to the boards of many notable institutions and charities highly respected man include iing the counsel of the america's and the economic club of new york. "the wall street journal" just said today in an editorial, that david malpass is an excellent choice, which is true. america is the largest contributor to the world bank giving it over $1 billion every year my administration has made it a top priority to ensure that u.s. taxpayers dollars are spent effectively and wisely serve american interests and depe fend american values david has been a strong advocate for accountability at the world bank for a long time he has fought to ensure financing is focused on the places and projects that truly need assistance including people living in extreme poverty. david was also critical of the

creation of the world bank's women's entrepreneur and you know about the world bank's women's entrepreneur finance initiatives and he will make it a priority to continue empowering women all across the globe. it's very important thing and a very important part if it's properly handled done by the world bank i am certain that there could be no better candidate to lead the world bank than david and we want to just thank david he's been with me for a long time he's been a supporter for a long time in a financial sense before i ran, he liked the job i did. i like those people somehow. but he's just a highly respected man. a brilliant man and he's going to do very well. we'll be very proud of him so i want to just introduce to the media, say a few words, david malpass.

>> thank you so very much, president trump, for your confidence in selecting me to lead the world bank. the world's premier development institution. it's an incredible honor i'd like to also thank my family that's here today. adele and my terrific children i'd like to acknowledge all my friends and colleagues here, everyone, please, and especially secretary mnuchin, larry kudlow and ivanka trump working with secretary mnuchin at treasury, i'm proud to say that under your administration, mr. president, we negotiated a major capital increase and reform package for the world bank, which shareholders and dedicated staff there's a great opportunity now to implement these constructive reforms that will lead to faster growth and

greater prosperity i want to also note that a key goal will be to ensure that women achieve full participation in developing economies. i know ivanka has been a strong leader on women's economic empowerment and i look forward to continuing our work together on her women's global development and prosperity initiative mr. president, i'm very optimistic that we can achieve breakthroughs to create growth abroad that will help us combat extreme poverty and increase economic opportunities in the developing world thank you again, mr. president, for this great honor >> thank you very much >> your speech last night, y

called ridiculous political investigations, yet this morning, the chairman said he was going to launch a deep investigation not on the -- >> did you say adam schiff oh. never heard of him that wouldn't be partisan, would it >> not only russia, but personal financial transactions get your reaction? >> on what basis would he do that he has no basis to do that he's just a political hack who's trying to build a name for himself and i think that's fine because what they do but there would be no republican to do that no other politician has to go through that it's called presidential harassment and it's unfortunate and it really does hurt our country i just want to say that i was very honored by the statements made about the speech last night. we were, we worked hard on it and we love our country. it was a very important, it was very important i think for me to get up and say some powerful words, also some loving words

and some words of compromise and it's been very well received the speech has been very well received in some cases, incredibly well received and i just want to thank all of those people that said such nice things about the job we did last night. thank you very much. thank you. >> well that was the president introducing the nominee to head the world bank, david malpass. a person long familiar to us here at cnbc and to you in the audience as a commentator on economic affairs very involved in foreign affairs. and and domestic economic affairs spanning a long career dating back to reagan and george herbert walker bush, the late president bush as well as a distinguished kcareer on wall street the question is i'm not sure what happens next. i'm sorry i don't know whether he has to go in front of the

senate for confirmation or has to be confirmed by the pord of the world bank i suspect it is the latter, kelly, but as you pointed out a moment or so ago, mr. malpass has not withbeen an infrequent critic let us say, of the world bank >> right he's someone who thinks as michelle was talking about that not only should we be questioning whether loans are appropriate to china is not particularly a developing country anymore, but also whether there should be more transparency with other smaller countries as to where the funds are going, how they're used and whether the world bank should be getting sflold some of the political aspects of where those funds go that they can often get dragged into >> we'll see what happens with david malpass. the president taking one question about an investigation to be led by adam schiff the democrat in charge i believe of the house intelligence committee whom the president described as a political hack. he then turned the answer to remarks about his speech last

