live from new york, where business never sleeps, this is "squawk box." good morning, everybody. welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc. i'm becky quick along with andrew ross sorkin and brian sullivan, who's here nursing a shaving wound for the last hour and a half. he won't be smiling. he won't bei ining cracking jok. >> i cut my lip shaving. bleeding for two hours. i just want to throw it out there. >> he needs a stitch. >> i had a witch doctor. anything. >> i saw you bleeding on the street as i was pulling up this morning. >> did you really? >> i did. you were standing there getting coffee. i was like, oh, what happened? okay. no smiling. joe is off today. we're going to talk more about a lot of things that are happening this morning. let's get that out of the way off the bat. equity futures this morning giving back a little ground. of course, the dow was up by triple digits yesterday. right now looks like the dow futures are down by 79 points. s&p futures are down by close to

ten points. the nasdaq off by 22. crude oil prices were up sharply overnight, topping $40 a barrel. first time we've seen that in quite a while. that came after the announcement yesterday of a surprise job in u.s. inventories. however, wti has turned around since then. looks like we flipped that contract, too. if you were looking at $40 overnight, we're now looking at the may contract. that's a decline of 7 cents to 37.69. it will be interesting to see how this new contract plays out. we did see a huge gain in crude oil prices yesterday. the other big mover this morning, currency. the dollar hitting a 17 hch month low against the yen. this came after the minutes from the last month's fed meeting suggested that the central bank is unlikely to raise interest rates before june. there were a lot in these minutes, but most people are looking at the dove's comments after what we heard from janet yellen just last week. brian? >> some corporate stories to talk to you about this morning. just go right to the video. don't even have me on camera this morning. elon musk has tweeted that the electric carmaker will give an update on model 3 reservation

numbers early today. much more on tesla and its ability to meet demand coming at the top of the next hour. valeant pharmaceuticals has secured a debt commitment. and recode is reporting that yahoo! is expecting revenue to drop 15% and earnings to fall more than 20% compared to last year. >> that's shocking. >> huge number. that's a big number. >> okay. we got a must read. we're just talking about the must reads in the last show. this, to me, is the must read. jpmorgan releasing jamie dimon's annual letter to shareholders. we're going to go through the highlights. it is worth knowing them. dimon says he's not worried about negative interest rates in the u.s. that's because the chief executive noting that housing is

in short supply, car sales are at record levels, and consumers are spending what he's calling the gas dividend. dimon is more concerned about rates rising faster than people expect. banking ceo also warning higher volatility, he says is here to stay. the bank has seen extreme volatility and distortions in several markets. on the fed's bank stress test, dimon argued they're flawed. he suggested jpmorgan could absorb the theoretical losses of the nation's 31 largest banks. on the global front, dimon warning of economic trouble from a brexit. he says years of uncertainty would be the best-case outcome from a decision by britain to leave the european union. as for jpm shares, dimon says he's not proud of the stock's performance over the last decade. he notes shares have only equaled the s&p 500 since the bank's merger with bank one in july 2004, which is when he joined jpm. but dimon also points out his

firm's stock has far outperformed the s&p financials index and has been one of the best performers of all the banks during this difficult period. remember, dimon had bought 500,000 jpm shares back in mid-february, which helped boost the sentiment. people talk about it as indithe dimon bottom. he's basically taken the warren buffett model, which he talks about how he loves the model. >> he writes what he sees from it. he does it without the lawyers getting involved. that's a rare thing in the corporate world. >> i bet the lawyers still do get involved. >> yes, but i think he holds way more sway than a lot of letters. if you compare letters and look through, you can hear who's writing in their own voice and who's not. we should tell you about another ceo of a dow component who's also sounding off. general electric ceo jeff immelt is defending his firm after recent harsh comments from presidential hopeful bernie

sanders. writing in "the washington post," bernie sanders says we are destroying the moral fabric of america. he is wrong. this comes after sanders cited ge as an example of corporate greed at its worst. he says ge created wealth and jobs in the united states, not just overseas, and that the company has never been a big hit with socialists. immelt also said, sanders has state ph.d many times ge pays n taxes. repeating a lie over and over doesn't make it true. we pay billions of dollars in taxes. we support comprehensive tax reform, even if it raises our tax rate. >> meantime, the pfizer ceo firing back against treasury's crackdown against tax inversions on wall street in a journal piece hit the kwld treasury is wrong about our merger and growth."

government policies should encourage investment, certainty, and job creation. the new, quote, rules, show there are no set rules. political dogma, is, andrew, the only tool. >> it was a good piece. all these pieces, the business community does have to stand up occasionally. >> you always hear so-and-so company pays no tax. they may have had a giant loss carry forward, so you could pluck out a year. pfizer's tax rate effective over ten years. you could probably find one year they didn't pay as much. >> the bernie sanders interview was crazy. can we put it on the record? >> you're talking about on "the daily news"? >> that's what the immelt piece is about effectively.

>> bernie sanders has been saying this on the campaign trail. >> if people don't know, bernie sanders gave a long interview with "the new york daily news" newspaper. they sit there and ask you questions. >> and he has no idea what he's talking about with banks. then he's saying ge is a terrible company. he says ge doesn't pay taxes. >> he also doesn't know how to ride the subway. he said you throw the token in. >> i don't know. the whole thing made me crazy. merck ceo kent frazier saying that his company would not pursue a tax inversion, instead focusing his efforts on merck's pipeline. yesterday on "closing bell," he said he understands why companies opt for inversions. >> it's really important to recognize why companies seek to do tax inversions, and that is the current u.s. system of taxation makes u.s.-based companies simply uncompetitive.

>> frazier said the treasury's new rules do nothing to fix the source of the issues. everybody says, by the way, in all of their defenses of the inversions, please fix it, please fix it, please fix it. but at the same time, there's this whole new idea that it's sort of un-american that you can't leave. but the un-american idea that i think everyone's referring to these days is the rule of law, the fact the laws are changing in front of our eyes. >> well, getting used to it. what jeff immelt said was important. we're in favor of comprehensive tax reform, even if it raises our tax rates. when you get people stepping up and saying that, that shows you, look, this is not just about me wanting to pay a lower tax return. this is about making sure the system is competitive and making sure we're able to do this in a global economy. let's get a check on the markets this morning. brian? >> let's look at the futures. as becky it would you earlier, indicating a down open right now. very early in the morning. the dow futures down about 80 points. s&p 500 futures downs about 11. let's look at the european

markets as well. we are seeing a down trade there as well. in germany, the dax down about 0.3%. biggest drop is in italy, where we're seeing a 1% decline. still, declines across the board in europe. let's get a check on the asia markets now. we are seeing the hang seng up about 0.3%. the theme of the morning is not big moves. a little decline here, a little gain there. >> which is actually impressive. after the weakness of the dollar yesterday, i was waiting to see what happened in a market like japan. with the dollar-yen at 109 at this point, you start to wonder if that's going to have a huge impact. what the fed is doing here not necessarily playing into what the other central banks have been doing. >> the yen has been strengthening. i think that's maybe your theme of the week. okay, let's check oil -- >> can i correct on oil prices? wti was not above $40. it was brent that closed above $40. wti, 37.62.

that's down about 13 cents. it was brent that pushed above $40. >> becky, you did not mess up. you just predicted the future. >> i won't tell you when in the future. >> crude oil down about 0.3%. that's 13 cents. it's the morning of no big moves. the benchmark ten-year treasury note at 1.73%. becky referenced the dollar-yen. it's suddenly become the trade to watch. 108.36. the yen is strengthening. the dollar is weakening against the japanese currency. that's sort of your currency board to watch this morning. gold still the best performing major asset class of the year. gold up 14.20 an ounce. that's about 1.2%. >> let's talk markets. despite the market's triple-digit move on wednesday, there are still big challenges for investors. the ipo market in particular has ground to a basic halt.

the number of ipo offerings hitting lows not seen since 2008. does that portend something terrible to happen? earnings season kicking off next week with low expectations. wall street bracing for the worst earnings season since the great recession. this week we've seen the regulatory environment get much har harsher, potentially putting a major crimp on m&a activity. so how are investors navigating the obstacles? joining us now is jason pride as well as steven parker. good morning to both of you. first, let's start on what we expect next week. everybody expects it's going to be terrible. starting to make me think it might be fantastic, or at least better than terrible. >> i think we're going through one of these situations where we've been referring to it as the two-handed economist scenario, right. trueman used to criticize and say he wanted a one-hand economist because he's gott answers on this hand. the reality is this scenario is

one of those scenarios. we're in an economic expansion. we haven't been derailed from that economic expansion. but we're in the seventh year of it. there's some building up risks. it's inherently fragile economic expansion. so the other hand argument is surprisingly strong right now. investors need to take that into account when positioning portfolios. >> you agree with that? do you buy if that's the case? are we all too pessimistic about what's about to happen? >> as you said, earnings this quarter are going to be bad. this is likely to be the trough in terms of year-over-year earnings growth. >> you're sticking with the conventional wisdom, you don't want to buck it? >> what's more important than the actual results this quarter, which are likely going to beat those low expectations, is what we're hearing about the future. think back to q-1. for most of the fourth quartirs we were talking about recession, a collapse in oil prices. it was only in the middle of february, the middle of that quarter, when things started to turn around. some of the recent economic data is starting to pick up.

some of the forward-leading indicators are getting better. we need to see what companies are saying about the future and if they can paint a better picture about the back half of the year now that oil is stabilized. >> given the takeover premium in the marketplace, almost across the board, given what just happened with this inversion bit, given what's happening on the anti-trust front, how much of a premium do you take off? is there any multiple point or a piece of the multiple where you say, you know what, the market is a little overdone? >> i think you have to look at that. we're looking at valuations today that are still a little bit above the historical average in the u.s. markets. internationally, you get a discount. but when you're thinking about returns in this environment, this economic expansion, the economic momentum, while it's improving -- and i agree with that. i do still believe we're in an economic expansion.

