Were going to tell you about the new drug trial results weighing on that company today. Guess how it went. Well, it went well for someone else yeah. Exactly. Box office blues Movie Theater stocks are getting crushed again today. Six superheroes cant even save those shares being very opaque here but well explain coming up in a little bit. First, breaking news, just this afternoon on fed chair janet yellen, our dom chu has more on the story. All right, so guys, Federal Reserve chairman janet yellen will be leaving the fed completely in february and this is what some fed observers say is no real surprise. Fed chair yellens term as chairman expires in february we know this and President Trump has already made his pick to be the next fed head thats current fed governor Jerome Powell, of course, pending confirmation by the senate there had been some speculation around the notion, perhaps, yellen would maintain a presence on the fed board of governors since her term adds a governor of the central bank doesnt actually expire until january of 2024 now, yellens complete departure from the fed both as chair and governor means that President Trump will have four open spots to fill on the board of governors. The only person we know is going to take a spot is randy corels confirmed recently by the Senate Nominations for the other post have yet to be made. In the letter that janet yellen did send to President Trump, she said as i prepare to leave the board, im gratified that the Financial System is much stronger than a decade ago and better able to withstand future bouts of instability and continue supporting the economic aspirations of American Family and businesses. Bill, kelly, for the rest of that letter, go to cnbc. Com. Still a very Big Development here with regard to future fed policy and personnel back over to you and i just lets make it clear once again, there might be some confusion out, rest of the regular media, shes not stepping down as chair of the Federal Reserve. Shell finish that term to january, when the next chair takes over she was going to be a governor until 2024 thats when her governorship was going to end thats what shes resigning from. Correct. Just making it clear. Right, right. So we already knew she was not going to be the next fed chair we knew jay powell was being nominated to that position by President Trump. But that didnt mean that she wasnt going to be part of the fed board of governors she could have still stayed there until 2024 this is just now her way of saying that she is going to take a step away completely from the fed after this is all said and done with Jerome Powell being sworn in next year all right thanks, dom. See you later. Welcome back, by the way. Thank you. We have just over a month to go in this year. Were on track for the first year since 1995 without a 3 pullback in the s p 500. But cracks in corporate debt could be one red flag for stocks mike santoli is here at post nine early with that part of the story. Mike yes you have to look a little bit hard to see those cracks obviously last week the stock market did get a little bit wobbly as highyield debt sort of acted a little bit little bit cranky i do think that thats one thing, though, that kind of brings our attention to the fact that we do actually have very high levels of corporate debt out there. This is not a story of companies sitting on lots of unburdened cash if you look at nonfinancial corporate debt as a percentage of gdp, were pretty much back up toward the highs of previous cycles thats been okay obviously rates are very low, cash flows have been strong. Companies have been able to cover the debt, taking what the market has given them. I would point to a couple factors. One is certain pockets of the higher risk debt market aring a gt acting a little less stable. Telecom, health care, some other areas like that. Also stocks of strong Balance Sheet companies are way outperforming stocks, weak Balance Sheet companies. That could be the market telling, look, it might look like a late cycle when it comes to credit concerns so all these things have yet to really filter in broadly maybe last week was kind of a test run for ultimately when this stuff is going to matter. As you know, guys, its one of these stories thats shadowed the market for a long time people always want to talk about how leverage always accompanies some kind of market. No saying how high is too high. I was reminded stan dreckenmiller talked about how this could be a risk for the next one. Which points to, theres no set number benchmark that has to be hit for us to say, okay, the top has arrived here. No. This could still go on if ar while. One way it might pinch, if rates go up a lot next year, lets say, if at least its going to kind of put some companies out of the box in terms of being able to refinance, its going to make it more expensive for others. Again, not doomsday but squeezes on the margin. Stay right there. The wall street journal c tod took a look with an entire page dedicated to warning signs in the market its not just corporate bonds. Among the other indicators, volatility index at record lows. Stock valuations, the highest since the dotcom bust. Treasury yields have remained low. Junk bond yields have fallen appetite for risky investments have soared. Tech stocks have a bigger share of the market than any time since the tech bubble. Going to add to i. Q. Level of post 9 here with the wall street journals ken brown that joins us with more of the potential signs. I feel like im at a dow jones reunion with all three of you here then you throw in the da vinci painting last week you dlou in bitcoin. I mean, some of the other social things going on right now. Weve seen this movie before, it seems. We have, you know, to call a top of a market is a terrible exercise because youre going to be wrong right. What we focus on is what can investors think in the next year, even a few months, what are the returns going to be as