biggest story in the world. it's not getting covered. the economic boom. he says it over and over. you know what, it has been a strong economy. good to see you. ashley webster. thanks for joining us here. i'm connell mcshane. liz claman, over to you. liz: i will take it from here. thanks, connell. thanks, ash. we have a lot of breaking news to get to. connell, we will pick up on what you were talking about. you have records about to fall on wall street for a second day in a row. we are kind of in jeopardy right now. s&p 500 and nasdaq did hit new all-time highs earlier today. the s&p 500 is only up about two points right now. that's kind of teetering. the nasdaq up 16. dow up 37. russell probably not going to make it today but who knows. again, we are kind of on the iffy marks right now. all of this coming as president trump takes aim at a tech titan, google, the latest target. blasting the search giant

claiming one of silicon valley's biggest power players is rigging results and threatening regulation. we will be live at the white house. and all the president's men out and about, touting team trump's trade deal with mexico, as canada has now entered the mix. edward lawrence has been following the negotiations every step of the way. he will be live in d.c. for us with an exclusive interview with the mexican economic minister. plus, there's this. warren buffett and jamie dimon want to change quarterly reporting but the man "forbes" dubbed the foremost private equity scholar in the galaxy says they are just wrong. he will join us exclusively during this show. we are less than an hour to the closing bell. i'm cheryl casone. let's start the "countdown." cheryl: i'm cheryl casone.

liz claman will be back tomorrow. this is breaking news right now. at this moment, president trump is meeting with the president of soccer's governing body, fifa. remember, the u.s., canada and mexico, all three countries, will be hosting the world cup in 2026. this is the first time the president is making public comments today. we will go straight back to the white house if he makes any news. we are monitoring news from the white house, as we always are. we want to focus on bigger news on wall street. we are looking at another day of records. the s&p 500 and nasdaq touching historic highs again as trade war fears fade. any gain for either major average will be their third straight record close, with the month of august winding down, believe it or not, the major averages on pace to close the month higher. this will be the dow's second straight month in the green. the s&p 500 and nasdaq set to close higher for a fifth straight month. we are looking pretty good on the markets. but struggling department store sears is actually soaring today

thanks to an expanded deal with e-commerce giant. you can see there is sears holdings. this deal will provide ship-to-shore stores, excuse me, tire installation and balancing services for people that buy tires on amazon. the program started back in may at 47 sears auto centers, it is now nationwide including alaska and hawaii. very interesting deal. you can see the stock is up 13%. it's up 14 cents. watching sears and watching amazon, also looking at footwear retailer dsw. the stock is actually skyrocketing after having blowout earnings, dsw reported double digit comparable sales in second quarter thanks to improved customer engagement and traffic. the company saw earnings grow by 65% from a year earlier and revenue increased by 16%. shares are up right now, as you can see, more than 19%. that's a gain of more than $5 a

share for dsw. well, add google to the growing list of companies targeted on president trump's radar screen. silicon valley giant in a spotlight today after being criticized by president trump for basically rigging search results for the president. so the president tweeted earlier that search results are disproportionately negative and accused the company of suppressing voices of conservatives. first let's take a look at google stock and how it's trading right now. it is down, little more than half a percent. we have fox business' blake berman who has been all over that story for us and is live at the white house with the latest. another target on the president's to do list today. blake? reporter: i'm looking down at the notes here, because president trump is making comments on google right now in the oval office, as you mentioned, he's meeting with the president of fifa. according to the notes from the pool reporter inside, the president responded to shouted questions about google and the president at one point speaking

about google and other social media companies or big tech companies in general, said they are treading on troubled territory. the president also, according to reports from inside the oval office or inside the white house, said that google is taking advantage of a lot of people and should be careful. these are the tweets president trump sent out early this morning that started all of it. the president essentially complaining when you search for his name on google, the results that pop up beneath that are from news outlets that he necessarily does not see eye-to-eye with. this was the first tweet. the president wrote quote, google's search results for trump news show only the viewing of fake news media. in other words, they have it rigged for me and others so that almost all stories and news is bad. the second tweet he ended bu writing this. quote, they are controlling what we can and cannot see. this is a very dangerous situation. will be addressed. i put this to the president's

