To address the economic fall out from this and what the fed is looking forward to more greatly address the mainstream issues here the fed is focused on trying to get trade going smoothly markets functioning smoothly especially in the treasury and fixed income markets but bringing rate dous down to try o help where it can. Theres very little Economic Activity lower rates will not be of tremendous help. The best the fed can do is try to make markets function more smoothly what the white house can do, what the fiscal side can do is address more in a detailed way, in a more pinpointed way the economic pain that individual industries and individual workers will feel. All right well be looking for those, the targeted and targeted measures this afternoon thanks thats going to do it for us lets get to the judge in the half thank you. Welcome to the Halftime Report so good to have you with us today. Were trying to make sense of all of this. Our show will look differently in the days ahead. Our Investment Committee will either be on the phone or coming to us via skype. Well try to bring you the same level of debate as discussion as we always do josh brown, joe terranova, steve weiss is with us today so are a number of our guests. Getting crushed again as the Coronavirus Crisis changes the way were all going to live for the near future, at the very least. I should let you know as carl said in the hand off to our program today we are about 1,000 points off the lowest levels for the dow but its still a rough day. Josh brown is with us with via skype. Josh, give me your thoughts about where we are and how youre feeling about things today . I would say that obviously stocks are well off the lows but people are saying is this the bottom was that the bottom. Im not sure thats the right way to be thinking about the market overall it is encouraging to see the bank stocks, 11 forget about the overall level of rates dollar swaps are very, very important right now. People that are bringing clat r collateral to the window should know they can do so as long as they need to do so i own both stocks. Each of them were 40 off their highs at those lows. The s p 500 at its morning low was 30 down from peak to trough the russell 2,0000, 30 down. Thats a huge decline in any period of time but in this period of time thats historic transimportants 38 off peak to trough and the semis down 32 off their highs. If youre saying do the fundamentals justify seeing all of these major averages, 30 off their highs, my message to you is that markets will way over shoot whatever you think the fundamentals should get paid we should not be looking at things like pe ratios or next months or the following month sale none of those things will matter now. You have this combination of two things first, people that havent panicked yet, now is their chance and they are panicking even more so second, there are mechanical things happen ng the market like valueculations that have major pools of cap pal being forced to sell i think what the fed did, theyre not going force the recession but i think they have created the conditions that will allow that sell to take place as long as it needs to. Thats a positive. Joe, josh lays out an interesting perspective. Thats you look at some of the stocks and these marquee names that have come down so far and come down so fast. One side of you says its been over done. The other side says, as josh did, it doesnt matter because they may go down further its the realization setting in that nobody know where is all of this will settle out i would agree with joshs comment now. Its not matter of where is the bottom youre not trying to find that right now sates are pricing a t a level thats telling you youre going to have to assume much more risk than you had to assume in the last ten years for the asusumption of that ris is somewhere in this process youll be rewarded for taking on more of that risk. Im going to have you redial in your phone line is shaky a bit i want to see if we can do bet we are that. Bear with all of us today. Steve weiss, you want to chime in on what you are thinking about. You heard joshs point you have seen a lot of these markets. I know youre ftrying foig thiie things out on your own now my target has been down 30 on the market. I believe it will now be greater. This is different. The reason why its different you can say this is the problem. This is how we attack it a and that is how we cure it it was too much leverage in the system too much leverage primarily financial institutions, consumers and the Auto Companies and some others. Here, the issue is not that. The issue is that theres no demand out there as everybody hunkers down at home or in their office, if they can go to the office im in my office because im out in new jersey. Youre not sitting there saying, here is what its going to take for me to go back into the world of commerce. Youre not an economy thats 60 to 70 consumer driven, theres no cure for that except for time theres no monetary stimulus that will get me to go out and reengage with everybody or anybody else and fiscal stimulus, at this point, in what were dealing with the virus is also unlikely to do anything it will give you some comfort that things may not get disasterous but not to get you to go buy. I think you have time and josh is right throughout fundamentals but you should also throw out where stocks were before it makes no difference where jpmorgan was, where disney was thats a frame reference that doesnt matter because we dont know how long this will take and in fact, whether we dwget back a year, two years or three years. Stocks will be higher in a years but thats as far as we can go let me bring in another voice to the conversation. Ricky sandler is the ceo of imminence capital. Can you hear me . I can reach out to you. You