on the field. what is the lesson here? if you do your homework, understand market history, you know what you own you can be more calm during the wild periods and wild gyrations in the market. you will control your own destiny, not the folks on the field panicking. do your due diligence. be like patrick mahomes, have a low heart rate when everyone is gone crazy w that, liz claman, over to you. liz, so don't be like baker mayfield? charles: [laughter]. liz: hey, i'm a browns fan. [laughter]. charles: don't be like baker mayfield. he looks calm in commercials at the stadium by himself. but when the game starts not so much. [laughter]. liz: i've not heard this before. all right, bulls and bears are splitting the session again as we kick off the final hour of trade. this time up in the morning now giving back gains. investors torn by fed chair

jerome powell less than certain explanation yesterday for the fed plan to raise rates, cut tapering, 9 billion-dollar balance sheet. the dow swinging50 points from peak to trough. we're kind of in the trough right now by 11 points. the s&p down about 17 points. nasdaq really struggling here. down 146, more than 1%. but with today's knockout gdp report, the fed, you have got to anticipate when it will start hiking, right? whether march or later? kbw, tommy show is here with a fox business exclusive, which sectors he says will rise along with rates. a firm taking buy now pay later to the next level rolling out a super app to help you handle all of your financial needs in one digital location. paypal cofounder, affirm ceo is here to tell us how his fintech plans to take over your finances one transaction at a time. we do begin with breaking news though.

got to look at netflix shares shaping up to be the most dramatic story of the earnings season. right now popping about 8.6%, even though the streamer reported that its numbers a week ago weren't that great. that is when shares began plummeting, eventually losing 25% until news broke last night that pershing square's bill ackman scooped up 3.1 million shares on the dip. the billionaire's investor first foray into the stock, he said in the investor letter, he is ignoring the bear case that there is too much bear competition hurting revenues. he ignored it, netflix's quote, industry leading content and superb quality of that content. ackman led the herd and people are still piling in. 8.8% for the rivals. the word of the day as we entered the final hour, dow

squandered 605 point gain now back up about 33 points but had been deeper in the red. nasdaq can't seem to make it. still down 138, 1%, the s&p down 13. investors kind of had the shakes, triggered in part by the fed hangover. it was during this hour yesterday fed chair jay powell strug a very ambiguous tone as he spoke to the media about a march rate hike. a backdrop of quote, remarkable economic and job market strength, by the way underscored this morning by a but he also admitted that inflation is now worse than it was in december. now, i say in part causing the jitters of this market because intel is just ruining any hope of the nasdaq reaching its full potential, at least today. shares down 6.5%, not even at the lows of the session after the chipmaker posted record forty quarter revenue -- fourth quarter revenue but that a major spend that they're doing to

build new factories in ohio. intel's ceo echoed pretty much what jay powell said, supply chain problems will last this year and possibly into next. and you know this is a very jilt terry market if tesla is down in the wake of a stellar earnings report with a beat on just with about every metric. we are very close to session lows, down $93 or nearly 10%. ceo elon musk did end up joining the conference call and did say his fop purity is delivering more -- top prior i is delivering more cars which means the cyber truck and the new roadster will have to be put on the back burner. but that's all in the rearview mirror because apple earnings are on deck after the bell. shares are down about 10.4% this month, clipped just a fraction right now, but could a home run stabilize at least big tech and the nasdaq? let's get right to the floor show. joining me now, kevin kelly and

justin kuzmarsky. we don't exactly have that stop and reverse action we saw on monday, tuesday and wednesday, but why are rallies being so quickly raced and started again? >> i think volatility -- [inaudible] tech stocks, les a price evaluation multiples have been surging the past 18 months to 3 years, but i think with ap apple and the other tech stocks, investors are starting to realize that interest rates will come home to roost in the weeks ahead. apple's revenue is up 33% in the past 18 months, operating income is up from 70 billion to 110 billion, so apple in comparison to the other tech giants is doing well from an operation amal standpoint, but still it is the stock to watch in terms of whether the market will close

