friday how many des men places can you do that's me too. live from new york where business never sleeps. this is "squawk box." welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc. we are live from the nasdaq market site in times square. i'm becky quick along with joe kernan and andrew ross sorkin. let's take a look at the u.s. equity futures you're going to see that things are in the green the nasdaq indicated up by 27. this all comes after an daup i yesterday once again for the markets. that was the third day in a row that you have seen the s&p and the nasdaq higher. it was up out of three sessions yesterday. by the way, the s&p 500 closed its highest level since november 7th.

shanghai composite down 1.2% the hang seng was up by just over .1%, and then the nikkei was flat then if you take a look at what's been happening in europe and some of the early trading this morning, green arrows have crossed the board even with all the concern about brexit you're still looking at ftse up by half a percent today. cac up -- the finally, take a look at what's been happening. the treasury market here in the united states. the ten-year is what we've focused on is they've killed 346 people in less than -- here's acting faa administrator daniel elwell on

"closing bell. >> wernl certainly aware of what was going on around the world, but we didn't feel global pressure as i said, we are a data driven action oriented agency, and we don't make zugss about grounding aircraft or regulating or even shutdown decisions for airports or aircraft without actionable data in this case the actionable data didn't arrive until today. white house president trump spoke about that decision and defended the faa >> we all agree this was the right decision to make didn't have to be made, about ut with he thought it was the right decision >> they acted very quickly, and we acted very fact-based, and very much working with other countries and with the airlines. >> faa said that the grounding will remain in effect while it investigates the crash boeing said it recommended taking the 737 max planes out of

service out of an abundance of caution and an abundance of caution that was only after the president told them. >> everybody is taking credit for doing it first the faa said we decided. boeing said, no, we thought we should the president -- everybody -- >> then you have elaine chau trying to demonstrate the support of boeing. i mean, the whole thing just feels like. >> you wouldn't know in fairness, you're not sure how to approach it, and the boeing, 40% of earnings? it's a serious matter, obviously, but also if you just knee jerk it too quickly, it's -- it's before you have all the facts. it scares me when they say you have new data. >> on monday morning part of the new data was supposed to be the satellite showing that the plane had gone up and down erratically like the one had earlier.

>> when did you go from it was purely trade-related in china as you're in your face to negotiators for china trade. when did you decide it was something good to? it wasn't china going straight >> we raised the question about trade on monday. that was a question that is it not unreasonable >> people like andrew ross sorkin >> like your guy who likes to say many people say. my wife uses that. are these the same people that boeing said -- can i say one

point here 2810 on the s&p. four times remember, 2,800 is where we're talking about. >> it was never more than a point lower than the close, though, i don't think. it ended up too far. i was surprised at how well it weathered the depth on the united states that joined in >> we have an analyst that's going to get on the phone right now to talk about the short-term and long-term impact on boeing's stock. joining us right now on the squawk news looirn is mr. copeland you joibd us to walk us through

the permanenttations of how you do the math in terms of where you think the stock may go and what you think the financial impact will be in the short-term good morning to you. thank you for joining us given this grounding, has it changed your outlook on the stock, and what do you think it's worth >> this is a situation where you have short-term costs. i don't think that the news yesterday changed that i think you have, you know, costs to fix the airplane. we've heard reports about an additional sensor, software fixes. if this is the system, then you have to wonder is that what it's going to take. if so, it's not an immense of short-term cost. the question will be when do you return to normalcy when do we get a this is old news people begin to assume that boeing can manufacture airplanes again? that's an unanswerable question

right now. it will most likely take place in time. >> here is what i was thinking through this morning look, if it's the system, let's take a step back further this is actually an issue where these are airlines that were designed to be much more fuel-efficient as a result they're more likely to fall out, which is why the mcat system was invented, right? it's to prevent a stall-out by pushing the nose down a little bit and make the plane less likely to stall. is there a problem with sensors, and this is all just things that we're speculating at this point without knowing all the facts. you may have to take a step back further. is it a upon with the mat cat system or a problem with the design and then that makes it more likely to fall out? >> look, in the case of the lion aircraft, it was a faulty sensor adding the extra thrust that

comes with these inc. e engines was the reason for the invention of the mcats system. systems like this exist on military aircraft in many cases, and so, you know, this is not a never before seen sort of, you know, update to an aircraft. there is i think a healthy debate around whether or not pilots of this aircraft had a true understanding of exactly how to use it and what it would do, and i think that's one of the things that if it is the mcat system, we're going back to re-evaluate. >> is that as simple a fix in your mind? you could go ahead and update the software and make sure that there's proper training out there and then the problems can be resolved potentially? >> of course yeah we're not making structural changes to the aircraft. that's going to be significantly less costly. >> so in terms of the cost haven't talked about, we talked abo abo about norwegian air. theefr saying that you're going to pay us for every seat we

thought we were filling that we can't fill now is that going to happen in the united states? is southwest going to fall a phone and say it's on you? >> i think there's a lot of understanding that needs to happen boeing wants to work with their customers. they want to do right by their customers. they don't want to see them have too much economic loss i think the customers in many respects also want to support boeing because, you know, they have a business that builds on utilizing these aircraft to make money, and they have a relationship in many cases of a decade do i think that there will be some compensation? yes. will it result in, you know, boeing cutting losses near-term checks i don't think so there are lots of forms that that compensation can take over a long period of time and, look, i think it's all built on trying to work with your customer and do right by they know them >> how quickly do you think they have to get planes back in the air? think about the dreamliner there was a three-month period

where those planes were grounded >> i don't know. i honestly think that taking the planes out of the sky takes the public pressure off. right? we don't have a social media where people are complaining about the plane. we have less political pressure sort of as an overhang you know, you have time to go back and evaluate. i think what you have got is what is the public response to build confidence in the aircr t aircraft i think we have weeks to perhaps months as a decent base case scenario, but, you know, they're going to be data-dependent >> we want to appreciate you calling in this morning. always good to gain your perspective. thank you for the visit. >> no problem. >> you bet breaking news.

>> why isn't that the first thing we talked about? >> i don't know. it's because there's a cast of 1,000? we'll see where he lands you know, yesterday -- we're going to get to facebook, but yesterday when i was sort of just needling about how maybe she could head up to the probe and the academics. >> she weighed in on it.

she has no city or -- whatsoever for anyone >> pointed out the irony >> i mean, i would think that i wouldn't lay low i mean, it just goes to have no idea that that might sound a little -- it's like the -- what do you think what are those things? >> environmental social. >> that's pretty rich. >> we talked about that. tpg. >> yeah. >> i mean, that's some of the most egregious when you got, like, a proctor sitting next to the person -- >> 100%. >> yeah. >> 100%.

snoo just doesn't live with any, right? that appears to be what happened to facebook. facebook is back in the headlines. over its data sharing practices. this time reportedly as part of a criminal investigation that the "new york times" is setting two anonymous sources saying a grand jury in new york has subpoenaed records from at least two companies that make smart phones and other devices they've reportedly related to how the companies use facebook user data that they acquired from the social media giant. those data sharing deals are under scrutiny since they were first reported by the times back it december. at that time facebook acknowledged the company's access to user data, but denied it did so without consent. we knew that facebook faces a slew of losses and regulatory increase over privacy practices, including by the fcc and the sec, but this is the first indication of a criminal investigation over these data

deelds facebook saying in a statement yesterday, in their words, as we have said before, we're cooperating with investigators and that i those probes seriously. we have provided public testimony, answered questions, and have pledge thad we will continue to do so. meantime, facebook is also dealing with its biggest outage in years. skbro brexit d-day is approaching where, parliament will vote today on whether to delay the u.k.'s exit from the e.u., and we're going to got a live report from london after the break. u.s. equity futures coming off the highs of the morning, but still up 57. i'm waiting for the pie. banana cream or -- coconut creek. >> cher wrish. >> cherry would be good.

>> is there really pie here? >> there's -- >> pie day is -- you can't help it ist for whatever it is >> we're going back to nap day >> nap day i like that. >> you like donut day. those are my two days. donut day and then nap day >> pie day, should we call it that, it's cool because the nerds love that number and everything, but we should come bien it with p-i-e to make it a day everyone would like. as we head -- the worst piez are still pretty good except maybe that here's a look at the biggest premarket winners and losers in the dow.

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i can customize each line for soeach family member?e yup. and since it comes with your internet, you can switch wireless carriers, and save hundreds of dollars a year. are you pullin' my leg? nope. you sure you're not pullin' my leg? i think it's your dog. oh it's him. good call. get the data options you need, and still save hundreds of dollars. do you guys sell other dogs? now that's simple, easy, awesome. customize each line by paying for data by the gig or get unlimited. and now get $250 back when you buy a new samsung galaxy. click, call, or visit a store today. lawmakers reject ag no deal brexit they'll now decide whether to -- which, by the way, is currently scheduled for march 29th just two weeks from tomorrow

zblul of our viewers on the back of it, they should know that no deal brexit is still on the taebl if the europeans don't agree to an extension. ie, it is in british lore at the moment that there will be a brexit on the 29th of march unless something else changes. regardless of this statement of intense expression of opinion from mp's last night the mp's here in u.k. today need to offer something else to the yourp evens in order to get an extension to the brexit process, which, as i say, was due to go out march 29th, but the prime minister is able to motion saying we'll go out on june 30th, which is a short technical extension to the article 50 process. for the brexit process

british mp's cannot agree on much at the moment "squawk box" viewers remember that actually, mrs. may lost a key vote she lost a meaningful vote on her version of a withdrawal. she lost it about 149 votes having lost it in january, but 230 votes. now, for many prime ministers or mp's, you think that would be enough no, it looks like she's bringing the same deal unchanged back to the table early next week. why? she believes it's possibly a change to the legal advice which the dup, which is the hearted line northern irish union who propped up the government and the erg, which is a hard line brexiteers within the conservative party and possibly change the advice, and maybe they could come on board and maybe back her vote the first time around. it's a very big if it's one way through this whole torturous process potentially. if that fails, and it really probably is the end of mrs. may's vision of how brexit will happen, and then we'll look at

other positive he shall itly softer versions, including our viewers know by now, a norway style option all options are still on the table. back to you. >> it shounds like we don't know a lot yet. we'll have a lot more to come with this. we appreciate it steve, joining us again from london >> coming up, when we return, a lot more on squawk johnson & johnson under more pressure again over its talc baby products. we'll tell you about the new court ruling in california weighing on the company and investors. we'll talk about that next in just a moment. when you look at the critical issues facing our world, what do you see? we see a billion more people breathing free. we see access to fresh food being the global norm, not the exception. we see homes staying cooler, without the planet getting warmer.

