>> i think, as you heard from moster and steve liesman is careful to describe it. it's not just the tradition audit because the fed is audited by a major accounting firm. if you look at the fed's web site you'll see a weekly monthly, and quarterly basis all it holds. it's transparent that way. they use the word but it really means an oversight, more than oversight, sort of an involvement in the decision-making about interest rates and if you look at the history of banks that have been more independent or less independent in the political process, the ones that are more independent have lower less variable inflation and the overall employment outcomes have been at least as good and generally better and less variable when you don't have the political interference. >> professor, thank you so much. please come back and spend time with us again. >> thank you. >> professor randall crosner with booth school of business. >>> clock is ticking on a potential shutdown of the homeland security department and today, the wrangling among lawmakers contin >>> the price of crude oi

bring back steve liesman for an update. steve? >> thanks, kayla.n the past hour there was a heated exchange with fed chair janet yellen and republican scott garrett who by the way is the hometown congressman for cnbc here in anglewood cliffs over the issue of the fed's independence and whether or not there's a bias at the fed with who it meets with and who the fed chair meets with. listen to the sound here. >> i'm sorry. we meet with a wide range of groups. i think it is a complete mischaracterization of our meeting schedules and my meetings are entirely public, my schedule is completely in the public domain. >> that's where i'm taking this from. this was just handed to me. it's good that -- >> i'm sorry, i think if you have -- >> this much is in public domain. we're trying to make a little more in the public domain with -- >> these are private one on one meetings and i don't think it's appropriate. if i had breakfast with you, i would not make a transcript of what we discussed over breakfast. >> when discussing -- >> more on the issue of monetary

for "nightly business report," i'm steve liesman in dallas. >>> a big threat to the economy is the slowdown at the west coast ports. according to guggenheim securities the l.a. long beach port alone accounts for nearly 40% of containerized trade and estimated 12.5% of u.s. gdp tied to cargo moving through the west coast ports. as we told you last night, work has been suspended again. this time for four days. jane wells has more. >> reporter: on thursday more than 40 container ships were either anchored off the west coast or circling waiting for anchoragestan argo pacific representing employers saiding crews withecially since thursday r pay.n yore foreman. same pay for this weekend and mond president'either. which it a strike with pay. >> every time we solve an issue that's important, they layer on new demands. the latest one we can't live with. >> reporter: according to management the demand it cannot live with is one by dock workers to be able to unilaterally fire arbitrators. goods take weeks longer than normal to move in and out of the west coast, congress is worried. >> well this is cle

as steve liesman tells us there are key words we'll be watching for. >> reporter: washington is playing a game of words with feds tomorrow when janet yellen heads to the senate for semiannual testimony. the first word that we'll be listening for it patience. the word the fed said will be two meetings before it raises rates. if she doesn't use it. markets will believe that rate hikes could come sooner. that's what makes the next word or phrase so important. does yellen say mid year to connote when the feds might be thinking about rate hikes. >> committee participants have indicated that in their view conditions could be appropriate by the middle of next year. >> reporter: all of that is de pen dent not on whether yellen plays the inflation word she will but how she plays it. a word in december shows inflation was by far the most used worth. but yellen used it two ways. first to say it was running below the feds' 2% target and second to say it's expected to move back towards the target. if yellen says she's not worried about inflation below the target that would get the market's attention

for "nightly business report," i'm steve liesman in dallas. >>> a big threat to the economy is the slowdown at the west coast ports. according to guggenheim securities the l.a. long beach port alone accounts for nearly 40% of containerized trade and estimated 12.5% of u.s. gdp tied to cargo moving through the west coast ports. as we told you last night, work has been suspended again. this time for four days. jane wells has more. >> reporter: on thursday more than 40 container ships were either anchored off the west coast or circling waiting for anchorage saves. came to a standstill. >> do not listen to pma's [ bleep ]. stay united. >> that's how strained it's become against the union repting longshoremen with cargo backed up the pacific maritime association or pma representing employers said there was no point in hiring crews with vessels, especially since thursday lincoln's birthday requires higher pay. as much as $82 for the most seen yore foreman. the same pay for this weekend and mond president's day. no ship work either. as the pma calls the congestion which it blames on dock workers,

