Transcripts For CNBC Squawk On The Street 20240713

Taken since yesterdays 3,000 point drop jim, you have never been a huge fan of futures, but you think they are especially irrelevant now. Right these are fraught. I got up three, the market looked great it was up like looked like we would make up half of what we lost yesterday i come back, were down. Lets stay focused on individual stocks individual stocks are all being brought down by the indices. The great opportunities, i want to use that word, come from the obliteration of the futures, mean while there are companies who are doing well theres companies doing quite poorly well go over both there will be opportunities today. Theres a lot of give up yeah. I want to get i have a lot of specific questions for you i know you have regeneron tonight. Signs of hope, whether its test kits from roche, therapeutics, you heard gottlieb a moment ago talking about it those three things, test, therapeutics, vaccines we are starting to see very early signs of progress. Absolutely. You look at tesla. Last night we had just an absolutely terrific interchange with mark casper 5 million tests will be available next week. 5 million test kits. Thats up from nothing thats heartening. Len schleifer reached out to me. They were the guys who solved ebola. We dont talk about the people who have been through it this is a second rodeo, not the first. They have something therapeutic for people who are sick and something preventive its far ahead of where i thought we would talk about the immediate term we have a new narrative. Its very exciting, the Public Private partnership. Well have two executives on today talking about that Bill Mcdermott from service now, and Chuck Robbins from cisco i got an announcement from facebook, Sheryl Sandberg will be on tonight mad money talking about 30,000 Small Businesses in 30 countries were waiting for the Federal Reserve chairman waiting for secretary mnuchin. America is not waiting for these people america is waiting for no one. Thats a major theme to get us through this morass. We need that money, the government will get it to us, but i like facebook is stepping up or cisco is stepping up or service now stepping up. Agreed. Jack ma sending masks all around the world. Sandberg did say yesterday that theyll work on fixing in ways they have not talked about before, fixing misinformation when it comes to covid, whether its a celebrity, politician, influencer thats narrative shift absolutely. We are getting data out of italy, if youre 39 or younger, youre just highly unlikely to die. Unfortunately the people i dont think theres been one at least in lombardi, not one fatality under 30. Exactly so what happens, carl i think were in a jam, you have you see younger people on the beach, theyre having a great time. Why are they having a great time they have it, many of them have it, they dont know. They come home to us, we find that we get it from them, but definitely in some cases like me, you cant afford it. The numbers show you cant afford to get sick, particularly after 70 so in many ways, our children are our worst enemy in this. Quarantining the elderly, quaeniquaen i quarantining those with preexisting conditions. Theyre getting from family members who are younger. Grandchildren, children. Thats what we have to worry about more than we worry about crowd gathering. Our own sons and daughters are giving it to us. My dad lives around the corner, i cant see him. Mel brooks and his kid were talking behind a pane ed glass window im not with my stepson, why bother if i have do tv, ill do it from a basement room. Not a snuff film, though we have a lot to watch today, commercial paper, actions by the fed. Lets get to our senior economics reporter, Steve Liesman checking in with what were seeing in the credit markets. Not hearing good things ive been on the phone all morning with people in the markets. They say theyre not performing well theres one or two markets, for example, the trading of yen or borrowing borrowing in yen, lending in dollars lending in dollars, borrowing in yen not trading all that well. A couple bullet points one, concern about outflows from Money Market Funds one person said to me the commercial paper market is shut. Finally the repo trading is pricing well above fed fund. Thats not performing all that well this morning. If you want, the commercial paper issue is quite specific. Whats happened here is that the money markets are the lenders to this market. There is concern they will have funds withdrawn from them. The companies are the borrowers in this market theyre trying to raise cash if they dont, they have to go over and draw down their Bank Credit Lines that puts additional pressure on the banks. Talking to a lot of people this morning, theres consternation as to why the Federal Reserve has not acted yet in this process. What do you expect to happen . I think the fed will come in here, im drawing on the reporting from eamon javers, he has people saying they expect the Federal Reserve to act my fknowledge of the fed, i said a day or two ago i expect the fed to come in in the commercial paper market the fed has been moving very fast here. What they did sunday night was a whole bunch of crisis programs doled out over months, they did all that in a single night its getting ducks in a row. They do have to coordinate this with treasury. My expectation is the Federal Reserve will act in the commercial paper market. Jim we know if everybody draws money at once, it breaks the bank that is toolisfoolish. I went over yesterday looking at things, this is not 2007 or 2009 were worried about, as you know, i know, moral hazard these markets may be seizing up. But i think the Federal Reserve is up to the task. Maybe they need to hear it from us if people take action on that and sell stocks, thats a shame. Its i femora ifemoral. The american system is so much stronger, its great we alert people to commercial paper and into a dollar yen trade. When i come to look at the companies that i look at, you will get Good Opportunity because of what happened and what we can say about these things, it will not end up being significant two weeks from now i feel strongly about that actually its just very important to make that point to people that the dollar yen will not bring down the treasury. Well understood, jim. I think its important. We have a role to play yeah. We have experiences from about a decade ago where we have learned some tough lessons, hopefully they come into play now. We will bring in Chuck Robbins. He will speak to the idea, theres two markets here the financial market, which people want to try to say are broken, and i just say will you please have some forbearance, and then the real market the real market is the economy thats what chuck rob bibins is good at. Thank you very much for coming on the show. Always great to see you. Describe what you see out there. There is, without a doubt, a narrative which says the world is breaking down i see theres another narrative, the private enterprise is going to save the day. Well, first of all, thanks to you and carl and thanks for all the work youre doing to report on this accurately and try to help people navigate the complexity i think of this in three ways. Theres the medical response, which, look, theres a great deal of human ingenuity in this country that will prevail and i think prevail faster than people think. Secondly, the fiscal side, which you guys understand, youre talking about it on a regular basis. And two other pieces theres the piece helping our customers remain productive during this time, also helping our communities. Its a real difficult time for the most vulnerable people, those hourly contract workers as well as the homeless and others in our society we have to come together so wie woere working on those r two day and night. I feel good about where we are companies are coming together. We convened about 35 companies on friday in Silicon Valley to try to tackle issues of helping people financially who are struggling now volunteers, frankly, are not showing up at homeless shelters, not showing up at food banks where theyre worried about getting the virus. We have to backfill those folks and figure that out. We have to deal with hunger, students being out of school theres an awful lot going on. I think business is stepping up in a big way chuck, when you say we have to deal with, were in a different time i think when you and i were younger, this would be something that the federal government would handle the federal government is bigger than all of us sounds like what happened is these problems are not being addressed correctly by the federal government the federal government is slow, or private enterprise is now the biggest source of social change in the country do you think its the latter do you think youre leading and the fed doesnt understand the federal government, the people who are 1099 employees, people who have just been laid off, but also people who have a paycheck coming from a solvent company, you seem to be involved in trying to help the people who do not have that well, i actually think that, you know, its a combination of both that have to solve this problem. I spoke to governor noewsome yesterday. He made some great moves on moratoriums on evictions, moratoriums on foreclosures, services being cut off, internet, et cetera. Theres a lot of work going on to to, you know, provide hotel space for those who are vulnerable but i think that i think it is both. I think, look, sometimes it takes the government longer to get some things moving that you have been talking about for a couple days now. I think in the interim we have to step in many of the companies have made a commitment to continue paying our hourly contract workers. Those workers who have been in our cafeterias, those workers who have been in the custodial staffs those are the ones who will suffer making sure we pay them at 100 during this crises are easy things that some of us can do. But every company cant do that. Those are the people being overlooked so far. Chuck, theres a big change in the way people do work people working from home i see you, im not sure where you are. Its certainly not looks good you have a thing called webx is there a fundamental change . If i were to call you today, could you say sure, jim, no problem. Or is it ten times the demand you had a few weeks ago . I have to say volumes are unprecedente unprecedented. In the last 10, 20 days, traffic has doubled. Weve seen four to five times the traffic out of korea, japan. And we were already the biggest platform globally in the world ill give you a statistic. Yesterday we held 3. 2 million meetings globally on webex that doesnt include oneonones. These are multi individual meetings in march we had 5. 