>> "closing bell" starts in just a few seconds. all right, guys, thanks so much stocks rallying and putting the dow on track to finally snap that eight-week losing streak on new signs inflation may be slowing. the most important hour of trading starts right now welcome to "the closing bell." i'm scott wapner in for sara eisen. let's see where we stand with one hour to go in this trading week you can see we've had a nice day and we are holding on to those gains. there are a lot of superlatives you could say. the dow is holding on above 33,000 it's been an obviously strong week for stocks, but if you really put into focus the fact of where we came from, the intraday lows last friday, the dow is up 7.5, almost 8% so that's the market picture right now. technology, real estate, consumer discretionary are leading the gains today. all 11 sectors are in the green. tech is having a huge week coming up, investor eric jackson

gives us his outlook for that sector and the three stocks he thinks have never been cheaper stocks seeing a lot of boost today following new government data that shows the pace of inflation slowed in april. the nasdaq up 2.5%. a new note from citi says it is time to get defensive on u.s. equities let's bring in jason pride and barry knapp. guys, it's great to see you. barry, to you first. are we putting together something to build on or are we just thinking of false hopes >> no, i led off on "squawk box" a week ago thursday and described how these fed policy normalization corrections are your second best window to put money to work if you didn't buy the lows of the recession. so if you think back to the end of qe2 in 2011 or qe1 in 2010, these drawdowns on fears that the fed will be tightening into

a slowdown are really way overdone, particularly early in the business cycle these are great entry points so i thought there would be a 12% forecast, which is the average fed policy related correction this year we want the 20, which is the outside of those, as big as the one in '11 or '18. but at this level we'd have to have a deep recession. we'd have to have a deep recession to justify further downside in particularly the cyclical sector. so i think this is the start of the recovery from the fed policy normalization correction. >> wow jason, do you buy it do you believe what barry has to say? >> look, scott, i think actually this is a little harder than that we started at higher valuations so the possibility of a decline being a little bit deeper is a little bit higher. we are now in the late stage of the economic cycle late stage tends to come with it lower returns for equities, rising yields and better returns

for fixed income makes fixed income more competitive. you need a more balanced portfolio so we downshifted risk back to neutral. truthfully, late cycle can last a long time and we want to be positioned to ride that if necessary, but we also want to be ready for the potential recession if the fed does take this too far, which i think is definitely in the cards as a possibility at this point. >> barry, do i hear you saying that you think a bottom was in as of last thursday? remember, you look at where stocks are today and remember where they were on an intraday basis a week ago at this very moment the s&p at 3810, here it is at 4135 the dow at 30,635. here we are at 33,000 and trying to hold above that level are you calling the bottom >> yes, i do think that the

bottom was in. i'll tell you where i disagree with mr. pride a little bit around this stage of the economic cycle we're at. i thought the pandemic was two things that the global financial crisis and aftermath was not the global financial crisis was a deflationary shock this was an inflationary shock okay, that's been clearly proven but i also think the global financial crisis was a negative productivity shock and this was a positive productivity shock. that's part of the reason why margins have held up as well as they have. for all the concerns we have about retailers, by the way, margins in the consumer discretionary sector are above psych 'em peaks for the last three psych cycles it ultimately will mean the fed can raise rates farther than expected but the read limiting factor on how far they can go is federal government debt, not private sector debt. that's a very different dynamic

and implies that we're not close to the end of the cycle. >> jason, respond to what barry has to say >> i really hope that barry is right on this, scott if we do have the productivity cycle, that is the softer, softish landing that the fed chairman is trying to engineer at this point in time. but that is by far not a guarantee. and, therefore, investors have to be a little bit more wary and a little bit more positioned for potential different directions rather than singularly focused on the upward leg. valuations still do remain a little thick, they do tend to sit there in late cycle. but when recessions hit, you actually have lower levels we think this is the point in time where you build in some defense. you don't go over too far because the recession is not guaranteed we have to recognize this is also not a guaranteed continued upward leg. >> barry, we do still have a lot of issues in front of us, right?

