Debate on deck tonight. Europe with minor losses and claims were slightly elevated. Well get ism services in about an hour. Of course, were just a day from jobs friday. Energy pioneer Robert Mcclendon dies in a horrific car crash. This is a day after he had been indicted. Were going to go live to oklahoma. What jay my dimon told cnbc about the lie of hitz bank. Mitt romney is expected today to deliver a harsh set of words on donald trump, describing the frontrunner as a phony and a fraud. First up, though, futures are a little changed as stocks hover and jobless claims rising. Thats a bit higher ahead of the number tomorrow. Jpmorgans jamie dimon joined squawk box earlier this morning and had a pretty upbeat take on the economy. Take a listen. The average economy, more people are working, wages are going up. Theyre spending money, their Balance Sheets in better shape since its been recorded, the consumer. Theyre buying cars at alltime records. Home sales are going up, home formations are going up. Thats pretty good. We all want it to be better. The irony here is that jpmorg jpmorgans desk underweights. They say if a recession happen this year, youre talking easily a 20 drop in the s p. Though, they have not done that. Thats the first time theyve gone underweight. Its only 5 . Theyre saying use the strength. Its interesting. The strength in part is not by jamie dimon. Were up 10 from the lows we had two or three weeks ago. 10 almost and that, of course, coincided with jamie dimon suggested hes buying back his own stocks. On that note they say the 12month u. S. Recession lows have risen on a third and they say without a recession they dont see a potential for Earnings Growth for the rest of the year or for multiples to expand. We do get jobless claim, carl, as you mentioned. They went the wrong way ahead of the jobless report. Remember last month it showed it was 53. 5. So still expanding which is part of the economy, but last month it was the slowest rate in nearly two years so the question of whether the manufacturing and pain spreading throughout the economy, that ee going to in part be answered by that. The Bigger Picture of why weve rallied shortly, it may not be a great but its less bad than people think. Out of a really out of the case here. If you look at the expectations on Interest Rates, its not a 60 chance theyll raise rates this year. Not till december though. At least its moving. You know, construction spending, auto sales. You know, we continue to get these positive surprises coming through. Adc, adc, in front of the employment report adp was stronger than expected. Oil prices, we had the highest intraday. Copper is at a threemonth high. The Chinese Commerce has stabilized a little bit. Youve got this sort of confluence of factors, david. High yield has stabilized. Inflows in the last couple of weeks which is very important given the outflows and the fact there was very little going on other than a lot of pain in the high yield. Negative Interest Rates still with us. That seems to be of concern. It doesnt seem to be working much for mr. Kuroda in japan. Perhaps some relief there, sara, as a result of failure to get things going . All you hear about is the question of failure. The question is what mario draghi does. Theyre expecting a package including an expansion of quantitative easing. How the market judges that with the rejection of the Interest Rates that we saw from japan. Whats it going to be . What is he going to add in to this special sauce that i dont know about . Exactly. And you have before they went into the silent period. It could lessen it. So actually, yesterday, you saw the banks rise here, you saw the banks rise over 3 in europe on the belief that negative Interest Rates are less likely to be perhaps as easily pushed forward by the ecb. Thats very important. And dimon says its not going to happen here. And janet yellen if there are any questions doesnt know if its yet legal the last she told us. All right. Well, listen, the Business World this morning, of course, reacting to the energy titan audrey mcclendon. Good morning, scott. Good morning, david. They call yesterdays news heartbreaking. It is widely believed that ward and his company may have been the unnamed coconspirator in the criminal case against Aubrey Mcclendon. Other people talking about what Aubrey Mcclendon did to transform his hometown, all of which makes the events of this week that much more shocking. The indictment of a single antitrust conspiracy count that could have landed the chesapeake founder in prison for rigging oil gas and lands and then the news yesterday of the crash just after 9 00 in the morning. He was driving his suv at a high rate of speed in a 40mileperhour zone. Authorities said he had a chance to correct his course after he crossed the center line. Didnt do it. Didnt stop. The vehicle slamming into the wall and bursting into flames. It is an unlikely ejd for a career that has been all over the place, a man who made a huge bet in natural gas when others werent doing it. But back in 2011 he talked to r. K. Kelly about his work ethic. I go to work every day, work hard, try to create value and make my employer, who is my board of directors, my shareholders, happy with what i do, and i think what we do matters. But aubrey mccollect don was a man with Big Personality who made a lot of bets. He made a bet that natural gas would make a comeback. Of course, it did not. Now this