china. >> that was just china, right. there are certain places elsewhere in asia that have seen more appetite to come back to the office the interesting part will be the evolution in the u.s how many ceos will be like andy jassy and pushing people for five days a week >> i thought it was three. dom, thank you very much dom chu. >> thanks for watching "power lunch. >> "closing bell" starts right now. welcome to "closing bell." i'm scott wapner this make-or-break hour begins with stocks finishing a tough month with some critical weeks ahead for your money here is your scorecard with 60 minutes to go in regulation. will this be the day the s&p closes back above 4,000? we shall see and the 10-year hasn't moved above 4% since november. yields are on the move we begin with our "talk of the tape," the road ahead for the most popular stock in this

market, apple, bounced 19% off its low. can that momentum continue eric woodring is morgan stanley's apple analyst, the executive director of the firm's equity research department rarely does tv but he is today glad to have you welcome. >> thank you, scott. >> it's been a nice move obviously off the recent low what is your outlook ahead for the stock? and, you know, a new month that is on our doorstep, really, between the 52-week low and the 52-week high >> it's an interesting period to be an analyst, scott what we've seen in the market today is consumer challenges when it comes to electronics spending we're coming off two years of record growth. there is some digestion going on, but apple is one of the big companies, you know, has industry-leading royalty rates, very low return. you can gain confidence that people are going to come back and buy iphones. as i look out over the next 12

months, i see a fairly robust catalyst path, whether that's the launch of new ar/vr glasses this summer, launch of the iphone 15, where we think there is pent-up demand given some of the challenges that we've seen over the last call it six months apple has guided to a decade-high margin that cannot be lost on investors. add this up with services re reaccelerating and they're checking a number of boxes that get me excited about the next 12 months as an apple analyst. >> i love you brought up the services area of the business, critical to moving forward you used the word reaccelerating because you have had sequential declines in that part of the business you had an incremental tick higher in q1 of this year versus q4 of last but there seem to be real questions particularly around the app store and what a

slowdown in revenue there means to the overall services business how do you square that >> the app store call it 33% of services revenue today it has slowed. it's been a covid beneficiary. we were at home, downloading new apps, needed to keep ourselves entertained while at home. we're seeing the other side of that we're digesting that spend i don't think the app economy is broken, but we all spend more time on our phone and continue to download and use our phone more than ever before. that's a good long-term driver, but ultimately right now quarter to date, we see the app store growing half a percent, maybe 1% it's not necessarily robust, but consider in the last six months, apple and specifically the service business, has caused five to seven points of fx headwinds, so on a currency basis, the service business is

growing low double digits to what we would think is a medium growth rate in next three years. it's been challenging. the service business has slowed. but we don't think the underlying drivers of the services business are structurally challenged. again, as you get further out into the year, fx does become a tailwind, services maybe -- excuse me, app store maybe slightly reaccelerates, but you have to consider the other 66% of services, which we think has grown robustly, midteens to high teens, or the relationship with google, kind of the google tech digital advertising business, which we see rebounding in the back half of the year. >> you have it as your number-one hardware play at a time we're talking about a slowdown in consumer electronics, generally speaking. is apple immune to that or not >> i'd say they're more immune of course they're not fully immune if you look at what apple

reported for the december quarter, the wearables business down 7% year over year despite launching a new apple watch, a new apple watch ultra, new air pods that shows that apple is not fully immune, but you have to remember, there's 1.2 billion people in this world that own an iphone i would call that technology that largely controls their world. that to me is a staple i'd argue the ipad and the mac are a level below that so, are they fully immune? no are they more immune than others yes. one data point, in calendar '22, apple revenue grew roughly 4% year over year the rest of my consumer hardware coverage, the median revenue declined 6%. to me that shows apple is more immune than the large majority of the consumer hardware universe >> what about speculation around hardware subscription service? i want to make sure that i read this correctly in the note do you think that that could

really unlock an additional trillion dollars in potential market cap for already what is the largest company by market cap? >> i'm happy you asked me. that's what gets me excited as an apple analyst today remember, maybe five years back, apple was viewed as a cyclical hardware company i think what we've learned over the last five years is that having a services business that's $70 billion to $80 billion, represents more than 30% of gross profit dollars, makes it more like a platform, not necessarily a cyclical hardware company i think the subscription is the next evolution of this model and really why that's important is because it gives, you know, consumers and analysts better visibility into cash flow generation, more stability in financials, and when you look at peers, staples peers, streaming services, software subscription companies, they all trade at a premium to where apple trades at

