from the democrats. >> your campaign is guaranteed to win florida. >> are you going to do this every day against donald trump? >> we'll do it often. >> your campaign is guaranteed that you will win florida. you're guaranteeing -- >> what happens if you don't. >> we'll win florida. >> are you comfortable with the phrase anti-trump candidate, rubio? >>ize front-runner and only way to stop him voters coalesce around someone to stop him. i think it's time to coalesce around someone that can beat him and stop him and around someone that can unite the party and grow it. this the argument i'm making. >> is that the direction we'll see in the coming -- >> donald trump is the front-runner, won the last three states, leads in every poll, the time for action is now. again, it goes back to what i said. if you sense a sense a urgency,

it's not about winning or losing the party of reagan and conservative movement can fall into the hands of someone who's a con man and pulling the ultimate con job on the american public and claims to stand for the working class when his entire business career been sticking it to working class americans. this is a guy who claims he's the strongest anti-immigration person in the race and uses illegal immigrants to build trump towers and has imported foreign workers to take away jobs from americans in my own home state and portrays himself as a tough guy. he's not a tough guy. this is a guy who inherited $200 million and had it not been for that, he would be selling watches in times square. my point is we're not going to let someone like that take over the conservative movement after everything that this party has gone through and this country has gone through, the last thing we need is a conman as president. >> the christie en -- >> i've got to get out there. >> specifically to the sooner state, top of mind in oklahoma. what is your plan of attack for

those issues? why should oklahomans vote for you? >> the easiest and best place in the world to start a new business or grow an existing one. we have the highest combined corporate tax rate in the world. i have a plan to not only lower it but roll back and cap the growth of regulations, i have a plan to do that. we need to deal with social security and medicare so we can save those programs and bring our debt under control. we've outlined a plan to do that. we need to fully utilize our energy resources, critically important to oklahoma and manufacturing across this country. we've outlined a plain to do that and repeal and replace obama care, that involves more than donald trump's plan to get rid of the lines around the states. we have a complex but important plan to have access to quality health care in allows them to control their choices, not the government. >> exactly how will you win florida? >> are we ready? >> thomas, this is --

>> welcome to "closing bell." we'll have more in just a moment but it's been a gripping couple of hours here in terms of the presidential campaign. marco rubio there responding to affect natalie call a press xrum, pressing him for response, additional comment after we heard from donald trump at length earlier following and endorsement from new jersey governor chris christie who had just dropped out. >> rubio clearly all but saying, the rest of you have to get out and the parties should unite behind me. the talking points were party of reagan and conservative movement cannot fall into the hands of a con man. he wants to be the establishment choice but there's no path there notice some folks get out. >> we have -- the schedule the next couple of days, tomorrow a primary, democratic side perhaps. and any case next -- the focus is tuesday, the focus is tuesday, super tuesday, the

question is what happens now as donald trump continues to poll strongly but last night's debate had 15 million people watching and anybody who tuned in saw a ferocious show that has generated the heated rhetoric today. >> we heard john earlier say trump with this endorsement from christie, took whatever momentum rubio felt he had. there you have trying to get some back. >> mike santoli joining me. we wish bill griffeth well. we have movement into negative territory but we have apple's shareholder meeting happening today. so many issues swirling around that company. josh lipton is out at the cupertino headquarters, what's happening there today? >> reporter: a big topic was this fight between apple and the

u.s. government. tim cook took the stage in a standing ovation and said the court battle was the right thing to do. yes he suggested it's challenging but apple doesn't shy away from challenging fights some board directors were here, al gore and bob eyeinger and civil liberties organization, they are going to be filing a brief in support of apple. i caught up with the executive director who explained why they are supporting apple in this fight. >> it's tremendously dangerous for the fbi to con script apple into writing this code and it will affect the security of all of the rest of us. if the government wins it legal precedent, they can force apple to do this, we already know that there are law enforcement all across the country going to be right behind them asking for the

same thing. >> reporter: we know in addition, microsoft and facebook and alphabet will file a joint brief in support of apple. i talked to shareholders from boston to nashville, very supportive of apple and tim cook. of course, we also know that congress could have a big role in deciding this debate and that's why you see both sides also working so hard to win over the public. back to you. >> josh, thank you so much. >> let's now speak with two apple shareholders joining us on opposite ends of this debate. thinks apple should unlock the device and opposed to apple, creating any type of backdoor. first to you, your own position is at odds with apple's on this. but you're a shareholder. >> i'll been bullish on apple and the biggest issue, we're

talking national security, we're talking about -- i'm for privacy and don't want that permanent dak boor but nor this case, we're talking about national security and hopefully future terror acts. this is one of the biggest things from the privacy side in the public opinion that we'll have to see in a long time. for me it's all about national security. i want to see future attacks not happened. i lived through 9/11 and know a lot of people that passed and families. and the biggest thing for me, it's all about national security. >> what's your side of this? obviously, tim cook is putting up the front. you would really expect him to to protect both i guess company's intellectual property but the principle here. where do you come down? >> i think tim cook is doing a great job. you have to defend this tooth and nail because it gets to the core of their business model. tablets and phones are 70% of the model. if we can't trust the data on

there, i've got personal data, financial data, health data on my phone, i don't want governmental agencies having access to that. can you both let the government in and nef air yus characters into your phone. apple is fighting hard and taking the right stand. >> amish, would you sell your shares if they don't buckle here? >> not at all. i don't think this is going to hurt the image at all if they help the fbi. if they don't help them, what happens two weeks from now if we're not able to unlock this phone and an attack happens? we find out four weeks from now when any do unlock it that we could have prevented that. that's one of my biggest issues here. go ask the san bernardino family victims if they would want to stop this? the chief came out today and even said, i don't know what's on there but i do think we owe it to the families, that's one of the biggest things. don't forget one of the points

here, this is going to be at an apple facility. fbi is following the laws and could have done this on their own like china or russia would have but they didn't. it's going to be apple engineers in an apple secure building that will be in one facility for one phone that the county owns on a dead terrorist. >> is there a possibility that in fact it's not that slippery a slope as amish suggested? >> i think once you open this up a little bit, there's other cases where the fbi is looking for information on phones. it becomes very difficult to try and parse it. you can wrap yourself into the cloak of national security but you're really infringing on all of our civil liberties plus putting our technology sector at risk. it's not just apple. that's why you have other firms filing a brief. most of the business of our tech companies is overseas. if they can't trust the data that's on these devices that runz our competitive advantage. >> would you sell your shares if

apple is forced to open the phone here? >> if apple compromises its business model and think about it, over 70% of the revenues from mobile devices, over two-thirds are foreign revenues. so if people can't trust apple, they'll start losing their brand. and potentially it becomes a poor investment, i'll sell it. >> thank you both, i'm sorry, on opposite sides of this one. >> let's get to some markets, our closing bell exchange, we'll talk about what's going on today. a tired market it looks like. mark lieman and jonathan corpina and rick santelli, we're down towards the lows of the day. let's talk about what's driving today. oil had been up most of the morning, kind of gave up its gains. any more complicated than that? >> that's pretty much it, straight down the middle with that. the market has been tracking oil and we're trying to see if we can get a disconnect here. we haven't seen that just yet. that has really gauged any

meaningful movements to our markets here but right now, investors are sitting on this rally that we've seen for the last three weeks. we were talking about the 1812 levels three months ago and moved up significantly higher, 1950 is the next level we tried to break through and we can't. being a friday they are taking some risk off the table. >> with the end of the month coming up too. we were just talking about apple. are you long the name. there are names in tech you like here? >> i am personally long the name. i think there are some things in that he can have worked. we have had pretty good reports, whether it's facebook or salesforce.com have been palo alto have buoyed the tech market. that's kind of helping the nasdaq over the last couple of weeks in the overall market. we'll have one in technology on

monday. work day will report software service name but the numbers have been good from the best companies and that's helping the market. >> jonathan, one of the things about this sell-off today or if you want to call it a sell-off, it's the defensive stuff that are leading to the downside because of the bond market sell oof and yields go up a little bit. is there anything to suggest that people are going to say this isn't that fragile a rally, we may want to chase it? >> if we continue to see the activity over last few trading sessions, they are going to want to chase it. when the market bounced off the lower levels, investors have been waiting to get back in. we saw the way the market reacted at the end of the year and money has been sitting on the sidelines waiting to come back in. they don't want to miss this rally. we might continue to see this move higher. i don't think any of the real serious issues that the market has seen have been resolved just yet. investors will start to see which way they are going to play into the market or come out. >> mike mentioned the way the 10-year is moving, i have three letters for you, pce.

