that these larger investors tend to hold on to about 75% of the bitcoin that they own. they may be selling a little bit, but it really jives with what we learned from high net po worth individuals getting into it they're not really looking to make that quick trade. >> thanks, kate. >> thanks for watching "power lunch. "closing bell" starts right now. thank you. welcome, everyone, to "closing be bell." i'm sara eisen the s&p 500 hitting a new intraday high and small caps again seeing strength as we head into this final hour of trade. >> i'm wilfred frost let's have a look at what is driving the action today financials are in the lead as treasury rates move higher ahead of the fed's jackson hole meeting. the 10-year yield popping above

1.34%. big moves for retail on the back of earnings. dick's sporting goods is rocketing while nordstrom plunges and the meme trade cooling off after tuesday's frantic surge. we have 59 minutes left to go until the end of the session, sara >> coming up on today's show, nordstrom, the stock getting crushed today, despite posting what appeared to be better than expected results we'll talk to the ceo eric nordstrom in a first on cnbc interview in just a few moments. >> let's get straight though to the big stories we're watching today. mike santoli is tracking the market action. eamon javers and meg on booster shots for the j&j. mike, the s&p -- >> yeah, another record. a little bit of a round number 4500 on the s&p touched for the

first time today not too much significance to that absolute level necessarily but it does reflect the s&p getting back up to the sort of top end of this path keep pointing out this consistent angle we've been climbing on. it is getting a little bit, bumping up against the higher end of this rally line so doesn't mean it stops right here but sometimes it drags higher from here it's really more upward drift. what we have is cyclical stocks rallying, continuing their rebound while the big growth stocks had otherwise kind of held the field of prior months they're not really selling off they're holding their ground, notgetting in the way of the s&p's upward drift treasury yields, take a look here they are having a decent move to the upside three weeks ago, we made a low on the 10-year yield we're up about 17, 18 basis points the other thing about this level say lot of stuff comes together in here. it's that basic down trend from the highs in the spring.

also right exactly where the 200-day average of this yield comes and the 50-day they converge at this point. maybe technical significance if they can break free of this area to the upside. wouldn't necessarily say that it's destined to go back to the highs from there probably a little more work to do it's a sweet spot because up off the lows, yields mean people are relaxing about the growth outlook. it's no longer a fear trade. but also not a high enough level to threaten equity valuations or the housing market or anything like that. in terms of the mood of investors, the weekly investors' intelligence poll surveys investment advisers, newsletter writers, bullish or bearish. the spread between bulls and bears from that weekly poll is actually narrower than it has been in some time. you look -- it's almost like a floor. when the market is not crashing, it hasn't gotten much below that point both in 2021 and even going back to 2019 clearly the underperformance of

a lot of stocks below the index surfaced and the delta surge and fears of a slowdown seems to have weighed on people's mood. when the market is drifting higher in this calm low-volume way, the thing to look out for is people getting too complacent and assuming things are only going higher seems we're not quite at that point yet. pretty moderate attitudes out there guys >> so mike, it looks like record closes again, obviously, for the s&p and nasdaq also that kind of psychological level, 4500. we're just below that as opposed to above it. is that seen as something likely to trigger a breakout, move higher was it a significant level >> i don't think the absolute level -- the mental accounting that i have derives significant from 4500 because it's three times 1500 which was the level where the market peaked in 2000 and in 2007. and we didn't break above that until 2013 we sort of making all-time highs again. triple for what used to be a

ceiling of the market. seems like the market has come a long way in a big picture fashion. if you track it from when we broke above there in 2013, the annualized gains is 13%, 14% since then which is very good but certainly nothing that seems like things have gotten way crazy to the up side just yet. >> mike santoli, thank you now to washington where big-name business leaders are meeting with the administration to talk cybersecurity. eamon javers has the latest for us >> this meeting is still going on at the white house but take a look at the scene in the east room a short time ago when they let reporters and camera people in to the meeting here to take a look at the president meeting with these top technology execs. really an all-star list of top technology and finance and other executives meeting with the president there. tim cook of apple among others ceo of ibm there as well in the picture. the president spoke briefly in remarks that we were able to capture on camera and talked

about what he sees as the responsibility that the private sector has mut put the onus on the private sector in terms of cybersecurity. >> i've invited you all here today because you have the power and the capacity and the responsibility, i believe, to raise the bar on cybersecurity >> a lot of these companies have come to the meeting today prepared to offer deliverables that is announcements they'll be making later on this afternoon in terms of what they're going to do to help turn the tide of cybersecurity. which a lot of people feel like the united states is just losing the cyberwar globally right now. interesting headline just crossed the wire from reuters about microsoft. i want to give you these headlines from reuters saying microsoft is set to invest $20 billion over the next five years to increase efforts to integrate cybersecurity by design and deliver advanced security systems. so $20 billion item there. and also saying that microsoft

is going to immediately make available $150 million in technical services to help federal, state and local governments upgrading security protections. so those headlines coming out of microsoft today in terms of what they are doing, and i think throughout the afternoon now you can expect to see some headlines from some of these other big companies as well, which will have presumably similar announcements of their own, all designed to show that the private sector and the government in this country are working together on cybersecurity. we'll see if they can put some teeth on it. >> we'll look for the announcements in the meantime. we talked to the deputy nsa leading the charge on the cyber front. what about what the government is doing and not doing to fight this war she pointed to executive orders and all sorts of new initiatives rallying the world to respond to china, but ultimately, the administration has not done sanctions on russia or china, even having called them out. are they fighting hard enough on

the government side of things? >> well, a couple of things. in your interview with anne newberger this morning she previewed this announcement we're seeing from microsoft talking about the idea of embedding security into software from the get-go. and that seems to be what microsoft is talking about here. so safe bet she knew what was coming in terms of that headline in terms of the government, president biden said this in the east room just now he said, i spoke to vladimir putin at our summit in geneva and put him on notice that they need to do something to turn the tide on this as well biden saying in the east room today, he believes the russian government knows who these hackers are and where they are and he expects the russian government to do something about it now we'll see if vladimir putin feels any incentive to respond to that at all over the remainder of the year. but certainly russian hackers have been active since that summit and there is some frustration on the side of the businesses who say, wait a second, we're up against state level intelligence agencies here and their

offshoots criminally we just can't compete with this. the government needs to help us out here there's frustration on both sides. the government sees it as the private sector's responsibility and thinks some of them are being too cheap in terms of what they're spending on cybersecurity and not taking it seriously enough and some of the companies say, wait a econd this is way beyond what we're capable of responding to so there is that undercurrent of frustration. we'll see if that bubbles over in the room as we talk to ceos when they emerge from this meeting today. >> eamon, thank you. turning now to the coronavirus. new data from j&j about the efficacy of booster shots. meg has that story for us. >> hi. this is really the first data from johnson & johnson about a potential booster as u.s. health officials have said they're needed for the pfizer and moderna vaccines but more data were needed for j&j. they gave a booster six months after the single shot to some people in an early stage study and saw rapid and robust in

