>> very interesting day the way the nasdaq, which has been taking it on the chin, led the way back >> what a week it's been >> those cyber stocks up 12% those are the ones you don't want to see rallying the way they are g >> thanks for watching "power lunch. >> "closing bell" starts right now. >> welcome to "closing bell. i'm morgan brennan yesterday's stunning midday turnaround is carried over into today's session. stocks are surging as we head into the final trading hour of the day and the week recouping their losses from the week >> what a week it's been, morgan i'm courtney reagan. let's look at what's driving the action today developments out of eastern europe remain front and center futures came off their lows this morning on a report saying vladimir putin will would be willing to send a delegation to negotiate with ukraine commodities are reversing some of their earlier moves oil and gold are pulling back, why crypto makes up ground, and we're seeing huge moves on the

back of earnings etsy and block are higher while foot locker and zscaler tanks. 50 minutes to go in the session. the dow on pace for its best day of the year. morgan >> go figure coming up on today's show, market expert ed yardeni says stocks are flashing a buy signal, but is it still wise to jump in after the strong two-day rally. >> plus, fed watching jim grant weighs in on the central bank's next move on how the crisis in europe and today's inflation data factor in >> let's get straight to the latest on ukraine and the market impact eamon javers has a look what we know this hour, and joining us to talk about the big rally for stocks is laurie calvucena >> ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy issued a new video demonstrating he and his leadership team are still in ukraine to show the ukrainian leadership is intact and not on the run as some rumors had it,

and all that even as russian forces are menacing the ukrainian government we're all here protecting our independence, he said. and we'll continue to do so. that message comes as ukrainian troops got set to defend the northeastern city of kharkiv in a snow covered landscape and observers began to document some of the wreckage from fighting over the past 24 hours or so now, in the capital city of kyiv, ukrainian forces bolstered their defenses against an expected russian onslaught and the ukrainian military downed at least one bridge to slow any russian tank advance. meanwhile, nato said it is now employing response force, which they called a historic moment because it's the first time the treaty organization has used these high readiness forces in what it described as a deterrence and defense role. these forces are designed to be flexible combat teams that can respond quickly to any threat. back over to you >> eamon, thank you very much. it's hard to believe but stocks

are really rallying into the close, as investors continue to monitor the crisis in ukraine, the nasdaq and the s&p 500 turning higher for the week. though the major averages are still down substantially for the year our next guest is sticking with her year end s&p 500 price target of $5,050 laurie is head of equity strategy at rbc. this rally is somewhat hard to believe. we saw this stark turnaround that began yesterday and has just continued to march higher throughout today's session is this rally to be believed have we put a bottom in the market and the geopolitical concerns are they largely behind us from an investment perspective? >> so look, i tell you, i think we are going to be higher in the market at the end of the year. i think that it's very tough to say whether we have seen that absolute bottom in the short term one of the things we have done is compare the current crisis to what we call the post financial crisis growth scare. so things like 2010, 2011, the

2018 china trade war and you know, those were big sort of scary things that happened to markets that investors didn't fully understand but knew they were bad. they just didn't know how bad and it took time to figure out i would put that in this category that saw drawdowns of 14% to 20%. on our worst day here, we have seen 12% it wouldn't shock me at all to see further interim downside, but what we see on the sentiment and positioning indicators that we track, things are already very, very beaten up if you look at the aaii survey, they're worse than they were during the pandemic. they're back down to 2013 financial crisis type levels so we do think a lot of the pain is already in the markets, even if perhaps we haven't found the bottom in the very short term. >> so you mentioned there a little bit about investor sentiment, which i always find so fascinating, the psychology of the markets and trading we have some very serious situations happening in the world right now. of course, mainly what's going on with russia's invasion of

ukraine. yet the market continues to march higher are investors buying because the market was really versold or are -- is sentiment more positive than it feels like it should be right now? >> look, i think that what you see when you look at the history of military incursions or the history of these growth scares is that when bottoms happen, things tend to turn around very quickly. the rallies off the growth scares, those lows i mentioned, we actually tend to see markets get back to pre-crisis level highs within four to five months so investors who are seasoned know that bottoms always feel terrible, they always feel frenzied, a lot of them feel hopeless i wouldn't quite put us in that category today we know that's how icky these moments feel, but when you see the bottoms, you tend to see things turn very quickly i think that's where the phrase hold your nose and buy comes into place

>> it's fascinating the way you have lookedat this versus othe periods in time in the last decade or so what we haven't seen over that decade is white hot inflation like we're getting now it does seem like that's very much the biggest risk from the geopolitical situation that's playing out on the ground in eastern europe right now, to markets here, so how are you factoring that into your thesis, especially given the fact that you see the s&p ending the year higher >> so it's a great question, morgan and i think there are two kinds of inflation to look at. emanating from this crisis in particular there's the commodity price inflation that's related to energy commodities, and frankly, i think that's pretty well understood at this point in time you have to look at sector performance year to date and see how much the energy sector is up versus other sectors then the non-energy commodity inflation, so things like grain, corn, metals, that is very meaningful to certain industries but we actually did a survey of our analysts last week and it doesn't have as wide of an impact as the energy related

commodities. so we think do take this crisis seriously. we think there are inflationary impacts. the one that's the broadest though is the one that's the most baked in. >> as you're looking here at the different sectors, week to date, consumer discretionary down the most, almost 3%, then on the flipside, health care up by 2.5% are there areas of opportunities as investors are making considerations for how to position their portfolios next week >> look, i think sort of the news today, right, that one of the things that seems to be driving marksets the idea the fed is not going to be as aggressive with hikes as certain people had thought that wasn't the view of our economists they were always in the four-hike camp, but we're starting to see some of the rate hike fears ratchet down. if you think about cyclical sectors, certain areas like financials which perhaps have had a little wind stolen out of their sails, the idea that the fed might tighten us into a

recession, it's interesting to look at. but you mentioned health care doing pretty well on the day that's actually an interesting one, if you think that the ukraine crisis is not over yet we surveyed our analysts asking people, are you worried or not worried about the crisis from the perspective of your particular industry, and biotech was an area where analysts said there's not a lot of risk there. we didn't see that in a lot of areas. >> what do you think of tech at these levels >> so it's interesting, we have to define what we mean by technology there's broader t.i.n.t., i like parts of it, i don't like parts of it. i don't like the internet piece, but classic tech, semis, hardware, com equipment, and software, we stayed overweight we knew we were going to be wrongoon that to start the year, and the sector would be knocked around, but another area where my analysts told me there's really no fallout from kind of ukraine tensions and the russian invasion, software is one of those areas.

that's a big piece of that classic tech sector. and while the valuations aren't great, we dosee very, very strong earnings provisions here, less risk from this geopolitical event, and one thing we have been talking about with people is inflation if inflation continues to be an issue for markets and corporates generally going forward, software is one of the tools that allows companies to combat that inflation there is a theme there that can actually benefit on the back of inflation from a fundamental perspective. >> laurie, thanks for kicking the hour off with us >> coming up, aerospace and defense stocks are surging today. outperforming on a very strong market day so notable we'll speak with the head of the aerospace industries association about the impact of the crisis in europe on the companies in his group. you're watching "closing bell" on cnbc. check out this vrbo. come on.