steve liesman with more on today's testimony. >> reporter: in testimony before the senate banking committee, the fed chair, janet yellin gave no hint on when the fed rate hike in nine years will come. it depends on the data. and as long as the word quote, patient is in the statement, there won't be a rate hike for at least two meetings. >> if sees the assessment that it can be patient in beginning to normalize policy means that the committee considers it unlikely the economic conditions will warrant an increase in the range for the federal funds rate for at least the next couple of fomc meetings. >> reporter: it was an essentially neutral message that saw as dovish. the fed won't hike rates in june but it could just as well have been seen as preserving the fed's flexibility to decide at the march meeting to signal rate hikes this summer. yellin maintained an upbeat view on the economy and said oil prices would be a net benefit for consumers but said there's still room for improvement citing slow wage growth and inflation running below the fed's 2% target. yellin was grilled as expected by d

stanley fischer weighed in with steve liesman and say that's probably the year. does that worry you or do you think the market h factored that in? >> well no it doesn't worry me. it's actually what we're expecting. we think it's going to be in the third quarter. we think that the combination of better employment and wage pressure are going to start pushing inflationary pressures into the marketplace. mr. fischer obviously talked about the fact that the commodities, deflationary forces are subsiding and wage takes over and the fed will move in the summer. >> eric let's get to some of your picks here. one, a cyber security company. the other, a victim of a cyber security hack. let's start with the security company and that is proof point. pfpt at 56.78. >> they're a small company. they're focused therefore mostly on the u.s. market. you talked about the cyber problems that a lot of companies have had. cyber security is a growing industry. proof point is growing in market share in that growing field and we think because they're domestically focused, no dollar effect

steve liesman joins us from dallas with a cnbc rapid update. hey, steve. >> carl, good morning.eah, it's interesting to see how the market has been reacting to this news, unchanged and maybe it's because the gdp outlook is unchanged. despite the disappointing top line when you go down to look at the core sales number, it was below expectations but we're still on track for a 3% spending growth in the quarter. taking a look at the rapid update what you see is the fourth quarter tracking still at 2%. obviously down from the 2.6% originally reported. the first quarter tracking at 2.8%. inside of that is a consumion number that's going to be in the $2.3% range that was in the fourth quarter but still a pretty healthy number. you can see in the retail details. the 9.3% decline, in gasoline station sales, but again some of the discretionary items were down. 2.6 on sporting goods, books and music stores, autos down 1%, and department stores down 0.7%. but economists were not really all that concerned. what they looked at was, some of the underlying fundamentals of the economy so joel na

we've steve liesman and rick santelli in chicago. steve liesman, 257,000 jobs created. the unemployment rate dipped -- goes up to 5.7%. regale us here. >> there's a lot to regale you with, bill, because i think the big story is not so much the 257,000, it's the prior revisions adding 147,000 jobs to december and november which were all part of a broader annual benchmark revision that really upped the trajectory of job growth to now an additional 15,000 per month. i don't have a chart but it looks like job trajectory is going straight up in terms of monthly growth and so what has happened, bill is that our sense of the underlying strength of the job market took a major step forward, and there's another detail in there which is that the household survey showed 700,000 people coming back into the workforce which is why the unemployment rate rose. if there's a good reason for the unemployment rate to rise it's that. it's that a strong job market is attracting people from the sidelines to raise their hand and say, you know i'm back available for work, count me as part of the

senior reporter steve liesman is here on the desk as well. our game plan, looks like this.stocksurge. twitter shares up after the earnings beat, but is it enough to silence the company's critics? ripping and dipping. gopro, linked, pandora, yelp, so many more movers today. what you need to know about the stocks moving the most on the street. we begin, though, with the better than expected employment report. the economy adding 257,000 new jobs last month continuing the best streak of job gains since 1994. wages getting a nice bounce as well and all of it only adding to the debate over when the fed will begin hiking interest rates and ha what that could mean for stocks having their best week in about four years. josh brown, makes you want it to go out and buy stocks or do you start to get a little concerned that all right, the fed may come in sooner than i thought and that's going to cause all sorts of volatilitity. >> i try not to trade on economic data points, ones that are prone to 6, 7 revisions. >> i'm leaving. >> no no no. >> i'm done. >> hear me out. i think it's reall

