T overnight in asia, it was a mixed session. Japan was lower, maybe due to strength in the yen it was off by 1 . The hang seng higher by 1 . South korea was higher as well. Europe positive as well, but not by much. Look at crude oil, wti, i just saw 52 53. 71. Higher by a half percent. Brent at 56. 65, nat dgas above bucks. Here. Heres whats going on this morning. Gold prices jumped more than 1. 5 during yesterdays session, bringing the yeartodate gain above 10 . Look at this hour right now. Well show you whats going on. You know, its up. It continues to rise. Looks like its close to a oneyear high. Continues to speak to whats happening. Thats also on the concerns of tenyear treasury, moving back below 2. 30. Gold tends to perform well in a deflationary environment. Which most investors dont understand. I dont understand that, but its supposed to be an inflation hedge. Its the reserve currency in a deflating world. I think the big story is oil. Oil saved the s p over the last couple of days. The market is so reliable on technicals, and oil coming back the last week or so, saved the tape. The tape yesterday morning looked ugly. Thats because such a large component of the s p 500 are oil related stocks . Not necessarily that its a large weighting, but its the concerns and ramifications of lower oil pricing. This time last year we were worried about energy loans, Bank Earnings. We just showed the tenyear. Its a mystery why it keeps moving lower. Why is the curve flattening . Capital. Are people worried about oil . Capital flows. When you have some rate structure that you do in europe. Its negative over there looks appealing. On todays economic agenda, march import prices s released 8 30 a. M. Eastern. Followed by the monthly federal budget statement at 2 00 p. M. Dallas fed president , rob kaplan speaking at 10 00 a. M. Eastern. Delta air lines reports before the open. Well talk about united. However fascinating story in the wall street journal about the different approaches that delta takes to bumping passengers and that united takes. Which is to say delta bumps many more passengers, remarkably more, but they do so voluntarily because they give much better benefits. Not just vouchers for seats, but Gift Certificates on american express, bloomingdales. It proves a point weve raised, why didnt united let price clear the market . There are conflicting reports whether they offered 800 or 1,000 in vouchers, keep raising the price until someone raises their hand. It was obviously handled completely wrong. To your point it highlights some of the other carriers, in particular the niche carriers, alaska, jetblue. Jetblue over the last five days is higher, theyre overbooking policy is much different. They dont overbook. No, no. Apparently on jetblue, up until last year they didnt overbook. Now they overbook. But the policy is a little different than what we saw on united. But i think it highlights some other air carriers. Well come back to this. Theres some docs which shows united filed some docs with the government when they were trying to get deals passed suggesting they wouldnt overbook. We have another plot thickening in geo ppoliticsgeopolitics. Secretary of state is ril Rex Tillerson is meeting in moscow with his counterpart. Tillerson says he is looking forward to open, candid and frank exchanges so we can better define the u. S. russian relat n relationship. Lavrov saying the u. S. Air strike in syria were violations of the law. An update in a couple minutes. President trump and chinese president xi jinping discussed the situation in north korea on a telephone call last night. Chinas state broadcaster reported that xi stressed resolutions should be achieved by peaceful means. This conversation comes less than a week after the two met in florida. Yesterday trump tweeted i explained to the president of china that a trade deal with the u. S. Will be far better if they solve the north korea problem. And north korea is looking for trouble. If china decides to help that would be great. If not, well solve the problem without them. Usa. Okay. And back to the united pr crisis weve been talking so much about, united co oscar munoz offering another public apology after a passenger was dragged off that flight on sunday night to make room for Airline Staff the you have seen it now. Munoz saying like you, i cant to be disturbed by what happened on this flight and i deeply apologize to the customer forcibly removed and to all cust mr. Customers aboard. No one should be mistreated this way. I want you to know we will work on taking full responsibility and will work to make it right. On monday he sent a letter to unitedd employees calling the passenger belligerent and uncooperative. Its all complicated. The reaction from the passengers is amazing. You can see how horrified they are. Finally, real quick n a separate development, lawmakers are deplannedi inin inin ining answers. Since this video surfaced monday, shares have fallen about 0. 8 . And theres two things that we wanted to mention here. I said it yesterday. Given the competitive dynamic or lack of competitive dynamic on so many routes in the United States and around the world, its hard to imagine if you were sitting on expedia or kayak or however youre traveling these days, if a flight goes there and united is there at the right time, the price is right, its not like youll take if theres no other choice. Oftentimes theres no other choice to match whatever your actual needs are. Im not sure theres a huge hit, a real meaningful hit. Am i wrong on that . I think in the nearterm, it does, as i said before, takes you to the other carriers. I think the flows of capital that were coming into the Airlines United was not trading well prior to this any way. United had been struggling. If youre an investment manager, and youre right now allocating capital to the airline sector, youre going to look into other places as this unfolds. You wanted the pa the facts. You want the details. Ultimately they may be fined. Youll see the