i find value, though, now? it's hard. >> the prices where they are, but it's been a good quarter and good year so far the fourth quarter generally, seasonally, october can be a rough month. pretty good. >> eighth positive quarter in a row for the dow. >> wow all right. >> good to you with us. >> thanks for having any. >> have a good weekend, guys. >> thanks for watching "power. ♪ this is nice >> nice. >> little different. >> i'll take that. >> it's friday we'll fake it. welcome to "the closing bell," everybody, i'm kelly evans at the new york stock exchange. >> that would make me bill griffeth this is the time hofinal hour o trading day for the month for the third quarter. later than it's ever been. we're going to tell you which sectors have performed best and get you ready for the last quarter of 2017. >> always a fun to run through those stats and pretty telling this time, too now china's shanghai composite has struggled for the month of september as secretary of state rex tillerson heads to china to

discuss north korea. should investors use the weakness as a buying opportunity? we'll debate that. also, is the ipo market back certainly roku's shares have been roaring higher for a second straight day we're going to look at what's behind all the excitement for that stock but in the meantime, we have some breaking news regarding the federal reserve. steve liesman stepping in. what now, steve? >> reporter: i'm not stepping in bill jerome powell is the news. the federal reserve governor, jerome powell apparently according to the dow jones met on wednesday with president trump, interviewed according to them for the fed chair job this comes as it's been reported earlier this morning that former federal reserve governor kevin warsh met with the president on thursday i think the clear indication is this search for the next fed chair is heating up. we were trying to establish whether or not the current fed chair, janet jellyellen had mett the president. i do not believe that's happened recently we'll wait to see if fed chair janet yellen sits down with

president trump. then john taylor, stanford economics professor, is another well-known candidate, along with a couple other bankers out there have also been mentioned so there was a fear out there that president might let this go until, i don't know, december or january, it looks to me like the process is -- has a little momentum to it i also heard that nobody will ever know who the actual pick is until the president decides. and the list as far as it is short is in the president's head, and no place else right now, bill. >> although the markets free to make speculation and kevin warsh, arguably, has been pushing treasury higher. >> now let's look at the powell futures. i think what's happening, i imagine this, by the way, a genuine process of the president interviewing these candidates. by the way, the other thing i should point out about yellen, she meets fairly regularly with the treasury secretary, meets fairly regularly with the nec director gary cohn the extent she's talking to the other side of the white house

there, she has that contact, too. so we'll see the extent to which it's a formal sbrir view intervo not, who else is seen interviewing with the president for the fed chair job. >> the pride continues thank you, steve see you later. all right. let's turn to taxes. this new analysis out from the tax policy center detailing who benefits from the republican plan that was outlined on wednesday. ylan mui has details on that from washington. ylan >> reporter: the numbers are not looking good, bill, the study found the plan does lower taxes for the middle class, but the wealthy, they get a much bigger cut. 95% of households would get just a 1.2% bump or less next year, but the top 1%, that's people who make more than $730,000 a year, they get an 8.5% boost now this report also shows the tax reform is all about the corporate rate over the decade, businesses would get a $2.6 trillion tax

cut. households, on the other hand, they'd see a $470 billion increase now, that was something unexpected and the report shows that a growing share of households at all incomes would see their taxes go up over the course of the decade particularly people making $150,000 to $300,000 a year. in 2027, 60% of them would see their taxes rise by a rough average of $4,000. now, there are a few reasons for this replacing personal exemption to the bigger standard deduction is one of them. they're also changing the way they index to inflation and that would push people into a higher tax bracket a little more quickly. now the study also makes a lot of assumptions because a tax plan is missing a lot of key details. it doesn't factor in economic growth, either, and republicans say that that is critical to making their numbers work. but bottom line here, guys, this report is going to make it hard for republicans to sell their plan as a tax relief for the middle class

>> all right ylan, thank you very much. >> pretty clear. >> do we want to -- do we want -- never mind one key hurdle -- what >> we'll move on. >> one key hurdle for many republicans in the tax reform plan is the elimination of the state and local tax deductions many blue states get adjusted gross income from the taxes and representatives see eliminating it as a form of double taxation. >> one is was right now, congressman john fasso, represents south of albany, north of poughkeepsie, areas of around there he joins us now. congressman, thanks for joining us appreciate it. >> good afternoon, nice to be with you. >> if that deduction were eliminated, what would the impact be on your constituents have you figured that out? >> well, it's very difficult to say, and that's why i don't put a lot of credibility in what the tax policy center, they're very left of center group, is saying right now because we don't have

all the details, in fact, we don't have northeast of the details in terms of where those new brackets would apply, at what level of income, for instance but on the state and local tax deducti deduction, that's a big problem for states like new york new york is already a donor state. we send many more dollars to washington than we get back in return and while that shouldn't be the sole element of how you judge tax policy, what really is going on, ever since the civil war when abraham lincoln had a temporary income tax, state and local taxes were exempted from the federal income tax so we shouldn't have double taxation the amount that people pay to their state, their local government, their school districts, should not be subject to federal taxation. >> congressman, will you not support this plan, this bill, if it repeals those deductions? >> well, i would certainly not be inclined to, but it's very early in this process because we don't have many of the details

for instance, at what level do the new brackets apply the idea is to go to three brackets, double the standard deduction. many -- many mapeople currently deduct from their taxes by filing the long form would no longer need to file a long form tax return in fact, the goal is to bring about a situation where people can file on a postcard so i want to make sure that we preserve the mortgage interest deduction, the charitable deduction, but i also want to see us preserve that state and local tax deduction because it's an important principle that we don't use double taxation. >> i fully understand all of that, but in the spirit of the effort to try and simplify the tax code, it would seem as though we're still talking about a lot of moving parts and pieces that will remain, if, in fact, you know, people want to preserve the deduction on that on the mortgage interest you know, and so on down the line we're going to start -- going to have a pretty complicated tax

code, won't we >> well, it's a very complicated tax code now with over 70,000 pages of regulations and we should try to make it a lot simpler. the goal, ultimately, is to create an environment where we can get the economy growing faster that's why it's very important that we reform our corporate side as well, because we have among the highest corporate tax rates in the world, and we also don't treat small businesses very fairly, at all. so, so what we've got to do is address both of those issues so we get greater economic growth for our economy. >> and real quickly, congressman, the issue, of course, if you say, okay, pifin we're not going to repeal that, people get to keep their state and local deduction, how much this will impact the deficit what are you comfortable with in terms of a number for increasing the deficit over the next decade or so? >> well, i think what we should do is we should be looking at a model of a tax code that spurs greater economic growth and certainly does not add to our deficit and debt because our national debt is growing at a

precipitous rate that's one of the reasons why we need tax reform, though, because we've got to get more economic growth >> congressman, thank you for your time. appreciate it very much. >> thank you so much >> representative john faso, republican from new york so less than an hour away from closing out the month, and the third quarter. and these are the best performing s&p sectors here are the -- there they are energy, i mean. >> energy has been -- >> oil was up 12% this quarter. >> yeah, i think that's its best quarter since what did i read, it's the best quarter for brent here brent oils in 13 years >> okay. and as rates rise, utilities and real estate, two very sensitive sectors to interest rates. those were the two worst performing sectors in the s&p in the past quarter here. >> down about 2% or 3% just kind of does give you a tell there for the s&p, best sectors quarter to date, i. t., technology up 7.5%

energy with a 6% gain. the interestingly, telecom manages to go up 5%, also pretty rate sensitive. >> okay, there you have all that everybody got that written down? this will be on the midterms make sure you have all that. so what do we have to look ahead to for the fourth quarter? let's bring in david kelly from jp morgan funds, new york stock exchange trader peter costa from empire executions and rick santelli joins us from the cme peter, what'd you make of the quarter? >> what's there to make of it? i mean, you know, it was -- >> with that sub text being your view of the market and whether you've been in it or not >> well, you know what, we're in it, we're not adding to anything because i can't find anything that even entices me a little. you know, we had that short situation, we ended up losing a little money there, we went long a little, we're okay with that you know, it was a solid quarter, based on solid earnings, there wasn't any kind of geopolitical blowup which is

still always on the horizon. it's always looking at us. but, you know, it was a good quarter. i think that the one thing that we didn't get, and the traders down here will all tell you to a man, is there was very, very little volatility. and that scares me a little bit. i think that, you know, steady and, you know -- slow and stead wins the race. volatility is where we make our money. coming into october, we might have a little bit rougher october. normally is -- it's a tough month almost every year. as well as september which wasn't >> right. >> so, i mean, you know, i think that october you're going to start seeing a little bit of that churning again. so that will be good for us. >> but david, that might be good for traders but for a lot of investors who are much more concerned with seeing the value of the market go up over time, it's hard to quibble with this kind of performance. year to date, total return for the s&p is 14% we haven't even had a 3% pullback as mike san tot o,santoli was pt earlier, one of the best years

in memory, 2013, 1995, that more is is there to ask for >> i think there's more to be gotten here. i think one of the key trends this year is stronger global growth almost every major country in the worldis growing. i think that's helping the u.s. economy, but it's also helping international investors. so looking forward, you know, i hate to make a forecast about the fourth quarter, i don't think anybody should invest for three months but over the next few year is i think the two big themes are stronger world growth and higher interest rates. i think in you're positioned to take advantage of stronger world growth, but also positioned to weather higher interest rates, i think you'll do better than average over the next few years. >> so, rick, we do look only the next three months because we're wondering if the fed's going to raise rates in december, and markets probably going to be setting themselves up ahead of that time. where do you see ten-year yields going from here? we're around 231 right now >> reporter: i think somewhere between 244 and the annual 2017 high close at 263.