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industry groups are responding with measures surrounding russia's invasion of ukraine verizon announcing it will waive fees for calls from its consumer and business wireless customers to and from ukraine beginning today through march 10th the waiver will also cover res dejsal landline customers as well as roaming charges for customers in ukraine >> gma says it will ban a handful of russian firms and no longer allow a russian showcase

at its event in barcelona next week in the sports arena, motor sports governing body announced it was canceling the formula one russian grand prix scheduled for september. this follows europe's soccer governing body, the uefa announcing it would move its champions league final scheduled for may to paris from st. petersburg morgan >> going to continue to monitor these situations a lot of acronyms there. on the airlines front, activity as well. delta suspending its alliance with russia's airline. the agreement allowed passengers to fly on one another's flights and book trips on the same ticket this comes as virgin atlantic and british airways reroute their flights around russia's air space after london and moscow bound each other's airlines -- banned, excuse me, each other's airlines. joining us, eric fanning, the president and ceo of aerospace industries association also the former army secretary mr. secretary, thanks for being with us today. >> thanks for having me. good to see you again. >> i want to get into the commercial aerospace side of

things, but first, given your background and the fact you also represent the defense piece of the puzzle, i do want to get your take on the defense spending in light of the geopolitical situation we see unfolding here we're poised to see budgets here in the u.s. and potentially among nato allies increase, but at least here in the u.s., we don't even have 2022 actually funded so how does this play out now? >> so it is a problem. you know, what you're seeing now is even though we had a global and critical focus on a pandemic, geopolitical issues don't go away. we don't always know where they're going to be. we have had two successive national defense strategies with an increasing focus on china we're expecting one soon to take it up even higher. but we can't take our eye off the ball anywhere around the world. and the instability of the budgeting process is a real problem we have got to get at because the adversary is not waiting for us to get our bumdgt together we're still operating under a

continuing resolution, which costs a lot of money it's not an efficient way to govern and makes it hard for industry to plan and be the kind of partner that government needs it to be >> yeah, costs a lot of money. billions of dollars, by some estimates on a monthly basis, and of course, you factor in inflation, which also hits the pentagon just like it hits everything else in the economy right now. that being said, what does this do to the prioritization picture? i ask that because the army budget in recent years has softened somewhat. but i would imagine when you're talking about what's playing out on the ground in eastern europe where the army is so heavily involved, and the equipment situation and demand is different than some of the other services, that that could actually impact where we see orders come. >> well, i think we always have to prioritize, but we have got to be prepare for any contingency. what's happening in ukraine right now, the russian invasion, shows the importance of ground forces, shows the importance of the army

so as we build for what we need to prepare for for the future, we always need to keep our eye on the ball and what's happening in real time today, which is why there is broad bipartisan support for the defense budgets that we're seeing right now. >> eric, it's courtney if we can just talk briefly about what's going on in the air space around russia that impacts commercial carriers around the world. what is your reaction and can you explain to us the ripple effect that may or may not occur as a result of us sort of halting any movement in that air space? >> there's two issues, the supply chain, those parts we bring into the united states, and of course, there's the global market, those things we export to russia the supply chain has already been under enormous pressure for economic reasons, because of the pandemic, and now you add on to this the geopolitical issues and the sanctions that will come with them. our companies are long lead suppliers. they buy in advance. they have been looking at

mitigating what they might see if there was an invasion, now that there is an invasion. they have good strategies in place for near and midterm, but as this goes on longer, mitigating those problems in the supply chain become harder and sangs don't hit immediately overnight because of these renes. they can take days, months, even years to fully have impact so that's what the focus is right now, is what parts of the supply chain for the aerospace industry are most at risk in the longer term. >> so what part are most at risk i ask that, mr. secretary, knowing that aluminum and titanium, for example, have so far been spared from the sanctions process. but you do have these export controls that are going into place that could impact access to some aircraft parts in russia >> so this is the first time our industry has been hit under the export control regime. it's very complicated for a good reason we're still making sense of what it is, and of course, we adhere

to follow and support american foreign policy, making sense of what our part is in this as you mentioned, we have advocated for a couple areas to be protected one is flight safety most of the planes operated in russia are leased, are operated by western companies and we want to make sure that flight safety isn't put in harm's way. space cooperation is another area so we're in constant contact, dialogue with the administration, to understand what it is they're doing, to figure out how we can work together to mitigate it. but also to point out some things that they might not have been thinking about to make sure that we're protecting things like flight safety >> you just mentioned space cooperation, and of course, i'm going to hone right in on that because we have this civil space partnership between the u.s. and russia where something like the international space station is concerned opone hand on the other hand, a lot of national security and defense implications about space as well as this conflict plays out on the ground how are you navigating that with the companies you represent?

>> so it's reminding people of the importance of that continued cooperation. the civil cooperation is important for a number of reasons. it's been a hallmark of our relationship with russia since the fall of the soviet union, and those dialogues lead to important conversations on the military side as well. space architecture much like the internet wasn't built with threat in mind, with conflict in mind it's important that we work with other countries to figure out rules and norms up there to prevent that from happening. >> eric fanning, aerospace industries association ceo and former army secretary, thanks for being with us today. >> thanks for having me. >> fascinating conversation. a little less than 40 minutes left before that closing bell sounds. the dow is higher by more than 700 points that is for better than 2% gain just on the single session the s&p 500 is also higher by about 2% just a bit off session highs up next, financials among the best performing sectors in

today's rally. we'll look at what's driving the strength in the banks. >> and later, it's shaping up to be a stellar day for the company formerly known as square but the stock is still off more than 50% from its highs. we'll ask an analyst what it takes to regain those levels as shares are higher by 25% today "closing bell" will be right back ok, let's talk about those changes to your financial plan. bill, mary? hey... it's our former broker carl. carl, say hi to nina, our schwab financial consultant. hm... i know how difficult these calls can be. not with schwab. nina made it easier to set up our financial plan. we can check in on it anytime. it changes when our goals change. planning can't be that easy. actually, it can be, carl. look forward to planning with schwab.

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welcome back to "closing bell." major averages are higher and banks are among the top performing sectors today recouping big losses on the week leslie picker has a look at what's driving the move. leslie >> hey, morgan bank stocks really getting whipsawed this week as investors weigh the impact of geopolitical tensions in europe against the potential trajectory of rates. today, the financial sector is the second best performer after materials, at least so far the sector is being led higher by regional commercial banks these are firms like signature,

silicon valley zions, and truest despite larger than usual price swings the sector on pace to be just fractionally lower for the week as for the larger banks with more exposure to europe and the global economy, they're trading positive today, although below their domestic focused peers jpmorgan and bank of america are the leaders among this group, about 3% each in today's session. the laggards within financials include s&p global and msci, the sanctions may require index providers to freeze or delete certain companies from their offerings. s&p also moved lower ahead of its intention to a merger on monday >> that is fascinating that financials up 3% today, but then marginally lower for the week. shows you what a wild ride it's been in these four days. thank you. >> still ahead, today's pce inflation reading showing the biggest annual gain in nearly 40 years. we'll ask jim grant how that

could influence powell's next move >> yields mostly higher today though off their best levels the ten-year back, moving above 2% before pulling back it's at 1.977% right now

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about 31 minutes left of the trading session. let's get a check on the markets, as the major averages climb closer to their highs of the session. the dow is up 767 points 2.3% right now on track for the best day of

