good morning everybody! welcome to welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc. a tease for later this week. tesla will answer a big fear about plug-in cars. the risk of running out of power before getting to your destination. tesla will talk about what they are calling the end of range anxiety. we'll have more on the story in a little bit. but if you are waking up this morning let's get you up to speed on the markets. it has been a wild ride over the last week and a half or so. you can check out the dow futures. you can see they're indicated up by just over 70 points. the s&p up and the nasdaq up by 14th. we saw what happened friday 13th. it was unlucky. >> a new survey showing that chinese companies increasingly

upbeat on business activity. recent data pointed to signs of a slow down. meantime chinese stocks jumped to more than a five-year high overnight. suggesting more government stimulus was ahead. and the new york times reporting that the federal authorities investigating the october data preach at jpmorgan they are confident that a criminal case will be filed against the hackers. it means several of the suspects live in a country with which the u.s. has a extradition treaty. the u.s. is hitting the debt limit again. jack louew will have to take extraordinary measures from defaulting on the debt. we'll talk about that with ben white who is going to join us in a bit. >> and a few stocks to watch. ge selling the consumer lending business of ge capital to an investor group. it carries an surprise value which includes debt of about

$6.3 billion. an a clinical trial shows that the heart drug can cut the risk of death another heart attack or stroke in patients that had a history of heart attacks cut it is by about 16%, but as frequent with some of the drugs there are bleeding risks. studies show a new class of experimental cholesterol drugs cut heart risk but doctors caution more controlled edled trials are needed. they have filed for fda approvals. more on the findings presented over the weekend at the meeting of the american college of cardiologist. that's where is all the data coming out at once like that. a check on the broad are markets before the futures are indicated higher. today, of course it has been a real indication where things will up at the end of the day. dow futures indicated up by

about 68 points. s&p futures up by just over 6. let's check out the early trade in europe. you'll see at least right now it looks like there are some green arrows for the major indexes. the cac is up the dax up by 1%. the ftse in london up by.5%. overnight in asia ended flat. the hang shanghai up by 2.25%. and oil prices check it out this morning. on friday wti for april fell by 9 percent. it settled at 44.84. it has fallen below that this morning down another 29 cents. this below the close we were looking at for january's closing. brent is trading at 54.50. take look at bond market. at this point it looks like the 10 year is yielding 2.6%. a fed meeting coming up and a

lot of people waiting to see what happens with that. the dollar is down slightly. you are looking a the euro at 105.38. gold prices this morning right now look like they're up by under $5. >> the journal this morning saying that hedge funds made shorting -- so. >> had to happen at some point. >> other global news. we have a big question. it's been a big question all week. where is putin? he hasn't made a public appearance in more than a week. jeff joins us from moscow. he has maybe the answer. i don't know. >> reporter: i wish i had. march 5th the president with the italian prime minister. that was the last time he was seen in the flesh. at state media have run photo-ops and also some video of him. but local media suggests that

those possibly predate the meeting. then he blew out a meeting with the kazakhstan president. he blew out a security meeting. it brings us up to the weekend. we today, are expecting him to meet with the kazakhstan president and that is due to take place in saint peters berg sometime around now. we're watching very closely to see whether putin appears. a couple of disturbing developments. one, over the weekend we had a documentary suggesting that the president considered going nuclear over crimea and the other we understand in the last hour that 40,000 troops have effectively been mobilized. apparently the northern fleet has been told they need to get up to battle readiness. we're not quite sure why this is happening, but again, it's another one of these theatrical developments you often get here in russia associated with big

news events. perhaps we'll see the president. i know, it's a long shot maybe crimea because it's the one year anniversary of the referendum in crimea that lead to the russians taking over. back to you. >> all right. jeff, thank you. you know, the rumors get weirder than just that everything jeff was talking about we'll continue to see. it's been swirling markets. >> the post went full on with the rumor -- >> yeah. >> that he was going to visit -- yes. >> i don't get the headline? >> you're young. >> anyway. >> it's possible. >> he's been holed up. >> i've seen a dozen shots of the former gymnast and she's 31 years old and some say she looks almost like a model in some shots.

quite a bit younger than he is but what do we know. is it true or not? who knows. >> i guess that's one of many. rumors i think that the u.s. intelligence agencies were saying it was the flu. it's been everything. as you mentioned cancer has been brought up. >> but the postnever misses an opportunity. people were talking about the deleter in chief for hillary clinton. vlad the impaler. >> that was dracula. catching up with the italian finance minister and talked about the risk what does it mean? >> we talked many times how ultimately the markets don't appear all that concerned about greece and whether or not it leaves the euro.

you add if the euro is no longer seen as irreversible what does it mean for italy which has an enormous a. of debt. it that would be destabilizeing if the rates rose or if they left completely. i started speaking with the italian finance minister saying the greek finance minister is saying to people behind closed door what if europeans don't give greece what it wants he said don't worry i have level. it's called italy. >> the spirit of what he's saying if greece were to leave the euro the markets would start to price in the probability that italy could leave the euro. is he right? >> i don't know where he's right. i think any option would be very bad. and i think the interest of everybody to be united within the euro and to move toward a stronger prospect for greece. >> what would it mean for italy? >> look italy has significantly

strengthened the position. italy is gaining a lot of confidence on the markets as the confidence of the institution, as a confidence of the citizens. it's going back to growth. and i think any relationship between grexit and italy is out of the place. >> italy has done key reforms. many would argue not enough. certainly the italian economy as a whole, wen all of the failures we know about is a far better economy than the greek economy. the northern part of the italy competes in many ways with germany in terms of productivity and manufacturing. >> it would be hard to imagine the italians saying the same thing what the greeks said. we don't want to do anything but we want the money. >> sure. this gentleman is so pro austerity and reforms. we've had him on before. one of the reasons because paul krugman has written two blog posts about how much he disagrees and dislikes this

gentleman. this guy are so far apart on where they think things should go. >> it almost seems like it's gotten out of control. he can't keep his people back in. even if some of the things they've been trying to. he can't deliver either. >> he talks so much. we were at the news conference he gave over the weekend and he just talks and talks and talks. no, we're not going to but we didn't promise all that much. we never promised this or that. the fact is he promised db they promised a lot of things. i mean, the volume of words is so high and yet ultimately what they have to do is get things done in order to get the money that they need. something for everybody. >> talks long enough you'll hear something you want to hear. >> exactly. >> how long were you there? >> the beautiful hotel. i was there for the important

conference. >> right. they shot star wars by the way, a couple of years ago. >> the new stars. >> one of the new star war was back there. >> greece or italy. >> if they can just get a couple of structure reforms to allow a couple of businesses to start. you have the tourist trade locked. with the euro where it is to export tourism of italy or greece out of the magnet for money coming in. a couple of structure reforms they can start a brewery, which you can't do in greece. or italy where you can do something domestically to generate an income for people put a little infrastructure in because nothing really works that well. >> right. >> you don't even care because you're in greece or italy. so they have that. they're ahead of the game already. >> italy has done some -- for sure. he was positive on the decline in the euro.

we call it dollar strength. they see it a euro weakness which he said i welcome very much. >> i would like to be in charge of either one of those places. tourism and, i mean, i just feel like, you know, there's people that have atlantic city to try to get the tourists to come to and punxsutawney and they can't compete. how can they screw it up? a couple of reforms. >> vested interest especially within the labor market. it's tough. italy has done more. >> you're part italian. >> my mom is from -- >> am i right or right? how do they mess it up? >> the biggest problem if there's a misconception about italy. the problem is 90% of the companies there are less than ten employees. ten employees or less. >> they all live at home. there's no incentive. there are a lot of small

companies very few want to big middle sized or large. they're entrenched. also, bad things start to happen. you get residents from the tax man and the government. >> what about greece? >> no i'm not an -- i know little about that. there was a big piece in the journal about a year ago about someone who tried to start a craft brewery there. impossible. >> it's extraordinarily -- >> nobody pays attention until you get above ten. >> when you hit a certain number of employees so many things start to happen. e qvckwifquivalent what we talk about with obamacare here. i think when you get to 50 or 60 it's a low number everything starts to get more difficult. >> and the mayor of florence tried. he's not a conservative person. okay. he tried to say, you know, came up with the big thing like if

you rather than company you should be able to fire people. hire millioningss of people and -- >> never youer in hire so you can't fire. >> labor markets in the past two people have been assassinated over this, you know, ten years ago, 20 years ago. i mean, it is tough. >> it is tough. >> i'm supposed to say let's open up the market discussion right now. it's too late for that. michelle chief u.s. economist managing districter at rbs and jason is chief investment strategies investment. what is your mom's maiden name? zbl>> desanna. so much to talk about domestically here. do either one of you thinkpatience

comes out? >> i think it comes out. you know, i don't think they have a choice. does it mean -- >> that's the thing. it doesn't necessarily mean they have to hike. i don't think they're sure about hiking in june. i think they're sure enough they're going to be discussing it. by the definition if itst in you don't have to worry about a hike in two months. i don't think they can make that commitment. that's what they want. >> decide to do it or not. >> they can get policy back to data dependent by taking the word out. which is what they want to do. >> data dependent only goes so far. >> that's what is happening. which is which? where are we? you get the job numbers. a piece in the journal said look at -- this even come close to talk through explaining the picture in terms of whether there's no slack. is there slack or not? i don't think there's much slack. there's more slack if you look

at you than the official unemployment rate. even that measure has come down very sharply. >> then they should raise? >> i thought they should not be at zero at this point. >> i think it's hard to. even the rate is where it was when the fed tightened in '94. >> from where? >>, i mean it was obviously in the double digits. >> we're at zero. it's so weird. 4 or 4 1/2. they tighten it the same rate. >> i think the problem is you can't just at this point you justify zero. >> a lot of people do. >> wages are obviously bottoming. i would say by the same token, the fed understands it is creating dislocations. as we see there's a lot of money. there's a lot of money going in places that is helping people that it wasn't designed to help. that is i think the problem with zero percent interest rates forever. ultimately you're not getting what you want to get which is

middle class employment and all the rest of it. i think the fed, i agree with michelle. i think people have to almost have a cog nant disdance to say the fed is going up from zero but it's not going to kill the economy. janet yellen is worried about wages and employment. she's going to be deliberate when she starts raising it even in my view. it's not something to worry about for investors. >> i think the problem unfortunately for the fed in spending so much time in justifying being at zero they've kind of reinforced the idea to the market and the public that getting off of zero is a very negative thing and puts the economy at risk. so no i think you're right. to have interest rates at 1%, i mean, i don't think this is something that creates economic risk. i had people say when they tighten this could throw us back into recession.

