generic. i like this one. >> josh? >> shack growing revenue by 11 to 15% according to the company's guidance and opened 80 new restaurants this year. >> important to note, nasdaq close to being flat. that does it for us. "the exchange" starts right now. i'm brian sullivan in for kelly once again. is the great american consumer finally about to crack? retail sales down big. we have a guest who says there are still ways to make money in the good ole usa. call it the big swap. investors selling tesla, buying nvidia. but one says that might be about to change. and the action, the story, the trade on three more big stocks, including one your guest says has a great setup to buy into the print. that's all ahead in earnings

ex-ce exc exchange. wit but we lead with new data on the economy and a surprise on retail sales. but steve liesman says it's not the good seem of like, yay, i got a surprise kind of thing. >> yeah, right. here's what's going on. u.s. growth forecast for the first quarter are coming down. they still remain relatively strong, and that's after a series of downside surprises in economic reports today. here's the data. retail sales missing, it was minus 0.8%. take out autos and the miss was greater, minus 0.6% versus a positive 0.2%. both retail and ip coup been somewhat hurt with disruptions in january. the philly fed manufacturing on the upside. so let's put it all together. let's do the cnbc wrap it up through the average of checking

forecasts on the street. q1 coming down, so that's still strong. remember, we had that surprisingly strong fourth quarter. that's holding up, but down a tick at 3.2%. u.s. growth has held up relatively well compared to thw news "today" showing several large economies reporting a second negative quarter of growth in a row. here's the data from the uk and japan, which we convert to an annual rate, so you can compare it at home with the u.s. the uk down 0.4% at an annual rate. japan down 3.3 versus nigh us in 0.4%. there's some apparent weakness in the u.s. consumer. but overall, the u.s. has been at the head of the growth pack among developed countries in this post pandemic recovery. but the latest data raises questions about how much what we call here fortress usa can with stand the challenges within and

without. brian? >> i guess that's going to be the question we'll answer in the next segment, so steve, stick around. your next guest says america is still the best place to be right now, but a contraction is coming. the question is more when, not if. and what do you do to position against all of that? joining us now is brian weinstein, from morgan stanley investment management. thanks for joining us. >> thanks for having me. >> you can, japan in recession. germany's probably next. the u.s. appears still to be, by far, the best house in any neighborhood globally, i think. >> agreed. it's priced that way, you can see it. the u.s. stock market continues to handle it. look at japan -- >> japan's a weird -- it's soaring as they go into recession. >> when you look at the uk and japan and a little bit of germany, it's a reminder that your policy decisions have a long tail.

and these aren't bad things happening. the global economy is doing okay. the u.s. is doing better because it's been buoyed by deficit spending and low interest rates. the uk, brexit continues to be weighing. japan has major demographic issues. so the u.s. will continue to do better for a while, but the deficit spending and the high interest rates are still out there. the second half of the year -- >> i think there's a great lesson here, too. and steve would agree, that what we're seeing in japan and the uk market has not been terrible. the stock market and the economy can oftentimes, brian, be very, very different things, correct? >> yeah, look at japan. 1989 back to a couple of days, back to its all-time high, but it's not helped the average consumer because wages haven't kept up with inflation. so it's a policy decision. it's been very good for corporation, not as good for main street. >> steve, is bad-ish news

good-ish news for markets in terms of fiscal and monetary policies? >> the markets -- the data has to -- has to tell us what happened, and the markets get to price uncertainly what is going to happen. and everything i saw today said that japanese number is something that was probably going to be relatively sooner in the rear-view mirror and they'll return to growth. the uk i'm not so sure about. i feel like they have structural issues. brian was right to point to the demographic issues in japan. but the uk structure has to do with brexit are more persistent here. i'm not sure how they kind of worked their way out of the current funk that they're in right now. i think monetary policy is doing the best job it can. look, the uk had the high inflation and no growth. we had the high inflation and growth. that's been an incredible strength here. what i'm thinking about, brian, and i wonder if the other brian

might answer this question, the u.s. is generally one that is fortress usa is used in part as a moniker because the u.s. is not incredibly dependent upon the rest of the world. but the issue becomes if the rest of the world does go down in a bigger way, whether or not the u.s. can withstand that, i think at some point you get some cracks in the walls. >> you can't have china slowing, germany, japan slowing and have nothing bad happen here. >> i'm sorry to interrupt. is china slowing or is china imploding? >> it's always hard to tell with their data. >> they're cutting off the flow of data. a lot of the data we used to get is now no longer available. i don't know what's going on there. >> it's hard to say. but if they were imploding, you would see it in some of the important data. there would be some signs. it's a big economy. it can't just disappear, at least we hope not.

