breaking news. the board of cambridge analytica suspending ceo alexander nix immediately. cambridge analytica, of course, the company at the center of the facebook data controversy. twitter poll question. will you stop using facebook 51% said yes, 49% said no. >> thanks for watching "closing bell" is up next. hi, everybody. we're live at the new york stock exchange welcome to the "closing bell." i'm kelly evans. >> i'm wilfred frost today's advance just about restoring the dow's territory. what's moving the markets and what should you be buying? facebook fallout the company holding an emergency meeting to address the massive

data skablg data scandal we have john harwood in washington with how politicians use your data, julia boorstin in l.a. with the latest on today's meeting. julia, let's start with you and what's coming down the pike at the company? >> we just got a new statement from facebook reading, the teams are working around the clock to get all the facts and take the appropriate action moving forward because they understand the seriousness of this issue. the statement goes on to read, the entire company is outraged we are deceived. we were deceived we are committed to vigorously enforcing our policies to protect people's information and will take whatever steps are required to see that this happens. now, this comes on the heels of an all-hands meeting earlier today. they led a packed q&a session. employees pushed for answers about how the cambridge analytica scandal happened and what facebook will do next that statement from the company about mark zuckerberg's respons

is all we have facebook shares are down another 5% among other things the ftc saying they're looking into this data misuse. the ftc saying, quote, consumers need stronger protection for the digital age such as comprehensive data and rights to and control over their data. facebook also saying, quote, we remain strongly committed to protecting people's information. we appreciate the opportunity to answer questions that the ftc may have now, meanwhile, through all of this, wall street has been evaluating the fallout from this a number of analysts have maintained their buyer overweight ratings on the stock even as they quach potential regulatory risks and potential limits on how facebook can gather and use data. and, of course, this follows reports of dissent at facebook

over its handling of these issues after pushing for faster disclosures than his colleagues, alex stamos is pushing to a new position ahead of his expected departure in august, "the new york times" delving deep into that story last night. more reports and conversations about what's going on with management at facebook now, we finally heard about how mark zuckerberg and sheryl sandberg will be weighing in more as they learn more. >> julia, real quickly, julia, we'll have jeff sonnenfeld on next hour that says mark and sheryl have been nowhere on this is the company aware that giving them -- putting them out in front of the public might be better than keeping this private for the time being >> i have been pushing facebook to give us an interview with either one of them it was surprising, if you look at mark zuckerberg and sheryl sandberg's facebook pages, latest updates are from days

ago. mark zuckerberg is from earlier this month, a picture of him and his wife it seems out of keeping with what's going on at the company and what they've been struggling with since this story broke on friday night and saturday morning. i think the interesting the story is about them but it's not from mark zuckerberg or sheryl sandberg they're inching towards a comment from them but we haven't heard from them directly a lot of people, including a lot of folks on capitol hill would like to hear, especially from mark zuckerberg directly. >> the theme is still one from facebook they feel like they were duped as opposed to them personally being in the wrong? >> well, of course - >> it's interesting. the entire company is outraged we were deceived that's what we heard was going on at -- >> so, they're not admitting - >> they were deceived. >> sorry. >> what we heard about this q&a session today is employees were asking, how about facebook let

this happen? what happened? how did we let this happen and facebook's statement is that they believe they were deceived and they wanted to enforce their policies everything we've heard from facebook is they had policies in place. they believed everything was followed by the letter and now they're learning maybe things did not happen as they thought they had and they feel deceived >> the julia, thank you very much the reason i'm interested, it's hard to fully move forward until you feel like they've had a total admission. >> they're trying to put the onus on cambridge analytica and its partners. >> michelle caruso-cabrera joins us. >> the board of cambridge analytica announced today it suspended ceo alexander nix with immediate effect pending a full independent investigation. in the view of the board, mr. nix's recent comments secretly recorded by channel 4

do not represent the values and operation of the firm and his suspension reflects the seriousness with which we view this violation what they are referring to is an investigative piece aired in the united king domg last night by channel 4 where they show mr. nix on camera with another executive discussing what potential options the company could use when they are meeting with what they believe is a client but actually turns out to be an undercover reporter who's pretending to be a sri lankan official if we have that video of the actual uk report last night, you would be able to see some of the things they suggest, such as using pretty girls from the ukraine as -- to, you know, be honey traps and entrap potential individuals or also using bribes caught on camera they would later disperse on youtube and social media to discredit clients. once again, cambridge analytica suspending the ceo effective immediately, even though the original statement, kelly and wilf, when they first came out

said, we said all those things on camera because we were trying to tease out whether or not this client was unethical they argued they had done absolutely nothing wrong back to you. >> michelle, i totally agree it's a complete turn-around from the statements we had from the company in the last couple of days whether or not that's changing their tune on what's already been released or a factor we still have more to come from the channel 4 investigation in the coming days. perhaps there's more to come later tonight -- >> they did say it's a three-part investigation we've only seen part one, the whistle-blower, part two the videotape that aired last night. now we wait for what would be the third shoe to drop >> exactly >> we won't contemplate that. >> thank you for that. kelly, so, they appointed julian mallin as qc, a queen's counsel to lead an internal investigation. >> what's a queen's counsel? >> a judge

i guess they'll change it one day, many decades from now to kc. >> that's who they appointed to be the acting ceo? >> no, the acting ceo was dr. taylor who was already an employee the qc will lead an independent investigation internally clearly there are calls from congress, from uk parliament, from the eu for more external investigation so i doubt that will be enough >> makes sense to put a judge in charge of it the heart of the cambridge analytica focuses on political campaign with data gleaned john harwood looks at how campaigns have been using this data. >> first of all, we have an update from cambridge analytica in response to that channel 4 expose that michelle was just referring to they put out a statement they say, cambridge analytica has never claimed it won the

election for president trump this is patently absurd. we're proud of the work we did on that campaign and spoke in many public forums on what we consider to be our contribution to the campaign. they go on to say, no suggestion of wrongdoing by the company and they deny any involvement in alleged russian attempts to interfere with the election. but let's look at the work they did in a political context there are three things to examine here first of all, political campaigns have been gathering information for use in targeting voters for decades before there was social media, campaigns would buy lists of magazine subscribers or lists of clubs. they would use that information to paint a picture of who and how they should target in their voter mobilization efforts but that's not the only question do they get the information properly, by purchasing it or collecting it themselves directly, or do they steal it? we didn't commit theft to do our

groundbreaking work, campaign aide michael simon tweeted what do they do it when they get it do they use it for legitimate advertisements and contacts for voter turnout or use it to spread falsehoods, who give it to third-parties special counsel robert mueller are examining whether the trump campaign colluded with russians. of course, cambridge analytica was working for the trump campaign guys >> john, looking at what cambridge analytica has put out there over the course of the last day or so to push back at these allegations, they say while they did have facebook data at some point, they deleted it as it related to the donald trump campaign, once they were working on that campaign, they weren't using the facebook data. is that going to be enough to try and stop this

investigation -- the investigation that congressmen want to link facebook to this as well, or is it cambridge analytica specific >> oh, it's definitely not going to stop the attempt to investigate. people are going to get to the bottom of whether, in fact, facebook was duped, whether they were willingly duped, was cambridge analytica harvesting information they didn't have a right to obtain, did they, in effect, tunnel in through a hole in the facebook platform to take information that wasn't rightfully theirs to be taken? all of that is the subject of the investigations ongoing by senate intelligence committee and. ones we expect congress to pursue. >> do you think users are going to care, the delyi dlin yags of data winding up in cambridge analytica or finding out it was in the hands of political campaigners all over the country working at all levels of politics >> it's definitely a concern,

