Transcripts For FBC The Claman Countdown 20240713

Hitting the alltime record high on february 12th and the definition of a bear market is 20 lower than the recent highs. The markets tumbling just as President Trump is expected to meet with some of the biggest banking ceos in the world to find out how stable the Financial Market system is and what to do to keep it there. We are still waiting on word but if cameras are allowed in the room we are going to take you there and hear what they all say. This as the battle against the deadly coronavirus pandemic moves into a new phase, as National Guard troops get set to sweep into the hot zone in new rochelle, new york. And as businesses and colleges close their doors, Microsoft Teams is swinging to their digital defense, with a suite of Software Products to help those working from home or moving to online learning. I know a lot of you were experiencing that or your kids are. Countdown has a lineup of power players to tackle all these topics. Steeple chairman and ceo ron krusz kruszewski on the white house bankers meeting and what hes seeing. Is he seeing any kind of loan weakness, are people defaulting, do they look like they are, are investors pulling out money . We will ask. Former nato supreme allied commander admiral James Stavridis on the military use in the fight against the coronavirus. And microsoft 365 Corporate Vice president Jared Spataro on Microsoft Teams work and study from home services. Wait until you hear the increases some countries are seeing in the usage of teams. Thats a fox business exclusive. Let us get you this news that moved just before the top of the hour. It is breaking news. The Federal Reserve has just made a move and heres what they have done. They have increased whats called the repo, the overnight repo. This is the amount of money it provides to banks overnight that banks need to borrow. It raises the top level from 150 billion to 175 billion. The new york fed said its increasing repo offers to ensure smooth market functioning and essentially increasing the coffers of big banks so they can keep lending to each other and keep the liquidity or money flowing without any kind of problem. So we are watching that and watching boeing. Now, arguably, you could say that this is speaking volumes. Boeing is just getting socked, down 16. 5 , whereas just two weeks ago it was a it was about 300, now its 192, down 38 at the moment. A number of issues at play here. Number one, reports are the aircraft maker plans to draw down a 13. 8 billion cash loan. Why would they do that . They need to make sure they have enough cash on hand to make payroll. Boeing is also freezing all new hiring and overtime except in critical areas. This in a bid as we said to preserve the dry powder, the cash, as the coronavirus hits airline orders and the 737 max remains grounded. So we are looking at that stock down 16 . Delta just at about 2 00 p. M. Eastern extended Service Suspensions between the u. S. And the far east, and now italy. Also, Argus Research cutting them from a hold to a buy. American is also getting crushed, down about 7. 5 . No surprise that united sorry, united is down 7. 5 . American is down 6. 33 . We can flip it to jetblue, hawaiian and southwest. They are all rapidly losing altitude. Hawaiian airlines down 8 . Thats a big tourist destination, we know, but there are all kinds of issues with flying in and out of italy so all of italy is probably not going to be flying to hawaii. We see that sotock getting hurt by nearly 9 . Southwest down by 7 . Jetblue down 7. 33 . We just got this. Opec Just Announced the coronavirus is set to wipe out 2020 oil demand growth. Now, we were talking yesterday to you about apache. Look at them today. The other day, apache had fallen 54 . It is now the top decliner on the s p 500. Ticker symbol apa. It had been halted due to volatility. I will pull it up for apa at the moment. Its down another 24 . For the quarter, for the year, this stock has lost 67 . Thats for apache. The stock stands at 8. 17. Occidental has slashed its dividend. What did i say . When did we hear this . I had said watch out for some of these names. Monday, i said this, to cut dividends. Now occidental is cutting its dividend by 86 and has lowered its 2020 capx spending. With pandemic fears, it is no longer a fear, it is a reality because the World Health Organization announced in the last two hours it has now decided what we pretty much already knew for several weeks, that this is globally spread. The fear is gripping the markets. The big question today is will the dow close out the day in bear market territory. Here are the numbers. I will repeat them from what we need to watch. From yesterdays close, the dow needs to fall 1,377 points. We are down about 1,600 so we are firmly there. S p, we are not there yet but boy, did we just take a step closer to that. It needs to be down 173. We are now down 161. Just before the top of the hour, i checked while charles was talking and we were 50 points away. We are now fewer than 20 points away. Nasdaq needs to see point losses of 490. We are down 445 right now. I would be remiss if we didnt bring up the russell. It is now down nearly 6. 75 . Far outpacing all of the other major indices, including the transports. Can we get the russell . Russell right now stands at 1,259. The russell for its part is now 24 lower year to date and you can see the intraday picture. It continues to fall. Top of the hour, im trying to give you some way station points here on the road. At the top of the hour, the low for the russell had been a loss of 81 points. We are now down 92. We are seeing some acceleration in this final hour so can we say we are going commercialfree . Yeah. We are going commercialfree because i think that we all agree here at fox business that this is going to be a pretty extraordinary hour. But weve got your back. We will go to our traders now to see what they can expect. Teddy weisberg, do you expect anybody dipping a toe into these very rough waters as we head into the final hour of trade and the dow is down 1,636 points . Lodgic would probably dictat get out of the way and let the tanks roll over, down the field, and stay in your foxhole, not stick your head up because no question cash is king. But if you are long stocks and you own good stocks, basically you just got to kind of tuck down and wait for the dust to settle. It will eventually. The fact is we have seen more buy orders than sell orders for the last two or three days, but these are people nibbling around the edges. Clearly this is a very difficult time for most investors. Liz not today. Might not see the again. We still have about 52 minutes before the final hour of trade. Bob, you are at the cme. First tell me about the flows. We