if you're really opportunist opportunistic, start to look for names you want to buy because they may be cheaper now. meanwhile, speaking of the coast being clear, one more hour to go. you know it's been crazy -- [laughter] buckle up. liz claman's here, she's going to walk you through it. liz. liz: you know, you just said we were off the lows? the low on the s&p was a loss of 68 points, mow down just 18, so thank you, my friend. charles: we're the little general gin -- engine that could. liz: i know i can, i know i can. [laughter] the great cold shoulder continues. this news breaking just now hitting the tape, jpmorgan says it's already in the process of unwinding all its russian businesses and will not pursue think new business there. the bank says its only current activities are limiting to helping global clients close out pre-existing obligations there. the stock along with other financials is lagging, down

about 1%. inflation not enseen in 40 years as the major averages cutting yesterday's gains nearly many half at this hour as the war in ukraine stirs the market volatility. oil and gasoline reversing their spikes though, as more american companies flee or turn their backs on russia whose stock market, by the way, still closed 15 days into the war. russia cannot open the moscow stock exchange probably for fears that each and every stock on that exchange will completely collapse. the climbing cost of food hammering consumers, but one grocery store chain is working with its farmers to slash costs of its private label goods. the ceo of stew leonard's is here to tell us how he's working to stop the supermarket setbacks for you and whether he sees any indication of bread shortages. there has been a warning we'll start to see bread shortages. and the collapse of coronavirus cases giving live entertainment

its first dose of pre-pandemic reality. how mask-free march madness ticket sales could be a sign that sports and concerts are back for good. and more on our exclusive interview with blackrock chairman and sew owe larry fink. charlie gas wee know and i gasparino yesterday talked with wall street's $10 trillion man. we did ask who are win the economic war, thalling lies in the west or russia. you've got to hear what he has to say. we begin with the state department saying moments ago that russian forces now encircle multiple ukrainian cities after having destroyed much of their critical infrastructure. spokesperson ned price threatening to do everything it can to hold russian leaders and commanders responsible if they commit war crimes after seeing evidence russian military deliberately targeting civilian targets. you're watching right now as we have a live feed from the pentagon the ever-changing

developments, we're watching hem right now keeping wall street and main street and investors on their toes up-to-date. anything else that comes out of here, we will bring it to you. unlike yesterday many this final hour when the markets were flush with bulls charging, investors right now do not like the headlines. among them at noon eastern time, u.k. prime minister boris johnson saying i fear russia may deploy chemical weapons in ukraine. his comment coinsiding with vladimir putin announcing a ban on all exports of russian planes, drones, cars and fertilizer to western nations, not that western nations are buying any of this right now. but much of this is affecting oil. crude, of course, whip sawed again today. right now in the aftermarket we've got it at $106. just in the last half hour it closed at 106.02. but during the regular session the price swung as high as $114 a barrel. so, again, you remember yesterday it touches $13 to --

1300 a barrel -- 130 a barrel. to not let this $2.46 loss on crude trick you, wti has increased 16% since the start of war two weeks ago. coming into today's session, gasoline has risen every single day, today it breaks aha trend. at the moment we're down 4.6% for a -- arbob. again, this is the wholesale price. it has roared nearly 11% higher over past two weeks. so with the u.s. banning russian oil imports, u.s. energy companies are marching higher. take a look at exxon, chevron, conocophillips, all of them higher by anywhere from 1-2.7%. and we should check the drillers with with if we can, they have a a starring role today. apache, neighbors -- nabors,

mobile all jumping significantliment what does this mean for oil prices? we did ask larry fink, ceo of blackrock, yesterday on "the claman countdown." is it 175 a barrel, 180? >> no, i don't -- i think it's going to be elevated for a long time until we have these corrections. and so, you know, we are going to have to be living with higher energy prices like we did in the early '80s. early '80s, i mean, energy got as high as 149. i don't expect that to be the case, but could we see emergency between $90-110 with neighbor occasional spikes? certainly. liz: one of the few positive headlines out there, amazon gaining 6.33% right now on news its board has approved a 20 for 1 stock split and a $10 billion share buyback. let's bring in our traders to make sense of the action, scott redler and raiding academy's scott bauer who was the first and is only market maker in the

