the show, from all of the sullivans out there. >> my grandmother agnes mcbride says the same thing. >> "closing bell" starts right now. >> hi, everybody, welcome to "closing bell." i'm kelly evans. >> happy st. paddy's day, kelly. >> the family was welsh on my paternal grandfather's side and maternal grandfather had some irish in him. >> this guy by the way knows more about it than anybody so -- >> like i said -- i'm bill griffeth, also welsh. we'll see if the stocks can hold on to gains. first we have breaking news on oil and gasoline. the man that's getting to be old

bertha coombs what do you have? low gas prices is your favorite thing to see, really fueling demand and the fact we've had the pullback, oil demand in february according to the petroleum institute hit an 8-year high at 19 million barrels per day, that's up 2% but the real interesting number is gasoline of the we hit record levels for february. gasoline demand in february they said was at 9.1 million barrels a day, that is record demand for february. on pace we are at this point for record demand this year. according to the eia, already seen 9.4 million barrels day demand over the last four weeks. when it comes to gasoline, things are evening up and gasoline has now been below $2 a gallon for 25 straight days. >> yes, but it's on its way up.

that trend is going this direction now. it's not on its way down but we'll see if that demand pushes that even higher. thanks very much. >> gold also on a tear adding to its double digit percentage gains this year. we have a look at how the signal could be pushing stocks one way or the other. deirdre? >> we look to history to see what happens after a big quarter for gold. it may mean more to the market than to the precious metal itself. as for gold, the stats weren't all that clear or compelling, six months after a big quarter, precious metal was higher about half the time and lower half the time. really no better than a coin toss. where it got interesting is where we looked at stocks. stellar quarter for gold has been followed by big gains by the u.s. bench marks. the nasdaq and russell 2000 outperformed the dow industrials and s&p 500, suggesting that

investors are ready to put risk back on the table after a big jump in the traditional safe haven. the best performing sector has been energy and it has been up in every instance we looked at. notching double digit gains on average along with i.t. and technology and materials. another thing i want to note, a big jump for gold has not necessarily deterred gains for stocks. back in 2006, gold gained 12.5% in the first quarter alone, less than what it's on track to do this quarter. and it rose another 9% that year. the last nine months of the year, but stocks also rose, the dow industrial rose 12.5% and s&p 500 rose 9.5% in the remainder of the year. that may be surprising to some because it goes against conventional wisdom but that is how the gold picture has looked in the past. who knows if it will look that way this year, but that may offer -- >> if we were to try to hang it

on one thing, central banks. gold rallies when people are talking about them. fedex is one of the real standouts in the stock market surging on better than expected earnings. who's right before the economy right now? fedex or caterpillar, which describes the economy as stagnant. bob pisani is on the trading floor. >> you want to see what a weak dollar is doing, look at the fedex versus cater pill ar er e. here's caterpillar here. terrible year, started at 70, went to 55 in february now back at 76. it's up 2%. even though they reduced earnings estimates by 30%. that's what a strong dollar will do, bringing up industrials and materials and energy names. fedex just the opposite, stellar report, up dramatically. look at this, 7 million shares up 10% right now.

here's the important thing. you want to see what's going on, the problems at caterpillar but we know them. weak oil and gas demand and weak commodities and strong u.s. dollar, some of that starts reversing like the oil and dollar situation. caterpillar can start turning around indeed. we saw that happen in the last few days. fedex, their report domestic and fedex express, strong and they went out of their way to say e commerce was so strong now it's a full scale retail revolution and they are the guys taking advantage of it right now. the final thing to point out here, caterpillar and fedex different in terms of international exposure. fedex has about 75% of its revenues right here in the united states. caterpillar is much more global, gets half of its revenues in the united states and weakness in commodities in china and latin america as well really weighing on caterpillar. slightly different story in

terms of where they get their revenue from. >> kudos to donald, we had him on the other day, bearish on the whole sector except for one stock, fedex. he made the case for it the other day. >> we saw ups shares rising too in response to their report. fedex tried to say listen, all of the other players absorbing the cost of shipping to your door step went be able to do so that much longer. it might feel its best position going forward as more are passed onto the consumer. >> maybe a broadside at amazon. looking nervously at the fact that amazon is buying 20 big planes and they went out of their way to say this would be a very expensive endeavor for amazon to try to in some way compete with them. >> and very small way at least. >> thank you, bob. >> see you later, robert. >> let's get to our closing bell exchange for saint paddy's day, jim lowell and rick santelli in

chicago. john, why the delay in this rally? did the stock market need to read about it in the morning paper what the fed did yesterday or what happened here? >> we saw some same thing last week with the ecb. it takes a day for our market and investors to really digest and get an idea how the market is going to react. then investors come into this market or pull out of the market. this week was focused on what the fed was going to say and how the market was going to react after that. unfortunately done as of now. look at the week we've had. we started on monday about the lowest volume of the year and gained up to today trading at the highest point this year as far as s&p and dow is concerned. it's good activity that we have here. next week real quiet as far as economic data. it's going to be interesting to see how it plays out. we had no real bad news in this

market. it has trended higher not because the sentiment is better but nothing stopped it from moving higher at this point. >> would you be looking at the material names you were talking about materials and industrials and transportation stocks starting to outperform or do you look at health care which has seen valuations take a beaten plately? >> we look at both. the reality though, there has been bad news this week and last week and a half, we saw ecb step in and ramp up the stimulus activity and bank of japan delaying what's likely inevitable return to more stimulus in their april meeting. our own fed downgrading their outlook to two hikes, the global economy is getting bogged down. so while we see good signs here, regional manufacturing data posting six and nine-month positive numbers for first time and housing starts and existing

home sales, how strong the consumer is, we think diverse fiction with a tilt towards defense continues to make the most sense. >> is this a market -- what came out of the fed meeting told us yesterday what they are expecting in monetary policy for this year? >> no we're playing a giant game of debt poker around the globe. it was our turn and we didn't anti-up and the dollar moves down because of what the fed doesn't do. and equities move up because what the fed didn't done. but don't underestimate the next poker player to play. now the euro looks a lot stronger and yen looks a lot stronger. you know what's going to happen. we'll keep doubling down and even to solutions.

i was talking to various fed governor the last several days and worried about a variety of issues like power investments and pensions and we had the city guy on talking about where is this money going to come from with low rates. we're creating a lot of problems and our solutions will be undermined because others in the poker game will continue to try to save the day by cutting the -- it's a good thing for the moment and a lot of regulations are finally taking your toll. maybe janet yellen and company's new way to normalize is to keep institutions from being able to play in certain arena and watching leverage ratios come down. that won't be good for growth. >> want to go back to what you said. can you be more specific what you mean? the markets are now back to levels of where we started for the year. a lot of people are probably

scratching their heads. we invest in active managers, typically between 100 names and as much as 800 names. we're really managers of managers. we know our active managers are buying on the dips and building into their best ideas at discounted prices. we continue to think that health care, one of the weaker sectors this year especially if it incorporates biotechnology and waiting remains a long term attractive area to build. we also know that things for the u.s. consumer and buying strength will continue to do well. on the defensive side of the spectrum, the cyclical look valuab valuable, you'll need to hold for three years or more, not three weeks or month. i expect we'll see similar volatility from the beginning of the year. >> we have some breaking news,