down overall. liz: and, kevin, you know, you talk about apple, you are a shareholder, and you are a big fan, but tell me what you're really expecting here. and to my first question back during this intro that we gave, is there a possibility that if apple comes out with blow outnumbers, it could help at least calm the markets or stabilize them? >> yeah, if they to do blowout if numbers, the market will go up. and i think it'll really alleviate a lot of concerns for investors especially about supply chain because that's what everyone's going to be listening about a. the problem with apple is that they're a multi-national corporation where they're really reliant on china, and is we've seen coming out of even some of the semiconductor names they're talking about how china's closed factories, they can't get the chips. also demand is being impacted as well over in the chinese market. so we're going to have to see

what apple says about that supply chain because they really need to gear up in the second half to make -- of this year in iphone sales to make up for the first quarter that's being impacted by the omicron outbreak as well as just weak demand across the board, you know, seasonally. liz: justin, when you're look at tech -- because this has been the leadership area last year -- if i hear one more person say that that kathy woods' around a -- ark fund's going down, the death of the names that were in that fund, look at tesla. you see the strength that elon musk just performed in the most recent quarter. you know, where do you see tech, and when you hear people say that the high flyers will never reach those levels again, what say you to that. >> i think it's a case by case basis. i think it's a great question in terms of you look at companies like tesla. people want to hate against

tesla because of personal feelings against elon musk, but the company is profitable, and it struggled for many years to get there. apple, even if you have supply chain issues, i think they were predicting 6 billion of lost sales, let's say it's 10 billion due to the supply chain and omicron concerns, apple is still improving 12% top-line revenue, 30% year-over-year from an operating standpoint. so the best are getting stronger. i think the companies we look for for signs of danger are facebook, ak car accident meta-- aka meta, and alphabet. amazon with a 3% operating margin even though it's a tech retailer, doesn't take much for amazon to have wild swings. so look at companies like apple that continuously have the ability to raise prices and weather economic storms better. i think there's a lot of headway for tesla and one to keep a

close eye on, for sure. liz: we're looking at the nasdaq losers, you know, you do see some sprinkling in there of what were some of the momentum names. kevin, i'm very interested as we grow this discussion to earnings. 80% have beaten on earnings estimates, 76% have beaten on revenue, and more importantly, we do look at this that the earnings so far are up 23.4% year-over-year. what does that tell you about the rest of the year? >> what it tells us is that these companies have a lot of earnings power. it's just how is it going to translate into the upcoming quarters because their comparables are going to be harder, and we know input costs vis-a-vis labor is going up. the fed even talked about that, right? so they're worried about the labor market, essentially. they think we're at maximum unemployment, is but even jay powell talked about, hey,

listen, there's all these open jobs out in that need to be filled. so one of the biggest things we're going to have for the res of the year is how -- the rest of the year is how the cost of inflation and labor's going to impact them. we think managements are being really tempered about the guidance because they have a lot of uncertainty especially those big tech names we talked about. they're impacted by the strength of the dollar. if you look at the dollar and how well it's performed, some of these companies get 60% of their earnings overseas, and that could definitely impact them going forward, if the dollar remains strong. so i think we're going to have a very good earnings and revenue if year for these companies, it's just the guidance going forward with interest rates and input costs is really going to impact them. liz: this is quite simple, buy great companies going through shaky times, and we're having jilt jilt -- jilt terry, shaky times. 50 minutes away from

theclosing bell. of course, apple on deck right after the bell. fox business alert, dow inc. is topping the dow 30 at this hour. and whatever green you see in the blue chips, that's being led by the chemical company's 4.9% gain after it reported fourth quarter numbers that a beat analyst expectations. the ceo attributing the success to the rise in oil price. he also told investors to expect a strong first quarter because rising interest rates and inflationary pressure is a positive for the business. think pricing power, right? they're able to charge more. all right. check out shares of levi strauss. the jeans maker up on pace for its big percentage gain in more than a year after beating fourth quarter earnings estimates along with multiple analysts maintaining bullish ratings on the stock, up 8.5% at the moment. and, by the way, jpmorgan giving them a $32 price target. it's at 22.07 right now.