steve liesman is back at hq i hope he has his ear piece in. was that the highlight of this, steve steve? >> sort of in terms of what matters to the market's monetary policy i don't think it was but in human drama sure. elizabeth warren is good at using her time, trying to get yes or no answers that the chair may not be willing to provide. the issue of scott alvarez the fed's chief counsel apparently criticizing a rule of dodd/frank and warren pressing her, pressing the chair as to whether or not that was the fed's instruction or in line with the fed board of governors thinking an important one and issue about a leak that came from the fed 2 1/2 years ago and whether or not warren could get a briefing on that. one of the more dramatic exchanges but not i think from a policy standpoint or market standpoint not one of the most cuss quenshal. >> to that point, art cashin here at post nine. what is the policy headline? a matter of patience comes out in march and gets discussed in april and a hike in june? >> it's that yellen goes for gradualism and

just more of the same, nothing has changed since the last time we looked at the stuff. >> steve liesmanistening to janet yellen it sounds more political than yesterday but nothing really to change the course of where we think fed policy is and where it's going. >> no, scott but i am going to invoke the word ugly. it has gotten more than just political, i have never in 17 years of covering the fed heard the fed chair accuse a political bias the way i am right now with what's going on in the house. it's pretty interesting. she's been accused of not meeting with congressional republicans and with more conservative groups. she was accused of political bias in talking about inequality. major speech she gave two weeks before the congressional election. you're right, not a whole lot on monetary policy. she did say all of the inflationary factors she sees as transitory and once they have confidence the inflation factors are transitory it will clear the way to raise rates. a little bit of maybe a dovish spin on that, but i have to think and it's unclear to me right now to say so, there's some bo

steve liesman sat down with him for an exclusive interview before he left last night. rning to you. >> good morning, carl. and we talked a lot about world issues as well as domestic ones. i asked him, whether or not when it came to raising the tax rate on capital gains and this issue of middle class economics, how much when it comes to taxes on the wealthy is too much? >> just reminding you 28% of the kp capital gains rate was a rate when reagan was in office and the economy did just fine with that rate. our top rate for individuals is what it was when president clinton was in office. and this period of uninterrupted growth of american history. if you look at the things that we've proposed they're a fundamental fairness. i think very much the case that if we could make the investments that we're talking about our economy would grow more, and that would be good for everybody. we're not doing things that we haven't tested. we've had an experiment in this country. we had big tax cuts. the economy did not do very well afterwards. so we're going back to policies that are in

that's our steve liesman with the fed vice chair stan fischer, and, steve thank you so much.eresting the contrast between his remarks, especially at the end on that optimistic note and what we heard from alan greenspan yesterday but i guess you would imagine the fed vice chair to strike that kind of optimism. >> i think the key headline, it's about time to raise rates. that's what mr. fischer said. zero interest rate policy is far from normal he highlighted. the dollar strength is reflecting the strength of the u.s. economy. he gave a quick overview of the global economy. and he's optimistic about the u.s. economy. >> we'll see if that's borne out. there's much more to come on "closing bell." >> here is sue herera with a cnbc business news update. hello, sue. >> hi bob. here is what's happening. tim cook telling requesting the telegraph" the apple watch might replace the need for car keys. the paper quoting him saying the watch's battery will last the whole day and will 23409 take as long to charge as the iphone. >>> a u.s. agency says california will not get any federal wate

our senior economic reporter steve liesman has the details. hi, steve. >> tyler, thank you. fed chair janet yellin giving no hint at the first -- fed's first rate hike in nine years is imminent or that it's not coming. the only definitive statement on the outlook for monetary policy is that it depends on the economic data and as long as that word patient is in the statement, there won't be a rite rate hike for at least two meetings. >> the fomc's assessment that it can be patient beginning to normalize policy means that the committee considers it unlikely that economic conditions will warrant an increase in the target range for the federal funds rate for at least the next couple of fomc meetings. >> as tyler said the fixed income stock markets took the messages modestly dovish. you can see the futures market down from 51 basis points and where it would be in december 2015 now just well, there it goes just to 47. to my mind, yellin was mutual in the debate over whether the fed would take hikes in june or september. to be clear i think she's preserving the fed's -- whether to