investigation that was supposed to look at the entire industry but this marquis case was going to start it off has been completely thrown up in the air. David. Yeah. Thank you very much, scott. Of course, you hit on some of the key points here. Mr. Mcclendon, no doubt, a pioneer in many ways beginning in 1989, buying up vast tracks of land, really introducing the idea the use of fracking for natural gas. And in a sense creating the environment that led to significant financial losses down the road given the abundance of natural gas in this country, specific to yesterdays events, mr. Mcclen con wdon was supposed to present himself, turn himself in at 11 00 a. M. He got in the crash somewhere around 9 00 in the morning, i believe it was, perhaps a bit later, but never made it to that designated time to turn himself in. In speaking to a number of people over late yesterday and this morning who are both his friends and his financiers and people who are eninvolved in his business life, they describe it as scott said, so many ups and so many downs, at one point a billionaire. Most recently having spent both 10 billion in equity that had been raised. Perhaps as much as his new company after leaving chesapeake a couple of years ago. It wasnt clear that he had anything left. And, in fact, the indictment itself may have really presented him from accessing others. Again, we cant draw conclusions about the crash itself. He was a very generous man, people say, but he had been abandoned by many of his friends ore the last few months and its not clear if he had had to report at 11 00 a. M. That he would have been able to afford the bail to have gotten out of jail or even a lawyer. So these are some of the things at least people are sharing with me this morning. Of course, he had a stormy end there at chesapeake after carl icahn came in and pressured the board. He was pushed out. That board at least saying they were not aware of certain dealings that he had. He had a hedge fund within the company. He did take loans from his ownership in the wells that had been drilled. But most importantly in 2014 he could have drilled wells but he didnt. He actually ended up adding more debt. And many company, of course, finding opportunities to have raised equity. Certainly that may have opinion the case for mr. Mcclendon, but no doubt his imprint on this country in terms of natural gas, natural independence and what has happened will be very, very longstanding. Age 56. Yes. Isnt it interesting to see gas today hovering at 17year glows because of this glut, this excess created by the u. S. Boom. It wasnt that long ago that all these terminals were being created to import natural gas. That was in 05, cheniere and the like. All of them or a number of them, cheniere, freeport, theyre going to be exporting stlachlt started at cheniere and others will follow. Thats showing you what has happened in the last ten years and this is the man perhaps more than any other that is responsible for it. All right. Were going move to politics. Mitt romney is expected to speak this morning at 11 00. Chief washington correspondent john harwood is in d. C. With what we can expect later this morning. John . Sara, this is what it looks like when the big guns in a Political Party want to take down someone whos taking over their party. Thats donald trump. You see super pac attacks and social media attacks. Now mitt romney is giving a speech in utah today and hes going go zreeextremely hard at Romney Donald trump. Hes going to call donald trump a phony, a fraud, a huckster. Hes going to say that mitt romney is playing the American People for suckers and that the his words are as worthless as the Trump University degree. Hes going to go on and say his foreign policies are dangerous, his economic policies are going to tell the United States into recession. Those are extremely strong words. Heres a challenge for this message. In 2012 mitt romney embraced and accepted the endorsement of donald trump after donald trump had raised the birthertirther i. Some thought that was risky. Heres the video. Hes tough, hes smart. Hes not going to allow bad things to happen to this country that we all love. So, governor romney gorks out and get em. You can do it. Thank you, thank you. So voters will consider that embrace when they listen to mitt romneys message. And, of course, donald trump has been fighting back really hard. Just on television this morning he was saying that mitt romney was a failed candidate in 2012 and hes somebody who can be successful who can make america great. There are a short number of days when donald trump has to be stopped if hes going to be stopped and its not clear that thats enough time for the republican establishment. Hes given it a shot. Our colleague would tell us the game is up here. How significant do you think it is that the Koch Brothers are indicating they will not get involved. They will not put millions of dollars against trump as many had speculated they might. How significant is it, john . I dont think it will. Mitt romney was the leading kaejt and he hardly has run it. I think the diseasent elements are going to play out in what we call the free media, television, Live Television noose coverage, debate. Weve got a debate tonight. Ben carson is not going to that debate. Youve about got john kasich, marco rubio, ted cruz. You can expect them to go very hard after donald trump. And the question is can donald trump turn all this