levis says ad spending and increased investment in its digital efforts helped boost its bottom line. but gift retailer 1-800-flowers.com may need to be sent some flowers after releasing a quarterly earnings results. the stock plummeting 28 plus percent at this hour after declaring a big miss on earnings and a weak outlook for the rest of the year. they're blaming major supply chain disruptions, everybody. yes, you've heard that. the stock is headed for its worst with day since march of 2009. and shares of robotics maker teradyne having a bad day as well. investors balked when the company gave weak guidance for the first hatch of the year which -- half of the year, saying it expects slower testing demand this year before accelerating again in 2023. shares getting smashed here, down 24% at the moment. now, as the federal reserve gets ready for liftoff -- or not, i

mean, a lot of confusion there -- which sectors will do the same for your portfolio? the ceo of kbw, one of the nation's leading investment banks catering to the financial services industry, has some pointed picks and opinions about who's going to do well in a somewhat ambiguous atmosphere, or is it? it's a fox business exclusive. closing bell, 48 minutes away. we've got the dow jones industrials now back in the red, down 70 points. we are going to check how many times it crosses the line in this hour. it's been a nutty week. "claman countdown" is coming right back. ♪ ♪ and it's easy to get a quote at right back.

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five rate hikes this year. kbw president and ceo joins us now on the names he expects to benefit, and before you get to that, first, tom, jay powell left a lot up to interpretation, but this is your bailiwick. did you hear a 100% chance of a rate hike coming in march? >> we did. we hi it's very likely. we have -- we think it's very likely. we have not modeled that in our earnings estimates. we actually, previous to this fed meeting, were using june for when we thought we were going to get liftoff. but we thought he was pretty clear in conditioning the market to get ready for march. so we haven't changed estimates yet for that, i think we'll wait for it to happen, but that's a possibility for a positive supply for -- surprise for our earnings estimates. liz: and how can the markets absorb that? i think there's an incorrect belief that stocks cannot do well in a rising rate environment. i mean, does a quarter of a percent rate hike really make

the cost of capital so expensive that it could somehow derail the economy? i wouldn't think so. >> no. and i'm a believer in the discounted cash flow model for picking out stock prices over the long term, and colorly as rates -- clearly as rates go higher, that'll impact the model, but a quarter point shouldn't drive some of the volatility we've had. i think it's more big picture which is we just went through probably one of the most unprecedented stimulus moments of our lifetime both from a monetary policy perspective and a fiscal policy perspective. and now it's behind us. so the market has to adjust to that new environment. and remember, of course we're talking about rates going higher, but with we're talking about rates going higher from zero, and we're also talking about removing extraordinary measures. and so i don't think it should be unreasonable to, for that to happen, and i think investors should have known that we weren't going to continue to get

those emergency measures forever. liz: okay. all right. so that in play, if that is the scenario, what does well in this environment? people say, oh, well, the mortgage lenders would do well because they will be reaping more when it comes to higher interest rates, some of the financials. what do you see ahead that could really -- >> so companies that are spread-dependent are beginning a period now where they're going to see accelerating revenue growth. i heard you speak in a prior segment about how earnings have been strong, revenues have been strong. banks are going to start to see accelerated revenue growth because, generally, the banking industry was not built for zero interest rates. so as interest rates go up, they're going to have an opportunity to earn more typical spreads. and so we believe as we go into 2023, you're going to start to see double-digit revenue growth out of the banks. and so we like the banks that have more spread lending and a

little bit less noninterest income investment or banking, so that's why we're emphasizing the regional bank than we are the big money center banks. but i do want to tell you there is some concern in the market, and here we are the fed hasn't even started yet, but there's concern that the fed's going to go too fast, go too far, we're going to have a recession. well, credit quality's always something that is a big concern for banks. it's our opinion that we're nowhere near that, and i'd also call out to the market that the shadow banking industry has taken a lot or money -- a lot more of the riskiest assets than in prior cycles. so i think the big story of covid is how good the credit quality was. so the industry enters this moment in really good shape from a balance sheet perspective, and we think they're going to have strong earnings per share. liz: what would that mean for the credit card companies? you know, we're getting visa after the bell, but there are a bunch of others, obviously,

