running me is julie hyman. -- joining me is julie hyman. >> you have a company with big international says the main reason to make this kind of move would be so that walmart can focus on those core u.s. operations and fix them as we have seen them struggle. he is talking about baby exiting the weaker or lower returning international businesses. and spending off sam's club. if you look at the international business, it accounts for 32% of the company's capital expenditures but only 28% of sales and 24% of operative profit. he looks at the core u.s. business and says by contrast that only uses 52% of capital but generates 60% of sales and 80% of operating profits. when you look at the bulk of walmart's business if you backup the international operations and you look at sales walmart is still the world's largest retailer. just by the u.s. sales. they would not lose that mantle. if you look at the way the store count is broken down, it has more stores internationally than it does here in the u.s.. sam's club is a smaller count. if you did this kind of exiting, you could use that cash and

julie hyman has the numbers. julie: discontinued operations. it closed all of its canadian stores and liquidated the merchandise. the fourth quarter in the u.s. looks very strong for target. comparable sales of 3.8%. 3.1% was the figure analysts were looking for. it has been a while since target has seen strength like this. the company's earnings-per-share beating estimates in the fourth quarter. the forecast for the first quarter is coming up short of what analysts had been anticipating. $.95 to a dollar. that would be the weak spot within this report. looking at some of the commentary from the ceo of the company, he says the company saw strength in the signature categories which he said style baby kids and wellness. he says we are seeing early momentum in our efforts to transform target. the company has made dramatic moves. the closure of canadian operations. also, it announced it would be offering free shipping on orders over $25 on its website, undercutting the free shipping of some competitors. target has lagged behind in its online sales.

julie hyman has breaking news. >> 283,000 to be exact. falling more than forecast.m 300-4000. -- from 340,000. the median forecast was 290,000. better than had been estimated. this, showing the progress we have seen in the jobs market. i want to bring you breaking news on walmart earnings. the earnings come out at 7:00 a.m. they've moved it to 8:30 a.m. this morning. at first blush, fourth-quarter earnings coming in ahead of estimates. $1.54 is what analysts were predicting. $1.61 is where they are landing. first-quarter forecast looks to be below. earnings per share in the first quarter will be $.95 to a dollar $.10. analysts were projecting $1.14. walmart says for the year its earnings per share will be forced -- $4.70. i want to mention the sales numbers. analyst seven focusing on this. the company has been focusing. the ceo is saying he wants to get the comparable sale at the u.s. stores up. it seems he succeeded in doing that during the holiday hotel. a lot of speculation as to whether the lower gas prices would help the walmart customer. it represents an accel

running us is julie hyman -- joining us is julie hyman and jason hirschhorn ceo of -- jason hirschhorn. united airlines is sending a warning to its pilots. they sent out a memo citing safety events, asking them to cut down on disastrous mistakes. jason: i thought that was included in the ticket price. julie: it is really unusual they would send out a warning like this. pilots come back and say, well you need to help us be safe. you don't require us to fly too many hours, we have enough training etc. betty: you never know who is flying your plane to your point, how many hours they have slipped -- slept. should airlines be more transparent about this? jason: i don't know how much i want to knowl. it seems a little combative, a stern warning, but i hope the pilots got that memo. betty: and abide by it. jason: i'm big on safety first in traveling. betty: number three, the day after investors paid germany to borrow their money for five years -- they are now agreeing to buy the country's debt. investors are paying the government to borrow your money. i will lend you money. instead of me gett

bloomberg's senior markets correspondent julie hyman covers retail for us. still shops at sears? >> do you still shop at sears? >> no. >> matt miller has for craftsman tools. the company has been shrinking. the core customer at this point skews older than some of the other retailers, according to cantor retail, which surveys shoppers. the average shopper at sears was 50.4 years old and had an average household income of $57,500. 21% of them have children in their household. relatively low income, and relatively older. i asked cantor this where are these sears shoppers shopping elsewhere? if sears goes away, where might some of this traffic go? 65% of them in the past month had shopped at jcpenney. 82% of them had shopped at walmart. 67% of them had shopped on amazon. i also did a very informal survey on facebook of my friends and family and ask them, do you shop at sears? many of them had not in the past year or so. some said, we go there are a couple times a year. maybe we get our cars serviced. maybe we buy an appliance still. maybe we buy those craftsman

