welcome back. i'm jackie deangelis reporting

on the floor of the nymex. we got the department of energy inventory report on crude. we had a build here of 7.7 million barrels, less than the 14 plus million that we heard from the api last night. still, a bearish number here, but we did stem some of the losses on the day because it wasn't as bad as people were expecting. right now 51.10 where we're trading on crude, down about 1.72 when we were seeing a more than 4% decline on the day. looking at gasoline here, only a build of about a half million barrels, and people were expecting more than that. this hud should be bullish for gasoline. we'll check the prices for you. back to "squawk alley." >> thanks jackie. we are live in bentonville, arkansas, at a super store by walmart's headquarters. the dow component beating on its earnings this morning but the bigger news, the company announcing a wage hike for half a million employees. joining us in a cnbc exclusive

doug mcmillon president and ceo of walmart stores. >> thanks for coming to arkansas. >> little cold but very nice. >> yeah. >> the nation's biggest private employer, more than a million employees nis country and raising your minimum starting wage, why now? >> we want to provide a great customer experience and our associates to know how much we value them. the changes that we're making include structural changes in the stores wage increases, training programs and this company as you probably know has always been a people business, it's a people business today and will be tomorrow. and so our associates, their pride in the company, the ownership that they take, those things are vital to running a good retail business and today we're investing in them and want them to know how important they are. >> you've been a target for a long time, from critics who argue that you didn't pay employees enough. do you wish you had done this earlier and why didn't you? >> we make wage ajudgments all the time. we decided this is a good moment

to be bold in the changes we're making. it's aimed at running a good business. annually we go through wage and benefit reviews and make adjustments. we want to make sure everybody is crystal clear, how vital our store experience is to our future. we're making investments in e-commerce too, but we can't win if we don't create a situation where digital and physical come together in a way that customers are well served. at the end of the day, even though some of the investments in mobile, for example, are really important to our future this will come back to being a people business. customers need to be served. associates need to be happy and love their job. i've worked for walmart a long time. it's created a tremendous opportunity for me, tremendous opportunity for many other people, and we want to keep that going. >> you've been quoted as saying when we don't get it right, we adjust. what was the part you weren't getting right? were you not attracting the right people? did you have the right people, but were simply not paying them

enough? >> in retail we make so many decisions. we make decisions about hours that we allocate, decisions about the front end, the back of the store, how many department managers we have and there's so many that sometimes you can make independent decisions and when you add them all up it doesn't work as well as it should. it's a system. and so what we're trying to do is take this what feels like a ladder of opportunity and make sure that each rung on that ladder, whether you're a new associate joining as a cashier or been with us 15 or 20 years and run a department everything from the starting wage to training programs in place to the number of department managers we have, all those things are in place to make the system work. so we're always fine tuning it. today we're announcing a wider range of changes than we normally would do at once. >> have you had other companies in recent weeks and months start to raise wages a gap, ikea, aetna, were you sensing retention was going to get tougher as the job market moved into this cycle of improvement? >> it's great to see the job market getting better and the market works so we're adjusting

to that market, trying to make sure we're appropriately ahead of it and we'll continue to move if we need to. at the end of day we have to have great talent. we have about 75% of our store management in the united states that comes from our hourly ranks so today's cashier is tomorrow's store manager. tomorrow's store manager may have my job. we want to make sure that opportunity is there for people as it has been for so many of us in the past. >> i don't need to tell you, looking at a map of minimum wages in this country, 19 states now have made a move. arkansas had a vote. >> i voted for that increase by the way. >> you voted for that. >> yeah. >> people will say look they saw it coming, they saw it was a political inevidentibility they're trying to get in front of it and look like the good guy. what do you say to those folks? >> we actually are a good guy. it's not complicated. we listened to our associates in lots of ways and we are in the stores, we know what reality looks like and we are making an investment to improve that. we want happy customers that come back and more customers. this is about running a good

business. >> do you believe that it is no longer possible to get by in this country at $7.25? >> i think the market will work. there may be some people that need to move up. what we're going to do is what's best for our people and again, it's not just about the starting wage rate. it's about department managers uknow, moving to $13 in the summer and next year to $15. it's about how all the pieces fit together. >> but i don't need to tell you, you will be seen as somewhat of a political tell, right? i know you're probably -- are you going to weigh in on what the federal minimum wage should be? >> no. >> or anything like that. >> that's for somebody else to sort out. we're about running a good business. >> marissa mayer on the board this morning, tweeted great decision, great leadership decision, by you. was anyone in particular other than yourself an influence in making this move? >> our board was important in this decision as were the leaders in the company that i work with on a daily basis. it was a team effort, a team decision, and widely supported.