kelly. you know, one of the distinctions to be made is there are some companies who make their data available to others, who sell it to others. and presumably don't know how often this is the case, but presumably they seek the permission of their own customers before doing that. or maybe they -- maybe it's buried in fine print and they don't find out 20 years ago there was a huge boom in concern about data privacy for consumers and the fact that people were -- their information was going to get into hands they didn't intend that information kind of went away, especially after 9/11 when people became a little more compliant with the idea that certainly the u.s. intelligence community, if not private business, had a reason to collect a lot of data. i think that privacy issue is now going to come back in a big way. >> i'm just thinking about the way there were 50 million

people, or whomever's data might have been looked at, because you had 200, 300,000 people download the app and then the settings people had on facebook, if a friend of my friend downloads this app, you can see my information. i'm sure a lot of people weren't aware of that prior to today. >> no doubt about it nobody, given the way data is collected about us when we shop, when re read, when we do things online, nobody is aware of the full extent of where that data goes it's very difficult to get your mind around. but the more attention is drawn to this phenomenon, especially when it's connected to potential russian interference in the campaign, i think that's where the issue returns center stage and more and more voters will be concerned about it and take positive steps to try to find out. obviously, another factor in that is the way that retailers and various commercial businesses have been hacked and

had their customers' data stolen. >> wilf's off. he quit. >> i quit. gone i'm still on instagram they still have me somehow john, thank you very much. >> john harwood in washington. facebook isn't the only tech company hit hard here's a look at the nasdaq, coming off its worst day in more than a month twitter is down 10%. bertha coombs with a look at what's going on. >> it's pretty incredible to see this social media collateral damage facebook trading down 11% over two days among the worst performance for the stock since it became public in 2012. today it's not tracking down the other mega caps, the f.a.n.g. movers amazon and netflix with apple relatively flat on the day the google parent, alphabet, has been lower for much of the day as well. take a look at what's been moved

forward. it's those with less advertising dependent, the so-called f.a.n.g. names last year it was facebook, amazon, netflix up more than 50%. look what's happened here year to date. with concerns about social media regulation rival twitter has suffered collateral damage, down 11% over two days. twitter is lower for the fourth straight day when you look year-to-date, a different story aztec recovered from that february selloff, twitter started to make a move and be more of a preference, it seems, for investors. >> thank you, bertha 45 minutes to go to the close. >> zuckerberg has lost $9 million. >> i don't even know if it's an ouch it's more about the fact that everyone is saying -- does anybody in this company know what's going on or have control over the situation

>> or will the people come out and tell us? the focus of the broader market is squarely on the federal reserve, which is currently holding a two-dame monetary meeting. chair powell will hold his first news conference tomorrow as head of the fed. >> steve liesman joins us with the exclusive results of the latest fed survey. what did you find? >> let's take a look at what the market is looking for. 100% think there will be a rate hike announced tomorrow. 83% see that second hike coming at the next press conference in june the median forecaster in our survey sees three hikes this year and two in 2019 that's not interesting what is interesting is the next chart that shows you where the risks are. this is a distribution of our responses, so 21c3 rate hikes. all the risks, they're at more rate hikes a bunch -- the second number, 18, are at four. you can see there's no risk seen over here. nobody's betting on zero nobody's betting on one. it's three, four or five

you can see that when you look at the outlook for the ten-year yield. that goes up over here 2 2.85 is the current rate 3.17, in other words, over 3% by the end of this year and then 3.50 by 2019. another interesting development. over the course of our surveys, time after time they have raised their outlook for the s&p. this is the first time since july that for 2018 they brought it down. still not a bad outlook. 4% from the current level for this year. 8% by the end of 2019. i'll take that in the current environment. one concern, it's not even the fed, it's trade. it tops the list of threats to expansion. on trade, 63% say that the president's trade policies are negative for the u.s. economy. 81% say an exit from nafta is a bad idea 75% are concerned about a trade war. about half say the

steel/aluminum tariffs will cost jobs we'll be waiting for that statement tomorrow and see how jay powell steers the market towards three or four. i don't suspect it will be five. >> steve, thank you very much for that they're not that much concerned about volatility but they expect 3.5% on the ten-year that could spark volatility. >> are you still there, steve? do you see any inconsistency >> it depends how we get there there are different roads to the same place one road is a smooth and easy road the market will internalize this outlook for higher rates i think the volatility and many of the responses to our survey shows the volatility comes not from the fed or monetary policy, it comes from the white house. you can see that in the way these tariffs are nouns to being very extensive and round back. >> the great stuff thanks for that. we'll be focused tomorrow on the

fed. we've got 42 minutes to go we're up about 0.65%, 160 points on the dow, the high was 192 all three of the indices and russell in positive territory. >> the "closing bell" is just getting under way. >> announcer: next up, the uber fallout from this week's autonomous car killing a woman in arizona when we come back, one long-time auto executive on why the safest driver is one who steers and hits the pedals and brakes for stop signs and red lights. plus, new information on what's likely to be another major winter storm just as we hit spring the "closing bell" with kelly evans and wilfred frost veli from the new york stock exchange returns in two minutes whoooo.

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you know what's not awesome? gig-speed internet. when only certain people can get it. let's fix that. let's give this guy gig- really? and these kids, and these guys, him, ah. oh hello. that lady, these houses! yes, yes and yes. and don't forget about them. uh huh, sure. still yes! xfinity delivers gig speed to more homes than anyone. now you can get it, too. welcome to the party. bell." the debate over the safety of autonomous cars raging after a pedestrian was struck and killed by an uber test self-driving car in tempe, arizona. >> one way they make them safer is to have human backups to take the wheel when machines get confused phil lebeau is in mountainview,

california, with more on this. hi, phil >> reporter: a phantom auto test vehicle. what really matters is not the fact that shia, the founder and ceo, is in the driver's seat, making sure everything works safely, he's not going to touch the steering wheel it's a remote operator inside. here's how the system works. we're taking off in a phantom auto test car. this car is being remote controlled meaning there's nobody in the driver's seat. there is, however, a remote operator >> welcome, phil my name is ben i'll be your phantom remote operator for this drive. >> reporter: when you're sitting in one of these cars and the remote operation is taking place, it feels like an autonomous-drive vehicle with one key difference there is somebody who actually is driving the car, albeit by remote control ben, the remote operator, sees what the car sees. so it's almost as if ben is sitting in the driver's seat

right now we're at a four-way stop ben can see all the cars and traffic around here and he's making the turn. as someone who has gone for a number of rides in autonomous-drive vehicles, riding in a remote-operated vehicle doesn't feel a whole lot different. what's the appeal? it's those tricky situations where you come across a construction site. for a lot of autonomous-drive vehicles, that creates confusion. that's where phantom auto steps in a remote operator like ben can take control and steer the vehicle where it needs to go back live in mountainview as i ride in the vehicle here, we should point out here, we have a shot at the steering wheel the ceo is not touching it it is ben, who is controlling this vehicle remotely. they believe this is the future, guys this is what it's all about for autonomous drive vehicles. when they hit tricky situations to have a remote operator, a human, who can take control and essentially drive the vehicle as