discovery, apple, it has it own credit card. you've got mastercard, for example. >> yeah. so we do like the credit card companies, but i'll tell you, so right now kbw probably has a greater percentage of banks with a buy rating on it than ever -- than i can ever remember. liz: really? >> if i were to prioritize, i'd tell you the bank to watch on the close today is western alliance. this company has beat expectations 17 of 19 quarters in a row, trades at 9 times earnings, and it's had one of the better growth paths of any bank in terms of growth on the balance sheet and earnings and profitability. it's more of a traditional a lender. -- traditional lender. i would focus more there on the credit card companies. doesn't mean we're negative on the credit card companies, but it's more of a traditional spread lender. a company like that or cay cadence -- cadence bank corp. out of mississippi, these are

double-digit growers. stocks have come off a bunch with the banks in the market. the more traditional commercial banks. and we would say in the wheel, that's a good place to be. with regards to visa hoe -- visa, though, we think the payment spots are a good -- they're not balance sheet lenders. visa and mastercard run the networks in the country, we like them for different reasons because we think that this move to digital is not going back. so we believe that you had five years of progress in just two years on the digital uptake, and that's the play for those stocks. liz: thomas michaud, it's great to have you. i think what i'm really getting out of this is that you have a lot of buys on the most banks you've had in a long time, at least that you can remember, so we'll be watching all of those. and western alliance are, by the way, down 2.8%, still up about

59% year-over-year. thank you so much, tom. >> be well. liz: you too. we've got rough waters off the shores of america's ports as the supply chain crisis holds billions of dollars of goods hostage. ashley webster live right there on your screen at the port of savannah as ship to shore deliveries are still trying to find their sea legs. closing bell, 36 minutes away. the dow is down 101 points, s&p lower by 34. transports are down 240 points. stay tuned, we're coming right back. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ wow, we're crunching tons of polygons here! what's going on? where's regina? hi, i'm ladonna. i invest in invesco qqq, a fund that gives me access to the nasdaq-100 innovations, like real time cgi. okay... yeah... oh. don't worry i got it!

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♪ >> i would not say that i would expect these inflation issues to be completely worked out by the end of this year. if you look at a ton of metrics, you can find some that suggest delivery times are shorter and

inventories are moving up, but overall, we're not making progress. liz: not making progress. so says fed chair jerome powell, suggesting in yesterday's news conference that the global supply chain could still remain clogged throughout the first half of the year, and then we're hearing, you know, possibly through the rest of the year. ports still jammed on the east and west coasts. we usually show you the west coast, but i want you to look at this screen. this is marinetraffic.com which reveals the backlog of ships waiting to be offloaded at the port of charleston and the port of savannah. you can see savannah's below charleston, bisecting the coastline. that's where ashley webster is standing by live to give us the real story on the ground and at sea. ashley. >> reporter: yeah, hi, liz. here we are at the port. i was near three and a half months ago, and things have changed, i have to say. there were 30 some ships three and a half months ago trying to

get into the port of savannah. today, zero. they have just brought in the last one, this huge ship here. it says brussels on it. it's not from belgium, it's actually chinese. it is actually being unloaded and load as it turns around to head back to asia. but i can tell you the port of savannah just last year brought in 5.6 million containers. that was up 20% from 2020 and a million more containers than the year before. and, remarkably, they're starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, liz. they expanded the rail lines, they're still suffering with the lack of truck drivers, but they are able to start moving the goods. but it's a bit of an outlier. as you say, the west coast, los angeles, long beach still have over a hundred ships stuck anchored at sea. and because of that, this whole supply chain is not going to get fixed anytime soon.

as jerome powell pointed out yesterday in his comments. the white house says maybe the second half of this year. everyone i've spoken to say, nope. and guess what? the prices are sky high to actually get these containers to the u.s. let me show you the container freight rates. this is the latest i've got from the baltic index. globally, those rates are up 140% year-over-year. asia to the u.s., west coast, 250% gain, and asia to the u.s. east coast here up 184%. with those kinds of prices, don't expect any inflationary relief anytime soon. ultimately, the companies who are having these goods shipped have to pass on those extra costs to the consumer, and that's the reality. liz: exactly. yeah, exactly. labor costs, a huge part of the inflation that we're seeing. ashley, thank you very much. ashley webster live at the port of savannah.

