"squawk box" begins right now. live from new york where business never sleeps, this is "squawk box. good morning, everybody. welcome to "squawk box" on cnbc. we're live from the nasdaq market site in times square. i'm becky quick along with joe kernen and andrew ross sorkin who is back. made it in the snowstorm >> i made it in the snowstorm, which was crazy. >> welcome back. >> thank you, american airlines. >> mike santoli is with us as well he'll talk about the markets >> cigna did it. it's acquiring express scripts for $67 billion. >> whoa. >> the press release is out. >> this was expected, sort of. >> yeah. >> expected after i read that for me >> no.

no this has been in the conversation >> cash and stock. >> they had that cvs transaction. all of this is a function of whatever you think amazon is going to do or not do. >> that's really interesting the idea of a pharmacy benefits manager, those guys have been in the cross hairs for all of these issues most people will say the easiest way to cut healthcare costs is to go after the pharmacy benefits first, they are considered the middle men. cigna saying this will drive greater affordability and connectivity with customers and healthcare providers and should make healthcare simpler. you see this pressure on the insurance companies to try to find ways to beef up their margins, try to secure a better place for things >> it's obviously in that category, and the way to give a holistic view of coordinate care, that's the idea.

look for the cvs deal, the whole clinics push was going to be a big part of it. >> you can have a clinic in all of the cvss, you can use that as direct access to customers >> and chasing united health >> $48.75 in cash, $67 billion number you will see everywhere includes $15 billion worth of debt express scripts market cap was 41 before this >> 54 billion would be the true premium. >> 67 minus 15 -- 52 it's 11 billion premium. >> they're saying under the terms -- they say it's 54 billion in the aggregate between the cash and stock that's what they're calling shn

about 64% of the company the combined company will be led by david cordani tim wentworth will assume the role as president of express scripts. there will be 13 directors, four independent members of the express scripts board. the company will be named cigna. cigna's headquarters in broomfield, connecticut will be the combined company headquarters >> the real question is do these -- to the extent there are savings that get passed on to the consumer, or are we just increasing the margin for these guys what do regulators think of this they let the cvs/aetna deal go do they let this go? >> i think on what grounds do

you not. it's interesting the pharmacy benefit manager business model has been under fire in terms of drug pricing, the list price, the whole rebate system, the entire food chain for pharmaceuticals got under scrutiny now you're folded in with the insurer -- >> maybe there's some cover? >> you no longer have to say here's our business story, this is where our models come from. that stopped being a selling point for a while. >> with jpmorgan, berkshire hathaway and amazon teaming up, they say they can find margins everybody you talk to says look at the pharmacy benefits managers first >> at closing the combined company will make an incrementa investment of 2$200 million in its charitable contributions >> what is the per share amount?

>> this is like broadcom announcing yesterday that they will invest in r & d, we need to tell you this is how we plan to do it. >> maybe larry fink will look more kindly on the transaction as a result. >> mike, it is $48.75 a share in cash and 0.234 shares of the stock. >> i'm trying to see if it gets express scripts to an all-time high >> they say 54 billion in the aggregate for the terms of the deal >> so what's the high? >> 90. >> >> not where it's trading now. >> what's a 31% premium to 71? >> pretty close. the all-time high was in 2015. >> joining us now is ana gupte was do you think did you know this was happening?

>> the deal makes sense, i think. all of the other four coumpanie now are bringing things inhouse on their own or merging. humana always had their own, united has shown the way, aetna just did a deal with cvs, and anthem announced last fall that they would build out that being said i think it may surprise investors a little, not because the deal doesn't make sense but because cigna has been very vocal with investors that they're happy with their deal, outsourcing deal with optimum rx while many investors don't think cigna will do a large horizontal deal with humana, this deal surprised investors a little >> is anyone left?

are we finished now? everybody has their partner? >> looks like it's the last one, right? in the large cap mco land it's the last big deal here stand-alone pbms could have value to regional plans, maybe even the blue cross blue shields that are not for profit. no more large mcos left with deals to be made with pbms >> this is a question i ask out of ignorance i don't now. we've been talking about how the pharmacy benefits managers are the middlemen, we anticipated they would get squeezed when other companies look at ways to cut healthcare costs why buy a pharmacy benefits manager and bring it in-house? mike mentioned the idea maybe you could hide some of the margins so it's not quite as obvious to the street. is cigna paying a huge premium

to a company whose shares would come under pressure? >> we'll see i think cigna has to do something. vertical integration between managed care and b marms makes sense. there is more financial flexible, but it makes sense there a strategic perspective for the customers. managed care companies with alived with employ e ed aligned payers, the model is over. cigna on their own without a pbm would be at a disadvantage we'll have to see how the different elements of synergy work out and the timeline for them to integrate between pbms and managed care i don't think the deal will surprise investors cigna is sitting on a pile

deployable cash, over 10 billion, so as long as they can demonstrate it's creative in a short period of time >> any chance that regulators say no >> yeah. good question. so i think cigna we estimate is about 300 million scripts. express is 1.4 billion, they would become the largest there might be some divestiture, but it's not a horizontal managed care deal or a direct horizontal pbm deal. i would expect anti-trust trust scrutiny might be okay for them. >> does it just make it easier for these -- for cigna to make more money keeping drug prices

where they are is it possible that some of the drug prices -- is it possible some of the synergies or cost savings filter into the consumers themselves and prices moderate and go up in is it all about the companies oris there something here for consumers >> there needs to be something for consumers here i think as you say the pbm model is under threat from a regulatory, from a public relations perspective. there's about 25% to 30% of drug spend that is flowing through to the supply chains. united has been vocal that they're returning that to the employers. yesterday they also talked about sharing these drug rebates from the bio pharma industry with the consumer at the point of sale

for fully insured customers. i have to believe the other managed care companies and pbms will have to follow suit >> that's what i don't understand we'll take all these huge margins that have been in the pbms and give them back to the companies that are paying costs, give them back to the consumer so why pay a huge premium for that if all those savings will get passed on to other people? >> there are also synergies in terms of medical costs for the company. then they can offset what they return to the consumer in the form of medical cost savings i would expect savings clearly talking about medical cost savings, humana as well, aetna and cvs as well with clinical synchronization as they

call it, total cost of care. it's tied to the medical underwriting model, right now the way pbms make money is a spread off of the total drug spend that they administer which is not aligned at all with the customer granted the devil is in the details, so we'll have to see what cigna is saying about the financial aspects of this. he would be surprised if it's immediately in year one. by year two and three, i think it would be generally received favorably here >> ana, remember when there was speculation in the fall that amazon was going to buy a pbm? >> yes of course. >> that speculation now off the table? >> we don't know that it is. great question i think the funny thing is if amazon enters the pbm industry,

the speculation would be that amazon would buy express script and now express scripts is off the table. >> people were talking about express scripts as a takeover target for jeff bezos, not cigna originally >> it's a great question i would take another angle that -- and i don't think amazon wants to do this, it hasn't been spoken about, but have they ever wanted to enter the health insurance industry the target that would have made sense for them is cigna. it's in the self insured business and a mouthful that they can swallow if you have to go with the large caps neither of those entities are now available for amazon >> preemptively, ana, earmarking 200 million for charitable foundations and work in the communities where the two companies operate. i don't know that's not done on every merger,

is it? it's almost -- i don't know. >> it's nice but less than the banker's fee >> right >> is it out of the goodness of their heart or are they inc incurring favor with someone not a lot, i know, for these companies. i guess it's good. let's not be cynical >> it helps with the pr perspective. when you are trying to get a dig automobi big deal like that through >> i don't want to be cynical. i missed you >> you missed me >> i have. i've been taking up the slack to keep things -- >> thank you >> profit mongers. they won't notice if we give 200 million, but wait until we get this company, then we'll really be raking it in.

ana, thank you >> thank you very much >> quick notice, she doesn't have to prepare. >> no. she can rattle this stuff off. cigna's ceo david cordani will be on "squawk on the street" today at 9:30 a.m. eastern. back to the story we've been talking about for the last week, president trump is expected to sign tariff orders before the weekend. the white house confirming what wilbur ross told us yesterday that there could be carve-outs for specific countries eamon javers joins us with more. good morning the question is are we going to see an event today at the white house? there's been some reporting in some media outlets that the white house was expecting this event at noon or 3:30 today to sign and memorialize these tariffs which the president talked about last week the paperwork wasn't ready then. we were told yesterday it would be by the end of the week this

week despite the fact that white house officials said throughout the course of the past week that there would not be any exemptions to this, yesterday, as you say, wilbur ross first signaled it. and sarah huckabee sanders confirmed it from the white house podium >> the president will sign something by the end of the week there are potential carve-outs for mexico and canada based on national security and possibly other countries as well. >> the president getting pressure from his fellow republicans on capitol hill. as many as 107 house republicans sent a letter to the white house yesterday expressing deep conce concerns saying they supported the president's goals on trade but they would like targeted tariffs instead of across the board tariffs that would hurt everybody, and tailor the tariffs that don't hurt our allies around the world. that's a lot of pressure

the president feeling some of that inbound criticism of his tariff plan. the question is when will they make this announcement as of right now i can't tell you there's an event today it was in the media yesterday that the event was today, but we think that has been canceled the white house put out its official schedule last night and there was nothing on that about today. my sources have said by the end of the week, so we have tomorrow clearly there's been dramatic infighting inside the white house about this announcement. the question is which side will win out. >> we had people telling us yesterday that the president will be speaking on saturday in pittsburgh, they were looking at that address a time whs a time a

announcement could be made >> do you want the broad tariffs out there as a possibility before you go into the event so the president can have a campaign style weekend or do the proponents of tariffs want to lock it down as quickly as they can. >> i was watching that yesterday with sarah huckabee sanders. i like when she shuts people down and moves on. i don't know why i like that, since i'm supposedly on their side >> if she did it to you, you wouldn't like it >> i wouldn't be asking the questions that i'm hearing that's what i was going to ask you to try to educate some of your associates around there, they were badgering her to admit that the market was in chaos because of cohn. tumult, chaos. the dow was down 0.33% yesterday. >> we went down about 300 points and then ended up not anywhere near that.

