something happening in that sector. >> marian bartel, see you again soon. "power lunch" starts now. scott, thank you very much. welcome, everybody, to "power lunch." i'm tyler mathisen with melissa lee, michelle caruso-cabrera and brian sullivan. a day of consequential fed speak ahead of next week's big meeting. to steve liesman in washington for breaking news. >> thank you very much. two high level fed officials speaking at this hour. fed vice chair stan fisher, fed governor a littlail brainerd. she says the tight labor markets from the strong employment report on friday does not guarantee higher inflation. both fed officials will talk about the relationship between inflation and employment being broken or at least not as consistent as it had been in the past. she says inflation is persistently under target.

though she is heartened by the strong employment numbers on friday. and expects over time inflation to be back to 2% target, but she's in no particular hurry. the real risk because of china and slack in the economy, the real risk for inflation is to the downside. stan fisher not speaking directly on current monetary policy. but does he drop this one element here saying he has seen possibly the first signs of an increase in inflation. he goes on to an even more academic speech where he says the natural rate or the equilibrium interest rate may rise only gradually. rates will remain low by historical standards to the future. he said central banks have options at the zero lower bound, pushing back against people who say that central banks are impotent now given we're at zero an used qe at negative rates. the fed he says may face more instances of zero rate conditions given that underlying growth is lower. finally, he says stabilized

energy prices will ultimately show that lower oil prices are positive for the economy. overall, guys, here's what i would say quickly, that if stan fisher or lael brainerd wanted to drop a hint there was a possible rate hike in march, they were too subtle by half, so there is no hint of that in here. and really no hurry. the only thing that stands out to me is stan saying it has seen the first signs of flinflation increase. the risk to the inflation forecast is really to the downside. brian? >> steve, that would be the best hint that we have that maybe future rate hikes are coming this year, the fact they're acknowledging perhaps a slight uptick in inflation. >> i think that's right. i maintained a long throw for a while, the market may have priced out too many rate hikes that the fed may come back and do one or two. but at the end of the day, where

is the market. the market was pretty much priced for zero. maybe now talk about a june rate hike. but nothing in march and not in april yet. >> steve, thank you very much. we're going to see steve liesman back here next hour because he has a big time exclusive one on one interview with fed governor lael brainerd around 2:45 eastern time. don't miss that. >> let's talk more about the fed with brian bellski. you heard the -- all the headlines from steve and then his assessment. doesn't sound like there is a big change from the fed at this point, at least not when it comeses to march for sure. >> there isn't. we have to take a step back and remember how bad january was and how much volatility there was in the markets and not only in the stock markets but the bond markets. remember too, 2015 was a tough year and saw growth decelerating. now the fed is in kind of

credibility mode, see how things kind of roll out here, june i think actually could be a little too aggressive, might be later in the fall when we see better comps on the earning side and better comps on the gdp side with respect to the economy. >> what your assessment of what you heard from steve. >> i think steve got it right. i didn't expect there to be any hints of a hike next week and didn't get those. what we have is stan and lael. lael is in the camp watchful waiting. stan is probably more hawkish. clearly early whier this year when the markets took out no chance, priced in no chance of a rate hike, we thought perhaps two rate hikes this year but no earlier than june. >> today is the first time, peter sent out a note saying for the first time since january, the fed funds futures are 100% chance of a rate rise this year. and the market is higher today. why is that? is that because oil is higher? what do you think? >> absolutely. i think the underlying fundamentals in the u.s. are

consistent with around 2% growth. it is really the rest of the world that has been the head wind of the u.s., concerns about china. i said on your show and other places, i think the key for oil is let's find the bottom. i'm not an oil export. if we hit bottom, low oil prices begin to be in the positive. it is the falling oil prices, the fear it could be 15 or $10 that is killing the outlook. if we hit the bottom on oil, a lot of markets begin to stabilize. we have more sensible rhetoric out of chinese officials. i think there is a rational for the rebound in markets we have seen recently. >> because we are talking about the fed, i am going to treat you like the fed. and by that i mean parse every word that is said and you wrote in your latest note and standing by your 2100 target on the s&p, so you're optimistic, you write this, we believe the path will be a bumpy one as investors remain fixated on the perceived negative implications of china, oil, credit spreads and the fed. is there a reason you said perceived. you think the market is overworried about these things?

>> like we say in canada, 100%. at the end of the day, at the end of the day, i think investors like perspective. and i think january freaked us out. we weren't expecting january. best corrections come when we least expect it. we were calling for market pullback to 1800. the realities of how the markets rebound are understated. number one, we have seen more fundamental investing. stocks with good cash flow, good earnings, when the market is up and it is up strongly, value disciplines outperform. we believe value disciplines from a longer term perspective are more fundamental than growth. that's more important. >> are they risks or perceived risks? sometimes i guess they can be the same thing. >> you know, one of our tenements is that -- what we believe new leadership is, what we say is good old-fashioned investing, peter lynch, warren buffett, active investing by 35 stocks, we have been very clear on that in terms of our 20-year

bull market thesis. seems like every time the market freaks out it goes back to the former strategies meaning credit, oil, china, that is not part of the strategy, not part of the investments with respect to fundamental strength going forward. >> richard, what are you thinking in terms of fixed income investing at this stage. you heard what brian was saying when it comes to stocks. >> we see a couple of things. first thing, we think that markets have been indiscriminate. credit spreads, investment grade credit spreads widened out. we think there are opportunities globally. markets tend to paint with a broad brush in risk off episodes. january was about the fears of a big devaluation in china or fear of $10 oil. we won't get $10 oil or big chinese devaluation. valuations are not attractive. especially in investment grade credit. >> ten-year treasury, still under 2%. is that implying there is a real risk of a global recession this

year or have bonds gone up simply because like oil, there is too many buyers or not enough supply or whatever it might be. >> so certainly year to date, brian, what was driving bond yields lower in the u.s. was capital flowing out of a lot of countries, where they have negative interest rates. bond yields in germany and switzerland are negative. so those ten year treasury yields look juicy. i think as the global sentiment stabilizes, then some of that flight to safety in treasuries will flow out and be some upper pressure on bond yields. modest upward pressure, as we saw new 2015, when bond yields fell. >> doesn't signify to you global recession imminent. >> no. not at all. no. >> thank you. >> talking like we might see 2% on the ten year some day again. richard, good to have you. brian bellski. dominic chu standing by with a market flash. >> we're watching shares of both pepco holdings and exelon as well. both are halted now for news

pending. the last trade there was around 1257 this afternoon eastern time. so, again, both shares halted now for news pending. this may have something to do with their proposed merger. exelon is trying to merge or buy pepco holdings just a little -- a couple of weeks ago. this deal was rejected by the d.c., washington, d.c. public services commission there, opposing a deal that could create the nation's largest electric utility company. so, brian, we'll keep an eye on these shares, bring you more news when they reopen for trading. for right now, halted for news pending. we'll see what developments happen there. >> dom, thank you very much. the markets are at session highs. dow is up 9% by the way since our closing low back on february 11th. our next guest apologizing to his clients for weak performance early in the year. or just too early to say he was sorry? what is he telling clients now? we're going to find out. you're watching cnbc and we are first in business.