i think that's where the market's going to be sometime late in the year i think back into this 230 to 260, avoiding any type of a test under 2% i think all lights are green for slightly higher rates in an orderly fashion. i do think there's a bit of a chance that over the next year and a half or so, we may test 3% don't see it in the cards any time soon. i completely agree with the arguments, pros and cons in volatility you know, humans don't trade as much humans are more prone to emotion. machines, we're going to just live in a less volatile time with respect to all markets. and i think it's going to continue to get less volatile. except for the times it isn't. but the times it isn't aren't going to be peter costa's fond memories like my fond memories of market makers trading volatility will be hard to trade the type of volatility we will at some point see some of, a lot more than we see flow

i think that's the stencil with regard to policy, they're all lottery tickets. i really think the market can continue to do this right up through the end of the year no matter what gets or doesn't get passed i do think if something actually does get passed, that gives us a little turbo thrust for the equity markets >> you would think that would seem to be what was powering it early on this year guys, thank you very much. appreciate your comments we'll see you in the fourth quarter. >> thank you >> i know what you're thinking, how is it possible that bill is the same height as kelly today it's because i'm wearing my platform shoes today. >> exactly, he loves to bring them out on a friday the rainbow is a nice touch. >> thank you very much. we're heading to the close here we got about, oh, there went the board. they just took it away 46 minutes left in the trading session here and the dow is trading down a point, but everybody else is higher at the moment co coming up next, amazon kicking off its nfl coverage last night, streaming the first of 11 thursday night football games. but some viewers said the

quality was subprime we'll break down amazon's football play coming up. and later secretary of state rex tillerson arriving in china tomorrow, amid growing tensions between the u.s. and north korea. we'll debate whether investors should steer clear of investing in china when we come back and we want to hear from you reach out to the show via twitter, facebook or send us an old fashioned e-mail. >> yes. e beuslar round cae tein thshow today we're going to dig into the mailbag and hear what's on your mind. keep your thoughts coming. think again. this is the new new york. we are building new airports all across the state. new roads and bridges. new mass transit. new business friendly environment. new lower taxes. and new university partnerships to grow the businesses of tomorrow today. learn more at esd.ny.gov

in case you're wondering, tyson foods the best performing stock in the s&p 500 today after the company raised its earnings guidance thanks to strong results in its beef business and it also announced it's going to cut 450 jobs as part of a restructuring. that stock up roughly 8% today amazon making its nfl debut last night, streaming the first of 11 thursday night games to its prime subscribers. that was a key attraction to the nfl. having that pay wall anyway, a weather delay, an early streaming hiccup left viewers frustrated julia boorstin joins us from l.a. with more

julia? >> reporter: we don't have official numbers from amazon or the nfl on how many people streamed the game last night we're expecting the numbers any minute the stream got off to a rough start. the beginning of the game, users took to twitter to complain about buffering, low resolution streams and on our computer the vid joe entirely dropped out at one point. the quality of the stream did improve and there were no complaints we saw in the second half amazon took to twitter before halftime to say, "so far, customers in 149 countries are watching thursday night football on amazon prime video. of course, they also used that tweet to direct people over to amazon prime now, one factor that may have hurt viewer numbers, a weather delay that lasted for 47 minutes in the second quarter. the numbers of the streams will be closely scrutinized as amazon spent about $50 million to stream 11 thursday night games according to a source. this as amazon beefs up its prime video library. now, last season, twitter averaged 266,000 viewers at any

given minute during its ten games. 2.7 million people tuned in for at least three seconds and those people didn't even have to log in, let alone subscribe, as you do for amazon. of course, with amazon, it's not just about prime subscriptions but also merchandise sales like for the products that were hawked during amazon's own pregame show guys, back over to you >> did you watch that pregame? i was very interested to hear how that went and, i mean, you know, i was joking, you know, that's something that's been missing from nfl pregame shows for years, was an australian chef how did it go? >> yeah, that was, you know, there was a lot of -- we saw some twitter commentary about that people were sort of surprised by the folks that were picked for it but it's going be really interesting to see we have to remember this is still an experiment. things may change over the course of the next ten games and i think amazon has the opportunity to mix things up i mean, i'll be really interested to see how they allow you to click to buy stuff maybe during the game, itself.

so, you know, they obviously have very interesting technological capability to integrate retail with the live stream and i think it's still early days we can't wait to see those numbers. >> yeah. i know hopefully we'll find out amazon not afraid to experiment. >> that's the key right there, definitely that. >> thank you, julia. see you shortly. 40 minutes to go dow's down three points. the s&p up seven .25% gain. nasdaq up half of one percent today. the nasdaq continues its march higher with another three points nearing the 1,500 mark. >> all right. up next, streaming company roku popping again today after putting in one of the best performances for a tech ipo this year it climbed nearly 7% in its market debut yesterday. >> 70% >> yeah. what did i say >> 7%. >> oh. 70%. i'm sorry. >> we would normally say 7%, wow, that's big. >> 7-0 that is big. we're going to break down why investors are so excited about this stock. plus tax reform is top of mind, of course, but there is a

bipartisan push for health care that is quietly making its way through congress and gaining some traction. he details on that coming up as well stay tuned see alpa in the trends, driving specific sectors of out performance. where a rising middle class powers a booming auto industry. a leap into the digital era draws youthful populations to mobile banking and e-commerce. trade and travel surge between emerging markets. everyday our 1,100 investment professionals around the world search out opportunities for alpha. partner with pgim, the global investment management businesses of prudential.

welcome back, watching shares of heartland express, the trucking company, upgraded the stock from buy to hold, raised its private target to $28 from $22. its industry low operating

then there are shares of roku, have you seen this again today, getting another big pop after climbing nearly 70% yesterday in its first day of streaming. the streaming company allows customers to gain access to services like amazon, netflix, amazon, hbo, hulu on their tvs raised $219 million in that ipo. roku saying in its s1 filing its 15.1 million users streamed 3.5 billion hours of content on its platform each quarter. and while roku is known mainly for its gadgets, it also makes money from advertising, company notes that customers are streaming more and more ad-supported content on its platform up another 18% today but the thing that still sticks with me, this is a 15-year-old company, and it's still not profitable >> okay. that's a great point >> it lost -- >> however -- >> it lost $42 million last year and $40 million the year before that. >> apparently one reason --

there's two reason why investors would warm to this, the first being roku in its road show was saying, look, we're pivoting to streaming, launching this movie channel, kind of stacking that content. >> right. >> and perhaps doing so successfully with ad stuff you mentioned. the other thing is it's market share. it's a little bit of the old chestnut, okay, it's great to grow your market share but got to be profitable, too. you got to say when they're up against apple and effectively won, huge share from them, you know -- >> i mean, i agree they're in a great position now as people turn more and more to streaming, cutting the cords, blah, blah, blah i guess you could argue they were early right? >> they were they were in. >> all of this. >> they came at the right time back when you needed a thing like roku to get netflix on your tv, it was an important condui. shares up 20% again today. look at that >> very impressive overall, it's probably the best tech ipo this year, but number five overall, and the other four were all biotech related >> yes >> this year so, no surprise there. all right. time now for our cnbc news

update, let's get over to sue herera sue? >> thank you very much, kelly and bill here's what's happening at this hour, everyone the acting secretary of homeland security arriving in puerto rico today. elaine duke saying people are working together to bring help to the island. she spoke on the tarmac at the airport. >> extremely proud of our people and government and that is -- much more work to do we'll never be satisfied that's why we're here. that's why we're staying until people are back in their homes, schools are open former president obama visiting toronto to deliver a speech about global citizenship. the event at the toronto convention center is expected to attract some 3,000 people. he will then take questions from host, bruce tayman, u.s. ambassador to canada during the obama administration north korea securing qualifications for its first athletes at pyeongchang

