Good morning. Welcome to Worldwide Exchange. Im wilfred frost. Im seema mody in for sara eisen today. Is new music today. A new track from miley sirius called malibu. Amazing how shes 24 and produced so much. Wow. Look at that little nugget. Always great to have you with us, particularly on new music friday. Thank you. Getting to the market action. Futures coming off declines across the board yesterday, albeit small declines. 0. 1 or 0. 2 of declines yesterday. We are expected to open soft again today. The dow called lower by 40 points. S p by 6. Nasdaq by 14 points. Yesterday retail was the worst performer. The likes of macy underperforming. Retail etf down over 2. 5 . All in all this week, we have the nasdaq in positive territory. The s p just lower. The dow almost down by 0. 5 . But certainly not severe declines. Apple the best dow performer up 3 . Intel the worst, down 3 . Tech overall the best sector, up a percent. Materials down about 1 . The tenyear treasury note, because we started or we closed last friday at 2. 35 . We spent a lot of this week above 2. 4. As you can see, were just below it again. As Rick Santelli says, the close is at the end of the day, the close at the end of each week matters. Even though yields have ticked up, they havent ticked up much. And the gains have not been locked in. If we switch the focus to asia, stocks generally lower following the weak session in the United States. Japan closing below 20,000 at 19,883. Down about 0. 4 . We did see a stronger yen which hurt some of its bigger exporters, like sony and toshiba. Hang seng in hang sshanghai clo higher, up 0. 1 . Germany showing theyre outperforming growth that were seeing here state side. German dax french equities flat as well. Ftse 100 higher by 0. 2 . Well get to the pound in a second. For the week as a whole, the ftse up a percent. Germanys basically flat. Asia has been softer for the week as a whole. Apart from one market, the south korean market. Record highs. Some 4 for the week after the election of president moon. Other asset classes, oil prices have been important in recent weeks. This woke they are eek they are. They have softened a bit today, but curbed that fall from the prior couple of weeks and climbing back close to 50. Just shy of 48 this morning. Dollar board for you, also curbed a recent decline. This will be the first positive week for the dollar index in five. Up about a percent the broader index this week. The euro touched nearly 110 after the French Election. At 10 8. 65. Given up some gains. The dollar a little softer against the yen. But as i said for the week as a whole, up about 1 . Gold prices up yesterday, up more today. For the week as a whole gold is flat. Lets talk retail that was the big market story yesterday. Shares of Department Store chains taking a hit. Nordstrom posting better than expected earnings and revenue, but the stock dropping on a samestore sales miss. The higher end retailer is just the latest Department Store to get hurt by a slump in demand for clothing and a shift to online shopping. Nordstrom is not alone. Macy shares dropping 17 during yesterdays regular trading session after Quarterly Results missed wall street estimates it was the worst day for the shares of macys since 2008. Another snapshot of the retail space this morning. Jcpenney posting results before the opening bell. So be sure to keep an eye on that one. Well discuss that with a retail analyst at 5 30. A few key reports on the agenda. April retail sales and cpi will be released at 8 30 a. M. Eastern, followed by may Consumer Sentiment and march business inventories. A pair of fed officials speaking today. Charles evans and phillied y fe president patrick harker. Over the last month or so, weve seen hard data soften a bit. People concerned that the economy is slowing. Ppi a couple days ago fascinating because it was better than expected, quite significantly better than expected if that carries through to cpi that could mark a change in tone of softer performance in the hard data. Well be looking at cpi and retail sales. Also played a bigger role in the global reflation trade here in 2017. That inflation figure will be key. Lets also talk politics. President trump slamming former fbi director james comey in an nbc news exclusive. Trump told lester holt comeys firing had nothing to do with russia saying he simply was not doing a good job. If there was a problem with an election having to do with russia or by the way anybody else, any other country, and i want that to be so strong and so good, and i want it to happen. I also want to have a really competent, capable director. Hes not. Hes a showboater. President trump says comey told him three times he is not personally under investigation despite an ongoing probe into the campaign. The president said he fully ports an investigation into the election. He said he wants the probe to be done properly. Well see who he picks. The frustrating thing of this ongoing aspect is once we knew the investigation was happening, it was easy for all of us in the media to say lets step back now until we get the result of the investigation. Not something that we can be doing as well as the fbi. We can wait to get definitive results rather than continuing to spexculate, and now that investigation will be delayed. We dont know who will carry it out fully. Its rather frustrating to have this sort of confusion thrown into the ongoing story. Adds in general to the heightened political environment that were seeing in washington. More washington news, the United States and china reaching trade agreements. The plan is aimed at increasing access for china to beef producers, electronic Payment Providers and gas exporters. The agreement was announced by wilbur ross. Among the highlights, by midjuly china will allow u. S. Imports of beef. The yits wiUnited States will i proposed rule