thanks, guys. breaking news regarding the chicago fed. >> this is a news release just out within the past couple of minutes from the u.s. attorney's office in chicago. they are saying a former senior analyst at the federal reserve bank of chicago has pled guilty to stealing sensitive financial data. here's the release from the u.s. attorney's office saying he stole confidential financial documents from the bank shortly before resigning his position at the bank and accepting a new job. they are not saying where that new job is. we'll endeavor to find that out. the attorney's office saying jeffrey cho, 35, pled guilty to one misdemeanor count of theft of property and carrying a maximum sentence of one year in federal prison. here's what happened. cho was in discussions in may 2015 to take a new job outside the bank less than a week before accepting the outside company's employment offer cho printed out confidential federal reserve document from his work computer and took it home with him, when he was first confronted with

this he initially denied it and produced the documents as well as shredded documents. it's clear here from the u.s. attorney's office in chicago that jeffrey cho, 35 of chicago, has pled guilty, guys. >> eamon, there was the case of the new york fed, where an employee had taken sensitive information and shared it. this sounds like a little different story. just to be clear, we're not talking about him taking data from member institutions, but from the chicago fed about its own internal workings? >> they are saying in addition to they are say cho further admitted that he printed confidential federal reserve documents while he was interviewing for another position at a different company in march of 2015. those documents were also sensitive materials concerning the financial health of certain u.s. financial institutions. the question is, and this is now speculation on my part.

would this have been information that a long or short person would want to have on a bank they are investing in the financials or would this be information about the entity where he was applying for a job that might be helpful for that entity to know. not cheer frlear from the docum. we'll try to get his side of the story as well. >> eamon, thank you. 45 minutes to go. dow is up 17 3 points. transports are up 220 points. we talked about how fedex is leading the way and nasdaq up 11. >> good-bye shoe laces, nike with the first ever self-lacing sneaker. where does that sound familiar? we'll hear from mark parker coming up next. my one on one interview with jack dorsey, whether he has regrets about taking those companies public later on "the closing bell." you're watching cnbc, first in business worldwide.

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transports up 3%. remember it was below 7,000. the s&p broad index up 14 points, and nasdaq is the clear laggard. >> remember the scene in "back to the future ii" where marty mcfly discovers self-tieing shoes. look at that. that's futuristic. that fiction now has become reality for nike. sara eisen scored an interview with mark parker earlier and joins us with the highlights and pair of sneakers as well. >> well, kelly and bill, parker is now a designer at nike. back then worked onset during "back to the future" to create air imagines for michael j fox. this has been a long time coming for him and sneaker fans around the world. nike to unveil the hyper adapt

1.0, the first ever self-tieing sneaker that will be available during the holiday season. we don't know the price. the key for investors how big is nike thinking here? what does this market look like? here's what parker said to that. >> i think there's a wide range of people that are really interested in this whole self-lacing adaptive performance. obviously you have the sneaker heads who are all over it. this has been a buzz for them for years. there was a write-in petition to nike to power through and get the power laces in a product. so it's great to be able to put a product out there that is a step towards the future of adaptive performance. >> key word there is the future. hatfield, the chief designer for nike we got to talk about the shoes, likened them to

self-driving cars and will change the way sneakers are made forever but nike is protecting patents carefully to get ahead of the competition and already working on the 2.0 version. nike also here in new york city to unveil the brand-new 2016 olympic uniforms for rio this summer. i talked to parker about it. they are not doing anything different when it comes to planning for brazil despite the economic and political and health challenges, nike is corporating with the world health organization but none of the athletes said they will not attend the olympic games. the reason today an innovation is so important for nike, it's a global company heavily exposed to the macro economic head winds we talk about every day. the stock has been hit so far this year just recently go positive along with the broader dow jones industrial average but he talked about these swings in currencies which chipped away at sales but resilience yens nike

has seen posting double digit growth numbers in places like china. he says because of the innovation. couldn't talk a lot about it because they have earnings coming out next tuesday. we'll see if that kind of resilience yens and innovations can continue to drive sales in what is overall about a challenging environment. kelly and bill. >> i've got a lot of feeling, laces, i struggle with these a lot. i barely lace up the shoes on a run. i don't know if these are meant to be running shoes or shoes for the basketball court, but how do you make sure the lace is tight enough, not too tight? >> isn't there a button on the side? >> reporter: there are two buttons, a plus and minus sign button, one tightens and one loosens. it's wild, when you put your foot in the show. as soon as your heel touches the sole, then it actually sort of hugs your foot. they call it adaptive technol y

technology. >> is it comfortable? >> reporter: it's a comfortable shoe although i have to say i tried on a size t10 men's and im like a 3 1/2. >> that's like my size. >> to your other question, i did ask parker about the sort of scope of this project and he said it's going to transcend bablg running they are going to implement the technology in a wide array of sneakers. so they are thinking big. >> laces are a problem. >> he also compared it to fly net which started small now core to their whole process and has super charged their sales in terms of sneakers. >> trying to picture you in a size 10 men, swam in that thing. >> they were a little bit. >> thank you. >> the understatement of the day. 40 minutes left in the trading session. rally day but we're off the highs, dow was up 203 at the

high. s&p almost -- we're just about a point away from being positive for the year. we'll see how we do at the end and nasdaq is up a third of a percent. >> speaking of these markets, a wall street expert says there's a war on short term trading and it could be bad for the economy. >> house speaker paul ryan tells john harwood why he thinks the nation's best days still could be behind us. ♪ in new york state, we believe tomorrow starts today. all across the state, the economy is growing, with creative new business incentives, the lowest taxes in decades, and new infrastructure for a new generation attracting the talent and companies of tomorrow. like in rochester, with world-class botox. and in buffalo, where medicine meets the future. let us help grow your company's tomorrow - today - at business.ny.gov

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>> movers to tell you about, guess sinking on disappointing quarterly earnings. the apparel retailer also warned of a current quarter loss and provided weaker than expected full year guidance as well. blaming the strong dollar and stalled effort to turn around its business. chipotle is lower as well, downgrading the stock to under perform and cut price target to $350 a share from 390. it's $4.75 now. the turnaround efforts from the food scare will take longer than expected and be more costly. >> guess they are rolling out more coupons for free burritos, that sort of thing. >> paul ryan is worried what the election could do to our country. john harwood has the interview

with the speaker. hi, john. >> paul ryan is a very popular republican as the new speaker but the recent budget deal that he struck with president obama and pushed through to congress has been taking a lot of flak from donald trump and other republican candidates, speaker ryan blamed divided government and said he's as frustrated as anybody else. >> john boehner came up with a budget deal at the end of his term which all of the republican presidential candidates denounced the deal and said it was a terrible deal. if you can't persuade your colleagues among leaders in the republican party that you're doing the right thing with deals like that. how can you govern? >> we're coming to the end of what i call i divided government. you have a conservative congress on one side and very liberal progressive president on the other hand. we're coming to the end of this and the nerves are very frayed. i feel them myself. i really believe what we need is a clarifying election this country to ask the men and women

citizens of this nation to break this impasse. we have a broken divided government that isn't fixing the bib problems facing our country. if we keep this broken divided going as it is, these problems get out of control and go beyond our ability to fix them on our own terms. >> what do you do if a democrat wins the presidency. >> what i believe we do, we take an agenda to the country and say this is what we think we need to do to fix this country's big problems. this is how we're going to prevent a debt crisis. then we let the country make a decision. if we win the type of election we're hoping to win in 2016, not unlike what ronald reagan and jack kemp did in 1980, then we will have earned a mandate from the country to put these things in place. if then your scenario -- >> you hold the house -- >> divided government, we'll figure out how to make it work. it's going to be more of the same and that's the frustration.