if he's here in the driver's seat, at obviously he's back at a cockpit at the phantom auto headquarters cool technology in the works, perhaps, maybe the key to solving that hurdle of those final tricky situations for autonomous drive vehicles. >> but, phil, for companies like uber or waymo is this going to cut the cost for them if they still have to employ remote drivers? >> reporter: it's no different than a company employing a call center if somebody were to hire phantom auto to be the call center for them, you would not have to use them for all your trips. it would only be in certain situations as a passenger, i could hit a button and say, hey, we stopped and we're not where we're supposed to be or the car would communicate with the remote operator it's not as though ben, who is back at the operating center, would be driving these vehicles. he would only have to step in occasionally

and you would think if the technology continues to develop as it has been for autonomous-drive vehicles, fewer and fewer times a remote operator would be needed but there are times when it's needed. >> i see a fewer line of work for all the video playing games out there. thanks, phil that's fascinating phil lebeau. how will uber's accident impact the development of driverless cars can they be safe >> jason levine and bob lutz, good afternoon to you both jason, i'll start with you even if it's decided in the coming days and weeks once the investigation is done this death was not uber's fault in any way, that it couldn't have been avoided, whether there was a driver or not a driver, do you feel like the company's pursuing driverless technology is moving things too fast and, therefore, are to blame in some way >> thank you for asking. thank you for having us on

this has become a focal point of the future of the automotive industry i think the short answer is, yes, moving way too fast there's no reason at this moment in time that we see these vehicles being tested in a way with no regulations around them, there's no federal regulations, no state regulations and it raises a lot of questions. your previous segment talked about having a remote control driver in the uber circumstance, there was a safety driver in the vehicle right there and wasn't able to make a difference in this tragic situation. it really raises a lot of questions about the speed at which we're moving >> bob, i know you have your concerns as well does the idea of someone taking control remotely assuage any of that >> i don't think anyone taking control remotely would have saved this woman from this tragic accident because it happened so fast, there was no way to turn control over to a remote operator. if you have one remote operator per vehicle on duty all the

time, then what's the point? you may as well keep the drivers in the vehicle so, that whole -- that whole deal is like kissing your sister and while i found -- i found phil lebeau's contribution interesting, but i will tell you, that's just a momentarily patchwork because the software, the sensors, the digital precision mapping and all these things aren't quite yet where they need to be in the future for the autonomous vehicle to handle all the situations. i will tell you some companies may be moving faster than others some have better technology in automotive vehicles than others. i'll tell you this, in 2019 when gm launches the first batch of driverless chevy bolts with no steering wheel, they will be totally safe >> and you think that's still on track, bob, to hit that timeline >> oh, absolutely. absolutely

and gm is always so conservative when it comes to rolling out technology that has possible safety implications, that you have to know when gm rolls this out, it will be completely safe. >> yeah, but, bob, in fairness, they just had a massive ignition scandal where the keys were -- it was turning with the keys, turning cars off i mean, i don't think anyone believes gm is magically going to come up with a way to guarantee this is safe this is the vanguard of entirely new technology. >> gm has been working on it for years. has excellent partners has driven these fleets for millions of miles with safety drivers on board and everything -- i would guarantee it's going to be fine. but let me just make this point. as tragic as this loss of life is, this woman who was fatally injured, we can't lose sight of the fact that autonomous

vehicles are coming. it's the only solution for surface transportation within large metropolitan conglomerations, and autonomous fleets will have like 5% of the accidents human drivers do human drivers are distracted, they go to sleep, they drink, they text, they take drugs, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera autonomous vehicles do none of that in a distant future will will maybe be 3,000 to 4,000 deaths a year caused -- partially caused by autonomous vehicles yes, but 4,000 deaths a year beats the 45,000 deaths a year we have currently with human-driven vehicles. >> you know, i do -- >> jason, do you still agree autonomous cars are the future and that a number say like a tenth of the deaths we have at the moment would be acceptable in that environment? >> well, about the only thing i

agree with that bob just said was that in the distance future this will probably be a reality. but it's the distant future. the promise of autonomous vehicles is amazing. it's going to eliminate hopefully or at least mitigate tens of thousands of death and human error, but it will be the distant future there needs to be focus on this instead of the race of four delivering pizzas or tempe and chandler, arizona, race to do ride-sharing when there are uber and lyft drivers right now the reality is, let's get the technology right beforer with using human beings as guinea pigs >> thank you both. such an important topic. we have a news alert on walmart to get to with courtney reagan she's at the shop talk conference in las vegas. what's going on? >> reporter: walmart's ceo of u.s. e-commerce was on stage

with andy dunn, the founder who reports to marc lore they were answering questions and marc lore reiterating he committed to walmart, putting a timeline on it, saying, look, i said when i started i would be here for five years. i will be here for at least five years if things continue to go well so, putting a little timestampl on it. in regards to acquisitions down the line, in the year prior walmart looking inquisitive and marc lore saying we're still looking at acquisition targets we are just looking for the right fit. he said, it's likely the acquisitions will be around what they had been previously for moose jaw, around that $300 million mark but didn't rule out they could be sizes outside of that as well also saying, jet.com will continue, even though it is still under walmart. by the way, those digitally native brands we purchased, those will also be available

over time on jet.com something they have discussed but reiterated here today. that's the news here from the shop talk conference when it pertains to walmart, which is the big talker of this conference as with most every other conference back to you, guys. >> has been for so long. shares up a little less than 1%. thank you. >> consumer discretionary, one of the better performing sectors as well. today is to be the first day of spring but winter hasn't released it's grip on the northeast as they prepare for their fourth nor'easter in a month. carl parker is tracking the storm for us. >> this is exexceedingly rare to get this many storms in that amount of time we have the snow under way right now in new jersey, in pennsylvania, in northern maryland we'll see a lot more of it a very large swath of several inches of snow and nearly a foot of snow in parts of the d.c., baltimore area, as well as into

philly 9, 10 is what we're going for there. over a foot in the jersey shore as well as long island 15 inches there in long island and winds could gust to 45 miles an hour. we could be looking at blizzard warnings with this storm it's a large, sprawling system with a couple of centers one right in here, northeasterly winds kicking in there notice in the ohio valley. we'll see a lot of wind with the system, especially in coastal areas. we'll be looking at a coastal flood issue for maine all the way down to delaware hard to believe that we're going through this once again. back to you. >> i'm so quick and easier to dismiss it and say it's wanted going to be that bad this time, but i know better. i got the hotel room just in case. >> in my two years, it's never been this bad. >> wilf thinks nothing is going to happen. you talk it up and it's usually all right. at least in the city. >> you totally jinxed it for everybody now. >> by the way, of course, everybody stay safe. >> thank you.

let's check in on today's other top stories with sue herera. >> here's what's happening at this hour. fedex confirming that a package exploded at its facility in san tan to san antonio earlier today and another package sent by the same person has been turned over to authority. they believe they are linked to the explosions in austin. president trump today saying he called russian president vladimir putin to congratulate him on his election victory, but senate majority leader mitch mcconnell says the election results lack credibility and that congratulating putin would not have been high on his list of priorities. meanwhile, russian diplomats leaving the uk today were expelled and given a week to get out, after a former russian double agent and his daughter were poisoned. and billionaire investor peter thiel is starting a new football league called the alliance of american football. and it hopes to kick off in february of next year, right after the super bowl cbs has signed on to broadcast the games.

wwwe's vince mcmahon also plans to relaunch his football league, the xfl in 2020. that's the news update this hour kelly, wilf, back to you >> thank you very much there's so much more to learn about all these different football leagues i don't know if there was an appetite for the xfl, this new one, this is totally fresh. >> kicking off after the super bowl so, it gives it another chance for the next one to still pick up its ratings. 24 minutes to go before the bell we are off session highs but still standing pretty. up 160 points. all three indices and russell in positive territory today still ahead in the wake of the cambridge analytica and facebook-related scandalwel , 'l continue to deep dive on that story. pgim sees alpha in real assets. like agriculture to feed the world. and energy to fuel its growth. real estate such as e-commerce warehouses.