for chinese cook the poultry be allowed into the u. S. Secretary ross joins squawk box at 7 00 a. M. Eastern. Sounds like significant progress by him on something that was, of course, a key election area. So on the topic of trade, u. S. china relations. I was speaking to one trader in hong kong over email coming in, he said part of the reason perhaps we did see stocks in china close higher. The only point i was going to make, its not the most crucial thing for an interview, cooked poultry coming all the way from china. Im not sure thats going to be a demand for that. They eat a lot of our beef, though. A lot of meat on the table. Mark cuban making a bold call on big tech last night on fast money. Landon has the details. Good morning. Cuban talking everything from trump to taxes to tech last night on cnbcs fast money pointing out the nang stof. A. N. Stockeds and their deep run. The things that are youre able to do in terms of optization that you have never been able to do before, its incredible. In particular cuban says he likes amazon best. Heres why. My Biggest Holding is amazon. Its the ultimate ai company. Its the ultimate startup. They use it better than anybody. When amazon talks about opening up grocery stores, its not because they want to sell groceries in stores, they want to know what you need, when you need it, before you know you need it so they can deliver it to your door in anticipation. The opportunity there globally is beyond enormous. While the billionaire investor thinks the f. A. N. G. Stocks have big upside. He did learn one thing about a big threat. Facebook, google, netflix, theyre hiring all over the world. Our biggest threat is not the market price, other biggest threat is china. We cant do things with computer vision, facial recognition that they can. They get to do whatever. They get to push ahead further. Theyre getting too far ahead is our biggest risk. Lots of different topics he covered. And in vegas last night. Did he also touch on snapchat at all after the fall this week . He did. He said he wants to give it some time. He thinks theyll get better at selling ads, and that he has not seen a let up in followers, which is the talk of the risk. Ive heard you mention this, too. You switched from the Instagram Stories to snapchat and the filter, but he says i dont think theres a big risk. They still added 6 million, 7 million users since december, but that was slower than people thought. To some stocks were watching this morning. A delaware judge is freeing cigna to exit the anthem merger. Anthem wanted to save the deal in court, cigna wanted it terminated. The tieup would have resulted in one of the largest insurers in the country. Trade desk shares are jumping. They doubled earnings in the most havent quarter. Shares up more than 25 here. Hain celestial announcing its internal accounting probe is nearly over. They expect to file Financial Results by the end of this month. Its been more than a year since hain celestial reported results. Cyberark issuing an earnings outlook that fell short of wall street expectations. They also announced the acquisition of a smaller Security Software company. Ali yanz reaffirm ining rea. And trade of ca, the company posting an earnings beat for the fourth quarter, topping estimates. Apple has issued a 7 billion in Corporate Bonds according to an sec filing late yesterday. The company has been using debt to pay shareholders while storing most of its 2 256 billin in cash oversees. Last week apple increased Shareholder Return Program to 300 billion. Earlier this week apple became the first listed company with a market cap topping 8 800 billio. Just part of the growing story weve seen. Despite all the cash they have overseas, they continue to issue debt to fund buybacks and other Growth Initiatives here in the u. S. Big question, the repatriation tax holiday, that is potentially on the table, will that incentivize not just apple but other multinationals to bring that cash back to america and not use the debt market as much. I think it would definitely mean they dont use the debt market as much. Given they have free access to the debt market, would bringing cash back and having that available as opposed to debt spur more investment . If they can robor borrow 1. 5 t a rate of return higher than that for investment is not hard. Will repatriation drive m a or investment. Thats the question. Jpmorgan chase says its Online Banking system is back online after an outage last night. Customers could log in but were not able to transfer money or pay bills. Chase also showed not available where customer accounts balances should have been. Chase said sorry for the stress and thanks for your patience. Still to come, were live in bari, italy where the g7 finance chiefs and central bankers are gathering to talk trade, taxes and regulation. Were back in a couple minutes. . And once we do, we see wonder waiting. Every step you take, narrows the influence of narrow minds. Bridges continents and brings this world one step closer. So, the question you asked me. What is the key . Its you. Everything in one place, so you can travel the world better. Apparently, i kept her up all night. She said the future freaks her out. How come no one likes me, jim . Intel does just think of everything intels doing right now with artificial intelligence. And pretty soon ai is going to help executives like her see trends to stay ahead of her competition. No more sleepless nights. Were going to be friends im sorry about this. Dont be embarrassed of me, jim. Im getting excited about this we know the future. Were going to be friends because were building it. Welcome back to Worldwide Exchange. Im wilfred frost. Along with seema mody. Happening now, the worlds most powerful finance officials are in italy for the g7 meeting. Yla nsh yla nshn mui has more. The meeting is underway in an 11th