we can get the public health crisis under control as long as we have decisive action from the federal government. we are seeing that now. maria: dagen, real quick. >> these are people, not numbers. they are families, not statistics. we will never forget that. maria: all right. great show, everybody. dagen, ryan, mamade, thank you. stuart, take it away. stuart: good morning, maria. good morning, everyone. we expected bad news but this was a stunner. 3.28 million new jobless claims. now, this is an example of just how bad it is. the economy has clearly taken a sudden plunge. those unemployment numbers, in fact, are likely to get worse and the unemployment rate could go to 10% or more. now, to help the recovery, the senate has passed the $2.2 trillion stimulus package. it was a unanimous vote. house democrats are expected to say yes. the president will sign it very soon.

some of the democrats' wish list has been taken out but the kennedy center for performing arts still gets $25 million and there is a provision which limits the response of small businesses to union action. surely at times like this we should be able to pass a clean bill without measures that have nothing to do with rescuing the economy. it is a 900 page bill. we are still going through it. we are looking for the pork. now look at the markets. there is virtually no reaction to those really bad jobless numbers. we will open with a very small loss, maybe go to the plus column at the time we open up. right now we are looking at a 57-point loss, 67 points for the dow industrials. remember, please, this follows back-to-back trading sessions where stocks went up. some think that is a sign of at least a short-term bottom. we'll see. again, the dow is now down 70.

s&p down 13. nasdaq down 21. let's get to the virus. 200 americans have died in the last 24 hours. the death toll now exceeds 1,000 in the united states. new york state has 33,000 cases and is clearly the epicenter. however, new york governor cuomo says there is some evidence that the number of new cases is beginning to decline. that's a positive. all right. now let's get to the stimulus package in detail. the objective is to put money directly into the hands of those workers worst hit. hillary vaughn joins us from washington. spell it out. who gets what? reporter: anyone making or most people making under $99,000 a year are going to get something. how much you get, of course, depends on how much you make. if you make up to $75,000 and you are a single filer, you are getting a direct payment of $1200. couples making up to $150,000 a year together are going to get a

payment of $2400. if you have children, you are getting $500 per child in your family. all of that can add up to several thousand dollars for a family of four. there are some restrictions. once you get above the $75,000 threshold, it starts to phase out. you get $5 less essentially for every $100 you were over the $75,000 and then it caps at $99,000 completely. no one over that is going to get something. there also is a lot of details in this bill about the $350 billion allocated to help out small businesses. there are going to be small business loans that are forgiven by the government and there's also a payment protection program where essentially the government will cover your payroll 100%. the time period for that is from february 15th to june 30th.

who is eligible? companies with 500 employees or less. this is what they can use the money for. if they are taking out a loan and want to have the government forgive that loan, they need to spend that money specifically on payroll, health care, paid sick and medical and family leave, insurance premiums, employee salaries, mortgage payments, rent and utilities. the bottom line is they can't just claim that they're spending this money. they have to bring receipts. they have to bring all the documents that are requested to prove that the money was spent in the way that they're saying it was spent. of course, there's a lot of other stuff, for midsized businesses and large corporations that we reported on your show yesterday. stuart: hillary, thank you very much indeed. now we know who is getting what. let's go back to the jobless numbers. 3.28 million new jobless claims. lauren simonetti, break it down, please. lauren: wow. wow, stuart. brutal reality just hit home for 3.25 million americans filing for those unemployment benefits last week. it was near the high end of the estimates which were as many as four million. this is the story of individual

economic pain. you ask these small businesses do you plan to rehire some of these workers. i don't know who can say yes at this point. in the state of california, this is why we knew this federal number would be so bad, in the past two weeks, in fact, less than two weeks, they had more than one million claims in california alone. in connecticut, between friday and last night, 40,000. i can tell you this story over and over again as we look at the different states coast to coast. real quickly here, i'm going to give you a silver lining. the silver lining is this. there could be jobs at state unemployment office to deal with all these calls and requests for money, because the state unemployment offices get money from the government, federal grants, and the unemployment rate before coronavirus had been so low, they didn't need a lot of funding. well, now they do. there could be jobs open. stuart: that is indeed a silver lining. good stuff. thanks very much indeed. paul conway is with us, former

labor department chief of staff. we bring him in whenever there's news on joblessness and unemployment. paul, welcome back to the show. 3.283 million claims, that is bad. i think it's likely to get worse, maybe, but tell me this. does this point the way to a 10% unemployment rate? >> i think we have to wait and see. everybody across america is seeing history being written here. in terms of the legislation in washington yesterday and hopefully through the house tomorrow, you are going to see emergency assistance to families and essentially what we are trying to do is get work force retention for small business and other businesses and gig workers and part-time workers. but tell you what, i think we are in uncharted territory. this number that came out this morning, i want to make this point very clear, that number that came out this morning is the best that we know based on what the states are dealing with with computer crashes, long waiting lines and people who may

have become disaffected and not followed through. i think the numbers are going to get tougher and i think that we got to keep plowing through this. but i don't know on this one, i think we have not seen the ceiling by far. stuart: i just want to come back to this unemployment rate, because that's the big number here. surely it's in the 3% range at the moment. obviously that is not going to last. i'm pressing here, paul, but i do see a 10% number coming up. don't you? >> i do. to be perfectly honest with you, i do. i think a lot of this is going to depend on what the comfort is that people feel, not from the pontifications of economists but from the medical guidance they get from public health professionals and from their own doctors. that's kind of the rub. you are taking care of people's emergency situation in their families with their jobs and people are going to be looking because so many of these folks that are workers are also care

giver givers and they have issues with pre-existing conditions, heart, diabetes, kidney, all these different factors are in the mix. as we are looking forward over the next month, two months, we are in for rough sledding. that's an honest answer. stuart: okay. an honest answer is what we want. paul conway, thank you. ladies and gentlemen, please observe all the green that has suddenly appeared on the screen. early this morning, we looked at the futures and they were down 500 points. now after release of very bad jobless numbers, we have actually turned around, up maybe 100 for the dow, 24 for the nasdaq, four points for the s&p. come in, brian wesbury, our economist of the morning. we have this $2.2 trillion stimulus package. is that going to put a floor under the economy and prevent us going into a depression? >> no. well, i'm not saying we are

going to go into a depression but all it really does is offset the damage of shutting down businesses and you know, here's kind of the way i think about it. that is if we were to stay closed to easter, let's say, i think when we recover, we would only have about 97% of the economy. there are many businesses, people who have owned a restaurant for 40 years, who said i'm done, i'm over, we're closing down, i'm furloughing everybody and those are the people that filed for claims today. if we go to the end of april, we are probably down to 93% or 94% of the previous economy. if we go to the end of may, we are in the 80s. it's going to take awhile for that to come back. so this measure of $2 trillion, all it does is try to stem that tide. but i think the number one thing we need to do is get the economy open again because government

doesn't create wealth. all it can do is offset the damage that it did. stuart: so you are on the side of the president who says let's get some of the economy opened up by easter. i hear you, brian. hold on for one second. i've got an update from susan on what the federal reserve, the fed chair, jerome powell, is saying. susan: extremely rare live tv interview this morning on nbc. basically he's trying to reassure the american public that we are here to backstop you if things get worse. i think anticipating probably a really ugly jobless claims number we got this morning. the fed is ready to step in wherever credit is slowing. he says this is not a typical downturn and he does expect a rebound in the second half of this year, maybe a slowdown, possibly we are in recession. those are some of the quotes. he says for every one dollar of backstop from the treasury, that means $10 of loaning and credit being doled out by the federal reserve. i thought that was very encouraging. i think he was there to just

reassure the american public that we are here for you with $4 trillion of fire power and more, whatever it takes, to get the economy going once again. stuart: you know, as that news got out, that may have coincided with the modest turnaround in the stock market, because we are still seeing a lot of green, left-hand side of the screen. susan, thanks. get back to you in a second. let's start updating the virus situation around the country. ash, what's the update from texas? ashley: from texas, president trump has issued a master disaster declaration for that state. governor greg abbott had written a letter to the president saying we need help. what that does, the disaster declaration frees up funding for individuals and public assistance. the governor of texas saying the economy is taking a huge blow. we know that they have had the cancellations of south by southwest, houston livestock show, all the major sporting events in austin, dallas, houston, san antonio. he says local jurisdictions are

losing tax revenue, businesses are losing revenue, employees are out of work and hourly staff are being laid off. that's why that declaration was, in fact, granted by the president. stuart: all right. ashley, is there one more state that's ordered stay at home? ashley: yeah, this time it's idaho out in the west. the most sparsely populated state but the governor there, brad little, saying 21 days now, it's stay at home, no non-essential travel, bars will be closed down, non-essential businesses. he says it will last for 21 days. it's the only way to stop the spread of the virus. that's over 20 states now. i believe minnesota also put out a similar declaration. states number well into the 20s. stuart: left-hand side of the screen, everyone, a lot of green showing. dow, nasdaq, s&p. that just turned south slightly. dow futures up about 60 points. market watcher gary kaltbaum with us.

would you say that we are anywhere near even a short-term bottom? >> that was last week and i don't think we are going to revisit that bottom any time soon. i'm pretty darned sure airlines, cruise lines and groups like that are done on the downside. i think they can pull back towards them but i think people have to start thinking about before this all occurred, what do people love and what do people need. people need to travel so the airlines are going to be flying again, probably with less capacity which would probably be good for their earnings, and cruise lines, i can tell you, i take cruises all the time so i suspect they are going to be a great investment going forward. it's just a matter of getting past this. i don't know exact timing of when this is going to be all over. none of us do. but getting past it, they are going to be gargantuan opportunities. stuart: i'm just getting back to this possible bottom. here's my own point of view for a second.

i don't see apple going back to $230 or below. i don't see microsoft going back to $130 or below. i don't see disney going back to $80 or below. and i don't see boeing going back to $90 or below. i think you can see bottoms in those big name, high profile stocks, right? >> i think a lot of things did what i call the crash lows in the last week. that happened friday and monday of this week. so i actually do agree with you. that said, we are in the most news-driven environment of all time and if this pandemic lasts awhile, all bets are off. but if all the people that are coming out stating that this is going to be a 12-week or less affair, i would suggest you're pretty close on that. again, find the things that people love doing beforehand and people need to do and i suggest there's going to be some big winners. then of course, you know i'm a big technology and growth guy. names like microsoft that are growing their businesses 25% a

year and other things growing 50%, 75%, in that area, they will do real well when we come out of this. it's just a matter of when. stuart: okay. gary, stay there, please. i need your coverage when the market opens. back to susan. what's going on with apple? susan: apple yesterday rallied until the close because of this news report that says they might delay their iphone release by a couple of months because of what's happening with coronavirus and the impact it's having on the supply chain and its operations in california. most of its employees are being told to stay home at least for now, possibly until the first week of april. so the nikkei news says they will delay it for the first time since 2011. apple usually releases a new phone, this year expected to be 5g, but they usually release a new phone in october and september going back to 2011. i was looking at some of the statistics. they usually order components in april and march. i think we need to wait to see what assessment they make.

stuart: let's recap. we will take a commercial break. 3.283 million new unemployment claims, that's a very big number, probably going to get worse. the market reacts with a very modest rally. very modest indeed. futures right now show a 50-point gain for the dow industrials. we'll be right 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. it's the sum of the small parts that make a big difference. to help you get through this, we promise to do ours.

