MARIA-00
Hundred and Fifty One Thousand Jobs were Added to the U.S. Economy in
January; New Labor Numbers Examined; Crane Collapse in New York City Leaves
One Dead - Part 5>
Moore>
Sanders; Hillary Clinton; Stock Market; U.S. Economy>
SMITH: What is Donald Trump say he is going to be, Michael? Michael, you probably remember, Donald Trump said when he launched his campaign he is going to be the greatest jobs president the ever existed, right?
COURTNEY: He said that.
WARREN: We'll win so much that we'll get sick of winning. I do love that line. Look, I do think that the economy is going to play a bigger role, particularly, I'm interested in what happened with this proposal from the president to add $10 tax on oil.
SMITH: Thank you, Michael. That is a great tease. We'll talk about that in a little bit. I think this will take a lot of people by surprise. You have to prepare for this. Oil will not be at $30, $40 forever. That is a tax that will be around a long time. All right, Michael, thanks for joining us this morning. Michael Warren.
WARREN: Thanks.
SMITH: All right, two other top stories this morning, Wall Street gearing up for January jobs report due out at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time on the east coast. Could play a big part in the election, could be a market mover. We'll be all over this for you.
Estimates right now calling for 190,000 jobs added last month. That would be a sharp drop from December's 292,000 jobs added. What will you be looking for, Joanie, in this report. What is key for you?
COURTNEY: You know, I really think there are a few things that we start really have to look at. Wages are going to be very important. I know we've talked about it for over a year, but we have seen that they haven't moved.
And you know, even though 200,000 has kind of become like the good normal, we had a great surprise last month, right, 292,000 jobs. But there is so much more than the headline number.
We need look at where the job growth is. Are we starting to see any growth in manufacturing or construction remains strong? Wages are important.
Are people really entering back into the workforce? Do they feel that they have the opportunity to participate in the workforce? So lots of things to dig into.
SMITH: Now that we're in this rising interest, should I call it the rising interest rate environment.
MURPHY: I don't think we can call that yet.
SMITH: But now would good news be actually interpreted as a good news and bad news, bad news?
MURPHY: That's exactly the question. Is good news good news or is it bad news? So if we get a strong report in regarding jobs today, does that mean the fed has a clear runway to raise rates again which appeared to spook the market or are we back to where we've been last few years, a negative report means the economy is not strong. Therefore the fed will not act. Therefore clear for the markets to go higher.
OTTER: I think that Janet Yellen has to be a little worried. If she gets 292 number today, which I do not expect, but they say, my God, do we have to raise in March? They don't want to raise in March, not in face what is going on around the globe economically and especially in markets right now.
They just want to stand pat, which is what the market expects right now. I mean, it's none and done, maybe one and done this year. I think that is it in terms of what Wall Street is looking for. If they have to raise, they want a 210, 220, 240 number.
SMITH: It does appear that this market has been in a wait-and-see mode for this jobs report because it's really not doing too much right now with Dow futures currently up about 30 points. All that coming up.
But first up next, a top Democrat claims former secretaries of state, Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice have more in common with Hillary Clinton than just their job history. We'll have that story next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SMITH: Potentially damaging emails have now been released in the case of contaminated water in Flint, Michigan. Jo Ling Kent has the details on this story and other top headlines this morning. Good morning, Jo.
JO LING KENT, FOX BUSINESS: Good morning, Sandra. This is an ongoing controversy in Flint. The liberal group, Progress Michigan, releasing emails showing Governor Rick Snyder's principal aide was made aware of an outbreak of Legionnaire's disease and a possible link to the use of Flint River water last March. A spokesperson for Snyder, though, rejected the report. Snyder said he first learned about the legionnaires' cases in January.
Meanwhile despite concerns about the Zika virus, Brazil insists that carnival will go on as millions arrive from around the world. Brazilian health workers are spraying up and down the streets in preparation after the government confirmed two cases of Zika transmission through blood transfusions from donors who had been infected.
And congressional oversight panels say that former Secretary of State Colin Powell and top staffers for Condoleezza Rice received classified information on their personal e-mail accounts.
In an interview with NBC News, Powell is challenging the conclusion and saying nothing that went to his personal account was secret. Rice spokeswoman said the emails were about diplomatic communications.
SMITH: Yes, and so similar to the Hillary Clinton story, Colin Powell is making, none of the messages were marked classified when originally sent. None were determined to include information from the intelligence community. Jack, what do you make of all this?
