staff who are uniformed. they don't wear uniform at the meetings, but they are part of it. >> what i know is that reinec hates that photo. >> you think? >> thanks, guys. >> thank you very much. >> thank you, all, for watching "power lunch" on a friday. >> "closing bell" starts right now. hi issue everybody, welcome to "closing bell." >> this afternoon, the markets are painting a different picture than they showed last night. the dow higher after futures fell about 100 points overnight on the news of the u.s. attack on syria, and stocks have made up earlier declines after this morning's jobs report. the dow was down 56 points at its low of the session, up 18 right now. so we're regressing to the mean as it were, but we'll talk about how resilient the market has been coming up in a little here. >> defense and aerospace stocks

higher on the back of the move in syria. more on that behavior. plus, retired general leslie clark joining us shortly to talk about what future u.s. military strategy could look like. >> let's begin with team coverage of today's big stories affecting the markets. steve leisman at cnbc headquarters with details on this morning's weaker than expected jobs report, and bill is in moscow tonight with the latest on the syria situation, and kayla is in palm beach, florida with news from the china summit. steve, starting with you rs first thing this morning with the headline whether it was weaker thans expected. >> we had a chance to digest that in markets, and despite the disappointing payroll number, bill, most economists, and markets, trade as if they are on track to hype twice this year, including in june. the chance of a rate hike in june remains unchanged at 61%, even after the government reported job growth of 98,000 today, and that was well below the street's 175,000 estimate. new york fed president bill

dudley felt good enough about the number today talking about the fed reducing its massive $4.5 trillion balance sheet. >> i would expect if the economy cooperates that we will be in the normalizing balance sheets starting late this year or next year, and it'll be a gradual process, and we'll get to a much smaller balance sheet, but not as small as where we were prior to crisis when it was just currency. >> what keeps them on track is the up employment rate, coming from a separate survey from the payroll number that plunged to a ten-year low, two tenths below consensus, and right at where the fed thinks the long run steady state jobless rate is for the economy, and, folks, it's the lowest rate in a decade. the last time it was this low the ten-year yield was is 10.75%, double where it is now, and the fed rate was a sky high 2.25%. you'd think some increases in the funds rate could be

tolerated by the market and even, kelly, healthy for the economy. >> yeah, interesting comparison with the ten-year in particular. >> right. >> steve, thank you so much. now to nbc news who is in moscow for the latest fallout from the u.s. strike on syria. bill? >> reporter: yes, we've had a lot of russian condemnation, a lot of back and forth between russia and the u.s., but you know a lot of it is predictable and a lot of this dispute is already really being contained. this afternoon, i got u.n. security counsel emergency meetings, russia's deputy ambassador, not only signed an angry, but looked angry conde condemning the u.s. missile strike as illegitimate. the u.s. ambassador said the u.s. is prepared to do more in syria, and here in russia, the prime minister saying that the u.s. is risking a wider conflict with russia, but, you know, all of this, a lot of this, anyway, is predictable, so, for example,

president putin met with his national security counsel here today, and afterwards condemned the u.s. missile strike as an act of aggression against a sovereign state and against international law. but bhiep tehind the scenes, th not conceding. the americans warned them of the strikes, no russian country personnel injured, russia did not try to intercept the missiles with the powerful air defense system, and russia's foreign minister said, i don't think this will lead to an irreversible situation. so, yes, we've had limited air strikes, but i think we've also had limited condemnation from russia. a strong reaction, but really a predictable one, kelly, bill? >> all right. >> nbc's bill neely in moscow. thank you for staying late tonight. reactions on what the developments of the u.s.-china summit in florida. kayla is in palm beach for us

again today, and more eventful over the last couple days than anticipated. >> reporter: yes, but not quietly, bill. as of 2:10 p.m., the delegation left florida, meaning the u.s.-china summit is officially over. both sides have been tight lipped about exactly what was discussed in that bilateral meeting with about two dozen deputies that took place throughout the morning. there was no official readout from the white house, and the briefing that was held here by sean spicer did not address reactions from china to those air strikes that the u.s. carried out in syria last night. the only reaction to the day's events was this, that we got from the president earlier. >> i think we have made tremendous progress in our relationship with china. my representatives have been meeting one-on-one with their counterparts from china, and

it's, i think, truly progress has been made. we'll make a lot of additional progress. >> now, whether that additional progress is impeded by those air strikes that were carried out in a 24-hour visit where the chinese delegation was here remains to be seen, but it is clear that the white house believes that there is wide ranging support for the actions that it took, whether it is the bipartisan support from congress or the public support that allies of the united states have weighed in with throughout the day today. as for what happens post mar-a-lago on monday, well, congress is supposed to be on recess, to he will have the city basically to himself, and horizon investments says there's a win in his pocket now with this, writing, trump just won badly needed political capital. the job approval numbers will rise in the next week, and this

has positive implications for his agenda, although, next week, we have rex tillerson, the secretary of state, meeting with russia and tillerson will be, as we just heard, on all of the sunday shows this weekend. we'll see how the administration captures what happened here then. guys, back to you. >> all right, kayla, thank you. joining us now for more on syria is general wesley clark and former ambassador, steven sesh. thank you for joining us today. you warned president obama against the air strikes in the past saying it could open a greater conflict. what do you think of the moves today? >> very much depends on what happens afterwards. the united states was cautious in executing this. we told the russians, the russians told the serians, and it's an emotionally satisfying moment for millions of people around the world who watched this slaughter going on in syria, but does it lead to anything different? that's the question. it certainly gives president trump a bump in the dmes comest

polling, but as far as russia and china are concerned, every american president is willing to use force without u.n. approval, sometimes unilaterally. this is more of the same. taking advantage of it by condemning us in the united nations and elsewhere, but the truth is this is a situation that could be a one-off, and it could have no consequence on what happens next in syria, or can could be the start of a change in u.s. policy, and it's too soon for us to know. >> ambassador, you were surprised they undertook the military strike in the midst of the china summit with president xi in the country, but wasn't that the point? making the point to the chinese the president is not afraid to go it alone as he said. he would do with north korea if they are not willing to cooperate. >> absolutely. i think it's not a coincidence this was in the middle of the summit, and i think by being quiet about it, not making a public statement, that the

chinese guest, basically being in a state of agreement with what the u.s. has done, boosted the president further. i agree with general clark. see what the next step is because there is a lot of temptation and risk involved at the same time now that the president who will look for some kind of a public claim and is getting it will be quite positive about this, and precisive response will be internalized as perhaps a way to go forward, but without a good overlying strategy, this could be a big mine field he's walking into rather than a garland. that will pay dividends for his foreign policy. >> general clark, we talked about what's at stake with russia here, but what do you anticipate reaction of the islamic state to all this? >> reaction from issis is this shows the united states is willing to attack arab countries. i mean, they'll try to use it in their interest, you know, it's not true that the enemy, my

enemy's my friend in the middle east. the enemy is still an enemy in the middle east and they'll use it against us in the middle east. you know, going back to the point the ambassador brought up about what the significance of this is, if you were china and looking at this, and you look at president trump as he's done this, you're not surprised by one action, what you're looking to see is there a long term policy? because flying to china, north korea, this strike doesn't make sense. this kind of a strike invites war, and so a wide war in north east asia, so before the president can translate the gains from this into leverage on china, he has to anchor this in some firm policy that shows the administration can have foresight and work to bring the american people together behind a long term constructive policy. >> ambassador, as we know, the turkish government praised the strike, russia did not in no uncertain terms. what does this do for the

relationship between donald trump and putin for whatever relationship they have? is this just the typical political rhetoric we're going to get to be expected, or is there something else going on here, do you think? >> i think the russians as they are doing now will huff and puff, but they already decided they'll live with a one-off strike in this case. they are not terribly happy about it, reinsertion of american influence in an area where they had enjoyed promising now since entering the war in 2015, but it's not a terrible threat to the ability to continue to manage and control events inside the country unless, of course, there's another event, but this is the question, you know, if there's another chemical weapon attack by the assad regime, will america respond again? there's a lot of expectations now, certainly in the arab world, that president trump will respond accordingly to more events in the future, and that's why there needs to be calculations made in washington of how exactly the policy takes shape, and not just be something that you do spontaneously or

even on the spur of the moment because it's a feel-good moment for everyone right now. there's got to be a really serious moment of calculations to see if a policy can be brought to bear on this conflict. we can play a constructive role in bringing it to an end. >> quickly, ambassador, where does this leave turkey? do you expect some sort of move from them now that there's, perhaps, an opportunity for them to do something further here? >> at the moment, i think the president is so wrapped up in his campaign, inside turkey, he just asoon stay away from it. i don't know that we'll see a lot of response from turkey right away. turkey is happy to see the united states step in a bit and put an end to some of the worst excesses of the assad regime. >> all right. gentlemen, thank you. good to see you. former ambassador, nice to see you as well. thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. >> yep. watching the markets, 45 minutes until the close today, the dow bounced back, hanging on a gain of 25 points.

