coronavirus continues to spread and the outbreak could trigger a wave of bankruptcies let's get to courtney reagane story. courtney >> hi, melissa there were a number of retailers that were on the brink well before coronavirus names you've been talking about like a neiman-marcus or jc penney, but there are also others that were healthier, but could be pushing possible to a bankruptcy now most of the sales are still generated in physical stores and the business models just weren't built to sustain closures for this amount of time. you've got expenses and fixed costs that remain even if the cash flow in store is zero or near zero. many are still running including dick's sporting goods and american eagle said online sales took off when stores were closed, but three-quarters of dick's sporting goods total sales are still in stores about 70% for american eagle and it doesn't quite make up for the store's loss and every retailer right now is doing what they can to shore up liquidity, to calculate how much longer they can keep going under these unprecedented conditions and also wondering if shoppers will

courtney reagan.g a closer look at one of the more beaten up names in the retail space. tony, what's on your radar >> i want to take a look at macy's, even though i don't think this stock is going bankrupt some of the liquidity issues that courtney brings up is top of mind here macy's has cut their dividends and they have drawn down $1.5 billion of their credit revolver in order to stay solvent here. and i want to take a look at macy's, because it speaks to the story of this bifurcation that we're currently seeing in the retail space, between companies that have invested in the digital and online strategy like courtney said, like dollar general or best buy, versus stocks like macy's, that rely on same-store sales in order to generate their revenues. if we look at the chart, macy's reflects this. the stock is trading near the 52-week low, despite the retail sector rallyinging off those lows this type of weak relative strength is really concerning for a stock like this. now i will say, for stocks that a

>>it is different. >> courtney reagan with the numbers there. >>> small business loans are on the way and many companies are having different experiences one hotel owner about what it took to get 19 loans and what's next for the whole industry. >>> plus, caught in the middle we'll look at how the jobs market changed dramatically and quickly for cerent college grads and those waiting in the wings stay with us when you've got public clouds, and private clouds, and hybrid clouds- things can get a bit cloudy for you. but now, there's the dell technologies cloud, powered by vmware. a single hub for a consistent operating experience across all your clouds. that should clear things up. >>> welcome back to "the exchange." here's check on markets. half past the hour today a rally across the board unlike yesterday all three averages dow and s&p on pace for highest close since early march. 3.8% higher for the nasdaq today. consumer discretionary, staples and technology leaders financials are biggest drag. apple, home depot, j&j and raytheon are the dow winners the stock of amazon up 23% and cour

back over to you guys. >> courtney, thank you, courtney reagan for more on the challenging times for the retail industry, let's bring in steve sedov, the former chairman and ceo of saks. steve, you just heard courtney lay it out there, there's a lot of concerns swirling about whether these retailers are going to emerge from coronavirus. >> i think that courtney described the situation extremely well you've got a very difficult time for retailers. they're just going through the first phase of this, which is survival what do they need to do in terms of managing liquidity? they furloughed people, they've cut orders, they're not paying rent and they're saying -- and they're looking for loans. and they're trying to survive. now we've got to go to the question of, how are they going to open? because these are high fixed cost businesses that just can't operate without revenue. now, recognize it's not all of retailers. you've got the walmarts and targets that are doing extremely well >> right >> it's the apparel retailers that are down 50% in the month of march, and that was only for half of

courtney reagan has more on the story. >> i have counted at least 55 retailers or parent companies of multiple brands that have issued some furloughs or even layoff announcements, many of those also coming with executive and board compensation cuts, most recently tjx, the parent of tjmaxx, marshall's and home goods and 270,000 employees in the u.s., canada, europe and australia. it say that is the majority of u.s. store and distribution center employees are currently furloughed, taking similar actions in its other regions of the world. and then pvh, the parent company of tommy hilfiger, calvin klein and that company furloughing 75% of the north american work force and by far the largest region. and then you also have names like dick's sporting goods furloughing the majority of the store associates and distribution center employees, too. abercrombie & fitch, versace, among names with furloughs in recent days and interesting to note, too, though that vf corporation, the parent of north face and lululemon, they haven't done furloughs and paying the employees at least for a little while l

courtney reagan, we'll talk to you in a little while. thank you.in the meantime, covid-19 is still impacting the sports world, as you know, with a lot of leagues on hold what would a reopening plan look like joining us this morning is mlb super agent, scott boras it's taualways good to talk to u >> good morning, john, carl, and morgan hope you and your family are all well >> and our thoughts are with your family as well. it does sound like maybe viewers shouldn't be surprised, but it does seem like of all of the sports that are beginning to think about this, football, baseball, golf, you think baseball is going to lead us out. >> i think right now, there is a dilemma in america and that is compliance with the public health issue and the requirements of isolation. and also the demands of certainly people wanting to function, wanting to return to work and there's strong considerations for the social determinatives as to reasons for, you know, getting back to a normal life. and i think what we have to do is create a control. i've talked to a lot of me

