Of the u. S. creditworthiness by Fitch Ratings agency, the markets are mixed. But all four major indices are well off the lows of the session. Dow is up 3 points. S p down 1 point. Nasdaq up 22. Youre looking right now at former President Donald Trump who is just disembarking in washington d. C. He will then get in his vehicle and head to his arraignment. Trump will appear in federal court to answer charges he con conspired and plotted to overturn his 2020 election loss. As you see, he is getting into an suv. Hes got security. We have cameras all over the Nations Capital to follow this. Ing fox business Grady Trimble is standing by at the courthouse where trump is set to appear in person at 4 p. M. Eastern. He may be asked to enter a plea, and a judge will set release conditions. Hes fully expected to plead not guilty, by the the i way. Were going to keep you posted minute by minute as events develop. And in the meantime, he is in that car at the moment. He will take to the road. Lets get to the markets and take it to wall street. The dow is at risk of posting its first back to back losses in a month. The blue chips have been crossing the unchanged line right and left all session long, right now down just under 3 points. Yesterday look at the 2day picture, the dow lost 348 points or 1 , but its the nasdaq which might be the more interesting story. After getting torched wednesday when it plunged 310 points, that was about 2. 2 , the nasdaq right now is up 17 points. Its held on to gains for a while now in the session, a although earlier it was down 92 points. At the moment its a fraction of a percent above the flatline. And lets look at the preponderance of u. S. Listed chinese stocks that are buoying the nasdaq 100. Pin duo is a big winner, up 5. 5 . Jd. Com up 3 , now, we need to show you some names on the move after reporting quarterly results. Two of them are the biggest laggards on the nasdaq 100. Paypal. Paypal beat on both the top and bottom line, but the stock is creatorring cratering on news that active accounts and operating margins fell sequentially. Qualcomm down 11. 5 after an anemic smartphone Sales Forecast for the current quarter. Just about everyone though is not looking at this mornings earnings or yesterdays. On wall street theyre focused right now on apple and amazon, the two market mast dons as were calling them. They report after the bell, so in about 58 minutes all bets are off. The closing bell will ring, can and well hear from apple, expected to report its third consecutive revenue decline. Shares right now flat to slightly lower by just under half a percent. And amazons up nearly 1 . Investors are going to scrutinize its aws Cloud Services and ecommerce revenue to gauge the health of those powerhouse businesses. So as the bulls claw back, or at least try to in this final hour, lets bring in trader scott shellady. Scott, weve got a couple of indices that have turned around even though the bond markets getting hammered as yields rise. Give me your assessment here. I think the markets nervous. I think this is the first time in a while that its acted a little bit nervous. Because if you really take some of the nonheadline news, i know weve got everybody calling for recession. I still think were going to have one. You have to kind of give up on what time you think its going to happen, thats where everybodys gotten in trouble. But when you see what i see, we have a great stock market because of artificial intelligence. I love artificial intelligence. And weve got decent jobs. Weve till got a tight jobs market. So if you want to talk about a bad economy, the first two things people throw back in your face are what about jobs and the stock market. But i think those are thinlyveiled success stories. I do think you can see things crack, and youre going to be able to pick up stocks at a cheaper price. I think the 10year yield is telling you, hey, were worried about inflation again. Crude oil is up 2 last i checked, thats an issue. We still have food prices that are very expensive. And for those of you who think that inflation is coming down, its not. Its just riding at a slower pace rising at a slower pace. Last year we were up 9. 1 , so pices are still going up but with at a shower pace. I think main streets got some problems. My two key indicators im watching very closely are the consumer and oil. Liz well, consumer, we might get some [laughter] some clarity on that from amazon when they come out at least with their ecommerce numbers and, hopefully, theyll be good at least to show an indication that theyre holding up. Scott, were looking at the 10year yield up 10 basis points. But aside from that, youre talking about stocks starting to look a little more tasty, i guess, perhaps a lower price. Can you give me a sense of whats on your Shopping List . I know youve been in tbills, but tell me as far as equities are concerned when they get low enough. Right. Well, i put the money on the tbills, and theres the penalty to take it out, but ill be happy to do that if i think things are the right time, and i think were getting closer e. Hook, its been 23 years since we basically last had our books balanced. Lets say bill clintons presidency, right . And the last time that that happened was because of the success of the internet and anything that had a dot. Com after it everybody loved. We had a dot. Com bubble, i think were entering an a. I. Bubble, but that doesnt mean theres still not going to be some opportunity there. I think, ive been talking about it for a long time, liz, probably 20 yearses, maybe 15 of them on your network, but ive been looking for the next great thing that was going to rescue us from our bad habits. I. E. , spending. Everything that fitch just said, you know, yesterday. And what thats going to be, we thought maybe it was going to be health care, we thought there was