good morning. welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc. live from the nasdaq market site in times square. i'm mike santoli along with brian sullivan. you see the futures indicated with the slight gain. the dow yesterday closed at an all-time high. up 13% for the year. the nasdaq is up 44% this year on track for the best year since 2003. the s&p is inches closer to the all-time high under the 44,800 level. and to the treasuries, they started the ten-year yield at 3.81. guys, i really feel as if you have to look at the two-year

yield. you look at the amazing gains at the year to date, it is a round trip. s&p finished with an almost symmetrical round trip. down 25%. this is a good thing. >> it's 6:00 in the morning. everybody else is skiing or at st. baarts. >> this is the answer for people. how can we expect it to go higher from here? we are on a perch here and you went down 25% and ten months, up 33% in 14 months. your earnings are higher than last time at these levels. i think it is interesting you have to broaden it out. >> two years ago, nobody really saw the war coming in ukraine. inflation was still transitory at that point. the prospect of being transitory. >> the fed was at zero. >> the key question.

>> the supply. no home. >> it found its way. >> your point is well taken. good morning. good morning. how are you, leslie? >> everything is great according to mike. >> i came here straight from "last call." >> your point is well taken. you feel good in the last year. if you bought the s&p, you are just back to where you were. >> that tells you there could be more in the tank. most people will look at 44% year on the nasdaq and say things are nuts again. >> 1999. >> '03. >> '99 for s&p. speaking of risk-on assets. a check on bitcoin. rebounding yesterday. it is off a little bit this morning. there was more action for ethereum. jumping 6% in yesterday's trading. it is up again this morning.

some calling it a catch-up trade ahead of the new year. you see it is up 2% relative to the u.s. dollar. let's check on the energy prices as well. crude oil is down a little bit. still in the mid to low 70s. $73.20. natural gas is the big story. $2.44. it has been hot lately. china has had the coldest weather in years. mild in the united states. wti crude is impacted by what is going on overseas as well. two more trading days. we will see what happens. crude oil is down $2 overall from where we began the year. mike, i can say that would be a surprise to a lot of people. myself included. given everything on the side of higher prices, there's clearly some sellers out there that don't want the price of oil higher. >> and the supply story is there as well. you are right. given the fact that the economy

is resilient and demand side has held up and we are where we are. a comfortable level with the industry handling this price and consumers can as well. >> how much does the china demand story cloud the picture of everything else that conventionally you think would be spiking the price of oil with the politics in the middle east and attacks in the red sea and if you see the headlines, you see that is a signal. you have the clouded picture on the demand side worldwide. >> there is a weird china story that i thought about putting as a prediction for the year. china is growing its supply. they are an oil consumer. they have electric cars and the economy is garbage. eunice yoon was just in town. she said the economy is not

good. they are a shale oil producer. they have some oil. the china supply side story, which never -- i should do this. it is not getting a lot of attention. by the way, brazil is 3.5 million barrels a day now and probably going to 4 million. g guyana as well. a lot of supply. demand is muted. $73. don't forget about gold. hitting the highest level since early december. gold is on track to gain 14% this year. mike, how surprising is gold? >> i guess it is surprising. the dollar is down at its lows for the year as well. it is a little bit of an inverse. i do think fed being done and real rates coming down with the powell pivot does support gold. if you look at bitcoin, digital

gold, gold should be dragged up with it. it did peak with the covid crash. let's get to the top corporate headlines. apple winning approval to sell the watches today at noon pacific time. the sales were paused after the dispute with masimo's blood oxygen detection feature. on january 12th, the u.s. customs office will decide if the design will comply with the pa patents. shares have been limping along the past few sessions. the stock is up 50% on the year. >> like most of 2023, it would not be a day without a story of tesla and elon musk. two senators are calling on tesla to swatch the parts that

may pose safety risks. two democrats citing the investigation published last week showing how tesla has blamed drivers for frequent failures of components it has long known were defective. the lawmakers are focused on steering and suspension parts calling on musk to correct apparent false and misleading representations due to the safety regulators. tesla shares are up 110% for the year. 1 1% increase today. general motors is suing the city of san francisco. automakers trying to recover $100 million in back taxes over the course of seven years. gm claims the cruise self-driving car unit was i am importantly used by the city for tax calculations.

cruise operates separately from gm and gm has a limited presence in san francisco. gm says it was overcharged by $121 million in taxes, but claims it only sold $677,000 worth of goods. >> that's a lot from one city. >> that has to be -- >> i'm shocked that san francisco is overtaxing somebody. >> they're taxing the overall business. >> they are and using cruise. gm is like, no, that's cruise. we heinvested in them. >> they lost a lot. >> interesting fight. we are not done with auto stories. toyota beats volkswagen for the four fourth consecutive year. it helped sales and production reach records in november. global sales rose 12% to nearly

990,000 vehicles. the most ever for the month of november. in that realm of lawsuits, openai responding to "the new york times" over the lawsuit over the artificial intelligence giant and microsoft. the times claims the companies have a business model on mass copyright infringement. we respect the rights of content creators and owners and are committed to working with them to benefit from a.i. technology and revenue models. we are surprised and disappointed with the development. microsoft has yet to comment on the suit. a lot of people are talking about this as a watershed moment on what it means for the ubiquity of content on the internet. it will be a big deal. precedent setting lawsuit. >> if "the new york times" wins this lawsuit, the implication

could be that anything anybody published on the internet belongs to them and all of the a.i. companies that learn by scraping everything cannot do that without compensatcompensat. you write a piece or tweak something, that is mike santoli's content. they cannot scrape it and they owe you money. you cut off their ability to learn if the lawsuit is victorious. this is a massive a.i. moment. >> the cost of the soul goes up for a.i. chatbots. >> you can never afford to pay everybody -- no way. how would you identify where the a.i. scraped that information from. >> it up ends the business model. they have a contract or partnership with axle springer and other publications with an

agreement to use their web sites to create these models. >> corporates are looking at that. >> according to the state from openai, they say they are in discussions with "the new york ti ti times." they are surprised with the development. >> "the times" wants to get paid. >> of course. >> people are making fortunes. facebook. they made fortunes making money off what you post. they have no business. facebook's business is just what leslie picker and mike santoli post. why shouldn't we get paid for a.i.? i'd like to get paid. >> everybody wants to get paid. coming up, we have the results of the cnbc's latest delivering alpha poll and the best returns of 2024. the s&p this much s best returns of 2024. the s&p th&p inches closer

record. will it continue for 2024? we discuss when "squawk box" returns. >> announcer: this cnbc program is sponsored by truist securities. experience, expertise, exec execution.

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i'm a little anxious, i'm a little excited. i'm gonna be emotional, she's gonna be emotional, but it's gonna be so worth it. i love that i can give back to one of our customers. i hope you enjoy these amazing gifts. oh my goodness. oh, you guys. i know you like wrestling, so we got you some vip tickets. you have made an impact. so have you. for you guys to be out here doing something like this, it restores a lot of faith in humanity. welcome back. the delivering alpha survey brings together the leading

investors and strategists and cnbc contributors. we asked for the outlooks and strategies for the first quarter and beyond. we polled 300 chief investment officers and portfolio managers and cnbc contributor eors who me money. here is one where the best returns are expected in 2024. topping the list is the s&p 500. up .3% from its all-time igh. followed by the nasdaq 100. chinese stocks, interesting, and etfs. the biggest risk for stocks in the new year is inflation and tied with problems with commercial real estate. those two are not as surprising as the chinese stocks down 15% this year. >> one in eight people betting on that snap back. >> can we throw that back up there? when joe, becky and andrew are off this week next year, and when we meet back up and

reconre reconvene this version of "squawk box" we should bet breakfast on which of us gets it right. i think brazil will do better than all four of those things. >> people are talking about india again. >> what people? >> money managers. people i talk to. >> india? >> the new china. >> i think brazil is the new india. >> brazil is your write-in vote. my guess is the survey didn't have a write-in section. >> mike, you're the market expert. >> i'm not. >> make a guess. >> no sense of projecting a one-year return. it is difficult for the s&p to out perform out the nasdaq. >> the s&p can't go up without the nasdaq because of the weighting inside the s&p. you are saying 493 stocks have to out perform.

>> it will be tough. with two trading days left in fact year with the dow posting a record close yesterday, joining us now is chief market strategist at fl putnam. ellen, it is good to have you here. the market and all of it in the last two months has built up a pretty heady bit of momentum. we have beaten inflation and growth seems okay. is there anything in that outlook that gives you hope or worries you a bit that we are overconfident? >> first of all, you are right. the market has correctly predicted the powell pivot which we saw in full bloom at the last fed meeting earlier in the month. as we look to 2024, there are a lot of good things happening. corporate profits still look

okay. the economy looks pretty good. inflation is waning. jobs remain strong. there are a few points that worry us as well. the commercial real estate sector has been well discussed and that is weakening across the board. we also see that the consumer's excess savings, generally speaking, has been drawn down significantly. the lowest sector doesn't have the savings any more. you see that showing up in the credit card delinquencies. it does look, for the most part, the balance of evidence is positive. it looks at the moment that powell has stuck the soft landing. there are worries around the edges of consumer credit and commercial real estate. >> not to mention housing and manufacturing have also not been growing or contributing very much to net overall economic

growth. i guess you could say those are sore points that are headwinds or poised for a comeback. one of the muddled through environment where growthi slows down, but doesn't go negative, some things work, but some don't. >> one thing you talked about is mortgage rates have come down. the housing market was frozen in place. that is why we are not seeing existing home sales because it is expensive for people to move. that is improving as we have seen the whole curve come down over the last couple of weeks. on the manufacturing front, i think we're still exiting the covid bump. what i mean by that is during covid, the economy shutdown and everyone ordered a lot of goods, not so much services and there were supply chain snarls. when the economy opened back up,

everyone wanted services and not goods. goods piled up. inventory was everywhere. we are just exiting that now. on the manufacturing front, we are still in the last innings of that normalization post-covid bump and covid desert. we could see manufacturing i improve going forward. the services side continues to be strong. >> as you look at the kinds of stocks that worked in the last couple months, it answered the questions of a narrow market and small caps were under performing. those areas have all come back strongly. as you look to where earnings growth is likely to be and how investors are positioned, where would you navigate within those options? >> i think it is time to move from late-cycle stocks back to mid-cycle stocks. in a sense, we're going backward. for a while there, it looked as though a soft landing was difficult to achieve and if you looked at what was out

performing as you talked about was the magnificent seven and the biggest tech stocks. of course, when growth is slowing and the recession might be coming, investors want to buy the highest growth companies. at the same time, as we look at going into 2024, if the soft landing does get achieved, then the thing to own is actually more cyclical companies and more value companies. >> just quickly, you say if the soft landing is achieved as we have talked about for months here, but you don't come to a moment and say there it is. presumably, we have to deal with the idea the lag effects of the tightening and consumer fatigue might catch up with the economy he? >> if you examine the mechanisms by higher rates propagate through the economy, the economy is much less rate sensitive than it used to be. mortgages all got locked in at

the low rates. the corporate sector did the same thing with their debt. the economy is not as interest rate sensitive as it used to be because everyone termed out at the bottom. in addition to that, the economy is getting more services focused. services don't require leverage in the same way as goods. the accumulative effect of the fed tightening is still to hit us, but that argument is losing cr credence as the days go by. >> the support of the inflation would come down no matter what rates were. we will clear that debate um. ellen, i appreciate the time. >> thanks. coming up, once upon a time, lithium was one of the hottest trades out there. now prices and stocks are way down. we will look at the forces behind the drop and if a turn ou is arndon the road ahead.

