Good Friday morning. Welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Sarah Eisen with Carl Continia and Mike Santoli today, live from post nine of the New York Stock Exchange.

David Faber has the day off. Stocks are higher again today looking set to close out the week stronger, third up week in the last four for the S&P 500. A 1% gain for the week looks like for the NASDAQ so far.

Today, actually some of the defensive names or groups are leading. Real estate utilities, staples, they're all performing well. But it's a broad-based rally. The chip stocks are yet again fueling some of the gains. Apple, AMD, Netflix, Tesla. Those are some of the big winners right now on the NASDAQ. Take a look at treasuries right now, selling off with yields a little bit firmer. This is reaction to Fed Chair Jay Powell, who was out Wednesday afternoon with the market closed on Thursday. The two-year yield wavering just below 4% there, the 10-year yield a little firmer at 4.4. Coming up this hour, former Trump Defense Secretary Mark Esper joins us to talk about the latest developments in the Middle East, as President Trump says he will make a decision about U.S. direct involvement in the next two weeks.

Plus, Accenture shares on the move this morning on the back of earnings falling hard despite a beat.

CEO, Julie Sweet will join us to break it all down.

But, guys, the Fed is the topic de jour after the message from Fed Chair J Powell that he's not in a hurry to cut interest rates despite political pressure and despite evidence that inflationary pressures have come down.

Here's just a few ways the Fed share signaled that he still is worried about

inflation popping back up because of tariffs.

Increases in tariffs this year are likely to push up prices and weigh on economic activity.

Many, many companies do expect to put all or some or all of the effective tariffs through to the next person in the chain

and ultimately to the consumer. One of our jobs is to make sure that a one-time increase in inflation

doesn't turn into an inflation problem. And that will depend on the size of the effects,

how long it takes for them to come in and ultimately on on keeping inflation expectations anchored.

He wants to be more confident that tariffs aren't going to spark inflation. And that I was clearly, I think the message from the Fed chair, Mike, I thought it was hawkish. He mentioned tariffs 30 times. Thank you, producer Chase Manzi, for pointing that out.

It was a different message we'll hear about Governor Waller this morning who talked to our Steve Leasman.

But another sort of further hawkish data point, and I know we don't want to make too much of the stupid dots, which are the forecast for the Fed cuts.

And even Fed Chair Powell said it's a foggy kind of environment.

But while they maintained the median of two cuts this year,

seven officials said no cuts.

And in March, it was three officials that said no cuts.

And in December, it was one official that said no cuts for the year,

which is telling you there's a growing concern about inflation and wanting to wait and see before cutting rates on this committee.

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