steve liesman at hq. meantime the downess down 17 points. parker at morgan stanley, chief u.s. equity strategist there. good morning. >> good morning. >> what a month we've had, yet you say as of the 18th, we continue to think that hubris and debt define the top of every cycle and that these are unlikely to become problems this year not worried at all? >> well you know whenever you throw at the all it makes somebody like me nervous. i'm confident. here's why the expectations for earnings have come down so sharply that we actually think they're too low. a lot of the negativity of low oil and a lot of the negativity from the analysts' expectations is in the numbers and nothing that comes later but consumer benefits lower inputs we have a good setup into the middle of the year. >> six months ago you said the cycle could last until 2020. >> yes. >> s&p could cycle end near 3000 but the target for the year 2275. >> that's right. you have several years out. i think you could get higher in the market. if you think about it you know near 3000 by cyc

steve liesman covered benmosche during the financial crisis. i know aig has a stained name because of the bailout. benmosche came in. he was already sick. he risked his own health to help the u.s. taxpayer and the company. >> i think that's a good way to put it brian. this was the you got to be kidding me story of the financial crisis. remember the aig bailout happening a day after the leman bankruptcy on the 16th of september, 2008. there were four different kashdz the government had to come to the rescue of aig. . it was really thought to be a massive hole and then benmosche comes in in twooirn, and these very focused in terms of how he gets the company on track to really reorient itself back towards its essential business lines as the primary business lines, selling off assets or raising money and understanding the only way back for this company was to repay the government. it did so in 2013. it did so with a profit of $20 billion on a total of $180 billion. here's what benmosche said when he fulfilled the obligation to the government. >> wh

. >>> let's bring in steve liesman, some headlines crossing from dudley this morning. steve?t the university of chicago booth schools us monetary policy conference, in new york every year. and bill dudley new york fed president, speaking and commenting on a paper with implications from monetary policy low interest rates in the u.s. partly reflect low rates in europe and japan. and this is sort of interesting, he says if low rates persist, when the fed starts hiking rates, then the fed may have to be more aggressive than otherwise it would be. it's to say what the paper's about as to whether or not the u.s. sensitive period of stagnation, when interest rates remain low for a long time. but he sees real gdp lower over the medium term. the fed, long-run fed funds rate 3.5%. i want to show you exactly what dudley said about this being more aggressive. he said if low short-term rates, quote, persist even after the fomc begins to raise short-term interest rates it would be appropriate to choose a more aggressive path of monetary policy. a lot depending how the markets reashth to th

let's bring in senior economics reporter steve liesman to get context here. here? >> digesting a lot here carl. what i hear her saying is pretty much what the committee's guidance is. i think it was simon who mentioned in the lead up to yellen's remarks coming out that you wouldn't expect her to stray too far from where the committee is. i think that's where we are right now. giving a pretty positive or upbeat view on the economy, but saying that we're still on hold for a couple meetings here until the guidance changes and putting the market on notice that guidance is -- could be changing relatively soon, by looking at these headlines. she's balancing foreign developments as well as lower oil prices. but has not given up the ghost that inflation will be returning to the fed's target of 2% in the next -- over the medium term here. so, carl, i'm not hearing her say too much of a change in policy. we go into this testimony here with the question is it june is it september? i think that's still a question but it seems like yellen is holding on to that flexibility

steve liesman has a pun and a game of words with feds. fwloo we do better on this show.. what i did is i used one of those word cloud searches, and i put the december press conference into it that yellin gave, and take a look. you can see there on the wall behind us. >> we see it moving back towards the objective. you see the word committee coming out a lot there, and that's because a lot of what yellin does and the way she puts things in context of what the committee says not what she says. she's not in the greenspan mold of i am running. she's in the mold more of bernanke and of the committee is coming forward with x, y, sdmr. we have a list of things i'm looking for tomorrow to see if these words show up at all. is the labor market strong or some characterization. probably no brainer to get that. the next one would be inflation. is it too low? again, the notion of is it heading back towards the committee's objective of 2%. >> i think oil was 69 times. the word oil, and we got the port strike and security concerns at malls. could we see the word inflation be used even