the big retailers being left out of government help and struggling to pay their bills right now courtney reagan here with a look at who isn't getting government assistance and why. courtney >> hi, there, kelly. so many big, well-known household retail names that have thousands of employees, hundreds, or even thousands of stores, vendor contracts, rental agreements, they're not eligible for either the fed's credit facilities or the cares act through the treasury because their debt isn't investment grade as of march 22nd you've got macy's, gap ink, "l" brands, footlocker, bed bath beyond, abercrombie & fitch and others that currently have debt that is junk rated, even though those retailers' balance sheets are at least stronger than names like jcpenney, neiman marcus, j. crew, j. jill, gamestop and others who also have junk-rated debt, but on a much lower on the speculative ratings scale. now, the national retail federation is communicating with both president trump and treasury secretary steven mnuchin, asking for liquidity for all. noting that retailers that were solvent before the crisis could

courtney reagan with the numbers. courtney >> hi, sara.hese are results for the fourth quarter, the fiscal fourth quarter, which was the quarter ended february 29th. so you're not capturing any of march with these numbers but the earnings per share did beat analyst expectations, 38 cents versus 20 cents estimated. revenues of $3.11 billion, also slightly outperforming consensus estimates of $3.07 billion comp sales were down 5.6%. the breakdown between stores and digital as you might expect, stores were lower but to the tune of 10% for comps while digital sales were up 16%. again, that equals a comp decrease of 5.6% bed, bath & beyond is refraining from issuing any formal guidance it didn't know that cyber monday week ended up benefiting the fiscal fourth quarter because it was in the third quarter of the year prior which goes to show you how long ago that really feels now with everything that we've gone through the company has given several updates regarding its performance or rather its operations during the covid crisis and it is still

courtney reagan.ok at one of the more beaten um names p namee retail space >> i want to take a look at macy's, even though i don't think this stock is going bankrupt macy's has cut their dividends and i want to take a look at macy's, because it speaks to the story of this bifurcation that we're currently seeing in the retail space, between companies that have invested in the digital and online strategy like courtney said, like dollar general or best buy, versus stocks like macy's, that rely on same-store sales in order to generate their revenues. if we look at the chart, macy's reflects this. this type of weak relative strength is really concerning for a stock like this. now i will say, for stocks that are low priced like this that have severely oversold territories and the fact that they're father they're fairly volatile, trading options are tricky because the strike prices are very far apart from a percentage perspective. i was going out to june, and i was looking at the $3, $4, $5 butterfly puts se

ceo jeff gennette giving an update and immediately hopped on the phone with our courtney reagan courtney joins me now with more of his comments. >> hi, there, kelly. macy's is planning to open 68 stores on may 4th. another 50 by may 11th and then in six to eight weeks, hopes to have the entire flee of the macy's, bloomingdales and blue mercury stores open when i spoke with jeff gennette on the phone win asked him point-blank, will macy's survive this and he said, yes, i firmly believe that we have formats from offprice to luxury, a gamut of price points at a national level. i'm a 36-year veteran of this company, but i retain this optimism for our role in american retail. april online sales for macy's were better than expected. beauty, activewear, and home, including furniture among the strongest category gantt did say that macy's is working on secured finance iing possibly backed by retail. paula price said its quick actions have kept cash burns to not much at all. she didn't quantify the level, but said it was below gordon has ket's $40 million weekly estimate on average. now, gannete d

courtney reagan has more on the story for us courtney >> more than one professional in the retail restructuring and bankruptcy area used the term tsunami to describe what may be coming and not the ones already in trouble, i'm talking about healthier retailers to consider the possibility of bankruptcy. these business models were not built to have stores closed for lengths of time. if you've got zero cash flow coming into store which is where the majority of those sales are coming in, you have still got fixed costs that you have to pay. this is going to be real trouble for a lot of names yes, names like dick's sports goods, american eagle saw an acceleration online when stores closed and warned that could be short lived and it is all leaving them to figure out how much longer to last with stores closed and when they open no one really knows how shoppers react and if they feel comfortable coming back in lawyers, advisers, bankers fielding calls and say it's not ideal to file now. the clock starts to run and the best way to pay creditors quickly is having the liquidation sales at the stores that ar