stock go from 70 to 85 over the next year. Oscar munoz, is he going to pass . Is he going to live to fight another day . Is he not long for what an interesting reversal. He before this, he was viewed as someone who stepped in and rescued united. Now hes in a situation, obviously, where hes on his heels, on the defensive. They did not handle the Public Relations component of this properly. Theyll have to defend the story here. I think at this point he can recover, but you have to get it right from here. Economic theoretical question. Steve liesman asked it yesterday during commercial break. If the seat is so valuable after all, should we be paying more . Its like when at a concert they dont charge enough high enough price for the tickets, and the scalpers make all the money. If there are so many overbooked seats, you didnt charge enough to get on this plane in the first place. So you left revenue on the table, now you have to give up more to bump passengers. That, but i think steves point was also, if its so its so much more valuablvaluabf it costs so much to get off the plane, would you be willing to pay more to get on the plane . I dont understand the question. Meaning if you pay 400 to go on the plane, is the ticket worth 400 to get off the plane unless somebody gives you 8,000 . Youre trying to get to that meeting tomorrow or back to your family. You put a 400 value on it, because thats whoever will charge you. But you wont get off the plane unless they in many cases we say whats your number . Sometimes it might be 5,000. It depends. Are you going on vacation or going to a meeting that may make or break your life. If its a meeting that may make or break your life, maybe the seat is worth more than 400. Heres what i dont understand. What other industry can say a contract isnt a contract. You and i agree that i will sell you x for y, but i can change my mind at any time for any reason under any circumstances whatsoever. Ridiculous. Thats only because the regulatory body allowed that. Do you think it leads to a passenger bill of rights . Yes, let congress get involved that will make things even better. Give me a break. A couple of hearings . Theyll yell at a lot of people. That will solve everything. I bet right now some Airline Comes out in the next 60 days with a policy that says we dont bump we dont overbook. Bump or overbook. The question is heres the real economic question is that a competitive advantage in an environment where theres not that much competition. We have other things to talk about. Hopefully you guys were enjoying that. Earnings season kicking off this week. Joining us to talk expectations and the other big katdalli alca the market, the chief Investment Officer for Insight Investment mark, and darrell kroenke from wells fargo. Joseph is our guest host this morning. Does anyone call you joseph . We had this conversation. Joseph is fine. No joey. What was that show with joey on . Scott wapner calls me joyy occasionally. Friends. Friends with joey. Should we talk policpolicy ws waging the dog. Going back to the united thing, we should ebay the seat. Ebay the seats . No, i didn isnt that what they try to achieve . Dynamic pricing. So we hahave sillerto tiller moscow, calls with the chinese, earnings are coming. How do you feel about the markets . If we look back, we saw that Monetary Policy for many years was market beta, and were in a shift now. Two components driving the shift are geopolitics, trump and the policies around what may or may not happen andamentals that are stabilizing. When you say policy, is it uncertainty that we may end up in some kind of situation with north korea, russia, syria, et cetera, or is it that we thought this was a noninterventionist president and hes looking far more interventionist and that is the uncertainty . Were not sure who we got here. Its an unknown unknown. We are sending the armada into syria, but we cant really know. I would put that in the tail risk category. The tacks, trade and tweets have begun to evolve on taxes. I think in our view it could be more tax cuts as opposed to tax reform. Say that again . Tax cut as opposed to tax reform . What does that mean . Something along the lines of what reagan did in 80s. Cut the tax rates, say were square on economics for a tenyear trade. Call it a day. Then work on tax reform. Tax reform is complex stuff. We saw that play out, the complexities play out in the healthcare act. I want to get to our other guest here. Weigh in here. I think earnings will be really good this quarter. Talking probably 9 growth. Best First Quarter since 2011. First double digit quarter in six, seven years. Earnings growth, if it beats expectations. Earnings are getting narrower. Only three, four industries are driving the Earnings Growth. Three or four are negative for the quarter. The real story for earnings outside of the geopolitics conversation is revenue growth. 10 of the 11 skt 1 sectors wil positive revenue growth. And growth is expected to grow 7 for this quarter which we have not seen in years. When is the last time weve seen 7 revenue growth. Youre looking for the market to do what . Going in the market has not really moved. Thats right. Its been very flat. You get a layer below that, some of the signs, the reads around gold prices what you said about earnings does that cause a breakout . No, i think a lot of that is priced in. Its a good quarter, a good sign, because you are getting that, that will spill through to cap capex, but the reality is we think the market will be out over skis here. A dollars worth of cash here today will play into the coming months. Youre walking into kind of the seasonally weak part of the equity markets now. You told me earnings will do great, and now were walking into the weak part of the season. Sell in may, go away. Earnings are priced in. Earnings are priced in the market is always forward looking. In two weeks i get the first look at q1 gdp, which will be 1 and some people think weaker than that, unless you get a pick up in q2, the