cnbc senior economics reporter steve liesman is here with more.ove how you get charlie's reaction right after -- >> right away. we don't wait sara. that's right. this is a big deal a game-changing report here. i think what it does among other things it puts that june rate hike back in play. the second thing is it shows how i think if you look at the details, the number we'll to that in a second it shows that the good effects of oil trump the bad effects of oil. and we'll see that in a minute. but first i want to give you those numbers that everybody's talking about. payroll's up 257, looking for only 237. but that's not the big story. the big story is those revisions. i think it's about 140,000-plus 329 and 423, that brings the three-month average to nearly 340,000. we thought it was 288 so, that's a step shift right there. unemployment ticking up? why? people back into the workforce. average hourly earnings lo blowing away the estimate wiping out the decline in december when you add it together. now, let's look at where the jobs are. goods produc

steve liesman is here with the wrapup. >> big downward revision to the fourth quarter gdp growth because of a much worse trade deficit in december raises concerns the stronger dollar is hurting the economy. here's the update. the average of economists who have tracking forecasts, down three tenths on that trade deficit news to 2.3% with a range of 1.8 to 2.8. my guess is the 2.8s have to come down a bit. q who is where? deutsch bank at the top of the scale, 2.8. barclays 2.5. economics taking .7 off its forecast down at 1.8%. why the strong dollar? here are the effects we look for. more expensive exports, cheaper imports. that means a bigger trade deficit and bigger trade deficit is a subtraction from gross domestic product, our overall measure of growth. we got that, you can see that in today's report. what you saw is you saw imports went up in part by the way, they are importing more oil to take the place of u.s. oil that's been shut in. there is the lower exports you would see. >> look at the imports coming up. >> there's another story i know you will talk about which is important to

steve liesman our senior economics reporter has been listening to all of it. the market clearly takes this as a dovish commentary from the fed chair, patient the word of the day and also flexibility i guess deserves quite a good mention as well. >> a little bit dovish. i don't see anything that screams off the charts when i look at my charts earlier today. i saw the fed funds down for december 2015, 48, 49 basis points from 5253. the 10-year down a little bit. what is that now? looks like about four or five basis points. >> right. at the lows of the day. >> yeah. >> now it is. >> you can say. >> that's right. i think the issue is she didn't give a firm signal of any rate hikes in june but felt she preserved the flexibility to do so. she began talking less about forward guidance and keeping rates low for a while and more about the issue of raising rates some time this year. really i think the predisposition of yellen she wants a rate hike. did talk to schumer and said we are extraordinarily accommodative relative to where the economy is right now. the trouble i

senior reporter steve liesman is here on the desk as well. our game plan, looks like this.ksurge. twitter shares up after the earnings beat, but is it enough to silence the company's

paul mccauley the former chief economist at pimco have learned paul mccauley telling cnbc's own steve liesmanxclusively he is not headed to jansist capital to join bill gross. bill gross left pimco to join janis because of the position of the unconstrained bond fund. today we told yes, he did step down as his position as chief economist. widespread speculation he may be joining janus capital to hook up with bill gross but we've learned paul mccauley former chief economist at pimco not going to janus, back to you. >> thanks sof. janus capital see that moving there. just want to show you a few of the stocks that are moving, perhaps on some of the comments that our friend mario has just made. discovery, he thinks could triple within the next how long? few years. >> four years. >> four years. there's the stock there. but gogo wireless up 1.3%, reiman hospitality today as well. speaking of the leader board and our halftime portfolio competition. jim lebenthal is holding down the top spot up almost 11%. joe terranova, almost everybody is in the green, say for except for pete najarian and doc has ma

steve liesman is. he is here to bring it down. is this one of these reports that literally you cannot find bad news in? >> i'm trying to think, brian. >> every other report -- >> yes, but. yes, but. i can't find the but. >> i'll tell you why, because even that 5.7% is exactly what people thought was going to happen. it brought -- the strong job market has brought 700,000 americans back into say count me, i'm up for work. i'm ready to work. i want to be part of the work force. and it wasn't one report, brian. it was three reports. it was the december and november revisions. not a two-handle on one of those months. not a three-handle, but a four-handle. it's the kind of numbers we've been waiting for. plus, this 257. well, everybody says it's likely to be revised higher. it looks like a strong reporting. it feels like a different gear for the economy. >> a lot of people have been talking about but what about all those losses that have been talked about in the oil and gas sector? is it just a case of they haven't really shown up yet?