2022 so far. s&p also up about 2%, 4373 is the level there. the nasdaq is up 1.3%. every sector in the s&p in the green. we have erased losses for both the s&p and the nasdaq for the week the dow moving closer to the flat line. keepen mind, we're still on pace for losses for the month of february with one more full trading day to go for the month. court. >> yeah, morgan, we still have a key 30 minutes left in the week, so you never know what could happen you have to keep watching closely. let's get a check on individual retail movers. foot locker falling sharply after issuing a weaker than expected full-year profit and same-store sales outlook on the conference call, they discussed changes in their vendor mix and addressing nike's focus on direct to consumer sales, a move that will cut tie with many stores foot locker will be selling fewer nike products. shares of foot locker dropping precipitously, down 30%. this is a surprise to many

because we knew nike had been increasing its direct to consumer, but yeah, foot locker really taking it on the chin today. etsy meanwhile posting an earnings and revenue beat after beating the results yesterday, after the closing bell the online marketplace seeing robust growth over the past year here's what the ceo told "squawk box" this morning. >> etsy is now more than twice as big as it was pre-pandemic. in fact, we're twice as big in the u.s., four times as big as we were pre-pandemic in the uk we have got more than 5 million sellers, more than 90 million buyers and we're showing that the sales gains we have made over the period of the pandemic are holding. >> very interesting, morgan. many people turn to etsy, in some cases for the first time to buy masks early on in the pandemic, and it looks like they found a lot of other interesting stuff and stuck around shares higher by 17% on the back of those results >> oh, my gosh it's dangerous you can find a lot of really

cool stuff you don't actually need on there. pretty amazing, this idea of a new normal maybe where etsy is concerned. it's time for a cnbc news update we turn to frank holland >> hey, there. here's what's happening at this hour britain has joined the eu in freezing the assets of russian president putin and foreign minister lavrov. the u.s. is also preparing to sanction putin as early as today. >> united nations refugee agency estimates more than 100,000 ukrainians have fled the war in their country. at a border crossing with moldova, those on the move were mostly women, children, and the elderly. the u.n. estimates up to 4 million people could leave ukraine if the situation worsens. the cdc is expected to announce relaxed indoor mask guidance today, according to nbc news most states have already moved to lift their mandates and the ncaa will raise its testing threshold for marijuana and reduce its recommended penalties for positive tests the new guidelines match those

established by the world antidoping agency. >> frank holland, thank you very much >> zee about 28 minutes left to go before the closing bell sounds on a very active week here is where we stand on the major averages stocks are sharply higher here to end the week. dow jones industrial average higher by 2.4% the s&p 500 higher by 2% the nasdaq, the laggard of the group, still higher by 1.4%. the market seeing a big rally today after a very volatile week here on wall street. we're look at the sectors that one expert says are poised to outperform >> and later, fred kempe from the atlantic council joins us with his latest thoughts on the pp nt. in europe and what could haenex we'll be right back. ever wonder what everyone's doing on their phones? they're banking, with bank of america. the groom's parents? they just found out they can redeem rewards

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welcome back major averages surging today

following what has been a volatile week for stocks to say the least. joining us to talk about where the best opportunities are right now is ben emons from medley global advisers. thanks for joining us today. i mean, talk about whiplash, roller coaster week here for the major averages dead cat bounce or is this rally for real >> hi, morgan. definitely a good rebound, but i have to say we have to be very cautious because this conflict with ukraine is far from over, and there's a lot of back and forth now where to hold the talks about the ukrainian government and maybe the independence of ukraine or not, so that's fairly uncertain at the same time, we're seeing what we call the tit for tat sanctions coming through the u.s. and europe to russia, and russia planning to do countersanctions so it's a good rebound it shows a lot of defense in there, meaning health care, staples were really the outperformers today. i'm not sure if it has more or

less from here given the uncertainty of the situation >> do you see opportunities right now in the market? if so, where >> well, in any crisis, there's opportunity, morgan. it's interesting how the materials as well as think of cyber stocks or defense stocks if you would, talking about earlier on a segment, or even thinking about zinc and nickel, companies that are involved in those sectors, they can actually outperform because if anything, if this conflict does ease, the global economy will continue to reopen those sectors will continue to benefit. if the conflict widens or gets worse, there will be more demand for raw materials in zinc and copper i think that's where you want to focus on being more overweight, as an offensive play is uncertainty. >> ben, has anything we have learned the last several days with russia's invasion of ukraine changed your expectations for what the fed may or may not do on march 15th? does it add one more data point

to what they had already pretty much decided they would do with rates? or does it change any of the thinking >> yeah, we still think this will be not a distraction from the planned tightening cycle that's really conveyed now through all of the messaging if you take barr today, most in the forefront, he still makes the same message, going to be 100 basis points they reiterate the 50 basis points as an option on the table. they are thinking this is a front-loaded tightening cycle that the fed has to execute upon if anything, the geopolitics we're dealing with is inflationary there will be another wave of inflation, given yesterday we had a significant shock in energy i think defense will lift rates in march and follow in may and june, and then re-evaluate what they're going to do with the balance sheet. maybe the only thing that could at some point become uncertain

if the conflict becomes bigger at this point, the fed is poised to lift off and continue to raise rates. >> what's the implication for credit markets which i know you're watching closely right now as well? >> credit is important aspect of the economy now. had a really good recovery of the economy, and you get some stresses in the system that showed yesterday. now, for example, if you take all the energy companies performing as well as financials, it told me there's stress there, and if you look at the returns of credit this year, they're negative, not only negative, but they're more negative than equity returns that's a combination of rising rates and also an expectation the economy will slow down over time as inflation becomes more and more pressured and the fed has to tighten i think credit spreads could widen from here. as a result, it will be ultimately a situation where it

prices in a slowdown of the economy. >> ben, i know you talked a little bit about opportunities presented in crisis. now that russia has in fact invaded ukraine, it is no longer a question of if they will do it they have already. has that put some level of certainty into the market to help us establish some kind of a floor from here? or could we have even more volatility from here if things get markedly worse or take some turn we're not expecting right now? >> definitely right that yesterday, the market priced in what was looming, the invasion now today, it took that away, so essentially after the fact there's no longer a tail risk in that way of the invasion, but from here, we have to really watch what the countersanctions will be because the relief rally today was also much about, okay, there's no major entity disruption at this moment, but that could happen. and the more countersanctions are placed, what will be the retaliation from here? i think, again, the framework

from the trade war of seeing tariffs slapped on either side is a bit of what we're in at the moment you could have rebounds but it's going to keep elevated volatility given the uncertainty about the energy side in particular remains very high >> a lot to sort through today and this week. ben emons, thank you for joining us to help us do that. medley global advisers >> the cdc updating its mask guidance we have been expecting this and we're going to turn to meg tirrell for this breaking news meg. >> hey, morgan yeah, the cdc coming out with new metrics for when people need to wear masks indoors. essentially basing this off a different way of looking at the virus. noting that at this point in the pandemic after so many people have been vaccinated though they say still not enough and so many people had prior infection there, is built-up immunity after two years. under these new metrics, the recommendations for when people need to mask include if you have

symptoms, if you have a positive test or covid exposure that applies across how much covid is in the community. but then, they say only those in high covid-19 community level areas are recommended to wear masks in public indoor settings, including in schools and as part of this, they're updating their school mask guidance as well to only recommend mask wearing in schools in those areas of high covid-19 community levels. now, this covid-19 community level metric is a different way of looking at things as well, whereas before it was based only on case numbers and transmission happening within the community, now it is a combination of case levels, hospital admissions and hospital capacity. under this new way of looking at covid, about 72% of the population is in an area of low or medium covid-19 community levels those are the yellow and green here on this map. in those medium areas. they recommend only people in high risk of severe disease talk with their doctors about any

other protection measures they should take including mask wearing. so you can see there, this is a much lower level than we had been seeing for the transmission, where essentially 95% of counties in the united states were still in high or substantial transmission where masks were still recommended indoors, so quite a change back over to you >> a big change, and certainly a lot more to learn. meg, we have to let you go because we have breaking news out of washington. let's get back to eamon javers with the latest. what's going on? >> courtney, white house press secretary jen psaki confirmed the united states will follow european leadership here and impose sanctions on vladimir putin personally that is a step that the united states has resisted imposing sanctions on a head of state is seen as a dramatic escalation in terms of sanctions also difficult to do because you have to track vladimir putin's assets around the world. and sort out the difference between sort of putin personal assets and russian state assets. all of which can be kind of complicated. but the united states now saying it is going to take that step

