Wti is higher by 87 cents, 54. 27. Brent is higher as well, 92 cents. 57. 10 over in london. Nat gas is lower by 7 cents. Decline of more than 2 . Among the top corporate stories, kraft heinz is withdrawing its bid for a merger with unilever. Kraft worried that it would be too hard to negotiate after the Public Disclosure of its bid so quickly. A kraft spokesman said the company intended to proceed on a friendly basis but found unilever did not wanted to pursue a transaction. Restaurant brands is in advanced talks to buy popeyes. The deal will probably be valuing popeyes at 1. 7 billion. An announcement could come this week. Wandas proposed 1 billion acquisition of Dick Clark Productions is under pressure. Wanda is run by chinas richest man. It already owns Legendary Entertainment and amc entertainment. Reuters reports wandas deal for dick clark is shaky but not yet dead. Part of the problem is they cant get the money out of the country. By the way, on this kraft heinz deal tell us. It aint over yet. Its not. Its so far from being over. This has been would they just give up half in terms of gains . This is something 3g has wanted to do for so long. This is on the map of strategy. The only question is whether unilever tries to do something to make it more difficult which is to say buy Something Like colgate or another business to make themselves bigger. Thats something you might see if they really are so aghast about the potential of merging with kraft heinz. In m a, no is always maybe, right . Only because of the rules and regulations in terms of what you disclosed. It becomes more complicated in terms of these windows because of the european angles. The second you say were in talks, youre in talks. When you say youre out of talks, you have to be out of talks for a period of time. Its na dance. Would the uk laws apply to kraft heinzs proposal as opposed to unilevers ability to go after Something Else . They can do whatever they want. So shareholders really want something to happen, particularly with unilever. I was always always, this only came up last week. But theyre so famous, 3g for cost cutting, cutting the amount of employment. Thats much harder to do in europe. Yes. I dont know if theyre very smart people. Im sure they considered these things. How do you get the same level of cost synergy so quickly. You dont. But the conundrum is you have wrung every little savings out of kraft heinz, what do you do . Its hard to grow top line in this environment. So you have to grow bottom. Thats the complication. Talking earnings. New ones out from home depot. The biggest Home Improvement retailer earning 1. 44 per share for the Fourth Quarter. 10 cents above estimates. Revenue also above forecast with global comparablestore sales up 5. 8 . The company increasing its Quarterly Dividend by 29 to 89 cents per share, announcing a 15 billion Share Repurchase program. Also giving a fullyear earnings forecast of 7. 13 per share, slightly shy of what was the estimate of 7. 17. Before the bell, results from walmart and macys. Macys Ceo Terry Lundgren will join us to talk about those results. Thats at 8 00 a. M. Eastern time. As for the rest of the week, reports from tjx, tesla, hphl brands, barclays, coles, gap, nordstrom and jcpenney. Tesla is a big one. Everyone fascinated by the great elon musk. On this weeks economic agenda, tomorrow look because we will get january existing home sales, and the minutes from last months fed meeting. On thursday, weekly jobless claims. On friday, january new home sales and february consumer sentiment. Four americans and their pilot are dead after their plane crashed into the rof of of a Shopping Mall in melbourne, australia. This happened about 9 00 a. M. Local time, an hour before the mall was due to open. Nearly a dozen passengers breached security at jfk story in new york. Craziest story. 11 passengers walked through an unattended security line at terminal 5 around 6 00 a. M. Eastern time and boarded flights. They say the checkpoint was about to open as a precheck lane, but because it wasnt fully staffed it shouldnt have let people through. Tsa said all the carryon bags were screened, so they are confident it presented little risk. This goes to the whole idea of security theater. Its all a ruse . We spend so much money on this entire apparatus, im not saying its a ruse, theyre all trying to do their jobs, but if you wanted to penetrate this you could figure out a way. You could figure out a way. You dont have to penetrate. Go in when people are penned up in line waiting to be screened, and you do whatever bad thing you want to do. The tradeoff we have accepted and the security we get in exchange for it, im not sure its right. Every year they have terrible reports all this stuff got through. This stuff got through. They put fake things through. The fact that these people set off metal detecters and nobody paid attention . Come on. Thats just like look. Im not surprised. I guess. One of russias top diplomats died suddenly in new york. Vitaly churkin fell ill in his office and was rushed to the hospital where he died. Reports say the cause of death was a heart attack. But thats unconfirmed. Churkin was one day away from his 65th birthday. Lets talk some politics. Boy, was there a lot of it over the weekend. Another busy weekend for President Trump. Eamon javers is in d. C. This morning. I have a million questions, but tell us whats at the top of your list. The president has a new National Security adviser picking Lieutenant General h. R. Mcmaster of the weekend. Making that announcement yesterday. H. R. Mcmaster is a veteran of iraq and afghanistan. He is President Trumps third choice now for the job of National Security adviser after he fired mike flynn last week and after retired vice admiral Robert Harward turned down the job. Mcmaster served in iraq and