are -- joining us is paul hickey. seeing jobless claims remain at near their cycle lows. they are supportive of the strength we've seen in the market lately. as they have made new lows in the last year, the market as moved in a sideways pattern. -- has moved in a sideways pattern. the consumer is doing relatively well here. jon: it's it's an economy losing momentum or just topping out? paul: a late stage economy, which does not necessarily mean week markets. -- weak markets. , theythere are concerns are showing some signs of rebounding here. the consumer activity in our surveys is showing increased propensity to spend. sales data was strong. muche: why do we have so terrible earnings from target to tiffany's? of the reasons we have gotten stuck in a bit of a rut, toward the later part of earning season, you have the retailers and we are seeing a dramatic shift in shopping patterns. retail sales were strong in april. it is more of a function of consumers changing habits than consumers taking in the trench -- digging in

schiff to talk about why donald trump revealed america's little dirty secret on "squawk box" and why paul hickeyelieves that stocks are ton th upward trend. >> and stan is one of the best. the bull market is exhausting itself. get out of the stock market. gold remains the largest gold allocation, the fed has no end game, they are obsessed with the 20% drop in the s&p and if the stock market is the future, we should be selling at a discount right now and not a premium. thoughts? >> well, provocative thoughts. >> yes. >> and well, listen, it is provocative and a lot there that most of us agree with, but overall the tone yesterday, and for pete and i were there, and you were there for most of the day, and i think that everyone was very, very pessimistic and bearish as it relates to the economy and the stock market, itself. but that being said, getting out of stocks completely, that is not something that i would advocate, because there are ways to hedge out the expose shure i the stock market and as it relates to gold itself, we saw in 2008, and 2009, gold did not work as diversification tool that m

alix: paul hickey is the founder of bespoke investment group. i asked if recovery has matured. a late stage economy, but that does not necessarily mean weak markets. you can have late stage economies go on for several years and we see concerns in certain sectors and industrials have continued to show weakness, but they show some signs of a rebound. is showing anity increased propensity to spend. this week's new home sales data, some of it may have been an anomaly, but some of it was very strong. incredibly bearish and people were saying to buy gold. we have had a tremendous rally in europe over the last couple of days. isn't this the breakout? guest: it is all about sentiment. last week, the fed minutes came out and they said june is a possibility. when does the fed come out and say a meeting is off table? think we have such a rut alternating between gains and losses and you get to a time when no one thinks the market can go higher and that is exactly when the market does go higher. the s&p 500ted to -- will it react favorably or unfavorably? we need a rate hike to send the sig