beige book. but right now huge developments of the boston terror attacks. reporting that an arrest is imminent. security camera from a nearby store apparently shows a man dropping off the backpack. >> we'll get back to you. improving markedly in this district. manufacturing strategies. seeing residents. now the details of the beige book are stronger than the general economic assessment. let's get breaking news in boston. >> i'm going to pick it up from there. i want to just quickly show you what is going on with the markets.

it is off the lows of the day. i want to bring something to your attention. you can come to your own conclusions but we did start to see a bit of a come back as we started to get some of the headlines out about an arrest being imminent. >> let me bring you up to date on what's been happening. the associated press is reporting that an arrest is imminent in the boston bombing. that is according to the associated press quoting a law enforcement official who has spoken under the condition of anonymity. cnbc and nbc news have not been

able to confirm it. they are provided to the boston marathon. as lord and taylor turning over their surveillance video. and anyone with a cell phone, they are looking through all of that. the other important bit of forensic evidence, fragments of the bomb. we have been showing those throughout the day today and yesterday. fregmentes of the pressure cooker and wiring. and the battery that came off of the device that did such devastation.

carrying down bags of what presumably is evidence and that will go into this investigation. the associated press the outlet on this, as far as we know, is reporting that an arrest is imminent. it's very rare if not unheard of for a law enforcement official to say that an arrest is imminent unless it's someone that is not likely to flee. please take that report with a huge grain of salt. we can say according to law enforcement officials, telling nbc use that the investigation has been productive. they have people they want to

talk to. >> in your more than two decades of the investigative reporting, the language is important. when we hear an arrest is imminent. can we assume right now fairly safely that we are discussing one individual? >> i think that is self-explan tory. that is one individual. in fact it's hard to imagine that there was. but -- >> and the reason i bring that up, scott, is that you yourself highlighted the oddity of the language. we have seen in the past where officials will use key terms to shake other people out. >> yeah, but i would think -- that's what is unusual. and honestly, in a lot of years of doing this, i have never heard that type of a

characterization that an arrest is imminent. and i'm not trying to throw cold water on the ap report. it's just that it's unusual. >> we are actually hearing from ap that there has been an arrest. and we will continue with any headlines as they break right here on street signs. >> all right guys. i understand that we do have the video from the security camera video okay. okay. okay. what we're looking at here. that is the security camera in question from the lord and taylor. i-that's actually a google earth

view of the bomb scene. that is the security camera video that reportedly has provided the video that led to the arrest according to the ap. who he is, just a suspect at this time. let's get the reaction to the fed news. his take on the state of the economy. it's a busy day. you have heard the news here. let's hope that the reports are true. it's something that all of america can get behind. we have seen the scares today. we have seen the bombing and terror in boston. is there an economic reaction to events such as this? >> there was after 911 when

investors tried to discount the real possibility of a significant further attack. certainly this is startling to people on different levels. i think certainly it will calm nerves. the market went up a little bit and maybe it's because of that. the markets have to have some risk for this sort of risk. it's the world we live in. >> we have to leave it there. we do apologize. this is an extraordinary day. we want to go back to what we are saying. an arrest has been made. i do want to go straight back to you and tell us what more we are learning on this. >> mandy, we have just that. and again let me stress this has not been confirmed but the ap is reporting that there has been arrest.

we do have a crew in federal court and we are monitoring that. now again, based on past experience and how these things play out it would be unusual for this person to be in court very quickly. there are no cameras in federal courthouse. we will certainly you posted on that. there has been an arrest. this may be somebody who has been arrested in something related to the bombing as opposed to somebody who was involved in the bombing. we have to be important not to get too ahead of ourselves here. one thing that we do know for certain, this has been confirmed and some of it is obvious. but the investigation has yielded some progress in terms of evidence.