the economy is weakening inflation is still elevated. the fed is still highly engaged. there's no reason to believe at this point that they're going to pivot or grow more dovish or go anything other than what they're doing now. so how can you think that maybe the worst in fact is over? by the way, you've seen a lot of markets in your career, barry. we have not had that typical moment of, and i'm not trying to date you, i saw your facial reaction when i said that. we haven't had that historically typicalcapitulation moment you know, the vix is down to 25 now. it didn't go to 40 all the things that everybody says yeah, but we didn't have that. >> yeah, i'm project my friend and your friend's weiss a little bit. i was at a conference last week in new york. it was a macro conference but heavily derivative based when steve and i were colleagues, that's what i did in those days one of the things that was apparent to me was that the

reason that the vix wasn't so-called confirming the lows is the same reason why it didn't do that in late 2018. investors were so defensively positioned, and you could see that in correlation, which implies long only investors were hugging the benchmark and that cash had been raised there was no need for portfolio protection any longer. as i listen to derivative-based investors talk, it was clear they were negative just like in 2018 body the big spike in vix in february but then in december it never really confirmed it but we still made a bottom so i think this is quite similar in that sense. investors have gotten positioned defensively, as mr. pride is implying, that they have done the same so because of that positioning dynamic, i think that the market can grind higher listen, these recoveries off these fed policy corrections take almost as long as it took

or around that length to recover so i'm not implying that we're going straight up. i do think we had a more than adequate fed adjustment to tightening and the markets have fully priced where the fed is likely to go for now we'll see late '23 how much inflation comes down i'm of the mind it's not going to be anywhere near prior cycle trending lows. 1.5% but that's more a story for 2023 than now. >> it's great to have you both and i hope you have a good and thoughtful and long memorial day weekend. i can tell you stocks have added somewhat significantly since we started the show, everybody. before i said the first word of the 3:00 show today, i looked down and we were barely holding on to 33,000 on the dow. now we're already at 33,100. so we've got a 457-point move. barry and jason, we'll talk to

you soon. we do have a pickup in steam with 50 minutes to go. gap staging a dramatic comeback after disappointing earnings an 18% intraday swing. it's not the only retailer making a big turn-around either. we'll discuss the outlook for those stocks when "closing bell" returns. you're watching "closing bell" on cnbc.

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another roller coaster ride for retail as we wrap up a very busy earnings week costco initially plunging after reporting the margins but shares have clawed their way back into the green. gap shares tumbled 20% after reporting earnings and they too reversing course today joining us now rapesh and also simeon siegel. rupesh, to you first how would you sum up the state of the retail trade given what we had this week at times it was confusing. >> it definitely was confusing consumer spending is still strong i think you're seeing shifts in terms of where consumers are spending so i think spending is -- clearly it's whether it's the reopening trade while apparel companies are on the other side of it. >> i mean some apparel companies

are doing quite well it just literally comes down to what you've got in the store, whether you have the right fashion trends or the right things that people want. simeon, that you don't have too much of your inventory because we have seen a huge inventory build for some retailers, particularly in the teen space. >> yeah, so good to be here, scott. i think there's an interesting dynamic where people have this perception no one is talking about recession because the market is green. people have been talking about recession, inflation, everything is abysmal but people are spending. if we look at who missed, it was not revenue misses revenue beats with margin misses took stocks down tjx, one of the big winners of this earnings seek el missed on revenues, -- you could pull ba and enhance your brand after years of being forced to grow for growth sake. i think the question now is who takes that lesson forward.

>> i want to find out why you guys disagree on ulta the way you do because it's certainly one of the stocks that we've highlighted today. rupesh, your rating on it is outperform simeon, you have a neutral on it rupesh, why do you like it so much >> as we came into this, we viewed ulta as a reopening play. beauty started rebounding in 2021 ulta the big player makeup our view was makeup would undergo a renaissance this year. other categories -- so between all the strengthin their store with these different categories and reopening trade, we thought you'd see more of a booming beauty backdrop. they have an 18% comp on top of strong performance last year so all of the momentum continues both at ulta and in the category we still see double-digit upside from here even after the double-digit move the past few

days. >> simeon, what's the issue then >> i like this i thought i was talking about retail >> you don't know me well enough >> normally sara and i are talking something else this is fun. next time i know i think ulta is a great company. i think at the end of the day we're talking about stocks ulta is putting up this great performance. they have this reopening trade how long the reopening trade lasts i think will be interesting. but at the end of the day we just watched an entire retail rerating happen. all things considered it's still a very nice multiple so i think they're doing a very nice job top and bottom line they have a great category listen, we'll see what happens if people pull back discretionary. ulta all things considered did well in the last session >> rupesh, i've got one last one for you. why the discrepancy when it comes to dollar stores

