Good morning. Welcome to Worldwide Exchange. Im wilfred frost. Im seema mody in for sara eisen today. Is new music today. A new track from miley sirius called malibu. Amazing how shes 24 and produced so much. Wow. Look at that little nugget. Always great to have you with us, particularly on new music friday. Thank you. Getting to the market action. Futures coming off declines across the board yesterday, albeit small declines. 0. 1 or 0. 2 of declines yesterday. We are expected to open soft again today. The dow called lower by 40 points. S p by 6. Nasdaq by 14 points. Yesterday retail was the worst performer. The likes of macy underperforming. Retail etf down over 2. 5 . All in all this week, we have the nasdaq in positive territory. The s p just lower. The dow almost down by 0. 5 . But certainly not severe declines. Apple the best dow performer up 3 . Intel the worst, down 3 . Tech overall the best sector, up a percent. Materials down about 1 . The tenyear treasury note, because we started or we closed last friday at 2. 35 . We spent a lot of this week above 2. 4. As you can see, were just below it again. As Rick Santelli says, the close is at the end of the day, the close at the end of each week matters. Even though yields have ticked up, they havent ticked up much. And the gains have not been locked in. If we switch the focus to asia, stocks generally lower following the weak session in the United States. Japan closing below 20,000 at 19,883. Down about 0. 4 . We did see a stronger yen which hurt some of its bigger exporters, like sony and toshiba. Hang seng in hang sshanghai clo higher, up 0. 1 . Germany showing theyre outperforming growth that were seeing here state side. German dax french equities flat as well. Ftse 100 higher by 0. 2 . Well get to the pound in a second. For the week as a whole, the ftse up a percent. Germanys basically flat. Asia has been softer for the week as a whole. Apart from one market, the south korean market. Record highs. Some 4 for the week after the election of president moon. Other asset classes, oil prices have been important in recent weeks. This woke they are eek they are. They have softened a bit today, but curbed that fall from the prior couple of weeks and climbing back close to 50. Just shy of 48 this morning. Dollar board for you, also curbed a recent decline. This will be the first positive week for the dollar index in five. Up about a percent the broader index this week. The euro touched nearly 110 after the French Election. At 10 8. 65. Given up some gains. The dollar a little softer against the yen. But as i said for the week as a whole, up about 1 . Gold prices up yesterday, up more today. For the week as a whole gold is flat. Lets talk retail that was the big market story yesterday. Shares of Department Store chains taking a hit. Nordstrom posting better than expected earnings and revenue, but the stock dropping on a samestore sales miss. The higher end retailer is just the latest Department Store to get hurt by a slump in demand for clothing and a shift to online shopping. Nordstrom is not alone. Macy shares dropping 17 during yesterdays regular trading session after Quarterly Results missed wall street estimates it was the worst day for the shares of macys since 2008. Another snapshot of the retail space this morning. Jcpenney posting results before the opening bell. So be sure to keep an eye on that one. Well discuss that with a retail analyst at 5 30. A few key reports on the agenda. April retail sales and cpi will be released at 8 30 a. M. Eastern, followed by may Consumer Sentiment and march business inventories. A pair of fed officials speaking today. Charles evans and phillied y fe president patrick harker. Over the last month or so, weve seen hard data soften a bit. People concerned that the economy is slowing. Ppi a couple days ago fascinating because it was better than expected, quite significantly better than expected if that carries through to cpi that could mark a change in tone of softer performance in the hard data. Well be looking at cpi and retail sales. Also played a bigger role in the global reflation trade here in 2017. That inflation figure will be key. Lets also talk politics. President trump slamming former fbi director james comey in an nbc news exclusive. Trump told lester holt comeys firing had nothing to do with russia saying he simply was not doing a good job. If there was a problem with an election having to do with russia or by the way anybody else, any other country, and i want that to be so strong and so good, and i want it to happen. I also want to have a really competent, capable director. Hes not. Hes a showboater. President trump says comey told him three times he is not personally under investigation despite an ongoing probe into the campaign. The president said he fully ports an investigation into the election. He said he wants the probe to be done properly. Well see who he