we're all very excited about it. i've been looking forward to today for a while to have an opportunity to say thank you to our associates, to let them know how important they are and give 500,000 people a raise, that's kind of a rare day. we're enjoying it. >> you said one of your best days at walmart. >> i'm sure it will be, yeah. >> the number, right, i know, i don't want to belabor the number, how did you settle on $9 and then $10? because by some estimates it's right around or a little above the industry average for a cashier, but there are some competitors who might pay more. >> when you think ate the system you try to create for your system you think about a number of components. we didn't want to take all the investment and put it in a starting wage rate. we wanted to invest in moving them along the pipeline. what assistant managers makes matter, store managers, and average manager in the u.s. in a store is going to make if you're an assistant $50,000 if you're a

store manager, as high as $170,000 and we think of all those levels as we try to create the situation where we can find great store managers for tomorrow and people that want to be a cashier because it fits into their lifestyle for a sustained period of time, we want them to feel well rewarded for what they do. >> we should oipts out you're doing -- it's not just about the starting number, but it's about having a more fixed schedule, it's about -- >> that's right. >> having more security in your wage as a department chief or head, right here, say pharmacy, where you are in charge of really retake and handling the starting employees. >> the scheduling change is important and we want to run stores that are staffed in a way that serve customers effectively. customers don't all shop in the middle of the week. they shop on weekends, shop at night, and it turns out that some of our associates want fixed schedules, they want to know what their schedule is going to be, they want to know what their hours are going to be. others want some flexibility in their schedule and they may want to move around, going to school

or have other things going on. we've been piloting a new scheduling system, a fixed and flex approach to setting hours and that's gone very well in pilot so we'll be expanding that. >> heard any word from the white house, any reaction? >> no. been busy this morning. >> i can imagine. we'll talk about the quarter in a second, but does it seem to you broadly, not just within walmart, but broadly wages in this country, especially the lower income, are making a turn? >> yeah, i do think that they're going up. and as you know we operate in 27 countries around the world so we deal with inflationary environments related to wages in other places. chinese wages have been going up wages in latin america. i think that's a good thing. in our case, as the economy hopefully generates more jobs, and the middle income in this country gets stronger. >> you expect competitors to

matc match. >> i think the competitive marketplace works and do what's best for their business. >> you must have done some analysis that said all right what happens if we don't dos this, right? what were the liabilities of staying at the wages you were at? >> we didn't think about that much. as we looked at the situation that we had in stores and decided that we wanted to change structure and that we wanted to make other changes it was clear to us that we wanted to move up. it was a matter of how much. repeat weeks and months we've been debating that issue. we started work well over a year ago and that work as it tested out performed well and gave us a piece of training to improve and then we made the wage change and the structural change and it's how it all comes together that i think is going to result in a stronger business. >> it's always a balance for big companies investing in labor, capex, versus making a buyback, hiking a dividend. you've been able to do both but is this more satisfying than doing a buyback or a differevid

hike? it. >> is. but there's a balance to it all. lots of stakeholders, shareholders matter, customers matters and associates. principally the way we think about it if we serve customers well taking care of our associates and having a great work environment other things work out. shareholders benefit in time and we certainly have seen that in the history of the company and that's what i expect going forward. >> let's talk about the quarter. u.s. comps nice at 1.5. after the third quarter seemed like it is making a turn. are you comfortable saying u.s. comps have turned? >> we got help from low fuel prices, no doubt. we got tailwinds in other areas as well. the quality of our store experience has improved some. but we would tell you we still have a lot of work to do. it doesn't turn overnight. so i think as the months and the quarters go on, we can build a better store experience that will create sustainable and positive comp numbers. but i don't want to underestimate how much help we

got in the fourth quarter externally. >> previously you'd said people were saving money on gas, but they were saving it. weren't necessarily spending it on discretionary items. >> what we saw in the fourth quarter we would estimate the average household in the u.s. saved about $176 on gasoline and a big chunk of that, well over half of it, was spent on food and primarily food and inflation played a role in that process. beef prices are up and other things have gone up. we have -- we hope we're seeing some consumer debt levels come down in areas, mortgage rates being low is helpful. the weather was better in the fourth quarter. another tailwind. as cold as it is here in the last few weeks, but last year in december and january were better. >> stats out of goldman almost zero correlation between gas prices and walmart's u.s. comps which didn't seem to makes sense. on a two month lag it shows up more but were you surprised how long it took gas price or gas