>> last week it went down 400 points before carry cohn said a word it closed down 0.33% she didn't know how to answer it she's usually pretty good. she said the president takes the long view. i would said it's done on a percentage basis less than 1%. just try to educate. >> any time it goes up -- >> i know. >> and i would have said -- >> it's called the trump rally any time it goes down, it's the natural effects of something >> do you think that's necessary to add that when it's 80 points down >> the markets rallied on her comments that there would be carve-outs >> it already rallied before that and had gone back down before any comments. >> i think mike made a good point yesterday. >> oscillating around. >> within a 1.5 percentage point gain or loss that's not -- you know, like i

said yesterday, if i leave cnbc, i hope i get more than 0.33 move in comcast stock >> i hope you don't leave cnbc >> i'm not going to, but if carry cohn was counting on have the market caring that he was gone, it didn't happen >> here's the other thing. mike made this point yesterday if gary cohn had left before the tax cut bill had been passed, it would have been a different story. he was really carrying that on his shoulders, now the market looks at gary cohn and says what will he accomplish this year any way? the infrastructure bill is not moving welfare reform is not going anywhere what was left for gary cohn to do in the administration any way? the answer is not much if the market looks at gary cohn departing as saying we're not really losing anything before the tax cuts, they would have been losing something and the reaction would have been different. >> i heard sarah sanders called

him a globalist, too and people have a problem with that these crazy websites >> yeah. >> don't use that. try to come up with another word counting down to tomorrow's employment report. joining us now with a look at the economy and potential market response is joe lavorgne chief myself for the americas at netixis. you were rattled you were white as a ghost. >> yeah. >> did you think about anything else yesterday >> the market was down yesterday because of adp better than expected and the fears of interest rates whichwhich has dn the move no volatility there's four governorships not there, the prospects of rates rising causing volatility

it's not about gary cohn leaving. it's fundamental >> the original 300 and 400 point moves were based on powell body language meaning maybe we do four, maybe more. bullard came on here on a friday and the market was up 400 points it's all built around the interest rates >> built around the interest rates and michael can probably confirm this if you look at the economic cycles, as you move through a period of fed tightening, the business cycle, whether it continues remains to be seen it's a normal cyclical occurrence 50-year low on volatility. now we're getting vol timity and t volatility and trying to ascribe it, and gary cohn leaving is not the factor >> have you ever thought the tariff announcements could somehow, connecting all the dots, lead to a couple of basis

points cut off global growth >> everybody has worked themselves into a frenzy over the tariff aspect of it. some good friends of mine and some people i know well who are bright about this. it seems what president trump has done is leading and macing he goes to one end, dials it back it seems the tariff situation was done as a way to take a stand, use it as a negotiation point. what we're seeing now is it being walked back. maybe because of people getting upset about it my guess is a lot of this stuff is intentional, it's a creative way to negotiate and see if it works. nobody thinks trade wars are good this is more about politics not economics, which is why i find economists who get up an rail about tariffs and how bad they are, we all know that. in terms of a trade war, my guess is the probabilities of that are low >> what will we see tomorrow you said adp was strong.

the atlanta fed started at 5% plus now down -- still at 2.7 >> 2.5 >> i call it elevator economics. >> what do you think it will be? >> probably -- liesman did a great job a year or so ago talking about -- >> still has problems. >> it still has problems the bureau of economic analysis never admitted there was a problem. i would say low twos >> low twos. then recovery and three plus >> three plus. >> the year looks good. >> the year at three >> because of the repatriation, that will give a big lift. >> what if we don't sell motorcycle there's germany >> i don't know. i can't talk to that i don't know >> 2.99. >> that's a good resolution for you. thank you. >> thank you nice tie

>> thank you coming up, when we return, we'll talk about the impact of tariffs on steel in china eunice yoon toured a factory that was closed down, she talked to employees there and then got a police escort out of town. we'll talk to her about that when we return what's critical thinking like? a basketball costs $14. what's team spirit worth? (cheers) what's it worth to talk to your mom? what's the value of a walk in the woods? the value of capital is to create, not just wealth, but things that matter. morgan stanley

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the trump administration cracking down on cheap chinese steen. eunice yoon visited the heart of steel country in china and went on quite an adventure. she joins live this morning. what happened? >> thanks. just this week the chinese premiere said that china has cut and would continue to reduce steel capacity so we went to a prominent industrial town to find out for ourselves. this steel mill used to be at the center of life in this tow in northern china. now it's a relic of its past as the country attempts to clean up the environment and reduce capacity we're in baoding, about a

three-hour drive from beijing. the government here declared this city steel-free back in november when the authorities visited a steel mill behind me, the last one in this town and determined it had been officially shut down in its heyday, baoding had eight steel mills contributing to the country's status as the world's largest steel producer, yet china has come under criticism for flooding global markets with cheap steel, pressuring steelmakers in other countries like the u.s the steel company has been all gated up and there's no activity the capacity has been shifted to a firm south of the country. that's why so many trading partners are frustrated with the chinese. beijing may be reducing capacity here, but it's moving it elsewhere. this man worked 14 years at the plant, now he's jobless. i've been speaking to some former steel workers, they say they have not been happy with the compensation in fact many of them blocked the road to the steel mill once they heard what they would get. $800 for every year employed a big reason why china may never close steel plants as

quickly as president trump wants. and the issue of closing steel mills is highly sensitive in china. as evidence of this, we were taken away by the police, harassed when we were reporting. a lot of that is despite the fact that the authorities there were very proud of the fact that this was a steel-free town they still took us to the police station, checked our credentials, acknowledged we were allowed to be there and escorted us all the way out of town >> does that happen often, eunice >> it does especially in steel towns. as a reporter, whenever you're going to a steel town, because the issue of overcapacity has become so sensitive, you have to brace yourself and be careful to which town you go to it is so sensitive a lot of that is because the authorities are just paranoid of the idea that anybody outside of

china would see public disagreement with government policy so once you start talking to workers, you get their story about how they're disgruntled, they don't get enough severance pay, there is no vafity n itysa help them, a lot of time workers are still older and don't have other forms of employment >> are you still on air? >> you tell me they keep censoring me over there. >> are you on? >> yes, i am yes. i am there's a one-minute delay so i don't know for sure, but i think so i can see myself >> president xi, tiananmen square >> they were also censoring

guests on and off talking about the national peoples congress or the idea of president xi having a third term or staying in for life >> are you still on now? >> no. we just went out no i don't know what you said did yousay something about tiananmen square >> yes, we're out. >> they see me and -- >> the whole conversation now is out. good job >> i can't go there. >> i don't want to put eunice in a bad position i'm getting worried. thank you. >> it's okay i have a press card. i'm allowed to be here but the conversation is completely blacked out now >> how do you know about china, jim? he goes i'm not going over there. >> can't blame him >> eunice, thank you we'll leave so you can go back on air there >> they took us off. >> yeah. >> the "t" word. >> when we come back, exxonmobil unveiling an aggressive growth plan to double earnings by 2025.

we have an interview with darren woods after this right now as we head to break, a look at yesterday's s&p 500 winners and losers mvo: we had support from the interfaith groups, the synagogue, the churches. ♪ when disaster strikes to one, we all get together and support each other. that's the nature of humanity. ♪ i'll stand by you. ♪ i'll stand by you. ♪ and i'll never desert you. ♪ i'll stand by you.

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♪ welcome back you're watching "squawk box" live from the nasdaq market site in times square. good morning

welcome back to "squawk box" on cnbc u.s. equity futures at this hour after what was a roller coaster of a ride yesterday in the markets. the dow looking like it would open down, off about 20 points nasdaq opening up 20 points in the green. s&p 500 off marginally. exxonmobil announced an aggressive forecast to more than double the company's earnings by the year 2025. darren woods who is exxon's chairman and ceo joined me yesterday fresh off his comments to the analyst community >> one of the things we started working on several years ago was finding a set of opportunities where we could fully leverage the advantages the corporation has built up over decades. we reviewed a plan that translated those advantaged into real advantaged investments across each one of our businesses, our downstream, upstream and chemical business >> this is the first time exxon has given such a long-range

forecast you're talking about being able to see out seven years and anticipating what will happen over that time why this new strategy? >> i think we made clear as part of the analyst discussions, we're not trying to forecast over that time period, what we're trying to do with that view of our business is reflect the potential. when we presented those earnings, we presented them over a range of price scenarios to demonstrate that the investment opportunities we have are robust to a wide range of prices. where prices end up going and how those earnings manifest themselves will be a function of the market >> those numbers we've been talking about, that's assuming oil prices stay at current levels or higher what makes you think or how confident are you in the assumption that we can look at oil prices at $60? you just you can't make promi promises >> what that doubling on a flat

price earnings environment was last year. you take a flat price environment, no help from the market, what do the earnings look like? so we tried to demonstrate the potent sham earning ial earning business we also shared with the analyst what that their yo looks like in a $40 lower for longer environment. even in that low price environment we still grow earnings by 35%. >> however if you look at the stock, the shares were down more than 3% the last i just looked you're now talking about exxon shares trading at the lowest level since the middle of 2015 what happened? >> i think we laid out a plan through 2025 with a something can't number of investments across a number of sectors, all three sectors. we gave the analysts a lot to digest more detail than i think historically we shared with them i think as well we're moving counter to some of our peers out

there who are looking to reduce their capital expenditure profile. we're looking to grow our profile and looking to grow because of the richness of the opportunities we have. what i shared with the analysts, if you look across our three businesses, we have the richest set of investment opportunities we've seen in the company since exxon and mobile >> chevron is up by 16%. royal dutch, its shares are up by 40% over the last five years. that's in a period of time where you're trading today at the lowest level in those five years. do you think the street's reaction today is concern or disappointment that you will be investing so much back and it will take longer for them to see the fruits of those investments? >> what we talked about with the analysts is this was the beginning of a process of engagement across the year to spend time to help them understand how those investments across our three world class businesses will translate to higher earnings, better returns

on capital employment. today for mature businesses like ourselves, a commodity business, for us to grow earnings, the bay wis we' basis we're putting out there is a powerful growth story and a pretty powerful shareholder value story. >> in the analyst meeting you talked about the dividend. that's something people have been watching closely. i believe you said if oil remains at $60 or higher you would expect the dividend to grow by 3% to 5% is that correct? >> what i shared with analysts is last year's increase of 3% and historical increase of 7% to 8% i told them in the near-term i would expect for us to in between those two ranges as we go forward we will hear more from darren woods later this morning, including his thoughts on the proposed steel tariffs we'll talk more about that speaking of those tariffs, coming up the ceo of fashion

brand nicole miller is never shy about speaking his mind. bud konheim tells us why he likes trump's tax cuts but hates the tariffs. and kroger is set to report. ceo mike schlotman will join us. and the impact of the aluminum tariff on businesses tom long will join us at 8:30 a.m. eastern stay tuned you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc gglobal bonds, and high-dividend strategies. sure, these are investments. but they're not what people really invest in. what people really invest in, is what they hope to get out of life. but helping them get there takes a pure focus. because when you invest their money without distraction, hidden agenda or competing interests, something wonderful can happen. they might just get what they want out of life,

