>> announcer: this is "nightly business report" with bill >>data downer. soft economic numbers send stocks lower. is this just the tip of the iceberg, though? green shoots. home sales have been tepid but could mortgage rates at their lowest levels in the year provide a needed liftor the spring selling season? and shoe snag. it was tit s that blew up twitter. so how does nike rebound from its primetime blow all that and more tonight on "nightly business report" for we do bid you a good evening, everybody, and welcome. sue has the night off. it's been a concern hanging over the markets for a while now. a global economic slowdown. and today several data points

added to investors' jitters. reports from europe and japan show that manufacturing activ contracted there this month. here in the u.s., mid-atlantic factory activity contracted, and business spending on durable goods was things were tempered a bit on word that trade negotiators were working on a framework to ease u.s./china trade tensions, but overall stocks did end lower today. the industrials were down almost 200 points for a time. finished down 103. the nasdaq snapped its eight-da win strlling by 29, and the s&p gave back just about 10 points. steve liesman gets us started tonight. another day, another round of soft economic durable goods orders came in delayed from december by the government shutdown but below expectations, 1.2%.pr elled mostly by aircraft orders. the business spending category fell for the fourth in the past five months.

a key fed barometer, the philly t negative for the or first time since 2016. but the st. louis fedin preside n exclusive cnbc interview said the data is in line with expected economic slowing, not worse than anticipated. we're expecting growth to slow down in 2019 relative t 2018. we're going to get 3% plus growth for 2018. h19 probably isn't going 2 .25. >> he was an early add vvoca of the fed ceasing its rate hikes. >> i'mha hopefulthis will set up the economy for a good -- a good continu expansion. this expansion is going to be the longest in the post-war era as of june >> he sees a higher chance of recession but it's not his base he thinks the u.s. can avoid a recession despite global economic weakness.

in the meantime as that slowdown kes hold, there could be more days of bad data to come. a key to all of this could be federal reserve policy. the minutes of the fed meeting told investors wednesday that not only is the fed on policy with re hikes it's likely toned its controversial balance sheet reducon this year. for "nightly business report," i'm steve liesman. >> so what does today's weak data say abo the economy? joining us is the chief economist at always good to see you, thanks for joining us. >> thank you for having me. >> are you expecting a continued slowdown in the economy? >> we e. and i think the latest round of soft data reallyhe reinforces notion of that expectation of softer trend of growt in the domestic economy. now, early on the weakness was just sort of bubbling underneath the surface, but now we're starting to see a clear trend emerge, as we saw not only inme sales but in corporate investment, the consumer is starting to lose a littl momentum, so it's widespread and

it's becoming more and more evmyent that the u.s. eco is on track for a slower pace of growth current year and the risk of reces now rapidly rising as we look out to 2020 and w,beyond. >> s this just the result of the business cycle? inevitably we see a slowdown, or are we to blame this on the a slowdown we'eady seeing overseas? >> i think from a timing standphent you could make argument that we were, quote, due for a slowdown but i think ofs more a reflection fundamental weakness that we see on the part of the consumer, on the part of businesses and of course that global weakness now filtering into the u.s. economy. of course we are focused on what's happeni at home, but we're a global economy and we certainly can't ignore that weakness that we'eeing abroad at this point. >> now, if we get at some point rade agreement and tariffs don't go up any higher, maybe even come back dn,n ag what would that do to the economy, do you think? >> well, i think it will provide a short-term boost of optimism. right now there's a lot of

uncertainty in the marketplace regarding will we, won't we see a u.s./china trade deal knocked out from this latest round of talks. and that could help toay push out the risk of recession. but i don't think it's enough tf stave the recession that we do see coming around the corner entually. >> after the minutes of the latest fed meeting came out yesterday, there were aually me on wall street who were saying that maybe we would see another rate increase, may even two more before the end of this year. what do you think? you don't sound like you would agreeith that. >> well, i don't think the fed should raise rates. but what they will do is another question. and what wees saw in the min is that the debate is very much ongoing between the doves andth hawks. now, the market saw the fed statement in january as the fed essentially throwing in the towel for any additional rate increase what we see from the minutes is there's still a faction at the fed that is arguing in need of further rate increases because right now the committee continues to point to weakness