so their structural issues are coming to a head, too. i want to point out, our struck chul issues still exist. our deficit spending is too high. our interest spend on treasuries is going up. so ours will come around. i don't think we should celebrate too hard. the structural issues are elsewhere. china still has a lot of things it can go to help. >> your job is to help your clients make money and preserve wealth and grow wealth off of the known data you've got. what are we doing now? >> understand the u.s. has been the winner, and it's broadly in the brprice. i do think it's broadly priced in, so it is a time to start thinking about contrarian things to start to inch your way into non-u.s. equities. you don't have to buy the uk. japan equities have been great. but you need a diverse basket away from the stock that have gotten us from here, because a year from now, the market will have a different outcome.

>> steve, you and i need to take a week, ten-day trip to japan, just poke around on our own, an official cnbc visit, find out what's working, what's not, explore the back streets to figure out what exactly is going on, on some of these large economies. or maybe london. >> i'm totally with you, brian, but i want to tack on india with that. india has been the flavor of the month. i've been doing this for 30 years, brian. it seems like every time india becomes the flavor of the month, they find a way to sour the taste, and they snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. brian, are you investing as if this india story is real this time? >> india has tricked us a few times. india looks more real this time, i think with investors thinking that china may not be as real as it was. so india is part of that international equity conversation. >> i think just a personal

anecdote, back before i got into tv and i would trade with japan and india, here's the cool thing. china, we get screwed over, couldn't find anybody to sue. that would just vanish. india uses british rule of law. contracts are enforced. their economy is now bigger than china. they've got some of the world's best technical universities. they still got a lot of poverty and lot of energy woes, steve. but to your point, you wonder maybe this is like a bigger segment we should do, is india the new china, but with rule of law? >> it would be huge if india would not become -- brian, i want to jump in on private plane. i want to throw two more things out to brian weinstein. so here we go. i am interested in southeast asia as the china alternative, and then there was the story the other day that i think it was

musk was working with mexico to bring some production over to china. so what is all your take on that, brian? >> everything is moving everything out of china. it's another long tail, slow outcome. listen, investors are ahead of this one. there's some winners, but, again, i think we're -- i think those supply chains respect going to change overnight. long-term, there's some winners and losers. but i don't want to get carried away with that story. >> so you're not telling people to dump exposure to china. we did the other way on my show at 7:00 on "last call." which is nvidia is now larger than the 82 companies that make up the entire hong kong hang sang index combined. >> yeah. >> does that -- other than being just a weird and cool stat, does that tell you anything about the state of china's economy, or the global economy? because we -- i think it's fair to say, and it won't be a

popular political opinion, we need china to do well in many ways. >> i agree. i think it tells you about investor sentiment. the money has left that area. it tells you that historically, when we get this type of concentration, you are paid, not immediately, but over a 12 to 18-month period to diversify. so you can look at the 93 stocks in the nasdaq that are not the mag seven. >> what? there are other stocks on the nasdaq? >> this is what i have been taught as i have looked at equities, that there are more. >> if somebody would focus on those other 3500 stocks that exist. brian weinstein, steve liesman, great discussion. we have covered the globe. >> can i come on your trip? >> if steve says okay, because it's his jet. we need a big one, steve. >> i thought you had the jet. you know what, brian?

you can come, you just pay for the gas. >> no problem. >> guys, thank you. by the way, we'll get another read on the economy tomorrow from the atlanta fed president on a show called "money movers." on deck, selling tesla, buying nvidia. but is it time to flip that trade? jeff killberg's call, next. nat gas crashing. how low can it really go? we'll speak with the head of the country's largest nat gas producer. stick around.

