here in houston tomorrow but we're not at the conference. in houston with tillman. new restaurant. billion dollar buyer. but he'll be joined by the ceo of shell. huge oil guest and tillman. it will be crazy. >> it is. >> thanks for tuning in. "the closing bell" starts now. >> hi, everybody, welcome to "the closing bell." i'm kelly evans of the new york stock exchange. >> what did we decide? h-e-i-? >> i'm bill griffith. oil having the worst day in more than a year. about 13 months. what's behind the 5% decline? trying to hold $50 a barrel. >> back to mid-december. broader market in a bit of a holding partner as gop leadership looks to gain support for its health care bill and

president trump is talking drug prices with the ranking member of the oversight committee right now. we'll bring you the latest out of that meeting coming up. >> see what they talked about. a billionaire real estate developer who says he turned down president trump's proposal to build a wall on the mexican border. he will join us to talk about his relationship with the commander in chief and whether mr. trump's negotiating skills will come in handy as he tries to get tough bills passed in congress. first the ying to elon musk's yang. j.b.straubel on the company's energy push in hawaii. and diane greene, the co-founder of vm ware will join us and talk about how google is taking on amazon web services. back on track. starting with appaloosa's david

tepper. making headlines after sharing his bullish market views on "squawk box." here is what he said. >> we're more long u.s. stocks. the bigger bet is on -- listen, it's all the same sort of bet. if we're short u.s. bonds, we're betting on a stronger economy here. >> right. >> okay. that's the bet. so we're betting on strength one way or another here, on the strength around the world. i am long european equities. i could lose my behind, but that's life. >> are you short bonds right now, david? >> you bet your heinie. >> i would like to see that on the transcript somewhere. what did they do with that. >> right to our well we"the clo bell" exchange. what do you think, steve? >> i think david tepper did -- mr. tepper did a great job breaking down the markets as he usually does. he gave us, you know, mr. kernen

asked for a couple quotes. i think he gave more than a couple quotes this morning. when you look at the marketplace, i think you have to gauge it in a few different ways. the market rallied off the pro-growth policies and everyone is hanging their hat, so to speak, on getting those done. if they don't get them done, you are going to see that infrastructure plan probably kicked through, you'll see more stimulus on the other side of the equation. i don't think -- i don't want to say that there's no risk to being long equities, and you will see pull-backs from time to time, but if you're long this market, you are reaping the benefits of that rotation coming out of bonds that we have seen for the last eight years. there was no benefit -- or i should say there was a large safety bet. even with the market moving higher. i do believe that rotation is still much longer in the tooth coming down the pike. >> rob morgan, david tepper said this morning he is long european securities. i think you're underweight

europe. anything you want to sell him right now? >> bill, from the standpoint of rates going up and the dollar rising, u.s. investors putting money to work overseas, there is a headwind there. i would suggest that u.s. investors underweight the international space, including europe. >> he acknowledged that he could lose money, to paraphrase, depending on which way the french election goes. is that something you're watching carefully? could you get in if the market were to slide on that election? >> absolutely. if we saw a little dip and there was an entry point, that would be the case. >> rick, he picked a good day to be talking about how he is short bonds. what's happened with the ten-years? the two-year after the huge adp report this morning. is the fed behind the curve? >> well, i have thought the fed has been behind the curve for quite a while. no disagreement on my behalf towards mr. tepper's comments.

as a matter of fact, a lot of the things he said i would even dig a little deeper in. he is not only making one bet on rates going down, he is getting a two-fer. tomorrow is mario draghi's big day. they're tightening the tightrope wire he'll be walking. he'll curtail a bit of the qe and extend the time he's going to do it. market. look at france's rates, portugal. some of the rates outside of the boon. even the boon moving higher. negative rates will probably end and not end well. there is no doubt that no matter what european rates do, to some extent the u.s. rates follow. the charts bear that out. that will help his cause out. with regard to the dollar, everybody is talking about the dollar, as well they should. i agree with rob. it's your easy banner to see what's going on in the world. problem is, it's still bounced back down from unchanged again today. it has been hitting the 102.20

area. i'm not saying it's going to go through. maybe we're at the end of a short cycle or this may be the high yield. i think that's why today's auction went so well. >> it was up to 258. the two bond kings out there see yields going higher. bill gross says if we get to 260 the bull market is over for bonds, we're going into a bear market at that point. jeff gundlach says he sees a steady increase by the fed this year and he believes it will be a headwind for u.s. equities. what do you think? >> it could be. everyone is trying to put their line in the sand as to what level. everyone comes up with the 3% mark. if you look at the historic average, probably the run rate is much higher than 3%. it's probably basically double that. if you look at when rates rise, they're usually in housing recoveries and when growth is doing better. so i would say that everyone --

let's use a specific example. housing stocks, which i am long, kb homes and pulte homes. everyone said at the end of these, the death knell for housing is when rates rise. we haven't seen that yet. a lot of these fears, to maybe paraphrase david tepper, i think they are overblown and people should not worry about getting their heinies ripped off. >> this backup in yields helped financials today. you like goldman here. who else? >> i definitely -- financials are my favorite sector, kelly, primarily because of the steepening yield curve and obviously potential deregulation. goldman -- i like dividend payers. we have been talking about rates rising. certainly people, as rates go up, some will jump out of stocks and into bonds. the dividend payers will be resilient to that. goldman and the financial space is probably my favorite in that category. >> all right. thank you, everybody. good to see you, rob, nice to see you in new york for once in a long time.

thanks for being with us. it's been another whirlwind day in washington involving some of president trump's top agendas. eamon javers wraps up the day. the meeting on drug prices and yvonne muy on the details of the infrastructure spending. >> one of the things the president has done today is met with people who disagree with him. one of them the meeting with elijah cummings. he is the top democrat on the house oversight committee, a committee often used to investigate the administration and the executive branch. he is potentially one of donald trump's biggest adversaries here in town. they appear to agree on the need to lower prescription drug prices. that's the stated topic of today's meeting. it was a meeting that took a while to come together. the president at one point accused cummings of backing out of the meeting. cummings said the president was

making stuff up about him. they finally got it on the calendar. we saw mrs. jobs. she said she'll talk about both today. pyle jobs, who is worth more than $10 billion, was a big donor to hillary clinton during the campaign. we'll wait to see whether we get a readout on that meeting or follow-up from her camp to figure out what if anything the two agreed to at the white house. >> the meeting between cummings and the president on drug prices is it isn't simply as a show of an area of bipartisan support especially after the rollout of the aca repeal? or do we expect something more substantive to come out of this. >> you could see something more substantive to come out of it. the white house needs to show they can reach out to democrats

and hold those meetings. also, this is a president who very much says he wants to find out a way to lower drug prices overall, perhaps by having the government negotiate drug prices for all of the drugs it buys through various government programs. that would be one way of lowering prices that's against the law right now. cummings could be a key supporter of that on capitol hill. they could push that through in sort of a bipartisan way. we haven't seen a lot of bipartisan legislation in washington in recent years. that might be one that could attract some democratic votes. >> eamon, thanks. president trump also meeting with business leaders to discuss his infrastructure spending plans as we're constantly reminded of the woeful state of infrastructure in this country. yvon elon muy has more. >> we saw the transportation secretary leave the meeting. the executives must have left out of a different door. we did confirm the full list of attendees who came to the lunch

