i did not see that coming. don't deal with disruptions. get better internet installed on your schedule. comcast business. built for business. good morning. the bulls in control. breaking overnight, asian stocks soar to be multimonth highs after u.s. equities close at their best levels of the year. news makers and news breakers. the imf and the world bank holding spring meetings in washington today. on the agenda, the state of the global economy. we'll bring you a front row seat. and a night for the history books. the golden state warriors win their 73rd game, breaking the record for the best nba season ever. and kobe bryant closes his storied career, scoring 60 points to lead the l.a. lakers to victory.

"worldwide exchange" begins right now. good morning and welcome to "worldwide exchange" on cnbc. i'm sara eisen reporting live from the imf meeting in washington, d.c. we are here at the imf world bank headquarters, wilfred. it's going to be an exciting day. everybody who matters in finance and central banking is here, and so are we. >> well, sara, i'm looking forward to it immensely, though i'm sad you're not here. what it really underlines is you care more about people like jack lew and christine lagarde than me. which i get it, they're important interviews. but i've taken note of that today. >> just this day. >> we'll get more on what sara has coming up on this great lineup. a busy morning ahead. let's start by getting you up to speed on the markets. u.s. equity futures at this hour are called lower.

the dow down by 25 points. the nasdaq by about seven points. yesterday we had strong levels of oil prices. that helped markets. we also had strong earnings from jpmorgan. four days of gains for the financial sector in a row. not just post the jpmorgan earnings. we were rallying a bit in that sector ahead of earnings. let's look at the yield on the ten-year. we've come away from that 1.7 level. we're at 1.77 right now this morning. not much movement there overnight. there has been a lot of movement in asian equities, however, overnight. they followed on from the rally we saw on wall street. the nikkei itself having its best day in over a month, up some 3%. that was initially off the back of thoughts of a weaker yen, although the yen had turned around by the end of the session. the nikkei able to hold on to its gains. gains also seen in hong kong, up

0.8%. europe not seeing quite so much of a rally. it was up yesterday. it's down today. germany up fractionally. the rest in the red. the commodity related sectors still doing well, although oil prices aren't soaring today, the levels remain high. >> wilfred, financial leaders from around the world are in washington today for the imf world bank spring meetings. late yesterday, i sat down with treasury secretary jack lew to talk about u.s. leadership in the global economy, but we also have to discuss the big issues at treasury, his leadership right now, including the recent clamp down on inversions, killing that more than $150 billion deal between pfizer an allergan. the. >> i said several years ago the right way, the best way to do it

is for legislation to be passed that would do serious, comprehensive tax reform and shut down inversions once and for all. i also said we'll use whatever administrative authority we have, and it's a complicated matter. you don't have infinite flexibility. we have worked and worked on it. this is the third action we've taken. each time we've slowed down the pipeline. each time i've said congress needs to act because we want to make sure that inversions are stopped. i think it should have been no surprise to anyone that we were working on this because we've been working on it for a long time. >> should not have come as a surprise. lew says there was a lot more discussion on inversions, on the state of the global economy. you can catch the entire exclusive interview with secretary lew later this morning. "squawk on the street," 9:00 a.m. eastern time. we have a big morning ahead here on "worldwide exchange" because in the next hour we're going to be joined by ubs chairman axel

weber and the institute of international finance ceo tim adams. wilfred, it's a perfect time to talk to this duo. i have to say, while the global economy is topic number one here, and yes we're not in a crisis, but we are in some sort of in-between netherland of disappointing growth, the big banks are front and center. not just because it's earnings week, but also the calls to do more on too big to fail, whether it's from bernie sanders or neil kashkari of the minneapolis federal reserve are getting louder and have reached a fever pitch and have reached the discussion in the halls here in washington. has enough been done in the u.s. banking system to keep it safe and to avoid another taxpayer bailout? it's something i talked about with jack lew. and it's something the global leaders are talking about. so interesting ginn those good results from jpmorgan yesterday. >> absolutely right. not just an interesting debate for the last couple months, but