5 billion meeting minutes. So, look, were just building as fast as we can our teams are working 7 by 24. Were trying to boost our Collaboration Team and security teams spirits because theyre working aroundtheclock everybody is working from home theyre having to increase capacity of their vpn connections, cloud security, were giving a lot of the technology away for free for now until we get through this issue. So, you know, were working as hard as we can a lot of our competitors and peers are doing similar things its great to see everybody coming together to try to keep the companies productive while were going through this this crisis chuck, its carl. You talk about getting through this issue there is this hopeful narrative that china and korea, as you mentioned, are a quarter, maybe a half quarter ahead of us in this whole nightmare, and they will offer demonstration that there is a door at the other side are you seeing any signs of that well, i i see the same things you guys see. I listen to the medical experts who i think have been just very steady through this whole thing. You listen to folks like gottlieb, they know what needs to happen. I heard this morning 5 million tests. Jim, i think you talked about it i talked to some of my friends in the Pharma Industry thats where this notion of this human ingenuity will come through. We are the most innovative country in the world we have lived through crises i think well get through this one. How long it takes, i leave that to the medical experts in the interim, its our job to focus on helping those in our communities and to make sure customers are taken care of and employees. Chuck, i also know that you took a lead marc benioff gets some credit but to try to help the homeless. Your company has been a leader in this. I want to talk about the evolution of what i regard as esg, particularly for younger viewers out there. Im listening to you, my travel trust is cisco shareholder how do i justify all the money youre spending on these things and im just being devils advocate, i feel these things are important and we know each other off screen how do you justify to shareholders this is the right thing to do given the fact that it will hurt the quarter . I tell you what, we have one thing i learned in the last few years is that these Community Issues and giving back to those less fortunate is helpful to employees we talk about the millenniums, but its every generation. Employees want to work for companies that have a purpose, that care about the communities in which they live, so i think that our we get the best employees when we do these things, theyre more motivated when we do these things, they innovate more, theyre more excited about coming to work i think thats one of the big things i think our customers appreciate it in general, it actually fits very well into the Overall Economic strategy that we have for our business plan. Look, the more motivated your employees are, the more they innovate, the more excited they are about coming to work, the better job they do thats how i figured out this is the right thing to do. As it relates to this crisis, we all have to do the right thing for our people and not worry about the quarter. So glad to hear you say that. One last thing weve seen this illness ravage whole countries. How is business in south korea and japan . Look, theres huge demand for our video conferencing, our conferencing technologies. Our security products. Theyre trying to build up capacity for employees working from home. Weve been focused on just getting whatever equipment these countries need weve been taking equipment into these popup Health Clinics in china and korea. I think its too early to tell what Business Conditions will be like after they come out of this, but were focused on trying to help on whatever needs they have. Its so notable youre working to help others, but you also have to help yourselves keep the Balance Sheets strong can you talk about efforts to bolster up credit and build a bridge for cisco over the next couple months or quarters . Were fortunate in that we have a strong Balance Sheet and we think our customers likely will come out of this and theyll realize that this crisis has demonstrated that they need to be building up infrastructure even more. I think right now the irony is what we need are companies that understand how to build atscale infrastructure to support whats going on in the world. This sun preis unprecedented when we designed our technology, can you imagine me telling our teams i need you to build this so it can accommodate every person on the planet working on the country, theyll go home and work from home and you need to scale and support that its bringing new requirements to bear. Our Balance Sheet is strong. Well get through the shortterm issues and do very well Going Forward. Chuck, thank you so much. Carl shares this its good to hear a different to tone theres a sense that Corporate America is running to things to help thank you for your comments and for doing something that longer term will help everyone. By the way, i wouldnt be surprised, as you said, well come through this. It may not be years. It may not be seasons, it may be a few months thank you, chuck thank you, guys into the not to pile on too u have to think about the responsibilities chuck and all of his peers have trying to lead big business and willingness to come on and share a message, not too specific, but just get out there and communicate is key thats all it takes we have a ton of headlines to get through. Kate will walk us through those. New cases today in more than 183,300 around the globe with more than 7,100 deaths in the United States, cases have surpassed 4,600. While china recorded 20 additional new cases, just one new locally originated infection was recorded in wuhan. Others were from travelers the Trump Administration released new guidelines on monday to help slow the spread of virus the moves include closing causing, pausing discretionary restaurants, closing bars and restaurants. Seven counties in Northern California have been ordered to shelter in place for the next three weeks beginning today. Residents have been told to stay home except for going to buy food or caring for pets. These are the most restrictive measures weve seen in the United States. This after governors of new york and new jersey banded yesterday to steer people away from bars and restaurants. Gyms, theaters and more are temporarily closed and gatherings are limited to 50 people amazon says they plan to hire 100,000 employees across the United States. The company says they plan to increase pay for workers in fulfillment centers, transportation, stores and deliveries by 2 an hour for more coronavirus coverage, head over to cnbc. Com. Back over to you thats a taste of the corporate headlines weve gotten in the last 18 hours lets get to some mad dash i know your watching dow i think a lot of people are worried about what Chuck Robbins just mentioned, he said we have a good Balance Sheet, therefore his dividend is it not in question a lot of people are starting to think when will i get some income how do i get income . Cds rolling over, theres no money to be made in the treasury market last night you had dow chemical on jim fitterling, was on its got a 12 yield hes saying im buying stock two members of my board are buying stock we think the dividend is safe. He knows the coverage. I think one of the most important things, china is back up and running china got through this kate mentioned that excellent point. Kate mentioned one new case in china. One. I want to caution people who are panicked and saying i see the retailers closing. This may be shorter lived. There are companies doing okay i think we want to get to that day where recovery is exceeding new cases. That day will come jim, i want to mention who things you talk about dividend. S p dividend yield is 126 basis points above treasury. Thats a record. In terms of insider buying, Charl Charlie scharpf buys wells on friday at 23. 69. So theres activity. I know charlie well theres a sense i knew charlie from the old days. You can say holy cow, he actually is not doing well on that insider insiders cant sell for a long time it reminds me a lot of jamie dimons bottom call. We nknow there will be seizeups there were seizeups in 2007 and 2008 what happened during the seizeups. It was the time to buy what is washington mutual. Its not wells fargo wells fargo a retail bank. Charlie was at visa before, then bank of new york his was a statement buy. This is something he didnt need to buy why did he buy it . Did he say im selling at five times earnings got a new chairman i get along with, have got a whole new team coming do you want to buy wells with charlie scharpf . I dont know yes. Yes. Is justly just throwing money away i met charlie one time he kind of schooled me the first time i felt like an idiot, second time i did third time i didnt feel as dumb hes a smart guy for him to take that swing, its not idle i would love to have charlie on. Charlie does not like tv ive been trying to get him on 40 times yes that was a sign of hopefulness. Im not saying we will frontrun fauci. Fauci is code for when we can come out i know the retailers are scrapped working back and forth with secretary mnuchin, trying to figure out the deal there. Its not the end of the world. Its certainly not a great time the. Yeah. Speaking of retailers, consumer products, maybe people do this day after day, i dont know. The upgrade list today includes walmart, pepsi, ea, square, b of a, procter, jd. Com where bernstein is talking about 31 upside they take their Revenue Growth to 18, this year, largely based on the peak we seem to have seen in china i never recommend chinese stocks ovther than alibaba. Its time to buy them. Lets go back to november of 1918 in ou countr country. We lost 550,000 people with a flu you got in the morning and were dead in the evening thats 1. 7 Million People now, then it killed everybody it was going to kill. That is not the way you would like a flu to end, you would like regeneron or one of Ten Companies who dont know theyre even working on it, but they when you have one case lets say theres 500 cases, that means china is through the worst. I like alibaba here. If you like jd and want to be second tier, thats fine lets talk about that walmart upgrade. When we get out to the other side, the companies with the best Balance Sheets will be kings. Walmart has the best Balance Sheet. They have a forgiving board. Walmart, the only problem is walmart is not down that much. I was looking at stocks down more or less than they were in the bear market of december of 2018 thats not one that is cheap enough they have an unbelievable Balance Sheet, theyll come through, it will be survival of the fittest in retail unless we get this finished quickly. Oppenheimer goes to outperform its down 11 from march 10th versus 17 on the s p not the wipeout that some are saying walmart traded at 85 on 12 24. One thing that is interesting, the procter upgrade, procter was up to 87 on that day when we thought we would go into recession. Now its at 108. It says be careful these stocks, i remember that we could have a t. A. R. P. Like moment where talking with andrew in cross talk, where you had t. A. R. P. Pass, everybody breathed a sigh of relief and then you were gob smacked. If you like that call, you are paying up today versus the people who bought in the last half hour of the press conference i thought the press conference was okay, they were selling throughout that. So be careful when you come in and buy up its not been a rewarding situation for a single day in this stance. Single day its been a mistake. Maybe today is different you are still in a sell the rallies and cover the crashes . Yeah. At least until you get a sense that the bottom is truly reached . Its the opposite of buy the dips i do think that selling i think now instead of selling i felt like you should sell everything on a big rally friday afternoon. Now i think you sell lower quality. You do have to start thinking about buying lets say regeneron does it right holy cow. Lets get to the bell well look at the s p. At the big board, tom green, Vice President of nyse building operations we do thank them for keeping all of us safe here on the floor and staying open at the nasdaq, reed alliance dedicated to early literacy. Jim, its not just you and me. We have faber calling in hi, david. David good morning. Good morning. Its good to hear your voice. Talk about what youre hearing this week. You know, theres so many dislocations im sorry im not there with you. I hope i will be soon. You know, theres so many Different Things to cover in a market like this, as you guys well know, far beyond the markets, but we also have to keep our eyes on the economy the days are filled with phone calls and texts. You never stop, regardless if im able to get there. Im keeping an eye on a lot of Different Things, including the dislocation of a lot of different markets. Also just the way the markets are functioning now. You have so many traders working from home. Maybe they were at a remote location maybe they still are in some ways but unfortunately some people are either potentially getting the virus or fear they have it then youre breaking teams apart. You have a lot of people working from their homes theres a concern among some out there that well, how well will that go can i have my principal trades conducted by somebody sitting in their living room . Well see. There is a concern there as people do move even from remote locations to their actual homes in terms of trading desks being broken apart in part because of unfortunately somebody may have the virus and you dont want anybody sitting near anyone else beyond that, trying to keep an eye on the real economy. I know youre talking a lot about it whether its retail, hotel, leisure, anything related to restaurants or those things. We are talking about companies that are finding their cash dramatically falling and their ability to pay vendors falling even if companies dont have a great deal of debt, theyre at a point where can i hang in there . Do i need to lay off 50 of my staff today or can i wait . The idea of forbearance is one that people are talking about. Jim, you talked about it even last week, its very difficult to figure out a way and a mechanism to have forbearance go throughout the chain so that we dont have defaults. We dont have concerns about that amongst Many Companies. Youre so right you deal with Small Business