>> dollar general has been a consistent performer year in and year out they have been able to grow double-digit earnings and we like the unit growth story here. dollar tree had a really strong quarter yesterday, very much on our radar. it is more of a turn-around story. at this point family dollar is a turn-around story. it has gone backwards so we need to see their plans in terms of revitalizing that. i think it will take some time for us dollar tree should be on the radar of investors but it's still a multi quarter turn-around story. dg is something you want to own in good and bad times. if the consumer gets weaker, we think dollar general will see trade down and they'll outperform other retailers and other consumer staple stocks so dg is the one you want to own between the two. >> we'll make that the last word the moral of this story, simeon, you've got to be ready to

debate it's good to see you guys. let's check the markets. the dow jones industrial average is poised to break its eight-week losing streak it is now positive for the month of may as well so it gives you an indication of just how far we've come from the depths of that sell-off just one week ago we're better than 440 on the dow. there's the s&p as well. 4142, a strong 2% move bank of america is seeing the largest weekly inflow into stocks in some ten weeks up next, mike santoli looking at whether that means the bulls are back on wall street as we head to break you can check out some of today's top search tickers on cnbc.com the 10-year treasury making the top spot followed by tesla costco, we just talked about that, the s&p and nvidia with a nice reversal as well. we're back after this. once he's all on his own? this is financial security. and lincoln financial solutions will help you get there. as you plan, protect and retire. ♪

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if you travel, you know. we continue to rally we are at session highs. the nasdaq has only gone up 1,000 plus points in a week.

if you're not satisfied with that, i can't help you out it's a 3% gain today highs of the day 355 to the upside 12,095 at the lows last friday, 11,035. so it's been quite a run a as th has staged quite a comeback. i just talked to the nasdaq. the dow is on track to break its eight-week losing streak mike santoli is at the dashboard looking at bank of america's private clients are making bets in the private market and putting a fair amount of money back into the market. >> the scene was set for this big rally we've had by depressed investor sentiment and really defensiveness among investors. hedge fund exposures to equities, very, very low fear overtaking greed, all the rest of it this is the one area, individual investors' commitment to equities that had not come in much this is the old merrill lynch

wealthy clients and they got to all-time highs above 66% equities in their portfolios it's rolled over mostly it's rolled over because the market has rolled over it's not as if they pulled a tremendous amount of cash out of the funds. where it leaves us is not too much above -- more or less the highs of the post global financial crisis, period to me it's less of a headwind than it was. the other nuance here, i don't want to rationalize any of these numbers, but really investors hate bonds more than they love stocks their commitment to bonds is near historic lows cash, the cash holdings is right back to the long-term average so that might be a little bit of a wrinkle. >> this doesn't exactly signal some longer term commitment by any stretch to the market. there are people who are still negative over the medium term who are putting money to work because they don't want to miss potential upside for the next days or weeks. >> i think some people who are

bearish longer term, embarking on something a little more damaging in the market would say, you know what, until retail really cuts back and really today picapitulates in t of the own portfolios, maybe we don't have a sustainable round i'm not in that camp but i think it's interesting that right now we're back in the zone 2014 was not a terrible time to own stocks and we were up at these levels >> right now we're calling it the barry knapp bounce he came on and called the bottom the stock market was great but now we're up almost 500 points on the dow >> okay. >> that's mike santoli we'll talk to you again soon. energy is one of the best performing sectors on wall street, now up nearly 60% this year we'll discuss if there is more upside for energy when "closing bell" comes right back

welcome back transports among the biggest winners this week. frank holland looking at what's driving that group higher. >> it's really concerns about disruption of the u.s. supply chain with negotiations between west coast ports and the union that represents workers making little progress and now pausing until june 1st you can see right here as that news broke, right around here, you see these stocks begin to move to the upside this week they continue to move to the upside these are for large part stocks that focus on less than truckload trucking, putting