real data point is fridays retail sales number. That will be big to see how well the consumer is continuing to spend. Its important. Theres a lot in flux now going on. Hes in flux, youre bullish, but sort of not. Moderately bullish. And youre proposing the airlines use ebay. Coming up, secretary of state Rex Tillerson is in moscow. Hes meeting with russian officials about the sear yab civil wa civil war. That wasnt the original agenda. A programming susie welch has an interview with bill belichiichick tomorrow at 1 00 on power lunch. Power lunch. Hi, im mindy kearns. Its great to finally meet you. Nice to meet you too. Your parents have been talking about you for years. Sorry about that. Theyre all about me saving for a house, or starting a college fund for my son. Actually, i want to know what youre thinking. Have a seat. Knowing that the most important goals are yours. Multiplied by 14,000 financial advisors, its a big deal. And its how edward jones makes sense of investing. Welcome back to squawk box. Rex tillerson meeting with his counterpart in russia. Bill neely has the latest from moscow. Bill, can you hear us . He cant hear us. I thought there was a delay. Maybe not. Well come back to him. Lets talk about russia and secretary tillersons visit that is going on right now lets bring in Michael Ruben from the American Enterprise institute. Good to have you here. Good to be here. One of the questions with tillerson heading to russia is whether or not he would meet with vladimir putin. There was a question of whether or not the russians would cancel the trip altogether. They didnt. That was considered a good sign. Now in the last 20 minutes or so, the kremlin spokesman said it is still possible that putin will meet with tillerson during his visit later on today what do we take from that . At this point, the kremlin was looking at tillersons predecessor like Charlie Brown kicking the football down the road, the unilateral air strikes in syria have left the kremlin perplexed so this meeting is important. So theyll have lavrov meet with tillerson, but i suspect theyll negotiate far more seriously than in the past because theyre afraid of the alternative, what President Trump might do. Negotiation to what . Were back to talking about how it is assad can be removed from power. Is that what theyre negotiating . The interesting thing about our strike on the Syrian Air Base, it was very, very calibrated, very deliberate and limited. It wasnt a decapitation strike. So i think the russians read into that commonalty with the United States, that theres a fear of creating a vacuum because if Bashar Al Assad goes and goes quickly, the Islamic State might be the prime winner. They might be talking about, hey, look, we understand this cant happen again with the chemical weapons, and that Bashar Al Assad is an embarra embarrassment. But are there any other generals that could keep syrias prorussia tilt but have less blood on their hands, be less destabilizing . Well have quiet conversations about that. Dofrnlgt we have an answer about that . Ive seen the Russian Foreign minister when he has spoken in the United States, they basically say better the devil you know than the devil you dont know. After assad, then what . Who will be in charge . You have a civil war with al qaeda on one side and what are supposed to be less extremist elements on the other side. Do you want another libya . Do you want another chaotic state that we dont know who is in charge . Thats their argument. Is there an option postassad . I fully agree with you. The definition of moderate in syr syria, dealing with cannibalism, then you know its gone too far. Its not a question of the devil you know, the devil you dont, if you are dealing with assads inner circle. Bashar al assad cant bring stability. We wouldnt be in this situation if Bashar Al Assad dent allow the situation to descend like this. Before president obama begant air strikes in syria in the first place, the only air force flying over syria was Bashar Al Assad. He never once bombed raqqah, he was just dumping before rel bombomb barrel bombs and increasing the instability. What do you make of President Trumps conversation with president xi jinping last night. It looks like we had a force call as a result of the tweet. I hate to get into process. Does it look like they are being forced to react far more than they would have otherwise because of President Trump . Absolutely thats the case. Russia is to syria what china is to north korea. Its going bab ck to the clinto administration, to try to inst. Tiinst incentivize china. Has it worked to now . It wasnt worked before. The chinese demanded that north korea bring back their coal ships, because china is getting deeply worried and embarrassed by what kim jongun will drag them into. Are they going to do something about it . When you talk about coal, twice they said they wouldnt buy up coal, then they bought up all they could. Youre right. I am a historian, i get paid to predict the past and get it right half the time, but i see an analogy here to 1976 at the end of fords administration with operation paul bunyan, we mobilize the Carrier Strike group and an air wing in an effort to get to north korea to come to heel. They did. For the last two decades weve been incentivizing north korea bad behavior. Whenever they bluster, we give them hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars, it doesnt work. President trump is trying a different approach. Ultimately we have not Seen Movement in the markets, though we did see some concern in the volatility indexes. Are we going to war over anything any time soon . Our plan is not to. Its a dangerous situation. The russians have not had their naval presence so active since even during the cold war. So were in a takious situatie situation. Thats good for 20 in gold. Michael ruben, thank you very much. Thank you. We think we have the shot from moscow up and running again. Bill neely is back and has the latest on secretary sillert til meeting