spike binding antibodies ninefold higher than about a month after the first shot the cdc and u.s. health officials have been signaling they think a booster will be needed for j&j saying people who received that shot will probably need a booster dose. although saying there's not enough evidence yet to recommend an mrna vaccine as the booster and that more data in general are needed j&j starting to provide that today. we are still waiting on more data, including these studies being published online, as well as their two-dose trial that they've been running a major phase three study which will give us information about safety in the real world efficacy against the delta variant. in moderna today, some news that they have finished submitting their application for full approval to the fda. so we'll be waiting for the fda to accept that and see how long it takes them to clear it which would put it in the same sphere as pfizer. more news from pfizer and biontech they say they've started their submission for the booster dose for fda clearance. they plan to finalize that this

week and then that will go through the fda and cdc process as well ahead of when the u.s. government has already signaled it plans to start administering booster shots widely at the end of september guys >> meg, nine times more antibodies, 28 days after the booster shot for j&j than 28 days after the first shot? that sounds phenomenal, or was that comparable to what the results were for the pfizer booster shot >> well, it does sound really great. these are binding antibodies rather than neutralizing neutralizing are the ones we typically look for and are the mess rick we use it's hard to compare this apples to apples, although one would expect neutralizing antibodies also went up we'll be waiting for those studies to see what the level was, but six months later you get a booster shot, the antibody levels do appear to go up so that's pretty good news. >> meg, thanks so much after the break -- the dl on etfs we'll speak with blackrock's

head of ishares strategy americas about where money is flowing and the sectors she's recommending as the s&p sits at record highs you're watching "closing bell" on cnbc. over the years, mercedes-benz has patented thousands of safety innovations. crash-tested so many cars we've stopped counting. and built our most punishing test facility yet, in our effort to build the world's safest cars. we've created crumple zones and autonomous braking. active lane keeping assist and blind spot assist. we've introduced airbags, side curtain airbags, and now the first-ever rear-mounted front-impact airbags. all in the hope that you never need any of it. ♪ ♪ tailor made or one size fits all?

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welcome back stocks rallying again. the s&p 500 and nasdaq hitting all-time highs today joining us to discuss is gari, head of americas ishares

investment strategy at blackrock. very good afternoon to you thanks for joining us. my first question was your field for how clients are positioned at the moment as we run up to these all-time highs do you think the positioning is excessive or reasonable? >> hi. thank you for having me. so definitely not excessive. i would say just the story that the flows are telling susthat there is money on the sidelines that is being put to work and for good reason. the economic recovery is strong, and we think that even looking ahead, there's still a lot of accommodation both from the monetary and fiscal policy side and investors are pouring money into the equity markets and also actually into the fixed income markets. >> what about this jackson hole summit do you think investors should be worried about that or is the sting been taken out of it somewhat in recent weeks >> so definitely the market, one

of my mentors in the market likes to say we can only focus on one thing at one time and the market has been focusing on the jackson hole and i think at the end of the day, this is not the venue this is not the forum to dictate monetary policy. to talk about whether or not there's going to be a taper. i think we're all very excited to hear from chairman powell around how he sees the economic recovery take place. or how he sees that progressing. i'm particularly interested in hearing about whether he still is calling inflation transitory or whether the language has changed. i think we're all looking forward to hearing about how he's characterizing the delta variant and if there's any concerns around that but i don't really think that this is going to necessarily be around announcing taper. now having said that, when the taper does get announced, which we do think will be later on in this fall, i think that's a positive thing for the market. we don't think that there's going to be a taper tantrum.

the market is very ready for some of the emergency accommodation to be removed. >> so given that whole backdrop, gargi, are you advising investors to go with the economically cyclical stocks that are working this week energy back on top financials consumer stocks. but have beenunder pressure in recent weeks it's really been the defensives leading the market which do you like better >> sure, sara. actually, what we're seeing in terms of flows is a little bit of pivot away from some of those cyclical sectors into more of the defensive. so that is -- that has been the story of the third quarter and that makes sense given, obviously, the drop in yields. having said that, what we're going out and telling our clients to do is actually still keep their eye on the value sector so still the reopening is still going to happen, perhaps broaden out to other areas outside of the u.s. but also to then barbell that with quality stocks. so that's what we're actually

telling investors to do. so paying attention to the quality parts of the market and looking at companies that have those stable returns, lower debt and barbell that with their value. so a little bit of a value as well as a quality play and actually the flows towards quality have been really robust for the third quarter. qual which is our quality ticker has gathered inflows just this quarter. >> what about fixed income how are you advising clients to get exposure there >> sure. so i think the fixed income part of the market is the one that clients are asking the most amount of questions around i think that's one that confuses them the most. i think when you look at the fundamentals of the economy, the level of nominal and real gdp. the inflationary backdrop, not just the next 12 months but also when we look out to the next

three years or so. looking at the fundamentals of the economy and inflation picture. it doesn't paint 1.33% treasury yield. so i think investors are expecting yields to move somewhat higher. i think the one thing that we're asking investors to think about or consider in their portfolio is allocating to areas of the fixed income market that will protect you for somewhat higher inflation. so tip, stip are tickers we're recommending within the fixed income space and sticking with a quality theme. if you want to gravitate into credit, qlta is another ticker which we are talking to clients about, which again ties in that theme of quality as well as the theme of inflation which we both believe are very relevant between now and the end of the year >> gargi, thank you. good to hear from you. from blackrock jpmorgan downgrading

nordstrom today following earnings saying the backdrop for its core consumers may be as good as it gets. we'll talk to ceo erik nordstrom about what he's seeing at the stores as thatto sck is under heavy selling pressure today we'll be right back.

welcome back delta airlines, the latest company to enact a vaccine mandate, though there's a twist in the airline's plan. phil lebeau with the details >> some companies, including united airlines have said you get vaccinated or you may lose your job after a certain date. delta is saying you have to get vaccinated, but if you don't, you can still work here but it's going to cost you. november 1st is the deadline to have you vaccination at delta. the unvaccinated workers will have to pay a surcharge after that date. $200 a month the reason why delta says the average covid-19 hospitalization cost for the average delta employee who has been hospitalized for covid-19, $50,000. and the company says it's time to offset that cost and that

risk in announcing this policy, the ceo says full approval for the pfizer vaccine, the time for you to get vaccinated is now that's the employee memo sent out from the ceo ed bastion. 75% of delta employees are currently vaccinated you have 17,000, 18,000 who are not vaccinated it will be interesting what happens of the 75,000 employees at delta 17,000 or 18,000 who are not vaccinated they now have until november 1st, guys, to either get vaccinated or pay $200 a month back to you. >> $50,000 cost of hospitalization, phil. is that to the economy or to delta itself and do they give a breakdown of how they -- >> that is delta that is what delta says the average cost has been for them to treat or to cover the cost of treatment of those delta employees who contracted

covid-19 >> still seems like a big number i'd love to see the workings phil lebeau, thanks so much either way still to come -- nordstrom's ceo and today's massive pullback following their earnings and what he's seeing from customers and stores both at stores and online plus, more big earnings coming after the bell including salesforce, box, ulta and splunk and an exclusive interview with the ceo of splunk ahead of his analyst call here's a check on bonds. yields pushing higher today ahead of the jackson hole summit and various speeches due there from the fed chair we're up about 1.34 on the 10-year yield. ♪♪

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time for a cnbc news update with rahel solomon >> hi, wilf. a former u.s. ambassador says the taliban is not keeping its promise to allow women to go to school and work. women are being terrorized and having trouble finding safe places to stay >> it has been absolutely harrowing, moving the women to the checkpoints. that perimeter around the airport has been extremely dangerous. they come -- guaranteed their exit and for one reason or another, they can't get through. there have been -- there's been lack of coordination >> and in minnesota, the u.s.

