might own, you know, the mattress. charles: as a mattress owner, what about the stock? too early to tell? >> too early for me. charles: thank you very much. great job, as usual. liz claman, the dow up about 90 points. not bad. the last hour of trading, it always does something wild. liz: that's right. that's right. fourth day in a row that we could see gains once again. wall street's record run sprinting toward brand new finish lines as we head into the final hour of trade. you are in the right place. the dow, s&p and nasdaq all in the green, all on track to close at new all-time highs. while stocks jump, china slumps. the death toll from the wuhan coronavirus now vaulting over the 560 mark. china's economic slowdown driving oil into a bear hug. one u.s. company watching its bottom line getting clawed, oddly doesn't even use oil in its products. chevron phillips ceo is here on why, and this is a warning to

investors who may think that the stocks they own are not exposed to the deadly virus. a knockdown, drag-out fight breaking out between president trump and speaker nancy pelosi. the president using an expletive to blast democrats less than a day after being acquitted in his impeachment trial, while pelosi rips into trump, saying the impeachment scar is forever stamped on his legacy. does this mean gridlock forever in d.c., and what does that mean for your investments? we will take you to washington. and we take you to tinsel town where a waterlogged $100 million mega-mansion threatens neighbors below. real estate mogul mohammed hadid refusing a judge's order to tear it down now. we will tell you how close it might be to crashing down on neighbors, and yes, that mogul. our traders are here on whether the bulls have lost their minds or are right on track. and charlie breaks it on the

link between madoff and the mets. less than an hour to the closing bell. let's start "the claman countdown." liz: breaking news. dow jones is reporting that paul singer's elliott management hedge fund, an activist hedge fund, is building a stake in japan's softbank group worth more than $2.5 billion. according to sources, the activist investor is pushing hard to make changes that would boost softbank's share price. just the whiff of it is boosting shares. look at this intraday picture. jumping 9% after not moving for much of the session. softbank right now at $22.98. accordingly, paul singer also has met with management that includes founder masayoshi son who has come under fire recently for his absolutely disastrous

investment in dwewework, the co-working real estate company. american depositary receipts soaring at the moment. we will keep an eye on this story because it is developing as we speak. remember our peloton bull/bear debate yesterday, a little feisty? it seems for now bear thomas george, who famously called the subscription based bike company the dum-dum ipo of 2019, has won. i stress for now, because things could change. shares of peloton plummeting even though it reported a narrower than expected loss. revenues rose 77% and subscriptions, subscribers grew 96%. you've got the stock down 10.66%, grinding to a near halt because the spin bike giant's third quarter forecast is short of estimates. but at least not one, not four, but six brokerages are still pedaling along. they raised their price targets believing that peloton will be on the path eventually to profitability.

also lower, gopro. cue the action video from the action camera company. yes, you would think this a company and a product that could take these types of pictures would do well, but it did report lower than expected sales in its holiday quarter. that's gopro. it too is falling 9%. it's a $3.97 stock. twitter flying straight to the top of the s&p 500 as quarterly revenue there hit $1 billion for the first time ever. the stock is up 16%. this is a five-year chart, you can see what a drop it's been since it began trading in late 2015. let's look at that ipo. casper sleep, starting its first day of trade today and it surged. opening more than two bucks above the company's public offering price of $12, which was at the low end. the company that sells direct to consumer bed products mostly mattresses that pop right out of the box, rose as high as 28% to the upside despite pricing at the low end of the range, which

was around $12 to $13 which had been brought down from around $17. its unicorn status, meaning it's $1 billion, it is gone as its valuation is now about $575 million. let's just check casper again. cspr. right now it is seeing gains of 16%. speaking of ipos, elon musk runs spacex, which is still priva private. he's considering taking its satellite based broadband business public according to the company's chief operating officer. quick check of musk's other side business, hardly, that would be tesla. turning around after falling 17% yesterday but it's got a long way to go before it erases that loss. it's up just under 2%. okay. with the markets on pace for record closes again, we want to bring your attention to a new study from m.i.t. sloan school of management and state street