so, we're making progress. i-we have fragments of the bomb. >> indeed. thank you very much. i have a feeling we will be getting back to you very shortly. >> right. obviously we have got be very careful with this and repeat that this is the ap reporting this now. you can think of a number of scenarios where that can happen. one situation would be where

somebody was in custody and got questioned. we don't know if that's the case right now. separate series throughout the day. suspicious packages reported here. and senator roger wickers office. so al of this playing into a real heightened sense of the jitters has a lot of the front line staffers and now coming out

of this positive. >> certainly a day of nervousness and skittishness. it may turn out to be a day of some sigh of relief. an arrest has been made in the marathon bombing. crowds are beginning to gather. we will bring you more on this developing story. we are all over it from all the resources at the nbc universal family provides you. >> we are just hearing from nbc, this is very interesting. that no arrest has been made. as we can see, a fluid situation with a number of conflicting

headlines. we do mean to get to the very bottom of it and get you very accurate information. do stick around. you're watching street signs on cnbc.

>> no arrest has indeed been made which is contradictory of what the ap is reporting. it's a fluid situation. somebody in the law enforcement world is speaking to the press nom mousily and they're giving us some conflicting reports here about whether there is a suspect in custody. whether that person has been

arrested. whether they're heading to the federal courthouse to make the official arraignment. so there you go. yet another report so we have to be very careful about what we are reporting at this time. it is clear that they have made progress in all of this. the images to have access to -- from monday's tragedy. but right now we are not clear yet on whether there is actually an identified suspect in custody or arrested at this time. so we will keep you posted on what's going on right now.

>> we will certainly get to the bottom of that. we have got big and scott on this issue. and let's bring in fred. >> i believe you have been saying for years that we will not have another major 9/11 type terror event. the thing we will get yesterday. on a much smaller scale kind of terror events. >> i think we have already seen this for quite some time. going back to the oklahoma city bombing. as well as the bombing in. the special event that is

designated as such like an inauguration. . the facts are that the vulnerability of these large mass gatherings is always there and always going to be -- >> we want to highlight the banner at the bottom of our programming which says. abc news reporting that no arrest has been made. it is clear to see that we are getting close including those made by nbc news. perhaps the most special day in the state of massachusetts and city of boston is a family event this is the very definition of

terrorism, is it not? >> it certainly is. you can look at the soft target nature of this event the vulnerability is there. i keep coming back. the ones -- oklahoma world trade center. usually it's 180 degrees from you're given in work and theory when it first unfolds. i can that bombing in oklahoma city. until the oklahoma highway

patrol picked up timothy. it turned out to be eric rudolph. i think time will tell. i don't expect this case to be solved quickly. >> thank you very much for your commentary on this. i would like to get straight back to bill griffith. we have more information? >> we're trying to flesh this out. we have a note for pete williams. two sources tell nbc news that two people have video of a person placing a black bag down. one confirm authorities have

video of several individuals including this one person who they are interested in questioning. these have been described to nbc has solid leads. looking for him to question. this is what we are getting at nbc news from law enforcement officials. not about an arrest. not about an identified suspect per say. but that they have leads based on the video surveillance cameras that they have had access to. >> we know this. a security camera is the camera which has captured much of the video that law enforcement officials are using in their investigation. that is from google maps and that is the camera on the corner

of the lord and taylor. nbc news investigative producer on this. bob, maybe you can answer a fundamental question from our viewers. it is the hallmark of this investigation. and he is said to one of the things that we have to be assured of is that we are getting it from essentially the horse's mouth. the authority involved in making this arrest and the u.s. attorney's office in boston has denied it and we are told that

there will be an fbi statement probably an e-mail statement very soon refuting these reports. so it is very clear at this point that there has not been an arrest. there is one or more persons of interest. whether they have identified the people by name is uncertain. but right now what we know is there is some video that they have found interesting but there has been no arrest. >> and you were saying that, you know, at this stage we do not have any clear relation between the boston bombing and these two letters.

