. >>> let's check on the top corporate stories with pippa stevens. >> good morning, dom the case of the buying at the bottom shares of adani group popping in overnight trade. telling shareholder s that gqg partners bought $1.1 billion of stock. despite the move, shares are still down sharply from the pre-crisis highs >>> the biden administration adding 28 more chinese companies to a trade black list for violating sanctions tied to russia and sharing tech related to nuclear and missile programs. among the firms, bgi companies and tech solutions. >>> major iphone maker foxconn is investing $700 million on the plant in india to ramp up local production according to bloomberg, it is one of the single biggest companies outside of china to date and used for iphones and parts for foxconn ev business. an lot of momentum behind ev. >> big business. pippa, thank you >>> back to the clues for the direction of the rate hiking path christopher waller providing information saying the rates m may have to go higher. waller says the strong labor market and consumer demand and price pressures calls into

wti below $70 a barrel >>> time for the check on the morning's top corporate stories with pippa stevens, frank starting with elizabeth holmes due back in the california courtroom today. the hearing is being held for restitution and if she can remain free while appealing her conv conviction her attorneys are expected to argue she should be allowed to remain free because her appeal has a substantial chance of succeeding and she is not a flight risk. >>> former jpmorgan chase head jes staley set to be deposed over his relationship with jeffery epstein. lawyers for the bank reveal they plan to speak with staley next week jpmorgan chase is suing him for any penalties it has to pay if it is found libel brought by the alleged victim >>> ge ceo larry culp seeing his co compensation afternoo taking a . down from $22.7 million in 2021. the drop was expected after culp and ge board last year agreed to reduce his annual stock award from $15 million to $5 million frank, that is a 50% pay cut i would still take it. >> a lot of people would pippa stevens, thank you >>> turning attention back to the to

the jobs are, and there are a lot of them in clean energy but not enough workers to fill them pippa stevensse details. hi, pippa. >> jobs in the clean energy space are booming on the heels of the inflation reduction act in the six months since the bill passed, more than 100,000 jobs have been created, according to data from climate power. that's because we have seen a wave of factory announcements including for solar panels and electric vehicle batteries and these new projects come with new job bes. in terms of where the jobs are, we have seen additions across more than 30 states with arizona, georgia, kansas and tennessee seeing the most. types of jobs include specialized sciences to mechanics, construction workers and electricians moving to a greener grid means an overhaul of current systems and some are warning that electricians specifically are in short supply here's michelle hicks from schneider electric >> no matter where you go, you see that electrification is everywhere look at the need for ev vehicles, right? we're estimating 48 million homes are going to need upgraded energy panel

pippa stevens what's going on here? >> marching back to the $70 level. currently at $69.50.ore than 3% in the top s&p group today. i want to take a look at this data from bank of america, which actually shows that last week, we saw the biggest inflows into the energy sector going back to 2008. >> wow. >> on the face of this, this seems like a very bullish indicator. we do have to look a little deeper because the sector was actually doing 7% last week. we saw outflows from some of the largest funds, including the xle and xlp. that begs the question, where are investors putting their money? it is more going to individual stocks rather than energy focused etfs. one area of etfs where they are putting their money is into high dividend funds like the vym. that includes a number of energy stocks. >> i'm shocked it's higher than when we had oil at 130 last year. pippa stevens, thanks. >>> let's get to see ma modi for the update. >> an earthquake was felt across pakistan. a producer reporting it was strong enough to prompt people to leave their homes in case they collapsed. some wom

pippa stevens with that for us. >> good morning.ey say new drug shortages rose nearly 30% from hé12021, to 202 due to economic factors. reliance on foreigne1 sources a democratic senator elizabethçó warren and republican senator rick scott are forming an unlikely team to increase oversight over the federal reserve. in the last hour,xd ÷y unveiled replace the fed's internalçó watchdog with one appointed by the president. and ine to airlines and their pilots,çó the federal aviation administration is stressing the need for continued vigilance after a series ofsv4 close calln the air and on runways. it says while the number of incidents is not rising, the potential severity of the events is concerning. back to you. >> all right, pippa, thank. pippa stevens. when we come back, meta gets its third upgrade this week. is itq too late to get intox#p stock that's up more than 120% from its lows.e1 from its lows.e1 you love closing a deal. but hate managing your business from afar. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. indeed instant