associates that says, okay, i'm just reporting this, that there's a 70% chance that a recession will occur in the next six months. we had those types of predictions last year that did not come to pass so how did these two come to conclusions here? the researchers analyzed four market factors, industrial production, non-farm payroll, stock market returns and the slope of the yield curve, all on a monthly basis. then get this, they used the mahalanobis distance, that's the measure initially used to analyze the human skull to compare current market conditions to prior recessions. all right. you put that all into the cauldron, what pops out. they found when the index tops 70% the likelihood of recession in the next six months rose to 70%. as of last november, the reading was at 76%. so we know the space is littered with people who have been wrong about a coming recession, yet

there is a lot of froth out there in the market. look at this chart from wisdom tree. looks like high price to earnings stocks, meaning they are traded way above what they are expected to earn, have been outperforming the lower pe stocks more in the past ten years than they did in the ten years leading up to the dot-com bust. see, if you look all the way back there, right there, stw'01 you can so before you saw the dot-com bust, high pes outperformed by 2.7%. right now it stands at 2.9%. do you agree or disagree? is history i wouldn't say about to repeat itself but maybe rhyme, or will we see a rejection of the historic theory and why? to the floor show traders. sarge, you can take first crack at this. >> oh, thanks. by the way, thanks for mentioning the dot-com crash. have i ever told you about my worst trade ever? let's go on. liz: tell me.

>> i actually spent an afternoon trying to re-engineer the work so i could figure it out. this is a measure of distance between two plus points if multi-variant space. the accuracy of this model has been questioned in major mathematical publications in 1993, 1998 and 2016. now, the four variables, non-farm payroll, stock market returns, slope of the yield curve, and industrial production. apparently you need to have inverse values in order to correlate the matrix so you can check the work. anyone want to forward me the inverse value for the slope of the yield curve or industrial production, non-farm payrolls? i don't know if you can check this work. what they did not consider is consumer confidence, the ability of central banks to add and subtract liquidity almost upon necessity, and that this is an election year. they're not crazy, though. what i follow is the velocity of money. the velocity of money, whether you use m-1, m-2 or m zero maturity, has been in decline for a full year now. you need the velocity of money

to be the volume that fills the box that is this economy if the economy can sustain its size. so they are kind of warm, almost on the right track. i just don't think we see this recession until after the election. liz: okay. he's calling it horse efeathers phil. >> if you see the groundhog, we are six months away from recession. look, what's going on in the global economy right now, i will point out one obvious flaw when they look at the price to earnings ratios and compare it to past recessions. there's a lot less stocks in the marketplace than there were during the dot-com crisis. there were a million dot-com companies now. if you look at the price to earnings ratio stocks, we were talking initially like netflix, right, the buildup of companies like amazon and things like that. it's not like there's nine million stocks. so that's very misleading, you can throw that out. you can also look at the weight of inflation and interest rates which are at historic lows right

now. liz: can i just say, though, did you hear about ken griffin, the huge hedge fund manager, speaking at the economic council of new york today, and he said that we are nowhere near prepared for spiking inflation. that's what ken griffin said. it's not here now, absolutely not, i would agree with president trump and everybody else, and you, but boy, ken griffin, who got to ring the opening bell there -- >> with the inflation thing, i agree. but that's the thing. we don't have it. that's another thing that doesn't compare to other recessions. in other recessions, you started to see the economy heat up. that hasn't happened. that's the problem for the fed right now. they want to become more normalized on interest rates but they can't because there's no inflation. that tells me that until we see that inflation, that might be the first sign a recession is coming. we're not seeing it. we're not even close to it. when that happens, i will start to worry. liz: okay.

