first before i give my final trade? >> you don't have to >> hello >> when has that ever stopped him. >> it's pretty impressive, the strength that we're seeing in gold even with oil now rallying, as well, you'd think you'd see a cross asset allocation, and i think that's the right trade >> joe, i approve. you've had a great call. >> thanks, everybody, for watching and "the closing bell," and "the exchange" now >> i'm dominic chu in for kelly evans today and here's what's ahead on "the exchange." opec reminding us of its pricing power and we have an oil cut sending prices sharply higher and we look at the impact on the energy trade and how much higher prices can go from here and what it does to the fed spike against inflation. plus, what about the impact on technology the sector's been on an absolute tear, but if the fed needs to keep raising rates to bring down

inflation, could that rally be coming to an end for tech stocks you look at how to position in that trade right now, and a sudden jump in the home prices after several months of declines this as inventory keeps shrinking and buyers keep buying up despite higher mortgage rates and what will break the cycle first? we'll look at the current gridlock in housing and what you need to know if you're thinking about buying or selling right now. we will begin with today's markets right now largely mixed and there are certain outperformance as you will see right now in the dow industrials because it is more weighted to things as opposed to the s&p 500. the dow is up 215 points and the s&p 500, still above 4,000 4105, but it's down just about 0.01%. at the high of the session we were down 18 points down 11 at the lows and tilting more towards that lower end, but still modest moves right now

and the nasdaq company comp, really the underperformer as i mentioned for that techtrade down 121 points for the composite and 12,100 and that's off one pull per scent one place in the market not seeing parts of the market, westin, monster beverage and hershey. each of these consumer staple stocks hit record highs in trading today. each of them gets a gold star. they are up, you can see anywhere from 17 to 70%, but that consumer staples trade is still one where many folks are finding at least a little bit of safe haven even though some would argue the valuations are high and then one other place to keep a close eye and we talked about the oil and gas stocks and energy prices overall and west texas intermediate crude and that's about 6% gains there. a lot of the exploration in production companies and marathon oil, conoco philips and exxonmobil, and anywhere up from

5% to 9%, 10% on the day and the energy sector spdr up by far the best performing sector and by far in today's trade the big question is why cut now for opec and where do prices go from here from the impact on the energy market to what you will pay at the pump, we'll have all of the angles covered helena krop, rbc, and she's also a cnbc contributor bob mcanally, founder and president and our own brian sullivan brian, we'll begin with now, the man who knows all things oil as our oil and gas reporter lay out the big picture for us here. >> i only know because i read helena and bob's work, dom thank you. i'll let them do the analysis and i'll just give you the blanket news what a surprise. i think some smart person i read called it the prince of plot twists and i think it was someone by the name of lima kroft.

opec's technical committee, dom, is meeting today there was a meeting today so we thought, oh, maybe monday we'll get a little news out of this committee, maybe not we wake up on a sunday and find out they made this big cut 1.1 million barrels if you sort of believe all of the barrels will cut, i know helena does not, from russia in july so this could equal 1.6 million barrels at least on paper and then remember, we have the surprise 2 million per day cut back in october. so if you combine those by the end of july you could have 3.6 million off the market what does that mean? that's 3.5% of global demand now as to the why, i will let bob and helema get into that, and maybe it didn't materialize as some thought or you can go down the rabbit hole and say the saudis were angry with the biden administration for not refilling the spr sooners with saudi oil

because a secretary last week said, quote, it may take years you can take the political side or the economic side, either way, the price of oil just got more expensive >> i'm going to say, brian, that it's an intersection of all of those different things which is why you will stick around and we're going to delve into the reasons why and the how and everything else with bob mcanally and of course, helema krop it's great to have you in studio. >> thank you for having me back. >> okay. so this is -- the how and the why are intriguing you have the analyst hat on, and you say why are they doing this now? there has to be a calculated bet being made by opec and its partner countries on whether or not demand will be there because of the supply cutbacks and price hikes, right >> i think what's so amazing is they kept this whole thing a secret when you had all of the concerns about the banking sector and the contagion sector and opec was quiet