today. among them, elon musk, steven roth and rich la frac. big real estate developers. also nature conservancy managing director lynn scarlett, a representative from the environmental industry as well. during his press briefing sean spicer did give a few details about what was discussed behind closed doors. >> the government has wasted too much of the taxpayers' money on inefficient and misguided projects. >> so rolling back regulations, they are one of the key themes that the president has hammered over and over. the big open question is how do you pay for all of this? there is plenty of private money on the sidelines. the president has highlighted the role of public/private partnerships. there are 69 infrastructure funds out there right now. two of the biggest are run by global infrastructure partners. they have a fund worth almost $16 billion and another worth $8

billion. plenty of money there on the sidelines. but one other possibility is that the administration could pay for its infrastructure package by cutting spending in other places. the "washington post" is reporting that the president might pay for his famous border wall by cutting back funding for the coast guard, for the tsa and fema. so are we really just rearranging the deck chairs, perhaps, in that case? guys, people agree on the need for infrastructure spending, agree on the need for the improvement of america's roads and bridges, but nobody can agree on how to pay for it. back to you. >> the president, during his speech to congress, talked about a trillion dollar infrastructure package, but that's a combination of public and private money. we just don't know how much of that private money is going to be a part of that whole package, right? and i wonder, if all those private companies that you were itemizing right there, what's the quid pro quo for those guys other than the fact that they get these government contracts to do these projects? >> well, the campaign plan that

trump had proposed included $167 billion worth of government spending and tax credits amounting to about 82% of any equity investment. there could be some significant tax incentives for companies to invest in these public/private partnerships. they also talked about repatriated earnings and the tax on those as well. lots of potential ways to do these deals. >> elon muy outside the white house. 47 minutes left in the trading session. the dow is down 30 points. s&p positive. nasdaq is pretty positive right now. and the russell down about a point. house speaker paul ryan praising the gop's bill to replace obamacare even as it faces backlash from fellow republicans. later, we'll hear from a billionaire real estate

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welcome back. a mixed day in the markets with the dow down 38 points. the s&p negative. the russell as well. the nasdaq hanging on to a 13-point gain today. 5847. shares of caterpillar one of the underperformers on the dow. new details regarding the tax fraud investigation. a new report commissioned by the government and reviewed by the "new york times" accuses the company of using improper accounting methods to boost his stock price. the shares down nearly 2.5% today. meantime, back in washington. president trump backing the house republican plan to replace obamacare. the bill still faces resistance from other gop members. kayla has the latest from capitol hill today. >> just around the corner from me two committees are debating

the new health care bill. procedural votes, lengthy debates and even a full reading of the text of the bill leave little in the way of actually marking it up. at ways and means, they spent two full hours debating a now-controversial tax break for insurance executives. one expert said it would forfeit $400 million from the government, a point which outraged a texas congressman. >> $600 billion is being drained out of the treasury and being drained out of a treasury with this first step of $400 million for a totally unjustified windfall for the health insurance industry. >> democrats checked that $600 billion figure quite often this morning. that's the estimate on what all of the tax breaks in the bill would cost. across the street at energy and commerce, similar fireworks. >> chairman -- >> the clerk will report the --

>> mr. chairman. >> with democrats similarly stalling and some dissent emerging from republicans too. congressman joe barton saying he wanted to propose ending medicaid expansion earlier. that won't be popular in the senate, chairman walton said they'd go into next week. if they went into next week they would be on the collision course with when the cbo score is supposed to come out. that could be interesting. the congressional calendar getting crowded. goldman sachs says it could get into may and june. if it goes beyond that they may just let it go. >> the sausage making has begun. yesterday the health care sector was the worst performing sector on wall street. today it is the best performing sector. either bargain hunting is going on or someone has ideas on how the health care plan will shape up right now. >> bill, it's unclear from any of the amendments that were put

forth today because so much of it were basically stalling strategies. i mentioned the full reading of the text of the bill. 100-plus amendments from democrats, not even getting mentioned. this is going to take some time. td really hasn't moved the needle for this process. perhaps there is a belief in the market that some of the health stocks are oversold or it's a day without negative headlines. hard to discount that in this market. >> yesterday hospitals were weaker but ininsurers holding up okay. pharmaceuticals have a different through with the drug meeting between elijah cummings and the president. it's not uniform, even though -- >> it's very, very early in the process. >> that too. 40 minutes to go. red arrows for everybody but the nasdaq which is higher by 13 points. president trump has vowed to repeal the dodd/frank financial reform law. but another top bank ceo just came out against a repeal of

dodd/frank. we have details on that coming up. could google be on the hunt for acquisitions and expand its cloud business? we'll hear from the company's cloud chief later on "the closing bell."

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prices. big decline. big inventory build there. >> microsoft top gainer today. for the dow. you know, the president has been very vocal about wanting to repeal the dodd/frank banking legislation. but this morning barclays ceo jeff staley told our wilfred frost he would not be in favor of such a repeal. >> our view is it would be a good thing for dodd/frank to stay in place, not to repeal it. it's a very complicated piece of legislation which requires a lot of interpretation by the regulators. i think what you will see is more of a volume control. this is a volume control on a complicated piece of legislation. you never get it right the first time. we look forward to that. >> counter intuitive. >> yes and no. i mean, you know, what we hear from some of these -- morgan stanley's ceo jim gorman said the same thing. they're not in favor of

repealing it overall. i think they realize the industry got itself into trouble ahead of the financial crisis because there were too few regulations at that time that allowed them to take too much risk. a lot of these guys have been pulling back on risk. and in fact, jes staley's message is that they're just now getting ready to take on even more risk, but it's regulated risk right now. >> right. i do wonder to some extent, if you look at dodd/frank and the way it's made compliance costs so high that the bigger banks have actually gotten bigger. the effect decried after the crisis has only gotten worse. if you are a small bank, you hate dodd/frank. >> that's right. >> if you are one of the bigger guys, it's different. >> what it says is maybe there is tweaking to be done. you don't treat all banks equally in that regard. capital levels are one thing, but the regulations holding some banks back from doing their business of lending might need a second look again.

