stay with fox news for continuing coverage during this unprecedented time. i'm pete hegseth, and from my home to yours on this palm sunday, god bless, and goodnight . ♪ >> barron's round table, sponsored by: ♪ ♪ jackie: welcome to barron's round table where we get behind the headlines to prepare you for the week ahead. i'm jack otter. we begin with what we think are the three most important things investors should be thinking about right now. it was another volatile week, actually a tale of two markets. some companies were hit hard while others were resill e cent. what we can expect going forward. the pandemic exposing and exacerbating deep troubles in retail. which companies are best positioned to weather the storm. and big investors pressuring companies to take care of their employees. why this is good for business

and workers. finish on the barron's round table tonight but at a safe distance, ben leveson, carl english and jack howe. ben, first to you. let's talk about what's happening in the market right now. in the beginning of the bear market, we had that crazy panic stage, lots of missed pricings. now things seem to have settled down, investors maybe trying to find what the right prices are? >> they are. or at least they, you know, they're making bets that some kinds of companies are going to have a lot of trouble going ahead, and that's your traditional retailers, airlines, cruise companies. after rallying last week, they've gotten hit very hard this week. and there are companies that have been winners including biotech companies who are working on treatments and vaccines for coronavirus. and they've done very well. the one strange one is energy which has been among the losers but had a fantastic week because of reports that maybe we could see some production cuts to oil,

and that would help drive the price back up from where it's down around $20 right now. and maybe help them get back into the business of making money. jackie: what should investors -- jackie: what should investors or be doing in this environment? >> really the best thing you can do is just sit there with your portfolio. there's a big drop, maybe you want to start nibbling. but the other thing is to look for companies that you think have gotten beaten up too much but you know are going to be able to pull through this no matter what. there's lots of them out there. we could talk about them more later on. but it looks like the individual companies more than the major indexes are where the action really is. especially as you go through into smaller and smaller sections of the stock market. you're going to find that you're going to have more issues. what i've been looking at is dividend stocks. dividend eats you up, you might have problems because right now a high dividend isn't

necessarily a sign of anything except market stress. >> because when a stock gets sold to off, that dividend is relatively higher, but that doesn't mean that's it. >> that's right. jack: so you mentioned the cruise lines, the airlines, all these companies that have really been in the forefront of getting hammered for obvious reasons, they went down, they went up, they went down again. but you could almost say that about the whole market, right? we've had these furious rally, the next day has been ugly and vice versa. >> yeah. that's been one of the best strategies right now especially this week. you know, you had some nice up days, 2 or 3%, they've been followed by down days of 2 or 3%. it's just the way the market is now. we're really range-bound but in a very large range, and so you can expect to see more volatility where people are just trying to figure out where the value is. they're going to be doing this for a while especially because they don't really know, none of us really know how this is going to play out. what is the -- how is the

disease itself going to play out, are we going to start seeing a peak in the number of cases, but also things like the efficacy of government programs. they're rolling these programs out for airlines and for publicly-traded companies but also for small businesses. i think we're going to want to keep an eye to see if small business gets the cash it needs to keep going. jack: jack howe, you've done a deep dive into retail. we know retail's just getting hammered, but there's some nuances within that group. can you explain that? >> yeah. i mean, the group is in a coma now, but i think investors want to think about how it will be reshaped after the virus is gone. that's what i wrote about in my column and in this my podcast this week. first of all, we had way too many stores in america before the virus, and we've written about this before. we have 4-5 times the square footage selling space per person

in america as the u.k., germany, other peer nations. so we expected maybe ten years of accelerated store closings here even if consumer spending was strong. now you have you have to be aware that consumer spending won't be strong. and that's another point. every day that goes by on lockdown is a day where customers get more used to staying at home, shopping online and spending less. so we will get recovery. it might be a sharp recovery, but it might be a while before it takes us back to where we were before. and the last point i want to make is, you know, imagine if jcpenney and macy's go away. that's not his base case, he hopes that doesn't happen, but if they do, that puts $35 billion in consumer spending up for grabs. and if you're a long-term investor, you have to think about who's going to be in a position the grab it. the likely candidates are company like target, walmart, amazon, costco, companies that are doing well right now.

and once stores are open again, start thinking about the apparel closeout chains like tjx. they're not the strongest online playerses, but they'll be worth a look too. jack: my add vice, use those gift cards now. one thing retail companies is doing is trying to keep their mows afloat until we're back in -- employees afloat. you've been thinking about why that's important to the market at large. >> absolutely. corporations that have been talking about this stakeholder capitalism for years now are really going to have to walk that talk. it's not just thinking about your shareholders, your employees, your suppliers, all of that. so what we're finding is a number of companies have taken measures to try to insure that they can keep those payrolls going. you have comcast, marriott, they're taking a cut in paw, starbucks paying their workers for 30 dayses even if they don't show up. you have the big banks saying they're committed to keeping their work force in place.