Small Business runs on a shoestri shoestring theyre laying people off, most of the bars and restaurants in new york city are going to try to make it so employees get 50 of what they normally make over the next two weeks the chain begins with your rent, insurance, electric bill nobody will offer you forbearance. A lot of people on 1099 are not covered by the payroll tax cut there seems to be a disconnect in washington and the real people in treasury the big problem here is how do you get money to people . I dont think were being creative at all. We have a great private sector if i were the treasury secretary, i would call up the ceo of intuit. Listen, you guys are tuned in to what we do brad smith, fantastic. Brad, how do we get the money to people you do almost all the Small Business returns tell us how to do it they need to rely on business more the government is no longer capable of raging the war we need against this disease. They have to bring in people like the ceo of intuit, the ceo of square, the ceo of visa do you see any of this any recognition that the only people who can handle this now are the big Business People because the problem has gotten too large . What i do hear from people is that the secretary of treasury does get it. Yes, he does. He understands the scope of the problem and the fact its not just a governmentled solution so, jim, there is that but, we have never dealt with anything quite like this before. How you go about creating the mechanisms that were talking about so that companies do not feel pressured to lay people off in the face of declining cash flows that are down 70 , 80 is still unclear. Time is of the essence here. This is not something that can be discussed and debated over the next week. This has to take place very, very soon. That continues to be a concern amongst some im talking about people who finance these companies and are relating the stories to me of Ten Companies with 150 now employees that theyre talking to, theyre saying theyre on the verge of bankruptcy. Its got to move fast. There are ways to get at it. Everything i hear indicates that the treasury secretary gets it, but how you implement it is still unclear. David, were all on the lookout for potential fed headlines today. Obviously watching commercial paper. The Journal Editorial Board floats this piece last night in which they echo what was said earlier in the week. Im sure well become familiar with section 13. 3 which would allow the fend to lend directly to industries other than financial services, presumably airlines, hotels, casinos. How much how much is that getting talked about its part of the conversation in terms of at least people who are trying to work through Capital Structures now which are unsustainable when revenues are down 50 , 60 , 70 i dont know specifically what the expectation is there retail as well is starting to close. Malls are still somewhat open, but thats probably not for much longer that industry we looked at some names there. Simon property down 25 . How far and wide would the fed even go . Its unclear we have never seen anything like this weve dealt with the depths of the financial crisis in which many of us are worried about the soundness of the Financial System, this is different in a different level. And its going to require, as jim said, Creative Solutions that do include the private sector in a great way. Even if you are a company that provides services to many of these companies, you feel insulated, but youre not. If theyre not there to buy those services, that does have a way of trickling through jim, you know, you have been talking to a lot of companies out there that potentially are in position to provide some sort of support i find it hard to understand how we get this forbearance to move through the system entirely. Youre right, david dave a busters, a great place to congregate. Theres the most dangerous word in the english language now, congregating that stock was at 59, now its at 7 a fantastic company. Really well run. Ruths Hospitality Group at 27, now at 7. I dont know what do you do when you run an establishment that is illegal to open i know. I know, but to your point, you ran it well. You executed well. This is nothing that is your fault in any way in terms of your own mistakes that youre suffering for in the Capital Markets as a result. Were talking even though the market cap now on these Companies May be small, tens of thousands of employees. Right. Right yeah. This is this is a its the equivalent of just an act of god going right through. Just leveling all sorts of industries you say if we could get to the other side get through to the vaccine, an antiviral, all these companies would come back to life. Does the federal government have any responsibility to ruths hospitality or Royal Caribbean or is it just going to be walmart that rules the roost talk about moral hazard. These companies did nothing. Look, i deal with the Restaurant Association. All the Restaurant Association is trying to say in new york, all right, try to keep your people on for a while. Thats those are the words that sound very much like 1932 we dont want that but i dont know what the treasury secretary can do short of saying well gaurn uarantee s of credit to every retailer . They cant do that maybe well be in an abyss for a short time, well come back, but the companies that have a lot of debt you know, what are they going to do . Call up jpmorgan and say corona, no pay that doesnt work. No, it doesnt. Unless jpmorgan says fine. Theres nothing no debts are due for the next three weeks while we figure this out you get unlimited liquidity. Youre right i dont know how it works. There are any number of companies that are close to having to make life and death decisions and laying off significant amounts of their people theoretically, what you want to do if youre darden, which we have up on the screen, you want to go to a bank and say look, i need a letter of credit and go to the fed and get a guarantee, i need the money to hold things open the question now, is there a triage like we have to do with corona do we say, you know what well go out to dinner at new places in november david, i dont know. Weve never had to maybe thats what happens. We just dont go to the same places we did. I think thats going to lead to very high unemployment and youre going to have to put people on unemployment roles that may be more expensive than throwing a line of credit to darden these are questions that people are asking now, far beyond the markets, which we are so focused on it gets back to the real economy. We dont have the answers at this point we can only hope that people are thinking creatively about a way to go about trying to maintain or keep as many jobs as possible in these industries. These are Massive Industries were not talking were talking about millions upon millions of people who work in these jobs absolutely. David, thank you its sobering. Its one reason why when you get these up openings that are so stupid, you get a chance to reliquefy and sell the bad oil is one of the danger points of this economy. Theyre the people who will have to be laid off address production and exploration budgets go down dramatically carl, again, this is what i dont like you have this market go up people think its recovered. Its just an opportunity to get out of the bad ones. Yeah. You mentioned oil. Down 14 cents. We got that notice from exxon yesterday after a slew of smaller players do guide lower on capex and production. The other thing well talk about for the next several months, all right, you have industries that are systemically important to the National Economy airlines are a perfect example, but spent 96 of their Free Cash Flow on buybacks for the past decade how much responsibility did they have to build a Rainy Day Fund for unforeseen situations like this yeah, ive been thinking about that and the moral hazard and the notion they spent the money wrong. They were under tremendous pressure from shareholders to return the capital they thought it was the right thing. Its highly unusual for a company to say one day well have some sort of real bad event that we cant think of right now. Keep the money on hand i think that what that cuts to, though, is who has to pay for it do the executives, do we tell them, listen, you earn a dollar a year because you did that . Well let it so that the shareholders, you canknow, wel make sure the workers are paid and that were safe. That sounds like something the Administration May need to do. We need american air, but you guys make nothing, the employees make the full price and the airlines stay in the air when we get through covid. We dont want all new companies wiping out the capitalist system because of an illness that will be conquered by american ingenuity. You can imagine lets say that nordstrom, which i think is a terrific company, good Balance Sheet. They have to close stores. Should nordstrom be punished because they almost took the Company Private at 50 . Nordstrom is a good institution. We want to keep them alive but theres no theres nothing in the constitution which says we pledge allegiance to nordstrom indeed, jim i want to ask you about a piece you wrote i think last night about six totems to watch. Do you have a list of names that you think are critical at this point in yeah. I think when you when you look at this market, you really have to say, what stocks have great Balance Sheets that could easily ride through this but maybe you have to see oh, the market is down already i look at lets start with the big elephant in the room boeing boeing is a national treasure. Boeing must be saved boeing has a double whammy of customers in trouble and its not able to make the plane that is the most important plane in its arsenal. We cant let boeing fail boeing has been in that situation one other time what we need to hear from treasury is, okay look, we have a protect list were not going to let these Companies Fail theyre National Treasures we have no choice. We need them for National Defense. Just build it like a National Defense issue, so its not a commercial issue anyone who is needed for National Defense, theyll save anyone needed for the fight against the covid, they have to save everyone else well try to get to but it may not work realistic approach yeah. Looking at boeing at 120, we know where it was in the mid 400s this b of a Fund Managers survey today, sentiment going down to 08 extremes how much do you think sentiment is being washed out here not yet i have regeneron on tonight. The man who conquered eboela wil be on. If i get the sense frankly that hes talking about this is not a problem that is impossible to solve ill feel good the other thing we dont talk about enough, when you look at the data out of china and out of italy, you can see that we may im going to be a little bit more blunt than i would like to be, but we may be sacrificing the economy for the people who are between the ages of 70 and 90 and those are treasured people to us obviously. These are our parents. This is me, for heavens sake. But younger people, they come home, theyre at the beach, its spring break i hate those pictures of them on the beach. They dont have a care in the world. This is literally one of those situations like conrad, when you read youth, great. Doesnt take long to read. I say is this what were sacrificing the economy on, the people who are older if they would stay indoors, if we had a quarantine of them and we get through this, then we wouldnt be talking about closing twothirds of the remember, were a service economy. Right which is why, jim, well get to pisani quickly, there was a sense yesterday that the president for the first time got real with the American Public in that presser saying that july august is a marker in his mind when asked about it said its bad said a recession, maybe. After 52 days between the first case and declaring an emergency. Yeah. You know, you have to think i know that 60 minutes a week ago was a wakeup call with dr. Fauci talking honestly hes always been honest, but he said its not so good. Adam silver, the nba commissioner, rudy, the player who was the biggest guy, said that we had to create a shutdown and i come back and i say im told without a doubt there will be things from the treasury secretary this morning that will answer a lot of what were talking about. Obviously these problems are too big for the private sector we heard from chuck, Chuck Robbins. It has to be from treasury, it has to be from the president and within the next 24 hours well, our eyes will be peeled, jim. Dow is hanging on to an 18point gain good morning, bob. Bouncing between positive and negative boeing is a problem, down about 9 about 80 points on the dowment lets look at the sectors now here Consumer Staples have been up all morning. Defensive tone banks were up, now down. Health care has been up all morning. Energy has been flat you can see the banks deteriorating a bit. The dow movers, boeing not here, but boeing down about 9 do you dow bouncing banks fractionally up. Mcdonalds, theyve been announcing that a large part of their restaurants are doing drivethru delivery and takeaway only here. If you look at what weve been doing here, we know whats going on fullservice restaurants have been having a horrible situation. This is one month. We have been emphasizing consumer stocks that have been rallying noticeably. Kroger, clorox, campbells soup. Put up the next full screen. You can see those consumer stocks that have been rallying rather notably here. Kellogg is up 4 riteaid is down 4 on the month. So most of these consumer names have been dramatically outperforming. Theres been a lot of upgrades in the past two days walmart upgraded, oppenheimer calling it a place to hide pepsi upgraded Procter Gamble upgraded at Deutsche Bank saying its an attractive defensive name. Jd. Com, a china stock upgraded over at person steen they announced a 2 billion Buyback Program. A Buyback Program from a chinese company, jd. Com. That stock trading up as well. If you look at the Fund Managers survey, we had a discussion about that carl that. Recession odds at 50 , thats way up obviously equity allocations down 2 cash levels at 5. 