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time for the executive edge. travis kalanick announcing he has a comeback he is tweeting he's creating a new fund called ten one hundred that will tackle large scale job creation in china and india. the fund will focus on investments in real estate, eshg commerce and innovation and include a not for profit component. the fund believed to be named after the address of kalanick's

childhood home a lot of people thought it had to do with google. ten one hundred is some kind of math that the cal somethiematicg >> ten with one hundred zeros? >> he made 1$1.4 billion with th sale to softbank >> let's talk about the wall street agenda the european central bank will announce its rate decision around 7:45 a.m. eastern time that will be followed by mario draghi's news conference at 8:30 along with a quarterly update of economic projections at 8:30 eastern time, weekly jobless claims on the earnings front, del dell technologies, kroger. and el poll loco after the

close. >> after we rern, moturn, more deal of the morning, cigna buying express scripts we'll talk to an analyst about what it all means. disrupting the market for renters, lemonade is geared towards millennials and is backed by some big names, including softbank lemonade's ceo joining us after t'chbreak. les eck european markets right now. stay with me, mr. parker. when a critical patient is far from the hospital, the hospital must come to the patient. stay with me, mr. parker. the at&t network is helping first responders connect with medical teams in near real time... stay with me, mr. parker. ...saving time when it matters most.

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welcome back to "squawk box" the company is called lemonade, it's an attempt to reinvent homeown homeowner's insurance, the company recently received $120 million in funding from, yes, soft bank. who else joining us is the ceo and co-foirndf of lemonade >> explain how this works, ai does everything the humans were doing in terms of under writing

the insurance? >> it does a bunch of stuff. go to the app, if you spend more than 90 seconds, it's a friendly chat and answer a couple questions and you are done >> does no human being review what the bot decided >> humans come in where paid claims, they are paid algorythmicically within three seconds of submission. literally a chat intox ai jim, i got my laptop stolen, this, that, the other. in a third of the cases the money is in your account within three seconds. >> without proof >> yes, depending on the nature of the claim it will ask you stuff. >> i don't want to suggest your customers gain your ai, but what kind of claim would the ai

president is bop explain >> your laptop, your camera, the bike, that stuff the ai will pay those within three second. if the house was burned to the ground or you are sued by your neighbor, that's obviously more protracted in terms of not just about ai, our company is built on social sciences, behavioral economics one of the issues with insurance and people gain insurance is they feel it's an uneven playing feel if i make a claim for a thousand dollars, they refuse that, they're a thousand dollars richer i'm a thousand poorer. we fight lemonade built in an internal business model we built it as a few kind of insurance company, where we take a flat fee, if there is money left over at the end of the year, it goes to a charity of your choosing, rather than by us >> it's still binary whetheryo will pay out the full amount or fought right. if i lose my laptop or there is

a fire in my apartment, now i got to live in a hotel you decide which hotel i will live in. there is a lynnary choice. >> there absolutely is however, our thought pres processes are bin earary, we think of it confrontational or different in nature. if you make a claim of lemonade, we remind you remember unclaimant money is going to the local soup kitchen that you designated as your give-back cause, you might embellish your claims less. with me, if we have no interest to deny your claim we won't pocket it anyway, we may behave differently this creates a system that brings our the best in humanity, oftentimes, in this day and age it brings out the worst. >> can you see yourselves expanding to cars, for example

>> sequoia, others have invested as well, our choice is to become a new global brand of insurance companies. 10% of the fortune 500 are insurance companies that have been around for 100 years. other same brands will dominate the next 100 years we think not we think there is a change of the guard coming >> how do you agroo choir customers? >> everything is done dinl tale. there was a report social is providing ability 17 times more traffic to us than it does to our competitors, now tralizing interest, affordable >> because people are on twitter? >> that's advertising on these places >> nobody likes tweeting about insurance unless it's about saving money, doing good, social impact. >> what's the age and mark place, meaning how high in the stack do you go? >> today is a good day to mention that, 51% of our

customers are women. actually our conversion rate for women is better than men, which is remarkable if insurance contact. it's usually very much mail male skewed, 25 i 35% of our customers are under 35, for young commerce they can save 70%. pretty dramatic savings? warren buffet, if you are watching, guy ceicgeico, this me the next acquisition target. >> mike santelli, thanks, for being here again and with us all week when we come back, you can get your portfolio ready, how it could impact the fed and the marks next later, former miller ceo tom long will join us to talk about the impact "squawk box" will be right back. we have a question about your brokerage fees. fees? what did you have in mind? i don't know. $4.95 per trade?

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wall street in wait-and-see mode as investors eye more details on president trump's tariff plan, meanwhile, china and europe are firing back the details are straight ahead. exxonmobile's chief on the tough tariff talk. >> i think the talk and the tariff takes us in opposite direction and makes us less competitive. >> more or our exclusive interview is minutes away. >> the cyber security klet is growing. what corporate boards should know about protecting their companies and provide years. the ceo joins us as the second hour of "squawk box" begins right now.

[ music playing >> live from the beating heart of business, new york city this is "squawk box. good morning, welcome back to "squawk box," right here on cnbc, time's square, along with beckty quick and joe kernon. we were in the red on the dow, we are in the green. nasdaq looking to open about 24 points higher, the s&p 500 looking to open two points higher health insurer cigna officially buying express skrimts it does include the assumption of about $15 billion of debt david core tan my will be joining us to talk about it. this will make waves in the health care industry and in washington and elsewhere today. >> maybe not hugely surprising they know they have to team up

to find the figure and we seen a lot in the industry the one question is the pharmacy benefits manager, many said this is where you will see a focus on trying to reign in costs any time you talk about employers, like j.p. morgan, berke hire hathaway, they point to bbms, saying that's an easy way to do it it's middlemen an analyst said it's more complex than that. aside from drug costs, there are some other medical savings that might work with this. >> the other complication, if you buy the pbm, you have to make sure it has some level of margin >> right >> you can't take it out of commission. >> you can't take it and hand it all the way to your customers, to the businesses or consumers on that end. ana gupte who we spoke to earlier said this makes sense. >> it was a speculatetive

takeover, not amazon, when people said amazon was going to get into this, this deal are somehow a defence move against an expectation that an amazon company like a wal-mart gets into this. >> a lot of changes, we'll talk much more about this later this morning. right now, we want to get to washington we are getting news on when president trump officially moves tariffs. eamon javers joins us with that one. >> we continue to follow the bouncing ball. we are not expecting a tariff announcement today >> that could change this has been a moving target we were told the president was not envisioning carveouts for countries or sectors last week but then yesterday the white house publicly changed course

and then in the afternoon sarah huckaby sanders confirmed they were expecting to carve out some exemptions for canada and mex o mexico, heres how she described late afternoon yesterday >> the president has been clear he wants to address the trade imbalances and unfair practices. as of right now we are moving fully ahead and anything that would change would be done so on a national security basis. >> so sarah huckaby sanders saying the white house would consider anything in trade imbalances, as of yesterday everyone afternoon, they will move full ahead with tariffs they said any could have beenouts will have to be done on a national security basis. that was the administration's thinking as of late yesterday

afternoon. also happening yesterday, the president getting pressure from house republicans, 107 of them sending a letter to the president expressing their deep concern about broad-based tariffs being applied across the board. they said they supported the president's trade measures generally but one that targeted tariffs, not broad based tariffs, not to hurt friends and allies in the course of applying all these tariffs the president is coming under enormous pressure from his own party. he is coming under pressure from people inside the white house who disagree we this decision. now we are seeing something similar to last week, where we had the tariff event, on the schedule, off the schedule on camera, not on camera the president made the announcement in front of the cameras. we were off to the races something similar could happen today or tomorrow. we will have to keep an eye on

it >> initially carveouts were talked about in terms of nafta that's what changed the talk. >> yeah. >> so initially, we were told no carve joao, if you have them for one country. they will dump in another country. >> unless you make concessions >> right that was the next explanation in the course of the nafta negotiation, we can put canada and mexico in there in terms of steel and alluminum, therefore they can work out separately then yesterday sarah huckaby sanders did not mention that, she mentioned national security. so the explanation for what will be curved out here has been changing and the idea of carveouts seems to be gaining steam as this pressure comes under way. >> that took away the rational the idea was to get nafta moving because we were seeing lack of