deflation to feed into comps? >> there was a lag. wu we saw more impact as we went into december than november. i wish we could precisely quantify what fuel prices mean to walmart. i don't think that's possible. but as fuel goes up when it was $4 a gallon we felt that headwind and as it dropped to $2 and change we definitely felt that tailwind. >> are you seeing any less lumpiness in terms of people buying around a paycheck cycle? >> paychecks are still an issue. there might have been a little bit of relief in that and one other stat that's interesting that may be related is how rural stores have performed relative to more suburban and urban stores with fuel prices going down, people are more comfortable driving and we've seen a lift in traffic in our rural markets. >> looking at the holidays has black friday outlived its usefulness as a tell for the retail season. some of the numbers came out that weekend and people freaked out? >> no doubt e-commerce and mobile commerce have changed the

profile of the holiday sales period. people have access now to an item any time they want to shop, you know. i think thanksgiving morning i was watching the parade and ordering on walmart.com but later that afternoon and evening i was in a store. customer behavior has chakds. mobile is a big force. 70% of our traffic move to mobile as opposed to website over the holiday period. the good news is customers use their mobile devices in stores. they don't think about the separation as it relates to shopping. like we sometimes do. it's quite seamless. i think that will have an impact next holiday as well. as we think about our planning for november and december and january, we have an approach that includes our e-commerce business as well as our store's business. the key is how we put them together. we're thinking about that. >> speaking of technology, apple pay, you've always said you would go where the customers want to go. you're on pinterest. but apple pay has not been up to

date in your heart anyway. >> yeah. >> is that going to change? >> we're still looking at it and we have ongoing discussions related to it. things in the first wave made it more difficult but i wouldn't rule it out. wouldn't surprise me at some point in the not too distant future if the cash registers go away or change dramatically. i think mobile payment is definitely a fact and we're excited about that actually, and figuring out ways to use our own app, ways to partner with other people sos customers can save time as they check out and be more efficient is a priority for us. >> were you surprised by the breakdown between amexand costco? >> i'm not involved in that and don't know -- wasn't thinking about it. it's interesting. >> yeah. it is interesting. it's been interesting, holders of amex. the sales guidance for the year, how much of that is the dollar and do you see any signs the dollar is peaking? >> can't call that one. but currency has been a big headwind for us. it's in our forecast in a big way next year. we don't try to forecast it.

we use the peg rates as we look at our forecast. our earnings estimate for the year as we look forward is impacted not only by that but by this investment in associates and large investment in commerce. >> the story of walmart is to a large degree at least on the street has been, you've been investing for years, right, e-commerce, now training and retention all these things going on a long time. at a what point is there light at the end of the tunnel where the investment fades and you start to leverage all the capabilities? does it sound like fiscal '16 is that year? >> retail is different than it used to be. when we were modeling super centers and sam's clubs in this country, we have a global business and make these decisions across a lot of markets these days, use the u.s. as an example, when we were working on the super center and it became fairly clear to us this would work, it became more predictable. but with the internet, mobile, and with innovation, the world has changed and the cycle times

are different. some ways it moves faster but in the investment phase it can take longer. we work for a customer that's patient, customer oriented and enables us to make investments in technology, people, such that we know over time we will win and generate a good return for shareholders. so we're not just worried about this quarter or this year, but how do we take advantage of the things that can be invented for customers, put them in place, makes the necessary investments to do so so across the dimensions of saving money, saving time, customers are wanting to come to walmart and sam's club. >> quick question on ports. got three dozen ships, can't dock, nrf has asked for the feds to get involved. mentioned on the media call but it's beginning to show up on shelves, right? >> we hope that gets resolved early. it's beginning to show up. you won't see much of an impact to food and consumables. we buy the vast majority of the

merchandise we sell in the u.s. in the u.s. it will show up in patio furniture, easter seasonal goods. we move freight not only through the west coast ports but through houston and through the east coast, so we have some diversification there. it would be great to see this resolved quickly. customers are going to pay a price at some point as will the economy. >> does the federal government need to have a stronger hand in this. >> we're happy to see secretary perez involved in this process and hope it can get resolved soon. >> how much longer can you tolerate that kind of inaction and have you guided the street as to what it might cost you down the line? >> it's impossible to forecast. there's some level of cost associated with it. steps we've taken and those are in our forecast. we're not trying to predict the port resolution in our numbers. >> you talked about the experience of shopping at walmart. a survey this past week, 8700 americans, the retail experience satisfaction is down across the board, right.