1 . The point about this, these are very high levels, but they are not quite at the 2008 extremes, not quite yet. These are all elevated particularly this recession. It went up to 80 recession odds in 2008. Obviously that happened. Keep an eye on that. Finally, is there any sense maybe this volatility will ease a bit . Im a little hopeful about the quadruple witching, it is this friday, the quarterly options expiration of stock Index Futures and options and individual stock futures and options. Its four things here. Its the third friday and there is a lot of money thats rolling over at this point, and the question is whether or not this will ease some of the volatility i cant make a guarantee about it but i can tell you this, the cost of buying protection, cost of buying options is through the roof look at the vix over here these numbers t is astronomical to buy protection now, and so maybe some people will decide its not worth it to spend so much money on options at this point. That might tamp down some of the volatility its just, carl, a little way of saying maybe, maybe some of this volatility will drop in the next few days who knows. Back to you. Well see lets check in with Rick Santelli this morning as well as rick, seeing stories on reuters citing sourcesthe fed will introduce the commercial Paper Funding Facility as soon as today. Well wait for word. Reporter yes, you know, i have no problem with these special facilities i thought that was in the past a big success with regard to the credit crisis but i of course always had a problem with is just blindly writing checks. You have to have plans and whether i listen to jim or david, they definitely have good plans, ultimately the money hopefully will catch up with the strategic insertion of them where needed most. Lets look at the yield curve, shall we twoyear note yields are basically unchanged. They havent moved much. Now theyre up a couple. If you look at fiveyear, up three. Look at tenyear, were up eight. Look at 30year bonds, were up nine a, were getting some curve steepening b, were distancing ourselves from those intraday lows that we established. Look at a twoday of tens, but on tenyear, especially yesterday, open the chart up to february, yesterday was the Second Lowest close ever for tenyear notes, and the issue here is, we had 54, of course, was the low close on the 9th, monday, the intraday low that day was historic at 31, and now yesterdays 72 was a low close however, it is coming back a bit. Lets look at bund yields. They were as high as minus 37 earlier today. Look at this chart four sessions, theyve gone from basically minus 80 to minus 40 that doesnt sound like a lot, but it is a lot, as the spread continues to contract with u. S. Tens now here is something we dont talk about enough. Commodities, emerging markets, the default appetite for more dollars, all this is kind of the same picture lets look at the last time the crb was this close to 130. Ill tell you when, about 1999 look at this it is unbelievable how Commodity Prices have gone down. You know whats going on with energy, how hard it is to move various commodities. In the end, its demand, its supply its all of those, but its especially difficult for some of these economies as the dollar continues to move higher in combination with commodities yeartodate of the dollar index, you realize it is just getting very close to that high you see on the left side there, which was a whisker shy of 100 well, open the chart we havent been to those levels since april of 2017. Im telling you, the default of the dollar index is strong and isnt necessarily representing a good thing in that strain. We would like it to moderate a bit and of course the demand a belong everything youre hearing, carl, about various markets, im sympathetic to that, but does anybody really think out there that we should be looking for markets especially in a fixed income space to be trading normally, when Everything Else is so abnormal back to carl and jim all right, rick, thank you. Rick santelli. Faced with the unique challenges presented by the coronavirus pandemic, service now has just released four free Emergency Response apps to help their customers and governments navigate this crisis joining us is service now ceo Bill Mcdermott bill, it is always good to talk to you good morning good to see you. Good morning, carl, thank you very much. You want to talk about what awe announced this week . Yes, carl, we announced four applications, Emergency Response operations was the first big one, and i want to credit the state of washington, the department of health, and Jennifer Mcnamara there did a great job building on top of the now platform a way in which they can deal with incidents and they can also take all the activities that theyve done that require federal funding and immediately optimize that in a work flow, so they get things done, they also get things funded, and they execute beautifully. Today, that app is now an open source app that we will make free all over the world to anyone that wants it the second app was an emergency outreach, so people can, in fact, be engaged in the workforce. We know where they are we know how theyre doing. Of course, selfreporting, if youve been exposed to the virus, is very important thats another app, and how you deal with the selfreporting rules in the work flow and finally the emergency exposure management if you have been exposed and you need to be quarantined, we want to make sure youre safe and also want to know who youve been around so we can make sure theyre safe, so business goes on and goes forward. So these are four applications, and i want to be clear, they are free they are available on servicenow t. Com, whether youre a customer or not service now is helping beat back this terrible, terrible virus. How much coordination is there between you and the federal government, even you mentioned washington state, but state governments at large and do you think that efforts like this from yourselves, from other members of Corporate America need some kind of national webbing or glue to have these responses be more broadly coordinated . Yes, i think the first thing we wanted to do was make sure everybody was safe in our company, so weve been working from home, and enabling all digital operations, and weve encouraged our customers to do the same thats the beauty of digitally transformed businesses you can operate in highly agile way at the speed of thought. Secondly, we really wanted to maneuver these best practices such as the ones ive Just Announced today, and thats really key, because you know, we cant keep score on what everyone else is doing we have to take charge of what we are doing and make what we are doing available to everybody, and we are doing this at the federal, state, city and local level. For example, just since last night, when we launched these applications, i get a report out instantaneously of the number of downloads and the number of people moving on these apps, and theyre literally in record, record numbers, carl, and i expect that to continue. We are aligned with the federal government we are working with many of the agencies, and of course, the states and local cities and municipalities so i feel that the outreach has been very good i feel that our innovation has been very relevant and were really driving those best practices everywhere we possibly can. Just for our benefit of our audience, people may not understand who you are in the sense that this is so you. Youve got something thats really great and about public health, Public Service and you make it free, because that is Bill Mcdermott and the Bill Mcdermott we know. Bill, i think the country needs your help here when you ran your Previous Company s. A. P. And youre in service now, youre in touch with small, medium, large businesses, all of the great leaders of our time, public, private, entertainment even, corporate. What would you do if you were the president . I think the most important thing is to make sure that everybody is safe. Then you have to really take a public and private Partnership Approach to all of these operations, so we recognize that none of us is as smart as all of us, and the best ideas tend to come close to the ground you have to get those ideas up top, so you can scale them in a best practice orientation. So innovation, rewiring the splitting of the value chains that have gone on from 20th century technology, and reorienting those value chains into work flows that are seamless, that are technologydriven, and that can scale across the world, is incredibly important so we got to run the country, but we also have to collaborate with other parts of the world, and finally, i would make sure as president that you have to have a clear purview on helping customers help their customers you know, jim, youll remember well the financial crisis of 2008, and this, too, will pass, but the reason that passed is everybody got focused on doing their job, and running their business, because customers have businesses to run, and they have to win in the marketplace, so i think thats the key so i would make sure theres plenty of capital available so the wheels of capitalism go full speed ahead. Whatever has to be funded in the short room so come out of this with a hockey stick in the end would be on it and keep people relaxed. No sense in being anxious and panicking. Its not going to help keep focused on the prize. Were all in this together one last question would you invest in america right now . Absolutely. The American Dream is an unstoppable force. America is amazing in its resilience and its grit, and theres nothing like American Innovation theres no country that i invest more in than the United States of america, jim. Thank you thank you so much, bill. Thats Bill Mcdermott, chairman and ceo of service now fabulous. A fabulous company we know helped so Many Companies figure out how to do their business better and hes doing the same thing with health care and Public Service i have Sheryl Sandberg, a company stepping up 100 million, going to try to get them to do another couple hundred million. Why the hell not why not say sheryl thats good, 500 million. You should do, jim, yesterday was the anniversary of jerry lewis birthday. You should do a telethon in which you get American Business to call in, in real time, and offer solutions, money, you name it, but it needs to be you and ill be there obviously to help but youre in charge as i touch my face like an idiot. Yes, yes i would do that in a second. We all know that business is the greatest source of social change, if we could do that, carl, i would be there, love to do if. Im sure severheryl sandberg wi stand up how about regeneron gave me hope, not false hope the guys who conquered ebola have obviously been around maybe they have a clue of what to do and i think thats very, its not just well say its exciting they theyre my main guests and of course ill be doing the telethon can i not wait until labor day can i do that one on st. Patricks day which we forget. How do you forget st. Patricks day . Could we remember theres bigger things the good thing is no one is going to pinch me. No one is going to get close enough to pinch me happy st. Paddys day. Same to you stay healthy. See you tonight. Good tuesday morning, everybody. Im Carl Quintanilla live at post anyone nine of the New York Stock Exchange along with mike santoli. Dow down, we have Economic Data crossing the table Rick Santelli for the numbers, hey, rick. Reporter this is always two months in arrears so this is a january number and its stronger than expected by a wide margin looking for a number around 6. 