good friday morning. i'm carl quintanilla and morgan bre brennan. the ceo of fifth third as contagion fears sweep that sector, we'll ask him about the stability of the banking system in a moment and the role he thinks these short sellers are now playing. then one of the big earnings movers of the morning. the ceo of expedia joins us first on cnbc as hot travel demand continues to be a theme

for investors in that sector. the cfo of block, after that hindenberg short report. the stock is higher driven by growth in catsh app business. >> markets are robust, with all of the major averages up greater than 1%. on pace for the first day of gain for the major averages, at least for the s&p, i should say, in a week. >> definitely some upgrades of the regionals at jpmorgan helping some sentiment apple having a big impact as well western alliance, by the way, we should mention, the biggest gainer, i think, among the regionals. one of the names jpmorgan is upgrading today after denying reports of a potential sale. our next guest is looking towards regionals with bigger balance sheets, including truist, but worries short sellers could put the u.s. at further risk joining us bill nigren is on set. >> thank you. >> the last few days people have

been asking large existential questions about the regional model, especially in the wake of the frc deal has it changed your thinking about why or how these firms need to exist? >> i think not our view is they have a competitive advantage versus smaller banks and the natural tendency is for the number of banks to shrink and the big to get bigger they just have advantages when it comes to regulatory requirements -- meeting regulatory requirements, mobilization, fraud control. if you're ten times as big as somebody else, those costs aren't ten times as large. >> when we talk about the names you think are important from a bullish perspective, what are they, which ones >> well, at oakmark we have a lot of these names, so we own bank of america and wells fargo, single digit pes, not much premium to tangible book value in the last quarter we added

truist after the collapse of svb and all the regionals coming down in price. it got to an attractive level, a top ten bank what we think they're missing is that the insurance brokerage business that they have, that they still own 80% of and has almost no book value, if they sold that at the same price they did the first 20%, they could cover the entire loss on the mark to market of the securities portfolio and then you'd be buying one of the greatest deposit franchises at tangible book value, which we think is very attractive. >> given the fact we've seen so many, especially regional bank selloff so strongly, you're a value guy, is there a lot more value out there in the sector right now? how are you thinking about that? >> well, right as things get cheaper, we always think they're more attractive. and i think the differentiation between what's going on in the

stock market and what the companies are saying is happening is quite interesting most of the regionals came out and said they did not lose assets in the second half of march. a number of them had come out recently and said even in april they actually gained deposits. and that just seems to be quite different than what we're seeing in the stock action. >> but you do point out that if, for example, your example on truist, if they found a buyer, right, isn't the problem this week that there were deals that regulators for whatever reason, some things we're not even sure why, but deals didn't happen, that there is regulatory friction that's not helping overall? >> right but i'm not saying truist would need a buyer for the bank. it's the unrelated business they have, the insurance brokerage business, that we think is highly valuable and effectively is being valued like it's a bank and should be valued much more highly >> are you calling for or interested in policy change,

whether it's that's deposit insurance or people now talking about do we need a moratorium on shorts >> well, again, i think the difference in the way the banks are behaving right now from the fundamental suggests that there could be interference. i'm not somebody who's anti-short selling i just think the banks are really different if someone comes out with a short report on amazon, it doesn't change whether you and i consider buying products from amazon it's like their fans sitting in the stands, betting on the outcome of a game. when you start driving the stock prices down of regional banks, you incite fear in depositors and you get this bad spiral going. and i think it could lead to changing the outcome it's like you jump on the field instead of watching and making a bet. >> oakmark looks like it initiated a new position in charles schwab we know for better or worse, right or wrong, it's a lightning

rod between the bulls and the bears. i just want to get your thoughts. >> at charles schwab they have decided to ladder their portfolio so they have stretched out maturities on the money they're investing. we think the real attraction at schwab is how low their cost structure is relative to any of the other wealth managers. they're significantly cheaper and because of that, have been consistently growing market share. we expected the deposits in the bank would move to money market funds or treasury securities as interest rates went up so, we think schwab is in great shape. we take great comfort at how much stock insiders have purchased at schwab. >> interesting cfo update this morning as well. finally i'm guessing your thesis hasn't changed much on alphabet. after a period in which pretty much all of faang names beat or raised estimates on the street >> alphabet is cheap more than