>> of all the people that come on here and i read in the new york times and other liberal places that the idea of raising rates right now is absolutely insane because of inflation. it's insane to think about raising rates. they say that it's like what planet are you on? what are you smoking to think about raising rates here? >> the problem it gets baa to be what jason was saying. it's true that reported inflation measures for consumer prices is not showing any kind an unturn. it's financial assets that maltly by not controlling that or not acting sooner we end up then when that bubble bursts so to speak, everybody who doesn't want to be raising rates complains because most people end up in a worst spot. >> at least the people that argue on that side don't argue dislocations. they think there's a huge missing demand and all it's done is supply and demand.

nothing has gone to where it shouldn't gone yet. >> is it in the stock market? >> i'm a supply side person. i think what you're doing is you're creating excess liquidity. >> in the stock market? >> yes. >> i think there the excess liquidity is going directly into financial assets. it's not going to necessary productive things like capexwhich has a strong for financial engineering as opposed to true economic structure reform of the corporation. you're helping the quote, unquote, i hate to say it the wrong people. it's ironic to me that somebody like paul would be arguing so strenuous strenuously. obviously picketing was the story of income disparity. this policy i would argue, if you have extraordinary tight regulatory policy and you're doubling the size of the fed

balance sheet. it's not consistent. you created the excess reserves but they're going to bank vaults. they're not helping the economy. >> to satisfy the regulators. >> how did that help the economy? >> good sign or bad sign? >> i think it's a bad sign. >> crazy. >> i think it's a good sign. >> we have to go. >> all right. >> it's a curse. >> you don't see it as a curse? >> i do. it's like -- >> double from here. >> are you going to buy the watch. >> there's no way you're getting the watch. >> it's like a company building a new headquarters. >> it's trending like 15 times it's got $70 billion in cash. >> 18 billion in profit a quarter is guaranteed. >> not at all. >> how can it not be in the dow? i mean -- >> because they went up 8,000%. >> i changed my mind. if they would have put it in earlier the dow would have risen

massively and then -- it would collapse. >> the dow would be up 22,000. >> making an appearance today? >> supposedly he's going to appear. we have a live picture we're watching. we're watching to see. >> okay. people in moscow. >> we'll keep our eyes on that. when we return the u.s. hitting the debt limit again. we'll talk about the implications when we come back. the infamous heir behind bars. we'll tell you about it when we return. e financial noise financial noise financial noise

financial noise

welcome back. the infamous heir is behind bars today. robert durst was arrested includes with a pair of murders. it aired the finale about durs's life. in the finale during a strange rambling moment when he was seemingly unaware he was being recorded, i think he went to the bathroom and still wearing the wireless microphones. listen to what he said. of course it sounded like it said i killed them all, of course.

he was arrested affiliate a three year joint investigation involving five law enforcement agencies. he was kind of talking to himself mumbling to himself. >> we didn't play the top part. he said what the hell did i do? can i say that? killed them all, of course. to get the full track. >> we have ben white here. i have a question about this story. >> there's actually a real question about what hbo did with the whole thing. that is to say they had the documentary -- >> that was my big question. >> for how long? >> it's been a long time. they've had the piece. hbo bought it at the time. there's a question to the extent you think there's a question about whether the information in the documentary should have been turned over to the police. >> you don't mean that last depend comment. >> no -- well he was arrested in the fifth episode because of the handwriting issue.

>> which is what has what lead to the arrest. this last piece isn't that. but the question becomes is there a responsibility to turn it over to the police or not. you could argue, by the way, the police weren't able to get this guy for 20 or 30 years anyway. and hbo was able to manage it to do it. the profit incentive got everybody to do it this way. and therefore, if they had to wait six months. they have family on the other end of this. you're saying how is it possible? >> the wife has never been found if. >> no. >> you make a good point turning it over. how can you sit on that? you have the guy on tape. >> did he just repeatedly do that? >> no but -- to say -- that could be -- >> it sounds like it a smoking gun to me. it could be czarsarcastic. >> why should hbo make that call? >> if you don't think it's evident area why are you making

a big deal about it. >> was it's hyping your show. i saw people on twitter complaining they have the series finale spoiled because he admitted to committing murders and was arrested. that the series was spoiled and not that the people were killed. >> was it 60 minutes where -- >> hbo documentary. >> it was a documentary series. it's gone on six episodes. in the beginning for me was slow. but i thought it was terrific. i'm sure now they'll win an emmy and all sorts of awards. >> unless they get arrested and indicted for not turning over the document. >> i don't think that's going to happen. >> it's an interesting question. >> you switched away from the bracket selection? >> yeah. and jordan spieth winning? >> i watched cinderella this weekend. >> it seems like every parent it

did. >> frozen. >> it seems like every parent did. >> i can't talk to you about jordan spieth either. i did the same thing. where we sat next to him at at&t at pebble. a nice kid. 21 years old. wants to challenge rory mcilroy. got up-and-down on the last three holes out of an impossible situation. to get into the playoff and a 28-foot putt. it was amazing. >> i can talk brackets not golf. why we'll talk brackets with brigs. >> i thought my cinderella review was not good. >> i thought it was okay. >> i thought it was okay. >> i have two boys. >> i have two boys too. here we are. let's talk washington. we have the debt ceiling. we have to. >> we have to. >> fortunately or unfortunately. debt ceiling does it matter? >> it absolutely matters. obviously it's back and forth today. us is spended and goes back today. we have several months until november or october where it has to be raised.

the problem it runs into needing to to fund the government for 2016 and the sequester coming back. there's no clear path to getting from mcconnell saying yes we're going to raise the debt limit no default than doing it. >> who do you think is prepared to, you know, jump in front -- >> house republicans as usual will force it to the 11th hour. they're going to want to something for debt limit hike. they'll say keystone pipeline approval from the white house. some people say more deficit reduction. something on medicare and social security. a lot of stuff that obama didn't wasn't to give. the hillary clinton campaign doesn't want to give. republicans could say we're responsible leaders. we would never default on the debt or get close. getting house republicans in line to do it in a timely manner is a whole different question. >> what is the fight going on? if you haven't seen it this morning. the whole battle over jeb bush. the $100 million number you

floated around the pac and the issue about walker. apparently he was a frontrunner and people jumped on you. >> the bush campaign jumped because i floated the number that the super pac could raise as soon as the first quarter. that's too high of of a number. mitt romney spent 43 the entire process. but that's wall street people think. if you have fundraisers at $100,000 a pop and multiple across the country it gets do you $100 million relatively quickly. >> the walker story. >> okay. leads in polls right now. he's pretty popular in iowa. doing pretty well in new hampshire. i talked to folks on wall street who have spoken to jeb bush who says, to them walker is not really the frontrunner. he's not going to last when it comes to asking tough questions on policy taxes, immigration, foreign policy. he's going to wilt in the spotlight and the bush people

said we have great respect for walkers. there's a big difference between what they say publicly and what they say behind the scenes about the nature of the 2016 race and the frontrunner. they hear other people -- they say, i hear that bush doesn't fear walker as some other possible candidate. maybe he's not right. >> who are the other ones? >> there's no obvious conservative alternative, but somebody other than walker they think will merge. somebody in the mold of mike huckabee. not huckabee himself but automatic backing from iowa conservatives who are tough on immigration and other issues. >> is the e-mail hillary thing done? >> no. i don't think it's done. >> ting continues on throughout the campaign. she hasn't come up with a reasonable explanation for why she did what she did. republicans will continue to make an issue out of it. she looks like she's above the rules. above the fray. different set of rules apply to her. it won't be a front page story day after day because nothing driving it. but there will be hearings subpoenas, calls for her to turn

over all of her personal e-mails. i think it's a story that has legs throughout the 2016 campaign. >> so the story on hillary appealing to the hispanics. this is about the latino and hispanic. >> sure. >> that's why anti-immigration with walker and jeb has maybe a more main stream approach and his wife and his, you know, his son and his kids -- i don't know. if you're going to win in this -- >> it would help to have a policy on immigration that addresses -- >> and you don't want to, you know, and he's not going to make the mistake of moving too far right to get the nomination. you have to lose those to win the general election. >> the approach is don't move on immigration. try to sell it to iowa. have $100 million to spend on ads. to walker they'll say he flip-flopped on immigration. he once had support for a path to citizenship he said on trail he's against it. that's the dig on walk per. >> ben white who brought his own

fire trucks. >> that's the motorcade. >> all right. >> i ride in the back like kramer. coming. an option to sell the signfield series. do you do that for the ten year verse anniversary. >> the other kramer. >> it's a nice segue to the signfield. >> there we go. anyway. that story when we come right back.

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and that's one of the reasons we decided to look at this story today. sonny pictures television reportedly in advanced talks to sell the seinfeld to a streaming service including amazon hulu and netflix declined to participate. it's about $500,000 per episode. i wonder whether it becomes even higher than that. i think it would be about $100 million total. is there anyone that hasn't -- oh. but most people that haven't seen each episode at least -- i would say probably close to 20 times. >> remember it could be you could find it at any hour of the day. i feel like i can't see it quite as often. which is probably a good thing. >> if you look at the guide it's on all the time you can see 7:00, 7:30, 8:00. it's interesting that netflix opted out. that surprises me. >> maybe it got out of their range. but this is the ultimate.

and i immediately thought what filters downs finally to jerry and elaine? i mean they're getting huge checks. >> so far it's already made $3.1 billion already. just on syndication rights. >> on syndication. so this is not -- >> jerry seinfeld -- >> at least $100 million an episode episode. at least $1 million an episode. some made $600,000 an episode. how many episodes. they were doing 23 episodes a year. >> times how many years? >> whirmi remember when friends came along. >> eight or nine years. it's like 400. >> the point it's a lot of episode. >> yeah. >> and the fact we're now how many years away from the last episode this is a ten-year deal. and at the end of the ten years they can do it again!

>> right. >> not every soed is a masterpiece but there are more masterpieces than bombs. a couple of them really are. bombing. they force you to buy. >> that's always the case. the when we come back this morning confused by market cool volatility. guess what? you're not alone. we'll turn to the charts for help.