olympics when two figure skaters finished in the top six in the qualifying event in germany north korea did not have any athletes at the 2014 sochi winter games and kelly and bill, reports are coming in at this hour that the president will make a decision about the future of hhs secretary tom price who as you know is under fire for the use of chartered and private jets for his travel there are reports that the president will make a decision about his future role in the administration later this afternoon. so we will wait for that and keep you posted. i'll send is back to you guys. >> is and sue, it would seem that whatever decision he makes here could set a precedent as people look into the travel of other cabinet members. >> absolutely. >> and officials as well. >> absolutely. the hhs secretary vowed to repay priest at least at least a portion of that however, kelly as you probably know, the amount spent on these charters has kind of changed dramatically over the last couple of days which is also leading into our feeding into

this particular controversy. >> thank you, sue. >> you got it. we got 30 minutes left in the trading session, and i'm here at the telestrator with my pal, carter worth, head of technical analysis at cornerstone macro. >> how are you >> nice to see you. >> always. >> welcome back. this is very interesting you want to look at the five biggest companies in the s&p 500 and how they've done relative the whole index, right >> relative to the market. they've been great but a little dodgegy of late. >> right. >> figure out what that means. >> who we faulk talking about here >> names that everybody knows. as good as it gets it's apple, google, microsoft, so forth collecti collecti collectively, they're worth $3 trillion, same as the bottom 250. and when people are basically risk off, they favor growth. which is counterintuitive. yoi but when you're risk on, idiosyncratic both doesn't care

about oil, election, putin, it does its own things. when you're risk embracing, you abandon this and go after cyclicality, whether it's industrials or financials. that's what happened of late if you were to think about what happens since mid-august about the past five, six years, one of the most aggressive periods of row face on record, energy coming to life, obviously financials trying and these stalling the question is, is this stall likely to continue or can the market really hold up if these continue to fall >> in other words, i mean, the s&p we know is setting all-time highs here >> even as these -- >> these guys are stumbling here. >> these guys are stumbling. so there's two ways to interpret that say, it's broadening out or it's more risk embracing. or frankly, it didn't have to be the top five, could have been the top 15 or 20. >> right. >> so much is dependent on so few. it will be key that these come back to life. >> by broadening out, that i always thought was the beginning of a top in the market. >> broadening out in terms of participation -- >> participation, sure. >> people are starting to embrace other securities whereas they've been basically hiding in precious few

i think optically, what's important, bill, this is kind of important, we've broken this trend, we held this four, five times and now we've clearly broken it will need to repair itself fairly quickly in order for the market i think to really have meaningful gains. >> all right very good. i hear we're going to see you on "fast money" >> i'll be there. >> very good i'll let you get up to times square there carter worth, thank you very much see you later. >> splonas long as he pays for . >> yes well done. nice >> yeah. 30 minutes to go until the close right now and the dow still lower by about nine points right now the other major averages in positive territory to close out the week, the month and quarter. s&p up six, nasdaq up 35 russell up two. coming up, natural disasters, partisan politics, north korea. it's a lot for retail investors to take ahead, retail investor roundtable one guest says it may be time to take money out one of the year's biggest winners. days after republicans decided against a vote on the

graham/cassidy health bill, there's a new bipartisan health l ll in the works. we'lte you what's expected in that plan ahead stay with us today. and, how's it looking? >>i don't know. there's so many opinions out there, it's hard to make sense of it all. well, victor, do you have something for him? >>check this out. td ameritrade aggregates thousands of earnings estimates into a single data point. that way you can keep your eyes on the big picture. >>huh. feel better? >>much better. yeah, me too. wow, you really did a number on this thing. >>sorry about that. that's alright. i got a box of 'em. thousands of opinions. one estimate. the earnings tool from td ameritrade.

let me just give you a quick

heads up, we're awaiting a videotape of the president as he talks about, among other things, the fate of hhs secretary tom price. he says he'll make a decision tonight about that and his search for a federal reserve chair, which may or may not include janet yellen that's going to include in a few minutes. we're probably going to have to interrupt this next sbrintervie where we wrap up the month and quarter and check in with retail investors in our roundtable to see how main street investors are preparing for the last quarter of the year. back with us, wayne smalls, and trevor gormley good to see you guys wayne, you call yourself a raging bull going into the fourth yaquarter even as we sit here at all-time highs why? >> i'm absolutely confident that a lot of last year or so was just mainly a lot of c consolidation across, in the market i mean, we've got a market that's seeing a lot of headwinds that are unseen in time, i mean, with the geopolitical risk, attention, north korea, with natural disasters, and also with

uncertainties in washington. this continues -- >> all right here we go i apologize. let's interrupt with the president. let's listen in. >> we'll see >> i mean, we have -- he's a very fine man, but we're going to make a decision sometime tonight. he's a very, very fine man as far as puerto rico is concerned, that's been going as you know really well it's been total devastation. we have over 10,000 people in puerto rico right now. we're getting truck drivers because the people from puerto rico, the drivers, just aren't there. thai lo they're looking for their homes. have a lot of other problems likewise with the police force but i think it's going really well considering rick scott was just up, governor of florida, that's been a success. rick is going to get involved also with puerto rico. and we've made tremendous strides. very, very tough situation, and a big question is, what happens? we spr have to rebuild. if you look at it, the

electric's gone, the roads are gone, the telecommunications is gone it's all gone. and the real question is, what's going to happen later? it's a tough situation the loss of life, it's always tragic, but it's been incredible the results that we've had with respect to loss of life. people can't believe how successful that has been relatively speaking. >> mr. president -- [ inaudible question ] >> i can't hear you, john. go ahead >> what do you say about the officials in puerto rico -- [ inaudible question ] >> well, i tell you, the governor of puerto rico has been unbelievably generous with the statements i mean, he's been praising our efforts and this is a very difficult -- this is a total

devastation. when you look at texas and when you look at florida, you know, it's a whole different level nobody's ever seen when you have a category 5 wipe out an island like this, because you have nothing you don't have the roads, you don't have anything. and you don't have the people even to operate the equipment. that's why we have literally hundreds of truck drivers being brought to the island to operate the trucks because those people lost their homes so they're unable to do it and -- and the police have lost their homes. so they're unable to do it so it's a tough situation. john >> mr. president, with respect to -- was the wait too long to say that puerto rico was a good news story >> i haven't heard what she said i can tell you this, we have done an incredible job considering there's absolutely nothing to work with and a very big question is what are we going to do with the power plant? because the power plant has been wiped out. it's not like let's go back and

fix it that's what i do i'm a good construction guy. you don't go back and fix it there is nothing the power grid is gone so we have a lot of big decisions and you're talking about the dollars that you're talking about are really tremendous and i'll be talking with the democrats and we'll be talking to congress about what we're going to do a little bit longer term. in the meantime, we've saved a lot of lives we've done a really good job and now we're bringing the people for distribution. >> mr. president, do you want to -- [ inaudible question ] >> in cuba well, you know, the problem we've had in cuba, and we'll be coming out with something, but there was a big problem in cuba, so we'll be announcing that fairly soon. fairly soon. >> financially, mr. president, can you make puerto rico whole again? >> we're looking at puerto rico. that's a very, very big, big

thing you're talking about you know, we're spending hundreds of millions of dollars right now. it's a territory and these are great people i know the people very well. these are great people but, you know, there's a massive investment you are rebuilding all of it at some point as you know, there is, you know, hundreds of millions, a tremendous amount of money already invested in puerto rico by others before the storms. and that money has been in serious trouble. so now on top of it, a lot of other money. so a lot of -- look, a decision has to be made, what are you going to do? puerto rico was flattened, and a big decision comes as to what are we going to do but i'm there to help. i can tell you that. >> you have an internal investigation into private e-mails, can you brief us a little bit -- >> we have great secretaries and we have some that actually own their own planes as you know that solves that

but we put in an order that no more planes -- if you look at past administrations, for instance, if you look at the obama administration, and you take a look at the amount of time that they spent in the air, they spent a lot of time in the air but i felt very badly because secretary price is a good man. but we are looking into it and we're looking into it very strongly >> a fireable offense -- consider it a fireable offense -- >> we'll take a look i'll be announcing something in the pretty near future. >> mr. president, what about tonight's decision how will you make it disappointed in your -- [ inaudible question ] >> i have a great cabinet, you know, we saved hundreds of millions of dollars through negotiation. i'll give you an example, with the f-35 fighter plane, me, myself, i've saved hundreds of millions of dollars in negotiating. and that's one of the reasons i don't like seeing anybody even have a question about, you know, flying i just don't want to do that

we're saving tremendous amounts of money no matter where we go if you l if physical or texas, e done that for relatively little compared to other people e don i don't like to see that happen. i hiching think it's a shame as a human being, tom is a very good man thank you. >> brian [ inaudible >> that's unacceptable to me, that would be unacceptable. >> mr. president -- >> steve, go ahead [ inaudible question ] >> i've had four meetings with fed chairmen and i'll be making a decision over the next two or three weeks. what >> where are you in the search for a new homeland security secretary? >> we are -- well, first of all, we've -- brock has done a fantastic job at fema. and elaine duke is acting and she's working very hard.