top economic adviser larry kudlow today and he told me the administration is taking notice. watch this exchange. does the president believe or does the administration feel there needs to be some sort of regulation for google? what exactly was the president referring to? >> look, we are taking a look at it. we will let you know. reporter: we are taking a look at it, larry kudlow told me. this prompted google to put out a response in which they say there is no link whatsoever between their search engine results and any political bias. the co-founder of google for jobs was on "varney & company" this morning and reiterated that stance. >> search is not used to set a political agenda and we don't bias our results towards any political ideology. every year we issue hundreds of improvements to our algorithms to ensure they surface high quality content in response to users' queries. we continually work to improve google search and never rank results to manipulate political sentiments. reporter: by the way, when you

put trump into google today, which is kind of where this all starts, right, the president's complaints, when you search his name in google or google news and what drops down there, the number one result, google search result for trump today, is now his new spat with google. we do expect, by the way, as i just mentioned, to hear from president trump on this any moment. i will be watching with you. cheryl: we will see what he has to say, shouted questions are already interesting. i'm sure he expected it. blake burman live at the white house. he was talking about google. this is of course alphabet, the parent company of google, that stock dmouown more than half a percent. i want to pull into this twitter and facebook, two other companies who have been included in this attack on social media, if you will. in particular, twitter, who has already been accused and jack dorsey addressed this in earlier interviews about a week ago, is twitter suppressing conservative voices. today, president trump as blake just said is taking aim at

google, saying google is trying to suppress conservative voices. facebook, though, included in that as well. just one of the places where the president started his fake news accusations, at facebook during the election in 2016, you may remember. as the markets push higher towards another record today, take a look at this. consumer confidence hit its highest level in almost 18 years in august, as u.s. households enjoyed benefits of a strong labor market and of course, the tax cuts that finally kicked in. will this continue to provide a tail wind for equities for the rest of the year? let's get to the guys in the floor show. we have traders at the new york stock exchange and cme group with us. you know, that's the biggest question. two-thirds of the u.s. economy is the consumer and spending. if they're feeling good, does that mean they will spend well? >> there's no doubt about it. certainly the retail sales numbers that we saw much earlier in the month were very positive, even a surprise to the upside.

i think many people have been surprised by the strength in retail earnings for a lot of retailers, even the brick and mortar retailers that quite frankly were -- a lot of them were almost written for dead at the end of 2017. cheryl: if you look at the consumer and the economy, a big part of the problem has been worries about inflation, although the fed kind of eased our worries about that last week. but the oil story. that could be changing. we talked about opec and supply and china buying oil. does that indeed worry you about the consumer at the end of the day? >> it could. because i'll tell you what, consumers really are sensitive to the price of gasoline. that really can impact their confidence. even though we have seen gasoline prices go up, the consumers have been able to overcome that for most of the year. consumer confidence generally has been strong. we did see a slight dip in

consumer confidence a month ago and that was when gas prices really spiked up. but when they leveled out, the prices went good. listen, i like this number. i think it's an incredible number. i think it bodes well for the economy for the rest of the year. i think it bodes well for the stock market. i think it's really being reflected in the policies we are seeing coming down from washington affecting the average person. we kept hearing that all the policies we were going to see from the trump administration was going to impact the rich and make the rich, richer. the bottom line is we are seeing from the average consumer, from the lower end of the spectrum, they are starting to feel good about this economy. that could have an impact on the midterms as well. cheryl: it's interesting. if you look at these policies, the concern about trade and trade wars, now this deal with mexico is on the table, things seem to be moving in the right direction. >> it's a domino effect. last time i was on, i made a statement. i said once president trump does

one deal, the next one will start falling. that hopefully is canada. they are our biggest trading partner. we want them. after that, europe. then after the midterm elections, we probably approach china, hope that they do something. but the consumer is strong. wait until people come back from christmas -- from christmas, from summer vacation. they will be coming into the market. i predict the stock market will be well supported. cheryl: i have breaking news i have to get to right now. want to let our viewers know, president trump meeting with the president of soccer's governing body, fifa, today at the white house. >> thank you very much. we very much appreciate the fact that we have won a very important event. the world cup in 2026. and we will be hosting it along with mexico and canada. it's a very special event. i think it's probably one of the biggest and maybe the biggest sporting event in the world. soccer has come such a long way. soccer is a game, i guess you