world trading amazon options back when they were first listed in 19 is 97, he's about to tell us whether the split finally makes amazon a candidate to join the dow 30. but let's start with redler. the bears are controlling the market narrative right now. why? >> why? because i you have a lot of uncertainty overall in the market. you have what's happening in the russia-ukraine, which is tremendous, still before that crisis escalated you have the fed who has to reduce the accommodations of, you know, the markets by raising interest rates, running the balance sheets. so the bears have been in control. so the news on amazon was kind of like you're plugging the hole, because amazon's been leaking for a bunch of sectors. amazon has had two phenomenal earnings reports because of the dynamics of the stock with mackenzie selling and jeff selling, i'm sure scott bauer can talk about the options. when you have a stock trading

between 2800 and 36-3700, the options dealers or control the stock almost sometimes more than the investors. so i think this 20 for 1 stock is very important. they were have done it with a strong report six months ago, but whatever. i think this will help put a little to the floor in the stock. but the thing is, they're doing it after earnings so active investors aren't going to be in a full rush to buy the stock pre-earnings, but it'll help build the floor. and i do think for investors, okay, or i think this is a good time to buy amazon. it's 20% off the highs, you put it into three installments, you buy here. if it goes down, you buy more. if this thing splits at 3,000 down to 150, that's where it'll be trading, psychologically i think there'll be a lot more investors come in. if it only goes back to 200, you're talking about a $4,000 amazon, and you'll get there a lot quicker than 3,000-4,000

under those dynamics. liz: scott bauer, i'm looking at technology, ands the laggard today. i don't know what's going on with the semiconductors, but i started to look and see some the most active etfs. you've got the bear 3x, look at it, it is spike 7.25% as everything from micron to invidia is falling. you can even look at the overall tech picture, another one that is really topping at the moment because you win when tech loses. what is going on here? >> i think this is a funk of rates, liz. and the equity market, especially the nasdaqing rain especially a lot of these tech stocks, are so heavily weighted to what we see in the interest rate environment going on right now. and we've seen the 10-year pretty flat overall but fluctuating day-to-day pretty much from 180 -- 1.80-2%.

if you watch the flow of how interest rates have been changing, that pretty much tells you or you can follow that in the tech sector. when we've got rates backing off a little bit here, that's when you see rallies in some of these semis, and the flip is also true what's going on right now. liz: and give me your thought on whether this split of 20 for 1 is going to suddenly open the doors to the august cow jones industrials for -- dow jones industrials for amazon, scott. >> it most likely will. you have to remember the dow 30 is a stock weighted, so you talk about $140 stock frau that amazon -- now that amazon is going to be, that puts it right in the middle, literally, of the dow 30 stocks in terms of the weighting here. puts it at about the same equivalent to walmart. i think it becomes a great candidate. i don't see why it wouldn't. i think there's a couple laggards in the dow that maybe are on their way out, but what people really have to remember,

liz, is the fundamental story here hasn't changed. liz: true. >> exactly. it has not changed. liz: but the world, to both of you, the world leads us along this path. every name from tesla to google that that has split in the past, apple, it just engenderings -- end engenders that psychological bump where these companies suddenly become more affordable because the price of the individual share goes down. >> no doubt about it. liz: exactly. >> and you're right, liz -- [inaudible conversations] liz: quickly. >> i was going to add one thing. the big thing to me yesterday was not the stock split, it was the $10 billion share buyback telling me that execs think the stock is cheap. liz: of course, of course. and, redler, quickly? >> i just think, you know, the market psychology, the market moves on sent. fundamentals, you know, or pe is where the stock is trading whether it's 42 or 68 or 120, amazon went up when the stock had a pe to pluto because they

knew it was growing. now they need a new investor base, they need it to be lower so people get just excited about it again like if it splits at 150, it's real easy, barrier to entry is lower, and it's a lot easier to trade volume to get some of money -- liz: pluto is not a planet, it is a dwarf moon. [laughter] appreciate it. breaking news, we have ria news agency reporting moments ago that russia -- and take this with a grain of salt -- will open humanitarian corridors for the evacuation of ukrainian refugees beginning tomorrow from the cities of kyiv, sumi, kharkiv and mariupol if. of course they're trying to basically shunt all of these refugees into russia where who knows what'll happen to them. this as russia's vladimir putin forges ahead with his unprovoked war on ukraine. the are resistance is succeeding in counter-attacking russian

