Snoe. Good morning. Happy friday. Im sara eisen. It is you in the flesh. I could not miss new music friday on Worldwide Exchange. You missed throwback thursday. What was the theme . Country music. Glad i missed that. Im wilfred frost. Its new music friday. Starting off with maroon 5s latest song called cold. Im sorry, elton john doesnt have any new music for you. I think he does. Just plummeted straight away. Only loyal fans like me subscribe. Lets get to the Market Action. A check on Global Markets, after a pause in the trump rally, reflation rally yesterday. Just a minoral iso al iselloff. S p down about 5 points. Dow jones down about 50. Nasdaq down about 10. What we saw in fixed income and Foreign Exchange brought the tenyear yield down to 2. 42. Inching around 2. 50. Unclear why. We got better Economic Data. Feels like a pause in the action. In terms of those record highs, theres been so many of them during the course of the week, one gets that sense of euphoria from the headlines, yet for the week as a whole, the s p up 1. 3 . Those records, of course, that we will keep getting if we go higher, give than were at the peaks of markets, have been flattered by performance in certain sectors. Similar to the story since the trump election, and its banks up about 3. 5 this year. The broad index only up 3. 1 as a wh a whole. But its still amazingly resilient. When youre at a high, you only need a slight gain to hit another one. The other point to note is that this is classic trump rally correlations. The days that yields went up, people were selling bonds, buying equities, we saw the new highs. As you said, the tenyear has come back from the 2. 52 high we saw a couple days ago. And the rally in equities has paused for breath. Either way, utilities, the bond proxies have been the worst performers. We talk about u. S. Stocks, and were setting you up for the wall street trading day. Stocks around the world are joining this party. Exactly. Theres been strong correlation throughout the week. Europe was strong and asia the first half of the week and pulling back to end the week. Europe now, retail sales fell for the Third Straight month, down 0. 3 . Here is the price action in european markets. Started the week more strongly. France down 0. 8 . Germany and the uk just about flat. Asian trade also negative to end the week. That riskoff sentiment broad this morning having seen quite a lot of riskon for most of the week. Shanghai down about 1 ment. The nikkei did not like the stronger yen in the action. Lets show you whats happening with oil after a choppy session yesterday. Oil declining just slightly. Wpi, 53. 29. Brent crude, 55. 58. Nat gas barely positive. All the action has been in currencies. The dollar is in the lead. We saw a sharper selloff in the dollar yesterday. Almost a full percent. That was a signal that things would go the other way. Its weaker, so you saw a stronger yen again this morning. 0. 3 . That action could con. The euro is weaker against the dollar. 1. 0644. The pound is weaker. Retail sales not helping that currency. Dollar stronger today. But week to date the dollar index is down a quarter percent. Facing the fifth negative week in six. This comes in a week when weve seen expectations of a fed rate hike rise significantly, we were at 26 for march and over 40 for may. Which doesnt make sense. Right. So yields slipped yesterday, but were higher than a few weeks ago. Its not a big move, with todays moves now, the dollar is basically flat. In terms of the correlation, strong correlation between yields moving higher and stocks moving higher. They have been tight. For most of the trump rally, the dollar has been part of that. You know what that tells me, the dollar weakens, yields go lower in the face of rising expectations of fed rate hikes, the fed is no longer the driver of this Market Action after years of easy monetary stimulus fueled this rally, the focus now is on fiscal support. For equities, also also for the dollar. Yesterdays philly fed index was the strongest since 1984. The dollar sold off. Thats not usually what tens to happen. So the question is is there maybe reduced likelihood that well get some fiscal policies out of washington . Well wait and see. Its also a crowded trade, the strong dollar and its normal to have pauses for breath. Rounding things off. Quick look at gold prices which have had a good start to the year. For the week as a whole, off about a half percent. Adding four basis points this morning. Look at that. Six minutes into the show, all weve done is markets. So much to talk about because of a lot of action. Looks like were dressed for the boardroom apparently. Lets get to todays agenda. Light on data no Major Economic reports expected. There are those notable earnings before the bell. Well get results from campbells soup, deere, smuckers, vf corp and blommin bounds and bone fish grill. Ive never been to either. Are they good . Yes, you have to go more to the middle of the country. Cincinnati, hometown. Following