businesses, the quicker we can get out of this, assuming we do a good job fighting this virus nationwide. maria: yeah. some of them certainly know the emergency of this and the urgency of that, people need this money right now. great show, everybody. see you again tomorrow. "varney & company" begins right now. thanks, everybody, for joining us. stu, take it away. stuart: i shall indeed. good morning, maria. good morning, everyone. the senate has agreed on the largest stimulus package ever. $2 trillion, perhaps more eventually, will be going into the american economy pretty quickly. a vote is expected soon. the bill will now be considered by house democrats led by speaker pelosi. no timetable on when a final bill will appear or precisely what will be in it. the market greeted this agreement at first with another rally. futures have been volatile all morning as investors try to figure out if the stimulus package will actually work. the dow at the moment shows a

gain of about 170 points, after the biggest one-day gain since 1933. that was yesterday. today might be a different story. at the moment we are looking at a gain of 166 for the dow, a drop for the nasdaq, maybe down 34 points, and the s&p down about 11. mixed picture this morning as investors try to get to grips with this new package and what it means for the economy. also influencing the market, the president's statement that he would love and he used the word three times, he would love to get the economy back up and running by easter. that's just two and a half weeks from now. it is a goal rather than an absolute. critics say it's just too soon and many state and local governments reject the president's time frame. meanwhile, the call for domestic travel restrictions keeps on growing. some officials at the white house suggested that anyone leaving the new york city metropolitan area should be confined to 14 days quarantine.

as of now, lockdown, stay-at-home orders are in place for well over half the country. much of the economy is, in fact, shut down. boy, do we have dramatic news from overseas. prince charles, heir to the british throne, has tested positive for the virus. this reinforces the view that the virus crosses all lines, anyone can get it. that's the backdrop to today's program. the stimulus, the market and the goal of opening the economy up a little by easter. let's get started with hillary vaughn joining us from washington, d.c. hillary, tell us as clearly as you can what's in the stimulus package. reporter: this package focuses on three things, workers, small businesses and large corporations. for workers, the minority leader chuck schumer is bragging this is unemployment insurance on steroids, meaning the government is guaranteeing workers full pay if they are laid off as a result

of the coronavirus. it also extends this unemployment insurance for four months. for small businesses, $367 billion. this also includes a retention tax credit that incentivizes small companies to retain their existing work force. that way when things go back to normal, they can start back up with their existing work force. for large corporations, a $500 billion treasury fund but that comes with strings attached. inspector general and oversight board, realtime reporting of the transactions coming out of this fund and restrictions on those companies that accept this money. no stock buy-backs, no bonuses for ceos. you are also seeing $150 billion for state and local governments. this is disaster relief as part of this. we are expecting the vote to happen sometime after noon when the senate convenes for business today and the big question here, will pelosi approve this bill by unanimous consent. she released a statement a few moments ago saying she needs to look at the final text and decide what course of action

makes sense to take from here. stuart? stuart: thanks very much. that is the deal as we see it right now. an enormous amount of money flowing directly to individuals, companies and whole industries. let's go to the side here and ask ashley webster about prince charles. tell me exactly what's happened. ashley: yeah. as you said at the top of the show, he has tested positive for the coronavirus, buckingham palace saying they have no idea where he may have contracted this, but he is currently at balmoral castle in scotland. we understand the duchess of cornwall tested negative so they are self-isolating up in scotland. we understand a number of the household staff also now are self-isolating at home. we are told also from buckingham palace that the queen herself is in very good health. we also understand, the bbc is reporting that the queen will speak to the nation.

a time has not been sorted out yet. buckingham palace saying they don't want the message to get in the way of more important announcements by the government, but we will be hearing from the queen addressing the nation at some point. but again, prince charles who had his last public appearance on march 12th, has tested positive. he's reporting mild symptoms and says he's in very good spirits and is just doing what everyone says you should do and remaining by himself for the next 14 days. stuart: we hear you. a lot more on that coming up for sure. and what else is going on overseas. right now, i want to get back to what the president said about opening up the economy by easter. let's hear exactly what he said. roll tape, please. >> we're opening up this incredible country because we have to do that. i'd love to have it open by easter. okay. i would love to have it open by easter. i will tell you that right now. i would love to have that, it's

such an important day for other reasons but i'll make it an important day for this, too. i would love to have the country opened up and just raring to go by easter. stuart: liz peek, fox news contributor, joins us now. liz, welcome to the program. the critics say this is just too soon. what do you say? >> well, look, i think the president is trying to balance the needs of the economy against the needs of keeping americans safe and he's not saying that they are going to push a button and everything is going to go back to normal on easter. what he's really talking about, stuart, is a transition back to allowing more people to go back to work, perhaps invoking different kinds of safety standards like keeping people over the age of 60 or whatever sequestered while younger healthier people go to work. in other words, let's look at the safety protocols and by the

way, a lot more concern i think is going to be triggered tomorrow when we see the first unemployment claims that will really reflect what is going on in our economy. the states that are shut down in the united states account for about 40% of gdp, stuart. we are going to see a giant unemployment claims number tomorrow and i think that's going to bring home to people the damage that's being done. so i think what the administration is trying to do is figure out are there different protocols to keep americans safe and yet also begin to think about getting our economy up and running again. stuart: yeah. i just saw it as a goal, an objective. not an absolute. as you said, the president is not saying all right, we open up completely, two and a half weeks from now we will open everything up. he's not saying that. he's saying repeatedly i would love to get people back to work. so last word from you, i see it as a goal. how about you?

>> i think it's totally aspirational and i think the entire country shares that goal. look, nobody wants this to go on for weeks or even months, and some of the gloomier forecasts have talked about that. we can't afford it. i just can't help but think as testing becomes more available, as all the auto companies start producing more ventilators and the risk of our hospitals being overwhelmed recedes, i think this is a goal worth keeping in mind and again, it can be a transition. it's not stop/start. it's talking about some of those states where there are very few incidents of this disease, maybe ramping up production, going back to work in ways that new york, for example, cannot. i think it's a goal and i think boy, it's a worthy one as we are going to see tomorrow. stuart: got it. hold on for a second. let me get back to the subject of your money. shah gilani is with us. what do you say, shah? any sign of a bottom here?

look, if we get a gain today for the dow industrials, it will be back-to-back gains for the first time i think since february. would that signal that we have reached at least a short-term bottom? >> it may signal a short-term bottom but i don't think the worst is over yet. i think the markets, the way they reacted on monday making new lows was problematic because they were trying to rally at the end of last week, they couldn't do it, sold off into friday. monday was a typical almost capitulation type day. so rally yesterday was predicated on one thing and one thing only. it wasn't about the stimulus. everybody knew the stimulus was going to come, is going to come. it was about what the president said at the close in his press conference on monday that changed the conversation from lowering the infection rate, the whole curve lowering, to a conversation about reopening the country. that's what got the markets going on tuesday. today, i would like to see some momentum. i don't see anything in the futures right now that indicates we are going to see follow-on momentum.

for this to be any kind of temporary bottom, i think we have to end up pretty nicely today, 2%, 3%, 5%, and close on the high for investors to have a feeling that perhaps we have reached a short-term bottom. if we don't do that, if we turn right back around today, all bets are off, unfortunately. stuart: okay. all right. shah, stay there, please. i will get back to you in a second. susan is with us with an update on hubei province in china. what's the news? susan: well, the epicenter of the breakout of the coronavirus has now lifted travel restrictions. don't forget, back in january we had this lockdown of 50 million in the province of hubei. the actual city itself wuhan is still in lockdown there. are still travel restrictions in place until april 8th. the fact china has reported no new domestic cases of coronavirus, the ones they have noted are ones coming from overseas, i think that's a positive, especially just two months after the epidemic was first broke out. but if you read the "wall street journal" today, there was an interesting article in terms of the draconian steps china had to

take not only locking down residents that tested positive for coronavirus, but even those that weren't showing any symptoms and those that were suspected of actually having cases that haven't tested positive just yet. wuhan built two hospitals in a matter of days, putting in thousands of hospital beds. i think this is an indication as to the drastic steps that might need to be taken in order to ward off the spread of this virus. stuart: susan, thank you. let's move on to lauren simonetti. lauren, what have you got from the white house press secretary? lauren: stephanie grisham is back at work. if you recall two weeks ago, she did come in contact with the brazilian official who did test positive for coronavirus. she self-quarantined as a matter of caution. she has taken a coronavirus test. she is negative. she is back at work and she said something just moments ago to brian kilmeade at "fox & friends" about those tests. she said quote, we have had more tests done in the past eight days than the gold standard

south korea did in the past eight weeks. so this is good, tests are coming, we will get results fast and we'll know how much longer it's going to take to nip coronavirus in the bud. stuart: something we are following closely is the continuing lockdown orders in various parts of the country. ashley, what's going on in miami? ashley: yeah. the mayor of miami has now issued a shelter in place order. no statewide stay-at-home order in florida but in miami, where we have seen the lack of social distancing being adhered to, the mayor who himself, by the way, has the coronavirus and he just posted the results of his latest test and it still came back positive, he will try again at the end of the week. in the meantime, he remains in isolation. but he says look, unless you have to get to the grocery store, a pharmacy, you stay at

home. only essential activities and establishments, people involved in those, can go out. and those that deliver essential services to homes. also, there's a non-essential travel ban in miami. that is effective from last night. so they are getting very strict in miami but again, there's been a bit of not on a statewide level, it's interesting, florida governor ron desantis has not imposed a statewide stay-at-home order as of yet. 17 states have. but the city of miami taking it very seriously and they have. at least for the next two weeks. stuart: thanks, ash. by the way, i noticed that we are all in green now. the dow, s&p and nasdaq, we just turned a bit more positive just in the last few minutes. back to susan. what have you got on louisiana? susan: well, it's the fourth state president trump has declared a major disaster declaration, meaning that louisiana which currently has told its 4.6 million residents to stay home, they can get

access to more resources coming from the federal government and that includes protective gear, ventilators and also federal assistance in actual dollars in trying to procure some of these especially i guess sensitive resources right now which are scarce as you know. stuart: thank you, susan. dr. kate tolenko joins us now, frequent guest on the program, adding valuable information. should america be open for business, opening up a little bit for business, by easter? what's your opinion? >> from a public health perspective, it would be better to extend lockdowns but as states want to reopen their economies, as liz mentioned, it should be gradual. i think we can learn from the countries that have been successful in dampening down their epidemic, china, japan, south korea and singapore. it was a near universal public wearing of masks and the rapid

testing of people. if we are to gradually reopen our economies we need to make sure people have access to masks to wear in public and people have access to testing. that being said, there still needs to be social distancing with enforcement so no handshaking, people staying six feet apart. i think we would like to see churches open but that probably won't be able to happen by easter. i think that for the next two months, the unit of worship will have to be the family. stuart: i want to talk to you also about domestic travel restrictions. the white house seems to be in favor of anyone who leaves the new york city metropolitan area should spend 14 days in quarantine wherever they are going to. that's quite draconian, i would say. >> so dr. anthony fauci estimates that 1 in 1,000 new yorkers is positive for covid and we know 60% of all new cases

in the u.s. are coming from new york city. in fact, they have 5% of the global cases. in the rest of the u.s., about 8% of people who come for testing are testing positive. in new york city it's 28%. i was doing telemedicine yesterday and actually got quite a number of calls from florida, they were new yorkers who now had covid symptoms. i think there is reason to be concerned and i think it would be reasonable for people to self-isolate for 14 days. stuart: in two and a half weeks, that is easter, do you think that we will have all the masks and ventilators and the medical equipment that we need? do you? >> the president has now enacted the defense production act and requested the production of masks and testing kits, so it is possible that in two weeks we certainly will have the masks needed for health care workers and then perhaps have masks needed for other workers

returning to work. but once again, they will need to be strict rationing. for example, people wearing one mask either the entire day or one mask for a week. so we have to see how quickly factories can get production up but it potentially is possible, especially for a gradual reopening. stuart: i have to tell you that it feels -- i think it feels differently in new york, obviously an epicenter of the virus, from what it might feel in missouri or some other parts of the country, perhaps more rural. there's a real difference in feel here. you picking that up? >> absolutely. people who live in rural areas, they can go to the store and there will only be a couple people there but if you are in new york and go to the store, even if people are practicing social distancing, there are dozens or hundreds of people there. i agree with you. i think that's why we are getting different levels of pushback on the closing of the economy and there might be a way of reopening business such that

business is open first in rural and other low risk areas. stuart: i think there's an element of trust here as well. if i fly out of new york and go to florida, okay, you can see i've got to go into quarantine. i got it. but if i drive from new york to florida, it's up to me to declare that i'm coming from new york and going to quarantine. there's an element of trust involved here. >> there might be. as we look at reopening airplanes and airlines, i think it would be a question of what capacity do you want them to be in, how many people should be in a single airplane and what should be the protocols to get people to sanitize their hands midflight or everyone wearing a face mask. i think we really need to be very careful about being evidence-based and keeping people safe but certainly from a reporting point of view, it is easier to track people who have flown than people who have