julie hyman has the details. know the how they -- i don't know how they could have had stagnant holiday sales. julie: if stephanie is shopping there, they must be doing well. i want to talk about this provocative idea from michael x line. -- michael exline. some of the returns on investment have not been strong so it might make sense to exit those businesses. he is not clear on what you would do to get out of them. he says a spinoff of sam's club might make sense. sam's would be able to compete with costco if it were separated from walmart. it would allow them to focus on strengthening the u.s. business without having international operations. there are more international stores then there are u.s. stores. in the u.s., there are about 4000 stores. there are about 650 sam's clubs. if you look internationally, it accounts for 32% of walmart's capital expenditures, but only 28% of sales. proportionally, it accounts for less if you look at it in relation to failed in operating profit. here is why he is making the case

here's julie hyman. >> julie: the dow earlier fell.he energy and the rep -- joining me for today's oppingtses insider is the strategist and we had a little bit of economic data today. you have been watching the trend in economic data. and you ever not reading it positively. >> it's part of the same string of bad news we got in retail sales over the last months. i think the reason the market hasn't rea acted as strongly is that investors realize reasonable trend and what we are seeing from economic agencies. when you combine that with the weather, i think it's another reason to wait. julie:and reason to wait. garmin fell sharply after bank of america given the drought, found this was a good opportunity. what are we -- usually if you hear of a stock that's down 4%, you're going to see everyone scrambling. they were -- in fact in volatility the options fell. pretty dramatic spike lower after the news was out. one thing i would note is that in garmin february earnings, it moved about this much but to the upside and probably why we didn't s

julie hyman and greg raburn joining me.ent finance minister -- is this a surprise during the meeting in berlin today? >> we did not even agree to disagree from where i am standing. from where i am standing, we agreed to enter into -- as partners, solutions for european problems. betty: this is what you say to your spouse when you hate each other at that moment. "we agree to disagree. let's just stop it now." julie: as these meetings are going on we keep expecting something big to happen, and mohamed el-erian wrote kind of a q&a today trying to address the questions throughout the greek crisis. the conclusion was this is going to be going on for quite a file. we cannot expect any brief resolution. the comments by the finance minister really illustrate that. greg: a large percentage of greeks do not want to leave the euro, yet they elect a guy who is posturing in the other way. i think it is a lot of posturing. betty: it seems as if people are saying he will have to go back on some of what he promised during the campaign. qui

julie hyman is in the newsroom. at everyone's new favorite metric. >> alex is into commodities. the rest of the world is just now coming around to this measure. rig counts are how many oil rigs we are seeing in the united states. >> we have seen a 30% drop. it is very steep. the last time the rig was this low was 2012. the idea being that you get less production. we are not seeing that. output is that 9.2 million barrels, a 40 year record. >> it seems counterintuitive. you would think that production would be falling more. >> the devil is in the details. it is what rigs are being cut. all you care about our horizontal, shale. that is where the majority of our production is coming from. you're seeing that the client only 13% versus the others double that. >> the others are more expensive? >> they are cutting the least efficient output first. then they're keeping the efforts going where it makes a difference, that is shale. the permian basin production will rise 28%. the main areas of shell production are still rising

julie hyman is in the newsroom with the headlines. what is the word? >> more sold less month than economists had predicted. this might be a sign of stabilization in the industry. 481,000 homes. it was little changed from the 82,000 we saw in december. that forecast was 470,000. there had been concerns about supply constraints with new homebuilders not building any particularly lower and homes and higher-end homes. it looks like again we might see stabilization there. we are also seeing improvements in the job market, feeding through the home market as well. better than estimated month over month, down 2/10 of 1%. >> julie, thank you for breaking it down. >> it is time for the bulletin, the top business stories of the morning. day two of jenny yellen's testimony on capitol hill. the chair of the federal reserve will be questioned by the house financial services committee. yesterday, testifying before a senate panel. the fed is coming to the end of having interest rates near zero. yellen also said wage growth inflation are too high, which would argue aga

our senior markets correspondent, julie hyman looks ahead to after the bell earnings from chipotle mexican grill. but we begin with peter cook on capitol hill just after the house ways and means committee chairman, paul ryan, hosted treasury secretary jack lew in a discussion on the prospects of tax reform. first, we have breaking news -- a major rally in equities and in oil. it's go to the breaking news desk and our chief markets correspondent, scarlet fu. >> let's head into the bloomberg terminal where i can show you what is going on. the dow jones industrial average in the yellow and the s&p 500 and white, reach new highs for the day. the nasdaq is in green. the dow jones has added more than 150 point and is now headed for a sixth straight day of closing up or down by at least 190 points. there is that volatility summary people warned we would see in 2015. you can credit the rise in oil for the strength in equities. you've got rent crude set to close more than 20% above its january 13 close. that would meet the technical definition of a bull market. brent crude in a bull market if you c

