after the tweet. >> 60 is better than 100 i know that. >> yep. >> unless you're an oil producer, i guess. anyway we're done. kayla, you going back, what are you doing? >> my arms are tired >> thanks. sorkin is back tomorrow we'll get his take on the mueller report join us tomorrow "squawk on the street" is next ♪ swing batter batter swing ♪ good morning welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm david faber along with jim cramer on this opening day carl has the morning and the rest of the day off, i'm pretty sure we don't have futures right now. >> no? >> now we are good let's take a look at them as we set up a half hour from now we're going to start trading

this morning now we don't have them you're like a walking futures board, though. >> well, this is another one of those days where it's all about the tens and the twos. >> there it is you can get a sense as to how we're going to open this morning. >> like yeti up here unbelievable stock we've been recommending it since 2016 >> we'll get to our road map this morning which does start with lyft off. the ride hailing giant upping its expected ipo price range yesterday amid heavy demand as it gets ready to go public tomorrow then of course there are growth concerns the commerce department reporting a cooling u.s. economy in the final parts of 2018 we saw not much of a reaction in the equity markets. >> no, nothing >> lululemon getting a big boost

ahead of the bell. tommy hilfigger. first let's start with liftyft. lyft has raised the price range of its initial public offering, now targeting 70 to 72 a share the prior range had been 60 to $68. >> this thing could go up to 75, 78 they're going to up size the deal and it opens at 100. >> you want to have a strong after market let's assume we're talking 85, 90. >> i think that's right. >> you want to leave something there. you want to make sure you don't have flippers. as i pointed out yesterday, it's

an interesting time in the month where the banks are going to see the 13 f's i like your tie. >> thank you. >> that's 45 days from now they're going to know if you sold you're going to hold onto it how do you place it? they want long-term holders. at least they're going to want to go with some big guys that are going to be core holders >> big dog, fidelity >> you want long-term capital. >> this is the most important thing that's happened in a year. you know, this is it if they price this deal well and it pops right, we are going to find people come back to our market you will find individuals that come back to our market. >> really? >> absolutely. >> you think it's that important? >> yes, i do people are actually talking about us again we're no longer dinosaurs.

now we rule the world. >> who's we? >> like you and me >> nobody's talking about us. >> oh yes, they are. >> no. >> oh yes, they are. i got stopped by a guy doing some work today at a building right outside here he said lyft or uber >> really? >> lyft or uber. sonchts t >> so the conversation is back to a certain extent. >> they'll buy and then it will keep going up. they have to remember to sell because eventually you're going to have to sell your lyft because here comes pinterest and then three chinese deals that nobody wants but they're going to jam down your throat. uber should move up very quickly. >> i think uber may begin its road show as soon as a couple of weeks from now you could see uber in may. >> we have to have that before we get to hamptons time. this is all anyone cares about

david, it's going to eclipse any talk about the yield curve one of the most challenging books i've ever red was "inside the yield" curve by sidney homer, 600 pages about the yield curve. people devoured this like it's anna carinina. the left prospectus reads like a millennial prospectus. it's talking about how cars hurt the environment. it's wholistic, it's mindful it it's ghandi meets lyft, all right? >> i've read it too and it's interesting. of course they are losing money. >> you are such a lillipuchin.

>> thank you >> david, they can go forever in their struggle they have 39% market share versus the big dog. >> all true. >> this is to exciting, i may not go to bed. just like opening day, opening ipo in cwhat's going to be an incredible stretch it's equal to the mets rotation. >> i like that if wheeler comes through, we've got a one, two, three that's going to be very strong. we're going to be talking about the lyft ipo until you get tired of hearing us talk about it. >> it isn't like people sit here and watch us every minute. only we do wait until we get to the ones that people don't even know about that come public

>> i know. >> slack is not as good as -- >> slack is going to be fascinating to watch to your point -- logan green and john zimmer going to be on "squawk box. we don't have them but they've got them. >> i hate that we have don zimmer david, do you know how much selling there was yesterday in the morning because people got their allocations. they found out how much lyft they got. >> no they haven't they haven't gotten the stock yet. what are you talking about >> it's not that kind of allocation it's the wink/nod allocation. >> it's a $2 billion offer >> i like to be right. >> what am i selling >> no active manager gets money in anymore none

none 50% of the money is -- >> it's 30 million shares, jim they're not offering $100 billion in stock. >> david, i'm right. i don't know how you defend your position they got their initial allocations. >> you're talking about this all the time. >> you bet i am. >> i know. can we talk about stocks generally kwe generally? >> yeti. >> on track for a modest over after gdp data showing economic growth of 2.4% in the fourth quarter. investors also focusing of course on those talks in china treasury secretary steven mnuchin says he and u.s. trade representative robert lighthizer are looking forward to productive meetings with chinese leaders. the two have arrived in beijing. that is vitally important. >> right they'll have to leak that talks are going well, because that's what they do >> talking about the potential

of the chinese starting to really give a bit on our ask. >> on the cloud. i thought that was significant did you notice the chinese numbers lately >> yeah, they're not good. >> chinese needs us. i think the chinese might be coming to the table more than people realize, but maybe not enough it's no longer just soybeans >> no. the hope is the talks will go well, then they will be followed up by talks in washington, and then fairly soon after you get some sort of signed agreement. >> they know trump does not want to remove the tariffs. >> right may not remove all of them. >> that's horrible >> i think there's more downside in the market if in fact there were to go wrong than there is upside if it goes right. >> we've got to stall it

trump would be all over this if these talks fail, the s&p goes down 5 or 6%, i don't know what trump has in his arsenal. firing powell and putting in mr. 50 cent cut, whatever, steven moore. >> powell would say he doesn't even have the power, the president, to remove him >> have you met him? hi, my name is cut taxes. >> you talked about the high multiple stocks yesterday getting a bit of a -- >> a tussle. >> yeah. what have you got today? >> they kind of did it they kind of got their wink and nod. but yes, i do think in the add workday is the key to this market that's the one that they sell first. don't ask why.

it's a high multiple stock they sell workday and service now. those are your keys for this market, david. >> those have been extraordinarily strong stocks, as you say. >> lyft is so exciting so's the gdp, so's the ten, so's the twos german tenure, david i could talk all day about the german tenure. >> i wish you would. >> it requires no work and it's fun. >> i find myself at night hoping you'll spend time on the german tenure. >> it requires no work, which is what i love, as opposed to getting up at 3:30 to study. who was the new spokesperson for lululemon? >> i do not know. >> nick foles, for heaven's sake >> here's a look at five below. >> five below is so good lululemon -- >> he's tweeting about the fact

he's their new elite ambassador. >> yeah. they wanted to try to get a smaller market but they couldn't find one i think liululemon's conference call was just amazing. in china lululemon is loved. >> i thought things were not good in china. >> they love nikes and they love lulu lulu is up 20 now. i said people should buy it up 10 last night. >> it's a big morning for lululemon. you're going to hear what the ceo of pvh told jim last night also ahead, big tech continues to be under some scrutiny. we're going to have an exclusive with eu competition commissio r commissioner >> the faa, desperate for money.