overseas as opposed to domestic weakness. we're still at 2ishnt per growth, 2ish percent of inflation, the very conditions that warranted several increases over the past couple of years. >> all righ lindsay, thanks for joining us. and aloha. >> thank you. >> see you later. another piece of soft data came from the housing sector today. sales of existing homes fell to their lowest leveleen t years last month. down 1.2%. a seasonally adjusted rate of just below 5 million units when wall street w lookingor 5 million units. that sales decline occurred just as mortgage rates were hitting their lowest level in over a year. so what does it mean for the ng upco spring selling season? joining us right now from california is fred glick, ceo of the real estate and mortgage brokerage company ariva.com. thanks for joining us. >> same here, bill. nice to see you too. >> first of all, t sales

declined. do we blame the weather for that or what do you see there? >> sure. blame weather, christmas, new year's, general malaise. you know, it was just - it was just like the seven-year itch that the real estate world had, it had been goingndp up and up. it just got ugly during the hard winter. w we're seeing a little bit coming out of it. the weather is getting a little better in certain places. still ugly in some. but we're starting to see the rates are comin down. we're starting to see people starting to get back in the market a little bit. >> and you do see -- you're expecting a pickup in the sprine but youot expecting a great spring selling season, just kind of a normal one, yes? >> yeah. we're bac to wha i call normal. it's kind of b a balanween buyers and sellers. prices are going to be w reasonable,ld think. there's always a couple of markets that are going to be a

ttle better than others and some are going to be worse, but it all comes down to economics and how people feel and a need to move and a need to buy. so it's a combinati of a zillion things and it really depends on your individual eerket. >> where do you the best opportunities for a decent spring selling season? which cities do you think? >> well, i'm s currentlying the san francisco bay area getting back to like theyar d the car and now they're in first gear. andasos angeles kind of been the same way too. there are some markets around the country who i think might get a little bit of a surprise, like in the carolinas where the weathereen terrible. but there's always going to be people coming to them. the triangle around raleigh, south carolina, you still people who retire there, so those kind of markets. but it's all about, again, where are the jobs going to be. jobs, g as you've got the that's where you're going to have the markets.

if your company just shut down, i forget where it was, the honda plant that just shu down, that's going to be a problem. so you'v got to feel out each individual market and even within a tarketre's only certain places that are active and certain places that aren't. >> finally home builds in some areas have been reticent to increase their production because they're not sure about mand, but there are some areas where home builders have been building. you think maybe they overbuilt in some areas, right? like detroit or something? >> yeah. like the upper midwest has some issues with overbuild. we also have it even out in sacramento here. and the thing is,ou might get three or four different companies that are building, but they don'th talk to e other. they all get the same economic data and say, hey, we build.r but if they all come on at the same time, then they're all going to be staring at each other and twiddling their thumbs because there's not enough buyers. so cities need to ppare that way in the future. but now, you know, the rental

market is still strong s they're probably going to survive that way being able to renting it out themselves or possibly selling it to investo in bulk. that's the worst case. >> spring can't come soon enough, that's for etre. >> i'll for your golf game that's for sure. >> fred, thanks. fred glick with ariva.com. >> thank you, bill. now to trade where u.s. and s from th china do continue to meet in washington and there have been some conflicting reports about their progress. kayla tausche has more from our nation's capital. >> reporter: for the fourth time two months cabinet level officials from the u.s. and china met formally t keep working to endi the year-longtr e spat. the u.s. was led by robert lighthizer and sven mnuchin. the chinese led by the special envoy. they are trying to correct

rights and agriculture.property solving these issues would require china to make permanent changes to its economy it's been unwilling to make before. observers aren'tti stic. >> we'll probably get a lot of chinese promises, but life isim abouementation, compleme d you're unlikely to see that. >> president trump wants manufacturing to move back to e u.s. but apparel makers say there aren't a lth of options. >> we don't have a whole lot of choices when we vacate china, which meanshat prices will go up and you will be seeing that in march, whether there's an agreement or there's no agreement. >> trade attorneys say a decision to delay otherwise automatic tariff hikes must be put in place by tuesday in order to be effective march 1st. this set of negotiations is expected to go io this evening and resume on friday. for "nightly business report," i'm ka

and as those trade talks continue, china deals with the fallout from a slowdown in its own exports. some chinese retailers had been laying off workers and moving operations out of the country even before theariffs began -- became an issue because they were already dealing with rising costs. and now the ongoing trade dispute threatens to make things even worse. eunice yoon takes us to china tonight. >> reporter: this chinese factory used to turn out shoes for shoppers in the u.s. today it's idle. back in december, the factory shut its doors for the last time, laying off more than 1,000 workers. this was one of th. they put up a notice to announce the shutdown and told everyone to pick up their salary and compensation, he says. then we had to leave. he and his fellow ex-workers were told their jobs had moved to cambodia, part of a broader trend of manufacturerschiffing to cheaper countries to battle

