Inflation numbers are up. Sharper than expected. You are looking at yields at tenyear at 2. 6 . We have news breaking overnight. Uk watchdog giving the green light to the microsoft 69 billion takeover bid of activisionblizzard. It removes the hurdle for the deal to close. The regulators said this deal would stop microsoft from locking up competition in cloud gaming and preserve customers. In a post on x, brad smith said we are grateful for the review and decision today. We crossed the final regulatory hurdle to close the deal to benefit players in the gaming industry worldwide. This has been one for the books. Saga that i dont think anyone was anticipating would go on this long. Given all of the regulatory hurdles. Maybe the ftc. And cma. There was a question of if they would ultimately approve it. 22 months. A long time coming. A lot of questions of what this means. Just about every deal will be questioned by the doj or cma. Microsoft took the extreme steps and saying we will do whatever it takes. We will work with the regulators and make this happen. It did not make things happen. Although the cma is a huge deal. There is no one to appeal to if the cma decides they dont like a deal and then it doesnt happen. When the decision came out, there was an expectation it was over. Who do you appeal to . Somehow they did it. Well get to more of that throughout the broadcast. We have an earnings alert this morning. Dows United HealthGroup Reporting earnings at adjusted 6. 56 a share. That tops 6. 32 with revenue of 92. 4 the billion. That is also ahead of estimates. You are looking at the stock up marginally right now. Unh is lifting the lower end of the guidance to between the range of 24. 80 to 25. That stock up marginally on that news. It is a very busy week or end of the week. Busy day for earnings. In the next hour, we hear from Jpmorgan Chase and with wells fargo and then citigroup happening at 8 00 a. M. Right now, we want to get to the israelhamas war. Telling the u. N. That the entire population of northern gaza which is more than 1 Million People should relocate to the south within 24 hours. Nbcs Kelly Cobiella is joining us with more on that front. Kelly. Reporter becky, good morning to you. That warning issued in the Early Morning hours locally here at 7 00 a. M. The clock is trvery much tickin on gaza right now. The u. N. Said this is catastrophic carrying out evacuations of that size in northern gaza. Keep in mind 750 strikes by the idf on the gaza strip. A lot of infrastructure is damaged. Roads have been bombed. There are buildings which have collapsed into the roads. Just getting people out of north gaza is incredibly difficult. You talk about the numbers of 1. 1 Million People trying to evacuate. That number of people and now less than 24 hours is virtually impossible. The largest hospital in gaza is in gaza city which is in the north. A place where people have taken refuge and scores of people being treated. Here in jerusalem, there is a tight security situation. It 2,500 Police Officers deployed after hamas called for a day of rage in East Jerusalem and occupied west bank and other parts of occupied territories in israel and beyond, really. There are heavy, heavy restrictions on friday prayers here. Only wor worshippers over the af 50 are allowed in the mosque. Tensions have been high here in the west bank since the attack on saturday. Some 24 palestinians killed in the west bank and East Jerusalem over the past six days or so in clashes with israeli forces, according to the Palestinian Health ministry. Security forces want to keep ahead of this today and they are hoping things remain quiet. It has been relatively calm so far today. Becky. Kelly, thank you very much. It looks like we are taking a few hits. We will keep in touch. Kelly cobiella from cnbc. In the meantime, Lee Cooperman calls this a stock pickers market. We talked to him yesterday where he told us he is not interested in buying stock market benchmarks likes the s p. He says valuations at this point are too high. He thinks the market is under estimating the risk of the fiscal crisis. He called out his least favorite part of the market right now. My least favorite would be longterm bonds. I dont think bonds with the Long Duration make sense given what is going on in the world. I think Interest Rates will likely go higher. When Interest Rates go higher, bond prices drop. I would not be a buyer of bonds until we got to over 5 . Later this hour, we will take a closer look at the Energy Sector. That is a place where cooperman is finding value. Andrew, he has 20 of his portfolio in energy stocks. Everything that happened with exxonmobil and pioneer earlier this week makes him think consolidation is coming. We have more on the auto strike. Yesterday, fords president of operations saying the company is at the limit of what it can offer the uaw in concessions. Ford is willing to shuffle money around within the existing offer to meet the prierorities, but added costs would hurt in the area of electric vehicle. Shawn fain posted heres to talks with stellantis are better than yesterday. Fain is expected to update members on the progress of talks in a 10 00 a. M. Address which is expected to air on Facebook Live. We will bring you that news as it happens. Speculation yesterday with an analyst putting out a note saying maybe this is a good sign they shutdown operations at ford. It is a stretch. Phil lebeau thinks it is a stretch, but he says maybe this is the way of fain taking the ultimate move that really cripples and hurts the companies and they are doing the best to get the best deal. Phil thinks thats a stretch. Interesting take. Interesting on the ford front. If ford is saying theres no more money, it is clear you can shuffle money around they dont want to take more steps to