it basically surprised us all coming out of a sunday and i think they have maximum market impact i read this as putting short sellers on notice. you do not want it to be a one-way macro trade. like they did in october, they wanted to short circuit any major macro sell-off going forward. basically, they're not going to be passengers on the jay powell express and they've been very concerned about rate hikes and i think they wanted to cement the gain that we were already seeing >> in that case, bob, if this is about bringing price stability back to the marketplace, there has got to be some kind of a reasoning that they're thinking that the world can withstand this given what still is the remnants of a global banking crisis, although it's abated a little bit and there's concern about inflation and there's still concern about the fed's efforts to fight it. all of these are headwinds why do this now? >> they probably remember 2008 where just like now, if you look

at their oil balances now, dom, they point to an increase in the call in opec a million and a half barrels a day, their own numbers so if you look at their current forecast there's no call for a cut and remember in 2008 when oil prices collapsed from 135 in six months and they ended up cutting in november and december last year after the collapse to helima's point this is about being proactive and reactive they broke the glass they didn't quite hit the precp precaution button and they said to the market we're not going to let this thing get stup id if there is's rebalance, and it's risk management. >> first of all, let me tell viewers right now i'm seeing a lot of nodding and shaking heads among all three of our panelists right here

i'll turn to helima first, and then brian, i'll get to you because you're comhomping at the bit. bob said 2008 and 2009 and you're nodding your head this is not 2008 and 2009. >> the lesson they learned from 2008 and frankly, 2015, was they did not want to let it go too long i think there was a view 2014, 2015, remember they did not put a floor in and prices collapsed because of a shale boom. i think they want to show the market that they don't want to be passengers and they're not going to stay on autopilot for a year they wanted to show their intention to come back into the market and to be proactive and at least from the floor, but many people are optimistic about the back half of the year and the question is do they want to put an accelerator on a recovery. >> there's our policy implications globally, of course, and a lot of us care about what will happen with u.s.

policy because it's been such a state of flux in the pandemic and everything else. >> brian, i'll turn to you and you have your fingers on the pulse of a lot of this >> they're asking about what this means for u.s. producers and what it means for shale production is this enough to change minds in washington, d.c. and places like in east and west texas where there are oil people who are thinking to themselves is this the right way to go about catalyzing u.s. production >> i think it's a good question and there are a lot of questions and bob can certainly tackle the d.c. side, dom and the people in texas and eastern new mexico and north dakota would say, i have more people to access to capital and more trucks and more fracked sand, i might be able to produce more let's be clear, production has gone up. we're not at record highs, and we hit 13 million barrels a day in december 2019 we're not there yet. we are slowly creeping up.

is there a max production capacity just based on all those things i just mentioned? there might be if there is, are we at it? we might be. higher prices would be some sort of enticement to do that, dom, but again, i guarantee you we will hear a lot of talk and rage right now in the white house at opec, at this move this is the higher prices at a time when inflation had just started to tick down a little bit and it's not just about paying more at the gas pump. it's about all of the input costs that petroleum goes into whether it's jet fuel and truckers cost and they have to pass along and we'll see a 15 to 20-cent jump at the price at the pump based on a 5% to 7% move and that's how it will impact consumers and i will note this, though natural gas prices are two bucks and they went down with the idea, that we'll pull out more oil and we have too much gas so

i'm trying to find a sully side up and i can tell you with helima and bob, there are not a lot of happy faces >> let's throw that to you from a policy perspective there's an argument to be made that this is a chance in what we've seen over the last year with oil prices and fuel prices spiking, it's shown just how sensitive americans are to rising energy costs is it enough to prompt officials or the government at large to focus more on u.s. energy independence and oil production >> well, i don't think it will move the biden administration too much further than it's already gone they did the willow project and they're softening up a little bit, but no, i think they're terrified from the fed to the white house to the capitol hill and i'm sure they're serving valium with the foie gras over there. if you look at the existing balances, they were looking at