>> sounds like that's exactly where they're going to begin, with some of the smaller banks. we'll see. >> 90 seconds. we did it. 35 minutes left in the trading session with the dow down 35 points. doing business with donald trump. a friend and fellow builder who worked with the president in the past before his election on projects in south florida has said no to helping the president deliver on one of his biggest campaign promises. his story next. >> he was offered two cabinet posts and turned them down. tesla about to flip the switch on a potentially game-changing project in hawaii. coming up, tesla's chief technical officer will tell us why this could be the key to his company's growth coming up. your insurance company

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stocks mixed today. dow is down 42 points at the moment. the real action has been in the oil pits. i don't think there are oil pits anymore. it's all electronic trading. wti crude down about 5% today on a much greater build in oil inventories. we have seen about nine straight weeks of those builds, and the stock -- oil is down to $50 right now, touching its lowest

level since immediamid-january. decline coming on the low inventory numbers. that's putting a damper on the market broadly. on the floor with less than a half an hour to go. feels like we are at a crossroads here. >> it seems like the market has been consolidating for three days. the only two things that are a little bit of a caution flag for the market technically are the russell 2000 which is a few points below its 50-day moving average and potentially the transportation average, which bounced off its 50-day earlier this morning, is holding right now, but pretty close to it. >> so what do you make of that, though? energy is kind of its own story. >> right. >> obviously we're waiting for more news from washington about tax cuts and that sort of thing. they're working on obamacare right now. is it just wait and see at this point? did we run too far too fast? >> i think it is wait and see

right now. clearly the market is looking for more specifics on whether this health care plan that was announced earlier in the week is very close to the one that's going to get passed or whether there is going to be major changes to it. and then what details there would be in a tax reform plan that that all gets folded into. we have had obviously a very strong rally since the beginning of the year. >> right. >> there is certainly a consolidation, maybe even a mini-correction, would probably be healthy. >> we've lost 21 k. we'll see if we can get it back. tim, thanks for joining me. >> here is what's happening at this hour, everyone. u.s. ambassador to the united nations nikki haley issuing a strong warning to north korea about its military aggression. she was joined by the japanese and south korean ambassadors.

>> they said that their goal is to be able to reach u.s. bases in japan. this is not something we can take lightly. the global community needs to understand every country is in danger from the actions of north korea. and every country needs to respond in the actions to north korea. >> hundreds of female protesters marching to the u.s. embassy in manila. >> first lady melania trump hosting hosti hosting a luncheon at the white house. it was her first solo event at the white house. you are up to date. that's the news update this hour. back to you. >> sue, thank you. see you next hour.

billionaire real estate developer jorge pérez is known as the miami connedo king. when the president offered him deputy secretary of housing and urban development post he also declined. >> he also declined assistant secretary of state. bringing in jorge pérez. you don't want to work for donald trump in the white house, do you? >> no. that's right. i mean, donald is a friend, has been a friend for over three decades. actually over two decades. he has been a partner and a good partner. we have been good friends, but we are politically very much in different worlds. i consider myself a liberal democrat. and trump has had a posture that's very conservative,

republican posture. >> why don't you support a border wall? >> well, first of all, i think it's immoral. i think it sends the wrong message to hispanics, whether legal or illegal, in the united states, a great majority of which are hard-working people looking for a better life. then i think it ruins or it decreases, you know, the great gains that we have achieved in the relations between the united states and mexico and united states and latin america. mexico is one of america's strongest allies. we have seen the demise of countries that have, you know, have used left-wing demagogues like venezuela, bolivia, ecuador. i think protectionist statements like building the wall, that are anti-migration statements, are going to play favorably into the left hands of latin american

governments. >> let's put this in perspective. are there any policies the president has talked about that you support? maybe his tax policy or the infrastructure spending? i can imagine you are not in favor of the border tax. i could be wrong. is there something that you support that the president is doing right now? >> no, yeah. infrastructure spending is one of them that i do. i think the united states has fallen back in comparison to other countries in infrastructure expenditures. i think he is very correct in that our roads and our communication systems have really -- need a lot, you know, and it's a bright way of creating jobs and helping the country to prosper. and that's one thing that i think is very important to spend -- to spend money on. but when it comes to the environment, when it comes to taxation, when it comes to national health care policy, when it comes to education, i am opposed to the policies that the president has so far expounded

on. >> what was it like, mr. pérez, working on those four towers in miami with the president, before he was president, of course? >> he was a great partner. we always had great respect for each other. donald, or president trump, is a very bright marketing individual, always had great ideas, you know. i love to see luxury products built. we agreed on that. we became very good friends. our wives enjoyed each other. we had some fantastic times together. so, as a person, he was always a very good friend. where we always had a great time. the great thing about this country is you can be very much different when it comes to your political ideas or your political beliefs and still hopefully remain friends and be able to express those opinions in a constructive way. >> the skills that he possesses and the insights that he has, how do you think that translates to working with congress and in the context of not -- you know,

he has been his own boss for a long time. let's face it. now he has to share power with congress and the supreme court. how do you think he is handling that right now? >> well, he is not -- i don't think is handling -- it's been handled well. you can see his relations with the press are not the best. it's surprising because -- >> mr. pérez. >> we apologize for just a moment. elijah cummings has just emerged from the white house and his meetings with president trump on drug prices. >> the meeting today is one which actually began when i first came up when i ran into the president during his inaugural luncheon. we agreed that we should talk about prescription drugs, the high price of prescription drugs and how this had become the number one issue, health issue, for most americans,

independents, democrats and republicans. all see this as the number one issue. even above the affordable care act. we presented a proposal to the president, which would allow for the federal government to negotiate drug prices, which we felt was very important because drug prices are going up higher and higher. and more and more people are saying that they cannot afford the price of their prescription drugs. and i must tell you that the president was enthusiastic about our proposal. we presented to him a bill that we will be filing in about two weeks, and we asked him and secretary price, who was present in the meeting also, to take a look at it, give us their comments.

and then it is our hope to be able to file it in two weeks. again, he was enthusiastic, and he was clearly aware of the problem and clearly -- he made it clear to us that he wanted to do something about it. there were two other issues that i also talked to him about, and that was, when he -- i said to him, mr. president, most respectfully, when you are talking about the african-american community, i want you to realize that all african-american communities are not places of depression, and where people are being harmed. as a matter of fact, i let him know that i have been living in the inner city of baltimore for some 35 years in the same house and that i think it would be good for him to acknowledge that most african-american people are doing very, very well and

that -- but certainly we all welcome his efforts to improve our communities. the other thing that i talked to him about -- and then i will get move on -- is the whole voting situation. i told him that i understand that secretary pence will be conducting this investigation with regard to voting fraud, and i told him that i thought that voting fraud was all but nonexistent. i said to him that we have sent him a letter and sent secretary -- vice president pence a letter saying that, while we believe that voting fraud is all but nonexistent, the thing that we do know is a problem is voter suppression and that you cannot have a -- i think, any kind of reasonable investigation of voting in the united states unless you deal with that issue.