movement so do the tests and say if you play ball here, we'll negotiate. now that's not happening there was a method to that madness, now that's gone, now it's national security >> the fascinating thing is gary cohn opposes these tariffs he has been trying to water them down to something smaller. he's thil still there, it's unclear what role he is playing. once you announce you are leaving, your influence eliminates clearly john kelly, where does he stand on all this? i am told he tends to side with fare cohn on tariff issues and there is a sense john kelly is a skeptic of this idea of using national security as an explanation for why you are doing this, if you do it for policy reasons, don't say it's national security if it's not really about national security, so the chief of staff may be

playing a role here, too, all this is fairly scrutable we are trying to figure it out on the record and off the record my sources said consistently, we will have a tariff announcement and they have been unable or unwilling to pin it down >> all right thank you. >> you bet. talk about how the markets are digesting the softer talk about tar rifls, joining us is the senior portfolio manager at morgan stanley and i want to talk to you, you are saying interesting things corrections a lot of times look like ws. so we had the 12% him we had a move back to down to just 4% and a move back down him is it really that easy to forecast these things this would be a classic-type correction then is this. >> that's right. it's human behavior. the best side of the w happens

too quickly for people to react. you get a rally and the slow bleed on the right side. that's when people get worried and scared and sell. >> that usually marks the low. usually that comes around this time pointed at 30 days after the first sell-off and so we're going to have that retest. it should be now, you know, i don't think it's going to happen much more. we have to see >> so we might be in it. then you don't think we have another correction until the summer or fall >> exactly. >> march and april are pretty positive in. >> second half of march is a time portfolio managers by what's working april is one of the best months of the year combined and i think we're setting up for a geared. it doesn't mean there won't be other corrections along the way. i don't think it will be in the

coming weeks >> and you think the care or whatever you want to call it -- >> it's the story line you are right, nothing changes here you throw out something outlandish, you negotiate back to what you want how many times have we seen this the only thing that's so consistent the president did what he said he will do. he's gone after tax reform, tariffs. maybe we should focus on the next thing he said he will go after. >> right yeah it seems to happen all right so where do you come down on any of this joe bell i know you do a lot of technical stuff at shafrs, too s. this a typical correction that we're in when we are looking at higher prices over the next couple months for stocks? >> you mentioned seasonality the strongest periods and

interesting the pullback in february bigger picture perspective, obviously, you take a step pack, interestingly enough, we talk about that w pattern and retesting those lows, when you kind of look beneath the service, the individual sectors, some did retest their lows you had financials and technology, they kept the market from retesting the lows. underneath the surface, we saw some one to 2% or retesting them i think it's a normal corrective phase and historically, these types of phases in the context of the longer uptrend, they resolve to the upside. >> in your view, do we get to the old highs or do we get through those? >> well, i would say if you lean on history, you will say it will eventually break out the new highs. i say that we entered february,

maybe we were overcooked on the september imt we had that 10 to 1512% pullback that everyone seemed to be begging for when it would happen we had a positive streak the highest entering february. when we break those strikes, you would think that's the end of a major market top it takes a breather and breaks afternoon highs. >> we will get back to andrew. has that river started going down yet behind you? >> i hope so it's warm out here. >> that was flood stage for a while, wasn't it >> yes we had a lot of rain a lot of rain >> no, i'm talking cincinnati, not you. where are you at in. >> in chicago. >> in cincinnati the river it's starting to -- they had some roads closed over in anderson on the east side there. some of our co-workers had trouble getting into work. >> where are you at? are you in couple, really or is that a shop?

>> no, i think it's a shop we are not live. we are downtown cincinnati in studio. >> it's the other side of the river where you are. all right. good anders, do we get through those old highs? >> yeah the thing you got to watch the underlying story is the estimate continue to move higher i find it fascinating, a lot of analysts in january they came out and raised their numbers him but the numbers continue to rise so that's pretty good. i think the other thing will happen here is when we have first quarter earnings reports, a lot of companies are going to tell wall street what they're going to do with the cash, extra cash, cash or patriation i think that's further going to boost earnings numbers, so, yeah i think that this is the stills are going up and i've always said, follow the numbers and the numbers are looking good >> you got to ask joe a question >> i don't, that's andrew and

joe, that's right. i didn't think about that that's true >> it's so good. >> you could ask them, you know. >> it's so good, joseph. >> thanks. >> did you ever go by joseph or andy >> that is my full name, nobody has ever called me that. >> what is your middle name, andrew >> my hovey. my mother's maiden name. >> like ross, andrew ross, andrew hovey just a thought >> there you go. >> all right, good >> i like ross for being on air better >> you are right the one syllable thing is better i think. all right, gentleman >> thanks. coming up, when we return the ceo of exxonmobile, what it will mean for the industry, plus a closer look at oil prices,

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all right, welcome back, everybody. we heard from exxon's ceo about their bold growth plans and they are translating all that bullishness to the community i spoke to the chairman darren woods on exxonmobile's business as well. here's what he had to say. >> the corporate america has been focused on talk out of the white house about tariffs for imported steel here in the united states. i'm wondering what that would mean for your oil refinery expansion. is that something you have been crunching the numbers on smr we announced last march our $20 billion investment in the gulf coast after the tax reform came out, we talked about $50 billion investment here in the u.s all those investments were facilitated or enhanced be i the deregulation and lowering of the tax rates.

i think positive steps to make our businesses more competitive. i think the talk and the tariff was yet to be defined. actually takes us back the opposite direction and makes the investments less competitive. >> does that mean you would be changing your plans for capital expenditure? >> at this point i don't see us doing that the way we look at it, our of investments have to be ro bust to a variety of potential variables and changes so we as i talked with the analysts today, we make sure when we progress a investment opportunity that it is very ro bust and has a competitive advantage against the market out there so i think that will take that i don't think enough to change some of the decisions we are making there >> sarah sanders saying these are her words, we expect the president to sign something by the end of the week on those tariffs. there are potential carveouts on canada based on national security and others on that process. that's a different message we

have been hearing to this point. >> that make you think more positively about all this? >> i'm keeping an open mind. i will see how that development once we are clear what the actual policy is, we'll assess the impact of it >> okay. we want to continue to assess the impact again, capital, you just listen to him you agree disagree >> i think there is certainly a lack of visibility as to what will happen here and whether these exemptions come along. it's hard to calculate at this point what the price impact of the kofth will be to a company like exxonmobile is it material or not? just like is it only going to be 66 cents for a pack of bud, if it's more than that it's an issue. >> you have to be a betting man giving what you do for a living. which side of that trade are you take something >> that there will be exemptions

and everything that they want to grow terrifically won't get hurt >> is this a broader push, when have you 107members of congres saying can we be a little more targeted, they're worried about agriculture, machinery production all kind of things. >> then the whole things becomes a swiss cheese situation of exemptions you are talking about exempting countries. >> from my piece of the world and given the trump administration being energy dominant they may pick winners and unusual. this is an unusual stance for the party to take and the president leading that that's why the marks are up and down and oil, too, oil prices have been schizophrenic. >> is that why they were down? >> the positive correlation has gone through the roof. >> what kind of math have you done, maybe not math, but calculation are you thinking about in terms of if it does

become a swiss cheese of exemptions for different countries, whether that will ultimately stand long term given all of us has to come under the umbrella of national defence and it gets very complicated, very quickly, depending if you choose these winners and losers >> i don't think there is high conviction towards pushing this to the brink, again i believe in terms of energy, the industry will escape. you are probably the most, the least touched by this at the end of the day within they figure it all out. the devil will be in the details. i don't think the trump administration is going to want to see exxonmobile or the other big companies, who have announced so much and have done so much in getting the.com access pipeline on, for xample it's gone from cushing, oklahoma to memphis a lot has happened already in this one year's time we're already at 10.4 million barrels of production. >> mind you, a lot of the steel that's used for some of those

pipe lines not made here but made in canada >> correct which i think again gives the, you know, if they're already talking exemptions for our key allies, it makes a lot of sense that energy, exxonmobile should skate. >> we will look into that. by the way, where do you think oil is at the end of the year? >> end of the year in not too far, i will say low 50s. >> low 50s >> absolutely, they're working harold at it, though they don't miss a chance to talk up the market him we love them for it >> we have info for you. 10, 100. >> just to contextualize, this is the name. >> our producer would know >> i'm on a ten 100 whichly do now.

it's five minutes after the break. >> i don't know if that's what he means >> it's also google ten, 100 >> that's the address. >> did you know that's more particles than in the known uniforms of google gogal. >> not le. >> greco >> i have to go. the ten 100 is in assistant monic monica >> okay. on what street >> well i don't think if queer e we're giving that away >> he's giving that away, not us >> stocks to watch lots ahead in the open plus this morning's stop stories from washington and wall street and we will talk about the ceo of cloud strike. "squawk box" will be right back "squawk box" will be right back and i'm 10-100.