multiple loads on the same truck which could be in high demand as people go to different ports to move their goods ark vest said their customers are focused on prchlerformance, price. >> the speed to market matters and predictability matters those two are elements of the conversation that we have more often than the costs right now >> and we're seeing the concerns about this disruption play out you're seeing china to the u.s. east coast almost double year over year. also trucking rates right now down 27% year over yooear, but this pause is expected to be a catalyst that reverses that trend. scott, back over to you. >> thank you very much for that. from transports now to energy, a big week for that sector up 8% outperforming the broader market, gas prices hit $4.60. a year ago a gallon of gas was $3

joining us now, tom klobus it's nice to see you welcome back. >> nice to be here. >> i'm looking at the notes here and it's a real startling stat and puts it intoperspective to that you told us the typical family uses about 90 gallons of gasoline a month. it costs $414 a month compared to $100 a month during the many pandemic months. you talk about inflation, my goodness. >> it is really stiff inflation. and if you are to go to a california family, it's probably closer to $550 you know, back in the day, that was a mortgage payment or a tax payment. so it's certainly impacting inflation for everything diesel prices are even worse >> yeah. any reprieve any time soon and if so, why >> i think we're going to get a reprieve in june now, we're going to go up in the next few days and probably surpass $4.75 a gallon

you know, we're looking at the end of futures trading for june here now and there's a tremendous bias in the futures market where speculators are about 26-1 buyers outnumbering sellers. but i think typically history shows that you rise and then you drop off 15% that's in the futures police and the wholesale numbers. so that could be a little bit of relief or respite in june. but unfortunately, anything goes in july and august this year >> why haven't we had any help on the gas tax side either from a federal level or individual state level? that seems to me to be obvious why aren't we seeing any of it >> we're getting it on a state level. i think it was georgia extended their state tax holiday. we'll see some other states do that i am a little surprised that the biden administration hasn't done that, because it's easy and it's

not as though it's an indefensible thing to give people some relief and be perceived to be doing something about it they only have so many leaders that they can touch right now but people wanting to see them do something, and i think they will >> yeah, amazing really where the prices are tom, i appreciate your time. that's tom kloza. let's take another look at where we stand in the markets. poised as we said the dow to break an eight-week losing streak s&p, nasdaq poised to break a seven-week losing streak we're at the highs of the day. that's a better than 500-point move for the dow jones industrial average 33,150 plus. nasdaq is higher by better than 3% hollywood hoping movie goers have the need for speed this weekend as the highly anticipated and long delayed "top gun" sequel hits theaters what that means for theater stocks is straight ahead

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[ dramatic music ] [ engine revs ] [ roars ] [ roars ] well, after multiple delays, "top gun maverick" is finally flying into theaters nearly 36 years after the original film helped make tom cruise a superstar. julia boorstin looks at what the film means for the summer box office, julia. >> well, scott, early numbers bode well both for "top gun maverick" and for the whole summer box office. "top gun maverick" grossing over $19 million in thursday night previews that's a record for paramount and memorial day weekend, prompting the weekend projection to go to $115 million expected at the domestic box office that is bolstered by a 97%

positive critics rating on rotten tomatoes. a hit would be a win for paramount whose stock is down about 22% in the past year it would also be a win for all the media giants who have big budget films coming out this summer including disney, comcast and warner brothers discovery. theater chains of course have a lot at stake as well amc shares are down 46% in the past year. cinemark and imax shares down 25%. these theaters will have fewer wide releases this summer than they did pre-pandemic. we'll have just 35 wide releases, down from 45 in the summer of 2019 plus movie theaters also have more competition from streaming content than ever. today disney plus is debuting its much anticipated obi-wan kenobi and so with those franchises available at home and

consumers facing inflationary pressures, this weekend is a key test of both theaters and streaming subscription numbers scott. >> julia, thank you. up next, stocks ripping into the close. the nasdaq is up 3% now. interactive brokers chief strategist steve sosnick explains why he thinks most growth stocks need to be considered value stocks. plus will the big gains for the banks and transports carry over next week we'll take you inside, you know what's coming, the market zone