night and that was the only question he took meantime, we are about a week w away from another political hot potato, another government shutdown, programs, but there is movement today on a deal to avoid one. >> negotiators met for a classifiy eied briefing on bordr security today we talked to both republicans and democrats as they came out of the meeting they sounded optimistic. here's richard shelby, the top republican in the room >> we're hopeful the tone is good between the various members of the con frees. we're dealing in substance now something we haven't done before >> now there is even hope they could reach an agreement by this friday that would give them time to follow the rules and get something passed by the deadline of february 15th, but guys, of course the question remains will the president get behind whatever agreement they come up

with as of now, that's still an open question back to you. >> thank you meanwhile, we're getting closer to the tariff deadline of march 11 is and today, steven mnuchin confirming here on cnbc that he and other top trade negotiators are headed to china next week for another round of talks kayla has the latest >> hey, the current plan is for deputies to start talks early next week in beijing with the principle secretary mnuchin, the ambassador joining later in the week the morning, secretary mnuchin said the countries are working around the clock to try to get a deal >> these are a wide range of issues we're working round the clock. if we can't get to the deadline, it's not because we haven't worked round the clock i think it's a big xhimtment on both sides to meet this deadline and we're working under the direction of president trump and president xi, so hopefully we'll kopt to make progress. >> what happens on march 1st

chuck grassley hosted him for a briefing about traz and we spoke with grassley follow iing that he said he have not very definitive about what happens on march 1st. there are three options on the table. the first would be to remove the tariffs entirely that's what china is pushing for. the second would be the simply to hold off on double iing the tariffs on march 1st that's what the u.s. is said to want then the third option is to potentially roll back selectively certain tariffs as a good faith measure that could then come back on if china didn't deliver on its side of the bargain. the fact we're a few weeks away from the deadline and still no decision on how to proceed is certainly not welcome news to the market, but we'll see if that changes over the next week. guys >> thank you very much ton of earnings out today. in the heart of earnings season, traders still lace e laser focu trade talks. joining us is steve grasso steve, you've had some really good predictions about the direction of the market.

but let me throw a sort of broader sort of philosophical question out at you how much more can stocks rise in value if earnings are slowing and will continue as many believe to slow even if they don't fall into negative territory? >> so, this has been about really about powell. really about china powell turned on a dime. did a 180. became you know, a dove from being a hawk and now you have eps that's done nothing but drop in a precipitous fashion, yet the market is willing to pay a higher multiple for that how long can you go and the answer is not that much longer it's about china >> so china, and let's probe that a little bit more the market seems to be moving up at least in part on the idea that the trade war with china if not close to a resolution, is at a point of evolution where it

may be deescalating. so there seems to be a premium in the market for that what happens then if there is some kind of a deal or if there isn't? does that premium get sweated out? >> so the premium does get sweated out and to your point, no one wants to get in front and sell aggressively when you know that trade headline that i do believe a deal will get done because last night if you look at the state of the union, trump was bragging, president trump was bragging about north korea meetings north korea meetings only happen if china allows them to happen or aides in them facilitates them to happen so he wouldn't have bragged about it unless china was on board. so that leads me b to believe a deal will get done having said that, yes, it's in the market, but go with me on this >> sell the news then. >> it is a sell the news it's going to be the last

couple probably the biggest sell the news event for a trader in the last couple of years we're asking china to give something up so if china gdp falling off a cliff has spook ed the market, i will come in even further and then what does it do to the dollar it's going to rally the dollar if the dollar rallies, that's a head wind for multinationals so you have a couple of different fronts where we're p tapping in the market. not the least of which earnings have hit a wall and you should not be paying a premium for flat eps. >> all right, steve, thanks very much appreciate that explanation. steve grasso coming up, two big interviews fed chair janet yellen will weigh in on the economy. >> what a cute couple. >> powell's meeting with the president, but first, another frequent target of the president. "the new york times" hasn't hurt the stock price, which is up more than 170% since november of 2016 the company's ceo mark thompson

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welcome back to "power lunch," everybody. shares of "the new york times" rallying on the back of strong and i do mean strong earnings for the fourth quarter, the times added 265,000 new digital subscriptions. the biggest gain in almost two years in that category digital ad revenue up double digits and hiked ed dividend by