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welcome back to "squawk box." hope you are having a great start to your day or end to your day in guam. lithium is one of the hottest trades out there, but now it has fallen off the cliff. pippa stevens is here with more. >> it is unraveling over supply fears. at the beginning of the year, it to topped, but now has a decline of 80%. prices started rising at the beginning of 2021 with the

oversupply which pushed prices up 800% in the span of three years. now there is a perfect storm as citibank called it of deceleration and supply growth. when prices were rising, the companies stockpiled supplies and they are working through that supply. supply came online faster than expected because the projects were otherwise be too expensive. there could be more declines ahead given the seasonal weak period before the chinese lunar new year. some companies are catching a bid, but sharply in the red for 2023. it sis a stunning turn around i the ev space. >> at the end. day, and we talk about lithium all the time. it sounds like a fancy thing. periodic table, number two, by

the way. it is dirty and hard and tense to be found in places that are not that friendly. far western australia. the northern deserts of chile or the forests of north carolina. it is an expensive item that can be made profitable, and correct me if i'm wrong, in bulk. >> to your point, lithium is by no means a rare resource, but it is challenging getting it out of the ground. it is impossible to get a project green lighted. it is so hard to get the projects off the ground which is part of the narrative to push up pr prices. instead, we saw projects in places like australia and zimbabwe and in canada did come online faster because the prices were higher. it made hard rock mining which would not otherwise be sustainable at $35,000 of

lithium profitable. when you get to $80,000, it makes anyone profitable. >> you have pull the higher prices out. >> exactly. >> the u.s. used to be the world's largest lithium producer. >> commodity markets. coming up, will china's economy rebound in 2024 or can we expect the economic giant to slowdown once again? we look at a new report tracking china's growth next. youth sports is a $37 billion market and we have two players looking to build out a platform to keep coaches and parents and kids engaged beyond the court or the ball field. as w as we head to break, a look at the s&p 500 winners and losers

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live from the nasdaq market in times square. dow is showing a slightly from the close yesterday. down 37 points. nasdaq is showing strength. p s&p is a whiser per from the all-time high. the yields here with the ten-year yield at 3.81%. and the crude oil is in the 70s. $77.33 for wti. the next guest shows that china is losing steam on the economic recovery. we have the coo here with us. shazad, we saw the report with the pricing power hitting pricing margins and slow weakening. this is not the post-covid

recovery bulls were hoping to see? >> the chinese world has suffered badly. all of the reopening bets have turned out to be wrong partly because of the expectations were unrealistic. what we are seeing now is some amounts of true organic recovery and rebound in china, starting in the second quarter and continuing to the third quarter, but much of that seems to be gone now. the economy is most certainly beginning to lose steam as we get into 2024. >> your report focuses on home builders and residential realtors with the decline in sales on the commercial real estate side. i want to hone in on the property market. the bloomberg data showing sales declining this year in china. the wall street forecasts like grim. do you see any sort of bottoming on the horizon for the real

estate market over there? what is the interplay look like with the overall economy and the potential contagion effect? >> first of all, right now, property prices are at some of the lowest levels we have ever seen on regard. sales are struggling and suffering quite a bit. that said, we have seen policy support through the better part of the year to help stabilize the sector. we have seen it more specifically in terms of mortgage rates going down all year long. we should potentially start to see some positive effects into the first half of next year. what we are seeing is a small dose version of providing stimulus and liquidity support rather than all-out rescue of the sector. the hope is in the first half you begin to see some improvement because the reality is so much household wealth has been destroyed. it has had a real effect on

consumer sentiment and spending and brought down many other parts of the economy with it. >> is a little bit going to be enough? do you think china has the wherewithal from the policy standpoint to turn things around? you have a 1.8 trillion yuan gap there at least this year alone. that's not something that will be cheap. it sounds like they need to spend heavily to work their way out of this problem in particular. >> chinese policymakers are working hard to walk this fine line. it is very tough. they don't want to reinflate the property bubble and at the same time, they want to provide some breathing room and they want to help the sector stabilize and find a floor. accomplishing that, of course, is a tough and challenging task. the reality is that they will not opt to do much more. property will never go back to being the type of big massive

driver of economic growth and gdp. that is tied to the chinese economy which is slowing down. >> shezad, it's brian. if it is not real estate, what will drive china? china is two things. manufacturer to the world. low cost and low margin items. really real estate on top of real estate. if it is not going to be real estate, are we going back to what china was? a low-cost manufacturer to the world? that is not a great value add economy. >> the reality is for the next several years, there is not an obvious growth driver in china. so you will have overall growth continuing to slow. 2024 will be slower than 2023. you will see parts of the economy going to continue to provide support. manufacturing will probably be okay. especially if you get a soft

landing scenario in the u.s. parts of the economy will be okay. ev and auto sales will continue to drive growth. there isn't one champion any more or reliable growth driver. that's part of the uncertainty that you are not looking at when you think about china over the next five years or perhaps a bit longer. >> interesting. you do bring up the point of evs. i saw the bright spot with the manufacturing and industrial and commodities. you predict 2024 to be slower than this year. thank you, shehzad. >> it is good for oil to go down. coming up, a very popular plush toy, so soft, finds itself in the middle of the legal battle. there is a warren buffett battle to the case. we will say squishmellow about

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welcome back. 6:42 on a thursday morning. you know squishmallows? they are the big stuffed toys which made their way under many christmas trees this year. they are in the middle of the legal battle. the judge in new york ruled alibaba must face a lawsuit by the u.s. toymaker alleging that alibaba was used to sell counterfeit squishmallows. the court refused the alibaba request to dismiss the case by kelly holdings. kelly makes the toys. leslie, this is a test. the kelly toys is owned by jazz wears owned by allegheny corporation. that is a corporation owned by berkshire hathaway which is owned by warren buffett. can you repeat that?

bu warren buffett and berkshire, kelly and allegheny. >> it was an insurance business. >> why does allegheny own a toy company? >> they were building a mini berk berkshire. big presence at the warren buffett berkshire. coming up, tapping into the $37 billion youth participant -- >> 37 billion children in america. >> big time investors are looking to get into the business. let's say this is not the "bad news bears."lions

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welcome back, everybody. the youth sports market expected to remain head hot next year. youth sports management company team snap acquired a live streaming platform. the partners are building a platform with estimated $37.5 billion industry. here with more on the deal and the state of play in youth sports is ben sherwood. founder of mojo and mulmultimed executive and peter. peter, why buy and sell? >> brian, great question.

we have over 25 million registered users on the platform. we feel the acquisition of mojo and the team with ben and the team really brings the technology to the consumer side. video sdrtreaming and partnershs with major leagues to bring youth sports to the next level. we feel we're at next leadership position. >> the until areyou are in the world of youth sports, your kids are younger, but it is amazing what parents will do. we have leagues on tv. i'm using air quotes. you want to watch your 9-year-old play little league. they are ranked in hockey. you built mojo. you came on when you started it. why sell? >> timing's right. we did everything we wanted to

do. >> i assume the money is right >> we sprinkled disney magic, i came from disney, we are led by the consumer technology with the amazing subscription service. the question is how do we scale and get bigger? sports is consolidating. there islet lots of competition. we always looked up to team snap. team snap was the industry leader, the first mover, 25 million registered users, 2 million daily active users. we thought the fastest way to get into the most families' hands was to ride with team snap where one plus one can equal four and we can put our consumer technology and subscription tools, and streaming, any family can stream a game, never miss a minute, get all the highlights, that's coming soon with team snap. >> doesn't have to be on espn 8. the idea with team snap is let's say you're out there and you run a travel little league team,

right? and you have a local team, kids try out, they make the team, they go on team snap, they sign up as a league, as a team, as a player, as a parent, and so what services do they get on team snap? what am i getting for my money as a parent? >> think of an entire technology platform to simplify this chaos. business to business more sass oriented kind of traditional back end office management for the businesses that are providing the programming of sport. these are the clubs, the leagues across the country. there is 150,000 small and medium sized businesses that are providing that program, providing the state of play. and then you've got over 60 million young athletes across this country and the families that are part of them that have to figure out which field to go to, how to communicate with the team, are they showing up at the right time. we want to focus on how do you help to delight those families while unifying the entire ecosystem. we introduce national brand partners into the interface and into the experience, so that

those brands can touch upon these families that there is an emotional state of their week, kids are on the field in the court, on the rink and opportunity for them to connect with the family at a hypertargeted community level. >> youth sports, the intensity, the passion and so with the team snap app, with mojo technology, you got this sort of combination where you have streaming, you've got player cards, you have one touch coaching with videos we made with the nfl and major league baseball, major league soccer. it is basically youth sports in one app making it easy for a coach, for a parent, for an organizer, simplifying the whole process. as you know, it is chaos out there and one technology. we always just thought there should be sort of one app that handles it all. that's what we put together. >> does it carry into the sort of college recruitment process? i know there are services like that, where the college coaches are able to watch and monitor

players. >> so we have been focused on the largest pool of athletes on earth. there is about 500 million of them worldwide. they're kids between the ages of 4 and 13. they haven't been identified necessarily for the olympics. they don't have pro contracts yet, but they're passionate. most kids will drop out by the age of 13 and our goal is to get more of them to keep playing longer. the core focus is 4 to 13. once you get to the high school level, it becomes a whole different game. there's analytics, there's lots of video analysis and a whole industry that caters to sort of that high school and college level. >> and you're starting to see high school operate similar to professional collegiate leagues. the amount of investment going into on the technology side into pro sports, into collegiate sports coming downstream into high school and then further downstream into youth sports and we feel like we have that distribution channel to bring that investment. >> you're speaking my world, one of my kids was a -- i spent a lot of time in this world and it