reached out to me on friday with a message. What is that im optimistic and bullish with stocks at these levels. I think the people are totally missing what is happening here every new headline, every new hysteria is making people more nervous and its actually very, very positive. Its all helping to contain the problem. We are acting in a way that nobody ever thought we would everybody that looked and said this wasnt going to be that big of a deal, just look at china. Then said, well china we cant do what china did because theyre an awe tuthoritarian society. We just did. Everybody has gone to mass quarantine were going to contain this much better than the early fears. I cant tell you and cases will still go up in the short run because thats what happens for a couple of weeks. All the people that read the early stuff about what would happen, i believe they will be greatly exaggerated because of the dramatic actions that citizens have taken, businesses have taken, that local governments have taken efb has taken this seriously and the best defense to this virus is to be on guard. Thats point number one. Understood. Point number two, lets talk about the economic risk to everything stopping for two to three months u. S. Gdp is 20 billion a year, 5 billion a quarter. Goldman sachs b was down five. Lets assume theyre wrong and assume its down ten thats 500 billion of lost gdp. We have lost 10 trillion of market cap one time 500 billion dollar gdp hit. Its so far out of proportion. I dont want to talk about the numbers. Secondly, we have government stepping in to cushion that 500 billion economic hit this entire market would turn around in one second if the government came out and said were going to provide Business Interruption insurance to companies that lose money in the sec quarter if they dont fire any workers. That solves the whole problem. Right now theres a negative feed back loop of you serve a restaurant, your business will be down. All these restaurants will go out of business. The truth is, a, i think the government should and will step in here to do something. B, its not the end of the world. One quarter of big negative gdp. Then three, are banks and landlords really going to foreclose on businesses because they had a threemonth drop in revenue from 30 to 90 i think people are much smarter than that and the real economy work very, very differently and confidence will actually be back in this market and this economy over the next three months in fact go ahead. You finish. In fact, if you really want to be really bullish, what you will soon realize, i think is that everybody can plan the second half of the year. They understand this will be behind us. They understand business levels will be back we will have pent up demand. We will have massive fiscal stimul stimulus well have lower Interest Rates and lower oil. I would argue business and the market could make new highs from that my message to your viewers is refinance your mortgage and take the money and buy some stocks. Youve been doing just that youve been buying stocks . Yes i bought stocks on thursday late in the day friday and today what kinds of stocks are you buying im going more for the beaten down stocks like a marriott, live nation, u. S. Food service this Company Sells food, delivers food to restaurants, schools, institutions. Its down 60 . 60. This is one of the most stable businesses in the world. Weve been buying financial stocks i think bank of america and justice of the pea jpmorg jpmorgan they will continue to earn money. You can borrow money against your mortgage at 2. 5 and buy stocks that yield three times that level today forgot about how cheap they are. Look and say its not 08, but its as bad as, if not worse as weiss was saying but in different areas. Sure its not targeted on the banks and not worried about the entire Financial System going to hell in a hand basket but you have a humanitarian crisis, economic crisis and Health Crisis all happening at the same point. We talked about the economic crisis which i dont think we have lets talk about the others. I think if we look at the facts, if we look at what the experience is and what really happens with this virus. I think a lot of people dont appreciate you cant get this virus twice. If the worst case it ran through our population, and this is what the uk is doing, we have the tragic, tragic loss of lives, which would be horrible, i dont think it sets back the economic engine and i also think that consumers realize what once they got it, they couldnt get it again so they are back out doing things when you look at the death rates are adjusted very low. Im not minimizing the risks sheer. I also want to talk about the facts and in place where is they engage in the kinds of activities that we have now, they have dramatically slowed this even your worse case which would be more deaths would be tragic for humanity but would not be an economic tragedy for businesses. How soon do you think we need to get plans out of washington so your thee si plays out the way you think it might people will be listening to this interview and hearing your optimism and welcoming it and wanting to feel better about a situation that feels so bad. I think its right. I would love to believe strongly in our political leaders to come together the nation has come together in the last week when you see what we as a society have done to get through this, its impressive and the govrt should do the same thing. What they need to do is ensure people, counter party, Small Businesses that even though their business will stop for a short period of time, they are going to be okay its not that much money to do it its not that hard to do it but we need Political Leadership to come together. I honestly believe this idea of Business Interruption insurance for businesses that