happy birthday michelle caruso ka br cabrera. >> we're so excited for you. >> thank you, everybody. that was nice of you. >> thank you for watching "power lunch" and thank you, will, for joining us. "closing bell" starts right now. hi, everybody. welcome to the "closing bell." i'm kelly evans at the new york stock exchange. >> i'm michael santoli in for bill griffeth. washington watching the dow today as they hit record highs on tax reform. plus, trump holding a meeting with airline ceos this morning. >> got the details from ben baldanza. dunkin' brands higher on the back of its earnings report. ceo nigel travis will join us in a first on cnbc. >> twitter getting crushed after

missing on revenue today. some of its biggest shareholders are speaking out against jack dorsey's dual ceo role. the comments from the president that helped send stocks to new highs today. take a listen. >> we're going to be announcing something i would say over the next two or three weeks that will be phenomenal in terms of tax. >> joining us on our "closing bell" exchange to discuss this today, eric ristaven, steve grasso over there at post 9 from stewart frankel and rick santelli at the cme in chicago. how much do you ascribe to the tax comments? does it show how desperate the market is for corporate tax reform? >> i do think it is desperate for corporate tax reform. i don't think it's going to get it any time soon. the politics look divided. i think it's going to be towards the end of the year until we see

something meaningful on tax reform. that points you back to the fundamentals. u.s. equity stocks are very expensive. earnings are way too aggressive and optimistic. we think the u.s. market is poised for a draw back. >> steve, you know, we do have a lot of that talk, and you can make these observations in a variety of different ways that the market looks fully valued. one of the interesting things, we've had the breakout. during this period when we've gone sideways, different groups lent support. you had the big cap tech stocks which were not geared to policy moves. basically different sectors taking their turns. what's your read? >> totally agree with that, mike. if you look at the market as a whole you see the financials lead one day, utilities lead the next day. if you're on board with this rally, as today, it is definitely focused on the infrastructure bill. it is focused on taxes. it is focused on cutting regulation. the market ripped higher when he

had said in his terms a phenomenal plan within the next two to three weeks. now to eric's point, i don't think it needs to be done and carved in stone in the next two to three weeks but as long as there is a plan being put together, i think that goes a long way. i think you have to buy the market as a whole, buy the indexes, buy the spiders or the russell. you don't have to be burdened with picking the granular stock or the sector. you buy the market as a whole. i've been a repeated buyer of the s&p. that's how you do it and make it easier for yourself. >> you have the dollar up today, the oil up and, rick, what about bond yields? >> i think bond yields are definitely up today. i think what we're all talking about certainly gave it a push. if you look where we were overnight outside of our time zone, it looked like we were separating ourselves from the up side at the 230 level. some of the issues crossing

cross spreads from european sovereign seems to have abated and taking the ten-year note on it seems to have reversed now. i urge anyone interested in it to take any of the southern sovereigns. spanish, italian, french ten year and look at how it is not correlated, indirectly correlated after november and how closely it's correlated prior to november. and as far as hope r, i'll tell you what. it diminishes the fact. if we were at 19,000, or 18,8. hope is a lottery ticket. this is an investment strategy predicated on what comes out of the president's mouth. to many it's debatable as to how long it takes and what percentage drop you get in corporate tax rates. that's a whole lot more than a lottery ticket. >> eric, if you're looking at

this market, it's gone ahead of itself, maybe it needs to back slide. what's your read on what happens after that? in other words, is this going to be a pull back you would want to use to buy more? is this more like kind of an end of cycle story? >> no, i don't think it's an end of cycle story. i think it is probably a pull back where you might want to reinvest on the dip. you know, but in the interim, look, we like europe, right? european stocks, u.s. is having a good day today. europe so far has had a better day today. that's been the case for the -- since the year began from january 1 until now. europe's out performing the u.s. emerging is outperforming the u.s. that's been the case since the beginning of december. we think that trend continues and they're less susceptible in our minds to a major pull back or significant pull back as the u.s. market is. >> wow, there's a lot i'd like to debate with you there, eric. we'll bring you back to talk

about the politics in europe and the u.s. eric, steve, thank you for being here to kick things off. president trump meeting with top industry executives in the airline space. phil lebeau at the white house with more. hi, phil. >> reporter: hi, kelly. the same 1kri79 bscript but dif actors. president donald trump sitting with about 14 or 15 airline ceos, executives from some of the largest airports as well as executives from shipping companies. he says our airports, they used to be the best, now they're near the bottom. the industry is suffering from excessive regulation. he wants to ease and he also believes that eventually they can free up some money to help the airports and airlines modernize their systems. >> a lot of the new equipment is obsolete the day they order it and that's according to people that know, including my pilot. i have a pilot who's a real expert and he said, sir, the

equipment they're putting on is just the wrong stuff. we'll talk about that. if we're going to modernize our systems, we should be using the right equipment. >> one system that nearly everyone agrees could be modernized and should be modernized is the air traffic control system. primarily because it could ease congestion at some of the busiest airports. here's the ceo of southwest airlines talking about how quickly they could invest in this system. >> we believe that there's about $25 billion of waste annually with the system that's currently being used so that's where our focus is. that's where the airlines for america focus is and that's where i think you'll get the biggest bang for the buck. >> reporter: the airline stocks have been moving higher since the election. i think a number of them got a bit of a pop today. the interesting thing to watch, guys, is how quickly we've seen some of this money that's been promised by the trump administration as it actually comes through to the airports.

that will be the real test. even after that happens, remember it often takes years before some of these large projects like a new runway or renovating a terminal, it takes years for that to happen. even though the trump administration says, yeah, we're going to get going, don't expect to see anything changing in the near future. >> thank you, phil. the airline index part of the broader rally we're seeing. joining us now for more on this meeting today, former ceo and president of spirit airlines, ben baldanza. thank you for joining us. >> great to be with you. >> so it does sound like the meeting focused on red tape and overhauls of the air traffic system and other things as well. what, in addition, do you think is important for the u.s. air line industry here in terms of what to contribute to their improved performance? >> well, i think the infrastructure is a big deal including the air traffic control system but i also think the taxes that the president

eluded to are important. the tax structure of the airline industry came out of the 1950s when airlines were taxed as a luxury good to discourage use. so airline customers tend to pay often 20 or 25% tax rates on their ticket and that really dampens the amount of travel that happens. so if trump will work with the industry on tax reform that helps the industry, that's going to lower fares for consumers and drive more economic activity. >> ben, the airline industry with past administrations as well has tried to make the case that some foreign carriers basically didn't play fair because they were subsidized in one way or another by other countries or got to operate under more lenient rules. is that something i think will be a message they'll send and will find receptivity? >> this is something that's split and those from the middle east should be allowed to fly more to the u.s.

the big three carriers that are supporting that restriction have alliances with european carriers that are all hurt essentially by the growth of middle eastern carriers, so it's kind of hard to dissect how much is true support for american jobs and how much is protectionism there. >> ben, when he announced the dakota access pipeline and other pipe lines moving forward in his executive order he also said he wanted the pipe lines to be made in america. when it comes to the airlines, any reason why you think he would raise the prospect that they should all be flying america, that is on boeing jets? >> i think that's certainly possible. you know, the airline business and the airplane manufacturing business is as much of a global industry as anything. i mean, boeing and airbus who sell most of the airplanes flown in the united states make parts all over the world, assemble them in multiple places around the world so i think the pipeline is good. it's a complicated issue in terms of how to think about

whether boeing creates more jobs than airbus or airbus creates more jobs than boeing especially when things are made all over the world. it's a complicated subject. >> when you talk about the airline industry perhaps not having a great bargain when it comes to taxes and other things that they're looking for from government right now, how great a case do they make considering the fact that the airlines have never been more profitable, the business is more rationalized and consumers don't necessarily like to see anything that goes against the sort of price wars that the airline industry has been prone to. >> i think that's right in terms of profitability. you have to think about the fact that that profitability comes from the fact that as the industry is consolidated, capacity has come more in line with demand but that doesn't mean that with lower fares that could come from lower taxes or lower energy prices there wouldn't even be more demand for travel. prices are still relatively high to the last couple of years and as a result of that there is

still some demand that's not being serviced by the industry. >> ben, thanks for joining us today. appreciate it. great to see you. >> former president and ceo of spirit airlines. we have 50 minutes to go before the bell. a moment ago tweerp above 20,200. we're above the high. >> dunkin' brands rising on the back of quart teerly beats. and stocks versus bonds. u.s. versus international. the chief investment officer of the second largest pension fund tells us how he's putting the funds near $200 billion and assets to work. you're watching cnbc first in business worldwide.