what we're roried about, facing our country that we're fueling up, they are still fixable. if we have ood presidency like this presidency, then i do worry the rest days will be behind us. we'll have to figure out how to make it work and won't be nearly as good. >> if you look at the polls now which suggests that the nominee, if the clarifying election goes to the democrats on a national basis how is paul ryan going to work with hillary clinton if she's the new president. very big question. >> great series, thanks. >> time for a cnbc news update with sue herrera. >> here's what's happening. marco rubio will return to private life at the end of his senate term. the former gop presidential candidate who suspended his

campaign on tuesday told reporters on capitol hill that he would not accept an offer to run for president. to coincide of the anniversary, christy's are auctioning off the folios. attitudes about marriage are changing, in addition to growing acceptance of gay marriage, more men and women support couples living together before tieing the knot. what they are saying accepting of divorce decreased and new time lapse video from chicago shows how that city gets its river looking so green for st. paddy's day, it takes two tugboats 45 minutes to complete. that's totally cool. that's the cnbc news update. back to you. >> where is the green by the way? >> what do you mean? this is green. >> he's rocking it. >> i'm wearing it for us here. >> and for one day you can go back to being sue mcma hon.

>> my maiden name is mcmahon, don't you know. >> 30 minutes to the close, transports up 233 and broad index up 16 points and nasdaq up 19 as well. she doesn't need to wear green, she's named kelly. >> it speaks for me. leading trader tells us what he's watching into the close. >> ted cruz has vowed to reverse president obama's policy on cuba and we have breaking news on relations between cuba and the u.s. right after this as well. stay tuned. this just got interesting. why pause to take a pill? or stop to find a bathroom? cialis for daily use is approved to treat both erectile dysfunction and the urinary symptoms of bph, like needing to go frequently, day or night. tell your doctor about all your medical conditions and medicines, and ask if your heart is healthy enough for sex do not take cialis if you take nitrates for chest pain,

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show show me more like this.ns. stop taking cialis and get medical help right away. show me "previously watched." what's recommended for me. x1 makes it easy to find what blows you away. call or go onliand switch to x1. only with xfinity. welcome back, pretty nice broad based rally, peter. does it still hang on oil prices and what happens there? >> think right now we're still in that space where where oil goes the market follows. we did have good numbers in jobs, new jobs -- >> job openings. >> i think that was a little bit of impetus but this is more about oil. like i said before, i think we'll continue to see this for a

little bit longer but we will start seeing that dichotomy where you'll start seeing the broader markets continue to go and oil market will flatten out at some point. >> you're looking at a place where stocks can keep rallying and energy -- maybe it moves downward again. >> i think there will be an opportunity and i almost put like -- when we get around convention time, only because the dialogue right now is still about oil and still about natural resources. and i think once you start hearing a little more about what's happening politically -- >> is that why you think health care is under pressure here? it's the only sector sitting out. >> i think it's part -- i think people will start considering their investment. if you look over the last six years, tremendous run. >> think you've made several hundred percent. >> doing okay. peter, thank you so much. >> as we know president obama is headed to cuba on sunday. it's the first visit by a u.s. president in almost a century.

white house is hoping to make normalized relations with the communist country ir reversible and american businesses have been clammering to make deals with our island neighbor located 90 miles off the coast of florida. a journalist with cuba standard.com joins us from the second annual cuba opportunity summit in new york. good to see you. >> pleasure. >> i don't know if you've heard, a short time ago, cuba's foreign minister said they plan to relax the 10% tax on dollars coming into cuba but only if they are sure that the embargo on cuba is going to relax enough to make it worth their while the foreign minister doesn't think they have gone far enough. what is the mood in cuba regarding the relaxing. it's sort of mix in the united

states? >> in cuba, the mood is much more positive and increase trade and opportunity dwen two countries will be welcome there. cuba has been through over 50 years of a horrendous trade embargo. anything to loosen that up would be most welcome. >> is there skepticism that the embargo won't replain in place -- ted cruz is elected president, he's been very vocal, he would reverse this embargo if he were ee leked president. >> here's the thing. you have major corporations such as marriott, they are looking for any opportunity to move in on cuba, the first chance they can do so legally. so even die-hard republicans in congress have to deal with the reality that major corporations be it marriott or coca-cola or whomever would definitely like to get into the last remaining markets that exists in the planet.

>> what do you say to people -- i'm reading from your notes as well, this burt ton act that penalizes foreign countries, there's still legal ramifications people have to get their heads around here. what do you think that's going to look like and how much of a hurdle will it be for people who want to travel to cuba and companies that want to do business there? >> it depends who the company is. there's going to be certain ramifications. certain companies do invest in cuba on property being confiscated for example, you have marriott managing a hotel once held by an american national, he can always hire a lawyer to assert an action to penalize a company for what they call trafficking in confiscated properties. certain corporations have to take note of that when they are going to cuba all the way. >> vito, appreciate it.

>> i thought i spotted michelle in the background too but maybe i'm hallucinating -- >> yes, that was her. >> 20 minutes to go in the trading session, starting to move higher. i was looking for that giant leprechaun, look at the market on close orders but we are starting to head back to the highs of the session. >> i think i would steal his hat. >> i couldn't wear it like art cashin. >> we'll find out. >> valeant shares are sinking again today, scott wapener spoke with ackman exclusively. still ahead, i took a long walk with twitter and square ceo jack dorsey in san francisco. we got insight on his plans for both companies and whether he regrets going public. that is coming up in the next hour of the show. stay tuned.

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50% plus earlier this week. the portfolio is down 26% year to day. bill aackman has sold other shares -- >> joining us now, scott, what did he have to say? >> news that mr. ackman sold down the position 20 million shares a day after losing a billion dollars on paper in valeant. raising a flurry of new questions about the state of his fund. in a letter to investors on wednesday night, he said the sale was for quote rebalancing as the position grew out sized compared to other holdings like valeant which have dropped substantially in value. it parked wild speculation whether mr. ackman might have gotten a margin call or something else. i reached out for comment and to give a chance to set the record straight on a current state of

his firm. ackman telling me, we don't use margin leverage, never have and never will. other speculated that mr. ackman may be preparing for a wave of redemptions which he said was not the case. he told me that only about 2% of pershing square's assets which total 11 billion was redeemed at the last opportunity to do that on february 15th at a time when much of the negative valeant news was widely known but before the recent plunge. as of that february 15th date, 83% of his investors who could have redeemed rolled their money ahead and remained in the fund. one long-term ackman investor had no plan to leave. according to the long term track record which he called stellar, the investor pointing out successful bets in the howard hughes corporation and others to