convoys. take a look at this drone video, it shows the ambush of a russian tank convoy on the outskirts of ukraine's capital, kyiv. the tanks were hit by ukrainian shells. the russian tank commander was reportedly killed. all this as talks between ukrainian foreign minister and his russian counterpart failed again to make any progress. and so the slaughtering continues. we do have a new number for you, so far more than 1500 civilian casualties have been reported since the start of the incursion over two weeks ago. and yesterday three peek killed in that attack on a maternity hospital in mariupol. so far more than 2 million people have fled ukraine, but the the i humanitarian crisis is deepening. we go live to connell mcshane many neighboring hungary on a train to budapest as he follows the refugee flows. >> reporter: hey there, liz. this is exactly what we see many

of the refugees doing. they'll come across the border in a country like huckly of so many more -- hungary, and then after a 2, 3, 4-day journey, they're on another train heading to to the another city, this our case, budapest -- wide budapest, ill show you some video we shot earlier inside day -- in the day. you can just see how tired they are and how much they've been through. and to your point about corridors and about getting people out safely, i know the ukrainian government officials said earlier today that 400,000 people or thereabouts were evacuated safely from war hot spots where there's active fighting. but the people we're speaking to, he were doing it on their own, and it wasn't easy because that safety just was not there. take a listen. >> there was not such corridor like i heard corridor, and and there were no such.

we were saved by volunteers, volunteers, by military, and we were all by ourselves. it was so dangerous. >> reporter: because you saw the shelling and the -- >> no one could, you know, no one could guarantee our safety and that we would survive. >> reporter: somehow she and others make it to the border and then hay move on other trains, as i've said, to other parts of europe. but the stories, liz, that we're hearing especially i would say in the last 2-3 days point to what has to be a deepening humanitarian crisis in ukraine. we spoke to a woman, for example, from kharkiv which has been hit is so hard just a few minutes before we got on this train, and we were talking back and forth about whether the russians were targeting military or civilian with installations, and she just looked at me and said her family, they own two

houses in kharkiv, both homes completely destroyed. liz? liz: oh, my goodness. connell, thank you very much. safe journey to you on that train. we are getting, by the way, connell, a little more on that ria report. of remember, ria is a russian muse agency. russia will require lists of people and vehicles many advance before -- in advance before allowing them to enter humanitarian corridors. again, russia says it are open humanitarian corridors tomorrow. this is starting to smell a lot like 1939. okay. the war has grabbed most of the headlines, but there are brand new developments on america emerging from the covid pandemic. march madness many full swing, and that's got college hoops fans rushing to buy their tournament tickets. straight ahead, we're going to talk to the ceo of vivid seats about what he sees happening in the world of live entertainment and sports as the worst of the

coronavirus pandemic fades from the front page. we have pared much of the dow jones industrial losses, we're now down 152 points after having been down 466. we have much more ahead and more on that possible bread shortage from stew leonard's, a top grocery store ceo. stay tuned. ♪ ♪ you can't buy love. happiness. or confidence. but you can invest in them. at t. rowe price our strategic investing approach can help you build the future you imagine. ♪ ♪ your shipping manager left to “find themself.” leaving you lost. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. visit indeed.com/hire welcome to ameriprise.

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♪ if. liz: one of first major companies in the u.s. to have been forced an employee vaccine mandate is ready to reverse it. united airlines will now allow unvaccinated employees to return to their jobs. citing a sharp decline in covid cases, ceo scott kirby said 2200 employees with vaccine exemptions will return march 28th. ual signals if another variant were to emerge or trend suddenly reverse course, it will reevaluate the appropriate safety protocols. stock has turned around. it opened down and it is now up 1.25%. look, as the whole united states tries to move past the coronavirus and restore a pre-pandemic way of life, live events are back center stage with college basketball's march

