investors wonder if other energy companies follow freeport's lead. as bob pisani reports cutting dividends doesn't really happen all that often. >> reporter: copper and gold in freeport mackmaran. it's a fairly rare event. companies do not like to cut their dividends. besides freeport there's only two other companies in the s&p 500 that have cut their dividends this year and they're both energy companies. drillers ensko and drivers offshore. many because they have a high dividend yield. bp has a 60% dividend yield. conoco 4%. a lot better than s&p 500 as whole, only a 2% yield. any talk of cutting dividends, particularly in energy stocks gets a certain class of investors were nervous. exxon is a very sensitive case in particular. they're the biggest payer of dividends in the united states. they pay $11.6 billion a year in dividends. that's more than apple paid $11 billion and more than microsoft was paid. exxon raised dividend every year for 32 straight years. and since 2007 chose the race of dividends in april. a few days away and worries ant divide

freeport. >> thanks for coming over today. that does for us today. we have enjoyed seeing you this week. we'll make sure wu seee'll see you tomorrow. >> we'll be back tomorrow. full force for two days. >> two days. >> and it will be a good couple of days. join us. right us it is time for "squawk on the street." >>> good morning, welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm david faber along with jim cramer. we are live from the new york stock exchange. carl has the day off. a look at futures. we are set up for a slightly higher open after a rare down day, at least rare in recent sessions, for the dow and the nasdaq. crude oil always a key, at least these days. where has it been hovering around? $48 level. up rather nicely on the day. and the ten-year note yield, of course i was away when they got rid of "patient," so to speak. great. now we're at 1.9 again. let's get to our road map. it starts with the markets, futures as you saw pointing to a slightly higher open helped by consumer prices that rose for the first time since october. plus chesapeake energy

it's not surprising with freeport. this saves them $1 billion.in oil prices but we have not seen oil companies slicing their dividends. what they've been doing is slowing down buybacks and/or cutting cap x. >> freeport did a deal a couple years ago and have $20 billion of net debt. with the copper price it was free cash flow to run the company. they just don't have the cash flow to support the dividend. >> a 6% yield to 1% yield. would you buy the stock. >> i think this is close to the bottom. if copper prices stay where it is, we're close to the bottom on freeport. >> thanks for coming over today. that does for us today. we have enjoyed seeing you this week. we'll make sure wu seee'll see you tomorrow. >> we'll be back tomorrow. full force for two days. >> two days. >> and it will be a good couple of days. join us. right us it is time for "squawk on the street." >>> good morning, welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm david faber along with jim cramer. we are live from the new york stock exchange. carl has the day off. a look at futures. we are

. >>> freeport mcmoran slashing to just 5 cents a share. mining giant citing volatile market conditions for the cut. shares of freeport, as you can see, they're down 1% but they're down 40% over the past year. and general motors investing $350 million to produce its next generation chevrolet cruise compact car in mexico. this is part of the automaker's $5 billion investment plan in the region. ty. >> mandy, yesterday flash boys author michael lewis joined us to discuss the flash boys one year later and the complexity of these high frequency trades in the financial markets. here's what he had to say. >> the complexity is the new owe paft in the financial markets. it's a way -- the way bad behavior gets disguised is it's very complicated. it was -- the complexity was at the root of the financial crisis. >> 57% said the markets were not fair for all participants, though this is down from 70% who said the same thing in the survey last year. now, perhaps more importantly, only 42% report that they had made any change in the way they trade or int

