The right person to lead the turnaround well be talking to former ge vice chair bob wright. The father of nbc universal. Hell join us live here at post 9. Get his take on the outlook for General Electric and conflicting reports in the last hour about whether the Senate Tax Bill will include repeal of the obamacare individual mandate we have Senate FinanceCommittee Member pat toomey here to tell us whats going on, and what other changes have been made in that bill. Weve been getting conflicting reports on exactly whats in that bill. Well get it directly from senator toomey. Is the rok uru run over stock pulling back after the 125 gain in just the past 3 days a debate on whether this streaming stock has run its course or just taking a breather right now. But we start today with big moves in retail. As Companies LikeDicks Sporting Goods and tjx fall after reporting their results this morning Courtney Reagan joins us with a roundup of whats driving those stocks lower courtn courtney hi there, bill, so it was a mixed bag for retail earnings ahead of the black friday week today. Dow component home depot, did, though, log another really st k strong quarter, still strong Housing Market and returnrelated spending fueling the Home Improvement retailer to beat expectations for earnings revenue and blow past consensus for comparable sales, putting up a really strong number home depot also upping its profit and sales forecasts for the year and on the call executives actually saying it might even be conservative if the first two weeks of november are any indication both the volume of transactions and receipt totals are up and the pro business makes up more than 20 of home depot sales, that was up 12 year over year in the most recent quarter off price retailer tjx, thats the parent of t. J. Maxx, marshalls and home goods, thats been a steady standout in retail this time it beat on prophet, t profit, it was disappointing the company says warmer fall weather is to blame. Dicks Sporting Goods beating across the board for the quarter. Ne next years guidance, a profit pof 20 . Invests in h ecommerce, store payroll and keep prices low for shoppers Steven Forbes thinks its the right thing to do despite the shortterm pain its going to cost back over to you guys. Im amazed that home debow sha depot shares are only up 1 . It happened last quarter, too, kelly, its this continued outperformance. Weve seen a decent run in the shares and i agree, its surprising, and i think jim cramer said this morning it doesnt make any sense, i think the shares should be higher, not what hes buying into. Thats where we set. Were higher by 1. 3 after a blowout result. Granted home depots been one of the best performing stocks. Exactly. One of the most resilient. Exactly. It clicks ever higher maybe the takeaway from this, can they do any better if this is it, you know, that stock has really priced for something. One of the few companies that can say we did better because of a hurricane. I know. I know. Ironically there, right courtney, while we have you, wanted to ask you about this walmart lord taylor story, so it sounds like you can now sort of get lord and taylor hosted on walmart. Com. Whats going on here walmart and lord taylor officially confirming the speculated online relationship, thats really the best way to describe it. Lord taylor is going to launch what it calls a store on walmarts website. Th that happens in the spring of 2018 why . Walmart says shoppers on its site are looking, serarching fo higherend products like the kind lord taylor does and walmart does there seems s to be potential lord taylor to find new shoppers they dont already have on walmart. Com and walmart. Com likely doesnt want to lose out in the shoppers on their site already are looking for higherend products. Walmart owns bonobos and mod cloth and they dont sell those on their website so really what its going to look like or how shipping will work, if customersitem from the lord taylor store from walmart. Com in the same basket its come inniing in the spring. What they want to do is create a virtual mall. Yes. Lord taylor becomes the anchor store. I like that thats a good analogy. I assume it means other stores may be coming along the road. Thats a great analogy, bill. Thats actually how lord taylor tried to explain it to me, i asked what about the merchandise, will it be the exact thing you find on lordandtaylor. Com . The lord taylor store in new york doesnt have the same merchandise as a lord taylor store somewhere else and look at our regular website as a store, this is going to be a steeore, th its just on walmarts site. You get it, bill, i think you got it faster than i did. And me. Taking no credit for that. Bill the retail im calling you next time. Thanks, courtney. Ill see you later that was all on background, by the way. Lets get to our Closing Bell Exchange for this day with the dow, everybodys lower right now. Victoria fernandez from crossmart Global Investments is with us today. Steve grasso from stuart frankel. Rick santelli joins us from chicago. Welcome back, rick so, steve, once again, it would even appear, i mean, we were down, what, 145 on the open this morning, it would appear that this market is still very sensitive to whats going on in washington as far as the wrangling over tax reform right now, yes . I would say its definitely d. C. Tax reform issues, headlines, and when you look at the overall market, bill, when we sit here and we watch this, Market Participants that are playing around in the market, trading this market day to day for years and decades on end, it feels to me that this market has been not only resilient, but when were down 5, 10, 15 handl handles, it feels like were down about 10 and i think that might be the new normal that has been thrown around by el arian