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nasdaq up, s&p up as well. what have we got here? lauren, you've got news on united health and gilead sciences. what have you got? lauren: let's start with gilead sciences. they have that drug we have been talking about a lot on the program, remdesivir, and they had applied for -- the fda granted them orphan drug status. essentially what that means, it's a designation where they have a monopoly on the drug, they get tax benefits but bernie sanders and some others came out and said look, that's not fair, you can't do that, so gilead folded under the heat and they have rescinded their request for orphan drug status and say they are just going to manufacture this on their own. that stock is up about 1.5%. take a listen to this united health story. as of monday in seattle, some of their clinics are doing self-tests so you swab yourself. it's a nose swab. you put the specimen in a test tube, you hand the test tube to a health care worker.

some medical professionals question the accuracy of this but it does protect the health care professionals from having to get up close to you. so as we talk about different ways to test for and treat coronavirus, united health care does have one, swabbing ourselves. stuart: good. we are working things out. excellent. back to susan with more news on apple. susan: we saw tum coim cook in video message yesterday saying they have secured ten million n95 face masks for the government to dole out to really hard-hit states that need resources. also sourcing millions for european countries and working with governments around the world. this is one example of a company and corporation that is trying to help out and trying to battle the coronavirus pandemic. i think apple will be able to do this since they have one of the most complex supply chains in the world. people take it for granted they can make 200 million iphones each year and do it just in a matter of months without any

inventory in their store. so if one company can do it, it must be apple. stuart: must be apple. well said. ashley webster, come in, please. what's new from governor cuomo of new york? ashley: perhaps a little more encouraging news. we hear from him every day during his daily press conferences and a lot of it's not great news but he does say the rate of coronavirus hospitalizations is slowing down and, by the way, we were seeing a doubling of the confirmed cases every 3.4 days for the state of new york. that has now stretched out a little bit to every 4.7 days. now, that sounds great, he says we are heading in the right direction, but says we are still on our way up the mountain. in other words, he believes this thing will still not peak until 21 days or so from now. so that's another three weeks. but he says social distancing is working. so little bit of better news there. stuart: hold on a second. i see the market moving up a bit

more. dow industrials now up over 2ed h 200 points. back to you, ash. a lot of nypd officers have called out sick, right? ashley: yesterday's number, 3,200 officers called out sick. there has been little more than 200 confirmed cases of the virus among the nypd ranks. but that 3600 number is three times the normal rate. it represents about 9% of the force. the police department says they are making contingency plans, making adjustments, backfilling patrols when we need to. apparently 177 uniformed members of the nypd have been infected and at least 34 civilian employees. so far, at tthey have managed t deal with it. stuart: susan, elon musk, tesla? susan: another company that's helping out. elon musk donated around i think 1,000 face masks sourced from

china to the government in los angeles recently but now he's going to reopen the new york factory, he says as soon as humanly possible, to manufacture ventilators. this is in conjunction with medtronic, ford, gm converting their plants as well to try to build ventilators that many people need in this pandemic. stuart: thank you, susan. jason chaffetz with us, fox news contributor. jason, i've got a problem here. i've got a political problem with this rescue plan. speaker pelosi calls republicans cruel, for heaven's sake. senator schumer says no money for trump or his business empire and he wants subpoena power so he can look into everything that trump's done with the virus. why can't we just get a clean bill at a time of national emergency and get on with it? >> well, trump derangement

syndrome has not gone away with this pandemic and this virus, i can tell you that. they have been fixated on that. i do think there's needed oversight, when you are spending $2 trillion, i think that's viable. but there does seem to be some very specific provisions in here that are aimed directly at donald trump but there will be ramifications for a lot of others that are in the cabinet, in the senate and in the house themselves, but the overall bill, even though they are complaining about it, nancy pelosi is still going to vote for it. stuart: there is still $25 million in there for the kennedy center for performing arts. i have no clue why that is in there. have you? >> no, i don't. in fact, there were calls this morning, matt schlapp of the conservative union, he put out a thing saying let's call it on mr. rubenstein who heads the kennedy center and make that donati donation. donate the $25 million to relief

and get that into the hands of people who really use it. i think the kennedy center should do that. stuart: well said. well said indeed. now, listen to president trump speaking about the media. roll tape. reporter: you said the media wants [ inaudible ] remain closed to -- >> yeah, no, the media would like to see me do poorly in the election, just so you understand. are you ready? i think there are certain people that would like it not to open so quickly. i think there are certain people who would like it to do financially poorly because they think that would be sgr as far as defeating me at the polls and i don't know if that's so but i do think it's so that there are people in your profession that would like that to happen. stuart: jason, that is the president being accused of putting the economy in front of human lives. what's your reaction to that? >> i think the president said it very well for himself. i think there are people out

there that would like to see the country maybe not do quite so well in order to get out donald trump. i don't think that's breaking news. i don't think that's anything new. i think it's sad but i think it's a reality. i think the president is earning the respect of particularly the independents and people who maybe don't watch the nightly news or watch cable news night in, night out, because he's shown leadership and has done everything he can possibly do to fight this back and make the best of it. stuart: by the way, the gallup poll, okay, taken before the events of the last few days, the gallup poll showed he got 60% support, the president, that is, for what he's doing with the virus. we are almost time to wrap it up, but i see you are -- it's your birthday. 39 again. is that right? >> it's amazing. it just rolls again. but yes, it is my birthday. i'm glad to be with you. stuart: well, you don't look a day over 40. that is a compliment.

that is an absolute compliment. i'm not going to ask you how old you are. >> television does a lot for you. my brother says it's because i'm fat. that makes me look younger. that's good. stuart: television makes you look 15 pounds heavier and six inches taller. it works against me on both respects. jason, you're all right. see you again soon. okay. we are running up to the opening of the market. one minute to go before the market opens up. look at futures. looks like we are going to open up. green arrows all across the board. i'm looking at up 200 for the dow, looking at up maybe 20 for the s&p, up 49, 50 for the nasdaq composite. we have the price of oil on the downside this morning again, i think we are at $21, $22 a barrel. not good. i will leave you, before the market opens, 30 seconds, i will leave you with this. the average price for gas around this country is now all the way down to $2.06 a gallon.

$2.06, your national average. think of those poor people in california, still paying an average of $3.12 a gallon. you hear that bell ringing. the guy looks rather lonely there but that's new york for you. he's ringing the bell and now it is bang, 9:30 eastern time. we are off and running. let's see how we open up. the word is up. the dow industrials up close to 300 points. okay, 230. the nasdaq, waiting for that to come on screen here, the s&p is up a very strong 25 points. that's another 1% up. 2500, that's the level of the s&p. scott martin is with us this morning. scott, you there? yes, we do. all right. good stuff. now, do you see any signs of a bottom here? we have had two back-to-back gains and we have opened with a

300 point gain for the dow. what do you say? have we hit the bottom? >> we hit a bottom which means it's likely that the market is going to hold some of those lows from recent days. but we need to see some things firm up. we talked about this on monday. we are starting to see those things. they are just not all the way there yet. that includes things like bank stocks, bank debt, muni bonds, mortgage bonds, junk bonds. all those things that were kind of behind the scenes deteriorating in the last couple weeks, bringing equities down, they need to keep firming up. they are on their way but need to keep firming up if we are to hold the lows from recent days. stuart: look at that. we are up 500 points. okay, that's the first 90 seconds of business. it's a volatile session. we know that. but we are up 500 points as of now. big tech, left-hand side of the screen. microsoft is up a solid $4.60. apple is up $4.90, it's reached $250 a share. facebook is up a couple bucks at $158. amazon, $1897 is your price. just a tad shy of $1900 a share.

the airlines, they are going to get a bailout. it's been passed by the senate, it looks like the president will sign it and the airlines are looking even better. they had a nice gain yesterday, last couple days, but this morning we have american airlines at $16 a share. nowhere near where they were. united, $38. delta, $33. jetblue, $12. southwest, $41. can you show me boeing? i do own a thin sliver of it. bought it at $331. it went all the way down to what was it, down to $90. it's bouncing again this morning because there is money in the rescue package for boeing, the $17 billion carved out for national security. that probably means boeing. they are up 20 bucks, $178 on boeing. gary kaltbaum, come back in again. your commentary on the market action thus far this morning. >> i think the market's already

factored in that really bad number that came out in a situation like boeing, they had a $50 billion market cap where it was trading at $100 and when you get $17 billion, your stock's going to go up. most importantly, you had neal kashkari on "60 minutes " sayin unlimited amounts of money and jay powell saying the same thing. i hate the fact a bunch of this will be on their back but that's what the reality is at this point. i have to mention something about employment on the positive side. we keep talking about how many people losing jobs. we are going to see a ton of people getting back their jobs in the months ahead. i expect a half v shaped back recovery. in other words, you have the straight down, you are going to get halfway back up, then you will get a lot of reassessment by companies and if the economy gets back in shape, i expect to get a good portion of it back. i'm really positive. it's just a matter of getting past the virus. the virus is the economy. if it goes more than 10, 12

weeks, all bets are off. but if that's all it's going to be, i think this is a gargantuan opportunity. before this happened things were pretty darned good. stuart: okay. scott martin, i'm looking for a bend in the curve. that is the virus curve. when the number of new cases plateaus and starts to come down. see if you agree with me. that would surely be one enormous buying signal, if we get that. >> i agree, stuart. i'm afraid to disagree with you, frankly. i'll tell you why that's an important notion, because as we have seen in previous market downturns, whether economic or extraneous like this, black swan type events in the marketplace, it's times when things are about peaking or just before peak that equities go ahead and front-run that recovery you're talking about so you're right, as you see maybe the steepening of the curve slowing down and then obviously, the subsequent flattening after that, that's when i would start to really get constructive on equities because to your point, the market will

look forward to what's to come, which is typically good news out of the virus spread. stuart: some of these stock groups are really, really moving. i was intrigued moments ago when we showed you the credit card companies. we have concentrated a lot on those credit card issuers because if you've got all this money flooding into the economy, some of it will be spent on credit cards and that's very good news for those companies. amex, visa, mastercard. they were way up yesterday, up the day before and i see that they are up again this morning. look at that. mastercard is at $261. visa, $162. american express, $94. all of them up in percentage terms. you know they are doing pretty well. dow industrials now up 400 points. so the rally thus far has held. okay. let me go round the block here. susan, it seems like the market is absorbing that very bad news on the economy, the jobless numbers. i guess they were expected but

it seems to have absorbed it very well. susan: i think they anticipated it because if you look at the investment banks, they were predicting numbers from as low as just a few hundred thousand up to four million so the fact it actually fell into that range and wasn't bigger than anticipated, i think that was a market positive. once you got the news, people could trade off that. i want to point out there are i think bullish signs in the market, when you see corporate insiders, the executives, buying back their own stock. taking a look at one statistic, according to the washington service, 2800 executives and directors repurchased nearly thes $1.2 billion of their own stock in early march, the third highest on record since 1988. when you see corporate insiders buying back their own stock, they are anticipating that stock to go up in the future. i think that's pretty positive, don't you think? stuart: i would say definitely. yes, when you see the insiders buying, putting confidence in their own stock at that low price, that is a good signal.

putting money at risk. now, there are some people who are insiders to companies who bought a little early. i know of a couple who bought, say, at 20 and the stock promptly went down to 15. but now probably they've got a nice bounce back upwards. ashley, what have you got to add to this? rotten unemployment numbers, a big stimulus package and a rally on the market. ashley: well, certainly that number was built in. it could have been worse, which is hard to believe when you consider how many jobless claims were, in fact, filed. but i want to give you some latest headlines, if i can. on steve mnuchin, who says that direct deposits could be coming down the pike within three weeks. he says it's imperative to get this done as quickly as possible. he believes that helping the businesses in the short term is what's needed but not in the long term because he believes the economy will come back strongly. that's interesting, direct deposits to be initiated within

three weeks. stuart: that would be -- if not for individuals' unemployment numbers, it would be to small businesses which have applied for assistance. they don't have to go to some office to get it. they will get the money put directly into their bank accounts. gary kaltbaum, that sounds like good news to me for the consumer and the market and the economy. what do you say? >> we are going to get past this, stuart. i've said this time and time again. i just do not know the timing. there's going to be pent-up spending like we have never seen and there's going to be pent-up job demand like we have never seen. just remember, this is not an economic event. this is an event that came out of what's happening with the pandemic. it's just a matter of the timing on the pandemic. down the road we will have to deal with all the leverage and all the debt this is all creating but i'm pretty much 100% sure what's going to happen

and just so you know, the other side is right now is all the corporations, all the businesses that are out there right now are actually -- listen, they had a furlough, they had to get rid of people for obvious reasons, they are already in the planning stages of what do we do when things come back online, because i think there's going to be a big celebration, big demand for restaurants. i know universal just pushed back their theme park april 19th, i expect disney to do the same. it's going to be big-time once they do come back online. i'm looking at disney, at the casino companies, at everything that everybody loved to do before this happened and are now being prevented from happening. by the way, i want to mention one thing on insiders because i spent six hours looking through about 1,000 companies yesterday. there's a ton of insider buying but a ton of losses by insiders because they don't time the market so what i'm going to be looking for is persistent buying on the way down.

