May have to raise rates very quickly in the future. And she says that due to raising rates are not raising rates due to market volatility is something the fed should be very wary of. She says she reduced her rate path for the fed funds rate from december to march. But says now the economy has shown considerable resilience. Recent inflation data, she says, has been somewhat encouraging and she expects wages to accelerate as the labor market tightens. She sees strength in Consumer Spending with strength in housing. Now, one curious line in here, she says i did not descend from the march decision as if somebody was asking her that question. As far as i know, brian, nobody asked her, but it makes me think that miss mester is not far from descenting if the fed does not move relatively soon here. I didnt steal the candy. Exactly. Im glad you see that. The line kind of sits out there, i did not dissent, as if somebody expected her to dissend, i sort of did. She felt a need to explain this to people. Steve, stick around. A lot to discuss. For tyler, melissa and michelle and myself, brian sullivan, happy april, happy friday. Welcome to just under two hours of power lunch. Lets get to it. By it, we mean more on what you heard from steve, the u. S. Economy, the fed, the job market and your money. Lets bring in diane swonk, and Dennis Garman making an appearance on power lunch, our lucky day. David katz as well should join us. Diane, what do you make of this . Mester saying, guess what, we may raise rates, we may not. If we do, we may not do it fast enough. If we dont do it fast enough, we have to do it fast down the road. You got that . Not too fast. I think that was my analysis. Mine too. I like that analysis. I think what were seeing here is the Division Within the fed between the hawks and the doves and likelihood that we will see the april meeting more than one dissent. Mester dissented at the march meeting and another voter didnt dissent at the march meeting may be poised to dissent. We could see two dissents at the april meeting as sort of yelling cages hawks and holds them back. I think this is an interesting division growing in the fed and goes to the top of the fed between vice chair stan fisher and chair yellen. Stan fisher has been more eager to tighten and more concerned about inflation than yellen has. So youre seeing that division sort of rear its ugly head. I think i was talking it is really up to janet yellen and not up to mester, right . Yellen doesnt want to raise rates. Not going to. I think thats exactly the point. That was miss yellens comments earlier this week to the Economics Club in new york was that i am the one who was setting the pace. I am the one who has responsibility here. Mester has been always a hawk, this was, i think, a rather half comment, not too slow, not too fast, just half fast. Im glad you clarified it. It went by so quickly. Half fast way, i guess. It was a half fast comment. I think that we expected mester to be a little more hawkish. Steve made a good point, she went out of her way to say i did not dissent. Clearly she was intending to, she was thinking about doing so, she probably shall dissent in the future. I was surprised that she made that statement and she focused that clearly upon the fact that she did not make a dissent this time as a voter. David, it sounds like you think it doesnt really i dont want to say doesnt matter, but you think two hikes later on this year, thats what is baked into the market. Thats the way youre proceeding . We think so. We think the market right now is obsessing about the fed, but at some point in the not so distant future, the market will come to terms with the fed, raising rates and will focus on stocks, earnings and the economy. From your lips to gods ears, we would all love it, by the way. At that point, we think stocks can continue to go up. Starting rate hikes from the low level that were at should allow the economy to continue to be okay. Yeah, i mean, i think thats a good way to think about it. We consider talking about whether or not the fed is going to do a quarter or half a point. Guess what, i would say that quarter or half or full point on gdp any day and give up a quarter or a half on the fed. I want to talk about, guys, what we had with the data today. We had 215 on jobs, take a look at that. Thats a nice number. What is the trend . The trend is stable. North of 200. 21 of 27 months north of 200,000. The level is very high. Manufacturing, kind of surprising bounceback here, were talking about getting a little bit better manufacturing numbers. The trend is rising, though the level is relatively low. We have good service jobs. It is the growth number that is really the outstanding here, the outlier here. We have this lamo gdp number at 0. 9 for First Quarter. Could be that weak gdp effect we talked about in the past. But well see if the gdp number catches up with some of the strength here. To me, thats a reason to trade or not to trade stocks rather than the fed doing a quarter or doing a half or even threequarters of a point. Steve go ahead. Further point, i just want to make a further point on the gdp statist statistics, the way we count Consumer Spending, it looks like were undercounting Consumer Spending right now because of mix effects in the way that walmart sells gasoline. Because theyre hiring 47,000 retail people, so it is possible walmart is crazy or it is possible the bean counters have it wrong. Im siding more with walmart than the bean counters. Exactly. I agree with you, steve. I think the gdp numbers understating Economic Growth now and thats part of where were having this gap between what going on in the employment market and in the gdp numbers. Like you said, walmart is all retailers will put their money where their mouth is and not hire unless they think theyre selling. I can remember lots of fed votes going back a long, long time. I cant remember many where there was more than one, maybe two dissents. At what point does the number of dissents become a fractured fed . And do you expect that to happen . Couple of things, you are correct. I have to go back and look at the history. We looked at this before. I think three is a number where it gets to be a little embarrassing. How many vote . 