finally, i told him that i was glad that he was able to meet with the presidents of the certainly black colleges and universities, and i said to them, the most important thing for those colleges and universities right now is they need funding. they need more funding. and so he said he would work on that. and so we -- again, our next thing is, again, we presented the proposal to him and secretary price and hopefully we'll hear from them very, very shortly. peter. >> thank you elijah. the initial part of the meeting was about the incredibly high cost of prescription drugs that's really hammering people. our pharmaceutical industry does a couple of good things. they create life-saving and life-extending drugs and drugs that relieve pain. but the price is starting to kill us. we just can't afford it. what we were proposing -- this

is something that elijah and i have been working on for a long time -- was to let the medicare program, which is the biggest purchaser of prescription drugs -- negotiate price discounts. president trump gets it on the issue of getting a good price. basically what the medicare program does is it buys wholesale but pays retail. and that is not the way you run a successful business or a successful cost-saving program. so we presented our proposal, and the president seemed first of all, number one, very on top of it. number two, he understood it was about saving taxpayers money. he talked about what he did with the f-35 where he did some negotiation and saved hundreds of millions of dollars for the american taxpayer. and third, he really expressed concern about the lives of people who need these life-saving drugs but are every

day put in this terrible choice where they have to risk a loss they can't afford, a child who needs an epi pen or pay something they can't afford. and that's not a choice that we want, that's not a choice that he wants. so i left this meeting encouraged that we have got some real prospects of getting lower prescription drug prices for the american people. doctor. >> i will just add i was honored to be invited -- >> all right. so what turned out to be a wide-ranging time with the president. they were -- they went in at 2:30 eastern time to talk essentially about drug pricing and came out. and you heard elijah cummings. he is the ranking member, by the way, of the house oversight committee so would be involved in any investigation into voter fraud. that's why he brought that up and then brought up other issues and the african-american communities and the views thereof. >> i thought it was interesting

you heard the congressman from vermont, welch, saying let medicare negotiate. perhaps support building for that. a huge change if so. >> it's certainly been a thorny issue for a number of years. it was job one during the bush administration, the second bush administration, all during the obama administration, and it's something that president trump is taking up as well right now. we have a lot to cover. back to the markets. a selloff as we head toward the close. the dow suddenly down 85 points. that is the low for the session. right now president trump promising more jobs and data out today showing an increase in construction and manufacturing hires. we'll look at those numbers when we come back. >> google is behind amazon and microsoft in the cloud sector. coming up, we'll talk exclusively to diane greene, the head of google's cloud business, about her plans to boost business. stay with us.

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welcome back. president trump made job creation one of his top priorities. a new report shows employment soared in his first full month as president. steve liesman has more. >> i've seen confidence from expected trump policies showing up in the jobs report. adp coming out with a blowout number, saying private payrolls grew by 298,000 in february. 100,000 more than the street expects for this friday's jobs report. we asked nine different forecasters after the adp number. we found expect aches are up by 29,000. the street may be looking for 221,000 for friday's jobs reports. >> i think businesses are feeling -- anticipating a lot of good stuff. tax cuts, less regulation. the bottom line is, the economy

is fundamentally strong. it was fundamentally strong before the election. it's fundamentally strong after the election. >> to be sure the mild february weather helped construction numbers and leisure and hospitality. it doesn't explain the breadth of hiring in all sectors. the debate i think has shifted from whether the fed hikes two or three times this year to whether it hikes three or four times, kelly. >> that's what people are trying to price in right now. thank you, steve. ten minutes to go. dow down 70. s&p down five. russell down about 7. nasdaq hanging on to a four-point gain. financials have been leading the market higher. when it was going higher. is it time to fade the banks as the so-called trump rally appears to be on hold? that debate when we come back.

about eight minutes left in the trading session. art cashin said the market on close orders show an imbalance to the sell side by $400 million. it was bigger earlier. art said a buy program came in. we are seeing the market hover near the lows of the day right now, down about 80 points. look at some of the market

movers today. caterpillar has been the biggest drag on the dow after a report accused the manufacturer of tax and accounting fraud. that stock is down nearly 2% as a result. the energy sector has been the biggest laggard overall with the price of crude oil falling 5%. wti trying to hold levels around $50 a barrel. and the health care sector, which was yesterday's big laggard, is the gainer today, the bright spot leading the way higher among the s&p sectors. joining me now on the floor of the new york stock exchange. michael block and michael zinn from ubs wealth management. good to see you guys. you guys disagree on the financials. you don't like them here, right? >> i think they are a little ahead of themselves. i don't hate them. i am not looking for a crash in financials. i think they're pricing in a lot of expect angsations that regul will go away. i think we are setting up for a bit of a let-down.

you'll get better opportunities to buy them. >> you like them. >> in the sense that i think what we are seeing is a transition to the second phase of the election post election environment. i think financials do pretty well. in general it's more of a stop/start grinding market. less of a surging market we saw in the first few months post election. financials in a rate-rise environment are a good bet. >> jes staley said they're ready to take on more risk now. they've been reining it in for eight years and it's time to go for it again. >> it gives them more opportunity to make or lose money. liquidity is not what it used to be. it will be a process as markets learn to live in the trump era. the other thing i will point out is, when i look at the different part of the yield curves, the spreads peaked in december, that looked good for the regional banks. the curves have flattened.

the regional banks i am more worried about here. >> what do you think? >> i think the idea of those guys taking more risk particularly in europe and emerging markets which are tied together makes sense. you see bigger bargains. u.s. you could see more choppy waters here. >> are you going through the whole financial sector? or do you like, for example, big banks over the regionals right now? >> that's a good question. i think both the big banks make sense because you're going to see less regulation. you'll see better non-performing loans. on the smaller bank side you'll probably continue to see loan growth and they have more exposure there. when you look at the returns of the financial sector across the board this year, you're really seeing pretty good returns. whether you are looking at insurance companies, regionals, big banks. i don't think you need to parse actually that selectively. i think you'll see a lot of profit across the board. >> very good. michael zinn, michael block. always good to see you. we'll take a quick break. dow down 70 points.

closing count coming your way in just a moment. after the bell, two interviews. diane greene, head of google's cloud services and tesla's chief technology officer and co-founder jb straubel. you're watching cnbc, first in business worldwide. during the lexus command performance sales event,

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i want to start with crude oil today. that's really seen a lot of the action. wti down 5%. worst day in 13 months. worst -- lowest price of the year. we've got all kinds of benchmarks we're talking about. it's basically the result of a build in crude oil that's been going on for nine weeks. they're trying to hold the price at $50 a barrel. on the other side. ten-year yield up to 258. the market is getting used to the idea that the fed will start raising rates maybe as early as next week. we'll see. the dow, cruising, down 68 points. courtney reagan is joining me on the floor. a lot of traders are watching indices like the russell 2000. they want to see what the secondary stocks are doing. >> if you look only last week, a pretty solid downslope. down about 3%. art cashin pointed out that's a

little concerning to him, the action going on there, not what he really wants to see for the small caps. >> they're celebrating international women's day here ott the new york stock exchange. you're supposed to wear red, courtney reagan. i am wearing it. what's that all about? time for the second hour of "the closing bell" with kelly evans. see you tomorrow, kell. thank you, bill. welcome to "the closing bell," everybody. i am kelly evans. down session on wall street. we were up at one point about 20, 30 points and we ended up at the lowest down 80 and closed down 69 today. that's a 30% drop. 21k is receding further into the rearview mirror. at the s&p, the broad index down .25%. 2363, a drop of more than five points. russell 2000 dropping to 1366.

the nasdaq bucked the trend, though. it actually closed in the green, up just a little bit less than .1% today. 5837. that's the third straight day of losses, meantime, for the dow and for the s&p. coming up this hour, we've got two rare interviews. diane greene, the head of google's cloud business and alphabet board member. she'll join us from the google cloud next conference. tesla's chief technical officer, jb straubel, will join us from the site of tesla's latest energy project in hawaii. >> we have cnbc senior markets commentator michael santolli and equity portfolio manager kelly link. and senior vp liz anne saunders checking in as well. welcome, everybody. you know, mike, it's like we were just talking about how should we describe this, cross-roads, consolidation?