today, roughly 22 times our fiscal '24 eps so my argument is when you put on the lens of, hey, apple is more of a subscription company than a cyclical hardware company, that can unlock value, resize it at about a trillion dollars of market cap. for me, that's my goal, about $235, my gold case valuation, that incorporates the shift in subscription or at least the market viewing an from the subscription lens. >> wow i'm just looking at it now and thinking about, you know, $3.3 trillion in market cap i'm wondering also how you think about china given the reopen and these stories, even a new one today, suggesting that suppliers for an rl in the report's words rushing to leave china >> so, china is obviously a very important market for apple on the supply side obviously it's the core of apple's manufacturing base

that won't necessarily change, but we are seeing a shift on the margin to countries like india, like vietnam, like malaysia. i think that will continue again, diversification from your manufacturing base, especially after what we saw in the december quarter, to me is the smart thing to do. then you think about the demand side of things china is in the process of reopening. it's apple's second largest market from a demand perspective. you know, china open is better than china closed, right the one factor here where i differ a bit is i actually think china is probably more of a tailwind the pent-up demand in china is more of a tailwind when we get further out into the year, simply because china is a very aspirational market the apple brand is a status symbol i think that chinese consumers are going to wait call it five to seven months so get an iphone 15, a brand-new iphone 15, rather than buying a four to

five-month old iphone pro. we'll see how that plays out in the next few months, but china open is better than china closed second largest app store market as well. china is obviously very key, again, to unlocking pent-up demand, both on the product side and on the services side >> let's get to the buzzword of the moment, and i know you know where i'm leading to >> i do. >> ai. it feels like we're talking about everybody but apple when it comes to this, whether it's nvidia or microsoft, alphabet, et cetera, names of the biggest players out there who get talked about the most what about this one? what about apple and how does that all factor into how you view the next several years for this company in the stock? >> if you're a company today in the technology landscape and you're not thinking about artificial intelligence, there's a chance you get left behind ultimately, we know that apple has a number of different artificial intelligence

capabilities they've launched their core machine learning product, apis, in 2017. i think that apple is still very much working on ai, but they are not at the same level of microsoft and chat gtp if you think back in time, apple hasn't always been the first to technology in new markets. if you think about 5g, they weren't first. quad cams, they weren't first. flip phones, they weren't first. i think apple is watching the market develop and understanding where they can use their expertise to monetize ai where i think that ultimately happens is edge compute. remember, apple is the only vertically integrated smartphone vendor that is major in the markets today. they optimize their software, their hardware, and their services together, completely

vertically integrated. when there are applications that come out that require compute on your iphone, the iphone is a much better and more sophisticated and powerful and more efficient product than other smartphones. so, i do think eventually ai becomes a product that apple can better monetize. but i think apple is evaluating the market to understand where they should pounce ultimately to monetize it. >> speaking of pouncing, before i let you go, this idea of whether tim cook will ever do a monumental acquisition, and who knows what that might be >> right. >> they've sat on this mountain of cash for such a long period of time, i just wonder how you think about what he wants to leave his legacy and mark on this company beyond, you know, an amazing installed base and all of the other stuff that we always talk about. >> right >> a dislocated market, which you certainly have in some parts of

this market, does he use the opportunity to, in your word, pounce on something, a big fish that's too big to pass up? >> i think you cannot rule apple out of that opportunity. but i do think recent history shows that apple is more adept to building than buying. we've talked about these rumors what they could for many years, and ultimately we learn that apple has had internal initiatives to develop those products, whether it's smart speakers, whether it's ar/vr glasses, obviously video so, i don't think we can rule apple out of the running, but i do think that today apple is, you know, kind of capital allocation priorities are obviously reinvesting in the business, returning $80 billion of cash to shareholders. that's good too. paying a dividend. and, listen, if there's something opportunistic that apple can do that's