freeport copper and good not to be outdone u.s. steel zoomed up.he biggest iron ore producer shot up from $19 to $120. iron maker, not exactly the facebook of iron ore either. the run away commodity prices that propelled the moves were among the major reasons that the federal reserve tried to stop the price increases. the result? another crash. s&p 500, it was cut in half. pricing was obliterated. >> the house of pain. >> and none of these stocks ever even remotely recovered. alcoa is at $12.96 down from $45. cut by three quarters. aluminum was hammered mercilessly. potash has been clobbered back to 32 as corn collapsed taking the entire agricultural complex with it. peabody's plunge from 88 to 5? that's the stuff that portfolio tragedies are made of. so much for the coal super cycle. freeport round trip back to 17. copper went to a glut in immense proportions. u.s. steel has shed a remarkable $172. shriveling into the $22 stock from where it was. cliffs natural has lost 160 points. guys, this isn't the greatest bull market i have ever seen. these

freeport is cutting their dividends by 84%.pany is considering asset sales and spending cuts. freeport is looking for funding for oil and natural gas projects. the company has been trying to reduce debt which totaled $19 million at the end of last year. utah has become the only state to allow firing squads to carry out the death penalty. governor gary herbert signed a bill permitting the use of firing squads with -- when no lethal injection drugs are available. it has been difficult for states to obtain chemicals. those are your top stories. that is a rough want to end on but coming up today, it is the return of hbo's "game of thrones ." we will hear from the networks ceo. plus, what caused that airbus to go down in the french alps. we will have the latest and they call it runaway production. hollywood battles for business against states offering producers make tax breaks. we will cover the business and movies. lisa: george soros sanding off in an interview. he said greek negotiations have been mishandled by both sides and ther

in freeport-mcmoran.f that was a result of one very large trade that took place where someone was buying the may 2023 call spread. they partially financed that by selling the other calls. they were adjusting a position to make it a bullish bet targeting probably about $23 by may expiration. a trade that makes some sense. it was probably better to make a bullish bet given this is a company with a lot of debt and not a lot of cash. >> guy, what would be your call? >> every stock in the last couple of years has been an opportunity to sell it. maybe it's different this time. it was up almost 7% on friday. i don't know. you know, i'm more -- i've been in the camp. it's got to prove me wrong and hasn't done so for three or four years. >> all right. mike, thank you. for more options action, check out the show on fridays. >>> coming up on "mad money" tonight, cramer has got a big exclusive. a rare interview with the ceo of 3m. plus jim's putting some under the radar biotech names under the microscope and giving h

we talked about freeport-mcmoran up today. that's my senses where we are with na. >> you bakally agree because you are long commodities. >> the one thing i would say is this plays out, if commodities really rally and oil, in particular, at some point in time, the market will start to think, uh-oh, the fed is now in trouble, they will start raising. i think what guy was alluding to. i agree, window here to play it. you wait for that dollar weakness. >> dom chu is back at head quarters with the details. >> reporter: you probably saw what happened to apple in the last few moments of trading. apple shares were at least losing momentum going into the "closing bell." in the last two minutes of regular session trading, we saw apple shares fall of a relative cliff. we are talking a percent-and-a-half. you see it at the right-hand side of the screen there. there are a number of explanations we are hearing chatter about. one was a quad ruopple witching day, a lot of future "options action" hedging and closing oppositions. we heard there

freeport will start up two new projects, that is part of the deal. about supply and less about demand. do you watch "dancing with the stars"? mark: i do not. alix: everyone else in the world and we will have three of the judges. julianne hough will be joining us from the new york stock exchange talking about the new season. it has been on 20 seasons, 10 years, really excited. mark: i feel like i should put a loser sign on my head. alix: awkward. mark: scarlet fu joins us after the break. ♪ mark: when it comes to inflation the better question might be what inflation? the february jobs report showed average hourly earnings remained flat. as scarlet fu shows us in the off the chart segment there are several ways of measuring wage inflation and they are -- scarlet: i have a series of charts. our first chart shows how employer costs for employee pay. how much a walmart orhas been paying. the main thing is the far right side of the chart. the last high mark we saw employer costs rise this much was in 2006. >> is this a good thing because what we have talke