that underlying vulnerability is on the lower side. those couple pieces just take away from the ability of the market to kind of soar a lot higher. >> what is that piece of it saying? the fact the ipo market is shut. >> you know, i think that there is just a lot of hesitancy in markets right no uh. if you look at what's going on in the world, we're seeing a lot of frothiness in what is perceived as safety assets. you've seen tons of money flowing into gold, into government bonds, into the yen. when you look at equities broadly, we've seen massive outflows out of stocks. we've seen massive inflows into things like quality etfs. these are sectors which people perceive as safe. they're trading really expensive right now. i think that's part of it. people are looking for what they perceive as being very safe because they think that interest rates are staying low forever now. the conviction people have no

low rates forever is the same conviction people had that rates were going up for the last five years. >> and jamie dimon talked about that in the annual letter. he's worried that people won't be able to take the uptick. >> if you see signs of improving growth, if you see signs that inflation is picking up, that rates may move higher, you'll see a big rotation out of some of these perceived safe haven assets. >> and i like what you're saying about the lack of ipos because we forget that, you know, it's a little wonky. but there's so much less stock to buy. with all the buybacks we've had, billions of shares have been taken off the market. no new shares are coming. so the same amount -- even if we have the same amount of dollar volume, no new money added, it's going after a smaller pool, which maybe then has a little bit of a push. >> i think you also have to think about the economic impact of a slower pace of ipos and a

slower high yield issuance market. those two pieces, which kind of provide that next level of financing for growth, both of those have ground to a halt. the only thing you're really seeing is you have industrial grade issuance is absolutely fine, but the high-yield issuance is nonexistent. >> is that because of the freakout? >> it's because of the freakout, and that lasts for a while. >> it was such a huge move. came back, but it may take people a little time. >> i suspect it may come back relatively fast. yields have snapped back in. still, you have that window. it has to have some sort of economic impact because it's companies that can't get the money they want during that time period. so you assume that's got to have -- you know, i think one of the things that we just talked about, this overpricing of safety, but it's not across the board. one of the interesting things we

found is valuation spreads really are across a lot of the stocks, it got really wide at the beginning of this year. at the same time, when you looked intrasector and intraindustry, within those, the stable companies were actually not that expensive relative to the less stable companies. so there's a way to kind of eat your cake and have it too, where you can play safety within the industries and sectors but also on the other side -- >> do you want to offer us a name since you've given us this very general view? >> well, we do it in a fairly broad approach and strategy. i do end think picking names really helps a lot along those lines. >> fair enough. guys, thank you. appreciate this. >> thanks. >> thank you. all right. in squawk sports news, we are just a few hours away from the tee off of the first round of the masters. 22-year-old jordan spieth will try to defend his title and win

another green jacket. on wednesday, yesterday, it was the annual par 3 contest, an event where the players relax, have a little bit of fun, bring their kids out, whatever. there were nine holes in one on the course. but the biggest may have been by golf legend gary player. the 80-year-old nine-time major champion, three-time masters winner nailing ace on the seventh hole. that was his fourth career in the par 3 contest. the par 3 contest, jimmy walker. but that's not necessarily something you want. nobody who has ever won the par 3 contest has gone on to win the masters. >> a first time for everything. >> there is. 80-year-old gary player with a hole in one. the event is also a great time for families. several kids getting a chance to show off their skills on the course. and their celebratory tactics. even golf must show that you're the man. >> that's awesome. i love seeing excitement for it.

you go. when we come back, as wall street alrea-- has wall street already picked a winner in the presidential election? we have details next. stick around. "squawk box" will be right back. everhas a number.olicy

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welcome back, everybody. a citigroup poll of institutional clients has already predicted the winner of the 2016 presidential election. that poll has hillary clinton winning by a whopping 70%. other market predicts are telling the same story. joining us now to talk about this is joel benson, the ceo of the strategy group. he's also hillary clinton's poller is. tony frato worked in the george w. bush white house. gentlemen, thanks for being here. joel, why don't we talk about this. at this point, these are early predictions. we don't even know who's going to become the nominee of each party and what's happened this week may make that a little more interesting. what do you think of these predictions? >> well, look, i don't know that they correlate to how voters are going to vote in november. i do believe we have a strong advantage. i think that the way the campaign is playing out, we've still got to get through the primary. i think we have a nearly ins

insurmountable lead in delegates. i will say that the republican campaign has just reinforced so many of the negatives of the brand of the republican party that has been struggling now for years in democratic elections. so that's going to create a steep uphill climb for them in november. >> i wouldn't say that this is necessarily a strength of the democrats coming through, but it is a weakness of the republicans. >> it is. look, i think in some ways which party is less divided, i think the democrats are less divided right now marginally than the republicans. i think about it as the chickens coming home to roost. we welcomed in the party people with different views. >> people have said, look, the republicans couldn't win election after election. they needed to broaden the base and bring other people in. >> you do, but you have to do it in a cohesive way. you can't do it -- you're not going to build a party with

people who have, you know, dimetrically opposite views. it's not sustainable. it's not durable. it's not going to get you through big elections. big elections are going to fail you. we've seen that a couple times now. that's what the republican party has to get back and do. what are the things with we believe in? whether it's a religion or a party, you have to educate the flock and let them know what it's about. teach them and bring them to that place. >> can i jump in for a second? i think it does reflect the strength of the democratic party, particularly in this environment. people's economic lives have not fully recovered. we went through the worst crisis in history. >> that's why you have so much populism playing out. >> people feel when they look at the line of record corporate profits and productivity going up for workers and wages staying stagnant, it's not only affecting their lives. >> i agree, but that's helping donald trump a lot. >> it's helping democrats a lot in general elections. i think the challenge for business leaders is how long can

you look at that line and not understand that if you don't share some of those profits that workers are contributing to raise wages, you can dilute the american work ethic, which has been the strength of our economy for centuries. so that flat lining of wages is not good for business. it's not good for america. >> the question s how do you get there? how do you fix that? there are philosophical differences and questions about how you get there. >> there certainly are. >> that's ultimately what's at the base of this dispute. >> we talk about corporate profits. we talk about corporations. some people in politics vilify corporations. most americans don't work for big companies. 95% of americans or something like that work for small business. >> remember what the threshold for small business is in america. it's fewer than 500 employees. >> i'm not saying there's not a problem, but very few americans actually work for large corporations. >> it has little to do with what corporate america is doing. that's actually the biggest point. if you're only listening to what

bernie sanders and donald trump are saying about the phenomenon of wages, you're not -- >> between the two of them, though, that's a large voting population. >> did you see the bernie sanders interview? >> "the daily news" one? >> my former employer. i read the transcript. >> you thought what? >> about bernie's interview? it's pretty staggering when you're running for president for longs you are, talking about banks and what you're going to do and you clearly expose that you don't have a clear plan. in fact, when you do it, you're sort of saying the same thing hillary clinton has been saying about dealing with banks, which is the dodd-frank law already has the tools to break down banks -- >> let me ask you -- >> no, let me finish. >> hold on. this guy who you think doesn't know what he's talking about is pulling your candidate to the left. >> how is he pull -- she has said from the beginning to dismantle banks that pose a systemic risk, we have the tools within dodd-frank. she's been saying that in every

debate, andrew. >> part of it is minimum wage. she's not been in favor of the $15. >> no, but -- >> she was in favor of tpp, before she wasn't. >> hold on. she's been in faufr of a $12 federal minimum wage. >> you think he's had no exact on her thinking? >> no. hillary clinton has been a progressive her whole life. why do you think republicans have been attacking her for 25 years? >> i could not disagree more. one of the most cynical moments in this entire campaign was hillary clinton deciding to turn her back on tpp. after having been a pro trade, free trade person her entire career, purely for political purposes say she's going to oppose it. >> it allows china to have more control -- >> it's wrong. >> it's not wrong. it wasn't in the details until the negotiation.

what hillary clinton said was, i'll wait. she's advocated strong trade deals. >> it is a strong trade deal. >> she has supported and opposed trade. >> what was the year of peak manufacturing jobs in america? >> you have to go back about -- >> do you know? tony, do you know? >> it's four decades. >> 1979. >> thank you. >> the peak of manufacturing in america. what i'm suggesting is we're talking about trade deals and bringing back -- we need to do that, joel. i agree. it's tough. my parent's neighbor lost his job when his plant closed down in my hometown in winchester, virginia, to make green lightbulbs in china. but what are we talking about here? are we talking about going back to the '70s? >> that's the wrong question. >> we need to kill trade deals, right. what are we talking about? >> hillary clinton has never said kill trade deals. she's said clearly we have to have tough trade deals we enforce. she's supported good ones that protect workers and jobs here. and she's opposed bad ones that

don't strengthen our security. >> i'm not here to talk about bernie sanders. if you want to bring bernie in here, let him defend it. >> our trade deals have helped this economy. you asked the question, what was peak manufacturing jobs? what was the year for peak manufacturing output? last year. >> well, in terms of dollar volume. because we're manufacturing higher cost goods. >> that's a good thing. >> unless wrote robots are the them. >> my candidate, hillary clinton, supports things like the export-import bank, which has led to record export numbers in states like michigan, ohio. senator staanders wants to defu the export-import bank. that goes to a lot of the small businesses you're talking about that are make things here. we have to compete around the world. we can only do that if we

support good trade deals. >> real quick, is this a rebuilding year? have you thrown in the towel? >> look, 2017 is going to have to be a rebuilding year. this is a break it apart year. >> although, tony, to your original point about wanting to get back to conservative roots, that's been why jack welch has come on and said he supported ted cruz. what do you think of cruz? >> ted cruz is not nearly as divisive as donald trump. >> let's take him out of the context in comparison to donald trump. >> as a guy who's not advocating for us to go on a gold standard s that going to appeal to a broad swath of american voters? probably not. that's not what i'm talking about. what i'm talking about is realistic policies that answer the biggest questions that americans are asking. so they're asking, what are going to be the opportunities

for my children when the robots or the chinese take over the jobs we expect we're going to have? these are economic insecurity questions that really are the biggest questions of this campaign. we're not doing a good job of answering them, except with loud shouting. >> should kasich drop out? why is he still in the race? he has almost no realistic chance. i'm not knocking kasich. i'm saying from a numbers perspective, almost no chance of winning. if you don't want trump, cruz and kasich are sort of beating each other up under a the corner. >> he's an alternative for people who don't like the politics of trump and cruz. he doesn't have to get out. if there's some hail mary pass -- >> should he drop out? >> no, he should stay in as long as he wants to stay in. you get a chance to run for president -- what's the alternative? are you saying he should get out because -- >> i'm saying if you don't want trump and cruz is the next best

option, kasich is stealing votes. >> but he's also keeping donald trump from getting 1237. >> it depends on the state. i don't think either will get to 1237 before we get to cleveland. >> by the way, i think you called the gop the cleveland browns. it's a rebuilding year. every year has been a rebuilding year for 20 years. >> they need to rebuild with people who agree on principles. >> joel, tony, thank you both for coming in. coming up, three of the biggest u.s. airlines closing a loophole in airline ticket pricing, but why a price hike might be coming your way. and booze news. it is apparently national beer day. we're going to tell you which celebrity americans most want to grab a brew with. that's next. as we head to break, let's take a look at yesterday's s&p 500 winners and losers. those new glasses?