is confusing. and i felt like there were some scams out there too. people promising this or promising that. i spent a lot of time on max preps, is that -- >> we know it well. >> a semicompetitor. >> semicompetitor. >> so i assume you're looking for more consolidation, right? is this just -- how many things are there to roll up that currently exist? >> it is synergistic adjacent markets across all sports. think about apparel, travel, facility management, the entire ecosystem of the different vendors, service providers, partners you have dealt with as your children have come up, we have an opportunity holding on to the distribution power and the buying power with the 2 million plus daily active users we have to continue to introduce more of those services in. we want to simplify that experience. you shouldn't have to go to five, six, seven different technologies, partners, service providers in order to get what your kids need for sport. we want to bring that to a centralized platform on team

snap. >> i think about it as a brand and experience. we want to blow families away with technology, with video, with experiences that surprise and delight them, that help them make memories for a lifetime and never miss a season. >> can i ask you a softball before you go? >> yeah. is apple going to buy espn? >> you think i know? >> if you had to guess, would there be value there? >> i left the media business and traditional television in 2019. >> probably exactly the right time. >> i've been in the green fields of youth sports and there is -- let's say there is a lot of interesting opportunities in youth sports in the next few years for companies, even in the traditional media space, to take a look at what's going on, big subscription businesses reaching millions and millions of families. the most desirable demographic for advertisers. i think -- >> is epn spn mini, or little w

espne. families will watch every painful minute, when your kid is 9 -- >> you have your -- >> when your kid is 9, the first pitch in the little league game there is no highlight reel. ball, ball, ball, walk. ball, ball, ball, walk. congratulations, guys. ben, good to see you. look for team snap. thank you. happy new year. >> thanks. coming up, another corporate giant is reversing its hybrid work policy requiring thousands of workers to return to the office. we'll talk to one ceo that is sticking with a flexible work strategy. plus, will 3-d printing ease the nation's housing affordability crisis? that's coming up in the next hour of "squawk box." [ "i'll be seeing you" by the five satins ]

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i'm so glad we did this. i'm so glad we did this. i'm so glad we did this. life is for living. let's partner for all of it. i'm so glad we did this. edward jones good morning. two trading days left in 2023. futures are mixed this morning, but after a new record for the dow, the s&p 500 is within hitting distance of its own all time high. and the corporate world, openai responds to the copy right infringement lawsuit

brought by "the new york times" against it and investor microsoft. we'll tell you where things stand. and building a house in 48 hours. there is a company that is doing just that. we'll speak with the founder and ask him what his 3-d printed home could do to alleviate america's housing shortage. the second hour of "squawk box" begins right now. hi and good morning, everybody. welcome to "squawk box" right here on cnbc. yes, we're live at the nasdaq market site and, no, i'm not joe kernen. i'm brian sullivan with leslie picker and mike santoli. joe, becky and andrew, basically the entire show, is off today. and tomorrow. >> we're here. >> but we are here. i'm glad to see you. how are you, leslie? >> it is fun.

>> it is funnish. >> i'm glad to see you too. >> it rained last night. times square is glistening and shiny. >> ready for that ball drop. >> i am annoyed. i know they're cleaning it up for new year's eve, they're getting everybody out of here, but my guy, the lovely egyptian dude that works the coffee cart here, it chased him off. i guess for security reasons, but if you're out there i miss you, come back. >> maybe he's enjoying a well deserved break as well. >> he was here yesterday. i don't think so. but i don't know. anyway, it is amazing. times square has changed a lot in the last 24 hours. >> spiff it up, get it ready, this is the super bowl for the times square people. i know somebody who used to run the whole program, the entire year is built around -- >> the entire year. >> there was a post article about how applebies is selling seats for $760. >> what? >> for what? >> to eat? >> not for a table.

to eat there and watch the ball drop. >> $650? per person? they got a great view. >> they got a great view. but -- >> you know the people where adult diapers because -- once you're in the zone, there is no restroom. >> if you pay $650, i bet there is. >> i bet that's an amenity fee. you know how hotels have amenity fees, even if there is no amenities? i think we should check the futures. >> record highs. >> let's look at the futures. i don't know who is doing is. i'll do it. we got implied open, whatever that means, of a two-point gain, we're going to call that do-- would you call that flat? >> flattish, yeah. >> we're at 0.7% away from record highs, to your point

earlier in the 6:00 a.m., a round trip, two years ago, record highs, about to get there again. the nasdaq and the dow, they are at record highs and right now indicated the nasdaq will have another update. a lot of this, i presume you would agree, is because treasury yields have come down. my how they have come down. the ten-year yield is up a couple of ticks from where it was, but a couple of months ago we were at 5%. that chart looks like the matterhorn, boom, boom. >> they have come down. what goes into treasury yields? inflation, expectations for inflation, expectations what the fed is going to do and all the other array of supply and every other concern and all that has moved in favor of riskier assets and refreshing the economy at least a little bit on the housing side. >> we'll see mortgage rates. i assume they're coming down already. what is the lag usually? six weeks? >> it is pretty quick.

the quotes will come down as the ten-year yield goes down. the spread between the 30-year fixed mortgage and the ten-year treasury has been very elevated. regional bank crisis, a lot of impediments to people extending more mortgage credit in this. >> remember march, like a crisis, what happened? >> look, it was a mini crisis as bank executives would tell you. mini crisis. transitory. >> four big banks went bust. they went bye-bye. >> it served those banks who were able to scoop them up quite well. >> yeah, first republic. >> all these stories about jpmorgan after that first republic. >> what was the headline yesterday, competitor media said it was a terrible year for banks unless your name has morgan in it. >> jpmorgan, yeah. >> not morgan stanley. >> morgan stanley had a decent year, but jpmorgan kind of was

at a different level. >> jamie dimon. >> in terms of just -- their ability to capitalize on the events in march, and then really drive things home, benefit of scale, of course, because they had as janet yellen would say the highest bid and they were able to get the deal done. >> regional bank etf is up 50% off the lows. it is down 10% on a year to date basis. >> amazing. >> just a nick. >> openai firing back at "the new york times" after the paper accused it and microsoft of scraping millions of articles to train large language models. in a statement, openai spokesperson said the company respects the rights of content creators and owners. it says, quote, our ongoing conversations with "the new york times" have been productive in moving forward constructively so we're surprised and disappointed with this development. we're hopeful we will find a mutually beneficial way to work together as we are doing with many other publishers. the lawsuit from the times doesn't include a specific amount of money it is seeking, but says openai and microsoft should be held responsible for

billions of dollars in statutory and actual damages. we're going to talk more about this story later this hour with tech investor bradley tusk. >> among today's other top business headlines, linkedin ad prices rising as brands move away from elon musk's x. financial times says that the annual advertising revenues this year rose 10% from the year before. the group predicts further growth of about 14% next year. linkedin has been interesting, i've been doing more writing and posting as well. everyone has their real name, it is amazing the differenceness l >> there is a mutuality to it. >> you don't have to pay to be ve verified, to you. >> there is a premium tier. >> as far as saying it is you --

>> yeah. >> people write something and people write back, i respectfully disagree with that view, on x it is like beep, beep, beep, beep. >> oh, yeah. >> it could be rough. back to the markets and kick off this hour with the latest results, market intelligence of the nation's leading institutional investors, top strategists and our own cnbc contributors. we asked them what the top performing areas in the u.s. would be next year and they responded by highlighting financial stocks, high dividend stocks, healthcare stocks and megacap tech. joining us for more on the markets, greg branch, a cnbc contributor. greg, thank you. i want to get into those survey results in a second. kind of, if we could start broad, you know, in looking ahead to 2024, in the producer notes you admit you were wrong in 2023 and the cycle didn't play out exactly as you expected. which i think is kind of conventional wisdom, i don't

know if anybody would actually admit that. you are saying as you look ahead to q1 '24 you think it will play out like q1 '22 with a sharp correction. why is that? >> well, leslie, the question becomes is if it didn't play out and it won't -- or it didn't play out yet. i think it is the latter. i don't think it is the former. so, normally when we see the fed raise like this, we see credit growth and we saw that. we didn't see businesses stop spending, and we didn't see consumers stop spending. and i think it is important to identify this is why. number one, we had a substantial growth in private credit. number two, the cash asset ratio is at or near historical highs. businesses had a lot of runway in savings, the pandemic, businesses have a lot of runway, consumers had a lot of runway, actions we saw in 2023. but that runway is limited. and so i think that we will see

the cycle play out. it is just the duration between the dearth of credit growth and the spending is much more elon gated than we have seen historically. >> what limits that runway? if the fed ultimately does pivot as the swaps market would indicate, that's also potentially decent news for stocks as well. so, what is it that you think could really get in the way, what are the obstacles you see kind of derailing the directionality of the market right now? >> i think you said the key word, leslie. that's the fed. i think much like i predicted in 2021 we'll see a difference between the fed's posture, what they're forced to do. the economy is growing at 5%. unemployment is -- businesses

continue or expect to continue to hire. so i think the fed has a problem. particularly with what they told us last week. i think the fed's problem is there is really no visible way to get from 4% to 2%. as long as an unemployment remains where it is and the indications for services inflation remain rather strong. remember, core bounceback into that 30 to 40 basis points month over month rise last month. i know we all celebrated 20 and thought that would be a good paradigm. i know this is going to be controversial, i think it is more likely that we see a hype in the first quarter than we see a cut. and that will harshen the environment. >> you're not convinced, you're not at least -- you don't see it as being optimistic that, you know, at least the recent core pce figure came in on a six-month basis below that 2% target. you don't think that it can achieve that on an annualized

basis? >> well, we had the same debate two months ago, right? when the jobs number went to 150, core went to 120, we need a consistent set of data. not just one data point. so, that -- in that pce report, i think things other than services did a lot of heavy lifting and i think we'll see. i think the fed's hand is going to be forced here because i just don't see how inflation in and of itself with employment at 3.7% and jobless claims at historical lows is going to get to the level where we're going to have some headwinds on the services portion. >> let's go back to the survey results if we can. the top performing areas in the u.s. next year, the survey answer you said financial stocks, high dividend stocks and healthcare stocks. presumably given your thesis about the state of the macro in 2024 would indicate you disagree with these prognostications.