what did you think of that report on inflation this morning? >> well, listen, i think inflation most likely is going to be slowly moving higher, but we're all watching the wrong inflation. we need to pay more attention to service side inflation, we're dealing with the end of an era with financial asset inflation, think stocks there, i think it's really fascinating. if you take the e off, i've been talking about all day, pc, not about being politically correct. policy contagion, the more i look at negative rates in europe and negative rates in japan, it's almost impossible when you really think about it for the fed to extri indicate themselves and move into a good policy mode because in a global dynamic that we are now in, bad policy around the rest of the world is going to contaminate us as well. just think about bund yields and 10-year note yields which leads to my main point.

if you want to know where the next move is, pay close attention next time you see 12 basis point trade in 10-year bunds which turned up a bit today and one final comment, 1% really looked good today because we had a 7/10 of one percent first look at fourth quarter gdp. if that number stands, that would mean 2015 is 1.875% in terms of gdp. >> rick, i wonder and maybe you can tell us from looking at these levels on the 10-year, do you think the market is repricing anything in a significant way after that report? >> i really don't. i think the biggest dynamic over the last week or so and maybe leslie can throw a chart up there. if you go back to the end of 2014 and look at 10-year notes, you'll find whether it's the low 160s on a 10-year or low teens

in the 5-year. the mixed market held solidly at the yield it was supposed to hold. it's not stocks that will tell you what the world is going to be like in the future. paying closer to attention to what the fixed income market is telling you. >> we're taking your word, trying here. thank you so much for joining us. kicking things off this hour. 45 minutes left in the trading session and this week. mike, the dow is down 42 points and s&p only down a point here and nasdaq up by 12. >> just about flat, 1950 number still important there. a political bromance, trump getting a key endorsement from chris christie, we'll discuss how this could heat the rate for the republican side. and whether china or negative interest rates pose a greater threat to the global economy. ♪

in new york state, we believe tomorrow starts today. all across the state, the economy is growing, with creative new business incentives, and the lowest taxes in decades, attracting the talent and companies of tomorrow. like in buffalo, where the largest solar gigafactory in the western hemisphere will soon energize the world. and in syracuse, where imagination is in production. let us help grow your company's tomorrow - today - at business.ny.gov my dad gave me you know.ares, he ran that company. i get it. but you know i think you own too much. gotta manage your risk. an honest opinion is how edward jones makes sense of investing. i'm in charge of it all. business expenses, so i've been snapping photos of my receipts and keeping track of them in quickbooks. now i'm on top of my expenses, and my bees. best 68,000 employees ever. that's how we own it.

ithere was 14 of us in a four bedroom apartment in the projects in boston. to be the first, actually, kid to buy a house in my family... ...i just realized that, i'm the first kid to buy a house... ...it's a very proud moment. whatever home means to you, we'll help you find it. zillow.

man 1: i came as fast as i man 2: this isn't public yet. man 1: what isn't? man 2: we've been attacked. man 1: the network? man 2: shhhh. man 1: when did this happen? man 2: over the last six months. man 1: how did we miss it? man 2: we caught it, just not in time. man 1: who? how? man 2: not sure, probably off-shore, foreign, pros. man 1: what did they get? man 2: what didn't they get. man 1: i need to call mike... man 2: don't use your phone. it's not just security, it's defense. bae systems. call it the comeback department store, j.c. penney spiking on better than expected earnings in full-year guidance, shares up better than 15% on the

session. climbed 4.1% and did beat out macy's and kohl's sears. top of the agenda, a major pain are on whether the fed's communication strategy is working. >> cnbc steve liesman is there with professor and former fed governor, one of the author of the paper presented today. what do you have? >> hey, mike, i'm here with former fed governor rick mishkin who is interesting when he was a fed governor but more interesting now that he's left and can talk about it. the paper i describe this way. you guys basically said the fed ought to shut up when it comes to talking about when it will hike interest rates in this idea of time based guidance. what what's wrong with the fed saying we're going to hike three times this year. >> the problem is when you do that, you don't get the market or heavily lifting for the

federal reserve in the following sense. you basically said you're going to do something, if you don't do it, you're flip-flopping and may lose credibility and if people believe you're going to do it, the data changes and that indicates you should ease and not going to do it then the market won't think you're going to ease and won't lower rates and help deal with the fact there's been a negative shock. >> let any go to what the fed is doing right now and how you would change what it's doing. i should point out, folks, that i make a cameo in the paper and you talk about the financial media being fixated, i'm not too angry about in. >> just doing my job. >> and that's what people want to hear about. >> talk about what the fed has said about the trajectory of rates and what it should be saying or do you agree with the way the fed currently characterizing policy right now. >> the problem is when the fed makes a statement like we're going to raise rates four times this year and our protections,

that depends on the data. people don't listen to the second part. part of that is because it's not good enough to say if the data changes we'll of course change our mind. that doesn't provide enough information and in fact people don't believe it enough. you have to think to go have 'aggressi 'aggressively, if you look at the projections and see we indicate four increases, the probability this is going to happen is very low because in fact data will change which would require us to change the monetary policy to be effective. the second issue really important, not good enough to say if data changes we'll do something, describe how if the data changes that might affect what you're doing. i gave an example of this, which is how this would work when the financial crisis started in august and september of 2007. clearly there was a change in the way the world was working and very helpful if the fed could have said the following, we've had an additional financial disruption in terms of

markets and doing something about it. we lowered the federal funds rate in september of 2007 at the meeting but very important now is going to be how the financial system ee involves. if this disruption gets worse -- >> then we'll do more. >> let's get to mike santoli at the new york stock exchange. >> the way you've presented it, as if the fed comes out and actually says, we expect to raise rates four times this year. what we've seen is when you have those projections, the market sees what data come in and ignore it or price in a very different scenario. is that not justify okay? >> sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. so that actually i think now the fed is more data dependent and they are going to react to the date that and that's a good thing not a bad thing xgt there have been periods for example, the period from 2003 to 2006, the fed basically said they were going to raise rates at the measured pace and 17 meetings where it must have been the most boring thing for you guys at

cnbc because what happened every meeting, the same damned thing except the 25 basis points, you get locked into policy and the economy ended up being stronger and inflation problems were more severe and i think the fed actually ended up with policy that was too easy and that created a real problem, you actually want the markets to react to incoming date at a and recognize that the fed will change what it's going to do and the fed can provide a lot of information about that that would be helpful in that regard. >> i was just going to ask a little bit, now that we face this tradeoff between markets apparently freaking out about negative interest rates and fed trying to figure out, what's the right course of action. would negative rates do more harm than good? >> well, so the issue of negative interest rates are quite extraordinary by the way. the right answer is we don't know. and that we're not sure how effective these negative interest rates are going to be. they can been effective because at some point banks don't have

to keep money at the commercial banks at the central bank but take the cash and put it in outside. true it affects one interest rate but may not affect the set of rates important to households and businesses in terms of spending. >> we have to wrap it up, in ten seconds, do you think the fed's next move is to hike? >> i think the answer is, given the way the data is evolving, it's reasonable to think that might happen but on other hand, don't count on it. >> thanks for joining us. >> back to you. >> more classic fed speak, i love it. thank you so much. thanks to frederik mishthe dow down about 50 or so and the nasdaq is the outperforming today, up just slightly. >> donald trump landing a blockbuster endorsement from chris christie a few hours ago. is christie gunning for a

potential vp spot? that's next. >> why investing like buffett may not be a good thing anymore. you're late for work.

you grab your 10-gallon jug of coffee, and back out of the garage. right into your wife's car. with your wife watching. she forgives you... eventually. your insurance company, not so much. they say you only have their basic policy. don't basic policies cover basic accidents? of course, they say... as long as you pay extra for it. with a liberty mutual base policy, new car replacement comes standard. and for drivers with accident forgiveness, liberty mutual won't raise your rates due to your first accident. learn more by calling at liberty mutual, every policy is personal, with coverage and deductibles, customized just for you.

