but i think there's also a lot of people who don't have enough liquidity. it pains me to say, stop contributing, but if you are nervous, everyone deserves to sleep well at night. so keep that in mind it's a balancing act for sure. >> got to wrap it there. thank you very much. that will end it for this hour the closing bell followed along with wilf and sara >> thank you very much, tyler and yourself as well welcome, everyone. tyler will be holding down the fort at cnbc world headquarters chbl big rally on wall street. stocks looking to close higher for a third day in a row the dow jones industrial average is up u around 20% just in the past three tradinging sessions. the senate passing a $2 trillion stimulus package late last night

though still awaits aprooul from the house of rep sentives. that vote expected tomorrow. jobless claims surging above 3 million americans, far outpacing the record of 700,000 and also well above what economists were looking for around 1.5 million unemployment claims and the virus itself remains front and center for wall street as italy reports more than 6,000 new cases, the most in five days, the worldwide total now shy of half a million people wilfred. >> all of the sectors of the s&p higher up 4.7%. all higher, but one to keep an eye on is energy it has been the best performing. it's now towards the bottom. still up by 4% oil prices slipped a lot this afternoon. they're down 7%, so we'll hope that doesn't drag the rest of the market lower we've got a huge lineup of gu

guesting coming your way, ceo of general mills, plus peter orszag whether he thinks the stimulus bill is enough to ease the pleading and we'll speak with the ceo of hertz about their program the give free rentals to new york city health care workers and will they need help from the government. let's focus in on the big stories today. mike is tracking the market rally. kayla is covering a new move from the white house to assess the risk of the virus and steve liesman is covering today's h historic jobless numbers, but first, to you on the jobless market >> it's almost an equal and opposite reaction to the sharp plunge we've had almost vertical gain of about 18% in the s&p 500 from the lows three days ago it's opposite in direction look at though what we're trying to make up if you look at a long-term chart of the s&p 500, that decline, that 30% one month decline essentially plunged right below

the overall uptrend line from the 2009 low, so it really just laid waste to that entire trend and now this bounce, it's hard to see there, but on the right, this bounce is almost written on the same line higher and it's almost back to that line so maybe this is just one of many of these points along the way that we might have a test of what this index is doing right now. so a lot of times i think the traders are making the point the last ten or 15% to the downside looked like a slight overschutte based on what we know about financial conditions what's leeting the way everything's up. if you look at the nasdaq 100 against the russell 2000, kind of like megagrowth quality the russell is lead iing the wa. it makes sense that's usually the way it goes lower quality, beaten up the most on the way down those tend to leave on the way up it doesn't necessarily mean

that's going to be the rule if that rally should builden on itself and carry higher. definitely tests to come for this rally if we gain a few more percents and mike, stepping way from e equities, i guess the only ongoing concern based just simply on the last two or three days performance is oil prices because otherwise, we have seen an improvement in credit we've seen a big improvement in sovereign spreads in italy treasuries holook calm and the dollar down another 1.7% today, which is an encouraging sign relative to what had driven it up over the course of the last several weeks. >> that's a big tension release because it had been the reverse before that, so i think most things lined up. at least for this kind of relief move it doesn't necessarily mean that the market is anything like suggesting an all clear, but just that things got overdone in the short-term and remain open minded about whether this is just a bounce or the market trying to say that there's a

bottom >> we'll see you in a bit. president trump today telling the nation's governors that the white house will classify counties by risk to determine where coronavirus test kits are distributed. kayla has more on that story >> the white house is trying to craft a proposal that would allow for a nuanced reopening of the u.s. economy by regions, by county, but certain areas that are posed as low risk. in a letter to the nation's governors, president trump shedding a little light on how this would work and what his mind set is now. in this letter, he wrote our expanded testing capabilities will quickly allow us to publish criteria developed in close coordination with public health officials to help classify counties with risk counties under this plan would be classifieded as low, medium and high risk and social

distancing guidelines would be either relaxed or intensified based on that risk here in washington as we await the passage by the house of this stimulus bill that will provide $2 trillion in relief, there's now talk of a new potential fourth package and who would get the benefit from that. i spoke to a senior administration official who said cruise lines were an industry that could seek a fix in a future package because the industry doesn't believe it qualifies for any of the loan facilities as it is written now m unclear whether that would seek bipartisan support with many democrats angry about offshore registration and the fact that many employees at these cruise lines are not u.s. citize citizens other things that were left on the u cutting room floor, the trump administration didn't get the money to buy the oil, to add to the emergency reserves.

that's one reason you're seeing oil down today postal service getting far less than they had been seeking we'll see if that's an area where we get additional money in a future package, too. >> those are sort of the losers as a result of this bill what about the industries and businesses an individuals that stand to gain from it? >> well the treasury secretary said today that mesh americans who qualify for the direct cash payments will see those directly got deposited within the next three weeks and there are several dimpt loan programs. you have the treasury department shepparding to airlines and businesses with national security implications then the federal reserve which will will standing up $450 billion plus facility to businesses of all sizes. and then you also have the loans through the small business administration and companies, regional and community banks

that will have those loan. so slirn if you're a potentially qualifying business, you should look through the text and see what you might qualify for >> to that point about the lending, so much is through special set up type vehicles as opposed to forcing the banks to loan and in that sense, i think most of the analysts of f the bank stocks take this as a positive for the sector because there are more capital relaxing of rules going with the liquidity injection they've seen in recent weeks without also forcing them to make loans they wouldn't want to do. the banks angel cyst says it's a big difference to the past is they're a big part of the solution >> i think one other issue with regard to the relaxing, yes, regulators wanted banks to be able to participate in these loan program to a greater degree than they might have been able to, but you've also seen so many name brand american companies like ford downgraded to junk

ratings. companies who had sterling credit several months earlier who are now seeing their credit deteriorated because of the cash flow situation so many of these companies are in they wanted to make sure banks could continue to lend to those companies and keep those relationships alive and not trip things like leverage ratios, which might have been prohibitive. >> thanks so much for that turning now to the big number of the day. the historic tally of jobless claims steve liesman has more on that steve. >> yeah, not in the worst moments of economic history in the united states in the post war period have we seen anything like the one week rise in unemployment claims that the government reported today. not the shock of the '70s. not in the rate increases of the 1980s, the dot com bust or even the financial crisis up 3.2 million, double the

estimate, five times the previous record, for a single week of a rise in jobless claims and it came after a very slight rise last week now 3.2 million and the biggest problem here is that many economists say it means there's probably a lot worse to come for the u.s. economy let's take a look inside the claims number here and i'll show you some of the things they're looking at first of all, it's a measure of those who applied for claims then about the process of the surge in claims. it might be bigger there are also efforts by employees to retain workers initially. we'll see how long that lasts and if the stimulus bill can help with that some of the responses we've gotten from economists, oxford writing very ominously, we foresee 15 to 20 million job losses with the unemployment rate surging above 10% in april, saying the unemployment rate likely to go into double digits here so what could stop all this bad stuff from happening well, you have a tremendous