yesterday with that living will announcement alongside the jpmorgan results, bringing that debate front and center. jpmorgan and jamie dimon were probably saying overnight, the shareholders at least applauded the earnings, proving the big banking model can still work, and ignored the announcements on the living will. more banks reporting today. let's give you a break down of the day ahead. earnings and economic data. weekly jobless claims are out at 8:30 a.m. eastern. expect it to hold steady. filings have been below 300,000 for 58 straight weeks. also, 8:30 we get the cpi. it's expected to tick up by 0.2%, following a decline in february. atlanta fed president dennis lockhart is speaking later today. as for earnings, look for results from wells fargo,

blackrock, and we also hear from delta airlines. that's all before the opening bell. of course, financials were a big driver for the broader market yesterday following better tha k expected results from jpmorgan. a nice gain of 2.25% led by j.p., up about 4% yesterday. >> that was a strong reaction to jpmorgan. i'm curious, do you think it was a jpmorgan story or a banking sector overall story? >> i think definitely there's a factor it was jpmorgan that led the charge. it brought all boats up with it. i think the capital market side saw a bit of an immaterial provmt -- improvement in march. we got guidance that march was better than april. energy losses were significant. i think we need to keep an eye on what the other banks report there. that could still be a negative surprise for some of the names.

bottom line, the interest rate centers were very strong. analysts have lowered their forecast for how many more hikes we get this year, but in q-1 itself that, 25-point basis point hike we saw in december came through. we saw those areas of the banks do well. for jpmorgan as well, expense management in the face of lower revenues in the investmentback. that's something i think with bank of america is always in the spotlight, this quarter more than ever. so jpmorgan rising all of the sector yesterday. it's now on the other banks to follow suit. >> yeah, we'll see what happens later this morning. we're also watching oil prices closely this morning ahead of that important producer meeting scheduled for sunday. when you look at the oil board, giving some of the gains we've seen over the week back, but wti crude is still firmly above $41 a barrel. brent just flirting with that $44 a barrel level, down half a

percent. overall, the trend has been higher. it's something we're also going to talk about with president kim of the world bank today, wilfred. that is the stabilization recently in commodities prices and how far that has helped emerging markets. not just the dollar that has started to weaken but the price of oil, copper, and other commodities is also going a long way to help some of these battered emerging markets. that's an interview coming up also on "squawk on the street." >> you keep dropping in all these great names of people you'll be speaking to. sara, therefore, i do understand why you have left me. it still hurts, but i understand. great lineup coming up. >> i'll be back tomorrow. >> let's have a quick look at broader markets today. the dollar is rallying today. almost unanimously. it was unanimous earlier in trade, including against the yen. as you can see, it's just turned around against the yen. that didn't stop the nikkei from having its best day in a month. it's not a big move. the yen up by 0.2%. the yen has come significantly

away from the 108 and close to 107 levels it touched a few weeks ago. elsewhere, as you can see, the euro and pound are all off kbens the dollar today. gold price for you there is at 1244, off a little bit today. right, it's been a chilly market for ipos recently, with only a few smaller companies going public. the first major public offering is finally here. that's been after a nearly four-month freeze. landon dowdy joins us with more. >> good morning. i know we miss sara, but don't worry. i'm not going anywhere. bass global markets is scheduled to price its ipo tonight for trading tomorrow. thaul offer 11.2 million shares, expected to price company $17 and $19 a share. it could raise up to $212.8 million and will trade on its own exchange. all eyes will be on the deal, not only after its historic tech glitch, but also as an indication of the health of the ipo market.

the ipo market froze last year due to china's slowing economy, falling energy prices. as a result, 65% of 2014 and 2015 ipos were trading below issue. so what's changed? renaissance capital telling me it's thanks to a more stable market environment and the performance of recent smaller ipos has significantly improved. back over to you. >> landon, thank you very much for that. what are the main stocks we're watching today, sara? >> wilfred, we're watching apple chip supplier, taiwan semiconductor posting an 18% decline in first quarter profits. that firm citing lower revenue and an earthquake for the miss, which it says hurt its margins. a weak outlook from seagate technology. that company saying it's expecting reduced demand for storage devices it, which will weigh on third quarter revenue. carl icahn cutting his stake in the medical device maker hologic to around 3.6%.