now, this is a lot of feel-good stuff, but there's a business reason for this, because when we do come out of this -- which, you know, looking at the jobs data we've gotten this week, you know, it's tough to picture that time -- but when we do come out of this, we want these strong, viable companies that are going to be the able to just soar back on the other end of it. the cost of bringing on new employees, training them, all of that, it's a huge cost. and what companies want to be able to do is serve not just their employees, but also their customers, their business partners, you know, just to make sure that money is still able to flow. it's a tough time, a lot of companies are going to be taking a hit during this time, but it's about the long-term outlook. jack: it's an interesting dynamic, doing well and doing good taunt. coming up, what 800 years of financial crises tells us about how to h h h h h

♪ ♪ jack: the government is stepping up with massive interventions to try to support the economy until we are all back at work, but how will the pandemic affect the economy in the long run? joining me now, former imf chief economist ken rogoff, thank you for being here. how does this financial crisis stack up? >> i mean, it's really too soon to know, but i think if you look at the dive in global output, not necessarily one country's, but in global output, it's probably going to be as big as any on record. gdp only started being kept in the 1930s really, but going back to the great depression, how long it's going to last is

really the big question. is this a pause for two or three months, is it going to be a pause that hits six out of the next eight months? we just don't know. depends on the pluck health response -- public health response, how we choose to respond and things about the virus we still don't understand. jack: so i would say there are basically three fronts on which we are fighting this war. there's, obviously, the health front. then there's the fiscal front, and there's the monetary front. i think the biggest action is by the fed, so can you briefly address what you think about the fed action so far, what else should be done? >> well, i think the fed's done a terrific job. it's been very aggressive doing things that it said it would never do like backing money market funds. i sat in on meetings where they said they weren't going to back money market funds, but now they're doing it because i think they have to. but, you know, that stops the panic. that stops the liquidity crisis. finish but -- but if you're

shutting down the economy long enough, and let's understand it's still very open-ended up to the point where there's a vaccine that's widely available where this ends. like, you know, where are we going to really normally go back to work, what's normal going to be, will this go to the southern hemisphere and then come back or just go to states that didn't shut down and come back? i really don't know. my guess is that we still have a long ways to go before the public health problem is sod. and the fed has -- solved. and the fed has stood there saying we're going to solve the liquidity problem, but up to a point there's only so much that it can do. jack: sure. so that's where maybe fiscal stimulus comes in to try to keep everyone afloat. what are your thoughts there, are we spending too little, too much? >> we're definitely not spending too much. i mean, you know, even fiscal conservative, i regard myself as

a centrist, but robert bare rows, a leading scholar on fiscal policy, and everyone advocates when you have a natural catastrophe or a war, that's when you want to use debt very haley. you want to be -- very heavily. you want to be in a position to do so. you don't want to have abused your ability to issue debt. we have a lot of capacity. i just think we're at the beginning of this. i think there'll be a further stimulus, simply because i'm not so optimistic the health problem will end requestingly. there's going to be a lot of lost tax revenues here too. so that's still finish you know, i think our monetary and fiscal policy's been heroic. our public health response for the united states -- i'm not just looking at this administration, going back, our preparedness for a long time was woefully inadequate. and the good side of that is i

think this could be worse, we could be facing an even worse virus, and we need to prepare not to mention bioterrorrism and such. and this is a really a wake-up call. so that's sort of the silver lining in this. jack: ken rogoff, thank you very much. we had a great q and a with hum on barron's.com. coming up, how the rate of infections will truth this market. the panel tackles that next. ♪ ♪ i am totally blind. and non-24 can throw my days and nights out of sync, keeping me from the things i love to do. talk to your doctor, and call 844-214-2424.

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♪ ♪ >> the coronavirus now rapidly spreading trout the country -- throughout the country with new york being the epicenter of the crisis. we look at health, business and economic conditions there to try to anticipate what the rest of

the country can expect. bofa supervise joins the round table. i want to go to ben first just to explain this thesis about why we're looking at new york and what we think that can tell us. >> right. so new york is really the first to get hit, and it is the biggest, and right now it really is the epicenter of covid-19 in the u.s. we have more cases, it's spreading faster, and there's just -- looking at new york to see what's happening here, what works, what doesn't work, i think, is going to be very useful for other cities as they have to deal with this. and it's also going to be a model for how city recover and maybe, just maybe, if things do start to get better here, it's also going to be some positive news for the stock market. jack: are you looking at new york, are you looking at other places to get a sense of where we're headed? >> you know, i think globally

new cases is probably the best barometer of where we see a peak in terms of, you know, the market's bottoming process. so one of the things we noticed is that during the sars outbreak the hong kong and shanghai stock exchanges, the benchmarks were actually super correlated with just the acceleration -- or the desell ration in new cases. so i think that might be ad good barometer to watch. in terms of how to think about investing in this market, one of the things we're noticing is that companies that are actually allocating a lot of resources, 19 are outperforming the market. so one of the things i thought was really interesting is companies that have happy, satisfied employees. for example, companies with strong glass door rankings are outperforming companies with weak glass door rankings, because that suggests that these employees are loyal and are