OTTER: Well, it's the same thing that happened to Hillary. Powell said look these were not classified at time. They were subsequently deemed classifies. He says I disagree with that declaration, but that is their call. I'm out of government.
She is making the same case. I mean, to me this has always has been about judgment. The more monitoring the secretary of state, the more obvious it is you have to use your work email.
I mean, I started remember the moment when we were in the kitchen, my wife and I heard this story, thinking who does that. You use your new office email.
SMITH: So you know --
OTTER: But that said, I don't think this is quite as dastardly as her biggest critics. I don't think she was trying to share state secrets with terrorists. I think she had really bad judgment.
MURPHY: As this story comes out, it just seems to me it's like third grade. Well, I did something wrong, but now I'm going to find you did something wrong too. So it is Clinton side saying let's find someone else. Find someone on Republican side that we can pin this on also. We don't look as bad.
What Hillary did sitting in office, I mean, it seems to me the evidence is kind of indisputable, if Colin Powell, I don't know enough about it, if Colin Powell did it too that was wrong, but it doesn't change the degree of what Hillary did was 100 percent wrong.
COURTNEY: Totally different situation, having server at your home, right, using personal email for work is a completely different situation then a couple of emails might have gotten forwarded for one reason or another.
SMITH: To reiterate Colin Powell, he is strongly disputing all of this in this interview in NBC News. He characterized the contents of emails that were actually sent, they weren't classified or marked classified. He said the contents were fairly minor and he said, I wish they would release them.
COURTNEY: Normal air breathing mammal would look at them and say, what is the issue?
KENT: That is exactly what Secretary Clinton's camp is saying. We agree with Colin Powell, release all of the emails, but unfortunately, it is not that simple.
SMITH: All right, well, none of this is that simple. It would have been simple just to use the government email, though.
MURPHY: Exactly. It would have shown better judgment. Clearly what is going on with Clintons --
SMITH: All right, well, LinkedIn, a big story, may want to leave the fourth quarter off its resume. We'll break down numbers as shares are plummeting in the premarket this morning. Holy cow, you're looking at a $60 drop in those shares. We'll have the story next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SMITH: We've got an earnings alert for you this morning. A look at shares of LinkedIn right now, plummeting 30 percent in the premarket after the company posted a sharp fourth quarter loss coming in way below Wall Street expectations. Also forecasting weak growth for 2016.
But I guess it wasn't all bad news for LinkedIn. They did have some positive numbers. User growth did accelerate during the quarter hitting 414 million for first time ever.
I guess, Mike, my questioned would be why isn't that translating to stronger earnings? But in general what have you been seeing from tech earnings?
MURPHY: Well, if you're Facebook or you're Google things are great. If you're not, look at LinkedIn, people are taking money away from you. People are selling stock. Wall Street downgrading stock across the board. Seeing downgrades and price target cuts.
Look at quarter, it wasn't a terrible quarter. It's more about the guidance. One thing to look at here, Sandra, is we hear a lot about unicorns and private company valuations.
You look right now, if LinkedIn was private company this wouldn't cause a massive write-down in value of stock. The company is losing 30 percent of its value this morning on what was for all intents and purposes a good quarter.
So I think there is some support here. You never want to jump in and buy this on massive selloff. If you look for longer term hold, if you are looking for value, I think LinkedIn at some point will come in and create some value.
COURTNEY: But do you think that, you know, Facebook is kind of making a play now? They talked about that they're really wanting to get into the professional space and really do more in professional networking and jobs.
SMITH: Because they're already used in that capacity a lot.
COURTNEY: They are. From -- it is more obviously Facebook has been more that social piece, but you are hearing a lot, they're not there yet, but still good networking site. Do you think that kind of factors into this equation?
MURPHY: It does for sure. I think it is more people are looking at quarter that Facebook put out and quarter that Google put out and they are saying I will invest, for instance, Facebook is trading at about 18 times sales.
Whereas LinkedIn is trading down around eight or nine times sales. But people are saying I'll pay up for Facebook because they're doing everything right. They're unstoppable.
Whereas LinkedIn was there in the past, but now people are starting to question them. That leads to 30 percent drawdown.
SMITH: Jack, you watch these companies pretty closely. We have Twitter coming out next week as well? You like anything in the space right now?
OTTER: Well, I think it comes down to, you know, Facebook, value proposition for the user is incredibly powerful. You see that the numbers. People spend half an hour a day on Facebook. Whether it is your family, friend, what your high school girlfriend looks like these.
