Point. The nasdaq up by 3 1 2. Much of the rally in stocks was pushed by that surge in crude that joe was talking about. Wti topping the 40 level for the First Time Since december. This morning, it is still above 40. Its down by about 4 cents. Brent is up at 41. 39. Lets tell you some of the big stories were watching this morning. A trio of fed officials are going to be speaking today. New york fed president bill dudley. Also, boston fed president and the st. Louis fed president. Bullards speech centers around the economy. Well see what all three gentlemen have to say. Also, transcanada buying Columbia Pipeline Group for 25. 50 per share. Thats in cash. About 10 billion total. The deal would create one of north americas largest regulated natural Gas Transmission businesses. Also, trump is getting targeted. The Hacking Group anonymous is posting what they say is trumps phone number, home address, and email address. What can you do with all that information these days. Who knows. I have my own issues with everything electronic around here yesterday. What happened . I dont know. The people that know how to fix it dont even necessarily know whats going to work. You try a bunch of stuff. Theres no reason why it should work, then it finally does work. One password, you change one capital letter or something, then it works. Everything syncs up. Its almost like medicine. Its like an art, not a science. You are completely reliant on it. I didnt realize it. I was going to get no emails on my iphone. In the middle of march madness. I got home and it had been like an hour and a half and i hadnt gotten any. When they finally came on, every single thing was spam. There wasnt one thing in there i needed to know. Nobody was dying. Nobody you know, no action i needed to take. The anxiety of not knowing. Its unbelievable. Thats the world were living in right now. I have a lot to talk to andrew about. Oh, wow. Yep. Nice to see you. I got to hear about the whole big trip. We got to talk march madness. Well have a guy coming on to talk about it too. We got to talk about you know im playing. And i spent a lot of time trying to figure out how i was going to do this. I thought you were going to do the one button. No, i was going to, but i kept checking the different ways you could do the one button. Theres different options. I did that. Then you played with it . I started studying other things. There are some ways. I figured you wouldnt want to do the one button because youd have to say button all the time. She had a good one. I did the historical randomizer. I saw Wichita State won this morning. I was like, yes, yes. Then i looked at my bracket. I picked arizona to go to the sweet 16. I will tell you one thing. Do you know youre in first place . He wasnt going to tell you. I wasnt going to tell you, but youve got 13. My daughter, i think, has 15. Shes 8,000 on the poll. Shes 8,000 out of 13 million. But she had little rock, Wichita State. You had little rock. It was auto fill. Okay. Wow. We have three hours to do this. I didnt have duke. Think of people at home that have no interest in basketball. All right. Moving on. Not really. Stay with us. Im going to tell you about some stocks to watch. Look at this. Jpmorgan is raising its Stock Buyback Program by up to 1. 88 billion in addition to the 6. 4 billion that was already authorized for repurchase by the bank. That was from last year. Elsewhere, Johnson Johnson depuy unit has been ordered by a federal jury in texas to pay 500 million to five plaintiffs who were injured by metalonmetal hip implants. The company failed to warn the public about the risks. J j says it plans to i a peappe verdict. Adobes First Quarter profits tripled on Digital Media revenue. Theyre projecting 20 growth this year through 2018. Adobe is also raising its fullyear earnings outlook. Got to talk about ackman. A lot to talk about. How much is the fund down today . 24. If you go from the high, were basically 50 . We talked about the possibility he was going to have to sell something. Thats when he sold mondelez. Thats what we were talking about yesterday. There were a couple questions i had about, you know, whether people could have bought at the highs of last year. Are some people down 50 basically . Are people buying in . Was it open to buy in . Into his fund . Yes, because his fund was open. Its in amsterdam. The public vehicle is in amsterdam. You cough bougld have bought high and be down 50 . I think i could do down 50 . If i really messed up. Ackman was on our air yesterday. You dont have to be smart to be down 50. One of the things he was talking about is how hes not leveraged. You wouldnt have to cover any. Are people allowed to redeem right now . You can always sell out of the public fund. The larger fund, its difficult to redeem. So he wouldnt need to raise cash from mondelez to pay people off. Correct. But he had an option on valeant once it crossed 60, he became somehow 10 million shares longer. Hes not leveraged, but if you look at those options. That is a form of leverage. Maybe not technically. He is on the line to come up with more money. People are calling the fund going, hey, im down 50 . Hes saying, im not using leverage. But im down 50 . How about 260 stock that goes to 30. People are talking about accounting stuff. Herbalife would have been a better deal for him. Right. I dont want to use the e word. When a 265 stock goes to 30, dont you start thinking theres something not quite youve heard of fraud. Hes talking enron. I didnt want to use the e word. Not that its similar in any way, other than just being, i dont know, this great story that it really wasnt. Supposedly the numbers theyve guided to for the year are still huge. Its trading at like four times earnings. Theres a debate between ackmans people on the board and value x people on board. They wanted to be more conservative. The ackman guys were pushing them to be more optimistic, which is why think came up with the wrong numbers. We talked about this i think the day before you came back. Hes also short in a big way. Should you follow him into that or not . I have a video of adele singing hello. When you walk in, im going to play hello to you. You want to play that during the commercial break . We have things to do. Let me get it ready though. Lets get a check of the markets this morning. As we showed you, things are still looking positive, even after the big gain we saw yesterday with the dow finishing in the green for the first time all year on st. Patricks day. Dow futures about 30 points above fair value. S p futures up by 1. 