>> i agree, actually, to some extent. let's take the utilities first. if you believe we will be in an interest rate cutting environment, then those income streams become more valuable. the forward multiple is 15 times compared to the s&p, down on the year, so that's an area i take a look at, particularly if you think this rally is going to broaden. i think it will over the next couple of months. there is no identifiable near term catalyst for the correction i see coming. financials, same thing. >> after you. >> financials, a little bit of a different story. i do believe that yields will return to what we saw a couple of months ago. so that will make the margin environment more favorable, m&a is coming back, and at the end of the day i think that we may see a few more shots s that -- e

regionals and small banks, as long as they have that funding, it will be a rengionally good environment. >> it is amazing how textbook style investing with interest rates where they are and banks is totally changed in 2023. greg, thank you very much. >> my pleasure. coming up, what could 3-d printed homes do to help ease america's housing shortage and affordability crisis. the ceo of all quist has some ideas. he'll join us next. as more and more workers return to the office, we'll speak with the ceo later this hour that is singing the praises of a model offering a lot of flexibility when it comes to where people spend their time. stay tuned. you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc.

the power goes out and we still have wifi to do our homework. and that's a good thing? great in my book! who are you? no power? no problem. introducing storm-ready wifi. now you can stay reliably connected through power outages with unlimited cellular data and up to 4 hours of battery back-up to keep you online. only from xfinity. home of the xfinity 10g network. all right, welcome back. your next guest launched a 3d printed home business to fight the affordability crisis. his company alquist 3d completed the first ever owner occupied printed home in williamsburg, virginia, in 2021. look at that. 3d printing is about 15% to 20% cheaper when compared to regular home construction and perhaps the biggest selling point, houses can be printed in just 48

hours. they can also be designed to withstand extreme weather. joining us now with more is zachary manheimer, founder and chair. good morning. williamsburg, virginia, is that kings mill, that is a beautiful home, but what exactly can you 3d print? i'm sure the houses added siding and shutters and things like that. is that truly your finished product? >> good morning. yes, we can 3d print the walls and foundation of a home. there is more of a home that we can print as well made out of other materials besides concrete, but our focus at the moment is 3d printing the exterior structure of that home, so we can get that done faster and more affordably. >> yeah, i'm watching some videos that you have on your website. i would imagine that when i look at a nation, not just here, but around the world, that has a housing shortage, you can probably be a big part of the

solution because particularly in some emerging markets there has got to be massive demand for not only well built to extreme weather, storms, et cetera, but low cost homes that can be easily repliable. >> that's exactly right. we're seeing the demand from all over the world. here in america, we have a housing shortage between 4 million and 5 million homes, globally that's much larger. and we here in america are focused on where we live in a country where wealth generation is largely based upon home ownership. we need to get folks back to the american dream of owning a home. and we have gone far away from that for decades. if there was any weird silver lining to covid, which of course is a weird thing to say, it is that it finally showed a light on how bad the housing crisis actually is, not just in major cities, but some small communities across the country. >> yeah, certainly is. median home -- we're looking at the housing stats. are your homes built out of

concrete? i'm watching the video, your 3d printers is kind of layering, looks like a gigantic tube of toothpaste. what is the material? what are you building this out of? >> we're not using crest or aquafresh just yet. >> house doesn't smell minty fresh? >> i'm sure we could do that at some point, but right now it is a concrete mix. so we use certain additives to make the concrete stronger, to make it lay down faster, so that we can print faster. but at the end of the day, this is largely concrete. it is a concrete structure. we have been building concrete structures around the world for hundreds of years. this is a different method of doing it, instead of pouring it into form with traditional con concrete, we extrude it with a giant robot, but it is a very similar product as a concrete structure. that tube look you're seeing, that's what it looks like if we don't touch it. there is a lot of different nozzles we designed, you can do different designs for the

exterior or interior walls. you can paint it, dye it, there is a lot of different looks and that allows for the flexibility of this brand-new technology that is just emerging. we have been 3d printing homes in america for about five years. it is still very new. we're at the very beginning and we discovered new thing every single day as we do this work. >> zachary, we talk all the time about the housing shortage that is out there. there is also a labor shortage. when i hear that 3d homes can be printed in 48 hours, to me, that says it is a good use of labor to be able to build a home and then move on to the next one. what does the labor picture look like for you all and is that kind of a fair hypothesis as i think about your business model? >> absolutely. and to me, that's one of most exciting and overlooked pieces of the 3d printing industry. the workforcedevelopment and jobs that can be created out of this industry is enormous. there are thousands of jobs that will be created, already hundreds of jobs have been. the thing that we have been lacking is experience, a

training program, which is why alquist we moved to greeley, colorado, that's our headquarters, and we partnered with ames community college that is launching the first 3d pr pripr printing curriculum next year to train people. folks are not going to go into significant student debt to go through this particular program. instead, it is going to be anywhere from a six to ten week certificate course, you can take that course without any prerequisite and then you're going to be certified to become a 3d printer. and companies like alquist will hire you. there is only a handful of companies today in america doing this work, there is under 20 companies in america doing this work. most of those companies are manufacturers of the robots, the material, there are few companies like alquist that are actually a construction company. and to me, this is a lot like silicon valley in 1972. we all know each other.

we all play nicely in the sand box and we're working together to build an industry. we want more companies in the marketplace doing this work because we can't possibly keep up with the demand and the labor piece of this is enormous when you go to smaller communities, most of the time the labor that you're challenged to find to help build the home and one of the reasons why we have the shortage is particularly in the framing piece of it. we can't find framers. they're in high demand, aren't enough of them, we need to create a better program. this 3d printing world and what we're doing with alquist is not just helping to lower costs and make homes more sustainable, but it is going to create thousands of more jobs. >> well, really cool story and much needed thing. and good luck out there in greeley, colorado. appreciate it. happy new year. >> thank you. happy new year. >> thank you. coming up, top stocks on the move ahead of the opening bell on wall street. then, tech investor bradley tusk weighs in on "the new york times" potentially game changing

copy right infringement lawsuit against openai and microsoft. "squawk box" will be right back. >> announcer: time now for today's aflac trivia question. the three major cities that get the most snowfall on earth are all in one country? e sw wn quk x" returns. ban, this goat done took over our office. and he's using it to send out medical bills. good hands! hospital bill for prime?! gaaaaap! did you just say gap?! he's talking about expenses health insurance doesn't cover. good thing coach prime knows about...say it one time! aflac! because aflac gets you money to help close that gap! now how do we get this goat outta here? (whistles) aflac! meet one of my new homies! gaaaaap! get help with expenses health insurance doesn't cover at aflac.com. elephant would've been scarier.

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>> announcer: and now the answer to today's aflac trivia question. the three major cities that get the most snowfall on earth are all in what country? the answer, japan. over to dominic chu. he has a look at this morning's premarket movers. good morning, dom. >> let's kick things off with shares of microsoft, which are actually fractionally higher this morning. just around maybe 20,000 shares of premarket volume or so. the business software, cloud computing and these days artificial intelligence application giant is getting its target price raised by analysts at wedbush to $450, was $425 prior. they're citing amongst other things the company's ability to monetize a.i. and see this as microsoft's iphone moment. we'll see if microsoft shares

get a little action today. next up, shares of the social media companies writ large and internet companies, we're talking meta platforms, alphabet, snapchat, parent company snap and pinterest. a lot of focus on headlines as they work their way through trading desks about a harvard study from its th chan school of public health that showed telecom companies earned roughly $11 billion in ad revenues from kids in the u.s. in 2022. the platforms mentioned include facebook, instagram, snapchat, tiktok, x, the company formerly known as twitter, and youtube, owned by google/alphabet. keep an eye on that social media and internet complex. and then we'll end with a check on cryptocurrencies. we mentioned that massive move higher in bitcoin prices this year. and what companies benefitted from that move. let's look also at the second biggest crypto out there, a catch-up trade, ethereum, rallied by roughly 42%, the

orange line, since the september kind of 30th time frame. that still trails the 61% move that we saw in bitcoin prices during that same period. still, brian, cryptocurrencies seeing a lot of year end interest right now, due in large part to the speculation about a possible etf coming for the entire complex. we'll see whether that plays out in 2024. back over to you. >> we have been waiting a long time for that. dom chu, thank you, must man. we'll see you soon. bradley tusk joining us on the latest broad side against openai. this one from "the new york times." what next year could bring when it comes to tech regulation. it is 7:28. we're back right after this. like a nightmare.

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all right, welcome back, everybody. good morning. this morning we're going to take a look at the latest results from our delivering alpha investor survey. that bringsing to the market intelligence of the nation's leading institutional investors, top strategists and, of course, our own cnbc contributors. the hottest investing topic of the year, that is a.i., artificial intelligence. we asked them what they think is

the best way to sort of play a.i. all right. nearly 60% of respondents said you got to play a.i. via large cap tech companies, right, think nvidias of the world, 20% said up and coming stocks in the space. and nearly a quarter, mike, said they're avoiding a.i. investing altogether. i'm avoiding it. there is too much hype, 23%. anything that surprises you about that, leslie, or mike? >> i think microsoft is literally the most owned stock among professional investors. so therefore they're playing it, in some respect, whether they're trying to or not. >> yeah, some crowding, a lot of crowding. everyone has been talking about it all year. >> no one goes there anymore. it is too crowded. >> we have a follow-up quickly on your story, applebee's. 650 -- i saw somebody said it is $850. i don't know if it is 650 or