transformational, i'm sure they're evaluating it. they'll continue to do tuck-ins. that won't cease, but i do think apple sets a very high bar when it comes to doing something transformational valuation isn't the only factor here but i would venture to guess probably a high degree of confidence apple's out there evaluating all of the opportunities. >> yeah. i'm sure they are. it's been a pleasure appreciate you coming on "closing bell," erik see you soon >> thanks, scott >> erik woodring from morgan stanley. joe terranova and shannon is a coe sha of sbv private shannon, you heard the conversation here. he seals the potential for a more than $3 trillion market cap company. you own the stock. >> yeah, sure. as an owner of the stock, that would be fantastic i want to touch on a couple points erik made back to the cuomo experience

with so many handsets in the marketplace, apple is focused on continuing to enhance the user experience when we think about where are they investing, it's to make sure we continue to be on our phones, so i do agree that services is the path forward in terms of revenue generation. if it affords them a higher multiple in a future state, that's fantastic but we have to get to the second half of this year, the back half of this refresh cycle, and see if we can get demand back from china and others, which has been backward, in order to get momentum back in terms of investor sentiment >> at some point, joe, you need to look past the ebbs and the flows of the near-term movement of the stock and look out over the horizon like erik does and suggest, you know what, they can unlock that level of success in the stock that you could get another trillion dollars in market cap through that hardware subscription service i raise the question to you that way because you sold out of it not that long ago saying it had

both lost its quality and momentum at least in the near term the way you look at things for your etf that you actively manage >> apple has always been a steady hand in a portfolio and when you study the two factors of quality and momentum, the real deterioration, if you want to even call it that, in quality, was just the slowdown in the revenue growth over the last three years you're talking about a company that's hit revenue growth in the midteens you had a contraction in revenue growth we know it was attributable to subscription that can restore itself quickly. what also can restore quickly is the momentum factor, and that factor was lost in the last quarter. apple is in the same place it was in july of 2021. now, that's where the red light turned on. the red light turned on because of momentum, not because of quality. and if you look at the fundamentals of this company, i have never called that into question they, i don't believe, it's not

in their personality to do the acquisition. apple doesn't buy the growth they don't need to apple is all about investing and achooieving organic growth, and they'll achieve that once again. i'm sure as i, as well as the strategy, will go back to apple once again apple so far year to date is in the process of rebuilding some positive momentum. 155 to 160 over the next call it ha to 60 days, able to sustain at that price level, you've restored the positive momentum in apple once again. >> if you didn't actively manage the etf that you do, would you own the stock? >> without question. >> you would >> without question. >> i ask you that because i'm wondering how you think our viewers should think about this. >> i used the two words before -- sorry, by i used the words steady hand in a portfolio. that's what they are apple has the purest discipline of all the technology companies.

they don't go out and make risky bets in markets. erik is 100% right they sit back. they are the second -- >> i love the way he said it they like to build rather than buy. >> they're the second mover. they sit back. they observe then they make the environment or the product better. that's exactly what apple has done so successfully in the last several years. listen, fundamentally, you're giving me a company that's going to buy back a boat load of their stock, return a little bit of a small dividend to the shareholder, that's a great company. i'm following my strategy. that's why for now i'm out of the stock. >> shannon, what about tech? use this as an opportunity ending a month, you know, january, february, pretty good year to date, tech is the second best performing sector does it continue and this stock is obviously going to have to still do well if tech is too >> absolutely. i think we're still going to end up talking about major tech players as we think about the

potential for the nasdaq to continue to perform. scott, there has been a ton of excitement coming into this year about a pause or a pivot we've seen rates rise, and frankly i've been surprised at the resilience of big tech you know we have a pretty large weighting in the sector. but i think it's important to continue to look at technology and differentiate, as we've talked about, from tech companies that have strong operating margins from really strong balance sheets, free cash flow, and profitability. i think if you continue to think about tech being able to lead us through over the next couple of years, i still think we're going to see some fits and starts, especially if we see rates creeping up higher over the next month or so. but i think that right now is a great time to consider if you don't own some of these market-leading tech companies, i would say apple and microsoft are two that initiating a small position we're certainly down from our highest point over the last three or four years, but that's not because we like the company.