wilfred? >> some other stocks to watch. mcdonald's is reportedly targeting private equity firms for its planned sale of 2800 restaurants in north asia. "the wall street journal" reporting that ctw investment is pushing for a shake-up at chipotle. the investor group is affiliated with funds that own 55,000 of the chain's shares and says the board lacks diversity. no move really in the share price. verizon is likely the front runner in the upcoming bid for yahoo!'s core business, this according to analysts. this is partly because verizon's efforts with aol, which it acquired last june, have gone well. verizon flat in premarket trade. when we come back, decision 2016. we're less than a week away from the key new york primary. republican political strategist sara fagan is here with a look at the hike stakes, next on "worldwide exchange." every year, the amount of data your enterprise uses goes up. smart devices are up.

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because you can't build the business of tomorrow 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. welcome back to "worldwide exchange" live from washington, d.c. now to today's trade of the day. so with goldman sachs lowering its first quarter gdp growth estimate on yesterday's disappointing sales report, investors may wonder what companies outperform during times of slower growth. our data team crunched some numbers, and turns out in term of sectors, health care, consumer additidiscretionary st and consumer staples perform

best during these periods. as for specific dow components, cisco, united health, and home depot all outperformed. for more, go to cnbc.com. the obama administration is expected to announce new safety regulations for offshore drilling today. the oil companies are fighting the regulations, which will increase costs, and they say would slow down drilling in the gulf of mexico. now to politics. new york's primary is still five days away, but we're already starting to see a bit of a shift among the republican candidates with donald trump so far ahead in new york. they're increasingly focusing on pennsylvania. tracie potts reports. >> there are few places in america that have been more devastated economically by our trade policies than pittsburgh. we know that. >> reporter: donald trump at a

rally flanked by a thousand police officers, shifting focus to a state where dozens of unpledged delegates could put him over the top. >> we're going to see manufacturing jobs coming back to pennsylvania. >> reporter: ted cruz also in pennsylvania trying to put the best spin on new york's upcoming primary, where cruz is polling third. >> and if donald doesn't get north of 50% in his home state, i think that's widely going to be seen as a crushing loss for him. >> reporter: john kasich's poised to come in second. >> it's like coke, pepsi, and kasich, but people are still trying to figure out whether they like the brand. >> reporter: meantime, the democrats are getting ready for tonight's debate in new york. >> this is a tough race for us in that we are taking on someone who obviously was a united states senator here for eight years. >> reporter: lowering expectations in a state where he's 14 points behind. tracie potts, nbc news, washington.

>> joining us now is sara fagan, partner and chief political strategist at ddc advocacy and cnbc contributor. nice to see you in person. thanks for coming out here to the imf. is it time to look towards pennsylvania? is new york in the bag? >> well, new york is in the bag for donald trump. i think the question is will he get to that magic 50% threshold, where he will then get all of the del gegates. the rules in new york are quirky. i think he's going to get a strong majority of them. >> meanwhile, bernie sanders is leaving new york to go to the vatican. i can't figure this out. could this make him look presidential, or do you think it'll backfire that he's bailing on such an important primary state? >> it's hard to imagine catholics rallying behind bernie sanders. he must feel some kinship with the pope, who's talked a lot about income inequality, not only in the united states, but all around the globe. i do think, though, that these foreign trips to help bolster these candidates' credentials.

we see paul ryan, who's not a candidate,over seas. it does make them look more presidential. i find the vatican a curious place for bernie sanders to do a trip like this. >> we'll see what happens to him. you just heard in a clip the focus continues to be on jobs. they all want to bring manufacturing jobs back to america. in these halls, here in the imf, when you say trade wars and when you talk protectionist rhetoric, it is a scary thought for economic growth. but that is not what is happening on the campaign trail. >> that's right. it's really a tale of two cities in many respects. you do get the sort of ivy league policy think tank here where people talk in a big picture. for many americans, they haven't seen their wages increase in over ten years. they are working longer hours and not making more money. so when donald trump or bernie sanders talks about these issues and they talk about stopping trade coming to the united

