is trcar. ♪ >>> well, blame it on stan fischer or not.er his comments to steve leishman, dow crossed into the red. see what happens late other than be this afternoon. meanwhile, whether it's rackspace, now ulta down 15. stock stories are out there. >> big lots with earnings today, too. that stock down about 3.6% on a big revenue decline. one if not the only companies reporting today. >> and doing well after earnings. a beat in raise there, but splunk not doing well. despite a beaten raise because billings didn't come in with investors wanted. >> high expectations. a good weekend to everybody. over to headquarters and "the half." >>> welcome to the "halftime report." i'm melissa lee in for scott wapner. top at this hour, long live long longer. janet yellen hawkish, kind of, sort of. she hedged again with that same line we've come to expect. the fed is data dependent. is it lower for longer? today's traders josh brown, jim nt

so, guys, i guess the debate becomes, is there much space between janet yellen and stan fischer?ot sure there is. one made a comment about coming rate hikes and another asked a question and more definitive. >> great stuff. thank you very much. steve liesman out in jackson hole. >> reporter: sure. >> steve grasso just off the floor here. steve, you know, maybe it just comes down to gdp number this morning wasn't that great and next quarter, the current quarter looks better. >> right. >> does it depend on the jobs number next friday? >> i don't know. they say they're data driven. i think flipping a coin might be a better way to do it. right? they have a 50-50 chance. right now the market thinks they're 100% wrong. they have at least a 50% chance of being right. today rallies what you expect to ralliment financials doing better. i thought they would do a lot better. i guess the market is struggling saying what will higher rates mean to the overall equity market? >> the larger point everybody could make is that this is a strange recovery and gdp growth very weak and very choppy. >> t

stan fischer is probably a little more hawkish than janet yellen and his comments showed where he said, we are not there but we are pretty close. that sounds like a guy that when he submits his thoughts in september will probably have a hike later this year. he sounded little more hawkish than perhaps what we will hear from yellen but that's consistent with how he has been speaking. oliver: i feel like we can have this inflation without ringing comments whichms' reverberated through the markets . when he talked about rethinking inflation targets, how does that anifest itself or does it in meaningful shift for policy and dialogue in the coming weeks or months? say these are things that are very long-running and i would expect a pivot in the inflation target soon. this is a dialogue that's going to happen among policymakers for many months or perhaps years. i would not think of this as is it going to be a december hike, this is very long-running in nature. david: is there an openness to reevaluating these targets? inst: as you mentioned, 2010, bernanke said there's no one who supports re

stan fischer and others don't think that way. alix: tie it all together for us. t jackson hole, the rhetoric seems to be more hawkish. what kind of fischer did we get today versus the speakers we had on friday? tom: we moved on from the polarity of the yellen comments at jackson hole. there will be more data going into the september meeting. the theoretical confusion that we saw at jackson , and theg academics confusion that we witnessed in the markets. whether it is oil or the negative interest rate debate, it is a most interesting time. always, to speak to stan fischer. fascinating 2016. alix: federal confusion is what jon ferro calls that. us, tomciate joining keene from "surveillance." up, which states are seeing a pickup in inflation? that answer may surprise you. we will show you where the wage gains are in off the charts. this is bloomberg. ♪ alix: this is "bloomberg ," i'm alix steel. the key number for friday will be average hourly earnings. morgan stanley sees that declining to 2.3%. here's an charts that may have some upside for wage inflation. grea

stan fischer, the fed vice chair basically suggested that another rate increased this year would be appropriateing,10 year yield so as matt pointed out with or, we saw little bit of increased rates on the short end, lower on the 10 year. oil giving up -- falling for the first time in eight days. it had been on a seven-day winning streak, the longest since 2012. matt: the longest streak in four years, pretty remarkable. a big drop, but oil, i showed a chart earlier and i will just bring it up again. julie hyman put this together. it just shows you the wild ride that oil has had back to 2015. we fill 47% that year through february and then we were up 95%. then back into a bear market and then back into a bull market on friday. there is a sufficient chance the bank of japan will add to its unprecedented easing at september's policy meeting. the yen weakened after the boj governor made that comment. this is all set against the backdrop of the japanese prime minister's recent plans for more aggressive stimulus. our next guest said the second round will be dead before arrival. joining us now is the c