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very consequential speech just getting under way. the fed's stanley fisher, vice chair, taking the podium in washington at the nabe. we're going to monitor this event, bring you any developing headlines as they cross. steve liesman has given you the headlines and synopsis there. probably won't vary much from his prepared text. if he does, we'll bring it to

you. markets right now near session highs for the day as brent back above $40 a barrel. and west texas intermediate nipping above 38. to bob pisani for the latest. >> we're seeing again another commodity rally particularly in the metals and oil space. let me show you some big metals names today. fortescue, up 23%. cliffs natural, vale, look at the moves up. all the companies were up double digit in the prior week. let me show you what this means. we have seen iron ore prices up dramatically today, 15%, 16. and autopsy up 27% for the mont. this will make it easier for cliff natural resources to service their debt. their primary product went up almost 30% in a short period of time. they got $2.3 billion in debt, more money coming in. easier to service the debt

overall. the company is less shaky financial. that's why you're seeing huge moves up. the stock price up 60% for the month. the same situation is happening with oil. it is up another 5% today. it is much easier to service the debt for the exploration of production companies when oil is up another 30%. murphy's up 15, southwest, chesapeake, apache, eog, all the usual numbers, up double digits last week. important to understand how much we moved on this. murphy was $17 a few days ago. i'm putting this up as an example. it is now $27, we're talking five days, $17 to $27, melissa, i have no idea if this is the bottom. traders are covering an awful lot of short positions now. >> thanks so much, bob pisani. 2016 tough for investors.morgan. adam parker says maybe you should do the opposite of what you think you should do and just last month parker raised

eyebrows when he said, quote, dure the opposite of what we recommended would have been better. bizarro world or hopefully not the real world. adam parker joins us now. great to have you with us. >> thank you for having me. >> what takeaway do you want investors to have here? >> i think a lot of us think we'll be in a range bound market, up 7%, 8%, down 7%, 8%. a volatile market. but the underlying fundamentals haven't been as volatile. the earnings growth wasn't falling off the cliff when we had the sell-off on january and hasn't accelerated since the february 11th lows, just more about positioning and sentiment. i feel like people are more optimistic now than they were a few weeks ago and that's inconsistent with them thinking we're going to be in a range bound market that is up 7 or 8. you got to be more negative now than you were a few weeks ago because the underlying fundamentals haven't improved as much as prices have. >> nothing has changed since february 11th. we had massive rallies in beaten down sectors like terlz a s li.

is it time to take risk off? >> i'm thinking about the market having three buckets. there is defensive kind of stocks and i think you know almost every defensive asset in the world is pretty expensive versus its own history. there is growth elements and unknown. you have to own some in each bucket. in defensives, i like utilities over staples. in growth, i like health care over technology. and unknown, i mean, financials and energy meaning you have to forecast the ten-year yield or the oil price and those things have been really difficult for investors to do. i like financials over energy because i think you have a lot more shareholder return and that are a lot cheaper than you're seeing in the energy sector. >> the one thing that changed since february 11th, it seems like commodities have stabilized, the price of the underlying commodity. you look at oil for instance, brent today, at levels not seen since the beginning of december. hasn't that changed? does that make the energy

investing picture look a little bit more favorable? we're looking at financials and we're just now seeing for the first time ever 100% chance of a rate hike this year in december. >> so i don't think it does. i think this personally is more of a dead cat balance than some underlying commodities. if you look at fundamentals in iron ore, still a lot of capacity, or if you look at the oil price, which is hard to forecast. we think the demand growth price is much better than supply growth, i think this is more about positioning and squeezing than it is a big market improvement. if you look at earnings season, a few companies said we would rather cut our dividend than cut our production. couple of others that did 20% solution to the shareholders existing to get some money. i think they're just trying to survive still. hasn't been a full -- that we have to take production out in

the u.s. i'm not as convinced this is the bottom for oil. i think like you said, if i'm wrong, i'm still participating with financials going up because they were both glut recently. i think you'll see successful -- stocks way cheaper relative to book value. i like financials over energy with the unknown elements that are there. >> i want to ask you about health care and health care over consumer -- health care and consumer discretionary over technology. you point out that health care accounted for a lot of the outperformance from 2015 to 2016. and even before that. i'm wondering if political risk enterz the equation on the health care front with a lot of candidates targeting drug pricing for instance. and the fact that this group had a really strong run, maybe just time for them to start breathing. >> yeah, so you're right. probably one of our best calls is our biggest overweight from 2011 to 2014 was health care. we went neutral late in 14, we kind of avoided the big sell-off

last fall and got back in. i went upgraded health care. our logic was a little bit what you were saying, you have seen a sell-off that is pretty material, 20%, 30% in a lot of the names because of two reasons. one, the perception that pricing will be under pressure due to following hillary's tweet about pricing. and the second was a belief that, you know, that the cycle paused out. my sense is both those things are overly discounted. if you look at the proposal, it isn't that onerous for pricing and that's consistent for our experts. doesn't think pricing pressure will that be onerous. that combined with a huge amount of m ma& a, companies will do b deals. you're better there than in tech. it is a little trickier in that space. like health care over tech.

>> adam graerkts , great to spe you. adam parker of morgan stanley. big day for oil today as we mentioned. take a check on wti. it is higher. brent, that's the real move here. levels not seen since the beginning of december. three-month high here. much more on oil coming up. first, making money with women. a new etf is trying to do just that. we'll explain how coming up on "power." sales event is on. with extraordinary offers on the stylish, all-new rx... and the dynamic nx. ♪ this is the pursuit of perfection. you ppremium like clockwork. month after month. year after year. then one night, you hydroplane into a ditch. yeah... surprise... your insurance company tells you to pay up again. why pay for insurance if you have to pay even more for using it? if you have liberty mutual deductible fund™, you could pay no deductible at all.

