lowered their rr, which is a rate cut this is going to keep going. they had a lot of cap ex and they report next week. >> it's "final trades," relax. >> this is the beginning trades. >> see you on "closing bell. i'm tyler mathisen here's what's ahead on "the exchange." stocks with minuscule gains, but the economy is crushing it inflation is coming down however, one of our guests still sees warning signs on the horizon. he will identify what they are and one equity group he sees positioned for gains plus, $150 million, that's the hit to alaska airlines bottom line from those 737 max groundings the ceo joins us live to talk cost, safety, and concerns there, as the relationship with

boeing between the airline is in a struggling place you don't want to miss that. chips, cards, and clothing we have the trade into the print getting ready to report. we begin with dom chu with the numbers. >> ty, green across the screen, but we're trending towards the lower end of the trading range up fractionally. the dow up about 28 points the s&p 500, 4881, up about one quarter of 1%. at the highs of the session, we were up 30 points, and up roughly six to eight points a @ lows so, again, keeping an eye on that trading change. the nasdaq similar percentage gain, one quarter of 1% higher, 35 points. that's 15,517 for the last trade on the nasdaq. one place that is decidedly not in the green is when it comes to health insurance right now earlier this morning, health insurer humana came out and gave

a decent earnings report the comparability, maybe the surprise loss, but the forecast for full-year profits came in well short of expectations for the full year. they see rising medical costs carrying through from 2023 into 2024 that's weighing on all of the other insurers united health down 6.5%. some of these with operations in medicare, taking a real hit here so we'll watch that trend and see if that continues today. and then the place to watch for on the stock side of things, keep an eye on tesla shares. yes, the report was after yesterday's closing bell, but the reverberations are being felt the nasdaq holding onto gains, but tesla down 12.5%, with slower growth for vehicle deliveries coming up this year so a miss on earnings and profits. the tesla story very much a hot one for a lot of investors out there. back over to you >> dom, thank you very much. this morning's better than

expected data pushing stocks higher we have team coverage. steve liesman has the latest stats and washington correspondent megan cosella with the white house strategy to sell voters on the economy. steve, we begin with you take it away >> thanks, tyler the u.s. continues to outperform or crush it on two notable fronts growth and inflation and markets and the fed now have to navigate policy and where it's headed with growth remaining strong, but inflation falling. here's the numbers that everybody is talking about gdp surprising to the upside, 3.3% on the quarter. down from the prior quarter, but above expectations and the deflator is all the talk of the town here, half of what it was in the prior quarter. durables and transportation, the headline was negative because of boeing and here's the new home sales up 8% on the lower rates.

looking at gdp year over year, what you see is growth in 2023 accelerated from 2022, a far cry from that recession so many had predicted. and all of that while inflation declined from nearly 8% in 2022 to under 2% now on a quarterly basis. despite declining inflation, the market has digested strong economic growth as a sign the fed won't be as quick as previously thought to cut rates. the march probability is trading below 50% now. there is more confidence, however, around the may meeting for a cut and for up to 140 basis points of cuts this year in total the difficulty is that the fed could look at the economy's performance on both growth and inflation and say hey, policy is not far from where it should be. and only cut rates marginally. tomorrow's inflation report from december expected to show more declines as the year ended, another key point in this

debate >> the idea that where the data are right now would suggest that the fed may have gotten it sort of well fine tuned and doesn't need to go a point and a half over the course of the year in terms of rate kus. -- cuts. >> i think that's the way it might be looking at it i do think the fed believes it is too restrictive on policy right now. the question is how much too restrictive is the best way to put it so what may happen here is i think the fed could go at half the pace the market expects this year, but only real economic weakness would cause it to match where the market is priced >> steve liesman, thank you very much so there are stats supporting a strong economy, but is it a winning strategy for the white house to get the president re-elected you could say they're yellen it from the roof stops. megan, secretary yellen chiming in here. >> certainly trying to yell it from the roof tops