$850 per person at applebee's, sold out. >> those prices reflect people's willingness to pay. >> all right. chatgpt creator openai responding to a copy right infringement lawsuit brought by "the new york times" against it and its benefactor microsoft. the times accuses openai of stealing its content to train its large language models. openai says it respects the rights of content creators and owners. it says our ongoing conversations with "the new york times" have been productive and moving forward constructively so we are surprise and disappointed with this development. we're hopeful we'll find a mutually beneficial way to work together as we're doing with many other publishers. joining us now to talk about this and much more, in the world of tech and regulation, tech investor bradley tusk, ceo of tusk ventures. bradley, good morning. thanks for coming on with us today. we can go back to the early days of the internet where the kind of profits were saying it is information wants to be free and

we have gone through various iterations of what we pay for, what's behind the payroll, what is fair game. how do you see this playing out? is it crucial for an openai to have sort of unfettered access to copy righted material like this? >> it is crucial for openai's business model. ultimately, you know, they just take what is out there in the world and synthesize it for you in a smart, creative way. but it is not crucial for society that openai will be able to do that for free. so, it makes sense for the new york times to say, look, we spent money to pay journalists and editors and graphic designers, all these people to create this going to use our content, we should be compensated. that's pretty reasonable. >> the question then becomes, you know what does it do to whatever ultimately the various business models are going to be for utilizing large language models if they have to either come up with revenue sharing deals, i suppose, or perhaps

some kind of royalty scheme. >> but that's not unreasonable, right? so, for example, take google. we look at the ability to search for stuff on google. but google is one of the most profitable companies in the history of the world. if they have to pay more money in the beginning for content or they ended up paying less, either way, it wouldn't stop google from being a wildly profitable company that people are going to use and people want to work out and invest in. and so we're talking about distribution of the resources and of the money, and to a certain extent whether it is all in the hands of chatgpt and openai and microsoft or something back to the times or nbc or whoever else, the idea it is going to deter the inknow vac innovation to me is unlikely and unreasonable. >> why the times felt the need to kind of take these legal

measures? it seems like based on what openai is saying, there has been a back and forth negotiation about coming to some commercial agreement here. >> yeah. clearly the times did not find the conversation that productive and constructive as openai did based on the lawsuit and openai's quote. but also i think the timing is important here. when search first started, people didn't understand what it was going to be. and google was able to build and the other search engines too, but especially google, such a great public image, be so relied on by the public, that by the time the publishers started suing, yes, basically it was too late. so i think a lot of this is timing, the times recognizes that chatgpt and a.i. generally is not something the public is that used to yet. so, before we sort of just -- this is our right to use this at all times no matter what, i think the times is smart to say, let's get there now and

challenge some of the assumptions before the norms set in and it is too late. >> bradley, what do you think it means for the media industry business model? i think about kind of the google analogy you shared and their response was very quickly, you know, put up a pay wall, but here a pay wall doesn't seem like it would really work if they were scraping through this data and pulling the information regardless. so, what does this mean for the media industry if there isn't any kind of partnership or some sort of royalty agreement reached with a.i.? what would they do? >> yeah, look, it is a problem. we're seeing already the media industry contracting all kinds of different ways. people have really struggled to figure out profitable models for media companies. the times happens to be one of the few that has built a really successful online business of subscriptions and advertising, especially some of the specialty products like wire cutter.

and i think they're terrified because if that model no longer works, not really clear what will. and so you're right. it is one thing when there is a pay wall and i wanted to read an article, i got to pay the times, whoever, to use it. but openai breaks through the pay wall, they're just taking all the content and synthesizing it for me. >> the times went to the trouble of digitizing its entire, you know, 150 year history of content and wants to have some return. one aspect of the way the models work, it is grabbing things as it sees fit and sort of predicting the next word, we know the functionality. it might be hard to really, i guess, isolate exactly what one piece of content produced by chatgpt, where it came from. i guess you just have to have some kind of payment for access to the entire -- the entire

store of content. >> that sounds better to me than the alternative, which would be some sort of regulation saying, okay, you can only use x percent from each particular source, and then you try to govern and parcel out did this come from cnbc or from the times, "the washington post," and if they aren't able to reach something here, i think it is feasible that you could see legislators introduce bills like that, especially because they want could curry favor. but that seems like a much worse solution. >> yeah, and pretty difficult to sort out. bradley, appreciate your thoughts on this. >> thank you. coming up, less than three weeks remain until republicans caucus for their candidate of choice in iowa. as we get ready to wrap up the year on wall street, we'll get the lay of the land from eugene scott of axios. "squawk box" will be right back.

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all right, welcome back. look at that beautiful shot of washington, d.c. the weather is clearing up a bit. we had monsoons yesterday, everywhere from d.c., virginia tech had a great win in the military bowl, but just poured

in annapolis, rained here all night. but hopefully things are clearing up. maybe it is clearing up because congress is on recess. the deadline to avoid a government shutdown, yet again in january, looms large. along with the first primary votes of 2024's presidential election. joining us is eugene scott, doing a lot of great work, talking to people on the ground in states like north carolina, self-described republicans, democrats, independents. welcome. a lot to talk about. when you went on the listening tours, what did you learn? what were some of the overarching themes? >> yes, we talked to quite a few swing voters here at axios who voted to back trump in 2016 before going to biden in 2020 and there are a few things we heard. overwhelmingly most people regardless of the state are not interested in backing trump or swinging back to trump, should we say. but they are interested in a third party candidate. and there are some eyeing some

of the other gop candidates, mostly nikki haley and chris christie, as people still to look for an alternative to biden and trump who are both largely unpopular. >> it is interesting. that lines up anecdotally with what i'm sure a lot of us here, friends, family, whatever, millions of people in 2020 just saying i can't vote for trump, they went for biden, a lot of my friends who did that are now privately coming up to me and saying i voted for biden in 2020 and i can't do it again, for whatever reason, he's too old, too much this, too much that. is there an actual pathway for a third party candidate or is it the electoral college system almost blocked that out? >> it doesn't seem like it yet. and to be fair, these individuals, no one communicated they would definitely vote third party, but they want to hear an alternative and different messaging and it is hard for that messaging to breakthrough. we have candidates like robert

kennedy and joe stein and cornell west and none of these individuals are getting attention. we live in a two party country for the most part and the power and the control that those parties have can make it very difficult for a third party candidate to get any significant traction. >> even candidates inside their own party, eugene, people can say, we would never win, fine, let the voter decide, he's been blocked off the ballot by the democratic national party in florida as well. i think you make a very important and elegant statement that this is not, you know, the political parties are billion dollar corporations i got imagine that are maneuvering things here. what the economy is doing pretty well, inflation is -- it is still high, but the rate of inflation is coming down, the housing market is up. record high stocks. asset owner, you've done very well, if you're a renter, it is tougher. what do you think is people's biggest beef with president

biden? why is he polling so terribly? >> well, most people do mention age. that's a real concern for the average swing voter. but quite frankly, really depends on who you're talking to. demographically you got a lot of young voters who are upset with the administration being so supportive of israel when it comes to the war in gaza. you've got some swing voters who are republican or conservative leading independents, who just feel like the biden administration is actually too progressive on a number of issues. and the economy regardless of what the numbers say, it isn't as healthy as -- in terms of how people feel, as the administration communicates. i think in one particular area, it is groceries. people haven't seen prices go down to the degree that they would hope, and the home ownership crisis is a very real problem. we have seen reports showing that the average age of first time home owners continues to increase and that's been really

disappointing for a lot of individuals who look to washington to make home ownership easier. >> i'll ask you to speculate here, you don't have to if you don't want to, based on our -- the top -- my commentary there, do you think the biggest risk to president biden is simply that people don't vote? i think a lot of the vote in 2020 was not a vote for biden, it was almost against trump. i don't think people will go back to trump to your point. these are your people you're talking to. north carolina, a very important state, the risk to re-election could simply be that people just don't vote at all. i can't vote for any of these candidates. >> no, that's absolutely right. there is an organization that focuses on focus groups, mostly marginalized communities that don't usually participate in focus groups or get captured in the polling. they say the new swing voter is not someone who goes from republican to democrat, but someone who votes or doesn't vote at all.

and that is something that is a big risk for the biden campaign, especially in those states like georgia, arizona, and wisconsin, pennsylvania, that will be necessary to win the election. >> yeah. really critical points and got to get out there talk to people, it is amazing what they'll tell you. eugene, pleasure. happy new year. great stuff. we'll see you in 2024. coming up, where does work from home go in 2024 as the pandemic recedes into the rear view mirror? we'll talk to hanes celestial group. stay tuned. you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc. and sweat-proof. they're leakproof underwear, from knix. comfy & confident protection that feel just like normal. with so many styles and colors to choose from, switching is easy at knix.com this thing, it's making me get an ice bath again. what do you mean? these straps are mind-blowing! they collect hundreds of data points like hrv and rem sleep, so you know all you need for recovery.

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you do you. visit xfinitymobile.com today. welcome back. boeing one of the latest companies to push for workers to return to the office five days a week, not sticking with flexible work for a company with a competitive edge. a surge in job applications since instituting what it calls "an agile working model." thank you for joining us. what is an agile working model? >> well, good morning. agile working for us means flexible work, flexible locations. we implemented a hub-and-spoke model. location is the hub. offices and plant locations around the world of our spokes and we give people flexibility to come together for what we call moments that matter.

moments to ideaate, collaborate or celebrate, but not as a permanent location. >> how often do those moments take place? i ask, because a lot of executives who are stricter, whether about number of days their employee, in the office, or instituting rules surrounding when they can work from home and so forth, they say that the gains they get from having everybody together more frequently involve things like creativity and mentorship and productivity. do you agree with those notions as perita ttains to yourur work >> healthier living is what you put on your body, in your body and how you live and work and we think it's core to our company's mission to grow our people, grow our brands and grow our business to actually create that kind of flexibility. there is value in people coming together, but it's those moments that matter, they're intention connectivity moments, rather

than forced moments in a regular schedule. if you think about it, people in global operations, people in sales functions have done this for years, and nobody questioned their productivity or their ability to create teamwork, but it does require a different kind of leadership, and a different kind of management to create that kind of culture. >> wendy, it's brian sullivan. thanks for coming on. happy new year, by the way. would you also concede there are certain types of jobs which probably do require in-person? obviously, the manufacturing side, you have to be there, don't have flexibility. but even among white collar jobs like a boeing. building an airplane flies through the sky 700 miles an hour, good if everybody was around the same table on that. how your company operates, maybe distinctly related to what your company does? or no? >> you know, i actually think it's about the function. there are certain jobs and functions that require you to be in a location.

think distribution centers, product locations to your point, but there are many jobs that actually require people to work across time zones, across functions, that connect on zoom on a regular basis. the difference between coming together intentionally for face-to-face and then moving out to either a remote location or even your home office, to complete other work. we think that kind of flexibility is a competitive advantage for us and seen it play out in the last nine months since we announced our practice. our applications are at 300%. applications among women up 500%. work up 8%. attracting engaging people around the mission with the right work. >> does it also reduce your cost? i ask, because i know that your company announced a formal restructuring program looking to rebalance the budget sheet and margins in portfolios.

have you seen cost reductions in terms of the overall real estate footprint you need as a result of this agile working model? >> we actually sold our former headquarters in march, and we opened our new hub location actually just a couple months ago, and it did reduce or footprint overall. to be honest, we right-sized the footprint for the number of people working in those locations, but it wasn't necessarily a cost savings initiative, but we've seen benefits in efficiency and effectiveness. >> for the investors out there, how is the restructuring going? updates to share with us a few months into the program? >> well, we're about the end of our quarter. we'll have earnings in about six weeks and give an update at that. i. the prior call gave an update on the progress-to-date certain since investors day. fiscal '24 is a foundational year. the year of strategy and structure, the model putting in

place the fuel. >> and this is a legit good snack. want to put it out there. i feel less guilty in my age and weight eating that, wendy. got all the stuff out there. ozempic, u wegovy. are you looking at that to change the impact on your business? >> we've seen no impact relative to any of the weight-loss drugs. data shows while people are trying those, the number of people that will have the staying power to stay on that, able to afford it, remains to be seen. >> very creative. >> honestly, red pepper to spice it up. you know? alegit good snack. >> sounds like it. wendy, thank you. >> thank you. all right. coming up, more snack tips -- coming up, the magnificent seven. can they remain just as magnificent next year?