cripple them down the road. Bring back Retiree Benefits which they had gotten rid of earlier. They are looking at bigger issues. I think there are things that the automakers, all three, are reluctant to move on. We will talk more. When we come back, Steve Scalise is dropping out of the speaker race. We will talk to punchbowls jake sherman about the speaker. Later, calvin butteler wille with us. This is a live shot of new york city. Were coming right back. Ever since she was a little ki, all maria wanted to do was bak. Im maria alvarez, owner of marias cakes. And im axel, proud to be her state farm agent. Her baking superpowers have brought sweetness to our community. I make delicious cakes to make special occasions even better. Maria doesnt just bake; she also creates opportunities. Small businesses like marias, open doors for communities to thrive. Support your community. Support small business. That first time you take a step back. I made that. With your very own online store. I sold that. And you can manage it all in one place. I built this. And it was easy, with a partner that puts you first. Godaddy. Is it possible my network could take my business with a partner tto the next level . It is with comcast business. Powering all your devices with gigspeed wifi. And you get fast downloads and uploads. Pick it up pick it up oh we got this because its powered by the next generation 10g network. More speed for your business . Its not just possible. Its happening. Get started for 59. 99 a month for 12 months. Plus, ask how to get an 800 prepaid card with a qualifying internet bundle. Comcast business, powering possibilities. Welcome back to squawk box. Steve scalise dropping out of the House Speaker race. Joining us right now is punchbowl news jake sherman. Good morning to you. Scalise is out. Is jordan in . Who is in . Who is possible at this point, jake . It sounded like a whats going on, andrew. Thats a good question. The government is in chaos at the moment. House republicans are unable to rally around anybody. It is fair at this point, andrew, to say theres a possibility that nobody could get the requisite votes to become spooek speaker of the hoh republican support. Scalise is out. Jordan supporis up next. He was getting calls out to get the bid for speaker. There are a lot of moderates against jordan who dont believe he is the right pick for speaker. Irony of this all is at the end of the day after conservative hardliners pushed Kevin Mccarthy out, we could end up with a Patrick Mchenry or a moderate House Republican getting to the speakership with democratic support. After hardliners put mccarthy up, you could end up with a speaker with democratic support. Walk us through the permutations of what happens next and how long this can go on . I imagine technically forever. And when mchenry would be a true possibility if that was to be the case. This could go on for weeks. There is no end in sight right now. We have to see how jordan does today. What happens is republicans need to go into the closed meeting and vote for the nominee just like they did with scalise. Vote for the nominee for speaker. If that person emerges from the conference with majority vote or if they change the rules with 217 supporters, then they go to the floor and have to build support for 217 votes on the house floor. I would say, though, if this permutation doesnt work out or option doesnt work out, they have to move to open the house of representatives which is not open right now. They cant do anything. They have to move with democratic support at some point soon because this is getting ridiculous. The government shuts down in 30 days. Just a little bit more than 30 days. Israel twill need aid in the net couple weeks. They need a speaker of the house desperately. Jake, what are the odds there are a couple of scenarios i could think of with bringing back Kevin Mccarthy. That was brought up and he said forget it. Maybe what is a more likely scenario because it is hard to imagine two sides getting together and say we agree on supporting somebody to make them the new House Speaker. Maybe they agree to give more powers to Patrick Mchenry as the temporary speaker and that is how they get through in the long term . I dont think kevin will do it based on my conversations with people in his orbit. I think mccarthy thinks once you leave, you got to go. I think that is probably right. I think the next option if jordan cannot get through is moderate republicans seeking a compromise with democrats to empower mchenry to be the speaker. To be the speaker . Maybe not be the speaker . This is the situation with Mick Mulvaney who was the acting chief of staff for forever. It is different, becky. This is a statutory obligation. They need to elect a speaker. They need to vote on it. The house of representatives, same at the senate, you can do anything with majority support. They ask pass with 218 votes to give mchenry the power to move legislation. That is the next step, i imagine, especially on the government funding deadline. What you and andrew both asked, this could ask a while. The patience is running thin in the House Republican conference. They said they wanted this time for passing bills and now theyre fighting with each other which is not ideal. Jake, i want to go back to the mchenry possibility and how that would come together. What would need to happen for that to take place . They need to come up with a piece of legislation that would two paths, andrew. He could be elected speaker. He cant win speaker with the republican vote only, i dont think, because he was the architect of the debt limit deal. The other deal is they could drum up democratic support and the speaker pro tem can pass legislation and gavel in the house and do all of the things the speaker can do. Democrats want something