if somebody bought at 50 and it's now 35, if they start buying at 35 and then 40, that tells me big belief in their company and i will target those also. stuart: i get the mood, i get the sense of the mood here that we are beginning to look to the other side of this. maybe a little premature. we don't know how long it takes to get to the other side. but there's some green shoots appearing in the commentary we have been hearing so far this morning. want to break away from coverage of the stimulus plan and jobless numbers and the market. all four of us on your screen right now, all of us are locked down and i want to go round the block here and figure out how are we coping. ashley, to you first. i want anecdotes. ashley: doing well. in fact, i will take one from our executive producer, who says he's selling his mom's house right now, similar to so many other stories out there, they pushed the closing back 30 days. we were talking about this at the beginning of the week. new york realty we understand is

pretty much on hold right now. not so much in new jersey but imagine if you were right in the middle of all of this. you were buying a home, trying to set the closing date, trying to set a moving time, and then all of a sudden, we are hit with this pandemic. i think the rules for all of this are a bit helter-skelter right now but it's a very difficult time. to the point people are starting to push back or even in some cases just walk away until we get through all of this. stuart: can i adjud just my own small anecdote, not necessarily applying to me, but applying to some of the people that i know. don't laugh, ladies and gentlemen. don't laugh. with the hair salons closed, the expression i keep hearing is my roots are showing. i will leave it at that. just leave it at that. ashley: you don't see it from me, stu. stuart: i don't have enough hair. it's that simple.

let's keep the good times rolling. lauren: having a chat with the girls on the team, i mentioned this yesterday, we are just a little i guess frustrated in a way but obviously, these are difficult times so we understand but for women not to get their nails done, it's a little frustrating and annoying. we will get to that. stuart: i have heard that, too. susan, i have heard that. roots and nails. got it all. hillary vaughn, come in. what have you got for me? reporter: we are getting new information about what the treasury -- what the u.s. government can take in exchange for giving assistance to airlines, and part of that essentially would amount to a stake in the company. i want to read you the line in the final bill text we are taking this from. it says the secretary may receive warrants, options, preferred stock, debt securities, notes or other financial instruments issued by recipients of financial

assistance, that applies to airlines, air carriers, and this essentially in exchange for the financial assistance being provided by the federal government. stuart? stuart: that is interesting, because that was the idealogical debate before we went into this. if the government's going to help a company or an industry, what are the strings that are attached and should the government own a piece of the company that you're helping. that line just reported there by hillary, warrants, options and other instruments may be made available if you get the money. very interesting. art laffer is with us now. art, we just heard from hillary vaughn and i'm sure you do not approve but it looks and sounds like the government may, in fact, take a piece of a company that they are helping out. i'm pretty sure you would oppose that. >> well, long-term of course i would oppose it totally but as a short term venture to make a

little bit extra for the taxpayers for the extraordinary aid they have given, i'm perfectly willing to do that. as long as they get rid of it in due course. i don't want the government owning in a permanent sense much of the capital stock of the u.s. and private enterprise but as a short term thing i think it's perfectly fine and gives a little vig to the loans and hopefully they work. stuart: art, president trump wants some businesses, part of the economy, to be opened up again by easter. he's being accused of putting the economy before human life. how do you react to that? >> i think that's just wrong. i think the president is the guy who has all the information both on the economy, on the coronavirus, on all of these things together, and that's why we elected him was to make a balanced judgment as to what that is. now, the economy is extremely important, as you know, and so is coronavirus defeat, extremely important.

you've got to balance these two out. i think the president is doing a great job in trying to balance that out. you know, having poverty is not a good health policy. let me just tell you that. getting rid of the coronavirus is good health policy. so what you want to do is get prosperity and getting rid of the coronavirus and how do you balance that is the president's choice. i support him 100% in what he's doing. stuart: we've got this $2.2 trillion package and we've got about $4 trillion coming on board from the federal reserve. they have opened up the spigots. is this going to save the american economy from a depression? look, i expect a recession but will this prevent a depression? >> let me just say, the $4 trillion coming from the fed is not grant money like the bill is. they're not the same dollars. they really aren't. the $2 trillion is the one i look at and the spigots line on the fed is just making credit available to the overall market. i don't know if it's going to save us from a depression.

i don't think there was a depression coming. we had a real problem with the coronavirus and it was a short-term, big heavy hit. if you look at what was going on before the coronavirus, we had a great, great, great economy. so once we defeat the coronavirus, i don't see any reason why that economy can't come back to being great, great, great and i think the stimulus package will accelerate that return and it's really good for the economy. stuart: wait a second, art. is it a v-shaped recovery, then? we hit bottom and then boom, off we go, roaring economy when we come back on the other side? >> well, you know, when we start coming back, coming back up to where we were on the previous highs which i don't expect to happen for quite some time but yeah, we are going to have a nice recovery, nice solid recovery. i don't know if it's going to be v-shaped or u-shaped or however. we are going to get a lot of bad news on the real economy, like the unemployment new claims today. that wasn't as bad as i thought it was going to be. i thought it was even going to

be more than that. we are going to see those real numbers coming in bad but that doesn't mean that the prospects for the economy aren't really great. the stock market, remember, tells us what will be, not what has been. and the stock market is telling us that this is going to be solved, it's going to be solved nicely, going to be solved soon and we're looking forward to returning to prosperity. stuart: art laffer, thank you very much indeed. all good stuff. we appreciate you being here. >> by the way, your hair looks great. i got to tell you about the wig i wear all the time. if you ever want, i will tell you the shop i go to. i'm going to the same one reagan went to, by the way. stuart: you're killing me, and you damn well know it. let's move on. sorry about my language there. i do apologize, ladies and gentlemen. all right. gary kaltbaum, get me out of this. i get the sense that a lot of analysts, lot of pundits, lot of market watchers, are beginning to look to the other side, look to the rebound. am i right?

>> everybody always wants to see the positive, stuart. one-third of the world's people is restricted now in travel to a certain extent, some to a major extent. when that dynamic changes, everything's going to change. it's just a simple fact. it's just a matter of when. you're supposed to prepare now, not afterwards when the market's up 5,000 points from here. i still think there are problems out there, even before the pandemic happened, with debt and deficit but for this second, it's just a matter of getting all these people back at work, back doing the things they are supposed to do without any restrictions. when that happens, look out. the man demand is going to be gargantuan and businesses will have to fill that demand with people going back to work, with products, supplies,

manufacturing, you name it and we fwgo back into a positive cye for some time. i do not know the timing of it. stuart: excellent. gary kaltbaum, thanks for being with us on a very important day. the market, dow industrials up 300. s&p up, nasdaq up. we will take a break. back after this. i just love hitting the open road and telling people

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stuart: all right. still on the upside, the market open now for, what, 22 minutes. we've still got a nice gain for the dow, 400 points up. nasdaq, s&p -- excuse me, s&p, both on the upside. come on in, retail watcher kristin benz, very important at this moment. we've got all this money flooding into the economy, spendable money, but i don't think that the department stores, for example, are going to do very well. in fact, a lot of them i don't think will make it through to the other side. what say you? >> i think you're correct in that assumption. what we all need to remember is there were cracks starting to show before the coronavirus started popping up so department stores were already struggling, malls were struggling, so it really won't be a big surprise if you see some great attrition, unfortunately, come out of this. so i agree with you. stuart: when you say attrition,

let's not beat about the bush here. i'm talking about some brand names, chains, out, gone. they close everything down. walk away. that bad? >> yeah, i think so. this may be the retail reset that we desperately needed. we are in the age of oversupply, may not seem so with people running and hoarding toilet paper and water and whatnot, but when it comes to retail concepts, there are a lot of retail companies that really don't need to exist. so i think you are going to see a lot of permanent closings and companies that won't come back, brands that won't come back. absolutely. stuart: forgive me for belaboring the point, but when you look at the shopping malls, there's the a, b, c tier, first, second and third tier. i guess the first tier will be okay, they will come out of this but i don't think a lot of second and third tier malls will come out of it. again, it's a question of actually just going out, closing

down, good-bye. >> well, if this is all about survival of the fittest, that's why retail is so fascinating because it's so darwinian. the b and c malls, absolutely, you will see great attrition with them closing down. when you go to a mall now unless it's a dry bar where you are getting your hair blown out or sephora or apple or nike store, there's really not a lot going on in the mall. it's really about brands that survive. stuart: okay. one quick one here. i know you like nike. that to you is the big survivor, correct? >> it is the big survivor. they had some really promising numbers that were amazing. they have a staggered tier recovery plan that's working in china and they really lever their digital assets here and in a time when, you know, china was hit with a pandemic, their online sales were up 30%. that's amazing. so they are using this strategy of containing, recovering and returning back to normal in china and they have a plan and

it's working. 80% of the stores are back online. then they are going to use that in japan, south korea, europe and probably north america. so there's no better company equipped to handle what's going on than nike. stuart: fascinating. nike is your winner. kristin, thanks very much indeed. important stuff. okay. dow industrials now up 560 points, ladies and gentlemen. despite some really negative news on unemployment benefits. what was the number again? it was 3.28 million new unemployment claims. a huge number, despite that, dow is up 50 odd points -- sorry, 500 points. back after this. challenges and opportunities. at ameriprise financial we can't predict what tomorrow will bring. but our comprehensive approach to financial planning can help make sure you're prepared for what's expected and even what's not. and that kind of financial confidence can help you

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robinwithout the commission fees. so, you can start investing today wherever you are - even hanging with your dog. so, what are you waiting for? download now and get your first stock on us. robinhood. stuart: 10:00 eastern time on a thursday. you know what that means. we get latest on mortgage rates. who has got the numbers? ashley webster. go. ashley: moment i live for, stu, you know that coming in this week, 3.50%, 3 1/2%. that is down from 3.65. it actually is, for first time in three weeks the rates have actually gone lower. the reason is, i think the belief is that the fed's moves have helped stablize the market. real estate demand though says freddy is softening but the fed actions and pending economic stimulus it is believed will help provide substantial support. there you have it, 3 1/2% on the

latest 30-year fixed mortgage. stu. stuart: well good stuff, ashley, thanks very much. seems to me the housing market is stalled in this environment right now. let's bring in maria, as in maria bartiromo with "mornings with maria" joining us on the show. good morning to you. would you follow up on this. we got some pretty bad unemployment numbers this morning, 3.28 million. you reported it on your show. yet we have a bounce for the market again. we're up 600 right now. seems like the market shrugged off what was expected to be bad news? >> absolutely, stu. i think markets did shrug it off because there was a high expectation out there that these numbers were about to spike. remember last thursday we got 281,000 jobless claims numbers and today we're getting 3.28 million because the last week has been brutal you have heard from the president, heard

from the governor, no more groups of 10 people or more. no more groups of some areas of just two people. that has led to shut downs in terms of restaurants and services. if you look at the areas that have really seen the uptick in the jobless claims, it is those service areas like restaurants. so we knew this was coming. i think wall street had a very good expectation that we would see this number in the millions. so that is one reason to shrug it off. also i cannot underestimate enough how important this house vote is on the stimulus package. when the congress said they were moving up the conversation, moving up the vote, the debate around this stimulus from friday afternoon to friday morning, that is i think what led to this rally because people thought, okay, maybe we can get the president's signature on this, maybe this becomes law by the end of business on friday, the end of business this week. i think that is what was behind this move, anyway you look at it i think there are going to be a lot of fits and starts, stu.

