that would technically be, technically be a bull market we're not in a bull market, are we >> you don't want to call it a bull market. no, we're not in a bull market this could -- i don't think it is i think there's thing that's interesting that's happening here i think that within the next couple weeks -- the market is telling me it believes in the optimistic case. i'm going to side with that and not have my own opinion, but you could easily call this a bear market when you look at the biggest -- >> got to jump in. -- >> moving in the stock market, most of them occur within the context of a bear market rally this could easily be that. i'm encouraged by it but for someone to call it a bull market, i don't think so. >> and don't think i did the struck has struck 3:00 jim, thank you very much rachel, great to spend the hour with you "the closing bell" begins now. >> tyler, thank you. welcome, everyone. i am sara eisen here with

wilford frost in this final hour of trade markets rallying again today, stocks at their highs of the day around 3%, although we did see yesterday anything can happen in the final minutes or hour of trade. it can evaporate at a moment's notice 59 minutes left. driving the action this hour, encouraging numbers from the u.s. as the government lowers its projection model for the devastation from coronavirus and after fauci says the government is planning ways to, quote, ease back to normal fed minutes out from the last meeting showing the u.s. central bank intends to keep rates near zero until the economy has weathered the coronavirus impact and senator bernie sanders suspending his presidential campaign, removing a mesh huasuf uncertainty before november's election >> coming up on today's show, we'll speak with mark cuban. his read on how small business is faring and this i take on the market volatility ahead. and the ceo of etsy will join us as many etsy sellers pivot to

homemade facemasks we'll discuss etsy's move to help small business owners more broadly. we are up, as sara said, at session highs, 750 points higher on the dow, 3.3% in percentage terms, also for s&p, the nasdaq up 2.6%. let's focus in on the big stories we're watching today mike santoli is tracking the market contessa has a look at the new york market. and bernie sanders suspends his campaign mike, first to you >> we basically recouped all we lost in the interday downside reversal yesterday in the s&p. not quite. high for the s&p was about 2,750. we're almost there it's doing it today in a fairly kind of tight rally, fairly methodical, low drama, not so jumpy. that's a net positive. i want to look at the market seems to be attempting to do if you want the optimistic case, is kind of close off this area of a downside overshoot, 2,650 is an

area people felt was important, a 200-week average if you nose up there, stay up there for a weekly close tomorrow, it would probably give people some encouragement with nothing else we're rising into another trading range as opposed to having that suspense as to whether an air pocket will open up towards the march lows. an active debate as to whether this is a fleeting rally or in fact a sustainable advance look at this, obviously a key driver is everyone looking for the next incremental bit of information about whether we've peaked in terms of the spread of the coronavirus. this is from renaissance macro it basically shows the s&p 500 year to date against e.r. visits in new york city for respiratory illness. obviously a proxy for the day-to-day intensity of this health crisis. naturally you see markets bottom here as we saw a peak in that e.r. visitation rate we can't extrapolate this forever. i don't think it's going to be the metric that will matter months from now because it will get to be more economics but this is what we have to go

off right now. i also think just one final thought, there's a chance that wall street being in new york means we're privileging new york-level data and thinking that the peak in new york means the peak everywhere. that may or may not be true, so we have to see how the market absor bs the rest of this incoming information >> one thing that stands out to me today in terms of the market performance is the difference of the u.s. versus the rest of the world. today's performance really is a stark example, something that kind of stands on most i mean frames when you look at it week to date now, s&p up 10.4%, stocks 600 europe only 5.7%. whether you look at it year to date or so far this month, the u.s. is outperforming and it shows the scale of the bounce we've seen in the last couple days makes you raise that question of whether it's sustainable when the rest of the world isn't following. >> it's interesting because part of the explanation of the outperformance of the u.s. going into the highs is we have a lot more big, stable tech companies, quality sustainable growth businesses that's not what's been leading off the bounce it's much more the kind of

distressed value cyclical sectors that have been beaten up to me, it's about the policy response, the size and the speed of the fed and the treasury getting money out into the system and perhaps that's why we did see this rapid market response >> yeah. more on that in just a minute on the fiscal side of things. mike, thank you. a leveling off of hospitalizations in new york is sparking a conversation about how exactly the state will reopen when the virus is under control. contessa brewer has that story contessa >> yeah, but sara, today new york hit its highest daily death toll at 779. governor andrew cuomo is trying to manage expectations about what a return to normal life was, life before the outbreak, looks like, and instead he's talking about what the new normal is, and much of that involves continuing use of these new online platforms >> using technology for health care

using technology, work from home using technology for education i think these are all positives that we can learn. testing capacity, which we still have to develop, that is going to be the bridge from where we are today to the new economy >> that widespread testing will be crucial because you don't workers coming back on the job and sparking another viral outbreak new york state has developed its own covid-19 antibody test to determine who has already recovered from coronavirus and the state will invest private companies to help get and ramp up enough testing so that it can be widespread. today also governor cuomo ordered more testing in minority populations which have been hit much harder by coronavirus and often people who work in these crucial frontline jobs like mass transit, health care, child care, those are crucial jobs and we need to make sure they're

healthy so he's ordering more testing there. sara and wolf? >> he also alluded to the fact we're not getting a clear picture, contessa, on the full number -- the true number of deaths or the mortality rate what did he mean by that >> well, for one thing, we know that there are people dying at home it's something that the funeral directors have talked to me about before this week and new york city mayor bill de blasio is trying to grapple with, people who got sent home from the hospital, sent home frommer urgent care or never got to see their doctors, they're having about 235 deaths per day at home, where normal is about 23, 25 deaths per day. that's a significant increase. and those numbers may not be right now factored into the death toll it's the same thing that we have to keep in mind when we're talking about whether we're seeing a leveling off of coronavirus cases that so many people are not getting tested and so we don't really have a clear picture of how widespread

it is in our communities >> wow contessa, thanks so much for that some stark figures once again. turning to the big political story of the day, bernie sanders has suspended his presidential campaign t . >> despite a zeitgeist among the progressive win of the democratic party, today bernie sanders told supporters in a live stream that he did not see a path forward for the nomination >> i see the crisis ripping the nation, exacerbated by a president unwilling or unable to provide any kind of credible leadership and the work that needs to be done to protect people in this most desperate hour. i cannot in good conscience continue to mount the campaign that cannot win. >> despite suspending his campaign, sanders says that he sbnds to remain on the ballot for all the remaining primaries,

notably june 2nd is shaping up to be a sort of super tuesday redux with many of these contests being delayed until then because of the coronavirus. sanders currently has 883 delegates by nbc news' count, and he says that he intends to amass more delegates to try to wield more influence over the platform that the party takes as it heads into the november general election for president trump's part, his campaign manager is already tweeting likening former vice president joe biden to senator bernie sanders on the policy front, trying to paint them in the same vein. we'll see how far that messaging goes and whether it's a message that lands with voters wolf and sara? >> kayla, thank you. more from senator mark warner from virginia later on the show. looking at the markets, we have about 50 minutes left of trade and stocks are near session highs, up more than 3% on the s&p 500. every sector is higher joining us to discuss what to do

next is the chief investment officer of wells fargo wealth and investment management and president of wells fargo investment institute also joining us is omar aguilar, the chief investment officer of equities with charles schwab investment management. you both have long titles. daryl, first to you, you put out a note to your clients a few days ago saying the bear market is still in its infancy. doesn't sound like you're a buyer here why? >> yeah. good afternoon, sara so it looks to us like this is a large bear market rally. it's very normal that the deeper the decline -- we know how deep the decline was in 23 days, peak to trough -- the higher bounce, often the deeper the retest. that's been proven over and over again historically at 2, 50, we are bumping up against key resistance levels and based on where we think earnings are going to go this year, markets still look like they need to reset those earnings expectations possibly lower. so we would kind of fade this

rally, be a seller into this rally of particularly mike made a good point about the leaders this week have all been the stocks that have trailed for the last 12 months in performance. quite frankly, the ones that were leading us for the last 12 months are woefully behind by almost 12 full percent this week, so we're getting a lot of the junkier sectors rallying here >> your take on the same question is this bounce happening too fast and too high? >> well, you know, it is very hard to describe, you know, the bear market, so this is the fastest bear market we got into in history therefore, it's very hard to address, you know, how much of the bear market is over. but what we do know is that because of what we know central banks are doing and we know what the governments are doing, that there is asignificant amount o support for these bear market, unlike other bear markets. this is the one we just heard from the fed in the minutes