remain optimistic. the investor blamed others for mr. ackman's ills. he's got to be a pariah in the press, it's been all negative and piling on effect as a result. mr. ackman pointed to other investments he said were doing well. the next redemption opportunity won't come until mid-may but he was also optimistic as investors would stay in the fund and went into great detail about his firm's financial position. ackman said pershing square has large cash balances on every one of its funds, averaging 14 to 15% throughout the portfolio and three sources of permanent capital $4 billion from his publicly traded pershing square holdings traded in amsterdam. $1 billion from a recent bond offering and more than a billion or so in what he said was employee capital. he called other money long-term

lockup capital where they remain highly restricted in how they can redeem their money. it could take ackman's investors up to two years to get the cash back. on the issue of valeant, suffered steep losses, he admitted challenges ahead but could fix the company valeant is a problem but we know what to do he told me. very interesting, there's been so much speculation swirling around, particularly in the last 24 hours or so after valeant had that dreadful day of losing 50% of its value. >> scott, all of the same, when i spoke with jeff ubben on monday, this guy has been in the stocks since 2006. years before ackman. he described in what he called the allergan ambush, you'll remember back when valeant, after a series of rollup made an acquisition, one that was pushed by ackman,allergan gotup set and

said it didn't want valeant taking over, didn't trust the company, et cetera. some who feel who that moment started to unravel what we've seen now to date with valeant? >> it was an interesting time. mr. ackman had taken a big stake in aller gan and teaming up with valeant to make that transition happen. it didn't. it was a very contentious fight and allergan ended up doing another deal and mr. ackman would end up becoming a valeant shareholders down the road. it is interesting when you look at the relationship that bill ackmanhood with valeant and jeff ubben has had as you said, ubben and value act have been in valeant for a much longer time frame and they had people on the board, i believe two members, and bill ackman has become the

public face of the whole valeant debacle. whether that is because of early days of teammate with allergan to get the deal done with valeant and having the whole thing fall apart. even at that hour, there were questions of raised how is this possible and then team up with valeant to try to do the transaction and would allergan did the deal, obviously a huge paper gain for bill ackman because of the stake he acquired. maybe the seeds of all of this were sown from back then. it's curious that ackman himself has been the face of valeant. >> i wonder how they are going to kind of co-exist on the board now that ackman has said they are going to be active here as well. >> thank you. >> appreciate it. >> just gave me the imbalance and i didn't get all of that.

don't want to give you a partial one. i'll get him back here. >> 12 minutes to go here. those valeant shares are down another 10% today. the markets are broadly up except for the health care space, s&p 15 and nasdaq 16 with ten minutes to go. >> some concerned about the impact of a possible donald trump presidency and someone who thinksz it doesn't matter and he'll tell us why. i'm in vests and as a vested investor in vests, i invest with e*trade, where investors can investigate and invest in vests... or not in vests. this is my retirement.

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eight minutes left with the dow up 187 points. oliver, what do you make of this rally? >> it's pretty good. it's a continuation from yesterday's fed rally. but what's really important, you're seeing financial shares starting to rally as well. which is one of the big missing components in our view to let this be sustainable and hit new all time highs and we think that will happen. >> dollar lower, do you think that continues? >> it doesn't have to continue. it can stabilize. the dollar doesn't strengthen, if you look at it versus the euro, 110 is an easy number, as

long as it's 111, 113 range, that's fine and that helps u.s. stocks and that's the key here. >> we haven't talked much about the impact the election could have on the stock market. you think there will be no impact, why? >> elections have an impact on policy but if you look at it purely from a historical context, 17 out of 20 times since 1960 the market has been up a meaningful amount during an election year. as a matter of fact, when incumbent parties won, the stock market is measured by the dow joans industrial average up 21% in that year. i'm not saying it's going to happen this year. >> we've had a big comeback. >> we have but overwhelmingly the odds are you're going to see with much better gains than most of us anticipated, meaning 7, 8% higher from here is very plausible. >> let me get a couple of picks from you. you like tjx and starbucks,

betting on the consumer here. >> i think they are in much better shape than the numbers indicate, not necessarily luxury goods but you don't have to go steep discount. both of those companies are just executing on their plan extremely well and that's the key. you don't want to just buy a consumer etf or broad based, you want to be picky. there's still stock picker's mashlgt and that's important. we also like the service sector. when we look at health care, it's a holding in our portfolios and do the laundry for hospitals and health care facilities. everybody needs clean laundry and that will continue to grow with the demographics as the economy i am proves. lots of building in that space. we're big fans in that sector as well. >> good to see you. >> thanks, bill. >> we'll come back with a closing countdown in a few minutes and then we have after the bell the son of hugh hefner

wants millennials to come together to derail donald trump's white house bid. he'll explain why coming up.

i am benedict arnold, the infamous traitor. and i know a thing or two about trading. so i trade with e*trade, where true traders trade on a trademarked trade platform that has all the... get off the computer traitor! i won't. (cannon sound) mobility is very important to me. that's why i use e*trade mobile. it's on all my mobile devices, so it suits my mobile lifestyle. and it keeps my investments fully mobile... even when i'm on the move... ahhh. >> here we go. we get the closing countdown as we head towards the close, losing altitude for the industrial average but we've had pretty good rally day bob p

pisani. this gain of almost a percent right now. we're off that high. but with this gain today, we are positive on the dow for the year. for the dow, the s&p we were almost -- we were briefly but now we're not. at least for the dow we're back to positive for the year. wti crude oil, api numbers very bullish, a lot of demand for this and especially the gasoline. wti at $40 a barrel for the first time this year, in fact the first time since early december. look at the vix. >> broke with 16 the other day and broke through 15. >> 14. we were at 13 and change for a while. >> exactly. >> the question is do you believe the rally? did just a piece on trader talk, the important thing here, look what the weak dollar has done,

with sectors moving and materials and energy two big groups and industrials. those are the ones we most affected by the weak dollar and those move today and we had an expansion of new highs on the weak dollar rally. and pharma lagged. and big bioteches hit new lows. >> big expectation tomorrow and rebalancing of the s&p as well. >> the volume picked up a little bit. i'm surprised it's not a little bit more. we'll do a billion shares -- >> you'll wonder what impact that will have. >> the role is traditionally positive in march, september in march we usually deal with. do you believe the rally? this is a weak dollar rally we're getting. if you believe the fed is close to tightening in june, this can't last particularly and that's the debate going on in the street right now, should we sell this -- sell into the rally with the understanding it's not

going to last very long? >> all right, thank you, bob. happy st. paddy's day, up 160 on the dow as we close out positive for the year. diagio at the stock exchange. stay tuned for hour two of "the closing bell". >> welcome to "the closing bell." i'm kelly evans, green session on st. patrick's day, dow gaining 155 points at the close. and broad index up 213. the nasdaq the laggard only 11 points. by the way, the small cap brussels added more in a point space and transportations were up 230 points. we'll talk about other trends that contributed to those gains. meantime, investors are waiting

an earnings report from adob bs e, we'll have those for you in a moment. joining the panel we have senior market commentator michael santoli and stephanie link from tiaa and steve grasso will also join us shortly. what do you make in today's rally? >> it's been an impressive grind between 1950 in the s&p and where we are right now, many opportunities to stop and stall and put back. it hasn't happened in a significant way. i do think we're at a point right now where even people bullish on the rebound are saying, it would be nice to have it settle back a little bit, see if it absorbs a pullback and where we go from there. to be bullish in a big way from here, you have to be pretty bullish on hour and there's a couple of ways to look at it as a fairdy defensive character to this stage of the rally. a lot of big stable groups leading with the exception of health care.