the vix is elevated. transports lower. s&p higher by a couple points as well as the nasdaq and russell, a little lower. >> a lot of news, jobs report, strike on syria, the chinese summit, what poses the greatest threat on opportunity for wall street coming up? plus, how long can this market stay so resilient? >> and machine versus man on this job's friday, debating the automation trade and whether companies's innovations put people out of work and generate better returns for investors. this is cnbc, first in business worldwide. flrn 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.

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si'm happy for the distraction. i'll be right there. and the butchery begins. what am i gonna wear?

this party is super fancy. are you my uber? [ horn honks ] hold on. [ upbeat music playing ] the biggest week in tv is back. [ doorbell rings ] who's that? show me watchathon. xfinity watchathon week now until april 9. get unlimited access to all of netflix and more, free with xfinity on demand. letter late than never. welcome back. minutes left in the trading session, dow up appointme22 poi new for the closing bell exchange for the friday. sierra investment management with us, mr. art cashin next to us here at post nine, and rick s santelli at the cme in chicago. author, headlines overnight, just looking at them now, you have a military strike against syria, wake up this morning to a

much worse than expected jobs report, and here the dow is up a mere 21 points. what's the message of the market here? >> the message of the market was they were concentrating much more on the trump xi summit. right know now, slightly, they hoped for a joint statement at the close, and it appears president xi wandered off into the sunset, and we don't have anything clear, so the president trump is in the short term president trump gained a little capital with the strike, particularly if the reports are correct that they called ahead, notified the russians who notified to prevent casualties, and at the same time, it was a subtle way for general mattis to say, we're coming, you can't do anything about it.

coming into passover, easter, and congress is going out on a multiweek break, so things will be concentrated at the white house. the weekend spent trying to determine if anything new or concrete came from the summit meeting. >> what moves are you guys making in the markets? >> yeah. i mean, it's really interesting, right, how resilient the u.s. stock market and bond market have been in light of the events that are just touched on, the employment report, the meeting with china as well as the syria attacks, and, you know, really what we see is alpha delivered in times of urn certainty and volatility. we put a stop-loss on every single one of our holdings to distinguish between noise and shifts in price trends. we'll review them every morning, which we did today. we did not hit any of the stock losses. our thesis for the u.s. stock market market and bond market remain in tact, specifically for

the bont market as we see a rising rate environment that really began last july when the ten-year hit a level that i don't think i'll ever see again in my lifetime, 100 basis points lower than we are today, the two-year, half the level it is today, and so, you know, we're continuing -- we don't think that the fed fell off the tracks in any way in terms of their view of raising three times in the coming year. you got the balance sheet, and so, you know, we think that that rising interest rate thesis remains in tact going forward. >> and you guys have emerging market holdings, high yield, municipa municipals, for one example, bill. go ahead. >> yeah. there's been -- you know, this debate over is the bond market telling us something about the target is creating interesting dislocations. in the bond market in particular. you can buy high yield municipal bonds now for roughly the same yield, the high yield corporate bonds pay, and as you and all your viewers know, there's a

really nice benefit that comes from tax exempt bonds. we're constructive on the high yield space right now, and also emerging markets where the global economy and unique country conditions drive the price is much more so than interest rate sensitivity. >> rick, okay, gold popped, but it's come back. the dollar is now at 1.01, a move there, and yield on ten-year was 226, did i see? now it's back again. what do you think of the gyrations? i know those are all intra-day swings, and you're more focused on the close, but what did you make of it all? >> yeah, no. so the low close for the school remains, and then there were violations and pretty much a test of the major closing areas from 2015, 227, you want to watch that. listen, when it comes to treasuries, by the way, three week high close, it looks to me to be on the two-year note, more

curve flattening, i think rates have an issue because i don't see the growth materializing quickly. it really is not about president trump and his administration because even if they pass everything 20 days ago, it's still going to take time before this eats into changing productivity levels, adding to growth, really pushing through wages, but the market is patient here, just consider this. when we closed to 2015 at 227 for a ten, we didn't overtake that level to november of last year. because november was wild. in that interim period, growth, many times for the quarters, was actually a little better than it looks like we get for the first quarter. the treasury markets are responsible, always keep an eye on growth. i really think that if rates continue to move up and move into the range that is many opinion, stocks don't have to find something else to worry aboutment i think if there's a negative for stocks, that's coming from treasuries, that's if we trade under 2%.

i don't think stocks would like that. maybe it's a stock dynamic that caused it. i'm comfortable with the markets rights now. >> good. we have to did at this point, thank you, all, good to see you, rick, have a good weekend, author, checking back with you later this hour here. heading to the close with 40 minutes left. the dow up 24 points right now. >> we'll tell you what major retailers stock get a boost of confidence from wall street. that's coming up. also ahead, a surprising development in twitter's lawsuit against the u.s. government to protect an anonymous anti-trump account coming up.

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welcome back. all in the green now. russell joining the other averages in positive territory, but the gains are very small. we have about 35 minutes to go. dow up 25, basically leading the way, but, again, small increases today. >> walmart among the best performers inside the dow today upgrading the retail giant's stock to outperform from market perform. raised its price target to $82 from $73. telsey group says investments in technology are paying off. they predict walmart's online sales jump at least 20% a year over the next two years, and logs expanded focus on organic products and better quality private brands to win customers and drive repeat traffic. stock up 2% today. we'll take a quick break.

come back with 35 minutes left. rise in walmart aside, general weak bs in the industry filtered through the morning's jobs report. details on that when kelly and i come back. safety play, gold, losing its luster today. whether to buy the dips here. that's still ahead. flr the price of trades to give investors even more value. and at $4.95, you can trade with a clear advantage. fidelity, where smarter investors will always be.

. dow up ten points, though, right now, remember, coming back from a loss after the jobs report numbers came out weaker this morning, and we regained territory, trying to hang on with a half hour to go. last session of the week, this is how weave done in terms of sectors on the s&p for the week. real estate leading the way. the biggest decliner is financials, down nearly .90, bill. >> dow up 11 points. this is a newsy 24 hour cycle here, up 11 points. resilience in the market or lethargic?