from that. We have to bring our bills to the floor. You have to give us seats on certain committees. They will exact a price for that. It is possible. I can tell you there are a lot of republicans who are talking on the record about this and already talking to the house parliamentarian about how to put this in place. Jake, it is good to see you. I dont know. I feel like were going to see you every morning. Im here for you, andrew. Thank you. We appreciate it. We appreciate you okay the broadcast and in our inbox. Thank you. Thank you, sir. When we come back, shares of Dollar General are jumping after an executive shuffle. We have the details straight ahead. Check it out. That stock is up by more than 7 . Later, quarterly reports due from Jpmorgan Chase and wells fargo and citigroup as we kickoff earnings season in real moan mode. Jprg chase down this morning. Citigroup is up right now. Squawk box will be right back. What do you see on the horizon . Uncertainty . Or opportunity. Whatever you see, at pgim we can help you rise to the challenges of today, when active investing and disciplined Risk Management are needed most. Drawing on deep expertise across the worlds public and private markets in pursuit of longterm returns. Pgim. Our investments shape tomorrow today. We have a market flash for you. Check out the price of oil. Rising after the crackdown on russian exports. Two shipping companies violated the oil price gap. You are looking at crude up 4 this morning. Wti at 86. 33 by barrel. Becky. It is time for the executive edge. Dollar general shares are higher after the Company Announced the former ceo is coming out of retirement and will take on the ceo role again effective immediately. The board thanked the ceo for his service, but said it determined the change in leadership is necessary to restore confidence in the company. Owen had been in the role for less than a year. The stock suppis up 7 . It is off 55 for the last year. This morning, it is up 7 . In the meantime, earnings are coming out this morning. Blackrock reporting adjusted earnings of 10. 91. Better than 8. 26 that the street was looking for. That is on revenue of 4. 52 billion. That is in line. We will see if they get credit for this. Blackrock seeing net inflows of 2. 75 billion. Assets under management at quarter end are 9. 1 trillion. That is up from 7. 96 trillion last year. Any time you use a t and millions and billions. There was a period of time where they had more than 10 trillion under management for a period of time. I want to say a hot minute. When the markets are much higher. Anybody saying theres been all of this dispute from states. Red states saying were not going to invest. Blackrock is doing fine. 1 trillion increase of assets under the last year. That comes in different forms. These other numbers are year to date. 98billion in etf. Larry fink is making comments here saying they have seen periods of uncertainty like this before. People did not know what was going on and a lot of people went to cash. You can make a yield return on cash. Get paid to sit and wait. When investors are ready to put that money back to work, they came to blackrock. He thinks this will be a set up for this again. We will talk more about that and as we get another set of Earnings Report with Jpmorgan Chase in a bit. Coming up after this break, after exxons deal to buy pioneer this week, will others jump into the m a game . Leon cooperman thinks so. And an update on the United Auto Workers strike with shawn fain. We will talk about the odds of escalation. As we head to break, we have a look at yesterdays s p 500 winners and losers. Announcer executive edge is sponsored by at t business. Next level moments need the next level network. Move to the cloud. So, the question is. Cyber attack as cyber criminals expand their toolkit, we must expand as well. We need to rethink. Next level moments, need the next level network. [speaker continues in the background] the network with 24 7 builtin security. Chip . At t business. Explore endless design possibilities. To find your personal style. Endless hardie® siding colors. Textures and styles. Its possible. With james hardie™. Good morning. Welcome back to squawk box here on cnbc. Were live at the Nasdaq Market site in times square. I have futures to check on. The dow would open down 47 points. The sa p would open down 13 points. At pioneer could open the door for more in the oil and gas sector. That is what Lee Cooperman says will happen. We spoke with him yesterday and the Energy Sector is one area of the market that has his attention right now. There will be other deals that follow on. We think devon could be a candidate. We own Pipeline Companies l like Enterprise Products and high yields paying me to be patient. Good management and large insider ownership. Joining us right now is rob thummel. Rob, it sounds like you are in agreement with leon cooperman. This is similar for others looking to invest in the permian ba basin . I have been investing in 37 years. He has a few years on me. Maybe a few decades. I agree. Oil is established it will be around a while. The Permian Basin established as a low cost and low carbon supply basin for the world. There are a lot of players in the Permian Basin and consolidation makes sense to lower the cost of production. What happens . We spoke with exxonmobils ceo and pioneers ceo earlier this week. Darren woods thinks they will be able to get this out of the ground in the Permian Basin at 35 a barrel once this deal goes through. They have other things to make it cheaper with the technology. What does this mean . Thats a good number. What does that mean for the other big players . What do they have to do at this point . If you look back at history with the majors like bp and shell and exxon and chevron, they were