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welcome back to "closing bell." i'm ju julia boorstin in los angeles. new york attorney general eric schneiderman saying with massachusetts general attorney he sent a demand letter to facebook, first step in joint investigation to get to the bottom of what happened. snyderman saying, quote, consumers have a right to know how their information is used and companies like facebook have a fundamental responsibility to protect their users' personal information. after facebook issued a statement saying ceo zuckerberg and sheryl sandberg are working around the clock to get all the facts. back to you. >> thank you very much for that. meantime, we have news on neil brands.

>> this comes out of reuters, former newell brands director franklin is considering buying some of the company's assets, according to an interview he gave to reuters. franklin teamed up with starboard that put together a 12-member slate to newell's board urging this em to sell assets on monday, to maybe things more complicated, icahn intervened by putting five directors on newell's board franklin and three of starboard's nominees withdrew from consideration franklin telling reuters that he could bias sets through his blank check company called j2 acquisition limited which raised $5.2 billion in an ipo last year he said, we are literally on the hunt and we'll look at newell's assets our money is as green as anybody else's. >> that stock up 1.5%.

17 minutes to go until the close. we were up about 190 points at the highs of the day we just slipped a little bit in the last ten minutes now just up 0.5% on the dow. the tech sector is in positive territory. the nasdaq is a little higher, too. >> back in two minutes on the "closing bell. when this bell rings... ...it starts a chain reaction... ...that's heard throughout the connected business world. at&t network security helps protect business, from the largest financial markets to the smallest transactions, by sensing cyber-attacks in near real time

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call (866) 296-7451. act now to take advantage of commission-free trades for 90 days, plus get up to an $800 cash bonus when you open and fund a new account. ♪ welcome back just 12 minutes left until the close. joining our "closing bell" exchange we have thomas frost from frost&frost wealth management, steve grasso and rick santelli. mr. frost, i'll start with you because your name sounds so great. what are you expecting from the fed tomorrow is that the key factor as we look into the rest of the week or still fallout from facebook

>> i think the markets are anxious to hear what jerome powell has to say. i think they'll see if the fed is still on track with three rate hikes or if they look at the effect of all the tax cuts released in december and maybe they say, no, the economy is doing so well, maybe we need a raise four times by even with the four rate hikes this year, that does not mean suddenly monetary policy is tight. all it means is it's less tight than what it was it's still very, very loose, even if they do raise rates four times. that's not to take away from the fact that facebook is certainly still going to be on people's mind. >> the applause on the floor behind us, the congressional medal honor recipients are here to ring the bell they'll have a dinner in their honor and major charles kettle of the army is here to do the bell ringing >> here here. >> not that they weren't clapping for you.

>> this man deserves it a lot more. >> how are we set up for the fed decision >> i think thomas hit on it. if you look at powell, and he is dovish, i think we make the ratchet right back up to 2800 in the s&p. if we hear from him and he is hawkish, then i do believe we ultimately test those february lows, so back down to the 200-day moving average which is 2585 in s&p cash i think powell looks at the tax cuts as increasing in productivity so maybe less inflationary than otherwise thought so maybe he doesn't have to put his foot on the gas, to his point earlier. maybe not as inflationary as the market would think it would be. >> do you think we can push through that 2.9 handle on the ten-year over the course of the next 24 hours? >> you know, i think if i had to make a bet, i would say it's possible that we can get intraday into the 2.9s and probably correlate with the announcement and the statement

and the rate hike tomorrow, but whether we close above it, that really is a close call we're 18 sessions now, not days, sessions, in the 2.80s and some new things happened today. real quickly, put up the chart the difference between our tens and european tens is within five basis points sitting at 2.30 of the widest it's been since 1989. 29 years that is a big statement. you want to watch that one twos and fives extended comps. april of 2010 for fives. tens and 30s made their recent high this is year. i'll tell you what, after it's all said and done, the unique feature of this marketplace is the fact we're not seeing yields moderate even in the face of things like weak retail sales. it will be fascinating to watch those variables as they read the rorschach -- excuse me, the statement tomorrow >> one more variable into the

bell art cashin came by and mentioned we have 900 to buy on the bell dow is up 104. thank you all. >> about ten minutes to go until the close. we're up about 125 points on the dow. the "closing bell" will be right back let's begin. yes or no? do you want the same tools and seamless experience across web and tablet? do you want $4.95 commissions for stocks, $0.50 options contracts? $1.50 futures contracts? what about a dedicated service team of trading specialists? did you say yes? good, then it's time for power e*trade. the platform, price and service that gives you the edge you need. looks like we have a couple seconds left.

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off the bell today, we'll get earnings results from fedex, according to our data partners, fedex shares have moved 4.5% either up or down eight quarters after earnings were released we'll bring you those results coming up straight after the bell. oracle reeling from its results after the bell yesterday. we're coming back with the kroesst closing countdown. we took safe... and made it daring.

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you like him. your mom says he's done really well for himself. he has stocks and bonds your dad wants to go fishing with him. your dad doesn't even like fishing. you like your brother-in-law. but you'd like him better if you made more money than he does. don't get mad at your brother-in-law. get e*trade welcome back to the closing bell we're up 120 points or so on the dow. the high of the day was plus 193. we slipped back from that but all three indices are in positive territory encouraging given that big selloff yesterday. nasdaq up 0.25%. let's have a look at facebook, still the big story. yesterday lost 7%. today losing another 3%. the selling has continued, down

about 2.5 as we approach the close. let's take a look at the other f.a.n.g. names yesterday they sold off in sympathy with facebook most have stabilized today alphabet, apple, hardly lower. twitter has been hit hard. social media names still suffering, twitter in particular down about 11%, like facebook's total decline over the last couple of days let's look at the sectors. tech overall is fine today it's right in the middle of that sector performance it's essentially flat. energy the best performer. oil prices up a couple percent telco the worst performer today. we'll it end with a two-day chart on the u.s. dollar because yesterday it was down 0.5% today up a little as fed focus meeting in focus that will be the big story tomorrow. >> the big hope for the bulls as we get new market leadership because we've got nothing in the last two weeks tech's in trouble. we haven't gotten anything to come forward for it.