do not lay off any workers begins to turn the entire thing around. Nobody is worried about their job, nobody is worried about paying the rent. No one is worried about their customers not coming back and everybody gets back to planning for the second half which turns out to be very strong and were off to the races let me let weiss respond, if i could. I want to do it, obviously in a constructive way steve, you heard rickys case. What do you say to it . Well, i obviously disagree. Ricky is time frame is longer. Mine is too. Im not a seller of much down here at all. Ive sold enough this you cant minimize this situation. Sure stocks will be higher in a year but from what level the market in 2008, lets not forget that the fed made their move in april of 08 the market trade down. Tarp was approved in october of 08. The market traded down till march of 09 this is a big change the worlds not ending, absolutely not to assume that were not taking the first step, which is, that 19 was all about multiple expansion based upon Earnings Growth in 2020 not only are we not getting Earnings Growth in 2020, were in a recession at least i believe we are. I think the facts will be that we got to get rid of that 32 initially. When you close disney, how long will it take for people to be comfortable coming back . Im not chicken little saying the sky is falling but theres been a major fundamental change that we cant whistle by the graveyard and say everything is great. For me its not great of going to zero. I just got a call with another large manager, its when do we put money in ricky knows, your return is judged when you buy. The government cannot afford to bail out every business, every Small Business at the end of the day, were capitalists. Sure some landlords will say dont worry about the rent ive heard that before from some friends. Theyll also say, you know what, ive got a solvent tenant coming in here. Thats whats going to change. Worlds not coming to an end but its not cured yet at all. Im going with with experts who say this will not be gist a cjua couple of weeks. This will not be a month this is not 2008. Theres no systemic problems in the system banks are lending. Money is available you had a lot of action, reaction when companies freaked out, they removed counter parties and they made the system worse. Today when people freak out, they are staying home and solving the problem. Its very, very different. The market is a discounting mechanism. I disagree i dont know where the market bottoms. I started buying on thursday afternoon and friday and today i look wrong in three months, in a year, mr. Weiss said in a year sure stocks will be higher sure people will go back to disney world what signal do people need to come back in and buy stocks like disney is down 50 this isnt a small change in like the market value. This is the largest enmass decline in stocks except 08 and frankly, the Economic Impact of what is happening is much more contained. When people begin to realize that, yes, some Small Businesses may go out of business im not going to disagree with that if the government steps in and even if they dont, businesses will step in the Economic Impact is one sharp quarter of hit the only thing that i would say, ricky, your points may bear out, but i dont know, at least on the point of not being able to get this thing twice theres any Scientific Evidence that you cant. There have been reports of those in other countries who have gotten it twice. I want to be a little careful what were putting out over the air waves at a time when people are scared as hell and worried about themselves and their family all the data suggest people are not supposed to get this twice. Could someone have tested positive twice somewhere else, sure this is not necessarily something that youre recurring to get it would come back much more mild im just trying to talk about kind of basically what the factual perspective is about this virus and also try not to have people feel like this will be with us forever i understand. Its just i want to to be clear with our viewers youre speaking with a lot of certainty about a lot of Different Things youre entitled to do that when it comes to the science and health part of this whole thing , i want to put that out there that we just dont know. I respect that. Ricky, i appreciate your point of view today. Thank you so much for calling in thanks. Thats Ricky Sandler. Lets bring in Avenue Capital ceo. Mark, you there im right here. You heard the whole conversation or most of it, i hope what are your thoughts i think ricky and steve are right. If you think about whats going on, the market is definitely going to be higher at the end of the year the question is how much lower does it go from today before it starts moving back up. Where i think steve is correct, is i think the news thats going to come out is still going to be negative it may not be negative where companies will have lower earnings or youre going to have things like that but really what youre going to have is all the news that will come out about people, more people having it, hospitals being overwhelmed. Sort of think about what happened in italy will have the same thing hopefully its not as bad but i think the market, even though the market knows thats going to happen, youre going to find things will end up being lower where i agree with ricky, i think its a mass iive buying opportunity. I think youll never be able to time this thing. If youve got the luxury of time, so if you know that you dont have to sell next week, then i would absolutely be a buyer and should you start coming in today, absolutely. Should you come in at the end of the week, yes. I think every time theres a down move, you should be buying. For us, were going to start we havent bought that much in the last week but youre going