forest service extended the closure of a popular wilderness area after the state's largest wildfire doubled in size the greenwood fire has burned more than 21,000 acres four new smaller fires have started in the area this week. in kentucky, mitch mitch mcconnell urging people to get vaccinated and warning them not to listen to vaccine untruths on social media he said it's a fact that 90% of people hospitalized for covid are unvaccinated sara, back to you. >> rahel solomon, thank you. just under 30 minutes before the close. here's where we stand. trackets for a record high for the s&p and the nasdaq just a positive close on both of those. dow is up, oh, a healthy 51 points as well and the small caps are charging back this week up 0.7% again today. shares of nordstrom, though, sinking after reporting results last night after the bell. up next, we'll talk to nordstrom's sceo about the quarter. the first on cnbc interview coming up right after this

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shares of nordstrom plunging today following earnings last night. the retailer beating on the top and bottom lines and raising its full-year outlook. but sales remaining below prepandemic levels with revenue down 6% compared to 2019 joining us here first on cnbc, nordstrom's ceo erik nordstrom welcome to the show. food to have you today >> nice to be here >> i'm sure you're disappointed with the stock market's reaction to what you were saying were better numbers and higher guidance what do you make of what you're seeing in the market today >> well, it's hard not to make

out of any one day -- certainly have a long-term focus, but we also get that, you know, people want to see progress along the way. and while progress is clear, there is progress in our strategic goals, we're not satisfied with the pace. there's opportunities out there. we're focused. and see a lot of opportunities for us t the back half of the year. >> so what is it a lot of people seem to be focusing on the 2019 number for retail and a lot of your competitors, including off-price competitors have seen growth over 2019 pretty impressive growth why do you think it's been slower for nordstrom to recover? >> event,

had an increase over 2019. so we see good momentum there. feel really good about anniversary event. in particular, our merchandise and how we were able to be much more datadriven and not so muc the art of selecting the merchandise but in how much and how we place it. and we've also made good progress in different merchandise models our partnership with asos is something we're really excited about. there's a couple of areas not where we want to be or need to be we had tough inventory flow. and while we've seen good progress in our priceexpansion of layering in some lower price points, we got clear proof points there we need to accelerate that and

take advantage of what we're seeing strength and scaling >> so talk us through the integration of rack. how is that going overall there? >> it's going well the thing with our b it's not just integration of digital and physical we have two brands nordstrom and nordstrom rack and we believe there's this synergy amongst those four and that we're seeing that in particular, we enable the ability for next-day buy online, pick up in store of nordstrom orders at rack stores. customers like that convenience. over 40% are next-day order pick-ups nordstrom.com orders during the anniversary sale occurred at a racks store. so we know there's a lot of goodness when we can gauge with customers on their terms across channels and across our brands

and so we made good progress there. but it's really been encouraging proof point. need to accelerate and we see that opportunity to do just that >> what are you seeing, erik, from the consumer right now? i'm wondering because there's this feeling with retail numbers that this is going to be as good as it gets for the consumer on consumer balance sheets being strong and trillions of stimulus and the urge to get out and go shopping after being in lockdown and questions about whether that slows down and what comes next and what that might mean for nordstrom. >> yeah, obviously there is some real strength with the consumer right now and the stats you mentioned. but i sure wouldn't say it's as good as it gets. there's some headwinds in customers' getting out and having all the reasons to get out and buy the shoes and clothes and accessories to do just that. we've seen really encouraging

shift in a little dressier going out categories as people get out of the house but as you know, there's still most businesses, offices are not back while tourism has picked up, it's not -- we've seen significant difference in our business by geography. the southern regions continue to perform better and urban areas where we have our biggest stores continuing to lag a bit. look at downtowns and, you know, they rely on people who live there. but they also rely on people who work there and visitors coming in and those elements still have some lingering headwinds with them, and we see that. there's momentum there we see that improving but there's still a lot of opportunity for that to be better >> to what extent, erik, are you

embracing the buy now, pay later trend? >> we have done some testing with that over the last year or two on that. we have seen encouraging results there. so we think it's definitely a part of what we should have. >> i wanted to ask about the supply chain issues. you mentioned on the call increased freight cost, wage pressures, of course, and now there are these factory closures in vietnam because of covid-19 influencing retail we've seen it with under armour and adidas and nike. how would you characterize this environment from that standpoint and how long do you think these pressures are going to be with us >> it's tough. there's no doubt that local supply chain environment is really challenged right now and has been for a while we don't see, really, many signs that it's going to end any time soon we think the prudent thing for

us is to plan on that being around for a while at least through the next four quarters what do we do about it for us it's been things like bringing forward shipping our orders, shipping them earlier if we can bigger shipping windows to our vendors to ship. we've increased the deliveries to our stores so we have what we can do once it's in our system, get their delivery and also working with our vendors much more closely to see what we can do together to help smooth out the inventory flow. >> what's it all going to mean, erik, for the price that we pay as consumers are we going to start seeing promotions when inventory comes back and when does that happen >> oh, i don't know. i think inventories across the

board are low. so there hasn't been as much activity that's really not our deal we're not a retailer that runs a lot of one-day only sales or bring a friend sale, things like that our business is really driven on newness and a flow of newness so our customers look to us for so for us, that inventory flow and addressing those supply chain issues are really paramount. >> so what is the strategy, erik how are you -- you said you were not moving as fast as you'd like, as fast as the competition to get back to those growth levels in a very strong consumer environment. what are you telling investors today about the speed and about what's going to get you there? >> first and foremost, it's not that mysterious. it's, you know, we've made progress there's clear financial progress and really if you go back to the january investor day where we

laid out our long-term strategy that generates significant shareholder value and our commitments to 6% ebitda margin on significantly bigger sales base, we have made the progress that we laid out against that, but given the environment, we see opportunities to accelerate on that. so things like inventory flow. we made improvements and been able to do some things over the last couple of months that as we exited q2 give us confidence going into the back half of the year that we can see improvement there. our focus on the customer and what customers are looking for both the brands and price points and the integration of our digital and physical that's something that's served us very well you hear a lot of retailers doing that for us, our digital business is a big, big business.

it was over half of our business last year. and while stores are coming back and that's come down a little bit as a percentage of our business, we still think that's our north star is to have compelling digital assets. and we are particularly encouraged by our digital business the scale of it and the growth we continue to see, even as stores are rebounding is very encouraging for us >> should mention the stock is still a double over the last 12 months it's come back strong. erik nordstrom, thank you for joining us, especially on a tough day. we appreciate it when ceos come on, on good days and bad, but especially on bad days to help clear up some of the negative narrative out there which there is around this stock off 17% around earnings. >> we certainly do our thanks to mr. nordstrom there. up next, shares of dick's sporting goods jump on strong results. and salesforce gets ready to report their numbers those storiesand more enwh we go inside the market zone, next.

