>> okay. excellent. i'm sorry. we try to hit the next show straight up at 9:00, and you know, the world can be going insane, but that's something we need to do, believe it or not. we'll have you back. andrew, i don't know where you're going to be here tomorrow, but we'll see you somewhere. becky, we'll see you there cnbc special coverage continues now. >> good thursday morning i'm carl quintanilla with jim and david. all coming to you live from separate locations, starting a little early as the nyc is set to switch to all electronic trading on monday. futures down, albeit in a limited fashion as economists try to quantify the impact we'll see. jobless spikes we'll get an 11:00 a.m. briefing at the white house, guys, and spring begins tonight at 11:49 p.m. jim, you know, what a range of

commentatoentary the last 24 hos whether it's acumen and dalio on one side you point is, no revelation 6:8. why are we not believing in science? you have been pretty consistent on that. >> what happens today if the fda approved a drug? what happens if they do that do we then start thinking about, geez, how much pain it will be if we print all these dollars. how about if it is approved and we say, you know what, i'm really worried about boeing. i mentioned that because it's front and center, but i'm looking at the fda and not at the fed, and i think a lot of people who came on this morning -- oh, damn, i lived in my car and was not doing so well it's not all done in fair weather. i listened to a lot of really rich people, some crying yesterday, today, talking about the end of days, i think the american worker is a little

tougher and i think if we get the drug, we get approval, i think we'll all say, geez, maybe this thing isn't going to last forever and we can tide workers over, and we can help the public health workers i don't know i don't really know. i have no inside information maybe it's not today that the fda does anything, but i feel like the notion that science is static and that the worker is going to go down and that the hedge funds, well, we should be shaking because maybe their fifth beach house has to go, i don't like the tone of the pessimists i don't like it. >> right >> don't come by my house. >> yeah, we're going to try to talk to as many smart people as we know. cuomo, governor cuomo here in new york, david, had a good point yesterday. where we basically said the episode is like this and it goes from here to here. we don't know the duration, but we do know there is a beginning and an end especially if, jim, if piper is

right, that the drug could be approved soon. >> obviously, as jim says, yeah, that would be a real positive, as we know, because if you can ameliorate people's concern that if in fact you do get this, you're conceivably really threatened, that would be extremely helpful. and perhaps also allow things to start to move towards, back towards some sort of normalcy. you know, jim, what i continue to hear, you hear so many things obviously, and it's throughout the day. i can only imagine what it's like for the two of you as well. so many people want some sign that would give them confidence, though now, in the financial markets, i mean, my sense over the last 24 to 48 hours, guys, the people i speak to certainly are a lot more fearful about the economy than they really are about the virus. and i don't mean to in any way imply the virus is not serious and we don't want to continue fighting it as best we can and stopping its spread, but i would

say the concern for the economy eclipses that for the virus, and they're looking for some signs of confidence from our government, from within the financial markets itself, so many different moving parts, jim, at this point hard to know exactly even where to look or where to begin. >> geez, david, i think that's a spot-on view of the conversation that i get is okay, what happens if boeing goes bankrupt? what happens if the banks can't be saved what happens if they're too slow this one was front and center a couple days ago, clorox, and the gloves now it's like, ookay, how many people are getting laid off? i want to look at it differently. i think it's really important when you have a guy like jim grant. jim grant, we know him as negative, but you also know him as a terrific guy and he's a realist. he's talking about things that could go right when the guys who are pessimistic and correct say listen, let's think about other things, it opens my ears to a

different line, what happens when we get through this when, and no one thinks it's if. dewe look at the companies with the clean balance sheets that are the winners? is walmart the nation's retailer or do we look at it like it's bread lines, and it doesn't matter because there will never be demand again? i don't know, david. i think you're absolutely right that the focus is on the economy, and also a belief that no matter what comes out of washington, it's not enough. i look at 90 votes in the senate to try to help something, and i come back and say maybe the politicians are less clueless than we think. >> jim, as you can see at the bottom of the screen, ford, you can see, borrowing $15.4 billion to offset the production shutdown we learned about yesterday. suspending the dividend. pulling guidance for 2020. darden, similar moves overnight, jim. i guess the question is, there was a good chart this morning about the dow peaking when deaths in china were already at 1,000. and even after apple's q-1

warning on revenue, really didn't impact the markets for several days, and when you have b of a trying to quantify q-2 down 12 and jpmorgan down 14, and alarian says that's absurd because what is the market's ability to sniff out the other side of all this >> look, let's say we see up numbers sequentially for starbucks in china, which we're going to, as kevin johnson said last night on "mad money" as they open the store in wuhan, which is ground zero for the epidemic let's say apple's numbers are better in china, let's say the government prevails upon disney and they open up shanghai disney, that's not yet going to happen, then we say here's what the other side looks like. it's not great, but it's not historically bad you want some irony. david is in a believer of irony. ford suspends its dividend, but woo we have a morgan stanley up

grade of tesla, because they have the wherewithal on the balance sheet to win again, i say, you know what, we have to think big and creative because that's almost, if i told you three months ago that ford would be good because they survived the great recession and tesla was obviously going to go under, that was what the narrative was, and it switched we have to think bigger than what we see on our screens because that was just in conceivable, carl, that ford would be the one on the ropes, the one that survived the great recession, and tesla comes out on top as the one with great liquidity. >> good point. i don't know if you noticed elon musk overnight suggesting on twitter he could start making ventilators -- >> is there anything that guy can't do he probably has a solution and he's just holding out for a little drama probably has it somehow that he knows how to cure. what a guy >> let's get to phil lebeau for

more on the ford news. hey, phil. >> hey, carl you guys hit on this a little bit. let me give you more clarity in terms of what ford is announcing it's suspending its dividend of 15 cents a share not a surprise a number of people have looked at ford, general motors, some of the major manufacturers. this question is coming up with boeing will boeing ultimately suspend its dividend given the fact all of these companies are facing tighter liquidity. it's also pulling its guidance for the rest of this year. we have seen a real slowdown in retail sales we'll talk about that in just a little bit, and then also, they're going to be accessing up to $15.4 billion from two credit lines. they have about $35 billion in liquidity at the end of 2019 we don't have an updated number, but $35 billion at the end of 2019, they have near term lick witty okay, not a problem, but keep in mind when you shut down production at an auto plant, which the big three have decided they're going to be doing effective either today or

tomorrow or in some cases phasing it in over the next couple days. that's the cash flow that gets cut off immediately. because automakers, they get paid pie the dealer. so as soon as a car comes off the line, and it goes out the door, that's money coming back in to the company. so onelast point regarding retail sales ford is also offering customers six-month payment relief for new car purchases. i bet you we see this from other automakers as well, because according to jd power, retail sales on sunday drops 36% compared to the same time last year and down just 20% at the end of last week i think we're going to see a big dropoff in retail sales. >> we can only imagine, phil, that would be the case, of course hard to see how many people are going to be going to the dealership to buy a new oo automobile at this point phil i have a feeling we'll see a lot more of, covering not just the autos but what is going on

with boeing. for now, let's detour and bring in ginni rometty, still, by the way, the ceo and president of ibm, although not much longer, but of course, will remain as the company's executive chairman these are extraordinarily unusual times. i could not ever really imagine think i would be bringing you in by sitting here in my dining area, but that's where we are right now. what is going on at ibm, and let me start if i can with the virus itself and the capabilities you have in terms of super computers and watson what are you doing that perhaps is advancing the ability of scientists to actually figure out how they can attack this >> let me break that into pieces of what are we doing i really believe private sector is going to play a huge part in shortening the duration, you and jim were talking about the economy and the duration

three things one, right now, i'm just looking for the cure one of the most important things you need is high-performance computing. we have the largest supercomputers in the world and they're at the department of energy i was out at one of the big health centers and they have lots of analytics they want to do to build the vaccines, the medicines. they need the high-performance computer to run it one of the things we're putting together is we'll be a clearing house, a gear box for all the high performance computing, whether it's at universities, labs, our own, to make it available. think of it as really accelerating the cure, be it the vaccine or the therapeutic the other big thing we're working on is all around this idea of can a consumer get a trusted sengs of data around covid-19 and what is happening cdc has it, johns hopkins has it, and i think you might forget we own the weather company the weather company touches half the consumers in this country. so we're looking at ways to be a

trusted source of consumer data, to get that out to consumers, even down at a county level of what is happening. and the third thing, i know this is going to sound simple, but we have been called and we have learned this from all the other countries we worked in already, because remember, we're not the first in this. we have a lot of learnings from china, japan, korea, europe, and making available watson chat bots to help the states and governments with their call times are two hours in waiting to answer simple questions those are just three big things we're doing. and put that on the side of just some of the things private sector can do, in addition to we have centers we're making available for hospitals if they are needed out there, et cetera. flip to the other side, you said what are we doing for ourselves? the first thing was obviously like everyone you had on is about safety of people, which so far, we have done a great job with that. but you guys know we run the critical systems of the world. at times like this, what is

invisible really becomes visible to people, that all those systems work so i'm really proud. our team haas done a super job i have hundreds of thousands of people working remote. we work on this over years to be sure that could happen and we have a lot of clients struggling still with how to go remote we have moved banks in days to go remote. in madrid, we had to take a million kids and get them on online learning. jim and i talked so much about new york city schools. commissioner tish has us helping, there's 300,000 kids in new york who don't have access to online learning that we're getting them internet connected. the first thing is about safety and then can you work productively remote? >> yeah, ginni, specific to ibm, obviously, couldn't have been in your imagination that this is how your tenure as ceo would be coming to an end, with an economic crisis coupled with a health crisis. your dividend yield is 6.2%. you have obviously like so many companies bought back a

