S p futures up by 20 points and the nasdaq is up by 7 points as well after gains yesterday. We have two economic reports of note. The february Producer Price index at 8 30 eastern time and then march Consumer Sentiment at 10 00. Also two retailers are set to post Quarterly Results before the bell. Well get the Parent Company of ann taylor and the buckle and then theres a labor dispute to discuss. This could end the strike. It accounts for 20 of the companys total capacity. Some stocks well be watching today that might be moving shares of ulta ulta salon getting a boost. The beauty retailers Quarterly Results were better on the top and bottom line. Quarter guidance was also better than expected. Ulta salon cosmetics. Its like a make up and cosmetics supplier. Andrew and i should know about it. Given that were good customers. Were going to talk to the companys ceo at 7 40 eastern and aeropostale team warning that shares will fall short of estimates and zumiez its Quarterly Earnings falling more than expected with higher costs offsetting and increase from sales. Meanwhile, i heard from these people. They tweeted. Were glad you like our food. The shares getting a boost and the Quick Service foods chains earnings and revenue beat the street and, you know a tweet is cheap. You were looking for chicken . Perhaps . You know were in the middle of manhattan. It wouldnt be that hard to find us. If they were disposed to send over chicken. You never had any. I havent. No. Neither one of you. Yes. Do you both like mexican food. Yes. The way you describe it sounds delicious. They wrap it in salsa but the chickens are cooked right there grilled and everything. You can see them. Whole. Not with the feathers but you can see at one time it was a well still is a chicken. Todays top story, federal process cue tors and the fbi probing manipulation of herbalife stock. Theyre said to have interviewed people hired by bill ackman. The wall street journal saying that the feds want to know if some people hired by ackman made false statements to regulators in order to encourage regulations into the company and there by lower the stock price. I spoke with him last night on a flight home from london. He was on the plane and he said the following in part. Im puzzled by the story. We have not heard from the fbi or department of justice. If they have any questions for me im happy to answer them. I stand by every statement i made about herbalife. The Company Never identified anything that we said that is false. He further went on to say he has not received a subpoena. He knows nobody that received subpoenas and he has obviously been very public and outspoken about his views so we know his views. I dont understand. He has said this is a scheme. What worse can you say about a company. Theres two elements of it. I made other calls to talk to people around the hoop on the legal side its not clear that theyre actually investigating him personally yet. It sounds like what is really happening is he has hired a group of lobby yiss. If they are more specific on things bill dunlt know what they said. We will have him on this program at 8 00 a. M. Live to talk about all of this. If i were going to try to hurt a stock or company i might start with it is a scheme would be a good start. In other circumstances he hired the former head of enforcement at the sec. Look i would argue its very hard to say that this that coming out and saying publicly that a stock is overvalued and heres why and its a scheme. That doesnt mean something is overvalued. It means youre paying off previous investors and theres no business there. Its not just saying its overvalued. What im saying is i would argue were going to talk to a lawyer in a second but legally you can make the argument. The issue is going to be what he did with the stock during this period or perhaps what really this is about is maybe there are people that ackman had hired who are making their own Stock Investments that we dont know about about. Youre allowed to buy and sell are you not . I would argue you said i would argue like 8 times already. The distinction may be and i dont know but the distinction could be his people have been in contact obviously with the government in ways that the public has not. You mean inside information. Well im just suggesting if you know more about what the government is doing or about to do do you have an obligation to not sell at that point . I dont know. Were going to find out. Hes too smart. Join us to talk about it. Jacob is here. You heard this conversation. Lets just start at the outset. When you think about market manipulation and what bill ackman has done thus far. Putting aside all the other details has what he has done constitute could it constitute market manipulation . It doesnt appear that way. Its all going to play out and another way to look at it is yelling fire in a crowded theater a violation of law. He said this is an absolute zero. He talked about the large position he has taken in the stock. The sole purpose of the communications and what he said publicly was for driving down the price of the stock. We know issuers hate short sellers so were looking at one of these battles at its most intensive level but in terms of what he has said so far, it may be border line manipulative but it does not appear to be stock manipulation because a lot of the statements hes making are general statements. But think about what happens in a small cap market too when theres a prediction that a company is absolutely a 20 stock when right now its 20 or 30 cents, youre describing what you analyzed among yourselves is exactly why the United States government is looking at this. The fts, the sec and department of justice but i do think its healthy when were so used to seeing the allegations of froud going on the upside to actually see an investigation also on the short side. I should add my understanding is this investigation is also in the context of a larger investigation or the same investigation of herbalife