to see us investing a lot of our capital over the next 30 days. The reason for that is i dont think we can time it i think we have been pretty lucky so far in that we havent put a lot of capital to work i thought things would get worse before they got better i think with what the fed is doing, fixing all the the, making sure theres liquidity there, thats really beneficial. Now youre talking about is how long will this last. Whether it lasts 30 days, 60, 90 days, when it stops things will start coming back. I think youll see us investing over the next couple of weeks. Thats interesting to hear. Will you be investing, marc, in an area that people dont generally think of you as being a huge player in, being equities i dont think well be doing that bonds have dropped very, very low. In some situations we bought some debt, cant talk about it we bought some around 20, 25 cents. A few months ago it was double, triple that amount its going to be a pretty unique time what do you think the end result will be from the govrt a government and the fed whats left . I think the fed will do whatever they can. This isnt a financial crisis. What you really do have is a bit of an economic crisis. What i mean by that is people are staying home people arent spending money youre seeing that airlines are closing down, i think 75 of their flights. When you look at that how long is that going to last . I dont know i think the fed is going to do whatever they need it would be nice in the federal government would step in and provide leadership i think what youve got is the leadership thats going on today is being done at the state level. Its states that are doing that. I think were getting to the same place i think thats fine. Would i love there to be Business Interruption insurance . Sure id love that. I think everybody would. Do i think that will happen . I agree with steve its exceptionally hard. I think we will try to help people who will have the most issues but for most businesses it will be hard to get that. Do you feel better today about the credit market than maybe when you were on with us, i dont know if it was a week ago at this point. These days blur together they do i think theres more opportunity. Im happy to see what the fed has done it doesnt impact whether i will go out and buy people arent looking at the fed. People who look at the fed are you and i. All i care about is the system is working, which it is. For us, right now, as i see prices just continuing to drop, i think for what we want to do, i think thats a huge opportunity and well start taking advantage of that last question before i let you go and ill just steer it for the nba for the reasons you are the owner of the milwaukee bucks. Do you foresee the league having a season at some point this year i think so. I think we will. I just dont know how many games. The question is where are we 30 days from now. I think well all reassess if it looks like the worst is over and were coming out of it, maybe we end up saying well keep post phoponing for another weeks. I think efb wiverybody will do in the best safety for everybody. If things are bad six, eight weeks from now, theres no way youve got a season. I think because of the fact you have almost every businesses literally selfquarantining, right now were doing the same thing. We have closed our office for the next week. Well probably do it for about two weeks. All our offices around the world, everybody is working at home more and more people are doing that it likes like this will be shorter as opposed thro ed long who knows. I so much appreciate hearing your voice my pleasure thank you for having me. Joe is back with us hopefully his phone line is sounding a bit better than about 20 minutes ago joe, you there i am. I apologize for that amazing where a land line doesnt work i want to ask your reaction Ricky Sandler and marc is who they are because they have made good decisions more often than they is made bad ones. Correct both of them were much more positive than not on the market in various places. Stocks and fixed income. Different opportunities in credit different opportunities in equity is there optimism misplaced today or do we need to take more stock, as it is, of what they had to say i think there should be optimism but i think there needs to be a degree of realism. A lot of what steve said is correct. You have to understand that wednesday evening the world changed when adam silver decided to suspend the nba season. The next day did the show, scott, with the s p basically where it is now. If youre going to sell the s p and the the dow jones, youll go down 2,000 points in day, im a buyer. Im always going to buy down 2,000 points because of the optimism that year from now stocks are going to be higher. I think you have to accept this will be a process. I began to say before, you have to realize youre not looking for the bottom, as i heard josh say at the top of the show you have to realize youre assuming far more risk in this environment. Thats what credit and Equity Assets are pricing if youre going to be an investor, youre assuming more risk on the other side of that, for the assumption of more risk youre beginning to see more reward i think this is a process. I think you have to be realistic and understand and accept as an investor if youre going to mark things down significantly in the course of one day, im a buyer i was a buyer when it was down 2,000. I bought this morning on the open and ill buy again if you take the market down 5 to 10 . Im realistic like stephen said to understand were not hitting the restart button on the economy that quickly i think you have to be very judicious about when you want to do that even when the numbers in this Health Care Crisis look like they are beginning to peak in the United States i dont know that the return to