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visit comcast.com/wireless to learn more. welcome back everybody. everybody woirs about how soon the fed will hike rates. time to take a technical look at the markets. what the charts are telling us about the health of this. dan fitzpatrick is the president of stock market mentor.com.

thank you for being here today. >> happy to have me. thanks. >> explain the charts as you see then and why you think we're not at a top right now. >>well tops are virtually impossible to predict. everybody tries, and that's why there's an old saying that the market follows a quarry. the problem for bears is we've had a sustained bull market and all the way up we've seen these data points that point to the end of the bear market. i'm, francly, getting a little bit fatigued with the fixation on the fed whether they say the word patient or not. they're going do to what they're going to do. generally speak, maybe it's not politically correct to say it but i don't think they have a clue what they're doing. everything is different every single time. we sit there and they watch what they're doing and we try to

define from the tea leaves any kind of info they happen to have that is going to help them make the right call. if you think about it the fed has been wrong virtually every single time over the last three fed chairmans. the way i look at it is forget about the wording. forget about what the fed does and focus on what prices are doing. prices are actually really stable. >> prices -- i don't know if i would call them stable. they're certainly volatile. >> yeah. >> generally with you on the idea it is impossible to call a top, however, that makes me skeptical of your claim there's no chance that we're near a top, either. i think it's just as tough to call. it's going to happen at some point or another. nobody can call it. i'm not sure why you're so certain we're not at a top. >> i wouldn't say i'm 100% certain but i'm pretty surgeon certain

-- certain. one of your last guest said markets go down farther than people think they will. that's absolutely true. i will say markets go up farther than people think they do as well. we're in a trend. all of the major averages are in a trend. we have divergences here and this and that. there's nothing i'm seeing in the major indexes, in the sectors that give me any sense there's a negative divergence. there's some kind of warning sign that the market is going to roll over. >> okay. i'm going to chart this myself but what about the there are more stocks showing lower lows. >> exactly. we've seen it before actually on the left-hand side of the chart. you've seen the stocks making lower lows. this is what i would call a caution flag. what the index measures is really the health of the market. it's the breadth of the market. it's derived from advanceing versus declining issues.

it takes a couple of averages smooths those out, and what results is an intermediauate and long-term indicator where the market is going. if you look at the chart, you'll see it's been spending a lot of time in the bearish territory while the s&p continues to move higher. so that's something that i look at and i'm not just sitting here reaching bull go go, go, buy, buy, buy. i'm reaching for the one indicator that says excuse the odds a little bit more in favor of not necessarily a big pull back, but consolidation, and, you know, when i said the markets were table and you mentioned volatility absolutely. but that's the nature of volatility. if you look at the s&p, it has been trading in a wide range, but in a defined wide range sideways. this is consolidation.

this is what prices need to do and they do this on a regular basis. as this volatility and this is important. as the volatility wanes, and it will, traders get tired of so much volatility. these prices will stabilize in lower ranges. now you start looking at the squeezes and looking for the next move high per. >> okay. thank you for joining us. >> thank you for having me. >> >>. coming up from perks like great coffee to health clubs on site. companies are looking for ways but we have a new one. taking things to the new level with at least 16-weeks of paid maternity leave and sparking the debate in the process. we'll talk about it when we return.

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in the u.s. i think we are still behind. in the wage gap, i don't think we have good pay yet for maternity leave at the federal level. we're one of the worst nations in the world for that. that shouldn't be our country in this day and age. >> that was melinda gates speaking. offering a mandatory minimum maternity leave of 16 weeks paid leave. and upon run receiving six months of full pay for 30 hour weeks. joining us now is the president of vodafone americas. this a progressive thing to do. how did you decide to do this?

>> well, first of all diversity is very important to us at vodafone. we have about 35,000 women employed globally. but only 21% of those women are senior leaders. so retention is everything for us. and so therefore if you think about it for those women that go back to work after maternity leave and that leave vodafone 60% of those women leave in the first year. so it's really important for us to keep them. >> when did this start -- what was this impetus? was there a conversation you had? was it something somebody said? was there an economic analysis you did? >> two points for us. one was the work kpmg did for us. and companies like ours that trade globally have operations in many countries, can save about $19 billion a year by retaining the talent. we no longer have to recruit.

we don't have to train, develop. and also the other thing that's important for us is to keep that talent and what they know about our industry and about our business. and the second proof point really is around the fact that because they leave usually in the first year after they come back to work what we found is in three of our markets we had had a very good track record by having that 30-hour work week. >> i'm all in favor of it. it's really difficult when you first come back to work. when you're trying to struggle both situations. what do you say to those who don't have children who say i'd like a crack at that too. >> what we do in most of our markets is we have a policy around paternity for example. in the u.s. it's two weeks. we're always looking at policies there. there's also other ways to handle that. fmla where people can -- >> what about people who don't

have kids and say this isn't fair? >> what we've decided to do because based on the fact that we wanted women to stay in the workplace, what we're dressing is the women diversity and ensuring they stay and we retain that talent. >> there was a study of economic research. this is on paid parental leave. looked in norway since 1997. they said paid leave of 35 week hs no more benefit to children's welfare, the economy, or workforce continuity than a shorter one. they called the extra leave amount to a leisure transfer according to the paper. i'm sure other people have come to you and said -- >> those are not people who have kids. >> i don't know particularly about that policy but what i can tell you is just some of the things i referred to before. we know we're losing great talent and losing money as a result of that. therefore retaining that talent is really important to us.

>> could you see yourself expanding this to include men? >> as i said to you before in all our markets we have different levels of paternity leave. in the u.s. it's two weeks. >> could you see that going to four weeks or to six weeks or eight weeks? >> i can't even guess that right now. >> and while i appreciate you think you're saving money, i assume you've also done an economic analysis of what it actually costs in the short-term. >> there's always the short-term costs but medium-term benefit. >> so what is the short-term cost look like? have you quantified it? >> i don't have those numbers. but i can tell you that we know in a median return we retain the talent and individuals within our business. >> do you see competitors doing the same thing? do you think they'll pick this up? >> i hope so. we're excited about what happened here. you know the people within our organization, both men and women are excited and also have quite

a few customers saying how progressive they are. not only do they love our technologies and capabilities, but the fact we've done this we're leading the way. >> congratulations. thanks for coming in. >> thanks. appreciate it. coming up a report just in that russia's putin has appeared in public today for the first time since march 5th. a live report from moscow still ahead. can it make a dentist appointment when my teeth are ready? ♪ ♪

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smartphone or tablet from comcast. visit comcast.com/wireless to learn more. should you fear the fed? we're going to find out how patient the bank is this week. and we're on euro parity watch. the currency falling further against the dollar.

goldman sachs says it is headed even lower in the next two years. plus who, if anyone, can beat kentucky? >> that's unbelievable! >> nbc sports anchor dave briggs handicaps the ncaa tournament field and why you're better off picking stocks and not brackets in march. the second hour of "squawk box" begins right now. ♪ live from the beating heart of business, new york city, this is "squawk box." >> welcome back to "squawk box" here on cnbc, first in business worldwide. i am joe kernen along with becky quick and andrew ross sorkin. the euro at another low. it sank below $1.05. rebounding slightly. goldman sachs says it's going lower. the bank updating euro parity

within six months. 85 cents by the end of next year. 2016. and 80 cents by the end of 2017. i'm going to just move there, i think. if it's really that cheap. oil prices dropping this morning as well. west texas crude hit $43.57 earlier today. that is the lowest level since about six years ago. citing storage capacity and the potential for a nuclear agreement with iran. both of these trades that people have probably covered all the way talking about short euro and short oil. they just keep going. and new lows beget more new lows. take a look at u.s. equity futures. called higher this morning up about 60 points or so after an interesting week last week. ever since that big jobs number the market's had some trouble going anywhere. and people can say don't pay

attention in the fed. but you can sort of watch the market and it's a little bit weird. it seems like we're back to the bad news is good news. we have economic numbers that aren't so good. the market seems to rally. when things get hotter things go down. and the other stories we're watching this morning, we've got a couple for you. there are reports vladimir putin has been sighted. he hadn't been seen in public since march 5th. geoff cutmore is in russia and will join us in a couple of minutes. our friend carl tweeting out peekaboo. john kerry meeting with this counterpart in switzerland. and federal authorities are now closing in on the hackers who stole jpmorgan's data. contact information of about 83 million jpmorgan customers were stolen in that breach. law enforcement officials told "the times" that the case is now

advancing quickly. >> with the fed meeting looming later this week, trying to process the odds of a rate hike. dom chu is here with the fed fear factor to try to see which sectors could be impacted the most. and dom, how does that shape up? >> what we're talking about is perhaps this idea that the fed will raise interest rates. possibly some time by about june or even september here. if you look at where the markets are handyicaphandicapping. certain sectors of the market will be hit more. you're seeing some start to play the odds of a fed rate hike. first of all, look at the utilities director. you can see it's down 7%. it's down about 12% just since the highs we saw back at the end of january. one of the worst performing stocks in utilities has entergy. these yields provide competitive. that's one of them.

another industry group to watch in terms of what's happening are the consumer staples companies. they also have an impact from the strong u.s. dollar if they have a lot of international operations. not a lot of movement just yet. but procter & gamble shares. and then one in particular that maybe we don't pay as much attention to but we should if you're talking about interest rates here. is the real estate investment trust. the reits. they go down when interest rates are expected to rise. you can see the vanguard reit index started strong and has fallen off in the last couple of months here. host hotels down 12% year to date. they own a lot of real estate that hotels are built on. real estate, something to focus on. consumer staples, also focus on those. those are all sectors that may

feel the pain if the fed really does raise rates later on this year. back over to you. >> okay. thank you. we'll see you again soon. joining us right now to talk to us about what the market will be expecting, david leibovitz who is the global market strategist. also mike darta. let's start off with you. will they take that phrase patience out and how likely do you think that is? >> thanks for having me. i think patient is on the chopping block. the fed at least wants the flexibility. that's essentially the frass that janet yellen used discussing this. once patient goes they have the flexibility to start tightening in the next several meetings but not the obligation. i think they're going to wait beyond june but patient is probably out the door this week. >> if patient is out the door this week how does the market

react? because it seems more and more people expect they're going to strip it. >> i think you see a bit of a knee jerk reaction because this has been so long coming. we've been waiting for the fed and waiting for the fed. the thing the market needs to keep its eye on is they're data dependent. when they're comfortable with where the economy is then they'll raise rates. >> although joe pointed out we're back to this bad news is good news. we're still waiting for the fed to keep feeding us our fix. i certainly have seen that in markets as well. i think it's important to keep in mind that monetary policies operates with about a nine-month lag. they need to take a point. i think inflation will pick up later this year. the market doesn't seem to want to acknowledge the fact rates are headed higher. >> you mean if people do the knee jerk reaction and get scared that higher rates are going to hurt things and the market goes down you're telling

them to buy those dips right now? >> exactly. i think this market has more room to run. >> nine months from now, how does that situation reverse if we're looking at inflation? >> i think when we look at what drives inflation inflation fundamentally is inflation with too few goods. i think low inflation could move higher into the end of this year. we're not necessarily going to see it blow right through 2% and have a fed chasing runaway. that means the fed continues to act responsibly and is in front of the curve. >> you know mike people have been all over the place with their guesses on where oil is headed. some people think it's going to bounce back to 80. others think look out below. how do you think it's going to move and how do you even come up with some sort of an economic forecast if you can't figure out oil prices? >> it's a tough one. i'm more in the l-shaped recovery camp. i think we're bottoming if we haven't already, but i don't see a quick bounceback.