do have crude down. Can we bring up some u. S. Treasuries . The tenyear yield, this is what is disconcerting. We will ask ron in just a minute about this. Normally we would see the flight to quality and yields dropping. Treasury yields are rising. Im wondering if youre seeing people selling treasuries to raise cash . What i can tell you that im hearing is that treasuries may be letting us know some of the things the fed is doing, some of the things that federal governments are doing around the world might actually be starting to soothe the bond market a little bit. Reason i say that is because you are looking at yields which led this. If you go back to when we were in a huge stock market rally three months ago, yields were already falling, commodities were already getting hit. They are also going to lead on the way back out of this. All we are with the stock market now, as much as its important that we are approaching bear market territory with the s p, we are in it with the dow, is that where we were in february of last year, so if you can imagine that from february of last year until now, if all we did was go sideways, would it be such a concern. I understand it looks different because we were up and we fell. But thats really all it is. Toward the end of a historic bull market, we are sideways. Liz okay. Gentlemen, thank you. We do have so much news thats hitting the tape. The s p 500 is expected to confirm that it will have entered bear market if it closes lower than 2708. 2708 for the s p. We are at 2715 right now. Thats about seven points away. So the level to watch, i will write this down, is 2708 because we had a wiggly number before. That would mean it has entered bear market. We will be watching this very closely and really keep an eye on that. I dont know if we can maybe check the box, the window on the right, if we can switch that to the s p, because just to make this clear, we cannot say that the bull market of the past 11 years is over until the s p enters the bear market. All right. Lets get to the leaders of the nations biggest banks. They are gathering right now at the white house, right there with President Trump, to discuss the impact of the coronavirus on the Financial System. The ceos of bank of america, citibank, jpmorgan, Goldman Sachs, wells fargo, u. S. Bank and trust, no doubt discussing how stable the credit markets are and will be, or if and when the virus begins to stress the system. Let us bring in right now the head of American Securities associati association, Ron Kruszewski here in a fox business exclusive. Ron, if you were in the room with the president right now, as many bank ceos are, what would you tell him that you are seeing right now . You know, some fear and some panic is certainly gripping the market. It appears that the impact on the market, i know the markets forwardlooking but the impact on the market is much greater right now than the impact on the population of this virus. Theres a lot of speculation as to how far this is going to go. What im trying to tell investors is remain calm. The u. S. People, the economy, is the most resilient in the world and this will pass. We need to have some calm here. Liz absolutely. Absolutely. But i think we just need to hear from you what you are hearing from your loan customers both individual and commercial. You guys write mortgages. You do lending. We know the fed overnight is giving those overnight repo levels a real bump from 150 billion to 175 billion. They must be seeing something or perhaps it is an offensive move in advance to make sure things run smoothly. But what are you and your loan writers seeing . First of all, the fed is just ensuring liquidity in this market. Thats a proper thing to do. I wouldnt read much more than the repo ensuring liquidity. First thing i would tell investors to do, or people to do, is refinance your mortgage. You have an opportunity with these low rates to lower your spending costs in future years. Make sure you are refinancing your mortgage. As it relates to our lending clients, we are a senior secured lender. We are not really seeing any stress. Of course, we are only two weeks into this so it would be hard to think that we would. However, i will say the Energy Sector is under stress. Many u. S. Producers, you mentioned apache, but many u. S. Producers, lifting oil out of the ground at 45 or 50, selling at 30, thats a tough equation. You know, i dont see, as i sit here today, i was talking to our lenders, talking to clients, we are not seeing defaults, we are not seeing the lights shut off here in the credit market. Liz okay. It appears, because we have this on the screen, that the s p is. 1 away from going into bear market. That would mean a loss of 20 since the recent high. Just wanted to mark that. Were not there yet. We are just right there, skimming that line. You just mentioned the Energy Companies and obviously, they are nowhere near breakeven for a barrel of oil. Some companies, whether its the energy patch or cruise lines or airlines, we are watching them shore up cash, ramp up borrowing, while cutting capacity. We just mentioned about an hour ago, Delta Airlines said its trimming domestic seat capacity by 15 to 20 . United said it secured a 2 billion loan to lift its liquidity. Thats just one sector, the airlines. But energy, cruise lines, gaming, Washington State has banned gatherings of more than 250, new rochelle doing the same with a lower threshold of 100 people. Restaurants, we would imagine, might soon experience problems. Amc with the theaters. Anything where people gather and you know, whether its leisure, whether its travel, the cruise lines, restaurants, all of those are reacting to to this situation. What i would say liz do you see fissures or any whiff of mortgage or loan defaults you have heard about, anything like that . No. No. The credit markets are telling you that the Energy Companies are under stress but no. But again. We are two and a half weeks into what was a huge pivot in this economy. I just think the question that investors have to ask themselves is will this pass and how long. You know, a year from now, are we going to be sitting here talking about the coronavirus, are we going to look back and say there was, you know, it wasnt it was like a bad case of the flu . Im not a doctor. Im just trying to tell people to be calm. Im seeing a lot of panic right now. The biggest mistake i have seen in my 35 years in this business, especially when you get to a bear market, is everyone says oh, then i need to sell. They might be right for the next 5 down but they will miss the next 20 up. That is where real money is lost. Liz absolutely. That is definitely right on point. Ron, im really glad you are here with us. We are watching all of this and