americans are less happy shopping at stores in general. but on the ranking walmart comes ins last. it comes in behind sears, behind family dollar. is that being fixed? do you believe those types of surveys? >> as you know we have a lot of stores some are better than others. that breaks my heart. that is not what we want. we want every customer to have a great experience. with our announcement we're serious about getting that right and supporting our soerpts s -- associates so they can win. all the pieces whether the department manager increase or structural increase or the wage changes those are aimed at creating a great customer experience. >> how will you know if this billion dollar investment is worth it? what's the metric? >> comp store sales. >> not retention necessarily. >> it will play through retention, the ability to hire, the talent that we need to hire. i'm confident those things will work their way through because we're investing to make them happen but we want associates who are so excited about taking care of customers, thanking them

for shopping with us, things like that, that that's got to show up in sales. >> have you had -- >> won't happen immediately. >> have you had a chance to talk to an associate on the floor about this today? >> just a little bit. you know, we were over doing the media call and i saw my e-mail inbox filling up. it's going to be fun to read through those and other walmart leaders are getting the same kind of feedback. our stores didn't know about this until this morning. so our store managers were briefed early today and they've been talking with our associates and i look forward after i'm through talking with you to hear more about that. >> it's big news. it's a big part of the narrative. bunch of different ways in this country. we thank you for your time. >> thank you. >> appreciate you coming down. >> president and ceo of walmart stores. john, we'll send it back to you. >> all right. well, we got a lot to cover on "squawk alley." coming up we'll talk about pinterest valuation at around $11 billion. what's next for them. also, apple you might recall was sued for not allowing people to poach employees.

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good morning. just past 8:20 a.m. at pinterest headquarters in san francisco, california. just past 1 here on wall street and "squawk alley" is live.

♪ ♪ welcome to "squawk alley." joining us is henry founder and ceo of business insider. >> great to be here. >> jon fortt is here at post nine as well as calls, but before we get started on all the news in the markets and tech mary tomson has breaking news on american express. >> hey there. this is a statement from american express and the wake of a district court judge rulinging the firm did violate anti-trust law as charged by the doj in 2010. american express is disappointed in the decision and plans to appeal. the company goes on to say the

court's ruling will not provide benefit to consumers and will, in fact, harm competition by further entrenching the two dominant networks. a shot at visa and master card. we continue to believe the doj's arguments are flawed and we should prevail on appeal. the judge did give the company and doj 30 days to provide some kind of proposal saying there was middle ground to be found here. we don't know whether an appeal would prevent american express from presenting that proposal. we'll have it when we know. back to you. >> mary thompson at headquarters, thanks so much. american express, walmart and chevron leading the dow lower today. first up a big new valuation for pintere pinterest. according to the "wall street journal" the company is in talks to raise $500 be million in funding, valuing the book marking site around a reported $11 billion. twice the $5 billion price tag in may. uber getting new money raising a

million dollars more. uber valued above $40 billion. henry, you tweeted this morning, is there anybody who's not raising $500 million, billion dollars? >> "the wall street journal" talking about 48 companies in the past year over a bill, ten over 10 billion, remarkable. look a lot is real value. pinterest, it's a long ball. there's no revenue there. you don't have financials so you're banking on them being able to come up with some model some way to monetize their massive audience. with uber you have financials. they are taking in a colossal amount of money. >> also spending a colossal amount of money. on pinterest the company has begun to monetize the site. they've started having some ads. do you think that it can successfully transition from a scrapbooking site from lack of a better decision to a bona fide e-commerce site. >> it's got a shot. i keep thinking of groupon everyone thought would figure out local, it didn't.

looked smart, didn't take. maybe not so smart since valuation is near 5. i was wrong a year ago i thought we were at peak consumer when whatsapp got that $19 billion offer from facebook. now we see snapchat -- >> lasts longer than you think. >> talk less about the consumer than enterprise. >> the enterprise cycle was starting and it was but consumer has continued to have momentum. it's an interesting conversation going on now that you started anew this morning talking about whether this is peak bubble kind of valuation wise dear silicon valley, here's your wake-up call. i feel like while it is getting kind of crazy out there, these are the top tier companies getting this crazy money. usually when at the peak, it's the also that gets ridiculous amounts of money and people feel like the startups are taking over the earth. people excited about apple might say something of the apple hype cycle, i'm not sure we're in bubble territory yet.