madness ready to tip off next week. and vivid seats, the official ticketing partner -- i don't even know what i'm looking at, we should be looking at exciting video because this is a very interesting time for people -- it is the partner for espn, and it's ready to cash in on the madness. seat is getting hurt badly today, down 11.a 5 on, basically, a disappointing outlook. but joining me now looking to that outlook is ceo stan chia. how about that, stan? i mean, another step in reopening the world, united is now bringing back some of those employees. one of the -- what have the last couple of weeks been like for vivid? >> yeah. hi, liz, thanks for having maine i think certainly as we've seen, you know, some of the covid restrictions start to ease, i think as we got past the country, you know, the major spike in omicron cases, i think we've certainly seen that return to life come back like the super bowl, great event in l.a. with

the rams and men bengals and more recently as the precipice of march madnd, you know, duke's last home game with coach k become just one with intense demand, ticket prices being up there in super bowl range. i think when we look at it broadly, lots of excitement around live events. liz: well, i want to talk about march madness. this time around there are no restrictions. people don't have is to wear masks. you are big in the secondary market. tell me what kind of flows you're seeing as far as the ticket sales are concerned for you. >> yeah. i think we continue to see, you know, great demand as the events come back, as march madness comes back. we announced our earnings today, we had a record-setting 2021 with our marketplace -- highest marketplace, a record setting third quarter, so i think going into the first quarter as we look at march madness, we remain really excited about the demand and our ability to service consumers with a fantastic product. liz: i've got to ask you about

mlb, stan. they're iced out9 for the moment. they have postponedded opening day, the players association cannot get together with the owners on a deal. the league is obviously pretty much froze opinion at the moment. how is that going to affect your revenue stream that you would have expected from mlb? >> yeah, you know, look, i think, you know, you opened it with i think we probably took a little bit of a hit today as we announced guidance for the year, but i think we also did that very consciously with realtime information. our guidance essentially assuming that some the major league baseball season would be canceled as they've indicated. so we continue to watch, you know, what's happening there. i think if we had guided a full year, we would have certainly outpaced expectations. and the great thing is we continue to look at the outlook. we're more heavily skewed on the concert side, and as we look at our product development with the only rewards program out there, with the only live event

marketplace technology company with a daily fantasy offering as well and the best customer service in the business, we're really excited about our prospects in '22 and beyond. liz: two minutes ago espn announced that the mlb and the players association may have if reached a tentative agreement. this is all happening live. >> well, hey, you know, if that's happening, then perhaps we'll have a positive surprise fairly quickly in terms of guidance that we put out just this morning. liz: wow. it is shifting underneath our feet at the moment, and i find that really interesting. once again, espn is reporting that the players association and major league baseball, the owners have come to a tentative deal. play ball. we can't wait. stan, good luck to you at vivid seats. >> thanks, liz. thanks for having me. liz: we will be right back, don't go away. ♪ ♪ on travel purchased through chase with chase freedom unlimited. that means that i earn 5% on our rental car,

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liz: fox business alert, china stocks are getting hammered at

this hour possibly for two reasons. first, chinese e-mers company jb.com shares down 16%. the company reporting a net loss as operational costs surge and reported its weakest revenue growth in six quarters on a slowdown in consumer spending in china. now, if you with look at all chinese socks -- stocks, a whole bunch of them, i was just checking baba, it's a mess, buy due, they are all falling -- baidu. in addition to that, the secs has named five companies from china that could be delist9 for failing to keep up with u.s. accounting rules. yum china, beijing and z lab. yum china down 12, beijing down 6%, zilab down 9%.

peloton, its new ceo looks to overhaul the stationary bike maker's pricing strategy. the subscription-based service is going to start testing a new pricing system starting this friday in select markets. customers will pay a single monthly fee that covers the stationary bike and the subscription for workout courses. the cost supposedly between $60-100 a month. investors are, like, give me something better than that. they are selling the stock to the tune of lower by about 3.33%. but crowdstrike is on a surge at this hour after an earn earnings beat, jumping nearly 14% right now. the cybersecurity company also projected full fiscal year revenue ahead of wall street estimates. jpmorgan raising its price targets to 288 from 255. crowdstrike right now is at 193. and investors are bearish on build a bear workshop's stock right now.

it's getting clobbered, down 20%. the teddy bear maker says a surgery of covid cases in january led concern surge of covid cases led to shortages in its stores. however, it did say it expects first quarter 2022 revenue to exceed the year-ago period. stock is up 125% over the past year. so perspective. prices for groceries tough to find perspective there. theorizing rapidly along with inflation not seen in 40 years. we are going to speak with grocery store ceo stew leonard jr. about what he's doing specifically proactively to keep costs low for his customers as he shoulders higher prices. closing bell, 29 minutes away. the dow down 163, s&p losing 25, the nasdaq lower by 135. "the claman countdown" coming right back, don't go away. ♪ ♪