afghanistan. Trump chose mcmaster because hes seen as a warrior and defense intellectual. He wrote a book that criticized for going with Lyndon Johnson in the vietnam war. So hes not afraid to speak truth to power. Thats an interesting selection for mr. Trump. We are seeing john mccain, tom cotton and others are heaping praise on this selection. All right. On a similar score, but different name. I want to read you the top of a wall street journal report this morning that caught my attention. Defense secretary jim mattis appears to be at odds with President Trump on russia and other key issues setting up potential discord but helping to nudge the white house towards more conventional policy stances. Which is it and what do you know . Thats good question. I dont have much new for you on govern. Does he allow any independent Power Centers to develop in his administration . Does he allow cabinet level secretaries to be their own men an women in terms of having their own opinions . He said he would like to do that. But recently weve seen a lot of reports that hes not letting them pick their deputy secretaries, not letting them pick the staff inside the agencies. Hes very much interested in controlling the personnel who surround all those people. The question here is whether or not this is a viable strategy for mattis going forward, if he can nudge the white house or if the white house doesnt want to be nudged. Ultimately the white house is the center of power here. Did you see this chatter over the weekend. An oped by edward price. I never thought i would quit the cia, but because of trump i quit. Whats the thought on that . I did read that. I used to deal with ned price a lot when he was in the obama white house. He was at the National Security council. A lot of people inside the cia are deeply worried about this president , particularly his skepticism about the Intelligence Community. Whether or not theyre resigning or whether or not thats the right call, im not totally sure. Ned price is somebody who says he just couldnt go along with this anymore. That said trump will need the Intelligence Community at some point. He will need the National SecurityCouncil Staff atom point. Theyre deeply at odds now. Trump is suspicious of a lot of these leaks coming out. He thinks some of the embedded people from the obama era are trying to undermine his administration. Clearly theres some tension there. Final question from me. This is the journal this morning. Almost lost in the multiple recent trump controversy is this reality on substance. Clouds of uncertainty hang over the one matter that many republicans would put atop their priority list, a big tax cut. How much uncertainty is there . Will we hear something in the next week. Gary cohn and donald trump said repeatedly about a week ago that in the next two weeks well hear something on the tax plan. I think thats right. Ive been saying that for a while now. This tax reform effort is a big lift in a normal year. This is not a normal year. One thing they said is theyll unveil a spectacular, beautiful tax plan at some point at the white house, but were not clear where that will go and where it will land in terms of republican divisions on capitol hill about import taxes versus export taxes. Theres a lot of ways to do this. The question is how can you do it in a way that appeases all the didnt factions up on capitol hill. You cant, though, right . Thats the challenge. Youll have a tradeoff, which constituency will you upset at this point. Right. It would be the most dramatic change to Corporate Taxes in 100 years. Its not a surprise that it will be hard. Is it still early, i guess, at this point . They never planned to take this up until the summer as it was. The longer this takes. You talk about going into the summer, youre giving the different business groups an opportunity to study different plans, mobilize lobbying campaigns on one side or the other. So businesses on imports will look at this one way, businesses on exports will look at it another way. And consumer advocates are worried about price increases for consumers just going through their normal weekly shopping and stuff costs more money because of those tariffs. All of those groups will mobilize. That presents power. Entrenched forces. All of that is difficult to navigate. Its not clear which way the white house wants to go on this right now. And then their leadership in terms of the legislative process. This is something that this president has never done before. So this is going to be a New Territory for him. One final thing. Its tactical. I talked to someone in the Administration Last week explaining that all things being equal, you prefer to repeal obamacare first. When it comes to being able to make this appear revenue neutral, the tax plan, that is, if you can get that 1 trillion effectively down, it makes it easier. One of the questions is whether they need to make the tax plan appear revenue neutral. The tea party republicans, you know, deficits are absolutely core to their value system. Its not core to donald trump value system. Im not sure hes worried about deficits as he is abouted builg the wall. Im old enough to remember when there were republicans in this town who said deficits dont matter. Thats why the tea party exists. The tea party is not that way. They have been elected over the past several cycles and feel like deficits are core. One of their main criticisms of barack obama is that he ran up the deficit early on. And george w. Bush. They complained about him, too. So how will those people react to a trump and Senate Republican plan that doesnt necessarily feel like it needs to be revenue nutd ral. All those are very, very pertinent questions. Thank you for trying. You bet. Joining us is Christian Amani from oppenheimer funs. Welcome to the nasdaq. Where are we in terms of this market. Do you think we have adequately priced in any sort of Political Risk out there . Do we not need to price it in . I think if you look across markets, looking at bond markets, bond markets are having difficulty breaking through 250. Janet yellen threw in the kitchen sink and we got to 2. 