we essentially have a supply side glut going on globally thanks to fracking and horizontal drilling in the u.s. on the demand side a slowing chinese business cycle. those forces along with the stronger dollar i think, are going to keep oil prices in a lower trajectory. >> i thought maybe we were bottoming out, but then you look at wti this morning. it's below january lows. >> yep. $40 to $60 over the course of the next year. >> what else do you put into your economic forecast? if you're thinking the fed raises let's say maybe september. and you're thinking oil prices remain low, what does that add up to? >> i think we're still looking at sustained but modest growth this year. beyond that i think it really depends on how forceful the fed is on the way up. if they're going to just start in june and go at every single meeting and, you know we have rates at $1.25 by year end, that

could be too fast. and it ends up darkening. it's really going to depend on how they come off. if it's too aggressive. that's the lesson coming out of the low rate environments. >> we just heard dom talk about the sectors that do well and the sectors that don't do so well when the fed raises rates. does that sound in line to what you would be telling people to do now? >> you want to favor cyclicals. when you look at correlations between the 10-year and the sectors of the s&p 500 you have a positive relationship with things like financials technology, obviously negative relationship with things like bond approximate sis. but taking a step back there's a lot baked into the trade. if you have 10-year treasury yields moving higher are you willing to own? the entire risk/return tradeoff changes as rates move higher. despite correlations we've seen in the past i think we will see

those going forward. >> although what mike was just talking about, if the fed raises rates and then backs off and is very patient in terms of how quickly, they're not going to do quarter rate hikes every time they meet. if that's the case we've also had guys like mark grant who come on and say look out. when you look around the globe and other places to invest this looks like a good return when you compare it to other bonds around the world. that could drive. even if feds are raising rates, you're looking at 10-year rates that could drop. >> you are looking at structurally lower rates going forward. you have rates very low over there. meanwhile what you're seeing is 2% rates here and a strengthening dollar. people want to own u.s. assets because they're comfortable with what's going on here particularly compared to europe which is in early innings of their qe. giving the fed more time and

allowing them to hike more gradually is the key. they have to hike at every single meeting, they're going to trip up the economy. >> all right. david, mike thank you both for coming on. >> thanks. coming up when we return, a key cardiology meeting wrapping up today. meg tirrell will break down the pharma news. then geoff cutmore is in russia. and then the question on many minds this morning, who can beat the kentucky wildcats? we'll have dave briggs on from nbc sports. we're back in a moment. nothing. the smartest or nothing. the quietest or nothing. the sleekest... ...sexiest ...baddest ...safest, ...tightest, ...quickest, ...harshest... ...or nothing. at mercedes-benz we do things one way or we don't do them at all. the 2015 c-class. see your authorized mercedes-benz dealer

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visit comcast.com/wireless to learn more. welcome back to "squawk." we have an executive shuffle going on. tad smith comes to sutherby from msg where he was chief exec fiftive for last year. dan loeb has been calling for a change to sutherbys. and robert frank joins us now with the details. i believe mr. loeb was on the search economy. >> the stock price hasn't done that well. ever since he joined the board. this is the big shoe everyone was waiting to drop. i think tad is a great choice for the business. but in the art world, in the rarefied world of art collecting, no one knows who he

is. we had a media executive running christies for a couple of years, didn't work out well. steve murphy was forced to resign there. the art world is a very particular, strange business. he is not known in that world. >> is the argument to be made you need a real manager in there. that part of the problem of sotheby's was it was always the quote, unquote, art people who may not have been focus odd then bottom line. >> you're right. in the biggest art boom we've had, sotheby's has been showing declining profits and slowing revenue growth. this should be boom time for sotheby's. they need someone who can communicate with the press, who can communicate with the investors. tad is great. >> i'm looking at the stock price. is that off? >> i think that was friday. >> do we have today? >> friday i know was down a little over 1%. >> nothing this morning yet on

this news. >> the bid has gone up by about 10 cents. >> the more interesting thing here is we now have another activist coming in. we have a double battle going on. dan loeb has been satisfied. they paid his fees. mcguire marcado saying we want a bigger buyback. we're not satisfied. so now you've got another activist coming in now. we'll see whether they're satisfied. this is a great start. he's going to be good. >> cool. thank you, sir. appreciate it. we have a vladimir putin sighting. geoff cutmore joins us with more on this. ten days later we finally see him. what happened geoff? >> finally it seems we have found the president. he has appeared in st. petersburg at this scheduled conference with the president of kazakhstan. it's a very short bit of video. effectively he walks into the

room with the kazakhstan president and then they shake hands and sit down. it is vladimir putin as far as we can tell nothing particularly remarkable about the video. some of my colleagues suggested he looks a little shiny and maybe that suggests that he has been under the weather or perhaps suffering flu as one independent television station here reported. but it's pretty difficult to tell. it could just be warm and it could be the hot lights. but we do have a sighting. i wound fer this puts the story to bed. it has been feverish for the last 11 days since he was last seen appearing with the italian prime minister. so there we have it. he's appeared with the president of kazakhstan. we have the sighting. we'll see now whether this puts to bed all the rumors of plastic

surgery, children, and so forth. back to you. >> all right. geoff, thank you. when we come back this morning, pharma stocks on the move after a key cardiology conference this weekend. meg tirrell will join us to talk cholesterol wars. stick around. "squawk box" will be right back. hey, girl. is it crazy that your soccer trophy is talking to you right now? it kinda is. it's as crazy as you not rolling over your old 401k. cue the horns... just harness the confidence it took you to win me and call td ameritrade's rollover consultants. they'll help with the hassle by guiding you through the whole process step by step. and they'll even call your old provider. it's easy. even she could do it. whatever, janet. for all the confidence you need td ameritrade. you got this.

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the annual college of cardiology meeting wrapping up today. meg tirrell is here with the companies that made the most news this weekend. still about cholesterol. >> definitely. we know the new class of drugs which we always talked about called pks-9 inhibitors lowered ldl or bad cholesterol. but we got a glimpse on how that effects heart attacks and strokes. so what it showed was ldl cholesterol was lower by 60%. but cut the heart risk in half.

that's what people are excited about. these are preliminary data. we're going to see more before that can be born out. this is expected to get approved this summer. one interesting thing about them is they're given by injection than pills. some are worried that may hinder uptake. >> how often for injections? >> once a week or twice a month. you can do it yourself. that might be some differences in the profiles between the drugs. but that's what they're looking at. >> what does lipitor lower ldl by? >> i'm not sure the precise number bus it is a lot less than what these do. i think so. what folks are looking to do now with these drugs is help people who can't get to goal on statins. so it is people who have high levels of ldl and can't get low enough using lipitor. >> and it's weird. k-9 inhibitors.

i don't understand the dog connection there. >> i don't know that. oh pcsk-9. that's incredible. so a couple other things to look at this morning out of the conference. astrazeneca's blood thinner, they were looking at the effects on heart attacks after someone's already had a heart attack. taking that blood anticlotting drug for the long-term on top of aspirin. it showed better than expected results in reducing the risks of a second heart attack. but it did show higher bleeding. >> that's what i would wonder. even with lipitor. just the bleedout if you cut yourself accidentally. >> well, that's the problem with the blood clot drugs. people are worried about that with brilinta. and then there was news on devices as well. jpmorgan declaring edwards the big winner out of the weekend. but we saw a long-term battle.

>> what does high good cholesterol not help? >> we are trying to do that. but that's been a big argument. there was a drug raising the good cholesterol. it didn't bear out as well as people thought. there were some side effects people were worried about. that's still a question whether raising hdl is better than lowering ldl or if you should be doing both or what the effects of that are. >> absolutely low cholesterol will lower your risk of getting heart disease. >> that's the picture that is being painted now. >> people have argued whether it's really -- i mean it appears to but then a lot of times clinical trials didn't bear it out. >> we're still getting an understanding of that, i think. >> hereditary too. >> yeah. absolutely. and some of these diseases are genetic that it could potentially treat. >> right. and the blood -- that's what scares me too. a lot of to it has to do with

preventing clots so you use a blood thinner. >> my dad does that. but every time he cuts himself shaving, it takes four hours to stop. >> you become well aware of the side effects of all these things. anything they show on the "nightly news" i'll never take. i'll take the chances with whatever it is you're trying to do. >> i tune out the side effects. >> a lot of times it's something that doesn't seem that bad. like you pass a restroom and the guy goes in whenever he goes in. then they show the side effects. it will take me 80 seconds. i'd rather go in and go out rather than have suicide thoughts and hallucinations and everything else from the side effects. i'll just go. >> you know the side effects, they have the to list all of those. >> but there's hundreds. there's more side effects than -- >> talk about how the fda is working on to change that. >> tell me the realistics. not every potential side effects. >> it would be much more

influential and have a higher effect if you tell what the real potential side effects are. >> all the rest of the stuff, one in a million. >> and the side effect lists, it's anything they saw in the study. >> how about the antidepressants? might cause suicidal thoughts. all right. you've got a depressed person. take this which might cause a suicidal thought. it's stranger than fiction, some of the stuff you hear. but it's because i'm sure because of federal regulations that look at the side effect profile. if you're going to advertise it you have to include this along with it. >> i understand your point. because those lists are so long it's to the point i tune them out. make it more specific and consumers will get more bang out of this. >> there's momentum behind this thing. >> so hdl, there's nothing for me to raise my high cholesterol. >> at the moment i think there is something on the market that they think may do it. but right now that's not the focus as much. >> all right. thank you.

>> thank you. >> you didn't go to the meeting did you? >> sadly not. >> where was it? >> san diego. >> yeah. that would have been a good place. >> it would have. coming up the "squawk" platinum portfolio tracks the best investments. up next louis navellier making a change. e announcer ] your love for trading never stops. so open an account with schwab. and when a market move affects, say a cloud computing stock you're holding, we can help you decide what to do. with tools that help you see how market activity is affecting your positions. so when the time comes to decide whether to scale in or scale out... you can make your move wherever you are. and start working on your next big idea. ♪ ♪

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♪ welcome back to "squawk box," everybody. in our headlines today, blackberry launching a new high security tablet trying to protect its niche market. the device was developed with ibm and samsung. a new poll finds 60% of americans say they're not interested in the the apple watch. but the awareness of the product remains low so demand could improve. and if you are -- >> awareness is low? >> apparently they haven't been watching us. >> i feel like you can't walk around without hearing it. >> it takes time to get beyond. >> if you down load the new

operating system you get an apple iwatch icon. >> i never down load new systems? >> why not? >> it's a pain. >> i've got no more room for anything. nothing's backed up on the cloud. i can't take any more pictures. i don't know. i'm lost. >> we've got to help you. >> i need an iphone 6, i think. >> yes, you do. >> we'll help you. we'll talk about it. >> i'm afraid. what about all the stuff on this one? >> i'll help you with that. we'll talk about how to get that done. >> you can do it on the cloud easily. anyway, folks, if you haven't seen this yet already, vladimir putin appeared in front of reporters today for the first time since march 5th. he brushed off speculation about his health. the appearance was brief. that stance may not be his normal stance. maybe he's not feeling well but he is there and we're seeing pictures now. an enchanted opening at the

box office this weekend. disney's live action "cinderella" taking the top spot. our in-house critic is here. you know that person right there. you don't know her, i guess, do you? >> lily james. >> you know her? >> i now know her. >> i know her very well. she just got married. yes. on "downton abbey." i didn't know why they introduced her into the story dynamic. but it was a good part of this season. >> she did a great job as cinderella. >> her romance with this guy and eventually marrying him, it was a large part of the last four or five episodes. it was important for her. but i know her well. what's her name? >> cinderella. >> lily james. >> lily james is her real name. she was lady something or other. >> cate blanchett was on the movie as the wicked stepmother. the mean stepmother. >> when i walked away she

reminded me of joan crawford from "mommy dearest." >> she was pretty scary in "lord of the rings." >> if you're an actress or actor being in one of these movies when you have kids it's a great thing to do. >> unless you're the wicked stepmother. >> oh yeah that's the glass slipper. not the falling asleep. >> sleeping beauty. >> i get mixed up on them. what about snow white? she was the one with the -- >> apple. poisoned apple. >> the little people. >> you know how parents always die in disney movies? they did a lot of it in this one and they were -- >> people were dying? >> parents were dying left and right. >> you would want the mean stepmother to die, wouldn't you? >> she wasn't. >> she did not die. a painful death would be good for her, no?