put forth and not like stan fischer that they haven't put things forward that did not occur. who am i ever to argue with art cashin? i think it is a rethink and as ben pointed to on a day without a lot of volume. the hurry up to catch up to your bogey, those texas hedges make me nervous but i think it's more status quo. i haven't bumped into anybody that believes the fed will snug up before the election. does that mean they won't talk about it? yes, it does. does that not mean there's a potential of atlanta gdp around 3.5%, it's the quarter of escape velocity? we have been there many times and a catch-up of weak quarters of gdp. i don't think it's more than that and not sure if the fed tells it's more than that and at least at this point, friday's number, unemployment, probably pretty important. >> i'm sure you want echo that and also talk about areas of the market you like regardless of what happens on some of the macro numbers. >> well, i look at valuations. i look at future options. i see industrials doing better. i see energy doing better. they've started to bounce. i thi

i just wonder to what spent the market is lsh wil readjust the positions based on what stan fischer says over the next couple of weeks. do you think we may get stretched again in terms of dollar positioning. >> i think it's dÉjÀ vu all over again. we were hereast september. the market was expecting a rate hike. they were so temper tantrumn the marketace. china fell off and all of a sudden the 25 basis point hike disappeared. we ended up doing it in december. the market is going to continue to lag the dats and fed talk in terms of pricing dollar strength in. moving forward, it's going to have to sound and thdata has to be sportive for peoe to pile into this 25 basis point hike. i think it's important that pele realize that moving forward, it's going be extremely choppy extremely difficult to trade the dollar with just fed comments moving markets. >> peter, good morning. mark oz wald put out thoughts. he sd the biggest risk of not mong ietting bind the curb. then you have aituation if you wait until december, you have third quarter gdp. head line could 2%. unemploynt. do y tnk that is the

stocks that the liesman interview with stan fischer is calling for multiple rate hikes. now, maybe they walk them back, but we get a strong employment number, these stocks continue to fly. something to live more. >>best performing sector today. on fire. this the buy signal in the group? >> saying it the last six months, been dead wrong. you have to keep buying these. buy the ones jim said, the regional banks. the signal that will happen, the economy is okay. if the economy's okay, banks will do fine. trading below book. trading at a market discount. no money is in the sector, strong balance sheet, dividends, everything people were buying in staples and telecom. >> and also the ability to increase share buy backs. also could potentially see dividend growth. now, the market right now, which has been a buy-back market the last couple of year, buy backs plunged this quarter. look at sector, say to yourself, cyclicals outperforming. of course i'm looking at financials. an environment no one is buying back shares financials can. >> and back to the very top. is this some kind o

you had that from jackson hole, stan fischer on this very network. >> hawkish? ten year government, 155. on average, the thing i've made this point in the past, past programs. eight interest rate psycycles se the 1950s, on average market rose. market's not discounting 37% fed funds rate. the market knows it's got higher. question, slope. gradual slope, i think gradual, fed's afraid to move. i thought move two years ago. employment going up 200,000 people a month, automobile sales running near 17 million. clear they're concerned about the dollar strength and going slow because our trading partners are keeping rates very low. interest rates are artificially low and the market understands that. >> what happens if the fed moves in a couple weeks, as i said? >> you know, you get the clue on friday. if the employment report comes in say 200,000 or more, go for sure in september. coming in 150,000 or less, probably wait until december. i just see that as a tactical one two, three, four percent correction, not the end of the market cycle. the rising interest rates are i