which is why we don't offer any off-the-shelf policies. switch to liberty mutual and you could save up to $509. call liberty mutual for a free quote today at see car insurance in a whole new light. liberty mutual insurance. welcome back, donald trump getting a key endorsement from new jersey governor chris

christie. john harwood has more on this story for us now. >> donald trump got beat up in the republican debate last night by ted cruz and marco rubio. this morning rubio was on the stump mocking donald trump, trying to create momentum before super tuesday. but donald trump had a very powerful answer teed up at midday which was the endorsement by chris christie, very significant. the new jersey governor major mainstream republican figure, the first big such figure to embrace donald trump, just triggered more fireworks pitting donald trump against marco rubio. take a look. >> it's rubio! >> as kmared to donald trump, i'm not concerned about looking presidential. being presidential means the ability to answer serious questions about important

topics. >> being presidential, that has not been a good 24 hours for the gop in terms of being presidential when you look at the school yard debate with donald trump saying ted cruz was a liar and marco rubio was a choke artist this morning. marco rubio continued all day saying that donald trump is a con man, con artist, pulling a con on the american people and donald trump is calling marco rubio mr. meltdown. not a pretty picture for the republican party. real danger the party could fracture in the weeks going forward. we have to see what happens first on super tuesday. >> john, is there a way to say that the christie endorsement is not an unequivocal positive, both are considered somewhat unlikeable by the voter base? >> i think it helps them because it's a signal to other mainstream republicans that it's okay, you can be for this guy,

you've got some cover with somebody else who's been elected to major office and a sign he's the front-runner on track to be the nominee. marco rubio has been trying to create a psych oelgs in which there's a stampede of elected official and donors in his campaign to stop trump. chris christie slowed that down today. >> john, why do you think chris christie did it, aside from him genuinely believing that donald trump is the candidate he wants to throw his weight behind. we heard him lamb bast him. does he have a chance of being a vice presidential candidate here? >> i think he would most certainly have a chance of being vice president or attorney general and trying to figure out what his political future is going to be and sees a big opportunity to get in on the ground floor with donald trump.

chris christie, who is criticized him sharply, including one of our interviews saying he didn't think he would be capable of being a good president. of course they are running against each other, a lot of debate comments and that sort of thing, but no, donald trump -- chris christie's reading the score board and saying this is the winner i want to get behind. >> john, thank you. >> thanks, john. time for a cnbc news update. >> here's what's happening this house michigan governor rick snyder authorized spending $30 million in aid to help play flint residents water bills in the wake of the water crisis. he signed the legislation in flint saying people shouldn't have to pay for water they can't drink or use. explosions at the coal mine have killed four miners and another 26 are missing. a methane gas leak triggered two explosions and 80 did get out safely however. >> hundreds of migrants taken to an abandoned airport in athens refused shelter and chose to

leave the makeshift center by foot and march with the intent of walking across the country to reach the northern border. >> and instagram founder and ceo, kevin sysstrom meeting to discuss the power of images. the latest move to assert itself as the dominant platform for visual communications. he bought a cure ated book of ten images and i'll bet the pope will post that on his own instagram account. back to you. >> impressive meeting to secure there by instagram with the pope. >> absolutely. >> thank you so much. 30 minutes to go here and stocks have flipped into negative territory at the end of the session today. the dow is down 40 points. that's worse though in terms of performance than the s&p down 1 point we'll see if that continues into the close. we'll speak with ceo of fast casual restaurant chain whose stock has more than doubled since going public. a special report on the

price tag of yahoo!'s two decade shopping spree. our cosmetics line was a hit. the orders were rushing in. i could feel our deadlines racing towards us. we didn't need a loan. we needed short-term funding fast. building 18 homes in 4 ½ months? that was a leap. but i knew i could rely on american express to help me buy those building materials. amex helped me buy the inventory i needed. our amex helped us fill the orders. just like that. another step on the journey. will you be ready when growth presents itself?

realize your buying power at open.com

>> welcome back, for the week look at how the broad market has done. the performance helped reverse losses and all ten sectors are in the green for the week led by materials up 3%, same for consumer discretionary and utilities are trying to stay in positive territory. >> with about 24 minutes left in the week actually, let's talk about what might be important as we get into the close. keith bliss from cuttone and company will talk about that. we had a quiet day but the dow is maybe 140 points off the high for the day. you had a rally in oil in the morning and stocks followed it back down again. that the story mostly? >> it is, as you and i have spoken in the past, we hated being the story but it is the story. a 98% correlation through the month of january and through february. and for me what i'm looking at mostly is the russell 2000 index, it lagged the rest of the market. >> small cap stocks. >> and more importantly a large

constituent sector inside that index are the financials. you see those have to rally. the russell 2000 needs to get back up above important levels for us to have any hope that the market can get back up. >> you see the russell outperforming today. and some of the more aggressive sectors within the market, it's the defensive stuff in the s&p that's been underperforming today. is that encouraging? >> a lot of that has to do with the fear coming off. the reason we stalled out, we're never going to go straight up or down but the defensive sectors are taking you back. see if the vix can stay below the 50 day moving average and then we can push higher next week i think. >> we'll be watching, thanks, keith. >> mediterranean zoe's kitchen is soaring after a strong fiscal 2015 results yesterday ast bell. for more let's bring in the ceo kevin miles. welcome, kevin. >> thanks for having me. >> so looking at your numbers

from the quarter, comps up 7.7%. is the u.s. consumer in decent shape after all? >> you know, we believe so at zoe's, our continuing to resonate as we grow our brand across the country and seeing strong comps as you just alluded to. we're excited about the year end and 2016 what's ahead of us. where are those restaurants that are doing well. because we've meanwhile been hearing some who are more based in houston or parts of the strong energy economy sha have been suffering. where specifically are you seeing strength and do you think it has to do with lower gasoline prices. >> we're seeing it from arizona up to philadelphia. our houston market and our texas market in general, kind of that energy corridor as you described is still performing really well. comping like the rest of the system. so we're seeing all of that continue across. it's obviously great to have lower gas prices for the consumer but we're not seeing that necessarily or don't

believe that necessarily is athe biggest driver of our comp. we believe our brand is resonating with the consumer at this point. >> this is mike santoli, one of the themes we're seeing in the dining space, value driven seem to be doing well. there's a race to give the customer a very good deal. is that something that really does kind of drive your menu choices, is that a factor for you in this environment? >> you know, i think value is a tricky word. for us, we believe we put a lot of value on the plate, serving fresh mediterranean meals and wholesome and lean proteins and fresh fruits and vegetables, to many that's important what they are looking for. it is a great value. but we take pride in what we serve our consume irs, we haven't seen a big value push to lower prices or anything like that. >> i imagine sent shuders down your spine reading about what happened at chipotle being that you emphasize fresh ingredients.

any changes? how are you keeping tabs on restaurant safety? >> it's always a heightened safety for us, something we've been doing for years. we utilize our vendser partners and third party inspectors to review our restaurants and ensure that we are operating in a food sacht, heightened food safety manner, it's something we definitely pay attention to and always will. >> what can you say about labor costs right now? it's been a big theme across retail and restaurant companies. i saw in the conference call there was a lilg bit of upward pressure. where is that going? >> we're seeing that across most of our markets. we don't operate in really any of the big markets with the federal wage rates escalating but that said, zoe's we've always taken proviide in provid above the average wage and continue to plan to do that.

we are seeing pressure, just 3% pressure we saw on the back half of the year. we're seeing that across the board. >> something everybody is watching closely, thanks for joining us. >> thank you for having me. >> kevin miles, ceo of zoe's kitchen. >> just under 20 minutes left in the trading week. we have the dow down 20 points, but 140 off the highs for the day. s&p also down just a touch. >> over the next few years, yahoo! has made 122 acquisitions but it hasn't exactly enhanced the value of the company. we'll break down those numbers next. >> the political word is abuzz with the endorsement of donald trump. we'll discuss all of the implications with the former texas governor and rival, rick perry. there's a lot of places you never want to see "$7.95." [ beep ] but you'll be glad to see it here.

fidelity -- where smarter investors will always be. if only the signs were as obvious when you trade. fidelity's active trader pro can help you find smarter entry and exit points and can help protect your potential profits. fidelity -- where smarter investors will always be.

welcome back, the s&p is only down a point or so but can't seem to really pop above the 1950 level we've been watching so closely but the dow for its part down 38 points and nasdaq up is 10. broadly speaking at least for this week the s&p is well in the green.