fiscal response that kayla was talking about. a speedy federal reserve response with more to come than i've been talking about, but most say it is the path of the virus and the public health response to it that will ultimately determine if we have some sort of short, sharp downturn here when and a quick rebound or something more protacted. >> and steve, to your point about the big stimulus package, steven mnuchin this morning on "squawk on the street" suggesting that this week's print isn't as important because the stimulus package hasn't got to work yet. how many weeks can we expect, if mnuchin's point is correct, how many weeks can we expect the numbers remain worringly high and it not be a concern that the stimulus package isn't working yet? >> well, it's possible that some employers hold on to workers given that this loan is is out there. these b possible loans are out

there, which are forgiven if you retain your workers, so it's possible they could do that in future belief that they're going to get some assistance, but i think you're going to have people lose money. they're going to lose their jobs and they're going come and apply for these unemployment benefits. the only possible silver lining here is you want people who need assistance to come to the government and apply for it. if it's there for them unemployment claims is the first line of defense in what is relatively in america, a. >> reporter: very meager safety net. so they're going to get some money then after the stimulus bill, they'll get additional funds. so that's going to help. so when you see these numbers go up, it's a terrible, terrible sign, but it also means that people are in the process of getting some assistance. >> yeah, they're going to get longer assistance which i think is part of the bill. steve, when you think about the other side, once you make it to the other side of this virus outbreak, how many, do we know

what percentage or what chunk of these jobs are furloughs and could come back easily without companies actually having gone out of business like mall stores for instance which have temporary closures >> you ask a great question and let me give you quick two-part response one is the entire effort now that's going on with this bill and what the fed is is doing is to keep a process of idling stores and workers to not become a process of firing workers and shuttering stores. there's a race going on between that on the other hand, what happens when you have shocks to the economy is trends in the economy are accelerated. you already had problems with malls and restale stores and the competition they faced from online sales, so what's going to happen is that's going to be accelerated and i think we're going to have some protacted downturn as a result of that plus, the after effects of the

psyche of the consumer and business from this shock could mean greater save, more plan aing for rainy days so you may not have such robust consumer spending so we're trying to keep things status quo, but it's going to be unlike ly we remerge unscathed. >> thanks so much for that we've got about 47 minutes left to trade and we are up 4.4% on the s&p 500. after the break, peter orszag will join us live. his take on the massive stimulus bill and the administration's response thus far. we're back in a couple of minutes. you should be mad your neighbor always wants to hang out. and you should be mad your smart fridge is unnecessarily complicated. make ice. making ice. but you're not mad because you have e*trade which isn't complicated. their tools make trading quicker and simpler so you can take on the markets with confidence.

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about 43 minutes left to go. here's a check on the markets. industrials having a nice day, up almost 4% or 800 points s&p roughly the same actually at a higher gain in percentage terms the nasdaq up 269 and russell lead iing them all up nearly 5%. let's check on some individual market movers. shares of slack higher by 8% today. the ceo tweeting that the company has seen inkrecreased demand as more employees work from home amid this outbreak as of yesterday, the platform

saw 12.5 milliconnected users. this is after 10 million two week ago and sigocisignet jewel suspending dividend for the 2021 year because of potential outbreak of the virus outbreak shares are higher by 28% sara, you spoke with the ceo earlier. what's the take away there >> what she showed today was that the company had its best holiday season in b about four years so, the market is clearly rewarding her for that but then came covid-19 and what's happened really shows you what's happening with retail across america they had to close all of their stores temporarily a lot of these stores are in mall more than 3200 stores around the globe and she told me that

they're prioritizing other discretionary costs when it comes to cost cutting. but that they are going to have to announce furloughs for the folks that can't man the stores. this is an example of a company that's trying to man through the -- showing some fruit in the quart quarter. >> yeah, and as you said, down 30% or so. s&p 500, up 4.5% 41 minutes left of the session now the senate officially passed a the trillion relief package in an attempt to stem the economy. joining us now, ceo of financial advisory pat lazard.

very good afternoon to you thanks for joining us. >> good to be with you >> clearly also this morning, we saw a massive jump in unemployment claims. secretary mnuchin said this morning in an interview on cnbc he thought that would be temporary. and that the stimulus bill would reverse it do you agree >> i agree it's going to help. this is a massive piece of legislation that's warranted this is different than 2008 and 2009 because it is so sudden and so severe and the unemployment claims uptick, underscores that and it's also a supply shock in addition to it's more complicated and i'm very pleased to see that policymakers in congress are acting so aggressively to try to blunt the damage here. there's a lot of legislation but

how it's implemented is going to matter a lot >> well you were there, peter. you were in the obama administration 2009, 2010, as we were getting out of the great recession there. what lessons do you think you can offer from t.a.r.p. and the bailouts that were executed at that point and what we're dealing with right now >> first, let me give kudos here it took us two months basically to put together the stimulus legislation in early 2009. this was done basically in a week and again, that's really commendable especially given how polarized washington is today. so congress in a sense has done its part now what the administration needs to do is a few things. first of all, you need to pay a lot of attention there's going to be guidance coming out with regard to how to implement a lot of these new programs for example, there's up to $450 billion in new funding for

programs that the fed and treasury will administer but not a lot of guidance in terms of how it will work the definitions that for companies that will qualify so on and so forth. we'll get more detail next week. but in lessons we've learned, it takes a lot of effort to make sure these things are administered there will be fraud. that's part of the occasion. trying to minimize that is really important especially given the potential long-term damage from not providing support now, the most important thing is for the administration to focus on getting this money out the door quickly to people and companies that need it >> peter, how long can this stimulus package and what we've seen from the federal reserve keep the economy going for if this prolongs the health issues, prolongs a lockdown,

past three months. do we need another bill? >> a couple of things on that. first, i think the biggest risk at this point given that congress has acted, the fed is acting, is to undo the social distancing too soon and there by prolong the health crisis and economic distress. there's research out just today from economists at the federal reserve and at m.i.t. studying what happened in the 1918 spanish flu epidemic, pandemic, showing that it's the disease itself that causes the economic damage and the cities in the united states that acted more aggressively to socially distance and take other steps to try to tamp down the pandemic did better from an economic perspective so, the biggest risk and the thing that would prolong the difficulty here is undoing the progress that we've made too soon even though i know that seems very appealing seems very appealing to say let's just go back to the way

things were, but if you haven't actually solved the medical problem, it's a false solution so partly, the answer to your question is going to depend what we do on the health side and whether we're patient enough to wait until there's an effective antiviral or treatment and antibody test and other things that will allow us to go back to some degree of normality in business interactions. but not do so prematurely. >> peter, this idea that the government can save the workers. to what extent is that true? as you start to see the jobless claims go up in the millions how much can government really do here when it comes to unemployment insurance and preserving jobs when they're handing out stance to these industries >> here's the thing. this is a great example of where frankly only the government can do it. so i'm not sure that the government's going to provide a perfect solution here.