there is still a lot of nervousness out there as anybody would expect unless we actually have more clarity where we stand with this virus. will we see a vaccine sooner than later? what about these anti-viral treatments? that will be key in terms of turning this market around. stuart: back to this legislation making its weary way you there the congress, don't we need a new way of getting legislation in front of the congress at times of abject emergency where you don't get it loaded up with ornaments and christmas tree or nanments all over the place? surely congress says we need to put money in the hands of ordinary people and here is how we're going to do it. instead of we got this 900 page bill, we don't know what is in it, but the kennedy performing arts center gets $25 million. we need a new way of passing

legislation. >> stu, don't forget what nancy pelosi wanted to put in it a week ago. she came out with funding for her own plan. she had funding for planned parenthood, tax breaks for solar, if you use solar, all these things had zero to do with covid-19 and zero to do with impact of coronavirus crisis. i think the good news the american people see right through this, the american people knew right away there were lights from the christmas tree on this bill. had nothing to do with the actual situation and urgency at hand. i agree we need a new way. one of the best ways to shine a light on it. make sure we're transparent. make sure the public understands what is going on behind the scenes. the fact there is "money" in this coronavirus package for the kennedy center, it is embarrassing, it is embarrassing they were forced to vote yes on this just to get the democrats to agree to make sure to give money to small business which is

dying right now. stuart: what do you make of the president's suggestion that maybe we can open up a little of the economy by easter? he accused of putting the economy in front of human life. where do you stand on this. >> first of all that is nonsense about the president putting economy ahead of human life. there is reason why you see this president every single day with his task force at the podium trying to answer questions. he is trying to be available, trying to be as transparent as possible. that's number one. number two, you're dealing with a business guy. this is the first president that is a business guy. of course he wants the economy to open as soon as possible. of course he wants business to get back to work. he said hope, i hope that the economy comes back by easter. he didn't say we'll do everything in our power to get business back even if we're still seeing number of cases rising. i think number one priority for the president and that entire task force is to keep americans

safe and to make sure we get a handle on stopping the spread and getting these numbers under control. of course we all know that it is all about the cases, the coronavirus and its impact. once we get a handle on the health part of this, it will be a lot easier to open up parts of economy. the president was very clear. i would like to see some parts of economy open. surely some parts of the economy can work around this, in the next couple weeks as we continue through the problem. it is typical for mainstream media about the president. it is absolutely outrageous. stuart: why can't my barbershop open? why can't my dry cleaners open, for heavy very much's sake? i digress. susan, you have news for us. susan, own amazon? susan: 10 warehouses across the u.s. reported cases among the workers in coronavirus. one being shut in queens, first known case of a warehouse worker in amazon, one of their

fulfillment centers to test positive. that facility has been shot. kentucky closed one of their warehouses as well as a result of one of their employees testing positive s we know that amazon says that those that do test positive you can apply for two weeks pay from the 25 million-dollar package or this availability of funds that amazon has set aside. they're also spending $300 million to hire more workers. 100,000 they're looking for, willing to pay extra two dollars an hour on top of $15. paying extra bonuses on those that work above 40 hours a week that get the delivery packages out. there has been a surge in online demand with people having to stay at home. stuart: if there are fewer people driving, there are fewer people driving at this moment but i should tell you the dow industrials, bottom right-hand corner of the screen now up 700 points. amazon is above $1900 a share. lauren, let's go to you.

news on mcdonald's please. lauren: by the way, stuart, mcdonald's is up 17% the past three days. so have we hit bottom remains a good question. as we deal with the coronavirus. we are also seeing stories and restaurants saying what do we do? mcdonald's i'm sad to report is doing away with its all day breakfast menu, not permanently but right now. they have to limit the menu to make it easier for the restaurants. they are dealing with staffing issues. they are obviously dealing with reduced traffic. it will come back, but right now a limited menu at mcdonald's. sign of the times. with all the kids home from school, a lot of parents like easy, cheap, food, that the kids actually eat. you can still get it at mcdonald's, just not as much it. stuart: okay. we will take that. lauren, thanks very much indeed. the dow is up 700 points and it is getting some help from one dow tock in particular, that would be boeing. susan, news on boeing?

susan: getting a lot of help from boeing the last couple days. every dollar up for one of these dow components that is seven points higher on the dow industrials itself. boeing of course leading the advance today because they are expecting stimulus from the u.s. government as we have the 2 trillion-dollar package being passed by the senate, hopefully through the house as well. looks lick there is $17 billion worth earmarked for companies, probably boeing, in this defense component. 5billion dollars to airlines, stu, i was telling you this, if the government does take stakes, equity stakes in these companies like the airlines, like boeing, that is what a sovereign wealth fund does. a passive stake where you don't actively manage the company on a day-to-day basis but if you own parts of it in equity, that is what a sovereign wealth fund does. stuart: you're right. that is what a sovereign wealth fund does. we're acting like a sovereign wealth fund, not wishing to dictate terms of the business to the company but setting back and

watching them grow in the future. let's wrap this up. maria, come back in please. i want to go around the block here with some anecdotes i know we're all holed up either in our homes or a confined space. i want to get some anecdotes from our production team. lauren, to you first. lauren. yes, i am clearly at home right now and you might see what it is like momentarily because i have deadbolted the door and my kids don't know i am home. i don't know how long that will last. you might see them run in front of the camera at any point. we're hearing, justin, your executive producer -- stuart: hold on -- lauren, one second. i'm terribly sorry to interrupt you. i know you're at home. i know you got young children. have you remember, remember this, when a child interrupted a man's skype interview, this was a couple years ago, but this might be you, roll tape.

oh, we don't have it. i thought we got it. you will remember it i'm sure. i think it was an interview on the bbc. there is a guy trying to be serious. in runs his, here we go look at this, look at this. [laughter]. lauren: your executive producer, his wife was on work call, on biking gear. talk of the town. talk of the company. stuart: maria, before we leave everybody, how are you doing? i know you're confined so to speak, how are you doing with this. >> i'm okay. you know, it has been really

great to be able to have guests on willing and able to go live from their home or do skype wherever they are. other day i was on fox news, when i was talking about the economy, my little maltese ran in started barking. i was mortified. sandra, is that dusty? yes, dusty is upset about the coronavirus. i had my moment as well stu. stuart: i burned my toast this morning. i was worried the fire alarm would go off in the middle of the broadcast. maria, you're great. thank for coming with us. that was great stuff. hope we do it soon. >> thanks, stuart. stuart: dow industrial up nice 700 points, we'll take it. nasdaq up 200. s&p is up 80, despite bad news on jobless numbers. we'll be back with more after this.

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stuart: just joining us? i'll tell you this, we have a nice market rally. the dow is uphundred points. for benefit of those listening on radio, maybe you're driving around somewhere, not many of you i guess, dow is up 737, nasdaq up 200, s&p up 85. that looks like a rally to me. susan, you have news on the retail sector. susan: retailers were heading into a lot of trouble before heading into the coronavirus pandemic, macy's kohl's they were down 60%. etf for retailers is on track for the worst month of march in history. macy's kohl's, nordstrom, citing

impact from coronavirus because a lot of stores have been shut across the entire nation. they should reopen in the second quarter of this year, citi expects traffic to remain tepid. there are concerns that maybe these companies might not be able to meet some much their credit, their outstanding credit notes. stuart: all right, thank you, susan. we're all sitting here, we're looking at a very nice rally, we are indeed pretty happy about it, the dow is up 800 points. we should remember there are a lot of people in this country who have lost everything, especially small business owners. chris coons, chef and owner of boston chops. that is a steakhouse, that made the 25 best steakhouses in america list. chris, welcome back to the program. i hate to see this but on my prompter it says you have lost everything. is that correct? >> i mean i don't know if i have

lost everything but i certainly feel like a land turtle hit by a tsunami. i'm not going to drown but i have to come up for air every once in a while. tough. we laid off the entire company. stuart: you own, let me go through this. you have laid off. hold on a second. there is a delay. making conversation difficult. you closed your restaurants. you laid off most of your staff. any idea what you can get back? >> so i have laid off all of my staff, all 237. the to go business isn't one worth getting into in boston right now, it is a lot like a ghost town in downtown boston. but you know, i have a lot of hope right now. i think there was really thoughtful stimulus bill from a bipartisan ahn effort focused on small business but i have a lot of fears going forward, but you know, we're going to fight through it. i think one of the biggest things that worries me right now, is on the other side of the curve that they speak off, what

is the psychological damage done to the consumer, right? so when are people going to feel comfortable to gather in restaurants? when are people going to feel comfortable to go to a conference again or gather in a large group? because all restaurants depend on being really busy, full and vibrant and i think right now people are scared of that environment. i think it will wait some time for that to normalize. it is thoughtful to hire everyone back to give them back their jobs but i wonder how many guests we're going to have. stuart: but you have laid off all your workers, so they are eligible for unemployment pay. as i understand it will be 600 bucks a week for the next four months. they will be okay. i understand, adequate use of that word but they will on being, correct, chris? >> it is a little more than that in the state of massachusetts. so we're already at 823 a week in the state of massachusetts. i believe there is some additional money on top of that.

i have worries about when we bring everybody back. we'll be applying for some much those relief dollars. we're working on it today. when we retool, i have fear for say, the tipped employees that rely on guests coming in paying tips. if i hire someone back, who makes a state minimum wage of 4.75, they rely heavily on tips. if we don't have guests, we don't have tips. just like the airplanes flying around right now. just like if there is a plane from new york to l.a., doesn't mean anyone is on us. stuart: we feel for you. you're a terrific guest for our program. we hope and pray you do. chris coombs, thank you. restaurant business, cheesecake factory, got news, lauren? lauren: they cannot make april rent and telling landlords that. begging for forgiveness.

april rent is not coming from cheesecake factory. they have 300 locations in north america. stuart: ouch. that really hurts. cheesecake factory is a publicly-traded company. thank you very much. cheesecake down to $18 a share. 18 is a very low number for cheesecake factory. ceo and chairman of united natural foods, steve spinner. i think you're the largest distributor of fresh food in the land, is that right, steve? >> thanks, stuart, for having me. yes, that's true. stuart: do you experience a hoarding problem, people hoarding enormous amounts of stuff and you have difficulty resupplying stores? >> yeah. so, stuart, let me make a couple of comments that i think are important. it is important to take a step back and realize that we have the best food supply chain in the world and, as you said,

we're one of largest in u.s. and canada. we're happy to play a big part in it. i can't tell you how proud i am of the 24,000 team members come together in incredible way. we deliver 2500 truckloads of food every day, 15 million case as week. the trucks are moving, the supply chain is good. we have over $1.5 billion worth of product inbound to our dcs and we can get it back out. to answer your question, both the public and private sector can work together to make sure consumers are responsibly buy, only buying what they need for a week or two, to insure that all of our associates, our employees stay healthy and keep working with the employers who have strong commitment to keep them safe and keep the roads and highways open. stuart: steve, i'm running out of time, but i do want to thank you for being one of the heroes of this country, supplying our country with food. you are the supply, the main

supplier. you're doing a great job. steve spinner, united natural foods. thanks for joining us sir, and very best wishes to you, good stuff. the market, nice gain, 800 points up for the dow industrials. that is better than 3.8%. if you look at the gain in the last three days it is, looking about 17%. that is a very nice bounce. i think we're going to take a break. yes, we are, another commercial break. got to make some money. back after this. life isn't a straight line. and sometimes, you can find yourself heading in a new direction. but when you're with fidelity, a partner who makes sure every step is clear, there's nothing to stop you from moving forward. a partner who makes sure every step is clear, your cells. trillions of them. that's why centrum contains 24 key nutrients

