they're going to have less natural gas, paying skyrocketing electricity bills but people will have to scramble for firewood. that's right. google searches for firewood in germany surged off the hook. that could be our future. we cannot let this be our future. the market's hanging in there even building a little momentum handing over to cheryl in for liz claman. cheryl: yeah, thank you, charles. the nasdaq nailing fourth consecutive week of gains on friday and longer winning streak since the week ending on november 5, 2021. right now the dow is sitting just below session highs up 172, s and p up 18 and nasdaq up 79. now all eyes on retail earnings this week where investors are

going to be looking at the health of the u.s. consumer after economic data last week showed inflationary pressures could be easing. we'll be getting two members tomorrow morning, wal-mart and home depot will kick us off tomorrow morning and we're getting breaking news on wal-mart i'll get to in a second. we'll hear from lowe's, target, tjx, bath and body works on wednesday and you've got kohls, bj walker and foot locker on friday morning. we're getting breaking news on wal-mart. wal-mart has just reached, according to the wall street journal, wal-mart reached a streaming deal with paramount+. the stock is slightly higher. paramount+ will come in and be part of the perks that wal-mart will offer subscribers. especially wal-mart+. we'll get into this with our

floor show and we'll talk to our traders -- actually, let's do it righted now. bring in scott reddler and kenny. i asked you both about this wal-mart deal this morning. kennelny, wal-mart is getting into streaming. does this make the company look more attractive to you? kenny: i think it does. it brings them into the amazon prime space and it elevates it and i thought when i heard the story, they were getting into their own streaming service, which i thought was a disaster, but makes more sense talking about partnering up with an existing service and tieing wal-mart into it. i find it interesting and would like to hear more about it. cheryl: scott, we're gearing up our viewers for tomorrow morning when we're going to get wal-mart's earnings, but there's been news of layoffs there. a lot of folks are looking to see what their price issues will be, are the margins being cut at wal-mart? are they passing on the price hikes to their customers? a miss for wal-mart could be a

big miss for the company and the street. scott: i agree. you've seen them lower their earnings projections tweet and it had a negative affect on the market and they've got to set the barlow enough to come in and sound decent and maybe be better than fear and i took a little shot here, and i bought a call spread for wal-mart thinking that maybe they'd deliver and it's a little better than feared and if traders want to take a bit of risk on, you know, you can buy like a 135x138 call spread for friday and if wal-mart gets above 138, you could have defined risk and make almost 100% on that option strategy. if they don't deliver, then your risk is premium paid. cheryl: yeah, well also too that same scenario could play into a lesser extent into target as well. we'll get them as well this week. kenny, i want to go back over to what scott's kind of mentioning here and the risk on trading. it's the summer, understand

that. we're develop that have more volatility and sometimes soaks folks are -- folks are on vacation but the last four weeks of indexes, is this a temporary bear market rally or is this a sign that the street is finally kind of adjusted to the environment that we're in and trying to find new ways to make money and the market will tick higher? kenny: i'm in the bear market rally camp. i think the market is in an overbought position now under the assumption that the fed will pull back and fed fueled and it'll start changing moving into right after jackson hole and into september when we start seeing a whole new round of revisions and estimates for the october reporting period. that's when the market will hit choppiness and, look, cheryl, we know september and october can be volatile times for the market. while i think the low is in like in the 3600 range, i'm not going to be surprised. if we test towards there again so as much as i love this rally

and i'm participating in t i don't think this is the beginning, this is the beginning of a prolonged bull market. cheryl: yeah, maybe choppy waters ahead. scott, what do you say? scott: i'm in the camp that i don't think the s&p will make new highs on the year, but i would be very careful. there's been a lot of people fighting this move for the past week and a half and they're in what you call a pain trade, where they're shorting things where you think this is a bear market bounce and sometimes that can take things further. tough be very careful trying to be cute here to fade the market and short it thinking that we're getting close to the end here because, you know, of the calendar and just, you know, where we are in the overall tape. it's a precarious spot and traders and individuals and kenny and i spoke about putting risk on three weeks ago. that was your time when the s&p crossed 3950. up here near 4300, if you were jumping out of your skin in may and june and looking at statements and pnl that you were