stevect s ah like ty acithipas. whnoroy leg. nothisfu b bwn m to tasen you'reonna be out wt th m fra u ghtaww just movut. it' mman.y i usedo hay owt heal cnge but li you' to, epr.

on a perfect car, then smash it into a tree. your insurance company raises your rates. maybe you should've done more research on them. for drivers with accident forgiveness, liberty mutual won't raise your rates due to your first accident. and if you do have an accident, our claims centers are available to assist you 24/7. call for a free quote today. liberty stands with you™. liberty mutual insurance.

welcome back. broad rally in markets the dow touching 20,200 poised to close in record territory. big gains for all the indexes. russell 2000 which had been under performing jumping 1.5%. s&p and nasdaq up 2/3 of a percent. only three stocks on the blue chips lower on the dow today.

mcdonald's, coke, and intel. coke of course reporting earnings and ends guidance this week. >> certainly was. shares of dunkin' brands climbing today. up over 4%. near an all-time high that goes back well over a year. company reported earnings thabeet expectations. announced a dividend increase in 7.5%. >> they will sell off the remaining company owned stores in the quarter and they're now 100% franchised. we're joined by the ceo nigel kravitz. >> hi, kelly. >> good to have you. talk about the results and the consumer environment. a lot of the food companies have been reporting a mixed bag about the consumer in the fourth quarter. you guys managed close to revenue beat which yum brands did not. what do you think accounts for that? >> i think we had a good year, kelly. there's no doubt that the consumer has been struggling somewhat in the restaurant space

and traffic has been challenged, let's put it that way, but when i look back at 2016 we had a really solid year. we put a strategy in place that we're excited about for the future. we developed a bunch of new coffee products, particularly cold brew that i think set us up for many years of growth. we brought our new iced coffee. fundamentally, i think we have our franchisees on the same -- in the same place as us. we have new leadership in dunkin' u.s. under dave hoffman who's energizing our franchisees. we feel good about the future. it's a key that we have a strategy for the future that's helped us. >> nigel, as of course you know, starbucks has talked about having some kind of log jams in terms of getting traffic through its doors. i saw that you thought it made sense to do some menu simplification and try to get the engineering side of getting customers through your drive throughs or through your stores

more quickly. what's happening on that front? >> well, we're world class, mike, on speed. always have been. i mean, that's something that dunkin' is renowned for. secondly, we've looked at our menu and feel that it's too complex. we need to simplify it. we're doing a test. certain things will happen, we'll change them back. it's a test to find out the way forward. we want to streamline our menu. the results should be that employees have an easier job. we should speed up transactions. going with that streamlining, we're very excited about the future of on the go ordering. this is a build on our perks app. you can order ahead. you press a button when you're ready to go to the restaurant. it's not just go ahead ordering, but it also gives us the opportunity to do things like curbside that we've been testing here in massachusetts. in terms of the congestion in the restaurants, because we are

i think concerned about speed, we don't see that. we would encourage more people to come to our restaurants because we can handle them with speed and we see it all the time. you know, i often just sit in restaurants and watch how people go in and out and we handle them all in a very robust manner. >> nigel, howard schultz will be doing a lot with the premium side of starbucks business going forward. in your new york city shortly you'll be able to buy an $18 cup of coffee. those margins you would like to have a piece of. specialty's not historically been in your dna. would it be part of your future? >> i don't think the $18 quite fits with dunkin'. we're about value. we're about making sure that we deliver what our customers expect from dunkin' donuts. are we changing it? do we have a strategy to move it down the beverage to go route? yes. but i can't see us going up to

that end. good luck to starbucks. they've done a great job and howard has a great company. he's identified a niche that fits with their brand. i don't think it's us, but what i do know is that we will continue to do what's right for our franchisees, what's right for their profitability and what the customers want and what they tell us is more coffee, more beverages that they can usually take on the go and with it we're going to see pairings. just one reminder, kelly, next week is valentine's day, so i know how romantic you are. here you go with a heart shaped donut. >> i don't know, she should be the one doing the buying, nigel, but it's a good thought. i'll keep it in mind. i do wonder quickly before we go, how many franchises do you think this country can handle? is there demand to get you to whatever target that is. >> we said, mike, for many

years, this goes back five years, we can get to over the next 15, 20 years to about 17,000 stores. we've only got 400 stores west of the mississippi. our restaurant margins are good. we're very focused on two things so this is the great thing of the 100% franchise model. we focused on franchise relationships and franchise margins. if we do that backed up by national advertising, backed up by world class digital support to meet the needs of the modern consumer, i think there's no reason we can't get to that 17,000 or even beyond. that's just dunkin' donuts and bass kin robins we can keep growing in the u.s. as well. >> final question, nigel. markets are rallying in part because of donald trump's comments this morning about phenomenal tax reform that's heading our way. what would that mean for dunkin'? what's your expectation at this point of this administration and the policies as you heard them so far? >> well, we try and look at it

through the lens of small business. if our small business people, franchisees grow, we grow. we always look at it through those sides. i think they've been interested and focused on tax refarm. i think their biggest issue is finding labor. i mean, that's a big stress for them right now. so sensible immigration reform that balances the country's security and driving the economy is something else they talk about. they also talk about -- >> real quickly, nigel, on that point. are you guys having trouble in your restaurants because immigration has become more restrictive? >> we are having difficulty finding employees. now i'm not saying that has anything to do with immigration, all i'm saying is, you know, we keep growing. we grow 8,000 jobs a year and there is demand for more people. our franchisees to a person

keeps saying, help us to find more people. now some of it we're trying to fix ourselves. we're trying to make our restaurants more efficient, we're trying to make the job more attractive. as i mentioned earlier, we're working with our franchisees to coach them about the right sort of culture that happens inside the restaurant. that's very important because the best way of finding people is not to lose the people you have. but i think if we could take young people who, remember, youth unemployment is still over 10%. i think the administration should focus on our industry and particularly into dunkin' donuts and train them in what is historically their first job, that would be good for everyone. >> pay them 50 bucks an hour but in the meantime, we understand the challenges the way the market's evolving. nigel, thank you for joining us. >> thank you. bye, kelly.

