Major comeback over the last four weeks. But heres the thing, guys, its not just those momentum stocks. Largecap tech stocks also moving to the down side. Steve malone vich at ubs has a buy rating on apple, but he did put out a cautious note today, saying apple could face pricing pressures in china. On that note, intel and ibm will be in focus, kicking off tech earnings next week. Thats when investors will get an initial preview of what to expect in the Second Quarter. Bill and kelly . Seema, thank you very much. Lets talk about whats going on today and what it means. Joining our closing bell exchange, winnie sun from Sun Group Wealth partners, rob morgan, mark matsen from matsen money. Anthony chen, maybe one of the most bullish economists on wall street. Hes with chase. And our own Rick Santelli. Anthony, im going to start with you. The tone of the market lately, weve seen very defensive issues moving higher. Utilities are actually up today, while the secondaries, the small cap stocks are getting clobbered here, which would suggest that this markets anticipating some economic weakness. What do you thinks going on . Well, i think that if you look at the bond market and you see bond yields coming down to 256, that is a little bit of nervousness. We know that earnings season is coming upon us, you know alcoas going to report. Youll see a Major Financial Institution reporting on friday. So, i think this market, they really need to see real evidence that the economy is getting better. I think the employment report provided a nearby preview to an improvement in the economy. Now they need to see if theres proof that this improvement in labor Market Conditions going to translate into better Economic Activity in the second half of the year. All right. Id like to know, winnie, rob, mark, to all of you here, are you do you have the Shopping List out . Do you look at a name like twitter up 7 and see an opportunity to get in here or cross some of these other sectors . Winnie, first to you. Do you recommend right now that people look at these names, or do you have a sense that there are deeper selloffs coming . Well, were here on the west coast, so tech is something that were very comfortable. And yes, absolutely. Weve had a lot of cash on the sidelines. And so, thats something that weve been looking forward to. We knew that some pullbacks were necessary for this moderate Economic Growth economy. Are you waiting for more or is this the time to start to shop . Well, you know, were going to start to add now. We do have weve had a lot of cash waiting and we have cash coming in. Theres been a lot of changes. And so, for us, this is a Good Opportunity to start adding. What about you, rob . Yeah, bill, i like tech, too, just like winnie. I dont think id necessarily go so much for the momentum names, though. Id go for some of the bigger cap names, maybe microsoft or an apple, Something Like that. I think that the high fliers, were going to continue as the year goes on to see risk on, risk off. Today was a risk off type day. And of course, some of the twitters of the world got hammered. What do you think has flipped the switch, mark . Why are we now in a riskoff period, and are you seeing value now as a result of the selloff . Yeah, one of the toughest things for investors to do is to smash the illusion that they can predict the next 20 . Nobody can. So, investors need to focus on the next 200 . If there is a selloff, then what investors have to realize is the people that panic transfer their wealth to the people that are smart enough to buy on the dip and then rebalance their portfolio. So, own equities long term. Dont try to time it. Own it and then buy on dips. Rick santelli, welcome back. Whats the market telling you . What do you thinks going on here . I think the market is telling me that the economy is improving, and some of the parts are improving rather well, but the total economy isnt the sum of the parts. Its less. Whether its productivity, which by the way is well below its tenyear average. Its currently, if i start pegging it from the Fourth Quarter of 08 to current, its 1. 4 . Definitely on the light side. It should be basically double that. So, i think to summarize, as we improve and we look at stocks that, you know, pretty much are built for perfection, were going to see probably periods of low volatility, lots of interest in the puts side or the vix on the options side. On the Interest Rates, here we sit at 2. 56 . This is exactly where we were on february 3rd, six weeks into 2014 when Interest Rates did their plunge from over 3 , and i continue to say [ everyone talking at once ] pardon . Rick, its as if the june jobs report never happened. Well, the reason we say jobs, jobs, jobs is its the lowest common denominator to put the money into consumers pockets, but what do we see . We see that Consumer Credit, which just hit the wires, came in a whisker under 20 billion. It was supposed to be closer to 24 billion. Last look was 26 billion. You could look at it two ways Consumer Credit goes up, we continue to have the synonymous interpretation of taking on more debt as the same as income, but this way its better, but its not part of the feds plan and i think thats key. Anthony, what i cant figure out, maybe you can shed light on this, are we witnessing a speedup or a slowdown scare in the economy here . Why are markets selling off . Is it because some of the jobs market data has been better and the fed response may be quicker, or is it because theres some sense of additional weakness out ahead of us in the economy . Anthony . Kelly, when you have an equity market that goes up over 6 on a yeartodate basis and our expectation is that the s p will go up 8 to 10 , you are going to see corrections along the way. If you look at since 1945, weve had over 20 corrections, and the average correction is about 13. 