call it football, but over here, maybe at some point they will change the name, i'm not sure. we'll see. it's working very well either way. but i just want to thank gianni for being here. he's the president of fifa and a highly effective man. when my son said he would be here, he said i would like to meet him. pretty famous. my son loves soccer. soccer has to be one of the fastest growing sports in the world. the job you have done is really fantastic, so thank you very much. i want to also pay my respect to carlos gordiaro, who is president in this country of soccer, has been incredibly instrumental in helping us get the world cup. he's worked so hard, so long. they were calling me constantly to try to get me to come on board but it only took one call because when i heard world cup,

i wanted to do it. again, we want to thank you. it's all signed up, all set to go. it will be a special event. i think it's going to be something really very special. maybe i would ask you to say a few words. >> thanks. thanks, president, it's a great honor to be here. thanks for everything you are doing to support our sport as well. obviously 2026, the world cup, biggest event, sporting event for sure but probably even social event in the world. we just had the world cup in russia, more than four billion viewe viewers. it's massive. it's huge. so in russia, the president said he organized the best world cup ever. and we did organize the best world cup ever. in the u.s., canada and mexico, we want to organize the greatest world cup, if you agree. for this, we will work together and do whatever we can to make

sure this will be a fantastic event. >> it's very exciting. everybody is talking about it. it's very exciting. carlos? >> well, mr. president, thank you for meeting with us today. for my part, for my federation, u.s. soccer federation, representing u.s., canada and mexico, we are very honored to be hosting this event in 2026. it's right around the corner. we have a lot of work to do but we look forward to working with you and your administration. let me also thank you, mr. president, for your help, support throughout the campaign. your written assurances. i think without that, we wouldn't have won such a convincing victory. thank you very much for that. >> i also have to thank bob kraft, who i know you were working very hard with. bob originally called me and said what do you think of the idea of trying to get the world cup to the united states. i said i think we would really like it. we've got canada, we've got

mexico involved and we will have a great partnership. it's going to be very special. i look forward to it. let's see, 2026. i won't be here. i won't be here. many they will extend the term. the media is going to be very boring, very boring. they will all be out of business, i guess. but we will be there and it will be a very, very important and very special -- i think also having it in the united states is very important for soccer. especially in light of the fact soccer has done so well. thank you very much. appreciate it very much. >> i have a little gift for you. can i give it to you? before the questions come? >> i have something for you, too. >> thank you.

where you from? [ inaudible response ] >> let me stand up. >> you are part of the fifa team. >> that's good. that's good. great. thank you very much. that's very nice. >> and a u.s. jersey. >> look at that, huh? thank you so much. that's very, very nice. >> one more thing. in soccer we have referees. they have cards. yellow card and red card. yellow card is a warning. when you want to kick out someo someone. >> that's very good. >> this will be useful, i don't

know. that's for you. >> i like that. thank you. congratulations. appreciate it. thank you very much, everybody. [ inaudible question ] >> the wall will be paid for very easily. the wall will be paid for by mexico. [ inaudible question ] >> it's taking advantage of a lot of people. it's a very serious thing. a very serious charge. what google and what others are doing, if you look at what's going on at twitter, if you look at what's going on at facebook, they better be careful because you can't do that to people. can't do it. we have tremendous -- we have literally thousands and thousands of complaints coming in and you just can't do that. i think that google and twitter and facebook, they are really treading on very very troubled territory and they have to be careful. it's not fair to large portions of the population.

okay? thank you very much, everybody. cheryl: troubled territory. that was president trump at the white house with the fif asha president and the u.s. president of soccer federation, which helped bring the world cup to north america. that of course will be mexico, canada and the united states. he also mentioned bob kraft, owner of the patriots, had a big hand in getting soccer to 2026 to the stadiums, it's a huge money-making opportunity for frankly all three countries but also at the end of it, he was talking about, we have been talking about it with blake burman out of the white house, the issue of google. the president took to twitter to attack google, which said google, that's the parent company, alphabet, is suppressing conservative voices, even his own. he was talking about search results. also twitter, who has also been accused of suppressing conservative voices. they also talked about the wall which is an interesting kind of

