>> i am of latin extraction. >> yeah. >> i wish i emerged from the wombs wearing high heels. they are my uniform. they are mandatory. i can't imagine life without them, tyler. >> there's the regulation. >> mandating it? probably too much. >> all righty. thanks for watching, everybody. >> "closing bell" starts now with kelly in her high heels. >> the irony -- >> boy, they are high today. >> they are the lowest ones, a kitten heel, so to speak. >> they are. for the record, we are the same height. it is only the shoes that make the difference here. >> you are free to participate in the heels. >> in the '70s i sold shoes in college. i sold the platform tennis shoes that guys would come in and claim they were buying for girlfriends. >> uh-huh. i would like to see those come back. >> where were we?

>> talking about the "closing bell." welcome. i'm kelly evans and the new york stock exchange. >> i'm bill griffeth. eight years ago today the s&p hit its low point, 666. discuss that for a while. >> diabolical. >> the market of course has come a long way since then. the s&p right now is around 2375. we'll look at what's behind the pause going on now. >> travel stocks are getting hit as president trump signed a revised executive order temporarily banning travel into the u.s. from six countries. >> snapping its win streak we have the first down day for the hot ipo of last week snap. we have more of what's behind that move today down 8 and 3/4% now. >> td ameritrade clients have been selling for eight straight months. we'll debate if this is the time to sell as the iphone 8 leaks

trickle out. >> haven't even seen the 7 yet. we'll talk about it coming up. let's start with president trump. eamon is at the white house. >> reporter: this is a buttoned up white house in light of the signing of the executive order. the president signed it behind closed doors. they wouldn't allow reporters or cameras in when that happened. the press secretary sean spicer briefed reporters but only off camera. they wouldn't go on camera with the press briefing. one official we heard from is attorney general jeff sessions who described the need for the president's second executive order on immigration. here is what he said. >> we cannot compromise our nation's security by allowing visitors entry when their own governments are unable or unwilling to provide the information we need to vet them responsibly. >> what we know here is this is now not seven countries, but six countries. they have taken iraq off the

list of countries affected by this because white house officials say the iraqi government has been cooperative in terms of getting them the data and information they need to secure travellers coming from that country. will will be effective march 16. they want time now to implement it and roll it out to the line officials. it does not revoke valid visas. there is no distinction made for syrian refugees and all refugee admissions overall will be halted now for 120 days. they say it doesn't apply to current green card holders. so a revised second take at the executive order here after the roll out mess that the white house saw after the january 27 e.o. they say this will go more smoothly. there's been a lot of coordination between the departments of homeland security, state and the white house. >> if they are exempting green card holders what's the status of this ban when it goes into place. >> the ban is in place for 120

days. they will stop the program for 120 days and give a multi day process here whereby they give other countries the opportunity to provide information and get off the list. we'll see whether those countries will cooperate and provide the information that the white house is looking for. sean spicer saying today in the briefing they feel something might happen over the course of the next 90 days after this is put in place whereby more countries can be removed in addition to iraq. >> thank you, eamon. north korea launched four more ballistic missiles as they moved forward aggressively with the nuclear weapons program. how does a poor country afford a nuclear arsenal? a u.n. report provides financial evidence on how they are flouting u.n. sanctions often with the help of its patron china. >> the new report details how north korea sells arms to countries in africa and the

middle east and billions selling coal and iron ore to china. a ship seized in the suez canal carried a shipment of grenades from north korea. they are under the tarp under the dirt. the report shows the country sells arms through a company called glo-com which advertises on the internet and makes almost no efforts to hide its origins. there are many front companies in the u.n. report which are registered in malaysia or china to try to hide north korean roots but not well. diplomats have been caught smuggling gold bars, cash, watches and even this bentley. investigators discovered that swift the international payment system is still processing transactions for north korea juan banks though some of the banks are supposed to be prohibited from using the global financial system by the u.n. sanctions. i have reached out to swift and am awaiting explanation.

north korea's biggest in flux of cash however, more than a billion dollars comes from selling coal and iron ore to china. china promised to curtail those purchases but it hasn't happened. the u.n. asked china for an explanation. >> you anticipated my question. china said again they would not be buying nicole from north korea. >> right. >> that's the second time they have said that. they said it back in the middle of last year. we have seen actually coal imports go up. went up even higher than they said before. the second time a lot of people are worried that it won't mean much. >> china has some agents boycotting north korea. when you have stuff like this happening in your backyard it's hard to blame them for wanting that technology. >> sure. when you read the report you realize north korea broke its

own record last year with 26 ballistic missile launches. that's not including what we have seen in the last couple of weeks and the four last night. they become very aggressive. they say out loud very different from iran. iran wants a nuclear program but a peaceful one, nothing to do with weapons. north korea says we have nuclear weapons program and we want one. >> scary. >> michelle, thank you. the market not seeming to mind the political risks going on overseas. we have seen quite a rally until the last few days. gold is up 60 cents today. not seeing the usual lift there either. >> joining us now from rbc capital markets at post nine and fred kemp from the atlantic council. how does the market just keep digesting risks as if it is no big deal? >> i think the problem is we have had north korean ballistic missile tests going on for a long time. it is not seen as an increase in

threat. the murder of kim jong nam got attention but i don't know if the market is appreciating the risks involved with the north korean regime going through with a missile capable of hitting the west coast of the united states. it is blase right now in terms of looking at the risks. >> you are a former cia analyst. that's your street cred on this story. fred, how scared are you? how worried are you about what the north koreans are doing now? >> less worried than i am fascinated to watch the dance between china and north korea. a year ago the uncle of kim jong-un the leader was assassinated. he was the intermediary to china. recently the brother was killed. he was being protected by china as a failsafe option if anything happened to kim jong un. now you have talk about the coal

embargo. will this happen? the other key thing is how does donald trump communicate with ping, the leader of china in this time. it's interesting the white house has been muted on this today. >> this issue was featured a couple of weeks ago about north korea. went there speaking with the military operations in south korea where they said, listen, we could do a lot of damage in a very short period of time if we needed to. do you get a sense out of this administration they would strike preemp tyly? >> i don't think this administration wants to strike north korea preemptively. they have heightened rhetoric on iran for example but aren't looking to pick the fight now. the problem is what happens in the event like you do get an icbm test. what is going to be the response of the administration. this is where the issue of staffing vacancies in key departments in washington. the problems with the cia and the us who. that comes into play in terms of

the policy response. >> why don't you think we are seeing market response to this. in the past, and i mean pretty distant past now. we haven't seen much lately in the markets. you would see gold go higher for example as an example of the fear factor. the stock market has been multi year lows for several weeks now. what do you make of that in the context of overseas. >> people just view that as noise. if we see something significantly stepped up, again, like an icbm test. if they are seen as a clear threat to south korea the market would take it seriously. it almost has to materialize for it to be digested. i think the same thing with iran. when you talk about the testing out of north korea and how common it's become and wonder how the international community has stood by and let it get to a point where we are speculating about outcomes and what's next

what pressure can anybody put on north korea save china and who needs to put pressure on china to get this to stop. how can we put more pressure on north korea to end this behavior? >> anyone talking to senior chinese officials these days knows they have lost their patience. they have lost patience with the nuclear program, with the leader. what's their alternative. they don't want a collapse with hundreds of thousands of refugees coming across the borders and they don't want an unplanned or really want the korean unification where it could end up south korea is the leader in the unification and it lands in the west. it is a complicated calculus. they are putting pressure on themselves. if it was icbm it is an intercontinental ballistic missile. had this been a test of an icbm you would see a lot more pressure from the u.s. >> why are we waiting for that to happen? why are we waiting for north korea to test the icbm?