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>> johnson & johnson shares are lower after this california jury awarded $29 million to a woman who claims that asbestos in the talcom powder caused her cancer. it's the latest for the company which faces more than 13,000 talc-related losses in the u.s j & j has said numerous tests show that its talc is safe, and it plans to appeal the verdict i hate to say that i knew about this, but i did. i swore it off 20 years ago. i used a lot of it cornstarch cornstarch with aloe it's not quite as silky, but what about gold bond there's a lot of talc products

aren't there other talc products that i see in, like, locker rooms and stuff where, you know, at health clubs or golf courses and stuff? >> it's alleged that you can't get every -- you know that that's come in >> the amount of -- >> there's an rt factor. it's really called rh factor, and it's never zero. it's never zero. there's no up is thing.

>> the stog has more than quadrupled since the company's ipo. up right now by more than 17 >> this is one of the unbelievable new york city tech stories. double click and business insider and amongo db. it's unbelievable to watch >> sorry >> also, cloudera. the software maker posting a wider fourth quarter loss even though revenue did beat the forecast companies also forecasting larger losses for the year as it continues to integrate its purchase of rival -- the stock is off by 13%. >> i'm saying you know all of that stuff >> you didn't -- some of these investors do an ashton kutcher or something >> you think that was -- >> i just think -- i think you would be smart enough to pick a company, because you know all about them, and you have so much

more. >> i thought it's opposite day for me if i don't like it, it's good. if i do like it, then it's bad >> with me like a stock not with vc. not with you >> he means before they trade publicly >> when we come back, ge is set to outline a strategy later today when it delivers its financial forecast for the year. we're going to tell you whato t expect and whether you should buy the stock at this price. trading this morning just under $10. $9.98. yeah, he's so nervous. tom is letting him know it will be alright. i know, it's a big day. i'm so proud of him. gotta go. ♪ good luck on your first day. just as we help companies advance in the digital era,

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welcome back you're watching "squawk box" live from the nasdaq market site in times square. good morning welcome back to "squawk box." we've been watching equity futures. they are down from their highs of the session they're still in the green, but the dow futures now are indicated up by only 12% s&p futures up by less than a point, and the nasdaq up by 10.5 points this does come after gains we saw yesterday.

the dow up two out of the last three sessions you take a look at what happened overseas stocks fell in shanghai after growth in china's industrial output fell to a 17-year low in the first few months of the we're. time for the squawk planner. two data points of interest. weekly jobless claims, and then import-export prices due at 8:positive a.m. eastern. in another day, another brexit vote, the u.k. parliament will vote later today on whether to delay the u.k.'s exit from the e.u. and general electric ceo larry is set to unveil the company's 2019 financial forecast later this morning analysts expect geto earn 70 cents a share for the full year and generate 1.9 billion doll s

dollars. >> it's going to be touched on too, and that's when we might see an improvement in power maybe. >> 2020 is clearly more improvement. what larry culp has dised most likely is that 2019 is the year to expedite as much as possible around turnaround, and if it is at the power segment it's taking some medicine where, there is going to be higher rezrurkting. the indication free cash flow will be did he indicate that

2020 outlook would be more directional than specific, so we'll just have to wait and see to what degree that toggles between directional and specific. sfloot headwind is definitely for more restructuring, and that's a good thing, and that includ

includes. >> part of what they do want to do is level that out how they collect and that's going to take some time to retool the businesses to get to that. >> okay. so you count this then if you don't subtract out some of that stuff, you thought it would be 4.5 billion in 2019 is that different than what he has said, and then you said from that they'll subtract 5 billion to 7 billion in cash costs and some of what you were just talking about with the renewable issue. would it be flat or below? >> it would be below because of the digest tours >> okay. all right. >> yeah. >> so then for

>> they're saying it's cost to excess because of the way they're replacing some of the fan blades on the existing unit, and trying to reposition the company to go after more transactional business outside the contract service agreement it means that there's a lot of cost to execute. it's the efficiencies around learning the business and the transition, and then it's the one time charges that they're taking on a lot of backlog execution the future of health care after the news on the biopharma sale, it's -- what do

they need to -- and this is all part of the deleveraging of the balance sheet as well, right >> precisely yes. >> it opens up a little bit. they still have to share some of the pension liabilities and health care was a key vehicle to doing that in a will take time to frame up.

this call is clearly not earmarked to be a rush to promises it's about larry culp said it's a progress report on how to better participate in those power markets. >> they keep finding stuff that seems to be a problem, whether it's long-term care or whatever. >> culp has come clean at this point? >> i think he has made his best effort, and he is at a minimum getting very close

the long-term care was over a year ago now. he talks about understanding what the drivers are and how people view ge from the outside on the customer and user level, and that's -- i think that's a big difference, you know there was an element that ge used to be run from a delegate, and then, you know, insist on what corporate wants to hear.

how many des e-mail points can you do on pi >> 1416723 that's where i am. >> not bad you know how far it's been calculated kristen calculated out a trillion figures >> let's call it infinish. >> that's why people are so excited about it it's infinity and beyond, apparently anyway, thanks >> thanks. >> thanks, bud coming up, a lot more on squawk this morning. a new survey found that a being shoing number of americans aren't saving any money at all for the future we're going to talk about that right after the break. then, later, our guest host starting at the top of the hour. legendary investor ron is going to join us on set to talk about all things tesla, elan musk, taxing the wealthy and what disrupting stocks he is i guess for 2019 have you to hear some of the

names. you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc

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zbloirjts the survey by bank rate found that 21% of working americans aren't saving any money at all among those that are, a majority

are putting away less than 10% of their income. four out of ten americans say they would have trouble covering a $4,000 unexpected expense, like a car repair or a broken appliance. >> they would value that unit $5 billion. they've been pushing uber's ceo to spin off the self-driving unit or seek outside investment. >> when we return, fda commissioner scott gotleieb will talk about his recent meetings with tobacco companies and his decisions to step down also, a new fda policy aimed at making it harder for minors to buy flavored products

right now as we head to a break, take a quick check of what's been happening in the european markets. things are up in both france and in the u.k german stocks right now down just slightly. "squawk box" will be right back. at&t provides edge-to-edge intelligence, covering virtually every part of your healthcare business. so that if she has a heart problem & the staff needs to know, they will & they'll drop everything can you take a look at her vitals? & share the data with other specialists yeah, i'm looking at them now. & they'll drop everything hey. & take care of this baby yeah, that procedure seems right. & that one too. at&t provides edge to edge intelligence. it can do so much for your business, the list goes on and on. that's the power of &. & when your patient's tests come back...

welcome back we've been watching the u.s. equity futures, and they have just turned negative nasdaq still hanging in. it's up by 3.5 points. with we started this morning, we were looking at gains of 90

points for the dow again, we've lost ground, and we are now down by about four the fda announcing new rules in an attempt to try to curb e-cigarette use by teens. gottl and, by the way, he recently announce the that he is leaving his post at the end of this month. dr. gottlieb, thank you for being here today. first of all, why are you leaving because it caught all of us by surprise >> i've been commuting from connecticut with three young children and really haven't seen them in the last two years. i spend one day a week home on saturday. it's been tough. this is really a difficult decision to step down from this job. i love this position. i feel we've accomplished a lot. it's been a tough two years commuting from connecticut. >> we've loved having you in this position. i can understand family concerns, but when you made that announcement the stocks of all these cigarette companies jumped on the idea that there's not going to be anybody there that's policing it on the way you have been. >> well, look, the policies we put in place are going to go

forward. i'm very confident of that. the policy making i did while i've been in this position has been through a very deliberate process where i built consensus. the white house is supportive. they put out a supportive statement yesterday. i got tweets out from the white house as well supporting what we did. i feel very confident that the road map has been cast and this is going to go forward including what we announced yesterday the crackdown on the sale of the flavored products in convenience stores putting in place heighten aged requirement that's kids can't get access to those products that they find most appealing. >> what happened in your meeting yesterday? >> i talked to them about the future. the 2019 tobacco survey collecting that data shows another spike in teen use. we'll be making new policy in the fall and one of the things we'll have to examine is whether we take the entire category of pot based ekigz off the market. we'll just have to sweep the

market of those products and that includes juul. those are the products being abused by the children and their own data shows that. and sent me a 15 page letter where they said they fet the pot based products were what was driving the youth use of these products. they recognize that with their data. i recognize that with my data and then they went out and made an investment in juul. we'll be doing the same thing this fall. >> i saw a lot of people picking up after your resignation saying the move you've made is unwarranted, that it's going to hurt peoples' lives. even grover cleveland was tweeting that you're going to kill people by not allowing them to have this alternative to get them off cigarettes. why is this a high priority for you? >> we believe these products can help transition of tobacco on to products that don't have the same risk. these products are not

risk-free. we have data showing changes to the membrane of tissue in both animal studies and human studies that these ecigarettes do cause problems and that's why you don't want any child using them not least of which that the kids will become addicted to in this case teen. the data shows a tremendous spike. high school use of these ecigarettes went up 78%, middle school went up 50%. we have 30% of all american kids now using some form of tobacco products and if the use of ecigarettes goes up another 40% or 50%, which it may, we've never seen that among children and some proportion of these kids who now are addicted to nicotine are going to become long-term smokers. all the dramatic gains we've made in reducing smoking in among kids over the last decades is going to be reversed. >> first, i want to thank you for your service, dr. gottlieb. it's a remarkable thing and you've had support on both sides of the aisle throughout your