baidu ending on a high note, reporting better than expected results despite slowing revenue growth. >> yahoo! has been on a buying spree for two decades, the company's entire history, but what does it have to show for it now? eric has been crunching the data and joins us now. what did you find? >> that's right. we talk a lot about yahoo! right now when it comes to their stake in ia alibaba, but you have to back to 1997 to look at 122 different acquisitions. we have calculated them all up, spent over $17 billion buying all of these companies, and remember broadcast.com, mark cuban's company, overtour, tumblr, more recently of course, you take that $17 billion and the 20 years they spent trying to develop these companies and what are you left with? you're left with almost nothing. this chart doesn't include

alibaba, that's a different situation. this core business is worth about a billion dollars, maybe as much as 6 if they were able to sell it at aol's margins, multiples, if you think $17 billion going all the way down to 6, that's a huge loss over $10 billion. compare that to facebook, bought instagram and nobody thinks that's a bad trade. think of yahoo! like the stock market version of a black hole. just sucking in everything around them and companies disappear never to be heard from again. mike, you were able to get out of there, right? >> yes, i was there for three years. i do have one question, though, how you came to these number. with broadcast.com, i remember when mark cuban's company was bought from yahoo!. they handed over shares of stock that at the time were worth bills of dollars. what are they worth now? can you adjust for how much cash went out the door? >> you had to be careful with the numbers because it was announced 5.7 but when it got

done it was 4.7, cuban started hedging yahoo! shares as soon as the deal was announced and didn't lose as much, more of a higher price for the trade. you have to be careful with those numbers, exactly. >> i don't know. it just seems like -- i didn't realize they had done 122 acquisitions. we have heard a lot about the most recent crop eric, but it's a lot going into that company to your point. >> ven tire capital fund, they would say alibaba pays for all of our mistakes. >> that's the one that's not actually owned and totally operated within the company. all of the ones they are trying to imagine, that's where the big problem has been. >> thanks, eric. >> we look forward to your follow-up on citigroup's acquisitions, love to see that. >> 13 minutes too go. dow is down about 37 points and s&p down 1 today. the transports are positive by 44 points and russell small caps up by five and nasdaq by 11. >> up next, david darst is

bringing the killer bees for the stock market. you're watching cnbc, first in business worldwide. seizing opportunity. and i'd like to... cut. so i'm gonna take this opportunity to direct. thank you, we'll call you. evening, film noir, smoke, atmosphere... bob... you're a young farmhand and e*trade is your cow. milk it. e*trade is all about seizing opportunity. in new york state, we believe tomorrow starts today. all across the state, the economy is growing, with creative new business incentives, and the lowest taxes in decades, attracting the talent and companies of tomorrow. like in buffalo, where the largest solar gigafactory in the western hemisphere will soon energize the world. and in syracuse,

where imagination is in production. let us help grow your company's tomorrow - today - at business.ny.gov advisor and team who understand where you come from. we didn't really have anything, you know. but, we made do. vo: know you can craft an investment plan as strong as your values. al, how you doing. hey, mr. hamilton. vo: know that together you can establish a meaningful legacy. with the guidance and support of your dedicated pnc wealth management team.

welcome back to cnbc, he promised us killer bees, do you have any of those? >> it's been an offsetting kind of week with the bad stuff being beijing, there's been nothing of import coming out of the shanghai conference just yet. >> you have the big issue in europe of more pressure being put on europe, treatiwise than the greece exit. and you really have seen that offset somewhat by the better news for oil prices, firm up about 7.5 dollars from the low. love it it were another bottom. but more importantly the consumer spending and personal income and personal consumption numbers were great and they

kinds of carry the momentum of the average hourly earnings numbers which we'll get a new version of this coming friday. >> mr. darst, one of your bs is about borders, the southern border or an illusion of the campaign. >> good, kelly, it's an illusion to the internal borders of europe, if you go into france, you can pass to denmark easily today. now this is risking part of the whole integration is the free flow within. people have signed the accord. walls being put up, austria is putting up from greece, macedonia, that's what i mean by the borders part of the b. the better news flow, you've got to see ism nonmanufacturing, the services stay the same or go higher. >> that's next week. >> this market is acquitting itself well, this is a marking time period before in my humble

opinion it marches higher. then you want to take money off the table and get a little bit more defensive. >> okay, we actually have better news for the past couple of days, you're saying ism services could be the next bid. when do we take that money off the table? >> that fed, if the ted says they are going to basically start raising interest rates more, that puts upward pressure on the dollar, downward pressure on profits. it would also upward pressure on the dollar tends to put downward pressure on oil prices. i don't think we've seen the end of the saga, weste were talking the oil patch. the united states is becoming the world's largest oil producer. five, ten years ago, 5 million barrels a day, today 9.5 with the capable of producing 12. the big ones will swallow the small ones in this chaos that's coming. >> real quick because we've had so many news out of the campaign today. any influence that you can discern from what's happening with the race for president on

these markets? >> well, the i think last week we were talking a moment ago about bear rons magazine where we did writing in our earlier parts of our careers. they had the two of the candidates on there, on the cover saying that that was unsettling to the market. >> trump and sanders. >> that's right. when you get uncertainty, which i think we will see a lot of uncertainty as this campaign unfolds, markets don't like uncertainty. they like certainty. and i think this could weigh on markets. it could keep the consumer confidence numbers have not matched the extra money that's come in from lower gas prices and higher personal consumption numbers. so the confidence has been weighed down somewhat by this sense of unease, anxiety and anger that has been spread in the campaign. >> unfortunately may not get that certainty until the summer convention. david darst, thanks very much.

>> we'll come back with the closing countdown. >> politics bringing strange bedfellows, one time hopeful chris christie announcing today that he's backing donald trump. we're going to discuss the political shock waves felt from the move after this. you're watching cnbc, first in business worldwide. our cosmetics line was a hit. the orders were rushing in. i could feel our deadlines racing towards us. we didn't need a loan. we needed short-term funding fast. building 18 homes in 4 ½ months? that was a leap. but i knew i could rely on american express

to help me buy those building materials. amex helped me buy the inventory i needed. our amex helped us fill the orders. just like that. another step on the journey. will you be ready when growth presents itself? realize your buying power at open.com

e*trade is all about seizing opportunity. so i'm going to take this opportunity to go off script. so if i wanna go to jersey and check out shotsy tuccerelli's portfolio, what's it to you? or i'm a scottish mason whose assets are made of stone like me heart. papa! you're no son of mine! or perhaps it's time to seize the day. don't just see opportunity, seize it! (applause)

we have dominic chu on the floor. a pretty quiet day, bit of a pull back but i would say within market. you had the transportations with a nice rally. certain areas doing okay. >> some of the traders down here have been noting this idea of the shorter term outperformance from small cap stocks and transportation stocks as perhaps maybe this positive indicator despite the fact we've taken a little bit of a pause and run into this area of slower momentum on resistance. people thought that 1945 level, that's what it was and everybody was watching it. today it's interesting and you guys pointed it out earlier, we haven't seen a lot of traffic and a lot of action in these things overall for the market. where we have seen it abnormally large has been in utility stocks and staples, the ones that have taken the bigger hits. >> utility is down substantially and bond market proxy is not doing well. best week for crude oil since august of last year. >> it's been amazing. and no matter what a lot of

traders still talk about the idea there's this correlation. it's not per se a one to one move but it's pretty darn close. every time you have oil setting the stage for what's happening, it becomes a trade where you've got to kind of play along with it, even if you don't believe it because everybody else is doing it. >> machines believe it and you did have better economic data and it makes some kind of sense that the sectors would firm up but you mentioned 1945 on the s&p, it seems we churned there all day and big question is do you have any real buyers who come in and see value at this level. >> you say the bulls will say this is a little healthy consolidation period, bit of a pause, trying to catch your breath but there seems to be no real catalyst. >> bears would say the same thing, it is just a bounce. >> we're going to recontinue down the other way. the real question will be whether the volume justifies whatever move it's going to be. what you have to watch next week, any kind of data that reaffirms the case one way or

the other. earnings season is for the most part over. >> we have an extra day in february and on monday, we'll see how that goes, ringing the bell here, ceo, up at the nasdaq, social media week. second hour of "closing bell" starts now. [ bell ringing ] [ applause ] >> thank you, mike, welcome to "the closing bell." i'm kelly evans, let's begin with how we're finishing out the session. going out with a decline of 59 points but by far the under performer today and s&p was down about three points and nasdaq for its part managed to hang on to a small gain of eight points. we mentioned a couple of other aspects to the rally today, not just the nasdaq but transports higher by 35 points, the russell higher by 5 points and dollar was a little higher. crude oil was lower on the session and so too was the dow