yellen is hitting the road today as part of an effort to sell the administration's economic message. in a speech before the economic club in chicago this afternoon, she'll make the case that the biden team's investments in infrastructure, manufacturing and elsewhere are the reason why we're seeing that strong economic growth. treasury officials felt vindicated this morning by these growth numbers an official said they feel the data supports the approach they have taken on the economy, and that it suggests they were right to be optimistic at a time when most forecasters saw a recession coming the speech today marks the start of a revamped economic pitch, and she'll embark on a step-up travel schedule for 2024 to drive that message home. it's concerted effort to change the narrative here, and it's a nod to the fact that there's still a lot of economic pessimism around the country part of the focus is drawing a sharper contrast with the trump administration's record, and she'll say, for example, that

while fixing the country's infrastructure was a punchline in the trump era, biden officials have delivered tyler? >> so i really agree with what you just said there. but there still seems to be an overhang of pessimism on the president's stewardship of the economy, and on the state of the economy. why do you think that is >> you're absolutely right it's a really big challenge for this administration going into november we don't know exactly why economists have a number of explanations here. one is just that the nature of inflation is that while prices might be growing at a slower rate, they're still much higher than they were before. so it doesn't feel like progress to a lot of people a lot of the biggest categories on those people's budgets haven't slowed as much as inflation overall. housing being the main one here. it just takes time, too. the biden officials are optimistic that the wind is finally at their backs on this, that the trends are moving in the right direction. but there's a long time between now and november a lot could change >> i agree with you.

perception just seems to not have caught up with what we see as the economic reality right now, and the fact of the matter is, prices are a lot higher than they were a couple of years ago, even though the rate of price gains has abated quite a bit megan, thanks so much. let's check in with rick sen telli. seven-year notes up for auction. >> yes, tyler. as you look at an intraday of sevens and watch yields drop, you can piece together investors aren't too disappointed by the seven-year 41 billion, completing 162 billion in three stages of treasury coupon supply what's noteworthy here is 41 billion sevens that we did today, well, they're high water mark throughout 2021 was 62 billion. this is the only maturity that we have auction ed where the treasury has issued significantly more this go around that might be why the market likes it

the field, 4.109%. where was the one issue market 4.106%, which means it tailed by half a basis point not big, but higher yield at the auction means a lower price that the government sold the securities for all the metrics are close to ten auction average, some a little better one that was a little bit worse was direct bidders dealers taking on the spot-on 13.9, 14% spin auction average so as yields moved down, it's now in the rear-view mirror. but it isn't going to leave investor's minds that we had a couple of shaky auctions, especially yesterday's five-year. tyler, back to you >> rick santelli, thank you very much our next guest says the fed won't cut rates until june because of the strong economy, but once rates come down, reits are among the places to be joining us now, mark avelone

mark, good to have you with us you see the fed not moving until the middle of the year i think that sort of expresses perhaps this fluid consensus about when the rate cuts might begin. >> well, sure. and when you have unemployment sub-4%, still wage growth around 4%, and you have just a strong economy, the gdp numbers, unless it's a mistake that's going to be re-evaluated and adjusted, this is not an economy that lends itself to a more accommodative fed. sure, the current rate at 5 3/8ths is above inflation and will come down, but i don't see how the fed rushes to that when wage growth is two times above their target rate of inflation so investors should delay their optimism for rate cuts until the summer >> all right when those rates happen in anticipation of them, you think

reits would be a target of opportunity. reits in warehouse infrastructure, cell towers, ams, really the whole pannoplee of reits >> other than office that's what the stain has been for a lot of investors they think that reits have to have offices that is not true host hotels and the luxury resort areas has no office exposure apartment reits like avolon, no relation, have no office exposure the health care reits have no exposure and cell towers, as you mentioned. so investors -- look, our favorite sector is technology, but we're asset allocated, so we can't have everything in tech. when we look on the value side, this is where we see strong cash flows, diversification, an opportunity for investors to receive current cash while interest rates come down, and those dividend yields will look

very attractive. >> let's talk about technology you have an interesting take on it that is intuitively very appealing to me. i like funds i think you get instant diversification. i like the transaction costs with most funds, or the expense rates on most funds. you have two that you're suggesting that are so-called equal weight technology funds. jpmorgan and first trust, nasdaq 100 tech sector. explain to me why the equal weight approach makes sense to you right now. >> exactly if we lock at a traditional tech etf, like the xlk, i don't think many investors would realize that 42% of their exposure is apple and microsoft. it's the same for the fidelity and vanguard information technology etfs. since those two names are a big part of the triple qs and spy,