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welcome back to "squawk box." it's time mow for the executive edge. changes to airline prices could cost you hundreds of dollars. american airlines, delta, and united are changing the way they're going to price multicity trips for travelers visiting several cities on one trip. nonrefundable tickets are available only when booked st e

separately. the websites are going to offer more expensive, refundable tickets. so you should book each leg of the trip separately. it could save you hundreds of dollars. there's a new study by creditcards.com that found that 70% of u.s. credit card holders now have those new emv chip cards. however, only 22% to 37% of retailers have actually adopted the new chip card readers. that puts the retailers at risk because the deadline to upgrade was october. now retailers without the new card readers are financially responsible for fraud charges on those cards. the national retail federation is fighting back. it says many merchants are ready for the switch but are still waiting for the card issuers to certify their new machines. and everybody, happy national beer day. according to an anheuser busch survey, tina fey is this year's celebrity that americans would like to most have a beer with. she narrowly beats out jimmy

fallon. apparently the survey was conducted across the street at 30 rock. in the next hour, we'll talk to two brewers jumping head first into the craft beer craze. coming up when we return, a rundown of today's potential market movers. we'll give you the squawk planner next. and the oil market is in focus. major producers set to meet a week from sunday to discuss a potential output freeze. we have insight from an energy strategist in just a minute. as we head to a break, take a look at what's happening in european markets right now. little bit of a mixed picture. things in germany and the u.k. looking green. mary buys a little lamb. one of millions of orders on this company's servers. accessible by thousands of suppliers and employees globally. but with cyber threats on the rise, mary's data could be under attack. with the help of the at&t network, a

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>> i think this is what you have to watch. >> i'm trying to be gentle the way i phrase that. who's going to be overthrown? >> no, who's going next. i would say you have five countries on the precipice of going off. does nigeria go off the cliff? venezuela, the economy contracts by 10% and they're running out of clean water, food, and medicine. they look prime for an uprising. >> that's a great point. that's why we have you on, of course. you're so smart. we focus on saudi arabia and america. if you look at nigeria and venezuela, they're responsible for a few million barrels a day. >> oh, absolutely. >> they're the so-called neutral producers. if those countries slow down or go offline, all the sudden the supply and demand imbalance goes back into balance. >> we lost half of venezuela's

imports in 2011. nigeria, we lost a couple million barrels two years ago. these are the two you want to watch for in terms of some type of implosion. >> what's your best prediction for oil price? i never ask you this. give me a price. >> year end, we think 50. we think that we are going to -- even without -- >> not wildly bullish. >> because inventory levels remain so high. >> there's so much out there. and what americans get annoyed with is that we're still -- not only are we still importing a few million barrels a day, we're importing a million more barrels a day at this time than last year. >> this is the issue. >> why? >> it's the crude slate. you think about what our refineries in the gulf coast are set to run. they're set to run heavy oil. u.s. production has been light oil. this is where lifting the crude export ban is actually a very good thing for american producers. >> basically our oil is too

good. our oil is too light and sweet. we need heavy, sour crude. helima, thank you very much. have a great day. >> thank you. when we return, a new list of the fastest growing luxury real estate markets in the nation. the top city for million-dollar homes might surprise you. we have details when we return. back in a moment. ♪jake reese, "day to feel alive"♪ ♪jake reese, "day to feel alive"♪ ♪jake reese, "day to feel alive"♪

good morning. welcome back to "squawk box." facebook ceo mark zuckerberg attempted to face his company ice live streaming streaming mu yesterday. after a few seconds talking to the camera, zuckerberg stupd and the stream went down. facebook telling cnbc there was no technical issue, they decided to shut down the feed and change locations. they need a little production help. >> you know, they are doing their way. still a start up. let's talk about real estate. a new report just released rankings for the fastest growing cities for sales of luxury homes. robert frank will tell us which city is on top. >> good morning. new york and l.a. they always have the largest number of real estate sales but the fastest growth is in austin, texas. austin ranking first in the nation for the growth of homes

priced at 1 million or more. now caldwell crediting it by boom in tech. fort lauderdale ranked second followed by seattle and then atlanta. if you look at growth in $10 million home sales, miami ranking first there, fold by delray. all florida on that list. sales volume, total number of sales, new york tops the list, of course and tops the list for 1 million, 5 million and 10 million plus homes and tops the list for the most million dollar listing. the top zip code, sorry "90210," north miami beach, 33160. for $10 million, 33139. miami beach ranked up there

first. what do you get for your millions if you're david stepper and looking to austin or miami. you get four bedroom, 5,000 squier feet, a pool, bill lard room. $1.1 million for that place and you're in austin which is a cool place. >> the garage maj hall. odd dichotomy. like asheville, north carolina like a hippie vibe and multimillion dollar homes over here. what do you get in miami? here's a listing in nearby coral gables. nine bedrooms, 10 baths, nanny quarters and inlaw suite. guess the price. >> 30 million. >> higher. >> 48. >> you almost nailed it. that's $49 million.

you were looking down there. you've been talking to your hedge fund friends. what do you get for under 50 million. >> the reason i know i priced it accordingly. >> that's what you would offer. >> got it. >> it is interesting to see this expensive home market move beyond the predictable san francisco, l.a., new york to places like austin, atlanta and florida. >> none of those prices are coming down? >> houston is going down. >> you've been on here recently talking about how new york is going down in a big way. >> new york had a great quarter in the first quarter surprisingly enough. some of these other markets very local, houston is going down. some parts of the south. most of the rest of the country, you know, is doing really well with housing right now. we sort of overlooked that because we're obsessed with what the russian oligarchs are buying. >> the place you showed --

>> people have been calling for the death of the new york city real estate market. people have gotten rich off the death of the new york city -- if you only bought it first time ever. >> you look at austin property. selling for 1.1. >> 1.1 million. what do you think the construction cost of that place is. are you buying it for even more than cost. >> 400. >> you try to build that even in the tri-state area -- >> i bet in texas you can build a custom home for 200. >> the cost of what it takes to renovate a bathroom in manhattan most places you can buy a house. >> building here, not new york city because it's crazy, super high in building new jersey is 350 bucks a-square-foot. >> a rental in manhattan is about 500 a-square-foot.

>> that's per renovation. >> that's right. >> to your point construction costs in the real world -- manhattan is take the red pill go down the rabbit hole. >> it's not reflective. >> this is not the world. >> this is not the real world. you go under the river or across the bridge and suddenly it's -- you know. >> what is that? >> if you're going to do an alice in the wonderland. >> i'm trying not to laugh. i cut my lip shaving. it's holding together. >> appreciate it. brazil's health ministry say it's investigating more than 4,000 cases of microcephaly a condition of abnormally small heads in babies that's minked to the zika virus. the u.s. will transfer left over funds from ebola combat zika.

centers for disease control is focused on the development of an anti-zika vaccine. we'll talk about this more at the top with dr. scott gotlieb and another doctor. when we come back this morning, tesla ceo is to give us numbers of the pre-orders to the model 3. demand is strong. can the company meet demand. phil lebeau will join us with an auto analyst next. and harsh words for the vermont senator when "squawk box" returns.

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ceos sounding off. ge hammering democratic presidential candidates bernie sanders for trashing his company. and merck saying the government needs to fix our broken tax system. the boardroom versus the government straight ahead. plus she's an entrepreneur, philosophier and one of america's highest paid ceos. we'll talk drug pricing and the lgbt fight. it's national beer day. how times have changed. a closer look at the booming business of craft beer and what it takes to make it in the industry. the second hour of "squawk box" begins right now. ♪ i find out everybody talks

♪ everybody talks >> announcer: live from the beating heart of business, new york city, this is "squawk box". welcome back to "squawk box" here on cnbc, first in business worldwide. i'm becky quick along with andrew ross sorkin and brian sullivan. futures this morning have been a little bit weaker. coming after a "today" ofday of triple-digit gains. s&p futures down by nine, dow down by 74 and nasdaq down by 20. oil prices speck yesterday. wti giving up seven. cents to 37.68. brent touched above 40 is now assisting at 39.81. jpmorgan releasing jamie dimon's annual letter to shareholders. this is a must read. he says he's not worried about negative interest rates in the u.s. and more concerned about rates rising faster than people expect. also the banking ceo warning

that lowering liquidity and higher volatility he says here to stay. dimon argues the fed's bank stress test is flawed and suggests jpmorgan could absorb the losses testify nation's 31 banks. as for jpm shares, dimon is not proud of the stock's performance over the last decade but what bank has outperformed its peers. ceo is speaking out is the theme of the day. ge boss defending his firm from recent attacks from bernie sanders. in a "the washington post" opinion piece, he writes in part, quote, sanders says we're destroying the moral fabric of america. he's wrong. this comes after sanders cited ge as an example of corporate greed at its worse. ge has never bean big hit with socialist saying it creates wealth and jobs here in america not just overseas. saying the same lie over and

over again, referring to sanders comments doesn't make it so. >> he was talking about where they don't pay taxes and his point is ge does pay billions of dollars in taxes. not the only ceo we've heard from. ceo of pfizer firing back against treasury's against tax inversions. he writes to be pillared as deserters when we're trying to stay competitive on a global stage so we can invest in the united states is wrongheaded. government policy should encourage investment and job creation. new rules show there are no set rules. political dogma is the only rule. there's a huge debate raging in washington on what should happen. obviously, most sides come to the idea that there should be some sort of corporate tax reform. how you get to at that time is more complicated. >> also on the inversion debate, merck ceo said his company would not explore a tax inversion.