driven. stuart: okay. doctor, thank you very much for joining us. always appreciate it. thank you. let's go to lauren. we always like to have news on the grocery chains. what do you have from kroger and walmart? lauren: they are starting to install sneeze guards is what walmart is calling them, these plexiglass barriers that would separate the worker helping you and the customer. the reasons they are doing this are clear. kroger is going a step further and saying they want their employees, after health care workers, to be considered on the front lines so they can get masks and gloves as needed. you are looking at some of those plexiglass screens. this also speaks to the psychological toll coronavirus is taking, that those brave workers are showing up every day in contact with hundreds and hundreds of people and they do want a level of safety that they are being separated from germs as much as possible. stuart: i can see that. thank you. ashley, what news from the nfl

on this? ashley: yeah. the nfl commissioner roger goodell sending out a memo to all 32 teams yesterday issuing an order to close all facilities from 6:00 p.m. today until at least april 8th. of course, it's tough for the nfl. we've got the draft coming up in about a month and teams are being severely hampered about what they can do. only people allowed into the nfl team facilities would be people like athletic trainers, physicians, director of facilities, i.t. people, that kind of staff. last week the nfl said all offseason activities such as meetings, practices, mini camps, were also called off just to be safe because of the virus. but we understand teams can still sign free agent players, evaluate draft prospects, sell tickets, by the way, and other operations geared towards the opening of the 2020 season. the draft as we know will take

place april 23rd to the 25th but it is closed to the public. you will be able to watch it on television but the nfl trying its best to keep things going in these very trying times. stuart: all right. if you are just joining us, you will notice there's a lot of green on the screen. we have had a volatile session for stocks thus far this morning. but we are up on the dow, up on the nasdaq, up on the s&p. can you put that four shot back up again? how are we all doing? i like to ask that. we've got nine minutes to go before the opening bell. i am gaining weight and i'm in need of a haircut. anybody else want to comment? lauren: have you seen the length of my hair? i might cut it myself with my kitchen scissors. and i need a manicure. susan: i went to the grocery store last night because i'm one of these people that didn't stock up on toilet paper and i actually ran out of toilet paper but going to whole foods, there's a line outside because they only want 50 people in the

stores at any particular moment. so it's interesting to be outside, standing six feet apart in line and when you get in, i usually put on my gloves to make sure i'm not touching anything with my own hands. stuart: i think we should all remember that it feels very differently to us in the new york area, the epicenter of the virus attack. it feels different here from the way it would feel almost everywhere else in the country. that's the way it is. susan, amazon prime deliveries delayed? tell me more. susan: amazon prime, usually you get your delivery in two days, now one-day delivery but actually, with the huge surge in online orders at amazon, it looks like you won't be getting your deliveries until the end of april at the earliest for some of these essential items. we know amazon says they are only accepting essential items now into their warehouses to get them out, hand sanitizers, water, food that people need. but it's going to be delayed despite the fact they are hiring 100,000 extra workers to get them out. i just want to bring up this

story quickly. i don't know if you heard this. six amazon warehouse workers have now tested positive for coronavirus. that's in new york city, of course. florida, kentucky, texas, michigan and oklahoma city. we know amazon says they will pay these workers two weeks full pay to get over the coronavirus and self-quarantine but also, amazon workers and warehouses in italy and spain have also tested positive as well. amazon of course trying to ramp up at this point, hire 100,000, paying $2 extra more and they are paying those that work 40 hours and more bigger overtime pay. to make up for the fact they are working during a very very stressful time. stuart: got that right. charles hurt is with us. charles, i want to draw your attention to the media's reaction to the president's saying i would love to open up the economy by easter. hold on for a second. look at these headlines. i think i've got them coming up

shortly. they are very negative, essentially. trump barrels toward calamity, "the washington post." "new york times," coronavirus is advancing, all americans need to shelter in place. trump's goal of sending people back to work early is reckless. what do you say? >> a couple of things. the first is, you know, these people would have a whole lot more credibility right now if we hadn't just spent the past four years listening to them on a jihad against this president for all kinds of things that turned out to be, i don't know, completely false. but the other thing is i have to say, trying to make predictions in an environment like this is very dangerous. at the point where president trump was putting in restrictions on foreign nationals traveling from places like china to the united states, what was all the media in this country obsessed with. they were obsessed with impeachment and impeachment that was a ridiculous sham, an impeachment that even democrats pursuing it knew was going to

end up with a not guilty verdict and nothing was going to happen of it. we had a pandemic marching across the globe at that moment in march and february and the media was not talking about any of this. they were talking about just impeachment and so i have a real hard time listening to these people. at a point in our country when we need a more reliable media than ever before, these people have completely lost all credibility. it's a real danger to the republic. one other point. you made this point a couple times. it's a very important one. the difference between new york city and the rest of the country. having spent a lot of time in new york over the last couple months, i live down in southern virginia about four hours south of d.c. the feeling in rural america really is so different than in a place like new york city or even washington, d.c., where the problem is far more palpable.

stuart: i want to draw your attention to a gallup poll. mr. trump's handling of the virus gets 60% approval and his overall job approval has gone to 49%. it seems like the voting public is ignoring the media. >> absolutely. i think increasingly ignoring them. i think that over the past three or four years, they have -- the public has very much moved away from listening to the media but it's become far more profound now that we have a life and death situation the president is trying to grapple with. these people who want, you know, you don't get elected leader of the united states of america by becoming an epidemiologist. you get elected by running a campaign and earning the votes of the american people. so i'm sure there is plenty of disagreement and discussion going on between the president and his top advisers but that's

the president's job. it's to listen to all of these different people. he's supposed to listen to his epidemiologists and clearly he does. he's also supposed to listen to the people that are concerned about the economy and he's clearly listening to them. that's why he's the one that finally makes the final decision. i think that what the president -- what the american people see in the president right now is somebody who is genuinely grappling with these issues and making adult decisions about them. stuart: got that right. charles hurt, thank you very much for joining us. always appreciate it. especially on a day like this. okay. now, before we open the markets, we do have the bill, we have the deal in place, i should say, and i just want to mention very briefly some of the main points in this bill. it's very important for the market. $1200 checks for people earning up to $75,000 a year. $2400 for couples.

$100 billion going in hospital assistance. $350 billion to small business. maybe more, depending upon the number of applications for assistance. $500 billion going to corporations. an increase in unemployment assistance. $600 a week for four months. and $150 billion to state and local governments. there's great deal more than that but that's the basis of the deal as we head towards the market open. news from microsoft, ash. ashley: yeah. steve ballmer, the chairman, of course he owns the los angeles clippers, has done a deal to buy the l.a. forum. remember that? the forum owned by msg, the madison square garden. he will pay $400 million in cash. the forum will stay where it is. it's on the national historic, register of historic places. he will keep that as a concert venue. he will also build a new billion dollar arena for the clippers less than two miles away from

the forum. the clippers currently lease at the staples center, share it with the kings and lakers. there you go. steve ballmer going to get the clippers a billion dollar arena and has bought the forum. stuart: bought the forum. okay. lauren, cruise lines. have you got anything? lauren: royal caribbean and celebrity cruises are docking their entire fleet one month longer than previously said. so until may 11th. but when you look at the reality of the situation, there are cruise ships current voyages still at sea. passengers are sick and stuck and they are working to get those passengers at a port that will take them. so let's say come may 12th and they are sailing again, are passengers going to hop back on those ships? stuart: okay. let's go with the markets now. we've got 30 seconds before we open up this wednesday morning. we've got the deal in place at least in the senate. we have the $6 trillion deal

actually in place if you add if the $4 trillion that comes from the federal reserve. and we've got the president suggesting he would love to open up the economy by easter. bang, it's 9:30 eastern time. the market is open. let's see how we do in the very very early going. futures pointed towards an uptick for the market and that's what we've got. dow is up over 300 points. remember, yesterday was the best day, best single day since 1933. we are following that. if we were to get back-to-back gains for the dow, two days running of gains, maybe that signals a short-term bottom. not sure about that. we'll see. we are open, we are running. 200 points up now for the dow but the nasdaq is down 9, the s&p virtually dead flat. now we going to run through some of the different stock groups that have been particularly affected recently and show you how they are dealing this

morning after getting the news of the deal that broke late last night. we will go through the market checks of different kinds of companies, different industries. meanwhile, i think we have d.r. barton with us. you there? tell me, do you see any signs of a real bottom in this market? on the phone: i think there are two answers here. i do see some signs of a near-term bottom and in these kind of markets, we have heard it from lots of people but if we look at the big selloff like we've had this time, we get these, you know, during the middle of the selloff, we can get a bottom and even a rise like we saw in november of 2008 or like we saw in 1987 and we can go on back into the great depression era and look at the same thing. so we can get these really nice, strong rallies and still not find the bottom, the final bottom. but it's clear that the market

is happy with the fiscal stimulus package that you and i talked about several weeks ago, and the importance of that. so the market appears to be happy with that and a lot of the stocks like the airline stocks and cruise lines that are going to be buoyed by some of the corporate help, obviously are doing really well this morning also. stuart: all right. let me go through some of the big name stocks. first, the big technology issues. let's have a look at them. we have the oil drillers up there. now move on. i want to see as many groups as we can possibly get. we focus order ted on the oil d because the price of oil is only $23 a barrel as of this morning. you don't expect much of a bounce if any from the oil companies which are already hugely depressed. moments ago, we showed you the credit card companies, visa, amex and mastercard, they were all up because look at them now, mastercard is up nine bucks.

visa up three bucks. amex up three. that's because this deal that was announced late last night, very early this morning, will pump an enormous amount of money into ordinary people's hands. they will spend it if they can get out of the house and up go the credit card companies. liz peek, come into this, please. i just gave a list of all the money that's going to flow out there, checks to individuals, 100 billion to hospitals, 350 billion small business, 500 billion to corporations, 150 billion state and local governments. that is an enormous amount of money pushed into the economy. does it stave off and halt a severe recession? >> well, it's certainly going to help. i think the number one thing is it provides liquidity. you showed the credit card stocks doing well. partly that's because consumers are less likely to be defaulting on their credit card bills now that they are going to get a few

thousand dollars in hand. i think what we have talked about many times is that we are looking across a valley and really, even today, we don't know how wide, how deep that valley is but this bill certainly protects a number of industries and millions of individuals from falling into that valley with no financial resources whatsoever. so i'm optimistic that this will tide us over. obviously what the president would love to see, to use your word and his word, love to see, is he would like to see these temporary measures and they are temporary, sustain us until we get the economy up and running again at least in part. that's the ambition. let's hope it works. i think it will. stuart: all right. shah gilani, come into this, please. do you see value, do you see a stock that you would buy right now even though you think we will maybe touch even greater lows later? give me a stock you would buy now.

>> i bought three stocks yesterday. i bought bank of america, i bought a substantial position in bank of america, did very well at that by the end of the day. i haven't seen the stock price this morning. i bought arthur daniels midland, adm, and i also bought at & t. i like the dividend on at & t, they have a lot of debt, i think they are able to sustain it with their cash flow. i like buying some stocks down here. i may hold these and want to hold these if we get a nice rally today, if we close on the highs i would be comfortable holding it. i want to add to those types of positions. i have a long list of positions i would like to go into. on the other hand, if i see things turn around, i will sell these, take my profits and perhaps look to get in again lower. the market right here is so indecisive in terms of what it sees, what it wants to see and there's no way analysts or investors can possibly model whether or not companies that are now potentially closed or going to be closed and for how

long, what kind of sales are ever going -- what kind of revenue or profits and losses, it's impossible to gauge what those securities are worth. it's very difficult for the market. if we get past this, when we get past this, the market is going to roar. we all know that. it's a question of timing. stuart: okay. got it. shah, the dow is now up more than 500 points. that puts the dow up above 21,200. director, i would like you to put the airline stocks on the left-hand side of the screen while i talk to ash about news from mike pompeo. what is it? ashley: yeah. indeed. the secretary of state apparently we are told spoke with the saudi crown prince in a telephone call and said that he told the crown prince saudi arabia has the opportunity to quote, rise to the occasion and reassure energy and financial markets. they apparently discussed the need to maintain stability in the energy markets. oil slightly lower this morning.

also want to point out perhaps the biggest driver today, boeing, is now up almost 25 bucks at $153. it's up 20%. stuart: okay. good to hear that. as ash was speaking, you are looking at the airlines, left-hand side of the screen. american, united, delta, jetblue, southwest all on the upside, very significant gains for all because they are going to get a bailout package from this relief package that's been approved by the senate. back to susan. what's the european union saying about the virus now? susan: well, i want to get back to the markets because we are looking at the first back-to-back possible gain for the markets since february 12th i think, from my calendar, from what i see. i just want to bring to your attention some predictions for the year end forecast for the s&p. jeffrey gundlach says we will get back to 2700 for the s&p 500 and that's a year end prediction from credit suisse. credit suisse said we might hit

new records in early 2021 once again so they are penciling in a level of 3100 for the s&p 500. if that's true, that would be a near 40% gain from monday's levels. that would be very impressive. as you mentioned, we are looking at buying into equities. people are actually buying into volatility as well since we have no idea what direction the markets take. the last three times we saw the s&p gain 5%, they usually gave it all back in the preceding sessions so let's see if we can hold on to this advance. i think that's the key right now. stuart: it is indeed. dow is up 600 points, reaching 21,300. green arrows for the dow, nasdaq and s&p. now, we like to keep track of the big retailers. news from target. lauren, i think they are paying more to employees? lauren: they are not participating in this rally which is interesting. the stock is down by over 2%. this is what's happening. yes, they are treating their workers nicely.