and s&p ultimately. joining today's panel, mike santoli is back with us along with evan newmark and "fast money trader guy adami, any reason we went from a nice open here to a much weaker close today? >> the dow up almost 100 at its highs in the morning, crude oil gave up its gains, i do think that below the surface it was okay. two days are better than expected economic data, across the board has been a mini theme and the bond like stocks utility staples did get hit today. it seemed like trimming around the edges because we are at the upper range we've been in for the past several weeks. >> evan, you've been dabbling in energy but crude oil did have its best week since august of 2015, the wti, u.s. benchmark

was up 10.5% on the week. >> the price of oil will stay volatile. i would tell people to step back. i think a lot of reckoning that will happen in the u.s. oil patch has not happened yesterday. yet. i think you're better off with the larger cap names rather than gambling whether or not the chesapeakes how they are going to do going forward. i don't know the answer to that. i don't think it's all over it in oil but we're in the bottoming process. good week for economic data and stock market and oil. you know, it was fondly today was the first day where a bond investor will wake up and say maybe i can lose money in bonds but we've heard that before. >> you bring up a good point, guy, i would love your views on this. you've been saying like many, watch out, interest rates are moving lower and we've talked a lot about deflationary pressure.

what do you make when the see the consumer price report and consumption index, the core there jumped up to 1.7% gain on the year by today's standards is a lot. has something changed do you think or no? >> i don't think anything has changed. we can look -- it's funny, you can take these numbers and evan would agree with, fening on your dogma, make them look like whatever you want them look like. i look at them and say it was a good week in terms of economic numbers we saw absolutely. but in terms of consumer and i've said this a number of times, just because a consumer is spending, don't confuse their want to spend with the health of the consumer, a much longer conversation. it was a really constructive week. on monday and tuesday when i was with you i said 1950 would be a battle ground and i think we'll fail. there's a real good chance we'll trade down to 1860. look what happened on tuesday. got down to 1890, completely rejected it and here we are at

1950 again. the bulls have to prove themselves and they've done a great job this week. bond market sold off a bit. you're seeing what's going on in crude oil. that started a couple of weeks ago and we talked about the ovx trading 81 and reversing. a lot of things are now sort of working for the bull camp but now the bulls really need to prove themselves and what does that mean? to build upon it. >> and also evan, when we start to look into next week, we close the month of february and get first batch of data, big reports, ism manufacturing and jobs report, some really sensitive stuff here after we've seen some of the leading parts of the market holding up better. copper was green today and materials were up 3% on the week. people are pricing in a little bit of brightening here. >> a little bit. but most people would agree that the bond market, especially the global bond market is still pricing in sort of global recession or global bad, bad

years, bad times for years to come. i think the key thing that investors should think about is am i a believer that the world will reflate or do i believe the old line, the u.s. will end up like japan and end up like europe, slow growth, no growth, negative rate world? i think your world view in what you do with your money depends on which side of that argument you're willing to sit on. it data has been trending better but it's no means a done deal. >> you're a glass half full guy. >> yes. >> i think we still have this mindset like it's been a absolute blood bath since january 1st. all i did was priced in a very big risk of immediate recession and pricing that out right now. you're left where you were before, slight outperformance versus a no growth world.

>> we have dominic chu joining us now. >> we cycle through a lot of those performance figures about how the week stacked up and banner week for crude oil. even gold a certain trade there a lot of people have been paying attention to. we have one day left in the leap year on monday for the month of february. let's take a look now at the more medium term to kind of show you how things are setting up. and after all of the volatility we've seen, we're up about a half a percent for the month as we head towards the final trading day. the dow up a little bit better, a little north of 1%. the nasdaq the real loser if you want to call it, down by a whopping half of one percent. it's interesting here as well, in the s&p 500, total overall, right back to where we started for the month of february here. materials and industrials, the

more economic sensitive sectors doing the duty here, up 8% for materials and 4% for industrials. energy and financials continuing to the laggrards, the banks have been beaten up but perhaps value buyers stepping in here and short covers, that's going to be one to watch as we head into march. also check out the more macro themes we're talking about here, the 10-year treasury note at 1.76%. we saw a nice rach et up higher in yeeltds. it started off close to 2%. so that move down in yields will be something bears will say, you don't see yields like this if you're expecting growth or inflation. we want to point out what's happening with gold and gold prices, they had a nice run in 2016. and it continued so far in february, up almost 10% for gold prices as well on the future side of things, gold miners a

beneficiary there and we'll leave it here just to remind viewers and listeners out there, wti crude so far for this month a banner week like you said, a huge move higher, double digit returns but we're pretty much back to where we were to start things off for the month. we're down about 2.5% on the that basis month to date. that's your reset and setup. the way everything is working out, it will be interesting to see. this is a no man's land for a lot of traders out there. it's going to be whether catalyst can happen, about whether those catalysts really drive things to the upside or downside. data is going to be key. we don't get as many of those economic reports on the earnings side in the next couple of weeks. >> that's a point. thank you so much. guy adami -- >> real quick, tell dominic i'm here too, pal, i know he hears me. >> i hear you and i've got nothing but love for you. >> i'm kidding around. >> i'm just saying. >> weeks to make that one up. it's been a peculiar start to the year. a horrible beginning now we're

finding footing and you heard dom running through the list. is there a rotation taking place? are we on the cusp of something different or going to be prisoners of how we started here? >> you've got to play it from both sides. you know where i stand but i'll say this, november of 2014 is when the transport started to roll over. then that led to the russell and led to the s&p. but guess what, look at the iwt, transports since i believe january 20th. that bottomed out and been trading really well. if the transports let us down a year and a half ago, maybe they are leading us out now. so there are absolutely some positive signs out there, equally there's negative signs. evan would agree, i think mike would agree as well, there are a lot of cross current right now. you can make a compelling argument for both sides. that's why you're seeing these

wild moves have have effectively gotten us nowhere. >> one interesting thing, i almost feel the conversation can do a better job of explaining why it may seem like all things are clear and next like we're on the precipice of a cataclysmic event. >> you're in a very binary market. if interest rates don't go up, then the financials are not going to go up. you're in this world right now where like huge sectors are tied to interest rates, global growth and you're not going to get a bull market unless financials go up and interest rates go up and oil companies go up. if utilities are performing well you're not going to have a bull market. >> it's a very binary kind of world. >> another way of saying it is that there isn't a big buffer, not a big valuation buffer and growth buffer and inflation buffer that can absorb these surprises. and i think you say the credit markets seem they are about to

become unhinged on the slightest move down in crude oil on the lows and that sets off a chain reaction. >> if it doesn't happen, everything is fine. it's not that those two things, one is right and one is wrong. it's the reality of everybody trying to price the next move out of china. >> we lose sight of, the data suggests -- i'm not -- we're not like on precipice of a big recession here in the u.s., which you -- >> you look at the last few weeks, a lot of the chatter in the last few weeks, recession, recession, feds crazy, can't raise rates. that's been a lot of the talk and it's like now, you notice people are not saying recession too much. >> we'll see how it works out here. >> i've got my eye on it. >> thank you for joining us. >> any time. >> have a great show, guy adami and the "fast money" crew have an exclusive interview with the night nigerian oil minister who thinks oil will be higher by the

end of the year. that's 5:00 p.m. eastern. is apple more willing to help the chinese government than the u.s.? we've got details from the co-founder of encrypting app wicker. chris christie endorsing donald trump. we'll talk to another one time rival, former texas governor, rick perry and the head of the republican party and home state of new york about these developments, you're watching cnbc, first in business worldwide. i am a technological breakthrough.

this morning i read over 4000 articles on leukemia. in less than a second. (speaking japanese) i can understand euphemisms, idiosyncrasy and complex metaphors. i know every detail of every public quarterly report in the last 20 years. and i'm just getting warmed up. hello. my name is watson. together we can outthink the limits of what's possible. welcome to the cognitive era.

apple refusing to help the fbi hack into one of the iphones of the san bernardino shooters. it has been known to work with the chinese government. >> i want to draw your attention in the l.a. times because i think this is the kind of debate you're going to have around apple, the longer this overall fight between apple and the fbi goes on, the more questions are going to be raised about how apple deals with other governments around the world, particularly repressive regimes and countries not as friendly as human rights as the united states is. in the last times this morning, here some points they made, walk you through them one by one here.