it's because we continue to diversify in the sector. >> last thought, joe, before we move on. this notion of ai which erik addressed as well. the buzzword of the year so far. >> certainly is. >> fundamentals or fat and froth? >> well, i think that -- i think some is froth. >> or all of the above >> yeah. i would say all of the above month to date performance, maybe some energy companies could attach a toishgs their corporate names. it would help the performance because it's been a tough month for energy >> sam, we'll see you soon joe will be back as well our "twitter question of the day. it is on apple we want to know whether you think it will hit a new 52-week high this year it's just above $179 please vote yes or no. we'll share the results later on we're just getting started on "closing bell." up next, goldman sachs holding its second ever investor day and

ceo david solomon lays out his game plan for the big bank we'll find out how to best trade that space just ahead. and one stock is up 20% on reports of a private equity takeover we reveal that name and bring you the details you need to know next you ok, man? the internet is telling me a million different ways i should be trading. look! what's up my trade dogs? you should be listening to me. you want to trust me on this one. [inaudible] wow! yeah! it's time to take control of your investing education. cut through the noise with best-in-class education resources that match your preferred style of learning. learn your way. not theirs. td ameritrade. where smart investors get smarter℠.

the first time you connected your website and your store was also the first time you realized... we can do anything. cheesecake cookies? [together] the chookie! manage all your sales from one place with a partner that always puts you first. godaddy. tools and support for every small business first.

everything's changing so quickly. before the xfinity that alw10g network, first. we didn't have internet that let us play all at once. every device? in every room? why are you up here? when i was your age, we couldn't stream a movie when the power went out. you're only a year older than me. you have no idea how good you've got it.

huh? what a time to be alive. introducing the next generation 10g network. only from xfinity. the future starts now. about 35 minutes left in this trading day let's get a check on some top stocks to watch as we head to the close on the final trading day of february. kristina partsinevelos, what do

you have >> arconi c surging amidst talks of acquiring there is no deal just yet, but talks are ongoing. shares almost 25 right now rivian is chugging higher after earnings out after the bell today. wall street analysts are expecting them to post a loss for q4 its 2023 production outlook will be a key metric considering other ev makers like lucid shares almost 5% higher. last but not least, the parent company of your beloved wrangler jeans, kontoor, is seeing shares jump 20% higher after beating estimates and guidance this morning. they were up 15% in the quarter sending shares to a 52-week high scott, are you a wranglers guy you don't strike me as one >> inquiring minds want to know. that answer will stay with me. kristina partsinevelos, we'll see you later. up next, up nexte

heels of its investor day. a look at what the road ahead might mean for the stock and during february, we are celebrating black heritage through the stories of some of our teammates, contributors, and leaders in business. here is roger ferguson >> being an african american has had a major impact on my career, and the main thing is that it focused in on areas where blacks have frankly been disadvantaged with a real focus on financial security, financial literacy, retirement savings, that range of topics. i think it's really important for everybody but particularly important for african americans who have been forced to be at the bottom end of the income and wealth spectrum, and anything we can do for all those years of discrimination is really important.

we planned well for retirement, but i wish we had more cash. you think those two have any idea? that they can sell their life insurance policy for cash? so they're basically sitting on a goldmine? i don't think they have a clue. that's crazy! well, not everyone knows coventry's helped thousands of

people sell their policies for cash. even term policies. i can't believe they're just sitting up there! sitting on all this cash. if you own a life insurance policy of $100,000 or more, you can sell all or part of it to coventry. even a term policy. for cash, or a combination of cash and coverage, with no future premiums. someone needs to tell them, that they're sitting on a goldmine, and you have no idea! hey, guys! you're sitting on a goldmine! come on, guys! do you hear that? i don't hear anything anymore. find out if you're sitting on a goldmine. call coventry direct today at the number on your screen, or visit coventrydirect.com.

if you convince yourself to simply hold on because you think oil stock will make a comeback without doing the necessary homework, that's not a winning strategy if you don't have the time to track the companies you own, make the time. if you can't, let the pros do their job.