>> resilient because you saw how the markets reacted overseas to the air strikes, market was done, obviously, in europe, and then when we opened this morning, we're down, you know, went down, what did we go down, 45 points at the most, rallied back, so, to me, just seems there's a spot where there is some buy interest. i mean, this is, you know, counter to what i want, but this is buy interest. the market is constantly reaching levels, and it stays there, and it bounces often, so that's a pretty resilient market. the jobs numbers, i mean, look at the headline numbers, oh, they were not that good. >> and previous two reports also revised lower. >> yeah. >> revised lower, but you look under it a little bit. they were not bad. they were not bad. one thing i'm concerned about, and i said this numerous times on your show, is that the wage growth is just not picking up. this is where -- i don't know what it is, you know, a lot of the new employees are being absorbed, new demand, whatever, but it's not growing where it

should, and i think this is something that, you know, we want to keep an eye on. >> i don't know what it means, but sectors you might be interested in? >> oh, i got to say that i still like the financials. >> really? >> yeah. i still -- i own jpmorgan, vested interest as far as that's concerned, but i think for this market at some point, there will be leadership again, and that leadership will be strong and will be from the financials, not the tech sector, but the financials, and if there's any kind of, like, small gaps on the downside, opportunity to get back in, and if you are in, increase positions. i think the financials lead the market at end of the year. >> all right. we'll see. thank you, peter. >> thank you. >> have a good weekend. >> more on financials later. time for the cnbc news update. >> here's what's happening at this hour. the swedish national police confirmed that one man arrested in the truck attack in symptom home today. four people killed and 12 others injured in what the country's

prime minister called a terrorist attack. fames las vegas sports gambler, convicted of charges he made more than 40 million through an insider trading scheme. it involved a stock tip to a professional golfer, phil mickelson. found guilty in new york city on all ten counts he faced. the senate confirmed gorsuch by a 45-54 vote. three modern democrats joined the 51 republicans to join in favor of gorsuch. governor brown declared an ends to california's historic drought lifting emergency orders in the state's driest four-year period on record ordering mandatory conservation for the first time in the state's history. cnbc news update at this hour. back to you, bill. >> the snow pack up north there, in the sierras, is very, very big, and that's great news for

the folks in california. >> can't even capture it all. a lot of runoff. >> that's a good problem to have, i guess. >> after all these years, yes. >> thank you very much. >> thanks. news alert on wells fargo. susan? >> the most senior bank examiner for wells fargo removed by the u.s. regulator, the office of the comptroller of the currency, better known as the occ, the lead regulator of national banks, and this goes back to the banks, wells fargo's, unauthorized account scandal. on monday, looks like we'll get a report that will be released in determines of what actually went wrong at the fourth largest u.s. bank, and this is a according to a report in reuters right now, as we know, wells fargo, $91 million settlement with regulators in recent weeks, back to you. >> wow. interesting move. always a headline about wells fargo. susan, thank you. inside the last half hour of trading now, the dow a little volatility at the peak.

we were up 63 points, we were down 56. now virtually unchanged. today's employment report delivered more bad news for the retail sector, and we'll have that story when we come back. >> looking at whether that headline jobs number is overshadowing a stronger overall report with mark zandi coming up. >> really, mark started without us. ncustomer traffic?yze can we push the offer online? brian, i just had a quick question. brian? brian... legacy technology can handcuff any company. but "yes" is here. you're saying the new app will go live monday?! yeah. with help from hpe, we can finally work the way we want to. with the right mix of hybrid it, everything computes. approaching medicare eligibility? you may think you can put off checking out your medicare options until you're sixty-five,

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nasdaq is higher here. southwest trading higher with a 3.9% rise in passenger traffic last month. southwest load factor declined half a percent, so planes were not as full, but the plane the company said bookings and unit revenue trends for the seconds quarter remain strong. and twileo trading stronger. the firm cited valuations and increased use of the cloud communications company's products by amazon's web services is up about 4% right now. >> one of the more successful recent ipos. today's employment report showed 98,000 new jobs added last month. retail jobs among the hardest

hit. we have more back at headquarters. hi. >> hi, kelly, more purchases shift online and to other categories all together, retailers closed stores meaning jobs lost. now some workers will get reabsorbed into nearby stores that stay open, but certainly not all. as the jobs numbers reveal, so in march, general merchandise stores shed 22,000 jobs, 13,000 jobs lost at department stores, 6,000 more at clothing and accessory stores, and then 4,000 in personal care retailers. to be fair, jobs were added in some areas of retail like electronics and appliances as well as building and garden supply stores, and nonstore retailers. some e-commerce jobs fell here, though the distribution center jobs actually end up in the warehouse categories so those are captured into two separate places. now credit tallies 2880 store clotures already announced this year. that's more than double at the same time last year.

if you extrapolate that, check this out. credit swisse estimates 3800 stores could be closed, 2500 more in 2008, and we remember that year. so far this year's ten retailers that filed for bankruptcy, you see the logos here. that's more than all of last year, and several more are expected soon. not all of these bankruptcies mean a complete shuttering of stores and jobs yet, but often that's not far behind. bill? >> boy, just breathtaking. i still go back to the ceo of ebay, what he said to us that day. >> that morning. >> in a tipping point for the retail industry. >> fourth quarter specifically. >> witnessing that for sure right now. thank you very much. >> thank you. as we said, the u.s. added 9le 8,000 jobs in march. that was below market expectations. the previous two months were revised lower by a combined 38,000, but, you know, the report really that bad? let's bring in mark zandi, and

you said it was not that bad, right? >> no, it was okay. i mean, weather clearly had an effect. retailing is weight, but last month, it was really weak, and we have a late easter this year, and so -- >> right. >> seasonal adjustment issues, but we'll get a strong retail number next month, but, you know, extract from the vague data, we're creating 175,000 to 200,000 a month. that's strong. >> the household survey, mark, i mean, two parts to the jobs report every month, payroll report, giving us headline jobs number, the household giving us the unemployment number. that was incredibly strong. it was strong for the right reasons. unemployment did not fall because people were discouraged leaving the labor force. oh, contrary, there's a lot to like in this part of the report. >> you know, take both reports, and you just extract from the ups and downs and look over the last 6-12 months, they tell the same story, creating 275,000 a

month, and that's what we are on track to create this year, what we created last year and the year before. job market feels good to me. with a 4.5% unemployment rate in a u-6 under employment rate under nine, it's full employment. this job market is good. >> it doesn't matter, with all do respect, what we think of the jobs report, but it's what the fed thinks of the jobs report. i know you want to be more hawk ir th ish than they are, but can they raise rates in the not too distant future? >> i think so, bill. i mean, 4.5% unemployment is below their estimate of full employment. at this pace of job growth, doubled in the force, and it will continue to decline. wage growth picking up now, raising rates a couple more times this year to allow to begin balance sheets to right

size. that sounds right to me. i mean, i think if they continue down that path, that should be good, but, you know, this is a pretty solid job market that calls for, you know, steady normalization of policy. get moving here. >> mark, what's it look like? we really have not been in this situation of situation before focusing so much on the broader gauge of unemployment because there's some long term unemployed or discouraged from the work force so you know the headline number can't go lower, right? it's not going beneath 4% other than with bubbles, and should we expect at some point to stall out and progress made on that figure that's closer to 9%? can that keep dropping substantially here? >> no. you know, i think what's going to happen, kelly, is that businesses are just not going to find qualified workers. we're already close to record level number of open job positions. that'll continue to increase, and they just won't be able to find the workers, and so what that means is that wage growth accelerates further, and it means that job growth will slow

because they just simply, businesses simply can't find the workers. in fact, i think our number one problem, business's number one problem for the foreseeable future is just a real lack of labor, and, by the way, if we backtrack on immigration, because immigration is really key to growth in the labor force and jobs, backtrack on that, then business's number one problem will get worse. they'll have a more difficult time. >> what do you make of the bond market's response to this? we had a modestly flattening yield curve here that does not suggest that the bond market expects a pickup in economic growth now, and, you know, the yield on the ten-year is back below, if -- it fell below 230 for a time overnight in part because of the syria situation, but economically speaking, what do you think the bond market's feeling now? >> well, you know, it's a couple things. one is the bond -- the long term bond, ten year bond is determined in a global marketplace, so we still have