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trading day, plus investor eric jackson on why tech stocks he thinks look cheap. interactive broker steve sosnick on whether stocks can continue rallying we are rallying into the close, near session highs the dow is on track to post its first weekly gain in nine weeks. mike, you've had a nice comeback this week. big jumps for energy, tech and financials among other things. >> very broad, pretty comprehensive. scott, i think the market is sort of building a case in the last three days that maybe this is a little more consequential just in terms of building up a cushion here the selling seemed to exhaust itself down in that 3800 to 3900 range on the s&p 500 as we've talked about for a couple of weeks, that's where a lot of folks were fixated. the last three days more than 80% of the volume on the new york stock exchange to the upside it does seem as if you're going to have people talking about that being a display of demand and people needing to kind of get their exposures back up to stocks that will probably stick with the market for a little

while. it doesn't mean back to the highs. it doesn't mean anything but we are above last week's high in fact numbers stick in your head 4123 was the intraday low february 24th when ukraine was invaded and it stuck as the low for two months so now we're back above that we'll see if that might matter as some kind of psychological floor. >> we repaired some technical damage this week too which some are pointing to as a positive sign eric jackson, to you technology stocks really rallied back you've been buying some of the most beaten down names, some of the once high-flying ones you've been dabbling back in. what do you make of this space right now? >> well, i think there's still a lot to choose from i'm not saying get in with the pole position in all these names but you have to look at them and say these have never been cheaper as public companies, forget about just during the pandemic, ever on a price to sales basis.

yeah, this week i bought zoom, i bought zillow. i didn't buy snap, but all three of those names have never been cheaper on a trailing price to sales basis since they have been public companies. >> in the last couple of weeks you want to add some names to your shaopping spree if you want to call it that, twilio, an upstart, and carvana so you've been looking at the ones that have been hammered the most. >> yeah. most of them are cash flow positive, not all of them. but i definitely have this fundamental view that i think the small caps are going to bottom before the s&p or the nasdaq bottom. that's what happened during the dotcom era some names bottomed a year or two before the broader markets bottomed so i think you really need to take advantage of periods of dislocation in some of these names and look to start positions in them because for snap, tuesday might have been it we might never see $12 again

it's up, i think, 26% since tuesday. >> why didn't you buy that one you singled it out as one of those that you did not buy will you >> it's one i've owned in the past i think i want to see how some of the other social media stocks do over the coming few weeks before i dabble back in snap we look for names like zoom. this is going to be around for a longtime it's a pro digous cash flow generator. they're going to keep doing something with that cash zillow is getting back to basics it's getting out of the home buying business. it makes much more money in its traditional business and if you look ahead to what they're going to continue to make from it, again, it's never been cheaper as a public company. >> i mean the tech trade, i feel like there was a moment this year, and maybe it was nvidia. the earnings come out, everybody

has loved that stock it's gotten -- it goes down like 45% from the high. the company comes out and reports. the stock goes down and then it reverses and closes higher that was a moment that felt to me that was significant in terms of where the tech trade is, particularly around sentiment. >> and they weren't the only ones, scott. snowflake yesterday, down big after hours, was positive yesterday. farfetch, which i own, was down. the kitchen sinks to quarter were down 10% after hours and up 30% earlier today. we saw that with alibaba as well so that makes me optimistic about the broader market, scott, is that bad news, you know, and kitchen sinking the quarter is now being bought, not sold >> yeah. for all of you who might be listening and you can hear the clapping behind me, it's a significant moment on the floor and it always is at this time of the year when fleet week takes

place in new york city and servicemen and women are filing right in front of our set here towards the podium members of the marine corps, the navy, the coast guard as well in celebration of that. so the big ships are in town and then those who have made a very big sacrifice for the safety and security of all of us are here on the floor of the stock exchange and that is why you hear the clapping from those on the floor as they gather ahead of the closing bell here it's quite a scene and it always is so, eric, i'll get back to you i just wanted to let everybody know about this moment that's happening right here, which continues to go on you feel like this move in some of these mega cap names can be trusted, that it has legs? i still feel like some don't believe in it. >> well, nobody believed in the comeback after the pandemic lows i mean it took two months after the march 2020 lows before people actually believed in the