>> that is certainly one possibility. copy cats. and we saw a similar echo attack. thoshts are saying that they don't have any indication. one letter sent to the president of the united states. both intercepted in mail facilities. we don't have any indication that those things are linked but obviously coming in the same week it has got everybody on edge here in washington but you should be aware everybody is paying attention to the boston investigation.

>> i want to go back to you. what do we expect to here from the fbi and if the ap reports are wrong, at what point do we see backtracking? >> i think you will see backtracking in the next few minutes. normally if you have a conflict, editors will go to the original reporter on this and say can you double check. and as double checks begin and continue, there will not be the definitive information and there will be denials. i totally believe that you will see this statement from the fbi refuting the arrest. i doubt that you will see more than that other than perhaps some boilerplate that the investigation is continuing or that they have made some progress. but i think the key thing here is there is video. the video has proven to be

productive. the video has pointed them in a direction. that does not necessarily mean that we will see an arrest any time soon but it does mean that the investigation has accelerated. >> i want to get back to fred. to brian's point, the fact that we're getting so much conflicting information at this stage, potentially news organizes having to backtrack on some of the things that they said, you have been following terror events for many years. is this a normal wart of the investigative process? >> remember you're dealing with a lot of different moving parts. you have the fbi joint terrorism task force that is responsible for working this out of boston. now with that you probably have 20 or 25 different agencies working the case. and their captains and supervisors and chiefs are

hitting them up every hour for updates. that's how the bulk of these leaks surface. and then you have a case like this where you have the president of the united states that is visiting tomorrow. you have the fbi director engaged that will brief the national security council. literally the fbi is going be saddled with three times a day, putting together an update on the status of the investigation. there will be copies e-mailed all around washington and so port. but the chaos surrounding this is just that. there are so many different people involved with this that it's extraordinarily difficult to just get your job done because as an agent working the

case. and your bosses getting hounded for updates. >> roueuteres saying no arrest s been made either. according to their sources, no arrest has been made. bill you have more information? >> i was going to cite that one and pete williams citing yet another law enforcement official source saying no arrest has been made and now we're hearing from peter alexander, a senior official is telling him no arrest is being made. now we're getting the backtracking and i think it bears repeating, guys, as well. michael mccall who chairs the house homeland security committee. he had told reporters a short time ago that he spoke to the fbi a short time ago everybody

wants to see cloe sure on this. while they have made progress, it's not enough yet that they have a suspect in custody. >> at least they say we have solid leads. and there is the scheduled press conference by the fbi. in the meantime we are going to go to a very quick break. ♪

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>> welcome back here. let's set the scene in boston. nbc news is reporting as well as rueteres that no arrest has indeed occurred. certain news organizations are pulling back on the reports there is a media skrum outside

the federal courthouse in boston, massachusetts. >> let's take a look at the markets. sounds bad let's find out more about why we do seem to have a slight come back off the lows today. bob is on the floor. bob, what do you make of this? i don't know about you but i feel like i have got whiplash. >> here is what we're looking at. we did come off of our lows. put up a dough. and the important thing is we started coming off the lows. there is a word coming out that there was progress being made.

the stock market was going up until monday. we not only had a down day but we had a big down day. today we're having essentially the same situation. this is not just selling. this is now information about having a trend reversal. the key chart today, the key chart, copper closing at a new 52 week low. again, i'm very concerned about the fact that we're not and don't appear to be in any kind of up market trend. >> same thing for the yields, right? over there at the treasuries.

i know we're back above 1.7. >> whether it was monday's close or the lowest close going back to december 11 or the fact that we have been flirting with that level. most of today's session. listen, i have tried to talk to literally dozens of traders not only in chicago and not only in new york. all of those places. and they tell me that of course, the outcome of this, they think, will be traded on. really defined and maybe we have the chart. the equity losses were painted in them. it's very hard to be patient in a world that wants answers.

we're all going to monitor this. >> thank you very much from bonds to apple. apple no longer the biggest company in the world. that goes back to exxon. you had chip maker's serious logic. serious logic the only thing dragging apple down today? >> brian, good afternoon. i think sit a bit of a double whamy today. i think it's a combination of those two things. >> apple has lost over 40% of

its market cap right? at what point does it become a value proposition? >> on the one hand normally you would by. i think you need to really see the bar reset on earnings estimates. you have got believe they can continue to innovate some of the newer competitors there. >> do you believe they can? >> well, you know, the proof's going to be in the pudding. clearly they have the opportunity to do that. it will be abundant on the software application side.