and, you know, i think what fema has done has been incredible between all of these hurricanes and doing so well, but we'll be making that decision probably within a month homeland security, yesterday. >> you said you spoke to jerry jones, owner of the cowboys and other owners -- >> i've spoken to other owners and i really think it's coming together i noticed last night or i was told, i didn't see it, but i heard everybody stood for the national anthem. and that shows respect for our country, our flag, and for the national anthem. so, you know, i'm very happy i heard that and they should stand. you have to stand. it's our national anthem you have to stand. >> team owners -- >> i spoke to numerous team owners i have many friends. i did speak to jerry, yes. okay thank you. [ inaudible question ] >> not a question of confidence.

i was disa i poi a pointed beca didn't like it cosmetically or otherwise. i was disappointed you know, this is an administration that saves hundreds of millions of dollars on renegotiating things, new trade deals. you'll be seeing the results very soon. we're renegotiating nafta, we're renegotiating so many different things, making much better deals. you'll be seeing other things come up. so i don't like to see somebody that, perhaps, has the perception that it wasn't right. [ inaudible question ] >> well, i don't want to say but we'll be announcing something today. [ inaudible question ] we'll be announcing something today. [ inaudible question ] i'm not aware of that. i heard it was very ministerial. i'm not aware of it. anything else? john go ahead, steve. he always treats me so nicely. >> something to do with tom price today or -- >> probably today.

something will happen. something will be announced. >> leaning toward keeping him? >> look, i think he's a very fine person. i certainly don't like the optics as i said, we renegotiate deals. we're renegotiating trade deals. we're renegotiating, as an example, the f-35 fighter plane. i've saved hundreds of millions of dollars so i don't like the optics of what you just saw. >> mr. president, why do you -- [ inaudible question ] >> cuba, some very bad things happened in cuba very bad things. yeah [ inaudible question ] you'll get to see what's happening in cuba. they did bad things in cuba. >> mr. president -- >> sir, your visit on tuesday -- sir? >> whether or not to fire price today? >> probably sometime today i'm not happy. okay i can tell you i'm not happy. okay >> mr. president, what about the rest of your cabinet, sir?

mr. president, what about -- >> let's face it, impromptu news conference with a president outside the white house there as he wraps up this busy week. >> eamon javers is standing by, eamon, you know, to speculate for a moment, the tone from the president about his hhs secretary there sounded a little bit regrettable and if he were to be dismissed, what would the ramifications be >> reporter: well, kelly, from that it sounds like tom price shouldn't make long-term plans as secretary of hhs. >> right. >> reporter: the president said he's not happy, said he's disappointed, said this goes against the whole tone he's been setting for the administration in terms of saving money and said he'll make an announcement about tom price today. 3:45 in the afternoon, the president got leaving for new jy that announcement could come at any moment typically you don't announce somebody is staying. you announce something else. we'll wait and see what the announcement is from the white house. the implication is a tricky one for the white house because if they were to push tom price out at hhs, they'd have to find another candidate for that job somebody to be the

administration's point person on health care reform something they've struggled with so far this year and the president has said that that is expected to come back up in january or february after the tax reform debate. he hopes is finished so that person would have an absolutely key role in this administration, finding that person could be tricky, though >> all right, eamon, thank you very much. >> reporter: you bet. >> eamon javers outside the white house as well. of course, the other thing that, for us, the president will make a decision in the next two to three weeks on fed chairman. so that's -- >> said he spoke with four different people that could be coming up more quickly than we expected. >> yeah. so is the close only have 13 minutes to go dow has now turned green gop health care plan died earlier this week. a new bipartisan one is picking up somstm cite eaonapol hill. we'll take a look at what's in it when we come right back i count on my dell small business advisor

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akid acadia on the reporting system an analyst at jeffries points out it's unclear whether the drugs, themselves, cause the issues listed there or if they were incidental. sarepta did put out a statement this afternoon saying many of the deaths associated with its muscular dystrophy drug were consistent with the natural progression of a disease that is 100% fatal at any rate, we see those biotech issues going down today. >> yeah, sarepta still down 3.5% president trump and the gop have moved on from health reform to tax reform, but a bipartisan group in the senate is, it sounds like, moving forward with their plan kayla tausche joins us from the nation's capital with a look at the plan and who's behind it kayla? >> reporter: kelly, what this plan is not is a comprehensive replacement for obamacare, but it would be a potential near-term stabilization for states' insurance markets. republican chair lamar alexander and top president, patty murray, each on the senate health committee met wednesday to

restart negotiations after the failure of the graham/cassidy block grant proposal senator alexander told reporters yesterday he could have a bill in the hands of senate leadership by the end of next week components would likely include catastrophic coverage for people older than 30, some flexibility on state waivers which is still being worked out, as are the potential payment of subsidies for insurers although, quote/unquote, bipartisan in nation, it would likely pass with significant republican defections. take, for instance, today, senator ted cruz released a statement saying, "the american people did not send us here to bail out insurance companies they sent us here to repeal and replace obamacare and failure is not an option. senate aides acknowledge the house and white house for that very reason were not supportive of a bipartisan deal when a full repeal was on the table. house aides say a conference or heavily debated or edited version on this one would likely pass but the white house's position is still unclear. especially, kelly, as you guys

were just discussing with some uncertainty at hhs back to you. >> i mean, i don't know, kayla, you know, after everything that's happened, the idea that this bill would somehow -- can it do more than just stabilize the obamacare exchanges? maybe that is important for at least the gop who wants to keep some kind of private marketplace functioning here >> reporter: well, kelly, the president has said he wants to take up health care again in january or february. it would likely come as part of the 2019 budget reconciliation process. so lawmakers on either side of the aisle share the view that you have to do something in the interim period and this bill would likely only go through 2018 so it would not be comprehensive as we mentioned. but there are still many republicans who do not favor this path so we'll see if any of those choose to speak out if, in fact, this moves forward >> all right, kayla. keep an eye on that one as well. lot of moving parts and pieces here kayla tausche in washington. and we are coming back with the closing countdown as we wrap

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heading to the last three minutes of trade for this friday with the dow down just a point right now. as we wrap up the third quarter for this year, a rather newsy and quarter impacting the markets. the issue with north korea cropped up a few times this quarter. and of course, the natural disasters that had an impact on some of the commodities and the job issue in some areas, the hardest hit. the conventional wisdom as we all know is september is usually the toughest month for the stock market that didn't happen this time around the dow over that quarter had a pretty good time in the last three months just this quarter, the dow going into today was up 4.76%. the s&p was up 3.8%. the nasdaq up 5.75%.

the russell which has been roaring to life this quarter, up 5.4% that's the dow over this time. the ten-year yield during this quarter hit its low for the year during that safety trade when things were heating up with the north korea, and then it has come back again. we're now at 2.33% going into the fourth quarter look at the ten year and lay over the dollar index, it looks pretty similar there it hit its low level for the year as well before coming back. gold, inverse. it peaked in that safety trade around the early part of september and now it has come back from those levels and we're going out at 1,283 and change. oil strong this quarter up 12% on wti back above $50 a barrel. the opec cuts and the natural disasters having the biggest impact there of course, bob pisani, we all look at the vix in awe in this

time, as it continued to move lower. couple of peaks there as the situation with north korea reared up. we have now gone 11 consecutive days below ten here. >> i pay attention to vix when it's over 20, and you can see why people aren't paying a lot of attention to it, a lot of things don't work anymore. sell in may, go away. doesn't work this is a down month doesn't work september is a down month. doesn't work, either i think the important thing about the quarter is the reflation trade came back in a very big way growth sectors came back i want to put up the kbe there's your bank -- >> banks, yes. >> -- sector see that pop up? that's when it was reported the president was meeting with kevin warsh, met with powell today he was on our air saying he's going to make a decision in the next couple weeks. you saw buying yields move up on that because warsh is slightly on the more hawkish side toward janet yellen we may get news in the next few weeks. this is one of the things that could make a difference. potentially four posts sitting

out there and of course the other big thing to make a difference is anything happening on north korea that would put technology stocks, the future of technology, main mover for the s&p 500. >> thank you, bob. so we wrap up what turned out to be a pretty good quarter for a lot of investments we'll wrap things up and look ahead to the fourth quarter and maybe hear something about the future of tom price coming up on the second hour of "the closing bell" with kelly evans have a good weekend, kell. thank you, bill. welcome to "the closing bell", everybody, i'm kelly evans and looks like we're going out here with some records pretty emblematic of the kind of year it's been on wall street the dow adding 18 points on the bell we actually moved quite a bit here on the close at 4:00. that's 22,399 for the dow jones industrial average not an all-time high but the s&p did get one today. in fact, it was up about nine points better than a third percent on the bell.