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the term power couple taking on a new meaning in southern new england. it was time again for the nob noblest of events, the annual wife carrying competition. husbands dashed across a hillary 415 yard course with their wives hoisted over their backs. the winning couple set a new course record, finishing the run in 1:40. they move on to the world wife carrying championships that will take place in where else, finland, home of all things odd. >> he has two. >> two women. >> whoa. all right. >> he's just showing off. >> all wearing helmets. >> when it comes to your money, maybe it is the wives who should be the ones who are carrying their husband. it is a point of view that the shark tank star kevin o'leary made for quite some time now. >> when i go back over the last six years and look at the returns i've made in investing in companies that are private, midcaps, small cap companies, not some of my returns, ought of my returns have come from

companies that are either owned or run by women. now, this is just facts for me. i'm not trying to look at gender as one is better than the other, anything like that. i'm talking about performance. return of capital from companies run by women has been remarkable. i've had phenomenal returns from it. >> two financial giants agree with kevin o'leary, betting big on women and business. with the new etf. "power lunch" exclusive with christie mitchum. ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us. want to start with you. you're starting a new etf, the symbol is she, she, a gender diversity index, why are you doing this, what's in it? >> study after study has shown that women make a difference. more balanced teams actually deliver better results. and that's operating results and share price appreciation.

what we're looking to do with she is to capture that, to offer both individual and institutional investors a way to get the return on diversity. that excess return is incredibly important, particularly in today's environments when is very challenging from a market perspective. >> there have been other etfs related to women. the liquidity has been pitiful, not worth getting in. it gets tough getting out. this one doesn't necessarily have that problem because you guys, you're a guy, 250 million you're going to put into this thing, right? and then maybe eventually 500 million. got the numbers right? why are you doing this? >> well, we believe 100% of diversity. you know we have a long history, we worked with you on diversity in a number of areas. 72% of our membership is female. and 80% of my female staff are -- we think this will show a lower risk than we would see in a large cap index. >> how do companies get into this etf?

what are some of the metrics? how does it perform against the s&p 500? >> we're looking at three things with she. we're looking at the number of women in senior leadership, the number of women on the board and whether there is a woman in the c suite. it is a combination of those these things. when a company scores well, they're included into she. the important thing to note, i think you already hit on this, the universe we're looking at, the top thousand stocks in the united states, large cap, liquid, it is core. and we think for that reason it is really easy for both the institutional and individual investor to access. >> i'm looking at a new york times article where it says the funds goal is to achieve market rate returns. i thought the whole idea is you got better than market returns. >> that's the product going forward. you have no idea how the markets hold. i think what we're going to see is returns equal to or better

than the market. i'm hoping that i think we'll see returns that are actually less volatile. we're expanding our whole line of enhanced indexes to add value to our existing portfolio. for us, it is more about the index than about looking long-term on how we think we're going to add money and reduce risk. >> christie, along those lines, back to she, what are the returns? have you found them to be less volatile? have you found them to outperform or be in line with the s&p 500? >> we have found both of those things. we found significant outperformance in the back test relative to large cap indices and also found that performance delivered, you know, at a lower level. that's the way that i think something like she is what i call the win-win-win. you win because you get the potential for excess performance that is delivered from diversity. you win because you get the ability to unlock economic potential and growth of women. and let me just tell you, just a

little bit about how large that is, 26 to $28 trillion in additional gdp growth could be garnered by unlooking the potential of women. and the third win for she, something that we haven't touched on yet, is what we call the giveback, that comes associated with she. we set up a donor advice fund, state street will be giving 5% of its revenue to that donor advise fund, which will look to eradicate early bias. those things that very early in a girl's life are preventing her from reaching her potential. and taking the leadership place she can in corporate america, particularly in the stem arena. >> would you ever back something based on race, for example if you back something based on women? >> we had an initiative to increase diversity of investment management. we want to change the face of wall street, from this kind of face to a more broad, diverse face. we have been at this since 2003. we have done investments in private equity.

and in real estate backing diverse money managers. this is the first time we focus ed in on gender. i think the important thing from our perspective, it is important, it is not just women, it is the fact you have men and women making decisions together. we think it actually breaks that group think that we see so often in corporations and on wall street. you get more diversity in the board room, more in the senior staff, i think it leads to better decisions. >> christie, the question goes to you then, would state street consider doing a similar etf based on other measures of diversity, whether it be race or whatever else you want. sexual orientation. >> absolutely. i think -- yeah, i think what she is bringing to the table is a new way to think about impact investing. i think for a very long time people thought that in order to invest in your values, you had to give up return. what we're searching for is those values that have a return and certainly we're not going to limit that search just to women. >> you're putting people's money into this. what if it performs badly?

is that something -- does that say something bad about women and what do you say to your investors who say why are you so focused on this when you should just be focused on return, because you got to pay pensions and health care benefits for people in california? >> michelle, yeah, you're spot on. i am only focused in on returns and that's all i'm going to care about is risk adjusted returns. so you know i've got a huge portfolio that is in the usa and a big chunk in an index fund. so i already own the equity market in the usa. what i'm trying to do is find ways to add value around that. so we're going to do a series of enhanced indexes that we think will add value. and to your question, if this doesn't add value, we'll pull our money back out. is that an indictment on women? i don't think you can make that kind of an assessment right away. any kind of active management is hard to do. it is tough. i've talked many times on your show about the best thing for a retail investor is to own the entire market. we already do that.

we want to diversify around that with other portfolios. >> thanks so much for bringing the idea to us. good luck with venture. tomorrow is the 108th observance of international women's day. we expect flowers. >> exactly. >> buy you this shares of the etf. >> what did you think? >> well, i think your question was the right one. when you back test it, what do you find? you had to ask it twice, but finally without going into specifics, she said higher returns than the -- and lower volatility. that i suppose is the ultimate test of it. i think from where i sit there is etf-ism that has run amok. >> it doesn't matter what it is, forget about the topic, i think there is -- i'll probably get this wrong, more etfs than stocks now or something like that. thousands. i just don't know you gain traction in anything. >> for instance, morgan stanley has 11 environmental social and governance indexes including

popular low carbon and sustainability indices. only morgan stanley has and those narrow topics. >> speaking as a woman, i went to a woman's college and we a spent ad nauseam if the world was run by women, have you seen a great performance by women ceos in the united states? >> some of the ones were put on the screen there, whitman, remeti, ursula, irene -- >> all beaten up lately. i'm not saying women do badly. but once women are in positions of power, they perform the same as men. >> mutual funds do better. maybe i got that wrong. i don't know. >> don't know the facts. >> i'm trying to make stuff up. >> let's move on -- >> tick aer symbol is unforgettable.