picks. The frustrating thing of this ongoing aspect is once we knew the investigation was happening, it was easy for all of us in the media to say lets step back now until we get the result of the investigation. Not something that we can be doing as well as the fbi. We can wait to get definitive results rather than continuing to spexculate, and now that investigation will be delayed. We dont know who will carry it out fully. Its rather frustrating to have this sort of confusion thrown into the ongoing story. Adds in general to the heightened political environment that were seeing in washington. More washington news, the United States and china reaching trade agreements. The plan is aimed at increasing access for china to beef producers, electronic Payment Providers and gas exporters. The agreement was announced by wilbur ross. Among the highlights, by midjuly china will allow u. S. Imports of beef. The yits wiUnited States will i proposed rule for chinese cook the poultry be allowed into the u. S. Secretary ross joins squawk box at 7 00 a. M. Eastern. Sounds like significant progress by him on something that was, of course, a key election area. So on the topic of trade, u. S. china relations. I was speaking to one trader in hong kong over email coming in, he said part of the reason perhaps we did see stocks in china close higher. The only point i was going to make, its not the most crucial thing for an interview, cooked poultry coming all the way from china. Im not sure thats going to be a demand for that. They eat a lot of our beef, though. A lot of meat on the table. Mark cuban making a bold call on big tech last night on fast money. Landon has the details. Good morning. Cuban talking everything from trump to taxes to tech last night on cnbcs fast money pointing out the nang stof. A. N. Stockeds and their deep run. The things that are youre able to do in terms of optization that you have never been able to do before, its incredible. In particular cuban says he likes amazon best. Heres why. My Biggest Holding is amazon. Its the ultimate ai company. Its the ultimate startup. They use it better than anybody. When amazon talks about opening up grocery stores, its not because they want to sell groceries in stores, they want to know what you need, when you need it, before you know you need it so they can deliver it to your door in anticipation. The opportunity there globally is beyond enormous. While the billionaire investor thinks the f. A. N. G. Stocks have big upside. He did learn one thing about a big threat. Facebook, google, netflix, theyre hiring all over the world. Our biggest threat is not the market price, other biggest threat is china. We cant do things with computer vision, facial recognition that they can. They get to do whatever. They get to push ahead further. Theyre getting too far ahead is our biggest risk. Lots of different topics he covered. And in vegas last night. Did he also touch on snapchat at all after the fall this week . He did. He said he wants to give it some time. He thinks theyll get better at selling ads, and that he has not seen a let up in followers, which is the talk of the risk. Ive heard you mention this, too. You switched from the Instagram Stories to snapchat and the filter, but he says i dont think theres a big risk. They still added 6 million, 7 million users since december, but that was slower than people thought. To some stocks were watching this morning. A delaware judge is freeing cigna to exit the anthem merger. Anthem wanted to save the deal in court, cigna wanted it terminated. The tieup would have resulted in one of the largest insurers in the country. Trade desk shares are jumping. They doubled earnings in the most havent quarter. Shares up more than 25 here. Hain celestial announcing its internal accounting probe is nearly over. They expect to file Financial Results by the end of this month. Its been more than a year since hain celestial reported results. Cyberark issuing an earnings outlook that fell short of wall street expectations. They also announced the acquisition of a smaller Security Software company. Ali yanz reaffirm ining rea. And trade of ca, the company posting an earnings beat for the fourth quarter, topping estimates. Apple has issued a 7 billion in Corporate Bonds according to an sec filing late yesterday. The company has been using debt to pay shareholders while storing most of its 2 256 billin in cash oversees. Last week apple increased Shareholder Return Program to 300 billion. Earlier this week apple became the first listed company with a market cap topping 8 800 billio. Just part of the growing story weve seen. Despite all the cash they have overseas, they continue to issue debt to fund buybacks and other Growth Initiatives here in the u. S. Big question, the repatriation tax holiday, that is potentially on the table, will that incentivize not just apple but other multinationals to bring that cash back to america and not use the debt market as much. I think it would definitely mean they dont use the debt market as much. Given they have free access to the debt market, would bringing cash back and having that available as opposed to debt spur more investment . If they can robor borrow 1. 