bankruptcie bankruptcies michael calendar is head of consumer and retail investment banking and courtney reagan is also with us welcome. good to have you with us >> thank you >> bankruptcies are not unfamiliar in the retail space, but this volume of bankruptcies, the level that you expect, the big boldface names that will probably go through it, that's what's different this time around >> i think that's what's different but the quantity we had a period for several years where we had bankruptcies in regular part of the environment but we're now expecting a significant number of bankruptcies that file between now and june and july. record numbers >> this doesn't mean, however, record numbers, put some decimal points on that >> it's hard to tell we're tracking several dozen potential bankruptcy filings that could occur over that period of time across retail >> i think many of them will go through a going out of business sale you reduce under performing stores and some may go away totally. they don't have the capital pace to survivor the bankruptcy p proce process. >> courtney, come nonand askon a

walmart hiring more and more employees amid the coronavirus outbreak let's go to courtney reagan for those details and numbers. >> good afternoon. cnbc has learned that walmart has hired just around 100,000 workers, temporary workers in its store, full ifillment centes and distribution centers they set out to hire 150,000 temporary workers. this is one of the measures walmart is taking as it an essential retailer it's limiting the number of shoppers it's checking employees temperature and providing masks and gloves we'll talk about all of this and more we'll talk about this late ner the hour with dan bartlett >> thank you >>> coming up, hospitals are under pressure as the u.s. now has more than 400,000 cases of coronavirus trumping the rest of the world. the ceo of holy name hospital group in the center of the new jersey outbreak tells us what he is seeing on the ground. >>> pfizer identifying a new drug to work against the disease. it's a challenging market. edward jones is well aware of that. which is why we're ready to listen. and ready to help you find opportunity. so. let's talk

courtney reagan has the story. courtney >> hi, sara. so sycamore partners is asking a delaware court to uphold its decision to terminate its deal to buy 55% of victoria's secret from l brands. the pe firm is arguing that actions that l brands have taken during this pandemic including furloughing employees, reducing salaries, not paying rent and not disposing of now obsolete inventory while also cutting back on receive ning new invent breaches the original contract terms. sick kor is arguing that l brands had an obligation to, quote, conduct the business in ordinary course consistent with past practice. actions taken have caused significant damage to the victoria's secret business l brands does not agree that the original transaction is invalid and said it that will, quote, vigorously defend the lawsuit and pursue all legal remedies to enforce contractual rights we saw shares of l brands fall precipitously on this news by about 21% or so. shares were halted at one point when we were getting dribs and drabs of this information as it was c

seeing a benefit is tractor supply with seeds, hunting supplies and baby chicks let's bring in courtney reaganh tractor supply ceo hal lawton over to you. >> thank you very much, wilf hal, thanks for being with us. this is your first interview as ceo. what a time to take over a retailer of any kind you've joined there since january and put out first-quarter results today, comps at 4.3% and march alone up 12%. our audience may not know, but you are deemed an essential retailer so your 1,900 stores are open for business. what's going on in your stores rig right now? what are customers buying in this pan dem sncc. >> hi, courtney. thang you all for having me on if show. as you said, our customers really rely on us for essential needs, and this is really an unprecedented crisis that we're in, and our customers are really coming to us for things like feed for their animals we're the largest bagged good seller of animal feed in the country. we're one of the largest pet food retailers in the country. and we really are a one-stop shop for the essential needs of really all of rural america as it relate

courtney reagan has the numbers. >> yes, costco is one of the few companies you still hear from monthly it's been in focus as an essential retailer comps for march, though, up 9.6% for the total company inclusive of gas and foreign exchange. this is actually a little bit weaker than a lot of analysts had predicted. i saw some analysts predicting this number to be as high as 25%. e-commerce for the month of march was up about 48% but that still makes up a pretty small portion of costco's total. they've been a bit behind the curve when it comes to e-commerce just for comparison sake, when you look at february's total comps, those were stronger than the month of march, up 12.1% one thing that might help explain this is we do now have limits in place with the amount of items in quantities that shoppers are able to buy plus we know there are some inventory strains in some areas about the availability of products on those shelves. and of course once you have stocked up and potentially hoarded things like toilet paper, how much do you need to buy on an ongoing basis? that might explain some of

koesterich, thanks for joining us from blackrock >> we have retail earnings to tell you about courtney reagan has the numbers. >> pvh turning in adjusted earnings of $1.88 per share. revenues of $2.6 billion compared to $2.5 billion the company is not providing guidance for either first quarter or the full year because of what's going on with the coronavirus. they are also suspending both their dividend and their buyback program. they have used the revovrler, tapping into $750 million of a billion dollars available. the ceo was pointing to their history of a solid balance sheet but also says, look, we're taking a hard look at discretionary spending, inventory, payroll, cap ex, you name it, and the ceo will be on "mad money" this evening pvh earnings beat bug no guidance given shares higher by 6.7%. this was quarter ending february 2nd, so a lot has happened since then back to you. >> thanks so much for that quote. pvh up 6.7%. still ahead, an influx of new obama members. so what are you working on? >>i'm searching for info on options trading, and look, dr just wasting time. wasted time is was