2,519. a record high. the nasdaq closing it's up .66% the russell 2000 at 1,491, another high mark for the small caps which have been on a comeback here over the last week or two we're going to have more on this in a moment. and the president vowing support for the recovery efforts in puerto rico. in a speech to the national association manufacturers earlier today. ahead, royal caribbean ceo richard fain will join us with that company's latest humanitarian mission to the island and some of its future relief plans look forward to speaking with him. joining me on the panel today, cnbc senior markets commentator michael santoli. next to him is jon cadunas next to him is sarah hunt, portfolio manager at alpine funds. welcome, everybody michael, what do you make of ton of big moves in h washington and big moves in the stock market here to close out the quarter. >> you said it, very emblematic day of this market which means it's up, it's hitting new records but it obeys the speed

limit and it stays within the lanes, right it doesn't really run away from you. that's been the pattern here it's found a way, bob mentioned a little while ago that this reflation trade has come back. that's almost in the last two or three weeks. so those sectors that kind of sat it out for months and are to some degree back the big question i think going into the fourth quarter is whether that improvement in banks, in energy, these other kind of cyclical highly levered to the global economy type trades are sniffing out something going on in the economy, or if it's just strictly mean reversion and some losers getting picked up we don'te iing markets, by the , for the quarter up more than 8%. >> i think michael put it well, said, look, it's been a good year, nine months in 14% total return on the s&p, of course the dividends haven't had a 3% pullback. places this year so far along best years we've had in recent memory 2013, 1995 and now we have what seems to be synchronized global growth, strong performance, strong credit markets

i mean, what do you have to say about that we're watching play out here >> well, i think it's true, reflation is here. i think it's going to carry us out for at least the first quarter of next year so i think it's very real. when you talk about the global economy, yes, gdp is up. all the g-8s in fact, we're the only country of the g-8s that are raising rates. everybody else is still, you know, taking rates down. so since, you know, since the crisis, the first time that gdp has been up for all the g-8 countries. i think it makes a big difference and the rally is real. >> sarah, is it getting harder to invest in the market? because those obvious, you know, plays aren't there, or is that something people say, but it's always true about the stock market if it was easy to identify, oh, that's a great thing to buy and hold right now, i'm going to make a killing, you know, then a lot of people would do that all the time >> i think it's difficult in certain sectors because you see valuations that are very high and so i think it's -- i think it's a part of looking for areas where the valuations have come

off a little bit or something is changed. you think that things are going to get better or they've been, you know, i think energy looks better than it did oil prices have started to go up you start to see the conversation change to, well now maybe eventually we're going to have a supply problem because we're underinvesting, there's been so much near-term production there are changes in some of the sentiment around some of those sectors. >> let me just get this straight because we're actually coming off one of the best quarters for energy in a long time. brent's had its best quarter in 13 years s&p energy sector up about 10% you're saying you think that's a start of the move and not the end of it? >> i think that you still have some supply ande mand iss demans i wouldn't be quick to say it's great and off to the races sentiment and discussion is changing from we're always going to be oversupplied to the oversupply is starting to go away and eventually going to need more investment so this becomes more of an investable sector i think that sentiment has changed to some degree. >> all right monday will mark the first trading day or the fourth quarter, holiday quarter by the way, apple one of the worst performers in the index

this quarter bob pisani is here with a look ahead to the end of the year. >> reporter: hey, kelly, all about tax cuts and reflation trade we were talk bing about. bulls are betting the combination of modest global growth coupled with prospects for u.s. tax cuts will keep the markets at or near record highs in the fourth quarter. in september, higher bond yields, higher oil, turnaround in the dollar, central banks talking more hawkishly importantly, cherry on the top, prospects for tax cuts in the u.s. that's a reflation trade, folks. bulls are betting the global economy will continue its modest expansion in the fourth quarter into 2018. oecd last week slightly raised its global growth assumptions for 2017 and 2018. traders are expecting double-digit growth in energy and materials and industrials, financials, and technology in the fourth quarter that's, again, this is part of that reflation trade besides global growth, two other issues will determine the fate of stocks in the fourth quarter. prospects for tax cuts, one rk,

which boosted small cap stocks in september and the outlook, of course, for technology with tech the street is betting beg on the expansion of the semiconductor business as well as growth from payment companies like mastercard, visa and paypal one big wildcard, apple, heard about that, earnings expected to grow 12% in the fourth quarter, but the stock slid 6% in september. doubts grew about how many would be buying the new apple 8 and the apple x. let's not forget two other wild cards, north korea and the fed's handling of balance sheet reduction and rate hikes kelly, back to you. >> all right, bob, thank you just to be clear, energy had a better month than it has a quarter. s&p energy is at 10% for the month. 6% for the quarter and in any case, we're still talking about backing out looking at a place like utilities, very rate sensitive, actually not doing all that well. >> right. >> you know, a lot of that is the last couple of weeks >> exactly. >> a lot is predicated where we go from here. >> really september was apart from the rest of the quarter september you did see a lot of this kind of radical reshuffling and, again, the question is, was that just sort of a frontloading of that year end sell the

winners and buy some losers effect or was it reflective of a real change in the economy? you know, when i was referring to those years like 2013 and 1995, it was also because of the lack of real pullbacks very gentle. >> low volatility. >> straight up trends, very low volatility in fact, this year, lower volatility than those years even though the gains were better in those two years. those were also gridlock years for washington in fact, in both years you had a government shutdown, nobody expected to get anything out of fiscal policy. ironically because we came into this year thinking we were getting a lot but haven't. the market has not been surprised you haven't had a lot come out of washington. >> john, that's an interesting narrative, of course the prevailing one has kind of been, oh, the trump trade is the reflation trade, is the corporate tax trade, is all of these things but it's not clear that there's high expectations for at least the big agenda items at this point given some of the disappointment we've seen >> that's true, not a lot of expectations but it's lingering and we've seen it since the election there's no question it's been positive and now that it's being brought -- the people put the

president in office to do these things and he definitely has some headwinds. very political i believe it's going to persevere. and if he can get half his tax cuts through, you're going to see a huge rally here just an anticipation of anything happening. i believe he's going to get it done. >> by the way, from the president earlier, we also heard some comments about the fed chair. he said he's met with about four people that he would have a decision within two to three weeks. a lot today of speculation about kevin warsh, whether he'll be the guy to end up leading the fed, if he'd be more hawkish than janet yellen. she's been dovish lately, if you go back to the '90s, she was hawkish about the labor market anyway, this comes while the favorite gauge of the fed slipped today, i mean, it's back to a two-year low, just up 1.3% on the year. bring that haul together, whallt direction is that point bing the fed for you, john? >> it's to be very aggressive to

get four cuts next year. >> nour hifour hikes. >> sorry, four hikes i think it's very aggressive i see two in the market at best. >> at the helm -- >> regardless, yes i think it has to do with the global economy so, you know , we didn't have dynamics before that question talk bed about. >> i was going to say, i think it's interesting we got the soft inflation number and yet the bond market didn't really do anything. >> completely shrugged it off. >> two-year note right where it was. >> why >> they feel as if the fed's decisionmaking at the moment is disengaged from near-term -- which really yellen tried to create that separation. >> yes, created a lot of confusion lately about what is she trying to say, saying that inflation doesn't matter, sarah, saying they're going to create this program and do this with a balance sheet because they think growth and the labor market are strong enough, you know, the inflation is what it is? >> i think there's a lot of language about temporary issues with inflation that they were trying to telegraph, hey, look,

even if we don't see the inflation that everyone's expecting, don't think that means we can't do something. and i think you saw rates move from 2.04 at the scary korea part, to almost 36 -- where we are today, 34. i think that was a big move in rates and i think they were trying to dle gratelegraph we'r to look through a short term lack of inflation, don't think that means we can't raise rates. i'm guessing she had some inkling about what those anymores were going to look like. >> either way, what do you think before we go, is the best setup for the fourth quarter, john >> look, i think people are looking for a correction in equities i don't see it happening, but what we're doing, what is our go-to has been convertibles because it protects us on the downside, yet we still get majority of the upside that's where we're continuing to put a lot of our clients. >> tesla convertibles or -- >> all types of. >> all types sarah? >> i think there's opportunities. consumer staples has been hit pretty hard, reasons why the stocks shouldn't have been trading at high multiples.