1.5 to 2 million barrel a day deficits before this cut you add in the 1 million barrel a day additional cut and you're going to get prices that will sail through $100 a barrel at high speed again, opec plus is taking a precaution against the demand acceleration, but if you're a western or indian consumer or the iaea, anybody in washington and you're looking at the existing balances including opec's and what they just did, you're getting ready to dust off policy options what did they do spr, and restrictions, they looked at that last summer in washington they do that again and requiring companies to hold minimum stocks of gasoline on the east coast. they can look at that, as well so there's a tool chest and if prices go higher and i think they're being cool for now, right? they're downplaying it and they're soft in the response and jawboning opec doesn't help and if they're going to dive into

it >> okay. so helima, we will give you the last word. i'd like you to put on your former cia analyst hat on. what does this do to stability, economically, financially around the world given what opec+ has just deputy? >> the question is where are prices this summer for driving in the u.s to think the opec producers, last year was the first year that many of these countries were in the black after the lean years since prices collapsed so you have a whole host of oil producers, particularly saudi arabia that have their own very ambitious development program and so higher prices do work for certain key parts of the world we shouldn't forget that >> all right helima kroft, bob mcanally and brian sullivan, thank you all very much for our very intriguing roundtable on opec+, and if you can, by the way, get even more sully tonight on "last c call" starting at 7:00 p.m. eastern time

you don't want to miss it and he'll tackle all of these energy questions, as well. >> from the impact on the energy market to the economy our next guest says opec plus just made the fed's fight more complicated. joining me is jeff zervos and steve liesman joins us, as well. steve, we'll start with you to lay out the picture for the economic uncertainty that already was and how much more uncertain it got for the fed because of what just happened with opec+ >> yeah. i'm going to be like in volleyball and i'll set this one up with zervos one shot shows the back and forth with this, guys in the back, if you can call up the february 24 fed funds callback and it shows the schizophrenia of the other ma iday, and as a result of opec, that's that bit right over monday right there

and then the surge down in the outlook for rates that came with the ism manufacturing. i don't know what you want to call that, for lack of a better term, dom, but that's it they saw more fed with opec and then they saw less fed with the ism and right now what looks like the outlook for the economy is trumping the outlook for inflation and concern over this opec cutback >> okay. so david, this is a very tough spot, i guess is the best way to put it for the fed right now if, in fact, we're seeing what steve has laid out in terms of divergence and convergence in certain parts of the financial markets because of this, what is the fed going to do is the big question >> so, dom, i think the story he laid out is right in terms of the ism kind of basically coming in and giving people a lot more

confidence and the prices paid looked quite good below 50 and everything was moving in the fed's direction and the other thing i would say just on your whole oil discussion is let's not get too caught up in the contract if we look at the end of december of 2024, oil's only up about a buck and a half today. i think this is probably a shorter term spike, at least the market is telling you that and remember, the fed looks at this as a very long term story. they're not thinking about inflation over the next month or two months or thinking about it over the next two, three, four quarters and years and one of the great pieces of news that came out was the university of michigan survey which i'm sure steve talked about last week showing the expectations are down since levels since april 2021 and the long-term inflation never went up. i think there's good news for

the fed and it will definitely complicate things and the most interesting thing at the moment is they sort of pulled back from the 50 because of sbd, and a lot of people are looking and kind of going, wait a minute, maybe that wasn't nearly as important as we thought it was it was much more about some bad regulation and some bad investment committee decisions at one very large bank, but it's not an endemic and systemic issue and that's the debate this time around at the fed meeting >> steve, this is an excellent point and it's not that long ago that you and i were on together talking about how this could be one of those, in fact, effective interest rate hikes and the failure of silicon valley bank as it's done the work for the fed for it and it seems like nobody is talking about the contagion effect of regional banks as much as they were just one to two weeks ago, so is that getting less complicated for the fed?