a developing story out of washington. Trumps top pick to replace Michael Flynn as National Security adviser has turned down the post. Robert harward telling the associate the press that he wont take the job to enjoy some personal time. The president is searching for a replacement for flynn who abruptly resigned on monday at the request of the president. President trump heading to South Carolina today where he will be touring a boeing facility. This is on the heels of a lengthy News Conference he had yesterday at the white house. He even spoke about the record run in the stock market. The stock market has hit record numbers, as you know. And there has been a tremendous surge of optimism in the business world, which means Something Different than it used to. It used to mean, thats good. Now it means thats good for jobs. Very different. The president announced plans to issue a new immigration order but gave little detail on tax reform, something that wall street that been waiting for. Well have more on all of that coming up throughout the show. Before we get to the main part of this, i love him commending the stock market returns and how it means his presidency is going well. It wont last all four years. There will be some pullbacks. It was hard to you knew this press conference would get a lot of attention, not just on social media, on all the front pages this morning. I was eager to see how different papers were spinning it. The new york post, wildest show on earth. Ringmaster don whips media in rant. The Washington Post shows a picture of mr. Trump defending his month in office. Not as much poking fun. Trump denies chaos on the cover of usa today. Everyone has a different lead on this one. It had global viewing. Certainly in the uk you wouldnt expect people to be watching a press conference of a foreign leader. Everyone was tuned into this. Expressing shock and surprise. It was so different. The cover of the wall street journal, trump lets loose against critics. The president signed a new measure rolling back regulations on the coal mining industry. Those regulations put in place under the obama industry were aimed at stopping coal miners from dumping waste into nearby waterways. White house adviser, Jared Kushner met with a Senior Executive in time warner to complain about cnns coverage of the administration. The wall street journal says kushner told the executive Vice President of corporate marketing and communications that he feels cnns coverage is unfair and slanted against the president. The journal says kushner about not bring up time warners pending deal with at t which mr. Trump opposed on the campaign trail. Facebook has been on a mission to crack down on fake news in the wake of the election. Mark zuckerberg addressed those plans and a lot more in a lengthy manifesto published last night. Landon dowdy read all 6,000 words and has the highlights. Facebook Ceo Mark Zuckerberg writing a 6,000 word letter on how the social media giant can help save the world. Here are a couple takeaways. Zuckerberg never mentioned President Trump by name but much of the subject matter touches political discourse and globalism. He says that trump was not the inspiration writing in times like these the most important thing we at facebook can do is develop the social infrastructure to give people the power to build a Global Community that works for all of us. Zuckerberg laying out his longterm goals of using Artificial Intelligence to get rid of bad people from facebook who use the platform to recruit terrorists. Fake news has been a hot topic when it comes to facebook. He addressed the topic in his letter saying the goal must be to help people see a more complete picture, not just alternative perspectives. We must be careful how we do this. He wouldnt speculate about the president and his feelings regarding facebook and its mission he did say he doesnt plan to run for president of the United States himself. Back over to you. He was clear on that. That was asked in the bbc interview, he claims no intention to go into politics. But this kind of thing begs the question. And Karen Swisher of re code spoke to him. She will be joining squawk alley later this morning. Coming up, the top stories, including new details on the Corruption Scandal rocking samsung. Stay tuned, youre watching cnbc, first in business worldwide. Their experience is coveted. Their leadership is instinctive. Theyre experts in things you havent heard of researchers of technologies that one day, you will. Some call them the best of the best. Some call them veterans. We call them our team. Welcome back to Worldwide Exchange. Good morning. Lets get you up to speed on Market Action. The selling continues. Dow futures down about 52 points. S p down 5. 5. Nasdaq down almost 12 points. This after yesterday we saw a pause in the buying action. Just a little bit. The dow made new highs. S p closed lower by 0. 