Steeper decline. We will have the first numbers. First contraction in 6 years and also hearing from Federal Reserve jay powell later today. Also another big day for earnings, boeing is in focus this morning, wall street journal reporting reporting thae aircraft maker is facing criminal probe into Quality Control issues on still grounded 737 max fleet. The company also reported looking to raise capital to major bond sale. On tap before the bell this morning, General Electric is out with its earnings along with master card and ensurers anthem and humana, after the numbers attention to microsoft, facebook, tesla, markets are higher, take a look at futures, gain at the start of trading, dow futures right now showing a gain of 180 points, three quarters of 1 . S p is up 25 and nasdaq higher by 93. This after the dow, nasdaq and the s p 500 erased early gains yesterday to actually end lower. Dow industrials were down 32 points at 4 00 oclock on wall street yesterday and nasdaq down 122 and s p down 15. Google parent alphabet is putting rise in revenue but also reporting sales and downturn in the month of march. Mornings with maria is live right now. Maria Global Markets are mixed, mostly higher, ftse 100 is up 1 and cac quarante is down 5 points, dax index in germany higher by 45. France announcing it will tighten restrictions of Foreign Investments from outside of europe to limit foreign control over key sectors including technology, limitations on china is what thats about. In asia overnight, slight gains, as you can see best performer was korea of 3 quarters and 1 . Japan closed for a holiday overnight and oil prices this morning bouncing after u. S. Stockpiles rose more than expected. Hope is growing the demand will return as lockdowns ease up. Price of oil this morning back at 14. 08 with a gain of 14 on the section this morning. Some of the top stories that we are watching right now, covid19 cases in the u. S. Now topping 1 million as more states roll back their restrictions this week. Today tennessee will allow Retail Stores to reopen at 50 capacity. Wisconsin allowing nonessential businesses to do curbside dropoff of goods. Car washes to reopen and rentals, Recreational Equipment as well. In california Governor Newsom released phase 4 from reopening, Curbside Pickup for Retail Businesses as well as schools. The reopening of classrooms has been met with criticism after newsom suggested they may restart as soon as july. The race to develop a Coronavirus Vaccine meanwhile heats up, pfizer says u. S. Tests on an experimental treatment could start as early as next week. Successful results could lead to widespread use by the end of the year. Good news for pfizer and for the country. Oxford university developing vaccine that could be ready in september with human trials for next month and then theres Johnson Johnson and biotech moderna and shares are higher in premarket, 1 and a half percent on the news this morning. Small Business Owners meeting with President Trump at the white house yesterday. The president says that Small Business administration has processed 50 billion in loan in second round of the paycheck Protection Program. Congress passed 320 billion in additional assistance last week after first round quickly ran out of money. Some banks and businesses have complained that bottlenecks are happening on the sbas website. Joe biden hoping a key endorsement from Hillary Clinton will help him win the female vote in november. The former president ial candidate making announcement during virtual town hall yesterday. Mrs. Clinton the latest highprofile democrat to throw support behind joe biden. Amazing flyover by navy and blue angels and thunderbirds saluting workers and others on the frontlines. Some of the hardesthit states in the country. Futures this morning are higher, take a look at markets. We are expecting a firmer opening this morning. Investors are awaiting firstquarter advance, gdp today and thats coming in about 2 and a half hours from now as i mentioned, we are expecting pretty good contraction of 4 , earning season also in full swing, boeing releasing firstquarter earnings, microsoft facebook after the bell tonight. A lot of earnings on top and may very well set the tone. Here with me strategic wells fargo president mark tepper, Dagen Mcdowell, Jackie Deangelis and steve forbes. Mark, lets kick it off with you. A lot of Economic News as well as earnings news, how bad do you expect the contraction to be and are you still buying stocks given that we are looking at a recession in the horizon . Yeah, so i think a lot of people are expecting q1gdp to come between negligent 3 and negative 5 and if you think about it in the First Quarter the economy was really shut down for a few weeks so if the numbers come in worse than that, thats when you will really know that Small Businesses, businesses overall start today really reel back before they were officially shut down. Next quarter is where youre expecting a negative 30 , right, this was assuming a reopen of may first, but as we are seeing right now states are reopening process but its a process, slow and cautious process to getting us fully reopened, so, yes, obviously we are looking at, you foe, probably the deepest recession ever. It still makes sense to be buying stocks when you look at the relative value, theres absolutely no value in any other asset class right now with the exception of maybe gold, so