President and not their dictator who offers commentator on how its going, note of optimism, he note that they would retaliate if the United States wants to wage a trade war, i dont know, there was a bloomberg report that lee ho, reformer, trade negotiator expressing optimism, as you said, weve been hearing this a lot for what seems many, many months, years, but maria sure has, take the tariffs off the table or we will not buy the 50 billion in ag products. The warning comes with i want to do a phase 1 deal. I think what james alluded to, this is the longest soap opera now since general hospital. [laughter] thats positive, oh, but we have to do this, i actually see the ball having not moved forward at all. I think this is just more negotiations, i hope this gets resolved in 2020, if not, here is the great thing, the markets have seemed to have been inoculated, the markets are doing great in the absence of anything happening. Dagen in absence of escalation. Yes. Dagen again, President Trump can easily roll back the tariffs that went into effect in september and then the ones that are on deck, on deck for december simply because its in his best interest to keep the economy and keep consumers out there spending, avoid hurting consumers that help you in your reelection bid next year and this follows the news from xi jinping that they had reached out during phone call to invite robert lighthizer, trade representative and Steve Mnuchin back to beijing to hold the meeting, i always think back to, you mentioned general hospital, i will mention the show veep, where they are trying to instruct her on how to negotiate with the chinese, she had to firmly hit the table, unacceptable and then storm out and that is a lot of show and thats why i think when were the next round of tariffs were supposed to go into dagen its on consumers products, avoid to delay hitting consumers. Is that date still on . Maria the whole point of contention, the chinese want those increases set to come off and president xj jinping spoke out overnight saying he wants to work out a initial trade deal with the United States but hes willing to fight back if the tariffs are still in place, chinese officials as you say have invited counterparts to beijing, we will see, it looks like theres another positive here but he throws that in that we are willing to fight back, so you know, with trump you never know if the positive will remain positive for more than a tweet or two. Maria yeah. Thats the variable i guess. Maria yesterday schwab and td amritrade, ive learned the deal is being they are talk about internal conflicts of leadership, we will see if its over the price, look at the stock, 7 on schwab and 18 on amreitrade, you have to wonder once the deal got out, i reported it, once this start moving the stock, does that become an issue for the deal because its more expensive, 18 move on amreitrade, what do you think . Its worth noting big picture what a great and better and better deal for consumers trading stocks is, this is two traditional discounters, they are being pressured, they are coming together, they need scale because its just harder and harder to pull fees out of people and schwab, obviously both of the companies pioneers in the area, we are looking at a longterm really democratization. Their consumer assets dwarf anyone else on wall street, thats fantastic. Maria not blackrock, fidelity. Youre right, but it does allow them to be broader into the etf market, i think this is a great deal for them, great deal for consumers, we will have to see what innovations come out, i was saying yesterday on bulls and bears, i was trading back in the time when using a touchdown phone was a big deal and no one could i envision that i could do most of my phone well, we didnt have iphones, im excited to see what comes down the road, i dont know if ill be able to save any money. This is kind of the culmination of whats driving this, i think, the longterm movement and pressure to that the consumer has been paying less and less to trade stocks. Maria its looking more and more like a bank, increasingly a bank. You cant call schwab a broker anymore. Dagen that would be the focused of combined company, actual banking services, interest bearing and Wealth Management as well, but i want to say this deal will get regulatory scrutiny, this is the number one and the number 2 low cost online brokers, although that didnt that is a kind of broad definition now because everybody is in these businesses in some way, shape or form, nevertheless this will get scrutiny. Maria for sure, lets look at tesla, company unveiled new pickup truck but demonstration of the armored glass did not go as planned, watch this. Sure, yeah. Well, maybe that was a little too hard. [laughter] maria you want to talk about strong glass and dont go through the demonstrations, maybe they needed to maybe tested that before they did it. Maria, oh, my god. Dagen thats the body of the truck, if you could call it that is made super strong steel and they say that it can take blows from sledge hammers. Again, i dont know what this thing is, its way, way down the road. I dont know what even market they are going for, again, a truck. Its not a truck. Maria whats the point. I know you want to say that the windows are so strong and all that nobody is going to be throwing bricks at a window. Even if you werent, okay, lets practice this a few times. Hit the hammer. Lets see if the window breaks. [laughter] to dagens point, we are not sure who the customer is, looks like batman might be the customer and i think