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good morning. more records looming for the

markets. the s&p 500 now inching closer to an all-time high. we'll get you ready for the trading day ahead, and we even have some breaking economic data on the way. apple's challenge for the new year, finding growth. breaking down the prospects for the mega cap stock. and will the biggest risks in the energy market still dominate the sector in 2024? final hour of "squawk box" begins right now. good morning and welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc live from the nasdaq market site in times square. i'm mike santoli along with leslie picker and brian sullivan. joe, becky and andrew are off today. let's see how u.s. equity futures are shaping up at this hour. just two trading days left in 2023. hovering near the all-time

highs. s&p 500ened kated about three points. only got about two-thirds of a percent to get to an all-time closing high. set nearly two years ago. the first couple of trading days of 2022 we were last there. the dow and the nasdaq are both at all-time highs. look at treasury yields. a lot of the pressure has come off here since the ten year hit 5% late october, early november. ten year up a little today, but up 382 at the moment. that two-year yield, too, down to about 4.25 suggesting, yeah, anticipating fed cuts sometime next year. >> there you go. listen, we are open for business. trading today and tomorrow. volume may be down, but stocks are on the move. middle of a nice rally mike mentioned. dom chu, he's got some of today's, not money movers. that's the 11:00 show. morning movers. >> morning movers, yes, featured

on "squawk box," another show on cnbc. start things off, sully, a check on tesla. higher by a percent or so after a nearryly 2% gain yesterday. now senators richard blumenthal of connecticut and ed macke of massachusetts, both democrats, by the way, sent a letter to tesla ceo elon musk calling op him to recall unsafe parts in vehicles. demands come in response to a reuters investigative report earlier in the month citing safety laws in tesla vehicles. tesla issued response saying amongst other things the report was riddled with demonstrably incorrect information. shares up a percent continuing a juggernaut of a move. speaking of that move in tesla, the electric vehicle giant a driving force behind the magnificent seven stock run so far in those so-called mega cap names powered the market in 2023. tesla, meta platforms and

nvidia, the only members doubled in value so far this year. and meta, by the way, entire s&p 500 so far this year. great returns? a lot driven by the sharp drop in interest rates mike spoke about in the final months of the year. a bid in the stock market. u.s. treasury notes and bonds a banner quarter since lows of october, by the way. long-term treasury etf, 20-plus years etf, about flat on the year. up three quarters of a percent, but since the lows in october, the move that we've seen higher in this stock is roughly 21% for this etf, which tracks, again, u.s. government debt. you're getting these stock returns for u.s. government bonds in the final two moss of the year, and, brian, it's not just the u.s. treasury market. sovereign debt around the world a banner couple of months. something to watch in whether or not it plays out in the beginning part of 2024. >> it is amazing how much there's politicians, dom, keep

coming after tesla when you have chinese competitors coming in and tesla employs a lot of americans. that said, a question on set. leslie picker and mike and i were talking, dom. the sweater. we like the -- we like the dom sweater look, but did you have the fireplace app going behind you as well as, like, storytime with dom the other day? we loved it. >> i'm not sure who's in the control room now. we might be able to fire up the yule log again if we have a couple of seconds. yes. apparently i'm told now it's not going to happen but it was pre-planned where i could have the mr. rogers sweater with my festive tie or shirt and have the you'll log in the background. we'll try to do it again tomorrow. again in a sweater tomorrow. >> this is important. most important thing on cnbc today. you're going to be -- i want to be in a sweater tomorrow. santoli sleeps in a suit. >> yes. >> he sleeps -- that's his -- this is santoli's casual

thursday. dom, you agree to do the zip sweater i'll do the zip sweater. >> i'll surprise you. i'm going to be -- i'll tell you and mike and leslie right now, i will be in a sweater tomorrow. it might be a zip. it might be a v-neck. might be a crew-neck. might be a tie or festive shirt underneath it. haven't thought quite about it yet. >> dom, it's new year's. should be a tuxedo. >> leslie evening down. >> i'm not wearing sequins at 6:00 a.m. >> make it worse! tuxedo? >> not doing a tuxedo. no. >> and near record highs for the s&p. you know? bonds bringing metaphorical fire. dom can't put it up on the screen. >> this is on brand for us. right? the comcast, you know, kind of christmas tree there at rockefeller center. still festive. i celebrate christmas. so i'm very into it. >> i'm going to play christmas music until, like, end of

january. until that tree is dead, every single needle has fallen off on the living room floor. all of these charlie brown christmas on repeat. >> glad we got the wardrobe set up for 24 hours from ow. dom, thank you. a clescloser look at the markets. sf investments chief market strategy. troy, good to have you this morning. you know, s&p 500 sitting on about a 25% gain for the year. for most of this year, nobody seemed happy with it? right? the manner in which we got the gains. people said only seven stocks. since early november, everything but that. cyclical worked, s&p solid 14% total return this year. can it possibly stay good going into next year? >> think given the fact remains incredibly resilient. which you gave me a heads-up. i would have wore a cool sweater if i'd have known ahead of time.

still, the strength of the economy and the fact that, to your point, valuations to cyclicals and value not quite caught up continues. our point now, though, think of valuations, had the ten year drop from 5% to 3.8% rapidly. remember all the concern about budget deficits and funding? completely got away. you have multiples of reexpanding s&p to 20.4 time 4 earning. a tail of the rally and you have to think of ways to diversify yourself. particularly when correlations and sensitivity between fixed income and equities are so high. yet again august, september, october. tough month for 60/40. november december, a banner way to close out the year. >> absolutely has. does seem as if there's been folks rotating into bonds as they really did have a tough stretch for about, know, better part of two years. maybe that kind of

rebalancing-type activity might be running its course. how do you do that, then? sit there and say you have to diversify in other ways besides just allocating fixed income? >> depends on the mandate location target. think about alternative strategies now, though, it's a great time to be a private lender. if you have dry powder to lend into liquidity vacuum. not only higher front-end rates and most strategies are lending in floating rate terms, but the risk of a recessionary outcome dropped considerably. more income longer without the potential hangover of recession driving higher default rates. at the same time you have the banking system you know, regional community banks forced to retreat dramatically. create add bit of a liquidity vacuum here. what's so unusual particularly in real estate now, higher total return potential in the senior part of the capital structure than you do in eck equal given the fact we're in a real estate crunch and high digit return

potential in the senior part of the capital structure. that's one of our favorite alternative expressions to use right now in order to grind out a system of return, makes slightly higher returned than cash and fixed income and not the crazy volatility seen in the last two uniques in equity or fixed income markets. >> i guess, though, if the economy holds together in a way that default rates remain low, as, for private borrowers, aren't earnings coming through okay? do you think? for the s&p 500? even if they don't hit 10% or 11% projections looking at officially? >> if we avoid recession, clearly we're going to continue to have earnings growth. to your point, the question whether it's 6 or 8. probably not 12 or 15, 6 to 8%, in that range. you'll at least get earnings growth looking forward. the question now versus, say, two months ago, end of october, is now that maltultiples are ba

up, do you sacrifice multiple expansion seen in the past months driven by that tremendous drop in yields partially. remember, in the background, the fed continues to drain their balance sheet. seen funding cost stresses start to emerge again in the quarter. you can't rule out a few extra turns of multiple compression, maybe multiples 24 back to 18. earnings growth three multiple compression. unfortunately we don't expect the fed to cut aggressively soon. we think they'll be patient, make sure inflation is truly defeated. this cutting cycle will look a lot like the hyper cycle of 15 to 18. the fed moves slowly. can't count on that fed put or a dra dramatic move on the front end to move out further. >> growth stocks i think the s&p shakes out closer to about a 16 multiple as opposed to 19.5 or wherever we're at this point.

the index. the question, troy, a year ago, people pretty well convinced we were going to head right into recession. seemed nobody was willing to buy the stock market even after it had a bad year. bonds are a tough call as well given where inflation was. now it seems the consensus is expecting only kind of more of the same as that issue goes and not that much risk in recession. are people taking their eye off potential hazards? >> yeah, mike. unfortunately what happens in markets and you're obviously a student of markets is, you have price option over the short term that often driven by technical rebalances. for instancing ten year at 5% greatest shortage in treasuries ever. some of that starts to get covered. better inflation data. then trend followers take over the price. narratives emerge justifying price action. so right now we really, the consensus is turned from, think about last october. october '22 incredibly bearish

to much more supportive, and, again, think about where valuations are at the back end of the yield curve and in equities. some say priced to perfection. we do think optimistic outcome more of a sloppy, choppy mess, you get modest appreciation. nothing like you saw from '09 to '21 as oh pposed to performancen 2021 or 2023 off a very rough 2022. >> a lot of slop and chop in '09 to '21. remember 2011 and 2015. see if we can make it through. troy, thanks so much. happy new year. >> nice to see you. happy new year. coming up what investors should expect out of washington in the new year. follow the issues lawmakers left on the table before the holiday recess will be when they get back. aid to ukraine and israel, the border, potential government shutdown. what gets done first? we'll check out the agenda. and breaking economic news.