its headline multiple looks because of the venture cap spending they're doing and that's going straight through the income statement if you adjust for that, we think you can still buy google search at less than market multiple. >> is there a trade still embedded in alphabet related to head count or op ex? >> i think they've made a commitment to keeping their costs under better control than they have been but we like the revenue side of the story. we think there's a good tailwind again, it is not a demanding multiple when you adjust for the other assets that they have. >> that's a good round up of some of the big stories on the street right now, which you're always in, bill. thank you. >> thanks, carl. shares of apple are getting a nice boost driven by strong iphone sales in q1 steve kovach has the breakdown of what we learned last night. >> yeah, that buyback, though it was expected, one of the key factors keeping investors in apple. apple board approving a $90

billion buyback and increasing the dividend 4% up to 24 cents a share. this is the same buyback they issued last year and it comes a week after google issued its own massive $70 billion buyback. apple issuing the buyback after ceo tim cook took a pay cut a couple of months ago he also told me yesterday after earnings, there are no plans for mass layoffs at apple. compare that to alphabet, s disclosing the pay pack for sundar of $226 million after firing 12,000 people this year google employees are upset about that one another way to look at the buybacks, too, there's a huge chill on tech acquisitions in this regulatory environment. just look at the issues microsoft is having with activision these companies still throw off tons of cash and they got to put it somewhere big reason apple shares up today, also unexpected strength in iphone sales in that tough

macro environment, but apple continues those huge buybacks year after year. we saw this last year doing a postmortem on big tech's valuation drop one thesis, buybacks kept apple shares from falling more than they did >> it makes sense. going back to the back-to-back quarters of shrinking revenue for apple. >> the third quarter coming up, by the way. >> yeah, yeah. and the supply chain piece of the puzzle and margins coming into the third quarter are looking to be pretty resilient, how crucial is that and how much does that speak to, perhaps, a normalization within that supply chain for apple and also the fact they're expanding into india, too. >> on the supply chain side, morgan, they are pretty much back up to production in china to meet the demand they need to meet on the india side, we know tim cook was out there a couple weeks ago opening those stores he told me he's still very

excited about china. he told me -- india, rather, he told me it's at a, quote, tipping point, meaning on the consumer side just for growing middle class, but you can also read into that as are alleviating their supply chain issues by opening up more capacity in india, which we've already seen. >> the intraday highs came within 35 cents of taking out the highs last august. at the same time, we have foxconn that said april revenue down 11. they attribute that to a lot of seasonal weakness. are there other tells that lead you to what apple is eventually going to tell us >> that's right. the guidance was very mushy. they have not given formal guidance since the pandemic hit for all the obvious reasons. it's a little hard to read into, you know, what any kind of future problems throughout the rest of the year on the demand side we heard from qualcomm basically implying apple isn't buying as

many modems as last year other suppliers are showing a little weakness. apple, what we're learning so far this earnings season, carl, is apple is immune to a lot of the issues its rivals are experiencing we heard from qualcomm saying, no one's buying phones in china, at least on the android side i talked to tim cook saying china reopening has been great for us and people are buying iphones, especially the more expensive pro models like crazy. apple seems to be in a category of its own when it comes to demand still, sales will be falling throughout the year. >> incredible steve, thanks. steve kovach on apple. breaking news out of washington on the debt ceiling we'll go to kayla. >> the white house is weighing the possibility a short-term extension to avoid a default on june 1st and negotiate with republicans. the biden administration and congressional republicans have suggested that option is not

preferable my sources have described it as a last resort or a fallback option even one source called it the prevailing possibility given how little time there is between now and the earlier date treasury secretary janet yellen has set for a possible default two sources familiar with the matter say it's part of the white house's menu of options should the calendar get closer to the x date with no deal it takes both parties to agree on that. what republicans would require to support it. gop senators this week have rejected the idea of a 30-day extension. house republicans bill cutting spending and reversing many of president biden's signature policies would already only bump the debt deadline into 2024. i'm told one likely time frame would see the debt ceiling raise into the early fall so both sides have several months to reach a separate agreement on full-year government spending. the full-year government funding runs out on september 30th