apple and berkshire hathaway, you can't not own apple it seems. so to own what you think is a diversified tech etf and layer more on adds risk to the typical investor the two etfs that you mentioned, they have about 42 names they're roughly equal weight they're structured a little differently. we get to leverage the research departments of a great entity like jpm, get enabled companies as well as technology companies, and benefit from a broad base of companies that are either in the tech space or benefiting from it, and the multiples in those funds are even less than what you paid for the magnificent seven, which after tesla's demise, is really the magnificent six. we think that's a better what i to play the tech game than the magnificent six. >> so do either of these funds have any of those magnificent

seven holdings in them >> they do, but it's an equal weight approach. it's really hard to escape it. unless i'm going to find one that says without the mag seven, but the beautiful thing is, there's 42 games they're all about 2% to 3%, so you're not adding to what could be an overweight position. >> mark avolon, we thank you >> good to be here we've got a news alert on apple, and steveco vak has the details. >> yeah, this is a big one the eu is forcing apple to open up that famous wall garden today, apple announces how it will comply with the eu's strict tech regulations under the digital markets act. it means big changes are coming from iphone users in europe. it could have a negative effect on apple's growth through its services business. some big changes coming here third party app stores, other

companies cannot put their app stores on the iphone, and they won't be subject to many restrictions already existing, so things like pornography will be allowed on the iphone changes to fees are coming commissions are going down apple's cut in its own app store will shrink to 17% from that standard 30% cut smaller developers, though, will only have to pay a 10% cut, down from 15% apps can use their own payment for digital purchases, and apple won't take a cut out of that so you can buy an audio book directly from the spotify app by plugging your credit card in these changes are only for eu users, but other markets, including regulators and lawmakers in the u.s., are considering similar restrictions on apple services. and look, apple is not happy about this, not just because it'ses into their margins, but

they say these changes can make ios less secure and even impact things like battery life on your device as you install these services from alternative app sources. >> do they have a route of appeal >> this is it. it's happening >> this is the new world, so get used to it, apple. >> the real question, is as we have seen -- we were talking about this earlier this week the real question is, how does -- is apple's compliance with these laws. so right now it's going -- we'll have to see in march whether eu regulators agree that apple is complying with the law in the way that the eu side thinks they should it's not going to be until this launches in march that we get to see it in action, and also how many people take advantage of these new features if everyone just starts using their iphones like before, no change for apple but if people take advantage of these alternative app stores and so forth, it could put a dent in

their services business, at least in europe and potentially elsewhere if similar regulations go in effect around the world. >> thank you, steve. coming up, alaska air moving higher, but everyone from wall street to washington focused on two things that's the fallout from the boeing max 9 grounding and whether the doj will stand in the way of its deal with hawaiian airlines. that's next. plus, papa john's boosting the company's bottom line. shares are down from 45% from their record high over two years ago. the ceo will join us on the progress papa j is making and what's next for the pizza maker. "the exchange" is back after this rylee! from rylee's realty! hi! this listing sounds incredible. let's check it out. says here it gets plenty of light.

and this must be the ocean view? of aruba? huh. this listing is misleading. well, when at&t says we give businesses get our best deal, on the iphone 15 pro made with titanium. we mean it. amazing. all my agents want it. says here...“inviting pool”. come on over! too inviting. only at&t gives businesses our best deals on any iphone. get iphone 15 pro on us. (♪♪) 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. and you are? i'm an investor...in invesco qqq, a fund that gives me access to... nasdaq 100 innovations like... wearable training optimization tech. uh, how long are you... i'm done. i'm okay.