we've got some major shareholders at kohl's expecting great things as they consider a buyout offer of $9 billion. charlie gasparino says those activist investors are getting guidance from one of the most famous names of all time on wall street. what does that mean for the retailer? charlie breaks it next. closing bell, 28 minutes away. here's what we see on the screen. again, this push you/pull you moment. dow is up 11 points. s&p down 20, the nasdaq lower by 181. ♪ ♪ whether you've enjoyed the legendary terrain in telluride, the unparalleled landscape of park city or the famed peaks of whistler, you face the hassle of lugging your gear

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outcomes may vary. please seek advice from your health professional. ♪ ♪ liz: what we want to do is, first, look at shares of kohl's which are lower by about 1% today. but as you see, they're up 25% on the week following news earlier this week of not one, but two takeover offers. one of those bidders is secretly

being backed by one of the most famous names on wall street, so says charlie gasparino. who is it? >> it's peter cohen. you've seen barbarians at the gate. by the way, the kids in the office have no idea who he is, but he's a legend on wall stree- liz: legend. >> i think he was one of the youngest ceos back in the '80s - liz: yeah. >> he saw a diamond -- not in the rough, but a diamond. his name is jeff smith, early on. brought him over to a hedge fund and private equity firm that he was running, and he seated this guy and his company, essentially, to be an activist investor. it's spun out, and now jeff, mrt prominent activist investors now. not a household name on wall street, but will be.

peter told me he believes he's the next carl icahn. now, we should point out that mr. smith and his company, along with case shiller research, have named the $9 billion bid -- they're one of the major bidders on this. and it's very interesting on this kohl's deal, because what they're planning to do going forward, and if you look at their stock, it looks like a penny stock. it has a $200 million market cap, very small market cap going after a $9 billion company, but they got smith backing 'em up. what's interesting is that they want this to be the first of several acquisitions, and what they want to do is create an investment vehicle, from what i understand, that looks a lot like what warren buffett has at berkshire hathaway. you invest in a company that invests in other companies. not quite a spac, but they want to do something that's kind of a hybrid between a berkshire hathaway public company and a

spac. so it's going to be very interesting going forward. you know, this is not a done deal. we should point out that the financing could be announced. what type of financing acacia and starboard are going to do could be announced today. i hear some of the inside details, they're going to sell some as tents that a -- assets that acacia owns, but financing, and, you know, smith is one of the major players on wall street in this space. so if we're going to be handicapping here between smith and his, and leaning on peter cohen and this whole thing, i don't know, i'm handicapping a little bit to him and his bid. it's going to be very interesting. watch the terms of the financing coming up today. i'm sorry, liz, what were you saying? liz: there's peter. peter's a legend. charlie, does this -- i'm not saying it's the same thing, but it sure has a slight rhyme or echo to eddie lambert thinking

he could have done the same thing with sears holding compan- >> i agree. you're right. that's an excellent point. you know your finance. i will say that -- [laughter] you know, i think, i think kohl's is in a little better shape. and i'm not an expert on kohl's -- liz: oh, yeah, definitely. >> a little better shape than sears was. liz: they're cool. >> by the way, sears once had dean witter brokers. remember? it was called dean witter sears or something. if you wanted to go -- they're now morgan stanley brokers, but in the old days you could go to a sears outlet and buy a stock. it was kind of a weird hybrid company and never really got its mojo back after it started breaking apart. so i think this is a little better, and i think -- liz: the six degrees of separation. peter cohen worked at dean witter. [laughter] >> yes, i know that. and, you know, here's the thing, i think between peter cohen

and -- now, not officially in there on every sentence here, but he's in the background. i think that and smith being a very, very tough activist investor, he looks for undervalued companies that have lousy management, and he looks to fix. i think that'll be an interesting, this could be an interesting play. now, the question is -- and i don't know, you know, because they haven't really said anything publicly, you know, except for behind the scenes which i'm getting, is, you know, is he going to lay people off at those stores, are they going to downsize in any way. we don't know that just yet. you hope there's not too much debt in this deal because often when you leverage up like that, that's what happens. you do have to do some degree of cost cutting. so we'll see. the terms of the deal are coming out today, maybe monday. but it's like, you know, again, the bigger story is, you know, watch this guy. he's going to start buying sufficient and creating something very interesting.