service. that's worth noting. i wanted to know what the great lesson having now been in washington in this role is in terms of -- we often talk about the role of money in corporations in terms of pressuring lawmakers on all sides, what you've seen and what you think you could tell us that we didn't know already >> well, it sounds like you know a lot already about washington. i think that in terms -- i'll tell you why i think we were successful making policy. we went through very careful processes when we made policy. i was up on the hill every week talking to members of congress, i would call them when i rolled out announcements, i was in touch with their staff. i was briefing the white house, working with the department of secretary, making sure i had his spoertd when i went forward. we had a broad consensus, we had built in the support, so when the companies came around and criticize what had we were doing, people had heard from me first and they understood the problem we were trying to solve. that's why i'm confident that everything we did is going to

endure. they're going to support it to the finish line. >> the other issue you've done is try to make it easier for there to be more competition when it comes to drugs and other things by speeding that process up on approvals. do you think that will continue? >> absolutely. i'm going to be talking today -- we'll be releasing new policy today about some additional interventions that will we'll be doing to bring new drugs to the market, not just generic drugs but branded drugs. when it comes to innovative branded drugs, when you have a new drug in a new category, so a brand-new drug that's really a real change from prior medication that might have treated a given disease, the time it takes to get a second innovation in that category to market has gotten market. a it'll bps trying to get a second to class -- second to market drug in that same category has taken longer and longer and many more drugs remain first in class drugs for long periods of time and never

face competition. we want to make it easier to innovate on the new drug side as well. >> commissioner, we have certainly appreciated having you here at the fda and how willing you've been to come on the air and describe the things you're doing. connecticut is a little closer. maybe you'll visit us on set next time. >> thank you. dr. scott gottlieb, the commissioner of the fda. this gives us a chance to tell you about the healthy return summit -- returning to new york city on may 21st. dr. gottlieb will be among the speakers at cnbc's one day event to talk about the health care industry, a.i. coming up, futures turning negative on a bloom burg report that a trump/xi meeting won't happen. it was pushed back to april but now saying it won't happen next month. meanwhile, our guest host for the next hour is legendary

investor ron baron who's here to talk tesla's big week. the wealth tax debate and what stocks he likes in 2019. there he is. it looks like he's exercising. that's good. getting the blood going. we all need to do that. we'll be right back.

a special hour with billionaire investor ron baron. we will talk tesla and why he says elon musk needs to stay. his take on taxing the rich and why he's staying in new york. and disruptive investments that maybe you should consider for your portfolio. a special hour of "squawk box" continues right now. ♪ let's get it started ♪ let's get it started in here. announcer: live from the beating heart, new york, this is "squawk box." good morning and welcome back to "squawk box" here on cnbc. i'm joe kernen along with becky quick and drew. equities were up just about 50. they're down 18 right now in the s&p which closed at its best level since november yesterday

at 2810 or so. the s&p is down 2.5 points and the nasdaq is just barely hanging on to the green, up about one point this morning. get you through some of the big headlines at this hour. faa officials now say it is uncertain how long 737 may be out of service. it's a big question. the jets were grounded yesterday as officials investigate two overseas crashes involving those jets and whether the causes may be related. other countries around the world had already banned the 737 from entering their air space prior to the faa grounding which put pressure on the faa. facebook's data deals are under even more scrutiny, this time from federal prosecutors. the "new york times" saying prosecutors have subpoenaed records from two prominent makers of smartphones and other devices. facebook has said it is cooperating with investigators in multiple federal probes but when you get a grand jury like

that involves, it raises even greater questions about what's happening. california jury has awarded $29 million to a cancer victim who used johnson & johnson's talcom products. johnson & johnson said it would appeal that award because lawyers had shown that its baby powder hadn't contained asbestos. the web cast will be at 8:30. the one -- let me just read what it says here. adjusted earnings for 2019 of 50 to 60 cents a share. the current consensus is 70 cents. it's even below that and that i think is below what it was in -- yeah, 65 cents adjusted in 2018. the company is expecting organic earnings per share growth in 2020 and 2021. ceo larry culp says ge's

challenges in 2019 are complex, but clear and then there's quite a bit of info here. they breakout a lot of stuff. power aviation, health care, renewable and a new hq philosophy. >> what does that mean >> they didn't move. >> new headquarters meaning away from boston or new headquarters meaning just a new philosophy? >> exactly. focused on capital allocation, research, talent, governance with other functions transferred to businesses in a 400 to 500 cost out in 2019. it's gobbedly gook at this point. nongap will be between zero and negative 2 billion in 2019. >> you asked the question

earlier, you were asking specifically for ge capital but we do keep asking, is this the kitchen sink have we seen everything? is this all in and clearly the streets reaction to this is maybe not necessarily yet? >> 5%, maybe half dollar, but on a $10 stock. >> when you are adjusting the numbers lower -- obviously larry culp has to go through this and figure it out and it's still early for him and they say they see improvements in 2020 but there are a lot of people who want to say show me now. >> what month is it? >> it's march. >> he's got a year. he's got a kitchen sink year, wouldn't you say >> nine months. >> nine months. >> six to nine. >> the last guy didn't get that long but he was the first guy in. that's always tough if you're not moving fast enough. >> right. >> i'd say this guy -- >> larry culp seems to be trying to address things as quickly as possible. >> we'd ask ron baron about this

but there's no way he'd own a stock that goes down. it's not like you know anything about general electric since by definition you wouldn't have been in it any way. >> i definitely wouldn't have been in it. >> that was pretty -- >> i own -- >> that was a pretty good intro. >> you're haven't married a lot of losers. >> if they're losers will generally sell them as fast as we can. >> exactly. you have no use in the ge discussion >> no. ron baron is our guest host for the hour. we'll talk with him about a lot of things but first up tesla is set to unveil it's latest car later tonight. they have been in the news a lot and it's ceo elon musk has been in hot water with the sec. ron baron is the chairman and ceo of baron capital and it's great to have you here. >> great to be here.

you don't even comment about my attire today >> you look great. >> you usually wear a sweater. >> my wife told me i was an embarrassment -- >> speaking about how you dress or just overall? >> a lot of things but how i dress especially. you own all these suits, why don't you ever wear suits. >> dark tie. >> you're a smart man, so you listen to judy. >> 41 years. >> you know who else wears a black suit with a black tie? >> who. >> mr. wonderful. >> you're right and gordon geko. >> that has nothing to do with -- >> he wore pin stripes. >> and his ties did -- and he had the collar. >> you are well-dressed. >> thanks, ron. when we return -- >> ron, let's talk about tesla. this is a big holding for you. i think it represents about

1.67% of your assets under management which are $28.5 billion up from when you started back with 10 millions. let's focus on tesla. you've been a long-term bull on this stock and believer. you just met with the chair. there have been so many questions that have -- that have been circulating i'll let you make your case and maybe i'll push back on some of this stuff. >> 28 billion of assets, and -- >> we're talking about overall assets, not your assets. >> and profits. we made our clients more than 26 billion in profits and we now have 28 billion. we made a lot of money and made it by being a long-term investor and often investing in businesses, as i mentioned before, which after we buy them for some period of time nothing happens to the stock. one of the stocks that's in the news that we own right now is arid yum and it was in the news this morning and yesterday because they have airen, that

provided the faa with information that allowed them to figure out what seems to be wrong with the plane and they stopped it. but we invested in the final round of capital raise for erid yum three years, four years ago and after we invested that was the last -- we bought 10% of the company. stock was trading -- i'll get to tesla in a moment. trading 7.25. one of my friends is on the board. he had a significant investment in the company. told me he thought i would be interested in looking at it. i said who do we talk to. he put us in touch with the chairman. spoke to him on a thursday afternoon. came up to visit us all day friday of the spoke to him over the weekend, spoke to him more on monday morning. and we said, okay, we'll buy 10% of your company at 6.75 but if you sell it at a lower price, i want the lower price. by us investing in this company,

what's going to happen is that it's going to make this preferred issue a very strong issue. i want 10% of that too. he said that's fine. it was a very strong issue. we got the preferred 10% and then we got the common. for three years after we bought it while they were making and launching satellites, stock was unchanged. how many people can make investments where nothing happens in a stock for three years after they bought it spacex, we're an investor in that. now that all the satellites are flying around and the whole constellation, department of defense, i.o.t., now all of a sudden they'll generate revenues. the companies valued $3 billion. the company's valued at four times at what we bought it and now it's $3 billion value. they'll generate $2 billion of cash flow over the next four or five years and it's twice the

price -- >> we're looking at the chart there too. tesla has to also be trying the patience of investors. it's $219 for shares of tesla. we're trading at 290 now. >> yeah. my clients -- i haven't bought stock for myself for 17 years. this is the first stock that i told the board i would like to make an investment on behalf of our firm in this company, 225,000 shares at 235 after we bought, you know -- we have 165,000 including the 225,000 that i owned for baron capital. i said, gee, i can afford to lose the investment that i have in baron in this company, but i can't afford not to make a billion dollars and which is what i think is going to happen over the next ten or 12 years. >> it includes the 225 of your

personal investment. >> yes. my investments are principally in the mutual funds and they have been for 17 years and i'm a big investor in the mutual funds every single year. significant amounts of money. so -- >> the concerns about tesla right now. let's run through a few things -- >> oh, wait. before we start. tesla, when we started to invest, did $3.7 billion a year of revenues. this past year they did 21 billion. the year coming up they'll do 30 billion. in five years they'll do 150 billion. this is not a small company any more. 30 billion in revenue from 3.7 billion. the company is up seven times in revenue in the last five years and the stock is up 30%, 40%, 50%. >> let's start backwards from that just because you bring up the idea of how they're going to grow from here. the bear case out there takes a look at the balance sheet for starters, let's just say because of the run rate that they're