more. One quick question. You have been on the washington, d. C. Fed Advisory Council linked to the federal open market committee. The fed meets one week from today. What should their next move be . What do you expect it to be . Well, first of all, i think the fed has done a very good job over the years. I must say, though, that this last rate cut, i personally did not agree with. I will tell you why. I think when you are easing financial conditions and easing shortterm Interest Rates, that is not what we are facing in this virus, because the fed reduced their Interest Rates doesnt mean people may go to opening day in three weeks. We are dealing with a different situation and in many ways, i think continuing to lower rates is putting stress on banks willingness to lend. So if i was in that white house today, i would probably be arguing that cutting rates is not what this economy needs. Maybe a little fiscal stimulus is what we need. But again, let me end with this thought. We need some calm. I do not want people selling into this market. They will look back and regret that. Liz that would be a big mistake. You do not sell when the market is tanking like this. Ron, thank you. Thank you. Liz tell the gang we said hello. First china, now italy. Apple specifically is reportedly closing all 17 of its stores in italy as the outbreaks toll worsens. You can see the stock is down about 4 at the moment. The virus has claimed another 196 lives in italy just overnight. That brings the death toll in italy to 827. In one country, we are seeing more deaths than we saw in the entire world for the sars epidemic which killed about 800 people. Italys confirmed case numbers also rising now. Instead of 12,462 nationwide. As we watch each side of this, the human toll and of course, the financial toll because we are the Business Network here and are trying to give you all angles of this, the s p did touch that bear market territory so we are keeping an eye on it at the moment. Needs to be at 2708. We are at 2719 right now. Let us focus on the epicenter of new yorks Virus Outbreak and that would be the United States epicenter, too. Governor andrew cuomo announcing moments ago that 12 new coronavirus cases in new york city and 13 new cases in Westchester County have been tallied now for a total of 212 in the whole state. Now, the governor is calling up the National Guard to new rochelle, we know that, as the new york suburb deals with a more intense coronaVirus Outbreak. Cuomo has created a containment zone covering a onemile radius and sending the National Guard in specifically to sanitize public spaces. They are not going to be armed, they are not going to be setting up perimeters, but could their role change into a security oriented one . Authorities last night had to send in riot police to the university of dayton in ohio, when more than 1,000 students took to the streets after finding out their dorms would be shut down. To break this all down for us, somebody who would really know. Former nato supreme allied commander and author of sailing true north admiral James Stavridis. He also of course was the commander of nato. All right, admiral stavridis, let me just ask you right off the bat, right now, new rochelle is bringing in the National Guard which is sort of the state militia, right, to assist. What do you think of that and what would it take to see some type of morphing into a security zone type of situation . I think this is an entirely appropriate use of the u. S. Department of defense and just to put a number on it, there are 1. 2 million active duty troops, guard like these, active duty reserves, and then additionally, theres another 800,000 or so kind of in standby. This is a huge pool of manpower that the governors can use locally, the president can use in a federal sense over time. So its a terrific resource. Its a terrific resource because all of these men and women are volunteers, they are all trained in how to operate in a biowarfare environment which is what this is like. They know how to use that protective gear if necessary. Third and finally, they are in the business of creating order. We think of militaries as designed to blow things up and destroy things. Militaries are actually to create order out of chaos. I think this is a good first step the governor has taken. Pretty low key, containment, not a quarantine, bring them in, in order to see that ramp up significantly, we will have to see if coronavirus, if covid19 ramps up significantly. If it does, you will see more u. S. Troops engaged. That would be a good thing. Liz well, you said engaged. Sorry, what, melanie . This is National Guard video we are looking at. Lets move the ball down the field here. You just said more engaged. I cant tell you how many people have tweeted at me i saw contagion, the movie, and outbreak with Dustin Hoffman where they put up these perimeters. Do you envision Something Like that . I dont at this point. Another popular film is world war z with brad pitt, shows an outbreak of zombie virus. Lets not get carried away with ourselves with movies and popular fiction. What you will see your military do for you is bring food, bring water, find ways to ensure that we have mobility so we can move those medical people forward, bring our own military medical facilities, our field hospitals which were used in ebola, we used them to fight cholera in haiti. The military is quite experienced at doing this and will be a profound force for good as we deal with this virus as it unfolds. We are a long way from a zombie outbreak. Liz exactly. I think that coming from you, i could say it all i want, but coming from you, it is extraordinarily important for our viewers to hear that, but what did we see in china . We saw china sealed off an entire city of 11 million people. Thats more people than manhattan, the borough of manhattan. Are we prepared to do Something Like that, if it came to that . If we had to do that, yes. The u. S. Military working with all of our state and local authorities and we practice this. We do drills. We do exercises. We could absolutely create small, medium or large quarantine areas or containment zones. Theres a whole protocol for doing this. We do know how to do this. I dont think thats where this is headed. I would say looking at all of the intel im reading, talking to folks at the cdc, i think we have a 60 chance that we will get ahead of this fairly quickly. I think theres a 20 chance we will get rapidly ahead of it. I do think theres a 20 chance, to your question, that this turns into a long process that will require big quarantines. Were not there yet. We can get ahead of it with testing, we can get ahead of it with facts. Thats what we need to pursue. Liz one question, and im interested to know because