"squawk box" begins right now ♪ your love lifted me higher than i've ever been lifted before ♪ >> live from new york where business never sleeps, this is "squawk box. good morning, everybody. welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc we are live from the nasdaq market on times squares, our guest host for the next two hours is elian's chief economic adviser. welcome back it's been a while. >> thank you i feel like i'm like mohammad, i'm the guest host here. >> you both fly private, so you do feel like it. >> or neither. >> delta was great. >> and united was great too. >> you're a little late though. >> when were you on? >> two weeks ago. >> it was last week. >> two weeks ago. >> it was last week no >> it was two weeks ago. >> it's weird, isn't it?

time dilation. >> andrew was gone for two weeks. >> that went by quick, didn't it >> having fun. having fun. >> you look tan and so do you. i don't know why. >> that's that 75 degree weather. >> you must have got it on the slopes. >> maybe a little on the slopes, last week in l.a san francisco. >> let's take a look at the u.s. equity futures at this hour. last week was a big week for the markets. dow was over by over 400 points a gain of 1.7 for the week dow futures are indicated up another 172 points s&p futures up about 117 points and the nasdaq up by 65. china was a bright spot, stocks surging after a private manufacturing survey showed a surprise surge in march. economists had been expecting a slight contraction that data underscored the official government manufacturing data that was release add day before

you can see big gains. the shanghai composite was up by 2.5%, and then the nikkei in japan up by 1.4%. you'll sthee that things are up across the board the dax up by 1.2% you see gains of better than half a percent across the major european markets take a look at what's happening in the treasury markets. that yield's a little higher at 2.84%. the big news over the weekend, mark zuckerberg now officially calling for more internet regulation. the facebook founder wrote an op-ed in "the washington post" over the weekend he said that goftd avernment and regulators should play a more active role in overseeing online content. he highlighted four areas, harmful content, election integrity, privacy and data

portability. the comments come as facebook faces increased scrutiny over its data sharing deal. there was a lot of commentary including in the wall street journal this morning, the journal saying the rest of us should be wary of ceo bearing government gifts the costs are easier for bigger businesses to bear and could create higher barriers to entry for competitors. >> that's what we knew what happened in europe it was only going to help the big get bigger what this really says is here's where we want you to regulate us and where we don't want you to regulate us. you can avoid all the things you're most hoping to avoid. what they don't want is bad regulation that changes their business model or says you can no longer sell people's personal data as a way of making money. >> i do think there was one line -- >> i should say sell ads, targeted information that allows them to target you with ads. >> there was one line that caught me. where he said look, there's been

a lot of calls against facebook about freedom of speech and what we should be able to publish and shouldn't be able to publish, and in truth i don't think i should be the person who is in charge of that i actually thought that was the first time i ever heard him say that he's saying, look, we can't do it and we don't want to have this responsibility anymore. i'm handing it to you if you want it. >> it's like passing the buck is what it is also -- >> i don't want to be held liable. >> when the regulations come, the tbig guys will be fine. >> you were on last tuesday. you were on last tuesday. >> we're not as crazy as we thought we were. >> i'm crazier. >> you're crazier. your life moves so fast and you're at so many different places. >> on this issue, i think tech has realized that regulation is coming, and i agree with becky, what they're trying to do is trying to define the area in

which the discussion should take place. >> which is smart. it's smart to get out there and do this, smarter than not showing up for some of these panels that have wanted him to show up. >> to your point, i think they also realize it becomes systemically important much faster than they themselves can cope with, and they're trying to pass on the responsibility to somebody else. >> then the other question is does any regulation ever come to pass, meaning it's one thing to say these things, right? the other piece of that journal op-ed is that, you know, you can say all of these things. if they never happen you get a lot of credit. we're all talking about it >> put it the other way. what's the downside? >> i would say it's been better than some of their attempts to try and deal with these issues. what are you not telling me here in this plan in tems of what might hurt your business model. >> trojan horse. >> yeah. a head fake. he just -- you know, it's coming i like where he put privacy third. to me that's the most important

thing. >> number one. yeah. "the wall street journal" says that the u.s. and ethiopian officials in both countries have tussled over the probe into the crash of the 737 max jet liner u.s. officials said authorities in ethiopia have been slow to provide data from the black box recorders and they've limited outsiders access to relevant crash information. the report says ethiopian investigators have chafed american efforts to exert control over the preliminary findingsme findingsme findings boeing says the company's investigators aren't trying to speed up it's been a while thauf hey've the black boxes. bezos's security chief is claiming saudi arabia is behind the leak of private messages and naked pictures of the amazon ceo, those pictures he sent to lauren sanchez gavin debecker is investigating how those messages ended up in

the hands of the "national enquirer." in an op-ed, debecker says the saudis were intent on hurting bezos who owns "the washington post" over the newspaper's coverage of the murder of its journalist jamal khashoggi debecker says it's unclear whether the publisher of the enqueer ir wase "enquirer" details the saudis have previously denied having anything to do with the coverage of bezos in the tabloid. debecker says he quickly identified michael sanchez, the brother of lauren sanchez as a paid source for the story, but he's suggesting that the initial information came from other channels in a statement to cnbc, ami maintains that michael sanchez was the lone source who tipped off the "enquirer" to the affair last year and there was no involvement by any other party debecker says he's turned his findings over to federal officials. the question comes down to whether michael sanchez reached

out to them or whether the "enquirer" reached out to him. >> another issue is that sanchez says he didn't provide the pictures sanchez says he provided the texts. the question you get the pictures. >> he flat out says it. >> it came off of the phone. >> there was very clear evidence they found that the saudis hacked into it. >> right. >> and he also says the "national enquirer" has gone way out of its way to try and convince people sanchez was the only source. i've gotten calls about that i know other people have too. >> i want to make one suggestion about the phone. how could they hack the phone from a distance. i would suggest to you that it's possible the phone was not hacked at a distance, which is to say i remember having a meeting with mbs's brother, the deputy crown prince in the united states, and when you went to go meet with him -- and i met him at a hotel far meor a meetig you walked in and they took your

phone from you i remember being in this meeting for an hour thinking what an absolute mistake this was to hand my phone over to anybody, and when i left the meeting i went and talked to a security expert who said you just made a grand mistake. it would not surprise me -- >> i thought the fbi couldn't get into an iphone how are they going to get into it no seriously >> if jeff bezos happened to have a meeting with one of the saudi officials over the past year or two. >> how do you get into an iphone when we couldn't get into an iphone -- >> the exact same way they ultimately did >> they paid an israeli firm. >> they didn't do it while you were meeting with the guy's brother. they didn't call the israeli firm and get it done in 15 minutes. >> no, no, no. >> there's technology -- there was an exploit that could have done it at the time. the issue was the u.s. government said they didn't have it. >> i don't think the saudis accessed your -- i don't think there's anything there really. >> i don't know if they accessed

my phone. >> i had somebody -- >> are you worried about dts coming out about you >> no, i can assure you of that. i hope not meanwhile, every time you said sanchez he went like that. it's not mark sanchez. it brings him back to this horrible experience. you know what? we're going to talk about the market in a second you were right even though it was just last tuesday, remember what he said things are great we're in a sweet spot. suddenly, you know, and we were up almost every day since you were on, and now look at today, suddenly rocking and rolling again. i've got it give you credit for finally being right, no, finally being actually more bullish. >> when you see this, when you hear btig saying that they think the fed's going to cut rates twice this year, does that seem likely in a scenario where china may actually be picking up to too? >> i'm really glad you're

requesting to hagoing to have him on the u.s. economy is in a good spot the problem is outside z china's pmi is encouraging but did you see germany today? germany revised down to the worst numbers since 2012. >> yet the stock market in germany -- >> because they're thinking two things, one is china matters and two is the ecb is going to be more dovish. it's about central banks if you look at what happened in q1 versus what happened in q4, the only significant difference is the central barnks got much more dovish. that's what it's been all about. >> let's give you a quick update on where things stand right now. we are kicking oq2 after a very strong start s&p 500 up 13%, nasdaq up 16%. now every single sector is higher this year tech is up 19%, real estate up

17%, industrials also up 17%, and the sector has been on fire. oil having its best start to the year since 2002 with crude up 31% 3 32% so far this year if all of that is true, why do we need lower interest rates >> the reason why people argue we need lower interest rates -- the argument is -- >> the white house thinks we need lower interest rates. >> the argument is things would be even better and you don't want to decouple the financial sector from the real economy, and the real economy is not doing as well as these amazing numbers show in addition to this what we didn't say is fixed income also had a very strong quarter, and you know what? yields on government bonds came down, so all the traditional correlation failed once again to tell you this is about liquidity, not fundamentals. that's why the argument comes in for rate cuts. i don't think you need them. why? i think the u.s. economy is in a

good place. >> the white house says you need there. there's other board members of the fed that have a different view where do you think they land >> this is the big irony this is a problem for markets going forward. the fed solidified its u-turn on march 20th, hoping to get off the stage, not to be in the spotlight. what we find now a massive tug of war not only do they say cut, but they specify how much should cut. on the other hand federal officials saying not only are we unlikely to cut this year, but hikes aren't off the table you don't want that to develop i think the fed will be disappointed that its uber dovish u-turn hasn't got it off the stage. it wants to be off the stage. >> obviously there's a nominee that's turned out to be somewhat controversial. do you think that his appointment if he were to get

appointed would change the dynamic on the board in a meaningful way >> look, it's hard to say, but imagine that you are the chair -- >> and we're talking about moore. >> imagine that you're the chair and suddenly you have someone that's viewed from the outside world as being politically influen influenced that doesn't help you at all i do feel sorry for chair powell, not only does he have to navigate this, but he also has to do so with an fomc that's all over the place. >> and you think that having somebody in the room this would be like a -- i mean, i've heard people say this would be like having carl icahn on your board. >> it would be perceived as such >> in terms of the stock market going forward, you think that the rest of the year is going to land where >> i think people have to put the first quarter against the fourth quarter of last year, realize that it's going to be incredibly volatile, realize

that they have to revisit certain things, and i tell you the four things i come away from this is one, tactical is as important as being strategic you need a tactical overlay because markets will overshoot in both directions two is with where long bonds and ten-year bonds are, bonds are not a good risk mitigator. cash is a much better risk mitigator. three is you better build up portfolios from the bottom up. don't use passive indiscriminately to do it on the way down, and four is be ready to be much more agile than wrouf been in the past i think these are four critical things they are going to be problematic for long-term investors in particular. >> so don't trust the trends that we've seen in the last couple of weeks or don't trust -- >> yeah, i think actually this is a good time to take some money off the table, have some

dry powder, just like the end of the fourth quarter where the market overshot the other way. ask yourself what is the big difference between the fourth quarter and the first quarter? it is not fundamentals the political situation around the world is just as messy growth is just as challenged as it was before. >> the fed has changed its strips the big difference is the fed has changed its perspective. >> i think we're going to trade in this much bigger range. >> nasdaq is really strong today. >> but what you've got -- and that's on the become of the china number what you've got to look for is a change in pro growth policies in europe in particular that's the big difference. that would be the big- >> let me skask you a different question what is your reaction to the way the lyft ipo traded on friday? >> i think that is part of what every single bond offering is

flying off the shelf people are putting on risk now. >> was that a positive development meaning it came out of the gate very well, however it did come down throughout the day. this was not -- >> but look at valuations. would you have put lyft there three months ago you wouldn't have. level also matter. >> but it traded well. it traded well >> okay. becky. when we come back, the field is set for college basketball's final four and the end of the road for duke marks the beginning of a lucrative career for one of the most promising nba prospects in years we've got the details on that next right now as we head to a break, here's a look at the biggest premarket winners and losers in the dow. chevron leading the way up about 1.5% what do advisors look for in an etf?

don't just track an index, help me meet a client's need. is the fund built to sell or built to last? etfs are only part of a portfolio. so make it easy to explain. give me a quality fund that helps me get clients closer to their goals. flexshares etfs are designed and managed around investor objectives. so you can advise with confidence. before investing, consider the fund's investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. go to flexshares.com for a prospectus containing this information. read it carefully.

the latest inisn't just a store.ty it's a save more with a new kind of wireless network store. it's a look what your wifi can do now store. a get your questions answered by awesome experts store. it's a now there's one store that connects your life like never before store. the xfinity store is here. and it's simple, easy, awesome. ♪ can you take me high enough welcome back, everybody. take a look at the u.s. equity futures. things are running hot today, even after the big gains we saw last week for the markets. this morning the dow futures are in t indicated up 173 points. s&p futures up 17 and the nasdaq

up 63. it's all being he wanted by strong manufacturing nurmts released in china. big gains in the chinese markets. 2.4% gains in the stock market overnight. that is kind of leading things in europe as well. in the meantime it was a slow weekend in the box office here in the united states. disney's live remake of dumbo came out on top. universal's horror movie "us" brought in $33 million in the second weekend in the theaters the investjordan peele film. >> jordan peele did get out which did pretty well. lot of symbolism rk, my son was explaining what it all meant the beginning is scary when this family stands outside nts dark the power has gone out they stand out there and don't

talk jordan peele is going to do twilight future. "us" is going to do just fine for a $20 million movie for universal, i think but yeah, we're -- >> you slept last night or >> i am ready for "pet cemetery." i like -- i was going to tell you, yeah, i can't tell you that if someone were to ask me my favorite genre. >> is horror >> it would be horror. you know how the airlines ask you some personal questions. >> what was your first car. >> i'll give you one of mine in there. yes, it's an easy one for, yeah. they would have to know, there's like trhree or four others. >> i know your first car because you've talked about it on air. >> favorite course in school.