25%. the stock is up about 35% this year and since president trump was elected, shares are up about 170% here for a "power lunch" exclusive is mark thompson, the ceo of "the new york times." good to have you with us >> hi. >> mr. trump has been good for business, hasn't he? >> no question not just donald trump, but the whole news cycle has been very good for business. i think if we were talk iing tw years aelg ago, i think we'd be saying the surge was closely focused on the election. and on the washington cycle. what we're seeing now is much more broadly based we're seeing lots of different kinds of stories moving the dial ve investigations, me too coverage >> the facebook coverage has been quite brilliant >> tech and more broadly business coverage has gotten stronger and strok investment teams. breaking more stories across a really wide front. by the way, features, lifestyle,

culture. that breadth of what the times does it's beginning to for us when i think b about what we're doing, it's not unlike what netflix is tryi ining to do. a big package of high quality content. if you're thinking of subscribing, you want to get good value >> one thing that's happened is that all of those pieces have been spun out on their own so classified ads gave rise to craigslist and you've seen what's happened if you go through every section of the traditional newspaper, even realtor.com. so you know, does that mean there's still a place for people to come to the traditional newspaper for what it has to offer or do you have a foot in each new place >> look at the numbers we've got. probably three time as many subscribers. so our model is working. i think those sections which are

really once really driven by print advertising, they got spun off and in many cases, done better separately on the internet we are looking and as you know, we've got two very successful digital products cooking and cross wood both of which take offers, proposition, which are deep historical propositions from the times and turn them into different pieces of service journalism and product used in a different way, but even within the master product, the main "new york times" digital product, people are finding lots of different kinds of content they really like the fact we're driving our subscriptions is because people get very engaged and we know one of the reasons they engage is because the breadth of the content. >> 265,000 new digital subscribers in the latest quarter. does that mean they are subscribing only digitally or does that combine people taking both at the same time? >> we define print subscribers,

all get access as well they're counted separately these guys are -- >> i'm glad i'm counted separately good now let me ask you another thing. of the people solely subscribing digitally, what is their profile, both in terms of demography and geography as compared to the people who subscribe to the print edition >> i want to say in the broader sense, their average age is a bit younger. i mean actually significantly as you would think and the, the geographical spread is much broader. the point i want to make is the domestic physical "new york times," we have domestic, international, you can't get it in the rest of the world you know mid teens and rising all the time, these subscribers live on the other continents, the other countries you've got a global audience as well even in america, the

geographical spread is much broader. the single market for digital subscriptions is california. >> doesn't surprise me >> so tell me about the subscription growth. you said it has quadrupled over the, what did you say, over the past ten years in total? >> i think -- >> from a million two to 4 million? >> we're getting close to tripling at the very pique of print, early '90s, types probably had 1.7, 1.8 million total today, we announced the end of last year, 4.3 million. so we have a much bigger paying base than "the new york times" has had in its history and frankly, we think we're building a digital, abigger digital subscription business than any news organization in the world at the moment and we announced today that by 2025, we want to get to the ten maillion mark.

>> do those include people who just want the cooking or cross words? >> total number of subscription relationships. print, cooking, cross words. we think lots of the growth is going to come from the digital "new york times. the core, the kind of master news and opinion brand by the way, we think of ten million as a milestone, too. the numbers suggest we can aspire to a significantly bigger number than ten million. >> is there any prospect for spinning out a third alongside >> we're working on an everything product we have currently, not a subscription product, wire cutter a consumer testing site. we have quad we see a constellation of satellite products, products which people associate with the times. but which we can also apart from selling separately, bundle, so we can create higher priced

packages, which include these other products the yield -- >> how big a part of your future or present is podcasting and video? >> well we're incredibly excited. we had what was last year's most downloaded podcast on apple i-tunes. >> i get it on alex kai. >> three quarters of that audience is 40 under that's about reaching out to younger demographics in june, we launched a tv show for fx and hul uu. it's going to be a weekly news program. one or two stories per week. we want to reinvent the certain kind of way the news is done on tv and both with the daily and weekly, we want to scale those businesses, too. >> how do you feel about the assaults on the constitutiinstif

the media and the free press that have come from the white house? >> everyone's entitled to their opinion. to say they don't like the way we do our journalism we're accountable. you can criticize us you can sue us it's hard to do that with a digital player >> and you can cancel. >> and you can cancel. describing journalists from the times as enemies of the people and using extreme rhetoric about journalism i think is dangerous. i think it's dangerous because it could encourage people to do crazy things in relation to news organizations and individual reporters. and last week, there was a on the record interview, a publisher and a couple of journalists in the white house interviewed mr. trump again for the second time, our publisher had to admonish the president for the intemperate and irresponsible language he sometimes uses as journalism