other economies that are far away from political employment. europe is far away from full employment. they are very aggressive. bank of japan, bang of england, all that money, you know, continues to pile into long term u.s. treasuries and long term interest rates are down. the other factor, you mentioned it, a flight to quality. u.s. is still the aaa credit on the planet. if there's a problem on the planet, money comes here into u.s. treasury bonds keeping long-term interest rates down. ultimately, even bond investors are going to recognize that inflationary pressures are developing and will demand a higher interest rate. not today, but 6-12 months down the road. >> back to the point you made about shortages, i think there's a school district in north carolina, but there were a couple others where they can't get bus drivers, and they think they might have to start the school day earlier because of that. or figure out a way to pay up more, so there's a lot of evidence in survey-based

evidences about shormgs. why does the labor force participation continue to grow? doesn't that say the strength of the labor market can continue to pull people in and move the broader up employment rate down? >> well, you know, the labor force participation rate is 63%, what it was in the month of march, and, you know, that's roughly what it's been the past three, four years. it's been very stable. rock solid, and that is the result of two counter vailing forces. one is baby boomers, people in their 50s and 60s like me, retiring, bringing down the work rate, but bringing people in, people who stepped out when times were tough, they are coming back in. the net of that is the labor rate flat ped. we're getting to the point where many stepped out, and the participation rate declines again, and it's putting even greater tightness in the labor market, very, very tight going

forward. >> we'll watch the wage numbers like hawks. no pun intended. maybe it was. >> that was good. >> mark, thank you for joining us. about 15 minutes to go. dow is about to turn, well, maybe negative. s&p has as well as the russell. >> we broke down the jobs number. when we come back, looking at the rise of automation in the work force, its impact on employment, and the companies you should be watching for in your portfolio coming up.

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si'm happy for the distraction. i'll be right there. and the butchery begins. what am i gonna wear? this party is super fancy. are you my uber? [ horn honks ] hold on. [ upbeat music playing ]

the biggest week in tv is back. [ doorbell rings ] who's that? show me watchathon. xfinity watchathon week now until april 9. get unlimited access to all of netflix and more, free with xfinity on demand. moments ago, art told us the market on close orders show a sell side of $350 million. not a big number and very indicative of the day we were having here at the close. >> dow's hanging on to a two point gain now. >> the rise of automation had a big impact on jobs across many sectors having us asking whether you should be investing in companies who are turning more towards robots or those that still require human work. >> let's bring in chris johnson and david from lumen sales. chris, how much a bright line can you draw here between ones

that employ humans and those with robots? >> it's a rough line right now, kelly. there's a few out there where numbers are biggerment amazon comes to everybody's minds here thinking about their warehouses. that's an efficiency that, you know, frankly, makes sense. when we think about automating in the workplace, i mean, years, decades ago, called industrialization. you know, ford did it with their production lines. now we're seeing companies that are replacing some of these lower skilled jobs with automation, and it makes sense. remember, their commitment is to the shareholders and making margins grow, make revenue grow, and this is how you do it now. technology taking over. >> point well taken, but, david, you don't think there's a correlation between those companies, what they are doing with automation, and their stock price? you go for traditional job companies, right? >> bill, make america great with jobs again. here's the key.

the last three to five years, there's been zero correlation between eliminating jobs and stock price performance. what matters is the company's operating margin growth. it's cash flow growth. it's return on ceo tip. amazon is a great example. their employees have gone down in the last three years, yet they compounded todd investor more than 2.5% better than the s&p 500, and why are they doing better? operating margin is higher. cash flow is better. a great shareholder, wealth creator, nothing to do with robo job killing metrics. it does not measure performance based on imperial research i've done. >> why norfolk southern? >> they are great operating margin, great shareholder driven. they are -- companies picked where there is more labor

intensive, hotels, in heating and cooling, in rails, but there's the defining element of free cash flow and shareholder driven. that matters more than anything. >> chris, what do you think? >> let me piggy back. you know, i like norfolk southern but because it's a transportation company in an environment or economy where we think we're going to see growth in transport companies such as rails do better. that is what makes them attractive to me, not the fact that they are an employee or hiring employees. you know, i'd actually turn that around a little and say if you look at the rail companies, they are much fewer employees running on those trains than there were ten or 20 years ago, and that's because of automation. we're just talking about a different type of automation looking at robots and such. it's going to replace the lower paying jobs. >> yeah. >> you just had mark zandi on

saying those are right now the ones harder to fill, so -- >> exactly. >> it's got a place, and i think the companies -- >> great point. that's going to drive automat n automation, ironically, and unfortunately in the near term, you can't fill jobs, you need technology to do it. chris, i was going to ask you also, like amazon, nvidia is on the list too, why? >> from another perspective, the automation in terms of looking at self-driving cars. that's a tongue twister there for a second, kelly. they branched out from a semiconductor company to into the self-driving. that is obviously a huge area of automation looking at it in terms of the future. you know, mark was talking about school bus drivers and such being on a shortage, not that we're going to put our kids on self-driving school busses, but, again, another one of those low paying jobs or low skilled jobs that, at some appointment, is going to be replaced by some automation, and nvidia is there

with the technology. >> david, i know you want to respond. 15 seconds. >> i'll say again, zero correlation of companies eliminating jobs and stock price gains. it's about cash flow and companies like amazon, advanced microdevice, united health care to name a few, sales per employee went lower, yet stock price is in the top for the s&p 500 for three to five years. that's what matters. cash flow operating margins. >> this has become our favorite segment, pitting two smart people daily on one interesting topic, and usually it works out well. same here today. thank you for joining us. >> pleasure to be a part of it. thanks. >> i feel for everybody watching. we should put an image of david on the screen so they know, it is friday. we are about to close. he'll be back. >> he'll be back. with another -- he's searching for good acronyms right now as a matter of fact. back with the closing county

don't in a moment. >> after the bell, stocks coming back after the missile strike on syria sent futures sinking, we have an all-star panel to weigh in on the risks that create market risks. you're watching cbbc, first in business worldwide. yes? please repeat the objective.

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the trading session. i have to say john harwood has breaking news so i may interrupt, but in the meantime, reviewing this week on wall street, the dow, remember that rally on wednesday, that then just fell apart after a number of things ha happened. the fed minutes came out suggesting a hawkish stance. speaker ryan saying the tax reform bill will be longer in coming. net-net overall for the week, not much of a pain at all. the dollar index acting like a safe haven with all the news going on. we finished near the week's highs with a gain of about .75 at 101.16. going to john now, you say? okay. what's the latest? >> reporter: bill, the latest from the white house is a formal statement denying that president trump is about to shake up his white house staff at the highest levels. there's been a couple reports today suggesting the president in the wake of setbacks, low poll ratings, was going to

reassign chief of staff reince, chief bannon, those seen within conflict in the white house. the statement put out by the white house says this is a completely false story driven by people who distract from the success taking place in this administration. i have to say aside from that formal statement, i've been having conversations with multiple people inside the white house, outside the administration, all of those saying they have no reason to believe that the president's going to make this decision any time soon, although, of course, we have an unpredictable president here, guys. >> all right, john, thank you very much. i got bob with me, i was going to point out al e though the dollar index is higher, oil went higher this week, getting comfortable above $50 a barrel, and the ten-year yield getting comfortable below 2.4%. >> what we learned this week is a couple things. number one, geopolitical risk is on the radar for traders. what moves the markets, worries about the fed, and whether they

are more aggressive or not, and number two, any issues regarding the trump agenda being in danger. that's one. >> there we go. looking like we are going to finish flat. who knows, down a point on the dollar right now. have a good weekend, everybody. here's kelly evans with the second hour of "closing bell," see you monday, kelly. thank you, bill. welcome to the closing bell, everybody. i'm kelly evans. here's how we finish up the session on wall street that had a lot to digest. the dow with a decline of 5 points, much lower earlier in the day, but berecovered most of that, still a negative close, 20657 for the blue chips, similar for the nasdaq finishing lower by a couple points at 2355 and 5877 respectively, ben the r russell 2,000 eking out a gain. 1364 for those small caps on the

russell 2,000. oil spiked higher today on news of u.s. air strikes in syria, and coming up, just how much geopolitical risk matters to the markets and to your money? joining me on the panel today is cnbc senior markets commentator and pro-columnist, and jack, and nan cy from heartland financial. mike, so much happened here since the close yesterday, and, you know, not a dramatic rally, not a dramatic selloff. we just finished where we began. >> market continues to just kind of absorb all this headline uncertainty, either just digest it or set it aside for later maybe to act on once it's at a critical point. there's mixed signals in there as well, but really almost no net movement for the week. we are still 1% below wednesday's high, which was when we fell off in the afternoon, but i don't really think there's much to say in terms of new market trends.