pippa stevens joins us now >> yep and we saw another week of build. the 11th straight week of u.s.hest since may of 2021. part of this is thanks to refinery maintenance that does bring down utilization rates which impacts demand for crude. a little higher now but quite in a tight range today. >> the headlines are all about first solar. wow, what i a move there >> yeah. it is surging at the highest since may 2009 this follows their q4 report he had beat estimates on both the top and bottom line. but i really think it is the guidance here that's driving the stock. up 14% right now they see full-year 2023 eps now between $7 and $8. that was against forecasts of 475. and a lot of that momentum is directly because of the i.r.a. and those tax credits. and right now first solar is basically the only domestic manufacturer of panels at any type of scale. so they are the clear winner in this post-i.r.a. push. but the stock is up 150% in the last year. you've got to wonder, is it a little bit stretched >> well, at least it's defied the narrative of everything else, which was peak in late 2021

i'm pippa stevens. wall street is set to open higher extending yesterday's relief rally. the dow rising more than 370 points while the s&p 500 gained 1.75% and the nasdaq closed up 2.5%. the gains coming after a group of 11 big banks agreed to give $30 billion in deposits to regional lender first republic. now, this is seen as a sign of confidence in the banking system, following a week of turmoil with the collapse of silicon valley bank and signature bank. credit suisse borrowing more than $50 billion from the swiss central bank. today, data production and consumer sentiments. sanofi will cut the price of lantus, the most widely used insulin in the country by 78% and will cap a patient's monthly out of pocket costs at $35. sanofi is one of the largest makers of insulin, along with eli lilly and novo nordisk. >> you can grab a big gulp while you recharge your vehicle. they plan to build one of the largest charging stations, they have some operating in florida, texas, colorado and california. they may work with your tesla if you have a working adapter. you can find out if

. >> good morning, i'm pippa stevens from cnbc. wall street is set for a flat open after stocks rallied yesterday. the dow closed up 341 points, while the s&p 500 and nasdaq both rose less than 1%. the gains coming amid conflicting comments from two at the federal reserve. one suggesting they can hike in small increments, while the other is raising the possibility that rates could go higher than expected if inflation doesn't slow down. costco's quarterly sales missed wall street estimates as consumers are being frugal amid stubbornly high inflation. major box retailers are seeing a slowdown for discretionary items, such as toys, electronics and home goods. higher prices are forcing shoppers to buy more necessities that are wallet friendly. walmart warning last week that consumers are shifting away from general merchandise, toward food and consumable goods. espn wants to be the streaming hub for all live sports, even if it helps the competition. sources tell cnbc, espn has talked with the major sports leagues and media partners abou

. >>> sticking with financialses and the fall of silicon valley bank we have pippa stevens with more on that story. >> frank, this morning, san francisco based lender first republic bank is exploring strategic options, including a sale and efforts to shore up liquidity. this comes after ratings and fitch downgraded the bank to junk in the wake of the failure of silicon valley bank and signature. shares are trading at the lowest level in years after falling 20% yesterday. >>> regulators are setting a friday deadline for those looking forbids for silicon valley bank and signature. this will be the second attempt at selling svb after efforts failed last weekend. frank. >> thank you very much. >>> the crisis at credit suisse and stress for u.s. banks and wake of svb collapse is adding to the volatility. the vix trading at the height of 30 let's talk more about all of this with vance howard great to have you here in person, van. >> thank you, frank. >> we talked about the vix you have a lot of clients. how does it impact how you balance portfolios last time you were 60/40 how does that ch