criticism, a bias, the president of the united states has as much right as anyone to do that, but there must be a limit to the aggression of the language it seems to me. >> at the risk of going lopg here in the control room, sorry, i read that interview closely. one of things the president said was i'm a guy from queens. i'm from new york and i can't get a good story in my hometown paper. would you dispute that he's gotten good stories in "the new york times"? >> i think "the new york times" has done a good job for instance in covering the great u.s. economy in recent years. the growth of jobs and not just jobs as a whole, but jobs and wages for lower income individuals and households in this country i think there are plenty of examples of the "the new york times" saying positive things, but keeping our job to be

honest, not to decide to be positively or negatively, but to record the facts, u partial judgments about what's going on and to hold power to account our job with the president of the united states and the other powerful private sector individual institutions, is to be on behalf of the user, the reader, who tells the truth. >> i was just thinking about "the new york times" can do very well in this environment as you guys are, but the decline of local newspapers, the decline of local news coverage and the corruption that then comes about as a result of that, you guys have shown how to be big and successful in this day and age especially when engaging in national politics, but there's so many communities out there that have no one looking out for what's going on. >> i should be really clear. we, our scale, maybe the right strategy, the quality of our journalism, we're doing pretty well and we're going to be hiring journalists we continue to invest in journalism no one's more aware than we are that we're an exception and much

of journal ism in the u.s. also some of the new digital publi publishers are really struggling somewhere out there in 2019 i hope is a conversation with the big dingital platforms and withn the industry about is there more we can do to support the dive e diversity and the flourishing of all of american journalism, not just in a sense the lucky few. >> thanks for the conversation appreciate it. >> thank you all right, still to come here on "power lunch", janet yellen just moments away with our big teiewi tinrvw thhe former fed chair. "power lunch" is back in two imagine traveling hassle-free with your golf clubs. now you can, with shipsticks.com! no more lugging your clubs through the airport or risk having your clubs lost or damaged by the airlines.

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zblncht foreign ministers from the u.s.-led islamic state coalition meeting in washington to develop a way forward after president trump's decision to withdraw american forces from syria. secretary of state pompeo opening the meeting with a call for the coalition to keep up the fight. >> we must recommit ourselves to the goal of permanently defeating isis for our victory to be final and

enduring, isis must no longer pose a threat to our respective home lands or function as a b global network there must be no more safe haven from which it can operate. volvo says it is recalling 167,000 cars worldwide because of the hatch lid lift system on electric trunks can loosen and stop working in cold weather it covers the xc 60 built in 2018 and 2019 and jc penney will no longer sale major appliances. it says that furniture will only be available on its website and puerto rican stores. the move marks the first major initiative by the company's new ceo to turn the business around. you're up to date. that's the news update this hour back to you. >> thank you very much former fed chair janet yellen will join us now. so much to talk to herb about from the strength of the economy, the president's dinner with the chair

she's standing by with steve liesman. steve, take it away. >> you're so smart first question i had thanks for joining us. >> thanks for having me here >> tijust talking about the di r dinner the that chairman powell had. you met with president trump a couple of times and with president obama a couple of times. what are the pitfalls? why is it such a sensitive thing for the fed chair and the president to meet? >> because the fed is independent and it's important for the public and for market participants to understand that the actions that the fed takes are in response to its congressional mandate of maximum employment and price stability there is some history of presidents trying to influence the fed and reportedly makes an influence start to burn.

so it's important for the sake of the fed's credibility and confidence in the institution. is why meet at all if you have those concerns >> well the person of course is concerned about the economy and it's very natural for the president to want to hear the fed chair's views on the economy and to understand that thinking. >> you talked about the history of criticism of presidents of the fed. pretty recent history. you must see the xhepts the president has made about the fed and fed chairman do you think oh glad that's not me what's your sense of the propriety of that really >> well, i think the president has a right to express views but there was a long history i think it began with president clinton went through the bush and obama administrations of absolutely no comments by the president on the fed