here's why you should switch fo to duckduckgo on all your devie duckduckgo comes with a built-n engine like google, but it's pi

and doesn't spy on your searchs and duckduckgo lets you browse like chrome, but it blocks cooi and creepy ads that follow youa from google and other companie. and there's no catch. it's fre. we make money from ads, but they don't follow you aroud join the millions of people taking back their privacy by downloading duckduckgo on all your devices today. welcome back to "the exchange," everybody alaska airlines moving higher after the company posted a fourth quarter earnings beat, but the results respect really the headline here. less than two hours ago, the ceo kicked off that earnings call by apologizing to the passengers on a flight where an emergency door panel, or door plug, blew off a 737 max 9, reiterating that safety is the company's top priority and the reason they grounded that aircraft

proactively, affecting a third, a third of their january capacity so what's next for alaska? the ceo joins me now, along with phil lebeau. phil, the floor is yours >> thank you, tyler. ben, thanks for joining us today. let's start off with the max 9 we'll talk about the business in terms of what you want to get back to, but we'll talk about that in a bit. i want to talk first about the max 9. you have the first ones potentially going back into service tomorrow how long will it take you to get all of those 65 back in service? >> hi, phil. good to see you again. and good morning, tyler. so phil, we're starting the inspections today. like you said, the first one friday we expect within a week our entire 65 airplanes, or close to that, should be up, back in full service, and we should be back to full schedule sometime later next week. >> you've said that you're angry, understandably, angry about what happened three weeks

ago. and the fact that the follow-up inspections, you guys found loose bolts in many aircraft the question that a lot of people have, have you expressed that anger directly to dave calhoun and stan diehl at boeing, saying this is beyond unacceptable what happened >> absolutely. within a couple of days of the event, they were in our office here in seattle, and i made it perfectly clear, flight 1282 should never, ever have happened alaska airlines received an aircraft off the production line with a faulty door plug and we're going to hold boeing accountable for that we aer going to hold them to a higher standard for planes coming off the delivery line we've already started with our own folks on the production line, providing a second set of eyes in terms of overnight you heard the announcements with the faa. boeing explained to us, a lot of

the quality improvement plans that they're going to put in place. so i'm confident with all these steps that will be put in place we'll get a better quality airplane off the production line we're going to put a higher bar for boeing and hold their feet to the fire in terms of aircraft delivery and quality >> ben, thank you for joining us tyler here how does this affect your desire to do business with boeing, to buy planes from boeing, or will you look at other suppliers more closely than maybe you did in the past >> tyler, we have a long relationship and deep one with boeing that goes back a couple of decades, two, three decades so that partnership is strong. i think it's virtue of that partnership where i can have tough conversations with leadership and say you're better than this. and we have 231 boeing 737s. we're an all-boeing flight we have 185 deliveries coming to us in the next seven to eight years. so we made that commitment to boeing i'm asking boeing to make a

commitment that their quality is going to improve with their forward deliveries >> so i hear you saying, we still trust me, correct me if i'm wrong. number two, of the 65 planes that you have, the max 9s in your fleet, how many of them have that door plug? >> so all the max 9s, the 9 model all have the door plugs, and they have a door plug on the left and right hand side so there's two per airplane. the dash-8 max, which we received our first one that's in service, does not have any door plugs. >> ben, it's phil again. look, boeing is in your backyard you have a long, close relationship with them you yourself have worked in hangars with aircraft. so you understand what's required here. i don't expect you to answer for boeing, but i think the main question a lot of people have,

how did they drop the ball this badly? is it because of the pandemic and a lot of institutional knowledge went out the door and they have newer workers, is it just sloppiness? what do you think is the cause for them dropping the ball this way? >> well, phil, i think there are a lot of reasons that have to come out for what happened through an investigation i think that's what everyone is doing is investigating what happened, why it happened, and what broke down in terms of production processes, quality control processes and quality assurance processes. it's one of the reasons we're putting our over oversight people there we want to watch through every phase of the assembly process. putting a second set of eyes, and if we see something we don't like, we'll raise the flag in addition with the faa oversight, hopefully some of those things on why these things

happened will bubble to the surface and we can fix them before any aircraft gets delivered. but there's a lot of work to be done here. just to be clear, tyler, look, my goal is to hold a high bar on boeing but i want to see them be successful again, we're an all-boeing fleet. i have a huge order booked with them the ultimate goal is to make boeing better through this process, and keep our customers and our employees having a lot of confidence in this airplane going forward. >> ben, one last question regarding the max here there are about 3,000 flights, this is what you guys just said on your conference call, that you expect to have canceled because of the grounding of these max 9 planes now, about half of those passengers were rebooked on other alaska flights but i've heard from a few people who said look, i was on a flight, maybe i had to do a