>> this gets to the question of political risk and geopolitical uncertainty. the great chicago economist writes about the differences between the two. risk is something you can calculate. people aring looing at donald trump -- are looking at donald trump and seeing deregulation. the markets are buoyant. the political uncertainties, you can't measure the risk there. that's where we are with north korea. you don't factor them in the markets. you are wishing they don't come true. you look at the elections in europe. you have an accumulation of political uncertainty that the market has not priced in. >> that was the point. if there is any time to be rattling sabres it's now with the transition we are going through here. the brexit crisis in europe and so forth. this is the time. if they are going to make a

move. >> we have to be worried at this moment. we are seeing not only tests from north korea but we are continuing to see more aggressive behavior from iran. this is anything but in terms of political risk. >> here again we are not seeing that in the markets. >> i think we have to see something significantly stepped up to see if in terms of gold or in terms of the oil price because of the middle east. we can talk about the fear factor. we have to see something materialize for the market to get nervous. >> good to see you both. thank you for your insights today. >> a little more than 45 minutes to go. the dow is down 30 points, back below 21,000. the s&p is down. >> do you think it will be this way until the jobs number? it's early. >> this is a market that still feels like it wants to go higher. as we were discussing, plenty of

reasons it might take a pause. >> snap posting its first decline since going public last thursday. we'll tell you what's pressuring the shares when we come back. >> general motors laying off workers at a michigan plant and selling the opel division to the french maker of peugot. you're watching cnbc, first in business worldwide.

a slight down day. the dow down 34 points and snap with a minus time for the first time since going public last thursday. we have seen selling. needham initiated coverage of the stock with an underperform noting their market is 80% smaller than facebook. barron's calls the stocks ridiculous ridiculously valued. >> today marks eight years since the stock market hit the very bottom. markets dropped to 6547.

the nasdaq was down to 1268. >> certainly the markets have come a long way since then in the past eight years. the dow hit the 21,000 level a few weeks ago. joining the closing bell exchange today with more michael far from far miller and washington. kenny pokari with us at post nine and rick santelli in chicago at the cme. what a run. >> i was here when it was all happening. it's been a run. most of it fuelled by the monetary policy we saw around the world more so than economic policy. it is what it is. now we are into a new chapter. it's much more focused on reform. tax reform, fiscal policy. not monetary. >> with all due respect we have been saying this for a while.

even as the markets have gone higher we have a myriad reasons why it should go down. >> it will but i think an adjustment or pull back in prices. even a 7% pullback would be welcome. i think people are hoping that happens. the more you hope it goes the other way. >> how do you invest in this environment? >> probably very carefully. we are making a shift of watching one area of government for another area of government. we have been watching the fed for eight years and what they are going to do and how it will affect markets. now congress and fiscal policy and the treasury to figure out how they will drive markets. i longed for the old days and kenny does, too. we would look at earnings, fundamental and top line growth. you look at maybe some of the companies that will benefit from some of the tax cuts and domestic tax cuts. companies like cbs, for

instance. domestic operations will benefit from lower taxes. i like the industry. it's got beaten up in health care or sprouts, farmers market. that's a different kind of a retail investment that i think still looks cheap at about $18 a share. produce is 25% cheaper than most of the supermarkets. it's a time to be cautious. >> how about a chart of the ten year yield. >> i'm looking at the time frame around 2009. it went to two and three quarters or thereabouts. it hit 4%. i went lower. in the treasury yields over this time frame. >> the stock market has multiple s there are still multiples in the other direction in terms of the smaller size.

first of all, none of us truly know if there was no dodd/frank, no crisis area issues going on or policy outside a few of the programs. some of the liquidity need bid the fed. that was good stuff. the notion of going to 65, 6600 and policy bringing us back. we would have come back anyway. the worst move is always followed by a reversal. many always under estimate how the animal spirits. they call it crossing the creek. the big break going into a canyon. a large part on their own. it is counterfactual. what strikes me is so many of our guests have believed that the number friday will make or break whether we see a tightening in march. after the multiples we have discussed it's silly after all

these years that it still boils down to one number. that's wrong way thinking. on michael's one comment maybe the best way to get back to fundamentals is to actually embrace policy changes. we are reversing the things that work against fundamentals. tax policy, good regulations. these aren't meddling with the ultimate multiples down the road. these are getting them back in line. the distortion has been the last eight years. >> it's still a shift from monetary policy to fiscal policy easing. this is a stimulative policy we are looking forward to here. >> they have been taking saddle bags off. we are all using stimulative. i look at it as normalization of policy. we had bad policy, regulations that made no sense. we were regulating small entities the way we were regulating large balance sheet

entities. all of that coming off is a good thing. less government in certain ways. certain areas it's needed like immigration. in other areas, it isn't as necessary and i think we are making the right call. >> which is exactly my point. the last eight years have been stimulated with monetary policy and central bank policy around the world. not just in this country. >> we saw rates negative in parts of the world. people were forced into the market and to put money looking for yield which drove so much of the move we have seen off the lows. that said, normalization will be a good thing. maybe there will be and should be a correction. once we get back to normal we'll start to focus on the fundamentals and what matters. >> we have to go at this point. >> everybody nodding their head at the same time. that's a good ending point right there. thanks. 37 minutes left in the trading

session for monday to begin the week. the dow is down 27 points. was down 93 but we have come off the lows here. >> general motors is lower after announcing plans to lay off michigan workers and it is selling the money losing unit in europe. >> and tyson foods lower after a bird flu outbreak at a supplier. details coming up.