you know, one third of the stocks in the s&p 500 are down more than 10% from the 52-week high showing you the markets are taking a rest for weeks, backing off under the surface, and the big question is that we need to have a big flush to have another leg higher or just muddle along for a while. >> san si, what moves are you making here? what do you think is the biggest influence on the markets? people thinking they don't want to be exposed over the weekend given uncertainty what happens next over the strikes in syria? >> i mean, i think that's right, klly. we got earnings season looming, a congress seems to be somewhat in chaos, so there's no reason for investors to take a big step. i think we need to see the small caps transports, energy, kind of stabilize, and then see what kind of earnings numbers we'll get. mike's right. there's a lot of mixed economic data, and there's a lot of people pounding the table on both sides. you know, that the economy's weakening, that it's not, and so i think, you know, we're looking at valuation and that's what is

driving our moves so we shared with you we are trimming financials and industrials last time, and we are still buying the tech stocks that i talked about in the past. >> financials, by the way, negative on the week. the dow and worst performer down 1%. dow negative on the week. as we continue to get more news out of washington, john harwood with more breaking news out of the white house, john? >> reporter: it's about the white house is now knocking down formally and officially the stories that have been in multiple outlets today suggesting that president trump was about to replace white house chief of staff priebus and steve bannon. there's been personal conflicts in the white house and clashes over the last couple weeks, and today, two pointed towards the prospect of a shakeup. white house put out a statement saying this is completely false. it is an attempt to distract from the president's success, we talked to other sources inside and outside the white house and the administration.

they all say they did not get a sense that a replacement of reince is imminent. what happened to the health care, the travel ban, other setbacks the administration's had, the president's approval ratings have been quite low by historic standards, and it would not surprise me if he did replace his chief of staff and other elements, people who would be affected by a shakeup. we saw steve bannon this week demoted from the national security counsel. we saw katie walsh, who was a deputy to reince in the white house leave that post, so there's no question that there's been turmoil, by what i'm being told by multiple sources is that there is no reason to expect that in the next few days or couple weeks. we will keep watching. >> john, what's at stake here when it comes to trump's agenda? guests mentioned they think perhaps a bounce in the poll numbers help him regain momentum

that had been lost, but this shakeup seems to have a lot to do in what the future course of action will be or not the shakeup as it may be. >> look, i think the trump agenda with or without a shakeup faces big problems and big expectations too. they talked about tax reform is something they could get done by the august recess. everyone should take that idea out of their minds. if they do a comprehensive tax reform, there is no chance under the sun that that is going to be done by the august recess. that's going to be a very long process, and so i think there's -- wii in the process of both washington and maybe the markets recalibrating expectations for what the administration can do and how quickly because it's not going to be anywhere close or easy as initially portrayed. especially given the fact we now got a military conflict that could extend beyond what happened last night. >> john, thank you.

jack, this was kind of the point you were making about where to invest right now, so what changes, if any, are you making? >> well, you know, mike talk about underneath the surface. look underneath the surface today, russia's down between 2.5 and 3%, but interestingly, others are up 1.5%. getting into what john was talking about, it could be an interesting play for investors who think that the trump agenda's going to continue to get pushed out. you have a mexican p ereso trad cheaper than before the election. you got a mexican stock market that's certainly cheap relative to the s&p 500. in fact, mexico's been one of the best performing markets so far this year, and if the trump agenda gets pushed out, it will likely continue. >> that's an interesting point there. you can see how the peso's trading, and all that happening on the day of the big jobs report, of course. the headline disappointment, but a headline heat, depending on what you look at, right? steve leisman with more, steve?

>> competing explanations for today's disappointing jobs report. some were, others not so much. debated whether it was a weather effect or a trump effect. lets go through the notary public-farm payrolls, 98,000, unemployment rate better than expected, 4.5%, versus the 4.7% estimate, and average hourly earns, 4.2%. number one reason, it was the weather, unexpected hiring, cold march, big storms, less areas in construction, leisure, and hospitality. if that's true, expect a bounceback in april to the robust numbers of january and february, north of 200,000. explanation number two is more worriso worrisome, the trump effect. what if the optimism is dispating. boosting in january and february, but what is the early administration combined with the failure of the health care bill have kept that optimism. now, these are early days to make a call that the president trump had much to do with hiring even in january and february,

but business sentiment is worth monitoring as a possible sign of business hiring in the months ahead, kelly. >> steve, will you make the point again? i love this one about the unemployment rate today and where the ten-year was the last time this was this low. >> in temperature-year was 4.75%, in the month -- may 2007, and the fed funds rate, kelly, 5.25% the last time we were down at a 445. remember what happened? be clear here. the unemployment rate bounced along at the 4445 rate, didn't change, and then seven months later or so, we were in a recession. deepest recession of the post-war era. careful what you wish for, you you can imagine there's scope to go higher there, which is what the fed and many on wall street thought today this number, because the up employment rate was 4.5%, keeps the fed on track to the rate hike? june. >> no, it's so interesting. >> see what happens on the

fiscal side. >> no, depending upon everything it seems. >> exactly. >> can be very, very different. mike, what do you think about that? >> the last time, as steve went through the number, when the ten-year was at 4.25, whatever it was, everybody was, like, why is it so low? wouldn't go in in response to the fed's funds rate going up, and as he described, there was an inverted yield curve. that is a little bit of a foretelling problem. we don't have that issue right now. you have a flattening very slightly flattening yield curve today. still, people wonder why the bond market has not responded in a more energy way. >> nancy, people look at this and wonder valuations mentioned in the stock market are high and calling it out itself in comparison with where bond yields trade, it looks like a relative value, right? >> it does indeed. i mean, i think one of the things that we're waiting for is to see if we're going to get any improvement in productivity because that will alleviate the

wage pressure that's coming from the labor shortage we need to fill the jobs, and so i think until we see ceos ready to spend and really increase capital stock, productivity becomes an ongoing concern for us, but we're still finding value. the health care sector is still attractive on our valuations. stocks attractive on a relative price of the ratio basis. we continue to follow who our discipline tells us. there's still place in stocks, though i agree with jack, at least the developed market are an interesting place to be increasing. >> steve? >> i was going to say i think one of the debates here, i wondered what think they about this, it's the trade. you trade the stock data, the hard data. trade the soft data, you're in with both feet and buying stocks like crazy. trading hard data, you're more circumspect now, and wondering,

where is the hiring? where is the investment to go with the strong sentiment? >> yes. >> where's the consumer demand? we talked about that. >> atlanta gdp tracking number of, not the gold standard, but 0.6% is not enough to worry about. >> exactly. underplays the soft survey data very much. i think, steve, the answer to the question is that the target folks to app extent defer to the bond market to decide what to look at, and that's not been focusing you on that really good looking survey confidence type data, but, again, i still think it's a jury's out type of an answer because you had so many people bidding against the bond market coming into this year. it seems like that worked its way through. >> oh, yeah, and, jack, joan about you guys, but do you still position for yields going up? do you ignore that for the time being and look to health care? >> yeah. i would tend to look elsewhere. we did a study on the tailor rule if congress were to replace the fed, and, you know, install an algorithm, the tailor rule is a 3.8, not a 1.0.