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higher back in a moment

welcome back to "squawk box. good morning we're right here live at the nasdaq market, time's square, the big headline, health insurer cigna buying express skrirnlths including the assumption of $15 billion in debt. we'll show you what is going on with those shares, express scripts, this has been spec lapted for quite some time people thought amazon would take it out in the fall signature that does it now on the heels of the aetna deal so many questions jamie dimeen, warren if you have et teaming up as well. cigna ceo will be joining the gang on "squawk on the street" to talk about the transaction this morning also the rice of bitcoin falling

again the u.s. securities and exchange commission says it will require them to register with the agency the agency and sec says if a platform offers and operates as an exchange, it must register the price dropping after that announcement we are also un$10,000. hong kong called finance suspended withdrawals as trading irregularities later said it was separateing a large scale fishing and scaling event. take a look at u.s. equities, we are o in the green nasdaq looking to open higher and the s&p closing six points higher right now >> what do you think are activists investors closing the gap? >> we took a look at those in honor of international women's day. women, of course, are making

strides in corporate america they still represent a paltry proportion of the c sweet. 5.2% of the ceos are women, where is they make up 25% of total employees, who ill the proportion doubled, turn overis still high on average women spent a little more than four years as ceo in 2017 >> that compares with 7.4 years for men, almost double the ten year a key hurdle for women appears to be activist investors there have been -- there is a new study done that women ceos were about 50% more likely to be targeted by activists, they control for size, profitability, lever annual and competition, in other words, activists had to single out women-led component even if they are performing just as well. this adds to previous research,

which finds women tend to take on ceo rolls during the crisis, this is known as the glass cliff. >> that can attract activist investors which tend to target companies under valued and under performing an anal says found almost a quarter of women who have ever atenned a ceo roll in the last five years have been publicly targeted by activists. new, the more public criticism against women ceos, the worse it boths for the rest of their recent pierce, at least according to that recent study. >> i read about this three or four years ago in a column, i remember these guys calling up, screaming at me. they said it's not about the women. it's about the company but i think to some degree the question is whether it really is

about the fact that it's run by a female, there is a feeling somehow they will get onto the board more quickly or push it around >> is it batter? >> the company already is issued >> that's what i found so interesting about this published in february is the idea they did control for things like the performance of the company and the lever annual that the company is taking in, the profitability metrix of the company. they said even when you take apples to apples companies run by a woman and a man, the apples disproportionately target the women, that would imply that there is an actual bias in the targeting by these investors >> i have gone round and round with this, too when you go on the days by case basis, you see the guy that's a bully, there are so few companies run by women, it's hard to think that it's a

scientific base study when you deal with the small numbers. >> what are we down to in. >> 5.2% of the s&p 500 has a ceo as a women, which has doubled in the last decade, still a tiny number >> wow, thank you. >> thank you >> great story, it's fascinating. by the way, here's one final question do you think activists knowing this will decide not to because of these stories >> i have to wonder, because you wrote that column in 2015. so it's been a long time since you brought this issue to the forefront. we've seen countless examples of companies, avon, for example, she stepped down the month from her ceo role after being targeted by an activist. it doesn't appear even knowing

this is a potential bias investors have had, that they've really changed their ammo since then >> interesting >> leslie, thank you >> for more on wall street's reaction to the white house and the stories in the news, let's go to scott sperling, the co-president of tlh partners, scott, thank you for being here today. >> you are welcome from the winter wonderland of boston >> a lot here, snowy today coming in. scott, i want to talk to you about what you think with some of the trade and tariffs issues. first we have this big news today that cigna is buying one of the big pharmacy benefits managers, express scripts. i know you are pretty active in some of these issues you are the chairman of the board at partners health care in women's hospital so you know a lot about what happens in this arena, how do you read this from an mna perspective, wall street perfect

e spe perspective. how do you read it from the health care as well? >> everyone is looking for ways to providing the costs of health care when you look at all the element, obviously the costs of pharmaceuticals the drugles as one of the major elements there. if you are a health insurer, there was an attempt in the last 24 months to do horizontal mergers, bringing together health insurers to try to get more scale and therefore more bargaining power him i think the very fact of trying to get bargaining power caused the government to block the two significant mergers that were proposed so now you are looking at a set of vertical mergers where the health insurers and the other players in the particularly the chain of pharmaceuticals, whether it's a cvs buying aetna or you are looking at walgreens foods, you are trying -- seeing a whole set of these vertical mergers now looking for ways to

take incremental costs out of the crane i cheney of total medical expense. >> does this particular deal make sense to you? the scripts by cigna >> well, express scripts has -- had been dealt a blow when anthem, who is their largest customer, launched their own pharmacy benefits company pbm and said that they would terminate their agreement when the current contract expired so express scripts was under some level of pressure in any event and, when you look at the benefit of merging again on a vertical basis pbm with an insurer, it probably does make sense to take administrative costs at least out of the system the administrator is trying to get more control of the total medical expense, which is the

cost of the drug component >> right let's shift gears. i'm going to use to you cover a variety of topics today. let's talk about what we have been hearing from the trade front and the white house, these tariffs we expect to be signed today have been put off at least at this point. there has been a lot of back and forth, 107 people in the house sending a letter saying can we find a more targeted way of doing this obviously, there is a lot of push and pull, what would you like to see? >> yes, so i think turning this into a much more targeted approach makes infinite sense, the broad-based tariff that was likely to more adversely affect some of our good trading partners than the ones that have been playing less fairly like china would have been the twins of this particular approach. one of the things i think we have to guard against is not giving back all of the benefits

that the new tax legislation has provided to the economy and to the citizens of this country one of the things that wall street is most concerned about is inflation and the ticks of the tenths of a percentage point in incremental inflation raises the spectre of more and more significant fed rate increase on the interest rate side. wall street reacted negatively to that for obvious reasons. if you look at the potential impact of this particular tariff as originally proposed, it would likely have some inflationary pressure what the magnitude of that is we request arg can arguant. given the sensitivity, you can see the park reacting very negatively it also would be in many ways a

tax on the very individuals consumers who just received the benefit of what i think is a very fine tax plan that was passed by congress. >> scott, while you have been speaking, the president taking the option side of that issue just on twitter this morning, he is up and atom he is looking forward to 3:30 p.m. at the white house. we have to protect our steel and alluminum industry showing a great flexible towards those who are our real friends and treat us fairly on trade in the military. >> that sounds like carveouts. 3:30, that the meeting to tell -- or is there a meeting >> i am going to hope thatthe operative phrase is the great flexibility and cooperation phrase >> that's new. that itself the first we heard that directly from the president. wilbur ross said that, sarah sanders said that later in the day. it sound like it's been building

up a coordinated effort that there will be exemptions to this >> so no doubt there are play, out there when you do business in chosen you play by a different set of rules and regulations much more restrictive for us-based companies and western companies and for chinese companies and those are things that should be addressed. the protection of intellectual properties is an important one we are all aware of that needs to be dealt with so approaching trade and the way that we do business with other countries in a way that may be different than we've done over the last deck they had is an important element of what the administration should be doing however need to be very, very careful. i suspect the right way of doing it is to have very symmetrical sets of rules, not to have these broad-based tariffs. >> scott i know you can often not comment

on the portfolio one of those companies is in the news today, uni56, news that ceo randy falco is going to be retiring at the end of the year. a lot of people have questions of what happened this is a company that we have been thinking was getting prepared for an ipo since about 20 veevenl what's the next step? >> so randy has been superb ceo and partner for a long time. we want to chem e keep him as much as possible but randy has been in the business for a very long time. he has made it known to us he wanted to retire no longer than the end of '18 so we have been working with him on that. >> i know, there is something very complicated about this story. i know they were pushing back on it last night into the "wall street journal". >> yep >> he just signed a new contract to say between 2020.

what happened between that deal and now? >> i think a couple things have changed. one of the things that changed is we decided not to take the company public at this point i do think when you clearly look at the legacy media industrier, the nature of scale has hang changed. the fact that box kneeled further consolidation i days ago i think is an indication of how the legacy media business needs to be evolved. so as we look at a company that is not in the foreseeable future going to be going public and as randy looked at you know his combination of his age and what he wanted to do with his family, you know, it aim pretty clear that over the course of owe the last two months -- >> should we expect him to sell over the next 12 to 18 months? it's fascinating univision used to have a clear lock on the business telemundo owned by universal and

comcast has really speed up over the past couple years and is now in certain cases now beating univision in prime time. >> yeah, so univision when you look at its network still accounts in the last sweeps, 67, 68% of all the spanish speaking market so it still has a very strong market share there univision as a strategic matter did create new networks that takes away when you look at the purely just the core univision network vs. telemun the. a large part of that has been people going to the other networks that univision owns an creates, whiching a gre gates up to that 67, 68% market share for univision. >> could we see a deal in skoefr it was recorded that discovery offered 14 billion last year

>> again, there are few assets with the markets that univision has in an industry that will have very significant continued consolidation. >> i want to thank you for covering the gambit today. we really appreciate it. hope to see you soon by the way the ecb leaving rates unchanged. >> coming up, hacking america. the crowd strike global threat wort is out. we'll tell you what the number one targeted sector is and what corporate boards should be doing to protect investors and employees. here's a look at european markets at this hour "squawk box" will be right back. it's all yours. wow! record time. at cognizant, we're helping today's leading life sciences companies

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welcome back to "squawk box. last year we saw a world wide ransom ware attack that hit the british health care system we saw a massive breach at equifax and meddling in the 2016 elevenlths joining me now tore the likely threats we will face this year, crowd strike, george is a member of the leadership wide cpe and partner for

executives world wide. good morning. >> good morning. >> let's talk about where the next sort of big inflexion point is when it comes to hacks and ransom ware. one of the big things i keep hearing about is and we keep reporting on is what's happening in the cyber security or i'm sorry, in the cyber currency realm when it comes to bitcoin and things like that >> well, that's been a very popular area this year and last year and will continue to be it's called cryptojacking. it's fascinating where organizations can target obviously some of the wall yet capabilities of these exchanges and over the last couple years, i think since 2014 over $1.4 billion of crypto currencies have been stolen just by visiting a website, your computer can beulesed as a part

of a distributed network to actually mine crypto currency for the bad guys >> george, we hear about physical instances of people who are well known owners of bitcoin literally getting company in some case by gunpoint asked to move money that of course can't be tracked >> well, if you look at what's happening, it's pretty much like that, so it shouldn't be a surprise that over the years, if you had a lot of cab, you were in a particular business, that you were going to be a target. because of how it works and how money can be moved, not a lot of oversight. a lit bit more coming as we've seen over the last day or so, people can become massive targets from this, certainly from a physical perspective. >> sort of the news can you use right here, one of the things

you have talked about is literally fought using wifi networks i was on a airplane last night i was on go go, it never works, that's a separate issue. you think that simply going on any type of public wifi and network is dangerous >> it depends on the network, wifi can be commandeered and intercepted. what is important is that computer you are using needs to be protected so limiting yourself from wifi, you just don't want to simply discheck your computers him there are so many benefits having the right protection that can protect and check. >> what would you do, a vpn? >> a vpn is important for protecting the data as it moves out from your computer a lot of the sites you are going to are hosting malicious content and can affect your system or receiving those e-mails. >> let's say you check into a hotel. do you go on the wifi network or

do something else many smr you certainly go on to vpns, or you can bring your own my fi cellular network what is important to remember good vpn and technology. >> the vpn you say doesn't help with the wifi connection, itself, is compromised >> well the vpn can help protect the data if the overall system end to end is not adequately protected, then your system can get infected and that end point compromised. >> george, thanks for waking up early. appreciate it. good to see you. coming up the big deal of the morning, cigna buying express scripts. check out the furetus. they were down, not up the nasdaq is up, more proportionately up by about 32 we'll be right back. ♪ look into the sky for a momentary high, ♪