going to be anticipating because the company has said it's not profitable in the first quarter. there has been an analysis that i've seen that says after they paid off the debt they had that was almost a billion dollars, they see a run rate of about a billion dollars in that first quarter. will that get them down to a balance sheet that has $2 billion on it and is that enough >> i think people are guessing. they don't know what the cost of goods is for the company. they don't understand what the cash flow is that's being produced from the cars that are being made when they're making them all domestically, the cash flow is better internationally because they have to pay in 60 days and they make the cars by the time they get the order in 14 or 15 or 18 days. they can make cars a lot faster than they have to pay -- >> the car burn in those analysis is not correct? >> no. it's a billion dollars of extra cash flow that they produce every time they make a billion dollars of annual sales, so -- >> yesterday we were talking about the cost of the battery,

joe. i don't know if -- >> i watched that. i was working out in the morning. i watched your -- and you said you were going to clip it and show it again and -- >> i don't know if we did that but you saw it any way. >> there isn't a competitive moat around the cost of the battery which is to say the cost of the porsche battery and tesla battery he was arguing are effectively the same. the cost of the porsche battery was 230 to 250 and tesla was closer to 150 and he didn't believe that number. >> musk has said that his cost for a kilowatt hour is 100 or approaching 100 and i guess ten years ago it was 300. so $300 then. it's now approaching 100. it's going to be significantly less than that within the next two or three years and you have to remember that tesla makes

half the batteries in the whole world and when you think about competitive advantage, they're a business that's growing 50% a year making half the batteries in the world and shrinking the size of the battery, shinking the weight of the battery and the components in the battery, shrinking the expensive things in the battery, cobalt was 20% or 30% of a battery is now 2% or 3%. that's what's really xpensive. they've driven down the cost and making it more efficient. i brought a little chart which you won't be able to see -- i could pass it around. >> maybe i'll be able to hold it up for kyle. >> so what you can see is it not only -- is there a cost lower than everyone else's but also the amount of miles they drive in a car is more for them than it is for anyone else. it's 4.1 miles per kilowatt hour for them and it's 2.5 kilowatt hours for everyone else a mile. basically, they're getting more

miles per kilowatt hour than everyone else even though their cost is lower and it keeps getting lower and lower and lower. >> the people who are knocking this, you think they're analysis is just wrong and that they're not listening to the company or they don't know what the company knows? >> when you talk about fair markets, i'm a huge fan of the sec and i believe tesla has a $50 billion market cap because institutional investors believe that the markets are fair and orderly and information is disseminated appropriately and properly and it's accurate information. when people put out information that's not accurate, even though they're offered information that shows that it is accurate, is that guy roth from roth. tesla's has spoken to him and told him about why their costs are lower and they haven't changed their opinion or they haven't changed the amount -- what they've said about the business it seems to me -- i think short

sellers have done a pretty good job as far as identifying issues for tesla, talking about do they have enough cash they have enough cash. talking about turnover of people. yeah, they turnover of people. when you grow and they put pressure on people the way they do and they hire only really talented people and people have lots of options, you can go lots of different places and this is a mission type of thing -- >> did it concern you when the general counsel quit after being there for a month he was there >> yeah. so he was the lead counsel for williams and connelly and he was a managing partner. phenomenal litigator. he represented elon musk once before and he's 58 or 60 years old. incredibly successful man. great litigator. when you hire someone who's a litigator and he's been doing it his whole life and he thinks, now i'll slow down a little bit. i'll be the general counsel. that could be -- where's the appropriate skill set?

you could do it, but his life is the charging -- being a litigator, they've just added a new person. the problem -- one of the problems they've had is to build an institution you have to have continuity. you have to have continuity of people. the way you work that is, if you identify a problem, which he has, they add someone to the board who is the head of h.r. at boots, a woman of color -- >> walgreen's. >> walgreen's and in charge of 350,000 people. how come this person leaves so quick? they didn't have the right qualification. now they're being very careful, more careful about how to make sure that they're matching the person who they hire with the culture of the business and with the exact requirements that they need for the role that they're trying to fill. >> let me throw a couple more things at you -- >> these are things short

sellers say. they also point to the idea that there's not enough demand out there, you can get a car in two weeks right now. there's no backlog. they're closing all the stores which will make it a lot harder to sell to the public if they're only available online. what are the arguments back against that >> so, backlog. how many car companies do you know that have backlogs? thinking about the ford thunderbird, the ford mustang, rather, in 1966, there's 190 million people in the country. there's now 317 and they sold 600,000 cars in a year and they sold 500,000 cars the year before that and then it went down. when people drive tesla's, it's a different experience. when i was speaking yesterday with rob -- that's the second person i know who's parents grew

up in gas stations. she's won one of them. she loved cars and she told me she bought a mercedes amg 363 -- is that what that's called the real expensive high powered super fast car. she's been saving for a long time. she gets a tesla right after that and says, there's nothing like a tesla. nothing. everyone who drives one of these cars says the same thing. when you're selling 400,000 cars a year, which is what they'll sell this year from 250, they're going to sell -- i think they'll sell a million cars, a million one in two or three years and they're going to sell -- elon musk was talking about selling a million cars. they will sell as much as batteries as they do cars. the idea of400,000 cars

saturating demand is a crazy idea. there's 90 million cars that are sold, 400,000 cars. last year they sold more than half of the luxury sedans in the united states, over 50% shares against bmw, against audi and mercedes. in europe, they're just selling them right now, they're selling -- they're the leader seller in germany of all places. automobiles is their industry. when you get people in germany who are very careful about quality, that's their life blood, that's what they live on, they live on these cars and if all of a sudden they're buying tesla cars, norway, the leading car in norway, china, they do -- and it's really hard to make cars, really hard. google wants do it. they dropped out. apple wants do it. they dropped out. china said they'll start and they came to visit me and they

told us, they said, ron, i'm so glad to see you again. i made you all this money -- this is the chairman in ten years ago, you made five times your money with us and i'm so glad to have a chance to talk to you again. the stock was supposed to go public at $7 or $8 and they made it public at 6. now it's back to 6.5 again. they told us about the deals in china and the advantage they thought they had and when you look -- they can't even build a factory for themselves. >> fair enough to say that your confidence is not shaken when it comes it tesla. you don't believe the bear case on this? >> what about range anxiety? did you see that >> i didn't get that, though. >> i would get very anxious. and you're anxious all the time. >> this thinking goes -- >> i can get gas it takes me five secondsto get gas. if i got to go to work and back -- what if i get a fender

bender and it takes six months to get it fixed? >> the model 3 -- >> what's my range >> on the very low end. >> yeah. >> for $35,000, it's going to be 220 miles. >> today >> if you pay $37,000 -- >> where's mac >> if you pay $37,000, it 250 miles. their goal in new york city was to have a charging station every four blocks, every four blocks. i think they're there. everywhere you go, garages, hotels, everywhere you go there's charges. >> the sec and the issue that he's run in to with the sec, getting in trouble, going on "60 minutes" and saying i don't care what the sec says i'm still going to be here, calling the

short sellers exchange commission after that came out, what did you think >> i didn't think that was a good idea to do that. it's not a good idea to fight with a regulator. i understand how upset he was. the reporter who was on "60 minutes," we were out visiting tesla at the same time. >> was that leslie staal >> yep. >> the night we get there on a wednesday, i guess, and i'm with five other guys, you know, in my firm, and they say we're going to dinner. i said, man, i'm tired. i go to bed. there's leslie staal, just me and her in the elevator. i said, how cool is this to be in an elevator with someone so famous she worked so hard all day long and i said, i had a hard day too, today that i got another day tomorrow. the elevator opens on the fourth floor and she had been actually to my apartment.

my wife is on the board of the israeli museum and she spoke there for it. any ways, the door opens and i get out on the fourth floor and she gets out on the fourth floor. i felt weird about that. we walked a little bit and my door and she's got the next door. i said have a good night and then i go the next day, we go to -- it felt very strange, the next day i go to tesla and we meet this guy jerome gillum who is -- how did we get so lucky to get this guy in charge of manufacturing? this guy is amazing. he was describing how he comes from a farm in france and i was asking him, how do you hire people and his father lived on the same farm. he said, well, the first question i ask them is, have you blown up your house? why do you ask them that

i want to know if they've blown up their house instead of my factory. everything he does is simplified. i knew this wasn't going to work, cars flying over head. when you start manufacturing, you're actually going up an incline and as opposed to using gravity, you want to go down an incline. then he says, oh, and by the way, i was just with -- i'm allowed to speak -- i gave them permission to speak to three people a year. i'll speak to three people a year. you're the second i've spoken to in two days. yesterday i met with "60 minutes." i said i just met with her, if i had known she was here i would have offered her a ride back to new york. the people that -- you know, that they hire, that they have, this guy's been there eight or nine or ten years. everyone tried to hire him. they have these young tiger guys and elon very demanding person

to have, you know -- to want to work there, you have to really be driven. the idea about "60 minutes" i think he misspoke. you don't want to antagonize people but he learns. he learns fast. >> when you come in, i don't see any of the -- you sit next to andrew ross sor kin of too big to fail of the "new york times" of billions of "squawk box" and i don't see any of that leslie staal, you know, sort of the aura that you just put on her and how big she is and famous -- are you chopped liver? >> you come in, you sit down there, you weren't awe struck or anything so it's a similar thing -- >> we've got a lot more with ron baron. i am chopped liver. a lot more to come from ron baron including his thoughts on

the tax backlash. also we're watching shares of airlines this morning after the faa issuing that order to ground boeing 737 max the latest tsty and other headlines. stay tuned. you've worked hard to grow your wealth. make sure you're working with a wealth manager who can grow with you. cfa charterholders have the investment expertise to unlock opportunities other advisors might not see. learn what a cfa charterholdr can do for you at therightquestion.org

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welcome back. ge just out with its 2019 outlook moments ago. the company says that it sees adjusted earnings for 2019 up 50 to 60 cents a share. the consensus had been 70 cents. ge's challenges in 2019 are clechl but clear. culp sees industrial free cash flow going positive in 2020 with power revenue growing next year. aviation revenue should be in the high single digits, the company says and culp says that ge is committed to trimming its debt levels. all of these details being released ahead of an investor event later today and you can see the stock is off by about 1.6%. less than it had been earlier. "squawk box" will be right back. time now for today's after lack trivia question. what know belle prizewinner was born on this day in 1879 the answer when "squawk box" continues.