12 or 14 . 10 votes now. Should be 12 because two fed governors are not able to be confirmed through the nomination process in the broken congress right now. Let alone Supreme Court nominees. Thats another story. Is it just me, steve, are we getting close to where we could be nine against one in a few months . I dont think were there because, remember, brian, one thing you may be forgetting is of the five we chronicles who had suggested april, i believe only one of those was a voter. So the question becomes shes a voter, we think she sort of is like an inner hawk here, but really has been playing her cards a little more close to the vest. She used to work for charles bosser at the philly fed. She makes some hawkish noises but has been willing to go along. So that comment i did not dissent suggests to me there may be a dissent there on the way if she doesnt see the kind of movement that shes looking for on rates. It is also important who dissents and i think, you know, if you go back to the volcker years and what was the tipping point, it wasnt just dissent among president s, it was among the inner circle at the fed, the actual governors. Thats a very important delineation to make as well. Were in a different world, where dissents are more acceptable than they once were, bernanke rushed, let the genie out of the bottle. If you start to see dissents among her inner circle, which i do not think were going to see, that would be a major tipping point. Dennis, i would think that a higher perception of fracturing fed would mean higher volatility in the stock market. One would think so. Going back to what diane said, she had had a very important point, far more important to have the governors dissenting than the regional president s. We expect the regional president s to dissent on a rather consistent basis. I can remember i dont have the data in front of me, going back to the early 70s, i can remember a number of times we had had two and three dissents on a consistent basis, but it is when the governors dissent that the game changes. Thats a great point. I believe you would see a fed chair change her position before she allowed a governor to dissent. I think if stan fisher, the vice chair or jp howell were two people who would say, you need to do something for me here or youre going to lose my vote, she would do something. Last question to you, when it comes to the data steve outlined, the jobs report which is, you know, the big mac daddy every single month, what does it tell you about the economy in particular, how you invest in light of that . Does anything change as a result of the number today . No, but it is a continuation that the economy is actually better than many had feared. We think this Quarterly Earnings season will be okay. The fact that the u. S. Dollar has been a little bit weaker than expected, gives companies the Multinational Companies a little bit of wiggle room. We think it is going to be a volatile year for stocks, but you can still buy into this. One group has been miserable the beginning of this year have been the financials. We think if the fed ever does get to raising or people ever accept the fact theyre going to be raising financials will do a lot better and one group that has ne exceptionally well has been the utilities and we would be very wary about putting new money into utilities. We think theyre the upper end of the valuation and more likely than not they could be 5 lower before the year is over. Did you say, david, the economy was okay, because i was id been led to believe by every single president ial candidate that everything is terrible and getting worse. The data actually seems to be getting better, 73 months of job gains, thats an all time record, i understand we got wage issues still out there. If you listen to sort of the political rounds, you would be hiding under your desk sucking your thumb and not buying any stocks. Youre exactly right. Thats usually the case. Everybody is putting down the economy, what were hearing from you dont get elected by saying things are okay. Exactly. I think there is another issue which candidate has a ph. D. In economics . Im just kind of they dont have many econoc advisers. Thank you. The three ds, diane, david and the half fast the Weekly Oil Rig count breaking moments ago. The number of Oil Drilling Rigs in america fell again. Another ten oil rigs off line last week. This on top of the 15 oil rigs we lost the previous week before that. We were at the lowest level of rigs since baker hughes began counting rigs in 1944. Here is a little context. There are 499 total oil and gas rigs, on land, off shore, canada, whatever. There were more than 2,000 back in the fall of 2011. And each one of those oil rigs, by the way, employs about 40 people on looand directly and a the manufacturing that goes along with it. Thats the one sector of the economy which lost jobs. Imagine if we stabilized or maybe grow a little bit. You could have every sector of the economy adding jobs, mining is what the government calls it, it has been half fast. Yes. Okay. Speaking of oil, under pressure today, a lot of reasons, right . The saudis making headlines too. Saudis deputy crown prince saying reportedly that they will only freeze their oil output if iran joins in the freeze. Now, of course, iran said it will not freeze until production goes to 4 Million Barrels a day. So basically, michelle, i know you know this story very well, saudi arabia saying we wont do it unless they do it, they say were not going to do it so assume your own conclusion there. This is groundhog day. We had this conversation over and over again. Well freeze if you freeze. Were back to where we started. Feels like groundhog day. Did you get that . I got it. On deck, scary new projections from the cdc about the possible