states or more importantly making sure that trade is fair, it really does resonate with voters. it's one of the reasons why we see strength among these two candidates. what's so interesting to me is donald trump, bernie sanders, very different candidates, but they say a lot of the same things. their supporters want to arrive at the same place. >> so the question is, if clinton does lock up the nomination and she is ahead in the delegates, who did the sanders voters go to? >> well, you see in polling that about a quarter of sanders' people say they will never vote for hillary clinton, ever. i think at the end of the day, many of those people ultimately will. they're democrats. they're not republicans. but some of them will stay home. that's a challenge that republicans face as well. the donald trump core supporter, some of whom will never vote for the republican candidate, they'll probably just stay home if he's not successful in getting the nomination. >> i know you haven't been a huge fan of donald trump. what do you think about -- how

much do you think the policy elite, the finance ministers, central bankers coming here, they won't talk about it publicly, they won't even get into the politics. how much do you think it is a concern? >> it is the chatter of the cocktail circuit and dinner party circuit here in washington. everybody wants to talk about donald trump. everybody wants to understand how could it be possible that he may be the republican nominee or even potentially the president. so i think people are talking about it. they're very, very concerned. >> haven't may moved past that, the how could this be and what do we do to influence is. >> you know, i think it's very difficult for someone to come in and influence an election. i think the republican elite here in town are trying to figure that out. there's been much talk about an open convention and what to do to stop donald trump at a convention. i think there are aggressive efforts. i've been involved in some of them to make sure he doesn't get the delegates. >> what's the strategy at this point? >> i think a lot of it is that

neither ted cruz nor john kasich are in a position today to get the delegates either. so you're going to an open convention. the real question is, what's the threshold? if donald trump is close, if he's within 20 or 50 delegates, he's going to be the republican nominee. if he's down 200, if he doesn't do as well in new york, if he doesn't do as well in pennsylvania, california, these big states and it's open, then there's a chance for some other person, potentially who would be certainly more appealing to an establishment type republican to emerge. >> i mean, to me, this is the election where business, whether it's business money or business support and influence, does not matter. look at what donald trump said about mark zuckerberg. he's also bashed jeff bezos. he's called for a boycott of apple. technology has been a key factor. it helped obama in 2008 and in 2012. >> it really did. but it's not influential in these primaries. it will be influential in the

general election. business leaders will. the focus on growing the economy will. but right now voters on both sides are frustrated. they're angry, and they're looking for someone who gives voice to that frustration. they've found it in these two candidates. i don't think -- certainly bernie sanders subpoena not going to be the democratic nominee. i also don't think donald trump will get the delegates. if he walks in short, shorter than 25 or 30 -- >> so who gets it? who's the prediction? >> i think right now if you were putting money on it, you'd say ted cruz will figure out a convention strategy that allows him to be the nominee. i do not believe it's necessary he will. i think it's quite possible that you will see -- if this goes to four, five, ten ballots, which is possible, someone else will emerge that we're not talking about right now. >> we'll see what happens. it is a mystery. sara, thank you. first in new york then pennsylvania. sara fagen here in washington. >> sara, thanks very much for

that. still to come, a record breaking night in the nba. and a farewell to kobe bryant. sports news coming up next. but first, as we head to break, here's today's national forecast from the weather channel's jen carfagno. >> sara and wilfred, good thursday to you. we're looking at rain again in the southeast today. upper-level low on the move. not as potent as thuings were te past couple days but still some showers out there. thunderstorms along the northern gulf coast, getting to florida later this afternoon and evening. high pressure in control from the midwest to the northeast. it's a kind of day that starts off pretty cold but sunny and that sun warms up very nicely. that april sun angle is fantastic. getting into the 70s and nearly 60 in chicago. meanwhile in the west, this is the next big weather maker that will be with us for the next five days at least. it starts today continuing to bring more rain into the northwest. move into the rockies. looking at warm weather in places like denver. 77 degrees, very mild across the upper midwest. big warming trend coming for the weekend into the midwest and the

northeast. that's your coast-to-coast weather forecast. i'm meteorologist jen carfagno. "worldwide exchange" continues after this. friends coming over?