meaningful amount of stock over the last number of years how are you feeling at ibm in terms of your clients and their ability to pay you and the financial situation in which the company finds itself right now >> yeah, it is a great question. and look, i feel very good we have a very strong balance sheet. and we have been working on keeping it strong. and remember, i feel like we -- you know, we watched what happened in china months ago as i go through the list with free cash flow, and jim was talking about balance sheets and liquidity. free cash flow, $12 billion to $13 billion. then you click down and say are dividends secure, and strong investment grade, and where pop over and think about at the end of the year, we already abandoned $10 billion of the debt in red hat, and part of the debt is for our ibm global investing business it's all investment grade as being paid back as well. you mentioned share purchase i have really, really reduced

our sharer purchase for a good number of years, and when we announced red hat, we stopped that so i feel good about ibm's balance sheet being extremely strong and us being conservative and doing everything we can to keep it strong you mentioned about pensions, and as an example, you know, of course, we closed our pensions long ago, but we still obviously pay them to large numbers of people our u.s. pension, even after everything in the market, is well over 100% funded still. i feel very good about that. and then, you flip over to therefore who are we helping and i look at, again, we have talked a lot about this. first, how to help people work and then the clients we work with, whether it's the banks, whether it is the insurance companies, whether it is the health care providers, what we're doing now is very interestingly changing like, let me just take the banks. over this last just couple weeks, they are doing modeling and we're helping them, and not only modeling, preparing that the volume transactions they'll

deal with can be 40% to 60% larger or the amount of risk analytics they're doing. even the retailers the knock-on effect of commercial flights not going means that cargo goes in a number of those commercial flights. we're doing analytics and helping them to get cargo to move to other places so i see the nature of the work we're getting called in to do, it's all around keeping those critical supply chains moving because it's easy to say keep grocery stores open, but back up everything that has to happen between that and a farm to keep a grocery store open, and those are all the critical systems of the world. so those are the kind of clients that we're supporting. >> it's good to see you and to hear you it's jim thank you for coming on. first thing i need to think of is what's going to happen on the other side of this we have so many pez missimists o come on. i'm looking for themes that are going to come out on the other

side, and i think one of them is 5g we'll hear from someone later about that the other is the strength of the cloud. and i think that you have directed the company toward the strength of the cloud. can you talk to me about a year or two from now, something that is going to happen that is not the end of days? >> actually, i spent a lot of time with the team already and how we helped clients with that and ourselves, by the way. so the amount of work that will be done in a remote sense is absolutely going to change and that is one of the things 5g enables, because 5g, the biggest uses are going to be in companies. when you do, as an example, a remote surgery today, you would be a little nervous because what if the connection broke up think about how many times as you have been doing these interviews, you wouldn't want them to stop at the important point. with 5g, that's not going to happen it's the same as your eye

blinking you're going to have the same real time experience, therefore so many things whether it's the way you learn, the way a factory operates, you walk in a factory today and there's cords everywhere david, you and i did that interview on 5g, i think it well accelerate those applications on the other side and it will change the way we're able to do our work, and by the way, with all that online learning, we're really preparing, you know, strong believer that there can be more jobs in technology for more people. and this is going to accelerate all those online certifications and the like that can come out there. i'm focusing as well time on not just health, not just on cure, not just keeping the systems returning, but what are the great new ways work can change as we come out the other side. >> ginni, i think your lasting legacy will be the hundreds of thousands of students typically from poorer backgrounds that have been able to be part of the new workforce. there's just a huge number of people who we thought were going to finish the school year and do

well, and suddenly, they're stuck in a position where they're not going to graduate or they're not going to get the education. ibm has already been so helpful. i guess we have to reach back and say what more can you do, because you know the kids need it >> yeah, look, just a couple quick things one is even starting, which you can do right now, as many kids still are in school, and as i mentioned, we'll be helping commissioner tish get 300,000 kids online in new york, thirst is how to get them to productively work in an online mode all the time. we're dealing with that with employees. a home office is a school room and for everyone watching who has any children, how do you get that to work effectively the next thing you can do, and we're working with the government on this, and there's a whole group of us, in addition to our individual efforts, we'll be launching a campaign about how to move into choosing something new. new ways of doing work through all of the certifications and all of the non-four-year-degree necessarily available career

paths in our companies as soon as we kind of get through the next couple months, we're going to be launching that and that, to me, is another way to bring many people back into the workforce, and while they may not go back into the job they had before, we can bring them to the digital side, which is more exciting for many people for us, we're going to carry on with what we have done with p-tech, almost 200,000 kids around the world now, which are six-year high schools coming online, and then this is for midcareer and others to switch into these professions >> that's a great point, and it leads me to my question, which is viewers are waking up this morning, they're turning on the tv they see the numbers, they understand the news flow we're in and a chapter where businesses, large businesses and small, are trying to solidify, protect, close down, retrench, but at some point, once we learn to adapt with all of this, there's going to be a race to start up again i wonder what signs you'll be

looking for to determine when that tipping point will be >> well, first, i want to make a comment on something you talked a lot about related to this, which is in part, every day, the news changes here, but the focus has been on when it comes to the crisis, shorten it but when it comes to what the government does with think of it as financial packages, stimulus packages, you know, being bold and being big. and it's related to your question, david, because the point is that as i think of what's required, and you say what do you look for tipping points, first and foremost, i worry about the individual level and the small/medium business, because otherwise, you're talking about a mbt ago, the large just get larger here so we have got to protect those two things first and foremost, and of course, critical industry but those. so when you say what am i looking for in a tipping point i think as a tipping point, it's bringing people back in. i think the kind of work people are going to do going forward, i'm looking at the companies

that don't have the resiliency they ought to have, don't have the ability to work in different ways they're going to want to go and do all that work and we'll be bringing in people to do that. >> ginni, finally, you know, you mentioned how you have relied less on share buybacks over the last few years it does appear that if anything comes -- well, so many things are going to come out of this period, but one is going to be stigmatizing buybacks. we're hearing it already, how many companies have bought back shares the former ceo of unilever tweeted since 2017, america's big cat companies purchased $1.25 trillion in shares, and he questioned as so many others are right now whether that was in fact a smart use of capital or simply a sign of the real economy being subservient to financial markets. when we come out of this, do you think as somebody who obviously also has been focused on the

capital structure of your company for years, that share buybacks will be relied upon less or frowned on more? >> i think what people are going to do is prioritize, have you invested everything you need to invest to so you can exist for the next decade, the next century, and you're going to put that secondary these are the decisions i had to make about completely reducing that to reinvest back in the business to grow a $22 billion cloud business i had to do that for those reasons. and to build so ibm would be here for the next century. i think that will become very vivid to people about the priority and order of where they put their capital. >> ginni, certainly appreciate your coming on during these trying times thank you. look forward to seeing you again soon jimmy rometty, chairman, president, and ceo of ibm. that transition will take place in the ceo role, i believe it's april 8th. ginni rometty. back to you, carl. >> thank you

>> thank you, and another eventful overnight for the fed this time regarding money markets, and i think steve liesman has additional news this morning. morning, steve >> yeah, carl. another hour, additional fed news of what they're doing here. you can't say they haven't moved fast i want to report this morning, the federal reserve increasing the purchases that it's doing. these are the outright purchases, remember that $700 billion program we told you about? it did 40 and 40 now, it's up almost double to $75 billion across a range of tenors in the treasury market and in the agency-backed mortgage market. i guess that's a sign that they feel like they need to come in and take more of that paper out. that's just one of the things it did this morning at 9:00, it announced it increased the number of swap lines out there, dollar swap lines with foreign banks, and added nine central banks so now there are 14 total about the number, i believe the

same number in the financial crisis now this is an ability to solve the dollar funding problem throughout the world, and of course, that comes on the heels of 11:30 last night, the federal reserve and the treasury announced a major backstop for money market funds so it's true, carl, another hour, another fed action here. we don't know if they have all the pieces in place just yet to really put the backstop on trade in the economy or in the financial system sure, asset prices will decline. the fed's interest here is making sure the decline is in an orderly way and there's liquidity to get from here to there. carl >> i'll take it, steve thank you, steve steve liesman, of course, with the latest on the fed moves >> let's get to a mad dash haven't done this in a while i'm accustomed to doing it kind of cross country when you're in san francisco as you typically have done every quarter or so. now we're just -- well, i'm in connecticut, you're in new jersey i miss you, actually, i wish i

was there so we could sort of have our usual time together mccormick is what you want to focus on for the mad dash. >> i miss you and carl this separation, morally, it feels awful. there's a downgrade today from b of a i think it's kind of emblematic of what i'm concerned about, is mccormick, they expect slower global food service. we keep saying these staples that everybody likes so much have some sort of hair on them yesterday, downgraded coca-cola. turns out their bottlers may be starved for capital. mccormick has a substantial food business, food service business. those have been not so great look at airmark. it's a shame because otherwise i know i had hormel on last night and they're killing it with spam i know your wife is not a big fan, but we subsist on anything at our place this piece, otherwise, franks and frenchs and spices, the

weirdest stay at home economy. i'm going to go against this mccormick piece. it was up yesterday, but the stay at home economy is giga gigantic whether it be zoom or hormel, we're hunkering down david, you're maybe hunkering down in connecticut. i'm going to be going solo in new jersey hunkering down big time with rice and beans >> yeah, jim, it is a good point. today, credit suisse takes clorox to neutral on valuation to a large degree. i loved your hormel interview last night there's reports today about if closing the border with canada, the degree to which that may impact shipments of agricultural goods which obviously is a big part of the food supply chain. how much risk do you see in there? >> one of the things that hormel talked to me about is of the chains out there, whether it be the supply chain for auto, the supply chain for aerospace, the strongest is the supply chain for food

