charles: right. what else do you like. >> right. >> i'm also looking at match.com. it may be relatively impervious to whatever happens with yields and the overall market -- charles: yeah. michelle, we gotta leave it there. we also have spotify if up there too. they're all in the green. you've been rocking. wish we had more time but we don't. got to hand it over to my ashley webster. i apologize for that clumsy joke i tried to make yesterday. i hope you didn't take it the wrong way -- ashley: more from you, charles payne -- never from you, charles payne. thank you, my friend. [laughter] markets feeling the heat. rising consumer prices not seen since terminator 2 ruled the big screen, pressuring stocks out of recorder the territory. what today's prices really mean and the moves you should be making in your portfolio.

plus, are rising prices creating the perfect recipe for even more menu price hikes apt your favorite restaurants? p.f. chang's ceo will be weighing in on that. and, oh, yes, the worker shortage facing america's top food establishments. they just can't find workers. oh, and by the way, solarwinds now caught up in a new hacking threat. the warning you have to hear on how to fight back according to one cybersecurity ceo. meantime, investors caught in the middle of flaring tensions between the u.s. and china. why team biden is shooting off new warning flares over hong kong. we'll get into that. and will china's stocks ever be safe again as the xi regime cracks down on home grown tech giants daring to list shares on u.s. exchanges? china beige book's leland miller will game it all out for us. lots to talk about. let's get straight first to the markets on "the claman countdown." major averages retreating in

afternoon trade although very modestly so after initially shrugging off hotter than expected inflation numbers we saw for june. consumer prices accelerating last month, jumping nine-tenths of a percent from may and 5.4% from a year ago, the highest 12-month rate since august 2008, nearly 13 years. meantime, earnings season kicking off with two major banks, jpmorgan and goldman sachs, both reporting better than expected results for the second quarter but both slipping at this hour. jpmorgan down 1.5 or thereabout. investors also heard from pepsico, shares hitting a record high after raising profit forecasts. the company announced its plans to increase prices. all right, to our traders we go. bring in scott forman and phil flynn. gentlemen, greetings to you both. look, everyone's talking about

inflation, but the markets even though they are very modestly lower, still seem to be shrugging it off. scott, to you first. why do you think that is? >> well, first, the fed still remains very accommodative. you know, you take a look at a what's going, we still have historically low interest rates, the fed is still out there buying debt putting a lot of liquidity out there, and that's capital that can be spent. wherever you're going to put your money, the only place to put it is in equities. ashley: very good. phil, listen, continuing big hit to consumers' wallets because of rising prices of oil and gas prices. does that continue? and i ask because it's such a direct way of taking money out of people's wallets, isn't it? >> it is, you know? in fact, i was robbed at the gas tank this week -- [laughter] i think americans are feeling like that across the country right now. and the thing that i say instead of, you know, getting mad, the

only thing you should do maybe is to get even, you know? don't fight the inflationary pressures, try to make money on it. and i think that's one of the reasons why i'm very hot on the energy sector going into this earnings season. if you look at, for example, across the board, you know, this earnings season is supposed to be the earnings season to end awe all earnings season. but you're already seeing when you building in those expectations, sometimes you have to live up to them or even exceed them or you get a pullback like we're seeing today. but in energy, this is the most hated sector for a long time. it definitely has had a rebound here in the last couple weeks, but there's a lot of people that are not going to invest in energy chips because they don't like to invest in fossil fuels, and that's going to help them out. ashley: all right. good stuff. scott, let me come back to -- yeah, go ahead, scott. respond to that. >> moving to fossil fuels, we're on the verge of moving

completely to more resources, natural type of energy production, and we're moving away from fossil fuels. so we actually have sort of a mixed bag here we have this demand that's pent up because people were home and not driving, we have a supply issue impact, the fact that they can't deliver gas lean -- gasoline, more than 20% of the tanker trucks are sitting on the sidelines, but also moving more towards battery, moving toward solar energy and win farms. you know, this is a very complicated subjecting in here because a lot of these energy companies are going after either transverse into a new generation, a new type of energy or they're going to die. ashley: right. >> well, if you make energy more rare, it's going to be more expensive too. so that should help those companies regardless. ashley: yeah. very -- let me follow up, phil. i want to change the subject to