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welcome back to "worldwide exchange." some sports news for you now. the golden state warriors making history last night, beating the memphis grizzlies to smash the nba's single season wins record set by michael jordan's '95-'96 chicago bulls. 73 wins for the warriors this

season, only nine losses. steph curry leading his team and makes history of his own. he drained his 400th three pointer of the regular season, becoming the first player to ever do that. wow. >> i told you. i told you he was going to be one to watch. and the end of an era in los angeles. kobe bryant playing his final game in a laker uniform last night. he scored 60 points in a victory against the utah jazz. kobe is the third leading scorer in nba history and, boy, did he give his fans an epic finale and an unforgettable finish. when we come back, more on this morning's top stories. in focus next, our next guests understand the issues at play better than most. we're talking to ubs chairman axel weber and tim adams live. stay tuned. you're watching "worldwide exchange" on cnbc, first in

business worldwide.

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. good morning. under pressure, red arrows in europe right now, and u.s. futures are pointing to a higher open here in the states. happening now, global financial leaders gathering in washington today for the imf world bank spring meetings. we'll bring you a front row seat, including an exclusive interview with treasury secretary jack lew. and you've heard of the coachella music festival. but what about berniechella?

wait until you see what bernie supporters are up to this week. it's thursday, april 14th, 2016, and you're watching "worldwide exchange" on cnbc. good morning and welcome to world world on cnbc. i'm sara eisen reporting live from the imf meeting in washington, d.c., today. here at imf world headquarters. wilfred, i'm sorry you're not here. >> a great lineup you have coming up for us, sara. i am here from cnbc headquarters. wilfred frost. we're going to get you straight to a busy morning's bit of data and stories. market action first up. let's have a look at what futures are doing. they're, in fact, down at this hour. down by the tune of about 17 points for the dow. nothing too significant. the s&p down about three points, and the nasdaq by about five points. we got about 1% of gains yesterday for u.s. equities, led by financials, which had their

fourth day of gains in a row. three of those days, of course, coming before jpmorgan's results. then the most pronounced day of gains coming yesterday. about 4% for jpmorgan stock prices. dragging the sector up as a whole. of course, the rest of the banks start reporting today. that'll be a sector to keep an eye on. let's have a look at stocks around the world. first up, european markets. they're a little disappointing. again, not too significantly so. the ftse down by just 0.1%. the french index down 0.2%. germany just in positive territory. asia asaw strong gains. >> financial leaders from around the world are in washington today for the imf world bank spring meetings. late yesterday, i caught up with treasury secretary jack lew to talk about u.s. leadership in the global economy right now, but we also of course discuss the big issue at treasury right now, his leadership, the recent clampdown on inversions, killing that more than $150 billion deal

between pfizer and allergan. he defended himself against company criticism that the treasury's move came as a surprise. have a listen. >> i said several years ago the right way, the best way to do it is for legislation to be passed. it would do serious comprehensive business tax reform and shut down inversions once and for all. i've also said we'll use whatever administrative authority we have, and it's a complicated matter because you don't have infinite flexibility. we have worked and worked on it. this is the third action we've taken. each time we've slowed down the pipeline. each time i said congress needs to act because we want to make sure inversions are stopped. i think that it should have been no surprise to anyone that we were working on this because we've been working on it for a long time. >> he says he telegraphed it very well. you can catch the entire exclusive interview with treasury secretary jack lew later this morning on "squawk on

the street," 9:00 a.m. eastern time. banks are front and center here at the world bank imf meetings. joining us now, you couldn't ask for a better pair to talk about banks and central banks. axel weber and tim adams. good morning, gentlemen. >> good morning. >> so axel, we had good earnings from jpmorgan. overall, it's been a rough year for the european banks between low and negative interest rates, commodity weakness. is the worst behind them? >> very hard to say that at this stage, but we had a challenging fourth quarter, and it continued into this year. we're seeing more bright spots now. we've been in a market correction. it's too early to talk about when that will end. i see some further challenges over the summer. we have the very difficult debate in europe with brexit. there's a continued debate about

how to deal with the situation in greece. we continue to see more challenges over the summer. >> brexit in particular, the warning has been on financial flows and the banks. do you see this as a real risk? how should banks prepare? >> it's very hard to prepare for a situation like that. i think all it requires is optionalty. we still expect the situation will sort of work out over the summer and that the british will vote for staying in, but it's a close call. we are based in europe. so we already have a large part of our main operations in the same time zone. we basically have most of ours operations in various cities in europe. but of course a very strong presence in london. the risk is that international financial markets are starting to attach risk premium to briltish based assets, to british based corporate, and to the u.k. and the british pound in general. that will continue to produce some nervousness and volatility over the summer, so we're concerned about this short-term