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shares of general mottors trading down after it says it plans to lay off workers at the lansing delta township plant in may. that as general motors shifts production to tennessee where it added 800 jobs last year. the auto giant is selling its loss-making european arm opel in a deal of $2.3 billion. psa says it plans to return opel to profitability targeting a 2% operating margin within three years. opel notched its 16th straight full year loss. >> wow. >> today's deal makes psa europe's second biggest carmaker by sales behind only volkswagen. >> it is the latter point which is interesting.

peugot looks to be one of the biggest automakers in the world. what he's done with fiat-chrysler, alliances and the way he's made it into one of the world's leading automakers. now you have renault and peugot in the european point of view and gm receding and signalling it's not going for the crown of biggest automaker in the world. a crown that got toyota, volkswagen in trouble chasing that over the years. if it can improve profitability by leaving the continent, fine. the continent in terms of auto sales is on an uplift while the u.s. and china might have peaked. >> they have some $20 billion into it over that period you mentioned. >> crazy. >> they are pulling the plug. >> we have a sudden news alert on espn. julia boar sten, what's going

on? >> a source close to the situation tells me, bill, that espn plans to lay off a small percentage of the roughly 1,000 espn employees who are forward-facing talent either on camera reporters, writing for espn.com or creating podcasts or radio reports. my source tells me while costs are always a concern what this is really about is reshaping espn for the digital generation. figuring out what kind of talent they need in place to create content for new products and new platforms. we reached out to espn for this comment. quote, we have long been about serving fans and creating the best content for them. today's fans consume content in different ways and we are adapting to change and improving what we do. that has consequences for how we utilize talent. we are confident espn will continue to have a roster of talent that's unequalled in sports. there is no word yet on what percentage of the 1,000 employees will be cut. they say this is still early

days as they evaluate what they need to create more of the digital content. back to you. >> julia, do you get the sense this is imposed from disney at all as the company has been saddled with trying to right the ship at espn or is this just espn itself having to make difficult choices? >> i think those two things really can't be separated. certainly espn is part of disney. i think it is interesting. espn talked a lot about how they are changing show formats to figure out what type of content works best on different platforms. just last week i reported about how espn has been doing a lot for snapchat. they have been creating a lot of content for that platform. as they are included in the over the top bundles we saw with the inclusion in the youtube tv bundle announced last week, they are trying to figure out what content people want to watch on their smaller screens and as they move between screens. it is a different kind of show

you create for snapchat than for traditional television. >> they have had an exodus of talent as they are doubling down on the personality-driven format. tricky transition for them. >> certainly a lot going on right here. >> that's for sure. >> thank you for the story. julia borsten in l. achla. time for a news update. sue? >> israeli police say a palestinian militant was killed in a shoot out in the west bank. he headed a group planning an attack against israeli targets and when forces try to arrest him he opened fire. ben carson speaking for the first time to his employees at hud this afternoon. he had interesting things to say about his health care as a boy growing up. >> i loved everything that had to do with medicine. i even liked going to the doctor'ses you hadocto

doctor's office. i was a strange kid. i would gladly sacrifice a shot just to smell the alcohol swabs. >> a panda cub being extra cute, becoming an online sensation on chinese social media. the baby cub after failing to attach herself to not one but two breeders resorting to standing in their way and rolling around on the ground in hopes of gaining their sympathy towards her. she's known to do this. this is a trick she does frequently apparently. they call her the clingy panda. she doesn't give up. there she goes again. >> i know i will alienate myself to people. >> are you saying that doesn't work. >> i don't get the panda thing. >> love? i think they sped that video up. >> when i go to the zoo i would much rather watch the chimps. >> i hate the chimps. >> pandas are cute. >> they do it for me. >> give me chimps any day. >> chimps are creepy. >> they're hilarious.

>> i stay away. >> it's like watching abbott and costello. >> when i was in india on assignment there was a note on the desk that said do not engage with the monkeys, they bite. end of discussion. >> i just like watching them. >> i'll hear from all the panda lovers out there. >> you will hear from the panda contingent. >> thank you, sue. >> 27 minutes left in the trading session. we are down 41 points. airline stocks have been under pressure today after one of the major carriers sounded an alert on the cost increases outpacing revenue growth. you can probably guess where the biggest cost increase is coming from. details coming up >> bird striking a tyson foods chicken supplier. shares down 2.25% when we come back.

welcome back. go pro shares are trading around 818. they have fallen to the lowest level yet. goldman sachs downgrading from neutral. cutting it to $6 from 9.50. citing the disappointing entry

into the drone market. >> you could shoot a lot of chimps with the go pro camera. great video with that. 24 minutes left in the trading session with the dow down 24 points. i'm sheer with peter from empire executions. i know you are putting on a good face. >> i always do. >> you are not in this market. you are waiting for a pull back. you should speak to the people out there. people are waiting for the pullback. are you waiting for godot? >> good question. i have to put a time frame on it. i don't see the market accelerating like after the trump election. if we do go up it will be deliberate, slow moving. if we don't get a pullback. something substantial. maybe i will jump in and say it to 20 million people on cnbc. i missed something.

but -- >> what are you going to buy? do you think it would be the financials? >> energy stocks. i don't think they will lead the way. when the financials, when we get around to earnings period it will be bert than expected. there is movement on the upside. i think the energy stocks are. >> he's smiling on the outside. tense on the inside. >> thanks. kelly? >> thank you, guys. the first confirmed case of bird flu this year hitting the biggest chicken meat producer in the country. morgan brennan has more on the story. it sounds like a different strain of bird flu. >> it is. it is a strain that's also lethal and contagious to birds. this is why this is coming under fire. someone should look at shares of tyson. we are down 1.40 off the lows of the day. down about 2%. this after government officials confirmed that a tennessee chicken farm that's contracted by tyson did test positive for

this strain of bird flu. this is the first case in the u.s. in more than a year. so the 73,000 plus birds are already in the process of getting destroyed. no birds that are affected will be entering the food system. roughly 30 farms within a six-mile radius are already under quarantine. e tyson saying based on the limited scope known to us at this time we don't expect disruptions to the i can whichen business and plan to meet our customer needs. tyson, like other poultry producers have ha tight biosecurity in place for years. south korea imposing a ban on u.s. poultry exports today. the country has been importing products amid its own worst ever bout of bird flu. in the u.s. we have been little affected since 2015 when 50 million turkeys and chickens were destroyed in the worst ever case of bird flu. this is just a one off right

now. the concern is you see more countries ban exports or imports i should say. you see more potential cases. that's why you are seeing shares of pilgrim's pride and sanderson down today. >> i will see you on the closing kout in about 20 minutes. the dow is down 25 right now. >> the s&p slower by 5. we were weaker. with an iphone on the horizon we'll see if this is the time to put money in apple. stay with us. whether it's connecting one of the world's most innovative campuses.