hormel was saying listen, it's actually working i know that we have a perfect storm of negativity, whether it be oil, whether it be airlines, whether it be obviously the health care, ventilators, i don't know, but the one thing that seems to be holding up well is the actual food chain it's working and so i guess i could say it could be worse and we don't experience the lockdown like my daughter who is an english teacher in madrid, where they have -- yes, they're allowed to use real blunt force if you leave your place. it's almost china-like so i think that we have grocery stores, we have food it could be worse. >> nasdaq futures go green as you're talking you know, some of the technicians looking at charts this week say look, we don't care if -- looking for signs of health, you don't want to see

large moves down or large moves up so i wonder if you're taking some comfort in what looks today obviously early, tepid signs of lessening volatility >> that's fine at 3:30 a.m., we had kind of a mini bull market in the futures, then went negative at 5:40 and came all the way back. the knuckleheads and morons -- sorry, the people who are ill advised and trading those things, truly, why don't they just go play some gin rummy. it would be more valuable? the s&p off slater had the strongest negative reading, meaning the most oversold, exceeding the crash of 1987. i think that's important because it was a sucker's game to short 1987 now, look, we don't get anything from the fda today and boeing suddenly files bankruptcy we'll take out that, too, and those are just conjengtuconjectt what we want is not a big

snapback the other day, it was up big and it was a sucker's rally, but we need to see stabilization. we need to see the vix go don. if you look at the average yesterday, they were lying the reits said those guys were basically going to go under. restaurants, we looked at darden last night and eat, they look like they're bankrupt, and all i'm saying is that if you buy companies that have good balance sheets, you might do well here >> yeah. jim, let's get to the bell here at the nysc, where they'll go all electronic monday. we had a head start so we can get our operations and logistics down jim, a quick shoutout as brett fills in, to all of the i.t. managers and the hr managers around corporate america and small business to the degree you can work from home, it is a bit of a small miracle what we're able to do as a country, and

imagine that this crisis had hit without this capability. >> i have verizon on tonight to talk about the system that did not get overloaded i know david is focuses on 5g, that the i.t. people, unbelievable how about the public health people they're just out there right now. we know they're going to be ten times the number of peement who are infected because we're way behind look, i come to work in a suit david with the no tie, but we come to the desk those people, they ain't just playing with clorox. let's have a shoutout to them, too. >> guys, as the market opens here, of course, every day is its own singular event, it seems. yesterday, so many people calling to talk about dislocations and so many different asset classes. we saw yields back up, of course, in the government. we saw that incredible fall in oil prices yesterday a bit of a rebound at least the last i had looked. but that in and of itself, its

own incredible story at this point. a lot of talk, of course, about mass force liquidity events and various funds you might imagine is true, although there's also so much room for rumor in a market like this those that are running the risk parody strategies, big hedge fund complexes, people concerned about funding stresses there unclear how much, again, is true or not, but jim, during the course of one day, we can go through what feels like the events that would typically take place in a month if not even a longer period of time, given the moves, the volatility, of course, that you and carl were just talking about >> look, david, what that brings to mind is something you know better than anyone else in the country, from the hedge fund days when you made the unfortunate calls. what it says is there are people who are not in control of their capital. they're having redemptions or margin calls because the moves are so accentuated i can't believe it's people just saying, you know what, i don't want to own brinker at 8

i riley want to get rid of southwest air. there are people who are motivated not by value but by someone from the margin department who is saying get that money in by 2:00 or you're gone >> yeah, i mean, i think there's absolutely an element of that going on in various markets. there's got to be. and we have to stay focused on sort of the larger questions, too, in terms of the banks that are obviously there to some extent for players in the financial markets. those that are huge commodity traders in the oil markets globally then you get back to things like the airlines and the bailout that we assume is going to take place in the not too distance future, one would expect the government was out signing up legal counsel very recently to represent it in what would be a fairly complex structure then, guys, the bigger question, jim, which we haven't talked about today, which is what are mnuchin and company going to do

here in terms of getting money into the hands of employees out there? you know, jim, you were talking about this a lot during yesterday's show and it's not as though it's gone away in fact, it's only picked up steam. many different people coming forward with potential plans i'm hearing about them during the course of the day. people trying to get them into secretary mnuchin's hands in terms of maybe this is a better way to go or that's the better way to go. one that i would love you to chime in on because i talk to a number of leaders in the financial services community about this, who sort of seem at least to coalesce around the basic idea is as follows you would refinance the first lien and some second lien loans and bonds and the balance sheets of companies, not necessarily your biggest companies, but many of the ones we know about that have the frontline employees who are going to lose their jobs the employment loan would come from the government. it might replace the banks or perhaps it would backstop the banks. it depends and it would be equal to about 50% of the compensation deduction the company took on

its '18 returns. you could have an interest rate of 5% to 8 pefrs but it could pay in kind for the first two years, mature in five to seven years. the idea is get at the very top of the capital structure, replace the banks or augment the banks. and get the money to the employees. jim, i know you're hearing a lot of these plans i know you're talking to people as well who are in a position to actually implement some of these plans. when are we going to get something that happens here? because every hour matters >> i know. i just was going back and forth with the treasury secretary. they come up still with the president is determined to support the u.s. economy, and there are many great u.s. companies that will emerge strong we're still getting what i regard as a high level of, i hate to use the word platitude, but what you revealed is good for companies that are solvent, but put my other hat on, i care more about small and medium sized business i cringe when i hear we're going

to make loans available. that's all you need is to have a business that can't do business that's told to close where you then layer on debt so when you open, you close again because you can't afford the debt. i like your plan for the solvent companies. it doesn't do much for the companies that are insolvent immediately because the government is demanding them to be insolvent >> right, but jim, i mean, we know in six months or some period of time, we're going to be out of this, and they're going to be in a position to actually have their business operating again. you can infuse capital to those companies to let them actually operate. and the government steps in at the top of the liability stack >> boeing is down the most in the dow. if what you heard, and boy, that would be terrific, if that came out and they said it's available to greg smith, the cfo of boeing, then i think boeing would not be the stock that would weigh on the dow if the president were to call saudi arabia and say, all right, guys, hey, terrific, you wiped out half of our industry but we're going to be empty of you because when you're overrun by

the bad guys, we're not going to be there, you get oil back to $28.30 there's some things the government can do. maybe five calls, done by 11:00, fda comes in and does the drug, and what we say is why did we decide that 10 million workers had to be thrown out i like the plan, the needs to be put in action. especially we need to refinance in the first lien and extend any maturity, but it has to go to boeing's 2 million people. please do not think we're trying to rescue the ceos let them get no pay. >> it's a good point, and it reminds me of what marriott has said this morning on their conference call. suspending arne sorenson's salary for the balance of the year, reducing salaries for senior executives by half. temporary leaves in north america, cutting work weeks around the world and a pullback on essential spending. i wonder, jim, what your take was on these reports that kudlow

floated the government taking equity stakes in companies that need massive aid schumer requiring a commitment to lay off no employees as opposed to 90%, which was sorkin's idea earlier in the week >> look, i like anything that protects the workers i think that the big problem when you go back and look, what was the punishment from dodd/frank for the investment saids in the banks which made money, by the way. what was the punishment was, you know what, we can't keep doing this because the ceos made out like bandits so what we have to do is just take a look at the proxy see who the highest paid people are, and tell them, look, you can get this first lien, but you know what? that money, your salary, is going to go to the workers i know that's going to sound too much what is going to be done with corporations, but i don't think any of us care at thips point, we cannot have the fat cats make money at the expense of the workers i have to ask you guys, will there be a fifth home hedge fund provision?

because we have had a couple hedge funds on this morning who behold there is a pale horse, yesterday, too, and it's shaking because i think i don't want class warfare in this country. the way you get class warfare in this country is have billiona e billionaires tell us, look out, it's the end of days we have to be more focused what do you think of that? >> are you referring directly to ackman >> come on i'm not picking on people. this is jimmy chill. >> you have been on air for 15, 20 minutes >> yeah, it's all right. you know, this programming >> it was suboptimal >> i would say ill-advised along with suboptimal, but everyone is entitled to an opinion we learned that early on when we were in fifth grade. >> they are. you want to try to keep emotion out of it as best you can. >> thank you >> carl -- yeah. on this idea of the government taking stakes that i guess

kudlow brought up, in part, that was done, a great deal of moral hazard that was brought on by the banks and the idea that perhaps as the government would be in there as a significant shareholder to balance that. i'm not hearing that most of these companies, other than buyback stock perhaps over the years instead of using the capital in a different way, though it's not clear to me they wouldn't have been pressured to use their capital, so it's not clear they would have had oodles of cash sitting around, but nonetheless, they did not do anything here that is bringing this on. this is not deserved in some way. this is an unexpected event that has overtaken so many companies at this point. i'm not hearing a desire on the part of many that the government take a stake, in part because it's going to have the effect of depressing stock prices even further perhaps because of the delusion that would take place better to have the government come in to backstop the banks or replace the banks at the very top of the stack in some fashion for companies that need the aid as opposed to taking equity

stakes >> david is right. i looked at the equity stake idea i think that you can have the option of doing that if you're the ceo. but of course, obviously, no more buyback, and no more payment. no more ceo payment during this period that's what distinguished -- what did the bankers do wrong during the other days? they said listen, we were making $10 million this year, and we're not going to make as much. they have to take that away. i think you're right, david. i'm precipitous in saying equity stake unless a company says they want an equity stake i think you're cool-headed on this and very factual. >> let's check in with bob pisani who would normally be on the floor but we're trying to work out our future teamwork and logistics. he's joining us remotely >> who would have thought i would be here in my home rather than on the floor of the new york stock exchange. it's a microcosm of what's going on around the country.