volatility, but medium to long term, we have quite a positive view. >> that's just one source of uncertainty for the banks right now, tim. the other issue is regulation. the decision on living wills yesterday that many of the big banks are going to have to go back and revise their plans, do you think it will fuel the criticism for too big to fail to do more? >> well, the criticism is there. it's a political season. it's easy to demonize financial institutions. look, they're making progress. i looked at the federal reserve's announcement yesterday. there's some common elements. liquidity is one of them. we heard from jamie yesterday. they're going to take this on and get this resolved and do it quite quickly. i think this time next year, we'll be on the other side of the living will issue. >> at the same time, the earnings story. "the wall street journal" angle was actually the best defense is an offense, just come out and show they can manage through tough conditions. >> absolutely. we've had sweeping changes over the past four years. we havele less leverage, more

liquidity. enormous changes. i think we have to look at the system as a whole. >> one of the big changes and the cloud that hangs over the industry is the interest rate environment. in europe, even worse. what's going to be the back of negative rates? >> well, the impact of negative rates is already there. switzerland is one of the country that has the most negative rates. we're seeing it in various dimensions. the first one you just talked about, liquidity, your treasury department used to earn a return on holding liquid bonds. in switzerland, you have to pay 35 basis points for the privilege of holding a swiss sovereign bond over a ten-year maturity. the liquid tid provision has changed. we also see that banks that used to be market makers, because of the new regulation, have moved out of that function to a large extent. so they don't provide stress liquidity. we're going to see more needs for the central banks to provide liquid. my european central bank, for example, is trying to do that with their dedicated long-term

ltros. so it's term liquidity. that's something that banks can lock into. it even has a favorable condition attached to it in europe in the sense of a negative interest rate. but in general, i think negative interest rates are just a tool that you can use in close proximity to zero only. >> it seems to be scary for investors, the prospect of negative interest rates. has the ecb done enough, or do you foresee a situation where they could do more? helicopter money is now being bandied about. >> that's exactly put on the spot. the question is not have they done enough or too little, the question is have they done the right things or things that are not right. i think there are some challenges in europe that are related to the solvency situation of monetary policy not being in the right sort of connection. if anything, monetary policy, not just the ecb, has done more -- >> too much? >> i would say more than fiscal

and structural policy, and we have a corner solution. we too much rely on central banks and too little action comes from treasuries and in particular from structural reforms in europe. so the ecb is in a corner solution. when you're in one of these corner solutions, you always do more than i think an optimum policy would suggest. in that sense, the ecb has paved the way for governments not to really step up to their responsibilities. in the future, i'd like to see more of a balanced mix. >> and that has been your message and your history. you could say the same thing for the fed, that it's doing too much and the fiscal authorities aren't doing enough. i wonder as far as the banking world is concerns, going back to the jamie dimon shareholder letter, is the risk of rising rates too fast? or the opposite? >> we've seen diminishing returns on negative interest rates and quantitative easing. look at the bank of japan. we saw the stock market decline and the yen rally, which is not what japan needs. i think depending on the

jurisdiction, we've seen diminishing returns. even christine lagarde in her opening statement yesterday said we need a battle lanlanced, mul approach. >> and what we're hearing on the campaign from both sides, the bashing of the big banks, call for regulation. you're just chalking it up to bluster? >> this country faces great challenges. we need job creation. we need rising living standards. those are the real issues. breaking up the big banks doesn't solve any of those challenges. it's a distraction. at worse t will make those problems worse. >> gentlemen, thank you. good discussion. enjoy the day. heavy day of meetings. wilfred, back to you. >> sara, thank you. fascinating stuff. still to come from "worldwide exchange," today's must reads. why verizon ceo is definitely not femaling the bern.

but sanders is getting some millennial love. berniechella is trending. we'll tell you about that in a couple minutes.