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shortage of masks. it uses hydrogen peroxide to kill any germs without degrading the mask. they have found a way to do this. the question i have, the technology and met not had been used for years but it is somewhat complicated and needs some special machines. they're trying to find a way that they can implement this technology in a more user-friendly way so these masks can in fact be decon -- decontaminated and reused. stuart: that is progress at least. we like to hear about progress. susan, you have news about harley-davidson? susan: harley-davidson, the hog maker, the spread of the covid-19 is leading to supply chain disruption. you can't go to work and told to stay at home across the country. looks like operations, according to harley-davidson have been disrupted due to the conditions of the spread.

harley-davidson not alone. apple, saw the stock fall after the close of a rallying all session long, there are reports maybe they will delay the launch much iphones that come out in october and september for the first time in eight years, so that we know a lot of these companies reporting these disruptions and who knows what it means for corporations and business, when they will be open to reopen, to get back to normal conditions, right? stuart: hog is their stock ticker symbol i think, h-o-g, harley-davidson. susan, thank you. lauren, with an update, please on united airlines? lauren: the stock is up 4% right now. the what the company has done, they have offered buyouts for their workers in exchange for travel and medical benefits, if you choose to exit the company. that is valid from the 26th of month until april 10th this is a memo, part much it

that was sent to staff. the company says as the situation grows more surreal by the day, we're glad to offer this program rather than moving to an involuntary change. so these buyouts are voluntary. real quickly, two more pieces of news on united. april, their capacity is down 70% and ceo and president are forgoing their basalry until june. stuart: down 70%, my goodness, me. actually i thought it might be more than that. thank you, lauren. lauren: sew did i. stuart: we have medley pharmacy cofounder. you deliver medication. i have to believe that your business is absolutely booming? >> thanks so much for having, me, stu. amid the covid-19 outbreak here in our country, we kind of went to work and do what we do best which is doubling down on same-day prescription delivery for free. to your point, we've been

partnering with local hospitals, health care organizations such as insurance companies, and telehealth clinics as well. we've seen north of a 30% increase in new patients and new customers that have been using medley. so the demand has definitely been there. it is very opportune time for our model to shine, given so many people are practicing self-quarantine and practicing social distancing as well. stuart: if you're making, if you're making free deliveries, and i think i heard you correctly, how do you make your money? >> yeah. so we make money just like any other pharmacy on the dispensing of the medication. so we make money through the insurance company as well as through copays but deliveries are free, no matter what the order is. there is no minimum order amount. you can stay home, continue to practice self-distancing and get your medication for free delivered to you. stuart: have you worked out the contact between your delivery

person and the recipient of the, the drugs? what's -- is there any contact at all? >> great question, yeah. so we've implement ad full-on contingency plan for the help of our local operations as well as hr teams and they have been doing a phenomenal job. we're implementing things like contactless delivery, where insurance does apply, right? offering free uber-rides for employees coming to our facilities and giving them free lunch and dinner. we're doing everything in our power to help patients at this time get medication delivered to them for free. stuart: how many people are you hiring? >> i mean, right now, just because of the demand that we've been having, we're hiring all over the board for all different positions. i would say our hr teams in many ways are very busy, especially getting people in. you know one of the different aspects of our business is that everyone in our team is full time.

we're not dealing with gig work delivery folks. even the delivery drivers are all full time. it is compelling offer for folks that have been unfortunately laid off or they're looking for jobs right now. medley is hiring, growing significantly. we're a trusted name for patients currently. stuart: right place, right time. medly pharmacy, thanks for joining us, crir ag. thanks for joining us. ashley, news please, what is this, nyu medical school? ashley: yes, they are planning to graduate this year's class early to help answer the, the call from governor cuomo saying we need more physicians into the health system as quickly as possible. graduation had been set for may 20th. there is 100, 150 students a year going into the program. they are fast-tracked given option to get straight in there, help right away.

stuart: thanks, ash. lauren, news on slack? lauren: yep. slack shares are up, above their ipo price. the news is as we are working from home, they are a work messaging company, in nine days time they added two million users. so now they have 12 1/2 million connected users. stock up 12 1/2%, stuart. stuart: whoa, added two million users. like the sound of that. lauren: in nine days. stuart: in nine days. i forgot to mention that, two million in nine days is very impressive i have got to say it. long time market watcher, frequent guest on this program, ray wang joins us now. ray, you have a background in public health and stock market analysis and you have come on the show today with some of the stocks that you really, really like, at today's prices going from here, you think they're going up. i will go through the list. number one, zoom. now they have had a terrific rally already. why do you like them even going

forward? >> you know here's the thing. a lot of people have other stuff but everybody coming back to zoom. it has done a great job not just with the schools, the governments but the corporations. people are coming in. they have a profitable model to begin with and they have added so many users over the last three weeks. way to get the numbers back from them, but it is the defacto standard right now, post-pandemic. stuart: one of our producers actually went to a virtual funeral using zoom. >> oh, my gosh. stuart: amazon, obvious, you can't beat amazon, can you? >> you know, we see amazon hitting 2000. most of the reason every other retailer is out. everybody subscribes on prime. even though you don't get non-essential items for 30 days. that means a lot of companies won't be able to keep with the power or momentum with the subscription model.

you know if you order from amazon you are going to get it. stuart: got it. they're already a big winner. they're up to nearly 1900. you say they will go to 2000. tell me about netflix, you like them too? >> we do, despite the outage they had yesterday, they're reducing bandwidth, but the thing they're gaining a lost subscribers. a lot of folks are running out of things to do, netflix is the basically the fireplace where people are gathering around in the evenings. they're actually adding a lot more content. so their content strategy is paying off at the moment. stuart: last one, give me 30 seconds on facebook. >> well, a lot of people are spending home, their time at home, they're on social networks with facebook. they don't have any long-term debt. the advertisers will come back, right, in about a few weeks. a lot of their advertising was local. that was holding them back at the moment. stuart: ray, thank you very much for joining us. short, sharp, to the point. we kind of like that. okay. rally holds, up 840 points for

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stuart: the president i believe has conclude ad teleconference with g20 leaders. ashley, do you have any headlines for us? ashley: yes i certainly do. basically the statements coming out for the virtual teleconference, we'll do whatever it takes, to use all available policy tools to minimize the economic and social damage from the pandemic. that is one of the statements that has come out. they say they are committed to helping all countries in need. committed to restoring confidence, securing financial stability and reviving growth and also committed to protecting lives and safeguarding jobs and income. basically all the leaders agreeing essentially that phrase, whatever it takes, stu. stuart: we've heard that phrase

before and we like to hear it, i must say. and that, the market holding up with a very, very solid rally. i want to bring in judge andrew napolitano, the judge by any other name. judge welcome back to the program. good to see you. >> thank you, stuart. stuart: what bothers me about this rescue package, the stimulus package that the senate has agreed to, i believe there is language in there inserted by senator schumer which makes sure that he can subpoena any and all papers from the president and his handling of the virus situation. what's with that, judge? >> well it is not exactly -- your facts are correct in that it was inserted by senator schumer but it does not give him the senate subpoena power. the committee has subpoena power. inspectors general much various departments branches appointed by, they hold their terms by a

long time, president george w. bush, president obama or president trump himself. so it is a collective committee designed to assure transparency so that the public knows to whom the treasury secretary is giving out these loans. that is at least the stated purpose. the potential nefarious purpose, and i think the one that troubles you, and should trouble people listening to us now, is that it can be used to harass the executive branch and force them to expose documents and thought processes that otherwise they would not have to expose. so we'll have to wait and see if this is used properly or abused but you are right, this was inserted by the democrats at the last minute. stuart: got it. thanks, judge. one more for you. i understand that in chicago, the mayor of chicago, some of the authorities in chicago suggested you will be arrested

if you get out of your house and exercise, is that accurate. >> it is accurate she suggested and she is dead wrong. i'm sick and tired of mayors and governors making up laws to use the police to enforce them. this morning the governor of virginia said, you will be arrested if anymore attend a catholic mass or religious service whatsoever, even if it is outside or even if you're more than six feet apart. the mayor of chicago said if you're outside, more than six feet apart, we'll arrest you. guess what, under our system mayors and governors don't write laws, legislatures do. when governors and mayors issue edicts, they are just edicts. they do not have the force of law behind them. that doesn't mean the police won't arrest, it does mean those people arrested will be freed by judges who will see that the arrests are unlawful. stuart: is it justified by the nature of this emergency? >> no. stopping people from going to a

safe place for church, like outdoor mass or religious service, stopping people from walking as long as they are socially distant in order to get exercise is absolutely wrong, because the right to walk freely in public, the right to freely worship in public and private guaranteed cannot be interfered with by the constitution no matter what the claim of public health might be. stuart: judge, i hate to say it, you and i are edging closer to our opinions, are we not? we may be 100-mile distance but we're edging closer together. >> it must be age, stuart other familiarity [laughter] stuart: watch out, judge, just watch out. judge, yes, sir, we'll see you again soon. now bring in jeff flock. jeff, i got a question for you, i know you're going to report on this, there is no sport, so there is no sport to bet on. sew what are the gaming companies doing?

reporter: this would be opening day. this is wrigley field this would be opening day. you can still bet though. this is, as you know, will be a huge year for sports betting because 18 states now have legalized sports betting in some fashion and you know, draftkings was going to make a big deal out of this. well the deal is, you can still bet on stuff, and places like draftkings. you can still bet on baseball, but mainly what will happen later in the season. the only thing you can bet on live right now is the belarus soccer league. so they are still playing apparently in minsk. you can bet on that if you have a gambling problem. you can bet on the nfl draft, who i will be the first pick. you can bet on cam newton the quarterback where he will sign or who will be in the world series. that is not where they make their money. they make their money on daily

games in places like, this wrigley field, in chicago, all across. they have already lost march madness. they lost a lot of money from the nba, from hockey. right now they're in a holding pattern, but the guys at draftkings say they have ipo scheduled for next month. they will go ahead with it. they're optimistic that the president's idea getting things back to normal will get through. stuart: that was intriguing about the belarus soccer matches which i can probably bet on if i really want to. jeff flock, always in the middle of it. thank you very much indeed, sir. bring it back home to new jersey. ash, you have news, virus related news, from new jersey, what do you want? ashley: yep, from minsk to trenton. president trump approved a disaster declaration for the state of new jersey. we told you the same thing had been done for texas. it is important because it frees up federal money, resources to hope those communities hit hardest. also apparently making funding

available for crisis counseling for affects individuals in all areas of the state of new jersey. so it is official now, that the president has approved new jersey as a disaster declaration. stuart: all right. i got the gaming stocks on the left-hand side of screen but i don't think that has anything to do with the belarus soccer league. susan, what have you get for me? susan: netflix just got an upgrade from bank of america and they expect first half of subscriber growth forenetflix especially in this state at home, in the condition right now, potential for margin up side they say. this is something we've seen. netflix, record traffic this weekend as i mentioned to you. stuart: susan, thank you very much, indeed. the rally holds. as you can see, bottom right-hand corner of the screen are we're still up 700 points. it has been a gradual crime to the upside all day long. back after this.