julie hyman went to minneapolis to investigate. ♪ >> they are called it boxes for reason.ruck is -- and then there is the store. >> we will have sandwiches salad, beverages. people can buy one single roll of paper towels. you guys have a big section. a lot of college students, they need a tank top. twice this is target express. 85% smaller than a traditional target, it is about the size of your local pharmacy. >> areas where people live work, or where they go to school. >> just blocks from the university of minnesota campus target express caters to college students. >> when we have a home section, to outfit your home or that first department. in food, make meals, the grab and go options. we really try to tailor what we offered to the students we have here. classes is not just about size. >> it is important we set the tone from a moment you walk in whether it is the university of minnesota product, the sign in the mural designed by the alum in university, we want the guests to get that right away. >> test stores, target express keeps changing its approach. >> another adjust

julie hyman looks at one of the key players in the staples and office depot deal. but we begin with our chief washington correspondent, peter cook and john kerry's diplomatic trip to ukraine. our peace efforts yielding any results so far? >> right now, he might be more of a side player in all of this. he's not the only foreign visitor trying to forge a medic solution. at this hour, german chancellor angela merkel and the french president are in kiev and they brought with them a new cease-fire initiative. they did not provide details on the proposal itself. they had next to moscow to meet with vladimir putin directly who has offered up his own peace plan. this is their response and this will be angela merkel's first visit to russia since 2013 with a goal to end the violence between the government forces and russian backed separatists. fighting has escalated as the rebels mounted a new offensive stop the conflict has claimed more than 5000 lives. in his own meetings today, kerry says russian -- russia needs to ds goalie crisis. >> russia and me separatists are seizin

julie hyman joins me with today's "off the charts." has managed this -- has and manage this. julie: what have we heard time after time after time when the s&p has reached records and the dow has made similar moves, and yet the mastec hasn't made it there. -- nasdaq has admittedhasn't made it there. you see the longer-term returns as well. even on a percentage basis the nasdaq has gained more over the past five- and 10-year periods when he does not made records like the others have. part of that has to do with the dot-com bubble. it had more to call back from. if you look at what we have seen recently, the internet stocks within the nasdaq, would you think of as being so integral to the nasdaq, the internet stocks have lagged behind what we have seen in the overall average. we have seen that in index down almost 2% at the same time that the overall nasdaq composite is up 18% put another way, only 34 of the 93 stocks move higher in that period. 21 of them were down more than 50%. the worst performer is a company called rocket fuel, a dig

julie hyman has more on the story. julie: i'm still trying to wrap my head around jacque s de penney. stephanie: trying to give them a little swagger. julie: they could use a little swagger. in the fourth quarter like many retailers they did relatively well with comparable sales up 4.4%. but it looks like some of that sales growth was at the expense of promotions. we saw promotions across the board from retailers but at penney in particular they often been bringing back a lot of the sales and couponing eliminated under ron johnson. the former ceo came back to repair the damage that seemed to have been done by johnson in part brought back a lot of the sales and promotions to get people back in the store. stephanie: not enough? julie: well, not enough to boost sales but we are seeing margins essentially compressed. it is below what analysts had anticipated, and free cash flow will be below what analysts had anticipated. erik: that sounds genius -- let's go back to what we were doing before, which created the need to bring

julie hyman is here with more. what happened? julie: there were so many attended an in progress turnarounds in retail. these are two of them. on jcpenney we have a retailer that went disastrously wrong under ron johnson. we had mike ullman come back and stabilize.. we saw continued signs of stabilization in the fourth quarter with comparable sales up 4.4%. the company posted break even profit. analysts have been looking for more. in terms of the forecast for the full year, jcpenney says sales are going to be up 3% to 5%. it might be on the lower end of that. the company did a lot of discounting during the fourth quarter to get the traffic. it seems as though analysts are saying we really have to accelerate our growth. we want two-seamer growth from you in order to not just get back to where you were pre- johnson but to get better. that seems to be the situation. betty: it was not that bad. julie: there were bright spots. sales were a bright spot. the company did improve gross margins to some extent. it is a question of how much is