you of course have been at the Top International school, the fletcher school. Have you done anything yourself to prepare . Have you advised your students to do anything to prepare . Tufts University Like harvard and m. I. T. , number of other major universities, is actually closing classes. At the moment we are going to move to video teleconferencing these classes. I think the students will get pretty much the same level of engagement electronically but thats from an abundance of caution. In terms of personal preparations, i think we are certainly not in the mode of stocking up or were not in the survivalist mode. We know we will work through this, the authorities will get us through this. Im quite confident we will work this in a very coherent way. I think the military will be part of it but the local authorities are going to be the big part. Liz thank you so much. Admiral James Stavridis, former nato supreme allied commander. We really appreciate it. Folks, look at your screen. The nasdaq has just touched bear market territory. We were dozens and dozens of points away from that when we began 25 minutes ago for the claman countdown. Now we have had s p, now in bear market territory, we have nasdaq in a bear market and i believe the dow, yes, is in a bear market at the moment. This is an extraordinary moment. Again, no commercials. We are watching all kinds of stocks here. The dow is losing 1,655 points. S p is down 170. The nasdaq is down 485. At this moment if we were to close, these would be the largest point losses in history. We should look at dow component nike. It is tumbling alongside competitors adidas and puma. This after the german athletic wear giants, adidas and puma, said sales in china and other key markets have fallen victim to the coronavirus. Nike is falling 6 , adidas is down 14 . Puma is down 11 . The european names are definitely bearing the brunt, as we know many of the u. S. Carriers are either trimming their capacity to european nations or they are outright stopping any kind of movement to the european countries, specifically italy. We are getting some headlines right now out of the President Trump meeting with the ceos of the big banks. I dont see anything about stimulus plans yet. We cant report that. But he is anticipating shortages of respirators for use by Health Care Workers. That is what President Trump is saying. Hes signed a memo directing labor secretary the labor secretary to take steps to increase availability of respirators. Is that it . He says i am fully prepared well, we knew this yesterday because Vice President pence mentioned it, that the president is fully prepared to use the full power of the federal government to deal with our current challenge of the coronavirus. We do know right before this hour began that senator chuck grassley, the republican from iowa, had said he did not really see a payroll tax cut working. Charlie gasparino talked about that yesterday. Hold on. We had robert wolf, former head of ubs america saying it would be very difficult. Go ahead, brad, one second . And hes saying once again fully prepared to use the full power of the federal government and for now, at least all that we are seeing from the headlines is that that means he wants to see more face masks for Health Care Workers here. Charlie i do have some reporting coming out of that meeting with wall street firms. They were very unspecific on what they want to do or can get done. They do not believe that hes going to be able to these are the ceos, at least they are telling their people back in new york that hes going to be able to pass a massive payroll tax. Thats one of the reasons the markets are down. The plan itself is pretty unspecific. They are letting nancy pelosi do a lot of mnuchin is working directly with nancy pelosi, letting her drive the bus is the way i heard. What does that really mean . You will get less in payroll taxes and more in the sense of extension of unemployment insurance, guaranteed sick leave, those sort of measures, less in terms of tax cuts. Markets obviously like the tax cuts more. They think thats more stimulative but basically if you let nancy pelosi run the show, we are not going to get the big payroll tax cut. Liz can i say if she worked with Vice President pence who yesterday at about 5 45 p. M. , i was listening on xm113, and he very specifically said the insurers were not going to force anybody to do copays if they needed the test, they were not going to be stuck with surprise and starbucks, maybe we can see people take a page out of starbucks, who says, just a minute, that catastrophic pay will be offered to all starbucks employees if they are testing positive. Charlie that will be, what people are telling me, that werent in the meeting but we have been hearing from their ceos, is kind of whats being put together. That kind of stuff, to be honest with you, is pretty weak tea. Not saying it doesnt help people. Just saying if you are looking for a stimulus package, that does not really do it. We should also point out that wall street itself is in a pretty bad way right now. Deal making from what i understand is essentially ground to a halt. Liz what about lending . Charlie there is some lending. We got low Interest Rates. But you have to want to use it for something. People are not spending money. This is from a major investment bank. We are all pretty worried, the virus and the markets having a big impact on business. Most people working from home, you cant travel anywhere. Investors are holding, lots of uncertainty. Thats what youve got. Wall street deal making is flat. Its interesting in the middle of this wall liz wells fargo down 8 . Down 40 quarter to date. Charlie lot of that is because of low Interest Rates. I will explain that in a minute. Amid all this, Goldman Sachs has been johnny come lately saying they are open for deal making. Their ceo, from what i understand, im getting this from my contacts inside ubs, they are all speculating again, and goldman might buy a chunk of ubs Wealth Management business. They would obviously get it kind of cheap now if they go there. This is a crazy time, though, to be doing deals. Im not saying its happening tomorrow but thats the speculation inside ubs and their Wealth Management division. The other thing, the reason why banks are getting hit so hard, yes, no deal making, stocks going down. But when you have Interest Rates where they are, banks dont make money on their products. That hurts their bottom line. This stuff is really low. So steve scherr is talking about deal making at a time that no one is making any money. Usually thats a difficult time to do deals but maybe the contrarian wins here. Im pointing out that, you know, wall street firms are going stop wrapping me like that. Liz