it's not been anything remarkable. >> no. the question has been was it going to be another one of these subtle, below the surface consolidations that we've seen in the last few weeks or something more noticeable. a bigger pull-back in the indexes. i think it's too early to make the call. today's tone was a little bit different. more weakness in the close. a 5% drop in crude oil prices which a year ago would have sent the market into a big tailspin. i think you have to ask the question, though, does the strong adp jobs number today make the fed a little bit of a frenemy and not just a friend. because you did have yields up and stocks down. that's a little bit of a switch from the recent pattern. >> the action as mike was saying was not in the stock market as much as reacting to the huge drop in crude prices and interest rates where it feels like they're starting to price in two, three, maybe more rate hikes this year. >> it's interesting. now that earnings season is pretty much over we're all obsessing with the macro data

points. today was a perfect example. the adp number was really strong. strongest since august of 2014. 83rd consecutive month of gains. >> wow. >> big number. you could see why rates actually rallied on the news. why faninancials rallied. a 5% move in crude is huge. the point that we didn't massively sell off i think is impressive. this speaks to rotation. yesterday it was health care that got hit. today it's energy. yesterday we had consumer discretionary get hit too. today it bounced back. i think you have to pick your spots. i think the global economies are increasing and improving. that's good overall. earnings are getting better. pick your spots, pick your valuations where you buy and where you want to be exposed. >> looking at some of the retail names hit hard, club urban which

initially reacted better and then there was a downgrade express. mall-based store. that's another tough one. some of the highs. act vision and ea. video gaming. if you want to know where to go in the market right now -- >> experiences. experiences. they are experiences, right? >> liz anne, how significant is the move in yields, oil, the dollar to you today? >> first of all, i agree with the idea that we are seeing rotation and a consolidation via rotation i take that any day. that's a healthy way to digest some of the gains. as far as the move in oil, i agree it's something to watch but i think the market was fairly calm through it. in terms of the relationship between stocks and yields, we're taught in markets 101 that rising yields is bad for the stock market and vice versa. we are interestingly in a period right now where, in general, yields and stock prices are highly correlated. we have only been in that era

two other times, coming out of the 1920s and out of world war ii where you were exiting a deflationary environment and yields were rising from an extremely low level. clearly the environment we are in right now. in that type of era like we are in now the positive correlation is because yields going up suggest deflation risk is ebbing and the economy is gaining traction, both of which in the near to medium term is positive for the stock market. >> david tepper joined the "squawk box" crew giving his thoughts on the market's run, interest rates and much more. >> i don't think the market is cheap by any stretch. you can't say that. on the other hand, with that backdrop of growth around the world, with the potential that we'll do other things here, um, with the, you know -- with the sugar that is still being put on by the ecb, boj and, let's face it, the fed is way low where they should be by old taylor

rules or conventional monetary policy, still incredibly easy with full employment and full -- full employment and inflation that's getting to their target. i don't know. you can't be short in that kind of setup. take away the punch bowl. take away the cocaine. take away the heroin, put the marijuana in the drawer. the fed has to get serious now. >> um, interesting analogies that he chose there. but by the way, the same time this morning peter bookbar was saying he thinks the fed is now, quote, so far behind the curve they couldn't make my son's little league team. >> i have to be honest. i can't say you can observe the environment right now and really say, wow, they've totally botched this thing. you really can't come to that conclusion. the inflation target is truly just getting to the target. could they maybe have to pick up the pace a little bit this year

beyond the planned three? sure. they retain the benefit of the doubt with all this. david tepper kind of amusing. the party escalated quickly from sugar to a lot of other stuff. the rest of the world is supportive on the liquidity. >> to the example gundlach is making, going back to the old ways. tepper was also saying, rates -- ten-year has to get to 4% before he thinks it's a real stock market correction, that type of environment. in the early 2000s, as they raised rates the market kept lifting. it was all pro-cyclical. >> first, for the fed to be behind the curve, we have to see a really huge wage number on friday. not to say that we won't, but that's the thing that we are all going to be watching, right? not the actual non-farm payroll job number. in terms of the rate increases, if it's gradual and at the same time the economic data continues to support better growth, and oh, by the way, maybe we get a

couple trump policies along the way, even if you just get deregulation, which is the easiest thing to get done, that is going to be supportive of growth. that is supportive of higher rates. i think we can handle it. if the economy was reversing, which is what i think people initially thought about energy today. they're like why is energy down, why is oil down 5%. is there something to be concerned about. i don't think that's the case. a lot of other examples and data points we get on the economy. it's just not that. >> i was looking at the copper thing too. that had gone down. there was an inventory build there. it was tricky to tell. the wage point is interesting. this morning we had the productivity numbers disappoint. labor costs were a little bit higher. still doesn't look like we are over 3% there. >> yeah. i do think the wage data is important because we did get the move down. there is a lot of noise in that data. so i don't think you could have said a month ago that that was a new trend, but i think it's something that bears watching. i also think it's important to look at median data when it comes to wages, things like the

atlanta feds wage tracker, which is the same concept as same store sales and retail. looks at people who have been in the workforce for the entire measurement period. the average can be skewed up or down by virtue of lower wage workers are coming into the mix which has been the case recently with sort of younger workers coming in. we have to be mindful also of -- we know the transition mechanism to inflation between employment and inflation is through wages, but it doesn't necessarily mean that we're going to get a significant move higher in inflation even if we get the traction in wages. i think that's what the fed is more willing to wait to see the whites of the eyes in terms of inflation. >> speaking of health care, it was weak yesterday, stronger today. you again have to look beneath the surface. hospitals hit, the insurers okay. medical device makers, maybe a tax being repealed. that's been the best performing sector of the past decade. what does it look like now with

that all being bantered about? >> yesterday's news and the details that we got were very much what was leaked out earlier in the month, right? it wasn't a really big surprise. services clearly, they've been the beneficiary. hospitals, certainly, they have issues. i would go back to services. you want to own did versified services. if there is a tax break, you hold on to medical devices. but those are crowded. that's where people have been hiding for the last year, year and a half. i understand why people are gravitating toward biotech and pharma. i am to, especially on valuations. but you have to be specific. >> like valeant. >> not really. allergan, eli lilly. the valuations are supportive, i think, if you have a longer term time horizon. >> valeant is continuing to

struggle. working on its debt, working on different asset divestitures. there may be value to be unlocked there. that's the case the bulls have been making on this one. but it's languishing. >> it's trying to repair a lot of financial engineering gone bad. it's about the pacing of when they can service the debt load and liberate whatever is there at core value. special situations, there aren't as many as people would like maybe. it's all about, is it the cyclical trade working or growth defensive trade working. it's always good to have some of the ideas that people can argue over the details. >> liz anne, any ideas we can argue over before we go? >> health care is one of the three overweights. i think health care you could argue has become a bit of a value play. that's broadly at the sector level. >> thank you both, ladies in red for joining us with

international women's day. camping world out. landon dowdy has the numbers. >> first glance, up 14 cents per share, beating the street's estimates of 9 cents per share. revenue, $670 million. that's missing estimates of $679 million. and keep in mind. the shares are down just slightly on very low volume, kelly. >> landon, thanks. i want to know what happened to crumbs. they disappeared. it was there one day. i walked by. the next, poof. anyway, looks like a better afternoon for elf beauty. infrastructure and drug pricing, two of the topics on president trump's docket today. we'll go live to the white house for the president's plans next. google is the leader in searchable online video but lags in the cloud arena. we'll talk to diane greene about

her plans to catch up to amazon and microsoft. you're watching cnbc, first in business worldwide.