>> nigel travis is the ceo of dunkin' donuts. you have the markets up broadly just under the day's highs. up almost 2/3 of a point. russell 2000 is the leader which has been the pattern when people think tax reform might open. coca-cola is lower. we'll have more on what coke's incoming ceo has to say about the quarter. >> more earnings after the bell. expedia, nvidia, activevision coming to the tapes. we'll break down the numbers as soon as that comes up. s intis. liken plattsts s intis. whe the anceansportion is an route. and orni,ttsts s intis. where the e ture is morrow -lizing.t us heln y sd.ny. [ gi ges ]

consotee stoc ngof top aly toto singlore, u ree the smtest iesting ia isjuyoin singlore, whinst wit isjuyoin singlore, whert oy ths re bviou trade. 's active tr pcahelp f r enyann he ptepyouren prots. fy imy retent. tingiredires. ani get tired oft.e ly aro rer? younevetiring ringtiretireti with i'ests a a i invest with tre, erinvest.

coming up on the last half hour of trading, all indexes at record highs. just a little bit below the highs of the day. been about two weeks since the dow and the s&p hit records. dow component coca-cola is lagging. it's one of the few dow stocks in the red after reporting quarterly revenue beat in the red. it issued a surprising drop. higher costs related to the refranchising of the bottle operation. the company is cutting back on the low margin bottling business. incoming ceo james quincy telling cnbc that he's optimistic about smaller packages and zero calorie drinks. >> north america smaller packages grew almost 10% in volume. as we focus on smaller packages, no calorie sparkling beverages,

like sparkling colas, which accelerated and are now globally growing well ahead of the rest of the portfolio, we see a future emerging with a reshaped growth equation. >> quincy, remember, is coke's current president and c.o.o. you'll succeed muhtar kent. >> kind of a slow reinvention that coke is having to go. sort of reminds me of the 100 calorie packages of cookies. >> the difference is the 100 calorie package of cookies tasted terrible. coke you can get a smaller version of something that tastes good. >> they'll do now like i put them in the kid's lunches where you have the same old cookies. i think it's not the stock for this environment. >> slow grow. >> you see the threats that are coming. and we've talked about this. obviously pepsi's strategy to diversify into snacks. time and again, all of the same thing. >> small snacks division, no longer about.

3.4% dividend. >> what do you think of the fact that disappointing prices comes out. it behooves them to lower the bottom line. >> no doubt about that. you have this slow improvement ideally. >> yeah, exactly. time for a cnbc news update. let's go to sue herera. >> what's happening at this hour. trump adviser kellyanne conway appearing on fox news this morning encouraging people to buy ivanka trump's fashion line. jason chaffetz says that's over the line and says that's unacceptable. >> sean spicer said conway was getting a talking to. >> she's been counselled on that subject and that's -- that's it. >> utah senator orrin hatch on

capitol hill, he began his tenure in 1977. most senior republican currently serving in the senate. he was honored for his service to the country with kind words with both the majority and minority leaders of the chamber. the florida marlins may be under new ownership. forbes magazine said team owner jeffrey luria has a handshake deal to sell for $1.6 billion. he got them in 1982 for $158 million. mike, i know you know everything there is to know about baseball. what do you think of that deal? who do you think is buying it? >> everything we need to know, sue. let me get back to you in the next half hour. i'm going to have my full analysis of that. >> excellent, you're on. >> we have all the major indexes breaking up out of this range to new record highs. obviously the market wanted to hear on some level.

>> another trump rally just like on friday when he signed the -- your regulatory roll back, financials took off. again, today he's talking about tax reform being available sooner than what the market expected. a lot of times people expected in the summer. he made it sound like it's coming out the next month. then he had the ceos rolling back and igniting transports in the airlines. it's another one of those rallies. look, there's not a lot of volume. it doesn't really feel like it's breaking out. it just feels like it's kind of drifting higher, and to me it doesn't feel like it's really real yet. >> we'll pull back after we go higher. >> it feels like it's drifting higher. no real commitment yet. >> snow day action. >> thanks very much. beers are all hibernating. thank you. heading into the close and we're seeing a broad rally. dow is up 127 points today. a lot of the records here if we

continue to hang on to these levels. twitter shares fresh after reporting weaker than expected revenue. we discuss how much of this trouble is related to jack dorsey being ceo of both twitter and square. coming up calsters chief investment officer chris ailman. thathinrsm myadplrm wheve ss sossalur devicright? , so my om udies go me? maet's hot! to atform on v♪ith inrswi at

welcome back. tesla is reportedly shutting down its assembly plant in california. reuters saying the company will add capacity to the paint job to prepare for the model 3 sedan set to begin in july. tesla expects to produce half a million model 3 vehicles. it's not expected to have a material impact since the company added production days to compensate. mike, those shares are up 2.5%. shares of twitter, meantime, sinking after the social media company reported missing expectations and issued guidance that was well short of expectations. there's a big question mark for the company as he tries to run two companies. steve ballmer and miller are two people who have been recently critical of him. >> i'm going to stand by the notion that says running two

companies is probably not the best idea and i'll stand by the notion that jack's a very creative, innovative guy as well evidenced by the fact that he started two amazing companies. who could have -- who can do that? that's very tough. both twitter and square, and i give him credit for that. i think now's the time for him to focus down at least from my perspective on the stock i own. >> part-time ceo works or a part-time cfo or part-time chief technology officer, in my personal opinion i think jack should step down and still, you know, great entrepreneur, great visionary, be on the board, be a strategist but i think they need a full-time ceo there. >> let's bring in andy hargraves and ed lee. ed, twitter shares down 12, almost 13%. >> yeah. >> they just got downgraded from one analyst saying they've hit

the reset button. he's not inspired. a lot of pressure on jack dorsey. >> this is a company that's in perpetual startup mode. that's fine. if you're a public company like this, a lot of investors put money into it, you need solid, straightforward direction. you need to adjust when needed. every quarter they have a new narrative, newaktivity. they're focusing on daily active users. the daus are up. that's a good story. is it different next quarter? that's a problem. >> andy, when you see the stock react, investors have stopped waiting around. how are you viewing the company in terms of what it even can do to sort of rebuild market share in advertising or do whatever it needs to to restore some level of growth. >> yeah, i think we're seeing that the business model doesn't work and the business mode might be perpetual. you're transitioning or trying

to transition into video distribution. it will be a tough road to hoe. >> we have the snap chat ipo coming. much of the discussion is about facebook and instagram. it's not really about twitter. so at this point the company being out there, being kind of matured in the sense that the public is aware of it. how can they possibly do something that's going to create the excitement? >> it's not twitter, that is true. it does suffer from a similar thing that twitter had early on. how does it work? what do you do with it? i still have it, i use it on occasion. i have to remember how to use it. >> which one? >> snap. >> snap. no, i gave up. >> i think that's a factor. that showed the potential up side. a lot more people educate, get into the service. it's structurally different. it's friends and family. smaller group. stickier, that's the term. there's more potential in that if you think in those terms. >> andy, it was just several

months ago that twitter was said to be in play. perhaps potential suitors seeing if they want to buy it. does twitter retain any strategic value? >> i think it does. it has cultural significance. we see that with president trump tweeting all the time. it has a good awareness of what people are interested in and that includes niche sports and cultural events. they know who is going to like those things and so there's probably room for a media company to make pretty reasonable claim about strategic benefits. i think the question is what the ultimate monetization can be and what that translates to for what they'll pay for it. >> if twitter is going to emphasize video -- >> everyone is doing that. >> what can they do that will be transformative? >> so far what they've done, it's a nice experiment certainly. i think it showed people that nfl works on things like twitter orion line platforms, but that for twitter to fully capitalize

on that it's still not entirely clear. i think everyone is crowding into that space including facebook. it's going to be that much harder to win those ad dollars and win those eyeballs. >> that explains why the shares are down 12.5 today. >> yes. >> appreciate it. 40 minutes -- 20 minutes to go. 3:40 into the close. dow is up 120 points. the s&p is up 14, transports are higher today. small caps are really rebounding. nasdaq is up 34 to what would be record territory with the clothes here. sponge bob has not been able to right viacom. maybe the new ceo and his plan will. we'll have the details coming up. the california state teacher's retirement fund has lowered its return. we'll talk to the chief investment officer about that next.

d ur quaerack. owk aty. wabeg romant.yoknow whafio? a bunnl perc yy. 'at fd mantomant.yoknow whafio? th ililly thng ur mey ay.thk it're. 'at fat way?ahlilether up.afio? ear that qrter ate got i

ar iavg lem doingrighur cus ear . irirtt'hat wa winevll wiche fr viranywhef miles a rang can sha cricalformabout evy

untobrbiasoed t yak clicks. . welcome back. with markets on pace to close at record highs today, how is the california state teacher's retirement system allocating capital? calister's cio chris ailman joins us. >> hi, kelly. it's a snow day. >> if it's cold in new york, it's cold everywhere. i wouldn't mind that fuzzy hat on my way in this morning.