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look at some of the movers on wall street today. deutsch bank trading lower with the banking giant announcing plans for 8.5 billion in the coming weeks to improve financial health. this will be the bank's fourth capital increase since 2010. a stock sale is viewed as di dilutive to existing shareholders. delta said it was cutting the operating margin forecast for the year. carrier saying it expects cost increases to outpace revenue growth. a lot of it will be fuel costs. the news taking other airlines lower as well including

american, jetblue and united continental. >> shares of apple are lower today. the stock is less than 1% from the all time high. td ameritrade customers have been selling for seven months but it is the number one holding. >> why have so many been selling their positions? >> jim suba is with us. both here at post nine. >> even as the stock was hitting highs here. >> i don't think it is a bad thing. people look at it and say, the clients are selling a stock that's going higher. think about the rap on retail clients for years. they were all in, all out, buying highs, selling lows. what you are seeing is an interesting time where the clients sold apple, you know, because it is 52-week highs. they have been doing so as it keeps hitting highs. to me it is a great story actually. they have been doing the same

things with tesla. as the stocks go up we want to talk about apple in particular. the retail client and those who will engage. >> that's what makes the warren buffett thing interesting. he didn't say he was buying at these levels. obviously he's not in it for the 5 or 10% upside which is what we have seen this year. what's the case for shares of apple going higher and maybe getting retail investors can excited again? >> it's a great observation. we think the iphone 8 will be a huge up cycle. when we think about the iphone 8 we expect build plans to be strong and the news to come in more positive into the iphone 8. we call it a super cycle. near term a super cycle. people push back and say, hey, there is not room to grow. we see content and geographics areas like india as great upsides. >> i can't believe we are already talking about the ifophe 8.

we just got finished with the 7 introduction. we are already anticipating a phone that won't be out until fall. do you think there will be fatigue by the time we get there? >> that's the exciting thing about the stock market. we look forward. what's next and what's next. with apple hitting all-time high stock prices we see what next is the iphone 8. september of this year we see it launching. we believe with the screen, better battery processor, camera, dual facing cameras, better processing. people will like it. they have held onto the iphones and for uber drivers and things like that, that's their primary computing device. we think they will pay for it. >> that flagship device will be a thousand bucks. how much do retailers follow berkshire or warren buffett. >> warren buffett is the biggest celebrity in the industry. people will follow what he does. that said, you will see when he speaks about a stock people go

into it. one of the things that retail clients have started to discern, he had more money where his time frame could be different. they are trying to make a decision for a few months. it could be a few years. everyone has different time frames. not that he's not one of the most brilliant people but matching up time frames. >> your clients tend to be more like traders as opposed to investors? >> we are pretty split. one thing if you look at the index it looks at people engaged with the markets. if you are taking more time planning your vacation than financial health it will be rougher. people who engage once a month are taking it seriously. at least, i should be planning, doing things. that's the most important message. >> the mobile phone made snapchat possible. how many people were trading snapchat? >> i can't talk about that one. we are part of the distribution

network. with all that said i will say ipos in general that are exciting and bring people to market are a great thing for everybody. >> no doubt we'll hear about it down the road. can't wait. >> next month. >> good to see you both. >> about 12 minutes to go really. dow down 24. s&p down 5. russell down seven. >> the trade deficit is a threat to the economy. we'll have details coming up. is happening before our eyes. shift in human history sixty to seventy million people are moving to cities every year. at pgim we help investors see the implications of long term megatrends like the prime time of urban expansion, pinpointing opportunities to capture alpha in real estate, infrastructure and emerging markets. partner with pgim the global investment management

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this should be interesting. the market on close orders show an imbalance to the buy side of 90 billion. down just 26 points. >> it could take us down. >> the s&p is down five. we'll see. we have ten minutes. >> let's look at other stories moving markets today. stocks lower as the trump rally. financials are lagging today down half a percent overall. snap shares have been falling for the first time since going public last thursday.

needham initiated the stock with an under perform rating. >> joining us are chris johnson from jk investment and terry staff from sierra investment management. welcome. any thoughts on the market? we have taken a pause here obviously. there is a little bit more dispersion today. >> yeah. a pause or even a little bit of a pullback would be nice. i know that's odd to say. when you look back at the last year we haven't had a healthy correction. it makes everybody feel fearful for the market. the term wall of worry is out of place. we have bricks of worry out there. when i look at the vicks and the amount of short interest in the market or that's not out there in the market. there is a lot of optimism. the last phase of a long bull market is acceptance. that's where we are now. investors accepted they were in a bull market. the next to come is optimism. we really need to see a healthy

pull back. >> terry, where do you think you are in the cycle now? >> in terms of the stock market and clearly the momentum has been strong for u.s. stocks. it's been like a freight train. the market is down a little bit today. i think it is just noise. we think investors should pay a lot more attention to the rising rate environment that began in july. nearly 50 day into the current administration is a trend that remains intact. we believe it is unambiguous that interest rates will continue to rise going forward. >> will that be a headwind? for equities? >> terry? >> oh, it could potentially be a headwind. certain areas are going to participate in a rising rate environment. there are certain areas you want to avoid. what's imperative is it is tactical with a dynamic strategy in place. >> the financials have been weak even as the rate hikes are going

in. what are you picks here, chris? >> we are sticking with them. when you look at them regionals do better. typically the headwind will come after the third or fourth interest rate hike. do you remember why the fed raises rates? to kol things a little bit. things are going well. so historically when we do back testing we look at interest rates and the first three or four in a cycle are bullish for the market. by that we are sticking with industrials now. regional banks, large cap tech stocks and we are noting that there is a safe haven instead of being in bonds appears in utilities. those are the areas now we are looking at in the market as points of interest. >> chris johnson, terry spaf, good to see you both. thank you for your thoughts today. >> thanks, bill. thanks, kelly. >> we'll take a break. the dow is down 31 points. the sellers have come to match some of the buyers.

we'll see. the closing kout in a moment. >> after the bell oil giant with an upcoming ipo in the trillions. you're watching cnbc, first in business worldwide. created over 100 years ago as a benchmark for average. yet many people still build portfolios with strategies that just track the benchmarks. but investing isn't about achieving average. it's about achieving goals. and invesco believes doing that today requires the art and expertise of high-conviction investing. translation? it's time to bench the benchmarks.

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two up days and now a do you know day, down almost 12%. that's the trading post where they trade stuff. >> yeah. >> finally the fire is out, i guess. >> potentially. we should note that we are still up pretty dramatically from the $17 ipo price. one thing i have heard from several people is you have millennial retail investors are some of the biggest appetite in terms of the company. this is the stock they have been looking to get into the market with. >> there is a generational thing there. millennials will understand this country more than the older generation. right? >> i guess so. >> as a business model. >> it is still a company that doesn't turn a profit. >> details, details. >> yeah. >> with 90 seconds left the dow is starting to drift lower despite the market on close orders to the buy side.

market just drifting today. it is digesting the recent rally here. two markets that stayed in a steady range here. the ten-year around the 2.5% level. $53 seems to be a new floor for the market for whatever reason. >> energy seems to be the only sector in the green right now. fluctuating in and out. financials have been one of the biggest losers next to materials. the transportation stocks today because the transports have been the biggest under performer in terms of the averages. those have been pulled lower because of airlines. we have the trump administration travel ban part two. not sending all those stocks. >> i thought the airlines hedged fuel costs but i think not. they are susceptible to that. >> it was higher fuel costs and that will print margins for the quarter. >> we are going out with a decline of 48 points.