they are cleaning their stores and stocking their shelves. but that comes at a cost. while food and cleaning supplies and those items are flying off store shelves, in fact, march sales thus far, comp sales up 30%, they have costs related to it and they withdrew their guidance for the full year. the ceo brian cornell said this is a wartime mission for us. we have to get the items that america needs but as a result, we are not investing in ourselves. we are not doing the things we had planned to do because of the coronavirus and the stock is down today in an up market. stuart: the retailers have taken it about as badly as some of the travel and leisure companies. retailers have been shut down just about around the country. gerald storch is with us, our retail guy. gerald, am i right in saying that you think that jc penney, macy's, bed, bath & beyond,

neiman marcus, are gone? by the time this is over, they're gone? really? >> what we saw was the consumer was on fire when this virus hit. what's happened, though, is people who are winning are winning even more. walmart, target, costco, amazon. internet players. but the people who were losing happen to be losing even worse. those are your department stores, like some names you just mentioned. the apparel retailers. terrible. stores are shuttered. people aren't thinking about buying clothes right now. even if they bought them, where would they wear them. we see a terrible time for these companies. for a long time to come, because they are not selling what customers need right now. stuart: the retail landscape will look completely different when this is over. especially apparel and footwear, they're not going to come back. things will look and feel radically different. >> look, we want to save all companies during this period.

i think any stimulus is good right now. but retail is a special case. we had an armageddon going on in retail before the virus hit, where some companies simply were operating with antiquated models, they didn't have a strong enough e-commerce arm, the malls were doing very poorly, department store apparel was doing poorly. the real question is, should we throw good money after bad in trying to save these companies that were headed towards extinction anyway? i think in many cases eventually, they have drawn down the revolvers and will get through the next couple months but when the doors reopen, i don't think they will see the kind of traffic they even had before. this is not where the consumer mindset will be. these companies will be doing even worse. i think we are looking at an acceleration of what was already happening in the sector. stuart: moody's, their retail

people say retail sales in 2020 will be down 3% to 5%. that is a significant decline. are you in line with that, retail sales down that much in 2020? >> absolutely. for the year as a whole. i did my own analysis, sector bisect by sector, i had 4% down. we have no idea how long this lockdown will continue so hi to make an assumption about this, as moody's did. the issue isn't the percentage down. what you have is a second quarter which is way down. right? then you have a third quarter and fourth quarter where it's coming back. that's what it's going to look like. i think people will forgive what happened during this quarter. the real issue is there's a massive change away from what we used to buy towards what we are going to buy now. i heard the talk about target before. i think it was spot-on. with target, they withdrew their guidance. why? it's not because they aren't going to see the sales.

they are. i'm not worried about them. it's because there is a massive change within the store away from high margin categories like apparel and towards lower margin categories like food and consumables. that's happening economy-wide. so the total sales for the year might be down in that 3% to 5% range, moody's estimate, my estimate was 4%, so i think we are spot-on, but the mix is going to be dramatically different and i don't think that's going to change. i think the future is going to look a lot more like what we are seeing now than what we used to see, because consumer patterns, the internet, the internet is doubling during this period, doubling its share of what's going on. why is that? because look, other than food, consumables, the internet is the only place anyone is going to go. you don't go to the shopping mall to buy a dress. stores are closed anyway. even the most ardent fashionista isn't going to go. the question is how much is going to keep. i think a lot of it. stuart: got it. gerald storch, always good. thank you very much, sir. appreciate it. we like to bring you up to speed

on what's going on with this pandemic all the way round the world. the dramatic news early this morning was that prince charles has tested positive for the virus. let's go to susan. what's the eu saying about this? susan: we heard president trump saying he would love to get the u.s. economy open by easter of this year. that's in just about two weeks' time. the european union, though, has come out to say if you are hoping for the coronavirus to disappear by the warmer months, by summer, that might not be happening, unlikely, they said, from what i see, unlikely to disappear in the summer. so we have heard from anthony fauci of the nih saying maybe warmer weather, this might possibly dissolve some of this virus but according to the european commission, that's not going to happen, according to their analysis right now. stuart: all right, thank you. now, mortgage applications. i think they are way down. confirm that, lauren. lauren: down 29.4% last week and you said this last week, where's

the demand. people who might be ready, have the investment, the down payment for a home, are they actually going to pull the trigger in an environment like this. the answer is no. we saw a sharp decline last week for mortgage applications. new home sales also falling 4.4% in february. i do want to point your attention to refinances. refinancing down 34% and this could just be a backlog, a lot of these folks who do your mortgage, they are working from home, there is big demand, big demand up 195% year over year. so right now, in this environment, the home market, the home buying market, is essentially stalled. stuart: yes. yeah. house showings, people don't have them. they do, but they're not well attended. that's my information. lauren: or they are virtual. stuart: some of the deals which have been signed have been

broken. the buyer turns out and walks away from the deal because you don't know what the future's going to be. it's a dark cloud on the housing market which had been doing very well until the virus struck our economy. let's go back to oil, gasoline. boy t by the way, the price of gas today is down to $2.08 a gallon. that's the national average for gasoline. it's absolutely tumbling. i've got it -- i can't find it now -- about $1.60 in oklahoma and i know for a fact at costco in naples, florida, gas was $1.65. having said all that, ash, you've got news on occidental petroleum? ashley: great news for the consumer but for the big oil companies, the name of the game is just try and save money, save cash, cut costs. with that in mind, occidental petroleum says employees' salary cuts are going to be enforced up to 30% and the ceo is going to

take a pay cut of over 80%. all of this as oil prices continue to wallow in the low 20s and it's getting harder and harder for these companies to hang on and not burn through their cash with little relief in sight. stuart: i notice, though, the oil stocks on the screen now, exxon, chevron, bp, all of them are up rather nicely, i've got to say. perhaps that's because secretary of state pompeo called the saudis and asked them i guess in nice terms, hey, behave your selves because you're killing our frackers. ash, you brought us that story. any idea what the saudis said in response? ashley: no. wouldn't that be nice. not to be a fly on the wall but what the secretary of state basically says is you now have the opportunity to rise to the occasion, was the expression, because as we know, the saudis decided just to pump and pump and pump to try and bring that price down and essentially to go after the frackers here in the united states that have made us

energy independent. if we do get any word on what the response has been from saudi arabia, i will be insusure to l our viewers know. stuart: oil right now is down at $23 a barrel. all right. look who's with us now. the one and only dennis gartman. he actually joins us on the phone so we can't see a real live living picture of him. i would like to see a picture of him because he tells me he has lost seven pounds because he is housebound and restricted. is that accurate? seven pounds? on the phone: that's pretty accurate. all i'm doing now is eating oranges and apples. my weight is falling off like a rock. i might be the only person in the united states who is losing weight by staying in the house. stuart: is this your anti-virus diet? on the phone: no, it's just -- well, yeah, let's say it is the anti-virus diet. it's the easiest thing to get and consume and keep. i hope i continue. stuart: so do we. i wish you would let me lose

some as well. that's another story entirely. let's get serious. you say this a bottom for the stock market has not yet been reached. make your case, please. on the phone: usually when you go through periods of time such as this when chaos has occurred, when untoward circumstances that are unforeseen happen, markets have a tendency to make very panicky lows, test them, test them again, test them again, then go quiet for several months before any return to a bull market can begin. there is hope, let's call it, let's put capital h-o-p-e to it, there is hope that monday's low may have been the panic low but i have my doubts. i trade only for my own account so i put my own money at risk. monday morning, monday afternoon, actually, i bought a bunch of chevron but i pitched it out yesterday afternoon and the only thing i own right now is gold. i have a large position in gold. i'm going to continue to hold it. i really don't think the lows have been seen or if they have been, they will be tested

several times before we can believe they have actually been made. stuart: understood. i'm just a little surprised because if you add up the stimulus that this economy is going to get, maybe you don't care about stimulus and the equity market -- on the phone: oh, i do. stuart: if you add it up, you are looking at $6 trillion worth of cash basically going into the economy, $4 trillion from the federal reserve, $4 trillion -- sorry, $2 trillion coming out of this deal with the senate. i would have thought that was enough to put a floor under the economy and a floor therefore under the market. on the phone: well, that's the reason why the market made its panic lows on monday. it knew the fed was coming in or should have known the fed was coming in. the fed has always been the adult in the room when an adult in the room is required and it did a good job monday and tuesday. congress finally acted like rational teenagers instead of children and came across yesterday with the stimulus program. let's hope it is as good as it

seems. i'm not one who believes or is worried even slightly about a budget deficit. the budget deficit should explode from here, as far as i'm concerned. we need another round sooner or later but the reason why the market came off its lows on monday was because of the anticipation congress would finally do the right thing. stuart: we have not hit the bottom yet according to dennis gartman. thanks for joining us like this. do appreciate it. hopes the diet keeps going and working for you. susan: facebook surging as people are quarantined, staying at home. talking about chats and video chats, they say it looks like traffic has increased by over 50% in many countries and group calls in italy have jumped by more than 1,000% and it's very hard for facebook right now to keep up with this type of traffic and this spike in traffic according to mark zuckerberg who gave an interview to the "new york times." also, they have 45,000 employees, full-time employees,

being told to stay home so working and trying to work around this spike in traffic has been difficult for facebook, according to mark zuckerberg. he says the coronavirus is something he has never seen before. now, will this translate into financial gains? you know, it might not because according to a lot of research by analysts, most of the increase in this traffic has come from whatsapp and messenger, whereas facebook gets very little revenue from. in fact, it's free. these services are free right now. the advertising might be pulled back as well since that's what they are seeing across many countries that have been impacted by the coronavirus, especially as they need to preserve cash to i guess cushion from the economic decline that everyone is expecting from this. stuart: i think you just explained why the stock is down $4, nearly 3%. susan: also an analyst price target cut as well. suntrust robinson says they are cutting their target price on facebook to $230, down from $265 because weakening ad business because of the coronavirus. stuart: all right. we will leave it at that.

facebook down four bucks, nearly five bucks down. lauren, boeing. what's the news? lauren: you are going the like this. another huge increase in boeing shares. they are trading at $144 as i speak. here's why. two pieces of information. as you know, a one-two punch for boeing between the coronavirus and the 737 max grounding. let's deal with coronavirus first. a lot of the faa officials are working from home, yet the boeing ceo says that will not impact its plans and its work to get the 737 max, which has been grounded for a year now, flying in the middle of this year, possibly get it approved in may. we'll see. that's the virus and the max. the second issue is what happens if the company gets some sort of bailout or aid from the federal government. the ceo said he would decline taxpayer aid if it's required that the federal government take

an equity stake in the company. so those are the pieces of news on boeing. good day for them. stuart: yeah. the stock's up $143. it was $93, $94 a few days ago. that's where it was. all right. let's bring you up to speed on what's going on overseas. the shock news this morning was that prince charles has tested positive for the virus. the european union sees no early end to these lockdowns in progress. but ash, tell me what putin is saying if run russia. ashley: he gave a televised speech to the country and says it's basically impossible to completely stop the spread of the coronavirus in russia because of the simple size of that country. it is enormous. but he says it is safest for russians to remain home. he says the russian economy is under serious pressure because of what the virus is doing. but he also talked about the need to help people. social welfare payments for the next six months must be extended automatically. he's talking about tax breaks for smaller and medium sized

companies. he said people should be allowed to pay back loans later without incurring penalties. he also says people who have lost their jobs must be given government support. it's interesting because russia yesterday had only reported 435 cases which led the mayor of moscow to say this cannot be right based on what we've seen. but putin addressing the country tonight, saying again, it's almost impossible to stop this thing but if possible, please stay at home. stuart: thanks, ashley. let's go to washington, d.c. edward lawrence is with us. what do you have for us? reporter: so we have all been talking about hydroxychloroquine which shows potential related to helping the symptoms. this is the malaria drug. the u.s. dropped the tariffs on that drug from india to be imported into the united states so india then turned around and banned the export of that drug. at the moment, there's no shortages of that drug. however, there's a concern there could be a shortage of that drug. some drug makers bayer makes

this drug in west virginia and ramped up domestic production but again, india responding to the u.s. dropping the tariffs to try and get more of this drug into the united states by banning the export of the drug, showing a reliance on india there to try to keep the drug within india. stu? stuart: thanks, edward. look at the market. we were up 600 points on the dow. now we are up just 130. it's a volatile market, obviously. gordon johnson joins us. gordon is the analyst who correctly forecast a sharp decline in the price of tesla's stock. he's with us again this morning. gordon, welcome back. i want you to confine your comments to the overall market today, because i believe you think we have not >> we don't think we've seen the bottom yet. if you look where we're at in december of 2018, excuse me. the s&p 500 was 2500.

