marty lipton has said this is the ultimate short termism. there are some arguments to the other side and they're fair as well but i think evidence shows activists not only outperform their hedge fund peers in recent years but also seem to have a share price improvement on companies short term and also longer term. >> kate, thank you so much. >> thank you. >> joining us exclusively now is trian's nelson peltz to respond to the sonnen felds op-ed. nelson, thanks so much for joining us today. >> great pleasure. thank you for having me. you called his interview provocative. i call it inaccurate. >> he went after you pretty good. >> well, look, i don't mind anybody coming after me as long as they come after me with facts. he's a professor. i assume he's telling his students to do good work. his work was just a bit faulty. i mean, he said that -- he mentioned our returns for 2012 and 2014. he sort of missed 2013, when we were up 40% net. he said our return in 2014 was a number which is far less than 11%, which is what we achieved. and in fact, sin

. >> speaking of when pigs can fly, i thought i would mention marty lipton.on't know if you noticed this letter. he puts out memos sometimes. it has to do with activism. dupont. the king of scorched earth that says say no to anybody. they will run that defense and doing that in the case of dupont says in his most resent memo calls it lessons from dupont. in most cases corporations will be adviced to meet and discuss criticisms and proposals. he goes on to say they seek board reputation to seek. it may be the best course of action to consider board representation on condition of appropriate stance. >> marty li approximatepton. >> i just wanted to mention that. >> the old build the barriers is saying let them in? >> this could be the turning point. marty lipton is saying maybe let them in and he specifically references the dupont situation and the importance of whether you like it or not of the proxy advisory firm such as i.s.s. in this case. we'll see. i did want to mention that. >> thank you for giving me that opening. you mentioned the consumer trade fading.

you heard from marty lipton in response to be a e-mail where people were saying we don't quite understanddramatic change. apparently not. >> glass lewis supporting mr. peltz. >> he could be an agent of change. this thing could end. all they've got to do is sit in the seat. people can go back to work. dupont needs to go back to work and get bigger in food. dupont needs to focus more on its business. put peltz on the board. a lot of us just might become nice. >> chicago pmi is out. let's get to santelli. >> wow. we were looking for something around 50. that's the magic line between expansion and contraction. we did. 52.3 is the current read from a super spongy 46.3 we received last month. so that is a better read. to put in perspective, we had 45.8 in february 46.3 last month and january at 59.4. we had 60 levels towards the end of last year. in about an hour we are going to come back with alice from the organization to dig down. back to you "squawk on the street" gang. >> thank you very much. when we return, ford ceo mark fields as the automaker looks to wrap up its presence in silicon val