julie hyman, as well.le's taxes could overseas -- $10 billion for apple, microsoft pfizer and others. after the break, peter roskam of illinois gives us a take on america's tax code. how is jack mama straightening things out? ♪ >> treasury secretary, jack lew will be making the case for the president's budget. he set to testify in front of the house ways and means committee. peter roskam joins us from capitol hill. peter cook is also back with us as well. congressman roskam, what would you like to hear from the treasury secretary that might change her views on the budget -- change your views on the budget? >> i would love it if the treasury secretary came in and said, there is a new day and this could be great. we will take on the long-term debt questions. there is an unprecedented opportunity with the senate and house to do things we never contemplated before. i would love it if he said we are going to take on the totality of reforming entire tax code and rain in the irs and not give them an additional $2

julie hyman and matt miller joining me today.p morgan announcing it has lowered and also plans cuts because of higher capital requirements. clients will also have to pay new fees, clients like hedge funds for instance. >> of course they are in need of a more capital cushion. >> these big institutions are giving them huge deposit and saying hold on to this. they can't count that as part of their cap will cushion. they have to count as temporary funds as the law told them to. the have to hold even more of a capital cushion to back that up. and becomes too extensive. they are saying we will charge you more because it cost us more to hold this for you or take it somewhere else please. betty: it makes sense. they are passing on the costs. jamie dimon has all but basically said more regulation against the banks is un-american. it is un-american to do this to our nation's banks. number 3 -- the u.s. justice department investigate the world's biggest banks from integrating prices of gold and silver. the justice department is probing 10 b

julie hyman and and bob emery join me. let's start with number 10.ith the ibm senior vice president for their software and services division. ibm is committing to spend $1 billion to develop its software portfolio over the next five years. the tech giant's been trying to entice customers with new products. 11 quarters of declining revenue . incredible. >> it feels a little bit like let's throw a lot at wall and see what sticks. in addition to all of that declining revenue, the stock is down about 12% over the past year at a time when other tech companies have been doing much better. for a lot of time, ibm's stock is been stuck in a range and it fell off in the past six months or so. >> it seems like everyone from hp to facebook to others are going into storage and cloud computing and data computing. >> ibm seems to be one step behind everybody forever. now they are going to come roaring back, right? and the internet is a fad and there is no snow on the ground. [laughter] >> he said, check us out in 18 months. we will see of these initiatives payoff.

julie hyman is here with me. she is our retailer reporter. sears reported a narrower loss than expected. shares are down. perhaps they're keeping and i on the cash levels and wondering whether asset sales are in effect of long-term strategy. jules i know you have been doing a lot of research. julie: we all know that eddie lampert did not buy this company to make it a successful retailer. since he combined sears and kmart a decade ago, the company has only had one quarter of same-store sales growth. this quarter we saw 4.4% drop. sears is down 7%. who still shops that sears? who is going to care if this thing does go away? matt miller will care. we will get to this in a second. you are not the typical shopper at sears. i talked to folks who do shopper surveys and they said if you look at the average sears shopper, it is 50.4 years old. you are a little young. with a household income around $58,000. 21% of these people have children and their household, as well. if sears did close you can look at the figures as well for clues. they also shop th

i am julie hyman. we take a look at where stocks are this hour.e see gains once again, extended gains from yesterday's 196 point surge. the dow has moved from 100 95 in each of the five sessions. the return of volatility with a vengeance we have seen in 2015 is continuing. energy stocks have been leading some of the gains yesterday and today as we have seen them rebound in oil prices. i want to point out some of the stocks leading the way in terms of hitting fresh records. really interesting, you and i think a stock would be hitting an all-time high. as we have seen, the price of oil decline, i was just talking to alix steel, and she was pointing out the margins of many of these refiners are improving as their costs are increasing. automakers turning record quarter profits today and beating estimates thanks to stronger sales of new and used cars. and fiat as well, we have been talking about the automakers this morning. crisler, their january sales up 14%, slightly above what analysts had been anticipating. many of the automakers reported double-di

julie hyman, breaking down the numbers of the gap.hy leaving the eurozone may turn out to be more than just a greek tragedy. how witty. this is the real thing. just like the drink that comes in the red can. ♪ stephanie: welcome back to market makers. i'm stephanie ruhle with obvious underbelly -- with fabio sando . ukraine says its troops broke through defenses in the eastern part of the country. jordan is ramping up its fight against islamic state. according to nbc news, jordan is deploying thousands of ground forces to its border with iraq. the goal is to keep islamic state fighters from crossing the border. in india, a setback for prime minister modi. his party suffered a defeat in local elections. the winning party promised voters food and medicine. sticking with europe, the eurozone may be headed into the danger zone over greece and its bailout. that is according to the british chancellor in an exquisite interview. >> it is clear that the risks to the world economy and british economy of this standoff between the eurozone and gre