he would definitely want some protection. Dagen no from the truck market, the electric truck market is a big market, its growing at 17 per year in places like china and japan, i think, the electric bus market is really taking off so there is potential there, the problem is theyre competing against the big goliath ford and that will be a big challenge for everyone. Dagen even generalby the way, general motors, ford, these companies are moving to aluminum body pickup trucks because theyre so much more fuel efficient, this is a steel, i dont understand what about the window, are the windows aluminum also because they would not break. [laughter] dagen you know, im hauling long equipment around in my pickup truck and im really worried about somebody throwing a steel ball on any point. Maria former president obama speaking out, speaking to donors in california saying that democrats need to chill out about the 2020 field and should instead focus on beating President Trump, obama making several comments about the state of the Democrat Party warning the party about moving too far left, well, weve heard this before, james. Yeah, i dont know who hes talking to himself there. Hes one of the people who has said dont go too far left, you dont need to remake all of americas structural, you know, economy, everything else, health care, hes basically talked about how voters dont necessarily want a revolution, they just want to move on from trump, that would be his position, so im not sure, yeah, maybe a moment of reflection. Dagen where is his endorsement of Vice President biden. Maria we are still waiting for that, however, he did endorse justin trudeau, so here you go. [laughter] maria slip in a short break, we are just getting started, also on deck arizona congresswoman and member of House Judiciary Committee debbie lesko is here talking about the impeachment hearings yesterday, plus trump Foreign Policy adviser carter page on fisa abuse and the ig report and new information this morning about a criminal investigation into the fbi lawyer, former connecticut senator is here on impeachment and iran, cofounder and ceo Neil Blumenthal on the companys launch and New York Stock Exchange stacy on 2019ipo, status check there because, of course, things have slowed down, dont miss a moment of it, slip in a short break and facebook deciding not to Police Political ads, this morning brandnew pressure on ceo Mark Zuckerberg, we have that for you, hopkins scores, more special than a touchdown dance, what the wide receiver did last night. Ask maria segment, dont forget to send me your questions through instagram or twitter accounts at Maria Bartiromo, back in a minute. Maria welcome back, the president and the first lady honor two fallen american soldiers, Cheryl Casone on headlines, cheryl. Cheryl thats right the president and Melania Trump made unscheduled visit to Dover Air Force space to pay respect to two soldiers killed in afghanistan, 33yearold chief david nadal and circumstance, jr. Killed on wednesday while providing air support to ground troops. Well, a former fbi staffer reportedly being investigated for altering a document in russia probe, the document apparently discovered by Justice DepartmentInspector GeneralMichael Horowitz. Its unclear what document was altered and if it had any impact on the russia investigation, carter page is going to be joining maria in the 7 00 a. M. Eastern time hour this morning. Well, reports of layoffs at wework now a reality, the company cut 2400 jobs, nearly 20 of its workforce after being forced to pull initial offering in september, wework slashing cost following takeover by softbank and the forced resignations ceo adam nueman, now a reality, maria. Maria thank you, vaping epidemic, another city banning flavored ecigarette including g menthyl, frozen two hitting theaters. the enchanted disney fine jewelry collection. With exclusive bridal styles at zales, the diamond store. Wow giving one. How did you guys. . Dont ask. The lexus december to rembember sales event get 0 percent apr for 60 months on all 2019 models. Experience amazing at your lexus dealer. shaq chime magenta . I hate cartridges not magenta not magenta. Im not going back to the store. Magenta cartridges are so. buzzer vo the epson ecotank. No more cartridges. It comes with an incredible amount of ink that can save you a lot of frustration. The epson ecotank. Just fill and chill available at. 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Ends saturday maria welcome back, farm Internal Revenue tones for markets, futures indicating gain in dow industrials on china trade optimism, s p is up 2 and a half and nasdaq futures are higher by 17. Chinese president xi jinping saying today that he wants a phase 1 trade deal with the United States on the basis of, quote, mutual respect, hes not afraid to fight back if not. Some investors not so hot on the economy ray bridge Water Associates making a billion plus dollar bet that Global Markets will tank, tank by march according to wall street journal this morning, joining us right now chief Investment Officer of Northern TrustWealth Management katie nixon, what do you make of ray dalios remarks . We dont agree, i dont think anything in the forecast that would suggest the market is going to tank, if you think about what what would make markets tank, walk get away from trade deal and probably Going Forward with the december tariffs, that might be somebody that would certainly create a lot of negative sentiment in the market, thats not our base case, we think that theyll be some sort