the biden administration's budget director acknowledge all options are on the table of course, there's that big meeting at the white house on march 9th with the core four, the top congressional leaders. both sides say publicly that they would like to reach a deal on the intractable positions both sides have laid out you have to imagine behind the saendz, and now we know from sources that they are actually discussing what an alternative option might look like. >> speaking of the alternatives, how do you explain to people some of the other fallback scenarios people are discussing. the discharge petition, the 14th amendment to the constitution, how do those play here >> logistically, carl, those are hard options to execute on this is the white house is congressional democrats communicating to republicans, at least attempting to communicate, we don't need you to avert a default. we have other options at our disposal when i talk to sources about the discharge position, it's difficult on a time frame

perspective to execute before june 1st, even if it's able to get across the finish line on the 14th amend, they note it would run into some legal uncertainty. that's not really going to help the markets. that's not going tosolve the problem of having the interest rates on treasuries skyrocket as you get closer to the june 1st date if there's any uncertainty in the market that treasury could go to option and sell more debt, that's putting the administration back at square one. even though publicly the white house wants to appear it's putting all these options on the table, behind the scenes logistically there's real doubt cast on the viability of them. >> kayla, great reporting. such an important story for the markets at large. when we come back, shares of expedia jumping this morning as gross bockings surge year on year the ceo peter kern will join us. and regional banks attempting to make a turn-around. the ceo of fifth third joins us, looking to calm fears.

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welcome back shares of expedia popping this morning as gross bookings rise

20% year over year revenue comes in at a report for the first quarter. shares are up 6% right now it's a theme we've been hearing all week travel demand is back. it's been back it's staying back. seema mody joins us at post 9 bringing us expedia ceo peter kern. >> let's get the full story with peter kern, ceo of expedia welcome back. >> thanks for having me. appreciate it. >> i want to stand a bit more about what you are seeing in your vrbo home rental platform bank of america calls that business an underappreciated asset valued at $16 billion. on the call you did allude to some weakness you're seeing in that business. >> yeah, i think what we talked about, seema, was as trends are changing and people are getting back to more international travel and more big city travel, we've seen the inevitable change from these long vr stays we were seeing during covid to more of the city travel. something you and i talked about years ago of the return, would people be back in cities, et cetera, and it's happening naturally that will favor our

hotel business, which is bigger in big cities. as opposed to our vr business, which is bigger in mountains, beaches, et cetera we have great vr content in cities and vrbo is doing great but it's seeing less of the growth we saw in the first quarter. and that growth is driven by the big cities and the hotel. >> i think what excited some investors on the call was your emphasis after going after the business traveler with a launch this july of your loyalty program. so, what exactly is the return on investment and the scope of that business. >> yeah, i wouldn't think of that as going after the business traveler we're going after all travelers. we've had separate loyalty programs for expedia, for hotels.com, for orbitz, others, and we've creating one umbrella program that will launch this summer in the u.s. and it's going to allow customers to earn and burn points across any product, whether it's a cruise, a vr, an airline ticket, et cetera, and across any brand really just expands our base of

membership, expands the way customers can benefit from being in our membership plan, and there's more benefits coming there's going to be member discounts that are tiered for higher levels, lots more benefits coming for consumers. >> okay. looking to the full year, strong guidance but your marketing costs are going up you're spending much more on artificial intelligence. airbnb ceo saying because of ai, the travel experience will dramatically change by next year do you agree >> i think that the travel experience has already dramatically changed we have been using ai for a long time we added chatgpt to our ios app. that's really just the tip of the iceberg. we've been using ai in all kinds of experiences, whether it's the pictures you see in the app, how we sort, how we give you airline predictions and price predictions. there's all kinds of ai throughout the products. we've been using it for a long time we're continuing to push forward

and chatgpt is just one example of that. but you're going to see ai in more and more of the experience and ultimately the goal is really not ai for ai's sake, it's really personalization of the shopping experience and the planning experience for consumers. so we are using it in service. we use it everywhere. >> very cool >> peter, it's morgan. i'm going to ask you the same question i asked glenn fogel of booking holdings last hour pricing outlook. when does my vacation get cheaper again? >> not soon. rental cars are a little cheaper. in general, airline -- air ticket prices are still high, international ticket prices are very high and it's just a demand/supply issue. there isn't as much supply as there used to be and still lots of pent-up demand, you know, tokyo just opened for the first time post-covid for cherry blossoms a lot of that is driving demand. airline tickets i don't see any time soon. we've seen stable in the hotel and vr space i think that will remain the