in pain, this is probably a time to lighten up. all though i'd also not think we'd retest the lows, but you can see them move back to 4,000, 4,050 without having to test the lows and there's a better entry for intermediate investors in the next few months versus having to chase it right here. cheryl: i do want to say as we were speaking here, scott, as you were speaking, the nasdaq hitting a new fresh high up 383 points and the markets seem to have at this point kind of moved past that news we got from china this morning but still, that's an issue. if you look at commodities like oil, look at copper. china is the world's bigger consumer of copper, then they consume 15% of the global oil supply so anything that comes out of china's economy data whether you believe the government numbers or not, kenny, it does affect the markets and how we trade here. kenny: it does, but i take everything that comes out of china with a grain of salt. i half believe what they say.

that being said, i also think it's august, that the markets are, you know, can become exaggerated in either direction so while i think the move down in oil is great, don't get me wrong. i love cheaper oil and gas, that's great, it's temporary. once september comes and we get back from summer vacations and all that stuff, there's a much different story and i don't think china is going anywhere. demand will be steady and strong so i'm not -- i think oil is going higher. cheryl: i think the markets agree with you on that one, but it's nice to see cheaper pump prices. got to agree. kenny: absolutely. absolutely. cheryl: $100 to fill a tank, ouch. it's great to have you both here. thanks. well, president biden is getting ready to sign the inflation reduction act into law at some point this week as he vacations on south carolina's kiawah island and the white house is planning a grand celebration for the bill sometime after labor day. a new report by lawmakers found it might be too soon for a

victory lap as consumers are consumers stillbattling with reh inflation. hillary. hillary: hi, cheryl, many american families are still paying very high prices. a new study from the joint economic committee said inflation cost the average household over $700 in the past month. democrats are backing the president up when he said inflation was 0% in july. congresswoman paul telling me cut inflation is not as important as bringing cost down for people in other ways, which she says the inflation reduction act that congress passed will do. >> inflation is like a theoretical word that economists use but what families feel every day is the up or down of costs. when we have zero percent increase in inflation in july, preiszs have continued to --

prices have continued to come down. hillary: some prices have not ncome down, meat, eggs, milk, fish, vegetables are still up. americans filling up their grocery carts do not feel like inflation does not exist. >> we're currently at inflation of 13.7% since joe biden's taken the oath of office. you cannot spend your way out of inflation, and you definitely can't tax yourself out of a recession, but this is the democrat's recipe. hillary: the president is celebrating congress passing the inpolicinflation reduction act d sending cabinet members to 23 states to flaunt the benefit of this bill and, cheryl, americans are paying a lot more for a lot of things may not be convinced or won over by a cabinet official telling them that prices are not so bad. cheryl: no, whether it's eggs or beef, dairy, we'll get into that in the next part of the show, hillary. thanks for teeing that up for

me. i appreciate it. hillary vaughn live on capitol hill. well, the dairy aisle is not spared as inflation is gripping the nation and we'll talk to the ceo of high way foods. that's a fox business exclusive. the closing bell is going to ring 51 minutes from now. the "claman countdown" is coming right back.