charlie, charlie. Charlie please. Liz wait. Charlie i know. I dont come here, you know, just to hear myself talk either. Okay . Wall street deal making is at a standstill. Liz thank you, charlie gasparino. Breaking news. We have this. Seattle Public Schools are set to close for at least two weeks starting friday to thwart the coronavirus spread, as more and more college students, corporate employees and Small Businesses across the nation are forced into quarantine amid the coronaVirus Outbreak or at least working or studying from home. They are turning to one major tech behemoth to conduct business while working from home. Microsoft. Microsoft teams which is part of office 365 has more than 20 million daily active users around the world. That was before all of this. It combines workplace chat, video meetings, file storage, much more. The tech titan is now taking some steps to help customers so that they dont have to extend money at the moment to deal with the coronavirus. Microsoft 365 Corporate Vice president Jared Spataro joins us live in a fox business exclusive. Jared, right off the bat, what kind of uptick are you seeing in the usage of Microsoft Teams which enables people and groups to Work Together remotely . You know, if i can step back for a moment and talk about what microsoft is doing broadly, our First Priority has been the health and safety of our employees. Then we have turned to businesses, our customers and business continuity. We have also been reaching out to communities. We have been making donations, we have been working with Business Leaders all around the world. As you indicate, we certainly have seen an uptake of teams. We have been tracking this since the outbreak started in china and since january 31st, we have seen a 500 increase in the usage of teams there. Liz 500 . We sent home 50,000 employees last week and we have seen a 50 uptick in their teams usage even though they already were very heavy teams users. So teams is being used all across the world to help people work remotely. Liz you are also taking steps to ensure people can use it without paying extra because theres the basic service, im sure, then theres perhaps a higher subscription fee. What are you doing for trials for customers around the world . The big question on everyones minds right now is can we continue to be productive. Can we continue to work in this very extraordinary circumstance. We are making teams free for everyone. We have provided a free sixmonth offer for people and businesses all around the world. We have been really excited to see that teams is making a difference. As an example, just this week we have seen the university of bologna who moved in three days 80,000 students on to teams and they have moved all their classes there. Thats been really gratifying to see. They have been operating for 932 years and have never shut down classes. We are proud to help them continue their classes. Liz let me drill down on university of bologna because that of course is in italy which is very much the focus globally. China, it used to be, but now we know iran we cant even trust the numbers out of iran at the moment, but for italy, the entire nation pretty much has a steel around it and Italian Government is saying we are shutting down for the moment. We dont want people leaving, we dont want them coming in. What are you seeing on the ground there . Im sure you can look at all kinds of meta data to show whats happening. Thats true. We are able to track whats happening with teams and have seen 100 increase in the teams usage there. I think taking a step back, i am seeing that this is really going to be a turning point for how people learn and work. I dont think we will ever go back to the way that we used to do it before this very extraordinary time and we are seeing that they are starting to realize Something Like teams that combines as an example chat, meetings, collaboration, all into one is just an incredible tool that can help them continue to be productive, help them in a learning situation to continue to move forward. Liz my kids School Closed day before yesterday, a week before spring break. Thats just one Single School in new york city. Now we know about seattle, the hometown of microsoft headquarters. What can you offer them that google classroom doesnt or that slack, for example, one of your competitors, doesnt, or zoom, Video Conferencing . For a long time we have had a free offering of office 365 that includes teams and what we love about that is not only is it teams, as kind of the Workplace Collaboration platform or Remote Learning platform, but it also contains everything that you need to work in a circumstance like this. We move you from email to web conferencing, we certainly have video as an example and even the ability to work on files. We bring it all together. Our customers and schools tell us in particular they just dont see anything else out there that brings together everything they need. In the particular cases you asked about, people view Remote Learning in the same way. Liz i got to ask you this. We are in the heart of manhattan and obviously wall street is just down the road. We get very caught up in all of this. We know that washington, d. C. Is putting out all kinds of news. How closely are people at microsoft and your friends and family out there looking at whats happening on wall street and you know, from a professional and business standpoint, loans, we have been talking to Ron Kruszewski, we talked to admiral James Stavridis who of course ran nato, he was the add memiral of navy. We are very caught up in this but we want to strike the right tone. How are people behaving in seattle and in Washington State where we know you have an accelerated number of cases . Certainly we think of seattle here as a place where we have seen it first and been very impacted just even over the last two weeks by it. I can tell you at microsoft, we are very missiondriven and we have had the Senior Leadership Group Meeting every day now for the last couple weeks as we take in information from our communities that we live and work in and from our customers and are doing our very best to reach out and help. As i think about my own team and my own community, one of the things i have noted is this is one of those places where you sink or swim together. I definitely see people pulling together. I love the humanity that you see as we help each other. At microsoft we are trying to do exactly that. That mission that we have to help everyone on the planet to achieve more, it couldnt be more true than right now. We are just trying to do everything we can, literally every day, taking in information and reaching out a helping hand and lending whatever support we can. Liz Jared Spataro, head of microsoft 365 teams, thank you. We wish you and the whole team out there the very best. We appreciate it and all that you guys are doing to help people work from home. Its really important. Thank you. Liz please come back. Thank you. We have this breaking news. The dow is down 1,351 points, just below bear market territory. We have this. L. A. County has announced its first coronavirus death. The department of health said the person was not a county resident and had recently had a long layover in south korea. Thats all we know about Los Angeles County and that first death. We are also getting this. Mgm has released a statement regarding a coronavirus case involving a guest at the mirage hotel, that in las vegas. Watch this stock. Its down about 12. 