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discussion with ron baron will continues. the names on his radar screen and where you should be putting your mey to onwork. that's coming up right here on "squawk box." i have access to the oil markets and gold markets. okay. i'm plugged into equities - trade confirmed - and i have global access 24/7. meaning i can do what i need to do, then i can focus on what i want to do. visit learnfuturestoday.com to see what adding futures can do for you. when yowhat do you see?itical issues facing our world, we see breakthrough medicines getting to patients in record time. we see harnessing natural gas unleashing the promise of clean energy. we see engineers simulating the future to improve today. at emerson, when issues become inspiration, focusing core strengths to create a better world

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as you know taxing the wealthy all the rage. wealth taxes 70% marginal rates, ways of adjusting capitalism which doesn't work for most people any more even though he's worth billions of dollars. let's talk to ron baron about this. i want to approach it this way, you have devoted your life, i think, to helping create millionaires and i'm just wondering how many millionaires you think you've created in your lifetime with people in your fund >> i don't know. a lot. a lot of people in my office come to me regularly and they say, ron, i now have a million dollars invested in baron funds. i say that's fantastic because that means in four or five or six you'll have two million, so basically you'll be able to take care -- take care of your family. >> you see my point. i think you want policies that create more millionaires and we

now in the u.s. have 10.2 million millionaires more than the entire population of sweden, but there is an entire group of people that talk about fairness or income inequality or whatever you want to call it that -- i mean, i don't want to speak for them, but i honestly think some of them are so interested in capping the high end that they forget about how they're going to help people that they're supposedly trying to help raise up on the lower end. would you ever consider creating millionaires or wealth creation to be a negative and something we should try to legislate against? >> i think that most people aspire to become successful and be able to take care of their families and take care of -- >> trust fund -- let's say the relative of a movie studio, an heiress to a movie studio --

>> i watched that interview. >> how did you -- what were your feelings >> she was worth hundreds of millions of dollars -- >> is it self-loathing and guilt that she did nothing to earn it? >> i don't know. >> did you understand it at all? andrew's -- why don't you let ron talk he watched it. >> it does cost hundred dollars per person -- >> 104, up to 109. if you're under 9-years-old it costs $97 but for a family of four it's $400 a day to go to disney world and on top of that, there's all the food and gifts and the hotels and transportation. it's expensive. that's for a middle class family. how do they afford that? i'm all about trying to have people -- you know, this goes to our whole investment philosophy. the idea is that the value of your money falls in half every 17 years.

so for -- i was telling some people in my office, my first salary, i pay over 50% in taxes. all the people i work with pay over 50% in taxes. there comes a point where you got to say, my wife says why do you do this? my first salary was $7,729 in 1966. and before that for a year, i taught bio chemistry as georgetown and this was at george washington in the evening. then i went to law school at night and worked in a patent office in daytime. my friends said, so how often do you get that i said every year. that job today is $65,000 starting and i think the governmentation getting a better deal paying $63,000 for the people they're hiring today than paying me -- >> let me just ask you it a different way.

look, there are people out there who want to take from the top -- >> income redistribution. >> in a punitive way. i think there are others that look at the system today and say, look, there are people who are getting very wealthy and there are people who are not and is the system working in the most efficient way that it possibly can given the inequality that is taking place, are the rents, if you will, that frankly take place in the financial world, are they appropriate relative to the fact that, you know, we talked about $400 to go to disney world, that the average american family i believe actually doesn't have $400 in savings. so the question i don't think is about whether you're trying to take from the rich or do something, i think the question is a larger one just about whether the system unto itself is working in an age of automation, you look at the tesla factories, the robots that are taking some of these jobs, globalization and what's that doing in terms of the

displacement of jobs. those are the real issues. i think there are people who want to take from the top for their own reasons, but i don't think that -- i think there's an issue underneath it that is worth at least having a conversation about. >> there we are with having the conversation again. that's what they say -- ron, you can answer. >> and make as many millionaires as is humanly possible too. >> that's different. not everyone does. the gdp per capita is hire -- it's $62,000. the quality of life, the life expectancy -- by every metric we're living better now than we've ever lived before and around the ages there's things we need to do with education and making it -- ron, answer. go. >> we pay over 50% in taxes. w-2 income is over 50% in taxes. when i look at people who have partnerships, for example, hedge funds, and they pay 25% in taxes. that doesn't seem fair to me. they do the same thing we do

except they're getting paid differently. there are -- there's nothing that's ever perfect and nothing's ever -- this is a great system we have in this country. a great system. someone from -- someone like me -- >> the "new york times" wrote a piece that the american dream is alive and well in china and not in america. >> people who live in china want to live in america. when they become successful, they want to live in america. >> i know. >> the idea that i have is very simple that the system does work and it does work for people if they're educated and able to take advantage -- >> what should we do with taxes? do you think they're progressive enough >> yes. >> you do? what about at the very high end? >> i don't think it's fair to have people not paying taxes who have -- who are earning a great deal of money and i do think it's fair for people who are like me paying 50% in taxes. i could live in florida and

pay -- >> you've amassed a large amount of money, ron, paying 50% but now it's totalled billions of dollars now. we're told that no one can use that and that almost in a zero sum game mentality that you can't possibly use that much and that your heirs don't deserve it and that it would be better spent if we spread it around, redistribution >> if i wanted to live differently, if that was my only goal to make money so i could spend and buy different -- that's not my goal. people have different ideas. i wanted to build a business that's going to last to be able to provide services to individuals that are going to be able to take care of their families. >> i hear you. >> so, look, the value of your money -- three things. the value of your money -- this is capitalism. the value of your money in every democracy falls in half every 17 years. every 17 years. that's the $7,729.50 years ago.

the other side is, our economy is growing -- is doubling in size every ten or 12 years. if someone sat me down and said, ron, you don't have to worry about buying and selling. just buy and buy great companies. and when they don't grow any more and make a mistake just sell. >> i know you want to get back to tesla for one second. >> no, no. >> andrew, doesn't understand range anxiety. you live a mile from here and you have a driver. mac, what is your round trip per day to the ranch 250 miles. what's he going to do? he has range anxiety. >> he's going to buy a tesla with 330 miles. >> he has range anxiety. >> or he's going to take his car and when he drives it to the city, he's going to put it in 250 round trip, you get here for 125 -- >> plug it in.

>> and you have 75 miles you're able to add in 15 minutes. >> how's that sound? >> sounds good. any way -- >> he's not going anywhere. we'lbeacl bk with ron and stock ideas that could make you money when we come back right after this.

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guest host this morning came with a bunch of disrupter stock picks. we'll go through some of them with him right now. ron baron is here and on your list, you like netflix. >> i say that because they're an interesting company. they disrupted cable television and movies. when i looked at that company ten years ago, 15 years ago, i went out to their facility in long island and we were taking cds and dvds -- >> and sending them in the mail. >> look, ron, this is -- i said -- i don't get netflix, what's that name mean? it's about streaming. if i wanted to have a business that was sending dvds through the mail i would have called this dvd through the mail. we call it netflix. streaming business. businesses -- now spotify

they're disrupting apple. apple disrupted the cd business. charles schwab was a disrupter. spacex, investing in spacex now. it's really interesting. -- >> this is a private investment. >> for baron capital, for baron funds. >> spacex is not a publicly traded company. >> it's been private now. i don't know how long it would remain private. their disruption is that ituse to be that you would send up these rockets and you'd have boeing and lockheed spending hundreds of millions of dollars. you remember when john glenn goes up and the rockets burn up in the sentence. it cost $250,000 in fuel to fly

for one of these rockets. that's it. they throw away hundreds of millions of dollars. spacex says, okay, what we're going to do is reuse the rockets over and over again. we'll take them up -- just like you see in the movies and land them again. people said you can't do that. it's like taking a pencil and having it land on the eraser. they can do it. china says that spacex -- china says spacex is ten years ahead of us, ahead of china. surprisingly it's a private company is ten years ahead of us. >> let me ask you a tesla question since we're here. there has been speculation that one day maybe tesla gets wrapped up in spacex. you think that's possible? you probably heard that before >> i've heard people have that theory. i don't see why. i have no idea. i wouldn't think that would be the case. >> since we're just on tesla

real quick, there's a question mark around this case with musk about whether he's able to maintain and keep this ceo role and what would happen if he became either the chairman or became the creative officer or some other title. do you think that would have an impact >> i think -- i read the 10k in tesla a couple nights ago and when you read that 10k you say, oh, my god, how is it possible this company can be successful they have to do all these things. supply chain and hiring people at 48,000 people work there now. 48,000 -- >> does it matter if he's called the ceo or imagination officer >> he has to be involved in the company. it's very important at this point. you can't hire someone to expect the business to grow 50% a year for as long as you can see and have them be as driven as he is.

you can't do that. >> val gifford says it doesn't matter if he has the ceo title. you agree with that assessment >> i would like -- i don't think the role -- >> they still say that as long as he's involved. >> he has to be the guy who's driving it. >> but the title part matters or doesn't matter to you? >> title doesn't matter to me. as long as he's doing what he's doing. he has to be able to do that and hire these people and come up with these designs and think about how to drive that business. >> ron baron, thank you for a wonderful hour. >> thank you. >> good to see you. >> we'll look forward to seeing you again. >> thank you, sir. when we come back, in order to ground the 737 max by the faa, what it means for the airlines and their global fleets the president of southwest pilots association joins us along with the president of the transport workers union. take a look at the futures at this hour. right now the dow futures indicated down by six points,

s&p future and the ndaasq indicated up slightly. "squawk box" will be right back. with all that usaa offers

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boeing under pressure, the faa orders the company's 737 max jets grounded as boeing stock is

down 11% since monday. take three. lawmakers set totake a brexit vote today this could be the one that determines what happens next. and crunch time for ge. fresh 2019 guidance out just this morning. executives set to begin an investor call in minutes. we'll bring you the latest news at it happens. the final hour of "squawk box" continues right now. ♪ announcer: live from the most powerful city in the world, new york. this is "squawk box." good morning and welcome back to "squawk box" live from the nasdaq market site in times square. i'm joe kernen along with becky and andrew. the futures -- >> i saw your finger moving.