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and i have a new lease on life. golo is the only thing that will let you lose weight and keep it off. who loses 138 pounds in nine months? i did! golo's a lifestyle change and you make the change and it stays off. (soft music) cheryl: while inflation came in lower than expected in july, cpi and ppi reports food prices are

continuing to rise. beef prices are rising further thanks to one of the worst droughts american cattle ranchers have ever experienced. it's not just beef, it's gotten more expensive for manufactures who use dairy who used them in their product. raw milk is 50% more expensive than just one year ago. that impacts companies like lifeway foods. they sell a large range of probiotic products with a big focus on keffer, it's a fermenting milk drink that's supposed to be great for you. i'm going to talk to ceo julie in a few minutes. we're going to get to keffer in a minute. let's start with prices for you. obviously we know what we're seeing as far as beef prices, cattle prices, but on the dairy side, has that had a direct correlation to what you're

paying for your raw materials to produce the product? >> sure. of course. it's a trickle down effect across the supply chain globally not just with milk but eggs have gone up 170% so i feel pretty lucky, but the great thing about lifeway is that we have 97% of the category, and we have a great, great price elasticity. i really think that maybe what we're seeing is the soaring demand for pryor probiotics for lifeway kefir. we've seen nine consecutive quarters of growth and expect that growth to continue, especially in moments of recession or possible recession. we see consumers trading from expensive restaurants to more affordable groceries, grocery bills at the grocery store. we really feel like while it's a challenge for many people, it's a opportunity for us to get

better, to be more efficient, and to reach our consumers in more effective ways, more affordable ways. we're really leaning into digital and online grocery shopping, but this demand for more affordable groceries is actually helping us because your local smoothie joint where you used to stop in every day for your favorite smoothie, that boogie smoothie is now pote potentially over $15 and can make it at home for $3 by buying kefir and fresh fruit. there's ways to be healthier and be better and have more affordable food but, you know, i also am very, very hopeful in the recent decline in gas prices, that'll be helping us as well. this is the fastest decline in gas prices in over a decade. i applaud the powers that be to

help bring the gas prices down, that will make it more affordable for all of us at here cheryl: did you have to raise prices at all over the last six months because this inflation story is not new. we've been seeing these numbers go up month to month for cpi and ppi, which is that report having more effect on your line of business. have you had to raise prices? that's my first question and the other is you're a global brand and a large chunk of the market. how is that with the supply chain, how has that affected business for you? >> well, the supply chain was challenged in the united states and extremely challenged internationally. the great thing is international businesses have been looking to american businesses to help them. we've seen a huge demand in our business internationally, you know. in the uk for example, kefir demand was up 300% and that goes

back to all the great research that we're getting about probiotics, impacts of gut health, and how kefir can help improve immune system, mental health. these are all things that cob supers are really, really looking for, seeking out, researching. they're learning about it. the level of awareness on kefir and probiotics and impact on gut health is at an all-time high and this is really -l remarkedable given that kefir is a 2,000-year-old product and originated in the caucus mountains in the former soviet union and the awareness about it is starting to be known globally. whether we're doing business in mexico or europe or parts of asia, we're really seeing our international partners reaching out to us as a partner to help them fill some of the gaps they're seeing.

it's been really positive for us. cheryl: took into consideration i just want to -- we just got a notice that looks like president biden will sign the inflation reduction act on august 16. so let me ask you this, if you -- the way you run your business, you've got those clean energy credit in the inflation re-auction act. is that going to have an affect on you? are you getting a credit from that because one of the things were company is big on is minimal environmental impact, which is something that's been bantered about in the dairy industry for years but that's something you've pushed for and you're working with snyder electrics renewable choice energy, that's a component. is the inflation reduction act going to help you? >> i don't know exactly how it's going to help. i haven't had a chance to dig into the acts and impact on lifeway, but we have been a leader in reducing our energy usage and being more efficient and like you mentioned, using renewable energy. we really feel like these are

investments that our consumers are demanding from us, not just from us but from all business leaders. you know, some of the hiss toric draughts -- historic droughts and epic weather patterns and the impact on climate and we're seeing with our consumer base is really, really adamant on manufacturers like lifeway using green, clean energy or at least replacing the energy with green energy on the power grid. it is -- we see it as another opportunity to be more efficient in our manufacturing system. cheryl: all right, julie, it's certainly an interesting story and again, my own doctor is like, you know, you got to consume more of this. it's good for you. so anything that's good for me, i love. >> yeah, thank you. it is a great bang for the buck, you get calcium, protein,

probiotics, vitamins. it's one thing in the grocery store that's totally affordable for every family. cheryl: julie, congrats on the expansion of the business, i'm sure there's going to be more ahead for you and your shareholders as well. julie, thank you very much for being here. well, president biden is still selling americas petroleum reserves but could there be unintended consequences? jeff locke is looking at economic and international security concerns in moments. closing bell is going to ring, we have 38 minutes to go and right now off session highs but not but much. dow up 163, s&p up 20 and nasdaq up 97. we'll be right back.