here interesting in terms of the sequencing how the united states is presenting that as following along after european officials made the decision to do the same thing. so clearly, the united states allowing europeans to go first here and then following them, a demonstration of leadership on both sides of the atlantic so this is a development a lot of people had been watching for. now it's being confirmed by the white house. >> we have been hearing this could be a possibility for a little while now in many ways it's a very unusual and intense step because you don't usually see heads of state personally and directly sanctioned like this i mean, how far reaching could these implications be? >> well, what jen psaki just said at the white house is they're going to be releasing new details about that this afternoon or shortly is what she actually said. we'll see if that's this afternoon. we may be on the verge of finding out exactly what putin's holdings are you have to imagine intelligence services and all of the western countries have spent a good bit of time over the past several years trying to piece together

what vladimir putin's assets actually are and those holdings of his family members who some of whom are around the world putin has been very private about even who the members of his family are, let alone what his assets are and you know, u.s. intelligence has been spending some time, presumably, decoding that mystery. we may be able to see some of that come into public view because in order to sanction those assets, you're going to have to say where they are and tell the holders of those assets those are in fact putin assets and they're now blocked. >> fascinating stuff that was exactly what i was wondering, what are the assets, where are they, and maybe we'll know sooner rather than later? >> maybe we will >> shares of block soaring after reporting results yesterday. when we come back, a top analyst weighs in on if there's more room to run for that name. the market zone is coming up next

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welcome back to this rally day on wall street a great lineup coming your way in the second hour of "closing bell." market expert ed yardeni will weigh in on the surge for stocks and the one part of the market he says could be heading for, quote, boom times. we'll ask fed watcher jim grant how the kriez in europe plays into the fed's calculus. fred kempe will weigh in on the latest in ukraine and putin's next move, and we'll look ahead to key retail earnings on the back of big swings for consumer stocks today but first, with ten minutes left in the trading day, you know what time it is. we're in the "closing bell" market zone. today, we have wealth management ceo josh brown with us it's your birthday, too.

happy birthday >> how about that? pretty exciting, right >> yeah. okay, we're going to kick things off with the broader market. stocks surgeing for the second straight day the dow on track for its best day since november 2020. what do you think of this rally here >> i mean, it's nice it's definitely helping some people, myself included, with some tough areas of the market, but you know, really, it looks like large cap tech is kind of underperforming. so you have follow-through in some of the high growth stuff. that's good. but the things that have been leading all year just look that much better on a day like today. sherwin, wynn, berkshire, the financials, the home builders look great, health care is outperforming which is defensive, and huge moves in consumer defensive you're not going to see a day bigger than this for that group. p&g up 4 1/2, coke up 4, target up 4 i don't know that you would look at this and say okay, risk back

on, all our problems are solved, but where it does help is if you're in a portfolio where you have got pain and you were looking for an opportunity to maybe say you own too much of something, like this is your chance to unload some of that. and i suspect a lot of shrewd investors are doing that >> i want to zone in on one stock in particular here cybersecurity stock zscaler plumpting despite posting a beat on earnings and revenue. overall, it's been a strong week for cybersecurity stocks, as you might imagine, with the russia/ukraine conflict prompting many experts to warn of future cybersecurity attacks. what do you make of the move in zscaler and more broadly, the cybersecurity stocks here? can you till buy into them after the big moves we have seen >> so i haven't done a deep dive on zscaler i looked at the release. it looks very company specific to me.

the name i own in this field is crowdstrike. i'm a long term investor, i have been in it for quite some time the stock had a good week this week it's definitely come down with a lot of the high growth names but i would stick with it because i think they are positioned really well in the space. broadly speaking, though, zscaler is just one out of a million of these types of stories where they were all getting the benefit of the doubt that growth would be smooth and linear and there was nothing to worry about. and one by one, we're learning as an investor class that things aren't going to be -- things aren't going to work out that simply so if you like the zscaler story, i don't necessarily think that today's action means that you shouldn't anymore. but you have a reminder, stocks don't do anything in a straight line, go up or down. >> yeah, well, it's going pretty far down here today, down 15%, almost 16% for zscaler we do want to move on to another individual stock

shares of block, formerly known as square, surging today on track for its best day ever, after posting a strong quarterly beat, citing growing success of its cash app business, so joining us now is moshe cautery, who is web bush securities research analyst and covers this name first of all, what do you make of this move pretty substantial on the back of this result >> josh, happy birthday, by the way. so a couple things i would say it's a combination of better than feared results. remember, the numbers, these are lowered expectations and on top of that, they spoke about improving outlook for the company's cash app business. and this is all happening in the context of very mixed data points that actually have been impacting the space in general, obviously, the space's performance has been dismal since november of last year. >> moshe, it's morgan. you have a neutral rating on the stock, anything here that would change that?

>> we have had a neutral rating on the stock considering a couple things. one, the multiple, this is pre-november we're not big fans of the after pay transaction. i think the street's love fest with buy now pay later has changed a bit. from our perspective, this looks more like a subprime lending business i think you can call it something else if you want some people call it bnbl i just don't understand the logic for paying, i mean, originally, they almost pay about $30 billion for this given the correction and block's stock price, they ended up paying about 10 and change so i think that's problematic. and then the other thing that we worrying about is the fact the year's guidance is pretty much back end loaded especially in terms of cash app's performance. >> moshe, are there other names

in the space that you like a little more, even if they're sort of going after the same consumer and the same general idea that you would have more conviction with on a name like block here, even though it's up 26%. >> yeah, we actually became a bit more constructive in the past few weeks on the networks, visa and mastercard, the way we see it inflation is actually going to be a positive for average ticket prices. so this will benefit the networks and then on top of that, we also like some of the less expensive names in the group these are companies that have two platforms catering to financial institutions and merchants. we're talking about global payments, fis, these are companies trading roughly in the mid-teens based on next year's numbers. they're growing top line about 8% eps growth is about 15 to 20 very reasonable and i would say pretty defensive, especially in this market. >> josh, what do you think of

block here and i guess the group in general? >> so actually, i would like to ask a question of my own one of the things paypal disclosed recently about their growth strategy was that it really doesn't work. they, i think, were paying $10 as a referal fee to all of their users in exchange for getting friends to sign up for new accounts and i think the number was 4.5 million fraudulent or fake accounts were opened so how do these companies continue to grow at the rates they were from a user based standpoint, and is any of that really going to be profitable groel growth from this point forward they already have large user bases, block and paypal included >> that's a great question unfortunately, you're kind of combining block and paypal in the same bucket and they're kind of different, the way we see it, paypal is probably more of an

e-commerce play, and you're seeing e-commerce trends normalize post pandemic. that's number one. block is more of a blik and mortar play the way we see it. ultimately, it's going to be more of that what sort of ecosystem you have, it's going to make it stickier for consumers to stay within that ecosystem in terms of products and services. paypal, i think, did the right thing in terms of focusing more on the consumers that are actually are what they call the have value accounts. this is where arpu is going to go higher and that's probably the right strategy square is kind of interesting. they're talking about i believe in the past they spoke about 80 million users that touch the cash app product, but they actually have about 44 million, 45 million active users. i would say both companies are focusing better and putting their energies better in terms of targeting the consumers these are the people who are actually going to go back and use that ecosystem more and more

to be able to kind of raise the fee per user down the road >> moshe katri, thanks for joining us we have just over a minute left until the closing bell josh, real quick, it looks like we're moving towards session highs here going into another weekend what's your take on that >> i'm actually very surprised i wasn't surprised by the bounce yesterday. because i think things had gotten too negative too quickly. but i'm surprised by the follow-through today i think you have to respect it i'm not in the camp that the correction is over but a day like today could make anybody second guess that stance this follow-through going into a weekend is surprising given all of the horrible things that could potentially go wrong while nobody is able to touch their positions. so i don't know what it means. it may be mechanical i guess we'll find out on monday morning. >> okay. as we go into the close here, as i mentioned, climbing back toward session highs