>> the faa has other things they should be focusing on. there's another look at futures. you can see not much doing in terms of an open one way or the other. 'vgoa t reft ts. intelligence, at&t provides e 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...

...or trips to mars. $4.95. delivery drones or the latest phones. $4.95. no matter what you trade, at fidelity it's just $4.95 per online u.s. equity trade.

we were talking a bit about it in the last segment shares of lululemon and pvh posting better than expected quarterly results, also issuing up beat full year guidance for their earnings lululemon announced a half a billion dollars stock buyback. >> what really drove the tommy business is the continued connection with the consumer with our marketing and great product execution globally that's really continued. that brand is for the last two years has really continued to grow.. >> it's just incredible.

get miked and come up here get up here, john. can we get john miked up here he comes. get up here, john. do me a solid. solid me just one sec i love lieu liulu but no need f introduction i just said your stock is the key to this market can we get him miked we have to break form here i'm sorry to our executive producer. >> i think it's very important that we have john. nice to see you. >> great to be here. >> what brings you here? >> we have our board of directors and now we have a second board of top customers. we have 15 of the top cios in the world who are part of the service now cio board. we've been meeting upstairs in the great conference room we have here. we need to get feedback on our products we were just sharing our mobile road map, dh i'm so excited about and how many of these leading companies are going to

be rolling out mobile to their employees for internal functions. >> we were just talking about pvh and tommy hilfiger individualization, digitization, you have been the leader in trying to personalize. >> absolutely. we use mobile in our consumer lives. how do we create consumer experiences in our work lives? whether it's employee on boarding and make that a simple mobile app we were just showing how you have a problem with a laptop or a facility or whatever, you go one place and fixing a problem at work is as easy as ordering an uber or buying something on ebay. >> this has been one of the great stocks of all time frank shutman, the previous ceo. this stock is up 35% it's got a 70 multiple why? david, if you have a problem with tech, is there anything better than this you've understood this from day one. it's remarkable.

he's also done an amazing job previous at ebay and paypal. >> you took some time off, people may remember, after ebay. then you took this job no shortage of potential offers coming your way. are you happy with the decision that you made? >> it's been great i think in many ways the impact of technology at work is going to be one of the biggest areas of change and disruption and transformation in the next ten years. i've been privileged to join a company that frank did a great job with and spending time with customers, i'm having the time of my life. >> $43.5 billion market value because of servicenow. >> talk about our lot of our viewer just hear cloud, their eyes glaze over. >> yes. >> but we didn't call it cloud in our consumer lives. >> amazon, ebay, paypal, google, uber, they're all cloud based apps so at work, the word cloud

doesn't mean much to people. it's how do we create experiences at work that feel just like the experiences at home i think we've got to use consumer language for what we're doing at work. that's what servicenow is enabling, consumer experiences at work. >> there are people who tell me there are too many cloud companies. servicenow will merge with workday. and sales force adobe, do you think there are too many cloud companies, too many small ones and we will have consolidation >> i don't know exactly how it will play out, jim we talked about my point of view about this, that fundamentally i think there's room for multiple winning platforms. in the consumer lives we have multiple winning platforms in the work world i think a modern tech stack, in almost every case sales force, workday,

adobe, servicenow, maybe office 365 and those are the largest major mat formplatforms. i think all those can be winning platforms. >> is there a benefit of offering peesotentially a suite products from one place? and if you start to see some of your competitors move into parts of your business, doesn't that represent a threat >> google was going to do social, google was going to do payments, facebook was going to do payments, amazon was going to do search. everyone was going to do the other person's thing and none of it worked out. being great at some things is better than being average at a lot of things. servicenow, we know we are great at digital work flow we'll never be a good system of record for hr or finance or manufacturing or other things.

certainly in the consumer world being great and delivering great experiences and continuous innovation at what you're great at, those are what the winning companies have done. we'll see what happens in the enterprise i think that principle is not a bad principle to start with. >> i really want to thank you. i know this is kind of breaking form i saw you in the crowd he's the president and ceo of servicenow, one of the great stocks of our time thank you. up next we're going to squeeze in a mad dash. we'll give you one more look at futures. we get started with adg retrinhe about eight minutes from now -driverless cars... -all ground personnel...

...or trips to mars. $4.95. delivery drones or the latest phones. $4.95. no matter what you trade, at fidelity it's just $4.95 per online u.s. equity trade. no matter what you trade, at fidelity servicenow put our this changes everything. you're right sir... everything. no not everything, i mean you're still blatantly sucking up to me gary.

brilliantly observed, sir. always three steps ahead. six steps ahead. sixteen. so many steps. you done? a million steps ahead. servicenow. works for you.

here's a look at where we're going to open, at least, just a few minutes from now you can see -- call it a slightly higher open but futures have been all over the map and overnight as well. we've got an opening bell five minutes away don't go anywhere.

♪ ♪ ♪ each day, brings new possibilities. that's why you need a partner dedicated to helping your company reach its goals. u.s. bank -- the power of possible.

we're going to get started with trading in about two minutes from now >> do you hate spell check >> spell check does not work on an iphone. it's horrible. >> you want to know what really gets short shrift because of it? accenture. when you're trying to integrate servicenow, you have to come and you have to rely on ey and deloit or accenture.

you asked me about pvh nike wants to do retail. what they really want to do is digitization you need to bring in accenture in because it's not your forte if you do not digitize, david, you die. >> that stock as really come off the lows. >> they actually did not have that bad a quarter they are the on border you don't even know how to find the m ware until you go to accenture. they are companions of greatness in terms of knowing how your business gets on huge numbers

>> $106 billion market cap company. >> no one talks about it >> you hear the applause building here, of course, at the new york stock exchange. getting readyto open at the big board representatives from verizon media over at the nasdaq, women in i.t., promoting gender parity in the technology industry. >> another nice opening. the sellers who need money for lyft, when do they come in >> the numbers don't -- >> there's just a fed guy talking. >> i know. we're going to get to that in a minute. >> oil is coming down, david. >> i'm glad you mentioned oil, because it is worth at least hitting here we've been watching wti exceed

60 brent crude has been 68. >> he knows how to knock down oil. very important that opec increase the flow of oil world markets are fragile. price of oil getting too high. thank you. wow. there you go that's about as authoritative as it gets. >> taking oil down a little over a percent. given the complicated but deep relationship this administration certainly has with the saudis in particular, that actually can mean something when he does that. >> all i know is that futures go down you know what retail is amazing. lululemon could be up 22 points says two things. the street is too negative and there are companies that are doing remarkable things both with technology and also in lulu's case with style, with fashion.