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breaking news a $52 billion deal in the health care group. insure signature that buys pharmacy manager express scripts. a trip down the grocery aisle, kroger out with quarterly results. a first interview with ceo coming up. commerce secretary wilbur ross told thus yesterday >> the president indicated the other day that he has a willingness to give an exemption to canada and to mexico. >> now the white house is giving us more details. we will talk to senator jeff

thunes as the final hour of "squawk box" begins right now. [ music playing >> announcer: live from the most powerful city in new york, this is "squawk box." [ music playing >> good morning. and welcome back to "squawk box. >> get used to it. >> i beg for stubhub or something whereit's a demand/supply thing, yeah, it's like legal scopeing. we are live from the nasdaq market site in time's square, which is very close to this unbelievable big east tournament we are right in the middle of it we will see what happens at noon today. it's very exciting, especially with march madness around the bend we digress

we will go to futures. first up 26 points on the dow up about 4 on the s&p up 29 on the nasdaq breaking news out of europe. the ecb leaving it unchanged the biggest news is they leave out a line oh, they do it over there, too, which says the ecb would increase qe, quantitative easing if the outlook were to worsen and that pledge line was omitted. >> which means that odds are more likely they will either stand firm for pull back some of the liquiditys sometime sooner >> it's hawkish. and the euro as a result is strong on that, versus the dollar let's take a look at our ten-year photohere, which is now 288. today's top story, health insurer cigna buying express scripts, bertha coombs is here on set with the details.

we are trying to figure out. what will they buy that will put the middleman out of business? >> you know, basically, you got to think about the fact that insurers for these days for the most part offer services so you want to offer more services and that's why for cigna it makes sense to stwrump jump into the vertical integration rate with express scripts. it's the largest benefits manager. so they'd be getting a lot of hacks. the deal is $52 billion in cash and stock about $96 per share half would be in cash. that's a 31% premium to where express skrimts closed yesterday with a $41 billion mark cap. in addition, cigna would assume $15 billion if express script's debt david cordani would be the ceo cordani talked about making an acquisition for more than a year even when he was trying to get out of the anthem deal the deal

to go after express scripts, certainly, likely, created pressure when you had cvs go after aetna, in that $69 billion deal as the industry is increasingly looking to streamline drug costs and all sorts of costs in the health care supply chain express scripts has been seen as a pick-up target the thought is amazon, one of the largest employer clients, which joined with jp marken and j.p. hathaway, those guys might be the suitor, express scripts is morning is up. not quite as high as that 30% premium. so you wonder if some folks think this may not be a done deal and you know in football the brags aren't really set yet. >> from a consumer per spec five, the you want to say the regulars have anything to say about it probably no. it's a vertical americ merger >> yes or no, the problem is two years ago when the insurers were

trying to get together the fact that you would have two such deals. among the stake holders that it would leave with less choice would be the independent insurers, the blue cross, blue shield players that have to go with any of the pbm combinations to it. >> i want to point out the consumers points out, a couple more mergers, they tell me what drug i have to use and by the way tell me i have to use the nurse practitioner at the cvs. >> they already kind of do that. that is how they try to get a better price, by dictating which drug you have by excluding certain drugs in the formularry. >> they want you to go to this process. >> exactly they are trying to be a bit more forthcoming, united health announced it was going to pass on the rebates to certain

customer, if large employers can decide, they want to keep those drug rebates in order to spread out the costs and keep it lower for everyone >> cigna is down and it's .24 shares part stocks, i think that's why it's not going to what the 30% would be. who decides who conversativers ? when i go in for alopecia, who coverage >> that one will not be covered. >> how is that not life-threatening for someone on air like with lipitor? >> call your agent >> the way that you get the better price for the payer who can -- >> they covered it all are you on your own. >> my competitor, it might cover a competitor drug. >> it's a vanity drug.

>> those aren't covered, you mean the ones you need to take with the alopecia? >> joining us on the "squawk" news line is mercken -- muken of evercore, does it make sense number one number two, it a slam dunk that it passes mustard with everyone involved >> on the deal, strategically, obviously, we seen vertical transactions this is another iteration of that it does give cigna new capably on the pharmacy benefits side, integrate with medical in terms of whether lit get over the doj goal line, that's always tough to gain. obviously, there is not a ton of overlap here in terms of the dispareat businesses, in terms of their size and scale, it will come down to whether or not this

ultimately saves money for the consumer or does not to your point before on restricting choice, that's already happening. this is now about whether or not we end up with cheaper drugs as a result and new programs for individuals versus what we had before when they were separate entities >> when you say we end up with cheaper prices for drug, are you talking about we the consumers >> we, the american people yeah, we the people. >> we were trying to figure out how the savings or snernls or whatever gets divied up and doesn't always go to the consumer, ross, sometimes it goes to, you know, the commission of scale help the companies that are getting together >> by the way, if it's all going to the consumer, why are you paying a 30% premium >> obviously, they will get the 600 million and are making a donation, given the size and scale of this transaction a pretty modest amount but that thereby the big question, right, how much of the profit pie goes back to, you know, we the consumer versus the

shareholder and that's going to be the tell cat balance here as they tray to get through that process. >> all right thank you, we're going to move on, ross, we appreciate your quick reaction we don't have a lot of time to dwell. but thanks for your time cordani will be on the you want to watch ross. i think 9:30 david cordani in a cnbc exclusive owned walk on the street also this morning, president trump is expected to make an announcement on tariffs. cnbc says they have considered an exemption from canada and mexico there may be a potential exemption tied into the nafta talks. president trump tweeting this morning -- looking forward to the 3:30 p.m. meeting today at the white house. we have to protect and build our steel and alluminum industries while at the same time showing great flexibility and

cooperation towards those that are real friends and tahiti us as fairly on both trade and the military growinger is out with quarterly results, earnings coming in at 63 cents per share the earlier profits were lower than stills. the kroger giant says tax cuts will help them restock koeg kroger, that's their plan to ramp up platforms. we will talk to their ceo michael schlotman in a few minutes. after a rough year in retail the company is not alone in evolving its strategy, joining us on set is the bud conheim, this has been an interesting year from a policy perspective when it comes to companies like yours, you have been given a lot with the tax cuts, but the trade and tariffs might be a separate issue. >> you want to comment on tariffs or tax cuts or -

>> combine them. i know have you pretty opposed views. >> tax cuts to me can't be bad, they put more money in the hands of the customer. i was always for minimum wage increases because everybody says oh my god it will raise the costs of everything. but like wilbur ross says about the price of steel in a can, it's a tiny percentage but gives everybody money to buy it fuels a little of inflation, it gets everybody out buying they also pay off debt you can do a whole bunch of stuff when you have money. tariffs, you ever read arnold toinbe, those that don't learn from history are going to repeat it >> if you invoke wilbur ross, he was making the case for tariffs. >> he's right about the steel cans he is wrong ability the tariffs. what he was right about is his wife betty mccoy who blew off hillary's health plan --

>> now the ex-wife and his new wife's name is hillary you are talking about a different hillary? >> he said betsy >> but hillary clinton the new wife of wilbur is also hillary >> let's focus on this the tar rif riffs if they owe owe tariffs, if they come in, how can that affect your industry it's not a direct line >> it's interesting, everybody in your area of wall street, big businesses, we started out in the fashion trades everybody running to coin. because it was so cheap labor. >> sure. >> we had quotas, which you have to pay for you have to pay them a $2 or $3 quota on top of the tee-shirt. then have you customs, tee-shirts were custom sensitive. then you had the freight bring new here so the costs of bringing those things in from china got up and up and up. we've manufactured in new york

so we always competed with that. because then they were raising the price, all of a sudden they went away the quotas went away the customs, duty went away, all of the restrictions went away the freight got cheaper. they got more efficient. we still competed with china so it doesn't mean anything to us, because we're in a design business, i happen to think nicole is a world class designer we compete always on the basis of design. it was never on the basis of a dollar here, a dollar there. >> it didn't mean anything to the textile jobs here? >> it might the textiles, too, we buy our facts from italy, france, korea. we get it from all over. there is always some kind of a cost that has nothing to do with the value of the product, either customs, duty, freight, all that type of stuff. we deal with it as a part of business so the tariffs if we're going to get into a trade war, are just, they can't help any of the other

businesses, with us, we deal with everything. by the way, i don't know anybody that lobbies for the fashion business as all. we don't have lobbyists. weerl all too small. nobody mays for anything let's talk about it. it doesn't change us >> let's talk about that. >> the changing retail, we looked at the disintegrating relevant tail scene about five years ago and decided we couldn't complain about it, but change our own model so it was our model. we were contributing to the saturation we were contributing to the too much we were contributing to too many stores were contributing to that. >> department stores >> yeah. absolutely so what we did is the first thing we did is try to say, okay, what's the problem what's the saturation problem? well, we were actually contributing to what i call landfill because we were selling department stores more than they could sell to the customers. so there was always a leftover so what do the department stores do about that?