10 after five Straight Days of setting new highs. As for the currency action, the weaker dollar in yesterdays session signaled a reversal for all the big trump trades. Youre seeing it weaken against the japanese yen, which is a sign of risk aversion this morning. The dollar is stronger against the euro this morning, 1. 0639. As for the tenyear treasury note yield, seeing lower yield. Some buying of treasury, selling of the dollar, selling of the stocks. 2. 41. Well watch groups like banks and energy. Thank you very much for that. Lets switch back to the uk. Tony blair announced what he calls his mission to persuade the british people to rise up and change their minds on brexit. The former Prime Minister speaking to a proeuropean Campaign Group today. He said the public voted without knowing the true terms and the challenge now is to expose the cost. Blair says he accepts the referendum but recommends looking at brexit again when theres a clear sense of where the uk has headed. Downing street said it is committed to seeing through brexit. That speech is taking place at this moment. We have not had clear response both from the uk government or from various other political columnists. How much influence does he hold . Hes not a popular person individually. But i think hes looked at this, and he has a clear view. He doesnt see that theres anyone else out there at the moment, whether its from his Old Labor Party or the Center Ground of british politics to fly the flag into this point of view. It will be interesting to see how this goes down. He has the international credibility. He has the international credibility. But the iraq war still strongly divides opinion on him personally. Can he make it worse or square it . Samsung groups heir apparent has been takplaced und arrest. He is being held at the seoul detention center. Samsung stock still had a great year or so. Other stocks to watch. Allianz planning a 3 billion euro share buyback. The insurer seeing a 23 rise in q4 net profit. Shares up 2. 6 . True car posting a narrower than expected loss for the fourth quarter. Shares of the automotive pricing website skyrocketing after hours yesterday in the news. Up 14 . Merck stopping the trial of a latestage alzheimers drug after it proved to be unsuccessf unsuccessful. The drugmaker saying they will continue another study with the drug. A if you other stocks to watch, chinas Juneyao Airlines finalizing a 132 billion order for boeing 737s for new routes in north america, europe and australia. The activist investor targeting csx said he will amend some demands if his ceo candidate is guaranteed for a fouryear contract. Paul hillau making that statement in a letter to the board of drengirectors. And yum brands making changes to its board of direc r directors. Still to come, trouble for theranos. First Reynolds Wolf with the weather. Chicago, 62 degrees, bismarck, sun and clouds, but out west, some 20 Million People will be in a flood watch. Oroville, where theyre keeping a sharp eye on the heavy rain t could be a rough situation, High Mountain passes could deal with snowfall. Denver 63 degrees. Mild conditions across much of the southern plains. 79 in miami, 75 in dallas, 60s on much of the front range. More coming up after this. Only at t offers you all your live channels and dvr on your devices. Datafree. Entertainment. Your way. Only from at t. Welcome back to Worldwide Exchange. Lets get you up to speed on the Market Action. The story is what happens in the bond market in terms of yields correlates with equities. We started on the tenyear late last friday, monday morning, 2. 40 . The yields rose significantly to 2. 52 on wednesday. And early in the week equities were much stronger. Yesterday paired back. And yields slipped. To that score lags hecorrelatio. 2. 42 . The fact that yields slipped over the last 24 hours has meant equities slipped, too. Lets look at the equity market which is still in positive territory for the week. Up about 1. 3 for the s p as a whole, but expected to see profit taking this friday by a third of a percent on the s p. The dow called lower by 56 points. Among the corporate headlines, new details surrounding troubles at theranos. The embattled blood Diagnostics Firm did not have material revenue in 2015 or 2016. Theranos telling investors last month it was down to its last 200 million in cash, a quarter of the money that the Company Raised since being founded in 2003. The journal reporting that theranos had no money set aside for legal liability. At t making changes to its unlimited data plan. The Company Offering unlimited data to customers without them requiring to have directv or uverse television service. At t matching verizons latest plan offering four lines for 180 with no Tv Subscription Service required. The plan goes live today. Apple is expected to begin manufacturing in india in the coming months with the focus on lowerpriced iphone se model. The taiwanese partner wistran is setting up a plant in bangalore. Apple is tenth in the Smartphone Market in india but leads the premium market with a 62 share. The company has