4 million. Were just a whisker shy of 7 million. 6. 963 million upwardly revised last month december move from 6. 4 to 6. 5 million this is good news but of course everybody watching and listening is going to say thats january but it still was a vibrant january on jobs. Remember, initial jobless claims last thursday were down several thousand, down 4,000 or 5,000 if i recall we really want to play close attention to the job scene with respect to jolt, november, december, now january are under 7 million but as i said, this is getting close. Now, business inventories for the month of january were down 0. 1 as expected and for the National Association of Home Builders, Housing Market index, im going to go to diana olick out east, shes going to break that number. Diana . Rick, home builder sent imfell two points to 72 in march according to the National Association of Home Builders anything above 50 is considered positive one important note, half of the builder responses in the march survey were collected prior to march 4th, so the stock market declines and the fast growing Economic Impact of the coronavirus are not entirely reflected here sentiment levels have been in a tight range in the low to mid70s for the past six months. Sentiment was at 62 in march of last year. Of the indexs three components, current sale conditions fell two points to 79, sales expectations in the next six months dropped four points to 75 and traffic of prospective buyers decreased one point to 56. We know that one will change and nahb asked about supply chain disrumgss related to the coronavirus. 21 of builders reported some disruption in supply due to virus concerns in other countries such as china. The incidence is higher, 33 among builders who responded to the survey after march 6 this is clearly an emerging issue. Back to you guys reuters is reporting that the fed is set to reinstate commercial Paper Funding Facility lets get over to Steve Liesman, what did you make of that report this morning, steve . Very much in line with my thinking and some of the reporting that ive been able to do, carl, over the last several days, about a day or so ago i expected the fed to do this because whatim hearing from a variety of sources and investment banks is the credit markets are simply not functioning well, even after the fed came in with that large package of emergency stimulus measures including cutting the rate to zero, doing 700 billion of purchases on the upside, wednesday i said it may take time but additional acts are needed. Let me show you some of the things im hearing theres concern about outflows of Money Market Funds, one person told me the commercial paper market is shut and of course repo is pricing well above fed funds. Let me go through the commercial paper market problem and shou sh show you where the pressures are. The companies that borrow and financials and hedge funds as well they need to issue to raise shortterm cash. If they dont do that they may have to draw on Bank Credit Lines that will create additional pressure and the Money Market Fund lenders need to sell to raise cash ahead of expected withdrawals its a pretty big deal when the borrowers need to borrow more and the lenders need to lend less or otherwise get out of these positions. Bank of america yesterday and this is yesterday came out with a research romp saying the fed needs to signal that these programs are coming as soon as possible to reduce credit concerns and calm funding markets, a Statement Today would help and that was something they said yesterday. I dont know that a commercial Paper Funding Facility is going to cure all of the problems but certainly its something i hear from many, many people in this market that it would certainly help when the fed last did this in the fall of 2008, it loaned 738 billion of loans in commercial paper to dozens of companies id made sop money because did charge a fee out there 900 million was the number so well see if theyre going to take a blueprint from that and also see, carl, if thats it. There may be additional facilities that the fed has to do to principally provide Balance Sheet space for the dealers and the banks to come in i keep hearing theres different problems throughout the market its an economic plement, it didnt start as a financial problem but what the fed needs to do here is to make sure it doesnt become a deeper financial problem. Carl one thing steve as we are getting unscheduled announcements, thats for sure, the new normal for a while, i would imagine. I wouldnt be surprised if they did it today, carl. Im just watching my email here, it would not surprise me if it happened today, surely no later than tomorrow. The fed has a lot on its plate and has to be done in concert with treasury here so thats two agencies i wouldnt be surprised by the way if other of the Bank Regulators have to get involved in this as well. I got to go back and look at my banking regulations but it may be that other banking regulators would get involved here. This was paired last time with the program from the fdic as well although that was not necessarily a commercial paper right and finally, before i let you go, steve. Eight banks accessing the discount window, the kinds of thing we want to see, right . It is i dont know how much they took down its probably out there someplace, to be reported by the end of the week. I think it was more symbolic remember last time, carl, they created the term auction facility theres a blast from the past, the old taf and the taf was a discount window under another name why . The discount window has this stigma, what the banks tried to do yesterday, show people were borrowing, not insolvent we dont have problems but we are borrowing from the window. Theres always a stigma attached to this. The fed has long tried to get rid of that stigma well see if what happened yesterday with the banks banding together and all going to the window removes that, but remember what they did they lowered the rate, linked in the term on the discount window to make it more a more palatable or easier place to go, get term funding for the banks and well see that ends up working glad we have access to your eyes and ears, steve talk to you in a little while, Steve Liesman. Goldman is out this week saying they see zero u. S. Economic growth as the coronavirus spreads and the firm publishes a new note declaring a global recession joining us is the man behind the call, jan hatzius, globals chief economist. Good to talk to you. Downgrading our forecast sharply. Youre talking about global gdp for 2020 falling to 1. 25, less bad than the deep is he very longs of 8128 and 08 and 09 but worse than the mild recessions of 01 can you expand we have made sizeable dollar revisions to growth forecasts in the u. S. , in the euro area, in china, mostly related to the spreading of coronavirus and the responses to that in china are also related to the exceptionally poor numbers that we got for january and february, which to us say that the gdp numbers are going to reflect the very sharp deterioration weve been seeing there to a much greater degree than we thought so this is going to mean global gdp numbers clearly in recession territory, a lot of people use Something Like 2. 5 for global gdp as a recession criterion, and were going to be well below that the one other thing id add is that these annual averages of course hide quite a lot of variation through the year its really going to be the first half of 2020 thats going to see significant contractions in many economies, focused on q1 in china, focused on q2 in most other economies, including the u. S. And europe. Lets talk about q2 in the u. S. J. M is down three. Others down 6. 5, some double digits, some smaller firms youre at 5. What assumptions are you using to get there were assuming that the mitigation measures that are now being put in place very rapidly are going to lead to a sharp drop in activity in the remainder of march and in april, and you know, in the worst affected areas, or the areas that institute the sharpest lockdowns are we think gdp falls by the level of gdp falls by Something Like 6 or 7 , and that is where a lot of places we think are going to be in april, after april, our assumption is that the virus situation gradually starts to improve, and activity starts to normalize thats based on what youve seen in Asian Countries such as china and more recently also korea, and that then holds the overall pace of contraction to 5 on a quarter on quarter annualized basis. However, i think even in the last few days, weve seen quite a bit more aggressive move towards lockdowns in the u. S. , and many states, and cities, and so i think the rifts through these numbers are still on the downside, and its certainly possible that the pace of contraction is going to be bigger in europe, where we are expecting a more rapid pace of decline that is double digits, if you convert it into quarter on quarter annualized terms because weve seen these full lockdowns in the major European Countries at this point. Just in terms of offsets, obviously you dont assume any fiscal stimulus, anything happening necessarily to try and buffer what were seeing in the next few months in the u. S. , but as we now hear about these proposals, what do you think is reasonable to expect and what would have an Immediate Impact in terms of scale and type of fiscal stimulus . Well, we do assume that fiscal policy is going to lose some significantly to the extent, to the tune of maybe 1 to 2 of gdp, so if you look at that over a twoyear basis, that would be 400 billion to 800 billion and i think the risk of that is to the higher side, as the outlook for the economy deteriorates, there is more focus on counteracting it. I think a key focus is going to be basically tiding over firms and individuals who are hit by this downturn, so its really income support for households via the Unemployment Insurance system but maybe more importantly via payments for people who are out sick or who cant work for other reasons, and then support for companies that are directly affected by this crisis, and you know, the economic problem is basically that we have a deep decline in activity in some sectors that is probably going to be relatively shortlived. Of course we dont know exactly, but it is very much an exogenous black swan type of hit to activity that will pass, but i think the key focus needs to be to make sure that you dont have a lot of people and a lot of firms going out of business because of this short term hit and of course, i guess we have to be attentive to sort of secondary effects or unintended kind of logjams in the Financial System that might be tightening financial conditions well in excess of just the downturn in actual real Economic Activity and how do we filter that into our expectation for how this goes obviously thats one of the things the fed is now being, you know, kind of bringing its power to bear on i would say that that is the other key priority on the fiscal policy side, i think its cushioning the impact of the income loss and the revenue loss on the Monetary Policy side. Weve gone well beyond conventional Monetary Policy, cutting rates by 150 basis points was the right thing to do, but its not the most central part of what were seeing, so i think the qe announcement on sunday was important. It was definitely larger than i think most people had expected, but helpful, and now i think the challenge is to focus on the liquidity facilities, the commercial Paper Funding Facility, that seems to be coming back, and other ways in which the fed can help market functioning and i think thats something thats the work in progress chair powell said in the Conference Call on sunday that while they didnt have any specific announcements on that, these facilities are very much part of the playbook and were going to see just how much they are part of the playbook over the next few days and weeks probably indeed. Jan, as youre talking mcconnell is on the tape now saying the senate will not adjourn until it passes bold measures that go beyond the house Economic Relief bill so well keep our eyes peeled for