the dow up 828 points now. about 2.5% on pace for the best day of the year so far. the s&p up 2.25% 4384 the nasdaq finishing up 1.6% on pace for weekly gains for the s&p and nasdaq the dow poised to finish flat right now, as we do get that closing bell for the week. >> what an amazing end to a day and week i'm courtney reagan in with morgan brennan today coming up on the show, jim grant from grant's interest rate observer weighs in on fed policy as the attack on ukraine heightens inflation risks. >> josh brown is still with us, and malcolm etheridge from cic wealth joins the conversation. gentlemen, thank you very much malcolm, since you're just joining us, i want to give you the first crack at your take on what happened here today and

here this week what do you think? have we put the bottom in behind us now that we know with certainty what has happened with russia and ukraine, the invasion has happened, so at least that card has been played >> it's really early days. i agree with what i saw josh just got done saying, which is that it's too much going into the weekend uncertainty. the next two days could be very pivotal in what happens in the market i would just say the last 72 hours or maybe the last three trading days, let's call it, have taught us anything, it's that trying to perfectly time the markets are a fool's errand. if you logged into your brokerage account and decided to make changes because the market was down crazy at the open yesterday, you missed out on the swing back and you didn't jump back in at the open this morning which means you missed also a 2.5% increase coming into this close. if anything, the last couple days should have proved to people that trying to perfectly

time the market just doesn't happen that way. >> yeah, josh, the fact that every s&p sector finished markedly higher in the green, we saw treasury yields tick back up today. we saw gold come off, we saw crude come back off. so not like a full risk-on trade, but still quite, quite a rally in general where do you see the opportunities here as we go into another week, and starting next tuesday, another month >> well, i want to just tell a very, very quick story from the legendary art cashin, who talks about early in his career in like 1960 in the run-up to the cuban missile crisis, one day a rumor hits the floor that the missiles are in the air. like they're coming for the continental u.s. he's running around with sell orders he's trying to get sales done, and his boss collars him and says, oh, arthur, what are you doing? he said what do you mean what i am doing the missiles are in the air, i'm

selling. he said no, no, you buy the missiles in the air, because if it actually happens, don't worry about it right? it's over. game over. but if it doesn't happen, you're going to get this massive relief rally. you have to be long the missiles in the air and i think there's something to that, even to this day 50, 60 years later, art told me that story 12 years ago. i never orgot it >> that's a good one, especially given the circumstances we have seen unfolding this week everyone stay with us because we're going to get to washington now, where eamon javers has the latest on ukraine. eamon. >> morgan, white house press secretary jen psaki confirming in the past few minutes the united states will impose sanctions on russian leader vladimir putin himself, emphasizing the u.s. is following european leadership on this >> following a telephone conversation that president biden held with european commission president and in alignment with our decision by

european allies thrk united states will join them in sanctioning president putin and foreign minister lavrov and members of the russian national security team. >> so putin and lavrov now facing sanctions as individuals, as well as all of the additional sanctions that the united states has put in place this week meanwhile, as companies across america are on watch for cyber blowback from the russian invasion, the tech company nvidia confirmed to me just moments ago that it is experiencing a cyber, quote, incident, unquote, but not offering many details on what's happening so it's impossible to say who if anyone is behind it at this point. says a spokesman, our business and commercial activities continue uninterrupted we're still working to evaluate the nature and scope of the event and don't have any additional information to share at this time so guys, it would be premature to necessarily say this nvidia incident is in any way linked to the expected cyberattacks a lot of people have been focused on from russia, but they are

confirming something at least is going on back over to you >> there's an awful lot to sort through here i want to start with the new information you have been providing us about the united states's decision to sanction president vladimir putin himself and the assets why did we wait for europe to make this move first >> it's an interesting -- it's an interesting question. i think there may have been, and this is a littlebit of speculation on my part, but there may have been some concern the europeans were not fully onboard with that decision because of how intertwined russian oligarch money is in a lot of european economies and once the europeans were able to come along to that, you could see where the united states would want them to go first and give them sort of full credit politically for doing that and then present the united states as following on but the administration is not saying now what you heard from jen psaki just there is that followed a consultation between the u.s. and eu and the u.s. is

now following the european union. i think the sequencing of those may have some political significance, but we'll have to wait for more reporting to bear that out >> eamon javers, thank you >> turning back to our panel now. malcolm, i want to get your take on some of these cross currents where geopolitics are concerned. how do you navigate them as an investor, especially when you are talking about the potential for cyberattacks on critical infrastructure, how the concept of critical infrastructure is changing, and so many industries now trying to figure out the sanctions picture as well. >> yeah, so it makes it very tough to predict whether this actually is the bottom that everyone is hoping for, everyone being traders who are looking at moving money from safe havens into the market. it makes it tough to predict that, but for context, we look back at what happened in 2014, february and march of 2014, when russia did a similar thing to crimea essentially by the july 1st

holiday, the market had sort of roared back. the s&p, i mean, had roared back about 5% or 6% increase from where it fell off when we initially heard the announcement russia had decided to invade crimea so history doesn't necessarily guarantee us anything about future performance, but if we just looked at that for a second, it probably smacks of similarities, where maybe we're overreacting a bit right now to how much of an impact this is going to have on our markets here more broadly u.s. and even in europe. but i think it's really important to make sure that we understand that we just really have no idea just yet because we have no idea how many cards vladimir putin has left to play. >> josh, there seems to be an awful lot of volatility this week, i guess not the last session and a half where we almost seemingly went straight up from after hitting the lows in the last two days does the volatility here present opportunities for you or more risk because earlier on, when you

were answering our questions about where we stood in the market today, you sort of acting like, yeah, the run is nice. you didn't feel super confident to me. do you like this volatility or are you more wait and see? >> well, whether i like the volatility or not, it's a permanent feature of what we do. so you have two choices. you can let the volatility affect your emotions and your mood and keep you from doing what you're supposed to do, or you can say, you know what, i'm a forced buyer of equities for the next 20, 30 years. i'm a long term investor i have no choice but to put my excess savings in stocks bonds ain't going to get it done, so why don't i make volatility my friend there are a variety of ways to do that, ranging from simple to complex. the simplest thing you can do is not change anything at all, continue to make your 401(k) contribution, continue to rebalance into bad markets, buy

more stocks, and vice versa. and then there are more complex things you can do. we run a tactical allocation asset sleeve for high net worth clients. it's ruled based my opinions don't go into it i think it's a great tool. there are other things you can do like in the options market, you can take these volatile moments and make hay in the form of selling expensive premiums. so i think everybody has to figure out their own answer to that, but the one thing that we don't have a choice of is the fact this is how it is you don't get 13.5% average annual returns for the last ten years for nothing. the price you pay is having some gut wrenching moments. and you can't really dance in and out of it. you either have to say, i accept this, or maybe stocks aren't for you. >> yeah, well, your opinions do matter to us here, josh. that's why we have you on so much before we let you go, we want you to zine in on your best

stock ideas. birthday boy josh, we're starting with you. >> okay, i recently bought restoration hardware i bought it for like 50% lower than its all-time high that it reached last year. the stock has been absolutely creamed. i think i'm in good company here berkshire hathaway now owns 8% of this company. and it's only an $8 billion market cap, like it's literally tiny in relation to almost all of berkshire's other holdings. i don't know if this is ted or todd or warraen buffett himself or the guy who sweeps up at night, but it occurs to me this is a perfect berkshire type business the membership fees that their customers pay keep their customers loyal to the brand they're catering to the high, high end of consumers. it's not quite as cyclical as you might think it is. i think there's a secular tailwind for anything housing relates. and i think luxury goods stay big for as long as there's this