side note to this, because look, if you are going to have all three countries working together in 2026 and it's going to be about soccer, the wall could be kind of an interesting piece of all that. he also did say and reiterated this again, a day after signing an agreement with mexico, that the wall is going to be paid for eventually by mexico. lot of interesting things coming out of the white house just now. soccer is not really, you know, the main agenda item for canada's prime minister right now. he's focused on trade negotiations with the united states coming out and saying that good progress is being made on automobiles and is looking forward to signing a nafta deal. he's also holding firm on the supply management system that does protect canada's dairy farmers. all this is happening as mexico has cut its own deal, they did this yesterday. right now we have a bilateral agreement with our southern neighbor. edward lawrence is the first u.s. reporter to speak to the mexican economy minister right after the country worked out

this deal. he joins us now with more on his exclusive interview. reporter: yeah, we worked together to get that bid, canada, mexico and the united states. well, the united states and mexico hopes that canada will work with this new agreement we have here. the agreement covers a wide range of topics. we know about autos, also textile and agricultural and new areas of business, like information and communication technology. it's 1,000 pages long. in an exclusive interview with mexico's economy minister, he told me, this is the man who wrote and negotiated -- the lead negotiator for mexico, told me the 25-year-old nafta needed to be updated. >> it guarantees free market practices and that is very important for business. depends on internet, the internet of things is mostly in the digital era and access to the internet is very important. if you have a regulated market,

it makes it very expensive for new players to really come in so this new agreement is good for the future of the economy as well. reporter: he's talking about modernizing this agreement here that includes intellectual property protections within it. even in agriculture, they have covered the new area of gene editing. we also know about automobiles, 75% of an automobile will have to be made here in the u.s. or in mexico under this agreement. he says that mexico is right there anyway with this. >> obviously the companies have to do adjustments, investments, but 70% of exports to the u.s. are very close to that business model. they may have to do additional efforts, but by the 1st of january of 2020, when this agreement is supposed to come

into operation, we will have unlimited access. reporter: many manufacturers here in the united states support this agreement, including retailers. the national association of manufacturers released a statement saying quote, manufacturers accept the administration's position that the 25-year-old nafta agreement needs updates. our hope for the sake of our workers and the successful manufacturing industry here in america is that the final agreement will include all three original signatories, the united states, mexico and canada. that starts today now. the canadians are on their way here to washington, d.c. to meet with u.s. trade representative robert lighthizer to see if they can sign on to this deal. the u.s. i'm told from sources will present the deal to canada. the u.s. again, though, the president has said he's fine with bilateral deals. we will see if they sign on. cheryl: they are arriving today to start the talks in earnest tomorrow, i'm assuming, correct? reporter: exactly.

talks start in earnest tomorrow. they have until friday with the original language but once the letter is sent from u.s. trade representative's office to congress, a 90-day clock starts. within that 90 days, canada can still sign on. cheryl: very interesting. lot of moving parts. thank you for covering all of that. great interview. thank you. here's a question for you. not really a best buy. let's check the big board. you have the dow higher by 24 points but the electronics retailer getting beaten down by investors who weren't happy with its third quarter guidance. best buy, worst performer in the s&p 500 today. right now, the stock is down almost 5%. coming up next, while talks with mexico had a happy ending, talks about denuclearizing north korea may have hit a speed bump. we have the threat assessment, next.

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♪ >> when it comes to north korea, is it moving fast? no. we never thought it would. we knew this was going to be a slow, tough, process. are they wishing or changing their mind on denuclearization? it is possible. we're not going to change our mind on sanctions. we're not going to change our minds on denuclearization. and we're not going to change our posture how we look at that as a threat to the world. cheryl: u.n. ambassador to the united nations nikki haley, speaking defense of democracies summit in d.c. earlier today. secretary of state mike pompeii received a hostile letter from the nation causing president trump to cancel the trip to the kingdom. where do we go from here? foundation defense for democracies, senior counsel to vice president dick cheney, john

hannah. good to have you here. >> thank you. >> let's talk about this letter handed to mike pompeo handed to him by a senior official, the president supposedly read. what could have pulled him out of the negotiations? >> last letter he took to pongyang. he thought negotiations went okay. he didn't see chairman kim. immediately upon his departure the north korean news services blasted him, accusing him of gangster-style diplomacy. what kim is doing, appealing to president trump that, he doesn't want to deal with the lower levels. he wants the president to intervene and and get him what he wants, which is essentially a peace deal with the united states. cheryl: so do you think that the president made a mistake pulling pompeo? because, that would signal to me that he gave him a little bit, gave kim jong-un a little bit of a leg up if that is the case?