>> let's talk about the squawk platinum portfolio. it's back with a sell and a buy from one of our managers. go to cnbc pro on with btcnbc.com to track their picks and read exclusive analysis. with us now is louis navellier. he joins us now with a change. good morning to you, louis. you haven't changed a lot in a long time about yourself or your positions. but this morning you have one for us. tell us what it is. >> sure. vishop holding was our most powerful. it's starting to contract. its earnings will not grow as fast as sales. because the margins are starting to level off here. so that's when i sell stocks. when they get volatile or the margins start. so it's just time to move on and sell vipshop and go to something

safer. my new pick is cvs health. and by the way, they'll do chemotherapy for you as well. not at every toer but they have a personal location. as health care costs remain under pressure cvs is one of the winners. >> you tacked on -- you had a 30% gain just in the last seven months. when did you buy that originally? >> i bought it a long time ago. that's where it showed up. then it got bigger and bigger. ended up in my blue chip letter. but it was just time to move on. the chinese stocks are definitely getting more volatile. so the stock had to be sold due to rising volatility and get the margin compression. >> so when you buy cvs, you go into a cvs thinking it would be 12, 18 months from now. >> cvs is a defensive stock.

in fact all are defensive right now. the reason is the s&p 500's earnings are going to be down this year. and i'm not sure everybody realizes that. i'm not sure everybody realizes how the strong u.s. dollar is going to crush the profits and multi-nationals. when we're doing our portfolios we become much more domestic to become immune to the strong u.s. dollar. cvs is just an oasis stock i don't think will get caught up. >> so you're expecting a selloff this year then? >> i'm expecting the market to have a hissy fit, for lack of a better word. because they just don't know that the earnings are going to be down because the multinationals are warning. i actually own intel which warned. it will hold it up. but the real problem out there is you're going to have lots of downward revisions due to the fact that the dollar is up 12% to the euro. >> you let stocks grow to the

sky all the time. that's one of your -- one of the ways you do things. who gets 750% on a stock? everybody sells before then. when you -- we keep talking about apple and whether there is a market cap where it just -- the law of large numbers just becoming too heavy. would you just -- do you think apple can double and then double again? could it be a $1.5 trillion company? and then could it be a $2 trillion, $2.5 trillion company? >> i think it can double on its current product line. i think it can double again when it has that car that you call and instead of an uber driver picking you up, you have a driverless car that takes you somewhere. >> now you're like a futurist. okay. so what you just said louis, you're talking about a $3 trillion company. so there will be a $3 trillion market cap company in the next ten years? >> as long as they dominate

their business and the competition doesn't arrive and apple's very good at that. of course when a company gets bigger, the pe ratios get compressed. but apple fights back with the relentless stock buybacks. if any company can reach that level, it will be something like an apple. >> okay. we thank you. great to have you on the show. >> great. >> appreciate it. we should tell you a reminder. you can always go online to cnbc.com to track all the picks of all the platinum portfolio managers. plus read their exclusive analysis. you can hear more on how louis got to where he ended up with cvs this morning. when we come back this morning, the tournament field of 68 is set. at this point there are no busted brackets. probably the last point we'll see that. dave briggs is here to handicap the tournament. plus why you are better off picking stocks in march than picking the tournament teams.

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basketball game. a kiss planted on ash sli judd at the game. then biden came over and said what am i chopped liver. the moment captured by a photographer from the uk athletic department baby. i don't like listening to him. the guy -- what is that? that's his way of pretending he's excited about things? drives me up a wall. >> he is a legend. >> the 68 is set. >> i filled out my brackets. i've got to change some things. joining us now is dave briggs with nbc sports. >> let's get to one thing. you have number one seeds. you have what they call chalk. that's only happened once. once since the tournament expanded have all four number

one seeds gone to the final four. it won't happen. >> do i not take kentucky to win it all? do you think they get beat? can notre dame beat them? >> notre dame is the one team i think on their side of the bracket that keeps them from indianapolis. do i think they win? no. i think kentucky cuts down the nets. they are that much better than everyone. >> duke has busted my brackets recently. are they going to do it again? >> you're talk to a guy with duke socks flight. i'm a duke fan. they will break your heart. they do every time. but they have good guard play in addition to the best player in the country in jaleel okafor. it wouldn't stun me if they lost in the second round. that's a team that can break your heart. >> our producers would like you to show the socks again. >> i reveal my national championship contender. so the devils socks. >> lovely. >> who do you think is going all the way? >> i'm taking duke to cut down

the nets. kentucky is the best team in the country bar none. nate silver who called the last election has them at 49% likelihood to win it all. that's more than the next four combined. so they are the best team in the country. i like betting big on this one. i like mixing it up. >> i'm in trouble at home because i'm from cincinnati. i went to st. xavier. i was watching xavier. but i watched in the last week i watched like 50 hours of basketball. and my wife is saying it's not the tournament. it doesn't matter. i go it does matter. they're winning their different -- did it matter? >> as a husband and father you can't waste your time with conference tournaments. >> i need to watch them to make the right picks for march madness. >> you're doing this on your anniversary? >> i did. she went to bed. >> number 12 seeds are 6-2 against the 5 seeds the last two years. and at least one double digit seed has reached the sweet 16 in

28 of the last 30 years. tough pick a 12 over a 5. >> i like the iowa team. did you see iowa state and kansas? did you see how great those guys are when they come back. >> iowa state scares me because they can play duke early on in this thing. but the 5-12 games. buffalo maybe upsetting west virginia. keep that around. and the trendy one is stephen f. austin against utah. >> i thought about that too. sometimes utah don't show up. >> they can disappoint. >> you saw wisconsin game. that was amazing. >> i think the player of the year over jaleel okafor. i think at least get to indy. >> you saw that michigan state basket almost went in. >> michigan state, if you want a sleeper they're a 7 seed. >> how good a oklahoma? >> oklahoma is far better than people realize. a 3 seed. >> i have a lot of questions. i mean i'm lost.

and i ended up with the four number one seeds. >> tear that up. tear that up. don't do chalk. >> i was afraid not to have them because last year. >> i know. >> we have a 7 versus an 8. kentucky versus kentucky. remind yourself about that. >> we're not playing for money. >> pride. playing for pride. >> you just don't want to be last. >> and then you play brackets differently. >> so play it safe. >> play it safe. okay. that's no fun. >> andrew you can't pick cinderella. she's not playing. >> is olaf playing? elsa? >> none of them. >> anna? >> no. >> what about the wicked stepmother? >> no. >> i thought she has a team. >> wow. how was "cinderella"? >> it was spectacular. >> you said it was awful. >> no. >> but i heard "frozen 2" was too short. >> you saw jordan spieth? >> jordan spieth's second win.

a 30-foot birdie putt to win it. >> how about the last three holes in regulation too? >> and out of the trap it looked like he was done a couple of times. this kid is -- i hate to say it but i think the future of the game is on his shoulders for right now. because he is perfect for the country. he's exactly what the game needs with tiger toast. nice kid. underarmour athlete. good looking guy. emotional. >> at&t was sponsoring him. >> 21 years old. he is perfect for the sport. he's everything the pga needs. >> he's a gentleman. >> ice in his veins. >> those are against two of his ryder cup teammates. >> that was good golf. >> the dvr was going great. then i taped the selection show. >> i feel bad for penelope. >> you need to go back and look thoroughly again. look at the oklahoma team you

mentioned. they could be in the final four. villanova could lose if they get cold from three-point range. >> you saw what they did to xavier. after xavier beat georgetown. we got to go. >> all right. i'm going to find you more upsets. i'll tweet you. >> he needs help with this. folks, you are better off betting on the markets in march than college basketball. that's according to cbs.com's eric chummy. he called the kentucky wildcats overhyped. he predicted they would lose soon and as you know kentucky is currently undefeated. eric, lousy call. >> thank you for the great introduction. i think there's a producer who is a kentucky alum in the control room. that's the point. everything we just talked about, nobody really knows what's going to happen. kentucky has a 90% to 95% chance of winning each individual game. their chance of going undefeated the regular season was low.

warren buffett says i'll offer a billion dollars to who gets this bracket. you'll make more money many the stock market than you will making a bracket. if you look at the s&p 500 going back ten years, 97% of the stocks are up during the tournament. all 30 dow stocks are up during the tournament. a company like gamestop they've been up in the last years. the sharp ratio on the market is 11 in these three weeks. because you've got tax refunds. you've got the end of quarter markups that portfolio managers are doing. we would all be better off not playing any of these games. even though i think you want to avoid teams like kentucky. because everyone's going to bet them. they're a low alpha. they're a negative alpha type of team. everybody picks them, you don't make in ig. >> a few years ago they went all the way and won. >> this is about value and contrarian. you pick value stocks and contrarian stocks, you don't pick the bubble stocks. that's what kentucky is. kentucky is a high bubble type of name. so you can take the stock market

approaches apply it to the market. you're waving your hand at me joe. because you picked your brackets with the first seeds. you've got to pick the finalists first and then work backwards. that's where the points are. you don't start with the one point matchups. >> i didn't take kentucky. i think i took indiana or some lame brain stunt. was that two years ago? >> again, the picking chalk is not going to win you this ncaa tournament. that's not going to win your bracket. >> we're not trying to win. >> that's the problem! trying to not lose. >> let's play for the middle of the pack. >> there's no money. there's no money for second. >> there's no money anyway. we play against our peers that are on tv news. on the bracket. >> hey, kids play not to lose. that's what joe wants to do. come on. >> if you're trying to lose then you have the perfect bracket. pick kentucky. you don't even need to be in the tournament. you can just have a robobracket.

always pick favorites. >> they have a choice. i'm going to look at the bpi, it may be better than the rpi. >> the bpi has kentucky at 49%. that is -- they've never had anyone higher than 30% to win it all. >> did you take kentucky two years ago? >> no. i never pick chalk. and i never win the brackets. >> you never win. >> no. >> everybody loses. think about it out of 35 people 34 of you are going to lose. >> all i want to do is be in the top 5 out of 40. >> pick stocks. just put it in the s&p 500. >> get on an index. >> just own an s&p 500 etf. take the money, buy a nice dinner. >> i don't know. who's going to beat kentucky? you think notre dame? >> if someone's going to keep them from going to indianapolis it is notre dame. they are hot. they are like connecticut last year. you want to team on a roll. beat duke twice and then won the tournament. >> okay. >> thank you, guys.