welcome back. let's get some new infoe on what retail traders are doing right now. some investors are apparently scaling back, buying the mag seven post earnings. but then that little dip that we just had apparently brought back in some hungry traders. let's find out more some of the retail trends. kate rooney has today's "tech check" with more on some of the names being targeted. kate? >> reporter: so that market selloff on tuesday was a buying opportunity for a bulk of individual traders out there. the strongest level of buying we've seen since december among that retail ground. animal spirits, as they put it, are alive and well.

the breadth of buying, such as the diversity of stock purchases was wide, which suggests more optimism out there. but traders are especially optimistic on semiconductor stocks. so amd and nvidia have seen a surge this year. outshining tesla. tesla has been a long-time favorite. the value dropped to the lowest level in two years. it's still the most widely held name, but investors have been actively buying into chip names with less interest in tesla. nvidia earnings are a big catalyst. chipmaker reports next week there's been a surge in activity. ahead of that with call turnover hitting levels we haven't seen since last summer's ai buying frenzy. that is a sign investors think the stock is heading higher. and nvidia is heavily crowded at this point. you could see some exhaustion in momentum over the next four to six weeks after earnings. overall call actions have picked

up notably. speculative options trading well bolo that 2021 peak,but it indicates a return to risk appetite in the market. back to you. >> interesting stuff. kate, thank you. so your next guest is not bailing on tesla. in fact, he's buying more of it, calling it superior to nvidia as a long-term ai play and saying that recent underperformance just means maybe more opportunity to get in. joining us now is jeff killberg, a cnbc contributor. so people have been selling tesla to buy nvidia. you think the best thing to do is invert that, because you probably made a lot of money on nvidia. >> let's be clear, i'm long nvidia and i'm loading up here on tesla. but you're right, when you look at nvidia, it's three times the size of tesla from a market capper specktive. but the parabolic move in nvidia just since january, up 50%. this is not up 50% from where it

was cut in half in 2022. this is substantial. this was nearly a trillion dollar company. it has the back-in fill, so what brings expectations, earnings expectations for revenue for nvidia are over $20 billion. that's tree times what it was a year ago from q4. so there's high ek pexxpeexpect. but i think there's a pullback short term. rsi levels are overbought, but tesla seems to be a different type of ai aproep. i know it's the mag seven, it's about to trade $200 today, so we are seeing buyers step in. but i think we have to understand, there's huge opportunity in tesla here. and i think you have to profit take in nvidia. >> and if you don't want -- what do we call the nvidians? you don't want them coming at you, you still love the company, but i get the mentality. everybody is like, drop tesla,

it's not mag seven, it's super six or spectacular six. i get your take, and being a smart trader is trying to find the opportunity when other people are selling. >> that's right. and i'm utilizing options to find my risk. i'm selling the 185, buying the 200 call. but you have to realize, take a step back. not to get too wonky. but from an ai perspective, we are really seeing tesla viewed as more of a cyclical car company. think of the spend. nvidia got a lot of -- they made a $4 million investment, and now this year in 2024, tesla is going to spend $10 billion on their ai development. so from the longer play, you'll see tesla back up to $300. you have to really put the emotion aside on elon musk. you never know what's going to happen or what tweet will come out. but from a true trading perspective, this is a great

trade going into next wednesday where you will see a relent in the price of nvidia. >> jeff killburg, got a macro view on the markets. we talked about two of the most important stocks out there, but are we ever going to see this broadening out that some are talking about, 3,000 other public companies that exist will finally get a little love? >> i think it is coming. i know it was talked about this morning about this small-cap explosion. if you see a break out in small caps, that's what you're looking for. but we can grapple about when or even talk about if how many points are going to be cut. we are going to see a rate cut this year in 2024 of 100 basis points. that's coming. and that's why you saw those animal spirits that kate referred to. you're seeing people trying to buy, utilize that $8 trillion in cash and trying to get it to work because they've been chasing and the bears continue to be in the hurt locker. so there's more room to run to the upside. i think we're going to test back

here to this 4950 level this the s&p 500. but new highs next month. >> jeff kilburg, appreciate your views, my man. thank you. let's get a check on shares of wells fargo. they are having the best day since june of 2022 after the office of the controller of currency lifted a key penalty from its 2016 fake accounts scandal. shares are up 6.4%. a good day for them. coming up, r. allen stanford, remember him? he had ad 7 billion ponzi scheme. he was exposed 15 years ago. but insanely, some of his victims are still waiting to see relief. today could be a big step in that direction. we'll bring you the story on a name that is a blast from the past. but first, a look back at the deadly winter storm that hit texas three years ago today. is the power grid still as vulnerable as it was bk acthen?