today that they will do everything in their power to be able to support this so what i while i agree that, you know, clearly the market is driven by sentiment and there is no fundamentals or economic data that is fully priced into this, there is a significant amount of support provided by liquidity from the central banks and from the stimulus fiscally. >> darrell, just to play devil's advocate, even the fact that dr. fauci, who's been very cautious and open about, you know, how painful this is going to be for our country, is talking about an opening of the economy. the fact that governor cuomo is talking about it, yes, they're tentative and early and the numbers are still devastating, but the fact that conversation has moved there, doesn't that give you optimism? doesn't that change the trajectory >> yeah. i mean, let me be clear, sara. it is very optimistic we may be opening the economy hopefully sooner rather than later and he v rehitting the start button if you add up the optimism, it's

better coronavirus case, hope for this opec plus deal coming later this week or early next. it's more stimulus out of washington it's more clarity on elections so the headlines this week have been overwhelmingly positive so it doesn't surprise me the market's reaction. that said, discussing a plan to reopen the markets still is a long way from, a, reopening the economy, and, b, repairing what's probably going to be almost irreparable harm to labor markets, to consumer confidence, to ultimately spending we're not going to return or resume to the level of economic activity that we were at in january or february or the level of confidence or any of that so i think we have to price that into the markets here. not trying to be too bearish we're trying to help our clients understand, this is not a time probably to chase this straight back up close to the highs of where we were 30 days or so ago. >> omar, if the economy manages

to open up relatively soon and we don't see any kind of worrying second wave of this disease, with all the stimulus that we've seen, would that warrant going above earlier in the year record highs fairly quickly? >> well, i would actually say that the key part of your question is the word "quickly. i do not think that the v-shaped recovery that people have talked about or that talked in the past is something that is potentially feasible a lot of that is related to the fact that reopening an economy of our size is not going to be that quick even with everything that is being already portrayed as possibilities you know, first we need to solve the health crisis and health solution is something that is not here before we get to that point, even with everything that is put in the table, it's going to take a while for things to get restarted and start getting to the right place. i do think, however, as i said, the big support that we get for

the stimulus and the liquidity is something that will provide a good path to make sure that the volatility is a little tame. i would actually say that the key component for being, and we tell our clients, is to continue to watch the credit market because that's the area that will probably give an indication of whether or not things will start getting a little more closer to what we are. i do think, however, because of the unknowns of the impact of the crisis and the length of it, it is going to be very hard to just anticipate how this will work >> darrell, omar, thank you both for phoning in with your take on the market we see every sector higher, real estate in the lead breaking news on zoom. deirdre bosa has the details deirdre? >> hey, sara take a look at zoom shares they fell about 6% though they are still positive on the session. this comes after a buzzfeed report that says that google is banning the popular service from its employees' devices, citing

security vulnerabilities. this comes after a number of other challenges for zoom privacy and security related and they seem to be piling up. yesterday a shareholder filed a lawsuit claiming zoom has been covering up security flaws, and it feels like the number of schools and businesses banning the popular service for its employees and students is just growing. shares are still up, though, we should note, about 70% year to date >> thanks for that the broader markets up 3.2% as we stand with about 44 minutes left of the session. still ahead, billionaire ventilator mark cuban will join us with his take on this volatile market and how his "shark tank" companies are faring amid the pandemic r p the fed taking a key ste foone bank to offer more small business loans those details after this short break.

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welcome back 40 minutes left of trading we're not too far off from the session highs. the high on the dow was about 3:00 up about 715 points. s&p up 3. 5%, every sectontor

higher staples and health care lagging. let's check on individual market movers at this hour. pinterest issuing early guidance for its first quarter that topped analyst estimates the company is saying despite weakness across the advertising market, pinterest's exposure to the most affected sectors like travel and restaurants has not been that significant. the stock is up almost 11% nordstrom says the pandemic so far has had a, quote, substantial impact on its business the retailer saying it expects its results for the quarter and beyond to be, quote, adversely impacted in a significant manner that stock popping 6.8% along with some of the other beaten-up retail lately, which has been a hard-hit group, wilford. >> it has indeed the fed taking steps today to allow wells fargo to make more small business loans steve liesman joins us with those details. hi, steve. >> the federal reserve temporarily and narrowly lifting a cap that had restricted the growth in wells fargo's balance

sheet, had been capped at $1.95 trillion totally because of compliance issues and what the fed called a breakdown in governance at wells fargo. what they've done is lifted the cap for wells fargo to awe lallo it to make more small business loans specifically under the sba paycheck protection program and the forthcoming main street lending facility from the federal reserve will not count against the cap. wells fargo, as wilf reported, had complained it was up against the cap. there were talks going on between the fed and wells fargo. wells fargo said they couldn't participate in the programs because it was just underneath the cap in terms of its total assets tremendous demands on its balance sheet because companies are taking down credit lines among other things now, some of the restrictions. wells fargo has to give any of the gains from the ppp program and the main street lending back to the treasury or to an

authorized nonprofit that the fed oversees fed board of governors voted unanimously on the lifting of the cap. >> fascinating we should point out that wells fargo had already said and committed that they would give fees from the ppp program to charity before this announcement nonetheless, two things that stand out to me we've been chatting about this offline, one is that the fed saying for any further loans they do on under that a program, they must go to charity, i.e., enforcing a promise wells had made on their own behalf and that language making it very clear this is only a temporary lift of the asset cap that wells fargo had faced. in that sense it's not really a win for wells in that any extra loans they're now going to be able to make in the short term and the temporary term, they won't make any profit on whichever way you look at this, i don't think it's a groundbreaking positive for wells but i guess it is for their small business clients who

had otherwise been excluded from the asset cap. the only other thing i'll bring up, clearly wells had made this commitment they would give all of their profits from the ppp program to charity some of the other biggest banks haven't. you can spin this both ways and suggest all of the banks separately are giving a huge amount to charity and prioritizing small business interests at this time, whether or not you account for that internally to say it's the profits from the ppp program or not. that's a separate argument nonetheless, the pr front, one big bank has done this, the others haven't, and it remains to seen whether they may have to follow suit in due course. >> i want to lob this back to you. if you could just get out of the anchor chair and go into your banking reporter chair, what do you see when you read this about the willingness of the federal reserve to do what we were talking about might happen before the coronavirus came along, which was the possibility that the fed would lift the cap at the end of the year

i'll give you my very quick read, which is this is temporary and narrow and the fed made a point of saying that, and it tells me the fed was not on the verge of lifting that cap but maybe you know better. >> well,'re the man of the fed my take was significant changes happened for wells fargo since charlie sharp took over, most importantly the settlement with the doj and the s.e.c. of around about $3 billion or $4 billion similarly, we started to see more individual claims be settled or brought against past executives and clearly we've seen a lot of work under tim sloan's leadership but we have fresh leadership that could be spun, framed at the very least and much more has not been the previous i think that matters to folks that the only thing left for wells was to get the fed asset cap lifted, whether that was that year thing or early next year thing i agree on your current reading, this decision seems to suggest it's temporary we'll have to wait and see

wells fargo up today, steve, 4% in line with the rest of the banks. a strong day for markets >> got about a 2% pop, it looked like, about 60 cents on this announcement so people thought there was some positive aspect for the long term from this announcement. >> great, thanks >> pleasure. >> still ahead, etsy, one of the rare stocks holding onto gains for year and now many sellers are pivoting from crafts to facemasks. we'll get the latest with the alig bk. be rhtac ♪ in nearly 100 years serving the military community, we've seen you go through tough times

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let's get a coronavirus update with sue herera >> the leader of the world health organization has a message for world leaders --

stop politicizing the covid-19 pandemic his comments coming after president trump threatened to pull funding for the agency, accusing its leadership of getting every aspect of the crisis wrong >> if you don't want many more body bags, then you refrain from politicizing it. >> british finance minister sounding more optimistic about prime minister boris johnson's condition, although the british leader remains in intensive care he is improving, sitting up in bed and interacting with his medical team and french president emmanuel macron will extend that country's lockdown beyond the currently scheduled end date of april 15th this is the second extension of france's virus rules as always, you can get more on the coronavirus updates by going to cnbc.com. wilf, back to you. >> thanks so much for that in particular, we hope the prime minister's recovery continues. >> absolutely. >> after the break, billionaire ventilator mark cuban joins us

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dr. fauci says the government is planning ways to ease back into normal.