>> i know that. >> yeah. >> you're pretty easy. >> musical instrument. >> how many least favorite >> least favorite car? >> least favorite course at school. >> least favorite course >> journalism. >> it took you six tiles to pass it was a tough sunday for two blue bloods in basketball. duke lost a nail biter standout performance by zion just walking him play, the block with virginia tech he's 6'7", 285, and then he is just -- and can jump like 6 feet veteran. had 24 points, 14 rebounds, that wasn't enough, and auburn outlasted kentucky in overtime to advance to its first final four ever. charles barkley was crying auburn's going to take on virginia michigan state's going to play texas tech both games are on saturday national championship will follow on monday night, and in our pool.

>> disaster. >> the people have virginia, tyler wentthere, i think, tyler's got virginia a couple of other people have virginia, but nobody has any of the other three to win texas tech or michigan state and thar i had duke going into the final. you both had duke. >> which is why he was rooting against duke. >> which is why i was rooting yesterday. the pool is finished and i beat both of you. >> you're way down there. >> you're finished. >> i know i'm finished i just wanted to see where you were on the relative basis. >> i'm up ahead of you by about -- you're both -- >> we're all doing terribly. you know, we all lost. only one person wins but there are standings as to where you finish, and you know. >> marginally. >> why are you even talking about it did you see a single game? >> i did i did. >> that's good, over the weekend? >> we talked about about that, over the weekend you saw one

which one did you watch? >> last night. i could see how terrible i was going to do in the brackets. coming up, when we return, a story that feels like an april fool's joke. it may not be. elon musk out a rap song about a dead gorilla it's already suckered more than 800,000 listeners. we'll play the song for you after the break. i'm working to keep the fire going for another 150 years. ♪ to inspire confidence through style. ♪ i'm working to make connections of a different kind. ♪ i'm working for beauty that begins with nature.

♪ to treat every car like i treat mine. ♪ at adp we're designing a better way to work, so you can achieve what you're working for. ♪

(video games have evolved.addle) why hasn't the way you bank? virtual wallet from pnc bank helps make it easier to see what you're spending, stash more into savings and stay on top of your finances in a digital world. just one way pnc is modernizing banking to help make things easier. pnc bank. make today the day. i'm off to college. i'm worried about my parents' retirement. don't worry. voya helps them to and through retirement... dealing with today's expenses ...while helping plan, invest and protect for the future. so they'll be okay? i think they'll be fine. voya. helping you to and through retirement.

a strong start to 2019, will we ride the bull into the second

quarter? investor moves before the first trade, "squawk on the street" 9:00 a.m. eastern cnbc ♪ harambe sipping on some bombay, we on our way to heaven, amen, amen ♪ >> welcome back to "squawk box," elon musk publishing this rap song that you're listening to right now, paying tribute to how do you say -- harambe? i don't even know. harambe, a gorilla that was killed in 2016 after dragging a 3-year-old boy who climbed into the enclosure at the cincinnati zoo. the tesla ceo released the song on saturday, it's now been streamed half a million times on emoji records. sound cloud page, musk tweeting i'm disappointed that my record label failed tesla expected to release

delivery numbers this week we'll be watching for that this is a man who seems to be a very creative person every weekend he's got a new -- no, he's got the flame throwers, he's got this. he comes up with an idea of boring you be the judge, are you digging this song? >>is it a good idea to be on - >> on so many different projects if you're running a publicly traded company that is the great age old question, right? if you are a tesla shareholder, are you happy that he -- >> if you're a tesla shareholder are you fine as long as the stock's up. >> how much does this and all of his other projects add to the allure of himself and therefore tesla? that's the question, right it probably cuts both ways it helps and hurts depending on where you stand. all right, coming up, a big market call from btig on the economy, inflation and what the

fed's going to do between now and december the firm's chief strategist is here after the break here's a look at friday's s&p 500 winners and losers

one-millionth order. millionth order. there goes our first big order. ♪ 44, 45, 46... how many of these did they order? ooh, that's hot. ♪ you know, we could sell these. nah. ♪ we don't bake. ♪ opportunity. what we deliver by delivering. i like to make my life easy. ( ♪ ) romo mode. (beep) (bang) good luck with that one. yes! that's why i wear skechers slip-ons. they're effortless. just slip them right on and off. skechers slip-ons, with air-cooled memory foam.

welcome back, you're watching "squawk box" live from the nasdaq market site in times square good morning, welcome back to "squawk box"ment among the stories front and center kellogg nearing a deal to sell several of its businesses including keebler, and fruit smacks the price. jeff bezos's security chief claiming saudi arabia is behind the leak of text messages from the amazon ceo that he sent to his mistress lauren sanchez.

if an op-ed bezos's security chief says the saudis were intent on damaging bezos in response to "the washington post" the coverage of the murder of journalist jamal khashoggi. bezos owns the post. and china rallying overnight you can look at that shanghai composite up over 2.5%, the shenzhen over 3.5% manufacturing activity expanded in march at its fastest pace in eight months according to a private pmi survey the take a quick look at u.s. equity futures at this hour. let's show you what's going on, what you're seeing are green arrows across the board with the dow up over 167 points higher right now. nasdaq would open 63 points higher president trump stepping up his attack on the fed over the weekend. he tweeted late friday, had the fed not mistakenly raised interest rates, especially since there is very little inflation and had they not done the ridiculously timed quantitative tightening, the 3% gdp and stock

market would have both been much higher and world markets would be in a better place the president's comments came just hours after white house economic adviser larry kudlow told cnbc that the fed should cut rates by 50 basis points. >> i am echoing the president's view he's not been bashful about that view he would also like the fed to cease shrinking its balance sheet, and i concur with that view looking at some of the -- i meer mean, the economy looks fundamentally quite healthy. we just don't want that threat there is no inflation out there, so i think the fed's actions were probably overdone one wall street firm might be listening to kudlow in a note yesterday, btig chief equity strategist pribted tedic fed will cut rates twice this year

we're calling our big call you had a big call that night. do you make big calls constantly your big call that night was 3,000 on the s&p could be low for this year, and you were very bullish two weeks ago. so maybe it's three weeks ago. so far so good on the averages, but now this is another big call if things are so good, if you were expecting the averages to surge, why do we need a rate cut? zb the first thing is we have to disabuse ourselves of the notion it is completely tied into stock prices if you look at the past, the fed has often started the cutting cycle while the markets were at or near the highs. the important thing is to realize that the tendency has been to start cutting around five, six months after the last hike, and essentially the way we see the economy developing is, you know, you look at there's recession probabilities have risen because of the damage that was done in the fourth quarter to the point where actually it's only been two times where you

haven't had a recession end up developing, and so we think it's a form of insurance. >> so was it the recession fears is that self-fulfilling because we got nervous or did the fed actually over shoot and slow the economy more than was necessary? >> no, i don't think they have slowed the economy more. >> did that i over shoot >> we did not think they should have hiked in december look, there was a confluence of circumstances that caused the kinds of dislocations that we saw, but fast forward essentially part of the problem and mohamed talked about this earli earlier, the rest of the world we're depending on for a certain extent. >> what do we do about ammunition we have no dry powder for next time there is a slow down. if we need to cut three, four five times, we're going to be at zero and going negative. >> you won't be at zero. you're actually -- the midpoint right now is 2 3/8 you've got plenty of room.

>> plenty of room? >> "the wall street journal" says one of the fed officials -- he was on the argument of not doing that if you've got guys like him in the camp of let's not cut yet. >> let me pile on. if i was a federal officials i suspect the central view is we've already bought insurance that's what we did in march by guiding very dovish. it worked. yields have come down, the stock market has recovered q4 is way back why do you want us to buy more insurance at this point? >> we're not saying at this point. what we're talking about is the evolution over the next six months, and part of what's different from the fed's message is a desire for a rate of inflation that's higher than where we've been the last 20 years has averaged 1.7 on core pce, and the fed is talking all of a sudden about tolerating rates of inflation above the 2% target to get there, and that to us is one of

the ways where you can get there. >> if they look at europe today, the inflation number on the front, again, even though we have negative interest rates, even though we had a much bigger qe, and maybe it's structural. you don't think the fed says at some point we've done what we can do and now it's up to somebody else. or do you think they'll just continue to chase this >> they haven't gotten there yet. in our view, attempting a goal of over 2% may be misguided because the past tells you when you've been over 2% inflation it has not been good for asset markets. be that as it may, that's their point of view, and again, going back to it, there aren't that many levers that the fed can push and certainly the ability to affect europe is really marginal at best. >> so in the next six months your call is really about slowing from the rest of the world and spillover here rather than something breaking in the u.s. economy >> that's right, that's

absolutely right, and it's insurance, and not only is it insurance, but it's -- there's an element of not politicizing if they need to cut, you want to be done well before the election next year. >> and what happened to the yield curve under this scenario? >> we think you steepen from here we do. we think that if anything, if they're able to get inflation expectations starting to move higher, that will translate into longer, higher, longer term yields. >> so we can continue to have a pretty good year gdp wise, and this is an inflation call? >> no, this is essentially an insurance call. >> what's gdp going to be this year >> we think it's going to be north of 2%. >> north of 2.5 or north of 2. >> north of 2. >> look, we all know -- >> rate cutting, i mean, that was -- people say two is all we're really capable of right now, with productivity and with

populations. >> i'll leave it with this whole idea of, you know, the four most dangerous words in money and investing are it's different this time. if you look at the progression of cutting cycles after hiking cycles, the last time you waited more than a year to start cutting rates was 2007. >> just a pretty anemic hiking cycle. we're all conditioned to believe that it just feels like we're still at starkly low levels. >> and we are. >> it's definitely nonconsent. people here, there are going to be rate cuts and they think you're crazy you've been smoking something at these levels, especially with stock market and the economy and everything else. i could only see it as an -- i could see why not keep rates low if there's no inflation. let the good times roll if you're not worried about inflation. i don't know whether i see the economy in a negative place which would allow for them to -- otherwise- the criticism and it's coming already, it's like

larry what are you talking about. out of one side of your mouth you said how great things are and on the other side of your mouth, you think we need it cut rates. that makes you think larry doesn't believe the economy is as strong as he indicated. >> if it's inflation i could see it. >> their number is 3%, and, you know, that's sort of their point of view. our number is 2.2, but the point is, the fed has made it very clear that it actually wants higher inflation, and there are only so many ways you can actually achieve it. >> i don't see powell doing it either really. then it looks like he's being political. >> that's what i would think it makes them look like they made a mistake and i think that's a lot to ask. >> and being, you know, listening to, you know, being at the beck and call of donald trump, which he doesn't want to do. >> i think you have very recent precedent for that exact change of course. you know, chairman powell has shown that he does have some

flexibility, and obviously he's going to have to fight the political fight during his entire tenure, but he changed course in january when the facts changed. we think the evolution's going to push him in that direction. >> julian emmanuel, btig, thanks. we will catch you up on several elections around the globe and what they mean for your money frpt the former wall ll jet sheriff preet baa rharara wioin us on set. stay tuned, you are watching "squawk box" right here on cnbc. servicenow put our workflows in the cloud. 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.

time now for the executive edge turkey's lira has now whip sawed, had a big month it's been another volatile session today. the country's ruling party led by president erdogan suffering big setbacks in local elections. the party lost control of the capital ankara for the first time since 2001, and looks to be on track to lose control of its largest city istanbul as well. separately in ukraine, a comedian with no political experience has taken lead in the first round of the country's election the comedian plays a fictional president in a popular television series there. he holds a comfortable lead over the incumbent president with no candidate on track to win

absolute majority, the ukraine will hold a runoff election later this month. >> he plays a president on tv. that's pretty funny. coming up, we're going to get black rock's second quarter outlook. as we head to break, here's quick check on what's happening in europe right now, got green across the board strong china manufacturing number at&t provides edge-to-edge intelligence, covering virtually every part of your retail business. so that if your customer needs shoes, & he's got wide feet. & with edge-to-edge intelligence you've got near real time inventory updates. & he'll find the same shoes in your store that he found online he'll be one happy, very forgetful wide footed customer. 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 &.