>> the futures right now up 16 points on the -- 19 now. so it turned positive again. nasdaq up 16 and the s&p indicated up just over 2.5 points. we need a trading session i think from 9:30 to 4:00 to settle this today on where these things -- >> good idea. >> why don't we do that on about pi day, 3.14159. >> somebody carried it out all the way to the point where it's actually 2019 shows up in it. you start with the 3.14 -- >> it's been done to a trillion. >> yeah. >> apparently. >> i haven't seen any pies yet. >> oh, that pie. >> what's your favorite? coconut cream?

>> apple crisp or banana cream. >> like so many things, is there a bad pie? >> mincemeat. >> or pecan pie. >> you don't like pecan? >> i love it. >> mincemeat i don't like and pecan pie is not worth it. >> it's just a good invention, is it not? >> yeah. >> sorry. >> we digress. let's just show you some of these live pictures as we seat. the boeing facility in washington where it's 737 max planes are being built, the latest news after days of pressure, the faa now in the united states has decided to ground all of boeing 737 max planes, the model involved in last weekend's deadly crash in ethink open pa. contessa brewer joins us now with more on this growing story. >> faa calls it an emergency and the safety of air commerce evidence that indicates similarities between the crash of flight 302 and the lion air

crash in indonesia. the acting administrator told cnbc his agency is data driven and the data changed yesterday. >> the initial track that we got on sunday and monday morning was only three minutes along, the first three minutes of the flight. the new track data we looked at was for almost the entire length of the flight. also, the evidence that we discovered and the ground actually was even further evidence that the flight was very similar to lion air. >> as he announced it, president trump applauded the faa for its decision-making process. here it is. >> they acted very quickly, yeah, and we acted also very fact based and very much working with other countries and with the airlines. >> we're told the data recorder in the cockpit voice recorder were damaged in the crash and need special equipment to extract the information this morning. those black boxes under paris.

the information on them we're told is crucial to this investigation in clearing up what is boeing's responsibility here, what can be fixed? boeing continues to stand behind the safety of its aircraft but says out of its abundance of caution it's grounding all of its max planes globally. southwest says they support the move. analysts translate that into a positive sign that whatever led to these crashes and we don't know the answer yet, whatever it is can be easily addressed by boeing, joe? >> okay. contessa's got a couple of guests that might know something from -- from the latest on the u.s. grounding of the 737 max planes, let's welcome captain jonathan weeks. he's president of the pilot's association. represents over 9,000 pilots and john samuelson, international president of the transport

workers union of the america, they represent more than 140,000 airline, rail transit and other service workers. i don't know if you guys diverge on any of the core matters here but maybe on some of the specifics, captain, let me start with you. we got some new information yesterday that caused the united states to act quickly. i'm wondering whether you think that new information is different than what we've started to believe and that is that training is essential and maybe training in the united states has been more comprehensive or carried out better than maybe around the rest of the world? given the new data yesterday, the cause of the actual plane to be grounded, do we have to rethink that that there might be an -- it's not like a pilot not being trained well enough at this point >> good morning, everyone. joe, to answer your question, any accident investigation is

going to look at every facet of what's going on and to specifically address your issue of training, i can speak for the pilots of swap and we've done that in the blast we've put out that's why we were so confident in the southwest pilots ability to fly the max. when they look at everything that happened because what we've seen at our airline for the pilots i represent, you've got 90,000 hours of data over 41,000 hours -- 41,000 flights and we've got to figure out why there is this anomaly between what we're seeing with our data and the two accidents that have happened overseas in the last six months. >> captain, the anecdotally -- and i think they were anonymous posts or comments but there were some incidents, five or so in this country, where you just see that some pilots were grousing

about the m cass or why did we need -- one of them used the term jury-rigged, this system to address what was never a problem before on boeing jets. is there anything to that? all the previous boeing's didn't have the antistall system, right? >> the m cass is new to the max. what i have asked our safety committee to do and they've done and i can report to you, we looked through all of the identified data that we have and we had one write-up on the max. it was not m cass related and after our safety committee reviewed that data, we were part of asap -- we can get into that later if you want to, after they reviewed that data, they were satisfied that it did not merit further investigation.

on the asap report and the reports people have been quoting all i would do is urge you to please remember that each one of those reports is identified in the complete information is not in each of those reports. they're going to require getting into the weeds to look at the report itself and you can't do that just based on the initial or the public data that everybody can pull up. >> let me turn to john. jonathan versus john. john, off-camera when this first happened, we talked about how comfortable any of us would have been going up on one of these jets after -- so i figure with you, you represent all these transportation workers. first and foremost, you want to ensure the safety of anyone in the union. >> i don't think it's a situation of jonathan versus john -- >> no, no.

i wasn't asking you to argue. it's just the difference between john and jonathan. >> we look at the plane to ground the planes until the voice and data recorder came back from the second accident and so there's some problems here and i think it goes beyond what captain weeks is talking about. there's an incestuous relationship between boeing and the faa. boeing was allowed to put a plane into service without even telling the pilots that there was an m cass system in place that could override their skill and nosedive a plane and cause a catastrophe. >> you mean when the plane was originally put into service? >> absolutely. so how does the faa allow a company like boeing to put a plane into service that has an override device that could nosedive a plane and cause massive loss of life. >> you think the faa is in

cahoots with boeing? >> i think the faa has an unhealthy, as i said, incestuous relationship with both the manufacturers and the airline industry and i think there's examples of that that go beyond these two accidents. right now the faa's allowing u.s. passenger air carriers, when you get on a plane, there's a good chance that plane was overhauled or maintained in south america or perhaps china rather than on u.s. soil with mechanics making a good wage and blue collar wage and the lust for profits, the airline industries driving all this work overseas. it's a very dangerous for us and it's going to wind up in a catastrophic event. >> you believe that the safety -- you believe the work being done on these aircrafts outside of the united states is actually not safe? >> i believe it's far less safe than work done on u.s. soil. i give that as just another example of the faa having this incestuous relationship with the industry and the manufacturers. they're interested in profits

and any time a situation occurs where the faa thinks they work for the industry and not for the american people, it's a problem and it calls for congressional oversight. >> captain weeks, is there -- do you understand where john's coming from? >> let me start with the last things that he said. we actually advised our membership -- i know you all are aware of the mechanics' negotiations with southwest airlines. one thing we have pressed for is to publish and keep public the work reliability of union mechanics, in-house mechanics versus the reliability of outside vendors be that foreign or domestic. nobody should hide from the facts and the evidence that that brings out. i think it's good for everybody -- >> what do you think that evidence would show? >> i'm sorry, andrew. say it one more time. >> what do you think that evidence would show?

>> i think what it will show is in-house work, union work by the mechanics -- i know by our mechanics has a better rate of reliability in completion than outside vendors and it's not necessarily something that's -- that's critical one safety related. it could be, but what it just shows is the reliability and the reliability once that aircraft comes back online and how the reliability of that aircraft four or five days after it comes back, i would put our mechanics' work up against any vendor any day. >> absolutely. >> by the way, the pilots unions have supported us tremendously in this. >> that's worth doing. what would it do to pricing? do you know? ticket pricing >> these companies are making gazillions of dollars a year, if it costs a little more money to

ensure the safety of americans, so be it. >> there's got to be one level of safety for everybody. it's too critical to the people we love and our passengers that pay our checks, it's got to be one level of safety. >> jonathan, captain, john, thank you. >> thank you. when we come back, facebook under the microscope and what the scrutiny means for investors? the social network's data deals are under criminal investigation and this comes at the same time that critics are calling for a big tech break-up. we'll talk to alan patricof. shares of ge are back up. the company announced new 2019 guidance that was below expectations. a lot of other information that they released too but that stock is up by about 1%. morgan brennan just okspe with larry culp on the phone and she'll join us next. making my dreams a reality

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welcome back. big tech in focus with calls from politicians to break-up companies like amazon, google and facebook and new this morning the "new york times" reporting that facebook's data

deals with fellow big tech companies are now under criminal investigation. a grand jury investigation, in fact. joining us right now tech investor alan patricof. we've been talking so much with you over the past year about the issues involving some of the big tech companies and whether they should be broken up and what should happen. this new story this morning about a criminal investigation over privacy and what data was shared and whether that wasn't just a civil issue, if you will, a privacy issue but whether it was actually criminality involved. >> let's face it, there's a headwind which is about privacy and about competition or ma noppistic position. when you have so much control -- not just facebook, facebook, google and amazon, the three, it's just incredible. i was looking this morning that amazon now has 8% of the online advertising. >> i heard that recently. i didn't know it was 8%.