>> woops, i lost my ear bud. >> that's a little bit better. >> hang on a second, i lost my ear bud. >> please, go ahead. one moment. that's what happens if you put a fuzzy hat on over your head in order to make a reference to the snowstorm here. there we go. >> there we go. sorry about that. >> can you hear me now, chris? >> yes, i can. >> no problem. in any case, so you're here in a moment where there's a lot of focus on pensions. the problems they've been having hitting their traditional growth targets. you guys are among those who have taken your sights down, haven't you? what do you expect as reasonably achievable going forward? >> well, the board just voted last week to lower the investment assumption to 7.25 for this year and then on down to 7% for next year, and i think, you know, over the next 30 years i think that's a very realistic number to shoot for for a retirement fund. our asset allocation does have

growth when we have it, so last year we made an 8% return and it looked pretty good. >> you think that's reasonable over 30 years. so isn't that roughly what we've gotten, let's say, over the past 30 years if you had the kind of diversified portfolio that you're going with right now? >> mike, you hit it right on the spot. that's exactly what we've earned over the past 20 years. don't go back all the way to 30 years, but that includes the great recession, it includes obviously the internet bubble bursting. so a great decade of the '90s but a very tough one in the '00s. >> chris, when you lower your return assumptions, does that mean that more revenue gets kicked in from the state? >> contributions, retirement fund just like a 401k. if you expect a little bit lower investment earnings, then contributions have to be a little bit higher. we have a plan over the next seven years to increase the contributions from school districts, a little bit from the state and a little bit from some of the newer teachers over time

to fully fund the system. our goal is to be fully funded in 2044. >> i wonder if you get any push back, chris, from people who say, look, you did achieve the gains over the past couple of decades but now the starting level of interest rates is so low, lower than it's really been except for last year. how can you achieve that when you don't have the tail wind of higher rates? >> that's why we lowered the return assumption. we recognized that fixed income isn't going to generate the kind of returns it has in the past. in fact, our allocation of fixed income has been lowering. we're only at about 15% allocated of fixed income. we're going to drop to 10 or 12, pardon me. but that's why we lowered that investment assumption. we were in 8.5 almost a decade ago, now down to 8, 7.5, 7.25, now 7. >> calipstrs said they couldn't

make that much. the numbers will drop lower? >> i would say trying to forecast out for another year is difficult to say, kelly. you've still got brexit as a distraction, you're going to have the french election, which we're now potentially calling it frexit coming up. so much will go on this year. the market is rallying, which we're pleased to see, but it's pinning all of that on the rumors of what's going to happen in washington, d.c. far too often what we get the news is less than what the street wants to see initially. it could still be a very tough year to make money. we'll see. >> chris, as a big investor that by definition has to be very long term oriented are you seeing any asset class or any part of the world that seems like it's kind of a fat pitch, that basically something is very badly mispriced and you can buy now and have a great return going ahead? >> boy, i wish there was and i could say something jumps out at you. when you look at pricing,

certainly the u.s. equity market, earnings are okay. we're still at a high p.e. ratio. cap rates on real estate are at high levels. the prices in private equity are at high levels. stuff like the emerging markets has its own challenges. obviously europe looks fairly inexpensive right now but it has its challenges. so in terms of your analogy of that fat pitch, i'd say, no, there's nothing that looks that attractive. there are things that we have our eye on and we've been feathering our portfolio into those lower cost areas but there are still challenges ahead for all investors. >> what about some of the social challenges you're getting? i understand dakota access, for example, is a hot button issue. a lot of issues with the public to divest those if you're a fund like yours. do you in those environments just kind of bend to the will of those that are lobbying you? what's the philosophy going forward? >> kelly, it's a discussion.

at this point there's legislation in california to force calipers and calstrs to divest of the companies in the pipeline and the financial firms that loan those companies money. but for us in our perspective, divestment is turning your back on the problem. we think having a dialogue with our companies is actually much more valuable, so we had hoped that there's an opportunity to have a discussion with the companies. those issues, the emotions run very high. i'm sure calipers has lots of comments. we've had lots of comment on our phone bank and on twitter. there are a lot of feelings about that. >> yes. >> divestment is based on the assumption that there's scarcity of capital. right now there's plenty of capital in the world so whether we invest, then we're going to sell our shares to somebody else. >> chris, thanks for joining us, being a good sport. chris ailman is the cio of calstrs.

>> we have all the major indexes trading at record highs. just slightly off the highs. >> stocks could close at fresh highs. they're saying the trump trade is coming to an end. that's when we come back. ♪

inglscore, you al st ing o u inve w you al st ing ify weasbvbv w lity ae prod e try d exitoi n lproteyorofi

joining us now for a look at today's markets is craig hodges and larry glazer from may flower advisers. good to see you. larry, let's start with you. you were saying maybe the trump rally has played itself out. did today's gains on top of this trading range change that picture for you? >> look, there's no question when he angles his carrot it's so tantalizing. when i was coming other to the studio, i was navigating snowbanks, snow plows and pileups and this epic snowstorm. it's a lot like what investors have been navigating. is the trump train alive or is it dead? what we've been seeing is that the trump trade is so 2016. the idea that in 2017 we've seen a complete rotation in leadership in the market. and what the market's really telling us is this convenient idea that small caps will outperform, the convenient idea that financials will outperform, stronger dollar, higher rates

isn't what's happening. it's the opposite of what's been happening. large cap growth is coming into favor. dollar is weaker, bonds doing well. lots of opportunity. not in the trump trade. that's what investors are going for this year. >> craig, you have some specific picks here even with all of this going on. jcpenney's one of them. talk to us about these. >> it's a name that's been thrown out with the bath water. high conviction name at hodges management. they're bringing apparel sales down from 60 probably next couple of years to 40% of their business adding appliances, adding makeup, sephora, they're adding nike stores in their stores. finance bely they've turned the corner. we see them earning by 2016 spgs 1.7 in ebida. $1.50 a share. that's some big up side with not much down side. >> and you also have matador

which is testing my spanish and tower semiconductor. out of time but at least we got it all out there. >> thank you for joining us. >> good luck with the snow, larry. >> we're going to come right back with today's closing countdown in just a minute. then after the bell, under armour boss kevin plank and apple chief tim cook sticking their toes in. the pros and cons of ceos going political. you're watching cnbc, first in business worldwide. 'seeover the firsk inx s egattrkthe behmli and inveo ev d tday quirthe t ae av anatst in ave? ♪

[p ring]sohoseaneg bt

m s ed its red rent wi trtr theye entiakeureet erndal yei r prar to plan yver riir nv.

just about two minutes before the bell. dow and s&p holding high. the nasdaq, another record for its own rights. it seems as if the financial stocks liked what they heard from president trump this morning about the possibility of tax reform. they are leading the way even though treasury yields are not up very much. transports and other leadership groups, airlines in particular, they were meeting with the presidents this morning, a lot of ceos. and the transports have been meeting. it brought the vix, volatility index down below 11. that's a year-to-date low. i think it might be for a closing basis. it shows you how calm and gentle this market is behaving. i have bob pasani to talk to us

about how the market is behaving. >> has there been a change in priority? paul ryan told us obamacare, then we're going to do the tax writing in the spring and we'll go through into the summer. now the president says today i'm going to have fantastic news in two weeks -- >> phenomenal i think that was. >> has there been a change in priority? has he told them we want to switch and let's go immediately into writing tax reform issues? that seems to be a tall order. but he's promised it -- on. >> on the other hand, they believed him. >> or were the markets poised to look for an excuse and say we've been in this -- >> talk tax reform, market goes up. gets bogged down in immigration, trade wars, market drifts sideways to lower. this tells me the path of least resistance is up. bad news market doesn't go down much. any kind of good news the market receives good news, the market moves up. >> everyone keeps talking about february -- february usually has