and by the way, obviously this is not just a problem in the united states. it's governments across continental europe and el where undertaking similar measures, but it's only forcible government action when hit with a shock of this size that lets us even have a shot or a chance of mitigating the damage to a significant degree again, i'm encouraged by how quickly and forcefully the fed and congress are acting here you could have imagined a much different scenario where we're in the midst of this health crisis and policymakers are kind of you know doawdling oe indawdg to wilfred's question, there may have to come additional stimulus and by the way, that's one thing that is worth noting, which is last time we assume it had there could be another round, this time there may with well happen to be another round and policymakers need to be more cooperative and expect that that

may happen because the way they wrote this legislation doesn't automatically extend even if the economic difficulty extends. so a lot of the provisions are only in place for a short, certain period of time and if the economic difficulty persists, we are going to need another round and again, the best wii of avoiding that situation is not to reverse ourselves on the social distancing prematurely >> will m and a drop off a clip or some cheap prices there enough to spur some deals to be made >> there's a lot of different forces going on. both in m and a and restructuringing we are non-stop in terms of working with clients who are trying to sort through a lot of these ambiguities. i think it's too soon to know. on m and a, in part because of the factors i was mepgsing before it depending on how long the

health crisis goes on and therefore how long the economic distress is. >> peter, thanks for joining us. >> thanks for having me. >> we've got 33 minutes left of trade before the closing bell and stocks are rallying for a third day in a row take a look at the major averages, dow's up almost 1,000 points 4.5% s&p with a nice nearly 5% gain nasdaq up 4% and the russell 2000 up 5, up 10% over a week. still ahead, nielsen says sells of breakfast cereals are up 50% as americans are stocking up at the grocery. we'll talk to the ceo of general mills about the swell of demand and how the company is trying to meet it. our coverage is back after a a quick break. ♪

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welcome back with the dow up more than 960 points, cat pill lear join ihr a growing list of guidance and now the sec is making it easier for companies to delay their earnings reports bob? >> you know, sarah, we're going to go into earnings season in b about two weeks and one of the reasons we're seeing such gyrations in the stock market, 1,000 points a day is because nobody has new clues of what the earnings will be in the first and second quarters. so we're seeing a growing number of companies not just for the quarter, but for the year 2020, just recently, the big airplane

manufacturer, signet, wendy's, whirlpool. just the last 24 hours, target, twitter. a whole list got about 22 companies now in the s&p. mastercard, deere, best buy, marriott, starbucks. the list goes on and on. now what's going to happen in the next few weeks once companies come out with their commentary, the number of companies declining to provide full year guidance is going to go up dramatically many will supply guide down or conservatively for the first and second quarters and not provide full year guidance, but more importantly, in the last couple of days, the sec has provided some cover for these companies by essentially allowing them a procedural method where they could delay not just providing guidance, but filing their quarterly reports, which they are required to do by law. this has been one of the things that the sec has required since the 1930s. quarterly reports.

they're going to be able under certain circumstances to take 45-day extensions, march 1st and july 1st and i anticipate many companies will take advantage of that so it's going to be tough figuring out earnings and that's why stocks keep gyrating >> it is the banks kick things off april 14 very much looking forward to that bob, thanks so much. we're up 5% on the s&p 500 over 1,000 points again on the dow with b about 28 minutes left in the session is. coming up, we'll find out how short sellers are navigating the wild volatility when we speak with carson block and here's a check in on bonds. yields moving low. 0.83%. two-year note, 0.23. back in a couple of minutes. yes. it's the first word of any new discovery.

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here's what's driving the action the senate passing the stimulus

package although it waits approval from the house. that's expected tomorrow jobless claims surged above 3 million, far outpacing the previous record of just around 700,000 and that was well above estimates that there would be maybe 1.5 million claims and the virus, italy reports more than 6,000 new cases, the most if five days. worldwide total is just shy of half a million >> thanks so much for that time for a coronavirus update with sue herera. >> hello, everyone and we have more numbers this afternoon. french officials reporting 365 new deaths since yesterday a steep 27% increase from the previous day and those numbers only include deaths in hospitals. officials are working adding deaths in retirement homes which they say will result in a big increase in national figures as the new numbers continue to rise, officials have begun

evacuating people with the virus by using a high speed train equipped with medical equipment. the tvg medical train, one of the first in europe, transporting at least 20 patients this morning from the hardest hit region in france here at home, two cruise ships arriving in miami with some 30 sick crew members on board health care work eers in full protective gear ready to meet the crew who were transported from the ship by the u.s. coast guard. but even as the numbers of new cases continue to rise here in the u.s., local authorities expressing frustration as people ignore orders to stay home in chicago, police were forced d to use vehicles and blockades to keep people away from the lake front. the police chief saying they'll start issuing tickets if people don't comply as always u get more on cnbc's coronavirus by going to cnbc.com sara, back to you. >> all right, thank you very much, sue herera 23 minutes left of trading

here is where we stand session high for the s&p 500 was up about 5.1% so we're not far from that. dow's up 891 points. third day in a row that socks are gaining. first time we've seen that in about seven or six weeks or so looking to hold that 22,000 level on the dow we're sitting above it now up next, short seller, csoarn block, weighs in on the market volatility we'll be right back. don't get mad. get e*trade, dawg. when i lost my sight, my biggest fear was losing my independence. mmm... good.

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at a time of extreme volatility, some european countries have banned short-selling in hopes of stemming losses, however, noted short seller carson block writing an op-ed today entitled bans on short-selling are hand swrouts to the corporate socialists he joins us by phone and mike also with us you know the argument. we heard this in 2008 where the sec temporarily banned short-selling of some of the financial firms. it just made matters worse that you guys are just out there in the short-term trying to destabilize companies.

what's your defense? >> well, number one. there are barely any short sellers left i don't know why there's this thought that in these markets which with the liquidity they have, that short sellers who have so little capital can deb stabilize anything to me, it's as best a solution in search of a problem but what they did resernl on after the financial crisis, the new york federal reserve in 2012 published a study of what the short-selling ban did during the financial crisis and in 2011 in europe and they found that it actually reduced mark market liquidity and increased trading costs, so while it had little effect on price, it doesn't stem market route and hurts liquidity. i would pause this and this is really based on you know my

understanding of markets and how things work, but it actually reduces appetite if you ban short-selli short-selling, it reduces appetite for risk taking on the long side because in periods such as these, it becomes hard to hold on to long positions if you're going to see all this volatility so if you feel like you can hedge out the beta by going short, then that would you know, stand to reason you're more likely to hold on to your long positions at least in full size. so it's been shown to not reduce route but to actually reduce liquidity. and i understand that analysis, carson it makes sense that allowing people to hedge positions can continue to permit them to take in volatile times. although it's not totally relevant to the current market,

would you admit when you take current positions, it's not just the hedge long positions, it's because you are wishing and hoping a company goes bust >> we're a direction at short seller let me correction myself here. i'm actually, we generally run market neutral so if we are going to shortd something buying long positions that dollar per dollar off set the short. so every time we're shorting, we're pretty much out there buying something long. so to your point, if we are going to start to short this company, well, yes, we are obviously hoping the market remisses it. i don't really think the campaigns of any activists, they don't center on such as well, we

think the future isn't so great because there's more composition coming it's really, this is a management team that has misled investors or outright lied to investors. here's the reality and i don't think market routs or volatility are an excuse for management not to be held accountable soif we're going launch a campaign tomorrow, that's because there's a management team that we feel has done something wrong. >> yeah. i mean mike, there's just something about a bad taste of people who profit when the market is tumbling people are losing their jobs and economic pain is spreading such that it makes matters worse. what do you think the appetite is in this country for something

like that? >> i think the emotional response is understand u people, the world is net long stocks therefore when markets go down a lot, people have broadly taken losses, but i see this kind of short sellers is a stage of every market downturn. essentially people looking for scapegoats even though it was a comprehensive rout it wasn't as if the heavily shorted stocks went down more. it wasn't about that you could point to people pile ong the short stock. honest ly, i think what people f there's any specific thing people are objecting to, it might be that the machines that sell index futures to ride the momentum lower and that's not really what you can, where the intention goes so i see it more as a stage of a panic and sentiment process that always comes out you know people saying that someone must be at lane and point to short sellers.