the hope is mr. powell sounds like janet yellen. that's what the bulls are hoping for, at least. the risk here is that there may be a policy error. that's what traders call it when the fed goes against them, it's called a policy error. he may sound too aggressive. >> you say nothing to shout for for the bulls but the bears aren't screaming that loudly on the tech front because there is still some selloff for facebook and twitter but tech across the board is flat, nasdaq slightly positive it's drawn a line under it. >> it's stabilized a little bit. we want leadership what's going to move the market to the next phase? there's nothing out there. when you get this, without any kind of move forward, without the fed saying, okay, we're only doing three this year, something like that, the market tends to flatten out because the prices are high they're still relatively high. >> energy is leading things today. >> yes >> you get oil up 2% on the day, that's going to help remember, oil never recovered after the february drop that we saw. so, these stocks are way, way

down there and it's going to take a lot of effort to bring them back up oil is not widely owned by the general public it's an institutional game. >> there goes the bell 120 points or so higher on the dow. all three indices higher ringing the bell, congressional medal honor recipients congratulations. kelly with the second hour >> thank you, wilf welcome to the "closing bell." i'm kelly evans. dow going out with a little more than 100 gains, up 119 hasn't made it back to 25,000. that gain puts us at 2730 for the blue chips the nasdaq up 0.25% after yesterday's big drop the nasdaq closing around 7,364, and the russell 2000 small caps

negative, we'll watch that, closing at 1570. joining me now, cnbc market senior commentator, michael and john blanks. welcome. topping the dow was boeing and g he was was the trailer dover corpse was the big winner for s&p, and oracle down 2% on the bell two seconds on that because we'll have more than that later. >> bad guidance and they don't have momentum pivoting to the cloud. i think the takeaway was a little dead money period for the stock. >> any reason why -- obviously, the big story today is facebook dropping again after yesterday's nearly 7% drop, shedding more cap today. is the fact they're both down, facebook and oracle, so big say anything to you about investors being afraid of tech or -- >> i wouldn't say facebook and

oracle i would say facebook, alphabet, snap, so ad-supported media is being put to one side. they think if there's a user/government backlash in this area of how data is used to auction your eyeball, they'll be punished today it did not spread across to the amazons and all the rest of it. i do think there's an effort to discern winners and losers on a relative basis, at least today. >> a lot of times people say we rally into fed meetings or rally into fed minutes anything like that any importance ahead of tomorrow or will we find out when we find out what jay powell and the rest the crew have to say >> yeah, i think the messaging and planning will mean the projections will mean a lot. a, it's the first time at the rodeo, his first press conference we've seen the past that can be a little bumpy. that's number one. i think the bigger issue is the

continued focus on short-term rates and what it means for multiple compression across the board because the tech story, i think, isn't just a specific stock story. i think it's a story of generally you can expect multiples to come down even as earnings rise as we get further. >> so, in other words, the market won't trade at quite a premium because interest rates, you think, are going to go up. >> yes i think earnings will win the tug of war between rates pushing multiples down but it is a bit of a tug of war we'll see. cyclical sectors, including tech, will feel pressure from time to time that's the largest picture. >> john, what do you think is going on with tech >> i think tech is going to start to bifurcate i think you'll see the hardware names and the chip names, which don't have these social media hangovers, they're going to keep going. we saw that today with the applied materials. micron later this week on thursday the big report

and the chip stocks and hardware stocks will probably move on their own, keep going forward. the social media names, the snaps, the twitters -- >> by the way, yesterday the chips got hurt, too. they had a tough session as purportedly the facebook would have nothing to do with them is that coincidence? >> no, they're in the etfs and the first reaction is to sell them all i think it's buy the dip on the chip at this point and i think that's what will happen now. a little more disconcertike dis. >> buy the dip on the chip, you know i want to make a joke. >> just don't do it. >> it calmed down. it's now three points off yesterday's high some people look at that kind of thing as a little significance i still think we're in limbo phase. the market is in a no man's land we talked about being between the february lows and january

highs. i think the fed meeting tomorrow, there's some suspense building up. i think the direction of surprise might be mildly to the positive side just to get it out of the way and i don't see -- >> positive for the markets, dovish >> exactly i don't think there's that much insestive for powell his first time out to slam a fourth rate hike on the calendar in a forced way. >> let's get more on the big story of the day, british broadcaster channel 4 releasing more footage from their undercover investigation into cambridge analytica. john harwood bringsthat to us. >> reporter: the new footage dropped by channel 4 in britain features a lot of boasting from nix of cambridge analytica about how the firm's work is untraceable, how congressional oversight in the united states would be lame and ineffectual. the republicans weren't very interested in depth in terms of what they did. there was boasting about how much they did for the trump

campaign it started when the reporter, who, of course, was posing as a potential client asked alexander nix whether or not he had met donald trump >> many times. >> you have? >> all the data, all the an will the -- analytics, all the targeting, and we informed them on strategy. >> that's going to fuel desire in washington. certainly from democrats and also some republicans to get to the bottom of exactly what cambridge analytica did. keep in mind cambridge analytica today put out a statement saying they are proud of their work with the campaign. they didn't collude with russians alexander nix has been suspended pending this investigation. >> we knew cambridge analytica worked with the trump campaign, correct? >> yes >> they are involved with the

mercers. >> yes the question is how extensive was their work, whether they were a bit player in the campaign and some trump people are now trying to minimize the role they played, saying their work wasn't that important as opposed to whether or not they were, in fact, the brains of the campaign i think that tells you something -- the answer to that question tells you something about the significance of what robert mueller and the senate intelligence committee are looking into. >> john, thank you mike allege, anything you'd add there? >> not on that particularly. i think that continues to be a side show until it's a very front and center issue >> or unless you're facebook right now. then it's front and center. >> very important for them. >> we'll have much more on this story as we follow it. meantime, it has created the tech tors that led the market during the rally struggling

recently let's get to bob pa san? i. >> we stabilized a little bit today. two major sectors on the upside. social media still not bouncing. that's a problem that was a big component of the tech rally we saw recently we saw most of the major social media sites, on the downside them and semiconductors moved the market forward that's why facebook matters. it hurts semiconductors, tech as a leadership group else we where we got modest bounce in energy because oil was up 2%. that hasn't helped us much recently oil hasn't helped us at all. that's an issue. we don't have any leadership right now. if you look at today's market movers, the dow is up but it was two stockses, boeing and caterpillar, they go up and down in concerns with trade wars. here's the simple truth. we need to get some other

sectors. we need something like an industrial moving forward, something like that. the big issue is what can do it in the near future fundamentals have been strong, buybacks have been strong. they'll be up 30% this year. the best hope is mr. powell sounds more moderate and keep the idea there will only be three more rate hikes and not on the four for 2018. overall, though, no leadership issue still an issue we still got tech down 3% in the last week. we haven't had financials move up consumer discretionary, industrials, all down about 2% maybe finally the federal reserve can turn things around for us back to you. >> we'll see, bob. thank you. mike, real quickly, tech has become so big for the market that if someone else is going to take -- who else could it be >> it's hard to know exactly who can carry that much weight tech plus amazon, netflix and priceline is basically a third of the market right now. a third of the s&p 500 almost that.

>> which was suggested, it should be someone else who has much more room to grow is it going -- is energy going to make a comeback >> it doesn't move the index in total. we don't have perfectly choreographed rotations like last year. it's more ragged. >> ragged, that's a good word for it bob mentioned the fed, jerome powell holding his first fed meeting as chair what can we expect to hear from him in the news conference let's bring in jeff cleveland to chat with us jeff, want your quick two cents on this. what's the setup, the landscape against which he'll make this decision and what kind of rhetoric are you expecting >> kelly, i think the entire year in the capital markets can be summed up by the repricing of the fed. so, we started the year, markets had a 10% chance of four rate hikes in 2018. as of this morning, that moved up to about a 35% chance of four rate hikes

i think that's the real central issue here i think it has further to go i think at some point in the year we'll have more rate hikes priced in. that's because the fed's message has shifted from the yellen fed to the powell fed. powell is focused on not letting the economy overheat, whereas yellen was focused on keeping interest rates lower than they otherwise would be to juice the economy. we don't need that anymore we have an economy that has a lot of tailwinds behind it the goal of the fed is not to overheat i think three rate hikes, three dots is real likelihood for the year i think at some point this year the market will be pricing in four >> this goes back to the discussion we were just having does mr. powell error on the side of caution from the market's point of view or caution from, hey, i don't want to overheat and maybe we need to act a little more aggressive point of view? >> kelly, the number you want to put in your head right now is what's called the neutral rate that's the rate we get to when

we're not accommodating this economy. that's 2.8% in the latest surveys. the fed's at 1.5% and we're going to 2.8 five rate hikes? that's basically march or june of '19 i think all of this concern put on the table a minute ago is probably too early we got at least a year before that fed worry powell rate hikes get too much all of that is around two-point on the fed fund. we're a long ways from that. >> i wonder if it's a coincidence the ten-year yield is around 2.8%. >> it's not a coincidence. >> it is >> you've had some flattening out there. the one-year treasury is 2.08. and the two-year was at 2.08 a month ago. the fed will be active whether it's correct or not, we don't know i think it would be surprise if you got less than three. i think that's why everyone is leaning to three or four.