5. The nasdaq up by 6. 5. Check out whats been happening in the early trading in europe this morning. Things are relatively flat across the board. You see some gains in spain with that index up by close to 0. 5 . In asia overnight, you saw that the nikkei was down by 1. 25 , but you saw gains in china with the hang seng up by 0. 8 and the shanghai composite up by 1. 75 . Oil was the bilg story yesterda. Wti up by 4. 5 . It was above 40 for the First Time Since december. This morning its holding on to that, sitting right at 40. 22. Brent is down by about 8 cents to 41. 46. Check out whats been happening in the treasury market. Right now the tenyear note is yielding 1. 87 . And the dollar was the other huge story yesterday. The dollar index hit its lowest level since october. This is the market still digesting what the fed said, but as a result, the euro hit its highest level against the dollar since february 11th. This is not what the ecb had in mind when they set forth all of this additional easing last week. You can see right now the dollar is up against the euro at 1. 127. The dollar is down against the yen. The story in the journal is all these regions are realizing its not as easy to debase your currency as you thought. No, its a comparative game. If the fed stands pat, theyre not going to be able to do it. Its not easy to debase your currency when were over here going, not so fast. Theyre all feckless. All the central bankers. You can go to negative Interest Rates, but if the fed stands yeah, well talk about that. I kind of like that. I know we go back and forth about should the fed go ahead and raise, but i like the idea were looking globally. Pushing back. Exactly. I want to quickly look were going to go to the dow and talk about that. But this twoyear chart. The only thing that got me was that its so clear that those are higher the highs are descending and the lows are lower. It looks like the next one youd go through that most recent low. We never make it back to the previous high. However f that were to go to new highs, it would really look like an inverted head and shoulders all the sudden. The shoulders would not be perfect. Thats whats so great about technical analysis. That could look like a really good inverted head and shoulders. Or it could just indicate the rallies keep failing before you get to the previous highs and you should still sell. I dont know. Well have some analysts on today. Maybe they know. Fat chance. The dow right now positive for the year. The major average is on pace for a sixth straight week of gains. Joining us now is the chief investment officer. Also, jim paulson. Jim, what do you think about what weve seen in the markets . How are you feeling at this point . Well, im guessing im feeling a little better, and im guessing we might break those old highs, joe, and maybe go a little higher and create some excitement. We came off the 1800 lows because we got evidence we werent recessing in the United States. Thats brought us back to unchanged for the year. I think theres some other positive things that could carry us higher here. I think the deflationary mind set thats been so troubling is sort of easing up if not ending with Commodity Prices stabilizing and core inflation picking up, which will help risk attitudes Going Forward if we can back away from the idea of a deflationary abyss. I also think earnings have a good shot of maybe starting to rise again in the United States. Some of the really negative fallout from materials and energy and manufacturing will end starting in the second quarter. The impact of the dollar is going to lessen here. The big catalyst thats yet to come, i think, is we might start Getting Better data not only here in the United States on the economy but better data abroad in some of these international economies. If we start to see that theres a synchronized global pickup in growth, i think that might be enough to take the market up maybe above the old highs, up towards 2200, before maybe we suffer again from worrying about the fed having to raise rates at a faster pace. I still think were going to end flat for the year, around where we are right now. So you wouldnt be a buyer here. I would be a buyer. But by the end of the year, you get back out of it . I would be a buyer mostly overseas, where i think theres better overall fundamentals here. But i think id be a buyer now, and if we rally up hard from here, get excited again, then i might be more cautious later in the year. Jack, how much of what jim was just talking about, all these positive potential developments, higher commodities prices, how much of that is just tied back to what we heard from the fed two days ago and the weakening dollar as a result . Yeah, i think some of it is just incremental change in liquidity from the fed. I think jum aim and i are lookit the same data. If we get incremental growth in the economy, which i think we will, our preference is to look for the cheaper markets, not the s p, which is among the more expensive market. I think emerging and foreign markets are probably better positioned to grow, especially if you believe that everything is synchronized anyway. If youre going to move in the same direction, might as well get the cheapest of those markets. Within the large caps, our preference is really dividends. Just given that we dont expect much growth this year. So were going to try to capture as much as we can from dividends. Not dividend payer necessarily but dividend growers. The more quality oriented dividend stocks in the s p. Jim, the feds caught a lot of flak for not raising rates when you look at the inflation picture, when you look at the unemployment picture. You think theyre right or wrong . Obviously the dollar is a huge issue. With other currencies or with ore count other countries trying to weaken and debase their currency, it does change the game. Yeah, becky, im in the camp that the fed, theyre past their expiration date. I think they need to start raising rates and keep raising rates for a period of time here. I think the u. S. Economy is showing its in fine shape. What im concerned about is since weve reached full employment over the last 12 to 15 months or so, around 5 unemployment, were seeing very common phillips curve increase in core inflation rates. Core cost inflation from wages to core cpe to core cpi have all accelerated by the broadest and most of this recovery. If were stabilizing Commodity Prices, those core inflation charts are going to be front and center for the fed and investment markets and theyre going to look behind the curve. My greatest fear is that we would enter a recession before we got renormalized, and people would feel that theres nothing anyone could do because the fed has zero rates. Theyre spent out Balance Sheet wise. I think we should move back towards normalization to put us in a better confident position. Paulsen, i was going to congratulate you on your commodities call. That just shows you. Sooner than later. Thats just my intro to ask you. Yesterday, kudlow was in. He said this is not an inflation fear, it should be taken as a positive that we can finally bury the deflation concern. Then we had liesman here saying that, you know, the fed he said, i asked the fed, geez, all these things have been happening, and you used to say you would raise if this happened. The one thing he said was missing was inflation. Well, are you if youre the fed, are you supposed to wait until its here . You cant use any wait until you see the whites of your eyes. Yeah, you have to wait until gold goes up 90 in two days to finally figure things out, that maybe youve conquered deflation . I think its a problem, joe. As an investor worried about how high the price earnings multiple in the stock market can be, its a concern. If inflation gets out of control, thats a huge negative for the stock market valuation level. I dont think were going to have runaway inflation, but i think were headed towards 3 plus wages and maybe 3 core cpi. With a sub2 tenyear treasury and basically zero short rate, we are way out of whack with free market pricing. Jim, you made us feel so good. Then you turn around. Jack, very quickly, how optimistic are you about the situation right now . Yeah, im optimistic on the economy. Im optimistic on avoiding the downturn. Its really just a valuation question for me. I think that when we entered First Quarter earnings season, were going to have to come face to face with fundamentals again. Kind of like january. We look back in the fourth quarter, and we didnt like the results. Im not sure were going to like the results from the First Quarter either. If youre longer term, want to get in, its probably better to wait until midapril and pick spots then. Great. Jack, jim, thank you both. Have a great weekend. Thank you. Thanks. All right. Coming up, we have a segment based on march madness. Were not even going to be off. Are you getting adele ready to say hello . I am getting ready. I just turned up the volume. Why they play these games, upsets. A couple 12s beat 5s. I was on the right side of one of them. Purdue, seriously . Anyway, upset in the first round of play. A win by yale in Double Overtime with purdue going home early along with baylor. Well go inside the madness next. First, this is what happened on this day in history. Every insurance policy has a number. But not every Insurance Company understands the life behind it. For those whove served and the families that have supported them, we offer our best service in return. Usaa. We know what it means to serve. Get an insurance quote and see why 92 of our members plan to stay for life. Welcome back. U. S. Equity futures at this hour after that big gain yesterday. Shows you it doesnt matter what theyre doing now. Yesterday they were down. They closed up 150. Today the s p is indicated up two. The nasdaq up about eight. Were back actually in positive territory after that horrific start to the year. Now let us giving you fair warning. We are going to talk about some hoops and the march madness. The opening day of the 2016 ncaa tournament is in the books but not without a few upsets. Joining us is ryan nanny. I could start so many places. I love the shockers. I didnt think ron baker could do it by himself and he did. I took arizona. Theyve showed in the past you shouldnt doubt Wichita State. I know. My daughter has them going to like the final four. But i thought they lost their greats. They played a lot of the year without fred. Hes healthy now. Yeah, this is a team that seems to know how to put it together when it counts in march. Who looked best yesterday . I wish i had taken yale further because of mckai. How tall is he . Yale as a team is not what is more than you sort of expect them to be on paper. They are a much better rebounding team by the advanced metrics. You saw it yesterday. Thats why they were able to beat baylor. How about mason going down the stretch . Never even hit the rim on the free throws. Yeah, yeah. Never hit anything you werent watching, but he hit like ten of them. Had 30 points at least. Never hit the rim on the free throws. Thats impressive. I wish id taken them further. The other player i liked from yesterday was indianas yogi farrell. He had 10 points, 20 assists against a tough chattanooga team. They could make a nice little run. I have them going pretty far. People are mad at you for that. Its the auto fill. If i would have picked all the teams i liked. I didnt have butler, who i would have picked. I would have had purdue. I cant believe i didnt pick butler, like an idiot. Who looked best . You think kansas looked good. Kansas looked good. Unc after a terrible first half showed why theyre a number one seed against florida gulf coast. Most of the top seeds held serve. Its still that early point in the tournament where you get to work those kinks out. There