attention to russia, but tomorrow we're going to refowx focus -- refocus on the economy and the jobs market. i think it's going to be good, but even when it comes to the experts, it's anyone's guess. all right. we had a mini c. p. effect. we're fading. liz liz claman, i'm ready to watch you for thest haas hour of trying. liz: i'm not surprised though. that has been the word of the day, up, down, all around. the battle lines drawn and blown up by the minute in ukraine but also on wall street as the russians press the offensive. market bulls and bears battling on all fronts. the dow turned negative moments ago to join the s&p and the nasdaq as oil slips from levels not seen since 2008. the war in ukraine raging as the white house adds new sanctions today on vladimir putin's closest friends while foreign expert -- policy experts worry that the battle could spiral out of control. former national security agency

chief general keith alexander is here to tell us if the russians could soon try try to avenge crippling sanctions by turning to cyber warfare against the americans and bringing darkness on the u.s. by hitting the grilled. the grid. even barstool sports is covering the russian invasion in its own you unique way. today's top story, inside putin's $is 1.4 billion residence. how war is changing barstool's expanding media empire. we begin with this fox market alert. u.s. markets in the red at the moment, extreme volatility hitting a number of pockets at this hour. dow is down 86, s&p down 23, the nasdaq down 214. but the epicenter of the gyrations, we've got to show it to you, crude oil. intraday west texas intermediate endured a $10 swing during the regular session, touching as high as $116 a barrel.

that would be a 13-year high. and now you can see it's down about $2.86 to 107.77. the volatility fueled, of course, by supply worries as russia continues its assault on ukraine, and western sanctions today forced a russian oil tanker to redirect away from the port it was supposed to dock in in canada. let's look at domestic and european oil stocks. we do have a mixed picture. the u.s. names, chevron and exxonmobil to the upside, bp and royal dutch down at the moment. you should shah's process -- russia's rosneft oil, a penny stock. this is a horrific picture here for these names. we do have gasprom at 96 cents a share. major financial stocks, what's notable -- gazprom. citibank down about 7% on the week. right now it is taking a hit of

about 4%. the situation for russian banks, nothing short of disastrous. we have been telling you about this all week long. look at this, russia's largest bank, sprbank, has been forced to exit europe and its $14 billion in assets as shares crater, down 42.25% today. sberbank stands at just 52 cents a share. and we want to tell you this, fitch ratings agency has withdrawn all its ratings for sber bank and also fitch downgraded their viability to an f. an f. sounds like my zoology 101 grade, but i digress. the head of russia's second largest bank, vtb, insisting today it is fully operational and it economics are, quote, stable. back in november if we asked

kostin known as putin's banker about russia's saber rattling, and he called any thought or any talk of an invasion fake news. listen to what he said back then. >> sounds like complete rubbish, nonsense that russia will attack ukraine. and i, i can have a bet with you that when we speak to you next time, maybe in couple of months -- liz: okay. >> -- you'll see all this news was fake news. i absolutely sure about this. there's no intention of russia to put anytroops on the territory of ukraine -- liz: and i'm good on the bent. i'm shaking. i'm reaching out, and i'm shaking your hand on this bet about whether there will be an invasion in ukraine. >> no, no. bet, bent, yes, bet. liz: i did, and you see what happens now. let's talk about what distortions u.s. investors are about to face. actually, they're already facing a whole bunch of to -- of them.

ira epstein, sarge hunting for opportunities in the u.s. markets and the former head of merrill lynch's institutional etf content on the wrecking ball hitting russian-focused ets. sarge, before the senate today jay with powell reiterated the fed's planned series of rate hikes. as he said, still on track, as the quarter-point hike this month. that takes away some of the uncertainty, but he also said the russia-ukraine situation requires the fed move carefully. which parts of the market requiring a second look right now by investors? >> liz, what if i were to tell you that there's a group of stocks still trading at attractive valuations that for the most part pay a dividend that are about to experience a tremendous spike in demand like they almost never have across north america, europe and asia? liz: okay, tell me. i want to know. >> i'll give you the defense stockings. i'm always heavily informed, and i have not -- invested, and i have not sold a share.