its are essentially like a giant mall that has restaurants and stores in it the restaurants and stores are essentially the floor brokers and designated market makers out there. you can say we're going to close it and reopen this giant mall two months from now, but the question is are all the rest rauns and shops going to be able to efficiently open two months from now that was one of the concerns that existed about closing the nyc. and they did make the right decision as soon as there were any positive coronavirus cases let's look at the sectors. a little bifurcation, but not dram dramatic health care, consumer staples down, not as much as banks and industrials. energy was briefly positive, they have been pressing any rally in energy for the last several weeks. i want to show the broader markets, which caused so much distress yesterday to traders. most traders, i have it on top, the first thing i have on top is the s&p 500. the second thing i have is the bond market, lqd

that was weaker yesterday. continues to be weak today oil up, 18-year low, up today, but down big yesterday gold fractionally on the upside as well. that's not as bad as yesterday there was a lot of distress when everything was down dramatically, at least today, oil is on the upside here. mr. kudlow was talking about maybe buying equity stakes this has wall street in a tizzy. people are remembering with the bailouts where the equity got wiped out. it's a problem boeing is down 9%. the airlines still having problems they have to clarify this. are we just talking about government loans, $20 billion, $40 billion. whatever to boeing are we talking about loans that convert to equity? if it's a loan to convert to equity, wall street is going to have a different viewpoint because of what happened in the 2008 financial crisis. we keep saying, well, the s&p is 30% off its highs, and it is, but you want to look at the broader market

most everything else is around there, the russell has gotten clobbered. i don't think we have been emphasizing that the russell 2000 down 42% from its high it suffered small caps here in the united states, small businesses have suffered much more than the larger businesses. i think that's a key point here. finally, a little shoutout to nick coals who pointed out some of the disparities in the way these are weighted, the s&p is only 18% off its high, but the s&p tech index is 41% microsoft and apple. 21% microsoft, 20% apple essentially, because they're not down as much, microsoft is only down 11%, apple is down 16%, the rest of the stocks in this, which are the majority, are really suffering they're down a lot more. micron is down 35% ibm, 23% lam research, all the semi-conductors down a lot more. this goes back to what i call the politics of index construction you have to know what's in them,

and there's a lot of etfs out there that don't weight these companies by market cap. they weight them by other factors, equal weight, some of them weight them by quality, by earnings, and maybe that's another way to look at that, because obviously, you're going to get a very different result here if you weight them other than market capitalization back to you. >> all right, bob, talk to you in a bit >> dow down about 3% let's check in with rick santelli this morning as well. hey, rick. >> hi, carl. there is so much volatility going on, and it certainly seems as though some of these negative rates and low rates around the world are getting a whole lot more positive. let's look at a week to date of ten-year note yields and realize we at least peak so far at 1.27 yesterday. intrady, about an hour before the stocks closed and it tapered off a bit. here we now hover at around 1.12 let's look at what's going on

with regard to other paper across the globe let's look at what's going on in italy, for example the italian tens unbelievable volatility. boons, unbelievable volatility boons right now are hovering at some of the best levels we have seen it is unbelievable it's now on the sunny side of minus 20 okay, italian rates which were at 3% yesterday, around 1.82 today. you look at the swiss. the swiss ten-year, it was at minus 100 last week. now it's at minus 24 these are big moves. and actually, in a perverse sort of way, it will make recalibration of all global rates better remember, we have not really normalized on the rate structures economy to economy, large developed economies, european, japanese, u.s., chinese, since the credit crisis. and this is not necessarily a good thing, but it's going to put everybody on a much closer

footing. maybe the dark side is we haven't really seen europe or japan heal from some of this we heard jim grant talking with joe kernen this morning about that exact topic when it comes to foreign exchange, nobody is beating what's going on in the dollar. here's a chart going back to early 2017 of the dollar index, which right now should it close be at the best levels in three years. march of 2017, it is just so aggressive, it is really showing us in real time this unbelievable insatiable demand for dollars and it's not necessarily a good thing once again, i still say the amount of time we're going to spend over 100 isn't going to be long, but it doesn't mean we won't get up to 104, 105, 106, but it will moderate when it moderates, most likely, it will coordinate with global reprieves with regard to equity prices david, back to you >> okay. rick, thank you. rick santelli. take a look at shares of qualcomm this morning, the stock is down, of course, like so many others,

it's down roughly 32% or so over the last few months, but it's still up about 5% over the last year joining us now is the company's chairman and ceo, steven mall akauv. always good to hear from you, always good to have you. i want to start on the business itself and then talk more broadly about 5g what are you seeing from your customer base. what are your expectations you only recently raised your dividend 5%. i guess do you regret having done that? >> no, i think we're in a strong position from a cash perspective. and clearly, strong balance sheet. i think very fortunate to have that going into an event like this but in terms of what we're seeing from our customer base, you have to think about it from the perspective of where they are. we have a lot of asian-based oems we sell a lot into the china market what you see a little bit is

really a recovery with respect to the coronavirus, the impact of it. so for example, you saw big -- if you're just looking at activations of cell phones for example in china, in week five, at the end of january, you saw a big dip. that actually recovered by week ten, which is really the beginning of march so you know, they obviously had a very fast reaction to the virus, but it was very good to see that the demand and the activations which are essentially people buying cell phones and turning them on as returns, so it's really turned back to the same level that you had a year ago clearly, a very difficult time in february, but good to see that returning in terms of what our customers are doing, their supply chains are back to 70%, 80% they continue to prioritize, i think, technologies that are good for qualcomm, meaning they're taking their capacity and allocating it to new phones

using 5g and trying to figure out how to take advantage of it. everyone is trying to determine what the impact of the -- to the u.s. and the european consumer, but in terms of things we can control and the impact in china, you know, you've got a little bit of a bit of a recovery in terms of what we're seeing relative to what we saw in february >> steve, i've known you for many years you're an engineer you think about things in a linear fashion how do you view what's going on here in the u.s. when you look at the virus, when you look at what you're seeing in terms of shutdowns in the u.s. economy? how are you thinking about qualcomm, its position, and when, in fact, we're sort of going to get to your point on china, on the other side of this >> well, i would say you have to think about the things you can control and the things you can't control. as a company what we can control is can we take care of our employees and make sure the business continuity is there i think we've done a good job.

in an environment i think it's difficult to anticipate. so, for example, we have the majority of our development teams are still making progress but they're making progress from home a lot of that has to do with some planning we did to be able to work remotely we have people in the labs that have to be essential personnel, but a small percentage we're working from home and that's working we'll continue to work on 5g we don't think it will impact the 5g schedules we're working on which is very good. i think a testament to the good planning in terms of the consumer and what the impact will be to our business, the only thing we can really think about is make sure we have a strong balance sheet and take care of anything we can take care of which we will be able to do i will tell you we continue to hire we continue to add engineering talent because we're excited about the opportunity that's coming with 5g we have to make sure we're prepared to come out of this dip. how long it's going to take and all of that, i think it's very

difficult for us to add anything to that debate, but we have to make sure we're prepared to take advantage of what we think will be a good environment after we emerge from this period. >> hey, steve, your company is known as being, switch directions here, david got the 5g covered and what you're doing in the future, but your company is known as being perhaps the best corporate citizen in american when it comes to what you do for a city. how do you step up and help public health workers? they seem to be the ones the most exposed, working overtimes. we worry about small business, but i'm worried about the people who are in the hospitals right now for the ten-time explosion we're going to have. what can corporate america do? everyone looks to you because you seem to have thought about everything >> i think we don't have any special answers. i think we feel fortunate to have the opportunity to help out when we can help out we helped out in china to a

small degree i think everyone is trying to figure out how to do the best work, and you're right it's the health care workers and people that have -- that don't have the strong positions you might have if you're employed at qualcomm or others that you have on every day i think everyone from the business community is trying to figure out how to help people. we don't have the ability to manufacture some of the medical equipment and supplies they so desperately need, but i think providing direct financial help to people in the communities we work and live in is something that qualcomm will be doing. we're evaluating that right now. we're also trying to figure out are there things we can do to encourage people or make their life easier in terms of working from home or educating from home, a new thing that's happening now. a lot of people don't have access to broad band and they need some access we're trying to ebb courage people to do that. i know some of the carers are doing the same thing we will try to figure out the

best way to help it's an enormous problem as you know to try to support people. >> it's heartening to listen to your data on cell phone activation and supply chains out of asia. how do you calm concerns among people who believe that other metrics coming out of asia and specifically china are not reliable >> well, i think in terms of order flow and what's happening to our supply chain, there's a lot we know what's going on there, obviously our employees are back to work in terms of factory employees. our production we're seeing still remains. the real question is what happens with the consumer in the west i mean, i always use the analogy that i think the sun has come up in china with respect to the restoration of how they return to kind of a normal state. and we'll see what happens as people get through preparations

and dealing with what i think is still a ramping issue elsewhere in the world for us, you have to put that into what can we do and not influence. for us the best thing is to make sure our schedules are on track and make sure we take care of our people i think every company is trying to figure out how to do the same thing. >> yeah. they are you know, your stock prices turned around since you started speaking with us i would assume on the positive comments you said on the chinese market let me come back to your expectations it seems like on february 5th th when you reported numbers, you were talking about 5g mobile hand sets. up to 225 million. do you feel like when the year ends, that's the number you'll still be between >> it's too early to tell. everyone is trying to process what is the shape of the recovery and how long is it going to exist clearly there's a hole in the china market in february which has filled back in as i described. but i think it's too early to