it is remarkable >> lulu's move up. >> it's like a takeover. congratulations to matt boss at jp morgan who liked it at 50 >> this is not just nick foles >> jacksonville special, frankly. remember philly special? >> i do. you're going to miss him. >> i liked him very nice man too. tesla is coming back up and yet we've got that big hearing with judge nathan >> we do. >> can we do our show from the courthouse >> i think we should >> one week from today at 2:00 cancel everything. >> we should still do it from there. >> no. i mean, these are the things that i'm focused on, the things that the public cares about. they care about tesla, they care about lyft, they care about

uber i'm going to pander to our customers. >> as you should for now, though, let's get to ste steve. >> the vice chairman of the federal reserve speaking in paris, saying the fed can be patient in assessing its next move, which could be either way. and the fed must be really careful to watch global risks. and he points out brexit policy makers can hardly ignore the global risks and the u.s. economy is more connected the global developments than it has been in the past he points out in the past when there have been foreign shocks, the fed has addressed those by easing i think the significance here is he is the most prominent fed official to speak since this downdraft, this sharp falloff in yields and the market began pricing in a rate cut this year. i think the significance here is that he did not use his time to lean against where the market is

right now. maybe they'll do that some other time but he decided right now that he was not that uncomfortable with where the market is priced right now, that he had to redirect he says the fed can go either way as it assessed global developments >> we do have a deal this morning that's worth mentioning. la wabco. it's a take-under, which is somewhat interesting it wasn't very long ago sort of the company had signalled a possible deal. people rushed in, making assumptions in terms of where this thing might get done. you can see they overplayed it >> wow i was surprised the stock had been up so much. >> it's all cash it's over $7 billion deal here

they are talking about it being a 13% premium to the close of 120. that was back in late february prior to when they confirmed media reports that they, in fact, had been approached. >> i'm glad you mentioned this, because people didn't really care for that deal >> tell me what happened last night. senti centene -- >> i asked the ceo how can you take action and maybe a huge buy right now when aca, when trump is battling against the texas ruling. >> this is so based on the government because these are

medicaid medicare. >> he chose to call it aca he said i still call it aca. michael is a visionary but it' an investment year and that's a curse word cvs is an investment course word if you use the word investment, it's probably the worst thing you can possible do. you realize apple in its launch never used the word investment people talking a lot about the apple card and the goldman relationship. >> apple's been flat for the week for the most part you had some cross currents there in terms of the qualcomm >> a lot of people who are key to the thought leader, so to speak, on the stock of apple, they don't cover a credit card you have to figure out what happened to costco it's more about costco and the

credit card. goldman does not have a credit card right now much to speak of. there should be a higher multiple than the 1415 that apple gets of course goldman 7.9 price is an embarrassment and maybe they're trying to do something about that. >> as i've been trying to point out, goldman is worth focusing on in part because they are transforming their business. not that they are moving away from the traditional focus >> however, this new move into the consumers, i mean goldman sachs and the consumer >> they have to privivot on the conference call and stop talking about how they've had to fire a lot of people and play offense this is a way to play offense. i'm not going to strip their conference call for them, but

that's what has to happen. you have to change the way you tell the story if you're goldman. when you're at 7.9 times earnings, that's not going to do it they have to get past malaysia this is their business they have very high rates. i switched my new funds to marcus. >> you did already >> i have my cfo do it. >> no kidding. >> yeah. i have a personal cfo. you have a cfo >> no, i'm my own personal cfo oh my lord, look at that tax bill that's me. that's my cfo. no more salt deduction >> if i have more rooms in jersey, they're going to find me a jersey resident. that's what they ask me. right now i pay both to get my wife to move to jersey, that would be better.

>> no, it wouldn't. >> she's brooklyn's own though we have to move on >> yes, we do. we need to move on i'm trying to think of a couple of things. listen, nielson is down. >> someone walked away from it >> this is the new york post story from late yesterday saying that blackstone is not interested again, it would be a very large leveraged buyout we've seen some happen but we've also seen others that have not i don't have a lot of reporting of my own, unfortunately, at this point to offer on where things stand with that, but you can see the stock is a feature this morning on the downside given the concerns final bid, i believe it's friday maybe they're not going to show up in force. >> if you don't get a bid, it yields 5.8 maybe that's unsustainable

people have to be careful. i would not be drawn into that one. >> you've got a bunch of analysts with theirprice targets if there is no deal and they're all over the map, some 23 and even below 20, jim. to your point about the dividend, perhaps it sustains it although you may say it's in question. >> in terms of beat-up stocks there's a piece downgrading fedex. when will the shareholders at fedex say they're fed up >> i don't know. you tell me. >> interesting i'm looking at stocks where you could have the likes of a starboard just wake up amid say, we're not going to tolerate this valuation anymore. no >> somebody's going to come after him, really, after all the value he's created >> i'm just pointing out that there's some stocks that have fallen behind.

how about southwest air? >> yesterday southwest air was up in part because they were positive in terms of near term bookings and a number of things that showed health for the overall industry that guidance i guess had been fully expected given the lack of some of the planes now in their fleet. >> well-managed company. david, we would be very wrong if we did not talk about facebook for a few seconds at least. >> please. >> this is hud accusing them of housing bias over targeted ads one by one, i'm not being facetious, they targeted ads remember, they never real hi came clean until later they have become the pinata the way bank of america was during the banking crisis. >> it briefly and then it kind of dissipates. the stock is up 25%. it's not clear any of this has had a real impact on their ability to make money. >> no. we still get lots of surveys

that say they are the place to advertise. instagram is the best place to advertise. when you meet with ceos these days of any consumer product, the first thing they say to you is, do you know how many thought leaders we have? >> i hate that term. >> and how about influencers every ceo is talking about a kardashian it's kind of embarrassing. >> have you ever heard of tick tok? >> no. >> it's another app somewhat similar to instagram the editing ability is better. there's a number of different things it's got like a $75 billion value. it's chinese, though take a look. ever hear of ant financial >> who >> you know ant financial. >> these are all analogs.

>> 583 million people in their mutual fund. >> really? >> now those are numbers. >> we should be covering china more. >> yes, we should. >> there's an endless amount of money being made by the communists communists have always been great capitalists. people don't recognize it. >> bob >> thanks, david appreciate that. positive talk about china trade. that reuters article was passed around widely this morning just take a look at the sectors here we're going into the close of a phenomenal quarter, one for the record books banks, you get stability in bond yields, you get banks moving up. retail has been a real great performer in the last couple of weeks. energy has been great too but it's kind of flattish right now with oil below $60

when i say it's been a great quarter, i mean everything is up this quarter for the s&p, the best quarter since 2009. i maintain a simple portfolio of etfs you buy a little bit of high yield, you buy a little bit of corporate bonds, a little bit of treasuries, 60-40 stock split. everything is up it's unusual to see every class you would want to own up nicely. this is just price preesapprecin overall. tech is leading. everybody loves it when tech stocks move up put that next one up there energy is up 15% industrials which got slammed in december on global growth concerns, that's up 15%. all the right stuff, the cyclical stuff is moving to the upsi upside what does all this stuff mean?