welcome back to "worldwide exchange." very good morning to you. let's get to this morning's top trending stories.

american airlines is calling out the tsa, saying the agency is not doing enough to ensure that passengers make their flight in time. a spokesman from the airline calls lines at tsa check points nationwide unacceptable, saying the problem got exponentially worse during the first three months of the year. line delays caused 6800 passengers to miss their flights in one week in march. i would say one thing that's much better in britain is airports, than the u.s. from my experience so far. >> you might be right about that. though, i think i'm the only one who doesn't mind the lines. i just want them to do their jobs. >> well, that's true. >> meantime, gopro is hiring a veteran apple designer as its new vice president of design. costar was a member of the apple team for more than 20 years, contributing to the iphone 4 and wireless keyboards. investors like the news. shares of gopro are up more than 10% this week on that. they have been battered over the

last few months as there have continued to be questions about growth for this company. that's the short-term chart, which looks good. the long-term chart is ugly. gopro going public at $24 in 2014 and has come a long way down from that. it's going to have to really prove it can get grown again. >> now, british star will be the new voice of the grinch. it's benedict cumberbatch. the new movie comes out in the november of 2017. he goes from strength to strength and gets great roles. i'm sure he'll make this one his own as well. >> i know you're very happy to see that. well, you've heard of coachella, i hope, the music festival, which kicks off this weekend. but how about berniechella? supporters of presidential candidate bernie sanders are hosting the spinoff event ahead of this week's music festival. sanders has yet to say if he'll attend. he might be too busy traveling to the vatican or campaigning in new york. but this is a perfect fit, i

would think, when it comes to bernie sanders supporters. young, hippies, music festival attendees. have you ever been to coachella? >> i haven't been. i would love to. i know a lot of people that are going. if i was to go, i think politics would be the last thing on my mind. but there we go. each to their own. i'm sure some people will go and attend that and enjoy it let's get to today's must read stories. my pick is the "financial times." it's titled "bank living wills: citigroup leads the pack." it's been so long since the financial crisis that citigroup has emerged as a model institution, which i think is a good point to bring up. then it goes on to say, shareholders care more about current performance and the potential for bigger buybacks, which will be governed by the results of the fed stress test due in june. i think that is the key takeaway. despite these living will failures yesterday for many

banks, share prices rallied. they rallied hard. they were focused much more on core earnings than on this living will announcement. at the moment, investors at least ignoring that bank living will set of announcements yesterday, sara. >> see if they focus on the results again this morning. my pick is also a thematic element about the campaign and the fact that ceos are continuing to fight back. it's a linkedin blog post. he was sort of inspired by jeff immelt of ge who came out in "the washington post" against bernie sanders, bashing his company. senator sanders claims verizon doesn't use its profit to benefit america. again, a look at the facts says

otherwise. in the last two years, verizon has invested some $35 billion in infrastructure. virtually all of its in the united states and paid out more than $16 billion in dividends to the millions of average americans who invest in our stock. he goes on to refute claims that sanders has made that verizon doesn't pay taxes, saying they've paid billions in taxes. these companies are finally speaking out, which shows on one hand that they consider bernie sanders a viable option as he continues to gain momentum. on the other, they're not going to take the criticism that bernie is lashing out at corporate america sitting down. >> indeed. another corporate fight back there. sara, great must reads today. let's get to joe kernen. "squawk box" team is getting ready. joe is joining us with a look at what's coming up. joe? >> i just have become -- watching the thousands of people at the bernie rally yesterday, a lot of these people were

actually put on camera with microphones, talking about why they were supporting senator sanders. now i think i'm going to devote my life to more funds for education. after seeing that, there really is a big problem in terms of, well, economics education and the like. you know, i will not -- i don't care if the deficit blows up. maybe we do need to educate everyone a lot more. because the stuff coming out of these people's mouths about economic systems, capitalism versus socialism, i feel maybe it is our fault that at this point after all these experiments, after all this time, watching the results of the socialist economic system, still plenty of people think that's the way to go. so we got a lot of larrys on today. larry fink from blackrock. larry summers. unable to book larry bird, who would have made great comments probably about kobe bryant. did you see that? 50 shot attempts, 60 points.

he didn't really -- >> what an amazing finale. >> i think someone else ought to probably bring him out of retirement. there's a lot of teams that could probably use a guy that can score 60 points. so with larry summers, obviously after sara's interview with jack lew, inversions will be a topic. also, what we do with trade. even larry summers admits that free trade is something we have to strive for, but it's easy to understand why it seems to benefit the elites more than the workers. so we'll talk about that as well. >> okay, joe. great stuff. we look forward to that. "squawk box" up in about eight minutes' time. mars food, the maker of m&ms and snickers, is launching a new global nicinitiative. that's next. cathy's gotten used to the smell of lingering garbage...