>> no, i'm a little traumatized by that, dom, from the previous experience and i'm afraid to sound all clear because these things have a way of operating like a wave that comes by you and then it hits you on the back side so i'm a little behind the market, and everything is okay, but you are right, and in the last week or so it looks like things are more quiet. the recent fed report showing that the flow out of the banks is less than it had been the takedown of lending at the fed is lower than it had been. i'll tell you who's talking about this and not so much in the systemic risk and the knock-on effect of credit tightening we did the cnbc wrap it up day being looking at gdp and what you see is the impact in the quarters of the second half of the year where the first half looks okay and it's the second half, dom, where we're showing

these negative quarterly numbers and you can see that they're looking at modestly positive or barely positive and now it's pretty solidly negative and a lot of the commentary i'm reading from forecasters, dom, is because of the potential knock-on effect of credit tightening. >> and not this risk >> david, we'll give the final word to you here this is something where the fed has to take into account has it changed your forecasts about when and where, if and when a recession were to happen here in the united states and if so, how deep does it go? >> again, dom, i think the oil story while interesting will definitely get the fed's attention and probably at the margin has their inflation radars a little heightened i think the fact that the back month contracts haven't moved that much and as sully pointed

out you see gas going the other way they'll take consolation to that and it will not play as much into the calculous as you would have thought sunday night when everything ripped up and we were moving ten or 20 basis points higher that the contract that steve was showing earlier it was a little bit of an overreaction and the ism kind of took it all out and the bigger story was much more what steve and i were discussing, how big and how important is the credit tightening and the market is divided on that and we'll learn more about it as time goes on, and what happened last week was great news and it shows that things are not heating up any further than they heated up and i'll take that as a positive. >> an incremental step in the right direction. david zervos and steve liesman, we'll see you soon. >> pleasure. >> only only a handful of stocks make up the market and can that continue and if so, what names are poised to outperform

we have evercore isi's mark mahaney joining us to discuss that leon cooperman says he's not surprised by the recent rally, but he says don't trust it we'll debate as we head out to break, let's get a quick check on the markets and a more mixed picture and still outperformance of the dow and outperformance on the nasdaq "the exchange" is back after this ♪ ♪ >> this is "the exchange" on cnbc - hiring is step one when it comes to our growth. we can't open a new shop or a new location without the right people in place. i couldn't keep up until i found ziprecruiter. ziprecruiter helps us get out there quickly and get us qualified candidates quickly. they sent us applicants that matched what i was looking for. i've hired for every role, entry-level technicians,

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welcome back to "the exchange," throughout the recent bank turmoil, tech has proven remarkably resilient the nasdaq is up 16% so far this year and coming off its best quarterly performance since the pandemic market rebound in the second quarter of 2020 it's not just the nasdaq

essentially all s&p 500 gains last quarter can be attributed to just five yes, five mega-cap stocks. we are talking nvidia, apple, microsoft, tesla and meta, but can those gains continue especially with the fed's fight against inflation just getting more complicated thanks to opec and its partner countries. joining us now is mark mahaney at evercore isi. mark, it's a confusing story and one that maybe doesn't seem so terrible given the fact that it's muscle memory tech has been an unbelievable momentum trade since the depths of the great financial crisis. does it continue that way? >> i'm not sure about all tech, but given the drubbing that most tech growth stocks had last year for a lot of which were for good reasons that was the interesting setup on the long side, we called ourselves tactically constructive and what's new to tech is layoffs.

we had the broadest or deepest range of layoffs and what it creates is the eps opportunities. so these companies clearly, most of them, overbuilt, everhired and posted a covid peak and as they matured into their growth a little bit it's time to take costs down and they're doing that, so it makes the free cash flow stories greater and the levels of innovation are greater and they've got this massive a.i. wave that we're trying to figure out and we can do it on the lower cost basis and the reasons they like tech in the past should be there now and the free cash flow is a greater king than it was in the past the greater king or queen and that's a good thing and they should be able to stick with tech. i put meta at the top of the list and even though it's had a big rally, it's still extremely cheap, i would argue. >> if meta is that play and i can think of other stocks that bottomed out for the time being and netflix is one of those