tell as to what's going on with the consumer you know, in the western areas i will tell you tremendous amount of activity with the carriers, with the hand set oem in terms of launching devices. we launched a device with will go in the united states last year we did that remotely we had people working from home, helping to support the launches around the world dokomo announced their 5g launches with seven different hand sets two days ago we're obviously working hard to make sure that some of the larger hand set manufacturers that have key launches, they're going to be successful we're going to do what we can do and we'll see what happens with the market i will tell you we are thinking and still very, very optimistic that the long-term drivers of why we're so excited about the business remain intact, and in fact, i think the biggest issue you have to be prepared for is when this thing snaps back, it's going to snap back hard and make sure you're in a position to take advantage of it

we're trying to make sure we're prepared and be a good citizen and a good member of the communities we're in i think our teams are helping us do a good job. >> i got a lightning round call today on qualcomm. i looked at the dividend and your stock i forgot it had fallen so much i said just buy. you're at the forefront of 5g. let me ask about national security china has come out of this they're opening starbucks in wuhan. are we falling in danger of really falling behind in 5g just because of where we are as a nation right now and what we're doing with our issues involving covid-19 >> well, i would tell you we have probably as good a lens into that as any company given what we're doing and i can tell you that we are not falling behind in our 5g development due to some great work in terms of quick planning. just to give you a sense for what's going on, we have the ability to remotely log into all

the chips we do around the world. we've had i think on monday, which was the first day of our i would say worldwide work from home, we had 35,000 vpn connections with 37,000 total employees. a tremendous amount of work continues to go in 2 million microsoft team messages -- that's people debugging code and continuing to do it forward. in terms of our ability to remain a leader in 5g and keep our schedules and do it, based on what i see at qualcomm, we're going to be continuing to be in a strong position. and we feel good about that. some of that is the way in which we work, but also we're excited about the opportunity and we'll continue to work on it i wouldn't call that a big concern. i think the biggest concern is how do we take care of some of the 70% of the economy that's trying to figure out how to deal with the virus and probably not in as strong a position as we feel like we can be in >> yeah.

steve, it is interesting to note, obviously, that your stock prices reacted positively since you began speaking i think you're up roughly 10 % rare to see. but qualcomm shares up over 6% let me end, though, on share buybacks, because it may in the future become a nasty word and one that is not going to be embraced by people in your position you undertook one years ago for any number of reasons. you've also had activists come at you you still have a decent amount left on your authorized buyback. do you suspend that buyback out of caution right now >> well, if you just to recall, we had a very large buyback over the last year. of course, we thought that it was at a time when the stock was undervalued. i think what happened was that ultimately became true we're obviously in an unusual situation right now. today we're looking at the dividend in terms of being

something that we know we can handle at least in the current environment. we have a strong balance sheet and investment grade rating. and i think for us, it's maintain your liquidity, make sure you can continue to be strong in 5g, and if we see an opportunity to buy stock at the right time, we will. but our focus right now is making sure that our 5g programs are on track and that we continue to maintain a strong balance sheet. and we're in a fortunate position to be able to do that >> yeah. well, steve, always appreciate your willingness to come on with us steve is the ceo of qualcomm carl and jim, back over to both of you >> that was good stuff >> verizon tonight >> two great guests. thank you. i got verizon. continuing my theme about what's going to come out on the other side, verizon is huge for the other side vm ware is cloud on the other side, and then a company, cyber

security for the cloud i'm trying to build portfolios of what happens when we beat covid-19 rather than just cry and say this is the worst thing in history just a little optimism there i got my collorox out. sold out nationwide. good thursday morn we're with morgan brennan and david faber live from separate locations as we put social distancing into effect as the new york stock exchange gets set to go all electronic beginning on monday. data to start the hour let's get to rick santelli >> our february read on leading economic indicators. expect it up one tenth of one percent. last month was strong up .8, and it was downgraded to up .7 those are solid numbers.

but, of course, maybe the effects of coronavirus haven't hit this particular data set yet. i will point out that the curve continues to steepen with short maturities under pressure. longer maturities are unchanged. carl, back to you. >> all right rick, thank you very much. about 300 points off the initial lows on the dow. obviously not a good morning once again but mike, within a more i guess normal range if you're going back to the end of february here and the volatility index trying to see, has trouble busting out of the 70s >> yeah. i mean, there's some natural constraints on that, carl. i mean, i do think you could look at yesterday's action you could kind of make a list of things that showed a little bit lower selling intensity than, for example, we saw last thursday we've been believe it or not, kind of hashing around a similar range for the last five or six trading days even though it doesn't feel like it

it feels like we traveled a farther distance it doesn't mean it's strong or it's setting the floor but it means there's a little bit of evidence of slightly less heavy selling. i keep talking about the vix at these levels above 80. that implies a daily move of 5 to 6 or something percent. if you get something less, that's a drag on the vix itself. but i still think traders are watching closely outside of equities what's going on the dollar rally which seems kind of squeezy and forced and furious and the fed's efforts to try and get other parts of the money markets and fixed income markets in better working order and allow banks to share the fed's balance sheet, loosen things up. so i think that's why it's touch and go, and everybody who thinks that a one-third drop in the value of u.s. equities in a month's time is overdone is nervous about acting on that it seems like things are fouled at the moment in terms of the

operations of the markets themselves and the signals we're getting from them. >> right when you're looking at -- again, the 2008 play books are a little wobbly the situations are so different regarding the participation of the banks, the origination of the problem to begin with, obviously it's health concerned. it's global. but are you seeing signs that correlations are beginning to break down between stocks, things you would look for to get to a point where you could say we're marching our way toward a near-term bottom >> i think only tentatively are you seeing things like that. i don't think yesterday -- even though we see walmart being able to rally, we're redefining what a rush to safety is right now. i do think we can kind of look for those things within the market after today's close i mean, jpmorgan being down 6% to me is not compatible with a

statement of confidence that we found some kind of core value. and that's what's going on this morning. so i don't think that the market needs to be any more scared in the short-term i don't think the market needs to kind of have more liquidation to show that people are basically on their heels to stage some kind of a stand here and try to put in a floor, but there's a lot of other ingredients that aren't necessarily coming together. nobody thinks we have gotten to a core value and you talk about 2008, one thing that's also similar is that we see whole industries very much going from being structurally challenged to being existentially threatened we're looking to washington to see if we should make bets on them or against them that's a similar feel even if it seems as if the market's probably done enough on the downside to account for a lot of economic pain. >> yeah. you know, mike, i wonder during the course of the day, some of

the dislocations we've seen various asset classes and a lack of correlation at all, these big risk party funds that are running different strategies in different areas can't get anything hedged, it would seem to me. there's liquidations taking place. i guess i'm wrapping this up and saying there are moves going on right now that have nothing to do with fundamentals or people's view it's a result of moves to safety, inability to hedge, and funding stresses coming from all over the place >> exactly i mean, if you're trying to read the signals coming from the various markets and you were somebody who felt as if my treasury holding should act as a hedge to my equities, it's not working. you step back, reduce exposures in general and that's sort of a feedback loop that has been in motion for a little while right now. you see also things like plain vanilla fixed income bond funds trading at huge discounts to

their net asset value because of mass it outflows or because the market making function normally keep these things tight are not working. that's been going on for a few days i think that's why the fed, they're going to keep trying things, keep pulling things out of the tool box and see if one or two of them work better >> in terms of where we have historically seen a relationship and i'm thinking back to between different asset classes and thinking back to 2014, 2015, 2016 the last time we saw a collapse in crude prices we saw those types of prices moving in correlation with equities. i realize you're seeing a bounce in the energy complex. a little bit of one today. given the fact that we're at dressed levels, how much is that weighing on the broader market as well? >> yeah. it fits right in, morgan if you did a chart, i think we put one together u.s. dollar index against gold, oil, corporate bond prices and stocks, it's just dollar up, and everything else down a lot

now, the move in crude oil is obviously kind of breathtaking with other drivers it reinforces the other things in motion whether it's concerns about the real economy and how it's going to function people talking about running out of storage it's extraordinary stuff that's more just another pressure point on top of what we've already been trying to absorb >> we'll continue the market's conversation on the phone line jpmorgan's chief economist and citi's chief u.s. strategist if i'm reading this note correct, you're expecting gdp in the u.s. in the second quarter to drop 14%? >> i can see it. >> that's correct. >> how do you get to that number >> well, you basically shut everything down in march and

april. obviously it's not just the u.s. it's happening in western europe it's increasingly happening across the world we have this enormous disruption that is not limited just to spending on entertainment and travel it's spreadingout to closing industries and it does enormous damage not just to gdp but the led markets. we saw the first step of that in today's jobless claim numbers. i don't think right now there is really any question that we're going to have an intense hit and it's going to take second quarter growth down a lot. the real question is how long does it last and how do we recover from it? right now we still have a decent recovery in the second half of the year it incorporates a fading of the virus drags and an opening up of activity, but still some important lingering damage in credit markets and industries that have been hurt. the question is can we stem the damage being done in a way that those lingering effects are just limited? >> yeah. in the meantime, today the s&p

right now is basically right around the flat line 2396 is the level currently it's trading at looking at one of your recent notes, you've reduced your s&p target for the year to 2825 from 3375 much lower but still represents some up side how are you forecasting? what is your modelling for that? >> so we're looking at nine to 12 ways of achieving that. what i would say is that for starting from a lower base it's one of the problems the earnings estimates as well i mean, i share the comments about duration, how long does this last? and if it's four to six weeks, that's fine. if it's four to six months, there may be more pain one of the things that's interesting to us is when you look historically on trailing earnings as opposed to forward earnings which are the place where we have the biggest difficulty forecasting, on trailing earnings between 14 and