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democrat and member of the congressional black caucus, ended a few minutes ago. eamon javers is live at the white house with what was discussed. >> one of the things we haven't heard very much in this town since donald trump was elected is democrats saying nice things about donald trump. on the driveway here we had two democratic congressman speak favorably about donald trump and news about a piece of drug legislation. they say the president supported their legislation. it's designed to allow the medicare program to ni goesht mo negotiate to lower overall drug prices. >> we presented a proposal to the president, which would allow for the federal government to negotiate drug prices, which we felt was very important, because drug prices are going up higher

and higher. and more and more people are saying that they cannot afford the price of their prescription drugs. >> so congressman cummings there saying the president was enthusiastic about this proposal. it's not necessarily an idea that has a lot of traction with republicans up on capitol hill, nonetheless, it sounds like it is at least possible that this president will push for it. another idea that's not very popular with republicans up on capitol hill is infrastructure spending. and that's where the president spent some time today holding a meeting, a working lunch, with a number of groups. here is who was at the meeting today. prominent group of folks including richard la frac, ceo of fra lack. steve roth. lynn scarlett of the nature consco conservency. and elon musk. we have been looking for him but haven't found him. i think he has met with the president about five times since election day. he is getting used to all the

different ways in and out of this white house complex. maybe he's tunnelling in. i know he's big on tunnelling. >> that's what i was going to say. elon musk, infrastructure. a lot of different places you could go. maybe it's now all about the boring company. >> he has the boring company, which is literally about tunnelling. also the hyperloop idea, gaining some traction. clearly the president respects elon musk's judgment or he wouldn't be invited to all these meetings at the white house. something is going on between them that's pretty interesting. >> eamon javers at the white house for us today. 16 months ago diane greene was hired to turn around google's cloud business. we'll talk to her about progress as she kicks off the annual conference. tesla, with i is making a push in the clean energy arena. coming up we'll talk to tesla's chief executive officer about whether companies will be quick

adapters of tesla's ideas.

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the global public cloud services market is projected to grow 18% this year totaling nearly $250 billion. up from $209 billion last year. today google is hosting its google cloud next conference in san francisco. the company highlighting the importance and key developments of cloud technology. joining us now in an exclusive

interview, the head of google clue cloud, diane greene and our own josh lipton. welcome, everybody. >> dthank you for joining us. >> my pleasure. >> you were just on stage with a number of google cloud clients. ebay, verizon, home depot. when you step back and look at the fight for public cloud dominance your market share is still single digits. by some imenestimates 6%. the clients want to know how will you loclose the gap? >> if you think about it, josh, we're pretty early in the cloud. we estimate about 5% of the market right now. we are growing faster than any other cloud. and as you saw today, we showcased six major enterprise customers, hsbc, we had sap

there and so forth. and so we have a technology advantage. google has a huge technology advantage. we're rapidly building out our customer footprint and our feet on the street to work with customers. and what we are seeing, especially through our machine learning services which give customers an extraordinary competitive advantage, that our momentum is actually accelerating quite a bit. >> you say the momentum is accelerating but some of the rivals are talking to the press and saying, listen, when it comes down to the last two finalists for the big deals, the large customers, they're saying google is not in the room. is that just not true? >> when we are in a deal today, we are winning over half of our -- we are winning over half the time. so i am not sure what they're talking about. but, you know, we are basically all about giving some value to our customers, giving them the

best price performance, giving them the best data analytics, giving them the best, really, cloud, the most available cloud and the most reliable, secure cloud. that really resonates with customers. i big to differ. we are winning. >> a question i hear is, listen, when you think about google, it's not a company i'll hear with some history of a big, hungry sales force, or enterprise support. what's your response to that? is that a disadvantage when you are competing for those corporate clients with, for example, a microsoft? >> look, i -- if i had to have my druthers, the best technology, the best cloud. google is an amazing technology company that will always keep customers on the cutting edge which is how you get your differentiation. if i had to choose between that and building out a sales force and building out customer support, which we are well on the way, alphabet is investing heavily in this and we are also investing heavily in our

partners. i would pick the latter. it's a matter of luck and tackling. it's not rocket science. we're fast catching up. >> aws, your big rival. had an outage last week. in talking to your corporate clients, how do you give them confidence that that's not going to happen with google? are there systems in place, die an diane so that it won't happen? >> google search has five nines of availability. that's 99.999% uptime. it's architected not to go down. we are making it easy for our customers to architect in the same way, distributed, no single point of failure. we were actually recognized as being the most reliable cloud in 2016. so, you know, we have done it from the beginning, where our cloud and the way we run it is pretty foolproof. we have the processes in place.

of course, anybody could go down at any moment. i don't think we are going to have a major outage. >> diane. it's kelly. thank you again for joining us. i understand you have a seat on the board at alphabet too. so you can think about this strategically. if you want to become one of the biggest players in cloud, if not the biggest, why -- instead of doing all this hiring and doing all of this investing and building out customer support and everything you mentioned, why not just buy a sales force or, you know, the company who can provide some of this to you right away? why -- is it important for google to do it on its own, or would you consider more acquisitions? >> so we are also building out pretty rapidly through our partners. that's a very leveraged way, because our partners have large sales forces, so we are going to market with them, and then we're taking our more limited feet on the street, sales force, to partner with our partners and we're building lots of certification and training for them. if i could inexpensively pick up

a killer sales force without a lot of other things that i don't necessarily need, yeah, i would be all there. but we're finding -- we're taking the most optimal route to service our customers and reach them. >> understood. i know it's kind of a crazy suggestion. just thinking through all of this. also, how important is it for google -- this was highlighted in the journal today. how important is it for google to diversify away from the search business? you've dominated for the last decade-plus. but the internet is changing and the way we use it is changing. is cloud the future for google? >> well, i think ad-serving search is here to stay. google is absolutely phenomenal at it, getting better all the time. that said, diversifying revenue, expanding revenue is always a good thing. there are a lot of complimentary things between our customers that do our ads and the

customers who want to use the cloud and what they can do with our data analytics and our machine learning. i think we are serving our customers more fully by having a google cloud, and it's a very exciting thing for our -- for all of us to be taking our technology now to the enterprise. the enterprise is moving faster than it's ever moved. it's going after innovation. it's realizing it has to be agile in order to take advantage of the latest technologies and it's just right in our sweet spot, everybody is moving towards understanding their data in realtime, getting those machine learning insights to give their competitive advantage in their businesses. >> one more question. as you're -- >> i'm sorry, kelly, go ahead. >> i'm wondering, as you guys build out your employee base. are you having trouble finding, retaining and keeping workers because of some of the policies coming out of the trump administration? >> so we do a lot of our hiring