cheryl: fox business alert for you right now, the nasdaq and s s&p 500 jumping and we're off session highs for the dow and the nasdaq is up by 92. unity software's board today june anne donovan chicago agree -- unanimously agreeing the $17.5 billion buyout isn't in the best interest of share hold ores. they've asked them instead to vote in favor of unity's planned deal to buy iron source for $4.4 billion. a emergencier agreed upon last month. iron source runs a platform for

publishing and scaling mobile games and apps. unity is down 6%. iron source jumping 12%. shares of secondhand retail fashion retailer poshmark is up 40% potential upside for the stock, especially if consumers trade down in a recession. taking a look at poshmark and stock up 18% and shares of automotive sales platform vroom down more than 9%. jp morgan said it's time to sell the company, which shed more than 80% this year. the firm took a bearish stand on the stock. vroom down about 9%. shares of social media company snap is higher by 6.25% right

now. company says it's reached a 1 million subscriber mark for subscription service snap chat+. people pay for that. it's $3.99 a month in the united states and the premium service giving subscribers access to exclusive and premium released features and the stock has fallen a little bit year to date but in a bounce right now. oil price haves been falling the last few weeks and brought down the national average for gas. it fell below the $4 mark last week but as prices fall, analysts warn it could spike again like it is in other places. this month saudi arabia raised oil prices for buyers in asia to record levels. jeff locke has insight and how it could be a move for saudi arabia to capitalize on america draining it is inventories to help keep gas cheap. jeff. jeff: indeed. a lot of people are concerned about the drawdown in the

strategic petroleum reserve and that's helped bring oil prices down a bit as president biden said it would. however, there are concerns that perhaps we're drawing down too much and taking away strategic advantage. take a look at numbers on spr. the spr is four assault taverns along the gulf coast that stores oil in reserve for the u.s. government. 727 million barrels is the capacity. we were that -- right at that point in 2009 when president biden came in office in 2021, we were at 638 million barrels. that's about 88% of capacity. since he has come into office with the drawdowns and sales, 464 million barrels now. that's 64% of capacity. and more sales coming. a million barrels a day to be sold through october. i guess the good news you could say, cheryl, is that the price the government paid for that oil way back was on average about $30 a barrel. we're selling at a profit but

the concern is this is not a trader's account to make money. this is just strategic reserve and phil flynn the oil guy says the plan for saudi arabia may have been to encourage the u.s. to drain the inventories so they'll have greater control that is the saudis will, over global oil prices when times are tight. saudi arabia in q3 will pump less oil than before and down about 1.24 million barrels a day compared to the previous forecast and less than they pumped in july. i leave you with these numbers, cheryl, kind of interesting, we looked at each individual administration, presidential administration over the past recency, president bush was the only one to increase the spr by 162 million barrels. president obama in eight years drew down 18 million barrels,

president trump in four years drew down 57 million barrels, that sounded like a lot till we get to president biden. in less than two years he's taken 173 million barrels out of spr. good news in the short term for oil prices. maybe bad news if we get into an even tougher crunch down the road because we'll have less ammunition to deal with it. cheryl: and the news will be tbd come the november midterms as well. the timing is certainly interesting. jeff luck, there locke -- jeff locke, thank you, jeff. the ceo of consumer data clover is here to tell us how sky-high inflation is impacting the annual ritual of back to school shopping and do not miss american dream home. each week it's part of the fbm prime real estate block and i

showcase the couple searching for the perfect dream home to settle down in. it's at 9:00 p.m. eastern time on fox business. closing bell in 28 minutes. we'll be right back.