well, it means that 90% of the s&p is up this quarter that's a pretty strange statistic. let's go back to that 60-40 stock bond split if you had that ratio you're up 9% for the quarter that's pretty good, folks. i don't see that very often, not that kind of move. so of course we're all concerned about the future we need to talk about where we're going to be going now from here but just reflect for a minute that everybody's done pretty well this quarter overall. let's talk about lyft. i am very happy they're getting higher prices. i'm very happy that investors are enthusiastic let's just reflect a little bit about why this is happening. first, the stock market is up 12% in 2019. that's the most important reason everybody's getting excited. the ipo market has been closed for four months. there's a pent-up demand out

there. we've got a well-known company i'm not being debbie downer. i'm just saying everybody take a breath here. look at the revenues here for lyft, $2.2 billion in revenue and losses of $911 million that's not nothing take a look there. it's not just them nobody paid any attention to wework yesterday they released documents. they're going to go public too what about everybody's favorite company, uber? all right. obviously it's not as bad, but revenues of $11 billion, still losses almost $2 billion i'm not being debbie downer. i'm just saying look at this can i remind everyone how enthusiastic the world was about facebook when was that, may of 2012, i believe? what did it go public at, 38

it went to 20. three months later it was at 20 and a year later it was still struggling it wasn't until the middle of 2013 that facebook really turned around and the initial investors, the retail investors that we care about, you guys, started making any money i'm just saying let's give it all a few months before everyone gets too excited about the ipo market we're just off the highs for the day. >> you were debbie downer there a little bit come on, bob i mean snap and twitter, i get it there's also alibaba in there. i understand your point, focus, understand the potential growth possibilities and the losses and everything else. i get it and watch for the after market performance near term and be careful. >> we have a very unusual situation, david we never see 230 ipos with valuations here. we may be hitting a trillion dollar valuation on some of this stuff if you put everything together that's a lot of stuff to put on the market

all i'm saying is wait until the first 50 or 60 of these ipos happen three months from now i just want to see before we all get too crazy. we're on the side of people buying the stuff. >> understood. bob, thank you ten-year yield hits a new low overnight of 2.34. things have changed a bit. >> good morning, david yes, we did hit some interesting int intraday lows. there is a bright spot we continue to monitor this mi 230s, playparticularly 236, 237. it is somewhat trying to create a base here. if you look at what's going on in the grander scope of things, open the dhachart up to the falo

2017 we're hovering at levels we haven't seen since the end of 17 and ten year not only are our interest rates and stocks checking each other out, getting read do i dance a little bit today as rates continue to firm up, stocks firm up they kind of cross fuel each other. we're now up a handful of basis points in twos we're up three basis points in tens if you look at bunds, maybe not basing as well they're hovering at levels they haven't closed at since october of 16. the u.k. have a raft of central bank issues, brexit a lot of uncertainty. even though right now they're comping to around september of 2017 they're not far away being under 1% from going back to the same bunds fall of 2016 finally one area that's strong, dollar index it's up a half a cent today. i think the issue is dollars are harder to find and finance especially for overseas,

different financing structures look for that bid to continue, monitor interest rate differential and swaps jim, david, back to you. >> rick, thank you with lyft due to announce the pricing of offering, that will after the close of trading today. tune in tomorrow we'll have special coverage of this public debut right here on "squawk on the street. we'll be right back. this is loma linda,

a place with one of the highest life expectancies in the country. you see so many people walking around here in their hundreds. so how do you stay financially well for all those extra years? well, you have to start planning as early as possible. we all need to plan, for 18 years or more, of retirement. i don't have a whole lot saved up, but i'm working on it now. i will do whatever i need to do.

plan your financial life with prudential. bring your challenges. here's a look at the morning's top performing stocks. pvh, what a number it's happening. on "mad" last night, tommy hilfiger going strong. up next "stop trading" with jim. -i call it my comfortable future plan.

-it's our confident forever plan. -welcome to our complete freedom plan.

-it's all possible with a cfp professional. ♪ -find your certified financial planner™ professional at letsmakeaplan.org.

all right. quick "stop trading. the top performer on the s&p. >> you have to watch the interviews i do. last time manny tirico was on pvh they screwed it up and got the fashion wrong. he told me it will not happen again. he closed the whole fashion edition, and drilled down laser-like and look what he did. he said he was going to make the quarter. he said it was going to be better than expected and there it is, and one of the reasons

why people didn't believe it is because it required so much work to fix what was wrong, but he did it in a quarter, and my hat is off to him because he's also one of the nicest men. what a job he did. i also want to congratulate john donohoe who was kind enough to work on set for us almost at the 52-week high. >> real yirks and they are plight music what's on tonight? >> richard daly, broodbridge, might mention bristol-myers and celgene. >> right in the middle of all those votes. >> richard daly. >> good show. >> coming up i'll see you tomorrow. >> if not see you. >> eu competition commissioner will join us stay tuned to unlock opportunities other advisers might not see. learn what a cfa charterholder can do for you, at therightquestion.org

so, servicenow put your workflows immhm. cloud, huh? your employees must love you. [ chuckles ] thank you. you could say that. i love you. servicenow works for you. does your wealth a cfa charterholder does. they have the investment expertise

you need for the ambitions you have for your wealth. learn what a cfa charterholder can do for you, at therightquestion.org the street." i'm diana olick with breaking news pending home sales in february down 1% for the month, down 4.9% annually according to the national association of realtors that's a miss. the street was looking for a slight gain after that big jump in monthly home sales in february, closed sales now the mortgage rate situation was much lower in february this is a measure of signed contracts, so people out shopping in february trading on the 30-year fixed around 4.5%,

down from the end of last year when it was around 5%, not quite where it is now around 4%, so buyers were out with the benefit of that lower interest rate, but realtors still blaming it on lack of supplies, supplies of homes for sale is up about 3% year over year but this is the 14th straight month of annual declines in the pending home sales indeck, and so it remains to be seen whether these lower interest rates today will juice buyers even more this spring surprises are still high, but, again, mortgage rates are sitting lower than they were in february so a miss on february pending home sales back to you. sara >> diana, thank you. good morning, everyone welcome back toes on the street. i'm sara eisen here with david faber live as always from post nine at the new york stock exchange carl quintanilla has the morning off. take a look at markets stocks opening up higher as the treasury rally has eased a bit today. the s&p 500 up .3% and do you up

48 points and our road map for the hour will start though with representing for liftoff, the ride-hailing giant ahead of its public debut tomorrow. we'll break down investor demand. >> a rally in well-known retail names. lululemon and pvh both soaring, why and what the move signals about the state of the global consumer >> europe's competition commission margrethe vestager slapping the eu with another fine and joining us to talk about it next. lyft upping its price range valuing the ride-hailing service at $20 billion deirdre bosa as we count you down to tomorrow's i'm row. >> the range being upped from $70 to $12, up from its previous expected range of $62 to $68 a share. we'll get exact price after the market close today, and if all

goes according to plan, shares should start trading tomorrow morning on the nasdaq. now, this new pricing could give it an initial market cap of more than $20 million, and to put that in perspective that's about the size of united continental also substantially bigger than another airline, american. it's more valuable than best buy and expedia. guys, this is really a sign of strong investor demand in the company. the ipo, as we know, was oversubscribed very early on in the road show. investors are interested despite the company losing north of $900 million last year and a lot of questions about its path to profitability, but for a tech company of its size there aren't a lot of mutual funds already in it except for did i felt, so it's likely that other big funds are going to be interested, and that is pushing up demand. now it is a good sign certainly for other upcoming ipos, especially the ones losing money which notched losses of $1.8 billion last year.