>> they've gone from 4% to 8% and between the three of them they have two-thirds of all the advertising on the internet. >> maybe it is a monopoly. >> they have data that's just -- one feeds another part of the other. youtube is good -- is good for google, not that they need it. facebook's got it from what's app and instagram. look at the acquisition. >> here's the hard part, in the classic -- thinking about antitrust, you would look at amazon and say, you know what? they own 8% of the advertising business, even on the retail world, it's actually tiny if you put it in a global perspective. online, huge piece of it, books huge piece of it. you'd say aws, a third of the business but not -- a third of the market but not all of the

market. do you think that the antitrust rules have to be rewritten themselves >> listen, i think amazon and google and facebook are great. i said on this program when facebook went public, it's a utility. that's how you ought to look at it. they've become utilities but as utilities, you know what happens to utilities, they've always been regulated. we're having a situation where they own such large shares of various markets whether it's social involvement or whether it's search or whether it's retail. amazon's 50% of the online retail buying. it's inevitable that we have to think about -- >> what does that regulation look like? there's not a natural way to break up amazon as far as i can see unless -- at least on the retail side. all these cloud computing businesses, aws, google cloud, microsoft, azure, maybe you could say those could get split off because guess what netflix is also -- they're using aws. they'll compete against amazon.

where do you put the fault lines? >> our old definition is a monopoly was someone who could control prices and usually push prices up. now, we've traded monopoly positions in exchange for lower prices and faster delivery. >> what's the harm there >> i don't know. it's a real issue. >> do you look -- are you concerned about the other competitors building up? >> i'm concerned it's a social issue that we really have to think about. >> one that should be looked at as using monopolistic issues >> you compartmentalize the data they have. when you go back to the robert baron's and the railroads they consciously went out and bought everything around so they could control it. i don't think any of these three

companies are setting out to be a monopoly. they're just generating enormous amounts of cash. they got to use it. and they have corporate development and strategic departments who are picking areas -- i mean, i saw something the other day that's interesting. amazon has announced they're going into the local food business. i hope i'm correct. and they say, not whole foods. they're going to open a separate chain -- where do you think those stores are going to go these are in present stores. they're going to go to the empty shopping centers and why do d they become empty? because the retailing business has shifted so much to online. it's kind of -- i hate to use -- these people got pushed out now their spaces are empty at lower prices. now you start a new chain. >> it's a corollary of creative destruction, too a lot of consumers are

benefiting. >> we are. >> we don't even know about inflation any more. where the hell is it rates don't need to go back to 7% and 8%. would you want to trade our vc tech industry with any other in the world? >> no. >> it's the goose that lays the golden egg and we got to be careful. >> ten years from now, do you think we'll be talking about the faang stocks, if you will? we talked about sears and kmart -- >> they'll be a new faang. >> it's a different world. the problem of opening up another physical location which is the company's you mentioned, that has a certain relation to neighbors, traffic. this is -- >> even in the world of tech, nobody even knew what nvidia was. >> you will have the faang but i bet you'll have another three to four -- maybe eight or ten that you're talking about will be in

that group. >> microsoft isn't part of faang but we still have it. we still have all the other great -- >> these companies are going to stay here. >> is it i.o.t.? >> we got a lot of unicorns this year. >> appreciate it. >> see you tonight at the hudson yard party. >> you noticed i wore a turtleneck today. the former dow component out with 2019 guidance and beyond. it's expected to begin an investor call in just minutes. we'll bring you all the headlines as they happen plus the details from a call ceo larry culp just had with our own morgan bnnrean. stay with us. "squawk box" is back after a quick break. and to manage this risk, the world turns to cme group. we help farmers lock in future prices, banks manage interest rate changes and airlines hedge fuel costs.

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welcome back. we're just seconds away from weekly jobless claims and the latest import/export price data. the futures are solidly -- well, solid compared to being fractionally but up 26 now on the dow. they've been all over the map,

plus 50 minus is what we've seen. up 30 now on the dow and the s&p indicated up four, nasdaq indicated up 16.5. the ten-year note right now has 2.62 and interesting to look at what happened since the fall of last year. give us the numbers we're waiting for, rick. >> reporter: we pop up a half a dozen, 6,000 in initial claims so we move from an unrevised 223,000 to 229,000 continuing claims move from 1.758 up just a bit to 1.776. on the price side for february, up .6 on import prices. that's twice what we were looking for and we gained .6 exactly last look for minus five to 100% one. we'll have to talk energy there because when you strip out petroleum, it moves up .1 and

you only gain .1 on our last look. year over year down 1.3 following down 1.6. smaller negative than anticipated. things come in, things go out. export prices also up a half a dozen basis points big number and if you look at year over year up .3. so these prices are all a smidge warmer than expected, but yet even as equities seem to be soaring, we seem to see a much more squooshy environment in treasuries and sovereigns as a whole, becky. >> rick, stick around. we'll dig a little deeper into the data. steve is here too and checking stuff out. steve, what do you see >> it's a little hard -- rick is right. the numbers are hotter than expected. it's hard to get excited when the year over year nonpetroleum import prices are down half a percent. a lot of this number moves up and down with oil and now

exporter, some of that matters for american prices as well. i am interested in the jobless claims, though. it's a little hard to get the trend. if you look at it, you know, it looks like a ball bouncing at the end here but in general, the drift has been up and there's been a lot of stuff to pollute the data, becky, including the shutdown. other things going on but it looks like there's this upward drift. i don't know when we're out of the zone where all the things that have happened, even just the year-end changeover from the christmas hiring and the christmas firing. i don't know when we're out of that zone, but in general, when i look at a trend line i see a lot of ups and downs but i see a general trend up that's worth watching that might suggest a little bit of weakening in the overall payroll numbers. >> what does that tell you >> it tells me to watch it carefully. we know the economy is slowing h. we just don't know how slow. my expectation is that it doesn't slow all that much to below 2%. i'm hoping for 2.5% year this

year. obviously administration's dialed in three. the feds dialed in 2.3. you would expect jobs numbers to slow from where they've been, becky. we were up break neck at 300,000 plus. nobody thought those were sustainable. even the 200,000 plus was very, very strong. if we can settle down into this 125, 150 area, i think that would be a big success for the economy going forward in terms of stability to payroll numbers. >> rick, let me come back at you just in terms of the movement we've seen today in the market futures, the stock market futures. we've moved 100 points on the dow and that's come as we were up by almost 100 points. then we heard some headlines that trade deal was -- the meeting between xi and trump was not going to happen in april and that pushed things down. we're bouncing back up off the lows. what's been the reaction there that you've seen just in terms of any headlines coming out on that front >> reporter: i think it's hard to digest some of those headlines you just referenced

until we get into the full blown day's trading. i am rather impressed that the market is able to be so patient. historically, patience is not a virtue of markets. i think on the trade deal, even though it's just so messy and we could debate all day as to whether this administration picked the best way to get into that fight, so to speak, but at the end of the day i think everybody in the honesty of their own privacy understands, there is something big we need to get done now while we still have the horsepower, the economy and potentially the enforcement to bring china into more compliance as it transitions from a coming up economy to play the game more fairly. none of these issues have been touched since wto. there were a lot of things that were prearranged when china was welcomed in, but definitely not to have kind of teaser

environments forever. >> could be a brave new world, rick, if we all work together. i'm an optimistic pi mode. >> reporter: it wouldn't be a brave new world if somebody doesn't stand up for america's interest. i've seen investors on the asian side who have 50 -- i heard 300 year plan last week. we better start to concentrate harder. >> i want to be there for that if it works. if we're not all under water. thanks, rick. coming up, your bigget morning stock movers including general electric. company management on a call right now laying out fresh guidance for 2019 and beyond. the stock trading is up marginally. we'll bring you the latest details when we return in just a moment.

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welcome back to "squawk box." we've been watching the futures this morning. they've been bouncing around a little bit. when we first started, you were looking at the futures up by almost 100 points for the dow. we were up by 43 but that comes after we saw the dow dip into negative territory. bouncing around again on some headlines concerning trade and whether or not president xi and trump will actually be meeting next month. again, right now, it looks like the s&p is up by five and the dow futures indicated up by 41. ge out with new financial targets earlier this morning. that stock was down as much as 5% but it has since turned positive. right now it's up by 1.5%.

gain of 15 cents to $10.17. morgan brennan just got off the call and what did he tell you? >> reporter: that's right. so the actual investor call is now under way. it just started about eight minutes ago. prior to that i did speak to the ceo and chairman larry culp. i said if you had to categorize 2019 especially now that we have this outlook in one sentence what would it be, his response, game on. so deleveraging has been a big focus for the company and for the investors and analysts that have been following it given the recently announced sale of bio pharma that closed merger, the fact that they're looking to sell out of that stake in baker hues and at some point likely a health care ipo. i said are you looking to sell or make any more deals he said in terms of deleveraging we like the path we're on. if there are things we can do to further maximize shareholder value we will consider them. free cash flow is a big focus

for this company especially since we know in more detail know that free cash flow, industrial free cash flow is negative 2 billion to flat power, a big pain point here. we talked about that. he said we'll have a greater level of negative cash flow in a business this year. it was negative 2.7 billion last year. that will be worse this year and will get significantly better in 2020 and we expect positive free cash flow in 2021. just to give this a little more context. i think the way culp and the company is thinking about this in general, 2.5 billion in investments that they can control which will decrease after 20,192 billion in operational headwinds primarily renewables which will decrease overtime and 1 billion in inheritances taxes, pensions that are all part of this broader ge free cash flow pie and what's putting pressure now and why they think that's going to abate in 2020 and 2021. lastly, also asked him about

aviation. a lot of the bears on the street right now even though it's a real area of growth and cash flow generator, a lot of bears on the street think it's not going to be as strong as the bulls think. this is a very divided stock. we had 4.2 billion in free cash flow in aviation last year. year on year not going to see a lot of cash flow growth due to the transition to leap, that's their new engine, but it's a high class challenge to have. he's focused on power and capital which had been and still continue to be two of the hardest hit areas that ge is trying to work through right now. will continue to monitor the call and let you know about anything. today's call with ge management is currently under way as morgan mentioned. investors are looking for transparency from executives, also more on the company's longer term plans after a bruising year for the stock. joining us right now is jack

