At the Capital Exchange event this morning making a ton of news. Closing the deal. Ibms 34 billion acquisition of red hat has closed both ceos will be with us in just a moment. As we said, pepsi beats the street, strong snack and beverage sales backs the 2019 forecast Hugh Johnston will join us straight ahead. Futures lower ahead of tomorrows capitol hill testimony by fed chair powell. Moments ago at the Capital Exchange event in washington, larry kudlow offered his views on the fed to our kelly evans. Take a listen. Price signals suggest as they have all year going back to last autumn that last policy move in december was unnecessary and i think they could take it back. Price level stability, steady dollar, is what the fed should aim for in my view among the things he said, defended a rate cut this month, said no effort to remove powell at the president time. Mnuchin, lighthizer may go to china. Larry is the happy warrior in this era everything he said made me feel better, made the ma
Claims at a fiveweek high bon employee bonuses of 1,000 at some places. Now on to the next total in washington the shutdown as the deadline approaches well go live to d. C. For the state of play. And the apple conspiracy theorists were right the company does slow down your old iphones and consumers are upset. Details on that, coming up first up, though, as the tax reform bill awaits the president presiden president s signature, Many Companies announcing bonuses, pay hikes and Capital Spending sn initiatives. At t will invest an additional 1 billion in the United States. Our own parent, comcast, says it will give 1,000 bonuses to more than 100,000 workers and spend more than 50 billion over the next five years in infrastructure boeing, 300 million in workforce training and facility enhancements for its employees both wells fargo and fifth third raising their minimum wages to 15. Fifth third also handing out bonuses to 15,000 workers. Kudlow a few moments ago on twitter said hes never se
Welcome to power lunch. Im becky quick. Take a look at the markets at this hour, check things out, youll see theyre barely bud budging when it comes to these markets. The dow is flat, so is the s p 500. The nasdaq not even moving by a point. Its the first up day in the last three trading sessions, but up by a point. Oil prices, off a cliff there. Financials are leading the pack with Goldman Sachs among the top performers in the dow. And its another bad day for macys. That stock hitting levels that we havent seen since 2011. All right, becky. Also happening this hour, Global Economic growth should come in at its highest level in six years, but the oecd did cut their forecast for the american economy. Can the president really deliver on his promise for 3 growth . Plus, two Intelligence Agency chiefs saying today they never felt pressure from the president to intervene in the russia probe. All of this comes ahead of james coyles testimony tomorrow. And on a lighter note, go get your ticke
Lutnick and doug cifu to tell us how the increase in passive investing is impacting their businesses. And macys is reportedly considering putting a part on the Flagship Store in new york city. Were so desperate for grass, i think people will go anywhere in this city, central park gets a little crowded and 34th, they could use some grass in that area. Go up to macys now, you can find it. But is that the thing thats going to get people into the store if theyre going up there . Anyway, the reason we showed you a picture of daymond john, hes with us today, of course, from shark tank and a very, very successful entrepreneur on his own, especially when it comes to branding. And were going to talk about branding in retail among other areas, coming up with daymond in a little bit. But first, we begin with this decline in oil today. Here go the inventory numbers, wreak havoc in the oil markets again. Jackie deangelis is at cnbcs commodities desk with that. Jackie d. . Hey, bill. Crude oil break
The last two sessions. The major averages have maintained the gains. We havent seen any major hiccups. Relatively broadbased rally once again. Energy stocks are leading the way higher. Whether its a good idea to buy Energy Stocks, people are certainly doing so. The group is up 1. 4 . Banks have also been leading the gains we have been seeing over the past couple days. We did get that Oil Inventories report indeed, and that has been helping these Energy Stocks. Take a look at the percentage leaders. Weve got transocean, chesapeake. Many of these are those that are the most sensitive to changes in did in the underlying oil prices, and in terms of index points, weve got chevron and exxon mobil, which happens to be holding its annual meeting. Oil prices themselves were volatile in the wake of that aventory data, which showed larger than estimated drawdown in the weekly inventory numbers for crude oil. Gasoline is another matter. Its the 11th straight week that production has fallen, to the