Ten points. The nasdaq off by 22. Crude oil prices were up sharply overnight, topping 40 a barrel. First time weve seen that in quite a while. That came after the announcement yesterday of a surprise job in u. S. Inventories. However, wti has turned around since then. Looks like we flipped that contract, too. If you were looking at 40 overnight, were now looking at the may contract. Thats a decline of 7 cents to 37. 69. It will be interesting to see how this new contract plays out. We did see a huge gain in crude oil prices yesterday. The other big mover this morning, currency. The dollar hitting a 17 hch month low against the yen. This came after the minutes from the last months fed meeting suggested that the central bank is unlikely to raise Interest Rates before june. There were a lot in these minutes, but most people are looking at the doves comments after what we heard from janet yellen just last week. Brian . Some corporate stories to talk to you about this morning. Just go right to the video. Dont even have me on camera this morning. Elon musk has tweeted that the electric carmaker will give an update on model 3 reservation numbers early today. Much more on tesla and its ability to meet demand coming at the top of the next hour. Valeant pharmaceuticals has secured a debt commitment. And recode is reporting that yahoo is expecting revenue to drop 15 and earnings to fall more than 20 compared to last year. Thats shocking. Huge number. Thats a big number. Okay. We got a must read. Were just talking about the must reads in the last show. This, to me, is the must read. Jpmorgan releasing jamie dimons annual letter to shareholders. Were going to go through the highlights. It is worth knowing them. Dimon says hes not worried about negative Interest Rates in the u. S. Thats because the chief executive noting that housing is in short supply, car sales are at record levels, and consumers are spending what hes calling the gas dividend. Dimon is more concerned about rates rising faster than people expect. Banking ceo also warning higher volatility, he says is here to stay. The bank has seen extreme volatility and distortions in several markets. On the feds Bank Stress Test, dimon argued theyre flawed. He suggested jpmorgan could absorb the theoretical losses of the nations 31 largest banks. On the global front, dimon warning of economic trouble from a brexit. He says years of uncertainty would be the bestcase outcome from a decision by britain to leave the european union. As for jpm shares, dimon says hes not proud of the stocks performance over the last decade. He notes shares have only equaled the s p 500 since the banks merger with bank one in july 2004, which is when he joined jpm. But dimon also points out his firms stock has far outperformed the s p financials index and has been one of the best performers of all the banks during this difficult period. Remember, dimon had bought 500,000 jpm shares back in midfebruary, which helped boost the sentiment. People talk about it as indithe dimon bottom. Hes basically taken the Warren Buffett model, which he talks about how he loves the model. He writes what he sees from it. He does it without the lawyers getting involved. Thats a rare thing in the corporate world. I bet the lawyers still do get involved. Yes, but i think he holds way more sway than a lot of letters. If you compare letters and look through, you can hear whos writing in their own voice and whos not. We should tell you about another ceo of a dow component whos also sounding off. General electric Ceo Jeff Immelt is defending his firm after recent harsh comments from president ial hopeful Bernie Sanders. Writing in the Washington Post, Bernie Sanders says we are destroying the moral fabric of america. He is wrong. This comes after sanders cited ge as an example of corporate greed at its worst. He says ge created wealth and jobs in the United States, not just overseas, and that the company has never been a big hit with socialists. Immelt also said, sanders has state ph. D many times ge pays n taxes. Repeating a lie over and over doesnt make it true. We pay billions of dollars in taxes. We support comprehensive tax reform, even if it raises our tax rate. Meantime, the pfizer ceo firing back against treasurys crackdown against tax inversions on wall street in a journal piece hit the kwld treasury is wrong about our merger and growth. Government policies should encourage investment, certainty, and job creation. The new, quote, rules, show there are no set rules. Political dogma, is, andrew, the only tool. It was a good piece. All these pieces, the Business Community does have to stand up occasionally. You always hear soandso company pays no tax. They may have had a giant loss carry forward, so you could pluck out a year. Pfizers tax rate effective over ten years. You could probably find one year they didnt pay as much. The Bernie Sanders interview was crazy. Can we put it on the record . Youre talking about on the daily news . Thats what the immelt piece is about effectively. Bernie sanders has been saying this on the campaign trail. If people dont know, Bernie Sanders gave a long interview with the New York Daily News newspaper. They sit there and ask you questions. And he has no idea what hes talking about with banks. Then hes saying ge is a terrible company. He says ge doesnt pay taxes. He also doesnt know how to ride the subway. He said you throw the token in. I dont know. The whole thing made me crazy. Merck ceo kent frazier saying that his company would not pursue a tax inversion, instead focusing his efforts on mercks pipeline. Yesterday on closing bell, he said he understands why Companies Opt for inversions. Its really important to recognize why Companies Seek to do tax inversions, and that is the current u. S. System of taxation makes u. S. Based companies simply uncompetitive. Frazier said the treasurys new rules do nothing to fix the source of the issues. Everybody says, by the way, in all of their defenses