Economic Activity should be a stampede it has to be a very slow process over time and i think we have to be realistic and understand that what did you buy, joe ive been adding to existing positions that ive had. Docusign is higher today let me by no means come on there and say im a genius on docusign i did initiate which i had taken off before i bought more apple, more amazon i bought more goldman sachs. These are the types of names that i believe in. I bought more adobe as well. Im adding and i will continue to add thank heavens i had a bit of capital from selling out towards the end of january and february when yields came down. I will also tell you and you know David Albright well im talking about opportunity in the credit markets i think thats where the first opportunities will be because scott, what the Federal Reserve did last night is exactly what the credit market and investors wanted they went in and made sure that the credit markets are operating and functioning smoothly and they are today joe, thank you for that you stay with me as well let me go to eamon now i have a bunch of items larry kudlow said a couple of important things the administrations total fiscal stimulus package will be about 800 billion habit ha habit half of that is payroll tax cut the president proposed hes asked if the airlines have been in touch with the administration asking for assistance he said yes. They have been in touch with the airlines in terms of cash flow stand by for the results of that conversation he threw out a proposal for 100 deductions for Companies Bringing their supply chains back to the United States from china. Thats something we heard sort of a similar theme this morning. Couple of other news items, including a cyber attack, today, on hhs were aware of a cyber incident related to the health and Human Services network and the federal government is investigating thoroughly they say hhs and federal networks are functioning normally at this time. Separately, u. S. Officials say theres a Disinformation Campaign under way right now online bear that in mind. A Senior Administration officia telling me theres an ongoing effort to spread disinformation and cause undue panic. Theres no National Quarantine for the United States. Its important we remain vigilant be ware of the Disinformation Campaign that is ongoing now online finally, i can tell you ive been talking to officials here talking to folks familiar with what the task force, the Coronavirus Task force is thinking right now they have two scenarios for the peak of this coronavirus at this point. One is the most optimistic scenario is this will peak a month from march 14th. Thats this past saturday. Thats the optimistic scenario the pessimistic is its three months from this past saturday thats a much longer time horizon. Thats the range of the thinking right now inside the federal government of where this thing is headed. Id like to believe the most optimistic has there been any reaction to this romney float of sending 1,000 per adult to every adult in america i have not heard that they have been skeptical of that in the past of helicopter money, just blasting money out to everybody. Every day is a different political environment and news cycle. Things could be changing quickly. Well reach out to some folks and see what they say. Thanks so much. Well come back to you as needed as well. Rick rieder joins us our east coast bond king its good to hear your voice thank you for being here thanks for having me, scott id rather be there than at home i wish you were here as well. These are the new times that were living in so well deal with what we have to do. Give me your thoughts. Weve had extraordinary reaction from the fed over the weekend. We had a second repo operation today. Just talk to our viewers what are you thinking . So, when you talk with the Federal Reserve, awe inspiring what they did last night and what they did today. The fed is working i got to believe they are working 24 7. The things they are doing are bold you got to do that you got to be creative they are not only throwing a lot of artillery at this, but theyre doing it the big one is commercial pampe. Its usually important for the market and the banking system. Theres a series of hoops they have to jump through to make that work. Theyre on it. I think what the fed is doing is impressive when you go through what you just described or eamo descrin described about the virus peaking a month or three months from now the problem is when do you take the risk if theres such great uncertainty around that date people are trying to game that out you heard some of the folks on our show prior to you who suggest that now is the time to do it. Youre not necessarily going to be able to time the bottom thats their own opinion i do want to read you a tweet today. Id like your response to it it speaks to what the fed has done and in some cases what he says they havent done you can react on the other side. Baffled and upset what the fed announcement as well as what it didnt announce. Measures more targeted at actual and potential market failures are more effective at this stage. Upset because the damage thats being done to u. S. And Global Economic well being. How do you respond to that. Muhammad is pretty thoughtful about perspectives on the economy and the fed. I think its very hard i think when you sit in those seats and try to determine how do you get at what is the most critical point in stress, of stress in the system its really hard particularly when you dont have all the tools. Talking about commercial paper they got to go and get some evolution around 13 3 and work with treasury. Its hard. When you think about what they have thrown at this and the time frame that they have thrown at it, i keep going i think they are doing a lot of good things. I think