it's a fascinating story. we'll have more on it. i'll follow it. i'll be in tomorrow, next week, and we'll see where this goes. liz: okay. i'm tuning in tomorrow, for sure. well, i have to. >> me too. i'll be here too. if i don't get snowed in. [laughter] liz: thank you, charlie. okay. we've got superman, supergirl, even superdog. but now the buy now/pay later giant affirm is rolling out super-app. ceo mac if legend is here next on what he says you'll be able to do and buy with this mighty financial digital tool. so stay tuned for that. and it's the ultimate gutsy entrepreneur legend come to life. two arizona brothers took one single idea and have made an absolute fortune. brian and michael special, cofounders of the famed comfy wearable blanket, they reveal how they did it on this week's everyone talks to liz podcast.

having never picked up a sew ising needle in their a lives, how did these two guys turn blankets into a multimillion dollar business that now, by the way, is striking deals with disney? download it on apple, google, spotify, wherever you get your podcasts. closing bell, we're 18 minutes away. dow is out 74 points at the -- up 74 points at the moment. bitcoin, though, pulling back. we're coming back, don't go away. ♪ muck your record label is taking off. but so is your sound engineer. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. vi trelegy for copd.e

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♪ liz: make way for the super app. buy now-pay later giant affirm today debuting a brand new and improved destination where consumers will have a one-stop shop option to manage their finances, make purchases and

even invest. the company also announcing a new google chrome browser extension which will allow consumers using affirm to make purchases not just from affirm partners, but essentially from any web site. let's bring in cofounder and ceo max levchin. max, sounds like you're consolidating all your services under one roof, but what's newest to me is that chrome feature. explain how it works. >> sure. consumers love affirm. we stand for transparency and simplicity, and that's really captured the minds of our customers, and we're very happy. sometimes they encounter a merchant where we haven't yet been fully integrateed, and this chrome extension allows them to say, that's objection, we -- that's objection -- okay, we will use a browser extension. the merchant will generate a one-time virtual card number so the consumer can plug into the standard or checkout at the merchant site and complete the

transaction. the merchant gets the sale, the consumer pays us back as they normally would, more coverage for our consumers, more places to buy in a safe, transparent way. liz: okay. so affirm is shouldering the entire cost at the point of sale. you know, this could become extremely popular. do you guys have enough capital to shoulder all of that? >> one of the three main pillars of affirm's success has been our capital market execution. we've really been both very strong in this area and just have many, many reps on getting it just right. and so even as we -- the increasing rates, we feel very confident ability our ability to shoulder these transactions. liz: even in this atmosphere? you know, right now we do have rising inflation, and we actually just had tom michaud of

kbw, and he said consumer credit is in a much better position than what we saw back in the financial crisis of 2008, 2009. absolutely, i would say that. however, you've got to figure that as prices go up, people are finding themselves stretched because they aren't getting the government stimulus anymore that they got during the lockdown. so talk to me about, for lack of a better word, people who don't pay, deadbeats. are you seeing that number wiggle a little bit? >> you know, we're now at the scale and, if i may, skill sets where instead of reacting to that number, we've actually managed to a target that we have. so we set our internal goals and, obviously, we take risk and manage risk, but we feel very, very good about where delinquents are, and your guess is exactly right. the country's in a much better shape. the stimulus isn't, seemingly at least, coming back and that's

our cue to give folks the way to pay back without gotchas and fees. our moment to shine is to bring the spending power back to those hard hit by inflation. so i'm quite excited to help regular people buy things they need. liz: well, you guys, especially with the super app, almost sound like a bank. i mean, you're managing finances, buying on credit, rewards, investment services. tell me how all of that distinguishes you from the other competitors in the space, not only say, for example, collar that, but -- klarna but an app called zinia. >> i think it's certainly not limited to affirm, although i do think we are by far the best player in the space. primarily, frankly, because we focus on consumer well-being in addition to spending power. the reason for the super app, frankly, is to unify and showcase all the good things that we can do for you, the