SMITH: Your work.
OTTER: But Twitter and LinkedIn are a little more work oriented. Some people use Twitter as tool. A lot of people in this country never looked at Twitter. That is not true. My mom and dad are on Facebook. Neither know what LinkedIn is. They love networking.
A lot of people don't care less about networking. They're not using it. People gravitate towards that they find interesting. Advertisers will put their money in but that is not happening at LinkedIn.
SMITH: President Obama set to unveil a plan for a 21st Century clean transportation system that he hopes to fund with a new tax on a barrel of oil. Why wasn't it topic on last night's Democratic debate? It was completely ignored. We have complete details on all of this. How it will affect you and your bottom line next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SMITH: Good morning, everyone. Welcome back. I'm Sandra Smith. Maria Bartiromo has the morning off. It is Friday, February 5th. And with me this hour, Monster Worldwise, Joanie Courtney is here, Rosecliff Capital's Mike Murphy, and Barron's online editor, Jack Otter.
Your top stories at 6:30 a.m. on the east coast. Sparks flying at last night's Democratic debate. Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders clashing over who is the more progressive candidate and Clinton is back on the defensive over her paid speeches on Wall Street.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think I may not have done the job in explaining the record when I left the secretary of state like so many former officials, military leaders, journalists, other. I did go on the speaking circuit.
I spoke to heart doctors. I spoke to the American Camping Association. I spoke to auto dealers and yes, I spoke to firms on Wall Street. They wanted me to talk about the world, what my experience had been a secretary of state.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SMITH: On the Republican side, new "Wall Street Journal" polling released moments ago shows Senator Marco Rubio gaining steam after his third-place finish in Iowa. While Donald Trump remains the top choice for the 30 percent voter support. Rubio coming in second place beating Iowa frontrunner, Ted Cruz.
A big day on tap for the markets and the economy, we are getting ready for it this morning, the January jobs report will be out at 8:30 a.m. Eastern. Right now expectations are for 190,000 to have been added in the latest month. The unemployment rate is expected to hold steady at 5 percent.
Looking at futures this morning. In a holding pattern, we are looking at Dow futures right now basically unchanged on the morning up just 4 points. They are waiting for that jobs report.
It's also the end of a pretty wild week. Oil has been a key factor in driving price action this week. Oil prices are right now up just slightly, up 10 cents at $31.82 a barrel. We are going to be talking about this in just a minute.
The president proposing $10 per barrel, a new tax on oil. This happened yesterday and Democrats last night in that debate didn't even mention it. We are going to talk about it.
The big game, Super Bowl 50, is almost here. The Denver Broncos and Carolina Panthers will hit the field for the final time today before heading to the big game. We'll take you live to San Francisco for a look at the action surrounding the NFL championship.
All right, "Barron's" cover story calling for oil prices to fall to $20 a barrel, but saying prices could rise as high as $55 by end of the year.
Phil Flynn is at CME Group with more on this. Phil, good morning, sir. It's been a while. Good to see you.
PHIL FLYNN, PRICE FUTURES GROUP: Good morning, Sandra. It has been, great to see you.
SMITH: Fill me in. Where are we with this wild ride in the oil market?
FLYNN: Well, if you believe "Barron's" there will be another leg down. That is what they're predicting. They stuck with their bearish call even when oil prices rallied $20 in middle of summer. But they are saying there will be another leg down.
But I agree what they're saying. Whether we get another leg down or find a bottom where we're at right now, we're getting close to the point where these prices are unsustainable.
Capital spending cuts, rate count cuts, they are going to take their toll and we are going to be shocked how quickly this market could tighten later in the year.
If the global economy doesn't fall apart, if demand hangs where it is right now, with these cuts in production, prices should rebound. Where are we at? Energy companies are struggling. Why don't we you put on a $10 a barrel tax and put them all out of business? Back to you, Sandra.
SMITH: Wow, Phil Flynn, unbelievable story there. I wish somebody from "Barron's" was here so I can ask them about the $20 call for oil. Good thing, Jack Otter, Barrons.com editor is here. At $20, you think we'll see it?
JACK OTTER, BARRONS.COM EDITOR: Well, this is essentially a capitulation low. We don't think it's going to sit at 20 for a long time. All the forces that you already know about, Iran coming online.
Storage facilities are filling up everywhere. It was such a warm winter in Europe, they're out of storage. In the U.S., we're getting close to capacity. If we should hit capacity that would force oil to go on the bidding block and the best price would get it.