going to stick with the company even through tougher times. there's a lot of interesting dynamicses in this market right now, but i to think there are areas that one can buy. jack: yeah, that is really interesting, carlton was just discussing that. what are you looking for specifically in a company to say, hey, this is a company that's treating it stakeholders correctly, in the right way, and we think it will outperform in the future? >> yeah. one of the things was not just employee satisfaction, but policies around leave, around childcare, just a general sense of a good culture at a company. we also found that a lot of companies that are donating, that are allocating, you know, kind of ourselves, significant financial resources to this problem in terms of loan forbearance, you know, small business loans, these are companies that are actually -- interestingly -- outperforming the market. the other thing that i find fascinating is that if you look at flows on our desk, we've seen

massive equity etf outflows, but the one area where you've seen continued inflows throughout this bear market has been in esg types of etfs. so i think longer term investors are still thinking about these as good risk barometers. >> it's jack howe. we've never seen jobless claims like we're seeing rolling in now. we've never seen a decline in gdp like we're probably going to see in the current quarter, and yet the stock market, it's off its highs, but all things considered, stocks are doing pretty well right now, and we don't yet know what the course of this virus is going to be, whether it's going to come back in the fall. why aren't stocks doing worse right here? do you think the recovery is already priced in at this point? >> you know, i think we're going to be in a big trading range. i think we might go back to some of the prior lows we've seen. here's the thing, i think the one signal that the market got

that is positive is that we have a bed that's going to do literally whatever it takes -- a fed. i mean, we have a fed that's buying investment grade bonds. this is unprecedented behavior. so i think the idea that the fed is there to prop up the credit markets, to prop up liquidity, you know, cupid -- kind of backstop risk at some level, it suggests that the floor on the s&p 500 might be higher than it was in 2008 when we didn't have that learning curve already established that, you know, liquidity matters during a downturn, and it's stemming that really dramatic fall is critical. jack: unfortunately, we've got to leave it there. we have a lot more questions for you, i hope you'll come back because this is, to say the least, a fast-moving table. >> absolutely. jack: round table members give their best investment ideas for the coming week, so stay right there, please. ♪ ♪ announcer: there are everyday

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♪ ♪ >> before we get to jack and street wise, a correction. last week we inadvertently put the wrong chart for zoom video communications, so we're putting up the correct chart now. and a heck of a chart it is. jack, so my family is trying to use this time to convince me, dad, to get a cat. the wife and kids have wanted one for a long time. we found out the shelter literally didn't have any. >> yeah, good luck. i don't know if goldman sachs i upgraded dogs and cats a strong buy and no one told me, but i'm hearing more and more stories of shelters running out of pets. i'm going to give one piece of advice to anyone who did get a pet for this, don't name your

pet quarantineo. you do not want to be here a year from now, you go out on the front steps, you yell for it, and 14 dogs and 2 cats run into your house. think about original names. look at the pet care stock zts. jack: i just want to make it clear here, you're kind of a contrarian. you're not suggesting people go out and sell dogs because they're well priced right now. [laughter] >> it's not a seller's market right now. jack: we always have one actionable idea from each of our panelists but, carlton, you've got two of them. you couldn't narrow it down. >> i just couldn't. the quarter just ended, your 401(k) statement is going to be coming in the mail. if you're a long-term investor, just disregard it, stay the course. my second piece of advice, you know, we're staying indoors, i'm looking for a stock that i like, procter & gamble is looking

interesting because the dividend yield is 2.7%, it looks pretty strong. but i'm also thinking about the things that i'm doing. i'm staying home longer, i'm cleaning my apartment long, i can't get enough mr. clean magic erasers. people will be buying their products more and more. jack: they're great, by the way, if you have kids. [laughter] ben, you're looking american tower. we're also on our cell phones a bit more these days. >> that's right. this is, if you look at this company, it's not like the ones that have got into trouble recently, the real estate ones that buy retail space and rent them out, office space and rent that. they build towers it is. they rent the tower space, and that's a really great business to be in right now. we have 5g coming, that's going to mean more powers. right -- more towers. right now people are using their cell phones, this is an interesting hooking stock at this point. -- jack: thank you, great ideas, thank you. viewer, to read more, check out

this week's edition at barrons.com. follow us on twitter @barrons on line. stay safe, wash your hands. see you next week on "barron's roun >> from the fox studios in new york city, this is maria bartiromo's "wall street." maria: happy weekend, everybody. welcome to the program that analyzes the week that was and helps position you for the week ahead, and what a week it was. thanks for joining me, i'm maria bartiromo. coming up, we will talk about the coronavirus and its impact. the ceo of 3m, mike roman, is here to talk about the need to produce more medical supplies to combat the covid-19 pandemic and why president trump is calling out 3m for its production of respirators. the u.s. economy lost 701,000 jobs in the month of march. that was the steepest decline in