8 . Corrections are the part of the process. Rick, by the way, is correct on the productivity. If you look at the hours worked in the Second Quarter, they were up almost twice as fast as in the First Quarter, a little over 3 , almost 4 , hours worked compared to 1. 5 . If you get growth in the Second Quarter in the neighborhood of 3 and you have hours growing faster than that, youre not going to have productivity accelerating. Thats the story for the Second Quarter. The hope and expectation is that as the year progresses, that dynamic changes, but it is not going to be a big one for the Second Quarter. So, winnie, you say youre looking at technology. Thats where you want to put some of that cash to work. What in technology . Wheres the Growth Opportunity for you right now . Well, if you think about it, i mean, onethird of the global population is on the internet. So, we view that there is so much activity in terms of smart homes, smart wireless, and theres so much innovation all around us here in the state of california, so we see this. But theres a lot of risks, a lot of things that we need to take care of. For example, a lot of these Tech Companies need to be able to hire more talent, and we need to get through a lot of the regulatory and tax issues, too, for more of the Tech Companies to evolve over time. You know, winnie, we had three profit warnings that perhaps point to whats happening in the market today. Samsung, philips, walmart. In other words, the nexus of the consumer and their mobile device to some extent. So, the argument that youre making doesnt seem to stand up to the developments in the market today. At least not right now, right. Right. But i think over time, i think thats the consensus. We do feel that these levels that we can add, and we think that, the story hasnt unfolded yet. Theres a lot of legs to this tech rally. Rob morgan, do you hedge to some degree . I pointed out utilities are doing well, actually, today, relatively speaking. Theyre actually positive here. Do you put some money to work there just as kind of a hedge against a correction in this market . Well, you know, as anthony said, were going to eventually have some kind of pullback here. But i think that at this point in time, youve got to stick with the cyclical sector. I think the danger here is being out on days like today where you could be buying on the dips. And so, not only do i like technology, which i mentioned before, but i like industrials and financials as well. And rob, why is that . For viewers out there who are watching, who are saying, oh, forget it, the economys terrible, its not as good as you think, make the case for investing in cyclicals here. You know, from the standpoint of a lot of todays action i think was brought about by the New York Times article by neil irwin about bubbles, bubbles everywhere. Id make the case that if there is a bubble, its probably in the bond market, and that moneys going to continue to flow into the stock market through time. The Retail Investor really hasnt gotten back into the stock market in a big way, started to get back in. But weve got a reasonably priced stock market with a healing economy, as anthony pointed out, Retail Investors that will ultimately be getting back in at some point in time. And i just think that those cross currents just say good things for stocks. Yep. You want to mention or shall i . Neil irwins going to be with us next hour here on the program. I was just going to ask Rick Santelli too bad i cant ask him a question. More people talking about how it is going to be the bond bubble here it was a great article it was a great article, but i think he needs to go to the next level, and the next level is the real bubble is in unaintended consequences of bad policy and monetary policy. You have a new question for neil irwin now. Thank you, guys. Thats coming up next hour. Thank you, folks. We will be speaking to neil about that piece next hour, as it continues to make the rounds here on wall street, and so, too, does the head scratching as we look at these markets selling off again here under pressure. Weve got about 50 minutes into the close. The dows off 114. It is off its session lows. While the s ps giving up 14 this hour. Alcoas earnings, they will hit after the bell today, and it could set the tone for the trading session tomorrow. Well tell you what to expect. Plus, we have ceo Klaus Kleinfeld here exclusively, even before he talks to analysts to break down those numbers and walk us through what alcoas seeing across the economy. Did you know shares of alcoa, by the way, are up 78 since being kicked out of the dow 30 . Well get his reaction to all that. Thats not the only company thats left the dow and then taken off after that. Isnt that interesting . By the way, middle pause. Hopefully, after six years, were starting to gain a little traction in the u. S. And that tractions coming at the top end. I think the middle and down is still pretty challenging. Thats what we were just talking about, middle and down still pretty challenged. Do the concerns of walmarts ceo, bill simon, raise a red flag about the entire economy . A couple of top consumer watchers will be weighing in when we come back here on closing bell. Stay tuned. [ girl ] my mom, she makes underwater fans that are powered by the moon. 