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stuart: we like to look at hard-pressed groups in our society, one hard-pressed group with the virus problem is students, and student loans. what do you do, if you got to repay a student loan but you're out of a job and you just lost your income?

come on in, lauren. you have got news on this, please? lauren: you don't have to pay for six month, stuart. because of the, the federal relief bill, student loan payments, principle, interest, suspended until september 30th of this year. total of six months. the department of education is suspending collection of any defaulted debts, including what is called a garnishment. if you're not current they take part of your check until you are current. they're suspending that as well. this is relief to millions of student loans borrowers out there. only for federal loans. not private. stuart: good stuff, thank you, lauren. let's bring in spencer brown, the young american federation, young americans for freedom i think is the proper title. spencer, it occurs to me this is about the worst possible time to be a high school senior or a college senior because, your academic life has been

suspended. what are you folks doing about it? >> it has been completely upended you're right. especially college students, there is obviously academic impact where the students are moving to on-line learning which is not what they signed for when paying exorbitant fees to attend a university. not just paying for what they get in the classroom, they're paying for experience, resources comradery there. that is one part. the other part is lastings impact. obviously not having to pay on loans is helpful. the fact that corporate recruiters can't visit campuses for job fairs. some interns may have been turning into jobs are upended. this is having a lasting impact for people going out into the workforce. stuart: do you think they want a refund? after all you paid all the money to go to college, you done all the course, can't take finals and can't graduate, you get a refund? >> that is interesting for us to see. every day we're working with high school and college students at young america's foundation,

we're hearing stories everywhere from the university of southern california to the university of alabama, seems like universities are not sure how to handle this seems like a lot of them are still charging graduation fees even though there are not graduation ceremonies. they're not refunding meal plans, that they are no longer able to use. the way for to have more liquidity to decide to move forward would be for universities to refund, at least prorate refund for room and board and meal plans that way students have a little bit of money. they're caught in the gap. i think a lot of them feel in limbo because they're not stuart: what would be your advice to a high school senior whose possible attendance at college next year is in doubt, graduation is in doubt, grades are in doubt? what's your advice? >> well, i think what's been interesting to see, some schools are taking action to move away from a letter grading system to a pass/fail system which i think can help some students who are

dealing with this but i think the really important thing is for them, this is sort of a coming of age moment where they have an opportunity to really decide what their future is going to look like so i think for them, the most important thing is to keep their head down and keep working, and you know, have that backup plan in place to know what am i going to do if i can't go standardized test wise, if i can't get an a.c.t. or s.a.t. test done, how will they make sure they can still move forward in their career path and what they want to do with their lives. i think maybe a good thing is this will have students taking a look at can i move straight into a work force or field that i want to potentially without having to go through some of these educational hoops that have become the norm. i think young people are going to be creative and come alongside and make it work. stuart: that's going to be very interesting. spencer brown, very opportune moment for you to appear with us. we appreciate it. >> thank you. stuart: all right. lauren is with us. what's with beyond meat? what's happening? lauren: okay. this is ugly, stuart. so goldman sachs downgraded them

to sell but if you look at the price target, it was $129. now they slapped it with $39. when you're going to the food store and trying to stock up, you're not buying beyond meat products, that's essentially the case. the stock is down almost 7%. anecdotally i had a girlfriend who had trouble getting meat at the food store and said i was able to stock up on a lot of beyond meat items but i guess there's not a lot of -- there's not high demand right now as people are nervous out there. stuart: that is clear. the stock is taking it on the chin, down $5 at $67. thank you very much indeed. we like good guys on the program. we like people who are contributing something in this age of the virus. we have had several people who fit that category on the program and we've got another one right now. mike listoria and pizza is the name of the company, is that right? >> you got it right.

that's right. yes. stuart: good. you are a good man. you are giving pizzas to medical workers, is that accurate? on the phone: we are. we offer high quality jobs and high quality pizza under a socially conscious umbrella. it was always about doing well by doing good so in times of need, we turn our needs to our front line heroes, hospital workers and as of a couple weeks ago, we have been giving free pies to any hospital worker of any kind, doctors, nurses, administrators, cleaning staff, and we have given away almost 15,000 pies, including turning three of our 40 pizza shops into hero kitchens to provide for the demand. stuart: you are a good man. if i'm a hospital worker, and i want a free pie from your operation, how do i get it? >> it's very simple. our entire communications platform is text-based. you can text 20003 #hero and that will prompt a chain for you

to get a free pizza. we also opened up the ability for our customers, our communities, to join in with us so you can text the same number, 20003 #feedthem to give a pie the a hospitto a hospital worker. stuart: you are a good man. "varney & company" is going to donate a few pizzas. we will get back to you real fast. thank you, sir. appreciate it. it is 11:00 eastern time. i'm going to reset what's going on. the dow has been open now, the market has been open now for an hour and a half and we've got a market rally, solid market rally. we had some very negative news on the economy at 8:30 eastern time this morning. 3.28 million job applications for unemployment benefits. that's jobless benefits. a surge of people arriving and announcing i lost my job, give me the benefits. 3.28 million. an enormous amount of people, number of people. however, we have had a market

rally that's lasted all morning long. we opened higher, we have stayed higher. we haven't come down very much. there's not been any blips down. it's been pretty much straight up. right now, the dow industrials are up 800 points, nasdaq is up over 200 and the s&p is up 82. if you add up the gains of the last few days, we were looking at about a 17%, 18% gain and that's a rough figure, but this clearly is a market bounce. whether it's a bounce from a low or not, i don't know. brian remberg is with us, kings college in manhattan, professor of economics, i do declare. look, you follow the market, you follow the economy. is this market up because we've got the 2.2 trillion package in place and the federal reserve is coming in with $4 trillion? is that why we are up today? >> it's up because we have some ammunition that can help businesses perhaps avoid some of those layoffs that we have been

so concerned about. the bill provides ammunition for businesses to pay their bills, to keep their doors open. this three million number we got this morning obviously was very bad, but if we have some things in the pipeline now that might be able to stem that tide, that's what investors are looking at, that's what the market's looking at and they are saying that might be the beginning of what can become the recovery for this economy. very good news that the bill is getting done. it needs to get done in the house and the money needs to get out the door to businesses and workers. stuart: i want to get back to these jobless numbers, 3.28 million new claims. now, if i look at that, i'm thinking that's probably going to get worse. a little way down the road, i think it might mean a 10% unemployment rate. is that about right? 10% unemployment coming at us? >> you know, it's really hard to say, but i do think we are talking about numbers in that range.

that has been what is so scary for the markets but again, if that is a temporary dip, if we move down and then we can move back up from that number fairly quickly, that's what investors look at. they want to know what's going to happen in the future. they want to see the prospect for recovery. i do think we have the possibility here of a sharp downturn but again, if we can provide a bridge to businesses to keep people on the payroll, get them back on the payroll, you can bounce back from that number much more quickly than maybe what you would have seen in 2008-2009 where we had the prolonged grinding unemployment that was so harmful for the economy. stuart: okay. i like to try to bring up positives. i've got a positive but i'm not sure most americans can actually take use of it. that positive is the price of gasoline.

do you know the national average is all the way down now to $2.06 a gallon. $2.06. and falling fast. looks to me like by the weekend, we may well be under $2 a gallon as a national average. the problem, though, as you know, we're not driving very much these days. certainly around metropolitan areas, there's hardly a car on the road. in rural areas, we will be driving our pickup trucks and our tractors. there's something good here, isn't there? >> well, again, it's one of those things that when recovery becomes possible, it will add to that recovery. it will take down the barriers to people getting back out on the road, getting back to business. it will help businesses margins which is really important at a time when they're not selling any product, not making any money, so it is a small silver lining but look, i welcome a situation where that price started to go back up because the economy was roaring again. right now we have to take everything we can get and it's one of those things that can help us get moving again when the time is right. stuart: okay. last one, brian. we have $6 trillion in total

coming at this economy in different ways. the federal reserve, the congress, et cetera, et cetera. do we need more? >> boy, you know, i'm really reluctant to say that we need more right now. i think the problem with these stimulus packages is they can so easily become an excuse to waste money. we've got $6 trillion in capacity coming at the economy. let's see what that can do. by the way, don't forget, we had a very strong economy coming into this. there's a lot of juice there, if we can get people back to work and do it safely. there's a lot of upside. let's not make this an excuse to waste money or hamper the economy with spending that's going to actually hold businesses back. we've got a lot of capital in the system now. let's put it to work and see what can happen. stuart: all right. thanks very much, brian. hold on for a second. i want to bring in anthony chan, old friend of this program, frequent guest of this program. i want to know how bad this

downturn is going to be. clearly we have a downturn with nearly three million first time jobless claims. i got that. how bad's it going to be? >> there's no doubt we will have a real severe downturn in the second quarter. it's different from anything we have seen before because it's self-induced. we are slowing this economy down, sort of like taking a patient that needs a tube down their throat and we almost have to put them into a self-induced coma in order to make the medical procedure possible. but once we take that tube out and once we take the patient out of the coma, the economy will be able to spring forward and we will certainly be able to bounce back. but during the second quarter, i would not be surprised if we see a sharp drop in real gdp of anywhere from 15% to 20% in the second quarter, and then i look for the third quarter to be some sort of transition, but we are now trying to sort of pull back some of this closure and the economy is starting to recover but everything doesn't open up right away.

it won't be until the fourth calendar quarter of this year that we have a good shot at seeing positive real gdp growth. stuart: now, that's interesting. so we will get a bad second quarter, that would be april, may and june, that's going to be bad. you are talking a 15% contraction, that's huge. not so bad in the third quarter. that would be july, august, september. that's a transitional quarter where we are beginning to come back. then you see nice growth or some growth in the fourth quarter. i'm trying to paraphrase exactly what you're saying here. it looks to me like a sharp drop and then a modest rebound picking up some steam at the end of the year. have i got that right from your point of view? >> you are spot on, stuart. that's exactly what's going to happen. remember, this is not like the financial crisis where these things happen because there were underlying fundamental problems. this is something that we are doing in order to basically

improve the health of the country and not allow this invisible enemy to completely take over the entire u.s. economy and spill over, of course, into the global economy. stuart: we've got $4 trillion from the federal reserve going into the economy in various ways, $2.2 trillion from the congress going into the economy in various ways, yet you say we are still going to go into a nasty downturn in the second quarter. my question is, if we jacked in more trillions of dollars, would that save us from a nasty second quarter? >> all of these things are certainly positive additions, but you have to remember that you have 30% to 40% of the people that are staying at home so no matter how much money you give them, you're not going to go to a restaurant, restaurants are closed. they're not going to go to a sports game if there are no sports games to be played. they aren't going on an airline if they are worried about the coronavirus and airlines are cutting back their schedules. so those are things that need to happen because this is a health

crisis. the health crisis is spilling over into the economy. so this is not something that will last forever. it will last only as long as this virus inhibits our ability to grow and that's the important thing to keep in mind. there's nothing fundamentally broken with the economy. we are doing this to save humankind. stuart: okay. now, a lot of us want to know what's america going to feel like, look like, how is the economy going to be looking and feeling say one year from now? can you give us a thumbnail sketch of how you see this economy a year from now? >> a year from now, we will see the economy doing a lot better but there will be fundamental changes. just the same way that when you and i went into an airport, we now have to take our shoes off before we went through the conveyor belt. now after this pandemic, it will change our life forever. we will be more aware of our surroundings, our ability to catch something, so the health

care system will be in high gear, our ability to continue with our lives will be a little bit different because we will have to be more cautious and that's something that's going to change our lives for a long time, if not forever. stuart: okay. by the way, speaker pelosi has just said there will be a strong bipartisan vote on the rescue package tomorrow. i call that good news. >> great news. that's exactly what we need because we want to make sure that this health crisis lasts only as long as we need to eradicate this virus and not a minute longer. stuart: anthony chan, frequent guest on the program, you sir, will be back. thanks for being with us. the dow industrials holding on to a very solid gain, 4% higher. you're close to 900 points up. i presume speaker pelosi is saying there will be a bipartisan vote tomorrow on the stimulus program, strong vote.