it's going to be watching this very, very closely because lyft is going to be used as the closest comparable even though uber is much larger. it could debut as high, we're told, as $120 billion at the highest end that's speculated. that would make it worth more than eight dow components, including caterpillar and goldman sachs. we could see an uber ipo as early as april back over to you guys. >> yeah. they are going to get started on the road fairly soon, deirdre. no pun intended for uber as for lyft, of course, as you know the placement of the stock is going to be important any number of firms want to get as large an allocation as they can, but the hope is from the underwriters that they will keep the stock and even buy more in the after market there will be that period where people will at least have some time to judge how lift has performed prior to making decisions on uber. >> i think that's a real good point. there's so much interest in it right now because there hasn't been another ride-sharing

company to go public investors haven't been able to tap into, that so it will be really important to see what happens after this initial, if we do see a pop, and how that affects uber there are so many questions about the path to profitability, and also we're hearing a lot this week from the drivers which are such a critical part of both platforms and could have enormous business model implications right now remember they are independent contractors. not employees. >> so a question, deer drag, as people consider whether they want to get in on the high what's the biggest risk factor right now for lyft >> i think there's a number. we saw that the company said that it may never be profitable. a lot of that mentioned, as i said, driver retention there's been a lot of chat they are week about cutting wages for drivers. there's been protests here in san francisco. in l.a., got to wonder if you'll see them again tomorrow. but this is a major expense for the company. it the can't be profitable unless it gets some of the costs down in the very long attorney,

autonomous driving, that's supposed to bring the cost down a lot. what's a big if. five years from now? ten years from now, sooner it's a bit unclear and a leap of faith for investors who want to get into this company. >> that's a key point. so of when can you start doing a discounted cash flow model based on autonomous? deirdre thank you. future lyft share holdlers find they have little or no voting power in the company that's because the company's co-founders are issuing super shares to themselves, a dual class structure, and it does have institutional investors crying fowl saying in a letter to of the lyft board saying, quote this, arrangement poses a significant gap between those who exercise control over the company and those who have significant exposure to the consequences of that control >> joining us now, one of the left's co-signers, chicago treasurer clint summers. nice you have to this morning.

this has become more often than not something that is included in many high technology companies when they go public. do you think you have any hopes of changing sort of what has again, as i said, become something that is common >> well, thanks for having me. first of all, it's true that dual class structures are not uncommon, but what's uncommon about what lyft is doing is they don't have a sunset provision so unlike groupon or kayak or fitbit that have sunset provisions that are based on an amount of time, three, five, seven years or based on a percentage of the shares that the insiders no longer own that would then create one class of shares, what lyft is doing here is saying we're going have into perpetuity these super shares for the founders and their families >> yeah. that's a good point, and i'm glad you raise it. i believe pinterest to your

point will have sunset provisions associated with it with ownership or actual time at the company if the sunset remembers no longer working there, but from your perspective why not just say okay, i'm going to take a pass on the stock because i don't like the governance provisions? >> well, i think it's an important precedent for the market and there's three issues here one, it's good corporate governance the fundamental concept of one share one vote is fundamental to good corporate governance and allows stockholders and management to performance, and as a potential investor and as other investors look at this, you know, there's been several studies, including one by the s.e.c. commissioner jackson that showed that there may be a pop in the ipo in the first couple of years, but -- but empirically over the next three to five years you see these shares that have perpetual dual class structures perform at a discount finally here in chicago we have

57,000 ride-share drivers versus 4,000 taxi, licensed taxi operators. that means that this is an important part of our transportation mix and an important part of our economy, and to have an industry leader like lift that plays such an role in both the jobs and transportation in a city like chicago or new york who is a signature troy this letter or l.a., it's important to think about the sustainability of their future as a company and their business operations. >> on the flip side, kurt, you know, just to play devil's advocate here, some might argue that having more founder control over a company does insulate them from the so-called short-termism in the markets right now, the pressure to get on earnings, the activist pressure and let's them thing more long term about the vision and growth of a company. >> yeah. what i would respond to that is there's no lack of innovation at amazon and no lack of innovation at apple and no act of

innovation at more than 90 psts companies that are pubically trade that had have single class shares, and that's also why you have a period of time to sunset, whether that's three, five, seven, ten years there's an opportunity for the founders to continue to innovate without undue interference from hedge funds or activists or the capital markets, but ultimately when you transition as a company and you're able to align your interests directly with those of your shareholders who control the majority of the economic stake of the company, it doesn't still innovation, and there are plenty of examples of that. >> yeah. there are also examples of control companies where there's no lack of innovation. facebook and alphabet have done pretty darn well, both of which have dual class structures. >> sure. i mean, i think -- i think that's right

i would argue that the jury is sort of still out on facebook. i think alphabet has done a good job, but in this case you have 7% of the ownership owning 60% of the voting rights which is below the threshold at 7% of most of the sunset provisions that exist and they are lower than most of the other duel class structures where the insiders still own more than single digit ownership of the company. >> so you're saying that -- i mean, i was trying to find a study in preparation for this interview that definitively linked the dual class structure to weaker performance in the long term in the stock market. it's pretty inclusive. there are some that are negative and there are some that are positive. >> yeah. i can point you to several, but one that i would point you to follows a speech that s.e.c. commissioner jackson gave last year about the challenge of dual

class structures, and what he said is that it's not uncommon for us to put our faith in founders, but what perpetual supershares are asking us to do is to put our faith in our founder's children and grandchildren, and i think that's unreasonable, and the date ashe -- the beta supports that over the lounge run those stocks that do this trade at a discount >> it's an interesting issue and one we're going to continue to explore. mr. summers, thank you for joining us. >> thanks for having me. >> kurt summers, treasurer of chicago. >> be sure tune in, by the way we'll have full coverage, of course, of the ipo for lyft leading right into the first trade that will take place tomorrow ceos logan green and co-founder john zimler join us for an interview at 8:00 a.m. eastern. >> margrethe vestager blasting

google well a third billion dollar fine in three years she joins us next to discuss. as we head to break, take a look at the top performing stocks on the s&p right now which is higher, consumer, materials, technology leading us pvh, an earnings winner up look at that, 19%. "squawk on the street" will be right back

some news out of director. nec director larry kudlow making comments at a conference and

yewy is tracking it for us. >> white house economic adviser larry kudlow speaking at the annual conference and extended the time trade for u.s./china trade negotiations saying there's no deadline for those talks. >> is this is not time-dependant this is policy and enforcement dependant. please understand this if it takes a few more weeks or if it takes months, so be it >> kudlow says he does believe they are getting close to the end and making progress and that there's a good relationship between chinese officials and the u.s. he expects a final deal to include significant market openings for commodities and up to 100% ownership for u.s. companies and financial services hassy will credited the tariffs with bringing china back to the negotiating table. kudlow also brought up the new usmca and urged the audience to help get this passed and said it should be a bipartisan agreement. guys, after his speech, he did chat briefly with reporters