earnings. we're going to get several other bank earnings this week. what tone did jpmorgan and goldman sachs sent? so many people have been telling us go for the financials. they never quite deliver. >> no, they just haven't. and, i mean, you know, they obviously beat expectations on the trade side, they had a lot to make up. but, obviously, they had a lot of writeoffs that they had to take care of because of the situation. i just think financials are going to be solid over, you know, for a play. but for a trade, are they the best going into earnings? probably not. i think what we've learned from those is to be, you know, maybe a little bit patient on those. if you're long term, you're fine on those. but i think the hot stocks are not going to be impacted by inflation, and those are the companies that produce those goods. ashley: very quickly, scott, a lot of people tending to think we could see an economic

stall-out in the second half of the year, that the surge will come but then plateau and even out which i guess is kind of what the fed has been saying, but do you believe that? >> i think you're going to see a bit of an easing in the growth rate as we get to the second half of this year, and the fact is that, again, these supply chain issues are not helping because people may want to buy stuff, but if it's not there to be purchased, those dollars may not get spent. ashley: well, that's a very good point. scott fullman, phil flynn, gentlemen, thank you both -- >> thank you. ashley: -- for sharing your insight. appreciate it. all right, some breaking news for you. the state department just said the risks that were formerly limited to mainland china are now increasingly a concern for hong kong. this as the state department earlier today issued a business advisory warning companies that they may run afoul of u.s. laws if their supply chains are implicated in forced labor and

human rights abuses in china's shenyang province, home, of course, to the muslim uyghur population. all of this comes as china is ramping up its anti-capitalist crackdown targeting the biggest tech firms in that country in what's being viewed as, well, perhaps punishment for recent listings on u.s. stock exchanges. all sorts of things going on. ride-hailing giant didi taking one of the hardest hits after the chinese government banned its app from multiple app stores citing data security just days after its u.s. debut. shares, by the way, we can look at didi, they were up today. yeah, they are up more than 8.5% but still down 25% since the app store ban, we should point out. so with investors squarely caught in the middle of rising u.s./china tensions, who better to bring in than leland miller, the china beige book international ceo.

leland, what's going on here? why the chinese crackdown? is it i all about protecting data, or is there more to this? >> there's a lot more to it. it's just figuring out what the key driver is. that's the tricky part. if you look what happened to jack ma and ant financial a few months ago, he was very provocative to regulators. and so when people were trying to figure out whether this was a big policy change, a lot of people excused this away as saying, no, look, jack was prosock totive, alibaba got too big for its britches, this is a comeuppance. you had tencent get in a little bit of trouble, and now all of a sudden you've to got did, i and didi also was provocative. the question is whether these are individual issues in which regulators are coming after companies for company-specific issues or whether there's something bigger going on. and i think it's important to see that there is something bigger going on, because you've got a much stronger push from beijing to insure that their compliance regime doesn't fall

under, in the pyramid of rules under u.s. law. so there's going to be a pushback. chinese companies listing on u.s. exchanges, u.s. laws, do they trump everything else. well, the chinese are saying, no, our laws, our compliance. this is a little bit of a faceoff. ashley: it is a faceoff. and it's for investors who may want to get a piece of the action of these chinese companies, some of whom have grown into behemoths. it makes it very complicated, doesn't it? when you start getting into the financials of individual companies, i mean, should investors bewarely in -- be wary? >> they should be for the simple fact that they didn't think china policy risk existed before six months ago. remember, i remember the alibaba ipo back in 2014. i was on the floor of the new york stock exchange for that. and i was talking about the risks, and these are world class companies, but there are risks. you are not investing in the equity of alibaba, you're buying

an offshore shell that has contractual arrangements called a variable interest entity. this is very sophisticated stuff. the chinese could pull the rug out from under it. all these things you really have to understand, and to a man my clients were telling me, no, no, no, this is great. and they were right for many, many years because policy risks didn't seem to exist when you're dealing with china tech companies. but it's back, and it needs to be factored n. ashley: yeah, it does. you have to factor in the loss of revenue back in china when you cannot be a part of the majority of the app stores. i want the move on quickly, leland, talk about this warning about hong kong. you know, the concerns that people may have had dealing on the mainland in china should now consider hong kong, sadly, in the same way. >> well, look, i wonder who is actually being updated by that. they would have had to have been living in a cave for the last year,. [laughter] this is basically, you know, these types of statements are