steve liesman spoke with the philly fed president charles prosser. what did he say? >> i want to make sure everybody knows, i know you do, that philly president charles prosser is a hawk. he has thought for a long time that interest rates should be higher. today's number confirmed that sense -- i want to show you the day he was reacting to and it's caught the attention of markets today. it wasn't just the headline report, the 257. it's that second line december november revised up 147. in fact, one of those numbers doesn't have a two-handle on it tyler, which is good. doesn't have a three-handle. >> 400,000 plus. >> four handle on it which is really, really good. >> i was a baby the last time that happened. >> you were never a baby tyler. we know that for a fact. unemployment -- >> my wife says i'm still a baby. >> tick up for a reason. why is unemployment up? 700,000 people are back in the work force, and, again, another thing that they're reacting to. the average hourly wage up a half a point. really wiping out the decline that spooked everybody back in december. h

coming up on "power lunch" steve liesman interviews dallas fed president richard fish er at 2:30 herecnbc. all right. if they've called down up there i'm going to pass it back to you, scott. >> they never do. >> we have energy, sue. we have something going on here. >> thank you so much. all right. coming up, another shakeup at the top of our portfolio competition. it's happening daily. we have all the trades including the surprising name jim is adding to his holdings. first yahoo!'s former interim ceo is talking a nine digit payday for that man, jon stewart. the format ross levinsohn says would make it worth every penny when we come back. [ male announcer ] your love for trading never stops. so open an account with schwab. and when a market move affects, say, a cloud computing stock you're holding, we can help you decide what to do. with tools that help you see how market activity is affecting your positions. so when the time comes to decide whether to scale in or scale out... you can make your move, wherever you are. and start working on your next big idea. ♪ >>> while the entertainm

steve liesman join us from lq. >> this plays a roll in than first, there's sigh of relief. soft data. the ism manufacturing on monday did not come in at expectations. the factory orders were below expectations. this is nice coming in around expectations. new orders number at 59.5. concern this could have been weather-related. no sign of that here. haven't had a chance to read comments yet but i will. this is not from this but the auto data yesterday which was strong. there's 2.9% a pretty good number. coming off the fourth quarter 2.6. one piece of data so far, tracking estimate is 2.8 to 3% range. it would be a good number if it holds up given the data yet to come. adp number a touch below expectations. we're looking for 235 comes in at 213. december revised higher. goods 31,000 services 183. nonfarm payroll estimate. everything i'm hearing whatever this adp was, no be'sbody's going to change that number. i don't know if you had a chance to hear jack welch, we asked him this morning about the fed, given what's going on in the economy. >> i think the fed would be crazy to r

steve liesman joins us with more. great morning with bullard, by the way.nversation yesterday. >> it was. substantial part of. that controversy continuing today. jim bullard defending yellen against charges of political bias and representative scott garrett, doubling down on his comments that he made yesterday against yellen and the fed. >> what the little clips that you have here talking about is this myth that's been out there that they've been promulgating for decades the fed's independent of partisan politics entirely and for that reason they should not be held accountable on either front on the monetary side or the regulatory side. >> meanwhile, bullard on "squawk box" saying the fed's very much in play politically but took particular issue with criticism of yellen for meeting with treasury secretary jack lew. >> i think she's a very balanced and careful thinker on monetary policy. i really don't see the charges being well founded. >> one of the charges was the meetings with treasury secretary, jack lew. >> wait a minute, now on that every chairman has

joining me is jim levan that will and eric chemi and steve liesman liesman. and art cashin off the floor and steve grasso joining us momentarily. art, i will let you kick it off here. sudden strength we're back at all-time highs. is it because oil has stabilized? >> it's a combination of things. it's a continuation of hopeful signs in europe. there have been no run on the greek banks. people have not taken to the streets, so they think perhaps a deal could be there. while they're still shooting in ukraine, we're waiting for the cease-fire to be implemented. but you're dead right. oil was strong again, and that helped put a bid under equities. people think if it's stabilizing, that will be a good thing. and other than that believe it or not on a friday the 13th the market has an upward bias if you go back through history. >> we'll take what we can get. i wonder if for this gains to continue, oil has to stabilize or continue to move higher. >> i think oil is the effect and not the cause. i think the cause is the realization that europe might be bottoming. art me