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Cant leave a bag unattended. Bank from almost anywhere with the citi mobile app. To learn more visit citi. Com easierbanking welcome back. The dow back below 17,000, were down 115 points. We were down 149, coming off the lows. Nasdaq is hit hardest today, so is the russell 2000, almost down 1. 2 . I pointed out earlier today that it was on this day in 1932 that the dow hit its 20thcentury low of 41. 22. 41. 22. 41. 22, exactly. And i tweeted out with a little joke that at the same time, the vix hit 17,000. And somebody wrote back and said, come on, guys, the vix wasnt invented until 1986. It was a joke. Yes. Sarcasm. He knows. Anyway. Meantime, walmarts ceo is worried about the Financial Health of walmart shoppers and sat down earlier with courtney reagan. Courtney joins us now. Courtney, as we try to appraise exactly whats going on with the u. S. Economy and these markets here. Thats right, kelly. Here today at walmarts headquarters, more than 900 meetings are going on between Small Businesses and walmart executives, as walmart looks for new vendors to add to the roster of companies that produce products made in the usa. Now, while getting a Distribution Deal is a very big opportunity for any business, walmart continues to struggle to gain those positive samestore sales and positive traffic as competition continues to increase across retail. Now, walmarts u. S. Ceo says while unemployment may be at the lowest level in six years, the reta retailers for consumer may not be a part of that job growth. The unemployment numbers particularly have been difficult to read with the number of people dropping out of the work force. And i think its going to take a while, six months or a year for those numbers to balance out. Youll see a drop in the rate, and then as more people come back into the work force, that might change again. Hopefully, after six years, well see that. That tractions coming at the top end. I think middle and down is still pretty challenged. Simon says that walmart is working to better serve customers for builtin trips, to better compete with Dollar Stores and drugstores. In fact, the company adding more of the Small Format Stores this year for the first time than those bigbox locations. Kelly and bill, back to you. Courtney, thank you. Such an interesting perspective on the consumer. As goes walmart, so goes the economy. That is the question. Yeah, so lets talk about the state of the American Consumer right now, bring in seven capital managing principal monica meyda and jonathan murray, managing director at ubs. Monica, you agree with bill simon, it depends which consumer youre talking about, the upper 10 . You feel theyre doing fine, right . Exactly. Weve mostly seen an Asset Recovery because of fed policy. The top 10 of americans who own real estate, stocks, theyre doing fine, theyre feeling fine. But if you look at everybody else, the middle class in particular are suffering. I think i saw a statistic, 59 of americans feel that the American Dream is impossible to achieve . 52 cant afford the house that they live in. One out of six primeage working men is not working. Labor force participation is down by 8 million, and 4 million of thats not coming back. Its 2 million that are living on disability and another 2 million who are idle and of prime working age. Jonathan, she have you convinced or do you think the outlook out there is actually pretty good . You know, i just think its better than what a lot of folks think. And what i do is i look at the nfib numbers, National Federation of independent businesses, and if one does that in fact, some data just came out today youll see that these optimistic levels are at levels that they havent been in for seven years. Small Business Owners for the first time in seven years are finally feeling good about things. Theyre hiring. Theyre the ones that said today that they see an increase in wages. They were also the ones, the nfib, that said that theyre having a difficult time filling their job openings. And to me, that gives me reasons for optimism. How do you reconcile that, though, with what bill simon, the top retailer in the whole country, what hes saying about their business . Its just stalled out. Its growing, but its just stalled out compared to what its done in the past. Well, bill, maybe thats a companyspecific anecdote. I mean, i wonder if the ceo of amazon or google or twitter would say the same thing. Great point. Monica, what do you say to that, and to walmart, who says they were seeing more of the impact of the snap benefits going away in the fall than they expected . Shouldnt they have realized that and positioned more aggressively for the loss of benefits to their bottom line . One point, were at a 30year low in terms of startup activity, and while Small Businesses actually do generate most of the jobs, we dont have enough on them and were relying more and more on large corporations that are really focusing on efficiency measures and are more likely to utilize technology and outsource jobs. I think thats a big part of the problem, too, and its not talked about. Walmart has their work cut out for them. You know, again, the consumer that they deal with, that everyday low shopper is the one thats getting hit the hardest. And inflation actually hits that consumer the hardest, too. Theyre spending more and more on the very basics, like college tuition, housing, electricity. So, you know, walmarts