rally. so we can climb that wall of worry for a while. we'll see. again, another thing that makes me optimistic is if you start to look at some of these individual tech stocks that have really just been washed out an they basically lived this entire year below their recent moving averages, for the first time ever just in the last week or so, a lot of these names are starting to get above their 10-day moving averages and the qqqs or iwms or the hyg, like they have all recently gone above their recent moving averages so that can be some accelerant, i think, on this move into the first few days of next month. >> all right, eric, i'm going to leave it there we'll talk to you again soon that is eric jackson let's talk shares of apple since we are speaking about big cap tech taking a nice leg higher today, up more than 8% this week that's despite reports of a slowdown in iphone manufacturing due to lockdowns over in china let's bring in ed snider now

ed, it's been quite a move we had a 130 something on this stock and here we are knocking on 150 what do you think of it here >> well, you obviously get a rebound with a rally in the dow and the nasdaq almost every one of our tech names is up strong and it's been a long, hard road down i think this is a small correction we'll see how it chases out in the long term. apple has to really be concerned about the long term. the second half of this year and next year with inflation, and china demand dropping off because of lockdowns it's not going to be i think a pretty picture for the rest of the year. >> how significant is the 150 level, if at all, in your minding? >> well, you know, at some point this looks like such a great buy, especially for a blue chip name like apple. there's not a lot of risk. the risk is you'll see further fall-off

eventually apple is not going to be going anywhere. same way with some of the suppliers. in fact if you go back to the financial crisis in '08, a similar thing happened with nokia and its suppliers an they traded off very heavily. within two years they were up two or 300%. if you look at the fundamentals of the businesses we're talking about here, it's not a huge risk tor to be buying it at 150, 130. >> mike, the 52-week low on aapl is 123 i know people watch it closely for obvious reasons and we typically ask the question how can the market find any stabilization if apple can't what was a member lost the title of the largest market cap company. it is back above $2 trillion right now. so it's been a really nice recovery. >> right the market certainly can't have apple fall apart and perform the indexes are just too skewed

in that direction. but apple in a sense has done its job in retaining the vast majority of it's two-year gains even in this pullback. it went down 25% from a high i wondering what it will mean if the market itself is getting its legs back under it it would surprise me if apple and stocks like apple are the leaders for any sustained period of time. that was the last story of the prior couple of years. it's also -- apple is kind of like your war time consillary. i think there may be other faster moving stuff. >> ed, you do start to hear, let's say energy, for example, great week and the stocks have had a great run. maybe for that reason that you were going to have money come out of that space and go into spaces like growth and like tech, which some are trying to declare have bottomed and that

could give that next leg higher. what do you think? >> i think that's true you have a debacle the last eight or nine weeks in tech, down consistently, so everybody is looking for yield if you believe that there's a bigger recession coming and it's going to last longer, you're looking for some sort of hedge on that. commodities and energy are probably an excellent bet given the current situation. so i think there is something to be said for that i think that is true. >> we'll talk to you soon. ed, thank you. mike santoli of course is sticking around. let's talk bank stocks they're soaring after jpmorgan jamie dimon told investors monday that he'd meet a key performance target this year and possibly even exceed it next year citi, however, under pressure after credit suisse downgraded that from neutral to outperform. the analyst thinks there is limited upside after the 12% rally over the last two weeks. you can read that analyst call on cnbc pro. leslie picker joins me right now. some mixed messages for the baj

stocks lately. even as they get a downgrade, jane fraser was on the network this week calling bank stocks unlds undervalued and that was one of the catalysts too along with jamie. >> there's a lot of cross currents in terms of news. citi's main run was fueled by the disclosure by berkshire hathaway that it had taken a $3 billion stake in citi. on top of on monday jpmorgan increased its guidance in terms of net interest income which is an important profitability metric for banks like citi and jpmorgan they're helped by higher interest rates and the market had really been trying to assess kind of the push and pull between higher interest rates, which are a tailwind for that type of a business, and just the issues surrounding the economy, the risk of recession and so forth

for much of the year, at least since mid-february, it's this idea that the recession risk was front and center for bank investors. this week that really flipped and you can see in the week to date performance, jpmorgan up 11.5%. bank of america up 9% for the week wells fargo up 10% that's because rates are back in the forefront for these investors and just the benefit that it could serve for these banks and the potential that recession risk has at least abated in the near term, and that's kind of the comment that jamie dimon and gamjames gormand jane fraser are all alluding to. >> mike, how close are you watching these in terms of the health of these. they're still considerably lower than their 52-week highs at minimum 22% and in some cases 30% plus. >> yeah, it's still in bounce mode at the moment i'd say the banks index up 11%