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♪ nothing's gonna ever keep you down ♪ [triumphantly yells] ♪ you're the best! around! ♪ [ding] don't get mad. get e*trade and take charge of your finances today. ♪♪ ♪ welcome back we have 11 minutes left in the trading day. commercial-free coverage of all the action going into the close. mack santoli here to break down the crucial moments of the trading day. and today, lindsey bell with us as well. very good afternoon to you let's kick off with the broader markets. stocks rallying today. s&p 500 and nasdaq up for the fifth straight day and on track for record closes. steady gains for most of the trading days this week up 1.3% on the week on the s&p

500. mike, it touched that 4500 level earlier today. you said a couple of weeks ago that was the next target we've got there despite a brief pullback last week fairly simply. fairly smoothly. >> in retrospect, certainly fairly smoothly. not as smooth as it seemed it would be a couple of weeks ago but did project ahead once we got out of the july pullback and broke out to a new high. if you look at what has been a relatively monotonous pace of gains this year, this was the next stop. and that could mean that eventually, before too long, this upward drift gets us to a point where people feel like we want to lock it in for a little while. the market flattens out. maybe it's getting to this point ahead of jackson hole and then wait and see what the next catalyst is. but tough to really argue with getting in the way apple down a lot of the big faangs not doing much and cyclical stocks rebuilding what they lost from june to august

and that's been the story so far this week. >> chip stocks are really shining today which we'll get to lindsey, are you feeling as bullish as the market is signaling this week with the cyclical stocks leading the way higher, small caps as well >> yeah, certainly encouraging to see the cyclical stocks take the lead again we've seen this underlying rotation between sectors happening all year long, which is really supported the upside momentum that we've gotten in the stock market and look, the s&p 500 up almost 20% on a year to date basis is pretty impressive. yet the multiple has come down as earnings continue to come in better than expected so while we're in a volatile period of the market this august, september period tends to historically be volatile. maybe we saw some of that last week with this week. we think that the market is digesting the information very well and sets up well when we get into the end of the year which is a cyclically stronger period of the year

>> let's hit those chip stocks semiconductors making a move higher outperforming the tech sector. josh lipton explaining what is driving the surge. >> check out the smh, the etf that tracks the chips moving higher in today's trade. now getting closer to its all-time high here as for movers, check out western digital. it's in advance talks to work with kioxia in a deal which could be finalized by next month. nvidia, another mover. up about 70% in 2021 the department of energy apparently nearing a deal to purchase a supercomputermade with nvidia and amd chips as it waits for a delayed intel machine. taiwan semi climbing about 10% this year. about 20% from its all-time high reports suggesting it will lift prices for the most advanced chips it makes by 10% next year and raise prices for older chips as well. back to you all. >> a lot of catalysts there. josh, thank you.

i feel like we need to pause for nvidia again driving up the nasdaq 100. just when you wonder if it's too late to get into the stock it makes another monster run to new highs. >> obviously the part in the absolute sweet spot of the industry in terms of the end market it's going into, i guess, it had a stock split. everything that they want to do is sort of really maintain the enthusiasm for the stock has been done. it's really the monster in terms of market cap size of the group we used to think about intel and qualcomm nvidia blows them away i do think it muddles the underlying message of the sector moves. it's been an outsized influence that i think there's been a little more churn in weakness under the surface in some of these commodity-type names the index still does remain below its high when you have the nasdaq and the s&p making new highs. that has to go in the category of still something to prove p. nvidia is double the market cap of intel more than $500 billion

wil wilfred? >> well, i was going to say, i guess nvidia also muddles if people were loorking at the average p/e of the sector as well >> yeah, for sure. it's vastly more expensive than the rest massive divergence in this sector a whole chunk of chips considered more legacy and old tech in general, it's never typically been sort of a group to buy just on a pure p/e basis. a lot of the companies so cyclical within it but right now nvidia is more the exception than the rule to what's driving the overall sector >> lindsey, what's your take on the smh more broadly and whether this is a good time to be buying into it. >> look, i think when you think about semiconductors, they are becoming so much more integral to everything we do in our everyday lives from our home to our cars to our mobile devices

and gaming all these different things so i think there's really this secular story there behind semiconductors i know the etf can be really volatile over different periods of time. but, you know, i just think the longer term story for semiconductors really is there, if you can withstand the volatility within the etf. >> let's get to dick's sporting goods scoring big gains today following its earnings which were before the bell the retailer posted a beat on the top and bottom line and raising its full-year forecast it also announced a special dividend of $5.50 per share and a 21% increase in quarterly dividend nice move to the up side 13% or so. what's your take summing up all of the varies retailers of late? are we net encouraged by what we're seeing from retail earnings >> yeah, you know, i really was encouraged by what i saw from retail earnings.

the majority of them beat on top line and bottom line they had much better than expected margin expansion which i think surprised a lot of people they -- a lot of them raised guidance and then you had some of these higher quality names like the dick's sporting goods or the macy's where you saw them in macy's case, reinstate its dividend and initiate a new buyback program. dick's sporting good raising their buyback program and initiating a special dividend, getting their yield to 4%. so to me, these retailers aren't doing that unless they think that the strength of the consumer that we've seen over the last several months is here to stay. especially into the holiday selling season there's a lot of questions about inventory out there and what price increases are going to look like. so far, the consumer has been able to absorb those and i think given the fact that the holidays last year was almost a depressing time for a lot of consumers because you weren't able to spend it with your family and friends. they'll want to go the extra

mile this year and the retailers stand to benefit >> what do you do then, mike, with a nordstrom we just talked to erik nordstrom. tough day for him. tough spot to be in when you have a company like dick's showing 45% growth over 2019 levels and nordstrom is still 6% behind there he said there's been progress. it's been okay over the last year but clearly big disappointment >> sure, progress but in a much tougher uphill climb than something like dick's might face dick's and nordstrom started out roughly in a similar valuation position trading 14 times earnings, something like that. dick's gets upward revaluation on this idea there's much more of a durable play here >> better category >> exactly it's all about the backdrop of the sector >> and kohl's has been more exposed so it's done better. salesforce is the big name on today's after the bell earnings calendar julia boorstin has a preview for

us >> salesforce shares are up 17% year to date and the company hasn't missed estimates even once in at least five years we'll have to see if that streak continues for the dow component. the key number to watch is revenue growth it's projected at 21% to 6.2 buld and also, of course, watching revenue guidance. analysts expect 23% revenue growth in the third quarter. analysts will also be looking for updates on the integration of slack and upside from that deal which closed just last month. going into earnings, 79% of analysts have a buy or overweight rating on the stock the rest are holds no sells wilf >> julia, thanks for that. we have just under two minutes left in the session. set for two record closes once again. mike, what are the intels telling you? >> solid but not as strong as the last couple of days in terms of market breadth. the new york stock exchange flit right there. roughly 60%. upside volume the last couple of

days a lot of given and take. take a look on a day-to-day basis. the beta stocks, risky ones, now nosing ahead of the low volatility etf the more stable stocks that's just this month interestingly, the s&p as a whole has outperformed both of them so it's been neither of the riskiest nor the safest stocks that have done the best for the last few weeks the volatility index is giving way a little bit mid-16s right now. should kind of theoretically grind lower as we make new highs. we have jackson hole coming and it's still august into september where you have the opportunity for air pockets historically >> 45 seconds before the close a record one for the s&p and record one for the nasdaq. there's the dow. 54 points. looks like american express is the biggest contributor to the gains along with goldman sachs financials are having a great day in part to the higher treasury yield 10-year back above 1.30. biggest drag is united health

