The transports to record highs again today. Plus the grocery wars are heating up again. This time walmart is making a newing a b decision to go after amaz amazon very interesting a lot of people in new york city are very excited about it. Well explain coming up in a little bit. Good for brooklyn. We start with our top story right now, executives from two scandalridden companies have been meeting facetoface with lawmakers on capitol hill today. Cnbc cnbcs wilfred frost has the highlights of the wells fargo hearing, about millions of unauthorized accounts opened by that company and aditi roy has the latest on the exequifaxs ceo, the attack that compromised the data after more than 145 million milliamericans. Aditi, start us off. Reporter former equifax ceo Richard Smith was grilled for close to three hours by about two dozen lawmakers. As he headed out of the hearing, i asked him about the breach he remained tight lipped eped a walked past our cameras. Gave an eight page remark before he began the remarks with an apology. The ceo, im ultimately responsible and i take full responsibility im here to say to each and every person affected by this breach, im truly and deeply sorry for what happened. Ive talked to many consumers. Identi ive read your letters equifax is committed to make it whole for you. Reporter smith also told the subcommittee it took the company 40 days to notify the public about the breach because at first, the company only noticed suspicious activity and that it took weeks to understand the depth and breadth of the breach. He also said it happened because of human error and technological mistakes he also maintains that three exequifax executives who sold stock after the breach was discovered did not know about the hack when they sold the shares smith, tomorrow, sits before two Senate Panels for another round of questions kelly . And that could be fiery adi aditi, thank you lets head over to wilfred frost now, he has the latest on the other hearing of the morning it was wells fargo ceo tim sloan. Hey, kelly, yes, indeed tim sloan tried to list a variety of changes hes made since taking the helm as ceo ten months ago however, most of the questions focused on what he knew before the scandal became public, while in prior roles such as cfo heres sloan on that in 2013 when the sales practices issues were elevated to the operating committee, i sat on that operating committee, youre absolutely correct b, in my role at that time as cfo, that it was elevated to that group. We took action, but in hindsight, senator, we took action that was insufficient as i said in my Opening Statement senator warren in particular pushed hard, quoting past earnings calls at him. In the april 2011 call, for example, i think ive marked that one, you said, i cant wait to get a credit card in every one of our creditworthy customers wallets. Nothing about whether your customers wanted or needed a wells fargo credit card. All that mattered was opening new accounts this was warrens ultimate conclusion at best, you are incompetent, at worst, you were complicit either way, you should be fired. Strong words. Now, speaking to me on the way out, sloan summed up his feelings the focus of the hearing was wells fargo one year later i dont understand why we spent as much time as we did talking about history, but we were able to get our issues out. The stock has recovered from its lows of the day. Its now down just 0. 3 . Guys yeah. We got a lot to talk about on that one wilf, thank you. Good stuff there was tim sloans testimony enough to regain Investor Trust joining us in a debate today, dick from vertical group research, our bear today marty mosby from Vining Sparks has a strong buy on wells fargo right now. Dick, what do you think . I know youre looking at the fundamentals you see a deterioration of the earnings at wells forgo, but how do you think tim sloan is doing in trying to restore confidence in that bank i think hes doing an excellent job. In fact, while i agree with the senator that the board of directors should be dumped, i dont think he should be dumped because no matter what hes done the past, i think hes doing a sue bu superb job in terms of turning it around. My problem with the company is not tim sloan or the board of directors. My problem with the company i t havent been able to increase their operating earnings and havent been able to increase it in the last 12 month now theyre facing a restructuring of the business at a time when they need to do something to show they can increase sales and earnings and it isnt happening. Marty, why do you think his outlook is brighter then well, weve been through this before when you have disruptions and reputational issues. We see theyre working through that judiciously and with the fervor you need to have to get this thing pulled out. The testimony today at least what weve seen in writings afterwards is talking about the changes that theyve made. Which is a nice pivot. The second thing is if we talk about Earnings Growth, there have been headwinds that have taken away earnings. Look at the need to increase debt or look at the impact on efficiencies where they spent over 3 billion to fix these issues this year, once those things begin to plateau then get recaptured k ed youll see the earnings grout come ba Earnings Growth come back as we look into 2018 and 2019. Ill get you to respond to that, dick i was looking at charts today for the company. Its interesting that wells fargo stock hit an alltime high in february this year, and were only a couple dollars away from that so it would appear the markets not as concerned act the protracted deterioration youre seeing in the earnings right now. What do you make of that i think its pretty clear in looking at bank stocks, people are no longer looking at what do these companies produce, are they selling any of the products that theyre producing, whats happening to the quality of the loans portfolio . All theyre looking at is some mythical theory that if Interest Rates go way up, that