5 t a rate of return higher than that for investment is not hard. Will repatriation drive m a or investment. Thats the question. Jpmorgan chase says its Online Banking system is back online after an outage last night. Customers could log in but were not able to transfer money or pay bills. Chase also showed not available where customer accounts balances should have been. Chase said sorry for the stress and thanks for your patience. Still to come, were live in bari, italy where the g7 finance chiefs and central bankers are gathering to talk trade, taxes and regulation. Were back in a couple minutes. . And once we do, we see wonder waiting. Every step you take, narrows the influence of narrow minds. Bridges continents and brings this world one step closer. So, the question you asked me. What is the key . Its you. Everything in one place, so you can travel the world better. Apparently, i kept her up all night. She said the future freaks her out. How come no one likes me, jim . Intel does just think of everything intels doing right now with artificial intelligence. And pretty soon ai is going to help executives like her see trends to stay ahead of her competition. No more sleepless nights. Were going to be friends im sorry about this. Dont be embarrassed of me, jim. Im getting excited about this we know the future. Were going to be friends because were building it. Welcome back to Worldwide Exchange. Im wilfred frost. Along with seema mody. Happening now, the worlds most powerful finance officials are in italy for the g7 meeting. Yla nsh yla nshn mui has more. The meeting is underway in an 11th century castle in bari, italy. Steve mnuchin joined the conference just about an hour ago. As he walked inside, i asked how he planned to defend the administrations America First trade policies. Were excited about u. S. Trade policies. I think you saw last night we made an announcement of 100day economic plan with the chinese. He was speaking about an agreement between the u. S. And china that was announced today to increase Market Access in areas like Agricultural Products and financial services. Now, trade is not officially on the agenda here in bari, but the issue is likely to come up during the oneonone bilateral meetings between treasury sec d secretary Steve Mnuchin and other finance ministers. He is scheduled to meet today with japans aso and germanys wolfgang schauble. I asked schauble what his message might be for the u. S. We need a strong United States to lead the Global Economy and Global Politics in a sustainable way. United states is still the most important economic power, and the best alliance for europe. Well bring you read outs from those meetings as we have it. Nor now, back to you. Ylan, what is the feltfeelin the ground from the other various bankers and finance ministers in terms of slipping domestic agenda in the u. S. . Steve mnuchin coming in sounding confide confident. Some of them fearful of what the political developments, whether its comey related or just simply healthcare bill related type factors that the economic policies, be it tax reform or anything else wont actually be achieved . Theres a waiting game going on here. Everyone is waiting to see what will happen in the u. S. Because that will help determine what the ripple effects are for other economies. So with regards to tax reform, thats a big issue. The border adjustment tax is another one. A treasury official told me while we were in italy that the administration does not believe that border adjustment tax works in its current form. Thats a strong statement from the Treasury Department that i dont believe that weve heard before, and that should be the one sign of relief for our counterparts over in europe. In terms of some of the european leaders, a sense of not so much confidence, but retrieve following the result of the French Election . I think there is. Right now we appear to be in a moment where some of the populist forces that led to the election of President Trump are at bay. They receded a bit. Weve seen globalist dynamics from the election of emanuel macron for example. Those are balancing out the other side. But its still a wildcard what the position of the United States will be. Thats one reason why they left trade off of the agenda at the meeting. Theyre kicking that issue up to the g7 summit that will be occurring in just a few weeks, also here in italy. Thats sort of a way to ensure that this is being handled at the top levels because they are not sure where the u. S. Will come down. Great stuff. Thank you very much. Final question, why are you not in front of the castle . Thats a