& if your customer also forgets socks! & you could send him a coupon for that item. we're finally back out in our yard, but so are they. the triple threat of dandelions, lurking crabgrass and weak, thin grass! scotts turf builder triple action. this single-step breakthrough changes everything. it kills weeds, prevents crabgrass for up to 4 months, and feeds so grass can thrive, all guaranteed. only from scotts. our backyard is back.

this is a scotts yard. whai tell clients, etfs can follow an index, but which ones target your goals? it's not about quantity. it's about quality. no trendy stuff. i want etfs backed by research. is it built for the long-term? my reputation depends on it. flexshares etfs are designed and managed around investor objectives. so you can advise with confidence. before investing, consider the fund's investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. go to flexshares.com for a prospectus containing this information. read it carefully.

welcome back, everybody. today marks the first trading

day of the second quarter, and the blackrock investment institute is just out with its outlook for the second quarter joining us now for the exclusive report is alga barish, blackrock's head of market research and you are looking for big things for some turn-around, particularly with china, which is pretty pressing, given the news we heard out of china late yesterday. >> yes, indeed so, we have three things that we are looking for in our outlook one is a growth slowdown and for that, it's important that china is turning around its economy. the second one is patient policymakers you already talked about this on the show earlier and then the third is the need to carefully balance risk and rewards in portfolios. >> let's talk about risk-reward, too. i know you have a late-cycle returns graph that kind of shows some of the risks and return potentials that you see in typical late-cycle returns if you check it out, it looks like developed markets are in a situation where there's more

upside than downside emerging markets looks like pretty big upside, but pretty big downside, too. what do you tell investors at this point >> yes so, the important point here is that really on average, in late-cycle phases for thony, yos of around 3% acrost less in em equities, and around about 1.5% across the fixed income spectrum so, the returns are decent, but what you are also getting is a lot more volatility, and that's why we would be emphasizing to lean further into quality assets that could be quality stocks, but it could also be u.s. treasuries >> i agree with you. would you go one step further and say that as a general rule, you should focus on balance sheet strength versus income

sensitivity, that the second quarter's going to be about resilience of balance sheets and also about vulnerability of income statements? would you take that further step or not >> well, i think it's a little bit too narrow the quality factor for us is a little bit broader than just the balance sheet. it also includes organic growth and the ability to generate free cash flow. but you're right that equity markets could be sensitive towards further earnings disappointment late-cycleslowdown, especially with this tough comparisons to last year, could mean that earnings could, in fact, contract that said, that's not necessarily a bad time to invest in equities. you just need to know where exactly you need to be positioned. >> and what do you say to those people, including our former guest that was on -- don't worry, liquidity will

compensate, it's about central banks still? their call for a 50 basis point cut this year and their view that central bank liquidity as well as money coming from balance sheets of the corporate sector will compensate for your concerns about fundamentals? what do you say to that? >> i think liquidity is important and we saw how detrimental lack of liquidity can be in the fourth quarter of last year, but i don't think that we should get too excited about liquidity coming from central banks. central banks have made clear that they will be patient that was a major pivot in their monetary policy outlook led by the fed, by the ebc, but that does not mean they are releasing liquidity into the market. and in fact, markets will need to navigate a very narrow path between the economy being strong enough to stay out of downturn

territory and still weak enough to keep central banks on hold, and that's a quite precarious path to navigate potentially >> elga, thank you for your time. >> okay. coming up, a lot more to come on "squawk box. we'll get an update from the firm that rated lyft's ipo lower than snap. we also have preet bharara coming up and then a big 8:00 hour guest host the former nyse president, tom faro and walter isaacson and discovery's ceo, david zaslav with hedge fund news of the day. at cdw we get there are threats wherever your people go. so we create a customized solution using the hp elite book with built in security features that will help protect your people and your data. spy, spy, spy! they're actually very nice people. you need it orchestration by cdw and hp featuring the intel 8th generation core processor.

you should be mad they gave this guy a promotion. you should be mad at forced camaraderie. and you should be mad at tech that makes things worse. but you're not mad, because you have e*trade, who's tech makes life easier by automatically adding technical patterns on charts and helping you understand what they mean. don't get mad. get e*trade's simplified technical analysis.

♪ ♪ 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.

stocks on a bull run after a strong first quarter, how should investors play the markets now? we open up the playbook. another jeff bezos plot twist. the security chief for the world's richest man says saudi arabia is behind the leak of private messages and pictures. we have much more on this developing story. and lyft after lift-off. the stock jumps after the highly anticipated debut, but should investors get on board right now or wait for the next ride?

the second hour of "squawk box" begins right now ♪ it's in the photograph >> announcer: live from the beating heart of business, 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 andrew ross sorkin our guest host, mohamed el erian, a perfect morning for him to be here, and the markets are taking notice, rallying because, well, it's really more about the positive economic data, but you're not in the way of the market's rallying. i'm not going to attribute it to you. but after a great week and a historic start, really, to 2019 -- it's 2019, right >> it is. >> and a big first quarter has the dow up 162 points, the nasdaq indicated up 63, and the s&p indicated up 16 after

closing at 2,834 is that 2,850? if it were to open there, it'd be 2,850 i don't know if it's safe to say we have breached the 2,800 left. we turned back so many times at this point, we'd be at 2,850. does that mean 2,900 and 3,000 are next nobody knows, but that's what we're talking about. see, it turned down one, two, three times, and a couple times before that on the other side it turned down. so, i'll tell you, there's a lot of overhead resistance at 2,800. looks like the day up now almost 19, so looks above 2,850. president trump says the fed made a mistake in raising interest rates and that its move hurt the u.s. economy and the stock market the president said the fed raised rates when there was very little inflation national economic council director larry kudlow told cnbc on friday that he would like to see the fed cut rates by a half

percentage point the new month starts off with a busy economic calendar let's tell you what's on it. we've got retail sales for february out in about 90 minutes. then at 10:00 eastern, the ism manufacturing index, construction spending and business inventories also, a federal judge in california is out with a big warning to utility giant pg&e: don't start wildfires or we'll make sure you can't offer any more dividends the move comes after california investigators linked pg&e's equipment to a series of wildfires that have devastated the state over the past few years. pg&e has already said it would not resume dividend payments until it has emerged from bankruptcy. lyft going public on friday. the stock jumping more than 20% before cooling off later in the session. right now it looks like that stock is down by about 1.25%, $77.30 let's talk more about the road ahead for lyft shares. joining us is triton research ceo and co-founder of rhett wallace. rhett, thanks for being here.

>> thanks for having me. >> tom farley will be joining us next half hour he thinks the lyft ipo was perfect in how it was pulled off -- >> maximizing proceeds they nailed it, got every penny they possibly could. >> every penny how would you characterize it? >> exactly that. if you were trying to raise as much as you could, they nailed it as far as investors that bought the stock at $72 up to $87, anybody who bought it in the open market is under water right now and if you bought it at $72, you're wondering, okay, it's $77 and falling, is it time to sell? >> so they got as much as possible, but is that what you want to do in that situation leave the people who bought on the opening bell feeling like they got burned? >> there are different models to look at. the facebook ipo is one example. they maximized the proceeds, the stock was under water for a year, but the owners didn't care it didn't matter they wanted the money so they could compete because they were thinking long term instead of thinking of the kind of market where people could buy and sell and be happy the whole way through. >> and we are talking about just one day. i guess you have to wait and see what happens.

>> anybody who hung on to facebook became wealthy. >> they had a long hold time like you said, it's one day. we wish we were surprised with the 5.7 score, like it was only a matter of time before gravity would assert itself on this name we thought they wouldn't let it go below $80 on the first day, but fact that they did tells us, okay, this will be a rough ride for a while, but we have q-1 coming and the uber filing. >> the ceo of uber is watching this. >> yes. >> thinking, okay, how do we price our ipo? do we want to be aggressive? do we want to -- where -- what's the lesson from this, or are we still too early to know? >> you're probably a little too early. i think that, look, these guys had some unforced errors they could have given us more numbers to go by to get a stronger conviction on the name as you're buying it, but i think dara's happy to see, look, this deal got done at the high end of the range and probably could have gone over the high end of the range, so i think the market is there for him. >> let's say $87 is the highwater mark for a while it was a successful ipo, but the people that need to be involved with the ipo are the retail

investors. >> correct. >> are they happy that lyft had a great ipo? i mean, what does it mean for future ipos? do they say once burned? >> right we think there are two models you could look at. one is a low-scoring ipo and one is the high-scoring ipo. blue apron you could look at, got done, well raised a lot of money and then straight down and never back the other example would be etsy, that had a rough ride on the way out of the door but then recovered nicely and has been really good for retail investors. >> so we have to wait -- >> retail stock, there are other examples to look at. >> although to joe's point, is anybody going to jump in as enthusiastically for uber on the opening, some of the retail investors if they saw what happened with lyft and figure oh, i am not getting in on some great bargain early on, i'll wait and see what happens? >> the snarky answer would be uber's going to raise billions, so retail won't do it for them they need the institution tease put together that capital. >> but everybody needs retail investors to get involved in order to support things. >> that's true, although uber will have a chance to stabilize.

i think it will be a very different story. >> talking about a different story, do you think investors sat around saying to themselves, okay, i'm either going to do lyft or i'm going to be in uber, or do you see this completely differently? are people going to look at the pinterest ipo and all of the others that will come before uber gets there? >> well, i think what happened to the private market is investors were forced to choose. like people that missed uber because they didn't like it on price, like horowitz went to lyft because i didn't want to miss out on this ride-hailing thing because it's going to be a thing. and even up through, depending what you believe in the newspapers, the selection of the underwriters, you had to pick. in the public market, you don't have to pick you can own them both or own one and short the other, right that's the beauty of the liquid public market is all of the devil's bargains are no longer operative. >> which is the better of the two? >> we hear rumors about short book shaping up on lyft now, right? that people don't like it at this price -- >> a day and they're already shaping up the short book saying -- >> you know, it takes three or four days to get the borrow in

place, but you know, some people are planning ahead on this one. >> is there any event risk to these? over the weekend, one of the most tragic, horrible situations where someone called an uber, college, the university of south carolina car shows up, she gets in, doesn't check who it is, and within two hours, she was dead i mean, they try to prevent this, right? >> sure. >> is it possible to make sure that there's a zero chance of this happening >> wow, i'm not that smart that's a really, really hard one. i don't know what that does for sediment for the stocks or for the actual operations of the company -- >> nobody's going to start ride-hailing -- >> to be clear, that guy was not a lyft or uber driver, but she probably assumed they think the working assumption right now is that she thought it was her uber and she got in. >> if you're someone with ill intent and there are people like that, you can drive around and there are people waiting all you have to do is pull up alongside and they will -- >> sure. this is one of the things that's been a real challenge for these companies, both -- >> hopefully, they're not under

the influence, smoked a big joint or something. >> sure. >> there just seems like so many things where -- and this, with me, i have a daughter we all have kids >> i talked to my daughters about it, too. >> scary putting them in a car. >> there's 2 bucks a ride in insurance, right, in the lyft filing so, this is obviously, it goes straight through to the cost of every single ride because they insure against things like this. obviously, what happened is terrible -- >> insurance doesn't -- >> it doesn't make you feel any better if that's your daughter, but -- >> they've got to figure out a way where it's just absolutely clear that this is the person that you called. >> mm-hmm. >> you know? >> right that will be interesting to see how that plays out. >> all of the cars now have -- >> do people look at the license plate or just get in >> well, that's the question. >> and say, is your name so-and-so -- >> no. >> the uber guy should be required to say, hi, so-and-so, you know >> they usually say -- >> they should have a card, like a driver does when you hire a driver to come that says your

name on it, or at least has their identification number -- >> got to be a way to do this. >> i think what's interesting about it, just as far as the sort of consumer adoption is drivers that aren't even uber drivers are assumed to be uber drivers. that's how ubiquitous the service is. >> rhett, thanks for coming in. >> great to be here. coming up when we return, mark zuckerberg's latest call. the facebook founder inviting the government to regulate the internet, but will this get the social network out of hot water with washington? we're going to talk about it next. and then later this hour, the man called the new sheriff of wall street, former u.s. attorney for new york's southern district preet bharara is going to be our very special guest lots to talk to him about. but before we head to break, look at futures right now. we are in the green, dow up big 173 points, s&p 500 up about 18 points we'll see where the markets are headed in the second quarter quk"etnsn mont few minutes "saw rur ia me

when you look at the critical issues facing our world, what do you see? 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 isn't just a result, it's a responsibility. emerson. consider it solved.

