Children at a park. A political faction of taliban claiming responsibility. The park was crowded with christians on an Easter Sunday outing. A spokesman said the attack deliberately targeted the christian community. Many muslim among the dead as well. The explosion injured more than 300 people. Among todays top stories we had a couple of things. Microsoft reportedly in preliminary talks with private equity firms to help finance a bid to buy yahoo . This is according to several reports. Executives from private equity firms approached microsoft to gauge its interests. After its auctioning off its core business. Microsoft has had a partnership with yahoo for quite some time. Take a look at shares right now up marginally. Yahoo shares as well. Second time around. This will be the second time around, youll call when Steve Ballmer, they had meeting in airport hangars. What a mess that was. Dell is now selling its i. T. Services unit to ntt data corp. Part of efforts to raise capital and pay down debt. They have so much debt as part of that deal incurred when it closed in inacquisition of enc. Reports also surfacing that avon is nearing a deal with act that visits. It will add a new independent droshgt its board in change, activists will back away from a proxy fight. Those shares are down marge annalla marginally. Easter monday. Easter monday. Its a heluva idea, isnt it . Yeah. Weve got good friday. Turn it into a fourday weekend. Easter monday. Who are they where are they closed . In london. The squared away countries that give this holiday its due. Dont get too much detail here. Easter monday policy people. Easter monday. Here we are, working on Easter Monday. Dell, big golf tournament. Most successful first year tournament. Michael dell was there. See, a beautiful golf course in austin. Then the next thing im going to talk about here is the Economic Data. Do you know its april 1st do you know what that means . Yeah. Were finally wrapping up earnings season. Correct me if im wrong, but isnt it end of the quarter . If youre on the regular calendar. So, do earnings start again next week . Yes. Whoohoo its im thinking its kind of quiet. We have earnings comes and a job report. Excepect expectations arent thats all right. Weve got personal income and spending. Trade deficit, pending home sales figures. Thats today. Then on tuesday, we have the january caseshiller home price index. They work order on this because it takes them forever to put it together. And march consumer confidence. Wednesday, we get the march adp exploit reports. Thursday, jobless claims. And friday, its the march jobs reports as well as the ism manufacturing index. Consumer sentiment, Construction Spending and march auto sales. Every week we have fed speak, what we have from williams this morning, San Francisco fed president John Williams says the u. S. Economy is doing quite well. Quite well. He points to stable inflation, strong employment growth. And this was an an interview, an exclusive one with cnbc asia, thats today suggesting that Global Developments are preventing the u. S. From returning to normalized Interest Rates. If its just us, they could. We understand that were in a Global Economy, Global Financial system so what happens in brazil, china, what happens in Southeast Asia and south america has huge impact on terms of employment and inflation goals. We have to take all of that into account. We have to understand how its whats happening around the world answer the u. S. Economy. We also have to be cog that zan distant of the fact when if the acts it understands the economy. Fourth quarter gdp figures today, that data was released friday but the markets were closed. Gdp increasing for the Fourth Quarter at 1. 4 . Strong Consumer Spend was a key factor. Of course, leishman told us last week that the gdp figures are so strong we shouldnt even be paying attention to any of them again, take a look at the u. S. Equity futures they are indicated higher with s p up by 8. 5 and the dow futures up by almost4 points. In the oil markets, qatar has said its invited all to attend the april 17th talks in doug ss. Take a look at wti, still below 40. A little bit of a rough week last week. Right now up 32 cents to 39. 79. If you want to check on the tenyearyearold, its hanging stubbornly below 2 . 1. 914 . If you check out the currency, the dollar is flat against the euro, 1. 1163. Up against the yen trading at 113. 52, down against the pound, 1. 4969. Gold prices, were starting up this week, down by five dollars to 1,216 an ounce. Joining us is merriam timur. And also pimcos strategic visor. Rich, were getting towards the end of the first quarter, maybe were glad to see this go with the volatility . Oh, absolutely. It certainly ended better than it started in january, so the trends in the right direction for sure. How do you feel about things right now . I think the data is beginning to stabilize, as joe mention wed have a dataheavy week. And your interview with williams hit the mark. I think Global Developments are a headwind to the u. S. Through the dollar and exports. I think that will continue to be a factor through the year. Youre essentially thinking we dont think the fed will raise rates in april, even though weve heard from all of these more hawkish statements coming out last week . Yeah, i think april will be a long shot given yellens press conference. I think they will use april as probably the opportunity to tee up june. How about you . Joe mentioned its not just the jobs but earnings, what do you think . Earnings season will be interesting, it will start basically next week. If you look at what has been driving