it's usually ineffectual and really doesn't reflect what's going on in the market >> thanks for joining us final thought, sorry, go ahead, carson >> i get the emotional component. but you know, nobody's crying for short sellers when we get squeezed in the middle of a 12-year bull market either so and look, i guess if there's one final thing that the people want to keep in their thought ifs they're trying to think logically about this in addition to the imperical evidence is we just committeded spending about $2 trillion. if i can have a decent year this year and pay some taxes, that's not the worst thing in the world as far as the u.s. treasury is concerned. >> carson block, we appreciate it thanks for joining us. >> thanks. up next, we'll bring you uninterrupted coverage of the final minutes of trade when we take you inside the market zone where our 4.3% with 13 minutes left and tomorrow, i'll speak in

a first on cnbc interview with the vice president, mike pence, 10:15 a.m. eastern time. back in a couple of minutes. of trading goods and services. nasdaq operates among the largest markets in the world. and our technology powers markets from indonesia to chile. great markets are built on a foundation of trust and integrity, forged through leading edge technology and a smart regulatory framework. as technology advances, regulation must keep pace to allow the markets to evolve. today we see an opportunity to modernize regulation, to make markets more accessible to investors and entrepreneurs of all sizes. from the graduate buying her first stock, to an institution investing in thousands. the markets belong to everyone and stand as a symbol of economic advancement, social progress and limitless opportunity. that's the tomorrow that we envision and to get there, we'll have to rewrite it today.

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is unnecessarily complicated. make ice. making ice. but you're not mad because you have e*trade which isn't complicated. their tools make trading quicker and simpler so you can take on the markets with confidence. don't get mad get e*trade and start trading commission free today. for the session, we are close to session highs now in the closing bell market zone commercial free coverage mike is here to break down these crucial moments of the day as always and today we've got cnbc contributor, stephanie link as well >> let's kick it off with a broader market check and three big names on cnbc giving a

pretty bullish outlook on stocks listen >> bear markets tend to end with a recession so we think the bear market's ending. we think we've been scaling back into stocks and we're not going to kacatch the bottom exact and wepg this is probably best risk reward we've seen for investors in two years >> i think this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to buy stocks at bargain prices the great investor sir john temp templeton said to always buy when there's maximum pessimism >> no doubt, the stock market will rally it should rally. my guess is we'll be higher three or four months from now than low er than where we are now. >> obviously all big names and mike wilson is interesting because he was one of the most bearest equities strategists now

saying this is sort of a huge opportunity from a risk reward standpoint but what are you doing >> it's encouraging to listen to all three. they're good long-term investors. i have been nibbling trying to upgrade quality in my portfolio so i clearly agree all three. i know we're going to get through this, it's just a matter of when so i'm just trying to think six, eight, ten montes down the road. i did get more aggressive this week especially after monday's fed move because it was radical, necessary. it providedly quidty to the bond market and helped to stem the outflows i think if that instilled confidence to the system it's not perfect yet but it will get better and as we know, the bond market is an important part of the economic foundation so you needed to get that right and then we can now then talk about the fiscal side. but i'm a little bit more

encouraged this week versus the past couple of weeks >> mike made a positive case then ended it by saying it's the best risk reward he's seen for two years and two years isn't a particularly long time frame when you consider quite the scale of impeachment people have had to take to get us in >> that's a fair point i think it's difficult to nearly say that all of a sudden, this big drop of 30% this four weeks got the market down to some bedrock level of cheapness the loss came so quickly and you had several types of traders who said this looks like an opportunity for an upturn got way too oversold if you're long er term, that's

just the way the discipline works and a lot of that is working together now none of these folks said by the way, we hit the down tick to the absolute penny on monday and that was the low and i'm going to defend that point. it was more than we're in the zone where it makes sense to add equity risk because guess what, risk comes out of equities when prices go down it's something that's not intuiti intuitive, but it's the case >> thanks so much for that we've got five minutes left of the session and we are near the session highs. at the session highs 1300 points higher on the dow. it's been a volatile day for cruise lines as investors digest the latest stimulus bill seema has the details op that. seema. >> hey, that's right despite president trump calling the cruise industry a primary candidate for financial relief, the cruise lines do not qualify for financial aid in this stimulus bill. many critics including a number

of democrats point out that royal caribbean, norwegian cruise line, carnival, are not incorporated in the u.s. and pay little in federal income tax, however they employ over 420,000 americans and are important to states like florida and alaska so the question is whether some type of financial relief will be provided down the line this has been a sector that has been hit very hard by coronavirus. those sailings have been halted until mid may. wilfred. >> there's a headline today, three cruise ships carrying more than 100 people with flu like symptoms headed to florida how is this still happening? >> yeah of course a number of actions have been taken by the w.h.o. and the cruise line industry to increase the number of temperature checks and other provisions to make sure they can minimize the risk of infection,

but it's a hard task to do especially for the cruise line industry where the proximity to other people is certainly much higher than maybe other parts of the travel industry, so it is hard to see why those two ships are headed to port miami now and yes, another sign that you know, individuals with flu like simple toms, not a good time to have that in the anyone of coronavirus. >> i mean it seems crazy with restaurants and stores shutting down that cruise ships aren't doing so thank you. american auto plants updating their shutdown plans today phil lebeau has more on that phil >> and we just heard from general motos when the last half hour saying the plan to reopen production at the end of this month is going to be pushed out. no date on in terms of when production will resume at gm's plants here, but we heard from four others today, basically the same thing they're all pushing their dates out into april ford is the soonest, considering

reopening plans on april 6th there you see honda, chrysler, toyota has pushed it out until april 20th chrysler opened another $3.8 billion line of credit and we're going to see this not only from automakers, but suppliers. similar to the airlines. they are opening these lines of credit and have the liquidity on hand when they ride out this rough stretch that may be lasting a month, two months, who knows. what we've seen today is just the beginning. we'll see more from suppliers and others revising their plans. guys, back to you. >> minutes left of trade mike's been looking into the market internals as always another positive ta here what do you see? >> yeah, pretty positive a one way train today. it's reflected in the internals. look at the advancing versus declining by the new york stock exchange i keep pointing out that people like to see an overwhelming amount of upvolume we've got a cluster of them so

that's a net positive even though we're in the bounce zone over three days. take a look at something you wouldn't expect, banks and utilities rallying together. this is something that often happens when everything is getting a lift many times, these guys run in contrast, but it shows you two relatively depressed groups gaining. volatility index still sticky, not willing to decline much below 60 yet >> thanks for that we've got under a minute left of the session. just a recap of where the markets stand. s&p is up more than 6% dow also more than 6%. pretty much at the session highs. 1330 points higher nasdaq lags a little bit still have a healthy 5.4%. all sectors on the s&p are higher led by ewe tutilities, r estate, health care, financials. the worst performing sector, consumer discretionary and materials are both still up more than 4%. also seeing a big sell off in