they dump it and come back to us to see if we can get compensation for dutching it okay let's say that's the first scene, you say, listen, if you didn't sell it, why are you going to buy more? well, because they bought the the rebate they bought more it contributed more. then we were making a landfill so what i did, i said, let's find out where are we successful where we're not polluting the world with extra stuff it was specialty stores. they don't have traffic. they have trade. i think we went over this once before the specialty stores comes in, they buy for sally, anne, mary, jane, four pieces, they get the stuff back in, they call, mary, sue, allison, jane, sell it out. in a big store it's called a hundred percent sellout. in a small store, they're profitable pay the ill brk come back for more we don't create landfill so that became the model of going forward. >> does that mean that you had

to shrink business >> we have to shrink the total size because when you lose a store that comes in for 40 bran weres, you are losing that volume, but it wasn't real they didn't sell it. 20 stores they sold some we now don't sell department stores, but we sell dillards dillards has 300 stores, they buy from us for 16 and sell it out. it's like a specialty operation. then let's say they run into a style that they don't sell so what they do is, they kale us up and style one, two, three, four, we're not selling that style. so what are you going to do? we'd like to market down they not the day it comes n. we do a survey of everybody else that has that style and we say okay look nobody is selling the thing usually. okay everybody market down and at least we place it some place instead of just having this. >> franchiseing the business. >> and then i don't know if you know this, but 1991 i got

involved with supporting rocky mountain institute, which is an environment think and do tank. nobody knows about that. they're great. and so what i do, my kid died and left $60,000 in a pillow case, he was 27-years-old, left it to rocky mountain he used to tell me all the time, look at these palace tick bags you are using, it's disgusting it's all going to landfills. what should i do give me the answer he never had an answer, but he had a complaint. so on and on and on, i sent all the money to rocky mountain rmi.org if anybody is interested we developed a study study care there. we get the stop students from stan ford presenceton, cambridge, every place to go once a year. they have this great sign. okay how do you not pollute

what's the biggest thing can you do is stop making so much stuff so it tied in to what i was really about okay so now everybody is talking environment. half of them don't know what they're talking about. but all i was doing is contributing giving them money to develop this so i tell the average age nicole miller 27-years-old. okay not exactly my level but anyhow, so i tell everybody, very proudly, blah blah blah blah, we can bid we're environment am i contribute to rocky mountain institute. different them pamphlets i'm impressed. they said, who cares so you are a big corporate guy you give money to this thing what are you doing to do this thing? so you see these where is yours? there are two green straws here. i'm just telling you in our place, they run around pull all the drawers out you got to buy a glass straw

now. on and on and on and on. so >> that's a great solution but thank you for sharing that today. we'll talk to you again soon and i'm with you on this. coming up, when we return, kroger out with earnings, the first interview with the cfo first interview with the cfo we'll be right back in ainvest . what are the ingredients is it the places you go? konheim. ple fill it th meaning? for 150 years, generations of families have chosen pacific life for retirement and life insurance solutions. protecting what's most important to you. that's the power of pacific. ask a financial advisor about pacific life.

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when we return, kroger out with earnings. the stock is down another 5% today after yesterday it was down we will dig through the quarter. the cfo mike schlotman and out things companies like kroger are facing right after the break thank you. how many kids? my two. his three. along with two dogs and jake, our new parrot. that is quite the family. quite a lot of colleges to pay for though. a lot of colleges. you get any financial advice? yeah, but i'm pretty sure it's the same plan they sold me before. well your situation's totally changed now. right, right. how 'bout a plan that works for 5 kids, 2 dogs and jake over here? that would be great. that would be great. that okay with you, jake? get a portfolio that works for you now and as your needs change from td ameritrade investment management.

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want's trade war i think he is sending the signal he wants to deal with unfair trade practices. kroger out with quarterly result, coming in at 63 cents per share, that was inline, revenue came in slightly above, they were lower than estimates joining us now is mike slotman -- schlotman, people were scratching their heads about the stock being down the overall market was weak, obviously but some people said the cumulative effect of some recent commentary by wal-mart, target and dollar tree were causing some anxiety before kroger's earnings and this is after you had a pretty good three or four-month period you had a 35% gain in the stock. down 60% yesterday, down 5% today. i know you don't watch it all closely what do you attribute it

to >> i think the commentary yesterday was absolutely spot on there has been business relative to retailers, as people announce what they expect to do with the tail wind of the tax cut and how that would get spent i think a lot of people started putting out estimates ahead of companies telling the world what they expected to do with the tax saving, how they expect to invest it. we have been saying for a while ever since the tax came into place back in december that we expected to take a blends approach between having some fall of the bottom line for shareholders, having some go to our associates and some to our customers back in the business we're taking the approach a third a third a third of that. i know there are analysts that put way more than that in our initial stills for the next fiscal year. i'm sure that causes consternation as they look at the numbers. >> you say 200 million a year

because of the federal tax law they were hoping a lot would go to the bottom line some you will use for i don't know some people say a lot gets competed a i way, especially in your business, just to match prices, you are close to wal-mart all your locations are close to a wal-mart, aren't they? >> they would certainly be our biggest competitor that's out there. when we look at what we will, do reannounced our restock kroger plan in october. we had a solid list of what we expected to do over the next three years. we were very transparent with our investors in october showed them by category and invest by category some of what we will do if 2018 is take advantage of the in fact -- in 2018 is take advantage of the fact that we have tax savings and actually accelerate those plans, we are increasing our investments over the three years. we are merely moving them in 2018 it will be offset by lower taxes and allows us to start to enjoy the benefits a little faster than if we did them ratably over

three years. we take advantage of the opportunity that presents itself i think we are taking a balanced approach. >> here's your gun question. andrew, go ahead >> i just want to get your understand -- >> we didn't prepare this i know you, i know where you are. i could have asked him, too. >> go ahead, ask him the question >> no, fred mire, not anyone knows the connection >> you raised the age on guns at fred meyer and elinl nated all semi automatics, is that correct? >> that's what we have done. rewaized semi automatics, we raised the age for pouring ammo guns to 21 like much ought other retailers out there that sell guns >> that whole categories is at a handful of fred meyers', it represents .0, 0% of our revenue. >> why did you do that >> we actually, frankly, we were

a little of a follower we didn't want to be the lightning rod out there to be the same one we think it's the right thing to do obviously, there is a lot of public concernant that catego--n about that category. i think it's good to assess what's going on, on occasion i think that's what we ended up doing. >> there is a march at 11:00 in front of visa, a big protest planned to have visa stop transacting for semi automatic weapons. would you be in support of that? >> well, you know, i can't speak to what visa should do we did make the decision to not sell semi automatics -- >> any blowback? >> we really haven't like i said, it's a handful of stores in the pacific northwest. primarily, all the fred meyers stores in alaskaing. >> semi automatic pistols or long guns? >> long guns, i'm frankly not

sure >> but you are grouping it altogether you are saying they are not selling any semi automatic pistols, even? >> you should ask him the question >> i did >> to be clear, i'm not familiar with the semi automatic pistols, i know it is semi automatic long rifles >> all right great. we have data to get to go ahead thanks, mike. >> rick santelli is here with weekly jobless claims. rick. >> all right 210,000, our last look today 231,000. we are up 10-k it was so low we had to go back to early '70s bell bottoms to comp the time. this is a bit higher, obviously. it's still low based on history 1.87 million on the continuing claims that's down from 1.934 so these numbers aren't surprising, but if a way they

are. the initial james i claims, this is going to be giving us new information. if it breaks under 200,000, people will say maybe the job mark is as tight as a drum i think we have over 90 million people we can draw back in the work force interest, get this, all the headline, i have been. it sounds like everything is crazy. but yet, this could be the tenth day in a row we will have a settlement of tens in the 2 '80s and monday, tuesday, yesterday and so far today, it looks like the dow has a good chance to close in the 24,800s i guess 8s are wild that pretty much sums up the week so far andrew, back to you. >> thank you, when we come back, remember this, secretary wilbur ross a can of soup and beer, he says prices of these products won't be significantly impacted by the trump tariff the world largest beer brewers millers-coors will join us after

the break. a look atht e futures. "squawk" returns in ten. dow up by ten points.

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welcome back to "squawk box," we have been brigg you part of our conversation with exxon mobile darren woods. last a guy it was run by who left to be secretary of state. >> let's talk about some of the head wind you have been facing darren, part of it is the investment russia you had to unwind, they were made under your predecessor rex tillerson, walking away from a joint venture exploration project where you are going to have to take a $200 million write-down, how difficult has that been to step away from some of those projects in russia >> i think actually the experience we had in russia is a great example of the power of

the philosophy in running our business where we have had a diversified portfolio across a number of geographies, a diversified portfolio of businesses as well our intent is to make sure we manage the risks with each of the elements by having this diversified portfolio. our experience in russia is an example of how that particular venture didn't work out. we got a much broader portfolio and a very resid vis opportunity we can continue to pursue. >> again exxon mobile gave a long-term outlook through the year 2025. some question as to whether the street will believe that or not. they have their work cut out ahead of them. thanks to the chairman and ceo darren woods. meantime, president trump's proposed tariffs on steel and alluminum will be announced. both industries are praising the move jackie deangelis is live at a

plant in kentucky. good morning. >> reporter: good morning to you, andrew. that's right everybody is on edge here. we're still waiting for that announcement we talked about the steel industry and the tariffs, how it will impact the alluminum industry is praising this as a big win as well even with all of the debate we have been having in the past week over a trade war. the question is why? take a look over my shoulder here, century alluminum is the last alluminum facility. it produces alluminum for u.s. fighter jets, body armor and tanks. alluminum has many uses, defence is one of them but the industry struggles in the united states because of anti-competitive practices that have made it difficult to compete with the international suppliers. this facility right now only operating at about 40% capacity. but when the green light comes, century says it plans to invest