goldman sachs shares hovering near session lows, the worst performer in the dow today, which, by the way, is also at session lows after the company's second ever investor day. ceo david solomon telling cnbc in an earlier interview the company, quote, tried to do too much too quickly in its consumer business and will focus on wealth management. joe terranova is back with us along with liz strong from sofi. what do you make of the sell-off today? it could be a sell on the news event, which it appears to be. >> it appears to be. there's more work that needs to be done by david solomon and the management team. i want to see them shed those consumer-facing assets that's not who goldman sachs is. goldman sachs is the best in investment banking goldman sachs is the best in trading. and let's pull the lens back for one second if we could and

understand both in the case of goldman sachs and morgan stanley, they've done remarkably well since where they were prepandemic. morgan stanley up 60%, goldman sachs up 450%. the rest of them, jpmorgan, citi, bank of america, they're flat prepandemic they've done a good job. this is a step in the right direction. more needs to get done >> i mentioned mayo. i want you to hear what mike mayo thought about investor day. he talked about the challenges they're facing. >> they did have a terrible fourth quarter they are likely to miss their targets this year and next i personally asked a lot of questions around that. but, you know, just like in sports, as in wall street, winning cures all. if they can get to their targets, then all this other stuff will just be noise >> one of their targets, joe, is to, you know, grow their asset management biusiness, which is the reason you're bull irk on

morgan stanley over goldman sachs. that's the stock you choose in the group. >> of course and i've wanted for years -- everyone wants the asset management, the wealth management business right now. it's so incredibly important you're seeing a lot of the big players going out and purchasing some larger i.r.a.s. so i want there to be a bigger presence on the part of goldman sachs, but there isn't right now, and there is from the case of morgan stanley. they've done the right thing, morgan stanley, e-trade, two fantastic acquisitions, it's benefiting them now. quite candidly, the reason why i'm in bank of america is for merrill lynch. without merrill lynch, where would bank of america be i think it would be in the same position as citi >> liz young, how do you drew v view this space? do you like the financials again, we wrap up february and we go into a new month >> well, so a couple things. first of all, the asset management business, if you look at asset management and the consumer business, and it's not lost on me that i sit here representing a very consumer-facing bank, right, if

you look at asset management, there was likely to be consolidation in the space as etfs took over, passive management took over there was so much compression in fees it's difficult to get that space right and still make money on the consumer side of things, there's been such a proliferation of fintech, competition is fierce, also hard to make money in that space, and this competition over deposits that will take place probably for the next year or so until rates actually come down that being said, i think you have to separate financials and banks and look at them in different ways so if you look at just the financial sector overall, still the second cheapest in the index, and i think valuations matter you take berkshire hathaway out of there, even cheaper, right? banks, on the other hand, even cheaper than the financial sector broadly so seems like a good entry point. i would caution people that this is a time frame issue too, though if what i think is going to happen, and the consumer kind of hits the skids, banks are probably also going to hit the skids. however, that's the entry point.

so if we see some stress in financials, in banks, i think that financials and other sectors like materials, industrials, would probably lead us back out of this, because as we know the sectors we go into a peak in the market are rarely the ones that lead you out of a trough >> sometimes first in is sometimes first out. joe, beyond the consumer, how do you think about the economy in general, if we have a recession or ot. as long as you have those questions hanging over bank stocks, what does it mean? because if you have in the back of your mind to be worried about credit risk should something get dislocated, you know where i'm going. >> so, i'm more concerned with the s&p just sitting here and continuing to wrestle with 4,000, because for morgan stanley, for goldman sachs, and even in the case of bank of america, jpmorgan and citi, trading revenue has been resilient, surprisingly strong at times in 2022

and that's supported the valuation. if we're going to be in an environment where we're really consolidating for the s&p, i'm concerned having ownership of morgan stanley looking potentially at some point to purchase goldman sachs and having the other three banks under consideration. >> all right we just saw from our heat map, we have work to do to see if we can close above 4,000 on this final trading day. there it is. it looks a little dicey. by the way, the dow is at the lows of the day, down 237 and change, 240 or so, liz so we enter a new month. what's your outlook? >> well, okay, look. we had this huge rally into the year which i continued to say i thought it was overdone, overdone in the wrong sectors, too. everybody got excited about beta again and valuations got stretched. i think we've lost a lot of momentum on that rally as we probably should have looking at what's happened with rates since the beginning of february and even forget about rates for a second, look at