that is next. "the exchange" is back after this. ♪ ♪ every day, businesses everywhere are asking: is it possible? with comcast business... it is. is it possible to help keep our online platform safe from cyberthreats? absolutely. can we provide health care virtually anywhere? we can help with that. is it possible to use predictive monitoring to address operations issues? we can help with that, too. with the advanced connectivity and intelligence of global secure networking from comcast business. it's not just possible. it's happening.

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energy space, the house expected to vote as early as today to reverse joe biden's recent freeze on new liquefied natural gas projects. that bill is likely to die in the senate if it does pass the house. the move shows the division over it. shocker. if you have not been following natural gas, you should be. it is crashing, down more than 37% since that lng pause announcement late january. but u.s. production is still soaring. let's talk more about this with toby rice, ceo of eqt. i thought i would see you in houston, but glad to see you here. good to have you on. what the heck is going on with natural gas? >> well, it's a pretty simple story. we're a little oversupplied. we have some higher production volumes, leading to low prices and it will be bumpy the next six to nine months. but the good news is, we think this will recover in 2025.

>> yeah, the weather has helped out. supply has helped out. it's kind of a massive combination. without dipping your toes into politics too much, the energy secretary and others i spoke with at the white house said that this pause will not affect current projects, that we're still going to double lng exports over the next two to three years even with this pause, but it could impact, you know, things like venture globals, second terminal, commonwealth in houston, and very far sort of future-ish projects. how do you see it? >> well, for the people that say this does nothing, what is the point? this is purely a political stunt to garner votes, and when it comes to something as serious as energy, that entire modern civilization is depending on, we shouldn't be playing political games with something as serious as energy. for the reasons they cited for the pause, methane emissions for

the environment, we have seen that methane emissions are something that this industry is getting a handle on. you can look at what we're doing at eqt to show methane emission also be knocked out of the park. from an energy pricing perspective, we can do all the economic theorys we want or look at what's happening in this world today. record lng gas prices and exports are below $3. what are we talking about? >> and shell, which had its widely watched lng forecast today, and they're shell, but they see natural gas demand globally up 50% by 2040. so if we're not producing and exporting it, we have some of the best environmental regs in the world, it's going to go to russia, qatar. we're going to enrich putin because europe and india and other places are still -- japan are still going to buy a ton of lng. they're either going to get it from us or vladamir putin or somebody else. >> yeah.

so people talk about europe and how they may have their adequate supplies. you're talking about that. but let's step back. if the world cares about addressing the rising global emissions, if the world cares about reducing foreign coal, that was require 170 bcf of natural gas a day. if the world cares about eliminating energy poverty and increasing biomass, that would require another 120 bcf a day. this market is massive. the question is, who is going to supply that energy? is it going to be russia, iran and qatar or is it going to be the united states? >> the uk fell into recession, high energy costs, energy poverty a part of that story. i suspect germany will likely be next. to your point, i know this is going to sound weird, but they've been saved by two miracle years of weather. it was not very hot in the summer in most of europe and not very cold in the winter. outside of that, let's talk

about your company. steven richardson called etq the greatest unresolved debate in natural gas. i've got to ask, why does toby and his team keep putting out so much more gas when prices are at $1.50? >> people look at eqt as the largest producer of natural gas in the country, but people need to understand one thing, eqt is a low-cost producer in america. we are not the marginal cost of supply. so don't look to us first as the one that's reducing activity levels. that being said, we are very cautious and watching the market. we will respond if we see pricing continue to drop. but what we have seen in the past couple of weeks and what we will continue to see as others -- you are seeing operators respond to activity levels and just from your perspective, our view is that operators need around $3, $3.50