been in talks with the government on issues like tax concessions. Tim cook has been very bullish on india. In all the conference calls, and as cramer mentioned setting india up to be the market to watch in 2017. Even talking about the demonetization there that hurt so many companies, saying ultimately it will shake out. Well have to wait and see. If china is anything to go by, it starts strongly and comes to issues at an earlier level of penetration than in developed markets. The big question is is the price point low enough for that marke market. Hence t what is your phone called again . The lumi for wilfi. A different story, a florida man has been arrested and charged with alleged by plotting to blow up several target stores on the east coast in a bizarre attempt to tank the companys stock. Authorities say mark barnett offered an unidentified person to put explosives disguised as food items placed on shelves in stores in new york, florida and virginia. That person turned him in. Sources say barnett believed the target stock could tank so he could buy it cheaply before it rebounded. The nba allstar game is this sunday in new orleans and there may be some tickets available. The cheapest ticket right now is 180. Thats down 75 from last year. The allstar game was originally supposed to be in charlotte, north carolina, but was moved because of the states controversial antilgbt law. This is the third time in ten years new orleans is the site of the game. Im getting into basketball. Went again last week. Good fun. You should go to new orleans. Going to london instead. Much better. Coming up, the top trending news, including a story on how democrats are using the hit show Stranger Things to go after President Trump. If you have seen stranger thin things youll like this story. I havent, so will i dislike the story . You should watch Stranger Things. Were drowning in information. Where, in all of this, is the stuff that matters . The stakes are so high, your finances, your future. How do you solve this . You dont. You partner with a firm that advises governments and the fortune 500, and, can deliver insight person to person, on what matters to you. Morgan stanley. Good morning. Markets now, the rally takes a pause, but the s p is on face for four straight weeks of gains. The president unleashes after a tumultuous month. Were live in washington with the latest. Plus free food for flyers, complimentary inflight meals are making a comeback on one airline. I wonder if theyre delicious. Doubtful. Doubtful. Its friday, february 17, 2017. Youre watching Worldwide Exchange on cnbc. Good morning. Happy friday, welcome back to Worldwide Exchange on cnbc. Im sara eisen. Im wilfred frost. Good morning to you from me. Its new music friday. Starting your weekend with Selena Gomezs brandnew single called it aint me. There you go. That was good timing. Lets check in on the global Market Action. This week has been framed with record highs almost every day. But yesterday that just paused with markets that were essentially flat, a couple of them declining. And it leads us for the week as a whole up 1. 7 for the dow, up 1. 3 for the s p and nasdaq. Worth remembering that we have seen financials really drag the performance higher. Perhaps that flatters the record highs a bit. The dow continues to outperform. It closed higher which marks a sixth session in a row closing at record highs. To focus on a record high when it only gains 0. 1 is misleading, i think. Banks up 3. 5 for the week as a whole making a big impact on the overall performance. Thats so heavily linked to what yields are doing. Its easy to argue that banks are the real ones that benefit from those rising yields. Clearly the resilience is out there with more rate hikes and we have not seen declines in the face of that. Weve seen gains in the s p. Expected to pull back today. When you ask people why the resilience, despite some noise out of washington, why the resilience despite some risks in some policies like trade, the answer is the Economic Data has been better and continues to be so. Yesterdays philly fed manufacturing index, wow. Best since the early 80s. With that, better earnings. Recovery in the earnings picture, good enough to show continued strength from Corporate America and hope of the trifecta of tax reform, Infrastructure Spending and deregulation which is carrying the market forward. The more that the president can focus on that and the Republican Congress can focus on that for investors, the better. A more hawkish fed as well. Weve seen expectations of a rate hike go up this week. Lets look around the rest of the world. Futures are down in part taking the lead from the rest of the world where weve seen profit taking. Worth pointing out that europe has had similar highs, similar rallies over the course of the last ten days or so. Yesterday and today has seen a bit of profit taking. Down 1 in france. Ftse 100 is down less because the pound slipped after disappointing retail sales numbers. Germany down a half percent. Asian trade negative. China is down the best part of 1 . Lets show whats happening with oil. A bit weaker over the last 24 hours. Wti down a quarter percent. Went down 55. 