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new global health and well being initiative to provide consumers with nutritional food that will include on-package labeling. joining uses is the global president of mars food. very good morning to you. >> good morning, wilfred. >> you brought rice. i was hoping we'd get chocolates and other sorts of things. i'm not going to be able to eat this. >> we'll make sure you get some candy as well. >> tell us about this new initiative. why is it so ground breaking? we've got warnings on foods before. why is this different? >> well, this is a far-reaching ambiti ambition. this really covers everything from reformulation, so what we're going to take out, salt and sugar, to what we're going to put in, vegetables and whole grains. it talks about our labeling, making it more clear and consistent. so helping people understand what's inside but also recipes on back. and it's also going to encourage people to cook together. we know one in four americans don't sit down for a meal together regularly. we want to encourage them to do

that more often. >> it's hard for you to change the perception. i realize we have some nice writers and things like that, but it's similar to a mcdonald's or a coca-cola trying to say we're a health company. mores in people's mienz, it's chocolate. how do you change that perception? >> i've worked in the chocolate business for many years. the great news is, a, we've done a whole heap already. we've reformulated our product and looked at our portion sizes. people know that chocolate is a treat. what moms, what consumers around the world are telling us is help us with dinner time. we're finding it incredibly confusing to know what's inside and things that are so-called healthy end up to have hidden salts, fats, and sugars. we're determined to reduce salt, sugar, and making it easy for them to understand. >> some of these initiatives, the salt area, for example, it is led by the fda pushing you to do these sorts of things. >> no, not at all, actually. we're working very closely with the fda. don't get me wrong. we're very supportive of their guidelines. we've been working worldwide with the relevant authorities.

we've taken the w.h.o. guidelines particularly on sodium, which are incredibly stringent and may even go further than the fda guidelines. >> and while we've got you here, leading sales for you are in places like the u.s. and u.k. developed marks like the u.s., how strong is the consumer right now? >> we're finding our u.s. business particularly buoyant at the moment, but there are a lot of headwinds. i think the key thing is focusing on fundamentals, making sure you're delivering value for money with great tasting, quality products, which i believe we do every day. >> great stuff. thank you very much for joining us this morning. fiona dawson from mars food. that's it for "worldwide exchange" this morning. we'll have a quick look at u.s. futures before we go. they're pointing to a slightly lower open, having gained about 1% yesterday. we're down about two points only. so fractionally lower. not following suit of asia, but following suit of europe. from both sara and i, thank you

for watching. "squawk box" is next. sara look bawill be back with g interviews on "squawk on the street." ngs. 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.

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good morning. yesterday jpmorgan lit a fire under the dow. more financial earnings on tap today. bank of america and blackrock set to report. this hour we'll bring you the numbers and reaction from the street. meanwhile, regulators setting their sights on theranos, proposing a two-year ban for the blood testing startup, including its founder, elizabeth holmes, a two-year ban. and passing the ball was not in the game plan for kobe bryant's final nba outing last night. he closed out his 20-year career with 60 points on 50 shot attempts in last night's win against utah. it's thursday, april 14th, 2016.

squa"squawk box" begins right n. 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 joe kernen and andrew ross sorkin. take a look at the u.s. equity futures at this hour. they are flat, but this comes after stocks close the at their highest levels of the year yesterday. you saw a couple of days in a row of gains. the dow was up another 187 points yesterday. that was a gain of bett thbette 1%. again, things are flat right now. stocks were up overnight in asia after the hang seng and shanghai composite closed at a three-week high. a 3% gain in the japan's nikkei notched the highest close in three weeks. you'll see at least