>> you know what makes these guys right? if they end up being right? if this virus gets out of china in a big way. liz: that is huge. >> that would slow economic activity. liz: i would say it's already out. i'm going on the record as saying it is my personal opinion the numbers are far underreported and it is worse. but we won't know because, you know, we depend on the chinese for those numbers. gentlemen, thank you. sarge and phil. two of our favorites. to the white house right now. total acquittal. president trump saying it's a quote, gorgeous word in his response to the senate finding him not guilty in yesterday's impeachment vote. the president blasted house leadership in hour-long remarks, a few expletives burst out there. he questioned what could have been accomplished on infrastructure, drug prices and health care if all the impeachment energy had been poured into helping the american people. blake burman was in the east room for the remarks. you are live from the white house. i think we saw him speak and then somebody said he's coming back, so there was a little

encore performance there. reporter: it was an hour and a minute long, i believe. i timed it earlier today there in the east room, the scene of some of the biggest events over here at the white house in the last few weeks. the president described that event earlier today, not as a press conference, not as a speech. instead he said it was a celebration, as he put it. both at the national prayer breakfast here in washington earlier this morning and then also as well back here at the white house this afternoon. the president even held up newspapers at certain points with the headline as you can see there, trump acquitted. another newspaper which he held up that said acquitted. however, in a couple different points during his victory lap speech, if you want to call it that earlier today, the president also lamented how all of the impeachment oxygen or all the impeachment talk in what's been going on with that sort of sucked all the oxygen or at least a lot of it out of washington versus that being spent on other issues that he thinks deserved more attention. listen here to the president from earlier today. >> think what we could have done if the same energy was put into

infrastructure, prescription drug prices. think of what we could have done. they took nothing. they took a phone call that was a totally appropriate call. i call it a perfect call because it was. and they brought me to the final stages of impeachment. but now we have that gorgeous word, i never thought a word would sound so good. it's called total acquittal. reporter: you heard the president mention infrastructure and reducing drug prices. the president has been talking about democrats and republicans for years potentially tackling those two issues but you have to wonder how anything here in washington gets done with this environment at this point in time. for example, earlier today, the president laughed at nancy pelosi's assertion that she prays for him. pelosi responded this way. >> when people use faith as an

excuse to do, i don't know if he said bad things, but whatever he said, was just so completely inappropriate, especially at a prayer breakfast. he's talking about things that he knows little about, faith and prayer. reporter: both the president and the house speaker today attended the national prayer breakfast here in washington. they were both up on the dais there, probably not much more than 20, 30 feet away from each other. not once did they engage with each other. you are talking about the president of the united states and the speaker of the house, two of the most powerful people and president trump, we heard him say today on a couple different occasions that he believes that even though all of this is over for the moment, that the investigations from democrats will continue. liz: blake, thank you very much for bringing up that. all right. when the countdown to the closing bell returns, we see the dow up 72 points. we are going to talk about companies that have exposure to the coronavirus, even if you

don't think they would. you need to hear this from a ceo who is experiencing just that.

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chart for you. what a slide. nearly 20% knocked off the price of crude, leaving it drowning in a bear market since about january 8th, when the coronavirus fears punched chinese demand squarely in the face. chevron phillips chemical has no manufacturing plants in china and does not use oil in its myriad products, which are in everything from adhesives to dry cleaning, photography, even the scent put into natural gas. so why is the coronavirus crashing into chevron phillips' bottom line or bumping up against it? the ceo and president is here in a fox business exclusive to give, i guess, a warning to investors who think their investments or their stocks have no exposure to china. why do you, when you don't use oil and you don't have manufacturing in china? >> china is a huge market. we are a global player in the businesses we're in, whether it's gas or polyethylene and it's a huge market. we are watching it very carefully. it hasn't had a huge impact on