>> i don't think we're near a bubble. look back at the 1990s, fundamentally different. the tech industry is cyclical. we go through booms and busts. at some point here we will enter a bust. it's usually a 7 to 10-year cycle on the near side of that now. hopefully we get a few more years. great, certainly possible. there is a difference, pinterest, snap chat, these are companies, there are as you suggest a handful of them who have carved out these massive user bases and investors are just taking it on faith, hey, they will be able to monetize that down the road. with twitter and facebook and others -- >> they're not just taking it on faith. they're seeking it out on faith. one common word is raised additional money due to demand. uber tried to close its round before this new year started and then they got a couple inbound offers according to the new reports according to the filings and said we'll take a billion more. snapchat much the same as well. why would any company, henry, go public if the average ipo proceeds $335 million on average

last ten years and you have an investor sending you a terms sheet in your inbox for $500 million. >> consequence of two things, free money. the government has been giving it away almost ten years now. we're building it up. two, the ipo market changed radically after the 1990s, now nobody wants to go public unless they have to. and the funding markets have adjusted to take that into account. you have a huge well-developed private market where you have investors at every stage willing to write huge checks who have po put capital to work and right now, exactly, companies would be stupid not to take the money. it's there, take it. if you're uber, another few billion in the bank helps. >> we worry what happens when your ubers and snapchats say no, you know what, that extra half billion dollars we don't want it, don't know what to do with it. find other start-ups to put that into. and they find something else to put it into that's not uber, snapchat, that's when we're in a different -- >> starting to spread broad now. it's a list of 50 companies over

a billion dollars. the valuations in the public market still are fine. we're talking about the apple hype dilution around the car and everything else. still trading at 17 times earnings. so at least it's grounded in reality. and also in the private market it's easy to forget these are preferred stock investments. >> right. >> you're not making a common stock investment. probably going to get your money back unless it's a complete disaster. the valuation calculation is different. >> on one hand you could say it's better that these companies are raising money private thely because that way the public investor is shielded from any potential downside. on the other hand you can say look at how much wealth was created from the people able to buy into apple, buy into google, amazon as early stage public companies and ride where the stocks have gone. >> i think it's terrible for public investors investors in general and part of the issue is whether you want to construct your public market and investing is something where everyone has to be protected, or whether you

want to give adults the opportunity to come in and speculate, make risky investments if they want on their own and as you say, amazon went public at $500 million. that would never happen today and look at all the money that was made at 500 to 25, facebook when they went public most of the growth was out of the stock and that is a real bummer for public market investors and it is why you've seen such an incredible private market develop where all these mutual funds are buying private stocks. >> and facebook's market cap is still somehow able to double. >> it's done well, but look at how much folks might have had the opportunity to make if it had gone public at $500 million. >> sure. >> it's extraordinary. >> speaking of big companies, walmart, $277 billion market cap despite the company down 2.5% today. we heard comments from ceo doug mcmillon to carl quintanilla this hour. they talked about everything from the minimum wage increase for about 40% of walmart's workers that will take effect in

april as well as apple pay and as well as just the state of wages and the state of the consumer and effect of lower gas prices in this country and beyond. henry, we were sitting here watching this and discussing it while happening but what struck you the most. >> first, carl did a great interview. you've got to salute walmart. this is a great move for walmart employees and the economy. we've had this incredible divergence over the last ten years where shareholders have done extraordinarily well, companies have hiked their profit margins to the highest level in history, meanwhile averages wages stagnant. workers are not getting any share of pie. to see walmart say look we're doing this voluntarily, not being forced to, that is greatp for the economy. it's great for people that work at walmart. ultimately, although you don't see it in the stock, it is actually good for shareholders because it will get the money circulating again, ultimately you get better people working at walmart, they can stake their careers there, they're not going

to be poor while they work full-time or be less poor than they would have been still. we could go farther than this. it was a small one. you can go farther. it's time for starbucks and mcdonald's and many, many other wildly profitable companies that pay people who work full-time for them only so much that they're poor. >> to be sure, walmart is a corporation when carl asked what the benchmark would be for judging the success, mcmillon said same-store sales. >> this will help that. you will get associates more dedicated to the company, pour more of themselves into it. they will help increase sales and just as important, americans, walmart employs a million americans will have more money to spend, a lot will be spending at walmart. this is a good long-term move for the economy. >> critics that say $131 billion in revenue, maybe more of a hike would have been better for the economy. >> it would have been. and hopefully they go farther.