>> you heard they are breaking news that they are coming out with i pudding? clearly they're not. although if they did maybe it would work. as a user of i cloud i can say that i have had a lot of problems with it. apple seems to have had a string of issues. little bits here and there. it's a combination o only that but a reversion to the mean which is, you know, partly an apple issue but it's also a reflection of the fact that the competitors have caught up in that respect. that's going to be a tough sell. >> we have got to leave it there.

>> more reports. there have been no arrests made. boston police have take on the twitter to tell the world and i'll read the tweet verbatim. despite reports to the contrary there has not been an arrest in the marathon attack. that from boston police. senator john kerry who is now secretary of state but long time senator of massachusetts. he is appearing before the house appropriations committee just before his testimony he said no arrest has been made but we have solid leads. >> we will continue that story. thank you very giving us that information. obviously very fluid you can see. we will continue to follow what we know.

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>> give folks a live look at the federal courthouse. you might remember at the top of the show that we showed you this same scene. there were maybe 30 or 40 people congregated outside of the course hout. numerous reports we know to be erroneous. you could see many interesting parties, media, photographers have indeed gathered at the courthouse expecting something today. >> as we wait for confirmation of any additional news, one of

the things that strikes me is you have got a situation here that is very different from what we had. a lot of us are comparing now to the feeling we had then. you also have this freelance investigation crowd sources tile going on on reddit where people are taking before and after pictures and circling people with backpacks and looking to see if they had them after the blast and before the blast and going down to the detailed level. put out video from a mugger of a subway station.

folks on the internet were able to tie that person to a likely suspect's facebook page. sometimes that can be very, very helpful but other times you have got bear in mind where investigators have gone after a wrong target. >> you make an absolute excellent point. coming out, people jumping on them and other headlines coming out disproving them. i would really like to know kpa exactly is the fbi doing right now as we speak. >> the pressures they are dealing with right now is ensuring that every single fact

is right. and to get this right and to find somebody and to begin to run this investigation into the ground to identify the perpetrators and bring them to justice. if you go too quickly on the former side and make mistakes you generate political controversy. . why haven't you identified perpetrators yet? >> well, bill, that's a good question and you have done a lot of research. this in some ways is worth an individual who had a beef. when this is over and we're confident it will be at some point, when this is over, what could we take away from the way we changed our investigating? >> i think a couple lessons. one is it's suggested if we're

going to have a free and open society that we will be vulnerable to these type of attacks. i think the third observation is it's been a long run since 2001. we have been pretty safe. i think think is going to call into question the policies we have been pursuing to keep the country safe. >> we were speaking with another terrorism expert who was saying we're not likely to have another 9/11 type of major terror event but we will see the smaller loan wolf type of events. do you agree with that? >> i think with extremist organizations they try to play inside our decision system.