16 times estimates or actual results, rather, has been kind of the second best place to buy the market over the past 80 years in terms of subsequent market performance that would be somewhere between 2300 and 2600 on the s&p where we are right now suggests valuations reflecting a lot of bad news and even if we run numbers suggesting recession recalls of maybe 130, $135 on the earnings estimates, we can still see markets in the 2400 to 2500 range. in that context, there is some opportunity here the problem is that sentiment is still not in panic territory in january. we were warned 70% probability of downside to the market. we were fairly neutral now we're not in panic level and not measuring emotional states we're measuring where people are

positioned i know it's shocking but we haven't gotten to people kind of giving up. everyone is looking for the bottom everyone is looking for where the opportunities for the bounceback is. there has to be a level of disgust and revulsion toward equities to really hit the bottom >> and tobias, for goldman, that number is 2000 on the s&p mid year do you have a number like that >> we don't, but i would suggest that if you break the -- i'm not a chartist or technician, but a lot of our clients look at the charts carefully if you break the levels we saw in december of '18, i know our technicians are talking about potentially seeing 2100 as the next level where there can be some support again, it's not where we come from from a fundamental perspective, but i can look at the charts as easily as anybody else does. i think there's an element of people saying if i've got nothing else to look at, i'm going to look at the chart >> bruce, i'm curious what you

think the fed response right now, the fiscal response, all these different phases in terms of bills that are being drafted by the federal government right now. some of these other actions, how much that could actually quell the worst of the economic damage here in the u.s. and how that factors in >> so i think what the fed is doing is very important and very helpful, not just in easing policy, bringing rates to zero but also in terms of trying to make sure markets are functioning really stemming the tide of pressures in the treasury market now beginning to move into some other areas as well, commercial paper, specific i think right now the really big issue is there's a lot of pain that's going to be felt in a very concentrated way in company space and people losing their jobs we need to not just get fiscal stims yuls but targeted health i think we need to look at how quickly and how effective will

the targeted benefits come i think the jury is still out on that it will be an important factor in terms of how quickly and how strongly we can recover from what's going on a big hole in the second quarter >> all right i hope you're wrong. i really do. >> i do too. >> tobias and bruce, thank you for joining us today >> thank you >> thank you we are getting some headlines that reinforce realism when it comes to hotels. the marriott conference call seema has it >> the call was scheduled late last night marriott taking a number of bold steps here halting share buybacks, suspending the cash dividend and the ceo's pay for 2020 the company also reducing salaries for the senior executive team by 50%. all of this coinciding with a very sharp decline in shares of marriott at one point it was down as much as 30% in

yesterday's trade where was addressed. >> looking more deeply, the markets are understandably looking for assurance that we will survive why do i say this? because there is no other rational explanation for the selloff on our stock none of us can know how long this will last we think it very likely the crisis is well behind us sometime in 2020 or early in 2021 at the latest >> the stock recovering a bit in today's trade. the cfo of marriott addressing balance sheet and liquidity concerns following the sharp decline at hotel occupancy around the world mentioning the 4 .5 billion. it's tapped about 2.5 billion to support the repayment of commercial paper that's something to keep in mind carl, in terms of some encouraging news if you want to call it that, the company is saying occupancy rates in china are beginning to rise, al bee it

slowly they've gone from 90 hotels in greater china closed at the height of the coronavirus outbreak, and right now they're under 30 closed today. back to you. >> interesting, seema. coming on the heels of our conversation with qualcomm it will be nice if we can assemble anecdotes like that >> crude at 22 .60 off the third worst session ever senator -- thank you for joining us >> thank you >> thank you >> harold, looking at a release out of continental, a 55% cut, expects cash flow neutral under 30 per barrel, wti how would you characterize u.s. producer's ability to adapt in this short time? >> well, we can't adapt --

>> harold, let me start with you. >> okay. jim is right you can't adapt to this type of scenario so we do the best we can, and national security interest, that's what it is. the irony of this is that we're over there defending their national security. i'm talking about saudi arabia, and here they are undermining ours over here so we can't allow that to happen they picked this time of this global pandemic to try to undermine us, and it can't happen i'll let jim go from there >> jim, how does this carry on the hill >> well, i don't know how it carries on the hill. i know how it carries in oklahoma and in the united states i'm the chairman of the senate armed services committee i'm very much concerned. i don't want to get us in a position where we're depending upon importing oil for our ability to defend america, to fight a war and run our economy.

that's what we're faced with right now. and i'll be the bad guy and tell you that i sent a letter to secretary ross, secretary of commerce, and said that we would like to have him start the process of imposing 232 tariffs. that's the national security tariffs that he has. first, he has to determine that dumping is taking place. we know dumping is taking place. we even know from some of the russian people that there a reason for this. and that is to get us to be dependent upon them. we can't let that happen i'm going to recommend that we impose 232 tariffs to preclude that from happening so we don't become dependent upon saudi arabia or russia or anybody else for our ability to run this country. >> harold, are there -- i mean, given the environment we're in, it's hard to imagine this scenario, but what happens if there is recovery and we go from

oversupply to undersupply? how much risk is there in that >> well, you know, you always deal with that you know, the good thing about this situation that jim just talked about is we have an agency that is charged with protecting american interests such as this so that's a good thing we have a secretary of commerce that understands and can deal with this quickly. we talked with him obviously with the armed services committee moving forward to take charge here and also the commerce committee and the senate you know, they can move very, very quickly and stop this situation that's been imposed on us >> senator, i appreciate the national security argument, and all of this and certainly you go back a couple decades, and i think back to the opec oil embargo. we know how important energy

independence is to national security i recognize that we're at record levels of production in the u.s. and exporting crude all over the world, et cetera but in general, from a refining infrastructure standpoint, we still are importing quite a number of barrels right now because of how those refiners are structured and how also the ability to get crude to different parts of the country is set up right now. what do you do about that situation? >> well, we're -- the exporter, that's where that is at. we'll always import some, because there's refineries that are owned by foreign entities. canada has a number of those you'll always be importing some barrels for some types of crude. but we're a net exporter have been in the past year >> yeah. senator, i want to get your thoughts on this too, as you do bring this petition, this request for section 232 to the commerce department. >> yes

well, that request to answer your question earlier that was asked, i wasn't sure it was asked of me or harold, but you know, we can impose the tariffs. and then we can change that. now, if something should happen to the market where it's no longer necessary, we wouldn't impose tariffs we just don't want to -- as it is rieght now, we cannot continu to produce the oil that we have to have to run this country, and we would depend on people like russia and like saudi arabia we can't let that happen >> mr. hamm, it's david faber. there are going to be any number of millions of people in this country who aregoing to need help in the not too distant future because they're losing their jobs one can imagine them asking why should a company like yours where you are an unhedged production company be helped out more than any other?

you are reaping what you sew >> well, david, first of all, we're not asking to be helped out. we have an agency that that's their job. that's what they do. we're not asking for a handout nobody is. we've delivered something here that was unheard of, and that is bringing up production this national energy renaissance has been tremendous for the american people. we're going to have low prices for the foreseeable future we're not asking any handout that's not what we're doing, but i think -- >> let me respond. >> it's unfair what's going on >> yeah. let me just respond to that, because you know, if the industry goes down, nobody is going to be working. so this -- that is -- a lot of jobs are depending upon our ability to be able to produce domestically and that is very consistent to

the things we're voting on right now as we speak. >> you're on a short list of senators who voted against this fiscal package and i'm sure you'll take a lot of heat for it do you want to explain why you did that >> yeah. at the time we were a state of small business, and the way they handled small business, they said you in the small business will have to support your employees, and you won't get reimbursed untilsomewhere between a few weeks or a few months they can't survive that young. we spent all day the last five or six days talking to our small employers and we're trying to keep them alive. all we have to do is make a change which we're going to make, i believe today, on the vote today, for those individuals who are taking care of their employees will get reimbursed prior to the time they are out the money it's a matter of cash flow, not

a matter of changing the amount of money >> yeah. the devil's in the details >> right now we are a huge - sm. 99% of our activity is out of small business in the state of oklahoma and we're going to help the employees and the employers, and that will be taken care of in the vote that we'll be taking this afternoon >> yeah. and certainly the devil is in the details and employers are feeling the pain just as much as employees. it brings me to my question for harold that's the contact that continental resources put out an update one of the things outlined is the average rate count is going to go from 9 to 3 in the bakken. 4 to 10 1/2 in oklahoma when you see rigs go up or down, it translates to quite a number of jobs. what are we already seeing in terms of some of those issues,

some of those potential layoffs for workers in the oil patches right now? >> well, it's drastic. halliburton just announced a large furlough yesterday the good thing about is, the furlough, they're not laying those people off you know, we're seeing it everywhere in wichita, i think that layoff furlough was 700,000 jobs. so it's crossed a lot of industries, and these are contracts that people out there with rigs and oil service equipment and all that, and it's devastating. >> yeah. to put that in perspective, mr. hamm, what is the oil price that you would need right now for continental not break even per well, but for you to actually earn a return at the corporate level? >> well, you know, we just put out a budget at this level that

would be cash flow positive at $30. you know, we have great properties we're a strong company we can weather this storm, but it's -- we need to correct this situation. that's what we're trying to do we've asked through the armed service committee, asked the congress committee to fix this trade situation and we believe we'll do it. this thing could end quickly it's unheard of that somebody come in with a global pandemic and try to take advantage of american companies here and break this industry. we're not going to let that happen >> harold, we appreciate your time senator, thank you as well we hope to talk to you soon. harold hamm and senator inof >> how is up about 75 points >> carl, thank you as the u.s. is attempting to flatten the curve, the infection

curve, our meg is looking at what lessons we can learn from china and italy. meg? >> morgan, we're all wondering how long we'll have to be doing these measures and when we'll be able to see an impact. rbc's analyst usually covers bio tech stocks and his team taking their modelling skills to the epidemiology out of italy and south korea and china. you can see the red line that's china's total cases they did begin to start flattening the curve in the middle of february they note when the lockdowns began in china first in wuhan and then in the greater province of hubei. it was about 25 days after that, about four weeks that they started to see the curve flatten. unfortunately, that's when the blue line takes off. that's global cases and when we see the cases rise in italy and other countries and now in the united states. so looking at lessons from italy, they start to look at the intensive care capacity of that country, and when the mortality