fed minutes showing the central bank intends to keep rates near seaver row until the economy as weathered the coronavirus impact no big surprise there. oil seeing a rally into the close ahead of a virtual opec meeting tomorrow markets as we stand not too far off the session highs, up 3.5%, about 800 points on the dow. and mike, an encouraging sort of bounce today continuing very strong performances. i tweeted out a moment ago, we're down less than 10% now year to date on the nasdaq, which is quite an extraordinary statistic even though i know we rallied up from there in january. >> exactly remarkable not that much of an unwind of the gains that we saw from the nasdaq clearly was the leadership group before interestingly, this week, in the past couple days as we've rallied, i think in particular, it hasn't been those kind of high quality reliable big, dominant nasdaq stocks that have been leading it's been the stuff that was left behind before, things that are riskier, more leverage, more

credit dependent that's also what happens when the market is very oversold and starts to come back and risk appetites refreshed. it's kind of the losers that lead for a little while. it doesn't last forever. that is also something we're seeing right now >> how about the optimism levels, mike, that we hear about in a lot of the surveys? cnbc was doing its all-america survey, pessimism about the current circumstances, optimism about the future, "the wall street journal" has a survey, 85% expect the recovery to start in the second half of 2020 some are wondering if there's so much optimism about the bounceback that it will make it hard for markets to have actually bottomed. you're not seeing that, you know, peak panic and fear levels that we usually get when we see a bottom >> we're not seeing those sustained fear levels. we haven't seen the accumulation of worry and the wear and tear on public psychology i think just because it's been such a sudden shock so i think that if, in fact, you know, the optimists are proved a little bit wrong here and we don't see a lot of improvement

in the epidemic curve and we don't reopen the economy, that probably will change >> going to bring in dallas mavericks owner and billionaire ventilator mark cuban, who's able to join us. mark, thanks for joining good afternoon to you. >> thanks for having me, wilford. good afternoon to you. >> we were in the midst of talking about market levels. we definitely want to get on to small businesses with you in a moment but firstly, just to kick off on the broad markets if we can. i mentioned that the nasdaq is now only down just under 10% year to date we've had a ferocious bounce off lows what's your kind of gut feeling as to where we are in that process and whether we've bounced too quickly? >> yeah, i mean, i'm surprised i think this is kind of buy the rumor, and potential sell on the news when reality sets in of what we're going the see on the other side i think with people being home and being quarantined, it's been difficult to understand what the

cumulative effect of everything is going to be we really don't know how companies are going to rehire those that they've furloughed or laid off we really don't know what small and medium sized business will be able to afford to do in the next couple weeks and how far the stimulus will take them. we don't know what the impact of all the forbearance on mortgage and tax and rent payments is going to have on institutions and municipalities, state, all levels of government so i think because people are naturally optimistic right now in terms of the market, i just don't think they're really factoring in what we're going to see on the other side. >> yeah, so it sounds like you're not convinced and you don't see to the other side yet. but given the fact that market -- stocks sold off so heavily, mark, have you been buying anyway? >> i bought early on, and, you know, i sold a lot of volatility when i could, and so now that

the vix is where it is, i'm buying back some of those calls and puts that i bought i haven't bought anything in two weeks. so i'm just waiting and seeing i actually, you know, sold munis. i'm just trying to -- i was in a lot of cash and trying to get more cash. you know, if i'm wrong and the market keeps on going up, you know, my core holdings, netflix and amazon, are going to continue do well if unfortunately things turn back and we retest low, then i'll be in a position to do something. >> did you top off of any of those core holdings, you know, 10% lower than we are at the moment, mark >> no, i didn't. i just kept where i was. i haven't added or subtracted. >> you clearly have great exposure to the underlying economy, small businesses in particular we've been discussing today about the small business lending program. how crucial is it that that program continues to improve in terms of actually working and getting money out of the door from banks to small businesses is that a key swing factor for

the economy? >> oh, yeah, it's critical i can't tell you how many small businesses i've spoken to, whether it's my "shark tank" companies or people i don't even know emailing me, you know, wondering what they should do. and everybody's really hopeful that the ppp loans will come through and do the job to allow them to either rehire or retain employees they still have. but because it's been so slow, people are still uncertain now, that said, i'm optimistic that the banks will come through and they'll iron out the kinks and within the next week we'll see that and within the next three weeks we'll see that $1,200 payment so i think those will be positives, but i still don't know what it's going to look like beyond those. why it will buy us time for hopefully the scientists to do what they do, i still don't know what society is going to look like on the other side to me that's why i see uncertainty in the market, but that's just -- long term i'm hopeful, short term i'm uncertain. >> what's your sense, mark, of how many small businesses will

be able to survive, whether they tap the loans or not >> i'd say without the loans it would be 50% with the loans, again, just speculating, you know, 75% but i think more than survival rates, i think bigger question is going to be retention of employee rates because i think we're in this time of quarantine and doing business from home and transacting business differently. it's not even about learning new habits we're learning what we need and what we don't need you know, we may not have needed as many employees. we're finding out that, you know, we can do things differently than we did them before and so businesses are going to go through their own personal resets and try to re-evaluate what's a necessity for them going forward. consumers and employees will do the same thing you know, what type of job do they want to work, what's important to them, how much money do they need to save, how conservative are they going to be because they're afraid the virus may remerge. so we're going to go through a

whole reset of not just businesses but how we hire, where people want to work, what type of jobs they want, how they save, all these things again and again and again. so, again, long-term v term very hopeful and i'll always bet on the united states of america, but short term just very uncertain. >> mark, always going to bet on the united states of america, but ever v do you ever wonder whether the current shape of capitalism is under threat the bailout in response to the last crisis very much benefitted the haves as opposed to the have notes, qe in particular, inflating asset prices for people that already owned those assets and it was fairly recent in our memories, only 12 years ago. in a couple years' time, even if the bailouts this time are successful, do you think we'll see a big reaction politically the next time we get to an election after the current one >> i think it's the opposite i think capitalism will become a lot smarter and a lot more compassionate because of what we're going through. i think everybody felt the risk

of what was happening politically and the threats and, you know, seeing the same surveys about gen z and millennials liking socialism as much as they like capitalism i think any smart ceo recognizes that was a threat and they're going to have to deal with their employees much differently going forward than they did in the past i think they also recognize, you know, even in 2008, 2009, we weren't in a social media universe it was still relatively young. now social media, all consumers are brands everybody defines themselves one way or the other and they post that on social media one way or the other. how companies deal with their employees, how they deal with their consumers, that's all going to impact how people buy and what products and services they connect themselves with so i think in a really perverse way, this was good for capitalism because companies are realizing that ear going to have to be smarter and can't just be

just about shareholders. in fact, you have to put employees ahead of shareholders. and i think shareholders, people buying stocks, are going to realize, you know what, that esg is critically important. maybe i'll give company a, b, or c a higher p/e ratio when ibuy the stock as a reflection of the fact they understand the longer term and it's not just about this quarter or this year. >> so, mark, i wonder if the calendar was a little different and we were a year away from an election as opposed to an election year given today, of course, bernie sanders pulled out of the race. do you think he may well have been the nominee in a slightly different calendar configuration? >> i have no idea. i have a hard enough time handicapping the market let alone politics i don't know >> yeah, but you told axios, i think last week, everything's a reset now. >> yep >> you didn't rule it out. i'll keep an open mind but i seriously doubt -- >> talking about me? >> yeah, talking about me. is that still something you're

looking at >> yeah. i mean, look, it would have to be a very unique set of circumstances, but i do think we need somebody who can bridge the things that wilford was talking about. you know, what bernie was looking for in terms of placing employees and workers first and what, you know, traditional capitalism was putting profits first. there's got to be a bridge there. we'll see, you know, how the current -- >> is joe biden not the person for you? >> well, i like joe, right all things being equal i think he'd be my choice right now, but at the same time, we have to see how far left he was pulled and what all his positions are going to be. you know, if not november, lots of things can change and no reason to jump to a conclusion now. >> mark, i want to ask you about boeing because it's brought perhaps the easiest example to play devil's advocate with in terms of what a shape of a bailout should be. they've come out and said if they are to take government money they don't think the government should stake an equity stake clearly they've had all sorts of

their own problems in the last couple years that has contributed to some of the pressures they're feeling. what was your response when you see that leadership say that, they don't deserve to see -- >> if i was sitting in a negotiating team with them, i'd say bye, see ya. they also said they can get money elsewhere. i'd say, look, i'm negotiating for the american taxpayer and in any v any private equity deal -- we'll use team plat, use what warren buffett did with bank of america when he gave them $5 billion and made $12 billion off the warrant. that's the type of deal that i would cut because when you're sitting at that table with boeing, it's not okay, we recognize you didn't have anything to do with the coronavirus, it's not your fault, guess what, it's not the american taxpayer's fault either i'm asking for everything plus the kitchen sink if they think they can get a better deal from p/e, more power to them. don't waste our time >> mark, have to ask you about