what they said yesterday, negative Interest Rates are not appropriate but Forward Guidance and asset purchases are. Listen i applaud them for that and they are working on the other things which take a bit of time i was going to ask you about this idea of negative rates. Powell doesnt want to do it i think most observers and reporters have suggested when you take rates to the zero bound, you do more damage than good because how it hurts Insurance Companies and Pension Funds and individual, asset purchases get at liquidity and the currency, its much more efficient. I dont think that is in their tool kit and i dont think well see it any time soon the oped today in the journal by kevin , let the fed enter a viral shot your reaction to his comment i think thats right. I think youve got supply chain breakage you have cash around the system. The idea of getting at that get to that point about targeted initiatives that get at lending and cash strains across the system, thats the sort of innovation theyve got to do and i think thats really powerful one comment about what you were saying earlier, were seeing valuations that are cash rich. They will have a tough month or two. When you put in place some of those initiatives, those companies you got to put them away you have to do it in small size. You have to think about im not going to hedge them because you look at the price action and go if you look at where treasuries are, i want to own those companies organically particularly in the fed is willing to do some things. You think the cio and head of Global Fixed Income but you think some stocks are too attractive to pass up even today in. I do. I think you have to be deliberate in how you do it. Its also interesting the cash were looking at companies that are good growers in technology, health care, building, instruction that are the multiple youre paying to cash flow youve got to haircut it for the next couple of months aggress e aggressively even when you do that, we put down numbers where you shock the numbers down youre still trading at multiples that will incredibly attractive any way youre supposed to do that youre supposed to own them organically and not worry about how to hedge them. Im owning them because im low on cash in my position and theyre good assets. Well leave it there. Appreciate you coming to the phone for us today helping us understand this. Josh brown, havent heard from you for a while. Youve heard from a number of real smart investors running an awful lot of money what are your thoughts on what you heard today . I talked to Financial Advisers all over the country. Advisers probably combined managing over 100 billion one of the things that strike me as being encouraging is for every call, a advisers are takig from clients about is this the time to get out. They are getting another call. People that said, you know what, i want more stocks lets take down the bond position people that have treasuries have seen gains in those positions and they are saying i get its not the bottom but i juts feel like if i dont do anything here, if the market sells off 25 and i dontreact, im goin to regret it you could look at that two ways. Do you would say these people havent had enough pain yet. They are complacent or they they have learned a lesson of the last 20 years which is terrible things happen from time to time but things get better. I want to point out some research from my colleague Michael Batnik about what happens after the stock market declines 25 from a tie. Thats actually only happened, scott, 7 times since 1950. Here is the bad news over the next one year period, you can flip a coin. The outcomes are all over the map. Something very interesting happens on an average annual basis. After that first year which is 9. 5 gains that goes out for one year, three years, ten years, 20 years. 9. 6 average annual returns if you bought the first day the market dropped 25 this is isnt a bott isnt a call the people who have stepped in said i get it could get worse. I dont care im an investor for the long term those people, historically, seven times since 1950 have been rewarded thats the way Financial Advisers are thinking. Fortunately, many of their High Net Worth clients are thinking the same way and thats very, very optimistic and positive weiss, thats how sandler and reider we lost weiss. Joe, thats how those guys are thinking you heard it straight from them. Ssuming risk they are understanding that risk it may feel very painful for the sa assets that they purchased they feel as though they will be rewarded this is a process. Theres much more work that needs to be done we havent begun to tackle the oil issue. Oil is below 30 we need to address that. The russians, saudi arabia and even the americans need to collectively get together and see if theres something they could do in terms of taking supply off the market. Thats a problem the fiscal response is needed. The Health Care Crisis is needed the concept of social distancing, how seriously are we taking that as citizens. Its important its a process over time welcome to the program. Its good to talk to you today great to talk to you too. Give us how youre thinking about the markets. You can speak through a tech prism or a broad investor. What do you think about where we are . I agree with what your most recent folks talked about. This is great time to be make sure youre thinking for the long term. Ive been buying just slowly buying on a daytoday basis not worrying too much about whether were going down further or going up. Well get through this the world will get through it. Its going to be rough sledding here for a while trying to predict the bottom or trying to wait for things to fall out of the bottom is just a slow way to go about it. Can you give us an idea houf the Tech Community is thinking about this