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our next guest says 2024

will start with border immigration reforgs and funding aid to ukraine and irsrael. joining us, cowen washington research group strategist. curtis, why the optimism that things can get done next year if they weren't able to get done this year? >> sort of have to. right? you start off the year with four months of policy cliffs. you have four must-pass bills to start the year. congress gets back january 9th. ten days later government funding runs out. then on february 2nd, two weeks after that, government funding for the other agencies runs out. in march faa expires. then if the government isn't fully funded on april 30th, we have a 1% across the board cut to all discretionary spending.

sort of procrastination and unproductivity that we saw kind of that master class last year has left a lot of wood to chop and if they don't chop all that wood, you do get a 1% cut across the board on april 30th. >> you write that the lack of congressional action was the feature not the bug. the congressional inaction this year like congressional inaction. curious as you look ahead to next year, seems like things pertaining to 1% in discretionary spending, other funding cliffs you mentioned. that would not necessarily be good for the markets, if there was inaction there? >> correct. i mean, right. you know, in all the axiom in washington went to the edge of a cliff, build more land. they've built about as much land as they can, and then you have a hard stop april 30th. keep in mind, too, you know, this is not happening in a vacuum. they're sort of, there are three

separate tracts going on in washington. they're all on parallel tracks but intersect next month. that second track is the election. iowa caucuses are on january 15th. and then that third track what we kind of call the legal and constitutional track, you're going to have an impeachment of the current president in the house starting probably in february. then you have the first of four criminal trials against the former president, leading presidential candidate for the republican nomination starting in march. so when all of these policy cliffs really start to crest you have the election and all of the legal and constitutional cross fire to contend with as well. >> brian sullivan here. love your notes, as always and the lyrics you put out there. let me ask you this, avoid it if

you want. i know how dialed in you are. talked to people close to the white house recently. seems like maybe not defcon five but a lot of, i don't say panic, but concern about the election next year. what do you think, is there a chance that the 2024 ballot does not include the current guy or the former guy? >> i mean, sure. right? if, you know -- four years ago a pandemic was under way and bernie sanders and elizabeth warren were charging for the democratic nomination. we're a long way out. the time frame for that, though, sully, is going to be interesting, because if you want to run for president for the republican party or the democratic party, all of those filing deadlines have passed. so you know, these are the candidates right now, but both biden and trump can lock up

essentially mathematically the nominations by mid-march. where's it gets really interesting, though, is between that mid-march end of summer conventions, because they are not actually nominated as candidates until the republican convention in mid-july and the democratic convention in mid-august. so if there is going to be a change, you know, barring a primary electoral surprise, it would probably be right before those nominations. i mean, not to be morbid, but these are the two oldest candidates, or two likely oldest nominees in american history. >> yeah. and you had joe lieberman, by the way, making waves again yesterday. got to go, quickly, i like your point. still a chance for a joe manchin to jump in. correct? is it possible mathematically? >> for sure. i mean, so the republican and democratic tickets are what they are, but you also have a green

party candidacy from jeff stein. two independent candidacies one from cornel west, one from robert kennedy jr., and the no labels situation. they have said they will make a decision by march. so you could have six candidates going in to november with -- >> yeah. >> -- third-party candidates, like always, or, like, frequently acting as real spoilers. >> wild cards for 2024. thank you. >> thanks, guys. coming up, the good, the bad and the ugly when it comes to apple. wall street's biggest stock to talk what may be next on the horizon including possible headwinds on china, iphones, patent lawsuit. a lot remo to do. we're back after this.

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apple shares soaring along with the rest of the magnificent seven even though the company's sales decline. how can apple get back to growth in 2024, or can it? steve kovac joins us with that. >> the biggest question of 2024. can it finally return to growth following this four straight quarters in a row of declining sales and on top of that apple said to expect flat sales for the current december quarter. despite that, though, apple shares up about 48% this year.

there's good news and bad news as they try to return to growth. start with the bad news. headwinds, in, where else, china, of course. huawei returning back to the smartphone game after the year's not putting out new phones and some evidence we're seeing people switch from iphone to android again because of that. also online gaming crackdown from the government. talking about that for the last week or so. that can impact the app store, too, and the overall slow economic recovery over there. now in the u.s., other western markets, apple watch band worked out despite the reprieve. actually go buy one now. who knows how long that will last. service growth. high-margin business, up. that can help things out, too. early signals after the holiday season. pc and phone demand bottomed out. maybe see buying again in consumer electronics. here's what's not moving the

needle. new vision pro headset. small launch in the u.s. at first people predicting 500,000 units. not a mass-market device. not moving the needle more like an experiment for the future here. a tough one for -- comps getting easier because of last year such a down year and wonkiness with the calendar. tough to grow. >> amazing. because the sort of basic, keep it simple case for apple, has almost nothing do with the sales growth, even earnings growth. kind of like, well, warren buffett owns 6%. he's not selling any. reduced share account by 6% last two years. impenetrable. it's great. sort of predictability premium is very high. >> and not -- no longary growthy stock like it used to be. like ibm. used to be. so -- >> give you the growth story at apple. what do you think about this, steve? services business. every time i talk, in my ear,

not much time. know what i'm saying? >> it's only you. >> it's only me! literally no news. just talk -- anyway -- >> a services business. >> spending $60 a month on apple. >> a huge thing. always point to that saying we have the number, but hundreds of millions of subscriptions. a cut of every one of those even a third party like disney+ or something. you're helping them out. >> doing my part. >> you can turn it off. you know that, right? it's easy. unbutton. one button. it takes years of dedication to get to this milestone. the new york stock exchange is a symbol of what america is all about the potential of an american dream. it is day one. a lot of work has happened to lead to this historic moment. the only way you can move a society forward is a true expression of freedom. ♪♪ with gold bond...

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box." rick santelli here live in cmeh, breaking news of the morning. initial claims and continuing, post-sale inventories down as expected. retail down 0.1% as expected. and, oh, i take that back. retail inventories expected up 0.1. not down 0.1. interesting here is postsale inventories, well, we haven't had a positive number in whole sale inventories a lot of unchanged but not a positive number since november last year.

on initial jobless claims expecting 207,000, 212,000. 218,000. 218,000. highest since the first week in december. 221,000, and look at continuing claims, which the last time we were at 1.9 million or higher was the second week in november. it slid ever since. continuing to hover under 1. million. 1 million 875,000. pretty much spot-on with estimates and subtle revision in the revere mirror puts us a bit higher. rearview mirror, 861,000. as i said, haven't been above 1.9 million since november, and when we were, a two-year high. that is a significant level. we remain below that. trade balance, of course, a deficit. this is for the month of november minus 90.3 billion. the biggest deficit going back to july.

july of this year when it was just shy of minus 91 billion. interest rates moved a smidge lower on this data and most likely it's continued well behaved claim rees main. even though slightly higher. pre-opening equities shaved their losses just a bit with futures down 30 as we get ready to go into the big new york opening. what i want to stress here is, 380 right now on the ten. closed last year. it closed last year at 388. now, contrast that with the yield curve movement. a two-year last year closedat 443, mike. now hovering at 425. and if two-year notes closed exactly where they are right now they'd be at a fresh seven-month low yield close. tens at a five-month low yield close and boons as europe has a much different view of an

economy for 2024. much slower. mike, back to you. >> for sure, rick. yes. global bond rally maybe for different reasons in different places. joining us now, former cea chief economist at american action foreign prime minister and a former nec deputy director. good morning to you both. you know, funny. a year ago the phrase immaculate disinflation probably mostly derision seemed a long shot. today descriptive what we've gotten. labor market hanging in there. inflation coming down. can it possibly continue, i guess, the big question going into next year? >> yeah. absolutely think it can. you noted, we ended last year with unemployment at 3.5% and inflation substantially higher than the fed's target. entering this year unemployment 38.7%, under 4%. the fed's target, look at core pce over the last six months.

going back to what president biden wrote in the "wall street journal" july 2021, a plan for lowering inflation over time while maintaining a strong labor market has come to fruition and speaks highly of fiscal and monetary policy over the last year or so. >> doug, when things look great, might be time to worry about exactly how we got here and what the implications are for next year, because even if talking about a soft landing probably talking about some kind of a slowdown, maybe it means a little of that policy support as well. >> well, i think there is reason to be cautious. you know, core pce, now at 3.2 year over year. two-thirds of the way to the target. that's still two years. might have the another year of disinflation to get back to target. hardly done. a lot in the real economy to be cautious about, i think. look at the big third quarter gdp numbers, inside that was all

driven by households and government spending. a little concerned about households. seeing credit card interest rates rise. 2 percentage points by second half of this year. how much can they carry the economy? i don't know. business fixed investment. i remind you, led every post war downturn except the pandemic. the thing to look at. flat in the third quarter. no sign of pick-up in the fourth quarter. cautious at the outlook of 2024. still fighting inflation. not underlying balance in the economy you'd like to see. >> doug, the fact the fed itself doesn't see it getting to the target of 2% until, i guess, late 2025. >> right. >> at this point there's a lot of room in there. while we can wait to see if things improve in the right direction, of course, why the market has kind of fast-forwarded to looking for rate cuts? >> yeah. just think that people get ahead of themselves on timing. there's been enormous amounts of progress on inflation.

no question about it. remember, everything broke our way in 2023. a productivity bump no one saw coming. 2.3%. we had declining energy prices. 6% year over year. moderation of food inflation. everything that can go right did. that's not going to happen every year. being cautious where we land in 2024 is the right stance right now. >> and i mean, clearly d dissanction with a few things out there in terms how the economy is operated. can't complain about the unemployment obviously. housing affordability hovering over a lot of people. we have this locked up home market at this point, with very little turnover. of course, absolute level of prices is relatively high and people still kind of anchored to that. is there any way things can happen in the coming year to alter those things? >> yeah. when i look at this i really look at the three core things that family spent most money on.

housing, food and gas. housing, important to make distinction between rental and home ownership. in many metro areas rental prices flat and declining over the last year. of course, with interest rates going up, housing affordability, ownership afford aability a problem, something the administration should address. groceries flat. declining. went up substantially in initial stages of the pandemic inpart because of russia's invasion of ukraine and what that did to commodity prices, seen steadiness there over the last year. of course, on gas prices back down under $3 a gallon nationally. i think when you look at the things households are spending on regularly, a lot of the s salients of those price increases are declining. in the next year you can see a pathway to rates coming down because of fed rates, continued progress on gas prices and grocery prices.

as a result, the most salient prices families face are better than in 2021 and 2022. >> all right. see if that registers. seeing a little uptick in consumer sentiment. very low levels. thank you both. thanks so much. >> thank you. coming up, a.i. caught investors' attention in a bag way this year. what should we expect from the sector in 2024? weeg talk about that and whether the magnificent seven stocks can remain magnificent. stay tuned. you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc.