beautiful backdrop as well. That is beautiful, but the castle was spectacular. Well head over there as well. Great stuff. Look forward to your coverage all day. Still ahead a political showboat, the political slamming former fbi chief comey. The highlights of that sit down from washington coming up. First, as we head to break, todays National Weather forecast from nbcs bill karins. Good friday morning to you. The weekend forecast is all about the mothers day rain event that will be heading up the east coast. Again, not going to affect everyone all weekend long. Its a quickmoving storm. Today the worst is from new orleans through mississippi, alabama, eventually atlanta later on this eve new england. Thats for today. Washington, d. C. Also gets some rain this evening. Not a lot of travel problems because of that. As we get into saturday, this is the worst of the airport delay problems from d. C. , baltimore, new york city. Especially new york city, the second half of saturday, the afternoon and evening will be the worst of it then the storm system will be up towards boston, new hampshire, maine and vermont by the time we get to mothers day. The rest of the forecast looks nice for mothers day throughout the nation. Only Northern New England will be socked in the heavy rain. More Worldwide Exchange when we come back. Sting, looking from a fresh perspective can make all the difference. It can provide what we call an unlock a realization that often reveals a better path forward. At wells fargo, its our expertise in finding this kind of insight that has lead us to become one of the largest investment and Wealth Management firms in the country. Discover how we can help find your unlock. Welcome back. President trump is not backing down from his controversial decision to fire fbi director james comey. The president slamming comey as a show boat in an exclusive interview with nbc news. Tracie potts joins us with all the details. Reporter were following the changing story coming out of the white house about why james comey was fired. Initially they said it came from inside the Justice Department, but in this new exclusive nbc interview, President Trump set the record straight saying he planned to fire comey all along. Look, hes a showboat. Reporter President Trump in an interview with lester holt contradicting what the white house first said about the firing of james comey, as comey was investigating possible trump ties to russia. Aides said it was based on the Justice Department recommendation. Reaction from capitol hill. It is appallingly unethical if not more. The fbi has been in turmoil. Director comey enjoyed broad support within the fbi. Still does to this day. Reporter mr. Trump tells nbc, comey asked to dine with the president and then asked to keep his job. He asked for the dinner . Dinner was arranged. I think he asked. Reporter this morning current and former fbi Officials Say comey never asked for that dinner. The white house did. The president asked comey if he was under investigation. He said youre not under investigation. By his own words t seems to me the president fired mr. Comey to end the investigation. Reporter but mr. Trump insists he within as a full review. Want that thing to be absolutely done properly. If russia did anything, having do with our election, i want to know about it. Reporter and back to the fbi, the white house told us that the president was thinking about visiting the agency after firing its director, but this morning its not clear if thats going to happen. Its not clear if that is still on schedule after some agents there objected. Quick question. The Senate House Intelligence committee next week, are we expecting james comey to attend that hearing . We dont know yet. We know hes been invited in. They clearly want to hear from him. Especially after his firing. Not only to find out whats going on in the russia investigation but to find out more about this firing and how it went down and the relationship hes had with this new administration. Well be watching. Tracie potts live from washington, thank you very much. Coming up, this mornings top stories and a round up of global markets. Plus the controversial cover of the new yorker that everyone at the office will be talking about today. Well get to you it. Stay tuned. Youre watching Worldwide Exchange. If you want to stay on top of your health, one simple thing to do is take the pledge to go and get screened for the cancers that might affect you. So stand up to cancer and take the pledge at getscreenednow. Org it only takes a minute to take care of yourself, and nothing rhymes with org. Good morning. A friday fade. Stocks pointing to a lower open on wall street. Were setting you up for the final trading day of the week. Jcpenney set to report earn pgs earnings as the Retail Sector hands in some bad reports. And mark cuban makes some bold cals calls on tech and te cnbc what his favorite stock to own now is. Youre watching Worldwide Exchange on cnbc. Good morning. Very warm welcome to Worldwide Exchange on cnbc. Im wilfred frost. Im seema mody in for sara eisen today. Its new music friday. Youre listening now to the one and only justin bieber, his new hit im the one. I will say it right now, this will be the song of the summer. We have a real belieber here in seema mody. Futures right now pointing to a softer open. We were down about 40 points a half hour ago. Were still down about 40 points. 