bonds dont look attractive, real estate looks deeply damage and i think stocks are a great longterm investment but i do think markets have gotten a little bit ahead of itself and maybe poised for a pullback. Maria Dagen Mcdowell, you look at the market, biotech is near highs, Technology Near alltime highs and certainly pockets of are doing very well. Dagen they are doing well. The journal has Interesting Companies that Even Companies that are doing well during this nationwide shutdown like a ups because people are shopping at home and a 3m making 100 million in extra face masks sales this quarter, those businesses are actually hurting as well because ups, for example, is more profitable in delivering to big, big shipments to offices and stores. That business is gone. 3m is overall adjusted sales in the americas fell 20 just in april, so its very hard to find businesses that are perfectly immune to this slowdown and as i said, people really dont know when the consumer is going to come back and when business spending is going to come back, so youre really flying blind with a lot of the stocks. Maria yeah. Well, i guess mark, what i was referring to are some of the areas that are actually doing well during the pandemic like the online area. I mean, amazon, telehealth, teleeducation, some of the ideas will likely stay with us once we are out of this and when you look at the Biotech Sector and pharma sector with the progress on looking for a vaccine, those stocks are doing well because of all of the promise in terms of growth from a vaccine there, but you certainly do have tech, biotech, at all time highs right now. Mark yeah, you know, healthcare looks like an absolute great sector. The government is going to be increasing spending significantly and whenever thats happened throughout history that sector has outperformed the s p 500, so within healthcare, theres lots of names we like, obviously biotech has been a great performer, just based off of hope, hopefully theres a vaccine and hopefully theres a treatment. Gilead had a nice run and pulled back a little bit. I think its been unfairly beaten up. They do have a patientfriendly less invasive way to screen for colon cancer and thats poised for a pretty good rebound. Maria steve forbes is on the task force in terms of reopening the economy. Steve weigh in here. How is it going so far, texas will be rolling friday. Yesterday i went on a bike ride and there was a lot of construction on the road and thats one area that senator borrasso, one industry that can get back to work pretty quickly, the construction industry. I saw a lot of it actually on the road just yesterday. Steve yes, i think people are eager to get back to work but one of the things that will be an overhang how quickly Small Businesses get back on their feet. They may have to go through regulatory processes, inspections again, they have the challenge of Unemployment Benefits and many cases being higher than what they are paying before the crisis and so if the Small Business sector is struggling, limping, thats going to have an impact on the rest of the economy and im wondering if thats going to ultimately affect the Bigger Companies and hurt their recovery, the speed of the recovery i should say. Maria mark. Mark yeah, as far as just to piggyback off of Small Business comments, Small Businesses employ 50 of the private labor force. Its important that the Small Businesses are open so that we can keep people employed. It is much better to have a job and get consistent paycheck than to get onetime stimulus check or get some introduced juiced Unemployment Benefits. Median annual sales of 5 million, fortunately i have noticed a positive tone within the community, maybe 3, 4 weeks ago it was doom and gloom and now people are talking about opportunities that may exist that theyd like to take advantage of so things are looking better as it relates to Small Business. Maria what about crude oil, Jackie Deangelis because u. S. Stockpile rose less than expected from Petroleum Institute but the selloff is indicating real demand slowdown or halt and what does that tell you about where we are going in terms of the economy and the storage for oil . Jackie it really troubles me to be honest. It was a real shock to the market and wait a second here, there could be trouble in the horizon, things will get better, the prices are higher, thats assuming that there will be a rebound, maria, we dont necessarily know exactly how its going to play out in terms of a timeline and you look at crowd trading at 14 bucks and as you see as contracts roll, but the front month keeps getting slowed down, thats the one with the most open interest and im worried about that and im worried about the fact that people point to the financial crisis too and theyll say markets went up and they fell again and we saw lower. Im worried that that could happen potentially here and that maybe investors are looking at the markets and they are looking at the whole financial landscape and theres really no one else to put your money because Interest Rates are low and thats what youre seeing in this market and im wondering what mark thinks about that. Mark theres no alternative, right, so people are investing in equities because the longterm return potential is definitely greatest in equities. When you look at oil, its all a matter of supply and demand. The world was consumer 90 millionbarrels a day prior to