rising cos one person's salary here is equal to six workers e there, says. the trade war certainly had something to do with it too. after 20 years of perience, he earned $725 a month. with china's economy slowing and exports to the u.s. under strain, workers told us good jobs like that are harder to find. factories here in the industrial south are offering fewer nefits than last year, and often only part-time contracts. and with china pushing to upgrade its manufacturing sector, chu says he lacks the skills recruiters today are looking for. this is a typical job fair for migrant workers in chin in the past advertisements were for construction work or selling garments now it's i.t., engineering and electronics. there are so many e unknowns, says. i'll have to wait and see if there are better opportunities in other places. and until uncertainty lifts over

the jobsmarket. for "nightly business repor" i' eunice yoon. coming up, how youtube's latest fumble could be an opening for the competi. at&t today became the latest company to pull its ads from he youtube after discovery of inappropriate content on the social media platform. the telecom giant joins nestle and disney, who roved their ads yesterday. julia boorstin takes a look at >> reporter: youtu is the biggest video site in the worldt and the large when it comes to digital video advertising, but

now it's facing criticism and concern. nestle, at&t, epic games, the maker of fortnite and disney are pausing spending on youtube in the wake of revelations that their ads ran alongside pedophiles' comments on videos of chilraen. >> theses need to make a statement to say that they're off toet parents know that they -- they don't subscribe to this bad behavior. >> reporter: phil says that disney may even use tss a pivot point to pull viewers over to its own streaming subscription service set to launch this fall. youtube saying, quote, any ontent including comments that endangers minors is abhorrent and we have clear policies prohibitg this onyoutube. we took immediate action by deleting accounts and channels, reporting illegal activity to authorities and disabling violative co. there's more to be done and we continue to work to improve and catch abuse morequickly. this is not the first time youtube has felt pressure from

advertisers over its challenges blocking inappropriate content. aro years ago major advertisers, including cks, walmart and pepsico paused spending aeier ads ran alongside inappropriate content. this scandal comes on the hee c ofticism that youtube has unleashed a conspiracy theory a boom, we're just starting to see youtube's parent, google, see rtsl threats to dominance of ad market share, while amazon's revenue grew by 50% last year according to e-marketer, google's dropped by one percentage point to 37%. but phil says these challenges are more of a speed bump than a true roadblock for youtube. >> eryone is trying t tackle the giant youtube with their own platforms. so yes, there's more choices for advert but ultimately the advertisers will go where the eye balls are. thebas are still at these big platforms. >> repter: and one reason viacom just bought pluto tv, an ad-supported digital video service. we'll see if youtube can take

steps to keep big brands from ditching its user-generated content. i'm juliaoorstin in los angeles. investors take a slice out of domino's, and that's where wn be tonight's market focus with the pizza chain missing bo earningsnd revenue estimates. its same-store sales in the u.s. al came in shy of expectations. nonetheless, domino's ceo says overall he's happy with the results. >> we're actually quite pleased with the result particularly when you take a look at our business in the u.s. we've continued to have deliver double-digit retail sales growth in the u.s. 31 consecutive quarters of positive same-store sales and 5.6 for the quarter we were very happy with. disappointed in the international co . >>separately, domino's increased its dividend by 18% 65 cents, but it wasn't enough to please investors. shares fell by to $253.01 today. elsewhere,nd apple goldman sachs are partnering on a new credit card tied to the iphone

"the wall street journal" says the card, which will use mastertwrd's k, will be paired with a new iphone feature sdiengdesigned to help manage their money. the official launch is later this year. apple shares fell slightly to $171.06. goldman sachs fell mor than 1% to $196.36 too. zillow'sco-founder is out as the company ceo and is being replaced by another co-founder and former ceo, rich barton. raskoff has been ceo of the online real estate company for nearly a decade and will remain on the board. the company also beat on revenue estimates after the bell. zillow sres are down more than 25% in just the past year, and they were vatile following the news, but closed the regular session up a fraction to $35.04. also after the bell tonights kraft heinzd earnings and revenue estimates. the company said that cost inflation was lower and savings

hurt profits. the company also got a subpoena from the s.e.c. over accounting polici procedures. the company also slashed its dividend. shares initially fell more t 10% following that news after falling a fraction during the regular sessiono $48.18. and coca-cola has raised its quarterly dividend for t 57th consecutive year, hiking it a ts penny to 40 cer share. the dividend is payable on april 1st to those who own t shares on march 15th. coke also is planning to buy back 150 million of its own shares. and those shares rose more thand 1.5% to $45.86. and foot locker is also king its quarterly payout by 10%. it's planning to buy back more than $1 billion of its own stock. the athletic apparel company also announced an increase in capital spending this year. sharesdo wer a fraction to