thank you, morgan. see you later. really the biggest economic story we are waiting for will be the jobs report coming out on friday. a lot can happen in the meantime. stay tuned now for hour number two of the closing bell. see you tomorrow. >> thank you, bill. welcome to the closing bell. a down day on wall street. in fact, the dow went lower by 489 points. we mentioned a big buy order on the close that could have pushed us. 29,956 for the blue chips. the s&p and nasdaq down a third of a percent today. 2375 and the russell 2000 small caps under performing down to

1384 today. north korea launching ballistic missiles. kevin rudi joins us with his take on the potential geopolitical risks and china's growing role in the region. that's coming up this hour. senior markets commentator michael santoli is with me. tony dwyer is at post nine and neil hennessy joins us from somewhere out there as well. great to have everybody here. what do you think is going on? does this have anything to do with the north korea stuff, the trump tweets focused on the leaks in the administration? it's hard to remember that quasi state of the union was a week ago. >> i'm loathe to draw links between the noisy political stuff and a one-third of a point decline in the s&p 500 from a high level. objectsly we had a build-up under the market.

the fact that we have been on a good run. the s&p 500 was three points above the level before last wednesday's pop. you remember there was a big update. the market is trying to sort out if that was a short-term buying crescendo. if you look at the checklist of things that would tell you if it was part of a bigger problem. credit markets fine. all those things are holding together okay for the longer term. >> what do you think about the market? >> i have been inappropriately calling for a correction for the last few percents. since the beginning of february. it's interesting because the internals of the market outside of financials which have done well. some of the defensive space has done well. >> utilities. >> if this were about economic vitality and excitement over the trump administration you would have the energy, materials, industrials outperforming. those things are important. they are not showing up that way. what i will say that's

interesting, the animal spirits we talk about when it comes to investing, we have seen it. i spent the last week talking to executives. there is an animal spirits awakening in the corporate space. they haven't done any capital spending or as much as they would like to over the last eight years because of fear of regulation. they worried about elizabeth warren and hillary clinton going into the election. this is just a statement of what they have told me. they held off. that excitement having nothing to do with new regulation. it just has -- they are not as worried about it. >> that doesn't have you junking the call? >> my stuff is sentiment based and historical based. i don't think at this point you don't make two wrong calls in a row. the first was to call for a correction. the second is to call for a correction even after this 5% move. again, i don't want to portray it as negative. you would be out of your mind to

be negative with this fundamental backdrop as credit. sometimes you can't get offensive if you are already offensive. i would pare back offensive exposure. >> what would you add to that. >> it's basically the way. if you slice up the way the market behaved in terms of the trajectory of the gains, also combine it with the atmospheric conditions like credit conditions, global economic production numbers and all the stuff that seems in the mix. you come away with the same thing. short-term vulnerability. you're going down a little bit. it doesn't necessarily disturb the long term trend. you are in the zone for a while. >> you can hear us. this is a perfect place to emphasize the fact that you think there is no euphoria and the bull market does keep going. >> exactly. there is no euphoria on the upside. no hot buying. there is plenty of valuations

out there excluding snap chat where you will buy a dollar revenue for $70 million. most of the companies out there are fairly valued. or under valued. i think the bull market continues to go. there are plenty of good buys. >> trying to buy it or something? >> here is an interesting data point. every time i talked to professional investors and there are individuals watching the show, too. it's natural, normal and healthy until you get a correction. i start getting calls that, okay, is this the big one? if you are so offensively positioned going into this scenario, that's not bad long term, but short term as soon as it starts to pull back those people that chased it higher start to sell. you are asked to derisk or worried about derisking at the time you want to be buying. >> what would you say to that, neil? >> i say, you know, if you are

looking short term go to vegas. if you're going to look long term buy good high quality stocks in businesses that will be there for the long term. the market isn't overvalued. if you go back to being overvalued last time there was euphoria on the upside was 1999 when the market was up 86% and the dow jones was selling at 44 times their price to earnings ratio. really? we don't have it in today's market. if corporations get tax cuts, you're really going to see the market go higher. right now the profits are at an all time high and so are the cash flows. you should buy it, not sit in fixed income. it still has a ton of money. >> people over the weekend are talking about how they are getting into bonds. let's get to washington and find more about president trump with the revised immigration order.

eamon javrs has the latest. >> we are told the president is behind closed doors in the oval office now meeting with members of the national economic council. we haven't seen the president on camera and won't see that meeting on camera today either. i should tell you we saw a press release from the white house praising exxon mobile for a $20 billion set of investments the white house says will create thousands of jobs in the gulf coast region. the president signed the sbrord this morning. here is a summary of what's in the sbrord, what the president is doing here in the wake of the failed roll out of the january 27 executive order on immigration. this time around the white house says they will bar new visas for citizens from six muslim majority countries. the ban will be in place 09 days. it doesn't apply to those with valid visas or gasoline cards and removes iraq from the earlier lists. we got down from 7 to 6 countries. white house officials saying

iraq complied and provided information that helps them vet immigrants from that country. also suspends the entire u.s. refugee program for 120 days. it will go into fekt march 16. that's designed to give line officials at airports around around the country, points of entry, the ability to process new rules and make sure it goes off without a hiccup like we saw last time around. the white house taking another bite of the apple on the immigration executive order. >> thank you. what's the impact for you, tony? >> i don't see an impact. if there was going to be an impact like awe beyond michael talked about in the segment. so many things could have dislocated the market. you ended up with a rally at the end that only made the market close down seven s&p points. it ace not this stuff that hits the market on a correction. it is something out of nowhere. we are used to the trump tweets. there's been a lot of tweets going to take us lower.

>> what do you think about the corporate tax piece of this which has been cited as the reason why we were going up double digits since the election. >> i don't think it is after the conversations we have had in the last week. it wasn't even lower regulation. nobody mentioned lower corporate taxes. they were thrilled to not have an anti-business administration and regulatory environment in the white house. that's a huge deal that i under estimated, even as bullish as i have been. >> any investor, any ceo and said what's the number one thing to make you optimistic about your company or the market. i don't think lower corporate tax rates would have made the top five. >> it is a great thing to have. might be a bonus down the road. it seem it is main thing to wall street in terms of policy, but i don't think it is a problem. the way the market is trading policy, the worst case scenario is sta cuss quo.

the best case is probably something good. >> in terms of legislative stuff. >> the worst case is so much better than it's been. >> people will say even if you think the market is expensive. if you could get ten bucks on the s&p with corporate tax reform it looks cheaper. >> that becomes an issue if you are saying, whoa, the earnings revisions are steeply negative. we need something to help us out and rescue us from basically making the markets seem that much less. >> for the first time since 2011 global earnings have reflected positively. >> what if you have a dollar that's stable to weaker because the globe is growing. that's the factor few people talk about. jim cramer did today on the halftime report. the globe is growing better than people think. what if margins haven't seen their peak and gone to new highs. that's the controversial call.