the nba. that was such a sort of pivotal turning point when the nba suspended its season as the world faces these tough questions about what it's going to look like and how we can reopen, what do you think has to happen for the nba to come back? >> safety. we have to have certainty that our players, our staff, essential personnel, if and when we get to having fans at the games, they're all safe. it's not something where you listen to the politicians and what they suggest. it's all going to be driven by science. when the scientist and the doctors give us the all-clear, then we go, you know i'm not going to guess on the date or when it may happen or how it may happen, but just as an employer myself, whether it's the mavericks or any company, i'm not letting my employees walk through the front door because i can't imagine putting them at risk potentially creating -- we've seen what's happened at nursing homes where people in close contact, you know, certain people have the virus and it becomes incredibly

contagious i don't want to see that happen in this any of my offices or at a game so it's going to be safety first no ifs, and, or buts when that happens it will be a great moment because, you know, we need sports we need sports badly right now we need something to cheer for, something to get excited about, something to be communal about and, you know, when the time comes and everything's safe, i'm sure we'll do it >> what about the fans i mean, sold-out arenas, mark. can you see that happening before we get a vaccine in this country? >> -- be some way of making everybody know that they're safe, not convincing them they're safe but knowing that they're safe whether or not there's sprays or sterilization techniques, whatever it may be that the scientists tell us allows people to get back together in large groups, that's what it's going

to take. you know, i can tell you at our arena --when you guys go back to headquarters, that first time you walk into that meeting room and you have ten people there, no one's going to want to be the first one in the door. so all companies are going to have to build some level of certainty that they're -- people won't be at risk when they congregate >> mark, quickly to wrap things up -- >> sure. >> -- you've said already you didn't have pandemic insurance, but darren rovell tweeted that wimbledon paid $2 million a year for pandemic insurance that payoff $141 million

what did you make of that? >> they're a lot smarter than i am you know in hindsight, there was always a probability greater than zero and much greater than zero at some level that this could happen and i wasn't smart enough to do it i wish i was >> you made lots of other good calls so fear not. mark cuban, always a pleasure. thanks for calling in. >> thanks for having me on, guys appreciate it. stay safe. >> you too stay healthy we have 30 minutes left of the session so we'll foift the "market zone," commercial-free action heading into the close. mike santoli is here to break down the crucial moments of the training day and today we have josh brown with us as well. >> we'll kick it off today, wilford with the broader market. oak trees, howard marks writing in a letter to clients that it's time to stop playing defense, citing conditions in the market. he writes, "i no longer feel defense should be favored.

yes, the fundamentals have deteriorated and may deteriorate further, but there's a big difference between a market where no one can find a flaw and one where people have given up on risk taking and there's a big difference between one that's priced for perfection and one that allows for bad outcomes while markets could be considerably foreclosure the coming months," he's buying where there is good value. josh, just another prominent voice here adding to this debate over whether we've seen the bottom and whether you should be buying or not. mark cuban for one didn't sound convinced. what do you think? >> well, i guess i would start by saying that howard marks is much that are just another voice. he's probably the most respected investment writer in the country, maybe even in the world. i think the point that he was trying to make, which was most most relevant to what i do, is he was saying envision how much exposure you're going to want when this is over and then start

slowly so howard is not saying this is the bottom and i think he goes to great lengths to make that clear and i think that that's very useful to investors who have an asset allocation as the way they manage their portfolio and just this idea of you don't have to buy the bottom you can buy a bottom and if that bottom turns out to be the bottom, well, that's terrific and markets continue to go higher, and then maybe your biggest regret is you did nothing and didn't buy, but if it goes lower, you're ready to continue to do the same thing. we've been talking about that for at least two months now. it's highly important for people to understand that that is how a professional ventilator versus a newsletter person explain what is they're doing to clients. >> mike, what do you think >> obviously i agree it's a good reminder first of all, give yourself position to not try to think you'll get the perfect buy moment in there because it's

pretty much luck and bragging rights, not really tangibly important. but also that when prices come down, a cushion gets built underneath valuations. in other words, risk comes out of the market. when you go down 34% on the s&p, high yield bond spreads go from 3 1/2 percentage points to 10 1/2 in a month, which is what happened, then you're probably likely to get stuff that's mispriced in your favor as opposed to now >> a case for a rally in auto stocks phil lebeau has the details. >> this is reason we're seeing the auto stock, almost all of them, move higher today, because of the optimism we might see congress push through some type of a stimulus package that would spur more people to go out and buy new vehicles and by extension that helps the automakers according to morgan stanley, you throw out a $10 billion stimulus program of some sort like a cash for clunkers two, it could spur 40% in auto sales. in the first quarter, the pace

of sales was 15.1 million vehicles you're looking at that saying that's not terrible. it took a hit in march in april, the expectation is this month fewer than 5 million vehicles as far as the pace of sales, for 2020 it's expected to be in the range of -- it should be 10 million to 12 million vehicles, not 10 million to 20 million vehicles morgan stanley says you could make that go much higher look at shares of general motors it is moving higher today on the potential, potential, the talk that is out there that we could see some type of an auto stimulus package nothing has been proposed in washington >> phil lebeau, thanks so much for that josh brown, when you see the type of move like that that's kind of binary, you're up 9% today, 22% i think we saw so far this week and it's based on hopes of a stimulus package, is that a sign of where perhaps this bounce has gone too quickly? >> i would just say my personal take on the auto stocks is that

i would be fading any values i think these are company where is the stock price hadn't been doing well in the best of times. you had free source of financing. you had all-time record high sales for autos, and these stocks at best were trading 10, 11 timese earnings why would i want to own them in the worst of times unless there's a radical shift in the way people buy cars and drive? the consumer will probably be greszed in aggregate for a very long time as different professions recover their careers at different rates so when that environment -- you could make the case the auto stocks are oversold, but then i'll turn around and say at the peak of the stock market, two months, a month and a half ago, ford was trading at a 20-year low. so almost like what's the point? why be an ventilator in these companies? there are so many incredible places to put your money that are on sale. these stocks haven't done well in so long i can't even remember

>> we're going to get to some of those incredible places you see. first a pair of analysts publishing bullish >> netflix are down fractionally today, but the stock is still up more than 36% so far this year bank of america issuing a note maintaining its buy rating with new data showing that the rate of people dropping the service hit its lowest level in two years. bernstein with an outperform rating on the stock saying that covid-19 is a positive for netflix as engagement and subscriber numbers, and it sets it up for a price increase potentially next year. with a look at how popular n netfl netflix's "tiger king" series is out, a new nielsen study says "tiger king" reached 34 million viewers in its first 30 days >> and we have another episode

coming >> phenomenal to see these shows that just go viral especially at a time like this when everyone is all at home just the permitted audience on this show is amazinamazing. it has an permitted audience, people are watching it around the world. >> we are at session highs the dow is up 823 points so little bit of a difference from yesterday where we lost some steam into the close. josh, bullish on "tiger king," bullish on netflix >> super bullish i want a spin-off for jeff lowe. i want the guy on the water ski to have his own show i cannot -- i can't even believe i live in the same country as the characters on that show. i love them all so very much yeah, i think what happened yesterday, a lot of people start -- when you see the market have a 500-point swing quickly, everyone starts tweeting the

algos. we like them today i continue to think it's important not to extrapolate the move you see in one morning or one afternoon up or down as having much more meaning than just some people that were on one side of the market coming over to the other side it really doesn't take that much buying and selling, especially programmatically to do wacky things at the open or close, especially preopen it's important not to change your whole point of view on everything because of one particular movement you see. >>agreed >> go ahead, sar are >> i wanted your take on netflix. this is a rare stock up for the year, up 15%, has been an o outperformer, though it's down today. are you a buyer? >> yeah. i guess it's in the stay-at-home bucket, which totally make sense. it's what most people are spending their times playing video games and watching netflix when they're not pretending to respond to emails for work

so it makes sense that the stock has done well. it really doesn't hurt them at all that people can't go to theaters or ball games or -- you know, it's just not -- almost not relevant a lot of asset managers, growth managers hide out in netflix yes. so this enyou have to ask yourself when the world goes back to normal, what are the comps going to look like i kind of look at this as a clorox how much disinfectant are we buying next quarter versus the hoard weg did this quarter it's ban positive catalyst, but i question how good the comps are going to be when we're allowed to go somewhere besides our living room, and that's not that far off >> let's get on to oil prices because of course they sold off a lot yesterday, not doing the same today, all inventories rising by a large amount last week >> it's hard to follow netflix and "tiger king. oil surged on hopes of a massive production cut from opec plus