cheryl: well, summer is over for kids in los angeles and dallas as they head back to school for their first day today. as panters across the u.s. shop for school splice, they are going to find it is going to come at a cost. a report by consumer data platform clover found prices for platform staples skyrocketed. sharpies, elmer's glue, scotch tape shot up 50% year over year and the sticker shock hitting the school supply aisle, clover found 61% of consumers are worried how they'll afford it for their kids.

here in a fox business ex-clueser is the clover founder and ceo brian. it's really interesting the data you've compiled on how costs have jumped and certain things in demand have gone down. talk about that. parents are getting sticker shock if they can find what they need right now. >> yeah, thanks for having me, cheryl. it's very interesting. our data shows us that there is just no refuge for the american consumer as inflation routes every aspect of the american economy and every s sector of wt the consumer is buying. dairy products up 50% and that impacts the school launches every morning monday through friday and even office supplies, officing in general down year over year and how it impacts school supplies and manufacturers of the office supplies.

we look amongst 3 million users sharing data with us and office supplies like scotch tape is up 70% year over year. cheryl: yeah, also too, you know, i was very fascinated by the 61% of users say inflation caused them to worry but then why are they still buying brand names and nowitzki not generics because that's something else your data found. why not go for generic and get things on sale like going to the dollar store. they're not doing that, why? >> they're not but they're waiting for things coming on sale. 50% are waiting till later, after back to school season in particular to actually pick up those items that would be particularly at retail prices righted now might be on sale two weeks even a month from now. we're seeing actually consumers, especially ones living on a budget, that's about 80% of americans, wait and at pause, think about are these the items i need today? can i stick it out till the

items end up being on sale, or shift my spending habits from the big box retailers to more of a discount retailer? cheryl: again, we'll be hearing from a lot of retailers this week. i wanted to ask you about that. we'll hear from wal-mart, target, they'll tell us their -- what they're seeing with the consumer. what do you expect to hear from the big names? it's a market mover and affects all of our lives how these retailers perform. >> our data is showing us in realtime that the consumers are strapped for cash. they're at their breaking point, especially those living on a budget. that affects the consumers of wal-mart and targets et cetera. those consumers are spending less dollars, they're going less frequently to wal-mart and target on a monthly basis. and on each checkout they're having at the retailers, they're spending on less dollars. they're putting less items in their shopping cart, and that is going to directly impact the

earnings reports that you'll see from wal-mart. cheryl: that is interesting prediction. we'll hear from wal-mart tomorrow morning. i was looking at transaction, the commerce activity, you did a year over year comparison to kind of show us what you're seeing, and the pressure is kind of astounding i found. clothing and accessories transactions down 35.9%. office supplies down 29.7%. children's stores are seeing transactions lower by 37.6%. that's incredible to me. we were under the impression from some of the other government reports that we see that from economists that consumers are tapping into their savings. they're still spending but using credit cards. they're spending but going into savings. this data doesn't reflect that what you're saying. >> well, it looks at a different type of consumer. the data we're looking at are consumers generally living on budgets, have a preset spending they need to spend on a monthly basis. more importantly, the credit

limits that consumers are tapping into are about to be maxed out. we're seeing that credit utilization rates around 85/90%. we're at a place that if inflation continues in the upward trajectory like it is right now, there will be no salvage for the consumer besides waiting it out or not spending at all. cheryl: we'll get july retail sales out. think we'll see more pressure? >> we're going to see more pressure. i don't think we're going to see the recession indicators that we thought we would see, you know, earlier this summer. i think that'll be impacting later maybe in the fall or towards christmas. but something will tell us really where discretionary spending will be as we interest we enter thehalloween season thg is discretionary. cheryl: some interesting insights from you. brian, thank you very much. >> thanks for having me, cheryl.