that means it's going to pass. i presume that's also helping the market. meanwhile, we have news from various companies on how they are adjusting to the economy and the virus. lauren, you have news on ford motor company? lauren: i got bad and good. start with the bad. smp has downgraded their credit rating to junk and could go even further down should what we are seeing now in the u.s. turn into a recession. here's the good news. they are reopening factories. it starts later than expected but in mexico, a mexican factory on the 6th of april, then the key factories in the u.s. in michigan, kentucky, ohio, the ones that produce the trucks and suvs, some of them are going to start to reopen on april 14th. why is that important? it's the day after the state of michigan, the stay-at-home, work at home orders are ended. stuart: okay. look, ford motor company stock all the way down at $5 a share. thank you very much indeed. let's go to susan.

one of the favorite stocks and favorite companies of the last few weeks has been zoom. any news? susan: well, suspended for trade until april 8th. so this is going to cause a lot of confusion and probably frustration amongst traders who want to buy zoom video. stuart: why? susan: the stock has doubled since the start of this year because there's confusion with another small cap stock. it's only worth $13.5 million but another stock called zoom technologies, there's confusion with people actually buying into zoom technologies thinking it's zoom video. they are going to try to change this to clarify some of this confusion and the stock is halted until april 8th, until they i guess maybe change the stock ticker symbol around. who knows. we will see what kind of solution they come up with. but i should point out you know, if we hit 1100 for the dow, we are in another bull market run. from bear to bull in just a matter of weeks. stuart: go figure. go figure.

that's a fact. ladies and gentlemen, you see everyone on the screen, t remotely, of course, but all together on the program. we have all been discussing how we have been reacting to home confinement. ashley, anecdotes, you first. ashley: i want to talk about, i love looking at what's going on around the world and some of the bizarre things that happen in this bizarre time. there's an appeal that's been launched in the czech republic to drink beer. they have 1.3 million pints of craft beer that will go off in two weeks. all the bars and restaurants are closed but you can go to the website so they say do your part for the czech republic and drink a lot of beer. the czech republic has the highest per capita beer consumption in the world. in the uk, at 8:00 tonight, everyone is going to be -- is being asked to give a round of applause to the national health service workers. everyone has been encouraged to stand at your front door, go on the balcony, wherever you are, round of applause at 8:00 for the national health. by the way, one last thing.

you can now bet on the weather. you may not be able to bet on most sports except for soccer in belarus but you can bet on the weather. they are taking bets on the highest wind gust of the day, highest temperatures in cities like houston and los angeles. you can still bet -- and yes, premium table tennis, too. susan: wow. stuart: can't wait. ashley, susan, lauren, one and all, thanks. more anecdotes later on the show. right now, you know we will make some money so we will take a commercial break. ♪ limu emu & doug

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that puts the dow firmly above the 22,000 level. remember, the bottom was just under 18,000 -- actually, 18,000 just a few days ago. now it's 22,000. ashley, news from nbc universal? ashley: their ceo jeff shell, 54 years old, was just named ceo in january of this year, so literally new to the job, says he has tested positive for the covid-19 coronavirus. that's the nbc universal ceo. stuart: okay. got that. susan, come in, please. you have news about what they are doing in chicago to help the medical situation? what do you have? susan: united center, the home of the blackhawks and chicago bulls, will be a logistics center to help fight covid-19. also, we have lots of hotels stepping up, 1,000 hotel rooms to quarantine coronavirus patients in chicago as well. lot of people are obviously trying to help out with this pandemic.

stuart: all right. let's go to grady trimble. he's in chicago. grady, you've got the story about hotel rooms being used on an emergency basis for coronavirus cases. what have you got? reporter: as a place to quarantine people who have coronavirus. in fact, this is one of the hotels, it looks normal on the outside but inside are those patients. the city is actually renting out those rooms so it serves two purposes. one, in case the hospitals get overburdened and overcrowded with patients, there is somewhere else for them to go and it's primarily for two people, two groups of people. people who have to be quarantined who have the virus, or people who are awaiting test results and want to be quarantined in the meantime. you know, this isn't a hospital hotel. it's just a hotel so it's for people who have the virus whose symptoms aren't too bad. the other purpose that this serves is it helps the hotels out because occupancy has just plummeted because of this virus. there are some hotels in chicago that have closed so the city

will be paying them so they can at least break even. it also keeps some staff on the payroll. for example, hotel chefs will be working to cook three meals a day. housekeeping will be helping out with cleaning but for the most part, the people interacting with the patients themselves will be city employees so there won't be any hotel staff doing that. of course, they can expand this if they have to from the 1,000 to several more thousand. once this is all over, you've got to think about cleaning. the city is already on that. they say the hotels will undergo an extremely deep cleaning to get it back to normal once things get back to normal. stu? stuart: it is all hands on deck all round the country and we love to hear this kind of thing. we are getting on with it, doing something about it. great story. thank you very much indeed. now, i want to bring in on the phone, elizabeth douglas, a special lady. elizabeth works in an icu unit

in a hospital in new york city and she was featured in the "new york post" as a miracle worker. so welcome to the program. you are one of the good guys here. welcome indeed. good to have you on the show. on the phone: thank you. thank you very much. stuart: now, i don't want to talk about any problems with the supply of medical equipment or drugs or face masks. i don't want to talk about that. i want you to tell us about a miracle. give me an example. on the phone: well, i would say that the things that people are doing every day in hospitals is a miracle. people are coming in and they are in varying degrees of sickness. some of them are minor symptoms, some of them are on the verge of death and we are taking care of them. we are able to treat each one as

we need to. it's not easy. there are a lot of patients. finding beds is hard. having enough staff to do everything is hard. but everyone is just getting it done and taking care of it. stuart: how do you keep your humanity? i ask that question deliberately because i'm sure you are dressed when you tend to these patients, i'm sure you're dressed in protective gear so you are reaching out to them with this protective gear in between. how do you do that? how do you make yourself human in that situation? on the phone: well, i think ultimately as humans, we need to be touched. we do things, procedures to patients all day long, but at the same time, we interact with them through our eyes, our eyes are still visible. we interact through our eyes, through our hands. we talk to them. nothing changes just because we

have protective equipment on. we are still people taking care of people, and you have to maintain that, especially since there's no families allowed right now. you really have to be able to maintain that sense of humanity and that caring that they need. stuart: i think you're wonderful. i simply can't imagine being as human as you are and we want to celebrate you as one of the great heroes of our society in this era of the virus. elizabeth douglas, icu worker, thanks for joining us, ma'am. we appreciate it. we really do. okay. quickly to the market. i'm going to take a commercial break momentarily but i do want to tell you that this rally is holding and gaining ground. moments ago, the dow was up over 1,000 points. nasdaq is up nearly, what, 260, 270. the s&p up over 100 points.

major gains in a lot of different categories. boeing doing extremely well. that helps the dow industrials. we've got the rescue package in place. the fed's coming in with the money and despite some bad news on jobless numbers, this market is rallying. we'll be right back. sure, principal is a financial company. but think of us as a "protect your family as it grows" company. a "put enough away for college" company. and a "take care of your employees" company. we're a "help you ride the ups and downs of the market" company. and when it's time to retire, we're a "we've been guiding you toward this all along" company. think of us as all these companies, and more. principal. retirement. investments. insurance. be stronger...

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stuart: we are at the highs of the day, almost. dow industrials at the moment, yeah, we are at the high of the day. 1,000 points on the upside. 22,200 for the dow industrials, nearly 275 points up for the nasdaq, up over 105 for the s&p. this continues the rally of the last couple of days which puts the market overall up almost 20% in a matter of days. that is a bounce and a half. i've got some headlines coming to us from speaker pelosi, commenting on the senate bill and on the package that, the rescue package going here. she says two things. two headlines for you. number one, she says there is no question more money will be needed. number two, i guess she couldn't resist it, speaker pelosi said the senate -- the senate bill has the same cost as the 2017

republican tax scam. okay. a little politics for you. she says more money will be needed. maybe that helps the market. we are up 1,024 points. ashley, come in please. i understand that more sailors aboard the "uss roosevelt" have the virus. what's going on? ashley: yes, indeed. eight more sailors have tested positive in recent days aboard the aircraft carrier. now the acting navy secretary says all 5,000 sailors aboard the "theodore roosevelt" will be tested. it is scheduled to dock in guam very soon now. those infected sailors that have already been flown off the ship are said to be showing just very mild symptoms. 104, by the way, u.s. navy sailors around the world have tested positive as well as 31 u.s. marines and two marine corps recruits in parris island.

all 5,000 sailors aboard that huge aircraft carrier will be tested before it gets into guam. stuart: i don't want to make a negative comment but that sounds an awful lot like an aircraft carrier becoming a cruise ship. ashley: it really does. lots of people in small, you know, small areas stuck together out on the ocean. yes. you could say it's just like a cruise ship. stuart: all right. let's go to susan. the latest headlines from china. susan: so they are suspending the reentry, temporarily suspending the entry of foreigners with valid chinese visas and residents permits, from what i see, up until a certain date. this is extraordinary, because remember early in february when the u.s. said that they're suspending flights to china and then china's foreign ministry had an uproar saying this is unacceptable? now china is temporarily suspending the entry, reentry of foreigners that actually have valid visas and permits to live there.

stuart: okay. that's interesting stuff. thank you, susan. i'm sorry, i've got a communications problem. i didn't quite hear you. i apologize for the delay there. i think it's time we brought in dan henninger. after all, it is a thursday. thursday is the day when dan henninger's column is published in the "wall street journal." welcome back to the program. good to see you again. >> good to be with you, stuart. remotely. stuart: your column is all -- yeah, remote. your column is all about president trump's leadership. right from the get-go, would you rate president trump's leadership in the virus crisis for us? go. >> well, i would rate it really quite good so far. i think he's doing a good job. but i do think that we are in a very strange political situation at the moment. we are in the midst of a national crisis akin to a world war. the economy is shut down, an unprecedented situation, and yet

i think we are seeing the price we are paying for the politics of the last three years with what's going on with the democrats. the level of political rancor for three years with the russian collusion narrative and the impeachment was also unprecedented, and it's pretty obvious to me that the democrats cannot step away from that. just amazing to see nancy pelosi standing there amidst the passage of this rescue bill calling the tax cut in 2017 a sc scam. so i don't think we can look to the democratic party right now for the kind of national leadership that's needed, so we default to the president of the united states and what i have written is i think we are in a situation where it is a historic opportunity for donald trump to elevate himself to the level of a great president rather than just another president. if he can find a way to bring us through this crisis and so far he's doing a pretty good job, he can rise above the pettiness of the politics that we have been living with for three years and

succeed, i think he has the potential here to define himself as having presided over a great presidency. stuart: what do you make of the president's call to get at least some of the economy opened up again for business come easter, two and a half weeks away? he was immediately accused of putting the economy over and above human life. what do you make of his call to open up by easter? >> a couple of things. his call to open up by easter or at least open up the economy soon is a legitimate issue and i think this is something that really ought to be discussed, the point at which the shutdowns on this level can be modified. governor cuomo of new york has himself raised this subject. a lot of articles have been appearing about it including in the "wall street journal" about whether it's possible to allow people who have antibodies

against the virus to return to work. the issue here, i think, in the context of what i'm writing about, is the president has to make it clear that thoughts like that are emerging from the considered decision-making process in the situation room. it's not just an off-the-cuff remark that occurred to him it might be a nice idea. it's a complex problem to get to a reopening of the economy. if he can convey that there's a lot of considered thought from the team that he has assembled to try to open the economy, i think the american public will have the confidence to support him. stuart: dan henninger, "wall street journal" editorial guy, thanks for joining us by remote. we appreciate it. thanks for making the effort. see you later. let me draw your attention real fast to the market. the rally continues. we are now up 1100 points on the dow industrials, firmly above 22,300. now, the issue, one of the issues that everybody is dealing

with here within the market is short selling. that is betting that a stock will go down. susan, what do you have on mr. ackman and what he said? susan: remember the infamous hell is coming interview from last week? apparently he was making a lot of money going short on the market, turning a $27 million bet into $2.7 billion. 2.68, to be exact. he says he's reinvesting that back into the market so the stocks he's going long on, he's buying lowe's, hilton, restaurant brands that own burger king and berkshire hathaway. if you can make the money, you might as well. stuart: okay. i want to bring in andrew left, because i want more commentary on the whole morality of short selling. welcome back to the program. you think it's okay to talk down the market as a famous wall street person, and actually talk up your own book by pushing stocks down and profiting from it? where's the morality in that? >> look, i think it goes beyond

that, stuart. what he did is by calling this hell, it's more than the market. it might have been he tried to cause a form of social chaos which i do not agree with. it's complete hyperbole, the language that he used to profit off it. hopefully some people were smart enough to look past it. but it was dangerous and reckless. if you talk about one stock in specific that he was short, it's different but by calling it hell, that's a pretty extreme word, and rattles a lot of people. stuart: however, i would not favor stopping all short sales. i think that would be the wrong thing to do. we tried back in the financial crisis. on the phone: you cannot stop. short sellers add liquid tity t the market, keeps a balanced market and is a necessary function of the market. right now, i'm short subprime lenders, people who are lending out money and taking advantage of the workers in the u.s., i think they will be regulated soon so i'm short that.

is that a moral decision? stuart: i would agree. i'm sorry it's so short. i'm out of time. thank you for your contribution. it's valuable and we appreciate it. dow is up 1150 points. we'll be right back.