itself so theres parallel paths to this whole thing. Theyre hooking at whether they have their own problems and where he stands on it. In ways that were not privy too what are his allegations regarding trading understands that he might have information or a better understanding of where a government investigation might be than we might . Thats a great question because it really goes to in many respects the heart of what short sellers do and that is after doing Quality Research and being mindful the real quality short sellers do a lot of the work behind the scenes. It doesnt have this type of profile but theyre trying to get their message to the government to understand their analysis to why a company is not as strong as the Company Wants the public to believe. The fact that they have taken their positions and theyre known to the United States government its not likely that continuing to build are, in fact manipulative because the government is not telling the short sellers or those speaking on their behalf what they are doing. But just to make a fine point, if they keep taking additional meetings you would think that is good for your cause. If they stop taking your meetings you would take that as a sign that they are not investigating or pursuing the charges you laid out in the same way. If you were to close out that position would that constitute a problem . Its a great question. But youre talking about making analysis from inferences. The main fact that theyre not taking meetings or information is not a true indicator as to the status of the investigation. If i was a prosecutor and investigator i would stop talking to the person giving me information even if i was continuing that on my own. Dead on. Absolutely. Once you see this public play in trying to lead on that type of information and lobbying you should be shutting down the communication. What we have here lets go back at look at capital. They started with lower level people and worked all the way up. The sec capital did not get to steve on the criminal side. So you know the investigation is appropriately starting which is at the level of those who are communicating and theyre looking at whether there was any false information being given to the government for the purpose of helping to drive the stock because theres clearly an interest. But youre right and that is that what constitutes misleading . Lets say we dont know which way this is going to go. Lets say its not a scheme. Then is the entire campaign misleading . And it very well may be. Im not sure what it is anymore. Thats the question. Thats why we have seen volatility over the last two years between 20 and 80 a share which is an aberration and unnatural. I think to be fair hes not calling it i think hes calling it a pyramid scheme which is like pay to play. Theres payment to enter. See, this is thats the point. It doesnt make sense to me. Its like yes, we admitted to pyramid scheme but its not worth 60. Its worth 40. Its legally. But the company is not admitting that but there is not a Multilevel Marketing Company in existence that hasnt been the subject of complaints. And they have continued for a couple of years in business with somebody calling them a pyramid scheme openly again and again. And the reason theyre able to do that is because they have Real Products and People Choose from products and the whole nature of the multilevel Marketing Program is one that you often have people that step in that are unhappy, have bought product and decide they want to move on. These are challenges and the task for the government investigators is to sift. Is there something else. One thing over the years you made a point that most of the time you see people investigate hyping of stuff. Its a 30 cent stock they say thats going to 10. In our experience we always get mail from people that say how can you let someone come on and say bad things about a company when theyre short. They dont understand how see how thats any different. We constantly have people come on here and say stocks are cheap and they own the company. They say good things and they own the stock and people say yeah thats fine. The minute someone comes on here and says im short the stock and saying bad things people say you cant do that. It is weird that you would say you see more of the other than we see because immediately people dont think youre allowed to short a stock and say negative things about it. Well and i think it goes back to moets people dont understand there is a real and credible and place for short sellersst people dont understand, there is a real and credible and place for short sellers sellers. But theres a difference in those that do quality work and theres a case in new york a number of years ago. So basically, you want to avoid the overvalued pyramid schemes but have a strong buy on the undervalued pyramid schemes. The undervalued are a buy. As long as theyre undervalued. Got to get in early. Got to get in early. Ground floor. If youre one of the first people in the scheme. Then its great for you. You can be a leader. You think like a lawyer. Its in your blood i think. He grew up in a family where his fathers a lawyer. Its okay if its a pyramid scheme. Youre just calling it an overvalued pyramid scheme. Thats insane. Thank you jacob. Jacob is right. Every Multilevel Marketing Company in history has been called a pyramid scheme by somebody. But youre not allowed to do that i dont think. The difference is a lot of these things do benefit by getting more people involved. Thats where it is. Look, we changed it to a madolf scheme. He did it up in the billions. Thats actually see thats the difference between i think a pyramid scheme and madolf scheme. Theres nothing underlying. Lets remind our viewers again, 8 00 live eastern right here dont miss this because bill ackman will join us live on squawk box to talk about all of this and more. Hell be ready. Lets get to the broader markets. Joining us on set is the head of Global Equity research and a