welcome back to "squawk box. futures indicated now up 183 points, as you can see on the dow. the nasdaq a strong 70, 71, in fact and the s&p indicated up almost 19 several major airlines are reporting some systemwide

technical issues that have affected flights this morning. southwest, delta, and united have tweeted about the problems, which affect flight planning they are working to implement a solution as quickly as possible. okay, and mark zuckerberg writing an op ed in the "washington post" over the weekend. his support for tighter laws governing facebook and julia boorstin is on the west coast this morning and she has more on this developing story. good morning to you, julia >> reporter: good morning, andrew mark zuckerberg thinks regulation is inevitable, so he's proposing what that regulation should look like. in an op ed in the "washington post" and on his facebook page, he outlines what he calls new rules for the internet for four key areas: harmful content, election integrity, privacy, and data portability, saying he wants regulators to set standards about what counts as terrorist propaganda or inappropriate content or whether or not an ad is political, so the company doesn't have to set those standards and is not accused of bias. he advocates for a global

framework around privacy regulation based on european rules and common standards for users to safely transfer their data away from facebook. now, pleas for laws to follow won't help with pending investigations, though there are pending investigations by the ftc, the justice department, and the s.e.c. and just last week, hud charged facebook with housing discrimination but this new op ed here could help facebook with calls from both sides of the aisle and congress to regulate all these issues and even to break up the company. so, what do analysts think suntrust says these are a positive because, a, it puts the onus on resolving these issues on regulators, b, facebook has clearly invested the most time, effort and money trying to address these issues and as a result is likely best positioned to comply with the rules jefferies praises zuckerberg for playing offense, saying internet regulation will insolate the

larger platforms such as facebook but this comes amid reports from india that widespread fake news on whatsapp there could impact the upcoming indian elections, so facebook's problems are far from over. becky, back over to you. >> julia, before you go, i just had one question, which is, when you think about this, there's been -- you know, some people think this is a genuine effort to bring regulation to the fold. there's been some cynical takes in the papers, including one in the "wall street journal" this morning suggesting either this is a head fake or that this is a bad idea or that this is really just an effort to entrench facebook given the conversations you have with so many of the people inside that company, what do you think's really going on? >> i think that they know that they're going to be regulated, so they want to be part of that conversation and i think that this is all very strategic here. zuckerberg is actually planning to go back to capitol hill, and i think it's worth noting that it's been almost exactly a year -- it will be a year next week since mark zuckerberg was in the hot seat, and he was, you

know, pressed by congress on all of their flaws and failures. and the issue is, in the past years since his testimony on capitol hill, there have been so many more problems that have come out since then, so this is his attempt to get ahead of that and say, hey, you know, one of the analysts said you can't follow the speed limit if you don't know what the law is and try to really put the onus on the regulators instead of him being responsible himself for setting the laws -- >> but he says he agrees -- this is the first time he at least seems to suggest that he agrees with the idea that he shouldn't be in charge of what speech is on facebook or not. >> yes. >> that he's effectively saying, you know what, i don't want to be in charge of this anymore you, you, washington, are supposed to do it. what do you think was the change of heart >> for many years -- yeah, for many years, facebook insisted that it could self-regulate and that it would adopt gepr, the european privacy regulation, here in the united states, and that they would be on top of these issues i think that what's become evident in the past year since his capitol hill testimony is the idea that he's going to get

in trouble for setting the rules, he's going to get in trouble for defining say what hate speech is and whether a group is a white supremacist group or a white nationalist group. we just saw that issue last week, sort of how do you draw the line there and instead of being responsible for, you know' dreeknow, for adg those issues, he's better off letting someone else write the rules. i also think it's kind of remarkable that in the past year since he testified, not that much has changed in terms of criticism of facebook. in fact, even more different either organizations in washington or around the world have really piled on concern about him. so, i think he thinks this is the better strategy now. >> julia, thank you. when we come back, another plot twist surrounding the leaked photos and texts from jeff bezos' phone. now his security chief says that saudi arabia is involved we have that story next. and we have a big 8:00 a.m. hour coming up today former nyse president tom

farley, white house economic adviser kevin hassett, author and former "time" magazine managing editor walter isaacson, discovery ceo david zaslav "squawk box" is coming right back ♪ what if other kinds of plants captured it too? if these industrial plants had technology that captured carbon like trees we could help lower emissions. carbon capture is important technology - and experts agree. that's why we're working on ways to improve it. so plants... can be a little more... like plants. ♪ your daily dashboard from fidelity. a visual snapshot of your investments. key portfolio events. all in one place. because when it's decision time... you need decision tech. only from fidelity.

you need decision tech.

[kno♪king] ♪ memories. what we deliver by delivering. oh, wow. you two are going to have such a great trip. thanks to you, we will. this is why voya helps reach today's goals... ...all while helping you to and through retirement. can you help with these? we're more of the plan, invest and protect kind of help... voya. helping you to and through retirement.

a new twist in a long-running saga between jeff bezos and ami's "national enquirer." robert frank is here with the details. good morning, robert. >> good morning, becky jeff bezos' security consultant accuses saudi arabia of hacking bez bezos' cell phone and data in retaliation for his ownership of "the washington post." gavin debecker is bezos' security chief for 22 years and wrote in "the daily beast" saturday that "our investigationors and several experts concluded with high confidence that the saudis had access to bezos' phone and gained private information." now, he said the saudis have been intent on harming bezos because of the "post" coverage of the murder of journalist jamal khashoggi. he says it was the saudis that provided the initial tip to "the national enquirer" that bezos was having an affair with sanchez. they only said the saudis had technology to collect smartphone data in the air without leaving a trace, and it's been widely

reported that sanchez's brother, michael, was actually the one who sold bezos' pictures and texts to "the enquirer." ami, the parent company of "the enquirer" for the first time outing michael as the source and the only source, saying in a statement that de becker's claims are false and unsubstantiated and that it was michael sanchez who tipped "the national enquirer" off to the affair on september 10th, 2018, and provided all the materials for our investigation. >> this comes kind of as a counter to the "wall street journal" story on the front page about this recently, where they said just that, that michael sanchez was the only source on this issue de becker in his piece yesterday really raised that issue, said no, it was "the national enquirer" that reached out to him. you're right, there wasn't any proof given of that, but you wonder if it's there he also said he wouldn't say more and that he's turned this information over to national authorities, too. >> that's right. and it wasn't that he was saying that michael sanchez didn't sell the photos --

>> no, the "now-estravlged brother," said it clearly. >> he said when michael gave the texts to "the enquirer," they were already looking into the affair and that there was another party, the saudis, who provided that original tip then they went to michael sanchez, michael sanchez -- >> so it didn't con addict the "journal" story -- >> it did in some ways de becker yesterday said michael sanchez never had access to the pictures, the racy pictures that we're talking about, that he provided other text, but not the pictures >> right. >> and yesterday, gavin de becker said those pictures came from the saudis beforehand. >> right and the "journal" itself reported that "the enquirer" was already looking into this, they had already somehow figure ed out that this affair was going on by the time michael sanchez came into the picture. so ami now saying the only tip was from michael sanchez and he provided the original one, others now saying it was someone else. >> my only sort of behind-the-scenes question about all of this is actually about de

becker and how public he's been. and clearly, jeff bezos has been very public because he's the one who wrote about it first on medium but how much conversation do you think there is regularly about this on a day-to-day basis, and how much do you think bezos has said, i don't -- because remember, bezos said i don't want to think about this i'm just handing this over to this guy and he's goingto be i charge of this but given all the public statements being made, how many hours in the day do you think this is consuming for everybody involved >> well, the stock is up. >> right. >> in amazon since the announcement of their divorce, so it hasn't affected the share price. and for all intents and purposes, amazon is continuing unchanged. but it is interesting. is gavin debecker being used as the sort of pr vehicle for bezos in all this, or is he protecting his own reputation in the fact that he was not protecting bezos? somehow, you're paying this guy a lot of money to protect your privacy, to protect you, and somehow, all this stuff came out. so, is gavin de becker kind of

basically back-tracking and saying it was these other sophisticated saudis with all this elaborate technology that got through my own system? >> because he worked for him before this. let's be clear. >> yeah, he's been there for 22 years, he's been working for bezos. so, some of this may be trying to burnish his own reputation for having failed to protect bezos. >> interesting all right, robert frarvnk, than you. bulls soaring in the first quarter and this morning we're seeing a big jump in the futures. will the momentum continue that discussion is next. as we head to break, take a look at those aforementioned equity futures, basically where they've been for most of the morning 180 on the dow, 18 on the s&p, nasdaq indicated up 65 we're coming right back.

♪ still to come on "squawk box," the second quarter's starting off on the right foot with a big jump in the futures this morning up next, we're going to look at some ways the bulls can defend their lead after a big first quarter. then we'll talk to former u.s. attorney for new york's southern district, preet

bharara, about his new book "insider trading," and his efforts to clean up wall street. and the chairman of the white house council of economic advisers, kevin hassett, will be spiagut.es "squawk box" returns in just a moment

in the transportation industry without knowing firsthandness the unique challenges in that sector? coming out here, seeing the infrastructure firsthand, we can make better informed investment decisions. that's why i go beyond the numbers.

welcome back to "squawk box" this morning take a quick look at futures we are in the green in a pretty big way. dow almost up 200 points this morning. s&p 500 looking to open about 19 points higher. the nasdaq looking to open about 67 1/2 points higher and an update on a story we just told you about earlier southwest airlines now saying the technical issue that had affected earlier flights has been resolved. delta and united also said they were experiencing similar problems the faa says this involved software involved in flight planning, specifically dealing with weight and balance in a jet. other reports suggested this was affecting jetblue and a handful of other airlines. and if you're headed to the airport, take a look to make sure that your flight is not delayed this morning the markets just wrapping up one of the best first quarters in decades let's find out how the bulls will defend their lead as the second quarter kicks off today mike santoli joins us with that story. hey, mike. >> hey, becky. what's interesting is, yes, the s&p's up 13% in the first

quarter, best first quarter since '98. you would think it was this torrid rally the whole time, but actually, the market's been playing defense for a month or so really this lead was built up in january and february, the fierce rally off the lows of december and since then it's been relatively stable stocks, huge-cap tech along with real estate, utilities, staples if you look at the groups with the strongest uptrends, it is those. so the market is in this way essentially rotated within itself and kept this lead. the question is do we interpret that as the market's message of, okay, this cycle is vulnerable, we have to prepare for slower growth, or is it just a strong market's way of remaining supported as the data kind of fall away and waiting for them to inflect that's what we're waiting for right now. obviously, the china data overnight helps that case that we've basically just been biding our time and waiting for this rebound. and then i think we now are in this conversation with bonds rallying so hard and maybe that rally easing up a little bit of are we wanting a patient-fed or a proactive fed? and i do think that the market

is probably going to be hashing this out for a while but to me, it's not that unusual that you would have stocks and bonds rallying together the way they did, one, because it was bondlike stocks that helped, but also because we're no longer fearing outright deflation necessarily, and we have precedent. if we want to go back to 1998, the fed cutting when u.s. gdp was very strong, because the rest of the world was falling apart. >> you know, i also, when we spoke with warren buffett last week, he made the point that in recent economic numbers, like the rail car loadings that he watches so closely, you have seen some weakness, that it has been weaker than the real economy. >> no doubt. i don't think we gottfried from this late-cycle conversation that we started in january of 2018. >> china came out of nowhere. >> the number, you mean? >> yeah. i mean, that was -- >> stimulus worked. >> well, it came out of nowhere, except we've been talking about how they've been -- >> talking about this for a while -- >> but they were in a weakened position and they have to come to the table maybe they don't have to come to the table. >> last six months, the chinese markets outperformed the united states by -- >> we still had the notion that

things were not great, right >> we haven't mentioned so far the dollar we've had the fourth straight quarter of dollar strength and we haven't seen that for a decade now, in the old days, we used to worry about dollar strength. so speak a little bit to the resilience of the market in the face of continued -- >> that's a very good point. and you know, it's obviously capital coming here, right i mean, it would be the basic interpretation, as opposed to just fed hawkishness, a straight trade on that. so, i think it all fits together with this idea of, you know, this is not a risk-off panic, really, right? when you're talking about treasury yields going down and the dollar going up. it's much more about, you know, the moment we are in the growth trajectory and the fact that the u.s. market can hang in there on it >> for me, it's all about money coming into the market either indirectly because of what the central banks are doing or directly because of what corporates and the rest of the world -- so, that i buy completely >> yeah. >> the question is, do we then get the handoff to the stronger