it bottomed at 2300. keep in minds, earnings were growing locally and earnings are declining globally. economies were growing globally. now we're in a global recession. that is one dynamic. the second dynamic we believe, people essentially lose their job, they don't go back to directly spending. we don't think you will get a v-shaped recovery that a lot of people hoping. if you look at 250 billion given out as checks, that equates, global income 13,000 per household that equates $1000 per person. that is not enough. that will not cover the needs of people. lastly, when you have bear markets you don't really have a bottom in bear markets until you have despair. we haven't seen that yet so we think there is further downside to the global market. stuart: gordon, we hear you, nice technical analysis. thank you very much, gordon

johnson. i want to go to dr. these are wild swings on the market up and down, up and down, you will not predict how we close today, are you, dr? >> i think predicting how we'll close is is a coin flip these ds because of balance of things going on. so much stimulus coming in. so much uncertainty about the virus continuing on. we haven't been able to slow the spread here in the u.s. yet. i think those are two things, that stuart, are weighing on the market, that are continuing to cause this roller coaster ride we're seeing every day. stuart: we're looking for the bottom. haven't found it yet. at the moment the dow industrials are up what, 160 points. we had been up over 600 earlier. we turned negative on the nasdaq and the s&p. let me ask other members of our company, susan, lauren, ashley, wild swings.

it is very hard to follow on a to moment basis. you're not sure -- susan, let me ask you this, you think something internal in the market propelling up and down up and down like this? susan: on the markets if you talk to market expert this is is a short squeeze. not many people believe at least right now this is sustained rebound. however if you look at bill ackman who wrote an investor letter, he said he cashed out all short positions. made $2.6 billion. closed all shorts. last week he gave the hell is coming interview which dragged market lower. you can question motives, intent of that interview. he is putting money in longs. going long on agilent, berkshire hathaway and bill ackman is going long. he thinks after 30 days after

u.s. shutdown and government shutdown, he thinks this is giving some hope this might have legs to go up. stuart: thank you, susan. we're coming up to the top. hour. i will reset the market, reset the show, tell you exactly what is happening. it is precisely right now, 10:00 eastern time. here we go. the markets have been open 30 minutes. up and down wild ride. up 600, 700 points for the dow. now up just 80. we're on the downside for the nasdaq and s&p. volatility written all over wall street today. happening overnight, the white house and senate leaders reached a deal on this huge two trillion dollar virus relief package for workers and for businesses. at noon, the senate will be back in session. white house spokesperson stephanie grisham said the president would sign the legislation after the vote. ashley webster joins us. ashley, what do you have? ashley: let me tell you, stu, it is very interesting, i think of course we have this two trillion

dollar stimulus out there but the biggest question that has been hanging over the market, and everyone else, it is great to have a safenet if you like, but how long is this going to go on, how big will the damage be and how long will it take to recover? i think that hangs over the market and everybody else. we know we'll get through this. the question is when, and how much, and how quickly can we bounce back, even given two trillion dollars worth of stimulus, there are still a lot of unanswered questions. stuart: can we reopen parts of the economy in 2 1/2 weeks time, as the president said he would love to do. that is a work in progress. andy puzder with us, andy, i will go quickly into some of the money funneled out into the economy. 2400 checks for individuals, 2400 for couples. 350 for small business, 500 billion to the corporations, 150 billion state and local governments, increased

unemployment assistance to 600 bucks a week for four months. i would have thought that that was a pretty strong rescue for the little guy. what do you say? >> i think it is a great rescue for the little guy. people will stay in the jobs. cash to cover rent and utilities they need to cover now. this bill is right for the little guy. this is a very, very positive step. great for businesses too. which will help them keep their jobs importantly. stuart: will it avoid a depression? i mean we're in line for a severe decline in the economy in the second quarter. is this big enough, this package, is it big enough to avoid the very worst elements of the depression? >> i think it is big enough to avoid a depression over the next few months. it is not big enough if it goes on longer than that. if it goes on longer than that the government will have to do more, we'll have to find another

solution. in the short term i think it is great. the market reacted realized it was great yesterday. if it passes today you will see another bump in the market. i don't think you will see the sustained bump we're all looking for until we see a number of cases start to decline or they come up with an effective therapeutic that the medical experts approve or come up with a vaccine. positive news on the virus itself, not just the financial engineering, but the virus itself will stablize things. right now i think we're fine. it will get a good reaction when the senate passes this today. stuart: to underline the volatility of what we're seeing we have the dow now in the red. we're down 40 points, having been up 600. i think that was the high roughly earlier today. in a matter of minutes, you have five, 6, 700 point swings. that is happening on the market today. great american take out. that's trending online. encouraging americans, what is that all about? who has got that?

>> it is a great idea. a number of restaurant chains signed up to it. we need to support local businesses. restaurants in particular are suffering right now. i've been talking to a lot of franchisees of carl's hardee's, the company i used run, everybody is suffering, they're doing best they can. they are keeping drive-through open. online ordering with third party website delivery. curbside service. americans need to stand up. we can't look to the government for everything. we need to support businesses and employ people in our communities. i think it is a great idea. stuart: hold on a second for me, and i d. >> sure. stuart: susan, tell me about big tech working with the world health organization. susan: microsoft, facebook, twitter, 10:00 sent, largest companies there, joining up for a hackathon to come up with

solutions to build better software, drive social impact, improve lives of those underquarantine impacted by the coronavirus. they have done this for blood donations and crisis response. they're hoping to build something involving millions of people around the world to ease the epidemic to come up with solutions. stu, if you think about it, a lot of technology companies stepped up to the plate. you heard yesterday in a press conference, apple come up with n95 masks. sales force coming up with millions of masks, facebook as well. people are talking about how the tech giants might come out of the coronavirus bigger than they were going in. i have told but the traffic for netflix, right? record for this weekend. amazon can't keep up with the orders. zoom video doubled. likes of facebook is seeing spikes in usage. can you imagine behavioral changes after this and how they will make big tech even bigger? stuart: i'm fascinated how we will come out of this and what

we will see when we do come out of it. the idea that big tech will be bigger after this than it was, it was already huge going in, that is absolutely fascinating. that solidifies, wrong word to use, but it expands their dominance of the overall economy, right, susan? susan: yes. you saw spike in share prices yesterday. a lot of rerotation, you might call it a short squeeze, purchases we've seen, long buyers on the stock market. a lot of money again is going into big tech. stuart: news from mcdonald's. lauren simonetti, what have you got? lauren: private business stepping up. they're working with their franchisees, that is the bulk of their restaurants, to make sure they have liquidity and that might mean deferring some rent payments. another piece of good news, 95% of mcdonald's restaurants in china are back open. the stock is up today. stuart: all right. let's bring in senator todd young, republican from indiana.

mr. senator, thanks very much for joining us this morning. i'm sure you've been up all night. i want to ask you this the president says he would love to have the economy back up and running by easter. is that too soon? what do you think? >> the president is setting a stretch goal. i think it is good. offering a measure of hope to the american people. ultimately he will be guided i think but the public health officials counsel. as we heard from one of the public health experts earlier, it is conceivable we could open up business as usual in low-risk areas like rural areas, prior to opening up business as usual in places like new york. so, i'm sure these are all things that the administration is looking at. i'm just happy that it appears the senate is poised to pass an emergency relief package later today that will provide much-needed assistance to rank-and-file hoosiers and to other americans and make sure they have a place to go back to

work to, once we get on the other side of this pandemic. stuart: now we're in -- my team is in the new york city metropolitan area and it's very difficult here because we're house-bound. there is nobody on the streets. this is the epicenter of the virus. tell me what it is like in indiana if you can, please? i understand indiana has taken quite a hit from this? >> i know your viewers will be interested in this. indiana is the most manufacturing intensive state in the country. when you think of rv manufacturing plants in elkhart, indiana, which is the global center of manufacturing, they have had to idle the entire manufacturing operation. so a lot of workers being impacted there. our auto assembly plants, the auto assembly supply chain also been essentially ground to a halt. so, let's hope that all those things can change, fairly short order. meantime, we need to make sure that those workers who are

really sacrificing on behalf of their fellow americans by staying home, so that there is no community spread, we need to make sure that they are taken care of, which is what this package is all about. it is difficult. i've been working phones last 10 days talking to business owners, small and large, speaking to so many workers and families and there have been a lot of shutdowns. just yesterday we had two major hotels in the indianapolis area shut down. we have had cake shops and optometry shops, you name it, small businesses are out of cash or soon will be out of cash. so we need to cover their fixed costs, their utilities, their rent, their payroll. that is the aim of this package is. it is a survival package frankly so we get through the rough patch. we provide more resources for testing. identified who indeed have the

coronavirus, take care of them appropriately and hopefully life will resume as normal. stuart: mr. senator, let me ask you for 30 seconds. >> sure. stuart: if indiana has been very hard hit like this, i presume you would like to see businesses opening up again in indiana in 2 1/2 weeks, so long as public health is protected, is that an accurate statement of your position? >> absolutely, a, absolutely. that is quite accurate my position. it will be the job of the president to a simulate the public health information and counsel he is receiving from the world's foremost experts as well as the economic information, make an informed decision and i think, his first priority should be, and will be to make sure that my constituents and others stay safe. stuart: senator todd young, republican indiana, thank you for joining us, sir. >> thanks so much. stuart: susan, we follow news from different companies.

what have you got on, canada goose? susan: traditionally make 1000-dollar winter jackets. because of the coronavirus they're jumping in to help out. they will start production of medical scrubs and patient gowns as part of the response program. we've been talking a lot about big business trying to get in to help out. nike says they will start making facial masks. hanes traditionally makes undergarments making masks as well. anheuser-busch, estee lauder, they're switching to make hand sanitizer a lot of these resources are in short supply. stuart: it is good to hear all hands on desk against this virus. i guess that is good news. lauren, update me on starbucks, please. lauren: starbucks paying workers for one month, even if they're not going to work. their drive-throughs are mostly operating so some of the restaurants are not. if you're not working you get made. if you don't feel comfortable to go to work you get paid.

ceo kevin johnson urging other companies to do the same, be compassionate. one other things, if you're on the front lines, working in a hospital, doing construction or something that needs to be done right now, you go to starbucks, you can get a free coffee, tall, hot, iced own them from now until may 3rd. isn't that nice? stuart: i will remember that. next time i get out of my house i will remember that i really will. ashley, you've got news, yum! brands, pizza hut. ashley: implementing the next phase of their covid-19 response. they are offering contactless delivery in the united states and 48 countries internationally. yum! brands and u.s. co-owns, has kfc, pizza hut, taco bell. burger restaurants, not sure on that one, they will pay employees stay at home. contactless delivery of your pizza.

stuart: okay. i want to put all four of us on the screen, please. susan, ashley, lauren, and me. we're all in different locations. we're all keeping great distance. i want to go round the block. i need a haircut. i'm feigning weight. susan, you're next. >> same thing. i feel like i need to get a man cure or something. i got toilet paper last night. so i'm fine. stuart: wait a second, susan, have you got any cab -- cabin fever. >> going to work every day. fortunately for me i'm not getting cabin fever. i hear from my friend with kids they are getting couped up at home. stuart: that is your cue, lauren. you have young kids at home, how are you doing? >> i have a nice nanny helping out. it has been tough. i will not complain, stuart, after my friend who lives in a very small apartment in new york city with a dog and a one-year-old, sent me picture last night, i should share it

with you guys, since she and her husband are working from home. the husband is working on top of the stove. he set up his computer, what he needs in their tiny apartment on top of the stove, that is the new work desk. i will never complain again. stuart: it is worthwhile pointing out this is a very difficult situation for millions, and millions of people. we're all sitting here smiling away. we're doing okay. but ashley, it will be feel, very, very different in different parts of the country from the way we feel here in new york. ashley: absolutely. i feel fortunate as to susan's point, i have a fairly normal life right now. i get up. i go to bed at same time. i get up, come to work every day. i feel very fortunate for that. i'm one of those people who climbs the walls, if i stay home for one day. i cannot imagine being basically house-bound as you are, stu. i would just, you know, i will say though, my diet has gone

down the tubes. i can rationalize in my mind these are extraordinary times. i will have another slice of pizza. susan: am i only one eaten all the food i horded in less than a day? i can't help it. stress for all of us, we should be very grateful, we working here at fox, we know we will get a check, that check will not bounce in a week's time whereas many across the country, i don't think they have that type of guarranty. stuart: well usaid, susan. we are in indeed in a fortunate financial situation. got it. on that note, let's bring in david bahnsen, i'm just wondering if you can see a bottom for this market, david? >> i apologize in advance but i'm just not going to answer the question about whether or not we've seen a bottom. i heard some of the prior guests speculating that we haven't seen it or we have. there is onest answer for you, stuart, and one honest answer

for our viewers, and that is nobody knows. what happened 11 years ago, 20 years ago, 40 years ago, when there are 50,000 different variables at play i think is irresponsible. there is plenty of reason to think we could have seen it and plenty reason to think we couldn't have. what we do know the factors driving hypervolatility are definitely compressing. there is less of this forced selling pressure into the markets. but when you have technical factors like short-covering, or last week like you had the biggest margin call on our country that we have seen since the financial crisis, it is very difficult to project rational thoughts under this market. stuart: are you buying anything now? before you answer, i know that you specialize in stocks that pay a very high dividend and a growing dividend. what are you buying in an environment like this?