Earnings Growth expectations from the wall street community, its really been the dollar and crude oil prices and both of those have turned meaningfully over the past few months yet earnings expectations continue to erode week after week. I think were down to 2 1 2 oil and 5 to 6 energy. If you look at whats happening to oil in the past six weeks or so, you could argue that well actually see upside surprises start next week. Well see. Its hard to imagine that were talking about oil turning significantly. Its by 50 . So you think the trend is going to continue both in terms of oil prices and stocks . I think right now, weve had basically some very large moves in a very short prd of time. And i think were probably in a Holding Pattern here. The s p went from basically the bottom end 1800 to almost the top end of 2182. Weve got a s p move over the past six weeks. And i were going to consolidate gains here. I think last week is why it got more choppy in the market. Well probably see that especially as we wait for earnings season to unfold here. Mitch, this has been part of the head fake is the head fake that we fell so low or is the head fake that we came back so quickly . No, i think the head fake is we got sideswiped about concerns about china. And weve had a fall in oil prices now theres a rebound, now that china doesnt look like its going to devalue those. I think those are positives. The head fake was earlier in the year. Theres a story on the front page of the wall street journal that points out that the Major Oil Companies arent replenishing their reserves as quickly as theyre using it. Exxonmobil, 67 of oil reserves. All of these companies have cut back substantially on capital expenditure. They dont thing oil is going to rebound. How much of that is a selffulfilling prophesy . Well, most that i talked to indicate that the market will still go through a rebound. Perhaps earlier in 2017, a supply and demand global to get back in balance. Rich things the fed will not raise Interest Rates in april. We do have a jobs report coming up on friday. Which direction do you think were leaning . Yeah. I think an april hike is extremely unlikely. If the fed moved, again, its only a 6 probability, i think that would be a very bold statement. And i dont think the fed is prepared to make any bold statements. They backed off in march just like they did last september. There are some people who speculate that maybe there was some deal during the last g20 meeting between the fed and the pboc. I think the first meeting that will be, will be june. Even then, automatodds are only. If they want to make meeting, janet yellen will have to change her tune. How will it react if she sounds more hawkish at this point . Yeah, the fed has to be careful because we dont want to go into round three of this tugofwar thats been in place for the last nine months or so. Where the fed starts to talk rate hikes. Dollars go up. And pboc with the reserves to manage that whole currency situation. Then were back to a rise in volatility in all markets. I think the fed, it will be good if the fed just kind of stayed quiet for a while. The numbers have come in favor of another hike. Exactly. Which is why you may think shes going to have to toughen her tone a little bit. And the idea that the fed cant even talk about potentially raising rates down the road without worrying about what it does to markets in china seems a little insane . Thats the way the world is right now. Economically, the transition channel between what happens to china and the u. S. Is much smaller nan whthan what it is i financial market. And the dollar is really the key indicator, it really is. It drives everything else. If the fed starts talking about a june hike and things dont unravel in the currency markets then maybe it will get a green light and that will be reflected. If come may, the odds are well above 50 and the dollar still is well behaved, theyve got a green light. Its too early to tell. Rich, is this a much more complicated dance. Data, we were looking at Unemployment Rate, inflation numbers. Now, were looking at 8,000 other factors and worrying about the language that yellens going to use and if that will put pressure on the pboc. Well, exactly. And i think she will use her speeches and the april statement to, i think, lay the ground work to a hike in june. I think they want a hike. The key operative concept, becky, is going to be they want to be very gradual. I think your other guest is right, if they go too aggressively, they do get a big move in the dollar. I think theyre resigned to some sort of the dollar. I dont think that will deter them from hiking a couple times this year. I thank you both for being here with a startup this monday morning. Thank you. Coming up, senator Bernie Sanders not just sweeping, his numbers are 80 . I always knew about Washington State because its right above its like San Francisco and the whole state. Seattle has been more progressive than San Francisco. Its that 18 minimum wage. Washington state, alaska and hawaii over the weekend. Trump and cruz still trading barbs over the weekend. Ben white will join us after the break. The first stock index musiwas createdoughout over 100 years ago as a benchmark for average. Yet many people still build portfolios with strategies that just track the benchmarks. But investing isnt about achieving average. Its about achieving goals. And invesco believes doing that today requires the art and expertise of highconviction investing. Translation . Its time to bench the benchmarks. Who dont have access thto basic banking,on people t that is changing. At temenos, with the microsoft cloud, we can enable a banker to travel to the most remote locations with nothing but a phone and a tablet. Everywhere where theres a phone, you have a bank. 