going to be some tweaks to internet, but i think really its going to be artificial intelligence. The learning that that thing does liz those are expensive right now though, arent they . I know. Theyre too expensive for me too, but i think youre going to get a chance, so i want to have my powder dry and ready when it does happen. Look, the consumer is starting to spend on fumes. Alltime low savings rate, credit card balances over a trillion dollars, mcdonalds and costco have said theyre starting to see consumers trade down. They dont have money forever. Auto loan delinquencies through the roof, foreclosure ares spiking, corporate bankruptcies spiking. Challenger gray and christmas just said for the First Six Months this year versus last year, layoffs and job losses are up 244 . Liz yeah. Somethings going on out there, and im going to be ready when we do see people exit the market to pick some of these up at better prices. Maybe not bargain prices, but better. Liz scott, thank you very much. The firsttime jobless claims came in pretty much even with what was expected. Okay, its been just under 48 hours since fitch down graded the United States creditworthiness. We want to show you this, monday, the day before fitch stripped the u. S. Of its aaa rating, the yield on the 10year closed at 3. 95 . Fitch cited the nations 32 trillion in debt and detier rating financial state for the move. Today, right now, the 10year yield touching a 9month peak at 4. 188 . Now, yesterday as stocks tanked wharton professor Jeremy Siegel told the claman countdown nothing to see here. It is ridiculous, liz. The fed can always pay off the debt. The fed can print the dollars to pay off the promised debt. So theres really no possibility of a default. Liz siegels an economist and a brilliant one, but what do real world bankers who need to lend and refinance personal and corporate loans think . Vice chair of bnp paribas usa, the u. S. Tuition of the worlds Fifth Division of the worlds fifth largest bank. Your gut reaction to how the markets reacted to the fitch downgrade and how you are conducting your business in light of that. There is no real news as it relates to the, you know, debt, sovereign debt versus gdp ratio here. And it is the absolutely our views that over the medium term any administration will have to continue to master and navigate this complex situation. However, as you just highlighted, weve seen mixed results, you know, from the marketplace which i think very short term i dont think it will have a real impact on the stability of the economy and the stability of capital markets. Liz now, the Interest Rate reaction is very interesting. Eleven years ago or 2011 when s p downgraded the the u. S. , we had treasury yields fall. They are actually rising right now, and that is only making borrowing costs more pensionive. How are you expensive. How are you dealing with Interest Rate risk . Quite interestingly, you mentioned fixed income. I mean, the fixed income ride has been a good ride since the gunning of the year. Beginning of the year. Investors like the steady annuity, the quality of the underlying assets and equities have been on and off. Liz its nirvana for bond investors. And if i were to relate to what we do on a daytoday basis which is providing access to fixed income markets to our clients, the individual investors have been extremely, i would say, bullish on this segment, you know, specifically i grade and assetbacked securities have been extremely vibrant. And more specific chi, if you look at specifically, if to you look at new issuance, corporate debt new issuancings are up 40 on the year. It shows that investors, particularly on the individual side, have real comfort at least in what this economy might be doing over the next two quarters. Liz tell me how you have tightened your lending standards at bnp usa. What the Bank Benefits from is actually to have quite diversified i would say Business Activities and client profiles. And is we benefit as well from being well capitalized, well funded. Then weve been able to actually continue to support our clients the best way we can where the bank has been more specifically lending and its very targeted and specific, its for all high quality, high grade clients that, you know, could have access to marketplace right away but waiting a bit more they felt they could get a better, optimized pricerelated transaction. This is when we lend, bridging, you know, hopefully a more convenient time choice. Liz i want to get your outlook on the equity markets, but before i do that, march. Silicon value lu bank went unded ender. The regionals lost so much market cap. It was a mini bank crisis. It was two years ago, december of 2021, that you sold off the regional that bnp usa had, bank of the west, for 16 billion plus. That looks like a genius move in timing because today im not sure it would have been worth that. The i mean, you look at some of the others whether its comerica or zions bank with, and you can see what their market cap was in 2021 and how much lower it is right now. Right . I dont know if we can show that, but we have the comparison, because its really important to see that, for example, comerica in 202021 was is 11 billion market cap. Today its. Billion. 