steve liesman is here. why does mr. fisher want this?s not minutes words when he started at the fed in 2005, and he is not minutesing words now. in a flow voktive speech last night, fisher suggesting the federal reserve has a tin ear to its critics and needs to get out front and overhaul the fed. his big concern, the power of the new york fed. here's what he said. >> rotate the fomc chair now held by the new york federal reserve bank that has a permanent vote. get six district bank president vote and six governors vote right now those bank presidents are on a rotating chair. the fed chair would vote to break a tie. then regulars late the big important financial snugs in separate districts from the ones where they are head quartereded. >> fisher is bringing up an important point. this federal reserve system as it was structured came from 1913 and then again it was overhauled in the 1930s. i think this in part it's time to change it. there are two banks in missouri as you know. the west is under represented. the south underrepresented. the

steve liesman reporting. let's go to sue herrera and breaking news. five-year notes up for auction. hi, sue. >> hi, ty. as a matter of fact, it was $35 billion in five-year notes. the yield came in at 1.480%. the bid to cover ratio was a little light. that's the measure of demand for the issue. it came in at 2.54%. the bid to cover the prior ten auctions is 2.66%. it is a little below that. indirect bids normally the average is about 53.3%. this one came in higher. 60.1% on indirect bids. we'll watch interest rates for you post-auction. back to you. >> indeed we will. thank you for that sue. the markets are gradually edging higher now. consumer discretionary stocks are taking the lead while utilities and techs are at the bottom. let's bring in don, investment strategist and economist at lpl financial and mark tipper, strategic wealth partners. mark. i look here in the united states. the markets are sitting around record highs. i look across the atlantic. you have a number of markets there at record highs. how do we get that next leg higher? what's going to be the catalyst? >> it's g

paul mcculley telling steve liesman that he will not be joining bill gross and janus. he resigned his post at pimco. >> negotiators for both sides in the west coast port dispute are laboring to reach a settlement. secretary of labor thomas perez said if they can't seal a deal in san francisco, they'll take the parties to washington. >>> warren buffett's 2006 cadillac attracted a high bid of $122,000 in a charity auction. that's more than ten times its market value. the autographed sedan with 20 miles on it was auctioned on the website proxy bid. no woodward on who the winner was. that's cnbc news update at this hour. for now back to you. >> okay. let's check in on gold prices as metal markets are closing right now. we'll go straight to jackie deangeles at the nymex. >> good afternoon, susan. that's right we are watching the melgtszs very closely. we have down side pressure across the board here. let's talk about gold prices because we thought with the uncertainty in the euro zone we may see a safe haven. it certainly didn't materialize today. at this point we're watchi

our very own steve liesman calling it an ugly day.the fed chair being accused of bias like he's heard today. here is one clip. >> we meet with a wide range of groups. i think it is a complete mischaracterization of our meeting schedules and my meetings are entirely public. my schedule is completely in the public domain. >> well that's where i'm actually taking this from. this was just handed to me. >> i think if you have -- >> it's good this much of it is in public domain because all we're trying to do is make a little more in the public domain. >> these are private one-on-one meetings and i don't think it's appropriate. if i had breakfast with you, i would not make a transcript of what we discussed over breakfast. >> here now with his take on that and much more chairman of the house financial services committee, republican congressman jeb hensarling of texas. congressman, it is great to have you with us. welcome. and what's your reaction to the testimony you heard from janet yellen this morning? >> well i was disappointed because wha

he's talked to steve leaseman saying liesman saying it's coming sooner and sooner.ve talked to fed presidents who say it's not unreasonable to expect it this year. do you not believe them or do you think they're going to change their mind? >> i do not disagree with they think it's reasonable. however, it's reasonable based on the assumption we're going to have an acceleration in underlying economic activity. we'll have been acceleration of inflation and an acceleration in wage gains and i haven't seen any of those basic assumptions come through. therefore i have to question whether or not reasonable is based on a forecast or reasonable is based on reality. if i look at reality today, it's not reasonable. if i look at it based on the forecast, it's reasonable. and their forecasting records have been pretty abysmal and i think that's what's going to show through by the middle of the year and they will be pushing it out like we have been doing with the bank of england. they have been preparing everybody for a rate increase for quite some time too. we have to take the r