>> you're messed up on kentucky. >> that's the point. >> they had two overtimes. they barely got through. >> if texas a&m could shoot free throws, they wouldn't be undefeated. can it make a dentist appointment when my teeth are ready? ♪ ♪ can it track my crew's performance, and protect their heads? ♪ ♪ can it tell the flight attendant to please not wake me this time? ♪ ♪ at cognizant, we see opportunities for every company. to meet the new digital demands of their customers. can it process my insurance claim? like, right now?

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stocks to watch this morning. sotheby's naming tad smith as its new ceo. he will be leaving msg to take the job. smith will be replaced at msg by james dolan. also microsoft citing weaker than expected pc demand global challenges, and the impact of foreign currency which we've heard about for a lot of firms. and garmin citing catalysts and tougher competitions in the wearables market. all right. coming up what to expect from the fed this week. we're going to talk to top strategist from blackrock and oppenheimer. plus mohamed el-erian. and also the honest company raising speculation about an ipo that could be getting ready. details next.

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staying ahead of the fed. find ou how you should be positioning your portfolio with some of today's market pros. blackrock's manager paul ebner, brian levitt, and mohamed

el-erian join us this hour with their latest market predictions. from diapers to vitamins. jessica alba speaks to cnbc about her eco-friendly products and how they're helping her win over the next generation. that interview in minutes. and could the jinx have jinxed himself. arrested overnight. we've got details straight ahead as the final hour of "squawk box" begins right now. live from the most powerful city in the world, new york, this is "squawk box." >> welcome back to "squawk box," everybody. this is cnbc first in business worldwide. i'm becky quick along with joe kernen and andrew ross sorkin. after a week and a half vladimir putin has been spotted. the president of russia resurfacing a short time ago after a ten-day absence from public view. there's been no shortage of rumors surrounding his whereabouts.

everywhere from illness to aliens. the appearance on national television has put some of the rumors to rest. >> let's tell you about what we're looking at this hour. starting tomorrow ahead of the gathering. one strategist at city's fx noting the dollar's rally over the past eight months is at the fastest pace in 40 years. and oil dropping to the lowest since march 2009 this morning. here's what bp's ceo told our colleague during an interview over the weekend. >> it's a world of luxury. we've been in $100 oil for three years. the cost structures were high. the taxes say was high. that's an unusual period. we're back to the normal world of volatility in gas prices. we're down as of friday at $54 brent. $44 in the united states. this is a huge shock for our industry. cost structures are going to

have to move and change. taxation is going to have to move and change. it's going to be very painful. if you look at the transfer of wealth in one year it will be about $1.6 trillion will transfer from oil and gas producing areas to consuming areas. so depending where you are in the world, this is great. but anything that happens that fast can have unintended consequences. >> and the futures this morning as we flip that board around you can see what's happening right there. you're going to see the dow opening up higher. nasdaq up about 11.5 points. and the s&p 500 up close to 6 points higher. also a bit of deal nous this morning. valeant has increased its offer to $176 per share. they have agreed to new terms. the original was worth $158 per share. it increased that price after endo came in with that cash and stock bid. the new offer is said to be all cash. we will see whether that is acceptable among shareholders and whether the stock's even higher at this point.

right now you're looking at it at $173. >> do you like -- like his life depends on oil prices staying high. the market place has become volatile. that's what they call it when it's going down. when it's going up they don't really refer to it as anything. it was just as volatile going from $30 to $110. >> i'd say we've gotten more used to hundred-dollar oil recently. >> we have. i don't think it's been volatile. it's just gone straight down. that's what it's done. that's sugar coating that you totally made all your capital expenditures based on $100 oil. you had no idea it was going to $40. and now it's volatile because we didn't see it coming. he's not the only one i've seen that are in that business. they call it volatility. >> that's because it implies it's coming back up. if you call it volatile. >> maybe. but it's just funny because --

>> it was a crash. not volatility. fed policy makers meet tomorrow and wednesday. investors are questioning whether or not patient remain ngs the statement. joining us now paul ebner and brian levitz. just in terms of gdp and jobless rate and numbers with retail sales and some of the other disappointing numbers, i can make a case either way on whether this economy is great or whether it's still tepid. what do you think? >> i think the economy continues to show signs of improvement. but we're faced with a very big headwind which is a 20% in the short period of time. there are things that are good for the economy. you see the manufacturing sector that is signaling expansion. you have improvement in labor. but the problem is now it's not strong enough to overcome what's

now been quite a big drag on the sector and profits. typically at this point in the cycle you would secret growth substantially higher. you receive wage growth substantially higher. what the fed is facing now is this drag from a stronger dollar. and tightening at this point might not be -- >> given the rates are zero. given gas prices are so much cheaper, i don't think consumers are looking at multi-national earnings to decide whether or not they spend money. are they? wouldn't they be looking at how much disposal income they have? why isn't that a bigger influence on consumers than multi-national? >> we see money at the pump gradually. it takes time to build up. if prices were to sustain at $2 gallon gasoline rate you would see a couple hundred extra. you have not seen wage growth. that's the bigger issue. >> all right. paul with that backdrop on any given day would you be saying

add to equity exposure in the united states? >> no. right now we're basically flat the market. so we have little net equity exposure. we're moderately short the united states right now. for us the most attractive place to short in the u.s. is the consumer section you mentioned. consumer retailers specifically specialty retailers in apparel and luxury goods. retailers and manufacturers. you mentioned the fact that it takes awhile for the consumer to realize savings. last time i was on the show i talked about some of the realtime indicators we track for consumption. one is looking at internet search activity or social media. we haven't seen increase in the consumer increasing consumption in the united states. i started talking about this back in november and december. we've seen pretty disappointing retail sales ever since. we don't see a sign that consumption is going to pick up any time soon. a lot of people are expecting march to have a rebound from

february. if we don't see that i don't think these stocks are going to be able to hold their current valuations. >> so do you care about the fed, paul? then i'm going to ask brian that. do you care and what do you think? >> of course we care about what's going on with the fed. from our perspective, though it's important to get the direction of which way rates are going. in addition to timing and also to think about the fed in a relative basis. >> maybe i can help you. we're at zero. so probably will be going up. in that direction. right? >> sure. >> don't you have people at blackrock telling you that zero is -- you think we're going negative, or -- it's like a stock won't go below zero. >> so you think about the tightening policy on a relative basis, the u.s. policy is much tighter than in europe or japan. and that is a headwind for stocks.

whether the fed removes language in their next statement coming up, we think we're in a regime in the united states where monetary policy is going to be tighter than we see in europe and japan. that makes japan and parts of europe more attractive. >> you're saying that language can actually be tightening. even from zero they can -- even at zero we're much tighter than the rest of the world which is a hard thing to understand. >> the fact that japan and europe are currently going through quantitative easing right now -- >> so relative to them we're still tighter. >> and you see that in interest rates. you see that in the strength of the dollar as well. >> right. >> you've already seen language lead to some tightening for the u.s. economy given this move in capital flows. and currencies are the great equalizer. i do think that investors have been far too focused on rate hikes. this story is still a deflationary environment. it is a slow growth world. that continues to be the bigger story.

so irrespective of whether we take away the word patient in the statement, i think they will. i don't think it's a fore gone conclusion that they're raising interest rates in june. you're right. the next move is going to be up. i think the timing of it is far less important than what it ultimately means over the long-term. i think it's a long gradual process. not 25 basis points at every meeting like many the greenspan fed. what you end up is where 80% is still going to be protected by the policy and trillion dollars of bonds around the -- trillions of bonds in other currencyings around the world. >> so is there a reason to say it's not really zero? because banks are still so tight fisted with money. i mean, it's like, yeah credit is cheap but you just can't get it if you don't have, you know, the right balance sheet. >> the good news is we see bank credit grow. and you finally saw it turn

down. >> remember when the fed increased the balance sheet. >> then you're starting to see it in small business optimism plans and abilities. >> the big thing is consumers aren't spending it. >> but the 8% year over year credit growth is a positive and aggregate. normally when you're up -- by this point in the cycle, credit growth. we've been calling it the reverse dog years. one year for a dog feels like seven. this is seven years and it feels early. it feels like one. we're not at robust indiscriminate growth. but it's aimproving. >> you said you're net neutral then, right? >> on the markets we're underweight what our neutral stance would be. for our fund it's a long short fund. net long would be a neutral stance for us. we're closer to flat. the most short we could go would be minus 10%. >> that's pretty bearish.

>> we are bearish on the -- on our ability to generate returns by owning equities relative to our returns by doing stock selection or industry positioning. >> okay. i guess i got that. so if we do want to stay long what country and what industries? >> you brought up the fact in the united states the monetary policy has been tighter when you think about the u.s. dollar when you think about where rates are relative to other places. one of the best opportunities that's created now is canadian stocks. parts of the canadian economy that deals with consumption and consumer and technology. if you look at the trading partner with canada it's the united states. when you look at the u.s. dollar strength relative to the cad, that's put a lot of companies like technology companies at a big advantage over their u.s. counterparts. we find that to be the most

attractive place to be long right now. we think france has run too far too fast. we started the year being very long the eurozone. we've now paired back some of those and increased our shorts. france is up about 17% year to date on currency adjusted -- on a currency adjusted basis. you look at the sluggishness of that economy. you look that the consumer in france isn't picking up their consumption. to us that looks like it's gone too far too fast on qe rallies. >> so you're with blackrock. how'd you get to live in san francisco? >> so i've been with this team for about ten years. i came through the bgi acquisition. bgi was headquartered in san francisco. >> lucky. >> you know it's great here. >> blackrock but you're in san francisco. >> that's right. we actually have as large an office here in san francisco as in new york. >> wow. >> that's a good -- i'm going to listen to you with a lot of your

picks here. because that is smart. instead of being -- it's okay here. >> it's early in the morning. >> i keep a pretty similar schedule to you, so i'm out early as well. and there's advantages and disadvantages to that. >> early bird specials. there's the advantage. >> that's right. and you're stuck with us. nice winter wasn't it? >> new jersey to new york city. >> he's out with the golden gate bridge behind him. all right, thanks guys. see you later. when we come back this morning, jessica alba expanding her honest company brand. julia boorstin spoke with her over the weekend. find out how alba plans to own the next generation as they get set for a possible ipo. and later on el-erian joins us plus steve case and his rise of the rest competition. the ceo of pear deck will join us too. and also jim cramer. stick around. more "squawk box" after the break.