they say that apple in china has sensored apps that don't pass of the muster for chinese authorities and servers where the chinese government would have access to that data more easily than if it wasn't on those state owned servers and apple submits to security audits by authorities in china. we've asked apple for comments on this and haven't gotten back to us today. it is a busy day for aping, shareholder meeting today. this is the kind of question they are going to face going forward and there's going to be more scrutiny on that. for people following this debate, this might be one you want to drill down on a little bit. >> for sure, we'll do that right now. let's get more on apple's response to china and the u.s. from wicker co-founder niko sell, one of the most private unhackable apps in the world. thanks for joining us. you've said this if privacy is so important and security, the

sunglasses is farmpartly to kee your own security. what do you think about apple's activities in china? >> i think what apple has done in china is just regular course of business at some point. having companies and countries do security audits is very normal. what the united states is asking apple to do is very different. apple, wicker, all of us try to comply with law enforcement wherever possible but what they are asking apple to do is create brand-new code, brand-new exploit code, in other words considered a cyber weapon and it can be used to devastate all of us. and it's very dangerous. and beyond that, you think about if the united states sets a bad example and forces tech companies to put in back doors, how do we expect other agencies to respond and other countries like china and russia.

wicker operates in over 200 countries and territories around the world. and we really need to look at the web as a global resource. >> niko, let me ask you a question. i'll play devil's advocate. let's say wicker got 95% of its revenue from china. let's just say it did. and let's say the chinese government came to you and said, niko, we love wicker and love what you're doing but we're going to make this simple, you do x or we're shutting you down. let's say they said that. would you do x or let your principles stand in front of basically destroying the company? >> it's really important to determine what x is because if x is to comply with the legal search warrant for something that i hold, then that's very understandable. but asking any government asking me to compel speech to essentially write code or say something i think it dangerous

is not something we would whatever do in this country or for any country. it's not how democracy can work here and that's the big issue at hand. >> china doesn't pretend to be a democracy, does it? >> right, but we do. we've got a global resource here and that's how we see it and how we behave. we're not going to put a back door in it for anybody -- i think that's real important. >> i wonder, niko, in this case it seems to rest on the idea that apple is being compelled to create something new in order to solve the problem. but that's just a symptom of the kind of problem that exists in the first place. if there were other ways of getting around it or hacking it, you know, that would be a very different story, wouldn't it? that doesn't necessarily compel apple to create something but requires them to comply with the search warrant. >> yeah, if they had had made insecure products right from the beginning we would be in a different place. then we wouldn't have people

trusting every bit of their lives on their phones here. trust and security are very important to everybody here. if we're to drive a hole in this encryption by hacking this phone, it's going to impact all of us by driving a hole in wicker's encryption and android's encryption and everything we depend on every day for commerce and how the world runs. >> understood. thank you for joining us. >> thank you. >> niko, sell, co-chairman at wicker. >> donald trump getting an endorsement from chris christie today. we're going to talk to former texas governor rick perry about what it means to trump's push to the presidency. should you still be investing like buffett after his rough 2015? we're going to break down the portfolio later on the "closing bell." we're back in two. here at td ameritrade, they work hard. wow, that was random.

random? no. it's all about understanding patterns. like the mail guy at 3:12pm every day or jerry getting dumped every third tuesday. jerry: every third tuesday. we have pattern recognition technology on any chart plus over 300 customizable studies to help you anticipate potential price movement. there's no way to predict that. td ameritrade. i...just me...me andrd my four daughters.... ah, there's a lot of dancing and pageants that go on in our kitchens and living rooms and things like that. i've had to learn to accept certain things like the fact that my toe nails and finger nails are going to be painted constantly. but it's really awesome to watch them at their own things. they're great kids... all of them. whatever home means to you, we'll help you find it. zillow.

do something! get on the floor! oh i'm not a security guard, i'm a security monitor. i only notify people if there is a robbery. there's a robbery. why monitor a problem if you don't fix it? that's why lifelock does more than free credit monitoring to protect you from identity theft. we not only alert you to identity threats, if you have a problem, we'll spend up to a million dollars on lawyers and experts to fix it. lifelock. join starting at $9.99 a month. every auto insurance policy has a number.

but not every insurance company understands the life behind it. ♪ those who have served our nation have earned the very best service in return. ♪ usaa. we know what it means to serve. get an auto insurance quote and see why 92% of our members plan to stay for life. welcome back, chris christie endorsing donald trump a short time ago. here's what they had to say about each other america is going to need someone to make sure hillary clinton doesn't get within ten miles of the white house. >> we have a lot of endorsements happening the endorsements are coming in but the one i really was happy with is this one right here. chris, thank you, we love you,

m man. >> joining us now to weigh in, former texas governor rick perry who joins us by phone. want to share your endorsement, governor? >> i've endorsed senator ted cruz of texas for obvious reasons when you look at the texas primary voter, they are not going to support someone who is far an assault weapons ban as chris christie is and not going to endorse someone who has seen their state's downgrade of the economy and not going to endorse someone who had issues like bridgegate like governor christie had. donald trump might be proud of all of those things but chris christie has done but when this primary occurs and it's really important when you look at the states that are coming up on tuesday, those are states that have really conservative values so you know, number one, i'm not

sure what value an endorsement is other than to the moment for the guy who gets endorsed and stands up and says look who loves me but not sure this tact is over into the electorate. >> that's what makes the timing of this one in a way so significant. depending on how you read things, donald trump might have ail alienated people last night with his debate but that could be the case based on the reaction -- the discussion that we heard last night. then you trn around and instead of that being the narrative today, into the weekend, into the sunday shows, now instead it changes on a dime. mr. christie instantly becoming the most significant backer of this campaign. and so to me that is significant. why do you think chris christie is throwing his weight and choosing this moment to support donald trump. what do you think he really wants to get out of this? >> i think it speaks volume when

the wall street journal says this is the most significant endorsement that donald trump has got -- >> not the op-ed page just the news story. >> i'm just saying but to make that statement, there's still a lot of editorializing that goes through the news. if that's the most significant endorsement that donald trump has, i think it speaks volumes as you said to the primary voter in a state like texas or state like louisiana or state like georgia. i mean chris christie is seen as being a liberal northeastern governor and he has a record that proves it up, whether it's its very weak position on the second amendment or whether it's the economy of new jersey, the other challenges that he had with the conservative base out there.

i will tell you, if i were donald trump and looking to make a big splash in those states on tuesday, i don't think it helped him at all. as a matter of fact, i think it hurt him in a state like texas. that's the crown jewel on tuesday. i don't think this is the news may be that he hurt himself in a state of texas by flaunting an endorsements by chris christie. >> governor, senator rubio quickly came out and seemed to want to say the rest of the republican party ought to be looking for a way to unified way counter donald trump, clearly senator cruz would also wish to be that person behind which the party aligns. is that something you can foresee that this race will rationalize or consolidate any time soon? >> i think the word rational and this election cycle very rarely go in the same sentence.

i don't have any idea what's going to happen in this. i understand why people are mad as hell at washington, d.c. and a lot of us have be mad. i wrote a book about it five years ago, they don't want anybody that's got anything -- i'm talking about the electorate about washington, d.c., if you are up -- if you're a government, the electorate is saying, fox on you and your home. who knows how this is going to turn out. i know two things. the endorsements really don't matter that much unless you're a -- unless you're a really, really substantial individual they'll bring any baggage to the table. and the case of chris christie, you know, you get probably all of his friends and half of his

enemies, all of his enemies and half of his friends. >> understood. thank you for joining us, rick perry who thinks the endorsement could do more harm than good in his state. i appreciate your sharing your time. >> all right. >> johning us now ed cox, the home state of new york. do you agree with what governor perry is say? >> it's a long way from texas to new york and not just geographically but also in politics. and i think to a certain amount maybe in personality here. >> but the point of the endorsement from christie is probably less at winning texas and more about creating an establishment type figure to align himself with trump before a lot of primaries to make minimumself credible with rubio. >> this changes the topic and this is what will be discussed over the weekend. the governor was absolutely right.