that noticed dudley, this morning, jan, said sending checks to households is one good idea. Could you give us some definitive answers on how much of a household check would make a difference, and how would you weigh that policy response versus say payroll tax holiday well, i think it is certainly stimulative. It could go out relatively quickly and i think it would help the situation i think its still being discussed in terms of how big those numbers are. In the past weve done 500 or 1,000 a household i think thats still unclear whether that is going to be included or payroll tax cut is included for me, the most important issues are probably more on the side of supporting revenues and income for people who are directly affected by the crisis, which is sort of separate from whatever you do on payroll taxes or on rebate checks. So for me, that would probably be the first priority, but there are other things that could also be helpful for supporting activity we will see about policy and implement it, jan, and keep the checks in households likes yours and definitely mine do not need that money its going to be difficult to decide which households do jan hatzius thank you for that dow is holding into some relatively contained ranges, mike santoli, even as we get hit by a flu as stories regarding possible responses all eyes will be on congress and the note from mcconnell is interesting, too yes, i mean the market is very sensitive to any sense of incremental progress on a fiscal response we saw the futures all over the place overnight and it makes sense in a way how agitated this market is. Tons of air pockets in other parts of the Capital Markets you really feel with a washout money you should get a springy bounce on tuesday. Seems the policy static is not necessarily allowing for that right away but its a twitchy tape yep, and boeing chart is definitely hard to look at, at 106, nearly an 18 decline today on boeing. Lets get to Steve Liesman what are you watching . Yes, new york fed unscheduled repo operation we talked earlier this morning about the repo market trading wide from the fed funds, well above where it should be the fed saying it will come in with an unscheduled 500 billion repo operation in the afternoon, just like it did yesterday it did a morning operation of 500 billion 142 was taken down, and people should just caution, its not the amount taken down versus the amount of offered. The fed is offering 500 because it believes that that number is well above what the market would want at that particular time so dont say that things are good because they are only taking 14237 142 billion is a lot of repo to take down from the Federal Reserve. There will be another operation in the afternoon as we await these stories out there, carl, that perhaps the fed takes an additional step when it comes to the commercial Paper Funding Facility steve, thank you very much. Lets get to our eamon javers with more on the d. C. Response to the virus. Eamon . Reporter yes, good morning, mike one thing to bring you up to speed on, this shows you how some of this is hitting home for white house officials, im told now that Outgoing White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney is in selfquarantine for the coronavirus in South Carolina, thats his home state. Im told that mulvaneys niece, who shares his apartment here in washington, d. C. , has been very ill. She made a full recovery, but she was down for about three or four days last week. She has tested negative for the ordinary flu mulvaney got tested and was negative at that time last week. They are still waiting for her coronavirus test to show up. So that puts the Outgoing White House chief of staff in some sort of limbo here as to any risk to the president of the United States from this, what i am told is that there is zero risk. Mulvaney had no contact with the president after thursday morning. Mulvaney left friday morning because of the incubation period he had no contact with the president of the United States after that test. White House Doctors were involved every step of the way in all of this, i am told, so that gives you a sense of how close that chain of contact is to the president , but im being told now by a Senior Administration official no danger to the president from that situation mulvaney continuing to be under selfquarantine voluntarily in South Carolina to review the bidding on where we are on all of this, take a look at what weve passed so far in terms of congressional action, and where we still need to go. 8. 5 billion signed into law last week, that seems like small potatoes as we gear up for whats going to happen this week the house passed bill, ilan moye confirms the joint taxation firm is looking at that the rest of it is unscored at this point, well see what the total dollar figure is for the house passed bill. The senate is expected to do even more. Mitch mcconnell says within the past few minutes the white house is going to be proposing later today a measure that reportedly could be up to 850 billion white house aides not confirming the specific amount just yet but treasury secretary mnuchin set to go to capitol hill and make a large ask to them today. A lot moving here in washington. Well follow it throughout the day. The White House Briefing rescheduled for 11 30 a. M. East coast time guys just about in an hour eamon, talk to you maybe before then eamon javers kayla tausche, we see multiple pots cooking this morning in washington, d. C. Hey, kayla reporter hey, carl ive been talking to my sources. Regulators here in washington are likely to pursue more regulatory changes to free up liquidity for banks to be investing to keep the markets functioning more seamlessly than they are right now one change that is under consideration right now is the occ, the office of the comptroller of the currency is considering relaxing its 2013 rules over leveraged lending this is essentially a way to take some of these barriers or guardrails off of the banks that would prohibit them from making loans to companies that are being perceived as risky companies, as some of these energy companies, for instance, slide down the credit scale and their capital or their Balance Sheet becomes less healthy in this case, if this were to happen, banks would be able to continue extending credit to them i am told, though, that there is a significant amount of resistance to making this change, largely because when these rules were put in place in 2013 from then until now theyve been seen as effective and theyve been seen as keeping banks from extending riskier loans that would have put them in a more precarious position right now. I spoke to a Bank Executive this morning about what this change, if it were to happen, would do, and in addition to this, what the feds announcement earlier today that it would be relaxing banks liquidity buffers would to he said those two actions together would be more effective than the fed going to negative rates in terms of the capital that it would free up. As for that announcement this morning, a real time example of what that could potentially to for banks, for instance, if a company, and a Mutual Fund Company and money Market Company like blackrock were to go to a bank and say customers want redemptions. We need money on hand, if a bank were to make them a loan to fulfill the customer requests, the bank would have to hold 100 of that money as liquidity to back that up with the change the fed made this morning, they would no longer have to to that thats one example of how this could play out in the real world by freeing up some of this money and trying to inject some of that in the market as lending in some cases tries to return to normal guys kayla, its remarkable. All these efforts to keep risks off of banks books, did not get rid of the risks and revising things on the fly, its kind of fascinating. Reporter it is and it is going to definitely, mike, open up some political blowback, too, for especially democrats who say we need these rules in place and they should not be adjusted. There should be workarounds but banks are in touch with the administration regularly to try to tell them what they need to happen to free up some of thiskf talk to you again soon, appreciate it. The coronavirus is putting pressure on retailers with shortened hours and store closures and also might push some names past the point of recovery Courtney Reagan has the latest on some of of the already struggling chains. Retailers flashing warning signs for some time. Now you add in the coronavirus pandemic, and these distressed retailers may not survive much longer as quarantines are issues, stores closed, consumers practice social distancing and more, sources i spoke to use various stress test measures, for lack of a better term, to evaluate whether a retailer has the ability to cover its fonl obligations over the next six months to two years. Things like debttoebitda ratio, interest coverage, cash flow, Credit Rating and exposured to the pressured mall are among the metrics used here are some retailers that could struggle operations in the future jcpenney, struggling under several different ceos, large debt payments loom, sales drop and many fear jcpenney is running out of time. J. Jill, high execution risk for its languishing turnaround. S p points to the broadbased restructuring in the next six months a spokesperson tells cnbc bankruptcy is not being considered and that it remains in full compliance with all of its obligations under its Financing Agreements and intends to remain so. Gnc holdings on monday, it said it is operating under going concern or it believes it is financially stable enough to continue its business for the foreseeable future but many arent so sure. Sears Parent Company transform holdco this morning said it sold a Delivery System to costco for 1 billion but notes continued loss, declining sales and says it is committed to fulfilling obligations to its vendors. Party city, rite aid, j. Crew and Neiman Marcus on the number of distressed retailer list. Names that may not recover back over to you courtney, longterm declines a sudden shock in that industry. Oil prices falling to lowest levels to years on the back of coronavirus fears and a potential price war. Lets bring in sadaa al hue seenie, former aramco executive respect are. Thanks for calling in. Good morning. We are seeing the price action perhaps further decline, not a surprise, given what saudi arabia decided to do on the supply front do you think the continuing weakness in demand will do saying to alter that supply decision no, carl. I think this was a very important and fundamental change in strategy on the kingdoms part we are moving toward a free market kind of pricing, i think. I would say that most companies ought to be reviewing their projects and testing their economics based on these current prices these will be arched for a while. There is no indication theres any desire to change the production strategy. There is a need to recover market share and this is a separate problem from the coronavirus issue or the economic recession going on in the u. S. This is a strictly Oil Commodity kind of strategy you say producers should get used to these prices these prices or further declines in prices from here . Well, i think i would hope to see a slightly stronger market, as demand picks up, but i dont see a very strong price adjustment upward adjustment this is an indication of a longterm demand problem that may take a while to correct itself the kingdom is going to go to 12 Million Barrels a day. This will stay for a while its not a decision that was taken lightly. I think other projects, very expensive projects, arctic projects, and Russias Arctic sea offshore, heavy oil, crude, sand oil from canada, other more expensive crudes will have to back out to rebillialance the ms markets. Are you seeing a supply response yet, seeing that capacity go away is it too soon to see that response i think people are watching to see whether the kingdom is determined to continue with this strategy and as i say, the kingdom was confronted with a choice between one of two strategies, either keep Cutting Supply to make room for other producers, or turn around and go for market share and protect its market position. So i believe Many Companies maybe were watching this, not sure how confident and determined the kingdoms leadership is, and they are quite determined given that determination, sadad, whats a trough price in your mind say over the next six months if you mean the bottom price, i think its already been achieved i dont see it going much further. We may see volatility for sure, but i think wti at maybe 30, but