clearly, the fed is dragging feet, and that bringing the u.s. dollar down, tends to keep, you know, yield oriented like mlps and reits higher than they should be. >> before i go away for the weekend, kelly, i want a dollar for every analyst and bond prognosticator who called the end of the great bond bull market. i'd be rich. >> thinking over three by the end of the year, no problem. >> exactly. >> big problems apparently. only a big problem if you invest on that thesis of for everything else basically keeps underpinnings tame. do you think the case is made to the fed that they are behind the curve here or back to the hard data? >> i liked what jack said. i respect what jack says, and certainly in the relationship that he set up there, the fed is behind the curve relative to the places, but the trouble is that when you look at what happened in europe and japan, and this is increasingly markets are global,

the fed cannot move further. spreads between europe and u.s. have never been this high. i don't think the fed wants to get too far away from that. >> steve, interesting point, though. the real rate of the u.s. is lower than the real rate in japan. >> fair enough. >> and? follow on that -- >> the fed is more stimlative to the bank of japan. >> unthinkle. i like this. this is like alarming everybody. nancy, why is that unthinkable? >> well, i mean, just because of the opportunity for growth, and the fact that we never went to negative interest rates, that we are the golden standards in terms of bond market liquidity and the fact that, you know, we've been pushing this inflation trade or the fed has been targeting inflation, and now the worry is it was too much too fast and real rate of return is why people are still investing in stocks. i think, steve? >> i'm sorry, what was --

>> for the temperatun year -- >> you mean the real rate? >> yeah, the real rate. >>.35. much lower than that. >> yeah. >> i'm looking at the overnight real rate is negative one. >> gives you .3. >> jack, explain this for a second. why is that troubling? what does that tell you? >> it's not troubling, no. it's not troubling. it's just that it's stimlative. i think what people lose sight of the fact that the fed is raising rates, and so because of that, they are restraining, but what we have to keep in mind is over the last 18 months, that, yes, the fed went from 0.25 interest rates to 1, but inflation went from 0 to 2, and so if you look at the trajectory, the fed is raising rates, but they'll continually, and will continue to drag their feet at a lower trajectory than inflation because they have a 40-year track record of keeping inflation under control. they have absolutely no history of battling deflation. if they are going to make a

mistake, they are going to want to let the bees out of the inflation beehive and catch them later. >> jack, you -- i know we have to go here, but -- >> last thing. >> you raised app interest point about the fed behind the curve. if you are right, you get more inflation than we have right now. the 2% would not be the ceiling here. 2% is a potential floor for we with go. that's got to be the ultimate conclusion of the comment there. >> i agree. the wage number that we got this morning was disappointing. the wage number from last month was disappointing. you know, we're waiting. >> it's -- >> i think eventually it happens. >> it's the one missing piece. stimulating stuff, guys. having a lot of fun with the puns today. thank you, all, for being here. jack, nancy, steve. >> have a great weekend. >> thank you. the market slugging off the attack in syria, and what it takes to turn geopolitical risk into market risk, and later, whether now is the time to put

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kayla has more. >> reporter: well, kelly, a briefing can going on right now with secretaries mnuchin, ross, and tillerson talking about how the meetings with the nigh cheese delegations went, still unfolding, but they are important to the market. secretary tillerson calling the discussion, frank, candid, but constructive saying the two nations plan the on subsequent meetings in the future, addressing various challenges posed to the u.s. economy, and the fact they are having on u.s. jobs, and also the effect that chi china's economic intervention has in the balance in the rest of the world markets. tillerson created four pillars of economic dialogue, a new format for the talks going forward, and one is a comprehensive economic dialogue. it separates that out from law enforcement and cyber security as well as dip mlomatic and

security discussions. economics is its own pillar, attacking that head on with the chinese government. to that end, secretary ross of the commerce department says that the two nations have agreed to set a 100-day plan to basically get the ball rolling on new trade between the two countries. he acknowledged that normally that sort of thing takes yearings, but said they are committed to an ambitious plan that symbolizing the growing repore between the two countries established this week. they said that trade was discussed and how to become more balanced, and also that there will be more opportunities for u.s. exports and investments. that is according to the secretary of the treasury, and he wouldn't say anything about currencies specifically saying treasury's going to put out its currency report in the near future and didn't want to get ahead of that, but secretary ross said that china did express a commitment to reduce a net trade balance. finally, i want to tell you what they said about north korea. secretary tillerson said there

have been wide ranging conversations between the two presidents how to handle the situation, and while there was no packaged deal discussed, they were both committed to the denuclearization of the korean peninsula, and the secretary said there were discussions of even further north korean sanctions, potentially placed on that country. i believe that they are discussing specific air strikes on syria now, but those are the headlines about the economy and structure of the talks going on over the last 24 hours. kelly? >> we can tell you just in the last couple minutes, mnuchin, treasury secretary, said they will announce additional sanctions on syria in the near future. >> reporter: that is news in light of the events of this week. interestingly, doing that without potentially the cover of the united nations, which already has sanctions capabilities, and, of course, chinese earlier today, their foreign ministry espouses a

multilat right lane approach. interesting to see the form the sanctions take and who imposes them, kelly. >> yeah, by the way, if this is the last time we see the shot while i'm here, i'll miss it. stunning. oh, my goodness. turquoise waters, everything is fine in the world. not a care. thank you for the reporting, appreciate it. geopolitical tensions rising after the u.s. attacked a serian air base, and we are in turkey near the syria border with the latest there, richard? >> reporter: reaction to strikes mostly pottive here in turkey. the government welcomed them. said, in fact, more needs to be done to punish president assad, the leader of syria. the only negative response, the only opposition coming, obviously, from syria, which just saw its territory attacked by the united states. russia, syria's ally, and iran, another ally from syria. more details about what happened. the u.s. military saying 60

tomahawk cruise missiles launched from two navy destroyers. one misfired, went into the sea, and the other 59 hitting the target. that target being the military base, the u.s. says was used to launch a chemical attack earlier this week that killed dozens of people. 20 syria aircraft destroyed on that base, according to the u.s. military, and also bunkers, fuel depots, and weapons depots, but not targeted, american officials say, comb call weapons themselves out of concern to disperse toxins. while there's condemnation from syria and russia, have been fairly muted. no signs at this stage that either powerments to escalate this. nbc news, turkey. >> we thank richard for that. u.s. ambassador to the united nations gave a strong statement to the u.n. security counsel today in the wake of the air

strikes. >> the morm stain of the assad regime could no longer go unanswered. his crimes against humanity could no longer with met with empty words. it was time to say enough, but not only say it, it was time to act. bashar al assad must never use chemical weapons again, ever. >> for more, we turn to csis, and brept from the atlantic counsel, and post nine from rbc capital markets. struck by the note, this does change the way you have to view things in terms of the markets. >> i mean, certainly with the trump administration, he ran on basically not having middle east entanglements or humanitarian preventions. this was highly unexpectedment the question is do we see a potential escalation in the syria conflict, new tensions between russia and saudi arabia

and the gcc allies that could derail the opec deal being rolled over, the iranian elections, the iran nuclear deal. we are watching this and watching how does it impact the markets. >> you are looking at what impact this could have on the issues with north korea, correct? >> that's right. i mean, i think certainly you can say this might indicate that president trump is not afraid to use force and shows resolve, and that has a flexibility to north korea. it's difficult with both to figure out we're watching the target, obviously, watching things like gold and bonds, khristine, but what in terms of the next geopolitical risk should they be focus on? >> well, the key question is whether this is going to be essentially sort of a one off action or whether this could mean greater u.s. involvement militarily in the syria conflict, and right now, it's an open question and important to hear from president trump as so sort of what he thinks our broader strategy is going to be

going forward. >> mr. kemp, same question to you. what are some possible outcomes here next steps. you knowings it's been less than 24 hours since the air strikes. >> well, you're talking about geopolitical risk in the markets. there was a ground breaking study by benson a couple years ago that showed since 1950 in 60 geopolitical crisis, the s&p a month later down only in four of the crisis. there's not a direct correlation between geopolitical risk and market falls. in fact, the famous chicago economist, frank knight, wrote about the difference between risk and uncertainty. markets liekt risk if they measure it and can trade on it, in fact, that's what markets are driven by to a certain extent. what they don't like is uncertainty. what they've seen more from the trump administration this week is certainty. dipmatically, it looks from the first indications out that there's a much different diplomatic handling of china

