In european markets right now, youll see that the dax is down by about 0. 6 . So is the ftse in london. The cac looks like the biggest decliner of the three. It is down by about 1. 1 . If you want to take a look at the price of crude oil, yesterday we saw crude oil, what was happening there. Now its down by about 37 cents to 37. 95. A couple big stories were watching today. Heres whats happening. Yahoo changing its bylaws to allow proxy access for board nominations. Heres what it means. Investors who have held a stake of at least 3 in yahoo for a minimum of three years have the power to nominate directors to the board. These investors can nominate up to 20 of its board. Starboard value launched a proxy fight last week to overthrow the companys board. Also, a very big victory for insurer metlife. A federal judge striking down the governments determination that metlife was too big to fail. The designation of systemically Important Financial Institution carries stricter Capital Requirements and oversight. Metlife had argued to the counsel it made the determination and used a secretive and flawed process. Were going to talk to the ceo of aig, another company thats received that designation. We had the ceo of metlife on the day he brought the suit. A lot of people skeptical about them bringing the suit, what it would do to their brand. He appears to have won. It will be interesting to see whether it changes the dynamic for other companies. Or if the Obama Administration appeals this decision. Which they may very well do. Some statements have expressed their own disappointment. On todays economic agenda, jobless claims coming out. Just before 10 00 a. M. , were going to get chicago pmi data for march. And chicago fed president Charles Evans and new york fed president bill dudley are speaking today. I feel like these guys are speaking a lot these days. Maybe we should pay more attention. Theyve been blabbing for years, i think. Im looking right now, i dont want to know my life isnt, you know doesnt begin december 31st, january 1st. So the dow is at 17 like just under 17,800. Were about 3. 25 . So we had been down. We went down into the beginning of the year. But then we came back a little. Were at 2016 highs. Were not that far though, really. I think its 18 and change. All right. What you said was, see what youve create td. I thought you meant the argument. Im telling you, if someone was born to anchor squawk alley, when i watch you, i cant miss it. I dont miss a minute of that when youre on there. Youre so good. Thank you. Let me say, carl was born to anchor. He does a great job at it. Anyway, your uber rating. They were talking about an uber rating. I dont know, it was dirty. You said show me yours and ill show you mine. Our ratings. I got it. I understand. But you were being dirty about it. You are lower than him. Is it one to five . A 4. 5 sounds pretty good. No, 4. 5 is pretty low. Is it really . I would manl you would be a one, the way you treat i did have an excuse, but youre not supposed to claim the children. Ive had one throw up. But 4. 5 raises eyebrows . Thats like a bplus. Do people have ones . What are they like in do people not pick them up . I think if youre a driver and youre under a four, you might actually get kicked off the service. Okay. So youre close. Thats what im saying. You remember the seinfeld episode with the guy that parks the car and he never got the odor out of the car. Is it all the senses . That could generate a one, theoretically. Thats why they have an incentive to keep the car clean. Its usually not the car thats the problem. They need to keep them anyway. Stocks to watch this morning. Blackrock is reportedly cutting about 400 jobs in its biggest ever round of layoffs. That will represent 3 of the Asset Managers global work force. Plus, were watching shares of boeing. You remember yesterday the company acknowledged it plans to cut 4,000 jobs from its commercial airplane business by mid year. Now reuters is reporting that the Company Plans to cut up to 8,000 jobs by the end of the year. That could slash about a billion dollars in annual costs. Fast food chain mcdonalds adding more than a thousand restaurants in china. The ceo said that the company is looking for an Investment Partner in asia to speed up its expansion. The company will also expand its presence in hong kong and south korea as well. And gop front runner donald trump walking back comments he made yesterday about abortion after taking criticism from democrats and his republican opponents. John harwood joins us now with more on this story. Reporter andrew, seems like theres a new controversy every five or ten minutes with donald trump. He got a new one yesterday courtesy of our colleague Chris Matthews at msnbc at a town hall meeting when chris pressed him on what should happen if abortion becomes illegal, as donald trump says he wants it to be. Take a listen. Do you believe in punishment for abortion, yes or no, as a principle . The answer is that there has to be some form of punishment. For the woman . Yeah, there has to be some form. Ten cents, ten years . That i dont know. You take positions on Everything Else. I do take positions on Everything Else. Its a very complicated position. Reporter now, very quickly, donald trump walked back that in a written statement saying, no, there wouldnt be punishment for the woman. There would be punishment for the abortion provider, that the woman is a victim in this case. His opponents seized on the moment. His numbers with women are very bad. Ted cruz is trying to capitalize on that. There was a new poll out in wisconsin yesterday showing cruz ten points ahead of donald trump in that staut. If they can stop him there, gives him some hope they can slow donald trump down, keep him from getting the 1237 delegates he needs to be nominated on the first ballot. On the other hand, new quinnipiac poll out this morning showing donald trump ahead by more than 30 points in the state of new york, guys. So not quite sure exactly how this controversy will play and whether donald trump in general is losing altitude. Mixed signals out there. First time he totally hes never actually completely changed like that