lockheed martin, 465 target or price, $380 panic point. the f-35, the f-22, the f-16, the black hawk helicopter and, most importantly, the javelin antitank rocket. northrup p grumman, i'll give you a 4099 pivot if, a 390 panic point. gives you the b-2 stealth bomber, the b-21 railedder, the hawkeye, and they contribute to the f-359 and the hornet. general dynamic. i'll give you a 2 the 10 pivot and a 252 target price. general dynamics makes the abrams main battle tank, the striker family of armored vehicles and the lav family of armored vehicles that the army uses. light oaks, okay, booz allen is one of the i.t. contractors for the department of defense. if the parent for them is ldos.

it hasn't really taken off here, still trading about 16 times earnings, pays a 1.4% dividend, and in this one is the stealth, you might call it, the defense contract. liz: defense moves are on the move -- stocks are on the move here. that's lost about, i think, 58% this week alone, was halted earlier. what unintended consequences could we see even for non-russia-focused funds? >> well, i think, you know, what we've seen, first of all, is that an underlying country -- [inaudible] the etf acts as a future. it's the market's expectations of what the valuable stocks are. it happens quite regularly. we often times have, for instance, like ewj etf, japan is closed to trading, but it trades

like a futures contract, what the market expects those japanese stocks to be worth. same thing happens when we've got the bond market closed but then the stock market's open. so we've had instances where egypt is closed for a month or greece is closed because those countries are going through draconian outcomes similar to russia. so i just think for all these, you know, entities they've really got to evaluate some of these countries that you've got borderline, you know, kind of communist kind of action and whether or not they want to keep it in their indices. so that's what i think is the larger discussion. liz: but collateral damage beyond the russia etfs, you just made the great point about ewj which i find super interesting considering we do have a move there, down just about three-quarters of a percent. but tell me, you know, can you tell me what else? i mean, aside from something here, how about generally?

>> look, i think, you know, russia makes up, you know, hess than 2% of the global, you know -- less than 2% of the global economy, so its weight in the world is less than 1%. i think the bigger issue is that, you know, we have inflation, and it's pretty rampant in this country, and it's going to get worse because, you know, russia controls a lot of, you know, oil and natural gas. so i i see one-way inflation, i see it getting much worse than it is. so that's what i would say for investors, look at your portfolio and look for strategies in stocks and sectors that actually benefit from higher inflation, and that's what we've done and what our -- liz: that's a perfect segway to ira p steven. march wheat, i'm looking at it right now, up 21% at the moment. that's today alone. corn again spike anding, european natural gas on the move. i believe we've got a price on that. natural gas this europe up 60% since just tuesday. tell me on the moves, what are

you seeing? and we did have powell, we did have powell specifically saying today that the inflation is a number one concern for him, and that's why he repeated the support of 25 basis points which, you know, a lot of people say should have been 50. >> i'm not of the 50. i think you have to walk this slow. first of all, we don't want to put the economy into a severe recession. worried about a stag a nation right now. stagflation. second, trying to catch these commodity moves after the fact and after a to -- 20%, 60% move, don't try it, folks. you're not going to succeed at that. nor do you want to pick a top. it's time to put your hands in your pockets. you walk awayif a market like this because you can't control risk. risk is everything for futures trade. so weed today got up near $120 in crude, but if you look at the backward -- [inaudible] if you go back four months, crude is $10 lower, and it's

it's probably another $5 lower than that on top of this. and that is what fed chair powell -- [inaudible] fed chair powell said. he said it's transitory, it's a war game right now. the war game is you've taken off wheat which russia and ukraine are about 25% of the world's -- for europe, not america, but for europe, we won't be importing very long. the groundswell is there, it will end. opec isn't our friend. what we have to do is, again, we have to become self-sufficient, and i think we will. liz: well, we better. we definitely better. and, with by the way, he said transitory a year and change ago, and it is not temporary. we continue to see these high prices whether there's a war or not. i do want to say thank you, we've got to run. ira, john, sarge, good stuff, we appreciate it. breaking news, we have the white house targeting russian elites and family members with brand new sanctions at this

hour. of the u.s. reports that it will implement visa restrictions on 19 oligarchs and 47 of their family members. they cannot travel here to the u.s. anymore m -- anymore. we've got this part of the piece of this, the asset seizures will be blocked from use in the u.s. including his $of -- 600 million super yacht that was just seized by germany in the last 4 hours. it was being retrofitted. usmanov is i accused of having close ties to putin. and french customs authorities have so far seized four cargo vessels and one yacht in connection to sanctionings. at this hour president joe biden is holding his first cabinet meeting since the russian invasion, so let's go live to the white house and edward lawrence. russia's foreign intelligence chief said quote today, for us, it's no longer a cold war with the west, but a hot war. i would imagine the cabinet is

