Good wednesday morning. Welcome to squawk alley for wednesday. Kayla is in San Francisco for us today with an exclusive tonight. Jack dorsey on closing bell as square reports its first ever earnings as a Public Company. Joining us from San Francisco today angel investor, a lot to get to with jason but well start with the news alert on apple. Loretta lynch testifying on capitol hill. Eamon is live with that. That testimony still going on. Reiterating now the governments position in this apple versus the fbi fight in encryption. Heres what she just had to say. I support strong encryption. We all have to. We need it to protect our data, personal data, financial data, medical data. The issue here is warrant proof encryption and just as we have security in so many other areas of our lives and still retain the ability to have very, very focused responses to Law Enforcement i believe that our technology companies, the greatest companies in the world have the ability to work with us and achiev
Have given us data that were supposed to be looking at. Were supposed to interpret that data and figure out if theyre going to raise or not. They told us were going to raise at least three or four times. You dont see the three or four rate hikes. It doesnt seem like a possibility right now and is the data changing in front of us right now because we have no idea. It seems like they hit the various data points. Job gains, joe continue, Unemployment Rate at 4. 9 and yet were still near zero Interest Rate policy. They have a dual mandate and part of the dual mandate is Financial Market stability. I do think they look at the s p and where global marks are and when everyone went to jackson hole and position themselves to the Federal Reserve not to taper further, you know, the federal reser reserve. So to petes point theres too much unknown or too much lack of clarity and positions seem to shift. The fed doesnt seem to be following through on what it says. The data seems to suggest that the
Starwood. Well talk to marriotts ceo, arnie sorensen. The president in cuba raises questions about Economic Opportunity there. And were hours away from apples highly anticipated event. Well look at what to expect. Valeant has been halted for the past half hour or so. As becky pointed out, mike pearson leaving the company. Ackman to the board. Predictable or not, jim . No. But there hasnt been much that is predictable. Theres a mea culpa note from Lehman Brothers taking the price target from 135 to 134. Taking numbers from 10 the reason i point this out is because the numbers are all of the map. No one knows the cash flow, what the company is really do. Ackman joining the board is a sign he cant dump the stock. They couldnt dump the stock. This is a great mystery, carl. When you have a company where you have to idea what it will earn, where its dermatological business is being carved up aggressively by allergan. Ophthalmological being carved up by j j. All this stuff. This is a company,
A barrel. Up a gain three quarters of one percent. Our road map today starts with netflix. Shares down big this morning thanks to weak guidance. What Ceo Reed Hastings had to say about the companys earnings. Goldman sachs ceo blaming the challenging operator environment for less than stellar earnings. What you need to know from that report coming up. Also dig into earnings from dow components Johnson Johnson and United Health care. Lets begin with netflix. Shares are falling in the premarket despite Quarterly Results that beat the street. The company issuing weaker than expected subscriber guidance for the Current Quarter especially on the international front. Meantime ibm out with q 1 results. Jim, lets start with netflix. You said last night you expected downgrades to come, low and behold you have seven firms this morning at least cutting their price targets. Many reaffirming their positions as buys, but taking their price targets down. You had bob on last night. That was fantastic a
Fedticipation. Looking ahead to tomorrow and what people can expect. Valeant shares are down big this morning after disappointing results. And its mega tuesday with five major primaries taking place across the country. Well go live to one of the most important states hitting the polls today. First up, retail sales down 0. 1 last month, in line with expectations, january sales revised downward from 0. 2 to 0. 4 down. Producer price is down 0. 2 in february. Unchanged if you strip out food and energy. The data coming as fed policymakers are set to begin their twoday meeting today with the latest policy Statement Due tomorrow afternoon. That will be followed by Janet Yellens news conference. A big question is whether or not their statement reflects some firming of inflation. Ppi today relatively stable. I think things are tame. Obviously James Bullard was talking about oil going to 20, how he might have to revise his view. It went to 40 and has come back. The thing thats devastating is th