what's happening with inflation expectations two-year inflation expectations went from 2% to above 3% in a matter of less than three weeks. that is really important for investors to pay attention to. something has to move to make these relationships work the way they usually do. rates don't usually go up as stocks continue to go up with them so one of the two has to come down a reduction in a 2-year rate would be bearish for the economy. the only reason that happens is people expect the fed to cut we have to remember what those relationships look like. i know i sound like a broken record i don't think that the stocks can hang on to this much strength for that much longer. >> all right thank you guys very much liz young and joe terranova. we'll keep our eyes on the market as we head into the close. dow jones was at the lows of the day, down by more than 240 watching the s&p, a lot of work to do if you think you'll close above 4,000 again today. looks unlikely up next, the biggest movers as

we head into the close of this month. kristina partsinevelos is standing by with that. kristina >> we have a direct to consumer wellness brand seeing its shares surge right now. the name after the break

oooohhh, it is cold outside time to protect your vehichle from winters wrath of course the hot sun can be tough on vehicles too you need weathertech all year round! come on, protect your investment laser measured floorliners and cargoliner will shield the carpeting from sand and snow for your interior, there's seat protector and sunshade plus, mudflaps and bumpstep for the exterior order american made products at weathertech.com surfs up yeah, right inner voice: (kombucha brewer): when i started my new kombucha business... ... i thought there would be a lot more kombucha... ...and a lot less business. inner voice (graphic designer): as a new small business owner... ...i've learned that trying to be the “cool” boss... ...is a lot harder when you're actually the “stressed” boss. inner voice (furniture maker): i know everything about my new furniture business. well, everything except... ...the whole “business” part. not anymore. with quickbooks, you can confidently manage your business. new business? no problem.

yeah. success starts with intuit quickbooks. new projects means new project managers. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. when you sponsor a job, you immediately get your shortlist of quality candidates, whose resumes on indeed match your job criteria. visit indeed.com/hire and get started today.

about 20 minutes to go before the close kristina partsinevelos >> hims & hers, after posting a narrower than expected loss, its revenue came in ahead of estimates along with a strong first quarter and guidance as well it's at its highest since june 2021, shares up over 15% norwegian cruise line plunging right now, about 10% lower on a wider than expected loss in q4 due to soaring fuel and labor costs. but demand has been strong and it expects occupancy to hit 100% this quarter, scott. it seems like people are still willing to go back on those big boats despite all that stuff >> kristina, thank you last chance to weigh in on our twitter question will apple hit a new 52-week high this year it means the stock would have to be a little north of $179. yes or no?

and do not miss our interview tomorrow with greenlight capital's david einhorn. tomorrow, 12:00, on "the halftime report. you'll always remember buying your first car. but the things that last a lifetime like happiness, love and confidence... you can't buy those. but you can invest in them. at t. rowe price, our strategic investing approach can help you build the future you imagine.

what's it mean to be ever better? it's your customers getting what they ordered when they expect it. it's having an ecommerce solution that scales with your business as you grow. it's using innovative technology that manages your inventory and orders. discover how ryder ecommerce makes your customer's experience ever better. ♪♪

we all have a purpose in life - a “why.” maybe it's perfecting that special place that you want to keep in the family... ...or passing down the family business... ...or giving back to the places that inspire you. no matter your purpose, at pnc private bank, we will work with you every step of the way to help you achieve it. so let us focus on the how. just tell us - what's your why? ♪♪ let's see is the results of our twitter question will apple hit a new 52-week high this year it has to get above $179 and

change it is close. look at that 50.7%, 49.3% the yes has it for the moment. a true battleground question up next, a slew of retailers set to report tomorrow and giving us a key read on the consumer as we enter a key trading month. that's ahead with matthew boss was also the first time you hit this note... ( screams in joy) save 20% with the lowest transaction fees and keep more of what you make. with a partner that always puts you first. godaddy. tools and support for every small business first.