42 on the dow. 5 points on the s p. And 13 points on the nasdaq. It comes off a day of declines yesterday, albeit only slight, down 0. 2 . For the week as a whole, the nasdaq is in positive territory. The dow is down about half a percent. Technology has been the outperformer for the week. The best performer being apple. Its up 3 . Thats the best performer of the dow. Lets look at trade around the rest of the world. Asian trade for you has been a little soft this week. Japan ending the week on a negative note. The best performer in asia, south korea, up 44 following the election of president moon. Lets look also at the performance of european equities. Germen gdp at 0. 6 in q1. Decent performance. Ending on a positive note for european markets. The best performer, the ftse, up over a percent. The rest of europe essentially flat for the week. As for the broader markets, checking in on the price of oil. There has been a thought that the extension of the opec cut will help boost oil prices. In fact oil is up about 3 on the week. Down today, wti crude at 47. 79. The international gauge for oil, brent crude at 50. 74. Nat gas slightly lower. Looking at the tenyear note. Two pieces of Economic Data will be on our radar. Inflation, retail sales, tenyear note now yielding 2. 37 . In terms of currencies now, lets look at where the u. S. Dollar is trading against a basket of currencies. The euro higher at 1. 087. The yen stronger today. Perhaps one reason we did see this underperformance in japanese equities. Toshiba and sonny among the losers in japan. The pound, 1. 28. A quick look at gold. The rise in geopolitical tensions in washington, is that resulting safe haven buying . A bit. Up about 4 at 1,228. Several economic reports are out this morning. April retail sales and cpi released at 8 30 a. M. Eastern, followed by may Consumer Sentiment and march business inventories. A pair of fed officials speaking today. Charles evans and philly fed president patrick harker. As for earnings, look for jcpenney before the opening bell. Retail handing in its worst day of the year yesterday following earnings from mace sis and nordstrom. We are joined by stacey whitlock, a cnbc contributor. Good morning to you. Good morning. What do you make of macys results, has all the bad news been priced in, now trading at a 5 1 2 year low. Yesterday such a steep decline in the stock on the back of those disappointing earnings. Can the company come back . We know theyve been trying to put together Growth Initiatives, harness online. Is it too little too late . Yeah. Its so interesting. As we went into earnings, the short positions at a fouryear high yet we lost 2. 5 billion in market cap combined for the stores that reported yesterday. And macys, their traffic was down 7. 5 . Thats a jaw dropping number. Theyre under the same pressure everybody else is under, mall traffic declining. A lot of experts are talking about malls need to be reduced by 25 . I would argue that mall reductions need to come more in line with 40 reduction. I dont think the pain is over. Macys was the darling of the space, but even theyre not immune to whats going on with traffic. People have said one potential support for the share price of macys is real estate and what they could do with that. Whats your view on that . You know, you look at the business and say, yes, you can certainly start selling off pieces of your real estate. Weve seen that before with other struggling Department Stores here. But thats not going to help the base Retail Business. That will help you along and boost your cash until we just look at the inevitable, which is lower operating margins, lower Gross Margins of the Retail Business and continuing declining traffic. While thats a boost shortterm, longterm it wont fix the company. If we look at the sub sectors within the sales and other companies, retail sales what are the areas struggling . So, you know, they talked about handbags struggling, homes struggling. The most important call out in the macys call and the dillards call, they are talking about weakness in cosmetics. That is a huge traffic driver for Department Stores. Youre starting to see the fast fashion players come in and enter the cosmetic space. Weve seen ulta and elf do specialty concepts. Thats continuing to eat into the Department Store space. Im not sure the street has fully put that in estimates. Ulta and elf embracing the millennium