debegan on the squawk news line. what do you think of what you're hearing today, jack? >> becky, i think the most important thing and i mentioned this to your producer yesterday was we needed some gran ulayerty around how they're going to approach the restructuring of power. they can't say they'll fix it and execute it better which is the kind of language we've heard over the last 18 months. i'm reading through the outlook here and they go into some pretty good detail about how they're going to right the ship and get cash flow back to positive. things like consolidating headquarters from three down to one and restructuring some of the service contracts. i think what has made the stock perk up a little bit is that there's some real detail and granularity around how they'll achieve the turn around in power which is the biggest problem for the company. >> that makes you more of a

believer even though they lowered their guidance for the full year? >> well, i think it's positive. this is what the street wanted to hear. we wanted to hear that there is some detail around their three biggest problems which are power, capital and the investigations. and so, we've gotten the detail on the first two here. they obviously can't say too much about the third, but i think that lends some confidence to investors that there's at least a road map here. >> jack, in terms of what else the company has said, in terms of what larry has done to this point, are you a believer in his idea that he's got his arms around this and he'll be able to set things straight? >> becky, from all accounts he's a very talented executive and, you know, i guess if anybody can do it, he can. you have to admit he was given a very difficult hand and his great success was he started

with a small growth company and grew it by acquisition. here he's been handed a large cyclical company and he's asked to -- to take it apart through disposition. so it's exactly the opposite of what he built his great reputation and career on. so this really will be a test of his executive skills and it seems that he's as qualified as anybody else. >> but again, he may be as qualified as anybody he is, but are you a believer at this point? do you buy in? do you hold? what do you do >> i don't think we're ready to buy it at this price. this is a long slog. power is going to be the biggest business they have after their dispositions and to have your largest business be in basically secular decline and having to fight the headwind of margins that are well below the corporate average, that's a

tough, tough battle and when you're doing it from a very leveraged balance sheet, this is going to take a lot of time and i think you end up with a stock that trades below steve's bottom of round six and up to the low teens and i think if you're a trader and you buy it near the bottom of that rank and sell it on the top, you can make money over the couple of years for long-term investors you have to be patient. >> jack, thanks so much. >> you bet. we have some news breaking tesla just naming a new cfo zachary incur corn. he's been serving as president of finance. kircorn has been with tesla for nine years. obviously, there's been questions about -- >> if there's any change in that between now and the end of the

show we'll update you on the status of the new cfo. >> because it's moving that fast. >> yes. we don't know. we've got 14.5 minutes. he might get there and think, wow -- i'm kidding. you know what's going to happen now? >> people wouldn't know you're kidding. >> we spent an hour on the tesla commercial. it's less than an hour to the opening bell. dom chu joins us with some of the morning's biggest movers. dom? i think about you the entire show, where he is, where he is and it just seems like at least better late than never, dom. >> i'm trying to needle the bears right now. we'll start with shares of apple. they're up about a percent or so as you can see here. roughly 270,000 shares of volume at this point. analysts have initiated coverage of apple with an outperform.

they've got $220 price target which is 21% higher than yesterday's close. they decided things like optimism over the longer term success of april services and that iphone cycle, those are just some of the things up a percent. that's not bad. microsoft also getting initiated with a buy rating over at mizuho. they think azure is overblown. shares up fractionally on 750,000 shares on premarket volume and we got shares of snapchat up around 6.5%. this after analysts at btig upgraded the shares to a buy rating. $15 price target. that means 15% upside from yesterday's close. they cited among other things better growth trends in key advertising markets, user loyalty and company morale.

we will finish because we want to check on what's happening with facebook stock. you can see here just down around 2%, roughly 315,000 shares premarket. the social media company facing a criminal probe into its user data policies and since resolved outage of large parts of that platform including instagram and what's app, but still year-to-date, not too shabby. 30% upside so maybe a needling a bit for the bears. back over to you. we're about to talk pi day. how far out on the decimal points can you go on pi, dom >> i have not put my cornell education to very much use on the pi front. 3.14 is all that i really want to know. >> that's pathetic. >> i know. i know. i'm sad to disappoint you. >> 1459. >> that's not a cornell -- >> it doesn't do you justice. >> it doesn't. i'm very sad for my alma mater. i know andrew's already

disappointed. >> there's like a college admission joke to be hold here right now. today is pi day, march 14th or 3.14. we thought it would be a good idea to discuss bank stocks in the past ten years since the lows of the financial crisis. our next guest calls it irrational. mike meo is here. >> what did you do here? what do you have >> happy pi day. i'm not sure you can see this or not. >> that's cool. >> get it up there high. >> did you make that or buy it >> i have sources here. >> you can't reveal your sources. >> there are some bakeries in new york city that will sell this. >> and what kind is this >> it's chocolate. i was concerned -- i wasn't sure if you were invited to any pi day parties so i brought the party here.

>> are we going to eat that while you're speaking or later >> we can eat it. >> i get nervous when either one of us has a pie, you know what i mean >> is there whipped cream involved? let's talk about banks you like morgan stanley these days. >> we are all bought up on the bank stocks now. before the financial crisis we thought the bank stock prices were irrational, trading at two three times book when you had more risk than you had in a generation that was ridiculous. now we think bank stocks are big buys we think the stock prices are irrational on the downside they're trading closer to one times book than two times book we say on this pi day do the math if you do the math, you see that the balance sheetings are the strongest in a generation.

what's not to like here? >> i know you like the banks broadly speaking of the banks, if you could pick just one, pick one. >> our favorite bank stock now is the one we hated the most before the financial crisis and that is citigroup. >> you used to come on and you were not always so fond of our friend richard parsons. >> we're not saying management and the board's doing a great job. we're saying even if they don't do a great job, the return equity should go higher. >> this is like a backhanded compliment. >> you have an activist in the stock too. they're looking over their shoulder, increasing the intensity. they have a new cfo. if you have flat expenses and you grow revenues a little bit -- credit quality is still good at citigroup. >> you have no problem with backhanded compliments

is there a bank here that you think is one that you wouldn't touch right now? >> we wake up thinking every morning what bank stocks should we upgrade, not downgrade. these are irrational bank stock prices given the fundamentals. we are going with the largest banks. our theme is goliath is winning. >> goldman sachs is a very different institution than it was ten years ago, morgan stanley is a different institution than it was. you have jp morgan which is now a goliath in a different way would you talk about jp morgan and citi in the same breath? >> if you look at citigroup, bank of america and jp morgan, those are the true go lie aliats digital banking is breaking out for the largest banks versus the rest of the competition.

>> wells fargo, what do you do >> i stay employed at wells fargo. i like my research managers. >> i know. >> we have a great fixed income department >> but you can't say anything about your own institution >> i did not give you those disclosures. i've worked at seven brokerage firms. i'm allowed to be myself at my firm i'm allowed to have independent research this is probably the best firm where i've worked out of my seven brokerage firms. >> you have the least problems at wells fargo >> i think wells fargo is great. i think it's unfortunate, all that stuff that happened you know, it's a legendary name and had such a great rep for so long i feel bad a little bit but i'm glad you're there because you're raising it back up up where it belongs. >> m & a do you think there's

going to be more in the regional. >> absolutely because goliath is winning and if you can't beat them, join them. >> you know, we can celebrate something else >> you know what's going on for him today. for cramer >> yeah. >> big anniversary for him today. >> and my anniversary. >> your anniversary too? >> yes, sir. >> eat the cake. >> mayonnaise, mike mayo >> 14 years counselor. >> i was married 21 yesterday, jim. this is different. this is for "mad money" congrats. >> 14 years of hey i'm cramer. >> that's right. >> try to refresh the show every year mike mayo, i have to tell you that i said positive things and

felt that wells fargo for the first time in ages is a buy because it sells below market. come on already, how many years is tim sloane going to have to take the beatdown for something that was done before him >> exactly jim, we're 2810 close on the s&p. here we are again. boeing sort of putting us a little bit below where you'd be. it's down again today, yet the averages are up. >> does the market not act unbelievably without the leader of the last 18 months? think about it the leader is cash flow, questioned today by a bunch of analysts and yet it doesn't matter because there's so many other stocks handgun to fill in twille void

i do think that there's a lot of tech news that's very positive this is all in the context of no trade deal you've got to admit that's pretty positive. >> yes i'm not sure how to read that. end of april or not that month you know what other people are saying, jim, is that he's once again the president is once again just telling china don't be so sure that you're going to get what you want. you're going to have to do some of the stuff we've asked for before it happens. it looks like posturing again maybe. >> i don't think it helped that gary cohen was saying that the administration is desperate to do a deal. the president reacts to those things i don't think he's desperate to do a deal. >> right we'll be watching on the first day of the rest of your life of the 15th year beginning tonight. meanwhile, when's our

anniversary? >> we were trying to figure it out. >> i think we're at 24 years his family. his steinway, which met a burst pipe. so grant met his insurance: you are caller number 12. which didn't quite cover the steinway. but what if he'd met pure insurance? owned by members. he'd have met: lisa, your member advocate. who'd introduce him to gustav: leave it to me. a temporary address, temporary ivory, and help him get tickets to the mozart festival. excuse me, grant likes beethoven! uh, the beethoven festival. pure. love your insurance.

♪ just hold on, i'm comin' ♪ hold on, i'm comin' ♪ hold on ♪ don't you worry, i'm comin' ♪ here i come

let's take a final check on the market this is morning the futures are in the green

right now. dow futured futures. up by 32 points, the nasdaq up by 15. we'll see where we get as we get a little closer to the opening bell and the closing bell. that does it for us today. right now it's time for "squawk on the street. ♪ good thursday morning. welcome to "squawk on the street." futures up despite some negative headlines. weak china data, the boeing saga and more we await more brexit votes oil 58.5 that's close to the highs for the year our road map is going to do with work to do, that's