5 . The guest was from new york, tested positive for the virus. Mgm said that staff at the mirage worked with state Health District to implement the resorts health and safety protocol. Mgm is also working with the Southern Nevada Health District to notify guests and employees who may have come into close contact with the infected individual. We are going to be hearing a lot about this, from individual companies, somebody worked there, then they talked to other people. This is going to become pretty much routine so you know, stick with us. We feel we have to inform you of these things, particularly when theres a business angle involved and it is not meant to engender any hysteria or hype. We are in the news business. Thats why we are telling you these things. We should tell you this. One business not to be stopped by the coronavirus appears to be spacex. Elon musks startup Rocket Company announcing quote, it is gunning for may. That would be to launch nasa astronauts into space aboard its crew dragon capsule for the first time. Its the first space flight with a human crew. The mission called the demo2 will see two nasa astronauts heading to the International Space station. The length of the mission not yet determined. But elon musk has been out there up front and hes the first to sound an alarm about things like artificial intelligence, but hes also been out there, out front saying we are set and we are continuing to conduct business and commerce. Space x is set to take off but tesla coming back to earth as far as the stock is concerned, down about 1. 8 p . Let me take you to jackie deangelis, live on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. What is the buzz with the traders there about the fact that now the dow, nasdaq and s p all during the last 40 minutes touched bear market levels . Jackie good afternoon, liz. Well, obviously traders are watching this market really closely and even though we are off the session lows, theres no doubt by anybodys standards, a market plunge today of 1300 points. Traders are watching whats happening in washington closely, that meeting with the heads of banks, but also any potential package that may come out. Of course, part of the problem today was that hopes were dashed for what that package may look like, when it might be passed and if it would include all the necessary measures. So negativeity is coming from. They also felt the word pandemic from the World Health Organization. I want to switch gears, because you were just talking about elon musk with respect to spacex. Musk tweeting recently he was scouting locations for Cybertruck Gigafactory and it will be in central usa. Thats positive for the company and the stock. The cybertruck is for the next generation for tesla. Thats a stock we watch closely. This is also really interesting, too. As much as everyone in china or with china exposure has been struggling, tesla had a rough time in january but in february, its being reported its sales were very strong in china and that it had about a third of the electric Vehicle Market there. So of course, you know, theres red across the board today, i dont expect the stock to see a pop from that, but its a glimmer of hope for that company although some say elon musk has promised many things before, he doesnt always deliver. Well see. Liz thank you. Im just quickly looking at mgm one more time because theres a second headline here. The stock is down 12. 6 . But the mirage staff, Mgm Resorts International is directing employees to follow all selfquarantine requests at the mirage. We do know now that some of the employees have been told to selfquarantine after a visitor from new york tested positive for the coronavirus. We are still awaiting playback of President Trumps meeting with the nations top bankers. Fox business is going to bring you more comments as soon as they do occur or at least hit the tape. But this could very well be in the after the bell hour. Actually, we are getting some headlines at the moment, connell. Citigro citigroups ceo is saying that quote, this is not a financial crisis. What does he mean by that . He means right now they are not seeing that credit commercial paper market freeze up. We are seeing stocks sell off and we are seeing companies now, particularly energy names, start to trim or cut their dividends. But bank of america is saying the u. S. Banks are strongly capitalized. Connell i think Everyone Wants that. There is always this need or kneejerk reaction to compare what you are going through now to what you went through when things were like this, but to their point and to just about everybodys point we talked to this week, there are so many differences between the financial crisis of 08 and what we are going through right now, not to minimize whats happening now, but there were real questions about the stability of the Financial System itself then and we dont have those same questions now. For Financial Markets, we will watch about whether we officially get into bear market territory but the comparison that may be better serving to people in terms of how investors are dealing with all this, maybe the period after 9 11, where we were always looking for headlines, what was going to happen next, was there certain News Organization getting anthrax in the mail or that kind of environment it seems more analogous to what we are dealing with now, where the trickle of the headlines is something as opposed to the stability of the Financial Systems question. Liz earlier today, the markets tanked in the beginning because they did not see a stimulus plan that was formulated entirely coming out of the white house. We sitill dont see that yet. Everybody stay tuned to connell and melissa at the top of the hour. Maybe we will get more headlines about that at the top of the hour. We are 15 minutes away from the closing bell and we are off the lows. We are still very near bear market territory after having touched those levels for the dow, s p and nasdaq. Let us get some traders in front of our cameras. We