fundamentals to drive us further? how do you see this developing >> that's the question i do feel the market is agnostic on that right now. in other words, you know, i have this chart of the u.s. minimum volatility etf, which is everybody's darling right now. it is a chicken bowl etf, constructed to be low volatility look at that chart $24 billion in assets right now. so essentially, that is, let's buy stable businesses and wait for that moment when we know whether we're going to inflect higher on growth >> all right, let's see what paulsen -- not pat this is jim paulsen in this case, chief investment strategist at leuthold group mohamed has been bullish, i think, and i think he's bullish on the u.s. economy, jim, but he thinks we may be in a bit of a range-bound market near the high end of the range again, and therefore, he's less inclined to put new money to work and maybe

even would take some off the table, he said do you feel the same way as we get to 2,850 on the s&p? >> well, you know, i think, joe, that we're going to have some pullbacks along the way here, and i think those are difficult to call. so far, we've only had about 3% pullback, hardly anything. so at some point, we'll probably have a deeper pullback but i don't know if that comes now or it comes after we set new highs. i think that's hard to call. i do think we're going to go and set new highs. and look, there's some good things ere we have revalued this market to where its average value now since 1990, its average going back to 1950 as long as you've been between 1% and 3% inflation. and that leaves upside potential here i would not at all be surprised if we see something like 20 times earnings when we're talking about the low rate structure, low inflation that we have right now and full-on

accommodation by policy officials. so if you look at 20 times earnings, even if earnings don't grow, let's say they stay at 160, that's a 3,200 s&p. and i'm not saying it has to go there, but i'm saying that's the type of potential that i think is out there here, even this year we've got reasonable valuations. we've got now a lower competitive interest rate environment, a much lower competitive interest rate environment, which make those values look eve better we've stopped the overheat we've brought the cavalry from monetary and fiscal policy across the globe and the best part is we've got a lot of fear. i think sentiment is cautious at max and probably pessimistic overall. at some point we're going to go from are we recessing here, is this the end, to oh, my gosh, maybe we're going to have a longer than expected recovery. and at that point, a lot of portfolios that are underallocated, they're going to

have to come back in and probably drive this market higher >> when you said i think we'll eventually go to new highs, i thought, well, that's a big, profound -- you know, ten years from now or something? no, but you actually said in -- >> this year >> you actually meant this year. it's the time and the direction that drives strategists nuts they can go one or the other but, so, 30 -- yeah, and i don't think anyone thinks that earnings are going to be flat, either you gave that scenario at 160. >> right. >> they could end up being better than people thought then if you put 20 on that, your 3,200 could be low i'm not putting words in your mouth, but that is, i think -- you don't think that, mohamed, you don't think 3,200 this year? >> jim, i agreed with you, then i heard what you said about sentiment being still negative whether i look at what's happening to new issue on the corporate bond side, whether i look at what happened to various ipos, is sentiment really that

negative and speak to how far we've come on sentiment from three months ago. >> you know, we just talked about -- mike santoli just talked about the defensive fund, you know and i was thinking, mohamed, this is much like it's been the whole bull market. this bull market has been led by bears throughout you know, through the first five, six years of this bull, it was led by things like low-vol investments, by dividend aristocrats, by staple stocks. and it still is being led by that, as mike just kind of pointed out. i think that what i find so curious about this is that it's been amazingly great bull, and it's never generated exceeding optimism, at least on the stock market the public has never come in overall, and i think we're still climbing that wall of worry. we've got several things generating fear: the fact that we're up against the ten-year, longest ever in u.s. history recovery, people say, well, boy,

can't go much longer than that, the fact that we've got negative yields around the globe coming on right now, the fact that we've got brexit pulling apart the political disarray in the united states. all these things i think are generating fear, keeping the wall of worry alive. >> you may be on to something. we'll see, jim paulsen thank you. >> thanks for having me. >> a lot to worry about. mohamed will be with us for the rest of the show. okay, coming up, a very big interview. he was dubbed the new sheriff of wall street, targeting insider trading. now the former u.s. attorney for new york's southern district preet bharara isut w oith a new book and he is talking to us next when we come back the latest innovation from xfinity

isn't just a store. it's a save more with a new kind of wireless network store. it's a look what your wifi can do now store. a get your questions answered by awesome experts store. it's a now there's one store that connects your life like never before store. the xfinity store is here.

and it's simple, easy, awesome. a follow-up on the airline adage we've been telling you about this hour. phil lebeau joins us on the "squawk on the street" newsline. what's the latest? >> reporter: becky, it looks like some of the airlines are finally lifting the ground stops they put in place for a number of their flights around the country. this appears to be a case of a glitch with some of the software from a third-party vendor. this is a vendor that supplies route mapping and flight data to a number of the airlines as they had that glitch this morning the airlines obviously grounded those flights and held them in position either at the gate or on the tarmac until they could get this issue resolved. remembers already seeing southwest saying that it's lifting its ground stop on

flights. but this is raa ripple effect here, becky. even if some of the ground stops are lifted, you have started the day with a number of delays. that's going to ripple for a while, not just with southwest, but really with all of the airlines but again, it appears that we'll start to see these ground stops that have been put in place at a number of different airports with the airlines gradually lifted here over the next hour or so. >> phil, thanks so much. >> okay. big interview right now. he was named the new sheriff of wall street, as u.s. attorney general for new york's southern district, preet bharara led the crackdown on insider trading, winning convictions on some of the biggest names on the street and now is out with a new book "doing justice: a prosecutor's thoughts on crime, punishment, and the rule of law. thanks for joining us, preet good to see you this morning. >> good to be here. >> i want to talk about the book and also what's going on in the news because there's a lot of it, and i know you have lots of opinions about it. but on insider trading on wall street and what you spent so much of your career doing, especially in the last couple of

years before mr. trump said thank you very much, i'm curious where you think we are now relative to then in terms of enforcement, because one of the big issues has been that there has been a lack of the kinds of cases that you were bringing during your tenure >> right well,obviously, we cleaned it all up so crime is -- no. look, it's hard to tell. these things happen sometimes in waves. you know, the insider trading crackdown began before i got to the u.s. attorney's office my predecessor and others in the southern district began to bring certain kinds of insider trading cases just likepublic corruption cases and we built on that and used additional wiretaps and brought a lot of different prosecutions what i found, whether it's accounting fraud or ponzi schemes or insider trading schemes, that sometimes the people who are engaged in bad conduct figure out other ways to engage in misbehavior, and they take their -- >> are you seeing more of this behavior today >> i'm a little out of the

business from the outside. i don't know, it's hard to say. >> what do you make of the argument that people have made about the fact that you went after insider trading? some of that was actually ultimately overturned -- >> but then the supreme court reversed that overturning 8-0, so mention that. >> but rather than go after wall street >> well -- >> when i say go after wall street, go after some of the biggest banks. >> yeah, so, we went after more banks than any other office in the country. we went after jpmorgan, wells fargo, all sorts of financial institutions with respect to the financial crisis, my office along with maybe 10, 12, 13 other offices did a lot of investigations, spent a lot of time. at the end of the day, we weren't choosing one type of prosecution versus another at the end of the day, there was a lot of reckless conduct, negligent conduct, greedy conduct, corrupt conduct that you folks sometimes talk about but to make a criminal case against people at the highest levels of the financial institution or anywhere else, whether it's the mob or a presidential campaign, you have

to have direct evidence of the people's mental state, you need a cooperating witness or you need, you know, an undercover phone call or something like that and of the hundreds or maybe thousands of people who investigated those things, a recommendation to charge someone at the highest level was not made. >> i interviewed rajad gupta on the show about a week and a half ago. he went to prison for two years. he ran mckenzie, was involved with raj rajarathnam he had critical comments about you. i want to play what he said about his conviction and the financial crisis and get your reaction to it. >> okay. >> guys, run the tape. >> i found it quite extraordinary that we've fined banks billions of dollars, and yet, somebody must have done -- i mean, they're admitting wrongdoing, right? and that somebody must have done that wrongdoing inside -- human beings dothat. it doesn't automatically happen. and the buck should stop at the top. so, none of the top management

in any of our banks did anything wrong. >> what do you think >> well, he said a lot of things in that interview. i appreciate your hard-hitting interview of him where he not only talked about as a pundit what prosecution should or should not have been brought, also suggested i went after him because i'm indian and he's indian and i have some kind of self-loathing complex, which is obviously preposterous i don't take a lot of insight from gupta, who got a light sentence, who broke the law, who doesn't accept responsibility for breaking the law and has a lot of excuses for his conduct >> but when you hear the critique, and it's not just his, about the larger wall street financial crisis issue, do you think there's something accurate about that >> no. like anything else, lots of people are frustrated at the mueller report because they wanted a particular result, because there's a lot of smoke around the idea that donald trump engaged in a conspiracy with his campaign with the russians, but the law's not so simple as that you can't just decide you're going to bring a case unless you

have the actual evidence to bring the case we did, by the way, against roger gupta, overwhelmingly. >> preet, you won't like my answer to this because i'm sure you don't think of what regulators do as shakedowns of corporations, but you heard what jamie dimon said it's just easier for a bank to -- if you had someone -- you were saying it's hard to prove a crime. i'm not convinced that you can go to any ceo of any of the major banks during the financial crisis and actually even intimate that there was a crime committed. not that you can't prove it or you need a phone call or something, it's just, that's not what it was. and a lot of the fines that were paid i think were shakedowns where'd that money go? it didn't go to the victims of the housing crisis >> i'm not actually aware of a regulatory action against a top bank official, financial institution official based on the financial crisis and they, by the way, have a much lower standard of proof look, when bad things happen, people want accountability, and i get that, and it's very frustrating for a lot of folks, but it's true, not everything's a crime, and sometimes crimes

can't be proven. >> and sometimes companies that decide to just, you know, that it's easier to go ahead and just agree and pay a couple of billion dollars than it is to continue with the pr and -- >> we were not regulators. we were criminal prosecutors criminal prosecutors have -- >> you don't want to be the new sheriff, anyway. what's the old sheriff spitzer do you want to be -- >> i'm a podcast host and i wrote a book the sheriff talk i'm not quite sure -- >> a related question. you brought up mueller in the mueller report, clearly, depending on what you believe from the barr report of the mueller report, you would think this is over however, you also worked in the southern district. there are continuing cases that are ongoing in the southern district what should the public think about those cases? >> i think the public needs to sort of take a step back, follow what the news reports, follow what the documents are that come out of the southern district, if any. i think part of the problem with the media -- and i'm a little bit part of the media now -- is that they raised expectations,

they try to read tea leaves. a subpoena is issued and people think nine people are going to get arrested and it may be at the end of the day, the southern district, which is an aggressive office -- i talk a lot about the southern district in the book, not just the insider trading issues, but if you want to get a philosophy of the southern district, people should read the book at the end of the day, there may be other charges, maybe not. i think people have to wait and see. >> preet, do you think we should just assume that barr is bought and paid for and a crony of donald trump after a career of how many years of -- >> distinguished -- >> i've never said that. i don't know who's saying that, so -- >> well, i don't know. we're questioning the whole -- and how about rosenstein when did he become a trump crony? both of those gentlemen decided, looked at what the obstruction evidence was, right, and both decided that it didn't rise to the level. why do we immediately write it off as trump cronyism. >> i don't i don't know what strongman -- i know i'm wearing a jacket. i'm not a strongman -- >> the question -- the critique, though, on barr has been that --