care and amgen s&p 500 higher by 0.25%. 4497 financials, the best performers. energy is up there, too. it's been a winner all week. industrials, materials discretionary and communications services and utilities and small caps coming back 0.4% they were down almost 10% last week another strong session, wilf >> another strong session with two record closes. welcome to the "closing bell." i'm wilfred frost with sara eisen and mike santoli the dow higher not at a record close. the nasdaq up 0.2% the s&p just below that 4500 level at the close though it did cross termer financials the best performing sector health care the worst performing sector get ready for an action-packed

hour of earnings the likes of salesforce, snowflake, box, splunk, ulta beauty, williams-sonoma and more due to report any moment we'll break down the numbers as soon as they cross plus, splunk's ceo will join us to discuss his company's results before he takes analysts' questions on the conference call. he will be joining us exclusively. lindsey bell from ally invest is with us and jeffries managing director brent hill joins the discussion mike, i'll come to you first in terms of where we finish and just to what extent the yield move perhaps is what we should be focusing on more this week than these record closing highs. i guess another factor we haven't talked about, not only are we approaching the jackson hole symposium but also quite a big move in european yields partly on german political news. but we're seeing that kind of interlinking moves between global yields once again >> yes, definitely

the bond market is relaxing and allowing yields to go higher globally although the u.s. ten-year treasury has had more of an upside in terms of yield than, for example, the german 10-year. so that spread is getting maybe a little bit on the higher side again. that's sometimes restrains how much more of the treasury yield can go up. it's part of the same story with what's going on with equities which is investors are adding back some of the exposure to the economic recovery that they maybe had trimmed back and emphasized other things like secular growth stocks in july and into august. and that's been kind of underscored by some of the work that the wall street firms with hedge fund positions looks like they're back into faang type of stocks and it's a portfolio rebalancing as delta recedes as a front and center fear in terms of the surge in the short term. adding back cyclicals they had trimmed before >> so what is the right strategy

as far as how much you should be in the cyclical trades, the names working this week and today especially and more defensive groups like a staples or utilities or health care. which had been shining lately and are under a lot of pressure today. >> yeah. it's a great question, sara. what you need to do is have a little bit of everything a lot of people talk about that barbell approach so on the defensive side you want some of those -- the health care and utility names you said have been shining over the last two months might be weak today in that defensive bucket i'd put technology, too. it's a huge component of the index. you can't really ignore the sector and on the other side of that, of course, look at the cyclicals and some of the value oriented sectors like the financials that you see shine in periods where the ten-year starts to pop and people feel a little more comfortable about the reopening story coming back. especially after some of those

sectors have been beat down. there's a back and forth between a push and pull between all this we've seen happening the last 12 months >> as we await a number of earnings from stocks you cover to come out, i wondered what you felt overall about valuations in those companies and how closely you're watching jackson hole and the yields that we're seeing particularly on the long end as to how you come up with the price targets of your stocks >> yeah, technology is not built equally. software is expensive. we have stocks at like snowflake at 50 times revenue and companies like google who are trading at 15 times ebitda so it's not even across tech internet is in our opinion more favorably valued you continue to see great support on valuations in software again, you're dealing with multiples we've never seen before and ultimately that's being underpinned by private equity activity, what you heard

yester yesterday. there's an resurgence. many are at points where it's going to be tough to go higher last year you had a 56% increase in multiples in software this year you have a 3% contraction. so we're in a contracting multiple environment but there's great fundamental stories like salesforce, like adobe, microsoft, intuit, great ufour large cap names we've continued to recommend to our clients. overall, pretty mixed. >> who looks most vulnerable in that setup to you? >> i think when you look at the higher multiple names like a snowflake, it's just hard to win when they're at 50 times revenue. it's a great story the product is incredible but when you start to put multiples like that, it's just really hard for these 40, 50 multiple names to continue. we'll get snowflake's numbers in

a moment but i think ultimately it doesn't really matter what number is put up it's hard to go beyond a ceiling of 50 on the multiple. so in certain ways we'll see multiple contraction >> snowflake is moving lower after hours. we'll have the numbers in a moment mike, just wanted to pivot to the broader markets and this argument that cash balances are incredibly high and that suggests we've got room to move higher it's an argument you don't really accept. is that fair >> well, i don't accept it as a key catalyst in terms of retail investor cash balances they are certainly ample in an absolute basis the market has run so much and flows already into stocks have been so strong to me that's not the next story. that's just part of the general backdrop we've already become almost fully allocated to equities but that doesn't mean the market stops going up because of that

thesis companies are certainly flush with cash. obviously the buyback story is very active right now. and that's ramping up again. so it's absolutely a high liquidity environment. i just don't think there's this sense out there that everyone is huddling on the sidelines and, therefore, those people coming in it's going to be the excuse for the next burst higher. >> salesforce with another revenue beat we'll get to that in a moment. mike, you love to talk about the meme stocks. what's notable is they pulled back today but barely. amc, end of the day, pretty much flat gamestop down 5% the days they are lower continue to be a lot less dramatic than the days they go up. >> they are. they definitely have like bled and drifted lower for periods of time when nobody is talking about them if you looked at amc, peaked above 70 let's remember. it did kind of crack from there. you have something like gamestop peaked above 400 seven months ago so it's not as if -- >> i'm referring to one-day moves. bigger on the upside

>> they continue to have this residual -- people at the ready to pull the trigger on them. and the stories fly around and we share these kind of elaborate theories of why there should be some short squeeze of this shadow negative -- >> you're in touch with that crowd. >> i'm more in touch with them than i prefer to be. but, no, i mean, every single time we talk about this i say the market does wild stuff all the tomb the market puts money in the wrong place all the time big major blue chip stocks get misvalued by tens of billions of dollars every day in this market so i can't get exercised by a company having a 10 or $20 billion valuation -- there's a lot of energy in the market sometimes it's just people having fun >> lindsey, how hard is it to bet against momentum when we see it out there and we hit these record highs once again. is it something that your

clients are focused on, and do you worry that sometimes they'll all pile in on the same tray >> yeah, momentum definitely is a force within the market. especially when you're in a year like this where we haven't seen any 5% or 10% pullbacks. you usually get a couple of those a year haven't seen much of that action this year. you see the market up as significantly as it is in this part of the year, momentum begets more upside you usually see in a year like this 8 to 10% more upside into the end of the year. so it is a force to be reckoned with as far as investors piling into the same stocks or meme stocks in particular, it's something to keep an eye on, but i will say to mike's point, things move for various reasons and they aren't always for fundamental reasons our customers have that millennium customer base

they've been interested in the meme stocks as well as crypto currency and things like that. but as far as the meme stocks go, bloomberg put a report out yesterday that that upside move that we saw in someone that was driven by institutional investors, we saw our customers, they were selling more than they were buying in amc and gamestop. so just a little anecdote there for you. >> it's good color we've got to get to salesforce earnings which are out the stock is up. julia boorstin with the numbers. >> the stock is moving higher on better than expected results revenues of $6.34 billion versus $6.24 billion analysts estimated. company reporting adjusted earnings of $1.48 per share. it's unclear if that's comparable, but one thing is for sure that the guidance is coming in stronger than expected. the company guiding to third quarter revenue guidance up as much as $6.79 billion and full year revenue guidance of $26.3