case i don't think we'll see the inflation we've seen i don't think we'll see much pullback except you and all the other people as guests decide there's going to be a recession or something else. >> we should point out, to morgan's point, you did say the consumer is starting to shorten their stays. there are ways that the consumer is responding to a potential recession and, in general, higher prices. >> yeah. it's unclear whether that's economic or whether that's just hybrid work changing, lifestyles have changed people don't have the month to go work from the beach anymore i think -- we think that's more about lifestyle changes, but there's plenty of ways to save money. i'm not going to do an ad for us but we have package savings, member discounts there's lots of ways to be more efficient with your travel dollar at whatever level you're traveling. i think there's still lots of benefits for consumers if they shop right and pick the right place to shop. but i don't think we'll see a big trend, industrial trend of lowering prices. certainly not in air any time

soon we haven't seen it in hotels and vr really. >> marriott ceo said second half of the year, expect those prices to come down we'll be tracking it peter kern, ceo of expedia. >> thank you. great stuff. as we go to break, watch oil today. rising today but on track for three straight weeks of losses the biggest weekly move we've seen this year down 7% for the week and hitting the lowest level since december 2021. the energy etf xale on the wors week. >> energy makes up half of berkshire's portfolio. occidental and chevron's biggest shareholders don't forget, we are live in omaha for berkshire's annual meeting. something you can only watch on cnbc becky quick, mike santoli, on site with coverage kicking off 10:00 a.m. eastern tomorrow. stay with usit wh the s&p up almost 1.5%. we're here to fight the big, intimidating,

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lyft getting hit hard on weak guidance. shares have been more than cut in half the past 12 months, down 20%, despite a 14% jump in revenue last quarter the stock is now just above a $3 billion market cap trading lower by 20% as i speak. let's get a news update with our kristina partsinevelos hi, kristina. >> hi, carl. let's start with the cnbc news update at this hour. police in serbia have arrested a suspect after the second mass shooting in just two days. eight people were killed after the gunman randomly shot people at a series of drive-by incidents yesterday. this comes just a day after a student killed nine people in the first mass shooting at a school in the nation's modern history. a ukrainian member of parliament punched a russian delegate at a meeting. the fight started after the russian official grabbed the ukrainian flag waved in protest behind another russian delegate. the two countries are set to

meet with turkish officials this weekend to keep black sea open for grain exports. immigration officers on the u.s./mexico border tell nbc they are sealing a rise in migration even before title 42's expected lift next week, which addresses social health, welfare and civil rights border agents are concerned about the backlog as agents take time processing individual claims instead of blanket deportation. the white house says it has taken steps to prepare for the surge and urging congress to take action. morgan, back over to you. >> kristina partsinevelos, thank you. can regional banks stop contagion fears? stocks are all higher today. we'll ask the ceo of fifththird bank after the bank. speaking of the regionals, shares of pacwest, huge round trip for that stock this week, up 82% just today. plus, cnbc is celebrating asian american and pacific islander heritage month.

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(funky electronic music) (narrator) invest in. believe in. move in. grow in. build in. thrive in. all in north carolina. ranked america's top state for business. let's dig back into the regionals today, rebounding to cap off this roller coaster week one of the biggest side effects of all the turbulence in the sector is the increase in short selling and the american bankers association is taking notice, calling on the s.e.c. to take action in a new letter, asking regulators to investigate those short sales and related social media activity it's calling, quote, disconnected from the underlying financial realities. joining us with his outlook in a cnbc exclusive is fifth third ceo tim spence welcome back it's great to have you >> thanks, carl. >> we've been having a lot of

conversations about how short selling is different when it comes to the banks we've been through this in prior decades where there was discussion about a moratorium and then it finally came do you think one eventually will come this time >> you know, i don't know that i'm the right person to guess on that particular point. i do think it's good there's a discussion going on inside washington, right inside the belt whey about the impact that short sellers are having on so many banks in our particular case, short interest is a percentage of float is the lowest among all the regionals. it hasn't been a big pressure point for us but i did hear the things that you all shared this morning about the impact that short selling is having on the regional bank indices. of course, we see it in some of the individual names. >> the street's wrestling with the spread between sentiment and fundamentals can you characterize, where you sit, what beta flow activity is like and does it match with the price action we've seen the last couple of days