>> did they expand the profit margins? >> definitely. >> wow. >> historically, factual since 1960 haven't seen a peak in profit margins until you have seen an inversion of the yield curve. that won't happen for at least a year and a half to two years. >> pacing is the question. it may not happen in the next quarter or two. the market can get worried about something. >> i will think about this. thank you very much for joining us. president president trump is critical of trade deals. now they say it could be a security risk. we'll debate it next. and north korea raising fears after firing ballistic missiles into the sea of japan. find out if this could be the biggest threat to the market. this is cnbc, first in business worldwide. so what else is new? how's your mother?

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175 compared with a little under 142 netflix closed at today. they raised subscriber estimates, just talked about different reasons they like the

outlook here. >> this was an analyst faced with $136 price target. you upgrade it and put a margin of upside to it. to me it's only really about the pace of subscriber growth with the story. because the model scale at a certain level but the market gets freaked out when you have those. >> amazing. keeps going. we have breaking news on sales force announcing a partnership with ibm for artificial intelligence to help companies better understand the needs of clients. the partnership combines the watson platform with salesforce's einstein. less ibm will deploy service cloud across the company. mark beniof will join us to discuss the partnership coming up at 4:45 p.m. eastern time. don't miss it. we are looking at the shares for reaction to this. >> it is interesting. one way it will be read is

certainly as a vote of confidence for ibm strategy in ai. >> interesting that sales force popped more on the news. >> i don't know if it is a matter of sales force and we should ask if sales force will decide not to do it itself. basically saying we could leverage it. >> sales force growth has slowed but continues to see shares move higher. that could have been the session today. ibm unchanged. >> sales force moves higher. people don't think they will buy something big. >> the news there, salesforce and ibm announcing an a.i. partnership. president trump's top trade adviser warning of the mounting trade deficits in washington. steve liesman is there with the highlights. >> peter navaro, president trump's top trade adviser warning of a stark future coming

from u.s. trade deficits. he says they sap growth, investment and he's concerned when foreigners gather when they can buy u.s. assets. >> if the current distorted market patterns continue and to paraphrase we are likely to be owned in the long run by foreigners. >> he said he's specifically worried about foreigners buying the u.s. food supply, technology companies in silicon valley and an erosion of u.s. defense capabilities. he says the playing field isn't level and president trump is seeking free trade, fair trade and reciprocal trade. >> one of the major goals of the trump administration is to reclaim all of the supply chain and manufacturing capabilities that would otherwise exist if the playing field were level.

>> i'm here at the national association for business economics and there is a lot of skepticism about the ability to bring back manufacturing that trade is responsible for losing manufacturing jobs. many point the finger much more at automation. they will extol the benefits of free trade. in fact better growth. when the united states grows strongly the trade deficit goes up not down. people are importing more goods. all the ph.d. wonks and you're nowhere to be seen. i get that santelli doesn't come but you should. >> i don't qualify. nowhere close. >> oh, come on. >> you can pick up a lot at these sessions. appreciate it, steve. let's talk about whether the trade deficit is a threat to national security. joining us now, anthony chan, managing director and chief

exist at chase. former deputy assistant u.s. trade rep for north america. what do you think about the latest verbiage? >> when i hear the word that we have an 800 billion dollar trade deficit. that number exaggerates. when you talk about the trade deficit you have to look at goods and services. of course the services in the fourth quarter had a surplus close to $276 billion annual. the actual number is $540 billion. one thing that worries me is if you try to force it too hard, you actually end up hurting the country because a lot of the reason we have a trade deficit because we are importing machinery that helps us improve productivity and enhances our ability to be more efficient rather than hurts us. >> does it become an issue if it weakens the dollar, if trade deficit continues growing? >> the trade deficit itself, navaro is true that it

encourages foreigners to come in and buy up u.s. industry, sometimes defense critical industries. that's more of a defense asset for the united states international security asset than a liability. remember they are investing in u.s. industry. in a national security crisis if we needed that industry and the industry wasn't cooperating with us we could nationalize it. it is a vulnerability for those investing in the national security critical industries and more of a vulnerability for them when that investment takes place. >> just further on that there is a focus on country by country trade deficit or surplus. this idea you would play the zero sum game country by country and trading partner by trading partner it is hard to see how to go about that and whether it would bear a lot of fruit. >> it won't. multilateral agreements give far more leverage with who is negotiating. we are offering access to other

markets in the multilateral agreement. that game looks like we have more leverage. only two in the negotiation. we are better off with the multilateral organizations. it is a win-win scenario when it is done right. >> that's a loaded statement these days. to a point, at what point does the trade deficit worry you more? >> what worries me is if we are losing comparative advantage in every single sector. if you want to reduce the trade deficit you should try to enhance productivity, lower regulations. especially sp ones that don't cross a cost benefit analysis. that would be misleading. >> thank you for your thoughts on that today.

snap ipo valued north of $20 billion. but we'll have eye popping estimates next and an exclusive interview y marc benioff on a partnership just announced with ibm coming up.

welcome back. the world's largest oil company is set to go public next year. the valuation could blow the doors off ipo records.

jackie deangelis is in houston with the details. hi. >> good afternoon to you. iramco is part of the buzz here in houston especially as opec cuts kept the markets supported between 50 and $55 a barrel. in fact there is reporting today that 98 1/2% of the cuts have been achieved in february. saudis are producing 9.5 million barrels a day, a sleep slide for them. it is no surprise. it would be in the saudis' interests to keep the prices higher. there is a little discrepancy. if you ask if saudis they would tell you $2 trillion for them. a trillion to one and a half trillion. no matter how you slice it we have a 5% sale which is roughly

$100 billion. it is a substantial amount of money compared to the deals. some of the most notable al ali baba. facebook, $16 billion. 10.5 billion. that gives you a sense of the deal that's coming to the market and the scale we are looking at. valuations fluctuate. part of it depends on what the saudis do. tax policies will impact this and which assets are included in the sale as well. i will say this. earlier in the morning, i'm speaking to opec secretary barkindo in your show this afternoon. we look forward to that. back to you. >> thank you, jackie. >> sure thing. >> up next we'll discuss whether north korea's growing nuclear capabilities could be the biggest risk to this rally and