before. Saying, you know, that was i misspoke, that was a mistake. A lot of these issues he obviously hasnt through. That was kind of winging it. Hypothetically, i mean, its a ridiculous for me, i think its probably not ever going to be something that you have to actually decide how to put into practice because its 2000 whatever. I know thats the party line, but i dont know whether that right after roe v. Wade ever gets reversed. Reporter joe, i think youre raising a good point there let me finish. If you do get into this crazy hypothetical discussion about how you would enforce it, people havent even thought that through. You think, wow, okay, if it is against the law, that means someone does have to then you have to think through it to realize, no, you probably punish the providers, the doctors or something. He didnt think about that quickly enough. He missed that one. Hadnt thought it through. Then realized, oh, what did i say . I meant providers. But its all theoretical crap anyway. I just cant imagine, john. Im conservative in certain ways, but i cant imagine back roo rooms, state to state where its legal. Reporter i think thats correct. I think the backdrop for this discussion, remember, what does donald trump say about politicia politicians . He says theyre all talk and no action. The reality on this issue is that republicans who want to win elections dont really want to win on this issue. At some point, as you were just suggesting, hes underscoring the theoretical, somewhat imaginary nature of this conversation. Now, if youre on the other side of it, if youre a democrat, you say, well, we got a closely divided supreme court. You have a conservative majority that wants to roll back roe v. Wade. People fired up, definitely. Ted cruz said exactly what you said, joe, which is he hasnt thought this issue through. He used that as a hammer against him. Because hes a businessman. He doesnt have all the political answers. Thats something that will also bring up a division in the party. Those who really believe on this issue and those who are conservative republicans fiscally. Becky, the ones that supposedly really believe that its wrong, oh, my god, no, were not going to punish. Theyre half ass against it. This is the first time that donald trump has ever said, no, thats not what i meant. Reporter well, he did it before, guys, on china tariffs. Theyre against it, but theyre not against it so much theyd punish them. Theyre splitting hairs. I dont know. This is a tough thing for us to talk about too. Never want to talk about the right to choose, right to life. Thanks for bringing it up, john. Reporter youre welcome. You got nothing else . Wisconsin will be interesting. Reporter its potentially big. Donald trump has won most of the big state primaries. In fact, all of them. The chance of the brokered convention went up. Its like 61 . That has a lot to do with the poll numbers in wisconsin. Thats, what, 40 or 50, isnt it . That would close the gap. Thats winner take all too. Winner take all. Reporter winner take most. Oh, okay. All right. All right, harwood. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Im afraid to look at twitter. Yelled at for something, im sure. The dow riding a fourday winning streak into todays session. Industrials are up for the last 11 of 13 days. Joining us is Julian Emanuel from ubs and steve from mizuho. Lets start with abortions, guys. Lets go back into where we feel safe, can we . Earnings season. Ive been going back to earnings season all week long. Just a lot easier for us. Its in our wheelhouse. Will it be average enough for the market to continue to go higher, or will it not be good enough . I think what youre going to be looking at in this upcoming earnings season is more the forward projections now that the currency has moved down and has been moving down for most of the quarter. Were going to wind up that seeing reflected in forward earnings numbers and in terms of what peoples guidance will be going forward. Thats going to continue to help keep the secular rotation going on. I still think fundamentally the multiple is expensive, but i think that rotation keeps the market on a firm footing going forward. Primarily because of the currency. Currency has been better. 1. 14, the euro today. Did we get to 1. 05 . We were threatening 1. 05 at one point. Thats why yellen yesterday, whenever it was, its kinds of disingenuous to be talking about the dollar. Thats an excuse at this point. In a lot of ways it is yesterdays story. Positively oil, in a certain way, is starting to become a bit of yesterdays story as well. What happened with yellen is much more about actually creating a bit of uncertainty. The tone was so dovish that were not entirely sure in the near term whether the fed knows something that we dont about either china or about the u. S. Economy or perhaps there is sort of a hedging aspect to her tone given the potential for the brexit vote to go badly in june or, as weve just talked about, the ongoing Political Uncertainty in the u. S. She is basically conceding its a much more even though were never going to pass another trade deal, shes conceding its a Global Market now that the fed is looking at in terms of Interest Rates. I think they do look at equity movements around the globe. Im sure china, if it started collapsing, theyd use that as an excuse. No question. And that kind of verbiage started in september when the market actually expected the first hike, which subsequently didnt happen until december. But its an ongoing issue. They use the phrase uncertainty 19 times in the january minutes. The title of the speech the other day had the word uncertainty in it. So whats your working plan . Two more this year . Im going with two more this year. Thats what were thinking. Youre at one . One more and done. Crazy to go above 50 basis points. Theyre not going to want to do it with the election. You vls a to realize, the Growth Numbers arent that particularly robust. There was no outlook for the Second Quarter being on a stronger footing. Were just stuck. Some say its the jobs numbers that indicate a much stronger economy. The gdp doesnt reflect tech gains. Then you have the other people who say its really 5. 