some choppiness associated with it. >> not a good month. >> we have that tomorrow. see if that happens. appreciate it. ringing the closing bell at the nasdaq, we have the breast cancer foundation here at the new york stock exchange. only make believe right now. the second hour of "closing bell" is yours with kelly. thank you, mike. welcome to the "closing bell", everybody. i'm kelly evans. we have some major records today on wall street, the dow up 115 points to close at 20,169 or so it settles out here. should be good enough for a new record by 70 points. a gain of better than half a percent. same for broad index s&p 500. look at that, taking the 2300 level for the first time. its prior record close was 2298. nasdaq composite hitting its

third straight record close with 5715 on the back of its gain of half a percent or a little more than that today. consistent gains with the dow, s&p and nasdaq across the board and record highs for all three averages as well. what about the russell small cap? the best performer of nearly 1.5%. still points shy of their record high of 1388. transports are well below 9468 where they closed at a high water mark. 9331 is where we stand on that key benchmark. we'll talk about what got us here in a moment. we're also turning our attention to the earnings after the bell. susan li will cover expedia for us, julia boorstin is all over news corp., active vision and pandora. and josh lipton will cover nvidia. back with us michael santoli. here along with him is chris from needham funds and analyst

from j. and e. montgomery scott. i'm wondering if apple mappingsed a record close. 133 was the prior high level. that was reached in february 2015. right before we got into the dow. >> not too long. it was a little above 134. yesterday the s&p has made more than 25 closing all-time highs since apple made a closing all-time high and nasdaq. apple is pulling up the rear. >> we didn't quite get there today. looks like 132.41. we needed 133 to get there. it's still interesting that apple is doing so well in an environment where all of those stocks have caught up to date. it was kind of out there on its own. >> it was. today was not a day for the financial high cap stocks. it seems as if the market was on a little bit of a hair trigger to catch the up side after we basically closed at this ceiling level of 2300, the s&p for multiple times in the last

couple of weeks. yes, it seemed like the trigger or excuse was the president's comments about fast tracking tax reform. for me, i take that as this market was in a year to try the up side before we get to that options expiration tomorrow. >> chris, what do you think? >> i think we have an administration that's more business friendly than what we've had. that's very good for stocks. it isn't without volatility although we're not seeing it in the vix here from very low numbers. >> volatility. >> we are volatile in the news. as a long-term investor you can't let that shake you out. i think you have to stick to your guns on what are good long-term investments. >> what are those? >> we like technology. they have good moat to their business models. we see the continued transition, internet of things, the cloud and so there's a great continuation of that technological rollout amongst the industry. >> mark, as we get some earnings flying in, the season so far has been mixed, would you say? >> i think mixed to good, kelly.

we are building momentum after earnings recession that lasted five quarters. we've had now two consecutive quarters that will end with positive earnings growth. this one comparatively better. that's a setup for something to come over the balance of 2017. as long as we don't see something that will continue to strengthen the dollar which, of course, as we know multi-nationals responsible for 20% of the earnings of s&p 500 that would douse that. i think it remains good. we're seeing evidence of that already this year. >> and here's a list of the companies that you're trading at all-time highs. gives you a good feel for the kind of day. netflix, price line, adobe, honey well and marcia mcclennan. >> when you talk about adobe, netflix. >> that was the fang year. >> that was a fang year. we don't have a lot of growth. let's buy things that grow.

i don't think that's been the specific single trade going on this year. i think the market has not really been giving much for the bears to hang their hats on and not enough seems to be a little bit of impatience. >> chris, you have it downgraded by moodies. the greece thing is blowing up. china's reserves fell below 3 billion. any one of those could have sparked a selloff y. is it that we're taking all of this in stride now? >> i think you had a huge move post election. actually, for the russell we've been trading more sideways which in some ways could be a consolidation or setting up for a correction. the correction will probably be well received because i think there's a lot of money trying to come into the market, but i think they'd like to see that and give better price points. >> not to curse us with going back to 2015 but it reminds me of the early part of 2015. in the early part of that year you did get to a new high and

you didn't have the selloff for months. >> i couldn't tell you -- maybe i can remember last year the early part because it was so unusual. >> here's the reason i remember it, we were basically just stuck around this 2100 level for the s&p and i had to talk about it every day. >> mark, you mentioned, again, the way the strong dollar could shake out here. same question to you. lots of reasons to be concerned about europe. i understand that emerging markets have been enfuego. a guest last hour said to us it used to matter. the correlation was so high with everything abroad and november 8th happened and now u.s. markets seem inflated. >> they do. when you consider most equity markets outside the united states are basically beta on the u.s. equity market, you would think that the rise we have even so far this year which is roughly 3% in the s&p 500 would be magnified in overseas markets, particularly across europe, which if it's not now, when? by way of better economic data. in an earnings growth profile is

even steeper for the u.s.-based counterpart. it's still yet to come. we are certainly exposing our trade book and leaning in that direction. i hope to see that occur and i think it will. >> jobless claims, that also happened this morning. they were unbelievably low. then we had the comments from dunkin' last hour, they're running out of workers. let's get the earnings from pandora. julia boorstin has the earnings. >> that's right. pandora beating on the top and bottom line. they reported a loss of 13 cents. analysts had been expecting a loss of 21 cents. revenues beat estimates. the stock is plummeting right now on outlook. the outlook for the first quarter as well as the full year 2017 coming in lower than expected. there are also some concerning metrics in terms of listener hours. pandora reports that its total listener hours grew .4% to 5.3 billion so that's a hair higher than the year ago period which

is not showing significant growth. it's also significantly lower than expected. they were expecting about 2 -- they were expecting 5.59 billion listener hours. when you're talking in billions, that's much higher in terms of expectations. active listeners, 81 million at the end of the fourth quarter, that's actually better than what wall street analysts have been expecting. it is pretty much flat with a year ago period. so some points there in terms of listener hours and in terms of outlook that are really dragging on the stock. back over to you. >> thank you, julia. when it comes to pandora, chris, it's often talked about in terms of the acquisition, in terms of the changing landscape on that front. the shares dropped that much after these results. >> look, it's a great brand name and product, when i talk to you about technological mow thes, what is your problem? i think that weighs on the valuation. >> also, when you're bumping up against relatively high

penetration rates, you're talking about flat users, hours going down. if you haven't been able to figure out the equation, it's hard to see how you come up with that. >> revenue will be a big piece of that. that's what turns listeners off looking at the rival services. >> when it comes to pandora, do you have any position? >> i follow it more tan againstly. i'm a free listener so that's probably not helping their cause at this juncture. >> you here adds then, right? >> i do. for that reason it would be a service that would have me exploring other options so i would get the free same streaming music. >> the shares are rebounding a little bit. still down 4.5%. this morning when it comes to the macro data, 8:30, presidential comments around 10:00 a.m., jobless claims one

of the best leading -- maybe current indicators to the market continues to fall. which means, you know, extremely low levels. very good signs. we heard nigel travis tell us it's the unspoken story of the rally is uncrincredible strengt. >> friday's numbers didn't show a strong gain in wages. that was bullish. you want there to be more slack because i do think there is the risk that it's a high labor market, wage gains are going to be eating into profit margins. it becomes a burden. >> you don't want stackflation. >> higher quality jobs, intel is bringing that. you may have a tight labor market, but let's get those folks into even better jobs.