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welcome back. slight declines across the major

averages to kick off the week al wall street. the dow with a quarter percent drop. the s&p down eight points. nasdaq down 21. russell down nine. it is time for a cnbc news update. sue? >> hi, kelly. here's what's happening at this hour. the former head of the new york new jersey port authority and a long-time mentor to new jersey governor chris christie was sentenced to four years probation and fined $100,000. sampson admitted he pressured united airlines to reinstate a flight route to give him easier access to his weekend home in south carolina. british lawmakers debating whether or not employers should be able to force women to wear high heels as part of corporate dress codes in response to a petition by a receptionist who was sent home without pay for not wearing heels to the office. the white house says the u.s. has an advanced anti-missile defense system to south korea in

response to north korea's latest missile launches. the director of the u.n.'s nuclear watch dog agency says those launches for regrettable. >> i will express my serious concern about the nuclear program of north korea. it is deeply regrettable that they have shown no indication that it is willing to comply with the u.n. security council revisions adopted in response to its two nuclear tests last year. >> that's the cnbc news update this hour. back to you. >> thank you. we'll pick up on the north korea story. the missile launches committed after south korean conglomerate provided land to defend against missile launches. china fears possible offensive

use and it has taken action including closing retail stores in china. let's bring in kevin rudd with the asia society policy institute at post nine. he joins us with gordon chang who wrote a piece about china trying to rush the economy. welcome to you both. first can you detail what's happening? >> the problem is china closed four of the stores and shut one of the large projects. also the company has been fined across the board. they have organized protests. one of them violent. essentially what at this point is that beijing tried to intimidate the company because the company swapped land with the south korean defense ministry in order to base that anti-missile defense system south of seoul. >> mr. prime minister, tell us how significant a deployment this missile system would be?

what does it entail? are china's concerns legitimate here? >> strategic analysts differ. what we know is they have a lot more missiles than they had, more nuclear weapons material and they have had to militarize the stuff. this is getting real. it is the number one geopolitical risk for the year including the united states. so the diplomacy lies and the strategy lies in what do we do about it? it is no longer theoretical. it's real. >> the latest set of moves, how does it change the calculation for the united states and allies in terms of china's role in reportedly acting as a proxy to keep north korea in check. >> great question. the key objective of the north korean regime, kim jong-un stated it himself to target the united states or alaska. other range missiles to target u.s. allies in the region.

that's what he's on about. if you look at the way in which the missiles have been tested, developed and the pattern of missile testing now suggests we are out of the laboratory, into the real field. we are testing for real deployments. the question is what can the united states do about it with allies? you have two options here. one the administration we have seen through public reporting today using various cyber means and it seems also various means to impede the testing program or any future use. the second involves diplomacy. that's the key question. can a strategic deal be done between president trump and president ping to bring the leverage to bear to bring about change. >> talks were cancelled after a previous missile launch. china at the top level has not acknowledged this boycott of the south korean travel groups.

it's been something that's kind of implied. maybe a wink and aed no about. does this make the negotiations more uncomfortable to them. >> it does. beijing imposed a number of punitive measures on south korea as a whole. not just this group. beijing is doing it to support the north koreans. the problem is a lot of people look to china to solve this, to be a partner. since 2003 when the six party talks beijing has been helping north korea. we have seen transfers of technology including missile technology to the north koreans. the missile the north koreans tested on february 12 are variants of the jl-1. china has been supplying semiprosaysed material to the north korean weapons program. we have to impose costs on china based on what it's been doing. >> has china said it is unacceptable.

south korea's prerogative. we have made in roads into the territory. have they expressed specifically that they don't want it to happen? >> the bottom line is you look at stated policy reflected me through the four or five sets of u.n. security resolutions they have backed. not like they have particular love for this country the united states. it is deeply destabilizing of economic stability in the region and brought national security within their region as well. >> isn't it too late? that's what happened. >> diplomacy for the security council comprehensively failed. i go back to what are the two games in town. three technically. you accept the reality. frankly i don't think most of us think that's a go. two others. one you use various technical means to impede the development. >> cyber.

>> yep. three the strategic bargain between the two. it was so important to get the one china policy thing off the table between the u.s. and china. the real heart of what would be the first meeting between xi jinping and president trump must be on this and the united states has seized to that now. >> thank you very much for joining us. kevin rudd and gordon chang on troubling news to wake up to. seema? >> let's start with thor industries. the company reduced second quarter results despite thor beating expectations on the top and bottom line as a recorded revenue. the gross profit margins dropped compared to a year earlier. it missed consensus estimate as well. we are taking a look at gross profit margins decreasing in the second quarter compared to the 14.3% in the prior year period. due primarily to an acquisition

related dilution. shares down 5.5%. let's go to casey's general. missing expectations. 58 cents. the analyst consensus was 89 cents. a huge miss here. revenue below expectations in the press release. the company, they house many convenience stores in the midwest. they say pressures persisted throughout the quarter. the company continues to be an industry leader in same store sales growth. shares down 4% here after hours. >> a tough couple of reports there. up next, an exclusive interview with marc benioff on the just released partnership with ibm leveraging the intelligence platforms of the companies. and president trump wants to help approve new drugs more quickly through the fda. stay with us. when ♪ou have $4.95

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welcome back. aberdeen asset management is looking to create the largest fund manager in the uk in a 13.5 billion dollar deal. it's come to fruition. really it hits on a lot of things we have been talking about. the changes in the industry. the shift from active to passive. >> also it's becoming a little bit of a polarized industry. very big firms on one side and a lot of industries are like this.

people say it all the time. a lot of them are specialized. this would take you from two mid sized asset managers by u.s. standards and make one big thing. >> maybe it was a prefinancial crisis. >> a lot of the questions now, too, on proposed co-ceo structure and organizationally can they mesh? >> aberdeen in the post crisis era had a lot of funds, expertise. certainly was seen as a core competence. it's a tougher slog. >> a little bit of the premise of having scale was to say, look, we are not completely all in on one strategy for one area, one product category. that probably makes sense. that would never be the hottest

kid in the play ground if you are broadly diversified, something is always working and not working. blackrock is the big example. virtually equally exposed to active, passive, institutional, retail. all the different channels you would expect. >> you can see shares of both companies up today in the range of 4 to 5%. so the challenge for them remains even after combining the companies. $13.5 billion dollar deal is big. 5 trillion? >> this gets you to more than half a trillion but not much. >> what's a couple trillion here and there. up next, an exclusive interview with marc benioff on the partnership with ibm and former pimco chief mohamed el-erian at 5:00 p.m. eastern.

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welcome back. shares of salesforce moving higher by 2% after hours. this after the company announcing the two cloud computing giants will be teaming up. the partnership will bring together the two a.i. platforms from ibm's watson and salesforce's einstein. joining me now is salesforce ceo marc benioff. welcome. >> have you met watson? what's he like? >> watson is great. einstein is great. they are happy to be together. >> yes. i love the pairing there. a lot of people know a little bit about watson, a little bit about artificial intelligence. let's say there are salesforce now. ing what this offer them? >> this is a landmark agreement between ibm and salesforce to bring together two amazing

technologies. it is very exciting. we just released our spring release of salesforce. all of our customers around the world have einstein built right in to their salesforce implementations. salesforce, einstein is built right into the declarative platform. now we are going to augment that with einstein. i could give you an example if you give me a second. >> please do. >> last night here in san francisco we had unbelievably crazy hailstorms. so we had a hailstorm, gorgeous blue sky, a rainstorm. you know insurance providers want to get to the auto policy holders and say, hey, get your cars in the garage, the hail is coming. watson has the data. what sales force has, we have the policy holder information and we are managing five of the top five insurance companies on sales force. now you can put those things together and all of the sudden those insurance companies can notify the policy holders.