than there was in the campaign. in terms of syria, you're seeing u.s. credibility shown again, willing to stand up when lines are cross on chemical weapons, and steve bannon relegated for the international world, that's an important sign because it's showing that mattis and mcmaster are stepping up a more traditional leadership. >> mike, there you have it, perhaps, if you wonder how markets rally on top of this, certainty and credibility from it, you can understand. >> yeah, i mean, the markets never often not extrapolate one limited conflict and say, oh, now it's a game changer. if you don't have oil as the transmission mechanism, spike in oil prices seen as sustainable, the markets are slow to attempt implications. that's what you see here. at some point maybe it feeds into where a developing story line that domestic fiscal policy measures that trump would want have to be pushed away, but that's something more about

psychology than risk. >> you talked about the oil markets. john suggested in the early hours of this, saying, if anything, the air strike makes middle east supplies more secure not less setting back isis. is that possible? certainly the oil prices today reflected some of that political risk. >> it's really so much an isis issue. in many republics, isis is on the other side of assad. not that isis comes out and supports the strikes, but this was not aimed at degrading isis, but in terms of the oil markets, i think it is a real issue going forward, like, look at the opec agreement. we have russia on board with saudi arabia and the g, cc on the other side of the syria conflict, so if syria becomes a wemg between those, that affects the rollover. i think it is a real oil story. >> so is it possible for awhile we have not had the premium built in, and we add that, or could it be bigger risks to some sort of price drop? >> we had four ongoing conflicts in the middle east shrugged off.

i think now with the air strikes, people are having to say there's more uncertainty out there because, again, this was not an expected event. the question is now, how do the key players respond? >> what do you add to that in terms of key players in the oil producing middle east? >> well, i mean, you have a lot of different competing views with the countries there, and i think that's part of the challenge, and i underscore what was said about uncertainty. i actually think this strike really, to me, highlights uncertainty given two or three days ago president trump and secretary tillerson seemed to say assad did not have to leave in terms of resolving the syria conflict conflict. it's not clear yet how to go forward. part of that is figuring out how to build a diplomatic coalition going forward and how do you align the saudis, the turks, and the others, for example? >> fred, before we have to go, what -- if we have staked credibility as you heard from nikki there a moment ago saying

these cannot happen again, does that mean we've committed ourselves here longer term, if something like that were to happen, but even if not under some kind of vacuum that could come up in its place? >> yeah. i spent the morning here in washington with the former prime minister of syria, leading the negotiations of the opposition. they are encouraged by the strike. they feel more done in one strike than the obama administration did in seven years to save lives, but he warned and you're right here, if this turns out to be a one off or improvisational, this is where the administration has a bad reputation. it's going things in an improvisational way. they have to show they can walk the walk dipmatically, politically, and militarily and have a strategy, a workable strategy for syria and broader middle east. we're a long way from that. i think that's what would really feel and make people feel much more confident in the trump's global leadership.

>> sounds like everybody agrees there. thank you for being here. very much appreciate it. time now for cnbc news update. >> hi, kelly. the swedish national police confirming to nbc news that one man has been arrested in the truck attack in central stockholm today. four people killed and 12 others injured in what the country called a terrorist attack. joe biden returns to the university of delaware for a rally to celebrate the opening of an institute named in his honor. the biden institute focuses on developing public policy solutions. glaxo recalled 3,000 inhalers as the devices might have a defective delivery system. if your inhaler is not relieving symptoms as it should, call your doctor immediately. mtv scrapped gender specific categories for its upcoming awards. in place of best actress and best actor categories this

year's awards honor a nongendered best actor in a movie and best actor in a show. interesting move. back over to you. >> why not just call it best actress? why say best actor? >> exactly. aren't you then still gendering it? >> nevertheless, i imagine it will be the oscars and everybody next. >> that's right, exactly. >> combine it together. competing against everybody. that's the real world. thank you so much. >> thank you. >> president trump's promise to reduce regulations, but they are down 6% over the past month. up next, dick tells us whether this is a buying opportunity or if he still thinks you should sell the banks.

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president trump ordering a strike on the syria air base in response so syria's deadly chemical weapon attack. next, larry kudlow discusses bl that delays the economic agenda and gold has been significantly outperforming stocks lately. is it too late to get in on that safety trade? that's still to come on "closing bell."

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welcome back. white house denying reports of a staff shakeup. they will not be resigned, and for more on this and the trump aid jen da is cnbc senior contributor, good afternoon. >> hi, kelly. hi, mike. >> you know the guys, you know, but reports out there for some time, but has anything changed? do we need a shakeup? would that be better? >> i don't know. i'm not sure it would. give the guys a chance.

it's been reported a lot of insiding. i picked up a little of that in the conversations with folks, i don't say anything huge. look, you got to get through at least to the august recess. you got to see -- i don't agree that tax reform is dead. i just want to say there was a report earlier. i do not agree with that. there's a couple reasons in a second. i'm not sure health care's dead. maybe. they could be put together in reconciliation so i don't know. >> dying a slow death? in other words, they might always be on the table, but nothing happens in six months, and 12 months pass -- >> i think president trump is a can-do guy, and if you don't get it done, he could replace people. that's his history. as a builder, and, frankly, in the campaign. >> yeah. >> 11 months of campaign, three different campaign managers, but i do not see it or feel it. i don't want to go there. what i want to do is this. i want to pass -- this is the

100th millionth time i've said this. i want to get a business tax cut. i believe trump does too. wiser heads need to prevail. here's where experience matters. you can split off business from the personal, do the personal next year, the pressing need now is business. if you want to raise wages, cut business taxes. ironically, kevin, the researchers, wage earners get the best, and if they vet him properly, the fbi gets out of his hair, i learned today, you know, i said use dynamic scoring. i think business tax cuts across the board gets 3% growth. >> for a minute, that means that you can use dynamic scoring saying, yes, we can fund this. it's not blowing up the deficit. we say, we're not growing at 3%, whatever, and then you don't need to make any compromises with the freedom caucus. >> there you go, or any other

waco stuff like border adjustable taxes, absolutely -- well, created a crypt. >> getting to four, five, whatever percent. >> listen, that may be. i'll get you three. come on. so here's numbers. i got this today from a former senate budget staffer a long time staffer. cbo's projecting 1.8% for ten years. nonsense growth. i'm going to assume 3% with a good strong business tax cut, okay? i don't think the fed gets in the way of this particularly. that gets you, listen to this, 4.5 trillion in extra revenues. 4.5 trillion in extra revenues over ten years which will pay for everything, everything! >> how does this connect back to the senate confirming neil gorsuch today? what's that have to do with this piece of passing corporate tax reform? >> great question.

mitch mcconnell used the nuclear option, okay, defying tradition. i want to spread nuclear action. in fact, the wall street -- >> i don't want to call it that anymore with everything in north korea and syria. >> i have to get richard credit. he said i'm proposing a tactical nuclear option inside reconciliation. that may be right. i asked to use it. he said sure, give me the credit. i am. first step, tradition does not bind the senate. sorry. you're here to clean out the swamp. part of the swamp is not personal, but part of the swamp is cbo, part of the swamp is joint tax committee, for years and years ax always attacked them, costing too much money, the track record abysmal. drain them from the swamp and let's go in to some dynamic scoring of 3% growth, okay, and

that gives you 4.5 trillion, paying for business tax cuts, but pays for repeal and replace obamacare, and you could put the two of them in the same reas reconciliation bill and pass it with 51 votes! that's all you need, and, in fact, if it's a tie -- >> 216 in the house first. >> oh, well, i'll give them the house, but i'll say it comes down to the senate budget chairman, his name, a good guy, have him on sometime. >> maybe we should. >> if he accepts dynamic scoring, and i know he will, then you got yourself a new ball game, and you could do business tax cuts before the august recess. i'm telling you. >> thank you so much. >> drain the swamp. >> thank you so much. appreciate you coming down here. >> my pleasure. >> tie it together with a bow on it. the financials is the big trade over? dick has his take coming up, and gold rallies on the news of the air strikes in syria. time to seek safety in the

yellow metal? top safe haven plays next on cnbc, first in business worldwide. stay with me, mr. parker. when a critical patient is far from the hospital, the hospital must come to the patient. stay with me, mr. parker. the at&t network is helping first responders connect with medical teams in near real time... stay with me, mr. parker. ...saving time when it matters most. stay with me, mrs. parker. that's the power of and.