layover. things changed in my schedule. they understand the situation, but their travel plans were slightly altered or altered dramatically will they get compensation in some fashion from you or boeing or from somebody having to change their trips >> well, look, phil, with alaska we want to take care of our guests the disruptions, the cancels have been awful. yes, we've had to redoubt some passengers with a more -- with a layover somewhere, and we'll take care of those passengers appropriately within alaska. you know, the thing that we have to think about is going forward. our schedule coming back to full service. what i'll tell you is, a lot of those customers and the community has reached out to me personally saying how much they leave in alaska and how much they trust alaska going forward. so my goal is to get the airline back to full schedule and give

them the alaska airlines they know and love so well, which is a safe and reliable airline. >> let me switch gears to the deal with hawaiian airlines, your acquisition doj shut down the jetblue/spirit i heard you on the call saying it's a different deal completely do you think the doj will bring a suit trying to block your acquisition of hawaiian? >> i'm not sure, phil. i think we met with them initially last week, presented them the case. i think they're reviewing it and will ask for more information. we'll follow the process our deal, like i said this morning, has very strong merits, very different there the jetblue deal we're not eliminating a low-cost competitor it's very pro-consumer and competitive. i'm excited for our guests on the west coast to have more expanded choice on where to fly. and like i said, it makes us a slightly larger airline to

compete more vigorously against the big four who dominate 80% of the domestic skies and with alaska having an international airport. i hope our case, you know, will be evident with the merits that it has, but we'll follow the doj process and go through it as required >> ben, one last question about the business itself. what is your outlook when you look at the first half of 2024 >> you know, we're feeling pretty good. if you take the max 9 impact aside and the $150 million impact to the business, which our expectations, boeing will make us whole with that. we're projecting profitability for 2024, strong profitability for 2024 our afx ps target will be between $3 and $5. so i feel really good. this comes on the -- tail winds

of 2023. we finished 2023 with a 7.5% pretax margin, on the higher end of the industry, competing with united and delta without the enter national tailwinds and higher west coast fuel, so we feel very good about our 2023 performance it bodes well for 2024, and when we put this behind us in q1, i'm very optimistic about our strategic plan, especially with the hawaiian and our performance in 2024. >> ben, thanks for joining us today. i know it's been a crazy self-weeks here, and i know you still got a lot of work to do with the max, but we appreciate you joining us tyler, back to you >> phil, thank you very much coming up, a trio of payment stocks on deck with results and investors are looking for any clues about the strength of the consumer our trader will tell us which numbers he's watching and give us his read on two other names out with earnings after the bell "the exchange" returns after

this

the first time you connected your godaddy website and your store was also the first time you realized... well, we can do anything. cheesecake cookies? the chookie! manage all your sales from one place with a partner that always puts you first. (we did it) start today at godaddy.com welcome back to "the exchange." i'm courtney reagan. just moments ago, peter navarro

was september tensed to four months a jury convicted him on contempt of congress charges last september for refusing to comply with a federal subpoena related to the investigation into the january 6th attack on the capitol. he is appealing the conviction a hamas spokesman says that if the international court of justice issues a call for a cease-fire tomorrow, that it will abide by the decision, as long as israel does the same the world court is set to rule friday on a genocide claim brought by south africa against israel japan's neulander nailed its landing spot earlier, but there was a problem. photos were released upside down and unable to power up japan is the fifth country to land on the moon there is a chance for the lander to generate power through solar powers and recover tyler, back to you >> landed on its head. thank you. with takeover rumors swirling, we have a news alert on paramount global and julia

has the story. >> paramount global ceo is circulating a memo about his strategy for the year. in this memoattained, he said amid the company's changes, it's no surprise that paramount remains a topic of speculation but is focused on driving earnings growth, saying job cuts will be part of that, saying we continue to -- we will continue to reduce our workforce globally that is part of the plan to unlaunch synergies in collaborations across the company. he reiterated that 2022 was paramount's peak investment year in streaming and will drive revenue across advertising and licensing, as well as subscriptions. >> juljulia, i'm struck here, oe when a company becomes the subject of m&a speculation,