much liquidity in the current economy. i like buying stocks at half of their former price and i think i'm going to do okay with this one. i don't have a lot of it, but i do plan to continue adding >> okay. ma malcolm, what's your pick? >> we're big fans of amazon. the runt of the litter of the big mega cap tech stocks last year because the outlook for amazon, they announced their first share buyback in over a decade last month, and beyond that, we also see the company's recent decision to disclose advertising revenue and detail capital expenditures by category as a prelude that maybe andy jassy will begin to break out the numbers on aws, which some analysts estimate could have an enterprise value of up to $1.5 trillion on its own. so for context, amazon right now, its enterprise value is estimated at $1.6 trillion as an entire company if they just unlock the value that aws has in there, that could spell a pretty strong year

for amazon shareholders. >> all right, two names with consumer facing businesses attached thank you, malcolm and josh. we are just getting started on the second hour of "closing bell." and the market seeing a big rally on wall street after an extremely volatile week. we'll bake down the moves and where there's opportunity to buy when we speak with market expert ed yardeni we're back in two. ok, it feels e i'm just wasting time. that's why td ameritrade designed a first-of-its-kind, personalized education center. oh. their award-winning content is tailored to fit your investing goals and interests. and it learns with you, so as you become smarter, so do its recommendations. so it's like my streaming service. well except now you're binge learning. see how you can become a smarter investor with a personalized education from td ameritrade. visit tdameritrade.com/learn ♪

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you connected to what you love. and now, we're working to bring you the next generation of wifi. it's ultra-fast. faster than a gig. supersonic wifi. only from xfinity. it can power hundreds of devices with three times the bandwidth. so your growing wifi needs will be met. supersonic wifi only from us... xfinity. welcome back markets rallying today the dow seeing its best day since november of 2020 this comes after thursday's whipsaw session where stocks staged a massive comeback after very steep declines. joining us is ed yardeni, president of yardeni research. you often have a bullish tilt, but still i have to ask if you're surprised if the markets closed near session highs going into a weekend where we have a russian invasion of ukraine. so much could potentially

happen, but investors don't seem worried. should they be >> i think yesterday, we had a lot of worries at the beginning of the day but then when we found out what the sanctions were going to be and that they weren't likely to lead to an economic impact on the rest of the world and in europe, the united states, and then they adopted some significant sanctions the russians might have responded in some ways, but the sanctions would have shut off oil and gas to europe, causing a recession there. that was kind of the worst case scenario people were thinking about in terms of where this could go next and that didn't happen the prospect is we'll get somewhat higher inflation as a result of the gas prices but we're still going to get economic growth continuing, and earnings will continue to grow, and the reality is the corporations and consumers are

still have ample liquidity, and that's why i'm really not surprised with the ability of this market to make a comeback here because there is so much cash on the sidelines. >> does the fed have a difficult job here trying to temper down inflation without extinguishing growth are the tools too blunt to have the precise effect it needs to have, particularly as we're looking at this first of maybe many rate hikes? >> right i think that's the question for the rest of the year, really, in many ways. is what is the fed going to do about inflation? the reality is that there isn't much they can do other than raise interest rates it's not clear that raising interest rates will dovery muc about the inflation problem we have fed officials have for the past couple years said don't worry about inflation, we have tools in the tool kit to deal with inflation. i keep scratching my head and saying tools the only tool they have is to

raise interest rates to a level that causes a recession. just the way volcker had to deal with inflation by creating a credit crunch that caused a recession that brought inflation down so i think the fed is not going to go that route i think they're going to be very gradual. i think if they're lucky, and they're counting on some luck here, that inflation will moderate they're not using the word transitory anymore, but i think that's their hope, that some of the inflation will moderate. i think it could on consumer durables but rent inflation is going to go higher >> that's going to be more lasting, ed. >> correct >> when you cite volker, i mean, when is the last time we the inflation running this strong and when have we not had a fed that had to react and not brought us into inflation? seems to me that's the biggest risk potentially here. is there a playbook you can point to and say, stocks are going to go higher, economy is going to continue to stay resilient, even though the fed is tamping down on what's

multidecade inflation? >> well, i don't think this fed has really got the stomach to do a volker 2.0 the last time we had this kind of inflation was in the 1970s, particularly late 1970s. that's when volker let interest rates go up to whatever levels it took to break the back of inflation. and the only way he could do that was really breaking the back of the economy. so i don't think this fed, i don't think most of us want to go there and so i think the fed is going to be successful, lucky, really, in getting some of the inflation down, the supply chain disruption as well will moderate, i think. i think consumer durable prices, used car prices up over 50%, new car prices are up 10% to 15% i think those price inflation rates are going to be coming down, but if we're lucky we'll get down to maybe 3% to 4% from a little over 5% now on the core consumption deflator, we'll get there by the end of the year,

then i won't be surprised if the fed moves the goalpost and says, you know what, our new target is 3%, not 2%, but they're still going to be above that >> if we can turn a little bit to some potential market moves you mentioned the supply chain you think things will start to moderate i'm sure many companies would be happy to see that happen let's hope it does if it does, it looks like you thing some manufacturing could really see -- be a beneficiary of that. explain your thesis. >> well, i think there's a real shortage of labor out there i think it's chronic it's based on demographics i think companies in the united states have started to figure out that the labor is just not there, and they're going to continue to spend a tremendous amount on capital equipment and on technologies to increase their productivity manufacturers have been doing it for a while, but there's a lot of catching up to do, and then explain chains will be moving back to the u.s. we're already seeing that

happening. i think companies will be spending a lot on capital goods, on technology. i like those areas of the economy. and i think that is going to lead to a rebound in productivity the manufacturing sector still really hasn't recovered from the shock of all of this capacity going overseas, particularly to china. now i think we're going to find a lot of capacity coming back as we have witnessed as a result of the pandemic, as a result of trade wars, and now the geopolitical crisis in eastern europe we're seeing the companies are starting to realize they have to have their supply chains closer to home. and by the way, labor shortages are a worldwide phenomenon and so why not bring supply chains back home and use technology to increase the productivity of americans and have just a more secure line of supplies >> yeah.

of course, that is a national security question that's been playing out for a number of years as well. ed, certainly something very fascinating to watch this near shoring and reshoring trend. ed yardeni, thank you. >> up next, inflation has been front and center for investors for months, with another red hot reading today. now, the crisis in ukraine is raising new questions about the fed's plans to bring down prices we're going to discuss that when "closing bell" comes back. (crowd cheering) - bito, bito, bito, bito! - [announcer] bito, the first u.s. bitcoin-linked etf.