selfie craze. Quick word on jcpenney. Getting ready for results. What do you expect . More red in retail today. Jcpenneys, i think comps will be down in the range of 3 . Guidance was negative 1 to positive 1 for the year. I expect more margin pressure as they go more into the appliance and home business. And they have sephora. So if these specialty guys are starting to eat into the Department Store share, that has been their traffic booster and may be a risk gore forward. Stacy, thank you very much. Thank you. Mark cuban making a bold call on tech. The billionaire investor telling the fast money team last night that f. A. N. G. Stocks are undervalued and one name in particular he likes. My Biggest Holding is amazon. Its the ultimate ai company. Its the ultimate startup. They use it better than anybody. When amazon talks about opening up grocery stores, its not because they want to sell groceries in stores, they want to know what you need, when you need it, before you know you need it so they can deliver it to your door in anticipation. The opportunity there globally is beyond enormous. Amazon shares have been on a run this year, up more than 26 . Tl flat in the premarket. Is it a situation where even if your cab driver is telling you about amazon, theres a question of whether the stock with continue to run to the upside. Up already 26 this year. Absolutely. They have a huge valuation to grow into. Extraordinary valuation to grow into. Thats the debate. That makes the market. You can see the argument behind why amazon will be an enormous company in our lives. But is that already priced in in. Our top trending stories now. The newest cover of the new yorker magazine has gone viral. The illustration depicts Jeff Sessions removing james comey from an airplane. The art a clear parallel between comeys abrupt firing and david dao, the man dragged from a flight last month. Im all on the new yorkers side for this. I think its a funny, amazing cover. And dr. Daos lawyer should back off, i think. Hes had his settlement. I hope it was huge, but get over it. Im sure i still want to know how much. I would love to know. I dont think they should still try and milk it and now claim some money from the new yorker. Stephen colbert firing back at President Trump last night after the president called him a notalent guy who is not funny. Heres colbert on the late shows response. The president of the United States has personally come after me and my show. Theres only one thing to say. Yea. Mr. Trump, theres a lot you dont understand. But i never thought one of those things would be show business. Dont you know ive been trying for a year to get to you say my name. And you were very restrained. Admirably restrained. Now you did it. I won. In this case, the insult was actually a compliment colbert was trying to say. Real Estate Agency in australia trying an unusual tactic to lure in home buyers. The Company Offering free avacado toast for a year if you buy that 595,000 townhouse. The realtor came up with the idea saying clients should spend money on homes, not brunch. Good deal . Extraordinary offer. Im not sure i could have that every day for a year. How are they getting that toast to the people who end up buying the house . I would say do your Due Diligence on that home. Particularly if theyre only offering it for one home. The price of avocados has been skyrocketing because of the rise in consumption, not just from the United States but china as well. Maybe its a Good Opportunity to trade. Its a good deal. It may be by the end of the year, that free avocado toast could be so valuable. Its so trendy still. Bloggers posting photos of their avocado toast. Still to come, more on the comey fallout and a call to action for the eu. Todays must reads are coming up. As we head to break a check in on european trade. Just positive and just positive for the week for the likes of the dax. The ftse 100 is up over a percent this week. With type 2 diabetes a lower a1c is a lot about choices. But it can be hard sometimes, cause different sides of you struggle with which ones to make. Well, what if you kept making good ones . Then . You could love your numbers. Discover oncedaily invokana®, a pill used along with diet and exercise to significantly lower blood sugar in adults with type 2 diabetes. Its proven to lower a1c better than januvia®. Invokana® works around the clock by sending some sugar out of your body through the process of urination. Its not for lowering systolic Blood Pressure or weight loss, but it may help with both. 