about new normal as far as rates and inflation. This might be the new normal correction where you get basically a 1 from the highs and we feel as if oh my gosh, weve really corrected here. So i think that people that are buying this market have to make it right in their head and say, you know what, im really not buying a tremendous dip right now, and maybe there will be a little more to come, but we cog were close to alltime highs. What you make of the reports, muhammad al airian could be looking at vase chairmanship of the fed . Hes been my guest, been on cnbc many times. I think he gets it i think he gets the notion of a fat thumb on the scale with respect to Monetary Policy has its limits both in terms of dimension and in terms of time its on the latter i most agree with mohamed it would be interesting. Im a big john taylor fan. I think mohamde elerian would make a wonderful pick as vice chair. Rick . Yeah, go on. Im curious, i dont know if he still espouses the new normal the implication there is growth is lower, maybe productivity lower, Interest Rates lower. What would that look like at the fed . Qua does it look like right now . Thats the way it is now i think the new normal doesnt need to be the normal forever. Hopefully it will become the abnorm abnormal, get back to 3 plus growth i think mohamed dpully understand understands that at a time where growth is so chinsy and Global Dynamics are starting to pick up, i agree with steve grasso, its been hard to really identify any Headline Movement politically affecting market ma. Now its a different game. Europe smaking reforms, french are addressing tax policy. Isnt a question of the u. S. Getting more competitive its a question of falling behind i think these are all big issues i think Mohamed Elerian understands most of those and how they fit into policy victoria, apropos to all that, we sit here today, it was yesterday that calpers, the Huge Pension Fund said they were going to double their bond portfolio. Today the utilities are hitting alltime highs again at a time when the fed is starting to drain its portfolio and raise Interest Rates what am i missing here something somebodys wrong here, dont you think . Well, bill, i think when you look at a total portfolio, theres definitely a component that theres for fixed income regardless of whats going on in the marketplace. When people are looking at fixed income, theyre looking for diversification, theyre looking for that income component that they can rely on to meet any liabilities they may have. So i think it makes sense that they can add to their fixed income allocation, you just have is to be careful if you do have rates continuing to move higher which we an this pail well have in december, then you got to position yourself properly. You got to do shorter Duration Bonds to have in your portfolio, make sure you have coupons in there so when you do have volatility in the marketplace because of rising rates, you can buffer that and ride it through and reposition yourself out further on the curve once rates hit a more steady pace. Would you buy utilities here . Im not sure i would actually buy utilities. You know, as rates move higher, thats going to be a segment that really gets hit so i think for with the rising rate environment, i would aim more toward the financials i think we might actually aim toward some industrial names youve got some benefit that may be coming especially in the tax reform, if we get the expensing that you have coming, 100 expensing there. Theres some benefit for industrials. So i would look more at financial the and industrials and probably not utilities but steve, can we take a rising rate environment for granted when weve seen how much flattening the curve is doing, and to bills point about calpers, if the emblematic Portfolio Manager is going to increa increase its fixed income exposure, how much more could that flatten things out . I agree it is a complicated strategy when you start looking at all different pockets of assets, but maybe to bills point, maybe utilities dont believe that rates are increasing as fast as we think they are increasing and just maybe we skip december. What happens if we skip december wow. Does the market believe right now that we are raising rates in december i would say that 92 of the Market Participants say that we are. Do utilities tell you that theyre up 17 year to date. Theyve outpaced the s p so can it handle all levers being pulled i think theres room enough to say, hey, you know what, were going to skip december, and were going to unravel the Balance Sheet. I think that will handle your yield curve flattening with one swoop and then the market will digest it and probably move up in the equity market. Boy, if they skip december, that would just play into Janet Yellens comment today that the fed has been confusing the public with so many different voices out there. Rick, do you think that would be a smart thing for them to do . I think they should raise in december right right. You think they should raise, but when you look at reasons for not raising, and i understand, rick, your core and i do get it, i totally agree with your core, getting back to a normalized rate environment but are there reasons for them to hide and say we couldnt raise because of x, y or z low inflation. I think you would agree with that. Well, inflation absolutely. They can always find reasons. How many years has it been they find a lot of excuses i think at this point the market is ready for it. I dont suspect that its the december rate hike thats moving the markets the way it is. I think theres many other issues at play first of all, the dollar index is at a threeweek low okay not necessarily the type of behavior youd expect from a currency sure. Where the central bank is going to be raising. Very