that endorsements don't mean that much. but they can for a period of time change the or direct the way the discussion goes. that's what's happening here. >> if we also took it at face value, he thinks donald trump is the candidate who can beat hillary clinton. do you think that's true of the current field that he's the one who is most likely to defeat hillary clinton? >> you just don't know but i think any of our candidates can. if you look at the metrics, we have a tremendous tailwind, turnout in iowa, new hampshire, south carolina and nevada was much better than it was four years ago and the democrats were the same or worse. we really -- as haley barber said before the 94 congressional elections the last place you want to be between a republican oriented vote and voting place, you get run over. >> isn't the republican party deeply divided right now? you can have somebody like donald trump whose beliefs, who

knows exactly what they are, all over the map depending on his mood. and you have people like ted cruz and you have people like rick perry and somebody like john kasich. and the idealogical spectrum between these people is vast. >> it's huge. >> that's what happens when you're the majority party and the republican -- >> i'm not so sure that helps you pick a president though. >> that's part of the problem of being a majority party. we have 1,000 more state legers and they only have 20 governors, we've got a large majority in the house. we just in 2014 won the majority in the u.s. senate. >> that was -- we're prone to take over washington here and that's what i'm talking about when i talk about the tail wind. >> the conventional wisdom is going to be one of those governor's, one of the deep field that you now have in the party and instead it is donald

trump. what's been your personal experience working with donald trump as a member of the republican party presumably? new york? >> this is a strong personality, ran for governor in 2014 and basically we wanted everyone who wanted to be governor to compete and he wanted to not have competition, to be the sole candidate and that's not what my committee wanted. so he decided not to run. we work with him and urged him to get in there but he decided not to. >> are you saying in the current race, is there not a sense of panic as people have been saying all along within the republican party of having lost control of the nominating process right now? >> that's the way the nominating process works, candidates who control it and not the party. >> thanks for joining us as we sift through all of this. ed cox from the new york republican party. time for a cnbc news update from sue herrera. >> president obama traveling to jacksonville to talk about the progress the country has made

since he signed the recovery act and weighed in on the kansas shootings, say the real tragedy is the degree to which shootings have become routine. heavy air strikes are reported to have hit hebl held areas of damascus. a cease fire is slated to take place at midnight local time tonight. ireland's voters are deciding who should lead their economically rebounding nation, polls suggesting that the outcome will not give any party a majority. prime minister is seeking a second five-year term but his party is expected to suffer some losses. >> and pope francis met a group of children at the vatican who helped him right his first kids book, dear pope francis and contains 31 drawings and questions from children around the world. that is the cnbc news update at this hour. back to you. >> sue, thank you so much. predict the unpredictable.

some political watchers think he may have named his running mate today if he gets the gop nomination, we'll discuss the aftermath of chris christie's endorsement with roger simon. berk shire hathaway's letter is out tomorrow. we'll look at warren buffett's investment style and whether it worked for him in 2015. our cosmetics line was a hit. the orders were rushing in. i could feel our deadlines racing towards us. we didn't need a loan. we needed short-term funding fast.

building 18 homes in 4 ½ months? that was a leap. but i knew i could rely on american express to help me buy those building materials. amex helped me buy the inventory i needed. our amex helped us fill the orders. just like that. another step on the journey. will you be ready when growth presents itself? realize your buying power at open.com the market.redict... but at t. rowe price, we can help guide your investments through good times and bad. for over 75 years, our clients have relied on us to bring our best thinking to their investments so in a variety of market conditions... you can feel confident... ...in our experience. call a t. rowe price retirement specialist or your advisor ...to see how we can help make the most of your retirement savings. t. rowe price. invest with confidence.

welcome back, here's a look at how we finished on wall street, the dow gave up 56 points and s&p was down 3.5 and nasdaq was up 8. it was a pretty strong week, the s&p 500 finishing all sectors in the green. a berkshire hathaway earnings are out tomorrow. domestic chu joins us with what's working and what's not. >> such a widely followed letter. everyone likes to see what he's going to say and do and maybe hear him talk about uk layle lees at some point. the ones we're talking about here, yes sometimes they are small and picked by his lieutenants, but we picked out the biggest ones in his portfolio. all of this data is as of the end of december.

that's important. these are from regulatory findings then. top six holdings, he has kraft heinz, wells fargo, coke and ibm and amex, wells fargo a $23 billion position and amex around 8. these are not small at all. check out the down arrows for ibm and amex, both year to date and of course longer term over the last year or so. it calls into question a little bit about what he sees there. we know about the products in coca-cola and banking franchise in terms of wells fargo. the interesting part about this, for those five we listed, berkshire is the number one shareholder in each of those companies. these are not large. these are not small stakes here. i would also throw one out here guys, phillip 66, refining stock. and they have been building a position throughout the course of last year and just updated a

new position of around 14 million shares added to it as of the middle of this month. when it comes to the energy trade, this is how buffett and his shop have decided to play that particular space. >> we're used to the narrative of buffett's wins and his sort of down -- his humble but powerful way of investing. there's a lot at stake if people feel that model is broken. >> the approach he's had has resonating with the investing community. he has been this longer term investor, the guy who decideded to go in and buys on dips and builds these positions. what's interesting about those top five that we showed you, right, wells fargo, one of the biggest positions he has, $23 billion worth of that stock. throughout the fourth quarter, it's interesting to note that out of those five positions, wells fargo, was the only one of those top five holdings that he added to in that fourth quarter.

>> that's the thing, american express and coca-cola, they are going back 30 or 40 years, it's his never sell discipline is what really what it is. over that time too, he's essentially bought whole companies that made berkshire hathaway an industrial giant. >> sure, it's almost like a financial con glom rat in terms of positions. one people will call attention to is big blue, ibm, and it's not one of those ones he's had for decades, it was a very recent position over the past few years. the question whether or not the ceo of ibm, this is her shop, everyone knows it now, whether they can turn things around will be a huge driver of how berkshire gets the gains. >> they have a little bit of traction the last couple of days. >> warren buffett made no secret that berkshire hathaway has gotten big, maybe too big and we're trying to barely beat the s&p 500, not going out and saying we're going to crush it.

he's like you know what, when you're in a couple of big financials and oil, if the market is down, he's going to be down. >> bit the way, it always look forward to reading the letter. we'll look forward to tomorrow's results as well. dominic chu. three hours with becky quit f y from 6:00 to 9:00. >> the earnings season may be worse than originally thought. curt greenberg weighs in next. we're back in two.

there's a lot of places you never want to see "$7.95." [ beep ] but you'll be glad to see it here. fidelity -- where smarter investors will always be. if only the signs were as obvious when you trade. fidelity's active trader pro can help you find smarter entry and exit points and can help protect your potential profits. fidelity -- where smarter investors will always be. serena williams. hi watson. you are a fierce competitor. i've heard that. i have analysed your biggest matches. oh really? when down a point, you serve an ace 5.8 times more than other top players. you sound like a coach. i am not. but i can customize training programs based on biomarker data. watson, that's pretty impressive. you might say i am the serena williams of cloud-based cognitive systems. nah, i wouldn't go that far.

new data shows s&p earnings may be worse than advertised. certain figures can be emphasized and certain costs like restructuring can be left out when looking at the generally accepted accounting principles known as gap numbers, the earnings report are lower, 25% lower. here with more is cnbc's resident sourpuss. >> someone has to do it. >> good to see you. >> good to see you, kelly. >> is this gap between generally accepted and pro form results, is this a new and much more troubling gap than what we've previously experienced? >> well, this was a great story by the way that the wall street journal, you see the direction

and disparity, it hasn't been this big in many years. the pro forma numbers, adjusted eps, back in the day, 20 years ago we were just -- people were just using the mantra than became pro forma or adjusted. but either way, it's so disconcerting because when you talk to the really smart folks, and i talk to really smart people and managers who understand the numbers. look at my partner who understands the numbers and say it doesn't make sense. what they are doing and what you can see with that disparity which is a most bull market disparity, companies got to complacent with it. ignore this, ignore that. there's a stock based comp but you get an inquisitive company that makes a lot of acquisitions

and writing off the restructuring charges, no, that doesn't work. you're in the business of making acquisitions and they are a part of your business and expense. >> herb, mike santoli here. the market has actually access to the real numbers the market actually can figure out whether it's being fudged or the company wants you to look at the place that doesn't reflect the true business. why doesn't the market collectively figure this out and value these companies at what they are worth? >> oh, mike, it's such a great question, because the market, whatever the market is, the analysts, they do what the companies say. they look at generally at what the companies say. company says this is how you should look at our numbers, so that's how they look at their numbers. there's -- look, especially i can say just during the bull market but forever there's a lack of critical thinking and lack of looking beyond whatever numbers are plugged into a model and analyst plugs numbers in and says, oh, and here's the nongap numbers and that's what it is. it takes a lot more to go beyond

that. so i think that you have to -- i have to tell you something else, when i was doing a story a number of years ago, i was interesting, we were looking at stock based compensation, a don't look there at that expense type of issue, i'll never forget, looking at silicon valley and trying to find companies that were doing it the other way. it's important to find companies in the same industry, it was emc, which was being straight about it, more conservative with it, and to look at the peers that are not doing it the way the other companies are. it gives a good baseline. >> important. herb, thanks for joining us. >> always a pleasure. >> herb greenberg of pacific square research. mr. sourpuss. some are saying there's no stopping donald trump at this point, could chris christie's endorsement help christie get a vp spot? we'll debate that next. ♪jake reese, "day to feel alive"♪