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A drop of dawn and grease is gone. Welcome back to Worldwide Exchange. President trump slamming former fbi director james comey in an nbc news exclusive. Trump told lester holt the firing had nothing to do with russia. He simply was not doing a good job. If there was a problem with an election having do with russia or anybody else, any other country, and i want that to be so strong, so good, and i want it to happen. I also want to have a really competent, capable director. Hes not. Hes a showboater. President trump says comey told him three times hes not personally under investigation despite an ongoing probe into russias possible ties to the trump campaign. The president said he fully supports an investigation into russian interference in the u. S. Election last year. Suggesting he wants the probe to be done absolute lly properly. That sets up perfectly for todays must reads. My pick is in the usa today. Hillary clinton would have fired comey, too. Representative roberted a oderh writing that democrats and the press can find nothing but glowing specialtives to heap on the former director. Does anyone think that if Hillary Clinton had been elected last fall that she would not have dismissed comey from his post . Not saying i agree or not, but does anyone think Hillary Clinton would have done the same . The extraordinary focus is almost every single must read in every paper, including in the uk, is on this topic. Lots of focus on the press in it, but it hasnt really hit markets. My pick is in the the financial times, a big search to find something not on that topic. I did find one. The eu economy from recovery to resilience. For once and for the moment the eu economies are doing well. This would be an excellent time tomake sure theyre robust enough to withstand the downturn that will come at some point. Talks very much about the banking system, particularly italy as being the need for focus of reform, not so much fiscal rules, which has tended to be the focus of recent years. I bring it up because we have seen data improve in europe, certain elections hurdles overcome, and that g7 finance ministers meeting taking place. Such an interesting story out of europe. The populism risk receding for now, economic recovery gaining more momentum. Now that political pressure being put on ecb president mario drag draghi. We saw those comments from schauble earlier this week, and policy for the youre rov zoeur a big story. Were approaching the top of the hour, becky quick has a look at whats coming up on squawk box. We have lots of things coming up. Trade has been a constant topic of discussion with the trump administration. Last night there was a new deal reached with the chinese between the United States and the chinese. We have the secretary of commerce, wilbur ross, joining us today to talk through this. Its interesting points. China will be opening markets to things like u. S. Credit rating agencies, credit card companies. In return chinese cooked chicken will be allowed mere. Well be selling beef to them, allowed cooked chicken here. Not sure how i feel about that aspect of it. This is a big deal. Well allow chinese banks to enter the u. S. Market. A lot of back and forth with this stuff. Wilbur ross will be here to talk through the situations. Im in favor of free trade, chinese cooked chicken, i think i would like to know if thats what im buying. This is the upside and down side of trade back and forth. People would say looking at all the rhetoric before this administration came into power about a potential trade war with china, opening up a deal like this is news worthy and significant. I agree with you on the chicken point. I dont know if youve been to supermarkets in china, what you see across all of them is prepackaged, precooked deep fried chickens feet. Im not sure if that product will make it over, but precooked chicken from china, i dont quite get. I would like to hear more about this. Maybe wilbur can tell us more. Guys, you saw what happened yesterday, the retail mess that took place driving down the markets across the board. After macys came out with a report that was worse than expected, nordstrom came out with numbers much better than expected, but that stock got dragged down, too, as people wonder whats happening at the mall. This morning before the opening bell, well hear from jcpenney. Well get another look at another mall retailer for another chance for people to panic about this. We have dana telsey on to talk about the issues. Let me ask you this, do you tell the truth . Are you truthful people . Always. I like to think so. Sfrnlts certainly when you ask that question. We have a guest joining us today who says were all liars. Every one of us tells lies. No. He knows this because he spent five years analyzing google data searches. Hes written a book about all of these things. The title is everybody lies. He says the big data reveals things that people are not willing to reveal to others or to themselves. What we search on google kind of gives us a way in a lot of different directions, and were not truthful beings. Google searches tells us that were liars or less truthful submissions. Youre not telling everybody you have toenail fungus, but searching for it on