to break even and cover their costs. with gas prices far below that, you will see activity levels respond. >> when? >> well, it's happening right now. so stay tuned on this. this is one of the reasons why gas prices in 2025 are over $1 a higher than where they are at today. this is a market called for a short-term relief and shutting down production. that activity is still needed as indicated by the future strip. >> toby rice, eqt. see you in houston in a couple of weeks. speaking of energy, today marks the third anniversary of the winter storm in texas that left more than 200 dead, more than 5 million without power. and crippled the state's power grid. nearly 70% of texans lost power at some point. the dallas fed estimates the storm's economic losses range from $80 to $130 billion. nine months after the storm, regulators issued a 300 page

report on the blackouts with 28 recommendations to prevent another power outage to better wind resisting, cold resisting turbines. energy consultant doug lieuen says while the state has made progress on winterizing its grid, the gas supply remains an achilles heel during the winter. i was there shortly after. it was a really tough time. now, let's get tyler mathisen for a cnbc news update. >> brian, thank you very much. secretary of state antony blinken said that the national security threat that house intel chairman mike rogers issued a cryptic statement about yesterday is not a "active capability," but that the u.s. is taking it seriously and will have more to stay soon. three sources familiar with the matter tell nbc news that the threat involves a potential

space-based nuke being developed by russia. new york city mayor eric adams has filed a lawsuit against social media platforms, including facebook, snap chat and others alleging that they are harmful to the mental health of children and young adults. it comes after adams declared social media was an environmental toxin in a speech last month. and google is teaming one the environmental defense fund to map methane emissions from oil and gas infrastructure from a satellite in space. the split called methane stat will launch next month to pin point the methane sources. google will then use their services to create a map to track leaks of that gas. brian, back to you. >> i guess social media is the new big tobacco. >> i think you're right about that. >> eric adams putting that psyche degree to work. up deck, we're going to look

at what is weighing on these shares and find out what is going on in the gig economy and labor market next. and during february, we are celebrating black heritage. here is tiaa's financial officer courtney gibson sharing her story. >> 54% of black americans do not have enough savings to maintain their current standard of living in retirement. so what can we do about that? one, ensure pay parity for black americans. two, ensure that they have access to guaranteed lifetime income as a part of their retirement plan. and three, we all know that talent is created equally. but opportunity and access are not.

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welcome back. jobless claims coming in a little better than expected this morning, despite the recent spate of layoffs we keep hearing about. perhaps another sign of labor

market strength, freelance work platform upwork reporting decent guy dance after the bell yesterday. it was enough to garner price target hikes from ubs and needham, but the stock is down today after full-year revenue guidance came in a little light. let's talk about that with the ceo of upwork. hayden, thanks for joining us. what is the state of the freelance/gig economy that you power so well? how is it doing? >> thanks, brian. you know, we're seeing a lot of strength in the business right now. we had an awesome quarter in q4, had over a billion dollars in spend from clients. we had a 14% year over year growth. what's really excited is the durable profitable growth in this business, as we saw a record in the quarter. and definitely the outlook for this year for expansion as well as growth in the business. so there's a lot of demand in

all categories we serve, which is over 125 categories. for businesses small and large. in q4, we saw more than 31,000 customers from companies like instacart, checkout.com and others coming into the product. there's a lot of demand for companies looking for an efficient, agile way of tapping into this economy. >> i've looked at your platform for other reasons, website building and things like that for hobbies and projects, and it's kind of cool. you watch this bidding process happen. there's also -- you're just not for the u.s. i had people bidding on website stuff from all over the world. are you a good measure of the global economy or global freelance market as well, hayden? >> that's right, brian. we have a truly global ekecosysm that has a pulse on talent and

clients. so we get a bird's-eye view on what is happening in the markets. what's interesting right now is clearly the conversation around ai. i mean, technology is changing so rapidly, and talent in any technology change, we have seen this over decades, the fastest to adopt new technology and to be upscaling into new technology, because this is what puts food on the table for them. and the ai shift is no different. technology adoption is widespread around ai, and we saw in our platform 70% growth in the ai vertical in the last quarter, which is the fastest growing category. so companies are turning to a global network of independent talent to fuel their ai adoption, whether it's building new apps, using gbt 4 or other things. >> the stocks soared during covid and the lockdowns. you're based in san francisco,