♪jake reese, "day to feel alive"♪ you're an at&t small business expert? sure am. my staff could use your help staying in touch with customers. at&t can help you stay connected. am i seeing double? no ma'am. our at&t 'buy one get one free' makes it easier for your staff to send

appointment reminders to your customers... ...and share promotions on social media? you know it! now i'm seeing dollar signs. you should probably get your eyes checked. good one babe. optometry humor. right now get up to $650 in credits to help you switch to at&t. - you take your car in for a tune-up, but when's the last time you took you in for a tune-up? go see your doctor, get to know your numbers, and learn how to prevent problems before those warning lights start flashing. the more you know.

america needs someone who is going to make sure that hillary clinton doesn't get within ten miles of the white house. donald trump can do it. >> we have a lot of endorsements happening. it's amazing when you're in a number one place for a long period of time, the endorsements are coming in, but the one i was really happy with is this one right here so, chris, thank you. we love you, man. >> breaking news on the

political front this afternoon as new jersey governor chris christie endorsed republican presidential candidate donald trump. now rumors are swirling over who trump's number two could be, if it will be that man. for that we're joined by politico's chief political columnist roger simon. thank you for joining us. you were also sort of exploring this issue. does that make the chris christie endorsement timing-wise make sense to you here? >> it does. you -- you always remember who endorses you early, early endorsements are much better than late endorsements, and from trump's point of view, it's a good endorsement. it's coming early. it's coming virtually on the eve of super tuesday. from christie's, viewpoint, you know, i think he would jump at the opportunity to be on that ticket. >> oh, sure, but why would donald trump put him on it? >> well, first of all, he's just -- you have to feel

comfortable with your number two. you know, john mccain was never comfortable with sarah palin, and you could tell. the top of the ticket has to feel that the bottom of the ticket is almost a copy of him. trump gives speeches that are in tone and not that different than the ones that christie gives, and secondly christie is not a washington figure. he can rail about the guys in washington who get nothing done. he doesn't talk in washington speak. he can't be blamed for 1,000 votes that he's cast in washington. >> okay. >> there's a perfect matchup. >> mr. simon, i have a question. it's evan newmark. is the trump/christie ticket or trump/northeast politician ticket, is that a national winning ticket from your point

of view? you know washington. i don't know washington. you know washington. >> i think it's a reasonable criticism to make of a ticket where the president and vice president come from states that are adjoining and is not just adjoining but it reinforces the idea of a new york/new jersey/new england power base. but regionalism, trying to spread out the ticket. donald trump's from the northeast, let's try to pick someone from california or from colorado or from the deep south. you know, that's not what it used to be. when bill clinton picked al gore, clinton from arkansas, gore from tennessee, regionalism -- and they won twice. >> that's true. >> regionalism sort of died right there. >> it was interesting your column earlier you spoke with tom rath, a gop operative and asked him for some potential running mates for donald trump.

i just want to share these. these are fascinating, especially to our viewers. top of the list here, i don't know if that was intention a.m. or not, jeff immelt, chairman and ceo of general electric. you also included or he did roger goodell, the nfl commissioner and oprah winfrey. you know, that makes chris christie look like a conventional pick. >> well, tom rath might have been shoot being for the stars in a couple of them, you know. immelt may be the most realistic of those three to get on the ticket. it is possible that trump could pick another guy like him, a businessman, successful business man. others suggest, however, that a perfect pick for him would be a military figure or a retired general or even a serving general who would retire to run. >> yeah. there are others who say that this isn't necessarily about a vice president per se so much as having christie doing what he did to rubio which is in some ways to be able to kind of

destroy the competition for donald trump as trump moves forward through all of this. if i'm christie though, i'm certainly hoping for something in return. roger, thanks for joining us. >> sure thing, thank you. >> roger simon chief political columnist. >> i'm delighted we live in a republic and there's a thing of balance of powers. at least that's one thing i hang on to this weekend. >> there you go. keep you on the straight and narrow. running red lights and texting while driving, they are driving no-nos, but a new study says 90% of american drivers do these things and more and worse. the numbers will drive you to tears next.

♪ in new york state, we believe tomorrow starts today. all across the state, the economy is growing, with creative new business incentives, and the lowest taxes in decades, attracting the talent and companies of tomorrow. like in buffalo, where the largest solar gigafactory in the western hemisphere will soon energize the world. and in syracuse, where imagination is in production.

let us help grow your company's tomorrow - today - at business.ny.gov it's time for your business entrepreneur of the week. black an denim co-founder roberto torrez took a shot trying to brew up sales at his clothing company's new store. he started a second business, a coffee bar in the same tampa, florida, storefront. customers can sip their joe and shop for clothes at the same time. for more watch "your business" sunday mornings at 7:30 on means. >> brought to you by american express open. visit openforum.com for ideas to help grow your business. in. in. i could feel our deadlines racing towards us. we didn't need a loan. we needed short-term funding fast. building 18 homes in 4 ½ months? that was a leap. but i knew i could rely on american express to help me buy those building materials. amex helped me buy the inventory i needed. our amex helped us fill the orders. just like that. another step on the journey.

will you be ready when growth presents itself? realize your buying power at open.com volatility in the tech sector leaves investors asking should i be in or out? our experts break it down. "squawk alley" monday, 11:00 eastern on cnbc. running red lights, driving while drowsy and texting. those are many so of the risky driving practices that 90% of americans admit to, and that's according to aaa. does this strengthen the case for self-driving cars? >> i knew where this was going, kelly, i knew. by the way, do we have to have a self-driving segment in every show that i'm on? >> we do it just to riley you up. >> running a stop sign by accident, does that make me a criminal? i'll tell you one thing. >> that makes you unsafe to other drivers. >> i'll tell you the one thing, i really do a problem with is the texting thing. >> thank you.

>> the only thing that upsets me more than somebody else texting which i see all the time on the road is next to a new york city police officer who is texting while driving and they -- and then he's going to give me a ticket if i do the same thing. they do it all the time. i pass them all the time. that's the issue i've got. >> we're also talking about 90% of people who admit to doing stuff like this so clearly it's happening haul the time. driving practices are getting worse. people are driving more miles than ever, by the way, because of low gasoline prices and other factors. i think that's one of the things to be mindful of. >> you won't give up on the self-driving. >> i love, driving, too. >> i love driving. >> i don't think the safety case even needs to be made. i mean, self-driving cars if they can make it work, cost efficient, it's there. you can ride right along with it. >> you can probably turn over the phones every 25,000 moments. >> turn the iphone over to the fbi in a nanosecond, wouldn't you? >> i have nothing to hide, nothing to hide. >> robots make decisions for you. >> in five seconds, what are you watching for into next week and

next month? >> jobs number matters a lot on friday. >> it's really -- it's a weird thing. i think hey lot depends on the bond market, really. i think it all does kind of in a weird way. >> super tuesday, got that coming up, too. that does it for "closing bell." thanks so much for joining me here this afternoon to close out the week. "fast money" begins right now. live from the nasdaq market site overlooking new york city's times square, i'm melissa lee. traders on the desk are steve grasso, david sieberg, dan nathan and guy adami. will opec freeze production? the answer to that question from an exclusive and rare interview with the top opec mill minister who tells us production cuts are coming, and you will not believe how high he sees oil going by the end of this year. plus, the s&p officially breaking through the 1950 level, but is the rally about to come to a screeching halt? we've got the key levels to watch, and later the uncertainty around the apple shareholder meeting is setting up for what one trader is calling a win-win situation for investors. we will explain, but,