♪ this feels so right... ♪ adt systems now feature google products like the nest cam with floodlight, with intelligent alerts when a person or familiar face is detected. so you can listen in... sam. and even speak up. sophie's not here tonight. i can show her the video tomorrow, and you can keep playing. thank you. that would be great. ♪ this feels so right... ♪ when the most trusted name in home security adds the intelligence of google, you have a home with no worries. brought to you by adt. we are now in the closing bell "market zone. mike santoli will break down the crucial moments of the trading day. and samir samada of wells fargo

sharing his market outlook the number-one retail analyst on wall street, jpmorgan's matthew boss great to have you all with us. mr. santoli, stocks are going out with a whimper it looks and rates taking a breather. >> noncommittal all around i don't think you can really work too hard to draw a lot out of what's going on except we're sort of hovering above whatever level you were going to worry about. call it the 200-day market average. it's still split even broad sectors transports weak, machinery strong it's been selective. i do think the fact that the bond market is giving us a breather is allowing the market to get its feet under it i think it's almost offsetting confusion. the soft landings have had too hot data, and the recession is here, bears are not getting confirmation of that view. >> maybe that's why the apple

poll was so split, right basically 50/50. that underscores the point you're making. >> you can also say we're well off the all-time highs, have not broken above august levels you can talk about all the ways the market is still under pressure and in a bearish phase. on the other hand, it's an uptrend for the last four or five months, up 4% in two years. this has been a super long multi-month consolidation, so i don't think that's necessarily in itself negative >> samir, of wells fargo, what is your view january good, february not so much where does that leave march? >> probably understand we think the inflation and economic data still remain too hot for the fed's comfort. they'll probably at least hike rates beyond where the markets expected and probably keep them there all year, meaning stocks will be in for volatility especially into october. >> one of the debates is whether

we go back to the october lows and have to retest it. mike just said the uptrend we've been in since october. how do you address that question >> i think the tricky part is the short-term rates they were higher than last fall. if they drag long-term rates to those same levels from last fall, i think this time around, because earnings are falling, it means the s&p probably trades at those levels or around those levels >> so if it's going to be dicey, about the issue of bonds versus stocks do you find more opportunity outside of the equity market >> we think that longer end of the bond curve, especially getting close to 4% on the 10-year, is worth locking in that doesn't mean rates won't go higher, but it's the highest level of yield people have been able to lock in for some time. when the short terms come back down in a few years you'll be thinking about the long-duration

yields you've locked in. >> if you look at get 5g%, 6% in investment grade debt, but we're in a mode right now, it seems the regime has changed to when bonds rally in price, it's better for stocks. in other words, the scenario under which you're compensated well for buying a 6% investment-grade bond is one where the stock market should be able to stay supported i'm not saying they have to go step for step and that stocks maybe don't have to create a little more of a margin of safety with lower valuation. but it's not the world where it's either bonds or stocks anymore. >> no. sameer, it will get hot and heavy quickly. jobs report, cpi, another fed meeting and the commentary from the chair mims -- himself >> if your trading range is 42, 43 on the upper end, 350, 38 on the lower end and you're in the middle of it, i would agree you can probably make money in both

stocks and bompnds and a combination thereof. you're in middle of the range. i'd take the risk for equities i think you start to kind of retake the equity risk i think you have to be a lot more tactical this year and try and trade the range. >> all right sameer, thank you. big questions still about the strength of the consumer it's a big week as you know for retail earnings. on that note, let's bring in top-ranked retail analyst matthew boss, jpmorgan, joining us once again. you don't cover targets specifically, matt, but what does it tell you if anything about where the consumer is today and how retailers are dealing with all of the issues that they've had >> i think as a whole the retail picture right now is stable. now, if that's tied to the unemployment level, sub-4%, wages continue to rise for the low end, and the high-end consumer is sitting on a tremendous amount of wealth creation over the last five years. now, to me the picture beneath is more mixed. i think the high end is solid,

the low-end consumer is on stable territory it's the middle where we're seeing a lot more volatility that middle-income consumer i think is tied to some of the layoffs you're seeing larger picture. >> have companies worked through the significant inventory issues they've had? how does that impact your view on where margins go in the months ahead >> i think you're in the second half of the game from the inventory perspective. the trough was in the summer and the fall the inventory actions you're seeing take place in the third quarter and fourth quarter, that's why you're seeing the bottoming in the margin picture. i would say by late spring we'll be in the seventh to eighth inning and i think coming out of that, heading into the summer this year you'll start lapping up against material margin deterioration. you'll have freight moving in the right direction, gas price tsz and inflationary pressures easing remember, it was in the late spring to sum they're the consumer started to rebudget a year ago and make up for some of these costs of living that were