mike said, all this bond issuance, 6 trillion worth of bonds issued in each of the last six years. Corporate bonds. Yields are low what are the returns go iing tob in the future . Thats the only question we try to answer. Thats something weve just seen jack vogel weighing in isnt a disaster compared with some of the discussions of them collapsing entirely. One second, everybody. Where are we going leer were going to the white house we have a press briefing Rex Tillerson weighing in. Lets nissen in very quickly i call it the peaceful Pressure Campaign. The president calls it the maximum Pressure Campaign. This is to hold north korea accountable for a number of actions theyve taken over the last several months, last year or so. Le some some of you will know north korea was designated as a state sponsor of terrorism in 1988 that designation was lifted in 2008 as part of an effort to negotiate with north korea an end to their Nuclear Program that obviously failed. Because we can see where we are today. But as a result of actions theyve taken including assassinations outside of their country, using banned chemical weapons, these will all very, very serious actions on their part they put the public at risk as well so that along with a number of other actions that theyve taken resulted in their designation now again as a state sponsor of terrorism. I think as sarah indicated, the practical effect of it is it all we already have many of these actions in place through the current sanctions. It may, though, disrupt and dissuade some third parties from undertaking certain activities with north korea as it does impose prohibition on a number of other activities that might not be covered by existing sanctions. But i think importantly, this is just continuing to point out north koreas illicit, unlawful behaviors internationally and we felt it necessary to reimpose the designation for that reason. So with that, happy to take questions. Im going to let sarah referee because im no good at refereeing thank you thank you, sir is this move an sbeintent to incentivize kim jongun toward negotiations i think its been more than 60 days since weve seen some kind of test. Do you think that timetable is in any way promising why wait until we are back in h the u. S. The president said thatdiplomace were in asia this seems to be counter that. No, we still hope for diplomacy. And this is the timing of this is just one of us concluding the process there is a very specific designation process that we have to go through at the state department to be a ibl to meet the criteria to make such a designation. We wanted to ensure wed fully met a those requirements again, this is all part of continuing to puturn this presse up we continue to turn the pressure up on north korea by getting other countries to join and take taxes on their own weve had other countries in our visits to vietnam, they have committed that theyre going to curtail activities further with north korea, malaysia has indicated their curtailment. Singapore has cut off all trade with north korea, the philippines have cut off all trade. Just recently the deputy secretary of state has been in africa he had meetings with the Sudanese Government. The Sudanese Government had traditionally been buying military weapons from north korea. They now agreed to lawsuit all those purchases as well. So this is being its taking effect all around the word we think as it takes effect, again, this continues to tighten the pressure on the kim regime all with an intention to have him understand this is only going to get worse until youre ready to come and talk. Specific to the 60day window, you dont think its a trigger . Were hopeful that he continues this quiet period. Thats our objective is he continue to be quiet as well this designation, as i said, is one that were required to undertake from time to time. And weve been monitoring the situation. We wanted to be sure we had sufficient evidence before making the designation so this is a process that started actually several months ago. Secretary tillerson. Thanks, secretary you mentioned that you have increased regional pressure against the north korean regime. Do you have any indication that that is working . If you havent seen those indications just yet, how long do you go down this path before the administration has to change strategies we got a lot of anecdotal information that it is working and we have our own intelligence sources as well. And then what the chinese and others share with us that i think the general belief is it is having a significant effect on north korea we know that there are current shortages of fuel based upon what we can gather from anecd e anecdotal anecdotally, also from certain intel sources. We know that their revenues are down because a number of the Revenue Streams are being curtailed now. So i think it is having an effect is this the reason we havent had a provocative act in 60 days i dont want to suggest to you that i could say, but were hopeful this period will continue and, again, i think the president in his address in seoul, south korea, to the general assembly, i thought he laid out the case very well to them that he wanted hem to co em have talks because he wants to deliver a different future to the people of north korea. Thank you, mr. Secretary. A couple for you, the first, can you give us an example of a thirdparty transaction that is now covered that was not covered by either existing american sanctions or the u. N. Security Council Sanctions . Well, there could be certain dualuse equipment that may not have been covered under previous sanctions that this would prohibit now a third Party Selling that again, i dont want to suggest to you that the designation is something going to put a whole new layer of sanctions on them because, again, i think we already have north korea so heavily sanctioned in so many ways with the u. N. Resolutions that have been undertaken but this will close a few