48. Energy stocks were a loser in yesterdays session along with the banks. Tenyear treasury note yield in decline mode. Some buying of treasuries, a reversal of the reflation or trump trade, whatever you want to call it. 2. 41 is the yield on the tenyear. No real damage, but looking at lower yields. Heres the dollar. Weaker against the japanese yen, which is worth watching. Correlates to a weaker stock market. 112 112. 80. The dollar is stronger against the euro. 1. 0649. Stronger against the pound, too but the focus on weak uk retail sales is leading that currency south. As for gold, lets show you where we are. You might think political risks rising is good for gold. Its been good for gold this week with the dollar declining a bit. But no real burst of strength here. Up 0. 2 . Ill take that 0. 6 spending power as i fly back to the uk. You better hope that weaker pound keeps weakening. The president tweeting moments ago, Worldwide Exchange means the president is up and its time for tweets. Despite long delays by the democr democrats, finally approving dr. Tom price, the repeal and replacement of obamacare is moving fast. Eamon javers joins us with more. The president is talking about obamacare moving fast yesterday in his News Conference he said Obamacare Repeal would be announced by the white house in early to midmarch. That would come before tax reform. So you get a sense of the way the train cars are being stacked in the train. Obama care later in the year. Healthcare reform in this country has been a quagmire for a number of president s. It takes longer than they expect going in. More politically fraught than they expect going in. Well see if this white house can dodge some of those bullets. But that could be something to keep an eye on. Also something to keep an eye on is news that we got overnight that robert harward, the retired vice admiral, now an executive at Lockheed Martin and a former navy s. E. A. L. Has turned down the president s apparent offer to be the National Security adviser. Remember, mike flynn was fired earlier this week. The president said yesterday in his News Conference he felt he had a very good choice to replace mike flynn. Its not harward, though. Harward says that he has got family and financial reasons why he doesnt want to take the job, but also reports that he was concerned of the management style of this white house, that he wouldnt be able to run the National Security council the way he wanted to with the team in place that he wanted to have. That is something worth watching. Watch this space in terms of senior level people reluctant to go into the Trump Administration. If that were a trend that could continue, that would be a problem for the Trump Administration. They need a lot of top people, including a communications director. All of that discussed one level or another yesterday in this amazing and relatively Wild Press Conference by the president. Heres one of the sound bites from yesterdays press conference. This is the president talking about the state of the country. Its a surprisingly sour note from the president yesterday. Typically a month into the presidency, you hear an upbeat, optimistic forwardlooking president of the United States. Heres what the president said yet. I inherited a mess. Its a mess. At home and abroad. A mess. Jobs are pouring out of the country. You see whats going on with all of the companies loving our country, going to mexico and other places. Low pay, low wages, mass instability overseas. No matter where you look. The middle east, a disaster. North korea, well take care of it, folks. Well take care of it all. But, sara, he struck an upbeat note in terms of talking about the stock market. He took credit for the stock markets recent rise and said that was an indication of enthusiasm in the business sector over his policies. The president seemed to warm up, sara, as he went along, especially in sparring with the media, which he loves to do. He cheered up towards the end of the press conference as he got a chance to interact with those reporters in the room. Eamon, its been a bumpy week for the president. I suppose that press conference yesterday, the peak of the volatility of the week that hes had. To what extent are we slightly missing the point and to what extent are things like that press conference being adored by 50 or so of the country . Absolutely. The trump base hates the media and loves it when the president tears into the media as he did to their faces yesterday in the east room of the white house. So that is going to play extraordinarily well with his political base. The problem that the president has politically is he needs to expand beyond the base. He won the presidency, now he needs to do something with it in terms of legislative victory. He will need republicans on capitol hill. He will