some have come down considerably good dividend yields which are important to us. those are places you can find value now and may stay value a little, at least you have valuation underpinning that feels better than it did a few months ago. >> all right i don't want to put you on the spot, that feels like -- >> we're going to talk monday, be here every day of the fourth quarter. >> that's true. >> it will evolve as well go thanks very much john and sarah joining us. >> thank you. delivering aid to puerto rico continues to be a challenging problem. up next, we will head live to the devastated island for the latest on the recovery effort. we're also going to hear from the ceo of prepa, puerto rico electric power authority he's going to talk about when ae how the power grid will be rebuilt. plus royal caribbean ceo richard fain will join us to explain what the cruise line is doing to help with the relief effort, how his industry has been impacted by the storm and we always want to hear from you, contact the show via twitter, facebook, or send us an e-mail we have the mailbag coming up. you're watching cnbc, first in business worldwide my dell small business advisor

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disaster relief supplies continue to arrive in puerto rico following hurricane maria but getting them to the people who need them continue to be a problem. contessa brewer is on the island and has the latest on the recovery effort. contessa >> reporter: kelly, here at the

command center we have seen a flood of federal fire power arriving to tackle the problem and the puerto rican people have been asking for this for days now. we know the three-star general, jeff buchanan, who will now lead the military charge on the ground in puerto rico told me that the number of helicopters used to airlift supplies past blocked roads will more than double next week from 25 this week to 52 next week army corps of engineers is tackling the problem of the electricity infrastructure we now know the airport in san juan is connected to the grid. as are 12 hospitals as well. but for some perspective here, only 5% of electricity is now restored we're looking at less than 10% of cellular communications and less than 50% have running water and we're talking about in the metro area in san juan the acting secretary of homeland security elaine duke flew in today. she's promising the full power of the federal government and all of the agencies to tackle

coordinated, complex response to the logistical log jam here to restore power, to get water running, to get kids back in school the real question is, have we seen the worst of it in puerto rico have we turned a corner, will we see the supply chain repaired and see all this improvement island-wide, kelly >> contessa, what about the ports and airports are they able to handle more traffic yet? >> reporter: the ports are now connected to the grid through electricity and so that is good news we saw the numbers ramping up for cargo being taken away from the port, costco has been able to get all of its containers and says as soon as the containers get to its stores it flies off the shelves. that's good news the fact that the governor has said we have a plan to remove the containers that trucking companies can't get to, we're going to go in and buy those containers full of essential items then we'll distribute them as well. he said that will be a requirement for companies who

can't pick up the essentials >> all right contessa, thank you very much. contessa brewer for us >> reporter: sure. royal caribbean's adventure of the sea ship arrive in san juan earlier this week the shift dropped off supplies and picked up close to 2,000 evacuees joining us in an exclusive interview today, royal caribbean ceo richard fain thank you, richard, for being with us. >> hi, kelly, thanks for having me. >> so, again, as we're struggling to support puerto rico in these recovery efforts, do you guys have any other creative solutions for the island here? >> you know, it's an awful situation, and i'm really happy to see the efforts ramping up because the needs are so great and it's just so painful to watch the difficulties that they're going through. >> we saw you sent this ship earlier to deliver supplies. it was more than 25 pallets of medical supplies, gallons of water, 13,000 pounds of animal supplies, ice, garbage bags,

toilet paper, power generators and batteries. that probably goes a long ways in a desperate situation you know, did you get some sense from that of what -- you know, how much of the need that filled at all >> well, you know, actually i think it's -- the needs are so enormous, it's nice to be able to be a help, but the truth is that the needs are very large and we all need to be contributing whatever we can but you, you know, you enumerated some of the things and it's fascinating, it's everything, it's medical supplies but it's things as mundane as diapers food for pets. everybody is suffering there and i'm glad we could be a little bit of a help, but the other problem is there are a lot of people that are trying to get away people that are ill, et cetera and so if we can evacuate a few of those, we've taken total of about 8,000 over the period including our own employees and

their families but it's still only, unfortunately, a drop in a very large bucket >> richard, is there any coordination under way with some private companies like your own into trying to get this sort of ongoing response happening and what else do you expect you might be able to offer down the road >> well, i think we're continuing to offer whatever we can. you pointed out something in the earlier report that only 10% of the area has cell coverage communication becomes one of the biggest issues because we can't get in touch with people, and so we're all wasting a great deal of time just trying to communicate. it's also a terrible problem we can bring things to the port, and others can bring things to the port, but the infrastructure to bring them internally, and that's where we need the government to really step in i'm very happy to see those efforts ramping up because the

internal communications are just as important as our ability to bring supplies, ours and others' ability to bring supplies to the area. >> richard, we'll let you go thank you very much for joining us. >> thank you, kelly. >> richard fain, ceo of royal caribbean. earlier president trump addressed one of the biggest issues facing puerto rico's recovery efforts listen >> a very big question is what are we going to do with the power plant? because the power plant has been wiped out. it's not like let's go back and fix it, that's what i do, i'm a good construction guy. you don't go back and fix it, there is nothing the power grid is gone >> let's bring in ricardo ramos, hoping we can here, he's the ceo of puerto rico electric power authority. it's a privilege to speak with you again, sir the president makes it sound like the power grid is completely destroyed on your island what is the latest that you can tell us? >> thank you, kelly. the grid, itself, transmission

and distribution, has been affected in 80% meaning that 80% of our transmission and distribution power lines are down we have started work we are recovering slowly we are recovering and we are expecting now the mobilization of private companies, construction companies, for transmission lines from the united states which will be arriving during this weekend and starting work early next week. >> in that case, is it the personnel that's been your biggest challenge? or what other resources do you need in order to make this recovery effort happen >> well, personnel has become a challenge because you have to remember that we were also affected by irma, and it did, loss of 70% of customers, of service. not necessarily of the infrastructure, but my people have have been working since irma and then immediately maria hit us and it's an unprecedented -- unprecedented way.

so certainly we will need some relief from our workers and it is very much appreciated >> when we last spoke, you were hopeful the power may be turned on within a couple of months, two or three months for most of the island has that improved? or gotten worse now? >> well, as i said the last time, hugo, historic fact, hugo as a hurricane hit us and it took six months to repair. and at that time, we had 4,000 more employees and the grid was in better condition than when we found it when we took over the administration however, we knew what was coming our way. we did the necessary plans and i expect certainly to beat that time of six months 50%, we could reach probably two to three months. it is a fast process at the beginning because you can

identify the areas that were less affected and start doing -- giving power to those but then it slows down a little bit but that's why we're requesting help, again, not only from contractors, but from sister utilities in the united states >> and what can you tell us art your employees and how they've been affected? >> well, some of my employees have lost their homes, certainly. they are, you know, a great bunch of guys. they're passionate about their work they know how important electricity is for the people of puerto rico. we're working on a very strict priority list. hospitals, water and suewer systems, pumping stations. sewage control pumps and we've been quite successful. the water system is 50% up not only -- not because of me, alone, but the power plants,

small emergency generators to the water systems. the hospitals, we have 12 in the metro area, we have about three in the west coast already energized so we're meeting the priorities, but certainly this is a first stage i think the second step that we're going to take now is going to be overwhelming and, again, that's why we are requesting the aid and the help >> all right we hope everyone can get there -- get the power back on ricardo, great to speak with you, thank you for joining us. >> thank you very much. >> that's ricardo ramos from prepa. now, president trump is trying to sell his tax reform plan to the nation ahead, larry kudlow will tell us whether he thinks the tax cuts could end up paying for themselves through economic growth and the digital grocery shelf is getting crowded another competitor is jumping into the fray with its own private label of goods we'll fell you all about the te pyenext in our fast take

welcome back, it's time now for today's fast take. we begin with cryptocurrency raised more than $2 billion globally so far this year. at the same time, deep dive on the chaos an hackers that stalk investors an cryptocurrency exchanges these days >> i wonder if the u.s. is going to do a broad-brushed ban, if there's going to be guidelines

somehow. not seemingly going to happen as quickly, reflexively, as it did in south korea i think it's a reminder that the most enthusiastic users and traders of cryptocurrencies are often bad actors, people who feel like this is the only way to get paid. and so what does that mean if the largest customer of this entire marketplace -- >> i'm not even saying that one, like, you know, bitcoin can't benefit from the fact a hat lotf others might be so completely shady they have to delineate between but -- better now to set the rules than later because the cat's oust the bt of the bag. jet.com. next jet.com, amazon rifle owned by walmart, is going to launch a private label brand, what the "new york post" is reporting walmart has a couple of private label brands in its stores like great value but not selling well with jet's younger clientele online amazon is selling whole foods deli turkey, coconut water brands out of the gate can jet.com dpecompete? >> i would say competition with