all over the world. we're hiring all over the world. we're continuing to hire all over the world. google is a very attractive place, so we have, you know, great success getting the best people in the world. and so far so good. >> diane, last question. investors recently learned how important snap is. it will spend around $400 million a year on google cloud. how important was that win for your overall business? can you, diane, use snap when you're trying to market yourself to more customers? >> snap is an internet company. we love snap. we've been working with them for a very long time. they are a great company, and they give us great revenue as you could see from that announcement. but we have a lot of other customers, a lot of other revenue. and where we are really growing is in the enterprise. we are more than happy to do internet companies. we are incredibly good at internet companies but we're really hunkered down on serving

the enterprise. >> listen, diane, thank you so much for your time today. we appreciate it. >> thank you. >> kelly, i'll send it back to you. >> josh lipton. thank you. with dieiane greene. to seema mody. >> big mover, specialty retail beauty retailer elf. 19 cents adjusted. that's 5 cents higher than what the street was anticipating. revenue is also a beat. what's for, elf grew net sales 20% and expanded gross margins by over 500 basis points in 2016. a very strong earnings report, guidance well above consensus. they are targeting the millennial customer. they went public in september of 2016. shares up 14.5% here in extended trade, kelly. >> thank you, seema. mike, huge move. is it still a selfie effect? >> mobile phones and makeup train? >> the camera-ready effect, i

guess. i don't know if you can argue against that just yet. it's also just kind of, you know, small, something that has to do with experiences as steph said as opposed to acquiring more stuff that sits in the room. >> there is a lot of tutelage going on on the internet about makeup. >> it's tremendous. >> we have to talk about slime too. >> it's huge in my house. >> to sue herrera with the update. >> ivanka trump and jared kushner are renting their d.c. home from a chilen billionaire whose company is embroiled in a dispute with the u.s. government over a mine potentially worth billions of dollars. a white house spokesman says the family is paying fair market value and the mining issue has never come up. female protesters demonstrated outside european institutions in brussels in support of women's rights worldwide chanting "my body, my

choice." some held signs reading "no to jail for abortion." a plane carrying the university of michigan men's basketball team slid off the runway due to high winds as it tried to take off. the team was headed to washington to play in the big ten tournament tomorrow. nobody was injured. the faa will be investigating the accident. the dallas cowboys will release quarterback tony romo tomorrow. according to multiple reports, romo lost his job to rookie dak prescott. he has been with dallas his entire 14-year career. houston and denver are his top choices to continue that career. that's the news update this hour, kelly. back down to you. >> thank you sue. president trump has promised to reinvigorate the coal industry. tesla's chief technical officer joins us in a rare interview as they launch an

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two-thirds of a percent. nasdaq up four points on the bell. tesla is making a big bet on solar energy in paradise. joining us from hawaii, phil lebeau with tesla's chief technical officer. hi, fill. >> hi, kelly. i'm here with the cto of tesla, jb straubel. you basically blessed the solar generation facility here and the storage facility tesla has built. how important is this facility in terms of proving to people this energy storage can work on a broad, mass scale? >> it's incredibly important. this is one of the world's first large scale integrated storage facility. we're able to show for the first time that we can directly absorb solar power throughout the day into these batteries and discharge it back at night and stabilize it even though we might have clouds coming over or even though it might not line up directly with when people want to use the energy.

that can solve the problem. >> people will look at this and say, sure, it works in a small population base like kauai with 70,000 residents. can it be replicated in the u.s.? >> certainly. this isn't just something for islands. this is a technology that can scale across the mainland and across main utilities. in fact, just last month we commissioned a very large facility with -- in los angeles, right in the heart of los angeles. these type of technologies can scale all across the country and all across the world now. >> you have bold plans, but you also know that wall street is skeptical about tesla energy. i see you smiling when we walked over here. you were talking about it. adam jonas from morgan stanley out this morning with a note saying he ascribes zero value to tesla shares from the energy business. he says i don't see how this is contributing to the bottom line. is he wrong? >> i do think he is wrong. but we see huge potential in this.

we think the chance for growing the sales and growing the number of projects we are doing here is incredible. we are just at the beginning of deploying storage and solar as well in mass -- mass numbers. for the first time the economics here are beginning to work. this project is cheaper than the fossil generation on this island. it's not just a feel-good sustainability project. this is saving money for the utility and the customers here. >> why are him and other analysts so skeptical that the acquisition of solar city combined with the battery storage and the giga factory, that it's the complete play that you believe it is? >> it's a new market. i think it's a little difficult sometimes to see into the future and see how that's going to grow. there is no immediate comparables that they can look to in the past and sort of show how the growth happened. so this is really a new market that we are creating here. the size of the utility grid and the electricity consumed around the world is enormous. that's the market that we are tapping into here.

so, you know, i believe that there is a massive potential here. i think we'll prove that out over time. >> hi, jb, it's kelly in new york. thank you for joining us. >> thanks, kelly. >> what happens under a trump administration? let's say there are fewer incentives available for solar and electric cars and that kind of thing. is that going to hurt tesla? is that why elon musk is always at the white house? >> well, i don't think that will have a very big impact. tesla has -- when we started the company, it was, you know, oil was at an all-time low. we are not focused on chasing incentives or chasing subsidies, despite some criticisms there. we are going to keep doing what we are doing and keep growing and scaling regardless of what happens with subsidies or with incentives. the energy markets are obviously volatile. they'll continue to be volatile. these technologies are coming down in price every single year. >> yeah. >> so we don't see this changing. the long-term trend will be the same.

>> i was reading about california recently which has done a lot with solar power but they almost have too much of it a lot of times during the day, not enough at night and then the rates spike. how can tesla help to solve that problem and solve it affordably? >> storage and batteries in particular are a great way to solve that problem. anyplace where you have an abundance of renewable energy that's often the cheapest energy. you need to store it in order to scale it up. this is part of why we are so excited about batteries enabling more renewable energy. california is a good example are solar adaption. many other parts of the world are facing similar issues. it will happen everywhere soon. >> one more question. how long until, if i owned a tesla, i would charge it with a tesla power pack? >> well, you can actually charge a tesla with a tesla power wall in your house today. customers that install a power wall and install solar on their home roof can charge their

vehicle directly from their own solar and power wall. it's part of the benefit of having the energy security and backup power. even if there is a terrible storm you can charge your car, run your computers and have that peace of mind. these things are available today. and we'll actually talk a bit more about putting some of those in our stores and showing how that can be shown to the customer soon. >> one last question, jb. you guys would not be able to do this without the giga factory, ramping battery production. you said you're going to possibly identify two more sites for giga factories this year. are they likely to be here in the united states, or are you looking at the global market and saying we have california or the nevada giga factory, i should say. you have the facility in the buffalo area. the next one is likely to be outside the u.s.? what's the thought process. >> i can't say too much about any of the location decisions or things like that. it's a bit too early.

but the giga factory was key to enabling this and enabling the speed of execution and also enabling the cost. we wouldn't be able to deploy these things unless we had that manufacturing base behind us. all the batteries and electronics for this project in particular were built at the giga factory. that's already working today and the scale is paying off as we deploy more of the projects. >> we'll hear about the two other giga factories this year, correct? >> we're working on it. that's our plan. i can't say anything quite yet. >> jb straubel. chief technical officer for tesla joining us in lihue, hawaii. >> thank you. coming up, d.c. shareholders meeting in colorado. are there new details on the next "star wars" film? snap shares up 34% from its ipo price.

is it too expensive? coming up, find out what hedge fund manager david tepper has to say. therway to say this. it's over. i've found a permanent escape from monotony. together, we are perfectly balanced. our senses awake. our hearts racing as one. i know this is sudden, but they say...if you love something set it free. see you around, giulia so i can take my trading platform wherever i go. you know that thinkorswim seamlessly syncs across all your devices. the market's hot. sync your platform on any device with thinkorswim. only at td ameritrade.

