joining us now is oliver renick. i know you have been on this story all day. entially from last august, why didn't anyone take their shorts down? oliver: it depends on what you're looking at. you can think of shorts in a few ways. one of the big questions is our people shorting particular companies based on the fundamentals and making a call that a certain security will go down, are they doing it as part of a hedge for the other side of a long trade? right now, it seems like people are making bets on individual companies, which is not a good thing if you are thinking about earnings or the story for u.s. stocks overall. betty: or the economy. oliver: you saw what happened in august and september. people were pretty long. when the markets sold off, they cover their shorts on spy futures. long and short contracts are both down now, which indicates people are taking a step off of the table. they are not long but not reducing their shorts either. at is thee looking average short interest of companies in the s&p 500. part of the reason that people have not covered it

macro advisors and oliver renick, stock market reporter for bloomberg news. you. let me start with it's always difficult to paraphrase an eminent economies -- economist like joseph stiglitz, but do you agree with him? >> if i dared disagree with a nobel laureate, i will. yields, event bond evaluations of the stock market, a real a not speak to real active electrode toured -- a real economic downturn. they are hurting quite badly because the slowdown in nominal gdp, slowdown in cash flow. also, capital markets are not indicating let's really happening. absence government support -- was really happening. -- what is really happening. the rest of the economy is starting to contract. this is not the time to focus on capital markets as a barometer of the economy. there is risk aversion. government bonds are your least worst that. date -- bet. you often hear its jobs, its employment that's the real silver lining in the chinese .conomy is that a bright spot? spots.e are bright the service's story is real. manufacturing is good. we expect after the spring festival holiday

bloomberg stocks reporter oliver renick joining us now. and earnings recession here. that is where we're at with earnings. so far it looks like things will end the quarter down. a lot of the other things we have talked before, concerns about growth in china, rising credit spreads in the high-yield market, some of the other technicals we have discussed, what jpmorgan-- calls a feedback in volatility, where stocks get jumpy. people start to look back at their numbers and think, why is this happening? days like last week, we had a pretty bad day. people start to ask questions about what is going on underneath the surface. betty: isn't that also because of a lack of liquidity? it,er: that is part of stocks are oftentimes easiest to sell, in particular the big stocks. if you have a weakness in other asset classes and you are seeing red, you can make up some cash. seem likehis cuts they're coming from a bit of the fundamental standpoint. the earnings, our earnings really the big driver here? oliver: for the day-to-day stuff, it does not really seem like that and we're workin

betty: thank you, all of her redneck -- oliver renick. looking, as we see here, to close higher, except for the nasdaq. still struggling in the red. ♪ . . scarlet: we are moments away from the closing bell. i'm alix steel. joe weisenthal is on assignment. [applause] bell ringing] barely the nasdaq in the red. scarlet: the question is "what'd you miss?" forget about a rate hike in march, one analyst says they are looking for a rate cut instead. scarlet: and we show you the one chart when ceo matters when it comes to china. on a ran andhart oil that will scare the bulls. scarlet: global stocks rallied overnight and it seemed like the u.s. would build off of that momentum. we started off with momentum, but they were unable to hold on. at the s&pu look minis versus oil prices, as oil prices started to give up some of those gains and rollover a bit

renick for a little more perspective. what you make of today's trading? oliver: i think it is interesting.is the thing. 2% catches people off guard, up or down. historically, if you look at what happens on the first a of the year, it is a volatile day. the average move is 1% in either direction, where any other time .75%.r it is .7 .5% -- a lot of people aren't expected to get in big meaningful trades. people are trying to figure out which direction they want to go. maybe there is some adding in of names that are doing well. all these forces are happening as an end of the year thing. betty: isn't there some data out there that says for at least january goes, where the stock market goes. oliver: january, where the market goes, provides a bit more insight. day means absolutely nothing. does anybody think we may be seeing the end? going ons of what is today, we may be seeing the end of this will run? >> people to question that. i don't think today's move feels massiveeginning of some downdraft like we had in august or october. nobody is really panicking. i was kind of surprised. were down alm