morse, to boost up inflation to make stan fischer and martin hegarty happy yeah cap edward: if you canappening in venezuela and nigeria -- tom: i can do that. see headlineto inflation depressed, come back up to where it is, or versus the other way around? edward: we expect that but not in the next year or two. it could in the 2018 environment, or it could happen in the core commodities that are critical for inflation around the world. food and fuel -- both of them could be poised for significantly higher prices at the end of 2017, early 2018. francine: if you look at central banks and what they are trying to do, how difficult is it for them for inflation, unless they forget the 2% target? inflation in europe today is nowhere to be seen. martin: i would beg to differ on that inflation is nowhere to be seen. when you look at the construct of the number, the services component of that core number is running at 1.1. when we parallel that to the in theervices inflation u.s. is running at a relatively healthy clip, even when you include the negative contribution from energy services. in the

what i'm watching will be the post interview with stan any fischer. who better to interpret.luencer on the fed. we'll sit down with him on squawk aly. thank you, don, for being here this week. it was fun. yoge to swea o in uraru think is s smell is. th the freze c vt ip elimate odore nosebld forto s break out the febreze, [inhe/exhalemnemon] eaha >>> good morning. it's the day we've all been waiting for. all eyes are on this, i dare say. janet yellen set to talk about interest rates and inflation. live from jackson hole. beautiful area. we'll tell you what to expect. you're apple device, meanwhile, could be at risk. what you need to do now to prevent hackers from taking over your phone's camera and microphone. >>> plus the fire storm overepipens. lawmakers and leaders responding to the comments on "squawk box" yesterday. the hot seat is getting hotter. it's friday, august 26, 2016. and "squawk box" begins right now. good friday morning. welcome to squax here on cnbc. i'm kayla along with joe kernen and and drew sorkin. becky is off today. we are counting down to the fed speec

i think people are expecting her to send the same upbeat message on the economy like stan fischer didekend and other fed speakers. she will probably not give as much timing on the next rate hike because they have markets where they want them. they don't really have to do a lot of signaling in terms of getting the market to where they want to be. there is a debate that emerges every time we get a speech. reserve'seral monetary policy very vague or do we know what we can expect friday? >> people are interested to hear what janet yellen has to say. tools do they have? she is likely to repeat things that the new york fed president bill dudley has said like about how we can go back to qe for guidance if we have to. ae will try to send reassuring message that the fed is not out of ammunition. that's likely what we're going to hear from her. jonathan: thanks so much. markets, futures are firmer and equities are rallying in europe and its more of a positive session for the bulls. alix: especially if you have a buy rating. killer quarter for best buy will raise their third-quarter revenue and

doesn't matter what stan fischer says.n lease man interviewed him -- >> i thought that was sexist. >> the fed has always covered itself with the fact that its policy [ overlapping talking ]. yellen, it's what i was reading from different -- didn't do much on the talks. >>> the thing, joe, is that yellen is super -- it's yellen and dudley for the most part. fischer has been perceived more hawkishly. when fischer came out so soon avielle en's talk on friday, they figure -- >> why do -- [ overlapping talking ]. >> why not price it at minus 30e. we should go to negative profitability. >> negative interest rates. >> might as well go to negative probability. >> the fed will have a credibility problem again. [ overlapping talking ]. >> when leashman came out, he said yes and yes. that's the way you should read yellen's comments. >> sure, absolutely. they probably think they can move in november or late october, which is absurd. >> of course not. >> when you say strong employment report, i guess if the report is so ridiculously st

we have stan fischer the vice chair at 11:30. >> i'm wondering what the talk is at jackson hole that lays blame on the fed for this outpouring of populism and inequality in this country that we've seen. >> reporter: so it was out there sort of last night. i didn't get to talk to too many folks about it. they had seen it. talked about it. they do agree they have a terrible communications probable. at least some of the folks i talked to. mostly they think the policies they pursued have been the right ones so there's a bit of disagreement as to whether or not the policies are wrong between the story and what i'm hearing from fed folks, but they certainly agree they've got a pretty bad job at communicating the reasons for their strategies. >> they didn't say, boy, did we screw up those policies, we're autism. they said they thought the policies were good. >> right joe, let me ask you, do you buy the idea, i don't know if they're still here today. >> is there a direct flight from newark. how quickly can i get there? >> reporter: you want to protest for higher rates. >> is that what they w