the dollar by close to 2%. 1.75%. that's an encouraging sign to see. yields slipping a bit, but not significantly. oil down 5%. the only negative. overa overall, we're seeing the s&p close higher by 6.25%. the dow as session highs 1363 points. up 6.5% week to date now, we are up 17.7% on the dow and up more than 20% from the intraday lows on monday. welcome. to the closing bell. i'll pick things up again. tyler holding down the fort at cnbc hq. mike also with us. cnbc's senior markets commentator. a recap of where we just closed. 6.1% higher on the s&p 500 the dow up 6.24. nasdaq up 45. % up u more than 20% now on the

dow from the intraday lows on monday for the for the week as a whole, we're up 17.5%. all sectors higher on the s&p. utilities led the charge up 8.2% coming up, the ceo of general mills will join us to discuss whether there's a risk of supply chain shortages and how the company is protecting workers to make sure they can keep producing food and later, the ceo of hertz will discuss the car rental's move to provide free rentals to new york city's health care workers. joining us now, stephanie link, ceo jason trennert and chris harvey mike first to you though i mean as i just mepgsed from the monday lows, this has been a ferocious bounce back albeit no one we can confirm will continue yet. >> that's right. from below 2200 of the lows of this week on monday to about 2600 and really virtually in a

straight line. this market does this. it goes relentless in both directions i think once you get a trend turn and by the way, i also say when we were grinding high er i a tight uptrend before the highs, it also was this habit of doing that while i say we're still in the bounce zone, you're still looking at a chart that says okay, fine, this makes sense we're not even back to where we fell off a cliff a couple of weeks ago from around 2700 so that's why i think we're getting up to a point where the market is rushing up to its next test, but so far, so good. >> maybe we've lost sara again we'll get her back jason, i'll come to you. clearly as mike said, a really big bounce we've seen off the lows do you make this out to be the start of a more pronounce d

prolonged rally or not. >> i don't i mean really, i have to say that while i agree with paul, i think the market will be b higher a year from now than it is today i'm also very much to the view that you know like it or not, we're in the middle of a recession. i think we've done a great job of monetary policy to end fiscal policy, we're getting there, to prevent a depression, which is good news. but there's a lot of damage that's been done especially in the most highly leveraged parts of the economy and that's just going to take some time to address and it's going to take time to heal and so you know i'm hopeful, but i would be careful about trying to chase this too much. i think like a lot of other bear markets, it tends to be a process. you've never iseen this magnitud of stimulus come at the markets so quickly and so that maybe accounting for the violence of the bounce we're seeing and it could go further

i think what mike said, 2800 seems like a decent place to go, but i think for those who are maybe not trading, that are more of investors, i wouldn't think you're going to miss these prices for a lifetime. you're going to have time here to scale back in into more cyclical types of sectors as this unfolds >> chris, you've been assessing what we need to see for this to be a staeped rally where do we stand? >> we've blood pressure been tell lg clients to buy below 2500 but we've also saying you need to be disciplined this has been a very volatile and violent market and we want them to be disciplined as they go about deploying capital as far as what we needed to see, we're seeing many things we hoped to see we want to see pointed and very effective monetary and fiscal policy and we're getting that.

something that we noticed and we've been talking to clients about, is ig market has a new issue wans in the credit mark. we may see a record month this year a record month for march that was unthinkable last, a week ago right? so that was very constructive. while we talk about we've been critical of the fed, while more recently, we think the fed has done an outstanding job. what they did on monday, they took the kitchen sink and threw it at the problem and found another one and threw that it had been very effective on a fiscal policy, $2 trillion is a big number. but again, what we need to confront is we're still facing the coronavirus. we don't know the length and magnitude and we're still trying to price that in once we start to see a peak in the growth rates then i think we can get more constructive but we are making some of the right steps. so we're happy but we doernt don't want to chase. we've put a lot of money to work and now it's sit and wait and watch for how the coronavirus plays out.

>> stephanie, i know you said earlier you started buying again on monday and thought the fed's unlimited qe was a bit of a game changer. what about four days on when we've had a 20% bounce from the intraday lows on monday. is it harder to top off your portfolio now? >> i don't want to chase because you're going to have continued volatility the vix is still at 61 so we're hardly out of the woods. i've said this for a while now you have to get peak virus numbers for the volatility to settle down a bit but i am not fighting the fed, the monetary policy, probably not going to fight the fiscal policy. that 2 trillion probably gives you three months so if they have to do more, they'll do more i believe. in the meantime, the markets overall are down about 20% year to date. they have bounced but i've got wells fargo still down 42% chevron, 32%

union fpacific, down 21%. these are blue chip companies. on those down days, i'm adding to those names and others. >> how much difference did it make to you that wells fargo's ceo personally bought more stock in its company >> one of the main reasons i topped it off. the former ceo bought more stock. so look i think there's a lot they can do, that company can do, to fix a lot of the problems but it will take time. but you know their efficiency ratio. it's the highest in the industry that number can easily come down you're trading at .75 price to book a good book in my view and in terms of my comfort. they may have stumbled along the way, but i think overall, in a year, two years, three years, i think this new ceo is going to fix this company and that's one of the reasons, with a 7% yield, take that any day. zwl let.

>> let's get a recap on what happened today bob has a check in on all the biggest stock movers hey, bob >> and the intraday volatility is still staggering. i want to show you the s&p 500 we're essentially moved 2400, 2600 these are staggering intraday volatility and people say why isn't the vix going down because we're having six, seven, 8% intraday moves with what's called the realized volatility. it's been titanic. the vix is not going to drop when you have 6, 7, 8% moves traders look iing at that saying we're not going to do anything we're not going to take off the protection we're not going to stop buying protection at this point so that's why the vix is still at $60, folks. i was hearted to see the action in the banks today biggest story of the day they kept rising throughout the day. fifth third up 17% even though we've gotten clobbered toward the last month we've seen nothing going on here, no jump in yields at all

i think that's very, very important we saw banks up no jump in yields back to you. >> now to rick santelli for a check on the bond market action today. rick >> you know, bob nailed it there's not a lot of big upside to rates one would think with the back-to-back sessions in equities that rates would be firming more than they are look at a 24 hour chart of tens. if you look at monday, tuesday, wednesday and tuesday and draw a line at 0i base80 boys is paint, you're touching it every session. there's not much bang to yields. this is something to pay close attention to it gives us a hint that not all is cured remember, rates going down is kind of the association with regard to credit markets finally, what's the big story today here dollar index let's realize that on monday, we were flirting with 103, now

we're 99 and a quarter 3.5% drop and if you look at just today, just today, we are down one and three quarters percent as you see on the one month chart of the dollar index. i haven't volatility in the foreign change, but remember downside of the dollar is kind of a better overall emotional strategy for the globe with respect to the demand for dl alrea dollars. the fed has gone a long way to help satisfy that demand back to you. >> thank you jason, fed chair powell speaking on the "today" show this morning saying we may wibe looking at a recession but that the fed is in and doing whatever it takes basically as we've seen through a number of these recent programs also said that you know there's plenty of ammunition left this talk about how much the fed has helped the current environment, the dollar as rick was saying?