wti had given up a portion of its gains when the eia reported that rise in inventories last week more than 15 million barrels, the largest weekly increase for stockpiles on record the focus now turning to that opec plus meeting tomorrow and then on friday, g-20 energy ministers, they'll hold an emergency meeting to discuss measures to stabilize the market wti is up about 7% sara, over to you. >> rahel, thank you. energy stocks the best performers today mike, what else are you seeing with market internals? >> if you look at the volume split for the new york stock exchange, yesterday it looked strong midday, softened up by the end of the day now again we're more than 90% of the upside we did get a very positive kind of amount to buy on the close of market on close indication a few minutes ago. that is responsible for this last leg higher. it seems people are very, very interested in that tactically because we don't really have

economic fundamentals so who's buying at the close is relevant information. take a look at new highs and new lows on track, potentially, earlier today, and this includes some bond funds, i think, but common stocks, you're close to having an even number almost no new lows relative to what we saw. that's all to the good if you look at the volatility index, it continues to come in even if reluctantly. it's well off the highs and down toward the low 40s it's progress without yet being an all-clear but also shows a jumpiness day to day lit keep a bit involved. >> when you see groups like real estate and energy some of the hard et cetera hit lately in the sell-off on top of the market, what does that tell you in staples underperforming? >> it means the credit markets are okay and stocks priced for large probability of extinction when they get a reprieve they go up a lot you see the beta trade, the short covering, the squeeze

higher in some of the hated stuff that was sold out at the earlier stages of a rally. it could be in a bear market rally or something more sustainable. it's not uncommon. if you saw a rally at this stage led by consumer staples and the nasdaq 100 quality stocks, that wouldn't actually be as positive necessarily as seeing these high beta stocks lead the way >> mike, thanks very much for that just under one minute left of the session. as we've been discussing near the session highs, just off them a little bit, up over 800 points moments ago, up 750 on the dow or 3.3%. same percentage return for the s&p 500, 3.3%. nasdaq 2.5%. russell surging at the moment is up 4.5% itself week to date, over 10% of gains for the s&p and the dow continuing those huge gains of course we saw on monday all 11 sectors higher led by real estate and energy materials, all up more than 5% oil up about 11%

the dollar was stronger today, only slightly and remains weaker for the weak as a whole. want to mention this one factor, not be disappointing but china and europe were flat to down today so again, this u.s. outperformance this week is not being felt around the rest of the world, whether that's a positive or negative we will discuss. two seconds left at the close, we are higher by 3.35% on the s&p 500, 765 points on the dow, 2.6% on the nasdaq sara >> strong close, wilfred welcome back, everyone i'm sara eisen with wilfred frost and mike santoli look at how we finished up the day. the bounceback continues for stocks, the dow up 772 points, just off that session high that we were at a few minutes ago, 3.4% gain, most dow stocks ending the day higher. if you're fan of the round number, today was a day for you because the dow closed above 23,000, first time that's

happened since march 13th. s&p 500 also gaining about 3.5%. all sectors higher 3.4% is really where we closed out the day. as you can see, some strength into the close and we just went off those session highs. s&p still below its 200-day moving average, key technical level, down 15% for the year but has had a nice bounce. you're off the lows of more than 20%. the nasdaq higher and another round number for you, closing above 8,000 for the first time since march 10th 8,090 is your final read, up 2.5%, 2.6% the russell outperforming, up 4.5%, up for the third day in a row. keep in mind this is the one that's gotten hit the hardest. small caps down about 28% or so for the year coming up this hour, we'll ask the ceo of etsy about his call for sellers on his company's platform to make more facemasks

as the cdc recommends we should all be wearing them in public. joining us to talk about the market today, ceo josh brown still with us. tobias levkovich joins us. mike, another strong day and another day despite some people saying, look, we're not done with all the bad news and the uncertainty around the economy, where the market is looking at, the glass half full instead of half empty in terms of where we are with this virus. >> yeah. the market got to a point where it could just focus on the next little bit of incremental health news and infer positive things from it. i think we're still in that zone, but may be getting up to into an area, the s&p got to about the 2,750 level, which is exactly where if you were really bearish, you said, you know what, a bear market rally after that level is pretty much intuitive, and if you're bullish and thinking you won't look back, this is a step along the way, my point being it didn't necessarily resolve that debate

just yet, even though this rally was positive to not take to heart the fact you had that ugly downside reversal. while positive, i think we still have a little bit of an argument going on in the market as to whether, in fact, this is something that has legs or not >> to bias, where are you on this debate? >> so, we've been telling you about this for a while, a 2,100 to 2,700 range was to think about, just over 2 1/2 weeks ago we put that out. at this range kind of the high end or just beyond that range i would be a little more suspect here you know, there has been short squeezes there has been some other positive news developments on the health care side but we are concerned that people may have run a bit too hard on this thing because there's going to be a lot of bad knauz on the earnin -- news on the earnings flow, it will be a slow recovery i don't think anybody in the right mind will be rubbing around doing what they were doing two, three months ago

given fears around second outbreaks and other infections we'll all be a little more wary. >> tobias, you at citi have a really good realtime indicator of sentiment and panic euphoria, all of that kind of stuff, which helps predict market action and activity what are you seeing right now? >> the last day we had, last friday, we were still in panic territory, not deeply, but historically, we'd get 18% rallies, but we really got that here over 20% rally, so it's come a little bit faster, not entirely surprising to ehow deed rapid the plunge was the tone of conversations with people have changed. so getting 2 1/2 weeks, people are literally asking me should i get a gun to protect my family from a security perspective. now it's like, hey, we're off to the races, we'll be back to work in a couple weeks. this is awesome. we're seeing kind of almost a

polar opposite of what we were hearing literally 2 1/2 weeks ago. that's a little worrying >> josh, the russell 2000 in terms of year to date performance is some 20% still behind the nasdaq down close to 30% still. does that make sense to you because of the risk of bankruptcies hidden within that index or do you think that's an opportunity? >> it does the modern portfolio theorists would tell you that small caps outperformed because the ventilator was taking more risk by owning them therefore, there should be a, quote, premium return. and that's fine. it may come out over 30 and 40-year periods, but in acute economic disasters like this one, that is definitely not going to work. it will work against you it's not surprising that companies that have smaller market capitalizations also have more investors fretting over whether or not they'll be able to get financing it doesn't surprise me i wanted to ask tobias a question one of my favorite things that

sit itself puts out is the economic surprise index. how cartoonish have the expectations become? and how easy will it now be to beat them? and to your point about that swing from should i buy a gun to hey, this is amazing, we're going to be off to the races, that's a psychological thing that's wlik whlike when you nary avert a car accident, there's an adrenaline rush that makes you feel alive i agree that is going to be tempered somewhat as the economic data continues to come out. i'm curious, what is the surprise index telling us right now? >> so, look, the expectations i don't think have come down the way they should relative to what we're likely to see in the second quarter to a great degree, the u.s. kind of shut down for two weeks in march. we'll be shut down all of april and parts of may and, you know, it's just these very, very significant drop-offs. service sector, 70%, 75% of the

u.s. economy as opposed to being our strength, which it has been historically in a world of work from home, shelter in place, social distancing, it becomes your achilles' heel. i think those numbers are easier to beat, but i'd be careful trying to interpret that necessarily from a market trading perspective. in many respects the surprise index is not exactly what people think it is. there's a six-week trailing set of data on it, i won't go into the technical detail bus it's not as described by many on wall street who don't understand the construction i would note the behavior aspect behavioral finance is really important to the way people are willing to pay, if you're bullish, you'll pay more, bearish, you'll pay less on top of that, you may have been a passenger in my khartoum times if you're worried about close calls with accidents >> josh, i just wanted to -- i

wanted to raise the comments today by dr. fauci, which i think a lot of people were talking about in the markets i mean, everyone looks to him meeps obviously the foremost infectious disease expert in this country but also considered independent and not political. when he talks about u.s. planning ways to ease back to normal if the virus -- that this is going to be a tough week but after that the numbers should start to look better, just how important that is psychologically for investors. even josh, your tone sounds different than where you were a few weeks ago with us when you were extremely worried about this virus >> i'm still extremely worried i'm on long island, and i have an employee with a family member that's now passed. like i don't want to come off as though i'm as ehappy as the nasdaq 100 looks today because i'm not. i'm more pessimistic about, quote, reopening the economy i don't think it's going to work that way i agree with everything mark

cuban said everything's going to feel weird. we're not going to feel like we did the first day back, the first week back. there are no conferences in my opinion for at least the next quarter. there's very little business travel so i think it will be weird. but i think when fauci is at least not talking about worst-case scenarios from that perch, it's very important to market sentiment because he is so widely respected. and you can throw in governor cuomo to that same conversation. so, sara, i think it's great question i do think it affects people's moods, and people's moods do determine whether they're buying 500 shares or 700 shares of an equity, and then magnify that times 100 million market participants it's relevant. it's important and it could turn downward because don't forget even if new york is peaking, i don't know what's going on in chicago it sounds terrible new orleans sounds terrible. and i don't know if those are peaking. i don't think anyone really knows. we should be careful about

taking one day, two day, three days worth of data and again completely upending any sense of caution that we have right now i'm trying my best to do that. >> to that point, mike santoli, of course the market's going to enjoy relatively improving news on the virus itself. but what is the market currently expecting for the economy in the year ahead one data point that stood out for me today was that the french central bank forecast for q1 gdp growth in france, which only captured 2 1/2 weeks of their lockdown, was minus 6% and that's for q1. >> yeah. >> again, you see statistics like that and it suggests to you that the economic impact, even if we come out of the health side of things quicker than we expect, is going to be massive >> it will my take is that the market as it goes higher is essentially granting a pass for the first couple of quarters of this year. it almost doesn't matter what the number is in terms of the depth of the immediate damage.