amazon and whole foods means keeping up step for step, maybe not. i think jet.com is there to be walmart's kind of next thing right? their outlet to this part of the market i do find it day musine in amus one private label brand that's supposed to be off brand is too off -- >> i wonder if it's too duplicative. they're letting them stay siloed sthat going to be a waste of investme investment >> walmart would say, no, that means it's an incremental customer if it was the old online customer buying on jet.com, they would be fine. it's experimental on some level. >> i like the private label brands, too, it's exciting i'm excited an ed about the news that are not brands. it's all getting confusing. speak of whole foods, ceo john macke recently said he was? a trap before the amazon merger and couldn't figure it out the trap he said was whole paycheck, referring to the store's nickname he said amazon has a digfferent

narrative. whole paycheck has disappeared now, michael, i'm glad -- anyone could have told him this this f the whole hit on whole foods for 10 or 15 years. >> i think anyone could have told him that. i think what he perceived as a trap was how do you stay true to what whole foods was, right? being very discerning about local producers, and having all this decentralized decisionmaking about the best products and our endorsement and serving their upscale customers while also trying to do something else. >> it was interesting to me, he didn't actually explain how amazon is doing that, sounded like amazon has a different narrative, suddenly -- >> yes it's almost as if, well, that's what they do, they basically bring prices down for everybody, so they're going to use us in a way that we as a public company trying to be very, very protective of our brand couldn't -- >> afraid to do on our own. >> it's a kind of reverse -- the innovator's dilemma, right, the thing that got you where you are -- >> i like that. >> -- is what you have to get away from. very hard to do. all right, anyway, we want to hear your take on today's fast take stories and every day.

facebook, twitter, e-mail is how you can do so. we're going read some of the mailbag later in the show. time for a cnbc news update. let's get over to zf psue herer >> hello, again, everybody president trump says secretary tom price is a very fine man and will make a decision on the secretary's future sometime tonight. price is under fire for taking expensive charter flights on taxpayer money during his tenure. harmful and dangerous chemicals may have washed down rivers from a houston area superfund site during flooding from hurricane harvey. the epa says an unknown amount of chemicals linked to birth defects and cancer may be in the water. catalan farmers showed their support on the referendum of independence from spain. it was scheduled for sunday but the spanish government is trying to stop it calling it unconstitutional. british authorities say the cost of repairing the tower that houses big ben has doubled

they say the cost now stands at $81 million because of the complexity of the project. it's expected to take four years to complete. that is the news update. >> so it's true. what they say about renovation projects double the cost -- >> absolutely. >> and double the timeframe. >> absolutely. double the timeframe and add 20%. there you go. >> i think knowing big ben, it's going to keep going up anyway, sue, thank you very much. >> you got it, kelly, have a great weekend. >> you as well. president trump is trying to sell his plan to cut taxes and the white house says the entire plan can be paid for by economic growth of at least 3%. up next, the man over there, larry kudlow, is going to tell us how realistic he thinks that target is.

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touting the gop tax reform plan yesterday. take a listen. >> we think we can drive a lot of business back to america, we can drive jobs back to america we can make ourselves very competitive. that growth has not factored into those numbers we think we can pay for the entire tax cut through growth over the cycle >> not only will this tax plan pay for itself, but it will pay down debt. >> this is a central and very controversial issue about this whole thing. will tax cuts pay for themselves then some? cnbc senior contributor larry kudlow joins us to explain how you think they can, sir, correct? >> correct 3% is a little low, in my judgment i kind of move it to the 3.5%, 4% range. >> they're being conservative -- >> gary cohn and steve mnuchin have been heroic i'll get to your question in a second trump has completely taken command. >> it what about the tax policy, who came out today talking about the income hits? going into the weekend, going to

be the narrative on weekend on all the shows -- >> the income hat? >> said people who with are in the upper income brackets are going to get a bigger savings than people in the lower -- >> i don't know who does this work trump taking command, long speeches, on a daily basis, different than health care i want to get that in. the tax foundation which is reputable more than these other outfits disagree they, in fact, say for the lowest 80%, there's a slight reduction in the burden, and for the highest 20%, and even the highest 10%, there's an increase in the burden. but they say the distributional effects are so -- there's a lot we don't know. we don't know. i just -- on the growth thing, this is so important to any, so if you believe as i do that incentives matter, okay, if you are rewarded for the extra dollar -- >> you're going to hate me for this >> that's okay.

>> look at the gescreen right nw tom price is out as hhs secretary. >> oh, yep. >> can i interrupt for one second and ask you what it means that this official, this man -- not only for the reason why, for the travel on the private jet and what that means, how important that was for trump, but also for his health administrator to now -- they have to find someone else to replace him at a critical juncture. >> well, perhaps, i don't know about the critical part. look, i've known tom price forever. he's a very good man he's a very smart man. he's a doctor. my response is, tom, you should have known better. you've been around the political block for almost a couple of decades. some of the others in the cabinet only -- they're rookies, okay and they really didn't get the system right tom should have known better i don't want to dance on anybody's grave, because i say he's a good man. but, gee wiz, he didn't give the president any choice >> let me give kayla a chance to get in here. kayla tausche in washington with more on this breaking news

kayla? >> reporter: kelly, i want to give you the statement we got from the press secretary, regarding secretary price's resignation. the statement says that "hhs secretary price offered his resignation earlier today and that the president accepted it." it's not a statement just about hu his resignation, it says also don wright of virginia is nominated to serve as acting secretary. he's currently at hhs right now where he serves as deputy assistant secretary for health and director of the office of disease prevention and health promotion. interestingly, this is not a statement from the president, himself. it is signed by the press secretary, which is often where we have seen some these resignation-type letters coming from thinking anthony scaramucci and others in the past several months but we will keep you posted as we learn a little bit more about what transpired behind the scenes that ultimately culminated in secretary price's resignation. we obviously know publicly how this played out, but some of the

palace intrigue here about exactly what conversations the president and the secretary had could give us some more clues about this, kelly. >> yeah, kayla, thank you very much also, larry, trying to look for any information on the man he intends to designate to serve as acting secretary, don j. wright of virginia. >> don't know mr. wright, can't comment on him i wish tom price the best, but as i said, sometimes you force the president's hand i think this was one of those times. >> we heard from trump just about an hour, hour and a half ago. >> yeah. >> michael, he said, the tone made it pretty clear. >> sure. >> he was like, you know, i like tom price, but this is important to me. >> he said we're going to decide today. >> he said i'm over here trying to save hundreds of millions of dollars on these contracts and his point was the optics are so bad that it goes against everything that he's trying to sort of show his constituents. >> this is a bannon-type situation. about the president's statements because when bannon's name kept coming up toward the end, trump would say, he's a good guy, he's

a good thinker, but he never said he'd keep him onboard so it's the dog that doesn't bark when you're dealing with trump. make sure you find that dog that doesn't bark because that dog's out. >> kayla >> as it turns out >> reporter: well, i think larry said it aptly there, you know, it's not only steve bannon, it was steve bannon, anthony scaramucci, reince priebus, jim comey, i mean, there's a whole host of names at this point that fall into this category where the president at a certain point just lost confidence in them and then would refuse to defend them pun li publicly jeff sessions interestingly, weathered the criticism very publicly from the president. we didn't see tweets from the president talki ining about his beleaguered hhs secretary. he's taken some of that criticism behind the scenes here, but obviously, as the president said earlier, the optics became too much for the white house at this point to bear and interestingly, i know that many white house officials were

seething in the last couple of weeks when what they needed was secretary price to be a public advocate for this new health care plan that republicans were trying to push and they essentially had one of their loudest and strongest voices on that issue benched because they didn't want him to be facing questions about this while they were still trying to figure it out for themselves so i know that there were many people, not just the president, who were frustrated with this situation, but obviously this is the way it has ended for price and for other members of this administration as we just talked about. >> kayla, kayla, i just can't help myself. these seething white house staff peopleing about at the highest level, were they seething because they didn't get first-class seats on the airplane quhafs t what was the underlying -- >> reporter: they were very close. >> that was a joke, kayla. sorry, sorry. >> reporter: i say that because some of them did actually ride on these planes, there were administration officials on some trips accompanying the

secretary. truth be told, they felt like they were very close to this health care bill, needed a public voice on this and they didn't get that. and it was very bad timing to say the least. >> by the way, your reference to jeff sessions, where the president was quite angry at him for a while, is some quwhat simr to gary cohn who i said a moment ago? my opinion has done a fabulous job. >> endured the president's wrath. >> that's correct. >> this is a live picture of the president arriving in new jersey see the helicopter in the fore ground air force one in the background. it was before he boarded that helicopter, mike, we saw him make these remarks earlier when asked just kind of on the fly about the future of tom price and price is not the only official there have been questions raised about his use of private travel. >> i know. >> if this is the precedent that he's now setting, that basically tells you if there's -- if this comes up again for anybody else, the direction he's going to lean. >> perhaps i think, though, with president trump, if you do a good job --