>> there are certain stocks we classify into two categories, low beta, very low debt, high stability type companies that we don't have an iota of concern about their dividend strength and their long-term sustainability, and i don't mind giving names at all. you look at coca-cola, intel, verizon, walmart. these types of names are incredibly buyable, stable, some of them have actually defensively performed quite well here in this environment. some are remarkably oversold like coca-cola i think is on a wild discount. but then there are also other names that have gotten up into high yield territory that are very attractive and opportunistic but we don't want to pour into, because first of all, we can't get the cash out of the bond market right now. to rebalance out of bonds into stocks, means the bond market would be working. it has started to work better the last two days, especially

investment grade corporate bonds but that market was frozen last week. you couldn't sell a municipal bond if you wanted to. so as the fed's activities work their way through the bond market, it enables stock market investors to do better things. yes, we're buying, stuart, especially with new money coming in, but our rebalancing plans over the next six months will go slow. stuart: david bahnsen, thanks for joining us, we appreciate it always. we're back on the downside for the dow industrials. we're down 50, 60 points, having been up 600 points half hour ago. got that. look at airlines. now the airlines are doing very well today, because, we got a package through the senate, not voted on yet. that is what we got, the deal in place. two trillion dollars, a lot of money goes to the airlines. we'll take a commercial break

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we created bionic and put the word out with godaddy. what will you change? make the world you want. stuart: federal reserve governor bullard made headlines not too long ago, the second quarter of this year we would see 30% unemployment he had more to say, ashley what is he saying now. ashley: say that again, stu. i was listening to someone talk to me. you want boris johnson? stuart: mr. bullard, what did james bullard sayhe made headlines earlier, we would have 30% unemployment rate. what is he saying now. ashley: he said economy could recover strongly about it autumn. which is the fall. on conference call with reporters, the u.s. economy will experience unprecedented weakness in the second quarter as the economy shuts down. that much we know. he said by july there could be a

transition time where some businesses reopen while others remain closed. he says by october, that is aways off, work could resume on projects delayed in the spring, leading into a boom period into 2021. the country is like a car coming on to a construction zone, the car has to slow down to navigate twists and turns but there is nothing inherently wrong with the engine of the car. that is the analogy mr. bullard is using. we could see a boom but it will be a little while from now. stuart: quickly, something from boris johnson in britain? ashley: he was making announcement that he is fit. he meets with the queen every week. anyone who watched the queen on netflix knows that has gone on forever. they're just doing it by phone call now. he also says that more stringent rules will go into effect tomorrow in the uk. he says the biggest concern for

him, and it is a good question for the united states is, what do the self-employed people doing? he will come up with some measures to try to protect all those people who are self-employed. stuart: all right. thanks, ash. by the way, the dow industrials are now pretty much dead flat after an up and down day all morning. we've been in business almost an hour. up and down all the time. roger dow with us, u.s. travel association ceo. roger, welcome to the program. you're estimating that 5.9 million will lose their jobs in the travel industry, by the end of april. that is a huge lack of jobs, a huge amount of walking away from work. are you getting the support that you want, the travel industry, in this package which was, which was successfully negotiated overnight? >> we believe so. we'll see the final details on the package. the package we're told has 500 billion in stabilization funds, 350 billion in small business loans.

it is important that it gets to all of the workers and to the businesses. people think of travel as being big businesses like the airlines, hotels, cruise ships, but it is 83% small businesses, stuart. that is the important thing. to make sure they don't go under. stuart: well they are going to get checks up to $1200 for individuals, $2400 for couples. there is an increase in the unemployment assistance to $600 a week for four months. are you satisfied with that? >> yes, we are. we think it is important that this money gets to them with speed. unemployment is covered. small business, we cut the red tape, so people can get to it. it is all a matter how quickly they move. secretary mnuchin has been very bullish on this as has the president. we like the moves we see with the private sector getting very engaged. stuart: one last question to you, roger, do you expect travel, as we knew it, four or five weeks ago, to bounce back

at the end of this thing? >> i do, stuart. after 10 years ago, we've had 10 years of straight growth when people said it wouldn't bounce back. it will bounce back. the question we have is how quickly. in the next phase of stimulus we really need to find a way to get americans traveling back fast. every month they do, is another 20, 30, billion dollars the u.s. economy. we have to shrink the recovery from 12 to 18 months to six months. stuart: roger, we wish you well. we know you're in a very tough position. very good luck to you, sir, thank you for joining us. >> thank you, sir. stuart: let me show you various groups of stocks if i may. let me show you airlines because there is something in the rescue package for the airlines, a lot of money actually. they are bouncing back quite well this morning but not up to anything like the levels airlines stocks were at previously. american, united, jetblue, southwest, all on the upside,

four, five, six, seven, 8%. look at the cruise lines, please. there may, repeat, may be money for the cruise lines which have been devastated by the virus attack. royal caribbean, carnival, norwegian. they're not bouncing back by any means. oil, this is important this morning, $23 a barrel at last count. 23.24. again you have to keep saying this, you can't make money drilling for oil in america at $23 a barrel. secretary of state pompeo has been on the phone to the saudi leader, look, this is your time to be a good ally, whether that worked or not we don't know, because the saudi have attacked american frackers by opening the spigots and flooding the market. one decent response from the price of oil is the price of gasoline. we're all the way down to $2.08 a gallon.

that is the national average, way, way down. likely to fall much more. something like 20 states have an average price of below $2 a gallon. market check. dow is up 45. nasdaq, s&p are down down. jack hough joins us at editor at "barron's" magazine. jack, i've been asking all our guests, have we seen a bottom? >> i would not be surprised we haven't hit bottom yet. i would say for relative certainty for the viewers. if you're thinking about putting money to work in the stock market for the long term, the time is to do it is now. you don't have to catch a bottom. you just have to have prices reasonable. prices are reasonable now. if you look at short term direction should have the market whether we hit bottom, goldman says the s&p 500 hit mid bottom

mid-year 2000, recovered to 3200 by the end. year. i find numbers like that fantasy because in the short term. it is not about math. my math is fine. math isn't going to help me with a short-term bottom in the stock market. it is human behavior. i got a text from a friend who is a nurse at a hospital, wearing a plastic face shield, getting ready for world war iii. that is what we're looking here in the new york over the next few weeks. i have a hard time imagining that we'll much up higher in the stock market while looking at images on tv that are heartwrenching. stuart: i see your point, jack, remember we are in the new york metropolitan area and the way it looks to us is not very encouraging. the way it looks to the rest of the country might be slightly different. what do you say? >> that is an excellent point, stuart. what we don't know is whether we are a preview for the rest of the country. we also don't know whether italy is a preview for us. one thing i find somewhat hopeful, there might be signs

that the numbers in italy are getting worse but slowing pace that might be hope for us around the corner. there is lot of things we don't know. will there be seasonal effect for the virus where it abates. president says we'll open things up by easter. it is hopeful. i think it is super optimistic at this point, short of some kind of seasonal reduction in the virus. i think now we've got to think about, maybe several weeks beyond that. stuart: all right. hold on for me for a second, jack, because i want to go to ashley. i think you may have the latest on the amount of oil we have in storage. i would imagine it has gone straight up. we have a glut, haven't we? ashley: you would be surprised, up 1.6 million, but the expectation was closer to a three million barrel build so maybe not as much as expected. don't forget they are buying oil as well for the strategic petroleum reserve which is steady at 634 million.

but again, 1.6 million, not as much as in storage as we thought. which would put upward pressure on oil but in this environment it is not going to do a whole lot. oil as you can see still around $23.40 a barrel, stu. stuart: yep. 23.42 it is. you can't make a profit on that in the united states. what is next? say it again? what is next? lauren on automakers. i have to explain to our audience we're all spread out all over the place here, and sometimes communication with each other is not absolutely direct. in fact there is a one or two second delay in what i'm hearing and what i'm actually listening to other people. lauren, you give me an update please on the automakers. lauren: everyone is talking about the president would love the economy to open by easter. well that is not going to happen in the state of michigan. when you speak about detroit and the big three automakers, gm, ford, chrysler, they are

extending their factory closings. it was the end of march. now it is looking like april. we don't know exactly when in april. we do know this, that the governor of michigan has a stay at home order. that is in effect until april 13, which is one day after easter. we also know that two union members, uaw members died of coronavirus. they were fiat chrysler workers. we also know, because if you look at all these factories, from coast to coast shut down, particularly the automakers, we're expecting sales to fall 40% this march, versus march of 2019. stuart: so to sum it up, lauren, the president wants to get some businesses opening up again and running by, in 2 1/2 weeks time but he will probably not be the automakers. i think that is where it is there. lauren: correct. stuart: grady trimble with us with more on automakers. what do you have for me, grady?

reporter: this is one of the drive-through testing sites. the people are wearing equipment that the automakers will be making because as lauren says they won't make cars for the foreseeable future. ford, for example, is making face shields you see the medical care providers wearing? they can make 75,000 of them this week using three deal. printing technology. they will be able to make 100,000 a week. they make air purifying respirators for medical workers to wear as well as first-responders. fca says it will be able to make one million masks per month. ford and general motors are teaming up with companies that make ventilators. ford with general electric and general motors with a company called ven-tech they will be able to ramp up production of ventilators. we don't know exactly how many they will produce and when they will be available for hospitals. as you heard andrew cuomo say

yesterday, new york state needs them desperately right now. the way the auto make requires pitching in, a lot of people are comparing it to world war ii. at this time general motors as well as ford made military equipment. things like tanks and as well as bomber air draft. they say, this as one of your guests just said, looks like world war iii. the automakers once again pitching in to try to help. stu? stuart: we like to hear that. grady trimble right in the middle of it, thank you, sir, appreciate it. come in please general jack keane, fox news senior strategic analyst. general, i have a difficult story here. three u.s. navy sailors aboard a warship at sea, i think aircraft carrier theodore roosevelt, i think that is what it is, they tested positive for the virus. they have been airlifted out. what occurs to me is, what about the remaining people on that ship, what happens to them? >> well they will try to quarantine the people he came in contact, those sailors, he or

she came in contact with for sure. what the military is trying to do, and it is a challenge for them, is that they're a group activity. as you obviously see on ships, particularly in the army and in the marine corps as well and everything they do in terms of their preparedness, everything they do in terms of deployments around the world are done in groups. obviously that adds to the contagion of this virus. non-the less they will maintain the status and do the best quarantine they can. we're up to 170 troops affected. that will grow certainly because they're not distancing and isolating to the degree that the american people writ large are doing. so that the challenge for the military as we go forward. in addition to that, basic train something going on every day, stuart, that is intense activity to say the least.

we turn over 25% of the military every year. the defense department cannot afford to shut training down and shut preparedness down. there is safety and security of the american people will be put at risk from another from another factor in terms of adversaries trying to take advantage of us. stuart: should the president invoke the defense product act? >> well, he already has. he is doing it to help in the mass production of test kits and other protective equipment for the front line forces. i think, what he didn't, he had the authority to do it he didn't do it until yesterday because there is such an incredible response from private sector and industries taken on role of doing something they don't normally do, for example, auto manufacturer making ventilators.

so yes, he is, he is going to use it in places where he is not getting the response he needs, or in fact his pricing isn't what it should be. and that's what he is doing now. stuart: what do you make of the president saying he would love to get business back in operation in 2 1/2 weeks by easter when a top pentagon official says this virus lasts for three months? >> i think it is an aspirational goal the president has, stuart. he knows full well, we cannot sustain this economy being shut down for months. the lasting effect would do great damage to the united states. at the same time he knows we have an infectious disease that is still increasing in the united states. i think, what he is going to try to do is, is, shut, bring, open up some businesses in different places at different times, in kind of a rolling schedule. and i know it is an aspirational

goal. he will listen to the scientific data. he will not ignore that. in my own personal interaction with him on two issues where he had a goal, one was to get everybody out of syria and get everybody out of afghanistan, as a result of him getting new information on both of those, he was flexible enough to modify those goals. i think he will do that here. he has new information coming to him. you know the testing we're doing is full throttle. it is showing a number of people have mild symptoms or no symptoms at all. that will drive the fatality rate a little over 1%, start driving it even closer to what flu fatality rates are. these therapeutic drugs, particularly hydroxychloroquine, every place it has been used has been successful. in china, france, anecdotally in the united states it is being

used. it will make a difference. as that drug begins to explode across the united states, i think it is going to be, i think it will turn the corner for us. stuart: all right. we like to hear that. general jack keane, thanks for being with us this morning, much appreciate it. as you see on the screens the dow industrials turned around again, we're up 250 points. a very small gain for the s&p. we're going to take a break. back with more after this. ♪