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liz: breaking news, we just got more on the baseball story. baseball is back. the players association voting moments ago to accept major league baseball's offer on a new labor deal. it ends the 99-day lockout and saves the season. mlb commissioner rob manfred announced last night that opening day will be april 14th at the latest. well, that was last night. now, since we know there's a deal, we shall see. major league baseball broadcasters not seeing an immediate bounce. fox, disney and dish network are polling the broader market lower. russia announcing a few hours ago it is temporarily suspending grain and sugar exports to the eurasian economic union through the end of august, this a day after ukraine announced as part of its martial law status, it will ban all exports of wheat, operates, mill millet, buckwheat, other staples.

wheat did hit a 14-year high this week, but in the aggregate inflation numbers are withering. the february consumer price index gives you a sense of inflation at the consumer level, out this morning with a shocker. and it did align perfectly with analyst expectations, a jump of 7.9%. with gasoline, housing and food the biggest contributors to that jump we haven't seen in four decades. with the9 food if index up 7.9% year e over year and the food at home index up is -- 1.4% month over month, yesterday i asked blackrock ceo larry fink for his thoughts on how wheat prices will affect everything in a bad way. >> keep in mind, when you see the increase of wheat to the extent it is and what it's going to mean to food prices for everybody, when you see the increases of gasoline and what it means for everybody and heating, this is not just a segment of the economy or a segment of the world, this is the entire world.

this is going to be impacting everybody. liz: joining me now to give his perspective on rising costs from inside the industry, stew leonard jr., the president and ceo of groce arely store chain city the leonard's -- stew leonard's -- >> that was just a customer that walked over -- liz: by all means -- [laughter] bring 'em back. >> i'm talking to liz. liz: we have a situation right now that is leading some prognosticators to predict that we will have bread shortages. please tell me what you're seeing at the moment and what you expect to see with these high wheat prices and the situation in ukraine and russia, both of them together equal about 40% of the world's wheat output. >> you know, liz, that was a shocking statistic i just learned. i didn't realize ukraine and russia produced that much of those commodities which affects everything even are from if soybean oil and things like that. so that'll definitely have an

impact. but, look, i've been in the business, our family has,s for 50 years now. i've i've ridden these supply and demand curves over my lifetime. right now i gotta say my crystal ball is broken. i can't figure out what's going to happen. liz: wow. >> but i would say this, i wouldn't say people have to worry about a shortage. i think, if anything, if there's still the demand out there, you're going to see the prices tick up a little bit. liz: okay. but, stew, when you eliminate 40% of any market, you know that suddenly, at least psychologically, people may start to become preppers again which is what we saw in the pandemic where they may stockpile bread and put it in the freezer. any kind of behavior like that yet? >> first of all, liz, that's a good point. i would recommend people to do that right now. you've been talking to all these stock people about whether to buy this stock or that stock, i would say something personal you want to do -- forget about the stock market, lao look at your own pantry and freezer.

it's probably a good time right now to stockpile some food a little bit like that. you can see things like chicken which are going up, used to cost at stew leonard's about $5, well, it's $8 now because i'm talking to the farmer, i was just talking to a guy this morning, and he's got to put fuel in his tractors in the morning and his corn prices are going up, chicken feed, about a pound and a half of corn every year, so it's costing him more money. what i've been doing with the farmers is i've been saying to them, look, let's split if it 50 will have -- 50-50. i'll eat half of the increase, you eat half. they've all agreed to that so far. i'm hoping, i've been optimistic that all of these supply and demand disruptions are going to be settling out a little bit in the next few months. but like i said, i've been saying that for two years now.