popular with politicians because they sound like they're tough on china, but they actually do nothing substantively. was the president right? sure. was the white house right to highlight the problems happening in hong kong as it becomes more and more dominated by the communist party? of course. this is, unfortunately, not something that's new. it's something we've been seeing for several years now as hong kong deinvolves. ashley: all right. i think captain obvious put out that statement who, obviously, is working for the administration right now. leland miller, fantastic stuff as always, very interesting, indeed. we thank you for joining us today. leland, thank you very much. all right, ransomware attacks rising even faster than prices, believe it or not. how many businesses were targeted in june alone, and what can be tone to fight back -- done to fight back against cyber criminals, if anything? we'll look into it. right now the off 107 points, down about -- dow off 107 points.

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♪♪ ashley: solarwinds back in the news. the software company says unknown hackers have exploited an unknown flaw in the system and is going after, quote, a limited, targeted set of customers. you'll remember it was just six months ago that solarwinds was first hit by hackers who pulled off the worst breach of u.s. government agencies in history. but they've had another hack. and these cyber attacks, by the way, are showing no signs of slowing down. global security company checkpoint says ransomware attacks have increased by9 3% -- 93% each week over the past 12 months with over 1200 businesses targeted in june alone. those are sobering numbers. joining us now, karim, ceo of cybersecurity firm. karim, listen, we to these stories day in, day out. it feels like at least every other day. is it me, or does it appear that these hackers can pretty much do

what they want? where's, you know, you're a cybersecurity expert. you have a company. how do these hackers break through all the time? >> so the sad truth, ashley, thank you for having me, is they've already established into the environments a long time ago. so the magic and, you know, the big thing about hacking is it seems very magical. it seems like they choose a target and they enter when they say they're going to do it. and if, unfortunately, the reality is in z many cases they've already established that entrance by the way of their own capabilities or leveraging other partners. so they make it look like they're going the target it this day, go in that day. the reality is they circumvent ised most of the security apparatus from most of these organizations which is a sobering reality. ashley: we all get those e-mails saying don't open mails from people you don't know, don't open applications. is that the main way these people -- is it human error on

the target end? >> that's a big part of it. spear phishing or just general phishing attacks are a very, very prolific vector or method by which these actors get their malware deployed. but unfortunately, it's also third-party partners that are, that have weaker security operations than some of the targets that they're really going after. and in the industry we call it island hopping. essentially, they'll go into a weaker organization and use that trusted connectivity between the weaker organization and the one they're intending to get into to get in there. other ways we're seeing things that'll actually wait at the weaker organization they've been able to hack for information to come from the more secure organizations, and then they just make off with it from there. there's just a lot of angles to consider and way that these hackers can get in. it's a very challenging process for the security teams at this point. ashley: and what's the answer, karim? i mean, obviously, knowledge is

power. but it seems, again, that no matter what warningsing are put out, these hackers manage to get through. >> right. and a lot of it has to do with what you said. there's people that don't quite take it seriously yet. all of us in the industry, my peers and i have been screaming for a long time about the fact that this is not going to get better. the more successful these hackers get, the more they're going to adapt and change. we heard recently in breaking news now that apparently the ransom evil group has gone away. now, we don't know whether that was a coordinated, concerted effort by another group or if it's their own, right? this could be symptomatic of what we saw with dark side. they went to ground and basically resurrected. this is just common practice. they retool, they reorganize. to answer your question a little bit more about how and what we should be doing, yes, knowledge is absolutely power. intelligence on what is going on with your own environment, whether your actual security apparatus is working and you're

getting a return on investment that you probably spent a substantial amount on, but understanding the contagion aspect of your partners. i hate to say it, but it's akin to covid. if you know someone's got it, you're probably not going to see them until they're really better. and i think that's the key thing is being able to us understand whether you are in sort of crosshairs of an organization that is already infected. critical aspect of this. ashley: and very quickly, karim, unfortunately, people or organizations pay the ransom because not doing so, being stuck, is a worse outcome than actually paying the ransom. >> right. right. and that's been a debate going on for quite a while. it's only come to sort of the surface of everyone's mind now because it's so hot. but sadly, ransom has been paid forever. this is nothing new. and there's even companies that are facilitating the payment of the ransom so that the