9 , its not a real jobs number, and the gdp is the real number. Our head is spinning. If you were in our audience, you wouldnt know whether to look at the gdp and earnings, which look bad, and the jobs number, which looked gangbusters. Best thing to do is look at whats happening in terms of the core basic economy. Thats coming out of the manufacturing side of the economy. Thats coming out of the earnings picture. When you look at the two of them, both of them are very disappointing. The key bhuehind the two of the is even though people say manufacturing is a smaller and smaller component of the economy, which it is, a lot of reason for that is a lot of the jobs that used to be manufacturing jobs have now been moved into service jobs. That shouldnt be what we look at anymore, especially with the dollar and oil being the two oneoffs. You shouldnt be using manufacturing to judge. This is where i disagree. Manufacturing feeds back into a lot of ancillary services. When manufacturing takes slows Everything Else down. So the concept of manufacturing as important is wrong. With the dollar getting weaker, you hope some of that will come off the pressure and youll get a little better second half environment. But were basically stuck. Thats where were going to be throughout the balance of the year. By the end of the year, were at new highs, julian . We believe so. But not 20 higher. Not likely, no. However, not too far away. We eked out a gain with the dividend. But the point is, janet yellen has told us theres uncertainty certainly in the near term, and if you look at the rally off the february low and you look at the vix having come from 30 to 13 1 2, the market in the near term is not necessarily priced for additional uncertainty, although the longer term message is that the fed is not going to take the punch bowl away. Thats why in these flat markets you need stock pickers and active management or Hedge Fund Guys that know what theyre doing. Like a long valeant or something. You want guys that know. People who are hedged. All right. Thank you. I always take a shot. Why . I dont know. Theres a lot of guys. I know youre talking about one guy. But a lot of guys. Bigger letters, past performance. No guarantee. Theyre 50 50. When we come back this morning, amid apples fight with the government over encryption, the companys stock has climbed out of correction territory. Its up more than 13 just in the last month. Also, the companys latest u phone and ipad models will hit stores today. Well ask an analyst whats driving the stock rebound next. Thank you. Ordering chinese food is a very predictable experience. I order b14. I get b14. No surprises. Buying business internet, on the other hand, can be a roller coaster White Knuckle thrill ride. Youre promised one speed. But do you consistently get it . You do with comcast business. Its reliable. Just like kung pao fish. Thank you, ping. Reliably fast internet starts at 59. 95 a month. Comcast business. Built for business. Welcome back to squawk box. Apple may be recovering from its bruises. The stock out of correction territory and up over 13 this month. The tech giants newest products, the ipad pro and the new iphone what do you call this . Like having a pen. Stylus . Thank you. Also hitting shelves today around the world after a week of preorders. Joining us now is the Vice President of enterprise and Consumer Technology at maxim group. What do you think is driving the stock now after all the fbi stuff and Everything Else . That has nothing to do with this, obviously. I think the fbi stuff is a positive for the stock because it shows that apple was willing to stand up for the consumers and protect their privacy. So that provides, you know, one more reason for users to say, hey, you know what, i might prefer to have an iphone rather than a galaxy or another androidbased operating phone. But the move is not related to either these new products or the expectation of whatever you think this iphone 7 is going to be . So the expectation of the iphone 7 may have moved up just a little bit because now you have a belief that some people who are very security sensitive might actually opt for go for, you know what, i cant believe my stuff is secure on an androidbased operating system. It might be more secure with an iphone. So i might be more convinced to go for an iphone. Thats one of the elements. But i think the key thing driving the stock is that on iphone success, weve clearly had a down cycle. Its because the iphone 6 was a huge upgrade cycle because of their new form factor. With iphone 7, youll get a new form factor, but more importantly, you get this huge install base thats ready to refresh. It will undoubtedly be an up cycle. As such, you no longer will have the fear that, hey, were in this permanent down cycle for the iphone and therefore margin compression fears will start to fade and youll start to get that multiple expansion. I think thats a primary thing thats going to be driving the stock going forward, and thats what has been driving the stock. These particular products we just mentioned that become available, the smaller phone and the ipad pro, thats driving any of this . I seriously doubt it drives much of it. I think there was a little bit of concern it could have been a sell the news event there. Everything came in as far as specifications and price points as expected. These rumors that the iphone se and the ipad pro, theyve been out there for three months. Is there a bigger market for this smaller phone . Not here but im talking about abroad. Isnt that the real expectation, or the hope, for apple . Its a bigger market, but its been embedded in the stock price because its been an expectation that this form factor would be out there. On top of that, they did have the smaller form factor available for quite some time, but it was in a twoyearold packaging. So theyre bringing it up to current packaging, current specifications. You mentioned to me during the commercial break before you sat down, you said, i dont have an apple. You have a samsung . I have a galaxy s5. I thought you were just glad to see andrew. Then you just made this argument about security, that you think there are