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purchase any new verizon wireless smartphone or tablet from comcast. visit comcast.com/wireless to learn more. welcome back to "squawk box," everybody. check out shars of lifetime fitness. the company's going private. it's being acquired by partners of tpg and green. it's a total of more than $4 billion. global market alert. opec says oil prices, low oil prices may hit u.s. output this year. coming in the monthly report. opec is still leaving its forecast for non-opec supply chains. anything opec says at this point, take with a grain of salt. because obviously they don't like where the price is right now. and if they could have done something about it they would

have. and, you know you wonder how much is trying to put our fracking industry out of business. and you wonder whether they think they can do that or not. >> whether it can turn on a dime. >> they might have five or ten bucks as the nominal price. but the actual price, they have a budget of 30 or 40 bucks. >> they can't live at these prices forever either. we've got a big interview this morning. if her first interview since being named to cnbc's next list jessica alba joined cnbc to talk about the possibility of an ip o rks. julia boorstin joins us now. she caught up with miss alba herself. julia? >> thanks so much andrew. that's right jessica alba and honest company's ceo both revealed their household, personal care baby care empire tripled revenue to $150 million in revenue last year. alba telling us that the month-old feeding baby category

is off to a huge start and announced a big step into beauty as well as feminine care this year. >> our customers have asked us to do more personal care. so feminine care is a vertical we're launching in the summer. then in the fall beauty. and both of those verticals we've been working on for years. it's just now we've gotten it -- we're at a point where we can finally launch them. >> alba and lee wouldn't comment on reports that there's an ipo in the works. lee noting that honest has a strong balance sheet, so it doesn't need to go public. also announcing some big international expansion into asia. >> we're looking at china in particular because we believe that our brand will really resonate strongly with the chinese family who are looking for non-toxic, healthier lifestyle choices. it may be towards the end of this year maybe early next year. but we are strategically planning for it.

we believe it is a very large market. >> well 75% of honest revenue is from online. and 80% of that is via subscriptions to its monthly bundles. it is quickly ramping its retail presence. honest products are in whole foods, target costco, and nordstroms. one place you won't find the product is on amazon. alba wanting to maintain total control over their customer experience. it's a one-on-one relationship she says provides very valuable feedback including on what products they should create next. we'll have more on alba and lee's growth strategy coming up in "squawk alley." >> thank you. appreciate it very much. looks a little dark out there, julia. did i call her jessica? >> you had jessica on the brain. still to come mohamed el-erian. but up next he is the focus of the jinx on hbo.

now thinking robert durst may have jinxed himself into a confession of three murders spanning decades. details when we return. these days, the most important person in your business could be a software developer. so, how's the app coming? we've got to make something great. how's the app coming? we've got to do it fast. let's do this on bluemix. you can build apps with analytics, big data, even ibm watson. that could give us the edge. let's do this on bluemix. it can provide code for you. we could be first to market. because being best is priority one. being first is priority one.

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killed them all. of course. >> he's the infamous heir to one of the biggest real estate families. robert durst was the subject of the hbo documentary "the jinx." he's now behind bars arrested in the lobby of a hotel. stephanie gosk joins us from new orleans where she's got more on the story. stephanie? >> good morning, andrew. he has an extradition hearing here in new orleans this morning. he's expected to wave extradition. his lawyer says they're going to go back to l.a. and fight these charges and he's going to plead not guilty. for decades there had been suspicion swirling around robert durst. first the disappearance of his wife, the murder of his neighbor

in texas. murdered and dismembered. which he went on trial for but was acquitted. his lawyers argued self-defense. he admitted to killing that man and dismembering him. and now this murder in 2000 of his close friend and confidant susan burrman. he's now charged with capital murder in that case. all of it seemingly stemming from the documentary on hbo. it was a mistake for him to sit down and conduct that interview for the documentary. guys, back to you. >> thank you. i was thinking the same thing. why would you possibly sit down? >> apparently he thought he was telling his story and -- he made a comment he thought there was no way that anyone would ever come back. it would cost them too much money to come back and try to prosecute him. he apparently said that six months ago when they were doing it. >> so that is ego getting in the way. >> little bit. when we come back this morning, we have mohammed el-erian el-erian. he will join us to talk about

the eurozone and what will move the markets this week. as we head to a break, look at the u.s. equity futures. dow up about 64 points. s&p up by 6.5. nasdaq up by about 13. e financial noise financial noise financial noise

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wchl back to "squawk box" this morning. tesla ceo elon musk saying they'll make an announcement to the big fears about plug-in cars. the risks of running out of power before reaching destination. a new call is set for thursday when tesla will talk about the end of range anxiety. tesla shares down 16% over the last year. and nearly 26% during the past six months. the question of course is whether the software that's going to be upgraded in the car will allow the car to go farther or perhaps whether it will just identify to you when it's going to run out of battery sooner or be able to tell you. >> pull over dummy. >> but it may be able to tell you where the next station is and say you need to do it now. it may be about identifying that kind of stuff rather than -- >> rather than fixing it? >> it's hard to believe the

technology could give the car that much more range. it would be amazing if it's true. >> but you saw the stock. at the very top that was where there was a group known as the tesla arians where they would write in if dwrou say anything questioning anything about the stock, you'd get, you know the twitter haters would come out. and it's just weird the way it coincides a lot of times with market tops. what was it? >> 280. >> now -- so what is that? that's a pretty big -- it's down quite a bit. and nothing's changed fundamentally. it's gotten better fundamentally as you build a company like that. but they got very vocal. never changes. human nature i think. santelli is around. we're moments away from the empire. let's see if the equities have changed. we're up 70. 69.69. that's not -- at least it's not 66.66 or something like that.

the 10-year note. take a quick look see where that is. 2% seems like a good number to bank on. oil waiting for the three handle. >> it's even lower. we've already blown through this morning through the january lows that had been set for wti. >> we're looking for a two handle weren't we, leisman? >> i'll take three. >> okay. you take three. and there you got european markets right now. you can see mixed but not too bad. and finally there is the euro at 1.05. rick santelli standing by the the cme in chicago. he's going to bring us those numbers, the empire state numbers we were talking about. rick? had. >> great empire index. 6.90. we were looking around 8. so it's close. last month around 7.75 unchanged. give you context on this number.

at the end of last year the december read was minus 1.23. the latest water mark was september of 27. so it's middling when you look at it in the context of that and of course joe nailed it. you know there's still lots of betting going on. we're going to see a 3% handle in treasuries. hard to debate there's some logic there. there's also logic you could see 0%. there's logic you could see negative boom deals. thank god the entire free world's banking system is predicated to the depth of one word. patience. >> it is amazing, isn't it? and this isn't the first time either rick. leisman probably remembers the other words. >> very very very long time ago. >> greenspan fell from favor. he was the maestro. had everything hunkered down. that didn't last long. joe you never talk about big issues. i know you're short of time but

the internet, great op-ed today. i don't know. when did we become a monarchy where the opinion of one man whether he's great or not doesn't matter? it's not the way it was set up. i don't understand some of these issues. i mean i understand congress is dopey lately they don't really do much. but i don't know. there isn't a part of the constitution that says you know, inactivity is against the law so you take away all their constitutional powers. any thoughts? >> you know we're -- at this point i've almost given up rick. i'm just trying to see what the market -- the market is amazing and the economy is amazing. in spite of all of this we are still better than everywhere else. usually anyway. we had one person -- i believe it was pronounced maestro. but she finally left. was it maestro? >> joe i'm from chicago. why would you ever listen to me on a pronunciation?

>> if you weren't a car person maybe it's not that crazy to bring up. go ahead. we won't mention it -- >> thank you, rick. big week for investors in the fed. steve leisman is here as well. what do you think about this? >> i think the fed's going to try to have it both ways. i think it's going to remove patience and signal patience at the same time. >> by sticking another word in there? >> i don't think it's going to be another word. here's how you might do it. the first thing that would happen is lower the dots. remember this whole amount and the fed's outlook? the fed's going to come back towards the market on this one. probably have a range of 75 to 100 rather than 100 to 125 basis points on the funds rate. it's going to lower inflation for this year probably and continue to forecast below normal rates. for some time. that's other language than used

to say we're going to be patient. here's what janet yellen said. the removal of patience means. >> the modification of the forward guidance should not be read as indicating that the committee will necessarily increase the target range in a couple of meetings. instead the modification should be understood as reflecting the committee's judgment the conditions have improved to the point where it will soon be the case that a change many the target range could be warranted at any meeting. >> kind of like churchill, right? not the end, but the beginning of the end i think is what she's saying there. i was laughing when rick was talking because i pulled the same quote that i think he might have been referring to. here's what luke crandall said. he said the fomc is in no rush to raise rates but needs to regain policy flexibility. we do not think the fed has a

confident enough outlook to get boxed into a lift-off just yet. and hee fate of global markets is dependent on the survival of one word in this statement is a sad state of affairs. i think that echoes what rick just said. here's where we are. you think about the removal of patience. all of a sudden the fear of being the frog in the boiling water is what happens to fixed income traders. okay. they're getting rid of that. and then they're going to start to get -- and you get to a point where do i -- get out of this pot right now. there is some fear of an outsized reaction. that could boil over into stocks. i know we have mohamed coming up. i want to hear what he says about whether or not this is a train you want to get out of the way of. >> in fact, let's continue this conversation. mohamed el-erian is calling in. of course he is allianz's chief executive adviser. i believe you were in the camp

of every market watcher we spoke to today that believes patience is coming out when the fomc releases. >> yeah. i think i'm like steve. but we'll see another linguistic gymnastics. as a way of keeping markets from rushing to the terminal value. remember market action continues to be governed by this notion that we are repricing the reality of persistently lower interest rates. and the fed doesn't want us to leave that paradigm. so they're going to do their jut most to make sure markets focus on the journey. the question is not if they're willing to do that. the question is can they remain effective. >> let's talk about that. every person we spoke with today says they expect patience to come out. they've also all said they

expect to have happen what you just pointed out too. that even though the fed takes patience out, it doesn't mean they're raising in june. how does the market react if as telegraphed they do remove patience and then how does the market react if they leave patience in. what would happen at that point? i think that's the unexpected scenario. >> if they leave patient in you will see the gap between the 10-year treasury and the bund collapse. treasuries would come back down towards the bunds. and you're going to get more than 150 basis points range. secondly equity markets will react positively. i don't think they will. but that's what would happen if they did. >> mohamed, can we talk quickly about the short end of the curve? and i don't want to be extreme here but maybe i am and you see a possibility of a blood bath here. because i see the one-year u.s. treasury at 23 basis points.