biggest names in energy gathering in houston this week pippa stevens is there pippa.ey, tyler. one of the most hotly anticipated conferences here at ceraweek was jennifer granholm's address. in a room packed with energy executives she praised oil and gas companies for their work over the last year saying the u.s. has become a global energy powerhouse, but she did say there is more for them to do on the clean energy front take a listen. >> we are still encouraging them to keep production up. they have been -- they have exercised capital discipline as they say, although they have been doing an awful lot of shareholder buyback, the majors have and would love to see some of that be invested in taking advantage of diversifying their energy portfolio >> reporter: she pointed to european majors that have diversified beyond hydro carbons. they have the capital, knowledge, and skill set and need to and can play a key role in the energy transition she pointed to the i.r.a. calling those incentives irresistible and said she hopes it will, quote, provide the impetus for them to p

pippa stevens has the details. >> walmart is cutting hundreds of workers at e-commerce fulfillment centers. this is to, quote, better prepare for the future needs of customers. those layoffs will focused at five fulfillment centers across the country and comes as walmart anticipates slower sales growth and lower profits in the coming year. walmart not the only one cutting costs. amazon earlier this week slashed 9,000 jobs. stock up about 1% right now. guys. >> thanks very much. >>> ahead, detailing ford's ev road map. the ceo offers guides and targets for its business shift. >>> plus yelling over the crowd. >>> plus yelling over the crowd. the market might think the if your business kept on employees through the pandemic, getrefunds.com can see if it may qualify for a payroll tax refund of up to $26,000 per employee. all it takes is eight minutes to get started. then work with professionals to assist your business with its forms and submit the application. go to getrefunds.com to learn more. 92% still active? seems high. seriously? it's just a bike. wait. they make a treadmill with an intu

pippa stevens, what do you make of it?bout. berkshire hathaway, another 3.7 million shares. and now owns about 23% of shares outstanding. and tb cowan upgraded the stock. this lens of buying support to the stock. and berkshire hathaway buying is showing no signs of slowing down. one thing i do want to take a look at today is hedging activity across upstream producers and that's because according to estimates from ever khor isi their upstream coverage is hedged about 16% this year. that's down from 30% last year and 50% going back to 2021. and this is important because it speaks to this post-pandemic producer. they've paid down debt, they have lower capital spending meaning they have lower required cash outflows, so they don't necessarily need to hedge because they can absorb the volatility of commodity prices. and while they do have very sophisticated hedging strategies it typically means to protect on the down side you have to limit the up side. if you don't have to do that why would you necessarily spend the money? >> do

let's get over to pippa stevens for a look at that objection. >> oil moved for gains and losses and wti is still holding around the $73 level and there are a couple of things going on with the fundamentals. today's inventory report showed a larger than expected draw of 7.5 million barrels as refinery utization jumped back above 90%. there's ongoing export averages in northern iraq nat gas is the biggest mover earlier the contract dropped to 194, the lost level in two and a half years now this april contract does expire today so volume is thin, but, still, nat gas is now down 55% for thyear, on pace for its worst quarter on record. demand has been low after a warm winter and the freeport outage, production has climbed and that means that inventories are elevated just as we head into injection season this weakness has pressured energy companies, kleg entero and dev orrin. we got the latest energy results and when asked where wti will be at end of the year responses range from 150 to $160 with the average being $80. tyler? >> pippa, thanks very much let's turn now to crypto bitcoin up 3.5%

start today at empower.com >>> welcome back to "closing bell" pippa stevens joins us with those. >> weare seeing broad-based strengths. there are a couple of notable movers, including canadian solar. the company had stronger than expected fourth quarter results and expects full-year solar module shipment up at the midpoint of its range. so nova is also jumping, several people told me were thanks to investors misunderstanding a filing of the company. to guarantee a majority of the company's loans to lower income customers. importantly this program hasn't yet been finalized and it also had nothing to do with the banking meltdown. ceo john berger telling me, mike, that it was in the works for more than a year. back to you. >> wow, maybe a sign of how skittish some investors are, pip pa. thank you very much. energy stocks gauge today as oil prices rebound from 15-month lows and our next guest says there's more up side in store. let's bring in senior portfolio manager of tortoise eco. been a tough run. natural gas had kind of a crash. oil has not really performed as many thought it would wi