billion. so that is above those wall street estimates we're going to continue to dig through this report and come back with more the stock is now up 3% sara >> julia boorstin, thank you tonight, be sure to catch "salesforce's ceo marc benioff on "mad money" with jim cramer stock up almost 3% after hours brent, the marc benioff quote in the news release says it all companies and governments around the world accelerating their digital transformations. we delivered our fifth phenomenal quarter in a row. looks like the market agrees what stood out to you? >> michael jordan will be excited. 23% growth and 23% current rpo growth so theyor boardwith mr. jordan you know, good numbers to low 20% growth on both, you know, the booking revenue, at 23 guidance looks great at 25% for next quarter and rev look they are benefiting from this

work from anywhere trend they've dominated the front office they've got now slack coming into the fold where the sales reps can now start to push this transactions close i think there are three things investors want to hear benioff talk about number one, just the refocus fact that investors matter margin expansion and they want him to take a break in m&a it's just been a story that keeps buying stories, tableau, slack. they need to integrate what they have so the checks from the customers are saying, hey, take a break. but the numbers look great a lot of this is aided by acquisitions, obviously. so, you know, i think ultimately stocks lag it's been an underperformer to the rest of the software names microsoft, adobe, others have massively outperformed and it's because this overhang of the margin deterioration. the margin is half the margin of other large-cap software names and investors want to see them

allocate their capital in a better way so we want to hear him talk about now am i going to take a break from m&a can i integrate these assets and now take what we have and do what we can with it. they did this the other night and said we're done doing short-term in the near term and the stock went up. the stock is not going to break out unless he says that. >> salesforce up 3% after reporting their earnings what about box, josh lipton? >> box reporting q2 results. preliminary results august 12th. now the formal report here 21 cents versus 19 cents revenue up 12% $214.5 million versus expectations of $212.5 million q3 guidance, looking for between 20 and 21 cents. revenue between 218 and 219. street at 217. and for the year now looking for between 79 and 81 cents versus

expectations of 79 cents and revenue between 856 and $860 million. the street at $853 million i got a chance to speak with the ceo aaron levy we've seen accelerating growth aaron telling me box security products, workflow, platform technology and suites are landing with customers megatrends like remote work and digital transformation all point to the need for a new content platform architecture. these are sustainable trends also box has been battling starboard value which nominated three directors to replace the ceo aaron levy that shareholder meeting is schedule forward september 9th i asked aaron how that fight is going to play out. how does this all end here levy telling me, iss favors our board card highlighting that box is executing. box's stock performance over the past year is beating most peers in the market. the right board. team and strategy to execute this stock was about 40% this year only around 5% off its 52-week

high giving up some ground here initially in the after hours back to you all. >> josh lipton, thanks for that one. down 4%. let's get to ulta's earnings quickly as well. rahel solomon. >> looks like a sizable beat for ulta beauty. eps at 4.56 a share. revenue also a nice beat that came in at $1.97 billion. expectation had been $1.76 billion. you can see the stock is up fractionically after hours comp sales increased 13.1% for the quarter compared to 2019 company also raising outlook for fiscal 2021. this is on two things. based on the first two months of fiscal 2021 and improved expectations for consumer demand the new ceo david kimball saying it shows the recovery of beauty. people thought as we ditched our masks we'd go back to wearing more makeup. that may be the case first earnings call for the new ceo begins shortly in 15 minutes at 4:30. you can see ulta is up about

1.3% after hours after a significant beat both on the top and bottom lines for q2. back to you. >> really strong transactions growth thank you very much. to lindsey bell and brent, great to have you for instant analysis splunk reporting moments ago. the company's ceo breaks down the results with us before discussing them with analysts on his conference call. plus citizens financial ceo. wee ck i'rban just two minutes on "closing bell."

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shares of splunk higher 1.5% after the company reported q2 results beating expectations on the top and bottom lines adjusted loss of 62 cents a share versus estimates of 69 cents. $605.7 million in revenue. expectation was $563 million splunk's ceo doug merit joins us

now ahead of the earnings call thanks for joining us. tell us the story because you're going through a transformation you are switching to subscription and to cloud. what are you seeing? give us some color behind the numbers? >> thank you for having me on. thrilled to be here. another really good quarterly performance. we were really pleased across the board. we, as you talked, about we are going through a transformation to sas delivery and revenue that comes with it. all of these are multiyear transformations. we're well consistently at 50-plus percent on cloud bookings we're proud with our cloud bookings overall ar, we are pleased with 37%. a little over $2.6 billion and those in cloud ar. so it's been an important commitment for customers to van

effective delivery given the importance of digital transformation and cloud-based offerings. and we're seeing the results with customers moving for splunk >> we don't talk about splunk every day. give us a sense. there are a lot of software subscription cloud companies out there. give us a sense of what differentiates you what you're selling to these big clients like the big banks and big companies and why it's a growth market. >> that's a very good point. so first of all, 92 of the fortune 100 are using splunk that's been a consistent number for many years we're experts at dealing with the very high volume, high variety and high change rate of data that all theseawesome silicon-based devices are throwing off the core markets that we serve, although data can be used for just about anything, are the cybersecurity teams trying to keep companies safe. they are investigating what's the health of all these devices and networks and data centers. the i.t. operations teams trying

to keep the systems up and running. we've seen that beyond mission critical in the pandemic and they are cranking out awesome new features and functions so we can have these great experiences will sometimes we are back in sheltering in place during this pandemic so we're a big data platform that provides insight and visibility for organizations using this data set. >> you've got a big investment from silver lake a couple of months ago talk us through, doug, the rationale for taking that and the terms that came with it. >> yeah, we were really thrilled to have silverlake express interest it was an effective set of interrogations as you'd expect. good due diligence done very crisply. the thought process was these transformations are difficult. and when we look beyond at the transformation, adobe and other companies have gone through it very few of them the stock overall performance

becomes really, really compelling but in the middle of that transformation it's not always so obvious to investors that fundamental strength and what that outcome is going to look like. by teaming with silver lake, i think they are very widely regarded as the best in the industry certainly in the tech focus that they have. long-term investors. growth p/e oriented investors. we felt that was a really strong vote of confidence by one of the best in the industry on the fundamental health of splunk and then got to add in awesome new board member in the co-ceo and co-founder of silverlake a lot of perspective they're bringing from other investments they have and transformation some of those companies have gone through we felt could be of value to us at the board level as well. >> do you think wall street understands ultimately beyond silverlake your story, doug? the stock has underperformed year to date and certainly is much lower value than some of the other companies in this space like data doc what is the disconnect