of the inversions, please fix it, please fix it, please fix it. But at the same time, theres this whole new idea that its sort of unamerican that you cant leave. But the unamerican idea that i think everyones referring to these days is the rule of law, the fact the laws are changing in front of our eyes. Well, getting used to it. What jeff immelt said was important. Were in favor of comprehensive tax reform, even if it raises our tax rates. When you get people stepping up and saying that, that shows you, look, this is not just about me wanting to pay a lower tax return. This is about making sure the system is competitive and making sure were able to do this in a global economy. Lets get a check on the markets this morning. Brian . Lets look at the futures. As becky it would you earlier, indicating a down open right now. Very early in the morning. The dow futures down about 80 points. S p 500 futures downs about 11. Lets look at the european markets as well. We are seeing a down trade there as well. In germany, the dax down about 0. 3 . Biggest drop is in italy, where were seeing a 1 decline. Still, declines across the board in europe. Lets get a check on the asia markets now. We are seeing the hang seng up about 0. 3 . The theme of the morning is not big moves. A little decline here, a little gain there. Which is actually impressive. After the weakness of the dollar yesterday, i was waiting to see what happened in a market like japan. With the dollaryen at 109 at this point, you start to wonder if thats going to have a huge impact. What the fed is doing here not necessarily playing into what the other Central Banks have been doing. The yen has been strengthening. I think thats maybe your theme of the week. Okay, lets check oil can i correct on oil prices . Wti was not above 40. It was brent that closed above 40. Wti, 37. 62. Thats down about 13 cents. It was brent that pushed above 40. Becky, you did not mess up. You just predicted the future. I wont tell you when in the future. Crude oil down about 0. 3 . Thats 13 cents. Its the morning of no big moves. The benchmark tenyear treasury note at 1. 73 . Becky referenced the dollaryen. Its suddenly become the trade to watch. 108. 36. The yen is strengthening. The dollar is weakening against the japanese currency. Thats sort of your currency board to watch this morning. Gold still the best performing major asset class of the year. Gold up 14. 20 an ounce. Thats about 1. 2 . Lets talk markets. Despite the markets tripledigit move on wednesday, there are still big challenges for investors. The ipo market in particular has ground to a basic halt. The number of ipo offerings hitting lows not seen since 2008. Does that portend something terrible to happen . Earnings season kicking off next week with low expectations. Wall street bracing for the worst earnings season since the great recession. This week weve seen the Regulatory Environment get much har harsher, potentially putting a major crimp on m a activity. So how are investors navigating the obstacles . Joining us now is jason pride as well as steven parker. Good morning to both of you. First, lets start on what we expect next week. Everybody expects its going to be terrible. Starting to make me think it might be fantastic, or at least better than terrible. I think were going through one of these situations where weve been referring to it as the twohanded economist scenario, right. Trueman used to criticize and say he wanted a onehand economist because hes gott answers on this hand. The reality is this scenario is one of those scenarios. Were in an economic expansion. We havent been derailed from that economic expansion. But were in the seventh year of it. Theres some building up risks. Its inherently fragile economic expansion. So the other hand argument is surprisingly strong right now. Investors need to take that into account when positioning portfolios. You agree with that . Do you buy if thats the case . Are we all too pessimistic about whats about to happen . As you said, earnings this quarter are going to be bad. This is likely to be the trough in terms of yearoveryear earnings growth. Youre sticking with the conventional wisdom, you dont want to buck it . Whats more important than the actual results this quarter, which are likely going to beat those low expectations, is what were hearing about the future. Think back to q1. For most of the fourth quartirs we were talking about recession, a collapse in oil prices. It was only in the middle of february, the middle of that quarter, when things started to turn around. Some of the recent Economic Data is starting to pick up. Some of the forwardleading indicators are getting better. We need to see what companies are saying about the future and if they can paint a better picture about the back half of the year now that oil is stabilized. Given the takeover premium in the marketplace, almost across the board, given what just happened with this inversion bit, given whats happening on the antitrust front, how much of a premium do you take off . Is there any multiple point or a piece of the multiple where you say, you know what, the market is a little overdone . I think you have to look at that. Were looking at valuations today that are still a little bit above the historical average in the u. S. Markets. Internationally, you get a discount. But when youre thinking about returns in this environment, this economic expansion, the economic momentum, while its improving and i agree with that. I do still believe were in an economic expansion. That underlying vulnerability is on the lower side. Those couple pieces just take away from the ability of the market to kind of soar a lot higher. What is that piece of it saying . The fact the ipo market is shut. You know, i think that there is just a lot of hesitancy in markets right no uh. If you look at whats going on in the world, were seeing a lot of frothiness in what is perceived as safety assets. Youve seen tons of money flowing into