about the president's surprise meeting with google. he said it was not about trade and reiterated that google is not helping the chinese government, it's helping the u.s. and described the meeting as pleasant and respectful back to you. >> thank you very much. as the choreus of calls to regulation big tech have grown louder, perhaps no one has done more to actually rein in tech companies than our next guest. she's fined multiple american technology companies for antitrust violations in europe including another $1.7 billion for google last week joining now is margrethe vestager, the eu commissioner in charge of competition today in boston madam commissioner, welcome back nice to see you. >> thank you very much and thank you very much for having me. >> so this latest google fine is your third as i noted, but it's smaller and sort of less onerous than some of the other punishments. why? >> we, the google behavior in this case dealt back to 2016, but it had been going on for ten

years, and it had been cutting out of competitors when it came to placement of art in third-party websites so it's quite a serious offense with fine and the stop of this behavior, we hope that the market will open up for competitors. >> is this your final google fine >> well, as you know, we still get complaints about google behavior in local search, in jobs and, of course, we take complaints serious some from european companies and some from u.s.-based companies so it cannot be excluded that there will be a fourth google care, but that still remains to be seen >> you know, some of the criticism when this news hit, you know, the stock barely moved. it's a drop in the bucket for companies as big and as powerful for google and that it's just becoming the cost of doing business for them. how do you respond to that >> well, of course, the fine is a punishment for illegal behavior what's important, is of course, the change of behavior for the

future we do see some change when it comes to google shopping and the androids decision. with android, you know, google have said they will make had a choice screen available for usersto be able to choose directly another browser, another search engine if that's their choice in the chopping comparison areas we see that the big improvement in the visibility of rivals to google and also of clicks going through that users actually to merchants, so in those two markets you see the improvements and, of course, it remains to be seen if we'll have a forward open competition you >> focused so closely on google through your tenure and you know it better than so many other companies. at this point would you characterize google as a monopoly. >> well, in europe we call it a dominant position and they are indeed dominant in european markets. they hold market shares and

search in 95% and 98% and, indeed, they are mastering this marketplace. >> sundar patai has bet with elon musk. have you >> i have not. >> are you concerned that the impact could be worse on u.s. trade? >> there's a lot of back and forth, and i still find there's a very deep mutual respect of the fact that we have to police our own jurisdictions because this is really not about a company being based in the u.s. or russia or anywhere else in the world. it's about doing business in europe, and we have a european rule book that owe bliks you to compete on the merits, the quality and prices and choices

that you can offer this is about consumer choice. >> speaking of consumer choice, i wanted to ask about another topic, spot fireworks filed a complaint with you and your department, but apple is hurting consumer choice and stifling consumer innovation. have you looked at the xlarngts and does it seem legitimate to you? >> we've received the complaint and as we always do with the complaint we look to see if it has merits it's still very, very early days, but, of course, we're in the process of starting to ask questions and getting the data on our working table. >> does it seem right that apple would take a 30% cut from subscription services like spotify even though they have led to tremendous growth of businesses like spotify and downloads. >> well, the complaint is about sort of the way that the -- that the app store works. what you have to pay to be, paying via the app store, the communication between the services and -- and their customers. we will assess it, of course, as

we always do to see if it merits a formal investigation >> how much is apple on your radar theses you had the multi-billion dollar fine in back taxes that i know is still going through the court and apple is appealing, and as far as the biggest offenders, is it more the data companies right now like a google or facebook, and is apple still front and center >> well, you know, we deal with the issues that comes up, and this is not about one company or the totality of a company. this is about illegal behavior in one area of this company because i think for better and for worse these are amazing companies with great innovative potential. the important thing, of course, is that illegal behavior doesn't take place because just as much as there is a great promise and a lot of things that could be triggered with new technology, just as much do we need to get in control of the dark side of

technology >> yeah, and on that note, you did recently say data acpolitician in the hands of a single firm may raise competition concerns where does that lead you because there are all sorts of concerns right now about how much data some of these big tech companies have and what they are doing with it. >> well, understandably, because the question of data is what will sort of make or break in the market plates. if are you want to develop new services, if you want to develop artificial intelligence, if you want to enter into a marketplace, well, your access to data will be the thing that can trigger exactly this, and when you see giant companies possessing giant amounts of data, of course, it's a concern and consideration how to make sure that this will not just entrench a monopoly situation but that we actually can't allow for competition in particular to take into consideration because it's you and i and other users who basically owns this data it's our data that they are holding.

>> are you specifically talking begun facebook >> no, not in particular for us it's -- it's a horizontal question because we see now that everything digitalizes and also things that you may not think about, farming the data come from quality of soil, weather, soil, pet sides and treatment processes, all of that, you see that going the data road and health care and transport and material and everything digitalizes the. >> tech lash is real in this country. presidential hopeful elizabeth warren has actually called for breaking up some of the big technology companies to deal with some of these issues. is that an idea that you're on board with >> well, for us, breaking up a company would be a measure of very, very last resort because it is, of course, quite -- quite a step to take a private company and say you have to split up and you have to divest part of this

company for it to be established independently, so, of course, we're pushing with the tools that we have that are sort of mainstream to make sure that we get a legal behavior and then, of course, pushing for change where we see that change is needed i think thaet that's the nature effect of scale economies in this line of business. it makes it more important to deal with access to data, date ashe-sharing than the exact structure of these companies because you can't get a dominant position even with a quite small market share because of network effect when you get started. >> you're not in the break-up camp >> well, you have it as a thing outside the corner of your eye, but for it's a very last resort we should turn to. >> what about amazon i know you've been sort of looking into probing whether amazon is anti-competitive with its marketplace platform when it comes to smaller shops how advanced are you in that investigation? >> well, we send out quite a large number of questionnaires

we get a lot of data back, and it is indeed great that also small companies, they take the time to work with us, to give us the data, because everything we do we do with the participants in the marketplace, so we're in the process of analyzing the data that we've got to see if the data from the smaller companies is there and used to enable the service for the smaller guys or they are used in an an unfair way by amazon to actually compete against the businesses that they themselves are hosting. >> wanted to talk specifically about you and what's next. you've got six months left in the job, and i think you've thrown your hat in the ring for president of the eu to take over to jean-claude junker. what are your chances at this point. oh, you know, when that has to be laid, a lot of things will have to be taken into consideration. i think we're now in a debate

where when is who in brussels is not the important thing but the direction of our european democracy where we want to go on climate change, on border control, on creating jobs, you know, the essentials that really concerns you in your everyday life much more than who is head of the commission. >> some people think that your blocking of the deal between semens and all stops hurt your chances. it would have created a french-german industrial giant to go up against the likes of china and the u.s. than will take away keep support from the two most important countries what do you say about that >> the thing is you have to do your job i think it would be, youy know, devastating if you took political considerations into how you would deal with a merger assessment, and if you feel that in part of the markets there will be nobody else to turn to if you're a customer to high-speed trains or main lines

in the systems and have you to figure out how to do this the right way to make sure customers still have the choice because these are very important markets. we need high-speed trains to compete with air travel and need a mainline system that allows for more cross-border traffic and the basics of having a very well-working rail system this is the background that the businesses couldn't solve our competition concerns and then very no other choice but to block it >> finally, everyone i talked to, and i say i'm going to talk to emvafgter, she's got a knew fine on google they say she hates america is that true >> oh, on the contrary i'm from denmark i think denmark would be the country that would have one. close relationships to the u.s i've been traveling the u.s. for decades following not only politics and culture in this country. no i have a job to make sure that european consumers, that they are in charge and that the market serves the consumers.