yesterday on closing bell he said he understands why companies have been opting for inversions. >> it's really important to recognize why companies seek to do tax nearings and that is the current u.s. system of taxation makes u.s. based companies uncompetitive. >> he said the treasury's new rules do nothing to fix the source of the issue. let's get some stocks in the news. costco posting a 1% jump in comparable store sales for march. that was a little bit below the consensus of 1.9%. bed, bath & beyond beat estimates by four cents. revenue also beat forecasts. and the company initiated a new quarterly dividend of 12.5 cents per share. sprint has given itself a cash infusion at better rates than it might have gotten in the debt market. sprint sold 3 billion in aseptembers to newly created

entities and will lease those assets back. don't we all wish we can do that? create an asset. move all your debt there. and then have it pay you. >> you're the car guy so you might, maybe you should do this segment. tesla ceo elon musk says his electric carmaker will give an up where date on model 3 reservations today. phil lebeau has more. >> do you have a guest as to how many reservations after a week? >> 347,000. >> becky, you take this seriously. you have an exact number. that's not a bad number. your guess is as good as anybody else's. when you take a look at the number of reservations that tesla racked up for model 3, in the first three days, they introduced it thursday night through saturday night, 276,000. that averages about 92,000 per

day. we don't know how much that slowed down as we went closer to the end of saturday night but we know we'll get an update to the total number of reservations later today. we'll have it this morning. these reservations because they are not technically orders until somebody commits to the configuration of the car. it raises production questions. will tesla need to raise capital? brian johnson with barclays and you'll be talking with him shortly issue ad note tesla may justify an additional capital need by citing that demand, that demand meaning the reservations it exists to build more car and battery factories sooner rather than later. as you take a look at shares of tesla, this is the big question that's swirling. at what point does tesla and elon musk say we see so much demand for the model 3 we'll not only tell you how we're increasing production but give us an indication that they will build another assembly plant

here in the u.s., europe or china. those are the questions that are swirling right now. we'll get the updated number later today. we'll let you know if 347 is correct. >> i'll go 347,001. >> wait. you lose. you only get 347 -- >> i have everything over 347. i own that space. >> i own everything under. joining us now with more on tesla, brian jones. thank you for joining us. who is owning it right now? who is killing it in auto sales? >> well, obviously in terms of pre-orders it's tesla. if you look at last month, a little bit weak overall, gm had a good retail month. we like retail because those are your more profitable sales. >> outside of tesla, brian, who else is doing really well right now? >> you know, last month as i said, gm had a very good retail

sales month. ford overall did very well. a lot of that was through sales. we're seeing increased fleet sales which is not a good sign for the market. >> with everybody leasing, when these cars come off lease you'll have way too many cars out there, too much of anything creates oversupply and brings prices down. is that a risk in the auto business right now? >> absolutely. it's a risk less to the sales level. last month it was 16,6. it's a risk to showroom pricing because as those used cars come back we think the value of used cars is going to go down. when the value of these cars go down lease deals become more expensive. trade ins require more trade in allowan allowance. we see increased incentives and

lease support. >> is leasing good for ford or gm or toyota. said good thing or bad thing? >> well managed could it be a good thing. germans have done a good job. honda's leasing gets the customer back in the showroom in three years. you can control through cpo programs. the problem like with anything in the credit world is when it's taken to extremes. >> who is in trouble, brian? whose product is not moving, who is not selling cars? >> overall the small and mid-car sedan market is in trouble. we're looking at last month sales. we have a recession in cars. we're minus 5%, 6% in cars. many are going to rental car lots. this oil prices, i'm talking from denver is really what's driving customers out of cars into suvs, into light trucks. >> yesterday we announced some job cuts from chrysler, about

1500 job cuts. are they laying people off because of weak demand or laying people off at this plant because they need to higher people at another plant to make the new pacifica suv. what's your take? >> they are laying people off because we're in a small mid-car recession. sergio has said he's getting out of that car business. that particular plant will be closed relatively soon and converted into another pickup truck factory. it's just part of the rolling impact of even if we're back to $40 oil those kind of prices at the pump on consumer behavior. >> brian johnson of barclays joining us early from denver. we appreciate your time today. thank you very much. coming up when we return the battle over bound and unbound delegates heating up with the republican party. we'll take a look at what it actually is at stake and what it means to be bound and unbound.

then we'll talk to one man who can play a swing role in the first what to choose a gop. check out the futures. nasdaq off 18. s&p 500 off eight points. down off by 66. with strategies that just track the benchmarks. but investing isn't about achieving average. it's about achieving goals. and invesco believes doing that today requires the art and expertise of high-conviction investing. translation? it's time to bench the benchmarks.

great time for a shiny floor wax, no? not if you just put the finishing touches on your latest masterpiece. timing's important. comcast business knows that. that's why you can schedule an installation at a time that works for you. even late at night, or on the weekend, if that's what you need. because you have enough to worry about. i did not see that coming. don't deal with disruptions. get better internet installed on your schedule. comcast business. built for business. morning. making headlines 20,000 of chinese made scarves are being

recalled for violating flamability standards. the carves made entirely of rayon are dangerous product. ivank a's father has been an outspoken critic of manufacturing products overseas. we'll see if that enters the debate. staying on the theme of politics and donald trump. disputes over whether delegates are bounds or unbound creating a rift within the republican party. this could be make-or-break for donald trump come convention. eamon javers has more. >> reporter: there's an old saying in politics which is you got to dance with the girl what bring you, mean you're supposed to be loyal to the people who sent you to the convention. we'll test that this summer at the republican national convention. so many scrutiny on those delegates selected to carry out the voting on the floor. let's look what we know as of right now. first of all how do you become a

republican national committee delegate. four possible ways. you can be elected at a state convention. you can be elected by primary ballot. or be elected at a state committee meeting. some states accept candidate provided slates. the candidate writes down 25 people he would like to see as his delegates. once the election happens the state takes the list and goes one, two, three, four, five how many they won on election day. the question is are the delegates bound? there are rules that vary state by state. in 31 states the delegates of the republican national convention will be bound on the first ballot. in only seven states will those delegates be bound on the second ballot. on the third ballot only one state that's their delegates bound on that ballot. other includes 19 states. what does that mean? some delegates will be unbound, some will be bound until released or withdrawal of the candidate or the rules are silent on just what exactly

those delegates are supposed to do. do they have to vote for the person they were sent to the convention to vote for or can they do as they wish with their vote? now there are some who suggest when the republican national convention rules committee meets a week before the convention that those delegates will be able to write entirely new rules for this convention and simply say that all of these delegates are unbound and they can vote for whoever they decide to vote for in the end. it's not clear if that's the case. the republican national committee will only say that states decide the rules for what the delegates can do and those rules i laid out for you are the rules that will apply. a lot of scrutiny, a lot of pressure on this rules committee and these delegates. one of the things that's a big challenge for these campaigns is going through this they have to have enormous ground campaign to manage this thicket of rules and get their loyalists selected as delegates. who is on that floor will

matter. >> thank you very much. joining us right now with more on these exclusive finding, curly haugland an unbound delegate and a member of the rnc rules committee. thanks for being here. >> thanks for having me. >> let me ask you, donald trump after losing wisconsin to ted cruz sent out a note saying that look he thinks ted cruz is a trojan horse that's been put in by the republican party fathers as a way to try to steal his nomination. what do you say to that? >> well, i don't want to comment particularly on individual candidates' positions. we're more interested in setting a level playing field for all of the contenders so we can get choice available to the convention delegates in cleveland. >> i guess that's the way of looking at this those. there are some pretty different perspectives. obviously the rules are the rules and these are things going forward but a lot of people

particularly over the last several decades as there has been almost a coronation of a centralized candidate in these elections for years and years at this point, assume that the primaries and the caucuses when people go out to vote they assume they are casting a vote that will be honored. you want to explain how see things? >> well, whether delegates are bound or unbound has been a question ever since 1880. i go back to the time when james garfield was the chairman of the rules committee in 1880 and said there can never be a convention that bind as vote against my will on any question whatever. he went on as chairman of the rules committee and that convention to write a rule that's basically exactly the same as rule 37 in our rules today that prohibit binding of delegates and there's only one time in the history of the republican party where the national convention has adopt ad rule that actually binds the delegates to vote a certain way at convention. that was in 1976 when gerald

ford was afraid ronald reagan was going to steal some of his delegates and able to persuade the convention rules committee on the convention itself to adopt the rule binding the delegates to the results of primaries previously held. >> your contention is regardless of the state rules that the delegates shouldn't be bound even on the first vote? >> yes. the supreme court has held several times and your network has done a lot of research into this and confirms that fact supreme court decisions have guaranteed the rights of individual members of the party to be protected from intrusion in the process by states, state laws. primaries are public elections under state laws and they interfere with the rights of the private party to govern itself. the rules of the national republican party trump state rules and state laws. >> curly, this is just a history question that maybe you can help me with. how many times has there been a brokered convention where the candidate that ultimately was

chosen then won the national? >> you know, i think i've heard this before. i think it's like ten times and only seven of those, i think the results have been negative for the leader. >> so three times maybe it's been a brokered convention and somebody was chosen who wasn't on the ballot maybe three times they've gone on to win. >> i want to point out one thing. i've been kind of roundly criticized for suggesting primaries are not conclusive, which of course they are not. but i'm the only person that has proposed anything that will honor and respect the votes of the primary voters and by that i mean i proposed that every delegate or every contender, i'm sorry that has earned a delegate by virtual tough primary or a caucus should be deemed to be nominated for consideration by the convention in cleveland. that would give us eight

candidates under the current count. >> sure. obviously that's something that brings that out. again people feel like they go to the voting booth, they feel if they show up there in a primary or show up for a caucus that they are putting their voice in and really what they are doing, you say, is just kind of letting the delegates know what they think and then the delegates can do what they want with that information. >> yes. the primaries have never been the final nomination. it's always been the convention delegates. >> you do understand how people have come to the assumption based on how things have kind of been run in recent history that they think that their votes matter. these things cost millions of dollars to put on. the question is why do we bother with primaries and with the caucuses. >> well, that's an important decision that the party needs to make. the current party rules, however, preserve the right to make the final decision to the delegates at the convention and

it's a private association. it's a single political party. every party gets to make their own rules. there's a whole bunch of political parties and they have different rules. our party happens to be under scrutiny. >> who are you supporting? who is your candidate, curly? >> i don't have a favorite. i'm supporting a fair and open process that favors no one at the expense of anyone else. >> you understand when donald trump says something like look i have won more votes, i have supposedly should be walking into this with more delegates, how he thinks that's not a fair process to him. >> well, because it's simply -- he needs to recognize that the delegates to the convention need to be, need to be convinced he's the best candidate. >> curly, we're breaking up for just a moment. we'll see if we can get that fixed. we had curly on once before and he did raise the question there was a furious backlash from people when he suggested the primaries and caucuses didn't

matter. >> what he's saying is that your vote doesn't matter. that north dakota voters you vote however you want -- >> we've had him on before. >> i won't pick on curly because i appreciate him coming on. delegates will go and vote for who they want. literally everyone is just saying vote for this guy. >> it's suggestion box. >> they go in and do whatever they want. >> curly is back. >> is that the case, curly? literally you guys are doing what you want and ignoring the will of the people? >> well, no. it's kind of complicated but as a practical matter we get confused a little bit. the democratic party does have, in fact, a party rule that binds the delegates to a vote according to the primary results. the republican party does not have that. has not had it ever except in one convention in 1976, like i

discussed before. >> let me just ask you, though. do you worry about the break up of the republican party if you have 40% of the voters coming in thinking one thing, the establishment thinking another, do you worry that if you don't respect the votes of the people who have voted in your primaries and caucuses, that it is going to mean the split of the party, almost a disintegration? >> no, i don't worry about that at all. frankly most of that conversation has been created by the cable networks and particularly one of your competitors. they have been beating on this drum and trying to separate and steal from the party the right to choose the nominee and hand to it the primaries because primaries are big business. let's face it. networks sell a lot of ads and make a lot of money -- >> again why bother holding primaries if they don't respect the voters. i understand your perspective, but it's not the media that's drumming this up, it's people showing up at polls thinking votes matter. >> people are showing up at the

polls to respond to a primary process that has not beenkor pcore important -- orporated to the rules. i don't know how i can answer that any other way. >> if it was up to you, would you cancel the primaries? >> if it was up to me yes i would. i would organize every asphyxiate to have a state convention of delegates like we did in north dakota. we have no primary. we have no caucus. we have delegates where people start out at the precinct level. >> curly you can see this but we can't see you. we're losing your feed. it's in and out, in and out. whatever. maybe those cold north dakota mornings. curly we appreciate you coming on. >> it's you. i'm just thinking rock the vote. >> we live in a republic not a democracy. >> why vote? >> i mean it's a question that goes to the heart of what's

happening in the party right now. it's goingery interesting july to watch. wow. >> coming up she's one of america's highest paid ceos starting united therapeutics to save her daughter's life. she will duck about drug pricing, inversion, satellite radio. it's national beer day. we'll celebrate one of the world's oldest beverages with the newest in brewing. how tech and science are changing the game for you beer drinkers out there. "squawk box" will be right back.