additional loopholes off. You and the president both referred to assassinations, plural we obviously know about the kim jongnam assassination at the airport. Can you give us another example of another assassination on foreign soil i dont have anything that i can share with you specifically. Secretary thanks. There seems to be more unilateral u. S. Sanctions against north korea on the way the treasury is going to aflounce them tomorrow you given up on getting china to agree to an isoil embargo . Weve not given up. Let me say this with china we continue to talk with them first to ensure theyre fully committed to implementing all the u. N. Sanctions and they assured us they are. Which as you recall, the last round of sanctions imposed a pretty severe restriction on the import of finnish products so fuels, petroleum, diesel, wh whatnot. We have suggest ted to them, yo control the oil pipeline that feeds their refinery you can do that unilaterally on your own if you want to increase that pressure. Whether theyre doing that or not, we dont know, and its very difficult for us to know whether theyre taking actions to curtail all supplies to them. Secretary, earlier today, President Trump said that the Treasury Department is going to be announcing additional sanctions tomorrow you described it as a very large one, the highest level of sanctions. Can youive us any insight into what those additional sanctions may be well, id like to leave it to treasury to announce those tomorrow theyre similar to sanctions weve taken in the past. Were just going out much more broadly flow to more entities. Id like to leave it to their announcement tomorrow. Not jump the gun on them and do you all see todays announcement as more symbolic or as something that really does have a lot of teeth to it . Well, i think it is very symbolic on the one hand because it just points out, again, what what a rogue regime this is and how brutal this regime is and how little they care for the value of human life. So i think if that in and of itself i think makes a strong statement, just the nature of this regime. As i said, the practical effects may be limited, but we hopefully were closing off a few loop locals with this thank you, mr. Secretary. Mara from npr. If china does not agree to cut off Oil Shipments to north kr korea, how can you possibly get enough pressure on them to come well, their fuel supplies are already quite constrained. As i said, we have evidence that there are fuel shortages in north korea. Obviously, the civilians are by in large the ones that cant get fuel we see long lines of vehicles at petrol stations. We see certain petrol stations that appear to be out of fuel because theyre closed when normally theyd be open. So there are indications that fuel supplies are already quite tight. As you know, they only refined a small amount of their fuel needs internally they only have one refinery that operates it operates at a low capacity. So they were heavily depept pp on imports which have been constrained significantly with the u. N. Sanctions. Is the chinese action essential, in other words, do you need china to cut off those Oil Shipments . I dont know that the cutting off of oil is the magic wand or the Silver Bullet that is going to bring them to the table what i would say is the north koreans have demonstrated in the past they have an enormous capacity to withstand a lot. Theyll make their people pay, but they have an enormous capacity to withstand a lot. So i dont want to suggest that we think that one action is all it would take to get them to the table. Thank you margaret with bloomberg. Thanks welcome in our Briefing Room any time i want to pick up on olivias question about the assassinations was how determinative was that in the specific evidence that you used to make this determination . And i also wanted to ask you, i think you and Ambassador Haley both spent some time with the president and thats unusual i know shes in town today ca can you tell us about that meeting . On the assassinations, assassination in malaysia was a significant event that caused us to look kafldly at what else they might have been doing as you know, that assassination involved the use of a chemical agent, a very dangerous agent in a public place so that really got our attention. One of the things that we wanted to ensure is we had a sufficient certainty around their role in that particular assassination. So weve been working with malaysian authorities as well. Been in conversation with them wanted to let them have their own process, obviously, play out as well. With respect to Ambassador Haley and i, we were both in the Cabinet Meeting today. I know without getting too much into it, there had been a suggestion from the north korean media about some violence directed toward the u. S. President. Was that a determinative factor at all in the decision to make a designation . No. Okay. Mr. Secretary, im sorry, peter baker, the new york times. Thank you for coming you talked about assassination on foreign soil using a chemical agent. Russia have done assassinations on foreign soil in london. Should they be we have to consider any country that takes a substance like that and use it illegally. Is there i dont want to comment on that thank you, mr. Secretary. Trey with one america news how do you balance the impact of sanctions . You talked about the people of north korea paying the price is this something youre considering when you talk about more sanctions toward the regime of kim jongun well, its always a difficult choice you make when you impose sanctions in terms of whos really going to bear the burden here the truth of the matter is, the people of north korea already live under enormously difficult conditions and i think what were focused on is a mission thats going to change north koreas trajectory, change their path. Thats the best way we can help the north Korean People in the future is to have kim jongun reverse his Nuclear Weapons