companies are quick to knock it down it sounds like he's doing anything but that here >> he acknowledges the speculation. he says i'm not going to comment on that, just say we're doing our best to make paramount as profitable as possible in effect, he's outlining the road map that he sees to make paramount more -- a more valuable company to any potential buyers but he doesn't weigh in on the speculation and leaves that to the side >> julia, thank you very much. let's take a look at shares of papa johns, down 10% in 12 months after share prices more than doubled during the height of the pandemic. papa john's looked to recapture that initiative with its back-to-better initiative, emphasizing execution and customer experience, not to mention the shack-a-roni pizza and they producedback-to-bette 2.0, focused to grow margins shares up 11% since that

announcement joining us now is rob lynch, the president and ceo of papa john's, with our expert on all things restaurant, kate rogers >> tyler, thank you. rob, thanks for joining us >> thanks for having me, kate. >> i would love to start this off big picture. we're seeing a big of tug of war with inflation and deflation on the whole, how are you feeling about costs as we kick off the new year >> we feel great as we look towards 2024 we have seen a stabilization of our business relative to the last 3 1/2 years where we have gone through obviously a global pandemic, some conflict across the world, and then hyper inflation. so we feel like we are in a great position right now to take advantage of a stabilize environment. the consumer has shown to be very resilient we announced the fourth straight

year of store growth our industry is well positioned. our value equation has never been better relative to the other segments of the industry pizza has continued to hold on pricing, where a lot of other segments have taken a lot of pricing over the last couple of years. so we're really well set up for 2024 and beyond. >> and to build on those comments on costs, you just made the significant announcement as part of that back-to-better 2.0 plan, to focus more on national versus local advertising explain why you made this shift and ultimately what it means for your owners. >> we're a scaled concept. we've got distribution, restaurants in every market in the united states. and media tends to be more productive we're one of the last holdouts on a more localized model. so we made that transition with the support of our franchisee base, who voted to move to this model. we just completed a couple of new agency reviews that we think is going to optimize our media

from a creative and media standpoint so we really think that we'll drive a lot more productivity from our national marketing platform >> rob, a couple of questions. first, your sales growth, up 2%, 3%, depending on what the measures are, is that sales growth because you've added more stores, because you've raised prices, or if you looked at a unit sales or a same-stores sale basis, would you sales also still be up? >> yeah, i would say it's all three. as i mentioned earlier, we have held on pricing relative to a lot of other players in our industry so the disproportionate amount of our growth has come from improved mix where trading customers up to premium pizzas, adding things like papa bites onto their pizza order only. so that's driving some dollar sales growth we have also built more restaurants the last few years

we've had success opening new restaurants across the u.s. and internationally. and lastly, we have been able to grow same-store sales comps, consistently the only one to do it the last four years had positive same-stores sales. >> i'm obsessed with shaquille o'neal i think he's a really good businessman. i know he owns some papa john's franchises in your system. he either is or was on his board. what is it like to go to a board meeting with shaquille o'neal, how much fun is it >> so shaquille is an amazing businessman. he's obviously been able to garner a lot of success post his athletic career. but he's an amazing human, as well he's just an awesome person to work with on a regular basis, both at the operating level. he is a partner with us on some franchises at the board level, he continues to be a great member of our board. he comes with a different perspective, given his back ground and the other businesses that he's in

so it really is inciteful to engage with him. you know, he really brings a human element to the board room. he speaks what he thinks, and he brings a lot of feeling and passion to what we're talking about. >> he is an immensely human guy, i agree with that. kate >> rob, i would love to turn the conversation to technology more and more relevant in the space. in terms of optimizing restaurant operations, tell us about how you're using data science and the investment noted in that back-to-better announcement and what that will mean for your operations, streamlining them, making them more efficient >> absolutely. you know, in keeping with the discussion we talked about national marketing being more productive, marketing and media productivity is about to take a big leap i mean, ai, which everyone has been talking about, is really going to make us more efficient and understanding our customers and being able to reach them in

a very productive and efficient way. and so we have built -- you know, we're an e-commerce company. 85% of our orders come across the digital channels we have huge amounts of first-party purchase data, that allows us how to optimize and make sure we're delivering the most value the analytics that are going to power that, we're just scratching the surface on those capabilities >> i'm sorry, rob. i'm going to have to interrupt we have the boeing ceo dave calhoun on capitol hill. >> do you agree with the faa's decision to bar expansion of the max? is it too soon for the max to fly?