organization doesn't have to disclose it. but that's even worse because now that latent malware that's in these organizations that have paid the ransom can now make its way out to all the supply chain partners of these organizations that thought they'd done it off the books and they don't have to disclose it, and that's a real problem. a. ashley: it is a problem. and it goes on. karim, thanks so much for joining us. appreciate your expertise on this. it's all very discouraging though because these hackers get9 through all the time. karim, thank you very much. cryptos, by the way, falling here in the final hour as the united kingdom announces a record-breaking haul of digital currencies linked to criminal activity. you won't believe the staggering total. or maybe you will, we'll see. plus, major league baseball is hoping to hit a home run in denver, but could rising criticism over the state of the game strike out america's pastime? we'll get into that. we'll answer that question and much more coming up on "the claman countdown." ♪

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ashley: welcome back. time for pop stocks. british police have seized a record-breaking haul of $249 million worth of cryptocurrency in london. police say the crypto was discovered after it received intelligence relating to the there transfer of criminal assets as part of a probe into global money laundering. no word, by the way, on which type of coin was seized. meantime, boeing is the biggest laggard on the tow after a new defect was found on some of the 787 dreamliners, temporarily delaying production. the planemaker says it will gradually increase resumption of monthly output, but the slowdown means further delivery delays for customers. stock down 4%. and amc inter. townment, the stock is down 7%,

it's been down seven of the last ten sessions despite the company reporting this past weekend's box office attendance actually broke its previous post-pandemic record led by disney's "black widow." the stock is down 30% since the start of july but up an eye-watering $1800% -- 1800%, that is not a misprint, 1800% for amc. okay, now this, the polar bear flexing his muscles, pete alonzo winning last night's home run derby for the second consecutive time. and, by the way, it's the first time there's been back to back championship since 2014. but the derby is over, and we are just a few hours away from the first pitch of the 2021 mlb all-star game. connell shane has managed to scout a field, inside coors field with more. well done, connell.

>> reporter: i'll stop at nothing to get into an event like this, ashley. it's a lot of fun to be at the all-star game, always is. and baseball, your point about this, they're doing their best to market some of their young stars. people used to criticize this sport compared to others, said they didn't do the best job of that. this year to 40 of the 79 all-stars here in denver are first-timers. and and even though there are 15 players who are not here because they're injured or opted out, there is one that everybody seems to be talking about, and that's the japanese star, show hay shohei ohtani of the angels. he'll be on the mound for the american league, he's also batting leadoff in the game. kind of like a modern day babe ruth. even the super agent scott boris who we spoke to is impressed by him. >> anything you need. he is -- i get a chance to watch him play because i live, you know, in his market. it's, it's just so irregular to

watch somebody throw 95, 96 and then lead the league in home runs. [laughter] so it's fun. >> reporter: it is a lot of fun. ohtani, 33 home runs, he can throw a pitch over 100 miles an hour. he was in the derby last night as well. you know the hype well when the compliments are coming from his fellow players. >> there's so many people that can't hit and pitch. people a are always going to be raising questions, and there's always people talking about it, but he's rebreaking the mold, and it's really special. he's having just an unreal year. so i just hope he continues to do his thing and keeps balling out. >> reporter: pete alonso, as you said, it's the second time he's won the home run derby. when he did it, he won a million dollars, and the funny fact since he's young and has a relatively low salary, he is actually in his career so far -- only been in the big leagues for

three years -- he's made more money in the home run derby than he has in the regular season. [laughter] we'll get set for that tonight. ashley: by the way, ohtani, i'm understanding, drives the team bus and pilots the plane back home. he's a very impressive individual. connell mcshane, thank you very much. he's looking at me like what the heck are you talking about. the mlb all-star game airings tonight at 7:30 -- airings tonight at 7:30 p.m. eastern right here on fox. as worker shortages and rising food costs threaten to eat at margins, will restaurants soon be putting price hikes on the menu? are they going to be forced to do that? what p.f. chang's ceo has to say about it as he prepares to launch 50 new to-go locations by the end of the year. the dow, the s&p and the nasdaq all moving lower, down a third