welcome back, everybody. among the stories front and center this morning we're an hour away from the labor department's weekly reading on jobless claims. they expect claims to drop 268,000 from the prior week's 276,000. dallas fed president said he

would push for rate increases if economic data remains resilient but in a speech last night he didn't say when he would do not. and if you're star struck by fed officials this is the event for you. steve liesman listen up. new york late this afternoon entitle when the federal reserve speaks the world listens. it will feature fed chair well yell and ben bernanke and alan greenspan and paul volcker. in corporate news, tesla is in focus. elon musk saying his electric carmaker will give an update on model 3 reservations. we're taking guesses. you're playing "price is right" rules. tesla model s taking on a boeing 737 aircraft in a drag race. this is pretty amazing video. the vehicle can't fly but held up -- held its own hitting up to

175 miles per hour. the 737 hit 161 miles per hour right there at takeoff. the race was more than a cool stunt. tesla and qantas announced a partnership. the masters begins today in augusta, georgia. check this out during yesterday's wednesday annual par three event a record nine holes in one were hit including this one by gary player. here's his reaction. >> what happened today is beyond one's come preending. there were nine holes in one. i don't know what the odds are. 20 million to one? i don't know what the odds are. it's just unreal. >> we are going head to augusta in the next hour and check in with our own golf pro dominic

chu. >> joe is off for a different reason. >> we'll see him tomorrow. >> eating a hot dog or something. >> shares of united therapeutic down sharply over 27% and now with the chill being cast over pharma and biotech space on the treasur treasury's rules on inversion. here to talk about the prospects for pharma is the founder and co-ceo of united therapeutics which develops products for the treatment of chronic and life threatening questions. we can talk so much with you. great to see you. >> great to be here. >> help us with this. let's talk inversions first and then we'll get into your particular company. you've looked at what the government has done. pharma has been the leader in pursuing inversions. >> it's good for government to

clamped down on this. there's a lot of financial engineering going on that was sucking money out of the r and d space for the pharma companies. with that door more or less kwloesd tax ruling pharma companies especially in the u.s. and europe will concentrate more on research and development and creating better medicine. >> when you hear somebody say like brett saunders from allergan it's unamerican to change the rules. >> i don't exhe's looked at the code of federal regulations one thing americans do is change the laws. >> why does the drug industry is at the forefront of the inversions. what is it about the drug industry your business that make tax rule changes -- is it r and d costs. seems all pharmaceutical and drug companies. >> the pharmaceutical industry historically has a strong rate of profit, and in the u.s. we have a high level of corporate taxes.

so it's a prime opportunity for pharmaceutical companies to produce greater earnings for shareholders by moving to lower tax jurisdictions. if the corporate tax rate was dropped in the u.s. which would be another smart move no reason for inversions to go on. >> what does it have to be dropped to >> i think the figure talk about is something in the 20s, 20% -- >> the 20% enough when ireland is 12.5%. >> yes. especially when it's illegal to do that inversion. 20% would be enough to end inversions completely. >> on your particular company we should say as we mentioned at the top the stock is down. fda rejected an application for this drug delivery device you were working on. what happened and where does that stand? >> drug delivery device with medtronic i'm confident will be approved. the market is highly sensitized the biotech index is down 25% over year. we're moving with the whole

index. this is all a long lasting overreaction to the overpricing that was done by martin shkreli. as was mentioned with hillary already mentioning desire to clamp down on drug prices the whole market very sensitive. when you get a rejection from the fda people will overreact. united therapeutics has a strong track record of turning around first reaction into an approval. >> what do you have to do to turn it around? >> we provide information that the fda has asked for and they ask for this information very reasonably. you may recall our last drug approved was turned down by fda twice before it was approved and then the stock skyrocketed. this case more complicated because we have to cooperate with medtronic to bring all the information to the fda that they want. we'll do that and this drug delivery advice will be

approved. >> what are they asking >> they are asking for long term quality assurance and quality control of the miniature pump. this is the first time in history that a little pump placeed into the cardiovascular space would deliver medicine 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. the fda wants to be super sure all the quality assurance and quality control pieces are in place. >> given the political environment we're living in and also just focus on drug companies i want you to weigh in on valeant. what do you think has happened there? what do you think will happen there? >> i think what happened there is that there was, again, an excess concern with near term profitability and so research suffered as a result of just kind of milking all the profits out of the pharmaceutical company. our company united therapeutics and many of our peers we focus on longer r and d projects. we work towards the ten year plan to develop revolutionary

medicines. we make generic barbaric by coming up with better medicines. when i see implosion of valeant once this works its way through the biotech center i look at this as a good thing. >> will bill ackman get his money back when it's all over? >> i'm not smart enough to answer that. >> you have a research in durham and there's a huge debate about the anti-lbgt legislation out there. what are you doing >> we've joined together with ibm and red hat and many other companies in expressing our disappointment and displeasure to the government. >> do you think it's changing the dynamic >> over time it will. if you go to north carolina, people in north carolina are awesome and certainly gone a long way from the jesse helm days when he said he would take research triangle park and put a fence around it.

>> would you move? >> no. we love north carolina. i'm 100% confident the law will move in a progressive direction. >> paypal just cancelled an operation. it was a $3.5 billion. what about a business that takes that stance. >> paypal maybe their workforce is more mobil. we're doing medicine and, you know, blood and stuff like that. people are stable. they have long term family relationships. we deal with doctors. we deal with duke verkuniversit university of north carolina. we're embedded in north carolina. >> great to see you. we should say you're going to be an honoree. at tonight's df award. congratulations on that. >> thanks. coming up, artificial intelligence hitting the fast food industry. will robots taking over taco bell? if that's not reason to stay

tuned i don't know what is. box comes right back. what's going on here? i'm val, the orange money retirement squirrel from voya. we're putting away acorns. you know, to show the importance of saving for the future. so you're sort of like a spokes person? more of a spokes metaphor. get organized at voya.com. sfx: leaf blowers the yardley's. dad! sorry. spring is on. start your trugreen lawn plan today. trugreen. live life outside.

all right. check this out, folks. taco bell is working on a robot to place orders for you.

the artificial intelligence is called taco bot. the bot is in testing mode but should be available in a few months. this is the rise of the machines, mutual fund from "terminator," robots taking over. >> let's hope taco b torch is better than microsoft bot. i hate to see the burrito that thing produce. coming up national beer day. ♪ beer beer beer >> as we head to break a few facts that will have you buzzing this morning. the oldest beer ressee dates back to 3100 b.c.. beer goes bad if it is exposed to light. you can study beer in college. happy drinking. "squawk box" will be right back.

♪ save water drink beer the song isn't actually.

it's national beer day. 180 years ago prohibition ended in america. small breweries in the country are tapping into the industry. let's get a check on the microbreweries and craft brewers. guys, welcome. great what you're doing. you're a small business, entrepreneur, taking chances. i love it. here's my only worry, couple thousand out. craft breweries are not a niche thing. >> they are not a niche thing in north jersey. the growth has been in central, south jersey feeding in to the philadelphia market. north jersey has been left out of that. we're the second brewery in bergnen county. so we think that just that alone

and our relatively small scale is going to keep us local, keep us relevant for the crowd. >> what's one thing people -- in the commercial break we talk how cleanliness is so important when you brew. it's a sexy business that people don't know about your industry that might surprise them. >> 90% is cleaning and bookkeeping and just making sure everything -- that the beer stays good, right? all about quality control. >> how do you get on the shelf. how do you say take our beer. >> build relationships. one thing we'll do is have industry preview nights where we invite local bar own towers sample the beer before it's out there. build up some buzz. get them inned in having it on their shelves. >> an interesting component because of new jersey law we're not required to have a third-party distributor in the state. it increases our profit margin. we have a sales guy who we

employ directly. >> what's the margin on beer. >> it depends on -- >> is it good? can you make a lot of money? >> yes. as long as you avoid those middlemen. if we're selling you directly, selling a pint of beer directly to a bar the profit margins are good. upwards of 40%, 50%. >> that better than the tequila market or vodka market. >> much higher market in the distilled spirits. we have higher labor costs. we have higher raw materials cost for the same volume of product. so our profit margins run a little lower than distilled spirits. >> we don't have the leverage to negotiate the large scale contracts the big guys get. >> what's your hope. where will you be a year from now >> still with a line out the door, i hope. >> you may not want to answer this. of the big guys who makes the

best beer. the big guys. not the craft beer guys. >> this is an interesting question. we get asked a lot about acquisition, right? hardly a week goes by before one of the large beer conglomerates acquires a brewery. it's an interesting situation. those companies have the most talented brewers working for them. they can brew any beer they want to. in craft beer people don't want them to do it. they want the guy down the street to brew it. they want to talk to someone they can have an experience with. we think that in three years, right now we'll brew just a little bit less than thousand barrels of beer a day, a barrel is 31 gallons. in three years we hope to be at about 3,200 barrels a year. keep it to a relatively local market. expand into new york a little bit. >> if they call, are you taking that call? >> i never not answer the phone. >> there's a story today in the

waurjs about sam adams how it's the original and maybe most successful of all the microbreweries. the problem is it's been so successful it's hard to consider him a microbrewery. >> microbrewery is more about ethos than size. sam adams fits that. >> belgian brewery. >> those are the guys that got this party started. we're happy to have them. >> they still have that mindset. that's what makes craft beer. >> guys, we'll leave it there. a pleasure. good luck. maybe we'll come out and have an onsite segment. >> just maybe. >> more than maybe.

maybe this afternoon. we'll see. >> make sure you head over to make makeit.cnbc.com. we have secrets to success. >> when we come back on box the movers of the morning including an upgrade for leisure and gaming company wynn resorts.