what?pony neighing] hey gary. oh. what's with the dog-sized horse? i'm crazy stressed trying to figure out this complex trade so i brought in my comfort pony, warren, to help me deal. isn't that right warren? well, you could get support from thinkorswim's in-app chat. it lets you chat and share your screen directly with a live person right from the app, so you don't need a comfort pony. oh, so what about my motivational meerkat? in-app chat on thinkorswim. only at td ameritrade. welcome back 11.9 billion, and that is the largest so far. where is the money going? our next guests bet on safety playing. joining us now, adrian day and mark from penn mutual asset

management. where would you go? >> buying gold. it's not a matter of being a safe haven play today because of everything else, but a matter of being in a bull market. when you're in the bull market, gold reacts well to crisis, geopolitical events, but don't jump in after the geopolitical events, you buy because it is in a bull market in my view. higher six movements from now, a year from now, and so you buy gold. >> all right. mark, what do you buy? >> oh, we like a different form of inflation protection. we like tips or treasury inflation protected securities paying a current income. long term expectations hovering at 2%, but inflation pressures are building. >> well, that's a good tip for every. gentlemen, thank you. sorry it was short here. we got the point. thank you for talking gold and tips. things fall on the heels of the disappointing jobs report and concerns about the economy after being on a tear since the

election, is the bank trade over now? that's next. your insurance company

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because you'll get the full value back including depreciation. and if you have more than one liberty mutual policy, you qualify for a multi-policy discount, saving you money on your car and home coverage. call for a free quote today. liberty stands with you™. liberty mutual insurance. . welcome back. financials are on a tear after the election. shares of bank america are up 36 cents, j.p. morgan 23%, morgan stanley 22%. citigroup 19%. recently it's been a different story. let's bring in dig from capital markets. what do you think of the base here? >> i think kelly on september 30th this year they will be selling at lower prices. i think it's more difficult

because we don't know what will happen with the tax ljslation and other things. if we look at hard data, it's clear the bank businesses are doing poorly at the moment. we're not seeing loan growth, in fact, we are seeing deceleration in loan growth and in some cases, declines. i think we're really looking at a significant increase in loan losses in virtually every consumer category, in some commercial category and in construction rooms. so, you know, even though people are ecstatic about what may happen if interest rates go up and net interest margins get better, the bottom line is these companies are in business, the businesses are fought doing well. >> the markets continue, all those issues, i wonder what you make of some of the top on the regulatory side, not just about this sort of lip service being paid, maybe some new form of glass spiegel;e, also to the idea that at least the vocal world peace of dodd-frank might get re-examined. >> i love that question.

thank you. basically, i think the trump administration is increasing, increasing, increasing regulation in the banking industry. i think if you take a look at a new accounting rule, which is being put into effect, you know, as of the end of this year, into 2020, i guess, before it's fullying auated, you will ---ing auate actuated, at the present time it will not bind the industry by 20%. in terms of the goldman sachs financial aid bill, ie, getting rid of glass spiegel;e. >> dig, do you think getting rid of glass siegl is the goldman sachs financial aid bill? >> there is no question about it. goldman sachs and gary coen, before he left, maybe he didn't leave goldman sachs, before he left, he basically was fighting hard to see that the banks never bought the the right to do investment banking. now he's in a position with m

nu ma mnuchen. >> they've got markets nouchl. they're dob all these things, you think goldman today still would somehow rather go through the whole process to become a pure play investment bank all over again? >> if they get rid of glass siegl, goldman sachs will double almost immediately. because they're not doing anything more than ten years ago. they've done a whole bunch of minor things, opening up the consumer finance online business they've opened up bbc. in terms of what the core business is doing, it shrunk. it's reduced back to investment bank and treedle. that's more important to that xha company now than ten years ago. they would like to get rid of grass stiegle. so i would assume their apparatus is in the government. >> it's not quite yet. let me ask you one more thing before we have to let you go. it's about interest rates, a

subject that i know is near and dear to your hearts when it comes to financials, if they start going higher, is is that bullish for banks? >> no, basically, let me give you a simple example. you got a bond, which has a 5% coup on, interest rates go to 6%. what happens to the value of that bond? it goes down, it goes don't meaningfully, what if you get $3.5 million worth of bonds, you increase interest rate. what happens to the value of that $3.5 trillion? it goes down. it takes the common equity of the banking industry down. it reduces the secular growth rate of the industry. it is not good for banks to see interest rates go up, even though you get an improvement in margins than interest income. >> you think they will do better now than going away ten year sold out? >> yeah. >> dig, thanks for joining us. >> thank you. >> always appreciate your point of view, dig saying goldman would double if glass stiegle

were repealed. they have been from decline for a while, now there is more reason for apple to have bad advice. we have more when we come back. cme group can help you navigate risks and capture opportunities. we enable you to reach global markets and drive forward with broader possibilities. cme group: how the world advances. i can't wait for her to have that college experience that i had. the classes, the friends, the independence. and since we planned for it, that student debt is the one experience, i'm glad she'll miss

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and we mean nothing. ♪ ♪ welcome back. here are some other stories we

are following today, twitter withdrawing its u.s. lawsuit ago ens the u.s. government to try to reveal someone behind the anti--trump account. they are pulling the suit because the government has withdrawn its summons. samsung is forecasting it will have a strong first quarter profit in four years, thanks to rising prices of memory chips. samsung controls half the memory chip market. it's welcome news for samsung investors after a turbulent year involving gam london attacks note 7 fires and a corruption scandal. and a new study finds customer versus lost the appetite for apple's ipad. j.d. powers says microsoft's service tablet is rated the highest in overall performance, design and features. it's the first time microsoft has taken the top spot in the study's sex-year history. mike. >> it's interesting. it reminds me, it has had the critical views in its favor the

better machine, better engineering, microsoft has been incumbent, dominant. so with tablets i think ipad and tablet are synonymous for people. the market story is still in apple's favor, even if they're not getting the larger reviews. >> is this a larger role reverse am. can we bring back the guy like sprint and verizon did? >> it would be very clever. i think they should do that and get back after all these years. it is interesting. it's the new ipads are newly introduced ones are getting very good review, there is a little buzz, a lower price point, all the rest of it. kind of a commodity thing. microsoft playing to the strength, using the surface as a kind of business tool, more than anything else. >> nevertheless, apple shares on a good run in the first quarter are still as we showed still is lagging microsoft's performance over the past year. microsoft's performance over the five, whenever they started to go three dimension, novelle la. >> they moved out. apple had this acceleration

lately. a big question as to whether it's had enough for a little while right now about a $750 billion market value with apple's current price. >> there is that performance we were mentioning. something to think about when you go shopping for that next tablet. michael, thank you, as always, have a good weekend. "fast money" begins right now. "fast money" starts right now, live from the nasdaq markets overlooking new york city's time's square. tonight on "fast," talk about a wild ride for tesla, it just had its best week in four years, you think the good times are over? there is one more bullish piece you need to hear. also look who is having a good week. president trump incluconcludesi meeting with committee xi at mar-a lago and the confirmation of the people kurt nominee. is the trump agenda back on track neighborhood, next week, traders see having a tough