7 billion. You look genius. What did to you do with that financial firepower of 16 billion . Well, thank you for the nice comments liz well, its just fact. I have two comments on that. Bank of the west, which had been part of for 40 years was a Wonderful Bank to have in the group and actually was doing very well, was going to do very well staying with bnp paribas because it was and the fact owned by a wellfunded, wellcapitalized bank would have fared really well, including under this complex cycle. The acquirer, bank of montreal, has very similar characteristic, well funded, well run and, i think, will benefit bank of montreal because now they have a nationwide franchise complementing what they have on the east coast. Now to your point, and this is my second comment, what youre touching very smartly here is there is probably a need Going Forward for further bank consolidation. Liz consolidation. And by the way, its nothing enough new. If you go back to 1920 thes, we had 30,000 banks in this country. In the 80s, 10,000. Today, approximately 4800. Its probably still too many. We expect further consolidation. I believe though, you know, as we just look at the bank of the west that there is still a place for regional and community banking. Its the federations, 50 states, different needs, and its till going to be there. Still going to be there. However, the remaining banks including the community ones will have to be well funded, well capitalized and probably better run. Liz can i just ask your opinion on the best equity prospects that you see right now . Thats a very complex question [laughter] liz youre a banker. I can comment on at least the sectors i see a good dynamic. And, by the way with, its connected to the still very resilient economy. Tech, we mentioned a. I. Earlier, but health care, i did a lot of activity in there, pharmaceutical liz health care, pharma. And not to mention, and i can sit with only some of our clients, strong Business Activity linkedded to some of the government, you know, acts a like the chips act, the infrastructure act, the ira that is really providing a lot of appetite the for investing in fire, in technology, in fiber, in technology, in digitalization. Liz great to have you. And this is why we bring people like jeanyves to you, because hes in the trenches. We really appreciate when you come on, and its rare, we love having you. Thank you so much. Thank you very for having me. Will. Liz a day after salesforce said it cut more jobs beyond the 8,000 it announced back in january, shares of the Business Software giant are down 2 . Year to date stocks a big winner, up 63 . And now salesforce making a big move to elevate its office messaging platform slack by launching a new version. Up next, slack ceo is sere to exclusively unveil elevate which embeds the best of salesforce products into the workplace messaging business. Slacks now a verb, folks, its a big deal. With the closing bell ringing in 45 minutes, slack your team members, tell them to tune in to the claman countdown. Were coming back in a second. Meet the future. A chef. A designer. And, ooh, an engineer. All learning to save and spend their money with chase. The chefs cooking up firsts with her new debit card. Hungry . Uhuh. The designers eyeing sequins. Uh no plaid. While mom is eyeing his spending. Nice. And the engineer . Shes taking control with her own account for college. Three futures, all with chase. Freedom for kids. Control for parents. One bank for both. Chase. Make more of whats yours. This is american infrastructure, a prime target for cyberattacks. But the same aipowered security that protects all of google also defends these services for everyone who lives here. 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The Stock Performance is kind of overshadowing a big with update to salesforceowned slack, the instant messaging program just unveiled its elevate feature geared towards its users working in the sales industry. What can it do now to ring in more business for those who pay up for it . Slack Ceo Lidiane Jones joins me now in a fox business exclusive. Lidiane, investors have been eager to see how salesforce would mind meld its products with slack. How does elevate do that beyond the basic slack interface . Liz, thank you for having me. Its an exciting week for us here because were getting a chance to bring whats best about sales cloud and natively integrate into slack. What this allows is that everything from notifications to bulk updating opportunities can all be done here in slack, and that allows teams to be more aligned, it allows our sales teams to keep their information uptodate regardless of where they are because theyre getting a great, beautiful work experience. So truly a beautiful salestailored experience in slack connected the salesforce for all of our customers. Liz well, of course youve got to monetize it. Its an additional cost of, what what, 60. Can you give me a sense of what will make that really valuable beyond what youve just explained . Because right now corporations are cutting back. They dont want to pay more for things like this. Yeah. Liz, look, what we have found is that most of our Sales Professionals around the industry are spending less than 30 actually selling. Most of the time spent on pipeline management, trying to keep data uptodate k and what sales elevate does is we are focused on how can we accelerate the productivity of every seller in your organization. What we have seen with our pilot here at salesforce, were using this with all of our sales members as well as our customers, some of our customers are are already using this product today, is that they have already spent 76 less time in pipe lauren management. That is pipeline management. That is massive on themyization of our sales capacity which is really the overall revenue for our customers. Liz well, now youre talking the language that i really wanted the hear, because weve got a crack ad and sales, Ad Sales Team here at the fox medi. [laughter] business, and i know they want, they want to make sure they get something. We are, of course, customers of slack. Lidiane, speaking of integration, slack gpt is the platform you guys are going to unveil soon is. What is this going to do, and on top of everything else, in a way, i mean, today alibaba Just Announced it is opening its large language model to third party developers. Obviously, thats a big deal, and on top of that we just had ibms ceo, arvind krishna, he u