off the lows but had been underperforming for a while before that. i see them basically as a gauge of perceived recession risks and, therefore, a proxy for credit conditions more than anything at this level as leslie was saying, the yield story carried them for a while and then was superseded by what people are expecting in terms of credit erosion perhaps right now it doesn't seem like an imminent threat, but also there was concern about as bonds sold off, treasuries sold off it was slowing down the buybacks. there's all these capital rules that required them to keep some cash aside so i think that's something that might be able to get cleared up over the coming months as well. >> leslie picker, l.p., thank you. stocks are higher and heading even higher heading into the close of this last day before a long holiday weekend. the nasdaq is outperforming the major averages, up more than 3% at session highs let's bring in steve sosnick

we got something to build on here, steve? what do you think? >> well, scott, today was a great day. but remember, it was on light volume and the type of activity that i saw was just people buying spider calls, riding them higher, pushing it higher and rolling them up. we have 414 into the spy because it is a weekly expiration. i think that's all been good but i think it's more of an oversold bounce than the bottom which is not to say that some of these moves have been fe 2345u78 nal for inphenomenal for invest >> you have been a traditionalist when it comes to looking for signs of a bottom. you don't think we've seen the classic sign that we can say the worst is over. >> that is true, i wish i could. but right now we haven't seen that sort of get me out moment we kind of came close. we were very oversold last week. but we never really had that get me out at all costs, nor did we

have sort of the idea that we're done, i can't own stocks anymore. we've all thrown the baby out with the bath water which of course means there's nobody left to sell. we've had customers buying the whole way down which means there is no capitulation yet it's been working out for our customers who bought recently but it's tough you can't reflexively buy the dip with the fed being a headwind in your face. >> but you've had a couple of 90 plus percent volume down days. maybe we're not going to get that classic sign, because there have been some signs during the sell-off, and it felt pretty bad. >> absolutely. yeah, we may not have. the problem i see is we have not yet begun qt

stock markets tend to react with a lag to monetary policy it's bizarre stocks are great at discounting earnings, sales, events, but they're more responsive to monitor changes rather than anticipatory so that is just a nagging worry i have in my mind is how will we react when the fed is actively taking money out of the system. >> all right, we'll leave the last word for you there. steve sosnick, my thanks to you. the internals to you, mike santoli. >> the breadth has really swung to the positive side people are going to be talking about there being an upside breadth thrust probably after the last three days as i mentioned. another day where we're 80% or so of the volume is to the upside that's the third day this week that collectively starts to win back the benefit of the doubt to the bulls in the very short term, if nothing else. take a look at some of the cyclical bellwethers over the course of this month semi conductors, home builders still deeply lagging the s&p 500

on a year-to-date basis, but you see they're pretty much in sync this year. the cyclical trade got some traction and that's something i think is also a net benefit. the volatility index, we talked about you never got some kind of real headlong rush for the exits as evidenced in the vix. well, we didn't get up to 40 this time, but boy, we've been up above 25 for quite some time. there's been kind of a slow motion kind of capitulation arguably over time you don't always have to see the rush here we have before a three-day weekend you're going to always see volatility come in, anticipated volatility come in it's definitely moving in the right direction the next few days the s&p 500 going into thi pre-holiday air pocket to the upside up 2.4% right now on the day for the week up 6.3% the nasdaq composite basically keeping pace with the s&p 500 for the week

also up about 6.8% and now sits down about 25% from the all-time high so it shows you how deep a hole we had been in for some time as we go into memorial day weekend, you see the dow up 1.7%, 564 points we'll be at multi-week highs and up for the month of may as we close it out that does it for "closing bell." let's send it over to "overtime" with scott all right, mike, thanks so much welcome, everybody, to "overtime. i'm scott wapner you just heard the bells we right here are just getting started. we do have a big hour ahead. in just a bit i'll speak with gene munster on whether apple shares are indeed back in business and ed yardeni on the real state of stocks we begin with finally, finally after a grueling stretch of selling is the worth over now. let's ask adam parker who's with me on set post 9 at the new york stock exchange our service men an