customer. so, of course, we'll give you buy now-pay later and, by the way, we cover all durations and terms, anything from a 6-week all the way out to a mull multi-year, workout equipment or home wares. and in addition, we have this amazingly powerful savings account that attracts hundreds of millions of dollars in deposits and lots of consumers that are both saving and shopping with us. that's what this is all about and very excited about it. liz: this may be a completely, a totally crazy question. you know, sofi just got its bank charter. is that something that you fore if see eventually happening, a bank charter? >> you know, i'm an engineer by training and a product good by calling, and i look at the world through the lens of what does it take to build the right thing that my customer needs. and so various forms of charters and licenses, etc., we always

look at them through the lens of, hey, we want to drifer this really great thing -- deliver this really great thing for the consumer, what does it take? if at some point between our goals and what we have to do is procuring a certain charter or license, you know, we have to make the decision. and so i'm not aspiring to be a bank, we're not a bank right now. that said, if that's the right thing too old, of course, we'll -- to do, of course, we'll have to look at the possibilities. liz: max levchin. the new super app out and, congratulations, we'll be watching it. a lot of buy nows-pay laters have struggled, so we're watching this. we'd love to have you for earnings. thank you so much. max if levchin. we are coming right back. dow still clinging to gains of about 35 points. stay with us. ♪ ♪

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liz: all right. so the nasdaq doesn't look like it is going to make it anywhere near the green. we're down 1.25%. s&p lagging 19 points. dow up just 13. you have to look at the russell 2000 though. the russell 2000 now just dropping into bear market territory. the small and mid-caps need to close at or below 1954 points. we're at 1931. this would be the index's first bear market close since march 9th of 2020. it would be the index's 16th bear market on record. let's take a look at nat-gas. what is important the final minutes of trade it jumped 8%. this is the after the mark. during the session, natural gas jumped 46%. it is the biggest one day record increase as tensions between russia and ukraine rise and wicked winter storms. one "countdown" closer has one

energy name he says this will play defense against vladmir putin and mother nature. henyon walsh, ken vin maum. sempra energy. why that one? >> we think timing the market is a exercise in futility, but for more give denned payers are worthy paying and sempra energy fits that bill. sempra is a utility provider of natural gas, and energy services primarily in california. has a yield above 3%. a p-e ratio of less than 17. good income potential, low risk. liz: we're looking at the yield, 3.29% for sempra. compare that to the 1.79% of the 10-year. >> exactly. liz: just not even, not even a competition here. however, you know, you could go with kinder morgan or some other

names yet you say sempra. there has to be a distinct advantage. what is that? >> absolutely. sempra is part of our defensive 50s equity trust portfolio. it has a history of outperforming the s&p 500 when market pullbacks do occur. it has a solid balance sheet, free cash flow and they have been growing their dividend. we think it is well-positioned to with stand market pullbacks, provide some income and also allow the investors to weather the pullbacks to give them more upside potential in the long run. liz: we have 15 seconds. we're seeing gyrating movement in the markets. do you see that friday or people go long and short for the weekend? >> i don't think short term volatility is behind us. revisiting their portfolio, examining diversification in place and stay true to the risk tolerance and long-term investment objectives. don't be swayed by the short

term market gyration. go to your risk tolerance. liz: excellent advice. kevin, thank you so much. seconds ago the dow was negative. it punched up slightly. [closing bell rings] really too close to call at this point. markets are slipping in a volatile session that will do it for the claman "countdown." thanks so much for joining us. "kudlow" is next. ♪. larry: hello, everyone, welcome to "kudlow" i'm larry kudlow. best line of today by far came from my hero elon musk. you may recall he was "time" magazine's "person of the year." at various moments i have nominated him for fed chairman and other big government jobs because he is brilliant guy with a lot of real world horse sense and a good sense of humor. so after president biden met with ford and gm yesterday, talking about building more