in that country started to spike. what they find is the inverse correlation between how many patients can be treated by intensive care as the case numbers rise and more severe patients are in the hospital and the mortality rate spiking they created a calculation essentially for that capacity, and they plugged in the u.s. numbers. what they found is under different scenarios, their base case scenario, the orange line here, we're going to hit the capacity in the united states of our intensive care units in early april. and that's with even more stringent measures than we currently have right now that line on the right, the best case scenario, that's if we impose really strong restrictions quarantines, making it even illegal to go outside, they tell me in the epicenters of the outbreaks in the united states then they could really start flattening the curve these models assume we do more than we're doing right now morgan and carl. >> wow, when a picture is worth a thousand words

meg, thank you it's time now for a coronavirus update sue herera has that for us >> i do. thank you very much. good morning, everybody. let's start with an update on the global situation total confirmed cases have now risen above 222,000. the death toll has topped 9100 iran is the worst-hit country in the middle east. it is reporting 149 new deaths just since yesterday bringing the total to nearly 1300 it will now pardon 10,000 prisoners in an apparent attempt to combat the virus by reducing the prisoner population. we have positive virus news. china reported no new local infections today for the first time since the outbreak began. officials did report 34 new cases, but they were infected outside of that country. here in the u.s., harley davidson has shut down most of the production plants through march 29th the move follows closure announcements by many other auto makers jpmorganchase temporarily

closing about 20% of its branches about 1,000 locations and it's reducing the staff in the rest of its branches. and in las vegas, mccarran international airport has temp r rarely shut the air traffic control tower after a controller tested positive. tech crunches reporting telecom giant charter communications is telling its workers to keep coming to the office despite at least one employee testing positive and other staff coming into contact with someone who passed guidelines. a spokesperson said they're following cdc guidelines get more by going to cnbc.com. we're seeing a remarkable bounce in a number of familiar names but we have to mention lyft and uber. for more on that, we'll check in with diedre.

>> hey that's right uber shares are surging. they're up nearly 30%. this is after uber's executive team held a call this morning, essentially reassuring investors, saying that've phenomenon they see the worst case scenario which he describes as gross bookings in the ride segments falling off 80% for the rest of the year and not recovering, he says they still have enough cash on the balance sheet that even if that happens, they would still have $4 billion and there's a revolver, a short-term credit facility they could use basically to survive this coronavirus outbreak if it continues. now, he also said that in certain places like hong kong, they're starting to see somewhat of a recovery, but he also said that in some of its most major markets like san francisco, los angeles, new york, and others, he expects that the worst is still yet to come. he also spoke a little bit about the uber eats. their good delivery business he says it continues to grow he says that even in seattle

which has been extremely hard hit by the coronavirus, he says that continues to grow he underlined they're taking care of their drivers, covuriers but difficult decisions will have to be made in the coming months he didn't say what, but you could think there would be layoffs in the corporate side. uber is surging some 30% lyft, this is interesting, up about 15%. it didn't hold that call, and they do not have a food delivery to make up for ride sharing. back to you. deirdre, thank you let's bring in lori, rbc capital head of u.s. equity strategy, joining us on the phone. good morning lori, let me start with you. i think we peaked around

february 19th or so. it's been a rather dramatic fall since then what are you expecting when it comes to the fears of a recession and what it will do in terms of earnings and how your model responds from there. >> sure. thank you for having me on, everyone just in terms of our forecast, we actually cut our number to 139 for 2020 epf today that's a decline of 16%. we updated our macro assumptions. what was interesting to me about the output is that at the end of the day, it was in line with the median drop that we've seen in s&p 500 earnings if you look at all the years dating back to 1990 that were affected by recessions we think that's a good starting point. we know it's difficult to forecast exactly what's going to happen right now but we think it's worth considering that we at least have that kind of impact the reason why is we're trying to listen to the market here the market has been trading -- it hasn't broken below the 2300

lows but it's been trading around there that's in line with the percentage drop of 30%, in line with the average drop we tend to see in s&p peak to trough in recessions >> to lori's point, this is not a market right now that is being or is trading on fundamentals. there are all sorts of different mechanisms or forced selling and the like that's going on how do you try to make sense of it how do you try to come up with some sort of idea of where we're going to be and whether this is in some time worth buying? >> totally agree it's all about the market internals. not about fundamentals yet fundamentals will matter as you talked about earlier, we need margin calls reduced. all time records monday, tuesday, wednesday, hedge funds are forced to reduce gross

exposure risk parity funds are forced to sell we have credit markets that are seizing up from time to time when we got last thursday, the widening credit spreads even within the treasury market if we can calm those things down, and i think the markets start to tell us that might be the case, we'll grab hold here and attempt instead of straight down, we'll have volatility, but in both directions, not just down and i think 2350ish on the s&p we've gotten there, there abouts a bunch of times including december of '18. maybe we're going to hold there, but the forced selling and the credit markets are what i'm watching most carefully. >> yeah. you're not alone in that the credit markets are key but it feels as though every time we've sensed at least there's -- i don't want to call it stability, but we're up a bit and we're actually seeing some stocks sort of rebound and find some stability, the next day concerns about a deep recession

or even dare i use the word others are, depression, some to the fore yet again and everybody just sells everything. >> you're right, david i think people are finally beginning to mark their numbers to market. i mean, we're going to have it seems to me in the second quarter, i'm not an economist, but i'd be surprised if the number wasn't minus ten or worst in gdp that's a whack the question is going to become when does the second derivative coronavirus cases peak so we can begin to get a handle on the other side history of viruses you get whacked hard, and then pretty quickly you start coming back. yeah, there will be residual effects that last a long time, but if we can get past that, and we're starting to see that the intensity of the put call numbers, the up side downside. the trend numbers. these are the things that i think in water fall declines you've got to watch, and i'm starting to see less bad news there.

>> solar r all the major averagr moving modestly higher given all the dramatic moves we've seen in the month of march, the russell 2000, small caps are up. they've been hit the hardest when it comes to places that look potentially the most attractive for somebody who is potentially looking to get into this market, given the selloff we've seen, is it small caps is it megacaps and large caps and how would you break that down across sectors? sure the small caps are interesting from a valuation perspective right now there's a lot of doubts about what valuations actually are it's a little bit tough to buy them on that basis small caps also historically get whacked the hardest when domestic economic views are eroding. we're still in that mode for now. i think long term small caps offer opportunities. short-term, it's a tough place to be. the place we are telling people

to do bargain hunting is the industrial sector. we think the sector was deeply attractive before the coronavirus situation. areas like machinery, multiindustry, road and rail those are areas that will do well once we have an economic cycle. there's nothing structurally broken about the areas we've been telling investors if you want to do bargain hunting, if you're kind of a three to five-year buyer, that's one place we'd look. >> yeah. bob, i'm wondering if you would piggie back on that. there's headlines for senators calling for infrastructure which has been called for we all know for several years now. but in the wake of massive unemployment actually might carry more political water and what might that mean for construction, infrastructure plays, commodity plays when you consider the action in copper and iron the last few weeks? >> i think, carl, that will take time we know it takes a long time to get that approval, get the

design going, getting the shovel in the ground. in the near-term, i think we have to look at post qes before. qe 1, qe 2, qe 3, this is qe 4 what sectors did well post that. technology and health care which did poorly in utilities and reits. infrastructure can take a long time >> bob, i just -- >> lori -- >> sorry, go ahead, morgan >> bob, i want to dig into whether the u.s. is still the best place to be for investors right now or whether there are potentially greater opportunities, again, given the timeline, given risk appetite, if there are better opportunities in other parts of the world right now, especially as we see markets move with coronavirus headlines? >> so as long as we're in this defensive move, we know the u.s. is the most defensive of the big markets in the world, and,

therefore, along with the stronger dollar, the u.s. is doing reasonably well. on the other side of this, if we, in fact, do have a noticeable recovery, a bounceback from the -- it's going to feel like depression-like levels, the more cyclical areas will do better. that speaks of non-u.s. markets. we're a big growth market with a lot of defensive stocks. for now, stick with the u.s. >> finally, lori, give me a couple of names right now that you think have been overly penalized by the fear of recessions/even worse that are wo worth buying >> i can't give you individual names for compliance reasons i would go back to the industrials, and i wouldalso say if you want a set of stocks to watch, and i wouldn't necessarily pound the table on them and say they're buys today, but something we've been watching very closely is our list of the most popular stocks

in hedge funds we've noticed the names have been resilient throughout most of this drawdown this week they started to see some pretty significant underperformance relative to the broad market nature that coincided as we were starting to hear concerns coming out of the hedge fund world about some pod closures, about redemptions, and also frankly just derisking. a lot of them are secular growers. a lot of people's favorite stocks are on the lirs if you want to trade this market and look for some longer-term opportunities, if we continue to sort of see some of the underperformance we saw earlier this week, if we continue to see that happen, i think you'll get buying opportunities there i think once we come out of this to the other side, there will be a initial bounce, but then i actually do expect to sort of get back to this moderate growth type environment and growth stocks can work well in that environment. >> well, first things first. i guess. one thing really quick before we