>> news alert from dom. >> pepco and ex-mondelon tradint for news. pepco and exelon making a counterproposal, a series of alternative proposals and what ma are looking at as a last ditch effort to save their proposed merger, exelon trying to buy pepco, in the works since april of 2014. in it, they go through a number of different options about how to provide rate benefits or customer kind of alleviation of some of the cost increases going forward. in other words, the companies are trying to show that they can provide some kind of relief for customers of the utility combined in the area in the mid-atlantic. again, michelle, pepco, exelon now still halted for trading, but trying to make another effort to the washington, d.c. public services commission to see if they will move forward and approve their pending merger. >> to gold prices, closing now. gold at this hour, lower by

4.80. $12.65. look at rest of the medals complex, gold down by a third of a percent. silver is lower by four cents. copper unchanged. palladium higher by 14 as is platinum as well. the s&p 500 is up 8% since february 11th. so what has changed so drastically with the markets in past four weeks? we'll explain.

hello, everyone. i'm sue herera. here is your cnbc news update for this hour. at white house, president obama defending his efforts to rein in wall street saying his administration cracked down on banks and trading firms after the financial crisis of 2007 to 2009. he was flanked by janet yellen and other top regulators. an emotional peyton manning announcing his retirement after 18 seasons? the nfl. he won two super bowls and set dozens of records including five mvp awards. >> something about 18 years, 18 is a good number.

and today i retire from pro football. >> jurors are deliberating erin andrews $75 million lawsuit against the stalker who secretly recorded her in a hotel room. the hotel owner and hotel management. they gave instructions to the jury before they started their deliberations. the flag at the ronald reagan presidential library and museum was lowered to honor former first lady nancy reagan who died on sunday of congestive heart failure. she'll be buried next to her husband on library battlegrounds a bit later this week. and that's the news update this hour. back to you. >> sue, thank you very much. back to stocks now, just off their session highs. but we're still higher on the day. it has been a wild start to the year. from january through february 11th, the dow was in correction territory, down 10%. since that low, the dow has surged 7%. it is not the only one. what happened? what fundamentally changed for the market. joining us to discuss it, the

chief investment officer for oppenheimer funds and bernie williams, gentlemen, welcome, good to have you with us. let me start with you. what changed on the 11th of february. it a dog whistle go off somewhere that none of us heard, but everybody did. >> so we were dealing with three separate issues, china, risks of a recession and troubles in the credit market related to commodities and oil. and we have gotten a breather on all three of them. they're manning on easing, oil rebounded and trade markets are rallying as well. so i think all around things have stabilized. it was never that bad to begin with. and we are recovering from a sharp loss. >> why did the narrative suddenly change there? you pointed out what happened in those particular markets or in china, why did the narrative turn? >> i that i that's a really good

question. in my mind, primarily driven by what the market expected the fed to be doing. which is in a slowing economy, you tighten everywhere else in the world you have problems, you have tighter policy in the u.s., you may end up with a recession. once that faded, everything recovered. >> bernie, are we in an echo chamber. we talk to everybody. and we talk ourselves into a market that either goes down or a market that goes up? >> it is a slow chopping market. it is recession fears off the table. so you see oil rebound, you see interest rates rebound, helping the banks. but, again, it hasn't changed fundamentally the type of economic environment we're in, slow, unsatisfying choppy growth. >> one thing that stands out to me, you have a turn as abrupt as this one, and turns can and often are very abrupt, it was that way, but last summer, that way in 2011, moving down or

moving back up, what it says to me, bernie, is you ought not to try and time the market because if you miss those 12 or 15 very good days in the market, you're costing yourself a lot of money. >> absolutely. we tell our members to focus on the long-term. i think it is okay to stick with high quality companies in this environment. a lot of what has rallied in the last couple of weeks have the lower quality companies, ones that had a fear of bankruptcy associated with them in the energy sector and materials sector. >> make me some money here. what do you like over the next several months or year? >> i think two sectors actually stand out. the credit markets so we have been widening in credit markets for almost 18 months and finally we have rallied, but if there is not going to be a rerecession, there is a whole lot of money in credit. financials were hit with two things, credit losses and risk

of negative rates in the u.s. because everything was going to fall apart. and i think we are finding out that's not going to be the case. they are trading at steep discounts to their book value. these two sectors are quite good value. >> krikrishna, thank you very m. we did show your stock picks. good year tire, up 26% over the past year and united technologies much in the news. you're pointing to a geared turbo fan engine as one of the things that company has going for it. gentlemen, thank you very much. go to powerlunch.cnbc.com now to see why krishna is bullish on midstream mlps. that's powerlunch.cnbc.com. big rally in oil. up more than 20% in the past month. 50 a barrel a reasonable new normal for oil? that's next on "power lunch."

welcome back. the best performing asset so far in the world this year, palladium. probably eight of you out there care. you probably care more about the second best performing asset this month. that is oil. that's right. u.s. trade of crude oil up 12% this month. brent crude, 13%. are we actually finally on a march to 50 bucks per barrel? let me bring in helenia kroft. let's talk about what is happening. why is oil up 12% when as far as i can see the production and supply and demand and inventory numbers are exactly the same as they were a month ago. >> inventory numbers are high. u.s. product does continue to come down. we had good data out of russia. that monthly production was down. but i think market psychology has changed. everyone is thinking about now the recovery to 50.

the opec freeze discussion was the catalyst. >> there has not been a -- there has been talk of a freeze. >> i think the talk of the freeze was the first time the saudis and russians earlier this year coming out and saying, a little capitulation. since then, i think that is what has gotten people more excited about it. combined with the production coming down. >> a guy named gary rosset perot, very influentiainfluenti. he started telling the market today what he told clients for the last few weeks, 50 bit end of the year because finally owe poke will take some kind of action at some point. >> i think what he's carrying, the opec producers, the gulf countries are starting to say we need 50. we are nervous abouts they credit ratings downgrates, some

of the austerity measures we have to undertake. we're going to have to borrow. 50 would be a optimal price for us. >> you traveled extensively. you think venezuela cares about $50 oil. >> think care about every penny, every dime. >> but is it enough? >> they need oil above 100 bucks a barrel. they'll do anything. abu dhabi says everybody is freezing because nobody can take it anywhere. i'm not sure i believe it. >> it shows the disparity in opec. iran is set for 5% growth rate because of sanctions coming off. they're the only ones who could be like we don't care about freezing production. you have abu dhabi coming out and saying we need a higher price, they have the most diversified economy of the gcc. the fact they're feeling pain i think is significant. and the saudis have been all over the place, niemi saying

we're good at 20. no one is good at 20 in this environment. >> rig counts are down to 1948 lows in the united states. when the data -- might be longer than that. that's when the data began. production has come down to your earlier point. will it go below 9 million barrels. >> we expect year on year u.s. production to be down 600,000 barrels. we expect russian production, other big swing player, 150,000 barrels. the question is, the only place it can grow is probably going to be iran. that gives us the comfort we should be reaching 50 by the end of the year. >> okay. >> oil, a game of math. carry the 1, iran, libya, okay. thank you. appreciate it. big interview tomorrow on the closing bell. that guy, john watson, ceo of chevr chevron. back to dom chu when -- are you

talking utilitys? >> i am. some people think utilities have sex appeal. let's talk about pepco and exelon. both shares up now. pepco shares up by about 1.3%. they were up by near 1.5% at one point here, closer to 2%. exelon shares up 1.25% as well. bring your attention to the fact these shares are reopened after being halted for news on that last ditch effort by both companies to try to save their merger. back over to you. >> nothing more exciting than a utility merger. >> delmarva peninsula needs power too. >> still ahead, a rare exclusive interview with fed governor lael brainerd, sitting down with steve liesman in just under an hour from now. you don't want to miss that interview. "power lunch" right back.