taking note of that amped-up rhetoric. >> reporter: as you mentioned, the first cabinet meeting since russia invaded ukraine. the president saying he will sanction russian energy, and this is why. listen. finish. >> the goal is to maximize the impact on putin and russia and minimize the harm on us and and our allies and friends around the world. our interest is in maintaining the strongest unified economic impact campaign on putin and is -- in all history. >> reporter: and so far resisting the pressure from a growing number of democrats including now house speak or nancy pelosi today saying ban russian oil. oil companies in the u.s. have already basically said they are not going to take any russian oil at this point, so what's happened is gas prices, as you know, we have seen the single--- single largest one-day jump since 2011, more than a decade, a p gallon of regular unleaded up 7 cents overnight to $3.70 a

gallon. republicans are saying it's not just oil and natural gas, adding the u.s. has the natural resources to lower prices as well as help europe, but the administration needs to remove regulations reversing energy policies. >> we buy over half of the uranium for our nuclear power plants from russia and it allies. 90% of that is imported. these are numbers that we need to change. we were energy independent. we need to become energy independent again. >> reporter: and you talked about those sanctions. 19 new oligarchs on the list, 47 of their family members. the travel ban extends to all of them, so it means that 50, now, russian oligarchs are under a travel ban, and all of their relatives cannot travel into the u.s. that's a lot of people now. liz: yeah. and it's rolling. it's getting bigger and bigger like a snowball. edward lawrence, thank you very much. the news on russia's war on ukraine so all-consuming even

barstool sports fans want with updates on it. this morning the number one most-read story on its web site was putin's secret $1.4 billion residence built with ill-gotten gains, the most outrageous thing you've ever seen. this even as the baseball lockout is still firmly in place. ceo erica far dinny joins us live in a fox business exclusive on all the a helines in sports gambling bringing the media sight a -- site a lot more eyeballs. the dow down 105 at the moment. we are keeping an eye on gas and, obviously, crude. pulling back in the after market by about 2%. ♪ ♪ at vanguard, you're more than just an investor, you're an owner with access to financial advice, tools and a personalized plan that helps you build a future for those you love. vanguard.

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to deal directly with the airline. for its part, sabre is down about 5.33%. aeroflot is saying you can't ground us, but we shall see. 48 hours after the union failed to strike an agreement, mlb has now been forced to delay opening day and has canceled the first two series of the 2022 regular season due to its lockout. that not only will hurt the league and, of course, the players, but already sports betting companies eager to cash in on the season are watching their stocks tumble. draftkings, penn which, of course, owns 36% of sports media empire barstool sports -- still on track, by the way, to purchase the remaining 64% -- reported that, actually, barstool sportsbook reports a much nay narrower tan expected fourth quarter loss. here to talk about it, ceo erika

nardini. baseball is frozen. it's almost like how assets are frozen for a lot of these russians. what effects are you bracing for if this lockout drags on? >> yeah, it's really disappointing. it's bad for fans, bad for business, it's bad for sports betting. we're disappointed, first and foremost, as fans. we need to find new creative ways to find bet bl sports moments for fans. liz: i would imagine you've got to be watching this so closely. what kind of effect do you see it having on barstool sportbook? a lot of betters are dying to bet on major league baseball. >> yeah, you know, it's hard because when you look at -- you got march madness, you've got college basketball. after that it's hockey playoffs and baseball. and baseball is an extraordinary long season, it's a very local sport. we have a large partnership via our partners at the score, so there's a lot happening in baseball that really matters for

us that a lot of our offers will be, you know, associated with and timed around. the good thing about barstool sports is we're pretty creative, so we'll find ways to find things to bet on and to celebrate those things without baseball. liz: i guess you could bet on whether they'll eventually get a collective bargaining agreement. obviously, very disappointing. you just mentioned march madness. people are also really eager to watch college basketball and, obviously, the big dance, sweet six sixteen, final four. how are you gearing up for that, and what kind of offerings will you have that are different from all the other sports media out there? >> yeah, you know, barstool sports and penn national are very different in terms of how we approach sport betting. we do it organically. when you look at the majority of sports betting companies, they're spending about 70% on marketing. we're spending urn 20% on marketing -- under 20%, because a lot of what we create is conversation that fans care about. we build brands that they like,