it's all about whether in fact things start to right themselves in the second half that can work both ways obviously because you can have some kind of downside surprise and say this is going to drag on longer and all of a sudden the market is completely offsides about, that but i don't think it's going to be about the flow of incoming realtime data or even current quarter estimates so i do think right now the market's trying to kind of say to the world can kind of get a pass for a little while. >> you saw the dow close up by 3.44%. let's get to bob pisani for a breakdown of all of the action today. a positive day, bob. >> very, and we closed right near the highs i'm calling this, wilf, the restart of the economy rally not only did you have positive coronavirus headlines, you also had somewhat positive oil headlines, kind of supercharged the rally in the second half of the trading day. anything that is shut down essentially rallied today. that's a simple way to understand it. look at oil -- excuse me,

airline stocks, united airlines, pick any of them, $78 a month ago, went to $19 now $27 that's a nice rally. it was $78 a month ago beware of that retail, another example, rally today. gap had a big rally today. it was $17 a month and a half ago, went to $5, now $8. that's a rlly but look at that chart. that's not an enormous move back restaurants, brinker, they own chili's, that was $39 five weeks ago and they went to $7 and now it's $15 okay that's nice. that's good, but that ain't $39, that's for darn sure besides coronavirus headlines, the oil headlines were positive. maybe occidental $42 a little while ago, went to $10, now it's $16. bear in mind what's going on here hospitals, less chance of maybe hospitalizations, maybe this is not as severe, the hospitals rallied. hca was $150 a while ago, then

$60, now $10 the vix, guys, cut in half 86 on march 15th, 43 today, at least that's a definite positive back to you. >> all right, bob. thank you. we'll toss it over to rick santelli in chicago for a check on the bond market rick >> hi, sara. you know, we're throwing a lot of money, a lot of programs, a lot of policy changes at the problem, and i do think that's really in kind what markets are responding to. look at the interday of two-year, more on the soft side, on the short maturities. the long maturities, rates are up, prices depressed, not as much flight to safety, a bit of curve steepening finally the lqd. use this as a barometer for the credit markets and the way the gears are working. this is the highest level since the corona bottom you see in the middle of that chart that is good news. sara, back to you. >> all right, rick santelli, thank you. thank you to josh brown and

tobias for join us on the close. blackrock ceo larry fink posting a coronavirus update on linkedin highlights about their business. 90% of blackrock employees are working from home. he says no layoffs this year and all interns and new hires are on track at blackrock they are upping their donation to food banks, another $6 million on top of the previously announced $18 million. upping the match on employee charitable contributions, some incrementably positive news from blackrock there. we always try to highlight that for you. >> of course very important these companies, deserve credit for things like that still to come on "the closing bell," senator mark warner on whether he supports more stimulus for the economy (vo) quickbooks salutes those who work for themselves.

they're adapting to support their communities. but many need our help. if you're a small business in need, or want to help a local business, go to quickbooks.com/smallbusinesshelp intuit quickbooks.

less than two weeks since president trump signed the $2 trillion c.a.r.e.s. act into law. talk of more relief to come. here's the latest. >> reporter: senate majority leader mitch mcconnell is planning to move forward and bring up a $250 billion expansion to the small business paycheck protection program as proposed by the white house. i'm told the white house believes the $250 billion is the appropriate amount based on what it knows about demand for the program and what it wants to signal to small businesses who

fear there won't be enough in the program to get a piece of it because of some of the glitches the program has experienced in its first week that being said, the administration discussed this idea on calls with house lawmakers throughout the day today, but according to a call that house democrats held in the middle of the day, house speaker nancy pelosi suggested a different breakdown. democrats in the house believe that the money has been ending up in the wrong hands with the majority of these loans being processed by large bulge bracket banks. they want to funnel more of this money through community banks and they're suggesting lowering the small business expansion part of this, the specific ppp part of this, to $150 billion according to a democratic source providing a readout of that call what does this mean for the rest of the stimulus that is undoubtedly going to be needed by the economy the white house is still in listening mode here, listening

to ideas for funding states, hospitals, different parts of the business industry. but they don't believe that anything is going to be needed for several wook weeks. a lot of programs in the first stimulus have not been doled out. they want to see where it land and how effective it is and whether the curve flattens further before they figure out what the price tag is for the second relief bill >> thanks so much for that joining us to talk more about it, democratic senator mark warner from virginia very good afternoon. thanks for joining us. >> thank you so much >> should the focus be right now increasing the size of the package or focusing on the first $350 billion of small business loaning and making sure the money gets out of the door to the companies that need it most? >> that's the question there's so much appetite for this program not just traditional programs,

5013 cs, nonprofits. there have been some bumps and i give treasury and secretary mnuchin credit for standing up this program in basically record time, and we're starting to see enormous takedown and what we want to make sure is two things. one, we want to make sure that some of the businesses that may actually having seen an increase in business during this time don't end up with these loans that convert to grants they're not the targeted audience we also want to make sure that oftentimes smaller businesses, minority businesses, ngos, that may not have good traditional banking relationships don't get left behind. the signal of growing the package i think makes a lot of sense with some adjustments. i also think we need -- i say this as a form eer governor -- local and state governments are struggling they don't have the luxury of the printings prein washington we need additional support there as well as still need additional shoring up in the health care sector

>> you're combining two things a, will the additional funds be released for this small business program? b, where are you in terms of the next relief package, the stage four any bipartisan agreement on what this is going to look like >> i don't think there's bipartisan agreement yet because we're unsure are we going to move into a stimulus area or are we still going to be locked down in a sense propping up the economy. what i'm maering frhearing from democratic colleagues and in contact with the administration on this, the democratic colleagues say rather than simply in the short term beefing up the small business initiative, that we need to make sure that everybody who's going to be in the kwoou queue is goi get serviced there's a an immediate need for hospitals with no elective surgeries and with state and localities that in some cases only have 60 or 90 days of

runway left. we also -- one other item i think is still part of the first package that needs to be rolled out is we spent a lot of time focusing on small businesses, 500 and below. i got provisions into the plan that looks at the middle market. what about the midsized firms, 500 to 10,000? may not be fully creditworthy in terms of having commercial paper, but they need some reinforcement as well. the fed is still working on that issue. >> senator, to what extent was the official package designed to prevent unemployment in the first place? and how concerned are you that by most economist estimates we're already in double-digit unemployment figures most likely >> our traditional unemployment takes care of about 30% or 40% of the workforce this expanded it to independent

contractors, sole proprietors, folks who are in shutdown mode and need to be included. there was also a bump-up in the unemployment basis for 16 weeks to v to try to make people basically whole. a slightly different approach than some of our european friends. we tried to say can you match unemployment with this small business program and then there's also an employee retention tax credit, so we've tried a variety of levers here chances are some will need to be corrected. but the small business program, the focus of potential action later this week, is really the one that's probably attracted the most attention because it can convert from loan to direct grants >> senator, with regard to the virus, one question that i have for anyone in a position of power, governors, senators, congress, the administration, testing, testing, testing. it still feels like this was an early disaster for this country and we don't have the right

amount of data and access on this disease what are you doing how focused are you on this in terms of getting testing out at scale to americans >> sara, you are so right. all the money in the world can't get us out of lockdown on testing and ppp, testing, we still need an answer we probably won't get it for some time. why america didn't join with most of the industrial world and go with the w.h.o., accept the test in january? we then would be where germany is at, hong kong is at, taiwan is at, south korea is at, all who have basically done more tests than we have on a per capita basis by a factor of two or three second on testing, one of the things that amazes me and seems to be a total federal breakdown, why can't we go to a single site where we know all the testing sources -- uva developed their