spread of the zika virus. Five stock calls of the day you need to hear about, more actionable information for you coming up. Billions are spent to confuse and, dare i say it, flummox the american public. Save 16 on Car Insurance. Switch now. Well at compare. Com, we say enoughs enough. So weve created this mind boggling facility. Where were constantly scrutinizing millions of rates. Answering the question who has the lowest. Go to compare. Com, plug in some simple info and get up to 50 free quotes. Choose the lowest, and hit purchase. Its fast and easy. Compare. Com saving humanity from high insurance rates. Welcome back to power lunch. Netflix will not be investigated by the fcc for socalled throttling. Thats when they change the speed of the download depending how youre viewing it. Thats according to fcc chairman tom wheeler. Wheeler said the streaming services actions were outside the Net Neutrality rules adopted last year. The stock rising by 2. 5 . Endo international accused by the ftc of paying rivals to delay generic competition against two of its biggest drugs. That stock is higher by 1. 7 . And Marvel Technology will miss the deadline to file its annual report for the just ended fiscal year. Chipmaker saying it would report an annual loss as revenue drops. Marvel falling more than 4. 5 . Melissa . The centers for Disease Control ringing the alarm about the potential spread of the zika virus this summer. The big question is, what are we doing to stop it . Lets get to meg terrell live in atlanta. Hi, meg. So we know that zika is already spreading locally in u. S. Territories like puerto rico. But this summit is really to prepare u. S. States and local authorities for what happens when we probably get local transmission here on the main land in the summer months. Right now, all the cases we have seen in the United States at least in the main land have been travel associated cases. Folks who have been in the affected countries in central and south america. But as you can see, we have a map of the mosquito where it is in the United States that transmits zika. So these are two different kinds of mosquitos. Egypti is the one more folks worry about. What are we doing about it and what can we do to stop it . They say vigilance and vector control. Trying to stop the mosquito in its tracks. Now, we do that with pesticides and hunting down the mosquito. There are new methods being talked about a genetically modified mosquito that will Start Testing in the United States here sometime soon. Though thats really not determined yet. Were also talking about vaccines and we talked to tom frieden today about that. Take a listen to what he said. The vaccine is going to take even in the best case a couple of years if it works out. We need to move fast. Because the mosquitos multiply rapidly and the risk is significant and not far from now in terms of the summer months coming. Thats why it is a race against time. So we hear a lot about this request for funding that congress has not yet filled. They asked for 1. 9 billion. President obama asked congress for emergency funding for zika. Congress hasnt acted on it, saying we should allocate unused ebola funds. We have a story of how one location, key west, florida, is fighting this. Even if they were granted the 1. 9 billion, would that speed up the process for the vaccine or the genetically modified mosquito to be deployed and possibly fight the population . It could help with vaccine development, thats definitely true. In terms of helping intrexen, they seem generally well funded to hold up for intrexen now is the fda has put out a Public Comment period, 30 days, to get basically feedback from the public about doing the testing there. Once that kind of wraps up, well see how that unfolds, but really local governments are coming back from cdc with plans but need funding to implement the plans. Meg, thank you. Big apple in a big bubble. Startling new housing numbers ahead. Scary moments at a san diego pier. What happens next. Youll find out when power lunch returns. Okay, so you launched your banks app. Now what . How will you keep up with the new demands of todays Digital Economy . The fact is some believe they wont need a Traditional Bank down the road, so at cognizant, were helping banking and Financial ServicesCompanies Think digital, be untraditional, and reimagine what the bank of the future can be. Our clients can now leverage customer intelligence to predict their financial needs and provide more contextualized products and services. Were creating new platforms across channels so customers can effortlessly invest, borrow, lend, transactwhereverwhenever they choose. And were digitizing the way banks run, driving efficiencies and delivering new value for their customers in return. Digital works for banking and Financial Services. Lets talk about how digital works for your business. Look at this scary video from san diego. A whale watching ship, horn blower went out of control as it was docking. And rammed into a dock. You can see people scrambling to get out of the way. Investigators are blaming a mechanical malfunction. The ship was carrying 144 people at the time of the crash. Seven people were indeed injured. Scary. Speaking of crashes, new report out on new york citys Residential Housing market. Im joking. So far the numbers dont look like there is any crash going on, if, indeed, you think there is a housing bubble in new york. To robert frank, the details on this latest report. Robert . Sort of speaking of noncrashes. Manhattan real estate is prices continue to defy economic gravity, actually hitting all time new records in the First Quarter. The average sale price of a new york city apartment topping 2 million for the first time. Thats according to report from douglas elman. The average price for a square foot in the First Quarter that set a new record, 1,713 per square foot, 8 over last year. Apartments sold faster. Discounts are down. Almost half of all apartments are selling for at or above the asking price. Now, the