a man in havana sent this video today, getting ready for the big rolling stones concert, march 25th. stones play a free concert in havana because everything is free in havana. part of their tour of central and south america. it will be held at the sports

city in havana, which seats 15,000 people. only seen five port apotties. we hope they'll have more than na. >> especially with women, come on, cuba. can we continue playing that music. the selling continuing in the bond markets from friday's better than expected jobs report, two-year note yielding .91%. of note, the ten-year yield, hitting a one-month high in today's session, yielding 1.914% at this moment. "power lunch" will be right back.

if you believe the past provides a good prologue that to what may happen in the stock market, we have some good news for you because with a little recent valley we just had, the s&p 500 has gained back about 60% of its losses from the recent high. according to kensho, that's good

news. since 1980, there were eight other bull market corrections. in the eight times, three months later, the overall market, the s&p 500 is higher 88% of the times, the average gain of 9.6%. we gain back 60% or more, we're higher by nearly 10% three months out. keep in mind, of course, history does not always repeat itself. situations are different all the time. and right now we have growing concerns about a global recession and the possibility of a credit crisis. let's talk more about this, befo bring in david castile. what the impact might be on the banks. david, thank you very much for coming on. we have been talking for ten

years. you sent me an e-mail last week, alarmed me. you got back to the credit crisis -- the credit convention, maybe a crisis, in vegas. what were your takeaways? >> well, the takeaways from the conference and, remember, 7,000 or 8,000 of your close ev friends, bankers, traders, lawyers, issuers. the concern was about liquidity. it is difficult to find liquidity on many of the assets in the market. i think we were talk about whether the bazell three accord or dodd-tank, we find that dangs having it retain so much capital on their capital sheet -- >> what does that fine mimean f practical perspective? for mebodyt home that has investments in the stock market, what do they need to be watchful

for. >> for when you're invested in a specific fixed income found. unlike the equity markets, in the fixed income market, the only reason there is a buyer is that they care. what we have now is a market where many buyers don't care. there is less of us in the marketplace now. we have the capability. >> david, i would -- sadly we get a headline on do you here what david castile is saying? what may impact the banks and their profitability? >> here he's what he's saying, concern when oil was at $26 a barrel, a bigger concern with

i'll rebounding. that takes credit risk out of the high yield market. they're making a great deal of money, healthy return on equity, sell agent or below book value. if the fed raises rates this we're, we expect that to happen. >> why do they keep laying people off? >> certain divisions in the banks are not doing as well. if they're not making as much money and the outlook is not as good, they're controlling their costs, that means as an investor, you can still do quite billion and there are others they're not laying people off. >> we have to go. a big discussion. we'll get you back on. thank you, both.

>> that issue is not going away. as we hit 2:00 p.m. on the east coast, politics, no doubt about it. testify entered uncharters waters. it is just getting started. >> reporter: trump, clinton, cruz, sanders, rubio, kasich. battling it out in the campaign halls. trump and therein still lead, but neither have clinched anything yet. >> let the billionaires themselves bail out wall street. >> i rolled out a deplaled plan to cut federal spending. tomorrow, michigan, mississippi, hawaii and idaho vote. we're eight days away from voters in florida. >> you don't have to compete about -- what's best for your

investments? >> a wild week it has been in politics. wilder over the weekend. let's bring in eamon javers, john harwood from washington and larry kudlow with us here at cnbc head quarts. eamon, you have some funding of who is funding who? >> we're seeing a winnowing effect among the big money donors behind a lot of the campaigns. let me give you an example. senator ted cruz, look at some of his batters, you see robert mercer of renaissance technologies, computer programmer. daniel and ferris wilk. john childs.

john kasich, a concentration of big ohio money. greg went, mark kvamme. with marco rubio there is a florida connection. lawrence degeorge, an executive and investor, and on the democratic side, some big, big name backing had hi hillary clinton. those are some of the big names who are backing some of the candidates who remain in the race. those who back other candidates particularly jeb bush now have a lot of deciding to do. >> six candidates remain.

which one is best for business and wall street? larry kudlow and john harwood joins us now. they said trump versus hillary, who is better for wall street. and they came down with hillary. >> they have been crusading against donald trump. wall street is always mixed. there are democrats on wall street and some republicans. i would argue the stock market likes economic growth. i think regarding cruise and trump, the two front-runners by a lot now, they both are basically free markets. cruz more than trump .

mr. trump, his positions, unpopular on wall street. cruz hasn't talked much about that. >> your views here, hillary clinton is regarded as pretty friendly toward wall street or has been. >> i'll start by saying larry knows more about the market than i do. asked our team to pull up numbers on how the markets performed under the presence of different parties. both the s&p 500 and the dow jones industrial average have done better under democrat ib iblgic presidents than present ones. if uncertainty is an issue, if that acts if the outlook for the markets, hillary clinton brings much less uncertainty than

donald trump. she will have an administration staffed heavily by who ran her husband's administration. donald trump and ted cruz are somewhat unpredictable forces. donald trump, because his position changed rapidly. cruz is somebody who has poor relations with his own party and unclosure if he can get through. those are the historical facts we brea to this. >> are we at an election where it is not good for anybody to be the wall street favorite? when they say hillary is better, bernie sanders must have loved it. >> trump too.

it is early in the game here. when i say wall street, it is the sum total of all investors. i think that's just too soon. >> the deckline, on that barons story, is if it was hillary versus trump, many may find themselves voting for hillary clinton. i spect there is an argument if it is trump versus clinton, you may see some old line union oriented labor types crossing and voting for mr. trump. >> i think a very small proportion of republicans -- they're out there. always happens. i think it is kind of -- it is wide open. we don't know enough yet about any of the kennedys.

it is all subject to change. you have to look at this probably after the convention. september, post labor day, you will learn more. and even then you may not know. these things take a while. efrp expected immediate economic boom and stock market boom, but it took a couple of years to get his program through. these things take time. >> john sat down for an interexclusive interview with secretary clinton. we'll hear about that. stick around. and her tax plan, next.

john harwood getting to know candidates. sat down with hillary clinton for our latest in a series of speak easies. >> hillary clinton's trying to thread a needle in this campaign. trying to offer democratic voters enough on issues like income inequality to hold off bernie sanders. when we sat down, asked her about why she decided to set her income surcharge tax so low. >> i got several proposals. number one, i would like to apply the buffett rule at anybody of a million or more.