and we create bets that they're interested in being part of. we'll do that for march madness. we'll be at the final four in new orleans with everyone else, so we'll create a lot of excitement and energy in new orleans. we will be at our own sports bars, so we opened two sports bars this year, one many philadelphia, one in chicago. we will be on location at our own establishments. we'll bring fans there, we'll generate a lot of bets, and then we'll certainly make a lot of headlines and news while we're at it. liz: i see. so you'll generate a lot when that starts to happen. but again, if there's a paucity of sports news out of mlb baseball, there is certainly so much, a huge flood, coming out of eastern europe. i have noticed, as have my producers, that barstool sports is actually putting out some interesting ukraine articles with the barstool sports spin, the piece about vladimir putin's $1.4 billion mansion that's bigger than monaco. that i gotta really look into. that would be huge.

[laughter] with ill-gotten gains, not to mention pieces about ukrainian supermodels who are putting down their lipstick to jump in and get a weapon and fight this war. what is the theory of back in those eyeballs and keeping them at least on your site when there's so much other news out there? >> yeah, you know, we do it a little bit differently which is we empower anyone who's creative at barstool to write, to create podcasts, to make tiktoks, and we love their individual points of view. and that's what makes us really different: so when we have bloggers who are interested in covering what's happening with supermodels in the ukraine or what anybody's opinions are on putin, we've done a great job of letting our people write the way they want to write and to share things that we think a common, average person might be interested in. liz: erika, it's great to speak with you. we have so much her to discuss,s we'd love to have you back. the news flow, obviously, is come pressing our time with each of our guests, but thank you for coming on.

>> thanks, liz, so much. liz: dow jones industrials down 78, but we've seen this story before. earlier the dow was up 287, so we're keeping an eye on every tick of this market for you. please stay where you are. ♪ ♪ you can watch movi es through your phone? and y'all got electric cars? yeah. the future is crunk! (laughs) anything else you wanna know? is the hype too much? am i ready? i can't tell you everything. but if you want to make history, you gotta call your own shots. we going to the league!

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♪ liz: we've got this fox business alert, a mea culpa from rivian not helping the stock turn around after yesterday's drop. it's falling another 5.6%. listen, we told you this yesterday, right in a howl of protests arose wednesday after the ev truck maker citing higher production costs jacked up prices by 20%, including for rivian reservation holders who had put in their orders at the lower price months ago. as we reported yesterday, customers canceled orders in droves, and the stock dropped 3%. today rivian has -- 13%. today rivian has rolled the price hikes with the ceo saying,

you know what? we'll go back to the price you were originally quoted on, back to the delivery, all of what you were expecting. he a apologized for breaking customer trust. not help things at the moment for the stock. elsewhere, tesla is falling a bit here. elon musk, the ceo, is inviting a key labor union, the uaw, pretty much the labor union, to hold a vote at the ev maker's california factory. the announcement comes as the billionaire criticized the biden administration for a whole bunch of things; a proposal to give union-made us-built -- u.s.-built evs a tax incentive. musk tweeted said tesla would do nothing to stop themthey wanted to take a vote, but he's also been absolutely furious that the biden administration and president biden refuse to act a knowledge their existence every time they mention other companies as, quote, ev leaders when tesla has been theers v leader. -- ev leader. american eagle outfitters on

track for its largest decrease since april 2020 after the apparel retailer said it sees continued freight pressures in the first half of the year. stock is getting clobbered here, down 8.8%. aeo also says the drying up of federal stimulus is an additional headwind. revenue in the fourth quarter in line with expectations. and it's turning out to be a best buy for investors after the electronics retailer announced it was raising its quarterly dividend by 26%. look at the stock, jumping nearly 10% here. best buy expects annual sales to surpass peak pandemic levels in 2024. the stock is on pace for its best day since may of 20 despite a bigger than expected fall in fourth quarter sales. the red army pushing deeper into ukraine. up next,, former national security agency director general keith alexander gives us the intel if on putin's forces and how the battle might be waged in

the next seven days. from cyberspace to attack the united states. closing bell, 29 minutes away. dow jones is industrials now down just 50 points. a pretty dramatic swing of more than 400 points from trough to peak today. the nasdaq lower by 219 points. we're coming right back. ♪ ♪ stuff. we love stuff. and there's some really great stuff out there. but i doubt that any of us will look back on our lives and think,