, the treasure ares and strong treasuries are correlated with strong equity prices now and just what has happened as a result of all this fed action. >> it's really incal clabl i was happy to say powell on television the morning that also -- they created this alphabet soup of facilities for commercial paper and neutral funds and now you're being able to buy munis and investment grade paper. they say the balance sheet is over $5 trillion now all great stuff. it's been telling that you haven't seen powell visibly until it looked like they were making real progress on the fiscal side and i think because the fed can provide liquidity, but it's really going to take fiscal and regulatory policy to allay some of the fears b of

solvency and i think partenkirchen of the reason why you haven't seen him until recently i think it's a good sign but again there's, there are going to be certain things on the other side of this particularly as it relates to the cost of leverage ill liquid investments, the amount of liquidity might not matter because the cost of capital may be low, but you may not have access to it. so what the fed has done can't be underestimated. >> jason just wanted to ask you about oil prices and a couple of the other industrial commodities. clearly oil spllipped during th session. does that worry you? >> it doesn't make me feel better we have a list of ten factors that we're looking at to determine when expectations for global growth have bottom eed ad oil and copper are both on that list and the fact that they're not,

they haven't really spiked or haven't really come through makes me feel that global growth is still going to be under pressure so i'd like to see oil higher. copper quite a bit higher. financial conditions have eased and spreads have started to narr narrow, so those things are good, but in terms of just getting back to people actually starting to think about risk on, i think oil is an important indicator and right now, it's not giving you much of a signal to get really long from here >> jason, stephanie, chris, thank you all very much for joining us >> thank you now on to lululemon earnings >> so it was beat on the top end bottom lines for the apparel makers eps, 2.$2.28 for q4 revenue at 1.40 billion. the expectation had been 1.38 billion. comps also nice.

total increased 20%. comp store sales increased 9%. the ceo did refer to coronavirus in the note saying that 2019 was a strong year for lululemon but added that in an extraordinary environment which is currently -- company not providing guidance certain ly nt something yushl in this environment. again, you can see shares are down almost 1% in afterhours trading, but this is after a beat on top and bottom lines for q4 back to you. >> thanks so much for that still to come, the ceo of general mills llwi discuss which products don't go anywhere. life isn't a straight line. and sometimes, you can find yourself heading in a new direction. but when you're with fidelity, a partner who makes sure every step is clear,

there's nothing to stop you from moving forward. a partner who makes sure every step is clear, wenot the exception.sh food being the global norm, at emerson, when issues become inspiration, creating a better world isn't just a result, it's a responsibility. emerson. consider it solved. people know aflac... aflac! ...but not what they do. so we're answering their questions. aflac is auto insurance, right? no. uh uh.

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from people eating at home and we're able to fulfill that demand because the people on the front lines of our manufacturin as well as health care workers and law enforcement are doing the jobs they need to do and so we're very proud of the work we're doing and we're living our company mission of making food the world loves. right now, it's making food the world needs. that includes breakfast serial here in the u.s. and also here at home as well as in china and europe and a decrease in food demand away from home and those markets as well. >> since you mentioned china, what are you seeing there now as the country comes back online and back to work does it mean they're eating out more at restaurants at the expense of some of those grocery products >> well i'm really proud of what we've been able to do, general mills has been able to do in china. our sales at home have been increasing double digits over the last couple of months since

the pandemic started there and we saw our hagan das shops business down about 90% with 90% of our stores closed in february there's another side of this and for us, that really is 90% of our shops are back open and traffic is still down. it's down 50%. but i think it's a good sign that stores have reopened and that consumers are starting to come back and i think thats well for in the u.s. and for people in europe as well. >> it does it's good to hear, but meantime, back to the u.s., what are you seeing people buy? you mentioned hagan das and sara mentioned cereal is it items for stocking up or is it ice cream to get you through it. >> what we saw in the beginning was different than today four weeks ago, we saw people stocking up. what we're seeing now is more steady increase d demand for

items across the store so we see increases in our business, not only in our soup business, but also in things like cereal and yogurt and baking mixes, so what was once a stock up trip at a few locations has really turned into something more systemic demand and food at home across different formats in the grocery store as well as our own portfolio. >> jeff, at what point the longer this crisis goes on or the more cities perhaps that get locked down across the u.s., at what point do you worry about meeting demand about production and delivery that can actually keep up and do we have to worry about food shortages at any point in this country? >> we certainly haven't seen that yet and i don't anticipate it i think it's due to the great work the people have done not only at general mills and our manufacturing plants, but also the way we partnered with our

partners in grocery stores to keep shelves stocks. in some ways, you see film, you think this pandemic brings out the worst. i see the opposite it's brought out the best in general mills and the way we go to market. in how we partner with retailers. we've been able to fulfill more than 90% of orders so far because we have more than 95% of our employees showing up and we've made that possible through some policies we've put in place, but also importantly to propolicies to make sure if they're stick, they stay home and if their children are home, they need to be able to do that as well. the food supply chain in the u.s. has been remarkable and it's true of general mills but also of our competitors throughout the whole food chain so we are confident we can continue to supply the u.s. and the world with food. >> jeff, how confident are you in food safety here in the u.s. that it's not spreading the

virus? >> we're highly confident that we're not spreading the virus and that our food is safe and the fda's weighed in on this and you can check out their websites they are the experts we've taken a lot of precautions to make sure the food is safe and people making the food are safe we feel very good about the safety of our food supply. >> wanted to ask you about pet food you made a huge acquisition to blue buffalo that's been a fast growing brand. what are people doing there? also stocking up. >> well, people love all their members of the family, including furry members of the family and blue buffalo was growing at 11% before this broke out. we're still see iing high deman for pet food people take care of their pets like pet food just like they do other members of their family. i'm proud of the herd we call them the herd is doing great work b and we see good demand for pet

food >> sara has frozen briefly again but we'll leave it there thanks so much for joining us. we appreciate it >> thank you so much >> kb home earnings are out. diana has the numbers. >> yeah. nice beat for kb home. they reported revenue of $1.08 billion, 63 cents a share. that's the highest revenue since 2007 up 33% home deliveries were up 28%. new orders, net new orders up 31%. now of course this is all backward looking and they did cancel all their guidance for this year. the note from the ceo says they are well positioned. he did mention something which leonard menged last week again about land we continue to close homes and generate revenues. we are also taking steps to curtail land acquisition and development until circumstances become more stabilized

you definitely don't want to be land heavy as a builder if you're looking at slower sales andsloer slower prospects goin into the last quarter. they are thinking they are going to get more demand toward the next year, so it was a great beat the august, first quarter sale price was up 5% and the cancellation rate dropped from 20% to 14% so we were supposed to see very strong spring market for the builders we saw it with lennard but u again, that was all backward looking and we're hearing a lot of slowdown in the market now back to you. >> up 5% or so after hours move. thank you. still ahead, ceo of hertz will join us to discuss whether the auto rental company will continue to need to lay off workers because of the coronavirus outbreak you can watch us live on the cnbc app we'll be right back. up, there is a chance that that's the last time.