>> i think what gave kim kill the leg up, -- kim jong-un doing the summit premature out of the singapore, basically saying he solved the nuclear program. kim jong-un reverted then to the old north korean playbook, to use diplomacy, a, to reduce sanctions pressure from china, russia, south korea in particular while in secret continuing to develop his long-range missile program and expand his nuclear stockpile. cheryl: we have that issue going with north korea. let's move to iran, you have this agreement in principle between iran and syria. between assad and his government and rouhani, dangerous bedfellows, right? the parliament of iran rejected rouhani's explanations what is happening to the economy. we're seeing protests, frankly the uprising seems to be beginning in iran. what do you make of that

situation? >> i think the iranians are really in a corner as a result of what the president has done withdrawing from that nuclear deal and beginning to reimpose sanctions. as you said, their currency is continuing to collapse. unemployment and inflation are raging. people are in the streets protesting. and the toughest sanctions haven't even hit yet. sanctions on iranian oil and their central banks. so they're in real trouble. cheryl: what do you make of the iraqi prime minister? he wants to send a a delegation to the united to discuss what is happening with iran and syria? what does that mean to you? >> the iraqis, next door neighbor to iran. they have a very long border. they are dependent on a lot in terms of their economic relationship with iran. so i think they're coming here to basically beg some kind of forgiveness from the united states, that they not be penalized for even after sanctions come back into effect that they continue some degree

of trade with the iranians. cheryl: what does it mean for the israelis? go to another part of the middle east. they have already targeted, they're very, netanyahu has been very clear he is very nervous about, targeted sites, iraqi, excuse me iranian targets within syria. they targeted that with missiles. they are stepping up i don't want to say aggression but their defensive strategy to be more fair? >> this is really a potential powderkeg. we're looking at a possible iranian-israeli war. the iranians are seeking to build a land bridge across iraq, across syria, right down to the israeli border. prime minister netanyahu has said he not ever going to allow iran entrench itself militarily inside syria. he a peeling to rush and united states to get iranians out of syria, now that it looks like the civil war is drawing to a close. if they can't get the iranians

out, these israeli attacks on iran and will continue to, and escalate dangerously. cheryl: iranians say they have the control of the strait of hormuz which is whole another powderkeg would affect the energy markets. >> oil markets could explode, yeah. >> john, great to have you on the show. lot to cover. >> thank you, cheryl. >> let's get back to u.s. markets, taking a look at the dow right now. we're up 26. s&p up one and change. nasdaq up 14. maybe we get new records for the s&p and nasdaq. i don't want to jinx anything. we're teetering. tesla, elon musk running over his own dreams of going private. move that would allow the electric vehicle maker focus on long-term value instead of short-term goals in the public market. has the tesla controversy helped make the case against the growing movement to end quarterly reports from public companies? one of the world's top business professors in the country takes

this argument off-road next on "countdown." ♪ year, i am sorry about that. [music playing]

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to request your free quote. that's. or go to. ♪ cheryl: okay, so what do jamie dimon, warren buffett, the president of the united states, and it hundred other business leaders and ceos have in common? short answer they all agree for public companies like tesla, they should eliminate or reduce the practice of estimating quarterly earnings. day traders and short-term investors, probably analysts will hate that, but what would eliminating them mean for the long-term investor? "fortune" magazine calls our next guest quote, probably the foremost private equity scholar in the galaxy. he co-founded the entrepeneurship program at chicago's booth school. he launched a competition that spawned a hundred companies and

raised over $600 million, with 9 billion in value. they created grubhub, ventree. great to have you here. >> great to be here. >> big debate whether or not companies should or should not report every quarter. what do you say? >> so it's, there are two questions that are different. the one question is whether the u.s. economy is too short-term oriented. then there is a question about should you report every quarter or every six months? and the first thing that is just a complete puzzle to me why people think the u.s. economy is short-term oriented and that's a problem. people have been saying this for 30 or 40 years. there was a very famous article in 1992 by michael porter, saying u.s. companies were too short-term oriented.