>> stephanie? >> i think the big theme is the dollar. weakening. and also oil stabilizing. i think that we've all said the volatility would continue unless we saw these things happen. now we're starting to see things happen. portfolio managers are still underweight, material and industrials, you're seeing it. look how caterpillar reacted today. they chop numbers, margins everything look horrendous. >> and stock is up. >> the other thing too the financials got creamed yesterday but recovered back today. i think that speaks to maybe people thinking we don't think they will get better but the economy is not going into a recession. oil is stabilizing. if this group can stabilize, that's good enough. >> steve grasso, we welcome you to post nine. is the chase on? >> i think the chase is on. it's everything that stephanie said. caterpillar has been night canary in the coal mine. if you look at that performance in the stock, if you start to see what they are saying and how

much has been carved out and yet the stock performed and didn't crater, that's something for the bulls. but the chase has been on because guys that were short the energy space could not find the liquidity to cover the individual names so they reached for the commodities a couple of weeks ago. oil, copper, all of these different commodities have been running like wildfire and because they couldn't get liquidity in the individual names. so energy materials and industrials, when we keep looking those are outperformers. how long does it last? not sure. >> that has been the theme. that was the theme off the lows. what i'm looking at the reverse of last year when you had below the surface a lot of damage being done. close to 300 of the 500 stocks in the s&p 500 are up year to date with the s&p flat and up on average 2%. basically you have had that rebound move in the smaller names. >> it's interesting, if you look at facebook, amazon, net flex, alpha belt, they look like people are taking money out of

them to cover other losing positions. how does that contribute now to people saying wait a minute, maybe the losses in these names i might have -- >> it's so 2013. >> it's growth versus value. value is working and growth is not for the time being. that's going to change at some point. if you think the recovery in the economy is going to happen. >> performance was sought after in every year but none other than last year. like none other than last year. to your point, guys that have those fang stocks perform for them, they need to hunt for that true beta and outperform the peers. as we know, everyone gets on the same side of the boat a little too much at certain points, those are the tops and bottoms, it's feeling a little toppy to me. >> if you share at the chart, it looks toppy but i don't feel the

mood is giddy is the all. it's a grudging rally, not something that's been a burst green. >> there might be something fundamentally healthy going on. is it finally the time value can outperform again? that's how a healthy market should look over time. the growthy stuff, you know the froth comes out and maybe what we're seeing now and if this is the way the froth is coming out, it's a pretty relatively speaking hasn't been a bad fall. >> also, it will be interesting to see what happens to health care because they were clearly the laggards today and have been year to date. some of those stocks are value stocks. like a pharmaceutical companies, i understand the political rhetoric. i can make a bear case for you on it. but i actually think, it's starting to be the time when you start to look because they are really high quality companies and by the way, if the currency in the dollar continues to fall, they will benefit. >> this is exactly the point you were making, just saying the con

speck uous underperformer in health care and we asked peter cross about that last hour too. >> if you own valeant, it's a disaster, probably also own other health care. now suspect, we'll look ats reimbursement rates and there could be political threat down the road. beyond that, stef makes an interesting point, value versus growth. too often looked as value indexes loaded with banks and energy and the growth index as opposed to within each sector there are value and growth stocks. >> it can just mean picking the cheapest things and -- no, we're talking about trying -- >> people want to search for yield right now. yesterday chair yellen told us they are not going to be raising rates in any type of fashion that people were hoping they are going to be raising rates at that pace. i don't know if she said it's an all clear but you need to earn money. people need to earn money. you need that revenue stream.

>> we recently saw the gap between with the s&p 500 paying in dividends and yield on the 10-year treasury unusually high and catching on to this realizing the best way to signal in the investing community to raise the dividend. >> real quick, here's the issue for me. i don't think things have gotten better and don't think things are better on a global scale. i do think people were forced into buying this and as mike said, this is a begrudgingly rally, people were jumping in late. it's got to hold these levels or we have a turnaround. >> adobe's earnings are out. let's get to john fortt with those now. >> there's some smiles in san jose, refer new at $1.38 billion versus 1.34 the street expected. earnings also better at 66 cents nongap versus 61 expected. because adobe made the strong move to the cloud we have to

look at annualized recurring revenue, $3.13 billion, that's just about in line. now if you look at digital media revenues for the quarter, not talking about annualized recurring, that was $932 million versus 882 expected. also deferred revenue, which is important when you talk about subscription businesses, that rose to $1.61 billion from 1.49 last quarter. also cash flow looking healthy from operations $498 million, approaching half a billion dollars versus $455 million last quarter. so hopefully we'll get guidance on the call and i'll have the ceo on squawk alley tomorrow. for a leader in the cloud space moving package software to subscriptions, it looks like continued help for adobe and that has the stock up close to

3%. >> thank you. in case you missed it earlier, when i sat down with jeff ubben and talked him about the plays in portfolios. take a look what he had to say about adobe. >> adobe was super cheap at 25 bucks because everybody was -- i think they were long sales force and short adobe. >> our goal is to take a company like adobe when they were ten times earning and make them go from old tech to new tech. >> i think they might have done it. what do you think? >> certainly. they have totally shifted their business to a more subscription based model that is absolutely positively working by looking at these arrs, recurring revenue metric. and that's very healthy. the stock has been very sloppy year to date. but this is a good story and it looks like they are raising guidance from some of the language we're getting in the press release. we don't know how much.

i like it. >> this was a 2015 style stock, this was the kind of glamour growth stock, only down 6 or 7% year to date. how much do we pay for this great business, 30 times this fiscal year earnings but then you look at it growing 30% and at the end of the fiscal 2013, it's -- as long as numbers keep coming through. >> going back to what we were saying moments ago, a lot of dividend players and valuish traditional names in the market are getting expensive because people are willing to pay up for those. does that make them less safe? >> you have that capital risk but i bought the group personally and did have to battle is it too lofty of a price. if you look at fill ip morris and those two, phillip morris and xou are overdrought,

relative strength index. even though it's run aggressively, you have a 3.8% yield. i bought it personally but getting back to adobe, these are pretty lofty levels. i would be careful buying it. >> the stock is up another 4.5%. thanks so much. thanks for joining us. catch more "fast money" at 5:00. where he thinks gold is heading next. you won't want to miss. it we'll hear from somebody who says washington is at war with short term traders and smart way to fix our economy is to make is easier for investors to bet against stocks. my walk through the streets of san francisco with twitter and square ceo jack dorsey. if he has any regrets taking those companies public. you're watching cnbc, first in business worldwide. expert?re an at&t ss sure am. my staff could use your help staying in touch with customers. at&t can help you stay connected. am i seeing double?