>> i think there are so many different options for investors that you guys do an excellent job of covering. and splunk -- companies in transformation like splunk are, you have to spend a bit more time with the company and understand the fundamentals to understand why over the next 12, 14, 18 months that momentum continues. we have worked hard with stats like -- our dollar base, retention rate o-cloud customers is best in class. we've done as much as we feel we can do to provide visibility on the fundamentals for the company. but there are lots and lots of alternatives out there right now and it's up to us to put together great quarters like we just had and providing increasing clarity on guidance and the opportunity in front of us so that people understand this is a temporary transition we're going through and the company we just guided to $3 plus billion of arr towards the -- at the end of this year

or next two quarters so that company is understandable to folks on gap and normalized metrics instead of temporary metrics like ar. >> got it. we certainly appreciate you coming on to share it with our viewers and investors that are watching doug, thank you. doug merritt, ceo of splunk. snowflake and williams sonoma, williams also out. let's get to kristina partsinevelos. >> snowflake, revenue at $272.2 million. that was stronger than expected. also the company announcing the number of customers. putting up all your storage into the cloud. and they said that caused the stock to jump up and then fall down the net revenue retention came in at 169% higher than last year what that means is there's an increase in the number of customers paying $1 million or more just over the last 12 months that was a strong number for them

however, the gap earnings per share came in at a loss of 64 cents. so gap earnings per share game in at a loss of 64 cents a revenue beat now i'm going to switch to williams sonoma because their results came out a double beat. earnings per share and revenue both beating expectations. $3.24 for eps and revenues of $1.95 billion. the company, though, just announced they are going to be providing a 20% quarterly dividend and approved a $1.25 billion buyback. the big thing we're going to be looking for on the earnings call at 5:00 p.m. is whether the sales are going to continue as more and more places start to open up. i looked right before going live still seeing sales across the board for le ceuset dutch ovens that are $250. >> very expensive cookware >> on sale though, no. >> on sale be sure to catch snowflake's ceo on "mad money" with jim cramer at 6:00. tomorrow on "closing bell" we'll

talk to williams-sonoma ceo about those results and expensive cookware going on sale and much more. another knockout quarter from laura alber with the stock up more than 11% after hours. >> we're looking forward to that one and to "mad money" tonight we'll get the outlook for bank mergers whenwe're joined by the ceo of citizens financial which is buying investors bankcorp of course, coming shortly after asastst uisition of hsbc's eas cot se we'll be right back.

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quite a trend here talk us through the rationale for this particular one. >> yeah, so for a long time we've wanted to attack the new york metro market. we've had a hole in our footprint between the new england franchise and the mid-atlantic franchise we were successful in acquiring the hsbc east coast operation which brought us 65 or so branches in the new york area. and then we went after investors, the one-two punch because that brings about 135 branches in the new york area, some additional branches in new jersey and in the greater philadelphia market. so it really helps complete that footprint for us and investors also brings a small business customer base, no market customer basewhereas hsbc was exclusively retail. we have the foundation now to really go after this we're a top ten deposit market share in new york. the success that we've had in boston and philly and

pittsburgh, i think, is something we can replicate over time in new york we can do more for these customers and grow our market share with time. >> so that establishes that particular regional market what about elsewhere are you hitting pause on the acquisition front or if you find more of these sort of sized bolt bolt-ons, would you be active again in the market? >> i think it's going to take a while to bet these down. at this point, mission accomplished we'll work hard to execute these well and get them launched in the right direction. we will continue to look at fee-based acquisitions we've been successful there in terms of adding to our capital markets, wealth capabilities so we're not going to pause on those but i think we're done for a whileon the bank side. >> bruce, outside the deals front, how would you characterize this current environment? the stock price which has done well financials had another good day but a little under pressure with yields backing off

what are you seeing out there? >> i think the economy is still very sound it's been a little bit of a plateau given concerns over the delta variant, but we've seen in other jurisdictions like the uk where when they opened up, you saw case surge and then it's come back down so i think that will come down in the fourth quarter, the second half of the year. and as we head into next year, i think the economy should continue to be very strong given the pent-up demand and all the fiscal stimulus and monetary stimulus we've seen. so we're optimistic. we're seeing some good levels of loan demand starting to pick up a bit and some of our consumer areas like point of sale finance and student loan finance the corporate side is coming back a little more slowly but at least we've seen stabilization on line of credit utilization. we're starting to see a pick-up in deal related financing. so again, it's all coming. it's just a question of how fast >> in terms of the fed meeting

tomorrow, more broadly what the fed does over the next 6 to 12 months, as and when tapering does end, do you envision the longer end of the yield curve shooting up higher much quicker? what is your take on how quickly we could see changes there i guess you're one of the few ceos and sectors in the country that would welcome a steepening yield curve. >> certainly that's positive for banks to see a steepening yield curve but i think the fed is going to taper gradually they'll probably start before the year is out and run that out for a number of quarters into next year. so i don't think there will be any precipitous moves in the 10-year, certainly the forward markets are not projecting that. i think they ultmetly start raising the short end of the curve probably late next year which also would benefit us since we have a lot of sensitivity the short end of the curve. so i think they are monitoring very carefully the inflation

outlook. they are still debate as to whether it's transitory or not and i think they'll start to gradually take the punch bowl away but also they don't want to be precipitous in how they do that >> always good to get your take. bruce van saun, thanks for joining us >> my pleasure >> ceo of citizens up next, mike santoli looking at what money market assets are saying about investors' commitment to stocks right now. here's another check on today's after-hours earnings movers salesforce with a beat and a raise up 1.75% after hours williams-sonoma knocking it out of the park. up 13% after hours ulta, another winner snowflake and box under pressure we'll be rig bk "osg ll."htaconclin

welcome back time for a cnbc update with shepard smith. >> from the news on cnbc, here's what's happening secretary of state tony blinken says there are fewer than 1500 americans in afghanistan still waiting to be evacuated. blinken says 4,500 americans have already been flown out. he pledged the administration will work beyond the august 31st deadline to bring home any

remaining americans and afghans who still want to leave. how they'll do that in taliban-controlled islamic emirate of afghanistan was not detailed will you pay to stay unvaccinated and keep your job thousands of delta airlines employees are asking themselves that question today. delta announcing it's raising health insurance premiums by 200 bucks a month for all workers who refuse to get their shots. they'll also have to wear masks in all indoor settings effective right now. and starting september the 12th, all unvaccinated employees must be tested every week and president biden gathering top tech and finance executives at the white house today. he wants them to do more to protect against cyberattacks on the nation's key infrastructure. microsoft announced at that summit that it will quadruple its cybersecurity investment to $20 billion within the next five years. tonight, a rare report inside a covid icu unit as nurses and doctors desperately try to save

lives. the harsh and sometimes horrific reality on "the news" right after jim cramer, 7:00 eastern, cnbc sara, back to you. >> shep, sounds depressing we'll be watching. let's send it back to mike santoli for a look at the rate of investor borrowing right now to buy stocks. what that says about the environment. >> the rate of investor borrowing and then putting that against how much cash they might have sitting around, it's actually kind of together gives you a sense of the overall commitment to stocks this is the year over year growth in margin debt. that's borrowed money in brokerage accounts that's the blue line against the year over year change in the s&p 500 itself we justmade a major spike up there. the year over year change in the s&p 500. actually touched 80% on a monthly basis. and that's come down sharply what's interesting is there wasn't a huge overshoot in the amount of margin debt relative to where the equity market itself was you did see something similar in

1983, especially '99 and 2000 where people gorged on debt at much higher rates, mind you. this is 2007 there is some concern when you have a sharp pullback it is sometimes coincided with a market correction or major peak. i don't know that we necessarily had a huge overshoot in leverage to where you'd say that's absolutely a fat pitch maybe it's reason for near term caution. here though is the amount of money market cash sitting in accounts relative to the overall equity market cap. yes, the absolute amount, $5.5 trillion sitting in or $4.6 trillion sitting in money market accounts is a huge number but the market is up so much it's only about 12% of market cap. last year in march of 2020, about 20% of overall market cap just sitting in money market funds. the low in 2009, much high are close to half in money market relative to equity market cap. even if some of this moves into the markets, it doesn't mean it

can move the needle that much or that investors will feel compelled to raise their equity allocations by putting cash into the market from here, guys >> it's a great chart, mike. really makes the point clearly thank you. 25% of u.s. public corporate board seats are now held by women. up next, the co-founder of franklin mountain energy who was just added to the boards of two other companies on how corporate america can reach gender parity more quickly plus, what to expect from tomorrow's big day of earnings featuring several retailers along with hp and peloton. much more to come on "closing bell." for skin that never holds you back don't settle for silver #1 for diabetic dry skin* #1 for psoriasis symptom relief* and #1 for eczema symptom relief* gold bond champion your skin