pippa stevens has numbers. looked getter yesterday now back at 66. >> yeah. that's right oil hitting a fresh 15-month low earlier today, before recovering some losses. still both wti and brent down more than 10% on the week. mup of this thanks to macro issues and continued banking foughtout injecting uncertainty into the market. options selling exacerbating prize rates and not helping matters is the recounting of released just now showing that producers added oil and gas rates for the first time in five weeks. two upcoming events that could impact oil is the fed meeting next week, of course as well as opec's meeting april 3rd. in the meantime, there doesn't seem to be a positive catalyst that could change the price direction. that said, one wild card is the u.s. refilling the spr the administration previously said targeting 67 to $72 per barrel range, which oil is now below. energy stocks, worstgroup this week, down more than 7%. kelly? >> pippa, thank you. >>> for more on energy and oil bring in sam margelin managing director at wolf research. happy st. patr

energy the worst sector as oil broke below $66 a barrel let's get to pippa stevens on a check.he buzz about this? >> falling to the lowest level since december of 2021, wetting crushed here with spill over from the turnover in banks there is also the stronger dollar, a well supplied market for at least the first half of the year trading activity also playing a part pointing to delta hedging, increasing today's volatility. institutions are selling crude futures in order to avoid downside risk. energy is by far the worst performing s&p sector. halli halliburton, the biggest loser players like marathon oil and others also taking a hit >> look at halliburton down almost 10% thank you, pippa >>> let's get to tyler mathisen now. >> thank you very much good afternoon, everyone a chinese billionaire is scheduled to appear before a judge in new york city accused of orchestrating a billion dollar fraud the government says he was arrested this morning. he and another defendant, who remains at large, are charged with raising money from his online followers by promising big returns. instead

pippa stevens joins us now with the latest. >> reporter: at one point wti was down nearly 6% so it's some of the recovery no doubt thanks to bets the fed will pause the rate hikes nat gas it is going in the other direction jumping more than 6% we have seen the recount fall to a nine-month low and short conversation also likely at play here after that nearly 20% drop last week. now earlier today, the biden administration approved an $8 billion oil drilling project in alaska led by conoco phillips and known at willow in a hotly anticipated and controversial decision the department of the interior granted permits for three drilling sites which was slimmed down from the initially requested five sites conoco's ceo called it the right decision for alaska and our nation, but environmentalists groups were quick to oppose the decision with the nrdc calling it a grievous mistake that green lights a carbon bomb. >> a carbon bomb, wow. >>> a big pfizer buyout acquiring seagen for $43 billion. a lot of/on biotech and as we head to break we're sharing stories of women leaders in business and those

let's find out from pippa stevens. >> sliding earlier >> that's what i thought. >> but turned aroundernoon trading and that was because we got reports that top officials from saudi arabia and russia held the meeting where they reiterated opec & its allies agreement to keep the market balanced and steady according to saudi arabia's state news agency and reiterated that commitment of their 2 million barrel a day cut through the end of this year i wanted to look at where traders think the market is going longer term and, michael tran over at rbc crumped numbers and took a look at how december 2023 options activity is shaping up and as you can see on that chart there are quite a few call options at the 100 and up to $120 level on wti. also, of course, put options there as well but this is an inexpensive way for traders to express opt mitchel on wti longer term and of course doesn't have to get to that level for the contract to still be profitable so all of that means that there is this demand rebound optimism still in the second half of the year. the elusive demand. >> you point out stee