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busy week, and so is steve liesman. he's here with a rundown of what to watch hi, steve. >> hey, courtney yeah, fed chair jay powell takes to the hill next week for regular semiannual testimony it's kind of reasonable to expect he's going to settle this issue of whether the fed begins its rate hike canwith a 25 or 5 basis point hike some suggest the fed is going to begin easier with a 25 basis point hike andramp up if needed here's inphase i have been focused on most participants noted if inflation does not move down, it will be appropriate for the committee to remove policy accommodation at a faster pace than they currently anticipate so translating fed speak faster

likely means 50, so going to 50 starting with 25, and that's the way the market is essentially priced you can see there, 100% certainty on rate hikes march and may. down to 91 in june, and then what is that, the sixth hike comes in december. really very little change on the idea of six rate hikes this year even since the invasion. powell speaks wednesday and thursday followed by a jobs report on friday yes, i will be busy, and inflation report on march 10th and the fed meeting comes midmonth, 15th and 16th. the fed is not only going to put the new data in, but the potential effect of the invasion on u.s. growth and inflation, so a lot to process there for the fed, but i think it's on track for steady rate hikes in the months ahead >> all right a lot to process there yes, you will have a busy week, and we're looking forward to it. steve liesman, thank you >> for more on the fed, let's bring in jim grant jim, great to have you on. given the fact that we are

talking about inflation, we had that elevated reading where pce was concerned again this morning. we heard steve talking about six hikes factored into the market here and of course, we have the geopolitical landscape and inflationary challenges tied to that layered on top. how do you see the fed interpreting this and what does it mean for policy from your standpoint in the coming months? >> well, the fed could raise its funds between 0 and .25% of 1%, it could raise that rate 38 times and still not quite reach the rate indicated by the formerly oft inf infolks voked taylor yule, and taylor's rule indicates the fed should be on top with respect to inflation, ought to weigh the difference between the inflation rate it

sees and inflation rate it wants on one hand and then weigh the growth in the economy verses the trend growth on the other. and between those factors, it can -- it can calibrate a desirable rate taylor said a different rate today, .955. not zero, this is the most extraordinary monetary setup with paper money in the past year the fed has created through the mysterious means of the central bank $1.3 trillion worth of new purchasing power and of credit, and it's held its rates between 0% and .25% in the context of inflation, now over a year, in excess of 7% and in the face of one of the great bull markets of all time

so on one hand, the fed's actions and on the other, the provocations to greater action, almost the crying need for further action, i think is the biggest disparity ever >> so the fed is behind the curve. very behind the curve. based on what you just said. and i think there are officials within the fed who would actually concede that is the case the question is, we were just having this debate a few minutes ago with ed yardeni. is this a federal reserve composition that has the stomach to tackle inflation as aggressively as we have seen in decades past, when it's been running this hot >> well, the fed is confronting two inflations it's confronting an inflation at the check-out counter. and it's confronting a much more pleasant inflation on wall street i say inflation because one of

the cyclicly adjusted pe ratios, where the stock market is only less expensive, people will quibble over how to measure, but it's not cheap so in the face of the two inflations, the fed is invited to act the question for the house is, if the inflation on wall street turns into a deflation, will the fed then have the tenacity, shall we call it, to tackle the one on main street that's a very fraught question years and years, i mean years ago, in the middle of the 19th century, the great muse of central banking said with respect to the proposed rule on governing monetary operations in the city, he said where are the

rigid people to enforce the rigid rule and i don't see such types of human beings on our federal reserve board. now, today, the fed is undertaking so-called reverse repo operations to sop up excess liquidity on wall street $1.6 trillion of idle dollar bills five basis points, that's another measure of how loosey goosey things are. most extraordinary juncture in monetary policy i have seen, read up, or written about. that goes back 200 years in my case not all of my lifetime, 200 years. >> there's an awful lot going on here, jim, with regards to the fed and what they may or may not do we could talk for a long time, but we have to let you go, but i want to ask you one quick question if this is a data dependent fed,

we have a new data point the fact russia has invaded ukraine. how does that if at all play into any of their decisions ahead of this march 15th meeting? >> i'm not sure how it plays into their decision, but it makes the inflation problem more problematic. they're great wheat exporters, prospects for food inflation have not been umproved with the events of thepast several years. >> jim grant, thank you very much for joining us here today and sharing your thoughts. i'm sure we'll have you back again soon >> stocks staging a stunning rally in today's rally the dow ending the day higher by more than 800 points for a 2.5% gain on the day. up next, fred kempe joins us with his reaction to the latest sanctions and what could happen xtk th icwi the "closing bell."

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welcome back time now for our rapid recap consumer spending increased in january, even as inflation accelerates. according to the bureau of economic analysis. personal consumption increased by 2.1%, significantly over the 1% growth that was estimated meanwhile, pending home sales fell for the third straight month in january

contracts to buy previously owned homes dropped by 5.7%, seeing the biggest declines in the south, northeast, and midwest. >> and carvana is buying car auction services, u.s. vehicle auction business, for $2.2 billion. the deal wip help carvana boost its physical locations those stocks ending the day nicely higher. carvana higher by 21%. car auction services higher by 38%. >> all right time for a cnbc news update. for that, we turn to shepard smith. >> hi, morgan. from the news on cnbc, here's what's happening the united nations security council expected to vote within the hour on a resolution to stop the war in ukraine it obviously won't russia and china expected to veto the resolution, but u.s. officials are telling nbc news they're watching to see whether the united aet dted arab emirat india are persuaded to vote in favor or sustain they would see either of those as a win the u.n.'s humanitarian chief

calling the need for aid in ukraine extraordinary. he said the organization will seek well north of a billion dollars in the next three months for humanitarian aid there >> and pope francis breaking diplomatic protocol today by visiting a foreign embassy himself. the leader of the catholic church made the trip to the russian embassy in rome. normally, the russian ambassador would be called to the holy see. a vatican spokesman said the pontiff wanted to express his concern over the war >> tonight, we're inside ukraine and talking with kyiv residents who are refusing to leave and ready to fight, on the news right after jim cramer, 7:00 eastern, cnbc. courtney, back to you. >> thank you very much, shep we'll certainly be watching. >> for more on russia/ukraine and what he's watching over the next few days. let's bring in fred ckempe, atlantic council president russia has invaded the country, the situation is very serious. what is your understanding of

where things stand >> well, i think there are three things to watch. one of them is are we inflicting sufficient pain on putin so that he might change his course the sanctions are really the most ambitious ever, but i think that jury is out and right now it doesn't look like it. the second is shoring up nato allies that are on the eastern front. that's moving apace. and they have had a deployment of the 40,000 strong nato rapid reaction force for the first time in its history. and then finally, and this is the point you're getting at, which is can you save the 44 million population of the democracy called ukraine and there, you see russian troops bearing down on kyiv. you see an escalation that's really quite frightening white house thinking kyiv could fall within days on the other hand, you're seeing more resistance thanpute counted on and the question is the longer

that the resistance goes on, the more it could hit at the morale of the russian troops who were really coming in not expecting to be shot at, not expecting to have the level of resistance they have, and you also have in russia signs that this is an unpopular war at home. we'll be watching all of that over the weekend, just with the real test between the determination of putin and the resolve of the west and finally the resilience of the ukrainians >> you mentioned this a bit in that answer about the sanctions, but in the last hour or so, the u.s. now joining europe in levying sanctions against putin himself. you don't think that that will be enough to deter him from what he was going to do otherwise, or can we know? we don't really know what his assets are or what his family's assets and reach are, do we? >> it's such an interesting story. i was told about a meeting of billionaires where they were trying to discuss who the richest person in the world was.

and they settled on putin. i won't say the names of the billionaires because that would be unfair, but he has collected money in all sorts of corporations, friends of his have it. the question is can we get to it nevertheless, some in intelligence think you can it's never been done before, these sanctions against putin, a head of state, and lavrov, his foreign minister, and his national security team they are the most far reaching sanctions we have ever done before with the largest russian banks. the real thing i'm watching for is will they ever go at the central bank at the moment, they don't want to put that on the table, but that would be the show stopper for russia >> why would that be the show stopper? i would think sanctioning putin directly would really cut him off at the knees and send a chilling effect to other dictators the world over what would the central bank being sanctioned do? >> you are absolutely right if they can get at putin, that's right, and his national security team probably has not gone through as much trouble to hide

their money as putin has, so it could also affect his support in his inner circle but central bank sanctions have only really been done with iran. it freezes the assets of the government wherever they are iran is not a g-20 country sorry, russia is number 11 country in the world, that's never been done before those sanctions weren't even on the table a couple weeks ago they're not front burner, but they're being talked about, particularly if putin continues on this course >> you know, one thing that concerns me, and i believe would concern the world and investors, citins, you name it, is an alliance between russia and china. what do we know about the leaders' conversations and where china is sitting currently are they still interested in some resolution that's more diplomatic in nature or do we know >> you know, schools divide here whether they're as close as they

have ever been, russia and chinese leaders. we have not seen the two authoritarian leaders, the greatest authoritarian leaders of their time, this close since world war ii that's my view on the other hand, they have a bunch of differences too they had a conversation today, and what was read out of the conversation is that president xi has called for negotiations with ukraine i don't think he's comfortable with the war and how it's proceeded. on the other hand, he and putin are unified, not so much by their common interests but their interest in bringing down the u.s. a few notches where china really helps out is being a regular buyer of russian energy at very high prices now, around $100 a barrel and so if sanctions bite harder, putin will be helped by three things first of all, $700 billion in currency reserves. the high price of oil, and certainly his access to chinese markets and to chinese buyers.