the fed funds rate is at 51 basis points. if patience comes out and i'm a fixed income trader and i have to start thinking about what happens to the funds rate over the course of the year isn't my one-year badly mis-priced here? >> if it comes out and the language about the economy points to significant upgrade, then you're right. the three things that the fed cannot control and i suspect they're worried about. one is this poin which on this one hand pushes in one direction. and the impact of the dollar which pulls in the other direction. so they've got to navigate this tug of war. it remains balanced. the products are somewhat better. but they cannot signal a lot better. because then we move patience plus that will lead to that. second, they have to keep an eye

on global divergence. the more the u.s. diverges from europe, the greater the risk to parts of the u.s. curve. and third, let's not forget that liquidity is not there when the paradigm changes. that's what we've learned over and over again. they know a slight change in expectations can lead to outside moves in the fixed income market. >> you said you think that the currency moves will overshoot. you don't think they're there yet at 1.05 for the euro to the dollar. >> that's correct. i think the euro will weaken further. and i think values will go well beyond what's stratified by fundamentals. that's going to occur in the emerging market wlorlorld. we are going to see major overshoots which is going to be painful for some. >> there's a big trade going on in the hedge fund trade right

now where they're shorting the euro and then levering themselves up. is its still a good trade? it's worked if you put it on two months ago. that's what the markets are learned over and over again. when a central bank engages in a big way in qe like we saw in the u.s., then in japan, now in europe. you want to be short currency. that trade has worked extremely well. it continues to work as long as the ecb is the most stimlative if you like among the central banks. >> thanks for calling in today. it's great talking to you. >> wonderful to be on. thank you. >> okay. what do you do when you're a start-up in a market not made for start-ups? you find the nearest rise of the restor and we'll talk to steve case and the latest win ber.

let's look at where the third rise of the rest tour continues. we're back in a moment. warns you about incoming cross-traffic. cameras and radar detect dangers you don't. and it can even stop by itself. so in this crash test, one thing's missing: a crash. the 2015 e-class. see your authorized dealer for exceptional offers through mercedes-benz financial services.

welcome back to "squawk box" this morning. since its launch in 2014 the rise of the rest road series has had pitches from 80 small start-ups picked from nearly 1,000 applications. this weekend at a special edition of rise of the rest at south by southwest, five wincers

from the last tour got a chance to pitch for an additional amount steve case joins us now along with one of the winners of this final round of rise of the rest riley lynch. he's the ceo of pear deck. good morning, guys. >> good morning. >> morning. >> steve, first before we get into riley and his winnings just walk us through how you got to this place and the decision to do this sort of second go round, if you will. >> well just background we love what's happening with entrepreneurship in silicon valley. hot beds of the country. but we love what's happening in the middle of the country, where we call the rise of the rest the others call the heartlands. we did two tours. nine cities. the first was detroit, cincinnati, nashville. the second was minneapolis,

indianapolis, des moines kansas city, and st. louis. and we found pear deck in iowa. we had the winners of those last five cities come to austin to be part of south by and we had a pitch competition, one of the final pitch competitions yesterday. and pear deck was the winner. >> and was pear deck the clear winner to you? you want to tell us about some of the others that were up to grabs? >> yeah. there were five great companies five great start-up cities. and also five different categories. one focused on energy another on analytics, another on a new kind of beer machine. there was a lot of variety. trying to reinvent the classroom, interaction with students and teachers was the clear winner. joined us but all three said pear deck was number one. >> it's very cool.

gives teachers an opportunity to interact with students in a very new and clever way on their ipads and such. tell us about it but also tell us what we're going to do with the money. >> i was a teacher and you know there's always this moment in a class where a teacher asks if there's any questions. it turns out that's a tough moment for kids. they've been listening and taking notes. at that point they don't know if they have questions yet. it's tough for the teacher to do. so this helps them keep an activeact if active frame of mind during the class. it also helps them hear all the kids. so she can process what they're saying quickly during class. >> and how many schools do you have signed up so far? >> so we've got 100,000 kids using pear deck right now. >> it's growing 30% month over month which was really impressive. that blew the judges away. it's like a viral adoption now

by teachers and students. >> yeah. we just launched last semester. >> and you have to be in classrooms where they already have devices and ipads and such. is that really the gating factor for you? >> well it works with all kinds of schools. some schools have laptop carts and some schools have devices kids can share. they will bring in a device from home and can share with a partner. even with just a computer lab, it can work. >> right. what are you going to do with the many un? >> so i advise -- never mind. we're looking forward to making itstarted. it's already really started. we have a ways to go. teachers have a ton of work and not very much time and we're focusing on making it easier. >> before we run, just tell us -- i know you just picked five new cities that you're going to do this in. tell us where they're going to be. >> now we're firing up and

heading to the south. we're going to start may 4th in richmond, virginia. and then we go to raleigh-durham. may 7th in atlanta. we finish up on may 8th in new orleans. five great american cities with great histories. more importantly, great futures in part because of what's happening with the start-ups. entrepreneurs are leading the way. not just in creating service, but creating jobs and strengthen these communities. so we're looking forward to seeing the south and the rest really is rising. >> congratulations. we hope you'll bring us the next winner from the next tour. we appreciate it this morning. >> all right, look forward to it. and another story we're following, sir elton john is striking a pose and it's not a pretty one. he's calling for a boycott of dolce & gabanna, the founders of the fashion house told italy's "panorama" magazine that they support traditional marriage. elton john has two children born via a surrogate with his

longtime partner. he was particularly peeved at the designers' comments that kids who aren't born in the traditional sense are simply in his words, children of chemistry. the company issued a statement late last night saying that we believe firmly in democracy and we think the freedom of expression is essential for that. we talked about our way of looking at the world, but it was not our intention to express a judgment on other people's choices. we believe in freedom and love. and that's really controversial there, isn't it? they believe in freedom and love. we all believe in freedom and love, right? definitely. i can unequivocally say that. >> and apple pie. >> and apple pie. not so sure about hot dogs. right? preservatives. >> we love hot dogs. >> and pig snout. i do, too. >> my kids love hot dogs. >> i know. i know. o-s-c-a -- >> no how does that go?

money morning markets. we'll catch up with jim and focus on what investors should be focusing on in today's trading session. e financial noise financial noise financial noise financial noise sfx: common city background noise ♪ credit belongs to the man who strives valiantly who errs who spends himself in a worthy cause and who, if he fails at least fails, while daring greatly sfx: background city noise

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another day, another decline for oil prices. wti down another 1.5%. let's get down to the new york stock exchange. jim cramer is standing by. everybody who thought we had bottomed out was wrong. now what? >> well 43 is the level. that's where january 28th, we bounced off of. i just continue to see two things. one, the first quarter that we're just pumping like mad. second quarter may be still a very pumped -- really a lot of oil coming on. it will be q4 before we see the decline. so i think as long as there's just a lot of oil coming on and storage is tight we will not be able to bottom. i think we can probably go through 43, but i don't think we're going to go to the mid 30s. i just think there is some demand coming out of europe. but i think people are underestimating how much we're pumping still here. >> and how long this might last at these lower levels. how long it might take us to get used to some of those things. >> a couple years. i think it's a couple years. every time we lift, new supplies

come on. and we've lowered the break even so dramatically that it's worth it to pump at 45. just worth it. >> right. we were talking earlier about how in saudi arabia maybe they have a 5 or $10 level that they're talking about. although their state budget requires them to pump even more. >> at a certain point, we can say that they're going to give it away. i mean there are levels where there is demand. it's just that we have a short-term imbalance. if we were to be able to export you would see other countries wilt and we would be able to take some share, but we're not exporting. instead, there's just a big backup. and you're starting to see the tanker rates go up in part because everyone's trying to find some place to put oil. >> let me ask you real quickly about a call that ubs had. the analyst cutting his earnings estimate for microsoft. >> his numbers are still way too high. i think they can't even make the lowest on the street. that guy was just trying to get in line. he is still way too high. i think microsoft is beginning to have a very bad quarter. if they do something else, they split the company up then you'll feel bad if you sold it.

but on the earnings alone, the estimates are still way too high. >> we've got to go jim, but did you start your brackets yet? >> i'm all done. and i'm going for complete you know -- i listen to you guys. i can't go kentucky because everybody is. i'm going notre dame-villanova in the finals and notre dame wins. >> wow. >> you got any upsets in the first round? >> you know, i was looking at that -- i mean i just think that in the end i'm not going to go with first-round upset. but second round is just loaded with upsets. first round, you end up doing that law of numbers that just makes it so difficult. you'll have steven austin. when i look at those, it just doesn't pay. maybe because dayton is at home. >> maybe buffalo? >> i like buffalo. >> rpi or bpi? what should i use? >> you know i just think that they're -- it won't matter coming into the second round. >> jim, thank you. we will see you in just a few minutes. >> thank you. when we return, your watch list for the day ahead.

plus, a drag race gone terribly wrong. we're going to show you what happens right after the break. can it make a dentist appointment when my teeth are ready? ♪ ♪ can it tell the doctor how long you have to wear this thing? ♪ ♪ can it tell the flight attendant to please not wake me this time? ♪ ♪ the answer is yes, it can. so, the question your customers are really asking is can your business deliver?

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call our specialists today to get up and running. time now for today's watch

list. coming up at 10:00, it's the nahb house market index for march. that's at 4:00 p.m. this afternoon. amgen will be holding a conference call to discuss its cardiovascular development program. so a lot of different things going on today. >> a drag racer is happy to be alive this morning after an unbelievable crash in florida. larry dixon's top fuel dragster that's it right there, it says he was on the right. we know which one we're talking about here. as it approaches 280 miles an hour it splits in half. that would be the one on the right. the rear holding the cockpit and the engine goes airborne. the driver walked away from the crash not hurt which is weird the way it happened. >> unbelievable. >> it's weird the way it happened sometimes with drag racing. >> glad to hear it. also we should tell you dairy queen is celebrating its 75th year of business this year. today is the 75th day on the

calendar year so the company is thanking customers at participating dairy queens by celebrating with free cone day today. i assume that means you get ice cream in the cone, too, but customers can get a free small have a my vanilla soft serve cone. they are requesting a donation to children's hospital. >> you didn't get a heads up on this? from buffett? >> no. free cones? >> yeah. >> is there a dairy queen on the island? >> i don't know if there is. there's two by us. >> there's two in new jersey. another reason. >> to live in jersey? >> two youngsters that would like to see trees. >> and get free dairy queen. >> exactly. >> anyway, that does it for us. we'll see you tomorrow. right now it's time for "squawk on the street." god monday morning. welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm carl quintanilla with jim

cramer at the new york stock exchange. david faber is off today. the fed meeting, israeli elections. the market looking pretty steady. futures are up. oil did hit 43.57 this morning, a new six-year low. ten years right around 209 on a weak empire survey. our road map begins with the markets. volatility set to continue as oil, the euro, and the fed compete for attention this week. netflix shares slipping pre-market.