cheryl: all right, well we've got more to come. activist investor dan lobe riding his steed to the magic kingdom. what his third point stakes in disney means for the mouse house. charlie breaks it coming up next. closing bell is going to ring in 16 minutes.

cheryl: all right. well, we've got some breaking news in the streaming sector. warner bro's dis-covid ray chief david zaslav making good to cut costs at the media giant. management is laying off 70 staffers. the majority of which work in the hbo max department. take ago look at shares of warner bro's discovery. right now the stock is down about 3.33%. chachartly, you ratterred this t week. charlie: yeah, he said we're going to combine these streaming services with discovery -- hbo max. max. cheryl: yeah, it gets confusing. charlie: we're going to talk about disney later.

he was going to combine and we report that had a i did before and report that had it would lead to rounds of layoffs and from what we understand, this is the first round. again, from my sources close to the company, there'll be more layoffs, more downsizing, there's going to be an incredible focus on cost here. i mean, one thing that zaslav believed there was too many silos in the old warner media company, the old time warner media. lots of overspending in certain streaming services over there. hbo+, a lot of overspending. cheryl: slow down in advertising for tv. charlie: he's got his eyes on cost and again, we'll hear a lot about layoffs. unless you're one of the 70, i don't want to make climate it's a cut and if you're one of the 70, that hurts. it's not a good thing to lay people off. i don't like doing stories like this, but this is part of the equation. he's got to get $3 billion of cost and he's going to start

cutting. it's not just batgirl, it'll be other things as you know they ditched that film. the best way to put it is we're in a kind of contractionnary environment in media right now. dan lobe, of thirdpoint took a billion dollar stake in -- cheryl: disney. didn't he sell out of disney and then -- isn't he buying back in? didn't he have a big position in disney and sold it and he's going back in? charlie: yeah, i don't know everything about dan's position but this is typical -- cheryl: it's the one thing i know. know. charlie: that's great. he's an activist shareholder and he wants to integrate hulu back in and possibly, at least explore, selling espn. now why is that? it just doesn't fit with the programming. he's thinking or at least

explore it. listen, dan's a smart guy. he may be in this for the long term. i will say this and, you know, he didn't use this as a rational for going after disney; right. he did not. i want to make it clear. he's not stating that he's doing this because of wokeness, but if we put up on the screen, because i've had several investors and i ask what is behind dan's broader thing? what do you think? they're like we don't really know. but look at the proxy statement for disney. if you look at the proxy statement, this is a company that seems to be obsessed with environmental social governance goals, diversity of programming, whether it -- having diverse authors, which is good, but it may not sell to, you know, to go overwoke. cheryl: going overwoke doesn't work. charlie: doesn't sell and nothing wrong with diversity but does going woke sell? that's what investors are

looking at. dan didn't say that, but this is purely a play for integrating hulu and doing the espn deal. but, but the subtext for a lot of investors on this is that this company has gone so woke, it's starting to turn people off and may be bad for the stock. something's got to change there. cheryl: they ruined sex and the city. i haven't gotten over that. charlie: was there no sex? cheryl: it was horrible. like the woke mob rewrote sex in the city. charlie: what was woke about it? no sex? cheryl: just the characters and writing and all the story line. the whole thing was a mess. charlie: i'm not going to watch that. cheryl: don't, it was horrible. charlie: not my cup of tea but espn is very woke. cheryl: is it? charlie: oh, yeah. they get into all the issues and people are tired of it. sometimes people just want --

listen, rear in the media and people get trolled on twitter and this is a country screaming and yelling at each other like monkeys throwing pop and -- pood sometimes you just want to watch a football game. cheryl: or a christmas movie and not have social issues rammed down your treat. talking to you, wal-mart channel. charlie: there was another media deal that proves the point that media was downsizing. what was the other one? cheryl: the wal-mart news? yeah, paramount+ is now cutting a deal -- if you have wal-mart+, you'll have access to paramount+. paramount+ is yellowstone and 1883. good old fashioned next star. now that is a next star, that is perfect example of what's going on right now. it's a downsizing move. media is downsizing tremendously right now. here we go, the stock was off