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welcome back let's look at how we finished the day on wall street it was a good day. industrials up 6.38% with 1350 points quite a gain there the s&p 500 up 15 4.

better than 6% gain. nasdaq better than 6% and russell 2,000 up 6% as well. best three-day gain for the dow since october of 1931 in percentage terms best three day sprint for the s&p since april of '33 1933 that is >> wasn't a great decade >> and there were lots of losses that followed as the country went into the great depression and markets actually bottomed i believe a couple of years after that don't remember, but we're not out of the woods yet >> certainly not thank you very much for that i know one person who will have insight on that. mike, he's got another chart on the market right now >> i wasn't quite around in the '30s, but we saw the biggest up

day, too so that's the decade that seemed -- look at the current weekly american association of individual investor sentiment survey one breakdown of bulls than bears. more bulls than bears now. this chart is the four-week average. it's not yet down to the depth we saw in 2008, 2009 period. probably because the duration of this downturn is really not that long just yet. it's only several weeks and perhaps that would have time to get down there, but i think it fits with this idea that people are shocked, negative, e scared, pessimistic, maybe not in that despondent way >> still to come, neil ferguson will join us and way in tonhe claims that the social distancing cure it's having on the economy is worse than the disease. back in a couple of minutes.

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to improve short-term memory. prevagen. healthier brain. better life. breaking news on america's credit rating. steve. >> affirming as triple-a, but possibly the worst i have ever read in fact they say the near term, the situation is so that it may be placed in the future on credit watch, it sees

deteriorating debt it does say that the u.s. is supported by structural screen, by the idea of the dollar. but it sees the deficit initial indications from the stimulus vote just passed increasing to 13% of gdp and debt to gdp the all in debt rises to 115% from 100. so they are affirming the triple-a you remember the last time that was downgraded i believe on credit watch was 2013. it was downgraded as part of the fiscal cliff it seems like one of the most reluctant and worse affirmations i've read. i don't know if you saw it today, but there was something of a widening in u.s. sovereign debt this which you take out insurance against. it was not used, but it was a

widening of those spreads, so the idea here is that we are coming out with a huge spending plan but it's not without cost >> always comes back to the u.s. >> go ahead, sorry >> we've had these fears about the u.s. credit before and about u.s. deficits and yet the u.s. is still number one. everybody wants their bonds. everyone wants our dollar and as long as that system is in place, steve, i wonder if we're really going to have any type of reckoning or real fear about the u.s. >> this is correct and it's my recollection that u.s. bonds rallied after the countydowngrak place. where people come to when risk is off that's something that helps the united states. i just feel like fitch is

putting out a warning sign you know what, keep going this way. remember the downgrade in 2011 and '13 was about the political will not the financial ability or economic ability that creates this issue of when it rises to a certain level of what we do b about that debt i think it's something we have to keep in mind as we embark on this tremendous spending to try to save the economy. >> steve, we'll leave it there thank you very much. also just mention that they are forecasting u.s. gdp to shrink by 3% in 2020. they describe it as unprecedented. minus 3% for the full year now the number of coronavirus cases worldwide topping half a million but earlier today on cnbc, paul jones said the u.s.

must be careful not to overhype the disease. >> let's assume a worst case scenario let's assume a million cases which is two and a half times what i think we're going to have let's assume a mortality rate and again, forgive me for speaking with so much morbidity, but let's assume a fatality rate of 4% of 40,000 americans, sadly and tragically will die. that still is the equivalent of what we've seen during the flu season so we've got to be careful not to make this into the pandemic gbecause we can bea this thing >> joining us now, niall ferguson, the hoover institution. a very good afternoon to you thanks for joining us. do you think that assessment is

too optimistic >> well, he i think just got off the phone from the president of the united states who clearly is rather eager for the stock market to go up. and indeed for business as usual to resume in about 17 days but i think it's a little dangerous to present thatas th worst case scenario. we just don't know enough about this virus and the disease it causes yet to be as confident as he just sounded. let's just imagine that we have the italian experience in this country, which is not inconceivable at this point. that would mean that within about two week, we would have 400,000 cases and 40,000 dead i you just scale from population let's imagine that the disease is as contagious as h1n1 and yet a great deal more dangerous. let's apply the south korean fatality rate, imagine that 20% of the u.s. population gets

covid-19 but a south korean rate of mortality strikes. then you're looking at 400,000 dead so i think he's making a mistake in so confidently saying that 40,000 dead is the worst case scenario i can think of a number of significantly worse case scenarios than that. these things, pandemics, have very fat tails and you can't say with confidence where exactly this thing is going to go until we have much more certainty about its reproduction number, how many people do you infect if you're contagious and about the fatality rate. we still have no idea how many people have caught it with no symptoms at all. so we're in a condition of great

uncertainty and i think it's rather irresponsible to rehash the old line that oh, it's just the seasonal flu not the seasonal flu it's happening on top of the flu and there's no vaccination for ko vcovid-19 and there isn't gog to be for at least a year. >> what makes you think, how can we get a handle on whether the u.s. is going to follow italy or not? if you put aside the number of cases and focus on the number of deaths which i guess is more comparable because it takes out of the equation how much testing you're doing, is there any explanation that people have as to why the situation in italy is so much worse than anywhere else if we look at the most disastrous examples, huibei, china, it soars when your medical services are overrun with ill people and you don't have the capabilities, the

intensive care units to be overrun. that was the story in italy, too. now we're not as densely populated at the italians and i think our social networks with r different and that's important as i've tried to show in my recent show. i don't think we'll be as bad as italy, but new york state might be new york city almost certainly will be but the u.s. as a whole probably won't be just because we're more thinly dispersed. back up i thi but it's important to remember we're not going to be south korea. south korea got a handle on an outbreak and it did a whole series of things that we just aren't doing we aren't even doing yet in the united states the kind of strict lockdowns that have applied in almost every european continent and country, so i think is u.s. is taking a risk at the moment and particularly if it's going to go back to work around easter

time because we still don't really i think have enough confidence in what's going to happen here under those circumstances. they're simply not doing what they did in east asia to contain it and not even doing what they did in europe to contain it. it's already inflicted a considerable cost of the economy. you know there is a worst case scenario, what the united states does just enough to crater the economy, but not enough to contain the pandemic that's what troubled me most about our current policy stance. >> especially with the president talking about reopening by easter i want to get to your latest project, this idea of o networks and information and messaging how do you think social media is playing a role here in spreading news about the pandemic?

either making people too scared and too panicked or maybe the opposi opposite not enough and spreading fake news about what's happening. >> well, it has been doing both. it seems to me that if you want to be into a state of complacency, social media has got it for r you and if you want to be in an panic and imagine you're in the movie contagion, you're probably find that, too it's true that technology can dissim na disseminate all kinds of fake news, but remember in east asia, one thing they've been able to do using social media and location data from phones is very quickly contact trace this is something we're not doing in the united states it's not enough for us to ramp up testing, which we're doing. what you really need to do is what they did in south korea as well as in china but also in taiwan remember it's not just authoritarian that can do this you use the social browse that people create with their smart

phones through their social media usage so that you can trace the network of people that an infected person has likely been in contact with. that's why the south koreans were able to put a lid on their outbreak in a way that europeans haven't been able to and i don't think we're going to be able to because we're not deploying the technology in that way rather, we're letting social media be an amplification mechanism for all kind of very inaccurate assessments of the kris i we face >> nile ferall ferguson, alwaysa pleasure and great jumper. >> i'm in the mountains, wilf. >> much appreciated. hertz providing free rentals to w rkithetharneyo cy al ce workers. we'll discuss the move with the ceo after the short break. forced camaraderie. shoult and you should be mad at tech that makes things worse.