60.01. >>e took a hit after one of its sneakers failed on primetime televion. zion williamson's nike shoe ripped in less than half ant minute the game wednesday night against north carolina. williamson suffered a kneein ry, which kept him off the court for the rest of the game. nike share were down 1% today to $83.95. joining us right now to talk about what nike will he t to deal with a very high-profile issue,utean field, the ceo of brand advisory firm crutchfield and partners. dean, good to see you again. thanks for joining us tonight. >> thanks, bill. ghce to be on "y business report." >> the most anticipated game of the season, the number one player on the o number team, and this happens. pr-wise get any worse for nike? >> no, you don't get really much worse than this when you become a major brand with a major game and have a major catastrophe like this. what surprised me how badly nike has responded to this

situation. usually compani on top of their game and the crisis hits, they have leadership in place. they respond boldly in terms of the public's concerns and they t are transpar about what they're going to do. when companies are not on top of their game, they typically thde, defend and they deflect. and sadly, i'm really surprised to see tt's what nike is doing right now. >> they did issue a statement. they showed concern f zion williamson. thankfully we are told his knee minor le and it was a sprain, although he is going miss some time. and then they said they are going to investigate what happened. what more would you want to see ceo mark parker do? >> well, i'd like to see, you know, a proper accountability here. i mean the twons big questis, is there a design flaw and what hat say about quality control, two really important factors for nike and its reputation. so to me it is about responding boldly, about hiding nothing an telling all. what i've been reading is they are talking about how wonderful they are as company and how

wonderful their products are and how they look after coumers. i haven't seen anything to allay concerns about what's your action plan going forward. can you imagine if this happened to a s band or car brand? you would recall the product. >> we were talking earlier today about some past pr problems. when you say tylenol scar everybody knows what we're talking about. you say exxon valdez, you know what we' talking about. you say chipotle, and you fortunately remember what happened to them the last few years. do you think nike is destined to have that kind of a reaction in the future? >> i think thaty best question to you, bill, is to ask you what did you e lastwednesday? and i think most people will turn around and say i can't remember. often that's t case with crisis. so no, i think this will go away given the news cycle, people will forget about it, but it's something that will always sticm with tecause this is quite a famous situation and it's getting a lot of play. >> that is for sure. dean crutchfield, always good to see you. thank you for joining us

tonight. and you, thank you. up next, the benchmark report for best and worst in the auto dury. where does your car fall o? finallygh to consumer reports is out with its annual report on the best and wutst in the industry. it's based in part on reviews of thousands of vehicle owners. this is one of the real benchmark reports in the industry. and this year there's a new number one and aotle decline for one automaker. phil lebeau has our story. >> reporter: it's the main question on the mind of every car buyer. will i be happy with this model? consumer reports auto team, which tests scores of new

vehicles and compiles reviews from thousands of owners to rank the best and wst every year says subaru is now the best brand in th industry, jumpi ahead of last year's number one, nesis and porsche. subaru may not have the sexiest models, butua theirty is consistently high. >> with subaru, they really do almost everything really well. make an enjoyable car to drive and really reliable too. >> reporter: reliability complaints isne reason why consumer reports is no longer recommending the tesla model 3. overhe last year, tesla has ushed hard to expand model production, even adding an assembly line under a permanent tent outside its factory in california. elon musk called it production hell. now some model 3 owners say their cars have. proble >> a lot of the issues are electronics. so there's some issues in terms of rlacing the screens, for instance. but we see other issues in terms

of the trim breaking. with the tesla model 3, we've heard some issues with the glass actually. >> reporter: tesla says the vast majority of these iss hse already been corrected through design and manufacturing improvements. and we are already seeing a significant improvement in our field data.ns coer reports says despite quality complaints, model 3 owners are the most satisfied with their car.th at's not surprising. jeep sales are soaring, even though it's once again rated among the worst brands by consumer reports. this year thr lowest rated brands are fiat right behind jaguar and land rover. fiat's management says this report is skewed because it has a limited number models and sample size. last year, fiat's sales in the united states dropped by more than 40%. phil lebeau, report," chicago.s and to see the full list of consumer reports, you can head to our website atnbr.com.

before we go, a final look at the day on wl street. a down day on some noticeably weak economic data. theow fell 103 points today, the nasdaq snapped its eight-day win streak by falling 29, and the s&p gave back just about 10 points today. that is the "nightly business report" for tonight. i'm bill griffeth. thanks so much for watching. have a great esening. hope tyou

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