>> let's get to susan li with the earnings from expedia. >> looks like we have a miss on earnings and hence stock is down over 3% in after hours. eps figure missing street estimates. $1.17 adjusted is what they did in the quarter. analysts looking for $1.37. revenues in line. slight beat. 2.09 billion for the quarter. analysts have put in for 2017. growth bookings. how much are people planning ahead and booking on their websites. this missed as well. 16.1 billion and that's a domestic and international problem. room rates, 15% growth, that's what we got. given that expedia has been spending a lot on marketing to get more business in, this might be seen in a negative sense. we're going to get the conference call at 4:30 p.m.

that's when we want to hear a forecast, an update on the travel ban and how that's impacting expedia's business and the strong dollar effect. back to you. >> thank you, susan. good point. so expedia is now down 4.5 after hours. >> interesting. the airlines and hotels have been leaders. seems like the space is doing okay. i don't know if it's a market share question or particular other type of dynamic at work. >> as you mentioned, price line is one of the shares that was hitting fresh all-time highs. mark, you said -- were you saying technology was one of your favorite areas in this market here? >> it's an area that we like. at 21% of the s&p 500 there is waiting. even to be neutral it's 1/5 of a client's waited portfolio. i think chris had mentioned a number of industries, cloud,

ecommerce. anything that the consumer is facing or sitting in space and they're areas that we are long in. that theme of businesses migrating more. wage gains are occurring. we expect that phenomenon to continue and, therefore, want to be facing by way of a number of different industries the whole consumer phenomena which we believe there's a long runway in 2019. >> mark, chris, thank you for joining us. >> thank you. it was another whirlwind day at the white house. trumped meeting with members and we'll tell what the plan could look like next. major snowstorm coming up in the northeast. a broker tells us how to protect your portfolio by hedging against the weather. you're watching cnbc, first in

business worldwide. at pgiwestors ong egs li p te of urbxpon,piportit ctu aha inestrucd er. siss of enti.b iestmenmanageme of urbxpon,piportit ctu aha a, peence a.nds hyid. youdatr

won't replace the full value of your totaled new car. the guy says you picked the wrong insurance plan. no, i picked the wrong insurance company. with liberty mutual new car replacement™, you won't have to worry about replacing your car because you'll get the full value back including depreciation. and if you have more than one liberty mutual policy, you qualify for a multi-policy discount, saving you money on your car and home coverage. call for a free quote today. liberty stands with you™. liberty mutual insurance.

welcome back. let's begin here with earnings from yelp. aditi roy has the results. >> hi there, kelly. earnings are coming in. 195 million on its eps it gave a couple of numbers that don't have parallels to the estimates we have of 3 cents a share.

their numbers, again, there are no parallels here are 10 cents for gap and 27 cents for non-gap. we're seeing the stock sliding quite a bit between 9.5 to 10%. that might be attributed to its quarter 1 guidance. q1 revenue guidance came in light. local ad accounts grew 24% to 138,000. that number is also light. the expectations were for 141,000. last quarter on the conference call they were talking about shifting over resources, downsizing the international business and shifting over the resources to growing its local and national sales force as well as its self-serve business. they're seeing competition from google, facebook, rub hub. we'll listen in for the call on 4:30 eastern. that stock is sliding down now. kelly, back to you. >> thanks, aditi. down 9.5%. >> more than doubled from last

february. clearly there was a little air. the revenue was a little on the light side relative to estimates. it looks like a stutter steps in the growth. the street is not happy. >> a lot of decliners after hours on earnings so far. stocks surging during the session though after president trump said a major tax announcement is coming in a few weeks. it wasn't the only big news out of the white house. eamon javers is following the airlines story and phil lebeau is covering the airlines. eamon, we begin with you. >> reporter: hi, kelly. a lot of big stories. start with the tax news. we heard this comment from the president today. not a whole lot of detail but he did indicate that the white house is preparing to unveil its tax plan. here's exactly what he said. >> we're going to be announcing something i would say over the next two or three weeks that will be phenomenal in terms of tax and developing our aviation

infrastructure. >> reporter: that tax comment got wall street. word of warning. even if the white house releases their plan in the coming weeks, that doesn't necessarily mean we're going to see any legislation passed. this could be a year-long process to get tax reform done. they haven't done anything this big since 1986. this will be an intense and heavy lift in washington. now onto the second big business story of the day. that's the comments from kellyanne conway about nordstrom in the wake of the president's tweet criticizing that company for dropping ivanka trump's products. kellyanne conway going on national television to say everybody should buy nordstrom products in fact giving a national commercial. that has been criticized as unfortunate and possibly violating the law on what government employees are allowed to say and not say about private businesses. here's what sean spicer said

about kellyanne conway and what happened to her in the wake of those comments. >> kellyanne has been counselled and that's all we're going to go with. she's been counselled on that subject and that's -- that's it. >> reporter: so sean spicer saying that's it. he won't say who counselled her but presumably she was counselled not to do that again. back over to you. >> eamon, she said everyone should buy ivanka trump products? >> reporter: yes, that's right. everybody should buy ivanka trump products in fact giving the president's daughter a commercial on national television. apologies if i misspoke. >> nordstrom shares were up. that was the interesting wrinkle. they initially went lower like many other companies have after the president singled them out and then they rallied. >> reporter: you're starting to see the power of the tweets

wearing off. for example, if it's a government negotiation or a direct policy decision that the government has or a comment which is just top of the head which is a criticism but not something that he has real power to deliver on. markets might be able to start to measure that nuance from the presidential tweets. >> yeah. nordstrom up again today. eamon, thank you. airline index rallied. it's been outperforming since the election. top airline execs got their day at the white house. ant the executives from some of the busiest airports. it lasted more than an hour. three things came out of this meeting. donald trump said he wants to ease regulation for airlines. he wants to upgrade the airports in terms of freeing up the infrastructure and he wants to fix the air traffic control

system. >> we want the traveling public to have the greatest customer service with an absolute minimum of delays. and with the greatest convenience all at the lowest possible cost. >> reporter: which brings up the question, will fares go down. will taxes. you know the taxes that you see whenever you buy an airline ticket and you see all of those fees and taxes tacked onto the end, will they possibly come down? the ceo of southwest believes they can make head way into that area. >> i think the airlines are very much aligned with consumers. the industry is heavily taxed, over taxed, 21% of every ticket goes to taxes and fees. >> right. >> so there's plenty of money out there, we just need to make sure that the money is directed to aviation and spent very wisely. so, no, we don't want more taxes. if anything, we want less. >> reporter: the airline stocks, as you mentioned, kelly, they got a bit of a pop after this meeting. gary kelly says he wouldn't be surprised if some of these ceos

are back here in the white house maybe 90 days from now. they have an action list that they're going to put together. let's see if they can actually get some progress made on that action list over the next couple of months. >> well, phil, i think if there's one thing everyone can agree on is the fees on the tickets. the public, airline companies, white house, everybody around that one. >> reporter: i think everybody agrees about that. the problem is this. take a look at the airports and look at the fees that are attached. some of those are federal but a lot of those are state and local. airports generate so much revenue, kelly, that often you have people kind of reaching their hand out saying, hold on a second, let me get a little piece of the pie for all the traffic that's coming into a particular area. so it's not just federal taxes, it's often at the local and the state level as well. >> yeah. good luck rolling those back. thank you, phil, for the rundown today. phil lebeau at the white house. active vision is an

exception. julia boorstin has more. >> that's right. activision reports earnings that are better than expected. the company reporting earnings per share of 92 cents versus estimates of 73 cents. revenues also beat estimates at $2.45 billion for the quarter versus estimates of 2.35 billion. they announced a 2017 cash dividend by 15% to 30 cents per share. the guidance for q1 also stronger than expected for activision blizzard. showing the company's strength in digital saying that activision had the biggest player with 50 million annual monthly active users. that's up from 2015 and also 2014. so lots of digital engagement and strength there. now switching gears over to news

core. the publishing giant showed earnings that beat estimates. $1.2 billion was right in line with expectations. news corp. reporting that it's seeing impact from its strategic reinvestment, digital diversification saying that they're seeing rapid expansion in digital real estate making that -- making that well on its way to becoming the largest contributor to news corp.'s profitability. so strong results in terms of the transition to digital for news corp. that stock looks like it's trading flat now. kelly, back over to you. >> julia, thank you. a federal judge blocking anthem's takeover of cigna saying it wants to lay down antitrust laws. anthem vowing to appeal. could it be on hold until president trump gives information about his health party. ceos of apple and under armour