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to help the blind. it is already working in cities like tokyo. my dream is to help millions more people like me. stuart: lauren, give me the news from astro tech, please. lauren: this is very good news. the stock is up about 500%. they're working on a breath test. what it does it screens for compound in your breath that could indicate a potential lung infection like pneumonia or the coronavirus. so they are working on this. it would be administered at the point of care and you would get

your results instantaneously. so astrotech shares surging on this breath test under development. stuart: okay, earlier, you gave me the news on mortgage applications. i found that very interesting and very important. tell me again. lauren: yeah. mortgage applications, people are hunkered down, open houses are being canceled, people are trying to consearch cash that would have been a down payment. so weekly mortgage applications last week down over 29% per the mortgage bankers association. and that is very much a drop because of demand. rates, relatively, historically low. also looking at that refi activity, that also fell by 34%. i'm going to attribute that to a backlog and just many people working from home these days because that number was up almost 200% on the year. stuart: what a change, lauren, in the early part of the year, the housing industries looked like it would lead us forward to

a better economy. now there is a dark cloud over the housing industry. i do need to mention this, the house will not vote on the stimulus package today. i don't know the implications of that, but they will not be voting on it today. look who ask here now? vita cocoa, ceo and cofounder michael curban. you make and sell coconut water. i'm certain sales are urge ising, tell me more? >> i know it is a tough time for a lot of people out there. we happen to be fortunate, sales are through the roof, growing triple digits through major retailers. consumers are buying more shelf table products for home and they are consuming more. in my home we have gone through three versions of stockpiling. sales growing, revenue growing, profits are growing. we decided to give one million dollars of our pandemic profits back to the communities that are

most in need right now. stuart: what would those communities be? >> so, specifically, we have given a million dollars to feeding america and no kid hungry. these are organizations right now are super focused specifically on kids who are not getting school lunches. those were the main meal for the kids every day. that has been a big focus what we're working on right now. stuart: you think, you really want a permanent change in consumer tastes, don't you? coconut milk, doesn't go off, regular milk does. you want a permanent change in behavior? >> so, you know, we believe that, it its coconut water. it is incredibly nutritious. loaded with electrolytes. great for hydration. we're largest independently owned beverage company in the u.s. we believe it will bring more consumers. more product into the household. more family members are home. more family members are trying

it. we believe that will continue to stick, increase household penetration and consumption within households. stuart: michael kirban you're on to a winner there, your surging sales prove it. site at -- vita coco, thank you. dan barns is with us, he is president of a company called phone soap. okay, dan. i know the product. i will describe it, make sure i got it right. it is a little box. you put your phone in, it is subjected to ultraviolet light and it cleans the phone. have i got it right? >> you're right. simple and clean toe use. very effective using uvc light as you mentioned. stuart: how much does it cost? >> our product runs $80. it focuses on cell phones. you can put other items such as

credit card, keys. uses uvc light as you mentioned. it uses reflective technology, to insure the entire device, whatever you put inside is sanitized on all sides. stuart: as i understand it, you're going to come out with a wireless version of this, this phone soapbox but you can't come out with it until april 30th. why the delay? >> great question. well, we're seeing a lot of demand, a lot of success. our message has not changed from the beginning, that is that, healthy hand hygiene inseparable to phone and electronic hygiene. that demand is surging. of something we were not fully prepared for. so there is a back order on our products. we believe it is an important part of the solution. as you mentioned our products range from plug in and charge your phone, to wirelessly charging versions to even larger versions that can clean tablets

and other at home items. stuart: we've given you a nice commercial, dan. glad to see the company doing so well. phone soap guy. dan barnes. kurt knutson is with us. what do you make of the phonesoapbox? >> i love it. they're a great company. uvc lights are prodly becoming extraordinarily popular. you can get a wand, you essentially go across surfaces and do the same thing, removing germs. it has been proven to kill viruses. uvc light is a narrow uv light. also you're going to see the devices popping up in variety of other formats that make it a lot easier for us to now, we're much more focused on germs be able to get this. also more affordable. not that the phonesoap is bad. they have a good price point starting at 80. the website it is sold out. go to amazon, try to get these,

forget it. a lot of stuff, room for it in the market. stuart: kurt, a product perfect for the time and that's a fact. i'm up against a hard break. we're doing commercials these days. we got to make some money. we will be back after this.

stuart: we have a rescue package, a stimulus package, calling it what you like agreed to in the senate. that is helping the market. certainly the dow industrials up 300 point at this hour. it is also head certain groups

of stocks. credit card companies, they had a wonderful day yesterday and i think they're doing pretty good today. show me the credit cards. visa, amex, up almost another 4%. a lot of money pumped into the economy. credit cards win. big tech, where are they? frankly all over the place. we have a mixed bag. we have apple going up to 249, but all the rest of them, microsoft, amazon, facebook, alphabet, they are on the downside. retailers, again you have a got a mixed bag here, people are not spending that much in some retailers but spending a lot in others but they're all down. walmart retreating further from the record high that it reached last week. kroger, bj's wholesale, target, costco, all of them on the downside. we have a presidential tweet

just coming at us. i will read it to you, the four hospitals that we, fema, are building in new york city at the javits convention center, are moving along very well, ahead of schedule. many additional vent -- ventilators also delivered. good conversation with governor cuomo that is the presidential tweet. we have with judge, we've got this case here where a new jersey man coughed on a wegman's employee and faces charges. tell me what it's all about. >> he had some dispute with a cashi cashier. i don't know what the dispute was about. he coughed on her and said by the way, i have coronavirus. if true, if he did do that, that is an assault. however, the authorities in new jersey, in my view, have grossly overreacted to this and charged him with making a terroristic

threat. one side of this argument is the passage of a biological agent is covered in the terroristic threat law. the other side is, it's not a terroristic threat unless you are trying to bring down the government or change the policy of the government. so i don't know where this is going to go. it will depend, one, on whether or not he actually has coronavirus and two, whether or not the victim even wants to get involved in this, because there may have been no harm and no foul. it may have just been his idiocy that threatened her with something he didn't have. stuart: judge, i don't know what he should or should not be charged with, but i think the man should be taken to court because you don't do that kind of thing. >> yes. stuart: i don't know what you charge him with but i think we can both agree, don't do this. >> of course not. of course not. stuart: he should face a charge of some sort. >> he absolutely will. if you intentionally go about the world or your neighborhood or even your home intending to

pass this virus on to someone, that is an assault for which you can be prosecuted and incarcerated. the fact that he did this to a stranger does not make it any less serious. you simply can't do it. if you are pretending to have the virus, in order to get someone to bend to your will, which is apparently what this guy was trying to do, that is the threat of an assaultished an assault. to make it more complicated, the courts are closed in new jersey so this guy will probably sit in jail for awhile until some judge decides to hear the case. stuart: quickly, judge, we have the white house suggesting that anybody who leaves the new york city metropolitan area should quarantine for 14 days. i don't know how you enforce that. i don't know whether you approve of it, but this is another imposition on domestic travel. >> i certainly approve of the

suggestion. the more information that's out there, the better it is for everybody. those of us who live and work in the new york city metropolitan area and those who may come in contact with us. but of course, it's just a suggestion, it's not enforceable. the government doesn't have the resources with which to enforce it. much of what the president, governor murphy of new jersey, governor cuomo of new york are saying depend upon the good faith of the listener, because the government just doesn't have the time or resources to enforce every one of these things to a tee. stuart: all right. judge, we thank you as always for being with us. great stuff again. a fascinating case right there in new jersey. >> all the best to you. stuart: i would love to see how that turns out. thank you, judge. we will see you again real soon. we are coming up on the 11:00 hour. at precisely 11:00, i will reset where we are. if you are just joining us, we have our team in place. we have ashley, susan, lauren and myself. we are all spread out all over

the place but we are in the new york metropolitan area and we feel this virus as much as anybody in the country. we are all spread out. you can see us there, four different boxes. here you go. bang, it is 11:00 eastern time. i will reset what is happening. the market's been open for 90 minutes and it's been a topsy-turvy session. the dow shows a gain of 400 points but the nasdaq composite is down 13 points and the s&p is up 15. so a mixed bag on the market today, following yesterday's enormous rally. it was the best one-day gain for the dow since 1933. not quite the same today. also happening today, at noon, the senate will meet following the deal on that $2 trillion stimulus package. it was agreed to earlier today. very, very early in the morning. and it was agreed a $2 trillion deal. that number may actually go up a little, depending on how things

turn out with the applications for assistance from small business. but $2 trillion from there, $4 trillion from the federal reserve, enormous amount of money is in place and ready to go. the house, however, will not be voting on the stimulus package today. i don't know what the implications of that are. but ash, let's go to you first. news on the fed. what do you have? ashley: i have -- i don't have it, i'm sorry. i don't. i have a story on federal energy and the activity dying in the dallas area as we are seeing the impact on the oil patch -- stuart: let me jump in for a second. can i just jump in for a second? you had very interesting news earlier from james bullard, who is a fed governor. he has made big news earlier saying in the second quarter of this year, we would have 30% unemployment. i believe he said something more about how we come out of this on the other side. tell me again.

ashley: yeah, but he said it's going to be awhile, it's not going to come out until october. he said things -- we will start to see some businesses come back online before then but not until october will we see a somewhat start to the economic boom that he does expect later this year and heading into 2021. but his basic summation was it's going to be awhile, it's not going to happen, not going to be a huge snap-back this summer. he believes that will not happen until the fall, going into the autumn time, by which time the major industries he hopes will be back online. the big question is what about all the medium and small businesses, are they able to stay alive and to come back strong. he says ultimately, this economy will see an economic boom but he's talking about the end of this year going into next year. stuart: got it. thank you very much. let's move on to susan. you have news from the retailers. susan: yes, retail stocks are

getting pummeled of course this year. we are looking at the likes of kohl's, macy's, guess all dropping 30%. take a look at the retail etf called xrt, down some 33% in the month of march, on track for its worst month in history. it's not just store closures. this has been a trend we have been seeing with a lot of problems with bricks and mortars since people are going online to purchase goods but it's also about the credit situation and the relatively high levels of debt on the balance sheets. oppenheimer says take a look at macy's for one. $1.5 billion credit line they are tapping and if stores are shut, especially in this sensitive time of coronavirus, they have some serious concerns about whether or not some of these retailers can pay back those debts and how many more will go under. stuart: lauren, come in, please. i'm seeing the waffle house closing? tell me more. lauren: okay. waffle house is considered a proxy for how bad a disaster is. they stay open during hurricanes. they are staying open.

1627 waffle houses will be open. but 365 will be shut. so as we talk about how severe the coronavirus pandemic is, waffle house which typically stays open is now shutting some of its locations. stuart: all right. thank you. before we move on to john lonski, our economist in residence, i want to just run down what this stimulus package does for america and its economy. first of all, checks will be going out. $1200 to individuals, $2400 to couples, up to $75,000 per year in income. $100 billion will go to hospitals for assisting them. $350 billion will go to small business. it could be a lot more than that, depending on the number of applications they get for assistance. $350 billion, maybe more.

$500 billion goes to major corporations. they will be held accountable. there will be an inspector general to oversee the flow of this money and a board of control to oversee it in the long term. there will be an increase in unemployment assistance, $600 a week for four months, and there will be $150 billion going to state and local governments. this is a gigantic rescue stimulus package, much bigger than anything we saw in the 2008-2007 financial crisis. now, come in, john lonski. all that i described, i would have thought would be enough to put a floor under the economy. what say you? >> i think you are going to prove correct. of course, the big question the market still faces is how long does covid-19 last, how long do we have to wait until the curve finally peaks.

stuart: well, do you think that the president was right to say he would love to open up some of the economy in two and a half weeks? what do you say about that? >> i think what he's touching on is perhaps the impossibility of keeping the economy locked up, if you like, for much more than a month. that's going to be very difficult to do. you stop and think about it, look at all the people in new york city living in small apartments, living in housing projects. how can you possibly expect them to stay in place for much longer than one month? so perhaps we have to start thinking of some new strategy as to how we are going to deal with covid-19, the new strategy might be by trying to set aside, trying to segregate those individuals that are most at risk and perhaps allowing slowly but surely everybody else to get back to work.

stuart: john, just hold on for a second, please. i will come back to you in a moment. susan has news on jobless claims. we get the numbers tomorrow morning at 8:30. what news do you have? susan: citigroup predicting four million americans will be filing for unemployment benefits in the week. this is a case of most economists and investment banks believe this is going to be a really ugly number. citi is predicting four million. bank of america says three million in the week. we heard fromp predicting 2.25 million. the average economist is looking for a million. think about it, the previous high was in 1982, 695,000. any number above one million is almost more than twice the previous high which says a lot of people are going through a lot of pain right now. stuart: john lonski, come back again. you are the economist here. maybe four million first time claims for unemployment benefits tomorrow morning at 8:30 eastern time? that is a gigantic number. won't that come as a shock to

the market? >> well, that would very much be a shock to the market. it would be a negative but we have to ask ourselves what is the situation going to look like two to three months from now when hopefully covid-19 risks have subsided considerably. you know, this isn't part of a normal business cycle. this is something quite extraordinary and once this natural calamity begins to recede, i would expect to see quite an improvement with jobless claims. it wasn't that long ago there were just over 200,000. as this one forecaster said it could be as many as four million. stuart: ouch. we'll see about that tomorrow morning, 8:30. we like to keep you up to speed on what's going on around the world with the virus. the shock news this morning was that prince charles, heir to the throne of britain, has tested positive for the virus. ashley webster is back with us.