our demand yet, but it has that potential. what we are focused on today is the health and wellbeing of our employees in china. liz: how many? >> we have about 100 employees in china, about 300 in singapore and so we are focused on making sure they are taking precautions to protect themselves. from a business perspective, though, we have been protecting ourselves for something like this for over 20 years. we have a strategy to put our assets to make investments where we can access the lowest cost raw materials that are important for our business and make sure that those raw materials are abundant so we can survive in any environment. we didn't predict this kind of headwind but we are well positioned to thrive during this. liz: let's talk, though, about why and it's almost a circuitous route to the real issue, competitors of yours who do use crude oil in their products which are similar to yours. actually now they have to pay less for crude oil and doesn't that then hurt the margins on your side? >> we have been dealing with volatility in crude oil for the

last five or six years. so again, when you look at the value, in the middle east we have a large presence, or in the u.s. gulf coast, we have a large and growing presence, that ethane molecule is still way below the value of crude oil. so we can compete anywhere in the world, even at these oil prices. liz: your company is a joint venture between chevron and phillips. explain i guess in essence how you make your products. >> sure. we take -- our primary product line is to take ethane, one of the lowest hydro carbons on the planet, and convert it, think about it as the basic tinnitink in the petrochemical industry. our primary product line is polyethylene. polyethylene goes into everything to kayaks. it consumes half produced around the globe. liz: plastic makers' stocks are

falling and obviously it's because at least in some plastics you do have petrol. >> true. we have had head winds over the last year or so in the coronavirus is just the latest one. the trade wars were very impactful on our business. it caused us to redirect trade flows, absolutely. we are true believers in free and fair trade and we want the chinese to behave well with respect to trade but we've got the supply chain out there and the global presence to redirect our trade flows to mitigate some of the impact but it was negative. liz: in this day and age you have to be malleable and fleet of foot. we have news that china and the chinese oil company owned by the state has declared a force majeure on liquid gas contracts that was unforeseen. therefore they might not honor some of those contracts. is it fair to say ex that issue that this story is far from told

when it comes to the coronavirus? >> the chinese government is taking the coronavirus seriously and are cracking down hard on preventing its spread which means it will be disruptive for business in china. i think that's what you're seeing. they are trying to protect themselves. they don't want to be awash in lng. they probably can't store it all. they have to take steps now to prevent that. chinese new year is always impactful. the entire country goes on vacation for a couple weeks and then when you add the coronavirus impact on to that, it's going to be impactful. but there's parallels there to the sars virus that hit almost 20 years ago. there was a rapid, quick decrease in economic activity but a very equally quick rebound when the virus passed. liz: good to see you. thank you for opening a window into sort of there are fewer degrees of separation even for a company that doesn't manufacture in china. we wish your employees on the ground good luck and good health. >> thanks. appreciate it. liz: "the claman countdown" will be right back. the dow losing some steam here,

folks. we are up 44 points at the moment. at the high it was a gain of 117. we are watching every tick of it for you. hey, saved you a seat.

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liz: all right. we need to just giveou a couple numbers here. number one, the dow is straddling that record close level. we need to be up 57 points to hit a brand new record. right now, we're up 59. but we started to come down just a little bit on perhaps this breaking news of a dow component, johnson & johnson. the stock is down but barely, quarter of a percent here. johnson & johnson, this just hitting the tape, has been ordered to pay punitive damages of $750 million in a new jersey talcum powder case. there were a couple issues with the talcum powder. there were accusations that it caused cancer and then there were other accusations that there was asbestos in it which proved, according to a bunch of reports, that that was not true,

but at the moment, we are watching johnson & johnson, stands at $153.65, down 34 pennies on the news that there will be an order to pay about $750 million in damages. living on the edge literally. luxury luxury real estate developer not just refusing but upping his foot against a judge who has ordered him to tear down his mega-mansion in hollywood. the star best known for appearances on the real housewives of beverly hills and because of his super model daughters, gigi and bella, battling a court order to demolish that monstrosity, partially finished bel air mansion built without proper approval and broke all kinds of laws. robert gray, you went out and shot this video. the thing does not look good. it's apparently waterlogged. what do you know? reporter: it's hard to get to the actual house.