and of course there are always communications between the fed and the white house. i had regular meetings with s secretary liu and secretary mnuchin. i know chair powell also has those meetings so there is ongoing communication with members of the president's economic team and occasionally, the president about the economy, but it is important for the fed to be viewed as independent and you know i worry that the comments threaten public confidence >> let's leave the politics behind and talk about the economics right now. in december, the market seemed like they were sending a very strong signal that the economy was going to turn down and the data kept coming in strong how do you handle the kind of market signals what's the right one to believe? >> well, the economic data signals are important, but to some extent, they're backward

looking. and i think the markets tend to focus on what they see coming down the pipe. and it's important for the fed to be doing the same thing so far, the economic data for the united states is solid and strong we've got as you know about the lowest unemployment rate in 50 years. continued solid job performance, low inflation. and my view is that with long expected growth to slow in 2019, relative to last year which will probably come to around 3% or many, you're seeing signs that the economy is slowing i expect the most likely out is solid growth in 2019 >> what risks do you see and how do you assess them >> well we are seeing slowing global growth.

the data from china has been weak and the european day has come in weaker on i think has been expect eed so there are ths risks. risks stemming from trade policy, from brexit and uncertainties around various political decision making. we've also seen of course a tightening of financial conditions and for a long time is the fed raised short-term rates, indices of overall financial conditions were moving in the other direction that's now changed and we are seeing a tightening of financial conditions so there are some things pulling down growth and less support this year than last from fiscal policy but consumer spending is still two-thirds of all spending in the u.s. economy and with slightly higher wage gains and strong job market performance, low debt burdens, i think

consumers are in good shape to carry forward growth in 2019 >> so it's also a two-sided risk to the fed acting, right if it doesn't act, you risk inflation, if it does, you risk recession or economic weakness how do you judge the other side? the concern about inflation that the fed doesn't act that perhaps there will be an inflation problem? >> i think that is something that the fed should be aware of. we have a very low unemployment rate traditionally, we've seen linkages between the degree of labor and product market slack and inflation. and that's a lesson of history that i think it's important for the fed not to forget. but on the other hand, the linkages aren't that strong and it looks like over the last decade or two, the strength of the linkages between labor market tightness and wage and

price inflation has become much more muted relationship. so for example, we've seen wage growth move up some as the labor market has tightened, but not a lot and wage growth is still running just around 3% or slightly over 3% and you know, with 1% or little bit more productivity gain, you're not seeing pressures on's profit marches or costs rising a little under 2%, so we're not seeing strong inflationary pressuresi any emerge inflation is still running under slightly under 2%, close but after a long period. >> so ultimately, sounds like you're saying that the fed has the luxury here of being patient and worry more about the downside risk because the upside risk is not that present >> i would say now that they're in a range of neutral, that it's

not necessary to act preempively and many people feel there may have been more fundamental change in the relationship between inflation and the labor market and so waiting to see how does inflation evolve is there any evidence of upside inflation pressure so i won't rule out that that could happen it's b possible. especially if we get strong growth this year in the labor market continues to tighten. it's not out of the question that the fed might need to raise rates again, but waiting to see and of course there are risks on the other side so this is a time when being data dependent and looking at the data and assessing what it means for the outlook seems sensible to me >> would you say it's possible the next move is a cut? >> of course it's possible

if global growth really weakens and that spills over to the united states or financial conditions tighten more and we do see a weakening in the u.s. economy, it's certainly b possible that the next move is a cut, but both outcomes are possible >> i'm going to push you a little further on this swrjust last question on it. you did this for a long time so if you were filling out the fed's forecast again, what would you have pencilled in for 2019 for fed policy >> well, i might have pencilled in something similar to the median >> which two rate hikes. >> two rate hikes, but i would have had a very wide uncertainty band around it and one of the things that my committee tried to do was to add uncertainty bans around these forecasts because it's very important for people to realize, yeah, nobody is certain what the, what will be appropriate and i, i remember what's going

on now reminds me a lot of 2015, 2016 we were on a path we thought to begin raising rates to 2015. in the summer of 2015, the chinese devalued the yuan. there was a tightening of financial conditions stock market declined. we had expected that by september of 2015, we would begin raising rates, they had been zero for seven years. we waited until december in december, the median forecast and the plot looked for four increases in 2016. >> and you did one let me bring it forward now, talk about the other risks out there. how big a risk are some of these trade tensions that are out there and how much concern do you have about china's weakness hurting the u.s. >> so i think the trade tensions if they're not resolved, can be