again, companies should take contingencies, make plans on lower prices, just to make sure that theyre funding the best project that they have in their inventory. If you look at the offshore project like exxon or hess in brazils offshore, those are good projects and theyll survive, but as i say, the costly projects will probably have to get deferred as far as the nearterm. All right, perhaps we consider that pretty good news if, in fact, we dont go down too much from here well see. Sadad, thank you very much for your time today. Thank you lets get to sue herrera with the latest on the coronavirus headlines back at hq good morning, mike. Good morning, everyone heres whats going on right now the coronavirus. Confirmed cases have now topped 185,000 with more than 7,300 deaths, both of those numbers are up significantly since earlier this morning here in the u. S. , cases are approaching 4,700, as testing ramps up around the nation in ontario, canada, the most populous province there, it has declared a state of emergency to help slow the spread of the coronavirus. Bars and restaurants will be closed and gatherings of more than 50 people have been banned. And for the First Time Since world war ii, the Kentucky Derby will not be run on the first saturday in may. Churchill downs has moved the nations premier horse race to september 5th due to the coronavirus pandemic get live updates any time on the coronavirus outbreak go to cnbc. Com carl, back to you. Sue, thank you very much. Coronavirus cases nearing 5,000 now in the United States, with many beginning to worry about a potential shortage of medical supplies and hospital beds joining us to discuss, ceo of ucla health, which oversees one of the largest Hospital Systems in california. Janice thank you for your time on a tough week. Appreciate it very much. Help our viewers understand the level to which shortages are a nearterm concern right now. Okay, well first of all, i really want to acknowledge that this is an unprecedented time for Health Care Systems in our country. Here in los angeles, weve been actively preparing and really activated our command center several weeks ago to begin to prepare for the anticipated arrival of additional patients weve really been focusing on three key things that are important in any Disaster Preparedness activity, and that is making sure we have adequate staffing, adequate supplies, and adequate search space. So thats meant a lot of changes for hospitals. First of all, weve had to roll out intensive additional training for our staff, so that they know how to properly put on the personal protective gear to protect them and patients from the virus. The second thing that weve had to do is really work with our supply chain to make sure that we had adequate par levels to really sustain the level of burn rate that we had in using supplies and third, weve had to work quickly to create additional search space in a Health System that is already pretty much running at 100 occupancy. So the things that weve done is weve set up some additional tentlike structures outside of our Emergency Departments so that we can see more patients in that venue weve begun telemedicine visits through our 180 clinics throughout los angeles so we can see patients in the least intensive setting. Weve also begun to reschedule or cancel elective type surgeries, working with our physicians, patients and families to postpone any type of surgery that could wait a few weeks. That allows us to preserve staffing and also our personal protective equipment right Governor Cuomo here in new york who is on the tape right now says he expects the virus peak in new york state in about 45 days, would put you toward the end of april or so hes also called for some powers to enlist the army corps of engineers to remedy some of the real estate shortages that youre talking about would that help in california . Yes, definitely we could use any type of help in that area. Theres also been a lot of other unintended consequences that arrive with doing all the right things that we have to do. We want to really continue with the social distancing. We know thats worked, but thats resulted in School Closures so now many of our Health Care Workers have child care issues and trying to make sure were getting our vital workers to work, having alternatives for child care, having alternative places to live so we can keep them near the hospital all of those are important factors in any type of pandemic like were seeing. Were starting to hear from Companies Like roche who said yesterday that they have begun shipping 400,000 test kits per week and they do expect that number to be repeated week after week its a huge relief for those who need tests are you seeing or feeling that the supply of kits is getting better, not worse . So we were fortunate at ucla health that we were able to begin our own covid19 testing, thanks to the Incredible Lab and pepology department we have at ucla health. We were initially age to do 40 tests a day. We wanted to dramatically increase that number this next week, we should be able to do 100 a day, but the limiting factor has been the equipment, the reagent, the amount of supplies we have to do that, and also staffing. So we are really hoping to get as many tests done as soon as possible, and really appreciate the cooperation of the National Companies in making this a top priority finally, when people ask you, are you hopeful, what do you tell them . So im confident in the amazing and remarkable efforts that our Health Care Teams are making i wish the viewers could see the work happening 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I think that would be reassuring to them. Weve been through these emerging Infectious Diseases in the past i think thanks to a lot of our Great Research institutions like ucla health, were working really hard to understand this better, and to figure out how we can combat this. Johnese spisso thank you for your time and our viewers thank you, too the fled come in with another 500 billion repo operation this afternoon as the central bank looks to calm the market volatility. Dow is down 54 points, right above 20,100 join us is randy krosner, deputy dean at the university of Chicago School of business good to talk to you again, good morning. Good morning. Lets talk about the responses were seeing both from the hill, from the executive branch, from the fed, how much of this is keeping the pipes open as much as possible a lot of it is about the plumbing, youre exactly right and people dont think about the plumbing normally it works. When it doesnt, everything clogs up and it stinks for the economy, the Financial System and the markets. The best solutions youve heard so far, the ones that you have not seen that you want to see . So i think its really good that the fed has well thats part of television in this episode that were in mike santoli, were relying on people not at work, not at a Television Studio and well have conversations like that get interrupted but thats okay. We can deal with that. A couple more headlines out of cuomo, mike, i dont know if youve seen this, is he talking about peak in 45 days, in new york state no plans to contain any city says no city can quarantine without state approval so people in new york city who are thinking youre going to see a lockdown ala italy, that is not in the cards at least at this point obviously hard to say if thats partially responsible for the firming in the market but in yesterdays president ial press conference, when july august time frames were thrown out, it didnt seem to go over well in the markets. We have so little to go on quantatively in terms of tracking this, that it does seem as if the market is pretty hyper sensitive to any changes in the perceived time line. Lets try kroszner with us dare i can again, randy, can you hear me. I can hear you. Can you see me i dont know if i can see you oop, we have you. Lets try this again i asked you about solutions you think youve seen so far that are helpful and others you think are still needed so i think its really important that the fed has tried to take that shock and awe strategy, bringing Interest Rates down to zero, trying to provide a lot of liquidity into the system, not only domestic domestically but globally. I think things that they can still do, because the fed is not out of ammo, they can do a commercial Paper Program like we did when i was at the fed back in 2008, because there are a lot of disruptions in that short term funding market. Also, the fed has additional powers to be able to make loans to a whole variety of types of corporations and so its possible that one of the things the fed with the treasury together would be working on is thinking about a way to provide lending to a broader set of firms, perhaps providing lending to small and mediumsized business so there are a lot of things in conjunction with the treasury, because the reforms post 2008 required approval of the treasury, that they potentially could do to get credit directly into the system. All right, so now youre referring to things that our viewers can read about in the editorial page of the journal today. This section 13. 3, the ability to create a new facility that could lend directly to other countries, and in their words, the best thing is to let government lending stop the liquidity panic from becoming a solvency crash so how high of a hill would that be to climb, to start to make that happen . Well, the feds never done that, the direct lending before. Weve done the commercial Paper Program before, and so that should be relatively straightforward to set up since its been done before. We actually had three different programs they could choose all right, were going to try to get randy back, mike santoli. Between the measures that were starting to talk about like that one in the journal oped page, i dont know about you, i was struck by sadad al husseini, thought the lows for oil were already there. Striking difference between the saudis and the russians in this price war. It was a pretty rapid price adjustment that happened after the saudi announcement, but if we, you know, dont in oil prices go back even to the early 2016 lows, i think it would be considered a net win with the caveat that all markets right now seem to be very prone to overshooting one way or the other. How about morgan stanley, mike i havent been able to bring this up with anybody yet but they said objectively, looking at a range of percentage of new lows, yield curve objectively, this is as bad as it gets. They think the recession were headed into, that is their base case will be the end of the cyclical bear which they think is going on for two years, not the beginning of a new bear and as a result they suggest investors start legging in, given all the calf yapt veats hg this would take to prepare theres a lot of ways to frame it, to what degree it was continuous or sudden break from the trend that we were in. But i do think if you just look at the equity market adjustment, if you look at Investment Grade credit spreads you quickly got into a zone of largely if not completely pricing in recessionary conditions. I think a lot of that work is happening and you can point to the technical stuff where it looks so beaten down and washed out day to day i dont know if you need a time element in there or we really need to get a grasp on exactly how quickly the economy can pull itself up from here but i do think you see a lot of the marketbased indicators flashing in that direction. Were keeping an eye on the vix, below 80. Of course alltime close yesterday. We would remind you that in 2008, it did get to 89 intraday so we havent seen the alltime intraday high on the vix, but obviously incredibly elevated levels we are going to get to some news, i think well tossit ove to Steve Liesman steve . Carl, thanks very much. The Federal Reserve in the first use of its Emergency Powers act during this Coronavirus Crisis launching the commercial Paper Funding Facility, very much modeled on what it did during the financial crisis the cpff as it would be called will be available to purchase or lend against commercial paper out there from corporations, from autos, in autos and mortgages. The fed saying its been under considerable strain, and its hoping to do this to help lending for households and businesses this was affected with a 10 billion credit support from the treasury, which is coming in essentially backstopping the Federal Reserve, providing credit support to the fed for this facility. The fed will take in the commercial paper, lend against it, and it will charge a threemonth spread plus 200 over ois, Effective