she was last seen on freeport street in hyattsville. guzman attended park dale high school. if you have any information you're asked to call prince george's county police. >>> loudoun county sheriff's office is asking anyone to come forward if you know anything about alleged sex assaults as a church. the sheriff's office is investigating calvary temple pentecostal church in sterling. this comes after the loudoun times mirror spoke to two women who say they were assaulted by several members of church leadership when they were children. the newspaper reports a peaceful protest will be held outside the church this sunday. >>> a frightening scene in northeast d.c.. watch this. three men seen standing in a d.c. parking lot just opening fire. police aren't sure what the men are shooting at. d.c. police want your help identifying these suspect abouts. this happened wednesday on hayes street. fortunately here nobody was injured. >>> a prince george's county family wants answers after police met them at the door with their guns drawn. officers say they were responding to complaints t

she was last seen on freeport street in hyattsville. if you have any information, you're asked to call prince george's county police. >>> an investigation is under way in the case of a missing 5-year-old in virginia that has been found dead. noah thomas was last seen at his home in dublin. his body was found yesterday avenue. his parents have been cooperating in the investigation and so far no arrests have been made. >>> federal prosecutors are asking a judge to uphoeld former virginia governor's bob mcdonnell's corruption conviction. prosecutors say jurors correctly found the former governor guilty. mcdonnell was convicted of taking tens of thousands of dollars in exchange for promoting a dietary supplement company. prosecutors say that by appealing, mcdonnell is artificially sanitizing the facts. >>> an arlington preschool is closed this morning, the trinity episcopal church school of early learning is shtdown indefinitely afterasbestos dust was found in the floors. the discovery was made while the school was being cleaned. school off

we learned freeport in indonesia copper mine is brought to a hot because of protests for a fourth dayd finally, we learned tesla's new software features emergency brakes, low battery alerts and side collision warnings. if you missed any of the big stories in the past hour you can go visit our site at powerlunch.cnbc.com. >>> as oil plunged, energy sector lost 18%, but there is one area of the oil patch not just bucking the slump, but outperforming the broader market as well and who better than morgan brennan with the story. >> hi tyler. this chart is an energy stock -- oh, well it's not up. >> it was. describe it. >> there's a group within the sector that's bucking the trend as you mentioned, telling you all about it and why the companies have been up double digit percentages since the start of the year. >> all right. ♪ approaching medicare eligibility? you may think you can put off checking out your medicare options until you're sixty-five but now is a good time to get the ball rolling. keep in mind medicare only covers about eighty percent of part b medical costs. the rest is up to

look at freeport, tech resources, look at bhp, these are stocks up 10%, 5% to 8% over the last month.t's a reason to buy miners. who cares about the mining equipment companies. i think people overreacted to the numbers. >> i think it terms of the metals out there, i'm short copper. that's still one you want to be short in this environment. if you're talking -- i agree with tim, if you don't want to necessarily be short them, the miners because joy global did bad, but if you're looking at the equipment manufacturers, i'll take it back to agriculture and look at john deere. agriculture tends to be cyclical. we're coming to a bottom in it. with all the snow we're having here, remember ha happppens whe melts, the fields have to be relr replowed. >> caterpillar did bounce. how many times did it continue to do that? did it the back end of 2012, all of 2013 and a couple times last year. i'm not certain it's going to do it this time. so you want to trade it, trade it against 80 bucks. through 80 bucks you have a huge swath to the downsize. >> next up, apple falling nearly 2%. since reports su

cecelia ivy guzman was last seen in the 7100 block of freeport street if hyattsville.". anyone with information about is a veal ya is asked to tall police. >>> tomorrow you'll get a chance to see the national zoo's andean bear cubs for the first time. their names were revealed yesterday. mayni and muniri born last november. they're only one of five surviving litters born in the last decade and they are adorable. >> weather wise we've got maybe low 50s today. we have rain showers through midday here in d.c. metro. we'll dry out a little this afternoon although south and east the showers linger. cold tonight. blustery tomorrow. low 30s, flurries and back to 50z by sunday. >>> no issues on the beltway. free and clear. also on 295 and the bw parkway as you make your way into town. we still have about 1100 families without power this morning. a live look right now at 395 shows you that traffic there is moving but this is actually the 16th street. you want to stay away from this area as construction will be going on for the next four months. >> cbs this morning is next. >> g