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ahead of women's equality day tomorrow, we've reached a new milestone in corporate america this past quarter. 25% of u.s. public company board seats in the russell 3000 are now held by women. and almost half of new directors hired in this quarter were women. progress, yes, but at this rate it will still take eight years to reach gender parity joining us is audrey robertson, co-founder of franklin mountain energy, a private oil and gas company operating in the permian basin. she's recently been appointed to the boards of bonanza greek and liberty oil field services welcome. important topic. we've seen data and research showing that more diverse boards increase financial performance and definitely help with

bringing diversity of thought around the table what's your experience as to why this issue of gender representation is so important >> thank you first for having me and it's a big issue it's a real opportunity for us as women professionals to recognize that celebrating tomorrow is celebrating not just the major milestones that have been hit so far, bringing parity to all areas of our life but there's a lot -- a long way to go you point out the russell 3000 board gender parity won't be achieved until, what, eight years from now and that's just a lot of time for corporate boardrooms to catch up there's not a lack of women who are talented and well suited to serve on corporate boards and represent shareholders and assist skitive teams in

executing a strategy it's really a question of corporate boards and their investors making the decision to increase diversity >> but in your experience, how does it manifest why is this a good thing why do we need to be encouraging more of this >> you know, my experience being on three public company boards was there was a traditional path, frankly, of most corporate board members. they started in the executive world in the private equity space. i started a company. and after -- after the -- after becoming an executive, i was invited to the table and having a seat at the table meant that i was able to talk to ceos about questions in their business. they were able to ask me questions about my company and how we were tackling specific issues and when the time came for the

first board i joined was a company called extraction oil and gas. they are operators in colorado and that's primarily where my assets in my last business were focused. and they didn't invite me on their board because i was a diverse candidate. they asked me to join their board because i had specific domain knowledge that they believed could help them execute their business strategy. through the other boards i've sat on, i'd say a similar path in that most recently liberty oil field services is an extraordinary company that i have followed. i've been a customer a user of their services and a follower of what they do in terms of bringing great technology into the space. so my role on that board is really to be a customer of theirs to help them make better decisions as one of the constituents of that business. but obviously, looking out for shareholders >> audrey, do you think that once 50% is reached it will

become a self-fulfilling factor for trickle-down throughout the rest of the company? not just at the board level? >> you know, wilf, i think it's really industry specific i am in one of the most male dominated industries in the united states, oil and gas it's not known to be a gender equal industry for a variety of reasons. i don't think 50% parity means that 50% parity will trickle down the biggest issue in my opinion is that there's not enough women at the c suite that are able to drive change acrossthe organization and there's the pathway to becoming an executive is not necessarily -- is not necessarily one that a lot of women choose or that it's an easy path. i know that i felt like i had to work harder and be better than everyone around me to succeed against my mostly male peers but i don't think gender parity

at the board level will mean gender parity across an industry that's very specific to the industry itself. >> audrey, thanks for joining us today and sharing those points of view. much appreciated >> wilf, sara, thank you so much up next -- nordstrom's nosedive the retailer's stock is getting crushed today, of course, after they reported their results. we'll remind ourselves of what the ceo had to say plus, more retailers gearing up for earnings tomorrow a breakdown of what to watch out r enclinbe" mes back

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shares of nordstrom getting crushed today finished lorer by 17.6%. last hour, we did catch up with the ceo. got his take on investors' reaction following the report. >> we also get that, you know, people wanted to see progress along the way and while the progress is clear, there is progress in our strategic goals.

we're not satisfied with the pace there's opportunities out there and see a lot of opportunities for us to accelerate our pace in the back half of the year. >> nordstrom clearly acknowledging the move today in the stock saying that they're not satisfied with the results, but ultimately it's going to be compared to not just other department stores, but other retailers, which are showing strong growth over 2019 in profitability and sales. which speaks to the good environment these retailers are facing so you wonder for nordstrom, what's it going to look like into the holiday season. >> we had the first burst of everything reopening and now it just feels as if it's more of a familiar story of what proceeded the pandemic, which is hard to grow top line. now there's still room for nordstrom to pay down more debt and get the balance sheet in better shape and just do what it

otherwise, plus, if people do go back to the office, in theory, that's another little kicker >> and they invested early >> concept of course is sort of obscured in the overall parent company, but that's also been a strong point >> sure. >> after the break, the fed in focus. the jackson hole summit kicks off virtually of course tomorrow and all of wall street will be watching we'll preview the key themes to expect plus, optimism over travel reopening. helping gambling stocks. here's a look at some of the biggest winners in this sector "closing bell" back in a couple. pnc bank believes that if a pair of goggles can help your backhand get better... yeah! ...then your bank should help you budget even better. (laughing) virtual wallet® is so much more than a checking account. its low cash mode feature gives you at least 24 hours of extra time to help you avoid an overdraft fee.

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salesforce just reporting results. jim cramer just caught up with the ceo and got his first take on the quarter >> it's just been a phenomenal quarter. again, just had incredible record revenue growth but also look at this margin expansion. it's just amazing. we're more committed to expanding our margins than ever and on top of that, we'll continue to deliver solid cash flow improvement it's really amazing.

>> don't miss the rest of the interview tonight at 6:00 p.m. eastern time >> i was going to say it was a romantic setting there he had with the candles burning in the background >> he needs to do that cabin like thing his covid look like at at tic. >> used to have a big flag in the background i'm sure it will be, yeah, big american flag in the background. anyway, let's get to our wall street look ahead. more earnings to come tomorrow abercrombie, gap, hp, peloton. and don't miss our first on first interview with the ceo of abercrombie. another earnings interview tomorrow the ceo of williams sonoma plus, the fed in focus the jackson hole summit kicks off virtually and mike, one kind of wonders whether the punch has been removed from this because

of that slightly worse day data and the fact that it's virtual >> sure. i'm not sure the fed really wanted to make this a real showcase for major decisions and major announcements about policy, but yes. i think the general point is there and the market has certainly taken it that way as there's nothing necessarily to be concerned about in terms of unexpected tightened gestures or mentions in the speeches that being said, it's still going to inform what people might think about will happen in the september meeting. are people now feeling too comfortable? who knows. we know the committee wants to get there relatively soon in terms of a plan to curtail qe. and more to the point of how the market takes it. it's not always what the market said >> consumer still looks good i think there's a question about whether the committee is

slaging. what's down within the williams sonoma report. rising 51% even erik nordstrom says he doesn't see it's as good as it gets that's going to be a debate especially as these earnings roll in. that's going to do it for us here on "closing bell. have a great evening, everyone "fast money" begins right now. >> live from the nasdaq market site overlooking new york's times square i'm melissa lee. tonight's lineup -- tonight on fast, we are tracking the after hours action samoves of salesforce the call is just kicking off plus, we're watching the white house. president biden wrapping up a meeting right now with the nation's top ceos about cybersecurity. and later, tim is taking the -- his best idea. why he thinks this t