today. here's the interesting thing. we're in the media business. the media business feels like a recession markets are up. people say jerome powell will not start, stop raising and maybe start cutting, you do that when you're in a recession. that is not generally good for markets. by the way melanie screaming at me about amc. what do you want me to say about amc? don't go with amc. cheryl: actually over the weekend i was reading your twitter, you and liz were talking about amc over the weekend about twitter. >> amc is down again today. i did a story about his dilution plans, adam aron's dilution plans he calls good dilution. i made a point there is no such thing as good dilution. there is dilution. it may save the company from bankruptcy wrong long term. doesn't mean the company may

stay at 25% share. don't look up good dilution. one other thing i like adam aron. he has a tough job. he has some crazy investors. his investor base is very unique let's say. not just institutions. very retail and retail that sometimes thinks some crazy stuff. cheryl: movies have had kind of resurgence this summer. >> i haven't gone to one. cheryl: "top gun," "jurassic world." now i'm getting yelled at. she quit yelling at you. >> did you see the "sex & the city" movie? cheryl: this is a limited series. this is my generation. way to ruin an entire, kill the -- >> whole crush on kim cattrall. cheryl: she said she wasn't coming back. charlie, you will be here tomorrow. charlie gasparino. closing bell three minutes. dow up 145, nasdaq up 74.

we had a nice rally last couple weeks. are we closer to recession. or going to be boom times. that is the question right now. today's "countdown" closer has high quality picks to make your portfolio rise in any scenario. joining us washington crossing advisors senior portfolio manager kevin cron who manages eight billion dollars. kevin, that is the question right now. charlie was mentioning. you have jay powell, talking 50 basis points, maybe 75 basis points in september and the market has to kind of reckon that with, we'll get the fed minutes this week by the way, with obviously recession. where do you stand where we're headed right now? >> yeah. it is coming at you from all these different directions. if you look at corporate profits they're booming. look at real estate market it is booming. unemployment, essentially 50 year lows. we must be in some kind of a tremendous boom economy but then again on the other side of this we're seeing that the yield

curve has inverted which is typically a bad sign for the economy in the months ahead. what we look at confidence surveys, they're horrible. just any confidence survey you look at it is absolutely terrible. so against this backdrop, investors have to figure out what to do. what we've seen at washington crossing, starting in june, very high quality companies which had underperformed during the covid pandemic spending boom, all of a sudden those growth companies took off which suggests to us investors are looking for, quality companies, took off which means that investors are looking for safety and they're nervous. so the way we're playing it by owning just highest quality companies we can find with low debt, consistent profits and just look for that, try to pay a reasonable price. we think we're in a good spot for that. cheryl: you got some picks. comments incorporated, emerson electric and church & dwight.

church & dwight is interesting because the stock is down 14% year-to-date but this is a pick. why? >> they're all down about 15 or 20%. the valuations there all look good. they would all be what we consider to be a-quality companies. they are a-quality companies or f-quality companies. the fs were winning for 2021 but now the a-quality companies are starting to win. they're still cheap in our view. we think they're trading at a discount where they will be in the future. when you look at church & dwight just a long track record of real consistent turning out profits. they have supply chain issues like everybody he will. we think they will turn it around. cummins a great company essentially known for the diesel engines. they have a skunk works project, working out electric potential for the future should that come to pass. ultimately that is a great industrial company. it will be around for a long time, powering transportation in

this country which we need desperately. cheryl: sure. >> emerson, good industrial company, long history of increasing dividends, fantastic balance sheet. we think we do well with all of these in a fan taste tick environment. closing bell rings] cheryl: thank you, kevin caron. market closing up four-days in a row that will do it for "the claman countdown." "kudlow" is up now. ♪ ♪