t.j. maxx as well, also saying they are facing a lot of headwinds. they are looking at for traffic to drive sales. lowe's seeing their gross margins being pressured by supply chain, but if you can invest in the short term to make better decisions in the long run, investors seem to be rewarding these companies for all of this. color we have a bit more on jcpenney -- the new chief marketer comes from target. >> she most recently served at target, where she was the senior vice president of apparel and accessory merchandising. target considered to have done extremely well recently. they preannounced their holiday earnings, saying they've done well there. she also recently worked at cap navy. navy -- gap and old definitelyis reacting to her appointment there. she will help turnaround their apparel segment at jcpenney. alix: the consumer -- do you like consumer staples? steve: we like discretionary. soay is my wife's birthday, i will go out and fix it. [laughter] steve: the underlying fundamentals are good. labor market is fantastic. we are getting some wa

joe t.: shopping for t.j. maxx. lemonis: t.j. maxx -- what is that customer? -jack: discount. -lemonis: discount. they gonna come here and spend 20 bucks? -joe t.: right. -jed: they do. lemonis: now i want to be clear with you guys. i'm not saying this is a bad idea. joe t.: after this conversation, i don't think it's a good idea, though. lemonis: well, but we don't have the data to say whether it's good or bad. this space, with the variables that we've talked about, scares me. let me talk to these guys for just a minute. jed: okay. lemonis: the problem that i'm having with these guys is they basically just pull [bleep] out of the air. "we'll just go to a location and we hope the rent's gonna work out." you're not gonna do that with my money. we're in the business of building a box, marketing it, polishing it, perfecting it, and then having somebody say, "i'll take one. i'll take one." that's what a franchise is. we are not in the business of leasing space and building [bleep] out. joe t.: and if it happens the way it happened the first time, i'm gonna be sleeping on the bench

this stock has traded significantly the last couple of months >> but what about t.j. maxx. i know it's not exactly apples to apples with walmart and amazon, but they have executed in good and bad markets. if i look forward and there's uncertainly about what the economy is going to do, if there's an inventory glut, that's coming to t.j. maxx during good times they executed. plus the way that the stock is trading, i've got a good stop-up point and risk/reward. >> what if new tariffs come into play what happens in the space? >> let's talk about retail sales. as much as it's easy to dismiss that number from last week which was awful, and markets rallied back at the end of the day, down 1.7 at the core of that was the number and not only is it a terrible number, but the things that people spend money on at walmart, it was sporting goods, it was kind of durables, things that actually people should be pretty flush right now they're getting paid more. we're at full employment and it wasn't. i don't think it's a one-off i think we're probably peak consumer i think we're definitely p

they own marshall's and t.j. maxx and is raising its defensive denld. they are buying backo up $2.25 billion worth of its shares. today thehares closed u more than en3 .5% to $51.56. >>> dean foods missed on quarterly earnings forecast. the dairy product supplier also suspended its dividend. dean said it was exploring options, including selling itself or going private as itst ggles with falling milk consumption. the shares plunged almost down to $3.92. >>> booking holdings, which used to be known as priceline, gave a profit outlook forhe current quarter that came in below what wall street expected as the company will spend moren advertising an marketing. the company also posted earnings that beat eectations asross travel bookings rose 9% in the latest quarter. that guidance sent shares sharply lower in after-hours trading. during the regularseion, ooking holdings down just a fraction at $1906. >>> the payment company square also issued weak first quarter idanc . revenue in the fourth quarter grew more than 50%, but that was slower than the prior quarter

right at that downtrend so to me when you think about we're going to get lowe's, target, home depot, t.j. maxx, a lot over the next couple of weeks, i think this sets up as a really didn't trade to the downside and i would use the xrt. today when it was trading about 45, i'd look out to april expiration and buy the 45-41 put spread buying for $135 and selling one of the april up from puts at 35 cents that breaks even down at $44 that's down about 3% you can make up to $3 between 44 and 41 i like the range i'm looking to april because i know we'll get a lot of earnings in march, but i think the market has come a long ways if we're going to pull back and give back some of that in the broad market, i think you want to pick on the losers or relatively weaker sectors and this is one of them. so we have nearly two months for this thing to play out. >> mike. >> you kind of hit on it right away when you say the equal weighted index there's a couple of etfs that track the retail space what you end up seeing is that they tend to be predominantly the winners in the space, things like amazon. this a