need to bring democrats on board. He will need to try to slow some democratic opposition up on the hill. And to the extent that he shows that his white house is mired in infighting and a sense of chaos, which he denied yesterday. He said it is a welloiled machine. To the extent that perception gets out there, that could hamper other efforts that the president wants to do. Thats why people watch these political things. I think the point that we keep making, the resilience of the stock market is relevant here given some of the chaos given out by d. C. , the backlash an over media. Joe scarborough tweeted that republicans on the hill were panicked behind the scenes on trumps performance today. If that were true that would matter to investors because of that ambitious agenda that we laid out and what you hear. What have you heard about republican reaction . In talking to some republicans yesterday before the press conference, you do get the sense that even among those people who are in total support of the trump agenda, wanted to build the wall, who like this president s ideas, they scratch their heads sometimes at the president s behavior, his tweets, the way he expresses himself. They dont understand where he gets his ideas oftentimes. We had a moment yesterday when the president said something about his Electoral College victory and Peter Alexander stood up and flatly said he was wrong about his facts. The president said i read that somewhere. I got that information from someone. Thats the kind of things that republicans on the hill watch and say what is going on here . That could have a falling out effect on his legislative agenda. We have not seen it yet. But watch for it. Thats something to be concerned about in washington. Eamon, thank you very much for that. Lets get to the economic agenda. Its light on data with no maker reports coming out. But some notable earnings. Before the bell results from campbell suoup, deere, smuckers and bloomin. n sync fans rejoice. Former band member lance bass is that pronounced right . Yes. Youre not an n sync fan . I thought you would like them. The boy band is reuniting for the presentation of their star on the hollywood walk of fame. He also says n sync will release a vinyl edition of their christmas album for its 20year anniversary. I think this doesnt work. Look at j. T. So boy bands are great when the boys are young. I dont know. They might be too old for reunion. Democratic congressman we educated them over the last year about take that. Democratic congressman used Stranger Things as a metaphor to put the Trump Administration on blast. There was a trump things poster on the house floor. That went a little viral. It is a popular show. The upside down its a big thing. You were saying earlier in the break, its your favorite show. Better than the bachelor . No, the bachelor is the best, Stranger Things number two for me. That makes me think i shouldnt watch it because the bachelor is terrible. Its a very different type of show. Perhaps your tastes will be all right. Its unwatchable. So bad. Free food for delta fliers. The airline adding Free Meal Services on select coast to coast routes. The change will bring in 12 of its transcontinental routes this spring. The carrier phased out free meals with most other big airlines over the last decade or s so. Fighting for market share. Its a nice thing to have. People got annoyed having to pay for that. You should never buy the food they offer on the plane. Buy it beforehand. If youre hungry, you buy it, or wise you only get peanuts and pretzels. Always buy food in advance. Still to come, the must reads. First, a look at how european equities are trading this hour. They are lower by about 1 in france, the ftse is flat. Germany is down 0. 4 . U. S. Futures down a third of a percent at this hour. Because safety is never being satisfied. And always working to be better. Because safety is never being satisfied. Knows how it feels to seees your numbers go up, despite your best efforts. But what if you could turn things around . What if you could love your numbers . Discover oncedaily invokana®. Its the 1 prescribed sglt2 inhibitor that works to lower a1c. A pill taken just once in the morning, invokana® is used along with diet and exercise to significantly lower blood sugar in adults with type 2 diabetes. In fact, its been proven to be more effective at lowering a1c than januvia. Invokana® works around the clock by reducing the amount of sugar allowed back into the body, and sending some sugar out through the process of urination. And while its not for lowering systolic Blood Pressure or weight loss, it may help you with both. Invokana® can cause important side effects, including dehydration, which may cause you to feel dizzy, faint,lightheaded,or weak, upon standing. Other side effects may include kidney problems, genital yeast infections,changes in urination, high potassium, increases in cholesterol, risk of bone fracture, or urinary tract infections, possibly serious. Serious