>> if it was less, you would see a big reaction. >> you would see a big reaction. i think there's more expecting for than the market is showing i think the significance of 2.88 on ten-year is flatness. i think this compression may be an issue that continues. we thought about utilities maybe it's 3%. maybe it should be 4% of a weighting in the s&p >> so, you think that utilities should benefit as a result >> if you look at the '04 to '06 cycle, and there are some similarities and some differences but we started around the same terms of rates on multiples on the markets, utilities did well. >> plenty of people would think, that's the last thing i want to hold in a raising right environment. you say the fact multiple parts gets hit, places like utilities could get hit? >> i think there's that. i think the fundamentals on utilities are quite good, if you

look at rate-based settlements to michael's point with 30% in tech, investors weighted towards those names, having a bit of a hedge in a sector that's been completely ignored with actually pretty good fundamentals makes sense. >> jeff, what else are you going to be watching for tomorrow? >> i think the neutral rate, longer run rate is important i think the key there, though, is nobody knows where the neutral rate is. all we need is a little unkernt out there in the market where people start to wonder, maybe, maybe it is just a little higher that would be enough to send up longer term interest rates it's not a coincidence the ten-year is at 2.80 and long-term neutral rate is 2.80 if that gets nudged up, ten-year will follow in yield. >> we'll see what happens come tomorrow thank you for joining us >> my pleasure. >> michael and john, thank you

as well. i like this utilities. >> we'll see >> it's a tough call but interesting. a news alert on spotify to get to. >> spotify amending its prospectus ahead of a public offering the company's shareholders plan to register 55.7 million shares in this offering co-founders as well as tiger global and technology crossover ventures are registering a portion of their shares to be sold in the company's debut. spotify, as a reminder, is utilizing an unconventional process meaning there are no underwriters and they aren't issuing any new shares they are planning their debut for april 3rd. >> so, what is the new piece of this they're modifying the registration form? >> we didn't know how many shares would be sold in the direct listing to this gives an actual number and details whom

from the current inside shareholders would be registered to sell. that means they would have the option to sell if the price at the direct listing compelled them to do so. >> we're still looking early april for this >> april 3rd >> okay. >> april 3rd is the date. >> thank you very much you know i love this story. >> it's fascinating to game out how it's going to go i've been thinking about it the way a spinoff gets listed. a large company spinning off no underwriter the stock just shows up in public hands and it's free to sell people like spinoffs because they usually trade down because more incentive to sell than to buy, at least initially. i wonder if it will hold up. >> the long-term outcome, even if that happens, it creates a lot of value they feel like they create more and save money a lot more to come on the "closing bell."

>> announcer: straight ahead, the yale school of management head that says mark zuckerberg needs to take drastic action right now. see what he's proposing coming up plus, oracle's big dip is now the time to buy in? the "fast money" guys weigh in this is the "closing bell" live from the new york stock exchange with kelly evans idend strategie. 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.

welcome back fedex earnings are out let's get to morgan brennan. >> we have a beat on top and bottom line for fedex for fiscal q3 earnings per share adjusted $3.22, better than the $3.11 expected by analysts revenue exert than expected, $16.5 billion. consensus called for $16.2 billion. taking a look at the outlook here, not clear whether it actually compares to the consensus estimates or the previous outlook stated by the company but fedex saying that excluding pension accounting adjustments, earnings projected to be $17.90 per diluted share

if you take out those pension aadjustments and u.s. tax liability, they say it's going to be $15 to $15.40 per diluted shares shares of fedex are up 2%. fred smith, founder, ceo and chairman also noting they expect sprong operating performance in each of the transportation segments in the fourth quarter lastly, we've got this beat top and bottom line but comes on the heels of what's been a pretty busy day where fedex is concerned. we had an explosion at a fedex facility where a device in a package detonated. that's an incident now under federal investigation. a second package was also intercepted. nbc news reporting that package is linked to the four explosions that have taken place earlier this month in the austin area. we're expecting updates on that. also, more color on this financial quarter and trade,

tariffs, tax reform and, of course, peak season numbers when the conference call comes up at 5:00 p.m. eastern. back over to you. >> this company involved in every aspect thank you very much. morg morgan shares up 2% any mrblowout, first question, it comparable? >> a lot to sort through the stock gave you a chance to get in not at a crazy level. went from 225 to 257 a wild move. pulled back. now it looks like it might try too firm up. >> about 257 is where we are on those fedex shares at the moment there's more coming up on that call google announced the launch of its google news initiative earlier today. focusing on fighting misinformation the tech giant plans to commit $300 million to the initiative over the next three years. appearing on the "half time report" early this afternoon, here's what google's vp had to

say about the timing of the initiative >> i'm very optimistic i don't think we're too late i'm very optimistic. >> google's youtube also announced tighter policies on gun-related videos it will prohibit firearms videos joining us is president and ceo of news media alliance thank you for joining us. >> thanks for having me. >> this is one of those weeks that puts the spotlight on problems we have with differentiating good sources of information with poor ones what will this do? >> these are a set of good and pretty serious proposals there's a whole range of things. things we focus on is subscription, way to subscribe through google for publishers, news organizations, giving higher priority to news from authoritative quality sources. a whole range of technical tools to try to identify fake news

those are all good things. frankly, i represent news publishers and until we see actual return and actual economic return for real quality journalism, i'm going to temper my enthusiasm. it was good. it was serious i think they are, in their own way, trying to take on a set of very difficult problems. >> we've been talking about facebook so much the last couple of days. some have made the case saying that, yeah, whatever cambridge analytica might or might not have done, perhaps there was a lot more influence related to the way the news feed itself would privilege more provocative or outlandish type content is there any way to sway how these algorithms operate so m e more - >> yes, it's their rules google and facebook have created these rules to do a number of

things, most particularly help their businesses i'm not criticizing -- >> that's the point. it doesn't steeem to be in their interest every time they tweak it or -- the readers are, ike bored but that crazy story is, unfortunately, fake news do you think regulatory pressure makes them change that >> in the ail gore rit they can give higher priority to news from people who employ reporters. you could start there. how about people who pay reporters give them a higher priority. >> and they have this initiative now to try to help assign some -- almost like a star rating system to news sources, so when you see something in front of you, you can say this is either a top or bottom rated organization. >> exactly they will -- they have to address this problem news is an unusual kind of content. it's important the joke i always tell is nobody's asking for congressional hearing about fake cat videos

the news is important politically, important to society. if you screw up the news business, you screw up our civil society. they realize they have to do things, even hard things, things that even in their immediate best interest -- >> we hope the news business can monetize before it goes away completely thank you for joining us oracle, the worst performing stock on the s&p today after weaker than expected cloud service revenue. remember those results last night? the "fast money" traders will tell us whether they're buying on this weakness coming up first, jeffrey sonnenfeld weighs in on how the facebook scandal could impactacook febceo mark zuckerberg's future at the company. 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.