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♪ ♪ liz: oh, boy. again, more breaking news also just now hitting the tape, the mayor of ukraine's northwest city says columns of russian troops are headed toward nearby nuclear power plants. a second attempt at peace negotiations between ukraine and russia has ended with no deal. both ukrainian and russian delegations did, however, agree to organize humanitarian corridors to allow civilians to flee the war-torn country. however, no progress has been made in ending the war now in its eighth day.

this afternoon president vladimir putin emerged from his lair to give televised remarks and said, quote: russian operations in ukraine are, in fact, going according to plan saying, quote, all the tasks that have been set are being successfully resolved. this as the country's 40-mile tank convoy has stalled about 19 miles outside of the capital city of kyiv. it's run out of fuel and food for the troops. and as fighting intensifies in kyiv and kharkiv, the west awaits the potential retaliatory moves from russia following devastating sanctions on the country's economy. we bring in former nsa director and co-ceo of cybersecurity company iron net, general keith alexander. general, that latest news that they are having a column of russian troops going toward a nuclear facility in ukraine, what do you make of that? what's your reaction? >> well, i'm concerned about the whole thing. i think their intent to go and capture that and potentially take it down, cut the power to all the people.

it's part of his herding the ukrainian people and making them give up their will to fight. so this is about will. ask and i don't agree with him that he's on schedule. liz: yeah. >> i mean, having his 40-mile column stalled can't be in one of his tasks. so everything he said about this has been wrong. liz: well, yeah. and even his elite forces have had a humiliatingly poor performance. and here we have citizen fighters who are battling back and actually having a modicum of success. actually, a lot of success. let's turn to the cybersecurity piece of this. i have more people asking me on a daily basis, liz, dueck that putin is going -- do you think that putin is going to turn off the lights here in the united states and we will go dark, he will hit our grid. what say you? >> well, i think he's going to attack our country in cyber. i don't know that he can take down the grid. i think he will attack the government, the energy sector,

oil is and gas, the finance sector, and he will use his forces primarily is the sbr and the gru to go after the government side and use his illicit force. think of that as your ransomware teams, your hacker army, to go after our critical infrastructure. liz: do we, do we fight back then? is that when we get involved? because we had the nato deputy general secretary, is secretary-general on last week, and he said that a cyber attack on united states is equivalent to an act of war. >> yeah. i think it depends on what that cyber attack accomplishes. if in my mind, an attack that he designs that impacts human life should be considered an act of war. now, this is an issue that the administration and congress have to deal with and nato. i don't think it's fully resolved through nato and all the nato countries yet agree. but in this light you're seeing

cyber as an element of national power, and that brings you right up to recent legislation and our need for collective defense. you know, right now everybody's defending themselves, every company. think about that. and he can hit many of these companies, and they don't stand a chance against a nation-state. so we're fighting everybody by themselves. liz: we have seen the colonial pipeline get hit last year, and we look at the financial world, and shar charlie -- charlie gasparino if reported yesterday they've been investing for years to protect their systems, and they're doing a pretty good job of it. who is much more vulnerable? which sectors? >> well, i think the health care and the education sectors, they're the ones that have been getting hit the most along with your small, mid-sized businesses. you know, when you look at ransomware companies making over $2 billion in ransom ware, that

means they've hit over 4,000 companies that have paid them money, and they're going after education, health care, the small businesses across all the sectors. that's where it is right now. but what we're talking about here is a nation-state campaign to take on another country in cyber. i think putin has to do something to break the will of europe and the united states in this sanction regime, and i think he's going to use cyber to do it. i think anything else would be too costly. i think it backfire on him. i think our country is really prepared in terms of the offense what we have with the defense department, dhs and is at the national level with chris english up there. i think the public-private partnership is growing. it's not where it needs to be. and that's part of our journey. we've got to create that collective defense, in my opinion. liz: great to have you and your per spect andive, general. thank you so much. ♪

liz: federal reserve chair jerome powell acknowledging a big spike in crypto tanks actions across russia and ukraine in recent days, but should in this worry u.s. lawmakers s and are they already gunning for more regulations? we have ripple ceo brad garlichouse in the house here with our charlie gasparino next. closing bell, 19 minutes away. we're coming right back. muck. ♪ every year we try to exercise more, to be more social, to just relax. and eating healthy every single meal? if only it was this easy for us.