side effects may include ketoacidosis, which can be life threatening. Stop taking and call your doctor right away if you experience symptoms or if you experience symptoms of allergic reaction such as rash, swelling, or difficulty breathing or swallowing. Do not take invokana® if you have severe liver or kidney problems or are on dialysis. Tell your doctor about any medical conditions and medications you take. Using invokana® with a sulfonylurea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Its time to turn things around. Lower your blood sugar with invokana®. Imagine loving your numbers. Theres only one invokana®. Ask your doctor about it by name. Im vern, the orange money retirement rabbit, from voya. Im the money you save for retirement. Whos he . Hes green money, for spending today. Makes it easy to tell you apart. That, and i am better looking. I heard that. When its time to get organized for retirement, its time to get voya. Welcome back to Worldwide Exchange. Its time for our mustread stories catching our attention in the papers. Mine is in the financial times, titled complacent investors should heed the political risks. Its about the resilience in the market. Theres three reasons for why this might be happening. One is on the fundamentals, better earnings and economy. Number two, on the hopes of the trump republican policies. Number three could be maybe a bubble kind of mentality where the market is just underestimating the risk. On that point she says some measures of the stock market valuation are not concerning. Robert shillers must watched cyclically priced to earnings ratio is below anything seen during the dotcom boom, but others are less sanguine. She makes the point that if we are in a bubble mentality where the market may have blown past some fundamentals. I think the market is clearly hitting highs and theres uncertainties out there. The actual comparison to ratios against gdp is a surprising one. People expect gdp to pick up. In the future. That said, either way the correlation between stock market returns and gdp overall is not that strong in the longterm. As we know, the Obama Administration having much better performance in the stock market than the Reagan Administration when the performance was the other way around. The general point is one to keep an eye on. My pick is titled janet yellen gives conservatives something to cheer. Donald luskin writing this is based on the fact that donald trump will have the opportunity to appoint three members of the fed over the course of his presidency. The write saying this presents an opportunity to achieve a longheld conservative goal moving the fed towards rules based monetary policy. Mr. Trump could end a century of dangerous improvisation by a central bank with seemingly Unlimited Power over the economy. This is his view, mr. Luskins view. But either way mr. Trump will have a lot of power in shaping the fed for the next decade. Im not sure that would serve him or his agenda well. A rules based policy would mean higher interest rates. Either way he gets to shape the fed. Three open seats in april. Two now. The chairman up next year. Were approaching the top of the hour. The team is getting ready for squawk box. Becky quick has a look at whats coming up. We will be talking about the markets today. You mentioned that the dow finished once again at a new high. Did not see that from the s p 500 or the nasdaq, but they were breaking seven days of winning streaks in a row. We have jim paulson here to talk about that for a couple hours with us. We will be talking to a ceo, steve joyce, the ceo of choice hotels. Well ask him if hes seeing this optimism weve been seeing from businesses and consumers, if thats showing up in bookings in his hotels. Also talking about moves from washington. Robert murray is the founder and chairman of the Murray Energy company. He will talk about trumps move yesterday to repeal the stream protection rule what that means from an Energy Perspective and from his companys business lines. And well be turning our focus towards washington with the former Senate Majority leader, george mitchell. He will talk about our relationship with israel, our relationship with russia, and that press conference yesterday, too. A lot to of things coming up. Well see you guys by the way, andrew is out. We have a surprise guest. You have to tune in to find out who it is. Intriguing. I was going to get wilfred. Right here. Right here, but i wont turn the camera over there. Im intrigued now. I would have watched any way. Squawk box starts in ten minutes. Thanks. That special treat coming up. Still to come, a busy day ahead for investors as they gear up for a long weekend. Michael farr joins us after the break. Their experience is coveted. Their leadership is instinctive. Theyre experts in things you havent heard of researchers of technologies that one day, you will. Some call them the best of the best. Some call them veterans. We call them our team. Im vern, the orange money retirement