liz: well, yeah. but the situation -- >> it's tough. liz: right. and what we're seeing now in eastern europe has really ramped up the anxiety, i believe. but you just made a good point about how the farmers need their gasoline and so i look at that and i say is, well, now we've got a real problem because it is really working through. i have seen this headline, a new export business from russia has been suspended. bunge, of course, a big global grain trader, ticker symbol bg. this is really starting to be a wave of companies saying no more business with russia. we're done. if you have a personal experience with feeling as if this is a story we have seen before, and i'm talking about the nazis and world war ii. >> hey, my mom was a holocaust victim. you know, she was a survivor. i tell my children, i have four daughters and, obviously, a lot

of nieces and nephews, but what we're seeing in ukraine today is sort of like what happened to my mom. she a had to flee germany back in the late '30s. so it's very, very meaningful to our family, what's happening in the world right now. i'm sad about it. i want to try to help our customers as much as i can. we're stuck between a rock and a hard place as a retailer. you know, we have seven stores around the metro new york area, and on one hand i want to keep prices low, but on the other hand, i have is myfarmers calling me and saying, you know, prices for them, hair cost is going up. their cost is going up. you know, i can't hurt a farmer, you kw? they've not, they're not, you know, fancy spenders or anything. so i'm stuck, and i'm just hoping all of this will work its way out. but you know what? yeah -- liz: go ahead.

>> on a positive note you want to see coolest product at stew leonard's right now? liz: i do. >> look at this punch that we have. putin's punch. [laughter] liz: what is that? [laughter] >> this is a family business up there, a connecticut store there, has a family that comes up with all these labels. they just showed it to us, we'll buy as much as we can -- liz: yeah, punch him in the face. >> our customers are loving this right now, and they're buying it. you know, just something, something, you know, puts a little, maybe, smile on somebody's face right now. liz: well, i stew, you put a smile on our face, but i think you're right, and i started to stockpile my favorite organic peanut butter. listen, it's a tough situation. good to see you, stew. please come back again. >> thank you, liz. thank you. liz: stew leonard jr. our exclusive interview with

blackrock ceo larry fink sent headlines flying. charlie gasparino's here next to break down the biggest surprises that he and i pulled out of the wall street $10 trillion hand mt. interview we did. -- man in the intersee but did. we're still lagging on the dow but no nowhere near as bad as earlier, we're losing about 151 points. ♪ ♪ 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. visit indeed.com/hire at vanguard, you're more than just an investor,

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♪ ♪ liz: we told you at the temperature of the hour that jpmorgan is actively pulling all of its business out of russia. it's been unwinding, and the only activities they have right now are limited to helping clients there unwind their positions. , of course, as more and more

businesses pull out of russia. in fact, just today, this afternoon, we got some headlines. so disney had already said we are not going to have any feature films, now they're just announcing that they will pause all content and product licensing, any cruise line activities, distribution of its nat-geo magazine and global content of linear channels. and, yes, the mouse house had earlier said it would suspend if all theatrical releases in russia going forward. goldman sachs became this morning the first major wall street bank to announce it will shutter operations many russia. western union, warner music group, sony and stellantis also stomping down on russian business, and that's just today. these companies are the latest on the extentive -- extensive list giving it the cold shoulder in protest of the invasion of ukraine. blackrock was among the very first, march 3rd, to get out of all russian positions as far as

stocks were concerned. the ceo, larry fink, weighed in on matter in an exclusive interview on "the claman countdown" yesterday. listen. >> when you see so many american companies who have walked away from their business in russia, they did it because their employees were talking to them, their clients were talking to them. that's a great example of how we modify our behaviors. and this is the adaptability of american capitalism. ten years ago that would not have happened. and look at the success. we have is an economic war against russia right now, and it's much more complete than just governmental sanctions. governments did not call people up and say stop doing business in russia. liz: they did it on their own. let's bring in charlie gasparino. that was pretty stunning. >> we should point out that he was too polite to say a it and we didn't bring it up, but jpmorgan and goldman are laggards -- liz: right. he was march 3rd. >> you know who still hasn't pulled out, is citigroup.

