investing titans larry robbins and mark lasry will join us on set in the next half hour.were here, you know what i mean? except per due, wait a minute, he's loaded too. >> yeah. >> we're not -- it's not going to get any better for us in the next hour. lasry robbinrobbins, sternlicht rodriguez. up 36 on the dow. i say to you andrew either this is not a constitutional crisis or the market doesn't know it's a constitutional crisis. and doesn't even know that the tax plan's going to get derailed yet. it's not -- things keep going up -- >> you think if taxes don't happen this year that the markets will sit up and pay attention to that? >> i don't know. but with all the deregulation just sort of the pro-business sentiment it just seems like things are okay businesswise. >> blinders are on. >> you know, you keep saying that. just get in -- >> i just said it. >> just buy in the -- >> let's get you caught up on some of the headlines this morning. we have a multibillion dollar deal to tell you about in the medical space. scientific instruments maker thermofisher buying patheon, not

larry robbins. know where to end or extend this conversation, orth say i'm excited. >> "squawk box" coming up in ten minutes' time with outstanding lineups. we'll be tuned into that. but in the meantime, let's discuss markets with bob bell, futures at the moment mixed. following a mixed week last week. bob, the headline for you at the moment for markets, is it at the moment, earnings are just about holding things up? >> i think so. if we didn't have that strong earnings backdrop, we'd probably be pulling back more significantly. in the meantime, we just churn, because there's so many close turns. on the good side, you mentioned earnings. we also have improvement, economic growth around the world. we have monetary policy around the world that is at least neutral and in many places accommodative. but on the other hand, we've got structure problems. low productivity. inability to get things done. so, you know, the tradeoff continues and markets reflect that by going nowhere. >> if you were to ask that,

we also have heard from larry robbins from glenview recently.k picks that he is still currently presenting on. one of those was dxd, he also presented on smc and ims. we had a little bit of news that has come out amid today's sohn conference with pandora. that involves strategic investment from kkr to the tune of about $150 million. this is interesting, melissa, because as you recall, pandora had been in the process of looking to sell itself. it has retained morgan stanley to do so. it had an activist investor in the stock that had been prompting it to sell. you heard from him earlier today. talking about century link. this seems to be the path that pandora has chosen. we're still listening to more of robbins' presentation. we'll get back to you with his justification for urging investors to buy those three stocks. melissa? >> leslie, thanks so much. interesting names. ones that we hardly trade here on this desk. >> fmc is an integrated company, in the fertilizer space. this is a brutal place to be investing. i've been long a couple of these nam

karen, listening to larry robbins there, he didn't mention washington once. as you look at all the things on the investing horizon over the next, say, six minutes to a year, where does washington -- where does the trum you agenda fit? is it number one, is it number ten? >> it's closer to number ten. what happens in the market usually does not depend on washington. it depends on earnings like bob pisani was saying. it's always earnings. earnings are getting better in the united states. they're going to be good for the rest of the year and, also, outside of the united states in europe, in japan, in emerging markets. we're seeing earnings growth. so absolutely it's all about earnings so washington makes a lot of noise. but that needs to be on the bottom of the list but it's not affecting earnings. >> david, do you agree with that? >> i do agree. i think you've seen any optimism around policy change be priced out of the market over the past couple of months here. if look at earnings estimates coming back to the theme of earnings, they've been relatively unchanged