$100 million in this plant, adding more than 300 jobs to get back to 100% capacity. they say it will take about six months to get to a 60% capacity range. for those concerned about a trade war, these folks say, what about national security? don't you want to have the ability to supply domestically don't you want to bring these plants back and bring the manufacturing jobs back as well? the other side would argue, at what cost? so, of course, there are two sides to every debate, guys, along with the steel industry, the alluminum delay -- industrys praising this and waiting for that green light >> joining us is a ceo to you >> good morning. >> how do you see the potential tarives in >> -- tariffs? >> i think america and its

international competitiveness. as you think about it in the consumer pack annuge goods indu you have to ask is rolled sheet metal a strategic asset? you can punch a metal through, it's hardly a strategic asset the beer industry would ask the sheet metal that you use in their cans be exempted from this issue because it's not an industrial capably or a national security issue >> >> what do you see in terms of the costs going up in your business how do they map out? >> well the incremental cost per can is rounded off to about a penny a can. a little less than that, actually and it will impact different brewers differently. a big part of the american beer business are budget beers. those bug beers, they're called budget because they sell on price. >> that will get passed through,

you will break through key price points $4.99 a six-pack, that will hurt those beers him then you got the much more expensive beers where this price issue will not hit them as hard. but big brewers will take 40 $50 million hits, if it's the size of miller coors and much bigger for am bev, anheuser-busch the kraft don't hedge the costs. you aggregate them inside a year that i don't impact the business >> how much more alluminum you would be buying domestically versus what's imported >> well, really, in alluminum chan cans for beer, most is recycled. the vast majority in the united states for consumer goods and beer is recycled thankfully, it's a great strength of that product so less than 10% of the alluminumulesed in chance is actually the pure alluminum.

which is a strategic asset that you just discussed. >> we will leave the conversation there it's a fascinating issue we appreciate your time and perfepe perspective this morning thanks next, we are talk to senator john thune about the impacts of tariffs and secretary rick perry on "squawk" ale at 11:00 a. .m eastern time we'll be right back. i think we should do that meeting tomorrow. well wait. what did you think about her? it's definitely a new idea, but there's no business track record. well, have you seen her work? no. is it good? good? at cognizant, we're helping today's leading banks make better lending decisions with new sources of data- so, multiply that by her followers, speaking engagements, work experience... credit history.

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ecb president mario draghi answering kweg questions from reporters. steve, this wasn't the typical we don't raise rates there were actual news and markets following this >> yeah, i guess central bank reporters get paid for stuff like this. which is not see wag they didn't write, they dropped the easing bias the part of the statement that says if things go south we'll do more qe that's no longer the statement that hammond at 7:45 a little later at 8 clirmt mario draghi paid statements, he said it's rising protectionism. like i said they dropped the easing bias. i will say he expects faster growth atmosphere and is more confident that inflation will rise toward, not hit, towards the ecbs 2% target at the same time he says

inflation remains subdued. all this is in saying they are supposed to do qe in september what happens after that expected announcement or policy change in june but this is one of those baby steps, very much the way the federal reserve did this, gradually notching back the language here. back to you, becky >> steve, thank you very much. the trump administration seems to be taking a softer stance on tariffs. joining us senator john thune, republican senator of south dakota senator, we had one of your colleagues just north of you yesterday and we mentioned to senator hydecamp the old expression all politics are local. there are some on that side of the aisle, sharod brown and others in states that can benefit from the tariffs totally on ready boo i don't think it helps in terms of the industry north dakota has. she is very anti-.

where are you and is it what you are looking at in south dakota with your constituents >> sure is no question about it if you are from anning a gre cultural -- agricultural states, retaliation would be harlful just look at south dakota, 91% of our beef exports go to canada or mexico. so when there is talk of messing with nafta or pulling out of nafta, it gives people concern the same thing is true on crops. as soon as we pull out of some of these areas of the world, somebody else will step in and fill that some we are very concerned about the ret ache out of the white house, most recently this alluminum steel tariff, they are talking initially broadly applying hopefully, they will move to a targeted approach. there will be retaliation. this leads to higher prices for consumers. this stuff gets all passed on. it's something we are watching

very carefully >> so for you, with your state in mind, what itself the best case scenario for how it's implemented? what's the worst case scenario for you? and what do you expect what are you hearing you must know what is going to happen >> you guys know >> no. >> we're waiting to see ultimately -- i'm hoping this gets tailored that they use a more surgical approach we have advocated with members of the president's team for some time, including the president himself on these trade matters that they back off some of this talk and i hope that the people who he is hearing from are successful in persuadeing him to at least narrow the scope of this, so that if the chinese he's worried about, direct it there we all know china cheats on these trade arrangements you have to understand, we are the largest economy in the world, we are 20% of the world's gdp. we will probably not get to is zero balance with everybody we trade with

>> that's true >> i think you have to acknowledge that reality >> right, if you got ample evidence of really you know a lot of these actions that we seen by some of these bad actors, whether you pick china or whomever you want to pick, it's egregious for years and years, nothing has been done, i mean, do you see any benefit to maybe taking this, maybe it's a somewhat radical position to start out at this position but fought end there? >> i think -- maybe that's what he's doing is framing it, bring it back to what i think is a more appropriate and perhaps proportional response, but there are remedies we do have trade laws that allow us to level types of penalties against countries that are keating. that itself what he out to isolate it to. >> those haven't worked at all, have they? >> well, i think we've seen some

success in a few sort of industries that, for example, impact our state, honey being one of those and i think there are places where you can apply some of these laws in a way that will have a desired effect without creating all kind of harm elsewhere in the conomy. so to the degree they will do this, we say do it narrowly, in a surgical way, not in a shotgun approach which i think will be harlful. >> on a different topic, just quickly, we had the ceo of kroger on, talking about guns. i seen you had a comment about this recently, pat toomey and joe man chchin put out a bill. i saw you are against it i am curious what you think of corporations jumping into this discussion >> well, they're entitled to do that clearly, they have to think about i suspect you their shareholders will do that. i'm sure they have bell e peope

this camp. that's a call they have to make. ultimately if you are in business, you want to be in business i'm not sure wading into these cultural issues is a wise move, but obviously have to make in connection with the people that they represent but i will say i think there are some -- there's some common ground on this issue we can reach. and i think strengthening background checks is one of the ways we can do that. i don't think we probably have the votes as i said earlier on manchin toomey, we had the vote a couple of years ago. i don't think a lot has changed. there's a approach that cornyn and murphy have advocated that could pass and there are other things that could ride on that that might pass, banning bump stocks for example there's things we could get done that would address the issue and that ultimately is what we need to do, look for things that are going to be effective in preventing that next act of mass violence and then particularly

to protect our schools and our kids these are just things we can't allow to happen. >> senator, thank you. great to have you on. >> great to be with you, as always thanks. >> when we come back, jim cramer will join us live from the new york stock exchange. we'll get his take on the big news, cigna yibung express for $42 million. we'll be right back. tomorrow, it's a day filled with promise and new beginnings, challenges and opportunities. at ameriprise financial, we can't predict what tomorrow will bring. but our comprehensive approach to financial planning can help make sure you're prepared for what's expected and even what's not. and that kind of financial confidence can help you sleep better at night.

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down at the new york stock exchange, looking for your tweets today can usually tell what's on your mind pretty muted response yesterday when it was all said and done to everything we'll see. what about cigna, is that something that caught your attention? >> it shows you once again that stocks are under valued. express scripts was down because of a major contract they lost with anthem. instead of saying we've got to short this stock, it's all over, this thing never coming back cigna says let's use the discount that's caused by anthem to go in and buy i love this kind of situation because what it says is that the companies are under valued, even as we think wait a second, gary cohn is gone wait a second the 10-year could be at three.

wait a second, the vix is up, it's a reminder these are real companies and sometimes i find that refreshing. >> okay, just real quickly, i'm hearing from a lot of people, jim, forget about the nor'easter that the red storm is coming to xavier today at noon you know what could happen if everything goes our way, it could be xavier villanova at the garden. >> that could be fun we had to watch some game last night seminole game. >> anyway. it's not even the tournament yet and i love these other tournaments -- where was i when i was a kid i didn't watch any of this stuff? >> every one of these games matter, all of the games are great. i find myself thinking call me in round three of the nba playoffs, i'm liking every game. whether it be a patriot league or st. john's, it doesn't matter these kids play with such heart. it is so exciting.

>> it's in the garden. every year -- >> they moved it no barclays. >> that one. but the league games with the greatest teams in college and they are local and we can watch it. >> what a breath of fresh air. >> do they serve alcohol at the garden because they didn't at the barclays for college kids. >> they have different venues at hockey games i think i've had -- >> but with the college -- >> the garden does for different -- i don't know. >> i go and check just to try and get carded i got carded recently. >> what a great feeling. >> i haven't been carded in maybe 45 years >> i mean, it was -- >> i don't remember the last time i got carded too. >> well you're -- >> i'm carding all of you guy. andrew doesn't even pass andrew surprisingly doesn't get carded. >> he doesn't get to drink >> cigarettes? gglobal bonds,

and high-dividend strategies. sure, these are investments. but they're not what people really invest in. what people really invest in, is what they hope to get out of life. but helping them get there takes a pure focus. because when you invest their money without distraction, hidden agenda or competing interests, something wonderful can happen. they might just get what they want out of life, and maybe even more. so that's the idea. what do you think? i don't like it. oh. nuh uh. yeah. ahhhhh. mm-mm. oh. yeah. ah. agh. d-d-d... no. hmmm. uh... huh. yeah. uh... huh. in business, there are a lot of ways to say no. thank you so much. thank you. so we're doing it. yes. start saying yes to your company's best ideas. we help all types of businesses with money, tools and know-how to get business done. american express open. to get business done.

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let's get a final check on the markets. nasdaq 28 points above and s&p

on track to open up over three points after a mixed day yesterday. if you want to look what's been happening with the 10-year treasury, the yield right now sitting about where it was yesterday, 2.872% make sure you join us tomorrow "squawk on the street" begins right now. ♪ >> good thursday morning, welcome to "squawk on the street" i'm carl quintanilla with jim cramer and david faber. cigna buying express scripts and we're going to talk to david cordani this hour. waiting to see what if anything the president will sign on tariffs. europe is green, ecb unchanged and 10-year remains locked in the 2.8s and today we may get an announcement on tariffs from t