we all buy goods at walmart or t.j. maxx or home depot, so we are all using the roads to have those products shipped in. if the shippers are paying those fees, we are ultimately paying those fees as consumers. host: how would it work? guest: that is the challenge we are facing. we have pilot projects going on. when i fill out my vehicle registration form every year, georgia wants to know how many miles have i traveled, what is my odometer reading? you could do a lump sum fee at the end of the year just like the accord registration. i had 10,000 miles last year, 22,000 miles this year, so i would pay a miles traveled tax on those 12,000 miles. you could do tracking as trucking companies do. they are tracking their drivers. you could pay that fee incrementally. right now, chairman fazio is talking about raising the gas tax in the short term. republican chairman talked about raising the gas tax in the short term as a part of a transition to a new 21st century funding scheme. host: let's listen to defazio, now the new chair

only certain storesat participe, but you can be rewarded withpo ts for t.j. maxx, best buy and starbucks. >>> saving star is another cash saver. 70,000 stores take part in this one. the app connects ydiscounts find online to your rewards card. so it's as easy as picking the coupons online before you shop and then you save automatically register. you can head tobc the washington app for details on all these apps and others. it's a lot to remember. once you do it, you can save money. >>> good morning, i'm frank holland at cnbc headquarters. top executives for sprint and t-mobile will on capitol hill to discuss a merger. they argue the deal will not jack up prices or hurt competition. regulators blocked a similar merg merger back in 2011 when at&t tried to buy t mobile. with your cnbc morning business report, i'm frank holland. >>> we head to break with another checkn the forecast with storm team 4 meteorologist chuck bell. >> good morning, everybody. p what atty change to our sky. no gray today. all about som nice orange and blues coming in this morning. your c

t.j. maxx reported today that better sales numbers, up 1.5%. lowe's, the home-improvement people, better profit, up she goes, 4.7%. compare that with rival home depot which was way down yesterday and down a few cents more today. then we have former trump lawyer michael cohen on capitol hill, he is going to testify donald trump is a racist and has committed crimes since becoming president. the republicans not taking that lying down, released a video telling cohen to have fun in prison. chair of the rnc rodney mcdaniel with us now. michael cohen is going to go up there today and wave a check and say this is proof donald trump broke campaign finance laws while in office. what is your response to that. >> michael cohen is a convicted felon about to go to prison for 3 years for, among several things, lying to congress. congress and democrats want to roll out the red carpet and bring him in because all they want to do is distract from what the president is doing which is meeting with kim jung un. they will bring this life, not just the rnc calling hi

alix: t.j. maxx crushing it, boosting their dividend and issuing a buyback. this is bloomberg. ♪ alix: a little bit of risk off this morning. best buy storing in premarket trade tjx weaker after their outlook comes in light on the top end. dax off by half a percent. in other asset classes, sterling continues to fly. goety trades used to unnoticed. crude flying higher on saudi arabia's continuing to extend those cuts. we have data dropping. retail inventory of .9% in december. the trade balance when you take a look at goods is widening to -- -$80lion could the billion. david: the trade balance is worsening. replenishing inventories can be good for gdp. that means they are ordering more and the factories wind up having to produce more. we've been expecting a boost for inventories for gdp for a while but have not seen that. there a negative to rising inventories which means less demand. david: that it is a good thing because wholesale inventories have come in up 1.1%. you should be happy. alix: we are finally getting that inventory payback. joining us is lara

and now t.j. maxx, they were just a twinkle in a person's eye when i was back there. they're only a little over 20 years old. they took all that over. so now we're fighti ining back, right? nordstroms has the rack. >> what does that mean for margins when you talk about having the off price stuff in the real estate that used to be too expensive to have the off price stuff? >> for gross margins, it's still not a bad thing. because they're selling volume in a space that wasn't productive before. every department store in america are now too big. kohl's have been portioning off the store, putting 20,000 square feet of something else in there like an aldi macy's has been putting up other shops. they're soaking up the space all they're doing now is soaking up off price stuff right now macy's has been beaten up enough, we got the news i'm still a fan there. nordstroms i'm waiting to see what the number looks like they're another company that's doing all the right things to remain competitive so it's not that hard to like those two. anybody else sort of in the space is pretty

we all buy goods at walmart or t.j. maxx or home depot, so we are all using the roads to have those products shipped in. if the shippers are paying those fees, we are ultimately paying those fees as consumers. host: how would it work? guest: that is the challenge we are facing. we have pilot projects going on. when i fill out my vehicle registration form every year, georgia wants to know how many miles have i traveled, what is my odometer reading? you could do a lump sum fee at the end of the year just like the accord registration. i had 10,000 miles last year, 22,000 miles this year, so i would pay a miles traveled tax on those 12,000 miles. you could do tracking as trucking companies do. they are tracking their drivers. you could pay that fee incrementally. right now, chairman fazio is talking about raising the gas tax in the short term. republican chairman talked about raising the gas tax in the short term as a part of a transition to a new 21st century funding scheme. host: let's listen to defazio, now the new chair