>> yeah. no, it definitely doesn't match with the price action that we've seen the last couple of days i will tell you, i think in my entire career i have never been more excited to file quarterly earnings than i was a few weeks ago when we filed them because it gave us the opportunity to show investors and/or customers what was going on inside the regionals as a sector, fifth third in particular. i think we are the only one of the large cap financial institutions who's actually grown deposits from june 30th last year after the fed really got going through the end of the first quarter. and quarter over quarter we were stable january 1 to march 31 we were stable in terms of deposit balances from silicon valley's failure from march 31st deposit balances were stable here that trend has continued we do expect to be stable or even to grow modestly between now and the end of the year. >> tim, curious if you've been thinking differently in terms of risk mitigation where the investment portfolio is

concerned, and also just as importantly, maybe even more importantly, has everything we've seen in recent weeks changed or shifted the way you're thinking about lending and credit conditions? >> yeah. so, the time to make decisions on lending was last year and we were fairly vocal about the fact that we thought there was more uncertainty in the outlook than either the forward curves reflected or that you were hearing discussed and the by-product of that is, we did take some actions, call it the end of the first quarter, beginning of the second quarter last year, and our loan growth slowed materially. in fact, we came into this year with the lowest expectation in terms of our guidance on total loan growth. and the growth we are generating right now is really a by-product of our dividend finance business and then our pride -- provide, medical finance business the actions we were going to take, we did take last year. they're in the run rate in terms

of our new originations. as it relates to the securities portfolio, we are a little bit different than the way that i think a lot of other folks manage their portfolio we believe that options have value and the by-product of that is we hold over 99% of our entire securities book available for sale the by-product of that, obviously, from an investor's perspective is you got real transparency into the total aoci mark there i think that served us well in an environment, carl as you said, where the market's trading as much on narratives as it is on fundamentals. >> there's so much talk and so much focus on commercial real estate as well what are the pressures you're seeing, how bad does it get, and not necessarily your bank but more broadly across the sector >> we're not a good bellwether on commercial real estate because commercial real estate as a percentage of total capital is lower at fifth third than any of the other regional peers. you can see the numbers there on

the screen what we do have tends to be very focused on large national developers with deep pockets who have the ability to put equity into projects when we need them. i think we do expect to see the pressure in the same places that everybody else talks about it. the large city centers where their return to office hasn't been as strong as one would hope certainly you do see when we look across the footprint. i think the other interesting thing is, i think the one pocket where you have really good positive absorb is a-rated properties less than five years old and then the suburban offices are holding up a little better certainly than we're reading in the news about these large buildings in the major cities >> finally, tim, you know, one comment we get from the banking industry, and i'm sure you would agree, is that we're in the relationship business, right, we know our community, we know our clients, we've been around for a century plus, but there's this ongoing debate about this era we're in of digital banking

where all kinds of relationship businesses are kind of eroding when it's just so easy with your phone to withdrawal, even if you do know your branch manager. i just wonder how you think that affects the line of defense. >> yeah. i continue to be a big believer in the value of relationship banking. i just think we have relationship banking ill defined. certainly the relationship that you have with a banker in your local community, whether you're an individual consumer or a business is a big part of the way we deliver value to you. a lot of the rest of it comes through the digital tools and the product feature functionality we're able to deliver when we know you well and when we are your primary relationship if you look at our business, just as an example, i mean, people talk about regional banks as if they're small. but we're the number two market share bank in the midwest, in the markets where we compete, and the number six market share bank in the southeast market

where we compete if you just look at it on the number of households who have an active checking relationship with fifth third today, it's one in every nice households in that footprint. some areas as much as one in four or one in three those are folks that see us as the people who help them get their paycheck, help them manage their bills, provide short-term liquidity when they need it, help them plan for the future. and so the person in the local financial center definitely matters. we still hear that when we talk to our customers but so, too, do the tools we help them -- that we provide to them to help them manage their day in and day out life. >> listening to you talk about that, do you see a path to raising fdic insurance above the current $250,000 cap, because that has been in focus in terms of all the angst we've seen across the sector and with the stocks and the bonds trading lower earlier in the week that maybe that's something that would help to calm this crisis of confidence.