a significant negative for the outlook. we're already seeing some impact on business confidence and i think we could see a negative impact on investment spending and possibility on consumer sending, some of the soft indicators, the sentiment indicators have weakened some. so i would worry about that and chinese growth chelearly looks have slowed both from their numbers and the reports you're hear iing from american firms doing business there the chinese really want to control the growth of debt and they don't want to stimulate spending using the tools that they have used in the past opening up the credit taps as they did after the financial crisis they'd like to stimulate consumer spending, but they have policy tools and i anticipate they will use them to continue

to spur growth although growth in china is on and has been for some time, on the slowing trend. >> you put the reduction of the balance sheet on autopilot essentially. i don't know if you would own up to that. >> i will confess. >> will you confess to that? >> i will confess to having used that word. >> boring as watching paint dry and powell used some of those terms and he got in trouble for using them is it a i mistake and is it right for the fed to say we're going to be more sensitive with the reduction of the balance sheet to what's going on in the economy? >> i intended for it to be b reassuring and for a long time, it seemed like it was. and the reason it was reassurin was i wanted to make sure that market participants in the public didn't imagine as we removed accommodation, we would be using actively two tools, two

separate tools and that every time there was a meeting, we would be making decisions both about the short rate and the pace of run off. i could envision nothing more confusing. so the idea of saying look, we're going to use one tool actively short rates. the balance sheet we will run off very gradually and in a way that's completely predictable with specified in advance, there's nothing more to learn about this m that will go on that's what auto pie will tpilo. i think for a listening tiong ts what it didn't mean was we wouldn't pay attention to b possible impacts of the run off on market conditions and if there were some, well, and after all, we had bought all those assets with the idea of pushing -- >> so you think it's right now for the fed to make the change and being more sensitive to the

balance sheet. >> i think they should make clear they're watching carefully what the run off entails and we'll be sensitive and off setting it could mean making changes at the short end, not necessarily immediately making balance sheet changes. but it's probably important to signal that people are not asleep and ignoring the impact of that on the economy >> thank you so much for joining us >> thank you for having me >> back to you guys. >> thanks to you and janet yellen she's still expegticting solid growth in 2019 let's break it down with michael farr b and greg, chief economics commentator for the "wall street journal. welcome to you both. greg, what jumped out to you here the balance sheet remarks or what >> it's like she never left the job, kelly she gave a bravura performance

that could have been spliced into the press conference of jay powell it was perhaps a press conference he should have given. one thing she said when steve asked her what would your dot plot though, i would have two ratings with wide uncertainty bands around it. if you think about it, the mystery of the last fed meeting was why powell just a month after saying we're going to have two ratings this year. basically said we're done. the way yellen said it was well, we still think we might have more to do, but look at all these uncertainties about china, about tightening of financial conditions there's a wide band around it. that's a more gradual u move away that you expect from central banks. not this abrupt move from hawkish to dovish with nothing to explain it in between >> that might explain why the markets feel such whiplash goes to show the importance of

rhetoric and yellen does have a deep knowledge of economic and kind of has wonky ways of communicate iing this stuff powell want to be more straightforward and plain spoken, but perhaps he'll change his tune >> well i think that she was a lot more plain spoken than we've seen her certainly when she was fed chair. she could tend to be b a little greenspan esque at times, left us scratching our heads. i think she gave a great endorsement of what the fed is doing, and why the comment that got me i guess was that the comments that he had about the fed by the president tend to threaten, could threaten the public confidence in the fed. i thought that was a very important point because that public confidence in the fed really pulled us out of the big banking crisis in 2009 it was the stress test and it was the messaging from the fed that reinserted the good faith

and credit of the central bank back into the banking system and got us moving gep. so it's important they do stay independent. what we've heard though from her was that things at least from the fed's actions and perspective look like they're on the right track, could continue and they're going to be sensitive about the balance sheet. >> so greg, going back to the point you made i want to make sure people caught this. if they missed it, you said that was the press conference that powell should have given now it is interesting she's coming out and being you know and doing this interview of course she's on the speaking circuit. she works at brookings she's out and about. what do you make of that people are going to draw the comparison that you just drew. should she be giving powell a little bit more leeway >> she wasn't critical of powell at all >> the way but you're saying the contrast is so great that it diminishes him >> if i left that impression, that's not what i meant to say