Bank Earnings will go way up. Theyre forgetting, for example, the fact that right now, wells fargo is paying about sorry, the industry is paying about 45 basis points all in for money. Whereas, the federal funds rate is 116 points. Now maybe every american is a sucker and going to stay there and take ten basis points on his credit account, but if, in fact, hes going to demand market rate on his deposits, the banks have got a problem. Marty, what do you make of that point also here just looking at part of your case for the stock, you think theyre going to do things like lessenexpen expenses is that true given theyre trying to improve their public image . Not realistic in the next six months what were talking about is wells fargo as a longterm investment they underperformed since the announcement of this crisis a year ago by over 20 , so there is relative value in wells far go that you can catch. Their dividend yield is 3 if we go back to what dick was just saying, yes, theres starting to be a positive spread on deposits but always been a positive spread on deposits. Well see more competition as with e get 100 basis points of spread deposits are a valuable source of funding thats what makes a Bank Different than a finance company, you can create profit here. Let me ask you both, dick, starting with you, what you thought of tim sloan on capitol hill today under psh from senator warren did he basically keep his job today . Well, i think so. I think he got a little bit flustered under the harsh questioning, but i dont think theres any reason that someone should come after tim sloan at this point maybe a year ago, two years ago, but tim sloan has taken a huge efforts to try and turn this company around and reestablish its credibility. The most important one is hes gotten rid of the decentralization where sal salespeople were running product lines and centralized the operation bringing core business, core operations like human resources, risk management, you know, back to a central location, which is going to have a Significant Impact in improving the company, but not in improving the results what do you think, marty . Well, if you look at tim sloan, he was the cfo when this was going on look at the financial impact, its less of 1 . The cfo is in charge of accounting, in charge of the earnings, reporting those earnings they have impact in committees in general but the Business Operations is left up to the person running that business it cant be around the whole Company Running everything so, i think what hes done here is step forward, shown that theyre addressing these things with the real strength and magnitude we would like to see and i think hes making progress here all right, gentlemen, thank you. Good to see you both thank you. Marty, dick, thanks. Yeah. You bet. 50 minutes to go until the bell after a strong day yesterday in which we started the quarter with all four major averages in positive territory, the dow is tacking on another 78 points now, 1 3 of 1 smaller gains. Still higher four gains for the s p eight for the nasdaq the russell taking a bit of a breather yes. Down 1 1 2 points. Still ahead the oracle of omaha, how hes investing in the market right now. Later, amazons purchase of whole foods may be helping that chain shed the whole paycheck image. Well tell you about a study that found a rather surprising number of people who are defecting from one of whole foods key competitors, though, as a result. And we want to hear from you as always. Reach out to us here at closing acoo on twitter, on febk, send us an email. Youre watching cnbc, first in business worldwide kind of feel e its a game changer. I wouldnt go that far. Are you there . Hes probably on mute. Yeah. Gary wont like it. Why . Because hes gary. phone ringing what . Keep going yeah. laughs voice on phone its not millennial enough. There are a lot of ways to say no. Thank you so much. Thank you so were doing it. Yes we got a yes start saying yes to your companys best ideas. Let us help with money and knowhow, so you can get business done. American express open. I just saved thousands in less than a minute, i found out how much home i can afford. I like how you shop for loans the same way you shop for flights online. I didnt realize at lendingtree you can save money on almost any sort of loan. I consolidated my Credit Card Debt with a personal loan. I found a new credit card with 0 interest for 15 months. You just shop, compare, and save. And its all free. Go to lendingtree right now and start saving. Welcome back as we watch markets marching higher again today in a litany of alltime highs in the s p 500, names ranging from the defense stocks, some of the health care names, the home plays, and speaking of which, driven b by an increase in home sales and home prices. Deliveries increase 12 , orders increase compared to last year lennar trading up 5 . Becky quick sat down earlier today with Warren Buffett to discuss everything from wells fargo to tax reform. It was his comments on the stock market that caught our attention. Becky has more now from omaha. Good afternoon, becky. Reporter hey, kehl he, hey, bill it was what warren talked about with stocks. Youve seen higher record numbers that come in every day, whats happbeen happening with t oracle of omaha thinks stocks actually make sense at these levels at least for now. The one thing im sure of is that over time, stocks from this level will beat bonds from this level. If i could be short the 30year bond 3 or something, and long the s p 500, and just have it put away for 30 years, stocks are going to far outperform bonds. The question is, which variable is going to change and everybody expects Interest Rates to change, but theyve been expecting it quite a while. Reporter of course, the 64,000 question or maybe the 64 trillion question is, when the fed is going to raise rates and just how quickly buffett says he cant guess on that, has no estimate when it comes down to that he thinks not even janet yellen could know the answer to that