gold, into government bonds, into the yen. When you look at equities broadly, weve seen massive outflows out of stocks. Weve seen massive inflows into things like quality etfs. These are sectors which people perceive as safe. Theyre trading really expensive right now. I think thats part of it. People are looking for what they perceive as being very safe because they think that Interest Rates are staying low forever now. The conviction people have no low rates forever is the same conviction people had that rates were going up for the last five years. And jamie dimon talked about that in the annual letter. Hes worried that people wont be able to take the uptick. If you see signs of improving growth, if you see signs that inflation is picking up, that rates may move higher, youll see a big rotation out of some of these perceived safe haven assets. And i like what youre saying about the lack of ipos because we forget that, you know, its a little wonky. But theres so much less stock to buy. With all the buybacks weve had, billions of shares have been taken off the market. No new shares are coming. So the same amount even if we have the same amount of dollar volume, no new money added, its going after a smaller pool, which maybe then has a little bit of a push. I think you also have to think about the Economic Impact of a slower pace of ipos and a slower high yield issuance market. Those two pieces, which kind of provide that next level of financing for growth, both of those have ground to a halt. The only thing youre really seeing is you have industrial grade issuance is absolutely fine, but the highyield issuance is nonexistent. Is that because of the freakout . Its because of the freakout, and that lasts for a while. It was such a huge move. Came back, but it may take people a little time. I suspect it may come back relatively fast. Yields have snapped back in. Still, you have that window. It has to have some sort of Economic Impact because its companies that cant get the money they want during that time period. So you assume thats got to have you know, i think one of the things that we just talked about, this overpricing of safety, but its not across the board. One of the interesting things we found is valuation spreads really are across a lot of the stocks, it got really wide at the beginning of this year. At the same time, when you looked intrasector and intraindustry, within those, the Stable Companies were actually not that expensive relative to the less Stable Companies. So theres a way to kind of eat your cake and have it too, where you can play safety within the industries and sectors but also on the other side do you want to offer us a name since youve given us this very general view . Well, we do it in a fairly broad approach and strategy. I do end think picking names really helps a lot along those lines. Fair enough. Guys, thank you. Appreciate this. Thanks. Thank you. All right. In squawk sports news, we are just a few hours away from the tee off of the first round of the masters. 22yearold Jordan Spieth will try to defend his title and win another green jacket. On wednesday, yesterday, it was the annual par 3 contest, an event where the players relax, have a little bit of fun, bring their kids out, whatever. There were nine holes in one on the course. But the biggest may have been by golf legend gary player. The 80yearold ninetime major champion, threetime masters winner nailing ace on the seventh hole. That was his fourth career in the par 3 contest. The par 3 contest, jimmy walker. But thats not necessarily something you want. Nobody who has ever won the par 3 contest has gone on to win the masters. A first time for everything. There is. 80yearold gary player with a hole in one. The event is also a great time for families. Several kids getting a chance to show off their skills on the course. And their celebratory tactics. Even golf must show that youre the man. Thats awesome. I love seeing excitement for it. You go. When we come back, as wall street alrea has wall street already picked a winner in the president ial election . We have details next. Stick around. Squawk box will be right back. Everhas a number. Olicy 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, everybody. A citigroup poll of institutional clients has already predicted the winner of the 2016 president ial election. That poll has Hillary Clinton winning by a whopping 70 . Other market predicts are telling the same story. Joining us now to talk about this is joel benson, the ceo of the strategy group. Hes also Hillary Clintons poller is. Tony frato worked in the george w. Bush white house. Gentlemen, thanks for being here. Joel, why dont we talk about this. At this point, these are early predictions. We dont even know whos going to become the nominee of each party and whats happened this week may make that a little more interesting. What do you think of these predictions . Well, look, i dont know that they correlate to how voters are going to vote in november. I do believe we have a strong advantage. I think that the way the campaign is playing out, weve still got to get through the primary. I think we have a nearly ins insurmountable lead in delegates. I will say that the Republican Campaign has just reinforced so many of the negatives of the brand of the Republican Party that has been struggling now for years in democratic elections. So thats going to create a steep uphill climb for them in november. I wouldnt say that this is necessarily a strength of the democrats coming through, but it is a weakness of the republicans. It is. Look, i think in some ways which party is less divided, i think the democrats are less divided right now marginally than the republicans. I think about it as the chickens coming home to roost. We welcomed in the party people with different views. People have said, look, the republicans couldnt win election after election. They needed to broaden the base and bring other people in. You do, but you have to do it in a