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Carolina pulls away and beating the fighting irish 8874. That will advance the school to the 19th final four. Thats the most in acc history. In the midwest region, top seed virginia taking on the number ten seed. First time number ten has made it to the final. The orange were down 16 in the first half before staging a major comeback led by freshman malachi richardson. 23 points. Syracuse topping the cavaliers 6862 to make it to their sixth final four and fifth for coach jim boeheim. Ville nobody virginia will face oklahoma. And the first game on saturday. While syracuse and North Carolina meet for the third time this season in the second game. John, well lead into you, we will talk politics. As a big duke fan, i know you were watching most of these games over the weekend. I was love him or hate Jimmy Boeheim in syracuse, they were 99 in the conference. They finished tenth in that conference. Only 4 had that team going to the final four. They were down. Did you see they changed the complete strategy and just made it pressing for two or three minutes. And virginia fell apart. It was like a cheap deck of cards. Whatever its called. House of cards. Its amazing the way a coach can make a difference. Thats why some of these teams, dont matter what they do. It doesnt matter if youre in the final four if you have a great coach. Joe, it was a stunning victory. I dont think anybody expected that that to happen. Especially halfway through the game. Theyve got a tough road against North Carolina. My expectation is that income m North Carolina is going to maybing that win. It gets tough. No duke. A lost america is really upset about that. We are so deluded. Were so deluded in so many ways. Isnt he . This is just basketball were talking about. I wasnt even talking about basketball. Just put your finger on it, joe. Thats it. I went with my heart xavier, i knew i wouldnt go that far. But they could be here, they could. Except for those two shots. Well, wisconsin who ended the run for xavier, they got overcome by a Notre Dame Team that was incredibly tough but just didnt have enough didnt have enough over the weekend. You said in the second half. It was actually half of the second half was over for syracuse. They were still down 16. Nine minutes left and they were down. And thats pretty unbelievable. Anyway, john, i dont know where you want to start. Those numbers that are in front of you. Sort of oped pieces about how republicans got three states and 80 . And were talking those numbers are the envy of anyone. Its incredible. But hillarys got all the superdelegates. Yeah, shes also got a 250delegate lead among the pledged delegates. And shes got more votes. The democrats award there, done make up big gaps. Bernie sanders is somehow triggering a collapse in Hillary Clinton that causes those superdelegates to flood to him. But theres no sign thats happening. Hillary clinton is at the end of the day comfort food for those democratic superdelegates. Shes got massive momentum going in. Got momentum. With the socialist that shes its weird that a 73yearold socialist youre not going to be able to convince superdelegates that the 74yearold socialist is the better democratic candidate. By the way, there are a lot of republicans wishing they had a big crop of superdelegates so that they could steer the race in ways theyre not able to now. Oh, yeah. It just points to her not motivating a large part of the democratic base. Not motivating it. Sure. People say with, depending on who the gop puts up, that maybe they wont need it. I guess thats sort of the Mainstream Media viewpoint. Were going to the Mainstream Media in just a second. Do you disagree with it, joe . I dont know anything anymore. Its harded to when you see how wrong the polls have been in so many situation, and how wrong the pundits have been in so many swituations, its had to break down who it comes down to. Well, the polls have been wrong. We had a big one in michigan. That was significant, nobody expected that. And the pundits didnt anticipate that donald trump was going to have the power that he had. The polls did. Yeah, the polls showed all along that he was doing fairly well. So pick your poison. But i do think when you look at how democrats see the general election race and how republicans, which is whats feeding the nevertrump or stoptrump movement, theres a a lot of commonality, which is the idea that donald trump, while hes thriving in his multicandidate republican environment, its going to be a lot tougher in the general. Are you able to speak even though duke is not in the final four . Im going to summon myself. I couldnt get out of bed. Thank you, john. Duke not in the final four. I dont like syracuse at all. But i was just blown away by that comeback. With malachi. Threes, boeheim, say what you will about him, hes the sift board for the ncaa coach. Hes astounding. Can we talk about the implications over the weekend . Does it matter . You mean sanders win . They dont mean that much in terms of delegate count. And the idea that hillary is not able to ever close this deal. Theres big states coming up that shell win big. Lets talk about two things. One, the l. A. Times story on the investigation on hillary. No criminal charges. But also suggests that theyre going to be doing interviewing. Thats the end. You think thats the end . Thats what i want to understand. The other thing i want to understand is this whole trump