its a great question i think there are sort of two sides of it. On one side, its sort of a growing course of folk who is feel like, look, social contract between the country and our by leaders. The kun trcountry gives us spac make and keep a fortune in many cases. On the other side were expected to create opportunity, create jobs and be real leaders step up to the micromicrophone n good times and in bad. Im sort of surprised. Theres a growing segment. We havent heard from more Business Leaders and executives. Theres been a comment here or there but not a lot. I think a lot of people would like to be reassured about supply chains and products and goods will be there when we need them in next few weeks similarly on the tech side it would be helpful to hear more from the googles of the world about what they are doing beyond just the things that have been announced in random press conferences that proves to be partially true and where were headed what they will try to do about it i agree with that what responsibility do you think our social media creators and our ceos because the founders are the ceos of those companies, have at a time like this with spreading a needed message of any kind. The government is trying to tell people you need to socially distance and you need to do it now. To what degree does dorsey need to get out on twitter and zuckerberg on facebook in help in spreading that message. I havent seen it. I admittedly might have missed it, but i dont think i did. Its my point i think all of these tech leaders, it would be helpful if they stepped up. Talking to tun i can tri more about the things on their platforms that are true. Misinformation that they are helping to eradicate the zoom ceo did a great job of stepping up and providing his platform for free for some period of time to the u. S. Education system now it would be helpful to hear from more leaders across the board on all of this stuff. In short, im agreeing with what you just said. I know youre busy. I know you had a lot going on. Ill talk to you soon. Happy to do it. Thats dict for us. Josh, you want to react to that as well. Youre as big a player in the social media landscape as we have on our program and maybe in this building. You and kramer yeah, i appreciate that i think that youtube, in particular, has been doing a lot of the right things in terms of tlibtly l deliberately removing things that are misleading and i do think that, in general, social media is what separates this from prior crises. Can you manage an episode like this prior to us being able to work from home and communicate with each other on facebook, on linkedin, to verify that friends are okay this was not always an option. It would have required 100 phone calls a day to be in touch with as many people as the average american is. Social media is beaming images to us of overrun hospitals in italy and probably something we would not have to psychologically deal with in prior crises so i think we are very adaptable in modern society. I think as much of the negative side of twitter and facebook and, you know, i could go down the list of the things we dont like about what those services do in the time of crisis, i do think, though, that the ability for us to be talking to each other in realtime at all times ultimately if you had to pick and choose we have it or we dont, i think everyone would say, no, no, no, lets keep it thats the role that the firms are playing and so far so good. Steve weiss, back with us yeah. So look. I mean, i agree this is not a financial crisis my point is that it were it would be better but the toughest thing is sitting on your hands when you see stocks down 15 and not saying i got to be in but the story today is that theres no different story last week or the week before. However, having said that, i did add to facebook on thursday night and again friday because i can somewhat analyze that fortress balance sheet, this is not going to hurt the business, will help the business i added to google last week, qualcomm and initiated position in key site which is just a phenomenal story joe used to own it he is out of it now. A great sale id urge him to get back in. There are opportunities but to me this environment is about managing risk and your point of entry as much as it is about resisting buying companies because theyre down 30 , 40 . I hear you but one thing i take pause at and trying to put out into the twittersphere, whats the signal going to be that maybe we have bottomed in stocks is it a peak in u. S. Cases so that at least we have some sense that were heading towards the end of the tunnel . And then when eamon javers says the most optimistic for a peak is month and then least optimistic is three months feeling like an eternity, the prospects of the country in quarantine or sequestered from population for that long seems unbelievably daunting. Thus how do you make a decision on when we may bottom and could be the delta between one and three months it is impossible. Exactly and thats my point. So im not going to be able to find the bottom as i wasnt able to find the top going back just a few weeks ago. But to me, it is when we start seeing the cases really pick up, when you start seeing, you know, and keep in mind, always the worst people to get tested so youre still seeing deaths rise exponentially in italy geometric progression. As sequesters and quarantines occur with greater frequency and people dont leave and the test results come back and see more and more deaths and nobody wants to see, i feel terrible for those people, thats when to me it will be the max of pain issue and thats the buy signal and may not be the bottom of the market but at least i know i will have discounted the hysteria to me it is not hysteria so far. This is more or less orderly, even yes, down 10 move. Yeah. Thats what im waiting for. Joe, edgar said it could be a fast bear market like 87 but a short recession is likely but perhaps the worst is over for the forward pe do you want to opine on that point of view . I think ed is making accurate points clearly the market is pricing in some form of recession i also think in speaking to a lot of executives on wall street and investors over the last three days wall street is also pricing in the fact that they do not want gridlock. They want unity. And i think, unfortunately right now, the markets are understanding that there does not seem to be the perception of unity. 