covid and that dropped about 25 million a day. You know, but key producers have only agree today cut by around 10 million so theres just way too much supply, youve got Storage Facilities which are at max capacities so oil unfortunately really not the best place to be to be looking as far as investments go right now. Maria yeah, interesting to think back when oil was above 100 a barrel. Those days are obviously over, mark, good to see you so much. Thank you. Maria mark tepper joining us on investment. Saving Small Businesses, President Trump meeting with small Business Owners, would Payment Protection Program will be enough . The largest Movie Theater says it will no longer play movies from universal picture. We will tell you about it and how universal is responding this morning. In 14 days they did more work and more loans both in terms of applications and in terms of amount than they did in 14 years. Our swift action supported or saved 30 million american jobs at least. Maria that was President Trumps speaking out yesterday and the progress being made to help Small Businesses through the paycheck Protection Program. Small Business Administration says that as of yesterday for the second round of paycheck Protection Program 475,000 new loans had been approved. For more than 52 billion, joining me right now to talk more about that Florida Bankers Association president and ceo alex sanchez. Alex, good to see you this morning, thank thank you so mucr joining us. As part of the organization of ppp, is much of that money committed at this point or not . Alex great for having thank you for having me on and great to be on the show again. All have incredible amount of applications that they are processing and its been around the clock processing since the kickoff this monday, so, you know, many said that the moneys would be depleted within 24 hours, thats not true. As you said as of yesterday at 1 00 oclock it was 52 billion so i think we have days to go but im urging all all small Business Owners to please go to your fdic bank today and start that application process because time will run out. Maria clear in terms of who bankers can lend to . A lot of mistakes Large Companies taking money, publiclytraded Companies Like shake shack, harvard with enormous endowment, so do we know in terms of the banks having clarity in terms of who is eligible this time around . Alex maria, we do and, look, i have to thank the president for his leadership. I mean, when you think about the sba 23 billion last year worth 12month period they were expecting to give out 600 billion over a 4week period. Its amazing. I mean, the president , you know, the secretary mnuchin, of course, our senator marco rubio who wrote that part of the cares act, so, yes, maria, there has been the analogy i could say is building the airplane while it was in flight at times that we didnt have the guidelines, so the work our banks have done, maria, in getting help to our small owners is amazing and and, you know, as of yesterday 80 of the funds distributed were from banks less than 50 billion in size, so banks of all sizes are participating trying to get help to small Business Owners and get the help right away. Maria let me ask you about your state and reopening florida. The state easing restrictions slowly opening up as stay at home order is to expire tomorrow. Alex, youre a member of the Florida Governor ron desantis reopen florida executive committee, what are your ideas, what can florida residents expect from the governors plans . Alex you know, maria, Governor Ron Desantis is a great leader and thoughtful and has been meeting with medical professionals, top medical professionals in our state and around, you know, the country. He is seeking advice from business leaders. He is very, very careful in his planning. Obviously the safety of floridans is paramount to him. Maria i understand. Will florida reopen . How will it be . Can you give us a sense of how florida will be when it slowly reopens . Alex my personal belief when he makes announcement today and tomorrow that florida on social distancing, taking certain measures will reopen partially and gradually as people gain more confidence it will open more and more and the governor will take us in steps but weve got my personal opinion, we have to reopen and i commend the governor for his leadership in not rushing into anything but we feed to reopen. Jobs are at stake. Yes. Maria alex, thank you, great, we will be watching. I know a lot of people feel that as well, sentiment is rising across the country that we need to reopen. Alex sanchez, thank you, we have fox business alert, General Electric is reporting earnings just hitting the wire. Cheryl casone with the numbers, cheryl. Cheryl thats right, maria, good morning. As far as earnings per share they did miss by 3 cents, e mates was 8 cents, they came in at 5 cents. Revenue story is interesting, estimate 22. 1 billion but revenue 20. 5 billion, still thats down about 8 year over year as you can see the stock is up half a percent not a big move in the premarket on ge but they are talking about what i think is interesting here the Financial Impact of the coronavirus to their Aviation Business and they did see rapid decline in global commercial aviation demand and in particular for the month of march. Also, the Aviation Business, the commercial Aviation Business, revenues at 6. 9 billion, down about 13 , so aviati