own test, bcu. we have a state lab. we have commercial labs. we have pharmaceutical companies who have developed testing why is there not a single source so we can identify what's in the pipeline, what is about to be approved the way we've seen some of these designs, johns hopkins has probably created the top design mapping of where the virus growth is. we ought to have that same type of capability around testing candidly, i have not seen it and i've looked for it around the government because i think frankly why the administration didn't join with w.h.o. in january and then why they didn't use the defense production act both to, you know, have a top-down command and control evaluation of testing and the ppe, the equipment is frankly beyond me. i think it is tragic that in the united states of america we have hospital systems bidding against each other, states bidding against each other, kind of a "lord of the flies" kind of

mentality. that is not what should be coming out of the greatest country in the world >> senator mark warner, always a pleasure thanks for join us >> thanks, guys. >> costco releasing its march sales results. courtney reagan has the numbers. >> yes, costco is one of the few companies you still hear from monthly and it's been in focus as an essential retailer comps for march, though, up 9.6% for the total company inclusive of gas and foreign exchange. this is actually a little bit weaker than a lot of analysts had predicted. i saw some analysts predicting this number to be as high as 25%. e-commerce for the month of march was up about 48% but that still makes up a pretty small portion of costco's total. they've been a bit behind the curve when it comes to e-commerce just for comparison sake, when you look at february's total comps, those were stronger than the month of march, up 12.1% one thing that might help explain this is we do now have limits in place with the amount of items in quantities that

shoppers are able to buy plus we know there are some inventory strains in some areas about the availability of products on those shelves. and of course once you have stocked up and potentially hoarded things like toilet paper, how much do you need to buy on an ongoing basis? that might explain some of these numbers. for march, costco same store sales up 9.6%, the united states, including foreign exchange and gas, up 10.7% back to you. >> stock down a little after hours, a little more than 3% court knee, thank you. still ahead, the ceo of etsy joins us for an exclusive interview about the hundreds of thousands of facemaskings being rmld on his company's platfo and his firm's move to help small business owners. we'll be right back. it feels like i'm just wasting time. wasted time is wasted opportunity. >>exactly. that's why td ameritrade designed a first-of-its-kind, personalized education center. see, you just

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there are times when our need to connect really matters. to keep customers and employees in the know. to keep business moving. comcast business is prepared for times like these. powered by the nation's largest gig-speed network. to help give you the speed,

reliability, and security you need. tools to manage your business from any device, anywhere. and a team of experts - here for you 24/7. we've always believed in the power of working together. that's why, when every connection counts... you can count on us. stocks with a 3.5% up day. mike santoli >> look at the inner workings of what's operating well in this market this is the momentum etf, so the stocks that have been working well against the average stock in the s&p 500 this was the turn, you see the take wauf the elite stocks in

the performance index, continuing during the downturn until recently last weeki pointed out momentu was still working a little too well you're seeing some having a big comeback against the top performers from last year. take a look at some other dynamics since the market low march 23rd, s&p 500, the high beta, strong outperformance you see by six percentage points today included you're seeing some of the losers come to the fore that's usually good risk-seeking behavior high-yield bond etf supporting this move. it's kind of flattened out in the last couple weeks because treasury yields are up that's something to watch to see if high yesterday continues to confirm this in the equity indexes or not >> thanks for that closing down 3.5%. coming up, we'll ask the ceo of etsy about how many new buyers and sellers are doing business on his company's platform amid the coronavirus outbreak

time for a broader coronavirus update with sue herera >> hello, everyone here's what's happening at this hour two more people have died of the coronavirus at a nursing home in san antonio, texas, bringing the total at that facility to ten. the nursing home outbreak is responsible for half of the covid-19 deaths in the county, which includes san antonio the national guard is helping food banks in washington state restock. governor jay inslee says supplies are running dangerously low as the number of people seeking food aid is expected to double the federal government says it will seize exports of protected medical gear until it determines whether those supplies should leave the country. the move follows a memo from president trump directing federal agencies to use their

authority to keep such supplies in the u.s and marriott is partnering with american express and jpmorgan chase to donate $10 million worth of hotel stays to frontline health care workers. the rooms for responders program will provide approximately 100,000 room-nights in cities including new york, chicago, detroit, and new orleans you can always get more on our coronavirus coverage at cnbc by going to cnbc.com sara, back to you. >> all right, sue. thank you. up next, jay wells looking at the challenges farms are facing as they produce food for the nation jane >> reporter: sara, those strawberries don't just magically appear in the supermarket. those people picked them and e inss the country what farmers ardog to make sure farm workers stay healthy shouldn't you pay less when you use less data? now you can.

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that's simple, easy, awesome. go to xfinitymobile.com today. jane wells is stand big. but mcdonald's and panera bread responding to the pandemic kate rogers is looking into that story. kate >> hi san jose sharks , sara restaurant transactions have fallen 42% for the month and march 29th some like panera are getting creative the company is turning to selling groceries since dine-in locations are closed you can order online via the panera app and through grub hub. and mcdonald's saying that 75% of its restaurants around the globe are operational either with delivery, take-away, or drive-through of course, but the

company said the covid-19 crisis has impacted in a big way. closures are impacting its business with same store sales globally down 22% in march, in the u.s. down more than 13%. the company also says it's going to be cutting spending on new restaurant innovations and pulling back a bit in opening up new global locations as a result of this and also the new ceo is cutting his salary in half through at least september 30th. back to you. >> kate, thank you jane wells s has the latest on america's food supply. jane >> hey, sara over the next few months 40,000 farm workers will be out in force in california picking berries. pretty easy to stay apart from each other in the field, not so easy in the packing house. whether it's berry farmers here or peach farm workers in south carolina, operations across the country are doing what they can to try and keep workers apart. >> if you have a major outbreak in the farmer population, that

could be devastating a lot of precautions are being taken in the field, reducing the size of the crews, breaking up the breaks >> one thing we've had to do is isolate facilities to where if we did have somebody get sick, we could quarantine them and try to keep them separated but everything that i've learned and heard about this disease unfortunately, it may be too late by the time we diagnose one. >> reporter: other issues include sanitizing trucks, and then there's the supply chain itself as farmers have lost their food service customers and even lost experts as air freight becomes more scarce, they're really pivoting completely to retail. driscoll says the grocery stores haven't quite been able to catch all the supply in fact, their trucks are backed up two to three days in fact, what they're hoping at driscolls is the usda will give food banks money so they will buy the excess fruit and get it to the people who really need it back to you. >> that's a good idea. jane, thank you. jane wells up next, skyrocketing demand

online retailer etsy seeing sales of facemasks soaring following the cdc's updated recommendations. how are sellers keeping up isn't just a department. it's a voice on the other end of the phone. a note to say you're on our mind. a willingness to come to you. the world and how we interact with each other is changing. but that will never change who we are at lexus. now, more than ever, you and your needs come first. find out what service options are available in your area at lexus.com/people first 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.

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online marketplace etsy is one of the rare winners so far this year in the market, and now many of the platform sellers are pivoting from making crafts to making masks the company's efforts to help small businesses keep running even garnering a grateful tweet from the white house joining us is josh silverman, ceo of etsy. good to have you here. how have you been able to pivot some of your entrepreneurs into making masks >> you know, it's true when the cdc changed its guidelines and recommended that consumers wear fabric facemasks we suddenly saw an overwhelming demand and so we put out a call to our sellers. we have about 2.7 million

artisans who are crafts people, and we said anyone who can please start making masks. within literally days we had 20,000 shops up and running selling masks. now we're able to produce or our sellers are able to produce hundreds of thousands of masks per day. i think it's really -- there's three things about it that i think are really powerful and co compelling the first it's we protect the medical grade for hospitals and people who need it the second is if you're buying a mask from someone on etsy you're helping another independent business who often is hard hit so this is a great way for our sellers to earn income for example, many people might be, for example, making wedding dresses and the wedding season is pretty hard hit right now so they can shift to making fabric facemasks instead. third, our sellers can make customized, personalized, you know, fabric facemasks with a little bit of flair, a little bit of style so we think it's really kind of the magic of etsy coming to help

at a time that's really important when people need us. >> josh, i mean, it's great to see as you suggest, and i also totally get your point that it allows the medical masks to go where they're most needed. that said, with lots and lots of smaller sellers as opposed to just the large companies that are pivoting to make masks, is there a risk that there's no kind of stamp of quality or no -- i know doesn't need fda approval but no organization checking that these are the right types of products to be out there in the marketplace >> yeah. look, i think it's really important we be very clear that we at etsy are not making a claim that these are protective, and the cdc itself has said a fabric facemask is probably better than nothing, but please do not assume that this keeps you or the people around you safe it's an additive measure it's not preventive. >> so you've got, what, 2.7