the nuance i'm talk about is not one that broadly makes big difference in the end. the it's more important that powell get the policy right than the message. the message h eventually follow. yellen had a little trouble in her first year ben bernanke had some. every fed chairman is allowed a couple of missteps in the first year there's nothing wrong with the policy that powell is following right now. what he hasn't yet given is a good transcription of the description of the overall framework. i'm still unclear on exact hily why the fed doesn't think he needs to raise rates he wanted inflation to be higher than 2%? because he thinks the economy's growth rate is somewhat fragile, t is it because there's god forbid a powell put and he's hyper sensitive about the markets? these are questions that i don't think have been adequately answered >> michael, back to you. when the chair spoke there about quantitative tightening and putting it on autopilot, which

she copped to as the originator of that phrase, she said she meant it as a reassuring sort of quotient in the equation and that obviously under mr. powell, who wasd to be so >> you know, that was the one thing that i heard chair yellen say that struck me as perhaps a bit disingenuous i think the fed wants to get rid of that particularly large portfolio. i think there's a slow rolling tightening as it is sold off and tapers off so i think yes, perhaps she wants it to be reassuring, but i really think what they want is they don't want the market to focus on that. they want that to sort of just blend into the background noise and we're not really supposed to be b all that aware of an ongoing fed tightening that she said she would be sensitive now in looking at that were she still in the chair.

i it kind of i think gives jay powell a little bit more room. she was a very dovish fed chairman not surprised she would be more sensitive to backing off gives d it. >> great thank you, as always. >> thank you. >> shall we bring in rick santelli to get his reaction to the interview with chair yellen? rick >> thanks, tyler i think there's two things i walkway with the first is i can't really jump into that inflation argument especially when it comes back to the two pillars, one maximum employment, the other stable prices when janet yellen's tenure began, inflation around 220. when she left in feb 18, not

much lower the point is that the whole range of her tenure was 120 to 220. she did her first tightening in mid december lower end of the range around 150. right there, that was the worst point to pick, if you were really paying attention to the data it wasn't data dependent that flows nicely with the fact that you wanted autopilot and markets didn't have a huge hissy about that the issue is that autopilot isn't reassuring to the markets. the markets are fickle the difference between janet yellen and jay powell is that they understand that markets are fickle it doesn't like anything carved in stone much of her tenure was carved in stone. kelly, back to you. >> rick, thank you rick santelli. this stock up more than 70% in

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welcome back time to reveal our mystery chart. it's chipotle. better than all but two s&p 500 stocks and reporting earnings after the bell kate rogers is here to set the table for us kate >> that's right, guys. eps of $1.37 on revenues of 1.19 billion for the fourth quarter same-store sales expected to increase by 4.5%, an important metric to watch, of course now on wall street's radar will be digital growth. last digital orders grew by 50% and accounted for more than 11% of the company's overall sales chipotle has a second make line for digital orders they are als testing a rewards program with a national launch slated for this year analysts, of course, will want to hear updates on that.

finally in focus will be menu additions, avocado tostada and added items like keto diet bowls on its website and apps as digital exclusives last month. any color around how some of those offerings are performing will be really important they want more and more people to sign up for digital if they offer these as digital exclusives, clearly that's one way to get people to sign up. >> how much credit does the new ceo get for this >> he has been at the helm a year, he was announced around this time last year. a lot of this turnaround plan goes to him. he has been at the helm. he wants to remind people why they love chipotle and get people in and out of the store. >> and separate line to make those digital orrsde appropriately enough, check please is next my experience with usaa

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and it's only from fidelity. open an account with no minimums today. welcome back it is time for check please. get this, the average typical amount $260. >> whoa! >> that's what i thought. >> does that include dinner and tip? >> doesn't say. >> i don't know. >> i was struck by mark thompson we spent a lot of time looking at disruptive companies and lauding them as they often

should be lauded but having to reinvent itself and evolve, legacy company, encumbent company. they seem to be doing it very well and same could be said of chipotle and all their troubles and how they, under they're ceo, has refashioned their business. >> mathisen basket. >> burrito and the times >> good afternoon. very warm well tomorrow to the closing bell i'm wilfred frost. >> and i'm sara eisen. two former fed chairs will be here for reaction to janet yellen's interview the state of the luxury housing market