>> is that -- >> -- you're going to stay >> his disappointment in price over health care as much as anything >> i believe so. i believe so as kayla mentioned, tom price for whatever reason was not the out-front guy. he knows this stuff cold he basically wrote the original house health care reform bill as the head of that committee, et cetera, et cetera. you know, it's just -- jeff sessions doing a good job was able to overcome the president's anger, if you will. >> i flink tthink the other way- cohn, with the health care effort on hiatus at least. >> it's not as big a deal. here's what's interesting. the president was furious at cohn over the charlottesville issue and the media playing this up full volume the reality is underneath all that, cohn has done an excellent job. >> i see peter navarro is now reporting -- >> selling tax reform. just heard the clip we had about maintaining economic growth. so, you know, i think gary cohn

is going to be there for as long as he wants to be there, but, again, trump likes performance. >> and kayla -- >> trump loves performance. >> with that being the case, do we know anything more about this replacement right now? of don wright of virginia who's going to be acting secretary effective tonight. >> reporter: well, he's been, kelly, a longtime official at the department of health and human services he was named acting assistant secretary for health an february 10th and i imagine that he's someone who knew secretary price and worked with him very closely he served in the bush administration at hhs and he has been there for quite some time most recently overseeing 12 core public health offices. we're going to be getting to know don wright who's a doctor, himself, very well i imagine in the coming days and weeks as he now becomes the public figure of this agency that is still trying to get some landmark legislation over the finish line, even though that will take weeks and

months so we will see. >> months. >> reporter: i have a question, though, for larry kudlow because as we talk about these different officials and the different factions within the white house and they're standing with the president, the question has come up, if health care had succeeded, if the republicans' plan had succeeded, would tom price have ended up in as hot of water as he did with the president or would this be a more forgivable offense do you think? >> well, it's a big question not sure i know the answer, kayla. if price had been much more forceful commanding advocate, after all, you know, he was a house member for years, knows all the senate basically i'd be -- if tom price had done his job in really first-rate fashion, kayla, i think he'd still be around i really do. i could be wrong lord knows but i think he would be around and, again, like cohn is still around, and like jeff sessions is still around. i just want to do quickly, can i just do this >> let me mention this --

>> incentives and awards and growth. >> health care is on the back burner for the time being. dead how many vacancies are there right now? we know homeland security has an acting head right now, know the president's currently been meeting with fed officials earlier this afternoon he said he had four meetings hopes to decide in two to three weeks. does he need to be beefing up staffing in these positions because it's another headache on that front >> well, the undercabinet problem where they weren't appointing, confirming undersecretaries, assistant secretaries, that's been solved to a great extent, okay? they got that. you don't want any agencies to go rudderless, you need a secretary to run the department. they'll try to fill that as fast as possible and hopefully the senate will cooperate. so i'm not so worried about that you know, the senate budget committee has done its markup on the 2018 budget resolution it hasn't gotten a lot of press. it should. because without the budget, you can't have the tax cuts, okay? >> by the way -- >> my only point is the health care was not in there, nowhere

to be found. the only way you could have done health care, i don't understand that people are saying this and this and this. you have to do a joint reck b si reconciliation with tax cuts. >> okay. >> which could legally be done but would be an unusual move. >> john kelly has come in to be the president's chief of staff and seems to have shored up problems plaguing the administration does this have his marks on it >> yes. >> the move tooust price. >> has to be in fact, the way i heard the story is he was a strong proponent of taking this action here everybody i talked to in the west wing, friends, colleagues, whatever, emphasize how strong general kelly has been in a short period of time, how he's resolved so many of these, shall we say, discipline issues and order issues he's really acting like a chief of staff when i was in omb years ago, james baker was the chief of staff. he was tough everybody said he's one of the best in history. so mr. kelly, general kelly has done a great job on that everybody respects him in fact, if you want an

appointme appointment, even the top layer, not just the president, even the top layer, you know, assistants to the president, i'm told you got to go through general kelly. very interesting point >> all right. >> can i do my incentive reward on growth? >> we're going to try to have you come back. >> real quick. >> separate -- have it -- give it its proper couple minutes we're going to sneak -- going to pay the bill have to pay some bills. >> we have the incentive -- >> that's really good. i like that a lot. >> kayla, thank you, again, that's the news this afternoon, tom price is out as secretary of hhs. up next we'll discuss who could be his permanent replacement. we'll also talk a little bit about tax growth. >> growth, ienvenctis and rewards. >> when we come right back stay with us this is the new new york. we are building new airports all across the state. new roads and bridges. new mass transit. new business friendly environment. new lower taxes.

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breaking news, just moments ago health and human services secretary tom price has officially resigned. one of the people being floated as a potential replacement is fda commissioner scott gottlieb. meg terrell is here, just today you brought us the news he has put on this database of side effects that was causing some movement in pharmaceuticals. >> part of a number of moves that gottlieb has taken. people perceive him as probably one of the most productive fda commissioners we've seen in a long time. the database backfired a little bit, we saw an impact on biotech

stocks on that >> he will did a high profile tobacco move >> gottlieb came out and said we're going to limit the amount of nicotine that can go into cigarettes that had a big impact. go ahead >> i was going to underscore, former regular on "the kudlow report," scott gottlieb was a scholar at the american enterprise unit, an investor as you noted, he's been very strong on managerial, administrative changes at fda, which needs them he would be a fabulous pick. >> one thing he was tasked with at fda was trying to bring down the price of drugs and speed up approval of course the fda doesn't control the price of drug but it can control getting more competitive drugs through. that's something that gottlieb has done quite a bit >> as he been pushing generics

>> biologic generics >> if the guy reforming drug development process, is that the best experience? >> knows it cold knows it cold. >> he's done both. >> he worked in that bureaucracy. >> he did. >> if you hang out in hhs, you either drink the water or you don't. if you drink the water, you're sunk and so is the country if you don't drink the water, which scott never really drank -- >> between the water and the kool-a kool-aid >> does the white house's priorities, reflecting the fact that tom price was installed in the job, was that a good fit for scott gottlieb who i should mention i went to college with, i didn't know he would have his current eminence

>> i've been trying to think about how would biotech stocks react. they love scott gottlieb, they perceive him as somebody who understands the issue and is looking to speed drugs to the market if he moves up and doesn't have that direct oversight -- >> he becomes hands off on that issue. >> faster, right, deregulator. fda is like glacial, right that's one of the problems drugs are out there, a million other countries have them and we don't have them because the fda bureaucrats won't move on it scott gottlieb, that's one of the first things he talked about. >> i assume he's one of the more prominent individuals who could take this position any other things you're hearing about him actually doing so at this point >> nothing yet we're trying to dig on that and will bring you any news we get on that. >> you know betsy mccoy?

brilliant health care analyst. >> that's your job >> i'm going to talk to betsy. i'm also going to talk to scott gottlieb, get him on the phone and hear the voice coming up, tonight you can catch carter worth on "fast money. we'll have more longel"csi bl" when we come right back after this ( ♪ ) whoo!

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welcome back with the big news this hour that tom price is out as hhs secretary we've examined this from a number of angles as well as his possible replacement, scott gottlieb how do you think this will ripple through the market? >> i don't think it's going to have an effect on the markets. it was an issue out there, seemingly dealt with in a relatively swift way i don't think you could go to any investors and say, before tom price, who was the hhs secretary. health care as a policy issue is on the back burner >> the previous administration simply just expanded everybody who had insurance. is there any broad change in direction with everything that's happened now >> absent action in congress, i don't think it could be that

broad, right it's a matter of, first of all, trying to find some way to plug the subsidies, that's the only front on which i see it being a market issue >> probably leaning even more on alexander to come up with a fix here have a great weekend that closes out the quarter here for "closing bell. "fast money" begins right now. see you on monday. "fast money" starts right now. live from the nasdaq market site overlooking new york city's times square, i'm melissa lee. to want on "fast," you listened to it right there on "closing bell," health and human services secretary tom price is out we'll tell you what it means for health care reform plus stop us if you've heard this before, but chip stocks are going wild micron, applied materials, intel surging this month one of our traders has a way to buy those names for less than a buck amazon streaming its first nfl game last ni