member of the squawk platinum portfolio. Thanks for being here this morning. Thanks for having me. Its been an up and down roller coaster ride to the markets over the last week or so . Anything that concerns you about this . Anything that makes you think theres buying opportunities as a result. Were optimistic on u. S. Equities this year. But we see valuations as getting stretched and volatility in the market. And you tend to see a lot of volatility. We think that could happen as early as this summer and if you look at history markets tend to peak about 3 to 4 months before rates increase so we think we could see a correction near term. But volatility also suggests corrections. Do you see those as buying opportunities. Yeah, we would be excited about that because if you look at how we think the fed will raise rates we think theyll do it at a measured place and we still have low oil prices and strong jobs numbers that should help support the economy. Lets talk about stocks you really like right now. One is a french hotel company. Yeah so we really like the Hotel Dynamics globally. They have a new ceo in place. His vision is to fix up the balance sheet. He bought 4 million options himself so he clearly sees a lot of value and so do we. One of the problems we heard from people that do business in france, had to deal with hotels over there talked about how you get yourself in a jam when you want to remodel these. Do you worry about structural issues . We see more his opportunity being in terms of how theyre changing their hotels and the leasing structures we think thats a big opportunity for them. What about monster beverage . We like monster beverage. Theyre taking a lot of share in the u. S. From larger megan drink companies and they have the auctionalty in europe and we think china is a huge opportunity for them and coke owns 16 of monster beverage with the option to take it up to 25 and that gives them a Great International footprint. Finally, barry plastics. Yeah we think they could hit their sweet spot this year. He make plastic cups and containers. Great Free Cash Flow story and the ability to pay down high cost debt and they have superior products on the market with hot and Cold Properties and the ability to add graphics to their cups. One stock is visa. Its in a much better position because of the costco deal that went down. How do you see all of this playing out for visa and American Express too . We like the opportunity for visa. Its an 80 billion transaction opportunity. That could add 1 to 2 to the Revenue Growth by 2017. When you see American Express walking away from a deal that was more material than they would let on to investors. It raises the question if the terms of the deal were too strict and too stringent. Can visa turn this into something . We think they can because the economics looked good for visa. The economics might not be as good for Something Like citi group participating in the deal. But we see it as a positive. What can they do differently . Well theyre getting their usual transaction fees they normally get on other deals so its a usual deal for visa. Thank you for coming in today. Thank you for having me. You can also go online to track sarahs picks as well as the other platinum Portfolio Managers picks in real time plus read their exclusive analysis. Coming up all aboard americas railroads are battling congestion. How were all being impacted by the good luck next. But first as we head to break heres a look back at this date in history and theres a very special one in 1998 that well talk about. Up im reworkin the menu. Mayo . Corn dogs . You are so outta here aah [ female announcer ] the complete balanced nutrition of greattasting ensure. 24 vitamins and Minerals Antioxidants and 9 grams of protein. [ bottle ] ensure®. Nutrition in charge™. Opportunities arent always obvious. Sometimes they just drop in. Cme group can help you navigate risks and capture opportunities. We enable you to reach Global Markets and drive forward with broader possibilities. Cme group how the world advances. Americas railroads are battling unprecedented congestion. So much so theyre still struggling to overcome gridlock back to 2014 and morgan joins us now from bellevue ohio with more on how some companies are responding. You get all the lucky gigs. Its certainly never a dull day here at cnbc for me. Ill tell you that. This is the bellevue yard where 1800 train cars come through each day. Theyre filled with everything from coal to grain to corn syrup. Capacity is in the process of being doubled and its largely to help ease that congestion you just mentioned in other parts of the network. Particularly the choke point of chicago. Were seeing this dynamic across the entire freight Rail Industry right now. First we have volumes coming back to prerecession peak levels. Second whats moving on the rails is changing. More crude oil, more autos, less coal and third its remained unchanged at least until now. Were seeing investments being made across the entire 140,000 miles of freight rail track that is here in the u. S. And this year alone companies are forecast to spend a record 29 billion. Thats according to the association of american railroads. A lot of that is money going to more locomotives like this. More train cars. More track, Better Technology and also more space at terminals like bellevue but of course the question now guys is going to be the fact that as these projects and investments begin to come online will it be enough to ensure another solid year of sector growth with the declines weve seen many crude oil prices and the black log at the west coast ports which has already been weighing on volumes for this year. Back to you. Okay. Morgan. Is it outside cleveland . I dont know bellevue. This is one of the biggest train yards. Theyre in the process of doubling capacity. Its huge. Its tracks of railroads and cars coming in here and basically when you talk about train cars being sorted and put on to new trains before they go o