types of names and there's been this buy the dip trade i think the question now is has it run its course given the fact that interest rates are now a part of the discussion to the upside yet again. >> i don't think its run its course, but it depends on the company. one of the reasons i love meta is it's up 70% year to date and it's trading at 13 times earnings and it's the cheapest internet stock, but it's the cheapest quality tech name out there, and free cash flow ebitda or plain old-fashioned gap earnings and it's got some great product cycles and you mentioned netflix. netflix has got one and it's the roll out with the ad model that you took years kicking and screaming, but they've adopted it and that's the product cycle there. there are other names in the consumerer in the space and it's amazon and google and the numbers need to come down one more time whereasi with names

like meta, those stocks can still work >> you mentioned amazon. i'd just like to hit that only because it acts as a kind of indicator or bellwether for many parts of the economy and the retail side of things to help with the consumers, staples versus not, discretionary. is amazon one of those stocks that has the ability to find a catalyst in the next quarter or two to get materially moving to the upside what do those have to be for amazon to kind of resume an up trend as opposed to finding itself where it is right now >> we haven't had an up trend in amazon's stock in two years. it's the largest period of underperformance that i've seen in amazon's stock in well over a decade there are a lot of things at play here, and the near-term, the biggest sort of debate on amazon's stock is when is aws's growth going to stabilize? and when are the margins going to stabilize we're going through an

optimization cycle not with just aws, google cloud, oracle, et cetera, and so we need to get to the other side of that i think the other side is at the earliest the back half of this year and when the growth rate starts to stabilize at aws, then amazon's stock can very nicely outperform and the retail business is now in a better place versus those dramatic costs that they had to deal with, inflation costs, fuel, shipping, labor, et cetera, so the retail business, we think is fine in the back half of this year and hopefully not and it's the aws, and the cloud computing business that needs to stabilize first for amazon to work >> top pick for mark mahaney and its meta platform. we'll see you soon, mark >> thanks, dom >> plus we have home prices back on the rise with things going up in value and after wild swings and mortgage rates and one housing expert says don't expect gridlock in the market to improve any time soon and he'll

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welcome back to "the exchange." markets right now still in the green for the dow. now up 237 points and at the highs of the sessions we were up 358 to give you context about what's happening on the stock side of things, tesla is having its worst day in january after the first quarter delivery numbers fell short of some analyst expect eggs and those shares, by the way, are still up 58% so far this year. tesla down 7% today. elsewhere, extra space storage

is buying reit competitor life storage, real estate investment trust in an all-stock transaction and the values the combined company with $36 billion. the merger would create the country's biggest storage facility operator in terms of locations with over 3500 of them extra space down 5%. they're the acquirer and life storage up 3.5% and they're getting bought let's send it to tyler matheson for a news update. >> the japanese defense ministry holding an opening ceremony for the latest ground self-defense military base. 570 personnel will be deployed to the new base that has the capability to attack an enemy ship from land the opening of the base is located less than 200 miles from taiwan, comes amid escalating tension in the east china sea. back in the u.s. former arkansas governor asa hutchinson planning to run now for president in 2024. the republican politician will make a formal announcement later

this month hutchinson also calling on current gop frontrunner former president donald trump to drop out of the race in the wake of the indictment against him and meanwhile, former manhattan district attorney cyrus vance is warning he could face further trouble. vance is the man that began the investigation that led to donald trump's indictment and made the call as he called for a new judge to be appointed for his trial. >> tyler, thank you very much for the news update. coming up on the show, bank turmoil, inflation, and there have been a lot of headwinds for the market lately, but you wouldn't know it lkioong at the recent stock market rally. the question is will the rally last leon cooper mooman says no, but will debate it next.

