is the final four this year? >> atlanta -- isn't it? >> i don't even know. >> i think it's in atlanta if there's no walkers. walking dead. atlanta, it's overrun. >> the cdc was taken over. >> we're losing it here. guys, we'll see you in a few minutes. >> i'll see you in ft. bragg. that's still a place we can go, right? the last word of advice from robert wolfe when "squawk box" comes right back. are you ready for the stock of the day? it's coming up right here on "squawk box." this is america.

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