51. Tenyear yield. Tenyear yield, yes. Equity markets are making highs every day. Theres a big disconnect. If the tax cuts and things like that are not delivered to the markets, we will have a bit of a problem in equity s ticipating these good things to happen, and every day we get skepticism on whether that will happen or not. In my mind, if theres no deficit, the economy will slow down in the second half. If thats the case, the equity markets may end up with a correction. Are you saying the inability of the tenyear yield to go through 2. 5 consistently is evidence that people are holding on to bonds as safety . The bond market itself, and investors who have lots of gains in the equity markets are buying bonds. The flows in bonds has been quite good over the last few weeks. Are you of the school, a lot of people believe the bond market is smarter than the stock market. Well, no market is smarter. But i think its really more a question of what youre looking at. The equity markets foe kcused o earnings. Bond markets are focused on those things, too but at the end of the day far more focussed on growth and inflation. And things may be improving, but on a secular basis, for things to change radically, policy has to change. How much of the run of the u. S. Equity markets is the expectation of policy versus fundamentals . A lot of people will come on and say economically were doing bett better. The earnings picture has been better. We got numbers out of home depot. Theyre much better. Everything is firing on all cylinders. Cyclically the Global Economy is in the best place in a long time. That helps. For the markets to get to the next level you need some policy action. Without that, we will falter. So what do you do right now as we wait . Do you side with the bond market or do you side with the equity market . I think i have to respected the bond market. I have to say that if we have had a good run in equities. If you have an extended position, taking profits makes perfect sense. Doesnt mean equity markets cant get to the next level. But i think some level of caution because of lack of policy action and inconsistencies, thats something one has to worry about. So, oppenheimer has dialed back exposure . We told people to started thinking about that. Start thinking about it. Yes. Wow. Pretty aggressive. Yeah. Thanks. Thank you. Coming up, home depot reports moments ago. Well dig through the results with an analyst. Dont move. Today i am helping people everywhere do what they do. Better. I work with startups like alpha modus to predict markets five times more accurately. I am helping tv networks use social data to predict what people want to watch. And i worked with marchesa to turn fan feeds into a dress that thinks. Hello, my name is watson. Working together, we can outthink anything. Hello, my name is watson. I cant wait for her to have that College Experience that i had. The classes, the friends, the independence. And since we planned for it, that student debt is the one experience, im glad shell miss when you have the right financial advisor, life can be brilliant. Ameriprise welcome back. Home depot shares rising sharply after the Company Posted a ten cent earnings beat just moments ago. Calling in now on the squawk news line to break dont number is brian nagel. Good to have you call in stock performing well this morning in the wake of the oearnings results. Besides the obvious beat, what is there to like so much about the numbers . I think the key message here is once again that home depot and this Home Improvement category are a bright spot within a troubled retail landscape. As i dig through the results, it is really quite good across the board. I assume thats because its just harder to buy this stuff online . Is that why the Home Improvement sector would be performing better compared to the rest of retail . Thats a piece of it. We talk about this a lot to. There really is a mote around the Home Improvement category that protects it from online competition. The other big piece is, i talk about this a lot, this is an area of demand growth within retail. People are spending on their homes. Here they continue to spend. Home depot is a big beneficiary of that demand growth. Stock is at an alltime high after a 20 rise this year. Is it all priced in . Can you get more out of the shares . I tell our clients keep buying home depot. Keep buying home depot. We have the Earnings Growth engine in place. You look at the guidance they laid out for 2017, i think its conservative as it has been, but its showing the growth algorithm is very much in place. Another big key to that end with this release date is talking about once again buying back a big chunk of their stock. And if that works through the pml, that is another froth driver for home depot to simply have them buy their stock back. How should we think about margins . The Fourth Quarter customer transactions rose 2. 9 . Average ticket rose 2. 9 , but Gross Margins declined. Are they giving up some on promotional activities . Not really. A lot to of times from quarter to quarter you see a bit of a margin shift because of the products they sell. If you look down the pml, its the operating margin. What were seeing here, theyre driving better sales. Thats basically leveraging the cost infrastructure of the business. Weve seen that quarter in and quarter out for a while now. How does a name like home depot fair in the trump world . They state in their press release the tax rate was 33. 6 . So that could come down with tax reform. How would they be hit