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edward jones is it'swell aware of that.et. which is why we're ready to listen. and ready to help you find opportunity. so. let's talk. edward jones. it's time for investing to feel individual.

let's get the latest on the coronavirus. hi, sue. >> hello, everybody. the infection rate in new jersey has shot up today. that state reported nearly 2500 cases since yesterday. that's an increase of 56% in a single day health officials say at least 43 of the state's 375 long-term

care facilities have a case of the virus. one facility had to be evacuate after at least 24 people tested positive three residents there have died. overseas, a famous english seaside resort is urging people not to visit because of the coronavirus outbreak last weekend, thousands of people flocked to brighton and hove with many flaunting social distancing >> we're asking people to stay away from our city because of the coronavirus. please, don't come this weekend. your action could save lives >> as always, you can get more on cnbc's coronavirus coverage by going to cnbc.com back to you. >> thanks so much. now hertz offering free rental vehicles to workers in new york city through the end of april. joining us by phone in an exclusive interview is the ceo

very good afternoon to you and it's great to hear this new endeavor you're doing to give health care workers in new york city free cars talk us through how easy that has been to administer and the take up you've seen. >> well, what happened is basically we have a lot of employees who want to help and we also happen to have a lot of cars not on rent because of the immediate impact on travel and mobility matters you know in these times of crisis are critical and we have a lot of cars available so we'restarting with health care workers who truly are at the front line of this crisis. doing good work and we're going right to new york city where it's the epicenter of the coronavirus cases. and you know, as most, many people know, there's low car ownership in new york. and there's increasing concern with people using public transportation so we're providing free rentals to new york city health care

workers through april. and we're also provideing cargo vans to hospitals to help them with supplies and just today, we already have a cargo vans are mt. sinai hospital and they're transporting ventilators and they're telling us that we are literally helping them to save lives. this isjust a start. we'll continue to see ways we can continue to help during this crisis we are an essential service out there. we still have thousands of employees providing critical transportation where and when they need it to fema workers, government workers, health care workers across the country when students had to get home, we changed our policy. we let 18-year-olds rent cards with debit cards and got them home so they could shelter in place. >> kathy, it's great work and we commend you for doing it obviously an important service i'm wontderring if wondering if

you can tell us about the business though and what you're seeing with travel in this country essentially grinding to a halt is there any demand for rental cars >> well, as i mention ed, there are still critical needs of transportation around the country and we still do have thousands of people you know, providing service and making sure people you know get the cars or the vans or trucks they need however, like the rest of the global travel sector, it's had a huge impact on hertz it happened quick and we had a very definitive reversal in customer demand. it's been significant. the hard part for us is we came into the year really strong and then in march, cities around the world started shutting down, airline travel decreased dramatically pretty much overnight. and we've had tons of cancellations and a decline in forward bookings you know, one of the things, go ahead.

>> i was going to say a lot of talk of course about how the government bill can help you and whether you can get government assistance is that something you're considering that could be necessary and alternatively, there's been your industry can consolidate a little bit is that something you're considering? >> well, what first and foremost we've been aggressively getting out of our fleet, managing cost and reducing our capital expenditures and things that are directly in my control, and at the same time, yes, we have engaged in the u.s. and european governments and we are seeking financial support to help the industry get through this critical period. i haven't gotten a response back so i don't have an update on that, though you know, i think, as, you know, we have a great brand and we provide great service out there and in fact, we were working with our competitors to seek the help we need to get through this

crisis. >> kathy, thank you so much for joining us we appreciate it >> have a good afternoon >> after the break, facebook making a big change to its board. those details next life isn't a straight line.

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we see hat emerson,kthroughs when issues become inspiration, creating a better world isn't just a result, it's a responsibility. emerson. consider it solved. at&t has connected us every day for over 100 years. and we're here for you - especially now, doing everything possible to keep you connected. through the resilience of our network and people... we can keep learning, keep sharing, keep watching, and most of all, keep together. it's the job we've always done... it is the job we will always do. >> welcome back. some breaking news on facebook rahel solomon has that for us. >> it is appointing robert m.

kimmet as lead independent director that is effective immediately. jeffrey ziets informing the company he's stepping down and not standing for reelection. mark zuckerberg saying of kimities' appointment is important for us and we've been looking for a leader that can bring significant oversight and shares of facebook are down fractionally in after hours. wilf, i'll send it back to you >> thank you so much. >> in the meantime, the cheesecake factory telling landlords it won't be able to pay april's rent jane wells has that in california. >> the company headquarters is not far from here and while share his a nice pop, year to date they're down half and they've told the landlords no rent coming in april and the company has started drawing down on a $90 million credit line chairman and ceo david overton

said, quote, due to these extraordinary, vents i'm asking for your patience and frankly, your help. most of the 300 stores are in malls owned by simon property in westfield and simon properties have had a rougher year. the cheesecake factory laying off employees as it was forced to switch to a takeout and delivery mode. cnbc obtained a copy of an e-mail sent by overton saying they're being furloughed without pay. they can apply for unemployment and the company will continue to pay their health care premiums through may. overton write, quote, the staff furloughs we have enacted are the most difficult decision i've had to make, but my overarching goal is to ensure that we make it through this crisis and return to full staffing levels as soon as we can. the current situation has deteriorated far more rapidly than 9/11 and the great recession. the company is offering employees one free meal a day.

back to you. >> jane, thank you very much some tough times for sure. >> coming up next, we'll be looking ahead to tomorrow. stocks, of course, today finished sharply hheigr. what's in store tomorrow we'll discuss. it's a challenging market. edward jones is well aware of that. which is why we're ready to listen. and ready to help you find opportunity. so. let's talk. edward jones. it's time for investing to feel individual.

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>> welcome back. the dow finished higher. the s&p and nasdaqs well today, for the third day in a row as we look to tomorrow, mike santoli, important to keep in mind how historic this week and month has really been. the dow having its best week since 1931, but its worst month since 2008 which gets back to your point that sometimes the sharpest upswings and snapbacks happen during a bear market and the fact is that the big swings on beoth sides still indicate w are far from normal in this market. >> absolutely, sarah it tells you how tightly compressed this mark has becomed and we relieved some of that pressure and sprang higher at this rate. i will say toward the end of the session we saw evidence of that rotation, asset allocation rotation into stocks, out of bonds and that's a quarter of the activity and we will look to tomorrow to see if that

basically got it done or maybe this is going to be another day of a short-term tailwind from that kind of a force >> best three-day rally -- but -- wasn't monday a really bad day? i seem to remember it wraunt th wasn't that long ago, was it >> it's been a roller coaster ride which no doubt will continue >> i quickly want to mention tomorrow at 10:15 a.m. i'll be interviewing the vice president and the head of the coronavirus task force you don't want to miss that and you also don't want to miss "fast money" which starts now with brian sullivan. ♪ ♪ welcome to "fast money" and cnbc's continued coverage of the coronavirus outbreak and the markets in turmoil i am brian sullivan and you can see a new local, social distancing just as important at work and do not worry, we still have a lineup all hour long with big-name guests you've got to he