it's surrounded by private drives and private homes. we were able to get, what you can see from the footage, as close as we could get underneath it. as you said, forget hdtv, this story is more akin to a long-running reality show. very fitting given the developer mohammed hadid's "real housewives" appearances. he made his name creating and selling mega-mansions in l.a.'s most exclusive neighborhoods. of course, the star power of his super model daughters, gigi and bella, keeping this in the media here in l.a. nonstop over the past almost nine years. the setting promised unobstructed views clear out to the sea but the house hadid began building was not the one permitted by the city. he's pleaded no contest to charges of violating city permits. the neighbors living below the home say they are worried, you are looking at some of the sighting there, the house will slide off its perch or tumble down the hill on to their homes. these residents successfully sued to halt construction and are seeking to demolish the

house they dubbed the starship enterprise for its saucer shape. they claim he cut corners by violating numerous building codes including removing too much dirt, not securing the foundation and building the structure nearly twice as high as approved. hadid countersued the neighbors and his attorney told me that allegations are unfounded that hadid bribed city officials to overlook his code violations. the developer shell company owns the property and recently tried to file bankruptcy but that was dismissed. so now a judge has indeed ordered the structure torn down, appointing a receiver to oversee its demolition. hadid's attorney telling me they have appealed the court's demolition order, instead offering a new plan approved by an architect and structural engineer to retrofit the foundation, complete construction and landscape the property, claiming it can be done for less than $15 million. the attorney says he can finance completion and a sale but cannot finance demolition of the house. hadid has already sunk more than 50 million bucks into the home,

$28 million of that in loans. that takes you to about $65 million that would need to put a hefty price tag to sell that and make any kind of profit. liz: i can understand why the neighbors are terrified. land of earthquakes. robert, thank you. robert gray. lyft getting left behind. the closing bell ringing in 28 minutes. dow is up 67 points. yes, that would be a record if we close right here. the ride hailing company stuck in reverse for a second straight day, down about 1.9% after general motors confirmed it's ditching its stake in the now ten month old publicly traded company for opportunistic reasons. investors taking the opportunity to sell lyft and what you are looking at here is lyft having racked up 6% losses in just the past two sessions. gm, while up yesterday, slightly in the red today. in other ride sharing news, uber beat analyst expectations

when it reports its latest results after the bell. our all-star panel, a power panel, on how uber might deliver in its latest results. "the claman countdown" coming right back. at fidelity, online u.s. stocks and etfs are commission-free. and when you open a new brokerage account, your cash is automatically invested at a great rate. that's why fidelity leads the industry in value while our competition continues to talk. ♪ talk, talk while our competition continues to talk. i've been through two tours of duty, and luckily, i came home with my health. but what almost ended up taking me down... was a stroke. i thought i was invincible. but it's really humbling to face an enemy you don't see coming. fortunately, life line screening showed me i was at risk. life line screening is the easy and affordable way to make you aware of undetected health problems before they hurt you. after all, 4 out of 5 people who have a stroke, their first symptom is a stroke! we use ultrasound technology to literally look inside your arteries for plaque that builds up as you age-

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liz: uber's kind of on the hot seat at this hour, even though the stock is moving higher by about a percent. it's got to after the bell show it can generate profits. the company set to report results after the bell at the very top of the hour. we are about 23 minutes away from that. uber's release of its fourth quarter results comes as news that uber's self-driving cars are now allowed back on california roads. the decision comes nearly two years after one of uber's autonomous cars was involved in a fatal crash in arizona. so now the question is uber's stock poised for some type of significant rebound or are investors in for a rough road ahead? let's bring in to find out what