rabbit, from voya. Im the money you save for retirement. Whos he . Hes green money, for spending today. Makes it easy to tell you apart. That, and i am better looking. I heard that. When its time to get organized for retirement, its time to get voya. Sometimes they just drop in. Always obvious. Cme group can help you navigate risks and capture opportunities. We enable you to reach Global Markets and drive forward with broader possibilities. Cme group how the world advances. Building on that mini sell joffe saw yesterday on the s p. Lets bring in michael farr. We did see a pause in the action yesterday. What are you watching to tell you whether thats just a pause, which would be a healthy thing in a market climb, or the start of Something Else . Good morning. This years a lot better than last year at this time when we were down about 12 and the pause was really significant. Expectations were for a lot lower. My skepticism has been about a market surge that has been unsupported by fundamentals. So the increase in prices has been really driven by expectations of moves by the Trump Administration and the congress. And my point has been its going to take a while for these things to go. Prices are going up now. But the fundamental changes have not happened. No tax reform, no repatriation of money. Earnings are creeping along. You guys just talked about a really maybe one of the biggest stories for the year, the uncertainty of what will happen to this fed and these three new appointments and how it could shift the color and face of monetary policy. Lots of uncertainty. Stocks making alltime highs. The guy gets nervous when he is responsible for other peoples money. The younglooking gentleman, you mean. God bless you, wilfred. We may get a rate hike in march, more likely in may. Is that the main factor for markets this week . Is it encouraging that despite rate hike expectations going up that the markets have continued to hit new highs . Geez, yes. I think that the talk about rate hikes and the confidence were hearing from fed speakers is encouraging. I gave had the privilege of giving a speech tuesday with fed president richmond fed president jeff lacker at university of delaware for the 2017 economic forecast. He thinks maybe 2 gdp growth this year, but 1. 8 gdp growth in the next two, three years. So were not looking for robust growth from the fed. Yet we are seeing Economic Conditions improve. Closer to that 2 target. They think they should take rates up. Thats a positive. Whats affecting markets . Should that be the focus . Yes. But after the press conference yesterday with President Trump, there are so many distractions that are hitting media and investors, its really tough to figure out which fundamentals are driving anything in the nearterm. Why dont you look at the fund mamentals were getting fr the Economic Data from this economy which are surprisingly good, this week, retail sales, higher inflation, topped off by a spectacular philly fed report yesterday. Were seeing the inflationary data, Producer Price expect takes were twice that number, too. So there is inflation moving n but thats inflation without a whole lot of growth behind it if were seeing all of this still 2 gdp expectation but the point is that there is growth behind it yes, the confidence surveys show a boost in optimism but thats feeding through to the real Economic Data, arent we . I think sort of. Unemployment, of course, is much lower. Were seeing some wage gains. But i think this is creeping along at a slow pace. Im positive, im bullish on the future of america, but i think were pricing the future of america high today with this much uncertainty as we have. Its not bad. But we have not had a pullback for seven years. Markets go down. Could this thing drop 2,000 points . Sure. Could it go up 2,000 points, sure. But be careful and have a seat when the music stops. Michael farr for us in washington. Thats it for Worldwide Exchange. Have a great weekend. The dow on a sixday winning streak, but u. S. Equity fut cho futures are pointing lower. And a flood of news out of washington on cabinet picks, coal regulation, russia. And new numbers on an elite exclusive club that is running out of members, becky. Blackberry users. Its friday, february 17, 2017, squawk box begins right now. Live from new york where business never sleeps, this is squawk box. Good morning. Welcome to squawk box here on cnbc. We are live from the Nasdaq Market site in times square. Im becky quick along with joe kernen and melissa lee. Did you camp out overnight . All night. Camped out under the desk. You and that rumor. She had the most beautiful dog. Looks a lot like zara. Andrew apparently watched that press conference, hes somewhere in a safe space. My god cradling himself in the corner . So triggered. So triggered, im not sure he will be here at next week after that. He will. Hell be back on tuesday. Okay. No one informed me of that. I wish him well to get through this. Whoa. Okay. Lets look at the u. S. Equity