let you go 139 for 2020 eps is there anything that would make you reevaluate that number either to the downside or the up side or is that number you think pretty firm for now for 20 20? >> i think it's a good working number for now and you know, we said in the piece this morning that we're not immune to sort of the panic that we see that's going on around the street. we try to keep our emotions out of the process like everybody else but just because it's a dicey time, we're keeping a short-term significant coronavirus scenario in our back pocket and that's where we expect -- model in rather more of a negative q2 hit that bounces back quickly on q 3. that snacenario we come up with 153 eps. you can keep that in your back pocket if things start to not look as bad. >> unclear when that's going to be the case. lori and bob, thank you to you both morgan, over to you. a quick check on the markets

here we've been fluctuating between gains and losses for the major losses the dow and s&p are currently in the trade. slightly the nasdaq continues to hang onto gapes of more than 1% let's get over to rick santelli in chicago for his take and what he's watching today. rick >> thanks, morgan. like to welcome a special guest, john taylor who along with george schultz wrote an interesting book choose economic freedom. enduring policy lessons from the 70s and 80s. i started to trade in the 70s. i haven't read your book yet, but by the title and skimming the things written about it, what an appropriate day. here we are at a time where everybody wants the government to help. bank of england cut rates further. they're going to be buying more. they have a special mp meeting christine lagarde seems to have

pulled back the notion that she's not responsibility for sovereigns of high policy bunds. nobody is kplcomplaining. we haven't settled up from what we did the last crisis >> i think there are recent changes that are promising some of these liquidity facilities just announced late last night and the day before by the fed for the primary dealers, money markets, those are specifically focussed on problems in the markets. i think those are maybe more promising than some of the more general things that you've mentioned. and also, i think that's the spirit behind the book, choose economic freedom choose things that work. don't throw the money away that can happen at times like this >> three big programs by the fed. i like the short term paper.

now we have friend of cnbc, we both know larry kudlow really well top economic adviser, kind of putting it out there if they're going to create advantages for some of these businesses that need it or special loans, that there may be a cost associated with that. equity positions what do you think about that kind of redoing what we did with gm ten years ago >> i think some of the money should be focussed on people that are clearly hurt, and that's low income people but i think the general sending lots of money, that hasn't worked in the past 2008 it was a program of sending money to people that didn't do a lot of good. the economy kept coming good i'd like promises of how about no tax increases for a while how about some regulatory moratorium for a while those could be a boost, and i'd like to see a little bit more talk about it. you don't see much of that at this point

instead, it's really talk about the third phase. by the way, i think the second phase, paid sick leave, testing of payments, they make sense but going on beyond that, it's a concern. and it hasn't worked in the past >> i couldn't agree with you more certain big businesses and certain sectors may need some help think airlines i couldn't agree with you more the average joe on the street maybe didn't get looked after as well in the last crisis and it seems as though we really are aiming to help that particular group of people that we all know whether it's my parents, your parents, friends now, final thought we are seeing some of these spreads and some of the bad barometers of what's been going on ease back a little. professor, can we actually see the markets start to grab here maybe it overcompensated your thoughts on where the gps of pricing is versus what we know about the horrible effects

of the coronavirus >> the global side is important. you have seen some increase in the medium ten-year rates in the last couple days i think the exchange rate is you want to look at that as well because ecb has done some things the ecb made some big decisions yesterday. one thing i think is important, they didn't change their rates and they have a specific analysis of why. the good piece, the chief economist ecb just put out explaining more effort to explain what they're doing that applies to the fed as well. it will be very good at this point and lends a good example >> excellent professor, thank you for your thoughts today we will be having you back as this ongoing issue, of course, someti stymys medical workers and those in the economy >> rick, thank you the dow is down 228 points right now. we're going to take a quick break. stay wh itus

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. welcome back on this thursday morning goya foods is seeing an obvious increase in demand for its products sales have quadrupled since march 11th and they've

distributed 23 million cans of beans to retailers since then. joining us this morning is the president of by to goya foos >> thank you for having me. >> ever seen a spike in demand like this? >> you know, this isn't our first rodeo. it's kind of what we do. you know, we consider ourselves first responders, sometimes in hurricanes we've always stepped up to the plate in puerto rico and other places but this clearly is an exceptional time i wanted to say from the outset, how extremely proud i am of our goya family around the globe that is working around the clock to get this much needed food out to where it's needed you know, we're working tirelessly, we're producing, we're distributing, and, you know, at great personal sacrifice i have to say but i'm so very proud of our group

>> and anyone who has gone to the grocery store and found your products on the shelf, i'm sure is thank for that can you sort of describe the challenges you're seeing right now whether it's in production or distribution or raw input what is the problem at this moment >> well, you know, as a privately held company, we have several months actually of product that comes from not only the united states but around the globe. some of our products are seasonal we have reasonable inventories we've been producing around the clock to get these products out. the big problem i think, the biggest problem for us is the personal sacrifice people working burning the candle at both ends, but so far, you know, like i said, i'm so proud of the group that stepped up to the plate and they're just doing a fantastic job, not only

here in the united states but in europe and the caribbean and in other places >> so i realize that sales, bob, have quadrupled from demand in supermarkets and retailers how does that compare on the restaurant side of the business, as we are seeing closures and curtailed activity >> we're kind of recession-proof when things are bad. people stay home to eat. several years ago restaurant sale dollars surpassed grocery dollars, so what we're seeing now, of course, is with everyone sheltering in, a tremendous upsurge in home -- eating at home, and yet, of course, the restaurants are taking it, you know, a direct hit. >> to keep up with the demand that you're talking about and the fact that i know you mentioned employees burning the candle at both ends and the

personal sacrifice that comes with that, in terms of being able to ramp up the production what does that mean in terms of additional costs or is this something you're able to i guess address or adjust pretty easily given the fact that you do have past experience? >> we have very modern factories. we've always invested in our facilities to go faster and faster so that investment is already there. you know, running extra hours, overtime, our costs have increased in labor we're paying wages well beyond what the politicians say because it's, you know, free enterprise. the costs of transportation, transportation has gotten very expensive to move our products which is heavy and less costly than shipping an iphone or piece of clothing. >> looking at a live shot here

of the white house briefing room where we are expecting a briefing some time we think in the next hour. bob, we've seen a lot of cross-border traffic reduced down to nonessential goods, whether it's in europe, u.s./canada, how -- what kind of impact is that likely to have on ag supply and are you considered essential? >> i think we're very essential. beans, for example, which the majority come from the united states, the bean belt that goes across the united states, and 90% of our products come locally from new york and michigan and throughout the country we've that available and beans, for example, luckily they are essential and at the same time they have protein, fiber, antioxidants, phyto nutrients and when combined with rice you have a complete protein. that's a lot of things we focus ob is low sodium, organic, expanding the line in those

areas, focusing on the quality that beans, in fact, beans have been recommended by a lot of the experts out there, you know, stay at home and eat beans it's really a protein and a very healthy one. >> when rooeetailers call in and make an orderer i assume they have to get in line. how you prioritizing those things >> we have to limit and make sure everybody has a piece of the pie or if customers need to pick up, we're making that available. we do direct store delivery where we're orderering today, loading tonight and delivering tomorrow door to door. >> what's the best selling item right now? >> our beans are we can't -- they're flying off the shelves. sometimes the trucks arrive at stores and they're not even making it into the stores. people are taking product off

the trucks of course the supermarket employees, and then selling them on the sidewalk. >> yeah. i mean, i assume it would be nice to cut to somehow undercut that secondary market if you could, but that's out of your reach, isn't it? >> oh, no. we're not selling that we're making a delivery to a store and say the truck arrives and, you know, we're going to -- instead of stocking the shelves the store is selling to customers right out on the street, right in the parking lot let's say. >> yeah. >> bob, thank you. please keep us up to date. important issue. thank you. >> will do, god bless, thank you. >> we are just -- thank you, carl, we are just moments away from the white house task force. we've shown you that video on your screen. bring in eamon javers as we await an update from the task force and potentially president trump. eamon. >> yeah, morgan, that's right.

we're told that there are a couple things moving behind the scenes and we expect an fda announcement in the 11:00 briefing from the white house. not clear on what they're going to announce. i'm given some indication we will be talking about expanded clinical trials for two particular drugs from the fda. we'll wait and see on that meanwhile, i'm told by a southeastesenior administration official behind the scene the white house is considering longer term bonds, 25 and 50-year bonds even, to help borrow the money that's going to be needed for this massive coronavirus relief effort that's going to be clearly under way. meanwhile, they're still working up on capitol hill on that phase three bill we're told they're circulating ideas and getting input from republican members back to the white house. democrats also weighing in here. we'll see where this lands they were talking about $500 billion in stimulus payments, checks $250 billion, one in

april, one in may, all what is contemplated for the phase three right now. for this 11:00 briefing we're watching we're not sure necessarily whether we're going to see the president of the united states here or just the vice president and the coronavirus team as has happened in the team. we expect an fada announcement and they're working on longer term bonds to help the u.s. government borrow the money that will be needed. >> that's something that some folks have been calling for for a very long time it would be nice to get some detail on that want to point you to the defense production act, which you talked about on "squawk" this morning takes you back originally the war powers act and affords the government broad powers in the way we produce goods. >> it does it allows the president to sort of direct individual companies to produce specific materials that he says are needed for national defense or in a national crisis. you can imagine that would be

medical equipment, masks, all the things we're hearing about, the personal protective equipment, that's in short supply right now and basically enlist private companies into that effort in a very big way. it also gives the president a lot of tools in terms of loan guarantees and authorities financially to create incentives for the companies to do just that it's not just a matter of simply ordering them to produce this material then it also has a very sort of world war ii feel to it in a sense that there's a provision in there which allows the president to call in a council of executives, with vast experience in whatever the crisis area is, who would serve in the government. these would be private sector executives the president would in essence draft into government service to help coordinate all this among all the different companies in the private sector some tremendous authorities there for the president. he says over twitter that he does not necessarily expect that he's going to be using those authorities any time soon. he just wanted t