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welcome back to "the exchange." the opec production cuts are renewing inflation worries and despite headlines over the last months, banks in crisis and sustained interest rate hikes and higher energy prices all three major averages are higher during that period, but omega's leon cooperman isn't putting too much faith in those gains. here's what he said on "squawk box" earlier this morning. >> generally the market bottoms are made on bad news and not tops so i'm not surprised about the rally, but i think it's kind of

running its course. >> run its course so says leon cooperman. how should you position now? let's bring in stephen whiting chief investment strategist, and peter favre, and also a cnbc contributor. gentlemen, thank you both for being here with us stephen, i'll throw it out to you first, leon cooperman, he says what he says, he's got a view is this the right time for people to be feeling safer about the markets or is there still caution to be had? >> when you've had negative events and there's apprehension and the rebounds can be fairly strong, yet at the same time, what we think is that the economy has a price to pay to keep the fed on hold, right? if you have taken down the expected fed funds rate mid-year by 100 basis points there should be something that's going on here and we think markets are pricing in probably too high a probability and we can have strong growth and fed easing at

the same time. these are concerns for us particularly when we look at the mid part of the year, the april through june quarter where earnings estimates saw a sharp rise from the first quarter. we think the economy will be in a lull in that period, and if it isn't, it can bring the fed back in >> so, peter, the interesting disconnect here is markets versus maybe you could argue some of the economic data versus where you could argue the fed wants to be with policy. is it dire who's got it right in this situation? >> it's not going to be dire, but we're on the cusp of a recession, if not in one and the banking situation just tips us right over because of the presence that small and mid-sized regional banks have in lending to small medium-sized businesses and the economy was in a fragile state to begin with and if you break it down, u.s. manufacturing a in's recession and housing essentially is in a

recession. capital spending is slowing. so it's just the consumer that's holding things up and even the consumer is now bifurcated depending on the being in scale and how sense of it you are to this inflation to me, it will be a messy earnings season and we'll see continued degradation which will lead to pickup in firing as companies try to regain profit margins. that's the next shoe here. we've seen layoffs in tech is mcdonald's the beginning that okay, maybe there's some rationalization even though it's small for mcdonald's and other companies will start to revisit their labor forces so there's a lot to play out here as the year progresses in the economy. >> one of the thing, steven over of the course of the last several weeks that many traders have been taken note of is real outperformance in the nasdaq versus say the russell 2000 small cap, okay? and they say that that divergence if you show a chart of the russell 2000, it tells

you a story about where the fear is and where the economic expectations are small-cap companies don't fare as well in economic downturns, is that what we should expect. does that market have it right >> that's where we are positioned and if you think about leveraged, cyclical companies and companies that don't have the resources again on their balance sheet to survive a cycle and you will find a lot of them have smaller cap companies and if you find the stronger balance sheets in non-cyclical industries, you probably want to migrate to large-cap software, for example. how that is played out in markets makes a bit of sense and how far it will go is really important going further, but just as peter said, banks are an important part of lending in the economy ask it's not just the bond market and we're seeing every single loan category before the turmoil began and the federal reserve recognizing this

or reacting to it is not by itself going to make it go away and we think commercial real estate exposure that you would expect from commercial and industrial loans and the business sector, this is a period where it's harder to grow >> i'll just follow up quickly here has created the economic stresses and opportunities and you mentioned high yield before. it's held up relatively well. >> not enough dislocation in the market for this. the markets, again, always looking past and looking past may be fine, but if you're looking for a big upturn in earnings and you already priced it in, that's the problem. that's the same conditions for a recovery are leading to a more strong market renow. so again, the very thing that you would discount in a recovery period we've already been enjoying it and it's dislooksly, the market for banks and i've seen a large drop in prices and industrial machinery and outside of energy, we can talk about

opec and a few other areas where we have problems, but everything associated with construction cycle and we have share prices near all-time highs as opposed to the banks last word to you, peter. if you look at everything that we talked about into account, there's got to be a positioning play and what's the opportunity in the next six months to me, the tech rally has been textbook and the fed's almost done and let's buy tech, and not remembering all of tech's customers and small and medium-sized businesses in particular are going to be suffering. so sell tech is an answer to your question and i think the energy stocks are still cheap. even with the rally today and we're pretty bullish and low on energy stocks. >> peter boockvar, and thank you both for being here and sharing your thoughts. >> a good salary doesn't translate into good money skills we'll take a look at the impact

of company-sponsoredinci fanal literacy benefits and initiatives on both employees and employers' bottom lines. that story is coming up for this financial literacy month in april.