>> mr. calhoun, obviously meeting with senators but not with reporters there as they follow him to an elevator bank in one of the senate office buildings on capitol hill. if there is any news made, well, there go the doors not going to be news made now. let's go back to kate and robert go ahead, kate >> thanks, tyler rob, thanks for sticking with us here i want to talk more broadly about your outlook you sound optimistic about the year you said you consider yourself to be an e-commerce company. it's fascinating to hear food executives talk about the restaurant sector. what is your biggest headwind right now for the sector for 2024 as you look out ahead >> i would say our biggest headwind as a company is probably the global instability we're seeing right now obviously, we have a lot of markets across europe, the middle east, even asia that still are figuring out, you

know, what the future holds. you know, we are a global company. we operate in over 50 countries internationally. we are going to continue to work with our franchisees in every market to make sure that they're set up for long-term, sustainable, profitable success. and so that's what we're focused on i'm on calls with a lot of the franchisees in a lot of the markets. we own restaurants in the uk right now that we're working to optimize and make sure that we are helping our partners there shore up their businesses for financial success moving forward, too so it's an interesting time for our international businesses, but we've been around for almost 40 years now this will be our 40th year of papa john's. we have 50 countries we are doing business in. it gives us a bit of diversification, even if there is instability >> rob, thank you so much for joining us great to hear your outlook on the year, and we'll leave it there for there. we appreciate it

tyler, back to you >> mr. lynch, come back and bring shaq next time coming up, last quarter was one of the strongest ever for muni bond funds, where investors can find tax free opportunities this year. hexcngat nt. "t ehae" will be right back

bam funds posting their second largest return last year. so will the positive momentum push into this year and how should investors position for that let's ask the head of municipal fixed income, along with our own rick santelli. rick, the floor is yours >> yes, thank you, tyler jamie, welcome it's so great to have you, especially after that lead-in that tyler had, q4 of '23, big pop. and we even see it in the etf mug, as you look at the chart there. if you extend that chart precovid, another thing that jumps out, as good as their fourth quarter was, it isn't as juicy as it was precovid what are you thinking about the muni space at this point

>> rick, it's great to be back on the show. i'm still very constructive on the muni space yes, as you point out, we had a big rally. but investors have to think about where we'vcome two years ago, muni aaa yields were 200 basis points lower than they are today so there's still a lot of yield in the market right now. it's interesting, in 2023, there was so much uncertainty out there. we told investors, put some money in treasury bills, earn 5.5%, and just be safe while we play through this volatility now there's so much more certainty around the fed, the big theme now is bet out of cash and t-bills and start securing those higher yields for a lot longer >> jamie, what area specifically -- unlike treasuries, munis are a little harder to keep track of. there isn't a central'sed space. we used to have a munis futures contract, but that was gone decades ago.

what area are you specifically focusing in on >> you're right, rick. it's a very fragmented market that requires active management. i've talked in the past on the show, i really like the transportation sector. americans are hitting the road, they're flying like crazy. if you just look at some of th like o'hare airport or midwa airports if you could pick up an extr 30 to 50 basis points to own those eighth rated credits that are doing really well right now, that is one goo play i also really like toll road right now. again, people are driving, the revenues are strong, there was a deal just last week in north carolina called triangle expressway in 30 years, these bones wer yielding 100% of treasuries. you're getting that ta exemption for free there we think that's a really really good deal >> now, jamie, we're almost at a time really quick, to this last question, not all states are created equal.