2004 the tsunami that killed 165,000 people very quickly president 41 and 42, president bush and president clinton, came together under the direction of president george w. Bush and led the charge in a humanitarian effort. That type of unity is what we need as a society, but also, the markets in terms of how theyre pricing things now are demanding that unity this is not a time for gridlock for the markets. Yeah. Josh, i mean, we need something substantial and soon from d. C. Right . I mean, i dont want to have to go my desk an dig for those rise above buttons that we were all wearing a decade ago, you know, telling me oh my god, i remember that. To get over the partisanship and, darn it, just think of the best for the country. Yeah. I do remember that i think that corporate leadership has been incredible i think leadership on the part of people who run hospitals has been incredible. Like, im holding my breath for Mitch Mcconnell and nancy pelosi and everyone like, you know, i expect industry bailouts i expect some sort of a relief for people who are waiters and waitresses or working in jobs where theyre just not at work for a few weeks. I expect theyll take measures like that. One other thing to make sure to mention, kroger is an up stock today. If you recall Warren Buffett filed on kroger from last quarter, i think bought up half a billion dollars worth. Not 100 sure on the amount but kroger is open for business. The shelves are being cleared. And they have people stocking the shelves when they get cleared with new items this is an incredible effort by minimum wage employees in most cases at kroger, target, walmart, walgreens we have spent the last five to seven years dismissing brick and Mortar Stores and by extension their employees as though theyre the past, who needs them blah blah blah i think we are done with that. I think maybe these stocks deserve a higher multiple in relation to the shopifys of the world and amazons. It is important to have physical locations, all of the employees and executives at these companies deserve a round of applause for keeping the stores open in places like where i live nassau county, which we are told were on social distancing we can still get groceries. Thats right a. Debt of gratitude for certain. Im glad you said it i think we all send that same message. I dont have much time left, steve, but before, our friend john sends an email out and it says he is looking at the financial stocks which i know you have invested in at times more heavily than others, obviously. Looking at the Performance Today and the year to date performance, and i mean, the declines in some of the financials today is just astounding asking where is the boogieman hiding were talking about citi down 17 . And i just picked that name out of a hat but i could list any of the big banks or regional banks absolutely hammered. Are we at a point of worry at all about the institutions when you see declines like that, what are you thinking . Maybe i lost steve weiss joe, are you with me im here. Im here im thinking europe but not thinking were anything like europe the only reason i think europe is negative rates. Rick reiter said we are not going negative rates i agree. Theres so many other values out there that i would rather buy if im buying first that i have time to buy the banks. Im not worried of them going out. If they didnt go out in 08, a financial crisis, this isnt, im not concerned about it id be more concerned, frankly, about the bdc, Business Development companies, with credit to the second and Tertiary Institutions that may not be able to pay it back bigger issues. In terms of the banks, we are fine there will be a time to buy them do i think if you buy goldman right now, i love but sold higher, that you will do fine in three years . Yes. I just dont know in the next year it can take a long time to unwind whats looking like a very flat yield curve which may become i dont think its inverted we are at zero but one time. I got to run. Thank you, guys. It is different but it was a good conversation nonetheless. Well see you in the days ahead. Take care of yourselves. Tomorrow on halftime social capital ceo is back with us an get his insights always worth listening to tonight our special ill see you at 7 00 tonight for the special markets in turmoil. A picture of where we are trading right now on wall street the dow at the lowest levels down about 2800. So we have come off of that. We are still down about 2,000 points the dow is right now at 21,128 by the way, the s p is Still Holding above its december 18 level and worth keeping an eye on thank you for watching everybody take care of themselves the exchange begins now. Scott, thanks. Welcome, everybody as we continue, cnbcs breaking News Coverage of markets in turmoil. Im kelly evans. Stocks are sinking again today as action from Central Banks around the world has failed to reestablish Investor Confidence heres where we stand. Circuit breakers triggered less than a minute after the open today. Oil tanking, at one point below 29 a barrel on capitol hill, the task force of coronavirus is expected to hold a briefing at 3 30 eastern time the senate i
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