news from hungary? ashley: hungary announcing that it is banning the export of hydroxychloroquine sulfate which of course is used in drugs for the treatment of the coronavirus. i'm wondering if we will see more of this from other countries around the world, hanging on to their supplies in the case that they need it first, before any other exports. there you have it. hungary making that announcement. they are not going to export this drug until further notice. stuart: ashley, all right. another company responding to the virus. square. what do you have? lauren: this is a financial tech company. they actually a few days ago withdrew their forecast for the year, like many other companies have. the stock is up today. last check, it was up about 15%. they did get an upgrade at one ba bank, nomura, and i'm curious to see how banks as we are trying to figure out how to get money to companies both big and small,

and to consumers, how financial tech helps do that and a company that would be included is square. stuart: got it. that stock is up 16%. that's a whopping great big increase for square at $54 a share. jason katz is with us from ubs. i'm asking you the same question i have asked everybody else. we've got this massive stimulus package from congress, $4 trillion coming at us from the federal reserve. is that enough to put a floor under the economy and therefore, a floor under the market? >> well, there's a wall street adage that's been around since the beginning of wall street time. that's calling bottoms are left to the psychics and the liars and i'm neither. i can't tell you with any level of conviction if we found the bottom but i do take incredible solace in the fact that two of

the three prerequisites to form a bottom are in place. the monetary stimulus, the fiscal stimulus. you mentioned it before. it's massive, it's unprecedented. $6 trillion. they have thrown the kitchen sink, the bathroom sink, it is a blank check. the third criteria, of course, is the medical front. as a market participant, i have resolved myself to the fact that we are going to see a spike in cases. what we want to see is a blitz of tests. we want to see ventilators, masks, a flattening of the curve. frankly, we are at the point where it's only time that's the cure. because we have the two other antidotes we need. we need the third now. stuart: understood. stay there for a second. i just want to bring this to our viewers' attention. president trump, a new tweet moments ago, congratulations to prime minister abe of japan and the ioc, international olympic committee, on their very wise

decision to present the olympics in 2021. it will be a great success and i look forward to being there. that's from the president, just in, about the postponement of the olympics. okay. do we take a break now? do we? tell me. do we take a break? okay. sorry. i misunderstood there. i want to bring back john lonski. there's a negative here that appeared earlier this morning and i want your judgment on it. mortgage applications down 29%. now, housing had been a bright spot until march. now it looks like it's a dark spot. what's going on? >> nobody's going to go out there and look for a home when there's the threat of contracting the virus. it makes sense that you're going to see a decline in home viewing activity, mortgage applications, home buying, until these risks recede. that's very important. can i add something that's related to interest rates?

you were talking about housing. i think it should be mentioned. that is that i have noticed the corporate bond market's response to this fed program of providing loans to investment grade companies has been very positive. i'm starting to see yesterday, we had a big jump by corporate bond etfs for investment grade companies, they were up sharply. moreover, we are seeing an improvement for speculative junk bond etfs, they are doing significantly better. i can't help but notice that the risk measures that we use in the corporate bond market are still falling considerably short of what we saw in the final quarter of 2008, first quarter of 2009, and that's different from the equity market, where we are seeing very severe sell-offs and a vix reading that rivals where it last was during the final

months of 2008 and early 2009. let's cross our fingers that the corporate bond market is on to something. stuart: okay. fingers crossed, john. i will do it for you. back to jason katz. jason, you can invest anywhere in the world. you cover all the world's markets. let me ask this question. in other countries where they have bent the curve, china, south korea, in particular, have their markets recovered? >> well, we certainly have seen a little bit of that around the world in china in particular, but like i said when i was with you last, why look elsewhere when you could look here. in other words, you could have a rookie that has promise but why wouldn't you play the all-star? i would look right here with the home bias to the united states. stuart: okay. we will wait for the bending of the curve here. we shall do that. jason, thanks very much indeed. before we go to a commercial break, i want to tell our viewers, we have a rescue

package agreed to in the senate, a ton of money will be launched at the economy very soon, we believe. the dow industrials up nearly 500 points but the nasdaq is down just a little. we'll be right back. (aurelia) i did have hearing aids from another company. i was just frustrated i almost gave up. with miracle-ear, it's all about service. they're personable, they're friendly. i'm very happy with them. (vo) we provide you with a free lifetime of aftercare, meaning free check-ups, cleanings and adjustments.

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not that far off. they say the pain train is over for apple and they expect to get back to the fundamentals which is selling hardware and also services. now, apple for its part, according to bloomberg news, is going the o reopen their stores 458 outside of china have been closed because of the coronavirus spread but they will be opened in a staggered way, meaning not all at once, depending which region, obviously, according to bloomberg reporting, and it looks like they are still going to tell employees to stay at home until at least april 5th from what i see. but i call it dow outperformance right now and maybe money coming out of the technology plays. for instance, amazon is down in the session, so is facebook and netflix as well. this got a lot of rotation yesterday, these stocks and this sector. maybe they are looking at value elsewhere, especially as you see boeing and the airlines and others are set to receive some senate stimulus. might be a better trade. stuart: yeah. boeing is certainly going straight up today. that's a fact. susan, thanks very much indeed. come in, please, senator john barrasso, republican, wyoming.

mr. senator, i'm not quite sure what to make of this, but i'm told that the house will not vote on the stimulus package today. does that mean that speaker pelosi may be able to stick some stuff into it and change the nature of the stimulus package that we've got? >> two things. one is, it's outrageous that the house wouldn't vote today after the senate votes to pass this package today, and to me this is much more of a rescue operation, it's relief for americans who are forced out of work because of the health care crisis as well as the economic crisis. we need to get this to the president's desk today. but as you have seen with speaker pelosi, she doesn't seem to show any urgency or understanding of the suffering that is going on all around the country. i want to get this to the president's desk today. stuart: it seemed like the package which has been described to me puts an enormous amount of

money out into the economy relatively quickly. checks to individuals, $100 billion for hospitals, $350 billion, maybe more, for small business, $500 billion for corporations. that's a gigantic chunk of money which we are about to push into the economy, plus $4 trillion from the federal reserve. i would have thought that could put a floor under the economy. >> well, i would expect that it would. there may need to be additional work later in terms of stimulating an economy. this to me is a rescue and relief package for the economy. you talk about what the health care providers need. it is in there. in terms of the materials that they need, the testing, the research for a vaccine and for treatment, all of those things are in there for our hospitals because those men and women in the battle against this disease are doing heroic work. in terms of people who are forced out of work, that is there. i've just gotten off an h

hour-long conference call with the republican senators and secretary of treasury going through item by item all the things in there. we are now scrubbing it to make sure none of those wish things, the nancy pelosi wish list, are there. we are making sure none of those are. we have been assured they are not there and she will not have an opportunity to change this once it leaves the senate. stuart: that's what we wanted to hear. senator barrasso, thank you very much for being with us. much obliged to you. republican, wyoming. >> thank you, stuart. stuart: thank you. all right. i want to get back to boeing. i know the stock is nicely up today. what's the news? lauren: it's adding 140 points to the dow's 450 point gain now. it's up 26%. it is the third day in a row that boeing is up in double digits. it's up 56% this week, halfway through. here's the news. number one, they are still working to get the grounded 737 max certified to fly again and they hope to do so around the

month of may, middle of this year. second, the ceo, david calhoun said look, he doesn't want government money, doesn't want a bailout, if that means the government takes an equity stake in the plane maker. stuart: all right. thanks, lauren. here's what i like to hear. a company that is hiring, specifically hiring drivers. eric fuller is with us, u.s. express, president of that company, and ceo. welcome to the program. how many drivers are you hiring and why are you hiring them? on the phone: well, we are in an industry where we are always hiring. in part because there's constant turnover but in part because we are seeing increased demand in some pockets of our business, especially as it relates to grocery, consumer products and those areas. stuart: how much do you pay them? >> drivers are mostly paid by the mile. but right now, we are seeing an

increase in some of the ability for some of our drivers to make increased pay, so we are, you know, we are seeing opportunities for drivers to make a nice rate of pay in this environment. stuart: i'm told that i think it was walmart, that they could make $87,000, $90,000 a year. i don't know if you can answer for walmart but is that pretty standard cross the industry? >> to be fair, that's on the high end. i would say, you know, typical depending on it could be anywhere from $50,000 to $70,000 a year, depending on the job and what type of areas they're running and that type of thing. i think it changes. but walmart's definitely would be more on the high end of that. stuart: okay. eric, look, thanks very much for joining us. i'm sorry to cut it so short but it's great to hear an industry

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stuart: before the virus broke upon us, one of the big stories was negative interest rates. that's where the borrower pays the lender. unbelievable. susan, are you going to tell me that negative rates have now arrived here? susan: it's a reality, stu. i was looking on the screen myself going my goodness, this has really happened. yes, we have gone negative for one month treasury notes, from what i see, three months, six months, one year, two year all the way up to seven years. that's because i guess people are afraid of the short-term negative impact on the coronavirus. you so tee the curve bend like that, that means people are expecting a hit to the economy. it won't be doing very well in the short term, and that stems from coronavirus. maybe we saw this bending of the curve because you heard from andrew cuomo, new york state governor, saying they are going to close streets that have been more cases of coronavirus in the city and it looks like it's exponential growth right now, doubling they say in cases every three days. so this is a new reality, stu.

i should point out the ten-year note is still way above record lows. i think we are still at 79 basis points. record low was at 31. again, that indicates to you the short-term curve has bended, meaning a lot of people are anticipating a big hit for the u.s. economy at least in the near term. stuart: fair point. good indicator of that, too. let's go to ashley with more news, and more detail on what governor cuomo, new york state governor, has been saying. ashley: again, he is making an appeal to expand hospital capacity. he says we have 53,000 beds available in new york. we could need up to 140,000. he says we have to stop the rate of hospitalization. he says we will close streets in new york city to cars. we don't know what streets yet, what is the reasoning behind that, but he's just basically saying we have to find ways to reduce density. he's enacting some measures that will address that issue.

he's enacting mandatory playground social density. i wasn't aware that was a problem. he says the apex of need could be coming in approximately 21 days. that's three weeks from now before we hit the very peak of this. that's not enough -- that's a surprising number. he says we have enough protective equipment for all hospitals statewide for now. so he says more is the better and continuing to ask for anyone who is retired from the doctor, nurses, anyone, to please get in touch and they need the help certainly as the rates of cases continues to go up. as susan said, we have heard from the governor, it's doubling every three days. stuart: all right. you give me the news, please, from london city airport. that's not heathrow. london city. ashley: yes, about seven miles east of the city of london. they are suspending all

commercial and private flights from today until the end of april because of the pandemic. this is a busy little airport. it took in more than five million passengers last year and this -- the main routes to come into it come from europe, from holland and scotland and those areas have essentially been shut down, so no big surprise. london city airport closed until the end of april. stuart: until the end of april. how about that. my goodness me. all right. aetna in the news. lauren's got the news. lauren: if you have to stay in a hospital, your payment, if you are insured with aetna, will be waived. there will be no payment if you stay in the hospital. that's what aetna is offering. now we know if you get tested, it's essentially free. go to the doctor, it's free. stay in the hospital, much the same. aetna intends to do this to cover your hospital stay, no

out-of-pocket costs to you until june 1st. first insurer to do so. stuart: okay. that's from aetna. thank you very much. david nicholas is with us. david is joining us by phone from georgia. looking at the overall market, david, would you say that we have hit bottom in recent days? or that we are close to a bottom? could you say that? on the phone: i think we are closer to a bottom which is a good thing. but the problem, though, unfortunately, i'm not convinced the rally we saw yesterday will be sustained. if you just look at the vix, the vix went up yesterday, it's up slightly today. so while the market was shooting up so was the vix. this is not a good sign. i think there was a lot of short selling, covering going on yesterday. i mean, the good news, though, is that it looks like we have a stimulus bill both parties seem to agree on. the bad news, unfortunately, there is still a lot of bad

economic news that's coming around the corner. i can't even imagine what the week's jobless claims are going to look like tomorrow. it's hard for me to say we are at bottom yet. mainly just because -- stuart: tomorrow -- i'm sorry, there's this dreadful delay we have to deal with. but i will deal with it. the terrible news that's coming tomorrow morning is that there's going to be well over a million first-time jobless claims. those numbers are announced at 8:30 eastern time. we will get the official number at that point. but it's going to be quite a shock i think both to the market and maybe to investors as well. what do you think? i have seen numbers maybe four million initial jobless claims tomorrow morning. that would be a real shock to the market, wouldn't it? on the phone: it absolutely would be. when we do our modeling at our firm for are we heading for recession or not, the weekly jobless claim is a big part of

that model. i think a lot of models will be flashing red tomorrow but i think there's three things that need to happen before we see a bottom. monetary policy which we have already seen, the fiscal policy which i hope we will see this week, but lastly, there's got to be some assurance that the virus is contained. we've got two of the three in place. so until we get that certainty on the virus, i just think there's going to be a slew of bad news. so in the short term, we are really talking about the short term, i think the short term will be ugly but i am very optimistic when we look six to nine months to 12 months out, my money is on the ingenuity and resilience of the american people. we are going to get through this but we got to get through the ugliness short term. i just don't see markets continuing to trend up when we have a slew of bad news coming out. if you look at a company like target, for example, target moved guidance down there. their stock is getting hammered today by 7%. i think we will see more of that. we just don't have the information yet for where these companies are at but as earnings

come out, unfortunately i think we will see more volatility. stuart: all right. david nicholas, we wish you well. i know you are cooped up in the house with your children. again, we hope you are doing well through this. thanks very much. david nicholas. bring in hillary vaughn live on capitol hill. the latest on the stimulus package, please? reporter: stuart, reporting through the specific part of this that relates to the $500 billion treasury fund that is being used to give money and loans to affected industries, here's the breakdown for the airline industry. $25 billion for passenger air carriers. $4 billion for cargo air carriers and $17 billion for businesses that are critical to maintaining national security. that's the number breakdown for that. we also have been reporting there are strings attached to these loans. some of those strings include not paying out dividends until the loan is repaid and then a year tacked on after that. there's a restriction on that part for that. we are still poring through this