Also, refineries tend to go down for maintenance in April. That is going to further reduce demand, increase supply. Finally, we looked at short interest, excuse me, short interest in the futures market.
That bottom did about 150,000 contracts in 2008. We're 250,000 short contracts now, which is low, but not at capitulation low. We think will hit that and then go up from there.
SMITH: Quick summary, you guys are saying it could go as low as $20 but "Barron's" is also saying we could see 55 by -- I want to get to this --
OTTER: For the reasons Phil just pointed out.
SMITH: I want to get to this oil tax, the president proposing $10 per barrel, a new oil tax on companies, not mentioned last night at the Democratic presidential debate but Marco Rubio, obviously currently running for the presidency, he had a little something to say about this, listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARCO RUBIO (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Who's going to pay that? You are. You're going to pay it. Sure the barrel of oil is down to $35. It ain't going to be there forever, but the tax will be, all to fund this pipe-dream that he has of high speed this and clean cars that and, we don't need a tax for these things. Everything is about a tax. They're obsessed with taxes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SMITH: Very passionate response there. Maybe we'll get one from the North Dakota Senator John Hoeven, who is joining us live this morning. Good to have you, Senator. You sit on the Senate Energy Committee.
SENATOR JOHN HOEVEN (R), NORTH DAKOTA: Right.
SMITH: What do you make of this new proposal for an oil tax?
HOEVEN: Well, I think senator Rubio had it about right. It is a bad idea. It's certainly not going to go anywhere in Congress.
SMITH: Any point talking about it? I mean, we're talking about a proposal for a new oil tax while we are looking at oil at $30 a barrel, historically low. Are we looking at the administration trying to take advantage of that low oil price environment by proposing this tax right now?
HOEVEN: I think both Marco and your analyst had it right. I mean, it makes no sense to put $10 tax per barrel on oil at a time when our companies are fighting in a global competition to just stay in business.
And, so I mean you're talking, not only loss of jobs, not only hurting economic growth, you're talking about impact to consumers at the pump. They're going to pay more.
And what happens of course if our companies are put out of business, we go back to relying on OPEC and Russia and Venezuela. Again from a national security standpoint, that makes no sense.
So it's a bad idea, would hurt consumers, hurt job creation. Congress knows that. It will be interesting to see if the Democrat candidates certainly, Secretary Clinton, if she embraces this in the campaign because I think it's very problematic.
SMITH: Senator, by the looks of it she is not embracing it, considering neither she or Bernie Sanders even brought it up once last night on Democratic debate, on a day proposed by the Democratic president.
Senator, I want to ask you generally speaking as we were just flashing oil prices still hovering around $30 a barrel, what is the situation in your state right now as we do continue to see the economy getting hit by this low energy price environment?
HOEVEN: Well, it's challenging no question about it. Look our companies, whether it's in North Dakota or throughout the United States are fighting to stay in business. They're locked in global competition against OPEC and Russia, and other energy suppliers.
Americans want energy provided here at home. We don't want to go back to dependency on OPEC so in states like mine it's tough. We built strong reserves and we built a very good business climate.
So we can compete as long as the federal government doesn't keep adding taxes and more regulations hurting our ability to produce energy here at home and in essence with agreements like the president's Iran agreement helping our adversaries compete overseas. It makes no sense.
SMITH: Senator, you're obviously very critical of the president right now. Looking at GOP side. You're Republican senator from North Dakota sitting on energy side of the equation. What -- have you, by the way, decided who you're endorsing for president?
HOEVEN: You know I haven't endorsed anyone at this point. I will support our nominee. I think we have good candidates. You mentioned one this morning. There are others. I'm excited about our chances to win and get back --
SMITH: By mentioning that were you talking about Marco Rubio?
HOEVEN: Yes, Marco and others too are doing a great job. But we've got to get back to growing this economy and empowering investment, not more regulation and higher taxes that are hurting an already soft economy.
SMITH: Senator, it's great to get your reaction to this, a $10 a barrel oil tax proposed by the president yesterday. No mention in the Democratic debate last night. It will be interesting. All happening in election year. Any forecasts by the way?
HOEVEN: As far as the price of oil or elections?
SMITH: Sure, we'll take that, Senator? What will happen with the price of oil do you think?
HOEVEN: The Department of Energy says we'll be back in that 40 plus range end of the year, 50s next year. Again, we can compete at those levels.
And on the election side, I think we're going to get behind our nominee and I believe the Republicans will win this election because it is time for a change in direction. Get our economy going and growing to empower that investment and create jobs and grow the economy.