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♪ ♪ liz: i am just watching the nasdaq. we need to show you the intraday. it just hit a session low and continues to drop, down about 276 points at the very moment. we should, if we can, show some of the laggards so you get a sense of what is bringing this index down. of course that, zoom, advanced

micro devices and tesla. it has been a volatile two week weeks for cryptocurrency as investors attempt to determine the impact the war in ukraine and russia could have on the asset class. bitcoin did rides over $44,000 per coin yesterday, but it has fallen and is now standing at $42,000 barely. it is also in lockstep with etherium and litecoin which are also cropping -- dropping. one of the biggest questions is how russia and its bad actors might be using crypto to skirt around the sanctions that have now been put in place on russian banks and russian people. federal reserve chairman jerome powell fielding this question on capitol hill this morning. listen. >> do you see the possibility at least of putin or his oligarchs using digital payments and other alternative payment methodology to avoid these sanctions? >> i saw that crypto transactions are spiking in the ukraine and in russia.

i just, i think it really underscores the need to have a strong regulatory regime that permits appropriate activity but that prevents inappropriate activity. liz: listen, it's the same with the u.s. dollar. appropriate activity, inappropriate activity. joining us now on the set, ceo of leading enterprise block chain company ripple, brad garlinghouse. yes, of course, related to xrp. brad would know a thing or two about this along with charlie gasparino. >> i i know nothing. [laughter] liz: what do you make of what powell said? >> what did he say though? did he say anything? >> it's not entirely career. -- clear. i and the team at ripple feel so strongly about standing with the people of ukraine, and i just want to put that out there. i fear that there's a lack of knowledge, there's a lack of information about how crypto really works. and i think it does a disservice

to responsible actors like ripple who are working with governments, with sanctions, everything that is enforced there a sanction point of view to fiat currencies, anything that ripple does is enforced in the exact same way. so there's no different level playing field n. some ways i heard senator warren saying things yesterday that felt like it's holding crypto to a different standard and expecting a blanket ban of all crypto in some of these countries. you can still use paypal, you can still use some of these other things, and i don't think you should treat them differently. >> ripple is like swift, isn't it? >> yes. ripple's starting point, kind of our first use case for the blockchain technology was to solve that cross-border payments problem. >> right. >> it's quite antiquated, designed 50 years ago, it's slow, it's expensive, but it is a chokepoint that the government's used for sanctions. my point is nothing that ripple is doing circumvents any of that. >> so you're following the

sanctions exactly? for example, it's like, what, eight banks and a couple can still trade through theoretically? >> correct. the sanctions are supplied through the onramps and offramps. that's true for swift and ripple regardless of what i'll call just the plumbing of how things are moving. the chokepoints are the endpoints. when i step back and look, there is a lack of knowledge. people need to understand that crypto isn't this kind of black box. it's kind of back from when it was known as silk road. the industry has come a long wa- >> so an oligarch or let's jus say vladimir putin couldn't finance tanks through bitcoin? >> one of the things that people don't realize is there's just not enough liquidity. >> yeah. >> russia used to trade presanctions $50 billion of cross-border transactions per day. crypto does not have anywhere near that. >> right, right. >> look, in the same way that somebody could be taking wheelbarrows of rubles or the

ukrainian currency across to poland, there are ways you could do that. but it's really not significantly dissimilar. >> why are they so obsessed with it? it's, like, so weird. >> i think it's kind of click bait. it's a hot item. i think people -- it adds relevance and excitement. >> yeah. >> people don't understand. liz: we have spoken to gary gensler of the securities and exchange commission. i i know you saw that interview because we were e-mailing afterward about it. he specifically tried to say that he wants to very much focus on what's a security and what is an actual token, a crypto currency. i feel like if that's the case and he's holding you to that standard, at some point he's going to have to go after ether as well because ether and e here to yum are those two very similar paths just like xrp and ripple, are they not? >> i think that's absolutely true. i don't want to comment if on what, you know, they should or shouldn't do. i think as it relates to