quickly, victoria, your thought on that. Are you positioning yourself for a rate increase . We are positioned for that. We have been for a little bit of time weve anticipated that the fed would raise the three times this year and possibly two to three next year. I know that inflation is low, but theyre really basing things on asset values, it seems, more so than the inflation component which they find a mystery. So i think, yes, i think theyre going to raise in december, based on the asset values that weve been seeing in this market all right i suspect weve been having a little shadow right now. Thank you, folks good to see you. Thanks for your thought on todays market action. Which shows some minus signs right now. As we head toward the close, we got 47 minutes left in the dow i missed that, the dow was down more than 160 points earlier today. Oh, wow. Now down just 37. S p down six, nasdaq and russell lower, too. Up next, shares of ge tumbling for a second straight day. Yesterday the Company Announced it is cutting its dividend in half today, cnbc spoke exclusively with new Ceo John Flannery well bring you highlights from that interview what flannery said that had investors fleeing once again today. Plus well speak with former ge vice chairman bob bright about whether flannery is the right person to turn the company around and we want to hear from you reach out to the show and share your thoughts with us. Nds twitter, facebook or even se uon email. Youre watching cnbc, first in business worldwide what is the power of pacific . Its Life Insurance and Retirement Solutions to help you reach your goals. Its having the confidence to create the future thats most meaningful to you. Its protection for generations of families, and 150 years of strength and stability. And when youre able to harness all of that, thats the power of pacific. Ask a Financial Advisor about pacific life. Ge stock falling for the second straight day, as the companys turnaround plans failed to impress investors. Ge chair and geo John Flannery was on squawk on the street exculusively earlier today urgin investors to have confidence in management we disappointed people with some tough news yesterday. So we were low on 18 outlook, low, obviously, dividend cut, and i think lower than most people expected so im not surprised the investor reaction, because we had disappointing news but im very confident where were headed with the company, and what we need to do and the team is ready to go. What gives you the confide e confidence, youve mentioned that a number of times in our previous interview as well yep. Thereat you that you are on that right track. You just described couple things ive spent, you know, as we said, 100 days just exhaustively crawling through the company weve looked at every single business, weve looked at how the Company Works horizontally, corporate spending, Research Spending i have a very strong command of whats going on inside the company. Beyond that, i look at my track record, david, if you go back and look, this is very, very similar to what i experienced in health care. I walked in, had a look, said this is fundamentally a very Good Business and there are basic things around operating, Capital Allocation, how we work as a team that make a difference im feeling very much the same way again. I recognized as i said yesterday, its show me time. I think the notion everyone had with the stock at 30 and the stock at 17 just kind of says what i most fear, which is that its okay. I would have preferred you to say, jim, you know what, we didnt get the straight story, and the straight storys bad because thats honor jim, ive been completely transparent in the time ive been on the job at what the issues are with the company, and what im doing to fix them that is my perspective thats where i am right now. Thats how im Going Forward thats what you would expect of me and i think weve been quite clear about where we have underperformed and how we fix that joining us right now, mr. Robert wright, the former ceo let me just say, hes the man who created nbc universal. When it was under the ge up yell la hes now a Senior Adviser at lee equity partners. Bob joined ge in 1969 as a staff lawyer and in 2000, then you became vice chair of the board as part of your capacity as head of nbc and the first guy to greet me when i got off the boat back in 1991 as well. The father of financial news. Standing right next to me. With the loveliest person in financial news, kelly. So here we go. All right here we go i feel like Jeff Sessions attorney general youre here to answer why did you buy ge and why have you hung onto it for so long . You had plenty of chances to sell. Because i was with ge directly for 33 years and 7 years i was out of ge, but connected to ge so its a 40year career and it is it has wonderful people great ideas. It was a wonderful place to work and, but, you know, in the last 17 years, ive gone through, you know, three horrible periods 2002 to 2004, the stock went down to 22 a share from 40, and it was when jack retired, it was 43. We got 9 11, it went to 36 the it went down further it was a power problem, then it was enron created this huge energy bubble. And that exploded. That cost us probably 10 billion, 12 billion, 15 billion, orders and payments then we had 2008 2008 and 2009 yep. That was a very expensive stock went to 5. In both of those cases they were macro events. That happened to ge. We also had about a 10 billion insurance problem in 2004 and 2005. Because of 9 11 and others having to restate the whole that was all in ge capital. Whats the problem now, what happened well, thats almost impossible to answer you know, one thing i can say is ge has and historically had a fantastic Organization CalledFinancial Planning and analysis group. And they operated at head