this is what i do, and then, of course, i very much enjoy the relationship with the u.s. in haul dimensions. >> thank you very much for coming on and talking about it. >> it was my pleasure. thank you. >> eu competition commissioner margrethe vestager in boston today. >> coming up, we'll days what the blowout results of lululemon signal about the said of the consumer and even the global economy next

>> coming up, we'll days what

>> coming up, we'll days what

good thursday, everyone. i'm contessa brewer. here's your cnbc news update president trump tweeted this morning the fbi and justice department will review the jussie smollett case calling it outrageous and an embarrassment to the nation. tuesday prosecutors dropped all charges against smollett at an unannounced court hearing. an explosive laden vehicle detonated outside of a busy res plant somalia's capital killing at least ten people and wounding 16 more. there was no yesterday claim of responsibility for the attack, although the al shabaab extremist group has been behind

similar bombings. a california jury wednesday awarded more than $80 million in damages to a california man who blames roundup weed killer for his cancer the six-person jury ruled in favor of edwin hardeman against monsantos, the maker of the fertilizer >> and a single ticket matched all six numbers sold in new berlin, wisconsin, the third largest lottery prize in history and would yield a lump sum cash payout of $4646.5 million. that's the cnbc news update. i've got in-laws in new berlin, wisconsin. i think i'm needing to reconnect right now. >> that is random. contessa, thanks time now for etf spotlights. taking a look at retail. some exciting news from results from lululemon and pvh, mike. >> and it is helping to give a lift to the retail sector.

had a pretty good week you look at the xrt and the s&p retail spdrs up 1%, outperforming the market up 4% week to date you can see from the chart it's been basically sideways since january. people trying to figure out how strong exactly or not how the economy is this is the equal weighted index, by the way, and every stock has the same way we have the rth weighted by the market cap and means that the big guys like walmart, home depot, have a higher weight and also outperforming the market and less so and it's done better year to date so far. they have given the lulu numbers especially take a look at another non-sector etf and it's the global teammatic etf it's been a very strong one. this is a one-year chart well outperformed the market in a one-year and two-year basis. lulu is a 1%, 2% holding in this one so it's on the bigger side in terms of the holdings, and some of the other names in there, paypal, nike, starbucks,

avalon bay, twitter, spotify, so i guess at least by the etf construct it'sore stade de gerland which you probably would confirm from your daughters. >> i would have to say. >> mike santoli, thank you. >> about an hour into the trading session and let's get a check on where the major averages stand retails helping consumer stocks. there's lulu and pvh as mike just mentioned but the overall market is higher dow is up 92 points. the bond rally has stabilized and stocks are teeing off of that s&p up half a percent. we'll be right back. pars

. the ideal pipeline is on fire and lyft tomorrow is raising its expect the price range and also on deck is uber, an ipo that could be worth as much as $180 billion pinterest has already filed. what does this mean for investors and their appetite for growth joining us is jana burton, portfolio manager focused on growth and here at post nine is

jpmorgan global market strategist gabriellea santos is there demand for all of them? >> i think that's the big question, especially in a backdrop where some concerns around global growth and the cycle are starting to come back so i think perhaps we might see a little bit of choppier markets here over the next few weeks as the ipo issue saps some demand k the story for the of the yea ock prices broamighke ua little whto gherewe look for moonfiion on the owthture>> how do you see all o conts to be in short sup instors by -- for culay ies and disrupters a lers you mentiojustouplat are within tspace but it's ss toardithin the umerlthcand the tech spso t's basics of between the supply aeman and there continto b paular as uncertaintie lobal economic pictulate oppoitiend growth does lyfhavelacethat conceivablnd i at price obviouslcomee key compent, is ometng that you be restn? >> we ruor f gro strategy and invbetwn 25 to 40 siti andgrowth investor're rested in l kiof gh, ynow, from seculrowtories like lyftcycl and stable growtoriand would say 's cinlyisrupter, and re igued by the oppoitieat a few companare ing thin that sce, i thright now it tes hat we're seein thrketplace, there's just a lot of other opportunities and other areas of the market like health care in particular that seems to be selling at a discount to the overall market with sizable growth opportunities within pharma and biotech space and also pockets of consumer that we're intrigued as it relates to home improvement and repair and remodel market. >> right. >> so a lot of opportunities, and i think that highlights to investors there's a lot of choices. not just one stock on one ipo. there's thousands of stocks and a lot of industries that one can participate if you're speaking growthier areas of the market. >> is growth still where it's at you know, it's funny -- >> i think so. >> i know you do i'm curious as to what

gabriellea thinks. >> growth has outperformed year to date. >> without a gout. >> we keep waiting for value to actually emerge but it doesn't seem to. >> we do see room for cyclical value and here really it's about the balance between capital appreciation and income, so we really continue to talk to our clients about finding ways to gather a little bit more stability as we move through to the later part of the business cycle here in the u.s., and there's cyclical value sectors like energy that can provide you better growth continues to be a structural story, especially if a sector like technology but there's also here a balance to be found in other areas of the market as well. >> we're really coming off quite a quarter. best quarterly performance from 2012 with the s&p up 12% i wonder how long the window is open for these ipos. >> of course, that comes on the heels of the worst december since 1931, so i think part of that was just unwinding some of the extreme pessimism from late

last year. question to really ultimately think that the u.s. expansion continues. it's a global downshift, not a stall, so it makes sense to have such a strong quarter after so much pessimist late last year, but as i was saying earlier, i think we're in for a little bit more choppier because now we need that confirmation of stability in the economic data and that may take while to feed through. >> yana, finally to you. i'm looking at your portfolio and i'm curious. what do you think in terms of the allocations that you have is requesting to differentiate you from the performance of the s&p 500 index which i know you're competing against given all the passive money that seems to be flowing there? >> that's a great question i think one of the ways to do that is through industry screws and, again, i would go back to the opportunities in front of us that have been sort of left behind by the marketplace while the average stock in the s&p 500 is up over 13% health care as a sector is actually trailing that, particularly within

pharmaceutical and biotech space, so those are areas of the market that we are overweight relative to the benchmark. the we're benchmark relative to the russell 1,000 growth so there's pockets of opportunities within the industrials so talking about, you know, picking our spots within the cyclical opportunities on the heels of the stronger u.s. consumer and housing market. >> we've got to go thank you, yana and gabriellea. >> thank you >> well, attention, wall street. it could become the late volley in what is at least a focus on wealthier americans. that is higher taxes on capital gains. cnbc editor-at-large john harwood has that story john >> reporter: david, what we've got is a lot of attention early this year to things like the 70% tax proposal that aoc, the new member of congress from new york, made, but the people running for president in 2020 are looking elsewhere, not so much at an eye-popping headline number like that but smaller