question at this point that is something thats going to depend on the committeconomy other variables. Get this, over the short term, there is something he thinks is impacting stock prices right now, thats the uncertainty over the tax bill, whether or not that goes through congress he thinks its a better than average chance that that bill does get passed. He says republicans, look, they need a win, theyre going to put something up on the table and if they cant pass the tax cut, then theyre going to have a tough time passing anything. So he does think its likely it happens but says its impacting behavior right now including his. Thats really unusual. Buffett almost every reacts based on what he thinks washingtons doing, based on what he thinks the market is doing. He says right now hes not selling some stocks he might otherwise be selling to the tune of billions of dollars in Berkshire Holdings because he wants to see what happens with Capital Gains. He knows if the tax bill goes through, you could be looking at Capital Gains dropping from 35 this year to 20 next year in a matter of months so he says why would anybody sell anything right now . In fact, he thinks there are hundreds of billions of dollars in potential sales that are being impacted by this right now. So, guys, it will be very interesting to see how this plays out over the next few months. That is crazy. Right is i mean, he doesnt look, you know, six months down the road at all. Were marching every days to new highs. Does he think actually when they get that tax legislation changed, the wave of selling prs pressure for people who have been waiting for the change to come through reporter he says well see, hell know in the next month or two because theres only 30some days left in the legislative calendar to get this passed. If he thinks theyre going to pass it, hes definitely not selling anything this year and paying 35 Capital Gains he could sell next year and pay 20 Capital Gains. Same thing, end of the year, people are looking for losses for the things they want to sell this is a huge impact. He say its definitely impacting him to the tune of billions of dollars. He thinks this must be important. Everybody out there is going to do something similarly. This must be important. Kelly is writing it down. Reporter based on whether the tax bill goes through or doesnt go through, thats going to have a big impact people are holding onto tllosers they might otherwise sell. Based simply on the tax situation. Thanks, beck. See you later. Safe travels home. Becky quick in omaha joining us on our closing bell exchange, well talk about mr. Buffett comments oliver is with us at post 9. Sitting next to seven from the street. Com and Rick Santelli is at the cme in chicago i mean, you know, hes famously said dow 1 million, too, down the road which we can talk about at some point. In the more short term here, sarge, an impressive rally, twoday rally for the stock market to begin the Fourth Quarter. On the heels of what we already sea in the third quarter. No doubt. Were at risk for some immediate profit taking, i think, and i think as we head out toward the later stages of this legislative calendar, we have to pass a budget before we can talk about tax reform so dont forget the ecb. There is headline risk Going Forward. That said, i think by the end of the year, or by the end of the next six months we will have considerably higher prices for equities i do think the trajectory is still that way and it will also depend on who the fed chair is i do not think janet yellen i did think she would be the bed chair moving forward as recently as a month ago given her bewilderness over the situation, what got us here, i think shes kind of talked herself out of the job and i think youre looking at a guy like jerome powell. Oliver, how focussed are you on personnel changes at the fed right now . I think its important. Theres a big question the more immediate question to us, how is the deleveraging of the Balance Sheet by the fed going to impact stocks and Interest Rates as much as that helped drive asset prices higher, there is a valid argument, im not sure its entirely solid, that it will have the opposite effect as they start to deleverage thats a question thats going to be answered over the next 30, 45 days. Obviously , tax reform as we talked about tax reform. Are you waiting to see what happens with that before you make big moves as Warren Buffett is suggesting hes down . No, were not a very different scale than Warren Buffett that said, we do take into account tax situations and every year, as we get closer and closer to december and ultimately january, we look at maximizing or minimizing, you know, tax consequences for clients. The end of the day for most clients, individual clients, th Capital Gains tax if youre already long term is going to have a much lower impact than what Warren Buffett is talking about at this level because its billions versus thousands. Right. Im thinking through when you say, well, hes still hanging onto shares of wells fargo, there can be a lot of different motivations and he just brought up another one there even as were trying to figure out what that may mean rick, what about you essentially, to me, we have the dollar back toward about 94 at the highs today and emerging markets you cant keep them down reporter yeah, no, well, its very fascinating because i know youre alluding to that when the dollar gets strong, emerging markets are going to submerge and i dont think i dont think thats been reinvented, in other words, i do think that it gets strong enough, the emerging markets will have a problem, smaller problem they would have had five or ten years ago when the dollar denominated, products they were dealing with were on a larger scale. Exclusively and 94 is the level to Pay Attention to you know, we settle at 10 it, trying to get to 94. Lot of ground to cover especially ken you look especially when you look at the change of the equity markets still down is 1 1 basis points as you bro