welcome back to "the exchange," while health insurance and retirement savings are important workplace benefit, many companies are now also offering financial education benefits for employees cnbc senior personal finance correspondent sharon epperson join us with that story and the impact that it's having and by the way, sharon, our parent company also offers financial literacy, just to kind of put things in perspective. april is financial literacy month and financial education is not just for kids. in a new cnbc momentum survey 58% of adults now say they're living paycheck to pay check including a third of people who make six figures edwina irvin was living paycheck to paycheck until she took advantage of an employee assistance program that taught her how to deal with debt. >> it helped me work out a way to manage it better so that i had a balance between what i needed to pay and what i needed to live.

>> about 20% of employers offer non-retirement financial advice as a workplace benefit where irvin works is one of them >> the focus that you have on financial benefits, how has that changed over the last couple of years? >> the focus which was almost exclusively around the 401(k) is just not sufficient anymore. our employees are asking for help with all aspects of their financial life >> research shows that in the last year, employees who had access to financial education and tools like videos, classes and coaching were more likely to increase savings, feel less overwhelmed by debt and make progress toward their financial goals. financial literacy advocate laura levine says providing those resources through the workplace may not reach the most vulnerable employees. >> if it's an opt-in, you sometimes miss the people who need this because they're worried that if they take the course or take advantage of

what's being offered that people will judge them for what they don't know >> irvin wishes she had learned more about budgeting and financial planning much earlier for herself and her family >> we struggled for a very long time unnecessarily because we didn't have the knowledge, tools or skills to do to make things better. >> once she went through the employee assistance program, irvin raised her credit score, bought a house and now helps her parents with their finances. research shows employees who use financial education benefits are more loyal to their employers leading to prater retention and engagement at work. >> it's not a surprise if you succeed more financially in the environment that you're in, you tend to kind of stay in that environment for longer. i guess with that all being said, is there any one important lesson, i guess, that can be learned by employees and maybe by extension all adults with regard to financial literacy

>> well, there has been a lot of research about what do we know and what don't we know and one of the important lessons is comprehending risk which can lead to issues if you don't understand about mounting debt as well as investing appropriately for your future and it is something adult his difficulty grasping and that's by george washington university and the tia institute and i'll delve into the impact of assessing risk and closing the racial wealth gap tomorrow april 4th at cnbc's equity and opportunity forum. it starts at 3:00 pc.m. eastern time and you can register at cnbc.com i'm looking toforward to doing this with you. >> thank you very much we'll see you tomorrow, sharon >> after several months of declines, home prices are back on the rise. what's behind the reversal and what it means for the spring

housing season the all-important spring housing season that's coming up next. "the exchange" will be right back (fabric ripping) ooh. - wait, wh- wh- what was that? - huh? what, that? no, don't worry about that. here we go. - asking the right question can greatly impact your future. - are, are you qualified to do this? - what? - especially when it comes to your finances. - yeehaw! - do you have a question? - are you a certified financial planner™? - yes. i'm a cfp® professional. - cfp® professionals are committed to acting in your best interest. that's why it's gotta be a cfp®. find your cfp® professional at letsmakeaplan.org. ♪ the thought of getting screened ♪ ♪ for colon cancer made me queasy. ♪ ♪ but now i've found a way that's right for me. ♪ ♪ feels more easy. ♪ ♪ my doc and i agreed. ♪ ♪ i pick the time. ♪ ♪ today's a good day. ♪ ♪ i screened with cologuard and did it my way! ♪ cologuard is a one-of-a kind way to screen for colon cancer that's effective and non-invasive. it's for people 45 plus at average risk, not high risk.