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i've learned in 20 years of television broadcasting that the microphone is an important component to a successful broadcast. so i should now put mine on. good morning, america. reddit is introducing a new feature that let people shield themselves on site. you can block somebody without them knowing and disable tase built to see that person's response to posts. reddit forms are known from some of the extreme forms of free speech. bottom line it can be hate-filled. people can literally wish you really bad things. let's tell you about one of

today's stocks to watch. wynn resorts upgrated to outperform. the firm is confident that the casino operate swror will achieve at threat of bottom end of its recent upbeat earnings forecast. that stock is up by 6%. >> when we return brazil health ministry investing finding 4,000 cases of birth defects that may be linked to the zika virus and a funding fight brewing here in the u.s. the white house warning congress help to fight zika or live to regret it. "squawk" returns in just a moment.

the fight against zika. cdc getting left over funding from the ebola fight but just how far behind are we on testing and prevention efforts. two experts are on set to weigh in. >> bank of america president says we're in a buffalo market. an erratic bull that's tired and hairy. plus a hole in one at augusta by 80-year-old golf legend gary player. the highlights from a record setting par three contest as the

world' best golfers prepare to tee off. the third hour of "squawk box" starts right now. ♪ he's leaving ♪ leaving ♪ on that midnight train to georgia ♪ >> announcer: life from the most powerful city in the world, new york. this is "squawk box". welcome back to "squawk box," everybody. this is cnbc, first in business worldwide. i'm becky quick along with andrew ross sorkin and brian sullivan. joe is off today. we're less than 90 minutes from the opening bell on wall street. things have gotten worse. right now the dow futures are down by 87 points points below fair value. s&p futures off by 10 and a half. nasdaq down by 24. take a look what's been happening with europe some moderate declines there. looks like for the most the dax is down by a third of a percent. ftse down by 10%. italy stores weaker down by

1.7%. a big mover currencies. dollar height 17 month low against the yen. you can see this morning .108.53 dollar superslightly against the euro but that's because of extreme weakness. setting at $113.66. the securities and exchange commission influenza review the panama papers which detail offshore holdings from investors around the globe. sec say it will looked at leaked documents for illegal activity. less than 90 minutes away from the labor department's look at jobless claims. they think it will fall from the 268,000 from prior week's 276,000. shares of yahoo! according to an internal document, the company expecting revenue to fall nearly 15% this year and earnings to fall more than 20%. so we also have those bids due very soon for that company as

well. i think rico source was the sales book foria moop you want to buy yahoo!. you're buying a company whose revenue dropped 15%. earnings dropped 20%. >> this is expected. >> earnings are expected to drop 20%. which indicates their cost base is still much higher. >> there's a number floated but they wanted $10 billion for the core business. absolutely certifiable, crazy people. if you got $6 billion -- >> uber is worth 50 -- >> call it a win and call it a day. uber might be worth 50. few other stocks to watch this morning. btig has cut its earnings estimate for apple and cut its price target. it did oddly maintain their buy rating. btig basing their call on a more conservative outlook for upgrading existing users to new he phones. help brands have announced

restructuring of its victoria secret business splitting that operation into three separate units. lingerie one. online effort will be known as pink. and victoria secret beauty will be a third. company report ad 3% increase in same store sales for march. that was above of a consensus of 2%. >> what does that mean for the angels. >> you dug yourself that hole. >> just asking. i want to know which group they go with. fight against zika getting government funding courtesy of ebola. >> this was a brewing fight. administration asked for $1.9 million to fight zika. congress said we have left over funds from ebola. all of that hasn't been deployed yet. so essentially the administration has been battling them and yesterday they came out and said they would take about

$510 million from ebola funds and shift it over to zik. that's 589 they will use to improve diagnostics, mosquito control. people in the administration are not happy. we talked to the cdc director on friday about this at the zika convention. listen to what he said. >> ebola is not over. it would be dangerous to let down our guard against one threat to deal with another. this is a very difficult outbreak to control. we're continuing to respond very actively and we need to do both. we need protect americans from all the threats that might come to our shores. >> of course while the big sort of uproar of the ebola cases in west africa has passed it's not over. we've seen more cases surge about a dozen most recently. they are still dealing with that. >> constant battle for funding. stick around we'll talk more about this issue.

the chief of north health runs a zika and pregnancy program and we're joined by american enterprise institute scott gottlieb. thank you for being here. bert let's start with you. the concern you're hearing from women. >> in our society there's a lot of fear associated with pregnancy, a lot of concerns about what might happen. so the cdc is working on sort of viral management and i think what we're doing is fear management. and reassuring patients and really there are some basic simple steps women can take to protect themselves. >> what are some of those steps? >> first of all interestingly the mosquito predominantly bites in the daytime. people should stay in air conditioned room. >> i heard dusk and dawn, is that wrong? >> between dawn and dusk. they might bite at night. they should be in an air conditioned room. they can use deet.

wear long sleeved clothes. >> that might be extreme to tell them to stay inside. >> it's extreme and unreason valuable. one things we do with respect to pregnancy is not make the expectations unreasonable because that just promotes guilt. women can go outside but when they are outside they should wear long sleeve clothing. >> and deet. there's threat to a baby from deet which is most of the time women would not use it when pregnant. >> let me just say we consider d deet safe in pregnancy. we're weighing to what's a known risk to what we don't know. zika is a clear risk that has to be avoided. >> how big of a risk is it to an american woman in an area like this who is in a situation like

that. is this a high-risk consideration or just a very bad outcome if something happens? >> people have reasonable concerns. we won't have an epidemic of zika in this country. we'll have isolated outbreaks. it's incumbent upon public health officials to monitor for those outbreaks. that will require something more than just surveillance of people because people, a lot of people don't present because they don't become symptomatic. what we should be doing is pro actively collecting the mosquitos and test the bugs. that's what we did with west nile. they collected 300,000 mosquitos in new york state and found about 350 different isolated outbreaks. go in and try to eradicate mosquitos. we'll have isolated outbreaks. we have different cultural behavior here. we have sealed homes.

the mosquito that propagates doesn't range far north. we'll have more outbreaks in miami, florida. there are parts of this country we'll see outbreaks. some could be quite large. likely to be isolated. in the same way we saw isolated outbreaks of west nile. >> will this happen post-olympics when half the world goes to rio. they come back. mosquito bites you and now, right >> i got to say you can comment on this. i think this virus probably has run a lot of its course in brazil. this was introduced into brazil in 2013. they didn't discover it until 2015. there's enough dead hosts people who have the infection that can't propagate it. it's likely so many people had it in brazil that it's not going to spread. it's spreading to venezuela and colombia. by the time the olympics might come around brazil would have had it. >> what did you think from the cdc last week?

>> the cdc was very clear that as scott said there's going to be isolated outbreaks. because we can respond so quickly and because the cdc is an amazing place they can attack the local outbreaks very, very quickly. >> to scott's point are we doing the testing? >> the problem is the surveillance for the mosquito that carries the west nile virus is different than the surveillance for the mosquito that carries the zika virus and interestingly the last time we had widespread surveillance. there's a sustainable vector control 365 days control. the vector control, controlled by states only happens when there's periods of epidemic. there are challenges. >> one more point in my conversations folks over the last few days seems like people

may be becoming concern this can be sexually transmitted as well. how concerning is that? >> the big concern we know how long it stays in serum. we don't know how long it stays in the semen. and so men can probably carry it for a longer time than women do. so if the partner has been out of the area to an endemic area extra caution has to be exercised. they should use condoms throughout the pregnancy. period of time let's say before conception has to be longer if a male has been out of the country to an endemic area. the fact is we don't know how long it stays in the semen and cdc is actively investigating that. >> to me i get a sense there's a whole lot we don't know. that's a concerning issue. >> certainly what i do, that's a large part of the fear. like everything else. you're afraid of what you don't know. the cdc has figured out -- >> what's the legit time on the

vaccine. >> three years. >> that might not be realistic. >> does it seem we're lunrching from disease crisis to disease crisis. >> the world is change. these diseases that were isolated it's spreading around because of human mobility. some questions about whether zika has migrated, whether the genetic has migrated. >> what do you mean genetic profiling. >> there's a question whether or not the virus just has gotten into a part of the world where it's spreading differently because that part of the world is different tore viral strain is different than what was originally discovered. there's some open questions around that. also how it works. seems to directly attack nerve cells. >> i would just say society has always been lurching from disease to disease as long as

there's human contend and we only discovered penicillin mid-century. before that thousands of people died of the flu in 1919. >> it's the coverage that's increased. people say there's more disease than ever. just more coverage. >> the coverage around west nile. felt very much -- >> ebola new zi, now zika. >> they say we need to have better vaccine development programs so we can be prepared and won't take three years. >> more constant funding so you're not looking at creating something. >> ways to finance delivery of these vaccines. there's a dengy fever vaccines. >> the goal of the cdc right now is more mosquito control. that's the short term fix for this, vaccine is more of a long term fix for this.

>> thank you both for coming in. great to see you. coming up, we're working in a buffalo market. if you're wondering what a buffalo market is? stick around, we'll explain. i have read all of your books. did you learn anything? i learned that humans are complicated. we're emotional. absent-minded. and we make some really bad decisions. my trade-off analytics can help companies make better decisions, but i am still learning what makes people tick. what makes you tick watson? natural language processing, reasoning algorithms, statistical parsing. now you are just showing off.

♪ bully bully ♪ ♪ bully welcome back to box. major averages posting gains after the fed minutes but our next guest says what he calls a buffalo market tired, hairy and erratic bull. chris hyzy is here. buffalo? >> yeah. >> explain yourself. >> well, i think there's a few ways to explain it. best way to explain it it's an erratic bull like you said. there's a lot of hair out there. there's a lot of unknowns. things aren't so transparent as we would all like. we're in a secular 3% growth u.s., 3% global growth world. the bull can roam for a long period of time. it gets tired. if there's something that's concerning to the buffalo then

we run the other way. that's what we've seen. we'll be in that for quite some time. >> the bull or buffalo is the investor. what is the buffalo doing right this minute or what should the buffalo be doing at this minute? >> resting. should be resting. should be resting and getting paid to roam, basically. right now we've retraced the loss. we were down 10% we're to datye. >> resting means i should take some cash off? >> taking some profits in some areas that were overextend preponderance of the evidence we think we're at ekwil lquilibriu. you should be rebalancing portfolios. match them up against any losses you may have taken at the beginning of the year. have some liquidity. over the summer it will get volatile. >> what's triggering it.