which i think we will find this is what we're dealing with. without changing what it is we do on a daily basis. we heard that from so many people in boston. we're not going to change what we're doing. we have to play and be more a jil, more flexible and adaptable than we have been. >> we hope to always stay one step ahead and we certainly thank you for your commentary. >> we have been seeing and we're reporting what we know here. we are seeing so much law enforcement activity even up to

a short time ago when there were technicians coming off of roofs as they continue to sort through this. i think what you have seen over the last couple of hours is the game of telephone we all played as a kid. there are clearly every law enforcement agency in the region, some of the best people in the business and a lot of some of the best journalists in the business who are calling all of their sources and some of them have second or third or fourth hand information. so when you hear a law enforcement official saying that an arrest is about to be made it sounds like quite a big deal until you start to pick it apart until you realize that law enforcement officials rarely say an arrest is about to be made unless it's been made and that seems to be what happened based on all of the initial reports. we will see what happens. we do know according to all of the reporting that there has been a great deal of evidence

compiled. they have video of somebody placing a black bag down along the finish line area. now a lot of putting black bags the finish line area. that doesn't mean that that was the bomb. so, we backtrack a little bit further. but, it is clearly somebody that the authorities who were investigating in this case would want to talk to. and that seems to be what has happened. so particularly, for evedy who wants some resolution to this horrible event and for the people who are watching cnbc and trading on this, because we've seen the markets move on this, again, an appeal to take it with a grain of salt. >> well said, as always, scott cohn. scott cohn, thank you very much. and to recap, nbc news, and specifically, pete williams of nbc news, reporting there that a senior administration official saying no arrest has been made. they have, quote, solid leads.

but, no arrests yet. >> we're going to take a very quick break here on "street signs" and come right back and continue to follow this story and give ow an update on what the markets have been doing. we seem to be taking another bit of a leg downwards now. the dow is off by 166 points, the nasdaq is once again off by over 2%. a lot of that is the damage that's been done in apple stock today. don't go away. ♪

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the fbi has just released a statement. let's get right now the scott cohn who has the fbi. scott? >> we've got more about what's happening with the markets. we've got steve masoka joining us from web bush securities. very interesting day. i think bob my sanny's been calling it the ping-pong market. down day monday, up day yesterday, down day again today. very difficult environment, i would imagine, for an investor to make money in. >> well, i mean, it's a much-needed decline, a much-needed respite from every day being up. consensus got very, very ebulent

and very, very bullish. i really haven't seen anything particularly negative to think that this is going to be a sustained turn in the market. but clearly, we needed to knock some of the froth off the cake. >> you know what, steve, we've got to jump in right here, because scott cohn's microphone, back on now. scott cohn, what is the fbi now saying about the new developments? >> reporter: the fbi has quite forcefully knocked down the story of an arrest, multiple arrests, an arrest imminent. the fbi says despite widespread reports, there have been no arrests in connection the boston marathon attacks. and there is also a bit of an admonition to the media here. they say that there have been widespread reports over the past few days, quoting unofficial sources, and they ask the media during this sensitive time to make certain that what they're reporting has been vetted. now, i will tell you that what nbc news is reporting and we can

assume that nbc news and pete williams, the best in the business, have vetted this well, is that there have been solid leads that have been developed, and we know from our reporting and what we've seen here, that there is a swarm of law enforcement still over the scene of the attack, that took place 48 hours, still gathering evidence, including video evidence, including fragments of the explosive devices, and those will likely come in very handy. the internship that authorities and sources, law enforcement sources, i should say, are using with pete williams is solid leads. solid leads is a good thing, but it's a long way from an arrest. and the fbi has squarely knocked down those reports that arrests have been made. in fact, no arrests have been made. back to you. >> and no doubt we're going to be hearing a lot more from the fbi when their press conference starts, 5:00 p.m. eastern. scott, thank you very much for

the fbi's statements so far. we'll take a very quick break and continue this story after this. making them work. we oversee 20% of the world's financial assets. and that gives us scale and insight no one else has. investment management combined with investment servicing. bringing the power of investments to people's lives. invested in the world. bny mellon. revolutionizing an industry can be a tough act to follow,

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we are showing you some live pictures of the federal courthouse in boston. we're actually hearing that the boston police, certain members of the police, have come out of the courthouse, and they've said, guys, look, just go home here. nothing to see here. there's not been arrest on the marathon attack and we know a lot more as well. >> let's recap what we know. that is the main news, folks. despite other report