etherium, my view it's very clear it's a currency, xrp is a currency, and the sec -- he was interviewed yesterday, gary gensler was, or maybe even this morning and commented, hey, we're going to lose some cases. this is the definition -- >> so you think -- >> -- of regulation by enforcement. >> do you think he was saying he was going to lose your case? [laughter] >> i don't know what he was saying, but he did say we're okay with that. >> let's get an update. >> monday was the last day of expert testimony, it, and so the case on thes -- continues to move forward. we're expecting some decisions sooner rather than later as it relates to a couple decisions before the court. look, it's moved slowly. i think gary gensler has continued to kind of go with the narrative that crypto's the wild west. it's not the wild west. are there bad actors? yes. there's bad actors -- liz: well, there's bad actors in money laundering. >> exactly. >> i found it fascinating from reading the documents, for all the stuff today said how bad it

was, they never say anything bad about your platform. >> and, of course, the irony there is we were in the sec's office, i had met with chairman clayton. no one ever once said we think xrp is a security. now they look backwards and say it's a security. liz: brad garlinghouse of ripple. we are coming right back. charlie, thanks to youou as wel. ♪ like what you see abe? yes! 2b's covered with zero overdraft fees when he overdraws his account by fifty bucks or less. and 2c, well, she's not going to let a lost card get her stressed. am i right? that's right. that's because these neighbors all have chase. alerts that help check. tools that help protect. one bank that puts you in control. . . you're an owner with access to financial advice,

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♪. liz: four minutes to go before the closing bell rings. let's check the markets here. the dow is down 146, the s&p losing about 28. small percentages here but the nasdaq is off the lows but still down a bit more, 1.6% to the downside, off about 225. bring in aegon asset management strategist, frank ribinsky. 460 million in assets in management. we had awful market today.

when we look at every measure, whether stocks, crude oil, what are investors to make of these moves? each day they seem to be in a different direction? >> certainly. thanks, liz, for having me back. liz: of course. >> we're seeing a acceleration in new chapter in geopolitics and macroeconomics, no matter the outcome of this conflict, gone to the postwar dividend that energized the peace movement. i think forward to this book was written when the trump put on the china tariffs back in 2018. now that force is really spreading. divisions will continue to grow. probably wind up with the western bloc and china russia bloc. self-reliance is woken up and they can't outsource security tote u.s., manufacturing to china and energy to russia. liz: does that then mean that

the smartest investors, hopefully longer term than day by day tick traders, should go into great companies with long runway to the future and not necessarily tech but infrastructure names too, with really solid management, cash flow, but maybe gone through lately in a difficult time caught in the downdraft of the markets and are a lot cheaper? >> i think there is this new secular trend is kind of emerging and a lot of those sectors and companies you talk about will be the beneficiaries. one, look at europe for a glimpse where the opportunities are. look at defense companies. they have done extremely well the last couple days as they should but i think it is more than just a one-day trade. germany says they will start spending over 2% of their gdp on military. that is something they haven't done in decades. france, the france speech by macron on wednesday said more or less the same thing. similar story when it comes to

energy. this push for energy security, germany wants to immediately start building lng receiving terminals. macron talking about building new nuclear plants. manufacturing as well. we talked about the trump tariffs. that started al play shoring, friend shoring, increasing reliability of supply chains. companies like intel, texas semibuilding capacity in the u.s. so they can get away from china. liz: what about the names, like, say for example, snowflake which is really getting dinged today? it is down about 16% after it said growth was just a little bit lower than what was expected? it wasn't even that slow. i believe it was something like 101%, compared to 104% but it certainly is down well below where it used to be. >> you are seeing this growth slowdown in companies that had very lofty expectations have to recalibrate that. i think you're seeing some of that come out of stocks that had you know, very high, lofty

growth factored in. liz: frank, lovely to have you. thank you very much. yes, so stocks are falling. they're off the lows of the session. but this of a rallying more than 1 1/2% ahead of tomorrow's february jobs report. [closing bell rings] much you have to watch us for that. jay powell repeats he will support a 25 basis point rise in march. "kudlow" is next. see you tomorrow. ♪. larry: hello, everyone, welcome to "kudlow" i'm larry kudlow. on a radio talk show today i was asked would vladmir putin had invaded ukraine if my former boss president donald trump were still in office? absolutely not was my immediate response. putin wouldn't have done it. why? because as soon as trump saw 150,000 troops amassing on eastern side of ukraine, trump would have called putin and