julie hyman follows retail for us. first i want to get perspective. many workers were making minimum wage at walmart and how big of an increase was in? julie: that is interesting, because walmart is not give a lot of granular detail on how much its employees make it is set around 6000 of his workers so a very small percentage of his workers -- of his workers were making minimum wage exactly. it also said that for the folks who were the average workers, the average full-time employee would go from $13 from 12 dollars $.85, not a big increase. an overall wages were going to $10 next year. there are increases and it is impactful because it is such a large number of people. it also, of course, makes a big statement, which is one of the things walmart wanted to do. you get good pr when the president of the united states is commenting on what you of just done, and president obama did exactly that on friday. president obama: now walmart raising wages, not just because it is the right thing to do, but because it is good for business. don't stand in the way. yo

i do not know how many times we saw it as an excuse but julie hyman will have a special report on thatjust a little bit. what are we going to see as far as the effect of that on inflation, disinflation picture in the u.s.? alan: the exchange rate clearly affects the operation of our economy. it will put a bit of a dampener on inflation because it leads to more imports at lower prices. nonetheless you look at this report and 22,000 manufacturing jobs there, big export sector, that shows that american companies have been managing in spite of the higher value of the dollar. likewise, agriculture experts have been doing quite well as secretary phil sack said earlier today. -- as secretary vilsack said earlier today could it looks like american competitiveness and ingenuity will be able to overcome the challenge. matt: scarlet, you are looking specifically at sectors here? scarlet: u.s. stock index futures have found a direction and a positive right now. again if .2% -- a gain of two point .2 percent. citigroup, bank of america, they were little changed before the report came out but there

julie hyman looks at one of the key players in the staples and office depot deal.n with our chief

julie hyman is here to show us which retail companies adapted best to shifting consumer preferences.> we know one of them is not radioshack. that sparked this idea. it would be interesting to go back and see what the biggest have been over the past couple of decades. we took the sales of various retailers and ranked them. if you go back to 1994, walmart was the largest. sears and kmart in the number two and three spots. they combined. we have seen their sales decline quite sharply. target also on that list and jcpenney, another retail now struggling. walmart is still on top. sales have grown considerably more than doubling. home depot now on the list, cost going to list, target and sears still hanging on. look at 2014 now. the full year we have numbers for. amazon makes his entry on the top five list. amazon was just being founded in 1994. apple on the list as well. walmart still on top, dwarfing the rest. >> we are hearing a theme here. the analysts think they will maintain that position given we are seeing generational and structural shifts. >> if you look at the sheer size of walm

our senior markets correspondent, julie hyman looks ahead to after the bell earnings from chipotle mexican

julie hyman is joining us. >> coming up, has the oil market hit a bottom? no.e just had the biggest rally in years, but we will talk about it. ♪ >> well to me -- walt disney company shares reaching 101.3. it is now the biggest contributor to the dow jones industrial average after sales topped analyst estimates because of "frozen." here is the ceo on the company's performance in his conversation with trish regan yesterday. >> it was in many respects all about business and a strong quarter but we also had a great quarter from our studio and a stellar quarter for parks and resorts. >> since bob was james dio disney, the stock has more than tripled. trading at record highs. you know the contract was extended in october. he will stay on as ceo until june of 2018, giving the company time to groom their next ceo. we will have more market coverage right after this. ♪ ♪ >> welcome to market makers. i matt miller. but i am out yield. mom and dad is away and the kids are here to lay your breaking news on oil. we are getting news on how much extra's either is on inventorie

julie hyman neglect what you guys laughing about? >> are producers are waiting to check me out. strong u.s. dollar. >> i know you guys like talking the nicknames for co jo. the dollar going up has been a big theme. why is it happening? why is it important? 46% of the sales come from foreign sources. when the you bring that money back to the nine states, it is worth less than it otherwise might be. potentially 46% of this revenue is affected. what happened in the fourth quarter? you saw the yen going down by 14%. use all the dollar rising 8% versus the euro. that is a big change in relatively short time. something these companies had to deal with. we are seeing so many companies talk about this. everyone from procter & gamble to pfizer to dupont to activision blizzard to 21st century fox, it is very widespread. >> there has to be some benefits. is there a company benefiting? >> companies that hedged successfully. honeywell is one example. there is the issue of changing cost. it is not just the revenue you collect. it is what you pay for production. as someone pointed out to me, n