century castle in bari, italy. Steve mnuchin joined the conference just about an hour ago. As he walked inside, i asked how he planned to defend the administrations America First trade policies. Were excited about u. S. Trade policies. I think you saw last night we made an announcement of 100day economic plan with the chinese. He was speaking about an agreement between the u. S. And china that was announced today to increase Market Access in areas like Agricultural Products and financial services. Now, trade is not officially on the agenda here in bari, but the issue is likely to come up during the oneonone bilateral meetings between treasury sec d secretary Steve Mnuchin and other finance ministers. He is scheduled to meet today with japans aso and germanys wolfgang schauble. I asked schauble what his message might be for the u. S. We need a strong United States to lead the Global Economy and Global Politics in a sustainable way. United states is still the most important economic power, and the best alliance for europe. Well bring you read outs from those meetings as we have it. Nor now, back to you. Ylan, what is the feltfeelin the ground from the other various bankers and finance ministers in terms of slipping domestic agenda in the u. S. . Steve mnuchin coming in sounding confide confident. Some of them fearful of what the political developments, whether its comey related or just simply healthcare bill related type factors that the economic policies, be it tax reform or anything else wont actually be achieved . Theres a waiting game going on here. Everyone is waiting to see what will happen in the u. S. Because that will help determine what the ripple effects are for other economies. So with regards to tax reform, thats a big issue. The border adjustment tax is another one. A treasury official told me while we were in italy that the administration does not believe that border adjustment tax works in its current form. Thats a strong statement from the Treasury Department that i dont believe that weve heard before, and that should be the one sign of relief for our counterparts over in europe. In terms of some of the european leaders, a sense of not so much confidence, but retrieve following the result of the French Election . I think there is. Right now we appear to be in a moment where some of the populist forces that led to the election of President Trump are at bay. They receded a bit. Weve seen globalist dynamics from the election of emanuel macron for example. Those are balancing out the other side. But its still a wildcard what the position of the United States will be. Thats one reason why they left trade off of the agenda at the meeting. Theyre kicking that issue up to the g7 summit that will be occurring in just a few weeks, also here in italy. Thats sort of a way to ensure that this is being handled at the top levels because they are not sure where the u. S. Will come down. Great stuff. Thank you very much. Final question, why are you not in front of the castle . Thats a beautiful backdrop as well. That is beautiful, but the castle was spectacular. Well head over there as well. Great stuff. Look forward to your coverage all day. Still ahead a political showboat, the political slamming former fbi chief comey. The highlights of that sit down from washington coming up. First, as we head to break, todays National Weather forecast from nbcs bill karins. Good friday morning to you. The weekend forecast is all about the mothers day rain event that will be heading up the east coast. Again, not going to affect everyone all weekend long. Its a quickmoving storm. Today the worst is from new orleans through mississippi, alabama, eventually atlanta later on this eve new england. Thats for today. Washington, d. C. Also gets some rain this evening. Not a lot of travel problems because of that. As we get into saturday, this is the worst of the airport delay problems from d. C. , baltimore, new york city. Especially new york city, the second half of saturday, the afternoon and evening will be the worst of it then the storm system will be up towards boston, new hampshire, maine and vermont by the time we get to mothers day. The rest of the forecast looks nice for mothers day throughout the nation. Only Northern New England will be socked in the heavy rain. More Worldwide Exchange when we come back. Sting, looking from a fresh perspective can make all the difference. It can provide what we call an unlock a realization that often reveals a better path forward. At wells fargo, its our expertise in finding this kind of insight that has lead us to become one of the largest investment and Wealth Management firms in the country. Discover how we can help find your unlock. Welcome back. President trump is not backing down from his controversial decision to fire fbi director james comey. The president slamming comey as a show boat in an exclusive interview with nbc news. Tracie potts joins us with all the details. Reporter were following the changing story coming out of the white house about why james comey was fired. Initially they said it came from inside the Justice Department, but in this new exclusive nbc interview, President Trump set the record straight saying he planned to fire comey all along. Look, hes a showboat. Reporter President Trump in an interview with lester holt contradicting what the white house first said about the firing of james comey, as comey was investigating possible trump ties to russia. Aides said it was based on the Justice Department recommendation. Reaction from capitol hill. It is appallingly unethical if not more. The fbi has been in turmoil. Director comey enjoyed broad support within the fbi. Still does to this day. Reporter mr. Trump tells nbc, comey asked to dine with the president and then asked to keep his job. He asked for the dinner . Dinner was arranged. I think he asked. Re