rising materially. >> dollar tree reporting,. what are your expectation for overweight >> we like dollar tree and dollar general, the off price, tjk, ross stores, and burlington that to me is the key. value and convenience. low income is stable middle-income value is becoming more important that's where you're seeing the trade-down so, i like that and i like best in class brands on the other side, particularly casual -- nike, lulu i think that's the megatrend coming out of this >> yeah. the real question as to whether the consumer is really as strong as it appears to be. >> yeah. you know, i know there is a lot of concern about the ramping of, you know, credit card borrowing recently and the idea that the savings rate has gone down but if you ask me, the bigger

kind of unique aspect of this environment is that you had a huge run in credit card debt and it just went back to trend the fact that the savings rate is down because people have the savings cushion. i wouldn't doubt there's fraying along the edges. >> delinquencies picking up. >> but from such depressed levels household financial obligations ratio, which bundles in all kinds of debt service payments, and it's just not at a level with historically it's paid to get super worried about it so you have to see wages soften up a lot, actual job losses. but maybe we're also in this weird moment where the whole goods demand and the fact we don't need as much stuff is also clouding the picture as, you know, hotel stocks go to the moon every day >> matt, i know who you like and could be a little challenged but who do you think has the most to prove this week? >> i think most to prove this week is off pricers and dollar stores as you said and the two within there, i would say the show-me stories are dollar tree, as you cited,

and burlington so, one dollar store, one off-pricer tjx that you saw earlier or late last week, i mean, 7% same-store sales shows that value of convenience. the question is can dollar tree do it. dollar general has been the best in class in the space, and the question is can defibrillator tree pull up -- pull up from behind as well >> we will see i know we'll talk to you about it soon. matt boss, jpmorgan. thank you very much. time for mike santoli's last word on this last trading day of february, trying to get off the lowest levels of the session heading towards the close. >> it's sort of ping-ponging between a couple of these clusters of -- the small caps have been outperforming all day, also outperforming on a year to date basis the dow is made to look much more ugly by goldman and unitedhealth, which is to say in general on balance you have a pretty neutral setup for a day two months into the year, s&p 500 up 4% or so.

i think most people probably would have signed up for something like that. the issue is nobody's comfortable about it because nobody -- either they're suspicious about how we got here and therefore it means there has to be payback or you kind of missed it and you're kind of hesitant to try to bet that it can be the start of something bigger on the upside >> direction of kweeld yields will be critical in the weeks ahead. i saw a note you passed earlier noting that the 10-year note yield has not closed at 4% or higher since november 9th of last year. that's 112 calendar days it is 72 trading days, excluding holidays and weekends. but that's where the action is going to be. >> that is true. what is interesting about that is when we cross 4% on the upside, it was not curtains for the stock market on that run remember, we kind of rallied, you know, into mid-december or so not in a straight line but we did top out at 4.2% so without a doubt, we are fixated on these levels.

it doesn't mean it has to translate to an exact index price. but, yes, there's no doubt about it if, in fact, we're starting to price in the higher -- again, i think this slow pace, relatively slow pace on what the fed has to do is still going to be a little bit of a cushion, because last year we got used to basically running full speed by the fed to try and catch up to inflation. >> the bottom line as we head towards a new month, a bullish narrative is harder to come by i know you read tony at goldman sachs. >> yeah. >> passes a new note around on the weekend. >> sure. >> it's a principal thought he has. that position has been played or a good amount of it. it's harder to come by to make a bullish case >> it is and i do think -- that's why the bullish case rests on the behavior of the market itself. when we have seen this type of an advance off of a low, for example, you've never gone down 20% in the s&p and spent 25 days

above the 200-day average and had that not be the ultimate low for the baerear market all these almanac-type things say we should in a good place. macro is not telling the story [ bell ] >> next, the scorecard on wall street the action is just getting started. welcome to "closing bell overtime." buckle up for a wild ride of earnings that's coming your way we're bringing you numbers from ross stores, hp, first solar, virgin galactic, rivian, and more >> and clues on the consumer two companies have reported results.