>> a lot to continue to digest not to mention the role that cryptocurrencies could pay in bypassing the dollar when you talk about a russia/china relationship, at least where trade is concerned >> morgan, that's worth looking at >> all right, well, we're going to circle back with you next week then. fred kempe, thanks for joining us have a good weekend. >> thank you >> up next, ukraine's central bank cracking down on digital money transfers overnight. we're going to explain how that could bolster the case for crypto, speaking of. >> and later, a huge week for earnings on tap. the key reports we'll be watching in the retail space courtney has a few thoughts on ckllcos en "closing be" me ba

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welcome back ukraine central bank suspending digital payments overnight kate rooney is here with how that could impact the crypto space. kate >> hey, morgan those new restrictions in ukraine don't apply to cryptocurrencies yet, i'm told, that could change, but crypto has been emerging as an alternative in eastern europe. it's a lot more useful in ukraine versus russia. ukraine has legalized bitcoin as a part of a push to accept

crypto chainalysis ranks them as number four currently in terms of crypto akaupgz russia looked to ban the industry a few weeks ago and it's not widely accepted for transactions a move to cryptocurrencies could also threaten putin's grip on the financial system, not to mention russia is also developing its own central bank digital currency sanctions on russia may drive demand for crypto, but global exchanges right now are on high alert. they have an obligation to abide by those sanctions and they're subject to the same rules as banks when it comes to illicit finance and antimoney laundering laws >> does this ultimately, whether you're talking about ukraine, whether you're talking about russia, when you're talking about sanctions, when you talk about capital flight, is it ultimately a tailwind actually for bitcoin and other types of crypto currency assets because they're not tied to key currencies >> so that has been the long term bull case for cryptocurrencies for a lot of people they talked about the idea that

this is apolitical money this is a way to get around sanctions and it's decentralized. you don't necessarily need a middle man, but you have to think about the global exchanges that are the on ramps to cryptocurrencies it's become way more mainstream and a bigger part of people's portfolios cryptocurrency exchanges have an obligation at this point to crack down on if they see a wallet, for example, that is a sanctioned account or see some sort of red flag there, they're constantly in touch with law enforcement. it actually in some cases is easier to track and can make it harder to get around sanctions than things like cash. a lot of ceos say it's not an easy way to evade these things for the average person there are high net worth individuals who can get around it, but it's not really a mainstream easy way to get around these restrictions. >> kate rooney, thank you very much this is complicated, something we're going to watch closely as all of this evolves over the weekend and beyond a huge rally on wall street

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welcome back stocks rallyland -- rallied for the second straight day today and joining us now peter from weekly advisory group great to speak with you. >> hi, morgan. thanks for having me. >> what do you think about the rally in the last two days? is a dead cap bounce as i've been asking guests in the last two hours or is this rally for real here >> so the context for yesterday's rally off the low was a market that was very over sold and sentiment getting dower where bears are exceeding bulls and aa and i number came out thursday where bears were above 50 we were looking for some sort of flush out and we certainly got it, to me it's just temporary. the biggest risk is not putin,

it's j powell, christine legard and bailey in the u.k. to the synchronized monetary tightening we're just entering. >> you and i have had conversations about inflation for almost year and half now, you were very early in the game in terms of identifying it and getting concerned about it, tightening would be a good thing to get that in control, no >> yes so over time no question we need low inflation to have sustainable healthy growth and max employment and of course that was turned around but yes, over time, we need to get out of this low-rate trap we're in. unfortunately you can't do that in a panelist way and there san adjustment period that needs to take place until you get from here to there. the one problem with the fed's ability to deal with inflation

if you look at the last four years every tightening cycle ended at a rate below the previous peak of the tightening cycle implies that the fed is maybe going to get the rate to 1.5 to 2% before something breaks, the problem is, something may break while inflation is still very high which would create a real problem for them. >> peter, this is courtney there's not a lot that the fed can really do when it comes to tools in its tool box to get behindle on inflation. we all believe we're looking at a number of rate hikes, how many and what degree is still a question mark, do you think the fed can get a handle on inflation by just moving rates do they need to start with 50 basis points right away? it is a great question if i was there i would go with the 50 we're at zero so going from zero to 50 with inflation at 7.5% shouldn't be perceived as something bold it should be seen as something prudent.

but this is a committee that does things very methodically and are more afraid of slowing growth than slowing inflation. and they even talked -- we had a couple members even yesterday hinting that, well, if the geopolitical situation gets out of control maybe we need to slow down they're already reacting to the possibility of an economic slow down rather than saying we need to attack inflation. problem is markets introtwined to this analysis it's not just policy monetary policy in the economy because if the markets roll over it will directly impact the economy and create tightening of financial conditions and create sort of a double problem with the economy end markets >> how do you play this market right now? where do you position yourself as an ininvestoror >> i'm bullish on the commodity trade we had a nice move already but i

think there's going to be a lot of upside that the russia ukraine exacerbates. i like asian marks on valuation perspective. in the next ten years i think the best growth will be there. and in fixed income i like local currency emerging market bonds where you can get yield which reduce credit risk and potential of dollar weakness that will then enhance your return >> peter, thank you very much for joining us on this friday after a very wild week up next, your wall street look ahead, big week for retail earnings, we'll give you what to expect from target, nordstrom and more when "closing bell" comes back

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the downloads are flying fast! verizon is going ultra, so your business can too. welcome back a large variety of retailers will be laying out forecast for the current year target, kohl's, nordstrom and urban outfitters reporting on tuesday and on wednesday american eagle and dollar treat best buy .

macy'snd walmart better than expected quarters. the commerce department suggests both department stores and apparel sellers had a strong holiday season put that together and you have high expectations for the group. holiday of course is well in the rearview mirror and big question is how the retailers will continue to handle inflation and how much can consumers really put up with higher prices on discretionary goods going forward. we'll talk more about pent-up demand and how long it will last and at what price. at some point i think you will get push back just don't know when it will be. >> yeah and we're seeing it shake out with some of the earnings reports from retailers already, winners and loser anz the fact investors are laser-focused on margins i wonder if you think we're moving into birfurcatation of consumer where high-end outperforms this year. >> absolutely we've seen really robust reports and commentary

from luxury houses and say luxury is hot and will continue to be hot and when inflation is hot we know discounters do well too, so watch out if you're looking at investing in the middle to be warned. >> yeah we also have jobs report next week and "state of the union" address from president biden and will continue to monitor the situation in eastern europe that will do it for "closing bell" "fast money" begins now. >> live from the nasdaq marketsite in time square, this is "fast money." i'm melissa lee. tonight's trader lineup, guy adami, dan nathan, jeff mills -- and tonight on fast, chart master sounding the alarm on $2.5 billion company trouble brewing for apple. how to play it retail time to shine earnings season winding down but reports heating up id traders bring the names to watch next week. later. heavy metal trade catching