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the number on your screen. coventry direct, redefining insurance. ♪♪ ashley: conagra brands down at this hour after the slim jim maker lowered its full-year profit forecast warning that higher shipping and commodity prices would be greater than originally expected, and down goes that stock. conagra brands. and with food prices rising 2.4% year-over-year in today's cpi report, grocery stores also now playing defense. lydia hu joins us now from stu leonard's in yonkers, new york, on what grocers are doing right now to present their businesses and your wallets. lydia. >> reporter: hi, ashley. here at stu leonard's, they're starting to stockpile categories of food. like, for example, wine imported

from europe, also we're seeing cheeses are being stockpiled and frozen seafood that can keep and store for longer periods of time. the goal, the ceo says, is to keep those products on hand so they're not tied up in any supply chain issues as they're coming in from overseas. but these buying practices are happening as we're learning about increased grocery prices from today's consumer price index that was released. we know that fresh fish and seafood is up by 6.4 % over a year ago, bacon up by 8%. the ceo here says the grocery stores are competing against other industries in these food products. listen. >> you're seeing certain things, the cruise ships and the restaurants want the center cut steaks, strip, new york, porterhouse and ribeye. lobster's another big one. there's really a shortaging of lobster right now. we're buying all the lobster

tails we can find. >> reporter: now, the food prices are top of mind not just for the grocery store, but for customers as well. stu leonard's saying they're finding customers are buying more meat, particularly when it's on sale so they can take advantage of the lower prices and eat it for a longer period of time. also, ashley, a recent fox news poll shows about 7 off the 10 people consider the rising grocery prices to be a financial hardship. 3 out of 10 say it's a serious hardship. back to you. ashley: yes. what everyone is talking about right now. lydia, thank you very much. and while food inflation is slamming the grocery stores across the u.s., restaurant chains also looking for new creative ways to fight off surging prices and stay alive in the aftermath of the pandemic. so let's bring in p.f. chang's -- by the way, p.f. chang's had plans to open over 50 to-go locations by the end of 2022 to meet the demand for

takeout. you know, that's all kind of part of the pandemic, and our habits have changed. let's bring in the ceo, demola. good morning -- good afternoon to you. [laughter] okay. let's start talking about to-go locations. i mean, obviously, you did something like this before the pandemic. people, you know, called in and came in and picked up their food. what's so different about these to go locations, and what does it mean the your company? >> sure. so you're correct, we've always done delivery and takeout and catering out of you our restaur. to go concept is different. it's specifically opening a location that only does off premises. so not the dine-in portion, strictly off premises. and what that allows us to do is to reach more consumers, open them in more places, you can do them in urban spaces, and locations that might not have

the volume for a full restaurant, but we can reach people with a to of go location -- to-go location instead. it lets us reach more consumers which is really the thinking behind it. ashley: how did you fare during the pandemic? i mean, obviously, the restaurant industry decimated. how did you survive? >> you know, a few different things. number one, it helped that we spend -- part of the team that acquired p.f. chang's a year before the pandemic, as it turns out, and we were focused on how we were going to grow, how business is going to do well. so it was a year before the pandemic building up the infrastructure, consumer technology, consumer tech, back of the house tech, packaging, etc., to allow our premises to grow. so when the pandemic hit, we shifted pretty seamlessly from dine-in to off premises. and, again, because we'd done a lot of the work. so that was a big part of, obviously --

ashley: right. >> -- we had to scale down expenses on the cost of sale side, on the hay or boar side and negotiate landlords, etc. so there's kind of a revenue piece which is how much can you grow the off-premise business when dine-in disappears, and we attacked all of those as much as we could just given the fact that we didn't know how long it was going to last and, you know, wanted to make sure we were in position to keep the business operating throughout the pandemic. ashley: right. well, well done. you got through it. we've been talking a lot about inflation, the rising cost of everything especially commodities, food. how are you handling that, and are you being forced to pass it on to the consumer in some way? >> yeah, you know, we saw a spike in prices in q2, and the gentleman that was on before me mentioned beef and flank, that's part of it, chicken as well, oil. so we saw a lot of that in the second quarter. we do believe a lot of it is