we'll take any small step in the right direction. >> henry, we always appreciate you being here. >> great to be here. >> thanks for joining us. all right. let's get a check in on the markets at this hour. still trading in negative territory for the dow and s&p it turning positive. the nasdaq on track for its seventh straight day of gains. the dow led downward by walmart, chevron, which is tracking the price of oil down by about 5% as inventory is built and by the ruling on american express as well. shares of t-mobile rallying after revenue and profit topped estimates. the company also announcing it added over 2 million net subscribers in the latest quarter. >> coming up, in a little under two hours from now, yahoo! will host its it first ever mobile developers conference. we'll tell you what to look for. plus, netflix in your hotel room? marriott is considering it as the stock jumps 2%. the ceo will join us in a cnbc exclusive later on this hour. "squawk alley" will be right back. .

welcome back. let's bring back simon hobbs as we count down to the close in the uk and across continental europe. >> thank you, john. european central bank, massive qe starts next wednesday. a month from wednesday. we're up to fresh seven-year highs in europe. come back down as a result of what's happening with greece. oil, we're cutting our losses here on oil but been below $60 a barrel. these oil majors are down. maybe rebound if the rally on oil continues. clearly a big deal in europe is the greeks, daggers are drawn, gauntlets down for the meeting tomorrow. there will be an emergency meeting of the euro group tomorrow at 9:00 a.m. new york time. the greeks seem to have given a lot of concessions in what they offered to the euro group earlier today. they want a six-month extension to the loans but say the existing program we have with you the agreement is legally binding.

we'll honor the creditors and deficit targets. in the meantime this is important they would let the troika into greece to monitor the situation. for the greeks that's a huge move forward. because they said they had enough of troika. remember that? however it was immediately rejected by berlin, partly because presumably the greeks are not saying look we'll continue to honor the program as we go through the negotiations. they would like to negotiate it away. we know that the germans are extremely angry with what's going on. we'll see how that plays out tomorrow. i think you probably need the germans on side for any deal. it's not like the ecb where they can be outvoted. on that subject the european central bank did announce last night that it would increase the emergency liquidity provision to the greek banks by over $3 billion. according to local reports they had asked for $10 billion. this as money continues to flow out from greece. press reporting 21 billion euros out of deposited accounts since october as a result of everything going on. we also got the european central

bank's first minutes of the meeting or accounts as they're called, big surprise there. a large majority was in favor of qe when they met in january. you guessed it, the germans were kind of outvoted. 9:00 tomorrow guys, the greek saga continues. you're up against the deadline in theory they have to do a deal tomorrow to get it passed the national parliaments before the bailout as it stands ends. >> we'll have you here tomorrow to walk us through it. >> i guess so. see how i feel in the morning. >> depending. simon, thanks so much. what is yahoo!'s real strategy for mobile going forward? we'll take a closer look ahead of the company's first ever mobile developers conference. "squawk alley" is back in a minute. you can find a new frontier. there's nothing stopping you, and a lot helping you. technology that's with you always. this is our promise. it's never been better to wander, because wherever you go,

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i'm courte enenieny reagan. the international atomic agency says i reason has not addressed specific issues regarding suspicions it may are researched an adommic bomb. they will resume talks tomorrow. in ukraine deball va appears to be largely under the control of pro-russian rebels. this a day after ukrainian forces began withdraw from the besieged town. ukraine has spent its supply of gas to eastern regions because of infrastructure damage. american auto buyers are borrowing more than ever but the latest data from experian shows the strongest growth from borrowers with the highest credit ratings. go to cnbc.com. mcdonald's is bringing back chicken tenders, called chicken

selects, they will begin appearing in restaurants next month. it's a boon for the poultry industry which has been concerned about oversupply. and coming up on "mad money," jim cramer talks to the ceo of perrigo at 6:00 p.m. eastern time here on cnbc. that's your cnbc news update for this hour. let's get back to "squawk alley." in a little over an hour from now, yahoo! is going to host its first ever mobile developers conference in san francisco and our own josh lipton is there live with more. josh? >> well, jon, remember marissa mayer has said that when she first got to yahoo! in 2012, the mobile business there was a hobby, not a job. meyer is working hard to change that. she wants yahoo! to be thought of as a mobile trendsetter. to do that, though, she's going to have to win over and excite the 1,000 developers at the

conference today. >> if you're one of the leading internet assets out there, you have to have a good mobile strategy. that's why yahoo! needs to host a mobile developer conference and show it's got mobile chops. not only for consumers and advertisers but also for developers. >> now, meyer, of course, has put a lot of time, effort and resources into mobile. there's some evidence that hard work is paying off. in q4 yahoo!'s mobile ad revenues did jump 23% to more than $200 million. still, yahoo! has a ways to go before it's really thought of here as a true mobile ad leader. this year, yahoo!'s mobile ad revenues will account for just 4% of the overall market. you compare that to 35% for google, 17% for facebook, and yahoo!'s stock has struggled in the face of that competition. still up about 15% in the past