so we avoid the anomaly and unfairness of him paying a lower tax rate than his secretary. and then i want to try to stop the gaming of the system. we're going after where we think the real money is, as we say. follow the money and the tax system has been in my view not effective in capturing money from people who have very successful and we need to do a better job. >> he campaigned on the idea of a political revolution. is it your idea that a political revolution is not necessary or not possible? >> i'll let him run his campaign. >> from your point of view. >> from my point of view, i laid out my plans and policies. i laid out a lot of very specific plans, because i want

to be held accountable. when you run for president and we're seeing it on the other side, people make all these complains and it is hard for voters to evaluate, how do they decide? i've tried to say, here's what i'll do, here's how i'll do it. i think that is revolutionary. i want us to get back to having elections that are about agendas. >> heard from hillary clinton. your reaction to some of the thoughts from secretary clinton. >> you're talking 30% capital gains tax, was 15 not too long ago. another program that would raise it, so-called shorter term, four, five years, through 40%. that's very bad for risk taking, for business investment, for economic growth and the stock

market. her husband cut the capital gains tax, got more revenues out of that. i think that story is not good. john, you had a scoop in this interview. she said she's the most transparent public -- transparent public servant in modern history. but to me, john, thmaybe that's true and but they found 400 e-mails that were classified, that she wrote and they deleted 30,000 e-mails. i don't want to nitpick, but it seem that is not really transparent.

>> it is going through the process of the state department and resulted in their identification in some of the back and forth between agencies as being classified or top secret. i think a lack of transparency may be the reason why she had the private e-mail server in the first place. she says it was about convenience, carrying one device. most people who know her think it was about -- keep tighter control over information. that created a problem for her. >> i think i asked this, but the goldman sachs. bernie sanders is hammering her on it. does he she doesn't seem to make a definitive yes or no.

>> she's not releasing those. that came up at the debate last night. i think she's concerned what whatever she said to those audiences, i can't imagine is all that earth shaking, but might have included in friendly remarks to those at the investment bank, i think her standpoint is, well, i'll do it whenever everybody else released theirs. i don't think it will get a point where she releases those. >> quick answer for you and larry, do you see any plausible set of circumstances under when mrs. clinton would not be allowed to run? >> no, i don't. that would mean a prosecution for a -- related to the handling of classified information and

e-mail. nothing i have learned or heard of the nature of the inquiry suggests that's going to happen. >> it is in the hands of the fbi. if their finding are negative for clinton, they may recommend -- can't make an indictment themselves. it is in the fbi's hands and they're pretty capable, but we'll see. john harwood, thank you very much. america lost an elegant first lady over the weekend. recollections, reflections? >> america lost a great lady. enormous service for the public. was a revolutionary thought, just so you know, still to this day. >> endorsed today, drug addiction and since then.

i think she added some glamour, style and elegance to the white house. i think the country wanted that. there was some pretty dull years before. all of that stuff was privately financed. they believe america's white house outlives them and the country wanted to see it looking as good as possible and is it was part of the new america. she was absolutely dead right on that. judy and i went to the 2000 republican convention in philadelphia, and a big reception for mrs. reagan. we went on the line, on the receiving line, just to shake her hand. we get to the line. i shake her hand and she stops me and puts her hand on my arm and she says, larry, thank you

for defending ronnie on tv. just like that. i turned to my wife and said did i just heart? i don't know why she said know me from adam. >> she saw you on tv. >> it just showed how conscious she was of who is doing what to hoom because after all, she spent her last 15 years making his legacy permanent. that includes the work of craig shirley. mrs. reagan really wanted to ensure his legacy and did a good job. >> would have tried. good you cry?

>> i yes when i think about now. i love being part of the administration. i'm still proud of it. the fact she knew, to me, blew me away. >> her death at this moment reminds republicans of just how much they miss ranld reagan. >> you're right. his excitement, his class, he's elegance, yes, i think the whole country misses that. this is part of leadership. >> this is in retrospect, you could disagree with him, but it was -- >> i always thought so. i always thought so. >> my -- he was the biggest influence on me, certainly put.

i still think of that, i may disagree with you on the issue, but personally i'm not going to tell at you or call you names. >> you conclude an interview, even if you went vigorously, you always left on good terms. thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you for coming in.

trading nation. traders trade better together. commodities in general because so far this year, the dow jones commodity index beating the s&p 500. we had quite a little commodity run recently. will it last? boris schlossberg. real turn around or short-term head fake? >> i think head fake. the only time you get v-shaped moves is supply disruptions. really haven't it any supply disruptions or any kind of supply dislocates.

been just massive amounts of short covering which it was very due because we were so grossly oversold and so many late shorts getting their squeeze out of their minds now. but when push comes to shove, there is just no juice there. no consumer demand at the end of the rally and probably will drift back down as we go forward. >> boris hates the commodity rally. do you agree or think this is long lasting? >> the charts would agree with that. what better commodity to talk about than oil. one looking at west texas oil, the seasonals are strong here. west texas, best six months of the year that extends from march into august, some seasonal tailwinds here helping lift this rally. but on the flip side, the trend is still bearish and one terrific identification for trend here is the slope of the securities 200 day moving average, which is still pointed lower.

we saw it coming into the fourth quarter of 2015 as well. once again, seeing a rally into a 200 day moving average, resistance around 38, $40. i'm not buying it, brian. i don't think there is enough in the trend here. >> okay. there you go. fundamentally, technically, two guys think this ain't going to last. thank you, both. for more "trading nation," head to our website, tradingnation.cnbc.com. oil set to close in a few minutes. we'll take you live to see if oil can kin its rally. plus, steve liesman sitting down for a rare and exclusive interview with a federal reserve governor. we're back right after this. and now the latest from trading nation.cnbc.com and a word from our sponsor. >> one mistake many traders make is trying to pick the perfect entry price for a stock they would like to own.

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welcome back to "power lunch." i'm sue herera. here is your cnbc news update. russia says it delivered tons of aid to the most ravaged provinces saying the aid is essential to the survival of the local population in the badly damaged war zones. gop presidential candidate john kasich conducting a town hall in michigan vowing to avoid personal attacks as a way to slow down donald trump's momentum. he also talked about the possibility of a brokered convention, saying if you don't have the delegates, you can't complain about the process. amazon is planning to open a second brick and mortar store, this time in san diego. it opened its first bookstore in seattle in november where it sells books and its line of computer tablets and devices. the university of illinois has hired former nfl coach lovie smith as the new head football coach. smith was fired in january after two seasons as the head coach of tampa bay. he spent the previous nine seasons as the chicago bears

head coach. good luck to him. that's the cnbc news update. the oil market closing for the day. to jackie deangelis. >> was a volatile day for oil prices, $2 move to the upside. wti finishing just under the $38 mark. did we have some short covering here? absolutely. did we breakthrough key technical levels and see momentum to the upside? yes. that's what's happening here. a continuation off of the strength we saw last week. it is not just in crude oil, it is happening in gasoline. we saw 7 cent retail pop, paying at the pump going to increase because we're heading into the summer driving season. temperatures are getting nice and people will want to hit the road. expect xhod expect commodities to continue up. it is hard to be short crude oil. >> thank you very much. for from oil to street talk. our daily dive into the analyst