to his advantage and say, hey, look, theyre all piling up on me and our friend larry kudlow has been making case this is the kind of wisteria we saw against Ronald Reagan in 1980. You can expect donald trump to try to turn that rhetoric around as well. So a very complicated question. And when you have party elites trying to convince voters that theyre doing the wrong thing, you dont know how those voters are going to take that message. Thats going to be key for today and into tonight, john. Thank you very much for that. Well talk to you soon. As mitt romney does lay out that case against trump, well get full Coverage Later this morning on squawk alley. First the banks. Now bill gross is saying stay away. Take another look at the premarket. More squawk on the street continues post 9 in just a moment. . patrick 1 how about done . patrick 2 thats the kind of control i like. And thats what they give me at national car rental. I can choose any car in the aisle i want without having to ask anyone. Who better to be the boss of you. patrick 1 than me. I mean, you. Us. vo go national. Go like a pro. Every Auto Insurance policy has a number. But not every Insurance Company understands the life behind it. Those who have served our nation have earned the very best service in return. Usaa. We know what it means to serve. Get an Auto Insurance quote and see why 92 of our members plan to stay for life. What will you do . Ctric nissan leaf. How far will you go . How much will you see . Electrify the world. Now with a classleading 107 miles on a charge, the nissan leaf is the best selling electric car in america. Does he have a point in your view. U im not sure about that view. Its a little obvious hes commenting on equity names. Ill take the other side though. To me when you talk about as you poejted out one of the worst performing sectors in the market. When you talk about from the peak declines of 25ish to 30 , youre heading into a different credit environment which were kind of expecting at this point at least in our estimates and at least they still trade to discounts. To me we priced in a great deal of bad news. Fundamentally when you look through the loan books it looks like if you see deterioration, its not that bad. It ought to be manageable. I want to buy them at this level. Were seeing them base out. To me its how it should play out. I mean youre a bank handler, so thats your focus. Thats what you do. For other people who have other parts of the market to perhaps would be more interested in, what would you say about the potential gains . What are the price targets . What are the fair values . Sure, simon. Those are very, very good questions. The big question mark i run into when i sit down with institutional investors, it has enough bad news washed out. Do we understand the pain at this point. The answer to that unfortunately right now is no. We can take guesses at it. Ive done some analysis. I feel like i have a reasonably good handle which is why we got more constructive about a month ago right in front of when actually mr. Dimon bought a bunch of jpmorgan shares some of from my perspective actually, this is quite a good time to buy. With that being said, the stocks, if we head into a cycle term tend to move sideways for a while and then we see the absolute upside. I believe right now were in the beginning of that phase. Were not going see that upside until we understand the credit loss. Now you confuse me. On the one hand, you say there might be a buyer here and then you seem to have qualified it by, a, not telling me how much it could rise and then were at a period of time where it could move sideways. Im trying to get into the fullness of the answer. When we see a cycle turn, im not smart enough to know whether were heading into a recessionary environmental or not. Id rather plan for it. If we we are and its a garden variety cycle section, the growth and potential pain, then what we typically see is a four to sixmonth sideways bank while the markets catch up. There for it would sit up. So youre sitting in sectors that have actually done relatively better, it might be a good time to rotate out of those. Then eventually when we get to the bottom of this where we understand what the extent of the pain will be, theyll begin the upside. I just doan know exactly when that will be, simon. Got it, got in. Thank you very much. Thank you for the analysis. Up next, were counting you down to the opening bell with our cash and taking a look at futures under a little bit of pressure. Can we see gains for a third day in a row. Dows future down. More squawk on the street straight ahead. Good. How was your commute . Yours . Good. Xerox real time analytics make transit systems run more smoothly. And morning chitchat. Less interesting. 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In the meantime lets bring in our capital director of floor operations who joins us at post 9. Good morn dwroug, mark. Good morning. A pleasant followup to tuesdays rorkt shop. The bulls have had to be pleased. Do they deserve to be pleased . I. The rocket shot did not have a very large dollar for Short Covering whereas the minor rally yesterday was led by shortcomings. So its kind of a reverse of what you would ordinarily expect. Europe looks like its taking a break after a fiveday rally, so i think we may do a little consolidating here today. He thinks the next move will be at ease. Jpmorgan taking small underweight equities