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call for a free quote today. liberty stands with you™ liberty mutual insurance. welcome back it's a breakup for f.a.n.g the stocks are going in two different directions facebook and google losing market share while netflix and amazon gain. you can see facebook dropped to about $480 billion, losing $30 billion. kicked off 2018 for alphabet, near $730 billion and dropped by $30 billion to $750 billion. netflix has gone the other direction. netflix and amazon, netflix added $50 billion net cap -- >> they added like 21st century fox to its market cap. >> unbelievable.

imsure that hurts 21st century fox. amazon has gained $200 billion in market cap from $563 to $763 billion. >> it's amazing. >> we're talking about rel t re to where we start, we have seen quite a bit difference in how the market is placing these companies. we'll have to stop calling it f.a.n.g. >> what's the scheme that the market is kind of following here it looks like, well, netflix and amazon are not advertising supported principally. people buy the product, they know what they're getting. it's not about auctioning eyeballs i don't know the market is correct to say these are the trajectories to follow long term >> big revaluation in amazon's case as the market share of facebook and google drops, my next guest says it might be time for mark

zuckerberg to step down. joining us is mark -- jeff sonnenfeld does he need to step down or have someone step above him? >> he needs to face up to the facebook realities this is basically facebook's frankenstein monster they have to confront right now. it's going to be hard to remove him from office. he's surely not going to voluntarily step down. last april he controlled 60% of the stock. in is something like he and jack ma and vladimir putin and xi jinping in this emperor for life model is the problem they have there are the problems, as we've seen with fidel castro, is that sometimes the dragon slayer's early career can start to resemble the dragon late career. there has to be accountability here. >> are you comparing it to

villains of history. i wonder if you were firing mark zuckerberg for cause right now, what is that cause what do you say to him >> well, you know, the villains of history, for the most part, started out as redeemers they became villainous by late career this guy with unchecked power. he's not accountable to anybody. jack ma did the same thing and it's very dangerous. this board, they're silent where are they is it because peter thiel is on the board? very close to the trump campaign a major trump supporter. and a big backer here and a board member or is it because of the russian/ukrainian founder of whatsapp is on the board what did he do wrong there's rampant misconduct proerl ftc violations. this cambridge analytica had

gotten access to this data through reckless misconduct of 200,000 files forked over for this psychological research -- >> but facebook says, hey, we're the victim here. and we are the victim of a third-party and cambridge analytica misusing this data are they lying >> they are being fast and easy with the facts they had uncovered this misuse in 2015 and didn't do anything about it they didn't even audit it. they just complained to cambridge analytica. where was there any evidence they made some due diligence, some effort to show there's some compliance with their already very too loose scheme? federal trade commission rapped them on the knuckles before. they didn't show any contrition before >> who would be -- one quick example of the person to come in at this moment, on who do you think that would be? >> well, on the board they have

ken chenault, former ceo of american express on the board they also have erskine bowles there are things they can do mark zuckerberg isn't accountable. where is miss lean-in sheryl sandberg they are hiding, throwing up lawyers. they should show some accountability he sold more stock than the whole technology industry combined the last three months. >> jeff sonnenfeld not happy with facebook. thanks for joining us. >> thank you very much let's take a look at how we finish on wall street today. the dow was up 116 small gains for the s&p and nasdaq as well not doing much for the nasdaq to erase yesterday's 2% drop. the russell 2000 was fractionally lower on the bell it's time for a news update with sue herera. hello. a school shooting in maryland today ending with a school resource officer shooting and killing the gunman

authorities say 17-year-old male student austin wyatt rollins shot two students, one of whom is in critical condition the other is in stable condition. and the brother of florida shooting -- school shooter, nikolas cruz, was in court today, zachary cruz, has been charged with trespassing for visiting the school where his brother killed 17 people he had been told to stay away from the school. a judge setting his bond at $500,000 usually trespassing carries a $25 bond and the northeast is getting ready once again for a springtime snowstorm washington, philadelphia, boston and new york city all in that storm's path some areas could get more than a foot of snow and the toronto blue jays catcher russell martin has a run-in with a net. during spring training take a look at that. autopsy. he got tangled in that net while chasing a foul ball. to add injury to insult, as he tried to get up, the net fell on

him. the metal pole hit him in the head he says he's okay. i don't know oh, geez he laughed it off. however, i think he should have just kind of given up at that point. that's the news update hopefully today's a better day for him. >> spring training, they just leave stuff out on the field, you know. >> obviously >> holy cow. sue, thank you get the cleats tangled up in the net? are they spikes or more like a soccer cleat >> they're called spikes, metal spikes >> that could be nasty. oracle having its worst day in five years after disappointing cloud sales. up next we'll get the "fast money" trade on whether to buy this almost 10% dip. meras and r. ...contemporary cockpit... ...three hundred and sixty degree network of driver-assist technologies... ...and sporty performance...

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welcome back we are speaking a moment ago about the market caps of f.a.n.g. this year and some of the big changes under way. our graphics director, want to make sure i spoke correctly about this, google's market cap has increased? >> it's up year to date. down about 3.5% this year and underperformed amazon and netflix by a lot. >> 763, started at 729

you can see the huge gainers, netflix and amazon. moving along breaking news on salesforce, josh lipton, what's going on there? >> sthaert big news from mathe company to acquire mule soft. the price tag is $6.5 million. mulesoft for connecting applications its customers include everyone from coca-cola to barclays they say will power the new salesforce integration force saying it will enable customers to connect all of the information throughout their enterprises across all public and private clouds again, this news just crossing salesforce buying mulesoft for6.5 billion back to you. >> mulesoft's up 3.5%. they were up big in the session when reuters reported these talks were under way. it's official now. let's get to some other big stories in our rapid recap

>> facebook under fire the fallout grows from that massive data scandal. >> reporting facebook will hold an emergency meeting with employees later today to discuss the fallout. >> this is about power when you have too much power, this is what happens >> we are unbelievably outraged and beyond disturbed at the allegations that data was misused or our policies have been violated. >> this is going to be an opportunity of our lifetime but it can be an issue this responsible stewardship of data, there's nothing a company can't do that's more important. >> house speaker paul ryan says they'll meet the friday deadline to avert a government shutdown and no additional stopgap measure will be needed. >> saudi crown prince is visiting the white house today. >> should the president pull out of the iran deal >> we spoke about that >> the dow going out with more than 100-point gain. we're a little off the highs looks like we're up about 119.