getting political. we'll see if that could impact their stocks later on the "closing bell." g tofi ohicomplee iught imyfoon waen, elp d g tofi ohicomplee r wren?myfoon ulfromkoscreenirecytu sreou ive htp, d coorpo. wabt my momovaalat? -app con tnkswim onlymetrade. ive htp, d coorpo. myourar an cerag g deti an yonbertolyoqun ca for a eeuo today stan with

libemual. (muc s throughout) t ca for a eeuo today t mama pstill ild rtfo th segth ju trackhemarks. t isn'ual. (muc s throughout) t ca for a eeuo today t mama pstill ild rtfo ach gthodliag re a a eerse ofic i insln? ite ench tharks. welcome back. one of the best earners nvitia is out. let's send it to josh lipton. >> earnings of 99 cents versus 83 cents. just turned to the guide here, kelly, nvidia guide for q1, 1.9

billion. plus 2.1. they expected revenue of 1.9 billion. the best performer in the s&p 500 in 2016. heading into this print stock was up about 10% so far this year. it was up about 100% in the past six months. company's semiconductors power a lot of markets. want exposure to video games, ai, autonomous driving. high expectations trading around 62 times earnings. five year average is 20.6. conference call kicks off at 5:00 p.m. eastern. >> less than 2% drop. anthem shares higher after a federal judge ruled that its proposed $54 billion merger violates antitrust laws. bert that coombs has more. >> anthem rising on this news and although the company says that it is going to file for an expedited review to appeal this decision, a lot of folks on the street are betting that this

deal is coming to an end after two years where anthem shares have effectively been flat over that time. the judge rejected this deal saying that anthem and cigna together would reduce competition too much in the national employer market. and another thing that judge amy burman jackson noted was the fact that the two companies have been at odds and bickering in public often from the beginning of their deal, even during the trial cigna's testimony undermined anthem's argument for the deal. in fact, she called it the elephant in the courtroom. so what's next for all of these big megamergers? we had anthem -- aetna and humana's deal also rejected by the federal court. if you take a look at the four of them, they were all dancing around one another two years ago. analysts say, we could see that again. cigna's david cordani has signaled that he is hinting he might want to do a big deal and has plenty of cash to do that.

anthem and cigna have a breakup theme, but even without that cordani is thinking they have enough. folks are thinking cigna will make a bid for humana. they lost out to aetna two years ago. they may go back to go for the one they really wanted. take a look at how these stocks are performing. humana is up today. and so is anthem. and next week, kelly, humana and aetna will update us as to whether they'll stay together or break up sometime after valentine's day. >> and see what you did there. also, mike, one of the analysts saying he thought anthem and cigna may rise. he says in terms of what bertha mentioned, the idea that cigna could bid on humana, what's the rush? >> you have an industry where everybody kind of agrees could

be more pick your partner. you saw it in telecom. maybe that would be the only impetus. i agree. it's so much in flux in terms of policy that maybe you'd want to know what the ground rules are going to be. >> it's safe to say this one isn't over with these rulings. thank you, bertha. time for a cnbc update with sue herera. a palestinian man opened fire in a market before being arrested by police. attorney general jeff sessions arriving at the department of justice for his first day on the job. he received a round of applause from employees as he shook a few hands to say thank you. sessions was sworn in at the white house earlier in the day. the associated press says l.l. bean will freeze its pensions and offer an early retirement program next year as it seeks to control growing expenses. the ap also says the company's ceo, steve smith, making that

announcement in a memo and in meetings with workers. and a warning for all of you taxpayers out there. the irs is warning taxpayers to be alert for tax return preparers who promise inflated tax refunds. the agency says scammers usually search for people who don't have a filing requirement like the elderly or people with a low income so they are not required to file. that is the cnbc news update, kelly, mike, i'll send it back to you guys. >> there's a guy in a statue of liberty costume that's been looking for people for the tax refunds for months now by the subway platform, sue. i'm not saying he's a scammer, but i've got my eye on this one. >> you better keep your eye on that guy. the whole idea of the statue of liberty costume. >> only in new york. >> we'll see you later. the northeast is brought to a stand still as a huge

snowstorm has hit the area. up next a weather broker says how you can hedge against nasty storms next. stay tuned.

welcome back. here's a look at how we finished the day on wall street.

the dow touching 20,200 before closing at 20,172. the s&p 500 up 13 points. the nasdaq up 32. the dow, s&p and nasdaq all hit record highs on the close. the russell 2000 still a little shy. the tristate area getting slammed. chris palone is in the middle of it in central park. how thick is it, chris? >> reporter: kelly, we're seeing some clearing up above after the snowstorm that lasted most of the day. you know, we have probably 9 to 10 inches of snow here on the ground in central park. remarkable when you consider that yesterday it was 62 degrees right in this very spot. of course, this is the biggest snowstorm of the season so far to hit new york city, and it is just continued on up into new england. right now we just got an alert that boston has experienced true blizzard conditions. that's snow, winds of 35 miles an hour or more for more than three hours, which sounds

particularly brutal up there. of course, around here this morning it caused a traffic nightmare, spinouts, fender benders, what have you. at the airports, more than 1900 flights canceled at the three major new york city airports this morning, but as the snow has tapered off, people have started to venture out. you might be able to see them behind me. a lot of school children out today. new york city canceled school so there are 1.1 million children without school in new york city today. a lot of them dusted off those sleds and brought them out to central park. we do have bad news about the storm. we did learn that there is at least one storm-related fatality here in new york city. city officials say that a door man was shoveling in front of his building. he went to go back inside and slipped through ice and fell through a plate glass window killing him. sad news. >> that's tough. we wish everybody safe travels getting home. thanks for joining us. >> sure. >> chris palone. the storm has dropped a foot of snow on wall street.

this on the heels of tornadoes in louisiana and floods out west. there might be a business that anticipated this and check in with the weather broker to hedge against storms. joining us is weather broker nick ernst, the vice president of weather markets at choice energy. a tv star, sort of, nick, we'll get to that. welcome. >> thank you, kelly. >> so what does the weather broker do? >> so we assist companies in assessing their financial risk due to the weather. so an energy company might have temperature risk in the winter, the summer. an agricultural company might have precipitation risk during the growing season and we help to create structures that will protect them in case of adverse weather. >> nick, is this typically a situation where, you know, some financial party will be on the other side of this transaction? are there kind of natural matches out there, say, you know, some leisure company that doesn't like rain and some

agricultural company that thinks rain is great? >> so generally, no. i mean, a financial company like an insurance company, re-insurance company. we also have some funds that are willing to take the other side of these deals. they look at a lot of these in an actuarial format. so just sort of the math of it all. >> so, nick, yesterday we had shaun white on. he was talking about how it's harder to find snow. ski resorts are challenged and they want to hedge snowfall risk, how expensive is that for them to do? >> it all depends where you are and what time -- when you're doing it. if you're looking to hedge a lack of snowfall in the northeast, well, this year if you -- unless you had done that pre-season, it would have -- it would have been very expensive. but out west right now there's a lot of snow. i think lake tahoe has some of the most snow that they've had in years. >> so are these kind of multi-million dollar contracts that these resorts might be entering into?