Immediately it runs for a year through march 17th, 2021 well see if thats stit from t fed today. Somebody said the fed was running at warp speed here called for a couple days, we expected this to happen and we have to sit back and watch credit markets and see if this helps really relieve some of the strain thats been out there, that the fed will come in and provide this financing and provide some space on maybe dealer Balance Sheets that are out there. Carl steve, before i check in with Randy Kroszner from home, viewers from home follow the markets but not as granularly as we often do when it comes to the fed and plumbing how do you make this simple to understand well, theres this commercial paper, its a shortterm funding market, where companies go or you have a special Purpose Vehicle for auto loans, for example, and you finance it on the short term basis, really its financed by money markets, so if you have your money in a money market, what do we do with that money they lend it in the commercial paper market among other places so its a very important short term funding market that is one of the pieces of the plumbing of the Financial System it had been severely strained because of concerns of withdrawals from the market by money markets, which are cash, big institutions, forget your Money Market Fund. If youre a big company and you have short term cash, would you put that in a Money Market Fund, concern that would be withdrawn and companies could not get the funding, so this is a place where the fed will provide the funding that is now necessary for the Short Term Loans that really grease the wheels of the Financial System, and keep it moving they really another market borrowers and lenders find each other. Its a Critical Foundation of the Financial System, become severely strained. One person told me the commercial paper market is shut so there was no ability to lend there. This could potentially avoid, i didnt want to say it earlier but potential defaults by money markets or even a cap or a gate that could have been put on by a money market, not letting any money come out look, what happens is there are runs on banks and randy can talk i think at length about this, that happen not like lines at banks but scrambling for high quality collateral out there, which is the same as the big institutions having a run on the bank this is something the fed is hoping it will stop through this process, and maybe as randy was talking earlier, other processes, other programs as well this is the first 13. 3 authority, Emergency Authority they have to act and there yet be others. Randy, ill invite you in to leapfrog off of that, and maybe you could address not just this, what we just heard, but also the sequencing that steve references, not just the proposals theyre offering but the order in which they are offered. Yes this is perfect because i was just talking about this, i dont know how much came through but saying they need to do the commercial paper facility stand up exactly the kind of thing that we were doing when i was there in 20082009, and they are doing that, and i think that makes sense. Exactly as you and steve were talking about, this is a crucial market, basically short term borrowing by companies, and if you dont get this short term borrowing, you cant make payments out you cant pay your employees you cant pay your customers, and so if this increases up its a real problem its very important in the financial market, very important for Many Companies and so i think its crucial to step in and not a surprise theyd do it because weve done that before. There are potential to do more types of lending, so that we did not do during the financial krookro crisis in 20082009 is use the Emergency Powers, the section 13. 3 powers, to be able to do lending to a broader set of companies, but in principle, a structure could be set up where the treasury would provide some support like they did for this commercial paper facility and then through perhaps a Small Business administration or through another institution, get money out to small is and mediumsized businesses that might be finding it difficult to access the credit. It would be a parallel to what theyre doing now to the commercial paper market which teams to be medium to largesized businesses randy, when people ask you if the fed has learned lessons from 08 or 09, the degree to which they are implementing the hardearned lessons now, what do you say . I think theyre doing their best i mean i think they tried to be proactive and, you know, reduce Interest Rates and intermeetings between the regular meeting and they reduced rates effectively to zero before the actual meeting itself, providing 1. 5 trillion worth of liquidity into the markets over a longer term than is typical, rather than just overnight or one week, which is what we did during the financial crisis to extend maturity people are worried about institutions existing not just tomorrow but a few months in reviving the international provision of dollar liquidity through the Central Banks around the world. So i think theyre taking lessons out of the playbook and learned a number of things to be able to do these quickly proactively and then my guess is well see new things perhaps along the lines of what i was describing. So the fed has invoked the financial crisis playbook, utilized some of the same tools and obviously is attentive to the way you can have these kind of unforeseen effects of, you know, going after parts of the economy that arent directly impacted by the crisis im wondering, are you personally surprised that the liquidity has essentially dried up in all these areas so quickly under stress unfortunately, i think this is well, one, when people get scared, what do they want . They want liquidity assets theyre going to run to those. No surprise in a highly uncertain and volatile environment they would want that there have been unintended consequences of the rules that have been put in postcrisis, people trying to make the system more resilient and i think the motivations were sound and solid but the interactions of some of the liquidity and Capital Requirements and some of the restrictions from the volcker rule on making markets have made this a little bit more fragile than a little more deep. I think well be able to draw some lessons on reforming those regulations down the line. Right now we have to get the liquidity into the markets and the fed is doing its darnedest. They have to pair this with Something Else this is a place to bring your good paper yes you have paper, thats right thats why this is what the fed can do is necessary but not sufficient as a number of you said before. In 2008 and 2009, there was a scramble for dollar liquidity. The main problems were in the Financial Markets and the Financial Institutions themselves here, and so there the fed had the tools to directly address that here, its related to the virus so its related to brokenly. Chains. Its related to restrictions that make people unable to either get out to buy things or to get out to work theres no fed policy that can possibly direct the address back thats where the Health Authorities and physical authorities have to come in. Although i have to imagine that somewhere deep within the closets of the fed, there was a playbook that asked a question, what would happen if a global biological event took place and that book is clearly being opened i mean i would assume there is some level of Emergency Planning that is now relevant and being enacted because of this . Oh, of course but as i said with Something Like this thats from the shock is coming from outside the Financial System, the fed cant directly solve it. They can directly solve liquidity problems and trying to do that and in 2008 and 2009 thats a large source of the problem. Here the source of the problem is something that is far outside of what the fed can directly do and so they can provide a foundation for recovery to try to find a foundation for preventing things from going too far south, but if the Health Authority would have to act on top of that, the fed cant cure the virus, the fed cant repair broken supply chains steve hey, guys yeah, hey, carl, thanks. I wonder if randy can stick around as i reported this issue here, i think theres a problem were not recognizing here that perhaps this facility will not address. Obviously this does need to be done because commercial papers is gummed up lets be clear the Federal Reserve is taking a 1 p 1 paper, takings the highest quality paper, this is very different from the financial crisis where the financial crisis created economic problems and by solving the financial problems, you got rid of the economic ones this is one where a coronavirus with selfisolation is creating economic problems and that undermine the paper perhaps that could be brought to this facility i want to throw at randy, i dont know exactly how the fed solves this problem, but again, the fed protects itself by accepting only good paper. What if the paper is not money good what if theres a problem with the paper itself where theres a vast need for issuance below Investment Grade or the highest quality . For sure. So the Federal Reserve act requires that the fed can lend against good, solvent organizations. Thats Something Back then and the fed is following the rules now. There are but it doesnt mean that fed cant take losses because if things turn out there could be as loss that could happen that didnt happen in the financial crisis, the fed didnt take losses but it could Going Forward what they need to do is work with the Treasury Department as they have as they have money from the treasury to i havent seen the details but that may be in sort of a first loss position in case there are losses associated with it and potentially that could allow them to take paper that has an initial quality associated with it, it could allow them to go into other areas where there may be more risks, but they can only do that jointly with the Treasury Department i think thats with one of the reasons why some of it has taken longer partially because the postcrisis changes in the feds powers that now require that the treasury consent in order to do it that wasnt the case before, as well as if theyre going into these others areas they have the requirements of the Federal Reserve, that has to be satisfied that they are lending against good collateral to solvent organizations and that they will have some protection treasury money can help to provide that protection for them as youre saying that, randy, a statement from mnuchin sent chair powell a letter i have approved the establishment to provide liquidity to the Financial System of the Federal Reserve act. We were lucky to have you. Thank you for sticking with us today. Of course. Randy kroszner, Steve Liesman, thanks to you as well mike out to Rick Santelli at the cme in chicago, rick thank, mike i would like to welcome chief economist at deutsch Bank Security torstin heres what i know today in the markets the euro dollar swap out to about 120 plus basis points the widest ive seen in years. The dollar is soarings because of demand overseas for a lot of reasons, dollar funding. Can you address that what are you seeing with regard to dollar funding . When you look at the basis that has been widening its not quite near levels where we were in 2008 and 2009 of the daily measures of financial conditions theyre still only near the levels of where we were in 2011. The commercial Paper Funding Facility announced is an important step in trying to ease some of those stresses but generally speaking, we are not near the levels in 2008 and 2009 the situation is not good, but this should definitely help in getting the basis down to also begin to come in again i couldnt agree more obviously markets arent going to trade like they normally do because these arent normal times and with regard to the facility its a great idea when lehman and drexel went out they had tons of assets, they had no liquidity you need funding right now another issue youve been writing about securities more than 1,000 basis points over treasuries we define those as distressed and also not nearly as bad as it could be but it is deteriorating, can you address that yeah. So you also talked about this is issue is essentially something in the corporate soekts thatect why a lot is being paid across bond markets across the stack of credit quality high quality credit has generally been trading speaking okay, it is further down and credit quality theres more worries and more worries about issues, and that specific issue is that when you have a significant amount of Corporate Bonds beginning to trade a