there is this 30, 40 year history. today is the long term. so if they had been right, u.s. economy had been too short-term oriented, that was a problem, today u.s. companies should be in terrible shape and, you know, as you just heard, we're hitting all-time records on the stock market. u.s. corporate profits to gdp are at historic highs. and so it is very hard to understand this short-term story because u.s. companies frankly have just been crushing it. cheryl: they have been but they don't always do that and i've got to bring up tesla to counteract what you're saying because this is a company that missed several production goals. the ceo is frankly, let's be honest there has been some erratic behavior we've seen by him on twitter. we've got the funding, no, never mind. these kind of events as investors this is the leadership may or may not be the best place to put our money, our dollars,

that are hardened from us. can't you agree with that point? >> no, i'm not agreeing with it. on the tesla case what is also really interesting, the valuation of tesla is phenomenal. he is, tesla since it went public has been a terrific investment for shareholders. the stock has gone up quite a bit and it trades at multiples of revenue that are like five types what ford and gm trade at and the company has been losing money for, forever, and still the market puts a value on it so that strikes me as very long-term oriented, not very short-term oriented. cheryl: long term versus short term, i ask you one more question on tesla, do you think he made the right business decision not taking the company private? >> absolutely. he is a business where he needs money. he is losing money or is cash

flow negative. when you're cash flow negative and the market believes that you have a really viable product, it is great to be public. amazon benefited from that for many years. the biotech companies are like that. and tesla, if it had gone private, would have had to have to worry about will the private equity money, which he would have had to relied on or, from, large pension funds or sovereign wealth funds, whether that would continue. he has to worry about that as a public company as well. but there is a good track record of the public markets supporting companies as long as, it goes back to what you said earlier, as long as they are delivering value in the future. cheryl: okay. >> that's the real question with tesla. will he get the model s built and will, you know, he deliver value? cheryl: with regards to quarterly reports you disagree with warren buffett and jamie dimon, to be clear? a lot of people do. >> the quarterly report, that is

a tougher one. i don't see there being a problem. this is the thing, so, one response is to say, leave it alone. the other question is really like think of quarterly reports as like exams. students hate exams, because it makes them study and make them work hard but professors still give the exams. so the real question is, do you give an exam every quarter or do you give an exam every six months? that is a question of what are the costs of doing this every quarter going through the audit, going through the pain of doing that, versus the fact that it is giving you an incentive to work hard. it is providing information. i think, you know, one solution which people have mentioned, you do the full audited financials every six months but on the off quarters you give something interim. cheryl: my exams are every week

but i digress. >> your exams are every day. cheryl: professor, thanks for being on the show. those are the memories. he made his case changing frequency of financial reports. let's talk about it more on thursday because right here on "countdown," liz claman will go one-on-one with one of the biggest critics of short earlyism, berkshire hathaway chairman and ceo, warren buffett. thursday, 3:00 p.m. eastern time. you do not want to miss that interview. checking the big board right now, we had a little bit of a pullback. i hate to say this, 15 minutes ago. dow only up by 3. s&p in the red. nasdaq up by 10, we'll see. the bulls are keeping things over all in stock markets but are they about to be iced over? one of wall street's biggest names on why the bears could be ready to pounce. countdown coming right back. the hi, i'm joan lunden with a place for mom,

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cheryl: well it's a green day for bitcoin. the digital currency eyeing its third straight session of gains, popping above $7,000 intraday for the first time in three weeks. bearish bets against bitcoin hitting record low last week according to the cfc. bulls pointing to the that news as real change in the crypto market psyche. we shall see. there. is bitcoin. 7100 and change. bearish investors slinging away as the bears have unfinished business. fed tightening, tough comparisons, quarterlily reporting and risk of trade tensions. bring in former ceo and chairman of ubs america, fox news contributor, robert wolf. >> great to see you, cheryl. cheryl: what do you make of the morgan stanley call? came out of nowhere.

we have seen positive commentary and morgan said not to fast? >> i understand a bit of nervousness, what he says, fed tightening, possible protection ist environment those things don't feel so great. today consumer confidence came out. 17-year high. cheryl: that is great but dow went negative. >> my point in 2000, i've been on wall street 30 plus years, in 2000 we were on record pace in the nasdaq and the dow. the nasdaq started a bear market in 2000 to 2002. it got crushed 50%. we had record high in consumer confidence. so i'm not making comparison. i'm just saying that consumer confidence, record high, 17 years ago started a bear market for two years t was between mid 2,000, january 2,000, obviously, you know post 9/11.