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>> let's get back to john fortt with more on adobe's earnings. shares up 6%. >> we have the guidance through the erpgz presentation posted on the site. the stock appears to be responding well. first, in q2, the range that

adobe is giving of revenue between 1.365 billion to 1.451 billion the midpoint is right in line with analysts expectations, $1.39 billion in revenue at the midpoint. eps is actually higher. the street was looking for 65 cents and adobe is guiding to 64 to 70 cents which puts the midpoint above what analysts expected. adobe has also raised its guidance for the full year 2016. said to expect revenues of $5.8 billion and street was looking for 5.74. and on eps for the full year, $2.80 versus $2.76 that the street was expecting. given the cautious outlook that the entire industry had at the start of this year given currency and all of that. this is heartening, a lot of adobe's business is in north america and more developed

markets and with this cloud business it might be a little less expose than some of its peers to currency fluctuations. back to you. >> the chase is on for those shares up about 7.5%. thank you. >> is washington at war with short term trading and short selling? our next guest thinks so. actually bad for the economy and the government should make it easier to bet against companies. a senior scholar along with shark tank regular, kevin o'lea o'leary. j.w., do you think appropriate levels? do we have a healthy market and you're saying that the risk here is that sort of the shorts and a lot of the high frequency guys get pushed out and that's bad for everybody? >> what we're seeing right now, a lot of increasing rhetoric from washington, it's very suspicious of some of the strategies that private funds and engaging in activist have pushed forward. we've seen yesterday or this

week rhetoric from democratic senators at an sec confirmation hearing, very except tickal of stock buybacks. and we see it on the campaign trail. hillary clinton has been very suspicious of activist hedge funds and saw in 2008 when a republican sec chairman stopped short selling for a period of time during the panic. i think we've seen that rhetoric increase recently and i found it kind of surprising and counterproductive frankly. >> kef vip, i was going to ask, if you agree both about the direction this is all going and also about the negative consequences it will have. >> i do. i take a baseline approach and say to myself, what is it about a politician that makes them good portfolio managers and the answer is nothing. this is political rhetoric. anything that reduces liquidity in the market, for example, extending the time frame by which long-term capital gains are awarded is a stupid idea. all you're going to do is reduce

liquidity and people will take less risk and go to less risky companies and probably retard small cap growth and jobs in america. that idea is really domestic. that whole idea of trading on high frequency trading, it's not proven to help or hurt liquidity. stock buybacks and dividends are for many people the same thing. how dumb is it to make stock buybacks illegal if that's the proposal and not do dividends? that's dumb. that shows you they don't know what they are talking about. >> fair enough. mike and stephanie, one of the people who has been leading this kind of idea about long term capital is larry fink of black rock. if washington wanted their guy to say he thinks so, it must be a good idea, mike? >> larry fink is a $4 trillion asset manager firm, he has to be long stocks for a very long period of time. but there's a point to be made that he believes it's counter productive corporate behavior

that might have the wrong incentives behind it. i think one of the options is, companies have a tax advantage and feel like shareholders is a better done through share buybacks for tax reasons than d dividends, moecht of the efforts are on the level of bully pulpit. this is high you should drop incentives for your company, not let's outlaw certain activity. >> it sounds like it could come out of china where it seems like when the markets don't go up, they want to shut them down completely. >> high frequency trading has led to more volatility. look at the way these companies respond to earnings or bad news or just announcements that are surprising. the amount -- the level of extreme that happens on a daily basis to stocks is partly because of high frequency trading and partly because the way hedge funds are positioned and positioning.

i think there's definitely an issue here. in terms of this getting legs, i don't see it. by the way, buybacks and dividends, those are good things in the long run and very good for shareholders and that's the most important thing. >> what about the point that stephanie made a moment ago about the outsized moves we're seeing in single securities, interestingly enough, that might be the result of already some of this regulation coming to bear market or a problem that something needs to be fixed? >> i think i recall an earlier point about regulatory impacts on health care sector and i agree with that. i think it's a real threat. it's more than just rhetoric. the dodd frank gives an option to make it harder for hedge funds to buy up positions they can use toage tate for change. there have been prominent examples of failures, they generate 16% above the s&p over the last five years. so i would look to that possibly being implemented by the sec as a result of this rhetoric from

democrats. >> before we go, do you think activists are good for america? >> i love activists. i really do. they weed out rot and patina and scrape companies clean. that's a good thing. while we're talking about dividends and repatriation of shares, we've got to fix our corporate tax code. that's what the next administration has to focus on. last one was health care and now america has to fix our corporate tax rate. it's really screwed up. >> kevin oo'leary, j.w., thanks so much. >> critics slammed jack dorsey for using stock as comp, saying it hurts the business. the son of hugh hefner will explain why he's on the anti- trump bandwagon. stay tuned. being hacked and intellectual property being stolen. that is cyber-crime and it affects each and every one of us. microsoft created the digital crimes unit

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it lets you trade stocks, options, futures... even advanced orders. and it offers more charts than a lot of other competitors do on desktop. you work so late. i guess you don't see your family very much? i see them all the time. did you finish your derivatives pricing model, honey? td ameritrade. >> sounding off on family friend donald trump, warning millenn l millennials saying trump could take the country backwards. chief creative officer of hob media. have you heard from the trumps? >> i have not. >> why did you feel so strongly about this to make it a public statement? >> i always said that if i didn't have the opportunity to pursue a career in playboy or some branding effort that i would have wanted to pursue a career in government. this was a topic that was of

interest to me before trump was involved in politics. >> you wouldn't want to pursue it the way he has. what do you think is wrong and dangerous about donald trump's campaign as president? >> for one he has absolutely no understanding or respect for the office. he's sort of rewriting the playbook for how every other individual has gone about running their campaign. but most importantly, most of his policies are backed and supported by racist notions. so you know -- >> do you consider yourself republican? >> no, i don't. i consider myself a democrat. >> i'm wondering in general, you direct this at millennials the wisdom seems to be the core of trump's popularity is in older people, middle age and above. >> yes. >> it's not like you're pushing against a wave of millennial support for trump is it? >> there are a number of videos

that surfaced where millennials have been outspoken about supporting trump and a young movement that is tea party conservative. the piece was to promote younger individuals who have skipped out on opportunity to vote to step forward and participate a little more and maybe educate themselves and start actually having a real dialogue and conversation about politics that doesn't exist with most people my age. >> how close a family friend is done altd trump? >> i said this when i did a piece on nbc and that was asked of me as well. i said the mansion facilitated a lot of different people coming through. and i have the opportunity to obviously meet a number of different business men and women and actors and actresses and entrepreneurs. and you don't really -- my relationship with him was based on -- it was a childhood relationship. i spent a very small amount of time with him as an adult. it was -- i had no opinion of

trump until he threw his hat into the presidential race and obviously listened like the rest of the country do a lot of things he was talking about and felt the duty to say there are young people and there are other people voicing that opinion. but there are other young people who truly do not support what this -- >> you've known the guy for a while then. there are a lot of people who will say, a lot of this is dog whistling. >> i don't know how familiar you are with the editorial i wrote but i spoke on behalf of the fact that it is incredibly dangerous when you have somebody running for politics who isn't really concerned with how he or she is remembered rather that they are concerned with the fact that they are remembered. that should be alarming to everyone because you want somebody going in who is concerned with what their legacy is. >> isn't that when president obama -- he also -- there's so many different what he's been doing which are clearly about being remembered. >> obama? >> yeah. >> whether normalizing relations

with cuba, signing the iran deal? >> of course, but according on your politics you'll view those decisions as positive. if you talk to millennials who are liberals, the fact that the embargo with cuba exists is irrelevant when one of our largest trade partners is china. it doesn't make any sense. >> cooper, fair enough. thanks for joining us. we appreciate you sharing your views. time for a cnbc news update. sue? >> here's what's happening this hour. speaking of cuba, the u.s. postal service will resume mail service to cuba for first time in 50 years. the types of mail allowed will include letters and postcards and full list is available on the post office's website. the announcement comes as the president prepares to travel to cuba this weekend. oklahoma correction officers caught an interesting intruder. they were on patrol when they

saw flashing lights approaching the prison. those lights turned out to be a drone carrying three cell phones. it's the second drone flown into an oklahoma prison within the last six months. new radar scans of king tut's burial chamber revealed two hidden rooms which researchers think might contain the remains of the queen. her mummy has never been found. just in time for easter, look at that. the doughnut game is reaching to a whole new level. cooking up what it's calling a cream egg crow nut, white and orange fondant and topped with a kadbury cream egg. >> yum. >> it's not for me. >> i'll stick with the peanut butter reese's egg. >> that's my speed, kel. >> so good.