have the New York Stock Exchange Matt Cheslock and at the cme, todd colvin and phil flynn. Todd, what do you see now . Does all of america believe the bankers say the Financial System is okay right now . I do believe the Financial System is okay and you will continue to see some companies maybe draw on their credit lines here to help firm up cash. The overnight repo facilities that are beefing those up, again, those are safety nets being put in place to keep liquidity in the system here. We dont want to see anyone run short of dollars or cash in this type of environment. Lastly, this has become a major position shift because its not just equities that are going down. You are seeing it in gold. Treasuries have been mixed. They have come back. This is very much about a position trade as much as it is about a fear trade in the market, and calmer heads will prevail as time progresses. Right now we are still in the middle of the storm. We have yet to get through to the other side. Liz matt, this morning, bank of england cut rates. They had an emergency rate cut. That gave the markets a little bit of lift. Didnt happen, but at the end, the ftse had dropped 1. 4 . Where do you think we are having a more difficult time with the dow down 5. 5 . We do know also, we want to let our viewers know european ecb, European Central bank, will be having their meeting tomorrow. We are expecting they will do some type of stimulus as well. We are starting to get some coordinated events from other banks across the world. We are down a little more, i think we are getting scared now of whats going to transpire over the next couple days, when all this testing occurs and we have the number of cases going to rise dramatically. These numbers are going to be staggering, in my opinion. That doesnt mean anything other than people have it and they are finally taking note of it. People right now, todd mentioned very eloquently that they are taking positions off the table and they are going to wait and see until they have more clarity. People arent chasing yield anymore. They are selling gold. Any safe haven out there, not even utilities are getting a bid. Everything is down 5 today across the board. Thats very unusual. Its definitely a wait and see attitude down here. Liz this is interesting. Goldman sachs David Solomon is hitting the tape after this meeting, hes come out from with the president , he says banks are in good shape, we will get through this. Thats fine, phil flynn. The banks are in good shape. The Energy Companies are not. 99 of the s p 500 is in the red right now and i believe about 19 or 20 of these names in the s p 500 are hitting 52weeks lows. We can talk boouying opportunit all we want but i will tell you that im looking at the Energy Sector as probably not the airlines or the cruise lines but probably the first sector that may run into real trouble because they may run out of liquidity or cash or dry powder and will turn to their lenders who say not now. We are already hearing that already. So its something thats evolving. Im seeing constellation stop trading a little bit. We heard yesterday, of course, Companies Cutting their dividends. Im hearing from people in the patch, they are already laying people off, stopping projects. Its happening now. Its realtime. The question is how bad its going to get right now. The department of energy today, they came out with their shortterm energy outlook, they had to rewrite it like in 24 hours. It was supposed to be reported yesterday but they say because of the fastmoving events with the coronavirus, and whats happening with the opec russia price war, they had to change everything. They downgraded, of course, not only this years Oil Production growth. They are going to say that Oil Production in the United States is actually going to peak in 2020 instead of seeing production rise by over 300,000 barrels, its going to drop by 300,000 barrels. Already, this shortterm impact is going to have a longterm impact on u. S. Energy production. Liz well, we are gotten a little breathing room away from that loss of 20 from recent highs for this bear market. I stress little. We are slightly below it for the dow jones industrials. Matt, i want to go quickly back to you, because crude oil again down 4. 7 in the aftermarket. We have talked about oil but the restaurant names and the gaming names, these casino companies, we heard what happened with mgm and there was a guest who was tested positive at the mirage hotel. Now they have got those employees. You start to look and see who is going to be quarantined and how many more there are if we are a month or five weeks behind where china was at this point, you start to wonder how we manage to psychologically hold on here beyond all of us saying in retrospect, when its in the rear view mirror, it will all be okay. Thats why some of these sectors are almost uninvestable right now, airlines, restaurants, hotels. Unfortunately, people arent going to be going out. They are not going to be traveling. Thats the prudent thing to do. Social distancing is not a negative word. Being smart about washing your hands and things like that, these are very simple precautions that you can take to hopefully help. But again, we are going to see this increase dramatically here in the u. S. We are too big, too mobile of a population not to see it spread. We just cant be alarmed about that. Weve got to be spamart about i and do what you can individually to help the cause. Liz lets bring in dryden pence of pence Wealth Management. You just heard uninvestable sectors mentioned. You are looking at investable areas, at least a couple of names here. Where are you buying at the moment where you feel not only for a very short window of time in this very nervous, jittery moment, but also further out, what names do you like . Sure. Well, first of all, the important number here isnt how many people are sick. Its how quickly people get well. Thats usually about 14 to 18 days. I think people are overpanicked. This pandemic turns into a panic and that should turn into a pan opportunity because we want to look at companies that had an investable horizon that is far longer than the horizon that people are sick, which we are probably looking at 60, 90 day period here. When you look at Companies Like united technologies, large defense contractors, their income streams really go very long beyond this period of time that we are going to have people sick. So i think thats the first thing we look at, whos got income streams that really dont depend on any of this. Thats the first thing. Then the second thing is if you look at Companies Like amazon or visa mastercard, amazon is where people, if they are cocooning and they are kind of staying home, they are going to be buying