google. Oh. We look forward to that in ten minutes time. See you guys. Coming up, the economy front and center on wall street today. Well set you up for the trading day ahead with mike holland. Worldwide exchange will be right back. Welcome back to Worldwide Exchange. Im wilfred frost along with seema mody. Futures at this hour are soft now. Joining us is mike holland, chairman of holland company. Thank you for joining us. Happy friday. Before we begin, seema, we had lunch last week before the French Election, he would never do this on air, he predicted the election and predicted the polls would be right and the Market Reaction and he was right. If you were wrong, i would have told you, too. You were kind to say that. It was very easy, the polls got it. Lets talk about the latest news of the date. Interestingly this new trade deal with china being talked about late last night. How significant is that and the progress which the United States seems to have made with china. As donald trump would say, its a big deal. Comes in the face of his campaigning against almost the opposite. Now we have good things going on with china as a result of this mornings announcement. His ambassador is someone who has been a friend of my xi for 30 years, former governor of iowa, biggest trade representative, if you will, for the u. S. To china. So we have good things going on with china. China is do going things now with its one belt one road stuff. I think we have some its one of the reasons the markets are as nonvolatile as they have been because you have the economic backdrop and things going on in the markets like the china thing offsetting the trump stuff. This deal suggests that trump is taking an aboutface on trade if thats the case, does this mean one should actually get more exposure to international stocks, knowing that trade may not be as big of an issue Going Forward . The last part of your question, the answer is yes. The first part, not so much. Trump, we dont know where hell go but hes a real World Business person. This is yelt one mois yet one m this people say a lot of things to get elected. Once in office they do what he did last night. Whats going on in europe, the numbers coming out of there, the numbers out of china, the numbers out of hong kong, these are all good numbers. The First Quarter we had european stocks almost double the rate of earnings gain of the u. S. Stocks. Same in the market. Not to have exposure there is a dumb thing. So far markets have shrugged off the issue with james comey. Is that a legitimate response . So far so good unless theres more information. I think the markets are a dsz pli apolitical. If nothing new comes out of this, despite the political ranting and raving, i think the markets have it right. Is it apolitical when the tax reform, Infrastructure Spending has been a catalyst for this mark market . If thats taken off the table because something new comes out and the agenda gets railroaded, the market goes down. Final 30 seconds, your view on those misses from the likes of macys and other retailers . Market is continuing to be destructive to companies that dont perform and rewarding to companies that do. So, you know, think of tesla, amazon. I think that stock picking is coming back into favor. Very nice. Mike, good for you, good for us. Talk that over the next lunch. Typically you do that when its my turn to pay. Thank you very much for joining us. Mike holland. Have a great weekend. Squawk box comes up next. If you want to stay on top of your health, one simple thing to do is take the pledge to go and get screened for the cancers that might affect you. So stand up to cancer and take the pledge at getscreenednow. Org it only takes a minute to take care of yourself, and nothing rhymes with org. Good morning. Retail wreck. The sector under serious pressure. We will take a look at whats going wrong, and which names are being hardest hit. Probably has nothing to do with jeff bezos being worth 81 billion. President trump calls james comey a showboat, i felt nauseous after that. Behindthescenes details of the fbi directors firing coming up. And wilbur ross announcing a new trade deal with china. Among the highlights that will open up, markets for beef exports. Secretary ross will join us at 7 00 a. M. Eastern. Its friday, may 12, 2017. Squawk box begins right now. Live from new york where business never sleeps, this is squawk box. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to squawk box on cnbc. Were live from the nasdaq particular ket site market site in times square. Markets ended slightly lower yesterday. You can see that that trend is continuing this morning with some pressure on the dow futures, down by 37 points below fair value. S p futures down by 6. Nasdaq down by 12. Overnight in asia, take a lock and youll see that the nikkei was down by 0. 4 . Markets in china were slightly higher. Hang seng up by 0. 10 . Shanghai was up by