thank you so much. >> the mobile payments industry is getting increasingally competitive. how ceo jack dorsey plans to stay ahead of the position. is the performance of bank stocks keeping pace? we'll break down the numbers for you later on "the closing bell." i am benedict arnold, the infamous traitor. and i know a thing or two about trading. so i trade with e*trade, where true traders trade on a trademarked trade platform that has all the... get off the computer traitor! i won't.

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>> take a look at shares of square. the stock down more than 8%, up about 33% since the ipo back in november. we talked about the stock move for this company which was started by jack dorsey. i was interested in learning more about the square business itself and i met with dorsey in san francisco to learn more. ♪ >> why is this so important to be a square guy? >> customer experience is pretty important. if we can leverage technology to give people a better experience, it's pretty great. >> i see square at coffee shops and places where you want to get in and out and high volume. but why is it still so important for you? >> i don't know if it's about speed so much security for us is

nice. and i think people if they see us dipping their card like they do at other retailers, i think it sort of puts us in the league with retailers who are on top of things. >> i'm ready, sir, thank you. >> then you owe me $8.70. >> that's a lot for soap but it smells very good. >> usually it's this one but -- there we go. cool. does square take a cut of everything? >> we charge 2.75% and we pay the networks and everything outside of that. that means the seller never has to think about 2.75%. >> that's what your compensation is, isn't it? it's $2.75. >> i get paid $2.75 -- >> very symbolic. ♪ >> with companies like his, do you reach out and sign him up or does he say we want to use this technology. >> the majority of growth is organic in people coming to us. we benefit from the word of

mouth. >> pretend he's not here. what do you really think of the company? >> square has made figuring out which coffee is the most popular. we brought in a really small lot. it was great seeing how popular her coffee was because we had to charge a little bit more for that one but now we can go back next year and say, we would love to give you this premium price and bring in that special coffee again because people are going to love it. >> inventory management as much as anything. >> yeah. >> not just about payments but giving you real time sense of what proksz are selling best and all of that? >> absolutely. ♪ >> just this year posting a profit. how do you change the economics of that so overtime you get more of the revenue growth without so much of the cost that go along with that? >> starting me company comes with cost. you invest in growth and you're

betting that you can build a really healthy and self-sustaining business out of it. >> you have a ton of different lines, right? >> not a ton, a manageable amount. >> it seems like a lot. you've got a lot going on here which is interesting. i wonder as it all shakes out, what's your ideal mix of payments and square capital and cavier -- >> with us it's simple, how do you make the sale. that's payments and how do you make more sales? there's really two big buckets. it's a pretty tight collection of services that most importantly work together. we don't have any competitors who we've seen that build a cohesive experience for a seller. >> do you still feel you're in the heavy investment phase of this company or feel you've done all of the big investments and now you're just hoping and entering the more profits heavy phase? >> i always want to be in the growth phase. i always want to grow our

network. and we'll continue to invest as we continue to build that network out and we went to canada and japan. we just announced australia. we have the whole rest of the world too. we'll continue to invest but even in the united states, there's 20 million small businesses that don't accept credit cards. >> and that's where square capital comes in. what i love about that that's interesting, you let a business owner open an e-mail from you, say cheryl will take the $5,000 and in order to take you back, you take a cut out of every trans sks until i paid you back. >> make it easy for the seller so they don't have to think about it. >> what's the take-up been? >> it's been really strong. square capital is one of our fastest growing products. it offers a really simple easy financial product to a seller. they don't have to go and visit a bank branch.

>> do you think you're putting traditional banking world on notice here? what you're talking about direct to business loans basically? >> but we have a bank behind it. what we've done -- we've made sure that we've had the banking system today works pretty well. a lot of what we think, how do you make is more successful and easier. so more people can participate. >> who owns the loans? >> we have a percentage on the balance sheets and sell to investors and other banks. >> now we're standing outside of loving cup for some yog urt. >> what do you like about square? >> we love all of the reports and also just like all of the different products. we can pretty much do everything through square now. i can invoice for catering and do customer feedback and talk to customers directly. another great feature is this tipping screen. it really increases the amount

of tips employees get, dramatically. i mean, probably over 50%. >> what should i try? >> oh, well the rice pudding is in here if you want to sample any of it. >> i need to get two of these. >> so you started twitter. that was at what point in your life? >> that was in 2006. >> okay. >> because you left college, right and that was -- was it because you had the idea for the company or did you have a bunch of different ideas going? >> i felt i was learning more outside of school than i was inside of school. i decided to drop out. my mom is still upset. >> seems to me like the next jack dorsey move must be a cool new idea that will look obvious in retrospect. >> this is enough for me. i'm excited about our future because both with communication and commerce, there's so much to solve and we have such an

opportunity to make it easier for people. and a lot more engaging. >> do you like being a manager? >> i like being on a team. i like being on a team that's creating something unique and creating something that empowers people. >> why is stock based compensation so important in terms of building the team and keeping the team? it's come under some criticism. >> it's important because i think fundamentally everyone feels more like an owner of the business. we want people that are continuing to provide ideas to grow the business in the right way. >> do you care if it hurts the share price performance in the near term? >> we're always going to think long term. and we're building a business that i ultimately want to endure beyond my lifetime. >> do you think it's always the right thing for a company to do to grow and democratize everybody's ability to invest in these companies? do you have any regrets about the process?

how do you feel about it? >> i don't have any regrets about the process. for us at square, our desire was really -- we saw this as a fund raising event, a natural path for us. >> the jack dorsey version of the year 2025 looks pretty similar to jack dorsey vintage 2016? >> i have a lot more gray hair and probably wrinkles. i don't know. >> the fundamental question for most people, will he still be ceo of both of these companies? both he said when pressed on the issue about stock based comp, he wanted to be in it for 30 years. >> you asked him the right question, still in the investment phase with square. it would seem to me that's the business that kind of is -- it kind of should take care of itself more. it seems like the models in place, just a matter of penetrating against known competitors as opposed to doctoring constantly with the product and building a new team. that's just my thought on it. i'm not sure the market doesn't really like the whole situation with the split duties. >> that too. >> such a good interview.