12 months, but down nearly 20% from that recent high in november. today meyer is expected to make some news about yahoo!'s mobile ad technology. remember, businesses are going to spend $28 billion this year on mobile ads, so the stakes are high and there is a lot of money on the line. guys, back to you. >> all right. thanks so much, josh lipton, out west, on an important day for yahoo!. when we come back, shares of marriott in the green after strong earnings today. the company's stock up about 2.5% as the company considers putting netflix, hulu and pandora in your hotel room. more on that and more with the ceo of marriott in a cnbc exclusive interview in a moment. "squawk alley" will be right back.

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coming up at the top of the hour with oil falling again and the nasdaq moving even closer to 5,000, we're trading all of today's action with blackrock's global investment strategist and the retail trade from walmart's pay hike to the port mess, insider jerry storeitch on what it means to your money. is coach back in vogue? the stock upgraded to buy? are the traders buying in? . the ratrader who made the call. buoyed by strong demand in north america marriott reporting q4 profit of 68 cents a share. marriott's ceo is unveiling guidance for the quarter and the

full year that's better than the street was expecting. simon hobbs is back at post nine joined by a special guest. >> yes. let's check in exclusively with ceo arne sorenson who joins us from headquarters in maryland. welcome back to the program. >> thanks very much. great to be with you. >> before we go anywhere i want to point out last two years your stock price doubled. look, you're obviously come through with guidance and a quarter that's impressed a lot of people. we can see that in the fact that stock has made further gains. what interests me you say actually the last quarter saw slowing demand on where you were for the three quarters previously but you think that will reaccelerate this year. can you talk me through that? >> well, i think we've just got a very steady growth and it's really two things. it is our same-store sales, we were up about 7% for the full year 2014. you're right the fourth quarter

was weaker but at 6.7. more or less the same kind of number. the it was the fourth year of same strong same sales growth. our guidance was 5 to 7% but that's a good number to lay out at the beginning of the year. and when you take that and combine roughly 6% new rooms growth into our system with new hotels opening, that's driving a really compounded great growth rate for the company. >> i just want to stick on the graphic we have on the green at the moment and talk about some of your brands, not all. people will see town place and fairfield inns, limited service hotels, more affordable, price conscious, don't get a bell boy to pick up your luggage, they are doing better than the luxury brands in that revenue per available room. is that a comment on main street and gas prices or is it because arguably some of your hotel owners are raising prices at the already recovered luxury level

and that's hurting overall growth? >> well, i don't think it's either of the above, actually. all of our brands are doing extremely well. we have looked at the fact that say ritz-carlton, our obviously broadest distributed luxury brand, it's rev par numbers have been a little bit slower than we call limited service or select service hotel, courtyard, residence inn, springfield suites and the like. the difference is not so much that the top end brands are weaker. it's just that they strengthen faster. so the higher end traveler came out of the recession quicker in 2010, 2011, 2012. the rest of the traveling public, look at the way employment growth is coming on now, you look at the broadening strength of the economy, and i think you're seeing that that segment of the traveling public is building now as well. the luxury brands are also doing well. and we expect we'll continue to do well in 2015. >> arne, this is kayla tausche. i want to hone in on a test you guys are doing on a relatively

small scale to roll out netflix, hulu, pandora, some streaming platforms in your hotels. obviously it's a good thing for consumers to have choice. it's good for your image as a company. but i'm just wondering how you get the hotels to ween themselves off of movie revenue i'm sure they're really enjoying? >> well, it's not so much about a revenue source for us, as it is delivering what the customers want. and so you think about it, and in some respects we're always trying to keep up but you think about what's happened with entertainment in people's homes in the last few years, just a few years ago we were talking about 42 inch flat screen tvs as if they were a special thing. well now the cost of a 5'5" is less than the 42s were a few years ago and people in the homes have the massive nat screen tvs, watching multiple screens at the same time and controlling their own content. they're putting netflix up there