>> here you go. >> no, no, no. >> here's your strongman. >> the critique is that this decision was made in the course of 48 hours after an investigation that lasted, you know, years. >> yeah, no. i'll tell you what my critique is, and i've said positive things about bill barr i think he's a professional. i've dealt with him before you know, i think people want to see the report and particularly, they want to see the part of the report that's about obstruction, because bob mueller himself spent two years, and he said this does not exonerate donald trump. and so, the devil is in the details and you want to see what's said about those things i think bill barr does paint a nice picture of the report maybe it's fully accurate. it's hard for something to be fully accurate that's a tiny portion. you know, it's four pages of a 400-page report. obviously, there's a lot left out. i think people deserve to see the report don't you agree, joe >> i do, but i also could understand how people say there doesn't need to be an underlying crime for there to be obstruction, but i can also make the case that if there was no collusion to begin with, then by

saying, you know, michael flynn's a pretty good guy, can you just lay off him, or by saying, wow, comey did this, that, and the other thing -- and i don't know whether that's trying to suppress an investigation or just saying, look, there's no collusion, what are you doing this for the other question i have for you -- >> but you're making my point. we should see the report. >> okay, fine. >> you're speculating, too. >> we're all speculating we'll see the report -- >> actually, i'm not speculating. >> i think that if it was distorted in a way that mueller didn't like it, i think either he would have or one of his prosecutors would have come out and said that's not -- i mean, they came out immediately and dispelled that run report from "the daily beast" or whatever it was. >> buzzfeed. >> here they're saying i'm exonerated and bob mueller is not saying anything. how about the other thing? would you say there was obstruction with, you know, if someone meets someone on a tarmac, if hillary clinton's husband meets the last a.g. on a tarmac about wiping screens -- does that rise to the level of obstruction? what happened there? >> i don't know. is this strongman monday like, i've never argued that

i've never suggested that. >> have you seen this show >> yeah, well, not in a while. by the way, the day before i got fired, i was asked to resign, donald trump called me on the telephone. and one of the reasons why i didn't return the call is because i didn't want other people, including other people, perhaps joe kernen on this show, to suggest it was an untoward call because i didn't think it was appropriate to have that phone call so i didn't think that meeting was appropriate. but the original point, we should see the report. >> rapid fire with 30 seconds. on subjects you may or may not focus on, elon musk. i'm curious, as a prosecutor, do you look at what he's done and say there's something there or not? >> no comment on elon musk. >> no, okay. bezos, saudi arabia. >> that sounds weird to me >> weird to you. >> yeah. >> the theory of saudi arabia being behind it? >> all of it >> boeing. do you think there's something there? >> you know, we brought significant cases against toyota and gm when there were safety problems and lack of reporting about safety problems. i don't know, but if i were in the southern district, it's probably something i'd be looking at. >> and what do you think about

this nike -- what's his name >> michael avenatti. >> don't pretend like you don't know his name. >> michael avenatti. >> yeah, look, the southern district has charged him when they charge people, they usually know what they're doing. >> we've got to find a new guy for 2020 now, andrew. >> preet bharara, thank you very much the book is "doing justice." go out and get a copy. it's a fascinating read. we appreciate you being here this morning. >> see you later, sheriff. >> see ya! >> ex-sheriff. thanks to mohamed for being with us. it's been a pleasure >> my pleasure. >> thank you when we come back, a big hour ahead that you can't afford to miss, including white house chief economic adviser kevin hassett. he'll kick things off for us we'll be right bac

second quarter kicks off markets set for a jump as the second quarter gets under way, but can wall street turn in another dominating performance after a red-hot first quarter? the global streaming war discovery signs a content deal and a bid to keep viewers viewing. david zaslav joins us on the set this hour. and hot ipos, china trade and president trump's assault on the fed. hedge fund tightan keith meister is our guest, weighing in on the biggest issues facing wall street for the rest of the day happy april fools' day the final hour of "squawk box" begins right now ♪ everybody plays the fool ♪ sometimes ♪ there's no exception to the

rule ♪ >> announcer: live from the most powerful city in the world, new york, this is "squawk box. ♪ i ain't lying good morning, and welcome back to "squawk box" here on cnbc live from the nasdaq market site in times square i'm joe kernen along with becky quick and andrew ross sorkin, and our guest host this hour is tom farley, chairman and ceo of far point and a cnbc contributor, and obviously, had some experience with an exchange that will remain nameless since we're broadcasting in this beautiful place known as the nasdaq, the cutting edge of financial marketplace. the futures right now indicated -- you don't care anymore, do you? >> nah, big win for nasdaq on friday i don't mind you saying a word or two. >> up 203 now on the dow, up -- >> unanimous. >> yeah. nasdaq up -- looks better that way -- up 69 points this morning. treasury yields, maybe not surprising, given some of the china data and the great first quarter we had in the markets.

yields backing up a little bit now from the 2.35, 2.37, wherever we were last week, almost 2.44 on the ten-year. let's get you to stories investors will be talking about this morning the big one, mark zuckerberg is calling for more internet regulation the facebook founder writing an op ed in the "washington post" over the weekend, saying that governments and regulators should play a more active role in overseeing online content he highlighted four areas specifically: harmful content, election integrity, privacy, and data portability separately, jeff bezos' security chief now claiming saudi arabia behind the leak of text messages that the amazon ceo sent to his myth recess, lauren sanchez. an op ed for "the daily beast" said the saudis were intent on damaging bezos in response to the "washington post" coverage of the murder of its journalist, jamal khashoggi. bezos, of course, owns the "washington post." and the new month starts off with a very busy economic calendar retail sales for february will be out in 30 minutes

then at 10:00 a.m. eastern we get ism, manufacturing index, construction spending and business inventories becky. cnbc is kicking off financial literacy month with a new financial wellness and education initiative it's called invest in you: succeed, set, grow, part of our partnership with acorns, the microinvesting app we conducted the invest in you saving survey which examines the savings behavior of americans, and it reveals the surprising trend about how we feel about our retirement elon mui is in washington with more on the results. good morning. >> good morning, becky what we know from this survey is retirement is the biggest financial concern people have. 23% of those polled put it at the top of their list. next in line was concern over meeting everyday expenses with 17%, and being able to save for other long-term goals at 16% now, that sounds a little bit worrisome, but when we dug a little bit deeper into the numbers, we actually found a pretty encouraging trend, and

that is that people are growing more optimistic in their ability to save for retirement it's still a big concern, but they're feeling better about it. 57% of those surveyed said they felt more confident about it than three years ago and the numbers looked similar across the spectrum. 60% of republicans were more confident, 55% for independents and 58% for democrats. guys, the tax-writing committee in the house will be marking up a new bipartisan retirement bill this week, so this could be one area that both sides of the aisle can agree on back over to you. >> ylon, thank you very much for reaction to the survey data, kevin hassett is joining us, chairman of president trump's council of economic advisers good to see you. >> great to be here, becky, although i'm a little nervous about april fools' and joe kernen we'll see how it goes. >> we booked the show around that, kevin. welcome! >> no joke when it comes to this, though, kevin. you heard those results from that survey. how much does the administration spend thinking about americans

and their retirement plans and how ready they are >> oh, absolutely, we spend a lot of time doing it and i really pored through the survey, and i commend you guys for making the effort to go out there and shed new light on things i think right now we see skyrocketing optimism about retirement for a couple of reasons. one, incomes are growing a lot faster than they were. and two, equity markets have been fantastic and a lot of people roll their retirement savings, their 401(k) into index funds and so on. and so, i guess the question is, as this effort proceeds, you know, a year from now, if income growth slows, or five years from now income growth slows, then how do they feel and i guess we'll have to watch the numbers go up and down but i was really stunned at the numbers, that so many people are feeling great about retirement right now. >> although i was a little surprised to see that the idea of retirement is still a bigger concern financially for people than even meeting day-to-day needs, 23% so it's something americans are spending a lot of time thinking about, too. >> and you know, one of the things that's really interesting is that, you know, if you look at the tax cuts, one of the

things thatthey've done is they've made people stay on the job longer and retire later. and so, it could be one reason why, another reason why that we're seeing increased optimism about retirement is that people aren't being forced into retirement because the labor market is so tight. >> you know, you mentioned just the idea of people watching the markets go higher. that certainly is something that makes them feel better about things and something the president himself has paid a lot of attention to. >> sure. >> that's kind of why he's been pressuring the fed to cut rates. he thinks things would have been better if they hadn't at that point. does that sound good >> there is a long tradition of staying out of fed's space and i think the fed gets a lot of advice from a lot of people. the president has strong opinions he's been in an interest rate sensitive sector his whole life and he's happy to voice his opinion of the fed, but that's not something the ceh chair should be doing. >> we mentioned the bipartisan legislation moving through congress at this point what do you think of some of the prospects there? what do you think are the most important and most necessary changes at this point? >> right well, i think that as we look at

the legislation going forward for retirement savings that the thing that we have to note is that we've done a lot to protect the previous status of like 401(k)s and people's ability to move forward with tax cuts or lower tax rates on their retirement savings, and it's very, very important that we maintain those programs and make them stronger. but you know, i look forward to see what happens with legislation like this, we like to let congress speak and move in, you know, as it gets close to the finish line >> walter isaacson's here today, too, and i think he has a question. >> hi, walter. >> how are you doing, kevin? with the new economy, i started working this very zip code at the time life building and have a 401(k) after many, many, many years. but with a new economy, with fewer and fewer people in jobs that have 401(k)s, what do you do about portability and other type ways of dealing with retirement >> right well, i think that, you know, it was worse 20 years ago when there were defined benefit plans

that weren't very portable and kind of locked people into their jobs i think that there are a lot of opportunities for people to save on their own through i.r.a.s and so on, but i think that looking at portability, it's actually not that bad you know, as you might have noticed, i've moved jobs over here, and you know, my 401(k) from the american enterprise institute was able to move into an asset that is still there for me so, i think that portability for most folks that have 401(k)s is reasonably effective already >> hey, kevin, i wanted to ask you on a completely different topic, you made some comments last week about stephen moore, who is obviously up for this job to be on the board of the fed, and it seemed like you were suggesting that maybe his rhetoric would change in the future if he was in this role. you've spent a lot of time with him over the years, i think even on this show -- >> oh, great guy, yeah. >> -- and other places there's also been, though, some news over the past week that's been critical of some of the things that he has said, some of the positions he's taken, the

role that he played at the "wall street journal" in that he got fired from that role what's your take has that changed any of your views? >> right well, i have all the respect in the world for stephen moore. and the one thing i was referencing last week was -- and joe actually has kidded me about this -- that there was this time after people announced that i was the nominee for ceh chair where i basically just disappeared for a while. and the point is that when you're getting ready for senate confirmation, you have to focus 100% on that, and i expect that's the kind of thing that we'll see out of steve going forward. but you know, i think this idea that steve's some kind of partisan that's being put there to politicize the fed is incorrect. and anybody -- i'm sure people on your show know this -- anybody who's ever tried to tell steve moore what to think has not been successful. >> you don't think he's been partisan over the years? >> he's had very strong policy positions and anybody who embraces them he's going to love but the fact is that he's not a person who's a puppet or you can tell what to think. >> hasn't taken a democratic or liberal position in his life

i've never seen that. >> we'd have to go through them, but i mostly talk to him about taxes and he and i tend to agree on taxes. >> he's not ideological i think is -- >> who's not >> kevin, you are cheerleader for the economy. cutting interest -- or larry kudlow saying we need to cut interest rates, that flies in the face of the type of picture you've been painting about prospects for 2019, doesn't it >> i think that a lot of people on wall street have advice for the fed, and you know, it's not my job to step out there i'm still very confident -- >> you don't agree then? >> the fact is i'm not giving the fed advice about interest rates. that's not the ceh chair's job -- >> do you disagree with larry? >> i understand you're driving this, but we're looking at gdp for the first quarter looking like what it was last year for the first quarter and we ended up with a 3% year. i see a lot of strong data if you look at equity markets, they tend to drive sentiment higher, consumer spending higher, capital spending higher. everything that we see right now is teeing us up to have a year that looks just like last year where you have a first quarter

around 1.5% or 2% and a second quarter that takes you back to a 3% year and i don't see anything in the data that will set up -- >> that sounds like an economy where you would raise rates rather than cut them. >> we'll leave that to the fed we're evidence-based people. >> to the fed and stephen moore. >> thanks, great to have you here. >> thanks a lot. >> see you soon. walter isaacson is here and has a new op ed up on cnbc.com/investinyou this morning, all about the virtues of saving. our guest host, far point's tom farley, also a cnbc contributor. and gentlemen, welcome to both of you. >> thank you, becky. >> walter, i want to jump right in our you op ed because i loved it. >> thank you. >> you went back to ben franklin, who you've written about and you know very well. >> i always go back to ben franklin good rule in life. >> you taught hundreds of years ago and still stand pat today. what'd you take away >> one of the things i took away from ben franklin is how innovate he was. he kept inventing things like

insurance plans and ways to do savings, penny savings banks and i think that innovation for savings has sort of decreased recently when we were talking to kevin hassett a minute ago, it is true 401(k)s can be portable, but so many people are in a gig economy. they're juggling many things you should be able -- acorns is trying to do this, but other companies i think should try to do it as well -- to say i'm going to have a savings plan that maybe is actually based on my phone, and i get to put pennies in, i get to earn points, i get to go to starbucks, savings go in if i'm working in uber -- >> fall by the wayside -- >> and i do an airbnb, uber, also task rabbit at work and i work on the side as a consultant there's got to be better ways to save and ben franklin was always looking. he was a network guy he invents the postal system because he -- >> the library system. >> -- believes in network. the lending library system so, he invents things that allow us to use networks and

technology to increase wealth. he's a person, you know, a penny saved is a penny earned? that's ben franklin, poor richard's almanac. so he believes in thrift, he believes in savings, but he also believes in finding new ways and new economy can help people save. >> walter, we've done a lot of stories here about the unbanked, the people who don't have any access to banking. and it got much worse after the great recession. but it does strike me that technology has a lot of ways to kind of reach out to people that traditional banks maybe can't get to or just won't get to. >> you know, i wish technology would be as disruptive in this sector as it's been in my old sector, which is the media i mean, and i look around -- i learned about this after hurricane katrina hit new orleans. and there were a lot of kids who straggled back and their parents weren't -- you know, it was a pretty messy time. and the one thing i realized is there are a lot of people who are unbanked, so they can't get a credit card. without a credit card, you walk into a cell phone store and you