>> we have an election coming up that looks rather volatile in and of itself in terms of where we're going. we don't know who the candidates are. we have a lot of interaction in the global sea particularly in the middle east whether it's a geopolitical scene or on the oil side of the equation. last but not least even though the dollar has hung in there, manufacturing is coming back the other way. that's why we moved off the loss. the dollar has a tendency in the summer to strengthen more. you'll see corporations come out with earnings this quarter and say, you know what? we're not so sure about the remainder, even though our view is that earnings will be okay. >> if you wanted to lay for yields, where would you go? >> you look across all sectors. a good portion of the high quality higher yielding more safety areas are overvalued at this point. you know when -- >> utilities. >> utilities.

you roll up those indices and say if i owned the index it's overvalued but there are companies in the different sectors that you still can and i would argue this. you look at capital light companies, high cash rich, our global reach and are exposed to consumers that have money. >> authors going up or just hanging in? >> they are doing both. they've gone up. outperformed anthony rally back off the lows. they outperformed pretty well. matter of fact the hedge funds that were owning a lot of momentum names the over owned names they underperformed. >> on that front what are you doing and what your telling your clients who want to be in hedge fund space right now given not only the volatility but frankly the terrible performance. >> you have to ask yourself why your investing in those areas. why are you investing interns. usually ten years ago, 15 years ago i want excess returns. the reality is it's dampening volatility. you want to dampen volatility. you want to allow the core space

to produce market based returns and then outside of that you want to dampen volatility in other things. so when you have these 15% moves, that's not your portfolio. your portfolio is not enduring 15% move. global event driven, global macro given the volatility we have across rates. >> we'll leave it. you just handed me a brace with your humble and hungry. >> wildcats. >> glou. coming up, the masters tees off today but at yesterday's par three day, there were nine holes in one. dominic chu is in augusta and he joins us next with the scoop on this morning's tee times. >> announcer: you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc, first in business worldwide. yet many people still build portfolios with strategies that just track the benchmarks.

but investing isn't about achieving average. it's about achieving goals. and invesco believes doing that today requires the art and expertise of high-conviction investing. translation? it's time to bench the benchmarks.

>> welcome back to "squawk box". futures we're seeing a little bit of red. dow look like it will open off 67. nasdaq off by 17 and s&p 500 by 7. master golf tournament tees off. dominic chu has the tough assignment of heading down to augusta, georgia. what is the buzz at the masters besides nine holes in one yesterday? >> reporter: i know, can you

believe it, guys? the whole idea that can you have a par three contest which kind of ceremoniously kicks off this masters coverage, it happens the day before on wednesday. like you said nine hole in ones throughout the course of the event. the buzz is the groups have started to tee off. it's 8 dlo 7b when the first groupings tee off. we're seeing play commence. the whole idea you could have that many hole in ones and done by an 80-year-old, gary player hit a hole in one at the tender age of 80 years old. and it was great to see that and we actually got exclusive access to gary player at his pre-masters event that happened last night. he talked about a variety of things including his hole in one and what it was like to compete in a golden age of golf where he alongside jack nicklaus and arnold palmer dominated the

game. >> it's an unusual big three because we were like brothers thatted to beat each other. today it's big business. there will be another big three. but they will be traveling off in their jets and won't spend the time and travel the world together to the extent that we did. >> reporter: so he's now talking about the whole arnold palmer, jack nicklaus, gary player dynamic. there's a golf slew of younger players like jordan spieth, jason day, ricky fowler. all these young guys are doing well. jordan spieth thinks he has a good chance to defend his masters championship this year. take a listen to what he had to say. >> you feel like you just -- you're in a category that you start off ahead of the rest of the field that hasn't because it's just so difficult to do in that first one. now having had a couple under our belt, i think going back to the course i'm very familiar with, if i get in contention

again, it serves as an advantage. >> reporter: now, guys, jordan is just one of many golfers out there trying to get more people involved in the game. it's been no secret over the past few years golf has been in a big decline, participation is down. according to our partners at nbc universal at golf now which is the world's biggest online tee time booking network four out of five golf courses are already this time of we're and play year-to-date is up 14% from what it was this past we're. you mix that together with the whole idea golf will be an olympic sport again, ryder cup year and you have the world stage set for a resurgence in the game of golf. that's why it's a big deal here at the masters. a lot of big money and names to bring people back in the game of golf. >> do you think golf has moved past tiger woods? he may never play competitively again. he might. but he's not in the masters this year.

his back doesn't seem to be getting any better. >> reporter: you're not the only one who feels that way. in tiger woods case here the guy has a lot of major championships. he is one of the game's greatest golfers. whether he can recover from this is big. we all know when tiger was a part of this game the game saw a huge amount of participation. now the question is can you have that one guy translate into multiple other people competing rather than afghanistan one main character do all the kind of winning that he's done, can you have a better story line with more protaganists, more young characters and does that energize people to get back in the game. that's the real key. if you talk about the idea of golf you want to get people on every part of the age spectrum. gather apparel 80 years old he told us last night in a don't believe it but i know it's true. he says on an average day he shoots 70. that's around maybe two one par on a normal golf course and he's

80 years old. >> good news if you shoot your age. what about when you're shooting ten under your age. >> i shot 72. >> i have a problem shooting my age for nine holes. >> dominic chu is wearing a "squawk box" polo. what are you going to wear for the other shows, perhaps "power lunch"? >> "squawk box" polo. >> reporter: get me some more gear. i'll wear the box gear. >> we'll be right back with jobless claims. we'll see you soon.

great time for a shiny floor wax, no? not if you just put the finishing touches on your latest masterpiece. timing's important. comcast business knows that. that's why you can schedule an installation at a time that works for you.

even late at night, or on the weekend, if that's what you need. because you have enough to worry about. i did not see that coming. don't deal with disruptions. get better internet installed on your schedule. comcast business. built for business. >> reporter: welcome back to "squawk box". breaking news, initial continuing claims out, 267 on initial claims. that is a drop of 9,000 from an unrevised, unusual, unrevised, 276,000 last week. 2.91 million on continuing claims. that's down from a slightly -- excuse me. that's up from a slightly revised 2.172, always a week difference in the timeline. maybe the big news today is the dollar/yen. the dollar falling under 109,

108 handle here. anybody thats to look at a two or three or four year chart to see what type of activity in the past we've had on the newest level, not much. not a lot of wood so say technicians. sometimes that means either you consolidate or breeze threw. it looks like a breezeway. keep up on the dollar strength and weakness and before the end of the session today of course we'll continue to northern the risk on risk off trade equities coming in weaker and monitoring what's going on with all the activity after yesterday's minut minutes. back to you. let's bring in steve liesman here now to talk about jobs data and a new report out on the so-called gig economy, also joining us diana farrell president and ceo of jpmorgan institute. >> go out and play. >> the economy seems to be kind of like a radio head song title,

no surprises. >> you know, except for this jobs thing. >> it's coming along. >> i wish jobs were terrible because it would make sense with other stuff going on with the economy. 267. we're back down below. looks like we're head for another 200,000 jobs report. that's the estimates of economists based on claims. but you have this lousy gdp number. look they came back in march but you have this weak gdp number that's out there. it's all very confusing and they have the fed it looks like on hold at least until the summer here. but, you know, i want to point occupant as becky said very excited about tonight. like rock and hold heaven for fed reporters. the four guys together, we'll have a report tomorrow morning from the event, volcker, greenspan, yellen and bernanke all together.

csny. everybody else is reunited. >> stills and young hate each other. >> right. only eclipsed by our next guest diana farrell. you guys now and let's tell everybody what you're doing. you're taking your credit card data, 12 million -- how many people you got >> so far 14 billion transactions. >> how many -- >> over 50 million customers. >> 5-0 customers. you're making it available anonymously in aggregate form to give us a better idea using private sector data and we talked a lot on this show about the government data how it's not doing a good job with the revisions. these are not estimates, these are not surveys. these are real transactions. let's go the other thing we'll talk about first which is the overall retail numbers you pout. what are your retail numbers showing about the consumer right now? >> we described our numbers as local consumer commerce and we

would argue they are better than the retail numbers because they are capturing a lot of consumer spending. think of every credit and debit card swipe. that's the window we see. we had a 2.3% growth and what your numbers allow us to see is what's contributing to that growth. first and foremost we have young people and low-income people driving most of that growth. that's unusual because tiypical it's higher income people and older people. and small businesses contribute. and we've seen growth across 15 cities. >> i'll let becky come in now. years ago she was the retail reporter at the "wall street journal". you would have killed for this data. >> potentially. look it's been interesting to watch. there's so many factors coming into it. you know americans are saving tons of money at the gas pumps. you expect to see it going back out. you hear worries how americans

are unsettled with their jobs or wages because they haven't gotten increases. >> i think there's a question of wage increases, something else i want to talk about which is income volatility. people experience high levels of income volatility mono, consumption volatility and it feeds this environment of instability. >> let's go the gig economy here and you guys have separated out into two different platforms. labor platform which is people working at uber or doing sort of a part time work that's through the internet. >> tasks. walking your dog. shopping for people. driving for people. anything that requires service for people versus capital platform like renting a room in your house or selling a good. >> what's happening with that economy? >> first thing note is just how explosive the growth is. over the last three years when you look at people who participated at any point in the last three years we had a 47 fold growth in the last month. any given moits ten fold growth.

extraordinary growth is the first thing note. surprisingly it's more on capital platforms than labor platforms. although we talk about a few companies that are the labor platform side a lot of this is also about renting assets and selling goods, capital platforms. >> more air b and b. >> yes. fir observation. second observation for most people this is a sfleupplementa form of income. >> there's a school of thought that the people in the gig economy are there because it's their last option and they have to be there which by the way is insulting for people who take pride in what they do in this economy. your view is i may have a full time job but i'll rent my house out to air b and b and adding to my income. it's not a last best hope economy. >> no. i think we can put real numbers on that with what we see. for those that participate in the labor platforms at best 30% of their income.

not only do they have other jobs but other jobs is mostly the story. we also note a big difference between capital. in the case of labor platforms people participate more often and earn more income when they have a dip in their traditional income. capital platforms they compliment, supplementing their income. there's a difference in that the labor platforms are providing an offset to instability. >> we'll run out of time but i want to get one broad tleem we talk a lot about this notion can the private sector data can it be used to help get us better information to the markets, supplement and/or replace what's going with the government data >> absolutely. i think what we're doing is demonstrating that, that already a treasure trove of private sector data although developed for a different purpose can be repurposed thoughtfully and carefully into a pulse what's happening in the economy and our

local consumer data is showing that. >> are you seeing recession right around the concern. >> personal consumption is 70% of gdp. we had a long period of slow down in growth. i would say in the last three months we've seen more glimmers of hope that tail end of the year we saw more growth and saw growth across all cities. >> your data super. things are getting better. >> potentially. >> we just hear so much mostly in the political stump things are getting worse all the time and everything is terrible. actual data discounts the politicians view that things are awful all the time. >> actual data provides some glimmer of hope. >> great. >> did you really need forensic evidence the data that the political rhetoric was rhetorical? >> everything is terrible and getting worse. thank you very much. still to come this morning, all wrapped up it's been more than 40 years since fashion

legends diana vonn sustenberg released the wrapped dress. futures are down 84 points points below fair value. s&p down by nine nasdaq down by 21. stick around, box will being right back. with strategies that just track the benchmarks. but investing isn't about achieving average. it's about achieving goals. and invesco believes doing that today requires the art and expertise of high-conviction investing. translation? it's time to bench the benchmarks.