through that platform and 60 of their profits is aws which the cloud doesnt have a virus. The last thing is visa mastercard. In that instance, all these transactions are going to take place in a payments world. Liz stand by, because we have breaking news. President trump has just now said during his meeting with Big Bank Ceos that he will be making a statement relating to the coronavirus later today but im also seeing that hes promising quote, quite a few Small Business loans. Edward lawrence is outside the white house right now. Im seeing all bankers coming out and making comments at the moment. Everybody is striking a very calm tone but we are watching markets in distress, we can call it that. Reporter yeah, and one of the things that was pointed out, they want to make sure the markets have enough liquidity in those markets. You read some of the headlines. The president is going to make an address or says hes going to talk later on tonight about what things, what steps they are going to be taking here, but hes in there with the heads of the ceos of the largest banks in america as well as a number of the goerldman sachs ceo, blackstone ceo, number of big, big financial minds in there. They are obviously talking about how to keep this going, how to turn the markets around and allay the fears that are out there in the markets right now. Liz got this hitting the tape. I promised our viewers as soon as we get this information out of the meeting with the president , the president is saying quote, he thinks there will be pentup demand when coronaVirus Outbreak is over. Hopefully in the not too distant future. Jackie deangelis igs s on the fr of the New York Stock Exchange. You have headlines on amazon . Jackie yeah, these are coming from dow jones, saying that amazon is announcing paid leave for hourly workers who are ill or quarantined, and that it could announce new policy for these hourly workers on wednesday. Thats today. So waiting to see if theres more on this. But amazon, hourly worker policy would cover warehouse employees and its very specific to the coronaVirus Outbreak. Finally, amazon to announce 25 million in terms of a relief fund supporting independent delivery partners and their drivers as well. You can see the onus isnt just on washington but its on independent businesses as well to liz we are three minutes away from the closing bell. Dow showing fissures. Will the consumer hold up when there is firepot there. He or she 401 k , kids 529 deflateed a bit. What do you expect to see . Who are they listening to. Who are they paying attention to . People feel pain as a loss, when you get a shot as a child, more afraid of the shot than when you felt better. People time horizon is much longer for their investments than for the period of time well be relatively short affected by this virus. This is pretty much a 60 to 90 day phenomenon, their retirement is the rest of their life. Things will recover after this. Consumer demand will as well. Liz phil, why is gold down . That is classic rush to safety play. Because people need to raise money . Im hear about margin calls, im talking about little ones. My friend said he got a margin call from morgue nothing, for a four figure amount that makes me wonder. That is highly unusual. Feels like stocks are falling unreasonably and were looking at ruptures, and margin calls coming in for four figures, couple thousand bucks . You definitely get the domino effect. Wonder what position he was in to get that kind of a call. When you have periods of risk, the cme raised margin requirements to reflect increased volatility t could be simple as cme saying you need cash to raise liquidity in the system. Gold in 2018, wouldnt have been the safe haven everybody wanted to look at . But gold along with the rest of the commodity complex got obliterated, right . Interesting enough when things calmed down, we went to quantitative easing, believe it or not gold led the market back. It really did. During times much crisis. During the Recovery Period the gold price actually outperformed the stock markets. I think today it is a margin call selling. I think the strength of the dollar. The dollar has made a big comeback, because the rest of the world will stimulate the economy as well. Liz i think so. As we watch this, not exactly coordinated, 3 1 2 minutes to go before the closing bell rings. The dow down 1383, off the lows of the session but the s p down 131. These are big 4 losses. Not as bad as we saw earlier. What six months from now will be the best buy . Things not necessarily beaten up. Deal with the consumer. They will do what they do within the next 60 to 90 days. Companies that have longer horizons of income. I think you can take a look at some of these stocks as unnecessarily beaten down. There are some good opportunities here. Thats what you look at. No way to specifically call the bottom on this but i think, that were probably in a position where you recognize time, who will recover, when things are back to normal in a fairly short period of time now. People are fixed for only 14, 18 days. When the vast majority of people recover, things will look good, things will be beaten up here. This is an opportunity. Liz i told you, i warned we would get all the headlines but this hits a little bit closer to home because within the news media family. Were getting a report that the cbs building in new york city has been evacuated after two employees tested positive for the coronavirus. That according to cheddar. The cbs building in new york has been evacuated after two employees tested positive for the virus. And President Trump is saying this. You can interpret it how you will, but he is saying quote, if we get rid of the coronavirus problem quickly, we wont need stimulus. All right. We are 25 seconds away from the closing bell. Lets put it up here, about the bear market levels. The dow right now is down 1460. That means we are in a bear market for the dow jones industrials. Not so for the s p which needs to be down 100 needs to be at 2708. Were at 2742. [closing bell rings] liz thanks to drieden pence. It has been a roughandtumble day. The you dow closes in a bear market. Cant call end of 11 year bull run but it is closer. Connell coronavirus fears continue to slam stocks. All three major averages sinking on fading hopes of a fiscal stimulus. The dow closes down 1400 points. That is officially a drop of more than 20 from a recent high after the World Health Organization officially declared the Virus Outbreak to be a global pandemic. That is almost 6 down, 5. 87 at the close. It is, good to be with you as we continue to watch the crazy markets. Im connell mcshane. Melissa im melissa francis. This is after the bell. S p 500, nasdaq closing firmly in the red, both ending dn