hey, the hail is coming. >> marc, does this offer wider distribution of einstein? we are looking at the reaction and shares and investors seem to like this. fl us. >> i will tell you why investors like this. number one, we are coming off an unbelievable quarter that we just announced a couple of days ago. we grew our deferred revenue to 14.5 billion dollars up 28%. that was way beyond our expectation and way beyond investor expectation. we have a huge tail off the incredible fourth quarter from last week. that's number one. number two is this is two of the most important companies in technology coming together for the benefit of their customers. the top five insurance companies that we run, they are all going to use this technology. not just them. of course we run five of the top five media companies, top five banks, five of the top five insurance companies, they are all going to benefit from this

capability. uniting salesforce and ibm together is really a huge story. >> if i want to be a cynic i will say you are getting the good buzzwords now. artificial intelligence, cloud, watson, einstein. it sounds impressive. i appreciate the examples as a way to understand what it means in the real world. can you think of a couple others in the ways your company will monetize this? >> well, i will tell you that we are moving our customers to this intelligent platform as fast as possible. now we have been doing cloud for 18 years which was a lot. we were cloud before cloud was cool. of course we rode into social and mobile. now we are adding a.i. and what's unique about salesforce is when you are using the salesforce platform and we go mobile or a.i., you automatically get it. our customers are on our artificial intelligence platform einstein, so they are getting lead scoring, opportunity

insights and next best offer. tomorrow we have a major event in san francisco and we are going to announce a couple of huge relationships with new customers and one is a is a cp customer who is using einstein to automatically look at what are the inventories in the refrigerators in their major retailers. einstein is able to roll the service trucks and roll the inventory right to the retailer. that's pretty awesome. >> who would you say is the biggest player in this space you're describing, who is your main competition as you continue to grow your pie? >> we're the number one crm provider in the world today, i think you know that. that's the most important thing for salesforce. in sales and service and marketing and community and analytics and apps and e-commerce, whether you're buying adidas off of the web, whether you're getting customer

service and support from bank of america, or maybe you're getting service from farmers insurance, it's all happening through salesforce. >> but does that mean ibm could have or would have been a rival here? i was reading even today about general electric and siemens and some of these big companies that are doing more to help machines communicate with each other. that feels like a different sort of industrial internet type of thing. >> that's right. that's right. >> what is this new field that you're describing? it almost seems so broad. i would be interested to know how you would describe that competitive landscape. >> you have to remember, salesforce only does one thing, which is crm, managing your customer relationships. ibm is really focused on doing three amazing things, providing systems integration services to very large customers, providing watson, and providing a new cloud platform. where this comes together, i'll give you another example, we have a great joint venture with an elevator company, they have

amazing new elevators and escalators that are connected right on the cloud. we're managing the relationship with the elevators and the escalators and customer information. if the system determines through watson a predictable maintenance problem is having on the elevator or the escalator, we could roll a truck right to get them fixed right there and then. that's another great example of how these two technologies to come together. >> it better work in my apartment building. there is some growth that the market obviously likes to see there. now this partnership. what about picking up a few of the companies that have been mooted in the past? >> we've picked up some great companies last year, because the acquisition window was really open. but the reality is, because the

market is roaring, the acquisition window has really narrowed. i just don't see any big acquisitions in the short term. >> all right, well, that is pretty definitive. marc, thank you for joining us today. a big deal, obviously. >> thank you. great to see you. >> marc benioff is the ceo and chairman of salesforce, which has just announced that ai partnership with ibm. president donald trump pledging to work to lower drug prices. up next, a woman who lost her son to brain cancer joins us to talk about how lower cost could change the fight against childhood cancers. we'll be right back.

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welcome back. we've got breaking news out of washington. white house press secretary sean spicer taking questions from the press. eamon javers, what did you find? >> reporter: hi, kelly, a few moments ago the president tweeted out some compliments to exxonmobil saying "we're already winning again," talking about a $20 billion investment program. in its press release on that program today, exxonmobil says the investments actually began in 2013, not this year. just a few moments ago i asked sean spicer here on the north lawn driveway whether or not the

white house is attempting to take credit politically for something that actually began under the obama administration. i believe we have tape now of what sean spice her to say in response. >> what i'm telling you is, to answer your question, it is the information that exxon provided us that they believe, based on what they see as a favorable business climate from the president and a commitment to help manufacturing grow here and commitment to american workers, they want to grow their investment here in the country. it is based on them telling us that they will continue to expand based on the president's vision and philosophy to help keep jobs here in america, obtain a more regulatory and tax business environment that will help them hire more, invest more, and grow more here in america. >> reporter: so kelly, sean spicer there saying essentially that it's fair for the white house to tout this program because exxon is telling them they are continuing it because of their confidence in donald trump's economic leadership, kelly. >> eamon, thank you.

when it comes to cancer drug testing, many of the treatments are aimed towards adults, not children, that's because pediatric cancers represent less than 1% of cancers diagnosed and pharmaceutical companies might not focus on childhood cancer quite as much as they should. that's why kids v. cancer is advocating for the race for children act to require companies to test their drugs for kids at the same time they test them for document. our guest is the founder of kids v. cancer along with our own meg terrell. >> thanks for joining us. you've been advocating for this issue since losing your own son jacob to cancer years ago. tell us what problem this will happen. >> thank you. the problem, meg, is there's almost no development of drugs for kids with cancer. i'm hoping the race for children act will change that. >> this fixes a problem in terms

of testing drugs for kids as well as adults, and you don't currently do that. >> that's right, they don't. a law was passed calling on them to do that, the pediatric research act. but this law was never applied to cancers because kids get cancers in different parts of their body than adults do. we're saying, because cancer drug development is almost exclusively by molecular target, we're saying if a drug is developed by molecular target and if that target is relevant for pediatric cancer, that these obligations are going to exist, that the pediatric research equity act obligations that would require companies to test the drugs in kids. >> nancy, trying to follow the science here with this law, we'll have to leave it there, we'll hope to pick up the conversation with you soon. thank you, nancy. >> thank you so much, meg. >> this is something that can happen right away? >> it's been introduced into congress. folks are hopeful something like this could be taken up. it has a lot of backing, bipartisan backing. so potentially, yes.

i've asked pharma, the lobbying group for the pharmaceutical industry, and they haven't weighed in on it yet. >> so glad she's working to raise awareness about it. obviously with everything else going on in washington these days. thanks for joining us with that story, our meg terrell. happy birthday, alan greenspan. >> 91. >> "fast money" begins right now. "fast money" starts right now, i'm scott walker in for melissa lee. our traders on the desk, tonight on "fast," a top technician says one group of stocks is so bad, it might actually be good for your portfolio. plus mohamed el-erian will tell us what he believes is really behind the rally. and othe