>> yeah. >> at least from my point of view, that blanket increase on the $250,000 cap would not be the right way to effect the change that's needed i thought the comments from the fdic this week that were focused on the ways in which we could provide additional support for operational accounts on the business size of the equation was an interesting focus let's face it, if you're a middle market company with $50 or $100 million in annual revenues, you need more than $250,000 in liquidity in a sdpoflt account to cover payroll and payables and manage receivables and payables duration caps that may occur over the duration of the year. >> it's such an important story to the street and the economy. having you on is helpful to our viewers. appreciate it very much. look forward to -- >> glad to be here >> tim spence from fifth third.

coming up, shares of block higher this morning after earnings block's cfo joins us next. and the hindenberg short report last quarter. >> watching coin, better than expected results powering this move higher. despite a warning about subscription and services revenue. dow still holding onto a 400-point gain stay with us

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shares of block losing early morning gains despite posting strong results driven by growth in its cash app business in direct contradiction to the hindenberg short report a month ago calling it into question deirdre bosa is with us for "techcheck" and an exclusive with block's chief financial officer after those earnings hi, dee. >> good morning, morgan. thanks very much we do have amrita, cfo of block. good morning to you. i want to start with that earnings beat, driven by cash app. looking forward this summer, the federal reserve will offer free real-time payments that is a service you currently charge for makes up an estimated 40% of the app's gross profit so, that upcoming change, is that a threat to cash's growth and profitability? >> deirdre, thank you for having me here today. we have a diverse set of revenue streams in our business. at 14 revenue streams in the first quarter that on an annualized basis are $100 million or more in gross profit,

we're not reliant on any one revenue stream to drive our business this is how we're able to grow our customer base. this is how we're able to retain our customer base over time because we serve them in so many different ways our instant deposit feature, the one you're speaking to, is one of many tools we have that serve a use case for our customers what's interesting is when we look at markets around the world that already have instant reals, our square instant transfer product attaches at the same rates in those markets as it does in the u.s. and we believe that's because of the frictionless products experience we enable and the strong real-time risk controls that we have of course, we're watchful of any changes to the broader environment. this is why we continue to innovate and diversify our business that's part of the strong -- that you saw with cash app this quarter. >> right so, with that fed now program banks will have to opt in, will your customers be able to take advantage of that program? >> we may look at using fed now as a way to control our costs in

the future and our customers already have access to real-time movements for their money. that's something we know, speed means so much for our customers. >> okay. so, no decision yet. amrita, i want to get into that short seller report from a few months ago and the concerns it raised for investors around verification and kycaml laws have you heard from regulators after the report came out? >> we're in constant dialogue with regulators. we're a highly regulated company. we have invested strongly in our compliance program, growing that spend by five times since 2020 to over $160 million is our expected spend this year, already included in our guide. that growth is more than two times the pace of spend across our entire base of operating expenses ultimately, we believe our results will speak for themselves through the strong innovation and customer focus we have as a company.

>> right but did you hear from regulators or did any my conversations come out of that report and the concerns it raised >> of course you can expect regulators to be interested. we're dialoguing as we always have and would be in creating that constructive relationship with regulators. >> and, amrita, finally, in response to that report you broke down your monthly actives. of the 51 monthly active, 39 million connected to unique social security numbers. how should investors think about this difference, this gap, is the latter 39 million a more accurate representation of customers that form the core of square cash app's business >> you know, we had 53 million monthly actives at the end of march for cash apps. all these numbers ladder up into our inflow framework 53 million actives growing 17% year over year there's reasons that individuals may choose to have more than one account. we permit that they may want a business account, they may want an account for a sponsored family

member, like a teenager in their household, which we enable that growth compounds along with the amount of money people bring into cash app, which grew 27% year over year, as people continue to engage with cash app more and more. along with a monetization, as people use more and more and adopt more of our products, that's what laddered up to the 43% growth we saw for cash app in the first quarter, which we're encouraged by. >> i guess it's just that distinction, accounts versus customers. amrita, thank you for being with us today talk to you soon morgan, back over to you. >> great stuff deirdre bosa, thank you. gold hovering near an all-time high along with shares of wheaton precious metals the ceo joins us in another earnings exclusive, coming up next. this afternoon don't miss cnh industrial ceo scott wine coming up on "closing time." competing against the likes of