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learn more at protectedincome.org . stuart: we got a tweet just coming in to us from president trump. i'm going the reo read it to yo. i will be doing a news conference live if the white house at 5:00 p.m. eastern to discuss the meeting of the g-20 leaders that took place this morning at 7:55 a.m. by world teleconference. also, my 12:00 p.m. teleconference call with 50 governors plus territories will be discussed. 5:00 tonight, live press conference by the president. let's go to hillary vaughn in washington, d.c. you were at the pelosi press conference. give me more headlines, please.

reporter: stuart, house speaker nancy pelosi said she had to essentially do ju-jitsu to turn the package which was essentially corporations first into something she thinks the house can stomach which is a more worker-first focused package that she says today she believes the house will have strong bipartisan support for. i asked her why she's deciding not to pass this bill through the house in the fastest way possible, take would be through unanimous consent. she says that the bottom line is there are some members who had issues with this legislation, even though she believes the house will pass this by voice vote tomorrow, it's important to have everyone have the opportunity to have their position on the record. so that is her explanation why this is happening tomorrow as opposed to being pushed through unanimous consent today. she also says they are expecting to get right back to work on more relief for more families,

for workers, for state and local governments. that will be coming down the pike shortly here on the hill once they get this package through. stuart? stuart: hillary, thank you very much. you just have to shake your head a little as the speaker takes credit for the rescue package. extraordinary. now, earlier this morning we got the word that there were 3.28 million first-time jobless claims, just in a week. the economy is clearly plunging and unemployment is huge. come in, please, alfredo ortiz. he runs the job creators network, frequent guest on the program. alfredo, i read your stuff. you think there's going tbo be sharp rebound for the economy and employment on the other side of this. make your case. why should it be so sharp when we've got such a huge plunge? >> yeah, absolutely. first of all, it's so critical that we get the bill passed as quickly as possible. the fact that it is going to be almost five days after the

original expectations, every single day that passes, more people are getting unemployed. my phone, my text, e-mails are blowing up from small business owners saying when is relief coming. people like calling this a stimulus package or bailout. it's not. it's a lifeline to small business owners across the country like the sign behind me says, small business is too big to fail. small businesses were the ones that really helped lead us through the great economic success we were having just before this virus hit and we truly believe that it's small businesses that are going to get us out as well. we've got to make sure we give them the lifeline. stuart: wait a minute. they're going to get the money, alfredo. they are going to get it. this bill will be passed. $2.2 trillion, the fed's got the money, it's going to pass. why do you think it's going to be such a sharp rebound? >> you know what, honestly, i think it's pent-up demand. if you think about the american psyche, the american economy, we are an economy that moves around, likes the drive around,

go to restaurants and hotels. there will be pent-up demand and i think the rebound is going to be almost on a state by state basis. i think we hear a lot about flattening the curve almost on a national basis but i think what we are seeing evolve is that states have their own curves. i think it is going to be on a state by state basis. i think new york will have a tough time. i think we know that. we need to provide them the assistance. but i think we will have kind of open the economy up but really, it's going to be on a state by state basis versus a total national open for business. stuart: well, the money is going to be on the way as of tomorrow. it will actually reach you a little after that. thanks for joining us, sir. >> stuart, if i could just -- one more quick thing, if i could. independent contractors are going to be part of this deal as well. that's really, really important. that was a big part of that bill. stuart: it is very important. well said. thank you for adding that. good stuff. i want to bring in jared

isaacman. he runs a company that checks payments. jared is in a position to tell us how much -- how far down the leisure industry is, restaurants and bars, how much each state has suffered, so to speak. jared, welcome to the program. i believe that california has suffered the biggest decline in restaurant, bar and leisure industries. spell it out, please. >> stuart, thanks for having me on the show. we power the transactions, credit card processing services for 200,000 businesses in the u.s., mostly small restaurants and hotels. we put a ton of data out there on shift 4.com. we are talking 90% declines in transaction volume just pre and

post-crisis, pre-crisis until now over the last couple weeks. but even other states outside of new york and california, we are still talking like 70% plus, you know -- stuart: jared, that is -- that's not all payments across all platforms. that's just payments to bars and restaurants, correct? i've got, like california is down 91%. is that accurate? >> that's correct. so we predominantly support the hospitality industry so that's your small business restaurants, hotels out there. so the data we are sharing on shift4 right now is verticals, you're mostly correct, hotels and restaurants are seeing immense decline in payment volume. stuart: before we go, i understand you are raising some big money for these workers. tell me about that, please. >> sure. so again, we have a ton of data about what's going on out there

right now. we think it's going to be very helpful for advocacy groups like national restaurant association, for political leaders to know where to direct vitally needed stimulus. but we are also raising $200 million right now by selling gift cards on behalf of our 200,000 customers. and shift4 as a company is contributing $10 million to it. this is a way we think we can help -- stuart: well done. jared, that's a fine thing. a fine thing indeed. thanks very much for joining us, sir. we appreciate both your information and what you're doing for these people. >> thank you. stuart: jared isaacman, thank you very much. good stuff. all right. dow is now up 1148. not bad. back after this.

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stuart: the story this morning is the stock market rally, still going on. now we're up 1200 points. ashley, news from governor cuomo of new york. what do you have? ashley: he says the number of deaths are increasing. we don't have any hard numbers yet, but he says any scenario that you look at will overwhelm the hospitals system in new york. he says they have been able to split a ventilator so two patients can use one ventilator. some of these patients are on

ventilators for 20 to 30 days. he says the revenue loss to new york estimated at $5 billion to $10 billion, stu. stuart: okay. short and to the point. thanks, ash. lauren, as i look at new york city, it's a ghost town. how about the hotels? is there anybody in them? lauren: crippled. last week, the occupancy rate was 16.8%. down 80% in one week. it's probably lower right now. the only city doing worse than new york is san francisco, where they do have shelter in place orders. nationwide, occupancy rate is 30%. stuart: just extreme. got it. thanks, lauren. now, i want to bring in cheryl young, the senior economist at zillow, the real estate company. welcome to the program. i see mortgage applications down, what, 29% in the latest reporting period. seems to me that real estate is

in huiatus, almost on hold. is it that bad? >> thanks for having me, stu. yes, we are seeing a slowdown in the real estate market right now, not surprising because of what we have seen in terms of the swiftness and devastation of this pandemic to the economy, to the loss of human life, and we have seen actually a lot of curtailing of real estate activity that you would normally have. you know, there have been directives to realtors to not hold open houses, don't meet clients face-to-face for everyone's safety and that's actually slowed things down. people now are actually checking their own finances, is this a good time for me to actually buy a house, is it a good time for me to sell a house. so we are starting to see things really slow. stuart: well, cheryl, i can tell you only anecdotally that i do know of some home purchases where the contract's been signed, the deposit has been placed, and the buyer walks away from the deal because they just don't know the future. now, this is anecdotal on my

part but you are at the center of this. can you confirm that that is happening quite a lot? >> you know, i don't think we have a lot of data right now on people walking away from contracts, but as you can probably imagine, there are people that are getting cold feet just because this is happening so quickly, and so you know, i think we would expect more of that kind of slowdown happening, but even before some of stuart: i would imagine that there is not going to be an immediate sharp, rebound after a slowdown like this. what do you say? >> i think it is too soon to tell but one thing i will say is that this isn't like the last recession, right, which was really housing-led. any sort of housing asset was pretty toxic. right now we're not seeing prices drop. we're seeing transactions slow down. demand and supply are slowing down, balancing each other out.

we don't know if it is quite as devastating as it was before. that rebound was much slower. stuart: cheryl, i have to tell you i would not be at all surprised when this is all over, real estate is looked kindly on as a long-term investment because people have been shocked by their stock market losses. they might like to go for some real estate instead. cheryl, thanks for being with us this morning it is great to have you own. housing in the middle of the economy. we want to know the latest. cheryl young from zillow. very much appreciate it. i think we'll put up the four shot where you see us all in our different locations because i want to know how we're all bearing up. we've been asking for anecdotes, how are you doing things, how are you handling it. let's go first to ashley. what have you got for us? ashley: i want to mention a special event sunday night

9:00 eastern. fox presents, i heart living room concert for america. on all platforms, iheartradio stations. special concert, fronted, hosted by elton john, one and only. special concert to pay tribute to the front line med professionals who are working to beat this virus. of course the first-responders, local heroes, they will solicit donations from viewers and listeners, this is this sunday, 9:00 p.m., going to be the backstreet boys, alicia keys, billy aisle like, mariah carey, tim mcgraw. whole slew of stars, 9:00 p.m., all of stu's favorites. stuart: ashley, you're right. i will watch that, we really well along with everybody else in america. susan, last time we checked you had problems getting your nails done. any advance on nails? susan: we were talking to some of the girls on the show. one has a source where they do in dip-in acrylic nails. i will talk to her.

that is chat amongst us girls among the varney and co program. stuart: not just amongst girls. trouble with the roots. we both are, ashley. the roots are showing. i will leave it at that hair salons closed, roots are showing. stop looking like that, lauren. lauren, you're now confined to your home. you're confined to the home with two young children. how is it going? lauren: i don't know how i will get lunch right now. if i leave this room, i won't be able to come back. they will follow me. if you have any ideas i can get something to eat, slipped under the door. ashley: slide a pizza under the door. stuart: i don't have anything to add. except -- go ahead. >> overall i've been speaking to people, making a point to call someone every day. i think people are doing well, overall, spirits are up.

stuart: good to hear. i want to say one thing, i think it is a great privilege to be sitting here in the middle of 2020, 2020 in historic and tumultuous year. great to be here. great to be on tv in front much all of our great viewers. my time is up. neil, it yours? neil: stuart, thank you very, very much we're monitoring same thing you are, seems to be a record-setting day at corner of wall and broad. likes we haven't seen since the early last month. again the catalyst for this, this stimulus catalyst approved in the senate. did heville in the details. we still don't know all the details. all of this despite jarring development on the latest jobless claims, 3.25 million americans filing for jobless benefits. we've never seen the number that high. in fact it is triple the old record that was established back in 1982 when