investors can expect wedbush chief technology strategist brad gastworth along with market watch technology editor jeremy owens. brad, to you first. your team recently upgraded uber. what are you expecting on profitability, when, where, how, if at all? >> yeah. liz, it's really the most important question. you need to have dara talk about profitability and having it come sooner rather than later. clearly in the near term they are not going to be profitable. the question is how much will they lose. the recent sale is important. that will create more profitability or allow profitability sooner rather than later. they spent a tremendous amount of money on the uber eats brand and you know, that's one of the things that i think investors want to hear about, if they can tail that back a little bit and actually become profitable quicker. liz: he said in the near term, jeremy. this time around they are expected to lose a billion in the quarter. this from a company that is making so much money, but they have a lot of issues and a lot of mouths to feed when you talk about whether it's the drivers

or dealing with growth or advertising, or fighting regulation, right? >> um-hum. yeah, for sure. they are fighting ab-5, they are going to court to fight california state law that could force their drivers to become employees and they are going to try to keep that from happening. they also tried allowing drivers to set their own rates as a way to respond to that, if they are allowed to set their own rates, maybe they will get past that without having to count them as employees. you are dealing with a company that's really two different businesses in terms of ride hailing and food delivery, in very different growth spurts and very different times in their maturation, with them selling that indian business, it's very akin to selling their chinese ride hailing business three and a half years ago. that just shows you how different paths these two are on in their road to maturation. liz: brad, you like the uber eats piece of this. but down the line, we tried to look way down the line instead of just telling our vouiewers

what's happening at this second, would activist investors force them to maybe spin off uber eats? am i out of my mind here? >> no, liz, i think that's the right thought. i thought ultimately that's the plan the company has. i think it's going to ultimately, they are going to have two separate businesses and have them run autonomously. i think it's really important for them to be run separately. i think that's the strategy. both of them are significant open-ended growth opportunities. the problem with the eats and the delivery side is that the competition there is very aggressive with what's happening with grub hub, with door dash, there's a tremendous amount of money being spent and that's just, again, that's bad for profitability. on the ride delivery side or on the ride sharing side, sometime in the near future, near future say two to three years down the road, you will have some autonomous vehicles and that's another thing uber will benefit from. so there's a lot of positives to look at on the medium to long term. again, the most important thing here is profitability. that's what investors care about and investors want to hear what

he has to say in the near term. liz: yeah. quick check on tesla. i have to bring it up, jeremy, because you watch this stock very closely and the company certainly. it had looked pretty ugly before the bell and now you see it is moving higher at the moment by just a third of a percent. what a tear. does it continue? >> i can't even guess about tesla at this point. i look at what a company is doing, i look at their stock price, and these two don't seem to correlate in any way. so it's really hard to guess what people are going to do, because this is such a people-driven stock at this point. are there a bunch of retail investors in there buying right now, it's going up. if not, it's going down. it's impossible to know. liz: all right. it's great to see both of you. brad, jeremy. we have the numbers coming out right after the bell. you've got to stay tuned for uber's numbers and when we come back, an update on the johnson & johnson ruling. we are looking at the stock right now. it's now just nearly flat at the moment. you've got to hear this story, it is a dow component. we are in record territory for

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liz: we want to get you what is very much a developing story right now. johnson & johnson, there was a verdict that was just announced. the verdict was that damages would have to be paid around $750 million in a new jersey talcum powder case, but now the judge apparently indicating that the punitive damages could be reduced to $186.5 million. so that is a big cut there. the company also says that it will quickly move forward with an appeal of both phases of the new jersey talc trial. of course, the talcum powder, baby powder had been questioned as to whether it caused cancer and connell mcshane, we are

watching this stock flat but it is a dow component so it's a very important story here. connell: that is a big cut. in the scheme of things, whether it's 180 or 700 million for johnson & johnson, maybe it's not a ton of money but it's a big difference, one to the other. you're right. next hour, we will cover all of that and see how the markets close. we also have kind of an interesting story, i think. i don't know if you remember the guy ran the marathon, it wasn't oh fushlfficially sanctioned bun in under two hours and he was wearing a version of these shoes you see from nike. nike is coming out with these commercial version of these controversial shoes. you see the big sole at the bottom. we'll see. it's going to be a big seller for them. we will talk about that. liz: the controversy is that somehow, that's cheating. that's ridiculous. connell: yeah. i'll take it, no matter how i run. liz: unless there's a motor and pistons inside there. connell: that's what i thought. the big sole and the cushion.