>> yes. yes. i mean, it depends on the revenue that they're trying to protect but, yeah, i mean, especially for a ski resort it has to be. >> and, finally, nick, you're a contributor to "this is us," the nbc show? >> yes. funny enough, my childhood best friend is the creator and writer of the show, and he -- he based the character randall on weather. his job is weather. >> well, you know, six degrees -- two degrees of separation. the world works in funny ways. now we know what a weather broker does. thank you for joining us. >> thank you. >> that's nick ernst. under armour's ceo nick plank is getting tough words from steph curry. shares of viacom up 30% over the past year. we'll tell you about significant changes that could impact that stock. stay with us.

live canr ys, datfr. s entertainmen ur

i n'n'kn. $6petrade? urrokerage f es?at douavin uhhh 'sh l questis?yoroeyoffeaee? atwaisering?ba ns?soanff min welcome back. ceos of major companies have been chiming in. most recently apple ceo tim cook criticized trump's immigration ban. >> steve was the son of an immigrant. our company has immigrants in it that are key to the innovation of our company. our company depends on

diversity. if we stand and say nothing, it's as if we're agreeing, that we become a part of it and so i think it's very important to speak out. >> they're not all so critical. on cnbc's halftime report kevin plank sboek trump and his pro business policies. >> i think he's highly passionate. he's definitely -- you know, to have such a pro business president is something that's a real asset for this country. i think people should really grab that opportunity. >> as you may have heard right now, one of under armour's biggest@least didn biggest athletes said. >> i agree with that if you remove the e-t from asset. should ceos be getting political? let's bring in bill george from the harvard business school.

bill, tim cook's comments are pretty pointed. kevin plank, you know, these are the kind of generalizations we tend to hear from ceos, right? >> absolutely. i think ceos have not sieen thi much attention that they've had in the last three months than they have in eight years with president obama. on the other hand, they're all afraid of his tweets. they want to curry favor. we're going to offer you a factory. hey, this is a factory that was announced five years ago. so i think it's a very risky thing to do and i think they just have to watch themselves because it could come back to bite them in the long run, kelly. >> you know, bill, this week in the instances we've just been talking about it's about a company or a person who is a

spokesperson, a paid spokesperson for a corporation. i think there's another area of tension, at least it seems, with ceos who are kind of globalists by nature. they've tried to have very diverse employee work forces and it seems as if they're pulled by kind of the culture of their own company into perhaps a position of taking a stand one way or the other with regard to the president. >> yeah. absolutely. you know, this is something that gets me very passionate. they have to be globalists. we live in a global environment and we need to export our products. we need to do business around the world, and frankly every time you create a job overseas, create three jobs back here. global businesses added 25 million jobs in this country. that makes the number of jobs lost in disadvantaged areas pale by comparison. we have to take care of the dislocated workers. we have to build our global businesses and we can't just do

it with america first. we're going to have to build global alliances around the world and so i fear what happens when we kind of drop back from things like tpp, which was very advantageous to america. so i think global ceos, they have to be a little bit careful here. >> bill, what advice do you have for ceos that would like to avoid this drama all together in order to keep their employees focused on being productive and keep theirselves focused on whatever is going to be best for the companies. i understand there are some that want to take a stand but what about everybody that wants to stay out of this? >> yeah. i think most of them want to stay out of it, and i think what i recommend for them are about three things. first of all, keep your head down and stay out of the fray. you don't need to take on this president and get a shot. i think they're all doing that. try to figure out what's coming. the health care ceos have no idea. the financial ceos have no idea

what's going to replace dodd-frank. these are huge 2000 page bills. they have to keep their heads down. they have to stay on course of their strategies. do not be pulled off course of a global strategy. you can adapt your tactics to what's happening with president trump, or this, that, or the other thing. you need to be rapid adapters. stay on course to your company's mission, your values and your strategies and if you need to go in to protect your back, get down there to washington and try to do so, but don't expect too many favors. keep running your business. that's the most important thing. >> bill george, thank you for joining us. >> thank you for having me. viacom announcing a big rebranding with its cable brands. we'll discuss if this new strategy will prove profitable. then be on "fast money", a top technician says a pull back will come. s anld marke.

i'pluginto eie tre coen ius o i havemeinn o, t do. visit learuturestodacomeet fucaf s ir tre coen ius o i havemeinn o, t do. i neved of viu prepre?turestodacomeet fucaf s ir tplannetiringeti havemeinn o, t do. titires reth e * i neved of ests ands a i h e ercastate anve in ves. si upsix hud

>> welcome back. viacom announcing rebranding efforts for its cable network. ceo robert backish joined our own. >> is to have a continued evidence of improvement so it's not about a story one day or three months from now or the end of the fiscal year. we're going to continually put points on the board. six months ago the strategy was to essentially go on track to selling or at least half the studio. today we unveiled a strategy whereby paramount is an integral part of viacom. >> his other plans include a new focus on six flagship brands, each of those will create one to two cobranded movies per year

and general entertainment channel known as the paramount network. mike, this jet essentials in the ways of mtv and its other properties. >> i think the street likes it to focus in but ultimately it seems like the company -- it's a bet on the future of free basic cable networks. it really does hinge on all that. they're not going heavy streaming over-the-top. they're not basically saying, we're going to let you buy comedy central all in for an app. >> if they strengthen the brands enough they could. >> i think they want to go half steps because they're lot is thrown in with globally even if it's a skinny bundle. that's the game right now. everyone's going to have a lighter package of cable networks. you want to have representation in there and that's probably what they're objective is. >> investors seem to like the plans, shares up more than 4%

and it's amazing to see some stability or hope come into a company that's been plagued for years now with extrateeth i can execution. >> it's very cheap. it was very inexpensive as a stock but you just didn't see the idea that they were tightening up the story at all and i think management is somewhat stable and media has been a leadership sector in this market as well. >> do you think cbs dodge a bullet? >> it's possible. arguably some of its value could have been rigged by cbs. it could have been good for cbs but it seems like they were not enthusiastic potential buyers. >> and their cbs shares higher today as well. keep in right here. we're back in two. re rbiroro.i'thortire.n, the any

he re rbiroro.i'thortire.n, the any kat, and b blookin arar toy. hethat

en 's megeganidretimeit'time t'. toy. wher iofs, tuffhat matttt

yadvisernntanthforte 500, h an divernsight pn to perso math u >> welcome back. we've had a bunch of earnings movers after hours. here's how the market finished today. it was a record one, the dow up 118 points. similar gains for it the s&p 500 nasdaq all with record closes today. a lot of that as you mentioned to do with president's tax comments this morning. >> the major index is the big

index. s&p 500 finished about a third of the percent so they tacked on more. you didn't get the feeling that everyone came rushing to buy in in a frenzy just because of the words of the president. it obviously was the timing was right there for a catalyst and i almost read it as because it was such a generally statement, it wasn'ter wasn't saying here's what our bill says, the market is just primed for some excuse to say, let's give this a shot. we think that maybe the reprioritization of what's happening in washington might be beneficial. >> not too far mention from the president and the administration's point of view would be a nice pivot right now. it's like a war shot test. whatever most excites you about what could be announced. you'll going to lump in there. >> i've been of the position that said you didn't necessarily need tremendous hopes about policy or necessarily have a lot of fear about what it could be to justify where the market is right now. >> the one peculiar thing with it the rally in the retail sector seems in part to do with this fact they don't think this

border adjustment isn't going to happen. >> i wonder if the market is saying that the path of least resistance to getting a tax bill is to cut the rates, let the companies repat trait cash from overseas and not have some over complex border tax. they can count on paper a blowing out of the deficit. that's the big question right now. >> we'll have more twin deficit talks i imagine. >> and we have a debt ceiling coming up. >> the annual joy. the earnings after hours we mentioned the these. let's show them to you. akty vision blizzard the biggest moefr. it did announce a buy back. nvidia and pandora are still down. >> that was a great stock for a couple of years. it's pulled back. obviously the investors think this is an excuse to get back in with these results.

>> we don't know expedia has staged this recover. pandora way off its lows. >> nvidia down 3% in the past year. >> it's hardly a drop in the bucket. good luck getting home today. that does it for us and "fast money" begins right now. >> we're going to be announcing something i would say over the next two or three weeks that will be phenomenal in terms of tax. >> and phenomenal is the perfect way to describe the markets today. the dow soaring triple digits after trump offered his most specific comments yet about the one thing investors want to hear most, tax reform. check out some of these moves, small cap surging, the transports on fire and the banks taking the lead in the rally once again in what was really important today is the s&p 500 and dow