if they want, streaming something from their laptop or tablet device to their screens, they want to be able to do that in our hotels as well and we want to deliver that. we have a box that allows them to do it and the easy connectivity. >> want to slip in one last question. speaking of what customers want, customers want good wi-fi connections and controversy around wi-fi blocking. you wanted to block it for security reasons. a lot of people were up in arms about that. why isn't wi-fi free for hotel customers, maybe faster wi-fi, if you want it? people would want that, would they not? >> oh, they absolutely would and the debacle with the fcc was a frustration for us. really driven by something happening at one of our hotels before we acquired and entered it into our system and it sort of took on a legal life of its own. we actually announced in december that wi-fi is free to all of our marriott rewards members booking directly and that's half the business in our

hotel, costs nothing to join marriott rewards and we're to that point. obviously our hotels has to add more and more bandwidth every year because of the way we all are using bandwidth on our dees vices. and we want to make sure we do everything we can to catch up and provide it free to our best customers. >> i would have asked you about the share buybacks but suffice it to say you have permission to buy back $3 billion of stock and will make more than half of that during this year than last. arne sorenson ceo of marriott in an interview for cnbc, thank you. >> all right. it's hard to believe but it's been six years since this famous moment at the cme in chicago. >> this is america. raise their hands? [ booing ] >> president obama, are you listening? >> how about we all stop paying our mortgage. it's a moral hazard. >> rick, how about the notion that whoever pointed out you can go to down to 2% on the

mortgage -- >> go down to minus 2%. they can't afford the house. >> 40% not do it. why are we trying to keep them in the house? >> mr. summers is a great economist but i would love the answer to that one. >> wow. >> jason -- >> you get people fired up. >> jason, you want to -- >> we're thinking of having a chicago tea party in july. all you capitalists that want to show up to lake michigan i'm going to start organizing. >> what are you dumping in? >> six years and rick santelli still looks the same. let's get there now to rick and the santelli exchange. >> good hair. >> well, thank you, jon. hard to believe it's six years. let's do a quick look back. because that was one crazy week in february for those that don't remember the details. of course we all remember the credit crisis and really started in the '90s, that strange blend of institutions banks, government, promoting home ownership, moral goal. buttiveover the counter and unregulated we all know what happens. crisis always breeds a big

government move. it always does. so think back, the rant as it was, as it's been referred to was thursday the9 stimulus, .78 trillion dollars, next day wednesday by the home affordability and stability plan and even though it morphed into something potentially useful at that point in history it was about forgiveness and modifications. then 19th, you know what happened then. keep in mind, that in this country, it's the pursuit of happiness, there's no guarantees. card late is a card played but more important that sound bite about housing, here we are six years later, as we look at housing, is it worth it? >> were those 7/8 of a trillion dollars shovel ready? you know what, sometimes government gets crazy and uses crisis, but we have 537 people governing our country, it's not a monarchy but i can't say it as good as our third president and the writer of the declaration of

independence. this quote, i have no fear that the result of our experiment will be men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master. i hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our money corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country. he predict future happenings for americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the laborers of the people under the pretense of taking care of them. i don't think anybody could say it better. jon, kay ta la, back to you. >> carl, sitting down exclusively with walmart's store ceo doug mcmillon this hour for a wide ranging interview including apple pay. carl? >> we did talk about the ports, the wage hike, jon, but we talked about whether or not they would ever take apple pay. take a listen. >> we're still looking at it and we have ongoing discussions related to it. some of the things in the first wave that made it more difficult for us but i wouldn't rule it out. wouldn't surprise me at some

point in the not too distant future if these cash registers go away or change dramatically. i think mobile payment is definitely a fact and we're excited about that actually and figuring out wayses to use our own app, partner with other people so customers can save time as they check out and be more efficient is a priority for us. >> very interesting answer. a lot of people, guys, sort of had this vision of walmart as a big ship not really nimble with change, takes a lot to turn it around but the fact that he didn't rule out apple pay was pretty interesting. you can imagine what happened to apple shares if they really did get that big a chunk of retail and if walmart came around. >> that's what we call, carl, material. yeah. that would be a big deal. fantastic stuff. safe travels back. carl, we'll see you soon. that's all for "squawk alley." with the dow heading towards the flat line, "fast money half time report" at headquarters starts now.

welcome to the halftime show. our starting lineup for today, stephen weiss the managing partner of short hills capital, jim lebenthal president of lebenthal asset management, and jon and pete najarian are the co-founders of optionmonster. our game plan looks like this. rough waters why the port dispute in california will affect your wardrobe and so many of the retail stocks you own. put me in coach, the analyst that upgraded that stock to a buy is with us live as we debate where shares could go next. we begin with the markets, of course, yet another deep dive for oil. crude dipping below 50 again earlier, down as much as 5%