decide you really want a cell phone and a monthly plan, you can't do that. there's so many people who don't participate in the economy very well so i invested in one company called akemba, which allows people to give credit cards and debit cards to other people. i can fill it up with money so that these kids who are unbanked, at least can walk into a store and not have people try to shun them sorry, andrew. >> walter, even for those who are banked, oftentimes they're investing in high-fee products or products that are too risky the evidence shows if you save and invest in low-fee broad-based products, you'll be better off i never learned any of that in school, through 12 years of schooling. pardon me, 16 years of schooling. what can we do to increase education of those simple tenants? >> yeah, well, i think you want financial literacy and you know, when i first worked at the time life building, jack bogle had just started something, came up -- he came up to our editorial

meeting. i said, what should i do he said, look, if you want to spend a whole lot of time second guessing the market, you should do that. if not, a low-fee index line is for you. i think we need more literacy, but i'd still, if you don't mind, get back to becky's point. the people who are underbanked or unbanked are really the problem. they're going to the payday loans places it's not just that they're going to a high-fee mutual fund. >> very quick savings question for you, because your former magazine, "time," wrote a big piece years ago, australia, and the model they have for savings, which is to say that they force every company in their 401(k) plans, their effective 401(k) plans, to put in i think 9% if not 12% by 2020 of your pay. it's a huge tax on the companies, but it's changed the dynamic in terms of retirement in the country. >> right, and that's very interesting. but i think when you move to a new economy where people aren't joining corporations like that as much, that's harder to do so you have to say how can somebody who's trying to juggle

a couple of jobs not just depend on employer-based health care, employer-based savings plan, employer-based retirement plan how do we make these things more networked and portable >> walter, thank you for being here today appreciate your time. >> becky, good to see you. joe. >> and check out his column today, again, on cnbc, "invest in you." we'll see you soon. >> see you soon. >> tom farley will be with us for the rest of the day, rest of the hour, i should say rest of our day. and again, for more on "invest in you," visit cnbc.com/investinyou nbcuniversal and comcast ventures are investors in acorns. coming up, streaming the world. discovery makes a big bet on over-the-top content it's a new multimillion dollar partnership with the bbc just ahead, we'll be joined by discovery's ceo david zaslav to tell us about the deal and the global appetite fovir deo on demand stay tuned to "squawk box" on cnbc lies beyond the tech sector. it's about technology transforming every sector.

♪ at pgim, our bottom-up approach uses a technology lens to identify long-term winners. from energy... to real estate... to retail. finding such opportunities for alpha is the true value of active investing. and around the world, you have a partner in that pursuit. pgim: the global investment management businesses of prudential. the global i♪♪estment management ♪♪ ♪♪

the latest inisn't just a store.ty it's a save more with a new kind of wireless network store. it's a look what your wifi can do now store. a get your questions answered by awesome experts store. it's a now there's one store that connects your life like never before store. the xfinity store is here. and it's simple, easy, awesome. welcome back to "squawk box" this morning ride-sharing company lyft set to

begin its first full week of trading today, and i spoke to the co-founders on friday. here's what ceo logan green said about the company's dual-class share structure and what's to come >> we spent a lot of time with our board and investors to put together a thoughtful approach to governance. dual class being one of them we also selected an independent chair of the board and over the last several years have been, you know, making great effort to make sure we have a really diverse board coming from all types of different backgrounds. but collectively, we really need to set the company up for this long-term opportunity and create the type of durable growth that we're going after. >> let's show you right now how lyft is doing with one day of trading under its belt down from where it opened on friday but still nicely above where it priced. we want to bring in guest host tom farley, chairman and ceo of farpoint and former president of course of the new york stock exchange and also a cnbc contributor. you watched the opening, the rollout, if you will, and you

thought what >> two things: one, i was rooting for a successful ipo. >> right. >> notwithstanding the fact that it was on nasdaq, my old enemy, because when there's an unsuccessful ipo like facebook, it shuts down the ipo markets for a long time -- >> polite of you. >> not polite, self-interested, right? >> two, it was nearly perfect, the ipo. i used to say to people in my old role, the perfect pricing involves an 8% discount from where it will end up trading on the close on the first day they nailed that it was 8%. >> but why is that a perfect close if you're one of the retail investors who was dying to get in and you get it and you get it priced and then it drops immediately? >> so, the one caveat i was about to add -- you went directly to it -- if you had to quibble, they opened it a little too high, they allowed the retail interest to push the price. i probably, if i was in their shoes, would have waited a little longer, would have tried to wait out that retail interest, try to bring down that price -- >> how do you do that? >> what do you mean wait it out? >> how do you technically -- >> well, oftentimes when you

see -- preipo. so during the two hours in between the open and we had this with spotify, three hours. with alibaba, 3 1/2 hours. you'll see it go in waves. >> okay. >> you'll see the retail interests come in and out -- >> so you don't open it? >> you don't open it it may well be the case that they didn't have that window i assure you they were trying to get to a slightly lower number and weren't able to. >> and how much is driven by -- and i heard it because i was there with those guys -- the night before, people were calling left and right trying to get into this thing. it felt like there was this overwhelming sense of demand to get in of course at the ipo price before it launched >> right. >> then you're dealing with this next series of investors. >> right, that's nothing new with tech ipos if you go back to alibaba, i remember they priced it at $66 the night before and opened it up at $92. i ran into larry fink on the street that morning and he was rip-roaring angry because they didn't get the allocation -- >> the allocation. >> -- that they otherwise wanted. >> the big question now is uber is ostensibly up next. >> right. >> do you think of these as two

different investor classes, meaning you're going to make a choice to either bet on lyft versus an uber do you think it's the same investor it's going to be a lot more money, talking about probably $20 billion. what do you think happens? and how much does the fate of this stock over the next couple weeks matter >> with all due respect to lyft, it was a little, tiny ipo compared to uber lyft was probably the 50th largest ipo of all time. uber will probably be top five uber's valuation will probably be five times bigger, the publicity will be five times bigger it will be the same investor it will be every investor. >> except we had a guy this morning who said there's already a short book against lyft because people want to buy uber and short lyft. >> there's only so much capital in the world, but there's enough to fill both books i don't know if i believe that. >> you don't think the lyft story portends one way or the other? >> i think it's great. it's a really good ipo what i would be doing if i was dara right now is i'd be racing to file this week or next week i'd be racing to get out immediately after easter it would not surprise me if that was the case because they saw

what happened to friday. >> down 3% -- >> still up 5%. >> the joke is that if travis was still running the company, they would have filed thursday night ahead of the ipo, just to upend things coming up, discovery ceo david zaslav on global demand for streaming content and finding a way to deliver what today's media consumer wants, like the netflix of nonfiction, he's calling it. discovery announcing a big deal with the bbc just a short time ago this morning we'll get the details, talk next-generation video viewing ayitus b" tus.rern st wh so... you're driven, and you have a ton of goals... but you're stuck in the vicious cycle of credit card payments. it's time to get a personal loan from sofi. borrow up to $100k to pay off your credit cards, and then pay us back with one monthly payment. and it's all with zero fees. get a personal loan, and pay no fees. ( ♪ )

get a personal loan, and pay no fees. check it out, our unlimited plan on the brand new samsung galaxy s10. oooh. premium entertainment on the infinity screen! people have seven different premium entertainment options to choose from. 'cause people are different. like how you cut the crust off of your sandwiches, and i eat them. and i'm pretty laid back and casual, and you... iron your jeans. i'm actually very happy you noticed that. cool... that's cool. at&t has the only unlimited plan that gives you your choice of top-tier entertainment. buy a new galaxy s10e, and get one free. more for your thing. that's our thing.

♪ can i get some help. watch his head. ♪ i'm so happy. ♪ whatever they went through, they went through together. welcome guys. life well planned. see what a raymond james financial advisor can do for you.

coming up in just a moment, discovery ceo david zaslav on a big new deal his company announced this morning. plus, key february retail sales data, t jt nus.ouinusmite "squawk box" will be right back. e my portfolio. since i added futures, 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.

welcome back to "squawk box" right here on cnbc we're seconds away from february retail data sales. rick santelli standing by at the cme. rick >> well, our february read, expecting a number in the 0.3-0.2 category, as expected. we are -- oh, i'm sorry, minus sign small detail we are minus 0.2 and if you strip out the all-important gasoline sales, we are 0.4, down 0.4. so, this is really a bit of a miss no matter how you slice it. we do see some revisions so, minus 0.4, minus 0.2 i guess the best way to look at this will be the ongoing nature of all the confusion we had when we had these retail sales.

so it seems to be running a bit softer than expected revisions, looks to me like 0.7 now versus 0.9, and 1.4 versus minus 0.4. so we do see huge revisions. so, once again, this series is suffering from seasonalities dollar index down. interest rates, they're well off their last week intraday-low levels by a wide margin, so we want to continue to monitor that and any complexion changes on the yield curve. joe, back to you. >> rick, thanks. we've got to move on here because we have news this morning from discovery and bbc they're announcing a ten-year content agreement that includes joint development of new programming in areas like science, travel, space and more. the deal also makes discovery the exclusive home for streaming on-demand natural history programs from the bbc, such as "life, "blue planet. discovery and the bbc have a history together, co-producing

projects including the award-winning "planet earth. discovery is announcing big plans for a streaming service set to debut in 2020 p.m. joining us on set, discovery ceo david zaslav anything nonfiction -- welcome -- anything nonfiction streaming from food to natural history. >> golf. >> golf. >> that's right, as well >> look, the media's business is kind of broken in half the right side is scripted series and scripted movies so, disney, amazon, apple, hbo, showtime, netflix, scripted series, scripted movies. that's the right side. and there will be six, seven, eight of those between $10 and $15. that's kind of the ball on the soccer field, and everyone's running to that ball we're everything else. and so, we've quietly picked up all the golf we have the pga tour, the european tour, tiger, everywhere in the world except for the u.s. we have cycling. we own food and home and today we announced really

core to our dna that we're the leader in natural history almost everywhere in the world with discovery, animal planet and science, and we now are reunited with the bbc, where we get their entire library, and we'll be lauchg launching a direct-to-consumer natural history product which we think there's no more compelling family entertainment in the world. and we're picking up planet earth, life, blue planet, king tut in egypt, walking with dinosaurs. so for us, this is sort of like the marvel library not only do we have the entire library, but now we have spin-offs coming off and new series coming out of those brands that will be able to delight audiences everywhere in the world. and what family hasn't seen "planet earth" or "life" or "blue planet"? so for us it's a great opportunity because we're differentiated we think there's a massive market for this. but also, it's part of our mission. we'll be documenting the planet

from space to the poles to every species and the endangered species to what's going on in our oceans and you know, the mission of the bbc and discovery, to come together and document the planet this is the time i mean, more than ever because we all share planet earth. >> it's going to be expensive, right? hundreds of millions of dollars to get it to where you want it to be? >> well, it's going to be expensive, but it's the business that we're in. we're already programming and creating blue chip content we have big pieces of blue chip that are going to be coming in the next year that we've been working on for four or five years. so does the bbc. but also, it's dramatically less expensive. you know, when we did "planet earth" -- >> right. >> "planet earth" itself is about a tenth of the cost of "the crown." so this content is much less expensive, and we're the major player in this space. >> we said ten-year deal, but you get the library in perpetuity >> the whole thing is ten years. so we have our existing library

and all of our core ip, and then we get the bbc library and all of their core brands and ip, plus everything that they produce and everything that we produce for the next decade. >> what do you think of the fact that netflix actually seems to be getting into the unscripted world, seems to be getting into reality programming? they haven't gone directly at some of the kind of programming that you have, but how much of this is defensive in terms of trying to protect, put a mote around the kind of work that you've done? >> i would say it's really offensive in that we have almost all of the great natural history in the world right now we're on the ground in 200 countries in every language and so is the bbc. and we're now together the content -- a lot of the content that we're getting is coming off of netflix now and won't be going back on, and it's on with us but more importantly, the netflix brand, the hbo brand, the disney brand, they stand for entertainment. they're about scripted series and scripted movies. so maybe on the edges they'll do

a documentary about food or about home or about nature, but this is core to what we do and when people think about natural history, they think about -- >> you're in the advertising supported business for the most part. >> right. >> do you see a day where there's a subscription service a la netflix for this kind of business >> well, that's exactly what we're announcing today -- >> no, no, but i'm saying what's like, for a true price point that's not ad-supported? >> so, we're going to announce -- we're going to launch in 2020 a -- based on all of this great ip, together with a lot of exclusive content, and it will be less than $5 -- >> less than $5, okay. >> maybe it's $3 or $4 >> that's what i was trying to -- >> i don't know if it's a criticism in the "journal. it's sort of a low-cost piecemeal approach to trying to compete with some pretty hefty competitors, right >> well, look, 50% of what people watch on -- consume on tv and off tv is scripted series and scripted movies. what we control -- home, food,