and will give you more details as we have them. stuart: important details indeed. hillary vaughn, thank you very much indeed. steve hilton is with us. he joins us by remote, of course, because nobody is sitting next to each other any loer longer. welcome back. good to see you. this thing about the president saying he would love to open the economy up again by easter, two and a half weeks away, there's a great deal of pushback against that. lot of people saying that's far too early. new york, california, many other states which will not go along with it but i support it. i think it's a worthy goal. what say you? >> yes, i think what the president has done is incredibly important. he's changed the conversation and put the light at the end of the tunnel. until he said that, we were in a situation where people were speculating that this total shutdown of the economy everywhere could go on for

months until there's a vaccine. no one really knew when it was going to end. there was no sort of target put there. of course it's true that you have to do it on a case by case basis. the president acknowledged that. dr. fauci said that as well. you've got to be led by the data. so i think what's going to actually happen is that where it's looking like progress is being made and it's safe to do so, restrictions will be loosened and where it's not, they will be maintained and tightened, for example, in new york. but you can't treat the whole country in the same way. so many businesses are going to the wall every single day as you have just been discussing this morning and every morning, that you've got to have that attitude of opening up as quickly as possible, wherever possible, in order to keep people employed, keep businesses alive. so i think that's exactly the right direction and the message that we all needed to hear. stuart: i do want to ask you about prince charles. it was a rather dramatic news

this morning that he's tested positive for the virus and also, we understand the queen will address the nation. it seems like the brits are taking this not necessarily very seriously, but their clampdown is remarkable. it's a real change for boris johnson from just a few days ago. >> yes, exactly. i think what you are seeing in the uk is a dawning realization of how serious it is. because the government actually didn't take it seriously and had a different approach which was, i will just tell you exactly what one of my relatives said when we were talking about this. they said well, it's their interpretation of the british government's policy was the idea is that as many of us get it as quickly as possible and we will all be okay. that was what they heard from the british government. this notion of herd immunity, spread it through the population as quickly as possible and then you will get that immunity built up. but the short-term consequences of that turned out to be too

much. stuart: i'm out of time. thanks for joining us. when i heard prince charles tested positive, you realize anybody can get it. steve hilton, you're all right. thanks very much indeed. we will be back. is faced with adversity, we find a way to get through it. it's not about taking care of ourselves, but taking care of each other. checking on our neighbors... lending a hand where we can... and just being there.

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stuart: drama from the governor of new york, andrew cuomo. what are the headlines? ashley: we said to you earlier that they will be closing streets in new york city to cars. he says the number of coronavirus infections continues to rise in new york. they are now banning close contact sports in new york city like basketball in parks and will make it mandatory if people simply don't comply with that rule. trying to accelerate the production of ventilators. right now he says new york has purchased 7,000 ventilators. they have gotten 4,000 from the federal government for a total of 11,000. he said we will need 30,000.

so they are still well short, he says there's a high rate of hospitalizations that have been projected and he says also that 6100 mental health professionals have signed on to help. so that's good to know. but again, it's the same story as we've had over the weeks now from the governor. if anything more, he's looking at more stringent measures in new york city to get people to separate out, preferably just stay at home. if you are out, and you decide to go to the park with some friends and play basketball, not a good idea. in fact, if you do that, you may ultimately have to be told no and disperse you. there you have it. he says he spoke with the president this morning. he said they are using the defense production act to maximize production, something he called for yesterday. that's the latest from the governor. stuart: now i've got a rather oddball story about a delivery of hand sanitizers to the u.s.

senate. edward lawrence, what happened? reporter: yeah. some senators' offices this morning got a delivery according to one senate source telling me a delivery of hand sanitizer. we are all using a liberal amount. when they turned it over on the back there's an expiration date. the expiration date on the ones this morning delivered to the senate offices was 2009. it then had to be recalled from all the offices and another batch was then given to them. but another reminder as we use a lot of hand sanitizer, look at the back, look at the expiration date. make sure it's valid. back to you. stuart: all right. an interesting story. edward lawrence, thanks very much. come in, senator john hoeven, republican, north dakota. i know you are very concerned, senator, about support for farmers and ranchers, because that's the nature of your state. you've seen the rescue package. have you got what you want? >> well, we got about $25 billion to help our farmers and ranchers and that's very important because that's the food supply we all depend on,

not only across america but throughout the world. so our farmers and ranchers are out there doing their part and we've got to make sure we get them through this coronavirus as well. of course, a lot of other help in the bill, about $2 trillion in total. stuart: are you happy with it for farmers and ranchers in your state? you happy with what you're getting? >> again, this is going to be very helpful. we may have to do more. we'll see. but this is obviously very helpful for our farmers and ranchers. stuart: one quick point, senator. we are all reporting to you from the new york metropolitan area. i think that this clampdown, this restriction on activity, feels a lot different to us than to you. to a rural state. it doesn't hit you in quite the same way, does it? >> right. we are watching, obviously far fewer cases in our state. we are spread out, we are taking necessary precautions, but certainly a different situation in new york city and that's why

it's so important we get on top of this virus first. first and foremost, we got to kill that virus and then we've got to get people through. that's why we are providing financial help with the checks, help for small businesses, help for our hospitals, doctors. again, this is an effort where we've got to beat the virus but then we've got to help people and get our economy going again. stuart: i would say it will be easier for you, your state, to get back to work by easter than it would be for many other highly densely populated states. am i right? >> right. that's a very important point. that's something the president has been talking about and others. you know, we have 50 states, you have different situations in different states. you mentioned new york. look what's going on there now. obviously has to be a real point of focus. out in north dakota, other places, we may get -- be able to get back to work sooner. again, protect the vulnerable but as we continue to get on top of the virus, get people back to work. that may vary in different parts

of the country. stuart: senator john hoeven, republican, north dakota, thanks for joining us. now, susan, come in, please. north dakota is an oil producing state. i believe secretary of state pompeo had something to say to the saudis about their glut of oil that they are producing. what did he say? susan: that's something he's dealing with in saudi arabia and their manipulation in the oil markets and the oil prices but also, pompeo just came out with a statement on china and their disinformation campaign on coronavirus. we know president trump will be holding this virtual conference, teleconference with the g-7 nations and their leadership and pompeo, secretary of state, said all of them are aware and that includes china, by the way, saying the u.s. army actually brought coronavirus to wuhan. i think that's probably part of some of the disinformation that he's referring to. stuart: so the secretary of state is saying knock it off? susan: pretty much. i think president trump has said that as well. you knock it off, we will knock

it off with the wuhan virus and the chinese virus references. stuart: susan, thanks very much. let's get more on china. bring in christian whiton, former state department official. christian, welcome back to the program. china's economy appears to be coming back to life. they are on the other side of this thing. is that accurate? >> it's probably accurate. we won't really know, you can't trust statistics coming from china, but they are sort of putting their money where their mouth is right now, reopening wuhan -- excuse me, at least hubei, the province in which wuhan is located. wuhan itself may still face restrictions. but you are going to see a resumption of regular travel and commerce there. incidentally, restarting trains from that province to hong kong, they are already booked up. we will see. this could lead to just expanded commerce, it could lead to a dispersion of more infections. hong kong also getting back to business. now, they are dependent on trade and trade is way off, when you

have commercial flights drop out of hong kong that also reduces your ability to ship air cargo. that's having an effect and the price of that is spiking. we know that some of our own clients specifically but yeah, some deregulation going on over there. stuart: real fast, you think hong kong has gotten over the protests or gotten around the protests that we were seeing before the virus hit? >> on the contrary. i think there's fury at the government there. they have never been as restrictive as we have in the united states. they haven't closed restaurants, for example, in hong kong. they are over the wuhan but this summer when this evaporates with warmer weather you will have a return of protests there. stuart: christian, thanks very much indeed. i want to go back to ashley. more headlines from governor cuomo of new york. this is the epicenter of the virus. what's he saying now? ashley: those numbers really bring that home. in the past 24 hours, 5,000 more positive cases in new york.

brings the total to 30,811. that is ten times more than the next nearest state which would be new jersey. certainly the highest in the united states. also recorded, 285 deaths so far. 130,000 tested, 12% of those tested end up in the hospital. that's about 3800 people. 3% end up in the icu. that's right around 890 people. just gives you a sense of how new york has been hardest hit boy this virus. stuart: all right. here's another industry which i think has been hard hit and that is the automobile industry. not in terms of production, but in terms of sales. the latest on that, lauren? lauren: not looking good. edmonds is predicting that this month, car sales here in the u.s. will fall by 23% in march from february. that obviously will affect the first quarter and those numbers expected to decline as well. most of the auto makers, at

least detroit, they are closed and will likely keep the factories closed until maybe early april. stuart: ouch. that is a serious downturn on auto sales. all right. thanks very much, lauren. let's get back to capitol hill. hillary vaughn joins us again. more details, please, on the package, stimulus package. reporter: we are getting new details on the terms for the loans given to midsized businesses. that's any company that has anywhere from 500 to 10,000 workers. the treasury out of this $500 billion fund is going to provide financing for any bank or lender that gives these businesses those loans. interest-free for that 2%, the first six months, no payment is due. there's some conditions on this. it has to be used to retain 90% of their work force at full pay and full benefits through september 30th of 2020. the business has to be u.s.-based with a significant part of their work force in the u.s. they have to agree to not

outsource or offshore any jobs during the loan duration and then two years after the loan is repaid. they also are required to honor collective bargaining agreements agreed to and also stay neutral in any new union negotiation for the loan duration and two years after the loan is repaid. stuart? stuart: all right. thanks very much indeed, hillary. a special guest joining us now. olympic hopeful, 2020 olympic hopeful janelle shepherd is with us joining us on the phone. she's one of the world's best high jumpers and was looking forward to the olympics this year. we have received a tweet from president trump. i'm going to read it to you. congratulations to prime minister abe of japan and the ioc on their very wise decision to present the olympics in 2021. it will be a great success. i look forward to being there. come into this, please. >> yeah, for sure, i'm disappointed. this is something i've been

training for for the past four years. i was in rio in 2016. so yeah, four year cycle but keeping perspective about the entire situation is definitely a relief for all of us athletes. now we know for sure it will be postponed, we can restructure our training plans. that is what i'm doing right now, i'm adjusting just like everybody else has to adjust. stuart: am i right in saying athletes, world class athletes like yourself, you gear your entire life to the olympics and a certain date and you train towards it, am i right? >> yeah, absolutely. i moved here to the netherland where i live now about two years ago to train with a new coach so this has been, you know, many years in the making and in the planning. this year i had a really good season so far. everything was lining up according to plan. so it is a several year planning process but you can't really plan for these types of

situations so like i said, we're just adjusting. there are a lot of people who are dying and, things that are much, much more important than our sport going on in the world right now, so i'm just trying to keep the right perspective. stuart: have you regeared your training process to be fit and at your best for 2021? >> yes, that is exactly, i spoke to my coche in fact. we're taking a little bit of a break for that because we want to stay inside as much as possible. we'll pick it up when things slow down in terms of the virus and try to regear our training plan towards the end of the year. there is possibility that there will be some competition happening in the professional circuit. stuart: jeanelle, thank you very

much for being with us this morning. we really do sympathize with your situation. it is dreadful for you. we hope you can recover, retrain, and come back strong in 2021. you have our best wishes janelle. thank you for being with us. the market shows a nice gain of 500 points for the dow industrials, a tiny lose for the, for the nasdaq and now we're showing you oil drillers. we're showing you oil drillers because the price of oil has dropped to $23 a barrel. they are down, not out but they are significant down, devon, transocean, hemrick, marathon up one cent. that tells the story on the oil market right now. i want to close out if you give me the four shot, please, dramatic news this morning, ashley go to you,. ashley: yeah. stuart: dramatic news, prince charles, he tested positive.

that is a shock. ashley: exactly for the reason you stated, stuart, it shows anyone, i mean anyone is vulnerable of this, you think you're taking the best precautions you have to be so careful. by the way reportedly fine. he is reporting some mild symptoms but when you see that it brings it home, how vulnerable we all are. stuart: yeah. the queen, i think he said this earlier, the queen will make an address to the nation. that's highly unusual. you get the christmas message on christmas day. ashley: right. stuart: i have never seen this before. ashley: another sign of extraordinary times. we don't know when that will be. she will try to pick the best moment where she is not interfering with the business of the country. it shows you how extraordinary these times are. stuart: just want to thank everybody who has appeared on the program today with great difficulty, especially you, lauren. we really wish you well. because you're not struggling but you're at home with two young children. we feel for you, lauren.

lauren: they're bored. i'm getting very creative how i entertain them. we manage. stuart: you're a fine woman, a fine mother, that's a fact. thanks very much to everybody. all very much appreciate it. my time is up, neil, sir, it is yours. neil: thank you very, very much, stuart. wait until lauren has to deal with teenagers. she will have a whole different perspective on the stay at home thing. look what is happening, stuart. you have been nimbly handling all of this the last three hours. the dow jones industrials are up quite a bit, 567 points. all of this is because the senate struck a deal. they have not formally approved the deal. the house, will gavel in and out of sessions, whatever the house does, it will have to wait tomorrow. optimists are convinced that better than two trillion dollar package will do the strict.