recommendations on stocks that we think you should hear about. micron technology, cut to a reduce -- reducing price target on mu to 8 bucks, about 38% below this morning's price. he thinks the industry is kind of like oil, all the memory producers are going after market share instead of worrying about price. he adds smefers are not factoring in the lower average. a sell rating on an $11.50 stock. >>a commodity, so pricing will be key here. this stock traded at $36 and change in december of 2014. $36 and change. >> man. >> this is paying for a lost hedge funds including david einhorn. big lots, bullish on big lots

after the results raft week. the analyst notes the earnings were mixed. mkm believes february was a good month because tax refunds were distributed and warmer than average weather drove strong sales in lawn and garden. and categories like furniture, soft home and food, all look higher. >> if you took a flyer on this, maybe a month or two ago on a low gas price trade, whatever it is, you made lots of profit. the stock is up 21% in a month. that's how we say it. 21% in a month from big lots. we're back to where we were last fall. that's why i added the if you bought it. >> of course. the timing. >> make any story like that. stock three, nger sol rand, they upgraded ir to buy from neutral, boost it to 68 from 56. just under 20% upside. the analyst likes the cri on the stock.

cash return on investment, which he says is a better measure of profitability than return on investment capital or return on equity. multiple expression in ingersoll-rand is inconsistent and adds productivity gains in the climate division are sust n sustainab sustainable. dover, 277 in 68. >> big industrial call, ingersoll-rand has been an outperformer compared to its peers. fourth stock, lululemon, duelling calls. price pressure and soft traffic will hurt the specialty retailer with particular weakness at five companies including lulu. margins could be under pressure. on the flip side, the proprietary tud propriet proprietary study points to continued momentum. >> no clue on the calls other than set foot in the mall two

weeks ago after two years. there is a lot of companies selling this kind of stuff. this is called -- fab something, like stretchy yoga stuff. >> something you wear. but if jan rogers is correct ones had call and athleisure is dead, maybe we re-evaluate. >> there is a lot of new people trying to get into a dead market. somebody remind me. fab fabulosa? fabletics. the under the radar name, udr, a colorado-based real estate investment trust with $9 billion market cap, upgrading it to an outperform from a market perform. part of a big apartment recall. said the stock trades at 13%

discount. cash flow estimates, boost the target on udr by a dollar. to 40 bucks from 14%, i guess you could say they see a rocky mountain high for udr. >> okay. >> as you can imagine, a lot of people hunting for yield piled into reits. this one under perform when you compare it to the -- the dow jones reindex. if you own a mac computer, you may think you're safe from viruses and malware that infect pcs. think about how thieves plan to hold your data ransom. how vulnerable you are on "power lunch." owen." that's me. ♪ you should hire stacy drew. ♪ ♪ she wants to change the world with you. ♪ ♪ she can program jet engines to talk and such. ♪ ♪ her biggest weakness is she cares too much. ♪ thank you. my friend really wants a job at ge. mine too. ♪ i'm a wise elf from a far off shire. ♪ and sanjay patel is who you should hire. ♪

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see car insurance in a whole new light. liberty mutual insurance. mac users are being targeted by hackers in a ransom ware attack. employees at seagate technology hit by a fishing attack. and tax information being compromised. how are these threats happening and how do you protect yourself. let's bring in russell brandon. great to have you with us. these are very different attacks. let's start off with the apple one and ransom ware attack. hackers are smart.

they see opportunity in whatever format people are using. that's why perhaps apple is becoming a bigger target. >> i think traditionally apple has been a little bit more protective because they have tighter software controls in terms of what software to install on a mac. in this case, they got around it because they compromised an apple developer. someone had a sort of certificate that lets them make software that can be installed on apple and that was stolen and the people who made this malware used it. as soon as apple found out about it, they delisted the certificate but it was already out there. >> only 6500 people downloaded this newest version of transmission, which is the software through which this ransom ware was transmitted. i'm curious, is this some sort of precursor attack, do you think? does it seem like because

cybersecurity is only as strong as your weakest link, right? >> there are a lot of puzzling things about it. i think if you had this certificate, i don't know if this is the perfect attack that you would have used. it is sort of -- a lot of people think they were caught off guard and had it and had to move right away. aspects of the malware that don't seem finished. one that would have also encrypted the time machine back ups that mac uses to recover the data. seems like that wasn't working f you're using time machine your data should be protected. but there is still a lot of mystery about why now and why this sort of attack. >> and bottom line is sometimes old-fashioned hardware is the best sort of security. if somebody is threatening you, saying you have to pay me in order to get the key to unencrypt your data, the best solution to that is you saying, i've got it on a hard drive over

here. i don't need that key in the end. >> especially if it is not plugged in. in this case, the virus was sitting on a computer for three days before it did anything. and if you didn't plug in your external backup hard drive in that time, the virus wouldn't spread to it and that data would stay safe and unencrypted. that -- you know mind sight is always 20/20. anyone who did that is safe. >> let's talk about the sea gate fishing attack this is a common way to enter any sort of corporate environment. send a bunch of e-mails. somebody opens it up and that opens the kingdom to this hacker. in this case, this is human error, right? it is not like some genius hacker. someone took an e-mail to be legitimate when it was a phishing exam. >> it wasn't a virus. it was i'm the boss, we need these w 2s and they didn't double, double, triple check it and that's kind of the whole game.

i was saying this in our own internal company. it is tax season, everyone is looking for the documents, efrp realizes the last minute they need a document they don't have. i was telling just within our own company saying, a, everyone check that you're not falling for this. and if you're asking for the documents, and they're making you double triple check it, cut them some slack, this is a real thing that happens. >> russell, thanks a lot. russell brandon from the verge. we're all targets at this point is the bottom line. >> i don't think you can overstate the impact. as a long time apple guy. had an apple computer for 25 years, the safety and security is always a major selling point. they don't sell it, but as a mac buyer you know it. i think that when i look at my mac, i don't know how the other viewers feel about this, i look at what apple has done with the upgrades of itunes, apple might have work to do on the software

side. i'm just throwing that out there as an apple fan boy. >> in terms of security? >> think the first time we have seen this. also the experiences around the mac user interface -- >> aren't what they used to be. >> i say that as a guy that -- i got an apple 2 plus when i was 12 and was doing the war games thing or try ting to on a 2400 d modem. >> we have a guest coming up this week. to this point, he's going to talk about his arms race that has happened. this is what i heard you describing there. >> armies. >> every step of the way keeps going. and. >> that has been the way foreign cyberattackers have gotten in and stolen intellectual property from fortune 500 companies. like the plans or an oil service field. where the pipes are. >> there was a ceo, the new ceo

or head of sony pictures, he had a hack, he made a comment where he said my fax machine is getting a workout. he went back to faxing and i met many people -- >> fax machines save all the faxes that you send. >> i have met a number of people very successful folks who have said they are off e-mail completely. >> carrier pigeon would be the only safe thing at this point. >> for more on the attack, stay with cnbc, former apple ceo john scully will speak with closing bell coming up at 3:20 eastern time. to hike or not to hike. steve liesman with the rare and exclusive interview with lael brainerd, a permanent voting member on the fed. hear her take on rate hikes ahead, all three major indices we should note have now turned negative.