freeport, falling hard today. mr. new world. >> it's incredible where the stock has been. couple years ago when we used to do march madness wasn't the stock -- >> one of the favorites for sure. >> one of the favorites for sure. i mean the wrong deals at the wrong time, getting into the oil market. yesterday, okay, the stock rallies, gives it all back today as the dollar reverses. the stock is in such trouble. you don't hear a hint, a hint of activism or m&a discussions surrounding it. unbelievable. >> a dog. >> worse than that. >> if there is something like that because i like dogs. >> dog with a flu. >> a cat. >> coming up the call -- the call of the day. the analyst who says sold, gene munster defends his ebay call. drilling for deals in the energy space, the worst sector today. should you buy on the dip. apple's first day in the dow. welcome. right now the index is -- lower by two-thirds of a percenten. apple lower by a third of a perce percent. much more ahead on the halftime report. get where i am. and i didn't get here alone. there were people who listened along the

. >> by freeport. >> the other side of the trade. i think the buy backs are very important.hink also the hoopla about what warren buffett did. there was no halo to that. nothing else really ended up up because of what he did. kind of a -- just it happened and no one said a thing top me when "squawk" was interviewing warren buffett he was as bullish as all get out. it didn't matter. it didn't work this time as opposed to the halo again rated by the big omaha love fest after the meeting. >> talking about the kraft deal. that has been the beneficiary, that particular equity has been the beneficiary of that deal moving up yet again yesterday. >> that created the new company. david, it was zero sum. almost like the portfolio manager sold other stocks in the consumer package goods to own the new -- the anointed one, so to speak. >> right. sometimes a deal of that nature you get a lot of people and there were people saying you're going to see the dominos roll but it's not as clear to me that's something that has to happen near term. when i have spoken to people who advise in the in

you could have shorted peabody freeport. she was doing those as a barbell trade, shorting those.arkable run for both the high-growth companies, because inflation's -- you buy that it's remarkable run for cyclicals, which are down much every day. a stock picker's dream to have no inflation and have no commodity pricing pressure because everybody can report a good number that uses commodities and almost everybody uses them. >> we'll talk more in a moment. nike though up sharply in the premarket. dow component posted better than expected quarterly earnings. if you take out currency fluctuations orders for apparel scheduled for delivery between march and july. strong dollar would take a toll on the current quarter. in fact accounting for all of that, orders up two. a year ago, orders up 12. >> futures orders fabulous that's what we want to look at. china was great. look, i'm unabashed fan of mark parker. mark park's a little different from kevin plank mark parker this is about the athlete. one of the things that i loved about nike and they took the oracle page, mark parker's a cool g

. >> what about the dividend freeport had to suspend. >> in a general sense, this is not a bad thingstandpoint. if you're running into cash flow troubles -- >> it's a bad thing from an investor standpoint to the investor sharon -- >> from the standpoint to sell equity instead of releverage yourself in an environment like this. >> the underlying commodity is down from 100-plus dollars a barrel to 40-plus dollars. there's a whole host of people who think it's going down to $20 and $30. a lot of my clients think that. if you are a company like this that is more or less in distress, you really have an obligation to yourself to shore up your balance sheet and unfortunately for investors, this is the result. >> they get caught up in it. maybe -- again, if you look at some of the higher yielding names traditionally, it's utilities, areas sensitive to higher interest rates. they're caught between a rock and a hard place. >> issue is you have to be strategic in where you're looking and screen out the ones that are doing well in terms of their price appreciation and in terms of the potential y