. >> pippa stevens with the update on energy. >>> let's get to bertha coombs for a cnbc update. >> here'st trump can be sued by police and lawmakers who contend he is responsible for the january 6th capitol insurrection that is the justice department's position in a new court filing that urges a judge to reject trump's claim of absolute immunity the doj is not saying whether it thinks trump is actually liable or not for what happened >>> president biden arrived at the capitol today for a closed door lunch with senate democrats. at the lunch, he said he will not veto gop resolutions that would block the district of columbia's city council from enacting changes to its criminal justice laws that's what four sources with direct knowledge are telling nbc news >>> and ford says it will restart production of its electric f-150 lightning pickup a week from monday it was halted early last month after a battery fire in a vehicle waiting for its predelivery check. >>> and dom, the most amazing thing, if your house loses power, that ford f-150 can power your home up to three days >> that's part of th

our pippa stevens has more. >> while shares are up more than 11% following the fourth quarter beat comparablewere also ahead of expectations coming in at 27% versus a forecast of 23.9%. adjusted gross margin down slightly to 57.4%, although that was ahead of estimates. now, the company's inventory was up 50% at the end of last year, relative to 2021. standing at $1.4 billion, however, that was an improvement from the third quarter. now, it really seems to be the guidance that is driving stocks. they expect it to be between 9.3 and $9.4 billion ahead of what analysts were expecting and a lot of concerns heading into the report, so the upbeat guide does seem to be alleviating some fears. now, beyond closing just now on the call the company pointed to a challenged at home fitness space saying mirror hardware sales during the holiday season were below expectations. lulu said it will pivot away from the hardware centric business to instead focus on the app-based model. shares up 12%. >> pippa, thanks very much. >>> karen, are they digging out, do you think? >> there was a lot to like. often you ha

. >> thank you very much energy stocks meantime rising today even as oil prices are falling 4% pippa stevens all this >> oil is down all day long but then this latest leg lower came after the headlines about the russian fighter jet hitting the u.s. drone now, it's a little bit of a head scratcher because you might think the escalation would be supportive for prices ux particularly since russian crude has held up so much better than anyone would have thought. but i just talked to rebecca babbin at cibc private wealth and she said this is another indication of the oil market kind of ignoring the fundamentals and instead moving on the broader macro concerns, the growth concerns, concerns around the svb fallout and she essentially said there's just not enough good stuff right now to keep people in the oil trade. we haven't seen those demand numbers materialize and that really has been the bullish case and john kilduff reminding me once again that wars -- escalations can also lead to a slowdown in demand that seems to be what's driving the -- >> basically the explanation here is that long after w

pippa stevens joins us now with more. >> reporter: yeah, fell to the lost since december 2021, but we'vebig bounce off the worst levels of the day. it was at 65.65 earlier, so more than $2 above the low that we had earlier today. of course, this is from the fallout in the banks as well as global growth concerns for wti specifically it was stuck between the range between 70 and 80 and once it fell below 70, that does fuel technical selling which then increases the volatility we are seeing now a big drop in energy stocks on the heels of oil's decline. it is the worst performing group today. the oih, services names like haliburton and sib are among biggest losers and that's pause they actually outperformed the xle and xlp in the last six months so this could be a case of easing up on some of the positions that have been relative outperformers i wanted to pick out one thing from that chart, it showed the relative strength index on the xle which, of course, is tracking the energy sector, and it shows that it has dropped below 0 and it's now at over sold levels, and you can see in the past whe

i'm pippa stevens.g group. occidental petroleum a relative outperformer as berkshire hathaway boosts its stake yet again, disclosing it bought nearly 8 million shares of the stock this week. that stock is about 0.4% higher right now. exand conoco phillips are lower and the sector remains in negative territory over the past week as oil trades near its lowest level since december 2021 carl, back to you. >> thanks so much. what day for energy today. still to come this morning, a look at one key indicator of credit stress for the banks. seeing some big gains this week. we'll talk about that. overall it's kind of an inside day. haven't gotten to yesterday's intraday high or low sara is watching the euro in the wake of ecb dollar index is lower. >> yeah. there is a risky move. considered a risky move she raised 50 basis points the euro is stronger and a weaker dollar on the higher yields and equities holding up there are questions whether she did the right thing. me tethbrk. don't go away. as a business owner