so there are still businesses that are there -- liz: when you go to moscow, citi has branches there. of. >> i know that. they're very embedded in the russian economy. i don't know how they can pull out that fast. the other thing is jeff sonnenfeld had a list of countre pulled out. who haven't pulled out. i guess there's going to be institutional pressure on people that are staying. but i found -- he was great on that. i mean, larry, listen, larry fink if i've known forever. he's at the center of global finance. there's nobody more plugged in than him. whenever there's a crisis like covid and, you know, the fed needs someone to bank its balance sheet that's expanding rapidly, they call up larry fink's blackrock. those guys are actually good at that stuff. -- he's one of the best. he's seen it all. he's lost money early in his career, and then he made a business, liz, out of managing risk. and he's done a very good job at

blackrock. two things i think we should look at with what he was talking about. i think we have the stocks for. let's hear what he has to say about electric vehicles and batteries, because this, to me, is a big thing going forward. >> elon musk is a in addition varian. -- visionary. he transformed the auto industry, and now we have all the incumbents moving. >> how do we get out of the chinese trap with this, with the cobalt and all the minerals? >> well, a swiss company owns 45% of the cobalt -- [laughter] finish we've got to make sure that glenn corp., you know, by the way, that's a great company to be investing in right now because they're the largest miner in the congo. >> if you notice, he basically said we're going trade one master for another. if we go fully electric, say we went tomorrow like kamala harris and pete buttigieg want, we're

going to have to be buying electric vehicles that have batteries that need minerals from china. let's go to the other side with the, when he talks about about inflation, because this is what we're talking about today, cpi up 7.9 r9. >> over the last the ten years, when we were all young kids the number one chickpolicy in america was consumerism. post-world war ii everything was designed that americans can get more and more things. at the cheapest prices, we had more than anybody in the world with. i would say in the last ten years it evolved away from consumers into jobs. the focus on jobs was more important than consumerism. but that's inflationary definitionally. with that change comes different actions, and it was very certain to us that we were going to see more elevated inflation for that >> more elevated inflation. 7.9%. i know it's -- liz: he said it's going to be worse than we thought. >> 7.9%cpi print largely before

russian invasion, before $150 barrel of oil, before 8 likely or possibly if, highly likely $8 gasoline, this is really, really bad. and, by the way, it's hard to get out of it because we, you know, there's so much rate increases you can do when you have global unrest. scary stuff. liz: we shall see. thank you very much, charlie gasparino. we are coming right back. look at the dow now, we have nearly raced all losses, now down just 52 points. ♪ ♪ . .

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♪. liz: three minutes to go before the closing bell rings. take a look. really if we look at intraday you can see how far the markets climbed back. at its low the dow was down 466 points. now it is down about 94. we just hit a new high, if you want to call it for a session,

that is a loss of 49. let's bring in alpha core management ceo dick fister. dick, we're looking at bitcoin. i know you're not that into bitcoin. if you look at the cryptocurrency it lost all the gains it got yesterday. we're 39,000 after being up 42. bitcoin was suppose towed be an inflation hedge. gold is looking like that. how are you hedging your customers portfolios in this very difficult environment? >> that is a good question. the first thing investors come to us is protect their capital. the next thing is grow their capital. in inflation environment like this there are very few strategies that deliver. bitcoin was supposed to be that, right? our job is find strategies that will deliver. one of the things we like is trend following, managed futures

strategies. they get you exposure to the commodities markets long and short side. obviously they're long mostly commodities precious metals and short the equity markets. that is a good place to be as well. that deliver as return over and above inflation for our clients. liz: we're looking right now the federal reserve is expected to raise rates next wednesday by a quarter of a point. blackrock's larry fink was here yesterday. he says he does not foresee six or seven or eight rate hikes as some others thought. what do you think as we have this screaming inflation? >> unfortunately we're inn complete agreement with larry. i listened to that interview. what we're looking at now, if you are traditional long-term investor hoe has a 60/40 stock bond blend, that 40% you would have in traditional bonds after inflation will give you negative five or 6% in real terms. so you have to look for something else.

we call that a third leg of the stool. those are alternative strategies. that can move and morph in different forms whether you're in a bear or bull market. [closing bell rings] liz: dick, of alpha core, great to have you. thanks so much. it is still a day of losses but sure coming off the got there. that is going to do it for "the claman countdown." a lot of news. thanks for sticking with us. "kudlow" is next. ♪. larry: hello, everyone, welcome to "kudlow." i'm larry kudlow. all right inflation popped up to nearly eight percent for the 12 months ending in february. joe biden said it is all vladmir putin's fault an there is nothing he, biden can do about it. wrong and wrong. inflation and energy prices have been rising more than a year. in fact the last monthly price report in december 2020 was 2%, hitting the fed's target during the trump administration. now at this point i