increases that might make a difference by going after investment profits elizabeth warren has a wealth tax. kamala harris came out with a teacher pay plan funded by increases in the estate tax. john delaney, who is the long shot from maryland, he used to work in private equity and had a finance company that raised $20 billion. he says we no longer need a lower capital gains rate to entice people to invest, so all of these things are on the table. it's going to be fascinating to see, first of all, how wall street reacts. i think we know that but also how during the costs democratic debate these ideas pick up steam. one of the hillary clinton advisers told me that our little multi-millionaire surtax that we proposed in 2016 looks kind of boring now we want a more compelling message that contrasts work versus wealth. >> well, it's been a struggle, john, for those trying to understand exactly how you can address income inequality in an effective way and sort of this

idea of fairness i mean, capital gains has often come up as one that potentially would at least provide that fix. >> reporter: right you know, we've had periods in the recent past when the capital gains rate matched the ordinary tax rate in '86 under ronald reagan the top rate and tap cap gains rate is 28% hand now the top personal rate is 37 now it's tricky as a matter of economics to raise the capital gains rate up to 37. larry summers, the former treasury secretary, told knee if you take it that high, take it above 30%, since gains are taxed on a voluntary basis when people sell property, sell their assets, they won't sell as many, and if you take the rate over 30% it could cost the government money in which case what's the point? >> yeah. the battle continues to try to figure out the best revenue raisers if they are even out there. there's others as you well know who believe lower taxes simply

will result in higher revenues. >> right. >> yet to happen. >> all right, john thank you. you bet. >> john harwood. as we head to a break. a quick programming note don't want to miss our special coverage that have lyft ipo. of course, it's really going to start later today with sara's coverage on "closing bell" when we potentially get pricing. >> you'll be joining us for that. >> i don't know if i'm joining it if i can find the pricing i'll let everybody know what it is. the ceos are on tomoow arrt 8:00 a.m. on "squawk box. we'll be right back. 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

people know aflac... aflac! ...but not what they do. so we're answering their questions. aflac is auto insurance, right? no. uh uh. is it homeowner's insurance? no... uhuhuhuh! is it duck insurance? nope. ahhh! do they pay me money directly when i get sick or injured? yeah. aflac! you got it. you know aflac! boom! get help with expenses health insurance doesn't cover. get to know us at... aflac dot com.

what do you look for i want free access to research. yep, td ameritrade's got that. free access to every platform. yeah, that too. i don't want any trade minimums. yeah, i totally agree, they don't have any of those. i want to know what i'm paying upfront. yes, absolutely. do you just say yes to everything? hm. well i say no to kale. mm. yeah, they say if you blanch it it's better, but that seems like a lot of work. no hidden fees. no platform fees. no trade minimums. and yes, it's all at one low price. td ameritrade. ♪ i cowe can do theyour screening at her house. hi. this is the man that's going to check your eyes grandma. cognizant ai solutions are helping healthcare companies advance diagnostics and prevent blindness in patients with diabetes. everything looks good. you have beautiful eyes. ♪

all right. let's get to the cme group in chicago. rick santelli has the santelli exchange >> reporter: thank you i like to welcome my guest professor philip zweigel, university of maryland professor, thanks for joining us let's get right into it. a little bit of a peel-off of

gdp on its revision, 2.2 what do you see with regard to what the future may look like regarding the horse pores of the u.s. economy, and how will it deal with global slowing >> yeah. i mean, i think we all expect the first quarter of this quart of this year to have slowing as well, even below two the question for me is what's going to happen on business investment and household consumption. there's a lot of uncertainty generated in december, probably carrying over into january businesses take their fingers off the pause button, investment restart hiring, that would do a lot for the consumer side as well >> yesterday i had kevin hassett on productivity numbers have been rising, we have seen capex rising is that something you see expanding, thoughts how it may develop in the future? obviously that's the secret sauce with regard to getting the economy to take a notch higher.

>> i see the same glimmers as kevin on the business investment side what i would like is to see them be stronger, be solid evidence the 2017 tax cut is feeding through into sustained business investment you know, my concern, the administration steps on its own applause lines with december tariffs and shutdown now maybe the aca squabble, uncertainty from washington to recede and let the economy strengthen. >> it is hard to disagree with what you say i see another side status quo is easy, especially in a bureaucratic set up of our government of late to leave things alone you and everyone knows gdp would have been higher if you didn't have trade infractions you mentioned. bigger picture, your final

thought, there can be some gold at the end of the tunnel with a long view. should we get a better trade arrangement? >> there's a sense of it in today's gdp number, investment in intellectual property is strong if the trade deal with china comes out right, they pay for software instead of stealing it, that could support high u.s. growth in the future that would be a super outcome. >> professor, always interesting to speak with you. "squawk on the street" gang, back to you. >> rick, thanks. i'll send it to jon fortt with what's up next for "squawk alley. >> good morning, sara. looking ahead to the lyft ipo tomorrow, risks and opportunities, what about the workers? the outgoing head of the taxi and limousine commission has been active in the space going to get a unique opportunities and risks coming up in that ipo coming up on "squawk alley.

the street." stocks are higher, consumer discretionary and materials behind me. look at the underperformers

within consumer discretionary. home builders which ran yesterday. those types of stocks down a half percent or more on the back of a larger than expected drop in home sales figures. now, i will send it back to you at the stock exchange, david >> thank you, dom. now, the important part of my day is asking you what's coming up later. >> favorite part of my day, too. >> so i can anticipate the next few hours. >> right it is a biggie we are gearing up for lyft pricing as you know, expected later this afternoon bob greifeld will be joining us to talk about the ipo and stampede of other unicorns coming to market and the consumer report, are they pulling a lululemon or pvh. david, as if you needed another reason to watch "closing bell,"

look at the final hour of trade. march has been very different than january and february. there's been selling into the close in march january and february there's been buying. we're going to see what that momentum means for the overall markets and whether something is changing. >> as we get ready to close the quarter. "squawk alley" is up next. ellevest ceo sallie krawcheck joins us next. ...that. your job isn't doing hard work... here. ...it's making her do hard work... ...and getting paid for it. (vo) snap and sort your expenses to save over $4,600 at tax time. (danny) jody... ...it's time to get yours! (vo) quickbooks. backing you.

dear tech, let's talk. you blaze trails... but you have the power to do so much more. let's not just develop apps, let's develop apps that help save lives. let's make open source software the standard. let's create new plastics that are highly recyclable. it's going to take input from everyone. so let's do it all, together. ♪ ♪ let's expect more from technology. let's put smart to work.

good morning, it is 8:00 a.m. at lyft headquarters in san francisco, 11:00 a.m. here on wall street. "squawk alley" is live ♪ ♪ one day more good thursday morning. welcome to "squawk alley." i am jon fortt with me, morgan brennan and david faber. carl has the morning