of a deal that struck or an economic recession and we certainly dont have that in our forecast either, we disagree with that forecast that the markets are going to tank by march. Maria pretty good backdrop actually. We talked about the consumer doing well, the big question with this china trade fight has been do ceos hold off on investments, do they do nothing, do they move manufacturing out of china and stake their claim someone else, what do you see now as you look at companies, earning reports coming in, earnings calls happening, whats the message out there on investment by companies . So, i mean, you exactly put it correctly, theres indirect and direct impacts of trade confusion, the direct impacts are that companies are having to make decisions, theyre not waiting, as investors we have the luxury of going in and out of market based on whats happening with the trade discussions, companies have to make longterm Strategic Companies right now and i think they recognize that things are different and they will stay different, so they are making changes in their supply chains, they are creating more flexible supply chains and so the direct impacts are really obvious when you listen to conference calls, the indirect impact and its so important that we get past this is the uncertainty effect where there are a lot of companies that are saying, we are not quite sure how to build, how to grow in this new environment, we want to see how the dust settles and until we see how the dust settles, theyre not going to do anything. We do see sort of a pulling back of cap x and the kind of investment spending that you would in an economy thats doing okay as you say with consumption background thats really strong. Maria the state of the consumer is sort of mixed in terms of the last couple of days, you had retail earnings bag that was mixed although apartment were blowout and nordstrom shares up yesterday, William Sonoma down 5 , Third Quarter earnings decline, whats your characterization of the consumer right now . With the earnings in particular theres been execution issues related to some of the earnings, misses, i would say generally, though, the backdrop for consumption was strong. If you think about it, low unemployment, wage gains that are finally showing up, no robustly but positive, housing has started to come back, now consumers dont start to buy houses unless theyre pretty confident about their future so i think the backdrop remains pretty solid for consumption. Thats not to say gang busters, its not to say that we dont expect momentum to slow and certainly we expect gdp will slowdown next year. Maria thats what you said yesterday, dagen, with the macys underperformance, this is a macys story and not a consumer story. Dagen right, home depots problems are home depot problem, you look at walmart, the biggies, walmart, target, and txmax, tjx blowing it out of the water, those are stores that people want to shop in, in luxury, Apparel Retail that the sales have already broken big 30 to 50 off sales, they broke earlier this week, thats telling because again with barneys going out of business and liquidating, having to compete with barneys, something to keep an eye there. I want to talk about even with bumps on the road with trade negotiations, you have nancy pelosi now skeptical that the usmca trade deal will pass this year which is a little bit of a turnaround in the last week, youve got the Federal Reserve standing at the ready, maybe to cut Interest Rates again, the Balance Sheet expanding what about 250 billion in just the last couple of months, the fed says we are not trying to stimulate the economy, we are trying to smooth out shortterm lending markets, nevertheless, thats a very powerful bedrock or balance for the markets. The liquidity story globally is very, very strong, but to your point, i think the market expects the fed to be at the ready and so sort of the powell put is very powerful right now frankly and i think that the u. S. Certainly has a little bit more leeway to to stimulate and to lower rates here in the event that we do have a disruption because of a delay in the usmca, disruption because of tariffs or any kind of a global hiccup, we have more room here and we are confident that the fed will use it. Katie, a quick question, we kicked off the segment with ray dalio predicting decline in the market, first of all, that would have to happen to come into play by march, so i think thats un unlikely. But looking at the money market data, we have seen sort of this unprecedented inflow into cash and even just to fixed income, so there is sort of this underown story you would think a lot of clients would come in and buy even more. You know, it depends, best intention that is we will buy when the market is low and sell when the market is high, especially when the market is low, something pretty terrible seems to be happening and investors dont tend to want to jump with both feet. Maria you want to be owner of stocks going into 2020 . We own u. S. Stocks, from a tactical perspective. We like yield. Maria you dont like negative Interest Rates then . [laughter] maria of course, we all want yield. Thank you so much. Katie nixon joining us, Sasha Baron Cohen known for insulting people in the name of comedy, hes targeting zuckerberg. We will tell you all about it when we come back. Or trips to mars. No commission. Delivery drones, or the latest phones. No commission. No matter what you trade, at fidelity youll pay no commission for online u. S. Equity trades. At fidelity youll pay no commission experience th