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the thrill of a lifetime. politics was a hot topic in the q & a session. iger saying he is using the opportunity on the business council to take an adversarial approach. he came out swinging when a shareholder said abc news is biased. >> we are lucky we are privileged as citizens of the united states to live in a society where the press can act in an adversarial role in a number of different ways. the press' position is not necessarily to agree with everything that is being done. when they do that, they are suddenly, i think, branded buys biased. i don't agree with that. >> iger was bullish about espn. he said the direct to consumer live sports app in the works will launch by year end. he gave shareholders a sneak

peek of the next "star wars" coming in december. fans have been excited. about ray, chewbacca. iger says the film is worth the wait. >> let's bring in james stewart, the "new york times" columnist, pulitzer prize winner, cnbc contributor and author of "disney war." there were a few things we didn't hear about so far. iger extending his contract. any update on the theme parks in china, for example. what stands out to you? >> it's a sign of the times that what the shareholders seem most concerned about has very little to do with the actual performance of the company, which was basically trump issues. i don't think that is unique to disney. he got a lot of questions about that, and i am glad he gave a really strong defense of free press. i do think the big issues, from a shareholder perspective, though, really are is he in fact extending his contract. it's not -- the theme parks to

some extent, the movies which he highlighted, but especially espn. the degree that he's talking about the rollout of espn to a direct-to-consumer, using this new platform. this is going to be a huge watershed for disney in terms of profitability and revenues. the question is can disney replace a fading cable model with a direct-to-consumer model that's as profitable. there is a lot of skepticism about that on wall street and among investors. >> i would say -- there is absolutely sket sym absolutely skepticism about it. iger's argument is there will be a process of transition where the people who don't cut the cord are still paying you and you can be on skinny bundles. and we have the investment in bam tech that will help us create the killer app on everybody's phone, right? >> et cetera ththat's the hope. a lot has to go right there.

nobody knows exactly how fast the erosion of the cable will happen. it won't happen overnight. they'll certainly have some time. a lot of people are waking up to the fact that they didn't realize it. people who don't even watch espn are paying upwards of $10 a month for something they don't use. it was a fabulous business model. i have seen models from firms about what they'd have to charge direct to consumer to make up for the decline of the cable package model. there are big numbers there. some of the loyal subscribers may pay up. they have great content. they are paying a lot of money for it. it really remains to be seen. a lot has to go their way for them to keep that revenue. the numbers we've seen in the earnings last month were that the cable revenues are down. that's worrisome because that is the biggest chunk of their revenue and their profitability.

it's always fun to talk about "star wars." the movie studio is doing a grade job. the team is firing on all cylinders. it's hard to imagine there. they've already had some big star wars hits. they really grow the franchise? they have another pirates of caribbean coming out. i thought it's that's getting a little stale. >> there's a lot riding on the performance there, to your point. thank you for joining us. on disney shareholder day. snap shares snapping back after a post ipo sell-off. a lot has happened. find out what david tepper thinks about snap.

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david tepper bought the stock at $17 a share. >> i don't own every share that we bought. when i bought it, i talked to the guys, the underwriters. if it gets into the high 20s, i'll have to sell it. i'm not jumping through hoop but should it go down to the original offer price, i would love to buy the stock there. i am a believer in the company. it's a valuation question to me. for me, i'm in the nowhere land of valuation right here. >> what do you think about the tepper trade in snap? >> i think it helps to have $14 million in management. and i think you can therefore play with house money which is how he is approaching it. he says it is a question of

valuation. it is not the just how many you pay for the revenue. it is a question of how you even conceptualize the revenue. so a lot of things you have to fill in the blanks on. >> and i was surprised he said he would buy more at 17. at this point that doesn't mean anything. it could be 15 or 14. if it declines massively i'll pick it up. he seems to believe that's a good line. >> nothing says 17 is a good line on the floor. i think a methodical, you had some strategics leak our paramount company comcast buying temperature level. so maybe there's some rebound. >> and even snap rebounding to about 6%. how mark zuckerberg got his attention, next.

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it was not a like shark tank pitch meeting. it was the perfect company. i think you have a perfect pitch when you have a bad company. >> good lesson. >> and sometimes, sometimes a perfect company doesn't need to have a terribly good pitch. and that was, so we're going to

invest no matter what happened and we did. >> that was the co-founder discussing why he invested in facebook. he was an early believer in mark zuckerberg's vision. the rest is history. i love this. you watch shark tank. the pictures are so polished. you look at some of them. >> it is all about what is my tiny little ang ol' this thing? of course you can say there's some hindsight. he did put money into it before it was remotely a business so it does show you, if you have a world changing idea, maybe you don't have to sweat the presentation. >> and don't put the word global in it. take a listen to what he had to say about globalization. >> so to pick on davos, sort of a decade ago, it was a group of people running the world. and now it is a group of people who messed up the world.

>> he said, i don't know if would you start any portion has the word global in it today. interesting. >> pretty poor branding. i think in part that's descriptive of what we've seen playout across the world. and it comes, interestingly, at a time when still the people running big companies right now, they grew up in that culture. >> they still to have make money. if you're going to get the growth in china. real quickly, something else. he said if you take the zero% interest rates are right, what it implies is that outside of a few pockets like silicon valley, people have no idea what to do with money. he said if you get on two places as screwed up as western europe, they're clueless about what to do with their money. he said people have no vision about the future. no specific ideas about it. you don't know what to do so you hang on to cash. >> it is very true. it could be there isn't enough return being produced in the world for people to latch on to it.

very, very lore interest rates says future returns will be very low. maybe that's radically wrong. >> quite grim. >> these are cycles, hopefully. not necessarily forever. >> a lot of interesting stuff from peter thiel. thank you for joining us, as always "fast money" begins right now. >> live from the nasdaq market overlooking new york city times square. tonight a bond blood bath after a blowout. and the fed rate like looming next week. we've got your pro growth play book. plus, snap rebounding after david tepper said he would guy stock. roger mcnamee said he might want to wait bit. he'll be here to explain. and bob iger sticking with the company, but it is what else he said at the