oprah winfrey, natural history -- is the other 50%. and so, we think that this is actually massive the other thing is, what you can do with those subscription services is you view them. so you could watch "billions," which is a terrific service. congratulations. or you can watch "the crown. but you just view it if you watch natural history and then you're interested in what's going on in africa, you could then within our service, you can view a whole series on africa, or you can -- there will be podcasts on the serengeti or what's going on with the climate or what's happening with oceans. there will be an opportunity to talk if you're interested in space to astronauts on a saturday or sunday morning so, we view ourselves as being able to offer something as view and do, and that is compelling >> david -- >> when -- i told you during the break, this looks like a great deal it's a great library but from the consumer's perspective, it's yet another example of fragmentation

the consumer sits down on the couch, says what do i want to watch, and they don't know where to look. do i look at disney for this or amazon or do i look at at&t's new service? do i come to your new service? how does this all come back together to make an easier experience for the consumer so that they know, yeah, if i want to look for this particular product, this is exactly where i go >> well, we agree with you completely that these services are starting to look very similar. so whether it's hbo, showtime -- >> amazon. >> amazon prime, apple -- >> hulu or -- >> netflix they're movies and scripted series, and a lot of them have the same movies. so people from a curation perspective, which one do i want and it may be who's shouting the loudest on the new scripted series that they want. we're very clear and different so, if you have netflix and hbo, you're going to want to have the greatest natural history on earth. you're going to want to see and learn along with us as we document the planet. so we see ourselves as being

clear and differentiated, you know, in the same way you might have two entertainment services, but you might be in china or europe and you love golf, and you want to see the european tour, the pga tour, tiger woods. you want to get instruction. so, we're about powering people's passions. the rest of the media business is about aggregating entertainment. and so, we think we actually have a pretty open lane. >> david, it's probably worth pointing out that netflix didn't take a pass on this. they've got pretty deep pockets, but you had kind of an inside track when it comes to this stuff. it's not material nobody else wanted. >> right we had a unique opportunity, one because we have a long-term relationship with the bbc, and tony hall, who is the chairman, is a long-term friend and friend of discovery but also, when we acquired scripts, which had hgtv and food and travel, they owned a big business with the bbc 50/50, uktv and it was a partnership that had a lot of challenges to it.

it wasn't clear how the content could be used over the top neither party could control it neither one was consolidating it and so, as part of this deal, with we agreed with the bbc that we would break up uktv they got about 70% of it we picked up 30% we'll get about another $20 million in ebitda or more. but we get some additional channels, so we get bigger in the uk they get a little bit bigger but that was helpful to us together with the relationship. >> branding question for you netflix has chosen not to throw in with apple, in part because they want their brand and their ui and their interface and their relationship with the customer to be direct, right? discovery has a particular brand. do you ultimately throw that brand in with an apple or somebody else that's going to ultimately consolidate a number of these networks together >> look, we think we have something now with the bbc, with

our brand, with real family values, telling great stories about the planet, with greatest natural history producers on earth that's compelling. and the question now is how do we get to scale? how do we get 50, 100 million homes? why shouldn't every home everywhere in the world have this and we are at a time when being able to piggyback on these big platforms that never existed before so, is there an opportunity with some of these big, global platforms or with the big regional platforms the answer is yes, and it's one of the reasons why we have fought -- and this has been driven by the neuhouse family and malone and myself. we have a very different strategy we own all of the content above the globe and we see ourselves as a global ip company above the globe. and this is an example of that to your point, if apple, if google, if any of the f.a.n.g.

companies said, i love this, i'd like to tuck in with you and take you everywhere in the world, can you do it the answer is not i have to get clearances, i have to pay different parties. the answer is yes on golf, the answer is yes on food, yes on home, and now today, it's yes on natural history in a way that's really robust. >> i mean, scripts made you bigger and less maybe prone to being part of something else five years from now there's going to be a stand-alone discovery, do you think? >> i hope so i think that if our strategy is right, if we're able as a global ip company -- our traditional business is still growing low to midsingle. it's still a very good business. we're the largest international media company with a leader in sports outside the u.s., so we keep our traditional business growing low to mid-single, and meantime we own all this ip we're not getting credit for

now. the street -- we have a multiple as if we don't own all that ip but if i'm back here in three to five years and we have an ecosystem where we control golf and people hang out and they transact and they buy golf, if we have millions of global subscribers to natural history, whether we're with apple or on our own, i think we'll be a massive company. >> great david, thank you. >> great to see you. congratulations. >> congratulations. >> thank you guys. when we come back, hedge fund titan keith meister will join us with his views on m&a, hot ipos, u.s./china trade tensions and whether the fed is atckhe right tra th's next after a quick break. stay tuned to "squawk box. me. me. time for a new kind of cloud. the ibm cloud. the cloud that proactively protects your business from threats, instead of just reacting to them. that lets you modernize and move more of your apps without re-writing. that unlocks insights from all your data and puts it to work with ai.

get a faster, more secure journey to the cloud. the ibm cloud. the cloud for smarter business. ♪ ♪

we're finally back out in our yard, but so are they. the triple threat of dandelions, lurking crabgrass and weak, thin grass! scotts turf builder triple action. this single-step breakthrough changes everything. it kills weeds, prevents crabgrass for up to 4 months, and feeds so grass can thrive, all guaranteed. only from scotts. our backyard is back. this is a scotts yard.

welcome back to "squawk box" this morning a quick look at futures. we are in the green and in a nice way this morning. dow now up over 200 points, 206 points to be exact s&p 500 looking to open close to 20 points higher and the nasdaq looking to open about 68 points higher. the first quarter ending on a high note. the s&p jumping 13%. that's its best first-quarter performance since 1998 so, what can we expect in the second quarter joining us now is keith meister, hedge fund titan we'll call you that again just so you get more ribbing out of this keith, thanks for being here. >> thanks. pleasure being here. >> let's talk about the first quarter.

pretty phenomenal performance, coming off a sharp downturn in december, but what do you think happens now? >> i think your point is right, we have to set expectations of where we are starting from i think you had the perfect storm in december. the combination of the market perception that the fed was going to hike us into recession. so back in q-4, i think people were expecting five or six fed hikes between then and 2020. you had a trade war with china that was toxic i was on this show on december 6th. i think that was the day that the cfo of huawei was arrested today we have a pmi number out of china above 50, so a lot's changed vis-a-vis china. and as a result of the combination of the fed and china, market sentiment was awful. the capital markets were closed. many investment managers were derisking or selling ahead of redemptions. as a result, the market sold off 20% in q-4 so things are usually not as good as they seem or as bad as they seem. >> what does that mean if we overshot to the down side there, have we overshot to the

upside or getting back to where we should be >> my personal opinion is we're back to a fairly valued market there was a major pivot which can't be underestimated, which is we went from having five or six rate hikes estimated to today i think one, and the rhetoric would imply maybe we cut before we raise. so, the ten-year was, you know, 320 going to q-4, which caused this now we have a 2.40% ten-year estimates for 2020 haven't changed much, maybe went from 1.85 to 1.80, so the spread between the s&p earnings yield and the risk-free rate or the ten-year rate is pretty wide today. so it'd seem to me the market's relatively fairly valued and if you just look at a screen and went on a boat for the last five or six months, things are flat, earnings have grown, the fed's a little more accommodative, so equities probably feel a little bit better today than they did at the end of q-3, but that said, it's been a big run over the last few months.

>> the markets are highest they've ever been on an april fools' day right now, so things are clearly pretty good. if you come back three months from now, like you were here in december, and things have gone completely pear-shaped, what is it that went wrong >> it's a great question, and i think it's something either geopolitical or some unknown i don't think it's going to be from multiple. so, what's going to cause the earnings not to be -- what's going to cause the earnings not to show up what is that unknown unknown if nothing else shows up, i think the playbook we have is a lot of what we've had for the last sew years, which is the overall economy is growing at a tepid rate, the u.s. is the best house in a bad neighborhood, but u.s. businesses deserve credit because they're driving more earnings i mean, over the last ten years, we've had a slow gdp recovery, maybe 2% gdp, but s&p 500 earnings have doubled. so we've had, you know, 7% per annum s&p earnings growth, plus a 2%-plus dividend businesses deserve credit for

driving productivity and driving profits -- >> it's pretty good. >> and i think a lot of it happens because, one, no one comes on this network and celebrates america american capital markets are the best in the world. american businesses aren't perfect. they're better today than they've ever been. there's better corporate governance, there's more accountability, and been there is more accountability businesses are able to leverage scale to invest in technology and that drives corporate earnings >> how much harder today to find a company to go after. >> and more competition though >> if that's the narrative, it is a lot harder. i don't think that's the narrative. the narrative, i don't think it is a great conversation. shareholders own companies sometimes companies do things you don't want them to do. it is a very popular and progressive kind of movement once it starts it may have started with a bunch of hedge funds >> 100%. the biggest event to me in was

wellington coming out. i own the stock of bristol myers, i wish the company were sold or continue to invest by celgene. wellington has to justify its fee over black rock. if you own healthcare stock and you think bristol myers is doing a bad deal, speak your mind. i bought some celgene and i wanted to close. there may be some intended consequences, the next ceo makes sure he or her has their shareholders on the side now they have to and it is the only way they're going to out

perform black rock >> do you have a take on the ipo market, lift on friday and what it may mean or not >> first thing i don't know if it is a bullish or bearish side. q-4. we didn't have a high yield bond the market is much healthier all the company has one thing in common there is a huge change in makeup of what is a good point. for the most part, tech businesses they're changed in the makeup of what the market is going to be if we look forward, the components of the market is more driven and makes sense by technology do you buy lyft? >> we did buy a little bit of lyft >> how do you value a business that lost a billion, where in your model do you get a return

on cash? >> our investigation sometimes is valuations and capital flows. capital flows around if you get ipo. >> did you sell as well? >> yes >> you bought and soulld >> yes >> for businesses and tax environment, definitely more positive and wage gains at the low end we are starting to see the reason you had trouble answering how we are going to be doing this makes me nervous. everything seems more positive and 16 times earnings. i have trouble with the bear case as well >> so i adprgree with what you y and there are real winners in what you say and losers. a business who does not have pricing power that has labor cost that has to pass on raw

materials, they may not be as well positioned. >> consumers may be in better shape as offset to that. >> when i thank you, we'll get to cramer. we have been talking -- what happened to cramer we are talking about people been too negative there is been reasons to be positive over the past couple of months just with the overall backup and we get to china news today, maybe that is not as scary as we thought, right >> that's all correct. >> we have breaking news >> thank you very much for coming in. >> meister >> news just out from kellogg. it is selling keebler, this deal was imminent

>> all right,cramer, let's get down to the new york stock exchange how many times did you turn to me why are people so negative and here we are 2050 today on the s&p, at least once or twice of the week >> i think when we talk positive of the market, people must think it is political joke i love seeing larry kudlow on the set last unique, week, he a with us it is a pretty good situation. can you imagine if he did cut then you would get rid of all that yield curve stuff and we realize we are off the races it is a pretty good quarter. there is still people out there calling it a bear market quarter, joe, i don't see it possible >> so i read the tesla complaint

this weekend which means you read it a week ago it looks like a loser for tesla. categorical loser, the question is what will the judge do assuming the judge sees it as a loser, what is the risk for the tesla shareholder going into the hearing this week? >> i think judge nathan called them into say if this happens again, you are going to be removed. i think those are the two options and you are absolutely right. judge nathan, that brief was about how judge nathan was disrespected i think judge nathan's powerful jurors capable of ruling that he's got to go unless he flthrows himself on t mercy of the court i am suggesting he can go. >> go as in ceo or officer or something? >> we have to go >> thank you

>> i can't speak for the company. >> thank you, guys >> he's got a great video. >> all right, thanks to our guest at this hour >> thank you >> "squawk box" will be right back o you, we will. aw, stop. this is why voya helps reach today's goals... ...all while helping you to and through retirement. um, you guys are just going for a week, right? yeah! that's right. can you help with these? oh... um, we're more of the plan, invest and protect kind of help... sorry, little paws, so. but have fun! send a postcard! voya. helping you to and through retirement.

make sure you join us tomorrow before we go, we want to show you the board right now. the dow is close to 200 points higher and nasdaq is looking to open higher as well. that's 62.75 higher. make sure you join us tomorrow "squawk on the street" begins right now. ♪ good monday morning, i am carl quintanilla with jim cramer david faber is off welcome to april a nice start to the future we are going to look to see if we can break above the march high of 2860 we do have some yields backing up aroun