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she's a permanent voting member on the fed and expert on international economics. and steve liesman in d.c. is

with the federal reserve governor in a "power lunch" exclusive. steve? >> thank you very much. i'm here in washington with fed governor lael brainard. fed vice chair stan fisher said he sees inflation is stirred or may well be seeing the first signs of stirring of inflation. do you see that as well? >> i'll tell you, inflation matters a great deal to us as we think about the policy path forward. what we have seen over the last two years is that core inflation, which is what we really care about, has been stubbornly low, between 1.25, and 1.3. we saw 12 month inflation crept up to 1.7. that's a good data point. but it is just that. a data point. and for me i'm going to be very focused on inflation. but i want to see a pattern.

i want to see some persistence, that would give me some comfort. >> you talked about needing clear evidence. which does that look like to you. is it several months in a row of 2% inflation. >> well, what we really want wes that core inflation that is inflation that strips out energy prices, oil prices have been moving down consistently but core inflation, moving up towards our target and what we have seen our target is 2% and we've been down in the 1, 1 1/4 to 1.5% range for a long period of time. there's a variety of reasons to think it could move up over time if oil prices stop falling and the dollar doesn't rise further, if what we're seeing in the labor market starts to translate through into higher inflation than one would expect to see it moving up to our goal. on the other hand, some

troubling signs that inflation expectations have slipped downwards. and so that is a risk to the outlook that i'm looking very carefully at as well. >> what's your forecast? do you think that happens this year? do we move up this year on inflation. >> we have a lot of positive developments in our domestic economy. you look at the labor force, labor forces expanding and people are coming back into the labor force as the labor market remains very solid. american consumers are continuing to be very robust about 3% consumption. and that is going to continue, we would think based on jobs and income growth based on low prices at the pump. those are the good news factors, against that we have very strong cross currents from abroad. weak growth in emerging economies and weak growth in japan and euro area and weakness from china. so there is some downside to the

domestic outlook. so that's why i'm very focused on preserving and protecting the progress we've made. >> i want to switch gears because this thursday the european central bank is expected to announce a new series of stimulus measures. how does that influence u.s. policy? are you reluctant to support the federal reserve moving even further away from a european central bank that would be going further into negative territory? >> so, as we look at certainly as i look at our policy path forward, i'm focused on a u.s. economy and u.s. inflation and u.s. labor market. but we have seen a lot of powerful cross currents coming from abroad. and of course, if the dollar strengthens, that means manufacturers exports are weak and profits come down. core import prices come down.

there's an interaction between the strength of demand abroad and there have been very deficient dploebal demand for some time. what we all need to be doing at central banks and generally, including fiscal authorities around the world is working to raise global demand, not shift it across borders. >> the federal reserve is in a normalization process, a process of raising rates, but you don't sound particularly like a fed governor who sees the federal reserve in that particular mode right now. is data dependance determining if the fed is going to raise rates or more about when the fed will raise rates? >> again, we have two objectives, one is to get inflation back to 2% and the other is to get to full employment. we've made a lot of progress on the second, not so much yet on the first. so we need to be careful. we need to preserve and protect

the domestic progress we make, recognizing that we are experiencing very strong cross currents from abroad. for my own outlook, i'm very focused on incoming data, particularly on inflation, given that we've seen some slippage on inflati inflationary expectations. that is going to determine what the path looks like going forward. >> lael brainard, bark to you in inglewood cliffs. >> it sounded very dovish. >> yeah. >> bottom line. >> stocks steady right now. we'll be back in two minutes, don't move.

i'm here at the td ameritrade trader offices. steve, other than making me move stuff, what are you working on? let me show you. okay. our thinkorswim trading platform aggregates all the options data you need in one place and lets you visualize that information for any options series. okay, cool. hang on a second.

you can even see the anticipated range of a stock expecting earnings. impressive... what's up, tim. td ameritrade. steve liesesman just finished an exclusive interview and when i brought it up with him, i thought she sounded incredibly dovish. she laid it out all there. his question, you don't sound like somebody who is ready to raise rates at this point? >> she doesn't, i would say. she mention the impact of the stronger dollar and strong cross current several times within the conversation, acknowledging that what's going on overseas definitely impacts what we have here. i think she used the world fragile or something akin to fragile describing what's going on in the u.s. economy. >> contrast with mr. fisher who talked about inflation earlier

today. no sign from either of them that anything is imminent. >> it was a great interview by steve, there's too much fed speak. the problem is that, i almost wish it was just yellen who would speak because then maybe you have a clearer direction. this from this person and this from this person. >> once upon a time people were begging for more federal reserve transparency and here you have it and we're complaining about it. >> no, no, no, i wouldn't use the term transparency to describe that. i would use fed koch any. >> i think it's a lot of noise and harder to figure out what they are collectively thinking, i would describe this as anti-transparency. >> the mystery of the fed has just -- and how baffling that was has been replaced by a similar mystery of what the fed is going to do because we have all of these signals and it's equally confusing.

>> i think we used to think they were monolific and all together coming out and see them as individuals, curtains pull back and they have disagreements. >> go home. >> listen, it is a lot of talk and i think at some point if you're a long-term investor interest rates will probably move up over the long term. if they gro up by 25 or 125 basis points, you'll be okay. >> here's what's interesting about today's market, wti up strongly and markets not catching and holding onto it. brent hitting levels we have not seen since december of last year and flat markets on our hands. >> that famous correlation were true, in theory the stock market should be a lot higher at this point. maybe -- >> s&p in the red, i don't know where the dow came off the highs. >> oil stocks fell when we fell 236 and now 36 is a bullish

number. >> compared to 26 it is. >> correct. >> d minus. >> good job, son. good job with the d, because it was a d minus. thanks for watching "power lunch". >> "closing bell" starts in six seconds. ♪ >> that's what i'm talking about. >> hello, everybody, welcome to "closing bell." i'm kelly evans. >> i'm bill griffeth, brent is back to $40 a barrel and wti is at almost $38, numbers we haven't seen since the beginning of this year. some of the beaten down energy and commodity names are also seeing big gains in today's session. we'll look at the impact this could have on the broader market coming up. a lot of things are going