so you guys were shut down for a while. are you countercyclical in any way? in other words, if we did see a slowdown, we talk about all these layoffs, cisco had a bunch yesterday, paypal and others have laid off people. do you see an uptick in upwork? >> what we have seen is a lot of progress in untethering our results from broader macro trends. i think that was the story of our results this past quarter. the broader secular trend around freelancing, brian, is strong. this is something that started before covid, and continues to be accelerating even now. both because of the remote work, which is alive and well across the global landscape. and because workers generally are looking for more freedom, flexibility and autonomy in when, here, and how they work. that is accelerating. so what we're doing at upwork is delivering results, irrespective

of the broader macro environment and other things that really deliver durable results for the customers. at the same time, the broader freelancing trend is something that is continuing to grow, kind of irrespective again of upturns or downturns. >> on the san francisco note, this is kind of off topic, but i was recently there, we're all root fing for the city. are you committed to staying in san francisco? >> we're a global business. our model, brian, has always been a remote work model. so we have a team that is distributed across more than 80 countries globally. we always had our work from home model, even before that was popular. so while we do love the city of san francisco, we also love the remote work model that's powered our platform and usage of independent talent, which is more than 2/3 of the workforce. >> but you have the head quarter

there is in sort of the south beach area, but it's very small in terms of the number of people there. by the way, i'm asking every san francisco based ceo this question, because you do wonder after seeing what i saw a couple months ago what's going to happen to the city? >> you know, i think the city is -- the city has always gone through boom/bust cycles. this is another one of those teams. i'm confident the city will recover and find its footing again. >> many people are pulling for one of the most unique, beautiful and fun cities in the united states. thank you for coming on. >> absolutely. thanks, brian. >> be well. coming up, bernie madoff may be synonymous with ponzi schemes, but another scammer was revealed two months a of that, and some of his more than 18,000 customers are still missing their money 15 years later. remember r. allen stanford?

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welcome back to "the exchange." 91%, that is the percentage of bernie madoff's victims that have been paid back in some capacity since his conviction. but victims oh of a different fraud are still waiting for their money 15 years later. scott, when you brought this story up, i was like oh, my god, r. allen stanford, i haven't heard that name in a while. >> reporter: it's still going on. let me take you back to this week and this spot in 2009. remember, the global financial crisis is already full blown.

and then this, federal agents swarmed the offices of the stanford financial group. the s.e.c. charges that it is a global $7 billionponzi scheme, run by multimillionaire allen stanford, who sold certificates of deposit from his offshore bank in an teagua, touted them as safe investments. largely sold to retires like ed and we hbeverly. they put half their retime fund in stanford cds and lost it all. >> initial reaction was panic. i would say on both of our parts. >> i feel like we have just been flat cheated and lied to. i was really disappointed in the people. i couldn't believe somebody would do that. >> reporter: and it is still going on 15 years later. allen stanford got a life prison sentence. he's in a penitentiary in florida. but from there, acting as his own attorney, he's blocking the

biggest potential source of recovery for the victims, a $1.3 billion settlement with three of the banks accused of helping him. >> he has nothing else to do right now. he's trying to make his case for the courts, and denying victims recovery. >> reporter: that's the court appointed receiver who has spent the last 15 years trying to unwind the fraud. in his appeals, stanford alleges that the whole case against him is invalid, because he was sued in dallas but he was based here in houston. the courts have thrown that out again and again. stanford has until today to file what may be his last appeal to the supreme court. if that bank settlement does come through, and it still could be months away, it would basically double the recovery for stanford victims, but it's still not much. they have recovered about 25 cents on the dollar, it would go

up to about 46 cents. you compare that to the victims oh of the madoff scandal who have gotten about 75 cents on the codollar and counting. this is something that the victims and receivers are not happy about. >> scott, is there a difference, maybe legal or otherwise, between the majority of the stanford victims and the majority of the madoff victims? >> reporter: yes and no. so the reason that they have not done as well is that the security investor process tech shun corporation did not give them coverage, where it did gid the madoff victims coverage. so they basically had to foot the bill, all of the stanford victims, for all of this recovery. the reason was because they bought cds issued by a foreign bank. even though those cds were sold by civic registered brokers, that didn't fly. but the other thing is, remember

thisthe madoff case, the justice department went after madoff's biggest banker, jpmorgan chase and got a $2.6 billion settlement. this pending settlement is the work of the receiver and the stanford investment committee, and they have basically had to pay for that. the expected to be about half a billion dollars and counting, out of seven billion dollars. of the ponzi scheme. >> the lawyers always given money, don't they scott? >> there is that. >> he got a lot of, why do you go -- career insurance, scott cohen, thank you very much. unbelievable story. coming up, crypto connected tvs and chips. we've got the trade on coinbase, roku, and applied materials ahead of their reports. next.