temporary. a bit of a lag between demand resurging and supply chains trying to catch up. there's still, you know, ramping back up from cohave id when a lot of them -- covid when a lot of them were, frankly, shut down or running lower capacity. we're starting to see some normalization now, so we don't want to be too reactionary in our response. so, you know, we're holding prices not only create a long-term issue by driving away guests -- ashley: right. >> if this ends up being a short-term problem. so we're watching, we're adjusting where we can, we're working with our vendors to get the best pricing we can, but we're hopeful some of it will normalize in the next couple quarters. ashley: well, it's been an absolute pleasure to have you on the show. thank you for taking the time, and i love my p.f. if chang's, i got that tell you. free advertising for you right there. >> thank you very much. [laughter] ashley: thanks for joining us,

damola, appreciate it. amazon making two major moves into the close. we'll tell you about it next. the closing bell ringing in just about 17 minutes from now. we'll be right back. ♪ ♪ my retirement plan with voya keeps me moving forward... even after paying for this. love you, sweetheart they guide me with achievable steps that give me confidence. this is my granddaughter...she's cute like her grandpa. voya doesn't just help me get to retirement... ...they're with me all the way through it. come on, grandpa! later. got grandpa things to do. aw, grandpas are the best! well planned. well invested. well protected. voya. be confident to and through retirement.

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♪ ashley: amazon hit an intraday high today as big tech benefits from falling treasury yields. separately, the online giant announcing plans to hire more than 100,000 veterans and military spouses by 2024. amazon saying right now it has 35,000 open jobs available to veterans. and, by the way, if you are a veteran on the hunt for a job, you need to watch a special edition of "making money with" h

charles payne on wednesday, july 21st at 2 p.m. ian. it is called proud american: from the military to the marketplace." charles will be taking questions from veterans who are looking for jobs and overcoming the challenges of reentering the work force. if you are a veteran with a question mail us at invested in you@fox.com, and charles, you never know, might answer your question live on air. wednesday, july 21st, 2 p.m.. all right, now this story. as regional sports networks struggle to retain viewership, one hedge fund billionaire apparently is interested in owning a piece of the action. charlie gasparino, could we be looking at a possible deal? >> yes, possible. we should point out that steve cohen, the hedge fund billionaire, one of the biggest traders in the market, last year bout bought the mets. i believe he paid $2.5 billion

buying the team itself. we do understand he is still interested in the other part of the deal, and that's the mets' regional sports network known as sny. here's what i would tell you, he's balking over the price. they want essentially a billion or more, they have $800 million in debt, so they can't go that far below a billion when you have that much debt, right? is you've got to pay off the debt. so cohen is worried about a few things. he's who worried about the fact that they're making him overpay, you know, is the debt going to be involved, how is it going to be involved. does this extinguish the debt. and on top of that, it's a single franchise rsn. if you look at the yankees' rsn, the yes network, they have the yankees, the brooklyn nets, i believe they have the soccer team, there's a few things in there. this is a single team. it's got some issues, heavy debt load. apparently it is making money

people close to the mets tell me, that's one reason why cohen wants it. also there's going to be some synergies. from what i understand, he and the mets are talking or have been talking recently. there is some balking on cohen's part over price given all the debt involved and some of the other issues with the team, and that is the one franchise thing. and the other thing is this, ashley. if you look at rsn in general, 2019 i broke this story about the fox regional sports network. remember, they were transferring to disney? disney had to unload them because they owned espn. there was an antitrust rule. they bought it for something like $8 billion, 9 billion. i can't remember the exact number, they way overpaid for it based on revenues these rsns are generating right now which is not a lot. people are cutting the cold, and i think cohen -- the cord, and cohen is worried about that as well. baseball's very regional.

baseball's a regional sport. however, people like watching games, you know, if they're a colorado rockies fan in new york, the whole business model's turned upside down. it's a very difficult model. i can tell you that major league baseball, rob manfred is worried about them not making money marley in smaller market -- particularly in smaller market teams. i think the overhang of that mess marley with sin chair which owns, i believe -- sinclair which owns 20 rsns is affecting this bidding. don't be surprised if you see steve cohen team up with other people, get involved in this thing. [laughter] it looks like it's going to -- something's going to happen here. i can't tell you the exact structure of it just yet. but clearly, a lot of talk is going on about unloading this thing, and cohen is still involved in that talk, ashley.