it's interestingme. we will talk about that and see how the market finishes up. liz: connell, thank you. look forward to that. it's the version, at least the business version, of the kevin bacon game. with 13 minutes, call it 12 before the closing bell rings, up next, what are the new york mets losing their financial hopes have to do with the worst of the worst ponzi schemers ever? bernie madoff? charlie breaks it on the six degrees of separation. "the claman countdown" is coming right back. our retirement plan h voya gives us confidence. we can spend a bit now, knowing we're prepared for the future. surprise! we renovated the guest room, so you can live with us. i'm good at my condo well planned, well invested, well protected. voya. be confident to and through retirement. it's unacceptable that americans pay vastly more than people in other countries, for the exact same drugs. but they aren't listening. they've just raised the prices of over five hundred drugs.

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liz: closing bell, fewer than nine minutes away, and we are looking at a trifecta of records. so any gain for the s&p 500 and the nasdaq are all-time highs. the dow has to be up more than 57 points. it's above that right now, it's up 70. turns out it is a small world after all. just as bernie madoff is back in

the news begging for a jail break due to failing health, one of his ponzi scheme victims also making headlines in his effort to recover his lost fortune. not going well, charlie gasparino. charlie: yes, that would be mets owner fred wilpon. here's what we reported earlier today. it has now been confirmed by major league baseball, bob manfred, the ceo of major league baseball. that deal that was highly touted between hedge fund steve cohen, billion dollar heir, he runs a hedge fund, that deal where he was going to buy 80% of the mets is off. steve cohen has walked away from the deal. sources tell fox business. as i say, mr. manfred, mlb commissioner, now confirmed it. he said at the owners meeting down in orlando, which is taking place right now, there is no deal as far as he's concerned. liz: so rob manfred -- charlie: confirmed the story

from earlier today. there is no deal. now, i would point out that i have been told by a lot of baseball executives while there's no deal like now, it's done, steve cohen has walked away, the latest reports as of early today, there was a snag and they are working through it. i understand it's done, okay. now, could it come back is the real question. and you know, i think there is more than a theoretical chance it could come back. why is that? because mr. wilpon basically is cash short, he does own the team and the team is worth a lot of money, and you know, cohen's investment in this team boosted up the value of the mets. it was like, this is not the new york yankees franchise. this is a franchise that hasn't won in many years, had some problems on the financial books, but it did boost up the value. so this thing is now worth something like, i don't know, $3 billion based on him buying, you know, 80% for about $2.6 billion -- liz: where does madoff come in? charlie: my point is he may have to turn back to this.

what is the madoff connection? mr. wilpon lost a lot of money in bernie madoff's hedge fund that blew up and that's why the mets are in such -- that's why he had to go -- liz: 11 years later? charlie: yes. it's a lot of money. when you lose hundreds of millions of dollars, you don't have the financial resources. as most people know by now, bernie madoff, after serving about 11 years, i think he went to jail 2009, is now seeking early release from his 150 year sentence. he's 81 years old, said he has terminal kidney disease and he wants out. the real question is, why does he want out. i think one reason why is you saw how bernie ebbers, remember another fraudster, got out? liz: he actually was dying. charlie: he did die last weekend. we should point out the scale of worldcom cannot be matched by the scale -- people killed themselves including his son over the aftermath of this