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welcome back to "the exchange." for the first time in seven months home prices are on the rise new data out showing nearly 80% of the 50 largest u.s. markets on uptick this february, the strongest single month gain since going all the way back to last may that is thanks in part to lower mortgage rates, which had buyers rushing to take advantage if they could the rate on the 30-year fixed rate mortgage is down more than 7% over the last month it is up from the beginning of february what do the wild swings in interest rates and everything else mean for the spring housing season it's important let's dive into that with the vice president of enterprise research and of course our very own diana olick senior real estate correspondent diana, to you first for the bigger story before we get into andy this is a very important time

for the real estate market it is spring how is it shaping up >> reporter: it seems like a lot of competition out there it was surprising to see the competition come in the early part of the year, january and february we saw that big sales number in february jump 14.5%. those are contracts signed in december and january all because mortgage rates dropped down from their highs of october so we started to see a lot of buyers come back in and all the competition i am guessing is what put the pressure back on the prices again we went to several open houses in different cities in february and while everyone was concerned about mortgage rates rising they all said the same thing, there is still tons of competition and too little supply. we were actually talking about the possibility of prices going up look at that they did >> so, andy, this is a crazy price dynamic, a vicious cycle if you want to look at it that

way. it all depends on perspective. there is little housing and supply on the market it doesn't matter when it comes up it gets snapped up at whatever the asking price is and keeps feeding on itself. what exactly can break the cycle? >> that is really the challenge we face this year. it is as much about the supply side as the demand side. if you look at rate lock volumes in the optimal blue platform they've returned a little bit but are still running 10% to 15% below what they would traditionally be this time of the year you can tell the affordability constraint is still weighing on demand in the market at the same time we've seen supply fall for five consecutive months, almost half the level of inventory that we should 90% of markets are moving in the wrong direction in terms of inventory. there are lower levels of demand than you would traditionally see this time of year but it is bumping up against lower supply and causing these prices to harden. >> okay. so this is something that a lot of home owners in america especially those that have

refinanced mortgages or purchased homes, call it four to five years ago when interest rates were low, many of those people are now saying to themselves they are not going to move because what do they expose themselves to? having to find another place at a higher price with a higher interest rate on their mortgage. what exactly gets more supply on market if i and everybody else wants to stay in their homes because we have a lower carrying cost if we've done it in the last five years? >> especially the last couple years when rates were down to the sub 3% range that is the big question that the market is grappling with right now. there's not a simple answer. there's a very clear path on the demand side of how that gets back to normal you've seen that ebb and flow as rates have moved when interest rates got down near 6% you've seen the demand return you haven't seen interest rate movement at least to date impact sellers' willingness to sell it's just gotten worse and worse as we moved into early 2023.

there were 27% fewer homes listed in february up from 25% fewer in january so there is no real clear path i think builders are going to help the fact we've started to see transaction volumes bottom out and buyer sentiment return and the fact we've seen buyers willing to return when rates have fallen. i think you'll see some builders dip their toes back into the water here in those types of volumes rise but the lifeblood of the housing market is those existing home sellers. until we see a meaningful rebound there we'll be in a challenging inventory environment. >> diana, we'll give the last word to you here there have been a lot of interesting reports about where we are seeing some of the biggest increases in prices versus decreases, hot and cold markets. in just a few moments here, what is the most intriguing market dynamic to watch for in the coming months? >> well, i think as you said we're seeing the hottest of the hot markets cool the most and seeing the most affordable markets gain in price. that is the midwest.

of course we're seeing miami, just a whole nother story. it is just going to keep going higher what is interesting is the affordable markets, pittsburghs, clevelands, markets we don't think about so much, how many more people will start moving there because they are so much more affordable and push prices higher. >> thank you very much for the state of play in real estate that does it here for us on "the exchange." what you'll see right now on "power lunch" three names to buy in the face of resonecsi including one regional bank. and it starts after this keep it right here (vo) sail through the heart of historic cities

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welcome to "power lunch" everybody. along side contessa brewer i'm tyler matheson opec surprises the market with a cut sending oil prices higher and energy stocks with it. nasdaq pulling today