million sellers on your platform, josh 83% are women. you've always been a leader of gender equality and female entrepreneurship talk about what those businesses are going for. have r they relatively insulated from the broader economic crash because they sell online they're not insulated at all our 2.7 million sellers are businesses of one. they're sole proprietors the thing about being a business of one the if you or a loved one gets sick, there's no one else who can fill in for you, or if demand drops because of an economic concern or other things, you don't have a stable paycheck that comes dollar for dollar out of your pocket so we've been very active in advocating with congress -- so we've been active advocating with congress for protections that independent workers like etsy etsy sellers need. >> in terms of the feedback you're getting from your small businesses or the numbers you're

seeing, how much do you think they're under pressure right now? >> i think, you know, look, business people around the country and frankly around the world are under a time pressure right now. certainly if you have a retail establishment you're under pressure but, you know, people are concerned about where their next paycheck is coming from, and that provides also its own level of insecurity. so we're really happy to be able to provide a stream of income for, you know, many of our sellers. but we're also advocating really aggressively with congress to make sure that we get federal protections. and i do want to point out that the c.a.r.e.s. act that was passed recently specifically provides protection for unemployment insurance and loans for independent workers, which was a real breakthrough. but unfortunately, the way that those are being implemented is actually excluding access from independent workers. so, for example, the application form you need to fill out asks for things like payroll data,

which a sole proprior or theship doesn't have sole proprietorships are not even allowed to apply until april 10th and a lot of people think the funds will run out by then it's important for congress to act to protect sole prop-- proprietors and independent businesses these are people not on a w-2. this is a really big and important population >> have you contacted any members of congress or the administration on this to try to get the rules here rewritten for the sole provider? >> absolutely. we've been very active and i've been speaking with senators personally my team has been in close touch with the administration and with congress and with the senate and, you know, everyone is really trying to help and every interaction, we've seen no partisanship people are trying to do the right thing. so it's a nice moment for us to try to come together and help populations that need it

we're just moving very fast, and so we need to make sure that the execution keeps track with the intention. >> josh, quick final question, which you may dodge and i'll forgive if you do so as former ceo of skype what would you make of all the current pushback on zoom that they're facing at the moment, whether it's because of zoom bombing or rooting certain things through servers in china? >> look, it's tough to be an entrepreneur, and i would say we're seeing a moment where remote work is really valued and really important and suddenly the stakes go up a lot and a lot of what made zoom so popular early on was that it's so easy to use and that worked really well until suddenly it didn't some of the ease of use came back in terms of privacy and security so i think it's so important that all of us as business leaders really think about privacy and security and what could go wrong very early and place a high priority on it. >> far from a dodge, a great answer thanks for that and for full

interview, josh silverman. >> thank you very much >> up next, nike shaking up its production in an effort to give back to frontline workers. that andhe r test of today's good news rundown when we return there are times when our need to connect really matters. to keep customers and employees in the know. to keep business moving. comcast business is prepared for times like these. powered by the nation's largest gig-speed network. to help give you the speed, reliability, and security you need. tools to manage your business from any device, anywhere. and a team of experts - here for you 24/7. we've always believed in the power of working together. that's why, when every connection counts... you can count on us.

welcome back as street stores and offices vacate in the coronavirus pandemic, the world might be looking quite bleak out your window, with you many communities are rallying to help each other out more than ever before and we're highlighting those stories as we do every day. nike is pitching in for making face shields by transforming elements of their footwear such as the soles of nike air into protective gear. kkr establishing a $50 million global relief fund to support medical workers and vulnerable communities and apple will make sure we have decent music and it's created a $50 million advance fund to help independent labels and distributors weather the downturn. >> snowboard maker burton donating half a million respirator masks to hospitals across the northeast and a number of celebrities stepping up in their own ways tyler perry, did you see this? surprising elderly shoppers in atlanta and new orleans by paying for their groceries

and my personal favorite, bobble heads of dr. anthony fauci who has become a national celebrity since the pandemic have raised $100,000 for medical supplies in less than a week also matthew mcconaughey hosting a virtual bingo game for residents at a texas senior center watch this >> we've got an i-24 i-24 oh >> richard is waving the hammer up high! >> i love that >> that's very good. the virtual thing, but nothing's better than a dr. fauci bobblehead after a dr. fauci doughnut, where were you on that one, will fred >> i didn't see that one, but separately, you saw in the cnbc survey that he got a 90% approval rating which he deserves i'm a little sad it wasn't 100%. there's always going to be someone that's disappointed. >> right

yeah of course, and actually it gets back to the broader market today because a lot of people citing dr. fauci's remarks that after a tough week this week, things should improve next week in terms of the numbers and we can start to have a conversation about re-opening we're not there yet. we still have to social distance, but just to hear that kind of optimism where he's been so blunt and such a straight shooter and in terms of telling americans the tough news and some harsh realities that, you know, he's got the cred for investors, as well >> he does, and everyone trusts him on that front, and we've seen in spain the last couple of days and we saw three days of falling deaths and it's ticked up a couple of times and the uk number is slowing its rate of increase and we still had record individual days the last two days so the positives and always some negatives underneath and we can't get too optimistic >> i think it's the hospitalization rate and we have to watch as more people get tested up next, billionaire investor

mark cuban giving us his strategy for iesngnvti in this volatile market. we'll share his comments when cnbc comes right back. they're the backbone of our economy. and in these challenging times, they're adapting to support their communities. but many need our help. if you're a small business in need, or want to help a local business, go to quickbooks.com/smallbusinesshelp intuit quickbooks. working day in, day out.e. at&t is here. providing support with advanced services for first responders. and connected temporary hospitals, mobile testing sites and emergency management centers. because until their job is done, it is essential that we all have their backs.

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investor and dallas mavericks owner mark cuban joining us earlier on in the show and expressed some caution about the recent legup we've seen in the market listen. >> i haven't bought anything in two weeks and i'm waiting and seeing i sold munis i'm just trying to -- i was in a lot of cash and i'm trying to get more cash. you know, if i'm wrong and the market keeps on going up, my core holdings, netflix and amazon will continue to do well, and if, unfortunately, things turn back and we re-test lows then i'll be in a position to do

something. >> mark cuban, sort of more cautious on in the short term. mike, this really gets back to the debate of the moment for the market, for the economy, for the virus and that is just how much optimism should be had and should be priced in at this point when there are still so many unknowns and here on cnbc we hear both arguments all day long >> absolutely. the market minute-to-minute is trying to synthesize that argument and see what the probabilities look like. it's pretty much the case, i think, right now up 20% that the market is kind of rushed to a point on the probability spectrum that builds in a higher probability that this shutdown is relatively brief and i think importantly that the treasury programs will enable companies to bridge their way in terms of the balance sheets and in terms of having enough cash to when we do re-open it's been massive corporate bond issuance since the fed came in and said they were going to buy and that seems to be refreshing the system and still not known

and we're in the upper reaches of what i would consider to be just a bounce off oversold levels at some point it will seem like it's more than that if we keep rising and for now, i still think that argument is valid to have >> mark cuban's advice with companies like boeing, but mike, back to the market again i brought this up earlier in the show and one thing that does jump out at me as we look at the week to date performance is the way the u.s. bounces has run ahead of the rest of the world for the week as a whole we're up 11.3% on the dow and the europe stock 600 is only up 5.7%. the last three sessions, the u.s. bounce has been far, far more pronounced, and you could even argue that in terms of the numbers for the virus, we are still behind europe, maybe not as bad, but we're still behind. >> there's no doubt the mark has gone to a place that is a little more optimistic. i do say it fell from a higher

height and it fell more steeply than the rest of the world did, the u.s. index and it could be that this recoil just has more oomph behind it. >> we are out of time pretty much on "closing bell," we closed up 3.4%, for mike, sarah and i, please stay healthy brian sullivan has you covered on the other side. ♪ ♪ >> and welcome, everybody, to cnbc's continued coverage of "markets in turmoil" and "fast money. i am brian sullivan. thank you for joining us on what was an eventful, and it was a big wednesday. the markets continuing to move higher there's a lot of reasons why and we will get into those in just a few minute, as well. of course, we have the ceo of tgi friday's and one of america's leading restaurant chains doing about the current situation and their employees. should they get more federal help there's a lot more to cover. welcome, everybody, an