thing. so i think the feds are going to be hard-pressed to let him out early, unless he's literally, you know, hours to live. as you look, look at bernie ebbors, i think they let him out last month and he died about a month later. liz: he had served multiple years. charlie: he served 15 years. bernie madoff has served 11. again, the scale is not the same. the human toll is not the same. i would just be surprised if a federal judge, you have to petition a federal court to commute the sentence, would go there. the other thing that's fascinating, i know they are telling me to wrap. he's trying to say i want to spend some remaining time with loved ones. he doesn't have a lot of loved ones. both his combragrandkids, his wife is estranged. i don't think the family has much contact with him. i don't know if the family wants

that. liz: it is a mess. >> the whole thing ace mess. i don't think he will get out early. we'll see what happens. liz: charlie, thank you very much. maybe a mess for the bulls but not for the. t-mobile out ahead of the bell. t-mobile up a percent. >> that is a charlie gasparino favorite to talk about. the expectations are high. 86 cents for earning for t-mobile. one of the metrics that investors look for with this stock is paid subscribers. they preannounced january 7th, 1.3 million that was a good number that help the stock alot. but still merger conversations where t-mobile is going, with respect to sprint of course, getting approval from the federal regulators but the states are still pushing back.

it is something to watch for, as the company talks about it at all. i will say this wall street analysts very bullish. 80% have buy or equivalent rating. nobody has a sell on this stock. liz: we'll watching it. still with all of that over its head, good to see you, jackie. the results are in from the annual london bullying market association survey. analysts there say gold is in for a 12% rise in 2020. this after an 18% jump last year. but could that be too conservative? so what we thought is, bring in one of the gold bulls. or should we call you a gold bug? good to see you. we're talking to michael cuggino. too conservative? >> how are you, liz? you know, i don't know. we don't make predictions on price movement. what i can tell you what i feel

confident saying, given where we are in the gold market we'll likely see an increase in value over time. i look at central bank buying. i look growth economy, a hedge against inflation. i look at risks out there in the world. gold will work for investors either way. if you have recessionary scenario or a slowdown, it will act as risk-off asset to give you protection on the downside. if you have growth economy, rising interest rates, rising inflation. gold will act as a hedge against erosion of purchasing power in that scenario. i see it as a benefit either way for a part of somebody's portfolio. liz: i get that. can i interrupt you? >> sure. liz: i get that. we heard from many a gold bug, i understand it but gold is behaving in an interesting way. let me check it. as we look at gold it is important to note it continues to rise even on a day where we have record after record. it is almost like its now as a fear trade but as really a legitimate part of people's

portfolios? >> well i would say the moment it is trading in accordance maybe optimistic or growth forecast. in that situation, you know you likely to see inflation at some point in that scenario. and, gold would be, move in that direction. gold correlates to all kinds of things at all different times. usually it is in the short term. i wouldn't attribute anything to a long term move in terms of correlations. you're absolutely right. it recently correlated up in the same way equities correlated up. that i would argue, viewpoint of the investor community we may have resumption of growth. maybe slowdown last year is over. and gold would trade, you know, in accordance with that the other thing you have a lot of central bank buying globally. you have accommodative or at least, fed on the sidelines for a while. accommodative policy in china. these are all bullish factors as well. liz: michael, thank you very much. we're looking at money raining

down. the bull bash continues. records across the board for major averages. [closing bell rings] i'm so glad you're here to witness another three in a row. dow, s&p, nasdaq all in never-before-seen territory. that will do it for "the claman countdown." connell: another day of records on wall street. all three major averages at record highs. fourth day in a row we've seen it. we have china cutting tariffs on imports into the u.s. some argue easing of political uncertainty now that we're past impeach and everything. i don't know. the way we got past it, president trump taking his version of a victory lap at white house following the senate acquittal in his impeachment trial. in the midst of all that, the dow closes up by 88 points. the sixth record close we've had this year. good to be with you. only thursday by the way. i'm connell mcshane. melissa: feels like f