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let's take a look at the state of the metals market shares of wheaton precious metals coming off the lows of the morning on the heels of q1 results. the stock has been having a very strong run up roughly 30% on the year that's as gold sits at just below an all-time high that it reached in 2020. joining us now wheaton precious metals ceo randy smallwood randy, great to have you on the show let's talk a little bit about -- let's talk a little bit about that price of gold, because it's been very ebullient this year. what would you attribute that to, and where does it go from here >> i don't think it takes much to look at the overall market around the world, the financial systems around the world, to understand that gold is becoming a critical mineral in today's world. the sense of stability that gold provides in a pretty fragile financial market right now, there's no doubt appetite has dramatically increased for gold. we've seen central bank increase over the last four or five

quarters as they try and strengthen up their loan reserves gold is the ultimate reserve when it comes to providing that stability. all it takes when you look at what's going on around the world, there's no doubt that a continued increase in appetite in gold is going to be a necessary part of everyone's portfolio. >> so what does that mean in terms of your production outlook and how much you can extract and, i guess, the differential in terms of the cost to get it out of the ground and then the cost to put it out in the market >> and we don't actually operate mines. we invest in the mines, but the huge advantage we give to our stakeholders is we have fixed costs where our costs we're not subject to inflationary pressures. our costs are all defined by the contractor our margins are well over 75% in gold that we produce i would say that one of the reasons i think we've performed so well the growth profile that we've been able to build over the last few years, we have a

number of assets that are either expanding or growing over the next few years, and we see over 40% production growth organically within the next four or five years of production. and so that organic growth profile is exciting the market in terms of what wheaton will continue to deliver to goldin vestors. we really do think when you add things up, the best way to invest in the gold market is streaming companies and our portfolio is the strongest in the peer group really exciting times at wheaton. >> randy, what goes through your mind when you see episodes of acute financial stress whether it's regional banks or a discussion about the debt ceiling? i mean, i assume you think that's great for my product but i wonder if at the same time it might affect the way you finance yourselves >> well, we're blessed in the fact we have such a strong portfolio of assets in our portfolio already that our cash

flows are so strong we're generating well over a billion dollars in cash flow on an annual basis, and that will continue to grow with us so we have no problem self-funding our growth. we don't have to go to the banks. we do have a backup if we need it we finished with over $800 million in cash looking for a home, a place to invest into the ground so that portfolio, we have the size, we have the critical mass that gives us the capacity to work in the system and take advantage of those opportunities when financial markets are having challenges, we have the capacity to provide that capital to market and create opportunities. >> i want to get your outlook on silver as well when we see that gold/silver ratio expand, silver does tend to catch a bigger bid. i wonder whether it's from a fundamental standpoint in terms of demand in themarketplace or even trading technicals. your thoughts on where that goes from here. >> well, it's challenging. as chair of the world gold

council, i should be bullish on gold and i am bullish on gold, but i'm even more bullish on silver if you want to talk about a green metal, silver, the better it is. it improves electronics. it improves efficiencies it cuts down waste and so just a little bit of silver mixing into any of the industrial applications just dramatically improves -- reduces the amount of energy we waste in the world. i think the demand for silver will continue to grow, and we've seen that. on top of that we've seen peak silver production. we've had declining silver production for a number of years now. so that combined with the fundamentals are very strong for gold they're even a little bit stronger for silver. i really do think silver has -- it hasn't had its time to shine yet but it will come >> all right randy smallwood, wheaton precious metals ceo. shares are up 1%

meantime, the market is hanging on to a gain as morgan said 400 points banks up almost 3% on the s&p. >> yeah. the dow up 403 points. t the4120. >> and we'll look forward to cpi and a bunch of other important numbers next week, of course, berkshire tomorrow let's get to the judge >> carl, thanks so much. welcome to "the halftime report." i'm scott wapner front and center this hour, the friday bounce in what's been a tough week for stocks. so where are we headed from here after another rate hike. apples earnings and the regional bank turmoil we discuss and debate that very question with our investment committee. joining me stephanie link, jason snipe, rob sechan. a big day. we're in the midst of that 1.5% for the s&p. the nasdaq good for