i know that you brought up a care, but we have some issue in chicago and issues in illinois there's also issues in california, new york are there any states you would shy away from with the transportation strategy in mind? your final thought >> this is a market wher you've got to look under the hood the fed is not there to lift all vote anymore as you point out, rick california, they had 100 billion dollar surplus a coupl years ago. now, you're talking about 30 t 60 billion dollar deficit. so, you've got to know you credits. you've got to ask yourself, ar being paid for those and i think that's really what is going to drive performanc going forward, so, credits differentiation, big theme for 2024 >> excellent, jamie. excellent. you made it sound so simple. thank you for joining me today and i look forward to yo coming back very soon. tyler, back to you >> and as we return, the big names on deck to repor results. we've got the trade on

financial semis, and tn xthene exchange, when we get back in moment

>> earnings season continues t roll along, and we've got chips, charges, and chinos on the top at this hour we will have trades late munson, perfectly well advisor precedent and see i go , highly let's start off with intel a nearly erasing its 202 losses, 67% gain in the last year first time watching that turnaround for can rounds on cost cutting a nascent a.i efforts, but bearish on pt demand warning of a potential chip di ahead. let's say you, ali >> i don't care about wher they get have that revenue, don't care about the a.i. chip on, you know, pcs. what i care about is one thing data centers i think by now, we all understand we say they dissenters, we mean a i. so, if we see continue to seek sequential declines from 4.4 t 4.1, you see declined that dat center that continues, and tell u that on arrival.

the only thing that will giv you some hope i kind of thin is interesting longer term i look at the foundry business that things doubling, and think if they could really execute foundry well,, the there might be some hope for intel. outside of, that i think they're going to be thir string to amd and nvidia >> very interesting. a group of financials, next. they are set to report visa, capital one, american express, all three of double digits in the past three months wit capital one the upper former they are cautious, however, ar concerned about evaluation slowing volumes risk t consumer credit. how about this group >> i prefer to look at thi group as a barometer rathe than investing in it you know, i've always had sort of a love story with america express, because we never have to worry so much about the consumers. here's how i would like to play it instead of buying them, how about that you watch them? and you want to see flows, wan to see that capital one always complain about how they're having more delinquencies. we're not necessarily hearin that now but when you start hearing american express say they're well heeled clients are having

a problem, that's when i think the overall economy. overall, i'm still bullish o this i think consumers coul increase their loans, i thin they're going to be able to pa it off, and remember, we are looking down the barrel next year of rate cuts and better roads ahead. i went through match with them >> interesting finally, we've got levi straus reporting after the bell ubs calling it one of th strongest u.s. saw flying to brands second only to nike. a recent data show increased promotions in software sales and on certain macro environments how about levi's >> i disagree. i think levi's has som problems they went from 20 plus percent direct to consumer and now they're down to 10%. they want to be a global denim lifestyle brand, that what was going on with me on the yoga and almost 100 million dolla charge of that disaster? i think that they're in th same category as b f corporate bands. you, know the shoes i'm wearin right now. it appeals to a lot of guys my age and a lot of said that i think it doesn't have th

raise. when my daughter buys those big, baggy jeans with holes in it levi's is not on her list. and wish them the best of luck always buy them. i think you find something else i would rather buy - eggs >> a live at their the mountain, portfolio wealth advisers that does it for the exchange. contested we were getting read for power nc webeight back, after a quick break. [♪♪] [♪♪] [♪♪] your skin is ever-changing, take care of it with gold bond's different formulations of 7 moisturizers and 3 vitamins. for all your skins, gold bond. municipal bonds don't usually get the media coverage the stock market does. in fact, most people don't find them all that exciting. but, if you're looking for the potential for consistent income that's federally tax-free. now is an excellent time to consider municipal bonds

from hennion & walsh. if you have at least $10,000 to invest, call and talk with one of our bond specialists at 1-800-376-4376. we'll send you our exclusive bond guide, free with details about how bonds can be an important part of your portfolio. hennion & walsh has specialized in fixed income and growth solutions for 30 years, and offers high-quality municipal bonds from across the country. they provide the potential for regular income are federally tax-free and have historically low risk. call today to request your free bond guide. 1-800-376-4376. that's 1-800-376-4376.

businesses go further with 5g solutions. that's why they choose t-mobile for business. pga of america and t-mobile are partnering on 5g-powered analytics to help improve player performance. t-mobile's network helps aaa stay connected nationwide... to get their members back on the road. and las vegas grand prix chose t-mobile to help fuel operations for one of the world's largest racing events. now is the time to see what america's largest 5g network can do for your business. go