haven't made it back to 25,000, though >> and oracle took a big leg down today it closed lower by nearly 10% after disappointing earnings after the bell yesterday specifically weakness in its cloud business joining us now with more, our "fast money" traders tim seymour and dave sieberg welcome. this was a big drop for oracle is it because its competitors seemed to do so much better or this is the most sensitive part of the fast growing business, right? >> yeah. where's the cloud? this is a company by many guys on the street consensus had them growing 32% on the cloud they come in at the low end of the range. guide at the low end of the range. when you look at where this company is, i don't think this is typically that buy that you are normally buying an oracle. when they reported, they had a lot of volatility in those numbers. this isn't one i would be buying a lot of people felt this was a big cloud play

they throw them in there with microsoft and other guys i'm not sure you can do that just yet in a major way. >> david, how does it look to you in terms of investor positioning and everything else? obviously there was theme of old tech reinventing itself. it works its way through cisco, worked through intel here you have this stock right back towards last year's lows. >> right excellent question position going into the quarter was expectations for a good quarter. i think very long bias going into last night's earnings therefore, i think a lot came out. they purged out of those positions. i think the setup right now is interesting. i look at it from a trading perspective. not a long-term investment here. let's say a three to six-week trade. i think it's perfect opportunity to jump in look at some of the orders, we talk to some clients we're dealing with, it seemed like larger orders were pushed out into q4. the setup from a valuation perspective is very cheap and i think a large cap value manager will jump in and say i want to

buy some the setup to me is good for a trade. >> it's interesting. tim doesn't like it. david, you're only thinking three to six weeks. >> that's how we make money. >> i know, but it tells you how these prospects have dimmed after this result. thank you both appreciate it. tim seymour, david sieberg, and much more coming up -- >> it's a good deal off last year's lows. i was talking about the lows of the last six months. >> now you're shortening the time horizon, too. our dash for amazon series continues. it's the battle in the keystone state with philly cifang off against pittsburgh

well, it's earnings season once again. >>yeah. lot of tech companies are reporting today. and, how's it looking? >>i don't know. there's so many opinions out there, it's hard to make sense of it all. well, victor, do you have something for him? >>check this out. td ameritrade aggregates thousands of earnings estimates into a single data point. that way you can keep your eyes on the big picture. >>huh. feel better? >>much better. yeah, me too. wow, you really did a number on this thing. >>sorry about that. that's alright. i got a box of 'em. thousands of opinions. one estimate. the earnings tool from td ameritrade.

snooi. welcome back it's the second installment on the dash for amazon on "closing bell." in january amazon narrowed down candidates for second headquarters we turned to the mayor hsmayors and local celebrities. 14 sent in their pitches those videos will be sent online and you can vote for your favorite cities. in the coming weeks cities will go head to head on tuesdays and thursdays until your voting whittles it down to the final four last week we had you pick between miami and chicago and your votes are in. resounding 77% shows miami echoes what our judges said, too. we have two cities from the same state, philly facing off against

pittsburgh let's head to philly with mayor jim kenney. >> philly has momentum perform an historic super bowl victory, parade through the heart of the city, our residents, institutions and businesses are more passionate than ever about philadelphia's future. combine that with all we have to offer and you have a winning combination. our location on the northeast corridor are a deep pool of talented people and make it a perfect fit for amazon and its employees. we sent decades as the underdogs but now it's time for philly to shine. >> i don't know if they're underdogs after the super bowl. >> now to pittsburgh where joe grushecky makes the case for pittsburgh. >> i want to show you my hometown come on, take a look she's a beauty, isn't she? one of the most beautiful cities in the world

used to be a steel town. now we're a high-tech center we have great universities, hospitals, a thriving art scene, progressive leadership and we're full of smart, hard-working, loyal people why would you want to go anywhere else? >> well, now that we've heard the pitches, let's bring in our judges we asked them to rate each one based on tax incentives offered, city fundamentals and the so-called "x" factor, for a total of 15 points welcome to you both. jason, let's cut to the chase. which city did you pick as the winner >> yeah, so, it's a great -- these are two great cities i think both have education, cmu and penn both are on the east coast, which is what amazon wants both have tax breaks, which are great. but i went with philly over

pittsburgh because of housing. and let me unpack that for a second this decision's going to be made by senior executives and senior executives understand that they have to draw the best talent they'll want to live in great homes. they don't want to be in city that's too hot like san francisco, boston, new yorker even seattle where you have houses that are $1500 to $3,000 a square foot. and i was looking at zillow and red fin. there are beautiful houses like this town house for under $1,000 a square foot of the now, senior executives at place like amazon are going to have total comp in the 2$250 to $2 million range this is perfect type of house toy a tract them and you are one hour ride away there are no nice houses in pittsburgh, no dig to pittsburgh >> none. >> zero. >> wendy, what is your pick first of all

and is it based on real estate or something beyond that. >> my pick was philadelphia as well really for some of the same reasons that you just heard. i think the mayor did a good job of u.s. addressing the fact that philadelphia really is a city on the rise he talked about the affordability of housing he talk about the employment pool there what he failed to address though, and i think it's going to be important for amazon going forward in their decision making, what will the climate be like for our employees who are here the call of life factors, those factors that weigh into a corporation's social responsibility to its employees. now, pittsburgh of course, you heard a little bit of that, they mentioned the progressive leadership there, mentioned the big university system, the art scene. but all things being equal, i feel like philadelphia really is a city on the rise and of course amazon is going to be continue to rise wherever

they go. >> wendy, i feel like you are saying they can only go somewhere left leaning where they will feel comfortable. >> what i'm saying is they need to be in a place where their employees are going to feel like they are going to be rmtded as individuals no matter who they are. they are going to be in a welcoming climb. i think more and more corporations as they are making their decisions about where to take their headquarters are really going to be sensitive to this we have seen of course the reaction in cities where that is not happening. >> jason, does money talk? everyone has gone south because the property taxes aren't as high, you don't have the pension overhang and all -- i don't know >> not in this case. >> all of this of course hangs on the the tax breaks too, right? >> i don't think so. the taxes are a red herring. amazon is printing money they will be a able to negotiate on the margins the tax issues. when you are paying on average double minimum wage, for factory

workers, they are getting $13, $14 an hour now, and in pennsylvania you are talking about a $7 an hour minimum wage. for the big companies it's going to be about life-style, culture, real estate, and the talent, does the talent want to live there. they are in a dogfight for tal wenting gooel and other companies, netflix, et cetera, this can be a great recruitment tool for amazon, having this second city where people can buy amazing home and have amazing life-styles at a lower cost of living. >> you are going to get some hate mail from pittsburgh. i spent time there, it is a trendy -- >> donit is a cool city. >> don't defend it now wendy and josh both picked philadelphia cast your vote for your favorite city voting will be open until sunday at 3:00 p.m. eastern. >> that's the second time i'm going against the junes.

>> you would pick chicago and pittsburgh. >> pittsburgh. one issue is availability of workers. the pittsburgh region has been kind of depopulated. but who knows if they will bring their own if they show up there. >> it could have a big impact out there for sure. coming up on "fast money," will the hawkish fed take down the stock market vanguard's chief iestonvr breaks down his case for more volatility coming up in a couple of minutes.

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here are stories making news after hours. fedex shares up. irs shall have mulesoft surging after hours. sales force officially announced it is acquiring the company for $6.5 billion spotify amending

its prospectus ahead of a public offering says shareholders plan to register 56 million shares for sale it's going direct with no underwriters it's not going the issue new shares but there will be plenty on the market. >> there will be liquidity to take advantage of. we will see if the buyers scoop it up. >> that does it for the "closing bell." "fast money" begins right now. >> "fast money" starts right now. live from the nasdaq market is site overlooking new york city's times fair tim seymour, guy adami and dan nathan tonight, facebook heading for its worst week since 2014 as it continues to come under fire the company saying it is outraged what is next for the social media giant and what it may mean more the mark. tom lee says forget the off coins. bitcoin is still your best bet first we start off with the fed's moment of truth, jerome