i was a little nervous because i think you had a little bit of a sugar high with the tax trade forward. earnings are good, balance sheet is strong. they're using a lot of it for buybacks and dividend as opposed to really building working capital needs for the future. then also my biggest concern is, you know, fed tightening. i know that secretary mnuchin today kind of said he is not worried about the flat yield curve but as someone who has been in the markets for 30 years, a flat yield curve does mean something. it means that the markets are telling you that they're nervous there is recession coming at some point point. why we have lower long-term yields. >> robert, investors are about to get a big reminder on the television screens. we're coming up on the 10-year anniversary of the crash of lehman, the collapse of lehman. we remember where we were. >> i was there. cheryl: what do you say? >> well, it was probably one of the most surreal weekends of my life.

i remember getting the call about 1:00 from the new york fed, hey, we would like you to come down -- i was at stanford at ubs. there were 10 executives called that day. i got called a little earlier because we had to be there right around the close. i remember sitting in the room t was about 4:30. there was about a dozen of us in. walks in geithner, chris cox, head of the sec, paulson said more or less we have until sunday night to rectify a situation, otherwise lehman is going under. and, it was, like a wake-up call. you know for me. i was sitting around. rainmakers, that i've been looking up to for years. i saw the red in their eye. no one felt too that weekend. i know i will be on a bunch of over coming weeks and fox business and fox, we did not have the tools at that time. there will be a lot of debate about dodd-frank but when you

think about what went on that weekend, we just didn't have the tools for a global investment bank to go under. contain i don't know was rampant. cheryl: it was frightening time. >> we couldn't bring up aig in the room. there was no regulator for aig. cheryl: the morass that became aig in the hank greenberg era. we'll talk about it next month on fox business. >> thank you for having me on. great to see you. cheryl: we've got the closing bell ringing. we have seven minutes to go. remember infrastructure week, it may not be a priority in the u.s. but different story around the world. 10 billion-dollar closer has an idea how to build your portfolio that is coming up on "countdown." ♪ i get it all the time.

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into the mix of that entire deal. let's go to the new york stock exchange. nicole petallides has details. reporter: so this is the proposed $26 billion merger between t-mobile and sprint but you do have dish signing petitions, opposing the deal. we will explain why they are opposed to the merger and want conditions requiring t-mobile honor the partnership with altice. then you have dish also saying they are proposing this opposition in a petition, saying the companies are overstating their need to tie up in order to present a force of development of 5g technology, in fact saying this tie-up somehow will enhance competition when in fact, dish believes this consolidation could actually thwart it. you see both t-mobile is to the downside, sprint gaining

fractionally. cheryl: thank you very much. taking a look at the s&p 500, in danger of breaking its record winning streak. the nasdaq is still on track. basically, we are barely hanging on. the dow only up two and change. let's bring in john. here we go. we may be breaking our records but you are looking at the global story, global gdp. you are making infrastructure bets on a global basis. interesting investment strategy. >> it is. it's incredibly stable with great earnings growth but also a little bit of defensive component to it as well for those worried about too much equity exposure. cheryl: too much in the u.s. stock market. you have companies you like, all companies, again, it's a global story in your opinion. >> yeah. you have a company that's down in louisiana and texas, the pipelines bringing natural gas to them. they liquefy it in the form of lng, ship it to the baltics and

china, all over. here's a domestic play that's increasing capx in the u.s. but taking advantage of a global market. phenomenal opportunity. cheryl: this is fascinating. >> you can't ship cement, right? no trade war there. in china's last five-year plan, one of the primary goals was to combat pollution so they have really cut back actually about 20% to 25% of all cement production. if you are still standing after that cut-back it means you have more clients, less supply, you are in better shape. it's cheap, the earnings are incredible. it plays in global growth in the economy. really, we feel a great opportunity. cheryl: you also mentioned target and vinci. >> yep, similar story, concessions, toll roads, infrastructure in europe which we don't hear as much about europe right now because so much is going on in the u.s. on the

global stage but european loan growth came out this morning strong. cheryl: another reason. john creswell, thank you very much, looks like the s&p and nasdaq will hit new records but barely. kind of a pull-back. losing steam in the final moments of trading. always something exciting on fox business. the dow fighting for gains, ending the day up 17, a little higher, 17 points. the s&p 500 also battling to close in the green but the nasdaq is getting it done, closing at a new record high for the third trading day in a row. >> still need to get used to that 8,000 number on the nasdaq. glad you could join us. here's what else we are covering for you. what an hour we have for you today. a new trade deal or new trade tariffs. canada