back to you. ashley: i wonder, charlie, if sny would be making money if the meants weren't top of the nl east. it could be -- >> you know what? that's a great point. they still can't sell this thing for more than a billion dollars. i mean, it tells you something -- ashley: i know, right? >> listen, the canary in the coal mine for newspapers, in my view, when i was at "newsweek" and our ads starts changing traumatically. that's when i went to cnbc. then you knew print was in trouble. there's a canary in the coal mine moment here with broadcast. you don't want to go too far, makes you depressed. ashley: thank you very much, charlie. [laughter] charlie grass perino, talking about the death of -- gasparino, talking about the death of our careers. it's the age-old question, value or growth. but who says you have to pick just one, right? certainly not our countdown closer. how to corner the market through

both value and growth. stay with us. ♪ ♪ i'm so glad you're ok, sgt. houston. this is sam with usaa. do you see the tow truck? yes, thank you, that was fast. sgt. houston never expected this to happen. or that her grandpa's dog tags would be left behind. but that one call got her a tow and rental... ...paid her claim... ...and we even pulled a few strings. making it easy to make things right: that's what we're made for. usaa. what you're made of, we're made for. get a quote today. . . .

♪. larry: all right. the markets as you can see have been moving lower. the dow off 100 points in the final moments of trade. slipping from yesterday's record highs. the "countdown" closer says it is important for investors to own the four corners of the market as the economy continues to recover. ernesto ramos, bmi global asset management joins us now. thank you for joining us. let's begin with the four corners of the market. what do you mean by that? >> well if you think about two dimensions, capitalization, you have large, you have small, you think about value and growth. so those are the combination of those two words will give you the large cap value, the large

cap growth, large cap value and small-cap growth. our focus is exposed to cyclical parts of the economy through small cap value. that will get you the stocks with the most economic sensitivity but you also want to protect the economy slowing down from the levels from amazon, microsofts of the world which are not going to do that badly even if the economy slows down for a little bit. so those are two the barbells anchoring our portfolios these days giving the flux of the economy in terms whether it is slowing down or accelerates at these incredibly high levels. ashley: right you like certain sectors. maybe the first one you look at is energy. what are you looking for there? >> energy is a very tricky one because it is so much driven by the price of the commodity itself. it is economically sensitive as

people drive more and consume more information -- energy but the supply side contributes to that so we're not as terribly excited. our continued focus we look at companies within each of their sectors are trading at a discount to their peers. what we call higher quality. quality growth. i will give you a couple of large cap examples. allstate, the insurer, trading seven times earning but making very profitable, very high quality company. another one would be verizon. verizon trading at 11 times earnings, very profitable, very consistent cash flow. those are companies that will do well no matter what happens to the economy. microsofts of the world are another example. ashley: yeah. >> you want to be exposed in this case both of these barbells as i mentioned before because right now the economy with inflation, perhaps pushing interest rates higher on the front end of the curve but lower end of the curve coming down, the curve flattening that might

be a sign of the economy slowing down. ashley: right. >> you know, so you want to be in both sides right now because you're not sure which way the market is going. ashley: i want to get to the financials. you mentioned rising rates. that the banks would benefit from them, without a doubt i'm sure that is why you like them, but the financials i feel like underperformed for so long. are they due for a breakout? >> they had a brief moment in the sun a couple months ago. they did quite well. now they're coming back because the yield curve has flattened, right? unless the yield curve steepens significantly they're not going to do that great. ashley: right. >> they're fine. look at the reports today. it is just that they could come up with trading numbers in their trading departments that were as good as the quarter before because the pandemic as the people got own out of their houses and so forth. there is nothing really wrong with it. the question whether loan growth which has been quite tepid continues to be tepid or are companies and individuals

seeking loans again from banks. that is a question that we're facing. ashley: right. ernesto ramos, you were a mine of information. so much to mull about. [closing bell rings] thanks so much for joining us. the bells are ringing. they will be ending the session in about 10 seconds. all of the major markets are down. s&p session lows. that will do it for the "claman countdown." larry kudlow. ♪. larry: hello, everyone, welcome to "kudlow." i'm larry kudlow. we begin with a quote today, yellen sees u.s. companies pushing to back global tax deal. that is a bloomberg headline story from earlier this morning. digging a little deeper into her interview she said u.s. companies are likely to provide crucial support for the tax bill, crucial support. kind of like falling on your sword, huh?