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welcome back to "squawk box." or welcome to "squawk box," everybody. happy thursday. 8:41 east coast. initial jobless claims raising 12,000 last week total 218 now. continuing claims moving a bit higher. futures moving higher as well. nasdaq, dow flat to maybe slightly down. nasdaq we're watching red hot this year. nasdaq composite, mike, not at a record. nasdaq 100 -- >> 100 -- >> -- is. >> the nasdaq 100 up about 54%

year to date versus about -- >> best year since -- >> 2003. >> nasdaq composite. >> 1999. >> yes. >> one for the -- >> composite is 2003. >> think about this. good as this year was, and i was here at this nasdaq when it was built. literally being built. >> sure. >> in 1999, nasdaq 100 grows 102%. it doubled! >> tripled in about less than two years. >> 85% in '98. it doubled. think about that. applebee's was not $650 either, leslie. you could get a ticket -- >> take your gains from the nasdaq and just put them into a really nice applebee's dinner if you wanted to. >> buy a lot of wings. >> yeah. delivering alpha investor survey brings together market intelligence of the nation's leading institutional investors, top strategies and asked for outlooks and strategies for the first quarter and beyond. polled about 300 chief

investment officers, equity strategists, portfolio managers and cnbc contributors who manage money and the survey conducted over the last week. some results. which of 2023's weakest sectors vtd most upside for 2024. topping the list unperforming groups, health care followed by energy. top performing investing areas in the u.s. next year, financial stocks with 35% of the respondents. high dividend stocks, a quarter of all respondents and then health care, once again, people lay bets on that lagging area for 2024. >> all right. so as we wrap up the year on wall street we're going to look at some of the biggest market gainers of the year. one standout what they call bnpl. buy now, pay later. that is a firm. admittedly off a very difficult 2022, when it lost 90% of its value. but this year it's back up 430% as of yesterday's close.

out-performing all other u.s. tech companies valued at $5 billion or more. sort of a, maybe a testament to how bnpl captured the share. fall 90% -- >> yeah. >> then come back up 430%. >> $160 stock. >> yeah. yes. i mean, better than it was. >> washed out and went for dead in this category, kind of speculative innovators unprofitable. >> talking about consumer i indebtedness? >> you could break up payments or extend it more and -- >> zero percent interest and retailer pays for -- >> zero percent. let's you stretch it out. >> you can now do, able to buy now pay later at walmart checkouts? >> yeah. >> like, check out -- $200 in stuff and you do four $50

payments. you worry. airlines now. that trip to -- i do worry. got to be careful out there. i mean, this stuff can catch up. >> and you didn't get the stuff until you made the final payment. i think. >> i'm not sure. >> like -- >> lay away until you actually pay. >> want this, put money aside. make the final payment, you get that. >> it's dangerous. my point, a little. >> talk how consumers are spending and overall let levels and rising delinquencies. overall makeup how they're using their wallet is different. interesting environment. drawing to a close, 2023, mega cap tech stocks captivated investors and promise of a.i. technology is fueling optimism about the industry in the coming year. joining us now, founder and ceo. heavy new year. appreciate you being here. maybe start with your playbook

for 2024 to get a sense of where you're head is at with with regard to the recent run-up in a.i. names, those that are adjacent to a.i. and then how you're thinking about things constructing your portfolio going into 2024. >> sure thing. i think when we look at a.i. and the opportunity there, this is a multidecade opportunity. so, you know, much as there will be ups and downing over this decades, we look at this as being a huge tailwind and opportunity that compares to the shift from pcs to networks, or server software and as well the move to the internet, 1.0, as well as the move to the other malwares. this is a massive opportunities for the leaders in the technology sector and a.i. is an

incredible opportunity for investors to deploy their capital behind this trend. >> given various multiples are, what's the best way for investors to get exposure? through kind of what some see as the purest play exposure, microsoft, or the chips? is it other pockets in software or elsewhere you think would be a better value for investors? >> yeah. we definitely are focused at this point on the infrastructure investments. we think that this is the, the semiconductor part of the tech complex, most directly. think about it. these are the bridges and highways of a.i. right now we want too have maximum positions in nvidia and, and amd, broadcom another company we see as being very well positioned. i'd say as you shift the

software industry, again, stay with the infrastructure names. the big posting companies as well as some of those platform vendors. microsoft being the one that's probably best positioned in that group. >> yeah. nvidia, at least according to the latest 13 apps, your top holding. $47 million quarter end there. some say that the magnificent seven stocks have traded at least at the beginning of the year, almost like safe haven stocks that were really stoked by that a.i. boom and a.i. hype, but then investors grew more confident in the direction of the economy and the fourth quarter. potential for a fed pivot and they've been more muted. how do you look ahead kind of to the macro picture next year and how did that then form the exposure you want to have with larger cap names? >> i think some of the worrying about magnificent seven exposure is a little overdone. again, this is, these are the

companies in technology, they have the customers. they have the customers' data and they have massive amounts of adware in business models. they are the best positioned companies for this trend. so i -- for, you know, most of the magnificent seven we were very positive about those companies. sure, macro is always a worry and as an investor you have to have one eye on macro and the other one on fundamentals, but right now we feel really good about some of those large cap technology companies. >> how hedged are you going into 2024, and what kind of hedging techniques do you use? >> sure. so we're a hedge fund. we have a hedge fund product, and when we invest in that manner we do hedge with individual shorts. so companies that we think don't

really have -- that presume by the market have exposure to some of the best trends and a lot of times we don't agree with that view, that they're a leader in a category. so we will short those stocks. we're not particularly hedged. it's been it's been a very challenging time to be a short seller. some of the rallies we're seeing in, you know, you can see it in the russell 2000 to the nasdaq 100, let's say. there's a lot of catch-up happening in some small and mid cap stocks, and that extends into the technology sector, so it's been a tough time to be a short seller over the last, really, most of the year, but especially the last quarter. so, you know, definitely have to stay nimble, have to really take your profits when there's an opportunity to take your profits on the short-term. >> glen, if one of those stocks

just tanks next year, i doubt they will, what do we call them? should we retire the name magnificent seven now? sexy six? what's our name? >> "ocean's 11." we have to add them. >> you guys are excellent at coming up with the names. i usually leave that to you guys. >> i think we should retire magnificent seven. >> well, yeah, we'll complete 2023. >> what if one gains? eight is enough? hard eight? >> you can eliminate one probably. >> glen, thank you. >> i think we're much more likely to see, you know, catch-ups and see that opportunity broaden. if you look at the cloud sector, for instance, microsoft's especially well positioned, but i think there's companies like gitlab and j frog that have done incredibly well this year and i think are going to do well for years to come. helping customers take advantage

of the a.i. technology to write code faster and be more efficient, and you know, globally, programmers, that's a $1.4 trillion market. if microsoft's tools and gitlab and j frog's tools make those programmers more efficient, then you're going to have massive economic returns. >> yeah. i see it's your second largest holding, at least according to your publicly disclosed 13-f. we are going to talk energy, specifically natural gas, what is keeping prices down, what it might mean for geopolitics and a lot more. you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc. only sleep number smart beds let you each choose your individual firmness and comfort. your sleep number setting. and actively cools and warms up to 13 degrees on either side. the queen sleep number® c2 smart bed is now only $990. plus, no interest until january 2027. ends monday. only at sleep number. i think i'm ready for this.

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welcome back. if you use natural gas to heat your home, you're a bit in luck. the el nino weather pattern bringing mild temperatures this year even in some of the snowy states, bringing down natural gas prices to a six-month low. joining us now to talk about the energy sector -- it's been a long day, and it's only 8:05 in the morning.

she said the founder of energy assets and one of the most respected voices and people in the energy business. rita, i think if we had to say what would be, like, energy aspects' top energy surprises of this year, where would you put natural gas's relative collapse? >> the good news is it wasn't a surprise for us. i'm not going to claim we get everything right, but this one, we have been lowering our gas prices because u.s. gas production has been surging. you and i discussed this in-person, partly driven by the m&a activity, and it has been super warm, like we said. we were already expecting, by the end of december, lower 48 storage is going to be 355 pcf above the five-year average. and i think that is one of the biggest reasons why natural gas prices will continue to come off right now. >> you see anything different next year, amrita? >> the good news, i guess, for anybody who's bullish is that these prices are already

starting to stymie production, and i think you're going to see slower production growth across the u.s., both for oil and gas, and i think that provides a floor. i think what we would say is that it is hard to be even more bearish given where fundamentals are, given where prices are right now, and if you look at the short positions in gas, they are pretty much near a record high. so, yes, fundamentals are bearish, but arguably, the market has priced that in. >> if, for some reason, and let's all pray this ukraine war ends in ukraine's favor and soon, but if for some reason russian gas really -- i know they're selling a lot of liquefied natural gas, they've still got a little pipe gas, amr ti a. if russian gas were to somehow resume, because germany -- some people basically said, well, we'll rebuild the in nord strea and go back to the way things were. what would happen to the price of gas? >> i don't buy into that

argument, brian, because europe is doing everything it can to move away from russian energy, and to be honest, fossil fuels in general. whether we agree with it or not, it is actually investing primarily in renewables, and you've seen electricity prices go up. you've seen governments having to subsidize because we need gas in particular for electricity, but that's a separate topic. the point being, i don't think germany, in particular, despite what it is going through in the industrial sector, is necessarily just going to go back to russian gas. it depends on how this war ends, definitely not our base case. if you say to me, tomorrow, putin doesn't exist, and there's a pro-western leader, that could look different. but even if there was a scenario where putin isn't there, it could be somebody who's even worse and more anti-west than putin himself, and in that case, i just don't see how russian gas comes back to europe. >> yeah, and the other thing i think is -- i'm going to have a prediction on this on my show

tonight, and i'll just give a little bit of a preview. it's just -- it's getting harder and harder, at least from where i sit, to make the bull case for boil, given the ascension of guyana, given the ascension of brazil, given chinese demand is terrible. angola is leaving opec. is oil -- could it be possible that oil ends next year lower than it is now? >> i think we've got to start next year, very similar to where we started this year, the high 70s, maybe flirting with $80. i actually think, again, much like gas, the bad news is priced in. we have seen huge, huge number of low positions just exit the market. the high frequency guys have come back in, in a little bit, but generally speaking, the market is short. there's barely any geopolitical risk premiums in the price. the houthis have been attacking vessels in the red sea, and we've seen diversions, but none of that has managed to really lift prices. our fundamentals screaming

bullish? absolutely not. demand is softer, and opec is doing a phenomenal job in actually keeping the market in balance because we do have higher supply, but i don't think -- >> amrita,i'm sorry to cut you off. energy aspects, thank you. happy new year. all right, make sure you join all three of us tomorrow. see what we're going to wear. "squawk on the street" is next. ♪ good thursday morning, and welcome to "squawk on the street," i'm sara eisen with bob pisani today live from post nine of the new york stock exchange. carl, jim, and david have the morning off. take a look at futures right now. as we just continue this win streak, we're right in the middle of the santa claus rally. looks like the dow futures are pointing to a lower start. everybody else is higher. nasdaq futures up 45, s&p futures up a bit. we're less than 0.3% away from a record closing high. we'll see if we can ge