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welcome back to the exchange. coinbase, roku, and applied materials all reporting after the bell today. let's get the news of the trade and of those results. joining us now is chris chris on the, he's chief equity strategy m a icapital

management. chris, welcome back. let's kick it off with coinbase. cher's been rocking, nearly 30% the past month, all part of the crypto rally. the street expects going to see an uptick in trading volumes but they're also facing more competition from robinhood, and fidelity, and maybe others, and the surge of bitcoin atf's. chris, would you play coinbase? >> thanks, brian. it's good to be back with you again. not only is the stock up 30% last month, it's up 100 20% since october. so the numbers this afternoon aren't going to matter as much as the company commentary on exactly what you are talking about. all the sudden we're in the new world of bitcoin etfs. bitcoin isn't the only coin that coinbase services, but it is obviously the biggest. i'm nervous about investors who can now go just by an etf and busin model going forward and of course, there will be lots of questions about that on the

call, this the company is still showing losses so the numbers aren't going to matter as much -- bitcoin is going strong right now but that doesn't necessarily play into coinbase currently, so i'd stay away from it. >> stay away. by the way, programming note, don't stay away from this, coinbase cfo is gonna be on the four pm show, in the 4:00 hour. next up, tv streaming -- roku have streams of not done anything recently. analysts are anticipating a -- strengthen ad spending as well as walmart potential takeover of vizio, the competitive space, chris. any trade on roku? >> it sure is. there's interesting things going on there, though, brian. for such a volatile stock roku actually has delivered on the subscriber growth lately, growing at around 14 or 15% year on year each order. so i am expecting that to happen again, and that should calm

investors even though they have a stock that's probably doubled over the last year. the second thing is, of revenue. ad revenue should also be strong, other competitors have already reported ad revenue is strong there. you mentioned a big deal, which is walmart and vizio are apparently talking. if they get together, roku is going to be let out in the cold. investors are thinking maybe there is some m&a activity for roku. that should put a floor under the stock, i think the setup is good going into earnings. >> setting up good going into earnings, all right. finally, applied materials -- third positive weeks, i don't if you had this chris, but chip stocks have been doing good okay lately. morgan stanley boosting its price target from one 42 to 1 90. but a slowdown in equipment spending, because that's what they do, they make the machines to make the chips, could pressure a math. do you like a man here, chris? >> well bryan i'm a little afraid that this is by on the room, or cell on the news.

these stocks, all of the equipment makers have the strong -- lam research a couple weeks ago reported terrific earnings, stock goes up a little not a lot, even though it's been a strong truck. a math is up -- twice as much as the market since october. it's now selling at a ten-year high valuation. i think expectations are awfully high, could they exceed those? sure. but i think it's more likely that they just have solid earnings and the stock might actually be weak on that kind of news. terrific company, will look for a buying opportunity, but i don't think we're there right now, i'd wait. >> well said, and perfect timing because the show is over. chris croissant, ema icapital, always a pleasure chris, thank you folks, thank you for watching. i will see you right back here first last call, but power lunch sttsar on the other side of this quick break. see you tonight. rude. who are you? i'm an investor in a fund that helps advance innovative

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(christina) with verizon business unlimited, i get 5g, truly unlimited data, and unlimited hotspot data. you've got more options than you know. so, no matter what, i'm running this kitchen. (vo) make the switch. it's your business. it's your verizon. all right everyone, welcome to power large. alongside contessa brewer, i am tyler mathisen, glad you could join us. coming up, the magnificent tip stop saw magnificent gains. but recent -- showing the institutional heavyweights are starting to take some profit, but how does an individual investor like you know when to sell? >> plus congress and state governments increasingly are growing antisocial. now new york is suing tiktok, facebook, youtube, and