. welcome back, everybody. from a little wrapped dress to a lifestyle brand, diane von furstenberg is a designer offering style to women around the world and mentorship to a new generation of entrepreneurs. diane von furstenberg joins us this morning and tonight are the annual dvf awards honoring women. we already had the doctor who was here earlier. >> she's one of the most formidable person i have ever met. i mean, there's nothing that she can't do. and so she's getting the lifetime award. >> how do you pick? >> well this is -- you know i started this seven years ago and the idea is to really give exposure and money to women who have had the courage to fight,

the strength to survive, and the leadership to inspire. and so i pick usually two international awards, i pick it from the network of which i'm on the board. then there's the people's award that we have a committee that picks four people and then it goes online and people vote so that's the people's award. the inspiration award -- it's also committee and very much me. and then the lifetime award is also committee but it's very much me. and i've given it to oprah and hillary. >> you know very well what it's like to be a woman who starts her own business, who is an entrepreneur, gets through this. do you think it's gotten easier for women or tougher?

>> well, you know, it's very interesting. i think it's very much like a swing always. i never really had a problem being a woman because my mother always told me it was a privilege to be a woman. and my mother being a holocaust survivor she taught me that fear was not an option. right. so for me -- then i started my own business so i didn't have to deal with that. but today i realize that there is something that makes it hard for women. it is a sexist world out there. and it kind of hit me now. and the situation in women internationally -- i mean there's more human trafficking than ever before. and you know why? you know why? >> why? >> it's so simple if i say it that way, because the inventory is free and replenishable.

and that's how they look at it. >> a down side to a global economy. >> would you start your business now given thes amaz amazons now? >> starting a business now is not hard necessarily because you have a voice with the internet. you know you have your own voice. you can actually say what you think. but staying in business is hard today. >> when you think about the women who are leaders, the question key ask entrepreneurs all the time is it something you are born with. or do you think it's something that is learned or could be learned. >> what are you born with? your strength are you born with? some of it is genetic. some of it is how much you believe. at the end it's all about believing. you believe -- if you don't believe it nobody else will. it's an idea, work, period certifica --

perseverance. >> i read your book last year. you are open and honest and saying what you were feeling. those are the type of books you learn something. >> my granddaughter says you have no filter. the truth is -- >> it's a good thing. >> if you're going to write about yourself and your experiences, you can only do that if you are willing to be completely honest. >> honestly as a reader that's the only way you can take something away from it. your successes and failures because somebody like me looks at you and only sees the successes. >> i wake up in the morning sometimes and feel like a total loser. i think it's important that you tell that to people because it encourages them. >> something that you learned or something that helped you get through that in some of those periods. what would be a lesson you tell somebody who feels they are down on their luck? >> the best lesson in life is to always remember that the most

important thing in life is to have a good relationship with yourself. and to practice truth. because truth at least it's truth. you know you can defend it. >> i want to go back to this total research thing. when was the last time you thought about yourself as a total loser. >> last week. >> what happened? >> nothing. i want doesn't last very long. but do you. you know, you question yourself. and that's why i think it's -- tonight will be so -- such a nice night because you honor women and like the people from the people's award, they are young girls and now it's our seventh year and i see how much they have done and accomplished since. and they still my friends. i get speaking engagement and they pay me money and i send them the money and, you know, all of a sudden they get an envelope and it's a check that wasn't expected. and it's wonderful because, you

know, they become like a family. i mean i honor ed jaycee who wa kidnapped for 18 years and she's become my friend. >> it's inspiring. i can't wait to see the award show tonight. thank you. >> thank you. when we come back we'll talk to jim cramer he's down at the new york stock exchange. tomorrow on "squawk box," former treasury secretary hank paulson will jones us. reunited alan simpson and e rx sine bowls irsi -- erskine bowls will join us. yeah, val from voya. quick question, what are voya retirement squirrels doing in my house? we're putting away acorns. you know, to show the importance of saving for the future. so you're sort of like a spokes person? no, i'm more like a metaphor. okay, a spokes-metaphor. no, i'm... you're a spokes-metaphor.

yeah. ok. see how voya can help you get organized at voya.com.

welcome back to "squawk box." let's get down to the new york stock exchange where jim cramer joins us now. jim, we could talk stocks, but i wanted to talk about the jeff immelt op ed in the "new york post." i don't know if you see it. it was pretty striking. >> i felt like a total loser when i read it. no, it was the greatest interview. >> isn't he amazing? >> the best. >> just dazzling. look, i think that immelt stuck with the facts. he doesn't know what to do. he's got the actual story, and then sanders has this narrative that basically has nothing to do

with what immelt does. so, and i love that line where he says, listen, you can tell a lie over and over again, it does not make it the truth. it was almost like jeff just sitting here talking to you if he was on "squawk." it was flabbergasting what sanders did versus the jobs that immelt has . >> we've talked about ceos coming out swinging, being very responsive to what's happening in politics, even in the past week. and jamie dimon's annual letter, plus the op ed he wrote. one of the comments inside the letter was about the company's performance. and he said look, i'm not happy with the overall performance, but on a relative basis, we did pretty well. what do you think of jpmorgan's stock? what do you do with that stock? >> just like relative stuff. what is that? what are we, fidelity magellan fund? banks have been a terrible place to invest and dimon did better than others in a really bad neighborhood, so, who cares? can you imagine if google were to do, alphabet were to do a

letter like this, say listen, facebook beat us, yeah, but we beat everybody else? i don't want to care that he beat everybody nellis a really bad cohort, but he did repeatedly say it's the government that's the problem. and i find that somewhat true, but the fact is, i mean, they had a huge amount of losses related to things they did wrong, and that's not really part of the letter. they did wrong, and i think that we would all agree that they did some things wrong. and all, instead, we hear about is the regulation. the regulation's a reaction to some of the things they did wrong. i'd like to see more on that. >> is there a bank stock you do like these days? >> i think wells fargo's going to do better than others, but you know, the number's going to come out, they're all going to be not that great. and the only thing that will save this group is that everybody knows that. but you know, this is a cohort, a huge cohort, and it's -- i'd rather own visa, okay? i mean, it is very hard to get your arms around a bank that i

think is just going to not report a good number and we're going to see oil and gas loans not be good. it's just a tough group to own, really hard. >> okay. we're going to leave it there, jim. always love seeing you. we will see a lot more of you in a couple minutes. >> thanks. >> thanks. on deck, we are hopping on the hogwarts express. a brand-new harry potter theme park opening in california today. we'll let you know why it could be an industry game-changer. that's when "squawk box" comes right back. the call just came in. she's about to arrive. and with her, a flood of potential patients. a deluge of digital records. x-rays, mris. all on account...of penelope. but with the help of at&t, and a network that scales up and down on-demand, this hospital can be ready.

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today is the grand opening of the wizarding world of harry potter at universal studios hollywood, owned, of course, by cnbc's parent company, comcast. you can't mess that up. julia boorstin is there with a look at what today's launch means for theme park competition. good morning. >> reporter: that's right, i'm here with the hundreds and hundreds of people who have been lining up in the dark for the launch of "the wizarding world of harry potter" here at universal studios hollywood. the fans here speak not just to the massive popularity of harry potter still, but also the massive demand for theme park attractions and the fact that the market for these theme parks is increasingly competitive. potter world caps off a major

park makeover here in hollywood. it's 75% renovated since 2012. and with tickets for opening day sold out, the new land is projected to grow attendance by 20% this year. there is another potter attraction in 2010. this will help universal better compete with disney. in 2014, they drew 8 million guests compared to disneyland's 17 million and california adventure's 9 million, according to the themed entertainment association. now, universal has an advantage. it's going beyond rides to streets lined with theme shops and restaurants. here you can buy butter beer or a wand to cast enchantments on displays in about a dozen windows. disney is also doubling down on the immersive experiences. it has an "avatar" land in the works as well as "star wars" lands in the works. and last month, a dubai theme park company announced 27 rides that will be based on movies from sony pictures, dreamworks

animation as well as lionsgate. the key is it's not just about roller coasters. it's about bringing visitors into an experience that they feel like transports them into a movie. guys? >> it is pretty cool, i have to say, going through feeling like you're in the movie, feeling the heat from the dragon breathing coming off of it. >> don't eat before you get on the ride, joe. don't eat. >> definitely. >> eat after. >> julia, thank you so much. great to see you. have fun. get on a couple of those rides. >> reporter: thanks. >> folks, by the way, don't miss a special "squawk box" tomorrow. we have alan simpson and erskine bowles, joining forces once again here on "squawk box." simpson and bowles for an hour starting at 7:00 eastern time. erskine's going to be with us for some other guests that we have on planned as well. this is all taking place down in carolina. stick around. we have a big show planned right here on set, too, with hank paulson, the former treasury sec sitting down at the set. >> and hopefully, he will not cut his lip in the shower at 4:00 in the morning.

so, my apologies to viewers. >> you did very well. >> "power lunch," more bleeding, 1:00. >> andrew, see you tomorrow. >> from north carolina. >> remote tomorrow and see you back here next week. that's it for now. make sure you join us tomorrow. "squawk on the street" starts right now. good thursday morning. welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm karl quintanilla with jim cramer at the new york stock exchange. reversing gains over corporate news. more pfizer fallout, yahoo! a new "star wars" trailer and more. europe's mixed. japan finally caught a bid, the first of eight sessions, and claims roughly in line. oil's pretty steady, too. our road map begins with three ceos speaking out and making waves. jp dimon releasing a letter that has wall street