SMITH: Good stuff, Senator. Great to have you this morning. Thank you.
HOEVEN: Thanks, Sandra.
SMITH: All right, coming up, Martin Shrekeli refusing to testify on Capitol Hill yesterday, but he was busy on social media, just minutes after leaving the chambers. What's the deal with all of that? We're going to talk about it.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SMITH: A nightmare for the IRS while those trying to pay their taxes ended yesterday. Jo Ling Kent has that story and more. Jo, it was one of the stories you had to see it to believe it. They can't get their web site working.
JO LING KENT, FOX BUSINESS: Exactly. With 24 hours for the IRS to recover from a crash on some of its hardware and software. Officials still haven't said what caused the outage, but systems were backed up and running one day after several of its tax processing tools went down.
Here is some Super Bowl fun for you. Snoop Dogg has a new (inaudible) stopped by the Denver Broncos media availability as a temporary correspondent for a show asking players some very interesting questions.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SNOOP DOGG: First of all, can I get a discount on Papa John's pizza when I'm in the state of Colorado?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Absolutely, absolutely.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KENT: Peyton Manning owns several pizza franchises in Denver. Super Bowl 50, of course, kicks off at 6:30 p.m. Eastern this Sunday.
And a major volcano eruption in Southern Japan. Take a look at this video. The eruption burst into sky with lava rolling down the mountain slope in Japan. No immediate reports of injuries, but we do know the volcano is only about 30 miles from a nuclear plant and is one of the most active in Japan -- Sandra.
SMITH: All right, Jo, thank you. After telling Maria Bartiromo he is innocent in an exclusive interview that aired earlier this week on MORNINGS WITH MARIA, Martin Shkreli pleaded the fifth in a hearing before Congress yesterday.
The images were something. He smirked, grinned instead of answering questions, and then took his snark to Twitter. "Wall Street Journal" reporter, Rob Copeland, has interviewed him and spent time with him even outside of those interviews.
Rob, good to have you here this morning. First of all, your personal take in perspective on this man.
ROB COPELAND, "WALL STREET JOURNAL" REPORTER: Look, what we saw yesterday is what we've seen for Martin for six months on the national stage.
SMITH: Which is what?
COPELAND: He really truly believes he did nothing wrong and he's been completely picked on, and he does what every other pharmaceutical company does.
SMITH: Does he have a point?
COPELAND: He has a bit of a point. I mean, he raised the price of dairy print more than most of his peers would have. More importantly he's done it in this flamboyant fashion. He took to Twitter. Even yesterday he did a video streaming, multi-hour --
SMITH: Why is he acting like this? We are looking at him smirking right now as he sat down. He got up, left, and you said took this smirk and this personality to Twitter. Why is he behaving like that?
COPELAND: Because he truly believes, as he said, he's had a tweet that said that Congress were imbeciles. That is what he believes. He has no filter.
SMITH: And has no respect obviously for Congress as well. Jack, I'm sure you're watching this story as well. It is one of those things that is hard to believe.
This is what he tweeted, by the way, "It is hard to accept" -- if you want to put that back up we will read that. This was the tweet, "Hard to accept that these imbeciles represent the people in our government." That is in a sign absolutely no respect.
OTTER: He looks to me like a bad guy in the Batman movie. Sort of this exaggerated sense of facial expressions that nobody actually does in real life. The people who dislike this man the most are chief executive officers of pharmaceutical companies.
He has put a spotlight on what they've been managing to do quietly, a little more subtly and not quite as romantically. Now, you know, all Congress is looking at their industry.
I have lunch with an investor in the health care space. I said you know, other companies are raising drug prices. They said, yes, they are.
And he ticked off a bunch of investments where these companies have been going in double digits every single year. Insurance companies have been paying what we have with rates going up and now this guy has finally calls attention to it.
MICHAEL MURPHY, ROSECLIFF CAPITAL FOUNDER: He has become a larger-than- life character. If you want to call it nervous energy, if you want to call it disdained. But nothing he did yesterday, although -- he has befriending a lot of people, but it's not criminal what he's doing.
To go there and act, kind of as if you have no respect for the entire system is one thing to judge him on and that is fine. The fact it is not permanently. He's doing anything wrong there.
SMITH: Where does the story go now? Where does he go now?
COPELAND: Sure. He really has two issues. One, he is no longer chief executive and has problems with other pharmaceutical companies. His business is crumbling in that sense.