you learned a lot of different things. from a user point of view they like it's fast and they like the speed. from a business owner they like the security and like the data anl lit ticks that come behind it. from an investor point of view, they have some time. i do think you don't necessarily invest -- at least with 2 feet in when a company is so aggressively spending, you start to really get interested when that starts to tail off like facebook. remember, they are always going to invest a lot of money. when you get to see the results of that, that's when you get excited. >> i do wonder if the market, to put the market on the couch a little bit in terms of what it's viewing square as. it's like a fit bit, nobody denies this whole area has tremendously grown. how big the pie is -- nobody thifrpgds square is remotely alone. paypal does what they do. and the question is do they have a much better mouse trap? >> absolutely. they will continue to hangover the stock. we have breaking news on a deal in the energy pipe line space to

get to. dominic chu has the details. >> the natural gas sides of things, shares of trans canada and columbia pipeline group, has been talked about in the markets for some time. we now have an official deal on the books here. transcanada inks a deal to buy pipeline for $13 billion total, that includes debt. the equity component is closer to $10 billion or about $25.50 per share in cash. the deal would create a very large pipeline operator in north america. covering a lot of ground here and trans canada interest in columbia pipeline specifically about these pipelines they have going from the new york shale and upper pennsylvania shale regions all the way down to the gulf of mexico. this deal is now done. pending regulatory approval and what not. we're watching those shares. columbia pipeline shares up by 4.5% to $24.60. 136,000 shares of volume. it's about a dollar below the

implied price for the takeover. back over to you guys. >> there's still some question. thank you very much, dom, whether it gets approved. i guess if you can't build it, you buy it. >> geographically it meshes together perfectly and look at the canadian exposure and northeast exposure. it seems like it makes sense but it's a matter whether you can get it done. >> there's been a turnover in the administration in canada from one that was very pro the pipeline to one who doesn't have quite the same rhetoric. >> it's interesting that companies are still looking to build their businesses in their horrible environment to become better when they get out of this turn. it's encouraging from that point of view. >> we'll see if it matches ultimately the bid price there. fa why is bank ceo pay soaring? we'll talk about that next. ftin. its technology-filled cabin...jaw-dropping. its performance...breathtaking.

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>> welcome back, bank ceo pay is on the rise again but bank stocks not so much. dominic chu has more. >> they certainly are a big focus for a lot of wall street investors and alet of times they want to see investors ceo pay being commence rat with performance. let's put up three major players and how they are doing with regard to the 2015 pay against what they did in terms of stock performance. corbat has earned $16.5 million if. you use cash salary, made $16.5

million. 27% higher than what he did last year. the stock not terrible but still down 4%. brian moynihan, 23% increase in about a 6% drop in shares in 2015 jamie dimon signaling a bottom for many investors with regard to the market at that time, those shares again up 6% in calendar year 2015. his pay you can see there went up a pretty decent amount as well. if you talk about the overall banks, it is about whether or not it's pay for performance. some of the largest ceos making a pretty penny despite lagging performance. >> i feel like they are getting paid sort of combat bonuses. all of these ceos have been through this war of nursing the

banks back to some semblance of health in the regular tri demands and everything else. you can't tether it that tightly to stock performance. with michael corbat, you have to pass the stress test at citigroup. >> they are now seeing to mill lenni lennials, you can have a year off to do service work and keep you interested in working for us and nurture the next generation of talent. are they worth the premium? to some extent are they interchangeable or do you need to be a special person with the comp that comes with it to steer these companies? >> i think if you can run a bank, especially these kinds of banks and if you can run them well and get -- not get them into too much trouble. that's a pretty big job. now i'm not saying their expense is justified based on stock prices, i would also agree with mike, a lot of the reasons the stock hasn't done so well because of the macro. we're talking about janet yellen and yield curve. that is a huge, huge head wind.

over time they should look at stock price and through cycles. we're just about to enter a cycle where you see higher rates and the banks can outperform and in that case do you pay him mor >> in retrospect, it would make this year look a little less problematic. at least 40 million americans are filling out their ncaa basketball tournament brackets. find out the odds of your bracket going up. jishs sales event is on.

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. welcome back. hard to believe march madness is officially under way. 32 college teams taking the court today. this isn't just about hoops anymore, of course, it's about brackets and betting. eric, how do we navigate it? >> there's a lot of money, billions of dollars. look at the stats, 40 million americans that will put in at least one bracket. and that means there will be like 70 million brackets total. which means a lot of people will do more than one. the average bracket is $29. that's $2 billion as you can see on the map here. just for the brackets. but there's another $7 billion

which gets you to $9 billion total bet on the tournament. and nevada sports book, all these people are betting on games. this is data from the american gaming association. here's the question. we asked some of the broadcasters, some of the management of march madness, is more than one bracket cheating. here's some of the sound bytes that we got. >> the first candidate who comes out and says, look, one march madness bracket. that's the law. he's getting my vote. >> to be a real true sports fan, you can only have one bracket. >> just one. one bracket. i think it's cheating when you fill out multiple brackets. i'm going to have a bracket bylaws that i'm going to establish. one of the rules is going to be you can only fill out one bracket. that's cheating. >> it's interesting that the players, the former players and the broadcasters, the ones who actually do the job, they say you can only do one bracket. but if you ask the bosses, heads

of cbs and turner, they try to fill out more than one. they try to diversify. >> only so many teams i can follow and so many brackets i can follow. i'll keep it to three this year. >> i'll probably fill out about ten brackets. >> ten brackets for the head of turner. it's like, each channel they have on, three brackets for tnt, tbs, just so many. >> do you think it's cheating to do more than one? >> those guys are probably richer than their employees, so maybe they take a diversified approach to brackets. that's why turner has so many channels. they can put games on every channel. i don't think it's cheating. but this is the year if you're ever going to do more than one, this is the year, because there's no game with really good odds, like kentucky last year being undefeated. >> i think it makes sense that the higher ups, they're more interested in maximizing their chance to win money. the players, they want to see if their expertise -- they actually have a strong view on how the

tournament should go. >> it's like hedging stocks, though, right? if you have ten brackets, you're not going to do that well. if you have one, you get it right, you could really hit the mother load. >> you should be talking to these people. >> eric, thanks so much for joining us. we'll get another check on the adobe earnings for you, and get you set up for tomorrow's trading day.

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the story today with fedex, that company had the best day since 1993 in the markets. tomorrow it could be adobe systems. up about 5% after hours. as people look through the results, looks more and more like lie they stay. >> the prescription models clearly is working. i think the guidance was better than what people expected. i just think that this one had kind of fallen, even though did it so well last year, it kind of fell out of the radar screen, as one of the most favorite names in tech. i think it's back on. >> is it enough to burnish the rally, persist another day? >> maybe, if he puts in a relative bid in. it's not been the story of this entirely rally. >> great point. anything else you're watching? >> just the way the rally metabolizes. we're at the heights of the year. i think it remains to be seen.

>> the volume still needs to come out and show itself, if you will. thank you guys so much. we'll let you go watch basketball. "fast money" begins right now. you've got to watch "fast money." overlooking new york city in times square. tonight on fast, the man who called the rally in gold is back. you will not believe where he sees the yellow metal heading next. the shocking call that could have major implications for the market. a biotech blood bath. on track for its worst quarter since 2002. is there any hope for a turn-around. oil topping 40 bucks a barrel since early december. one widely followed strategist said do not buy the hype. he'll tell you what has him so worried about this rally in crude. first, we start with a historic day with stock, closing out with the highs of the session, turning positive for